#the more rewarding I find gentle parenting

[hobbitsetal]

theology of gentle parenting

My mother believes tantrums are inherently sinful, wrong expressions of will. I cannot agree. Not least because Original Sin is an Augustinian notion, but also because I look at my son, losing his little mind because I denied him a fourth treat.

He has no concept of right and wrong. He knows only "want" and "don't have." He experiences disappointment, yet without the grownup capacity to rationalize and accept. He screamed because I took a bath too hot for his little body, and because he was tired and cranky.

Say it is sinful. Say he is doing wrong. Surely grace becomes so much more imperative? He has no concept of right and wrong. He knows only the strong emotions of the moment, and he is distracted in the next by his toys. Or we take a timeout and help him calm, teach him to soothe those emotions.

But why is it sinful? He has these Big Emotions and no words to put them in. Are not emotions from God? Is it sinful to feel disappointed? Or angry? The proverb says "be angry, and do not sin." Is not the anger accepted, then? Are we condemned for emotion?

I cannot accept that. I cannot believe in a God Who forms us a certain way and then damns us for acting as we're formed. I cannot accept such injustice. So I will show my son grace and gentleness. Is that not divine? And even if I am wrong, if it's sin after all, is not forgiveness, compassion, Love the essence of the Divine?

[moonstruckme]

I love your works! If you're willing, can you write something about tasm!Peter just like finding out about reader's sh scars? I'm not sure if you've done this already or not and I'm going through a tough time so I just really want some Peter comfort 😭. If you're not comfortable that's totally understandable! Please don't feel pressured to do this ❤️

Thank you sweetheart, I really hope your tough time is getting a bit easier or does soon <33

cw: past self-harm

tasm!Peter Parker x fem!reader ♡ 775 words

Maybe it’s a good thing that you’re comfortable enough around Peter to forget. Even though you’ve only been dating a few months, you feel (sappily) like you’ve known him for years. You just fit together. Going over to his place is like going to your parents’ house or your best friend’s; it’s already home for you, comfy and welcoming in a way that usually only comes with history. Peter feels like he was yours before you met him. 

That sense of familiarity is probably why you don’t think to be self-conscious. It’s the first day of the year that New York is warm enough to go out without a jacket, and you’re celebrating with a short-sleeved top and a skirt. Both thin and airy, perfect for the day you’ve planned at the park. Peter’s packing your lunches when you step out of the bedroom, feeling very cute. 

Your confidence is rewarded. Peter grins, mouth dropping open coyly, and whistles when you do a little twirl for him. 

“I’m gonna have to play interference between you and other guys all day,” he says, not sounding particularly unhappy about the prospect as he passes you your water bottle. “I filled this up so we have more than just soda, that okay?” 

“Good idea.” You nod, taking it and putting it in your bag. 

You look back up, and somehow your boyfriend’s mood has changed in the space of a second. A furrow has appeared between his brows, eyes stuck on where your arm brushes against the fabric of your skirt at your side. 

“What’s…” His brows twitch and he holds a hand out. “Can I see your arm?” 

You give it to him unthinkingly, an awkward sort of foreboding taking root in your gut. Peter holds it with extreme gentleness, rotating it so the delicate skin of your forearm is exposed to the light. It’s only then that you remember he might not know. His quiet inhale confirms it. 

“Sweetheart…” His thumb brushes over the scar nearest, and you can practically see his mind flashing through memories of long sleeves, dark nights in his bed, the way you’d insisted on changing in the bathroom when you’d first started staying over. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, though you’re not sure what for. For upsetting him, maybe. Even though it was inevitable. Honestly, your closeness with Peter had almost made you forget he hadn’t already seen them. He’s got to be the last person in your small circle of family and friends who hadn’t known. You’re not secretive about that part of your past. You blame it on the timing of your relationship; you’d started dating when the weather got cold, and it had just never come up. 

“You don’t need to be sorry,” he says softly, an automatic response to your chronic over-apologizing. “Can I just…can I ask when this happened?” 

“It was a long time ago,” you reassure him. “I haven’t done it for years.” 

His brown eyes flit up from your arm to meet yours. “Have you wanted to?” 

Your breath gets caught in your lungs. You hold his gaze. “Not for a while.” 

He exhales slowly, nodding. It feels odd to have your arm handled this gently. Peter’s always so kind with you, but the way he’s touching you now…it’s like he thinks the skin will break again if he’s not careful. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

You make a quiet, demurring sound. “For what?” 

“Just that I wasn’t there. I don’t like the idea of you hurting without me.” 

“Pete.” Your voice is gentle, chiding. “We didn’t even know each other back then.” 

“Exactly.” He releases your arm, hand moving to cup your face. “I just wish I’d known you, that’s all.” 

His eyes are soft on yours, unasking. Fond in a way that makes your throat clog. “You don’t have to worry about me,” you say. 

“I like worrying about you.” His mouth tilts upward, cupid’s bow stretching. “But if you don’t want me to worry about this, I won’t. Just…you’d tell me if anything changed, right?” 

“I would,” you say, relieved. His thumb strokes your cheek, and you lean forward, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Thanks, Pete.” 

“For what?” He echoes your question from earlier, grin widening as he ducks down to press his lips to yours again. “I love you,” he mumbles, pecking playfully at your top lip, “so much.” He plants another where your cheek dimples. “You know that?” 

“Yeah.” You push up on your toes, backing him into the counter as your hand cups the back of his neck. The hair at his nape tickles your fingertips. “Yeah, I know.”

[rinhaler]

We Can Sit and Talk, Baby, Get It Off

CHAPTER SUMMARY : you can't sleep, and neither can the unexpected guest you find drinking your dad's whiskey in the kitchen.

boyfriend!yuuji itadori x f!reader x bully!megumi fushiguro

WARNINGS : 18+ only, consensual sex, sleepy slow sex, praise kink, sleeping difficulties, alcohol consumption, smoking, panic attack mention, drugs mention, family drama, arranged marriage mention, bullying. 

WORDS : 5.7k

notes : bc i love u guys :3

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The whole car ride home was spent giggling and laughing with Yuuji. You sang along to the cheesy pop songs on the radio and slurped the remaining dregs out of your milkshake. There was so much food still left from your order, but Yuuji had an amazing idea. You should heat it up at home and watch a movie in your room.

It's around 11:45pm when you return, you know your parents will be in bed already. You stumble in quietly, still chuckling like children until you find the kitchen and get to work on heating up the food.

It doesn’t take long.

You get some unsavoury looks from the butler; but he isn’t paid to comment or judge so he lets you continue. You stay as quiet as you can as you go upstairs and pick a movie. Yuuji can barely keep his eyes open but he somehow makes it to the end.

The poor boy had an eventful day, he's full of food and ready to sleep. But it isn’t so easy for you. Now that you're back here, everything that happened today is playing on your mind.

Naoya and Megumi are related… And now, they both hate you.

This could only end badly.

Your thoughts are keeping you awake. You toss and turn and can’t seem to get comfortable. Watching Yuuji sleep soundly would almost be infuriating if he didn’t look so adorable. The room plunges into darkness. Black as night and you can barely see your hand in front of your face. You debate getting up, and decide you can’t take lying like this anymore when it was clear you wouldn’t be getting an ounce of sleep unless you black out from exhaustion. The curtains are shut tightly, no wonder it’s so dark in here. You open them ever so slightly to discover the window is shut too. You push it open as far as it can go, an involuntary grunt fleeing from your lungs. Your eyes screw shut as you heard Yuuji stir awake.

“What are you doing?” he wonders. His voice heavy and gritty with sleep. He groggily rubs his eyes and sits upright to look at you.

“Can’t sleep.” you admit.

“Come here.” he tells you. He lies back down on his side as he waits for you to join him. He covers your body with the duvet while you nestle your body against his, your ass on his crotch while your back rests securely against his chest. He coos in your ear, shushing you softly, telling you to close your eyes. You do as you're told and you're rewarded with gentle, feather light kisses on your neck and shoulder. “Want me to help you sleep?” he wonders.

“Mhmm…”

“Take your shorts off.” he instructs.

Your fingers quickly hook into the waistband of your silk shorts you're wearing to pull them off your body. You never wear panties to bed, apparently it’s healthier to do that. When you lie back against Yuuji, he helps you out of your matching silk vest, leaving you completely bare and vulnerable to his touch.

You lift your body a little so he can put an arm underneath you and toy with your breasts. His big fingers alternate which nipple they tug and tease at. The contact is heavenly. You mewl instantly and he continues peppering your neck and shoulder with sweet innocent kisses. His other hand finds its way to your clit. He explores your folds and decides you aren’t nearly wet enough to take him.

“You need my fingers first, okay baby?”

“Yes… Yuuji please, give them to me.” you hum.

You gasp softly as two of his fingers poke around your entrance. His hand flies to your mouth before you can cry out from them both stretching you open. He hushes you some more, you nod in acceptance. The last thing you need is your parents chewing you out for fucking too loudly and disrupting all of the guests staying the night. He shoves his fingers inside of you, expertly working your g-spot. You writhe against him, but he keeps you secure as he holds his arm just below your breasts. He played with your sensitive tits continuously.

You can’t keep still.

He's driving you crazy.

“Yuuji…” you whimpered.

“Not yet.” he almost warns you. It's disappointing, but you suppose he knows best. He’s doing this for you after all. He doesn’t want to hurt you, it’s meant to feel good.

It’s meant to be fun.

He pulls his fingers out of you before flicking your clit lightly.

You shudder at that.

He quickly inserts his fingers again and he feels just how much slick pumps out of you from the gentle attention to your bundle of nerves. “That’s my girl, that’s it.” he tells you. He finger fucks you for a little while longer. Tears are streaming down your face. He’s hammering at your insides so perfectly and at such a consistent rate. You think you’re going to burst.

“Y-Yuuji!” you cry. He can feel you tensing up. He can feel how badly you want it, how close you are to letting yourself go for him.

You sob a little at the loss of fullness in your hole.

But you’re excited again when you feel him shuffling around.

He’s pulling his boxers off. He lines himself up with your slot. The tip of his shaft is practically sucked in by your eager cunt. “Oh fuuuuck,”

“Quiet princess, gotta be quiet for me.” he sinks deeper into you and you feel tears roll down onto your pillow. He begins to roll his hips slowly. “Are you crying?”

“A little,” you admit. You sniff and turn your head as best you can. He begins wiping your tears away and kisses you chastely. “just feels so good Yuuji, I love you.” you tell him.

“Sh, shhh baby. I love you too. I’ve got you it’s okay.” he hushes as he continues rutting into you.

You turn back so that he's spooning you while he fucks you.

It's so perfect.

He fills you up so deliciously you're worried what it will feel like when he removes himself from you. It feels like home to feel him inside of you.

It isn’t rough, heated sex.

It's slow, it's messy, and it's so passionate. He trails wet kisses on your neck. You reach a hand back searching for his; and he finds you.

He interlocks his fingers with yours and you weep a little more. You grind your hips against him slowly, trying to meet his lazy strokes. He carries on holding your hand, but brings both of your fingers closer to your cunt. He uses his two strongest fingers to draw tired circles into your clit. You moan instantly and he grunts gaudily as he feels your insides squeeze him.

“Y-Yuuji. Oh God, Yuuji ‘m gonna—”

“Me too, fuck. Baby, cum with me. Cum with me princess.” he demands.

You cum with a quiet whine. You pant and pant through your high as you continue backing up against Yuuji. He cums right after you. He fills your pretty pussy nicely with his thick creamy seed.

It's so warm and heavenly. It feels nice and snug inside of your wet walls. Yuuji fills the late night air with obscenities as he pumps his heavy load into you. He pulls out of you and you could feel his cum dribble out and onto the sheets below you.

You roll over, smothering him in a brutal, unforgiving kiss.

“That was the best sex we’ve ever had.” you whisper.

“Yeah?”

“I’m serious. It was so romantic.” you tell him. He brings your face closer to his again so he can kiss you more.

“Are you tired yet?” he questions.

“A little, but I need to go to the toilet first.” you remind him. He shuffles more onto his back and rests his head comfortably into the pillows.

“Go on, hurry up so we can go to bed.”

You do as you're told, legs taking you to the en-suite as quickly as possible for you to pee.

You wash your hands and come back out to find Yuuji fast asleep and snoring lightly. You smile, clambering into bed beside him. You wrap an arm around him and allow sleep to take over your body.

To say you're furious when you wake up would be an understatement.

Your eyes open and you assume it's morning. But when you look to the sky and see it's still pitch black your heart stops.

You roll over to check your phone. A few hours must have gone by at least.

Nope. Thirty minutes.

In fact; it's been 27 minutes if you want to be technical about it. You couldn’t even manage to sleep for thirty fucking minutes before you're wide awake again.

Fuck it, you think to yourself.

You go to the bathroom to splash water on your face before finding the most over the top dressing gown that your mother had also gifted you for your stay. It's sheer material with gorgeous pink fluff on the edges.

It's so dramatic, it hits the floor and trails behind you.

But it’s not often you get to feel this glamorous.

You might as well embrace your pretentious roots while you’re here. You slide on your matching fluffy pink slippers and sneak out of the room, doing your best to be quiet so that you don't wake Yuuji.

You wander the pitch black hallways.

There's no particular destination in mind. Your feet lead you around the manor. You explore rooms you hadn’t even noticed; and corridors you didn’t even know existed.

But still, through all your adventuring, you find yourself atop the main staircase. You're planning to turn around and go back to bed with Yuuji, however the sound of clinking and rustling downstairs piques your interest.

Could somebody be stealing?

Which one of your mother’s guests is causing such a ruckus?

You step down each platform quietly, not wanting to scare the disruptive presence away. The light in the kitcheb shines brightly, and you turn the corner to stand in the door way.

Of course.

Broad shoulders, a toned back and just above shoulder length black hair.

Who else would it be?

None of the other guests would be such a nuisance, so rude, and make themselves so at home in a house that is not their own.

Toji turns around slamming a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler on the kitchen island.

“Oh fuck—!” he startles as he notices you staring at him. “Scared the shit out of me, darlin’.” he tells you.

“Do you have permission to be helping yourself to my father’s alcohol?” you smirk, the simple expression on your face allows Toji to know that you, in actual fact, don’t care what he does with your dads booze.

“Not in so many words,” he begins, cracking open the bottle lid and pouring himself a drink. “But your folks are always so generous with their hospitality.” he teases. He drinks the whiskey like a shot. He slams the tumbler against the counter top so hard a little bit of excess liquid splashes out.

“Help yourself Toji,” you smile. Your slippers shuffle irritatingly across the kitchen tiles as you walk towards the freezer to get yourself some ice cold water.

“Hey,” Toji speaks, the word comes from the depth of his lungs. The volume commands your body to turn to face him. “Want some?” he wonders, shaking around the bottle of whiskey with a wicked grin on his face. “Oh wait, you’re a borin’ good girl who don’t drink nothin’, right?” he teases.

“Right.” you nod.

“I’m sure it’ll help you sleep… That’s why you’re down here, right? Havin’ trouble sleeping?” he guesses, and correctly at that.

You nod, but you raised an eyebrow. Your scepticism is obvious.

“Will it? Really?” you wonder. He shrugs his shoulder and his expression turns to unknowing. But before you give an answer with words, he assumes that your question is acceptance. He grabs another tumbler and slams it down beside the one he’d been using.

“Worth a try.”

You do accept his offer.

And as a result, you find yourself with a tumbler glass in one hand. Toji leads you out of the kitchen by gripping tightly onto the flesh of your arm. You aren’t sure where he was taking you. But he expertly holds his own glass as well as the whiskey bottle in one hand. His grip is bruising, but you're too tired to care.

You find yourself in a cosy little study room.

Presumably your father’s.

It's like a cosy den, a man cave.

He has one of those retro globe drink cabinets beside his desk. Toji lights the logs in the fireplace and the room instantly feels even cosier. You sit opposite each other on the two red leather armchairs while you sip casually at your drinks.

You kick your fluffy sliders off to let your feet feel how soft the white fur rug is on the ground. Sleepy eyes are drawn to a dart board on the opposite side of the room.

It makes you smile.

You remember your father holding you high as a child in his arms so you could play with the dart board in the old house.

“What’re you smilin’ about?” Toji wonders. Your smile drops as your attention is brought back to him.

“Nothing, really.” you shake your head.

“Yuuji?”

“No.”

He hums. Toji takes a swig from his drink and nods in acceptance. This is painful. It's so awkward.

Why does he want to sit here with you?

Why does he want to drink with you?

The alcohol is making your stomach feel raw, but you're somehow finding the strength to ignore it. You clear your throat and look to the crackling fire beside you.

“Do you love him?” he asks you. “Yuuji, I mean.”

“Uh, yeah? I do, very much. Why?”

“Are you the reason he hates Megumi now? Did ya do somethin’ to make him angry at my son?” Toji ponders aloud. You scoff at that. He really has no idea.

Toji has zero fucking clue about his son, and what a monster he is.

“I didn’t do anything.” you hiss before downing the remainder of your drink. You tilt your glass towards Toji, indicating that you want it to be filled again. “He’s been making my life a living hell at uni, y’know? He’s sick. He’s fucking evil.” you alert him.

A parents love for their children is limitless.

You’re sure your claim will go down like a lead balloon.

“Heh, what’d he do? Scowl at you for too long? He’s all bark ‘n no bite that kid, he’s just—”

“Oh he can bite. In the one week that he decided he hated me, he spiked my drink on a night out and I was blacked out for almost two days. That’s what he did. And that is why I’ve been avoiding drinking.” you inform him. His grip loosens on his glass, but it doesn’t fall from his hand. His scar pulls as his lip turns to a scowl, his eye twitches in irritation. “You don’t believe me…” you sigh, “That’s fine. Yuuji believes me, that’s all I—”

“What else?”

“Huh?”

“What else, tell me what else.” Toji asks.

It's quiet.

But the type of quiet that spoke volumes.

He does believe you. You stutter, hesitate. You aren’t really sure what to tell him, or if you should tell him. But he urges you to speak. He needs you to continue. So you do.

You tell him the names he called you on the first day you met him, the vile things he said. You tell him about how you thought all was forgiven when you went out to eat together, but he flipped on you again and destroyed your sketchbook.

And you explain the club incident in gory detail, everything that you could remember and then everything else that you’d been told. You hum and haw over whether you should tell him about his inappropriate touches towards you too. But you’ve come this far, there's no point hiding anything now.

The way he touched your thighs. How he caged you in beneath him. How he dry humped you in the club when he was bullying you.  

Toji puts his drink down. His elbows dig into his thighs and he covers his face with his hands.

He's breathing.

Just, breathing.

You don’t know what to do, what to say. So you say nothing.

You wait. And wait. He sits back upright and lets his body sink into the back of the leather chair. He rakes his fingers through his hair a few times before looking for something in his pockets.

Cigarettes.

He sparks up.

Your father would be furious if he knew, but you aren't in a rush to tell him. And you don’t have the heart to tell him no, to object. He lets the tar coat his lungs before exhaling.

He looks sick.

“He draws you; you know. A lot.” you inform him.

“S’that right?” he speaks, puffing out a plume of toxic smoke.

“Yeah. That’s why he hates me, I think.” you add, taking another drink of your whiskey to wet your dry mouth. Toji’s interest is piqued. He raises his eyebrows as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “Both times I complimented his drawings of you in class, that is when he switched on me.”

Toji’s brows knit. He pinches the bridge of his nose while he holds his cigarette carefully between two fingers. The smoke dances and twirls beautifully as it ascends up to the ceiling like a delicate ribbon. He mutters something.

You don’t quite catch it.

But when you replay his lip movements in your mind, when you really focus on what he just mouthed in your head, you think he said sorry.

“He had a panic attack in my car on Friday,” Toji admits, he takes another puff of his cigarette and picks his whiskey back up.

Really? Megumi?

He doesn’t seem like the type to have panic attacks.

“Breathin’ weird, threw up, even cried a little. The full works.” he carries on. He stubs out his cigarette and tops up his drink.

He needs it.

Those same demons that Megumi tried to drown so desperately in the car that day are his demons too.

He’d inherited them from his very own father.

“That must have been hard for you.” you speak, attempting to sympathise. But you couldn’t deny that you felt smug, happy almost, that Megumi is suffering.

“You know what he told me?” Toji asks you, and you shake your head. “He told me he’s fucked up. He told me he was a fucked up teenager, and he’s even more fucked up now.” he says. Toji’s breathing is erratic. You can see his hand trembling a little as he drums his fingers against his knee.

He can’t handle it.

He needs another cigarette, just one more, one more to settle his nerves.

“Then what happened?”

“I told him he’s not fucked up!” he responds, a little too loudly. He slicks his hair back a little before speaking again. “Well, I told him he isn’t the only one. Everyone’s a little fucked up, right? I told him even I’m fucked up. But he probably already knew that, huh?” he tells you. His foot tapping furiously against the ground as he smokes some more.

You slowly shuffle from the chair to the floor. You crawl over to him and sit by his feet. Like a little animal curling up to its master.

Why are you so drawn to him?

It's nice, he is nice.

He's like an authority figure who actually takes you seriously. Someone who listens to you. Someone who believes you and doesn’t want to treat you like a puppet for his own personal gain.

“But he is fucked, isn’t he? What he did to you is my fault.” he continues you. You rest your hand on his knee and shake your head. But he nods, because what he's saying is true. He blows smoke in your direction.

“He just has some issues clearly, you did the best you could. You didn’t make him bully me Toji.” you tell him.

“Has anyone told you his mother died? My wife, when he was little.” he wonders. You shake your head. “Yeah. I loved her, so it killed me too. So I left him.”

“You—”

“I abandoned my tiny son who needed me so I could do drugs and drink like a lunatic. I couldn’t cope, but it’s not an excuse. I never even apologised to him.” he fills you in, he's coming dangerously close to finishing another cigarette.

You're at a loss for words.

It is his fault.

How could a human being expect to be anything other than fucked up with what Megumi has been through? And to not even receive an apology for it.

Fuck, do you feel sorry for him?

“Well, I said sorry when he was having his panic attack but it wasn’t real. I’ve never claimed to be anything other than a piece of shit so I don’t know what he expects from me.”

“Maybe he expects you to be a decent father and learn from your mistakes, Toji.” you hiss. He laughs at that.

“Y’got me there darlin’.”

You want to stand up. But your liver hurts and you're exhausted. Maybe you’ll just sleep here.

You can crawl back to the armchair, right?

You're finally tired, so tired that you don’t have the strength to make it back to your own bed. Your forehead rests on Toji’s knee. And he smirks when he hears light snores rise from your throat.

He’ll carry you to bed when he’s finished. You’ll be okay here for a little while. He needs more alcohol in him.

He needs to think everything over.

His ears prick when he hears the sound of creaking floorboards drawing closer to the room. Toji is too fucking calm, how could he be so willing to risk being seen with you like this? There's a knock at the door, and when Toji doesn’t respond, they welcome themselves in.

“What the fuck is this?” Megumi asks, staring at your sleeping form, your pretty little head resting sweetly on his knee.

You don’t wake up.

Toji grits his teeth as he looks at his son, his little monster.

“Shut your fucking mouth kid,”

“Have you been drinking together? I’m not shocked, fuckin’ alcoholic piece of shit.” Megumi bites. Toji’s tongue runs along the top of his teeth and he sucks, unsure of what to do now that his devil child is in front of him. Why is he even here? “Knew she was a slut, did she fall asleep sucking you off?”

Toji taps your shoulder lightly and your eyes fluttered open. He grips that very same shoulder when you squeal and back into his legs when you notice Megumi's presence.

Toji shushes you.

Megumi is clever and likes to do everything to you behind closed doors. He’d never risk doing anything in front of a witness, God forbid anyone believe you about his torment over you.

But it's too late.

Toji already does.

“I’ll walk you to your room sweetheart, c’mon.” Toji tells you as he helped you to your feet. Megumi scoffs at that.

“Are you fuckin’ serious Toji? What the hell is going on?”

When Toji is close enough to Megumi he points a finger in his sons face and snarls. He’s furious with him. Through all of each other’s faults, through all of Megumi’s hatred of him, he at least thought his son was a decent person.

They could tolerate each other for a set amount of time. Megumi is smart, he’s calm and collected most of the time except where his father is concerned. But Toji is looking at him now, and he sees himself staring right back.

Megumi is fucked. And Toji is fucked, too.

“I’m takin’ her to bed. I am goin’ to bed. And I don’t give a fuck what you do, but I don’t wanna see that pathetic face of yours until I take you home in the morning. Stay the fuck out of my way.” Toji answers him.

He barges past him with you in tow. Your heart is racing.

It's incredible.

Yuuji stands up for you whenever he can, but Megumi always manages to keep a level head. He's never intimidated. But now, right now when you turn to face him, he looks broken. His eyes are the widest you’ve ever seen them and his jaw is clenched.

Megumi is scared.

Megumi is afraid.

Toji did that. He did that to him. And it makes you… smile.

He brings you to your room and tells you to try and get some rest. There are only a few hours you can squeeze in before you have to start getting ready to leave in the morning. You hold onto the door handle. But before you pull it and walk inside your room, you turn to face him again.

“Why are you here?” you ask, curiosity taking over you.

He smirks.

The type of smirk that told you he's about to say something you don’t want to hear.

But his eyes find yours, and he takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t know you were dating anyone, especially not Yuuji for that matter.” he begins. “It’s pretty obvious your parents don’t like him. Are they tryna keep it under wraps?” he wonders.

“Big time.” you nod.

“I’ll be honest sweetheart, I invited Megumi here too. I was gonna try and push the idea of marrying you both off so I could marry myself into some money.” he informs you. You felt your blood begin to bubble.

Seriously, what fucking century do all of these people you’re surrounded by think you’re in?

First Naoya with his ‘women should be seen and not heard’ notion. And now Toji thinking you’d ever agree to an arranged marriage, with anyone, let alone Megumi.

But your breathing slows as you examine his features.

You’d considered him an authority figure you could trust. Someone who didn’t want to use you as a puppet for their own personal gain. They were the exact thoughts you had in your father’s office.

And now, he's just blown that trust up with his stupid confession in seconds.

But the longer you look at him, you think… At least he’s honest. And at least he listened to you, believed you.

“It’s okay.” you tell him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod, pushing the door open so that it's slightly ajar. You face him once more with a smile on your face, “You’ve never claimed to be anything other than a piece of shit, right?” you tease. He laughs a little, acknowledging your call back to his previous words.

“Right.” he agrees.

“Goodnight Toji.”

“G’night princess.”

Yuuji slept so soundly, he didn’t even realised you’d left and come back hours later.

He wakes up feeling refreshed and packs everything in your room as quickly as he can. The man is desperate to get out of here and return to normality. He smiles at your sleepy, tired body as you do your best to pull on a pair of leggings and a big baggy top. You want to be comfy for the car ride home.

Maybe you’ll be able to sleep for a few hours, too.

You do one last check of the bathroom to make sure you didn’t forget anything and then zip your case securely. Yuuji carries on doing a sweep of the room to be certain nothing of his gets left behind, and he still needs to get dressed.

“I’m gonna go and say goodbye to my parents.” you tell Yuuji.

You're about to head down the stairs when you felt a fist ball into your t-shirt and yank you backwards. Your back is against the wall and you can feel your heartbeat in your ears. You’ve been in this exact position one too many times with Megumi before.

He settles a hand on your shoulder to pin you in place while the other rests on your hip, his knee found comfort between your thighs. It's a little too close to your heat; but Megumi is too close to you all together.

“Someone has been interfering and running to tell tales to my dad.” he speaks, the tone telling you everything you need to know.

You aren’t sure if Toji has told him or if he's worked it out all on his own.

And yet, while you're shaking, while you're terrified that no one will come to your rescue and protect you from him again, a wave of power surges through you. Your fists ball into his shirt. That alone catches him off guard.

What has happened to you?

You take the fleeting chance to spin him around, pinning him against the wall.

“I’m not fucking scared of you anymore Fushiguro,” you begin. He tries to shove you away but you push against him harder, “you’re just so desperate for daddy’s approval aren’t you? Want him to want you so badly. I know everything about you now, and he knows you better than he ever has before.” you say calmly with a smile on your face.

“Shut the hell up—”

“You’re just sad, lonely, pathetic. And I repeat, I’m not scared of you anymore Megumi.” you inform him.

You turn to walk away, but he grabs your wrist and forces you against the wall once more. He’s red in the face, a particularly lively vein pulses by his temple.

You’ve done it now. Fuck, you’ve really done it now.

Your eyes screw shut as you prepare for whatever he's about to do to you.

He is scary and intimidating. But you can at least take pride in knowing no matter how hard he tries to keep you down you’ll always get up.

But when both of his hands cup your face and his lips find yours, your breath hitches in your throat. It’s hard and strong, but no tongue. His eyes are closed and yours fly open. You raise your hand, your palm claps against his cheek and his whole face turns away from you. You shove him backwards with so much force his back connects with the wall opposite to the one you’re against. Both of you pant and catch your breaths in the particularly echoey corridor.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” you ask. He doesn’t answer. He’s still panting. Using the back of his hand to wipe away the dampness on his lips.

His eyes find yours again, and he’s lost.

He’s lost in them.

Lost in you.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Do us all a favour and get the therapy you desperately need.” you finish as you finally manage to escape him and descend the stairs.

What was that all about?

You think you better wait until you leave to tell Yuuji what happened.

In fact, you aren’t sure whether you should tell him at all. Your parents stand in the driveway as they watch Yuuji drive around and leave the manor.

He’s happy.

You’re happy.

You’re going home!

This nightmare is finally over.

Megumi stands in the doorway as he watches you leave. Part of him wants some fresh air, but he could have went in the garden for that.

He’s fuming at himself.

Why did he do that?

Why the fuck did he kiss you?

He needs to find Naoya. Whatever his sinister little plan is for revenge on you, he needs to get himself in on it. What he just did will be forgotten, he’ll get himself back on his sadistic little horse. And you’ll both be able to forget that he forced his lips onto you. When he turns around to find his uncle, he’s greeted to the sight of his father instead.

“Move.” Megumi commands. Toji crouches down so he’s eye level with his son. That all too familiar wicked, scar pulling grin etched on his face once more.

“You better leave that girl alone.” he instructs.

“Or what? You’re fucking off to wherever you go for months at a time tomorrow, so you aren’t in any position to stop me.” Megumi boasts, preparing to walk away from him once more.

“Wrong.”

“Huh?”

“Wrong, Megumi. Wrong. I’m fuckin’ movin’ in with you and Tsumiki so I can keep an eye on ya. Ya sick fuck. She told me everythin’. Fucks wrong with you?” Toji alerts him.

Megumi feels his stomach sink. Really? He’s really sticking around?

“She’s a fucking attention seeker, she’s lying to you.” Megumi fibs. The elder Fushiguro shakes his head. Toji gets in his face, real fucking close. So close that Megumi is almost drunk from the smell of last nights whiskey on his lips.

“You. Are. Fucked.” Toji tells him, his face becoming more serious so Megumi knows he isn’t playing around. He couldn’t, he shouldn’t say that to his own son. But he’s right. Toji needs to let him know, he needs to help him get better. Maybe helping his son will help him too.

“You made me, Toji.”

“If I see or find out you’ve done anything to that poor girl, I’ll break your fuckin’ knee caps. Hear me? In fact I might fuckin’ kill you. No wonder Yuuji wanted to rip your throat out.” Toji jeers through his teeth. Megumi can’t believe it.

He's showing more care and adoration for a complete stranger than he had to him his whole pathetic existence.

“Get out of my way.” Megumi relents. Eager to escape his father’s intense glare.

“Nah, we’ve been summoned.” Toji notifies him. Megumi’s eyebrow raises as his full attention returns to his father.

“Summoned? What for?”

“Zen’in clan wants to talk to us,” Toji explains as he slips a cigarette between his scarred lips, “They wanna talk to the princess’ parents too.”

© 2021 fuwushiguro | © 2023 rinhaler

[the-starry-seas]

I was thinking about how exactly the Royal Squad came to join the family, because adopting five clone cadets isn't exactly an impulse decision, and like

Fox interrupting Breha's schedule and approaching her as his queen, not his wife, and asking her for several million credits. And she knows that something is up because he's calling her Your Majesty and using corporate-speak and swearing to find some way to repay her. And neither of them are idiots, she knows there's nothing he can do to bring back that kind of cash no matter what job he gets.

So Breha, obviously, has questions. Maybe a thought or two in the back of her mind that Fox might not know what a spam email is. Fox is generally very calm and even-tempered so she wants to know what's going on and why he needs so much money.

Fox says that Kamino is going to sell off everything they can to recoup losses from the latest batches of clones that they're no longer being paid for. He says most of them will be sold to slavers. He says the ones that can't be sold will be killed. He says none of them are more than five years old. He says there's ten thousand of them and he knows it will be expensive, but he could never live with himself if he didn't find a way to save at least some of them.

Breha is weeping long before he's finished. She's seen his scars, she's heard him wailing with terror from nightmares, she's felt him flinch when she touches him without warning. She loves him, but she would do anything to change his past. She will do anything to spare his little brothers from the life that can never stop haunting him. She thinks of darling Leia, two years old and safely at home with Bail doting on her every move, and is sick at the thought of any baby being treated in the way Fox just described.

She gives Fox carte blanche to bring home every last child. He falls to his knees and kisses her hands, thanking her in jumbled words and eyes shining with tears. She has no regrets for the financial havoc she's just caused herself and will never let him repay her.

Fox brings home ten thousand and five children. He snarls at anyone who comes near the youngest, holding the runt of the litter his every waking moment, his hands always gentle but his eyes glaring a lethal warning. The legion of social workers deployed to help find homes for the children, well, they unanimously decide that that's someone else's problem.

(There's a bright spot in all this hustle and drama. As it turns out, selling children into the Core worlds... it's just so incredibly unbelievably illegal. Breha gets back every credit that Fox spent, and a reward for alerting the police to what the Kaminoans are doing. Clones have human rights on Alderaan, after all.)

Eventually, after several months of several thousand people working twelve-hour days, all ten thousand clone cadets have been placed with loving families all across the planet. There's still welfare checks and such to be done, but for now, everyone is safe, happy, and in no more danger from the Kaminoans.

This leaves five.

Fox finally goes home to the palace, after being one of those people working twelve-hour shifts, and says, "I adopted some. I didn't mean to."

Breha says, "I heard you cold-cocked someone for suggesting an adopted family for them on their third day here."

Fox has to say he did, yes, and he didn't mean to do that either, and he already apologised several times.

Breha smiles and says that Bail's been excited to meet them for weeks now, and won't Fox come to dinner?

Fox does come to dinner, and brings his tubies, far too nervous at the idea of leaving them with anyone else, even Leia's nannies. It doesn't surprise him when Breha is the first to bring it up.

"Bail and I talked about it, and we understand if you want to be their only legal parent. We know there's complexities around their adoption. Whatever support you want from us, you'll have it."

Fox doesn't expect his eyes to blur with tears, or for them to feel like tears of joy.

"Leia's my daughter," he whispers, "and these are your sons."

"Helio is a family name on my side, you know," Bail mentions. He smiles at the tubie in Fox's lap, who giggles and waves back with his little hand clenched around a green bean. Then Bail's gaze meets Fox's, and the fatherly love already in his eyes... it takes Fox's breath away.

"My parents once said that they planned to name me Vidal if I was a boy," Breha adds, and takes a sip from her glass. "Though I suppose some of them might have names already?"

Fox shakes his head. There were so many other things to be busy with that he's just been calling them by the last two digits of their CT numbers.

"I wasn't sure what to call them," he admits, "but I was sure you would love them."

They beam at that, and Fox manages to smile back, despite how exhausted he is from the past few months. There's still so much waiting in the future, but for tonight, he can take the time to breathe.

He falls asleep quickly that night, with his head in Breha's lap and her hand in his hair, Kit already fast asleep and curled into his side, listening to Bail read a bedtime story to all six of their tubies.

[obeetlebeetle]

brennan's choice to bring the authors into neverafter is an interesting move -- on a basic, storytelling level, it adds another dimension to the cosmic horror elements already in place, which is useful primarily because brennan likes cosmic horror and tends to rely on it, so we have a lot of basis for comparison going forward. on another level, and one that i find more fruitful largely because it brings something very new and sharp to the story, is that we now have textual acknowledgement that these tales were recorded or written with authorial intent. we've yet to see if brennan will be invoking basile, perrault, the grimms, etc., but they are present in the text now and can be considered as much a part of the neverafter story as the characters themselves. all that said, i want to start thinking about what that authorial intent was, and how it has developed in our retelling.

much of the horror in neverafter is centered on pinocchio -- he is our most direct link to the stepmother, an entity that consumes other characters (notably, her own children and red's grandmother, and presumably snow white's stepmother) in order to achieve the same power as the authors. so we can demonstrate a link between authorial intent and parental authority, and we can assume that neverafter is interested in the intersections between parent and author as roles occupied in order to control characters or stories and their eventual outcome.

as a character, pinocchio is pinocchio, but acting on an archetypal level he is also the child: his original tale was inspired by and modeled after the "jack" tales, after all. there are two primary roles that the child can inhabit in fairy tales. the good child is rewarded, and the bad child is punished. as a character, pinocchio confuses these roles, and we can see why -- the original intent of his tale was not to reward him, and he was never supposed to become "good" and therefore "real." he was meant to die as a puppet. in nva4, pinocchio dies as a puppet. the dissonance of collodi's tale is recognized in the stepmother's promise to pinocchio, stating that she can make him real when it is impossible for him to be good.

in this, the stepmother takes on the role of both the blue fairy and geppetto in pinocchio's story. but those roles, as written by collodi, were never meant to be gentle -- the parent is not meant to be a source of care, or protection.

brennan is not collodi -- his concerns are less material, less related to the issues of class and poverty and survival present in collodi's tale -- but, consciously or not, he has drawn on the way the original story primes pinocchio to accept violence from parental figures and to understand their anger towards him as a function of a properly told story. in this instance, with the agency of a player behind him, he is able to develop new aims and defy his parental authority -- and we can see that the world of neverafter is unable to function properly when pinocchio cuts his strings and rejects his role as a servant to his father's wellbeing.

so, again, we see the stepmother taking on geppetto's role -- but what about the fairy? what about the fact that our pinocchio was introduced after the end of his tale, and what about the role the fairy has played until now? she was the one that killed him the first time, not the stepmother; she was the orchestrator of his moral adventure and, as neverafter so succinctly put it, the figure in control of whether or not pinocchio is "real."

there has been a clear schism between the fairies and the stepmother in neverafter -- we can see that in the exchange between the stepmother and cinderella's fairy godmother, particularly the claim that "magic was never [the stepmother's], magic is [the fairies']!" but what the fairies seem to resent is the stepmother's authorial role, her ability to take stories and reshape them, rather than the character role she plays within the stories themselves.

additionally, there have been a lot of hints that this was a "good" world, and that there is something to return to, if the stories can be restored to their "real" versions. but by breaking down the original pinocchio tale through the lens of what has occurred in the neverafter, we can see that this corrupted version is not really so different -- the macro effect, the authorial intent through first the stepmother and then brennan himself, has clearly changed, but the effect on pinocchio as character and the child as archetype remains.

i take the introduction of the authors into the tale and the link drawn between them and the stepmother to be our first significant sign that things will not be able to return to the happily ever after -- our first real critique of the conditions of thought created and reinforced within fairy tales, and hopefully, a sign that brennan is questioning not the optimism of the fairy tale but the goals fairy tales set out to achieve.

[glowstick-cafe]

♡Tell them♡

Pavitr Prabhakar x reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt/No Comfort

Warnings: Major Character death

Summary: Pavitr has been your boyfriend for a while now, way before he even picked up the task of being of being the hero of Mumbattan. Now, he struggles with keeping his identity of being spiderman a secret.

_______________________________________

Pavitr has only been spiderman for six months and he finds the smiles of civilians who he has saved to be rewarding, but recently, something has been nagging him.

It's like a dreadful pit wells up in his stomach telling him that he needs to throw up, yet nothing happens.

This feeling is only present when he sees their face, (Name), his partner. He loves everything about them and he's not scared to tell it to the entirety of Mumbattan, they make him melt in every way possible by just existing. So why is he nervous around you all of a sudden?

"I'm so sorry for being late, I had….a thing?" Pavitr's voice trailed off as he couldn't think of anything to say, you laughed at his great excuse and patted the seat next to you, telling him to sit.

"It's ok, I'm happy as long as you're here." They say, looking up at the stars. Pavitr could only watch you apologetically as that feeling of dread washes over him again. "(Name), I have something to tell you." He blurted out. You turned your head to look at him, waiting for him to speak. "I….-"

"I am…-"

"I'm…sp-"

I'm spiderman.

Pavitrs' words were beginning to fail him, his throat tightened and his mouth grew dry. "Pav, are you ok?" Your gentle but concerned voice asked, your soft hands reached up to caress his face to calm him down, which worked. He let himself be calmed down by your touch. "I can't say it." The boy muttered, clearly disgruntled.

You let out a sigh, "We have all the time in the world, you can tell me when you're ready, 'kay?" Pavitr looked up at your face that held a reassuring smile, and he couldn't help but smile back in response.

"Okay…"

-

As time moved on Pavitr's battles were becoming harder with each fight, and the damage became more great. More civilians were getting hurt due to his shortcomings and it was starting to get to him as more news began to demonize him.

Pavitr started to slowly push you away in the off chance that you might get hurt, your walls of text were met with an 'I'm busy' or a 'Sorry, can't talk rn' and the boy could tell that your patience was thinning with every ignored text.

He will come to regret that decision.

Pavitr was nearing his limit, his body was bruised and most likely bleeding too. "Man, I probably can't go to school tomorrow." He joked to himself, the person he was fighting had unfortunately gotten away. They had been fighting in an empty office building due to everyone already fleeing, the room was a mess and also had a gaping hole that he crashed into, can't forget that.

As the boy was about to leave, the loud sounds of bombs rang through his ears. By the time he realized it, just like his balance, the building shifted and was about to fall on the people below.

Pavitr quickly reacted and jumped from the building, swinging safely to the ground. The sound of people screaming and running away started to overwhelm his senses, in response he quickly pulled the civilians out of harm's way.

Over all the screaming, the sound of a child crying stood out. He spotted her and she looked no older than five years old, looking for her parents amidst the chaos. The building was now dangerously close to falling and she was the only one who needed saving now.

Before he could move, the sudden breeze of someone running past him made him panic. "Hey! Wait no, it's dangerous!" he yelled in a panicked state, seeing them catch up to the child. He fairly quickly caught a glimpse of their face which caused his heart to stop beating for a moment.

"(Name)..."

Once pieces of rubble began to fall to the ground, Pavitr's feet began to move on his own. He wanted to make it, he needed to. The hero's eyes were trained on you, and you only as the little girl was being carried on your back. You weren't going to make it, the fact that more rubble started to cascade down quicker with every second, and you weren't running any faster than you could.

For whatever small second was left, Pavitr could see an idea cross your mind as the both of you were running directly at one another. Before he could process it, you threw the little girl towards him and he used his web to catch her. She was now safe, but....

No

No no no no no no no no

Please no, not you…

The rumbling of architectural debris crashing down sent dust flying which covered the entire area, and all Pavitr could hear was a constant high pitched ringing in his ears. The boy ran toward what was once left of the building and desperately dug through the rubble in an attempt to find your body... half of it at least. You were barely conscious, but you still felt every bit of the immense pain.

"(Name)!' Pavitr blurted out while trying to pry you out from under the wreckage, only to be met with cries of pain. He quickly stopped when he realized this wasn't working, while he was frantically trying to scrounge up a solution you then grabbed your partner's hand. "I don't... I don't want to die." You said, gripping his hand harder, "I have to go home to my boyfriend." You finished, letting out a painful cough that caused blood to start dripping from the corners of your mouth.

"It'll be okay.. I think- I think he'd understand, because I'm sure he loved you very very much." Pavitr responded with a trembling voice, but with some of his words trailing off together in the process. He let your nails dig into his skin while tears started to stain your cheek.

"That's nice."

Pavitr could feel your grip on his arm weaken while you let out your last breath, finally slipping under the cover's of death...even if Pavitr didn't want to have to see you tucked in.

That was the night Pavitr's heart lost its other half.

[adoresbutlers]

Harmless.

prompt : based on a recent request. sucking your very adorable bf off during a family dinner

warnings : 18+ mature audiences only. no sub or dom mentions. m!oral. teasing. cum swallowing. use of the word cock, if that bothers anyone! face fucking. let me know if i forgot anything. first time writing smut in forever, please be gentle 👍🏼 it’s kinda a short little blurb honestly

————————————————————————

You never expected earlier on in the night that a harmless invite to a pop-up family dinner would end up with you slipping under the table when no one was looking. Never expected the sudden urge to course through you as it did, but you were bored and the heat that was starting to pool between your legs at the sight of your boyfriend with his stupid black dress shirt and the first three stupid buttons undone and rested against his equally as stupid collar was getting near impossible to ignore. Did you mention it was stupid?

It doesn’t take long at all for Tom to notice the lack of your body besides him at the dinner table, his eyes wandering down to your figure that was snug perfectly between his legs. His blue orbs seem to be already pleading down at you to at least do something if you were going to surprise him in such a manner that your parents would be appalled by, your fingers ice-frozen and dancing playfully along the zipper of his dress pants.

You flash a teasing smile up at him, meeting his just as desperate eyes, pupils expanded with his lip already sucked into his mouth. It’s what you always did to him, and not only did you use that power for perfect situations that present themselves such as these, but you loved every second of it. While you still had that hold over him, of course, he always managed to snap you out of your ego and bring you back down to the surface. Not this time, though, you were going to make the upmost sure of it.

Your calmed fingers finally reward his worries, finding the metal zipper with ease, thankful that your dad had been on about one of his never ending golf stories for your family to notice the noise of his zipper being undone. You reach into his strained boxers as soon as you find a way to open his legs just enough to snake your way through, pulling out his cock that had somehow already stood at your attention with barely any help at all.

Your hand stays squeezed at his base, your lips leaning over to press a soft kiss along his pre-cum covered tip, cooing softly from above you at his eagerness. His hands find their way to your hair, his fingers tangling around the top of your head, his thumb tapping along your scalp to urge you forward. You look up at him through your dark lashes and scoot forward so you were face to face with him, raising yourself up so your lips ghosted along his tip.

It takes you a few teasing licks to his slit for you to finally give in to your own desires and wrap your slick lips around him, popping his tip in your mouth. You ease yourself down every inch, breathing in through your nose as you relax your throat to take him all like you’ve done time and time again. His hand helps prevent from bumping your head as his scent pulls you more and more into him.

You can hear him try to hold a decent conversation with your mom from above, humming around his cock as he stiffened in your mouth at the contact. You’re lucky that you’re in such a position that any noises you ever made was silenced or mere sounded like a soft hum that rumbled through the home. You tap your thumb against his thigh to signal that you were okay, his hand gripping your hair tighter when it registers with him that you’re used to the position. No time is wasted before he’s pulled your head all the way off of him the best he could and forced yourself back down.

You make sure your tongue runs along his cock, swirling around the skin as you’re brought to a soft thrusting pace into your mouth. Tom was only using you to get himself off now, and oh, did you love it a bit too much, he regains an easy composure compared to his increasingly hardened thrusts. You force yourself to try your best not to gag around his cock, breathing around him when your eyes meet again for a brief second, his lips curled into a small smirk at his pretty baby beneath him. Your spit is glistening around him with every time your nose meets his pelvis, resting your hands along his inner thighs so you could match with your own rhythm. That only seems to do him in, resulting in a much better reaction than expected, cock vibrating against your mouth. You tighten your lips purposely around him to create a tighter entrance and a longer pull.

God, he loved you.

A low hum emits from the bottom of his throat as he forces your head down making your nose directly hit his pelvis once more, your throat swallowed him whole as he starts to cum down your channel without any care or warning, he knew you preferred it when he didn’t tell you making you more surprised with the outcome. He always seemed to ask you a million times before he ever got any rough with you, he never liked hurting you. Even if you seemed to be a little too obsessed with the idea.

You could only smile around him, or at least try to, as you drink it all no hesitation. He takes a little too long to catch his breath, waiting until he’s fully softened before pulling you off of him. He could curse at the sight alone as your spit pulls in a string when the contact is lost, hurriedly tugging himself back in his pants before you could realize the effect you had on him.

Moments like these made him wonder what he ever did to deserve you.

————————————————————————

PLS PLS DONT HATE THIS 🙏🏻🙏🏻 i haven’t written in a long while </3

[nanfrost]

A Schneider Scene Analysis: Her decision to do what she did at the end of Chapter 2.

For those that need a little refresher or well, a reminder to what happened at the end of chapter 2: Schneider decided to do a little pro gamer move and stare into Vertin's eyes as she vanishes into thin air.

An incredibly traumatic and heartbreaking scene definitely, and it left me in pain for days later.

But recently, someone actually asked me something that I find that to be an interesting question to answer; that being why did Schneider decided to do what she did at the end, likely knowing how traumatic doing something like that to Vertin.

For those who have always been curious to know this, or have been given an interest now that I brought this topic up, welcome! I will be giving my own interpretation of Schneider's character and the lead up to her ultimate decision to do what she did. Hope you will enjoy!

For us to be able to fully understand the context of this scene, we need to properly understand Schneider as a character first.

Schneider was someone who grew up in a large yet incredibly poor family, and aside from being the least cared for, she is also the most left out of that family; the one that never seemed to be remembered or fit in.

She shared no religious belief like they do, not the fragility and gentleness of her sisters, nor a soft heart that can take any beating given to them and still continue to struggle under the weight of the world like they do.

In other words, she was like an outsider, who besides name, didn't resembled any of her siblings or parents.

And yet, she still cared for them, more so than one probably should given the circumstances and the treatment one receives had they been in her shoes.

Schneider loved her family, cared for them, and did everything in her power to give them a life they could be at peace with. To give them a life they can be truly satisfied with living, and die with relief in their hearts.

In other words, Schneider had always been a selfless individual. A girl who will give up everything about herself to pursue happiness for those she cares for, never asking for a reward for herself. 

And we see that with Vertin as well, we see how this selflessness is reflected through her actions and words with Vertin and subsequently after her influence on her. Because Vertin absolutely did change her for the better, although, "change" might not be the right word here.

Instead, Vertin opened Schneider's heart, a heart that had long since closed off to everyone that isn't her family. A heart that is far more kind and caring than it lets on, a heart that when given the chance and the right opportunity, will flourish under the sun and blossom into something beautiful.

And we see that clearly later on once she was safely freed from Manus clutches. 

Schneider could have very well run off with Marian, to take the girl with her in a desperate search for their family again. To maybe have a final reunion before they were sifted away by the Storm. She had no real reason to keep risking her neck for these strangers, these people who she really only knew for hours, let alone a day. 

And yet she did, because Vertin had made Schneider believe again.

Vertin had ignited Schneider's desire to help, to be kind to strangers, to offer her assistance even when she gains really nothing from it. Yes, in a way, she would be helping Vertin as well, but she didn't need to be so forward and casual with it, she didn't need to be so buddy buddy and joking with Sonetto after their last interaction was pure hostility towards each other.

And yet she is, because Schneider wants to be kind, wants to be open about her mind and feelings, to not inherently distrust everyone around her anymore simply because she doesn't know them. To give herself and them a chance to connect with one another, to work together in a goal that is purely altruistic of them all. 

Because Schneider had always been selfless, and now she was given the right chance to show that selflessness to those around her.

As we move on to the final few scenes of chapter 2, we continue to see this selflessness of her, reflecting in her suggestion to ask for everyone's wishes. A suggestion that prioritizes everyone's well-being and desires beyond herself.

Yet during it, we get a small scene with her and Vertin, a scene that hints towards the finale of the arc itself. 

For as much as Schneider is selfless, she does have a desire to want something for herself. A desire buried deeply under years and years of constantly giving herself away to those she cared for, never truly being given the chance to be expressed outwardly. 

But for now, it remains only a hint of that desire, as we move on to the next scene, the scene where this hint only further grows. 

Vertin asked for Schneider's wish, something that even the girl herself seemed surprised by. Either because she truly didn't expect that someone would ask her such a thing, or she thought that nobody would notice her enough to do so. 

And here, Schneider lets herself indulge just a little more. To wish for something she never thought she had the capacity to ask for, to crave for; until now.

Schneider wishes for Vertin to not forget her.

An odd wish, a strange one, but most of all, it was a selfish wish. A wish made that will only benefit Schneider alone, a far-cry of what she has been like this entire time.

And yet, even with that wish, there was a clear restraint in her desire. Schneider had kept her identity of being a pure-blooded human a complete secret from Vertin and everyone else, because she didn't want to concern them with her troubles. To not let them worry over someone like her when there were others that deserve it more than Schneider. 

Even when she was asking for something for herself, Schneider kept this thought in mind, fully intending to bring this secret with her till the end. To not worry Vertin or the others until she finally departs from this world, her only desire is that Vertin will remember her at least, even for just a little while.

Now we move on to the final scene of the chapter, and the conclusion to Schneider's character; and also the culmination of all these scenes finally coming into play to create a finale that just hurts. 

Because Schneider had always been a selfless girl, someone who would sacrifice herself if it meant that others that she cared for would live. A girl who will bury all her secrets, all her lies and all her desires to her grave if it meant she could grant the people around her no burden from herself.

Yet even a girl like her still desires to be loved, to desire affection, to desire compassion from someone they loved. 

In the end, Schneider had kept up her front, she continued to be that selfless girl for Marian to the very end. But when her last real family disappeared in front of her eyes, leaving nothing but her clothes, a dam broke, and Schneider couldn't bear to hold it anymore.

And so she leaps into Vertin's arms, pleading for the girl to hold her. Because at the end of her life, Schneider just wants to be held by someone who cared for her, who acknowledged her as the young girl that she is; a girl who loves everyone around her, and received none back, and not the killer she had become.

In the end, Schneider let herself be selfish, the only and last time she could ever be given a chance to be. And yet even at the end, you can still see the immediate regret of her selfishness, she must have known just how badly this might hurt Vertin. Had Schneider survived, it will be a regret she will solely hold in her heart.

Yet at that moment, Schneider just chose to not think about it, to just let herself be held and be embraced by the last person she knew and had grown to care and love. To be held by someone who found her to matter. To just let herself be selfish, knowing the consequences of it. 

In the end, what she finally did was a heartbreaking and painful and a horribly traumatic move to pull on Vertin, yet at this point, after all that, can you really blame her for it? 

For a girl who had given up so much and gained so little back, is it really worth it to blame her for just wanting to feel like she mattered in her final moments, and to at least go out not having to lie to herself or to others, even if it would hurt them? To just let herself be selfish for the only last time in her life.

To die not being Schneider, but just Yelena Greco, a girl who finally found someone to love her.

[wintersongstress]

A Dream’s Winding Way

Part I — A Beetle in a Matchbox 

Pairing: Arthur Morgan (high honor) x Female Reader

Summary: For as long as you could remember, you dreamt of falling in a love so whole and pure it was worth enduring the many griefs in your life. But the world, cold and cruel as it was, robbed that dream from you, and you believed you would forever be broken until you met a man who was scarred in his own way.

Word Count: 9.2k

Warnings: sexual assault, grief (past loss of parents/caretaker). 

A/N: This story is about surviving sexual assault. Over the past two years I’ve been writing this an effort to cope and process my own experience, but I also set out to write this for others who have suffered this as well. I wanted to craft a story that explored healing, finding a partner who understands consent, and feeling safe with them. Not every reader may be in the headspace to read this as I deal heavily with the wave of emotions that comes after an attack. The attack itself I did not desire to go into violent detail of, but it is there and it may be triggering. 

Regardless, I want any reader who decides they aren’t in the right place to read this because of the triggers to know that healing is possible, that you are not broken, ugly, or worthless, and no matter how much trauma has taken from you, you can still live a good life. Arthur Morgan is a comfort character I imagine would be that partner who understands boundaries and vulnerability and sees a woman he holds feelings for as more than her pain.

Part Two | AO3 Link

In memory, the woolly tufts of a moon-white dandelion swayed in a long departed breeze. You held it close, contemplating your heart’s desire amidst the babble of brook and the music of birdsong.

I want my first time to be with someone I’ve given my heart to.

The wind sifted through your skirts and the trees, meanwhile the deepest hope of your heart unfurled with a wishful blow until all that remained of the dandelion was a bald stem. You cast it off into a pebbled stream for the water to claim. The seeds coasted in the air and a motherly breeze carried them in its gentle wake, cradling your wish to the future day it could come true. No spider webs ensnared them, and the canopy parted to admit their passage into the turquoise sky. On that bank you stood on the cusp of womanhood, your world lush with possibility and untouched by tragedy, allowing your young heart to nurture such a naïve fantasy in the spring sunshine. 

                                                            ~ * ~

                                      ~ I — A Beetle in a Matchbox ~

Sawtooth Mountain Range, Idaho. 1891

 In the before, life was a fairytale. It was rising with the sun to a land still cold from a night beneath the mountains’ shadow, where wildflowers purpled the meadows and dawn trailed amber fingers through the abundant evergreens. Every day you opened your kitchen door little changed. Each morning, before you unlatched the garden gate, you enjoyed the music of singing birds alone, breathed in deep the thick and clean scent of pine, and cherished every place the sunlight touched in this little, precious corner of the world. From spring thaw to fall frost, the morning grass beneath your lively step held pinhead glitters of dew, dampening your hem as you would amble to the chicken coop, basket in arm and contented at the sight of a tawny rabbit nipping at the vegetable patch. It was the rewarding routine and rustic simplicity of tending a goat and digging your fingers in the fresh soil of your garden, the enjoyment of friendly society while working at the hotel in town and the privilege of sharing a cottage with your grandmother—the only family you had left.

A few years after you were born you lost your parents to cholera. You had no memory, fond or otherwise, tethered to them and the objects they left behind to unfailingly inflict the salt and sting of grief. Tucked inside your blouse you kept your mother’s ring on a chain, and on your bedside table a portrait of them sat framed and propped. The coolness of the metal and the sepia tone of the photograph made you smile with gratitude for what pieces of them remained. Pieces that were soft and unserrated, that you could hold on to, thumb the edges, and feel only the smooth ease of kinship. But the most comforting reminder of them all was your grandmother.

To you, she was a soft-spoken and welcoming woman, one who had lived a full life beneath the sun by the token of her laugh lines and the fan of wrinkles beside each of her eyes. With others she was sensible and solemn, and not a person to scam or underestimate.

Few saw the side of her you did: the kindhearted woman whose hair you helped pin up in a nautilus of braids each morning, whose dainty collar was kept mathematically straight. She often took you through the forests and taught you all about herbs and curative plants, instructing you to gather the roots of ginseng and the ruby heads of yarrow for teas and tonics and you took an instant proclivity towards it. She gifted you with a stack of field guilds on mushrooms, wildflowers, trees, birds, and everything else within the forest to prepare you. With a cattleman stowed on your hip she trusted you to venture out alone, and your horse, Willa, carried back your fragrant pickings in large, leather sacks that hung from her saddle on the path home. In the evenings, through the space in the boughs overhead, a scarf of smoke greeted you from the cobbled chimney of your home, where inside a stew pot waited, simmering with the fragrant steams of vegetable broth.

Those were treasured times, and you would never fully appreciate the true goodness of those days until your grandmother passed away, because for as much as she taught you to watch out for yourself, you still had so much to learn about the dangers of the world.

The people from town came by to offer their condolences and casseroles, and Mr. Greely gave you a week’s pay and time to grieve. You would get back on your feet, you knew, but you were grateful for everyone’s generosity and sympathies.

Winter came, a season of most cold reflection, and the solitude of trackless snows resembled the emptiness in you. Food turned to ash in your mouth, the pale and placid blue of the sunrise on mountain snow stirred no awe in your eyes, and you drifted through life as if it were a waking dream. Loneliness was a pit, and long had you trailed the span of its walls with unfeeling hands to a degree of familiarity and cold comfort, circling, circling, listless and hollow. 

As snow did, melancholy mellowed with spring. A day came when you awoke and opened the windows of the cottage to a renewed earth, wherein the singing liberation of fresh streams and rosy birds suffused the air and lifted your spirits. A breeze stirred the curtains. A cloud melted in the sky. The serenest of sunshine warmed your cheeks and a wind cleared your lungs, and each breath you inhaled was like a sip of chamomile tea as it swept its balmy way through your body. Venturing out, steps bedded by clovers, the water you drew from the mossy well held your reflection, and within its silver glimmers you glimpsed a girl who had grown into womanhood and aged a year in the space of a season. You were not the only one to notice this change.

With the spring the surrounding woods grew replete with game, drawing in hunters from all around, of which included one familiar face: the town Sheriff. He rode a buckskin horse with syrup brown eyes and a tail so long it brushed the earth; a wild stallion he tamed himself. The horse’s dappled flank often carried deer pelts on his way back from the deep forest. A trail wound not far from your cottage and he loped up one day, checking on you. You spied the old cedar stock of his long gun, stowed in his saddle holster as he pulled up the reins, the fringe of his suede jacket rippling as he jounced to a stop.

A howdy was exchanged as you balanced a basket of currants on your hip. Hand cupped against your brow, the sun beamed warm through the straw of your hat and you offered a polite smile to the man with a neatly trimmed black mustache, his face otherwise clean-shaven. A few minutes of amiable conversation ensued—him discussing the heavy snowfall of the winter and you assuring him you managed the harsh season. He took a more meaningful tone when he inquired about living on your own, if you had a means to protect yourself, and if you happened upon any unfriendly-looking persons. You knew well how dangerous it was for a woman to live by herself, in the wilderness or otherwise, regardless of the presence of your father’s old hunting rifle mounted above the fireplace. His concern was not unwarranted, after all you supposed it was his job to keep the town and the people in it safe. Knowing that someone in the world was watching out for you was a small relief you welcomed, but you wished you peered past the cloak of concern to unveil the underlying intention behind his appraisal of your competence before it was too late.

He visited weekly. Oftentimes he brought a bundle of wildflowers he had collected on his journey over; bluebells, because they were his late wife’s favorite. And no shortage of compliments accompanied him, either. Both you accepted awkwardly, not used to receiving this sort of attention as you handled the uprooted, bent stalks with the utmost care. He was on his way with a tip of his Stetson before long, and you pushed all thoughts of men far from the forefront of your mind as his horse’s hooves thumped off into the waning afternoon.

You wished you paid more attention when the Sheriff spoke of his wife’s passing and tried to relate his grief to yours. He loved her, and the naïve part of your mind believed the love in his heart would remain and never dwindle, because the love you held for your family endured despite the tragedies. He made you laugh on occasion, made you look forward to his visits, and worst of all, he got you to trust him. But he began to ask things of you, about you. Questions too personal. Would you be looking to get married since you were of age? Were you sweet on anyone? Questions that made you stammer in a way he mistook for something other than being flustered.

For as long as you dreamed, you dreamt of what falling in love would be like. It was the momentous landmark you looked forward to reaching the most in life. Something worth treading the painful slopes and crumbling scree of loss. To disclose that dream to him would be to give the wrong person the right piece of yourself, so you guarded your answers to his intrusive questions with ambiguity. He would huff, thwarted, but somehow, in some inadvertent way, he took it as encouragement to think his forwardness was welcome, because maybe he never would have come to you that night.

An invincible storm had rolled in. Rain poured wild and cold against the windows in veins of silver mined from the ore of thunderclouds, battering the panes and drumming the roof. Dark through the wilderness shone the sheer slanting waves of the downpour, lashing against the trees until their branches bowed in submission, moonlight devoid throughout. Flows of water sluiced through the baskets of geraniums hanging in the eaves and ran off the shingles, splashing down upon the ground in rippling puddles that danced with each new drop. Droplets and branches tapped against the other side of the cool glass against your hand, meanwhile, at your back, your dinner popped and hissed in its pot. You turned and drifted away from the window pane at length, and let the lacy curtain fall back in place.  

After supping, you draped a knitted throw around your shoulders and settled near the fire at last, to doze and drift in the peace of falling rain while tucked inside, safe and warm. As logs of cedar and birch snapped, sadness tapped against the window of your mind, as it often did, and your gaze was lost to the flames in rumination, the book in your lap forgotten as you reckoned with your circumstances. You were as content as you were able to be without the ones you had lost, but in the hollow of your heart your grief was a wound that never healed and yawned at times. Your grandmother’s perfume of heavy, dark red roses still clung to the soft weft of the blanket you held close—a smell that made you tender towards the past. So many traces of their life upon the Earth remained. 

A horse’s whinny broke your reverie. Your book fell as you jolted from the chair, seeking out your gun on the table before investigating the disturbance. Willa was situated in the small stable, and if someone was outside—

Rigorous knocking rumbled through your door frame, followed by a familiar voice, pleading.

You set the gun down and yanked open the storm-pelted door. At the same time, a boulder of thunder rolled through the night. Across the land lightning flashed through the sky to illuminate the weathered face standing at your threshold.

“Sheriff? What on Earth—“

He barged past you without invitation, shotgun ready in hand. For all of an instant you stood frozen in bewilderment, until the gusts of wind billowing in prompted you to shut the door and your gaping mouth. He was on a mission, it appeared, because he ignored your protestations.

The Sheriff blustered his way through your tranquil home in a whirring of spurs and a splatter of muck. Dirt ankle-deep caked his riding boots, his feet muddier than a pig’s hooves as he searched about the main room in a frenzy, yanking open doors and shoving aside furniture. Each of his intrusive footsteps quaked the floors, shaking the fine dishware in its special cabinet, the copper pots hanging above the dry sink, and the shelves of jarred fruits and jams. He carried rainwater and the look of a storm in his wake, shattering the peace you found earlier this evening completely. From his ebony gun belt a hunting knife and a freshly-oiled Schofield hung prepared beside his Sheriff’s star.

You stood waiting, arms folded, for an explanation.

When the last place for him to search were the floorboards you stood upon, he sagged and sighed with relief, deflated. He removed his hat, his face no longer obscured to reveal the grim line of his mouth and a hard determination simmering in the umber of his eyes. At last, he explained himself.

He said he came as soon as he heard to make sure you were safe. Safe from what? you asked. Bad men were about, he stated. Outlaws, murderous train robbers and thieves wanted across two state lines. Men devoid of a human conscience. The words sunk in with a weighty silence of understanding, silence in which the rain filled and your imagination could wander to gruesome places. Strangers seldom passed through here, let alone outlaws, you commented.

“Now you understand my lack of decorum. I hope you can forgive my negligent manners.”

Solemnly, you nodded. The hairs along your arm had risen, skin prickled, and you sought the ring hanging from your neck out of habit. To hold it against your heart and trace its comforting shape kept you grounded in moments of uncertainty.

In his hands he fiddled with the brim of his hat. A puddle formed on the floor where he stood.

“You must be chilled to the bone,” you ventured. “I’ll pour you some whiskey.”

“That’d be mighty fine of you, miss.”

Your hospitality indicated a hesitant welcome, but the Sheriff was clueless to your apprehension. The rain subsided to a light tapping on the roof and window panes; he could have his drink and be on his way momentarily. You turned to busy yourself with finding a glass. Meanwhile, the click of his spurs trailed over to the wall hook. Fabric rustled as he hung up his Stetson and shed his dripping coat.

With no electricity, you relied on oil lamps to keep your cottage illuminated. The steady, amber glow cast from the etched glass sconces always imbued the acorn brown stain of the woodwork with warmth and charm. However, the Sheriff’s presence in your home inverted all the comfort you found within it. The dried herbs hanging in the rafters offered no rich and earthy smell, the bowl of fruit on the counter promised no sweet taste in the gleam of their ripe skins. But you ignored all of these perceptions and the insect crawl of wariness creeping along your spine and retrieved the bottle of rye whiskey you kept for medicinal purposes.

You kept your back to the Sheriff as you perused your selection of glassware for a suitable tumbler. Touch skipping lightly along the wood, dust coated your fingertips as you drew from the top shelf. In the pit of your stomach dread curdled. Outside, the storm had lessened, but another one of unease was brewing inwardly. Through the reflection of the cabinet doors you caught the Sheriff’s stare as you shut them, latched to your form. The shameless indulgence in his gaze provoked a flare of ire through you and you cleared your throat with an air of reproach.

“Where was this gang of Dutch van der Linde’s spotted?” You turned to him, shoulders and chin raised in an effort to appear untroubled. The question hung for a moment as the Sheriff considered where to place his undue shotgun. The stock settled against the table leg and he straightened at your approach, smoothing a hand over the broom of his mustache.

“Near Taylor Ranch,” he answered.

You blinked. Without a hat, shadows no longer concealed his pockmarked cheeks and the bushy, ungroomed lintels of his eyebrows. His shirt was wrinkled and damp from riding in the storm, clinging to his skin. The top two buttons were uncharacteristically undone, peeking wiry chest hair.

You had paused, but not because of his unkempt appearance. The whiskey shivered in tones of gold and brass as you set it on the table absently, along with the glass. Light from a lone, flickering candle caught the ginger liquid like a brazier.

“That’s only two miles from here.”

A log fell in the fireplace, spent, embers spitting.

“Indeed.”

He thumbed the curling petal of one of his bluebells, a faint smile dangling on the corner of his mouth. You had arranged the latest cluster of his in a porcelain pitcher set on your table. Below, your eyes dropped to where a few of the flowers had withered and fallen upon the table runner. 

Pondering, wood creaked as you retreated to the fireplace, leaving him to his drink and odd fascinations. Meanwhile your fingers worried with your cuffs, twisted in your skirt as you swirled in the eddy of your thoughts. The Taylors. Closing your eyes you remembered the smell of their home: fresh baked bread and strawberries. All of your visits had the flavor of berries and apples. A cross-stitched picture of a goose wearing a bonnet hung in their window and welcomed any who knocked on their door, which Mrs. Taylor would swing open with a smile and a gingham apron around her waist. 

Though she had a square jaw and chapped lips, crow’s feet and a stern demeanor, her hugs were the warmest and most welcoming. No one was a stranger at her doorstep for long, for she was quick to invite them in and fuss over a pot of tea and offer her finest plate stacked with shortbreads. Her motherly hospitality and friendliness of heart healed a wound your parents' loss opened. Taylor Ranch was a place you sought in the hours you yearned for solitude and contemplation, amity and freedom. Within their prized orchards resided plentiful avenues for you to explore in the summer and stroll through in the rustling Octobers, twisting from the trees the honey-sweet pendants of autumn to bake into pies. 

Marveling at the filigree of branches through which the sun cast its lemony light, it was in this enchanting place you first met the Taylors’ youngest son, Gideon. And what a meeting it was, all those years ago: he fell for you, literally—off an orchard ladder to a ground strewn with windfall apples, his collarbone snapping in the process. 

In a rush you swept to his side, apples thudding to the leafy ground. The boy roiled in pain, his face contorting, and you rose to action. His family came running when you called for help, and you did your best to haul him back to the house until his older brother retrieved him from where he leaned against your shoulder. Together you gingerly delivered him to the sofa in the sitting room and his father galloped to fetch the town doctor. 

You stayed at his side, this strange boy, noticed the dimples set in his pale cheeks and his russet hair—the rings of which his mother swept aside soothingly. Such soft features garnered an unfamiliar attention from within you. You had stared. 

The doctor arrived and set the bone, the grimacing sound and sight of which you closed your eyes against. Standing aside uselessly, you fidgeted with your mother’s ring for lack of occupation. Mrs. Taylor registered your worry and assured you that you were blameless for his injury. 

For days you thought of him. Though no words had passed between you, the glance you first shared with each other stilled time and lingered in a meadow of memory. Curiosity was all it was—towards a feeling, an interest in another. Gideon was the first boy to capture your attention in such a way. 

At the end of that week you returned to the ranch bearing a basket of sourdough biscuits. Slathered in honey, warm from the oven, your recipe yielded the fluffiest batch perfect for sharing. When she answered the door Mrs. Taylor had the most knowing smile on her face before calling over her shoulder. Gideon appeared a few moments later, a sling around his arm and a thumb hooked in his suspender. He had a hard time meeting your eyes and shifted on his feet when you offered to lunch with him. You sat on the porch together, enjoying the sight of chickens scratching at the fenced-off squares of dirt, of barn cats lazing in the sun, observing the last of autumn’s spell fading in the air. 

You visited him while he recovered, kindling something pure and sweet with him. He admired you a great deal. But afterwards, when he was well again and you had no excuse to see him other than the obvious, a kiss was sealed. How peculiar and unexpected it was, the moment he leaned towards you. Sitting beneath a giant oak tree while acorns dug into your hands, you found you dreaded it: the nearness of him. In your mind a kiss was a lucent dream of falling blossoms and a soft blue haze of light, like the very action were a twist of a key, unlocking your soul to another. At least, that was what you had wanted it to be, had always imagined it.  

When Gideon the boy kissed you it was a wet slide of his mouth—hungry, rushing, pressing hard and then sucking while his hands groped, seeking parts of your body you had yet to grow into. You sat frozen, eyes wide, not knowing how to move as his tongue roamed. So you took it. Afterwards, you wiped the ring of spittle around your mouth with your sleeve. He had smirked as he leaned away, and you no longer admired the dimples in his cheeks. You made an excuse to leave and when you returned home your grandmother asked if something was wrong, but you never overcame the shame of it to tell her. 

A revulsion built and simmered within you for the next few weeks. In town—for you had ceased to visit the ranch—he would press you against the clapboard behind the general store and beg for your lips and your hand to hold as he humped your hips, and he would tell you what he wanted you to wear when he next saw you. He was a foolish, over-eager boy, and he had no notion of romance or how to properly treat the one he was fond of. He knew so little about you and what your heart wanted, and you were disinclined to share any more of yourself with him. Unable to bear it any longer, you broke his heart, and he blamed you for every unhappiness henceforth. 

Throughout the passage of ten years his face and the unwelcome manner of his caresses remained unbearable to picture. No longer a boy, Gideon had grown from a clingy and imprudent child into a snobby and spiteful specimen of a man; an arrogant prig who filled his role of deputy at the Sheriff’s office exceptionally. You had long cast him from the forefront of your mind, but the Sheriff’s mentioning of the Taylor’s home and the threat posed to it brought the unpleasant recollections rushing back, and it took a moment before you recovered your composure. 

The heat of the fireplace fanned across your cheeks. In the night thunder cracked, calling you back into the atmosphere of the room, where you knelt at a stone hearth, ash on your sleeves. Wood gathered, logs clunked in the grate and scattered sparks as you tossed them in. Your thoughts of the past reached a conclusion at the glug of liquor filling a glass; with your back to your guest you broke the long lasting silence. 

“You should be checking on them, not me. Are you rounding up a posse?” 

A pouring of liquid answered. His eager lips approached the brim of the glass and swallowed it as if it were a fount of water in a desert. You turned to him as he filled it again. 

“I can’t do anything in this storm, and neither can those reprobates,” he pulled out a chair at the table, settling into it as happily as a worm in an apple. “‘Sides, Ned has hired guns and four strong boys to protect his property, whereas you‘re all alone out here—” A cough interrupted him. He blew an appreciative whistle once his throat was clear, sniffing the bottle. “This is some strong stuff you got here.”

Irritation flared within you at his blatant display of indecorum, evident by the propping up of his booted feet on your table. With his bandana pulled down low, the V of his throat gleamed with sweat as he tipped the full glass back. His Adam's apple bobbed, big as a turkey egg.

“Sheriff, while I am grateful for the trouble you’ve…” A drop of mud splattered on the table from his boot. You blinked at it. “—taken on my behalf, I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.” Not bothering to hide your annoyance you poked and prodded the logs in the grate with a fire poker, leveling his gaze afterwards. His expression held not a drop of seriousness or concern.  

“I can see that,” he chuckled. The key of his voice rang clear with condescension. With a great sigh you hung the poker back on its stand and dusted off your hands, looking about the room with a curled lip. His earlier theatrics had displaced much of your furniture. 

Your throw blanket laid in a soft puddle on the floor. You bent and folded it in a neat square, draping it over the back of your armchair, and setting that straight, too.  

“You don’t need to worry. I’ll make sure those men don’t come near here. By high-noon tomorrow, they’ll be human fruit for the buzzards.” Trouble must have lined your expression, for the aura of pride radiating from his demeanor softened, and you found his gaze fixed moonily upon you. His words painted a grisly image of the scaffold in your mind, which dispelled with a shake of your head. 

“What are they looking for, do you think? There’s nothing for men like that out here.”  

You wandered over to the window. Behind you, the Sheriff capped the whiskey. 

“The law is after them. They pulled a heist near Salt Lake and now they’re on the run with some big score, looking for a place to hide and wait for the heat to die down. But they’re fools,” he huffed, gritting his teeth. “And get this, they apparently give their money back to poor folk, like some sort of Robin Hood gang. They think they’re hero outlaws doing good deeds.”

You had no idea what to think of that. The clock on the wall ticked. Some minutes had passed since the last rumble of thunder, and your hand had naturally sought the ring hanging around your neck in the course of staring off into the night; the rain only pattered, no longer drumming hard on the roof. 

“The rain is stopping,” you said. 

Chair legs scuffed across the floor. “I suppose I’ve worn out my welcome?” 

Turning, you rallied a tepid smile. He had risen to his full height, his clothes still damp and wrinkled. Looking at you, he passed a knuckle across his lips, the hairs of his mustache scritching and the gold of his wedding band flashing. Across the room dark eyes descended from your face, fixing on the hand near your breast. You dropped it and squared your shoulders. To bring his attention back to your face, you called out his name in question.

After all of these years, you wished you could have forgotten it. It would have been a small mercy to your memory.

“I’m sorry, I forget myself sometimes. It’s just…you’re so pretty, standing there in the firelight like that.” 

His voice was but a murmur. It was so strange—hearing those words from him. They were supposed to be soft, and from any other man they could be, but his brash voice and hungry stare ruined anything gentle about them. Like putting lace gloves on a fishmonger, they were all wrong and unsuitable for him. They prickled the cold kind of goosebumps down your arms, making you shiver like a rabbit caught in a trap.

At your speechlessness, he took a step in your direction.

“Sheriff,” you started, putting your hand up. Pressing on, you measured the tone of your voice to be as low and as serious as you could muster. “I think you’ve had a drop too many.”

He smirked at you, hooking his thumbs in his belt, beside his badge and his gun. One of his eyes crinkled and the crooked slant of his mouth revealed the stains of tobacco on his teeth. 

“No,” he continued on. His steps, as they advanced, grew more condemning than the ones before it, maintaining his slow and leisurely gait. “I’ve noticed it before. I’ve noticed for a long time.” 

The truth. So plain before you; it dawned dreadfully like a blood-red sun at sea, shone clear like coins in the murk of a well. The authenticity behind his hebdomadal visits and floral offerings rippled into clarity with those few words: for a long time. How could your eyes have looked everywhere but at the black heart of him? That moment, too, was no exception. You sought salvation from the sight of him by glancing around the room, meanwhile chiding yourself for not being more distrustful and vigilant and for overlooking his true intentions. 

Graciously, his foot knocked against something. You caught your breath. For a moment, you had the chance to scope out your options, and put some distance between you and him. 

The Sheriff picked up the object impeding his path. Your book—the one you had been trying to read before his fists pummeled your door. The embossed title flashed beneath his passing thumb. 

Wuthering Heights. 

Long ago the thundering storm and crackle of flame ebbed away, especially within those pages. Branches captured in the sway of a breeze adorned the cover modestly for such a tale of the nature of love and bitterness. 

“You’re lonelier than I thought,” he said, quiet and drifting like an afterthought. You tensed. “There’s another reason why I came here tonight.”

He set the book aside and stood. The sideboard rattled as your back bumped against it. 

“I think you should leave.”

“Leave? Is that what you really want?” 

In one devastating blink, he was before you, so close the thin and pale violet skin beneath his eyes was visible. The fumes of alcohol on his breath stung your nostrils and you wrinkled away as he tipped the sharp beak of his nose to sniff the crown of your head. 

You could not help the sharp breath you took at his sordid deeds, the sound of which only pulled his gaze to your quivering bodice and your knuckles, tightened on the edge of the sideboard. He had you blocked in, like a beetle trapped in a matchbox, skittering from corner to hopeless corner. He licked his lips. 

“How long are you going to play at this?” A touch meant to be soft and reassuring singed your wrist. “Always looking so pretty and proper, the picture of a perfect wife,” the touch of his hand turned into a vice grip, so total and absolute your fingers could not move. A numb feeling overtook your limbs, your senses held hostage by fear. “Then actin’ all innocent as if you don’t want me too.” 

Another touch, this time seizing your cheek coldly as the statue that you wish you were not. At the imminence of his hot, wet mouth seeking to devour yours you found it within yourself to move. A wave of urgency swelled up and carried you away, towards the door, but he had you in his grasp before any hopeful seed of escape could be planted. 

The kitchen table with its cheerful lace runner and softly burning candle jostled as your front was bent over it, knocking the pitcher of bluebells to the floor. Porcelain cracked and you watched the water pool, petals floating, darkening the wood, and you wished the night that passed would fall apart into similar pieces, to leave the memories scattered and unstrung like the beads of a broken necklace across a floor. 

“What’s it going to take with you,” he had hissed in your ear, his spittled words dripping black, wicked and vile. Metal jingled. Fabric lifted. Cold air met your legs. Buttons freed their hold.

Stop. 

“I always knew you were a—”

Stop remembering. 

“—pretty thing.”

Absorbed in his vice, he little cared for his actions, entranced by his insidious deed. Foul words and heavy breaths hissed through his teeth and echoed for years after. 

Your mind left your body. But you remembered all of it. 

And you were so tired of remembering. You hated how easy it was for him to take everything from you. You hated the lust that drove him, your body for being an object of his desire, and yourself for being unable to stop any of it from happening.

The ringing report of rifle fire split the night, and it was the only thing that made him stop. But the damage was done. He tucked his shirttail in, buckled his belt. Left; a promise to return the next evening finalized by a vulgar squeeze to your backside, stinging your flesh. 

Wood scraped along your nails as you slid to the floor, clutching the table leg, trembling. At once, with an empty stare and shaking limbs, tears blurred your sight as all of your remaining strength relinquished. You curled into your body, disconsolate. Hugged your knees. Sobs, sobs, sobs wrenched your jaw apart in mourning what was lost and what was done to you.

It would follow your every other thought, that scene of despair in the lonely dark of night. You were cold for so long afterwards; for months, in a way no blanket or bowl of soup could remedy. The misery nested so deep within you. Further than the marrow of your bones. 

Every day for the rest of your life you would remember his hands. On you, squeezing, guided and distorted by depraved intent. Darker and drearer fell the night, and the full tide of your thoughts consumed you in a bitter, burning woe. 

Until dawn there was nothing but the pale, dead gold of the moon. You saw nothing. You felt nothing. Your mind only replayed it all, over and over. 

The violent tint of dawn crept in between the curtains. On the end of your lashes the last of your tears hung, and as the light came upon you, so softly bright, the deep-welling sorrow that sunk your heart yawned into something else. An emotion that braced your hands against the wood floor, collected you to your knees, and drove you shuffling forward. Shame. 

In your bedroom you gathered soap and new clothes into a basket before stepping foot outside. A glorious morning announced itself in every sound, from the sweetest music filling the trees, to the wind that gently stirred their nascent leaves. But it all fell on deaf ears. Your senses were lost to grim contemplation. 

Along a forest path rippling waters wandered. To their source they led, and alongside its flow you followed. 

Ties loosened, you dropped your skirts to your feet at the riverbank. All over, your skin spidered with memories of how he had touched you. The fastenings of your clothes came undone mechanically. You pretzeled arms behind your back to yank at your shirt buttons until all of your body was bare to the misty morning. Silver water whispered its coldness between your toes as you stepped forward onto the pebbled, silty shore, walking without seeing, feeling nothing but the cold encasing your ankles, your knees, rising up until the river embraced your shoulders in a purging chill. With a breath you dipped under. In a blink you escaped. 

Beneath the surface, the feelings and the memories dimmed. Slippery rocks brushed your feet and you grasped a slimy branch to sink farther. Little white bubbles floated up as you let the wintry temperature of the water numb your mind into blessed silence. The sensation calmed you, and that was all you wanted; the only thing you could seek within your tremorous reach. Quiet, and a state of unfeeling. Until that moment all of your thoughts were a repetition of the same statement of instability and unease: I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. Teeth chattering; every pore over your body squirmed with the taint of his violation every step of the way to the river. Only beneath the current had it stopped. At last you ceased to think. 

Your heart seized and your lungs begged for air. And again, something brought you up. From the kitchen floor, from the bed of the river. With a gasp you broke the surface and your eyes fixed upon the sky. The great blue bowl of it was ringed with treetops, eagles circling—the world around you, going on as it should while droplets trickled down your spine. Clouds of river foam gathered around the stagnant driftwood you stepped over while treading to the bank. Taking a seat upon a rock, you scoured your limbs with soap until the skin squeaked and your fingers pruned, the bubbles drifting downstream. From your hand, ice cold, help deep in the river, the water fell over your knees and your shins, down your shoulders and in the hollow of your back, cleansing and numbing. With the print of the Sheriff’s fingers no longer pressed into your skin, you dried and dressed, ready to face the scene inside the cottage once again. 

Too often in this world girls become women before they are ready, before they are strong enough, before they know enough to endure all of the trials womanhood entails. Losing your family to sickness so young, being on your own completely, you thought your world was as bleak as it could be. Until the night that passed—when the universe peeled back another layer of darkness to descend over your life.

Upon approaching the front gate of the only home you had ever known, something changed. The familiar consolation of its shelter was absent. No smile tugged your lips at the dance of dragonflies in the air, at the tulip bulbs in your garden plot sprouting toothy stalks from the dirt. 

Within each season resided a singular wealth unique to the forest, the remembrances of which carved fond grooves in your mind to touch over in times you sought comfort, the niches imbued with a sense of belonging and safety. You reached inwards for them. 

For the trinkets of winter, silver, blue, and white—the sugaring of snow, the glittering of frost, the river’s music silenced by ice. Leading to the light of the sun warming once again, stout icicles dripping onto emerald moss, coaxing the golden crocus from the thaw. How, slowly, the days grow longer, April rain moistening the lichen on the roof tiles, darkening the soil, spawning the green scent of an Earth renewed. 

It was as if every page of memory were ripped from the book of your life, leaving an empty tome. There was no story left for you here. 

The door threw a trapezoid of light when you opened it. Standing in the threshold, a five-leaf cluster wandered down from the sky and landed on the floorboard, dotted damply with the night’s rain. Inside, everything was the same, yet changed, like some place in a dream. The house was as dark as a tomb, haunted with the echoes and dust of people taken from you, and someone who took from you. Nothing but a vacant chair welcomed you.  

On the mantle rested trinkets from your parents. A pocket mirror of your mother’s, silver and elegant, and a rosewood pipe of your father’s, smooth and genteel. To hold them in your palm, curl your fingers over their edges and clasp them to your skin as if wringing out the last ghosts of their touch, as you so often did, would only bring you to your knees. You needed to move forward and leave it all behind. You needed—

A chip crunched beneath your foot. You stepped away, revealing the obliterated piece of vase. What a helpless, fragile vessel. Admired throughout its lifetime, only to be thrust into ruin. Your hands shook beside you, the bones of your fingers tingling with riotous nerves all the while anguish swelled in your chest to a volcanic boiling point. 

A wrenching, piercing roar split your throat apart. 

In a rush the desecrated table toppled over. Screaming, you kicked it harder and harder until your toenails bled and the whole thing scudded ten feet across the floor. Your arms swung wildly about with each effort, fighting the images of yourself bent over it, helpless and frozen, and unable to beat them back. More and more you screamed with outrage, but it was not enough. You were not strong enough. Your limbs alone could not prevail. 

No man would ever know of the darkness their touch leaves behind. Meanwhile you would carry it forever.

It was not fair. 

Your rage conducted you outside, sustained you in the search of some outlet, some tool to deliver greater destruction than your feeble body could convey. Leaving the table behind, pools of last night’s rain splashed beneath your blazing step on the path to the shed where you kept your father’s axe. Jabbering cardinals flurried away to the trees at your storming approach and the sun graced your forehead through the lacings of the leaves they found shelter in. 

Ordinarily, the sight of so much emergent green abounding after one rainfall would stoke wonder in you. In one place, in one wind, the new leaves sang wavily while a cloud passed over the glare of the sun, bringing a cooler depth to the shades of the earth until all brightened and warmed again once the cloud melted away. After the longest winter, it was what your soul needed to fill the holes in your heart. Grief was becoming a part of your landscape, however. You stopped short on the path.

A wind-cloven branch warped the roof of the shed. It must have fallen in the night. The severed limb was great and heavy, and in the place where it was once joined to its life force the splintered wood was a tender, meaty white, darker in its center. Bugs skittered along the scales of lichen patching their once steady home; in days the leaves would wither and wilt.

With gravity and a few tugs the branch came down. As it lay upon the stone path, uprooted, your simmering rage found its outlet. This was something you could destroy. You reached inside the shed, and with it in your hand, the axe dragged across the ground. The curved edge shone sharp in the sun as it scraped along stone.  

Raising it above your shoulder, your limbs quaked before you released it all at last. Swing after swing, hack after hack, again and again you heaved the hatchet into the log, pieces splintering as memories of him came free as well. Him, his voice. How his acts of kindness were all a lie—a ploy to get you where he wanted you. Bent over a table. 

Crack. 

Alone. No one to help you. First Gideon with his groping hands, then the Sheriff with the smoldering fire in his eyes. 

A split. 

You braced your foot against the branch and twisted the hatchet free. Deeper and deeper down into the wood you burrowed, gathering venom with each reflection. As the branch fell apart and wood chunks flew your resolve stitched itself together. 

He.

 Swing. Your skin is so soft here.

Had.

  Breathe in. Forget his words.

No.

 Bury them. 

Right.

With a momentous strike the tree limb cracked asunder. A final scream tore your throat raw. The birds split free from the sunlit canopy, and the forest was still as your shriek petered to a shriveling wail, then nothing. 

The line of thought looping through your head quieted too. The uncertainty and fear of not knowing what to do, how to move forward from this, was gone. While the thread of anger and veins of sadness and shame still pulsed within, it all flowed together, steady and purposeful. The axe hung from your hand, dangled a scant inch from the ground, and your breathing relaxed as the sweat dried cool on your brow. 

Lightning had struck this tree twice before. Each fracture diminished its once formidable heights, an august maple which sheltered your childhood in the sweltering summers and cast familiar shadows in your room at bleary midnights. But every spring it flourished in a robe of green, the ruptures healing, new branches broadening their offshoots, and marched onwards to the grand vault of the heavens. However lightning-struck, it lived on, not dying of ruined hopes alone. 

The time to dwell had passed. You were done crying. You were done blaming yourself. And you were done with asking yourself why. What you were ready to do was protect yourself from ever getting hurt again. You could not let the pain stop you. So you finished chopping up the tree to break down into firewood later. 

A whicker sounded from the stable. Willa, your sweet, gentle mare. Until that moment you had forgotten her. Putting the axe aside, in a dash the door clanged open at your hand and you found her thoughtful eyes in the slanting ribbon of daylight. You sighed in relief. Safe and sound, your only friend left in the world shuffled in her stall, the space smelling of wood and hay. You approached her with an open palm, smoothing it over her black and white coat.

“Hey, sweetie.”

Animals could be so intelligent and perceptive at times. Willa nudged your shoulder, sensing the sorrow molding your heart, and you pressed your cheek to her warm neck. Smelling sweetly of grass and hay, her black mane slipped through the comb of your fingers like a shadow melting back into shade. You drew it away to uncover the white star on the center of her forehead. Her long lashes dipped somberly. You took a comb from its niche behind a joist and brushed along her coat for a long while. Without words, you found a way to speak to her of the events that unfolded the night before, thinking of them deeply and shutting your eyes as she remained close. 

In the evening he would return. And the next, and the one after. On and on it would go, and you could live a whole lifetime in fear and hatred and pain, unless you stopped it. He said you were the picture of a perfect wife. No man would have you now. A word from him and the whole town would condemn you if you refused his wants. Deviously, he had made sure it was impossible for you to say no to him and once again you were backed into a corner, that beetle trapped in a matchbox with no way out. 

You needed a place to think. After scooping Willa some oats you donned a hat and your father’s old hunting jacket, a garment fashioned from a durable brown suede with deep front pockets and elk horn buttons. It was familiar and warm, and a comfort. 

You hefted your horse’s saddle off the hook and over her back, commenced cinching the straps and adjusting the stirrups, and led her outside. Fetching your gun belt and a waterskin from the cottage, you mounted up and loped down the forest path. 

Deep in the woods, where the mountain air of spring violets and dew-spangled moss came sweet upon the senses, Nymph Lake rested like a jewel in a chest lined with evergreen velvet, a treasure to the eyes and ears. A glassy calm transfixed the sleeping waters, an aquatic scent lingering. Lily-pads shouldered its reeded edges, rocks shone brown beneath the changeful sheen of the serene ripples, and minnows balanced themselves among the underwater grasses which wavered and streamed in the natural flow of the pond. All around, the timberline hemmed the lone mountain lake in, with the sun scarcely streaking the treetops at the early morning hour. A woodpecker clung to the knot of a treebole and drilled for insects, and along the water a frog added its voice to the song of the wilderness. 

Thompson’s Peak rose up in the azure of the sky like the spires of an Arthurian castle. Seams of snow dwelled in the vast fissures of the mountainside and thrived in the shadows of the rock, a granite tapestry striated with the grays of smoke and storm clouds with canals of rust between. Willa’s hooves sunk into the soggy ground as she shifted on her feet. You swayed in the saddle, giving her some rein and leaning back as she began to climb uphill past a pile of rocks, out of the tree line and towards the sunny side of the bouldered mountain trail. 

For all of its sentimental worth to you, and as safe as any place you could find, Nymph Lake was not the refuge you sought. The times ahead and the path you were about to embark on was uncharted and uncertain territory. The trusting, pure chapter of your life would have to be left in shadow. 

Through the notch between Willa’s ebony ears, you aimed yourself towards the rugged slopes and mounds of the Sawtooths, the earth coarse, shifting with detritus and scree, with few and far pine trees taking root between. Long, bare logs and trunks of trees, parched and decaying, strewed the land, slowly sliding away and downwards, the old bending back into the earth as the new prospers, rising up in the form of saplings. 

Your grandmother’s words came to mind. Always do what your heart tells you. In the bare wind you listened; for one, for the other. The world to you once, the presiding presence of Thompson’s Peak filled your vision, steady as a lighthouse. 

If it were any other man, you could go to the law and report his crime. If you did nothing, you would crumble into a shell of yourself, something brittle and hollow for the wind to sweep away like the exoskeletons of summertime cicadas. If not you, it would be another. Picturing him luring and coercing another unwise girl, grinning at the prospect of her ruination, was enough to temper your insides to steel, your heart to adamant. 

You pulled Willa to a stop and dismounted on the gravel trail, unlimbering your gun. Six bullets occupied the cylinders in the loading chamber and you traced the notch in each one, twisting the mechanism around and around, acknowledging its life-altering clicks, small and clear. Your finger brushed the cool, curved steel trigger. For your protection, grandmother once said. In case you’re in the forest, lost in your foraging, and maybe you’re not watching your step, and you unwittingly stumble upon the hunting grounds of a predator. A beam of sunlight glinted along the barrel like a blinding star. I would have more peace of mind knowing you have some way to protect yourself and how to use it. I’m getting old, you know. 

Amidst the painful contemplation of your fate, fighting your last fight for the principles of your youth on that crumbling mountainside, Willa nosed a cluster of plants growing alongside the trail and set her teeth over their leaves, intending to munch, and everything stopped, suddenly sharpened. In a blink you tsked her away, and as you snapped the revolver chamber back into the loading gate, it all clicked into place, the sound like that of a key sliding in the lock of Death’s door. 

From memory, the page from one of your field guides on plants emerged in your mind’s eye. Death Camas was a member of the Liliaceae plant family, discernible for its grass-like leaves from which sprouted a raceme of white flowers with yellow anthers, as well as its distinctive onion scent. Fifteen different species thrived throughout North America, inhabiting mountain valleys, grassy plains, forests, and dry land alike, all of which grew from a white bulb with a fibrous root system. An unknowing passerby could easily mistake them for wild onions. A mere bite of one would invariably cause weakness and convulsions, vomiting and difficulty breathing, impair their muscles and nerves. A meal of them would stop their heart altogether. 

You crouched to the ground, stones grating underfoot, and your shadow fell over the colony of unassuming plants as you idled over them. Hands gloved, you grasped the base of the stems and pulled firmly. There was a snap as the pearly bulb relinquished its hold in the dirt and emerged in the light of day. One after another, dozens more ripped free without protest, clods of dirt clinging to the Camas’ stringy, tenuous roots. 

Indomitable and unwavering, as you reaped your bounty your resolve cemented to the same rock-hardness of the impassive mountain you stood upon. A mountain formed ages ago from the molten caverns of the Earth, transmuted through pressure and fire; a voyage that began with a roar, a rupture, a rock rending itself from an Archean mountainside which hurdled, crashing, into a valley to be carried down, down into the depths of the sea to slip beneath the subterraneous folds on the ocean floor, only for the process to begin again. 

This journey of tumult and upheaval was a natural cycle, one whose path was familiar to your tread through grief, and, newly, violation. The decision was final as you straightened to your full height.

You were not going to live with fear. You were going to live with guilt. 

He had you helpless, flat on your stomach with a rope of terror binding you in place. You would have him the same, and he would learn an inkling of the measure of pain you would forever carry throughout your life while he realized the end of his. 

I hate leaving it off here and the next part is so so close to being finished, but I was about to lose my mind if I didn’t post something I’ve written. I also thought it would be better to break it off here instead of part one being 22k words. 

I've worked so hard on this, drawing from my own well of pain, and I know this game came out in 2018 and fandom traffic has died down considerably, so if any part of this story sticks out to you I would love to hear your thoughts <3

Also a big fat thank you to every person who has encouraged me to keep writing. Y’all have no idea how many times you have saved my life. My betas, Jessica and Sara, as well my other mutuals on here 💗 Thank you. More than I can say. 

[gummybugg]

🎶Stuck in an ADHD Rut🎷🪲

Howdy! If this applies to you, let's see if we can get you out of there!

From what I have learned, the little ADHD brain creature craves happy chemicals. What usually gives us those? A sense of completion and satisfaction with our work! But those with ADHD lack a sufficient amount of baseline happy chemicals, which means it's harder for us to want to get things done! 

If the reward at the end of a task doesn't give your brain enough happy chemicals, you're more likely to procrastinate!

So what are we going to do to get unstuck? If unmedicated or without therapy, it can be very difficult to work around the ADHD rut! But I can share some things that have helped me in the past.

Of course, everything I mention will not help 100%, because everyone's brains are complex and this is anecdotal!

If you are able to, find a window of time that is easiest for you to work at! I typically do my best work in the evening or at night. This isn't always the best solution, as working around a schedule is not always easy.

Crank the stimulus up to 10 if you're feeling under-stimulated/bored! Louder music, brighter lights, drink something warm... Even stretching can get the blood pumping because now you got all the bone crunches out of your system! Are you there, Brain? It's me, Bug!

When I can remember, I create a Very Detailed to-do list. But I also know that people with ADHD are notoriously bad at keeping track of lists! I tell myself, "First, write a bullet list of ideas. Second, cherry-pick what you like. Third, write the thesis/main idea. Fourth, write ONE paragraph…" This works more so for writing essays or an entire draft! For some reason, breaking down every single step makes it slightly more manageable for me. 

I have heard of people who stop writing right before an interesting part and take a break! Perhaps the thrill of wanting to finish up that good part is what makes people want to jump back in. 

This goes against the previous points, but sometimes writing the most interesting pieces of my stories first (as opposed to writing linearly) helps more! The burst of energy I get when reading back on these pieces drives me to continue writing! I remember how excited I was when I wrote it all down, and it makes me think that past Me was definitely onto something!

To sum up, the ADHD brain is a fussy child who needs to be constantly reminded how to get things done. The more you get angry at it, the harder it is to cooperate with it! But, that is easier said than done. No one said that gentle parenting your brain was easy.

If you made it this far, then kudos to you because writing this was a miniature hurdle of its own! And If it seems scattered, I am well aware!

[depravitymoon]

GENERAL YANDERE FUGO

(Warning: Abuse, implied violence.) (A/N: You dont have to look at the categories.)

The categories I give him:

Yandere Type: Dominant

Yandere MBTI: Cruel Lucid Honest Strict/Lenient

How you met: Associated or working with Passione.

Most of this will be inspired by an old post I did. Heed the warnings.

Fugo acts like a soft yandere. Normally, he's a gentle young man. He's encouraging you to the best you can be in a positive way. He learns about what you're passionate about and tries getting passionate about it too. If he thought your interests were stupid, he wouldn't be in love with you, so relax. He'll even surprise you with gifts pertaining to your interests most people wouldn't understand.

Fugo still has a problem with his rage. Out of nowhere, he will lose that calm voice and the gentle words become demanding yells. Most of the time, it's not at you, but the way he treats others is still terrifying. When he is about to be mad at you, you can hear it in his voice. If you're smart, you'll calm him down. If you're brazen, Fugo will do things to you that you'll both regret.

Fugo is mentally unstable. His upbringing fucked him up and being a gangster is doing his psyche no favors. He loves you, he really does, but deep down, he thinks you're stupid and need him to survive this cruel world. Also, he also loves controlling you. It's therapeutic to being the one in control after a lifetime of exploitation.

Fugo wants his darling to be PERFECT. You are amazing, but you could be BETTER. There’s a couple of imperfections he needs to fix. He'll be a great teacher! He wont be like his awful parents or that shitty professor. He'll be patient with you. Just don't sass him or say that you don't want to do the assignments. Things will turn ugly. Trust him to improve you, dammit!

Fugo is a vicious mafioso. If he perceives someone as his enemy, violence ensues. First, he gives out verbals threats. This is towards the weak and innocent or as a first warning. Then, he makes violent promises. That is towards people who can see through his slick educated words. Finally, actually violence comes about. It's rarely towards you, but your closest friends and family might be free game.

Fugo will never use Purple Haze except in extreme situations. They would have to truly be harming you for him to give someone such a death. Keep in mind, he will do it in front of you just to show what he's willing to do for you. You're not sure if it's a threat or not, but what you do know is that he doesn't care when you puke.

Fugo wants to be a great boyfriend, but you're one-of-a-kind. He's never going to find an amazing person like you. He's make you even more amazing! Even if he has to force it out of you. He's improving you. You should be grateful for every lesson, rewards, and punishment he gives you. Just be a good student.

[funkyboywoggy]

Warning this list will involve adult/child, sibling/sibling, parent/child, ships! These ships are meant to make you say 'what the fuck' and 'why would someone imagine this?!'. Some of these I don't ship.

You know I'm a huge fan of like nice fluffy things but you know what I love even more? UNHEALTHY SHIPS. So I'm gonna provide a list of unhealthy ships I have brainstormed scenarios for! celestialcest, some crossover. If anyone thinks of more please add on! The ones I think about a lot are very noticeable lmao.

Stitchwraith x FC (grooming, lovebombing, mental/psychological abuse)

Eclipse x (child) Lunar (Grooming, physical, mental, sexual abuse, major manipulation)

Old Moon x New Moon (guilting, manipulation, love bombing)

Eclipse x ROTTMNT! Donatello (kidnapping, forcefully kept as a 'pet', sexual abuse, Stockholm syndrome.)

God!Eclipse x Servant! Sun x Lunar x Servant! Eclipse (two Eclipses with a god complex and bottled anger, a Lunar who they take that anger out on, and a sun who lets it happen to let the load be less heavy on him what could go wrong?)

Yandere! KC x Bloodmoon twins x Eclipse (daddy dearest won't let his boys go, when they go against him KC gets creative, even being willing to break their bones. Anything to keep his darling boys obedient. He prefers keeping Eclipse in the computer since he's so scared of how disobedient he can be. However on rare occasions Eclipse is granted the right to be in a body. However he does favoritize the twins. Incest, abuse, manipulation)

Stitchwraith x Lunar (Lunar has big brother issues and stitchwraith realizes how similar he himself is to Eclipse, and how useful having Lunar on his side would be.. His technical baby brother.. He decides to try and get close to Lunar for himself, and also to use as leverage towards Moon if they ever tried to get involved. Love bombing, grooming, manipulation, abuse, metal branding.)

Sfw shotacon! Eclipse x FC (This is more of a qpr, kidnapped FC to use as a source of star power to bring Solar back. However he becomes attached and refuses to let FC go. FC misses his dad but Eclipse lovebombs him and spoils him rotten and gives him more attention then really anyone has ever done. He loves sitting in Eclipses lap and watching bluey while he pets and massages his ears). FC developed stockholm syndrome, but also claimed Eclipse as his big brother.

Castor x Eclipse x Pollux (100% dont like having to keep him under wraps ended up getting into a situation where Eclipse is consistently underneath Castor, to which Eclipse eventually grew feelings for the twins. Them out of sheer curiosity drag him around like a pet, finding unique ways to torture him, however Castor has learned he's a huge fan of giving kisses. Shockingly Pollux is way more sadistic then Castor. Consensual but power imbalance and abusive)

Bloodmoon x Lunar (Having some respect since Lunar built them, if you can even call it respect, Bloodmoon kidnapped Lunar and cut his feet off leaving him with nubs. Bloodmoon has a tendency to bite on Lunar and since he's bio-organic even drink Lunars blood. Enjoying to even yank out bits of his animation is flesh. After hearing him cry and scream also giving him gentle kisses, snuggling him, bandaging him and at time rewards him with pleasure. Kidnapping, cannibalism, abuse, incest.)

[animusxy]

Aemond Targaryen x Blind! Reader Pt.4.5

Summary: You and Aemond getting protective of one another when others in the Red Keep make snide remarks about the other.

Requested: I thought this was a great idea that was brought to my attention by @ateliefloresdaprimavera. I love this idea so much so thank you for coming up with it!

Warnings: None

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 3.5 / Part 4 / Part 4.5 / Part 5

So, this is how the reader reacts to someone insulting Aemond (and Helaena) behind his back while your around.

Throughout your stay in King's Landing, you were known to be an extremely pleasant person to be around.

Despite the cruel things people whispered about you, this was mostly gossip from the Ladies of the court who were jealous of your relationship with the second son of the king.

Your friendships with Helaena and Aemond were the highlights of your life at this point.

So naturally anyone who insults them, insults you by association.

It was no secret that people, mostly servants, whispered insults about the two of them.

It made no sense to you as Helaena was always polite and thankful to them for their service.

For Aemond it was more understandable, he'd built himself quite the reputation over the years, but he was still polite to workers, and women.

Often preferring to doing things by himself, he meant this so that the servants did not need to spend time on him so that they could focus on more important things. Like spending time with their families. You knew just how much Aemond despised absent parents.

However, the servants always took this as him not trusting them enough to handle his tasks. Well, you could see why in hindsight. Aemon was always very blunt when talking to people and it could often come across and uncaring and rude but it did depend on who he was talking about.

Typically, if one couldn't tell how he thought of you. Then it was neutral, he held no like or dislike to you.

If he didn't like you, you would know just from the way he looked at you.

Still, the callous words that people often sprouted towards them infuriated you to no end.

Apparently, Helaena's prophetic mumblings and Aemond's lost eye was too much of a challenge to look past.

So, you too, made a name for yourself.

A gentle, kind and caring person but if someone disrespected one of your friends one would very quickly find them repenting.

Even Aegon was not spared from your words when he spoke of his siblings disparagingly.

The first instance was about Helaena.

Some of her hand maidens, three you'd guess, were just leaving her room and while you couldn't see them you could hear their headache inducing laughter.

According to the loudest, they had just killed one of her most exotic creatures to see how she'd react to the news.

She didn't even get to finish her sentence before you were hounding them.

'Excuse me?!' The hour was early so you did not wish to wake anyone in the vicinity.

Thankfully Helaena had been requested by her mother earlier than usual so you could at least teach some insolent brats a lesson before having to break the news to the princess.

Oh, poor Helaena would be so heartbroken.

With that thought in mind you proceeded to quietly argue with each of them.

Now, a bad thing about being fully blind is that when you were in an argument with someone. There were times where they'd just quietly walk away from you because, well, it's not like you could see them.

But you were raised with parents and siblings who did exactly that, you could just tell when someone was about to try.

So, when the closest maid attempted to quietly step past you to escape your aggressive words you gave them a firm hit on the shin with your staff that Aemond had gifted you.

You were rewarded with a sharp gasp of pain, and they didn't dare try it again.

That staff was dangerous Aemond made sure of that.

Gods you laughed when Aemond told you to use it as a weapon if you wanted to but now you thanked him for it.

When you were done you gave them all a light tap on the head with that same staff as they watched in silent awe as they were patronised by a blind person.

(As many had often said your gentle nature came from the fact you were 'unable to defend yourself').

Then you had stormed off to the Queens Quarters where Queen Alicent and Helaena were conversing.

Queen Alicent had thought of Helaena's obsession with bugs as being unsightly or random when she was younger, often trying to ween her off of them.

As Helaena grew, her dreams grew with her and Alicent came to realise that it was not an obsession at all but rather something to release the strain of the horrible things she had seen.

She also came to realise that you too, played a similar role.

By talking about her dreams with you, something she only did with Aemond and sometimes Alicent herself.

She was able to further release the strain on her mind and relax more in her own skin as she knew that you would always take what she said in consideration and would try to figure out what she meant by certain sayings.

To hear that someone, or people, had harmed one of the few things that allowed Helaena to help live a regular life was enraging.

Alicent had pulled you aside to get the full story and the names of the handmaidens before the two of you approached Helaena to break the news to her.

The princess was reduced to tears and clung to her mother and her best friend as she mourned.

Helaena had a bond with those little critters that you couldn't fathom.

You weren't a big fan of them yourself, well only really the ones with many, many legs but you were willing to put that aside as you offered if she would like you to attend as she picked out new creatures to add to her collections.

Aemond also joined the two of you after you informed him of what had happened.

Adding in his own ideas of which ones Helaena should invest in, even offering to fly on Vhagar to get some exotic ones from Essos.

Helaena had brought the two of you into one large hug to thank you for your consideration.

Despite her innocence, she knew that not everyone would tolerate going on a trip for the day to bring back to the Red Keep.

The second instance was about Aemond.

And as always, his eye.

You were aware that people often talked about it, but it wasn't usually in a purely derogatory way like this time.

The lords had been speaking about how while Aemond may be good at sword-fighting, he would never be able to wed a woman.

That he was much too hideous for that.

Now, usually when it came to Aemond you would back away and do nothing.

Aemond would often tell you that you shouldn't put yourself in a situation where you could be put in danger.

He specifically meant men.

He would say that it doesn't bother him so you shouldn't worry about it but he was your best friend.

You knew when he was lying to you.

You knew that it sometimes kept him awake at night or bothered him when he was walking around King's Landing.

After all, why would he wear an eyepatch if it did not bother him in the slightest?

So, against his wishes you spoke up to the lords.

Stating that their children would be incredibly lucky to be wed to such a wonderful person like Aemond.

At first, you tried to be respectful but as they disregarded your words and tried to convince you that no one would wed him now you only got angrier.

And it showed.

The words you spat were unladylike and venomous, but you did not regret them in the slightest.

Later Alicent would give you her gratitude for defending her son so vehemently

Aemond would ask once again that you do not put yourself in a place where others may find reason to harm you.

However, he would be grateful nevertheless and gift you with something the very next day.

A new dress that he would describe to you with emotions or jewellery which he would explain the importance of the gemstone.

Let's be honest though. The jewellery and clothes probably matched his own somehow and he would have no shame in admitting that.

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Okay a kind of a smaller one in comparison but I'm writing part 5 write after this. Not sure if it will be done tonight though. If you have any scenarios you'd like to see. Just comment them, message me or send me an ask. I really don't mind how I receive them.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have two "perfect" role models in the shape of two unlikely royals - who are themselves "spares to the spare."

The young royals, who could be considered the "spares" to future King, Prince George, the first born child of Prince Wiliam and Catherine, Princess of Wales, should look to Prince Edward, the new Duke of Edinburgh, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, for how to go about their life as working royals.

Edward and Sophie have been hailed as the perfect role models for Charlotte and Louis due to their successful roles within the Royal Family.

The couple recently carried out a historic ceremony on behalf of King Charles III, marking 120 years of friendly relations between Britain and France.

Their rise to prominence has been a long time coming, according to former BBC Royal correspondent Jennie Bond.

Jennie told OK!: "They thoroughly deserve the recognition they are now getting."

She added that despite their work often being overshadowed by other royals, they have remained devoted to their causes.

As they take on more prominent roles, they are proving themselves up to the task and serving as excellent examples to their great nephews and niece.

xxx

It is a position which has notoriously come with question marks attached as the Royal struggles to carve out a life for themselves in the shadow of the crown.

Jennie added:

"They [Edward and Sophie] have always been quietly devoted to their various causes, but their work has been overshadowed by other royals.

I suppose every cloud has a silver lining... and as the King calls on them to take a more prominent role, Edward and Sophie are showing they are very much up to the task.

"They are also serving as excellent role models to their great nephews and niece - showing that you can be a 'spare' or even a 'spare to the spare' and make a real success of working as a valued member of the Royal Family."

But among the many benefits of the Prince and Princess of Wales ' preference for gentle parenting directed by what Catherine has learned from her studies of early years education, it is clear that the couple will be striving to normalise their younger children's lives with the hope that they never feel like working as royals is their only option.

"William and Catherine must be acutely aware of the problems for a royal spare," Jennie explains.

"They have already shown that they have a different and modern attitude to bringing up royal children.

I'm sure they will do everything to make Charlotte and Louis feel every bit as special, loved and valued as George.

I imagine they will encourage Louis to explore life outside the royal fold... it could be the military, but it could also be working in the charity world or whatever he finds appealing after his education is finished.

I'm sure they will encourage him to go to University, which they both enjoyed and where, of course, they found love.

"And from there they will want him to find a life that is meaningful to him as well as appropriate for the son of a future King.

They will try to ensure that he feels he is living a life of value, irrespective of his place in the line of succession.

And that will probably involve service of some kind as they have emphasised from the start that they want their children to understand that having empathy with others is not only a kindness but is rewarding as well."

Edward and Sophie have seen their popularity and recognition within the Royal Family soar over the past 13 months, since being given new titles.

The pair are increasingly front and centre at crucial events, stepping in for the King while he prioritises his health recovery.

Prince Edward is a trusted supporter of the arts sector, taking up his late father's Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme mantle.

Meanwhile, Sophie champions gender equality tirelessly, raising critical awareness around issues like female genital mutilation (FGM) and avoidable blindness prevention.

Away from participating in Royal duties or representational roles on behalf of the King, Edward and Sophie, along with their two children — Lady Louise Windsor and James, Earl of Wessex, 20 and 16 respectively — reside at Bagshot Park close to the Windsor Estate, whenever they're not away studying at university or school.

NOTE: Edited (xxx)

[vladdyissues]

What if Vlad knew about Danny Phantom being Half-Ghost, before ‘Bitter Reunions’?… Would Vlad treat Danny differently, when Danny’s Family first arrives at Vlad’s mansion?… Does Vlad go easier on Danny, during their very First Battle, or would they not not battle at all? 😮

I actually have a story planned that deals with exactly this thing! This one is A Different Meeting from my WIP Ask Game post (and I forgot to include at least 2 other WIPs in that list. Oops):

“Jack. And Maddie!” He stepped forward, clasped her hands, and kissed her cheek. “You’ve never looked lovelier, my d—” His eyes fell upon a familiar face behind her. “And who is this handsome young gentleman?”

Danny’s skin prickled under the piercing gaze. His eyes flitted around nervously, trying to find somewhere to land.

“Oh, this is Danny, our son,” Maddie laughed. “And this is our daughter, Jasmine. Jazz for short.”

A little starstruck, Jazz meekly waved.

Vlad gave the girl a polite nod but shifted his attention back to Danny, gazing at him earnestly. “Indeed, indeed. How marvelous. What a beautiful family. Please, please, come in.” As they passed, he placed a gentle hand on Danny’s shoulder and guided him inside.

Unbidden, a poem he’d learned in middle school rose up through the fog of his memory:

“Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly; “’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy. The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I have many pretty things to shew when you are there.” “Oh no, no!” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain, For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”

Essentially, Vlad recognizes the boy known as Phantom (kind of hard not to since he looks and sounds the same as his human counterpart; however, if you align with the headcanon that "ghosts look different to humans and only see each other as they truly are", it'll still work) and sets about manipulating Danny to join him, using whatever deceitful ploys he can to win him over.

So to answer your question, anon: yes, definitely, I think if Vlad had known Danny from the get-go, their relationship would have been much different. Vlad likely would have withheld making his hatred for Jack Fenton known, and his focus would rapidly shift from winning an unrealistic, unattainable goal (Maddie's love) to something much more feasible and rewarding (Danny's allegiance and loyalty). He and Danny wouldn't have fought in the library; instead, Vlad would make it his mission to treat, pamper, spoil and corrupt Danny, who already has some resentment issues with his parents and sister.

He's easy prey for this hungry spider.

[derangederensimp]

Naruto Shippuden One Shot Kinktober

#6 Moring sex & Cockwarming Itatchi Uchiha x Fem Reader

CW: this kinda goes into tendersex but shhh shhh, pet names, plot, fingering, unprotected sex, Creampie, Cockwarming, plot. Sorry this was completely self indulgent I love itachi so much.

-

When was the last time you heard Itachi’s voice you thought to yourself as you drifted off to sleep. His loving smile on the day of your wedding always being the last thought you had before sleeping and once awake that smile again popping up.

He was a busy man, always needing to be away for weeks on end to take care of anbu missions. You knew this before marrying him but it didn’t make things easier. You were supposed to become apart of the anbu but you ended up taking a job as an instructor for the Genin. Itachi was so happy that you had ended up going with your heart and doing something you would find more rewarding in your mind.

A part of him was also glad that you did not have to go on missions that could possibly kill you. Before he courted you, Itachi was just a friend from childhood. Someone who always stuck up for you when some of the students teased and pushed you around because you didn’t get ahang if things right away. Itachi helped you train even on days he was exhausted from doing the same thing with his brother sasuke. He was determined to have you become the best ninja in the class.

Once you two got older the more people noticed how attached at the hip you were to one another, his parents taking a liking to his fondness over you. They allowed him to spend more time with you till he had to go and do his anbu training. His mother still invited you over for dinners and family get togethers as she knew that as soon as Itachi would return he would be asking you if you would give him the pleasure of courting him.

And so you did, from there a few years had passed before you and his mother planned out a wedding. It was beautifully set up in the Uchiha clans meeting area. His mother had helped hand make your kimono adding in the colors of your clan and the Uchiha to symbolize the coming together of clans.

Your walk down the aisle seemed quick as you wanted to desperately grab Itachi into your arms and comfort the man for his tears. You knew they were tears of happiness but seeing him cry killed you.

That night after the wedding you shared such intimate moments together. Your hands exploring each other's bodies.

Your dream replay of those events came to a end when you shifted awake to the feeling of a hand caressing your face. “Good morning Y/n, I’m so sorry to wake you. You looked so peaceful sleeping don’t let me ruin it” your husband spoke solemnly. “Itachi!” You squealed, grabbing him into your arms. He tapped your back “honey, your grip. Don’t kill your husband now that he’s back” he joked. You loosened your grip around him before extending your arms outward holding him from you

“when did you get back?”

Your eyes began to water, his hands cupping your face as his thumbs swiped at the tears “A few hours ago, I just didn’t want to wake you so I watched you sleep for a bit but I couldn’t help myself from not touching your beautiful face.”

Your heart pounded in your chest, you didn’t know when the next time you saw him would be and here he was just before your eyes. “Itachi please don’t ever leave again” you fell into his arms. All he knew how to do was comfort you by holding you as no words could heal the feeling you had. Picking your head up he kept his hands cupped on your cheeks, craning his neck down to place a gentle kiss on your lips. “I love you y/n” Itachi said once he pulled away from your lips.

But the urge to keep kissing you formed, his bodying moving at its own accord. You gladly accepted it as you kisses him back and reciprocated the feeling of his hands running down your body to him. A soft groan leaving through his lips as he bit down on his inner cheek.

His soft carares on your thigh rode up your nightgown, his fingers inching closer and closer to your core with each rub. He noticed how you squeezed your legs together and so he stopped “if you don’t want to keep going tell me y/n, this isn’t necessary to show my love to you or how much I missed you”

You weren’t squeezing your thighs together to get him to stop, you were squeezing them together to get some sort of relief from the constant pulsating of your clit. As soon as you smelled him your body went into overdrive acting on its own meaning the space been your legs was dripping wet by now and you were embarrassed.

“No - no keep going I want to” you sheeply said, pecking his cheek while you unsqueezed your thighs. Your hands explored his body, once and awhile feeling new scars you knew he was bound to get while on missions. You pouted your lip out, itachi noticed and began peppering your neck with kisses to try and get your mind off of it.

A soft moan slipped past your lips which only made Itachi’s cock twitch in his pants. Slipping your nightgown up he hooked his fingers on your panties and pulled them down. Tapping on your thigh “Can I?” He asked, spreading your legs for him you nodded your head yes. Placing his thumb on your clit he began massaging it in a circular motion while his other fingers explored your soaked lips.

“Kiss me” he cooed into your ear, his lips helping die down your increasing moans.

His fingers finding your sweet spot hooking his fingers bumping your g-spot. Pulling your lips from his, a string of salvia kept you connected. “What is it y/n?” Itachi asked his gaze never leavings yours with his eyes hooded. He looks so cute with a blushed face you thought to yourself “fuck me” you sheeply panted.

Laying you down he worked on stripping himself from his clothing. The sun peaking through the curtains you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. He stroked at his cock a few times before he lined himself up with your cunt coating the tip slightly teasing you as he liked watching you squirm beneath him. “You’re so cute when you lose your patience love” he said.

Dipping his head down to peck you on the lips, biting down on it as he fit himself inside. He wasn’t even fully inside and your legs were already shaking around his legs. Putting his arm beneath you he began moving faster, each thrust going deeper and deeper as you moaned out his name.

“F-fuck you feel so good y/n” Itachi said between his own moans. Setting his forehead onto yours, your chests heaving in sync. His free hand intertwined his fingers with yours.

He could feel you were close by the way your cunt squeezed him, if it wasn’t the first time since he’s been back he would’ve been much rougher. Dipping his head between your neck he suckled on spots leaving marks down to your collarbone. “Tachi” you whined with his sudden increase of pace “ganna make you cum love, ok?” He said.

“Yes p-please!” A few quick deep thrusts sent you over the edge, your thighs shaking as your walls clenched around his cock attempting to milk him if all he had. “Can I cum inside” he slowed his pace letting you get out a response whirl you road out your high.

Quickly shaking your head yes he let himself go, thrusts becoming sloppy, his hips hitting flush with yours. Moaning out your name, his fingers tightening on yours.

He didn’t pull out instead he let go of your hand and removed his arm underneath. He wedged you a bit allowing him to lay his head close to your tummy and give soft pecks. Your hands traveling to his hair you played with it. “Tachi, do you want breakfast? I can go make us some, you tried to squirm from him”

“I missed you so much, I just want to stay like this so please just stay” Itachi said, not pulling his cock out. You rested your head on his chest while he rubbed circles into your back. “You know they won’t send me on missions for awhile if we had a baby to care for” he cooed into your ear. The feeling of butterflies in your stomach as you imagined what it would be like for itachi to be a father to a precious gift you’d call your baby the two of you made out of love.

-

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Kinktober Masterlist

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