#<- like yeah jack’s whole thing is that he’s sort of. unrealized himself? there’s two of him.

[suntrastar]

abstract: chapter 1

chapter 2!!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Artist!Reader

Summary: Wait- Bucky Barnes attends your art class? And you didn’t even recognize him?

Word count: 7k (i am insane i know this!! you can also find this fic on ao3 !!)

Author’s note: hello! attempting to upload a fic on here for the first time ever! do i understand this website’s format. perhaps not. but am i going to try? perhaps yes! anyways hope you all like it :) likes and reblogs are very much appreciated!!! umm idk how this works if you wanna follow me you can?? do follows exist on tumblr dot com i think they do. hope they do. love you all. this is a long chapter buckle up (BUCKle up lmao i am not funny)!! enjoy ;o

“Hey, can you come look at this?”

You teach three classes a week- Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The latter two are enjoyable in their own right, but Mondays are definitely your favorite. Instead of teaching kids, who are funny and creative but so messy, and so loud, you get to teach adults. People your own age or usually older, putting you in a position of authority, valuing your opinion, wanting you to come look at things.

It’s a delightful power trip.

You turn away from the window to see who’s speaking.

It’s Steve.

Of course it’s Steve, your star student, staring at you with a worn, weary intensity, wiping a paintbrush on a paper towel. He’s already pushed his sheet of paper across the table, bumpy with water and watercolor paint, cream-colored edges starting to curl. He leans away from it, reclining in a seat that’s adult-sized but dwarfed by his frame, looking so forlorn, like the paper just abandoned him, moved to the opposite side of the table by itself.

You stifle a laugh.

“Sure,” you say, and make your way over to his table.

Steve fidgets in his seat as you look at his painting. You try to keep your jaw in check.

It drops anyway.

As always, it’s beautiful. He’s painted a sky, swirling with purples and pinks, and careful clouds, flickering in and out between layers of paint, elegant and pale yellow-orange. And the sun- it’s off-center, and you’re sure it was unintentional, but that adds to the effect, because it’s hot red, and dazzling, and slowly seeping into the still-wet sky. Tendrils of red like real sunbeams, pushing through the clouds like a real sunset.

You don’t know why Steve even takes this class. Half the time, you feel like he should be the one teaching.

“It’s gorgeous,” you say eventually, once your words come back to you. “I love how you painted the sun- the red, oh my god. You’re seriously a natural.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, and you push the paper back towards him. He looks down at it, still tense, brow furrowed, and you almost laugh again, until he looks back up at you. “I wanted to know what you thought about it.”

Power trip.

“I love it,” you say, giving him a reassuring smile, which he hesitantly returns. You might be laying it on a little thick, but Steve still looks distressed, and you genuinely like the guy enough to try to help him.

When he walked in with his friend for the first class, you were floored. People like Steve don’t attend classes like this- classes like this are attended by regular people. Not people that walk like dancers, all grace and light steps, not people that are extraordinarily jacked, with jutting shoulders and rippling muscles, not people that have a weirdly authoritarian air around them, like a politician, but less shrewd.

Still, you welcomed them and made awkward small-talk and tried not to stare at their arms and hoped you came across as a somewhat decent person. It’s your first time teaching adults, you explained, and Steve gave you a smile so sincere and reassured you that you would do great, boosting your confidence to the point where you actually did.

Steve is lovely. He’s passionate about art and has a good eye, a better eye than you, really, and he always tries so hard with whatever he does, and he’s funny in a dorky way, and completely unaware of it. He always wears a baseball hat and tucks his shirts into his pants and called you ma’am once, and looked so surprised when you burst out laughing and told him to call you by your first name. With him, two classes have flown by, and now, during the third, he’s warmed up to you enough to talk to you like a friend.

The friend he brings with him, though?

A total douchebag.

The night to Steve’s day, the rain to his sunshine. It’s obvious that Steve brings him along as some sort of moral support, to make himself look less out of place, which is fine, except the guy always treats you like you’ve perpetually offended him.

And maybe you have, maybe one time you did something that’s worthy of his eternal dislike, but you wouldn’t know what it is, because he’s never brought it up, because he barely fucking talks.

You don’t think he’s a naturally quiet guy. He definitely looks like he has a lot to say, but no matter what, he only ever talks in single-syllable bursts, quiet enough that half the time you miss what he’s saying.

He doesn’t ignore you, either- he listens to everything you say and lets his judgement flicker over his face- which is way worse. A glare is a slight misstep, a shake of his head means that you’ve just said something that he finds stupid, a scowl is a catastrophe.

You don’t even know his name. He’s never introduced himself, and always writes his name in a shaky, illegible scrawl on the sign-in sheet, and by now you don’t care enough to look it up.

Still, you’re nice to him, polite. It’s okay if he doesn’t like you. You don’t need to be liked- being noticed is enough.

You shift away from Steve to his friend, sitting next to him at the table. He’s staring at you in a way that you can only describe as violent, and you flinch, and then plaster your smile back on.

“How’s it going?” You ask, expecting no response, stealing a glance at his paper. He’s painted the entire sheet a watered-down blue, and you want to congratulate him, for actually participating this time, but you don’t say anything. “The watercolors working out for you?”

Your heart goes out to the poor paintbrush in his hand. It’s barely been used, is steadily dripping water, and is being throttled in his gloved grip. He always wears one glove- it’s weird, but you’re not going to pry.

He catches you looking and a whole myriad of emotion plays over his face; irritation and shame, a creased brow and a scowl. You have the feeling that you’ve taken a massive overstep, even though you haven’t said anything else, even though you’re not looking at his hand anymore, just at him.

His hair hangs over his eyes, glossy and carelessly wavy, which you would find pretty, maybe, if he wasn’t looking at you the way he is. Like you’ve just done something terrible.

“Sure,” he says, and that’s it.

Even when you turn away, he’s glaring.

You hate it, so you pretend it’s not happening.

Steve gives you a sympathetic glance before you head back. You wave it off.

“Shonna,” you call, to the fiftysomething woman hunched over her painting a few tables down, “how’re the flowers looking?”

***

Thirty minutes before your fourth Monday class starts, you arrive at the studio to find Rina washing paintbrushes in the sink.

“Hey,” you call.

She turns to you and gives you a surprised grin. “Oh, hey! You’re here early- come help with these brushes.”

You set your bag on the counter by the wall and join her at the sink. You’ve known Rina for ages- ever since you were roommates in college. The class before yours is taught before, some advanced painting thing that she is extremely overqualified to teach.

She’s kind of famous. And kind of self-absorbed, and a little bit pretentious, but maybe that’s just what happens when you’re as successful in your field as she is. No matter what it is, you can’t complain- she’s the one that helped get you this job in the first place.

“A couple of people in my class like to get here early, so I just try to arrive before them,” you say. She passes you a clean paintbrush. You reach around her and tear off a paper towel from the dispenser. “Did you dye your hair? It looks so pretty.”

“Yes!” She shakes her head, letting her hair sway. Last time you met her, she had dyed it pink. Now it’s mahogany red, straight and sleek and falling just past her shoulders. She looks a little unreal. “How’s your class going? Are the people okay?”

“Yeah, most of them are pretty nice.”

She passes you another paintbrush to dry. You consider bringing up Steve’s friend, but decide against it.

“That’s good- and you’re welcome, by the way. But okay, listen. Do you remember that one guy I told you about a while back, Dustin? So yesterday I was just sitting at home, and then he texted me…”

With the formalities out of the way, she launches into a story about someone you definitely don’t remember. Still, you humor her, listen to what she has to say, chime in at the right parts and say “really?” and “no way!” too many times. The minutes tick by.

When all of the brushes are washed and dried, you take them, since you’re going to be the one using them next, and start setting up for the class. Rina walks away and grabs her stuff from the counter. She lingers by the doorway, door already propped open, aimlessly scrolling through something on her phone, hesitant to leave for a reason you don’t know. Maybe she has more to say- if that’s even, like, possible.

You set the brushes in a container at the center table, and head over to the shelves on the far wall to pull out more supplies. Unfortunately, today’s class is revolving around watercolor again. It’s drudgery, such a boring medium- dull, unsaturated, painstaking when it comes to detail. You bring out a stack of paper, the least-depressing palettes, and then mason jars for holding water.

You’re setting the last jar on the table when Rina shrieks.

It startles you, making your hand slip.

The jar wobbles over the edge of the table and then falls, shattering into cloudy glass pieces at your feet.

“Shit,” you curse, and look over at her. “Rina, what the hell?”

Standing across from her in the doorway, having arrived early for class as usual, are Steve and his friends, two shades more flustered than usual. Rina is gawking at them.

Okay, they’re attractive, but not that attractive.

Not shriek-worthy attractive.

You sigh loudly and carefully step over the glass, making your way over to them. “Hi, Steve,” you say, and he jolts, like a scared cat. He’s blushing, stepping back into the hallway, hands awkwardly dangling at his sides. His friend is staring at Rina like he’s about to murder her, and you’re staring at him like you’re about to ask him to pass you the broom behind the door.

Because you are.

“Sorry about… that. There’s a broom behind the door, could you pass it to me?”

He opens his mouth to say something, and you are desperate to hear him, even if he’s only going to utter a simple yes, but Rina buts in.

“You did not just ask the Winter Soldier to pass you a broom.”

Who?

“Girl, what?”

All three of you turn to her, cornering back into the wall. She looks even more unreal, eyes blown wide, red creeping up her neck, giving her hair a run for its money, still gawking. You resist the urge to reach out and pull her chin back up, to close her mouth.

She alternates between looking at Steve and at…  

“That’s the Winter Soldier,” she says slowly, like she’s trying to convince herself, or you, and then steps closer to Steve, who instinctively takes a step back. He’s fully in the hallway, now. “And you’re Captain America.”

Steve’s jaw clenches. He stays silent, and you feel bad for him, that’s all you can feel, really- you are confused beyond reason, halfway convinced that Rina is losing her shit, still awaiting the broom, still awaiting Steve’s friend’s words, racking your brain for any image of Captain America or the Winter Soldier that you might have- and coming up completely empty.

You don’t watch the news, like, ever.

Little details float back to you. Steve’s dressing sense, his manners, his muscles…

The baseball caps that both of them are always wearing...

His friend’s glove…

Oh, fuck.

“Are you?” You ask dumbly. The question is meant for both of them, but you only look at one of them while speaking. A glare meets you back- a slight misstep.

You can’t even see your feet, in this situation. You’re walking blind.

Steve crosses his arms and looks at you sternly. He doesn’t look angry, but as close as he can get. “Yes,” he says, completely guarded and unfriendly and not lovely at all. “I thought you knew that.”

You are so stupid- how did you not know that?

“I didn’t,” you say, and you don’t sound convincing at all. Not much fazes you, but you are absolutely, positively fazed right now, and starting to spiral out. “I had no idea- I thought you guys could have been, like, bodyguards, or something, not actual Avengers, oh my god. I’m so sorry, shit, thank you for your service?”

You’re going to end it all- this is so embarrassing.

Steve’s mouth twitches. Rina is scarlet-faced. The Winter Soldier, god, looks so tense, like he might shatter, too, into silent, grumpy pieces all over the floor.

“You’re welcome,” Steve says, and marginally relaxes. He stays in the hallway, the Winter Soldier by the door- you should have paid more attention in your tenth grade history class, what is the guy’s name?

Rina peels herself off the wall, and you start to get nervous. There’s a painful silence, with lots of staring, where you’re still trying to coax a few rational thoughts out of your brain, and only coming up with one- Rina needs to leave.  

You try to tell her that with your eyes, with a pointed look, but you’re not great at this whole communication-through-expressions thing, so she doesn’t get the hint, or does and just ignores it.

“So, let me get this straight,” she says, tearing the silence like a plastic seal, voice starting to rise, from wonder to excitement, from painless curiosity to danger, “there’s two Avengers taking your class? And you didn’t even recognize them?”

“Nope,” you say, looking away, at a stain on the wall, at the distant glass shards still unswept away on the floor.

“That’s…”

She trails off before she has the chance to call you stupid, because the Winter Soldier gives her a pointed look of his own. Low brows and dark eyelashes, blazing blue eyes- she has no choice but to listen. Your staring was irritating, but his is intimidating.

She scampers away, mumbling something you can’t catch and brushing against Steve as she leaves.

This whole thing is so unprofessional, but at least you can breathe again-

“Here,” the Winter Soldier says, and a broom handle comes into your view.

Just one word, but you’ll take it with open arms. You take the broom from him, give an unreturned, unfamiliarly sheepish smile and head back to the broken glass on the floor.

The broken glass is swept up and tossed in the trash. You avoid looking at the doorway, focusing on other useless tasks instead. Rearranging the supplies on the table, fiddling with the window blinds, chatting with the rest of the class attendees as they start to file in.

Then the class starts and you’re swept back into your demonstration, talking and teaching and showing off different techniques that can be done with different types of brushes. You only look in their direction once, right after showing off some technique you barely remember from art school with a fan brush- they sit at their table near the back, Steve paying attention as usual, his friend silently reacting, as usual.

So they decided to stay- that’s good. Great, even.

Until the next part of the class starts, when everyone gets to work on their own paintings, when you have to stop talking.

You mill around the room, searching for a conversation to join in on or a comment to make, but find none. Then you take a sheet of paper and hopelessly try to draw- search for a distraction and a spark up of an idea, something, anything, and come up completely empty. It’s just...

How famous are they? Like, A-list celebrity famous? Are they offended that you didn’t recognize them- should you start treating them differently? You don’t keep up with this stuff. You have an impossibly long list of other things to worry about- you don’t have the time to worry about this stuff. The Avengers aren’t something you think about ever, because why should you?

If you opened any newspaper or magazine you would find something about them- a charity gala they attended, some recent threat they neutralized, the latest gossip surrounding their personal lives. But those lives are so far detached from your own that you’ve never bothered to look.

You simply don’t care. You’re not a native New Yorker- it’s not like these people are your hometown heroes, that you grew up idolizing them. They save the world time and time again and society is forever indebted to them and all of that, but what are you supposed to do about it?

And most importantly, what is the Winter Soldier’s fucking name?

Enough of this chaos goes on in your mind to make your head hurt. Fuck it, you decide- you’ll face it. You straighten your shoulders as you stand, trying your best to look purposeful as you walk to their table, like you have reason to go over there. Yeah, they’re strong. Genetically enhanced and all of that, and they’re important: they’re Avengers.

But they’re taking your class.

You slide into the chair across from the Soldier without taking the time to gauge their reactions.

“Do other people here know?” You ask.

Steve startles, eyes widening, and then considers the question while swirling his brush in green paint. He’s working on a landscape today, you think. “Shonna might,” he says, not rudely. “But nobody else.”

So maybe not that famous. Or maybe the people here are just like you and don’t care.

But it still doesn’t make sense. “Then why did you think that I knew?”

“Because you talk a lot,” Steve says, like it’s the most obvious thing ever.

“Well, yeah, that’s part of the job-”

Steve cuts you off, and fuck, you hate getting interrupted. But he’s smiling, and you can’t bring yourself to get upset over it. “You talk a lot to us.”

Us?  

More like to him.

You take it in stride, don’t let your confidence slip. You’ve purposely angled your head away, and you know the Winter Soldier is staring at you- you can feel it on your cheek, on your shoulder, on every nerve in your face. You don’t look back at him. This revelation hasn’t made him any less unpleasant.

“Yeah,” you say, like it’s just as obvious, “because you’re a nice guy, Steve.”

Steve raises his eyebrows so high that they disappear under the brim of his hat. You smile at him as nicely as you can, sugar-sweet, until he can’t take anymore and drops his gaze back to his painting. You turn back to the nameless man across from you.

Winter Soldier.

“Hi,” you say, only to him, and prop your elbows up on the table, resting your face in your hands. “I love the little pattern you have going on with your painting.”

It’s random splotches of black paint- calling it a pattern is an exaggeration. But you carry on.

“This is probably a bad time to ask, and it’s kind of a dumb question, but, like, what’s your name?”

He just barely raises an eyebrow, allowing for a fraction of surprise, before schooling his expression back into his usual mix of anger and boredom, a casual glare and slight frown. For a moment, you wonder what he looks like when he’s happy.

“You don’t know his name?” Steve is in disbelief, and then he winces, and you think he’s been kicked under the table. Abruptly, you laugh.

It rings out. A few people turn and stare, but you brush it all off with another smile.

He’s still staring. You don’t mind it.

The paintbrush in his hand is suddenly unsteady.

“My name is Bucky,” he says, slowly and loudly enough for you to make out the sound of his voice, for the first time ever.

He is definitely bothered by you asking, his mouth drawn tight, and you can’t even take the time to appreciate how cutesy his name is compared to his demeanor, because oh hell. It’s going to be difficult to keep up this whole dislike thing, if his voice sounds like this, low and rough and gritty like sandpaper, pleasantly grating over you and your skin…

You have to consciously remind yourself to keep on smiling.

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.”

Things should feel different, but they don’t. Nobody really reacts- everything resumes as normal. Steve focuses on his panting, adding delicate brushstrokes to the branches of a tree. You linger for a moment, and then get up from the table and flutter off to someone else.

For every class, you wear this kitschy apron, paint-stained, with strings tied in a hasty bow against your back that Bucky always aches to even out. Someone tells you something, and you respond eagerly, fully phased out of the past incident.

He stares until he realizes he’s staring, and then drops his eyes back down to his paper.

Steve wanted to attend this class for a number of reasons- he was bored and wanted something to occupy his time, he wanted to revisit an old hobby, he wanted to learn from you- some hip, emerging artist he’s a fan of, whose work he’s been following for a while now, who is seriously talented, although you have yet to prove it. He wanted to go do something separated from the events of his regular life.

So much wanting. Bucky wants to know why you’re so indifferent.

He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing that you didn’t know his name, or that you didn’t flinch or gasp or accuse him of something, or pointedly look at his left arm. Should he be thankful? Steve is clearly thankful, already loosening up, freed of any lasting tension.

Bucky just feels wary. You’re unsettling.

You come back over to their table one more time. The sleeves of your shirt are pushed up, and there’s a smear of something dark on your forearm, ink or paint. On one wrist you’re wearing a  bracelet made of braided leather. On the other you wear a bulky digital watch.

Practical.

“Everything okay?” You ask, as if something not okay could potentially have happened, in your forty-five minute absence.

Steve fixes you with a friendly smile. Bucky can’t ever bring himself to do the same.

“Yep,” Steve says, and you nod your head, clearly relieved.

“Great!” You glance at him for a spare second, and turn away again.

Everyone he knows is so guarded, walls built high and doors barred shut. Except for you, if Bucky can say that he knows you, the perky art instructor, Steve’s favorite artist. You’re confident and flippant, and that should be a bad pairing, but somehow you can carry yourself within it just fine. Always purposeful in the space you occupy, not reacting to the knowledge of his and Steve’s major, momentous identities.

Bucky wonders, idly, as he blots water over what you so generously called a pattern, why you didn’t.

It’s not like he wants you to acknowledge it, wants you to call him a war criminal or a Rusisan spy. He just wants you to-

He doesn’t know.

The class goes on. An older couple sitting a few tables away have caught your attention, chattering on and on about their personal lives.They have a pet cat that their landlord doesn’t know about, and when they retire they want to move to the seaside in Italy, and in May their son is going to graduate high school.

“High school?” You gasp, loud for no reason. “I hated high school.”

Before the class ends, you take your position at the front of the studio, and talk some more. He knows it’s part of your job, but you are excessive.

There’s an art exhibition going on at some museum, and one of the featured artists is an acquaintance of yours, and on Saturday the admission fee is discounted, and if anybody is interested, you have a stack of flyers on the center table. And you hope that everyone has a good week.

You look at Bucky while finishing up your little monologue, giving a half-smile that’s for the whole class, but seemingly only directed at him. He blinks slowly, and when he opens his eyes again, you’re looking somewhere else.

***

“Morning, pal, you ready to go?”

Steve gives him a hopeful smile as he peels an orange.

Bucky’s hair is still wet from his shower, dripping water onto his shirt. It’s early, too early to go anywhere. He doesn’t even know why he’s awake- usually after his wake-of-dawn runs, he falls back asleep, or lies down and just stares at his ceiling, thinking, until he grows restless enough to get up and do something. But today, the restlessness came much sooner, so he got up much sooner, and it might already be a mistake.

He takes a seat at the kitchen island, next to Sam, trying to think of something that Steve might have had planned for today, and coming up completely empty. “Go where?”

Steve looks hurt, for a brief second. “The exhibition at the museum, remember?”

Oh.

That.

“I’m not going to that,” Bucky says, harshly enough for it to be dropped.

Steve does not drop it. “Hey, come on. Just look at it.”

From his back pocket, Steve pulls out a flyer, one of the flyers you had out on Monday, folded up in a neat square- when did Steve pick one of those up? He holds it out, and Bucky, wishing he was asleep again, takes it.

He unfolds it, and the words are written in tiny letters, and the few photos on the paper are in color but too grainy to make out, and it gives him a slight headache, but he pretends to look it over. Sam leans into him to see it, loudly crunching cereal in Bucky’s ear.

“Looks cool, Rogers,” Sam says, and Steve grins, and now Bucky is the bad guy in the situation, for not wanting to go, even though Sam isn’t going either.

Bucky passes the flyer back without reading a single word.

“I’m not going,” he says, again.

But Steve is relentless. He sets the orange peels aside and gives him a look, and Bucky can already feel his resolve starting to crumble, and it’s kind of pathetic, really. Does he not understand that Bucky is already doing as much as he can?

“Why not?”

He picks the easiest answer.

“I don’t want to.”

Steve’s brow furrows as he splits the orange into two, giving half to Bucky. Sam slurps the milk from his cereal bowl.

They’re all blissfully silent.

“Come on, Bucky,” Steve says suddenly, almost begging. “I really want to see it.”

“I don’t-” He falters, he’s losing the battle. “How many people are there gonna be?”

Steve lights up. Bucky tries to stay indignant, tries to keep his face twisted in dislike, but it’s difficult with Steve. He’s always so full of optimism, has so much of it that it spills out through the seams, rubs off onto whoever’s closest.

“Not that many,” Steve says, like a promise, shaking his head. “That’s why we should go now.”

“Will she be there?”

Sam perks up.

Steve frowns. “No? Or wait, maybe. It’s a public place- I don’t know. She could be.”

It’s miles off from the answer he wants, but again, for Steve, he’ll take it. Bucky ignores Sam leaning across the counter like an idiot and asking “who’s she?” and eats his orange slices in silence.

***

Huge, bulbous heads, and beady little eyes. The limbs are long and wavy and contorted in the weirdest positions, seas of arms and legs and joints, women twisted over each other in gnarled embraces, a man with his arms twirling over and over again around his own torso. And the colors- a complete eclectic mess of everything- blue, red, yellow, green, purple. Everything.

You walk through the museum floor one, two, three times. The paintings on display are unsettling and ugly, and you’re on the verge of tears.

They’re gorgeous. Pain thrown on a canvas, told through canvas. It’s overwhelming- you’re overwhelmed, and you can’t do anything else about it. The museum just opened and there’s barely any people around- you can wallow in your sadness as much as you want to, for now.

Or maybe you’ll wallow in your frustration, instead.

This… you want to create like this.  

But you don’t have it.  

It being an impossible, nearly unattainable type of pain, or misery or anger or any other emotion so strong and visceral that you could translate it into something like this, something that evokes something else from other people. From an audience.

You might have had something like that once, but that’s all too far behind you now. Forgettable. What you need right now is an idea, a spark of inspiration, a single coherent thought. A confirmation that you aren’t completely lost.

You wander back to a painting in a far corner, all alone in a small alcove. A red woman, with her head nestled in green grass and legs wrapping around the sun, quite literally head over heels for it. Her mouth is wide open, gaping, calling, wailing, maybe. She has a hooked nose and a mole on one of her arms, and her white dress has fallen down to pool on the grass, and her legs are lithe and unshaven, prickly like the grass, just like the yellow spikes of the sun, drawn almost comically.

How do you even- how do you even come up with things like this?

By living an interesting life, probably. Through not being boring.

You stay there for a while. Long enough that more people start to file in, pretentious art students wearing all black, eccentric people with awesome haircuts, tourists. They peer over your shoulders, awkwardly, waiting for you to move. When you don’t, they leave you to be, giving you a rude look or two that you pay no mind to. There’s space on either side of you, if they’re so desperate to see. Sidling up right against you is kind of weird, but you’ll excuse it, for this painting.

Eventually, you realize that you should probably get going.

You’ve been standing so long that your legs are starting to ache, and there’s countless other Saturday errands you have to run- doing your laundry, buying groceries, calling up your mom- boring Saturday things to do.

You leave the red woman, regrettably. The fabric of your sleeve comes back dry when you wipe your eyes, even though you feel fully washed away, feel like you’re floating as you drift over to the elevator.

The doors slide open and a few people file out, and then it’s empty, thankfully. You step inside, press the button for the ground floor, wait for the doors to fully close-

“Wait,” a voice calls.

You’re not rude- you press the button to hold open the door.

When it fully opens, Steve steps inside, followed by Bucky.

You’re still out of it. You don’t even realize who they are, not until the doors have slid shut and the floor jolts as the elevator starts its descent and they’ve been staring at you for a solid five seconds.

“Oh, hi,” you say, after too much silence. You need to get yourself together. “You guys came!”

Put a little pep in your step! And more joy in your voice- nobody wants to listen to someone so drained.

Steve shrugs. “I wanted to see it.”

Bucky just smolders, clearly saying with his silence, “I didn’t.”

“Did you like it?”

Steve considers your question. The elevator stops at another floor and the doors slide open, but there’s nobody waiting to step inside. You wait for Steve to gather his words together, sure that he’s trying to come up with a nice way to voice whatever he’s thinking, which is definitely not nice. There’s no way that he liked the art, not one chance.

“It was… intriguing,” he says, at last. Neither of them are wearing hats today, because the museum doesn’t allow it. Even in this artificial light, his hair shines, golden-blond. “Did you like it?”

“Yes,” you say, without wasting a second. “The one of the red woman- it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen all year.”

“It’s only January,” Bucky grumbles.

His voice shocks you, sends an ice-cold jolt up your spine that you definitely dislike.

Steve turns to him, peering over your shoulder, surprised and disappointed. The two of them have a silent conversation with their eyes and you stand in the midst of it, waiting for the goosebumps to settle back down, waiting for the chill to go away.

It’s difficult- he clearly doesn’t like you, either- and even if he has his own troubling little backstory, which you don’t care enough about to google, it’s not justified.

But…

It almost makes his aggression... amusing.

“It is January,” you say politely, dismissing him. “Great observation.”

The elevator reaches the ground floor and the doors side open. You exit in step with Steve, with Bucky right on your heels.

You all stand around in the museum lobby, a wide hallway down from the giftshop and a small cafe.

“Are you headed out?” Steve asks. He puts his hands in his pockets, feet planted wide.

Bucky crosses his arms. He’s wearing all black. If it were anyone else, you would make a joke- he could almost pass off as a pretentious art student, if the outlines of his body weren’t so visible through his clothes, all taut muscle and sharp angles. His hair curls over his shoulders, prettier than anything you’ve seen on any girl.

These guys are Avengers, you think, and proceed to push the thought away.

They look so… un-Avenger-y.

“Um.” You press a hand against your forehead, trying to formulate a response. Chores suddenly seem miles away, the last thing you should be doing. You have all of Sunday to complete them, anyway.

“I was going to get something to eat from the cafe first,” you say, nodding over in its direction. “You guys wanna join me?”

You don't know why you look at Bucky when you say it

“Sure!” Steve says, all cheery, still standing alongside you. He smiles and his teeth are pearly white.

Of course his teeth are pearly white. Dentists everywhere are probably cowering, clutching their little metal instruments for dear life.

Then he hesitates, and turns to Bucky. “If you have nothing else to do, I mean.”

Bucky pauses. You and Steve both stare him down.

“They have these raspberry-almond muffins that are to die for,” you say, like it’ll convince him.

He rolls his eyes. Bored and still gorgeous- if only.

“I’m free,” he says, and you don’t know why he looks at you when he says it.

You pay the bored teenager working the cash register with cash. He gives you your change, and when he turns away to prepare your order, you shove half of the bills and all of your coins into the tip jar.

Bucky sits at the farthest table with Steve. His knees can barely fit underneath it, and the tabletop is sticky, and he’s now willingly spending more time here, and with no disguise there is no way that he isn’t going to be recognized by someone, and he doesn’t know why he hasn’t fully booked it yet.

Because…

He doesn’t know.

Maybe because you’re not asking for anything from him, aren’t minding that he’s sullen or unapproachable or anything else- his presence seems to be enough for you, which is bothersome, and at the same time, mildly exciting.

“Are you having fun?” Steve asks, while you smile at the teenager handing you plates of muffins, little glasses of some milky-espresso-coffee drink.

“What do you think?” Bucky asks, while you start your journey back to the table, and Steve opens his mouth to respond, already bothered, and Bucky’s already guilty, but then Steve hops up to help you carry everything back.

You sit down laughing. Steve is laughing, too. The corners of your eyes crease and he can see all of your teeth, and you look at him for a split second, and then turn away before he can get a read on your expression.

He sits in silence, while you and Steve trade jokes and stories and easy banter, talking about art and local politics and all types of things he can’t bring himself to care about, things that Steve is relishing in. You’re witty, apparently, or at least quick enough to get a few quick laughs out of Steve, and Bucky would never say it, he’s barely thinking it, but he appreciates you for it.

And the muffin isn’t quite to die for, but it’s okay.

During a lull in the conversation, you break your attention away from Steve and turn back to Bucky. You look concerned, almost, still smiling but without showing all of your teeth, leaning towards him like you’re about to tell him a secret.

“I never apologized for before,” you say, and Bucky immediately sits up on edge.

Even Steve goes wary, eyes narrowing.

You suddenly give a long, weary sigh, and press a hand against the back of your neck, like whatever you’re about to say is going to be so tedious. “For my friend flipping out when she saw you guys- she’s literally crazy, she’s always doing too much- but on her behalf, I’m sorry.”

The silence following afterwards is deafening.

“It’s okay,” Steve says, after a long moment, while you’re still looking at Bucky- your eyes make his skin itch, and he doesn’t say anything else. “She’s not the worst that we’ve gotten.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, great,” you say, and you slump back in your seat, looking away, back to your half-eaten muffin. You pick off an almond from the top and eat it. “Glad we got that out of the way. I just thought it would be weird if I didn’t say anything.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, so polite, even though you’ve done nothing to deserve his thanks. “Have you known her for a long time?”

“Yes, oh my god,” you say, and readjust yourself in your chair again, accidentally bumping your knee against Bucky’s, but not apologizing for it. He glances underneath the table, at your entire bare knee, visible through a rip in your jeans. “Rina- her name is Rina- was my college roommate for a while.”

“You went to college?” Steve asks.

“I have an art degree,” you say dryly, “which was… an okay decision, I guess. Sometimes I think I should have just dropped out and done, like, stand-up or something.”

You clearly don’t want to discuss it, leaving the last part as some sort of rhetorical joke. Steve takes the hint and nods, already closing the chapter, and you take a sip from your little glass, finally silent. The foam on the top of the drink sticks to your mouth until you lick it off. Bucky replies to it anyway.

“Why stand-up?”

You turn to him so fast that he almost misses you faltering, and give him a dazzling smile. He thinks of your bare knee under the table, and tries not to sweat. “Because I’m funny, Bucky.”

He doesn’t like how his name sounds when you say it. “Tell me a joke.”

“Oh, okay,” you say, and clasp your hands together. Steve is watching, rapt at attention. “Let me think real quick- oh, I have one. Which beverage has a black belt in karate?”

Bucky waits.

You wait, expecting something from him.

It’s Steve that has to say, “I don’t know, which beverage?”

“Fruit punch,” you say, exaggerating the last part, and Bucky just keeps on waiting.

Steve cracks a small smile.

“Let me tell you another,” you say. “What type of phone does a piece of fruit carry?”

Steve takes a few wild guesses. He’s enjoying this, and you are too, both of you feeding off of each other. “A phone-fruit. A fruit-phone. A frone?”

You shake your head. “A blackberry.”

Bucky doesn’t tell you that he has no idea what you’re talking about.

“Tough crowd,” you say, when he doesn’t react. “Don’t worry, I have more. Where do you go on red and stop on green?”

“Where?’ Steve asks, waiting, leaning forward in anticipation.

“When you’re eating a watermelon!”

It is not funny, it’s painfully unfunny, and maybe that’s why you and Steve burst out laughing. Bucky steals a glance at your watch, since he doesn’t wear one of his own. It’s nearing noon- how has so much time passed? Why is he still even here when he doesn’t even like you?

“Why are all of them about fruit?”

You look at him like his question is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. “What food is the best listener?”

Bucky just sits. All the foam in his little espresso thing has dissolved, having been left untouched. He doesn’t like the taste of coffee- too bitter, and caffeine doesn’t work on him, anyway. Maybe he should drink it, because you paid for it, and because you didn’t make a comment about old-fashioned manners or chivalry when Steve offered to at first, just shrugged and got in line.

He knows that you won’t care.

The drink sits on its own, glass beading with condensation.

“Corn is the best listener,” you say, without waiting for Steve to throw his questions or guesses at you, without waiting for Bucky to spit out another sentence. “Because it’s all ears.”

“That wasn’t funny,” he says, and glares at the spot beside your head.

You nod sympathetically, and he thinks again of the rips in your jeans. “I know. But it was about a vegetable.”

Oh.

You stare at him straight-faced, crossing your arms over your chest. Steve does the same, and then he realizes- the two of you are a bunch of kids, punks, juveniles- mocking his stature, pretending to be serious, somehow not offending him.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says. “You’re…”

He can’t even help it. He looks back at you  and his face works on its own. He gives a single, dry chuckle, but he’s smiling, and dragging his hand over his face, scrubbing it off just as fast, but you still see it, and smile back and gently nudge his knee again underneath the table, and then turn back away again, and he’s still staring at your hair while you take big bite out of your to-die-for raspberry-almond muffin, already back in conversation with Steve.

[looselucy]

The Forgotten Feeling

July 1st I stood with my arms folded, pretending to be unimpressed just to see the look on my dads face, like my approval was the very last thing he was waiting on before he put an offer in on a place that was really perfect for him, scared of my disapproval. “You hate it, don’t you?” He winced. I couldn’t keep up the act any longer, a giant smile teeming with mischief finally cracking across my face. “I love it.” I admitted. “You cheeky fucker.” He whacked my arm lightly. “You had me worried then!”

“You’re so easy to wind up.” I sniggered. “Genuinely, it’s lovely. I love it. Get a bloody move on before someone else snaps it up.” We were less than an hour out of Rosebury, which was perfect as far as I was concerned. My main worry was that he would have been hours away, but our trip to the viewing that morning had felt like nothing whatsoever. My car hadn’t even struggled, which was a miracle given the state of it, but proof of just how close he would be. The town he’d chosen was a little bigger than Rosebury, with a bit more going on, somewhere where he could really build a new life and find ways to pass the time, find new habits, new friends, new passions. I was excited for him. “Are you sure?” He seemed hesitant. “Of course I’m sure. You really don’t have to worry about me, dad, I promise. I want this for you.” It was understandable why he was convinced I’d want him to stick around, because I’d been encouraging him to move back to Rosebury for some time before he actually did. But that was before I actually saw him there, recognized what living in that village did to him. It wasn’t healthy. I wanted him to leave, which wouldn’t have even made sense to me a year earlier, but times had changed. “Come on, let’s get it done. Gotta head back soon anyway.” I took a deep breath in. “I’ve got a date.” “Is that tonight?” He seemed so happy for me, so sweet as we headed down the stairs towards the front door. “Mhm.” “And how’re you feeling about it?” “Okay, I think, yeah.” I nodded. “Sort of excited. Kinda nervous.” “Good. I think it’s good to be nervous.” “Yeah, I think so too. And I dunno what he has planned for me, which is cute. He wants to take me out of Rosebury, but other than that I’m clueless.” I was heading into the evening with an open mind, feeling positive, strangely calm even with my nerves. In all honesty, it was nice to have something to distract me from my time with Julia, which was something I’d had a hard time moving on from. Even though being around her and talking with her had been curiously constructive, even nice in some ways, it had also been incredibly draining and upsetting. She’d stayed in my shop with me for some time, until we both felt we were in a fit enough state to face the rest of the day. We’d spoke about Harry a little more, the two of us fretting over his general welfare, asking questions that neither of us had the answer to. The main thing I had established was that she wanted to see him again, maybe even more than he wanted to see her. She asked me about Jack, too. If I knew him. I hadn’t known what to say, how I could answer her. Thankfully, she seemed much more aware of what was going on in Jack’s life than she was Harry’s, even telling me it hadn’t been too long since she last saw him. She told me how one time when he was arrested, he managed to reach her, asked her for a place to stay, promised he’d changed, that he wanted to be better. He’d all but emptied her bank account only a few days later, taking what little she had for himself and disappearing. She told me it had happened the previous April, and I knew in my heart that Jack had headed straight from his mother to Harry, robbing from the two of them in a matter of days. I didn’t say it but I knew it. Harry had never really told me about what Jack had said to him when he’d broken into his house that night, all I knew was that he’d gotten into his head and planted so much doubt and misery there that Harry had retreated, cowered backwards into a state where he daren’t find his mother, daren’t speak. Jack had known exactly what to say to ensure that his little brother experienced both mental and physical pain. He made sure to leave a trail of damage behind simply because he knew had the power to do so; for no other reason than because he could. Maybe he’d said he’d been with their mother, lied to Harry and said she wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe it was something else. I knew I’d never get the answers I desired, but knowing Julia and Jack had been together so soon before Jack found Harry, it got me thinking. Jack wasn’t like Harry. He had no desire to change, no good in his heart that told him what was right and what was wrong. He didn’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness, and nor was he asking for it, even when he said he was. And though I knew Julia had wanted to find Harry, I imagined that being in touch with Jack and seeing how he hadn’t changed, how he’d worsened, would make her question whether or not seeking Harry was the right thing. It would only be natural for her to feel that way. I’d spoken so highly of her youngest that I hoped all qualms and hesitations had been erased. Before she left, we had exchanged numbers, hoping to one day relay good news when it came to Harry, his wellbeing, his whereabouts, but I didn’t feel confident that we’d ever get back in touch with each other unless she was to visit my store again one day. I was trying not to think about it. “Let me go talk to the estate agent, see what my next move should be.” My dad said as we headed outdoors. The money he’d managed to save when hoping to keep Rita in that home for another year meant he had more than enough money for a good mortgage on the house he was interested in, which was one less thing to worry about. I waited on the sidelines as they spoke things through, looking up and down the busy street, cars zipping by every few seconds, and it was already so different to Rosebury simply because of the general atmosphere. I was positive it was going to be good for him there. Really good. My dad approached me a few minutes later, a big smile on his face. “M’gunna follow him in the car, go to the estate agents. Do you have time to come with? I’m not sure how long it’ll be.” “Um, I should probably head off, really. Prep myself for this date.” “Mentally or physically?” He laughed. “Um… Probably more mental, to be honest.” He leaned inwards, gave me a quick hug and a kiss right on the top of my head, his sweet sendoff. “Thanks for coming.” “Anytime.” “And don’t feel any pressure, alright?” He said, taking a few cautious steps backwards. “If it’s not right, it’s not right, and that’s okay.” “Meaning?” “Meaning…” He took a few seconds, thought carefully about his words. “If your heart isn’t in it, there might be a good reason for that. It takes a long time for a heart to heal, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. And if it doesn’t feel right… well, it’s best to be honest. With yourself and with him.” “I… I think you might be overthinking it, dad.” I tried. “Good. I hope so. I’m just saying.” He was still smiling like he had the whole thing figured out. “See you soon.” We bid our farewells and then he was gone, leaving me stood questioning whether or not he was onto something, whether I’d been thinking that moving on within myself must involve moving on with someone new. My dad wasn’t the only one who was overthinking.

“This place is really fancy.” I whispered, snuggling down into my seat once our waitress had taken our orders. “Yeah, I think it’s maybe too fancy. I might have made a mistake. It’s definitely a level of fancy that we, as people, are not at.” It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable, not really, maybe just unfamiliar. We were in a town I didn’t know, in a restaurant I’d never been to with prices so extortionate I wondered if there might be little pieces of gold sprinkled onto the top of our food. Familiar suited me, always had. I’d grown up in the same place, barely left, been surrounded by the same people, had the same job since I was nineteen. I guess that was one of the reasons I felt okay about being there with Lincoln; that lovely familiarity which I’d always enjoyed so much. Even at our strangest, our least conversant, I still felt bizarrely at ease around him; safe, almost. Before our meal, he’d taken me to a little place where they had beer-pong tables set up, having a quick couple of matches and knocking some drinks back to ready us for the evening. “I think the beer-pong was more on our level.” I confessed. “I’d suggest we just go back but I’m starving.” He wheezed. “I asked for a recommendation from a lad I work with, one of the other coaches. He said it’s unreal here, and to be honest, he’s not even fancy.” I giggled jauntily, looking down like I was afraid to hold eye contact for too long, wishing I still had a menu to peruse because at least that had given me a good excuse. We hadn’t kissed since our time by the lake over a week prior, and even then it was brief, a way of testing the waters we were treading. “Well, uh… thanks for inviting me.” “Thanks for coming.” He said diffidently. “I’ve been… nervous.” “Yeah?” “You don’t give much away.” His smile was timorous, sheepish. “I literally… I can’t read you.” He seemed almost intimidated, in a way. It was endearing. “Well, what do you wanna know?” “Everything. I wanna know everything.” I already felt as though Lin knew all there was to know, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the case. There are some things it seems your soul saves, making sure you only share with certain people in certain moments, our absolute truths. He’d been in my life very closely for a long time, but there was still so much left to learn. There were sections of my soul he had never seen, and from the look in his eyes then I could see that he wanted nothing more than to experience that epiphany. So we just started talking. We talked and talked without even pausing for breath. When our meals came, they seemed to be pushed aside to make way for the conversations we were having, laughing, sharing, opening up to each other. Our conversations were idle, thoughtful, needless, necessary. We covered so much ground that we wound up sitting there for hours, as contented and calm around one another as we always had been. The only problem I found was that I practically forgot we were on a date. I didn’t feel worried, or apprehensive, or giddy. I was simply sitting with Lin and it was nothing. No matter how much we talked, how much we learnt, how much I enjoyed myself, I knew he wasn’t seeing parts of me saved for a special few, and I wasn’t seeing those parts of him. Everything was so ordinary, standard. I didn’t feel that pull, that excitement, that spark. That familiarity I loved so much was working against us. It wasn’t that I was expecting some grand moment, not on our first date, but I wanted something that I realised I wasn’t getting. It happened in our moments silence, when the bill was handed over to us, the staff practically on the verge of kicking us out since we were the last ones in there; that’s when it happened. I felt like seeing Harry’s mum had thrown me off the steady course I had been walking for the past few months. He was back to being at the forefront of my mind and it made things so fucking difficult. There never seemed to be any closure. When he left after my mother’s funeral, I thought that was it. I knew he was leaving and I knew I wouldn’t see him again, and that should have been enough but it wasn’t and I was only just beginning to realise that. There were too many factors, too many questions left unanswered. Even the way he was before he left, the way we’d kissed, the things he’d said, the way I could literally feel that he didn’t want to leave, his reluctance heavy upon my chest. I wanted to close the door on us so badly, to shut him out, cease my uncertainties, but it was harder than I thought it would be. “Alf?” I heard Lin talk, but didn’t move. “Alfie?” “Hm?” I shot my head up. “You alright? You kinda… disappeared there, for a second.” “Sorry. I’m fine. Sorry.” “What’s wrong?” It was time to be honest, even if I didn’t fully know what being honest would entail. He deserved as much. So did I. “Do you know how you feel about me?” I asked. “What?” “Do you… have a good grasp on how you feel about me? About all of this?” “I… Yeah, I think I do. Why? Do you… Do you not?” He already seemed crushed, not wanting to hear my answer at the same time as needing to know how I’d been feeling. “Uh… I dunno. It’s like I’m waiting for this moment of clarity, but it’s not happening.” I admitted gloomily. “I still feel… really unsure of what I want and how I feel and it’s pissing me off.” Though he grinned, there was a sadness in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide, clearing his throat and looking down to the table before he answered me. “Well, y’know… we’ve been friends for a long time. I think it’d be weird if it did just… switch like that. Maybe it’ll take some time.” “Is that how you feel?” “Uh…” He was awkward, shifting in his seat, messing with his hair. “I’ve… Personally, I’ve thought about this for a while, so it’s different for me. I think I was pretty set on it, to be honest.” “So… How do you feel? What’s going on in your head?” “I’m having a good time. I’m enjoying your company, and like… I think you’re amazing. I love spending time with you. If we could do this every night, that’s me happy.” I smiled, weirdly feeling a similar way. We’d had such a lovely evening, I really didn’t have a bad word to say about it, even now we’d seen the bill. But that didn’t mean romance to me. “Do you worry that… we don’t have a spark?” I asked guardedly. “I think if there was no spark at all, we wouldn’t be here, right?” He seemed to be asking rather than telling me. “M’starting to doubt myself a bit though. If you don’t wanna be here-” “I do, that’s the thing! I do wanna be here, and I’ve had the best night tonight. This is the happiest I’ve been for… fucking months, but… I dunno. I think I’m waiting on that rushed feeling.” “But you’re not getting it.” He couldn’t look at me, voice low, dejected. It pained me to answer him, but I thought about my fathers’ words earlier, about honesty, and even though it wasn’t the easiest option, I knew it was the best. “No.” I wanted to cry. “M’sorry. I wish I was, but…” “Okay.” He took a deep breath in, sucked it right into his chest to the point where his posture changed completely, sitting upright and rolling his shoulders. “M’kinda worried that… something’s holding you back. Like maybe you’re too lost in your head with it. I mean… it’s fine, if you’re not feeling it, I get it. But I just… I don’t want that to be because you’re holding yourself back, y’know? I get that there’s bound to be reservations, we’ve been friends for so fucking long, I get it. But I think we’ve really gotta let it happen naturally and not… think about it too much. Or maybe I’m just… fucking forcing it, I dunno. I just wanted this to work so much and-” “No, I get it. I do. You might be right, y’know. I’ve… definitely overthought a few things. Shit, this whole thing is such a head fuck.” I groaned. “And I wanna try and I wanna put the effort in and see how it goes, but I also don’t wanna feel like I’m dragging this out and giving you false hope if I’m not set on it and I just… I’m so fucking annoyed with myself.” My frustration cultivated from the knowledge that what he said could have been completely true. I’d thought about it so much and linked it to different things and questioned every inch of it to the point where I was bound to be doubting myself, doubting what was happening. There may have been a good reason behind it, but it also might have just been complete nonsense that was bred simply from my whirring mind being unable to rest. There had been a time when I’d overthought things with Harry, calling an end to it before it had even began, and to look back that seemed so strange to me. Maybe this was a similar thing. The only difference was that even when I’d tried to put a stop to things with Harry, after our first time together and in the early hours of New Year’s Day, something always brought me back to him, this benevolent energy pulling us together, some higher force willing our souls to intertwine. That was lacking with Lin. I sat in silence, wishing away the migraine my thoughts were causing. “Can I kiss you again?” He asked tenderly. “I really wanna fucking kiss you.” “Lin, why the hell do you wanna kiss me after all the shit I’ve just said?” “Because I do.” He shrugged, like it was nothing. “We can find our spark. We’ve just gotta… let it happen. We’ve gotta allow it to happen. I mean, I feel it. But I get it, if you’ve got a guard up. It makes sense, after everything that happened with Sam, but… Yeah. I dunno.” I nodded. Strangely enough, I didn’t blame Sam for how guarded I was. I suppose I hadn’t really thought of myself as guarded at all until he said that. I hadn’t thought that might be one of the many reasons why I was unsure. The demise of me and Harry was the reason for my hesitancy. The pain he’d caused was more substantial and rooted than anything I’d known before, a sign of just how deeply I had loved him. “So can I kiss you?” He asked, the happiness returning to his eyes, which sparked a happiness in me. My nod was small and rapid, shy as he stood himself up to lean across the table, leaving me to do little of the work as I leant forward just slightly so he could reach me, placing his hands in my hair, right against the back of my head, ushering me that bit closer so he could place his lips upon mine, the two of us still smiling a little at first, and then we eased into it, Lin knocking over a wine glass as we lost ourselves. It was nice not completely over-analyse that moment, and instead simply enjoy it.

July 2nd “Morning!” I greeted Louis with a giant smile as I let myself into the shop, feeling good, feeling fresh. “Hey!” He seemed shocked by my presence. “Thought you were gunna rock up late today?” “Ah, yeah well me and Lin didn’t get as drunk as I imagined we might.” I’d told Louis not to expect me until the afternoon, predicting that Lincoln and I would be having one too many drinks in order to get through our date contentedly, but that hadn’t been the case at all. I figured I might as well turn up to work a few hours earlier than anticipated. “How was it?” Louis asked, stood a little rigidly in the middle of the shop floor as I edged around him to get behind the counter, ready myself for the day. “Uh… it was fine.” I sighed but smiled. “It was really nice, I don’t have a bad word to say about any of it, especially him.” “But?” He raised his brows. “I’m not thinking about the but right now.” I held my hand up as though literally blocking his words. “All I’m thinking about is the fact I had a nice night. I need to do less thinking.” “Okay.” He sniggered, turning on his spot so he was facing me. “Uh, so a weird thing happened this morning.” It was immediately obvious to me that he was too distracted by whatever had gone on to grill me on my date with Lin. I figured that was why he seemed tense, strange. “What’s up?” “Uh, not much. Just a bit of a mix up with a delivery. Sort of. The thing is… Shit. C’mon, I’ll just show you.” He cleared his throat and began leading me towards the back room, where we kept the kettle, a few bottles of wine we usually used for tasting, and every other bit of rubbish and half used item we didn’t know what else to do with. It was messy but charming in there. “I didn’t even know we had a delivery due today.” I mumbled as I followed him. “That’s the thing, we didn’t! I just kinda predicted it was a delivery for the shop,” He was rambling. “But it was actually a delivery for you. So, I’m sorry, I opened it. I’m really sorry, I genuinely didn’t have a clue, I thought it was a new sign for over the door and-” “Louis, I don’t care! It’s fine!” I chuckled. “Just… Don’t freak out, okay?” He cringed with his fingers grasped around the handle, leaving me only a second to panic over his words before he swung the door open and revealed what had gotten him into such a state. “What… the fuck.” I whispered. I felt sick. My head was spinning and my stomach churning, blinking as though what I’d seen might disappear, like I’d imagined it. Because propped up against the desk on the floor right in front of me, was an infamous piece of work, one I never thought I’d see with my own eyes. It was Harry’s painting. His Blood Sun. Dizzily, I approached it, waiting until I was just a few inches away before I practically fell down to my knees, reaching and stroking my fingers across the paint, looking up and down and over every inch of in an attempt to make sense of what I was seeing, an attempt to appreciate the splendour beneath my trace. Fuck, it was beautiful. It was so fucking beautiful I thought I was going to cry. It was so much bigger than I had ever imagined it to be, standing taller than me even when I was on my feet and wider than my arms could reach. The paint protruded victoriously from the canvas, some parts sharp, others smooth. The colours were remarkably stimulating, so bright that they were emerging from the canvas, budding outwards to meet me, as though they had a complete life of their own and I was their goddess, their colours a quiet prayer that whispered from between the linen and blessed my ears. It felt like an honour to become so well acquainted with its true exquisiteness; to actually touch a masterpiece. It was striking, astounding, alluring, substantial and profound, utterly dazzling in its beauty. I abruptly fully understood why this certain painting had received the reaction it had, because it was wholly overwhelming and entirely consuming. I kept one hand on the canvas, the other covering my mouth, spellbound. “Uh, so I don’t know about you,” Louis mumbled from behind me. “But I am freaking the fuck out about this.” “There’s no way this is the real thing.” I whipped my head around to him. “There’s just no way.” “Alfie, who the fuck are you kidding? Of course it’s the real thing.” He scalded as I turned back to face the piece. “And seriously, I googled it just before you got here, and the last offer he got was dangerously close to a million and he turned it down.” “What the fuck? What the fuck?” “That was only a few weeks ago. He knew he was gunna send it to you. He must have. Do you realise how much fucking money is sitting right in front of you?” “This shouldn’t be here. This should be in a fucking… museum, I don’t know! What the fuck was he thinking?” I was genuinely in a state of shock. I couldn’t think of a reason why he’d send me that painting, because the only thing I could think at that time was how I’d told him I didn’t want paintings that derived from his pain; I didn’t want paintings with blood, and this painting had more blood than any of his others. Three years of literal blood, sweat and tears had been put into the painting before me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to think, how I was supposed to feel. “Was there an address on it?” I turned back to Louis. “No.” “But… But if it’s international, there has to be!” I cried, talking more to myself. “That means he’s in the country, right? That means he’s home!” “I dunno. I dunno how that stuff works. God knows where he is.” I got back to my feet, inspected the top of the painting closely, unable to stop myself from touching the piece. Despite the sinister reasons he was a physical part of that painting, I still felt this overwhelming sense of him, his body and soul, aware that it was the closest I’d been to him in some time. “Why would he send me this?” I whispered. “There’s a note.” Louis’ voice was deadpan, cautious. “What?” “He attached a note for you.” “Wh-what does it say?” He took a step back, reaching to the counter to pick up a small slip of thick paper that he must have placed there earlier, nervous to pass it over to me but knowing he had to. Before I’d even looked at the words he’d written I was crying. I knew in that exact moment that even though I wanted to, I wasn’t ready to move on. My heart was still aching, still lost within this space he had created, a place where it still somehow felt safe in spite of everything. I’d had given him my heart the day I told him I loved him and never claimed it back. Shaking, I took the note from Louis’ hand, biting ruthlessly at my bottom lip, vision blurry but unable to block the few words he had handwritten carefully for me to see. Thank you for helping me heal. Yours, Harry. That was it. No more, no less. And suddenly it made sense, why he’d passed the painting onto me. He had struggled inordinately when it came to selling that painting; it harboured so much meaning for him and yet so much agony. It was almost his way of grounding himself, tying himself to a certain feeling, a negativity, a pain. His heartbreak had been homed in that painting, making his feelings towards it so intricate he’d never quite known what to do. I had truly thought that the day he felt he could finally sell that painting would be a day of growth, a time in which he could finally move forward, finally start to come to terms with his father’s death, and it seemed that day had finally arrived. He had reached the point I had been longing for him to reach, and it was evident that he felt I was largely to thank for that. That was why he’d gifted it to me. I held the note to my chest, tears rolling peacefully down my cheeks. And even though being without him was still tearing me apart, I finally knew he was finding his happiness. I finally knew that the suffering he had endured for years was waning, tumultuous clouds bearing brash bolts of light making way for serene skies. It was the first time I’d felt truly at ease since he’d left. It was as though that painting didn’t merely bring peace to him, but also to me. I’d forgotten that feeling, but it ruptured within me then, as bright and compelling as the paint upon the canvas he had given me. And somehow, that was enough.

[themoonandotherslikeit]

What the Rain Can’t Wash Away - Chapter 23

*FINAL PIECE IN THE LOOK IN HER EYES TRILOGY*

Sixteen years after Lucifer rose and Dean lost his wife, he finds himself with a teenager, a Nephilim, an angel, and his brother living out a Full House rerun with some seriously dark undertones. How will he be able to raise his daughter, fight monsters, and deal with the loss of the love of his life? Sometimes moving on is the hardest part, but with the Winchester’s there’s always something harder around the corner. Isn’t there?

Chapter Twenty-Three, The Reasons We Stay

Dean

She stood in front of me, close enough for me to touch, but I was frozen there, my breath caught in my throat. The air seemed to have a glisten to it, like the sun was catching on snow in the air as it fell. 

“I know this is a lot,” she began softly, her hands clasped together. 

She was wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of black leggings with nothing else. It was so fucking cold out, but she didn’t look cold at all. Her bare feet didn’t even make an indentation in the snow. My stomach clenched as I stared at her black painted toenails. My daughter was dead. That fact hadn’t changed. 

“How?” 

“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise you won’t get mad,” El said cautiously, as if she was testing my temperament. 

I felt my eyebrow raise, and I folded my arms across my chest. I knew enough from the last seventeen years to know that those words never ended well. “You know I can’t promise that.” 

“Well you can at least try .” 

The corner of my mouth tugged up at that. The Winchester sass, god it was music to my fucking ears. “Fine. What is it? How are you here?” 

“I’ve been talking to Billie.” 

“Billy… like Billie ? Death, Billie?” 

El raised her hands as if to silence me. Her hip popped, and she rested her hands on her hips with a raised eyebrow. “Relax, Dad. It’s a good thing.” 

I narrowed my eyes. In my experience anything with Billie was a bad thing, period, end of story. 

“I got a… promotion of sorts.” 

“Promotion?” 

“When I died… I still had some of Micheal’s grace inside of me. So my soul wasn’t completely human…” Her voice trailed off and she looked up at me through thick eyelashes. 

My stomach dropped, my mouth immediately going dry. “What are you saying?” 

“Dad, I’m an angel. Not just a soul in Heaven… I’m an angel.” 

I just stared at her, which is probably the worst thing you can do to a teenager. Her nose wrinkled in distaste,  which was a look that was all too familiar to me. “What does this mean?” 

“It means,” she said softly, reaching out to take my hand. It was a trick of my mind,  but I could’ve sworn I could feel her. “That I can visit, just like Cas does. It won’t be the same, but it means I’m not just dead or gone.” 

I sucked in my breath, fighting back tears. It felt like a dream. It felt unreal. “But does that mean you aren’t resting, El?” I wanted to see her, of course I did. I wanted to keep her close, pluck her from heaven and crawl back into bed just the two of us like we did when she was little, and I’d stay up just watching her chest rise and fall to prove that she was still breathing. I wanted her to be alive. 

But I knew better. If Billie was involved there would be no rest for my daughter. 

She laughed and shook her head, squeezing my hand making my head spin. “Dad, who needs rest, really? What kind of Winchester do you think I am?” She paused, her smile faltering a bit as she reached out and touched my cheek. “What about you? You look tired, Daddy.” 

A sob escaped my lips. I was betrayed by my own damn body, and I wanted to hit something. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I shook my head. “I’m not okay, baby girl. It was supposed to be me.” 

“It has been you, Dad. Over and over again. You don’t have to keep doing this. You can be done.” 

“I’ll never be done. Not until every monster is in its grave not until you’re avenged…” 

“No. You’re not going to do that.” She dropped her hand, and she was frowning deeply now. “You won’t fight in my name. I’m fine. My family is alive. If you want to do anything in my name, get my brother back, make my mom happy and just… live.” 

“How am I supposed to do that?” I was crying. I’d opened the floodgates and I couldn’t fucking stop it. I felt like a child and my knees were weak. 

She let out a breath and her eyes flickered from mine. 

She was just a kid. Holy and glowing and ethereal, but still just a kid. She shouldn’t have to see her dad this way. She shouldn't have to be this grown up. She shouldn’t have had to die. “I’m mad at you, kid.” 

“I know. I’m not sorry.” She pulled my hand and walked me to a bench that I hadn’t realized was there before. She sat me down next to her, and she pulled her legs up to sit crisscross. Her knees brushed mine and damn it I could’ve sworn she was really there. Maybe she was. I could touch Cas, afterall. “How is Claire?” 

“Better than me. She’s strong.” 

“She’s lost so much.” 

“You shouldn’t worry about us, El.” 

“I wouldn’t if I thought you all could get along.” She glanced at me sideways with a squint. “You’re too stubborn.” 

I shrugged a bit with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s my fatal flaw.” 

“Nah. You love too hard, that’s your fatal flaw.” She smiled and looked off in the distance. “What about Mom and Sam?”

I winced at the mention of Ave. I fucked up, and I just kept fucking up over and over again. When would I ever learn? “They’re sad.” 

“You all need to be together right now, Dad. You should be coming together to help Jack. To teach him how to be a good person even without his soul.” She let out a trembling breath. “He felt bad, Dad, for what he did. Which means there’s some humanity left in him. There has to be. Don’t abandon him. He just did what I asked him to. He saved you at all cost. He did good.”  

“How could you ask him to do that?” 

“What would you have done to save us?” She countered, looking at me in a way that I’m sure Ave and Sam have seen in me a thousand times. Every harebrained scheme. Every time I tried to martyr myself for the greater good. She was right. She was doing it because she learned it from me. “I didn’t want to die, Dad. Of course I didn’t. I didn’t want to leave you and Mom right after I got her back. I didn’t want to leave Claire and our future… But you just got Mom back, too. You’ve sacrificed so much for us, for the world. It’s time you get to rest. It’s time you get to retire.” She held my face in her hands and ran her thumbs across my now-closed eyelids. “Especially now. I’m sorry about your eyes.” 

“You didn’t do it,” I said with a grunt. 

“Still.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead between my eyes. The gesture was so tender that it got my emotions bubbling up inside of my chest again, threatening to explode out of me. I pulled her into a hug. 

“Life ain’t fair.” 

“No it’s not,” She agreed, wrapping me in her own small arms. “But sometimes even in the worst situations things can be good…”

“You sure didn’t get that optimism from me,” I laughed dryly.

She pulled back a bit and looked at me, she was biting her bottom lip like she was afraid to say whatever was on her mind. “I… There’s more.” 

I let out a heavy sigh. “Out with it, kid. I ain’t getting any younger.” 

“There’s more that came with my promotion . I’m not only an angel, I’m sort of the angel. With the bit of archangel grace inside of me… it makes me a natural leader of heaven. Or so Billie says. The angels are lost, Dad. They need guidance.” 

My daughter, the leader of angels. “I always knew you were meant for greatness.” My heart tugged a hit, and I hugged her again. “You’ve grown up really good, El. I’m proud of you.”

“Daddy will you please try, please ? Make Mom happy. Be happy yourself. Give her a special date… help Jack.. don’t fight with Sam,” her voice cracked as she hugged me tighter. “Make sure Claire doesn’t fall apart.”

I kissed her hair, holding her tightly. This is where I was always meant to be. “Will we see you again?”

“Absolutely. Pray to me, and I will try to come as fast as I can.”

Pray to her. Chuck is MIA, but I can pray and my daughter will flap down from Heaven with her big angel wings. What a weird fucking life. “I will.”

“I love you, El.”

“Me too, Dad.” 

Ava

Don’t make me have died for nothing.  

I had a happy life. I knew what it felt like to be protected, cherished, loved. I never took less than what I deserved, because I was surrounded by so much goodness. 

Mom, I knew what love should be, because even after you were gone, Dad never stopped loving you. He never tried to move on… No matter how much I tried to make him. He always said he had his one great love. I wanted that with my whole heart, and I got that with Claire. I was loved, Mom. I died being loved. 

Please don’t worry about me. I will see you all again. I’m leaving you a space next to me in my Heaven. We all know the world can’t handle this many Winchester’s all at once, but we will see each other again. I only ask one thing… Love each other fully and don’t let this destroy you. You both have spent my entire life apart and it’s time you get to be together again. A lifetime isn’t long, especially for hunters. 

I love you both more than I can ever say. I couldn’t wish for better parents. I will see you both soon. 

-Eleanor 

I folded the paper and held it to my heart, silent tears rolling down my cheeks. She was so grown up for her age. So warm. So smart. I didn’t have my own mother. This world, this life ripped her away from me when I was too young. Here it is doing it again. 

Christmas lights sparkled in the distance, and I felt a relief flood through me, beating with my heart through my bloodstream. My daughter is okay. This isn’t what we asked for, but Dean is alive. I’m alive. Against everything we have ever had happen to us, every moment of darkness we have faced… we are still standing. Despite all odds we are doing okay. Grief is powerful, I knew that, but Ella was right when she said that us falling apart would make her death be in vain. We had to live, because she couldn’t. 

I folded up the letter and tucked it in my shirt over my heart and wiped my eyes, before climbing down off of the frozen billboard and heading right home to find Dean. 

**** 

The bunker was quiet. The whole day had bled away into evening, and I hadn’t heard from Dean. This was our last shot. I wasn’t sure I could survive another rejection from him. I didn’t think my heart could take it. “Dean?” I called out, my voice coming out quieter than I expected. I was afraid. I’d never been afraid to talk to Dean, he was my person. I sucked in my breath and searched the bunker. As I was walking down the hall Sam stopped me. He was coming out of Jack’s room. 

“Is he okay?”

Sam nodded and touched my shoulder. “He’s asleep. Must be really tired, since he barely slept before. Poor kid seemed tuckered out. Should’ve seen him when Claire saw him.” 

“Oh god, what happened?” 

“She hugged him,” Sam said softly, tears in his eyes. “El loved that kid.” 

“Yeah, she does.” I squeezed his arm. “Have you seen Dean?” 

He shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Ave. he probably just needs time to cool off…” 

I sucked in my breath and nodded, trying to swallow the tears that threatened to jump up my throat. “What about me, Sam? Haven’t we been apart enough?” 

How much pain could one person handle? 

He offered me a sad smile, but he didn’t speak, because we both knew that nothing he could say would make any difference. Words didn’t make someone care. Words didn’t turn back time. 

“I think I’m going to head to bed.” 

“You sure?” Sam asked, squeezing my shoulder. “I can make drinks…” 

I put my hand on his, squeezing it before removing it. I nodded to him. “Yeah, I’m exhausted. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sam.” 

I reached up on my tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek, before slipping past him and walking down to the end of the hallway to my room--Dean's room. It wasn’t mine. I didn’t know who I was kidding. If this thing ended… There’d be no sense in staying in the bunker. Sam is family… but he’s Dean’s family first, and my ex. In the end I would be left alone. 

I wanted to cry-- to scream, to fall asleep for the next week. 

I flipped on the light as I walked into the room and all of my breath got knocked out of my chest, my soul almost leaping out of my skin as I found Dean sitting on the edge of the bed in complete darkness, staring blankly ahead. 

“Ava?” 

I held my chest, gasping for breath, my heart racing under my palm. “Yeah, Dean, it’s me. Why are you just sitting in the dark?” 

“Is it dark?” He frowned. “Sorry I was… I was just waiting for you.” 

I softened a bit and walked to him, but as I made it to him, he stood up, almost knocking me down. “Fuck,” he murmured, grabbing me by my waste. Our chests brushed and suddenly everything melted away. 

“Dean,” I whispered. 

“I saw her,” he said, not even a breath later. “I saw El.” 

“What?” 

He nodded and pressed his forehead to mine. “She’s an angel, Ave. She had some more of Micheal’s grace and now… she’s going to run Heaven.” 

“What?” My head was spinning. I tried to pull away to look at him, but his grip on me was tight. He held me in place. 

“I fucked up, baby. I’m sorry. I don’t want to push you away… I don’t want to lose you, to lose us and our family. Ella said she can visit like Cas does. We can pray to her and she will come. I love you and I know I don’t deserve…” 

I kissed him. I held his face, scruff, dirt and all, and I placed a deep kiss on his lips. “I promised you that I’d love you forever, Dean. Longer than death, longer than pain. In this life and the next. That means forever.” 

—————

Epilogue

Get caught up!

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[adamlynnch]

Check Please!: fic recs

these are mostly nurseydex heavy but there are some good ones. I’ll tag ships just incase.

*Crossed Wires by lecrivaineanonyme

14k, Oneshot, T (nurseydex)

Will snorts. "You are unreal,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve had people in here crying because they downloaded a virus that can be removed in two minutes, and here you are with pie-filling in your computer, joking about how at least you didn’t fucking put rice in it.”

Derek grins. “It’s chill,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck. “Why worry? I know you got my back.”

Also known as the one where Nursey is constantly fucking up his laptop and Dex is the lucky Best Buy employee who gets to fix it.

*Mixing It Up by sinspiration

40k, Multi-chapter, M (zimbits)

Eric Bittle, of Bitty's Bakery, is very excited to have been chosen as a contestant for the Food Network Challenge. He's even more excited to find out that he's making a cake for the NHL new-Cup winners, the Falconers.

Jack Zimmerman, of the Falconers, doesn't know anything about cake, and will be the first to tell you that he feels wholly unqualified to judge a cake-making competition. At least Alexei is there to help ease things a little. Honestly, all he's really expecting is to be very awkward on camera for the entire segment, and to eat a lot of cake that's not really in his diet plan.

That's how it starts.

*how to not fall in love with your best friend + other holiday activities by quidhitch

7k, Oneshot, M (holsom)

When Ransom meets Adam Birkholtz for the first time he’s wearing a t-shirt that’s half a size too small for him, jeans that are worn out in the ratty way, and Birkenstocks that look about a thousand years old. His glasses are crooked on his nose and he introduces himself with a loud, booming laugh even though Ransom hasn’t said anything particularly funny. Ransom thinks it’s the kind of laugh that moves mountains, full and round and beautiful.

“Everyone calls me Holster,” Adam says, squeezing Ransom’s hand before he lets it go.

“Cool,” Ransom’s smile back is a reflex, the easiest, most natural response to Holster’s toothy grin. “I’m Ransom.”

“Sick nickname,” Holster tosses an arm around Ransom’s shoulder’s without warning. He is very large and very warm, and his breath smells like cinnamon. “You know what, Ransom? I think we’re gonna be tight.”

*I Know I Am, But What Are You? by sysrae

19k, Multi-chapter, E (nurseydex)

“I need you,” says Dex, “to be my fake date at my family Christmas. Please.” “Cool,” says Nursey, mouth operating on Chill Autopilot while his higher brain functions come to a screeching halt. “I can do that.”

first love, late spring by lehtonen

12k, Oneshot, M (holsom)

“Right.” Ransom still looks serious, but there’s a sinister glint in his eye that Holster gloomily recognises as contemplation. “What’s in it for us?”

Holster whips his head round to stare at him so fast his neck twinges in three different places. “Nothing is in it for us,” he hisses sotto voce, “or did you not hear the part where we’d be dating?”

handful of crazy stars by alwaysayes

2k, Oneshot, T (nurseydex)

your name is derek nurse and your world is on fire and will is your sun and your moon and stars and your entire virgo supercluster and you know that you are his too. your name is derek nurse and for the first time in your life you may have something other than hockey to keep you going because he makes you strong and you make him strong and together you are inescapable and magical and radiant and everything in the world that you will ever need because you have each other.

*The Huntsman and the Bard by rhysiana

9k, Oneshot, T (nurseydex)

Derek Nurse has cut it extremely fine on finding a cover story location for their New England travel magazine's fall issue, but he the pumpkin farm he just came across looks almost too good to be real. If only he can get the taciturn owner to agree to an interview...

Dex has no interest in an interview, or any kind of publicity. He's just trying to live a normal, mundane life, far, far away from the politics of the Faerie Court and his mother. But this journalist is proving oddly persuasive...

In which things go right, and then they go very, very wrong. Faerie queens do not like to be denied.

All I Ask by nickbonino

1k, Oneshot, T (holsom)

Ransom had been at March’s for a little under two hours, one last afternoon together before Ransom went to kiss the ice goodbye that evening, when he got the call. Bitty sounded almost frantic but was clearly trying hard to hide it.

“Ransom, I think you should come home. I don’t know what’s going on but I think you should be here.” Bitty’s voice rose as he spoke and Ransom heard what sounded like him banging on a door.

“Bits, I’m sorry dude but I’m kinda busy. Can’t you just sort whatever it is?” He tried to sound as apologetic as possible but Bitty was having none of it.

“Holster won’t open his door, Rans! I can hear him cr-. Just come home,” Bitty ordered, with a note of finality Ransom wasn’t prepared to argue with.

“Yeah, yeah okay. I’ll be there in five,” he sighed and hung up.

*and we dance like angels do by benvolio

7k, Oneshot, T

"Bitty is a literal angel. Not just the whole angelic metaphor concerning how his blond hair probably forms a wispy halo around him when the light hits him from behind or anything. Real deal angel."

Inspired by tumblr user cardamom 

all this war just to win by lehtonen

8k, Oneshot, E (nurseydex)

“You want me to shut up?” Dex takes a step back, triumphant, his eyes flashing. “Make me.”

Or: Dex and Nursey hook up, but they're still a mess.

*if we bite (the pain is sweet) by shellybelle

57k, Multi-chapter, E (nurseydex)

After two and a half semesters at Samwell, Dex has gotten used to people handling their stress in weird ways. Bitty bakes up a storm, Lardo is constantly covered in what Dex really, really hopes is paint, Ransom turns into a curled-up ball of anxiety on the nearest flat surface. He gets it: people are just weird here.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t choke on his Red Bull when Nursey sighs, “God, I’m so tense right now. I just really need to suck a dick, y’know?”

(Or: five times Dex and Nursey really don’t quite know what they’re doing, and one time they’ve really, really figured it out.)

dots and dashes. by katarama

1k, Oneshot, T (nurseydex)

It took him a longest to warm up to Nursey, to feel comfortable with much more contact than a fistbump after a celly. There were the incessant “chill”s that grated on Dex’s nerves more than they should’ve. There was also the voice in the back of Dex’s head to be careful, because once everyone found out he liked boys, there was no helping the fact that things with Nursey would get weird.

Now, they’ve come far enough that he’s sitting on the grass with Nursey’s head in his lap by the pond, the sun finally warm enough in May to have melted all the ice and snow.

Cheiloproclitic by akadiene

1k, Oneshot, T (zimbits)

Cheiloproclitic - Being attracted to someones lips.

Jack really likes kissing.

all that you've conquered by whimsicalimages

10k, Oneshot, T (nurseydex)

“Drunk Nursey doesn’t write checks that sober Nursey can’t cash,” Nursey tells him very seriously.

Or: William J. Poindexter’s sister is getting married, which means, among other things, that he has to learn how to dance.

Close by tiptoe39

23k, Multi-chapter, E (zimbits)

They’ve been together for a month and a half. Now they need to learn how to be close.

A Madison/Fourth of July fic