#gigiwrites

Don't think about about Slider who is not burying Admiral Kazansky but Tommy, the 7 year old boy he met when he was a kid, with scraped knees and a gaping hole where his front teeth should be, Tommy the 16 year old who showed up on the Kerners porch with a split lip and nowhere to go, Tommy the 26 years old who finally let himself love and whose smile Slider would never forget.

Don't think about Hollywood and Wolfman, holding onto each other's hands tightly as they give the man who saved their lives and united them in sickness and health, one last salute, wobbly and half assed because Ice always gave them shit for it and there was no way he would accept a crisp one from them now.

Don't think about Slider bringing Ice's helmet to Mav&Ice's after the wake - the helmet Ice had worn on their last ride together and that they had decided to exchange, Slider's own sitting proudly on the shelves in Ice's now vacant office.

Don't think about him putting it on the coffee table once everyone has settled, nor about Sunny placing a shot of Ice's favorite vodka next to it, tapping the glass gently against the helmet, just once, with a wet whisper of 'cheers, kaz'.

Whatever you do, don't think about that shot of vodka, staying untouched for three days until Mav accidentally knocks it over after bumping into the coffee table.

Don't think about him saying 'no no no no no' under his breath, setting the little glass upright with trembling fingers.

Don't think about Slider finding him kneeling there when he comes around to check on him the next day, hunched and still sobbing minutely despite having no tears left to cry.

Don't think, don't think about Slider unable to hold back his own when Mav just says they need to pour another because Ice didn't drink it, Mav spilled it, they need to pour another and god, Ice always hated to waste thing, even cheap vodka, Sli, he's going to be annoying about this if he finds out.

Don't think about Slider patting Mav's head with a shaky hand, 'sure thing, short stack, but we need to clean up first', kneeling next to him, not knowing anymore for who his heart was breaking - Mav, Ice, himself.

Don't think about the flyboys taking turns spending the day there, for Maverick's sake but also for their own, because they didn't bury a colleague that day, they buried Ice, they buried family.

consistency isn't overconsuming loass content.

consistency isn't waking up every morning forcing yourself to be positive (I'm looking at you, law of attraction.)

consistency is choosing to think in your favor for every moment, every minute of the day, in the face of anything the 3D shows.

thinking in your favor does not = repressing/toxic positivity

do not assign bad meanings to things.

example of what an inner dialogue may look like when you think in your favor

Damn, SP blocked me? Haha, I know I get what I want. But I can still acknowledge that I feel hurt and rejected and I feel that way because (here it comes - flipping the thought) I know I deserve better than this. I know that my dream self never faces rejection so let me be patient and reorder what I want from the universe. Let me recalibrate. I'm gonna just focus on reassuring myself, doing things I like - because the version of him that deserves me is on the way.

Do you see the nuance there? The difference between thinking in your favor vs not just having toxic positivity?

Guideline to example

Not repressing the emotions of hurt and rejection

Understanding that you give meaning to those feelings - do you believe them to be true or are you mature enough to understand that feelings are temporary and you must remain solid on what you believe despite what you feel?

Focusing on action YOU must take bc the only job is to change SELF

PERSISTENCE

Jake Seresin x F!Reader. This is my first fic, so please be nice! Dedicated to @sebsxphia - so proud of you! Thanks to @gretagerwigsmuse for reading this over. Tagging a few people who might be interested: @blue-aconite @anniesocsandgeneralstore @wildbornsiren @seresinhangmanjake @callsignvalley @theharddeck

Warnings: pregnancy scare, situationships, anxiety.

You stand on your tip-toes, peering around the heads of the people in front of you on the dock, trying to get a glimpse of the gangway. Jake will be in his camo uniform, blending into the crowd of sailors walking off the carrier. The sun is so bright, the wind blowing the sea air off the water and mixing with the smells of the crowd around you. You feel a little nauseous. You haven’t seen him in three months.

An excited little girl knocks into you, hopping up and down, tugging on her father’s hand. “Mommy! Can you see Mommy?” Her father is smiling, even as the lines of exhaustion from the past few months carve down his cheeks. “She’s almost here, baby.” You stare a little too long. The noise of the crowd, the pressure of the bodies around you, the light, it’s all pressing down on you. You’re a little lightheaded. You look again at the gangway but can’t pick Jake out.

You’re staring at a family reunion, parents clutching their gangly son – do they really let kids join this young? He looks sixteen – when Jake finds you.

He looks perfect, bronzed by the sun, sea glass eyes full of light. He asked you to come get him, and he emailed you every week while he was away and called twice, and he calls you sweetheart -  

“Sweetheart, you okay?” He’s been speaking. You should have been listening. You missed his first words to you.

“I-,” the words aren’t coming. Jake looks at you a moment, carefully.

“Too much noise?” he asks gently, so gently that it’s out of place in this boisterous scene. You nod, still unable to call up your voice.

“C’mon, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” He slings his arm around your waist and leads you back to the parking lot. Opens the passenger door for you, closes it gently. Slings his seabag into the trunk and comes around, settles into the driver’s seat.

You fold your hands tightly in your lap, braced against your stomach. It’s an old habit, to make yourself smaller. You haven’t been this tense around him since he drove you home after your fifth date.

Jake starts the car. The radio station you had on starts to play. He glances over at you as the old Garth Brooks song fills the car. You started listening to music like this with him, and kept listening when he left you. You’re pretty sure that George Strait will be in your Spotify Top 5 list this year.

The two of you head back to your place. Jake’s has been shut up for weeks, though you’ve been keeping an eye on it. He likes yours better anyway. You have soft pillows and pretty art posters on the walls, and a spice rack that you actually use. He complains that your couch isn’t big enough for a six foot naval aviator and his girl (your stomach flips again remembering when he said that), but you’ve managed okay.

Jake pulls into the apartment parking lot. There’s always a spot open for golden boy somehow, even though you usually have to circle around a couple of times and park in the back. He gets out, gets his bag, opens your door and takes your hand. You walk into the building together, take off your shoes together, bumping into each other in the small entryway to your place. You go into the living room and sit on the couch. You still haven’t spoken.

Jake joins you after he goes to the bathroom. He must have splashed water on his face, you can see the droplets on his collar. He’s tense now, too, you can tell.

“I thought I was pregnant.”

The words fall like a stone into water. His eyes widen, and drop to your flat stomach. Your hands are braced there again. You’d only been seeing him for two months before he left.

“I wasn’t – I’ve never skipped a period before, so I thought maybe – but it was probably just stress.” Stress from work, stress from family, stress from your maybe-boyfriend going to sea for three months, whatever.

But that week when you thought maybe? You’d thought about children as a hazy, dreamy someday. But this was real. You could have really had a baby – a sweet-faced baby with a round tummy and big green eyes. You could have made room in your apartment, changed your work schedule, spent Saturday mornings at the library story hour instead of sleeping off Friday night. You could have had a baby with a man who didn’t love you and probably didn’t even want to be a father.

Jake sucks in a deep breath, then exhales. “Sweetheart…” he clearly doesn’t know what to say. You’ve dropped this on him with no warning.

You stand up, pace into the kitchen. You consciously tidied up your breakfast dishes this morning even though you usually leave them for after dinner. Jake is fastidious. You run the sponge over the stovetop instead. You can never get all the grease off. Jake can.

You hear him get up and follow you. He’s leaning against the doorframe, you know without looking. You’re throwing off mixed signals, you know that. You’re not angry at him. You want him to touch you again. But you’re afraid of what he’s going to say next. If he says that the two of you weren’t serious, that it was a good thing, that he likes you a lot but he’s not cut out for fatherhood, you will either chuck the sponge straight at his head or splinter all over your kitchen floor.

“Would it have been so bad?”

What.

You spin around and gawk at him.

“I mean, we’ve only been seeing each other for a few months, but I thought you wanted kids?”

What.

“I know we’ve never talked about it but it was pretty obvious when you were playing with Payback’s kid.”

Payback’s kid is adorable. She has the entire Dagger Squad wrapped around her finger. You’re pretty sure that she has never been put down the whole time she’s been in North Island. Right before everyone deployed you all had a picnic on the beach. She was wearing the tiniest sunhat you had ever seen and punched Fanboy with her tiny baby fist when he stopped her from eating sand.

“I – what?”

Jake shifts uncomfortably. You’ve never seen him like this. He’s always so confident and smooth, whether he’s sliding up beside you at the bar or opening a car door for you or carrying you to his bedroom or kissing you goodbye and whispering for you to meet him on the dock when he gets back.

“We would have figured it out.” The light through your window dapples across his face. It must be windy, you can see the branches of the tree moving from their shadows.

You literally had never considered the conversation going this way.

“Unless you didn’t – unless I’m not the one – then I guess –”

“You are.” You didn’t even realize that your mouth had started forming the words until they were out. “I didn’t – we’ve never talked about kids, or exclusivity or anything. I didn’t want to assume…” You know that your eyes are big and hopeful and watery.

Jake’s face relaxed the second you started speaking. He crosses the kitchen to you, takes the sponge from you gently and tosses it in the sink. Blindly you grope for a dishcloth to dry your hands before they come to rest lightly on his shoulders.

“Sweetheart, it’s been you since I dropped you off on your doorstep after our first date.”

Oh. Now you’re crying.

He kisses your cheeks, kisses the tears away, then lightly sets his mouth to yours. It’s the first time in three months. You’ve missed him so, so much. The week you thought you were carrying his child you’d curled yourself around your belly every night, thinking that there was a piece of him in there. It had hurt so much more than you had expected when the test came back negative.

Jake finally pulls away, looks at you with such tenderness.

“You want a baby?”

You nod, shakily. It still feels risky to admit it. Five months together, three of those apart, isn’t long at all.

“You’d better come with me to Texas for Thanksgiving then. My dad says he’ll give me my grandma’s ring whenever I’m ready, but he wants to meet you first.”

You suck in a breath. He’s told his family about you?

“Sweetheart, I like to think I’m pretty good at reading you, but I need to hear the words.”

You tip up your chin a bit. “Oh, was that a proposal?”

He grins down at you, eyes flashing.

“Oh, you’ll know when I propose, sweetheart.”

Your smile matches his.

a/n:

This is the masterlist for this entire series including the side series of Keeping Up With Seijoh!!! so happy reading and onwards with our plant babies!!!!

- manager!seijoh playlist

°˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖°

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Manager!Seijoh:

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 1

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 2

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 3

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 4

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 5

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 6

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Episode 7

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Manager!AU

°˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖°

εїз Keeping Up With Seijoh:

εїз Episode 1

εїз Episode 2

εїз Episode 3

εїз Episode 4

εїз Ep. ∞

εїз Episode 5 

εїз Episode 6

εїз Episode 7

εїз Episode 8

εїз Episode 9

εїз Episode 10

°˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖°

♡ Endings:

♡ KYO Route

♡ IWA Route

♡ OIKS Route

♡ MATTSUN Route

°˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧˖°

₊˚ෆˎˊ˗ Special:

And Sam. Who watches that stunning smile bloom across his face like a morning glory at the first rays of sunshine the first time he gifts him a new book and decides he wants to witness that sight again and again and again.

Sam, who eyes the ever growing piles of books scattered across Bucky's apartment with a fondness that has long since done surprising him and snorts at Bucky's stupidly proud smirk when he compares him and his book herding to Smaug herding the dwarves' gold in the Hobbit (they did a buddy reading of the Hobbit, LotR and the Silmarillion on Bucky's insistence, which was about when Sam found out that 1) Bucky could talk non-stop for at least half an hour with enough motivation, and 2) the asshole had no concept of time when he talked about books and Sam had woken up half a dozen times to at least one 20 minutes long audio message from Bucky rambling about Tolkien lore).

Sam, who learns how much Bucky loves poetry on a random night during a stake out because the man mentions that the only thing he's grateful for when it comes to the Winter Soldier conditioning is all the languages they've put inside his head so now he can enjoy poetry in every language that he speaks, because no poem is more beautiful than in the language it was originally written in.

Sam, who from then on buys Bucky poetry books. English classics, of course. But also Spanish and Turkish. French and Arabic. Japanese and Hebrew. Xhosa, Hindi, Greek, Portuguese. Old and modern alike.

Sam who listens with his eyes closed when Bucky reads him his favorite poem of each book, losing himself into the sudden softness of Bucky's voice, into his surprisingly beautiful diction, asking 'how about another one you liked?' when he feels especially greedy and wants to bask in the velvety quality of the man’s voice just a little longer, Bucky indulging him, always, too happy to share, the shyness of the first few times he'd done this long gone now.

Sam, who listens with a bleeding heart to Bucky as he explains why Tommorow, At Dawn and 'Tis A Fearful Thing are his favorite poems.

Sam, who goes on a cruisade against the Smithsonian to get his hands on Bucky's belongings from the war because he mentioned once a beat-up copy of the Ghost of Canterville he used to drag around everywhere with him across Europe because it was his favorite tale, the one his mother had read to him time after time when he was little, and it reminded him of home.

Sam, who gifts Bucky a collector LotR bookset he got from a small artist for his birthday, with handmade leather bindings and painted edges.

Sam, who has to sneak away and step out on the front porch for a second at the look of pure adoration Bucky sends his way once he's done running his flesh and bone hand along the carefully crafted leather spines of his brand new books, taking advantage of his nephews making a show of bringing their own gifts to their Uncle Bucky to calm the wild beat of his heart against his ribcage. (And if he pointedly ignores Sarah's knowing look on his way out, it's nobody's business.)

┊Fluff┊F!Reader┊Blurb┊

Simon never thought he was worthy of love, he always thought he was too broken, too cold, too rough around the edges, that he couldn't love, that no one would ever try to get past the walls he built up his entire life.

Until you showed up.

It wasn't quick like in those teenage movies where the main couple falls in love at first sight, no. You had to work your way into his life, show him that it was okay to be vulnerable, to let himself feel and that he deserved to be loved. Little by little, he opened the doors for you, let his guard down and let you in.

He thought he would never have a family, that he couldn't, that he wasn't worthy of building a family with you, that your love was already too much to ask for, even after all the years together, he was afraid of fucking things up, to turn out exactly like his father.

But then, coming home after a long mission, he saw her.

Bundled up in your arms, peacefully asleep, so tiny and fragile.

He almost dropped to his knees when his eyes stopped on her, he would've in fact, if you hadn't given her for him to hold, his frame making the little newborn look even smaller, innocent, the complete opposite of him, her soul, unlike his, untouched, her eyes had never seen the horrors of the word, the little hand that reached out to hold his finger had never hurt.

The little one stirred awake in his arms and he felt the air get knocked out of his lungs, she also had his eyes, a little copy of him in every aspect.

Right there, in that moment, Simon felt his chest burn, ache in a way he'd never felt before, like his perspective of everything changed just by holding his daughter in his arms.

It was love, he knew it was, but a different kind, the type of love he thought he'd never get to experience, that he didn't even knew he could feel until this exact moment, he felt like the whole purpose of being alive was just so he could witness this moment.

He would do anything for her, he wanted to protect her from every harm, to keep her safe. He wanted to live for her, to see her growing up, be there for her first words, her first steps, cherish every single phase in her life, he wanted to make up for not being there when she was born by never leaving yours and her side ever again.

He only noticed that his face was wet with tears when you reached out and wiped them away with your thumbs, cupping his face between the palm of your hands while you gave him the brightest smile he'd ever seen.

He hugged you as tightly as he could without hurting the baby, hiding his face in your neck while he let himself be vulnerable, letting the tears fall freely while his shoulders shook with the soft sobs.

A long moment went by before he let go of you, the little one watching you two with awe, her eyes attentive, almost like she could understand what was going on.

Only then, he remembered how to speak again, taking a deep breath to calm himself before the words reached his throat.

"What's... her name?" He looked at you, then at the little one again, softly brushing his finger against her face, chest warming up when she smiled at him.

"Sofia."

He hummed and leaned in to press a kiss on her head, then one on your lips, keeping both of you close, promising right then and there that he would never let the world hurt either of you ever again.