#Are there fics out there of him and Maggie and Sam in the Before and I'm just missing them?

[gyllenhaalstories]

DON'T LET THE GRINCH STEAL CHRISTMAS — TOMMY CAHILL 🎄

summary: not even a christmas miracle can save a familly dinner with the cahills from turning into a debacle.

warnings: i'm quoting a scene from the movie but i'm taking creative liberties, food & eating, curse words, family feud, smut (quickie, semi public sex, pussy eating & fingering). 18+ NO MINORS.

word count: 2440

photo credits: me (@/gyllenhaalstories) / divider credits: @/saradika & @/saradika-graphics

notes: ending a second year with a tommy fic just felt right. ❤️💚 thank you for reading & REMEMBER TO REBLOG!

"This food is great, Elsie. Thank you." Tommy broke the awkward silence that loomed over the dinner table. Despite the smaller plate full of discarded peas in front of him, he still enjoyed the homemade dinner offered to him.

You opened your mouth to thank the older woman, too, for being such a lovely host but you were cut off by a wave of arrogance and bitterness that washed over your side of the table.

"Compared to what?" Hank Cahill huffed mockingly.

You helped Tommy's youngest niece and silently prayed that this would not degenerate for the sake of the kids. But of course it would. It was not a proper dinner at the Cahills if it did not end up in a screaming match. "Let it go." You leaned closer to your boyfriend to whisper those words, but your attempt at calming him down was, rightfully, vain.

Tommy dropped his fork on his plate and threw his hands up, shrugging. "Other food." He sounded defeated, knowing he already lost the fight that had barely started.

"Prison food?" His father retorted.

Tommy was a ticking time bomb around his family. Again, rightfully so. Hank just loved to handle his oldest son like a grenade, throwing him in a ditch once he started the explosion so he would not have to take the blame for the collateral damage. Tommy slammed his closed fist on the table.

"Tommy!" Sam called out his name, so quick to protect his father.

And, just as quickly, Tommy shut up. He reached his arm in front of you so he could reach to the other side, trying to reassure Maggie.

You could feel that he was fuming and he tried to hold it in so things would settle down. Instead, Hank mumbled into his plate and ate a spoonful of green peas.

Unable to handle the tension, Tommy promptly sprang to his feet and walked away to hide in the bathroom.

Nobody ever stood up for Tommy. Elsie would excuse herself to the kitchen. Grace would focus on her daughters. Sam would watch with his mind lost elsewhere and, mostly, without a care for the way his father treated his brother. Nobody truly ever ever stood up for Tommy except you. If Hank took a certain malevolent delight in being mean to his son, you took just as much pleasure in calling him out for it.

You stood up just as promptly as Tommy did and threw your napkin on the table. "With all due respect, mister Cahill..."

That sentence always succeeded in putting an angry smirk on the elderly man's face. He knew you had little to no respect for him, which was exactly what he deserved.

You looked at Maggie and Isabelle, bringing your hands to your ears so they would imitate you. They giggled as they pretended to hum a little sing-song to cover up the sound of your potty mouth. "You have no room to talk as the poor excuse of a father that you are." You took advantage of the fact Tommy was out of the room to lay the truth before his father. He would not allow it otherwise. "Tommy appreciates the hard work your wife did to prepare us a lovely Christmas dinner more than you ever could. He sure as hell didn't learn thankfulness from you and you should be glad he didn't learn how to be an asshole like you 'cause that's all you know how to teach."

Isabelle and Maggie uncovered their ears and resumed to eating and talking to each other. It broke your heart a to witness just how used they had gotten to this dysfunctional family.

You pushed your chair behind you and walked around the table. You stood by the head of it and, on the other side, there was Sam standing up and looking at you with a hint of disdain, but mostly surprise. Even he could not stand up to Hank in such a way. All the bravery and courage and praise about how he was so strong for serving his country so proudly turned into dust when it came to facing a bad guy such as his father. You held his gaze for a few seconds before you huffed, in the same manner as Hank did earlier. "So much for being a hero." You looked at both Sam and Hank one last time before you made a beeline to the bathroom.

*~*~*

You closed the door behind you and took a moment to assess the scene.

Tommy was pacing back and forth in the small bathroom. He looked tense but his demeanour softened when he locked eyes with you. He shrugged, silently apologizing.

"They'll be fine." You reassured him, easily guessing that he worried about his nieces. "You'll be fine too." Your hand reached to his cheek that you stroked lovingly. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Tommy nodded, pressing his lips together. He kissed your forehead and lingered, as if he was charging his batteries up and as if they were fuelled by the sweet scent of your perfume and the warmth that emanated from you and comforted him effortlessly. "It's just that—"

You shushed him with a peck on his lips. "Let's forget about it for now, alright?" You were met with a frown and a quizzical gaze. "They're gonna keep on being annoying. They're your family, it's what they do best." He agreed with a shrug. "Your father has already ruined so many things for you. Don't let that angry old man ruin Christmas."

You heard a faint chuckle coming from Tommy. "Like the Grinch?"

You laughed along with him. "Exactly like the Grinch."

He leaned forward for a kiss. He inhaled your scent again and further calmed down. He pulled back with a grin on his face. "I thought it was good that I talked about my feelings?"

"It is!" You defended yourself quickly. It was something you put a lot of emphasis on, to help Tommy better himself like he wanted. All that pent-up anger would lead nowhere if he followed the example of his brother and father. "I'm proud of you for working on that and talking about how you feel with me. You're doing so good at talking."

He mouthed the words 'thank you' but he frowned again while you caressed his arms up and down, the sleeves of his shirt awkwardly following your movements. It took a few seconds, but he caught on. "Let me guess..."

"Enough talking for now." You moved in closer and whispered at his ear. His family made enough noise to cover whatever sounds the two of you could make. You both knew it, it was not the first time you sneaked away from them. "But..." He squinted at you. "It's not a crime to find your boyfriend hot when he's lashing out at other people, right?"

He shook his head, telling you that it was not a crime either for him to think what you did earlier was even hotter. "Yeah, enough talking for now." Tommy smirked and pressed a kiss on your lips, a kiss that got deep and rough in no time. The mood shift was very much welcome.

Your hands caressed their way up to the collar of his shirt, clinging onto it. You kept making out, only taking quick breaks to catch your breath.

Meanwhile, Tommy's hands moved down to your ass and gave it a hard squeeze. He guided you towards the vanity so you could lean on the counter, not once did his lips leave yours. Instead, his tongue invaded your mouth and he swallowed your moans.

You held his face in your hands for a moment or two, enjoying the kiss to the fullest before you moved on to something else.

He pulled his head back when he felt your hand now in his short hair. Tommy smirked and, without any resistance, he let you push down on him until he got on his knees.

"You look so pretty down there." You murmured.

You thought he was too distracted to hear you by the way he hungrily peppered kisses on the inside of your thighs, but the words you spoke sent a wave of pleasure down to his cock. That's not what he wanted to focus on right now.

The main focus was you and the soft whimpers you let out when he kissed your pussy over your panties. You were glad Tommy convinced you to wear a skirt for Christmas dinner.

He grunted, displeased by how his brain reminded he did not have the luxury to take his time. He pushed your panties to the side and held the fabric out of the way with his thumb as the rest of his hand pushed your leg open for him. He buried his tongue between your folds and let out a moan louder than yours.

You covered your mouth with one hand and bunched your skirt up with the other.

Tommy’s tongue lapped at your pussy, closing his eyes blissfully at the taste of you.

You started to move your hips, disregarding the uncomfortable counter that rubbed against your ass. You humped Tommy’s face and your eyes rolled to the back of your head as his nose bumped on your clit, and as his tongue teased your entrance.

With his spit and your wetness, it was like your body was begging for him to fuck you. You had to wait for that, and he was already getting impatient. He pushed his middle finger inside of you and sucked on your clit, that was as close as he would get to feeling you wrapped around him.

Luckily for you, the Christmas music coming from the living room kept your activities safe between Tommy and you. There was no way your moans, and Tommy’s, could be heard.

But, to be even more careful, Tommy’s hand on your thigh gave it a squeeze. He flicked his tongue on your clit just how you liked it, pumping his finger in and out of you quite fast.

You abandoned your skirt to put your hand on his head and hold him in place. It was the most subtle way you could think of telling him that he felt so fucking good.

And he knew it. He pulled away for a short moment, just long enough to catch his breath and to give you one of his cocky smirks. His beard was glistening, his lips were wet and his eyes were dark with lust.

You barely had enough time to admire this beautiful sight that he was back at it. His beard burned on your sensitive skin, but, in the heat of the moment, it felt too good to stop. He was making your head fall back in pleasure as you felt the familiar tension of your orgasm approach.

Tommy's finger curled up inside you, finding that sweet spot that made you whimper. His tongue met with your clit and this time, he was not stopping. He was not stopping even if you tried so had to close your legs around him. He was not stopping even if you tried to control the pace with your hand on his head. He wanted, and needed, you to cum and he knew just how much you needed it too.

"Oh, fuck!" You moaned out, immediately biting on your finger to prevent another slip up. You wanted to tell him so badly how close you were, but it was pointless.

He already knew. He sucked on your clit and pumped his middle finger in your wet pussy a few more times until he felt your walls clench tight around him. Tommy fought against your body, just carrying you over the edge until he was convinced you could no longer take it.

Your vision was blurry aside from the little stars that were spinning around Tommy's head when you looked down. You forgot how to breathe, how to move even, until Tommy slowly slid his finger out of you and let you come back to your senses.

The sloppy kiss you shared after that was heavenly. You could taste yourself on his lips and his tongue, and it only got the two of you even more eager for what would happen the second you were left actually alone.

Tommy adjusted your panties back in their place and flattened your skirt, or, well, he tried to. You looked rough and so did he with his face shiny from your wetness.

You kissed him again, quickly, before you turned the faucet on and helped him wash himself clean as best as you could get it. While the water was running, you moved closer to his ear and asked a rather important question. "So, what's the escape plan?"

Tommy's eyes widened. Right. You guys needed a plan. It was not the first time you sneaked away like that, but he always forgot how awkward it could be. "Can you fake a tummy ache?"

"You're so clever." You chuckled and patted his face dry with a tissues.

The two of you took deep breaths and tried to darken your expression, although it was hard to shake off the pure pleasure you had experienced.

They were surprisingly gullible and believed in your lame excuse, at the exception of Maggie who whispered to her sister that you were one of Santa's elves and uncle Tommy had to drive you to the toy factory. They were so caught up in their conspiracy theory that they barely let you out without a hug, but they rushed to the front door for a kiss goodbye.

Hank looked at his son disapprovingly, Elsie promised to save slices of pie and cake to be picked up when you felt better. Grace smiled and focused her attention back on her kids and her husband.

You got out of there as if nothing happened. As if there had not been a huge fight, as if that same fight had not been resolved by Tommy devouring your pussy like it was his last meal.

A last meal that needed to be followed by dessert, Tommy's hand that was on your thigh while he drove his truck home reminded you of the rest of your evening plans. You watched him drive and you played the game of whether he could be patient enough to wait for you two to be home or if he would give up halfway and take you in the back of his pick-up.

Judging by the way Tommy was smiling and beaming, one thing was for sure: the Grinch was not successful in stealing Christmas this year.

[bullet-prooflove]

I’d love to see your version of a secret spouse/SO with any of the following

Duarte

Jubal Valentine

Jimmy Lanik

And/Or

Sam Abrams.

Feel free to write as many or as few of those as you want. You are a genius writer.

Also, why don’t you write for barba or Carisi anymore?

Jubal doesn’t tell anyone he’s seeing you. He keeps it on the downlow because he doesn’t want to jinx it. If he’s honest with himself, part of it is because he can’t actually believe that it’s finally happening, that he gets to wake up alongside of you each morning.

It stays a secret for about two months, until Scola comes knocking because he left his I.D badge on your coffee table the night before when the two of you were watching the game. He’s kissing you goodbye when he literally opens the door and sees the other man standing there. He expects it to spread after that but it doesn’t. Scola’s good at keeping secrets, he’s been keeping a lid on the way Jubal feels about you since the day you took a bullet for your partner.

It's O.A. that finds out next, the two of you are getting dinner in a tiny hole in the wall restaurant. Jubal’s just reached across the table and taken your hand when Omar appears alongside of you. He’s picking up an order for dinner with his cousins and saw the two of you sitting there.

“It’s been a long time coming.” He tells the two of you with a knowing smile.

He’s not wrong. It’s taken years to get to this point and Jubal’s grateful it’s happening now after you’ve made the shift to Counter Terrorism.

Maggie works it out when she sees you on a run. It’s six in the morning and she’s completing a second circuit of her new route when she spots the two of you at a coffee shop near the park. She notices Jubal’s wearing yesterday’s shirt, before he leans in to kiss you. She tells O.A. later on that morning and he simply gives her that shit eating grin.

“You knew.” She accuses.

“For over a month.” He tells her.

Tiffany knows that Jubal’s seeing someone, she’s known ever since she pointed out the lipstick on his cheek one morning. She just doesn’t realise who it is until you’re called in to work a case together. She realises how much your body language has changed since you used to work here, how instead of putting distance between the two of you, you’re leaning in instead.

“It’s finally happened.” She tells Scola when the case is over, and he snorts before telling her she’s three months too late.

The relationship isn’t even on Isobel’s radar, not until six months down the line. She’s leaving her office when she sees the two of you step onto the elevator together. Jubal’s hand reaches for yours, fingers entwining, and she knows she’s looking at a couple in love. She smiles to herself because out of everyone the two of you deserve it.

This plays into my Jubal work moving forward. Also the reference to Scola keeping Jubal's secret is to an upcoming fic called 'Just in Case'.

Answer to your Q:

I'm just not a fan of them anymore. I really liked what they did in the end with Rollisi, not the beginning but the way it turned out with them and in my head that's OTP. For Barba, I rewatched his eps a while ago and I just hated what they did to his character towards the end, like he became a different person. - also for me I think I was done with him after I finnished writing 'All In' I couldn't imagine him with anyone other then Jen after that.

[ashandkatiewrite]

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (Chapter 22)

FIC SYNOPSIS: Maggie Hastings meets her dream man after a flight into New York City— Bucky Barnes, a pilot who seems to be everything she’s looking for. Except that she already has a boyfriend who never has time for her. After a near-tryst with her dream pilot, Maggie runs, only to find out he later meets her best friend and they’re now crazy about each other. Among their group of best friends, between Chicago and New York, and four weddings and a funeral, Maggie and Bucky struggle to keep their fiery chemistry a secret so they don’t hurt the ones they love.

WRITTEN BY: @if-you-onlyknew & @katiekinswrites

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/OFC

Rating: M (Mature) & E (Explicit)

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

chapter preview…

“Sam, I need to talk to Bucky,” Maggie said, getting to the point.

“Bucky? He’s uh — he’s not here. He left.” Sam lied badly, still looking uncomfortable being put in this position. “Had to get back to that sweet, sweet Miami heat.” He continued on, “He’s really thriving down there. I haven’t seen him look this happy and healthy in a long time.” 

Maggie frowned. “That’s…good to hear,” she said. Bucky certainly looked muscular — even more than he had before. He also had a nice tan. He looked fucking amazing. Maybe Sam wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe Bucky actually was better off down in Miami. Happier. “I…” Maggie sighed, “I really wanted to talk to him,” she admitted. “I was hoping to catch him before he left. I should have come here sooner but there was drama with Billy at the funeral…” Her words trailed off. “I just really need to talk to Bucky.” 

Pal got up from Maggie’s lap and off the couch, nudging her with his big head before looking to the living room doorway. 

Given the way Sam reacted to Pal trying to lead Maggie into the next room, it was easy to figure out that Bucky was in the house and not in Miami like Sam told her he was. 

“Really?” Maggie said to Sam. “Are we five?” She asked as she stood up to follow Pal, who led her to the dining room where Bucky was. She shook her head in frustration. “Can we please talk?”

Bucky didn’t say anything. He merely pressed his lips together and set his fork down after giving a tense look to Maggie. “This won’t take long,” he told Rebecca and Sam, fully intending on coming straight back to finish his dinner. 

TAGLIST: @acabecca • @arrthurpendragon • @cas-verse • @cjand10 • @darkwolf76 • @darylandbethfanforever9 • @eddysocs • @fcundwitch • @jewishbarbies • @ocappreciationtag • @sassysophiabush • @scarletwidoww • @seb-soph • @starcrossedjedis 

[kamryn1963]

If I Died Last Night- FBI Jubal\Isobel fic

Summary: Jubal never wanted things to end this way but god was he tired. Tyler's health scare seemed to be his breaking point.

Isobel didn't know things had gotten this bad. She should've seen the signs he relapsed. But she didn't, not until it was almost too late.

Notes: Pay attention to the tags before reading as this fic does have some potentially triggering themes.

Set directly after Jubal's relapse in Breakdown (5x12)

Enjoy!

Jubal had a plan. He was going to go to Sam’s, check on Tyler and Abigail and then go back home where he knew Isobel was waiting. He would stop to get flowers and her favorite takeout and then head home. 

Jubal would confess, tell her what he did that he relapsed. He knew it was only a matter of time before Maggie told her and knew Isobel would be angry if she didn’t hear it from him. 

The plan was simple and Jubal had been able to do the first thing. But everything was still too much and he couldn’t stomach the thought of disappointing Isobel. She hadn’t signed up for this. He was clean when they began dating. Jubal didn’t want to put Isobel through what he had put Sam through for years. 

It wasn’t fair for her. 

So instead of going back to his and Isobel’s place or letting her know he was okay, Jubal headed to the nearest bar. He already slipped so why not go all the way?

Drink after drink even as his phone rang and lit up with text messages, drink after drink until the bartender cut him off and told him to get out. 

Somehow, not that Jubal remembered, he managed to get to his car. His car had a brand new bottle of tylenol in the back. Isobel had bought it a few days ago but they both had forgotten to bring it inside. 

Just then his phone rang again and Jubal reached a shaky hand out to grab it. That’s when he realized it was almost midnight, five hours since he had seen Isobel or let her know anything. Last she knew he was going to Sam’s. 

Jubal answered. 

“Jubal?! Where the hell are you?” Isobel demanded as soon as the call connected. 

“Sorry”. Jubal slurred as his head lolled to the side and he struggled to open the container of pills. 

“Jubal, tell me where you are.” Isobel sounded angry but even in his drunken state, Juabl knew she was worried. 

“I’m sorry”. That’s all Jubal could say. All he could manage. He moved his shaking fingers over and ended the call before Isobel could answer. 

He was tired. God was he so tired. Of everything. Of relapsing and failing his friends and family. They would be better off without him. Sam wouldn’t have to deal with his bullshit anymore. 

Tyler and Abigail would be better off without him as well, without a deadbeat father like him. One that was barely around anymore. One that was so fucked up. 

Same with the team. They could manage without him. 

One pill, two, three, four, five. 

Jusbal’s phone rang again. Isobel. She’d be better off without him too. She’d find somebody that could love her the way she deserved. Not him who couldn’t even stay clean without a stressful day sending him back drinking. 

More pills. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.  

Banging on the window, his phone going off again. 

The alcohol and pills worked and Jubal’s head lolled back as a bang was heard and he managed to open his eyes enough to see his window had been smashed. The door was forced open and OA was bending over him with a hand on Jubal’s neck to feel for a pulse. 

Jubal was surprised they’d gotten here that fast. He was hoping he’d be dead before then. So the last thing he saw wasn’t the disappointment on their faces. Jubal guessed this is what he deserved. 

He reached a hand out for the pill bottle again but it was swatted away and he saw Maggie before his eyes closed. 

Jubal felt himself being lifted, moved, the flashing lights of an ambulance. Maggie demanding he stay awake and then the world went dark and Jubal limp and unconscious. 

Isobel lost track by hour seven. How long she’d been at Jubal’s side waiting for him to wake up. To show her he was okay. Or as okay as he could be right now. 

Isobel had known something was wrong when Jubal got to work that day. They had gone to work in separate cars that day as Isobel had a meeting to attend and Jubal was picking up coffee and breakfast. When he arrived she could tell something was wrong and only later found out it was about Tyler. 

After they finally wrapped the case up, Jubal had let her know he was going to Sam’s to check on his kids. Isobel had offered to come, not wanting him to be alone but Jubal had told her he wanted to do this alone and Isobel hadn’t protested. Not when he was already so stressed out and irritable. 

Jubal hadn’t come home though and after calling Sam and finding out Jubal was only there for a half hour, she started calling him. 

At midnight she got an answer and Isobel knew right away Jubal was drunk. She tried to figure out where he was so she could pick him up, keep him safe before he did something stupid but when Jubal hung up Isobel realized she was too late. 

Isobel called the team and it didn’t take long before OA, Maggie, Scola and Tiffany found Jubal. 

Isobel didn’t know what she expected but Maggie calling her and telling her the hospital Jubal had been brought to because they were pretty sure he tried to kill himself, was not it. Isobel knew she probably broke several traffic laws on her drive there. 

The last couple hours had been a blur of doctors and nurses and other medical personnel. Finally she got an update on Jubal. 

“Mr. Valentine is stable. We had to pump his stomach but he should make a full recovery. Will have a psychiatrist come in for a mental health assessment once he’s stable”. The doctor relayed and Isobel breathed a sigh of relief though she knew there was still a long road ahead. 

Now she was at Jubal’s side seven hours after he had attempted. It was all just starting to hit Isobel. Jubal, her Jubal, had tried to kill himself. She tried to tell herself it had been the alcohol, but Isobel knew deep down Jubal had been struggling for a while. 

Isobel should’ve seen this. Should’ve known he even relapsed for god's sake. Maggie had caught the signs but Isobel hadn’t. It was her boyfriend, her partner and she should’ve seen it. 

Isobel should’ve argued should’ve come with him to see Sam and the kids so she could make sure he got home safe. 

Isobel still had to tell them. Had to tell Sam what Jubal had tried to do. Sam would have to tell the kids. Those kids who had already gone through too much. 

Isobel took a shaky breath before turning her attention back to Jubal. As soon as he was awake she’d do that. Until then Isobel wasn’t going to leave his side. 

The door to Jubal’s hospital room opened and Isobel turned to see Maggie entering with a cup of coffee she offered to Isobel who took it gratefully. 

“Thank you”. Isobel whispered as she sipped the coffee before turning back to Jubal and grabbing one of his cold hands with her free one.

“How is he?” Maggie asked as she grabbed a spare chair and sat down. 

“Stable. Psychically at least”. Isobel replied, her voice hoarse from all the crying she had done already. 

“I’m sorry, Isobel. I should’ve told you he drank again”. Maggie said. She knew she should’ve told Isobel as soon as she found out Jubal relapsed. Not just because she was the boss but because she knew about Jubal and Isobel’s relationship. 

“Maggie, it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you”. Isobel said firmly. Despite everything she was feeling and all that had happened, Isobel needed Maggie to know that none of this was her fault at all. 

“I still should’ve told you”. Maggie replied and Isobel could hear the guilt in her voice and she hated it. Hated what tonight had turned into. 

“Maggie, listen to me. Jubal hasn’t been doing well for a while. Not just tonight. With everything going on at work and with Tyler, his mental health has been slipping. Even after Rina he didn’t get any kind of therapy or let himself grieve properly. Jubal needs help and he’s going to get that now”. Isobel stated. She needed to say this outloud. Not just for Maggie’s state but for her own too. 

Maggie nodded and while Isobel could tell she still held some guilt, Isobel did too and didn’t know what else to say. They sat in silence and Isobel’s mind went back to the calls she had to make. 

She knew she also had to reach out to Kristen who Isobel knew was still in contact with Jubal. They were close and Isobel knew she deserved to know what was going on with Jubal. 

Maggie seemed to be reading her mind as she spoke up. “Me and OA can tell Sam and the kids. I know you're not in a state to do that right now”. Maggie said cautiously, not wanting to overstep. 

Isobel wanted to argue. She knew she should tell them as Jubal’s girlfriend but Isobel was so tired and didn’t want to leave Jubal’s side. Isobel gave a small nod of agreement. “I need to get into contact with Kristen anyway”. Isobel stated and soon Maggie left to head to Sam’s with OA. 

Isobel grabbed Jubal’s phone, putting in his password, which was Abigail’s birthday, and found Kristen’s contact. She sent her a quick message. 

Hey Kristen, it’s Isobel. It’s about Jubal. Call me back when you can. 

Isobel put his phone back down after and leaned back in her chair. She leaned over gently stroking her fingers through Jubal’s hair and looked at his pale face, at the nasal cannula he had on and the dark bags under his eyes. 

God how had she missed this? She could’ve lost him tonight. 

That thought caused a fresh wave of tears and Isobel was helpless to stop them. She didn’t think she’d ever cried as much as she was that night. 

It was about eight in the morning now and Isobel hadn’t slept at all. She hoped Maggie or Scola or someone had let the others know what was happening and why they weren’t at work. Soon exhaustion caught up with her and Isobel drifted off into a restless sleep still holding Jubal’s hand tightly. 

A day later Jubal finally woke up. The first thing he did was let out a pained groan. His head hurt and his stomach hurt and he was alive. He wasn’t supposed to be. 

Jubal tried to sit up. It was then he realized he was in the hospital. The last place Jubal wanted to be. Unfortunately before he could get up a hand gently pushed him back into the bed. Jubal tried to fight against the grip but he was too weak. 

“Hey, hey Jubal. It’s just me. You're okay, you're safe”. Jubal relaxed at that voice, the fight draining out of him. He recognized that voice. 

“Kirsten?” Jubal rasped as he looked at her. Jubal had so many questions. 

“Yeah, I’m here. I should text Isobel though. Scola finally convinced her to go get something to eat and she’s going to be mad you decided to wake up in the fifteen minutes she was gone”. Kristen joked as she grabbed her phone. 

“What- what are you doing here?” Jubal asked as he looked around the room. God he felt terrible. 

“To see you. Isobel called me and I got the first plane here. I just arrived a few hours ago. You’ve been out almost a day and a half, Jubal”. Kristen’s voice was worried now. 

“Sorry”. That was all Jubal could muster. He was sorry. Sorry for being such a fuck up and burdening everyone. They shouldn’t have to put their lives on hold for him. 

“Don’t you dare apologize Jubal Valentine. You have absolutely nothing to apologize about”. Isobel ordered as she entered the room Scola behind her. 

“You mind giving us a minute?” Isobel’s voice was softer now and both Scola and Kristen nodded. 

“Of course”. Kristen responded as she stood and squeezed Jubal’s shoulder softly before they both left. 

“I told Kristen she didn’t have to come down but she was insistent. Said you’d do the same thing for her”. Isobel explained. Her voice was gentle now, worried as she re-grabbed Jubal’s hand and held it tightly. 

“I would”. Jubal responded as he shifted a bit so he could face Isobel better. She looked absolutely wrecked and exhausted and he could clearly tell she’d been crying. 

Jubal opened his mouth to apologize again but Isobel cut him off before he could say anything. 

“Shh, love. It’s okay”. Isobel said as she cupped his cheek as she perched on the edge of the hospital bed. 

A tear slipped from Jubal’s eye and then another and another as everything that had happened, what he did, caught up to him. His cries turned into sobs and Isobel held him the best she could, being mindful of the wires and IV’s. 

“I’ve got you, just let it out”. Isobel urged. A nurse poked his head in but Isobel just shook her head to let him know they were okay. She knew psych would be in soon and Jubal would have to be assessed and that was going to be hard but right now she was going to work on calming him down. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Iz”. Jubal managed between sobs. 

“I’m not mad, love. You don’t have to be sorry”. Isobel replied. Eventually he calmed down and Isobel helped him lay down again but she stayed sitting on the bed. 

“I relapsed. I drank again”. Jubal stated. He knew she knew that. He remembered OA, Maggie and Scola finding him before he passed out. Jubal assumed Tiffany had been there as well. 

They all knew. All knew he’d slipped. Not only that but they knew it had gotten so bad Jubal tried to end everything. 

“I know, I know Jubal. And will get you help, for the drinking, for your recovery. I’ll help you and the team will support you and Kristen said she took time off to stay help and will find the best resources available”. Isobel promised. She’d do everything in her power to make sure his man, the one she loved, got the help he needed. 

“Does Sam know? The kids?” Jubal asked suddenly, trying to sit up again. 

“Just lay down, hun. Yeah they know. Maggie and OA went to talk to Sam and she’s going to bring the kids down to see you when you're stable”. Isobel explained quietly as she kept Jubal laying down. 

All Jubal could do was nod. He wanted to sleep. He didn’t want to be awake anymore or have to think and feel. 

“Rest Jubal. I’ll be here when you wake up”. Isobel said as she pressed a kiss to his lips before tucking the blanket around him. 

“I love you, Iz”. Jubal whispered as he closed his eyes. 

“I love you too”. Isobel replied. She watched as he drifted off to sleep as his breathing evened out. 

All Isobel could do was fall asleep herself and hope that maybe things would be okay eventually. Isobel could wait, she just wanted Jubal to be happy again. 

[themculibrary]

Spring Masterlist

A Day in Spring (ao3) - ros_bui G, 3k

Summary: "So, as he did a hurried inspection of his immediate surroundings, he was honestly surprised to find this initial prediction to be entirely wrong. For, he pleasantly saw he was most certainly not alone...For underneath one of the few trees, scattered amongst the intricate stonework of the main courtyard, sat Doctor Stephen Strange."

A moment of friendship and lightness between true friends.

A (Not So) Relaxing Stroll (ao3) - gnatromanoff clint/natasha G, 1k

Summary: Within five seconds of walking outside, Natasha sneezes.

Before she can protest it, Clint has a finger in her face as he laughs and laughs.

"You have allergies!"

(She's going to kill him.)

Get Messy (ao3) - storiesfortravellers steve/sam T, 605

Summary: For this prompt at comment-fic on livejournal: Steve/Sam, Sam shows Steve how to have fun again

Hopeful Romantics (ao3) - CobaltStargazer yelena/kate M, 3k

Summary: It was winter when they met, spring when they got married. Kate and Yelena on their wedding day.

In Bloom (ao3) - themirrordarkly G, 1k

Summary: The pink explosions of color so different to the fiery ones two years ago at this very place. Soft petals gently rained down, not burning soot and twisted metal.

"He pulled me out, you know." Steve said, without looking at Sam.

Sam pulled up and walked over to Steve. "Of course, he did."

*** Sam finds Steve reminiscing about what happened two years ago.

in time of daffodils (ao3) - imposterhuman bucky/tony G, 49k

Summary: Tony Stark, Prince of Spring, knew that he was being married off to the Winter King. He knew he'd hate it, he was prepared to hate it.

What he wasn't prepared for was the Winter King himself.

Love is in the breeze (ao3) - Mimisempai loki/mobius G, 506

Summary: Just a tender moment in the spring breeze

One Flower a Day (ao3) - Eva_Swan matt/karen G, 6k

Summary: Matt and Karen are in a good place. But Foggy is growing impatient: he wants his friends to get back together as soon as possible. A wish Maggie shares. She thus gets Matt to tell her all about his plan to win Karen back... and executes it without his knowledge. For a week, she'll send Karen one flower a day, each carrying a special meaning. Will this be enough to bring these two together again?

Photosynthesis (ao3) - bonusholegent loki/sylvie G, 300

Summary: She looked like the sun on the first day of spring.

Seasons (ao3) - aimmyarrowshigh yelena/kate T, 100

Summary: Seasons. Winter turns to spring, as it always does. But everything is different this year.

Splendor (ao3) - deweydrops loki/sigyn M, 68k

Summary: Loki and Sigyn Modern AU, part 4. Spring finds Sigyn on the verge of graduation and looking to see where her next venture will take her. Meanwhile, Loki grapples with the toll his high stress, competitive career has taken on him, and what it means if it's not what he wants after all. Both are in need of a little renewal, but what will it take to fully embrace change?

Springtime in the Park (ao3) - hannahrhen loki/tony G, 873

Summary: On a perfect afternoon, Tony has a question answered.

sweet fine day (ao3) - dogeared T, 425

Summary: These are the things that Bucky likes, now.

The Daffodil Project (ao3) - JudeAndronicus (judeandronicus) steve/bucky G, 987

Summary: It's springtime in Brooklyn, and Steve has something to show Bucky. Complete and utter fluff.

The First Spring (ao3) - GreenQueenOfClubs clint/phil T, 4k

Summary: A new spring brings a new love! Cliche? Yes, absolutly. But then you throw in a world class archer, a super spy and a corgi, and you get a whole new story!

The Nesting Season (ao3) - fangirlSevera clint/phil T, 6k

Summary: Spring is the time of year when families grow, and so it is for Clint who wants to adopt a dog.

In the meantime, professors and students alike are being run ragged as the end of the college semester draws near.

The Sisterhood Of The Ruby Stilettos XXV: A Picnic With Peppery Potato Salad ;) (ao3) - BradyGirl_12 pepper/natasha G, 951

Summary: As spring blossoms, Natasha and Pepper enjoy a picnic in Central Park. :)

Wild Bodies (ao3) - andloawhatsit natasha/sam G, 10k

Summary: Having hexed her last mark, Natasha, erstwhile hedgewitch-for-hire, disappears into the woods, there to begin the balancing of her personal ledger after a seeming lifetime of curses, petty and otherwise, for pay. But the solitude of her strange and living cottage in-between worlds is soon disrupted, first by an unusual bird nursing wounds of their own, and then by a strange child, who appears from nowhere seeking a curse…

[joshscrookednipple]

Cupid Screwed Up: chapter 1

Summary: What happens when two rivals who chants even be in the same room together get paired up as soul mates for the rest of their lives..one thing they do know is that cupid screwed up.

Pairing: Josh Kiszka/female OC

word count: 2,300

Warnings: Language, Angst, Blood, kinda cringy writing.

this is the first chapter and the longest fic i’ve ever written!! edits will probably be made soon!!

there are three things you need to know before you read this.

1- C.U.P.I.D is a world renowned matchmaking company, and to actually matter in society you have to be paired with your match…sound familiar?

2- i was not the one who named my cat Clawdia, she named herself. don’t ask questions about it.

and probably the last and most important thing you must know..

3- i. hate. Joshua. Kiszka.

why do i hate him you may ask?

how much time do you have?

Josh Kiszka has been determined to make my life a living hell since the eighth grade, we are rivals in every sense of the word. i got a 100% on a test. he got a 101% (how is that possible..i have no clue. i’m convinced Ms. Harrison had a twisted up crush on him)

i get a date to prom he gets 2

i get sick with the flu, he gets pneumonia and gets hospitalized

the nerve of that motherfucker.

the point is he always has to one up me, and now he’s touring the world with his band great value fleet (greta van fleet but i think my name fits it better) with his two brothers who aren’t much better than him and his youngest brothers best friend, Danny Wagner, who is objectively the best and only tolerable person on that band.

Josh loves to rub his band in my face like the time he-

“TARAAAA OH MY GOD TARA”

i’m snapped out of my thoughts by the shrieking voice that belongs to no other than my roommate maggie. me and maggie have a weird dynamic. by that i mean she annoys the living shit out of me and i hide anywhere i can to avoid speaking to her.

Maggie bounds into my room and jumps on my bed which coincidentally knocks off my colored pencils i was using to color in a sketch i was working on, which i quickly slip into my folder to avoid any teasing from my worse and more obnoxious half.

“Tara i got my match!”

“Let’s hope it’s perscription sedatives” i mumble hardly loud enough that you had to be really listening to hear what i said.

“what?”

“nothing, who is it?”

that question clearly makes her excited because she sits up and slaps her hands on her knees in a child like sense.

“so you know the band greta van fleet?”

i roll my eyes.

“unfortunately”

“well i got paired with Sam Kiszka!!” she practically screams as she shoves her phone into my face with a screen that reads.

Pairing: Sam Kiszka.

great. this is absolutely fabulous. if it wasn’t bad enough having to see their band every time i open any fucking social media app, now i’ll be FORCED to interact with them. why couldn’t she be paired with Danny. he’s nice and calm. sam on the other hand is the equivalent to a drugged up hamster who was just fed three monster drinks.

“that’s so..great” i give her a forced smile and flip my phone over hoping that maybe a notification from C.U.P.I.D was blessing my phones presence.

instead all i got was a message from team snapchat.

I’m 23 years old and probably the only one 23 year old to not have been matched yet, and trust me i’m reminded of it.

at family gatherings “oh you’ll get your match eventually, you’ve always been a late bloomer”

at parties “sorry you can’t come in, only people who’ve gotten matches can”

at the grocery store when people see that i don’t have the gold plated ring on my finger. they refused me my discount for my goldfish. i was really looking forward to eating those.

maggie falls back on my bed and smiles to herself and rests her feet in my lap to which i notice she’s wearing my wool socks, and my grey sweatpants, at least she’s wearing her sweater. wait. nope that’s the sweater she got me for christmas last year. i really need a padlock on my closet. I stand up with my notebook and place it on my cluttered bedside triable before bending down to pick up my colored pencils.

“i invited him and his brothers over tonight” she hums staring up at the ceiling.

i freeze and drop the colored pencils.

“you. what?”

“i invited them over” she repeats as she sits up crossing her legs over one another “really you should thank me, im really the only person you interact with”

“that’s because i’m forced to interact with you mags.” i state before recollecting the colored pencils and placing them in a glass jar by my notebook and turn back to look at her “plus i also have to study for my midterms, you know this.”

“come on you can’t hide from them forever!! i know you left Frakenmuth because of them, but it’s time to make amends”

i huff and shake my head “i didn’t leave because of them, they’re just the reason i never wanted to come back.”

“and look where you are, back at Frankenmuth! see everything happens for a reason”

it’s true i left to pursue a career in digital art, but after that ship sank i had no choice to move back. i moved back when i got offered a internship with an amazing cartoon artist who happened to be only two years older than me. his name is Dylan and for a quarter of my life i had a huge crush on him, and he coincidentally doesn’t have a match either.

i choose to ignore her as my cat, clawdia comes strutting in and rubs her head against my feet. i smile and pick her up cradling her like she was my new born baby, which in a way she was. not the new born part though.

Maggie rolls her eyes and sits up “well they’re coming in two hours so put on something presentable, and try not to embarrass me”

“anything for you, your majesty” i give a dramatic bow as she leaves and closes my door. i look down at Clawdia with my hands on my hips.

“what should i wear, clawdia?”

she however is not much help because all she does is meow before propping her self onto my pillow before drifting off into one of her many naps of the day.

i sit on my bed and stare at my closet, i usually wear the same four articles of clothing everyday, it’s either my mom jeans that make my ass look spectacular or my black leggings, and a long sleeved form fitting V-neck and a state of michigan crew-neck. i’m assuming neither of those things will live up to maggie’s standards but i honestly don’t care. i pull on my faded mom jeans with my crew neck before pulling on warm toned wool socks and my Boston birkenstocks. good enough.

i turn and look at myself in the mirror before shifting my eyes to the messy knot that’s tied up on the top of my head. my hair is what you would describe as in between wavy and curly, never quite one or the other. i grab my brown translucent claw lip before skillfully (or so i like to think) putting it in my hair and pulling a few stray strands out. i settle for some mascara and chapstick before i hear the door open and the sound of four pairs of feet walk into our apartment.

i hear a murmur of greetings as i walk out and my breath catches in my throat when i see him. Josh definitely grew into his unruly hair, with it being once again shaved off at the sides. he always grew some facial hair, which usually is a turn off for me but for him..he definitely makes it work. but all of that doesn’t change the burning hatred i have towards him.

Tara interrupts my train of thought by dragging me over to the boys.

“This is my roommate Tara, Tara this is josh, sam, ja-“

she’s cut off by the cocky voice that sounds exactly identical to his twin brothers. jake motherfucking kiszka. “we’ve met”

jake is a cocky son of a bitch, not as much as his other half, but very very close. he had teamed up with josh in highschool to get me voted out of being prom queen. just because i accidentally broke his pencil.

i give him a tight lipped smile before i turn and see danny’s warm eyes and my face lights up.

“hey bunny” he speaks before giving me a hug

i had gotten that nickname when i refused to dissect a bunny in my freshman year biology class and made Danny do it for me.

i loop my arms around his tires and smile into his chest before mumbling just loud enough so only he could hear “why couldn’t you and sam just have came, why did you have to bring dumb and dumber”

he lets out a quiet laugh before letting go and i turn to look for maggie only to see she was clinging to sams side throwing her head back in laughter to something he said. gross. i pad my way to the couch and much to my distaste josh follows me and sits on the other side of the couch.

“so, tara have you gotten a match yet?”

“Have you”

“That’s not my question”

i roll my eyes and cross my arms. josh has also never been matched, which leaves millions of fan girls to believe they’re his possible match.

before i could respond jake and sam and danny join us

“so tara” sam starts “how’s the- what do you do- coloring?”

“i work as a intern at a illustrators office”

“so coloring” josh smiles smugly and tilts his head

i’m not even going to argue with him. nope. not happening.

instead i slam my cup down on the coffee table and go to my room before slamming the door

sam looks at maggie in confusion “what was that about”

tara sighs and shakes her head “she’s been acting different lately”

josh, being the genius he is pushes himself off the couch “i’ll go check on her”

and he did exactly that. he goes to my room right when i’m pulling down my pants and i’m left in light yellow cotton underwear with the word “wednesday” in light pink writing across the back and my crew neck

“actually it’s saturday bunny”

i scream and quickly pull on cotton shorts to try to preserve as much modesty as i possibly can and turn around as i see him roaming around my room, searching and touching everything like he’s fucking inspector gadget.

“get the hell out of my room Joshua” i say pushing on his chest in an attempt to get him out of the room. this back fires when he pushes me back into a wall and smirks down at me.

“bunny this is why you don’t have a match”

i clench my fists as i look up at him “neither do you dumbass”

he rolls his eyes at that and pinches my chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilts my head up so i can get a perfect view of his eyes.

“but unlike you bunny” he starts “people would pay their lives to fuck me and you..well you probably have to pay a guy to even get close to you”

i don’t remember what happened next, all i remember is my hand colliding across his cheek and my silver ring on my index finger cutting his cheek causing a trickle of blood flowing down his cheek.

i freeze and i’ll never forget that look in his eyes..but i’m not going to get him win. so did something completely stupid and i run my thumb along the trickle of blood and put it between his parted lips and to my surprise he actually starts sucking it, god his lips are so soft.

my cheeks are flushed pink as he pulls away and he smirks “do i make you nervous bunny”

“get. out.”

he throws me a shit eating grin before leaving and slamming the door and that’s when the tears are about to start falling when i hear another knock and i throw the door open

“Josh i said get the-“

but it’s not josh behind the door. it’s Jake. what the hell?

“i uhm-“ he starts “i heard what josh said- and i just wanted to apologize”

i roll my eyes and start closing the door but he puts his hand flat on the door to stop me. “just listen to me Tara- in highschool i was just trying to be cool- i shouldn’t have said those things. you’re not worthless or-“

“jake” i interrupt him “i’m appreciate it but please go, we can talk later okay?”

he sighs and nods before leaving and i turn out my light after closing my door and i plug my phone in when i hear a notification. THE notification. i quickly open my phone and see the notification from cupid

C.U.P.I.D

Hello! you have been successfully paired with your perfect match, you will meet up with your significant other at 7:30 pm december 1st at Honey B’s Eatery. down below is your perfect match.

Maybe it’s a NFL player.

Or a professional chef.

Or maybe-

Oh.

Oh god no.

Pairing: Joshua Kiszka

little did i know that on the other side of Frankenmuth josh was in his bathroom after a particularly messy one night stand, leaning against the wall, looking at his phone with the same exact notification but with her name on it.

and for the first time in history they were thinking the same exact thought.

Cupid.

Screwed.

Up.

[lediz-watches]

Masters of War

I just have a lot of feelings about the Silent Hill games, okay?

I’m liveblogging The Winchesters as a Supernatural!virgin. Please keep my lack of knowledge in mind if you continue...

In episode thoughts:

Ooh, hey, silent hill

Really silent hill

Dude looked at the spear too often. Bad ending.

Oh, Mary, you discount Buffy you. I love it.

Ah, so this is going to be the Vietnam War episode. Cool.

Oh, Carlos honey. CARLOS. Also, that was not a hetero-mating ritual, and I expect better recognition from you, thank you.

Not sure I buy Carlos being allowed to serve without getting court martialled almost immediately, unless he has some phenomenal acting skills we don’t know about (or his recruiting/conscripting officer was an incredibly closeted and resentful jerk who signed him on as some kind of punishment… oh, god, there are so many fics about how Carlos got forced into it, aren’t there? There are rape parallels aren’t there? Oh gawd) but sure, we carry on.

Well. That Maggie’s Room thing was ham-fisted.

How’s that PTSD going John?

…This show forgets it’s in the 70s so often. Mary should not be able to take the lead in this hospital. Lata should not have been the person that nurse spoke to. You can’t do this to me in an episode so aggressively based in the 70s, show!

SILENT HILL FOR JOHN. YES! GET THEE TO THE FOG, BOY. God knows you’ve got the violence in you.

…Millie likes a man in uniform. But again, Carlos, can’t buy you actually saw service before they kicked you out. You are not subtle and you didn’t want to be there. Not buying this backstory, my friends.

Ah, jail or service… and medic… I can… ehh. I’ll accept it. Sure. Whatever. Not paying full price though.

SILENT HILL. Carlos is reading the lore, John’s chasing the other victims! And getting the associated shaky reactions.

Carlos is gonna make it out of Silent Hill. (His actor deserves a slower show in a contemporary timeline where they can actually play this story out properly, by the way.)

NO SILENT HILL STAY AWAY FROM CARLOS. HE’S ADDRESSING HIS PROBLEMS. YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM. TAKE JOHN INSTEAD.

Oh good, it’s at least taking John as well.

Again, I feel like there’s something going on in John’s story that I don’t have context for. This episode feels like foreshadowing of some kind. Can you foreshadow in a prequel? Call forward? My point is, it feels like it’s speaking to an audience that I am not.

WAY TO GO MILLIE. We love a practical human.

Oh, John, that’s how you get the bad ending… You’ve totally claimed that helmet you know. You did not win that fight. Silent Hill won. You lost. Well done. You’re going back to that fog.

…So is this going to be a recurring theme of Carlos watching people slide down the evil slope or…?

Carlos, sweetheart, please end this series by walking away from Mary and John and their darkness. You are not going to save them.

…man, I want to see another Silent Hill game. I do not want Kojima to have anything to do with it, but I really want another Silent Hill game.

Anyway. Yeah. This episode felt like it was speaking to issues dealt with—or at least was showcasing issues that Dean and Sam had to deal with the consequences of—in the main series. And I suspect this is going to be a recurring problem, because it’s a problem with prequels in general. You can’t resolve issues. Character arcs aren’t going to be entirely positive ones. Because like…

Like what I’m getting here is that John is not a character who feels like he’s going to be redeemed. This episode didn’t feel like the start of a flirtation with darkness, so much as a first step on a path toward destruction. Like a character whose only way out will inevitably end with sacrifice because fiction doesn’t believe in actual recovery and redemption.

I’m not a huge fan of that trope. BUT HEY I HAVE BEEN WRONG BEFORE. CHAPTER FIVE.

(or back to chapter one if you care.)

[s-wordsmith]

There's a conversation, early in The Order 23 Job, as they're going to steal a hospital, between Parker and Nate that I have always loved and can now rant about now that I have Tumblr.

Nate has pretended to be a doctor and they are now setting up in a hospital so he can not only continue to do so but can do so more thoroughly. Parker is . . . confused, for one. Concerned. Curious.

The conversation goes as follows (to the best of my hearing):

Parker: "So let me get this straight. You're a doctor."

Nate: "Yeah."

Parker: "What if someone asks you to deliver a baby?"

Nate: "I'd say I'm not an obstetrician."

Parker: "What? A what?"

Nate: "A baby doctor."

Parker: "(Oh.) Well what if there's a train accident, there's stretchers everywhere? And then someone points at you and says 'Hey, you, help me with this sucking chest wound.'"

Nate: "Ah, I wo--I would stick my hand in the chest and, uh, y'know, hope for the best."

Parker: "Oh, you are so not operating on me."

Here's the important part: the tone.

Parker is, as I said above, confused and concerned and curious. Most tellingly, she feels comfortable expressing that with no filter. She's comfortable asking questions instead of pretending she understands as we sometimes see her do. And she's right to, because Nate responds absolutely patiently. He's calm; he doesn't get angry that she's questioning him (even though Nate specifically has done that with Eliot and Sophie more than once). He's rational; he thinks through his answers and then gives them to her, doesn't blow her off or act like she's inconveniencing him and when she doesn't know the word "obstetrician" he doesn't mock, he answers in exactly the same conversational tone. He's comforting without being condescending. He knows she needs to ask questions to understand things other people might not and he answers them without judgement.

This is a huge step forward for both of them.

I make jokes about the OT3 being Nate's kids/Nate being the Tired Dad, but in reality he's actively resistant to any conscious display of fatherliness. He can't be nice to Hardison directly without either a backhanded compliment or something serious forcing it (like active danger). He respects Eliot, but tends to hold him at arms length. Parker is the one person he steps into any sort of fatherly role for and I think it's only because he can justify it as a mentor relationship. Nate's trauma has manifested in a resistance to fatherly behavior. But you can see it every once in a while and this is one of those times. He's so soft during this conversation. (And it works. Parker doesn't seem to be nervous at all after and in fact seems to have fun at times.)

Parker hides not only her emotions but her lack of knowledge whenever she becomes aware of it, as a protective measure. She does this by modeling behavior or outright repeating words she sees/hears from those around her. I know there are examples from the first season but I'm blanking on them right now and the only thing I can think of is when Tara first joins the team and Parker is thrown off rhythm and retreats into this behavior, most notably when she refers to the someone as hot in a tone that suggests she's just repeating what the others said. But she's not doing that here. She doesn't understand Nate's process, so she asks, repeated questions as she tries to wrap her head around it. He uses a word she doesn't understand and she asks for clarification, immediately, in a very thrown-off way that suggests she didn't think it through first (the way she always thinks everything through), and then gets right back to her original line of questioning.

And then "oh, you are so not operating on me," which at first seems like such an odd leap, but I don't think it is. I think this is Parker deciding and establishing a boundary in the same moment: I am trusting you to pretend to be a doctor for this con, but I am not trusting you to operate on me like a real doctor should the need arise. Which is a healthy and reasonable boundary. I'm not sure Parker knows at this point that Nate would have expected this boundary to not need to be said and I'm not sure Nate knows at this point that this is not an understanding he can take for granted. They are learning each other.

As a side note, why did Parker just have "sucking chest wound" to pull out of her hat? There's a story there.

[annerbhp]

Apparently I’ve been on A03 nearly 17 years now, with only one year in there where I didn’t post at least a chapter of a fic. My A03 account currently has 986,328 hits overall. I wonder if I can get to a million hits before the end of the year? Wild. In celebration, here is a list of fic with the most hits in each year I’ve posted to AO3:

2006 -

five ways Sam Carter got pregnant (SG-1, Sam/Various, cw: non-con)

2007 -

Egeria’s Legacy (SG-1, Sam/Jack) Tok'ra trouble is brewing and Sam gets caught in the middle.

2008 -

String Theory (SG-1, Sam/Jack) Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.

2009 -

The Raggedy Edge (SG-1/Firefly, Sam/Jack, Daniel/Vala, Malcolm/Inara, Kaylee/Simon) During a rescue mission gone awry, Sam and Jack end up stranded in another galaxy where they find themselves passengers on a ship called Serenity.

2010 -

Compliance (SG-1, Sam/Jack) Carter has always been good at following orders.

2011 -

we build then we break (and build up again) (SG-1, Sam/Jack) Sam’s last mission on SG-1, and the life that follows.

2012 -

No fics!

2013 -

Entropy (CSI, Gil Grisom/Sara Sidle) They've been here before. "Forget Me Not" Post-Ep.

2014 -

Reparations (Leverage, Maggie Collins, Maggie&Sophie) Maggie sees the world differently now.

2015 -

Life is What Happens (Harry Potter, Harry/Ginny) It's their life, and they'll do what works for them. It's not like they've ever particularly cared about rules.

2016 -

Hard Day’s Night (SG-1, Jack-centric, Sam/Jack, cw: domestic terrorism) Jack always knew that desk was going to be the death of him, just not quite so literally. When Homeworld Security comes under attack, Jack discovers he hasn’t lost his edge, or his team. Set post-Continuum. 

2017 -

The Changeling (Harry Potter, Ginny-centric, Harry/Ginny) Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

2018 -

we can’t control (watch me unfold) (Harry Potter, Harry/Ginny) It’s a simple arrangement. Between her grueling quidditch schedule and his mysterious auror duties, Ginny and Harry find time to have spectacular sex with no strings attached. It’s incredibly uncomplicated. Except when it isn’t.

2019 -

lips long parching (Harry Potter, Harry/Ginny) Going solo to her ex’s wedding is not exactly Ginny’s idea of a good time, but thanks to a smuggled flask and a rather sullen Harry Potter, it’s about to get a lot more interesting.

2020 -

in my head we do everything right (Harry Potter, Harry/Ginny) It’s not as easy as it sounds, going from hypotheticals to reality. Harry and Ginny navigate life after Hogwarts. Third in the Armistice Series.

2021 -

my kingdom come undone (The Untamed/CQL, LWJ/WWX) --if I am doomed to death, then at least I could be killed by you-- Wei Ying has lost control and there is only one person who can stop him. It's Lan Wangji’s greatest fear unfurling right in front of him.

2022 -

break upon your shore (The Untamed/CQL, LWJ/WWX) Wei Ying’s attention has chased Lan Wangji since the first day they met—relentless, unforgiving, his eyes always looking. One day Lan Wangji can’t help but look back. (WIP)

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Collector’s Edition:  Mulder’s Early or Late Birthdays (Angst)

What are birthdays without angst, especially in the X-Files universe? These birthday fics seem to be a magnet for mixed emotions-- like the rest of Mulder’s life-- and it’s fun to explore the lows he weathers with his supportive loved ones. 

I’m grouping these by author in a verrry loose chronological order (but it’s there.)

(**Edit: Added in scully-loves-ruthie’s Fictober Day 13 entry.**) 

*cracks knuckles* Here we go! 

greycoupon’s Happy Birthday 

““Fox Mulder hadn’t wanted a party for his 13th birthday. Sam was gone and his family was a mess. There didn’t seem to be much to celebrate. But his mother had actually come out of her room, where she spent all her time now “resting”, to suggest it. She seemed the most alive he’d seen her since it had happened when she was making plans. She was smiling and even though she was still doped up with tranquilizers, as she was constantly these days, for a minute Mulder could see his old mom. So he said okay. That was a mistake.””

Mulder had a truly horrific 13th birthday and has avoided celebrating since. Scully and TLG are able to throw him a good one at last. 

@syntax6​’s (Gossamer, FFN, Omniscribe) Collection of Mulder’s birthdays 

Post Shadows Mulder is surprised by Scully’s birthday card and friendship. And also disappointed by how tiny the Liberty Bell is. 

Pre-One Breath Mulder is surprised from his mourning by Tena’s call. She answers questions about his birth; but carelessly leaves him with a final sting. 

Redux ii Scully is desperately trying not to die on Mulder’s birthday while setting up her death and burial preparations. 

Post Unruhe Mulder invites Scully to his birthday bash at TLG’s. She is still skittish, but the group are inclusive and kindly overlook any strange behavior. 

These are all amazingly excellent. I pulled this quote because it touches on an aspect that all these stories explore-- 

““She stretched until she could reach her watch from the nightstand.  It read eleven-twenty on October thirteenth.   Satisfied, Scully returned the watch to its resting place and drew her hands back under the blankets.   

She had one mission left: don't die today. 

"Mom?  Can you do me a favor?" Her mother came to stroke her hair.  

"Anything, baby." 

"Could you please go to the gift shop and pick out a birthday card?  It's Mulder's birthday today.”"

@lokisgame​’s (Ao3) 33

““We've got time," she replied calmly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.””

Pre- One Breath Mulder’s happy birthday dream is dashed when he wakes to a world without Scully.  

Jennifer Maurer’s There’s Still Nobody Home 

““Once he snuck upstairs to her office and put a post-it note on the picture of her sister on her desk, then waited for hours in the parking garage. 

You never know, that might be the magic charm to bring her back.”” 

Pre- One Breath Mulder is slowly deteriorating: he fails to keep his plants alive, fails to keep himself from sobbing on Frohike’s shoulder, fails to connect to Maggie-- all while blindly failing himself. 

Juliett’s 

All I Want for Christmas

““He had done everything he knew to do and now he pled. 

And October 13th had come and gone with nothing, nothing for him.  At least, nothing that he wanted.””

Pre- One Breath Mulder is having a ROUGH birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Pleas and hands of mercy cannot give him what he wants or allow others to pull him from gloom.  

 Mulder’s Birthday 

““Fox Mulder glanced at his watch and sighed.  Almost time.   Any minute now his partner would be giving him the look that said it was time to go home. 

But he didn't want to go home. 

After all, who wanted to spend a birthday alone?””

Post Paper Clip Scully surprises Mulder with a birthday dinner and mini sculpture. Maggie gifts him Melissa’s pendant. 

Erin M. Blair’s 

You Can’t Change History 

““I would have been doing exactly what Bill's trying to do to me. He's sizing me up before getting the chance to know me. I know it's not fair, but I can understand him.”"

Season 2 Bill tries to intercept Scully from celebrating Mulder’s birthday with him. Mulder resignedly understands; but is happy Scully won’t leave. 

Anonymous/RebeccaRusnak’s (Mulders Creek) Lament 

(**note: I THINK Anonymous is Rebecca Rusnak, but who knows? I just have to trust my past-self’s judgment.**) 

““Fox." 

Mulder stirred as the honey-smooth voice washed over him.  He started as the velvety-soft hand touched his shoulder.  He opened his eyes and stared, astonished, at his mother. 

"Mom," he croaked...”” 

Post Herrenvolk Mulder is alone for his birthday. He trudges back to Quonacatog to seep in his dark memories... until Tena (called Margaret here) shows up, and the two actually have a heartfelt bonding session, marshmallows included. 

@aloysiavirgata​’s (Ao3, Gossamer, WayBackMachine, LiveJournal, Alt.) 

Unnamed Post Unruhe 

““It’s been two days since she was with Schnauz. 

Two days since the howlers in him tried to claim her.

Two days since Mulder had killed a man. 

Post Unruhe Scully had called his cell, his apartment, and the Gunmen before chancing a visit to the basketball court near his apartment. He was there, trash-talking and dribbling in the crisp October air.”” 

Mulder leaves his birthday bball game to offer comfort to a rattled Scully. 

By Falling In and In 5/5

““He used to wear horrible ties," Scully tells her son. "Really awful ones. So if he ever gets a job where he has to wear them, you and I are going to pick them out." "My ties were not that bad," Mulder says. "They were refreshing. And besides, this is coming from the Queen of Shoulder Pads?" Scully hits him with a pillow and William shakes his head. "You guys are so weird.””

Mulder’s birthday-- a clock from Will and elated dancing with Scully-- is halted by CSM and his rescue mission to save them from Colonization.

@crescentmoon223​′s The Realm of Extreme Possibility 

““He never should have brought her out here today. He’d truly thought—for once—it would be a nice trip to the forest, a fun hike as they tracked the Goatman.

A piercing shriek split the night, and Scully went rigid in his arms. It sounded like a woman screaming in terror. That grave looked like it had been here for years, but what if…””

Post Redux ii Mulder’s birthday trip to the forest-- to hunt the Goatman-- is derailed when Scully gets “deja vu” (her denial-word for visions) about visiting these woods before... and they find a corpse with an identical necklace to hers. 

Summer’s Conspiracy Not Included 

““We've been swarmed by pre-historic bugs, attacked by genetic mutants, and tied up by Satanic schoolteachers, Mulder. It was only a matter of time before we got a flat tire." Scully slammed the trunk shut, draping the sweatshirt from her overnight bag over her head. 

"Yeah, but you'd think with all those big catastrophes, the odds would be on our side for little things like flats." 

"You call a five-mile walk in this rain a little thing?" Scully fumed. 

Her partner regarded her with a mixture of affection and fear.””

S2 Scully’s secret plans for Mulder’s birthday are almost derailed by his many misshaps while trying to drive them back to airport. Not so much angst as shooting himself in the foot. 

Pattie’s Enhanced

““Mulder, what happened to your scalp?  There's... there's a shaved spot with what look to be sutures.  Mulder?"

"What?"  He passed his fingers over his head. He felt his cool fingertips on the back of his head, left side, about three inches from the crown.””

S6 Mulder, TLG, and a Harvard doctor do something incredibly stupid. And, of course, he forgot what. 

Folieadeux’s Love Obsessional 

““Throwing herself into the shadow of the building, she realizes she doesn't know how long she's been attacking Fox's car.  She looks at her watch and is stunned to see that it has only been 15 minutes.  It feels like a lifetime.”” 

S6 or S7 Mulder has a stalker in time for his birthday. Her worsening behavior almost stops when served with a restraining order... until her jealousy of Scully overcomes her remaining bits of reason. 

Avalon’s Celebration

“"Well, what's the big deal?"  I ask, starting to get a little exasperated.  I just don't see why she should be so concerned.  "Maybe it's somebody's birthday, and someone in the bullpen brought it down here for you.  You weren't here, so they left it.  End of story." 

She looks at me, the brow above her right eye arching in that definitive Scully look that she gets right before she pins you, squirming, to the wall.  "Did they pull out Mulder's case file for me and leave it there, too?"“

Doggett is frustrated that Scully is fixated on a mysterious cupcake and an opened file. When he understands, he formulates an out-there explanation that honors Scully’s skepticism and Mulder’s memory. 

**The below fics take place after Existence, which is where I usually end in my own headcanon. HOWEVER, these fics can’t help their lineage, so I’ve decided not to hold that over their innocent heads.**  

XSketch’s Birthday Arrival 

““...but days like this seemed to emulate his low resolve so closely that it made everything that much more painful; days like this brought back so many memories of standing beside her under an umbrella on some case or another that the ache to be home where he belonged only deepened that much more.

...Those things, and the fact that today was October 13th...””

S9 Mulder gets a birthday email from Scully while in New Mexico. However, it takes a surprise gift to finally banish his depressed mood. 

@greekowl87​’s Friday the 13th

““It worked. They made it work.

But still, there was always a nagging feeling in the back of his mind.””

IWTB-era Mulder and Scully have settled into life at the Unremarkable House; but Mulder sinks into despair when she leaves early without a word.

Lolabeegood’s (Mulder’s Creek) Laundry Day 

““Banana Republic" he muttered to himself and shook his head. 

Scully was at it again.  Ordering clothes online for a man who never went anywhere.”” 

Pre-IWTB Mulder’s leisurely day is halted by the arrival of a FedEx truck. Hints of his developing depression seep through when Scully has to remind him of his own birthday. 

@scully-loves-ruthie‘s Unnamed Fictober Day 13

““I could make a cake,” She offered wrapping her arms around his waist from behind.          

“I don’t want you to do that Scully.  It’s just another day.”  He shimmies out of her embrace headed toward the office, his pajama pants dragging on the hardwood offering a stark contrast to her work heels.””  

Mulder considers his birthday just another day-- which isn’t a bad thing. 

Ahhhh, a job well done. Well, well-- that’s all for now!

Enjoy! 

[apinklion01]

Last One Out of Casper High

[[ I think this might turn into a multi-chapter story. As to how it’ll go, I don’t know, but it’s going to have an ending! ]]

[[ Special thanks to @pastrycurses for allowing me to write a fic based on your dialogue! Also special thanks to Maggie on the DP fanfiction server for beta reading this chapter! ]]

[[ A03 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36361936/chapters/90654757 ]]

Chapter 1: Crackling Point

Danny looked like any teen sitting at his desk at school on a Tuesday morning. Tired, anxious about the test he forgot to study for the week prior, and wanting to be done with the school day.

Unlike most teens, he was dealing with ghosts, his ghost hunting parents, and a semi-secretive government agency that dealt with ghosts who wanted him at one point for up to a million dollars. 

Oh yeah, he was already a ghost. 

Sort of. 

It was a complicated situation.

Having parents who made inventions in a lab that would’ve had any OSHA employee go into a fit was sort of asking for a life-threatening accident.

Tucker sat down at the desk on his right and let out a yawn. “Geeze, late night patrols don’t seem to get easier,” he said in a low voice.

“Tell me about it,” Danny replied. He tried to stretch out his back and arms, but inhaled sharply, the pain from the fight with Skulker aching everywhere. 

“Don’t know where he got his suit upgrades from, but I’m telling ya, today’s definitely not my day,” he muttered as he pinched his brows.

The two friends would’ve been talking louder if it weren’t for their already present classmates. Most of them were still waking up and didn’t bat an eye towards them, but there were two exceptions: Dash, a top quarterback for Casper High’s football team who picked on Danny a lot, and Wes, the class conspiracist who claimed that Danny was Phantom.

Which was true. In all honesty a lot more people could have found out the secret, but Danny was lucky that no one believed Wes after the bigfoot sighting. The redhead had yet to give up and still gathered evidence whenever he happened to come across a fight, which happened less often with the basketball season starting.

The door pushed open and Sam appeared. She walked between the aisles and sat down on the desk to Danny’s left, a Starbucks coffee in her hand.

“Figured you’d want this to wake you up,” she said as she gave it to him.

“Thanks,” Danny muttered as he downed it in a few gulps.

“Do you think we can try to cram in a last minute study session?” Tucker asked.

“With a minute left until class starts?” Sam pointed out.

“Hey, it was worth a shot,” he replied.

“Yeah.”

A brief feedback sound from the school’s speaker system jolted Danny awake more than the coffee. A few other students also groaned from the noise.

“Attention students,” the voice of Principal Ishiyama spoke up. “Maintenance is occurring on the electrical system that’s connected to the speakers, so please pardon any noises that may occur. Thank you for your understanding.”

“That’s definitely not going to help our luck on the test,” Danny said.

“Well look on the bright side,” Tucker said semi-optimistically. “‘Least no ghosts have been giving you a hard time this morning!”

As if on cue, the lights went out. A few people screamed from the sudden darkness that enveloped the room.

Being half ghosts had its perks, one of them being night vision. So while it took a while for Sam and Tucker to adjust to the darkness, Danny could see everyone just fine.

“Oh no, the power went out!” Star cried, immediately huddling up onto her chair.

“Well somebody had better turn it back on, quick!” Paulina answered back from her desk. “I only managed to do half my makeup!”

“It's not like anyone can see you,” Sam replied dully, rolling her eyes.

Paulina ignored her. “Ugh, someone lend me their phone's flashlight so I can finish.”

He saw Sam make a face at Tucker, the tech teen taking a moment before he could see her to react.

“Okay, in my defense, I think I was asking for that,” He said honestly. 

After another moment of silence he took in a breath. “Aaand I’ll see if I got a flashlight stashed in my backpack. Or better yet, something I made. That’s it! It’s my time to shine, literally!”

Kwan attempted to turn on his phone, but his expression grew puzzled. “That's weird... my phone's dead. Could've sworn I charged it last night.”

“Uh oh, mine too,” Star answered nervously.

“Ditto. Is anyone's phone working?” Jesse, a student near the front asked.

Wes cast a glare at Danny from his seat, fully aware of the other’s night vision ability.

“What? Don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with this,” He whispered to the conspiracist.

“Yeah right,” Wes muttered. “Real convincing.”

“Come on babies, work with me,” Tucker muttered as he went through his gadgets one by one to see if they worked. Sadly he didn’t even get a beep out of any of them.

“No, no, no, no, noooo, they’re all out!” He cried out helplessly.

“Seriously? How can everyone's phone be dead?” Another teen, Trevor, called out.

“Yeah, having mine charged up is one of the few things I can remember,” Jesse added.

“Psst, Danny,” Sam whispered under the growing chaos of the classroom. “You don't think it has something to do with a ghost, do you?”

“I-I dunno. I haven't sensed anything yet, but it's possible,” Danny replied. 

“It could easily be Technus,” Tucker figured, “But taking out the electricity from everything? Doesn’t seem like him.”

The sound of someone slamming against the door caught the whole room’s attention.

“C’mon c’mon, budge open already,” Dash muttered, bumping against the door nervously. However it didn’t budge. He rushed over to the other exit at the back of the classroom to no avail, and gave a loud kick in frustration before going silent.

“Dash?” Kwan asked. “Hey, you okay-”

“I'M FREAKING OUT MAN!” Dash yelled back, placing his arms over his head as his breath quickened.

“Woah-ho, chill, dude,” Sam said as she walked over, the only one not shaken by the darkness. “We've gotta stay calm.”

“Calm? CALM?!?” Dash asked, gripping both of his hands on her shoulders and staring at Sam with pure terror in his eyes. “How can anyone stay calm after all the freaky stuff we've seen this year?!?” Dash continued, giving an uneasy laugh before he took his hands off the goth and began pacing back and forth. “Something creepy is gonna pop out of the darkness, I just know it!”

Sam for once didn’t have anything sarcastic to say in response. Danny hadn’t seen the jock so frightened before, sending a chill down his back. Tucker grips onto one of his gadgets a little tighter.

“...Why would you say that?” Paulina whined, breaking the silence. “Now you’ve got me scared.”

“Now I'm imagining a ghost, or a-a monster, or, like... a m-monster-ghost!” Tristan said anxiously.

“Well, then, shouldn't we ask Fenton what to do?” Kwan asked. “His parents deal with creepy stuff all the time!”

Dash stopped pacing and glanced at Danny. “...Hey! You're right! That's it, I'm cracking Fenton like a glowstick.”

“You're doing WHAT now?” Danny asked, shocked.

“Dash, come on, wailing on Danny isn't going to solve the issue here,” Tucker pointed out nervously.

“Who said anything about wailing on him?” Dash answered. “I'm just gonna test the theory that he can glow in the dark.”

The trio shared a look. “And where did you hear that...?” Sam asked.

“Wes started it,” Kwan quickly replied.

Wes made a disgruntled sound, either from his theory being acknowledged or from the misinterpretation of his theory. “I said it looked like his food was contaminated by the gunk the Fentons use in those ray guns,” He began before pointing his hands towards Danny’s face. “That doesn’t mean he’s a living glowstick!”

There was a brief moment of silence before the conspiracist inhaled quickly. “Your lunchbox was glowing way more than usual by the way, you should really get that checked out,” He whispered.

“Wait, so that's the reason Dash stopped stealing my food?” Danny said in confusion.

“Huh. And here I was holding out hope that he'd grown a conscience,” Tucker muttered out loud. Sam nodded in agreement.

The jock ignored the two of them. “Point is, you're the weird kid who lives around weird experiments. There's gotta be some kind of side effect to that.”

Without warning Dash held Danny up by the back of his shirt, a feat easily done as Danny was smaller and shorter than the majority of Casper High. Still he felt uneasy as to what the football player would do next.

“Woah! Hey! I didn’t say you could-”

He didn’t get a chance to finish as Dash squeezed him in a tight bear hug. He let out a grunt as the pain from the fight the night prior was still present. Right afterwards he heard the distinct sound of his back cracking, and with it, the majority of the pain disappeared.

“ACK... actually that feels kinda nice- AAAGH!!”

Dash was now shaking him as if he were a giant snow globe. His vision grew blurry, but he could make out the view of the whole class drawing nearer.

“Dude, you’re going too far!” Kwan worried.

“Put Danny down, you’ll make him dizzy,” Tucker added in agreement.

“Is he going to throw up his breakfast?” Trevor asked.

“Eww, he better not,” Hannah said, disgusted.

“Enough! Can someone actually try doing something sensible so I can see?” Paulina complained “My foundation is already set!”

“Dash, put HIM-” Sam started to tell him, but she stopped. Everyone else stopped talking. Even Dashed stopped.

Danny grew confused, too. It looked like some source of light appeared somewhere. The room appeared a lot brighter. If it’s not a ghost, then…

Danny blinked, briefly turning off his night vision. Dash had quietly set him down, and it was then that he realized he was the one glowing. Glowing in a familiar pale white color.

“Uh... I guess... you really are what you eat, huh? Heh heh…” Danny laughed weakly hoping someone would join in, but no one did.

‘Today is really not my day,’ He reminded himself.

[late-to-the-party-81]

Plastic Hearts

AN: Welcome to my entry for @sunshinebuckybarnes Jukebox celebration challenge. I chose the song Plastic Hearts by Miley Cyrus, and the plot for this has been rattling around in my head for a while.

This fic is set between Endgame and the start of TFAWS, and that series unfolds as per canon once this fic ends.

This could also be read as a prequel to my two SamBucky fics.

Thanks to @yarnforbrains and @sidepartskinnyjeans for beta-ing and cheerleading.

Divider by the always talented @firefly-graphics

Find my masterlist here

Wordcount: Approx 3k

CW: Angst, Unhealthy coping mechanisms, Unrequited love, Sexual content, Steve bashing, Self-esteem issues, Bi-sexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes recovering, emerging friendship, Mentions of substance abuse, human disaster Bucky Barnes, good friend Sam Wilson.

When Dr Raynor, his government assigned shrink, had told him he should ‘get out there’, meet new people and try new things, spending several nights a weeks at ‘The Chateau’ sex club was probably not what she meant.

Bucky sat back in the comfy chair, naked from the waist down, legs splayed, some enthusiastic blonde in his lap, bouncing herself up and down his cock. She was attractive enough and not anyone he’d played with before, but that was how he liked it. Make a new connection, but don’t let anyone get too close. That was his current motto.

He smiled to himself at the white powdery residue across her breasts. It had been amusing enough, but the high had only lasted a few minutes due to his metabolism. He took a drag of the cigarette in his hand though, as Maddie (Maggie? Whatever.) dug her fingers into his shoulder and keened as she came. Flicking the butt onto the floor, he took hold of her, with one arm under her pert buttocks, the other around her back, and stood up. Two strides took him to the wall, where he propped her up and chased his own release. He felt a sense of self-satisfaction when he felt her tighten around his cock again, before he let out a growl and filled the condom he was wearing.

He carried Mandy (?) to the chair, placing her down gently and passing her a bottle of water before he cleaned himself up, got dressed and left. Just like he did every time.

He knew what he was doing wasn’t healthy, and, if he had still been here, something that Steve would disapprove of. But that was the issue wasn’t it? Steve wasn’t here.

He’d left.

He’d left Bucky.

Despite having made out to all and sundry that he was happy, adjusting to the future, ecstatic that he had rescued his best friend from the tentacles of HYDRA, the barest sniff of returning to the past and he had jumped at it. Back to…her.

When Steve had taken Bucky to the side, told him what he was planning, asked him if he was okay with it, that’s when Bucky knew. Knew that no matter how much Steve claimed to love him, it wasn’t the same way that Bucky loved him back. Not with that all consuming passion that Bucky had felt every time that Steve had looked at him. Maybe it was those five years without Bucky that had changed everything? But he’d never know. Steve was with Peggy, and Bucky?

Well Bucky had everyone he could want, but no-one he needed. Or who needed him.

Bucky was back at the Chateau, on his knees for some blonde guy, (Jason?) who’d said he was a bodybuilder. And if, when Bucky squinted up in the poor light, he could pretend Jason was someone else, then that was no-ones business except Bucky’s. He applied himself to the job at hand, focussing on the heavy feel of a cock in his mouth, the salty taste on his tongue, drawing moan after moan from his partner, before the man hauled him up and bent him over the arm of a couch. Bucky let the blonde man pull down his jeans and finger him open, taking in the feelings, the sensations, that coursed through his body, before he was then stuffed full by the guy’s dick, filled but somehow still hollow. He clutched onto the sofa with his right hand, not wanting to break it by using his left, as he let himself be railed. He came with tears in his eyes, and Steve’s name on his lips.

Several weeks, and countless empty liaisons later, found Bucky, as usual, loitering around his spartan apartment. He checked his phone and found that he had a voicemail, from Sam of all people. Although, who else was going to call him? He didn’t really have any connection to the rest of them. He must have missed the call during the couple of hours he’d managed to sleep.

“Hey Barnes, just phoning to check in on you.

Call me back when you get the chance,

or you know, whatever. I’m here if you need to talk.”

Bucky had received calls and messages like this from Sam semi-regularly, despite the fact that he’d never contacted him back. It was like the guy couldn’t take a hint. He recalled the number of times when he was on the run that Sam had almost caught up with him when he had been assisting Steve. Bucky could never let him know that though, cos the bastard would probably never stop gloating. He smiled to himself, remembering how the pair of them had almost been bested by a teenager in a onesie in Berlin, but that Sam wouldn’t give up. Stubborn bastard.

He really should call Sam back. Maybe he’d do it tomorrow?

He didn’t.

He went to the club and stayed up all night.

Avoided facing his emotions with sex. Borrowed love for a moment.

When he came out into the sunrise he felt like he was being suffocated. Thoughts, responsibilities, memories, all weighed too heavily upon him. He should message Sam. He really should. Because there wasn’t anybody else.

Alone... Alone... Alone... Alone.

The word spiralled around in his head.

He didn’t remember getting home. Didn’t remember getting showered and crashing out on the floor under his comforter. He only realised he’d slept when a nightmare jerked him awake. Before he could question himself, he picked up his phone, a top line smart one, not the scratched up old-style flip phone Raynor knew about, and tapped out a message.

“Hey Wilson, need to talk. Think I need some help.

Don’t know who else to call.”

Three days passed. Bucky hadn’t heard back from Sam, and had been berating himself for reaching out. What did he think was going to happen? He’d crashed angrily around his apartment, opening and closing cupboards, looking for anything he could eat. The dirty dishes judged him from the sink and the whine of the empty fridge was almost mocking.

“Fuck!”

Bucky’s voice sounded loud in the almost empty space, despite its lack of use. His back slid down the wall as his knees buckled and he sank to the floor, head in his hands. But no tears would come. It wasn’t that kind of sorrow, that kind of despair.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that, in the black hole of his swirling thoughts, holding a conversation with his inner self about his defects, his worthlessness, when a knock at the door startled him, for two reasons. Firstly, no-one ever knocked at his door, and secondly, he hadn’t heard whoever it was approaching, so wrapped up in his own thoughts.

Whoever it was was impatient because as Bucky pulled himself up and took a few steadying breaths, the knocking came a second time, and then a moment later, a familiar voice called out.

“Barnes, I know you’re in there. It’s not your therapy day and you got nowhere else to be.”

Sam. Fucking Sam.

Bucky wrenched the door open, the hinges creaking as they protested at the intensity of the action.

“Whadya want, Wilson?”

Sam rolled his eyes and shoulder barged his way into the apartment.

“You said you needed help, and looking at this sorry-assed place I can see why.” Bucky watched Sam take in the space that his former comrade in arms currently called home.

“Jeez, this is pathetic, man, even by your standards. Put some shoes on, and let’s get outside and find some actual food.”

Bucky wasn’t even sure why he was going along with it, but he hunted around for some socks that weren’t standing up on their own, and then his boots, wallet and jacket. Was he that starved for meaningful human conversation and contact that he’d go out for a meal with Sam Wilson of all people? He trudged down the steps of the building in the man’s wake, blinking into the bright sunshine as they made it out onto the sidewalk. Despite not being a New York native, Sam seemed to know where he wanted to be going, so for the first time in a long time, Bucky gave up some control and allowed himself to follow along. When Sam stopped in front of a small kerbside diner, Bucky, still lost in thought, almost ran into his muscular back.

“C’mon man, let’s get something to eat and then you can tell me what’s hurting that cyborg brain of yours.”

Bucky shuffled along to a booth at the back, hands in his pockets and cap pulled low on his brow. Sam ordered them both an all-day breakfast and bottomless coffees, shamelessly flirting with the waitress, a fact that annoyed Bucky for no real reason he could discern. They sat in silence as they waited for the food to arrive, Bucky looking around for non-existent threats, as Sam scrolled on his phone. Bucky wondered what he was even going to say?

“Hey, Wilson, I think I need help cos I’m feeling so alone and keep fucking a load of strangers to feel alive”?

The waitress set down their plates, brimming with bacon, eggs, sausage and hash-browns, before returning with two large mugs, batting her eyelids at Sam and simpering about whether there was anything else she could get him. He dismissed her with a gap-toothed smile and a chuckle, shaking his head in amusement when she threw him a sultry look over her shoulder as she returned to her spot behind the counter. Bucky watched as Sam started to shovel his food into his mouth.

“What?” he asked around a mouthful of hash-brown. Bucky sighed and started to eat his own food. He had to admit it was good. He hadn’t had a meal like this in a while. He’d been coping with the odd take out and ramen noodles, but it just wasn’t the same. As Sam seemed content to wait until after they’d eaten before starting any deep and meaningful conversation Bucky decided he’d enjoy his meal. He savoured the crisp saltiness of the bacon, the fluffiness of the eggs and the sublime savouriness of the sausage and hash browns, all enhanced with the acidic tang of ketchup. It was strange, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat and enjoyed a meal like this. Not just the food itself, but actually having company.

Eventually, after a few refills of coffee, they finished and Sam insisted on paying. Bucky finally agreed, grumpily, before they headed back out into the hustle and bustle of the streets and headed towards the nearest park. They wandered for a while in quiet companionship, enjoying the relative peace of the pathways that meandered between the trees. When they reached a small stone bridge over a struggling stream, Sam stopped, leaning against the structure and looking out at the view. Bucky propped himself up beside him, the silence lingering until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Are you not going to ask what I need help with?” Sam sighed and shook his head.

“Firstly, it’s obvious what you need help with man, which is everything by the way, and secondly, I’m not your therapist. You’ve told me you’ve got one of those already. But I can be your friend. The last few years have been hard on us both. You’re also not the only one he left behind. I lost my best friend too.”

A weak smile made its way across Bucky’s lips, but he said nothing. There wasn’t really anything to say, but he did bump his shoulder gently against Sam’s. He was an annoyingly happy asshole, but he was the closest to a friend Bucky had.

Sam went to a hotel that night and back to DC the next day, but when he next sent a text to Bucky, the emotionally unstable 100 year old actually replied.

A month later and Bucky was on his sofa when he heard the text notification on his phone, from where it lay in the kitchen. He practically dove across his apartment to snatch it up, and felt the smile spread over his face when he realised it was Sam. Although, as usual, who else was it going to be? They’d been texting and talking and videoing quite a lot over the last few weeks, Sam’s light-heartedness and joy for life slowly seeping into Bucky. It was definitely a good day when he heard from Wilson.

The message contained nothing important, just a blow by blow account of Sam’s day and his general frustrations. He mentioned that he ought to go visit his family in Louisiana, but that apparently felt too much right now. Bucky almost saw the man’s expression in his mind’s eye, how Sam would be railing at the world, but still smiling, that stupid adorable gap between his teeth, his dark eyes sparkling, the skin around them crinkling…

“Shit!”

Bucky was so surprised at his own thoughts and realisations that he couldn’t keep the exclamation in.

“Shitshit!”

His mind did some rapid calculations. He hadn’t been back to the club since Sam had come to see him.

“Fuck’s sake…”

Great, one person had shown him some kind of real human kindness and he imprinted on him like a baby duckling…

He tried not to examine his next actions too closely. He didn’t reply to Sam, just grabbed his jacket and headed down town.

The lights flashed and the bass throbbed as Bucky stalked through the Chateau. He saw some of his previous playmates smile and simper at him as he passed, been there, done that. He was looking for something, someone, new. He mentally dismissed the women who gave him coy smiles. He didn’t want their softness, their curves, this evening. He wanted smooth abs and thick thighs.

There!

He approached his quarry in a few long strides. The man gave him a quick look up and down, followed by a longer once over, and smiled.

“See something you like baby, cos I definitely do.”

“Yeah, I see something I wanna pound into a mattress and turn into a drooling mess.”

“Sounds like a good time to me, lover. I can be whoever you want me to be.”

The man’s smile broadened, chocolate-coloured eyes twinkling, as he took Bucky’s right hand, and led him to one of the private rooms. Once inside he cocked an eyebrow at Bucky, who pulled up the results of his latest test on his phone. The formalities out of the way, Bucky caught him in a bruising kiss, before applying light pressure to his shoulder and pushing the man down. Shame he doesn’t have a gap-toothed smile… He brushed the rogue thought away and forced himself to focus on the wet heat of the mouth engulfing him.

He’d been back nearly every night that week, and for the first time since he’d started frequenting the club he’d sought out the same person more than once. He’d fucked the guy in every position he could think of and then some. He’d sucked his cock like he was trying to draw his very essence out of him. He’d edged him, then overstimulated him. Licked him and bitten him. And in his head he’d voiced his feelings, but not to the man under him.

He knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t, do this anymore. Because it was more than just working through his emotions. It was a full blown obsession

He had to stop.

He’d reached the point where he’d actually started to care that this wasn’t the best way of coping. He came clean to Raynor, although not with all the dirty details – she didn’t need to know those. Didn’t need to know who he’d been imagining himself with as he worked through his emotions.

He’d cancelled his membership to the club. He’d forced himself to go out, in the daytime. He’d worked on his list, his list of atonement. Made…friends, if that’s what you could call Yuri and Leah. Downloaded dating apps to try and find more meaningful connections. He even went and got a haircut, his long locks falling away into a short back and sides. Not quite the style he’d had in the forties, but it felt more “him”. More like he was regaining his own agency. Steve would have made some kind of poetic comment about it, he thought.

He still had nightmares though. That hadn’t changed, waking up in a cold sweat, dog-tags resting against his thumping heart, the memories still raw, still telling him he was a monster and worthless. He’d also stopped texting Sam again, now afraid of his new feelings, of being dependent and vulnerable. This wasn’t what he wanted to feel. He knew it was a dick move, that Sam had done nothing to deserve it. He shouldn’t be mad at Sam.

Then he saw the news. Saw a smug man with blonde hair holding the shield. Steve’s shield. The shield that had been entrusted to Sam.

Fuck.

Now he felt something else, and he didn’t like it. He needed to find Sam and get him to explain what was going on. He was going to have to push his feelings aside and get this mess sorted out. A bitter laugh bubbled up his throat. The clown holding the shield currently wasn’t worthy, and Bucky already knew he’d be trouble. He had to find some way of getting Sam to take it back. Bucky owed it to Steve, their years of friendship, and he owed it to Sam, to what he had meant to Steve and Steve to him and for a host of other reasons, top of which was that Sam was worthy of that shield. He was the best man to carry it and it was apparently up to Bucky to show him that, even if it made Bucky’s heart ache to be near him.

He picked up his wallet, keys and jacket, locked his apartment and made his way to the subway. He needed to get to DC, and find out what the future had in store for James Buchanan Barnes and Samuel Thomas Wilson.

He shook his head as he walked. Trust him to fall in love with not one, but two Captain America’s.

@christywantspizza @jobean12-blog @tinnedowl @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky @tuiccim @beelicious-barnes

[one-chicago-fanfiction]

Countdown Fics: 7

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: Sarah Reese knows she's asexual, but what she doesn't know is how to talk about it. When her sexuality is revealed in the workplace, Sarah doesn't know if she can handle it. Luckily, Doctor Charles and Doctor Abrams have her back.

After a while, it became one of those things: people thought Sarah Reese was just intensely private. It hadn’t been much of an issue to start with. The longer she was at Chicago med, the more she ended up adjacent to these conversations—people talking about private lives, love lives, sex lives. Sarah mostly smiled, mostly nodded, mostly found a reason to slip away from the conversation before it was deemed her turn to contribute, to offer something of herself to these people she saw every day.

The truth was, Sarah hadn’t spent much time talking about being asexual. Talking it through with herself, sure, but when she was the only person in the room it was easy, it was just a simple fact. But when she was with her colleagues? It was like there wasn’t space in this conversation for her, like the expectation was that sex was an ultimate goal, an essential. People saw her talking to doctor Rhodes and assumed the flush in her cheeks was because she wanted to sleep with him, not because he was confident and sharp and she was still learning how to trust herself at Chicago med, to believe herself when she reminded herself she wasn’t out of her depth here.

Doctor Charles was the first person to spot it, this something small and not the norm. He very rarely took part in those parts of conversation either, but would smile warmly, would listen to everyone, would offer advice where constituted. He would talk briefly about his marriages, his kids, an old boyfriend. Always giving tidbits, nothing more. And he was watchful, eyes that saw through all the pretence and practised social cues around him. And he was the first person to follow her one day after she excused herself from the conversation at Molly’s.

She hadn’t gotten far. She was at the bar, trying to decide what else to order, noticing the barest tremble in her hands when he slides onto the stool beside her, gestures for another drink himself.

“Hey there,” he said, and his eyes flicked to her trembling hands, just for a moment. She pulled them under the bar, forced a smile.

“Hey,” she said, could hear the strain in her own voice, kept that forced smile on her face as if it was enough to hide the truth behind it. She couldn’t look at him, chose to scan her eyes over all the expensive whiskies behind the bar instead, stored on sleek wooden shelves, protected by glass, a barrier between them and the world around them. Sarah loved Doctor Charles. She was sure of that now, that the warmth in her chest was about family, and fondness, and implicit trust. But still there were parts of her she’d left unspoken, and now she didn’t know how to change that, or even if she wanted to—if it was safe to.

“So,” said Doctor Charles, their drinks placed before them and slid across the bar. His eyes were on his whisky at least.

“So,” said Sarah, not wanting to reach for her drink just yet. Her damned shaking fingers.

“You left the table pretty swiftly there,” said Doctor Charles. “Did something upset you?”

“No,” said Sarah. “No, no. N-nothing like that. I just, uh…don’t have much to say about…certain things.”

“Mhm,” said Doctor Charles, watching her with that half smile of his, giving a little shrug as he took the first sip of his whisky. He sighed after the sip. “You much of a whisky drinker, Reese?”

“Not really,” she said. Doctor Charles hummed.

“Eh. You wanna give it a shot sometime, you let me know. I’ve got a lot of recommendations.”

“Sure,” said Sarah. “Thanks. You know, I think I’m gonna, uh, go, actually.” She couldn’t help it, that feeling in her chest. All of a sudden she found she just wanted to be alone, tucked away in her apartment. She could go home and do some work there. She could while away the night, and her thoughts. That, she decided, was what she wanted—needed, even.

“Woah,” said Daniel. “You don’t want your drink? You just got it.”

“No,” said Sarah, zipping her coat, fixing her bag onto her shoulder. “No, that’s okay.”

“You know,” he said then, “you remind me a lot of myself.” That halted her. Despite the sudden urge to leave, the desperation to be alone, she wanted to know this, wanted to hear about the parts of themselves people saw in her, in the hope that maybe there’d be some part of her reflected back in Daniel Charles in turn, something she could cling to in moments like this one.

“I do?” She asked. He nodded.

“You do. I used to run away from conversations too, excuse myself, always coming up with a brilliant reason not to answer questions about myself. Of course, I’m not really like that anymore. That was mostly before I came out, you know? But I get it.”

“Oh,” said Sarah. “N-no, uhm. Doctor Charles, I’m not—“

“Woah,” he said, holding up his empty hand. “I’m not asking you to define yourself, Sarah Reese. Frankly it’s none of my business, and maybe I’m wrong, you know? Believe it or not, that can happen sometimes. I just wanted you to know, if there’s anything you do wanna talk about, you can come to me. My office door’s always open. My phone’s always on.”

There was an earnestness to him as they spoke, a gentle sincerity that almost made Sarah want to say it, to share this simple fact about herself with another person in her daily life. Everyone else got to do that, why shouldn’t she? She opened her mouth to say it, and in the end, what came out was, “Thank you, Doctor Charles. I, uh…thanks.”

He smiled, didn’t press. Sarah Reese downed her drink and went home.

It came out a couple weeks after that. At first, Sarah felt like it was her own stupid fault. She’d gotten close to someone, a new paramedic for one of the nearby firehouses. They’d met in the ED a few times, talked, flirted she guessed, and then gone out for a couple dinners. He’d invited her back to his apartment, and both times she’d declined, because she knew what he wanted from that, and she hadn’t been able to tell him yet that she liked him, that she would very much like to see where things might go with him, and that she was asexual. She’d wished it was an easier conversation. She’d wished her mouth knew the shape of the words better, wished she’d started learning to navigate this sooner. But there was nothing she could do about that now, nothing but pretend it didn’t scare her, and tell him.

So she told him, and for a moment—just a moment—he looked like he was fine with it, that he might ask her some questions, that he might just smile and nod and tell her that was cool, might thank her for telling him, then invite her to his place once more. He didn’t. He was, she later decided, a jackass about it—the way a lot of straight men she’d met had been. She’d dated a couple girls who were cool with it, and a person who’d had a lot of questions and done a lot of research themselves, but most of the guys wore the disappointment on their faces like she’d struck them.

All of that had gotten to her when it happened, but none of them had done what this guy went on to do. None of them talked about it like he did, dropping patients off at the ED and mentioning it to anyone who would listen. Doctor Rhodes had found out while making conversation with the guy over paperwork. Maggie had been in the vicinity, along with some nurses she barely knew, and somehow or another it spread through the hospital like something they couldn’t cure.

The next time Doctor Charles talked to her about it, he found her in the staff room. In all honesty, she was hiding in there, sitting on a chair with her head in her hands, wondering if she’d imagined some of the looks she’d been getting these last handful of days. Maybe if she’d told people sooner, taken ownership of it in that way—but then, wasn’t that what she’d been doing by choosing who to talk to and when to do it?

It almost felt like high school all over again, until Doctor Charles sat beside her that day with a sigh, smiled softly at her when she looked up.

“You know, Reese,” he said, “like any other sexuality, asexuality goes back as far into history as human beings can comprehend. Further, even. Oh, and—that guy you were seeing? Believe me when I say people are saying way more about him than they are about you.”

“He’s right,” came a voice from the door. Sarah hadn’t even heard it open, and neither, by the look on his face, had Doctor Charles. He glanced at her, almost apologetically, as Doctor Abrams wandered into the room, over to a locker, fishing his coat and duffel bag from it. He looked tired, like he’d clocked too many long shifts, bags under his eyes as he moved methodically, looked at her with the same frown he gave everyone, even those he was fond of.

“I just…” she started. “I just didn’t mean to become…hospital gossip? It just feels…I don’t know.”

“Mm,” said Doctor Abrams. “If people have nothing better to do than talk about someone else’s sexuality, their problems are bigger than they think yours are. You shouldn’t hide in here though, Reese. Pretty sure you’re needed somewhere on the floor. Pretty sure you need to start ignoring anyone who wants to make you uncomfortable for being yourself out there. Or anywhere. Just my two cents.”

“Doctor Abrams,” said Sarah, that familiar warmth growing in her chest once more. “That’s so…sweet.” She looked at Doctor Charles, looked at the grin he tried to suppress as Doctor Abrams stopped what he was doing, and gave her a look of something close to dismay.

“It is not,” he said flatly. “It’s a simple fact. Right, Daniel?”

“Right,” said Doctor Charles, fighting through that suppressed laugh. “And hey, Reese—Sam and I are thinking about grabbing some drinks after shift. You wanna join?”

“Yeah,” said Reese. “Yeah, I really do.”

[suethor]

SPN OCs....I am wondering I am asking I am listening

omg hey bestie..............saurrrr

ace winchester: sam's (older) twin played by crystal reed (i think? or phoebe tonkin); queer; womanizer.

she and dean are too alike for their own good, but she's a little bit worse at repressing her emotions. she's used to standing up for sam, and when he left to go to stanford, she was devastated, but they kept in touch and she visited him from time to time

spends most of her time reading in the backseat of the impala and listening to britney spears on her mp3 player

has a lot of tattoos, most of them are angel/demon/monster/nancy drew themed

shipped with a lot of people, but i think endgame is probably a fem!castiel (exploring queerness with cas as a vessel (cas is i think played by khadija red thunder)) or a different gq angel

her fic leans WAY more into the y2k early supernatural seasons vibe and isn't as gimmicky as the post s5 narratives

the end of the fic is sam going to law school and her and dean opening up a PI agency near where he settles down, where she occasionally helps sam out once he becomes a defense attorney and hunts monsters on the side

veronica "vex" vernon: witch; played by adria arjona

academic witch graduate student in demonology who deals potions to regular people on the side (yes like a drug dealer)

joins the winchesters as "field research" and stays for the found family sometime late in season 1

shipped with sam because she's also kind of addicted to magic and they heal each other ... <3

continues to deal drugs when she's on the road with the winchesters in order to supplement her income (her research grant money is used bailing dean out of jail)

kind of like the giles to dean and sam's buffy. but also the willa.

does not live out of a backpack like dean and sam do and so dean has to move all his shit out of the trunk to make space for her clothes and books

natalie chan: stanford student with a dark past; sam's college bestie; played by chase sui wonders

her mom, played by maggie q, was a hunter killed by azazel in the same way mary and jess were; she tags along with sam and dean after discovering jess' body

was a bit of a wild child but in a coping poorly way; she has an ongoing drinking problem that she learns to deal with

shipped with dean in a hookup to besties to lovers dynamic; they start off hooking up drunkenly after a night in a dive bar, but natalie feels SUPER guilty about it because of sam, so she doesn't say anything and they don't hook up again. but there's also a barrier of intimacy that's been broken down by it, and neither of them can bail like they usually do on their one-night stands, so they grow really close and eventually fall for each other.

super protective of other women, especially college students. when they're hunting and they run. into people younger than her, it activates something.

always covered in blood (#finalgirl)

bonus!!!! hbo!supernatural oc!!!!

jessica "monday" lunes: played either by amber midthunder, fivel stewart, or alexa demie (lol.)

taken in by john after her parents were killed by vampires, a few months before sam left for stanford

grew up with the winchesters from age 16 on; dean and john both call her "monday" or "my monday" because of her last name

the secret reason she was taken in that john doesn't reveal: she's a supernatural magnet. for whatever reason, the dead gravitate towards her—which is why her parents were killed. she also seems to have some sort of immunity, though—they never want to hurt her

suffers from terrible nightmares all the time; doesn't realize they're actually visions from nearby dead

john took her in both to protect her but also because he hoped that she might attract the thing that killed mary

fic condenses the seasons a bit so castiel appears sooner and explains to her that she has divine origins

[sisterspooky1013]

Here and Now

Author: SisterSpooky1013

Rating: Mature

Words: 2198

Read it here on AO3

Tagging @today-in-fic

May 25, 2021

Farrs Corner, VA

8:45pm

She stood at the sink, elbow deep in dishwater as she cleaned up the remnants of dinner. Music poured softly from the smart home device on the counter, a mix of Kasey Musgraves, Blake Shelton and Jason Aldean in what Mulder called “evening music.” She’d never been a fan of country, but this sultry, soulful version was a far cry from the twangy pickup truck tunes that she had previously been exposed to and she was surprised to find that she liked it. A new song started, “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton, and she smiled; it was one of her favorites. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, allowing her hips to sway slightly as the words began.

Used to spend my nights out in a barroom

Liquor was the only love I’d known

But you rescued me from reachin’ for the bottom

And brought me back from being too far gone

Maybe she liked this song because it reminded her a bit of her relationship with Mulder. Not that either of them ever had an inclination for drinking in their sorrow (thankfully) but because they’d saved each other time after time. As if on cue, she felt his hands at her waist as he wrapped his arms around her, pressing her back flush against his front. He swayed softly with her, not speaking, his chin resting on her head.

You’re as smooth as Tennessee whiskey

You’re as sweet as strawberry wine

You’re as warm as a glass of brandy

And honey I stay stoned on your love all the time

“She asleep?” Scully asked, her hands scrubbing the perimeter of a pot.

“Mmhmm” Mulder hummed, his thumb brushing against the underside of her breast.

At 2.5 years old, Missy, or Samantha Margaret Mulder as she was legally named, was a bedtime resistance champion if there ever was one. Her requests for a drink of water, a trip to the bathroom, socks for her cold feet, or help with a blanket that had fallen off were endless. One or the other of them would sit outside her bedroom for upwards of an hour each night until she succumbed to exhaustion and passed out just inside the door, or on the floor of her closet, or once wedged up on the windowsill. A precocious child with strawberry blonde hair and hooded hazel eyes, she never wanted to miss out on anything and thus could not be bothered with unproductive things such as sleeping. Mulder had more patience for her antics than Scully did, tenderly marching her back to her tiny toddler bed over and over, kissing her plump cheeks and singing one more song. Her most popular request was “Fools Rush In” by Elvis and she would beam as her Daddy sang “I can’t help falling in love with you,” punctuating the ‘you’ with a gentle touch of his fingertip on her nose. The exhaustion of parenting a toddler in their 50’s was overshadowed only by the sheer joy she brought to their days with her inextinguishable curiosity and clear intelligence. Of course, every parent thinks their child is the smartest one in preschool, but in Missy’s case it was true.

Scully rinsed the pot and set it on the drying rack before she pulled the plug and let the water run out of the sink, wiping her hands on a dish towel and turning within the confines of Mulder’s arms to face him. She reached for his shoulders as they moved their dance to the middle of the kitchen, his hands traveling down until they found her hips, pulling her close as his lips brushed her ear and sung the next verse in his gravely baritone.

I’ve looked for love in all the same old places

Found the bottom of a bottle’s always dry

But when you poured out your heart I didn’t waste it

‘Cause there’s nothin’ like your love to get me high.

He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes soft and dreamy, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. She pushed up onto her toes and met his lips in a kiss. At first it was chaste, but when she slid her tongue against his bottom lip he sighed and slipped his hands lower to cup her backside, deepening the kiss and rocking his pelvis against her gently.

“Daddy?” A small voice called from the bottom of the stairs. Still embracing, they turned to see Missy’s rumpled form in her Frozen pajamas, a stuffed Bigfoot in one hand, her hair wild.

“Hey Magpie, what’s wrong?” He asked her. Having named her for both their sisters and Scully’s mom, his options for nicknames was endless and he did not let the opportunity go untapped. On any given day he might call her Missy, Miss thang, Sam, Sammy, Samwich, Maggie, Peggy or his personal favorite, Magpie.

“I heard somefing in my room” she whined, rubbing a fist over one sleepy eye.

“Come here, sweetie” Scully called to her, and she shuffled over to them where Mulder scooped her up on his hip and returned his other arm to Scully’s waist. Scully put her hand on Missy’s back and the three of them resumed the dance, swaying softly with Scully’s head resting on Mulder’s chest, where she could gaze at the sleep-dazed face of their daughter as she leaned against his shoulder.

And you’re as smooth as Tennessee whiskey

You’re as sweet as strawberry wine

You’re as warm as a glass of brandy

And honey I stay stoned, on your love all the time

As the last chords of the song faded out, Mulder placed a kiss on the top of Scully’s head and pulled away from her.

“I’ll go get this one back to sleep” he murmured, and she could see that it wouldn’t be a difficult task as Missy was already dozing in his arms. She listened to the creak of his feet on the stairs and sighed contentedly before turning off all the lights, locking the doors and heading up to get ready for bed herself.

When Mulder returned, she was lying on top of the covers reading a book, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. He stripped off his jeans and tossed them into the laundry basket before nestling in beside her, his head on her shoulder.

“What cha got there?” He asked, but she knew that it wasn’t an actual question, just a signal that he wanted her attention. Closing the book, she set it on the nightstand and folded her glasses neatly on top.

“Do you think she’s down for the night?” Scully asked as Mulder rotated so that he was perpendicular to her, his head on her belly so he could see her face. She reached a hand up to stroke through his hair.

“I think so, yeah. She was pretty much asleep when I put her back in bed.”

“That child” she remarked, shaking her head.

Mulder smiled. “I know, she’s impossible, just like her mother.”

Scully’s eyebrows lifted in mock offense. “Excuse me? I love sleeping, she gets that from YOU, sir.”

Mulder scrunched up his mouth “hm, you may have a point there.”

They held eye contact, smiling fondly at each other for a beat.

“I don’t know how you do it, Scully.”

“What, parent? You do the same thing, Mulder.”

He shook his head slightly against the fabric of her T shirt. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate.

“You just get more and more beautiful. You’re even more beautiful now than you were when I met you.”

She chuckled and gave him a doubtful look. “Mulder, I was 28 when you met me. I don’t know about you, but I remember what my ass looked like at 28, and it was definitely better than it looks now. Let’s not even mention my breasts.”

“I would actually very much like to mention your breasts, which are, as they always have been, exquisite.” As he spoke, he pushed her T shirt up to reveal her chest, drawing a pink nipple between his lips and eliciting a moan from her throat.

“So you’re saying” she continued, her breath growing ragged around her arousal “that if 28 year old Scully walked in this room right now, you wouldn’t go for her instead of 57 year old Scully?”

He let her nipple slip out of his mouth with a little smack. “Well, I doubt that 28 year old Scully would be down to get freaky with 59 year old Mulder, but no, I wouldn’t.” He moved to hover over her, his knees on either side of her thighs. “I might try to talk you two into a threesome, though.”

She laughed and he dipped his head to kiss the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

“No shade to 28 year old Scully, I was a huge fan of hers, but she hardly ever laughed. 57 year old Scully laughs a lot, and I like that.”

“Well, 57 year old Scully is pretty damn happy” she replied, her hands running up and down the broad expanse of his back.

He lifted his head to look at her, a dopey smile on his face. The adoration in his eyes moved her and she felt a lump form in her throat.

“I love you so much” she whispered hoarsely, moisture welling and blurring her vision.

He didn’t respond, just kissed her with all the feeling of the thousands of kisses they’d already shared, and the thousands that never made their way to their lips due to distance, or fear, or stubborn refusal to admit that they wanted to. He pulled her to sit up so he could free her of her shirt, removing his own swiftly, their bare chests pressing together as he kissed her again, their tongues dancing between their mouths in a practiced synchrony. There was no longer urgency in their movements, the desperation of their coupling now ebbed into the languid cadence of a love that you know will never fade, not again, not ever again. Not with Missy asleep down the hall tying them to each other inextricably, not with William out there somewhere as a testament to all they’d been through. Not with the knowledge that there was nothing in this planet or universe that could come between them, not really.

She lifted her hips and he slid her leggings and panties down before pushing off his boxers, settling between her legs as his erection grazed her belly. He moved his hand down to touch her, moaning at her slickness.

“You still get so wet” he growled against her shoulder.

“28 year old Scully got this wet thinking about you too, she just didn’t have the luxury of you in her bed” she replied, grasping his ass and pulling him into her.

“All she would have had to do was ask” he teased, removing his hand and thrusting against her, his length sliding through her wetness.

She put her hands on his face and pulled him away to look at her.

“I wouldn’t change it, Mulder. Not if it meant missing this.”

“That makes two of us” he said as he found her entrance and slid into her, no need for hands to guide him to the place he knew better than his own body.

She hummed and they began a slow rhythm, kissing for a while until he lifted one of her legs onto his shoulder to deepen his angle and she gasped.

“I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be this flexible, Mulder, you’d better enjoy it” she panted.

“Oh I plan to” he replied, increasing his pace until they were lost in a sea of sighs and hushed moans, staying quiet a newfound skill after years of no one being close enough to hear them. She came first, stifling her cries against his shoulder as she pulsed around him, and he followed her shortly thereafter, gently releasing her leg and then rolling to curl up behind her as they enjoyed the afterglow.

She was starting to drift off to sleep when she heard the distinct snick of Missy’s door opening.

“Your turn” Mulder mumbled into her ear and she groaned, throwing his arm from its resting place on her hip before she grabbed her robe and rushed out to the room to get to her daughter before she made it into their bedroom.

After a trip to the bathroom and a drink of water, she was tucking a sleep-laden Missy back into bed, finding her Bigfoot stuffie and slipping it under her arm.

“Mama, sing a song” she requested, rolling on to her belly.

Scully rubbed her back softly and began, woefully off-tune though that never seemed to bother Missy.

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was an old friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said but I helped him drink his wine. Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.”

[motownfiction]

1, 14, 18✨

1. what kind of readers would be fans of your WIP?

anybody who likes low-stakes stuff about character relationships! i think fans of teen dramas would like this material, despite the fact that these characters grow out of being teens pretty quickly, lol.

14. which character from your WIP becomes the fan favorite?

sam. like, hands-down, sam. he's funny, he's adorable, and he meets a tragic death before the middle of his life. people would be all over him. sam is a lot like a more tragic and poetic version of seth cohen from the oc, and people really loved seth cohen. so i think people would like sam the best here, for sure. sometimes, i even like him the best.

18. what kinds of fics could people write about your WIP?

lmao, well, of course there would be fix-it fics where charlie is the one who dies in the car accident on christmas instead of sam (because charlie is the villain, and sam is the best). lots of fics shipping sam and will and, to a lesser extent, lucy and sadie. i can see there being a small faction of people who, like, write fics about the leads' parents when they were growing up in the sixties, especially maggie and mike. maybe fics where lucy and will never move to new york and stay in the metro detroit area forever and ever. stuff like that.