#that his father abandoned him and writes about it. we don't know what he wrote exactly but he wrote something and it slowly starts to

[leotanaka]

jughead almost immediately removing himself from the musical aka the narrative the moment that someone else (kevin & clay) starts writing their own version of it and in turn, his removal from controlling the narrative ends up allowing the characters to take back control of their own narrative because when jughead writes and rewrites the story, it ends up trapping the characters deeper inside the narrative and the cycles they are desperate to escape until they are repeating the same behaviours over and over again but when kevin & clay write and rewrite the story, it ends up giving the characters back their agency because they're trying to help them which then allows them to break free from the narrative and walk away.

[hauntedwitch04]

Just a Mirror

Sam Winchester x plus size!Reader

Words: about 6.3k words

Warning: saddy sadness, and some allusion to sexy time, eating disorder, hating on your own person, please be careful if you sensible about this themes

REQUEST: Hi :) I saw that your requests are open, and I was wondering if you could do a Sam Winchester x plus sized reader; an angsty fluffy friends to lovers that has some smut and reader hating herself in the mirror and possibly problems with eating

Author’s note: Hi love! Thank you @desicroft02 so much for your request. I felt really inspired by your idea love and I hope you like how it came out, if you don't find yourself with what i wrote, feel free to say it to me and I'll write to you a new one !

p.s.I got very caught up in the topic, since it is something I feel very close to. I was never the skinny girl, but with the years I've grown used to feel different to others girls, and even if sometimes I really hate what I see in the mirror, I kinda arrived to the point that I see both the flaws and the strenghts of my body and I love both, but some of my closest friend and this kinda of disorder and I tried to help them the way aI could so this one is for them too.

In case you need someone to talk to, I am always here, don't be afraid to seek help because often having someone close by to remind you that the volume of that evil voice we hear inside can be lowered or eliminated is important.

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Why?

This is the only question that floats in your mind, while, with thick tears in your eyes, you try to read the enormous book about whatever monster you are hunting with your friends in this little city, forgotten by God.

You and your childhood best friends are hunting some monster that you still haven't been able to figure out what it is, despite the fact that you are reading yet another list of monstrous animals in the story, while Dean and Sam are still out at the bar where you had decided to spend the evening, and from which you had decided to escape as quickly as possible, without giving any kind of explanation to the two hunters, holding back tears and trying not to meet their confused gaze

You and the boys have been friends since you were six and they were seven and eleven. You met on a rainy October day when you were still living at Bobby's house, after your father had died in a hunting accident after leaving you with him, and being his friend and seeing him almost as a brother he couldn't help but welcome you and raise you as if you were his own daughter.

Dean and Sam had just been left in the rain on the narrow dirt road by their father when you looked out and saw these two cold, sad, and at the same time angry children. You could see the resentment they felt for the man who looked less and less like a father and more and more like an army general, ready to train soldiers and not raise children. Immediately you went to Bobby and told him of the presence of those two unknown children who were in your driveway. He had immediately run to get them and brought them inside the house, worried that they would get sick from standing in the rain, and wondering why their father had left them there, without saying anything.

"He said he didn't have time to explain and that he had to get there as fast as he could, but that he would call you this evening." Said the older of the two once they were seated on the couch in what must once have been a beautiful dining room, and was now more like an ever-growing mountain of books. It is to your adoptive father that you owe all the culture and ability to read texts on the supernatural that most hunters would not even know how to open.

As he spoke you could see the blond child trying to hold back the sadness within himself and show himself as a big boy, almost pretending to understand why his father abandoned them like that without saying a word; in contrast, the one who was supposed to be the smaller of the two, with unruly brown hair, looked more like a beaten puppy, as he wetly moved his feet lazily on the floor, listening to what his brother had to say, but not hiding his sadness and anger at his daddy's decision.

"Baby, couldn't you get Sammy a glass of water for him while Dean and I go make a call for a minute?" Bobby then asked you suddenly, and you realized that you were lost in thought as you watched and studied those boys. You nodded quickly, trying not to let it show that you had spent all that time staring at them, as you heard Bobby's voice and that of the blond boy, apparently named Dean, drift away, only to hear the front door open and close.

After a few minutes you returned to the living room with a glass in your hand, and walked over to the brown-eyed boy, who was now looking at you and smiling shyly. You handed him the glass with a beaming smile, and he could do nothing but blush a little and retract his body a little, letting shyness take possession of him as he took the glass.

"Thank you." He told you in a faint voice.

"You're welcome." You replied as you sat next to him on the sofa.

"My name is Sam." He said, only to freeze and blush again as he held out a hand for you to shake, just as grown-ups do. You told him your name, and he commented that it was a very nice name, and that he liked it a lot, before going back to being silent and staring into the sad void.

You not being able to see what you considered a new friend feel so bad, you shamelessly asked him why his father had left him there and if that was why he was sad. He turned to look at you, and unknown how, he burst into tears, while with his hands he covered his face, not wanting to be seen as weak with someone he had just met, but you didn't give a damn.

Immediately you hugged him and listened to him talk about how his father was behaving with them, how his brother was struggling more and more to hide that he was tired of his parent's behavior, and how he was lonely and sad, constantly changing towns and seeing nothing but his family. That poor seven-year-old seemed to be thirty years old because of the problems he was telling you about, and as much as you were even younger because you were only six, you felt like you could understand him, because for a while that had also been your life before your father passed away.

You remained thus cuddled on the couch and fell asleep, lulled by the warmth of the fire slightly away from you and the new friendly presence that had entered your lives that afternoon, so much so that when Bobby and Dean returned after trying for a varied amount of time to contact John, and finally once succeeding in being insulted and put down by him, they both smiled at the sight of those two small and defenseless children embracing each other, as if to protect each other from the world. But no one knew that night before you fell asleep you had promised to protect each other forever, no matter how, when or why you would always be there for each other.

That was how you got to know the Winchester brothers, and the hatred for their father also began.

You awaken from your thoughts when you hear the motel door open and close, realizing that another time had gone into the whirlwind of memories and you were lost in remembering again when life was easy. You hear someone coming toward you with heavy footsteps, so you wipe away the tears you didn't know were there on your cheeks, which like small streams had almost made a furrow along your skin by now.

You sense right away who it is, but you don't have the strength to turn around so you continue to cry silently as you feel two arms wrapped around you, and Dean's warm body resting on your back as he leans down so that he can put his head in the crook of your neck and hold you better. Ever since the two of you met it was immediately like big brother and little sister between the two of you, and even now despite the fact that it has been a long time since you were children and in your spare time you enjoyed stealing cherries from the neighbor's tree, there is still that complicity and understanding between the two of you that once existed.

He knows exactly why you escaped so suddenly from the dive bar you were both in a few hours ago. Sam had seen a beautiful girl, the classic cover model of some magazine, slim and with all her shape in the right place, taking a drink at the bar, looking seductively at him as she put the drink straw between her lips. Sam's hormones had not let him repeat twice that clear call to fuck directly in the bar's bathroom, a bathroom from which you were coming out as he was sticking his tongue down the throat of that fake and at the same time perfect babe, who in his arms looked so small and yet in the right place, toned against his strong muscles, as opposed to how you would have looked with your shapely body. You couldn't stand there and watch the boy you love for so long now make out with someone else, so without explanation you left and went back to the motel where you took two bedrooms for the case. Usually you take two rooms only when Dean wanted to find someone to take to bed, unlike Sam who kept his sex life much more private than his brother, but since he and Cas had come out a few months ago you had not taken the second room, having practically grown up together and thus having no problem sharing space. That night, however, when you had arrived in the small town Sam had insisted on taking a second room, and stubbornly had not told his older brother why when he had asked him, and somehow your heart was preparing for what would happen, but in fact nothing would totally prepare you for what you would see in that bar and how your heart would break.

Dean squeezes you tightly, as if he is afraid you will disappear at any moment, and that heartfelt squeeze only makes you break the weak dam you had built when you saw him come in, and you burst into endless weeping.

"I know baby, I know." That's all the blond man can manage to say to you, as he gets you up and carries you toward the bed, so you can lie down and take off your shoes, before coming close to you and holding you in his arms, until exhausted, you fall asleep safe in Dean's strong hold, while he whispers soothing words to you.

The next morning you wake up with the sun gently caressing your face from over Dean's shoulder. You smile for a second, imagining what it would be like to wake up in the other Winchester's arms, and soon after your heart, as if pierced by an arrow, bleeds at the memory of what happened last night. You get up, shifting your friend's arms, and go to the bathroom to wash and freshen up, when you hear the door to your room open, and a male voice, known even too well, shout to your still sleeping friend.

"Dean, wake up!" Sam yells, and you behind the door hold a hand over your heart, just imagining her beauty after her usual morning run to stay in shape. Her long dark hair tied back in a light bun, her forehead sweaty and muscles still tense from exertion.

"I'm awake, you asshole." Dean replies, as you hear him get up and go get some coffee. "You could have deigned to make less noise last damn night, you know there were people here who wanted to sleep."

You hear Sam snort at his brother's words, then respond to him in an aggressive, cold tone.

"Well then there are people who wouldn't want to see you run off to fuck wherever we go, hold hands all the time or make love wherever you are. And you know something else too Dean, I thought you were a better person. Why her? Come on you've had a lot of girls, and it wouldn't cost you anything to find a thousand more, why did you have to choose her!?" Says the younger brother, before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.

You close your eyes and try to control your breathing as you feel yourself lacking oxygen. You feel tears coming to your eyes, but you try with all your strength to push them back down. You take a few minutes to control your emotions as all you want to do is fall to the floor on your knees and scream until you can't hear yourself anymore, but you stay strong and open the door to see Dean immediately in front of you, looking pained and guilty, seeing your state.

"You didn't tell him." You say in a calm, quiet voice, not asking, but stating that your best friend had not told about his new relationship with our angel friend.

"I never found the right time." Dean tries to say, then looks down. "I never had the courage, every time I seemed to miss the words."

"Sam would never judge you, and you know that." You say as you feel a pang inside your heart, remembering the words the man you love had used a few minutes earlier. You feel your clothes sticking to your body like glue, too tight, so tight that you feel as if they have pre torn. You feel how the floor gives way under your feet, you feel how a billion eyes are on you ready to judge you, you feel something inside you break, but you can't let anyone but yourself see how mere words have hurt you, so you grit your teeth and continue to look at Dean stoically, as you feel a single and only tear escape down your face.

"I know, but I'm afraid in the same way, I don't want it to end like last time." Dean confesses, still looking at the floor, but crying clearly, as his words take you back to when you were nothing more than kids and he had come crying to you one night, confessing that he had fallen in love with a boy he had met during his last case, and that his father after finding out had beaten him so badly that his scars remained, and had forced him to watch pornographic movies, reminding him how "a real man acts." No one had ever seen you as angry as Dean, and Bobby when he heard you scream and came to watch that night as you swore to heaven that you would kill John Winchester. Dean had never told Sam about that episode, not wanting to worry him since he had just run away to study at Stanford, and asked you to do the same. It has been so long since that night, yet the memory of that pain and that man still frightens the wonderful person in front of you.

"But I swear I will. He has no right to think such things about you! I-I will tell him-" He begins to say, as he tries to wipe away the tears running copiously down his face. You, moved in turn and knowing that like you he too was remembering that fateful evening, take his face in your hands and bring his eyes to gaze fixedly into yours.

"No, you won't do it now, you will do it when you feel like it." You comment chuckling as you caress his face. He looks at you unconvinced and you see his inner battle inside whether to accept your proposal or to be as always too good and allow the world to kick him in the balls.

"Please be selfish for once. And if I serve as your cover, so be it, not that I would have had any chance with him anyway." You continue, smiling at him as you feel your heart slowly shatter. You see Dean ready to retort, but you have already disappeared back into the bathroom, crying silently. Once the bathroom door is closed, you stop to look at yourself in the mirror and realize how disgusted you feel about your body.

There is not a single thing about you that you like: your thighs, your arms, your stomach, your chest.

The more you look at yourself, the more you want to break that all-too-truthful mirror, which tells an unfiltered reality, a sad truth that for so long you had tried to ignore, but which now that Sam had spit it in your face you could no longer pretend not to see. So you decide at this very moment that everything was going to change, you don't know how, but it was going to happen.

So weeks go by, Sam still won't talk to you, and slowly you continue to sink into the stupid realization that he doesn't because only he, like you, can really see your body, and that he hates you for it, so now convinced that you have to change your body to be loved, you begin to eat less and less and more rarely, and what little you put in your mouth to make Dean happy, who sees you getting sadder and more tired, is rejected from your stomach just moments later when no one is looking at you. This situation hurts your body and your heart, but you do it so that you can look at yourself in the mirror without wanting to punch him, but things seem to get worse and worse. You look at yourself and you never fit, before you saw a body you didn't like, now beyond that you see a person you don't like.

Dean is getting more and more worried about you, seeing you getting paler and paler and thinner, but every time he tries to talk to you, you put on a smile and pretend that everything is going well and that the only reason your shirts now look huge on you is that you are working out more, but he knows that you never liked sports and that is why he knows you are lying to him. He tried to talk to Sam about what was going on, but all his brother managed to say by pouting was that if he needed relationship advice to go somewhere else and that he didn't want anything to do with the two of you.

Dean was on the verge of smashing the plate he was holding in his face and yelling at him to open his eyes and see that you love him more than Dean does right now and that he is fucking in love with their favorite angel, but then he had seen Castiel's face and knew he couldn't let him down after he asked him to keep a low profile and let as few people as possible know about their relationship.

Dean had never felt so lousy as deciding between the love of his life and a friend in need, but he knew that if you found out what he had done you would insult him, so he played it cool and moved on, as if nothing had happened, while he continued to try to take care of you, with little success.

It's been almost a month since Sam had said those horrible things, and you're not getting worse and worse, but in order not to show it in front of your friends, you keep doing the same things as before, trying to have the same cheerfulness.

You are now hunting a werewolf in a remote town in a state you don't even remember. Your body is weak, you haven't eaten anything Dean has brought you in the last three days taken at the various fast food restaurants and bars he had found along the way, and what little you had put in your mouth had gone down the drain shortly thereafter, hating yourself just for having the idea that you could eat something. You feel your eyelids as heavy as shutters, the muscles in your body are nonexistent, and what few are left ache from the mere effort of standing and walking, while your head throbs incessantly.

In this you are scouting around where the last victims had been killed, to see if you can find any more information, but so far you have not had much success, so you decided to split up.

You are barely holding the flashlight in your hand, too heavy for you, when you feel a sudden dizziness that forces you to lean against the wall. You stay a few minutes trying to catch your breath, eyes closed, breathing in the cool night air around you, when you hear a noise coming from a short distance away from you, like a dog growling. With difficulty you open your eyes and see before you a sight that is frightening to say the least: the werewolf you were looking for is looking at you ravenously, while a dark laughter rumbles from his belly to his mouth. Quickly you try to pick up the phone to call Dean or Sam, but unfortunately your mind is so clouded that you can't even do simple things like this and the phone slips out of your hands to the monster's feet.

"The Winchesters' little friend!" He says, seeing who you were trying to contact. "I've heard a lot about you, among the monsters you are known as their true weakness: so small and helpless, you wouldn't even survive my bite, I'll do you a favor and eat your miserable heart." He continues as he gets closer, and you do whatever comes to your chin at this moment, as you feel death coming slowly but comfortingly too, like an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. You scream Sam and Dean's name as loud as you can, hoping that at least one of them can hear you, your lungs aching from how much breath you had to use and your throat burning from the effort as you feel your strength failing.

You lean back against the wall again, this time with your back, and let yourself slide down to the floor, as your vision goes completely black and your ears become plugged as when you go too deep underwater, and the world seems more and more distant. You have one last flicker of life before you pass out completely in that dark alley, at the mercy of that monster, and you hear Sam's voice call out your name for a moment.

Your heart loses a beat, and then completely dark.

You awaken with a jump and a gasp as you sit up on the bed on which someone has carried you. Your head immediately begins to spin like a spinning top, and your vision fails again as you feel a warm hand settle on your shoulder and bring you back to lie down.

"Relax, you're safe now. It's okay." Says in a low, soft tone a rough voice, leading back to Sam. You, shocked to know he is there next to you, open your eyes with difficulty and find yourself lying on the bed in your room, in the bunker, as you see him kneeling beside your bed. His face shows the weariness he feels, but in his eyes shines a strange hope as he looks at you mixed with sadness. You place your gaze on the rest of the room and see your favorite chair, where you usually sit to read your books or do your research when you are tired of sitting in the library, covered with blankets and pillows, making you realize that your favorite giant has been sleeping there for what seems to be even more than a couple of days, otherwise everything looks the same, unchanged, and strangely everything now seems to make more sense with the presence of Sam and some of his things in the room. Immediately you slap yourself in the face at that thought, reminding yourself that he hates you, and that the reason he is here is because Dean will have had better things to do than watch you sleep.

You're about to tell him that he can leave, and leave you alone, knowing that he doesn't even want to be in the same room with you, as he has shown recently, and that in case his brother asks you, you won't tell him, but he beats you to the punch and starts talking.

"First of all I want to say I'm sorry, you don't even know how much, and I certainly understand if you never forgave me in your life, because I wouldn't forgive myself." Sam says, as you see tears forming in his eyes. You try to stop him, confused as to why he was making that speech, but he stops you in turn and begs you to let him finish.

"We found you just in time, by "luck," if you can call it that, that asshole had decided to torture you a bit before eating your heart, and we got there before he could do it, but when Cas touched you to treat you he said he didn't know if you would survive anyway because your body was too weak since you hadn't eaten for too many days. Dean insulted me and even beat me up a bit before explaining the matter from his point of view." You can't help but widen your eyes, and Sam chuckles seeing your expression, as two tears run down his face, and he darkens a little again before continuing, without looking you in the eye.

"Yes, he also told me about Cas, and also about that affair with our father to make me understand why you decided to cover for him."

You close your eyes for a moment, expecting a series of insults, but you only feel his lips rest on your hand, so you open them again and see him leaning over the bed, as you feel his tears coming hot to contact your cold hand.

"Thank you." The boy confesses in a whisper. "Thank you for everything you did for Dean, thank you for always taking care of him when I couldn't or was too blind and stupid to, I don't deserve to have you in my life."

You can't find the words, and so you do the only thing you can think of this moment, and you take his hand and squeeze it, while barely smiling at him.

"We will always have helped each other, you remember. Then Dean will be your brother, but it's like he's my brother too." You say as you pull his face up and force him to look into your eyes. You see him cry even harder, a few sobs escaping his lips, as he squeezes your hand even tighter.

"I'm sorry, I promised I would always protect you, and instead I was so stupid and jealous that I didn't realize what I was doing." He tells you again, only to stop for a moment and look at you this time with a resolve he lacked until a few seconds ago. "Why did you stop eating? How come you covered your mirror in the bathroom? Dean found the remains of the one from before in the garage, thought you didn't like it and got a new one, so he changed it for you."

Immediately you remember, one night in a rage after looking at yourself in the mirror for the umpteenth time, you had started punching it until it had become nothing but stardust under your bleeding fingers, and the next day when you had returned from your walk with the dog, you had found a new one, with a note from Dean who had said that seeing that you had taken it off, thinking that you didn't like it anymore, he had bought a new one, so realizing that you couldn't escape that vicious cycle and knowing that if it happened one more time it would arouse even more suspicion, you had simply covered it up, and hoped that no one would ever learn of that dirty secret, and instead, here it all was for all to see.

You look at Sam in those damned puppy-dog eyes of his, and burst into desperate weeping. He, seeing you in this state, instinctively picks you up and holds you in his arms.

"I disgust myself Sam." You finally manage to utter those damn words, and immediately you feel as if your soul lightens as you feel his arms grip your body even tighter as if you could disappear at any moment, and at the same time he does it with an innate delicacy, as if it were a precious crystal figurine that can be broken under his gaze. "I'm disgusted by my body, I'm disgusted by every single thing about me, and you're disgusted by it too, don't lie to me. I thought if I lost weight things would get better, but they don't, I feel worse and worse." You continue, while somehow trying to get away from him.

"In what sense would you disgust me? When would I have ever said such a thing?" He asks confusedly as he looks at you, tears have dried on his face. His eyes range and seem to want to imprint your every little detail in his memory. His gaze makes you blush as you try to find the words to tell him how his words have done nothing but unleash a storm that had long been locked up somewhere inside you and was just waiting to be released. So you take a deep breath and tell him everything, while he looks at you attentively and astonished, his arms still around his body, as if he needs reminding that you are there beside him, and that you are not just a product of his mind.

You tell him everything, every little thing you had felt hearing his words while you were locked in that damn bathroom, your feelings and emotions in the month to follow, along with all the thoughts and all the actions you had put in place in the hope that he would no longer hate you, and that maybe you would hate yourself less, too. He starts crying again, and hides his face in the crook of your neck.

You stay a few minutes clasped to each other, in silence, after you have poured your heart out in front of him, ready to suffer the consequences, when he takes your face in his hands and stares at you steadily with those chocolate-colored eyes of his, and for a moment you feel your breath short.

"Don't ever think of such a thing again. Never. You are perfect exactly as you are, there is nothing I would change about you, there is nothing I don't love about you." At his words you stand still, as if petrified, afraid that a single movement of yours could mean the breaking of this beautiful illusion. "Yes, I am tired of holding all this in, I love you, I love you so much that I am sick just thinking about not having you near me for a second, I love you so much that I would have been ready to kill my brother for stealing the girl I love all my life, I love you so much that I would be ready to climb the highest mountain in the world and scream it to everyone!" He continues as he stands up on the bed, and begins to move his arms quickly, just enough to make you laugh. At the sound of your laughter he turns to look at you, and smiles even more, to return next to you on his knees and cup your face in his hands. "I love every little, tiny thing about you madly. I'm crazy, crazy in love, and I was a fool because I was so convinced that getting away from you would be better for you, that I didn't realize that you were suffering because of me, and I'm sorry. On the one hand I would like to let you go and make you happy, but on the other hand I am an extremely selfish being and I only want you for myself." He continues as he rests his forehead on yours, whispering the last words. "I love you, and I'm sorry."

You look at him, and not even realizing what you are doing, you take his face in your hands and bring his lips to yours. The kiss you exchange arises as sweet and gentle, like two flames dancing in an elegant dance side by side, testing each other's reaction, in the same way your lips move over each other, slowly tasting that new sensation. You feel her soft lips caressing yours, until neither of you has a single breath left.

"I love you too if you hadn't realized it idiot." You comment making him laugh. "I love you, and for so long I would have preferred not to because it made me sick, yet I could do nothing but love you. The only reason that kept me alive was my love for you, even though it was also my poison." You continue by looking into his eyes, and you see the pain in his.

"If you forgive me, I will do everything to correct what I have done." He looks at you, with a penitent and pleading gaze, as he takes your hands in his, before you release one and place it on his right cheek, and he instinctively leans into your hands, seeking that simple contact.

"I've already forgiven you moron." She laughingly comments, before throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him again, but this time the air in the room is different. The atmosphere becomes more erotic and intriguing. You feel his hands carefully explore your body, running his hands down your sides from your breasts to your butt, where he rests his large, warm hands, before slipping them under your T-shirt and caressing the skin of your back, making you shiver. You feel his hand rise higher and higher to the level of your bra and undo the hook that held it, but then he stops. Parting your lips he looks into your eyes for a second.

"If you don't feel up to it it's perfectly fine honey, we can stop here-"Sam says unsure, but you stop him.

"Afraid it's too much for you Winchester?" You ask as you raise your eyebrows, and see him smile, before resting his lips on yours, then creating a trail of kisses from your mouth to the chest exposed by the shirt you are wearing, down your neck.

"God, how I've missed you." He comments between kisses, but then stops again and looks at you seriously. "Anyway, I wasn't kidding myself, if you don't feel comfortable we can stop here."

You look at him, in his eyes only the pure affection and love you feel for him, and then put an end to all his doubts.

"I want to do it Sam." You say in a whisper as you take the bottom of his shirt with your hands and slowly slip it off, thus also dropping the bra he had unfastened a few minutes ago. "I want to do it with you Sam."

He looks at you and doesn't let you tell him twice, and he resumes his attack on your neck, leaving obvious signs of his passage, and then moves on to your breasts.

"God, you're perfect." He whispers before teasing one of your nipples. You moan softly at that sensation, feeling his teeth clench, his lips kiss and his tongue lick every single inch of your body, worshipping you like a goddess, a queen, tasting every inch of your skin.

This wonderful moment is interrupted, however, by the unannounced entrance of Dean, who, seeing the scene of his brother splayed across your body as he kisses your breasts, and with one hand explores the rest of your body, while you clutch his long hair in your hands, moaning his name shamelessly, lets out a small scream, before closing the door again.

"Damn you guys could warn." Comments the older brother, as Sam with speed grabs a blanket to cover you.

"Should we announce? You're the one who entered the room unannounced!" Sam replies in turn, making an expression that makes you laugh. "You can still come in now jerk."

"Bitch." Dean retorts, to open the bedroom door again and have a stupid grin plastered on his face. "So, I see Sam hasn't exactly figured out how to talk and resolve a situation, usually the mouth should be free to talk, not busy sucking-"

"You try to say one more Winchester word and I'll tell everyone about Christmas with Cindy McWood." You threaten him, and see him whiten, before his smile returns to its former self.

"Well what can I say in that case guys, good conversation and be sure to use protection, I'm not ready to be an uncle." He says closing the door behind him, then opening it again. "Not that I wouldn't make a great uncle, but I would say I'm too young and then-"

"Out!" You and Sam scream in unison, and the only thing Dean does is give you the finger before walking away. The two of you stand still for a moment weighing what just happened and burst out laughing, before Sam's lips find yours again.

"Where were we?" He asks you next, and you can't help but smile and moan at feeling his lips on you again.

It's shaping up to be a very interesting night, long but interesting, and you know that in the end maybe by tomorrow morning you can slowly look at yourself in the mirror, seeing the reflection of the man you love behind you supporting you.

TAGLIST

@supernatural-lvr @itzdarling @newtdumbledoorstarksoot @evansstan-akya

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I start giving some very *very* Christian family members religious pamphlets from non-Christian religions as gifts?

To be clear, I am writing this while firmly believing I'm NTA but I am angry and don't trust my own judgment too much right now.

Background and Players: My Son (19) was adopted out as a baby by his incubator behind (my husband, 40) his father's back. He was abandoned at 4 by his adopted family because of behavioral issues related to what his incubator was putting into her body while she was pregnant with him, and went into foster care with people I will call Amom and Adad. Adad is a pastor in his 90s and Amom is a pastor's wife in her 80s. When Son was 13 and I had been with Husband for 5ish years, we had been told (by someone from his incubator's family but we didn't know that at the time) he was non-verbal and "mentally an infant" and that trying to pull him out of the routine he had would just be incredibly harmful to him, so we had given up hope of finding him and having a relationship with him. We got a phone call one day, a worker who was looking for a medical history for Son. Husband spent close to 3 hours on the phone with her, answering questions and asking anything he could squeeze in. Turns out, we had been lied to about his mental health just... completely. He's impossible to shut up and he graduated high school last year despite, you know, *gestures vaguely at everything* and I am incredibly proud of him. Half an hour after that call ended, she called back and told us Son might be interested in meeting us, was it okay for her to pass on our contact info. A month later, Son, Amom, Adad, Husband and I were sitting in a restaurant together and a month after that we went to their place for a week to spend Christmas with them. This is when they informed us that they had finalized his legal adoption a couple of weeks earlier. 2 years after that, my QPP moved in with us, and another year later 16 year old Son asked if he could move in with us. He still does.

The Issue: Son wants a continuing relationship with Amom and Adad, but due to the previously mentioned substances used by his incubator, he has memory and time management issues so I have to regularly remind him to contact them. I have no problem doing this, but the contact we have had with them over the last few years has soured me on their company. I've got no problem reminding Son to contact them and organizing rides for him to visit (usually QPP and I driving him, the trip is a couple of hours each way) but I'd rather never speak to them myself if it can be avoided. It didn't start out this way, but over the years they have made it very clear that they don't respect anyone else's beliefs. Not just us, like there was one night where they were going off about some Danish surgeon saying publicly that he was Muslim first, Danish second, and they were trying to convince us to be terrified by that. The conversation ended awkwardly when Husband asked if Adad was Nationality or Christian first (because that's different you see). We have found books on the bookshelves in the guest room about how any kind of queerness at all is demonic possession, one of which they wrote. They talk about things like being sent on a mission by their god to save as many (and I hate that these are quotes) "brown heathen children" by making them Christians as possible (Son and his adopted siblings are all First Nations, Amom and Adad are as white as I am), or how Jewish people are evil for stopping Christians from claiming their suffering because "Jesus was a Jew so aren't all Christians also Jews?". Amom once spent a week trying to convince me to go to church with her and share the details of my childhood sexual abuse with the entire congregation because "it will show God you are ready to be forgiven". QPP is a shintoist and after they found that out, we started seeing more literature about the Japanese, specifically during WWII, around their house when we visited.

We have politely made it clear that we are not interested in Christianity, especially not their version. Multiple times. We thought it was finally over after Son had a meltdown at them at his graduation ceremony because he wanted JUST ONE conversation with them that wasn't about Jesus. He was in tears trying to explain that to them, and their response was to tell him he needed to come back to church so they could lay on hands and chase all the demons making him say these horrible disrespectful things to them out of him. He was supposed to stay with them for a few days to visit after that, but by the time I tracked him down and got him calm, he didn't want to go anymore. They seemed to stop after that, like they actually backed off and I think I got maybe 2 emails that didn't mention God or Jesus, not even a "God bless" in the sign off. We were optimistic. Son was late organizing it but we dropped him off (at his request, he's worried that Adad won't make it to next Christmas and wanted to see him) at their place on Boxing Day. We did not hang around, we did not send gifts, we didn't even reply to the Family Christmas Email (it had a video of a Jordan B Peterson rant embedded in it and I've told them before that we are not interested in anything that sack of hateful arrogance has to say please stop putting him in my inbox). We have done everything we can to make it clear that we do not want a relationship with them for ourselves, including outright directly telling them politely to their faces that we will not stop Son from seeing them but we don't feel comfortable around them and don't want a relationship with them for ourselves. Son came back with "gifts" from them - a study guide for a specific Bible book (I got John, Husband got Michael, QPP set his on fire before we saw who it was) and a bag of candy that looked like it came out of a thrift store (I got the same one they always get me, which I laughed off the first and second and third time and explained I couldn't stand them because my abuser used to give me one when he was done. Husband is diabetic and got York Patties. QPP actually got something decent though, $20 for gas).

I have managed to keep my "I'd rather you hadn't bothered actually" rantingvto Tumblr, which i don't think they even know exists, but I'm still pissed about the Bible crap as "gifts". I am considering changing tactics completely and being super friendly, mirroring their energy, and giving them the same treatment they've given us. I want to make excuses to visit so I can explain the finer points of shintoism and Celtic paganism in every single conversation. I want to give them books for gifts, books like The Tao of Pooh and The Gospel of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I want to wrap cash in pamphlets about The Invisible Pink Unicorn and leave it on their fridge.

QPP and husband think I should give myself more time to calm down and just keep ignoring it and playing nice when I'm forced to play at all but like, IT'S BEEN 6 YEARS.

What are these acronyms?

[lynxgriffin]

Since we've got plenty of time to reflect, who do you the Knight is? (I'm very much hoping it's Papyrus)

Okay! So! 

While I uh, think that Jaru is super wrong on almost all his theories, I've got one major exception where I think he is correct, and that’s the identity of the Knight:

(This is kinda long, so going under the read more)

Namely, that the Knight is Gerson’s soul tied to a particular object and brought to life in the Dark World. Although for me personally, I’m going to tweak that idea quite a bit because I think it can actually tie in really nicely with my current theories on Ralsei’s identity and nature. 

We keep getting little references to Gerson brought up here and there in both chapters: there’s a drawing of a turtle monster in the abandoned classroom, done by Alvin. It’s presumably either Alvin himself or his dad, Gerson, and I’m guessing it’s the latter. We have books written by Gerson in multiple places, a memorial bench for him, and then Alvin’s conversation about him in the graveyard by his headstone. Alvin also mumbles something about “did I do the right thing?” to Gerson’s grave. As long as you initiate a conversation with Alvin, the game makes sure that you don't miss that extra bit, which is a little telling.

We know that Gerson was originally a historian, and then later turned to writing fiction, and wrote a beloved fiction series that fans still send his family letters about after his death. 

What do we know about the nature of the Dark Worlds? They’re basically imagination and fantasy brought to life. While they certainly seem to have a full history outside of what we experience, with characters that remember each other even from other Dark Worlds, they’re only “given form” when a dark fountain is opened. Any Lightner with determination can stab the earth, and a dark, inky substance can spew from it and give a world of fantasy its own form. The Darkners frequently talk about how Lightners give them direction and purpose in their lives.

So…question! How many of you have used a fountain pen?

I have used those before. They’re quite sharp, and using them very often feels like scratching or stabbing the paper. Black ink spews forth, and from this black ink…you can create whole worlds of fiction! Worlds that other people can interact with! 

We know that Gerson wrote beloved fiction well into his old age. What if he knew his time was coming, but still had stories to tell? What if he didn’t want to stop? Alvin says how his dust was sprinkled on a hammer and buried in the earth, and that this is considered the appropriate monster cultural ritual for helping a soul pass to the afterlife. But Alvin also appears to have done something that is still really troubling him. Maybe Alvin, either at his father's request or based on his own wants, didn’t actually follow the appropriate cultural funeral rites, and somehow helped his father’s soul attach to a different beloved object…a fountain pen that he’d use to write down his story ideas. And if that object gets brought to life with a dark fountain, you could get the Knight: the soul of a writer, filtered exclusively through their favorite writing tool, unwilling to stop creating.

I think it would make sense on a few logical and thematic levels:

It explains how the Knight is able to get around and open the fountains: the same way that Ralsei is able to do the weird things he does. They’re both Darkners carrying Lightner souls, so they can bend the rules.

It explains Queen’s insistence that Lightners are the ones that can create fountains, while King hates Lightners but seems to fully trust the Knight…a Darkner with a Lightner soul can meet both those people's expectations.  

It sets up the Knight as a foil to Ralsei: they’re both the same kind of special Dark World being, both believing that they are fulfilling their roles and serving the Lightners, but coming to vastly different conclusions about how to do that. 

It explains the Knight’s motivations: not that he’s actually trying to destroy the world or anything, but that he’s trying to serve the Lightners. He knows very well how much joy and positivity his fiction has brought to Lightners in the past. How could more of that be anything bad? This is his purpose, what he was made to do. Not doing it is virtually unthinkable.

And I think that in turn keeps him following in the footsteps of how Toby usually writes his villains…rarely if ever fully malicious, but utterly convinced that they’re doing the right thing, or that they have no choice in the matter. 

And of course that ties in with one of Deltarune’s themes: the balance between reality and fantasy. The Knight has no more ties with reality, and therefore is focused exclusively on creating more fantasy and having it supplant reality, upsetting the balance between them. 

And this is extremely speculative, but I've been thinking about how Toby mentioned that chapter three will be a bit of an odd one out, that it's more about trying weird things than advancing a lot of plot. Kind of an interesting thing to note since Kris just made a fountain that should take us into chapter three. If the Dark Worlds are in some way shaped by the will of the Lightner that makes them, then chapter three indicates that Kris's will manifests more as just...trying out stuff rather than something purposeful. Kris makes a fountain because they really want to keep up this special hangout with their friends. But the Knight? He's making narratives.

[agoddamn]

Tales of Duviri is a storybook written by Euleria Entrati for the purpose of teaching children how to handle the manic flood of emotion that comes with Void exposure.

I pose a question: why does Euleria feel so strongly about this?

Her interactions with her own children are... let's call them wanting, and dialog implies that the negative aspects of their relationship--her denigrating, controlling nature, the distrust, etc--did not begin only after the Infestation brainrot set in.

We also know that she holds her father in extremely high esteem, but Albrecht did not think much of Tales of Duviri (see: him talking about his previous disdain for it in his own Duviri notes). Euleria put resources into writing Tales of Duviri instead of more traditional science, and Albrecht did not think much of it.

So why did Euleria write Tales of Duviri?

Let's rewind a step. Void exposure-induced mania, the whole thing Tales of Duviri is written to help manage.

How was that discovered and studied? It clearly was studied, enough to be a recognized condition and for the Orokin to build the iso vaults and for Euleria to write Tales of Duviri. But who would they have observed this mania in if Void research was an abandoned dead-end line of study?

Perhaps...the man obsessed with the Void who'd survived an unshielded Void dive?

Euleria had patient zero of Void mania sitting at her dinner table. Albrecht is the character who's undoubtedly had the most Void exposure.

Albrecht himself must have exhibited the Void mania and mood swings that Tales of Duviri exists to teach caution of.

And that's why Euleria wrote it; she had this gyroscope of a mood swing at home. She admired Albrecht too much to consciously deride his lack of control as irresponsible and so she channeled her energy into writing Tales of Duviri instead.

The emotion spirals of Duviri are loosely based off of what Euleria witnessed in the Entrati household and particularly Albrecht himself.

I don't believe that any courtier is a 1:1 translation of a member of the Entrati household, but more that their toxic interactions and dramatic heights reflected things that Euleria herself saw--or lived.

This reading of the Duviri characters and story--that they mean things to Euleria specifically--gives us a fun new lens to look at all of the chapters with.

For example, Mathila.

"Two children, and no memory of her husband. Poor Mathila."

Two children like Euleria herself, eh?

Mathila loved her husband. He also textually does not exist. He's not on the screen or in the text. He is a memory, and one that Mathila herself cannot even remember. There is no portrayal of their love.

Pivot to a writer's perspective. You need to write a loving relationship. You look to real life for inspiration, right? If you're a married woman needing to write a married woman in love, you naturally look to your own relationship.

And if you can't find anything to base that love off of? Well...move that character offscreen. Just tell about the loving relationship, don't show. Actually, do you even have anything to tell about? Well. Move the entire loving relationship offscreen, then. She's got amnesia. Nobody needs to talk about the love to sell it or make it feel real now. The narrator can simply mention it as a fact and it need not be challenged. Euleria doesn't have to imagine a loving family life between a husband and wife and their two children and question why that's hard for her. There. Problem fucking solved.

Another parallel that fairly started screaming at me once I started considering that the Duviri courtiers had meaning to Euleria specifically: Luscinia.

"I was created to be Sorrow, written into being, to serve as a lesson... can that change?"

Luscinia knows that she is a tool. As much as she dreams of being more, she knows very well that she is a tool--both a literal narrative element to teach a lesson and within the story itself Thrax's servant (his personal songbird).

Is there anyone in Euleria's life who might have some angst over their position as a tool? A servant who wants to escape the limited definitions of their role?

And so... here I am, back to my old role. The diligent servant. Albrecht would have smiled at that, I think.

Loid. It's Loid.

Luscinia: "This structure and I share much. Both of us once useful, both of us discarded, both of us now derelict. Both forgotten." Loid: "How might this relic make himself useful today?"

Both Luscinia and Loid are also capable of surprising amounts of ruthless violence. Luscinia has no hesitation telling you to kill the Dax or otherwise wreak vengeance on her jailers. Loid's Necramech lines feature him ranging from being excited for ensuing violence to coldly promising the Murmur regret.

The Duviri Tales were a subconscious form of therapy for Euleria herself as well, allowing her to write a story where emotional explosions were a problem that must be addressed rather than a social struggle to be suffered through at the whims of the more powerful.

[alder-saan]

His sister...

Larissa x normie! fem! reader

OKAY this is the second time I post it bcz... well that was a wip and I posted it... I hate myself right now. Anyway I have to re-wright it. All of it. But that's okay :) (no that's not I wanna end myself)

Warnings : smut (that's the first time I write smut lol (the second as I already wrote this fic)) (the smut isn't with Larissa)

You are Larissa's brother's wife.

word count: ~3000

(I know this will look a bit like Mme Bovary, but... well, it's not a classic of French literature for nothing)

You had married Philip Weems two months earlier. You didn’t love him. He was eleven years older than you, and not really your type. In fact you didn’t really choose to be his wife and to live in his house. Your father and him wanted to reunite their companies, and you were only there to make it look less commercial. You were here to give an heir. Lovely mission, you were not a woman anymore, you were a baby machine. He had flirted with you before you took the deal, probably to build up your confidence and make it easier for you to accept the situation, but now that you were his, he didn't pay any attention to you.

In his big house, your life was boring. You didn't have a degree, school was never really for you and because your father was rich, you never had to work. So naturally you had resumed reading. It allowed you to live a different life through the eyes of all the characters. And all day long you would read more and more of those mushy novels, dreaming of a life that was no longer available to you. You also started writing, but without telling anyone. It was a bit of a secret. You wrote the romantic stories you imagined all day. And then every day you went out to see your friends in a café in your neighbourhood.

“I promise, Jess’, he doesn’t bother me. I mean, he’s respectful. And I don’t need to work. A win is a win.”

Your friend Jessica narrowed her eyes.

“You sure ? I mean… you always told me you wanted to marry the love of your life when you’d find him.”

“I was younger, Jess’. I don’t believe in this bullshit anymore.”

Yes, you did believe it. You wanted to cry about it. You wanted to know Love. The Real Love. You wanted to meet him by accident in a library, or in a hostel, on the other side of the world. You wanted him to be young, at the same age as you, and you wanted him to love you.

You also wanted to work, to earn your own money.

“Respectful, okay but is he good?” Mary asked

“He is kind, if this is your question.” You pretended not to understand.

“You know what I mean, Y/N.”

“Not really, I doubt he is really interested in me. I mean I am probably too young for him. We just do it because that was a part of the contract, but he never makes me finish. Anyway I don’t need him for that.”

“You don’t love him and he doesn’t look after you. What a nightmare…” Jessica said.

“That’s not that bad. I don't have to worry about money, I have all my days to myself. I can look after myself.“

That wasn’t a positive thing in your opinion. You wanted to be independent. You wanted to be able to do whatever you could want. This made you feel like you were an object, some kind of trophy that he could show off at the parties you attended. You were there to be beautiful and to be silent. 

No, the real positive thing was that you now understood your mother, and why she left you when you were a child. Your father always told you she was a bad mother and she didn’t love you. And before you got married, you were mad at her. But you knew, now you were married to a man you didn’t love. She didn’t love you, but she probably never wanted this marriage nor a child. You were thinking of leaving once you'd given Philip a child, the way she did before.

You wanted to find her, and to talk to her. You wanted to know the story of her life, of her marriage to your father. You also wanted to tell her that you understood her, and that you were no longer angry at her for abandoning you. If she hadn't wanted to be your mother, you wanted her to be your friend, because you were going through something she had gone through too..

“Alright girls, I gotta go. See you tomorrow!” You waved at them and left the café after paying for your drink.

It was time for you to go back to your home. Your husband would be home in less than half an hour. You had to help Livia cook. It wasn't in the contract, but you wanted to do it. Livia, although she spoke very little English, made you feel less lonely. She spoke to you in her half-Spanish English about her travels with her family. Even though she often told the same stories, you liked to hear her talk about places you had never seen. Especially when she talked about the sea of clouds over the Sierra Madre. You dreamed of going there. She told you that when she came back to visit her parents, she could take you there. But you knew your husband wouldn't let you go... And then you helped her to speak better English, she had made progress in the last two months. She taught you Spanish too, but for now, the only things you could say were "Soy Y/N, no me gusta mi marido" and some names of foods and ingredients.

Then, your husband would go home, and you would have dinner. He would watch tv, and the both of you would go to bed, and you would have to fuck. 

Soon, he would fall asleep next to you.

And every night, after that, you used to imagine another man. Sometimes it was an explorer who would tell you about his many journeys, a writer who would make you read his most intimate texts, a painter who would take you for his muse... 

But that night, he was a sailor. A handsome sailor you would have met in the inn where you were working. He would have asked for a room for the night and a meal. And while you were serving him, he would have made a few passes at you, to which you would have responded by teasing him. If at the beginning, it would have been innocent, you would have quickly come to the point where he would have proposed you to spend the night with him, at the end of your service. To which you would have replied with a "maybe", but as soon as your boss allowed you to leave, you would have knocked on his door.

“I was wondering when you’d come…” he would tell you.

Then he would take your waist and hold you close. You would kiss him, and it would become wilder as his hands would travel to your ass. He would gently but firmly push you against the wall.

“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” He would whisper. You would know that was a lie, but you wouldn’t care. And he would know it.

He would kiss your neck while undressing you. And when you would be completely naked, he would sit you on the bed and spread your legs to kiss your inner thighs, then your clit. He would lick your arousal and you would moan his name.

In your bed, you were circling your clit, legs spread, a hand massaging your breast. You imagined his head facing your wet pussy, saying you were tasting divine, his hands all over your body, caressing your skin. You were already so close and as he would ask you to hold on a little, you waited a few seconds before allowing you to come. 

Next to you, your husband was sleeping.

Soon, you fell asleep too.

The sun was brushing your skin, slowly warming it. You opened your eyes. You were alone in your giant bed. Philip was already gone. You heard the clock striking nine. He used to leave the house near seven o’clock. You stretched your arms and legs and yawned. Watching towards the window, you could see the blue sky. This day promised to be good. You quickly showered and dressed up. Something simple. Black tights, dark skirt, white shirt. A safe bet. But to add a small personal touch, you clipped a blue tit pin on your shirt. 

You always liked blue tit. Firstly because they were cute. A tiny bird, yellow and blue, with a kind of large eye liner and white cheeks. Secondly because you wished to go to Europe once. You wanted to travel to Austria, or Germany, and this Eurasian tit symbolised this dream.

Maybe one day you would quit New Hampshire.

Something on the dresser caught your eye. Some 50 dollar notes had been put there by your husband. He had written a message on a piece of paper: "so you can go shopping today, we have a guest for lunch".

You frowned and crumpled the paper. So he wanted you to look good with his guest, uh? 

“I’m not a teen who needs pocket money.” you grumbled. 

You put on black shoes, music in your earphones, and went out of the house. In the streets, the sun was warming the asphalt, and your steps led you almost automatically to the little café bakery in which you usually  bought your breakfast.

Opening the door, a smell of butter, sugar and vanilla reached your nostrils. By 9 am, not many people were left. But you would have noticed her in a crowd of thousands of people. She was sitting on a chair, a big cup of hot chocolate and a croissant on the table in front of her. Her blonde hair in a perfect updo, she wore a clear blue dress. She was looking at the window, her phone in one hand. She was so tall… Your mouth went dry when you noticed her red lipstick as she turned her head towards you. She had caught you staring in the glass reflection. She gave you a smile, and you were sure your cheeks became as red as her lips. You turned your head to the counter to order, removing your earphones.

Were you just staring at a woman?

Did she just smile at you?

You glanced over your shoulder. She was still looking at you, her blue eyes fixed on you, crossing her legs. She took a sip in her cup.

“Hot…” you whispered.

“Excuse me, Y/N?” the waiter asked.

“Yes-yes, Nicolas, er, I-I want a-a hot chocolate please. And… and, er… a profiterole please. Takeaway.”

“Ready in a second.”

You couldn’t stand her look, it made your knees go weak. Was it what Jess called a “gay panic?”. You had to know and tipped a message.

: Hey, Jess

: What exactly is a gay panic?

She was quick to respond.

J: When you look at a girl and you want to like… kiss her. Immediately. And you can’t function properly bcz you think about her kissing you.

J: Why?

: There is this woman at Nic’ and Jane

: I never felt like this for a woman.

: She’s so beautiful, I want her lipstick on my lips and on my throat right now.

J: Oh my god

J: You’re gay!

: Am I?

J: You ARE.

“Y/N?” Nicolas said.

“Uh? Yes, it’s me”

“I have your hot chocolate and your profiterole.”

“Thanks”

“Is everything okay? You seem distracted…”

“Yeah, I’m fine, thank you. Is it okay if I pay later? I forgot my wallet at home.”

“Of course, whenever you want.”

You took the paper bag he handed to you and went out of the café-bakery. The fresh air was really needed. You put your earphones back on.

Who was she?

You had never seen her. 

Walking the street, you arrived in the big park in which you always ate your breakfast. Your favourite place was in a sort of hidden place, under a badly pruned weeping willow. There was a bench, and a little pond in which ducks used to swim when you were a kid, but now, there were only frogs left. Sometimes, a grey heron you named Alex was fishing in it. A grey heron in New Hampshire. That was the local attraction. It escaped an aviary two years ago and settled up in the park. No one tried to catch it. And now, it was the star of the neighbourhood's children, who often tried to find it. Sometimes, when it was in the pond, you would talk to it, as if it could understand what you were saying. And for the only answer, Alex would keep fishing, at the other side of the pond.

But this day, no Alex in the pond. And the frogs were happily jumping in the grass. The sunshine passing between the branches of the willow tree made thousands of small sun spots on the now shimmering  water. You wiped the bench full of willow leaves with your hand and sat there.

While drinking your hot chocolate, you thought about this woman, in the café bakery… 

You wanted to see her again…

You had just finished your hot chocolate and ate your pastry when you heard footsteps in your back. You hoped no one would pass the curtain of leaves which hid you from the world. You liked to be alone, daydreaming about people you would never see again… Shit, they entered your secret garden. You sighed.

“What a pleasant surprise!”

You turned your head. That was her. She was there, next to you. Your eyes widened, your cheeks went red.

“Hi-uh… Hello.” You managed to say.

“Y/N, isn’t it? Can I sit here?”

“Y-yes, of course. How-how do you know my name?”

“I heard the waiter say it.” She sat, smiling at you. “My name is Larissa.”

“Larissa…” you whispered. Her name was quite unusual, and you liked it, you liked the way it sounded. You couldn’t look at her so you just fixed the water.  But in your peripheral vision you saw her smirk.

“And I paid your order.”

You turned your head towards her. Big mistake, now you couldn't take your eyes off hers.

“Oh no, you shouldn’t have…”

“And you should have sat with me in the bakery. I’m glad I found you.”

“Wh-why?”

Her look went down on your lips. You felt your cheeks warming.

“I don’t know” she said “I thought you could show me a good time…”

“I-I want to pay you back.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to.”

“Mh, if you really want to, there is something you could do.”

“And what is it?”

Her hand approached your cheek. You held your breath. Was she about to kiss you? Your heart hammered in your chest as she stared again at your lips. 

“I-I am a married woman.”

She froze. You held your breath. The wind blew and some willow leaves fell on you, the frogs and the pond.

“I’m sorry. I think I misunderstood your signals” She gave you a soft smile.

She started to pull her hand away from your cheek but you held it back.

“No you didn’t. I-I just thought that was unfair not to tell you.”

“I don’t understand…”

“That’s not a love marriage. I don’t love him, he doesn’t love me.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head. You didn’t like this pity gaze on you.

“Don’t. That’s okay.”

“You know, I was almost forced into a marriage, so I think I can understand what you feel.”

Her? Her, forced into a marriage? You suddenly felt understood, and safe with her. She took your hand.

“My former fiancé learnt I wasn’t a normie and refused the marriage.”

“What do you mean by a normie? You mean straight?”

“Yeah, I mean straight.” She didn’t want to tell you she was an outcast.

“To be honest I learnt I wasn’t today.”

“Am I your gay awakening?” Her smile grew bigger as you nodded.

She kissed you. Her lips were soft. Both of her hands on your cheeks, yours were on her hips. She left a last kiss on your cheekbone and smiled.

“How about a walk? Maybe you could show me the city.” She said.

“Of course, follow me.” You smiled.

You stood up and the both of you came out from under the willow.

“What was yours?” you asked, leading her on a path in the park.

“My gay awakening?”

“Yes”

You looked at her looking at the big trees. 

“My brother’s first girlfriend. He always had good tastes in women. By the way, are you from this town? Because I’m visiting him, and he said he would send me the address but he seemed to have forgotten. Can’t blame him, he has a lot of work.”

“Yes, of course, I live in the neighbourhood. I might know him, what’s his name?”

“Philip Weems.”

You frowned. What did she say?

“I didn’t hear, can you repeat, please?”

“His name is Philip Weems.”

That was official, you just kissed your husband’s sister. What were you supposed to say? Was she the guest for lunch? 

“Are you okay? If you don’t know where he lives, that’s okay.”

“I know where he lives.”

“Good morning Mrs Weems” a gardener said.

“Goo-good morning, Mr Johnson. How are you today?” you replied.

Larissa frowned. Did she know him?

And you cursed him for saying that right now.

“I’m fine, and you?”

“I’m fine.”

And he continued sweeping the path beside you.

“Mrs Weems, uh? You’re Philip’s wife.”

“I am.”

She chuckled.

“That only makes you more attractive…”

_______________________________________________

Hope you enjoyed <3

[dollediary]

He's Yours, But Am I?

pairings❥ jake x fem!reader

point of view❥ 3rd person

warnings❥ mentions of sex, body issues, dieting, signs of pregnancy, abandonment, slight verbal abuse, manipulation, unprotected sex

word count❥ 20.6k

genre❥ angst, smut

synopsis❥ falling in love with your friends with benefits is a difficult burden to carry. not using protection to feel closer to each other was fun until you missed your period, so what happens when your pregnancy test results come back positive? to you, it had been a dream come true; you knew you had to break the news to him eventually, and maybe you could finally confess your feelings to him. when you do finally tell him the news he tells you he isn't ready to be a father, requesting you to stop seeing each other. falling in love with your friends with benefits is a difficult burden to carry, but it in no way compares to being in love with your friends with benefits and having his child to carry.

note: i apologize for the absence. i was so emotionally invested in writing this story, so i just kinda lacked the motivation to wrote anything else. can't promise all of your previous requests will be fulfilled, but i'll do my best! please like, reblog, and interact as much as possible! it will help me get motivation to finish more stories and grant more requests. i'm super proud of this work, i think i'll do 3rd person from now on. i hope you all enjoy, let me know how you all like it!

"do you think i'm getting fat?" y/n asks her friend, chaewon, as she pinches her stomach, the almost unnoticeable weight gain making her frown at herself while she stood sideways in the mirror. chaewon frowns as she watched from the bed, she noticed y/n had been losing her glow ever since july ended, but she attributed it to their sophomore year in college that would be starting up again in weeks' time. y/n always lost her glow whenever school started back up.

"a little," chaewon replied honestly. "but that's normal! we've been eating well these days; it could just be a bloat, you know?" y/n thought about it for a second and nodded. that may have been the reason she's also been nauseous lately, too, having eaten more than her body could handle in the name of enjoying her summer break more. chaewon takes note of y/n's thoughtful silence, adding onto her statement, "we can always go to my pilates and yoga classes to change it back to normal if you want..?"

"maybe, i'm gonna wait a few days to see if it'll go down on its own first," y/n sighed, giving her reflection one last glance as she unfolded and pulled her oversized shirt down again, meeting chaewon on the bed with a jump and loud thud as she stared at the ceiling. chaewon only stared forward, continuing to watch tv as they stayed in a comfortable silence.

"you talk to hyunjin lately?" y/n asks chaewon, breaking the silence. chaewon only shrugs her shoulders in response.

"eh. how about you and jake?"

"we've been seeing each other in person more, and he's becoming more of a caller than a texter these days," she explains to which chaewon only responds with a hum of understanding.

"hyunjin and i are the kind who don't need to talk to each other everyday for our bond to be as strong as it is. when we're together, it's like he never left," the smile on chaewon's face awakens something in y/n: lovesickness. she pouts, but it's more of a pout of envy than jealousy, because she could never be jealous of her best friend.

"i wish i could relate," she groaned, turning to lay on her stomach as she receives a facetime call from jake. picking up the phone, she fights back a smile by biting the inside of her cheek. "hey, you!" her excitement comes out awkwardly, like a teenage girl trying to talk to her crush despite her heart and brain not cooperating normally like it had only seconds before.

"hey, y/n," he laughed, still not quite used to her shy demeanor on the phone. "you up to chill?" he asks, making y/n almost scream out a yes to him. but she couldn't, obviously. chaewon was over and she didn't want to kick her friend out just to hang out with a boy, especially knowing chaewon wouldn't do that to her.

"i would but my friend chae is hereㅡ"

"it's fine!" chaewon interrupts the girl, her head appearing behind y/n's in the tiny box as she waved to jake who responded with a nod. "i was just getting ready to head out soon," she walks closer, giving y/n a kiss on the cheek as y/n lowers the camera for privacy. "mwah. bye, i love you. let me know if the bloating goes down so i know whether to register you as my plus one for my next session."

"okay, okay. i love you too," y/n responds, chaewon leaving soon after. y/n finally moves her attention back to jake who was clearly eavesdropping the entire time with a cheeky smile on his face.

"bloating for what? are you on your period?" he asks, making her groan annoyed by his nosiness. "hey c'mon it's a natural thing, you can talk about it with me. plus, you know a period don't stop nothing but a sentence," he winks only making the girl groan more.

"you're gross," she gagged dramatically, making the boy burst out into a fit of laughter. "there's no way i'm having sex with you on my period," she added on, but he only laughed harder.

"why not? c'mon don't knock it till you try it! let's try it out today," he persists making her pout her lips as she thought about it. it could just be another thing she could cross off of her list of irrelevant things she did pertaining to sex.

"maybe, but i won't be getting my period for another week since i didn't come on it this week like the app said i would," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "huh. you didn't peg me to be the kind of guy who's into that stuff."

"oh, i'm not. but i think i'll be into anything that involves you, y/n."

"ugh, don't directly address me when you say things like that, you know how it gets me!"

"maybe i want you to get like that. how sexy is phone sex?"

"doesn't sound any better than real sex."

"maybe to you, i'm getting hard just listening to your voice."

"oh my god. goodnight, jake," y/n's eyes widened as she hung up, a small smile painting her lips.

waking up the next morning, and after immediately looking in the mirror, the bloating did not go down. a disappointed sigh left y/n's lips as she threw one of jake's sweatshirts over her tank top to cover the 'obvious' difference in her appearance as she made her way to campus, already dreading the day.

upon arrival, she met chaewon in their usual spots for their lecture, seeing the girl with coffee for the both of them. offering her friend a thankful smile, she took a sip of the coffee, eager for its bittersweetness to wake her up as it usually did. but her sip was quickly, and secretly spit back into the cup as an indescribable amount of disgust flooded her taste buds.

"jesus, who pissed in this coffee? it's disgusting," the girl asked, making her friend's eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. she'd known y/n's order by heart; it's been prepared by the same worker for months. y/n's never been dissatisfied with the taste of the coffee before.

"he's prepared it the same way he does every morning, so i'm confused," chaewon says, watching y/n try to give the coffee another chance by taking a longer sip, immediately gagging as she lets it drip back down into the cup again. now even the smell of it was unbearable. she pushes the coffee away all together.

"well it's shitty today, let's just get some more later," she responded, both girls shrugging it off as they listened to their professor's talking once again. y/n was tempted several times after the fact to drink the coffee, but she was too sickened by its taste and smell. she eventually got up and threw the whole cup away all together, hating the way her body was responding to it.

when lunch rolled around, it was safe to say they both had forgotten about the morning's coffee incident, and y/n was already more than excited to eat the lunch she had yet to order. though the summer sun hadn't gone yet, the heat was certainly making its way out. temperatures outside were fine, so the walk from their hall to the building holding the university's lunchroom went smoothly, however the air conditioning had murderous intent when they entered the building.

"god i hate this building," chaewon groans as she zips her jacket up, which worked to no avail as the fabric was nowhere near thick. y/n nodded in agreement as they both subconsciously agreed they'd eat quickly so they could just leave. getting into different lines, y/n walked over to the soup station, getting her favorite vegetable soup that always made the freezing AC temperatures more bearable. she fixes a smaller bowl than she usually would, already beginning her dieting journey to lose the weight she'd gained.

once she added her side dishes, she met chaewon at the table with the most sunlight shining through the big, wide open windows, eager to get the warmth that this building insisted heavily on denying.

"we should've just ordered takeout instead," y/n grumbled, sipping a spoonful of her soup juice as she closed her eyes, the steam from her soup fanning her face as a "thank you for choosing to eat me today." savoring the soup, as she usually did, she immediately cringed at the horrible taste that flooded her mouth. "my god, why is everything so shitty today? first the coffee, now this?" it was clear that her mood was plummeting from her sudden disdain towards the food she loved most. she pushed her tray away, saddened, making chaewon sigh with pity.

"do you just want some of my lasagna?" she knew y/n wouldn't want it, but she couldn't stand to see her best friend so upset about not being able to eat. it was a dumb question, because it was something y/n hated the most, but y/n nodded, pushing her tray over to the girl. chaewon is confused but gives her a reasonable amount to eat, not too much as it would go to waste if she didn't eat it, but not too little as to have her request for more in the event that it wasn't enough.

reluctantly, she takes her fork and digs into the lasagna, hating everything about it, but the smell seemed a lot more inviting that what it had been only months before, the time frame she first decided she hated the entree. taking a hesitant bite into it, her eyes shot wide open as she began chewing. it was delicious. and she didn't know why. she opted to eat more of it, quickly downing the food as she looked at chaewon, begging for more to which, of course, the girl obliged. she wasn't that hungry anyways.

days had gone by since y/n had found a new love for lasagna, she even branched out the different flavors they offered, becoming obsessed with the spinach-alfredo lasagna. they were two combinations she knew she'd usually hate being put together, but she couldn't stop eating them. and though chaewon never said it aloud, she was confused. so confused. especially confused when y/n had suddenly started gagging, on the verge of vomiting only minutes after she'd eaten so deliciously. but, she rushed to the bathroom with her friend, ready to assist her nonetheless.

it's was a sad thing for her, watching her friend look so sick and helpless over the toilet while her body kept forcing her food up, not even stopping after the fact that her stomach emptied, telling her she still needed to throw more up. when she finished, her whole body was shaking, and she was on the verge of tears from the burning she felt in her throat.

she insisted she was fine, her solution being to eat again to make up for the food lost, but after having several incidents of vomiting to the point of tears, all of them with chaewon being her personal witness, she couldn't quite convince the girl anything anymore, reluctantly having to agree to seeing the doctor and get to the bottom of it. but they weren't ready for any of the questions that the doctor would ask the poor, and naive, y/n.

"have you been sexually active in the last few months, miss l/n? more importantly, without protection?" doctor kim asks, taking both y/n and chaewon by surprise. she looks over to her friend, feeling uncomfortable by the question, but chaewon only gives her a sympathetic smile as she encourages her to answer the doctor.

"yes.. but i don't see why that matters?" y/n replies, essentially dismissing the doctor's question. there was no correlation between the two, she was just feeling a little under the weather. or maybe it was a result of her semi-depression from her weight gain? there were so many possibilities. "we think i may have a stomach bug," she adds on, making the doctor click his teeth in response. he sighs, adjusting his glasses as he looked past her, not wanting to cause conflict, but still needing to do his job.

"well, miss l/n, i'm not suggesting anything big, but since you have had unprotected sex, your symptoms are seeming to lean a lot toward-"

"i'm sorry ,doctor kim, but i don't need suggestions. i'm paying you to use your damn degree and use facts to get to the bottom of this, not suggest my symptoms have anything to do with the sex i have in my life," y/n spits out, grabbing chaewon's hand to lead her out the door.

"you go, i'll be a quick second," chaewon smiles at the agitated girl who only nodded as she stormed her way to the car. letting out the breath she'd been holding, she bowed apologetically to the doctor. "i'm sorry, doc. she's been really moody since she gained weight. she's usually the sweetest girl!"

"i see," he responds. "she may not be willing to right now, but i recommend coming back soon and getting an ultrasound to see if my thoughts may be correct," he says, getting ready to head out the room, since he no longer needed to be there, having other patients to tend to.

he'd already been long gone by then, but chaewon still responded to him. it was more for herself anyways. "i'll think about it."

looking in the mirror every morning became a habit for y/n. she absolutely hated the way she looked. she felt like she was in a body that wasn't her own, her mental health only worsening with each day she decides to stare in the mirror. she was lonely. she'd been skipping classes, telling chaewon she was just too lazy to go to, but doing that meant chaewon wouldn't be there to support her rapidly growing illness. and she couldn't just call jake, either. they argued too much and they both hated it, deciding that no contact was better than enduring the toxicity any longer.

but today, she couldn't endure not speaking to him any longer. she'd grown far more dependent on him, realizing her days of misery could only be made better by him. so, even though she knew that calling him most likely wouldn't end well, she hit the facetime button, watching with anticipation as she waited for him to pick up.

"y/n," his sigh of happiness only brought a smile to her face, and for a second everything felt better, even her stuffed nose seemed to clear for a second. her eyes watered, but she quickly blinked the forming tears away because no y/n you will NOT cry. "i missed you," he says, making her heart flutter as he frowned through the screen.

"i'm sorry," was all she could say, lumps forming in her throat. why did this have to make her so emotional? she'd never cried over something as simple as this before, it wasn't rare for jake to express his feelings for her in this way, but for whatever reason she decided that hearing all of this now meant and felt more than anything. "i missed you, too."

"how have you been?" he asks, making her lips form a thin line. she never did tell him of her illness, being scared that he'd stop coming over in fear of catching her symptoms.

"i've been bored, there's never anything to do these days, and i'm too lazy to go out."

"hm. then how about i come over and give you something to do?" his question was laced with suggestiveness, making her feel an uneasy amount of insecurity. she really wanted to have him come over, more than anything, but it just couldn't happen. not when she felt like this. and not when she looked like this either.

"i don't know, i'm pretty tired right now, too," she laughs nervously, making him sigh.

"please, y/n. it doesn't even have to be sex. i just want to be with you. i miss you," while it didn't seem like much to him to admit it, it meant the world to y/n. she felt like he really wanted her. and in a way, he did, so of course, she let her heart fall right into his arms. even though her doubts and insecurities begged her to say no, she refused to listen this time.

"okay," her heart was beating fast, unsureness running through her veins, but all of it was worth it. any ill feeling would be worth it if it meant she'd get to see his smileㅡ a smile that only existed because of her.

"say less," he giggled, hanging up the phone. she let out the breath she was holding, her senses awakening as she realized all of what she just agreed to. she looked at her outfit, too revealing for the way she was looking right now. "shorts are fine, but i need a bigger shirt," she spoke to no one but herself as she went to her closet to put on an oversized hoodie in hopes he wouldn't be able to see how "ugly" she'd become.

it didn't take long for him to arrive, engulfing her in his arms as soon as she opened the door. it was times like this that made her wonder, why would she even want to fight with him to begin with? she's head over heels in love with him; arguing with him only took away these moments from her. she couldn't stand it.

"pretty girl, you've lost your glow," he says after they pull away from their drawn out hug, grabbing her face, moving it around in his eyesight as he frowned. her eyes were accompanied with dark eye bags, her cheeks were puffy, and her skin seemed to have paled quite a bit since he'd last been over. she could only smile bitterly, that's what no sleep does to you, she thinks.

"it's because you haven't been here to shine on me," she laughed, taking his hand to walk to her bedroom where they both sat on her bed. he laughs along, happy upon the realization that they most likely wouldn't get into an argument since the majority of their arguments happened digitally.

"well we're together now, so that's all that matters," he says, making her smile. she nods, taking a second to look at him while he turns his attention to the tv, already browsing through netflix to put on a show or movie he thought they'd be able to enjoy. she didn't realize how fond she'd grown of him until now, but maybe she just forgets about it until moments like this come up for her to acknowledge them once again.

the universe was unfair to her, in more ways than one, but giving her this special relationship with jake made all of the hardships disappear. she liked jake. and even though she knew he didn't feel the same way, she liked that his actions made her feel like he did. and they shared a lot of intimate moments, so even if she didn't necessarily have the real label she wanted, there was nothing that could stop her from pretending.

maybe that's the thought that kept her going, allowing him to make himself at home in her heart more and more with each passing moment they shared. maybe that's what made her stop looking at other men the way she looked at him. maybe that's what accidentally brought her lips onto his, cupping his cheeks as her eyes closed in relief when he kissed her back. it was always heavenly to kiss jake, but this time it felt better than that. he kept her slow speed, not bothering to pull her on his lap, yet, as he was determined to savor this moment in fear of it never happening again. he moves his hand up to her cheek as she let hers fall down to her side, smiling into the kiss as he stroked her cheek lovingly.

it felt like an eternity, them staying like that. but, jake was never patient when it came to these things. and it wasn't far from how y/n was either, so naturally he attempted to escalate it, his body already anticipating how good they were going to make each other feel. but as soon as he attempted to slide his tongue in, y/n panicked, squeezing her eyes shut as she pulled away, face hot with embarrassment as she saw the confusion the boy had on his face.

"is everything okay?" he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder gently so as to not startle the girl more than he already seemed to. she averted eye contact, but nodded nonetheless. "did i do something wrong? did i make you uncomfortable-?" he asked further, thoughts spinning around his head as to why she'd pull back.

"no i'm sorry," cutting him off, her voice was low as she didn't really want him to hear her confessionㅡ afraid it would spiral into another argument given her contradicting actions. "i just.. dont want to have sex," all the thoughts and reasons he'd listed before flew out the window, his mind going quiet as did he.

"you're seeing someone else. is that it?"

"wha- no, jake! i just-"

"there's nothing else it could be," he says, making her frown. jake had been suspecting this for a while. he'd never had any problems with her whenever they called or facetimed, or even texted before. but for the past few weeks, that's all that's been happening. he'd somehow say the 'wrong' thing and she'd blow off on him, it would spiral into something worse, then they would just stop talking until one of them texts again. the last time he'd gone through that, his fling ended up leaving him and moving onto a serious relationship, something they swore they would never be able to doㅡ well, clearly not with him at least.

"jake, i swear it's not like that!" y/n's heart was beating out of her chest, she could feel his sadness even though everything he said was monotone. he was hurting over something that she wasn't even doing. and the way he already seemed so sure of it? it made her wonder how long he'd been feeling this way.

"then why do you keep leading me on and then backing out when you're the one who initiated it? are you seeing someone else, y/n?" his eyes were starting to gloss over, and she hated it. so, so much. she didn't know what to do. admitting the truth would only make him leave. her silence only further proved the point he convinced himself that he was making. adding fuel to the fire- "do i only tempt you enough to try but not go through with it? am i SO bad at fucking you that you have to go find someone else to do bette-"

"i'm not thin anymore, okay?!" she finally had the courage to cut him off, tears streaming down her face that had become hot from her frustrations caused by his baseless, but very, very hurtful accusations.

"what?"

"i've gotten fat. and-," she sighed, trying to regain her composure. "i want so badly to have sex with you, but i'm scared. i'm scared that i'll take off these baggy clothes and- you'll be disgusted by my body and leave me. i would never be so evil as to go out of my way to cheat and hurt you. this is only happening because i hate myself and my body for what it's becoming. i can't let you see me be like this."

"baby..." his voice is soft, contradicting the anger it projected only moments before. even though that one word was a great comfort to her, it only worsened her rainfall of tears as she allowed herself to break down in his arms. it was something he'd never understand. she was beautiful in his eyes, nothing would change that. "i don't care if you gain weight, or lose weight. hell, you could wake up bald and i would still find you to be the sexiest girl alive. don't you ever think otherwise."

she nodded, pulling away to look him in the eyes, her pout failing to disappear despite the fact that she was starting to feel a little bit better about it. he smiled at her bringing his lips to her forehead for a kiss, then to each individual cheeks, then finally to her lips in a kiss that was sweeter than the one shared beforeㅡ only she would let it escalate this time.

pulling back, she looked him lovingly in the eyes. they were shining the same way hers were as he pulled her back in for a hard, but not too hard, peck on the lips, more following after them as he wanted to bask in all the moment had to offer. her giggle only made him smile as he pecked her lips one last time before he went to shower each cheek with kisses as well. once he felt he'd spread the love there enough, he tilted her head to the side, trailing kisses over her neck, not any lower as his sweatshirt was in the way. moving back up, he kissed her ear before he whispered a low "take this off," while tugging on the sweatshirt that had now become a barrier between the two of them.

obeying his request, she lifted the fabric off, throwing it across the room as her body shivered from the temperature change on her bare arms. he laughed, latching his mouth back onto her neck, this time carefully sucking, leaving his own marks of love behind for her to be able to look back to if she were to question his love for her again. tugging the bottom of her shirt as she assisted him in lifting it off her head, the shirt being carelessly thrown somewhere across the room like the jacket.

he changed his position, kneeling with either knee on her side as he pushed her slightly to lay her down on the bed. he stared down at her body, scanning the beauty she was. it was then that she realized she had nothing to cover her top half, her stomach was on display for him to see and, despite his comforting words, she became embarrassed. not wanting to make it obvious that she was feeling insecure, she pulled him down to connect their lips together. letting their tongues dance with one another, he lets his hands travel down her sides, moving to spread her legs for him to grind his crotch against her, the sensations leaving them both gasping at how much they'd been neglecting their sexual needs with their petty arguments.

"fuck," she moaned into his mouth which only drove him crazy. god, words couldn't explain how much he loved those sounds she made. he pulled away, going to take off his shirt while she nearly drooled at the sight of it. everything about that man was perfect to her.

"fuck, y/n," he breathed out as he kept rolling his hips against hers, biting his lip to hold back the lewd sounds his body begged him to make. "how am i supposed to go slow when you're this sexy without trying?" his words made her tear up as she covered her face which was now hot with her shyness. the sight of it made his hips stutter, of course only she could bring him that close to climax without doing anything but being her.

he moved away from her, the warmth they shared being the first thing they missed as he pulled her shorts down, throwing it across the room as she leaned forward to pull his sweatpants down enough for him to scoot out of on his own. his cock sprung up, hitting his lower abdomen as she stared at it in all its glory: fully erect, reddened tip glistening with precum. just how she liked it. they both giggled at the fact that they both were intentionally not wearing underwear. "wanted to fuck me that bad, huh?" he smirked, leaning down to connect their lips in a kiss which she smiled in. when he pulled away she smirked back at him.

"i could say the same, baby."

he sucked in a breath, halfway opening his eyes as he began lightly stroking himself, making sure to make eye contact with her. "ah- y/n, you don't know what you do to me," he whimpered as she could only watch him with doe eyes. before he could get too comfortable stroking himself, and before she could get too comfortable watching the show, he rubbed his tip through her folds, then circled her clit (just to make her feel good) before he slowly inserted himself in.

she winced at the stretch, it really had been a while since they last had sex. he bit his lip as he pushed all the way in, unmoving. he moved his hand down, using his thumb to rub on her clit which resulted in her clenching around him. he slightly threw his head back, sighing in content at the feeling. "that's right. keep doing that," he says as he pulls out nearly all the way, only to slam himself back in completely before he decided on a pace. everything about their togetherness was just right. they knew exactly how to make each other feel good. that's what lovemaking to them was. they didn't need to be slow paced or have foreplay or perform oral before they fucked; the love showed in the way they could absorb every essence of each other's being. the way their energies combined and turned them into one.

his pace wasn't too slow, nor was it too fast. it was just enough for her to feel all of him, and it was enough to hit all the right spots, wherever she needed him most. the room was silent except for the small sounds of pleasure they both made, accompanied with the sex sounds their bodies created. he leaned forward, connecting their lips in a sweet kiss, cause everyone knows he couldn't get enough of kissing her. she returned the kiss, tears prickling in her eyes from how good everything was feeling. she loved this. she loved him. "i'm close, baby," he pulled back to announce, speeding his strokes up ever so slightly as he chased his high.

"me too," she announced, this time clenching around him more while her heartbeat only raced, each thrust bringing her closer. he rubbed circles around her clit faster as her moans started becoming more vocal, the pitch raising with each thrust until one thrust finally hit the spot. "ah, jake dont stop," she begged as he sped up to chase his own high. "dont pull out, it's okay! fuck i wanna feel it." he couldn't hold back any longer upon her words, thrusting one last time before he came to a complete stop, filling her with his seed.

"fuck," he breathed out, slowly lowering himself to be on top of her. he scooted so that she could be able to lay her head on his. it wasn't often that jake would stay cuddled up to her after they finished having sex, but he felt like he owed it to her for how shitty he had made her feel without knowing the full story. it wasn't often that he whispered sweet little nothings into her ear while stroking her hair, but tonight (despite their strict forbidden rule of affection) it felt needed. and he was willing to give her anything he felt like she needed. every action and choice he decided to make only further showed that he loved her, in a way.

even though he was sure he wasn't capable of feeling it anymore, this special relationship jake shared with her made all of his doubts about love disappear. he liked y/n. and even though it was something he'd never be able to express or accept it, he'd let his emotions be shown in the moment as they were. and, like most of everything that they did that didn't make sense, it always seemed to work out.

the sun shining through the blinds, accompanied with the unforgiving air conditioning that froze her skin, y/n yawned as she got up, rubbing her eyes. pulling the blanket up to cover her body, she looked next to her for jake, but he wasn't there. she knew that regardless of how affectionate he was last night that there'd be a chance he would still leave during the night, but it hurts to know that no matter what he'd say or do, he'd still be gone in the morning.

her tears start their early morning shift, brimming in her eyes as she pouted at the whole idea of him leaving her altogether. the tears turning into a rainfall of agony as she sobbed to her heart's content, only to be interrupted by her overwhelming need to puke. running to the bathroom she can't make it to the toilet, having to quickly choose between the floor or the sink, her brain choosing the latter of the two.

holding the edge of the sink, her head was bent over so as to not make too much of a mess. she let her first round of puke come up, feeling disgusted with herself for not being quicker. one she was finished she barely had time to recover as she took the chance to run to the toilet, finally being able to vomit there as she originally intended. it hurt and tasted like hell after she was finished, but that of course wouldn't be the end of her misfortune. upon hearing her alarm go off, she realized that she only had 15 minutes to get ready.

snoozing the alarm she immediately dialed chaewon's phone, screaming incoherent words as a weak attempt to ask for help. chaewon's eyes widened as her car's speaker blasted y/n's crying into her ears. "woah, woah, woah!" chaewon said, cutting the girl's screaming off. "talk in a way where i can understand you."

"i keep- i can't stop throwing up, i'm scared i wont be able to make it to school!" she cries out. "please chaewon, i know i ask for a lot but i need you right now," she begs the girl who was only two or three turns away from the university building. as the red light finally turned green, she sighed, making a turn that led her back on the path from where she'd originally traveled to come to school.

"i'm on my way," she lets y/n know, making her way to the nearest drugstore to make a quick purchase. y/n sighs of relief, her tear stained cheeks lifting slightly as she smiled at her friend's support through her hardships.

"thank you, chae," she says, holding onto her now empty and hurting stomach. "i'll make it up to you."

"you don't have to make anything up to me y/n. you need my help, so i'm giving it to you. just please take care of yourself until i get there, i have to make a quick stop, okay?" she says as she gets out of the car, her phone call disconnects from the car and back to her phone.

"okay," y/n sniffles as she begins coughing up a storm, gagging as she tried her best to hold down another load of vomit.

"okay, i'll hang up first. bye."

not waiting for a response, she ends the call and walks into the store. after a quick search, she immediately went over to the corner where the items lay bare for everyone to see. she picked up one of the pregnancy tests, ignoring the looks she felt on her. it was nobody's business anyways. when she went over to the register, older customers gave her judging looks, which she only smiled in return at. as soon as she got to the front, she smacked the box down, not bothering to get any other items as it would just add onto her time in the building.

"what are you hoping for?" the young cashier attempts to ask her kindly, but you can tell she was judging her too. if it had actually been chaewon in this situation where she'd need the pregnancy test for herself, she would have been passive back, but it's not her. so she didn't need to be letting it get in her head regardless of how stressful it was to be here.

"a girl," she puts on a fake smile and enthusiastic voice, praying the kid would hurry up and scan the item. once she was done doing that, she put the item in a plastic bag, quickly handing it to her.

"wishing you the best of luck as a mother!" she says to which chaewon could only nod at as she rushed out of the building and back into her car. now, chaewon wasn't the kind of citizen to speed. she knew it wasn't safe for anyone and honestly she hated it because it never felt nice to her body, especially when she was the one behind the wheels. but after the call with y/n, she had to because she knew how much y/n needed her there.

when she had let herself in using the key that y/n gifted her months ago, she ran quickly to see the girl's head hanging carelessly in the toilet as she barely moved. "y/n?" she asks, going over to her. y/n only hummed in response to assure the girl that she was still conscious. she wanted to talk, but everytime she tried to muster up words, that awfully familiar gagging overpowered her. and she didn't want to go through throwing up again, so she gave up, resorting to laying in her misery as there was nothing more she could do.

"gross, y/n," chewon says as she moves over to the sink where it was filled with her vomit, the scent making chaewon gag a little. she turns the sink water on, going under the sink to get some bleach out in hopes of it helping with washing it down. "you couldn't make it to the toilet in enough time?"

"no," y/n cries out, voice hoarse from all of it already as she gags more, another load of vomit forcing its way up as the scent of her throw up and bleach met her nose. chaewon yelps as she helps the girl throw up smoothly, holding her hair back until her body finally realizes she couldn't throw up anymore, though it was already too late by now.

the cleanup process went a lot smoother than they both expected. chaewon ordered y/n to get a sip of water to soothe her throat while she busied herself with cleaning the sink and the toilet since y/n was already so careful not to make a mess anywhere else. when both of them were finished, they laid on y/n's bed with chaewon stroking y/n's hair, the pregnancy test being the only thing on her mind. she was torn. she didn't know if she should bring it up to her, but it was the only thing on her mind since they first went to her doctor's appointment. she also was scared it would upset y/n. her emotions were unstable as of lately, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of it, at least not now.

"y/n?" she finally speaks up after a few more minutes of internal conflict about it. y/n hummed in response. "you and jake don't use protection, right?" she asks, making y/n groan annoyed. "don't catch an attitude with me, just answer the question."

"we don't use protection, chaewon."

"okay then does he like, you know, pull out?" she asks further, making y/n stiffen up in embarrassment.

"yes."

"are you sure?"

"yes chae! god damn it," y/n says as she finally catches onto what chaewon was suggesting, blowing off the steam that was building up. it makes chaewon a bit more hesitant, but she has to do this for her; she didn't want y/n to keep living in denial if she didn't have to.

"y/n, i need you to think really hard about this. i get that you're frustrated, but i'm only asking because i want to help you... please. there has to be a time when you weren't sure if he did or not. or maybe he was a little too late to?" she is careful with her words, but they still manage to break y/n's walls down as she bursts into tears upon remembering the one important night she had so carelessly forgotten.

"there was- uh one night," she says. "i don't remember if he'd pulled out soon enough because we were both too tired to be safe about it."

"do you remember when?"

"i think it was sometime last month, but i don't really remember. all I know is that i texted you to hang out the day after because the sleep i got was so good. god chae, i don't even want to think that this could be a possibility," y/n was exasperated. she didn't want to be pregnant. anything but that. but chaewon just kept pushing the idea in her head, making her terrified that it'd be an actual possibility.

"i know, love, but i'm asking this for your own good. now, i have something for you, but you can't freak out okay?" she says as she lifts the girl's head off of her stomach, leaning into her bag to pull out the box she'd purchased.

"okay," y/n says as she looks over to chaewon's busy hands as she puts the box behind her back. "can i see?"

"okay, breathing under control?" chaewon asks. y/n nods. "and don't. freak. out. it's going to be okay," she adds on. y/n nods again as she breathes steadily, her eyes closing as she gathers her senses together without anticipating what chaewon could give her. "keep your eyes closed and just grab the box i'm about to put in your hands.

following her instructions, she gripped onto the box as soon as she felt it in her hands. opening her eyes, she couldn't help but tear up at the sight of it. she knew that her friend would give it to her eventually, but now? she wasn't ready. her grip on the box tightened as she shook her head.

"it's okay, y/n. calm down. breathe, then get up and go take the test," chaewon said, lifting the girl up as another form of encouragement. "no matter what the test says, i'm here with my undying support for you. fighting girl!"

"fighting," y/n sniffles as she goes into the bathroom, leaving an emotional chaewon behind. she sighs, laying down again to stare at the ceiling, her own tears starting to form. it hurt. all of it. from having y/n taking her frustrations out on the girl, down to each tear that spilled from y/n's eyes as she realized her life could truly be changing. she hated seeing her best friend cry, especially knowing that she didn't deserve any of that heartache. it felt selfish to sit and cry about it as if she were the one in y/n's place, but she couldn't help it.

taking a shaky breath, she exhaled in an attempt to calm herself down. she needed to be rational. if this is hard for me, then it must be hell for y/n. she quickly wipes her tears as y/n screams and falls to the bathroom floor, only a few minutes after waiting for the results. chaewon ran into the bathroom, shocked by the solemn scene in front of her. y/n, with shaky hands, held up the test to the girl's face. it was an unmistakable "YES+" on the stick. with widened eyes, chaewon pulled the sobbing girl into a hug. y/n was actually pregnant. and with jake's child at that.

"i don't want it!" she cries out as chaewon nods, quickly removing one arm from her as she began looking up clinics for an abortion.

"okay, i found some clinics," the girl says. "we can set up an appointment when you're all calmed down, okay?"

"okay."

"now let's get you to bed; you look terrible," she helped y/n clean herself up, brushing her tasseled hair into a low ponytail, washing and moisturizing her dry face, putting her pregnancy test into a bag just in case. by the time they were finished, the atmosphere had calmed down and everything seemed okay now that y/n came to terms with her conditions. she was just glad that this would all be over soon.

when the two girls finally got settled down, they decided tonight it'd be best if y/n wasn't left alone. cuddling while watching bojack horseman, talking didn't seem all that important now that y/n had a warm embrace that wouldn't leave her in the middle of the night. she nuzzles her head into chaewon's neck with a yawn. "thank you for taking care of me, chae. i love you." it catches chaewon by surprise, but she just silently smiles, deciding not to say anything since y/n was audibly snoring by now. looking down at her best friend's sleeping figure, she pauses the show and prays to god that y/n, and everything, will be okay.

august 31st. today was the day y/n's life would change forever. she wondered why nobody told her that the drive to the clinic would be so gut wrenching. when she arrives, she signs in for her appointment and sits down to wait. she got a good look around the building. there were many people here, some accompanied by lovers, others with parents, while there was the noticeable few who were alone like she was. the air wasn't as thick as she'd anticipated, but she learned from chaewon that not everyone who went to these buildings were there for abortions. a big part of her was jealous of that because oh how nice would it have been to have been able to find comfort in such a heavy decision. but the other part was thankful; she wouldn't wish this dreadful feeling on her worst enemy, and yet here she was, feeling it to its fullest extent.

chaewon sadly couldn't make it. well, y/n wouldn't allow her to, begging her not to miss any more days. it was a difficult thing to convince her, since she knew chaewon could switch to online school like she temporarily opted to do for a more flexible schedule during her pregnancy until she could put an end to it and go back to her regular classes. she'd already caused chaewon to miss so much, she'd feel guilty if she'd done it again, even if right now all she could do was wish she let herself be selfish one last time because all she wanted was to be comforted by the only person who could possibly understand her problems without judgment. she sighed, sinking down into her seat as she watched the muted television on the screen, praying her turn would come soon so she could get out of this place.

"y/n l/n?" a sweet nurse's voice called out as she looked around the waiting area. y/n's eyes widened as they were met with the nurse's who beckoned her over. her heart was beating fast as she walked behind the lady who was escorting to one of the clinic rooms where she would soon be met with the doctor who would be performing the abortion. being left alone in the room was either one of the best case scenarios right now, or possibly the worst. she could be alone for a second to calm down, or she could potentially break down before the doctor could even speak a word to her. deciding she's already cried enough tears this month, she opted to taking a deep breath to remind herself that this was her decision to make, and this was what she wanted.

"good evening, miss l/n, i'm doctor kim," a voice spoke as it entered the door. y/n turned her head slightly to the woman. she was around her mid-forties, but something about her reminded her of her mother, her aura was comforting in that sense. "i assume you're here to get an abortion performed?"

"yes, doctor," y/n responds, lowering her head since she'd suddenly become afraid to make eye contact with the woman upon the mention of the specific procedure that was soon to be performed.

"oh, miss l/n," the doctor pouted, making y/n look up at her. "before we start, i'm legally obligated to tell you the process before we perform it," the doctor explained as she placed her gloves on with a slight smacking sound. y/n nodded, then the process explanation began. as the words spilled out of doctor kim's mouth, y/n couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach. her brain started zoning out everything the doctor was saying, the only phrase she could hear in her head was her brain telling her to get out. all she could think to herself was i don't wanna do this anymore. what felt like hours, but was only around ten minutes later, the doctor finally brought her attention back with a clap.

"so?" she asks. "are you ready?" offering a comforting smile that made y/n feel anything but. she could hear her heart beating inside her chest, her breathing suddenly drowning out all the noise around her. suddenly everything felt all too much yet nothing at all. she stayed still, trying her best to process her emotions, to state her peace, or to just right out leave.

"i need to use the restroom," she squeaked out, tears brimming in her eyes as she avoided any form of eye contact with the older lady in front of her. doctor kim senses the mood shift and sighs. this was an often occurrence, so she could only understand where the girl was coming from.

"look, kid. abortion isn't for everyone," she says placing her hand on her shoulder. "you're young so you think it's the only option for you, but it isn't. there are lots of good young mothers. you can do this. i don't want you to make a decision you'll end up regretting for the rest of your life. i can see you care about your baby. give them a chance at life, give yourself this chance in life."

y/n frowns, her lips quivering as the building tears spill from her eyes. "i'm sorry," she says, burying her head inside her hands. "i'm so sorry," she apologizes, unsure what she's really sorry for, she just felt like this was all she could say.

"don't be sorry, miss l/n," doctor kim responds, helping the girl to get off her feet, taking her over to the sink to help her get herself together again. "you know, you can always come back again. we give free ultrasounds, i'm sure you'd love to see your little angel growing."

”i'll try my best," she responds as soon as the tears subside. they bid their farewells and just like that, y/n was on her way back home. and, though she felt a huge burden had been lifted off of her shoulder, she was devastated. she had to tell jake.. and that was the biggest burden of it all. exhaustion was the first thing to hit her once she arrived back inside, she was so exhausted that she almost didn't take her shoes off at the doorㅡ almost. she goes to lay down, flopping on her bed to stare at the ceiling. it was weird. this has been the first time she didn't feel the need or want to cry. instead, her brain was doing its best to think logically despite not knowing exactly what to do.

she knows one thing for sure, though: she has to call jake immediately to have him come over to break the news to him, but the problem was that she was scared. she knew without a doubt that jake adored her, but he didn't love her. they were fuck buddies, not lovers, so in terms of what she could expect from him, there was nothing. she was at a complete blank, her only way of finding out would be to put herself in the position to do so. and though she hated the idea of having to do it, it wasn't just some decision she could just back out of. so, she picks up her phone, her hand shaking as she clicks the button to dial his number. the phone rang a few times before his sweet voice sung into her ear. "hello?" he asks, making her fears start to pile up. what exactly was she supposed to say to him?

"can you come over?" she asks, her voice tinier than the sureness she was feeling. "please, like hurry up. i'm sorry for everything, i can't be on the phone too long, just hurry up." upon hearing that, jake's heart broke into pieces. he could barely process what was happening, all he knew was that he was rushing out the door and into his car as he sped to her house. after she ended the call, she released the breath she was holding, getting up to look at herself in the full body mirror. she lifted her tank top up, rubbing her 2 months pregnant belly as a river of relief washed over her. there was something so comforting about the "weight gain" now. and she decided that, no matter what, she was going to keep it. in the midst of admiring her changing body, she jumps upon hearing jake's banging on the door.

he was anxious, thinking the worst upon her sudden call that lacked context, but he didn't want to assume the worst as he was still feeling guilty about what happened last time he'd said his unspoken insecurities aloud. with her heart beating fast, she opens the door and silently lets him in. stay calm, y/n. she keeps reminding herself in her mind as she knew that was the best way to get through this challenge. she ushers for him to sit on the bed, quietly taking a seat next to him but with great distance as she was still fearful. he notices this, so when they finally make eye contact she could see the insecurities blooming through. and it broke her. "i'm so sorry," she bawls out, throwing herself onto him. her tears dont catch him by much surprise, but it doesn't stop him from feeling the emotional toll from them. he is sad, but he accepts the pitiful embrace. she's really done it, he cries to himself, the tears landing on top of her head.

he doesn't even want to ask who, why, or even why he couldn't just be enough for her. he just wants to lie and pretend it's all okay so that she'll stay with him, even if he'll regret it. "i'm so sorry," she apologizes for the hundredth time, to which he once again responds with his verbal forgiveness. she hated it. she hated being a coward in that sense. she hated not being able to tell him of her pregnancy, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. "please don't leave me tonight," she begs as she was scared to wake up without him again because there was no certainty that he'd ever come back. he gulps in an attempt to swallow the lump forming in his throat. it doesn't work. "okay," he responds, not sure of what else he could possibly say to her. how can you comfort someone when you're in need of comfort, too? "i mean it, jake, i can't stand waking up without you, at least not now," y/n admits and it hurts jake. "promise me you'll be here when i wake."

"i promise," he says, determined to fulfill whatever need she asked from him in hopes of her continued loyalty to him. "i'll stay forever if i need toㅡ if you need me to," he says as if his honesty wasn't convincing enough. she knows he doesn't mean it in the way she needs him to, but she still lets his words comfort those unheard doubts that are plaguing her mind. she eventually pulls away, looking him in the eyes as she offers a bitter smile. she brings her thumbs up to wipe his tears away. "there's nobody else, jake," she says, seemingly being able to reassure him without him having to say a word. he sighs, and smiles back at her, choosing not to question the real issue she wanted to bring up to him. if it hurt her that much, he would wait longer to find out. but, to him, nothing could be worse to him than her finding a new man. so he'd be ready to accept and forgive anything else that she felt would burden him.

"let's just sleep," he says, laying down. she nods, moving so that he could lay on her chest. her heart was racing; she could never get used to the feeling he gave her. he smiled at the rate it was going. all of that was for him. oh, if only he knew that all those unspoken feelings were mutual. maybe then things would be easier for the two of them. but, as of right now, they would both continue to suffer in this lovesick state.

it was easy to fall asleep with him like that, and it was even easier to wake up with him in her arms. the sun was shining on them, the AC's temperature was just right for the two of them who had forgotten to get under the blanket, and the air was calm. it was a state of being that she didn't want to leave, but she had no knowledge of his work schedule, so she needed him to be up. she kisses the top of his head shyly. he scrunches his nose while she continues doing it until he moves enough for her to understand that he, too, was awake. "good morning," his voice was groggy as he was still not fully awake. she doesn't respond, letting him get up to freshen up. he walks into the bathroom, sitting on the toilet to go about his business. once he finishes, he flushes and goes to look at himself in the mirror.

his hair was disheveled and his eyes were puffy, but he felt like a million bucks as he smiled at his reflection. "nobody else, huh?" he giggles, smile widening as he applied the soap on his hands to wash them. once he finished washing them, he began drying them off on the towel as he started wondering what she had to tell him last night.

when he goes back out, he finds y/n in the kitchen grabbing some frozen breakfast burritos out of the freezer, the meal that had become one of her recent food obsessions. "baby?" he calls to get her attention, failing to see the smile she cracked as her back was turned to her. she only hums in response as she continues to plate two burritos for herself. "i'm not gonna push you to tell me anything, but i just want you to know that whatever it is that's burdening you, it's something we can get through together. there's nothing that can possibly drive me away from you. i'm ready to listen whenever you're ready to tell me."

her moves falter a bit, but she regains her composure and continues preparing her breakfast. once the microwave beeped, she met him at the table, opting to eat as a way to get her thoughts together, his words ringing through her head as she did so. when she was finished chewing her first few bites, she cleared her throat. "i'm pregnant," her voice held no emotion, so little that you wouldn't be able to tell her nervousness had it not been for her hands shaking as she held the fork midair.

"i-" he paused, not knowing exactly what to say. he was in shock. and, from the looks on her face, he knew that it couldn't be a pregnancy scare because it looked like this has been weighing her down for a while. he knew his reaction to this information would be contrary to his previous words, but he didn't expect it to be this serious. "are you sure it's mine?" he asks, breaking her heart. a huge part of him could believe she was pregnant; everything was starting to make sense from her weight gain to her overly emotional state, all the way down to her eating habitsㅡ he knew she absolutely hated burritos.

"there's nobody else, jake," her voice cracked as she offered him a small smile, the corners of her lips barely lifting as she did so. oh how comforting those words were to hear last night, but now they struck him in the worst ways possible. she looked at him, his expression unreadable as he stared directly through her each time she'd lift her eyes to check his gaze. the cat was already out of the bag, so what's the harm in emptying the mess it left behind? "and i... i want to keep it." he didn't know what to say. he didn't know what to do. and he didn't want to hurt her, but what about himself? he isn't a bad guy. it takes two to get knocked up but-

"i'm not ready to be a father," his words came out quietly, scared that hearing it himself would make the guilt he felt feel worse. and it did. the look on her face when she finally looked him in the eyes, if her glow was already dull, he'd taken it away. the words already did their damage, now he has to stay true to them. he got up from the table, hands shaky as he pushed the chair in without a word and he offers her an apologetic bow as if that could take everything back. "i'm sorry y/n." he didn't know what he expected. who would forgive a deadbeat anyways. she didn't say a word, opting to keep her head down in shame. she stayed that way, not even bothering to move even after she heard the door close behind him, announcing his genuine departure from the home.

-

y/n wasn't nearly as sad as she thought she'd be. chaewon was right, it would hurtㅡ and for a long time it did. "but once you feel okay, even for a second, everything will be okay," she told y/n. and that's what it was, after 2 months of tears, her brain shifted its focus from the pain of his absence to the changes her body was making. she noticed the small bump in which the baby was forming became more noticeable in her shirts. deciding to embrace this, she stopped wearing baggy clothes. and chaewon never failed to remind her how beautiful she looked whenever they'd go out. she noticed she started to gain weight, but it didn't make her upset.

instead of looking in the mirror with disgust, like she had done before she found out about her pregnancy, she spent her lonely nights smiling in the mirror as she rubbed her tummy. her earlier pregnancy symptoms started to lessen, and her eagerness to visit the doctors increased as she was always excited to look at her ultrasound. she no longer dealt with nausea, being able to feed both herself and the baby without fear of regurgitation, but she soon found that her stamina had also begun to change. she spent most of her off days homebound, as moving around too much could easily take her breath away.

"alright, ms.l/n," the doctor says, spreading the ultrasound gel onto y/n's tummy, the coolness giving her chills as its temperature mixed with the cold air that the air conditioner blew. "let's see how this little rascal is coming along, shall we?" doctor kim asks, moving the transducer around as real time images of the fetus started coming onto the screen. y/n tilts her head backwards to look at the screen, smiling at it.

"aww, it's got its thumb in its mouth," she cooed, putting on a happy pout to chaewon who was indulging in the screen as well. taking her eyes off of it, she signaled the doctor's attention while y/n stayed in a daze, watching her baby as it minded its business in her tummy. "are we going to be able to tell it's gender soon?" chaewon asks, making the doctor nod in response. "how long will that be?" she adds on, making the doctor think about how far along y/n was by now.

"we should be able to tell in the next week or so, from what i'm seeing, if its a male, its genitals haven't developed yet, so we'll have to wait to see if any more developments, in that sense, occur," doctor kim says, moving the transducer more around the head area. "we'll have to develop the photos before you leave, miss l/n."

"oh, please, doctor!" y/n exclaims excitedly as she continued to watch the screen. "oh my room is gonna be filled with framed pictures of these!" she claps, making the other two girls in the room smile at her joy. it was a huge change in attitude from what they'd seen just five months before. clapping her hands together, doctor kim begins to clean up the gel and transducer, putting the items away as she begins the printing process for the ultrasound pictures.

once chaewon and y/n left, they decided to go to the store to get more groceries. "i want fruit roll ups," y/n said as she looked at the aisle signs, searching for the one that displayed where the snacks were. once she spotted it, she dragged chaewon, who was holding the cart, directly to the aisle. chaewon could only giggle at her friend with the roll of her eyes. "we gotta get some healthy snacks too, love. how about some nature valley bars?"

"i don't know..." y/n responded. "i just want something sweet and chewy right now, but i could go for some dorito chips right now if you want me to eat something crunchy," she says, mouth watering at the idea of it. "nope. nope, nope, nope, nope," chaewon says, grabbing y/n's hand while she used the other one to steer out of the unhealthy aisle that they'd already stepped foot in. "we're not feeding your baby that junk, let's just stick to fruits, okay?"

y/n grumbles a complaint under her breath, but she complies as they go to the produce aisle. "let's get chocolate syrup, too. for the strawberries," she begged, which chaewon mindlessly nodded to at this point, being too busy putting boxes of berries into the cart. "then go get 'em," she says, shooing the unoccupied girl. y/n nodded as she walked over to the isle where it'd be held. she hummed a nameless tune as she looked around for the brand she wanted. picking up two different bottles, she pouted in thought, turning her head back and forth from them.

hearing a groan out of nowhere, with a familiar base in the voice, she scrunches her eyebrows and turns to where it came from. her heartbeat picked up as a distracted and frustrated jake came into her view, only around 5 feet away from her. just then, she felt a sting in her stomach. "fuck," she cursed to herself. the baby was kicking. she, with shaky hands, quickly threw one of the chocolate bottles back onto the shelf as she waddled away as quickly as possible. it had been so long since she felt the rush jake gave her. she was no longer mad at him because of what he did to her, but she was still pissed off at what he didn't and wouldn't do for their baby. "were you kicking me because you couldn't kick daddy?" she cooed rubbing her stomach as she saw chaewon rolling over to her.

"what about the baby's daddy?" chaewon asked as they began walking side by side. y/n snarled. he really doesn't deserve to be called that. she thought. but she quickly returned to her normal friendly gaze as soon as she met chaewon's eyes. "we, well i saw jaeyun in the syrup aisle, and the baby started kicking me. i think he did it because he couldn't kick him."

"he?"

"huh? oh yeah. i've got a feeling he's a boy, my girl wouldn't use me as her punching bag," she joked as she rubbed where the baby was adamant on kicking about. chaewon smiled at the sight, moving the girl's hand to replace it with her own. it almost brought her to tears as they got into the shortest line. after they'd finished paying and packing the groceries up, they were on their way back to y/n's home.

chaewon shared side glances at the girl while she sang along happily to the tunes that were blasting on the radio. she was starting to realize just how real this was and how far y/n had gotten over the course of this half year. "you're gonna be an amazing mother, you know that?" she says catching y/n by surprise as she stops mid lyric. the radio's volume didn't change, but the world went silent and everything seemed to come to a complete pause as y/n's lips trembled into a small smile, eyes watering as she did so.

in the past six months of her developing pregnancy, she was never told this. of course chaewon has always praised her for her strength, and her parents had offered support though they were disappointed, nobody has ever told her that she'd be a good mother. and, though it's something most mothers would look over, it meant the world to her because she felt like she would be anything but. she didn't realize how long she'd been crying until she no longer felt the car moving as chaewon pat her on the back in a comforting manner. "shh, it's okay. it's okay.. i promise you will be," she says, making the girl's tears pour faster.

"thank you so much," she cried out, allowing her body to milk the tears as she regulated her breathing. "i don't know why that made me cry so much, i think it's been something i've been needing to hear for a long time, you know?" she admitted, sniffling a bit. chaewon nodded, but didn't speak. she realized y/n probably wanted to say more. and she was right. "it's just.. without jake, i didn't think i could do it. i was so ashamed that he didn't want us, i thought that i would end up not wanting the baby, too. but i kept it because i knew that it deserved a chance. and i've been doubtful about my abilities as a mother, thinking i'm not good enough. but hearing that made all of this worth it, i have to be a good mother to it."

"i know, baby," chaewon said, kissing the top of her head. "now let's get you home, okay?" y/n nodded as chaewon restarted the car and finished their journey back to y/n's place. after unpacking the groceries, they spent the rest of that night cuddling while watching a movie on netflix.

-

walking into the store alone, y/n talked to chaewon, who was resting, through one bluetooth headphone in her ear. "do you really think it was a good idea to leave the gender a surprise?" she asks as she pushes the cart aimlessly around the maternity area in target. "mhm.. yeah. no yeah, you're right. well, anyways i'm just at target right now, about to buy some new jeans cause these mom ones are getting too tight... i know! it's ironic. well, i'm not gonna hold you up, you should finish working. okay, bye bye. love you, too." once the call ends, she goes to pick up some jeans. as soon as she finished picking out a pair or two, she rolled her way into the snacking aisle. a part of her was relieved that her stomach wasn't too big for her to be able to push the cart, she enjoyed being alone lately, even though she knew it wouldn't last very long as she only had 14 more weeks to go, and things would only get more difficult then.

picking up two boxes of granola bars, she hummed quietly as her head turned back and forth between the two items. she wondered which one to buy, they were both a personal favorite to her, but she wasn't looking to spend hundreds again, she still hadn't bought a bulk of the baby clothes yet since she didn't exactly know what to buy other than an excessive amount of zoo themed oneㅡ because there's nothing more gender neutral for babies than animal themed clothing. it had only been a mere seconds that she'd been so lost in her decision that she didn't even notice that particular set of eyes that were set on her, guilt building up and rushing through his veins as he stood there frozen in his spot.

jake was carrying a handheld basket. he figured he'd only needed to come to pick up some protein bars and energy drinks, he didn't need a cart. well, now he was regretting it as his grip faltered on the basket making it fall down onto the floor, items flying anywhere they pleased. luckily the boxes only slid a few feet in front of him. however, the protein shake rolled into forbidden territory, that forbidden territory being the area where she stood. his eyes widened and his head lowered as she turned her attention to the protein shake, then to him. he did his best to stall picking up the boxes as he did what he could to avoid looking at her. his hands shook as her shoes appeared in his vision.

"you dropped this, sir," she says. she had a smile on her face, the most beautiful one that he would have been crushed to see drop as soon as they made eye contact, but it did. "oh," was all she could say as he got up, gripping his basket harder as they made eye contact for the first time in a little over half a year. "oh," he responds, his eyes flickering to her stomach. a sudden punch of grief and regret hit him directly in his heart as it seemed to clench with pain. he averted his eyes and looked back into hers, but, again, he wished he hadn't. the tears were already brimming. "oh, oh. no, please don't cry. i'm sorry. please don't cry, please."

"i'm sorry. i'm just so happy to see you," her frown worsened as she squeezes her eyes shut, sobs escaping through her closed mouth while her body only shook as her arms stayed glued to her side. "shit, y/n. don't say that, please," he didn't know what to do. his eyes watered as he hesitated before pulling her in his embrace, the basket long forgotten as it fell back to the floor with a thud. he thought a hug would help, but it just hurt the both of them more. he was warm, exactly like she remembered. she wanted to be closer, to feel more of him but her stomach only allowed him to hold her so much. he felt her belly pressed against his, and it was foreign because it's nothing like the last time he held her and it was just a painful reminder of why he felt so shitty to begin with. "i'm sorry," he says, pulling back all too soon for the both of their liking. "we should leave, i don't want you crying in a target."

he grabs her hand, gently dragging her along as they walked out of the building. "i don't have a car, i ubered here," she says as she tries to keep up with his quickened steps. he nods in acknowledgement, not turning his head to her as he was too scared to look at her again. "i know, baby. we're gonna go in mine." now she was kinda glad he didn't look back at her, because her face had contorted into both a smile and a frown. she was still his baby after all this time, even if he didn't deserve it. once they reached the said vehicle, he opened the door for her, helping her get in as she couldn't climb in as swiftly as she used to due to the big changes in her body. it was kinda cute, the way she needed his help. it made him reminisce the moments that could've been. the times they could've had together if he didn't panic. brushing his thoughts aside, he got in on the driver's side as he began making his way to her place.

after they'd gotten in the house, he had the pleasure of seeing the changes made. in the kitchen, there was a green high chair with leaves scattered on it. when they walked into the living room, there was a fluffed carpet with the abc's accompanied with pictures of animals corresponding to the beginning letter. they walked into her bedroom whose walls were littered with pictures of every ultrasound, the growth of the child becoming more apparent as it continued. everything has changed. and jake wasn't here to experience any of it. he wasn't there to help her through any of it. and he felt so terrible for it.

"wow," was all he could say as he stared at the ultrasounds. she'd long been sitting on the bed, watching him. she had always wondered how she would feel when seeing him again. she wondered how he'd look physically, how he'd look at her, anything. she wondered if she would be angry. she promised herself she'd be angry, that she would lash out at him and spew all the hatred that had manifested these past seven months. but she wasn't angry. and she didn't lash out because.. she didn't want to. she was so happy to see him. and to see how he still cared for her, it healed the wounds that he had left behindㅡ most of them anyways. the room grew terribly quiet as the atmosphere began to suffocate them, engulfing them in the gloom that jake emitted into the air. he let out a shaky breath, his shoulders heaving up and down as his sobs only seemed to elevate in volume.

y/n's eyes widened as she used her step stool to get down from the bed and walk over to him, wrapping her arms around whatever her body could allow her to. he was crying. every single emotion he had pushed down was starting to tear its way through his eyes, lungs, and mouth as he buried his face inside his hands. tears, snots, and spit pooled in the palm of his hands but he didn't care. he wanted to allow himself to feel. but he felt so guilty. he didn't deserve to be comforted by her. cause god knows who was there to comfort her. "i'm sorry. fuck i'm so sorry y/n. i never wanted to leave you. i was just so scared. i was already scared to ruin our relationship. and then you told me and i freaked out. i changed my mind as soon as i walked out but i was so scared to come back because that would be so shitty, but i thought about you every single day. i want to be in the baby's life. i want to be in your life. i'll do anything to fix things. i can't keep living like this. you deserve to be taken care of, both of you. and i want to be the one to care for you."

his words touched every inch of her body, from the top of her head to way beyond her toes. she didn't even realize she was crying until it suddenly became harder to breathe in her nose, the airways being blocked by a sudden stuffiness. she let go of him, going to wipe her own tears off as he wiped his hands off. "y/n? are you okay?" he asked as she finally looked into his reddened eyes. "i waited so long for you to say those words to me. i'm so overwhelmed and happy, jaeyun. please don't leave me again," she begged, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. he didn't even get to respond as he felt her lips graze his. their tears slipped through their lips as the kiss continued. he cupped her face, bringing her impossibly closer as he tried not to apply too much pressure to her stomach. the two of them walked over to the bed, he helped her get up onto the bed where they would lay for the rest of the day.

-

"when does your lease end?" jake asks y/n as he pours himself a bowl of cereal. she shrugs, taking a bite out of her burrito. she tries her best to think about the date she'd need to renew it. "some time at the end of this month, why?"

"i want you to move in with me," he says, making her choke on her food. she coughs up the remaining pieces out of her throat as she drinks water to calm down the new burning sensation. "well, my lease ends in two weeks. i've been saving up money so we can have enough for a down payment on a better apartment. what do you think about that?" he asks, sitting across from her. she was frozen, chewing her new bite from the burrito more than it needed to be. this was all so sudden. sure, she had wanted this for a long time, but she didn't think it would happen even in her wildest dreams. it just all felt so unreal. "am i overwhelming you?" he sighed.

"no," she said after swallowing the food. "i'm just- i don't know. i just.. think there's levels to this and this is skipping a lot of them," she says. he purses his lips and thinks about it for a second before nodding in agreement. "you're right. but i think it should be fine because it's what i would've done anyways. this is making up for lost time. i have to step up as a father, and this is what fathers are supposed to do," he says. "look," pulling out his phone, he opens safari and slides his phone over to her. she looks at the screen. it was an apartment with a lovely view of the city. "only a 15 minute drive from the university and it's close to a lot of the businesses in the area. i could get it now, or we can go and do a tour and-”

"you'd really want to move in with me?" she asked, looking up from the phone. he tilted his head to the side at her. insecurities were apparent, making him realize she was still wary of the whole situation. understandably, he smiles at her with his eyes and nods his head. "of course, baby. we're making a family together. i think living together makes more sense," her posture relaxes as she smiles slightly. a family, huh? she looks through the pictures more: 3 beds, 2 baths. would he want to make more with her? there's so many 2 bedroom apartments in the same area, why not choose those? she wanted to ask him, but everything was happening too soon. and she didn't even tell chaewon that she allowed the boy back into her life yet. "i think it's fine," she says, sliding the phone back over to him. "this is good. i have no idea how i could possibly fit all of everything that i wanted to give the baby into this small apartment anyways."

"okay, then. you can say hello to our new home," he exclaims as he puts his phone in his pocket. "i gotta get to work soon, so i'll be off before your last class ends. i'll pick you up then?" he finishes off the rest of his cereal, sliding the bowl, with its sugary milk, over to her.

"oh," y/n says as she looks down at the gesture, taking the spoon out as she silently sips on the liquid before talking again as if she were embarrassed to continue her sentence. "i actually am doing the online learning course, i figured it'd give me more time to tend to the baby." even with the small laugh she let out, it was evident that she wasn't happy like, the gesture was meant to be. jake nods his head as he gets up.

"then i'll come back with some dinner, let me know what you're craving before 8:30," he says, checking his pockets for his keys. while walking out of the kitchen, he takes one last glance at her before letting out a breath and leaving. y/n stays there for a while as she lets the silence engulf her. there were always so many things to think about when she was alone these days, but today the one thing on her mind was chaewon and what exactly she was going to tell chaewon.

a big part of her wasn't ready to talk about jake yet as she wasn't completely sure if she was dreaming or not, but the other part knew better than to doubt anything that happened to her anymore. and it knew she would have to tell chaewon one way or another. even if she didn't owe it to her, she felt like she deserved to know because she was there for her every step of the way. having jake would take this burden off of her shoulders, but y/n was immensely afraid that chaewon would be disappointed in her. how weak was she as a mother to take back the same man who turned his back on their child? very weak. but she wanted nothing more than for her child to be brought up in a warm and loving family with both of its parents because she believed that jake and she would be good ones, regardless of his initial response when he learned of the pregnancy.

"okay," y/n says as she finally gets up. "clean up first, tell chaewon after," she grabs the plates bowl, and utensils from the table as she walked over to the sink. one by one, she rinses the dishes off, one time, two times, three times before she opens the dishwasher to put them inside. she wanted to manually wash, but it would be putting too much pressure on the front of her stomach from having to reach over the sink for that long, so she reluctantly used the machine. after she finished that, she got the broom and began sweeping the floor. being too lazy to mop, she resorted to sweeping the living up as she did what she could to slow time down. but doing chores wasn't easy with her stamina, so after around 20 minutes of stalling, she decided to plop down on the couch and text her friend.

upon receiving y/n's message chaewon raises an eyebrow, but types out a reply nonetheless. she figured it was something important or something that was bothering because usually y/n would call. as she made her way to the car, she let her unspoken anxiousness run rampant through her mind about what could possibly be bothering her friend. while y/n stared at chaewon's notification, all that could be heard in the silent living room was the tapping of y/n's foot. she clicked her phone off, taking a deep breath as she waited for a few minutes.

telling chaewon about the situation proved to be easier than y/n's doubts had originally convinced her it would be. of course, chaewon's expressions showed hesitance for the whole ordeal, but at the end of the day she knew it wasn't her choice to make. and even though she wanted to beg her not to let him come back so easily, she offered her hand in support. and jake proved to be thankful; the day they all decided to meet up at y/n and jake's new shared apartment for some final touches, he conveyed his gratitude to chaewon. he thanked her for everything in the book that he could think of, especially for taking care of her in place of him and for staying by her side through it all.

"you know," jake said to chaewon as they looked at y/n's sleeping figure on the bed. she'd gotten tired after her day of fun with them. she'd just knocked out mid laughter, resulting in her innocent slumber while the other two conversed. "it's times like this where i wish i stayed. most guys, when they find out their girl is pregnant, just run off and marry her before the bump even starts showing, but me? i ran off like a deadbeat and hid in my bedroom scared. i should've been a man and stepped up to be a father sooner. you know, i saw her again, like- pregnant at a target. just shopping alone. i know how people think out here, i saw how people were looking at her before i came to her side. i can't imagine how much she had to endure before then. i feel so guilty. like i don't deserve to be here."

chaewon listened intently to his words, seeing the way he teared up over it. she hesitantly reached out to hold her hand on top of his, that action alone feeling like betrayal as he stiffened upon her touch, but she only wanted to comfort him. she swallowed before she spoke. "it's too late to change the past, you're here now."

"yeah. i suppose you're right," he removes his hand from hers as he nods and she didn't know why it upset her as much as it did. clearing her throat, she got up from the bed. "i should go now, right? it's late and i have class tomorrow," she smiles softly patting her pants to smoothen them. jake nods and gets up as well as he says "i'll walk you to the door."

"oh! that's not necessary," chaewon shakes her head, but he insists as he follows her to the door.

"i have to lock you out, so either way i have to come out here," he says, making her mentally face palm at herself. she'd read too much into the situation of course. it was silent as she walked out the door, turning around with her hands clasped together. jake raises an eyebrow silently. "hm?"

"her due date is coming soon. i'm going to step down from being her main support from now on. i want to prioritize my life now, so please fulfill that empty spot for me," she says, walking away before he could muster up a reply.

-

y/n's screams of pain filled the room as the doctors did everything in their power to talk her through the birth. her grip on jake's hand was painful, but he endured it because she was probably feeling worse than he was.

"that's it, ms.l/n, we can see the baby's head poking through now, just keep pushing, keep breathing," doctor kim says, but nothing registers to y/n as she keeps her eyes squeezed shut, tears flowing down her face as she sobs out.

"chaewon!! chaewon-ah, it hurts s-so bad," she brings her free hand to cover her eyes, wiping what she could. jake stays silent, only offering her a chaste kiss on top of her head, then on one of her tear stained cheeks. he couldn't be upset in a moment like this. right now, all he wanted to do was comfort her until this passed through.

"almost there and .... it's a boy!" hearing her son's cries fill the air was the first thing to bring her back to life. her soul felt like it was floating outside of her body until that point, but hearing the first sounds he's been able to make since leaving her womb, pulled her all the way back in. and feeling him in her arms for the first time made all of the pain and hardships she faced worth it. "jaemin," she whispered to the baby boy, whose cries seemed to subside once he felt his mother's touch. "you'll take the 'jae' from your father," jake's ears perked up as soon as he heard it. "look jaeyun," she turned to him with a smile. he looked down to see their baby, sleepily cooing while they both looked at him with nothing but adoration in their eyes.

"he's beautiful," was all jake could think to say. and it was true, jaemin was beautiful. even though he was covered in gunk and y/n's blood, he was beautiful. doctor kim watched silently for a few minutes before she felt it was alright to take jaemin away to wash him up.

"don't worry, i will bring him back to you after you all get your deserved rest, it was a long 15 hours, but you did it!"

"mhm, i sure did do it," y/n said, her eyes fluttering while she tried her best to stay awake during her tired state. after the doctor left with jaemin, jake wasn't sure of what to do. he scratched the back of his neck, sitting down in a chair while y/n closed her eyes. the room was a comfortable silence at that point, y/n's small breaths bringing the calm to a maximum. "jake?" she whispered, not thinking to speak louder through her drowsiness as jake looked up from his phone over to her. "yeah?"

"can you please sleep with me?"

his heart raced as he looked at her.

"yeah."

-

"that's a good boy, that's a good boy," jake tickled jaemin's stomach as the 4 month old baby boy cooed, using his small hands in an attempt to grab at his father's.

"he's not a dog jake," chaewon giggled as she watched the two boys. she sat on the couch next to y/n who was lying down, her back facing the group.

"hey, babies can be good boys too," jake argued in his baby voice, his attention still being on the baby he was rocking slightly in his arms

"that's fair," chaewon agreed, rubbing her stomach upon its sudden growling. "you guys hungry?" she asked, opening up her phone to ubereats.

"eh, i could eat," by now jake had gotten bored of standing up, instead he sat down with jaemin whose head was now being held up by the crease in jake's elbow while he sat at a respectable distance from chaewon.

"me too," chaewon says as she scrolls through the tabs on the app, being pulled in by all the food options that it offered. she hummed and slightly turned her head over to y/n who only remained silent, eyes focused on the closed curtains of their living room window. "how about you, y/n?"

letting her eyes focus on multiple spots of the room in front of her, it almost felt like she was searching her surroundings for an answer. but there was none. "i'm not hungry," she finally chose to respond before it was too obvious that she was still avoiding speaking.

"aw c'mon since when are you not hungry? you should be taking advantage of being able to eat whatever you want now that jaemin's outside of your body!" chaewon says, lightly nudging her friend's body, though the girl still didn't respond.

"well..." jake's voice suddenly piped into the conversation. "she's breastfeeding, so she still has to be cautious of the nutrients and junk she gets. can't have our baby being unhealthy, now can we?"

now it was jake's turn to be nudged. "aw c'mon, he'll be fine with a little tacos in his baby system! i'll order some now, matter of fact," chaewon said as she typed in 'tacos' in the app's search bar.

"alright, but none of that taco bell, we need the organics."

"well you're not gonna find that in korea.."

"fair enough," jake says as he gets up from his seat on the couch. "let's just go get some. y/n needs some alone time with jaemin anyways, we've basically stolen him away from her. isn't that right, baby?" he says, booping the boy's nose. he walks over to y/n, gently moving her shoulder in a way that would lay her on her back. she closed her eyes, not wanting to look at him as he placed jaemin on her, a heavy feeling forming in her stomach. he pouts, sympathizing with her tiredness as he places a kiss on both her and jaemin's head. "we'll be back," he says as he and chaewon quietly head out.

she only opens her eyes after she hears the door shut and lock. looking down, she sees jaemin fighting sleep as he is so at peace with her warmth, and it's only then that she's brought back to reality. the guilty feeling she would always get once she would hold him would come back again and she begins to ask herself why she was feeling the way she was.

carefully, she maneuvers herself so that she can hold him properly in her arms with a sigh. "god damn it, jaemin. why am i like this? i don't hate you, i know i don't. but why does it feel like this sometimes?" his lack of understanding towards her words makes her feel a little better, he dribbles and gives her a gummy as she kisses the top of his head. "i'm sorry, baby. i don't like feeling like i can only love you when it's just the two of us alone. this isn't how a mother should feel. you deserve better than me." closing her eyes, she slightly sways her body to become a human rocking chair to soothe him more than her warmth could do on its own.

"can you believe it's only been four months since he's been born?" although jaemin was nearing half a year of being with them now, jake already loved the boy enough to be able to talk about him nonstop for hours on end. he even went back to work early just to be able to brag about how healthy and strong his son would turn out to be. there'd even be nights where he and y/n would sleep with jaemin, and she'd wake up to see him have his back facing her, while jaemin would be carefully cuddled up to him on the other side. it was no secret that he loved his baby so much at times it'd be suffocating, for y/n at least. even when their parents came over to visit, they'd joke and say he must have been the one to give birth to jaemin instead of y/n.

even now, as the couple lay in bed, it felt awkward for jake not to have jaemin with them. it had been a mutual decision of theirs to have him sleep in his crib as sleeping in between two very active sleepers could potentially be dangerous. even now as they both faced each other, faces being dimly lit by their tv, his mind seemed to stay focused on the baby who was asleep in the next room as the smile on his face never faltered. y/n looked into his eyes, smiling back. she felt at ease being able to be so close with him without having to worry about keeping distance between their bodies for the sake of jaemin. it was refreshing. but she thought it'd be better if he would shift his focus to her, even if it was just for tonight. after these four long months of neglect, it's the least he could do for her.

yet, somehow his conversation regarding the boy never seemed to end. so, taking matters into her own hands, he put a finger to his lips, giggling as he finally grew silent. "you have work in the morning. sleep," she says, and he nods, the smile on his face staying the same.

"i must be keeping you awake huh?"

y/n hummed in response, using her thumbs to gently caress his face as he melted into her touch. "okay, then let's sleep," he said, gently removing himself from her hold so that he was laying on his back as sleep seemed to come over him quickly. she guessed it was easier to tire when it came to her. she turned her back to face him as she reminisced the days he would stay up and talk to her. she so naively thought that moving in together would bring them closer; it wouldn't be surprising if she woke up to an empty spot in the bed when she'd wake up later.

-

"i'm happy you're here, but you shouldn't have switched to online classes just to be able to see me everyday," y/n said as she changed jaemin's diaper, the boy kicking his chubby feet at her in protest to the cold baby wipe she swiped on his bum as she attempted to rid him of his potty mess.

"oh please," chaewon says as she waves a ringing teddy bear in front of the baby's face to offer a distraction for y/n to finish more smoothly. "going in person was only fun because you were there, plus i love that i have more time to see my best friend and my beautiful nephew!"

"he is beautiful, isn't he?" she said as she put the boy in his diaper, his hiss of fits finally coming to an end as she rocked him back and forth in her arms. "he looks so much like his daddy, too."

"well, i see the both of you in him," chaewon says, laying on her shoulder with a content sigh. "it's so crazy how much he's matured since he came back. i honestly held a grudge against him, but now i think you caught the stars with him. he's an amazing father," chaewon finishes, raising an eyebrow when she hears a small sigh coming from her friend. "what's wrong?"

y/n's complaint is simple. when chaewon asks her, she admits, "he's a good father, and he takes such good care of jaemin, of course, but i just wish he'd take care of me too, you know? he used to have real life feelings for me, now it just feels like i'm nothing more than a mother to him, now that he's a father." she prayed to god that she didn't sound jealous of her own baby. how pathetic that would be of her.

"baby... i'm sure this is just a first time parent thing. he's excited about the baby you guys made. i would be too, i mean, look at him! he's adorable," her eyes scan the baby's features, smiling softly at the sight before her. "don't forget what you feel for him too, though, okay? you love jaemin that much too, right?" it was something y/n never thought about. deep down she knew she had to love jaemin. she knew somewhere inside her heart that she adored him, and there were even times where she wanted to spend every waking moment with him, but she wasn't happy. or at least not in the way she thought she would be.

when she was first pregnant with jaemin, all she could ever think about was how badly she wanted to hold him. how badly she wanted to meet him and love him the way she knew best, but nothing she ever did with him felt like the magic she wanted. if anything, she was pretty miserable all the time. all the responsibility was pushed onto her, nobody else dealt with his crying, nobody else fed him, changed his diaper, anything. everyone got the luxuries of being around him while she did all the work.

she hated it, but that's what she was supposed to do, isn't it? she was supposed to care for her child while jake went to work to make sure they all got fed & taken care of. she couldn't possibly expect chaewon to pitch in, it wasn't her child. but she felt lonely, and even though it hurt her physically, mentally, emotionally, she couldn't just stop taking care of the boy. he was her responsibility. no matter what she did.

and she tried so hard to not direct those malice feelings towards him, but there's a big part in her brain that blames him. chaewon notices the silence and it tells her everything she knows. "a lot of things can happen to your emotions postpartum, y/n. there is help that you can get to get you through this. don't be mad at yourself for feeling sad, it's normal."

"yeah... i'm sorry. i just don't know how to cope with this stuff." chaewon shakes her head fondly and pulls the girl into a side hug, patting her back gently until she lets go again.

"don't be. i'll look into getting you help, but for now i'll look for temporary remedies." she smiles and kisses her cheek affectionately, pulling away once more before walking out of the room. "get some rest. we can talk more later, okay?"

y/n nods silently and watches her walk out of the room, deciding to put the baby to sleep in his room before she goes into her own to do the same.

chaewon's temporary remedy was one of the best gifts y/n could have ever wished for. it took some days, but she convinced jake to take y/n out on a proper date. after 4 months of solely focusing on raising the baby, the two of them are finally getting some alone time together. and y/n could not be any happier. he scheduled a shorter work day so they could go out sooner, and she spent the whole day getting ready. she had lost half of the baby weight, and due to the practices she followed to recover from the birth, her body looked almost the same as it had pre-pregnancy. she did her makeup as best as she could, threw on a matching velvet two-piece, and she even deep cleaned the house so it would look and smell good when he would arrive home.

when he came home, he barely had time to hug her and admire the way she looked as her hands were both already occupied. one hand held jaemin's sleepover bag, while the other held the sleepy baby in his car seat. raising his eyebrow, she only offered him a smile. "i'm ready whenever you are," she said, but he only laughed.

"i have to get ready too," he said, walking into the direction of the bedroom to do just that. the home was silent apart from the shower sounds as she sat on the couch. jaemin was in his cradle playing with the mobile that hung above his head. she didn't know exactly how much more patient she could be. now that she knew what the night had in store for her, she couldn't stop thinking about it; that made the wait so much more difficult to endure.

it felt like hours before jake came out of their room. his jet black hair was parted in the middle, partially slicked back on one side while his outfit consisted of a silk maroon button up with silk black pants and black loafers. her eyes couldn't help but widen as she looked at him. yep. they needed to leave fast. in the blink of an eye, she was carrying both jaemin and his bag, following closely behind jake as they walked to the car.

the drive was quiet as jaemin had fallen asleep in the back. jake's focus was on the road, while y/n's eyes were on him. after they dropped jaemin off at chaewon's place the plan was to go out to eat, but as they approached the highway that would lead to where the closest restaurants were, y/n started feeling a heavy feeling in her stomach.

"um, jake?" she says, lightly putting her hand on his shoulder. he turns his head slightly to glance at her before turning his attention back to the road. "how hungry are you? like hungry hungry, or just 'eh, i guess i could eat' kinda hungry?" she asks, making him cock and eyebrow.

"the second i guess, why? are you not hungry?" he asks, finally being able to turn to her when they hit a red light. she nods without saying anything. "not gonna lie, i went through hell getting that reservation. eating just a little won't hurt, right?"

"i'm sorry but my stomach hurts really bad..."

"y/n," jake says, pulling over to the side of the road so he could look at her while they spoke. "do you just not want to eat?" she doesn't speak back this time. he sighs, rubbing his temples as his other hand grips on the wheel. "fine. we don't have to go, i'm not doing this with you tonight," he says, his tone void of anything, but she could tell he was annoyed. he turns the car back on and pulls back onto the road, looking for the nearest place to turn around. this time, the quietness of the ride was uncomfortable. she didn't want to be in it, but she was afraid to speak; she wouldn't know what to say anyways.

instead of taking the route that would lead them home, he takes a turn that would lead to where they had come from: chaewon's house to which y/n begs him not to. "why are we going to chaewon's house?" she asks.

"we're picking jaem up?" he says like it's the most obvious answer.

"please no!" her voice was desperate, more desperate than he needed to hear. "it's just- i don't know when we'll ever get time like this again. i don't want to lose out. please."

"okay."

he takes a left, starting the journey to go their way home. his speed is faster than normal. she notices and doesn't like it, but she does her best to ignore it since she was getting what she wanted in the end. when they walked into their shared home, she was glad she cleaned up nicely because the atmosphere felt calmer than it would have been if the house was still a baby mess.

y/n thought she'd feel better, but her mood only worsens when she realizes jake still is upset. he goes over to the couch, flopping backwards onto it as he rested his head on the head of it. he unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt with a sigh. she walks over to him with extreme caution, sitting next to him.

"are you alright?"

he just shrugs, mumbling under his breath, "this was pointless, if we were just gonna come back home." she purses her lips, biting back a frown.

"not completely pointless! it's nice to get a break from being a parent once in a while."

"for who?" he responds, "i have no problem being a parent, do you?" he turns to her, a look in his eyes daring her to say something. and it should make her intimidated, but for some reason it only blows her off the edge she was already doing her best to stay balanced on.

"would i be such a villain to say i do?!" she finally screams at him, the sudden change in volume catching him by surprise. "jesus christ, jake. i just don't get what's so special about him." her words spew a hatred she didn't know she could have at her own child and it angers jake more than any angry words could possibly explain.

"him? HIM?!? you mean our child?!?!"

y/n dodges the question as tears start to flow down her face. he looks at her in disbelief as he gets up from where he's sitting to walk away to create some space between them, but she only follows behind him, her built up frustrations finally clawing their way out her throat as she spoke. "all you care about is him; you're becoming nothing more than a dad, now and it's so. fucking. miserable!"

"well what the fuck do you want me to do, y/n?" he slams his fist against the wall, making her flinch. a split second of humanity was able to hit him again as he pinched his temples, a deep sigh being exhaled. "i'm not going back to being a deadbeat. i'm not going back to feeling burdened by my own decision. he's my son. our son."

"yes, jake. believe me. i know he's yours," she pauses, the lump forming an unbearable pain in her throat as she opens her mouth to speak again. "but am i?" she wanted to be strong. in all the scenarios where she had imagined she would be able to express her feelings, she was sure she'd be strong. it wasn't a phrase she had intentionally practiced for the hundreds of what-ifs her brain conjured, but it was the only sentence that could convey the hurt she had been feeling in her heart.

she cleared her throat, deciding not to let the silence last a second more. "aren't i supposed to be loved, too? don't i matter, too?" her attempt to keep her composure crumbled as she broke out into sobs. she knew it was supposed to hurt, but did it have to hurt this bad? she'd endured this feeling of unbelonging for such a long time, the least her heart could do was make it hurt less.

"y/n-" she hears him interrupt himself with a sigh as he walks towards her, pulling her into an embrace and resting his head on hers. he didn't know how to comfort her. there wasn't an easy way to put into words everything he felt for her, especially since it all came with emotions he didn't fully understand. "you matter so much to me. so fucking much, y/n. more than i can ever explain." he wrapped his arms around her tighter and she returned his affection, burying her head in his shoulder.

"please promise me that you mean it. please promise you won't forget about me " her voice wavered as she spoke, and he noticed how badly she was shaking. he wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, but he didn't know where he stood. they were never together. even if they both loved each other, it was never expressed because their situation didn't allow them to in the past. now things had changed, and he didn't know how they were gonna handle it.

"i promise." he whispered, hoping it would be enough.

she pulled away, wiping the tears from her face as she looked up at him. he gently smiled down at her, placing his hand on the side of her cheek, brushing her hair back from her face. she leans forward, wrapping her arms around him as she looked him in the eye. he smiled down at her, heart beating faster as he swallowed all his fears to express himself. "i love you, y/n, i'm sorry for pulling away instead of accepting it." the words caught her off guard, this was the first time he'd ever said such a thing to her. and it was better than she could've ever imagined.

tears spilled from her eyes as her lip quivered, she nodded understanding before pulling him into a kiss. she didn't know how long it'd been since they last kissed and it lasted only a second before she pulled away. "i love you too jake."

in an instant, his lips were back on hers, only pulling away long enough for him to look her in the eyes with a smirk as he asked "oh, do you?" their kiss grew sloppy as he lightly wrapped his hand around her neck, guiding her to the couch as he maneuvers himself so that he's sitting first. he pulls her on his lap, hands making their way to her waist as she grinded her hips against his growing erection, letting her tongue slip through his lips as he began sucking on it. he moved his hands up, fumbling with the zipper on her top before zipping it down fully. once he'd done that, she slipped out of it, her breasts falling down with a bounce before he latched his lips onto one of them, sucking slightly before releasing it with a loud pop.

there was no need to rush this time, they had the house all to themselves. their kiss lasted what felt like hours, only the sound of lips smacking and clothes rubbing against each other could be heard. jake pulls back for air, moving to unbutton his shirt. she only watches him intently wondering how he could make a simple action so, so sensual. he notices her stares and he likes it. his dick twitches and he realizes that, though the kissing and grinding is amazing, he wanted more. so much more.

"you gonna put those pretty lips to use or are we just gonna play around all night?" he asks making her eyes widen in excitement as she moves off of his lap to lay on the couch, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants before pulling them down to his mid thigh as she immediately latched her lips around the tip of his cock.

he sucks in a breath as she swirls her tongue around it, scooting down in his spot as he relaxed under her touch. "yeah, just like that," he praises as he pushes her head down so she can take in all of his length, fucking deeply into her mouth, not allowing her to come up even when she tapped on his thigh, gagging around him. "mmm, that's right." he finally let her come up to breathe, moving his hand to notify her that he wanted her to take control. she used the spit around his cock to her advantage as she let her mouth sink down until she felt his tip hit the back of her throat, doing her best to keep bobbing her head that way.

he hums and pats her butt, lifting her hip slightly to tell her to lift it more into the air. he does his best to pull her skirt off, letting her wiggle her way out of it, standing on her knees as he moves her panties to the side as he dipped his fingers into her wetness, adding two fingers. he sped up his thrusts, adding another finger as she kept going, teasingly stopping every time she would moan to the point of being inaudible. her legs started to shake as she resorted to only sucking the tip as she couldn't suck him any better with the way she couldn't stop moaning.

"get up and ride me," he tells her. she quickly obeys and inserts him inside of her, hopping up and down as she does her best to ride him, though her speed is slow. he smacks her ass, squeezing it harshly before spreading her cheeks apart. "good girl.. do you like making daddy feel good?" he asks as he grabs her chin and pulls her in for a kiss, this time letting it turn french. she moans into it, the lengths of his cock hitting her g-spot without fail every time she'd drop down. it made her speed and movement falter forcing him to grab her by her ass, lifting her body higher as he begins fucking into her, leaving her an absolute mess as she entangles her fingers into his hair breaking the kiss to moan in her ear.

"you feel so fucking good around me, but now's not the time to be a pillow princess," he again still praises as she tries to meet his thrusts. she has to take her hands out of his hair as she grips her nails into his shoulder, unable to fully process the pleasure her body was taking in. with the way her pussy clenched around him partnered with the pain from her fingernails digging into his skin, he couldn't help but be vocal about it. "you just wanna get pregnant again huh? you want me to fuck my seed into you again? you want me to reclaim this pussy? huh? you like that?"

squeezing her eyes shut, y/n just couldn't hold back anymore as she falls apart on top of him her first orgasm taking over all her senses, legs trembling from the feeling as she starts babbling between moans. he laughs as she rests her head on his shoulder, words still not forming correctly. "spit it out," he says as he slows his thrusts down ever so slightly so she could speak. she didn't know what came over her as she moaned out again, another orgasm hitting her as she came undone once again. she looks at him with a fucked out expression and says "faster."

his dick twitches as he complies, pounding deeper into her, feeling cocky, and only speeding up as he speaks praises into her ear. "you're so good to me, fuck y/n. you're gonna have to deal with me forever.. i'm not letting anyone even dream of having a chance with you. you're mine, all mine you understand?" she nods. "keep letting me fuck you like this and you're gonna be my wife sooner."

hearing this makes her moan louder as she smashes her lips on his, he keeps his speed, sometimes thrusting all the way in, staying there for a second too long for her liking, just to drive her crazy as she comes undone another time, finally making him start reaching his own pleasure limit. he doesn't change his speed or actions as he finally buries himself deep inside of her as he filled her with his hot seed. "you're mine," he says as she falls limp on top of him in exhaustion. she smiles and for the first time in months, she felt all the weight lifted off of her shoulders.

"all yours."

end.

[sweetteaanddragons]

Stepford Smiles and Time Travel Wiles

Another fic I never got around to crossposting!

Featuring time travelling. Unfortunately, for most of the characters, they don't know that.

The door had scarcely closed when Feanaro rounded on Maitimo, eyes blazing. “You see?” he demanded.

Maitimo, for his part, was too busy blinking at the door his mother had just departed through to answer for a moment. “I see,” he agreed when he had gathered his wits. “Or I glimpse, at least. Atar, what happened?”

His father had abandoned his chair at the dining table to pace furiously in front of the windows. “She returned two days ago,” he said, gesturing toward the hall. “She has been like this ever since. About everything.”

”Everything?”

“If I declare Nolofinwe treacherous, she decries him and his mother. If I say the Valar are untrustworthy, she rants on the foolishness of giving ear to Melkor. If I speak of making swords - “ There Feanaro paused. “There we disagree,” he conceded. “She has been scolding me for not practicing with mine enough. She demanded one of her own and has been devoted to it since; she wonders that I do not do the same.”

When he had first learned she had left his father, Maitimo had felt as if the world was opening beneath his feet.

Somehow, this was not the relief he would have expected.

“Perhaps she changed her mind,” he said tentatively.

“I admired a song of Lauriel’s, and she praised it to high heaven,” his father said harshly.

Ah. His mother would never be rude enough to publicly express an outright distaste for any work made by a protege of Makalaure’s, but Maitimo was not the public, and he could be trusted to know what to keep from his brothers.

His mother could, of course, change her mind on multiple things at once.

But.

The energy that had propelled his father left him in a rush, and he crumpled against the wall, running a hand over his face. “I know she still wrote to you,” he said wearily. It was the first time he had acknowledged this. “Did anything she write . . . ?”

“We didn’t write of politics,” Maitimo said carefully. “Her art, mainly. Tyelpe’s latest projects. That sort of thing.”

His brothers’ projects as well, though that was a more careful line to dance; some of them would not be happy to know news of them had been passed on.

He had written of his father’s work, what little of it wasn’t political. She had never commented on it.

“But she was well?” his father demanded. “The separation didn’t - didn’t burden her fea?”

“It pained her, of course,” Maitimo said, even more carefully than before. “But I had no thought it would drive her to Lorien. It is not as if the bond was broken.”

“No,” his father agreed, abandoning the wall to slump into the closest chair - the one across from Maitimo, instead of his usual place at the head of the table. “No.” He frowned at where one of Grandmother’s tapestries hung on the wall, staring at it as if it held all the secrets of Amil’s heart woven within. “It is not like her,” he said plaintively.

It wasn’t, Maitimo agreed fervently, even if it was only in the privacy of his mind. When his father had half invited, half demanded his presence at supper tonight and said it was about Amil, he had expected anything but this.

“She may have just wished to reconcile,” he suggested soothingly.

Too soothingly; his father looked up sharply, biting words all but visibly forming on his lips before he swallowed them back and waved dismissively. “I should not have involved you in this,” he said instead. “It is not your burden to carry.”

His mother had expressed similar sentiments to him before in one of her letters. Maitimo heartily wished she had not; it had preceded a significant restriction in the information she passed on, and he could not fix what he did not know about.

“If something is wrong with Amil, it is all of our concern,” he said, retreating from ‘soothing’ to ‘rationality.’ “Or if something is right, it is all of our joy. I’m very glad you invited me to supper tonight; even with this . . . puzzle . . . it was good to see her again.”

This reassured his father as his other statement had not. “She wanted to see you,” his father said. “Desperately.”

This was not a surprising revelation. His mother had flung herself at him as soon as he entered the doorway and had not let go of his arm throughout supper. He thought she would be here still if Lauriel had not stopped by with word that Makalaure had safely returned from Alqualonde and was back at his own house in the city. Amil had not been content to wait for his and Aranel’s inevitable morning visit and had immediately gone to welcome them back.

His other brothers, he suspected, would receive a similar treatment when they returned from the various tasks their father had sent them on. He would have to see if he could send word to them first; he trusted Makalaure’s reception of this turn of events, but some of the others might need a few gentle nudges not to let their feelings about Amil’s departure get in the way of her return.

“If she is feeling so agreeable, have you tried asking her about this change of heart?” he tried.

His father shrugged defeatedly. “She said she had thought about what the next few years of her life would look like, and that she had decided that she couldn’t afford to waste time on the ice.”

Maitimo knew poets sometimes compared difficult relationships to ice. He had never considered his parent’s relationship in those terms, even over the last few years; he had tended to lean more towards ‘volcanic.’

“I wrote to Mahtan,” his father added abruptly. “She must have said something to him and Liriel before her departure; if it gave them reason for concern, surely . . . “

“Of course,” Maitimo agreed and made a mental note to write himself. His grandfather had retreated from Atar as tensions rose, but he wrote to his grandchildren as often as ever.

Or perhaps he should write to his grandmother instead; that way if Mahtan chose not to reply to his father’s letter there would be less of an obvious contrast.

There was reason for concern, as much as he hated to admit it, whether or not his grandparents had caught it. Amil had been almost as manic as Atar in one of his moods tonight, her usual quiet passion transformed into something too loud, too bright, too fierce.

Like magnesium burning so, so bright for just a moment, and then -

No. She was in Tirion again; that was good. She was back, and she was talking to Atar again, and Maitimo could set to work smoothing the way for everything to fall back into familiar shapes.

“I’ll talk to Makalaure in the morning,” he told his father. “He might have picked up on something. We’ll work this out; you’ll see.”

Things were one step closer to being as they should be; he wouldn’t let them fall apart again now.

Notes:

Meanwhile, Nerdanel’s perspective: Do I agree with Feanaro? No. But did arguing with him work last time? Also no. So if I am going to save my idiot family, I am going to have to go with them, and I am not risking getting left behind when they take off, so . . . time to let my husband pretend he married Farande. Feanaro, not so quietly sulking: I don’t want to be married to Farande. Nerdanel, oblivious: This is going great!

[hopelesslyromanticshark]

Hi! I sent in an ask about Leo Valdez with Japanese reader who’s the child of ares and you wrote it and I was wondering if you had anymore like little blurbs about it but if not then Leo with a reader who is like learning about pharmaceuticals and is good at science but I hope you have a great day/night and take care of yourself ((:

✮⋆˙ winners get the laurels; leo valdez x daughter of ares! reader blurb

content: leo valdez x daughter of ares! reader blurb warning: language, mentions of blood but like...its okay yall author's note: imma be honest i saw the word 'pharmaceuticals' and thought i was having a stroke. and then i imagined having to write a blurb with that word over and over again and wanted to die- GUYS I CANNOT SPELL BIG WORDS DO NOT PLAY WITH ME RN- so i did a little daugther of ares blurb that me thinks is adorbs and also doesn't use the word 'pharmaceuticals' once, which thank the good lord- I HAD TO GOOGLE IT JUST TO KNOW WTF IT WAS STOP-

following a brutal and blood-heavy capture the flag, the ares cabin came out victorious. it helped that they were rallying behind the cause 'Kill The Hermes Cabin Because They Painted Our Cabin Hot Pink.' it really allowed them to channel their father's anger. you were prancing around, cheering with your arms locked around clarisse as the flag changed from the hermes grey into the striking red of the ares cabin. leo rolled his eyes from the other side of the river, having been on the losing side. but he couldn't help but smile at your joy, the pure happiness that oozed from you despite the fact that someone's blood coated your arm. he was even led to believe the blood was encouraging your good mood. his bloodthirsty girly.

then came the laurels, snuggly placed upon each of their heads. the ares cabin held their heads a little higher with the gold leaves resting among their hair. except you, who quickly abandoned your siblings to stalk up to leo, a pleased grin on your face. he raised a brow at you and crossed his arms, nodding at you to speak.

"it's okay, you'll get 'em next time, tiger," you mock, patting the top of his head condescendingly. leo swatted at your hand, sharpening his glare.

"whatever. wasn't even trying this time," huffed leo, the corner of his lips upturning in a way you knew he was joking. you bit away your smile, shaking your head at him with a winkle of your nose.

"sureeeee you weren't. didn't slave away over all those traps just for this, right?" you teased and leo rolled his eyes again before returning his gaze to you. he couldn't help but admire how good you looked with the glowing gold light coating your features. man, he'd let the ares cabin keep winning if he saw a view like this every other week.

"nope. we call that 'for shits and giggles' where im from," leo joked, earning a few laughs from you before he continued, "and anyways, i'm the real winner here and none of you idiots know it."

"oh yeah? how so, sir flames-a-lot?"

"i've got you. best prize in the whole world."

"....you cheesy bastard."

"THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BEING SWEET AND LOVING-"

"YOU KNOW I DON'T HANDLE THAT WELL?!?!?!"

[faces-ofvenus]

hello love, I already wrote to you on the application and now I have another one, only I'm afraid to seem intrusive, but I would like to see the Damon/eymond/luceris and yegon reaction to pregnancy? If you can, I would be glad to read it, I love how you write and wish you inspiration 🤭❤️

I'll tell you, being pregnant with Aemond's child would be a bit suffocating to say the least, that's only because he would be overprotective in the extreme, you both grew up in this relationship, and honestly arranged or not you had a deep feeling for each other, so much so that when you heard the news that you would be parents it was unimaginable happiness but also uncontrollable fear.

Besides the extreme care you would be subjected to, usually you already had a royal guard at your feet every day, but all this would double if not triple, Aemond suffers at the thought of a life without you or your son, you are in his view the only ones who could love him completely, He knows that he is not the most loved person in Westeros, and he knows that he has enemies left and right, so using his son and wife as revenge would be a very effective method of making him suffer indeed.

Aemond is a rather thoughtful man if we may say, he thinks, thinks, and thinks and usually none of his thoughts are good, such as losing you, what kind of father he would be, and whether his son would have a dragon or be like... He, it almost drove him crazy but you are always there to calm his thoughts, you let his head in your belly, and just ask him to appreciate the now, and the moment you two are experiencing, you are carrying a child, your child, hugging your belly Aemond maybe doesn't cry, but he feels a mix of so many feelings, such good feelings.

He already treated you very well, now the treatment is a thousand times better, you don't have to ask, or think much, he will give you everything, even if you didn't even think you wanted it, he will fulfill all your wishes, even if to do so you have to leave flying with Vhagar at 4 in the morning, it doesn't matter, what matters is you and your baby, he doesn't care about having to keep awake all the nannies, midwives or anyone else who is in charge of your care, because if you don't sleep, he doesn't sleep and neither do they.

Okay, Aegon is the one that would deal worse with children, or with news of his pregnancy unlike Aemond, they were both scared, but Aegon would be the worst at dealing with it, he doesn't feel ready for it, actually I don't think Aegon would ever feel ready for it, he was always told that it was his duty, but he was never really taught how to raise a child, not that he paid much attention, the oldest prince told you that openly, he felt that he could talk about this insecurity that for so long he kept inside, he would say that he didn't feel he would be a good father, the insecurities, the feelings of abandonment as if all his life he was nothing more than a second option, Aegon didn't feel much love from his father, it was strange, he felt a shadow of his sister, even though he was the male child, and for his mother he didn't even know, he didn't even know if Alicent at some point wanted to have him as a son.

This conversation was sure to happen when he was drunk, it had been so long since you had seen him so drunk, since your marriage and since you had established a real relationship, but the relapse of knowing that you and he were about to have a child life, made your body and your stomach turn around, he felt so confused, when he walked into your shared room drunk, you didn't know exactly what to do, in other situations you would yell at him, for appearing drunk to the point that he couldn't stand up, but seeing how hard it was being for him to cope... Aegon didn't want to get too close to you, knowing your smell and honestly not wanting to bother you, you knew that, mainly because when it's just you two your bodies would never be apart, and he would be taking your hand gently, while telling you all your worries, you lay him down on the bed and gave him a kiss on his forehead, Aegon wanted to deny it all, but still he didn't protest, feeling your big belly resting on his body, it was. .. Good.

From then on Aegon still kept a certain distance from you, but even so he showed that he was worried about you, like when he didn't take his eyes off you even from a distance, or when you realized that there was always a person near you to fulfill your wishes at his command, and at night he would sleep near you and your belly, hugging your baby and you protective mind once you stopped him before sleeping, and told him that honestly he would be a great father, not like Viserys, that he would be more, and that you would never treat your son like anyone's shadow, because he was the result of your love, he didn't say anything but you knew how much he was listening to you, and how much he really might have slept with the idea of having a family with you, a complete family.

Aegon would care for you even more, still keeping his distance, but honestly he still wasn't one to touch your belly much beyond sleep or when the two of you lay down, he didn't know how to do that, only when you gave him the initiative, but he would want his baby to know that he was there, and first, and he would love the possibility of it being a girl.

Daemon must admit that he is not very attracted to the idea, being a father. He always wanted to imagine it would be the two of you, no kids or anything like that, just you guys at least so honestly you were on the back foot about telling him or not, you also never saw yourself clearly in the role of a mother, but your heart warmed to know that the child was Daemon's, it obviously didn't take long for him to find out, and you didn't try to hide it even if you didn't say the first word about it.

You had long talks and were frank with each other, he didn't want things to change, you knew it was also quite scary, you got so used to your life, it was hard to think of another one, but you wanted the baby, and Daemon wanted you, he didn't try to get too close to your belly, even though he was very protective, you weren't the clingy couple but you always appreciated and longed for each other's company, so Daemon trusted him more with your protection than anyone else, and even if he said he could take care of himself he only trusted him for that process, but little by little you started to make him feel more secure to leave, as you said the child didn't come to suffocate you.

And for a while it was like that, Daemon would kiss you and give you affection as he always did, but he avoided your belly with a worrying fear or trepidation, you once got a little tired of this, as you sat down on his side you just snuggled into his arms, but directed your hands to his belly, Daemon didn't have much reaction even though his son was moving, his heart beat a little strong, he certainly wasn't used to that feeling, so for the night you would stay awake as you normally did before the pregnancy, your hand never leaving your belly and yours never leaving his.

He would bring your son into your conversations more often, subtly, you would smile whenever he did this without thinking, your nights awake would return as normal, where your hand would not leave your belly, Daemon would just... You were really feeling it, regardless if at first you didn't want or think about children, maybe it wasn't so bad, maybe it is, but he wouldn't do it alone, least of all you.

He trains Caraxes to protect you above everything and everyone, you are not a person of very strange desires for which he is grateful because he does judge your strange foods, but he always has someone on your side, he is not a man to wake up at night, even if he is not even a man to sleep, I say that he loves your pregnant sex, it is exciting if I may say so, to see you pregnant with his child, it seemed that it would not be so good, but he was well cheating, and you seemed to want him even more, he liked that.

I say that you and Lucerys were already planning to have children, so the news was very well accepted, maybe the best among all the boys, his heart beat stronger just with the thoughts of your son, of you, a family with him, this took all his daily thoughts, he would like to stay with you, not exactly for protection, but just to convince himself for all the time that this son was yours, he didn't know with what shade or characteristics his son would have, he cursed himself for having these thoughts, but honestly it doesn't stop loving him more, with your appearance or his, it was his son and it didn't matter.

He was the one who helped you the most in terms of food or even massages, he wants to make you feel good, and you never liked to bother the poor maids, it was funny to see him doing little massages on your feet, so attentive, so focused, you would kiss him and say you were simply the luckiest woman in the world, which he would laugh because it is totally the opposite, you run away from your quarters to the castle kitchen, almost having a heart attack when one of the guards thought you were thieves, but it's just the prince and princess "stealing" food, even with the embarrassment you continue until you are 100% satisfied, he would taste all your gororobas, and praise them all, but in his mind he just wants to spit them out.

Lucerys feels so insecure about what kind of father he would be, he doesn't know how to be one, what would make a good father, he hasn't had the best father in the world, even though he loves his father deeply, but you would reassure him, that he would be a good father figure over his son, that he is simply the sweetest and kindest man in the world, and he is so grateful that you are taking this step with him, he usually gives you several kisses on your belly, and he is one of the ones who talks the most with your baby, sometimes you feel that it is just a piece of meat between these two people who already seem to love each other so much.

[whitedemon-ladydeath]

it's really frustrating to be held for something i said well over 5 years ago from someone that has me blocked in the first place to the point posts im making *now* are getting tone policed by a third party. granted, it was something out of line and ableist and thoughtless towards papa archeron and its absolutely fair to be mad about it!! I completely understand and I wouldn't be caught dead saying something like that now as I have done a lot of self educating and growing and reflecting

but what makes it so frustrating is I make a post about being frustrated about Feyre not painting Nesta, but still painting their father. I believe I said something about him being useless and believe it or not, he *was* useless and it had absolutely nothing to do with him being disabled. He was a useless parent long before then. He neglected and abandoned Nesta well before he was hurt or they lost their wealth and the moment they got it back he was miraculously healed up enough to go right back to ignoring his daughters and traversing the world

his character is so hollow and flat that there's very little for me, personally, to find sympathetic. *He* lost their wealth and their fortune and in doing so he lost money to debt collectors. it's absolutely horrific that Feyre was made to bare witness to that and beg for them to stop hurting him. I identify so much with Feyre in that regard. That still does not remove the fact it was his own actions that led to that in the first place. if he got beaten within an inch of his life for losing that much money who the hell was he WORKING with in the first place (we don't know bec SJM is a shitty writer)

He is directly responsible for their loss of wealth and I am not personally holding him responsible for the last of it being used to partially heal his leg. however he IS still responsible for the loss of it in the FIRST place. his disability is a result of poor financial decisions and ofc there is no excuse to be ableist towards him for it

quite frankly he's written so poorly that there's nothing I personally can latch onto to give him much benefit of the doubt. I'm still going to hold him more responsible for not trying to find SOME WAY to take care of his daughters. NESTA reached out to relatives, FEYRE stepped up to hunt for them and he... makes wood carvings that don't even sell

Nesta being more vilified for the cabin years compared to their father, who is directly responsible for the loss of their wealth, has made me heartless towards him

he was useless before they lost their wealth and he was useless well after. He was, quite frankly, a deadbeat father, who threw Nesta to the wolves (his wife and her mother), who favored Feyre and Elain over her time and time again and I'm sorry but me saying he's useless is exactly what he was

he's a useless parent who let his children be neglected and/or further abused by his wife. maybe if SJM wrote him better, with more nuance, actually building on the dynamics between his wife and himself, instead of saying he was afraid of NESTA, a fourteen year old girl, I might have a different opinion but right now he doesn't have a whole lot of sympathy from me considering my own history with my disabled, terminally ill mother doing her best and killing herself taking care of us while also in an abusive, violent marriage

SJM didn't write it well enough for me to offer any kind of grace bec quite frankly, I am also really, really sick of father figure characters getting off the hook while the female characters are burned at the stake for being flawed and/or unperfect caretakers, which, to be clear, Nesta WAS NOT in the first place

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Jazz for two

I'm so glad we got to watch this in a week because I don't think I could handle the weekly viewing. What a mess.

Let me start by saying that I read the source material and although that doesn't help at all, it's not why this show doesn't work for me. These are my immediate thoughts after watching. There will be webtoon spoilers.

Two things really bothered me about this adaptation.

First thing was the character of Seohon. This boy has absolutely no agency here and is submissive to every other character. The second is TaeJoon's (TaeYi's brother) storyline.

I could argue that these two things are connected by way of Seheon father. So here is the family background in the original.

-Seheon lives with his mother and not his father. In fact his father abandoned the family and that's why in the WT he can't play piano at home because his father was a piano player and mom doesn't want to be reminded of him. -Seoheon only sees his father occasionally at his office, he's a piano teacher, where he gets to play. -The father was TaeJoon's teacher and they got involved. He cheated on his wife with him. He was not homophobic. He left the family to be with TaeJoon. I'm not gonna go into why they broke up and TaeYi's brother commited suicide because there's a lot more characters that influenced this. Suffice it to say that in the end he was caught by someone else and basically left him.

So why they added the bully father is beyond me but I guess it makes the fact that Seoheon is so submissive more plausible. I can understand why they wouldn't want the dad and the brother story line here. But I don't get why they thought that adding the homophobic brother was a better choice.

I'm gonna echo @lurkingshan feeling here regarding episode 7. That episode made absolutely no sense whatsoever. None of it is credible. They both do a 180 in a matter of minutes. And because of the way they wrote Seheon here, it just makes him look stupid. I'm not gonna compare with the original because it really doesn't matter. It's just bad writing here.

If the main couple is rushed, don't even get me started on the second one. It's just not believable. They removed so much from their story that it just looks like Do Yoon has to be out of his mind to actually fall for this guy. And yes, the original is also a bully/victim romance, if anything he's even more violent, specially toward Seheon, so I'm not saying it's a good couple either way. But at least in the original Jun-Ha is multi dimensional and you can actually empathize with him in moments. Although I wasn't a fan of them in either media. And also this romance takes a while to actually happen so it's definitely easier to buy.

This story is full of traumatized and flawed characters. And I knew from the start that it would be hard to adapt into 8 episodes of 30 minutes. To do that they'd have to cut a lot and honestly I'm still in disbelief about what they chose to keep. All the character are so superficial so none of it lands for me. There's no emotional connection for me to grab on to. It's not enough to give a character a traumatic past. That alone does not a fully fleshed out character make.

Nothing about this story rings true for me and this is not a defense of the WT because that also is not perfect. It's way too long and there's too much shagging filler but I really liked the characters in it. They were much more complex and it all read much more believable. There's also a couple more characters that are pretty important in bringing the whole story together.

There's obviously a lot more things wrong with this but this is already long.

[If anyone else read the original and I made a mistake here please let know. I don't think I did but I've read it a while ago and didn't really wanna go back after watching it]

[1rsoldiersince2012]

Bound by Law (Matt Murdock x Reader)

Words: 4371 (chapter 36)

Summary:

You and Matt met in the courtroom. Now, you may think that Matt was a knight in shining armour and defended you in the name of all United States laws, but that was not the case. Matt was totally destroying your client, and you wanted to tear him into pieces right then and right there, because with Murdock as your rival, your head is on the firm's plate with each case. Did Matt care? No, he only cared about bringing justice, he was a human-machine, driven by the need to bring righteousness no matter the cost. Or was he just that? What happens when you get involved in Fisk's business and Daredevil's lies against your will?

WE ARE COOKING YA'LL

36. Interlude

"This doesn't change anything, Ben."

"Except now we know who your king of diamonds is." Foggy adds to Karen's words and looks at Ben, standing in the the middle of the office.

"You see the news? Everything's changed. Fisk has gotten out in front of being dragged into the spotlight. My editor thinks he's the Second Coming. Hell, the whole city does." Ben pulls out a fresh newspaper, Fisk proudly occupying the whole front page.

"So, we just... We keep digging."

"I've been doing that. Internet went from nothing on Fisk to filled with three-hanky stories about a poor little fat kid from Hell's Kitchen. Abandoned by his father when he was 12. Mother died a year later. Now look at him. Boot straps and a big dream." Ben exhales loudly, rubbing his forehead.

"Somebody knows something. It's just a matter of asking the right people the right questions in the right tone of voice." Foggy says, sure of his words.

"Yeah, that's how you get yourself hurt." Ben raises his eyebrows theatrically.

"That's what I keep telling them." Matt silently slips inside the office upon Ben's last words. "Maybe they'll listen to you."

"Ben Urich, Matt Murdock. Attorney at Why the Hell Bother." Karen introduces the two of them with a hint of annoyance.

"Mr. Murdock." Ben shakes his hand.

"Matt." Matt corrects Ben, hearing your slow steps outside in the corridor.

You return to the office, moments later, noticing a new face in the middle of the room. Extending your arm, you intently look at his face, "I know you from somewhere."

"Ben Urich, New York Bulletin." He takes your hand, eyes shining in a weird way, as if he knew more about you than you did. Taking in your rather disheveled appearance. 

"Y/n." You let go of his hand first, "You were that journalist in courtroom when I had my case televised."

"Yes, and I gotta say, it was a pretty damn good case." He cracks a smile, yet you don't show any signs of appreciation.

"You also wrote about the attack on me at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz. Could've tried to write at least a believable amout of lies." You say, watching his reaction.

His smile doesn't fall, on the contrary, it only gets bigger, "Well, in my line of work, that's a compliment.

Foggy shakes his head at the interaction and brings back the previous topic, "My partner thinks we should be pursuing this through the legal system."

"A lot safer that way." Ben agrees.

"Well, why don't we all just crawl under the covers, then?" Karen ignites again, and you close your eyes in hopes of keeping your mouth shut this time, already catching up with the talk.

"No, Karen-" Matt begins softly, only to be cut short by Karen.

"Well, I'm sorry, but if Fisk is really behind everything that has happened, then we need to do something."

"If we were the only ones after him, I'd tend to agree." Ben says mysteriously, "Friend of yours came to see me the other night the man in the mask."

"Terrorist cop-killer." Foggy repeats Fisk's previous words, and you can't help but agree with Fisk here. Your heart drops and face becomes even paler than it was since the day started.

"Says he was framed." Ben adds nonchalantly, turning around to catch everyone's expressions. Matt turns his back away from the group.

"I could say I'm Captain America, but it doesn't put wings on my head." Foggy rolls his eyes, only to be shut by Karen.

"What did he want?"

"Same thing we do... expose Fisk. I printed this from a thumb drive he gave me." Ben hands Karen a bunch of papers. She snatches them like a hawk and hurries to sit behind her desk. In the meantime, you lean on the nearby wall, feeling that the dizziness from lack of sleep and not eating normal food is finally catching up with you. 

"Oh, my God!" Karen exclaims and starts flipping through the pages. 

"Told me Fisk was behind the bombings and shooting those cops said he owns half the police that they helped him take down the Russians." Ben continues, looking around the room again, and takes a notice that you're not yourself today. He remembers vividly that day when he sat in the courtroom during your televised case - you were almost glowing and full of life. Now it seemed to him that you were either sick or angry or depressed.

"But I don't understand. If you have all of this, then..." Karen blabbers again, only this time Matt interrupts her. 

"Hearsay. Can't print any of it without corroboration, can you?"

"He could just be throwing smoke. I mean, he just killed Detective Blake." Foggy adds, much to Matt's displease.

"Said Blake's partner Hoffman did it, probably on Fisk's orders. But yeah, it occurred to me." Ben nods.

"You could talk to Hoffman." Matt pouts in thought, and you almost find it amusing in this kind of situation.

"Tried. He's in the wind. Or bottom of the river. Either way."Ben shrugs, now completely helpless. 

"He just shrugged." Foggy says to Matt.

"Wait, what about the Union Allied money? Is there a way that we can tie it directly to Fisk?" Karen rises from her chair. 

"Maybe. According to the Mask, a man named, uh, Leland Owlsley runs the books. But since getting roughed up by him, Owlsley's been surrounded by Fisk's security. Can't get anywhere near him." Ben shakes his head, "Same goes with, uh, James Wesley, the guy you said hired you to defend Healy." 

Upon the mention of Wesley, you feel two sets of eyes staring at you. "What?" You say defensively, "I'm not in contact with him anymore." Crossing your arms, you turn your eyes towards the window, avoiding making eye contact with anyone in the room. Ben raises an eyebrow at Karen, but she only grimaces slightly, not giving any answer to his wordless question. Matt senses something in your voice, perhaps an underlying lie that he can't put a finger on just yet.

"Look, the Mask came to Ben for help. And I don't care how rich Fisk is, nobody can totally erase their past. I mean, somewhere out there, there has to be a piece of paper, a witness... the truth."

"What about Confederated Global? The suit that hired us to defend Healy standing right next to Fisk when he gave his big speech." Foggy looks at you again, only to find you staring with a hard look on your face out the window. 

"I looked into that. According to FCC filings, Confed Global's where Fisk gets most of his reported income."

"All right, let's play this out. If Fisk is connected to Confed Global, that means he's involved in Westmeyer-Holt Contracting, which Westmeyer-Holt is strong-arming tenants out of their rent-controlled apartments." Matt gestures with his hands slightly, pulling back your attention. For whatever crazy reason, he felt sorry that you were put into this position by Wesley now. After your last burst of emotions, Karen felt distrustful towards you, but in Matt's mind that was understandable reaction.

"Um, they were hired by a guy named Armand Tully." Karen quickly adds.

"The slumlord?" Ben makes sure he heard it right.

"Landman and Zack say he's on vacation on an island that no one can pronounce, where they use coconuts as phones." Foggy shrugs, and you wonder if he's still in contact with Marci. Foggy catches your curious look and feels his cheeks burning.

"Another connection in the wind." Ben hangs his head low, earning an apologetic look from Karen.

"Westmeyer-Holt to Confed to Fisk. We pull that thread, see what it unravels." Matt begins circling around the room.

"Still not sure about this mask guy." Foggy says and you agree with him with a hum.

"He didn't hurt Ben and he didn't hurt me. I'll take the Devil of Hell's Kitchen over Fisk any day. Plus, he kicks ass." Karen says, eyes clashing with you. 

"Karen, you know, maybe refrain from these talks in a law office, or someone might think that you're ready to take his place in jail." You smile at her sourly. Karen bites her lip, clearly not satisfied with the way you put her in her place. "He's a vigilante after all." 

Ben nods to himself again. Your frustration was justifiable, he knew what it felt like to lose a well-paid job and start a new chapter of life. Maybe life wasn't treating you right now.

"Well, if he's such a badass, why did he come to Ben? Why not just take Fisk down himself?" Foggy silently agrees with you. 

"Maybe he knows there's some roads you can't come back from." Ben replies mysteriously.

*** 

You look around, noticing the interior of the church. Clinton Church. You've never been here before. Your parents were not too religious to regularly go to church, so it didn't pass on you either. God? You didn't believe in God, because in the end, you saved yourself, not God. He didn't save you, he didn't save anyone. God was just a mythical creation, made up so that in the worst moments, people wouldn't lose their hope. God didn't mean anything to you, because if he was real, if he was righteous, you wouldn't have to deal with all these injustices everyday. If he was real, the world would've been a better place. But it wasn't. Never going to be.

The lights were lit on only at the front, only near the altar, and you catch yourself looking at the cross and Jesus on it. Was he even real? Or was he only a copy of someone else's imagination? Every cross was different, unique, yet everyone imagined the same man crucified, same man hanging his head to the side, same man with a woven crown of thorns, sticking into his forehead like needles. If he was real, in your mind he was stupid. Sacrificing yourself for the sins of the people? They were not worth it, not then and surely not now. Maybe he was real. Maybe he was a saint, but he was also blind. Blind to notice that humanity wasn't ready to understand his sacrifice, blind to think that it still meant something thousands of years later. Blind like Lady Justice. 

Involuntary, you shiver. The air was rather cool inside the church and somehow, not even your coat was keeping you warm. Turning to your right, you glance at Foggy, eyes cast down into his lap, fingers nervously playing with the hem of his coat. Movement in the front catches your attention and you see Father Lantom emerge from the shadows. He looks at all four of you, eyes lingering on a new face here - you. Feeling uneasy under the intense gaze, you bow your head down, almost in shame. You've never liked priests in general, because they looked at you as if they knew who you were under that facade. Father Lantom notices the change in your face and clear his throat. 

You only hear half of the things that he's saying; distracted by the way sunlight falls though the multicoloured windows and Karen's silent sniffling, you felt like an intruder here. Father continued talking about God, the fragility of life and the values of believing. None of this made sense to you, so you distracted your thoughts from the reason that brought all four of you here. Wesley. That bastard really sugar-coated you before throwing you unprepared to the lions. And now he was proudly marching behind Fisk on live television? You felt sick again, the need to throw up returned, yet there was nothing in your stomach the whole day, and the acidic aftertaste returned. 

"Shall we go?" Foggy nudges your arm gently, and you look at him wide-eyed for a good second. 

"Yeah." You whisper, and get up, letting everyone pass through, side lining with Matt. Father Lantom walks behind the two of you, clearly in thought. Matt has mentioned a woman before, he spoke so fondly of her that Lantom was in no doubt that Matt fell in love. He now wondered if that woman was you, or Karen; but Karen's name has been said when Matt talked about the friendships that he made. So it left him with one answer - you.

"Excuse me, but I don't think I've seen you in church before." Father Lantom comes in between you and Matt, and gives a warm smile, almost making you grimace at his comment. You knew it bound to happen, these type of things were always inevitable.

"Um, yeah, no, I'm not really a churchgoer." You shrug slowly, turning your eyes away from his piercing blue ones. 

"Not religious or not enough time?" Father smiles again, so kindly, that you feel the urge to pour your heart out to him. 

There was that feeling again, feeling that he can read you like an open book. "A bit of both." You say at first, then feeling like it's not a good place for lying, add, "mostly the first one."

"Ah. Well, Matthew here has been caught up in his work, he never visits me these days."

"Father..." Matt begins, feeling exposed. Father knows about his little nightly rendezvous, so it shouldn't really surprise him that he doesn't go to church any more.

"Oh, really?" You ask, stealing a glance at Matt, then crack a small smile, "blame me for this one Father, since he employed me, we've been very busy with work. And... I'm not a particularly good influence on him." 

Matt feels his cheeks heating up.

"Really? Well, Matthew, I'll take it to consideration for your next confession. Whenever that may be."

"Yeah." Matt mutters, thankful to finally go out into the fresh air. 

Nearing the small graveyard that was close to the church, you notice the casket next to the grave. Shivers run down your spine, head full of unpleasant memories and images, but you try to calm yourself, blaming it on the wind. All four of you stand at the end of the grave, watching the graveyard worker lower the casket into the ground slowly, accompanied by the final words that Father is saying to Mrs Cardenas, and almost instinctively, your hand finds Matt's by his side, slipping your fingers between his cold ones. The emotions run wild through your head, your blood, but you only close your eyes, focusing on the warmth that you felt when Matt squeezes your hand back. Opening your eyes, you turn to your right briefly, noticing a single tear rolling down Matt's cheek - so different from the sobbing beside you from Foggy and Karen. You glance at your hands tightly pressed together, so almost perfectly fitting, and only now realize just how close he was standing from the beginning. 

Father closes the Bible, and a quick glance at Matt and you, answers his questions. The way you looked at him told a million things, but most importantly, it told Father that Matt's feeling were not one-sided. 

*** 

"I've been such an asshole to her the first time we met." You scoff, hiding your face behind an almost empty whiskey glass. Foggy and Karen share a look, one that you wouldn't be able to decipher, even if you noticed it in the first place. "I guess they really turn you into a robot in HCB."

"Well, I know for a fact that people turn worse in Landman and Zack." Matt replies, drinking as well. If tonight was about drowning sorrows, he was making sure he fulfilled that.

Karen turns her face towards the TV and her eyes widen immediately. Foggy nudges your elbow, making you turn to look at the screen, and the need to throw up returns again. "Hey, Josie, could you turn that up?"

"No, I never had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Cardenas. I only recently took possession of her building." Fisk blabbers on the screen again, and you notice Wesley standing behind him. How the hell did the press find out about Elena so quickly?

"How do you respond to reports that you knew the tenement was unsafe?" A reporter asks, but Fisk doesn't move a single muscle in protest.

"That is accurate." He replies, taking a pause after the sentence. "That's why we offered a substantial sum to Ms. Cardenas and her neighbours. To help them relocate." He looks around at all the press, Wesley scanning the crowd like a hawk. "We should never let good people get swallowed up by this city. I mourn this woman's death."

You loudly scoff to yourself, and the whole table of Nelson and Murdock find themselves internally agreeing with you. 

"Didn't have to happen. It should've..." Fisk's words get interrupted by Foggy's ringing phone. "Her passing is a symptom of a larger disease..." Foggy fishes his phone and leaves the table. "- infecting all of us. Disease of fear..." The TV glitches for a couple of times, only pieces of sentence are heard. "...fear of bombings, fear of cop killings. Fear of a masked psychopath." 

Matt feels his blood boiling in his alcohol-filled veins.

"We shouldn't let people like that take our city from us. We need to stand together. Let them know that they will fail... because we believe we can make a difference." Fisk's words make you wonder if he has learned the speech beforehand and if Wesley wrote it. After all, he was doing all the butt-kissing. " 'Cause they are cowards! Afraid of stepping out of the shadows. Afraid of standing up for people like Mrs. Cardenas."

"Mr. Fisk, how does this affect the upcoming benefit?" Someone behind the camera shouts.

Wesley steps up into the spotlight, "That will be all. Thank you." Hearing his voice again after days of radio silence caused your anger to spike up.  "No more questions."

"What can we do about this psycho..." another man begins, only to be cut short by a commercial break.

"Jesus, he almost sounds like he means it." Karen is the first one to break the silence.

"I think he does." Matt answers shortly.

Karen scoffs, "And he's calling the man in the mask a psycho?" With this one, you agreed. The man in the mask was a psycho to you, and Karen's enthusiasm to constantly talk about how great he is, sometimes made you think that she was madly in love with the vigilante. "I hope they trace what happened to Elena right to his doorstep."

"He'd never expose himself like that. Plus, half the force is probably in his pocket. Well, then, let's pray the Mask gets his hands on him. Knocks his goddamn head off."

"You religious, Karen?" Matt suddenly asks, but the topic doesn't pick up your attention.  

"My parents were. That's probably why I'm not. You?" 

"Catholic." Matt answers shortly. You receive a fresh whiskey glass and down it in one go, relaxing your muscles when it burns your throat. 

"Does it help? With things like this?" 

"Not today." Matt moves his lips slighly, which looks like a half of a grin. "I think I've had enough. Tell Foggy I'll see him in the morning." You pick up Matt's last words and turn to look at him already getting up to leave.

"Wait, I'm going too." You gently stop him by grabbing his wrist and his whole body goes stiff.

"Hey, Matt. If there is a God and if he cares at all about about any of us Fisk will get what he deserves." Karen says to Matt while you pull out a 100 dollar bill and give it to Josie. "You have to believe that."

"I do." He replies, still lingering next to the table while you put on your coat. 

"Tell Foggy..." you begin, sliding your hand on Matt's elbow a little too comfortably for Karen's liking, but she just puts you down for being drunk, "tell him nothing, I'm an independent woman. Lights out!" You say and quickly disappear in the street. 

Matt says nothing. His mind was occupied by other things, until you decided to grab a taxi together, but eventually agreed to swing by his place. Why? Because Matt insisted on ordering a takeout, adding "I don't think you ate proper food today at all" in a fatherly tone.

*** 

Foggy's new case was interesting for about 30 minutes, while you two shared a huge pizza. The whole time you avoided acknowledging the obvious, not talking about Elena or Fisk at all costs. Before Matt introduced beer to the conversation, which got you quite tipsy and relaxed; if you're not counting the alcohol consumed at Josie's.  At first it was light talk, jokes, giggling and laughing, trying to lighten up the sour mood, until you felt your stomach hurt, but then, as usual, the conversation turned to more serious topics.

Matt spins the bootle in his hand lazily, legs stretched out on the coffee table, as the laughter dies, his face becomes serious, maybe even curious and you wait for his question. "So, what was that thing with you and Karen?"

"What thing?"

"The thing... You know... Shouting one."

"Oh, that." You take a long sip of the beer, trying to delay answering for as long as possible. "I just don't like others in my business, that's all."

"Why's that?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Well it's quite a long story... But in short, some guy almost fucked up mine and Pug's internship."

"Don't leave me hanging now." He shoots a shy grin.

"Well, we got lucky with that internship, very lucky actually." You sigh, stretching your legs on Matt's coffee table as well. "And Dave was there too."

"Oof, I hate Dave already." Matt huffs a laugh, "wait, who's Pug?"

"My college best friend. So, anyway, we basically won the lottery with our internship at Latham & Wakins, this is still one of the best law firms in LA, and only very few students get to intern there. Of course, our professor wanted to send as many students as he possibly could to the firm, mainly caring about his own reputation as the best prof in the whole university, but I know that he also wanted us to succeed. So Pug and I, we get internships, we're over the moon, we go out, drink like there's no tomorrow, and then we bump into one guy from our classes." You clear your throat, taking a sip again.

"Dave, right?" Matt asks, with slow movements loosening his tie. 

"Yeah. So he's a total shit-talker, we're absolutely wasted, and somehow he talks us into getting him into Latham & Wakins. Next day, we go to the offices, they walk us around, introduce us to the bosses and blah blah, and this fucker, he befriends our boss. Not only befriends, he sleeps with her." You raise your eyebrows for a dramatic effect.

"No way." Matt lets out a laugh, going to bring more beer, still paying attention to your talk.

"Guess what happened then. He takes all of our cases. Our prof starts getting angry, he calls the firm's boss, I remember this, we were smoking outside his office when he made the call. So, he calls her, he's like 'my two brightest students are interning at your firm, and three weeks later you still haven't given them a case?'. I have no idea what's happening on the other side of the phone, but our prof is just pissed, he smokes two cigarettes during the whole phone call time, and let me tell you, the guy hasn't smoked in 20 years. He says that he fixed it and we can return to Latham & Wakins. We go there the same day, and we still don't get a fucking case. At this point, I'm fuming, I barge right into our boss's office, and there was Dave. Fucking her on her desk."

"No-" Matt gasps, handing you a new bottle and sitting a bit closer on the sofa than before. 

"I wanted to forget that image for years, and I still can't." You shiver dramatically. "They catch me and Pug in the parking lot, beg us to not expose them and promise that we will get all the best new cases. Of course, we agree, holding it against them that we can and will expose their little affair if it's necessary, because she was a married woman. All's good, we get full marks for our internship, we get paid more than we could've imagined, but just as we step out with our internship documents, we call our prof, and expose that bitch."

"She got fired?"

"Not only that, she's suspended from practising law for five years, and Dave was kicked out of university as soon as he returned." 

"That's one hell of a ride." Matt laughs. "Now it kind of makes sense."

"Pug's the only person I trust with my work, he doesn't seek glory at the cost of others."

"What about me?" Matt's lips perk up into a smirk.

"You don't seem like the Dave-type." You smile warmly, noticing the distance between the two of you. "Although, I don't know you long enough to check that out."

"Not long enough? It feels like ages since I beat you in court." 

"Yeah, and now I work for you." You laugh, earning another smile from Matt. 

Matt suddenly changes the topic, "You know what Elena told me one time when you stepped out to smoke?" This immediately gains your attention.

"What?"

"She said that she has never seen someone so in love, but then there were you." His lips twich slightly. "But it sounded way better in Spanish."

"Why did she tell you that?" You smile, slightly furrowing your eyebrows. Being drunk right now was no help at all.

"She wanted me to know that since... you know, I can't really see those things."

"Oh." You sigh, not pulling your eyes away from Matt, "She was a very smart woman."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, she wasn't wrong." You blurt out, covering your mouth with your hand. 

Matt stretches his hand out, his fingers brush against yours, and he gently takes your hand, touching your nails. "What color are they?" He softly asks, scooting closer.

"My nails?" You ask, trying to hide your surprise that he left with his touch. He nods, expectantly. "Red."

"Red like what?"

You furrow your eyebrows momentarily, but then you understand exactly what Matt meant. "Uh, it's dark red, almost like a chilli pepper or... Blood." His touch makes your head dizzy. "Or your glasses. I hate when you wear them." Feeling bold out of the blue, you take off his glasses, "your eyes are very pretty." 

"Can I do something?" Matt asks, turning the talk away from himself once again.

"Depends."

[mixelation]

I would love to see you rank Akatsuki by how shippable they are with Kakashi

oh my god. called out. but i will answer. CRACKS KNUCKLES

tbh this was kind of hard to write because even though i love akatsuki ships AND i love kakashi ships, there's not a lot of.... like..... easy/natural chemistry going on here??

least to most shippable

9. Zetsu - Does anyone ship Zetsu? No. Get out of here, Zetsu.

8. Pein - I think the connection here would be like. Similar Traumas (tm) and I know some people like this but I don't LMAO. That or missing-nin!Kakashi joins Akatsuki because he likes what Pein is selling philosophically, and it turns into one of those "loyal follower sets themselves apart in order for leader to notice them Romantically" which is another dynamic I know some like but I don't.

7. Kisame - Kisame is Chill For An Evil Villain and I think he'd admire Kakashi's philosophy of ninja who abandon their comrades being less than trash. He'd be annoyed but not lose his mind over some of Kakashi's more annoying traits. But, idk, this ship doesn't really have enough Spice for me.

6. Itachi - I like the fanon that Itachi and Kakashi were friendly in ANBU, and for a long time I liked the idea of them running into each other years later and reconnecting in a more shippy way. But I have rotated and rotated this and I cannot make it work in a shippy way. I've read some fics and they else seem to just not have.... a spark? a Spice? There's something missing. I just like them more with a platonic dynamic.

5. Sasori - There are some interesting parallels and contrasts and vague plot connections between these two, but oh my GOD is it hard to fit them all together in a compelling way. There's probably something in "Your father killed my parents and it fucked me up for life" vs "Yeah well, then he also killed my father and fucked me up for life" but you will have to work so hard to extract it. Sasori and Kakashi are antisocial weirdos in opposing ways and GETTING them to the point where you can do anything is so hard.

4. Kakuzu - Despite fighting each other, canon failed to produce any emotional connection at all between Kakuzu and Kakashi, which is unfair to us all. Kakuzu is ranked here because he's the first person on this list I can see getting into bed with Kakashi without the writer having to do a shit ton of work. Kakuzu fucks. Kakashi fucks. I think under the right circumstances they'd fuck each other. If I wrote it, I'd have a Catfishing AU where they're both trying to lure the other one out to collect Dat Bounty but they're doing it via the lonely hearts section of a newspaper. Anyway their public personas don't impress each other but once they switch to private letters they both realize they're both weird kinky freaks. Kakuzu WAS trying to catfish you in that he lying about his age and name and sent a fake photo, but somehow he was not lying about the tentacles.

3. Hidan - I think Kakashi and Hidan would make eye contact across a bar and then go hook up. I just think they're both like this. Maybe they run into each other again later and are like, "fuck it, why not?" It's a very straight forward relationship and both somehow miss all the ways the other one is completely unhinged. ALTERNATIVELY, Hidan thinking Kakashi's suffering and wallowing is so, so beautiful.

2. Deidara - Okay. Do you remember his "sees Itachi for the first time" face? I think Deidara would make this face at a raikiri. And as we all know, Deidara is at his cutest when screaming because someone is actively trolling him, and Kakashi loves trolling people. I don't think Deidara would be very impressed with Kakashi's dedication to a never ending mourning period, BUT I think there's room for interesting character growth on both sides here. Also I just think Kakashi should fuck him. As a little treat

I. Konan - Okay. Listen. My ideal Kakashi het ship is "weird damp man and woman who would crumple him up and wring him out like a paper towel." This is them. Kakashi literally only knows how to take care of his loved ones by going out and killing their enemies and Konan thinks this is so sweet. She doesn't NEED him to, but he does go out and kill people she hates and he's not even weird about it. Kakashi murdered more specific enemies of the Ame or Akatsuki than the Akatsuki. Very cute. Also they'd look good together. ALSO the pairing of her blank, judgmental stare and his trolly grin. Excellent vibes all around

BONUS RANKINGS:

Orochimaru (between Deidara and Konan) - They would hook up specifically for the psychic damage to everyone they know.

Obito (True Number One) - OBVIOUSLY. Rivals to friends to enemies to lovers! The mutual obsession! Bonus identity porn!

[yuikomorii]

Hello! So there's this specific question that has been running through my mind for some time now that I would like to share with you to get you're thoughts and analysis on. So, in Diabolik Lovers More Blood, In the scene when Ruki threatens Yui to stay inside inside of his room (Since she made a escape attempt) we actually get a glimpse of his parents Physical Appearance although there faces we're blurred, but looking into Ruki's past we never really got a clear background on them even though it's the same with the rest of the Mukami brothers as well. But, beside the fact that we don't really technically have a clue on who they're parents are, we seem to have more of a perspective on Ruki's since we actually know what they look like partially which is really interesting. So, looking back at it, is there any more key information or details in the Games, Anime, or Manga about the concept of background of Mukami Ruki's parents (That I probably missed and might not be able to exactly Recall at the moment?) (Also, you're writing is top teir so knowing you're thoughts and analyzing for this would be awesome, hopefully I clarified myself correctly when writing this).

// Thank you for the compliment, this is a really interesting ask!

Minor characters anime appearances aren't meant to be 100% accurate but rather easier for the illustrator to draw, so it's possible that they didn't actually look like that because their canon appearance wasn't confirmed anywhere.

We know that his parents were aristocrats and according to Ruki, his father used to be a really good man before having to do with Trismegiste. As for his mother, in the LE flashbacks she seemed a nice person, which really makes me question how did Ruki become so bratty to the point of whipping and belittling servants, showing no sign of respect towards them if his parents were so sweet. Maybe he was extremely spoiled but I feel like his parents should have noticed this behavior and try to educate him, you know?

I also find it suspicious how his mom literally found a new lover due to her husband's abusive behavior, ran away with him and wrote Ruki a letter in which she told him "I love you". If she truly loved her child, she would have taken him with her, or she would not have abandoned him at all, and they would have struggled together, like family.

[liauditore]

tw dysphoria (i guess?), abandonment issues (it always when we talk about jimmy), just rambling about jimmy not being a toy but being dysphoric about it

(you can just delete it before reading if it could trigger you)

in my head all this "jimmy is a toyyy!!!" arc was not about haha toy story and let's ignore how they could know about it, okay, it's like how scott doesn't remember pearl and jimmy just OMG MY RANCHER, OMG SCAR, OH NO, GRIAN and yeah yeah yeah

you know that thing when everyone bulling person and calling them, for example, "monster" and they are like, well, a lot of people call me that, i should conform (megamind basically). that's something similar, everyone call jimmy a toy (which he's not) and he's starting to doubt if he's a human. everything joel did to him (or its all hallucinations or joel really can control it and make jimmy toy for some time) just making worth. jimmy wasn't a toy, was he? (in my headcanons sheriff jimmy it's cod jimmy that decided to try again but absolute opposite of what he was.)

and because of green also making hallucinations for him (i hope you knows green something like origin, you can find it something in romeos blog, i wrote about it a little), jimmy is really can't really say if he's not a toy. he doesn't want to belive it and we can see it in dialogues with scar, that jimmy refusing to be a toy, an action figure, everything besides who he really is.

i can imagine him, avoiding mirrors and reflective surfaces, so he won't see himself. i'm really inspired to write it all bc of cavetown dysphoric, it's so jimmy for me

it's been over a year now

i thought it was the end

but now i don't remember comfort

because what i am is what i'm not

i don't belong here, it's just hopeless

find me a way out

if you love me at all

don't let me hear what they say

cuz i can't stand it every day

i'm thinking that i should leave now

but i don't i think i'm coming back this time

it's killing my heart.

and scar was the only one who doesn't call jimmy a toy like 90% of their time together. jimmy knows that scar will leave, like his rancher left him, like emp1 scott left him alone with problem with cod father head and yeah yeah yeah....

i don't know, i just woke up and my brain wad like good morning, honey, it's time to make people suffer

- 🔥

angst?? for me??? 🥺🥺👉👈

HKDHKHLADH SCrEAMING,, putting thoughts under the cut cus i already know its gonna get Long but hkhlkfdhjk

OuGH i love this 😭😭😭 although the megamind comparison kinda sent me lmao

side note i am. into very disturbing and messed up themes so you'd have to try very, very hard to upset me. so go wild in my ask box lol (i do have a good chunk of ppl who just have 'minor' in their bios following me tho so i might not respond to smth if i feel like it's 'too far' or hide it under a cut but yeah)

^realising this sounds like a "i am very badass" thing but i swear i just think stuff is cool 😭😭😭

BUT ANYWAY ouhfhkl mind break and objectification my beloved. i love taking the toy bit in an angsty direction cus i'll be honest i never really found the humour in it but it's TASTY recontextualized.

Jimmy's got a lot of fight in him but I'm just thinking maybe one day it all becomes a bit too much and he just.. goes limp in his seat, eyes glazed over, motionless except for his chest rising and falling with each breath. Someone (maybe Scar, since we're doing Scaridarity) finds him and is like "Hey, what's wrong? You okay?" and gets no response.

Scar would probably be somewhat uninitiated on the whole toy thing and be puzzled but I'd think he scoops Jimmy up and takes him somewhere safe til he recovers. and when he finally gets up he has a bit of a panic attack about what is real.