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artiststarme · 1 year

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Eddie Saves Steve's Birthday

Part 2 of the "The Party Forgets Steve's Birthday" fic! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Eddie felt awful, in fact, he’d never felt worse. He would rather go back to the Upside Down and get torn into by bats again than have to hear Steve say that the Party only cared about him as the babysitter. He couldn’t think of anyone more deserving of a big birthday celebration than Steve and instead he was working a long shift at Family Video alone without any acknowledgement of his birthday from the kids. It wasn’t fair.

He used to think Steve had everything. He was the cool jock, rich kid with rich parents, huge house, and tons of friends. Eddie never could have imagined then that Steve was just another lonely kid with absent parents and friends that forgot about his birthday. Even now, they were both part of the same group that had literally risked their lives to save them from the creepy-crawlies in the Upside Down and no one paid enough attention to realize it was Steve’s birthday.

Just thinking about the defeated look on Steve’s face made Eddie’s heart stutter in grief. He didn’t care what it took, he was going to fix this. But to do that, he was going to need Wayne.

By the time Eddie got home from his talk with Steve and the minor freakout he had in the back of his van, Wayne was getting ready to leave for work. That just wouldn’t do. So Eddie did the one thing that always worked for him and threw his arms around his uncle in a restrictive embrace.

“Uncle Wayne, I need your help. It’s absolutely urgent, life-threatening, you could say. I need you and if you don’t help me, I will die.”

Wayne was far too used to his dramatics to fall for that. He patted Eddie’s back before trying to gently pry himself free. “Kid, my shift starts in an hour, I gotta get goin’.”

“No, I’m serious, I really need your help. Everyone forgot Steve’s birthday today! He’s devastated, I’m horrified, Robin is on a date, and the kids are unhelpful! I need you!” Eddie broke out his most potent puppy dog eyes and blinked up at his uncle.

Wayne sighed. “I’ll tell Craig I have a stomach bug. What do you need me to do?”

“Steve gets off work at ten tonight. I need you to distract him towards the end of his shift and get him to come back here. Kidnap him if you have to, that’s what the Chief does and it always seems to work.”

“Kidnap him? Eds-” Wayne started but Eddie cut him off.

“Please! I have to steal a camera from Jonathan, break into the Harrington house, and bribe the bakers into giving me a cake. I don’t have time to force Steve to come over too.”

“Now wait a minute, all of that sounds criminal. Eddie-” Wayne sounded the most alarmed that he ever has but Eddie took it in stride.

“Wayne. He said he hasn’t celebrated his birthday in years, literal years. And considering you have a birthday every year, that’s a lot of birthdays that he’s spent alone. So we have to get him here by any means necessary and show the pretty bastard that we love him. Okay?”

Wayne looked at him for a long time but eventually he gave a little nod. “What time should I head out?”

~*~*~*~

Steve wasn’t used to seeing Wayne around town and he had never once come into Family Video. So when the bell rang and swung open to reveal a stressed Wayne Munson, he didn’t really know what to think. Wayne looked around the store slightly before walking directly up to the counter.

Steve nodded at him and narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Um hey, Mr. Munson. Welcome to Family Video, how can I help you?”

Wayne scratched a hand through his beard before humming. “You, uh, you have any good recommendations?”

“You want to hear about my recommendations? Really?” Steve looked at him, flabbergasted. No one had ever cared to ask what he watched.

“‘Course, that’s why I asked. What do you like to watch? Anything good?”

“Have you seen Back to the Future? It was a little hard to understand because he actually goes back to the past and I think he wanted to bang his mom, it was really confusing. It’s a good one but I’m not sure if it’s really good or if I only liked it because I was super high.”

Wayne nodded at him, not even phased at his enthused rambling. “That does sound interestin’. Any other ones?”

“Oh my god, yes! Have you seen Clue? Tim Curry is in that one, he’s the guy from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that has the nice legs. He shows less leg in this one but oh, you should see Miss Scarlet. It’s truly the best of both worlds, Mr. Munson, let me tell you-”

If this was the best his night got on his birthday, Steve would be content. Wayne was listening to him rant about his current favorite movies with rapt attention and kept asking questions in the appropriate places to keep the conversation going. Steve couldn’t even remember the last time someone actually wanted to listen to him talk. The Munsons always managed to surprise him in the best way possible. What could get better than this?

~*~*~*~

With Wayne on Steve Duty, Eddie had more than enough time to coerce Jonathan into letting him borrow a camera, sneak through Loch Nora to collect some of Steve’s favorite tapes, and guilt-trip the bakery ladies into giving him a cake on short notice.

After assuring Jonathan that he wasn’t trying to record a sex tape with any of his equipment, he lent him a small Polaroid (he didn’t trust the odd request from Eddie so there was no way in hell he was letting him borrow a tape recorder). Eddie didn’t argue though. He just needed something to commemorate Steve’s first birthday in the family and a Polaroid would do just that.

The trip to the bakery though took longer than anticipated. Florence, the owner of Flo’s Baked Goods, was not in a generous mood at 4 PM on a Tuesday. Luckily, Eddie was known for being very persuasive which worked in his favor.

“Florence, come on. Do me a favor, please?” He asked with his most woeful puppy dog eyes.

“Edward, I told you already, you need to place an order ahead of time.”

“Florence, my dear, I didn’t anticipate my grandma to die! I didn’t have time to place an order and I need a cake for her funeral tonight. Please Flo? For me?” His lip wobbled slightly as if tears were close to follow. He needed to pull out all of his stops to get that cake.

She sighed in exasperation. “I can give you a small one, alright? And you’re not getting extras, I actually have orders to work on.”

“That’s okay! Thanks Flo, I appreciate it and so will St- my dead grandmother. May she rest in peace.”

That worked out great! Sure, Eddie had to make an extra stop at the grocery store for some red frosting to write Steve’s name on it but the smile on his face would be well worth it. Or rather a pitying grimace.

Unfortunately, Eddie was not a baker or a designer by any means. So the red lettering on the cake turned into a drippy mess that looked more like a crime scene than a birthday cake. He also didn’t have great space management. Instead of making the font smaller to fit on the cake, Eddie largely wrote “BIRTH STEVE” and couldn’t fit anything else. Eager to make the best of the situation, he threw some colorful sprinkles on there to liven things up. Ah, Steve would love it.

The situation only got more complicated when he went to pick up Steve’s favorite movies from his house. Eddie parked his van in the driveway and picked the lock to the front door. Steve was at work, his parents weren’t home (not that they would have let him in if they were), and the emergency key under the doormat wasn’t there so he had to take drastic measures.

He grabbed a few of the movies in Steve’s room that he knew were his favorite that he didn’t have at the trailer. Fast Times, Back to the Future, Clue, The Breakfast Club, Teen Wolf, basically everything that Eddie hated but he was willing to watch anything for Steve. He grabbed a few cassettes too in case they decided to listen to music instead. All of the tapes were disappointingly mediocre and Eddie made a mental note to introduce him to some real music. After that, Steve would never listen to fucking Tears for Fears ever again. Or Wham!, the bane of his existence.

What Eddie had neglected to consider was how the nosey neighbors would react to seeing a random van in the Harrington driveway and a random kid messing with the front door. He should’ve expected the cops to come. He opened the front door to the barrel of Hopper’s gun.

“Son of a bitch, Chief! What the hell are you waving that around for?!” Eddie exclaimed, dropping his small duffel bag and throwing his hands in the air.

“What the hell? Munson?” Admittedly, Hopper had shown up at a bad time. Eddie was lugging a duffel bag out of the Harrington house to his hastily parked van in a neighborhood he definitely didn’t belong in.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he told him quickly.

“It looks like you’re robbing the Harrington’s place,” Hopper said deadpan.

“Well, I’m not!”

“What are you doing then?” Hopper asked him sarcastically.

“I’m not robbing him! I’m trying to save Steve’s birthday. I was just getting some supplies.” Eddie explained hurriedly.

“It’s Steve’s birthday today?”

“Yep and he’s going to be pissed if he has to come bail me out of jail because you arrested me. Think about that,” Eddie said, pointing an accusing finger at him. Wayne and Steve would both be pissed if he got arrested again.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re stealing his stuff,” Hopper stated in confusion.

“I’m throwing him a little party back at my place, we’re having a movie night so I had to get his favorite movies. I don’t have this teen drama shit. But Steve does and I’m trying to give him a nice night.”

Hopper just looked at him blankly.

“So can I go? I know you don’t want to break Stevie’s heart by arresting me on his birthday and don’t you want to get home to your family this lovely Tuesday evening? Who needs the extra hassle of detaining little ole me?”

“Goddammit Munson, just get out of here. You’re making the neighbors antsy. And don’t do this again.” Hopper warned him before walking over to his cruiser.

“Copy that, Chief! Keep protecting the people or whatever the fuck your pledge is. Have a nice night!” And then he was off again.

~*~*~*~

Steve must’ve talked about his favorite movies for hours before he realized it was time to close and Wayne was still there. “Um, Mr. Munson? I’m sorry, you probably had things to do today and I wasted all your time ranting at you. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be, kid. It was nice hearing from you. Say, I’m sure Eddie would want to hear about some of those movies too. Could you come over tonight and tell us some more about ‘em?” Wayne offered.

Steve could tell a pity offer when he saw one though. “No, that’s okay. I can tell him another time. I have to start closing if you want me to check you out?”

Wayne sighed and made direct eye contact with him. “Listen kid, I know today’s your birthday and you aren’t spending it alone. So, you can either follow me back to the trailer or I’m gonna kidnap you and drag you there. You got me?”

Steve just looked at him in shock. What was up with older father figures trying to kidnap him? Was there something on his face that told them, ‘hey, I’m a good target for kidnapping, take me’? Was Wayne in kahoots with Hopper because this trend was getting a bit ridiculous.

“Wayne-”

“Nope, Eddie wants you there and I want you there. What are you going to do instead? If you have a good excuse, I’ll leave right now and break that boy’s heart.” Wayne looked at him expectantly. When it became apparent that Steve wasn’t going to say anything, he nodded. “Good, I’ll see you at the trailer. Drive safe.”

What the hell? Was that how age twenty was going to be? Confusing and full of ups and downs? Jesus Christ.

Steve finished closing the store quickly and made his way to Forest Hills. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on today but if they wanted to spend time with him, he wasn’t going to turn them down. The Munsons were some of his most favorite people and it’s not like there was a long list of people that wanted him around.

As soon as he opened the door to the trailer, everything made a little bit more sense. There were party streamers hanging from the walls, the most gruesome cake he had ever seen sitting on the table, and birthday hats on top of a beaming Eddie and an indifferent Wayne. Tears filled Steve’s eyes as he laughed. He couldn’t believe that they’d done all of that for him.

“Happy birthday, Stevie! I love you!” Eddie yelled, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips and pulling him into a bruising hug.

Wayne patted his shoulder a bit awkwardly and murmured, “I love you too kid but I ain’t kissin’ ya.”

Steve could hardly even speak through the rush of happiness he was feeling. Eddie had found a way to make his birthday special again. He’d cared enough to spend his day organizing a nice night for Steve to feel loved again, to feel happy on his special day. Sure, not everything was fixed and there was still a small amount of hurt that the kids and Robin hadn’t done anything. But he had Eddie and Wayne and they were all he really needed. He finally had a family and he couldn’t be any happier. Eddie was right, ‘86 truly was a great year.

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#The kids see a polaroid taped to Eddie’s fridge a few weeks later of them smiling in front of the cake #That's how they find out they missed Steve’s birthday.#Eddie holds a grudge against them and bars them from seeing Steve for awhile #He also murders all of their characters in DnD but that's neither here nor there #stranger things #steddie #steddie ish #fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #chief hopper #uncle wayne #wayne munson #jonathan byers

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baby-fics · 6 months

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"Could you do a fic of the lost boys (David, Dwayne, Paul and Marko) with a little who wont/ can't settle. Crying whenever they're put down to sleep. What would they do?"

(As someone who loves the lost boys more than anything, Absolutely yes I can. They're like my biggest comfort characters, hope y'all like this! Forgive me if it's awkward, I haven't written a fic in a hot minute!)

It's Sunrise, Bedtime of Course!☀️

(CW: Descriptions of bugs and creepy crawlies, hurt/comfort I think?, minor angst.)

Arms reached around you while you were drawing on the floor, picking you up and peppering kisses over your face.

"Pauley I was drawing!" You said while giggling.

"Sorry sweets boss says it's bedtime.." The giggles stopped and you pouted at Paul.

"But can't we just stay up for a little bit? Please? I'm not even tired!" The puppy eyes you used were lethal, so to resist Paul put you on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. When you saw David standing right behind him.

"Sorry baby cakes, suns coming up soon. Don't worry, we'll do something fun tomorrow night okay?" David took you from Paul and headed deeper into the cave to join your Daddies for bedtime.

You started to get fussy and fidgety, something didn't feel right.. all of the boys would be sleeping above you... But you'd be all alone, in this spooky cave with things that skitter, in the dark, by yourself. Youve only just recently moved in with them, still getting used to its charms. Feeling smaller and more afraid, you tried to leave David's arms and go back.

"Woah babycakes, bedtime! Why you being fussy?" he said with tiredness and sternness in his voice, holding onto you securely. You tried to speak, but the words just weren't there- so you did the next best thing. You started to cry, you were frustrated and a little scared, being alone even if they would be less than 20 feet above you.

Dwayne and Marko, who were setting up your nest and getting one of Marko's shirts for you to sleep in, dropped what they were doing and went over to you. All of the boys were now confused as to what was wrong, which was even more stressful!

The only work you felt like you knew how to say was "No!" So you just held onto David as tight as you could and repeatedly said "No" while crying. The boys were confused, you were okay a second ago! David tried to set you down but you just clung harder to him. David is a smart boy and so is Dwayne, once you did that they shared a knowing glance. Heading behind David, Dwayne put a cool hand on your face to get your attention,

"Would you feel better if we stayed baby?" Dwayne said caressing your cheek with his thumb. With wide eyes you looked at Dwayne and quickly nodded your head, gripping onto the back of David's jacket.

"Oh honey... Why didn't you just say so? You know your daddies will always sleep with you if you want us to!" Marko cooed to you joining Dwaynes side. They frowned when they saw their effort of cheering you up just made you curl into David's embrace more, to which he tightened his own grip, rubbing soft circles with his leather clad hand.

They walked over to the nest, the baby bat still hanging on to their covens leader. Refusing to let go until all of them, David included, promised they would stay with you tonight. To which they did, offering a pinkie promise that they couldn't break. Then the tears began to slow, letting yourself be put down as long as they stayed close by. Calming down knowing they would be right here, never having to go to sleep in an empty bed again.

You put your sleeve in your mouth when Paul approached with one of their band shirts and a black paci you had gotten online. He gently grabbed your hand and saw the doe eyed, spacey look in your eyes and knew you were absolutely babyspaced right now.

"How about you trade me sugar," which caught your interest, nodding your head and shaking your sleeve along with it, laughing Paul gently tugged your wrist saying, "How about you give me this so we can get you into Daddy's shirt, and you can use your paci? How's that sound?"

You slowly let your sleeve go so Daddy could give you the paci and help you into the shirt, which makes you whine and tear up again. Being changed is your least favorite part of bedtime... Before you could start crying Paul quickly put your shirt on and wiped your eyes attacking you with kisses and bringing you to the bed. Marko looks over and joins you, sandwiching you between him and Paul.

With Dwayne jumping onto the pile and settling on using you as his stuffed animal. David joined the outside of the pile, propping his head up as he watched his little family. He reached his hand over Marko and caressed your face as your eyes began to close.

"Don't worry, nobody's going anywhere. We'll be here when you wake up, okay? Sleep well little one." David said then he blew out the candle that illuminated the cave and each of them drifted to sleep with the pull of the sun, with you feeling safe in their arms knowing your Daddies weren't going anywhere. ☀️

#agere caregiver #little!reader #agere little #agere reader #monster x little! reader #little! reader #monster caregiver #sfw littlespace #vampire caregiver #the lost boys x little! reader

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smicksstuff · 1 year

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welcome to the land down under. home to the poisonous snakes and many creepy crawlies. piping hot tea has been spilt, its brown liquid staining everything it touches. can yn wash the stain away or has become part of who she is ?

The Pitbox Crew Series

read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 here

Upside Down, Inside Out

(f1drivers x yngasly)

⚠️ warnings: alcohol consumption, fighting, swearing, cyber bullying.

a/n: this is a work of fiction. i do not encourage this behaviour. also i apologise for the google translate french and spanish. please ignore the typos, i will edit them soon.

meanwhile on twitter .....

ynusername

Melbourne

liked by pierregasly, paulgasly, isahernaez and 739, 728 others.

ynusername im speechless. i have no idea what race i have just watched 😭😭😭

view 780 comments

scuderiapedrogaseoso i hope pierre is okay !!

yngaslyfans that race was a nightmare but you are still slaying in the paddock

gaslyfc can’t believe i woke up for this race !! all my guys are out 😫😭

formula1girls can we take a moment to appreciate the content provided by yn. girl gave us so many bts to cure our broken heats 💔🥺

formulauno her and danny ric !! we need more of them !!!

spicychilli i mean can we appreciate her and carlos too!!

piastrigirls miss gurl giving love to all the boys!! she and oscar is an unexpected duo. 🧡

oscarpiastri matey you need to learn how to send the photos 😐

yngasly i’ll send it now ! i promise 🤞🏼

oscarpiastri ill believe when i get it 😑

mickschumacher you post all this but not you surfing 🤔

yngasly you promised not to talk about it 🥺

mickschumacher just you wait till your birthday 😁

yngasly thats a threat !!! @pierregasly micky is threatening me with the surf pics 😠

pierregasly @mickschumacher i have more embarrassing ones, i will bring them to the next race for you 😝

yngasly HEY!!!! STOPPP

mickschumacher thats awesome! cant wait!!

pierregasly what are big bros for ❤️

f1fans i like how she is ignoring the obvious! why haven’t you acknowledged the tweets yet!!!!

username7 girl you already did all the shit why are you scared to admit it ?

yngaslyfc omg i made it! You made my year! can't believe I got to meet you.

liked by yngasly and 67 others

f1tea

liked by f1fans, username8, f1fanatics and 6,789 others

f1tea Pierre arrived in the paddock at 8.30am this morning. Melbourne walk was booming with fans having 1 last chance to get their merch signed by their favourite racers.

In non-driver news, the Gasly Princess - Yn Gasly arrived to the paddock at 9.00am alongside Joris Trouche and Charles Leclerc. As they walked through the Melbourne Walk, loud jeering and boos could be heard from the fans. Many were telling her to stay away from Formula 1 and its drivers.

Upon hearing the jeering and boos, Charles Leclerc alongside other drivers Alex Albon, George Russell and Lando Norris who were present at Melbourne Walk proceeded to try and defend their friend yn however their efforts were not enough.

Joris Trouche then took Yn tight in his grip and entered the paddock quick. Sources from inside the paddock say that Yn was in tears and Joris proceeded to walk with her to the Alpine Motorhome. Throughout the Race Day, Yn was not seen as much in the paddock.

What are your thoughts ? Does Yn deserve the backing of the drivers? Let me know in the comments

view 789 comments

f1fans She had this coming.

username8 hate to break it to you but after what she did, how could they not boo her.

username7 she is a bad influence in the paddock. she should be removed.

lordperceval Yall HAVE TO STOP !! this is cyber bullying.

chillichicas i agree! she doesn’t deserve this. yall dont have to like her but at least acknowledge she is human too

spicylovers she isnt your human punching bag

quadrantmania for petes sake. she is just a kid trying to support her big brother at races and yall are coming at her like she committed a huge crime.

landounited lando should ditch her! he doesnt need friends like her

landino and who are you to decide who lando can be friends with

pedromyman what she did was to herself. It does not affect anyone of yall. You dont like it, dont follow her. I for one do not want her to disappear from the paddock again.

vroomvroom why are the drivers even trying to defend her. im sure their teams will not support it.

estiebestie she should just leave. she is not that important anyways.

yngasly

liked by isahernaez, pierregasly, landonorris and 567, 903 others

yngasly i thought i would come here and address the information circulating online about me.

view 893 comments

pierregasly ❤️❤️❤️

charles_leclerc Ma petite sœur toujours ❤️ (translation: My little sister always)

lancestroll always gonna be here for you 💚

isahernaez ¡Mi mejor amigo! Estoy muy orgulloso de lo lejos que has llegado. ¡Siempre estaré aquí para ti! Te quiero. ❤️ (translation: My best friend! I am very proud of how far you have come. I will always be here for you! I love you.)

chloestroll love you baby ❤️

landonorris you can try to get rid of me but you will fail 🙃🧡

yngaslyfans i may not know you personally but im always gonna stand up for you. we all make mistakes in life. its what we do after that- the learning from it that matters the most.

paulgasly ❤️

arthur_leclerc Si heureux que tu sois de retour ! Tu m'as toujours eu ! ❤️ (translation: So happy that you're back! You will always have me!)

carlossainz55 Estoy muy feliz de llamarte mi familia ❤️ (translation: I'm very happy to call you my family)

estebanocon so proud of you 😃

alpinef1team we are proud of you Yn ! you will always have our love and support 💙💙💙

scuderiaferrari one of the strong ones ❤️

lewishamilton so proud of you kid! like i told you in the paddock “dont let the noise discourage you. they dont know who you really are!” ❤️

fernandoalo_official my kid 💚

pierregasly

liked by yngasly, charles_leclerc, f1, alpinef1team and 1,465,010 others

pierregasly Yn Julianna Gasly. My relationship with my baby sister is one of the most important in my life.

From all the pizza parties to celebrate karting wins and her football school team wins, to fighting over the PS3 controllers, to not talking to each other for months, we have gone through it all.

Yn has always been on my side through the thick and thin. At every race she be at the garage or along the fence cheering me on! (charles and anthoine too but thats beside the point) Good day or Bad Day she always made sure she was there for me. She even ditched playdates to travel with Maman to watch me race.

Anthoine’s Passing affected all of us differently. We handled our grieve separately. My biggest regret was pushing Yn away forgetting that she too was grieving the lost of her bestfriend. When I look back, i feel that the road she went down was partly my fault. But with an immense amount of help for her and the family, we got through it together. I hated that my sister was barely with us for those 4 months. But at that time i thought that was best. Looking back, I should have done more. But mistakes were made. Like I told Yn, “Mistakes are OKAY only if they happen once and you learn, and dont repeat it again.”

My sister made a mistake. It is something she cannot ignore. It happened. But she learned from it. We learned from it. Her past does not define who she is now. My Sister is my number 1 Supporter. She is my Person, My Best Friend, My Twin. What has been said online the past few weeks about her the jeering when she is out in public is simply unacceptable. It has to stop. Losing someone you love can make you do incredibly stupid things. But I know my sister, those 4 months was not her.

So please I am hoping that you can understand. The mistakes my sister made in the past is not who she was or is now. Please stop circulating the pictures and videos.

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taglist: @fangirlika @threedalla @sticksdoesart @ophcelia @gothicwidowsworld @nmw-am @h0e-xoxo @inthestars-underthesun @tyna-19 @champomiel @pitconfirmbutton @clcspeonies @67-angelofthelordme-67 @xcharlottemikaelsonx @fulla02 @mehrmonga

credits: all pictures are found from pinterest and instagram

a/n: thank you for reading this far !! If you have any suggestions send them to me!! I would love to hear them ◡̈

if you would like to be tagged when new parts are released, drop your usernames in the comments!! 😁

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asgardian--angels · 3 months

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Talking on the phone with my mom I finally broke down and cried thoroughly about the cancellation. I think I'd been holding it in for the last two days, or two months. And honestly I've been wondering all along why this show means so much to me. I am not queer, I am not neurodivergent, I am not POC or disabled or any of the groups that this show has been so important for in terms of representation and being treated with respect and dignity. I understand and completely empathize with all of you, and fight for this show and your rights worldwide alongside you, but it still left me wondering why I myself have latched onto Our Flag Means Death. I suppose part of it is that despite being white and cishet and the privileges that have always come with that, I have been treated like an outsider and ostracized my entire childhood and teenage years, for being ugly and having "disgusting" interests (primarily liking insects, reptiles, other creepy-crawlies - aka the thing I literally do for my career now). I was bullied relentlessly from preschool through early college and became a very lonely introverted person - I still am. Undoubtedly Our Flag Means Death gave me renewed hope that I haven't missed some key window for finding love or relationships of any kind that matter, as I sit here typing this at age 28 having never dated anyone.

But it had to be more than that. And with everything that's happened the past couple of months, and the last few days, I think it finally clicked for me.

Followers of my blog may or may not know that I am a conservation biologist, or pollinator ecologist, whichever hat fits best on a given day, they're quite close. I don't make many original posts like this anymore on here because my job is so busy. Basically, I do a variety of things - academic research, habitat management & restoration, and public outreach - to try and preserve biodiversity and ecosystems on our planet. I'm just going to say it: it's a thankless job. Nothing we do ever feels like it's enough, and burnout is common in our field because we sit with the guilt of feeling like we are the only thing between survival and utter destruction of planet Earth, and work ourselves to exhaustion. It's one of those jobs where your work is your life, and your passion is your work, and it's inseparable from who you are on a molecular level. We are often faced, on a large scale, with hostility, from people that don't believe in science and are more than happy to pull a shotgun on us, or rich old men in power who are content to watch the world burn for another penny in their bank account. There are days when sometimes it sinks in just how bad things are, and it's terrifying, and I feel like we will never be able to do enough, to change enough, before it gets catastrophic. It's paralyzing.

My ability to do my job is dependent on hope. Unwavering, unrelenting hope. Hope beyond hope. We have to believe what we're doing matters, otherwise we'd fall down and never get back up again. I'm no big-shot, I give talks to a few hundred people at a time, and make urban pollinator habitat on a local scale. Is any of that going to make a difference compared to the ramifications of a single oil mogul deciding to cut corners and cause an oil spill that kills millions of seabirds and damages ocean food chains for decades to come? If people in my field let thoughts like that linger, we'd be paralyzed to inaction. I have to hope that the people I teach choose to do something good with that knowledge, and go on to inspire others, or that the patch of habitat I make allows a declining species to maintain a foothold instead of going locally extinct. You just have to keep going.

And Our Flag Means Death got wrapped up in that for me. The Stede Bonnet effect, if you will. He set out to do pirating differently, treating his crew with respect and helping them grow. In return, they internalized that mindset, and it spread to how they interacted with others. It changed the trajectory of individual lives, and also at least began to change how the society of pirates operated as a whole. It was a beacon of hope that choosing small acts of kindness did matter, even if you yourself could not see the ripples it made. It renewed my faith that love persevered and would win. That we could all make life a little better for each other and ourselves through kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and mutual support. I think a good chunk of that is from Taika - these are running themes in his projects, and his films move me deeply for that. This show became in some, perhaps subconscious way, a source of strength for me to keep putting myself out there in my line of work to do whatever I was capable of to help the cause.

The cancellation was devastating, but the second cancellation (turbohell cancelation?) was even more so. Because now it's so clear that this is largely the work of David Zaslav and the regime he's built. It's petty, it's greedy, and more than anything, it's cruel. Indifferently, indiscriminately cruel, when one person at the top can have such power to make or break the lives of thousands, millions, beneath them, and though it would have been barely a drop in the bucket, a hand wave, to renew our show or let it pass to another streamer, he actively chose to shackle it to this sinking Titanic of a company WBD has become. I have always operated on the belief that you can do anything if you work hard enough at it, and believed deep down that there was some order, some justice in the universe, atheist though I be. We as a fandom did everything we possibly could, we loved this show harder than anything. The numbers were there, the awards nominations were there, the critic praise was there, and we were loud and loyal every single day. I felt like we could do this - how could we not win when we've done so much, and the show deserves it so much? Surely cause and effect will prevail.

This fight seemed small, though really it wasn't; we fought for the right of artists and creators to make quality, original stories and have them told to their natural end, we fought for diversity representation to be more than a token character - OFMD raised the bar so much higher on all fronts, we fought to shed light on the chaos and impending collapse of this industry silencing art and exploiting writers, actors, and all manner of production workers. It was a small fight from the outside, one that I really felt we could win. And I put my heart and soul into it, because if we could win this, if we could save this simple, kind love story about two guys on a boat, then maybe there was hope for the bigger, badder stuff too. It shouldn't seem an insurmountable task for several thousand fans to convince a streaming service that they'd turn a tidy profit to give our show one more season.

Yet we lost - through no fault of our own. I am so proud of us. But that really struck deep for me. If one peabrained CEO of a media company wouldn't budge on greenlighting a show that was in his every best interest business-wise - perhaps enough to even save Max from going under in the not-too-distant future - my god, what hope was there for changing anything bigger? The 'real' problems of the world? When no amount of ethos, logos, or pathos can penetrate these men at the top, where's that hope to fight? Lately the world seems like it's just going belly up all over. If we gave everything we could, and it still wasn't enough - if it could never be enough - what hope is there? It's like chaining yourself to a tree and the bulldozer plowing right on ahead. And I think that broke something in me. It shook me to my foundations because it broke my rules of how things are supposed to work. We believed hard enough, we worked tirelessly, and we deserved it for how important this show was to so many people. And it didn't matter. Our best wasn't enough. And that caused an avalanche of all of the horrible, scary things piled on my shoulders - we're losing the Amazon rainforest too fast to save, climate change is going to turn the corn belt into a dustbowl by mid-century, a border wall is going to devastate imperiled wildlife in Texas, deforestation and hurricanes on songbird wintering grounds could lead to entire species extinctions, saltmarshes are our lifeline and they're shrinking and we're still building stupid concrete stormwalls, invasive diseases will completely alter the composition of our forests to be unrecognizable to our children, and if you don't make every slide of this powerpoint utterly perfect and you fail to convince every single person in attendance to get rid of their lawn then you've failed and the world is doomed.

I've struggled with being a perfectionist my whole life. This didn't help.

That's where I was a couple hours ago. But I took some deep breaths. I know the world isn't fair. But I really thought if we could win this one battle, then we could win the war.

But here's what I realized. Everything we did mattered. It mattered so much. Because there's the show, and then there's everything that was birthed out of that show. The community, so many of us around the world who have been uplifted by Our Flag Means Death in a real and lasting way that we will take with us and spread to affect those around us. The Stede Bonnet effect goes global. We raised thousands and thousands of dollars for charities around the world, real people whose lives have been improved, or maybe even saved, because of us and this silly pirate show. We brought a hell of a lot of attention to WBD and their shitty practices, keeping the momentum going in a way that I think is only going to build - and I sure hope it leads to Zaslav getting deposed. We have demanded more queer stories, more BIPOC stories, more disabled and autistic and middle-aged stories, stories with exquisite costumes and award-worthy wigs, dear lord, and we are being heard. We have expressed such love and support for the cast and crew, showing them that we appreciate their hard work and that we will be behind them in their future projects. So many of them have told us how the show and its fans have changed their lives. We convinced Rhys that his career isn't winding down but winding up, and to be unapologetic about his wonderful weirdness - we've proven to everyone through this show that your weirdness is what someone out there is going to love you for, not in spite of. We rallied to help writers and actors during the strikes in a way that was taken to heart and remembered. We have been out here talking it through as a crew, and turning poison into positivity, for over two years now, and that impact is permanent. They can cancel our show, they can try and slap copyright notices on our fan merch, and spew bullshit excuses about the numbers not being there. But Our Flag Means Death sparked a movement, the biggest pirate crew the world has ever seen, using our power for good.

We may not have any more new material for our show for a while, or ever. But I maintain hope that when the dust has settled and streaming has entered its 'new era' that they'll remember us and throw us a lifeline. Because hope is a part of my genetic makeup, and even in cancellation my hope has been renewed that the fight is worth fighting, that our individual choices of kindness are having an effect, and making the world a little easier to live in bit by bit. No one can take from us what we have built out of this show. And thanks to pirating, they can't take the actual show from us either. Despite this, no matter the outcome, I am so happy we got two seasons of this wonderful series. That was more than almost anyone expected. The story belongs to all of us, and it will always live on. We did not truly lose this battle, because in the process we gained more than we could have ever imagined. And I know there's still so much more to come. That gives me the strength to keep doing what I do, every day.

To me, Our Flag Means Hope.

#our flag means death #ofmd #this is a very long post but I need to write it for me #seeing the outpouring of love on twitter today has really been so needed #also realizing after i finish this that my blog name is literally 'There is always hope'#so i mean. this really has been my brand since i started here #personal

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xxxninjaxxx23 · 1 month

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It’s ok to be afraid of something.

Tara Carpenter x Fem Reader

It was a slightly cool day in New York City. You just woke up to a wonderful smell in the kitchen.

“Looks like Tara is making breakfast” you said, getting out of bed to thank your girlfriend.

You felt a warm feeling in your heart knowing that Tara is living with you in your shared apartment and the one you wake up with everyday.

You certainly have come a long way considering how must distrust and dislike Sam had towards you despite the twins and Anika adoring you.

Hell it took a lot of dinners and convincing from Tara for the older sibling to finally say yes to her moving in with you.

In the end, it was all worth it.

You made your way into the kitchen as Tara was finishing the second omelet and last bits of bacon. “Hi baby, did you sleep well?” You asked, kissing your girlfriend on the head while gathering the used pans and placing them in the sink.

She smiled saying yes but pouted a little bit

“Y/N! I was trying to surprise you with a breakfast in bed.” She said, playfully pushing you. You laughed “Kinda hard for it to be a surprise when your five star cooking always gets me up!

Also, you know how I feel when we eat in bed. I still feel crumbs in the sheets to this day.”

Tara scoffed “That’s because you eat like a child. Didn’t I have to wipe your mouth one time because you couldn’t be bothered to do it?”

You shrugged, grinning “Hey like I said. Five star cooking.”

Tara kissed your cheek “Since you’re up Y/N, you can help me set the plates up in the dining room.” You nodded and took the filled plates to the table. Tara came by and sat next to you but before you could eat, you got up

“Where are you going?” Tara asked

“I’m going to wash my hands real quick. One must have clean hands before eating.” You said heading to the bathroom, hearing Tara say from across the hall “just use utensils or a napkin”

After drying your hands from the water, you hear a scratching noise coming from the corner of the bathroom. You sighed, hoping those mice aren’t back as your messy neighbors from upstairs always had that issue. Self explanatory.

It wasn’t mice this time but your encounter didn’t stop you from screaming, running out of the bathroom over to your girlfriend.

Tara was pouring orange juice into your cup and almost spilled it when she heard your scream. “Baby! What’s wrong?” She said as you ducked behind her.

Your nerves were still shot but you managed to speak “I-I saw a spider in the bathroom…I-” She put her hand on your chest, feeling your rapid heart beat.

“Shh. It’s ok” she said sliding her flip flops on “Where is it?” When you told her where, you followed her behind.

Lucky the spider hasn’t moved from where it was

“Right there Tara, see!” You said pointing at the spot “I’m really sorry for having to put you in this situation, I know how big it is-“

Your lover simply walked up to the insect and squished it before it could escape. You were shocked yet amazed at the same time.

Although you couldn’t help but feel ashamed that you had to ask your girlfriend to do what you could have done in the first place, especially since you were Sam’s height and just as strong as her.

You never felt more ashamed in your life (well except for that one time you forgot to lock the door and Sam walked in on you guys doing it)

“Y/N. What’s wrong? I already took care of the creepy crawly.” Tara said as she cleaned up the mess.

You couldn’t bring yourself to look at Tara

“I guess I’m just a little embarrassed love. I mean I’m supposed to be this girl who’s the same height as Sam and built too but here I am being afraid of a little insect and asking you to kill it for me.” You said a bit annoyed.

Tara walked up to you, cupping your cheek “Baby, it’s ok to be afraid of something. No matter how tall or strong you are.”

You felt a sense of gratitude “but-“ she put a finger on your lips “No buts, I will always love you no matter what you fear or the flaws you have.”

You smiled

“That’s easy for you to say my little knight in shining armor. Not scared of any insects and all.”

She shrugged “Well, don’t expect me to take care of any mice Y/N. I’ll be up on that table faster than sonic.”

You laughed, putting an arm around Tara’s waist. “Don’t worry love, I’ll handle that. After all I’ll always love you no matter what you fear.”

Tara playfully tapped you before pulling you into a kiss. You both melted into each other’s touch before letting your tongues meet. You stayed that way before pulling away for air. “Let’s go finish our breakfast before it gets cold, you know it’s too early for dessert” Tara said taking your hand.

You smiled and shook your head, knowing how lucky you are to have found a brave and loyal woman.

#tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter headcanons #scream franchise #jenna ortega #tara carpenter x fem reader #tara carpenter #sam and tara carpenter #phobia #beauttiful girls

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littlestzrdoll · 2 months

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don’t get me wrong, i love my parental figure caregivers but we don’t talk about older sibling caregivers. bonus points if they’re a regressor too!!!! ahhhhh, oh my stars, what i would give to have an older brother cg!! ESPECIALLY one who gives really harvey by alex g vibes, yk? like, transformer, cds, spider-man, teenage ninja turtles, dirtied knees and all things boyish hehehe :3 someone who will protect me and who will cuddle me while we watch disney movies on the cd player. someone who sneaks me an extra cookie, while no one’s looking, someone to hold my hand while we go into the garden and search for creepy crawlies, just someone i can count on to always be by my side. older brother applications here guys 😞

#agere caregiver #agere sfw #age dreaming #agere little #safe agere #agere blog #agere community #age regressor #sfw agere #age regression #🪽when i’m big #🎀 ramblings

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ohbo-ohno · 9 months

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I know that you already answered about Reader not really having household chores, but one can imagine being a housewife as a coping mechanism in serial killer AU......

We just stay in this creepy crawly fuckhouse too long, it reeks of blood and rotten meat and bourbon and we just can't!! Begging the guys to just let us have your way, cleaning everything, burning our hands with bleach and cleaning supplies, forcing Soap to take baths with sweetly scented salts.

Ghost found out about your little hobby and calls you their adorable house wifey....you're scared and afraid and the only thing that allows to keep your mind away is cleaning and cooking and maybe even knitting((( boys getting out of their last hunt, all burly amd sweaty and covered in blood and their little pet wifey is right here, welcoming them in a clean house with ahaky hands. Ghost drops us to his lap like a cat, scrubbing our head while Soap tries to feed us, talking about how perfect their last victim was screaming.

Murder den is too clean, so now they have to drag another victim inside and gut them!! Putting our housewife skills to good use

love a good housewife kink

she needs something to do while they're "gone" all day, she'll go insane otherwise! and it's not like they give her much freedom, there isn't much around to do but cook and clean

but oh my god... the way their obsession with you would become even more deranged if they thought you were trying to take care of them.

you clutching at ghost's hands, nearly scrubbing his hands raw with how harshly you're washing away the blood. meticulous enough to get under the nails and the cuticles, in the grooves of his callouses and scars. he's just staring down at you like you're anointing him. you refuse to let him touch you if you don't get to make sure his hands are clean, and he pretends to barely tolerate it when secretly he loves the whole process

johnny could watch you cook for fucking hours. the way you hustle and bustle around the kitchen, making sure everything is being prepared at the exact right time so it's not too hot or cold for serving, or how focused you get when decorating something you've baked. he buys you a frilly little apron, makes you wear nothing else besides it and jacks off to the way your ass moves when you bend over to take cookies out of the oven.

knitting or crocheting for them :( would take a while for them to trust you with the hooks, but they would eventually. trying to discreetly figure out their measurements without asking - making larger items of clothing takes longer and therefore distracts you for longer! one day they find a whole stash of hats and mittens and sweaters and scarves :( all the gifts you've made for them :( they reward you so nicely for being so good to them <3

also - ghost keeping you captive on his lap and hand feeding you your homemade meal while he and soap talk in gruesome detail about their crimes... yeah that does it for me. you get all wiggly and whiney and he just shushes you, brushes a hand over your head and kisses your hairline, gives you another bite of food when you open your mouth to complain

#gremlingottoosilly #serial killer ghoap x reader #bo writes

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cellarspider · 9 months

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Good lord I take a week off of tumblr and now there’s a lot of you

Hello to everyone who’s just followed me in the past week! Most of you have come from a long ramble of mine on interdisciplinary learning, medieval head trauma, and Gallus’ well-wishings on my recent graduation (https://www.tumblr.com/gallusrostromegalus/727017193756327936), thank you to Gallus for that. Thank you to those of you who’ve commented with kind words as well. Specific shout-outs, links to relevant rambles, and questions are below, in the section “Link Roundup and Shoutouts”.

Yes, this is a post with sections. This is how we roll here.

Introduction to Spider

For those who don’t know, I’m Spider! I’ve just gotten my PhD in Mammalian Genetics, having gotten a Masters in Informatics and a Bachelors in Medieval Studies before that. I’ll quite happily ramble about any of them, with the following caveats: an undergraduate degree means I know the basics, but they may be increasingly out of date. And advanced degrees are increasingly specialized in their scope as you go along—you gain the skills to more easily understand things from related specialties, but you only become truly, deeply knowledgeable on very specific topics. However, these topics are not always limited to the field of study generally expected by the degree-granting institution! My focus ended up being significantly divergent from everyone else’s, which resulted in an interesting challenge of communicating my project to others at the institute.

The field I dove into for my PhD was systems genetics. Rather than studying individual genes and how they function, my work examined the wider view: think the difference between a local weather forecast versus modeling the global climate. Both synthesize vast amounts of information, just on different scales and levels of detail.

Many people love studying the tiny details around individual genes, because they can dig down into the mechanisms that make the gene work, how it might break and cause disease, and maybe how to fix those diseases. My love is for the global view of things, which gives you the ability to characterize general statements about how genes are regulated and modified. It’s a field that’s very hard to study without good data that’s complicated to acquire, so it’s a very exciting subject to work on! I’m looking forward to carrying that on into a postdoctoral study, in which I’ll work with a new lab and learn the dreaded skill of grant writing. I’ll be starting this month!

…As Gallus mentioned, my time until then is very much devoted to Baldur’s Gate 3. Happily for me, the new research group I’ll be joining has also been going nuts for Baldur’s Gate 3, so I’ll have a lot to talk about with my coworkers once I’m back to the lab.

In my free time, I’m happy to ramble upon request about the subjects I love, including but not limited to my fields of academic study, my constructed language hobby, scientific ethics and its portrayal in media, creepy-crawlies (always appropriately tagged for people’s phobias), and Baldur’s Gate 3.

…Lots of Baldur’s Gate 3. (I’ve only just reached the Lost Light Inn, please no spoilers!)

Link Roundup and Shoutouts

For those who are interested to see my ramble about why European medical texts in the medieval period tended to be terrible, it’s available here: https://www.tumblr.com/cellarspider/680342023316930560/hi-please-rant-about-medieval-european-medical

Thank you to all those who dug up the name of the academic text I’d forgotten! Its title, in all its wordy glory, is Injuries of the skull and brain, as described in the myths, legends, and folk-tales of the various peoples of the world, with some comments on the significance and reliability of this information in evaluating contemporary concepts as to their nature and lethality by Cyril B. Courville, 1967. It’s a fantastic book, and good lord that title just does not stop

Thank you to fellow spiders @one-spider-from-mars and @vaspider for their comments. We are many. We are mighty.

Thank you to @belovedbright for the fantastic story of the death of Conchobar mac Nessa via brain trauma inflicted by a brain https://www.tumblr.com/belovedbright/727132485919604736

To @doomhamster's question on whether egg whites were used in the medieval treatment of burns: I don’t know! Unfortunately I can’t access the translation of the medical manual I referred to back then (https://worldcat.org/title/1123716578), and the only version I can find online at the moment is in 14th century French (https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Sloane_MS_1977). Egg whites do appear 33 times in the translation, according to the limited ability I have to search the text, and they show up throughout the book.

#spider rambles far too much #good lord there's a lot of you #hello everyone #I guess this is my intro post now

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olives-and-sunshine · 7 months

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"Would you still love me if I was a worm?"

Eddie Munson x GN!Reader

Word Count: 725

Summary: While high, you ask Eddie if he would still love you if you were a worm.

Warnings and Content: Tooth-rotting fluff and silliness, mentions of both Eddie and the reader being high, GN!Reader, relationship is fairly ambiguous and could be read as anything (platonic, queerplatonic, romantic)

A/N: This was written in the middle of the night and originally was about my OC and Eddie, who are in a queerplatonic relationship (which I also posted, if you wanna read it click here ). Hope that explains this.

You were lying on Eddie’s bed, staring at the ceiling. The room vibrated with the noise of Judas Priest playing through the speakers of his cassette player. Eddie was laying his head on your stomach, his eyes closed as he hummed along. You played with his hair as you closed your eyes. Judas Priest was interesting music to listen to when high, and you were fairly high. You both were, although Eddie was higher than you were. “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” You asked, breaking the silence.

Eddie stayed silent for a minute before bursting out laughing. “What?”

You tried to not laugh, but you eventually caved, joining him. “You heard me. Would you still love me if I was a worm?” You asked between giggles.

He got up off your stomach and turned so he could look at you, leaning over you. His eyes scanned your face. “Who says I love you?”

You gently shoved him with her foot in the stomach. “Dick.”

He dramatically fell back, sprawling over the bed. He laid there for a second before he broke out in giggles again. He got back up, leaning over you again. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it,” he whined, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. You jokingly pouted and looked away. In response, he leaned down and kissed your forehead. “You’re high as shit,” he started giggling again. When you looked back over and your eyes met, so did you.

Midst their fit of giggles, breathlessly he said, “But of course, I’d still love you if you were a worm. What kind of fucking question is that?” You laughed harder, but he continued. “That being said, we all know you’d be something more metal like a cicada, or a mean beetle. Or ooo, something that bites.”

“Hey, I don’t bite!”

“The bite marks that currently litter my body beg to differ.”

“...Okay that’s fair, but worms are hella metal! Some are both male and female and can impregnate themselves. And they decompose things! Nothing is more metal than composure and death.”

“You have a good point. But still. So you would be a decomposer, you’d still be a beetle or something. My point is…” he trailed off for a second, poking you in the cheek. You grabbed his finger and interlocked your hands, letting them settle on your stomach. “I’d love you no matter what creepy crawly bug or creature you were. I’d go to the library, research what you’d need to thrive, and then put you in a little enclosure I made for you. I’d feed you whatever you’d want, even if that means catching other tinier bugs for you. And I’d take you out occasionally so you could get sunshine. And if you were really unhappy, I’d let you be free to live out your little bug life, so you can go fuck another bug, have kids, and go decompose things, and continue the cycle of life. If not, you could just live here with me, in your little bug enclosure.”

Eddie was staring out the window as he said all this, but you just stared up at him, in awe at the way he turned a silly joke into the sweetest monologue ever. You sat up and tackled him into a hug, knocking you both over on the bed, till you were on top of him. He laughed, wrapping his arms around you and kissing your head, “What?”

You pulled away to look at him. “That was the sweetest, cheesiest, monologue I’ve ever heard about me or bugs. You’re the best.”

“Of course, sweetheart. And, if we were both bugs, no matter the type of bug we were, even if we were different bugs, we’d live together in bug harmony. We’d find a way.”

“Dawwww, how sweet. We could live out our little bug lives together and decompose stuff. How adorable of us.”

“Of course. We’re the most adorable duo ever,” he pulled you close to him, your head resting on his chest. He kissed the crown of your head again, and you both closed your eyes, just resting and enjoying each other’s presence. “We should probably move at some point, though. We are lying on my bed diagonally.”

You nuzzled your face into his chest, sighing contently. “Shhhh later. I’m comfy.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x gn!reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson ficlet #eddie munson x reader ficlet #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #stranger things ficlet #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fluff

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mirkwoodshewolf · 1 year

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Creepy crawlies; Jack Kline x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay so this is a cute little drabble/small fic requested to me just recently by an anon who wanted some Jack Kline fluff. Took me two days but I came to this idea in the end so I hope you enjoy it anon as well as the rest of my lovely readers.

Warnings: Fluff, bugs, mentions of SPN episode 1x08 BUGS (that episode STILL gives me the heebie-jeebies).

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@queen-paladin

@queensdivas

@gay-and-ready-to-cry

_________________________________________________________

It was that time of year, well the first time we ever had to deal with something like this. And of course Sam and Dean had to bail out on a ‘case’ but I knew my brothers just wanted to get out of doing the one thing that everyone does.

Spring cleaning.

Ever since we found the Bunker and decided to make it our permanent home, this place needed a serious scrub down and clean up. Cobwebs, dust, new bed sheets, incense (mainly for me) to be put up to get rid of the ancient smell. So every spring, I try to ensure that this bunker doesn’t end up like it was when we first found it.

Of course that means my brothers always try to get out of it (mainly Dean I just think Sam prefers to do the minor cleaning instead of what I have in mind). And Cass…..well he chooses to go up to heaven every time I say it’s time clean up the bunker. The only person kind enough to help out around here is my beau Jack.

Using my powers, the bookshelf glowed blue and I lifted it up allowing Jack to vacuum underneath it while I brought in a swifer to swipe off each and every book from any dust bunnies.

“I don’t see why my brothers and Cas always try to bail out on Spring cleaning. I’m the one doing the heavy lifting.”

“I’ve noticed a trend that most people don’t enjoy spring cleaning because it’s so boring to do. That unlike normal cleaning, there’s an expectation for things to be so clean, that you’re supposed to see yourself in the floor. Which I don’t get.” Jack told me as he continued his vacuuming.

“I maybe a neat freak but I’m not Danny Tanner level of tidiness. All I want is to make sure we don’t neglect this place and end up in a dust field again. Seriously Jack you cannot begin to understand just how quickly my allergies began to act up when the guys and I first found this place. Bedridden for over a week, and that was before I got these powers.”

“I’m sorry baby. Had I been born yet, I would’ve stayed at your side to take care of you.”

“And that’s why I love you soo much Jackie-bear. You’re too sweet.” After dusting off the last book and once Jack was done vacuuming, he moved out of the way and I set the bookshelf back in it’s place. I turned and with a snap of my fingers and all the books, notes, files and even Dean’s plates he had left since breakfast all raised up into the air and went to their original places.

“You’re like Mary Poppins.” He said with a smile.

“Well if I am, then that makes you my Burt. Come on, let’s head for the kitchen. Lord knows Dean forgot to do the dishes, again.” He followed behind me and right as we got to the kitchen, there I saw dishes upon dishes stacked in the sink, frying pans still on the oven covered in left over eggs and grease. “That man never learns.”

“Why does he leave his dishes out like that?”

“Cause he’s lazy. Do you mind stacking the dishwasher while I deal with the grease pans and the oven?”

“Not at all baby.” I pecked his cheek while I walked over and wish a twist of my wrist, the frying pans lifted off the oven while the cleaning supplies came out from the top shelf cabinet on the island counter.

While the spray bottle filled with Clorox bleach squirted out a few good sprays and the rag did a throughout wipe down, I focused my attention on cleaning the frying pans of the oils and grease from the bacon and sausages Dean had made for breakfast and tossed the leftover egg crumbs into the trash.

“Do you know when the last time Sam took the trash out?” I asked Jack.

“I believe I saw him collect all the trash last night.”

“Well at least he can keep up with the chores. I swear maybe I could use these powers to control Dean and make him scrub all the toilets in this bunker.”

“As funny as that would be to see, I know you’d never use your powers against your brothers.” He said as he dried off one of my good cups with a towel and set it alongside the rack we had for the special dishware.

“Yeah, yeah. But for real, he should at least have the decency to at least rinse off his pans after breakfast. Grease that sits out for too long stains these types of pans, and it’s a hassle to clean up later.”

“I believe you (Y/n).”

“But at least I’m getting it done, otherwise it’d never—” I paused mid-sentence as my body completely froze. My heart raced and my eyes widened as I stared directly at it. It’s many legs all splayed out making it look like a living dust bunny on pointy legs.

The pots and cleaning supplies fell to the ground with a loud bang and I let out a scream and levitated myself into the air trying to get as far away from the little demon as possible.

“What?! What is it (Y/n)? Are you okay!?”

“Kill it quick!” I yelled at Jack.

“Kill what? Where is it? Is it a demon?”

“Yes now quickly before it gets away!”

“Where is it?”

“Over there!” Jack’s eyes soon glowed and he turned to where I was pointing but as he raised his hand, his eyes went back to normal color as he looked around confused.

“Where did you say it was?”

“What are you blind babe!? I told you over there on top of the oven! Kill it with your powers! Torch it! Torture it I don’t care just get rid of it!” he looked around until he seemed to have found what it was. He walked closer to it and he reached out his finger toward it.

“You mean this? But it looks like a dust bunny or a…..” but quickly it began to move and I let out another scream as I shot myself against the corner of the kitchen.

“Don’t touch it! Those bastards are fast now kill it hurry!”

“What is it exactly?” he asked me.

“A house centipede! Jack I’m not playing anymore please just kill it hurry!” I watched as the demonic centipede stopped crawling and was now just short of reaching a hiding spot behind the fridge. Jack looked between me and the house centipede and a smile came across his face before he started to laugh.

He was laughing. My own boyfriend was laughing at my own misery!?

“Jack Kline stop laughing!” I demanded.

“I’m sorry. Really I am but…..(Y/n), you have fought against real demons, archangels, werewolves, vampires, even my own grandfather. And you’re terrified of a tiny little thing like him?”

“Tiny? Tiny!? Do you see the legs on that monstrosity!? Now for the last time get rid of it before it touches me!”

“Okay, okay.” He went over to grab a cup as well as paper towel.

“What are you doing?!” I hissed.

“Getting rid of it like you asked.”

“Not like that! You can’t show mercy to those little bastards! Use your powers and kill the son of a bitch!” I hissed quietly.

“But you told me that all living creatures deserve a chance at life, didn’t you?” I groaned.

“Well yes but that doesn’t include bugs, arachnids, snakes, or any other kind of creepy crawlies!” Jack rolled his eyes and successfully captured the house centipede and he left the kitchen with it between the cup and paper towel.

A few minutes later he came back and he told me it was gone.

“You sure?”

“Yes, yes, I even took him away from the bunker before releasing him. Now can you please come down?” I let out a soft whimper but lowered myself back to the ground. He came over to me and wrapped his arms around me in a hug, allowing me to rest my head on his shoulder. “I still can’t believe you’re scared of bugs. How did I not know of this?”

“Don’t mock me! Besides you weren’t even there when it happened.” I shuddered remembering that day all too well.

“When what happened?” I took in a shaky breath before telling him.

“A long time ago, long before we knew that angels and God were even real, my brothers and I took a case in some realtor development spot. A neighborhood was being built on sacred Native American grounds. Workers were being picked off one by one, at first we thought it was ghostly activity but it was far worse. The entire place was cursed, and the curse was affecting all the insects in the town. By night fall, a swarm of bees had surrounded the family that was responsible for building the neighborhood over the sacred lands. I—I had never seen so many bees in my life. We had no way of escaping, we were completely trapped and had to last the rest of the night being stung and swarmed by bees. Ever since that day, I even see the shape of an insect and I just go back to that day. A defenseless, frightened child being stung and swarmed by bees and no way of escaping.”

Jack listened intently at every word I had to say. For months after that day, I had continuous nightmares of what happened. Even dreamt that it was other bugs attacking me from wasps, locusts, even spiders and ants. Ever since then I’ve been absolutely terrified of any and every bug in the world.

“Wow, I—I had no idea. I’m so sorry that happened to you. And I’m sorry for teasing you about it. I promise I won’t ever bring it up again.”

“Thanks Jackie-babe.”

“Anything I can do to help you?”

“I could go for some ice cream with chocolate syrup and some cuddles on the couch while we watch the Princess Bride.”

“As you wish.” He said quoting the movie before giving me a peck on the nose. I left the kitchen and brought out the blankets and changed my clothes to my comfy pjs while searching for the movie on one of the many streaming services we got.

When Jack came back with my ice cream, we cuddled up on the couch together, my back resting against his chest with his arms wrapped around my stomach and his head buried into my neck. I ate the ice cream as the movie began, I even offered a couple of bites to Jack as we lay there and watched my favorite comfort movie. Forgetting all about the demon-legged creature that traumatized me moments ago.

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l3irdl3rain · 10 months

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May we see Josie?

Also what size tank is she in and do you have any plans for a second tarantula or invertebrate in general? If so what species?:D

Josie is in a 15 gallon! I feel like it’s a really good size to allow her to move around and give her everything she needs while also being easy to clutter in a way that makes her feel safe. Ignore her water dish full of dirt, apparently she did some redecorating yesterday.

I love keeping Josie and would love to keep more inverts in the future. There’s nothing in particular that I’ve researched a ton, but just things that I’ve seen here and there and thought “maybe someday”. No immediate plans for anything though.

I’d love to try out caring for more tarantulas. But I’m also interested in various scorpions, giant African millipedes, and blue feigning death beetles. Other creepy crawlies interest me too, those are just some off the top of my head

EDIT: also jumping spiders!!! I want one so very bad

#if giant African land snails were legal to own here I would have to have one #my post #Josie #tw bug #tw spider #tw tarantula #cw bug #cw spider #cw tarantula #tw insect #cw insect #I’ve done my due diligence. if you don’t want to see Josie pls make sure to block one / all of these tags

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dira333 · 1 month

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My Neighbour Totoro/Taketora - Yamamoto x Reader

Haikyuu meets Ghibli. Giving Yamamoto a bit of a calmer spin this time. Tagging @alienaiver for her love for Ghibli

The sun burns down on the village, the hills of blinding green.

Taketora’s nose is pressed against the window as he’s fighting against the pull of sleep. His handheld game died hours ago, the battery died and there’s nothing to do but watch as birds fly by.

“Look!” Akane pulls on his sleeve, pointing out her window. “A ghost!”

He blinks and turns, but there’s nothing to see, just more and more fields and a little stream cutting through them.

“You must have imagined it,” he says, knowing her active imagination.

“Did not!” She huffs, crossing her arms.

“Don’t fight!” Their father calls out softly, “We’re almost there.”

There… that’s the house in the hills grandma used to live in. She moved into the city a few years ago, just shortly after Akane was born. Taketora can barely remember what it looked like, her house. He remembers sitting on a warm lap and the taste of tomatoes warmed from the sun. He remembers running after cats and the smell of freshly cut grass.

“Are we here?” Akane asks the moment the car stops.

“Yep. We’re here.”

“Yay!” She struggles against her seat belt, barely has the patience to wait until Taketora unclips her.

But as soon as she’s freed she slips out of the car and races up the steps, bursting through the door.

“Hey! Wait for me!” He calls after her but it’s a hopeless case.

He’s not yet made it to the front door when Akane comes running again, her face smeared with dust. She leaps into him, arms and legs slung around him like she’s a monkey and he’s the tree.

“Tora!” She yelps, panicked. “There are things! Creepy crawly things!”

“Ah,” a new voice says, old and dusty and warm. Taketora looks up to see an old woman smiling at him from the hedge. “Those are susuwatari. They don’t do anything.”

“Susu-what?” Taketora asks, Akane’s face pressed into his chest.

“Susuwatari. Little soot spirits. They like dirty places. But they don’t do anything except prank you if you forget to clean up.”

“Are you sure?” Akane asks.

“Oh yes, my grandchild has played a lot with them. You’ll meet her later.”

“A girl?” Akane’s now hanging off him like she’s trying to use him as a swing. “There’s a girl here? A real girl I can play with?”

“Oh, yes. I think she’s your brother’s age, but I’m sure she’ll play with you if you ask.”

“It’s the ghost!” Akane crows from the window, “There! At the hedge!”

He’s out in a heartbeat, racing down the path toward the vegetable garden. There’s something white floating near the shrubs and he catches it before it can turn the corner.

It’s a girl. Nose smeared with dirt and hands filled with freshly plucked raspberry’s, dressed in a white shirt so large it makes you look like a duvet cover with legs.

“BLEH!” You stick your tongue out at him and take off yet again - or at least try to.

The grandmother from next door stops you, arms akimbo.

“Now, is that how you treat other children?”

You turn back sheepish, hands upturned to offer you what you’ve got, raspberry juice dyeing your fingers red.

“Did you catch the ghost?” Akane’s at the door too, spooking you.

“It’s a girl!” Akane’s at your side in heartbeat, clinging to your leg. “Can you play with me? Do you have dolls too? Do you think boys are stupid or do you think they are nice? My brother is nice most of the time-”

“Breathe,” Taketora puts a hand on her curly head. “She can’t answer if you don’t take breaks.”

You don’t have dolls but you don’t seem to have made up your mind about him either.

Akane still drags him along on their travels through the garden. This is where you talk the most.

“Are there any other spirits?” Akane asks, excited for more after you’ve told her more about the Susuwatari.

“There’s Totoro,” you say, finger pressed against your nose as you’re thinking. “He’s really big. Like, reeaaally big!” You open your arms wide to show it. “He’s very fluffy and he likes to sleep a lot. There’s one who looks like a rabbit too, but I haven’t found out his name yet. He’s very shy, I think.”

“I wanna meet them!” Akane declares, looking at him for support. “You too, right Tora?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “They sound cool.”

“Cool?” You say, brows pinched together as you consider that word. You don’t seem so sure of it.

“Do you know the hospital near here?” Taketora asks two days later when the rain pelts against the window and Akane’s napping in your lap. He’s lost this level too many times to count and he’s getting bored.

“Yes.”

“Is it close? Can we go visit mother?”

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

“But you just said you know it.”

“I’ve only ever been to by bus. And we always have to call first before we come in. I don’t know if you can just go and visit.”

“Oh.” He hesitates. “Who do you visit?”

“My aunt,” You explain simply. “She lives there. Who do you want to visit?”

“Our mother. She’s only there for this summer, to get better.”

“Mhm.” You make, dragging your hands through Akane’s hair.

Silence drapes over you like a blanket.

“What’s it like,” you ask, voice carefully poised. “To have a mother?”

“I found Totoro!” Akane declares one evening, her face smeared with dust. “I got to sleep on him.”

“You got to sleep on who?” Their father asks, putting a bowl of ramen in front of her.

“Totoro! That’s one of the forest spirits here.”

“Oh, a forest spirit? That’s exciting.”

“Do you wanna play ball?” Taketora asks, his feet on the sun-warmed stones outside, your feet on the cold wooden floor inside. He hasn’t seen you in two days because they went and visited their mother, brought back sweets - and a new ball to play with.

You look unsure and he knows he feels it too. This friendship is fragile, like spider webs in the wind or the thin new ice spreading over puddles.

“Akane thinks she’s met Totoro,” he tells you, Volleyball heavy in his hands. “She slept on him too.”

“It’s our neighbour’s dog.” You explain. “You don’t have to make up stuff for me.”

“Why not?” He asks, “It’s nice.”

“It’s lonely.”

Taketora knows Akane’s back at the house, waiting. He knows your Granny is probably just in the other room. He knows he wants to be anywhere but here, sludging through this conversation, yet who else is going to go through it with you?

“When we go back,” he says, “I could write you. Like, real letters. Mom always says I should practice my writing anyway. Nothing happens much in the city, so maybe a letter a week?”

You chew on your lower lip. “You’d do that?”

“Only if you write me back. And if you want, you can come and stay with us too, you know? Or we come and stay with you.”

“I can’t leave Granny behind,” you explain, already looking a little less sorrowful. “But you can come anytime.”

Tora stretches out his hand, pinky first.

“Let’s promise,” he says. “Pinky Promise.”

- - - xxx - - -

His mom says that this summer changed him, both of them.

And maybe it has because it changed her too.

She comes home a healthy woman, with rosy cheeks and an appetite for life.

He leaves behind the fear of losing her and a newfound joy for being outside.

He can get angry now, call things unfair when he feels them, without the need to be quiet and tiptoe around the sick.

Akane’s grown louder too, drawing pictures of Susuwatari and Totoro’s, big and small. When she’s six years old she asks for something to take pictures with and spends days outside trying to capture things that no one else sees. A colorful beetle, a button that looked spooky to her, or the sky on a rainy day.

They don’t go back though. A few months after they left they got an offer for the house, too good to refuse.

Vacations are spent at the beach or in the mountains, or at home, training for the next match and ignoring the mountain of homework that never goes away.

And every month, without fail, his mom waves at him with a letter when he gets home, smiling from one ear to the other.

“Your friend wrote. To you too, Akane.”

- - - xxx - - -

“We made it,” he writes, chewing on a pen. “Going to Nationals again this year.”

“That’s amazing,” his phone pings with your answer, “We’re going too.”

“Really?” He hesitates. Wait, does this mean-? “Tokyo?”

“Of course, stupid.”

“Hey.”

“I probably won’t even recognize you,” you write. He wonders how your voice would sound if you said it out loud. Sad? Lonely? But you do have more friends now, he knows, ever since you got into that boarding school.

“I’m not hard to miss,” he types. “Red jacket, blond mohawk. What do you look like?”

“Purple jacket.”

“I could send you a picture,” he offers, hoping you will send one back. Maybe you’re ugly, with a crooked nose and warts and missing teeth. That would make him less nervous to see you again.

“Sure,” you type and he hesitates, swallows around a lump at the prospect. Should he take a new picture right now? Or send in the one they did for school? But he’s scowling there.

Akane walks past his room and he calls out her name, pressing his phone into her hand before he can think too much about it.

“Take a picture of me.”

“Oh?” She grins, not wasting a second. “Here, sent it.”

“What?!” He rips the phone out of her hands. “Which one? You should have let me pick.”

“Nah, you have to do it like a band-aid. Just ript it off and get it over with.”

“But-”

Akane pats him on the shoulder, so grown and yet so small. “Get over it.”

He doesn’t get a picture back.

- - - xxx - - -

“Taketora!”

He turns, half expecting Kuroo to yell at him about something - despite the fact that his captain is walking in front of him.

There’s a group of girls at the stairs, all of them in purple jackets and one cuter than the next. He swallows nervously as they all seem to look in his direction.

Did he do something?

“What?!” He asks, sounding more angry than nervous - thank god.

One of them waves, says something to the one standing next to her and begins jogging over.

Purple jacket, his brain supplies. Nothing.

Purple jacket, his brain reminds him again. Still nothing.

It’s only when you’re two steps away and he can hear Yaku mumble a “What did he do this time?” behind him that it shoots through him like lightning, a surprise so unwelcome it could have been a cramp. It’s you.

“Shit, you look pretty,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth like rocks down a mountain.

You stop, clearly as surprised about his comment as the boys around him, one of them kneeing him in the back - Thanks, Yaku.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” You ask, looking over his teammates. “Or are you in a rush? I’ve got ten minutes but I don’t know when I see you again.”

Rough hands push him forward before he can answer and you giggle, a sound so new and thrilling it makes shivers run down his back.

There’s a small hallway leading away from the masses of people and you step into it, suddenly much too close for comfort.

You smell like flowers and air salonpas instead of dirt and sweat like the last time he saw you.

You’re pretty, too, much too pretty for his poor heart, and so so close.

“I missed you,” you say when you turn to him and if he hadn’t been red in the face before, he certainly is now.

“I too. I mean I missed you, not me. I can’t miss me, because I am me.”

Warm lips press against his cheek. His brain stops working altogether and all he can hear for a moment is a shrill whistle, like a teapot when the water boils.

“I was a little scared,” you say or maybe you said something else and he only just heard you now, “That you wouldn’t like me any more now. But you do, right? You still like me?”

“Are you kidding me?” Taketora asks, waving his hands around, trying to make sense of what he’s feeling. “Are you freaking kidding me? When? How? Why?”

“Volleyball,” you say, shrugging. “And not being lonely, I guess. Are you going to watch my games?”

“Of course!” He nods eagerly, “I’ll tell everyone that I know you.”

You laugh. “I’ll do the same. I’ll yell extra loud when you score. This is my boyfriend or somethhhh-” You stop mid-word, realizing what you just said. Your eyes widen just as his heart picks up where it left off a second ago, making up for its missed beats with double the speed.

“Boyfriend?” He asks, voice high. “Like, for real?”

You shrug a little helplessly. “If you want?”

“Of course!” He nods, probably a bit too eager. “Of course. I gotta win now if you’re watching.”

“And even if we don’t,” you say, stretching out your hand, pinky up. “We’re still friends, right?”

He hooks his pinky around yours and shakes it.

“Pinky Promise.”

My Kofi if you want to tip me

#my writing #yamamoto taketora #yamamoto x reader #yamamoto fluff #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff #my neighbour totoro

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sanjoongie · 9 months

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Love will Find you when you're not Looking

🌳Apart of the ghibli collab held by @daesukiii 🌳Genre: romance, angst 🌳Trope/Au: love triangle, established relationship, s2l, fantasy au 🌳Pairing: San x Nari (OC) x Seonghwa 🌳Fandom: Ateez 🌳Movie: My Neighbor Totoro 🌳Warnings: mentions of illness, death, heartbreak, cheating! 🌳Word Count: 7,060 🌳Rating: 18+ MDNI 🌳Summary: moving into the countryside had two purposes: one, to put Seonghwa in a state-of-the-art facility to see if there's a chance he might survive this illness, and two, so that you could enjoy your life while being without Seonghwa. What you never pegged was how magical the forest was surrounding your new home and finding comfort within it. 🌳A/N: Mathieu is the youngest, four years old boy, and Seongnam is eight (first born, means south star, after hwa's nickname for Nari, which is northern star) 🌳Dedication: @mejuii & @downtoamagicalland who wept when i first told them of my plans for this story and wept after they read it too 💔 i'm sorry i broke your hearts, my beta readers

“Seongnam, please watch your brother!” I called out as the two raced out of the moving van and tore across the wild grass that was now my new yard.

“Okay Mama!” Seongnam, my eldest, called out. “Mathieu, stay by me, okay?”

“‘Kay!” Mathieu, my four year old, echoed back.

I let myself watch them as they zoomed around for a moment before turning to the moving van. There was a lot of stuff to move and it was only day one.

I had moved to the countryside to remain closer to my husband, Seonghwa. He had always had a delicate disposition when I had met him but it seemed to only get worse once we got older and began a family. Eventually, when Seonghwa became bedridden, the city doctors recommended a state of the art facility that was located in the middle of nowhere. I wrote for a living so it was nothing for me to move my life for Seonghwa, but I worried about the kids. Seongnam had some best friends already and I loathed to pull him from his life in the city, but he insisted he wanted to be wherever his Papa was, so here we were, moving into a fixer-upper with the intentions of staying within biking distance of his father.

Mathieu squealed in fear as Seongnam lifted up a log, revealing creepy-crawlies, and it made my own fear zip through me. I dropped a dresser I had been attempting to pull onto the built-in dolly on the moving truck and moved outside of the van.

“Park Seongnam, stop torturing your poor brother!” I shouted.

“Yes, Mama,” Seongnam said dutifully but stuck his tongue out at his scaredy cat brother.

I sighed. Seongnam promised me he was going to try to take care of his brother, who was still very sensitive to his father being ‘in that sick place’ but Seongnam had too much of my teasing nature in him and Mathieu was also too much me in being the perfect victim. It was going to be a mess keeping those two from aggravating each other this summer.

The boys zoomed around the house, searching every nook and cranny for old folklore creatures. They claimed they found soot sprites and one of the grannies from the small community in these hills even confirmed it to them, leaving them wide eyes about tales of the small creatures in our house and in the forest.

"You would beware of the forest spirit the most, however," Granny wagged a finger at me, "many a maiden have fallen to his charms. As kind and warm as his heart may be, he is still a forest spirit."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't have to worry about me, Granny. With these two gremlins, I have enough to worry about."

"Gremlin!" Mathieu cackled at the new fun word to say.

Seongnam began to growl, crouching and forming claws from his fingers. He chased Mathieu around the house, while Granny instructed me how best to heat up all the welcome dishes she brought with her. And through all this, I just wished Seonghwa was here.

Seonghwa always used to be able to put the boys to bed best. He would gather them in his arms, one on each side of him, and he would lay in Seongnam's single bed. His feet would awkwardly lie off the bed but his eyes would remain on me.

"Tell us a story, Mama," he would say, eyes full of hearts instead of stars.

Our boys would fall asleep to the sound of their father's even breathing but Seonghwa always listened to every last word until I said "The End."

Each boy would get a kiss on the forehead, Mathieu tucked into his big boy bed, and we would continue the evening. It used to be that Seonghwa would say "One more time, I think we can get a little girl." But then Seonghwa couldn't make it through a single story without coughing and his sleep included an oxygen mask. I loved Seonghwa but I missed him so much.

"Boys, please, I've a new story to tell you," I pleaded, currently having a hard time without Seonghwa.

Mathieu frog hopped over his brother who was crouched putting Legos together on the floor. "New story?"

I nodded my head. "Remember the spirit Granny warned me about earlier?"

Seongnam laid on his bed, with his brother dutifully beside him, and they both watched me with the same eyes their father stared at me as I weaved a tale for their bedtime…

Once upon a time there was a maiden and she had to travel to far away lands because her father was sick--

“Do even princesses have sick father’s too, Mama?” Seongnam interrupted me.

Mathieu had the beginnings of a pout on his adorable lips. Seongnam looked like he needed to relate to someone; that he wasn’t alone in the world with a sick papa.

I tickled Mathieu to get a big grin from him and I leaned in to kiss Seongnam’s nose. “Yes, my star, even princesses have sick fathers.”

The princess was very lonely, stuck in a castle all by herself, with her father sick in a tall tower that was guarded by a powerful wizard. But the castle was surrounded by a magical forest, so she spent her days picking flowers--

“Mama,” Seongnam interrupted me again, Mathieu blew a raspberry.

I narrowed my eyes down at my boys, giving them the best Mama Glare I knew. Seongnam stayed strong, however.

“Why does the princess pick flowers? What did they ever do to her?”

I had to laugh. “Do you want to hear the story or not Park Seongnam?!” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips.

A small smile, a ghost of his father’s, pulled at Seongnam’s lips. “Sorry, Mama.”

--she spent her days picking up acorns and pinecones, hoping to recreate some of the magical forest within the walls of the castle. For the princess knew that soon she would be caught playing in the forest and that was not allowed.

The magical forest was neither good nor evil, it simply was. There were happy fairies but there were also dangers in the magical forest that even a princess could not defeat. So every day, the princess made sure she was back home before sunset; before it became dark in the magical forest.

Mathieu clung to his older brother, burying his face into his older brother’s airplane pattern pjs. Seongnam hugged his brother back, ‘too big’ to admit that he might be scared as well.

Luckily enough for the princess, the forest enjoyed her company. She bowed to the deer and said good morning to the bunnies. So the forest sent out a messenger, for it could see that the princess was indeed very lonely.

The forest spirit was a big but fluffy creature, with gray fur and white spots. The forest spirit loved to sleep in the sun, having found the perfect burrow in the hollow of a tree. The forest awoke the spirit with a great shaking of the tree’s branches and the spirit yawned loudly.

The noise scared the princess, who had been below the tree, collecting acorns. But, she was a brave and curious princess, so she followed a hole into the tree and found the spirit.

“Did the spirit eat her?” Seongnam demanded. Mathieu squealed as his brother grabbed his arm and pretended to nom on him.

“You sir, are a troublemaker,” I scolded my eldest.

I scooped Mathieu up into my arms and cradled him to my chest. “The forest spirit does not eat princesses,” I assured my youngest.

Mathieu nodded like he knew better this entire time and continued to listen to my story.

The princess climbed upon the forest spirit because he was larger than a bear but much more cuddly. She curled up and napped with the forest spirit, who was very happy to go back to sleep.

She slept and she slept. And she slept and she slept. And when she woke up, she found that so much time had passed. The castle had been looking for her far and wide and thought she disappeared! But the forest was looking to help the princess who sought comfort in it. So by the time the princess woke up, her father was healed!

By the time I finished my story, Mathieu was sound asleep, sucking his thumb. Seongnam looked like he had half a foot in sleepland and half a foot in the waking land.

“Mama?” Seongnam inquired sleepily as I tucked Mathieu in.

“Yes baby?” I answered absentmindedly, gently tugging Mathieu’s thumb out of his mouth.

“I wish I could sleep and wake up and Papa was better.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. I had wanted to give my children hope with that story but it seemed like Seongnam had my logic. I turned to my first born and sat on his bed. “Well, Seongnam, in a way, it’s kinda true. One day, we will wake up and go visit your father and the doctors will tell us he’s well enough to come home.”

“Promise?” Seongnam asked, rubbing his eyes.

“On a shooting star, let it go far,” I added our family’s extra mantra when we promised things.

“ ‘kay,” Seongnam replied, turning over and falling asleep.

Sleep did not come to me as easily as it did my sons, unfortunately. Nighttime was usually when I was free of my hoodlums and could write a bit but my mind and body was exhausted after the move. Instead, I grabbed a blanket and sat outside on the porch to look at the stars. Perhaps Seonghwa was also looking at the same stars I was. But I hope he was sleeping, just like our babies.

I pulled out my phone by instinct but there wasn’t any cell service in the remote area we lived in. Hell, the internet company wasn’t coming out for another week because it was satellite internet and they were already booked up. All I wanted to do was send a text message to my love to tell him I missed him. I didn’t want to be a single parent anymore.

“There’s a star in this sky around this time of year that we call the lonely star,” a voice comes out of nowhere, scaring me half to death. “I don’t see it in the sky though. Perhaps it’s you?”

I turned my head slowly and there was a dark haired man, hair sheared close to his head, with a gray shirt that had cut-outs on his massive shoulders. His smile pulled only half of his lips to the side, showing dimples. His dark eyes glowed merrily, clearly teasing.

I tried to calm my beating heart. “Nope, I’m not a fallen star,” I stated. I moved to get up, scared for my children but the man sat down beside me.

“The babies are asleep. There is no danger to them,” He reassured me.

I swallowed nervously. “Is there any danger to me?”

The man shook his head. “No,” he replied simply.

“What brings you out here at the dead of night?” I couldn't help but say sarcastically.

“Your heart called out to me,” The man said, turning his head slightly.

I scoffed and then brandished my hand with my wedding band to him. “Didn’t you hear that your new neighbor is married?”

The man cocked his head curiously and then examined my engagement ring on top of my marriage band. The diamond sparkled as he moved it and I held my breath. “Are you sure you’re not a fallen star and this is how you contain yourself until you can get back up into the sky?”

You’re my northern star. I always follow you to find my way home.

My throat suddenly became tight and my heart ached with love and loneliness. The man, as if responding to my own pain, put a hand to his heart. “See, your heart calls out to me even now.”

“How do you know?” I whispered into the night wind.

The man turned to me fully, half serious, half joking. “You’re the princess from the story from earlier. And I’m the forest spirit.”

I shook my head slowly. “How did you…that’s not possible!”

The man giggled musically. “The forest sent me because you were lonely. You all are.”

My heart hurt even more, thinking that my children were lonely because their father wasn’t here with us in this new place. “That’s not true.”

The man put a hand on my shoulder and I felt all the tension and loneliness melt away. Instead, I felt comfort and warmth. “Now it’s not true.”

My eyes felt heavy and before I could realize it, my head dropped and the last thing I remember was my body leaning into the stranger’s shoulder as he hummed a song under his breath. It sounded like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

I jolted awake the next morning when the door slammed open behind me. “Mama!” Mathieu yelled at me, “Why are you sleeping outside?”

I blinked rapidly, dazed and confused. What had happened? I came outside because I couldn't sleep and--

“There’s a star in this sky around this time of year that we call the lonely star.”

I shook my head. I had to have dreamt that. "Mama couldn't sleep, love," I replied, standing up with a groan.

"Mama, can I have eggs?" Mathieu asked politely, small hand clinging to my pant leg.

I smiled painfully. "Only if I can find the frying pan."

The morning was a bit of a mess. Mathieu cried in frustration when I couldn't make his eggs the way Papa made them. Seongnam scolded his baby brother, saying he should grow up, which only made Mathieu cry harder. I yelled at Seongnam and then his lower lip began to quiver.

"Come here, loves." I bent down and threw out my arms. Both of my boys came to me and we had a group hug and a small cry together.

Seongnam wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and then Mathieu wiped my cheeks adorably.

"Now, Mama needs to unpack some more. We don't want the sneezies, so be big boys and find all the windows and throw them all open for your silly Mama, okay?"

Mathieu squealed and ran off to find the first window. Seongnam looked at me seriously for a moment and then bopped my nose with his forefinger. He had seen his father do that to me numerous times and for some odd reason it stopped me from sneezing.

I almost teared up again but kept it together for my oldest. "Thank you, Southern star."

Seongnam grinned at me. "Welcome, Northern Star."

"When you're done with the windows, go play outside with Mathieu, okay?" Seongnam nodded solemnly. "You can go into the forest but only as far as you can still see the house. No farther than that."

"Yes, Mama," Seongnam agreed and then he was gone.

I spent the day unpacking and cleaning our fix-me-up. I noted most of the repairs in a notebook, thinking I could do a lot myself minus the roof. Before I realized it, it was lunch time. I leaned out the kitchen window that looked to the forest and called out the boys' names. Soon, they were running out of the forest, squealing and giggling.

"Mama!" Mathieu practically threw himself into my arms. "We made a new friend!"

"Did you say good morning to some bunnies like the princess?" I asked, burying my face into the crook of Mathieu’s neck.

"Noooooo," he giggled, pushing away my face. "It's the forest spirit like in your story!"

My stomach dipped and my hold on Mathieu tightened. Seongnam must have seen my face fall as well because he came and grabbed my hand. "What's wrong? Didn't you say the forest sent the spirit to the princess because she was lonely?"

My own story was starting to really bite me in the ass. "It was just a story, star."

Seongnam frowned. "No, it isn't. We met him today! He showed us the hollow and the view from the top of the tree!"

I shook my feeling of anxiety and played along with Seongnam. Clearly they really had latched onto my story. I had even dreamt of the story. They were my children after all, they'd be good at playing make believe.

"Did you get a name for the forest spirit?" I inquired.

"San!" Mathieu declared, throwing his arms up in the air. "He throws me high in the air and I float on toys!"

"Well that does sound like a lot of fun," I agreed.

I settled Mathieu on my hip and started to pull out the ingredients for sandwiches. "Did you nap too? The forest spirit does love a good nap."

"No, San said he wasn't tired because he had a nap with you!" Seongnam answered while he sat at the table.

I tried not to falter at Seongnam’s words. I put Mathieu in his raised chair and started making sandwiches. I had to do something with my hands to stop them from shaking.

"Well, let's make sure the forest sent the same spirit to me as it did to you, huh? What if it's playing a trick on us? Your San, he had short, dark hair? A gray shirt with silly cut outs?"

"Yeah!" Seongnam nodded his head so quickly his glasses fell down the bridge of his nose. "And he had these." And my eldest proceeded to poke both of his cheeks.

Shit, this just got real.

That night, after a story about a car that spoke to its owner, I was outside on my porch quicker than if my ass had been on fire.

"Forest spirit, who gave you permission to play with MY children?" I hissed into the darkness.

I was met with silence.

"Oh, so now you're playing shy, huh?!" I said, putting my hands on my hips.

“See, your heart calls out to me even now.”

Fine, two could play this game.

I thought of when I met Seonghwa. He had been staring at me in the library for over half an hour and it had been bothering me. So I gathered my bag and books and walked over to his desk and slammed a hand down in front of him, making him jump and yelp in fright.

"How am I supposed to read when I can feel your eyes boring into my back, just between my shoulder blades?" I whispered angrily.

"Actually," Seonghwa blinked up at me. "I was trying to figure out if the barrette under your bun was a shooting star."

I slapped my hand on my shooting star barrette. "Oh. I'm sorry," I apologized lamely.

Seonghwa smiled, crooked but kind. "That's interesting because my name actually means 'to be a star'."

"It doesn't mean anything, it just means I really like stars," I mumbled under my breath. I was embarrassed and I just wanted to get out of here now.

Seonghwa tilted his head flirtatiously. "Then you must like me too."

I sighed and curled a fist over my heart, back in the present. Seonghwa had been sick then but it barely affected him. If I had known… no. I loved Seonghwa fiercely and proudly and I wouldn't give up my sons for the world.

"Hello again, fallen star."

"San--"

San's eyes lit up with excitement. "So they did tell you about me!"

"I've never seen them so happy and glowing in a long time," I said wistfully.

"They just needed to have someone look at them and acknowledge that they are here," San said, nodding his head sagely.

I shook my head. "I don't understand this."

"You don't have to understand it." San leaned back against one of the porch pillars and it creaked.

I stared worriedly at the roof of the porch. "Am I gonna have to fix you too?"

San giggled, the melodic noise dancing through the air. "The house has good bones. It was built from the trees from the forest, freely given."

I pursed my lips. "I don't want more of your gifts."

San cocked his head curiously. "You couldn't sleep. I helped you."

"I'm not a forest spirit, I can't sleep outside without getting cold and stiff," I replied, rubbing a shoulder with one hand.

"You weren't cold!" San frowned, "I kept you warm."

I began to rub my eyebrow. "I don't need any more help."

“Then why did your heart call out to me?”

San’s gaze felt a little too heavy for my liking. “Because I wanted to yell at you.”

“For taking care of the little ones?” San blew a raspberry, “Humans are funny.”

My throat tightened and tears burned my eyes. San was right. I was just as bad as my children, lashing out when I didn’t know who I truly wanted to be angry at. I felt warm hands grasp my upper arm.

“Do not cry, fallen star,” San reassured me.

I bent my neck so my head could lower. I didn’t want him to see my tears for some reason I could not fathom. “I’m not crying,” I sniffled.

San pulled me in for a hug and the dam broke. All the walls I had up, all the meticulously built support to stay strong for everyone in my life gave out and I began to sob into San’s chest. My face was buried there and his arms were around me and I wept for my life. I wept that I had to make promises I couldn't keep to my children. I wept for my sick husband. I wept that I was tired and sad and neglected--

With tears pouring down my face, San released me and tipped my head back with a finger under my chin. “You are beautiful,” he beamed down at me with such a radiant smile.

My shoulders still shook as my sobs wracked through my body. “I’m not,” I said stubbornly.

“Your heart is beautiful, therefore you are,” San insisted.

And just like that, my heart started beating out of my chest. San seemingly responded, grin only getting wider and bolder. He leaned in and I put a hand on his chest to halt him from getting too close. “Don’t.”

"I just want you to feel loved," San sighed, his warm breath flirting with my lips.

"My husband--"

"Your heart is sick, Nari."

"San, I can't!"

"Then let me."

His lips descended onto mine. He kissed me softly, he kissed me gently, and with kindness that made my heart melt. I was like fragile glass in his hands but he knew exactly how to handle me. His tongue touched my lips and my mouth opened up for him with a groan. It had been ages since I had been kissed this way. Since--

I pushed San firmly back, palms to chest and San let me break the kiss. "No."

San watched me with solemn eyes and said nothing until I reached my door. "You know, while I kissed you, your heart wasn't crying anymore."

The next day we made our first trip to Seonghwa's room at the hospice. I had a buggy attached to my bike and Seongnam had his own bike, training wheels taken off as the last service his father had performed for him.

The boys were so excited to see their father and to tell him about the move. I let them run into his room while the doctor snagged me for a talk. It seemed like the move to the hospice had put quite a lot of stress on Seonghwa’s body.

"Are you saying the move was bad for him?" I demanded incredulously.

The doctor shook his head. "Not at all. We are already seeing the change the air is having on his lungs. His heart, on the other hand--"

And then I heard the word San.

Seongnam was talking animatedly with his hands, that he took after me in regard to. Mathieu bounced on the bed, excited to blurt out his adventures with the forest spirit. And all I could think about was how I had kissed a man other than Seonghwa.

"Thank you, doctor, but I would like to see Seonghwa now." I nodded curtly and then pushed into the room.

“And how is my northern star?” Seonghwa smiled, his eyes twinkling like stars themselves.

“I’m fine, Hwa,” I murmured, pushing my hair behind my ear.

“Your hair is getting long,” He mentioned, rubbing a strand between his thumb and forefinger.

“Mama hates it Papa, but she says it’s for you,” Mathieu blurted out, not truly understanding what he was repeating.

Seonghwa’s smile grew and my cheeks became warm. “Is that so?”

I pulled Mathieu closer to me, avoiding eye contact. I started to absentmindedly comb his hair down. “Well, it’s not like the hairdresser is nearby anymore.”

“Did the doctor say you could come home now?’ Seongnam asked solemnly.

“I’m sorry,” was all that Seonghwa could offer to his eldest son.

Mathieu bursted out crying at the announcement that Papa wasn’t coming home. Seongnam teared up too and I knew it was time to take them home. I ushered them out before they could exhaust Seonghwa; he needed all the energy he could muster to focus on healing. Except when I turned my head one last time to see Seonghwa, he was crying too. I had to remain strong for the males in my life and not shed a single tear.

The next following days were full of dark clouds, metaphorical and literal. The boys were either silent with their thoughts or burst out in anger. They fought with each other, Seongnam lashing out verbally while Mathieu usually responded physically.

I had to start sleeping with Mathieu in my bed to keep them separated at night. I slept better, oddly enough, with Mathieu drooling on my stomach as I stroked his hair until he slept.

The day the rain actually started was the same day I left the kids off with the local granny at my house. They promised to behave and listen to Granny but I was still worried. I didn't have much of a choice. My editor demanded I meet her back in the city.

The train into the city came at an ungodly hour in the morning but my appointment with my editor wasn't until late afternoon. I didn't have any friends to meet up with, taking care of Seonghwa for the past couple years had made me out of the loop of their lives and caused it to be awkward. And even once I met up with my editor, she only had bad news.

"Your stories need a new main love interest, Nari," she said, slamming the top of her laptop down with finality.

"What?!" I asked, rubbing my eyebrow.

"It's always a gentle man, with a kind smile and growly voice. The readers need something new to sink their teeth into," My editor insisted.

"How about an infuriating man who insists that he knows your heart better than you do and kisses you because of that," I grumbled under my breath.

My editor's eyebrows shot into her fringe. "That's perfect, actually, are you working on something I don't know about?"

I opened my mouth and closed it. I had said that flippantly, thinking of San, I hadn't meant that seriously. "I was kidding!"

My editor gave me a look that said she didn't believe me. "Well, if you do work on something, let me know, before you even write a first draft. No use working it all out if it's just a copy and paste of the last one."

I was dismayed to see that the rain was still going strong as I made my way home. The grayness of the day suited the way the day had gone but I felt like I needed some sunshine to brighten up my day. Alas, that didn’t seem like it was going to happen. The rain and the wind picked up so suddenly that once I walked off the train, the wind pulled my umbrella into a dance amongst the sky and left me at the mercy of the rain.

I rode my bike from the station, cursing the dark country roads. What was my editor thinking? A love interest like San? My readers would be outraged. They love my characters who always ask if they can kiss their beloved. They love the men who point up at a shooting star and then give a reason to put their arm around their beloved. They loved the love interests who kissed their pregnant wife's protruding belly, promising to be there for all of the unborn baby's life--

I squinted but the light coming from my bike was barely helping, and with the rain continuously and relentlessly whipping into my face and my glasses, I was bound for a crash. It happened almost instantly, my bike barreling into the ditch and sending me over the handlebars. I braced for impact and should have hit the ground hard, or a tree for that matter, but all I heard was an ‘oomph’.

"That's not how you fly, fallen star."

"I wasn't trying to fly, San!" I cried out in frustration and anger.

"Could have fooled me," San chuckled.

I was cradled in the forest spirit's arms, one arm under my back and the other under my legs. "Put me down."

San jutted his chin out in the direction of my bike. "You're not getting home with that anymore."

My bike was a mangled mess, the chain broken and a wheel bent. How much could I have hurt myself if not for San catching me? What would have happened to Seongnam and Mathieu? Angry tears began to fall down my cheek. Why did life have to be so hard right now?

"I can help you get home," San murmured.

"Are we going to float on toys?" I asked sarcastically, recalling what Mathieu had said.

"No." San began to climb out of the ditch, water running down his hair and down his face, eyes forward and determined. "Cat bus."

"Cat bus," I said with disbelief. "There are no buses around here, San," I deadpanned.

"Cat bus only reveals itself to people in need," San replied.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered under my breath.

San stood in the rain at the side of the road, without letting my feet touch the ground, like he expected something to pull around the corner--I jolted when two beams of light turned the corner of the road.

"Shut up," I whispered.

A bus in the shape of a cat with many legs ran to us. It had tiny rat's eyes as its red lights and it--it truly was a Cat Bus. San put us both on the bus and it ran across the hills and leapt over the forest and before I realized it, I was screaming. Not in fear, but in exhilaration. The speed raced through my veins and made me feel alive.

San lifted me once more when we arrived at my fix-it-up house and only put me down as he said, "My princess, your castle."

"Were you listening at the window when I told them that story?!" I demanded.

San simply shook his head like I was the silly one. "Of course not. The wind carries your stories to me. But more importantly, your children believe that you're the princess in that story. They believe that I was sent here so that you're not so lonely now that Papa is sick. They don't even think of themselves when they play with me. They are always thinking of you."

"Thank you for today," I said instead.

"Your heart called for me and I answered," San said simply.

I entered my house, soaking wet and instantly scared to death as Granny shouted at me. "There you are!"

My heart fell to my stomach at the look of worry on Granny's face. "Are my boys okay?!"

"They're fine--but Seonghwa!"

My legs gave out on me. Here I was, having an unbelievable experience with San and my Seonghwa was suffering. "What?"

"The hospice sent someone an hour ago!" Granny held my hands between her own. "Seonghwa's heart is weak. They want you and the boys there, in case--"

"Oh, God."

We rushed to the hospice, Granny calling her son to bring us in his UTV. I had Mathieu on my lap and Seongnam clutched to my side the entire ride. I didn't say a word to either of them but I think they knew exactly what was happening. They didn't know what this truly meant but it was like we had all been bracing for impact, like I had been when I fell off my bike. I winced. I don't think San could save us from this.

The nurses and the doctors rounded up the children and allowed me to go into Seonghwa's room first.

"Hwa," I whimpered.

He looked so fragile in his bed with all the wires attached to him and the machines beeping. He even had an oxygen mask over his face. And yet he still managed to smile at me. "How's my Northern Star?"

"Park Seonghwa," and then I started to cry.

I lied on the bed and sobbed because I was terrified to even touch him. Seonghwa's fingers ghosted the top of my head, the most he could reach. "Don't cry, Nari. I love you."

"I love you too!" I sobbed. "You promised when I was carrying Seongnam that you would be with us forever."

"Nari." I sat up but it only made it worse. Seonghwa was crying, biting down on his bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from quivering. "I don't want to go either."

The tears wouldn't stop streaming down my face, and down my chin and down my neck. "You were supposed to get better."

"The doctor's tried their best," Seonghwa insisted, swallowing his tears. "The boys?"

"They…" I began to shake my head, "No, they can't see you like this, Hwa."

"Nari." I winced. Seonghwa rarely used his no-nonsense voice towards me.

I wiped my tears away as quickly and as best as I could and turned to leave. I gathered up Mathieu in my arms and took Seongnam's hand wordlessly.

"Mama?" Mathieu said my name like he was terrified.

"We need to have a family meeting," I said.

"I don't want to have a family meeting," Seongnam whimpered.

"We have to," I insisted and then re-entered Seonghwa's room.

Seonghwa shakily pulled off his oxygen mask. I heard the nurse begin to protest but the doctor shushed her. "Come give Papa a kiss," Seonghwa held open his arms to take Mathieu first.

"Papa," Mathieu whimpered. He gave a large smacking, wet kiss to Seonghwa's cheek. "Why do you look like a robot?"

Seonghwa smiled shakily. "Because they're turning me into one."

"Papa!" Seongnam really couldn't take his father's silliness, just like me. "Be serious."

Seonghwa patted the bed and Seongnam let go of my hand and went to his father. "I am serious, southern star."

Seonghwa was the one that told the bedtime story tonight. He spun a tale of a boy who was born with a heart that was too big and lungs that were too small. The boy had a long journey to find the wizard, and along the way he met two stars and a tiny cat. By the time the boy got a heart of diamond and lungs of steel, Seongnam and Mathieu were fast asleep. I didn't have the heart to move anyone but the nurse did insist on putting Seonghwa's oxygen mask back over his face. Eventually, they were all asleep and it was just me.

The doctor made sure that I had all the legal precautions in place for when, not if, Seonghwa's heart finally gave out and that was all I could take for my very, horrible day. I fell asleep, head on the bed, bent over in a chair pulled up to Seonghwa's bed, holding Seonghwa's hand.

🌳🌳🌳

The funeral made me feel like I was the one that passed away. I felt numb. I felt like I was floating. Nothing seemed real. Seonghwa’s happy face was at the front of the church but he wasn't here any longer. Countless people gave me their sympathies and cried but I had no more tears. The last ones I shed were on Seonghwa’s deathbed.

Going home after it all was the worst part. Seonghwa had never seen our house and now he never would. The house would never know of Seonghwa playing with his sons. The house would never hear Seonghwa’s laughter after he embarrassed himself. This house would never hold any memories of my husband and my boys Papa. This truly was a new fresh start for us all.

Everything seemed to be more gray after Seonghwa passed. I was numb for so long, only raising my head above water to take care of the children but the rest of the time my mind was empty and void. I could think of nothing, because if I did, I would break and not be able to provide for my boys.

The boys were devastated for days, I barely heard them play or laugh. They simple went about their days like they were required but I missed the days of hearing them squeal with happiness when I bid them home from the forest for lunch.

Eventually, I had to stop simply raising my head out of the water but to pull my body out completely.

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey," I shouted as I brought down a wooden spoon several times on a pot.

"Mama?" Mathieu rubbed his eyes with his chubby fists.

"Mama!" Seongnam groaned, pulling his blankets over his head.

"The princess is summoning her most championed knights. Her highness has decided that there will be an outing to pick mushrooms and berries and to take a picnic with the forest spirit!" I shouted, leaning over Seongnam's body and making Mathieu giggle.

"Wait, a picnic? In the forest?" Seongnam ripped his blankets off himself and stared up at me. My heart almost broke at how excited he was.

"San?!" Mathieu screamed in glee and almost fell trying to get out of his bed.

"But first, the finest cooks in all the land have made bacon and eggs. We must consume the royal breakfast in order to leave the castle!" I declared.

After breakfast, I found a pink diaphanous scarf to dramatically throw over my shoulder. Mathieu acquired a bucket as his helm and Seongnam tied two sieves along his shoulders as his armor. My most trusted knights followed me into the forest as we sought out the forest spirit.

I thought about a time right before Seonghwa got very sick. Mathieu was around two, starting to learn how to walk and talk. Seonghwa had gotten sad that Mathieu didn't want to be held by his father as much anymore. So Seonghwa had declared that the floor was poisonous for the entire day and if anyone but an adult touched, they would hate their favorite food. Seongnam and I spent the entire day on our couch, snacking and watching movies. But Seonghwa spent the entire day dutifully carrying Mathieu everywhere his little heart desired. And when we all went to sleep that night, Seonghwa declared it the best day of his life.

"What do we have here?" San stepped out of the dappled forest shade.

Seongnam jumped in front of me, brandishing a stick he had found on the way and Mathieu mimicked him only with a tall flower he had found. "We are the princess' most trusted knights. Are you the fabled forest spirit?"

"Hmmm, depends on who is asking?" San pretended to think about it. "I know two boys who are my best friends. Are you the same knights?" San's eyes danced with amusement as he stared straight at me.

"San!" Mathieu pushed back his bucket. "It's us!"

San crouched in front of Mathieu. "Oh, Matty! There you are!"

"San?" Seongnam solemnly said the forest spirit's name.

"Is that you, Seongnam?" San exclaimed.

"Mama has never been to the Hollow." Seongnam's eyes slid to me, as if he felt guilty for never bringing me there.

San slapped his hands to his cheeks in shock. "You're right! How did this escape me?"

"Hollow! Hollow!" Mathieu chanted.

San put his hands under Mathieu’s arm and raised him to sit on his shoulders. San offered one hand to Seongnam, who clung to San's pinky and ring finger. San's other hand went to hold Mathieu’s leg to keep him in place on his shoulders. Seongnam looked up at San and there was hope and a smile on Seongnam's face. Mathieu was still chanting 'Hollow!' when he had been as quiet as a mouse for weeks.

At last San turned to look at me. "Aren't you coming, Princess?" San lifted his eyebrows in question.

I lifted my chin stubbornly and made a small 'hmph!' noise. "A princess leads, she does not follow!"

Mathieu giggled. "You don't know where it is, Mama!" Seongnam insisted, rolling his eyes, just like me.

I felt my heart burst. This moment felt normal. This felt real. I felt present and grounded and truly here. Something I haven't felt since…

"Come back, Fallen Star," San murmured.

"Mama?" Mathieu frowned.

"Mama isn't a fallen star!" Seongnam insisted stubbornly, "Papa always said, she's the northern star, she's how you find home!"

"She does feel like home, doesn't she?" San tilted his head.

Mathieu clearly didn't understand what was going on so he started changing Hollow again and I knew we had to move on. "Knight Star, lead the way." I motioned towards Seongnam.

"Follow me everyone!" Seongnam shouted.

As we walked, the four of us along the forest path, I wondered if it was possible that life could perhaps be less hard right now. Perhaps my lonely heart, and my son's, had summoned San. Perhaps… perhaps I could go back to being a Northern star; not a lonely star nor a fallen one. Perhaps, I would find love when I wasn't looking for it.

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