slut-for-bucky-barnes

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

if you voted blue in a red state, I am gently kissing on the head bc I know you tried your best (especially in florida & texas) I am not praying for your state’s downfall bc I am not insane

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

not to alarm anyone but is anybody else worried about how everybody is fucking stupid

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

help me manifest blue pennsylvania

like to charge reblog to cast

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Sweetheart

Summary: Tyler Owens x Fe!Reader -> Times when you told Tyler to not call you 'Sweetheart' and the one time you did.

Disclaimer: This had been a w-i-p over the last couple of days so if it feels patchy, I apologise. Best friends to lovers, mutual pining, completely oblivious and scared idiots. Two almost kisses, one actual kiss, long love confession, little angst, lots of fluff, one bed trope, fake dating (sorta), lots of uses of the nickname 'Sweetheart', getting caught in a tornado, cowboy romance books mentioned. Not Proof Read.

You could remember the first time you told Tyler to stop calling you ‘Sweetheart’. 

It had been when he had been fixing his truck outside the fifth motel of the season. 

You’d both been friends for years. Ever since college. In fact, you were the first friend he made there. You’d been sitting under a tree since every bench either had a couple or a massive group of friends at each one. That was when he joined you. 

“Hey, do you mind if I sit here? It looks like most places are taken.”

Moving your bag from the spare patch, you let him sit down. Then you noticed his text book. 

You both got to talking and you found out your classes shared a building, and with a similar timetable for classes and a shared fear of student society nights, you both stuck together. 

Tyler took you to a couple of rodeos, showing you round and explaining everything that went on behind the scenes. Which was also when you found out he was an ex-bull rider. 

You showed him around campus and the best place to study, and when neither of you were working, you’d show him around your home town. 

And the rest was history. 

You’d both been together ever since. 

However, it wasn���t until after you both experienced an EF-4 whilst ‘off duty’ that you found something out about yourself. 

You were in love with Tyler. 

Of course, you’d always loved him as a friend. He was your best-friend and had been for years. Except, until that moment, you didn’t realise how deeply. And you couldn’t remember when it had happened. Had it been right away and you just confused it with friendship love? Or was it long after you made friends with him? 

You had a thousand and one questions about it, but something you didn’t question was how Tyler felt about you. Of course, he loved you, too. You were one of his best friends. But that was how he loved you. As a friend. 

And you were happy with that. More so considering letting your new fact be known out-loud might not only cost you your job but also your long time friendship with someone who you considered family.

Except, as time went on, you picked up on more and more things. Like how you always leaned into him, or found yourself by his side at most times of the day. Or like how he threw his arm around you when everyone sat around the campfire, or how you’d fall asleep beside him only to wake up in your bed the next morning. 

Or like how he’d always called you ‘Sweetheart’. Like he just did, when he asked you to hand him the socket wrench. 

“You know, you gotta stop calling me that. People are gonna think we’re together.”

Tyler took the wrench from you with a small chuckle. “But I always call you that.”

“That’s my point. What if someone wants to chat you up but they think you’re with me?”

“But I am with you.” Tyler told you. 

You scoffed and kicked the sole of his boot lightly. “I’m being serious. What if you miss out on meeting your wife? The mother of your children because she thinks you’re with me?”

From under his truck, Tyler rolled out. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. Why?”

Everything wasn’t fine, but the less he knew about it the better. 

“You’ve never had a problem with me calling you Sweetheart before.”

You shrugged, trying your best to remain casual about it. “I was just thinking about it, s’all.”

Tyler hummed in confusion before disappearing back beneath his truck. “Okay, I’ll try not to call you Sweetheart in public anymore.”

Though he couldn’t see, you gave a small nod to thank him. You didn’t want to let him know that it was killing you asking that of him. You loved when he called you different nicknames, because that was him. If nothing else was right in the world, you knew he was. 

But the more and more you became aware of who you were when you were with him, the more you started to think about how it would start to affect him, even if he didn’t realise it. 

Except, for as much as he tried, he still slipped up every now and again. 

But the second time you told him to stop calling you that, he’d fully done it with intent. 

Another week, another motel. Only, this time there weren’t enough rooms to go around, with the rodeo in town. So, whilst you stood and listened to everyone fight over who had to share, you searched for some sticks before shoving them into the middle of the group circle. 

“Lily, here. Whoever pulls the short straw shares. I need the bathroom.”

So, you disappeared. 

However, when you came back, you found most of your family disappearing into their own rooms whilst Tyler was still standing inside of the motel office. 

“I think he’s gonna need your help.” Lily told you as she grabbed her bag from her car. 

A little confused, you followed her advice and headed for the office. Only when you opened the door…

“Ty, Lily said-”

“Sweetheart! There you are. Thought you’d gotten lost.” You were about to correct him and tell him to stop calling you when suddenly, you found yourself being dragged to his side. “Molly, this is my girlfriend.”

“She’s not your wife?”

Tyler seemed to panic for a moment. 

What the hell was going on?

“Is everything-”

Tyler looked at you, but something in his eyes begged you not to ask. 

“Well, no. Not exactly.”

“Well,” the owner drawled. “How long have you two been together?”

“Just a little over ten years.”

She almost exploded. “Ten years?! And you still haven’t put a ring on it yet? Oh, honey, what are you two doing?”

Tyler chuckled a little all the while your body became fully aware of his arm around your waist and his hand at your hip. “See, that’s the thing. We wanted to get married but-”

“Your parents don’t approve?”

You practically gave yourself whiplash for how quickly you turned to look at her, an offended look on your face. Okay, maybe you didn’t look your best but you’d all been on the road for six hours and you hadn’t slept the night before. And it wasn’t your fault Tyler looked good at any time of the day. 

Tyler, a little shocked himself, shook his head. 

“Her parents don’t approve?”

“Well,” Tyler seemed to be making it up as he went along. “Her parents don’t believe in marriage.”

You came back to earth. Lying, right. 

You nodded your head. “I’d love to get married but I kinda want my folks to be there. But, we’re getting around them, aren’t we, honey?”

You tried your best to ignore how easily the pet name rolled off your tongue for Tyler. 

Tyler smiled and you could have sworn he blushed. “That’s right.”

The owner looked between you both. “Well, I suppose…that’s okay. Here’s your key. I hope you two have a nice stay.”

“We will, thank you.”

Taking the key, Tyler took hold of your hand before opening the door for you and leading you outside. Once more, your hand was in his all the way towards the car, only having him let go when he climbed into the bed of his truck to grab his luggage and your own. 

“Do you…” You looked to see if the owner was still watching. She wasn’t. “Do you wanna tell me what just happened?”

“She thinks we’re together.”

“That’s my point.” You told him. “Why?”

He hopped down from his truck. “Boone took the short straw and since you were in the bathroom, the others called their own rooms. But, since he’s eaten nothing but spicy tacos for the last three days, I offered to share with you.”

“What a gentleman.”

Tyler smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“That still doesn’t explain why she thinks we’re together.”

“Hey,” Tyler held his hands up. “I was gonna correct her but then she started talking about how nobody who wasn’t wed shouldn’t share a room. So, when you walked in, I just rolled with it. The next motel is an hour away, but the rodeo in town is probably booked up.”

And everyone was tired. Dragging everyone back on the road would just feel illegal. 

So, taking your bag from him, you followed him up to your shared room. With just one bed. 

Considering the owner didn’t like unmarried couples sharing a room, it shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it was. 

“Want me to take the floor? You already offered to share, seems fair.”

Tyler shook his head. “That bed could fit me, you, and probably a herd of cattle.”

You rolled your eyes before walking inside and dumping your bag on the small bench by the window. 

“We can share.”

Remember; normal. 

You and Tyler had shared a bed a hundred times before. This was no different. Other than your self-aware feelings for him and the fact that you’d been trying to complete less of them ever since. 

“Okay.”

And like normal, you both took your registered sides. Tyler by the door, you by the window. 

Barely an hour later, both yourself and Tyler were lying in bed staring at the ceiling. 

“How many people do you think have lied about being married just to get a room here?”

You shrugged. “Considering there are like, a thousand romance books out there with the main couples doing that exact thing…I guess…a lot.”

Tyler turned to you with a shocked smile on his face. 

“What?”

“You read romance books?”

You furrowed your brows a little. If you had been talking to anyone else, or talking to Tyler before you found yourself harbouring such a big secret from not only him but also yourself, you would have owned it. 

But this was a man you had secretly been in love with for god only knows how long. 

“I read other stuff, too.” You managed to stutter out. 

“I’ve never once seen you read a book that isn’t a textbook.”

“And? Plenty of people read romance. That’s why it’s a genre.”

“So, what else happens in these romances of yours?”

“They’re not my romances.” You clarified. But nothing could wipe that shit-eating grin from his face. 

“Are they all as cheesy as they used to be?”

You found yourself stumped at that question. “Used to be? Wait, you’ve read a romance book?”

Tyler nodded. “Just after I got stomped on by my second bull, I was waiting with the medic. I got bored and she gave me a book to read.”

“And how was it?”

“Cheesy,” Tyler said. “But the cover did have a half naked man on the cover. The doc tried to pass it off as her friends, but since she went bright red in the face, I knew it was her. So, what are yours?”

Then he started listing off different characters, revelling in the embarrassment it was causing you to admit it to him. 

“A hot firefighter who saves kittens from trees? A…18th century Duke from London, England who just so happens to ‘hate’ his sister’s best friend? That was what the Doc’s book was. Oh my god, is it a Prince in disguise who falls in love with the local baker and they win a pie contest together?”

“You’re an asshole.” You told him before turning over. 

“Oh, come on.” Tyler laughed. “Just tell me. If you don’t, I can always ask Boone to go through your goodreads. Maybe I want to buy you one for your birthday, but I don’t know which one you’ve already-”

“It’s cowboys.” You felt like you were shouting. 

“What?” You could already hear the grin on his face, which made you only try and repress yours. But he heard it anyway. 

“It’s cowboys. Bull riders, ranch owners, cowboys. Those are the romances I, mainly, read.”

You managed to build up enough courage to turn onto your back, only to look over and see Tyler’s smile still on his face. 

“Go on, go ahead. Laugh at it.”

“Are any of them Tornado Wranglers?” 

With a laugh behind your voice, you threw a pillow at his head. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

From behind you, you heard him laugh as he fixed his pillow. “Whatever you say, Sweetheart.”

You turned the lamp off. “Go to sleep.”

He was still smiling as he turned his own off. “Night, Sweetheart.”

By the time you woke up in the morning, you were scrambling to find out where you were. 

In your head, you’d been in bed with Tyler. You’d all been sitting around the campfire, listening to Tyler finally agree to tell an actual spooky story. Of course, after scaring the crap out of you, Dexter told a nicer one which…you fell asleep to. Only, you’d woken to Tyler being in your bed. He’d carried you to bed. Again. But, just as you were laying in his arm, you felt the ground beneath you begin to shake before a cold draft came up the back of your neck. 

By the time you turned to look at the window, you saw…

Flying cows. 

Tuning back around, everything went from colourful to dim. Almost black and white. You could just about make Tyler out beneath the covers but each time you took a step, you found yourself unable to move. 

But when you finally did move, a pair of arms reached for you and held you back to the window. 

You woke up with a start, trying to figure out where you were. 

You were in bed. 

With a pair of arms around you. 

You sat up. 

You were in bed. 

In a motel. 

With Tyler. 

You were in bed with Tyler. 

For the second time in less than twenty four hours, you nearly gave yourself whiplash. The window was open a little. Tyler must have woken up in the night and opened it. But there were no flying cows. You made a mental note to not watch The Wizard of Oz, and have it be the last thing you watch, before bed.

Looking down at a sleeping Tyler, you noticed where his arms were around you. Around your back, and since you’d moved to sit up quickly, across your thighs with his hand closer to your hip. 

Trying your best, you tried to ignore how attractive he looked even when he was asleep. You’d seen the same image many a hundred times in the last ten years, and yet it never got old. Of course, at the time you weren’t trying to bury feelings. 

Slowly, you tried to peel yourself from him only to have him tighten his hold on you and pull you back towards him a little. 

“S’everything okay, Sweetheart?”

Sweetheart. Morning voice. Looking like that.

“Every…” You swallowed and forced yourself to look away before he caught the heat on your cheeks. “Everything…everything’s fine.”

Having most of his face buried into his pillow, he opened up one eye and looked at you. “You’re looking a little flushed there, Sweetheart.”

The nickname rolled so easily off his tongue, you knew he didn’t notice how casually he used it with you. 

If you weren’t awake before, you were when he spoke. 

Almost throwing yourself from him, you scooted out of bed and stood up. “I’m fine. Promise. I’m gonna get some coffee.” It almost sounded like a question as you looked around for your jeans. 

From behind you, you heard him shuffle around the bedsheets. When you looked back, you almost melted at the sight. Lay there in bed, watching you with that smile on his face that you could never quite pin a meaning to. One arm behind his head, the other out of the covers and by his side, white tee on, his pj pants that you’d gotten him almost seven christmases ago just visible from the flipped corner of the bed. 

“Yeah. Coffee. You want one?”

“You sure you’re okay? You never usually have this much energy in the morning.” Tyler said. “Sure you don’t wanna wait. Don’t think the diner’s even open.”

“That’s okay.” You grabbed a random shirt from the chair by the small dining table. 

Again, that smile was on Tyler’s face. 

“I’ll be back soon.”

From their own rooms, the others watched as you left your shared room with Tyler, dressed in his shirt, looking like you’d just rolled out of bed. 

Lily: Do you think something finally happened?

Dex: If something did, I don’t think she’d look so freaked. 

Dani: Or be leaving their bed so early in the morning…

By the time Tyler had actually gotten out of bed, showered and had changed, you still weren’t back from your freaked coffee run. 

“Hey, Boone!”

“Yeah, dude?”

“You seen Y/n?”

Boone shook his head. “No. Why?”

Tyler looked…sad. And confused. “Nothing. No reason.”

But rather than wait around, he went and looked for you. And it wasn’t long before he found you. Sat inside a mostly empty cafe-diner, you were waiting on another two coffee’s to go. 

“Hey.”

Tyler could have sworn you’d jumped out of your skin. 

“Oh, hey.”

“Was starting to get worried. Need some help.”

You looked at the two coffee holders. “Uh, sure.”

Tyler watched you. You couldn’t look him in the eye. And you still looked flushed. He was starting to get worried. For years, you’d both been attached at the hip. But in the last six months, you’d asked him to stop calling you ‘Sweetheart’, had stopped leaning into him or even standing by his side when in a group. You’d stopped fighting Boone for riding shotgun with him. You’d stopped falling asleep on his shoulder or even sitting beside him at night. And he was pretty sure if the owner of the motel didn’t make a point of the married couple sharing a room, you would have taken the flatbed of his truck over sharing a room with him. 

“Are we okay?”

That got you to look him in the eye. “What?”

“I just mean…Are you sure you’re okay? In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never even been awake before a diner has opened unless you’ve had to be.”

You nodded and looked back at the drinks. “I just needed coffee, that’s all.”

“But if something was going on, you would tell me, right?”

You forced yourself to look at him, hoping he wouldn’t see through your lie. “Of course.”

Tyler nodded, but something in his gut told him you weren't telling him the full truth. 

Either way, he kept his eye on you for the rest of the day. And the days that followed. 

You’d always go to bed earlier than everyone else, or much later. He’d fall asleep watching you read over data and old textbooks but would wake up and catch a glimpse of you curled up either on the bench by the window or on the bed beside him reading a book he could only guess was a ‘Cowboy Romance’ considering a cowboy hat was just one of the small details designed into the cover. 

He’d smile and close his eyes again, listening to you turn the pages every now and again, gasp quietly or let out a soft laugh every now and again. 

Only, when the morning came round, if he woke up before you, he’d close his eyes, still holding you close because he knew the moment you woke up, you’d stay still for a moment but if he moved, you’d shoot right out of bed. 

It was getting harder and harder each day to pretend you didn’t worry him. And it was getting even harder to ignore the feeling in his chest he got each time he looked at you, or heard your voice or even thought about you. 

But all of that finally came to a head a few days after rolling into town when a tornado hit. 

All the data had shown no tornado was meant to come into town and what with the rodeo on, everyone headed down to it. Walking down there, Tyler could remember when he first brought you to one of the circuits he used to run on. He’d loved to have you there. To have you know of his life before he met you, because in a way, it put you there. Like, even if you hadn’t met til college, you had a place in all aspects of his life. 

And for the first time in months, you met his eye and smiled. Like you used to. Watching the bull riders, and the cowboys and him asking you if you remembered when you and him first attended a rodeo together. 

But just as he looked back at you, your gaze matched his for a second too long and…you looked away. Flushed, embarrassed, then…annoyed. 

Not at him. He knew that look off by heart. 

You were annoyed at yourself. 

But why?

Forcing himself to look back at the rodeo, he tried his best to not think too deeply into why you were annoyed with yourself. But it still worried him. 

But then something else worried him. 

Everyone’s alert on their phones. 

“We weren’t picking up cells this way.” 

One look shared between both yourself and Tyler let the other know what to do. People had to get to shelter there and then. And for the next fifteen minutes, everyone started running, staring up their engines to drive away or running to find shelter. 

You and the rest of the team helped who you could before finding shelter for yourselves. 

“Down here!”

Tyler pulled you closer and followed you down the steps inside the cramped underground shelter before you helped him shut the doors. Bolting it shut before the Tornado could whip them open again, you and him (like everyone else) huddled to the floor. 

With his arm across your back, you turned into him, gripping onto his shirt for dear life. And despite the rattling of the doors, people’s nervous screams and the battered weather outside, you eventually only heard one thing. 

“It’s okay. We’re okay.” 

Tyler’s voice in your ear provided soothing words that eventually started to slow your heartbeat. He pressed a kiss into your hair, his other hand coming around your front, before holding onto your hand that was gripping onto his shirt. 

“We’re okay. I promise. Just breathe, Sweetheart. Breathe with me.”

And you did. 

You didn’t know when the tornado had passed or when everyone felt like they could breathe again. But you did know you’d just fallen so deeply in love with Tyler at the thought of losing him, even if he’d been wrapped around you the entire time, that you were almost paralysed in those moments. 

Slowly, you looked back up and directly at him. Any closer and you both might have kissed. Tyler’s eyes were searching your face just as yours were searching his. He was okay. He wasn’t hurt. No scars. No bruises. 

Instinctively, he let his hand from round your back come to your face, pushing the hair from it all the while letting his finger trace your cheekbone and your cheek. 

If he didn’t fear losing you forever, he would have kissed you. 

“I love you,” he said in his head. 

“Tyler…”

He just nodded. “We’re okay.”

Leaning forward, you hugged him and he hugged you back. 

It was slow getting back to the motel. It wasn’t until early hours. You took turns getting cleaned up and for the first time in a long time, you didn’t scoot to the end of the bed only to make your way over to him in your sleep. 

As he climbed into bed, you turned towards him. 

“Come here.”

That night, you fell asleep in his embrace, listening to his heartbeat inside of his chest. Feeling his lips press a kiss to your temple twice before he locked you inside his hold, warming your entire body. 

And when a lighter morning rolled in, Tyler woke to his name being quietly called. 

You were having a nightmare. 

Holding you closer to his chest, he stroked the back of your head with one of his hands before his other hand took hold of yours. He pressed a kiss into your palm before pressing a similar one to your temple. 

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here, Sweetheart. I’m right here.”

You calmed after that. But you woke up not long after. However, before you could scoot away from him and launch yourself out of bed before your body was ready for it, he told you something.

“You were calling out for me. You were having a nightmare.”

Going off your previous track record, you were about to lie. Tell him you weren’t or that you weren’t even having a nightmare. That you’d been arguing with him or you’d been talking to him and the other Wranglers. 

But you didn’t. 

You told him the truth. 

“You were hurt.”

Tyler was a little taken aback. 

“You were hurt and I needed you to be okay.”

Tyler didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know if your nightmare had been frequent or if it was just a fluke after everything that had happened in the last twenty four hours. 

So all he could do was say…

“Sweetheart.” 

His voice soft, his touch even softer against your skin and yet secure in all the same aspects, he pulled you closer to him as he pressed a kiss to your head. 

“I’m okay. I promise I’m okay. I’m right here.”

He kissed your hand. “I’m right here.”

All you could do was just…look at him. 

The man you’d been best friends with for as long as you could remember, the man who’d shown and invited you into parts of his life, the man who had invited you to be apart for the rest of it, the man who you’d spent almost every single day with ever since, the man who you’d been and only fallen deeper in love with each day…was right by your side. 

He was right in front of you. 

He wasn’t a dream. 

He wasn’t a nightmare. 

There were no flying cows, there were no more tornadoes (for now at least), there were no elements of anything being fake. 

And the longer you looked at him, the more you realised…

You would always be in love with him. 

And there was nothing you could do about it. 

It wouldn't matter how much you avoided him, or pushed yourself or even pushed him to find someone. You would always love him. 

With his thumb caressing your cheek, Tyler watched you. 

“God, you’re beautiful.” 

He hadn’t meant to say it outloud. But he was glad he did. 

Your other hand came to his chest…but you didn’t push him away. And you didn’t push yourself away, either. 

“Tyler…”

All of a sudden, it was like the only thing either of you could hear was your heartbeats. Blood pumping faster and faster and you got closer and closer, if that was even possible. 

Finally, Tyler made a decision. 

Cupping your face, he moved until you were almost under him, placing the hand he kissed over his heart. 

Suddenly, he was nervous. 

He swallowed, gazing at you. 

“C…Can I…” He swallowed again. 

Except, just as he went to ask, and you would have replied, a booming knock came to the door making both of you jump out of your skin. 

Neither you or Tyler moved, but when it came a second time, you looked at each other quickly before bolting out of bed. You didn’t know what to do. Your mind was still trying to process the last ten minutes.

Whilst you stood on your side of the bed, Tyler took a final look back at you. And when he opened the door, Boone thought Tyler looked like he was guilty of sin. 

Boone had known Tyler long enough to know that look. Anybody who didn’t know him, well, they wouldn’t have noticed. But he did. 

“Boone, man. We were asleep.”

“Shoot. Sorry, dude.” Boone apologised. “Well, we were all gonna get some food before we hit the road to help. Want something?”

“Where’s your phone?”

“Dude! We tried. Tried Y/n, too. I’ve got a charger if you need one.”

Tyler sighed. Right. Dead phone. 

“No, that’s good. We’ll just…get us the usual?”

“And coffee!” You heard yourself add. 

Tyler smiled at the sound of your voice. “And coffee. Wait, here.”

Handing Boone a twenty dollar bill, he thanked him before shutting the door. 

“He’s gonna give someone a heart attack one day.” You said as Tyler finally shut the door. 

Tyler scratched the back of his head with a nervous chuckle. “Almost gave me one.”

Then the silence hit. 

“Well, I, uh…we better….bathroom. I’m just gonna…yep.”

In his heart, Tyler was elated at the thought of what almost happened. But in his gut, it was like a punch to his soul. 

You couldn’t even meet his eye when you spoke and ran towards the bathroom. And when you left and he entered, it had never been more awkward between you both. 

He could only hope he hadn’t lost you. 

He loved you. 

He was in love with you. 

But he didn’t want that to be the reason he lost you. 

For the rest of the day, he only felt worse. 

And so did you. 

You’d almost kissed him. Then Boone had knocked on. And suddenly him being the only other person in the room made you feel like the walls were closing in. No matter how much you wanted to go back to the bed and finish what had almost started…something inside you forced you away from it. 

Being on the verge of telling your best friend who you’d been in love with for years was suddenly a much higher cliff than you’d originally thought. 

Due to the wreckage of the tornado, you and the rest of the crew spent the day helping people, giving them food and water, making sure they were okay. 

However, just a little after two, you looked around for him. And, like usual, you found him instantly. 

By his truck, he was loading a toolbox back into the flatbed. And he turned. He’d seen you. 

He’d been looking over at you all day. And for the first time, you met his gaze. 

He would spend the rest of his life loving you. There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind or in his heart about that. And there never would be. 

He could only hope that what had almost happened that morning wouldn’t make you hate him. 

After a moment, you heard your name being called and you forced yourself to look away from Tyler. 

“I love you,” you told him, in your head. 

“I love you,” he told you, in his head. 

Hours passed and every five minutes, Tyler’s gaze would find yours again before being forced away. 

When he wasn’t looking at you, he was thinking about you. Thinking about the tornado, thinking about the rodeo, thinking about the motel room. And watching you from across the wreckage, he made a decision. 

He could only hope it was the right one. 

And getting back to the motel couldn’t come quick enough. 

By the time everyone did get back, it was long after the sun had gone down. And entering your motel room, Tyler tried to get you to talk to him. 

“We need some ice. I’ll go and get some.” 

“Y/n.”

“I’ll be back in five minutes. Promise.”

Only, you weren’t. And when Tyler heard a crash, he practically ran out of his room and down the stairs. 

“Y/n?”

Looking around, he saw you stood at the end of the building scooping ice into the bucket. 

“You okay?”

You looked up. “Yeah, why?”

Tyler looked around. “I thought I heard something.”

You were confused. “I didn’t hear anything.”

But as the ice stopped, you both heard it. Trash cans. 

“This way.”

“Tyler-”

Grabbing your hand, he pulled you round the corner. Neither of you were cast in the light from the motel but rather hid in the darkness beside it. You looked behind you and around the wall whilst Tyler stood in front of you. 

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

It happened again and then…

Laughing. 

You physically relaxed and turned back to Tyler with a relieved smile. 

“It’s just people coming back from the bar. We’re safe.”

Only then did you realise how closely you stood together, or how you could feel his weight slowly pressing against you. Or maybe you were pulling him forward. 

Softly, you pressed yourself into the wall as Tyler started towering over you, his hands slowly grazing over your hips as he looked at you. 

It was like what had happened that morning only…more. 

Slowly, your breath tangled with his, your heartbeat steadily rising as one of his hands ran up your body and pushed your hair from your face. 

“Tyler…”

“We should get back inside. Before you get cold.”

You were anything but that, in the moment. 

And when you both got back inside your room, having Tyler carefully take the ice bucket from you and place it on the table, only made you feel hotter. 

“We need to talk about this morning.”

“Tyler…”

“Sweetheart, I mean it.”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop calling me that? There’s nothing to talk about.”

“We almost kissed.”

You closed the bathroom door in his face before reaching for your toothbrush and paste. Only, you forgot to lock it. 

Opening it back up, Tyler stood by the door, one hand on his hip, the other on the handle. 

“Y/n, will you please listen to me?”

“Tyler, please. Please, just…just stop. Before either of us say something we can’t take back.”

He stood tall. “What if I don’t wanna take it back? What if I want to say it out loud so we can both finally be finished with this…this…this weird awkward…thing between us. In ten years never once has it been awkward.”

You sighed, dropping your toothbrush under the tap before rinsing out your mouth. “Well, whatever it is, you can say it to an empty room.”

Pushing past him, you grabbed your jacket and headed for the door. You weren’t going to stick around to hear him tell you your friendship with him was over. That your worst fear was about to become your reality. 

Only, as you reached for the handle and opened up the door, the next three words that came from Tyler’s mouth, as he stood, still in the opening of the bathroom, stopped you right in your tracks. 

“I love you.”

He’d told you he loved you a thousand times over the years, but it had always been quickly and in the same way and same tone as he told anybody else who he loved. But those three words. They were different. 

They meant something entirely different. 

You could hear him slowly taking a few steps forward. 

“I love you, Y/n. I’m in love with you.”

You physically couldn’t move. Everything inside of you wanted to do…something. Kiss him, tell him the same, tell him he was mistaken, that he didn’t love you, tell him to stop, tell him to keep going.

“And I think…” He took a breath. Not of fear, not of worry, but of relief. Like finally saying these words out loud was a weight off his chest. “I think you’re in love with me, too.”

You didn’t know what to say, so you just waited. 

“Now, you can run out of here. You can leave, if you want. But know that I want you to stay. I want to talk about this. All day, the only thing I’ve been able to think about is you. About the rodeo, about the other morning. About all the other times I’ve wanted to kiss you and to have you be the one I share a room with. Not because we’ve drawn straws but because you would want it, too. Again, if you want to leave, you can. The door’s open. But I’m hoping you’ll stay.”

Tyler couldn’t comprehend what was going on inside your head as he watched you. He could have swore he saw your body move a little. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe you were going to leave after all. Maybe all of it was just in his head. 

But then you let go of the handle. 

The door shut in front of you and suddenly the white noise from outside floated away. You’d made your choice. But you were still scared. 

“I…I don’t know what to do from here.”

“That’s okay.” Tyler moved closer to you until he was directly behind you. Carefully, he took your jacket from you and you let go of it willingly, allowing him to place it on the bed behind him. “We can figure it out together.”

Still behind you, Tyler’s hands lay gently by your sides. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

He took another step closer. You could already feel the heat from his body behind you, warming you from the cold draft that had wafted through when you’d opened the door. 

“I’ve loved you since before I can remember. But I know the day I met you, you were gonna be in my life forever.”

Feeling brave, you turned in his arms to look at him. For a moment, he looked scared. Like it would be the last time you’d ever look at him and he’d never see you again. Scared that you’d leave. 

But as your gaze landed on his, that smile came back. 

“What?” 

Still with that smile, he told you. “You look like you love me.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because you get this look in your eyes. Like something I’ve never seen before. And it’s new every time. Do you love me?”

You didn’t have to think about your answer, but the courage you had to build to tell him took a moment. “Yes. I-I don’t know when. But I think one day it just…clicked. But I was scared. I still am…scared. Tyler, what if…what if something goes wrong? What if we lose each other forever?”

“That’ll never happen.”

“How? How can you know that?”

“I just…do. It’s like a tornado. Part science; all the chemicals that go into loving someone. Part religion. I don’t have to physically see how something happens, but I like to believe it’s there. Maybe I don’t have all the answers, but I knew I had to listen to what my gut told me.”

“And what did your gut tell you?”

Tyler gave you that smile again. “It told me that; ‘that girl, right there, under that tree. You need to talk to her, because she is going to be the best part of your day for the rest of your life.’”

You felt the heat in your cheeks rise. 

“You have always been, and always will be, the best part of my day, Sweetheart. No matter how many tornados, no matter how many sleepless nights on the road or how much data we collect. The best part of my day is talking to you. Is looking over at you and having you look back. The best part of my day has forever been, and always will be, you.”

“So, trust me when I say that,” he continued. “Nothing bad will ever happen to us. Because I don’t plan on letting you go just because of fear. I’m in love with you, Sweetheart. And I want to be in your life, for the rest of your life.”

You smiled, “Say that again. The ‘I’m in love with you,’ part.”

Tyler was a little confused, but he would say it as many times as you wanted. 

“I’m in love with you, Sweetheart.”

Watching you blush and try and hide your smile made him realise why you’d asked him to say it again. 

“I knew you liked it when I called you that.”

You looked back up at him. “You know, you’re lucky I love you.”

Tyler smiled. “That’s the first time you’re saying that outloud.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna kiss me now? Or are you just gonna keep talking, Cowboy?”

“No, ma’am.”

Pulling you in closer, Tyler finally kissed you. 

And it was…

Everything. 

Every moment he’d dreamed of finally kissing you, every moment you’d wished he’d do so, every moment you’d both shared, harbouring those feelings, wishing for something more and being too scared to reach for it…

It was a lot to put into a first kiss. 

But it came out naturally. 

Having waited years, you both had some catching up to do. 

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Daily reminder to touch grass cause I think this crush with fictional characters is getting a little to real

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Anyone who's ever written Boxer!Steve/Boxer!Eddie is literally brilliant, because it's so How to Disappear Lana coded!

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Nightmares - Scott Miller

| a/n; this isn’t technically for Moontober bc nightmares is day twenty seven and I have something different planned, but I woke up about an hour ago from a nightmare myself and this felt like the appropriate response tbh

| cw; just some angst and a little fluff, talk about nightmares, probably very self-indulgent idk what to tell you, one bed trope whoops, not super proofread as per the tags <3

| wc; 800

☾⋆⁺₊⋆

You woke up suddenly, out of breath and sweaty, sitting up and trying to will yourself into thinking about anything else.

��Jesus, you alright?” There was an unfamiliar softness in his voice, probably just from being woken up by your panicked breaths, though you jumped anyway, shaky as you looked over at him, uncharacteristic worry on his face as he sat up.

“Shit sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Just a bad dream.” You mumbled, words caught in the back of your throat proving difficult to come out, both exhausted from a restless sleep and energized from the pure panic and anxiety. That was always the worst part, being too scared of your own subconscious to go back to bed, involuntarily keeping yourself awake to stop yourself from drifting back into the personal hell you’d found yourself in before.

“Do you.. want to talk about it?” His voice still came out low, though the gruff from not having talked on purpose quite yet was peeking through. He wasn’t too sure how to comfort anyone at all - questioning himself more than you, you weren’t so used to it either; his words rather than his voice alone surprising you this time.

You shook your head, less responding to his question - though it sufficed, more trying to shake out the mental picture and get your brain to function correctly because it wasn’t difficult to understand nightmares but understanding why they happen didn’t seem to help much.

You had a sleep journal, you corrected them as best you could in your head after writing them down, you drank stress relieving tea and read articles and books on dream study and what it all means and it helps but it doesn’t fix the deepest, strangest anxieties that build up over time. The bizarre collection of everything you’ve thought about in the last month coming back to haunt you in a way that feels personal because it is.

Your brain knows the absolute worst combination of everything you’ve thought about or seen or heard, and if you eat too much fucking dairy or think about one specific thing for just the right amount of too much time, none of the rest of it matters anymore. And maybe you weren’t doing enough but maybe you just needed someone to tell you that it wasn’t real because hearing it from yourself so often was getting a little old and -

The tears were sudden - they usually are, soft and warm running down your face and you didn’t notice until a tear dropped down onto the hand still clutching your chest.

And then a warm hand was cautiously rubbing your back and your overly-worried coworker was trying to understand. Surprising himself again when a simply reassuring ‘you’re alright’ found its way out of his mouth, yawning quietly after and probably trying not to roll back over and fall asleep - bless him.

If it were just a few days ago you would’ve been shocked at the mere fact you were even in the same bed - a little mixup caused by none other than Javi, but sharing a room was excuse enough to get a little too comfortable for ‘professionalism’.

You gave up on the whole ‘oh I’ll just sleep on this tiny, uncomfortable chair for a few days until it’s sorted’ act days ago, diluting your dignity and climbing into bed with your similarly less than enthusiastic coworker who gave up on that shtick after the first night.

He wanted to go back to sleep - he really did, his eyes were practically closing themselves. But he surely couldn’t sleep next to someone actively crying and though he could be mean and - more accurately; a dick, he wasn’t completely emotionless. In fact he found himself scared that you were hurt or something was wrong and he had no way of fixing it when he woke up to your rushed breaths next to him. He still wasn’t sure he could really do anything, he didn’t tend to have dreams very much at all let alone bad ones.

There was no protocol to go over in his head about comforting a coworker-turned-roommate after a nightmare. He couldn’t exactly control your brain for you, though after a second thought he would if it’d help more than the apprehensive hand on your back.

Once you’d calmed yourself down enough and wiped the slowest string of tears from your cheeks you turned to look at Scott with something akin to a smile in the darkness.

Hoping that it made up for the lack of spoken gratitude that was clouded up in the panic in your head for the quiet comfort he wasn’t really looking to be thanked for anyway.

☾⋆⁺₊⋆

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒏 𝒈𝒐 // stiles stilinski imagine Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Isaac Lahey, Malia Tate, Kira Yukimura, Allison Argent Pairing(s): Stiles x you, Word Count: 8.9k Tags: human!au, fluff, childhood to friends to lovers Warnings: there are a few little nsfw mentions in the middle, so MDNI. Stiles does go out on a window ledge, but i have to make it clear he has no intention ever of jumping lmao.

A/N: this is basically just one day i thought what if stiles had a nick x jess first kiss because he seems stupid and awkward enough to jump out a window. and thus this nonsense was born. also the pov switching was new, so you’ll have to let me know if you’re a fan or not.

The thing is, Stiles isn’t an idiot. He’s stupid, but he isn’t dumb. He knows that it’s not normal to think about your best friend like this. That being so intensely attuned to the curve of her spine when she stretches or the hint of citrus that clings to her hair after she showers isn’t exactly platonic. 

And he really doesn’t want to be that guy. You know, the guy who just wants more, who gets upset when he can’t have more—the guy who can’t be friends with the girl who doesn’t love him back. So. Stiles stuffs it down. Deep down. And he’s content to die like this because he needs you. 

There are other girls. Boys too, after a latent discovery freshman year ( one that surprised no one but himself ). They come, and they go, and Stiles makes due with what he can have because he knows this is how it has to be. 

But they aren’t you. 

A blatant fact that ruins anything real before it even has the chance to start. 

So here he is: 24, single, and perpetually in love with one of his three roommates—but, hey, at least he does his own laundry now.

Stiles watches you on your bed, sitting on the floor like a child, while he pretends to work on a case report. He feels a little like a child too, the longer he stares at you—like a little boy with his hand in the cookie car. 

He plays with the fluff on your rug to keep his hand busy, tugging on it a little too harshly when you pull your hair back with the scrunchie on your wrist. Stiles feels like a cretin when his eyes follow the rise of your breasts as you fiddle with the knot on top of your head. They trail over the flex of your collarbones, and he sinks further into his shame when he imagines tracing the lines with his tongue. 

You catch him staring, and his throat bobs with his swallow. 

“What?” you ask with arched brows. You grin at him like you know something. 

Fuck, what if you know? 

You asked him something. Stiles knows you asked him something, but he can’t remember what. He just swallows again and fumbles for his coffee. Stiles knows that he should be desensitized to it all by now: your clever mouth, your deft fingers, your fluttering lashes, but he’s still startled by it every so often—like right now, when you look like you’re about to say something snarky at his expense. 

“Does it look that bad?” A few strands of your hair slip from their loose hold when you shake your head at him. “Are you moonlighting with the fashion police? I thought you’d be a little busy living in the murder capital of the world.”

Stiles laughs a little, mostly because of the simple fact that your hair always looks pretty. He said it the first time he saw you, blurted it out like a baby lamb. Stiles knew, even at six, that he should be embarrassed, but he just couldn’t help it. He was so little and completely overwhelmed by his first case of puppy love; the words had nowhere else to go. He’s gotten better at swallowing the praise-vomit, but he still notices. You’re always pretty. He’s doing his best to ignore it. 

“That’s St. Louis actually,” Stiles says. He burns his tongue on his coffee and pulls a face that he knows gives him a double chin. 

You slide off of your bed and kneel down next to him. Your knees press into his thigh, and it feels like something more, something profound, but he knows it doesn’t mean anything. You’re generous with your affection; you make everyone feel special when they’re around you. Stiles loves that about you, how you make him feel like he’s so smart, so vital when he knows that he’s moderately clever at best and really a lot closer criminally obsessive most days. 

“Can you tell me anything about it?” you hum, nestling your chin in the hollow of his shoulder. 

Stiles can smell your body wash. It’s sweet, fresh, and tickles his nose pleasantly—marigold and aloe. He’s seen the bottle in the shower. Sometimes, he has to bite his fist and turn the water to freezing when he accidentally imagines your wet, sudsy body, lathering the scent of marigold from neck to toe. It’s the in-between bits that make him especially nauseous with guilt. 

“Huh?” Stiles mumbles, pressing his singed tongue to the roof of his mouth. 

You poke his cheek and say, “You’re eating your lip. You only do that when you get stuck in a case.” 

Stiles can think of several other things that make him suck his top lip between his teeth, but he is stuck—most likely because he’s spent the last hour watching you. 

You frown, and he smiles a little at the wrinkle between your brows. You smooth out his own forehead wrinkles with your thumb and say, “It helps you sometimes—talking. You think best out loud.”

He does. Stiles swallows a little. You know him so well. You know everything about him. Everything except, of course, that the crush he had on you in elementary school has metastasized into an all-consuming, all-encompassing, honest-to-god, tried-and-true-blue, last-of-dying-breed, core-of-the-sun, probably-caused-the-big-bang kind of love. 

Stiles has tried, and failed, to think of a way to casually confess how he feels. How do you even begin to break something like that to a friend? Over Chinese food? After a few beers at your favorite bar? During one of your Buffy binge nights? How is he supposed to say, ‘Hey, so I’m kind of totally and irrevocably in love with you, and it’s ruining my life a little—but that’s okay ’cause I can’t be happy unless I know that you’re happy’ without blowing up his entire life? 

He can’t. So Stiles stuffs it down again with a sip of his coffee: black and bitter, a little like his heart when your not-boyfriend, boyfriend texts you. And he knows that’s so incredibly unfair of him. He knows that he’s needy, and pathetic, and far too possessive of your attention—it all makes him a little sick with self-loathing. 

You have every right to remove your warmth from his side to respond, and Stiles thinks that if a guy can make you smile like that, he must not be all bad. You seem happy. When isn't feeling sorry for himself, Stiles is happy for you. 

“The local police think it’s gang-related,” Stiles says eventually. His voice is raspy from his burnt throat and too loud in the silence of the near-empty apartment. 

You slide your phone back into your pocket, and Stiles tries not to feel victorious. “And you don’t,” you scooch back to his side, ducking your head over his shoulder to see his screen. 

“No,” Stiles combs his fingers through his hair and sighs, “I don’t. It’s too easy.”

“Follow your gut,” you say, poking his abs, “he usually knows what’s up.” 

“You know what he’s sayin’ right now?” Stiles’s back clicks as he stretches and rolls his neck around in slow circles. It does little for the perpetual ache along the ridge of his skull, but it gives him some space from you and your stupidly sweet smile. “It’s time for chimichangas.” 

You smile at him again, and Stiles blames the swooping in his stomach on hunger. “I think you deserve a little more than off-brand, freezer-burned Tex-Mex.” 

“Don’t knock Great Value,” Stiles grumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. His lips, swollen from an afternoon of tearing into them with his teeth, tug into a tired smile when you wave your hand impatiently in front of his face. He wraps his long fingers around yours and says, “She’s been there for me through everything.” 

“Higher standards, Stiles,” you roll your eyes, crinkled at the corners with your grin, “you’re in desperate need of higher standards.” 

Stiles wants to laugh, feels the impulse itch his throat. High standards are precisely his problem. 

“Maybe you should stop being such a brand snob,” Stiles pokes you in the side, a spot between your ribs that he knows is ticklish. You laugh and shove him away with a firm hand; Stiles goes willingly, stumbles into the doorframe just to make you laugh again. 

“I am not a snob,” you push yourself onto a barstool, socked-feet dangling below. He smiles as you swing them and then knock your ankles together. You used to do the same thing on the playground swing set. “Not liking over-salted garbage is not snobbery.”

Stiles reaches for the open bag of corn nuts on the island, needlessly resting his palm on your lower back under the guise of balance. Your skin is warm, and he’s too busy thinking about how his hand must’ve been molded around the shape of your hip to notice how hard you’re biting your lower lip. 

He tosses a few corn nuts in the air and catches them in his waiting mouth, smacking his lips together until they’re free of nacho cheese seasoning. He grins at the look on your face, and he wants to kiss the tip of your scrunched nose. “See,” Stiles sucks the leftover orange dust off of his fingers. His voice is muffled by his thumb when he says, “You’re snubbing my snacks right now—like a little munchie elitist. How dare you; they probably won’t ever recover.” 

You laugh, as expected, and snatch the bag from the counter, not expected. “You’re literally biting your thumb at me!”

Stiles leans against the counter, rests his forearms on the granite, and watches you chew with a dumb, fond smile on his face. You’re just so clever, all wrapped up in keen smiles and sharp wit. You keep him on his toes, always have—Stiles hasn’t ever met anyone else who can spar with him so well. He doesn’t think he ever will. Admittedly, he hasn’t looked that hard; his heart just isn’t in it—who else would paraphrase Shakespeare in the middle of a mock debate? Who else could possibly look so wily and wicked while doing it through a mouthful of, objectively, terrible gas station eats. 

“Purely accidental,” Stiles taps his fingers against the counter, and his shoulders lift with a small, oh-so innocent shrug, “it’s what we professionals call a ‘serendipitous turn of events’.”

“A professional what?” You grin at him. It’s one of his favorites, the one that says you’re about to tease him. “Sadist?”

“Oh,” Stiles’s brow quirks as he leans forward onto his arms, “so I torture you? Being around me is torturous?” 

“Yes.” Your chin jerks with a small, sharp nod, but the only thing Stiles can see is your pouty bottom lip. 

Sometimes, Stiles swears you do it on purpose—turn him on in the most inconvenient of moments. Make his heart swell into his throat until he devolves into a lovesick caveman. You have to know what you’re doing to him when you walk around in those little tank tops with the lace trim and the sleep shorts that ride up to the swell of your ass. It can’t be accidental, the cute laugh-snorts you’re so embarrassed of, or how you get so excited when you see a bird in a parking lot. It’s all too effective to be a coincidence.

Like right now, the way your lip balm shines under the kitchen lights and exaggerates your pout. You must know how completely and utterly kissable you look, and Stiles can’t do anything about it—now that’s torture. 

You give him mercy and tuck your pout away for a solemn line instead. “You’re evil; you never close the cabinets or take the trash out.” 

“Careful,” Stiles grins and snaps his teeth in the air, “I bite too.”

You lean across the island, and it’s torture, the way your arms squeeze your chest and push your cleavage to the neckline of your shirt. Stiles pointedly avoids looking at the round flesh. It just looks so soft, so plush—so ripe. His teeth ache. His tongue salivates. He craves with reckless abandon, and he’s never satiated. 

Stiles knows you’re a smart girl, but sometimes he forgets. You’d have to be pretty dense, after all, to not see the ravenous gleam in his eyes. You certainly don’t seem to notice it now, not with all that fondness twisting your lips into a grin. Stiles often wonders, worries, how you’d look at him if you knew. Disgusted most likely; he’s disgusted with himself half the time—but you’re so sweet, and so understanding, you’d probably forgive him. 

Pity, Stiles decides, if you knew, you’d pity him. He can’t decide if that’s worse. 

You rest your finger between his brows, and his dark lashes flutter, brushing against his freckles like they stamped the specks onto his skin. “Eat your nuts, monster,” you drag your finger along the slope of his nose and then ‘boop’ the tip, “and then preferably something with a single gram of protein.” 

Stiles grumbles to himself and searches the fridge for something that will placate your relentless bullying. He picks up the whipped cream and rolls the chilled can around in his hands, squinting at the label. 0 grams of protein. Stiles scoffs. Reddi Whip is, like, 75% milk, right?

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he forgets to shut the fridge door until it starts beeping at him like it's a personal offense. 

“Work?”

Stiles barely hears you, nose almost smooshed against his screen. “Huh?” He stares at his phone, eyes rapidly flicking back-and-forth, brain turning over how to counter the latest move on his ever-changing chessboard. 

Stiles finally registers what you said when he begins his reply to his unit chief. “Oh…yeah.” His thumbs fly over his screen at a speed that, frankly, shouldn’t be humanly possible, “One sec…”

“You need a break.” You stand and place your hands on your hips in an adorable show of strength. He knows that you’re going for stern, so he bites his twitching mouth lest he invoke your actual wrath. “You’ve been working 18-hour days for the last two weeks.” 

That’s an exaggeration, but Stiles doesn’t argue. He feels like it’s true. His stubble is out of control, and he’s afraid to look in the mirror and see exactly how dark his eyebags are. He only stopped by to shower and get a fresh change of clothes, but you came out of the bathroom in your little pink bathrobe and distracted him. 

Stiles hates that robe. Detests it. He wants to burn it. He wants to rip the flimsy tie off with his teeth. 

Mostly, Stiles wants to tuck you under his blankets and snuggle into the fuzzy fabric until he falls asleep. 

He wants, he wants, he wants. That’s the problem.

You pry his phone from his hands and slip it into your back pocket. “We’re getting drunk tonight,” you say, and you say it in a way that he can’t even argue with. You say it like it’s a fact—you’re informing him, not telling him. Stiles is usually happy to comply. 

That’s how you’ve always worked, after all: You point at a crocodile infested river, and he goes merrily, merrily, merrily down the stream, with a stupid, dreamy smile on his face. 

It’s just. He’s functionally useless at doing anything without you. You take care of him. Always have. 

Way back, when he was pre-Adderall Stiles, all baby energy and undiagnosed ADHD, you shoved a kid off of the swings when he made fun of Stiles’s babbling and twitching. He still babbles and twitches, but at least now he knows why. He doesn’t have some parasitic monster inside him; he’s just Stiles. 

You’ve always known that—how was he supposed to not fall in love with you? 

And after his mom died, you let him cry on your shoulder until your shirt was soaked through. He got snot all over your collar, and you just squeezed him tighter. Held onto him until he could breathe again, and then you said, “Want a grape soda?” and he almost started crying again because right then, at that moment, that was somehow the only right thing to say. Maybe because it was you, or maybe it was because you knew him so well. Maybe, it didn’t matter. 

You spent the rest of the night starfished over your bed, and after a minute of staring at your ceiling fan, Stiles whispered, “Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?”

You looked at him and grinned, all teeth and sparkly eyes, and said, “You better hope so, boy blunder. Who else is gonna watch Twin Peaks with you a zillion times?” And Stiles knows that he was only eight, and he knows that maybe it was just because you made him laugh after all the emptiness, but he thinks that he fell a little bit in love with you then, even if he was too young to put a name to the feeling. 

He finally figured it out when he was seventeen. Stiles wanted to be an adult so badly back then—and he felt like he was sometimes, after everything he’d gone through, but in so many ways he wasn’t. He definitely didn’t know how to handle his breakup with Malia like an adult—his first breakup, his first real relationship. 

Stiles drank a lot that night. He can’t remember exactly how much, or anything that happened after 11 pm, but he does remember how you stroked his hair. He remembers how you wiped the foul mix of bile and sweat from his face with a cool washcloth and tender hands. He remembers how you tucked him into bed and curled up next to him when he asked you to say. 

He remembers falling in love with you. 

The epiphany felt a lot better when he was warm and limp from his dad’s scotch. It hurt a bit, when he woke up hungover and in an empty bed. You were in the kitchen, making him breakfast: greasy eggs and hashbrowns. After he got over seeing you in one of his t-shirts, he wondered if you’d ever get tired of cleaning up after him and all his issues. 

Stiles still wonders that sometimes, even after you crawled into bed with him the night you found out your college sweetheart was cheating on you. He stroked your hair and ignored the wetness soaking into his neck, and you whispered against his skin, “Do you think we'll best friends forever?” 

Stiles wanted to laugh. And then scream. And then kiss you. He didn’t do any of those things. He just said, “Can’t picture it any other way.” He didn’t say that whenever he thought about the future, whenever he pictured forever, you were always there. 

He didn’t ask, ‘Is it okay if I’m in love with you forever?’

Stiles wants to ask it now, while you rattle off your plans for him this evening, but he doesn’t. He chews on a corn nut instead. 

“Lydia’s looking for the right opportunity to make a move on the guy in 2B anyway,” you finish, blowing a strand of hair out of your face. 

You’re looking at him like he’s supposed to say something, so he nods dutifully, “The guy with the mullet, right?”

You roll your eyes and poke around the cabinets, taking stock of the chips and tequila. “It’s not a mullet—you’re so obtuse when you’re jealous.”

Stiles blinks because…where the hell did that come from? “I’m good on the perm front, thanks,” he snarks through the food lodged in his cheek.

“Not of him,” you say, tongue trapped between your teeth and distracted by the mixers on top of the fridge. Your back is to him from your perch on the counter, and Stiles watches you with wary eyes. It would be so much easier if you'd just ask him to get things down from the top shelves, but you never do. Refuse to, actually. Vehemently. You'll do it yourself, even if it means breaking a limb.  

You manage to keep a hold of the pile of bottles cradled against your chest through your dismount, and Stiles breathes easier when your feet are pressed against solid ground. He’s glad your eyes are still on the kaleidoscope of sugar and citrus because you’d mock the relief in his eyes without mercy. 

You line the bottles up in order of emptiness and absently hum, “Well, yes of him, I guess, because—can you check on the vodka and gin?” 

Stiles sticks his head in the freezer, grateful for the blast of frigid air, and tries to untangle the crumbs of meaning in your flimsy accusation. He comes up with absolutely nothing—on every front of his mission.  “No gin.” 

You let out a long, heavy sigh and shake your head at the dangling light fixtures. “Lydia.”

Lydia was the only person in the apartment who liked gin, but Stiles didn’t have any room in his brain for commiseration. “So, I’m jealous of little orphan Annie from 2B because…?” He leans against the counter and tucks his hands under his arms, squinting skeptically, “Just so we’re on the same page n’ all.” 

You’re texting someone. He’s sure it’s Lydia, probably asking her to pick up more gin on her way home, but Stiles can’t help but wonder if you’re inviting your…whatever you call three decent dates and one evening of alright sex. ( Oh, how Stiles loved hearing all the details when you came home. ) 

“Hmm?” Your smile is lit up by your screen and the kittenish glint in your eye, but Stiles knows it’s not for him. He swallows his pettiness before he chokes on it. “Oh, right,” you put your phone down on the counter and smirk. This one is for him, but Stiles actually wouldn’t mind if it was for someone else; the look in your eyes is downright diabolical. “You’re so adorably, blatantly jealous that Lydia is into another no-neck, illiterate jock from the gym—but the perm is pretty bad, I’ll give you that.” 

Stiles’s jaw falls, and you laugh, completely misinterpreting his stupor. He stares at you and just shakes his head, scrambling for a grasp on at least one of the million questions pinging around his skull. “You think I want Lydia?”

“Uh-doy,” you roll your eyes like he’s said something particularly stupid, “only since forever.”

He’s struck again at how you can simultaneously know him so well and not at all. “You don’t think that would’ve come up in the last, I dunno,” Stiles’s head jerks with his choppy hand gestures, “eighteen years?” 

You wave your hand and then grab his wrist, “It’s been intermittent.” 

You lead Stiles back into your room by his hand like he’s a wayward dog on a leash. He’s grateful for it. Stiles can’t do much else besides blink and breathe when he’s like this—when he’s wrapped up in a case he can’t crack.

Stiles drops onto the edge of your bed with a solid thud, feeling a bit like someone slammed a 2x4 into his gut. His tongue seems to be useless, glued to the back of his teeth. All he can do is watch you flit around your room, gathering an armful of skirts and dresses. 

You hold up a black dress in one hand and a black mini-skirt layered under a red baby tee in the other, “Pick.”

Stiles wants to pick the sweats you’re currently wearing because they’re his, but he points at the skirt. He knows it’s your favorite; you’d pick it anyway. 

You sit down in front of your vanity and pull the scrunchie out of your bun. Stiles watches your hair tumble over your shoulders. You’re insecure about it, always have been. One day it’s the color, and then it’s the texture, and he, for the life of him, doesn’t understand why. Your hair shines so prettily under the light, and it always smells so sweet, like citrus and honeysuckle—Stiles can’t decide if he wants to bury his nose in it or wrap it around his spindly fingers. 

Graciously, you twist it into an artful arrangement before he can do either. 

“I don’t want to be with Lydia,” Stiles finally says quietly. 

You stop fiddling with pieces of hair framing your face and meet his gaze in the mirror, “It’s okay if you do.”

Stiles nods and stares at his lap, twiddling his fingers. “I know,” it’d be easier if he did, “but I don’t.”

You turn around in your chair and give him a little smile. It’s fond and sweet, and Stiles feels like a hand is closing around his heart and twisting it behind his ribs. “We’ll find you someone tonight, then,” you say, popping up from your seat. You grab your clothes off of the bed and squeeze his shoulder on your way to the full-length mirror next to your closet.

Stiles turns his head when you start to wriggle out of your shirt. He knows you don’t care what he sees after years of sleepovers and lake vacations, but you don’t know what it does to him. How all your dips and curves slip behind his lids when he’s alone with his fist and too much lube. If he’s really being honest, it also happens when he’s not alone, but that makes him feel like a piece of shit for a whole other list of reasons. 

All of it feels pretty awful when it’s over—when Stiles is left with the unpleasant sensation of drying cum on his stomach and the very unpleasant realization that you’d never wear a swimsuit around him again if you knew exactly what he does with the image. 

So. Stiles does what he can. He doesn’t look when you change, tries to avoid seeing you in a towel altogether, and watches so much porn of people who look nothing like you.

It doesn’t work, of course, but he tries. That has to count for something. 

Stiles swallows and taps his fingers against his thighs. “I can’t think of anything I want to do less than interact with a bunch of drunk strangers partying in my—”

“Not a bunch,” you say around a grunt, tripping over the dragging hem of your borrowed sweats, “and not a party. Just a chill get-together of like-minded peers.”

He scoffs and tips his chin up, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “I’m sure I have so much in common with Lydia’s guest list. Yeah, we can talk about how they can bench-press two of me and that I also love me some stacking—pancakes, not steroids, but close enough.” 

There’s a whoosh of a zipper and then you’re in front of him with your arms folded over your chest and thinned eyes. “You better behave.”

Stiles grins; it’s decidedly obnoxious. “I’ll be perfectly cordial, promise. I’ll even speak slowly.”

You laugh, and Stiles knows you’re only pretending that you didn’t want to. 

“I think it’ll be good for you.” You return to your vanity and pilfer through your mess of earrings. “Y’know, to get out of your head for a little bit. It really is just gonna be us and a few plus ones. I know you, boy wonder, no parties shall ever be thrown in your honor. I solemnly swear.”

He smiles at the childhood pet name, a private little grin Stiles keeps tucked in his chest and at his feet. It falls, however, when he remembers the middle bits of your speech. “So,” Stiles gnaws on his thumbnail and jiggles his knee, “did you invite a plus one?”

You slide a gold hoop through your ear and grin at him, “Nah, I’m all yours tonight, Stilinski.”

Good. God.

Stiles wants to kiss you. He always wants to kiss you, but sometimes every inch of you rips the air from his lungs—cleaves him right in two. Like right now. He forgets how to speak, trying to remember what he can say and what he absolutely can’t say, while he imagines a life where you really are his and you know that he’s always been yours. 

You’re just so pretty in your little skirt and cherry t-shirt, and you’re so clever, and funny, and you’re looking at him like he’s your favorite person in the entire world, and Stiles feels all of it spilling over the edges of his restraint. He almost says something so heavy—so categorically, catastrophically stupid, it would ruin your friendship for good.  

Stiles swallows it back into his chest, but his voice is still thick when he says, “All mine, huh.”

He’s sick with yearning, and he’s petrified for a moment that you can tell. It seems so obvious to him. It would be obvious to anyone, Stiles thinks, if they heard how weak he sounded, how soft in his throat and reverent in your presence. 

But you don’t notice. You never do. It’s a relief, and it’s endlessly frustrating. 

“Yep,” you smack your lips together, blotting your red lipstick until it’s perfect, “I wanna win, and everyone knows you can’t win True American with a noob on your team.” 

His brow arches, and a lazy grin smears across his mouth, “Oh, so we’re getting drunk drunk tonight.”

You wink at him in the mirror, “If you play your cards right.”

Stiles does, in fact, play his cards right. He picks Scott as the third member of your cabinet, possibly because Scott can outdrink anyone…or maybe it’s because Scott knows that Stiles is pathetically into you and can’t keep his mouth shut at the best of times, but especially not when he’s drunk. 

Who’s to say, really?

Honestly, Stiles doesn’t need the advantage—Lydia’s voluntarily stuck with Isaac and the guy from 2B who can’t follow the rules no matter how many times they shout them at him, and Malia and Kira care far more about making goo-goo eyes at each other than they do helping their friend from yoga make any progress towards the King—but he’s competitive by nature and feeling exceptionally stupid tonight. 

Lydia introduced the Clinton Strip Rules solely to ogle her latest man candy’s aggressively sculpted six-pack and show off her bewitching décolletage, and it was going along swimmingly until the idiot forgot how to count. 

It was so simple. All the guy had to do was hold up three fingers—that’s all. He would’ve matched Lydia's count, and then they could've made out behind the Iron Curtain. But he didn’t. He held up two fingers and in doing so single-handedly crafted Stiles Stilinski’s demise.

Ironic. Considering the moron can't craft a compound-complex sentence to save his life. 

For a single, endless moment, you and Stiles just stare at each other, more specifically, at the four fingers plastered against your foreheads—and then the spell is broken by drunken cackling. Lydia grins like the cat who caught the canary, and Scott laughs until his face turns red. He’s loud and obnoxious with the four drinks he’s downed, and Stiles wants to shove him out the window. 

“Guys,” Stiles whines, “you don’t really—”

You finish the beer in your hand and shrug your shoulders, “It’s fine.” 

Stiles’s head whips towards you, big-eyed and fish-mouthed. He can’t form words. Can’t speak any of the five languages he knows. He’s become a Stiles Stilinski skinsuit held up by a skeleton of gelatin and faulty survival instincts. 

You smile at him a little and shrug again, “It’s just a game, right?” 

You don’t say it, but Stiles can hear it with painful clarity: It doesn’t mean anything. 

Stiles doesn’t know how to say no without telling the truth. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, not exactly. Stiles wants to kiss you—of course he wants to kiss you, feels like the whole goddamn world knows he wants to kiss you and is conspiring against him—but not like this. He doesn’t want to kiss you when it’s nothing. He’s thought about it far too much, imagined it on his bedroom ceiling in the safety of darkness too many nights, to blow it all on a stupid drinking game. A stupid gym-bro’s mistake. 

Stiles had a plan. A plan he never actually had the courage to act on, but a plan nonetheless. 

He was going to hold your face with shaking hands, smooth his thumbs along the sleek line of your jaw, look you in the eyes so that you could see the disbelief, the wonder, the awe. You’d see that he was overwhelmed to the bone, to all the nerves shivering inside the marrow, and you’d have to forgive him for being so tongue-tied and awkward—for taking so long. 

And then, he’d kiss you. 

He’d kiss you again, and again, and again, until one of you started laughing, but that’d be okay because it would give him the chance to kiss your neck and whisper, 'You’re the sky, and the mountains, and everything in-between.'

'You’re dark matter; you’re gravity,' he’d kiss the words into your skin and sigh, 'you’re the only thing holding the universe together.'

But he can’t say that, so Stiles follows you into Lydia’s bedroom and wipes the sweat on his palms off on his jeans.

You’re a little giggly while you fumble for the light. It’s breathy, and you can’t meet his eyes. Stiles feels a little better knowing that you’re almost as nervous as he is. You aren’t usually the nervous kind, after all. That’s his thing. 

Stiles slides his hands into his back pockets and rocks onto his heels, “We don’t…we can just pretend that we…did it.”

“Did it?” you arch a brow, lips curling into a wry grin. “It’s just a kiss, Stiles. I thought you wanted to win? We gotta end Lydia’s streak, or she’ll be insufferable.”

Stiles’s mouth goes dry: cottony with wanting, brittle with misery. He can’t pretend anymore; he can’t pretend that he's not dying from this.  

You can’t look at Stiles’s face. Can’t see the panic. It’s why you shuffle closer to him, stiffly reach for his shoulders and awkwardly search for the least romantic place to rest your hands. Stiles’s back thuds against the wall, and you finally dart your eyes to his. “It’s fine,” you say weakly. 

There’s a loud chorus of, ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss,’ through the door, and Stiles watches the resolve harden your face. His chest rises and falls with quick, shallow exhales. He can hear his pulse ricochet around his ear canal, can feel the sweat gathering on his palms, can taste the anticipation in the air.

You roll your shoulders back a few times and shake your hands by your side, rotating your neck in a few slow circles. “Just kiss me, Stilinski. No biggie. I think we can catch up to Isaac if you hurry the hell up and plant one on—”

“Not like this!” 

Your mouth parts into a perfect little ‘o’, and Stiles’s eyes bulge when he realizes that the pathetic, desperate cry came from him. 

You fold your arms over your chest and tilt your head with an expression on your face that Stiles can’t read for the life of him. “What,” you lick your lip, and Stiles squirms with shame when he can’t stop himself from tracking the movement, “what does that mean?”

Stiles’s face spasms, and he can feel his IQ drop by tens the longer you stare at him. 

“No, I didn’t…” Stiles’s stutters, flicking his gaze to your forehead, your chin, between your brows—anywhere but your eyes. His nose scrunches as he shakes his head, “Nothing. I just—I didn’t mean like that.” Stiles isn’t entirely sure what you think he meant, but considering he can’t decide what he means, it’s a safe bet that you’re wrong.

Stiles's hands take over for his melting brain matter, gesturing wildly every-so often like the flexing and contracting add any actual meaning to his meaningless babble. “I just, we can’t like that because that’s not…Do you know, like…? It’s very, like, you don’t…” His eyelids seem to have forgotten how to blink, and Stiles thinks he’d do just about anything for a piano to fall out of the sky right about now.

The chanting outside the door gets louder; Stiles isn’t sure if it’s real or just his anxiety. Through his narrowing pinprick vision, the only thing he can see at the end of the dark, dark tunnel is Lydia’s window. The heavy purple curtains frame the opening like serendipitous velvet gift wrapping.

Stiles swallows and nods sharply, “If you’ll excuse me.”

Stiles steps around you, and you follow his path with your eyes. They’re pinched with suspicion, but mostly concern. “Stiles, what are you do—”

“I’m fine,” Stiles tries to wave off your worries with a shaky hand. 

And then he unlatches Lydia’s window and crawls on top of a chair to reach the opening.

“Okay, this makes sense. I just need a little air,” Stiles mumbles to himself. His dirty sneakers leave a clear outline of his soles on the white fur. Under any other circumstances, you’d both be desperately trying to scrub the fabric clean before Lydia found the stains and rained her wrath down upon your very fragile, bruisable bodies. Under these circumstances, you’re preoccupied with the half of Stiles’s body that’s hanging outside the window of your 3rd-story apartment.

“Stiles!” you stumble to the wall and freeze, unsure how to pull him back in without accidentally tipping him onto the concrete three floors below. 

Stiles manages to slip the rest of his body through the window without breaking any limbs. Yet. “This is what I needed. Yup, this is—” his eyes engulf his face, a wide pool of churning honey, when he finally realizes just how small the ledge is and just how far away the ground is, “ah, ha, ha!”

“Stiles!” You cover your face with your hands and shake your head over and over again. You hope, childishly, if you spin fast enough, you can rewind time back to 10 minutes ago—when Stiles was safe on the floor and you could stop yourself from giving into the silly, stupid desire to kiss him. Just once. To finally find out how it would feel.  

You peek through your fingers and wince as he stumbles towards the left. “You don’t have to kiss me!”

Stiles disappears from view, and you tumble into the hallway. You let out a low hiss when your hip slams into a sharp corner. The flare of pain is soon forgotten, however, when Stiles slams his hands against the living room window. Everyone turns to gawk at him, eight mouths wide open and not a single word is spoken until Stiles presses his entire body against the glass. 

The window hasn’t been cleaned since you all moved in, so you can’t quite make out his expression through grime and dirt, but you can hear the shrill urgency in his voice. “This is a regret—I immediately regret this.” It would be funny, how high his voice is—approaching autotuned chipmunk territory, honestly—if he wasn’t six inches away from certain death. You can all laugh about it later when Stiles is safe on the couch, you decide. After you’ve punched him in the arm for doing something so bone-shatteringly stupid, obviously. 

Malia does laugh, and Kira smacks her shoulder. You almost appreciate the levity; it reminds you that your brain needs oxygen to function.

Scott cups his hand around his mouth and shouts, “Don’t move!”

Stiles smooshes his button nose into the glass. He inhales and exhales with mad abandon, creating and erasing a cloud of condescension with every breath. “I've made a very bad mistake! I’m not trained for this!” his lips smear against the glass, muffling his cries for help. Stiles pulls back, and leaves a streak of saliva behind. At least, that patch of the window is clean now, biohazard be damned. 

It’s Scott who ends up saving the day. No surprise there. He gets Stiles through the window and shoves him onto the couch, teeth ground in what can only be described as parental frustration. 

Scott folds his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes, “You scared me half to death out there.”

Isaac snorts and rolls his eyes, quipping over Scott's shoulder, “Are you not getting enough attention?”

“I’m fine!” Stiles groans into his hands and pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s still red from being smashed against the window, and the rest of his face matches with his embarrassed flush. “I am fine! I was partly joking and at least 64% drunk!”

“Stiles, we will talk about this in the morning,” Scott’s face is stern, and his grip on Stiles’s shoulder is just as firm, “but right now, I’m gonna go do stuff with a girl.”

Scott’s face is still solemn when he high-fives Isaac, mostly out of habit. You do laugh then. Can’t help it. A little bit of relief creeps through your constricted chest when Stiles smiles. It’s brief, a little twitch at the corners of his slightly-swollen mouth, but it’s there. 

Allison rolls her eyes when Scott holds out his hand, but she still takes it and follows him towards his bedroom.

“Shut the door!” Stiles shouts at their backs. He slumps back against the couch cushions when the thudding Scott's door closing echoes through the hall.

It’s quiet for a moment. Kira shifts awkwardly, clinging to Malia’s arm for balance when the fog of alcohol spreads from her flushed cheeks to her platform combat boots. Malia doesn’t look that concerned, but she’s always been cool under pressure…and any other emotion. 

You expect Lydia to look as worried as you do, but she has a strange, calculating look in her eyes. They’re sharp in the light of her brilliance; the jade almost looks feline. 

Lydia’s beaux ends up breaking the silence with a loose laugh. His head tips back with his chuckle, and he throws his meaty arm around Lydia’s shoulders. “That was freakin’ hilarious! I mean, dude jumped out on a ledge instead of kissing a 10. Can you believe that?”

Lydia looks wholly unamused and says flatly, “I really can’t.” She fixes Stiles with a look you can’t read, but Stiles seems to understand. 

“I know.” Stiles drops his face into his hands and digs his face into the cradle of his wide palms. "I’m an idiot.”

Everyone seems to hear a cue that you missed while watching Stiles’s chest rise and fall. Malia, Kira, and their plus one filter out the door one-by-one, and Isaac kisses your cheek before wrapping his scarf around his neck. You’re relieved again when you hear Stiles scoff; it’s something he always does when Isaac puts on one of his pretentious kerchiefs in the balmy, LA weather. It’s nice to see some things are still the same. 

Lydia stares at Stiles, and they have a silent conversation that ends with a patented Lydia Martin glare and a quintessential Stiles Stilinski squint. 

Lydia leaves with her late night delight and kiss to your other cheek, and suddenly it’s just you and Stiles. 

You wring your fingers together, gnawing on the lining of your cheek. You can’t think of anything to say. To Stiles. You never thought you’d see the day. 

The couch creaks with Stiles’s shifting weight. He pushes himself to his feet and stands in front of you. The redness in his face has faded, baring the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose that you’re so fond of. His lips part. Your breath stills, waiting. Wanting. His silence washes over the room like a flood, and you close your eyes. You’re afraid of it, witnessing the inevitable wreckage. 

It doesn’t come. 

You hear the quiet padding of Stiles’s footsteps. When you open your eyes, he’s gone, slinking down the hall to his bedroom. You stare at the place he was just standing, feeling the chill of his absence, and then it’s gone. A glaring blaze of anger warms your face, and you allow it to carry you to Stiles’s closed door. What a metaphor; the thought grinds your molars together until they screech.  

You wrench his door open, and Stiles jumps, halfway out of his jeans. He stumbles over the cuffs and almost falls on his face. You wish you could tease him, laugh until you snort and Stiles glares at you through his pathetic attempt to hide his smirk. But you can’t. Not yet. 

“You’re really just going to leave it like that?” you say, closing his door behind you. It’s preemptive; you feel a little like yelling. “That was a whole other level of stupid, Stiles, even by your standard.” 

Stiles quickly yanks his pants back up and buttons them, struggling with the zipper and his twitching fingers. “Can we just not,” Stiles rubs a hand over his face, looking infinitely older than he is, and mumbles a hollow, “actually, can we never.”

The words hang heavily in the air. In the harrowing quiet, you think: Oh god, is this it? Is this really the end?

Stiles stares at his feet, at the hole he’s wearing in the oak floor. He hears it too, the weight of what he’s done. Fucking hell, he thinks, I didn't know cowardice could be so loud.

You smooth your hands over your hair, clasping for any semblance of composure. “I just…I didn’t realize that the thought of kissing me was so…traumatic.” 

Stiles jerks his head from the floor and tugs his fingers through hair. He pulls at the roots until it stings and shakes his head, “That’s not…you’re,” he gestures towards you helplessly and swallows the millions of things he wants to say, “you.” 

“Yeah,” your shoulder lifts in a tiny shrug, arms winding around your torso like a brace, “that seems to be the issue.”

Stiles just looks at you for a moment. The lamp on his desk bathes his skin in a wave of warmth when he tilts his head. The tip of his nose casts a shadow over his lips, and you want to trace the divot in his cupid’s bow, the little lines by his nose, the hollow space under his eyes. You want to trace them all with your fingertips and then memorize them with your mouth. 

Stiles's eyes are golden in the light, and they’re stuck on yours. 

“You are…” Stiles closes his eyes, and his voice is so soft, so devout, “you are so fucking...inescapable, you know that? You are…you are so deep inside my head, I can’t do anything without thinking about you. It’s becoming a serious fuckin’ problem—a nuisance, actually, a nuisance. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop, y’know, like it would be fuckin’ awesome if I could just forget how you smell like going home and a goddamn spring meadow, or if I could go fuckin’ grocery shopping without looking for those impossible to find chips with the Elmer Fudd lookin’ fucker on ‘em—”

“Hot fries,” you whisper hoarsely. 

Stiles stops pacing for a moment and nods at you, “Thank you—hot fries. And I would love it if I could walk down the street, just once, and not look for a dog to take a picture of, just so I have an excuse to text you without looking like I was just thinking about you—even though I was obviously just thinking about you because, re my previous ranting, there’s literally not a single second of the day that you're not on my mind. You're just…inevitable.” 

“And…I am Iron Man?” your smile is wobbly. 

Stiles gives you a flat look over his shoulder, “You’re a smartass—but I love that. I love everything about you—even the way you talk through my favorite movies and force-feed me a vegetable once a week.” 

“Stiles,” you swallow shallowly and rest your hand on his chest. Stiles stops pacing and meets your gaze with big, endless eyes and blinking butterfly lashes. Tipping your head to the side, you swipe your thumb over his thudding heart, “What are you trying to say?”

Stiles rests his hand on top of yours, clunkily lacing your fingers together for a little stability. “I love you,” he whispers, because he has to. It has to be this soft. It has to stay just between you and him, in the little bubble of air between your lips. “I’ve been in love with you since…” Stiles chews on his lip, trying to pinpoint when he knew, when he knew that you’re it for him. There are so many moments that come to mind, and he can’t pick a single one. It’s just that the line between mud pies, and t-ball, and this is so blurry. Stiles can’t tell where it really begins and where it ends. 

It feels boundless, Stiles thinks, infinity. It’s something, somewhere, past the edge of the universe. He’s yours infinitely. There is no before he loved you, and there is no after. It’s just always.

Stiles breathes and sighs out his answer, “Forever. I’ve loved you since forever, and I couldn’t—I can’t kiss you if it doesn’t mean anything.”  

Your lips curve slowly. It’s a nervous smile, one that’s afraid of the rug being yanked out from under happily ever after. “You love me?” you say quietly, voice little and meek. 

The tip of Stiles’s tongue darts out, wetting his lip. He nods slowly and rubs the back of his neck—an anxious tick you know very well. You’ve watched Stiles for eighteen years, after all. You’ve studied the tendons in his neck, how they flex when he crooks his head down to read, how it makes your belly warm more than it should. You know he flexes his fingers exactly three times before starting a test, and you know that the long veins in his arms are the most stupidly attractive things you’ve ever seen. He’s the most attractive thing you’ve ever seen, and you’ve loved him for so long it’s written in your bone marrow. 

Stiles scratches his neck until it’s pink and raw, and you pull his hand away instinctively. He smiles at you so timidly it breaks your heart, “Is that okay?” 

You nod, and nod, and nod. “Very okay. Very, very okay. The most okay of all the okay’s.” It’s so fast, and it’s been so long, but mostly it’s right. Like this is the only logical conclusion, the answer to a cold case that took eighteen years to solve. Your life has always been youandstiles, and that sounds a whole like forever. 

Slipping a hand to the back of his neck, you run your thumb along the knobs of his spine and whisper, “I am so ridiculously in love with you, boy wonder.” 

Stiles grins. It starts small, fond, tender—but the more times he hears it, every time she loves me, she loves me, she loves me bounces around his ribcage, his grin gets a little bigger, a little brighter. Soon, it stretches across his entire face and swallows you whole. He looks more than alive like this; you want to taste the electricity in his mouth. 

You smile at each other for a long time, and you look at Stiles through your lashes. “So,” you tip your chin and bat your eyes, “you gonna kiss me?”

Stiles is going to kiss you. He swears. He’s just…he’s thinking too much after an evening of not thinking at all. He’s been waiting for this for forever, and what if his lips are dry—or, worse, what if they’re too wet? What if his hands are cold and clammy, and you can feel his sweat when he cups your cheeks. He definitely feels sweaty. And nervous. And—

You rock onto your tiptoes and kiss him. It’s a little kiss, soft and short, but everything goes static and neon around you. You let out a little sigh, start to pull away—and Stiles whimpers. His hands surges forward and latches onto the back of your neck, pulling your mouth back to his. 

Stiles slides the breadth of his large palm up and down your back, chasing the rhythm of your breath. There isn't much to chase, you think deliriously, you aren’t really sure if you need oxygen to survive anymore. You like swallowing his sounds and tasting his tongue far more than breathing. It feels like Stiles agrees with you when he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you into his chest, digging his fingers into the small of your back until there’s nowhere else for you to go. Silly boy. As if you’d rather be anywhere else. 

He makes the sweetest little noises in-between your kisses, softening the wet smacking of lips and tongues. You chase them, learning what he likes by unraveling him one sound at a time, with a tug on his hair here, a nibble on his lip there, and your hands just about everywhere.

It’s hot. Literally. You can feel heat licking your skin—or maybe that’s just Stiles. Your head is a little fuzzy from his kisses and not enough oxygen, and logic is a distant thought. Breathing. People need to breathe. 

Stiles’s nose bumps against yours when he pulls back. He smiles drunkenly and leans in for one more kiss. It’s quick and open-mouthed, two little brushes of his lips, and it steals what’s left of the air in your lungs. 

Stiles brushes your hair back and rests his forehead against yours. His breath chills your spit-slick, swollen mouth, and you shiver at the look in his eyes. “I meant something like that.”

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Alr I’m gonna need the Maze Runner and Teen Wolf fandoms to wake up!!! I NEED more Thomas and Stiles fics STAT.

Any fic recs would be greatly appreciated:)

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

x reader fanfic writers please just know that i love you thanks and good night

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Forgetting

Jake Seresin x reader

Summary: Jake forgets to pick you up at the airport because of his ex, and for the first time, you think maybe you and Jake aren't mean to be.

Notes/Warnings: Angst, but ends fluffy. Fighting. Cursing. This was a request that I said I'd have done in a couple days and it took me a week and a half. Sorry about that. Also, please be gentle. I haven't written for Jake in what feels like a millennium.

Words: 2700

Jake Seresin Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Tag List

As much as it would kill you to know that he could be hurt, you hope he’s hurt. You hope he’s on his way to the hospital to receive life-saving treatment because if he’s not hurt, if he’s not receiving life-saving treatment, then he simply forgot about you. And that makes your heart want to claw its way out of your chest and scamper across the floor until it’s well out of your range to catch it. 

Your call goes to voicemail for the fourth time. You send your twelfth text: I hope you’re ok. I landed an hour ago. Please call me. Nothing different than the eleven other messages that have gone unanswered. Forty-five more minutes pass of you sitting on a bench by the airport exit before you finally surrender your last shred of hope and call Bradley to come save you. 

Within the hour, you’re sighing in relief, the sight of a friendly face almost bringing you to tears. He approaches you with open arms and you fall right into the embrace, comforted by the hug that should be in your boyfriend’s arms, and the warmth that should be from your boyfriend’s body, and the forehead kiss that should be from your boyfriend’s lips. 

“Please tell me he’s ok,” you say against your friend’s chest. 

A heavy palm rubs up and down your back. “No one could get ahold of him.”

Your head jerks back so you can meet his eyes. “Oh my god!”

“I’m sure he’s fine, kid. Don’t worry.”

“How can you say that? He was supposed to be here and he’s not and–” You pause when Bradley looks away from you, and a hefty stone settles in your gut. You know your friend well. He’s a good man, honest but sensitive, and when that honestly meets that sensitivity, it results in his inability to look someone in the eye if he thinks the truth might hurt them. You’ve seen it a hundred times, but never with you. 

Your posture wavers with your lengthy exhale. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Another great thing about Bradley: he doesn’t make you play any games. You don’t have to jump through hoops. You don’t have to ask the right questions in the right way in order to get what you need out of him, unlike many men, your boyfriend included, who recently has found ways to skitter around telling the full truth. 

“Javy said he saw him a couple of hours ago,” Bradley says.

Your back teeth clench. Your mind shoots to one conclusion. “With her?” you ask. Bradley’s eyes drift from yours again and you nod, a tear at the ready to leak down your cheek. “He forgot about me because he’s with her.”

“We don’t know that for sure, and–”

Your hand scrubbing down your face cuts him off. Your fingers pinch the bridge of your nose before you suck in your whimper and say, “Rooster, why did he even ask me to come here?”

“Because he…I mean, we thought he–”

“You thought he gave a fuck about me.”

“He does,” Bradley says, stressing his words in an attempt to reassure you. “He never shuts up about you.”

“Sure,” you say. “He gives so much of a fuck that he forgot about me to be with his ex. How can you explain that?”

Rooster sighs. His hands slip into his jeans pockets just to have something to do with them. “I can’t.”

“Exactly.” 

No one can explain it. Not you, not Bradley, not Jake. Everyone you know back home would be telling you to run for the hills right now. They were already wary of this ‘Navy guy’ that they’d only met twice around the holidays, who lives a decent distance away from your entire life and who constantly requests that you be the one to hop on a plane rather than the other way around. 

For the duration of your time together, you’ve been understanding of that sacrifice. You know his schedule doesn’t allow impromptu trips out of state, but that hasn’t made it any less exhausting for you. And maybe that’s a sign. Another sign. A nail in the coffin. Maybe you and Jake aren’t meant to be. And why would you be? You met him on a brief vacation to visit a friend who doesn’t even live in the same town anymore, and somehow, during those few days, he convinced you to take a chance on him. So you took the leap. But being that bold doesn’t guarantee you won’t fall flat on your face, and you think that’s exactly what’s happening. You’ve tripped over a guy only to realize he doesn’t care about you to the same degree that you care about him. 

However, you’re not the type to avoid confrontation. If Jake Seresin is going to mistreat you because of his ex, then he is going to do it to your face. He’s going to look you in the eye when he shows himself to be the liar he is. It may hurt more to go to him rather than get on the next plane home without so much as taking in a breath of fresh Californian air, but you’re too upset to let that thought fully develop, and a moment later, Rooster is following your stomps out the door. 

—

You find him at the Hard Deck, standing at a hightop with a beer glass in his hand that clinks against the one in his ex’s before he takes a sip. Bradley’s comforting hand lands on your back in solidarity. You only met him because of Jake, but the two of you bonded despite their differences, and having him by your side now makes him nothing short of a life-saver. 

He helps guide you through the crowd to the table, and when Jake spots you, he chokes around the liquid going down his throat. His blown-out emerald eyes rival saucers and his mouth gapes like a fish, but then his stare flicks to Bradley, and those eyes shrink into narrow slits. His face heats to a boiling red. 

“What the fuck!” Jake snaps, shocking the composure right out of his ex’s poised stance. Bar patrons close by turn their heads but quickly return to their own conversations. Jake steps away from the table, coming to a halt in front of you and his squadmate. “What the hell is this?”

You figured he’d be bothered if you showed up with Bradley in tow. And good, that’s what you feel he deserves. Jake’s been wary of the other Dagger’s closeness to you for a while, and even though you know—as does Bradley—that it’s an asinine concern, you have no problem using it against him now. But still, the intensity of his reaction manages to surprise you. You didn’t think he would be this angered by the sight of you with another man that it would have him overlooking his mistake of forgetting you.

Your arms cross. “This is your girlfriend and the guy who saved her when her damn boyfriend left her stranded at the airport.”

“Excuse me?”

Jake’s ex’s prying gaze tugs at your attention, but when you glance over his shoulder to catch her in the act, she quickly looks away—just more proof that whatever the fuck she’s doing with your boyfriend is something to be ashamed of. 

Bradley’s saying something. You can’t quite hear him over the anger-induced fuzzing in your ears, but you’re pretty sure it’s a scolding based on the twisting of Jake’s features as he shoots back his own words of aggression. And then your hand is in his and you’re being pulled through the bar, out the back door, and onto the deck where the only intrusive sound is the lapping of waves on the shore. 

“Why are you here?” he asks. 

You scoff to mask the heartbreak that comes with that question. “Because you asked me to be here.”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“It’s Wednesday,” he says. 

“It’s Thursday, Jake.”

“No, it’s—” he freezes, and you don’t know if he’s tipsy or stupid, but it takes him a minute to come to the same conclusion: it is indeed Thursday. “Fuck,” he mutters.

Your lower back meets the edge of the railing, and you sigh, thankfully keeping in the tears. “What are you doing with her?”

“What the fuck are you doing with Rooster?” he returns much more forcefully. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called, I texted, I left voicemails,” you tell him, “But clearly, she was more important.”

Jake’s hands pat down his pockets, mouth setting in a frown when he can’t find his phone.

“Don’t bother. Phone or no phone, you forgot about me because of her. Last time I was here, you were late for one of our dates because of her. You spent fifty percent of our time together stepping away to take her phone calls,” you say, trying and failing to avoid the bitter taste on your tongue. “Just fuck her, Jake, if you haven’t already. I only came here to tell you that she can have you.”

You’ve never seen him fall apart the way he does. You’ve never seen the blood drain from his cocky face. You’ve never seen his features break and crack and contort into the vision of pure devastation as they do. His parted mouth must’ve gone dry because his next words come out slightly hoarse.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, but it’s more of a plea than anything. “Why…Why would you–” He swallows. A wrinkle forms between his brows and he shakes his head. “You love me. You didn’t mean to say that.”

You do love him—terribly so—but you’re willing to be one of those people who won’t view love as enough if it also means laying you out as a fool. “Jake–”

“Take it back,” he says. His steps are quick, and then you’re trapped where you stand, his hands on either side of your body, gripping the rail. Eyes drill into yours, and for a second, you feel a pang of guilt. “Please, baby, take it back. She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“And I mean less.”

“No!” he says. “That’s not true. You’re everything, ok? You mean everything to me. She was just helping me, that’s all.”

“Helping you,” you mimic with a roll of your eyes. “Helping you what? Get off?”

With a little whine, Jake’s head drops between his shoulders, his blond hair brushing your collarbone. “Please. Please quit saying things like that.” His hands slide closer to your body and land on your hips. You don’t push him away—you can't—and his touch softens you ever so slightly.

“Then tell me the truth,” you say. “Right now. I’m giving you one shot.”

His head snaps up. His eyes flick back and forth between yours, ironically searching for your honesty, as if you’re the liar on trial here. 

“It was a surprise,” he tells you. “She’s a realtor now, and for the last few months she’s been helping me find a new place, one that’s bigger than what I’ve got because I was going to ask you to move in with me.” Your heartbeat stutters. A layer of goosebumps coats your arms. When you don’t respond, he continues, “I hate missing you. I hate how unfair it is that you’re always the one to come here because I can’t fly out at the drop of a hat. I know it’s a big step, but I figured if I had a place, I could show you how great things could be. That’s why she and I came here. We were celebrating because I’m signing on a house first thing tomorrow,” he says. “Well, that’s why I’m celebrating, anyway. She’s probably celebrating because she just made a decent commission.”

It’s almost unfair how that new information doesn’t make you feel any less of a fool. Had he told you that under any other circumstances, you’d be leaping into his arms, kissing him like you’ve been deprived of him for years, repeating ‘yes’ over and over between those kisses, but you can’t. You can’t because his explanation doesn’t fix everything. 

“That still doesn’t change that it’s Thursday, not Wednesday,” you say.

“I know, baby. That’s my fault. I was so excited, and I was thinking how perfect the timing was that I would be able to pick you up tomorrow and drive you by the house now that it’s officially mine, but I fucked it up.”

Jake’s thumbs press into your hips, and you’re instantly reminded of each moment in your relationship when you’ve felt that same light pressure on your skin. A gentle claiming. The same pressure you felt when you agreed to be his girlfriend. The same pressure you feel whenever you’re in bed together. 

You sense eyes on you other than your boyfriend’s, and when you turn your head, you find his ex staring right at you, an expression on her face that you wish you could say wasn’t one of distress, but it is. And worse, it’s obviously not distress for herself, but for Jake, as if she’s hoping she wasn’t just a contributor to a bomb dropping on his life. 

Jake’s busy staring at you despite your averted gaze, and in a monotone voice, you say, “She feels bad.”

He doesn’t follow your eyes. “Because she knows I’ve been doing this all for you.”

You blink. Your hand runs down your face before sifting through the strands of your hair. “You really want me to live with you?”

“Of course I do,” he tells you. He’s shaking his head, but you know it’s because he thinks any idea that he wouldn’t want you to be blasphemous. His hand cups your chin. “I love you.”

With a sigh, you push aside the rollercoaster of emotions, the misunderstandings that lead to frustration and hurt, and look him directly in the eye. And where moments ago you thought you saw lies, you see honestly. Where you thought you saw betrayal, you see love. 

“Can I see it?”

—

It’s small—a two-bedroom with a little driveway, the shingle siding painted a blue-gray shade that is more blue than gray; bundles of flowers bloom in the boxes under the windows; a bay window protrudes from the side of the structure facing the beach. And it’s perfect.

You can imagine building a life here. You can picture a dog that you’ll have to build a fence for and children years later that will have you reinforcing the fence because they’ll probably be like their father, and Jake didn’t choose to be a pilot because of his lack of adventurous nature. You look at this house and you can see the core of a family. A house that, no matter how far you go for Jake’s job, will always be home base.

Jake is leaning around you so you can both watch the house from the passenger seat window. “I’d offer to show you around, but I don’t get the keys until morning.”

“It’s ok,” you tell him. “I don’t need to see inside.”

When you say that, he falls back into his seat. The back of his head presses against the headrest. His fingers squeeze the steering wheel with his sigh of defeat. “You don’t like it.”

Shifting your body to face him, you say, “Jake, I love it.”

Just like that, his eyes brighten like a pouting child who was just offered a lollipop, and you can’t help but chuckle. You can’t help but forget everything that happened earlier in the night, all of it seeming so insignificant now, even though you know it’s not, and you both know that if he ever makes the same mistake again, he’ll have hell to pay. But something tells you that won’t be a problem. 

“Enough to live with me?” he asks.

You nod. “Enough to live with you.”

---

A/N: Thanks for reading! Comments make my entire world, so if you liked it, let me know? Thanks :)

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡? | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

you finally work up the courage to kiss Eddie for the first time and he can’t cope (even if he claims he can). 2k words. requested here

cw fem!reserved/shy!reader, first kiss, heavy kissing, mutual pining, eddie being a hot dork

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Some people (Steve) call Eddie your loser boyfriend, while other people (the girls at work) call him the rockstar. 

You see both sides of him now. 

“Sweetheart!” he calls, the passenger seat window rolled down, his voice strong where he shouts behind the wheel. The van bumps the curve, leaving a sanguine line of rust in its wake and a creak to make everybody on the sidewalk wince. 

“Hello,” you call back. 

The van hums. You wait for him to be at a definite stop before you approach, hands on the open window, leaning up so as to see him best. It’s not just a usual date night tonight, Eddie’s taking you to Indianapolis for a rock show, and he’s dressed the part. “Woah, you look cool,” you say, bravely, wondering if that’s the right thing to say. It’s undoubtedly true —he’s slicked his curls with mousse to define them and leave them pitch black in accordance with his eyeshadow, dark and tapped into his lash line. The top he wears is incredibly tight, carving the softer lines of his abs for anyone to see, and his black jacket is ripped in places to expose the ink of his tattoos. “Are they multiplying?” 

“What?” he asks, grinning at you. “Are you getting in? It’s freezing!” 

“Your tattoos,” you explain, opening the door and popping up into the van with one shoe on the step. 

“Shit, you wanna see?” 

You’re not scared of Eddie, you just like him. He doesn’t worry you, doesn’t pressure you, nothing nefarious about him. He’s pretty, he’s considerate, and he does stuff like this, peeling out of his jacket to flex his arm at you and show you the Saran wrapping around his bicep. “Like that one?” he asks.

He has nice arms, and they’re all the better for his painful obsession. His newest one is difficult to see well under the wrapping. He notices you squinting and moves it up, tape pulling his skin. 

“Another bat?” you ask. 

“Not cool?” 

“So cool,” you disagree. This bat is unlike the others on his arm, which are small and simple in comparison. This one is heavily detailed and very dark, fangs in small triangles bared. The eyes aglow. The skin around it is red. “Did you get that today?” 

“On a whim. Still wanna date me, or is it getting to be too much?” 

You can’t answer him, and he knows that. You’re not very good at navigating intimate conversation or circumstance, though you like him, and he must know that too. Or he must really like you. Your dates have been chaste. Only last time could you work up the courage to take his hand, but when you had, he rewarded your courage with a drove of tenderness, fingers rubbing your knuckles and squeezing soft patterns for hours at the back of the movie theatre. 

The drive to Indianapolis takes near enough an hour. Eddie puts you on map duty but doesn’t use it, ignoring your offer of directions on the insistence that he knows a shortcut and then rerouting when you get too lost. He tells you there are snacks for you in the centre console and laughs, endeared, when you pop the lid and smile at it all. You talk about the show, a band you’d never heard of but had wanted to see on the grounds of sharing his interests. That’s what couples do, right? They try to do things together. You have to put yourself out of your comfort zone, and you’re happy to try if it means you can do it with him. 

“You nervous?” he asks, pulling into the parking garage outside of the venue, a towering, multi-story fiasco crammed with cars and motorbikes. 

“No,” you say, not quite mumbling as you look down at your hands. 

“Good, don’t be. I’m gonna look after you, we’re gonna have a great time. And then we can get takeout after?” You look up. He stretches his arm out to glance at his watch. “I would’ve taken you before, but good old Indianapolis keeps getting further away.” He smiles apologetically. 

You laugh without meaning to. His smile ramps up a notch. 

“I love when you laugh. You have such a cute laugh,” he says. 

“I know you’re lying,” you say, still laughing anyways. 

“I’m not lying, I love the way you laugh!” He shakes his head, curls falling away from his face as he flicks on the light on the car roof. “We have half an hour till doors open.”

“You don’t wanna line up?” 

“It’s kind of overwhelming and I figured we’d stay near the back of the crowd for your first gig here, it gets pretty rowdy.” He says ‘pretty rowdy’ like a drag, nodding gently, eyes lit with mirth. You love it when he talks like that. 

“We can go now, get further in. I can handle it.” 

“It’s not about handling it, I want you to have a good time. Plus, they could ruin your nice dress.” 

You meet his gaze all smiles like he is, but heat flickers in your chest and in your stomach, and you have to look away. It’s an impulse you’ve always given into. You’re reserved in the feelings department but trying not to be, Eddie deserves reciprocation, but it’s hard. Either way, he seems to understand this about you, and he hasn’t complained. 

Still, a bedraggled silence falls. Nearly awkward, unsure of how to tread, you sit together in your separate seats listening to cars parking and doors opening, closing on either side of you, the headlights of the cars driving past glaringly bright, white flashing over your screwed palms. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

You’re sure Eddie wants to kiss you. Three nights ago at the movies, after an hour of languid hand holding, he’d looked at your lips no less than three times as he said good night. He told you he’d had an amazing time, and that he couldn’t wait to see you again. You’d said the same in earnest, and then he’d just walked away. All those stolen glances and he hadn’t made a move. 

“Eddie… why…” You poke your tongue into your bottom lip momentarily, chewing it over. “Why haven’t we kissed yet?” 

“Um–” He lets out a nervous giggle before roughly clearing his throat. You peek at him, watching intently as he takes his hair away from his face with two hands. “I’m just waiting on you, sweetheart. No pressure.” He laughs as he talks, a picture of panic, “You’re sort of shy about that stuff, you know? I didn’t wanna surprise you.” 

“But you do want to kiss me?” you ask unsurely.

He puts his hand on your knee, the space between you suddenly smaller and warmer, the light like white glaze on his pupils, illuminating his finer details. He has a mole nestled under his eyelashes too small to see until now; it catches your attention. You stare at him too long. 

“Of course I do,” he says, eyebrows pinching together in concern. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since I met you.” 

You nod and snap your head back to your lap. Why does he have to be so nice? You wish you’d listened to Steve, even if he was joking, you shouldn’t have ever said yes to Eddie, because now you’re terrified you can’t kiss him and you’ll ruin everything…

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m not waiting for anything. You can take your time or you could never kiss me, and I won’t care. I swear. I mean, I really want you to kiss me but I’ll find a way to cope, I’m sure.” He takes his hand from your leg softly. “Do you want my jacket? It’s cold out, n’ we should probably start walking.” 

You pull your head up slowly. 

He reads your hesitant expression. “I’m in no rush,” he promises, head ever so slightly ducked to yours. 

Okay, you think. Okay, I can do this. You hold your breath and start to lean in. He falters, a millisecond of misunderstanding, before he recognises what you’re doing and smiles. He reaches for your waist with enough care to give you a chance to change your mind, and when you’re close enough to feel his breath, his lashes shutter. 

You follow suit, blind, with nothing but your intuition as you press your lips to his. 

With a feeling like the hum of the engine under your hands, you bring your fingers to his soft cheek and hold him still. He breathes in harshly, touches you far from it, his palm slipping behind your back to pull you in. You lean into it; it feels natural to give in, to turn your head one way and part your lips, to have him kiss back with heat and surprising sweetness.

You feel unlike yourself in a good way, falling back to kiss forward again, a third time, trying to chase the lulling bliss of his lips. The stomach aching want. Your hand chases across his cheek and into the curls behind his ear, needing him closer but not expecting the sound it elicits. He sighs into your lips and you flinch back, startled by the sensation. 

Eddie rubs your back with his index finger, unjudging as you drop your head to catch your breath. 

“You okay?” he asks quietly. You can hear his affection. It’s palpable. 

You nod, a dizzy weight collected in your forehead, thankful when his free hand catches your cheek and he turns your face gently to the side. “I got too hot,” you confess, only half of the truth. 

“It was pretty hot.” He smiles at you like you’re the only person in the world, like you’ve a secret only he knows. “Want me to turn on the A/C?” 

“No, I–” want to kiss you again, you think. You might even tell him so, but he starts to blow on your face, disrupting any thoughts you’d had earlier. He purses his lips and blows cold breath on your cheek, a tenderness in his gaze and the tip of his thumb where it rests just under your eye. “Oh.” 

This might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for you. Your face feels precious in his careful hand, pretty under his longing look. You’re not scared when he encourages you back to his lips, your eyes quick to close, your hands across the gap of your seats to gather his shirt between tight fingers. 

His kiss is a reflection of him. Loser, rockstar, he’s eager and his hands start to betray that, his kissing melty hot and addictive as the tip of his nose presses hard to yours. You turn your face to accommodate him better and that small action drives him crazy. He’s pulling you in, smiling into your mouth, making breathy sounds that’ll stick around in your head ten times as long as the tingles filling your chest as just kisses and kisses and doesn’t stop. 

“M’sorry,” he says, pulling away, and then stealing another heavy, soft kiss like he couldn’t wait. “Sorry,” he apologises again, stroking the skin beside your eye to encourage you into opening them. “I’m not trying to get carried away. Just can’t believe you just kissed me.” 

“No, it’s okay, I– I really wanted to.” 

He kisses your cheek. You aren’t expecting it and you don’t know how to deal with it. It’s like kissing him has invigorated him, you’re a shot he knocked back, his excitement catching as he begs, “Close your eyes again, sweetheart, just one more–”

You raise your chin and he practically gasps, immediately pressing a last chaste kiss to your burning lips. 

“I’m not always like this,” he promises, leaning away, his fingertips falling from your face to trace down your neck, your shoulder. “You’re just so fucking pretty I lost my mind. I’m on best behaviour from now on, swears.” 

He raises his hand up in a scout’s honour. 

You breathe out happily. “Thank you.” 

“Oh my god. Quick, we better get out of this van before I lose my mind.” He shakes his head. “You’re insane. I have such a crush on you, holy fuck,” —he turns away from you and gets out of the van— “Jesus.” 

You pull down the sun visor to check your reflection in the mirror. You look thoroughly kissed, eyes aglow with it. 

“Fuck!” Eddie swears. You beam at yourself as he wraps on the window. “Come on, sweetheart! I have a concert to pretend to pay attention to.” 

You slink out of your seat, brave enough to try for another kiss so long as it doesn’t kill him dead right here in the parking lot. 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

please like/reblog or comment if you enjoyed! I love knowing what you think and it means so much to me/ inspires me to write even more!!! <3 but of course I hope you enjoyed reading regardless :D 

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

𝐚 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐝 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

eddie fights to get his usually shy and moderately intoxicated girlfriend to bed when you insist on clinging to him at every turn. requested here. fem!reader, 2.5k.

cw intoxicated reader

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

You're holding onto Eddie's arm tight enough to leave little fingerprint bruises behind. He doesn't think he'd mind, and he doesn't try to slacken your grip as he helps you up the stairs into the trailer. 

"Do we have to be quiet?" you whisper. Or, attempt to whisper. 

"Nah, Wayne's working." He closes the door behind you and leans over your shoulder to put his car keys in the bowl on the sideboard. "Oh, hey." 

You've given up on clinging to his arm and have started cuddling his waist instead. Eddie feels his eyes go wide, peering down at you almost like he's worried you'll realise you're being bold and move away. You rub your cheek against his leather jacket and sigh. "I love your hugs," you say dreamily, words slurred but understandable.

This isn't news to him, but it's definitely nothing you've said aloud before. Eddie's your boyfriend, he knows you enjoy a warm hug, but he's your new-ish boyfriend, and you're one of the shyest people he's ever met. Half the time he kisses you and your cheeks catch fire. 

"Yeah?" he asks fondly. 

You break the hug quicker than he'd like and bend at the waist. Laughing unsurely, you attempt to untie your shoelaces, wobbling like a cardboard house in a hurricane. Eddie catches onto your shoulders to hold you up, but you can't last. 

You make a strange sound, indignation and admission at once, and put your hands behind you to sit down. You go down hard enough to make the kitchenette shake, trailer walls not especially durable. 

"Shit, are you okay?" he asks, kneeling down in front of you. 

You blink at him glassily. "Will you take my shoes off, please?" 

"Yeah," he says. He laughs and tries not to. "Yeah, I'll take your shoes off for you. Pass em over." 

You put one of your feet on top of his knees clumsily. Eddie unties the bunny knots you'd made earlier, neat and tidy, not wanting anyone to judge you for messy laces, you'd said. 

He slides your shoes off and gives your toes a squeeze. Sober you would blow a gasket, shuffling away from him with a flustered squeak, but drunk you must like it. You leave your foot on his thigh and offer him the other shoe. 

"Do you like my socks?" 

Eddie digs his nail into the second bunny knot. "I love them. Why, are they new?" 

Your socks are normal white crew socks with a black hem stripe, black toes, and black heels. You hum at his observation appreciatively, your hand straying to your stomach. "And my underwear, too." 

"How much did you have to drink while I was in the bathroom?" he asks. Eddie's seen you in your underwear, but it's still unlike you to allude to your skivvies while fully dressed. 

"Not much. Why?" 

"It's not like you to talk about underwear," he tells you, sliding off your shoe and giving your foot a squeeze just as he had the first time, thumb digging into the sole. 

You giggle and yank your legs up and away from him. "That tickles." 

"Sorry, sweetheart." 

"It's okay. I forgive you, duh." 

He laughs, thrilled to see you this adorable and this beamingly happy. He can make you smile like no one else, and of course you're not always shy when you're with him, but it takes time. Eddie wouldn't change you for anything, it's just a real nice thing to see you so proudly happy. 

And hopelessly drunk. You lay on the floor of your side for a moment, jeans riding up your calves as you curl in on yourself, your jacket falling off your shoulder. 

Eddie crawls to your side. He indulges himself, sliding his hand between your cheek and the floor to lift your head. You meet his eyes dozily, sparks of happiness to be seen in your dilated pupils and the apples of your cheeks as you smile at him. 

"Are you feeling okay?" he asks. 

"You–" you begin, not sure where you're ending, "I missed you." 

"You missed me?" You're loaded. "Don't worry about missing me, sweetheart, I'm right here. Can I ask you for something?" 

You nod hurriedly. "Of course you can," you breathe. 

"Will you help me get to bed?" 

You reach for his elbow, your hand coasting up the length of his arm to his shoulder. "Stay here," you say. You're pleading with him, eyebrows drawing together, fingers screwing up in the folds of his jacket. 

"You'll be comfier on my lumpy mattress than you are on the floor, trust me." 

"I'm tired," you say. 

"Come to bed with me," he says softly, mirroring your tone. 

"And we'll have a hug?" 

Holy fucking shit, Eddie's fucked. He thinks, I'm gonna marry this girl, cheeks aching with the effort it takes to keep his huge smile at bay as he helps you sit up. 

"I'll give you as many hugs as you want," he says, brokering a deal with you right there on the floor. 

You agree to his terms, holding your hands out to be pulled up. Eddie stands and pulls you, and you do your part, attempting to stand with a wobble as you go, but he's right there to catch you. Thus begins another round of clinging, your fingers braceleting his wrist, your hips on his. 

Eddie leads you down the hallway. It takes longer than it should, what with your face in his neck and your less than subtle sniffing. He smells better than you do, your shirt soaked with what could be craft beer but might just be a half a cup of cider, neither of which he pictures you drinking. 

"Who tipped their drink on?" he asks, pushing the bedroom door open with his elbow. 

"What?" you ask, lifting your head from his neck. He looks down at you briefly. 

"What happened? You have beer all down your shirt, babe. Did someone tip their drink on you?" 

"Robin did, she said to tell you it was Steve." You raise a hand to his cheek. It's cold, and it smells like your moisturiser. "But I don't keep secrets from you." 

He doesn't mean to melt under your touch. He has things he should be doing, depositing you in the bed, changing your shirt, tucking you in for the night with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol for your perusal in the morning, but it's a startling delight to have you stroking his cheek. You usually only do this when he's half asleep or you're very tired; hoping he'll forget, maybe, and forgetting your own inhibitions. 

"You don't?" he asks gently. 

Your fingertips slip from the soft part of his cheek up to his eyelashes. You don't touch them, breathing out the side of your mouth rather than in his face. Drunk but not enough to stop treating him with care. 

"No… except for last Friday when we went to the Hawk. I really did need to use the bathroom." 

Well, Eddie knew that. You're shy, that doesn't make you a good actress. "And now we have no secrets," he says, covering your hand on his cheek. 

Your eyes slip closed a touch. Eddie doesn't really believe himself, he's sure there's lots of stuff you don't tell him. He guesses when you need something to drink because you hate asking, and he can't work out whether you like hotdogs or if you're just humouring him when he makes them, but he thinks any secret worth having is one you've let him in on. 

He puts you on the end of the bed. 

"Can I help you get changed?" he asks, already turning for the wardrobe where he keeps your left behind pyjamas and miscellaneous clothes, washed and pressed and waiting for you the next time you come around. 

"You haven't asked if you can undress me in ages." 

He laughs like an idiot, scooping an oversized t-shirt and a pair of your pyjama pants into his arms. "Now, that's not true. I always ask, but half the time you're already getting there." He turns to you, finds you've disappeared into your shirt, elbow twisted into the bottom and arms slack. "Like that," he laughs. 

"Stuck," you mumble. 

He chucks your pyjamas down and slips his fingers under your shirt where it's folded at the top of your shoulders. "Lift your arms, sweetheart. There you go." 

He laughs again when he sees your rumpled hair and face, dropping your acidic smelling shirt on the floor. "There she is. Hey, gorgeous," Eddie teases, running the side of his hand down your cheek quickly. "Bra on or off?" 

"Can I have my shirt first, please?" you ask.

He loves you. Your shyness creeping back in despite his having seen it all before is endearing, and he wouldn't ever say no to you. "Of course you can. Do you need my help again?" 

"I think this part will be easier." 

You're right about that. You get your shirt on easily enough, unclipping your bra without help. Nor do you need help with your pants. 

Eddie strips off quickly, swapping jeans for plaid pants and his t-shirt for a ribbed undershirt. He stretches out day long aches and kicks aside your dirty clothes on his way to the light switch, flicking it off, only his lamp left on now. 

You look lovely. Makeup smudged, watching him move around his small room with your face propped heavily in your hand, a practically cherubic smile playing on your lips. 

He pulls back the sheets and grabs you by the waist, lifting you very slightly to encourage you up against the pillows. You look at him like he's a wonder, adoration softening each line of your features. Your lips part slightly, your eyebrows rise upward. 

He thinks it might be really special, to be looked at as you look at him. 

"Let me get you a glass of water," he says. 

Neither of you have managed to brush your teeth. Honestly, he doesn't think you can stand up any more to try. Water will have to do. 

"No!" you say, louder than you've likely ever spoken to him when he isn't tickling you. "You said we'd hug." 

"We will," he says, giving your hand a little shake where it clings to his. 

"Please, Eddie, I just want to cuddle with you," you confess, giving him the best case of the puppy dogs he's ever seen. 

Eddie thinks, Whatever, we'll just have to make sure we brush extra hard in the morning. He can't deny you any longer. He didn't stand a chance. 

He climbs over your legs and you tuck him in affectionately, ramming your forehead into his chest and throwing your arm around his waist with less care. You nuzzle in, a satisfied sigh leaving your lips as you get comfortable. 

"This is so nice," you praise, words sluggish, slurred even more than they were as fatigue weighs you down. 

"This is perfect," he agrees, easing as flat as he can onto his back, nothing for his arms to do now but wrap around you and hold you close. 

You sigh again. It's even happier than the first, your leg creeping up as you hook your knee over his hip. "I love you, Munson. Thanks for…" You yawn and rub your nose into his chest. "Thank you. I love you." 

"You told me twice," he says, lifting his head to give you a teeny tiny kiss on your temple. 

"It was true for both of the times," you mumble. 

Despite relaxing atop him, your arms are like a vice. He doesn't care, he really couldn't care less, 'cos if you weren't hugging him like this he'd be hugging you tighter. Eddie speaks against your skin tenderly, "I love you, too," he murmurs, sealing it with a punctuating kiss.

He rubs your shoulder, feels your arms give him one final squeeze. 

"Is now a bad time to mention I need the bathroom?" he asks. 

Your answering snore tickles his chest.

—

"Eddie." 

Eddie scrunches his face up. You look down at him, flustered, wondering if it would be better for you to run out on him and never see him again. He groans as he wakes, turning his head and distorting the stain of your lipgloss smudged the length of his neck. 

You nibble the inside of your lip. He doesn't seem particularly annoyed with you. But he is mostly asleep. 

"Eddie, how did we get home last night?" you ask, rubbing between your eyebrows. "You didn't drive, did you?" 

He'd had two beers, which wasn't too much for him to handle but is more than anyone should have if they want to drive themselves home. 

Eddie peels his eyes open. "Steve drove us."

"Oh. I'm sorry, I'm super embarrassed. I got kinda wasted, huh?" 

Eddie's hands slip under your shirt to wrap around your soft stomach. He pulls you in an attempt to make you lay down again. 

"You were very drunk," he agrees, yawning into your ribs. 

You put your hand on the other side of his head to hold yourself up. "Was I a handful?" you ask softly, brushing his bangs away from his eyes.

He smiles against your shirt. You feel the curve of his lips, goosebumps erupting underneath it. Shy, you gasp quietly and try to escape his hold, but he hugs you ever tighter, snuggling into your chest. 

"You were great. I missed sober you, though." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah. Drunk you doesn't get goosebumps when I touch her." Smugness colours his voice, his hand rubbing up and down your naked back roughly to chase away your shivers. 

"I wasn't weird, was I?" you worry, more than alarmed by the gap in your memory. 

"You told me all about your new underwear," —you groan— "and how badly you needed to pee at the Hawk." 

You drop your head on to his, your foreheads touching, your hand curling around his neck. "Did I do anything vaguely in the land of acceptable behaviour?" you mumble in defeat.

"You told me you loved me. Multiple times. Once in your sleep." Eddie sounds delighted.

"That's unfontunately true," you grumble, not really meaning it. 

He laughs and gives you a firm tug. "Cuddle with me, babe." 

You cuddle him if only to hide your face from the world, face in his hair, hands under his back. Eddie draws a path of fondness up and down the dip of your back, laughing at each new crop of goosebumps as they rise. He's sweet enough to let you forget the mess you've made for at least a few stolen hours that morning. 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed, please reblog if you have the time it makes a huge difference for me ♡

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

casual threescore between pals with Scott and tyler

WHO SAID THAT???

-🌂

Ohh my GOD there are tears in my eyes this is Perfect

Casual threesome between pals from this smutty prompt list for my 100 followers party !!!

| a/n; I’m gonna freak out !!! I actually have so much more to say on this matter but I fear if I kept writing this would be some 5k words and I have other things to work on unfortunately </3

| cw; 18+ smut btc !! fem reader in mind (‘pretty girl’ used once, sorry I couldn’t resist) brief mention of vibrator/masturbation, PnV - no mention of condoms there’s simply no time (be safe!) oral (fem and male receiving), spitting in your mouth sorry, a hint of size kink, a little ass slapping, + a splash of hair pulling

| wc; 1.2k

Two of the hottest men you swore you’d ever seen were in the same room as you; one off in some corner talking to a client on the phone - brooding and unimpressed at the scene around him. The other, gesturing with his hands, loud and inviting as he talked to the team about some clearly amusing story.

You could never choose between them, constantly drifting your gaze back and forth between them like you were watching some intense tennis match. It was torturous working with both of them, though technically apart of storm par it was hard not to run into Tyler and his team wherever you went.

They weren’t the biggest fans of each other obviously but it didn’t bother you any, in fact, watching them argue with each other over whatever bullshit they could come up with was hot. So much so that it often led you back to your motel room, getting cozy with your vibrator as the rest of the team sat at some bar across the parking lot.

Maybe you were just far more stressed than you realized, but reasons aside you had some of the fastest orgasms of your life just thinking about the two of them above you, taking up the entirety of your queen sized bed and giving the tenants around you a reason to stare the next day.

And somehow, by some force of god or more accurately some drunken admission to the two who simply stared at you before it clicked — trying and failing to be smooth when checking in after you’d sobered up; You ended up anxiously sitting on the bed of your motel room like you’d never been there before while they stood in front of you.

It should’ve been harder to convince them, should’ve taken more time, more thought, but they didn’t seem to have many qualms - checking on you like you weren’t the one who brought it up.

It couldn’t have been more obvious you had no idea what you were doing, staring up at them like a lost puppy, both of them crossing their arms over their chests like you were in trouble. “Is your room always this messy?” Scott spoke up, looking around at the clothes strewn about the room like you weren’t expecting company, because truth be told, you weren’t.

☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Naturally you couldn’t decide where to start, glance flickering back and forth between them as they sat either side of you. Growing impatient Scott made the choice for you - bringing you to his lap while your hand not secure on his shoulder rested on Tyler’s thigh. Scott’s hand, easily twice the size of your own cradled your face as he kissed you, softer than you’d expect from him before his teeth grazed your bottom lip.

He surprised himself then, lacking the envy he thought he might feel when Tyler’s hand drifted in between your thighs - the first time you’ve ever been grateful for the unrelenting heat in the middle of October, adorned in the simple, thin cotton of your sleep shorts.

The satisfied hum from you against his lips instead easing his nerves, granting him the indulgence that was contentment when Tyler leaned over to kiss your neck, dragging the strap of your tank top down your shoulder with his nose while his hand stroked against the inside of your thigh.

It was quick, the wordless glance between them before Scott’s fingers tapped once against your jaw and your knees were lifting off the mattress as you were passed off to Tyler. Smug look on his face as you adjusted to his lap, small gasp leaving your mouth when the bulge aching under the rough fabric of his jeans met the inside of your thigh.

“Just don’t know what to do with yourself now do you, pretty girl?” He whispered into your ear, mouth warm against the side of your face as he held you in place with a hand under your chin.

You could hear the sound of a belt unbuckling behind you, grasping the collar of Tyler’s shirt in your hands tight when Scott walked up and threaded his fingers through your hair. Pulling just hard enough for your head to fall back, heat rising to your cheeks as you looked up at him.

“Open.” And that was all the warning you got before he leaned over and spat in your awaiting open mouth, warm and filthy, sliding down your throat immediately just from the angle.

“You’re a real good listener, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Tyler chimed, unabashedly amused at the scene before him. You’d nod if you could, smiling sweetly instead, which seemed to suffice. Scott untangled his hand from your hair then, pushing your head back up to soothe the distant ache in your neck, watching him walk around before sitting at the top of the bed.

The contrast between the two was dizzying, one sweet, doting Tyler - though the glint in his eyes told you that certainly wasn’t all that was there, and one rougher, meaner Scott. It was like some fucked up version of good cop bad cop, appeasing and indulging into all of your desires at once.

Tyler squeezed your hips, giving you a final, hungry kiss before moving you to the bed behind him, watching you crawl up to Scott as he rid himself of the confinement that was his blue jeans.

Scott welcomed you with open arms and open legs, casually resting an arm against the back of his head as he sat against the headboard. The bed dipped under you when Tyler came up, knees on the mattress as he greeted you with a playful slap at your ass, looking over your shoulder at him with a satiated smile.

Moving your weight to your hands splayed out in front of you as you arched your back, you turned back towards Scott - or rather, his hand reaching into his boxers to pull his dick out - and you’d be crazy not to take that as an invitation right now, resting your forearms against the mattress right next to his thighs and leaning forward to lick a long, wet trail up the underside of him.

While you busied yourself with soothing out every ounce of tenderness from the man in front of you, Tyler busied himself with you, dragging your shorts down your thighs and leaving a bite on the plush skin of your ass - though more for himself than you - and soothing it with a kiss soon after anyway.

☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Scott’s low, hushed praises contrasted with the lewd, sloppy sounds of Tyler pushing into you from behind after easing you open with his mouth for what felt like a cruel amount of time was quickly rushing you towards another release. Moaning around Scott’s cock in your mouth to wordlessly beg yourself to last longer, not wanting it to end just yet - unaware of the long night ahead of you.

☾⋆⁺₊⋆

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

[slut-for-bucky-barnes]

Goodnight Kiss

joel miller x f!reader

Joel’s a good dad. You try to remind him.

warnings/tags: MDNI. pre/no-outbreak!joel miller. babysitter!reader. joel is in his 30s but sarah is a toddler because i said so. reader is in her last year of college; do with that what you will. sickening fluff. some borderline impure thoughts. self-depreciation. praise/comfort. intimacy. single girl dad!joel. overworked man finds solace in a sweet girl. not beta'd & hardly proofread. wc: 1.5k

main masterlist

His keys jingle in the door lock an hour after your shift was intended to end.

You don’t mind. You’re used to this routine by now. He still has the courtesy to text you that he’ll be running late, and he always pays a little extra for the additional hours. You’re only here for the summer, and every penny helps grow the savings fund you’ve been eagerly building before entering the less-than-reliable job market next year.

There is also the matter of your employer himself, and knowing that there are far more deplorable summer jobs than babysitting his sweet daughter.

You’re certain of it, in fact. Because you’ve never known a man quite like Joel Miller.

He’s the most hardworking person you’ve ever met, not only providing for his daughter and himself, but his brother. You’ve only seen Tommy a handful of times, and despite his flaws, Joel remains hopeful that his intervention will prompt a turnaround.

He signs Sarah up for anything and everything she’s willing to try, and somehow, finds a way to get her there on time. He fixes the panels on his elderly neighbor's roof before they’ve even noticed one is loose. Sometimes, he’ll snatch your keys off the counter when he gets home at a reasonable time and tells you to stay put while he fills up your tank because gas ain’t an expense you needa worry about right now.

He’s overworked, underpaid, and still finds it in himself to be kind.

You tuck your bookmark into the pages sprawled out across your lap, rising from the couch to greet him. Sarah’s been in bed since seven, and while Joel has made it clear you’re welcome to the fridge or the TV, you always hesitate to overstep.

You grab your tote off the armrest, slinging it over your shoulder and sliding your book inside before pattering towards the front hallway.

“Hey,” you call softly. He’s toeing off his boots and tossing his keys into the bowl by the door. He gives you a tired, apologetic smile.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough from a long day's work. The low vibration sends goosebumps up your arms which you nonchalantly rub away, hoping he won’t notice.

Joel Miller is also impeccably handsome. Another fine quality you’re certain he fails to notice.

“M’so sorry. I know it’s not fair of me to keep doin’ this to ya. The plumbing guys are not cooperatin’, so I—”

“Joel, it’s fine.” You take another step toward him, the golden porch light illuminating his features through the front window. You tilt your head at him, shrugging your shoulders. “I’ve got nowhere else to be. And besides, I love Sarah. She's such a good kid.”

You watch the rigidity in his shoulders fall, if only a little. He’s looking you over as if he’s the child, and he’s just been caught doing something he’s not supposed to. He shakes his head, muttering something discouraging under his breath. You have the great urge to soothe him.

The feeling is not new nor unfamiliar, but you’re tentative with the actions it threatens to elicit. A million grey lines begging to be crossed.

“Was hopin’ to be back in time to tuck her in,” he sighs, placing a hand on his hip while the other rubs at the tension in his brow. “Been too long since I have.”

You can’t help but smile. Not at the berating of himself or his clear display of stress, but because it’s endearing how much he cares. How blatant his love for his daughter is, whether she’s in the room or not.

“Well, I made sure to give her an extra kiss goodnight to make up for it.”

When he looks at you again, it’s with that same sort of sad, guilt-ridden smile. His appreciation for you cannot make up for the condemnation of himself, and while this would not be the first time Joel Miller confided in you about his shortcomings, you can sense tonight weighs heavier than most.

“Just feel like m’not… doin’ enough, I dunno.” His shoulders rise and fall defeatedly, and he’s shaking his head as if to further scold himself. “Worried she’s gonna grow up to resent me or somethin.’”

That strikes a nerve. You suffocate the strap of your bag with your grip, an attempt to redirect some of the outrage that fills you.

How could he even think such a thing? You know Joel’s a smart man, he can’t possibly be so blind to the things other children lack from their parents—none of which he ever falters on.

Your brows knit low over your eyes, serious. “She will not resent you, Joel. She adores you.” You make a point of emphasis; you want him to hear you, loud and clear. Know that there are things you see from the outside that he doesn’t, that a four-year-old may be far more perceptive than he gives her credit for.

“She talks about you all day,” you continue, and that seems to get his attention. Your heart aches at the tired, hopeful look in his eyes. You wish you could alleviate some of the exhaustion. “Everything we do is can’t wait to show Papa this, or we gotta tell Papa that.”

He chuckles a little, likely somewhat due to your poor impression of the toddler's voice, but you still aren’t convinced your words have sunk in.

You do something a bit uncharacteristic, then. You reach out, take another step forward, and place an honest hand on his forearm. The muscle below your touch is firm and warm, but his eyes that follow the path of your fingers are wildly more intense.

“You’re a good dad,” you tell him, voice dropping to a whisper. “Anyone with eyes can see that.”

He blinks, and when he peers at you now, there’s a glint of something different. You’ve seen it before maybe a handful of times, but it’s always fleeting. A shared understanding that whatever it is, there’s never been any time to acknowledge it.

But this time, it lingers. It festers between your bodies that, only now, do you notice how close they have drifted in the already cramped entryway. Who shifted first, or when, matters very little with Joel’s eyes on you, gentle and focused. You see them flicker, once to your hand that still rests upon his skin, another to your eyes, and then your lips. There’s the sound of crickets in the night. The familiar scent of his cologne mixed with sweat and dust. The sight of his face, all sharp edges and scattered freckles and a furrowed brow, but his eyes. In all the time you’ve know him, they’ve always remained kind.

Your breath catches in your throat when he finally leans in.

He doesn’t reach for you. Instead, he flushes his chest against yours and lets the weight of his lips drive the kiss. Your fingers dig into his forearm for purchase. You can’t say you’re caught off guard, though pleasantly surprised.

There’s an innocence to it, tender and sweet. He lingers for a few long beats, never pushing further than the plush of his lips delicately upon yours, and then releases.

You don’t open your eyes right away, selfishly idling in the newfound thrill a beat longer. You can still taste him—coffee, mint, something sweet. He remains close; you still feel the brush of his lips, the tip of his nose bumping yours, the fanning of his breath.

“M’sorry…” he starts to mutter, and you can tell he’s retracting. Your eyes fly open and your grip on him tightens.

“No, don’t be.”

You have difficulty finding any trace of guilt in his expression, a fact that turns your stomach. An anxious thrill, the precipice of something.

His tongue traces his bottom lip as if he’s trying to salvage another drop of you. A somewhat devious grin breaks out at the corners.

“Had to put it somewhere, I guess.”

You’re all soft chuckles and sheepish smiles after that, and you feel your cheeks heat up with an array of excitement and nervousness. It was one thing to endure Joel Miller and his charm without the prospect of more, but now?

You aren’t sure how you can possibly contain yourself.

A million questions rattle through your mind as you stare at one another, but you notice the time on the wall clock behind him. You’re no stranger to the bags under his eyes, the paleness on his cheeks after a long day, so you set your selfishness aside. After all, you’ll be back in this very spot in a handful of hours.

You swallow hard, slowly releasing his forearm, though your palm aches to remain.

“We’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?”

He nods. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

He isn’t subtle about his hesitation. His eyes do an elongated once over of you before he shakes his head, and bites at his lower lip to prevent another laugh from escaping. You have half the mind to yank him back to you by the t-shirt, but digress when he steps around and opens the door for you.

You’re slow in your exit, doing a full one-eighty once your feet are planted on the porch to flash him one more dazzling smile.

“Goodnight, Joel.”

You see the dimples cave in his cheek before he quietly closes the door.

“Night, darlin’.”

You can’t seem to fall asleep fast enough.

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[slut-for-bucky-barnes]