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omg-im-such-a-masochist · 3 years

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🌎 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES 🌍

Prompt: Y/N and Baron decide to take a big step in their relationship and moving in together. Everything seems to go pretty smoothly for them, until they bump into some little (and sometimes fun) cultural differences.

Word count: Long-ish

Pairing: Baron Corbin x Reader

Warnings: Apart from some cultural beliefs and cursing, nothing really.

Notes: I wanted to go smooth with my first fic with this giant teddy bear as a character. This little story is all based on my own country cultural beliefs. I’ve heard all of this ever since I was a little girl ok? None of this was made up! It’s written in both Y/N’s and Baron’s POV. Each scene is isolated, they do not complete each other. Y’all know the drill loves,sorry for misspellings,english isn’t my first language (bla bla bla),check out my other stories if you’d like to(it would make your girl here very happy 😊) and if you’re comfortable with it,please let me know what you think? Some feedback is always welcomed and appreciated ❤️You can check out my other stories typing ‘masochist writes’ on the search bar on my page and my newest story as a fixed post.Okay,now let’s get to the fun part,shall we? Hope you’ll enjoy 😉

“Y/N, can you please explain to me why in the hell do you need all of this?” He lifts up my perfectly organized (and not so small) jewelry box

“Babe, please put that down. You’ll take all of my stuff out of order” I say as I’m finishing doing my hair

He places the box down and start to dig through the drawers.

“Jesus, babe! Did you robbed a bank to buy all of these?” He’s incredibly amused by the amount of different shapes and sizes pieces.

“Don’t let your eyes fool ya, Corbin” I laugh “Only the ones on the first drawer to the left are real”

He takes a silver thick chain with small discreet rhinestones on it and stares at the piece of jewelry.

“Oh, those are nice” I say “You can borrow ‘em if you’d like”

He looks at me “I would prefer to borrow these instead” He lifted up a golden bracelet with colorful rhinestones shaped as butterflies “What do you think? Should I wear these to work? Do you think they’ll match my outfit?” He playfully places the bracelet on top of his t-shirt, obviously mocking me, since I do the same thing when I ask his opinion.

“Shut up Corbin!” I laughed

“Why do you need so much bracelets, earrings, hoops, necklaces and rings?” He says

I look at him defiantly “Why do you need so many watches, cigars, vintage lighters and expensive cars?” I crook one eyebrow at him

“Touché, princess. My excuse is because I can, yours?” He playfully smirks

“Because that’s who I am! I grew up surrounded by women full of jewelry, lipstick and these” I show him my long nails as I stick my tongue out just like a child would

“I like those” He pointed at my nails “They feel real good when you pair them up with sweet moans begging me to go harder” He gives me one of his cocky smirks

“You’re so full of yourself” I defeatedly say

.....................…..............................................

“Hey baby girl, what you’re up to? WOW something smells really good in here”

“Oh hi” I look at Baron as he entered the kitchen “Thanks! I’m making dinner” I smile

“Oh yeah?!” He lifts a lid from one of the saucepans “What you’re cooking?”

“Nothing crazy, just a simple regular dinner. White rice, beans, some meat with potato and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower for salad. Plus milk pudding for desert, the same one my grandma always made”

“And that’s your idea of ‘simple dinner’?” He asks amused

“It is simple”

“When you said simple I thought you‘ve meant, meat and some bread or something like that” He vaguely said

“That’s like a snack, not proper dinner Baron”.

“It’s pretty common to have that for dinner you know”

I look at him in disbelief “If I ever suggested that as a dinner option back in my family’s house I would’ve been told to shut up and eat my goddamn vegetables! A proper meal isn’t a proper meal if it doesn’t have rice and beans.”

He laughs “Do you need me to get the beans for you?”

“Do you have it?” I gasp in shock

“Of course” He goes and opens one of the upper kitchen cabinets taking out a can of beans “Here” He hand it to me

My eyes widened “Please don’t tell me you eat this crap!” As I shake the can in front of his face

“What’s wrong with it?” He asks offended

“Everything Baron! If it comes in a can is not good for you! I’m talking about cooking dried beans, real beans. Not this pathetic excuse for a bean”.

“They taste the same Y/N”

“Have you ever eaten freshly cooked beans?” I ask defiantly

“No, but-“

“Then you have no right of opinion on this debate!” I huffed and he rolled his eyes

......................................................................

“What in the actual fuck?” I say as I got up from the bed.

I followed the very loud music coming from downstairs in the living room to find Y/N in some skimpy clothes, barefoot with her hair up in a bun singing and dancing to whatever rhythm that was. I go to the radio and turn the music down. Making her look behind.

“Oh you’re awake” She smiles fondly

“How could I not be with this deafening loud music? What are you doing?”

“It’s Saturday babe” She says as if that was supposed to mean something

“Yeah I know! It’s also fucking 8 a.m. and my day off! I would like to still be asleep!” I say angrily

“But it’s Saturday” She says again

“And what’s that suppose to mean Y/N?”

“Saturday is the official house cleaning day, love” She speaks slowly as if she was talking to a child “Would you like to take the bedrooms and bathrooms or the living and dining room plus the kitchen?” She smiled

“Are you fucking kidding me Y/N? I would like to sleep! Sleep until fucking noon damn it! Official house cleaning day my ass” I scream as I make my way back to the bedroom slamming the door.

......................................................................

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING BARON?” She yelled

“Jesus fuck, you scared me! I’m cleaning as you can see” I say as I grab another piece of paper towel to clean the oven

“With paper towels?! Do you plan to bankrupt us and kill the environment too?”

“And what am I supposed to use to clean it?” I ask impatiently

She reaches one of the lower drawers and take a piece of one of her old shirts from it and hand it to me.

I just stare at her confused. She sighs before saying

“You use this to clean it, after you’re done you’ll wash it, put down to dry and once is dried you’ll store it back in the drawer again for future cleaning uses! That’ll save money and prevent more trees to get killed so you can clean your oven! Do I have to teach you everything babe?” She throws her hands in the air “Unbelievable” As she lefts me with a puzzled look on my face.

......................................................................

“Baron love, have you seen my purse?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve put it in there” He points to his side of the bed as he continues with his eyes glued to his video game.

“Ok, than- Baron!” I run towards my purse, snatching it quickly from the floor “Why did you put my purse on the floor?”

“Baby, where was I suppose to put it?”

“Not on the floor! I would like to keep my money you know?!” I huffed

“And what does your purse being on the floor has to do with you keeping your money?”

“EVERYTHING! You should know that placing your purse or wallet on the floor makes your money vanish”

“WHAT? Y/N, I’m sorry but that makes zero sense princess!”

“Shut up Corbin, you know nothing!”

......................................................................

“Baron, can you get the broom for me please?” I ask as he passed by me

“Yeah, sure”

He comes back with the broom on his hand “Here, I’ll help you” As he swiped the floor

“Thank you, my love”

A few minutes after I felt the biggest fear of my life becoming true

“Oh, sorry kitten...Are you ok?”

“Baron” I whisper “Please tell me that I’m getting delusional and you didn’t swipe my feet just now”

“Yeah I did, but-“ I raised my hand for him to stop talking

“Did I do something wrong?” He asks

“Yes you did. In fact, I’m never gonna get married now thanks to you!”

“What?” He chuckled “Please don’t tell me that this is one more of your crazy superstitions?” He’s full on laughing now

“Stop laughing dumb ass! It’s not funny and you should respect those things you know?!” I say annoyed

“Whatever you say babe” He dries his tears of laughter

......................................................................

“For God’s sake what is this awful smell?” I ask to myself as I entered the living room door “Y/N?”

She didn’t answer me. I decided to go on a hunt for my own woman inside my house, when I heard some mumbling

“Y/N, what are you doing?”

“Shhhh Baron, don’t interrupt me!”

“What on earth is this cursed smell?” I ask ignoring her

“It’s sage and some herbs” She whispers

“I’ve had a bad dream, so this will keep all of the bad juju out of here!” She says

“You know that will-“ As soon as I was about to remind her of the smoke alarm the little prick showed himself

“Oh fuck! I forgot about that, damn it! Shut up you evil little thing!” She says as she steps on the couch and wave her hands at it “Baron! Don’t just stand there, do something boy! Go get me a piece of cloth of something like that!” As she frantically waves her hands to prevent the smoke from going to the alarm

......................................................................

“Good morning kitten” I lean down to peck her lips

“Good morning handsome” She smiles “Coffee?”

“Yes, please”

She fills one mug with black coffee and give it to me

“Thanks baby” I take a gulp “You know, I’ve had this crazy dream last night”

“Oh yeah? About what, love?”

“There was this monkey and a deer. I was chasing them or something, I don’t know it was just so weird” I look at Y/N to find her typing ferociously on her phone

“Is everything ok, kitten?”

“Sure babe! I’m just texting my sister to mark me some numbers at the loteria”

“Why?”

“Because of your dream Baron! The monkey and the deer. They have a number at the loteria so who knows? Maybe we’ll gain some money at it to save it up?”

“But we don’t need money” I look at her almost laughing

“Still” She raises her eyebrows

......................................................................

“Yeah?” I scream

*Is she really gonna make me go down there?* I sighed

“Yeah baby girl?” I ask as I open the door

“What?” She asks confused

“What do you want babe? You were calling me” I say

“No I wasn’t!”

“Yes you were Y/N, I was in the bedroom unpacking and I heard you clearly call for me two times”

“Baron, I swear on my mother’s life I did not called for you” She whispers, all the blood drained out from her face

“Oh, then I guess I misheard it”

“When you heard someone call for you, did you answered out loud?” She asks with fear in her eyes

“Well yeah! I thought you were the one who was calling me in the first place!”

She stood up from her office chair grabbing a small glass bottle with some water in it. She toss some of the water on her then on me

“What the fuck babe? What’s that?” I ask slightly angry

“Holy water! You heard something call for you with my voice, and you answered! Babe that is a bad omen, that means something evil is walking around here...Oh my God” She gasps in shock “Xander! We gotta bless him with some holy water too, we gotta protect him Baron! Oh no my poor baby Xander” She runs through the the hallway screaming for Xander.

Soon after she returns with Xander by her side. “He’s good now, thank God!” She reaches for her desk’s drawer again and grabbed a spray bottle “C’mon Baron, we’ve got to spray holy water in all of the doors and windows so it will scare away whatever that thing that called for you was” She lives her office again with the spray bottle in hand and a faithful Xander by her side.

God, why on earth did I decided to move in with that woman? She drives me crazy! But I would be lying if I said she wasn’t fun...

#baron corbin #baron corbin fanfic #baron corbin fanfiction #baron corbin x reader #baron corbin one shot #baron corbin imagine #king corbin #wwe one shot #wwe imagine #wwe fanfiction #masochist writes

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rvmmm21 · 3 years

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. you’re gonna spaghet it .

summary : a home-cooked meal and a baking show is too much to ask for. but only when the person asking is seungwan.

small note : i'm tentatively back. and here's the worse news. you get this pile of 'what-the-fic-is-this?!' before i start clonking you over the head with my leg of yandere ham.

think of it as your pre-christmas coal in your stocking.

(this sat in my drafts for so long its not even funny. if i had a cent for every second i spent thinking about whether i wanted this out here, i'd have accumulated enough for the plane ticket, the lawyers and the hospital fees to fly over to SM to clonk them myself.)

just for tumblr. if you want to read this but in pretty, it’s here.

tw : tickling, probably many grammar errors because i do not know how to write anymore, and my cretinous knowledge of how tv recordings work.

[irene x white-winged dove!wendy]

. . .

[6:15pm] A mischievous smile tugs at her lips when she sees how Seungwan struggles.

. . .

Bae Joohyun blithely watches her girlfriend titter around the kitchen preparing vegetables for the chopping board. When the sound of water beginning to boil reaches attentive ears, she secretly smiles at the melodious hum of a happy tune.

Everything is going as planned!

However.

Pangs of guilt are beginning to tweak at Joohyun’s conscience. Because what she really wants to do is not to be a good girlfriend and offer a hand at stirring the pot. She doesn’t even want to sit patiently and wait to hear Seungwan sing out for her when dinner’s ready.

No. Joohyun wants to play. And she knows who she wants to play with. Even though it’s going to be a complete setback to the lovely night she’s sure her Wannie has planned out for them.

It was Seungwan’s idea to cook tonight, then eat together while they watch their favourite TV program. Pfft, ‘their favourite’. What Joohyun really means is she’ll happily watch the season finale of the unorthodox cooking show her girlfriend is currently obsessed with.

. . .

“It gives me ideas, unnie,” Seungwan had explained when, about a week ago, Joohyun had walked in on a very experimental game of muffin-making.

The latest episode of “Baking for the Seoul” flashed through Joohyun’s memory.

“Don’t the ingredients have to be… in the bowl, though?” she asked incredulously, eyes searching for any part of their countertop that was actually visible.

“Hm?” Seungwan looked up, wiping the frosting off her nose… with the wrong hand.

Joohyun raised an eyebrow. “And which one are we putting in the oven, your sludge mix or you?” She inquired, now searching for any part of her girlfriend’s face – that was actually visible.

When the girl in question stayed concentrated, apprehension bubbled in her gut at the state of that exceptionally thick bowl of frosting. She surreptitiously strained to peer behind a thoroughly battered Seungwan, trying her hardest to not actually step foot into the kitchen.

Her girlfriend has this… ‘thing’ about work space. Especially the kitchen.

“Wan-ah,” Joohyun’s tone was equal parts warning and concern. “You didn’t get any on your wings, did you… that frosting looks too thick and last time you got yourself all mucky, remember we had to – ”

“It’s fine it’s fine, look! I’m being careful!” Seungwan quipped cheerfully, pirouetting round to give a worried Joohyun a glimpse of her wings which were nicely folded through each designated slit in the back of her sky-blue jumper.

The latter breathed a sigh of relief when she saw them; all white, fluffy and – most importantly – clean. She inwardly shuddered at how much of a nightmare that bath was. Thank god she’s behaving this time, she thought.

Although momentary relief didn’t stop her from contemplating an alternative method of keeping her mind at ease.

But the thought of having Seungwan wear her wing guards in their own home tugged at her unpleasantly. It was bad enough she had to have them on when they were out in potentially stressful situations. So she wouldn’t accidentally hurt herself or anyone around her… which had unfortunately happened once or twice before. It was clearly a burden to go about so obviously restricted, and despite Seungwan’s insistence on having grown used to them, Joohyun could always feel how upset she’d get whenever she was helping to do the clasps up behind her.

Definitely no wing guards then. And if that meant Joohyun would be bruising her knees for hours on end trying to keep dense baking mix and her messy baby bird two separate entities, then she’d happily do it.

Whatever kept Seungwan chirping.

Plus, her little chef looked damned determined, so she thought it appropriate to slip in one last passing remark before plucking a banana from the rack. “Yah, Wannie! Let me know if I’m gonna have to pick out birdie feathers from my cupcakes, okay?”

Seungwan grumbled something along the lines of a ‘hm, yeah whatever unnie’ in response.

Joohyun just laughed, heading back to their room and leaving the mastermind to her latest trial.

> > > > >

[7:00 p.m] Seungwan doesn't know which she finds more horrifying: what Joohyun intends to do to her or the fact that they're going to have to have take-away two nights in a row.

. . .

It should’ve been a simple mission.

Retrieve a fresh packet of spaghetti from the topmost shelf.

Her attempts are… laughable. She’s clearly doing her best.

Though she doesn't realise it yet, she’s still being watched. From the living room, Joohyun is watching. And she isn’t laughing. Hands ball into unconscious fists as a tight wave of numbness washes over her at how adorable Seungwan looks.

Just… like that: both wings tucked against her back, beautiful and neat as their owner. Strained muscles from reaching for something Joohyun already knows she’s going to have to help out with. And the tiny grunts when fingertips barely graze the edges of the packet.

Seungwan looks so soft, so frustrated. So vulnerable.

A small spike of inexplicable adrenaline leads Joohyun to head over to the huffing, moon-hopping girl.

She really needs to teach her little dove that being this cute comes with a price.

. . .

When a lithe body slides up behind her and presses against her back, Seungwan’s wings give a gentle flutter to mimic the stutter in her heart. She sighs affectionately at the pair of hands resting low on her hips.

The task is almost forgotten. Almost.

Unnie’s here to help, Seungwan thinks… ever so mistakenly.

“Hyun – ahh,” she’s interrupted by a slight shiver when the tip of her right wing is stroked between a finger and a thumb, delicately running across pure, downy feathers. A tried and tested (Bae Joohyun-certified) method of getting the girl absolutely weak.

Judging by the sound of strained breaths filling the space between them, it’s working.

Alas, dinner hasn’t been cooked, the sun’s setting and Seungwan’s time-management brain is screaming at her to get a move on. She points to the shelf, trying her hardest to block out the dangerously wonderful feeling. “Could you – could you please get that for me?”

Instead of complying, Joohyun chuckles, moving her hands from her back to glide them lightly up and down her sides. She isn’t surprised that Seungwan is already shivering, terribly overwhelmed from that alone.

Her smirk twitches when she feels the smaller girl squirm.

Seungwan has always been like this… so responsive, so susceptible to touch. Her touch. She’s jelly in her clutches, and even Joohyun has to admit that sometimes she really doesn’t deserve to be.

Sneaky hands grow bolder, finding their way under the hem of Seungwan’s fleecy jumper to continue tracing teasing lines against soft, sensitive skin.

“But it’s so cute to watch you struggle, baby,” Joohyun coos, beginning to rest more of her weight into Seungwan’s hips, keeping her trapped against the kitchen counter.

“U-unnie,” Seungwan tries, half-heartedly writhing against Joohyun’s hold, torn between wanting to cook dinner and wanting to be dinner. “Not – ah… not right now… it’s already late, we have to – ”

“And you smell so nice. Is this new shampoo?” Joohyun presses her nose into her nape, cutting her short, nuzzling into that pleasant fruity shampoo scent. She then pauses to nudge Seungwan’s legs suggestively ajar with her knee before leaning in to whisper into a ruby-tipped ear. “ Should I give you a reason to shower again later, hm?”

The younger’s eyes widen at the sinful implication.

Gosh, really? Right now? In the kitchen?

The kitchen. The place she cooks and handles food? (Sure, Joohyun will – once in a blue moon – dice the odd carrot or something, but that certainly does not give her the right to be making any unauthorised, hormonal messes for her to clean up). She must be off her rocker if she thinks Seungwan’s going to allow her precious workstation to be tainted by what she can already foresee to be copious amounts of bodily fluid just because someone can’t keep it in their pants.

It snaps something inside her. And – with all the strength neither of them knew she possessed – Seungwan wrenches out from under Joohyun’s weight with a firm “YAH! Stop fooling around!”, sending the older woman stumbling a few steps back.

For a second, they’re just as stunned and disbelieving as each other; Seungwan at her own apprently dormant Herculean strength –

– and Joohyun at the sheer audacity.

Then again, could this be any more timely?

God, Joohyun could kiss herself.

She straightens her blouse, putting on her best ‘I-can’t-believe-you’ve-done-this’ expression, and turning to lock the now slightly (and rightfully so) terrified-looking Seungwan with a stare. This is the best part. The part where she just glares, secretly gleeful as the other girl absolutely crumbles with apprehension.

The part where Seungwan thinks it’s her fault.

“Uh oh,” she tuts, sporting a grin to match that mischievous glint in her eyes, “someone’s in trouble, aren’t they?”

Seungwan is, of course, at a total loss for words, but she fumbles around anyway, desperate to justify whatever the hell she’s just done. It’s almost too much for Joohyun to handle, watching her dig her own grave like this.

Finally, Seungwan tries to back up, only to let out a sharp gasp when she trips over her own feet in her haste. She’s on the floor in seconds with Joohyun immediately following. There’s hardly a chance for her to get her bearings before she’s stuck on her back with a weight straddling her hips.

Seungwan goes wide-eyed. She might as well kiss the prospect of a candlelit dinner bye-bye… for tonight, at least.

“My clumsy, clumsy Wannie,” Joohyun mocks, holding herself above the smaller girl on her hands and purposely tangling their legs together. “Tonight was very thoughtful of you, baby, but I’m postponing our dinner plans to tomorrow night. I think we should order in, don’t you?”

“Ah unnie...” Seungwan groans, failing to ignore the way Joohyun’s predatory expression crayons her cheeks a soft pink, “we had take-away last night! I don’t wanna eat chicken aga – ”

“Then let’s get pizza,” Joohyun offers unhelpfully. She’s clearly got her own agenda that she’s determined to follow through with. “Okay? Hm, let’s see… you have to the count of five to agree with me or…”

She pauses to savour the panic in those deep brown eyes. “I’m going to have a very tired little birdie to take care of.”

That satisfied smirk leaves nothing to the imagination. Seungwan can practically read her fate on her girlfriend's rosy lips before they delve into hers, causing her eyes to roll back as they melt hotly into each other.

Seungwan hardly notices Joohyun lacing their fingers together until her eyes flutter open and she finds herself held down, arms stretched securely above her head. Joohyun adjusts her grip so she has both wrists pinned under one hand and the other free.

Ah, fuck, not again. Seungwan laughs emptily, fidgeting with high-strung premonition. When her one final struggle proves useless, she resorts to asserting herself with her voice. “Yah, unnie, I’m cooking tonight. Stop being annoying or you’re not getting fed.”

Ah, too easy.

Joohyun contemplates elaborating further. But she’s said enough. Besides, Seungwan doesn’t even deserve a response to that. That was a threat, wasn’t it? The prospect of starvation is a serious threat that should be promptly dealt with. And what do you do when you’re faced with a threat? Be that a burglar, a murderer or a very flustered Son Seungwan.

Tickle them. Obviously.

Joohyun leers over her, wiggling her fingers in anticipation. “Five…”

Seungwan’s eyes blow wide, and – with miserable luck – she renews her efforts at breaking free once again. “Hyun! Seriously?! You – I can’t believe you’re d – ”

“Four.”

“HYUN!”

“Three.”

“Okay! Okay! Let’s get pizza tonight! There, happy?! You can even choose the flav – ”

Seungwan hears a scoff above her. “Nope. Sorry Wannie. I made that decision. You’ve changed nothing.”

“YAH, YOU TRICKED ME YOU BIRDBRAIN! LET ME UP. YOU’RE SO DEAD!!”

One click of a tongue and Seungwan has never retracted any statement faster in her life.

“Okayokayokay! Sorry that was super mean! Please I – ”

“Two…”

Too late. She’s dead. She’s one hundred percent about to be on the list of the unfairly deceased.

Seungwan whines hopelessly. “Unnieeeee, you’re not being fair!”

It’s a ditch attempt, but one Seungwan doesn’t intend to miss. “OKAY SERIOUSLY I MEAN IT, GET OFF!”

Joohyun snickers. “One.”

With five fingers and wicked intent, she dives in.

. . .

A pair of pretty wings and an even prettier face make for an impossible choosing.

Even now, as she has Seungwan flat on her back with her eyes screwed shut and tears streaming down her face, she wants to flip her over so she can be blinded by white insulation. So those feathers can brush against her as she drives their owner to the brink of sanity.

She wants to feel her dove respond to what she does to her.

“Hyu – Hyun, p-please!”

Joohyun smirks down at her victim, who’s weakly pawing at the front of her blouse in what she can only assume is an attempt to get her to stop.

Pathetic.

Seungwan never fails to struggle. But then again, she never fails to forget that Joohyun, too, is much, much stronger than she looks.

All that tiresome squirming is easily dealt with. Only a fraction more pressure from Joohyun’s fingertips, and Seungwan’s arms fall to either side, limp and useless just like the rest of her. The only indication she’s even conscious is the violent trembling and – when she’s able to muster up the lung space – the occasional plea for mercy.

Even the laughter is silent.

Joohyun loves it this way. She loves having Seungwan all sweaty and flustered beyond belief; whenever and wherever she pleases, the younger girl is reduced to a quivering mess, trapped beneath her cruel dexterity.

So instead of getting the pasta boiling for a romantic dinner, Seungwan is graciously letting Joohyun have her one-sided fun while she’s forced to cough, splutter and laugh so hard her insides hurt. The reflex to try to buck Joohyun off or twist out of her clutches nips at her incessantly.

Although she really shouldn’t worm around like that, because it’s only making Joohyun’s job easier with how her jumper rides further and further up with every inch she wriggles away.

It almost makes Joohyun think her little songbird wants to be tickled.

“Aw,” she coos, playfully tweaking unintentionally exposed ribs. “So cute, Wannie. You want it here, too?”

Seungwan is breathless from the tickles before she’s even processed what Joohyun’s said. Those tantalising touches never linger on any part of her long enough for her to develop a resistance to them. Not that she could even if she tried. She’s as sensitive as Joohyun is skilled. And Joohyun strikes with dreadful precision, switching between light skittering and then deftly kneading her fingers into every spot that wrings Seungwan’s lungs for all they’re worth.

The smooth tile is cooling against her feathers, even if her wings are twitching beyond her control, trying their hardest to flip her over to give her some shot at escaping. She barely manages to crawl a few inches away before there’s a firm grip on her ankle, all but dragging her back because Joohyun sure as hell isn’t done with her that quickly.

Trying to get away? She cocks an eyebrow, scooting up to sit on Seungwan’s butt, pinning her hips to the floor.

“Oh no, my poor birdie’s flipped herself over,” she feigns concern, gently resting her palms on Seungwan’s wings, stilling their fluttering and holding them steady. The sight of them unfolded, outstretched from the struggle and completely exposed has Joohyun catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “Did you hurt yourself here, Wannie? You need unnie to kiss it better?”

Seungwan shrieks at a pitch that’d have every dog in the neighbourhood cowering when she feels a pair of pillowy lips settle on that excruciating spot right where the arch of her wings meet her back, where she absolutely cannot stand to be touched.

Even under normal circumstances, Seungwan had made her swear to never spring upon her like that. And of course, by virtue of that alone, it quickly became one of Joohyun’s favourite places to touch her.

Luckily she’s too distracted now to protest.

The ‘kisses’ aren’t any less torturous than ten fingers going all at once.

Poor, tired Seungwan hardly has the energy to writhe as Joohyun continues to press her hellish butterfly kisses all along the length of those oversensitive appendages, nosing into her feathers and ruffling them gently with her breath. The younger’s expression contorts into silent agony when she feels the fingers return, this time digging into her armpits.

Fresh tears well up in the corners of her eyes as she lays there, flailing like a fish out of water, face down with zero leverage to combat her girlfriend’s merciless onslaught.

She’s as defenceless as a turtle on its back (or rather, a dove on its tummy). Her squirms are getting weaker, the laughter more strained, but it’s all so rewarding to her loving tormentor.

Seungwan is kept laughing till the hollow ring of the doorbell sounds through their apartment.

. . .

[An hour post stuffed crust pepperoni pizza with extra cheese]

Joohyun enters their room just as her girlfriend is getting dressed for bed, freshly showered… again. She lets out a low chuckle when Seungwan catches sight of her in her peripheral vision and hastily pulls the loose necked pajama t-shirt over her head.

“How was dinner?” she asks, arms folded and leaning against the door.

Seungwan rolls her eyes and releases her hair from its bun. “Too much cheese. We need to drink lots of water tonight or we’ll be pufferfish in the morning.”

“Aw, is someone grumpy?” Joohyun gives an uncharacteristically exaggerated pout and the latter hides a shiver.

Good god, please someone save her.

“Unnie, of course I am. We’re going to eat reheated carbonara sauce tomorrow no thanks to you,” Seungwan bluntly retaliates. “You’ve had your fun, now can you stop talking to me like I’m five, please?”

Naturally, her request falls on selectively deafened ears.

“Yah, seriously,” she punctuates the severity by manually unfolding her trembling left wing and pointing at it. “Look. I’m still shaking because of you. Now you're done, I really – ”

That’s all the grumpy talk she’s allowed before Joohyun jump-tackles her onto their bed, pinning her to it and watching sheer panic etch into deep cinnamon irises.

“When did I say I was done?” she asks, suggestiveness tracing the edges of her tone. She hovers above her, bringing a hand up to cup her face.

Seungwan hisses a laugh. “Unnie, I have a limit too, you know. You can’t just keep finding excuses to tickle the crap out of – ”

She chokes on a gasp when she feels a hand – the one she’d been as good as tortured under not two hours ago – trailing down her stomach… slipping past the elastic of her panties and –

– it just reminds her why she’ll always let Joohyun have her fun.

Because no matter how much she laughs, screams, cries or begs, there’s always a reward. Much sweeter than anything Seungwan thinks she could ever bake. Their sex life is anything but stagnant, however this is, more often than not, Joohyun’s way of making it up to her afterwards (much to her approval).

Or maybe she just wants to drive Seungwan to the brink of losing her voice so she won't have to hear the nagging about the next episode of Baking For the Seoul.

Which, by the way, came out tonight. And Joohyun made them miss it. She had better be praying they’d be able to find a copy online somewhere.

Either way, it’s so much more gratifying after an eternity spent howling your lungs out on the floor. Seungwan’s full attention is lasered down to where Joohyun is now softly caressing her under the thin cotton barrier. The warm ache beginning to settle in between her thighs prompts her to try to squeeze them together, but Joohyun catches on and wedges her knees in between them, spreading her even further.

“Ah,” she raises a smug brow as she leans in to press her lips to the base of her ear. Her own eyes darken with lust in response to her little dove writhing helplessly below her. “Be a good girl for me, okay, baby?”

It’s late. Seungwan can barely keep her eyes open. Oh, but she aches so badly.

“Still grumpy, hm?” Joohyun murmurs questioningly, hot breath fanning over Seungwan’s neck and echoing goosebumps over her skin. She glances down at the bulge of her hand stretching the fabric, fingers already coated in slick. Her index finger rubs against Seungwan’s clit. “Feel good, Wannie?”

Hopelessly turned on, it’s all the other girl can do to whimper in agreement.

The pleasing sound of those soft whines escaping right into her ear turns Joohyun’s grin into something downright wolfish. She gives the swollen bud a few more leisurely strokes before retracting her hand completely, leaving Seungwan squirming in anticipation with whatever energy she has left.

Joohyun tastes the arousal on her fingertips. “Mm, I love how small you look right now, in my hands. So small and needy.”

Seungwan pants out a quiet “please, unnie”, clasping a shuddering hand over Joohyun’s and guiding it back down to the heat in her panties. She rolls her hips up into her palm, silently begging for her reward for being such a ‘willing’ participant in the one-sided games they played today.

After letting her gaze linger for a second, Joohyun shifts so she’s lying next to Seungwan. She slips her hand back in and squeezes firmly, revelling in the hoarseness of the girl’s voice. Velvety lips delicately map out her shoulder, and Seungwan has to fight to keep her eyes open to drink in the image of Joohyun pressed up against her, right hand cradled under her neck, propping her head up so they can both see the other one teasing her down her underwear.

It’s when Seungwan turns away to frustratedly pout at the suspense that Joohyun smiles and gives her a quick peck on the nose.

“I’ll continue if you promise not to pass out this time, okay baby bird?”

She bites back a snort watching Seungwan nod like she’s ever been able to stay awake after.

Then she has to bite back another because since when has she ever not continued even after being fed these empty promises, time and time again.

Anything to keep her precious Seungwan happy.

#red velvet #wenrene #wendy #irene #wing kinks are only valid if you exploit the crap out of them #so irene's got the right idea

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sw124 · 3 years

Text

[Lamia-Birdy-Bitty Daily life!17]

Hello my lamia lovers how you doing, good I hope! Oh my gosh the weather in my neck of the woods has been wonderful as of late! So much so I decided to do something special for my boi’s!

I decided we’d do a day of cooking!

Why?

CAUSE ITS FUN!

That and I thought it’d be fun to share some food with Vex and her bitty shop just like before. But I’m also thinking of doing a little ‘camping’ thing in the shop. I’m not spending the night nor are my boys but I thought it’d be fun to do a little fun activity. I remembered something like this when I was a kid at a daycare/camp thing I went to as a kid.

I dug around in my closet and found some old play tents from when I was little, mostly used as a ‘nap time toy’.

For the menu I’m doing stuff you’d normally cook on a stick, so mostly skewers of meats and veggies. For the desserts I thought I’d do the waffles and pancakes again but this time I’m doing something a bit more fun.

Tundra and I have decided to make homemade ice cream for the bitties at Vex’s shop. This is gonna be a sugar free ice cream and made with natural fruits and sweetened with honey and agave syrup instead of traditional sugar.

Dante’s in charge of meat prep, Tundra is happily making the Ice cream, I’m working on the veggies as well as the waffles and pancakes. I’m bringing some Jelly, Jams and other sugar free spreads with me and making a little buffet out of the desserts. I’m making sure that their all on sticks so the ones who want to eat by themselves can take them and go.

Speaking of which I actually made a little tiny little napkin-baskets so that they can take what they want and head back to their nests. I made plenty of them just for the occasion, I just sometimes love doing random acts of kindness.

If you haven’t tried that you should, not only does it brighten someone’s day but it brightens your day too!

To be honest I like to cook, sometimes yeah I mess up but thats all part of the fun.

Dante’s skewering the meat and fish, I actually got some fish, just shrimp really cause I’m not sure what other fish would be ok to serve to lamias so shrimp would be the safest and easiest option.

As for the veggies I got small veggies like baby carrots (the multi-colored kind) some green onions, broccoli, green bell peppers and though its not a vegetable I put some sliced pineapple on there for extra sweetness.

The meat is just regular red skirt steak sliced thin so its easier to put on the skewer. The sauce is a nice little marinade I got from a local specialty store, checking the ingredients making sure its ok.

As for the batter for the waffles and pancakes I made up a special cinnamon roll mixture I found while surfing the net for some fun new recipe ideas. I’m gonna make the desserts there at the store so that way their nice and warm when their done.

OKAY!

I’ve packed up the snacks and the tents, also packed up some napkins (both wet and dry) just so theirs less to clean up later. I also brought some mats for the play tents to sit on so if they choose to eat in there and spill its not getting on the floor.

So Vex I hope your up for a nice little surprise, I’ve also brought some other goodies too like raw honey from the farmers market and other jams/jellies from there too (all to share with everyone)

[for adoptions of Lamias speak to @vex-bittys and for bird bitties speak to @coalition-aviary-bitty-adoption]

#undertale #fanfic #lamia bitties #vex bittys

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vickyvicarious · 4 years

Note

Eliot sweet talking Nana into sharing her secret family recipes so he can get more vegetables into both Hardison and Parker.

I was just going to write a short headcanon post about this but then the first line popped into my mind along with a line about Eliot utilizing his retrieval skills, and then next thing I knew this was a fic. First in this fandom so go easy on me.

(AO3 link.)

The carrot cake was the final straw.

Eliot knew his partners had terrible diets, okay? It was impossible for anyone to miss that, the way Hardison would just fill up any empty space in any fridge with orange soda, or Parker would get more cereal than was physically possible to store in the cupboard until there was at least one box permanently sitting on the table. He was well aware, and he’d been taking steps for a while to deal with matters.

He bought Hardison a fridge of his own - a mini fridge - and just poured out any soda he found anywhere else. He impressed upon Parker that just this shelf was for cereal and solemnly swore to her that he would never let it get beyond half-empty before filling it again. In the meantime, he filled the rest of his kitchen with actual ingredients, and always had a bowl of fruit out so they would have something healthy as an easy-to-grab snack. He didn’t put anything Parker liked hidden on a high shelf, because she’d find that fun; just small decoy portions while he kept most of his chocolate inside an old Wheat Thins box at the back of the cracker shelf. Speaking of chips, if he opened the bag of a good brand, then Hardison would gravitate toward it once he’d finished his Cheetos instead of going out to buy more, so that was just a matter of letting him buy one bag and then watching the level and timing when to get the other stuff out.

They both ate meat well enough, though Hardison liked to put in requests for absolutely sacrilegious misuses of various cuts; when Eliot humored him and actually destroyed his fish or brisket or whatever else as requested, he actually did seem to enjoy it, which was... very wrong, and disappointing, but at least the food was still going in his body. Parker quite liked some types of pasta now, and she seemed to enjoy when he put effort into plating things up nicely, but she was still a work in progress on any actual mealtime like a family (or a date. Not that Eliot hadn’t had to eat on the run plenty of times before, but - he’d had to. You don’t walk in to a table set for multiple healthy, delicious, innovative courses he’d been cooking for hours and then just grab bites as you wander around the room! He’d had wine out! Norah Jones playing softly in the background! No candles because he wasn’t an idiot, but it was clearly a romantic meal! What the hell kind of untrained toddler behaviour-).

Breakfast was easy, since they both liked eggs and there were a lot of ways to go from there. Breakfast potatoes were a hit too, and bacon, and they’d even eat oatmeal if he smothered it in sugar so that was something. For lunch, Hardison at least appreciated a good sandwich. Granted, usually only a stolen one because he didn’t like to make any kind of food at all that didn’t come out of a plastic package with microwave instructions on the side (and that had been an argument for the ages, the microwave one. Frankly most things could be heated better on a pan or in an oven, and those that were meant for the microwave were usually mass-produced garbage Hardison really didn’t need in his diet, but he disagreed vehemently and in the end that was one battle Eliot had definitively lost), but once Eliot caught on, he just started making double whatever he ate. Parker scoffed at the idea of lunch, for some reason, claiming that a granola bar or a brownie would get her through till dinner, but if he packed a lunchbox to look interesting and then gave it to her, she’d usually eat it. He just stocked up on bento boxes and made various kinds of colorful and/or childish looking foods and they came back mostly empty so that was good enough.

(Hardison claimed to have gotten jealous about it. Eliot was pretty certain he was making fun of him, so obviously he said he’d be caught dead before packing a lunch for him. He was a grown man and could do it himself.

“She’s a grown woman!” he complained, pointing at Parker, who was sitting perched on the back of an armchair nibbling away at her kraken bento - black noodle limbs, gyoza face, and grabbing a little egg scuba diver. “Sh-she should have to - this is discrimination!”

“Stay away from my octopus,” she squinted menacingly. When Hardison just glared mulishly back, she hugged the food closer to her chest. “It’s not for you, this is my little dead man.”

She popped the egg into her mouth and chewed, never breaking eye contact.

He turned back to Eliot to complain some more, but apparently that was only an attempt to fake her out, because he tried to grab the gyoza barehanded and she screeched, flinging her chopsticks at his face before fleeing across the room. Noodles got everywhere, Hardison had two little round bruises on his cheek the next morning, and somehow Eliot wound up packing everyone lunches every morning after that, and putting notes on them to label who each one went to.

He did not put sappy notes instead the boxes. He wasn’t their parent, okay. The notes inside the lunch were only ever reminders they needed for the con, like Parker’s character’s peanut allergy and how she needed to have the attack exactly two minutes after the mark joined her at the break table, or for Hardison to lock Lucille II behind him because even if he could track down someone who took off in her, he really shouldn’t have to again.)

Anyway, Eliot had something of a system down at this point. It wasn’t perfect, but it was workable for the most part. The one exception was vegetables, which they both hated. He’d tried to hide them several times, but they often picked them out or he just couldn’t stand to puree broccoli into a little garnish/dip just because his girlfriend and boyfriend were both giant babies about actually eating them whole. He had to eat the food too, and he enjoyed himself some veggies like any sane person would. They ate the ones hidden in their lunches almost half of the time, and sometimes other varieties, so he tried not to focus on that too much. Baby steps, he thought. First regular meals at all, then vegetables later.

But the carrot cake.

That was just too much.

It was cake. It was covered in cream cheese frosting. Carrot cake wasn’t anything but decadent, at least not the way Eliot made it for Hardison’s birthday. It was sweet, had just the right texture from the roasted pecans, the perfect hint of cinnamon and ginger. Not a complicated dish by any means, but pretty well near perfect, in Eliot’s no goddamn need to be humble opinion.

Hardison scrunched up his nose.

“Oh,” he said, not accepting the large slice Eliot tried to give him. “Eliot, I’m hoping this is a joke and you have my Red Velvet in the fridge?”

Parker let him hand her the plate, ate a bite, spat it out, then just started eating straight frosting off all the sides.

Eliot could feel his hands twitching. He very carefully set down the knife.

“What’s wrong with my cake?” he asked. Gave them the benefit of the doubt, and tried a bite: delicious.

“I mean... it’s a carrot cake,” Hardison said delicately, as though Eliot had made some kind of mistake and he felt a little bad pointing it out to him.

“So?”

“Carrot, Eliot.”

“Cake, HARDISON.”

“I like the frosting,” Parker interjected, and Eliot glanced over to her. She’d moved on from her own plate and was just scraping fingerfuls of frosting directly off the top of the cake. His cake. His cake for Hardison’s birthday, his beautiful cake -

“Babe, we love you but you gotta know vegetables don’t have any place in a dessert, that’s just wrong. C’mon, you really didn’t make me something else? Really?”

“THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!” Eliot bellowed and stormed out of the apartment. He took the cake with him.

He brought it to Sophie and Nate, since they were in town and they weren’t insane like some people he knew.

“People you’ve, uh, chosen to dedicate the rest of your life to,” Nate pointed out around a mouthful. “I mean, you knew what they were like.”

“Oh, hush, Nate, don’t you get it? They’ve hurt Eliot’s feelings,” Sophie explained. She ate another bite, hummed approvingly, then waved her fork around to emphasize her words: “For Eliot, food is life. He wants them to lead long and healthy lives, he wants to live with them and show his love for them and keep them safe, and they just rejected that. It’s not all about the vegetables, y’know?”

Eliot was never sure whether he loved Sophie best or least of all.

“It’s definitely all about the vegetables,” he said, crossing his arms. The pair of them exchanged a look and then smiled at him warmly, like he’d just done something cute.

“Fine! Forget it,” he snarled, pushing himself roughly to his feet.

Behind him, Nate grunted the distinctive grunt of someone receiving a pointy elbow to the side, then cleared his throat.

“Okay, okay - wait! Wait, all right, I might have one idea.” When he turned back, Nate was rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. “You’ve tried featuring the veggies, right, and hiding them. I’m sure you’ve lectured them both to death about why they should be eating more vegetables, but that’s not going to work on them, is it, because there’s no connection there. Ad novitam is only going to get you so far, you need the, the personal touch, a little ad misericordiam if you will.”

“I am not telling them it makes me sad when they don’t eat their greens,” Eliot said firmly.

“But it does,” Sophie said lightly. She met his glare with a soft smile, and popped another bite of cake into her mouth.

“N- Well, no, obviously, but you’ve got to think it through, Eliot. Step away from the situation. How can you imbue the food itself with emotion? Not for you -” Nate spoke a little louder as Eliot started to answer, “you’re not our mark here. What kind of food, with vegetables, is going make them feel an emotional connection?”

Eliot subsided, frowning down at his own plate. That... was actually a pretty good point.

“Hm, my favorite is still that little restaurant in Paris, with the exquisite quiche. But, I suppose hard-scrambled eggs are a bit of a guilty pleasure,” Sophie mused. “Mum was never any good at cooking.”

“You too?” Nate turned to her. “Yeah, my dad could set water on fire. I remember eating from my meal plan at college - the cafeteria, mind you - thinking how good the food was in comparison.”

The solution clicked into place. (Of course it did, they’d practically hand-fed it to him.)

Eliot stood up and grabbed his coat.

“Oh, are you leaving, Eliot?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and turned back to smirk at them. “I’m gonna go steal Hardison’s childhood.”

Once upon a time, Eliot had been a retrieval specialist. You name it, he got it back. Sometimes it was actually a they or even a them, on occasion. He’d committed arson for a pair of scissors, had gathered up a scatted set of Fabergé eggs from seven different countries and two different mafias, had traveled more than once through airport security with a live frog in his pants. The business was a strange one, but he’d been the best at it. And in the years since he left, his life hadn’t exactly gotten less weird; Leverage saw to that.

Breaking into an old woman’s home and stealing a book of recipes would be easier than taking candy from a baby. Of course, Hardison made sure to keep his Nana safe, and from everything he’d heard she could certainly take care of herself, but still it wouldn’t be any great challenge for Eliot to just break in and take what he wanted. He could do it and leave without her ever knowing he’d even been there.

He rang the doorbell, and gave her his best smile when it swung open.

“Hello ma’am, I’m Eliot. Can I come in?”

(This was Hardison’s Nana, he’d never do wrong by her like that. Anyway, it wouldn’t even work. For this he needed her direct input.)

Nana was a short, soft-looking woman. Her hair was pushed back with a purple headband, and she wore loose comfortable pants and a clearly old t-shirt covered in child-sized paint handprints. She exuded a sort of maternal air that had Eliot relaxing into the visit almost despite himself. They’d only ever spoken on the phone, and he’d admittedly felt a little awkward about his plan due to that detail alone. He knew Hardison would love for them to meet her, but it just hadn’t happened yet - honestly, Eliot had been reluctant before, worried that she would find him wanting, and he’d always been relieved that no plans had crystallized into anything solid.

Certainly, despite welcoming him in and getting them all set up on the couch with home-made lemonades, it was clear she felt suspicious. A few minutes in, she dropped the small talk altogether to pin Eliot with a steely glare.

“I’m fairly certain Alec wanted to be here when we met so he could brag some more about how hot his partners are,” she said, making Eliot flush. “And I’m just as certain nothing has happened to him, or it wouldn’t be you here to tell me, so that just leaves me confused.”

She raised an eyebrow, letting him take his time responding.

He looked down at his lap. Ran a hand through his hair, feeling... not less confident that he’d get those recipes by the end of this visit, but certainly more bashful about it.

“Uh. Yes ma’am,” he said. Quickly corrected himself, remembering her insistence over the phone, “uh, Nana. See, he doesn’t actually... know I’m here...”

“I’d guessed as much,” she said wryly.

“Right. Um, I actually wanted to ask you something. There’s something I want to do for him - well, for them - but I need your help to do it right.”

She stared him down a moment longer. Then her eyes widened, and she sat back in her seat with a little gasp, hand over her heart.

“Oh, Eliot,” she said warmly, leaning forward again to grab his hand and hold it between hers, “Oh, sweet boy, of course he’ll say yes. You should hear the way he talks about you, Alec’s been head over heels for years. I may not have met Parker personally, but I’m sure she will too. You don’t have anything to worry about, trust me on that.”

“What?” he croaked. “I... w-what?”

His voice broke in his throat. He wanted to yank away but he felt frozen in place. He didn’t understand how she’d - okay, no, he could easily see how she would draw the wrong conclusions from this situation, but they were the wrong conclusions! He’d never even considered marriage since Aimee, let alone proposing to Parker and Hardison. It wasn’t like a three-way marriage was even legal, and even if it were he would never. It was too much - not too much commitment, he’d already promised the rest of his life to them both, but still too much, somehow. He’d never dare.

“I know Alec doesn’t think too much of the institution in general,” Nana said, waving a dismissive hand, “but if you do he’ll understand that. He might not need it but he won’t say no if you ask, hon. I can promise you that.”

Eliot meant to deny the very idea. Instead what came out of his mouth was a shaky:

“...Are you sure?”

Hardison’s Nana - his Nana too, she insisted, even after Eliot finally managed to clear up the misunderstanding - was truly a gem of a woman. He could see so much of who Hardison had turned out to be in her kindness, her cleverness, her sense of humor. She’d broken out the picture albums for him, and had even kindly let him keep one photo of a gaptoothed little Alec in a horrible bowl cut, grinning proudly and brandishing a blue ribbon next to his science project. To Eliot’s complete lack of surprise, he’d won every year with zero competition from his peers.

(He told her that he wanted the picture to make fun of Hardison with. It was true, but she still just patted him on the shoulder and told him to keep it. Didn’t say a word when he tucked it into his wallet with unnecessary care.)

They talked for a long time. She gave him a journal to copy directly from her personal recipe book, a lovely clothbound thing spattered with grease and burnt at one edge, smelling of spices and old paper; clearly well used. She told him it was passed down from her mother, who’d put in lots of her mother’s recipes. Eliot took notes as she talked him through every one. He had a good memory but he didn’t want to miss a thing, and her recipes as written were bare bones. He could cook a delicious meal from them easily enough, but it wouldn’t have her heart in it, not like what he wanted to make.

Just talking could only do so much, and eventually they found themselves in the kitchen, demonstrating techniques and favored spice blends. It was nice, just in and of itself. Eliot rarely got to talk shop with other cooks, and it had been a long time since he’d eaten anything home-made by someone else. Nana never went to school for this stuff, but clearly her long years of experience carried their own weight, because she knew what she was talking about.

It was late in the night by the time Eliot left her house, feeling himself flush to his ears as she kissed him on the cheek before waving until he’d driven away. And this after wrapping him up in a tight, warm hug just inside the front door.

“Alec’s done well for himself,” she said, and winked. “Now, next time I want you to bring that young lady of yours as well, you hear me? Make that a promise.”

“I will,” he said.

It was nearly three AM by the time he got home. Parker crashed out of the dark the second he stepped inside, clinging to him as he caught her midair.

“You made Hardison sad on his birthday,” she told him sternly, and headbutted him hard on the temple. As he winced, she pressed her nose down against his shoulder and took a long sniff. “You smell like lemons.”

“You made me sad on Hardison’s birthday,” Eliot sighed. “I mean, mad.”

“Doesn’t matter, you made him sad so I’m not sorry,” she said, and snuggled close.

Eliot carried her through the apartment, avoiding bumping into any furniture through the ease of experience, and into the bedroom. Hardison was sprawled across the mattress, fast asleep with a frown.

Setting Parker down, Eliot got undressed and climbed into the bed. He scooted behind Hardison, leaning up on an elbow to swipe a gentle thumb over the furrow between his brows. It came back, so he wiped at it again, and kissed Alec’s shoulder when he huffed a little and his face relaxed. Eliot kissed him one more time, then lay down behind him with an arm draped over his side.

Rather than going around the bed to the free space on Hardison’s other side, Parker crammed herself onto the mattress right behind Eliot, pushing him further into Hardison and determinedly spooning him.

He craned his neck up to look at her in the dark. She met his gaze solemnly and squeezed tighter, slipping a leg between his.

Eliot fell asleep warm, entangled in the two loves of his life.

He woke stinking hot, still entangled but a lot less happy about it. This happened every time he slept in the middle; he didn’t know why he kept letting it happen. Every single time he’d wake abruptly, heart thrumming in an instinctive alert to something wrong... Only to realize that something was just Parker drooling on his ear, or Hardison’s morning breath in his face, and (every time) both their limbs all wrapped up around him and each other in a very sweet, sweaty, and constricting mess.

The first few times he’d suffered through it, unwilling to wake them. Still basking in the fact that he was here, that he got to be a part of this. But Hardison slept like the dead, and Parker had the ability to wake up and go back to sleep pretty much indefinitely, so Eliot had no compunctions about shoving them aside anymore. He also knew that the other two were night owls who would happily sleep in to eight or even ten if left undisturbed. Eliot woke habitually at five regardless of how late he’d been up, maybe six at the latest; morning snuggles just really weren’t practical.

He wriggled free, clambering over Parker and catching her when the bed dipped and she nearly fell to the floor. Her eyes shot open, clocked him, then dropped shut as she went right back to sleep. He left them there and went to go take a shower, then wandered into the kitchen, grabbing up his new cookbook from his jacket pocket on the way.

Eliot was operating on only a couple hours of sleep; Nana didn’t exactly live next door, and he was frankly lucky he’d got out the cake relatively early in the afternoon, to be able to catch her awake at all. It wasn’t like he’d ruined Hardison’s whole birthday, just that last part they’d set aside for the three of them. They had already hung out with Nate and Sophie in the morning, and Hardison had a long phone call with Nana even before that. Parker had even given Hardison her present: a little statuette originally from a museum in Delhi if Eliot wasn’t mistaken. It was some god or something, but bore a striking resemblance to an Ewok, a detail she’d correctly guessed Hardison would love. He’d been planning on giving his present after the cake, at which point they were going to, on Hardison’s specific request, have a very normal and boring date at home. There had been a lot of jobs lately, so that must have tied into his desire for domesticity - that and ‘birthday rights’ to force them to watch all his nerd movies and lose at various video games.

They hadn’t planned anything for today either, so it wasn’t like those plans couldn’t still happen... And in fact yesterday hadn’t even been Hardison’s real birthday, just the replacement day they’d agreed to celebrate on when a con ran through the actual day. But in the cold light of day he felt a lot more stupid about taking a vegetable-related risk on Hardison’s cake, and then reacting stupidly when they didn’t like it. To be fair, he hadn’t considered it a risk at all, hadn’t even been thinking of his ongoing quest to feed them better so much as the fact that carrot cakes were good and he knew Hardison liked cream cheese frosting - but still. Sophie may have hit the nail on the head, but it was still a stupid and immature nail to let get in the way like he’d done.

He had to at least try to make it up to him.

Accordingly, the breakfast casserole Eliot put together was about as far removed from a healthy meal as any non-dessert in Nana’s cookbook. A baked blueberry French toast creation with lots of sugar, it actually was more of a dessert than anything else. It also took hours in the fridge, but that was alright; not the first time Eliot getting up so much earlier came in handy.

He took the time that it spent in the fridge to clean the apartment. He got out his gift to Hardison, swept and mopped and watered all the plants. Did some laundry, meditated a bit. Pretty much just puttered around for hours, steadily feeling worse and worse about his outburst the day before. Parker had been accepting if not forgiving, and didn’t need an explanation; Hardison might not feel the same. Eliot didn’t expect him to; he was the one clearly in the wrong. He really couldn’t regret the outcome of meeting Nana and getting her recipes, but it should have been on any other day.

He managed to time the casserole just to when the other two got up; just as Eliot pulled it from the oven, Parker wandered into the room.

“Ooh!” she said, and approached with a clear intent to stick her fingers directly into the hot food. Eliot intercepted her with a glare and a whap with his oven-mitt. She retaliated with a vicious pinch to the back of his hand and grabbed a blueberry off the top, tossing it into her mouth and wincing as she burnt herself chewing it.

“Quit that, it’s Hardison’s,” he told her.

“Hardison!” Parker yelled in what appeared to be terror, because of course she would. “I need your help right now!”

He came tumbling into the room, still only half-dressed and clumsily wielding Parker’s taser at the couch. When he saw only the two of them calmly watching him, he attempted to hide it behind his back.

“Oh hey, what’s up everyone,” he said nonchalantly. “Breakfast? Awesome. Smells like something Nana used to make.”

Parker went over and kissed him as she stole the taser out of his hand. She held it up in front of his face.

“Mine,” she scolded.

“Hey, I was ready to defend your life,” Hardison said, mock-offended. “What, you want me to run into an ambush empty-handed? Come on, baby, look who you’re talking to.”

“If you’d let Eliot teach you MMA like me then -”

“Then what, you’d use it as an excuse to choke me out again? I know what you’re after, I recognize that look in your eyes -”

“Hey, come’n eat.” Eliot put two full plates of breakfast casserole down on the island. He braced himself, ready for Hardison to keep giving him the silent treatment or outright call him out on his behavior.

It didn’t happen.

“Morning Eliot,” he said as he came over to grab a stool. He leaned across the island; when Eliot was too surprised to meet him halfway, he rolled his eyes and reached out a hand to grab his face and pull it close enough for a quick kiss. Then he plopped down into his seat, inhaling deeply at his food. “Oh man, this smells exactly like Nana’s Blueberry Thing, I loved that as a kid. How’d you know?”

Eliot slowly sank down from his tiptoes. His stomach hurt a little from being yanked up against the edge of the island, his lips still felt the impression of Hardison’s. He... really didn’t understand.

“Uh, Nana said you liked it best,” he replied a little too woodenly. Neither of his partners seemed to notice.

“You been talkin’ to her without me?” Hardison asked, before taking a bite and moaning. It wasn’t a sex moan - Eliot knew what those sounded like - but it was damn near. “Did you turn into her? What the hell, this is it, this is the Blueberry Thing!”

Parker was at her own plate the moment Eliot said Nana; she was always fascinated by any mention of the woman, and would probably taze him for meeting her first. Right now, she was digging into her own plate, eyes closed.

Eliot cut himself a serving too and sat down to eat with them. He felt tentative, somehow, embarrassed.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Went to talk to her last night. Got some recipes.”

The food was good. Sweet, warm, filling; clearly a comfort meal. He dug in.

When he looked up, Parker and Hardison were both staring at him. She opened her mouth, paused, and then fell silent with a glance to Hardison. He was staring at Eliot, mouth open.

“What the hell, hon?”

Eliot clenched his jaw. He knew what he should say. He’d spent all morning prepping himself to say it.

“...You never opened my present,” he said instead.

Hardison squinted at him.

“Yeah, I wasn’t gonna without you there,” he said pointedly.

“Right, well, here,” Eliot said and shoved it his direction before going back to his food. He could feel them staring at him but didn’t lift his head, kept shoveling bite after bite into his mouth as he heard Hardison final tearing at the wrapping paper, grumbling incoherently to himself.

A moment later, the angry mumbles got louder when he opened the first box to reveal the second one.

By the time Hardison got down to the final layer, a small paper booklet six boxes in, Parker was snickering rudely and his muttering was about half swear-words. Eliot still didn’t look up, kept waiting until Hardison actually read the gift.

(He’d thought it would be funny, obviously. He’d thought it would be hilarious, to watch Hardison getting more and more irritated by the wrapping paper. And he knew the gift itself wasn’t anything much, but Eliot usually prided himself on being good at getting people things they didn’t know they wanted, or didn’t think they’d ever get. He knew it was childish and kind of stupid right from the jump, but money didn’t really mean too much to Hardison, and he was confident he’d love this.

After his behavior last night, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Immaturity took on a different tone right now.)

“‘Eliot Tickets,’“ he heard Hardison read off slowly, then - “no.”

He glanced up sharply, but it’d been a sound of delight. Hardison’s eyes were wide and he was flipping through the pages rapidly with an ever-widening grin.

“No nerd jokes for twenty-four hours, back massage, favorite food, favorite sex, get-out-of-scolding free, dessert for dinner, oh my god Comic-Con?! Get to play with your hair, get to pick your cover, computer lessons, videogames, sleeping in, what kind of goldmine is this -”

Parker leaned over his shoulder as he kept going, pointing out her favorites as they worked their way quickly through the rest of the little booklet. It wasn’t horrendously long, but long enough: one ticket for every year. Twenty-eight in all.

Twenty-nine, including the piece of paper Eliot had slipped in front of the last page at seven-thirty this morning, before carefully re-wrapping every box.

“‘One I’m sorry,’” Parker read out loud. She met Eliot’s eyes as she asked, “Are you gonna use it?”

Hardison hummed thoughtfully, then picked it up to reveal the last page.

“No, I’mma save this for just the right time,” he said, waving it in the air. He looked Eliot in the eye and smirked meaningfully. “You messed up, man, you didn’t put an expiration date on any of these.”

“Dammit,” Eliot grumbled, like he’d just realized.

(It hadn’t been a mistake.)

“Don’t need that right now anyway,” Hardison continued, tucking it back into the middle of the book. “This, on the other hand - this one I’m cashing in now.”

Eliot took the little piece of paper Hardison ripped free. He sighed.

“Really?”

“Hell yes, now get in here - and no complaining, them’s the rules you made your own self. You too, Parker, c’mere.”

Eliot stood up and rounded the island, halting with a sigh just before reaching Hardison, who stood to meet him. He ripped the coupon in half.

“All right, here goes.”

Tucking the pieces into his pocket, Eliot stepped forward into Hardison’s outstretched arms, tucking himself in close and hugging him back tightly. A moment later, he felt Parker collide with them both, one arm over his shoulders and a leg around his hips. He sighed again, this time into Hardison’s shoulder, and let himself sway when they did, a gentle rock back and forth.

He closed his eyes when they started to sting.

“Sorry,” he mumbled into Hardison’s shoulder after a long minute. “Shouldn’ta left.”

“That does not count, Eliot,” Hardison told him firmly, and didn’t let go. “I did not use my coupon, I still got my coupon, you aren’t getting out of anythin’ with that you hear me?”

Parker snickered behind him.

“Not getting out of anything at all,” she said, and squeezed tighter. “We’ve got you trapped.”

(The next time he fed them vegetables, it was a Nana recipe and Hardison ate without complaint. Parker ate because she wanted to know what it felt like to be a little Hardison, and proclaimed the experience ‘like one of my harnesses’ which was obviously a very positive review.

The next time he fed them vegetables and it wasn’t a Nana recipe, they exchanged a look and then each ate exactly half of their servings. The rest they snuck back onto Eliot’s plate one bite at a time like he wouldn’t notice. He let them get away with it and looked down at everyone’s empty plates afterward with a weird content feeling relaxing his shoulders.

The next time he saw Nana, her words on Hardison’s bragging proved embarrassingly correct. She and Parker got along like a house on fire, and if left alone too long would probably cause a house on fire, and Hardison just watched them with a giant grin like he didn’t see the danger. Nana asked Eliot if he’d considered what they talked about last time right in front of them both, proving beyond all doubt that she shared Hardison’s love of driving him goddamn crazy for fun.

The next carrot cake he made was for Sophie and Nate. He refused to call it a thank you, but she did and also asked him to make that little French quiche she’d talked about like she honestly expected “it had spinach, I think, something green anyway, it was very light, and some kind of unexpected spice too?” would be enough to go on. Nate was no help whatsoever.)

#leverage fic #leverage ff #leverage ot3 #hardison/parker/eliot #thiefsome #my fic #anonymous #replies #aah they are hard to write much as i love them

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a-completely-normal-writer · 3 years

Text

So, to practice the voices of my Spexa main characters I used this ask game by @juqiter-blue-writes and answered it as my characters. I was doing it just for me at first but then said, what the heck, and decided to share it with you guys too. You'll get to learn a little more about my main characters as well!

It's a bit long, so I'll put it under the cut.

Do they like rain?

Adhara: I don’t mind it as long as I have an umbrella. *she gets an annoyed look on her face* My hair starts to frizz up when it gets wet and then I have to straighten it all over again.

Jax: The rain is an essential part of all life on Earth and without it, organic creatures wouldn’t be able to live the way they do.

Adhara: *whispers* That means he likes it.

Akari: Oh, yes. It’s perfect for a cozy day in. I can work on some of my latest projects while listening to the calming sounds of the rain.

Ariel: The rain is cool! Especially during thunderstorms. I like to watch the lightning from out the window, while Akari works on projects. Speaking of which *Ariel begins to pull something out of a bag.* Here’s one she started working on for me-

Akari: *Runs over and stops her.* Wait, you can’t show them it’s not done yet.

Ariel: Oh, sorry lovely.

If they have any pets, what are they? If not, what would they have as a pet?

Adhara: I don’t currently have any pets... Oh but there are these animals they found on planet 2256 that were populated by nothing but these little fuzz balls called Cuddlers. They are the cutest things ever and they have the smallest little curly tails. I went to one of the exotic pet stores and spent an hour in one of their pins. It was one of the best days of my life.

Jax: I don’t have any pets

Adhara: You have to answer the next question too.

Jax: I wouldn’t have a pet

Adhara: *Adhara puts her hands on her hips* I caught you staring at the snakes when we made the trip to the pet store!

Jax: Snakes are fascinating.

Akari: I have a Shi-Tzu named Butterscotch at home. My aunt takes care of her while I’m off on missions.

Ariel: Butterscotch is basically mine as well. I even trained her to do some cool tricks!

Do they have kids? Do they want to have kids?

Adhara: I don’t have any kids and I don’t think I want any either, not yet at least.

Akari: I don’t have children right now, but I would like to have some in the future.

*Androids can’t have kids of their own and they aren’t allowed to adopt them*

What’s their favorite color?

Adhara: Green is a really pretty color and so is yellow!

Jax: I don’t believe I have a favorite.

Adhara: Maybe blue? You seem to wear a lot of it.

Jax: That is just the color I was originally dressed in.

Adhara: Well, we’ll just have to find you a favorite then!

*Adhara gives Jax a smile* *He gives a small smile back*

Akari: Different shades of purple. *She rubs her neck* They’re all so lovely, I can’t choose.

Ariel: Pink *She glances over at Akari.*

*Akari notices and blushes, before looking away.*

What’s their handwriting like?

Adhara: I like to believe that I have pretty good handwriting

Jax: That would be an incorrect assumption

Adhara: ... *Is slightly offended*

Akari: My handwriting is decent, people can read it.

Ariel: barley

*I headcanon that most Space Explorers have terrible handwriting.*

Any phobias?

Adhara: Sharks. They’re big, scary, and like to eat people! I mean have you seen those old shark movies?!

Jax: You live on the water, how are you afraid of a creature that lives in it.

Adhara: I just told you how!

*Jax just shakes his head.*

Akari: I can’t think of any right now...

Favorite fruit?

Adhara: Mangos are my favorite, although grapes are a close second

Jax: I quite like the sourness of lemons.

Adhara: I gave him a lemon once, and now every time I go to make lemonade, there are no lemons. He eats them like freaking oranges!!

Akari: Hmmm, I think I would have to say pears are my favorites. We don’t grow them on Mars though, so I only have them every once in a while.

Ariel: Grapefruits are really good when you put sugar on them.

Akari: … Doesn’t that just mean you like the sugar and not the grapefruit?

Ariel: Nooooo, the sugar just makes the grapefruit taste better.

Favorite vegetable?

Adhara: I like most vegetables when they’re cooked. Baby carrots I eat by themself though. So, I guess baby carrots!

Jax: I don’t have a favorite vegetable

Adhara: All the ones I’ve given him he doesn’t like.

Jax: They aren’t lemons

Adhara: Most things aren’t lemons.

Jax: That is why I don’t eat them

Akari: Me and Ariel really enjoy sweet potatoes and yams.

*Ariel gives a very shifty look*

Ariel: … Yeah.

Akari: ... You don't like them?

Ariel: No, not really...

Did they grow up poor, rich, or somewhere in between?

Adhara: My family wasn’t rich, but we certainly weren’t poor.

Akari: My mom and dad were space explorers, and my aunt owns a restaurant, so we had money. I guess we're rich.

Where did they grow up?

Adhara: I lived on the east coast of the Earth colony, Oceanview city. I love it there! We live on the water and watching the sunrise in the morning is one of my favorite things!

Akari: I live on the Mars Colony, in sector 2. It’s normally pretty chill there, but sometimes we have these huge dust storms.

What were their parents like?’

Adhara: My parents are amazing people. I love them so much and I feel like I wouldn’t be the person I am now without them.

Akari: My parents they were-

*she starts to tear up*

Akari: -they were heroes.

*Akari starts to actually cry now.*

*Ariel comes over to her and gives her a hug.*

Ariel: Shhh, it’s alright lovely.

Do they like the ocean? If they do, what do they like about it?

Adhara: Yeah I love the ocean. I mean I better, I live on one!

Jax: The ocean is a-

Adhara: -a necessary part of all organic life on Earth?

Jax: I was going to say essential, but yes.

Akari: I think the ocean is very pretty. I don’t live near any, but enjoy listening to the sounds of the waves on my phone when I'm going to sleep at night.

*Ariel shrugs*

Ariel: I don’t feel very strongly about it.

Tag-list: @writing-is-a-martial-art @hashuu @47crayons @talesfromaurea @a-wild-bloog

#spexa #my characters answer #Akari #Adhara #Ariel #Jax

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wof-reworked · 4 years

Text

Moonwatcher + plants

-Moon is used to being alone. It doesn’t really bother her to spend her time somewhere away from other dragons, if anything, it’s a bit of a relief to be away from them, to get some silence both mentally and literally.

-This leads to her spending a lot of time in her room or the library, eventually just turning into her periodically borrowing scrolls and then returning to her room to read them

-With all this time to herself, she starts to notice how barren and closed in it is, not the most friendly environment.

-She starts gardening at a certain point, beginning with small, shade friendly gardening pots in her and Kinkajou’s room. It’s nice, to be surrounded by living things that don’t demand anything from you except some water and sunlight.

-Kinkajou is delighted by it, being best friends with Tamarin means she knows a healthy amount about plants, and is more than willing to help push Moon in the right direction in the beginning.

-This also brings Moon and Tamarin closer together too. It’s... nice, to be included and to feel like you have something in common besides just both having a mutual friend, and Moon finds herself really enjoying Tamarin’s company. Slowly, Moon starts joining Kinkajou and Tamarin’s hangout sessions together.

-(Most of these hangout sessions involve lying in a pile together braiding flowers together and exchanging information while snacking on fruit. It’s the most relaxed fun Moon’s had in years)

-When she’s older and has her own place to live with Winter and Qibli, she starts filling the house with plants,

-It’s lovely at first, and then turns more into clutter, especially since there’s only so much sunlight to go around, with every window and patch of sunlight crowded full of pots, each reaching to the sun.

-With a small intervention from Qibli and Winter, she transfers quite a few outside, lining their house with bright flowers and thick leaves opening out to create a soft little wall of green.

-The crown jewel of her gardens is the greenhouse, built as a surprise gift from the combined efforts of Qibli/Winter/Kinkajou

(Qibli distracts her by taking her on a celebratory birthday travel to the Sand and Sea Kingdom to look at rare books and say hi to Turtle while Winter puts his scavenger sanctuary building skills to use and Kinkajou, in her words, “provides moral support”.)

-Moon adores it. The humidity and the greenery remind her of the rainforest, and if she closes her eyes, it feels like being a small dragonet again, waiting for her mom to come and see her.

-It becomes her baby and stockpiled full of her favorite jungle plants, each one cared for meticulously until they fill the whole space, leafy vines crawling up the glass over neat beds of verdant plants and bright flowers.

-The more she works on the greenhouse, the more it becomes her safe space when she’s stressed, or angry, or especially: worried or anxious.

-At her worst, she’s fallen asleep there, curled up between the rows of plants and letting their soft rustling coax her into rest.

-(There’s a bunch of scenarios you could do with this, maybe her greenhouse burns down sometime or w/e, go wild)

-Moonwatcher also learns how to cook through her garden, having plenty of herbs/vegetables/fruits now to make into... something.

-Since cooking in Pyrrhia is more for show than every-day life, a lot of what she makes is simple snacks for Qibli/Winter, things like jam/dried fruits/fried vegetables/occasionally little tarts and pies.

-(Qibli snacks on all her carrots and she pretends to be mad about it but makes a note to plant more for him and not-so-secretly leaves them out in their common space)

-Qibli is keen to learn along with her and help, though his baking skills in the kitchen are a bit... lacking.

-(you cannot possibly tell me this man would have the chops to follow a recipe properly, I’m sorry but Qibli is 500% the person to go “we can just add [vague, nonsensical amount of necessary ingredient] and it’ll be fiiiiine” and have his baked goods turn out completely weird, if he doesn’t manage to set on the oven on fire in the process anyway cause he forgot about it. He’s not hopeless but he can only cook like maybe basic cookies and any sort of thing that follows a “just fry it for like 10 minutes” recipe and that is it)

-Moon kind of balances this out, but most of her cooking sessions with Qibli are more about them just having a good time together rather than,,,, producing something edible.

-Winter is better, but doesn’t really enjoy cooking that much, though he’ll help if asked. Mostly he’s happy to eat what Moon makes, as well as occasionally (of her own volition) getting her to help cook food for his scavengers

-Since both Qibli and Winter are away quite a bit (Qibli’s still very much dedicated to Queen Thorn, and Winter has been known to spend days away at the scavenger sanctuary), part of Moon’s way of welcoming them back is by presenting them with pre-cooked food she’s made

-(Both of them also bring her food along with them, just Winter pensively snacking on some fish jerky when he’s focusing or Qibli popping raspberries in his mouth while he flies)

-Moon also keeps a bowl of fruit out for guests, which Kinkajou gleefully exploits

-(Kinkajou and Tamarin (slash now with Anemone) start having their hangout sessions at Moons house solely for the fruit, like yeah there’s probably more in the rainforest, but is it filled with the same kind of love and attention??? I think NOT)

-Moon hesitantly but still firmly and kindly helping teach Peacemaker about strawberry growing,,, observing him carefully always out of the corner of her eye,,,, always unsure of what to make of him or what to do,,,

-Peacemaker and Moon’s relationship starts and somewhat rotates around their gardening together, he views her as an older sister/mentor and Moon,,, doesn’t know how to feel about him, but always makes room for him anyway, and tries to do right by him

-He can’t understand why she keeps him at wing-length away, for a while he doesn’t even know to be hurt by it since he just assumes that’s how Moon is, but the older he gets and the more he sees her with her partners and her friends it starts to unnerve and frustrate him, especially because of how much he looks up to her and respects her

-Hope will always be his mom first and foremost, but Moonwatcher’s been there in his life basically since he was hatched, she’s basically family to him so why does she always act so weird around him? Did he do something to her that he forgot?... Why does she look scared of him sometimes? What does she even have to be scared of?

-Despite her failings, Moon isn’t truly cold with Peacemaker, and she’s definitely a wonderful teacher. What she is with him is calm, patient, and empathetic, but also occasionally too quick to scold/shut him down, and doesn’t engage with him as much as he, maybe, wants her to.

-She knows, deep down, that Peacemaker is a completely different dragon, she’s seen his future and knows what he’ll become (a peaceful, relaxed strawberry farmer who dies happy and loved), but it’s so hard to not catastrophize about him somehow turning out like Darkstalker, or the spell on him somehow being broken/worn down

-Whether Moon ever tells Peacemaker about Darkstalker is up to you tbh, I’m not really sure if she would or just let it hang there uncomfortably until Peacemaker accepts it or gets so frustrated he either makes her tell him or stops seeing her

-Either way, she has her garden, her friends, and her family, and it makes her happy and keeps her safe and centered

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was supposed to be pride content about Qinterwatcher but I couldn’t get it out fast enough (thank you June, for completely kicking my ass. How homophobic of you >:/ ) and it turned into a study on Moon (as well as me trying to figure out what the jade winglet would do after school). I hope you enjoy this anyway, even if it is now July!!! I tried to sprinkle in a bunch of Qinterwatcher anyway, though a lot of it is Moon-centered (you can also read some Kinkamoon into this if you’d like lol)

(as always I encourage you 500% to use this headcanons in your writing or your art or w/e, no credit needed but please send it to be me if you do I Will Actually Cry)

tl;dr: how to grow a social circle and two excellent boyfriends in 6 easy steps, starring Moonwatcher and her fam

#wings of fire #wof #moonwatcher #Qibli #winter #kinkajou #peacemaker #tamarin #wof headcanons #my headcanons #see guys I swear I still make content #(just very slowly now apparently)#(fUCKIGN SIDE-EYES THAT SANDWING HEADCANON LIST THAT'S BEEN IN MY DRAFTS FOR LITERALLY 5 MONTHS)#hope you guys like this- I'm a little nervous about it honestly ^^;;#character stuff like this has been a bit of my weak spot #at least with wof #I know it's not as thought-out or intricate as the tribe stuff

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trillian-anders · 4 years

Text

chicken noodle soup

pairing: chef!bucky x plus!reader

warnings: fluff, fluff, fluff, a little angst. just a dash.

word count: 1779

description: chef!au; bucky makes you chicken noodle soup when you’re sick, and you guys have a talk.

note: i’m extremely sick and this is what i wrote, i needed a little comfort. if you have a request for the next dish, let me know loves.

just a taste masterlist

You watched the corded muscles of his back from your spot on the sofa. His right arm moving up and down, steadily chopping carrots as the garlic and onions sweat in a large pot on the stove. His left arm, something you still didn’t ask him about, mottled skin covered with blooming flowers, a rosary, whisping into a vintage pinup girl that posed on his forearm, hands tangled in her hair as she arched her back against the flowers behind her as if laying in a field of flowers.

His left arm held down the vegetable, knuckles facing the knife as he cut the carrots into thick pieces, practiced fingers running against the blade before he switched hands, left moving not quite as steadily, but still practiced.

You were sure your apartment smelled delicious, if only you could smell it.

He came over even though you’d told him not to. Last night when you’d stumbled in your front door after a very draining workweek. The winter deadline met, first quarter final report submitted and a head pounding and nose clogged you’d collapsed onto your couch with a bottle of NyQuil. Dead to the world.

He’d called worried, you’d been telling him you hadn’t felt well all week. “You need to rest babydoll,” He scolded, you’d rolled your eyes on the phone with him, your heart warming with the concern laced in his voice, toeing your socks off before slipping under the covers. “Stark can go a day or two without you.”

“After this week ends,” You said, “I just have to meet Friday’s deadline and then I’ll rest.” Friday had happened, and everything was done. And you collapsed on your sofa. Resting.

His call came in two hours after you’d fallen asleep, a groggy, “Hi baby.” And he sighed,

“I’m coming over.” You snuggled deeper into the cushions of the sofa you’d spent way too much money on, suddenly appreciating how large and soft it was.

“I’ll be fine,” You croaked, “Really.” But you could already hear his keys in his hand.

The food truck had been doing really well, well enough that Bucky and Sam hired some extra help. A kid named Peter who needed an after school job that would just handle plating and taking money while Sam or Bucky cooked, finally giving them enough time off between them to start seriously looking for commercial space for their restaurant. Something Bucky had been giddy about for weeks.

“I told Sam I needed tomorrow off,” He said, toeing off his boots by the front door. Your sleepy face peering at him from behind the blankets pulled up to your nose. “But I’ll have to work Sunday.” He had a large paper bag he’d set on the counter before padding over to you and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“You really didn’t have to come,” Your nose stuffed and red, a pile of discarded tissues next to you on the coffee table and reruns of Survivor playing on TV. He rolled his eyes, picking the snotty mess of tissues up and saying,

“When’s the last time you ate?” You didn’t know. “Here.” A glass of orange juice and a glass of water, “You need liquids.” You sniffled and he ran his fingers best he could through your tangled hair. “Wouldn’t you rather be in bed?”

“I’m comfy here.” You mumbled, eyes half lidded. He nods, brushing his thumb across your cheek,

“Sleep babydoll, I’ll wake you up to eat.”

He’d refilled your water, the small sips for your scratchy throat was a marvel. He’d placed a pack of honey cough drops and a new bottle of NyQuil on the coffee table. There was a multi-pack of tissues sitting still in the plastic beside them. The tv had been turned down to a quiet amble. He was listening to some kind of podcast in the kitchen.

He poured a box of chicken broth into the large pot. A smaller pot next to it cooking egg noodles. A ginger root sat idly beside the stove.

You knew Bucky loved to cook, he loved making you things you’d never tried before, he’d love to experiment with flavors and you were his own personal guinea pig to try new recipes. They were trying to nail down their menu after all. But he would also make the best comfort food that warmed your very soul.

He knew exactly what you needed and when you needed it. And this soup, as stuffy and clogged, as your head pounded and your body ached, you needed this soup.

He stirred, a strand of hair falling into his eyes. It must be late. He’d changed into pajamas. The loose sweats and t-shirt wasn’t what he was wearing when he first arrived. He must have felt your eyes on him, turning to look at you as you pulled your lips into a chapped smile. He laughed softly,

“You look so pathetic.” He joked, pulling a bowl from the cabinet.

“I am.” You whined, rubbing your head against the pillow, comfortably watching him scoop some noodles into the bowl before ladling the broth on top. Chicken, carrots, celery, mushrooms, a bit of grated ginger, the broth was dark from some soy sauce. Red pepper flakes mixed in and garnished with cilantro. “Spicy Asian chicken noodle soup.” The broth hit your nose and you could almost feel your sinuses clear then. “You’ll be able to breathe again by the end of this.” His socked toes meeting yours as he curled up next to you, sitting you up and handing you the bowl. “I know you like spice.”

It was so fucking good. Runny nose be damned. You hadn’t realized how hungry you actually were. A bowl was finished, and then a second. His fingers tracing up and down your spine while you ate.

“If you’re not feeling better by Sunday, you should call out on Monday.” The soup had been packed and stored in your fridge. The noodles separate from the broth. “Stark can afford to go one day without you. You have those sick days for a reason.” You know. You know.

His arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you tight into his chest.

“I’m gonna get you sick.” You mumbled into his soft well worn shirt. His fingers massage your scalp, your eyes drooping.

“I’ll be fine,” He pressed his lips to your head, “Don’t worry about me. Sleep sweetheart.”

And you did.

“So next week Steve is coming up from DC for the weekend.” Bucky called from the kitchen, heating up the leftover soup from last night, “If you’re feeling better by then we were going to go out to dinner, he’s been asking about you and Sam and I think it would be good for you to meet him if you can.” Steve. The other part of the trio.

Bucky had told you they were inseparable once, meeting in basic training the three of them becoming quick friends. Their paths crossed a year after, the three of them chosen to be part of a special ops squad that moved mostly undercover. It didn’t need to be said that the story behind his left arm was buried there somewhere. But he wasn’t ready for that yet. And that’s okay.

“If you’d like me to.” Honestly it gave you anxiety. You and Bucky hadn’t really had the talk yet, the two of you not even breaching the conversation having sex after spending the majority of the last month together. There was making out, kissing, and a lot of it. But if he wanted you to meet

Steve it must mean something right?

But there was still this paranoia, this little niggling in your brain that made you feel like the rug was going to be pulled from beneath you. Just like it had before.

How many times had you been really into a guy and when it came to the point, in what you thought was a relationship, to meet his friends or family he was suddenly really shady about it. A guy had literally told you once, “My friends would make fun of me if I dated a fat girl.” That had been a heavy blow.

And you know you’re beautiful, you know you’re smart, and you know that you can survive on your own. But you didn’t want to anymore. You wanted to start working towards a partner, possibly getting married, maybe having or adopting kids. And Bucky seemed so perfect. A little too perfect.

“Of course I want you to.” Meet Steve. The bowl was carefully handed to you while he settled down next to you with his own bowl. “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” The soup was just as good as you remembered it from last night. It had been late, almost one am when the two of you cuddled up on the couch and cleared your sinuses for the first time in a week.

You shrug, spooning more of the spicy salty broth into your mouth. He gives you a strange look, “You’re my girlfriend,” Brow scrunched, “Girlfriends typically meet their boyfriend’s friends.” Your chapped lips parted and closed, “I mean I know we never like, officially, said anything, but… I thought you knew we were together.” His voice sounded a little sad. His eyes meet yours, placing his bowl on the coffee table.

You shook your head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you wanted to--” You sighed heavily, “I’m sorry. No, we are together.”

“Did you think we weren’t?” The bowl was taken from your hands and gently placed beside his on the coffee table, grasping your cold hands in his.

“I… I didn’t know,” It was hard to look at him, “Sometimes, it’s just…”

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it more clear what my intentions were.” His voice level and reassuring, “I want to be with you, I want to be your boyfriend.” Your eyes glassy. Your period was probably going to start soon, to be fair. You’d cried during Masterchef earlier when the girl had burned her sauce. It had been devastating.

“No, I’m sorry.” You shook your head, “Communication goes both ways and I just didn’t think to ask.” In case you said no. He softly pressed his lips to yours,

“Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?” You sniffle,

“You’re gonna get sick.” Bucky rolls his eyes, smiling,

“Are you gonna answer my question or not?” You bit a little dry skin off your bottom lip before nodding,

“Yes.”

The next weekend had been at his own apartment, his stuffy nose and watery coughs a mimic of yours. The dinner with Steve would have to wait.

taglist // @bookish-shristi @saturnki @jennmurawski13 @geeksareunique @the-soulofdevil @tinmunky @albinotigerpython

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier #the winter soldier #sebastian stan

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annakie · 3 years

Text

A Lot of Words about a Thing

This is a “I’m writing this out so next time someone asks I can just point them to this (or copy/paste) instead of having to type it again” thing.

I’ve been doing Hello Fresh for the last two or three months and I thought I’d talk about the ups and downs of it and if I’m going to keep doing it. This is not an endorsement (which will be clear when you get to the overall middling scoring), but I will put a link at the bottom so we can both get a deal if you want to try it.

---------------

So anyway, I had been thinking about doing a meal kit for a long time but pulled the trigger on it back in... like Mid-January, I guess?

the tl;dr of it all is that I like it and I’ll probably keep doing it for awhile, but it’s not for everyone, and is expensive for what it is, especially if you already know how to cook.

Before I started, I made myself sit down and write out a quick list of what I wanted to get out of trying a meal kit experience, so I’ll rate how successful or not each one of those things is.

First of all, I want to also say, I can already cook. I’m a pretty good cook. I can follow a recipe and improvise successfully when necessary usually. One reason why a lot of people do a meal kit is because they need to learn how to cook and that definitely wasn’t me.

Also, they offer a variety of number and portions on meals to try. I get three meals a week, with two portions a meal, which means I cook Hello Fresh for dinner one night, and usually the next night have the leftovers. Friday night is usually “Yay You Made It To The Weekend, You Get To Order Takeout” night. You can order for several more meals a week, and for up to four portions in each meal, if you want.

So on to the reasons why I decided to try HF, with a grading of how I feel about each one after trying.

Reason One: Try Something New

I was super excited at the beginning of the pandemic now working from home full time, because this was a great chance to really start trying some new recipes. I had fallen into a pretty bad rut for awhile of some of the same frozen type meals or just making super easy things for dinner and sandwiches for lunch pre-pandemic. Even though my commute was stupid easy I often felt too wiped at the end of the day to make like, real meals. So when the pandemic hit and I was Home All The Time, for the first couple of months I was buying interesting ingredients (what I could get my hands on at the time) and really digging into making new and interesting things. Even baking my own bread and bought some new kitchen gadgets like a pressure cooker to expand my repertoire.

By like... the end of summer... well the good news was that I was still cooking and hadn’t fallen back to a packaged-food routine most of the time (though still some frozen pizzas or bags of pre-made Asian or Italian food you cook on the stovetop mostly for lunch) but also I had more or less found The Ten Things I Make (like Spaghetti, a great chicken and rice dish that is so good and makes about 6 meals worth of leftovers) and I was real tired of like, recipe hunting. The most work I was then doing was finding new pressure cooker recipes and tbh almost all of what I was making was Chicken In Some Kind of Sauce Over Rice. I was burned out.

So Hello Fresh... has been great for that. I have only made the same thing a couple of times and those were only because i loved them so much the first time I wanted that thing again. For the most part, I have tried just a ton of new things, including some ingredients I’ve never worked with before or really thought I wouldn’t like! And I did! I feel like I am often trying something I have never made before.

Reason 1.5: Variety

OK this is hand-in-hand with Something New but also slightly different.

Try Something New would be rated like a 4.5 out of 5 stars.... but some stars are taken away though, because a lot of their recipes are very similar. For a protein, there’s like, chicken breasts, hamburger meat, pork chops, chicken sausage and pork sausage. Occasionally steak. Basically every meal will start with one of those things.... oh and I guess there’s like some fish choices, but I hate fish. There’s also vegetarian options, which I have only occasionally gotten. So within the variety, there’s a lot of similarities.

Also there are a lot of same ingredients in their recipes. I have grated a lot of lemons and limes. I have chopped up a lot of carrots, green onions, and potatoes (so many potatoes.) I have consumed more sour cream than I ever have. I have started looking for ways to add even a little more variety to the things that are often-repeats that they give you.

But part of that is my fault -- I am mostly selecting items that I know I will like, or can modify to how I like. There are a lot of veggie and fish-based choices I could pick up most weeks which I avoid.

And almost everything I’ve ever made... I’d make again. I save all the recipe cards so that someday when I don’t wanna do HF anymore, I will have all them all handy to make later. The HF Subreddit also has a lot of resources like how to do their custom spice mixes, very handy. There’s been maybe 3 things I’ve made which I’d say were Just Okay, but nothing I’d say that was bad. And some of the ideas in this paragraph I talk about more, further down.

But also on the topic of “Variety” -- since every meal I make has two portions (occasionally I will stretch something to three) -- points are given back because I’m not “Making a huge pot of spaghetti that I eat for five meals in a row.” So that’s good, even if it means more cooking overall.

So honestly, on Something New overall, I’ll give this like a 3.5 out of 5 stars, correcting up to 4 stars on a curve, since I strike entire categories of their offerings based on my own tastes. They offer a pretty good variety of meals to select, and part of the problem here is my fault for hating All Seafood and not being thrilled with the vegetarian options (I also don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth without a protein) so there are a lot of meals re-using similar ingredients. It slides back down to a 3.5 though when you factor in Reasons 3 & 4 below.

Reason Two: Kill Analysis Paralysis

A thing I found increasingly happening by the end of last year was analysis paralysis. Especially as I started a new job where I’m much, much busier (but happier) in October. I would find myself staring at the fact that I’d have to make the decision on What To Make For Dinner and dreading it more and more. It wasn’t really the cooking I hated, but the deciding what to cook, which got me into the lack of variety rut. More often than I’d like to admit I’d just make a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese or like... just... toast... for dinner because the decision-making part of my brain was tired... or out of spoons as the kids say these days.

This is maybe my favorite part of Hello Fresh overall. Once every week or two I log onto HF, pick what I’m going to eat like... 5 or 6 weeks in the future, which I can do at a time when I have that decision-making energy, and forget about it. Every Monday a box shows up on my doorstep, I see what nice things I picked out for myself several weeks ago, and the most I have to decide is which order I will make those things in.

So when it’s a “Make Dinner” day, I don’t have that “shit, I have to make a decision” feeling. I already know because I pre-planned it back when I wasn’t at the end of a long workday. It’s one of those small, dumb things that really really helps me mentally in an almost inexplicable way. And I can feel better about myself because I didn’t eat something dumb for dinner. And I still allow myself to make easy things for lunch, like a small frozen pizza, a sandwich and some chips, or hey, Kraft Dinner. And sometimes I do make a big pot of Spaghetti or something that I love and will just have that for lunch every day for a week, and so I don’t have to feel like I’m always cooking.

And on Eat HF Leftovers For Dinner nights, that’s even better, because I have a tasty meal and it just had to get reheated in the microwave or stovetop. Some meals are easy to half-prepare ahead of time on day one, and just do the last steps on leftover night the next night to have fresher dinner easily.

Just 5 out of 5 stars here. This is my favorite part.

Reason Three: Eat More Vegetables.

Uh, yeah, I’m terrible about eating veggies on my own. The best I can do usually is buy a bag of mixed greens and try to have a side salad with dinner, or buy bags of frozen foods and hope they come with veggies I’d eat.

So the good thing here, is that when HF sends me vegetables to make, if it’s a veggie I like, I’ll probably make it.

The big problem, though, is that there’s no substitutions. And I’m still not gonna eat brussell sprouts or, broccoli, or mushrooms. I was a sport and tried making them (except the mushrooms) the first time I got recipes that used them as sides. And nope... still cant.

But hey, I have done a lot better at eating more fresh green beans, and onions, and carrots, and peppers. Though sometimes I just snack on the bell pepper instead of cooking it. Still, I call it a win.

I really, really wish I could trade out the side-dish vegetables I know I won’t eat for like, a small side salad, an apple, or hey, even just... carrots! But nope, no substitutions. =\ I’d score this way better if we could do so.

Still, I’m doing better here, and overall, more vegetables are being eaten. So, 3 out of 5 stars.

Reason Four: Waste Less Food

The amount of fruit and vegetables I’ve ordered and thrown away over the last year make me cringe. I would order things with every intention of eating them and then just... not. Oh yeah I need two lemons, an orange and two limes in case I make ____ recipe! I need a new bag of baby carrots to snack on and make a side dish and cut into a salad!

And then I maybe... maybe use half of that before it goes bad.

Probably less. Because of the Analysis Paralysis and not trying new things. You run into that problem where you don’t have the ingredients on hand to make a new thing so you can’t make a new thing... but then you buy them but forgot (crucial thing) so the thing still doesn’t get made. Or you just... don’t plan when you’re gonna make the thing and by the time I’d be like “Oh yeah I should make something with those vegetables” they’d have already turned.

SO... I felt shitty throwing away so much produce, and loaves of bread, and other perishable food that got maybe half-eaten. So much, for so long. Yeah, I know I could do better with my meal planning, but it’s been one of those things I always vow to do, and then did not do that thing.

Doing HF has really made me re-evaluate what I buy as groceries, and I have cut way down on ordering unnecessary produce and perishables like bread. Because I don’t really have to worry about dinner and am allowing myself to do easy lunches that don’t require real “cooking.” So, overall I am definitely buying and tossing less food.

Also just as another quick note -- what also tends to get tossed out of my HF boxes is a “spicy ingredient” But in some ways, this works in HF’s favor. I don’t really like spicy foods. A small amount of spice is OK but I’d rather just do without it in most things, sorry I’m that white girl. Most “Spicy” HF meals get spicy by a spice blend, a packet of sriracha / hot sauce, or a jalapeno which they want you to cut up and include. So whenever I see something that looks good but listed as “spicy”, I can check the ingredient list first and see what makes it spicy, If I think the thing still sounds good without the spicy part, I can order it. So yeah, I’ll toss spicy ingredients, but that is 100% my choice and it makes things better because it gives me more variety to order those meals and still make it to my own taste.

Oh, and occasionally, the produce is just bad when you get it or not long after. I haven’t had this problem often, mostly with ginger and garlic. I do evaluate which meal has the most perishables when I get my box on Mondays and make those first. Apparently you can call customer service if this happens for a small credit, but I just use pre-diced garlic or powdered ginger when this has happened to me.

So, this would be a 4.5 out of 5 except for... as discussed above... I end up tossing out HF vegetables on occasion I know I hate and won’t eat, and they won’t let me make substitutions.

But also... cooking for myself... when I make a big batch of something that lasts 4 - 6 portions... more often than I’d like to admit, the last portion or two would never get eaten. Sometimes I’d TELL myself I’d eat them in a week or so and freeze them only to throw it all away months later.

So let’s call this a 4 out of 5. Overall, significantly less food waste with HF.

Reason Five: Save Time

I thought that doing HF would mean less prep-work and less time in the kitchen, especially with their easy-to-follow recipes and pre-measured ingredients.

So in that way, yes, time is saved, and it so again takes that mental load off in a lot of ways of not having to make all those pesky decisions. The materials you’re working with and what you need to do are all Right There for you. It’s really, nice.

As a side note, like I said I’m a good cook, and I haven’t had any problems following along anything I’ve made, but there were a few things I think are more of a moderate skill level and could be a little challenging for newcomers. But then, I see people on the HF subreddit all the time saying they learned to cook with no skill and they find the recipes easy so... we’re good there.

However, Saving Time loses points for two big reasons:

First, I’m only making two portions of each meal. Which, ok... this is my decision. I could order four portions per meal. But then... hey that’s taking big points away on the “variety” front.

The Vegetable Chopping / prep work on a lot of the recipes often takes 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the number of fruits and veggies. So yay for meeting Goal #3 (more veggies) even if it is balanced out by Goal #5.

And unfortunately, most meals end up taking up more dishes than I’d like to clean up (usually at least a pan and baking sheet, sometimes also a pot. Plus knife, cutting board, tongs, stirring spoon, maybe a zester, etc.) So no time is saved on cleanup, either.

Mostly where time is saved is having to pick out recipes and making sure you have/buy all the ingredients. Not much is saved in the actual cooking.

I do, however, enjoy the time I spent cooking and the knowledge that I’m gonna make something good, so we’ll give it a bit back, there.

As a time saver, I’d give HF a 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Reason Six: Save Money

Y’all, Hello Fresh is expensive. Honestly the #1 reason I re-evaluate whether I want to keep going with it every few weeks is the cost. Even though I can afford it.

For basically six meals a week, I’m paying $63 for the food, plus $9 for the shipping.

Which means I’m paying $12 a meal. For food I make myself.

Not cheap. A luxury.

Where I don’t feel quite so bad about it is the fact that... for the most part, I am wasting a lot less food. Except, as mentioned, when I can’t swap out vegetables I hate for something I’d actually eat.

So that makes it irk me even more when I am throwing out vegetables I really hate, because they’re expensive vegetables.

Also that price tag is motivation to make and eat every meal.

Overall, my grocery bills have gone down... honestly pretty significantly. Because I’m not overbuying food! Now, they haven’t gone down enough to even out the cost for Hello Fresh... I’m still probably spending about 50% more overall for each dinner now than I was before.

This isn’t a cost savings. It’s an expense, but one I can afford. And part of writing out this post is to remind myself to decide when the experience is no longer worth the expense.

1 out of 5 stars.

Reason Seven: Eat Better

I would like to challenge myself to define “Better” because that’s all I wrote down when I made the list.

Healthier? Eeeehhhhhh.... maybe? But not much.

Hello Fresh does offer lighter choices, and sometimes I pick those because they look good and are filled with things I will eat!

But I’m just as likely to pick the most calor-ific things on the menu.

HF also adds a lot of Sour Cream to their recipes, and encourage you to salt and butter your food liberally. I try to cut down on some of this where I think it’s too much. But sometimes there’s not much to cut out and still have the meal you ordered.

But also I’m not eating any worse calorie-wise than I was before, probably. And overall I’m eating a lot more “real food” instead of “packaged food” and fast food than I was.... especially pre-pandemic. And again, I AM eating a lot more vegetables, so.... that’s... better?

If I define better as Tastier, yeah, I’m doing pretty good in that regard, haha.

So Better as in healthier: 2.5 of 5 stars.

Better as in tastier: 4 out of 5 stars.

Overall Scoring & Tips

Okay, overall that comes out to a 3.18 out of 5, which I’d round up to a 3.5... which is a pretty good score for how I feel about HF overall. My current plan is to keep doing it until I go back to working in the office again, and re-evaluate. For now, it works for me.

IF YOU WANT TO TRY IT, this is my referral link, you’ll get $70 off over a month’s worth of meals (so like, $20 or something off 3 boxes and $10 off the last one, something like that.

I also have four “Free box” codes to give out, PM me if you want one of those. I don’t think those are compatible with the $70 off link, but it might be a box of completely free food for you? I don’t know how it works, but this may be the better deal? PM me.

If you decide to go for it, here’s a few tips:

Every week or two, go in and choose your meals, don’t let HF choose for you unless you really don’t care.

Read the ingredient list and make sure there’s not too much stuff you don’t like coming in a meal.

The extras are pretty expensive and not really worth it.

Plan on each meal taking about 45 minutes to cook from start to finish including chopping vegetables. Another 10 - 20 with cleanup depending if you have to handwash dishes or not.

Look for ways to make the meal healthier, especially if it encourages you to add more butter and salt near the end. You probably do NOT need to do so.

Buy a decent pepper. I love McCormick’s Peppercorn Medley pepper grinder. Also sea salt grinder is my personal salt preference.

Add some of your own seasonings. I buy a jar of pre-diced garlic (yes yes I know the criticisms of the stuff but it’s easy) and throw in a half tablespoon or so of that into a lot of recipes. Also there are a lot of potatoes that they want you to just cook with olive oil, salt and pepper. Throw some garlic or onion salt on them, or some Lawry’s Seasoning Salt or steak salt of your choice for some variety.

Your basic 2 quart pot, 8 - 12″ frying pan and cookie sheet, plus a cutting board, decent veggie knife, and typical kitchen utensil set are all you need. However, a decent meat thermometer and a zester that collects the zest as you go are both highly recommended.

A sieve and very small rice cooker have also been a lifesaver for making good rice that doesn’t get overcooked.

#personal post tag thingy #hello fresh #food #meal kit #meal kits

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mikkomacko · 4 years

Text

Sweet As Honey 12

Harry's buzzing with adrenaline, bouncing around the mat on his toes and swiftly jabbing a few punches into the pads on Liam's hands. He nods his approval, and Harry can tell that Liam's waiting for more. So he does, even if he's supposed to go easy today, Harry still spins around Liam, delivering three harsh punches to the pads as soon Liam turns to face him. He swipes his foot across the mat, catching his trainer's feet and making Liam trip back until he's sat on the floor. Harry smirks, starting to back away from him.

"Daddy!"

Harry's head snaps to the left, finding that Mark has returned to the gym from the upstairs cafe. He's standing by the ring, and Arlo's in his arms with what looks like yogurt smeared on his shirt. Harry beams, opening his mouth to call out a hello but then he's tumbling back himself, arm stinging when he lands on his funny bone.

Arlo squeals out laughs over Liam's chuckling, and Harry's smirk falls at Liam's smug look.

"Don't get distracted." Liam advises, climbing to his feet and throwing off the pads on his hands. He reaches down for Harry, gripping his glove in his hand.

"S'bloody practice, didn't think you'd be treating this like a match." He grunts as Liam pulls his sweaty torso off the ring.

He chuckles, patting his shoulder roughly. "Just bringing you back into the swing of things."

Harry scoffs, using his teeth to unstrap his left glove and tucking it under his bicep. He wiggles it off, followed by the right glove, and tosses them over the ropes of the ring so they land by his bag with a smack. He slips under the ropes, popping back up next to Arlo and Mark. Arlo coos, reaching his hand out to Harry and wiggling his fingers. He takes him from Mark, not caring that he's a bit sweaty, and smoothes out his clothes.

"Got my child all messy."

"That's not my fault!" Mark immediately swears, eyes widening. "He eats like you, what was I supposed to do?"

Arlo makes a grumpy noise, glaring at Mark now that he's back with Harry, and Harry can't help but laugh. "Don't like Mark anymore?" He murmurs to Arlo through a chuckle.

"No," Arlo grumbles, turning his head away from Mark to look over Harry's shoulder. Mark's mouth falls open in offense, and Harry snickers.

"Is it 'cause he's old?"

"No,"

"He's smelly?" Harry tries, biting back a smile at the hurt look on Mark's face.

"No,"

"He's small?" Mark glares at him.

"No,"

"'cause ya missed me?"

"Yes," Arlo slurs, turning his face into Harry's neck and patting his face with his little hand.

"I missed you too bug." Harry admits, pressing a smiling kiss to Arlo's head. Seeing Arlo snuggle into Harry must make Mark forget about Arlo abandoning him, because he's looking at them with a little but fond smile on his lips.

"He's turning into quite the talker." Liam pipes up, tossing a towel at Harry so he can wipe his face off. Harry catches it with one hand, drying off his sweaty skin, and making Arlo grumble when he has to move his head for just a moment.

"Sometimes he just chats absolute nonsense. Sittin' at the dinner table the other night and he was eating some mashed carrots, bunch of weird noises commin' out of him," Harry can't help but smile at the memory, "and he was just looking at the missus and me like we should know what he's saying."

Liam and Mark both chuckle, Arlo going shy as he realizes Harry was talking about him, and pressing further into his chest. "Does that mean we're ready to go home?" Harry laughs, rubbing his fingers into Arlo's back. "Ready to see Mumma?"

"Mumma." Arlo agrees, and Harry decides it's time to get going. Mark bids him goodbye, needing to return to the front desk, and Liam moves around the gym to wipe down the equipment, so Harry crouches down, placing Arlo between his thighs with a groan. He's definitely going to be sore tomorrow.

"Hang on for me baby," Harry requests, helping Arlo hang onto his legs and lean on him for balance while he reaches over to shove his gloves and water into his gym bag. His calves burn from crouching and Arlo pressing down on him, so he quickly pulls on his hoodie and helps Arlo into his coat, throwing his bag over his shoulder and Arlo's baby bag on the other. He lifts Arlo in one arm, bringing him back up with him and pulling his hood over his head.

"Nice and warm?" He asks, only receiving a spit bubble in response. He laughs, digging his keys out of his pocket and heading towards the door.

"Gonna miss some days next week but I'll text ya a schedule, yeah?" He calls to Liam, leaning his hip on the door, but not enough to push it open yet.

"A couple days?" Liam huffs from across the room, eyeing Harry skeptically. "You fight in three weeks Harry-"

"I know and I'll be ready," he promises,"but I've got family stuff to take care of. You know that comes first."

Liam's skeptical, looking Harry up and down as if assessing his readiness right on the spot, but he knows and trusts Harry. He wouldn't miss training unless it was absolutely necessary. "Take care of yourself yeah? Lots of water, vegetables."

Harry grins, grateful. "Of course," he nods, and then he's out the door, him and Arlo ready to brace the cold outside.

Harry's got a fire crackling in the living room, one of the Avenger movies playing on the television, and Arlo running rampant in his walker with Theo chasing after him, yipping and yapping when Arlo laughs after a particularly fast roll. He's got no idea what's gotten Arlo so worked up, maybe the yogurt he had this morning that's still staining the shirt Harry threw somewhere on the stairs when they got home before he had grabbed a clean one out of the laundry basket on the couch.

He hears the front door open as he's laying another corn tortilla stuffed with cheese and tomato slices into the pan, and a sizzle of grease pops up and stings his bicep. The yelp that leaves his lips is covered by Theo's high pitched barking, and the little dog slips across the tiles until he reaches the living room. Arlo grunts as he pushes himself out of the kitchen and into the living room as well, calling out a happy "mumma!"

"Hiya bub!" Y/n greets, followed by more hellos from Gemma and Anne. Harry here's the unmistakable hums of them warming up by the fire, and Arlo's little wheels rolling and bare feet slapping the floor as he heads back towards the kitchen. Harry lowers the burner, flipping the quesadilla over to cook the other side.

“Daddy!’

“Ya came back?” Harry gasps, reaching down to stop the walker before Arlo can run over his sock clad toes. “Thank goodness, I missed ya so much!”

His words pull a giggle from Arlo, chubby hand smacking the rattle and Theo tries to rise to his hinds, slipping as he whines. He loves to chew on toys and Arlo’s happily tossed him a few of the rattles he owns so it’s no surprise that he wants that one too.

Arlo babbles something, pushing off the floor and away from Harry. He’s heading back towards the kitchen, puppy at his heels when y/n comes in, screaming dramatically when Arlo almost runs her over. Harry and Arlo both giggle, the sound so similar he pauses for a moment, looking at his wife with big eyes to make sure he heard that right. She laughs at him, reaching down to pick Arlo up.

“Who gave you a license, huh?” She teases, rubbing Arlo’s cheek. Harry turns to remove the now cooked quesadilla, but not before catching Arlo's little wince that's undoubtedly a result of his mother's cold fingers. Harry turns off the stove, pushing the pan to the back burner so it doesn't accidentally burn anyone, and lays the food down on the plate with the others. "Drive like your daddy."

"Hey!" Harry exclaims, wiping his hands off on a dish towel and throwing it over his shoulder. "I'm a very good driver!"

Y/n gives Arlo a look that says 'yeah right' and then smiles at Harry. "Of course you are baby." She says sweetly, patting the side of his face the way Arlo does and pecking his lips. He peeks over her shoulder, not seeing Anne or Gemma. She must read his questioning gaze because she says, "In the room changing. They forgot their water proof coats and the snow got to them."

Harry nods, leaning down again to capture her mouth in another kiss. She hums, tickling his lips and tangles her cold fingers in his hair. He starts to smile when a little hand presses against his chest, Arlo groaning as he tries with all his might to push Harry.

"No," he whines, smacking Harry's chest when he doesn't budge.

"What'sa matter with you?" Harry scoffs, brows pinching together. "Have ya had enough of me?" Y/n giggles as Harry steps back, frowning when Arlo smiles and snuggles into her. "Tired of daddy? Not nice, I helped make you, thank you very much."

Arlo ignores him, and at Harry's feet Theo whines for attention. "You and me both bud." Harry groans, leaning down to pick up the dog. His back and shoulders ache at the movement. He returns to his normal height, leaning against the island while his fingers scratch behind Theo's ears.

"How was it then?"

Y/n hums, and Arlo visible trembles as the sound no doubt tickles through his little body. "It's nice. Good amount of room for the both of them, and a little area in case Arlo feels like visiting. Not too far away either, s'right by that shoe store I got my wedding heels at."

Harry nods, mentally mapping the destination out in his head. She's right. Gemma and Anne's new place is only about a ten minute drive, and he knows there's a nice little park around there. "They excited to move in?"

"I think so. Probably glad to have their own space you know? And establish a home away from where everything went bad."

Harry nods. He gets it, understands why they would want a place they can begin to call home that doesn't have any affiliation with Des or Jack. But he can't really understand them wanting to leave his hometown. They loved it there, Anne loved it there.

"Are you ready to go back?" Y/n asks gently, eyes searching his for an answer. His stomach twists at the reminder, but he nods. It'll be good for him to go back. He needs to say goodbye to Des for good. He needs to say goodbye to the house he grew up in and the bad memories that lie there. He thinks his attacks might stop if he does, if he gets that closure he needs. And we wants her to see the place that shaped him into the man he is and why he's a little messy at the edges. Maybe she'll understand more too.

"I really am."

Two hours south where the snow is just rain and slush, and the sky is cloudless and blue, Harry finds his hometown. It looks the same. So overwhelming similar to the way it was when he left that it knocks the air out of him as he drives through the streets, passing his old school and the street his new life had started on. It's a fairly warm day and people walk the sidewalks. Harry tries to remember if he recognizes any of them but he can't. He's outgrown this place.

Anne and Gemma were living in a tiny house that Harry knows used to belong to a florist named Gia, located right off the main street. The yard is shabby and brown, the white house looking even brighter next to it. He parks in the empty car park, shutting off the car while Gemma sighs. "This is her." She murmurs, smiling over the seat at Harry. She says nothing else before opening the door, her and Anne sliding out.

Arlo kicks his car seat. "Me!" He shouts, as if Harry and y/n could actually forget him in the car. They climb out, Harry unable to hide his confusion as Anne unlocks the front door. Harry unlatches Arlo's car seat from the base, tucking his blanket around him and lifting the car seat out. Y/n is grabbing their bags out of the back, tossing as many as she can over her shoulders, and waddling up to the house with him following.

It's a nice house, Harry will give them that. But he's not sure why they're living there. What happened to his childhood house? He doesn't get a chance to ask. Well he does, but he doesn't really want to ask because he's not sure he wants the answer. Something in his gut tells him that Jack owns it now and he quickly pushes the thought away.

There's only two bedrooms in the house but Harry had been warned before they left the city so him and y/n are fully prepared to take over the living room. It's only a few days, and they have a nice brand-new air mattress they'd been gifted for their wedding and haven't used. Anne and Gemma work on making dinner in the kitchen while Harry and y/n set up their mattress, close but not too close to the fireplace. Arlo lays sprawled out in the middle of the bed, rolling back and forth in the plushy comforter as they lay out pillows around him. He laughs when Harry gently sits on the mattress, making the little one bounce.

"Ya sleeping here tonight or in your carseat bug?" Harry asks, bringing Arlo to lay between his thighs, little feet pressing into his belly. He had planned on having Arlo sleep in carseat right next to the bed but by the way Arlo's snuggling into the bed and playing with the edge of Harry's shorts, he's sure Arlo will end up squished on the mattress too.

"I think daddy's taking the carseat so his babies can sleep real good huh?" Y/n teases, reaching over Harry's thigh to wiggle a finger at Arlo. He squeals, grabbing a hold of her finger.

"Don't think I fit in the carseat darling." Harry replies, smiling at the way Arlo and y/n are looking at each other. He falls back on the pillows, hand coming down to card through her hair when she lays her cheek on his thigh.

"Guess you get the floor then."

Harry snorts, closing his eyes and enjoying her soft hair and Arlo's tiny fingers brushing against his thighs. "Not if I don't move from here."

"Mph," she grumbles. "stubborn daddy, huh? Are you just as hard headed?"

"Daddy!"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Kay."

Both y/n and Harry laugh, quiet little chuckles that are so loving it makes the room feel ten degrees warmer. Their laughs have Arlo laughing, kicking his feet out. Harry winces when one of Arlo's heels gets to close to his crotch. "Oi be nice to daddy!" He warns, squeezing one of Arlo's little toes through his sock. Arlo screams and laughs, and then his mouth is latching into the side of Harry's leg and he's digging one of his new baby teeth into the skin.

"Hey!" Harry scolds, but he's laughing because he's never seen Arlo in such a silly mood. He can't help but fall more in love with the little person Arlo's growing to be. Until y/n bursts the bubble.

"Yup, just as difficult as daddy."

Technically Harry came back to help Anne and Gemma pack, but he can only do so much when they're so bloody picky about what goes in what box. After two hours of grumbling and arguing over whether silverware goes with plates or towels, Harry had decided to take his loves to see the town. It was another warm day, so Arlo didn't need to bundled up in a thick coat but Harry did stuff a bit of cotton in his little ears to keep him from getting another ear infection. The town's small, so they didn't need to drive. Instead he took them walking down main street, pointing out the alley he met Nick in and y/n had given him such an overly-protective mother look he couldn't help but kiss her. Then they went to this little store that sells root beer imported from Australia, and because y/n is a sucker for root beer, Harry bought her two bottles. Their walk continued until they reached the church, and that's how Harry found himself at the place he'd been avoiding for two long.

"Is he in there?" Y/n asks, taking in the way Harry's nervously eyeing the cemetery behind the church. Harry nodded, throat tight as he attempts to swallow the lump in it. Arlo shifts in his arms, mitten covered hands gripping the collar of his hoodie, and stares at the side of Harry's face. He's picked up on the shift in the air, realizing that Harry is no longer chuckling at stupid memories from his childhood as he recalls them to y/n.

He meets Arlo's eyes, managing a smile. "M'okay bug," he murmurs, feeling like he's directing the words more at himself than at Arlo. He tugs on Harry's collar as if saying okay, and then Harry's taking the first steps towards his father for the first time in years. Y/n follows him, strong by his side. It almost feels like she's the one in charge despite him leading the way. She always gets like that when he's nervous; strong and silent, like a mote around a castle.

The grass feels thick and spongy under his shoes as he crosses gave after grave. It's weird walking through here and not feeling small. Harry's always remembered the tombstones towering over him, but maybe that was just the thought of death hovering.

It doesn't take long to find the familiar stone, Harry immediately pausing in front of it. His breath catches in his throat, eyes skimming the words he'll never forget. Here lies Desmond Styles. Beloved son, husband, and father.

"This is my dad," Harry croaks, tongue like sandpaper. The wind whistles around them, chilling his fingers. "dad this is my family. Well, the family you'd be proud of."

He pauses, as if waiting for a reply he'll never get. "Hello Mr. Styles. I'm y/n, and I'd like to thank you so much for the man you left behind for me." Harry turns to face her, eyes stinging as he finds her already looking at him. She steps closer, hands wrapping around his bicep. "No matter how many times he says he's nothing compared to you, he's the best father and husband anyone could ask for."

Y/n gives him a sweet smile, and Harry sniffles back a sob. He's messed up so much in his life and yet here she stands, speaking of him as if he's nothing short of heavenly. Arlo calls his name softly, hands cupping Harry's face when he turns back to him. Harry lifts him up so he doesn't have to give himself a double chin to meet his son's gaze. Before he can answer, Arlo is leaning forward and touching his lips to Harry's nose, drool smearing on his skin. He doesn't care, because it's so sweet and tender all he can do is laugh and cry, squeezing Arlo tighter.

"Kay daddy." Arlo tells him in the same tone Harry had before they'd entered the cemetery. Harry wipes off his nose and eyes with his hand, taking a deep breath.

"M'sorry it took me awhile to come back. I had really fucked things up, didn't really take care of mum and Gemma like I should've, a-and I couldn't come back here with things still wrong," he clears the quiver in his voice away. "but ma girl here helped me, a lot, and we've got a nice home and stuff in the city-ya always liked the city-and m'taking mum and Gem with me.

"I hope you don't think we're forgetting you. We're not, but I don't think any of us can stay here. Hasn't been the same since you left, and well my babies have a chance at having their nan and auntie in their lives. I can't take family away from them so. Umm just wanted you to know that we're okay now, and m'gonna do better."

Y/n presses a lingering kiss to his cheek, wiping at the tear streaks on them. They don't say anymore, they don't need to. And even though he can't answer, Harry has a feeling Des is telling him he knows. Harry's chest feels the lightest it's been in years, and he knows he's leaving a part of his heart there for his father.

If Gemma and Anne noticed his glossy eyes or exhausted smile, they said nothing, and Harry was grateful. They got through dinner easily, Harry sharing chicken noodle soup from the place down the street with Arlo, and Gemma and Anne telling them they've got almost everything packed. Harry offers to help again, but they shoot him down because he "doesn't know they're system."

Eventually they make it to their beds, and like the night before Arlo squishes onto the mattress with them. Y/n is running her fingers through his dark hair, humming to him while Harry rubs his thumb over his bare tummy.

For awhile the only sound in the room is Arlo sucking on his pacifier and their soft breaths. They wait until the pacifier has drooped in his lips, and his fingers are no longer squeezing Bunny as tightly, before talking.

"Thank you for taking me to meet your dad."

Harry chuckles, she didn't really meet him, not at all. She met the grave of him, the memories Harry gave away with his words. Still, he murmurs back, "Of course, darling. Thanks for taking care of me."

"Of course," she smiles but it's broken by a yawn a second after. He can't help but think about how Arlo yawns just like her.

"It made me feel better being back there. I mean it hurt, but the kinda hurt you get when you're fixing a bone that didn't heal right."

Y/n hums in understanding, and Harry watches her eyes flutter sleepily. He feels his own exhaustion seeping in, so he gently leans over Arlo to give her a chaste kiss. "Goodnight darling."

She smiles again, eyes already glued shut. "Goodnight baby."

The moving truck wasn't set to arrive until the next day, so Anne and Gemma shooed Harry and y/n out of the house to spend another day in the town. Harry didn't know when or if he'd come back again so he happily utilized the time. Their morning was spent in a restaurant that Harry and his old friends used to visit when he was just starting high school, and much to his surprise, everything was the same. Including the two men sitting in the booth they used to sit at before school.

Zayn and Thomas are recognizable, but Harry can't deny that they look different. Zayn's brown hair is now dipped in a soft pink, and he's littered with more tattoos than even Harry. Harry can't see his face, but he assumes it's the same sharp face he used to know. As for Thomas, he's completely shaved down the shoulder length hair he used to have, and the acne that he used to whine about has cleared up, and a quick glance reveals he's lost his braces. Harry doesn't get to notice much else before y/n is nudging her foot into his shin.

"Wha'?" He asks innocently, quickly catching the salt shaker Arlo's been trying to push off the table for five minutes.

"Mine!" Arlo grunts angrily when Harry moves it to the opposite side of the table.

"That is not yours." Harry laughs. "Stop trying to make messes, s'not nice."

Arlo grunts, slumping down in the high chair, and kicking his feet back and forth. Harry chuckles, returning to his fried eggs when he realizes y/n is still eyeing him suspiciously. He raises an eyebrow, mouth full.

"Did you know them?"

He hesitates, glancing across the room to see them splitting the bill. He shrugs, "we were friends. Kinda stopped after ma dad died, and then I left."

"Do you think they recognize you?" She murmured curiously, popping a juicy cube of watermelon into her mouth. Harry shrugs again. "Maybe, don't know. S'been to long."

She hums, eyes running over his face like she's trying to decide if she'd recognize him. Harry offers a smile, tilting his head to the side, and she laughs.

"I don't think they would," she finally says. "saw some of the photo albums yesterday when you were in the shower. You look really different."

"Good or bad?" He asks, grabbing the fork Arlo's trying to pull to the edge of the table with his foot. He moves it, and Arlo grumbles again. "Ba' daddy."

"M'not being bad. You're being bad." Harry tells him, giving his pout an unimpressed look.

"Definitely good," y/n tells him, enunciating the word good towards Arlo. "I mean, you were always cute and you're like smile and eyes are the same of course, but it's like everything else has changed."

Harry smirks at the compliment. "Like what?"

"You're huge now," she admits bashfully. "like you we're kinda scrawny before and now you practically bust out of every shirt you've had for about two years."

Harry laughs, cheeks blooming with heat. "Throwing punches everyday really helps with that."

Y/n rolls her eyes at his teasing tone, knowing he's trying to flustered for her for complimenting him. "Haha I think my husband's attractive, that's so funny."

Harry snorts, nudging her foot under the table, and taking the last bite of his eggs. Y/n is still munching on her fresh fruit, and Arlo has made a thorough mess of his oatmeal, so Harry digs baby wipes out of the diaper bag that's next to him, and leans forward to start cleaning off Arlo's sticky hands and face. He whines and squirms as Harry wipes at his cheeks.

"I know they're cold bug, m'sorry, but the more you move, the longer it takes." Arlo's gone red in the face but he's not crying, just glaring at Harry as he tosses the wipes with his used napkin and unclips his dirty bib.

"Seems like he goes through about ten of those a day." Y/n comments, referring to the dirty bib. Harry thinks of the stack of bibs they had to pack and how many they wash a week.

"Gettin' so messy," Harry coos, lifting Arlo out of the high chair and onto his lap. He slumps back against Harry, kicking his sock clad feet up on the table, and babbling something that Harry knows is him asking for a drink. He grabs his glass of water, balancing it on Arlo's lap and holding the straw for him. Arlo's little hands latch around it, happily sipping some of the cold drink.

"He's just taking after his daddy." Y/n teases.

"Me? You should've seen Gem when we're growing up! She was always covered in something."

Arlo's finished with the water, so Harry places it back on the table, using his sleeve to wipe Arlo's mouth for him. "I'm sure." Y/n agrees, obviously just to appease him, and he's on the verge of complaining when he's interrupted by the men he was hoping to dodge.

"Excuse me," says Zayn, and his voice is just as deep and slurring as it's always been. "Harry? Styles, yeah?"

Y/n kicks his shin again and he can picture her amused smirk. She knew he was trying to avoid running into anyone he may now, and now his curiosity is biting him in the ass. "Zayn?" Harry asks, pretending he didn't know he was sitting across the room this whole time.

Zayn's face splits into a beaming smile, and he nods. "Man it's crazy to see you here!" He says in disbelief, running his fingers over the hair dusting his jawline. He then sticks that same out and Harry shakes it, glad he can use Arlo as an excuse to not stand up.

"Would say the same to you but this is kinda the spot still, huh?"

Zayn chuckles. "Kinda. You just missed Thomas! Went out the side door, ha."

"Like usual," Harry quips, remembering that Thomas always used the side door by the kitchen for some reason. He never told them why.

"Yeah, you remember that?"

"Of course," Harry chuckles, and then y/n is clearing her throat. Harry faintly blushes, realizing he hasn't introduced her, not that he particularly wanted to. He wishes he could keep her separate from his past.

"Y/n," she smiles politely at Zayn, and they shake hands. "would you like to sit down?" She motions to the spot next to her.

"That would be great, thanks!" Zayn breathes, taking the spot next to her. He looks at Harry, eyes twinkling like he's remembering all the hell they used to take part in together. Arlo squirms in Harry's lap until he's turned around, and then he claws at Harry's shirt until he's standing.

"Who's this little one?" Zayn coos, mesmerized as Arlo tries to sling himself over Harry's shoulder. Harry grabs his ankles, keeping him pinned to his thighs.

"This is my son, Arlo." Harry pats Arlo's leg. "Ya gonna say hi to Zayn?" He stops squirming, and looks over his shoulder at Zayn.

"Hello Arlo." Zayn greets, and blood rushes to Arlo's cheeks as he whips back around and hides in Harry's neck.

"Sorry, he's shy sometimes." Y/n apologizes, shrugging at Zayn.

"S'ok," he laughs, and their waitress comes over to clear away their plates. Harry thanks her, trying to ignore the way Arlo is stepping into his hip. When she leaves, Zayn's looking at Harry like he can't believe his eyes and it makes his stomach jump.

"Wha'?"

Zayn gives him that disbelieving head shake again. "It's just insane. I mean, you disappear for years and then you're just back and you've got a wife and a baby. You always said you didn't want kids."

Y/n cocks her head, confused, but Harry's too busy feeling like he's on trial to explain to her. "Temporarily, temporarily back. I leave on Tuesday." He chooses to not respond to the baby comment. Zayn doesn't need to know the way his head works now.

"Well where are ya living then?" He asks, remaining upbeat despite Harry's shift in attitude. He knows he's coming off as threatening, but he doesn't care.

"The city, been there since I left."

Zayn purses his lips and nods, and Harry thinks Zayn's recalling all the times Harry said he wouldn't move to the city. It makes him scowl.

"Where are you working?"

Harry's ready to reply with the same words he'd just said but y/n cuts him off. "Harry's a bit modest about it," she laughs breezily, pulling Zayn's attention to her. "so we'll just say he's a professional athlete."

Zayn gasps, and y/n tells him something else but Harry's not listening because he's setting Arlo back into his lap, fiddling with his shirt and socks to pretend like he has something to do other than talk to Zayn.

Harry's not sure what else is said, and frankly he doesn't mind. He didn't come back here to be grilled about what happened and why he left and why he's back. Eventually Zayn clears his throat, telling y/n it was nice to meet her and that he "really should be going." Harry gives him a hand shake too, telling him it was good seeing him just to be polite.

"Yeah same to you. Let your mum and Gemma know I say hi, and hope they're well." Zayn says sympathetically. "They haven't been very social since the accident at the house, but tell 'em we still think of 'em, yeah?"

Harry nods dumbly, ears ringing. Accident at the house? What happened at the house. "Harry?" Y/n says cautiously, her voice muffled in his ears.

"We need to go y/n."

He's panting by the time he reaches the street his old home is on, sweating from the fast-paced jog he did all the way here from the restaurant. He can hear y/n behind him, pushing Arlo's stroller and mumbling something about him being "crazy daddy" right now. He doesn't respond like he usually would, too caught up in trying to find the house.

He's three houses away when he sees it. Well, what's left it. He stumbles, sprinting to the metal fence standing around the yard, and he chokes at the sight. As if the black ash laying on the ground shot up into his mouth, and down into his lungs, he coughs and wheezes, because the home he used to know is now just collapsed walls of black char and stones. It's gone, everything he knew here, is all gone.

#sweet as honey #sah12 #harry styles #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff #one direction #daddy harry #daddy harry styles #dad harry #dad harry styles #boxer harry styles #boxer harry #husband harry styles #husband harry

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alarawriting · 4 years

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52 Project #29: The Last Boy (Inktober #11: Disgusting)

This is fanfic-adjacent; it’s an unauthorized sequel to Alice Sheldon (writing as James Tiptree Jr)’s story “The Screwfly Solution”. It is... less dark than that story, but if you’re familiar with it, that’s not saying much. (If you aren’t familiar, don’t worry, this story explains the backstory necessary.)

This is a horror story... or at the least, dark science fiction. (Nothing supernatural in this one.) I am not tagging any of the triggers inside because spoilers, which are destructive to a horror story, but I will include them at the end, which is below the cut. If you rapidly scroll through the story you can reach the trigger list without actually reading any of the story.

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Roy is very excited, running, practically skipping, ahead on the trail. “Uncle Matt! This is great! I can see the woods up ahead already!”

Matt forces a smile, because he’s very much afraid of how this expedition might end, but he has to try. He has to have hope. “Sure is. Ready to go hunting?”

“You bet!” Roy turns around and flashes Matt a big, heartwarming smile. His face is pocked with acne and he’s late to have lost his last baby tooth; it’s a gap on the upper left side of his face. He looks so young, so boyish. Which he is; he’s thirteen. Thirteen is still a kid. Matt’s sixty; thirteen’s practically a baby to him. They grow up so damn fast. “You think we’ll bag a deer?”

“We might. Or we might bag a goose. Or we might come home empty-handed. The point to hunting is to be quiet and patient, and let nature bring to you whatever it will.”

They hike up to the tree line. This is one of very, very few forest areas that’s still being tended and managed by people. The rocky hiking trail up to the tree line’s been kept clear of scrub; there are bushes and tall grasses on either side of the trail, but nothing on the wide stretch of packed dirt.

From here Matt can look down the side of the mountain, to the acres planted with corn and wheat, the women working in the rows, a couple of men stationed to sit by the road with their guns, watchful for whoever might come by. He knows them both. Good boys. He took Evan out on a hunting trip like this one, ten years ago, and they came home with a deer and a couple of rabbits. Jase was called Lisa back then, and didn’t need to go on a hunting trip like this. The tradition of the hunting trip when you’re thirteen isn’t for the girls, or the gay boys, or the trans kids. Most of them resent that, until they get to be old enough to understand why.

“This is the best,” Roy says. “Just me and you, Uncle Matt. How long has it been since we got to just spend time together, just two men?”

“I think you were 10. We went out to the river and went fishing, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. I didn’t catch anything,” Roy laughs. “You got a couple of fish, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Matt says, smiling as he remembers. “Had to throw ‘em back, though. They were too small.”

“Why don’t we do stuff like that more often, Uncle Matt? Just hang out, without all these stupid girls around?”

Matt sighs. “You have school and I’ve got work; crops don’t grow themselves and we don’t get security by going on vacation.”

“Yeah, but why do we have to even live here? Why don’t we go live somewhere where there’s just men?”

“That’s a little hard to find. There’s not a lot of men around,” Matt points out.

“Because the stupid girls wouldn’t go to them and have their kids,” Roy mutters.

That is a disturbingly misleading viewpoint on what happened, but Matt tries to let it go, for the moment. “Hey. We need to keep quiet now,” he says softly. “If there’s any deer, we don’t want to scare them.”

Roy nods, and the two of them walk quietly into the forest.

***

Roy was such a sweet little boy.

Matt remembers him bringing the pictures he drew to Matt and to his mother – who Matt, despite being called uncle, is not actually related to; Matt is uncle to all the boys he takes under his wing – and being so enthusiastic about showing it to them. He remembers one of the pictures, of himself and Roy holding hands. Another, of Roy holding hands with his mom. Roy hasn’t had anything positive to say to his mother in weeks; he’s been disobeying her, insulting her, calling her stupid and saying he doesn’t have to listen to her because she’s just a woman.

It’s biological. Roy wasn’t raised to even have the concept of men somehow being better than women at anything or for any reason. Most of the boys develop the attitude around puberty, the result of a disease that infected the entire world over a century ago. Many of them get over it. Many don’t. Matt never suffered it at all; it’s linked to heterosexual desire, and Matt knew he was gay ever since he was nine.

He remembers Roy running around with a toy airplane, declaring that when he was grown up he would help restore humanity’s control of the skies, working to bring back the airplanes. He remembers Roy making him lemonade when he was six, cooking him an egg when he was ten. Roy making a card for his mother’s birthday with a big heart on it. Roy asking him what stars were made of.

It’s going to be all right, he tells himself. Evan was a little ass to his mom and his sisters, and it all worked out for him. Lebron actually punched his mom when he was fourteen, and he came through it. Roy’s going to be fine.

All the boys mean so much to him, but Roy is special… maybe because he’s the most recent one. Matt hasn’t been working with the little boys so much, lately. There’s enough men in the settlement now that the younger men, with more energy, are taking up more of that role. When Matt himself was a child, there were almost no men – Uncle Harry was the only cis man he’d known. Of the boys he grew up with, only Andrew, Tyrone and Jose were still there by the time he was an adult, plus Deandre who was trans and joined them in their late teens. He’d dated all of them except Deandre, who was straight. Ended up eventually with Cole, three years younger than him. Cole had a heart attack six years ago, and after that Matt couldn’t bear to open himself up to any of the new little boys, not without the emotional support of an adult man to share his life with. Roy has been the last one to call him Uncle.

“Uncle!” Roy hisses. “Is that a deer? Over there?”

Matt looks where Roy is pointing. “It could be,” he whispers back. “Let’s see.”

They walk closer, carefully, trying to be quiet. But Roy steps on a branch he doesn’t see. It snaps, and the vague outline that might be a deer startles and runs, proving that yes, it is a deer. Roy pulls out his gun and fires, but misses, predictably.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Roy swears.

“What have we said about language?” Matt asks mildly.

“Come on, Uncle Matt. I’m not a baby anymore,” Roy protests. “Besides, I said ‘shit’ when I stubbed my toe on a rock on the way up here.”

“Yes, but ‘shit’ is disgusting and everyone makes it. ‘Bitch’ is an insult specifically for women, and calling something a ‘son of a bitch’ when you want to swear at it is basically saying that it’s the fault of mothers if their sons are terrible.”

“Well, who else’s fault would it be? Stupid b – stupid women don’t know anything, but they act like they know everything.”

“I think that’s a little bit of an overgeneralization. I know you’re not getting along with your mother lately—”

“She just makes me so mad. She’s always telling me what to do! Like she knows everything!”

“She is your mother,” Matt says mildly. “And she’s twenty-five years older than you. That does tend to make people know more than you.”

“Yeah, but not her. She really doesn’t know anything. Sometimes I just wanna punch her.”

“That happens to a lot of boys at puberty, but they get over it. By the time you’re twenty-five, you’ll be amazed at how smart your mother has suddenly become.” He smiles at Roy.

Roy glowers. “I don’t think so. Girls are just disgusting. I just want to hang out with men, like you. You’re not a dumbass, Uncle Matt. All the girls are dumbasses, but the guys aren’t.”

“That’s the hormones talking. You’ll get over it.” Matt points at the ground. “Do you see that?”

“No, what?”

“Tracks. For the deer.” Matt crouches down and points them out to Roy. “We can see what direction it went in, now.”

“Oh, yeah! I can see it now!” Roy starts to run, but Matt holds him back by the shoulder.

“Roy. Slow. Patient. Quiet. The deer can run faster than you or me, but it burns more energy doing that. If we walk, we catch up with it, because it’s got to rest. But if it hears us, it’ll run again. So we walk, and we’re quiet.”

“Right. I get it, Uncle Matt.” Roy is much more quiet and careful about where he puts his feet after that.

***

When Roy was eight, Matt walked the fields with him and showed him how to sow corn. They went to the vegetable plots and planted carrots and lima beans. Roy was so proud the day they harvested his carrots, and he got to eat one. Matt took him fishing the first time, that same year.

The little boys are always so sweet, so bright, so full of promise. It hurts so much when they don’t fulfill it.

Please, God, let Roy be all right. Let him get past this. Of course he would. Matt has been training him, teaching him since he was small (but there were others, other boys Matt had loved like his own sons, who he’d trained and taught, and they weren’t around here anymore).

He should have been around more often in the last three years. Roy was heading for puberty and that scared Matt. Still does. He visits the boy often, but Roy is right – they haven’t done anything together, just the two of them, in a long time.

“You ever spend any time with any of the young men? Jase, or Evan, or Fred?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I hang out more with the guys closer to my age. You know any of them? Steve, Paolo, Rafael?”

“Sure, yeah, I know them.”

“Paolo has a dad,” Roy says enviously. “When I grow up I want to be a dad.”

“Well, you’re in luck, because humanity needs more men to be dads,” Matt says. “You can go live where they’re using your donation, if you really want to be a dad, and help to raise the kid you helped make, or you can stay here and help raise the boys as an uncle, and maybe go out and visit the places where they used your donations.”

“How come I can’t stay here and raise a boy here?”

“Genetic variation. If we let human men have sons with their sisters, we get inbreeding. All kinds of diseases. Sending your donations to the other compounds makes us strong and healthy as a species.”

“Did you ever donate, Uncle Matt?”

“Back in my day, if your balls worked you had to donate. We didn’t have enough men. You know old Gran Stacie, she had to donate too. She couldn’t take the hormones to look feminine until there was a safe compound for women to live in and plenty of donations so the human race could keep going.”

“She’s okay, I guess. But the other girls are really stupid and gross.”

Matt stops Roy there. “Hey. You keep saying that. It’s like you’ve forgotten everything we taught you about our history.”

“I remember history,” Roy protests.

“So tell me. Why do we live this way? Why do women live in secure compounds with only a few men? A hundred years ago the world was very different. Tell me how it was, and what changed.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. You do.” Matt sits on the ground, and gestures for Roy to sit across from him. “Come on. Tell Uncle Matt all about it.”

Roy rolls his eyes. “A hundred years ago men and women lived together but then there was a disease and it made the men sick and the sickness made them want to hurt women so they couldn’t live with women anymore, the end,” he says in a rapid sing-song.

“No. That shit doesn’t fly with me, kid, and you know it doesn’t. Tell it to me right.”

Roy sighs. “Okay, okay. So. Back then, women and men lived together all the time and every kid had a dad, and the men still took care of the women but there weren’t a lot of men trying to kill them, just one or two weird ones.”

Matt, being an adult, is aware of how far this is skewed off the truth of what life was like a century ago, but the boys are being raised with no awareness of historical misogyny. Nothing to give the disease any historical justification it can hook onto. They learn more details when they’re proven to be safe. “So far so good.”

“So back then, there was this thing we used to do to kill flies where we made the male flies wanna kill the female flies instead of mate with them.” This is also a distortion of the facts, but Matt lets it go as well. “Then suddenly, men were trying to kill women instead of having sex with them. But it was just the straight men who were affected and they had to have balls. Women weren’t affected even if they had balls, and gay men weren’t affected, and men who didn’t have balls weren’t affected, and men who didn’t want sex even though they had balls weren’t affected, but all the men who had balls and wanted to have sex with women wanted to kill the women. And a lot of the time, little girls or old women that no one wanted to have sex with, because they thought in their heads it was God telling them to kill women or something. They didn’t know the truth.”

“And what was the truth?”

“That it was aliens. They spread the virus around on Earth because they wanted humans to die, just like the flies, so they could take the Earth for themselves. But humans are more complicated than flies. So there were men who were affected too much, who killed little boys because little boys look like little girls, and there were men who weren’t affected as much, who’d killed their wives but they were trying to protect their little girls. And there were men who didn’t have sex with women even if they wanted to because they were trying to honor God or something, and those men could resist wanting to kill, because the wanting to kill thing was related to wanting sex. If they could resist one, sometimes they could resist the other. Plus, all the asexual men and the gay men and the trans men and other kinds of men without balls like castrated men, plus the trans women, who could fake being men so they could stay alive. And there were also a lot of women with guns, too.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, most of the women got killed, and the men who were doing the killing, they didn’t have any kids. But the women who survived, they went into compounds where all the women had guns and they would kill strange men who came near them. And a lot of the kinds of men who didn’t want to kill women would help women get to those compounds. They called them ‘allies.’ You’d have been one if you were alive in those days, Uncle Matt.” This is said proudly. Roy doesn’t realize how much Matt is still called on to be an ally, even today.

“I would have, yes. So how did we get where we are today?”

“A lot of the places were run by women who hated men even before they started killing women, called rads, and the rads were okay with women getting donations from ally men, but if they had boy babies they wanted to send the babies to live with the men or else throw them outside and kill them. And the moms didn’t want to do that and they thought it was stupid. So they made their own compounds and they let ally men live there. And if boys grew up and they didn’t want to kill women, then they were allowed to give donations and be dads. But if they did, then they couldn’t be dads and they couldn’t live there anymore.”

So much heartbreak, so much agony, skimmed over so neatly and briefly. Mothers pleading with their baby boys, grown to young men, not to do this, before the boy killed the mother… or the mother killed the boy, in self-defense. Entire compounds of women lost because some mother couldn’t bear to kill her son, so she locked him away instead… and he got out. Boys with the compulsion to kill sent to live with the femicidal men, only to be killed themselves, because there were no boys among the men anymore and the young boys were more feminine than anything the killer men had seen in years, by then. Or castrated, so that they would theoretically be safe to stay, except humans were complex and some of them retained the femicidal compulsion even in the absence of testicles, and the horror of boys everyone thought were safe suddenly murdering their sisters. Gay boys in love, their hearts shattered when their love interest proved to have enough interest in women that he became a killer.

They’re more careful now. Things like that don’t happen anymore.

“And the killer men thought that the aliens were like messengers from God or something, but the women and the ally men killed a lot of aliens. And when lots of aliens were dead, they realized that their plan to get Earth for themselves by making the humans die out from killing all the women wasn’t going to work, because humans are complicated. So we guess they changed their minds, because they left and no one has seen them since.”

“And that’s a good thing. We lost a lot of people when the aliens were willing to fight back in self-defense. If they’d had the stomach for it, they might have won, and humanity might have been wiped out. But, we assume, they weren’t willing to die to take our planet; they’d been trying to kill us off so they could have all the bounties of the Earth without doing any damage from removing us. If you try to settle in swampland and you try to kill all the mosquitoes, and instead the mosquitoes start killing you back, maybe you go find somewhere else to live.” Or maybe you come back, later, with a new plan… but humanity has collectively decided that, while it’s important to try to have contingencies for that possibility, it’s more important to rebuild humanity and reclaim what was lost. Matt worries about that, but it’s not something he can do anything about.

“You think they’re ever going to come back, Uncle Matt?”

Maybe. “No. We kicked their butts hard enough I’m pretty sure they’re gone forever. But they left us with this giant mess to clean up.” He sighs. “This stuff you’re feeling about how girls are stupid and irritating and you can’t stand being around them? That says, you’re in puberty and you’re going to grow up to be attracted to girls. Maybe guys too, but definitely girls. And the virus is waking up in you, trying to turn your desire for girls into hatred, but it doesn’t have to win. A lot of guys make it through this stage no problem, and never hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t feel like a virus. It feels like they’re stupid and boring and gross and I hate them.”

“Of course it does. If it felt like a virus, the men a hundred years ago would have figured it out before they killed most of the women. It messes with your emotions, Roy. It takes feelings that are natural and normal, and twists them around. But if you understand that, then you don’t have to let it win.”

“Okay,” Roy said, and rocks backward, looking around him. “Can we go hunt for the deer now?”

“Sure, kid.” Matt gets to his feet. “We’re done here. You remember what they taught you about controlling your anger?”

“Yeah. Take deep breaths, take a step back from the situation, walk away if you hafta.”

“Right,” Matt says. “Let’s get a move on. That deer won’t shoot itself.”

***

They amble along through the woods. Another deer makes itself known, and Roy takes another shot, but misses. “Dammit! I was sure I had that shot!”

“I thought you did too,” Matt says. “But they move fast. You gotta be able to sneak up on them and shoot before they hear you coming.”

“Can you do that, Uncle Matt?”

“Used to. I’m older now; wouldn’t be surprised if the deer could hear the creak in my bones.” He grins.

And then they circle around a big rock, and there’s a girl.

She’s a teenager, about Roy’s age, maybe a little older. “Hi!” she says cheerfully. “I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone from around here! You’re from the compound down the mountain, right?”

Roy’s face twists into visible disgust, and he backs away. “That’s right,” Matt says calmly. “I’m Matt, and this is Roy.”

“My name’s Jennifer!” Jennifer has dark, wavy hair and tanned white-person skin. She’s wearing cutoff shorts, sneakers that have been patched many, many times – there are no companies that make goods from the old world like sneakers anymore – and a short-sleeved blue buttondown shirt that’s been tied up under her breasts to show her midriff, and opened in the front far enough to see her cleavage. When Matt was young, women were advised not to wear anything that could be arousing, because if they ran into a killer male, their life might depend on how much he was not turned on. By now, though, so many of the killer males are dead, and with women outnumbering men by three to one, the women and girls dress in whatever they want. It was never a good strategy for dealing with the killer males anyway; too many of them were willing to kill women dressed in nun robes, so it plainly had nothing to do with revealing clothes. There are numerous large lumps in her front pockets, which could be rocks, or animal bones, or any number of things.

Matt’s gay and far too old to see teenagers as anything other than young kids, but Roy is plainly very uncomfortable with Jennifer’s state of exposure. “What are you doing here?!” he half-shouts, angrily, at her.

“I’m from a compound on the other side of the mountain, and I hiked up here to try to collect mushrooms,” Jennifer says, her voice just a little bit too loud.

“Well, we’re hunting, so I’d like it if you could be a little quieter,” Matt says. “Don’t want to scare the deer.”

“Ooh! Hunting sounds fun! Can I join you?”

“No,” Roy says, loudly.

“Oh, come on!” Jennifer pouts. “I’ll be quiet!”

Matt takes in Roy’s trembling hands, the whiteness of his lips. Terror, or rage, or both. Roy’s expected to control himself no matter what the circumstances, but Matt… really doesn’t want to push him. Not now, when he’s so fragile. “Sorry, Jennifer, but Roy and I really came out for some uncle-nephew time. Maybe you can join us another time, but not now.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Huh,” she says. “Okay! I know a lot of guys like to go hunting with their dads or uncles when they’re thirteen. You’re thirteen, right?” This is directed to Roy.

“None of your business!” Roy snarls.

“Yeah, he’s thirteen,” Matt says tiredly. “Nice meeting you, Jennifer. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”

“And maybe we won’t,” Roy mutters. He and Matt hike up the trail, away from Jennifer. “Good riddance.”

“I want you to think about this anger you’re feeling. It’s really out of proportion to the situation, isn’t it?”

Roy sighs. “Uncle Ma-att, I just wanna go hunting with you! I don’t wanna talk about my feelings!”

“Sure, but it’s safest for everyone if you do. What’re you supposed to do when you feel really angry?”

“I already took a step back from the situation! I told her to go away!”

“Didn’t hear any deep breaths,” Matt says.

Roy manages to deeply breathe sarcastically. It’s an impressive trick. Matt would never have thought it possible to breathe in a sarcastic way. Most of it’s with body language and facial expression, but there’s definitely a sarcastic note in the breath itself. “Now can we go find a deer?”

“Maybe we’d have better luck setting up a snare to trap rabbits.”

Roy’s whole body sags. “I wanted to bring home venison, Uncle Matt! Nobody cares if you bring home a rabbit!”

“All right,” Matt says mildly. “We’ll keep going.”

***

The forest is full of sound. Birds chirp and call. Squirrels and other animals rustle in the branches and bushes. Many of the sounds go silent as Matt and Roy approach, but not all. They come up into a clearing, someplace where someone, long ago, had a concrete pad. Most of it’s broken and destroyed, but there’s enough of it that even after a hundred years, the forest hasn’t completely taken it back.

And then there is the deer, quietly grazing on the other side of the clearing.

Matt whispers to Roy as he points it out. “Quiet, now.”

Roy nods. There’s a broken half-wall part of the way through the clearing, blocking the deer’s view of them if they go low. Matt and Roy crawl toward it. Once they’re behind it, Roy pokes his head up, very slightly, following Matt’s hand signals. He lifts his rifle. Quietly. The deer doesn’t stir.

Matt hears a tiny click. His eyes go wide and his blood runs cold.

Jennifer comes bounding into the clearing behind them. “Hi, guys! Didn’t think I’d run into—”

The deer leaps and runs off. Roy spins around, utter rage in his face, and screams, “You stupid bitch!”

“Roy, don’t—” Matt tries to grab Roy, tries to pull him down, throw off his aim, but it’s too late. The gun goes off, twice. Splotches of red explode on Jennifer’s chest, and she falls backward, twisting as she does so she lands on her front. Red oozes out from underneath her.

Roy drops the gun from fingers suddenly dead white and shaking. “I – I didn’t mean to – I was so angry--”

Wounds where the red had blossomed on Jennifer would be fatal; she’d bleed out almost immediately, and the quantity of red seeping out from under her body suggests that that’s what happened. It looks like a strike to the aorta, or the heart itself, maybe. Matt cannot stop himself. “No, no, no—”

“I’m sorry!” Roy screams. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry—”

Matt gets hold of himself. “Roy. Roy, come here. Come here, son.” He means it as an endearment – Roy is neither his literal son, nor has he raised the boy as a father – but it’s real as well. Roy is like a son to him. All of them have been, and he loves Roy so much, and his heart is shattering.

Roy collapses in his arms, sobbing. Matt holds the boy tightly with one arm. “It’s not your fault, Roy, it’s not,” he tells the crying child, tears welling in his own eyes. “It’s the virus. I know you didn’t mean to. I know you’re a good boy.”

“I’m so sorry—I just got so mad, and the gun was in my hand—”

“I know,” Matt says, as the boy’s wet face presses against his shoulder. “I know. I love you so much, Roy, you know that?”

“I love you too, Uncle Matt,” Roy says into Matt’s shirt, still sobbing, and a sob escapes from Matt’s chest as well as he raises his pistol with the arm that isn’t holding his nephew, his child, his son, the little boy who trusts him and loves him, and as Roy cries against his chest and cannot see what he’s doing with his other hand, he lifts the pistol to Roy’s temple, awkwardly, being sure not to touch him with it, and fires.

The sobs stop. After a moment they start again, but they’re only Matt’s.

Jennifer gets up. “I’m sorry, Matt,” she says quietly.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” Matt snarls. “You provoked him! I told you to back off! I told you we weren’t having you join us!”

“I have to do my job,” Jennifer says wearily, and there is no longer any mistaking her for a teenager, despite the expertly applied makeup on her face. She’s short, she looks young, and with the right makeup none of the boys ever guess she’s not a teenage girl. There’s red all over her shorts, soaking her legs and belly, from where the bags of fake blood in her pockets burst, and splotches of red over her heart and her liver. The paint pellets look horrifically real; they even smell like blood.

No, wait, that’s probably Roy’s blood he’s smelling.

"Fuck your job.” Matt holds his little boy in his arms, with both arms now that he doesn’t need one free anymore. “You pushed him. If we’d just given him a little more time – a little more training—”

“And who might he have killed while you were giving him a little more time? His mom? One of the girls his age?”

“He wouldn’t have had a gun!—"

“He could have had a rock. Or a steak knife. Or a baseball bat. I’m so sorry, Matt, but—”

“If you say ‘that’s the law’ or ‘those are the rules’ to me, I will hit you,” Matt snaps. “Not because you’re a woman, but because you’re a piece of shit.”

She sighs. “I know you’re distraught. It’s horrible, having to do this—”

“You didn’t even know him!” Matt screams. “You didn’t watch him when he was little, you didn’t teach him to tie his shoes, you didn’t play airplane with him – you didn’t—”

“I had a son,” Jennifer says sharply. “Don’t tell me I don’t know how much it hurts, when we have to—I was 16 when I had my son. It was six years ago that – that he took his test, at thirteen, and he failed it.”

“There’ve been so many,” Matt whispers. So many little boys. Slightly less than half of them pass; that’s why the ratio of women to men is around 2:1. He was so, so relieved when Blake turned out to be a girl and took the name Cassandra, twelve years ago; the trans kids are immune to the violent impulses. He’d known that Cassandra wouldn’t have to face the test, that he’d never have to take her on a hunting trip she might never return from. So relieved when Joe, eight years ago, reported himself gay at eleven and then showed no sign of aggression toward his mother or sister or any girls his own age.

But all the others. All the others, he’d loved, and they’d loved him, and trusted him, and he took them up the mountain on a hunting trip… with a gun that could only shoot paint pellets and blanks, and the paint pellets only after the bait’s radio transmitter came into range and switched it on.

Roy would never have bagged a deer with that gun. But if he hadn’t shot Jennifer, if he’d controlled himself and proved he could overcome his femicidal impulses, Matt would have “discovered” that there was no ammo in it, and given Roy a different gun, and then they could have had a real deer hunt. Like Evan, ten years ago. Like Jamal, five years ago. Like LeBron… how long ago had LeBron even been?

He’d already decided he wouldn’t take on any new little boys, after Cole died. Roy was the last one, the last child to shepherd to adulthood, the last he had to test. “God,” he cries, holding the little boy he’s just killed in his arms. “Why couldn’t you have let me have the last one? Why didn’t you give him the strength to overcome it?” He rocks the body back and forth. “Why did you let any of this happen? Why do you make us have to kill our sons?”

“God’s got nothing to do with this,” Jennifer says softly. “This is evil. If God allowed such evil as this to exist, then She’s not worth worshipping, and if She can’t stop it, then there’s no point in blaming her. It was the aliens.”

The aliens his ancestors drove off planet, who he’ll never have a chance to fight, or get revenge on. There’s no one he can blame who’s here. He understands the system, he understands the necessity. Little boys who try to commit femicide once don’t have the control to stop themselves from doing it again, and if it’s not the bait with her paint bags in her shorts and the radio transmitter to make the gun fire paint pellets, it’ll be a girl or women who really dies because the boy will have a real weapon. They can’t let the femicides live among them, and they can’t send them away to live with the few bands of roving femicidal men that still exist… the only reason those still exist was that once upon a time, femicidal sons were turned out into the wilderness. Where they could grow up to be bandits who invaded compounds, stole the food, and murdered the women. The men, too, because the men would defend the compound, but the women they’d hunt and kill for fun.

He would never have wanted a future like that for Roy. But he didn’t want this, either.

“I’m… I’m going to go. I’ll radio the compound and let them know the results of the test.”

“You do that,” Matt says bitterly. He knows his anger isn’t fair. He knows his attempt to drive Jennifer off, put off the test at the last minute and get her to come back another day so Roy could maybe develop stronger self-control first, was wrong. He knows it could have resulted in Roy murdering someone he loves. Loved. But how much better is it that Matt had to murder someone he loves? Why do they need to kill the teen boys to protect the women? Oh, he knows why, he signed on for this job years ago because he knew why, he’s seen what happened when a boy grew into a killer and turned on the women he knew. But why has God or Fate or Allah or whatever the fuck is up there listening to human prayers allowed this? Why is this horrible thing something that they are forced to do?

After what seems like hours, crying and holding Roy’s body and whispering how sorry he is, he’s finally out of tears. He looks down at his pistol. Cole’s dead six years on now, and there’s no man in his bed waiting for him, back home. There’s no little boy he’s working with, and there will never be one again. Is there anyone to care if he lives or dies, now? What if he ate a bullet, right now, so he could stop seeing Roy and Jason and Manuel and little Matt, named for him and he still shot him in the head while the boy was bent over the bait’s body, and all the others, all the boys who loved and trusted him, and failed the test he brought them into? Was there any good reason not to?

…there were the boys who’d lived. Adults now, all of them, but they loved and respected him as their old uncle, and they still were willing to spend time with him, sometimes. There were the girls, who yelled “Mister Matt! Mister Matt!” when they saw him and crowded around him, showing off their accomplishments, and he’d never have to take any of them up the mountain. There are trans boys who just figured it out, and need an older man to mentor them and teach them how to be a man, and none of them will ever need to go up the mountain either. There are the gay boys who want to talk to him about boyfriends, and how to date a guy, and how sex works, and all the other things gay boys need to know.

He can still help the children. But he’s never going to take on a little boy as his nephew again.

After a few more moments, he picks up Roy’s rifle, which can’t fall into the wrong hands, and his own pistol, and slings them into the holsters he has for them, on his belt or on his back. Then he picks Roy up and cradles him. A fireman’s carry would be easier, especially with the long hike down the mountain, but he wants to give his boy’s body as much dignity as he can. He won’t sling Roy over his shoulder like a flour sack. He’ll carry the dead weight of the boy down the mountain, and then he’ll carry it for the rest of his life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

this space intentionally left blank

triggers listed at bottom because they are spoilers

dashboard removes all the line spaces

so I have to put lines in

Triggers: Child death. Serious misogyny. A backstory from the original story that involves a worldwide near-complete femicide.

#52 project #inktober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #horror #science fiction #spooky5 #more horrifying than spooky though

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parallelparkingproblems · 3 years

Photo

01/20/2021

I try not to look at thinspo everyday, but I love quizzes so here goes:

1. Height: 5′5 HW: 197 CW: 190 GW1: 175 (overweight weight range, back to high school weight) GW2: 150 (normal weight range) GW3: 125 (”ideal” weight for my height, thinnest I’ve ever been) UGW: 115 (model skinny for me

2. 5′5. I wish I was taller so I could look nicer in some styles of clothes, but when I’m thinner I’m pretty happy with my height.

3. I absolutely love how light and floaty she looks, and how her collarbones look. I remember looking like this and feeling almost that weightless. I also hate how fat my thighs are, and hers are so gorgeous.

4. I’m so scared about loose skin. I hate the idea of having wiggly thighs and deflated boobs.

5. I want to remember what it feels like to feel excited to get dressed in the morning. I miss loving fashion so much.

6. I don’t usually binge, but sometimes I end up eating more than I planned. Mostly I just try to keep a 1000 calorie deficit between what my FitBit says and how much I log in MFP.

7. My parents both know. My dad tells me I don’t need to, but then makes fun of fat women day in and day out. He’s constantly dieting and gorging himself, and always bringing shitty food into the house. My mom knows I have trouble with eating enough, and I’m trying to be better about being healthier for her. She knows I used to restrict a lot, but she doesn’t know I still do. I try to keep her at arm’s reach, because when she knows I’m dieting, anything I try to eat she tries to replace with baby carrots/spinach/etc. so any time I work up the nerve to eat she makes it practically impossible for me to eat enough. She thinks 1000 calories is too much to eat in a day, but regularly eats around 2500.

8. I try to burn 2,500-3,000 calories every day. I’ve always walked a lot, but I recently tried to run and got stress fractures because of a calcium and iron deficiency. Now, I’m trying to stick to low-impact stuff until I can get in with a physical therapist, like rollerskating. I just got an elliptical off of Facebook marketplace, so I’m trying that for a while.

9. My parents, doctors, friends... everyone.

10. The hardest thing is not eating the food my roommates make. They make this delicious, but super fattening food, and get so sad when I never eat any.

11. I’m not sure, mostly just browsing the sweetspo tag

12. I really love Yerba Mate tea and fruit, so I usually end up eating those things, along with low-calorie frozen meals and canned soups, or bagels/english muffins. I’m working on incorporating more water, vegetables, and protein/calcium into my diet.

13. I’m really trying to lose it in a healthy way. I’m in college and I know enough about biology and anatomy to know how badly restricting can fuck up your heart, but I struggle with over-exercising and portion sizes.

14. My UGW is 115 or so. I’m not exactly set on this, but I definitely don’t want to go under 110. I just want to have small thighs, and feel light.

15. I’m not strictly either, but I eat very little dairy because lactose hurts my stomach, and very little meat because I hate to cook it. I would definitely believe either of these would help me lose weight, since it would help me avoid places like McDonalds.

16. I first decided to lose weight when I was in 4th grade. I wasn’t successful until the summer of 8th grade, when I was sick and tired of being fat. I lost about 40 lbs in 3 months (170 -> 130) by over exercising and sticking to 1,200 calories a day, and it was miserable. I’m now a junior in college, and my weight has crept up to 190 (as high as 197). I’m trying to lose about 70 lbs now.

17. Probably, but I’m really trying to manage it healthily. I experience so much body dysphoria and so many impulses to restrict but I try to over exercise instead of eating too little when I can.

18. Easily french fries, and ice cream. I love both so dearly.

19. I had Taco Bell yesterday and I regret it. It wasn’t even worth it.

20. My favorite diet is fruit, water, and low-cal soup and frozen meals-- nothing special.

21. I’m a size 14 in jeans, size 12 in dresses. My bra size is a fucking giant 34J (SO excited to lose some boob).

22. My lowest weight was 130. I gained the weight during high school and college during which I experienced multiple instances of sexual assault and anxiety over abuse at home.

23. 100%, but the thing that got me to actually change was wanting to fit in. No one seemed to want to be friends with the fat girl.

24. I understand them-- I think people use the terms in different ways. Some people mean they’re in favor of perpetuating the disease, and some mean they’re in favor of accepting and recognizing them. The latter is valid, the former is not.

25. No, I haven’t. I over-exercise for sure, but I’ve never thrown up because I ate.

26. I can’t wait to for it to be easier for me to run, and to look cute in shorts. Also to be able to fit into those cute tiny bralettes once my boobs shrink.

27. I let myself have some treats. My mantra is that I can have some fun stuff, just not every single thing I want.

28. It would be amazing but I’m trying to be OK with it if I can’t get it. My hips are wide enough I think it could happen though.

29. Light, graceful, confident.

(I’ll save 30 for the the next time I post, to track progress!)

#anareksya #bulimxa #thinspo challenge #thinspo

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unkemptgardens · 4 years

Text

CHAPTER FOUR

The following morning Tesla was awoken by the timer kicking the lights on in her face. She squinted against the purple. The plants all had fully-formed buds on them. She shot out of bed to investigate.

Completely frosted. A mix of white and amber trichomes, fully covered, like a cupcake. The buds were then layered with a thick coat of orange hairs. The buds themselves were dense and gigantic, taking up the majority of each stalk's length. Tesla rushed to find Daisy.

A few hours later the bud was harvested and spread out in a mesh hanger to cure. Harvesting had been promising. They had went through a few pairs of scissors because the trichomes kept gumming up the blades. Each plant was different. Daisy had loved picking out the different terpenes with her nose. She inhaled the bud she was holding. “Beta-caryophyllene, limonene...a little humulene?”

“I think that's the Girl Scout Cookies. It smells like my last bag. Only a million times better.” Tesla had never seen weed like this in her life. She couldn't believe it. Daisy was the real deal. She even did magic to speed up the curing process – they were hoping the faint grass smell would be gone by tomorrow.

It was Sunday so the shop was closed. Daisy didn't feel like working on the website on her day off so they hung out and relaxed instead. Daisy did another tarot reading for Tesla which turned out to be hopeful and encouraging. Tesla then tried her hand at doing one for Daisy, but the messages were conflicting. Tesla helped Daisy repot some of her plants and even ate some of her peanut-butter tofu stir-fry (worth eating). They checked on the weed.

Tesla smelled a perfect nugget. “It smells ready. Shall we try it out?”

“Me?”

“We'll compare notes.”

Daisy didn't say no and didn't kick Tesla out when she started breaking a bud up. She sat down at the table where Tesla finished loading a bowl into a rainbow pipe that had a large chip on the side.

“Okay, I'm gonna need you to corner this. You don't want to get too high. Just burn a small bit and then stop. Don't get brave,” instructed Tesla.

Daisy took the pipe. She did as she was told, nailed it, and then handed the pipe back. She waited. “I don't think I feel anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Wait, no.”

“........”

“Wait, no,” Daisy repeated and then she burst out laughing.

Tesla eagerly took a puff. Her body instantly melted and suddenly she had a big, goofy grin.

“How do you feel now?” she asked Daisy.

“Like I wanna go on a walk.”

“Where?”

“The backyard?”

“You don't have a backyard.”

“Damn.”

They settled on the park. Daisy was having the time of her life looking at all the different trees and was completely incapable of playing it cool in public. Tesla had little success hushing her.

“LOOK AT THE WEEPING WILLOW, TESLA!” She did this with each new tree. It was a park full of trees.

Somewhere between an oak and an elm Tesla was hit with a full-blown munchies attack. She needed food, and she needed it now. “Daisy. Daisy we have to leave.”

“Is that person over there with the binoculars sketching you out too?”

“They're bird watching.”

“Oh.”

“No, I've got the munchies. Let's go get food.”

They couldn't find Tesla's jeep. It took them a quarter hour to realize they were on the wrong side of the park. Then they got lost on the drive back to the shop. Finally they made it back. Tesla realized that she had completely forgotten to stop and get munchies and had to settle for Daisy's weird pantry. They gorged themselves on spicy dried fruit, granola yogurt bites, dark chocolate, baby carrots and humus, and kelp chips.

“This might be the weed talking, but these kelp chips are really hitting the spot,” said Tesla, slouched on the couch, covered in crumbs.

Daisy looked out the window. “It's already dark! How long has it been?”

Tesla checked her phone and sat up. “Wow. Hours. Usually you don't feel it for this long unless you, like, eat edibles or something.”

“Well I think I'm getting sleepy. I'm going to go to bed.”

“Me too.”

The next morning they were both still high. “Okay, this is weird,” said Tesla, accidentally buttering her phone instead of her toast. “We shouldn't still be high.”

“....was it all of the magic?”

“Probably, Daisy. I have a confession to make. I was doing magic every night too! You kept going on and on about intention magic, I figured it wouldn't hurt to talk to some plants. They're honestly a good audience.”

“Tesla! So we're too high?”

“I mean, I am, and I can only imagine how you feel, never having smoked before.”

“I just thought this was what it was like!” All of Daisy's clothes were on inside-out.

“Just give it a little bit.”

It did eventually wear off, much to Daisy's relief. She kept losing things. On one occasion, after a half-hour of searching for her keys, Witchcat brought them to her, rabbit's foot in mouth, and released them at her feet with an exasperated sigh. On another occasion, while cooking, she had looked all over the kitchen for her spoon only to realize she had been holding it the entire time.

“A day and a half!” said Tesla excitedly. “This weed is magic.”

“I don't know, you don't think it's too strong? I forgot the word 'door.'”

Tesla waved it off. “It's fine. I'll start selling tomorrow.”

And away she went! The next morning Tesla's very first stop was the library. She marched right up to the librarian's desk. “Meet me in the occult section.” Five minutes later they were face to face with Tesla's backpack between them. “It's magic.”

Charles looked up from where he was inspecting a fat purple nugget. “Yes, but what do you mean?”

“We grew it with magic! Daisy did her green witch thing and I talked to them a lot!”

“Magnificent. I'll take a quarter.”

Then Tesla went to the local college campus where she had pretty good luck. Finally, she found herself inside of The Third Eye. She did feel a little guilty, but then Jack spotted her and came over with a wave.

“Tesla! Right?”

“Haha. Yeah. Haha.”

“You didn't bring your friend, did you?”

“Don't worry, I think she hates you just as much as you hate her.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, hey, I actually came in today because I just grew some just absolute dank. I'll smoke a bowl with you and you can decide if you want some.”

They went to a back room, where there was already a bong out on the coffee table. It was surrounded by loveseats in a circular fashion. She picked the one in the middle, small and cushioney.

Tesla's backpack reeked. She pulled out the bags. “Look at this madness.”

Jack was thoroughly impressed. “Okay, I want some.”

“Just wait! Bong?”

“You bet.”

Tesla loaded her up and offered him the green hit, which he took in a practiced manner. The effect was immediate. It was an indica, and he grew very still and soft, eyes unfocused. “That tasted exactly like berries,” he said finally.

Tesla threw her arms up in a touchdown. “It’s the best!” She took the bong for herself. She hesitated a moment, remembering how completely baked she was last time. Had she been too high? Impossible. She took a big rip. The lights got brighter, the colors more vivid. Suddenly she heard every single lyric coming from the small laptop in the corner, which she hadn’t noticed before. Then she forgot where she was.

“I think this is the highest I’ve ever been,” she heard. She looked over at Jack staring at his outstretched hands and remembered. Then she felt ridiculous and giggled at herself for a bit. “Do you want some?” she asked. She sold him an eighth. It was hard for him to count out the money but they managed. They both sunk further and further into the couch, letting the music play. It was wonderful.

“What is this?”

“I don’t remember.”

They talked a little. “What’s the deal with your friend?”

“Daisy. Get this: she owns an occult shop. On the other side of town. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah I think I’ve heard of it. Six Roads?”

“Five Roads.”

“How’d she get that name?”

“Said it came to her in a dream.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah, she’s just as weird as you, don’t hate her. I know she was a lot when she was in here, but she really isn’t that bad. She just kind of lost it when she found out about your shop.”

“She didn’t know about it?”

“I don’t think she gets out much.”

They stared dreamily off into space for a bit. “You think I’m weird?” asked Jack after a minute.

“A little.”

“Why?”

Tesla laughed. “I’m not into all this.” She gestured around her at the room in general, hung with tapestries and filled with candles and incense smoke. “I think it’s cute though.”

“You bought enchanted lube!”

“I mean, I couldn’t not buy the enchanted lube.”

“Do you like it? I enchanted it myself.”

“How do you enchant lube?”

Jack grinned. “Trade secret. Now that I know you’re friends with the competition.”

“It better not be weird.”

“It’s not. It’s very normal.”

“Enchanting lube?”

“Yes.”

Tesla’s phone vibrated. It was Daisy, wondering if she wanted dinner. Tesla smiled at the thoughtfulness. “Well, I better go. It was nice talking to you again.” They said goodbye and Tesla left in a blissful haze. She couldn’t get her jeep open. It took awhile for her to realize she was pressing the lock button. But the ride home was fairly uneventful and soon she was in Daisy’s tiny, delicious-smelling kitchen, dumping her cash from that day onto the table.

“Are you kidding me?” squealed Daisy. “This is enough for rent!”

Tesla rolled up her sleeves and started flexing and kissing her muscles.

Daisy squinted. “You’re super-stoned again!” she accused.

Tesla laughed. “No I’m not!”

Daisy crossed her arms. “If I have twelve apples and I take away five and add seventeen apples, how many apples do I have?”

“What, are you dealing apples? Another day at the ol’ apple factory?”

“See! You couldn’t figure it out if you tried!”

“Daisy, sometimes the answer comes from within.” Daisy rolled her eyes and set a plate of steaming vegetables down in front of Tesla, who glady dug in. She had eaten more green stuff since living with Daisy than she had in the past six months.

“Well I’m not smoking the stuff anytime soon again. It was fun and everything, but that is just too much for me,” said Daisy.

They discussed what they still had left to do for the website, and how the new source of income could benefit the shop. Tesla was too super-stoned to be helpful. “Let’s get one of those crazy, inflated floppy men out front!”

They talked about their day.

“Don’t be mad, but I sold weed to the guy at The Third Eye.”

“Tesla! He’s the competition! Don’t associate with him!”

“I said don’t be mad. His money’s just as good as anyone else’s.” Tesla didn’t mention his soulful eyes or pretty smile. Or that he only bought an eighth. “Well, how was the shop today? Any new customers?”

Daisy sighed. “Not yet.”

The next few days flew by. The shop, as always, was slow, but gave Daisy plenty of time to work on the website, which they got up and running. Daisy reorganized and looked at adding new inventory. She also started considering taking ads out in the local newspaper or perhaps having a commercial run on the radio. She had the funds now. Tesla, who had taken to wearing sunglasses inside and smoking cigars, brought in a steady stream of cash everyday from selling. Tesla noticed her repeat customers were all still super-stoned, but that they just wanted different strains of her “magic weed.” Each time, they went on and on about how good it was. She could recognize her customers, many of them college students, throughout town from a mile away. Many of them were conspicuous in some manner. For example, one girl looked like she had accidentally slathered toothpaste all over her face instead of moisturizer. Tesla didn’t have the heart to tell her. She had come down from her own magic high and had opted to take a break from the World’s Best Bud. She didn’t see it as a problem, however, until things started hitting close to home.

Tesla recognized that some of her campus customers worked at Arby’s, which, naturally, she frequented. It started out small. No Arby’s sauce in the bag. Barely noticeable, normal even. Then, no curly fries. No curly fries! How could they? Soon, the entire order was missing. It was just a paper bag with one measly napkin in it.

Tesla went inside. “Who’s in charge here?” she asked at the counter. The three employees, all super-stoned, all looked at each other blankly, as though they had forgotten.

Tesla held up the paper bag. “You forgot my entire order!” The employee at the register, Kyle, who had bought an eighth, looked into the bag and broke into a lopsided grin.

“Whoa,” he said.

Tesla waited. “Well?”

“What did you order again?”

Ten minutes later, Tesla left with extra fries, dessert, and two extra sandwiches. She was a little worried though. Would things be like this forever? She noticed things amiss on the way home too. Everyone was driving with a blinker light on. At a four-way, no one knew who was supposed to go and then everyone tried to go all at once. It might’ve caused an accident but everyone was driving too slowly. “Does this whole town smoke weed?” cried Tesla in frustration.

Shortly at Daisy’s, Tesla brought it up. “We have to do something!”

“Just stop selling it! It’ll wear off eventually.”

“Will it? Samantha only bought a gram and today I saw her give her entire order at Arby’s to the sign without the speaker in it.”

Daisy’s expression brightened and she snapped her fingers. “I know! We can go visit Charles and see how he feels!”

#the fools #writeblr #witchcraft #weed #chapter fourrrrr i did it

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