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its-a-ittle-bit-cold · 1 year

Text

I traveled fifteen hundred miles to meet you

Maverick x daughter!reader

series masterlist

my masterlist

summary: you begin training and quickly make a name for yourself

a/n: soooo I decided to get rid of the hangman romance that I was gonna put in, and kind of wrote over the scenes as hangman x phoenix (sorry) I didn’t wanna get rid of a whole section ..

ps : sorry for the wait :’( i’ve been swamped with life stuff

warnings: PTSD, child abuse (mother- daughter), feeling unwanted, violence ? canon typical mostly, death, loss of a loved friend

The drill is simple in theory.

Shoot down Maverick, you win.

But, like your unfortunate lack of skill playing eight ball, the execution is getting there. The first team to go in is too cocky.

He gets them, easy.

Hangman and Phoenix give him a run for his money, but not by much. You’re up next, with Hangman as your wing man.

Strapping into your jet feels almost surreal. It’s an awesome feeling to be back.

It’s not until you’re in the air that the flashbacks start.

You and Hangman take off, having decided pre-exercise that you were going to try to divide and conquer: one of you as bait, the other lying in wait for Maverick to take it. You, as the pilot with the best evasive skills and maneuvers, drew the short stick as the bait in the experiment.

you know that Hangman is notorious for leaving his wingmen behind, so you’re going to be looking for chances to give him a little of his own medicine.

“Ready, team?”

You’ve become more comfortable with the notion that Maverick is your dad.

It hit you, while you were lying awake last night, that maybe you should be mad that he left. Your mom always had been angry at him, but could you really blame him for leaving the crazy woman who gave birth to you?

the answer is no, because you did the same.

“Ready when you are cap’n.” You flick on the proper controls and Hangman gives you a Shaka sign, signaling his okay.

And then you’re off.

The rush is exhilarating. It’s not until you can hear Maverick behind you and Hangman warning you that he’s on your tail and you need to shake him that the flashbacks start.

You grunt, forcing your jet up and over in a backwards barrel roll to escape Maverick’s targeting system. You begin a classic evasive maneuver, the realize he’s not even on your tail anymore.

“Majesty! he’s on me!”

“Shake him, then!”

But you follow your radar to where Hangman’s getting chased in a high speed game of tag, and readying your targeting system.

“Majesty, where are you?” Hangman shouts into the comm. You hear the familiar beeping.

He’s done.

You’re on your own.

Majesty! Keep moving! there’s still a mission to complete!

the rough voice of your former commander rings in your ears as you pull up in a steep climb, about to try a new maneuver.

(Y/n). I’m sorry. Duchess’s vitals aren’t looking good.

You metaphorically slam the breaks in your plane (which you can’t do because there are none) and let yourself free fall. It’s a special trick that you and Tae always practiced.

“What the fuck kind of maneuver was that?”

Maverick’s rough voice breaks the comms. You click your targeting system on and hit him. The beep over the comm would be music in your ears if you weren’t stuck in the past.

“Wake up! Y/n, we need to go fly before training starts!” Tae, your best friend and wingman (wingwoman?) has always been an early morning productivity person. You always joke about her absolute inability to sleep in, even when you’ve stayed up till three the night before engineering new tricks and stunts to try the next morning. “I have an idea!”

“Uh oh,” you say through a yawn, already tossing on your uniform and tying your hair back. Tae rolls her eyes, then practically sprints out of your dorm room, you got on her heels.

she collected me, up off the ground where you abandoned things

“That was some damn good flying out there,” Hangman tells you. He’s bought you your first mocktail of the night - a fancy-looking ombré concoction that Penny’s cooked up for you. “If only I’d been alive to see it.”

“Don’t you worry,” Phoenix butts in. “We all saw it, and we also all saw her hang you out to dry!” her tone is just a little too gleeful. “Now that’s something to toast to!”

“You wound me, Trace.”

You toast with Phoenix, then excuse yourself from the pilot’s table, seeking some fresh air. You’d snapped out of your flashback, but Tae’s laugh still rings in your ears. You make your way out to the deck and lean on the railing overlooking the beach and the ocean.

“You’re one helluva pilot.”

You rub your nose with your forearm.

“That’s what I keep hearing.” You close your eyes, wondering if you should confide in him or not. Probably not. He’s your instructor, not your dad.

I mean, he’s also your dad.

“whatcha drinking?” You steal a glance at your drink, which has faded to a dull pinkish orange. Maverick’s holding a bottle.

“Some kind of mocktail Penny came up with.” you take a sip of it. “I don’t drink,” you add after a moment.

“Well, you’re better than all of us, then.”

You grin and shake your head. Looking out over the water, it’s easy to forget why you’re here and be transported back to the past.

“Now that,” Tae begins, setting down her gin and tonic on the table and admiring the multicolored mocktail Penny concocted. “That is what I call a mocktail.”

You take a swig.

“See, Duchess, Apollo was wrong. Mocktails can be fun!”

“I never said they weren’t!”

This is the last night you have at top gun, and, appropriately, you’re a spending it at the Hard Deck, which is a newer bar that just opened. You’ve made fast friends with the owner and her daughter - Amelia.

You glance outside and gasp, standing up.

“Come on! look at the sunset!”

You rush out to the front deck, wide eyed and giddy at the pure beauty of the sunset. Tae trails behind, watching you watch the colors paint the evening sky.

“Can you believe it’s over?” You ask her. “No more coming to the Hard Deck, no more Apollo or Clipper, and pretty soon we’ll be deployed on the other side of the world.”

Tae sighs.

“You know what I think? I think this experience will stay with us forever. I’ll always remember the pranks we pulled on the guys and the late night beach walks. It’s like graduating high school. or the academy. This chapter of life is over, and we need to move on.”

You give her a wry smile.

“You know, you may be a dumbass ninety five percent of the time, but you do give some damn good advice.”

“Want another?”

you nod.

“You’re a damn good pilot. You’re top of the class for a reason. Don’t you ever forget that.”

you meet her eyes.

“Duchess-“

“Hey. You with me?”

Maverick snaps his fingers in your face, trying to snap you out of your daze. you shake out your neck.

“Yeah. Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was telling you I’ve never seen a plunge like that executed correctly, and then you zoned out on me.”

You focus your gaze on a spot on the horizon.

“Yeah, uh, I was just remembering.. something.”

He looks at you, doing a once-over, face skeptical. He almost looks.. concerned? Again, you wonder, if you were in another life, would he be worried for you, his daughter, instead of you, his pilot.

“Anything you wanna talk about?”

Yes. You’ll understand. You’re probably the only one here who would.

You smile sadly.

“Goodnight, Captain.”

he filled the holes that you burned in me at six years old

The next morning, Maverick sends you all an email to wear “beach clothes you can run around in”, so you, Phoenix and Halo all put on your shorts and sports bras, and Halo puts on a t-shirt. The email also ordered you to meet in front of the Hard Deck, so that’s what you do.

You leave significantly earlier than the rest of the group specifically to see Amelia, who you still haven’t seen since coming back to the base. You tap your knuckles on the doorframe, drawing her attention. She looks at you, looks again, gasps and sprints towards you in some kind of flying tackle- hug.

“Hey!” You exclaim, squeezing her tight and spinning her around in a circle. “You got big!”

Amelia giggles into you.

“Mom told me you were back. I almost didn’t believe her.”

“Well, I couldn’t just never see my favorite tea party partner again, now could I?”

Amelia pulls away, observing you. Her eyes brighten as she remembers your tea parties from when you were in Top Gun.

“I’d forgotten about those! And Tae would bring those little cucumber sandwiches!”

Her face falls in a frown.

It’s like a sneak attack, having someone mention her in passing. You’d been up almost the whole night before trying to calm the memories that have been resurfacing since your return to Miramar.

“I miss her.”

Sometimes you forget that Tae was almost as close to Penny and Amelia as you were. She would always come with you to watch Amelia and hang with Amelia and Penny on the slow nights.

“Me, too.”

“Well, look who the cat dragged in.” Penny comes over to you from the storeroom and hugs you. She then holds you at arms’ length and looks you up and down. “Now, I know you’re busy, but tomorrow isSaturday, and I’d love for you to come for dinner like we used to.”

The unspoken with Tae beats down on you. You glance out of the window to see the rest of the squad gathered there in varying forms of swimwear. Most of the guys are wearing obnoxiously printed swim shorts, obviously wearing no shirts.

“That sounds… great. I’ll be by. Text me, okay? I have to go.” You give Amelia another squeeze and beeline out of the bar, joining the group of your fellow pilots.

Maverick’s the last to get here, wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans, holding two footballs.

He introduces the game: dogfight football, offense and defense at the same time. It doesn’t really sound like there are very many rules in the game, only that you get touchdowns occasionally.

He also divides the teams. You and Phoenix are together, Bradley too.

And then you’re starting and you have actually no idea what you’re supposed to be doing; you never were adept at playing football.

You’ve been paired up with Hangman, who must be going easy on you, because you get past him every time, even scoring a touchdown once. About half and hour in, he strikes a deal with Phoenix.

“Okay, Trace. Here’s the deal,” he says between plays. “The next touchdown, if it’s your team, I’ll buy a round for everyone the next time we all go out.”

“okay,” Phoenix glance at your team. You’re all looking pretty skeptical, as you should. “What’s the catch?”

“I my team gets the next touchdown…” he drags out. He leans in and whispers in her ear. Her face breaks into a cautious smile.

“Deal, Bagman, but I’m just warning you, that’s an awful deal on your part.”

He shrugs, flashing you a perfect smile.

The next touchdown goes to Halo, who’s on Hangman’s team, and everyone turns expectantly to him, wondering what the bet was. He walks up to Phoenix, dips her and presses his lips to hers.

You let out a wolf whistle. She breaks the kiss and flips you off before pulling Hangman in for another one.

Coyote’s making a point of covering Bob’s eyes. Rooster has a hand over his mouth, pretending to retch and you jog over to him, patting him on the back, face splitting in a smile.

Penny shares a look with Maverick as they watch the two young people kiss. She’s smiling, and that makes him smile.

“What do you think of her, now that you’ve flown with her?”

She nods at the pilot in question.

There’s so much he can say about her: smart, confident, thoughtful. Reckless and sassy and a little bit too stubborn. She’s talented, anyone can see that, maybe even the best on the squad, but she’s holding back.

She’s hesitant to fly with anyone but herself, even leaving her comrades out in the open in favor of shooting down the enemy, which is surprising, considering her most recent deployment.

Her deployment. He finally got around to looking into that, the incident that sent her into leave for more than half of the last year.

The report had been brief: routine patrol, they had gone to investigate a distress signal, not enough ammo or fuel. Someone detonated a missile too close. Duchess went down. Majesty took down three bandits in the span of five minutes before her aircraft was too damaged to continue flying.

There had been no saving duchess. she was waterlogged and impaled with a scrap of metal before Majesty was even there to save her.

Very, very traumatic.

It reminds him of Goose.

he’s surprised she’s even willing to fly at all after that.

“In all seriousness?” Maverick looks out over the game. She’s awful at football. Can’t throw a spiral. “She’s a good kid. Even better pilot. She’s been the closest to finishing the course out of all of them.”

She glances over at the two of them, waving to penny before jumping for the ball.

“She reminds me of you,” Penny tells him. “You’re more similar than either of you know.”

Admiral Kazansky, AKA Iceman has been a mentor to you since the beginning. He’d taken a liking to you and your reckless flying when you’d first joined the Naval academy. Said you reminded him of a friend of his. You’d always thought he meant his wingman, and he had, but more recently, you’d realized that his wingman was the one and only Maverick, AKA Pete Mitchell, AKA your dad.

You knock on the door and his wife lets you in. Her eyes are red and puffy.

“Sarah…” you say, hugging her. “It’s back?”

she shakes her head.

“we don’t know. he can’t even talk without the pain coming back.”

You squeeze your eyes shut.

“Maybe I shouldn’t-“

“He’s in his office,” she tells you gently. “You know he always wants to see you.”

You purse your lips, smiling tightly.

“Thanks, Sarah.”

You ease the door to Ice’s office open, He turns to face you. He’s paler, gaunter, and wearing an overcoat and a scarf. you know enough to know he’s not doing well.

“Hey, Ice.”

He points at the seat across from him.

Right. He can’t talk.

“I had to see you.” You sit down and reach into your purse. “Kevin sent me this.”

You pull out the wrinkled, folded photograph and hold it out to him. His shaky hands pull it taut as he squints at it. You hold your breath, waiting for some kind of surprise to show on his face. Something, anything.

“Did you know? Is that why you kept me around?”

Your voice shakes uncontrollably. Like most things recently, you want to be angry, but you just don’t have the strength or conviction anymore. You just want to know.

Ice hands you the photo back and types on the computer.

Yes.

No.

your breath catches.

“How long?”

Since we met.

You sigh shakily.

“Why? why didn’t you tell me?”

Ice stares at you.

You stare back.

“How long did the doctor say you have?”

Weeks.

You gnaw at your lip.

“I don’t want to lose you, too.”

You’re not going to.

You shake your head, wiping under your eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling.

Losing Ice hurts. He’d always been there for you when you needed to talk. Even now, when he can’t use his voice.

He clears his throat.

“Tell… him.” His voice is raspy and wet. It grates on your ears like it must on his throat.

you nod vigorously.

“I will. I just… I want him to like me, you know? before he feels obligated to, I mean.” you stare at the picture of the two of them on Ice’s desk. “I don’t even know if he’d be happy to know.”

He will.

there’s a soft knock on the doorframe. It’s Maverick. Of course it is.

You grip Ice’s hand.

“Looks like your next appointment is here.” Your laugh is wet. “Bye, Ice.”

You nod to your father as you leave. his brow is furrowed in confusion, but he nods back.

Penny and Amelia’s house is one thing in North Island that’s always stayed the same. the smell of candles burning constantly, amelia’s artwork hanging on the walls, (which, admittedly, has gotten a lot better over the last few years) and the little bits of clutter scattered around the house.

You’ve dressed up a bit, put on some makeup and washed all the gel out of your hair for the occasion. when you get there, Amelia drags you to her room almost before you can say hello to penny.

“Okay. Where’s the fire?” You tease, once the door is shut and you’re sitting on Amelia’s bed. She’s giddy in anticipation to tell you her news.

“I have tea,” she whispers conspiratorially. You lean in.

“Lay it all out for me.”

“Mom had Mav over last night.” her tone is smug. She’s obviously very happy to be able to tell you this news. “He tried to sneak out but I caught him. And,” she looks around and lovers her voice even more. “He’s coming over for dinner tonight!”

“No!”

“yes!”

“That’s crazy.”

It’s crazy that you literally keep running into him. It’s not like you’re avoiding Maverick, per se, but you still don’t know how to break the news to him.

Hey man, great lesson today. Oh, by the way, I’m the daughter you didn’t even know you had because my mom ran away when she found out she was pregnant. Yeah, I know it’s fucked up. If I was on good terms with her I would ask why, but she only calls me when she’s drunk.

That’d go over well.

Amelia crosses her arms.

“That’s my tea. Now, tell me yours. Tell me about Top Gun.”

You look around her room. She repainted the walls a shade of yellow that you love. There are pictures hanging on the walls. One, a big one over her desk, is your favorite picture: a selfie you took of you, Amelia and Tae when you took her to Malibu to learn to surf.

“I love that picture,” you admit. Amelia nods, getting up to remove it from the wall. “Top Gun’s… not the same without her. Nothing is.”

Amelia’s always been wise for her age.

“I see her everywhere. I mean, I know I don’t, but I do.”

You smile tightly.

Grief sure is strange. Even Amelia feels the loss of Tae heavily.

There’s a soft knock on the door.

“Girls! dinner!”

“What were you two talking about in there that was so important I couldn’t be part of the conversation?” Penny asks over the steak she’s prepared.

“Oh… nothing…” you take a sip of water.

“Just how Y/n’s in looooooooove,” Amelia singsongs.

You shoot Amelia a dirty look.

“We were actually talking about how the two of you have been canoodling.”

Maverick stops, his fork hanging in midair. Penny’s expression is priceless.

“Yeah, I mean why else would Mav be invited to Saturday dinner?” Amelia asks. You nod along with her sagely.

“This used to be a girls night,” you explain to him. “When Duchess and I were in Top Gun.”

“ah,” is all he says.

You pat your pocket, remembering the gift you had brought for Amelia and Penny.

“Actually, we were just talking about how Tae and I would take Amelia out on the weekends,” you tell Penny. “And I just remembered I brought this for you guys.”

You take the strip of photos from your pocket. It’s a photo booth strip from a long weekend taken to Disney. All four of you are smushed into the booth, wearing matching Minnie ears, leaning into each other and grinning.

“I have a copy, so you keep that.”

Penny admires it, sad smile forming on her lips. Amelia peeks over her shoulder, grinning. You avoid Tae’s eyes. They used to pierce you. The still do.

“I’d like to toast.” Penny raises her glass, setting the strip down. “To new beginnings.”

“to new beginnings,” you agree.

You don’t get very far into dinner before your phone rings. You decline the call. five seconds later, it’s ringing again.

Decline.

“Do you need to take that?” Mav asks (he’s gotten you to stop calling him sir, finally.) and you shake your head.

“It’s my mom. Hang on.”

Penny and you share a look. She raises an eyebrow. you shake your head.

Nothing to worry about.

You’re suddenly very hot as you excuse yourself from the table. you’re not quite out of the kitchen when you pick it up.

“Mom?”

“Y/n? Is this my disappointment of a daughter?”

you sigh into the phone, staying silent. Her jab sends tears welling up in your throat. Spending time with Amelia and Penny has always reminded you of the mother you could’ve had.

“Where’s your deposit? Where’s the money you owe me for giving you life and a roof over your head?”

You hurry to ease the door shut. The deposit. Goddamn. She’s sober enough to remember it. Ever since you moved out, you’ve been wiring her deposits every month to make sure she keeps living. You’d hoped it was enough to send her to rehab, but she refused to go.

“The deposit?” you say faintly, heart dropping.

Her voice gets thin and screechy over the line. You can’t bring yourself to pull the phone away from your ear as she spits barbs at you. You cover your mouth to muffle the wet sobs escaping your throat.

“You never wanted what’s best for your family! You left me for the Navy. You’ve never done anything right and that girl - Tae - died because of it.”

She’s never gone there before.

And you’ve never had anyone lay it out for you.

“Mom. mom. mom, stop!” You gasp out. “Everything I’ve done if for you! The money, the house, I stayed. For you!”

You don’t hear the porch door swing open.

“I didn’t owe you anything! I never did! I didn’t ask for you to have me!”

Your mother begins to argue with that, that you forced her to have you. You cut her off with a gut wrenching cry.

“I JUST WANTED YOU TO LOVE ME!”

You tear the phone from your ear and slam your thumb on the red button.

“Y/n.”

Penny.

You drop your phone, defeated. Penny reaches out hesitantly and uses her fingers to wipe your cheeks.

She’s hugging you and you’re crying before you can even know what’s happening.

To new beginnings.

begged you to want me, but you didn’t want to.

“Rooster.”

he’s pissed, drinking his second bottle.

“Rooster.”

You sit down next to him.

“What do you want?” he snarls. You gingerly put your hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

He leans into your hand. You sigh.

“Phoenix and Bob are gonna be okay. I went to see them before I came here. They’re not injured. Just shaken up.”

He slams his bottle on the table. You finch away.

“Did Maverick send you?”

“what? No.”

Surprisingly, it had been Hangman who told you that Rooster was sulking in the Hard Deck. He’d seemed worried about him, so you went to check up on him.

“He likes you, you know. Thinks you’re a good pilot.”

“I am a good pilot.” You nudge his shoulder. “But so are you. So are Phoenix and Payback and Coyote.”

“He pulled my papers, you know. So he must not think I’m that good.”

You hesitate. this has always been a sore subject for Rooster. Saying the wrong thing could result in making it worse- not better.

“He flew with your dad, right?”

Rooster rubs his face and takes another swig from his bottle.

“Yeah. But I’m not my dad. He thought I’d-“

“Maybe he was just scared, you know? Maybe he cared so much for you that he didn’t want to lose you.”

If he had known that you were his daughter, would he have pulled your papers, too? Or would he have wanted you to be like him, be a pilot in the Navy?

“whose side are you on?” Rooster snaps. “You’re saying the same things I’ve heard my whole career. No one thinks the great Maverick could make a mistake, I guess.”

“that’s not what i’m saying, Bradley!” you take a deep breath. “Like it or not, he cares about you. You’re the closest thing to a -“

You cut yourself off, because, strictly, Rooster isn’t the closest thing he has to a child that he has. You gulp back the words.

“Y/n? Are you okay?”

“Can I… tell you something? But you have to swear not to tell anyone else.”

“I won’t,” Rooster promises. You hold out your pinky, and he stares at it. You raise your eyebrows at him. he looks around, no doubt making sure there’s no one who would make fun of him for pinky swearing, and interlocks his pinky with yours.

You reach into your pocket, retrieving the wrinkled, folded picture and hand it to him.

“That’s my mom,” you say, pointing to the woman. “and that…”

“That’s Maverick!” Rooster looks triumphant in his revelation. “So, what, Mav dated your mom?”

“No! Well, yeah, but that’s not what i was trying to tell you. Look at the date on the picture.”

Rooster squints and brings the paper closer to his eye.

“Wait. That’s..”

“twenty six years ago, and ten months after that was taken, I was born.”

Rooster drops the picture, mouth falling open. He’s staring at your face, no doubt picking out features reminiscent of Mav’s. You shift uncomfortably.

“What. The. Fuck.”

“I know!”

“Does he know?”

You hesitate. He might. There’s been a lot on his plate, though, and your last name could be forgettable if they only dated a couple of months twenty some years ago.

“No. I don’t think so.”

Roosters eyes widen.

“Wait so I can’t tell anyone?”

he groans when you nod.

“Y/nnnn you can’t just dump this on me and tell me I can’t tell anyone! That’s too much pressure!”

You snap your fingers in his punting face.

“You listen to me, Bradley Bradshaw. If you tell a single person I will hunt you down and slice you into tiny pieces and then cook you and let Hangman feed you to his horses.”

You cackle at the pure, unadulterated fear in his eyes. “That’s right. I remembered your deathly fear of horses, bitch!”

He’s pale, but his face breaks into a smile.

“I’m glad you’re back to normal, Majesty. You had me scared there for a second.”

You know what he means. Since Tae died, for a while, you had no will to do anything or see anyone- in other words, you were super duper depressed. Lately, you’ve felt lighter, like you can laugh and smile again without feeling guilty.

Here’s to new beginnings.

disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about how planes work or flying or anything like that

#top gun maverick imagine #top gun maverick #top gun #top gun maverick hangman #maverick x reader #maverick x daughter!reader #tw: death #tw: abuse

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wehaveimagineshere · 9 months

Note

Hey I don't know if either of you would be comfortable with doing this (totally chill if not) but could I request something for Carlos Oliveira comforting his s/o through an anxiety episode? My doctor is moving around my medication and the adjustment is making my anxiety attacks/depressive tendencies worse and im also scared to go to sleep due to nightmare issues.

iirc the Ren (the RE mod) only does scenarios but if I'm wrong any format is fine. Thanks for reading. You two have a nice day.

Anxiety and depression sucks, anon. I hope your new medication works soon and the demons are pushed back. I'm proud of you for fighting through it, for waking up every day <3

You're my first Resident Evil request! :D And for Carlos no less! Thank you so much, and I hope this scenario helps you <3

You didn't specify gender or pronouns, so it defaults to AFAB and she/her.

~*~*~

Your grip on the bathroom sink counter turns your knuckles white, your chest squeezing as you stare at your pajamas heaped next to the sink. Next to the toothpaste, that you inevitably have to use. Next to the toothbrush, your first step in this nightly ritual.

Maybe skipping all of this for one night wouldn't hurt. Maybe, maybe you could just go to bed with the clothes on your back, jeans and bra and socks included.

The familiar acid behind your eyes burns, throat constricting as you grip that counter for dear life. A short inhale, a whooshed exhale.

You don't want to do this.

Pressing your lips together to hide their quiver, you crouch down to escape the mirror, to escape the evidence as tears slip past. You grip the counter so hard it hurts, but the pain doesn't register as the tide erupts, filling your chest and lungs and limbs and--

Did you do anything productive today? Did you do it all the right way? Your hamper is full, why didn't you do your laundry? That lunch meat in your fridge is about to go bad and all you had today was toast instead. You need to eat or you'll feel worse, but what's the point? Every day leads to night and night leads to--

"I'm home!"

The call cuts into your thoughts, pausing them for just a moment before they shift direction.

Inhaling feels like swallowing glass as you rise, loosening your white knuckled grip to wipe at your wet face, to rub at your red eyes. Fingers tangling in your shirt, you almost whimper as your arm gets stuck in the fabric and you almost rip the seams in your haste.

Tossing the shirt onto the floor, you fumble as you regret the decision, trying and failing to grab it. Chest heaving, your fingers can't stop shaking as you try desperately to unlatch your bra, to be seen as being at least half way into getting dressed like a normal person.

"Honey?"

He's in the bedroom now and your fingers can't grab the hooks, they won't bend like you want them to and they won't stop shaking shaking shaking--

"Hey. Hey hey hey." Warm hands gently grip your upper arms, turning you to face him as his brown eyes dart. You know he notes the redness in your face and eyes, your inability to take a damn breath, the movements you can't stop as you choke down the tears--

"Hey," he breathes again, running his hands down your arms to guide your fingers away from your back and into his palms. "Take a deep breath." You nearly choke, and he squeezes your fingers, thumb running along your knuckles. "Inhale." You try again. "Good, good. Now exhale."

You do, feeling that damn lower lip quiver again and trap it between your teeth.

"One more time. Good."

This is ridiculous, you're ridiculous, why can't you just be normal like everyone else?

"Hey." Laying one hand on top of your other, his free hand cups your cheek, a thumb brushing away a stray tear. "You're safe, you're okay, I'm here. What do you need?"

You need to have normal dreams. You need to be able to plan your day without worrying about the wildest, stupidest things. You need to be able to make your breakfast without worrying if you're putting the correct things in the recycling even though you've put them there a hundred times already.

All that comes out is a broken sob.

"Can I hug you?"

A sniff, a small nod, and your cheek is pressed against his chest as he wraps you in his warmth. One arm snakes around your waist as another goes around your shoulders, his hand resting lightly against the back of your neck.

The tears come fully then, sobs wracking your body. Gripping him tight, Carlos your pillar in the storm, you break apart. Know you can shatter and he'll help you pick up the pieces, loving every shard put back into place, no matter how crooked the final picture becomes.

Fingers play with your hair soothingly as you ride out the panic, as it drains you so completely, as you soak Carlos' shirt with your tears. It could've been minutes or hours but eventually the river dries up, your lungs can take a deeper gulp of air, and your fingers can relax their death grip on his shirt.

"'M'sorry," you mumble out.

"For what?" His voice rumbles in his chest, against your cheek. "For being the biggest badass I've ever known?"

Trying to scoff but only achieving a small huff of air, you croak out, "'M'not."

"Of course you are." He rests his chin on the crown of your head. "You're the bravest person I know."

You roll your eyes.

"I felt that." You feel him pause. "Hey, do something for me." Turning you both so your eyes are directed at the mirror, he continues, "What do you see?"

Weakness, stupidity, uselessness, futility--

"I see a woman who got her pajamas ready even though she doesn't want to sleep." His fingers graze against your neck, knowing the movement will keep your eyes focused on your reflection. "I see a woman who woke up not feeling well but got out of bed anyway."

"I can't stay in bed all day," you mumble.

"That's what I'm talking about. You could stay in bed all day, but you don't. You could just drink a shit ton of coffee to stay awake, but you don't. You could call out of work, but you don't." He rubs his cheek against your head, presses his lips in for a quick kiss. "It's easy to do what I do and shoot things, but what you do? I don't know if I could do that."

A few more tears slip out, but this time accompanied with a small smile on your lips. Strained, pained, but a smile nonetheless.

"And to still look stunning doing it all?" He smiles wide, giving you a wink through the mirror. "Strong and good looking."

That smile pulls just a little wider. "I look like shit."

"You look like you just beat the hell out of some demons and walked away the winner. That's sexy. Hell is literally a part of a demon's make up."

The scoff sounds a little bit more like a scoff now. "Looking like I just climbed out of a ditch is sexy?"

"Hell yeah it is. I ever tell you the color of your eyes pop after you've cried?"

"No."

"Well, the color of your eyes pop after you cry." He cups your cheeks and turns your face to his, his nose brushing against yours as he squints. "Beautiful."

"You're so cheesy."

"Does it work?"

You press your lips together and squint in faux contemplation.

"I'm taking that as a yes."

Rolling your eyes, the smile finally breaks free.

"There it is," he smiles back, giving a peck of a kiss on your nose. "You'll be okay?"

Wiping a hand across your eyes, you exhale heavily. "I'll be okay."

"So..." A hand leaves a cheek to snake down your shoulder blades, and you raise an eyebrow as he asks with a light, playful smile, "Need help with this?" A finger slips under your bra strap, right against the clasp.

"Aiming to practice, are you?"

"I don't need practice, princess. Taking off a bra is easy."

"Y'okay, big guy." Sharing a smile, you shake your head. "I'll be alright. Thank you."

That smile morphs into a genuine one. "You're welcome." Stepping back, he gives you a long, searching look before flashing a relieved smile and padding back into the bedroom. "Hurry up and get dressed!"

"So bossy!" you call, turning back to your pajamas. Your hands rests atop the fabric, muscles threatening to lock again.

"I wanna cuddle!"

A huff of a laugh escapes your nose, taking with it the rest of the tension running through your body, and you hurriedly free the girls before slipping on your pajama shirt.

#resident evil #carlos oliveira #fanfiction #carlos oliveira/reader #carlos oliveira x reader

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megumi-fm · 6 months

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18 day habit tracker

since the year started, days are passing by and sure I'm doing alright and getting stuff done but lately it just. feels like I'm whiling away a lot of my time which which I could spend learning or doing a lot of things that I've kept shelved for years. I want to make better use of my days and I want to understand how to kind of... develop the intrinsic motivation to improve my productivity. additionally, I also need to do things to take better care of my help given the harsh weather and my ankle (im)mobility.

so I've decided to spend the next 18days trying to be more conscious of how I'm spending my time and also trying to push myself little by little. in this eighteen days I want to figure out what my limits are (vs what I think my limits are) and I also want to understand how to stay consistent and maintain the momentum I need to keep going. eighteen seems like a small enough number to start with; from some surface web scouring it seems like 18days is the minimum number of time it takes to develop a habit. and coincidentally enough it's my birthday in exactly 18days so it seems like a good place to start

to track

🥛 water intake ⏰ hours of sleep +sleep and wake times 📵 phone usage 🍉 fruit intake +the kind of food I'm eating in gen 📖 reading

---

personal goals

🧮 relearning math my relationship with mathematics has been quite messy since junior college and it has only worsened through the past four years of engineering(with the introduction of multivariate calculus and Laplace transforms and whatnot)... it feels kind of late and embarrassing to start now but I really want to understand math better and enjoy doing it and now is a good time to face my fear/discomfort and start over at the very basics. I'm gonna start with precalculus and linear algebra

💃 dancing I used to dance all the time as a kid and then... i don't know what happened... as a lover of kpop choreographies it's heartbreaking to realize I haven't learnt nearly as many dances as I'd have liked to. The year started off pretty strong but then my ankle got in the way and... yeah... I want to get back into dancing both as a means to improve my mobility and as a means of exercise, and also because I enjoy dancing in gen... and four to five days seems like good enough time to learn a single dance so i hope to learn the choreography of atleast 3-4 dances in these 18days

✏ art I have wanted to learn drawing for years now but for some reason I just never seem to get around to it (the 'some reason' being my impatience and inability to accept that I'm actually a beginner) but yknow what. if I'm anyway going to feel bad about how poor I am at drawing, I might as well do it while drawing poorly instead of trying to avoid it. I've decided to use this youtube playlist as my starting point

🍳 cooking for someone who is planning to live abroad and live alone I can't cook to save my life, but putting that aside, the main reason I want to cook is that a lot of my favourite regional cuisine is centered towards dishes for the winter and I want to learn to make tasty + nutritional food suitable for this summer heat without resorting to consuming excessively sugared juices and soda in copious amounts

---

yeah. day1 starts today. I hope it works out. my weekly tracker and my work tracker will also be updated in parallel

#18dayht #studyspo #megumi.fm #studyblr #study motivation

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the-legendaryphoenix · 9 months

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I honestly don't usually talk about serious stuff, but I feel I need to say it. Ive been having thoughts bottle up for the better part of a few months, and I have to put them all somewhere.

This will be somewhat disorganized, but I need to get my thoughts out there. These are also the deranged rantings of a college student that is up at 3 am due to an inability to sleep, so feel free to take all this with a grain of salt.

I talk about capitalism, socialism, power structures, future worries, AI, emotional issues, climate change etc in this essay here. If you're sensitive to those kinda things, feel free to ignore this/block me/avert your eyes. I won't mind.

Yall are not beholden to magically change the world. It's nearly impossible to. Mass societal change almost always come from grassroots movements. There's ... no other way to change society otherwise.

Take generative AI and all. Before 2023, it was just this novelty and a toy that only a few people took seriously. Fast forward a bunch of companies tinkering with it and more eyes slowly getting drawn to the tech and boom suddenly we got trade unions like SAG AFTRA having to throw the video game voice acting industry to the wolves in order to get protections for actors and writers. We didn't get that outta thin air. It was a thing that was built up over time, before suddenly exploding like this.

I'm not entirely convinced AI shit is purely a product of capitalism. AI is just another step in humanity's forever quest to optimise the fuck out of everything regardless of whether or not there's a soul left at the end of it. This would happen under capitalism or socialism. The government - no matter how many social programs they have - is not your friend. Corporations are not your friend (we're in this kind of AI mess because corporations wanna make a quick buck remember?) If it weren't to make money off the backs of artists under capitalism, AI would also be used to generate endless propaganda and distractions by socialist states in order to stop the transition to communism & remain in power. (Think something akin to 1984) Both corporations and the government are wolves in sheep's clothing at absolute best.

Im not saying socialism couldn't work or that it's worse than capitalism. I just dont think socialism would magically solve all the worlds problems at the snap of a dictator's finger. Alotta that has to do with power structures that will be talked about shortly. Also, socialism cannot exist in a democracy. If the people choose their leaders, then the leaders have to constantly farm support from those that help them get elected. And it's not really socialism if some people are getting more than others. That's just our current system but you got authroitarianism instead of democracy. And don't point to systems like those in Scandanavia. Those are capitalist countries. The amount of government safety nets does not change the fact that unless the government has complete control over the entirety of a country's economics, its not socialism.

Due to how power structures work, I don't think violence and/or revolution against the elite will solve anything. Violence would only give them a reason to pull one of their many strings to get a government or private organization to crack down on the rest of us. No one rules alone. There's always got to be others that do the work that leaders cannot physically do themselves. This means that Authoritarian leaders must always give money/favor and or turn the other cheek to the ones that help them rule, and that represenatives must be open to favoring their supporters. If that means the government/leader/whoever ignoring obvious problems, then so be it. And for revolutions, the citizens cannot complete one on their own. The millitary has to allow it. And the citizens do not exactly get to choose the next leader. The Americans won the revolution only because the British had to deal with economics and morale. Had they had unlimited money in their vault and the troops were always raring to fight, the Americans would have lost.

Anarchism would circumvent a lot of the needless power structule bullshit. But as long as humanity has desires, there will always be some method of control over a group of people. Anarchism and communism are amazing ideas on paper. I just cant see them working.

Going back to my main point, its likely that none of us will be able to change the world. At the same time, the world can change you. A lot of my views on politics, friendship, and life in general have shifted since I started studying at college. Through this, Ive come to also realize that getting all worked up about stuff is an exercise in futility. Reblogging posts doesn't change the world. Doomscrolling through reddit and tumblr hashtags doesn't magically solve all problems that you see in the world; it just makes you lie awake at 1:45 AM feeling horrible and all. Wondering if living is still worth it gets you nowhere. It just makes you feel like complete ass when the anxiety passes and you wonder why you were considering such things after seeing an image with impossible geometry/the wrong amount of fingers/inconsistent everything.

You're not given the secrets to life, the universe, and everything on a silver platter. You have to find them yourself. Even if the world/circumstances are determined to make you miserable. You still have to find what's important to you. Ironically, I did get that from somewhere else, namely Pokemon Scarlet... but I also practice Catholic Nihlism, so its also an independent thought I came up with myself. [God gave me the right to choose what meaning I derive from life so I'll do it damn it!]

To clear up worries AI, there's always going to be human soul in some form of art. Think of indie productions that literally do their own thing; regardless of what the market dictates. Think of local artists that perform in your local theater, make paintings for your local museum/gallery, and writers that just sit down one day and write down what's on their mind. In that regard, AI's a tool. Genuinely.

Ive witnessed my friend use it to brainstorm/assist in some pretty difficult narration/dialogue for their fanfic. Ive used it myself to brainstorm some of the more complicated logic for some of my programming projects. You can use it for good things actually.

It's like a hammer. You can use it to help you build a house. You can skip the hammer and use screwdrivers and also get a good house. But you wouldn't want to build a house entirely out of hammers for multiple reasons. If AI doesn't prove to be a passing fad, market forces might start working against it. Think of how many people are fed up with disney and marvel's bland formulism that still has humans behind the wheel. If they add AI to rush things to the big screen at breakneck speed, people are prolly not gonna waste their time anymore. They're probably just gunna not give studios their money. AI is extremely controversal too. The fact that alotta people aren't just rolling over and taking it is a good thing. [The deal SAG AFTRA signed sucks I get it but its kinda easy for VA's to just... strike. They can deny the use of AIs trained on their voice. That's ... something.] (There's also the whole studios pushing for NFT thing and how that was a collosal failure. Its kinda an apples to pears comparison, but I'd thought it was still relavant.)

I know Ive been kinda hard about human nature too; but cmon. Most people are great once ya hear them out. I met my 2 best friends from all of us willing to listen & work through the others' problems. Even strangers can be great. I can randomly spark up small talk with people Ive never seen before at college, and it always comes out great. Most peeps aren't chronically online! they love talkin in person!

Humans have the power to work through a lotta stuff too. Hell, even the most frog-in-a-boiling-pot thing known as climate change is being worked on. Assuming no further reductions in emissions are made, we'll end up 3 degrees warming at the end of the century. That's ... dangerous, but it's an improvement from Around the 2010's when climate change WAS apocolyptic. We were on the 4 degrees timeline, and we will not go back there unless we ACTIVELY try to. Even in the worst case, humans and nature are very stubborn. Things absolutely have been worse in earth's history. Things just happening faster that's the problem.

Though if you do wanna make an impact, local politics and conservation are your best options. You may not be able to change stuff nationally or globally, but local stuff does make a difrerence. (Also the point above about local indie artists :P local really is the best huh?)

Starting local also has the advantage of being grassroots. People respond better to changes in their local community than those from the feds. It also affects how they vote, which in turn affects who leads nations and all.

Hence, my point about grassroots, huh. full circle.

You don't have to change the world as you don't owe it anything; but if you feel like it, go for it! Form a small group! Be a force for change!

I know its a bit contradictory to originally say stuff about posting doing nothing, and then for me to turn around and do all this; but I make my own meaning :P. (Ain't nihlism awesome.) I also just mostly needed to collect my thoughts to share with my friends.

I don't have anything else to say right now, so thank ya if you read this far. Means a lot you took the time to read all this.

yeah, have a wonderful day. :3

#serious #serious post #reflection #self reflection #introspection #my thoughts #feel free to ignore #feel free to reblog #the world #i talk about society and the world and stuff #disorganized thoughts #rant post #personal rant

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thecpdiary · 26 days

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The Urgency of Mental Health: It's Time to Take Action Now

Without mental health there is no health, it's why I continue to write about it on my blog – 14 years into my blog there is a sense of urgency – and yet it is largely ignored. We know what mental health encompasses – mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders.

Mental Health Concerns

Mental health concerns extend beyond just mental disorders. Individuals may experience elevated stress levels, leading to issues such as sleep disturbances, general unhappiness and suicidal thoughts, all of which affect physical health.

Several factors contribute to mental health challenges:

Unemployment, Break-ups, Family Conflicts, Financial Difficulties, Academic Stress and Social Isolation.

Symptoms of Mental Health Disorders

Mental illness symptoms can manifest in various forms, depending on the situation and individual. These symptoms may affect emotions, thoughts and behaviours.

Common signs and symptoms include:

Persistent fear

Chronic stress

Sadness

Difficulty concentrating

Overthinking and confusion

Anger issues

Extreme mood swings

Social anxiety

Inability to cope with daily challenges

Suicidal thoughts

Significant changes in habits

It is important to consult a healthcare professional if you experience several of these symptoms.

The Importance of Mental Health

In a world where physical health takes precedence, it is crucial to also prioritise mental health. Mental wellbeing is closely linked to life satisfaction. Individuals with good mental health are generally happier, more productive, and focus better on tasks.

Good mental health contributes to better physical health. It is important to nurture mental wellbeing from a young age – good mental health helps individuals face life’s challenges more effectively – achieve restful sleep – and live a more stress-free life.

Reasons Why Mental Health is Essential

To maintain physical fitness

To boost work productivity

To realise your full potential

To make meaningful contributions to your community

To lead a stress-free life

To improve sleep quality

To enhance overall happiness

Ways to Improve Mental Health

There are various ways to enhance your mental health and wellbeing, including:

Embracing positivity

Practicing gratitude

Meditating

Understanding your life’s purpose

Enhancing your social connections

Ensuring adequate sleep

Avoiding overthinking

Establishing a healthy morning routine

Why we need to deal with Mental Health

We need to deal with mental health, basically to enhance Quality of Life, Physical Health, Economic Impact, Risk of Suicide, Social and Familial Relationships, Overall Community, Wellbeing, Coping with Life’s Challenges.

Summary

Addressing mental health is not just an individual concern; it is a critical societal imperative. Mental health issues proactively leads to healthier individuals, more productive societies, and overall improved quality of life. It is vital to treat mental health with the same urgency and importance as physical health.

Mental health is a critical issue that requires ongoing attention. It’s a topic that isn’t taken seriously — it’s important to make conscious efforts to maintain your mental wellbeing — and not put it off as something you will get around to doing tomorrow. What’s one thing you’ve done this week to take care of your mental health?

If you're interested in your mental health and fancy grabbing copies of my books, just go to the following link https://www.thecpdiary.com/my-books/

For more relatable, inspirational, lifestyle blogs, please check out my site https://www.thecpdiary.com

#thecpdiary #blog #MentalHealth #Urgency #action #beproactive #mental health awareness #mental health matters #healthandwellbeing #healing #self reflection #personal growth #growth mindset

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igottatho · 28 days

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Did I miss when the siege ended? when the borders and crossings opened? It’s like the whole world forgot that Palestinians in Gaza STILL have needs. The prices for food and water are still exorbitant. They still have none or very little access to medicine, cleaning supplies, materials to keep them warm - and we are approaching winter months, where these needs will increase.

We’re almost at a solid year for this so-called “war” and I’m watching endless GoFundMe campaigns being shared, with very few donations. The Alwans aren’t seeing much of that recently, but we’re managing (barely) to keep a trickle going. But they’re starving - Mohammad tells me he and his wife are able to eat a snack every day or so. We’re still seeing images of skeletal children and / or shredded children constantly.

I don’t know if it’s correct to expect anyone to forgo their comfort or hobbies or own care while another people are being starved, sieged and blown to bits …… I myself certainly am continuing to paint, to work on my silly art projects, to bring my kids to & from school… but it’s as if people decided since Kamala is taking over they don’t have to worry anymore. Since the Harris campaign (which held no primaries and hosts no campaign policies) started, they have raised $540 MILLION (see img below, as reported by democracy now) and that money didn’t come from nowhere (although with modern politics it can appear that way).

I’m relieved that we won’t have a geriatric in office, and that Kamala Harris is leaps and bounds more productive than Trump, and as a Black woman, it’s past time for her. But people are treating the whole situation as if she 1) already has the job and 2) is going to do ANYTHING DIFFERENT than what Biden’s administration (which she is a part of) has already done/ continues to do. Which is send MORE weapons in US name, with US money, to blow up more children (as reported by the Cradle)

I know people are tired - tired of talking about war, and destroyed kids, families, homes…. Tired of hearing about it, talking about it, donating to victims of it, having our govts double down on how nece$$ary it is, signing petitions to end it - and it all seems endless and helpless.

It would be easy to hand over the reins to Kamala - but we all know in our hearts that she has no intentions of ending this genocide. We need to demand more of her NOW, because if we wait until she’s in office, we have nothing left to bargain with - except our labor, or putting our own bodies (rather than Palestinian ones) on the line.

Palestine woke up the entire world, don’t go back to sleep. Don’t let all of this work have been for nothing. You’re tired, but think about how tired Gaza must be, and all of Palestine, enduring this for almost a century - we can DO THIS. What’s more fam….

We ARE doing this : we ARE impacting the machine and making an impact - Starbucks worth is tanking , McD’s is experiencing loss across the board, and despite the deeply unsatisfied rhetoric with voters right now - WE MADE BIDEN STEP DOWN (well, Us and his inability to verbalize anything). Israel faces more pressure now than ever before and they KNOW IT, it’s why they’re rushing to take as much of the West Bank as possible and destroy as much as Gaza as possible.

We just have to make sure we keep as many healthy and whole as we’re able 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

#free palestine #palestine #gaza #free gaza #current events #rant #donation #go fund me #campaign #fundraiser #articles #the cradle #democracy now #Kamala Harris #Biden #Israel #Washington DC

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amarantine-amirite · 1 year

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Bad Things Happen To Those Who Wait

The school band finally got a spa day for the whole group at the Palais Resort. We have a big concert on Friday. It's going to be televised, so our band teacher wants our hands to look nice. That was the purpose of the spa day: for us to get manicures.

I heard people say amazing things about the spa at the Palais Resort, but my experience made me feel like all those positive reviews were merely people parroting others instead of thinking for themselves. They can only take three of us at a time because some of the manicurists refused to come to work today. The lounge area in the spa has a bar license, so nobody under the age of 21 is allowed. We kids have to wait in the hotel lobby.

They said the people who went in before us would come to get the next three people. I haven't seen anyone come back. "Where the hell are they?" I muttered under my breath.

"They're coming," Grace mumbled, "you just have to be patient."

I shot her an exasperated look. "You've said that for the last hour and 45 minutes!"

Grace leaned back and glanced at me "Stop exaggerating, Judy. It couldn't possibly be that long." she shrugged her narrow shoulders and tipped her head to one side. "Why is it so hard for you to wait for things?"

I find waiting for anything unbearable because I never know how long I have to wait. I'm not alone in this regard. That said, people who also struggle to wait for things also put things off, and miss deadlines. They misjudge how long it takes to do something. They lose track of the time because they get distracted.

I never struggled with those other things. I set alerts to keep track of deadlines so that I don't miss them and make a schedule to avoid procrastinating. I even discipline myself to check the clock regularly.

Maybe my difficulty in waiting doesn't come from an inability to keep track of time. Maybe the problem is my life experiences conditioning me to learn that waiting is futile. "I learned that nothing good comes out of waiting," I let out a frustrated sigh.

I wasn't lying. When I was four, Grandpa said he'd take me to Legoland for my birthday after his nap. I never got to go to Legoland because he died in his sleep. On my first day of kindergarten, the school bus driver pulled over and told us to wait while he went back to his house to see if he left the light in his kitchen on. He parked on train tracks knowing full well that a train would hit us. And there's also the countless times we've had to wait for something we needed to be delivered only to find out we paid money for a product that didn't exist.

Grace narrowed her eyes slightly. "I don't think that's why," she said. She had a lot of difficulty believing what I had to say.

I raised an eyebrow "Really?" I asked. Her response intrigued me.

Grace leaned in closer. "Tell me the truth," she asked in a hushed tone.

Before I could tell her I was telling the truth, I overheard someone waiting to check into their room complain about her disaster of a home renovation. "It was a mess," she hissed into her phone, "we've got this toilet-trained cat that flushed the toilet in the wet room four times in a row and the septic system flooded the basement."

I froze. The words septic system, wet room, and toilet-trained cat spooked me. It reminded me of why we had to move.

We moved because I threw up on the carpet in our old house. My gastric juices burned a hole in the carpet, so now we have to have the flooring redone. When we replaced the floors, we discovered rotten wood and stairs tall enough for an old person to trip over them.

What should have been simple spiralled into an out-of-control renovation. Our only way to break even is to sell and move once the renovations are finished. The real estate agent refused to list the house unless it had an accessible bathroom.

Accessible bathrooms need showers flush with the floor, enough room to turn a wheelchair around in a circle, and enough space around the toilet to accommodate a wheelchair. It also must be on the ground floor. Putting one in is not for the faint-hearted. I discovered this the hard way when a couple of my classmates and I tried putting the bathroom in ourselves.

Our house had the third bedroom on the ground floor. We never used it because we didn't have very many guests anyway. We do have a ground-floor powder room, but it's hardly big enough to drown a mouse. As I pointed out to the real estate agent, "If you were a mouse, I would show you"

The longer she talked, the worse it got. "We called numerous plumbers, and they didn't even try to resolve the problem. They said we needed to hire a specialist. We did, and these guys told us the house should be condemned," she whined, "something about the fact that the septic system was crooked."

she got up and started to pace towards me. She waved her free hand harder and shouted louder. "I got the real estate agent on the horn and sent her pictures of the damage, but she didn't believe it.'' By now, people stared at this crazy bitch walking around the hotel lobby like a deranged turkey. "She told us that we both had to seek a psychiatric evaluation to rule out compulsive lying because she couldn't find any negative reviews about the people who installed the wet room."

My eyes widened when she mentioned that there were no reviews for the people who did the work. There were no reviews because it was myself and a couple of idiot boys from my old school, not a professional builder.

We removed the bedroom crap from the third bedroom. We installed appliances and laid tile. We knew how to connect everything to the incoming waterline, but we didn't know how to connect the appliances to the sewage stack. The dumb hairball who sits in front of me in math suggested we put in a septic tank. I said no. He didn't understand why that was a bad idea, so that was what we did.

The decision to put in a septic tank instead of figuring out how to attach a wet room to the stack was so stupid I could feel my brain cells dying just thinking about it. And it had disastrous consequences for the new homeowners.

I saw someone pointing at me as they said, "If you're looking for the person who fucked up your wet room, she's right here."

It wasn't me. I'm smart enough to not install a septic system in a house with a perfectly good sewage stack. It was that idiot boy that sat behind me responsible for that disaster. Of course, I felt so panicked I couldn't talk. No sound would come out and I would run out of breath every time I tried to say something.

The woman came over to me, ready to throw me to the ground. As she approached, I gestured to the restaurant and managed to squeak out, "The kid you're looking for went that way, into the kitchen!"

She stomped towards the kitchen. I waited for her to move out of earshot. "See? I told you bad things happen when I have to wait," I nudged Grace's shoulder, "that could've ended in disaster."

The next morning, we saw a video of what went down on the news. The woman who moved into our old house barrelled into the hotel kitchen, grabbed a waitress by the collar and shoved her backwards. The kitchenchen staff screamed as the poor waitress stumbled into the fryer.

According to the new report, the waitress died of her injuries and the woman who assaulted her was never identified.

@leopard-prompts

#Writing #writers #writers on tumblr #short fiction #short story

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wolfryx · 2 years

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#Productivity #DigitalDetox #Health #Life #Technology

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mellowswriting · 3 years

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I saw that requests are open! would it be possible for you to write a follow up to Second Chances with javi and reader? Maybe you have another kid and this time javi is able to be there for you throughout the whole pregnancy, and get to experience the first kick, you giving birth, etc (I am a sucker for domestic!javi if you can't tell haha) I think it would be really cute!!

From the Beginning

pairing || Javier Peña x afab!Reader

summary || Javier gets to experience the chaotic excitement of welcoming a new baby to the family.

word count || 6,466

warnings || kid fic, pregnant reader, non-graphic childbirth, some spiciness but no smut, dad!Javi being adorable

a/n || I can’t even express how much I love writing about the boys as dads, especially Javier! I really hope you all enjoy this, it was so very much fun to write.

Main Masterlist | Join the taglist!

Early spring mornings always had a special quality about them. The air was never too hot, pleasantly warm with a hint of a cool breeze that still lingered from winter’s sharp grip. Plants were beginning to bloom, the trees regaining their bright green foliage that ruffled in a symphony with every pass of the wind. Spring was the bringer of warmth after the ice and snow, the nurturer that coaxed seeds to sprout and flourish, the guide for new life and hope.

Ironic, then, that those very qualities you had grown to love were the ones causing you so much inner turmoil that you couldn’t even enjoy the gorgeous morning happening around you. You hadn’t even realized what was happening at first. Mother nature hadn’t exactly gifted you with a cycle that could be easily followed and predicted. Instead you had the supreme pleasure of having to carry around menstrual products everywhere you went and having to replace your underwear far more often than usual. So when you went two months without the waves of cramps and frustration of your period, it wasn’t all that remarkable.

It was when you were doing some last minute grocery shopping the night before that you realized something was off. Well, more off than usual. The sight of the shelves of tampons made your stomach bottom out with realization. You must’ve made quite a sight as you stood in that aisle with a cart half full of food, just staring at tampons with dread. Two boxes of pregnancy tests got tossed in with the various other items in your cart and you hoped that Javier was too tired from work to insist he help you put away the groceries.

For once, the universe appeared to be on your side. Your husband was sitting on the floor with Elianna, a spread of coloring books and crayons scattered on the living room carpet, and he actually listened to you when you waved him off to carry the bags in yourself. The tests were tucked away in the bathroom behind your tampons - ironic, yes, but it was the one place Javier really wouldn’t be poking around.

Honestly, a part of you felt bad for not telling Javier right away. He had more than proven himself as a great father and husband in the nearly two years since he returned to your life. Those irrational little fears of him leaving you and little Ellie had been crushed into nothing in the wake of the role he readily took on with his daughter, but this was different. Maybe it was pretty naive of you to not have that conversation with him, but it was something you thought you still had time for.

The plus sign on the pregnancy tests told you the time for that conversation was now, apparently. You were grateful for the timing of your little realization. Saturday mornings saw the standing trend of your sister whisking Ellie away for some ‘auntie and niece time’, and you really didn’t want her to feel the tension you were carrying. She was such a perceptive little girl that had an eye for everything.

Javier was still asleep. You usually slept in with him on the weekends, but you were restless to find out if your period was just pulling a fast one on you or if you actually were pregnant. Now you had four positive tests sitting in front of you and a sleeping husband who you couldn’t decide whether or not to wake up. Luckily, you ended up not having to make that choice since two sharp raps of his knuckles against the bathroom door snapped you out of your trance.

The door opened a millisecond after you snatched up the tests and hid them behind your back, not so unlike Ellie when she was hiding a treat she wasn’t supposed to have yet. The difference was that you didn’t know if this would be a treat to Javier. He was still half asleep, his thin pajama pants slug low on his hips and his eyes squinted against the bathroom light.

“G’morning,” He grunted as he moved to shuffle past you. “Move over, I gotta piss.”

You were rooted to the spot, though, your brain floundering to gain control of your muscles. “Uhm…”

“What’s wrong?” Javier slowly perked up through his sleepy haze at the realization that you looked downright terrified. He put his hand on your bicep and squeezed slightly. “Is Ellie okay?”

“What? No, yeah, Ellie’s fine. She’s with Amelia.” You spluttered, cringing at your inability to function.

“Then why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Javi pressed. There really wasn’t any hiding things from him. Ellie must get that sharp eye of hers from her father. “What are you holding behind your back?”

You tried to swallow down the thickness that enveloped your throat to form some sort of words, literally anything to convey to him what the hell was going on, but your body was seized with fear. So you held out the tests wordlessly. His eyebrows furrowed as he took the bundle of tests from your hand, staring at them with a split second’s confusion before it dawned on him. “This…? You…?”

“Yeah.” You whispered. The worry in your voice must’ve been obvious because Javier was on you in a second flat, his arms crowding you into his chest with a crushing strength.

“You’re pregnant?” Javier croaked into your neck and the dam of emotion in your chest crumbled. His voice was full of excited disbelief, and relief crashed over you.

“Yeah, I am.” You said with a tearful chuckle, winding your arms around him to burrow yourself even further into his chest. “I know we never really talked about having another kid but… is this something you want, Javi?”

“Fuck, this is ironic.” Javier laughed quietly and when you looked up at him, he avoided your eyes with an almost bashful look. “I was gonna ask you today if you ever thought about it. Do you have any idea how many times I went over it in my head?”

You couldn’t help it - you cracked up laughing. The whole thing was almost ridiculous - the both of you worrying despite wanting the exact same thing. Tears of relief and laughter soaked into his t-shirt as you both broke into chaotic laughter, fingers clutching at each other’s shirts as you tried to catch your breath.

“So, uh… are we doing this?” Javier sounded nervous, his hands rubbing up and down your back as if to reassure himself. “You really wanna have a baby with me? Again?”

“Yeah.” Your voice was choked with a tense mix of emotions, so you cleared your throat and tried again. “Yeah, I do.”

“I can’t… fuck, I can’t believe you - you’d… thank you.” He babbled, nearly unintelligible in his scramble to convey how fucking grateful he was, but you knew. It wasn’t the first time you had heard the desperate need to spit words he couldn’t really find, the words that matched the swell of emotions in his chest that still wasn’t used to voicing. “Fuck, Ellie’s gonna be such a good big sister.”

That choked you up more than you expected. She really would be, you knew that for a fact, but it was a dream you had boxed up and shoved on a shelf with all your other unrealistic dreams for your future. Never in your life did you let yourself really think you could have the whole package deal - the loving (albeit gruff) husband, the big house, the sound of little feet chasing each other through the halls…

“Wait, how long have you been…? Or do we have to see a doctor first? Oh shit, we have to find a doctor for you, what the fuck are they called..? A fucking... obstetrician!” Javi rambled in a mix of nerves and excitement, breaking from your embrace to pace the length of the bathroom. “How are you feeling? Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help, because -”

“Javi, breathe!” You calmed him with both hands out to stop his walking and braced your hands on his shoulders to rub at him firmly. “We have plenty of time, okay? Let me go make some coffee for you and we can sit down and make a plan. First, didn’t you have to go to the bathroom?”

“Oh… yeah.”

----------

Javier couldn’t stop bouncing his knee. It was a subconscious thing, something he stopped the moment he realized but soon found it moving of its own volition all over again. He really was trying not to let his nerves show even though he knew that you could tell. It was all so new to him, which wouldn’t be a problem if the reminder didn’t gut him every goddamn time. He couldn’t imagine how alone you must have felt the first time around when you were pregnant with Elianna, especially in these cold, sterile doctors offices.

His grip tightened on your hand. The feeling of your fingertips pressed against the top of his hand kept him grounded, helped him remind himself that there was no going back and changing everything else that happened. All he could do was be there this time around, be the best version of himself that he could be for you and his kid - well, kids now. Plural. The excitement was almost enough to drown away the guilt. Javi really could barely believe that he was getting the privilege of experiencing this with you.

“I’ve seen files on drug lords shorter than all that.” Javier nodded at the pile of forms and paperwork you held in your lap and you laughed brightly. He preened a little at the sound. It was something he could never get enough of, that laugh of yours. “I love you.”

You looked up at him, the pen in your hand stopping its constant scratching for the first time in forever, and gave him a lopsided smile. “I love you, too.”

There was no way he wasn’t going to kiss you after that adorable little display. Your cheek felt soft against his palm and the little sigh of relief you huffed against him was addictive. Just knowing that he was an anchor for you made Javier feel so incredibly loved and important and all he wanted to do was imbue you with that same sense of security. He held you close, his hand slipping back to the back of your neck to keep you right where he wanted you, and gave you those soft little kisses that never failed to make you melt.

“Mrs. Peña?” A nurse called out and he had no choice but to let you go with one last peck against your lips. He followed you and the nurse into the exam room, nerves and excitement soaring even higher in his chest.

It was kind of fascinating, watching you answer the nurse’s barrage of questions. Questions about your medical history, how many pregnancies you’ve had, all about your menstrual cycle. The two of you went back and forth for at least fifteen minutes, tossing questions and answers back and forth like a tennis match. The nurse left with the promise of the doctor being in momentarily for an ultrasound.

“Come hold my hand?” You asked, and how could he deny such a sweet request?

“Of course,” He pulled a chair from across the room and settled himself next to the exam table, both of his hands wrapping around one of yours as he brought it up to his lips to kiss your knuckles. “So what happens now?”

“The doctor will give me an ultrasound. She’ll probably want to run some blood tests, too.” You sighed, obviously uncomfortable at the thought of needles.

“I’ll hold your hand then, too.” Javier promised.

“It’ll be good practice for you, ‘cause once I’m in labor I’ll probably break your hand.” You teased and yeah, broken fingers didn’t sound all that great but fuck, he was more than ready to let you do just that. Javier wanted to be your rock, wanted to support you through it all - especially since he couldn’t the first time.

Two quick knocks sounded against the door made Javier straighten up hastily. The doctor came in with a smile and a large machine wheeling in behind her. “Good morning, mom and dad! How’re we feeling?”

“All good here, Dr. Hall. A little nauseous, but still… good.” You gave Javier’s hand a little squeeze before letting go to unbutton your jeans and fold the waistband down, followed by pulling the hem of your shirt up. It was hard to believe that the beginning of an entire new life was right there between your hips.

“Good to hear!” Dr. Hall fiddled with the ultrasound machine for a moment before turning to you. “So today we’re going to take a look and find out how far along you are, make sure mom and baby both look healthy, okay?”

“Okay,” You and Javier said in unison, and he took your hand again, needing to feel you there with him.

The gel must’ve been cold based on the way you hissed slightly. Javier watched the screen as Dr. Hall trailed the wand over your belly, lips parting at the sight of the black and white image. It was hard to make out what exactly he was seeing at first, but the image shifted slightly and he could make out the tiniest, vague shape of the newest edition to his little family.

“It looks like you’re about ten weeks along.” Dr. Hall murmured without taking her eyes off of the screen. “Baby is about the size of a plum.”

Javier squeezed your hand lightly, the both of you sparing a glance at each other before staring back at the screen in wonder. The doctor pointed out the baby’s head and a little foot as she took her measurements, reassuring you both that everything looked perfect. He gave a rushed “yes, absolutely” when she asked if he wanted the ultrasound photos - there was a spot in his wallet that he had in mind for it already.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been in situations that left him shocked before. This was Javier Peña, after all. Life and career experiences had given him plenty of moments where his mind was completely washed blank with surprise, but never had it been such a good thing. There were so many times that the shock was accompanied by grief or anger, but excitement? Gratefulness? That was new to him, left him reeling the entire drive home, all throughout dinner. Something in the back of his mind nagged at him that he couldn’t be like this when Ellie got home the next day. She was smarter than he could’ve imagined any kid being at three years old and even though he agreed with your assertion that no one should know about your pregnancy for a few more weeks at least, Javier was certain his daughter would be able to needle it out of him.

Those expert interrogation skills must be hereditary.

It wasn’t until he was getting ready for bed that it really hit him how real it was, that you really were sitting in the bed you shared with him, pregnant with his baby and making plans for the usual Sunday brunch and park visit you all did every week. As he set his wallet on the nightstand, he couldn’t help but pull out the little ultrasound picture. He had a feeling he would be doing that a lot, especially when the new cadets were driving him crazy at work. It all swelled up in his chest, the appreciation and excitement and disbelief, because holy shit, how did he get so lucky? One finger traced the little image in his hand, and he couldn’t help but blurt out, “Thank you.”

The confused look you gave him made him flounder for the words.

“I just… I know everything was fucked up the first time around but I swear, it’s going to be different this time. I am not going anywhere.” Javier slid closer at the sight of the tears in your eyes, easily welcoming your arms around his neck as you practically drug yourself into his lap. He held you close to his chest, trying to instill the certainty and promise of it all. “God, fuck, and I thought I couldn’t get enough of you before…”

“Javi…” You croaked, laughing wetly into his neck.

“I’m serious! You’re gonna have to tell me to fuck off when you want space because I can’t keep my hands off you.” Javi teased, relief washing over him at your seeming acceptance of his promises. “And now like this, growing my baby… fuck, I am in this with you. Me and you and Ellie… and our little plum.”

That night, Javier fell asleep with his head on your shoulder, his face buried in your neck, and his hand tucked into the waistband of your sweatpants to cradle that precious space that held his newest child.

----------

Ellie couldn’t stop touting her new title to anyone who would listen.

“I’m a big sister!” She told the cashier at the grocery store, the other kids at the park and their moms for good measure, and even the mailman when they came by each morning. The brightness in her eyes when she said it made your heart flip in your chest. You had expected some sort of confusion or even for her to be upset at the idea of a new sibling, but she launched right into a story about how her friend from playgroup has a baby sister, and you knew that she would be just fine.

With your sixteenth week rapidly approaching, you couldn’t be more grateful that Ellie was excited for the new addition to the family. It was one less thing for you to worry about amidst the chaos of bringing a new person into the world. The fatigue was something you definitely didn’t miss about pregnancy - it washed over you without warning, left you nodding off wherever you sat. Thank god Javier was such a hands on father. He had no problem herding Ellie off into the backyard or off for a walk to let you get some much needed rest.

You hadn’t expected him to be such a hands on husband, though. Sure, you knew he was excited and you knew he already loved everything about your body, but he really wasn’t lying when he said pregnancy made him want you even more. Every night, Javi’s hands gravitated to your body to ease the kinks out of your muscles, to rub your feet until the aches went away, to cheekily offer you an orgasm if you were up for one. It made you feel cherished, something you sorely missed the first time you were pregnant.

“Thank you, Javi,” You groaned lowly as those strong hands of his worked at your lower back. He easily hitched your thigh up slightly to ease some of the pressure on the new swell to your belly. There was a slur in your voice when you said, “Feels so good.”

Javier chuckled behind you, moving on to rub your feet. “Be quiet, you don’t want to wake Ellie.”

“Did you ever see this being our life?” You murmured though your voice was muffled by the pillows you buried your head in. “Telling each other not to wake the kids, making bacon smiley faces for a toddler’s breakfast?”

“I didn’t think I’d actually get it, but I wished for it. Dreamt about how pretty you’d look all full of me.” Javi placed a teasing kiss to the inside of your thigh. “The real thing is so much better.”

You could only groan under his praise. His thumbs dug into the arch of your foot and rubbed in methodical circles, drawing another pleased groan from you that you muffled in your pillow. The pain slowly melted from your tired muscles under his thorough ministrations, leaving a pleasant warmth in his wake that made you all pliant and drowsy beneath him.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Javi asked as he rubbed his hands up your calves and you smiled. You knew exactly what he was gunning for.

You eased yourself onto your back and reached out for him with both arms, bringing him forward with grabby hands that he could never refuse. Javier settled between your thighs, a knowing smirk on his face, and leaned down to kiss you deeply. “‘M feeling good, Javi.”

“You know I love making my girl feel good,” Javi murmured as he kissed down your neck, one hand trailing back and forth over your hip and thigh lovingly. “Can I make you feel even better?”

“Please?” You asked breathily and your husband was more than happy to oblige. The loose tank top you wore was the first to go, followed quickly by your shorts and underwear.

Javier set about lavishing your neck and chest with affection, his touch more gentle than usual on your oversensitive breasts, and once again you were struck by the surrealness of it all. The fact that this had begun in Colombia all those years ago as two coworkers using sex for stress relief and had blossomed into this beautiful life you shared together was a thing of dreams. But there you were, with Javier Peña making love to you, quietly as to not wake your daughter and gently as to keep you and your baby safe and happy, and you could barely believe it.

“I love you,” You choked out through the tears that sprung into your eyes and Javi sat up to look at you with a concerned expression.

“What? What’s wrong?” He asked, his eyes roaming all over to find the apparent source of your tears.

“Nothing’s wrong.” You tried to pull him back down to you but he didn’t budge, the concern unwavering.

“Then why are you crying?” Javier brushed a thumb under your eyes to wipe away the evidence of your strong burst of emotion.

“Because I love you,” You chuckled as you held his hand close to your cheek and pressed a kiss to the middle of his palm. “And I’m pregnant, so everything is a thousand times more intense and you don’t get to tease me for that.”

“I would never,” Javi muttered but the mischievous grin on his face betrayed him. “Let me make you feel better, baby,”

“I’m already better, Javi - oh,”

----------

Two o’clock in the morning was not an ideal time to wake up, especially since Javier knew that Ellie would be awake and full of energy by seven, but something felt off. Even in his unconscious state, he could feel the absence of you in bed and his mind nagged at him to get up and find you. The hardwood was cold beneath his feet as he wandered from the bedroom, finding the bathroom empty before he made his way down the stairs. You often would rest on the recliner in the living room when your back was bothering you particularly bad, especially since your center of gravity had so drastically changed the further along you got in your pregnancy - but you weren’t there either.

Before Javi could start really worrying, he heard the refrigerator open and found you peering into the illuminated fridge in search of… something. A pint of ice cream was already in your hand, a spoonful of it hanging from your lips as you browsed with a frustrated look on your face, and honestly… Javi loved how you looked. It was so domestic and sweet, the sight of you in your pajamas that barely covered your belly as you raided the kitchen.

Thirty-six weeks and four days. He could barely believe how much time had passed since he saw those positive tests. It felt like forever and the blink of an eye at the same time, and he was beyond excited to meet his newest little one.

“What are you looking for, sweetheart?” Javi asked after a moment of watching you helplessly search around.

The sheepish smile you gave him made his heart swell in his chest and he automatically opened his arms as you shuffled over to bury your face in his chest. “Your kid is driving me crazy with the cravings.”

Javier hugged you tightly, relishing in the way you relaxed against him. “Well, if they’re anything like me, they probably want those barbecue chips, then.”

It didn’t take long for him to get you herded back up to bed with the chips in hand and the sight of you sleepily munching away while burrowed in the blankets eased an almost innate need Javier had to see you safe and happy, all nice and taken care of in his bed. He climbed into bed once he was sure you didn’t need anything else, settling on his side with his head propped up against his hand to watch you despite his own sleepiness.

“Let your mama sleep, troublemaker.” He murmured to your belly as he rubbed gentle circles over the spots he could feel the nudges of his little one retaliating to their father’s stern words. “Need some lotion?”

“Hmmm, please?” You hummed.

Rubbing lotion into your skin was something Javi had taken a particular liking to. The first time he had seen you doing it yourself, he was quick to take over. That was the first time he felt his little one kick at his hands and he fell even more in love - something he hadn’t thought was possible. It was a good way to feel closer to you both, to his wife and the baby you were bringing into the world, and the way you dozed slightly as he helped you relax made him feel needed, like he was doing right by you. That’s all he ever wanted to do.

A nudge to the edge of his hand made Javier glance back down to where his hands were running all over your belly, but it was the sight of the baby rolling that made him do a double take. “Holy shit,” He whispered, hands frozen as he saw what had to be the imprint of a little foot or hand poke out before disappearing. “There really is a whole person in there.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” You grumbled, grimacing slightly at the feeling. “It’s aerobics hour, apparently.”

“That’s fucking crazy.” Javi tentatively resumed massaging the lotion into your skin. It was hard to fathom, the idea that your body was so capable of creating and nurturing a brand new life, and for the millionth time he found himself thanking the universe for letting him have this second chance.

----------

Gabriel Peña came early, quick, and with a sharp cry you were sure could be heard throughout the entire hospital. His little nose was scrunched up, his face all red from his wailing, hands curled into angry fists over his sudden eviction from the warmth and darkness he was accustomed to. It was a short labor, so very different from your first with Ellie for so many reasons but the biggest being the strong presence of Javier at your side. The moment the contractions began at the crisp hour of six a.m., he was alert and full of nervous excitement.

True to his word, Javier let you clutch onto him through it all - every contraction, every push, every angered grumble you threw his way for getting you pregnant in the first place. That sharp mind of his kept up under the pressure. He spoonfed you ice chips and let you use him for support as you rocked your way through particularly bad contractions.

There were tears in Javier’s eyes as he carefully set his hand on his son’s head, carefully musing the shock of dark, wispy hair on his head. You leaned your head against Javi’s shoulder, exhaustion, relief, and happiness warring with each other after hours of labor. You felt his lips press against your temple before he sniffled and whispered, “Thank you.”

Javier stayed by Gabriel’s side the entire time the doctors checked him over and cleaned him up, per your instructions, and he was the one to return your son to your arms. It was the most careful you had ever seen him, his movements slow and deliberate, eyes on the baby’s adorable, chubby face.

“Seven pounds, nine ounces,” Javi murmured as he drug a chair as close to your bedside as possible and settled in, his hand resting on your thigh. A disgruntled whine came from the baby wriggling in your arms and you smiled, knowing he was hungry and could probably smell the milk your body had been preparing to make for his arrival. You pulled the gown down to expose your breast, propping your arm with a pillow to better support him, and adjusted his latch to settle in.

“Nice latch, mama,” One of the nurses said as she finished settling the blankets around your feet.

“Not my first time at this rodeo.” You chuckled quietly. It had been a while since Ellie weaned but you still remembered the struggle of figuring out how to get a newborn to latch properly when you had no idea what you were doing. You set your hand over Javi’s, smiling at him when he blinked sleepily up at you. Neither of you had gotten much rest before Gabriel decided to make his appearance into the world. “Can you hand me some water, honey?”

“Of course,” Javi perked up with the small task you gave him. There wasn’t much he could do at this point, but you wanted him to feel involved, to feel like he was helping you, and even though his mere presence helped you relax, you knew he was an ‘action’ kind of man. He needed something to do to feel useful. He held the straw steady for you and everything, your sweet husband. “How’re you feeling?”

“Tired.” You answered honestly, leaning into his hand when he brushed stray hairs from your face.

“I know this wasn’t easy. I’m proud of you.” It was a simple statement but it hit you right in your chest. As excited as you were to have another baby, it was hard. Exhausting. He could see it all, how tired you were and how hard you were working just to carry on like normal through your pregnancy, and while he did everything he could to ease some of that burden, the plain acknowledgement of how hard you worked felt good.

“I love you so much.” You whispered, pulling his hand close to kiss his palm.

“I love you, too.” Javier leaned over the side of the bed and kissed you softly, careful not to jostle his son where he sleepily nursed against you. “How are our kids so damn cute?”

You huffed a laugh, which made Gabriel shift against you before settling back down, sighing suspiciously similar to his father. “It helps that their dad is incredibly good looking.”

“True,” Javi said, trying for that cocky tone you loved but you didn’t miss the pink tinge to the tips of his ears. Compliments always got him like that, all red-faced and adorable - though he would never admit it.

A short nap later and you had one very excited Ellie fidgeting in the chair next to your bed, impatiently waiting to meet her baby brother. Javier stood behind her, quietly reminding her to be careful as you helped keep the squirming newborn steady in her lap. Your heart damn near exploded when she began cooing at her brother and very gently touching his soft cheeks. She was enamored by him, asking so many questions that you and her father could barely keep up.

“Can we share my bed?” “No, he can’t sleep in your bed, baby. He has to sleep in a special bed in mommy and daddy’s room.”

“Does he get a special seat like me?” “Yep! Daddy’s putting his carseat in next to yours right now. You’ll get to talk to him the whole way home.”

“Is he gonna cry a lot?” “Yeah, he will. That’s how babies let people know they need something since they don’t have words like we do.”

“Can I share my crackers with him?” “Not yet! Right now, he only drinks milk.” “Milk? Like for cereal?” “Kind of, but it comes from your mommy.” “What?!” “You ate the same thing when you were a little baby, too.” “What?!”

The entire drive home was full of little Ellie chatting away at her baby brother, mostly about the stuffed animals she had at home that she promised to show him the moment they got home. There was a small smile on Javier’s face as he drove, his hand curled around yours on the center console. He practically radiated contentment and damn did it look good on him.

----------

For what felt like the millionth time, you woke before the sun had a chance to rise. Though this time, it was to the feeling of a full bladder rather than the sound of a hungry baby, so that could be counted as a small win at the very least. You tried to ignore the ache in your healing body as you stumbled your way to and from the bathroom, near silent in your movements even though you were half asleep. It was a well practiced dance, getting out and back into bed without waking your sleeping children.

But something was off. The sheets were cooler than usual, missing the fire-like heat that Javier radiated constantly. You sat up, blinking against the drowsiness and darkness to see your husband passed out on the rocking chair in the corner of the room with Gabriel curled up on his bare chest. Skin-to-skin contact was something Javier couldn’t get enough of. He told you how close it made him feel to his son and you couldn’t complain. It was a precious sight. Avoiding the creaky floorboards, you carefully covered Gabriel with a soft baby blanket and smoothed it down his back.

“S’wrong?” Javier mumbled, words slurred with sleep, his eyes barely cracking open. On instinct, his hands shifted over the little baby asleep on him to hold him closer, even more secure.

“Shh, nothing’s wrong.” You soothed as you gently tucked his curls back away from his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

“M’kay.” And with that his eyes were closed, back to dozing like he was never interrupted in the first place. You were glad. Tomorrow was an early morning, and paired with all of the midnight feedings and diaper changes, you all could use some rest. So you laid back down, sleep dragging you back under swiftly.

Javier was practically bouncing with nerves just hours later, even though he was trying not to show it. It brought you back to that first appointment when you were pregnant, only this time he held a sleeping one-month old who he was trying not to wake up with his nervousness.

“I just want it to go well.” He grumbled when you asked if he was okay.

“It will.” You reassured him, rubbing circles into his knee. “They’re both perfectly healthy, the pediatrician will tell you that, too.”

You were right - then again, when weren’t you? Gabe was a healthy nine and a half pounds, strong heart and lungs, and good reflexes. Javier was hooked on the pediatrician’s every word, nodding along and giving you a relieved smile with each positive statement. And of course, Ellie’s rambunctiousness had the pediatrician and nurses completely captivated as she told them all about her preschool and the antics she got up to while they checked her over.

The pride on Javier’s face with every positive comment and reassurance that both of his kids were on track developmentally made your heart flip. You felt so beyond lucky to have this little family of yours, with two beautiful children and the man you always loved. It felt too good to be true sometimes, especially when Javi pulled you close for a tight hug and a kiss to the side of your head before he worked to get one wiggly Gabe back into his onesie.

One impromptu trip to the park later and you and Javier had two very tired kids on your hands. Ellie was already passed out by the time Javier pulled into the driveway but Gabe was quickly venturing into ‘overtired’ territory. He was grumpy, wriggling around in your arms like he couldn’t get comfortable, all the while giving little whines and grunts that threatened to turn into full on wailing. He didn’t want milk, he didn’t need a diaper change, he just wanted to sleep but was too frustrated to let a nap take him.

“Give ‘em here.” Javier offered and you freely handed him over. The postpartum fatigue was no joke, and even though it was lessening with each passing day, you were damn tired so you had no issue with letting your husband put the baby down for a nap. You curled up on the couch, not quite going to sleep but still letting your mind and body rest as you listened to Javi try to negotiate with Gabriel as if he were some sicario and not just a particularly stubborn baby.

“C’mon, little man. Just go to sleep. All of your problems if you went to sleep right now? Solved. Completely solved. Instead of crying you could just… go to sleep.” Javier whispered over the cooing and grunting of his son. “Oh, don’t give me that face, mister.”

You snorted a laugh - you knew exactly what face Gabe was pulling. His nose and eyebrows would scrunch up, lips pursed as he huffed angry breaths like a little baby bull. It was an exaggerated copy of the face Javier pulled anytime he was frustrated, which you found ridiculously adorable. Slowly, the grumpy grunts became more and more quiet until they disappeared completely, and a few moments later, Javier flopped down on the couch next to you with a sigh.

“Got him down.” Javi said as he pressed close to you, burying himself between the back of the couch and your body to press his face into your neck. A blanket of drowsiness must have settled over the entire house as both kids napped peacefully in their beds and you cuddled up to your husband in the living room. The both of you would doze until the sound of little feet on the hardwood or the sounds of a hungry baby woke you, and then it would be back on the grind of parenthood, but you knew… with Javier by your side, you could do it.

{Taglist}

@iamburdened @everyhowlmarksthedead @jenrebloggingfics @xserenax-13 @silverstarsandsuns @luminescentlily @peterpstuff @leonieb @lazybeeches @withasideofmeg @freeshavocadoooo @chattychell @ew-erin @i-ship-it-ironically @artsymaddie @mrsparknuts @wyn-dixie @notabotiswear @lunaserenade @jitterbugs927 @theorganasolo @the-witty-pen-name @northernpunk @lemonlime09 @la-lunaluna @andruxx @greeneyedblondie44 @bloodsuckingbastards @coldlilheart @gracie7209 @green-socks @paintballkid711 @lord-of-restingbiface @asta-lily @xgoldenjenny @mummifymecaptain @cjbtw @a-skov @himbotroy @xjsteph @marvelousmermaid @over300books @castleamc @darnitdraco @janebby @cannedsoupsucks @itssmashedavo @mtjoi @triggerhappyflygirl

#javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier pena fanfiction #javier peña fanfiction #narcos

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getsethappy21 · 2 years

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7 Amazing Ways to Make Most of the “Me Time”

The need to be going all the time, the need to be functioning each second is seen as productive. If you are not working or putting your energy into something, then it is believed that you are wasting time. Taking out time for “me time activities” may feel a waste where you won’t accomplish anything.

The essentiality of me-time has got lost in this busy world that we live in. To some extent, it is believed to be true that stress and the inability to find time for yourself can have an impact on health as well as psychological state.

Why scheduling “Me-Time” is just as important?

When you take some time off of work, it allows you to decompress, get rid of some stress, and get back to work with a clearer mind and better focus. When you are in a relaxing mode, that is when you get most of your best ideas to work on. It is equally important for you to forget the to-do list and focus on the present.

It is not necessary that you must go on and on and on without taking a pause. Everyone needs a break from routine tasks and stress and indulges in me-time activities. If you feel a bit down or sluggish, you need time to charge your mind and body. This enhances the efficiency of your work.

It is a challenging task to offer your best when you’re not at your best. You give, give, and give but then it gets exhausting and frustrating. Giving back to your family is just as important for which you need to be content with yourself.

When lives are full of to-do lists, it can be challenging to see the forest for the trees. When you have a chance to remove yourself and take a breather, your mind gets clear. With a clear mind, you have more energy, and motivation, and hence, you become more productive.

When you have your own me-time, you learn new things about yourself such as things you love to do or your favorite hobby. You get to embrace your creativity, develop a skill, and feel a sense of accomplishment.

To be clear, “me-time” doesn’t necessarily mean spending a whole day at spa or doing activities to pamper yourself. A few minutes squeezed for yourself should be more than enough. You should find a little time each day to relax, recharge, and revitalize. A little time for yourself is every day is enough to reap the maximum benefits of the Me-Time. But what to do at that time?

Here is a list of fun Me Time activities and ideas which will help you to make the most of your precious time.

1. Unplug

Amidst your busy schedule, find time in the day where you can ban all your electronics, email, and phone calls for a set amount of time. Take a break from social media. Use this time to go out for a walk, read a book, or simply stare out the window.

2. Embrace Your Creativity

Make and create, only for fun and relaxation. You shouldn’t be looking to create something perfect rather let your creativity flow and don’t try to hang up on how it turns out. It is your creativity that matters and not the end result. You may like to try

Journaling

Scrapbooking

Dancing or Singing (As if no one is watching)

Coloring

3. Take Yourself Out For A Meal

Take yourself out for a nice sit-down in your favorite restaurant or cafe. It is revitalizing when you take a break mid-week from the usual routine. Treat yourself with a lavish meal and enjoy with your own self.

4. Take a Nap (My favorite!)

This is one of my first me-time activities because I feel so refreshed after taking a quick nap.

Get under your comfy covers and really rest. Sleep if you have time, or just close your eyes and revel in the fluffy softness.

Taking a nap not only refreshes but it also helps you to enhance your productivity.

Further Reading: Why Sleep Is So Important to Your Health?

5. Call an Old Friend

When you maintain positive relations, it is food for the soul. Take out some time and call a friend with whom you haven’t talked in a while. Relive the good old days and catch up with them.

6. Watch TV

Even though watching TV can be a mindless “guilty pleasure” but it can turn out to be good for you. Watch something you love but you hardly get a chance to indulge in, and really enjoy it. I love to watch LUCIFER over and again when I want to take a break.

7. Maintain Your Journal

It is necessary to write down your feelings, ideas, stresses, dreams — whatever you feel like! It doesn’t have to be a regular thing to serve the purpose. The idea is to take a break from work and indulge in more phone-free activities.

If you are new to journaling, here is how to start journaling?

Closing Words on Me-Time Activities and Ideas

The importance of me-time cannot be ignored. of Taking care of yourself is just as important, though it can leave you guilty. You have to remember that carving out time for yourself is really important for your physical as well as mental health. Taking out time for yourself and indulging in your favorite me-time activities not only add up to a happier family but make you more productive. Not just that me-time is great for healthy relationships in your life. This is one of the best Self-care activities for everyone.

#7 Amazing Ways to Make Most of the “Me Time”#Me TimeWays to Make Most of the “Me Time”Giving back to your familycharge your mind and bodylearn new things about yourself

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oogaboogasphincter · 3 years

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The 50/10 Method (Agent Whiskey x f!reader)

Summary: Jack makes the most of your 10 minute study break.

Word Count: 2.7k+

Rating: E (explicit) 18+ ONLY! bc this is just cringey smut lmfao

Warnings: smut (oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex (obvi use protection irl), very easily and conveniently reached orgasms (this is a fantasy i can do what i want skjfkd), dirty talk, one (1) allusion to thigh riding and one (1) instance of 💙spitting💙, fingering, positions i hope i've given enough detail so y’all can imagine what i was picturing💀), pet names (sweetheart, honey, cowboy *affectionately*, good girl, baby), there’s a sentence about reader having long-ish hair, reader and jack have a dog, swearing, reader is afab and is called things like good girl and the like, just overall trash grammar and structure 😇

Author’s Note: so this is very poorly written and extremely self-indulgent, as i myself use the 50/10 method 🙃. but i had a lot of fun with it, and i think that’s what writing is supposed to be all about! :) also i was heavily inspired to write this after reading “Take a Break” by @mellowswriting and “Study Buddy” by @pascalpanic. please go check those out because they’re absolutely fantastic!!!!! +while you’re at it, i would highly advise you to read anything on their masterlists bc they’re just 💜exquisite💜

gif by @thernandalorian

The lines of text on your computer screen are starting to blend into each other, creating a single run-on sentence that one of your previous English teachers would ridicule the author for. The sharp curves and angles that distinguish each letter from the next are becoming soft and dull, blurring into each other until your brain can only recognize it as a smeared streak of black on white.

It’s 11:00am on a Saturday, a big exam set for the upcoming Monday’s morning. You don’t feel rushed for time, or overloaded with unknown material, and the early hours of the day have been quite productive. Following a shared breakfast of homemade waffles in bed with Jack, your boyfriend, you didn’t complain when setting up your study station on the living room’s large oak table. If anything, you had been excited to begin studying early in the hopes of finishing your review by the end of the day. That way, tomorrow would be free for you and Jack to do whatever you pleased.

However, as the hours went by, your motivation was slowly but surely diminishing. The serene study atmosphere that you usually thrive in is now driving you mad. You yearn for a noise, any noise; a bird to sing a song in the tree outside your window, the smack of your dog’s loose wrinkles against each other as he attempts to shake the sleep out of him, a pencil unable to stop itself from rolling and dropping onto the floor with a tink.

You’re momentarily gifted with the crisp sound of a page turning. You flit your eyes over to gaze upon the source of your granted wish and your heart flutters in reaction to the sight: Jack’s resting on the couch, cowboy hat balanced on the back of it, deeply absorbed in the next installment of his favorite murder-mystery series. You find it curious that his desire for an adrenaline-filled challenge doesn’t stop when he comes home from mission after mission that nearly cost him his life. You’ll ask him about his insatiability one day, but for now you categorize it as fictional research for his Statesman assignments.

Your short glance quickly turns into an entranced stare. Jack looks... divine. Fetching. Luscious. As he’s lying on his back, neck propped up against the arm of the couch, his book balanced on his chest, relaxation radiates off of him in waves and utterly seduces you. You’re surprised that he hasn’t been a greater distraction to you throughout the morning. How have you managed to ignore the denim-wearin’, plaid-shirted, pornstache-sportin’ cowboy of your dreams that is only a few steps away?

Involuntarily, the thigh muscles of your crossed legs contract in an effort to bring some semblance of friction to your now weeping core. Similar to your imaginings of your dog earlier, you shake your head to force these heavy, unwanted feelings to dissipate and turn back to the work in front of you. Of course, Jack does the opposite of what you’d like him to do and takes an interest in your fidgeting. He peeks over the top of his book, “You cold, sweetheart?”

His question is reasonable: you’re purposely wearing a skirt that’s so short it rides up quite high when you sit. You don’t dare to meet his eyes and answer while pulling a textbook close and opening it up, “No, I’m okay.”

Fortunately he returns to his reading. Your attention is able to retain itself for about a paragraph, but then your mind takes a sharp detour back to those pesky, steamy desires. You mentally huff at your inability to remain concentrated on your studies and rifle through the options of what you can do to satiate yourself for the time being.

You could switch texts and force your brain to recognize the change and therefore become distracted. You could pick out some colored writing utensils and bring some fun to active reading. You could say fuck it, go straddle Jack and beg him to use you in whichever way he would like.

Jack interrupts your brainstorming, “Are you sure you don’t need a blanket or sumthin’? I can go get my jacket for ya.”

The attentiveness of your southern lover melts your heart. You turn to him, “No, really, I’m okay, thanks.”

“I wouldn’t count a bathroom break as taking away from your 50 minutes, honey, if that’s what’s makin’ you twitch.”

You had been implementing and strictly adhering to the 50/10 method all morning: study for 50 minutes, take a break for ten. Its effectiveness was never doubted, as it has proven to work for you for years. Only ten minutes into this 50 minute period, the devil of restlessness pokes at you and makes you think could time go by any slower? A hand comes up to cover the blush creeping across your cheek as you dismiss Jack’s suggestion, “No, that’s not it.”

Behind your embarrassed hand, Jack cocks an eyebrow at you. Your simple choice of words has given the Agent a hint, that there is something that’s bothering you, he just hasn’t figured it out yet and you don’t want to admit what it is for some reason. He returns to his book, however lost in thought about what your problem could be, while you task every cell in your body to pay attention to your studies.

35 minutes remain on the clock, and Jack guesses, “Did you have too much coffee?”

You can’t help but grin at his sleuthing, “No, I just had my regular.”

He conjures up another possible solution five minutes later, “Are you itchin’ to get out of the house? We haven’t left in two days.”

He’s getting warmer. Both of you know exactly why you haven’t left the house in two days: you’d been occupied with activities of the sinful variety. You can’t gauge yet whether or not he knows he’s dancing around the answer, “Baby, you’re distracting me. And nope, it’s not that.”

He smiles apologetically, “Sorry,” and uses his book as a partition, blocking your ability to procrastinate and just visually drool all over him.

Silence fills the next 20 minutes. Even though Jack is out of your sight, details from your observations exaggerate themselves in your mind to the point that they’re all encompassing, intoxicating. The way his jeans wrap around his legs ever so perfectly, the worn denim hugging those muscular thighs that he loves for you to grind yourself against when you’re feeling especially desperate (like now). How his plaid flannel slopes over the swell of his belly, stretching tight against his skin as his diaphragm contracts and deflating when he exhales. Even his large feet, strewn about lazily on the couch, his toes pointing in different directions, amuse you.

Ten minutes remain in your study session. Feeling guilty about spending the majority of the last hour envisioning the seductive intricacies of your boyfriend, you actually start to study.

“How many times do you think I can make you cum in ten minutes?”

Your eyes are ripped from your material and land on the menace lazing on the couch. He’s put his book down, one arm behind his head while the other is crooked, allowing himself to palm his cock through his pants. Jack’s wearing a shit-eating grin, bewitching your crossed legs to switch which one is on top; an excuse to apply more pressure to the yearning area between them. You fidget in the chair, shamefully trying to get the seam of your underwear to rub against you in just the right way. You shrug, “I-I’m not sure.”

He gets up and comes over to you, standing behind you and leaning forward to rest his chin on your shoulder. He murmurs in your ear, “I think we should find out during your next break.”

You turn to face him, “I think so too.”

He gives you a quick kiss, “Well, you better be a good girl and study for these last few minutes. Earn that break.” He places his large hands on either side of your head and turns it toward your materials, making you both laugh.

Somehow, you’re able to pay attention. Jack’s impending promise of ravaging you for ten minutes straight quells your jittering nerves and gives you something specific to look forward to. Before you know it, your alarm is beeping, alerting you that your break has commenced. Jack cages you by reaching forward and grabs the clock, programs it to ten minutes and keeps it in his hand. He grips the sides of your swivel chair, pulls it back from the table and spins you around to face him, the speed of the turn making your hair swoosh across your shoulders. Through mutual giggles, Jack lifts you up, winding your legs around his waist, your arms doing the same around his neck. “I want you to count for me how many times you cum.”

Breathlessly, you simply obey, “Okay.”

He practically runs to the bedroom. He sets the clock on the nightstand and turns the face towards the mattress so you don’t lose out on studying time. Tossing you onto the bed, your giggling continues as you bounce from the force. Jack hooks his fingers in your underwear and yanks them down, pulling them out from under your skirt and over your shoes. The way he wastes no time ridding you of any other garment makes blood and heat flood your center and air rush out of your lungs. He pushes your lost air back into your mouth with a kiss and then immediately retreats back to in between your legs.

He flicks the fabric of your skirt up onto your belly, letting himself have complete, unobstructed access to his early lunch. His fingers fondle your folds while his lips place sloppy kisses along the inside of your thighs. After he’s had his fill of that step, he sits back and stares at you: spread out for him, more than willing to take anything he wants to give to you. He blows out a whistle, eyeing your core, and you say, “Hey, you’re on the clock, cowboy. No time for dramatics.”

He nods, a smirk pulling at one side of his mouth, “You’re right, sweetheart.”

He spits onto your cunt, forgoing his usual gentle licks to adequately wet your pussy. A quiet fuck escapes your mouth as he plunges his tongue into you. Your fingers wind themselves in his chocolatey locks and pull, extracting an excited moan from your lover. His fingers knead the soft flesh on the backs of your thighs as he eats and when his mustache starts to tickle your clit, you’re done for. Your grip on his hair becomes vice-like and your whole body seizes up, constricted by enrapturing pleasure. You strangle out, “One.”

Jack unlatches his mouth only once he’s certain your first orgasm is complete. He stands, admires your wrecked expression, takes his cock out, spits into his hand and pumps his dick a few times. Hands slithering around your waist, he flips you onto your stomach and pulls your ass up, positioning you on your hands and knees. You’re a little bit dizzied by his manhandling in combination with his expert tongue, but this type of vertigo is the most enjoyable you’ve ever experienced.

When he pushes into you, it’s a bit of a stretch because he hadn’t warmed you up with his fingers. He relaxes you by leaning forward, pressing his chest against your back and peppering soft kisses to your shoulder blades. The clink of his belt comically punctuates his thrusts, but your laughs are swallowed by intoxicated groans. You don’t know, and you don’t really care to figure out, how he already has you teetering on the edge of cumming again. Heightened senses tell you that you’re close; the fabric of his shirt feels unearthly soft as it brushes against patches of exposed skin, his fingertips are delightful lead in their clamp on you, his grunts and pants angelically reverberate in your skull. And then, suddenly and all at once, “Two.”

Jack’s pride shows itself in a smirk while he flips you onto your back. He makes a show of hooking your calves over his shoulders, eliciting laughter from the both of you. Resting almost all of his weight on top of you, your knees find your chest and his hands find your hair. The intimacy of it all is almost too much; his thumbs stroke your temples, palms cradle your head, those goddamned puppy-dog eyes bore into you. You turn your head in his grasp to check your timing: five minutes left.

Jack’s tongue darts out to lick the pads of his fingers before he snakes it down in between the two of you to rub your clit. Your moans come out uncontrollably, your eyelids stutter and he eggs you on, “That’s it, sweetheart. Give me another one.”

Hearty moans are reduced to desperate gasps and you’re unable to verbally acknowledge the third orgasm that rips through you. Nonetheless, Jack can tell from the way your eyes roll into the back of your head and his name tumbles ferociously out of your mouth that you’re cumming. “’Atta girl.”

Jack takes his cock out of you and the whine that escapes your lips embarrasses you. He can’t help but laugh at your whimpering before he scoots down the bed and starts to eat you out again, framing his head with your quaking thighs. You find the strength to check the time, “Jack, there’s only a minute and a half left.”

He moans deeply into you, unaffected by your comment, and eases three fingers into your fluttering center. Like earlier, your hands fly to his hair like a magnet and find purchase so tight it makes your knuckles go pale. In a matter of seconds, circling your clit with his sopping tongue and tapping your g-spot with his deft fingers, Jack has you cumming yet again. This time you yell out the count, “Four!”

The sounds his ministrations make are lewd and exhilarating, pushing himself to his own precipice. You look down your body to find Jack’s other hand jerking his cock and his seed spilling out of him moments later. He groans into your pussy while you pet his hair, praising him for his efforts.

Simultaneously, you both remember that you’re being timed. Your eyes meet the clock at the same time: 30 seconds. Jack springs from the bed and pulls you up with him, grabbing your discarded panties. He squats and taps your ankles so you lift your legs up, sliding each leg hole over your body and pulling your underwear up underneath your skirt.

You fumble with his mussed clothes, stuffing his still-hard cock into his boxers, hiking his jeans up over his ass and zip and button them closed. You snake his belt around his waist and let his fingers do the work of buckling it before he picks you up bridal style and ushers you out of the bedroom, grabbing the clock off of the nightstand on your way out.

Unhinged cackles follow you two down the hallway as you return to the living room. He plops you down in your chair, straightens you out, gives you a kiss on the cheek and then your alarm goes off. You raise your eyebrows at him, “Jeez, you didn’t waste a second.”

He hums, then mumbles, “You get back to work now, babygirl,” and leaves you with a yearning kiss on the part of your hair.

Both of you return to your respective readings, hopelessly trying to downgrade your panting gasps to normal breaths. The absence of Jack’s warmth is already painful. But you rationalize that the indulgence of the last ten minutes is more than enough to get you through this next hour of studying, if not for longer.

Little do you know that Jack feels the same pain. His ache for your touch, sexual or not, will overtake him later and he’ll be unable to resist the temptation of coming over and distracting you again. Determined to finish your studying, you’ll propose a compromise: you can sit in his lap while he is lulled to sleep by the ambience of the afternoon rain and the enveloping comfort of you. The two of you can try to beat the record of four orgasms next semester.

💘taglist: @pascalpanic, @mellowswriting

#agent whiskey x f!reader #agent whiskey x fem!reader #agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey smut #agent whiskey x you #agent whiskey #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #kingsman: the golden circle #study smut #studying smut

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amerrierworld · 4 years

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Lullaby

Ocean’s 8 fanfiction

for the request: More Lou x reader plssss they’re so good! Maybe a protective!Lou fic

Summary: Lou is there for you as you struggle with incessant nightmares.

Characters: Lou x gn!reader, the team mentioned in passing

Word Count: 2,071

Warnings: comfort and fluffffff. a bit dark in reference to scary nightmares, restlessness, worry, etc! some fluffy suggestiveness, but nothing smutty

You knew you needed to sleep. Hell, you wanted to sleep. Your eyes were burning as you stared at the ceiling fan high above you, spinning gently and sending cool air to the sleeping bodies below.

The ladies had all crashed at Lou’s that night, an impromptu sleep-over after a night drinking in celebration. There was plenty of couch space to go around, and an extra mattress was pulled out for the remaining few. Pillows and blankets were tossed about and shared.

You heard Rose snoring quietly at the other end of the mattress. At some point in the night, you had rolled off of your side onto the hardwood floor, blankets half-covering your restless body.

The ground was hard and cold against your back, but it was a welcomed feeling, because you’d woken up in a fit, heart pounding, drenched in sweat and gripping the blankets with trembling hands.

You didn’t expect nightmares to visit you tonight. You’d drank happily and were exhausted from the day’s events, and you were out cold as soon as everyone turned out the lights and said goodnight.

But shadowy figures danced about your brain as you laid there, staring up at the ceiling fan, trying to decide what to do next. Memories of the nightmare were already fading due to the drunken haze you had fallen asleep in, but the panic was still heavy in your chest.

Suddenly, your body tingled with restlessness and you sat up. Wincing at the stickiness of your sweaty shirt peeling off the floor, you got up and gingerly stepped around your sleeping friends. You needed to move, or do something, before your heavy breathing woke anyone else up.

You went to the bathroom, used the toilet, combed your fingers through your wild hair. Wandered around the small space for a bit, opened the cupboards and inspected what kind of hair products Lou liked to use.

It was eerily quiet, the kind of quiet in someone else’s house that you’re not used to. You sat on the edge of the bathtub, which was wondrously large, and debated drawing yourself a bath. It’d be too loud to fill it, you figured. You’d feel like you were imposing, no matter how comfortably you knew Lou and the rest of the team.

But you also didn’t want to go back yet either. The cool bathroom floor tiles were jarring but relaxing to your aching feet, and the harsh bright light dispelled any shadows around you.

Wild, hot tears prickled the edges of your eyes and you sniffled. You rubbed your face with a shaky hand, irritated at your drowsiness but inability to sleep peacefully which only made you cry harder.

Wind roared outside and the lights flickered for a split second as you sobbed silently into your hands.

Lou wasn’t a light sleeper by any means, but if something sounded off in her own home, she’d be the first to wake up. And so, when she heard soft footsteps creaking up her staircase, she was awake in seconds.

She peeked down the hall and saw the light coming from the bathroom as you snuck in, clicking it shut slowly, as if all hell would break loose if someone heard you.

Lou normally wouldn’t have done anything, considering there were eight people sleeping over and someone was bound to use the toilet in the middle of the night, but the way your feet shuffled weakly and your head was bowed down in fear made her worry.

She waited for you to come back out. Heard the flushing of the toilet, the running of the sink, and expected you to open the door again immediately. But you didn’t. And when she walked over, leaned her ear towards the door and heard quiet sobs coming through, she nearly broke down the door with how swiftly she opened it, fearing the worst.

Your back straightened, squeaking in surprise at the sight of Lou in the doorway, her eyebrows furrowed.

You both stared at each other for a moment. Lou opened her mouth and closed it again, swallowing thickly. She realized how invasive it was for her to burst through the door, but the sound of you in torment pushed any rational thoughts out of her brain.

Rubbing your eyes quickly, you got up and wrung your hands in front of you.

“S-sorry I took so long,” you said, thinking she needed to hurriedly use the bathroom. Lou’s brain was short-circuiting with both worry and confusion. Your clothes stuck to your body and seemed damp, and your face was red and splotchy, despite your attempt to hide any signs of your crying.

You felt bad for waking Lou and keeping her waiting. She was wearing an oversized rock ‘n roll t-shirt that nearly reached her knees, and her hair stuck out in all directions, a low bun drooping and threatening to fall out entirely.

“It’s alright,” Lou replied dumbly, not realizing why you were apologizing.

You got closer, trying to think of how to get past her without making it obvious how much you were struggling, hoping her sky-blue eyes wouldn’t catch on.

But a gentle hand stopped you before you could walk past her and you knew that she had.

“Y/N,” she whispered, pushing you back a bit so she could close the bathroom door, giving you privacy, “what’s wrong?”

You nonchalantly leaned against the sink, looking at your toes, “nothing.”

The lights flickered again as the wind howled outside. Suddenly the space felt too surreal, too harsh and bright, and you ached.

Lou turned away from you, rummaging around and pulling out a washcloth. She used the sink behind you to dampen it, and you wondered what she needed it for. Maybe she needed to wash her face, or had some makeup left over...

Then she reached for your hand and gently pressed the fabric against the back of it. The lukewarm temperature of it zapped through your body like a shot and your clammy hand went limp in hers.

She searched your eyes, looking for fear, for rejection. Instead she found pleading, drowsiness and trust.

“I’m not good with words,” she muttered as she rubbed the cloth over your fingers and forearm, before moving to the other. “But does this help?”

You nodded, face scrunching up as tears threatened to flow again and you wanted to hold them back.

Then she pressed the damp cloth against your collarbones and shoulders, where you felt sickly sweaty, shuddering. When she reached behind to cup your neck and work her fingers into your muscles through the cloth, you surrendered. Your body tipped forward, following the pressure of her hand and resting your forehead against her shoulder.

She stilled, holding the cloth against your bare, clammy skin.

“I can’t sleep,” you muttered thickly into her shirt, voice breaking.

Immediately the cloth was gone and her hands replaced the absence, holding you closely and letting your entire weight rest against her. Hot tears flowed again.

“Did Tammy kick you in her sleep?” Lou asked, “apparently she does that. If she did you just gotta kick her back-”

You chuckled, pulling away a bit, and replied, “no, it wasn’t Tam. I get these.. nightmares.”

Lou’s eyebrow raised in curiosity. Her hands held your waist as she let you speak, the warmth and heaviness of them a grounding feeling for you.

“I have trouble sleeping at really stupid times,” you muttered, “And then I’m stressed about it. When I wake up I- I’m afraid to even think about going back to sleep.

“Like- I- I don’t know, they just happen and I wake up, but I don’t feel like myself when I do, and- and it takes ages to feel okay again. I just..”

You trailed off, biting your lip in worry, clenching Lou’s shirt in your hands as you looked at her chin to avoid her piercing gaze.

Lou’s heart broke a bit at the sight of you fighting with yourself, and she sighed. One of her hands came up to cup your cheek, making you meet her eyes.

“Would it help if someone was with you?” she asked.

“Well.. no, clearly, because even with the whole team down there-”

“I meant someone who was with you. Making sure you’re okay and safe to fall sleep,” Lou corrected herself, smiling at your doe-eyed look, eyes wide, cheeks still splotchy. She picked up the washcloth, ran it under the water again and rubbed it gently against your cheeks.

Your eyes fluttered closed as you tried to form words, feeling wonderfully sleepy in her arms,

“I- I suppose so.. maybe. I don’t know.”

“My bed is a lot cozier than the couches downstairs,” Lou suggested, picking her words carefully. “If you’d like you could...”

“Sleep with you?”

“Not sleep with me,” Lou said hastily, “but.. yes. If it'd be more comfortable.”

You smirked a little, looking up at her and batting your eyelashes, “What if I did want to... sleep with you?”

Lou snorted, “not with the state you’re in right now, missy. You look ready to fall over and snore all on my floors.”

You blushed, rubbing your thumbs over the middle of Lou’s shirt, too distracted by the design on it to notice you were pressing your fingers against her abdomen and warm skin, making her nostrils flare and her grip tighten.

“You can say no, Y/N.”

“No, I’d like that, but.. why? You’re not just feeling bad for me are you?”

“No, of course not,” Lou sighed, “Y/N..”

She cupped your cheek and looked you squarely in the eyes, “you mean the world to me, darling. I mean that. Let me take care of you, at least for tonight. Let me help.”

You blushed, again feeling your emotions well up and threaten to spill over but Lou rubbed your cheeks with her thumbs, brushed back your hair, pulled you closer to her warm body.

You nodded and felt Lou take your hand, open the door and turn off the bathroom light, swallowing both of you in darkness. She lead you and you followed blindly to her bedroom, where a massive bed awaited.

You put a hand on the mattress, feeling that it was still warm from where Lou was sleeping, and the thought made you blush. There was a glass of water on the nightstand that Lou encouraged you to drink.

“Crying makes you dehydrated,” she said as she went through her drawers. “Drink something, it’ll help.”

You downed the glass in nearly one gulp, and your throat felt less like sandpaper after finishing it.

“Here,” Lou whispered softly. She was holding out another oversized shirt to you, “It’ll be easier to sleep with something clean.”

You nodded and lifted your arms as Lou reached for the hem of your shirt, tugging it off of your body. In the semi-darkness, the only light being Lou’s lamp on her nightstand, you should have felt exposed, but Lou did nothing that made you feel uncomfortable.

She tugged her shirt over your head and helped your arms through, the soft fabric falling against your skin with a welcomed sigh.

Then she kneeled down and tugged your pants off for you too, palms rubbing at your calves and heels in assurance.

She pushed back the comforter and climbed in on the other side of the bad, tucking her long legs under the sheets and holding out her hand for you to take.

You snuggled in beside her, warm from where she’d been sleeping, her scent enveloping you and blurring your mind like a drug.

“Feeling better?”

You nodded, admiring her in the soft light. You looked so cozy, swaddled by her comforter and pillows that Lou couldn’t bear to ask you to turn out the light. So instead, she reached over you with long arms, turning out the light herself.

As she did, your body rolled towards her as she came closer to you, and she blinked in surprise just as darkness surrounded you.

Once Lou got comfortable, you were pressed up against her side, face buried in the crook of her neck, and your breathing was coming out slowly, evenly.

Lou smiled as she realized you’d fallen asleep, peacefully, it seemed. She draped an arm over your middle and pressed a kiss on your head, holding you tightly and mentally fighting off all the nightmares threatening to come into her room tonight.

A/N: this was very cathartic for me to write, I hope it may do the same for you reading it <3

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