#Curse of the Alps
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goryhorroor · 10 months ago
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horror symbols: crucifixes
In horror movies, crosses are often used as protective charms or magical weapons against supernatural enemies, but in horror movies critiquing catholicism, it could relate to a character a tramua of theirs and what is being used to scare them.
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neveragod-alwaysanangel · 1 year ago
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may my weird photoshop glitch grant u many revelations like an anti-curse, or even a blessing 🙏
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firelitmoon · 3 months ago
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Think about a cigarette and a possible coffee. Think about cigarette and a possible coffee!!! THINK ABOUT CIGARETTES AND A POSSIBLE COFFEE
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sagilsnonsense · 9 months ago
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*casually drops these here*
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fleshwizard · 28 days ago
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Dragons & Folklore de France
Translation below
The Tarasque dwells in the waters of the Rhone river near the town of Tarascon, where it devours travelers and destroys dikes and dams to flood the Camargue. Saint Martha chained it, and the people of Tarascon killed it.
The ruins of the amphitheaters of Metz were infested by hundreds of snakes. The largest of them, the Graoully, had a venomous breath, a mouth bigger than its body and devoured men. Saint Clement chased it away into the Seille River.
King of serpents, the Basilisk takes many forms throughout history and appears in many tales. One of them takes place at the Gate of Saint-Eloi in Bordeaux, known today for its Big Bell, where a well was occupied by a Basilisk. It petrified with its gaze anyone who went there to fetch water. It was defeated by a man returning from the Egyptian crusade, who petrified the beast with its own gaze using a mirail (mirror).
The Cocatrix is born from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad. The egg has magical properties but must not be broken. People who cross its gaze die immediatly.
Made of wicker and covered in flowers, the Grand Bailla wanders the streets of Reims three days a year and feeds on gold and sweets. It was banished by Archbishop Charles Maurice le Tellier.
The Grand'Goule haunts the marshes of Poitou, the waters of the Clain and the flooded cellars of the abbey of Sainte Croix. It feeds on nuns and casse-museaux (snout-breakers, cakes). Saint Radegonde chased it away with holy water.
In the rivers of the Jura and the Alps there is a group of diverse dragons, the Vouivres. They are generally flying serpents covered in fire and guardians of treasures. Many have for a single eye a gigantic carbuncle with extraordinary powers, desired by those in search of wealth and power.
Hidden in the caves and cliffs of la Pointe du Roux near La Rochelle, the RĂŽ Beast traps and devours travelers in the coastal marshes. It was impaled by seven heroic pagans from the seas.
Mythical dragon of the Basque Country, Herensuge gave birth to the Sun and the Moon, swallowed all of Creation in ten days then regurgitated it in flames. Now asleep in the mountains, it sucks up flocks and shepherds in his sleep. When it wakes up, it will destroy the world in flames and blood. (illustration)
Durandal is the mythical sword that Charlemagne gave to the knight Roland. Some claim that it was inherited from Hector, the warrior of the Trojan War. At war with the Saracens in the Pyrenées, Roland wanted to break the sword so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy but Durandal split the mountain. So he threw the sword, which went to stick miles away, in the rock of the town of Rocamadour.
The belief in the Tooth Fairy is widespread in several countries in Europe, and is sometimes amalgamated with La Petite Souris (little mouse). It exchanges baby teeth for money. No one knows what it does with all these teeth.
The Camecruse is a bogeyman that haunts the moors and marshes of Gascony. It is agile, can jump and hide in the night to better devour lost children. No one knows exactly how it feeds.
The caves under the hill of the town of Hastingues are home to Lou Carcolh, a monstrous snail, long, slimy and hairy. Its shell is as big as a house. With the help of its tentacles, it grips people to devour them.
The Questing Beast is hunted by kings and heroes in Arthurian legends. It symbolizes evil, incest, violence and chaos, and takes it name from the loud noises that come out of its stomach, similar to the barking of dozens of dogs.
The fairy MĂ©lusine, cursed princess of Albania, was condemned to change into a snake below the waist every Saturday. She married Raymondin de Lusignan with whom they had 10 prodigious children. But Raymondin broke his promise never to see MĂ©lusine on Saturday : he surprised her in her monstrous form, and she left her family forever.
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gyuuberryy · 29 days ago
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vanilla coconut !
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pairing: sunshine!sunoo x grumpy!reader
genre: one sided enemies to lovers, sunshine x grumpy trope, barista au, christmas au
synopsis: it's winter break and instead of exploring switzerland with your friends, you're unwillingly working in your mom's cafe. to make matters worse, the new hire is a little too clingy and hyper, always adamant on getting you excited for the holiday season, much to your dismay. as you're forced to be around him for more than half of the day, every single day, you learn a thing or two from each other. he smiles for the both of you, whatever you do is enough for him and whatever he does is too much for you. maybe just maybe you could be friends, or perhaps something more?
warnings: kissing, jealousy, flirty!sunoo, family issues, argument, reader is kinda mean, crying,
note: i finally got to write for my biggest crush—sunoo!(I'M SO IN LOVE WITH HIM) this has a slight hallmark movie vibe because i lovee them. merry christmas!
word count: 10.1k
i love reading your comments and reblogs, so please do so if you liked reading this<3
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the plan had been perfect.
switzerland in winter, cozy chalets, the sparkle of snowflakes in the alps, and hot chocolate that was more melted dessert than drink. your friends had already started posting pictures: selfies by frosted windows, snow-covered towns that looked ripped out of postcards, and captions so carefree they stung.
but no. you weren’t in switzerland. you were here, in the cramped kitchen of your mom’s cafĂ©, drowning in holiday specials and watching other people live out the joy you were supposed to be having.
“do you have to look so miserable?” your mom asked that morning as you trudged downstairs. “you’ll scare away the customers.”
“it’s not my fault i’m stuck here,” you muttered, your words muffled by the scarf you were wrapping around your neck.
your mom sighed but didn’t argue. she didn’t have to. the weight of responsibility—the oldest sibling’s eternal curse—hung heavily between you. when your mom had insisted you stay behind to help with the café’s holiday rush, the conversation hadn’t exactly been open for debate.
“it’s your responsibility,” your mom had said, her voice as unwavering as ever. “you’re the oldest. you understand that, don’t you?”
she’d said it like it was obvious, like it didn’t matter that you’d saved for months or that this was your last winter break before finishing university. your siblings had been conveniently absolved of all obligations, leaving you to pick up the slack.
and now here you were, staring out the café window at holiday shoppers bustling about their merry little lives.
it wasn’t just the lost trip that soured your mood. normally, you liked the holiday season—the warm lights, the scent of cinnamon in the air, the general buzz of joy. but this year, it felt impossible to muster up even a hint of cheer. maybe it was the bitterness of being left behind. or maybe it was the feeling that everyone else got to celebrate while you were stuck doing the thankless work.
whatever it was, you wanted no part of it. no twinkling lights, no jingly music, no forced smiles. if it were up to you, you’d fast-forward straight to january.
suddenly, the bell above the door jingled, snapping you out of your brooding. you straightened up, putting on your polite customer-service face as you prepared to take their order. but the sight that greeted you stopped you cold.
the man standing in the doorway looked like he’d lost a fight with a christmas clearance bin—and lost spectacularly. his coat was a patchwork of red and green, his scarf glittering with snowflake designs, and atop his head sat a ridiculous pom-pom hat that looked like it came straight from santa’s workshop, bouncing with every step.
you squinted at him, wondering how anyone could walk around looking like a walking holiday advertisement and not feel the slightest bit self-conscious. he practically radiated cheer, and you were already bracing yourself for the headache that would inevitably follow when you took his order. 
his curious eyes stopped their surveillance once they stopped at you. he lit up and waved at you enthusiastically(his mittens made a soft fwip-fwip sound against the air as he did that, making him look even more adorable ridiculous in your opinion).
“sunoo!” your mom’s delighted voice rang out, cutting through your internal judgment. she emerged from the back, her face lighting up as if he were her long lost son. “you’re early! perfect timing.”
“always early for christmas,” he replied, his voice as bright as his outfit.
you raised an eyebrow, trying to piece together what was happening as your mom motioned for him to come closer.
“sunoo’s going to be helping us out during the holiday rush,” she explained, turning to you with an expectant smile. “isn’t that wonderful?”
wonderful was not the word you would have chosen.
before you could object, sunoo turned his attention to you, his smile widening like he’d just found the best present under the tree.
“hi!” he said, thrusting out a hand. “i’m sunoo. it’s so great to meet you! your mom’s told me all about you.”
“uh.. hi,” you managed, shaking his hand hesitantly.
“she also said you’re going to be showing me the ropes!” he added, his enthusiasm not faltering for even a second.
your mom patted his shoulder approvingly before disappearing back into the kitchen, leaving you alone with who could only be described as christmas incarnate himself.
“where should we start?” sunoo asked, looking around the cafĂ© with sparkling eyes. “drinks? decorations? oh, wait—do i get an apron?”
you blinked at him, trying to process how someone could have this much energy so early in the day. “uh, yeah. apron’s over there,” you muttered, pointing toward the storage cabinet.
as he darted off to grab one, you couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that this holiday season was about to get a lot more...complicated.
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the next few days were nothing short of exhausting and it wasn’t because of the cafĂ© rush.
it was him.
day one with sunoo was a test of patience.
he wasn’t just enthusiastic—he was relentless. he greeted every customer like an old friend, remembered their names and favorite drinks, and even started a suggestion box for “holiday improvements,” which was quickly overflowing with ideas.
on his second day, came the first incident. while you were preparing an espresso, sunoo decided to take matters into his own hands and “spread holiday cheer.” which apparently meant hanging garlands around the counter while you worked.
"could you not?" you finally snapped as a strand of tinsel landed on your shoulder.
"it’s festive!" he countered, grinning as he perched a tiny santa hat on the espresso machine. "doesn’t it make you feel jollier?"
you glared at him. "i’m plenty jolly."
he blinked innocently. "are you sure? because you’ve been frowning for
well, since i got here."
but it wasn’t just the decorations. sunoo had an uncanny ability to be everywhere at once. whether it was bringing you hot cocoa during your break (“it has marshmallows!”) or attempting to teach you his rendition of “jingle bells” while you prepped the next batch of cookies, he was always there.
“smile more!” he said one afternoon as you handed a cappuccino to a customer.
“i am smiling,” you replied through gritted teeth.
“that’s not a smile. that’s...a grimace,” he teased, leaning in with mock seriousness. “here, watch me.”
he turned to the next customer, flashing a grin so radiant it could have melted an iceberg. “welcome! isn’t it just a great day to treat yourself?”
the customer chuckled, clearly charmed. you, on the other hand, wanted to crawl under the counter and hide.
well yes, you begrudgingly had to admit that his presence had improved the café’s working tremendously. the customers loved him. he remembered names, guessed favorite drinks, and made people laugh. tips flowed into the jar like magic.  but he was trying to ruin your plan of not appreciating the holiday season! and you were not going to let that happen.
but, by the end of the week, something shifted.
slowly—very slowly—you had started to tolerate him.
it wasn’t that he stopped being annoying. if anything, his energy seemed to double with each passing day. but somewhere between his absurd carol remixes and the way he handed out extra cookies to kids who looked like they’d been dragged to the cafĂ© against their will, you found yourself less irritated.
not impressed. definitely not charmed(lies!). just...less annoyed.
but one question lingered at the back of your mind: why? why was he so happy? what made him light up like a human christmas tree every day?
you weren’t sure you wanted to know the answer. but as you caught him grinning at a regular customer who’d just handed him a homemade ornament, you couldn’t help but wonder.
the cafĂ© was quiet as you flipped the sign to "closed" and started tidying up for the night. it had been a long day, and you couldn’t wait to finally go home.
just as you locked the register and reached for your coat, the bell above the door jingled. you turned, irritation already bubbling up.
“we’re closed,” you started, but your words faltered when you recognized the man standing there.
“y/n,” your ex-boyfriend said, his smirk as familiar as it was grating. he stepped inside, dressed in a tailored coat that screamed money and arrogance. god, you can’t believe you fell for someone like him as a teenager.
beside him stood a woman teetering on heels that seemed entirely impractical for the icy streets outside. her outfit was bold, to say the least, a mishmash of sequins and faux fur that seemed more suited for a nightclub than a quiet evening in a café.
“oh my gosh,” the girlfriend squealed, twirling a strand of platinum-blonde hair. “babe, is this the little place you were talking about? it’s, like, so...cute!”
your ex casually leaned against the counter you had just wiped, trying to look cool. “i told her about this cafĂ©. thought we’d stop by, see if you were still here.”
still here? the condescension in his tone made your jaw clench.
“it’s nice to see you’re keeping busy,” he added, his eyes sweeping over you like he was assessing your worth.
you plastered on a polite smile, one you reserved for particularly rude customers. “we’re closed, actually. maybe come back tomorrow.”
“aw, don’t be like that,” he said smoothly, ignoring your words entirely. “i was just telling tiffany here about how we used to hang out all the time. she couldn’t believe it. right, tiff?”
tiffany nodded enthusiastically, chewing gum as she looked around the cafĂ©. “totally. i mean, you’re, like, so brave for working here. i could never do customer service—ugh, people are just the worst, you know?”
you stared at her, unsure if she was trying to insult you or if she genuinely had no self-awareness.
“i’ve been doing amazing, in case you were wondering. just opened my own tech startup. big investors, huge growth potential. you know how it is—some of us were always meant to do big things.”
he gave you a pointed look, and you felt your jaw tighten.
“and of course, i’ve got tiffany now.” he draped an arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders, and she giggled, resting her manicured hand on his chest.
“uh-huh,” you said, folding your arms. “well, congrats. i need to finish closing, so if you don’t mind—”
“oh, don’t rush us,” tiffany said with a pout. “we’re just, like, so fascinated by this little place. did you decorate it yourself? it’s so quaint!”
before you could respond, the door opened again, and in walked sunoo, bundled up in his bright scarf, carrying a bag of cookies.
“there you are!” he said cheerfully, making a beeline for you. he barely glanced at your ex before sliding an arm around your shoulders, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “sorry i’m late, babe. got caught up picking these up for you.”
your ex straightened, his brows knitting together. “babe?”
sunoo turned to him, his smile wide. “oh, sorry, i didn’t realize you were talking to my girlfriend.”
the word “girlfriend” sent a jolt through you, but sunoo didn’t give you time to react. he extended a hand towards your ex. “i’m sunoo. and you are?”
“her ex-boyfriend,” he replied stiffly, clearly caught off guard.
“oh!” sunoo said, feigning surprise. “well, nice to meet you. guess you’re the one who didn’t see how amazing she is, huh?”
you blinked, your cheeks warming as sunoo turned to tiffany, giving her a polite nod before focusing back on your ex.
“you know, y/n’s been working so hard lately,” sunoo continued, his voice light but deliberate. “between helping out here and pursuing her corporate law degree, she’s just incredible. i mean, it’s not every day you meet someone with brains, ambition, and kindness all rolled into one.”
your ex’s confident smirk faltered, and tiffany’s chewing slowed as she looked at you with newfound confusion.
“she’s studying law?” tiffany asked, wide-eyed.
sunoo nodded, his smile unwavering. “yep. top of her class, too. honestly, i don’t know how she does it. i feel lucky just to be a part of her life.”
your ex opened his mouth, likely to retaliate, but sunoo wasn’t done.
“and she’s so good with people,” sunoo added, looking at you with a softness that made your heart skip a beat. “customers just adore her. i see it every day—her kindness and how much she cares about others. it’s inspiring, really.”
your ex looked like he’d swallowed a lemon, his girlfriend now staring at him with something akin to disappointment.
“and now,” sunoo said, turning back to you, “i think it’s time we head home, don’t you, sweetheart?”
before you could process what was happening, sunoo leaned in and kissed you. it wasn’t a quick peck, nor was it overly dramatic. it was soft, lingering just enough to leave your heart racing and your mind spinning.
when he pulled back, he smiled at you, completely unfazed. “let’s go.”
you nodded, your voice seemingly lost, and allowed him to guide you toward the back.
as soon as you were out of earshot, you whispered, “what the hell was that?”
“that,” he said, grinning, “was me helping you. you’re welcome.”
you wanted to argue, to scold him for his audacity, but instead, all you could do was feel the butterflies in your stomach.
sunoo, ever the cheerful enigma, simply winked at you before heading to the kitchen, leaving you wondering why you couldn’t stop smiling.
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the next day at the café began like any other, the morning rush fading into a calm lull as the afternoon light filtered through the frosted windows. you stood behind the counter, idly wiping it down, the hum of soft café music mixing with the faint clinking of dishes being cleaned.
across from you, sunoo was in his usual element, drying a tray of mugs with an ease that felt almost theatrical. he hummed a festive tune under his breath, the kind of annoyingly catchy holiday song you couldn’t escape this time of year. unlike most people, though, he wasn’t out of tune—his voice was smooth, each note light and cheerful.
despite yourself, your eyes drifted toward him. it was hard not to watch the way he worked, his every movement quick yet deliberate. but what caught you the most wasn’t his efficiency—it was his smile.
sunoo had this way of smiling that was entirely his own. it wasn’t just polite or perfunctory; it was warm, genuine, and impossibly bright. whether it was an elderly regular ordering tea or the grumpiest customer throwing a tantrum over a latte, he treated everyone with the same sunny energy, as if he’d been waiting all day just to see them.
you barely noticed your cloth stalling on the counter as your gaze lingered on him. his lips curved up, eyes crinkling at the corners, his entire face lighting up in a way that could rival the café’s twinkling christmas lights.
“earth to y/n!”
his voice jolted you from your thoughts, and your head snapped up to see him standing there, a mug still in one hand, the other waving dramatically in front of your face.
“you’re staring,” he said with a knowing grin, leaning casually against the counter. his apron hung slightly askew, a splash of frothy milk smudged near the edge, but he didn’t seem to care.
“i was not staring,” you shot back, too quickly for your own good. the heat rushing to your cheeks betrayed you, though, as you fumbled to sound indifferent. “i was zoning out.”
“sure you were,” he teased, his grin widening into something playful, yet somehow unbearably charming. “let me guess—you were thinking about me, huh?”
before you could even process a retort, sunoo moved. he stepped closer, his easy grin never wavering. instinctively, you leaned back, only for your spine to hit the counter behind you. the realization that you were cornered sent your heart into overdrive.
“w-what are you doing?” you stammered, your eyes darting up to meet his.
he was close now, too close. his arm came up, his hand braced against the counter next to your head, the air around you enveloping you in his mouthwatering scent of vanilla and coconut. his other hand still held the mug, but that didn’t stop your thoughts from spiraling. the way he leaned over you, his face mere inches from yours—it made your breath hitch. for one wild, utterly ridiculous moment, you thought he was about to kiss you(again?).
but then, with a smooth, almost nonchalant motion, he reached past you and grabbed a washcloth from the counter behind your shoulder.
“got it!” he announced cheerfully, pulling back and holding up the cloth like it was a prize.
you blinked, stunned into silence as your brain scrambled to catch up with reality.
sunoo tilted his head, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “what? did you think i was gonna—” he paused, letting the suggestion hang in the air, a devilish smirk tugging at his lips.
“no!” you snapped, your voice cracking as you shoved past him to put space between you. “as if!”
his laugh was light, melodic, and thoroughly maddening as he turned back to the mugs, completely unbothered.
you busied yourself with refilling the napkin dispensers, determined to ignore the way your heart was still racing. yet as much as you wanted to brush the whole thing off, you couldn’t help the small, traitorous smile tugging at your lips. and you hated that somewhere in the back of your mind, you wondered if sunoo had caught it.
later that evening, you found yourself at the door, keys in hand, ready to lock up. the café was quiet, the streets outside eerily calm. the cold had settled in deeper now, a biting wind nipping at your fingers even through your gloves.
as you pulled the door shut and turned the key in the lock, a figure caught your eye. sunoo was leaning casually against the lamppost just outside, his breath visible in small puffs of condensation.
“what are you still doing here?” you asked, wrapping your arms around yourself to stave off the chill.
he straightened, brushing some snow off his coat. “wanted to make sure you got home safe,” he said simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
you froze for a moment, caught completely off guard. “you didn’t have to do that,” you said, though your voice was softer than usual, your usual bite missing.
“i know,” he replied with a shrug, his tone light, almost nonchalant. “but i wanted to.”
the words hung in the air between you, heavier than they should have been. his sincerity was disarming, and for a moment, all you could do was stare at him. the light from the streetlamp cast a faint golden glow on his face, catching the warmth in his eyes and the faint pink dusting his cheeks from the cold.
your chest tightened, the realization of how kind he was settling in. it wasn’t a grand gesture, but it felt significant. genuine.
you wondered if he could hear the pounding of your heart in the quiet night, loud and insistent as it was.
“thanks,” you mumbled after a beat, unable to meet his gaze for too long.
he smiled at you, soft and easy. “anytime.”
as you both started walking toward your respective homes, you couldn’t help but glance at him out of the corner of your eye. there was something about sunoo that you couldn’t quite put your finger on—a warmth that you hadn’t noticed before but suddenly seemed impossible to ignore.
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the nightly walks home had become a routine you hadn’t quite agreed to but couldn’t seem to stop either. sunoo, had decided somewhere along the line that you needed a chaperone to make it home safely through the wintry streets. you’d grumbled about it at first, muttering under your breath about his unnecessary chivalry, but over time, you’d grown to expect the sight of him waiting outside the cafĂ© after closing.
of course, you hadn’t told him that. no, you preferred to keep up your facade of mild annoyance, pretending not to notice how his presence made the cold nights feel a little less lonely.
sunoo, naturally, was undeterred by your grumpiness. if anything, it seemed to fuel his determination to get you into the holiday spirit. one evening, as he walked beside you, humming yet another cheerful christmas tune, he turned to you with a sudden burst of excitement.
“y/n, i just had the best idea!”
you glanced at him warily, already regretting whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “do i even want to know?”
“yes, you do!” he insisted, his grin as bright as the fairy lights strung across the street. “i’m going to teach you my famous christmas cookie recipe!”
you stopped in your tracks, giving him an incredulous look. “your famous christmas cookie recipe? who exactly considers it famous?”
“everyone who’s ever tasted them,” he replied, puffing out his chest dramatically. “they’re a holiday masterpiece.”
you couldn’t stop the amused huff that escaped you, though you quickly masked it with a roll of your eyes. “and why, exactly, do i need to learn this ‘masterpiece’ recipe?”
“because,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “you need some christmas cheer in your life, and nothing says cheer like baking cookies with me.”
you groaned, already feeling your resolve weakening under his hopeful gaze. “fine,” you muttered, trying to sound begrudging. “but only because i’m curious if they’re actually as good as you claim.”
his cheer was instantaneous. “you won’t regret it!”
the next day, sunoo dragged you to the grocery store and. you trailed behind him, half-heartedly protesting whenever he added something to the cart that wasn’t on the list.
“you’re buying way too much butter,” you pointed out as he tossed another block into the cart.
“you can never have too much butter when it comes to cookies,” he said with a sage nod.
he practically bounced beside you, a walking ball of excitement, clutching a carefully curated shopping list for his "famous" christmas cookies.
“y/n, we need to decide on the chocolate chips,” he said, holding up two bags like they were precious artifacts. “semi-sweet or dark? this is critical.”
you shrugged nonchalantly, feigning disinterest. “it’s your recipe, gordon ramsay. pick whatever.”
he pouted dramatically, clutching his chest. “gordon ramsay? that’s a little harsh. i’m more of a... what’s the name of that really cheerful baker on tv? you know, the one who smiles a lot?”
“sounds like your spirit animal,” you muttered under your breath, though a faint smirk tugged at your lips.
while he deliberated between chocolate options with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb, you wandered off to grab some sugar. as you made your way back toward the cart, a voice called your name.
“y/n? is that really you?”
you turned to find yourself face-to-face with an old high school friend. their warm smile was familiar, even if their fashion choices now had taken a complete 180.
“oh my god, it’s been forever!” they said, pulling you into a quick hug. “how have you been?”
you exchanged pleasantries, updating each other on work and uni life. it was nice, catching up after so long, until their eyes flicked past you.
“wait, who’s that?” they asked, nodding toward sunoo, who was now examining a bottle of vanilla extract like it held the secrets of the universe.
“oh, him?” you said casually, glancing over your shoulder. “that’s just sunoo.”
they raised an eyebrow, their smirk teasing. “just sunoo? he looks like he’s your boyfriend or something.”
“what? no, no,” you said quickly, a little too loudly. “sunoo’s not my boyfriend. god, no. he’s just my coworker. we work at my mom’s cafĂ©. that’s all.”
your friend gave you a knowing look, the kind that made your cheeks heat. “coworker, huh? he’s got major boyfriend energy. seems sweet.”
“sweet?” you scoffed, crossing your arms. “he’s more like a hyperactive puppy. always smiling, always humming, always doing something. it’s exhausting.”
your friend chuckled, clearly enjoying your exasperation.
“and don’t even get me started on his christmas obsession,” you continued, rolling your eyes for effect. “he’s like a walking hallmark movie. i swear, if he could marry a christmas tree, he’d probably do it and throw a wedding with carolers.”
your friend burst out laughing, egging you on. “does he sing christmas songs all the time too?”
“constantly,” you replied with mock suffering. “if i hear ‘jingle bells’ one more time, i’m going to lose it. it’s like he’s got a jukebox in his head that’s stuck on holiday mode.”
the two of you laughed, exchanging more exaggerated and judgmental quips about sunoo’s overly cheerful demeanor. but then, as your laughter faded, you caught sight of something—or rather, someone—out of the corner of your eye.
sunoo was standing there, a bag of flour in one arm and a bottle of vanilla extract in the other. his bright smile, the one you’d always teased him for, was gone. in its place was an expression you’d never seen on him before—hurt, raw and unguarded.
“sunoo,” you started, your voice weak and unsure.
he blinked, his eyes darting between you and your friend, as though piecing together everything he’d just overheard. then, without a word, he turned on his heel and walked away, his steps brisk and unsteady.
“wait, sunoo—” you took a step toward him, but he didn’t stop, his figure disappearing around the corner.
your friend shifted awkwardly beside you. “uh... i think i’ll let you handle that. good luck.” they offered an apologetic smile before retreating, leaving you alone with your racing thoughts.
the guilt hit you like a freight train. you replayed every word you’d said, each one now twisting like a knife. you hadn’t meant to be cruel, not really, but hearing it all in retrospect made you wince.
you stood there in the middle of the aisle, the festive chaos of the store blurring around you, and all you could think about was the devastated look on sunoo’s face. for someone who always wore his heart on his sleeve, you’d just managed to break it without even trying.
and now, you had no idea how to fix it.
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the cafĂ© felt colder than usual, and it had nothing to do with the weather. sunoo, the walking ray of sunshine who once filled every corner with warmth and holiday cheer, had dimmed entirely. it started the day after the grocery store incident. he no longer greeted you with his annoyingly bright smile or playfully nudged you when you were grumbling about the customers. instead, he was polite—frigidly so.
“good morning,” you said tentatively as you walked in for your shift.
“morning,” he replied without looking up from the espresso machine, his tone flat.
no teasing. no humming. not even a sarcastic remark about you being late again. just a curt acknowledgment, followed by silence.
you couldn’t deny it—it stung. you thought back to the way he used to coax reluctant smiles from customers, how he would hum festive tunes so loudly you’d complain, and how his energy made the cafĂ© feel like a holiday movie set. now, he did his job mechanically, avoiding unnecessary conversation with you and barely engaging with anyone else.
the decorations he had painstakingly hung felt like they belonged to a different world. they no longer carried the magic they once did.
at first, you told yourself this was what you wanted—a quiet, sunoo-free workspace where you could brood in peace. but it wasn’t peace you felt. it was guilt. crushing, suffocating guilt.
even though sunoo seemed hellbent on giving you the cold shoulder, he still made sure you reached home safely. your evening walks were not the same anymore, with him trailing a few metres behind you instead of him usually sticking right to your side. you couldn’t help but feel even worse. even after you had been inconsiderate about his feelings, he still cared.
one day, during a rare lull, you approached him, the desire to fix things clawing at your chest. you were generally awkward with apologies but you had to try your best. he was wiping down the counter with that same forced nonchalance, eyes focused on the towel, not sparing you even a glance.
“sunoo,” you started, your voice small, breaking the silence between you. “i
 i wanted to say sorry about what happened. i didn’t mean—”
“it’s fine,” he interrupted, finally looking up with an expression that was almost unreadable. “don’t worry about it.”
but you could tell it wasn’t fine. it wasn’t fine at all. the tension in his jaw, the lack of the usual warmth in his eyes—it was all proof that you had hurt him more than you realised.
that afternoon, a customer—a girl around your age—came in and ordered a latte. she was attractive, dressed in trendy winter clothes, her hair a perfect cascade of curls despite the weather. you barely registered her order, too preoccupied with the way sunoo’s demeanor had shifted as soon as she walked up. he leaned over the counter with a smile that was just a touch more dazzling than usual, his eyes bright with that cheerful, carefree light you hadn’t seen in days.
“oh, you’re so good at making latte art!” she said with a little laugh, eyes wide as she watched him.
sunoo chuckled, a sound that came so easily, so naturally, it made something sour twist in your stomach. “thanks. i’ve had a lot of practice. what’s your favorite design?”
“oh, anything cute! maybe a heart?”
you clenched your jaw. the way he laughed, the way he looked at her, it was like the last few days had never happened. he was back to being the sunoo who had brightened every corner of the cafĂ©, the same sunoo you’d ignored and pushed away. a storm of irritation and something deeper bubbled inside you.
you couldn’t help yourself. marching over, you interrupted their conversation, “sunoo, the tables need wiping. i’ll finish this order,” you said, your voice sharper than intended.
he looked at you, his smile fading as quickly as it had come. for a moment, you thought he might argue, but instead, he stepped back and handed you the steaming cup. “sure,” he said quietly, walking away without another word.
the customer looked at you, slightly startled, but you avoided her gaze, focusing on finishing the latte art. your hand trembled slightly as you poured the milk, frustrated at yourself for the way your emotions had spiraled out of control.
this wasn’t like you. you weren’t the type to get jealous, especially not over someone like sunoo, who you’d spent weeks convincing yourself was nothing more than a coworker.
the silence that followed felt deafening, and the rest of the shift passed in a haze. every time you looked at him, he looked away. every time you spoke to him, he responded with clipped, polite words, his voice void of warmth. he was now a shadow of the sunoo you had known, and it was your fault.
and the worst part? you missed it. you missed him.
every day, the weight of your guilt grew heavier, and with it, the realization that you hadn’t just been cruel—you’d hurt someone who had only ever tried to brighten your world.
you wanted to fix things, but you didn’t know how. every attempt to reach out was met with silence, and every smile he gave someone else felt like another nail in the coffin of what you had ruined.
the festive tunes in the café continued to play, but now, they felt hollow, much like the ache in your chest.
that night, you lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the ache of regret clawing at your chest. the guilt was like an icy chain around your ribs, squeezing tighter with every passing minute. you could still picture the smile he had given the girl, so carefree, so genuine, and the way he had walked away from you, a hint of defeat in his posture.
the next day, he was back to avoiding you, treating you like a stranger he’d once known. you watched, helpless, as he poured that same energy into talking to customers, chatting with people as if he hadn’t lost himself in the process. it hurt more than you thought it could.
the coldness extended past the cafĂ©. sunoo’s laughter seemed to be reserved for everyone but you, and you watched as the cheerful light he carried dimmed even further. it made you wonder if you had lost something you didn’t even know you wanted.
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the day had been relentless. the café buzzed from the early hours with orders flying in and customers bustling through, each interaction adding another layer to your growing frustration. by mid-afternoon, you were running on fumes, barely holding it together as the weight of responsibility pressed down on you.
it wasn’t just today. it had been like this for weeks. ever since your mom insisted you stay back during winter break to help with the cafĂ©, it felt like you’d been drowning in expectations. and somehow, the family seemed perfectly content to let you struggle.
you caught sight of your younger siblings in the corner booth, lounging with their phones in hand, sharing quiet laughs. the image stung. while you juggled orders, cleaned counters, and played the perfect hostess, they enjoyed carefree moments, untouched by the demands that seemed to fall squarely on your shoulders.
by the time you escaped to the back room, your patience was hanging by a thread. you slammed a tray of used mugs onto the counter harder than you meant to, and the sharp clang echoed in the small space.
“do you have to make such a racket?” your mom’s voice came from behind you. she stepped into the room, her hands busy with a clipboard, completely unfazed by your obvious distress.
your control snapped. “maybe if someone else around here actually helped me, i wouldn’t have to,” you retorted, spinning around to face her.
she paused, her eyes narrowing. “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“it means i’m exhausted, mom,” you shot back, the words tumbling out in a rush. “i’m doing everything—running the counter, cleaning up, dealing with customers—and for what? so everyone else can just sit back and relax?”
“don’t be dramatic,” she said, her tone clipped. “i’ve been working just as much as you.”
you let out a bitter laugh, shaking your head. “are you serious right now? i haven’t seen you take a single order all day. and don’t even get me started on them,” you gestured toward the cafĂ©, where your siblings were still parked, oblivious to the world around them. “they get to sit around doing nothing while i’m running myself into the ground.”
“they’re younger,” your mom said flatly. “you’re the oldest. you should know better by now.”
the words cut deep, sharper than you expected. “so what? that means i don’t get to have a life? i don’t get to enjoy a break like everyone else?” your voice wavered, anger and hurt intertwining. “you expect me to just give and give, and no one cares about what i need.”
“stop being so ungrateful and selfish all the time,” she snapped, her eyes hardening. “this is your family. you do what’s necessary.”
her words hit like a physical blow, and you staggered back a step, the air knocked out of you. selfish? after everything you’d done? 
she didn’t wait for a response, brushing past you and leaving the room without a backward glance.
the silence that followed was suffocating. you stood frozen, your chest heaving as the tears burned behind your eyes. you tried to fight them, but the weight of her words, of everything, was too much.
your legs gave out, and you sank to the cold floor, pulling your knees to your chest as the first sob broke free. it came in waves, uncontrollable and raw, until you buried your face in your arms, muffling the sound.
you weren’t sure how long you stayed like that. time seemed to blur, your thoughts spiraling in the same vicious cycle of frustration and hurt. the ache in your chest felt unbearable, like a storm raging inside with no signs of clearing.
then, faintly, you heard footsteps. they stopped near you, hesitating, before a familiar voice called softly, “y/n?”
you didn’t look up. you couldn’t. but then you felt it—a warm, steady hand on your shoulder, grounding you in a way you didn’t realize you needed.
when you finally lifted your head, your tear-filled eyes met sunoo’s. his usual brightness was dimmed, replaced with an expression so soft and concerned that it made your chest tighten all over again.
he didn’t say anything at first, just crouched down beside you. then, without a word, he pulled you into his arms. the action was gentle, almost hesitant, but as soon as you felt the warmth of his embrace, you broke all over again.
your fingers clutched at the fabric of his shirt, desperate for something solid as the tears came harder. “i’m so tired,” you whispered against his chest, your voice cracking.
“i know,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing. “i know.”
his hand moved to your back, rubbing slow circles that seemed to ease the ache just a little. he smelled his signature scent of vanilla and coconut, a scent so comforting it made you lean into him further, seeking out the solace he offered.
sunoo didn’t let go. not when your tears soaked into his shirt, not when your breath hitched as you tried to form words between sobs. he stayed there, holding you, his warmth anchoring you in a way you hadn’t realized you craved.
eventually, the tears slowed, leaving you shuddering against him. he didn’t rush you or ask questions, just kept his hand moving in those soothing circles on your back, his presence steady and unwavering. it was only when your breathing evened out that he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
“do you want to talk about it?”
for a moment, you hesitated. but then, the weight of everything—the years of bottled-up frustration, resentment, and heartache—came spilling out.
“it’s just
 it’s so much,” you began, your voice hoarse from crying. “being the oldest, it’s like
 it’s like my life stopped being mine the moment dad left.”
sunoo’s hand stilled for a second, then resumed its comforting rhythm, encouraging you to continue.
you sniffled, swiping at your damp cheeks. “he just—he ran off with some rich woman when i was sixteen, like we didn’t matter to him at all. mom was devastated, and suddenly, it felt like i had to grow up overnight. taking care of my siblings, helping with the cafĂ©, picking up the pieces he left behind
” your voice cracked, and you bit your lip, trying to hold it together.
“and now it’s like nothing’s changed,” you went on, your words tumbling out faster. “mom still leans on me for everything. the cafĂ©, the house, the family—it’s always me. i can’t even remember the last time i did something just for myself.”
sunoo didn’t interrupt, didn’t try to fill the silence with empty reassurances. he just listened, his gaze fixed on you with such unwavering focus that it made your chest ache in a different way.
“and today—today was just the last straw,” you admitted, wiping at your nose with the back of your hand. “i feel like i’m suffocating, sunoo. like no matter how much i give, it’s never enough. and it’s so
 so lonely.”
you looked away, ashamed of your outburst, but his arms tightened around you. “you’re not alone,” he said softly, his voice steady. “not anymore.”
that simple promise unraveled something inside you, and before you could stop yourself, you blurted out, “and i’m sorry. for everything. for being so mean to you, for judging you when i didn’t even know you, for acting like a total brat.”
sunoo blinked, his expression softening even further, but you didn’t let him speak yet. “i know i’ve been awful,” you continued, your words spilling over each other in a frantic rush. “and you’ve been nothing but kind, and here i am, all snotty and messy and—”
“y/n,” he interrupted gently, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.
“and i probably look terrible right now,” you rambled on, ignoring his soft chuckle. “like, who wants to deal with this?” you gestured vaguely to your tear-streaked face and disheveled appearance.
“y/n,” he said again, a little firmer this time, his hand brushing against your cheek.
you froze, finally meeting his eyes. they were impossibly warm, filled with something you couldn’t quite name but that made your breath catch all the same.
“you’re perfect,” he said simply, his thumb gently wiping away a stray tear.
and then, before you could process his words, he leaned in and kissed you.
it was soft at first, hesitant, like he was giving you a chance to pull away. but when you didn’t—when you found yourself leaning into him instead—it deepened, his lips moving against yours with a warmth that chased away every lingering shadow of doubt and hurt.
you melted into him, your hands clutching the front of his shirt as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had felt so unsteady. the kiss was everything you didn’t know you needed—comforting, electrifying, and completely disarming all at once.
when he finally pulled back, his forehead rested lightly against yours, his breath mingling with your own in the quiet of the room.
“i’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he admitted, a shy smile tugging at his lips.
you stared at him, still dazed, your fingers brushing your lips as if trying to hold onto the feeling. “you
 you kissed me,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.
“i did,” he said, his smile growing. “and if i had known it would shut you up, i might’ve done it sooner.”
a laugh bubbled up in your chest despite yourself, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the heaviness inside you lifted.
“i don’t think i deserve you, sunoo,” you said softly, your gaze dropping to the floor.
he tilted your chin up gently, his expression earnest. “then it’s a good thing i get to decide that, isn’t it?”
and just like that, with sunoo’s arms still wrapped around you and the lingering warmth of his kiss, it felt like everything had finally fallen into place.
the next morning, you found yourself standing outside the cafĂ©, shivering in the early chill. snow blanketed the ground, sparkling under the soft glow of the streetlights. the cafĂ© wasn’t open yet, and you were earlier than usual, clutching a small box in your hands. the carefully wrapped gift felt heavier than it should, the weight of nerves pressing down on you.
inside the box was a collection of little things that reminded you of sunoo: a cheerful snowman mug, a candle that smelled like warm sugar cookies, and a pair of bright green fuzzy mittens. they weren’t much, but they were chosen with care—a way to apologise properly, to show him you understood now just how much he meant to you.
the quiet street stretched around you, peaceful but lonely. you rocked back and forth on your heels, trying to shake off the morning cold and the knot of anxiety twisting in your stomach. what if he didn’t accept the gift? what if he was still upset?
before you could spiral further, you heard footsteps crunching in the snow. turning, you saw him walking toward you, his breath visible in the frosty air. he wasn’t wearing his usual bright smile, but the sight of him was enough to make your chest ache.
“y/n?” he called out, stopping a few steps away. “what are you doing here so early?”
“i, uh
” you hesitated, holding the box tighter. “i wanted to see you.”
his eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise. “really?”
wordlessly, you held the gift out to him, your breath hitching as he stared at it. slowly, he reached out and took it, his fingers brushing yours.
“what’s this?” he asked, his tone soft.
“an apology,” you said, your voice quieter than you intended. “for everything. for being mean to you, for not appreciating you sooner, for—just open it.”
sunoo glanced at you, then down at the box. he tugged the ribbon loose and carefully peeled back the paper, his movements deliberate. when he saw the contents, his expression shifted, his eyes widening as a genuine smile began to spread across his face.
“you got me mittens?” he exclaimed, holding them up like they were a treasure. “and this mug—it’s so cute! and a candle?” he brought it to his nose and sniffed, his grin widening even more. “it smells amazing!”
the brightness in his reaction melted the last of your nerves, a smile tugging at your lips despite yourself.
“i thought they’d suit you,” you said quietly, feeling a little silly now but also oddly proud.
“suit me?” he repeated, his tone playful. “y/n, this is the most thoughtful gift anyone’s given me in a long time.”
before you could react, he closed the distance between you in one swift motion.
“wait—sunoo!”
but he didn’t wait. he scooped you up effortlessly, spinning you around in the snow. the world blurred for a moment, the sound of your surprised laugh ringing out as he twirled you like you weighed nothing at all.
“put me down!” you cried, though your laughter betrayed any real protest.
“not until you promise you’ll stop being so hard on yourself,” he said, his voice full of warmth and mischief.
“okay, okay! i promise!”
he set you down at last, but your balance wavered, and the two of you tumbled into the snow together, a heap of giggles and cold breaths.
“you’re impossible,” you muttered, brushing snow off your coat.
“impossible to stay mad at, right?” he teased, propping himself up on one elbow beside you. his grin was as dazzling as ever, and it was contagious.
you rolled your eyes, but your heart felt lighter than it had in days. “yeah, yeah. don’t let it go to your head, sunoo.”
“too late,” he quipped, tossing a handful of snow at you.
what followed was an impromptu snowball fight that left both of you breathless, your cheeks pink from the cold and the laughter. by the time the cafĂ© was ready to open, you’d built a lopsided snowman and shared stories over hot cocoa.
as you sat across from him, watching the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, you realized something else had thawed—your carefully guarded heart. sunoo had done more than bring holiday cheer into your life; he’d brought a warmth you hadn’t known you were missing.
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over the next few days, things between you and sunoo took on a rhythm you hadn’t expected. there was no big moment when it all changed, no grand confessions. it just sort of happened. in the middle of the busy cafĂ©, amidst the noise of espresso machines and the chatter of customers, the two of you found your own little world, filled with unspoken understanding and a quiet kind of comfort.
despite your shy nature, sunoo was anything but reserved. he was touchy, cuddly, and so unapologetically confident in his affection that it left you flustered at least twice an hour.
one morning, you were at the counter, meticulously preparing an intricate coffee order for a regular. concentrating on the froth, you didn’t even hear him approach.
suddenly, his arms slipped around your waist, pulling you into his chest. the warmth of his body against your back startled you, and you nearly dropped the milk frother.
“good morning to you, too,” he murmured softly near your ear, his voice low and teasing.
“sunoo,” you hissed, your cheeks burning as you glanced around the cafĂ©. thankfully, it was mostly empty, save for the regular who seemed too engrossed in their phone to notice. “what are you doing?”
“giving my girlfriend some love,” he said matter-of-factly, resting his chin on your shoulder. his hold on you was secure but gentle, and you couldn’t ignore how solid he felt.
your brain scrambled as you became hyper-aware of every point of contact—the way his hands fit around your waist, the way his sweater couldn’t completely hide the firmness of his chest and arms.
you tried to maintain your composure, focusing on pouring the steamed milk into the cup. “you’re distracting me,” you mumbled, your voice shakier than you’d intended.
“oh?” his tone was pure mischief now, and you could practically hear the grin on his face. “didn’t know i had that kind of effect on you, y/n.”
“stop,” you groaned, half-horrified and half-flustered, trying to wriggle free from his hold.
but he just tightened his arms slightly, chuckling. “not a chance. you’re cute when you’re flustered.”
your heart pounded in your chest as you finished the order, sunoo still clinging to you like a human koala. when you finally handed the coffee to the customer, you turned to him with an exasperated glare.
“happy now?” you said, trying to sound annoyed but failing miserably.
“very,” he replied, his bright smile disarming you completely.
moments like these became a regular occurrence. sunoo had no concept of personal space, especially when it came to you, and he seemed to revel in how easily he could fluster you. whether it was sneaking up behind you to steal a kiss on your cheek while you were stocking shelves, lacing your fingers together under the table during your lunch break, or leaning in close just to whisper something playful and teasing—he was unabashedly, wholeheartedly himself.
at first, you didn’t know how to handle it. the warmth of his attention made you feel vulnerable, exposed in a way you hadn’t expected. but it also made you feel
 cherished, like you were the only person in his world.
one afternoon, you were wiping down tables when he plopped down in a chair nearby, resting his chin in his hands as he watched you.
“what are you staring at now?” you asked, glancing at him over your shoulder.
“my beautiful girlfriend,” he said with a grin so sincere it made your chest ache.
you rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your face. “you’re impossible.”
“and yet, you’re still with me.”
despite your best efforts to stay composed, sunoo always managed to draw out the softer, shyer side of you. and though it terrified you to be so open, so seen, it also filled you with a kind of warmth you’d never known before—like stepping into the sunlight after a long winter.
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the warm light of sunoo’s home bathed the living room in a soft glow, creating a sense of comfort that seemed almost too perfect. the scent of cinnamon and roasted vegetables filled the air, mingling with the gentle hum of christmas carols playing in the background. laughter and the sound of clinking glasses bubbled up around you, and it was hard to believe you were even there, in this place that felt so full of warmth and life.
sunoo had invited you and your mother to an early christmas dinner at his house a few days ago. you had come alone, expecting your mom to stay home after the fight you’d had earlier that week. she’d been sharp with her words, and you’d spent the past few days wrapped in the solitude of your thoughts, wondering if things would ever be the same between you two. but now, as you glanced around at the smiling faces, the feel of this home settled into your chest in a way that was almost foreign, yet achingly familiar.
sunoo’s family, full of kindness and easygoing laughter, was everything that you’d never had. being the youngest child had given sunoo a softness that showed in everything he did—the way he laughed too loudly, the way he clapped his hands when he was excited, the way he instinctively reached for your hand when he wanted to share a joke. it was clear that love had been poured into him without question, without the burden of responsibility or guilt.
the warmth of that realisation grew inside you as dinner was served. sunoo’s father sat at the head of the table, telling stories that made everyone chuckle, while his mother bustled around, her hands full of serving spoons and platters. the room was a symphony of family, love, and shared history. it made you long for that kind of life, for that kind of belonging.
just as you were helping pass a dish of mashed potatoes, the doorbell chimed. sunoo, who had been sitting next to you, turned to look at you with a smile. “can you get that, y/n?”
you nodded, a little confused, and stood up, making your way to the front door. when you opened it, your eyes widened in surprise. there, standing in the cool night air with a basket of homemade goodies balanced in her arms, was your mom.
“mom?” you said, voice catching. she looked as surprised to see you as you were to see her, eyes wide and a little uncertain. but then she took a deep breath, stepping into the house with an air of resolve.
“hello, y/n,” she said, offering a soft smile that reached her eyes. she turned to the room beyond, where sunoo’s family was looking at her with curiosity. “merry christmas, everyone,” she said warmly, her voice more steady than you’d expected.
sunoo’s mother, surprised at the unexpected guest, beamed as she ushered her in. “merry christmas! we’re so glad you came.”
you stood there, feeling a flutter of hope. your mom walked past you, her eyes meeting yours for a brief moment as if to say, can we talk? you nodded, your heart pounding as she led you away from the bustling room.
she took you to a corner by the window, where the soft light from outside fell on both of you, mingling with the glow of the christmas tree. for a moment, neither of you spoke. you heard the sounds of laughter in the other room—the clinking of glasses, sunoo’s voice as he said something that made everyone laugh.
finally, your mom broke the silence. “y/n, i’ve been thinking a lot about us, and how i’ve let you down. when your dad left, i was lost, and i leaned on you for strength when you were just a kid yourself. i didn’t see how it affected you; i only saw my own pain. i’m so sorry for making you feel like you had to carry everything alone.”
her voice cracked, and she reached out, pulling you into a hug. you let yourself melt into her embrace, the weight of years of resentment and unspoken words finally falling away. a tear escaped, then another, as you let yourself feel everything you hadn’t allowed yourself to before—the hurt, the longing, and the relief.
“i’m sorry too, mom,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “i didn’t know how to say it, but i needed you to know i was scared. i was so scared of turning out like
 like everything i didn’t want.”
she pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes glistening. “you’re not like that, y/n. you’re everything i could have hoped for, and more. i love you.”
“i love you too,” you said, your voice finally steady, the words feeling right and true. the basket of treats she’d brought had slipped from her grasp, forgotten as you both shared this moment that seemed to heal everything at once.
there was a noise from behind you—a soft cough. sunoo stood at the end of the hallway, a warm smile on his face. his eyes met yours and then shifted to your mom, who was still holding you close.
“everything okay?” he asked, voice soft.
you nodded, a tiny smile breaking through your tears. “yeah, everything’s perfect.”
sunoo stepped forward, pulling you into a hug that felt like the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. it felt like everything was right, and the past had been forgiven, making way for something better.
as the sound of laughter swelled behind you, you knew that this was a new beginning. and in that moment, you felt loved, not just by sunoo but by the family you had always dreamed of, and by the one that was learning to be there for you, piece by piece.
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BONUS SCENE!
it’s christmas morning, and for once, the cafĂ© is closed. you wake up to a rare, quiet morning, the kind that feels like it could stretch on forever. snow blankets the world outside, muffling every sound and adding a serene glow to the sky.
just as you’re about to head downstairs, you hear the faint sound of shuffling outside your front door. curiosity piqued, you open it to find a very familiar figure standing there, bundled up in a bright scarf and holding a giant thermos. sunoo grins up at you, cheeks pink from the cold, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“merry christmas!” he chirps, holding up the thermos. 
you stare at him, confused but already smiling. “sunoo, what are you doing here? shouldn’t you be with your family?”
he shrugs, his grin never faltering. “already had breakfast with them. besides, i wanted to see you.”
your heart does a little flip at his words, and before you can respond, he’s nudging past you, making his way into the living room like he’s lived here his whole life.
“wait,” you say, following him. “what’s in the thermos?”
“patience,” he says, wagging a finger at you. he sets the thermos down on the coffee table, pulling out two mugs he somehow managed to balance in his coat pocket. “sit.”
you reluctantly sink into the couch, watching as he pours steaming hot chocolate into both mugs. he even pulls out a tiny bag of marshmallows, which makes you laugh. “you’re ridiculous,” you mutter.
“and you love it,” he retorts, passing you a mug before plopping down next to you, so close that your knees bump.
the two of you sit in comfortable silence for a while, sipping the hot chocolate as the snow falls outside. you catch yourself stealing glances at him—at the way his lashes frame his eyes, the way his nose scrunches up when he takes a particularly hot sip.
as you’re lost in thought, sunoo suddenly turns to you, catching you mid-stare. “what?” he asks, his tone playful but soft.
“nothing,” you say quickly, your cheeks warming.
he leans closer, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “were you admiring me?”
“don’t flatter yourself,” you say, but the smile tugging at your lips betrays you.
sunoo laughs, setting his mug down before reaching out to tug the edge of the blanket draped over your shoulders. “come here,” he says, pulling you closer until you’re tucked against his side.
“you’re so bossy,” you mumble, but you don’t resist, letting your head rest on his shoulder.
“only for you,” he replies, pressing a light kiss to your hair.
you look up at him, something warm and fluttery building in your chest. his gaze drops to your lips for just a second, and your breath catches. before you can overthink it, sunoo leans in, brushing his lips against yours in a kiss so sweet and gentle it feels like a snowflake melting on your skin.
when he pulls back, his eyes search yours, a soft smile spreading across his face. “merry christmas, y/n,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
“merry christmas,” you reply, your voice shaky but your heart steady.
he grins and presses his forehead to yours, his fingers playing with the hem of the blanket. “so, do i get a thank you for the hot chocolate and the kiss, or
?”
you laugh, swatting his arm lightly. “don’t push your luck.”
but when he leans back and pulls you closer, you know you wouldn’t have it any other way.
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perm taglist: @soobnuuy @senascoooop @moafloribunda @lunalovesstories
@firstclassjaylee @levandright @fancypeacepersona @mirouie
@gaonashi @firstclassjaylee @kkamismom12
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jasmineoolongtea · 7 months ago
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hii!! i recently just started following you and i don’t wanna overload you with anything so i stress that i urge you to take your time and if you feel like you need to tweak anything then you can since i noticed you barely opened requests :)) i was just wondering if you could write something ( whether it be headcanons or a fic ) about gojo having a jujutsu sorcerer for a girlfriend / partner and his students don’t know so they’re all shocked when they just see this badass person next to gojo and he just casually introduces them as his partner lol. just a thought!! make sure to take care of yourself 💕
a/n: thank you smmmm for the kind words <333 yes omg i love this idea and honestly, i imagine gojo pretending to be chill on the outside but on the inside he's fangirling the same way his students are over his partner cause he's just so whipped and down bad for them jdjsndnsbd
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"Shhhh! Quiet down, you two or you're gonna get us all caught." Nobara hisses through her teeth at Megumi and Yuji, trying her best to be quiet. It was quite a comical sight actually, the three students were all stacked on top of each other as they all attempted to crane their necks into the doorway as discretely as they possibly could.
"I still don't understand why we can't just ask like normal people." Megumi sighs, clearly exasperated at his friend's antics.
"You're such a buzzkill, Fushiguro." Nobara scolds him over her shoulder. It was like he didn't even understand the gravity of this situation.
This wasn't a situation where they could just waltz in and chat it up like regular unless they were intent on embarrassing themselves. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet the current rising star of the jujutsu world: the newly minted special-grade sorcerer L/N Y/N who was famed for being highly elusive, never being in one place for too long to be tied down to somewhere.
Rumours and stories were constantly swirling about you ranging from the more serious ones about your incredible feats of jujutsu and how you managed to exorcise a grade 1 curse for one of your very first missions without breaking a single sweat to more silly ones like that you only wash your face with the purest spring water that was imported from the Swiss Alps and that allegedly you and Gojo Satoru were seeing each other. She thought the last one was particularly dumb as she was sure that a person of your calibre would have better taste than to date their man-child of a teacher, even if he was the strongest. Whatever it was, Nobara was not going to let those two ruin her chances of possibly being able to talk with you face to face.
Above her, Yuji groans out in pain as he feels an elbow jam into his stomach.
"Hey! That hurts!" Yuji complains loudly, his grip tightening around the wooden door frame.
"Can't you be in pain more quietly?" Nobara asks and with that, the two of them were sent into a bickering spat as they traded harsh whispers and snappy comments. However, this would prove to be their end as Megumi eventually loses his balance from all of the commotion above him and tumbles onto the floor with the other two following suit as they land in what can only be described as a failed human pretzel.
Unfortunately, their crash was not as quiet as Nobara was hoping for as one of the office's inhabitants stood up from his seat, seemingly made aware of their presence. "Oh? It seems like we have some eavesdroppers in our midst."
You hum to yourself, your back still facing the doorway as you turn to your white-haired companion. "Is that true?"
"Yes, I think I might know who they are as well. If only they would be so brave enough to reveal themselves." Gojo sighs dramatically, even bringing a hand to his chest as if to feign sympathy. You can't help but giggle softly at his behaviour.
The three of them take that as their cue to stand up, dusting themselves off as they slowly make their way into the office in a single file line. When Nobara sees you, she can't even let herself fully fangirl because the amount of embarrassment she has at getting caught trying to eavesdrop is far outweighing it right now.
Gojo makes his way towards his students as they stand lined up, his hands rubbing together and a devious grin on his face as he puts on his best menacing voice. "Now now now, what do we have here?"
"Satoru, take it easy on them. I'm sure they meant no harm by it." You place a hand on his shoulder as you stroll up to his side. His arms immediately fall to his side as he melts under your touch.
An adorable pout graces his features, his bottom lip jutted out in an attempt to put on his best puppy dog look as he whines at you, "Awww, but you're ruining my funnn. I don't get that many opportunities to do this."
"Sensei, they know you by your first name?" Yuji questions, his head tilted slightly to the side as he tries to figure out what relationship you two could possibly have.
A sly snicker is heard from Gojo as he quirks his eyebrows towards you. "They know me in a lot more ways than just that" he quips back, his tone bordering on being an outright innuendo.
You roll your eyes affectionately at him, clearly used to his playful nature by this point, and give him a light shove on the shoulder to which he pretends to exaggeratedly nurse in pain.
"Sorry for not introducing myself properly, my name is L/N Y/N and I'm a special-grade sorcerer here on a visit to Tokyo Jujustu High." You smile warmly at your boyfriend's students, your hands clasped in front of you as you greet them.
Nobara could feel her breath hitch in her throat as a million thoughts ran through her mind. Oh my god, you, her idol, were actually right in front of her and were acknowledging her. She swears she could die happy right this instance but that would mean that she wouldn't get to take full advantage of the chance to talk to you fully. With that, she snaps out of her star-struck daze and politely inquires, "If you don't mind me asking L/N-san, what are you here for?"
"Oh, they're here to visit yours truly, me!" Gojo chimes in, a megawatt grin on his face with a sense of pride radiating off of him as he motions to himself.
A tsk sound escapes Nobara, clearly distrustful of her teacher's statement. "Yeah right, they have way more important things to be doing than that."
"But it's true though! My lovely partner is here to pay a surprise visit to me!"
"There's no way that that's true. You and them?" As if to punctuate her point, she points at you and Gojo standing side by side and firmly shakes her head. "Nuh uh. They wouldn't date the likes of you."
A soft smack is heard as Gojo theatrically clutches his chest, stumbling back from where he stands to drape himself over you. "It wounds me to hear you say that Kugisaki." He claims, his expression twisted into one of faux pain. When he turns to face you, his demeanour suddenly switches as he leans in towards your ear, a roughish smile on his face with a faintly seductive lilt to his voice. "Maybe we should kiss to prove that it's true."
"Don't be crude, Satoru, they're your students and they're right in front of us." You try to brush him off of you in an attempt to spare his students from becoming witnesses to their teacher's love for PDA but he doesn't let go of his grip, instead choosing to nuzzle his face in the crook of your neck as if trying to coax you to stay with him in his embrace. Like always, you relent to his touch with your fingers carding through his snowy locks, a soft sigh of approval leaving his lips.
There's a beat of silence as Nobara and Yuji try to process what they've just learned and the fact that they've just seen a visual confirmation of it before that peace is shattered and they erupt into a thousand questions. You field all of their burning questions ranging from ones about you to about your relationship with Gojo with grace, amused and endeared by their excitement and insatiable curiosity. Secretly, it warms your heart deeply that Gojo and his students are so comfortable with each other and that he can be himself around them without the pressure of the greater Jujutsu world on his back.
You turn to look at the clock and sigh at how fast time has gone by. "Alright, I'll see you at home Satoru and Megumi." You comment, packing up your belongings as you get ready to leave to attend to some business. Gojo leans down to your height as you place a lingering kiss against his cheek and wave him and his students goodbye.
Unblinking, Yuji and Nobara turn to each other and then to Megumi before they exclaim simultaneously. "You all live together!?"
Oh boy, Megumi knows he's going to be in for an earful with that.
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doctor-dusk · 8 months ago
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𝐩𝐱𝐝𝐧𝐱𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐱'𝐩 đ„đąđ€đž đĄđžđ« đŹđ©đžđœđąđšđ„đ­đČ | đšđ„đžđ± 𝐭.
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you decide to surprise your boyfriend (late sias!alex) on valentine's day.
warnings: oral (m receiving), fingering, unprotected sex (piv), veeery sub!al (but then after comes dom!al cuz i don't know how to write sub lol), a bit of aftercare :3
word count: 5.7k
celebrating the baby recents in nyc i'm going crazy that man's just
.... *chef's kiss*
the bed felt cold that morning for alex, not just because the thermometers were reading low temperatures, but because you weren't there beside him to warm his body when he woke up. which was kinda weird.
‘’it’s not possible that she left so early today.’’, he thought while still staring at the empty side of the bed before raising his head. he smelled your perfume in the room, albeit faintly, narrowing his gaze at the half-open bathroom door in the hope that you would get out of there, even though he knew that wouldn't happen.
especially because it was valentine's day. alex wanted to wake up, look at you and your messy hair, your sleepy face, wake you up with a million kisses all over your face, then ask what you would like to eat for breakfast.
he looked at the digital clock on his cell phone, seeing that there were still ten minutes until 8am. you usually never leave for work so early, and alex really hoped you could curl up with him in bed for a few more minutes until you ran the risk of arriving late at the office.
in addition to the time, he saw a message that you sent to him twenty minutes ago informing him that you needed to go to work early that day and that you had left the breakfast table set for him in the kitchen in case he wanted to eat something.
but alex wasn't feeling as hungry as he would have liked, limiting himself to taking some sips of black coffee as he got ready to go to the studio. 
as much as he wanted to focus on the demands during the recording process, his mind was stuck on the idea that it was strange that you hadn't sent him anything other than a text all morning. he thought he could ask you to have lunch together at any nearby restaurant, even if it was for fifteen minutes.
his hand reached his phone on his pocket, the wallpaper was a photo of you that he took during your annual skiing vacation in the austrian alps.
‘’hi.’’ you answered his call on the third ring. alex was surprised by the way you answered. in fact, everything seemed too strange for him now.
‘’hey... are you busy?’’ he said after a few seconds, speaking softly more so as not to let his friend hear him than to not disturb him.
‘’yeah, why?’’ you asked quickly, getting irritated by a document that was not scanned well, which made you curse under your breath.
‘’nothing, i
 i thought we could have lunch together in a little while.’’ alex replied, nibbling on the cap of the pen he had in his hand, pretending to be focused on the computer screen, but in reality it only made him more anxious.
‘’i can’t, alex.’’ you answered him almost immediately, making him bite the pen cap harder.
‘’c’mon, just fifteen minutes. i didn't even saw you get out of bed this mornin’, y/n.’’ he replied, trying to not show his frustration through his voice.
‘’i already i can’t, turner. i’m really busy, there's no chance of leaving here now.’’ you replied in the same tone to him, making him sigh and remain silent. alex thought about asking you why you were like this, but he thought it could just be the stress consuming you day after day, you have great responsibilities in your department that sometimes keep you up at night. ‘’are you going to say anything else or can i hang up?’’
‘’no, i have nothing more to say.’’ alex replied shortly, not hiding the frustration in his voice.
‘’fine, i'll see you at home.’’ you replied and then hung up, not expecting him to answer you back. 
turner threw his cell phone onto the table, letting out a heavy sigh as he tried to relax his tense shoulders as he adjusted his posture in the chair. he didn't know if he had done something wrong to you the day before or even before that, because everything seemed to be fine with him. or not. 
did he forget to take out the trash yesterday? did he not compliment the color of the nail polish on your nails? is he spending too much time in the studio?
after all, he was a man and men can be stupid when it comes to women's feelings. but you didn't have any communication problems, at least not that he knew about.
“tough valentine's day, huh?” he heard matthew comment next to him, his eyes never left his cell phone screen, but his ears were certainly very sharp to the conversation next to him.
alex didn't answer him, preferring to immerse himself in any recording demands and not stress about the idea that you were acting weird with him for no reason.
and well, he failed the mission miserably.
what alex hadn't really stopped to think about for a second was that this was all a plan so that you could leave work early and get to your apartment first to surprise him.
and of course, you knew that alex would probably arrive a little after 8pm due to the chaotic traffic, or even later because he would probably be too upset to not want to get home early, so you knew you needed to be quick, tidying and organizing the entire apartment, and of course, preparing his favourite pasta, as well as the quick strawberry cheesecake for dessert. you just hoped you hadn't angered alex enough to make him not even want to look at your face at the end of the day.
it was past 10pm, you were finishing lighting the last candle placed on the dinner table when you heard the sound of the password being entered into the digital lock outside, indicating that alexander had just arrived. you directed your gaze to the door at the exact moment you saw him enter, one of his hands was wrapped around the suitcase handle and the other was trying to close the door behind him.
turner was too distracted to notice that everything was dark until he smelled tangerine and pink mango in the room, as well as some rose petals that trailed a small path through the hallway. he stopped, looking ahead and seeing you standing next to the perfectly set table for dinner.
he wasn't staring at you for too long without saying anything just because he was trying to understand what was happening, but because you were wearing a red dress with shoulder-to-shoulder straps, leaving the collarbone exposed and the skirt with a slit that began just above your left knee. he felt disoriented for a few seconds to the point where he even forgot that he was upset with you.
“what is that?” he asked, letting his shoulders relax as you approached subtly, letting him see how your makeup was light, but at the same time striking due to the red lipstick pigmenting your lips.
“what does that look like?” you chuckled, taking the suitcase from his hand and placing it against the wall close to the door, then wrapping your arms around his neck. turner looked once again at the dining table, the smell of gorgonzola cheese sauce mixed a little with the aroma of the candles, not that it bothered him.
“thought you were mad at me. i spent the whole fuckin’ day reviewing my sins to find out what i did or didn't do.” he squinted at you, seeing you laugh comically, and then he couldn't help but smile too. “it was all a plan, eh? i should ‘ave suspected.”
“you're still the smartest and dumbest man i know, honey.” you quipped, sliding the tip of your index finger along his chin, lowering it a little so you could give him a kiss that probably left his mouth stained with lipstick. not that he cared about that. “c’mon, i made this recipe in record time and i want to know if you will like it.” you said, taking his hand and making him sit in the chair at one end of the four-seater table and you sat in the chair on the other side.
there wasn't a moment when you both weren't laughing, or talking about the food, or planning what you were going to do the next day. alex felt mesmerized by you, as if you were always able to make him fall in love with you every day, or in every act like smiling at him and asking him why he had that silly expression on his face when you get up from your chair, walking around the table to hug him, taking the opportunity to sit on his lap, feeling him hug you with one arm while the other remained over your partially bare leg.
soon, you were laughing loudly with your minds connected, your face was red from laughing so much, and alex was trying not to choke on taking another sip of wine, as he was now laughing more at your laugh than at the conversation itself. he loved those moments where he lost himself in the feeling of laughing until his stomach hurt, or just enjoying your laughing face as you tried to stop laughing.
‘’oh, baby, i love you so much
’’ alexander murmured, kissing your rosy cheek, dragging the kiss a little longer until he reached your parted lips, giving you a long open mouthed kiss as you felt him playing with the slit of your dress, his hand moved a little further to feel the warmth of the skin on your thigh.
‘’not more than me.’’ you replied, kissing him again, feeling him smile between the kiss, biting your bottom lip.
‘’why not? i didn't knew this was a competition.’’ he drawled his voice, feeling you caress the back of his neck, giving him goosebumps slightly. you pretended to think for a while, nibbling your lip gently.
‘’cause i have something to show you.” you whispered as if it were a secret, holding his hand so that you could now leave the small room between the kitchen and the living room, crossing the hallway a little further until you reached the bedroom.
turner wasn't too surprised to see the bed littered with rose petals and more scented candles on the nightstands. the dim lights from the candles along with the city lights that invaded the room through the half-open curtain only added an even more romantic touch to the occasion.
in fact, what really surprised him was a chair in front of the bed, which apparently had no use until he realized he was going to sit there when you pushed his shoulders down, making him sit down. his curiosity and excitement were already at an all-time high as he looked at you and wondered what was going through your devilish mind.
he didn't dare say anything as anticipation pounded his chest, watching your every move as you went to the portable speaker connected via bluetooth to your cell phone, double-clicking on the cell phone's screen only to make the first rings of the selected song start to echo in a considerable volume.
you shook your head gently, closing your eyes to feel the music a little and let you body adapt to a rhythm, your closed mouth hummed the melody, your hands slid across the silky fabric of your dress, as if you were in your own world and for a moment, forgetting that alex watched your every act without blinking, thinking that he was incapable of missing something, especially the mischievous way you smiled at him when you opened your eyes and watched him.
‘’i really tried to be a little more creative this year, ya’ know?’’ you said, forming a hook with your two index fingers to pull the straps of the dress, and then the fingers of one of your hands quickly wrapped around the zipper, just to lower it enough to let the piece of clothing run like water down your body. ‘’you're a little hard to please, turner.’’
‘’oh, honey, i’m happy with literally anything you can give me. especially this.’’ alexander replied, opening his legs a little and leaving his body a little more relaxed in the chair, feeling uneasy with his girlfriend's figure in just lingerie in front of him. you were always able to leave him speechless. ‘’this lingerie is new, isn't it?’’ he asked, paying attention to every detail of those intimate pieces, his fertile imagination just formulating the image of those panties and bra thrown in some corner of the room while he was too busy touching and feeling every inch of your body.
‘’did you like it? i bought it just so you could take it off.’’ you smiled, turning around so that turner could lose himself once again in your curves, in the skin that seemed to glow in the candlelight, and, while he would love to continue having this privileged view, he couldn't wait to do what his mind already formulated.
you allowed yourself to get a little closer to him in rhythm with the music, each touch seemed to send him a certain type of stimulation, and alex was loving every second of it, feeling his chest rise and fall restlessly amidst his heavy breathing, watching you spreading your legs so that you could sit perfectly on his lap.
‘’look at you
’’ you murmured, slowly tilting your head to capture every little feature of his face, feeling that his eager hands were already trailing a small path from your knees to your thighs. ‘’you seem so desperate.’’
‘’i am.’’ alex responded almost immediately, feeling your lips press against his neck as you tilted your head a little more, taking in his scent, feeling it invading your nostrils like a summer breeze. alex let his hand go up a little more to hold your hair, taking it off of your shoulder to leave the area free so he could give you a simple kiss, but it was certainly capable of making you shiver completely. ‘’i need you so much, baby
’’ turner dragged his voice into your ear, letting his hand gripping the back of your head as he felt you smile into his neck.
‘’oh, but i'm not finished yet, love.’’ you tutted, moving your hands up to his shirt, and then your mouth took his in a deep and passionate kiss. alex felt the urgency to help you get rid of the shirt as soon as possible, now enjoying the sensation of your nails scraping the skin of his chest from top to bottom, the skin boiling with the desire that consumed him more and more. he loved the touches, the way you handled everything and made him more aroused to the point where he felt like he would explode just with these small acts.
the kiss didn't last long, as soon alex was enjoying the sight of you slowly flexing your knees to lower yourself in front of him as you got off his lap. normally, you were always quick to get rid of his undergarments, but at that moment, you absolutely loved to take advantage of the slowness, just to increase alex's anxiety a little more to the point of realizing that he felt goosebumps and was holding back a few curse words due to your slowness in just lower the zipper of his pants.
‘’you're very
’’ he murmured, holding his tongue between his teeth and letting his mouth contort into a crooked smile. he didn't want to act like he was practically dying from it, even though you knew that very well. it was clear to you how desperate he was, and that only made it more fun for you.
you laughed, ceasing the torture that would probably make alex climb the walls at any moment or just lose his patience, pulling his pants down with his underwear, watching his cock pratically jump out of the confines of his underwear, painfully hard. 
you licked your lips at the sight, wrapping your hand around his throbbing erection, making him let out a sigh both from the relief and the simple pleasure he felt with the slow slide of your right hand, making him shudder. 
for him, that was enough to make him see stars, but of course you could improve even more by replacing your hand with your lips that were thirsty for that touch, getting a preview of his taste as the precum entered in contact with your tongue at the exact moment your slid the muscle over the tip. 
you wrapped your lips around him in a deliciously pleasurable way that made him raise his hips towards you a little, thrusting into your mouth, the tip of his cock hitting your throat roughly, making you gag in response, drooling over his length.
alex closed his eyes tightly, letting his head fall back, a long moan escaped his mouth when he felt you stimulate him with your lips and hands, stroking him where your mouth couldn't reach. he felt the spasms getting stronger and stronger, letting his fist close on your hair when you took him deeper. 
but of course, you needed to take breaks, letting your hands work their magic on his cock so you could look at him. his face was flushed and frowning, his mouth was half-open, letting out the moans and whispers of someone who was loving it, and his hair was messy, with some strands sticking to his forehead due to sweat.
he opened his eyes, sighing deeply as he looked down and saw you smile discreetly, pleased to see him totally vulnerable and completely out of breath. and only because of you. he felt like if you kept going for a little more he was going to cum in your mouth, even more so if your kept looking at him like that.
‘’fuck, baby, please
’’ he pleaded, moving your face away from his cock when you slid your tongue once again along the hard and pulsing length, he didn't want to finish in your mouth now. you were already so turned on at this point, so you didn't respond and didn't dare tease him anymore, using your free hand to reach for the elastic of your bra.
alexander thought you were going to get rid of the piece, but he saw the moment you took out a condom strategically hidden inside the cup of your bra. he found that to be surprisingly exciting, and even more so when you wanted to make a point of looking deep into his eyes as you brought the packaging to your mouth, tearing the plastic in a careful yet provocative way so as not to end up damaging the latex.
your touched him again briefly, always having control of everything you were doing there, from the moment you fitted the condom onto his erection, lubricated in advance by both precum and saliva, until the moment you sat on his lap again.
‘’you must be so wet right now
’’ alex murmured, his sneaky hand wandered over the fabric of your panties, noticing how soaked it felt at that point, which made him smile devilishly as he brought his mouth closer to your ear. ‘’of course you are.’’ he said, nibbling your earlobe gently, his hot breath gave you goosebumps all over, feeling him grope your back to get rid of the bra, and soon the piece was on the bedroom floor and your firm breasts were in full and total contact with his chest as the two of you began kissing again urgently. 
and alex chose not to waste time, just pulling your panties to the side and making you sink down on him while your mouths were still attached, losing himself inside you and making you feel every pulsating inch invading you in one single thrust. 
‘’fuck, alex
’’ you caught your lip between your teeth, arching your back a little, feeling his hand on your lower back while the other massaged one of your breasts, trapping the nipple between his index finger and thumb, giving your extra stimulation.
it didn't take long for you to place your feet on the floor, feeling alex squeeze your waist as you moved up and down, as if with each thrust you felt him even deeper, you were trying to concentrate on each stimulus and trying not to forget how to breathe. alex was also in the same state, even more so when every time he opened his eyes he was faced with the sight of you bouncing on his lap constantly, your breasts seemed to bounce like two large tennis balls as the chair was making an annoying squeaking sound. 
he wasn't expecting you to use your best trick so soon when you were on top of him, so he completely lost his train of thought when he felt you rolling in his lap while he was fully inside of you and the tip of his cock was brushing on your cervix. it was slow and provocative, which made him place both hands on your waist and suck the air tightly between his teeth.
‘’that's right, love... you love doing this, don't ya’? you know how fuckin’ crazy i go when you do that.’’ alex murmured as he pulsed hard inside of you, twitching as his nails digged on your skin, which stimulated you even more, pressing your fingers on his shoulders as you’re getting more wet. ‘’such a little devil.’’ he said through his teeth, leaving a hickey on your neck that made you roll your eyes before giving a cheeky smile.
‘’i'd be lying if i said i didn't know.’’ you answered, feigning such an innocence that didn't go unnoticed by him, which made him decide that now he wanted to have control. he wanted to tease you the same way you did to him. he wanted to make you beg for more.
‘’i want to fuck you on all fours. now.’’ he said in a serious tone when your lips brushed against his. you felt the authoritarian tone from afar, and oh, how much you loved this side of alex, especially now when he’s so turned on, determined to have his way with you.
turner grabbed your thighs from below with both hands, not daring to pull out for a second, getting up from the chair and turning around only to throw you on the bed, his free hands now pulling his pants and underwear down so that he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, kicking it out when it reached his ankles. you loved seeing his desperation, the desire sparkling in his barely blinking eyes.
‘’turn around, ass up.’’
you turned around, your body was partially lying on the bed, your breasts were slightly compressed by the mattress, while your belly and ass were a little higher, your spine was arched to the maximum. alex loved the view he had as he crawled across the bed, parting your legs a little so the angle was perfect for him.
‘’look at you
’’ alex said in a purr, imitating your speech when he saw that the roles were reversed, and obviously he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to tease you a little since you were in that position, so vulnerable and so thirsty for him. ‘’you seem so desperate.’’ he let out an ironic laugh through his nose, letting his hands slide down thighs, a naughty smile appeared on his lips when you grunted something that he didn't understand because you were so numb.
his fingers caught the elastic of your panties, sliding the underwear down to your knees and you finished taking them off in one quick act, throwing it away. he drew random patterns on the hot skin of your right buttock with his index finger, leaving a few kisses there, and then that same finger invaded your wet hole in an easy glide, making you bury your face in the sheet, breathing deeply and smelling the faint aroma of one of the countless rose petals scattered across the bed that was dangerously close to your nose.
alex took his sweet time, loving the scene of you holding his wrist while he continued moving his index finger until it reached the knuckle of his hand, and soon his middle finger slided in, doing rapid movements that made you writhe like a true acrobat in bed.
‘’oh, fuck, yes, yes!’’ you moaned, feeling a hard slap on the other buttock that he made a point of hitting with his open palm to leave the mark, the burning feeling sending tingles all over your body. you gripped his wrist, feeling his breath hitting the middle of your back, trailing a few kisses to her shoulder. ‘’you love torturing me like this, don't you?’’ you said amid another groan, turning your face a little closer to get a glimpse of him, his left hand strummed on the side of you waist as if he were playing a piano.
‘’mhmm, it's my favorite pastime, darlin’. i love hearing you moan like that for me.’’ he bit your bottom lip, sinking his two calloused fingers once again inside you only to see you roll your eyes. ‘’and i really want to fuck you now.’’ he continued, increasing the pressure a little so that he could hear you panting with each thrust, his digits massaging your spongey spot. 
‘’and what are you waiting for?’’ you asked, your eyes glued to his, especially when he took his two wet fingers out of you and put them in your mouth to make you taste yourself, savoring it as if it were your favorite lollipop, licking his fingers without breaking the visual contact. you definitely knew how to wake up his demons.
still without breaking eye contact, you felt his cock slide up and down your folds in a slow provocation, you knew he still wanted to prolong the torture a little longer, he was so thirsty to hear you beg for him that he just slide the tip on your hole, pushing just a little and pulling out, sliding it back over your clit, tapping it to cause minimal friction that made you close your legs a little and clench your empty hole around nothing.
‘’fuck, don’t do that to me, love.’’ you let out a whine, moving your hips towards him a little just so you could feel him enter a little more, and then he moved back, listening to her cries.
‘’what do you want, baby? tell me.’’
‘’i want y-you.’’ you said in a whimper, trying to get a hold of his hip. 
‘’you already ‘have me, sweetheart.’’ he tutted. he knew what you wanted, but he wanted you to say it.
‘’y-your cock. i want it. please, just
’’ you swallowed hard, feeling frustrated with how much you wanted him to fuck you until pass out.
‘’just what?’’
‘’fuck me, alex, just fuck me, i need-’’
he didn't let you finish your sentence, sliding inside of you in one deep thrust, making you moan loudly as you felt every inch of him filling you at once.
alex took a deep breath, both hands holding the flesh of her buttocks, keeping it spreaded as he went back and forth slowly but with the right pressure until he bottoms out. you felt the strands of his gelled hair tickling your cheek and his warm chest pressed against your back for a few seconds when he made those slow movements.
‘’al, please
’’ you whispered, so cockdrunked that you can’t even think straight. ‘’the condom. take it off.’’
‘’you sure?’’ alex asked. the condom was something rare when you had sex, but still alex always wanted to make sure you wanted to go with or without it, always respecting your wishes.
‘’y-yes, please, i want you to come inside me, please
’’ you said in a plea, you’re so desperate to feel him filling you up that you didn't care about the consequences. 
alex kissed your cheek, pulling out quickly just to remove the condom of his cock, penetrating you again with such ease, hissing at the feeling of your wet and warm walls wrapping around him, making it difficult to hold on for longer.
‘’faster
’’ you said eagerly, opening your eyes again to look at him, rolling your hips around a little more when you felt him buried deep inside of you, lost in a deep devotion that he even forgot how to breathe with those thirsty eyes staring at him and his slender body, begging for greater friction as you dictated the movements that made him lose consciousness.
turner smirked, gathering a handful of your hair in his right hand, pulling with enough force to make you bend your head back, forcing you to now support the rest of your body with your arms stretched out and your hands resting on the mattress, your head fell back enough so that your sweaty forehead touched the tip of his chin.
you couldn’t stop panting and moaning like crazy when you began to feel his movements gain more speed and more pressure, making you feel his cock so hard and with such perfection that you could even say that you were feeling the veins of his cock pulsing inside of you. the sound of your sweaty bodies colliding could not be overshadowed by the music that was still playing on the speaker, nor by your loud moans, as you were no longer ashamed to show him how much you were loving every second of it.
‘’that’s it, love. scream for everyone to hear how good i'm fucking you right now.’’ alex hissed as he moved his head to the side so he could place his cheek against yours, his fist closed tighter against your hair and his other hand snuggled firmly into the skin on your waist, his movements were increasingly intense and you felt like you’re literally going to explode.
‘’holy fuck, ‘m so close, please
’’ you bit your lip as your eyeballs turned white, trying to hold on as much as you could, but it was impossible when turner was massacring you with his movements, making your legs literally wobbly to the point that you couldn't support your body on the bed, but you would never ask him to stop what he was doing.
‘’mhmm, cum for me, baby. cum on my cock while i fuck you just the way you like.’’ he ordered, placing a kiss on the corner of your mouth, feeling you clenching hard around him. he knew this was a low blow from you, but he loved the way you squeezed his cock and made him dizzy.
you joined the clenching movements with a few more rolls, now it was he who felt like he was going to explode, continuing with the movements to his limit, closing his eyes and letting a broken moan escape every now and then that was not heard due to the sound of his hips clashing against your ass that echoed throughout the room.
‘’i’m fucking close, p-please
’’ you cried, feeling a knot on your stomach.
‘’me too, darling. cum with me, c’mon.’’ he muttered, already feeling the spasms through his body.
the climax arrived for both of you at the same time, followed by racing hearts, muscles tensing more and involuntary tremors. you felt your nerve endings like little electrical circuits, dissipating shocks throughout your body as you felt him pulsing inside you, coating your walls with his hot seed.
alex had to try very hard to keep you both in the same position, wanting to prolong as much as possible the feeling of bodies vibrating in ecstasy, your insides seemed to be much more cozy with the small contractions you were still doing. he let out one last long moan followed by a deep breath before opening his eyes and coming back to reality.
‘’wow. that was fucking awesome.’’ you were the first to speak up, hearing him laugh into your neck, pulling his soft cock out of you, taking a look at his cum running down your thighs, dripping onto the bed sheets before you could lie on your side so you could regulate your breathing.
‘’i swear, you're going to kill me one day, y/n.’’ he replied, seeing you laugh amidst your flushed face and smudged lipstick. and you were still as beautiful as at the beginning of the night in that red dress and under impeccable makeup.
‘’come here.’’ you called him with you finger, seeing him drag his body a little to lie down next to you, letting his hand go around you waist as he pulled you closer, looking at you with a silly and passionate smile, fitting his face into the crook of your sweaty neck, loving the texture of your shivered skin against his face. ‘’do you like the gift? maybe i won't be able to walk properly tomorrow, but... it was from the bottom of my heart.’’
‘’i loved it, babe. it could not ‘ave been better.’’ he responded with a laugh, removing his face from your neck to look at you again, not holding back from wanting to kiss every inch of your tired and satisfied face, which had a lazy smile after such an intense sex. he held your face, squeezing your cheeks a little so that you could make a pout with your lips and he could kiss you there countless times. ‘’still owe you a gift though.’’
‘’no need to, honey. i’m totally satisfied.’’
‘’bullshit. you can't expect that the only thing i have to offer you is my cock.’’ you giggled, your face was still flushed and his thumb ghosted over your parted lips. you didn't demand anything from alex, but still, he insisted on giving you the whole world if he could.
‘’do you know what would be very good now?’’ you asked, your voice a little choked up as you were still feeling the pressure on your cheeks and his kisses on your lips. he chuckled, letting go of your face for a few seconds so you could speak normally.
“a round two?” he asked mischievously, seeing you laugh a little lazily.
“i was going to suggest a slice of cheesecake.” you replied, laughing even more when he pouted, dramatizing an expression of sadness. “but a second round is not out of my plans for tonight. and neither did a third.”
“oh, you're a thunderstorm.” he laughed, kissing you again amidst a caress and the thought that he loved you more than he could measure. “a slice of cheesecake now and as many rounds as you want later, what do you think?”
you smiled widely at him, knowing that was an offer you would never refuse as you kissed him again at the sound of yet another slow song echoing through the bedroom.
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padfootagain · 4 months ago
Text
Love in Verses (X)
Chapter 10 : [I] was angry that my trust could not repose in the clear light, like poetry or freedom leaning in from sea
Hi! Here is another chapter! Today: lots of misogyny, the academic world being what it is, and some time spent at the beach with our best boy Elwood!
****
Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)
Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here
Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?
Word Count: 4344
Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist
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Oysters
Our shells clacked on the plates. My tongue was a filling estuary, My palate hung with starlight: As I tasted the salty Pleiades Orion dipped his foot into the water.
Alive and violated, They lay on their bed of ice: Bivalves: the split bulb And philandering sigh of ocean Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.
We had driven to that coast Through flowers and limestone And there we were, toasting friendship, Laying down a perfect memory In the cool of thatch and crockery.
Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow, The Romans hauled their oysters south of Rome: I saw damp panniers disgorge The frond-lipped, brine-stung Glut of privilege
And was angry that my trust could not repose In the clear light, like poetry or freedom Leaning in from sea. I ate the day Deliberately, that its tang Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb.
Seamus Heaney, Field Work, 1979
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Lunchtime with Andrew and Colm had turned into lunchtime with half the department somehow

You were tired, you wanted to go home. A few weeks into teaching, you were already starting to feel the familiar tug of exhaustion. You had a thousand things to prepare for your research, books to read, articles to go through
 And Andrew and you were still trying to fight against Sam and Frank’s marriage the best you could.
After the flower fiasco, out of which Andrew had managed to gain a moment of glory and a longing gaze from Sam, the two of you were working on a way to make you shine in Frank’s eyes. The perfect gift to offer the couple as they were moving in together seemed a good occasion. You had spent most of your evening the previous day browsing the internet with Andrew. He had come over to your place, had left well after midnight, didn’t want to disturb you by sleeping in the second bedroom. And you had fun, that was the strangest part of your evening. You had fun looking for gifts with Andrew, it had turned into finding the most ridiculous items available for purchase, and you had laughed until your eyes watered at his silly jokes. It was a sad thing to realise this had been the more you had laughed since Frank had left you

You had stopped listening to the on-going conversation about a writer you didn’t know, your mind wandering away from your lunch to settle back on the previous evening. You were beginning to pick on some of his habits, noticing details about him. He hummed a lot, he tilted his head when thinking, ran his fingers through his hair when he was focused, he rubbed at his neck, his chin, his cheek when he was nervous or uncomfortable, pushed up his sleeves often too. Last night, when the conversation drifted away from your exes and onto the last museum you had visited, his head was tilted, his gaze stern and unwavering while he listened intently to you. It felt strange, to be near someone who listened to you so fully. Frank didn’t

Your heart and chest grew warm at the memory of Andrew getting ready to leave. After midnight, he made a joke about the Gremlins when you offered him one last drink or bite to eat before he would leave, feeling guilty for your conversation and planning to have robbed the two of you of a decent dinner, your stomachs filled only with biscuits and coffee. He was putting on his coat when he joked about making a mess of your apartment if you fed him now, you both laughed at the silliness of it. You waited for him to wrap a warm scarf around his throat, to cover his ears with a beanie.
“Good night, Andrew.”
Simple words, and yet they made him look at you. You noticed the way his head bent a little, as if leaning towards you. His eyes were so green at such an ungodly hour, tiredness making the brown of his eyes recede. He offered you a shy smile, fidgeting with the sleeves of his warm grey coat.
“Andy.”
You stared at him in silence, surprised by his answer. His smile widened when he went on.
“Andy’s just fine, Y/N.”
You could only smile up at him then, you noticed the way his cheeks were flushed when you repeated his name.
He was so cute

“That’s a little too much though, this whole thing about a feminist rewriting of history. To give classes about that
 what a joke
”
Patterson’s words tore you away from your happy memory, pushed you right back in the present, in the reality you faced daily. University was not as progressive as it longed to be seen as, you were a painful witness of that

You remembered the list of names Andrew had spontaneously given you during your first week. You reckoned his selection was spot on. Patterson was no exception. Mahoney was nodding enthusiastically, and you chose to ignore them. You were too tired, too emotionally exhausted to go through that kind of misogynistic conversation. You forced yourself not to listen to Andrew’s and Colm’s answers as they entered the debate, defending your side.
But then Andrew looked at you, spoke your name, and you were forced into reality again.
“Asking for help because you’ve run out of arguments?” Mahoney asked Andrew, and it was supposed to sound like mockery but it was too bitter for that.
“Y/N is literally an expert in what we’re discussing and a woman, don’t you think you should listen to her rather than your stupid biased views on such a matter?”
“I know plenty about the matter.”
“What a misogynistic answer
 thank you for proving my point about your absolute ignorance.”
“And you’re an expert?”
“I’m not. That’s why I ask someone who’s dedicating her life to the voices of women and who is a woman when discussing something about women.”
Andrew’s breathing was heavy, his eyes stone cold and sharp. You had only seen him angry once before, that night you had learnt about your exes’ engagement. It made his voice deeper than usual, a low rumble that was scarier than the loud booming voice Frank used during arguments. His impressive stature wasn’t helping. And yet, when Andrew turned to you, his eyes were soft again, his voice back to its usual warmth, and he didn’t seem intimidating anymore.
“Do you want to add something?”
You didn’t, but the conversation was happening, and fleeing would only result in more violent views being expressed next time. So, you sharply looked over at your two mocking colleagues, and got to work.
You countered every argument, you offered numbers and examples even though you knew it would make no difference. After a while, you were getting angry more than annoyed. Colm and Andrew were backing you up every now and then, but the rest of your colleagues seemed uninterested by the debate at best, at worst they were enjoying the argument.
You let out a wry chuckle at Patterson, who was now not even trying to find arguments, but straight up rejecting your facts.
“How scientific of you to dismiss proven facts simply because they don’t fit your narrative
” you fought back with sarcasm, and he glowered at you. “And you call yourself an academic?”
“Hey! I’m not attacking your professionalism
”
“Are you not? As Andrew said, I’m the expert in this field. I am studying this issue and the impact of misogyny and patriarchy. And yet, you dismiss all my arguments without any proof whatsoever, without offering another explanation. You are only rejecting facts that do not fit your view of the world, or to be more precise, the world that brings you in a position of power over others. You enjoy the system that favours you instead of favouring everyone.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You are ridiculous, claiming to have arguments when all you have are thoughts and no facts or proof whatsoever. I do have those. You’re a misogynistic man who clings to his tiny bit of power and feels emasculated if anyone dares to contradict him. You’re pathetic.”
You shot up, standing in a hurry and grabbing your stuff before heading back to your office. You didn’t pay attention to the discontented grumble that followed you, nor the scratch of another chair being pushed away from the table. You didn’t notice Andrew was following you until you were outside the room, heading for the stairs to go back to your office. You turned to him with a surprised expression painted all over your features.
“Andy?”
“Hmm?”
You stared at him in silence for a moment.
“You’re okay?” he asked with warmth in his voice and gaze.
“Yeah
 I’m okay. I’m used to it.”
You didn’t like lying, but it was only half a lie. You were used to it, it happened more often than you had expected when you had chosen this career. You thought that the world of knowledge was a progressive one, a world filled with open minds. What a fool you had been
 how naïve

Now, you were growing numb to it, to some extent. The animosity was never far away. The attempts at slowing down, blocking, or even ending your career were a threat too. And you wished you could say you didn’t care at all by now, but you did. You did, and it drove you mad how frustrated you felt in front of such injustice, over the weight that was put onto your shoulders, over the exhaustion that came with constantly having to prove yourself, over the doubts that slithered there through your system even if you tried not to listen. It was the hardest part of your job, by far.
And then there were a few good ones like Andrew who gave you faith in humanity all over again.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, rubbing at his neck.
“It’s not your fault. On the contrary
 thank you, for taking my side.”
“Of course.”
“And thank you for asking me. For including me in the conversation. For recognising the need to put me at the centre of the argument, instead of a male voice.”
You let out a chuckle as you opened the door of your shared office.
“I bet your mam taught you well.”
He grinned, fondness evident in his eyes as he talked about his parents. You had noticed how love was always in his gaze when he spoke of his family.
“Yeah
 trying to put in practice what she taught me.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll never have to thank me for something like this.”
You tried to ignore how much that fight had shaken you, but you could barely focus all afternoon, and Andrew seemed to notice. It was still early when he turned off his computer and grabbed his coat, then planted his tall frame in front of your desk.
“Come on, let’s go to the beach.”
You stared at him with a blank stare, blinking.
“The beach?”
“Lunch got me worked up
 I can’t focus on anything. I need to clear my head, and to me, there’s no better place for that than the sea. So
 come on! Let’s go to the beach!”
“I have work to do.”
“You’ll work tomorrow.”
“Andrew
”
“Andy,” he corrected you with a warm smile, and you couldn’t refrain your own grin.
“Andy,” you repeated. “I’ve got things to do!”
“Yes! And they include breathing the fresh air of the sea, listening to the waves and having fun!”
“And freezing to death? It’s November
 in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten
 I go swimming almost every morning.”
You stared at him with unfaltering eyes.
“You’re insane.”
“I need to go home first, but we can meet up by the coast? I know a nice spot.”
“Okay.”
“Do you like dogs?”
You raised a surprised eyebrow at his question, it was coming out of nowhere.
“Erm
 yes
 of course
”
“Good. I mean
 I have to get my dog. He will never forgive me if I go to the beach without him.”
“You have a dog?! How cute! What kind of dog is he?”
Andrew chuckled at that.
“I don’t know
 some kind of mix between a border collie and
 something else. I have no clue.”
Your expression softened as you smiled. He looked away, his cheeks turning a bright shade of pink under the darkness of his beard.
“Alright, I’ll text you the address of the nearest village, and I’ll guide you the rest of the way.”
“You’re not about to murder me and get rid of my body in some deserted creek, are you?”
He laughed at your joke, bright and loud, and you were quite proud of that, of being responsible for such a sound.
“No guarantees
”
“I should decline then
”
“Hey! You need to live a more adventurous kind of life! Take risks!”
“You could be planning on feeding me to your dog.”
“Now that you mention it, he hasn’t had his ration of human flesh this week.”
“See? That’s what I’m saying!”
You both laughed, Andrew shook his head fondly at you.
“Elwood is a good boy, don’t worry. I won’t be long.”
You were shutting off your computer as well when Andrew exited the room.
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You had hurried to the tiny village, spotted a shop and were now motionless in the middle of the aisle, staring at rubber bones and colourful balls.
Andrew should have reached the village fifteen minutes ago, but you were starting to get used to his chronical lateness. He seemed to never be on time for anything. “Time blindness”, he called it. Whatever it was, there was no need to worry. He would show up eventually, apologise profusely, with a mix of guilt and embarrassment on his face, and then you would tell him it was alright because you couldn’t find it in you to be annoyed at him, and he would look at you again and smile

You smiled as you reached for a squishy ball, with little flowers painted on it. Yellow and white. Daisies.
You bought the toy, went back to your car to wait for Andrew. He arrived almost thirty minutes late, hurried out of his car and secured his dog on a leash before walking over to you. The guilt and embarrassment you were expecting were painted all over his features, indeed.
“I’m sorry
 it took me longer than I thought to pick this one up,” he explained with a nod towards his dog.
“That’s okay. And God, you’re adorable,” you said to the dog, crouching down to let the dog approach you. “What’s his name?”
“Elwood.”
The dog seemed to immediately like you, he let you pet his head, wiggling his tail in delight.
“Oh, yes
 you’re a good boy!” you cooed. “Here, I’ve bought you something!”
You stood straighter again, offered the ball to Andrew.
He stared at you with bewilderment.
“You
 you bought him a toy?”
“Yes! I love dogs! I hope I can have one, someday
”
“You
 you shouldn’t have
”
“It makes me happy.”
Andrew couldn’t find any argument against that.
“Thank you.”
You headed towards the beach together. Elwood was obedient yet excited, clearly recognising where you were heading. It was sunny despite the cold weather, you readjusted your scarf a couple of times, put on your gloves after a while. And it was easy to find a topic of conversation with Andrew. First work, your classes, your research as you reached the beach. Then politics as you walked across the sand, sending the ball away for Elwood to catch and bring back. Then movies and art as you watched the waves roll towards you. And then your broken hearts when you were sitting in the sand, side by side, watching over Elwood who was running around by the edge of the water.
The sand was soft under your fingers, your gaze set on the horizon, an infinity of blues and greens, of white waves and the moving shapes of seagulls.
“Are you coming to the dinner next week?” Andrew asked, his deep voice breaking the quiet of the cold sea.
You heaved a sigh, closed your eyes for a second. Frank and Sam had invited both you and Andrew to have dinner in some expansive restaurant in Dublin. A way to ‘get a brand-new start’, Frank had called it. You thought it was rather a new way to get your heart broken, but you didn’t have a choice. If you wanted Frank back, you couldn’t miss any opportunity to see him.
“Of course, I’m coming.”
You opened your eyes to look at Andrew as he slowly nodded.
“I’m glad you’re coming,” he confessed. “I was worried to go on my own.”
“Don’t worry. We’re a team for this! We said we would help each other out, and we will. We’ll get the people we love back.”
Andrew smiled, a gesture grateful, but tainted with sorrow. He set his green eyes on the horizon, you watched as the loose curls that had escaped his man-bun were floating in the wind. But then you followed his gaze, stared at the wildness of the sea, its everchanging shape, and you wondered if anything was meant to last in this world, if anything at all could be called permanent

“What’s going to happen, then? If we fail, if we can’t get them back, if they really don’t love us anymore
 what will happen then?”
Andrew was silent for a moment, staring at you now. You could feel his gaze set upon your face, but you couldn’t look at him. It was easier to search for where the sky met the sea.
“Then
 we’ll go through hell.”
You let out a long exhale. His voice was quiet, barely there over the wind. Deep, calm, aching.
“We’ll suffer. A lot. And eventually, we’ll get over it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I don’t think that I could love anyone else the way I love Frank.”
“We don’t have to love them the same way we love Frank and Sam. On the contrary, I think every love we feel is unique. It’s shaped by the person we feel so intensely for. I’ll never love anyone the way I love Sam. But maybe I’ll be able to have a love that’s just as important. It will simply be
 different.”
“Missing him feels like grieving.”
“Hmm
 Missing her feels like grieving too. It’s the same kind of
 void. The emptiness that’s left behind. The silence, the habit of opening your mouth to speak to them, but remembering they’re gone, that there’s no one left to listen to you now, and closing your mouth again
 a mouth that’s rendered useless now, as there is nobody left to listen to you anyway.”
Slowly, you nodded, feeling your throat tightening at the pain in Andrew’s voice, at the way his thoughts echoed your own.
“I forget that he’s gone all the time,” you nodded, sniffling, although you weren’t crying. “I just
 forget
 and then I remember, and it hurts all over again.”
“Yeah
 me too.”
The wind was so cold, it felt like knives entering the skin of your cheekbones. You readjusted your beanie so it would perfectly cover your ears. Every time either of you spoke, a tiny cloud was born from your lips, and died in the wind.
Andrew’s dog was unaware of your sadness, unaware of the hole that was gnawing a little bit more every day at your heart. He was happy running around the beach, chasing after birds, playing with the waves.
You smiled, soft and sad and filled with the want to forget again.
“I really like your dog a lot,” you chuckled.
Andrew looked at his pet as well, a tender smile on his lips.
“I’m glad,” was his only answer.
“He’s a good boy.”
He hummed softly, rubbing at his cold hands.
“I don’t think Sam likes him very much.”
“Really?”
“I don’t think she likes dogs in general all that much. She was always nice to him, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think she loved him. When I do. I love him. He’s family.”
“Of course, he is,” you answered with an unmistakable fondness in your voice, one that made Andrew look at you again.
You could feel him shifting next to you, guessed that he hesitated to ask a question. You encouraged him to ask whatever he wanted. You were in a confessing mood, after all.
“What’s your dream?”
You looked up at him with a questioning look, surprised at his question coming out of the blue.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have a dream? Or
 did you have one? When you were younger?”
You blinked up at him, feeling silly as you thought of an answer.
Of course you had dreams. You had tons of them.
“I’ve learnt a long time ago that dreams don’t come true.”
He frowned at your answer, his gaze saddened at your words.
“If you could make one true, what dream would it be?”
You blinked tears away, set your gaze on the sea again.
Blue. Blue and splashes of white. A thousand hues of those colours, as far as the eye could see. Such a beauty
 And the sound of the waves reaching the shore, curling into white foam, regular like a pattern, soft like a melody.
“I really wanted to be loved for who I am. I just
 I would really like for someone to love me. To care about what I think, to care about what I have to say, to hold me when I feel sad. I just
 I would really like to feel safe, just once. To have someone
 who would treat me as their equal, someone for whom I wouldn’t have to overthink each answer, someone with whom I wouldn’t have to fight to have a chance to be listened to. Sometimes I
 It’s so hard to be a woman sometimes. It feels like I’m always fighting. Fighting for my rights, fighting for a chance to be who I want, fighting to be listened to, fighting to be taken seriously, fighting to get my life together, fighting to meet people’s expectation, fighting
 for everything. I just
 I want to have someone who would make me feel safe enough so I could stop fighting around them. It’s a lot to ask.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
You were surprised by his words, but when you looked at him, his stare was stern and unwavering.
“Did you feel like that with Frank? Did you feel safe enough to be yourself?”
You bit on your lip, hesitated on whether to lie or tell the truth. You didn’t feel like lying though

“Not all the time.”
You let out a sad chuckle.
“But it’s just a dream, Andy. Dreams don’t come true. I can’t offer to stop fighting. If I do, I’ll just end up giving up
 And I’ve done so much already to get my career, to be who I am today
 I can’t rest, not when there’s no one to offer me a place to do so. And there will never be anyone to offer it to me. People are too flawed for that.”
You were surprised when Andrew reached for your hand, but you let him touch your skin, wrap his fingers around yours. His hand was so much larger than yours

“I really wish you could have someone who would make you feel this way. I wish
 I wish you didn’t have to fight in the first place.”
You looked up at him, blinking tears away.
“You’re so strong,” he whispered, and there was something close to awe in his expression, although you couldn’t believe that someone could have such feeling aimed at you. “I hope you know that, at least. That you’re unbelievably strong.”
You smiled, and so did Andrew. A genuine smile, that wasn’t so sad anymore.
“What about you? What was your dream?”
Andrew let go of your hand, rested his forearms on his knees as he looked at Elwood, checking that his dog was alright, but he was still busy running after seagulls.
“I wanted to be a musician, once.”
“A musician?”
“Yeah
 I used to sing a lot. Played guitar too. I still do, with old friends.”
“What made you decide to be an academic then?”
A pause, filled with Elwood’s happy barks, the distant cries of seabirds, the regular whisper of the sea.
“There were sacrifices to be made. I didn’t want to make them. I thought I could, for a while. I had a few opportunities. But they were all
 They were not me. There were talks for an album at one point, an opportunity for me to sing and be paid for it. But they wouldn’t have been my songs. They were pop hits in the making. They were aimed to please others. And I
 I didn’t want to do that. I had things to say, and I wanted to tell them my way. It didn’t work out. And then my father
”
He blinked tears away, and you said nothing. He cleared his throat.
“My father had surgery when he was younger. He had some trouble again a few years ago. He’s fine now, and it wasn’t anything serious, but
 I don’t know, I think
 I thought about the cost that having a life on the road would have. If I wanted to make music the way I wanted to, it would cost me even more than a pop hit would. And I was in love with Sam, and my family needed me, and I thought
 I thought it wasn’t worth it. At one point, I had to choose between studying or music. I changed majors from music to literature, finally had the opportunity to study things I was interested in. I didn’t drop out. Instead, I stayed in Dublin, I gave up on the hope of having a career as a musician.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “More so since Sam has left.”
You playfully nudged him.
“Hey! We wouldn’t have met had you become a rockstar! So, it’s not all that bad! I’m glad you chose a life where we could become friends.”
He looked at you, hazel turning fully green in the pale light of winter, cheeks pinkish in the cold. His nose was a little red, his gaze tender as it rested upon yours.
“I’m glad we could become friends too, Y/N. I’m really glad about that.”
You exchanged a smile, rested your head on his shoulder, wrapped your arm around his. You both remained silent for a long time, staring at the sea, the beach, the birds, Elwood still having the time of his life. And you were content to say nothing, to simply be there next to Andrew.
Your cheek felt warm while it rested against him.
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whitexwolfxx310 · 7 months ago
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|| You're A Weapon; And Weapons Don't Weep ||
Pairing: Bucky x female reader
Summary: After Bucky discovers that your once thought to be dead older brother is HYDRA's new super soldier, you're chosen to go on a mission with the team.
Warnings: **PLEASE READ** This fic contains death. If the idea of unaliving someone can possibly trigger you, please do NOT read this. Anxiety attack, cursing, angst, random sprinkles of fluff, use of y/n.
Word Count: 4.7
A/Ns: It has been way too long, but I finally got to write for my BBWWS again. I have a feeling there won't be too many chapters left for Bucky and his Sunshine. But I have been working on other ideas and another series is in the process. I hope you enjoy reading. I love you all! The messages, comments, reblogs, likes, etc. literally give me life and inspired me to come back and get into writing all over again. Enjoy your weekend, besties!!
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Previous Part // Masterlist
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Any shred of hope that life would be returning back to normalcy remotely anytime soon got washed away by the tidal wave that was the news of your brother being the new super soldier for Hydra.
Tony and Steve called for intel meetings that basically became a fulltime job. At first it felt like an interrogation. They questioned you, curious as to why you would apply for an internship at The Compound. While the circumstances did seem suspicious, they eventually were able to rule out any foul play on your part.
The gatherings soon turned into wanting to know every intricate detail that they wouldn't be able to look up or hack out of any system. From dawn to dusk, the two men asked about your childhood together- trying to connect the pieces as to who Luke is, or was. Bucky stayed silently by your side the entire time and offered a stabilizing hand when things got overwhelming to discuss. But it also didn't slip by you that he focused on each and every detail, noting the intel for this mission.
After being able to specify things so minute; such as your brothers favorite books, favorite teacher from grade school, or the fact that he likes the color green- but not just any green, Sacramento green, because it reminded him of the vines that grew around the windows of your grandparents cottage that you would spend the majority of your summer's at as kids, you also got chosen to go on this mission. There was some minor pushback from the team, but ultimately Bucky took responsibility for you. You knew that he would keep you safe, even if it meant putting the part of his very soul that he felt remained on the line for you.
To say that the training was brutal would be an understatement. While the others had an entire lifetime to perfect their craft and years working alongside one another in unity, you had only a matter of weeks. You were thrown into a constant rotation of being educated on the newest technologies developed by Tony, boxing and going over endless tactical strategies with Steve, knowledge of weaponry with a hint of ballet to stay light on your feet with Nat... pure exhaustion wouldn't begin to describe it.
The day came when intel showed the Swiss Alps would be first on the mission log. Everyone was treating it like just any other, but the dreaded encounter was weighing down heavily deep within your stomach. The thought of using yourself as bait to lure out your brother spiraled into the millions of anxious outcomes that kept you up at night. Finally giving you just the smallest glimpse into Bucky's world. The doorway was creaked open to his nightmares.
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"Wooow. You look like a Bad. Ass." Sam annunciates amusingly, as his eyes land on you walking up the small rear cargo ramp of the jet.
Your cheeks instantly blush, having already been self-conscious about the skintight, black Kevlar suit Nat gave you to wear. As more footsteps approach, you sink more into your seat and try to avoid any more eye contact.
"Just so you know, I heard that." Bucky's voice rebounds off of the metal walls before he even makes his way completely into the jet. "Don't try and make passes at my girl when I'm not aro-"
You don't need to look up to know that those steel blue eyes have frozen you into place, but you dare a glance. He's dressed in all black; Black boots, black tactical pants, a black leather jacket with the left sleeve torn off- showing his gunmetal and gold Vibranium arm, and a black glove on his right hand. The sight of him is intimidating, ready for combat and anything to be thrown his way. But those eyes. They hold a tenderness meant only for you. His magnetizing stare mixed with the wonderment expression on his face confirms his friends words and more. Okay, so maybe the suit isn't so bad.
"You're gawking." Sam is now at Bucky's side, smirking with his arms tightly crossed over his chest.
Bucky's face slides back into its usual consternation state before giving him a side glare. "Shut up." Sam shakes his head, laughing to himself lightly before making his way to the front of the jet.
You move to sit upright as he approaches, and Bucky's face finally softens. It always does when it's just the two of you. He reaches above where you're sitting to an overhead rack, casually leaning. Hovering like one of those seductive book boyfriends you'd swoon over, but for him it just comes naturally. Swallowing hard, you angle your head up to look at him. You find a slightly playful grin tugging at his lips and you crack a faint smile.
"You doing okay, Sunshine?" His voice is soft but concerned. A gloved thumb caresses down your cheek. The doting gesture entrances you to gently nuzzle into his palm.
"I don't know." You answer honestly.
He reflects on this a moment, his eyes searching yours. But he looks slightly blurry. The background noise is starting to become overwhelming. Numerous voices all start to overlap, the jet engines growing louder as they're warming up, the loud bang with each shipment container with weapons being loaded on board- weapons intended for my brother. It all combines into one long dragged-out, high-pitched ringing sound and your throat closing in on itself. Bucky senses this, notices and quickly acts. Wide eyed, he drops to his knees.
"Hey... Hey, y/n. It's okay." He quickly unfastens the harness from your seat. "Deep breaths." You can't help but notice how calm he sounds. "Hey...look at me." Bucky gently cups each side of your face, the intense coolness on the one side being a welcomed shock. Your eyes meet his, and when they do, all you see is his devotion. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here with you."
"I know you are." You mutter, pressing your forehead to his as you try to manage your breathing to match his.
"We'll find him." He breathes. "I made it out, he can too. I won't let anything happen to you while we’re out there, y/n." The urgency that his tone is trying to convey is heart wrenching.
"I know, Bucky."
"Here-" He pulls away for a moment to take a bag off his back. Unzipping it, he pulls out a water bottle. "Drink some water."
You smile internally at the gesture. As he's unscrewing the cap, you notice a novel in the bag. It's one he borrowed from you when you first met. There's a familiar stinging behind your eyes. What did I do to deserve this man? One who is willing to walk back into his version of hell to pull out someone that I love?
Sipping on the water of course helped, but Bucky tucking you securely into his side for takeoff is what kept the overwhelming anxiety at bay.
“I love you, so much.” You say against his chest, in appreciation. He snorts slightly, pressing a delicate kiss into your hair.
“And I love you, Sunshine.” Bucky adjusts his hips slightly. “Get some rest, we have a long flight.” Intricate fingers brush through your hair, eventually lulling you to sleep in the safe space that is your boyfriend’s lap.
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Distant muttering started reeling you back from a dreamless sleep. Instinctively, you reach for Bucky whom you thought you were still sleeping on- only to find he had replaced it with his bag. The disappointment was starting to settle in when you hear his voice:
“I know how this can come across, but she’s strong enough. She’ll be able to handle it, Tony. I’m here, I can-“
“All I’m hearing is I, I, I, me, me, me, Barnes. You, my friend, were an exception. I don’t know if we can go in there and get this guy out alive, and even if we can, who knows what the aftermath is going to look like! For either of them! We’re taking a regular, a nobody off the street and putting a lot of pressure on her to do this. She’s already starting to feel it, that much is obvious. I’ve said from the beginning that this is a huge mistake. I understand your feelings here, from both sides. You want to make sure HYDRA doesn’t continue to pop up like daises and be there for the love of your life. I GET it. But this is a mistake.”
It’s apparent that Stark has walked away with the clinking of his heavy metal footsteps.
“You picked a good one, Buck. I have faith in her too.” There’s a small reassuring pat to coincide with Steve’s voice. “Y/n’s one of us now.”
“Thanks, Steve. I just
 I have to save him. For her.” You can hear the exasperation in Bucky’s voice.
While tears sting from multiple emotions behind closed eyes still pretending to sleep, you feel overcome with something you haven’t experienced in this situation yet; determination. A sudden tenacity to prove the doubters that you can do this, that you can help your brother just how Bucky had, and that you wouldn’t bail and have a breakdown
 again. No. From this point on, you refuse to let anyone see you as weak.
The bag underneath your head gently shifts and is quickly replaced with warm body heat that you quickly snuggle into. That warmth spreads as Bucky wraps his right arm around your body, pulling you in a little closer. His heart rate starts to slow, and his breathing becomes more regular. You just soak in the last moments before the unknown.
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“He’s really going to just jump out the back of the jet like that?!” You try to yell, over the loud wind rumbling and your hair whipping around.
With Sam’s back facing towards you, he takes one absentminded step off of the opened ramp and is just gone. Your stomach drops along with him at the sight.
Bucky rolls his eyes as he hands you an earpiece, “Yep,” A second later, Sam comes back into view, now soaring with his Falcon wings. He gives Bucky a little sarcastic two finger salute and flies out of view. “He’s flashy like that.”
Putting the impossibly small earpiece into your ear, you can’t help but shake your head and laugh. It must be an almost forgotten sound with the weight of everything going on because now Bucky is smiling too.
“Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to jump out of a plane,” you say only half joking. Because if that’s the case, he’s going to have to literally throw you out.
“What did you think the parachutes were for?” Bucky asks deadpan, with a raised eyebrow and pointing to the packs behind him.
All of the color starts to drain from your face, when suddenly you saw the slightest twitch in Bucky’s lip.
“Oh my god. You asshole!” Bucky grabs his stomach and starts to hunch over laughing as you hit him in the arm. His metal arm. “OW!” You start shaking your hand out to wave away the initial sting.
Glancing at him, Bucky is doubled over, nose scrunched, laughing so hard that barely any noise is coming out and tears are welling up in his eyes. It’s contagious, especially as the throb in your hand turns into a dull ache.
I’ve missed this. Things being simple with us and not so draining. Moments that resemble a drop of normalcy in a typical ‘would be’ relationship. But I still wouldn’t trade it. Because he’s perfect. And he’s mine.
Once your lungs don’t feel like they’re on fire any longer, you let you a deep sigh, resting your hands on your hips. “God, I needed that.”
“Did you really think I would toss you out of a Quinjet?”
“Seemed like it in the moment-”
“Alright, love birds,” Tony interrupts, the heavy metal footsteps of his Iron Man armor catching both of your attention, "don't be late to the party," he says knowingly, palms glowing before he too disappears out of the jet.
“Don’t worry, Sunshine,” Bucky says, now standing next to you, “I have my own flashy transport,” he side eyes you with a playful grin.
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Arms wrapped tightly around Bucky’s stomach; you can’t help but snuggle your cheek into his leather covered shoulder.
Of course, Bucky’s idea of flashy would be a motorcycle.
Your eyes flutter open to see Steve on his own come into view through whips of your hair. The boys. Two best friends riding like they don’t have the weight of the world constantly on their shoulders.
Steve’s bike has a bulky, all chrome classic look while Bucky’s is a modern, all black crotch rocket. Both have been modified to drive relatively quietly, and it’s such a weird dichotomy to still be able to feel the rumbling of the bike between your legs without all the noise.
One of your hands releases the clasp they had on one another, pressing your palm against Bucky’s chest- smoothing itself along his abdomen. Bucky sits more upright in his seat to press back into you more, using only his left hand to steer as his right encloses around yours, giving you a reassuring squeeze. The gesture is so minor, and yet you can just feel how he puts his heart into everything when it comes to you.
"We're going to pull off to the side up on the left. We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot," Steve's voice is solemn in your earpiece.
Bucky gives him a nod in acknowledgement, leaning back down to better control the motorcycle. This time, his hand doesn't leave yours.
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The trek through the Switzerland forest was less than a mile, but with each step your feet grew heavier and that sour stomach of yours returned with the dread of seeing your brother again. If he could even be considered your brother anymore. Who knows what actually remained. As much as you have begged and pleaded with the universe to make yet another exception for Lucas just as it had for Bucky, you were terrified of the man that you would soon encounter.
Just shy of coming out of the tree line to the supposed to be abandoned old military base, you hear a series of echoing pops- stopping all three of you dead in your tracks.
Gunshots.
Bucky and Steve exchange a quick, wide-eyed glance at one another, “Go, we’ll catch up.” Bucky says, and within the blink of an eye, Steve takes off running at super soldier speed.
You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until Bucky turned to face you, his shoulders squared, lips in a tight thin line. But looking between your eyes, he loosens a breath, gripping your shoulders, “Listen to me, Sunshine,” he makes every attempt to soften his voice, but a few more pops and yelling sound off in the distance making you wince. His hands grip you tighter, “I need you to focus. What I’m about to say goes against everything I normally believe, but in this circumstance it’s critical
” he sighs, looking down before back into your eyes- trying to convey the seriousness of what he’s saying, “you have to push the fear down. And I know how that sounds, but you can’t walk in there with that look on your face. Because honey, these people will not hesitate to kill you.”
You gasp lightly at the graveness of his words. It’s not like you didn’t know this walking into the mission, but it’s different once you’re actually here.
Bucky sighs again, his expression softening as his hands cup each side of your face especially gentle, “I know, baby. I know. I won’t leave your side,” he presses his forehead to yours, closing his eyes, “I just
 I can’t lose you.” His voice cracks slightly, even at just the thought.
Even with your eyes teetering with the threat of tears, you nod in understanding. Placing each of your hands over his, you press your lips to Bucky’s- holding them there, accepting that the moment they pull apart it’s no longer about the two of you, but about the mission. Luke is your mission.
“I love you,” you murmur, before opening your eyes to see deep consternation in his.
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Disassociation is a powerful coping mechanism for human beings. It can feel like an outer body experience or even a dream. More like a nightmare. But as you follow into the bunker where the screaming leads, closely behind Bucky with your gun drawn watching for any sudden movements and stepping over the trail of bloodied bodies in the hallway, you're thankful for the part of your brain trying to convince you that this isn't real.
"Still no sign of Castle," Sam's voice was pragmatic in your earpiece.
Bucky looked back over his shoulder at you while still walking, "Maybe he's not here after-" and that's when you see the slightest shift of a shadow in an inverted doorway.
It was so small that in any other instance you would just assume your eyes were just playing a trick on you. But not here. Your body reacted before your mind could even fully register- taking a sudden step to the side, you fired off two prompt shots. A heavy thud followed.
Practically giving himself whiplash, Bucky looks at where you shot and back to you. His eyes widen, mouth open slightly at the realization of what just happened. What you just did- for him. Your eyes haven't moved from that doorway, and your grip is tighter on the gun than it probably should be. Pain surges through your jaw with how tightly your teeth are clenched and yet, you wait to see if anyone else is there. Is there another shadow lurking just waiting for the opportunity to harm one of you?
"Y/n..." Bucky's voice is delicate as his eyes dart around, also looking for shadows, "we have to keep moving," he says in a coaxing manner.
I can’t. The words blare in your mind like a doomsday siren and yet you can’t speak. All you can do is focus on that that dark corner where the pool of crimson continues to grow.
Bucky steps in line of your gun with somber eyes meeting yours, causing you to simultaneously point it towards the ground and break your trance. You didn’t realize just how high and how tight your shoulders had been as you loosened your breath. A new version of you being transformed as you exhale.
“I-” You try catching your breath, completely slack jaw and shaking your head just trying to comprehend what you did. “I
I just-” and the tears are flowing. No crying, no uncontrollable sobbing, but a small steady line of tears as the overwhelming awareness of taking control and trading a life for someone that you love comes to light
 just flows.
“You did what you had to,” he answers for you, nodding sympathetically. You don’t deserve kindness right now, do you? But that is why he is good. And that is why he deserves to live.
“We have to go, y/n.” Bucky says, looking over your shoulders and behind himself again. “It looks like no one else has been down here yet.” He grabs your hand, not waiting for a response before he’s treading down the hallway again.
Your feet shuffle instinctively at first to follow him, but the brightness of the flickering fluorescent lights quickly grounded you to where you actually are. There are lives at stake and you need to keep your head.
The distant noise of constant struggle seemed to almost completely stop. Every few minutes you would hear a familiar voice say 'clear' in your ear and relief would wash over you, just thankful for knowing that they were alive.
It got cold the further you went, meaning you probably had gradually descended underground. Finally, at the end of what seemed like a never-ending tunnel, was a large set of metal double doors with multiple large chains and padlocks.
You and Bucky exchanged a quick glance with one another before he fists the chain with his Vibranium hand, pulling effortlessly as they break into pieces. He pushes open the doors to reveal a large, primarily empty room aside from a bunch of dusty, bulky outdated computers. Most of the overhead lights don’t work, so it seems darker in here than it did in the corridor.
Bucky steps into the room and starts looking around, his boots crunching noisily on worn rubble and glass. You hold your breath, watching as his fingers skim along the keyboards, his eyes squinting at the monitors as he passes each one as though looking for something.
And then he stops at one in particular. He eyes it carefully before looking up at the ceiling to the lights again.
“What is it?” You can’t hide your curiosity.
“There’s still power to this base,” he says observantly, turning his attention back towards the computer. “Maybe
” he mumbles to himself, leaning over the monitor a bit, his fingers blindly searching before pressing the power button. Bucky stands back as the screen comes to life, but his eyes widen, alarmed as to what he sees.
“Bucky?” You ask apprehensively, moving to stand next to him and also look at the screen. It's mostly black, but there's a green contour of... a face?
"Hello Sergeant Barnes," the computer says with a German accent.
"Oh, what the fuck?" Bucky steps back, his hands fisting into his hair.
The voice chuckles, "Come now, is that any way to greet an old friend?"
“Is
 the computer talking? To you?”
“Why, yes, Ms. Castle. I am,” your stomach turns over at the sound of the voice addressing you as well.
“What the fu-” you go to repeat Bucky’s words but get cut off.
“Does the facility seem
 familiar, Barnes?” Zola asks, condescendingly. “Or, at the very least, the machinery?”
Bucky's eyes start to dart around the room, taking in the different equipment before muttering to himself in dismay, "these control the cyro chambers..."
The computer laughs menacingly, "Ah, so you do remember. Good! Good..."
Rolling his arm once while taking a large step forward, Bucky brings it down, crushing the computer completely. Exposed wires spark briefly from the powerful impact, otherwise leaving the room in silence.
“What- who was that?”
“Arnim Zola. A scientist for HYDRA. The one who, well
” Bucky passively gestures to himself, “experimented and is responsible for me.”
Suddenly, another one of the numerous screens comes to life- the digitized green face grinning, “tsk, tsk. Oh, Soldat
”
“I won’t answer to that anymore,” Bucky maintained through gritted teeth, raising his arm to disintegrate this talking monitor as well just as it says:
“Who said I was talking about you?”
Just then, you hear quick, trudged steps. The only warning you had before been picked up, as easily as a pillow and aggressively, carelessly thrown aside into a metal desk, knocking some of the computers that sat on top along with you.
You tried gasping for the air that was stolen from your lungs on impact with the floor, but it didn’t come. Instead, it burned, more than the pain creeping around the left side of your ribs as you sluggishly moved to sit on your knees. Looking up, you meet the threatening gaze of the one who attacked you.
He was exceptionally tall, especially from your view on the floor. Lean, but had an athletic build and strong. Super strong. He was dressed in all black tactical gear, the only color being a large red Soviet star in the center of his chest. A black mask covered all but his eyes, keeping him faceless. He was pale, as if he hadn't seen actual sunlight in years and had shoulder length dirty blonde hair.
But those eyes. They cemented you to the floor- glaring, daring you to move or even breathe. Just the look that he conveyed felt like you were in the presence of death itself. As you were able to take your first small breath, your lips parted, and eyes narrowed as they locked into his deadly gaze. There was such a darkness glazed over the emerald irises, but you'd recognize them anywhere.
"Luke..." you exhale, painfully. Both physically and emotionally.
His brow twitches slightly at you saying his name, like his mind is trying to recollect it from a long-forgotten dream. As his body turns to face you, he suddenly gets shoved back a few feet, "Back off, Castle." Bucky warns sternly, stepping between you and your brother.
Gripping the desk, you use it to hoist yourself up, whining slightly and grabbing at your left side realizing that you most likely have some broken ribs. The sound of your pain distracted Bucky for one second, and Luke took that opportunity to lunge forward and kick him high in the chest. With a breathless grunt, Bucky barrels backwards into you, knocking your back flush against the wall.
Luke was there in the blink of an eye, grabbing Bucky by the collar of his jacket. The two of them quickly became a tangle of throwing fists and kicks, breaking apart to find anything around to throw at one another. Overturning desks, throwing chairs, Bucky even chucked a still laughing Zola computer at Luke.
While you never thought the two most important men in your life would ever have the chance to meet, this is not the way you would have ever imagined it.
With your back still flat against the wall, you slide down to sit on the floor, starting to feel dizzy. Maybe it was the overwhelmingness of the situation, but instinctively you bring your hand to the back of your head, and it feels... wet. Looking at your fingers, they're now coated with fresh, warm crimson blood. It's getting harder to think straight with the tunneling vision, but you realize that you hit your head against the wall from the collision of bodies.
"Please..." you choke out a sob, "please, stop," you beg. But they can't hear you over their own heated screams and grunts as they continue to fight one another. Your narrowing vision focuses on Bucky, seeing that he is fighting more defensively- actively trying to avoid hurting Luke, pulling his punches where he can. Tears burn behind your eyes at the sight, knowing that if this were anyone else, it would already be over.
"Luke!" Bucky yells and quickly dodges to the side, avoiding the knife now sticking out of the wall that Luke threw at him. "Your sister came here to get you back! She's here for you. We're here for you!" Bucky maintained his distance, mirroring Luke's movement's trying to rely on his words rather than fists. They're pacing, waiting for the other to make a move.
The ringing in your ears was becoming too hard to ignore and as much as you tried to fight it, sweat started to bead up on your skin. You were losing consciousness, and fast.
"Bucky," you breathe out. His body tenses as he looks over at you, eyes wide. He jumps over one of the only remaining desks in the room and kneels down, hands hovering over body briefly, afraid to touch you.
"Okay... okay," he mutters to himself, scanning you over, his eyes linger on your hand with the now drying blood on them. Bucky gently cups your cheek, his thumb grazing over it as he forces a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You're gonna be okay, Sunshine. I-I'm going to get you outta here and get some help, okay?" His voice sounds shaky as his chest heaves, "Sam? I need a med evac for y/n,"
You nod once, or at least you think you do, as you continue to focus on Bucky. Everything around him starts to fade into a deeper black void. The last thing you see is Luke step into view over Bucky's shoulder to look down at you. At some point during their altercation, his mask had been ripped off. His lips were pressed into a thin line as his teeth clenched and remained expressionless while Bucky continued to stroke your hair and try to speak calm, reassuring words of how he would make sure you would be okay as you slipped under the surface of complete darkness.
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@peaches1958 @aquabrie @elsie-bells @pono-pura-vida @redbloodedgurl @almosttoopizza @beware-my-thorns @prettylittlepluviophile @annoyinglythoughtfuldestiny @calwitch @ozwriterchick @roofwitty779 @lessersole @lil-darhk @agoddoesnotplead @saranghaey @erinallene @mrsvxder @elizabeth916 @cjand10 @bucky-barnes-lover @wintrsoldrluvr @skulliecadaver-blog
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50cal-fullauto-astarion · 1 year ago
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to leave the blood stay in the veins
monster!könig x f!rcursed!reader (no use of 'y/n') 6.6k words NSFW!
DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT‌CW: extremely NSFW, descriptions of gore, implied consumption of human flesh by a non-human monster, mention of necrotic curse, monsterfucking, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, knotting (no omegaverse), outdoor sex, ambiguous ending, pre-established relationship, 0% proofread, könig and reader are both fucking unhinged.
Day 01 of the Haunted Hoedown Challenge by @/inklore
taboo au (monsterfucking) + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into." + oh no i'm dating the town serial killer
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There is a beast in the woods, and it leaves so little meat on the bone that not even carrion birds find value in the corpses it leaves behind.
It’s a strange town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, full of little sicknesses hiding in the corners, and you learned them well when you moved here. No one goes past the treeline at night. Hardly anyone is outside of home if they can help it. Tourists are the beast’s fodder.
Your boyfriend thinks it’s funny. 
König, under his ever-present hood–a not altogether uncommon sight in your town, people come here when they have something to hide, something they are uncomfortable with or find hideous in themselves, and he has given an unimaginable amount for you out of love–laughs, sharp in the tooth.
“Anyone dumb enough to head into the trees is dumb enough to die,” he teases, but there is an arrogance and a contempt swimming deep in his bloodshot blue eyes. 
“That’s coldblooded, but not wrong,” you tell him, from behind your own mask. Plain thing, blank in expression, modeled from the one from Eyes Without A Face. It covers the ravages of a curse, numb necrosis slowly spreading up your face through the years. “I still want you to get me a gun.”
“What’s a gun going to do against a thing like that?” he asks, tilting his head, the hood bagging off the curled horns that start at his temples and sweep back over his ears. “Something like that, you need silver. I’ll get you a knife. Big one. Nice and fucking sharp, Schatzi.”
The knife isn’t a comfort when the beast begins to hunt in town. It stalks from house to house, preying on people in their beds, their living rooms, their bathtubs–there is no rhyme or reason, not a whit of discernable pattern. 
Only teeth-gouged bones and viscera ground into wall, tile, and carpet alike. Your neighbor falls victim, and you watch the police from your window, flinching when a veteran officer stumbles out into the fall-frosted grass to vomit, sobbing and pulling his hair.
“It got Emil,” you say, still watching through your sheer curtains. 
König nearly cackles from your bed, lounging as he visits. “Good. Emil was a piece of shit. Depperte Fut.”
You glance at him from the corner of your eye, over your shoulder, before returning back to the circus in the yard next door. “‘Stupid cunt’ is a pretty strong insult. He was an asshole, but I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” you mumble.
“You don’t know all that much about your neighbors, Schatzi.”
You begin to rock side-to-side on your hips, the enormous silver blade König gifted you turning over and over in your hands, the point digging lightly into your palm. 
It’s insane, the way you begin to tell yourself that you’ve seen König’s face nearly everyday for the last two years—you can see it right now. He lies on your bed, pointed teeth gleaming under his split philtrum in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamp and the red-blue flash of the cruisers. You know there is a man under the hood, however odd and satyr-seeming.
And yet. And yet.
The blade digs a little too deep, drawing a curse-blackened bead of blood. König’s eyes burn into the back of your neck, and you can only guess his horizontal pupils dilate into black holes. 
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Just quit your job. I’ll take care of you.
It’s a simple enough promise, and one you know König will keep, but not one you’re willing to make. You have few shreds of independence, hard-bought through years of fighting back against misfortunes and setbacks, and, no matter the depths with which you love him, you’re not willing to trade your shit wage on faith for love of a man. It doesn’t matter how helplessly besotted he is. 
It’s this molar-cracking grit that delivers you right to the beast. Because you were forced to pick up an extra half shift at the hotel to fold towels behind the front desk, because you needed the money, because you wanted to pay back your beautiful, bloodthirsty boyfriend for the ridiculous blade he begat you. 
The god forsaken thing lumbers down a deserted street, blocks from your little rental, and something fucking horrendous seizes you. It’s enormous, walking on cloven hooves and back-bent legs. Its arms are too fucking long, clawed, jagged. And worst is the skull, bleached white and glowing like a beacon in the dark, an enormous rack of brutally sharp horns dripping trinkets of bone and gold that glints in the street lamp it approaches. 
A horrible fact hits you. It’s not lumbering, it’s wandering. Putting a massive, craggy hand on fences and peering into houses, taking its time, evaluating. You swear you can almost hear it humming. 
You don’t know when your hand found the handle of the silver blade strapped to your belt under your coat, but the leather on the grip bites your palm with the force of your grip, a nauseous, cold sweat terror tearing apart your ability to think. 
It’s a primal fear, one that makes you want to protect your soft, vulnerable neck, even if the blood that warms it runs venomous. 
It’s a bad choice, but there are no good ones. When the beast lifts its head and scents the air, skull snapping your direction and shaking its grisly trophies, you run. You snap the huge blade off your hip and drop into a dead sprint, cutting between yards, trying to escape the horrendous bellow that reverberates through the bony chambers of the monster’s skull.
Choosing to run instead of freezing maybe bought you a few extra minutes before death decided it was time to seize your pulse in reclamation, and it hurts. The physical exertion it takes to bomb through the last stretches of suburbia before the forest closes in feels like you are breaking every bit of your body by forced choice, listening to that awful fucking thing chase after you. 
Your blade makes a slicing sound cutting through the air at your side, the monster’s hooves pound the dirt as it digs in and chases after you, but, good god, it doesn’t sound like it’s even trying.
You don’t dare look back, pushing your body past agony, your lungs shredding in your chest. You’ve never moved this fast, you’ve never run this hard for this long. Your body is TV static—hissing, popping, distant—and, insanely, the urge to cry drills into your eye sockets.
You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to fucking die, stupidly and dumbly and pointlessly, because you wanted to pay your boyfriend a stupid sum of fucking money, for a stupid fucking knife that he bought you on a stupid fucking joke. 
Two meters from the second worst decision of your life, the monster snaps out, rough hand between your shoulder blades, crashing you into the goddamned dirt. Your eyebrow splits on a tree root, your eyes roll in the back of your head, your hand stays manically tight on the blade, slicing your other arm. 
“Schaaaatzi,” the miserable fucking thing hisses, pressing that same hand between your shoulder blades, pinning you into the freezing dirt. 
Oh, god, no, it has König’s voice. It’s—it’s not him, but it has his voice, thin and washed out as low-hung fog, but you would know that voice. In hell, in high water, in the dirt with a massive, bark-rough hand grinding your skin raw through your coat—you - know - his - voice. 
Furiously, you slash the blade over your head, behind your back, screaming and digging your feet in the dirt. For a brief second, as you hack at the wood of the monster’s hand and wrist, you’re even able to push yourself off the ground by mere inches. The beast growls and shoves you back down twice as hard, knocking the wind out of you, spasming your hand open. The knife drops, and you begin to blindly try digging and dragging yourself away. 
“Stop
hurting
me,” the beast lows, still in your boyfriend’s voice, and you imagine a bathtub full of gnawed bones, a living room with scattered body parts, your kitchen smeared with blood like cave wall art, and you start to scream as loud as your lungs will allow, your mask filling with dirt in your horrendous and futile bid to escape. Bloody murder bellows, filled with rage, wanting to kill and consume and conflagrate.
If König is dead, you will take your pound of flesh. You will either die fighting, or win, and you will hack apart this freak-fuck’s corpse to burn in your woodstove to warm your home. You’ll mount its fucking skull on your front door, so anything else in these woods will know you won’t hesitate to make trophies of them either. 
Bone, warm to the touch, presses against the back of your head. When it breathes, the air is as hot as exhaust, almost scalding your back. “Schatzi,” it bids you slowly once again.
“I’LL KILL YOU!” it rips your throat raw to shriek it, reaching back and almost dislocating your arms to rip at anything you can. Your hands fall on the dressings attached to its horns, you tear off a vertebra, and a gold wedding band, and a bracelet of rave kandi in plastic beads. “IF YOU HURT HIM, I’LL YOU FUCKING KILL YOU!”
The head presses harder, driving your face into the dirt. There is something desperate in the pressure. It spits all at once, grating and wide in a voice you know better than your own, “You pissed off a fucking witch, because you ran out of riddles to tell her, when she was ransoming you to your arshloch grandmother. She never paid. That’s why you were cursed—no one gave a fuck. But I gave her my face for you, to stop it halfway, better than fucking nothing.”
Your rage freezes immediately, your chest heaving under the weight it presses down on you. 
No one knows that. Only König. He’s the only person who would know about his lonely and quiet climb up to the Scottish highlands. Besides you, and the witch, König is the only one who would know why his human face was distorted, malformed, made animalistic. 
“Lee?” you pant, unleashing part of his first name, the only one he ever tolerates. And, fuck, instantly the pressure pulls away, the skull rubbing against your back to soothe it.
“It’s me, Schatzi,” the slow voice promises, nuzzling you. There’s rustling above you that you don’t dare turn to see. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 
A tinkling piece of jewelry lowers in front of your eyes, and you can see that it dangles from an enormous, ligneous finger. You’re being shown a sterling silver charm bracelet. You’re being shown your bracelet, the one you thought you had lost months ago. 
Your hand shoots out, wrapping around the finger, the peeling bark shearing off under your grip. You find instantly that you can pull yourself up on your hip, sitting, caged and protected under the beast’s massive body—under König’s massive body. 
He shifts back onto his digitagrade haunches, holding himself over you, still offering your bracelet. He shudders at your touch on his hand, and you imagine that he may’ve never been handled with kindness in this shape. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Because he fucking kills and eats people.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, staring dead into the hollow sockets of his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably, turning his head. “Why—you have me so fucked up—what have you been thinking—?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to—”
“Yes, I have to, fucker.” It’s impossible to wrap your head around the magnitude of what a simple secret and a silver bracelet has done to your understanding of the world. A complete unraveling—upheaval, utterly. 
You take the bracelet from his finger, on which it fits like a ring, and push it into your wrist, sitting up on your knees and grabbing him by the underside of his jaw. Though it puts you in his blind spot, staring dead center at the sinus dimples between his eyes, it feels like you have a mote of power over him. 
(If he were asked, he would say the power you hold over him could corrupt, absolutely. He would badly like you to ask someday.)
“Why are you—what are you? Have you always been like this? Or was this new, with the fucking witch? Are—Jesus Christ—why are—the monster isn’t supposed to come into town, why are you in TOWN?” you run off at the mouth, words stalling and crashing and fusing together as your thoughts overwhelm just how quickly you can speak. 
And up from that impossibly deep throat–simultaneously from the center of your brain, and from all around you all at once–crawls König’s pitchy hyena-laugh, edged, always, with cruelty. He butts the jagged end of his nasal cavities into your stomach, catching on the threads of your sweater. 
“Leshy, Schatzi, say it for me.”
Your hands pull his jaw closer, digging the bone into your stomach, wondering if he can feel the pressure of your deep breathing. Oh, fuck, you could crack. This is your König. You start to wonder how many of his perverse buttons you can hit, the part of you that felt shame for your attraction to what the world discarded as ‘ugly’ long ago removed from your emotional bank.
“Leshy,” you say, really leaning into the word, saying it deep in your chest. One of your hands travels the long length to the hinge of his jaw, gripping tight, directing his head to turn so you can meet one of his empty eyes. “Answer my fucking questions.”
The laugh doesn’t come this time. In its place is a near-violent whole-body shudder that wracks through you. 
“Old! Alwaaays been this way,” and even in the strange disconnect of his voice from his physical form, you can tell his arousal is eating away at him in big bites–clipping his speech, broiling his brain with body heat, “can’t remember ever being young, haa-haa. And why do you think I’m hunting in town?”
Another trap, a stupid pop quiz, wanting to test your knowledge of him, or a gotcha! to check your observations and what you had missed.
Your hands get tighter, and you pull his jaw open, marveling at the sharp grooves ground into his teeth, like nightmarish, ivory rook pieces, tall and straight in the dry sockets. His chest begins to heave, his breath fogging into steaming clouds over your hands, and, remarkably, it smells like nothing at all apart from pin needles and snow.
You’d thought you’d smell decaying flesh or rotten blood. The only blood you can smell comes from your own busted brow and sliced arm, crusting black on your skin and in the fabric of your sweater as it coagulates.
“If I was working on a hunter’s instincts, I would say that Schladming has become too good at keeping people out of the forests. Even during daylight hours. It cuts down on prey,” you say, ice cold and clean as a slit throat. Your eyes flick back up to the socket, surrounded by the feeling that those glass-blue eyes of his humanoid form are drilling into you. He’s waiting for you to hit the hook. “But I’m working on your logic.”
“Oh, yeeaah,” he drawls, his hips shifting, and you feel as if he would bite his lips in anticipation now, if he could. 
“Oh, yeeaah,” you echo him, “the logic of a fucking crazy asshole.” He feels like a huge grin, hands on his muscular, bunched, and flexing thighs. That detail is not lost on you. “You’re hunting in town because you’re pissed off. You reached a limit, and you got tired of sitting on your fucking reaction.”
You swear to god he moans a little. Just softly. It could be a breath, but you know him too well to dismiss it out of hand. 
“That’s good, Schatzi. I like that. I like that you figured that out,” he says, definitely panting in rhythm now, his fogging breath giving away the rhythm secondary. “People are looking at you too much. I don’t fucking like it when they look at you too much.”
That’s a sudden thought that had not occurred to you, and you lash yourself silently because it hadn’t. König has always been possessive of you. Jealous. Protective. And he held grudges in ways that could spark blood feuds and successive generations of death.
Like a curse.
It’s a testament to how fucking cracked and perfectly matched the two of you are that you start laughing, stroking his orbital bones in big, pleased pats, kissing the bridge of his nose. 
“Schatzi, please,” he groans, pressing into you insistently. “Promise you won’t tell. Promise me.”
“Why the fuck would I tell?” you laugh, losing track of your faculties, your very sense. What does it matter? What does it all even mean? You’ve found a man that loves you so deeply and truly and twistedly that he slaughters those who desire or deign you. You’ve found, and fallen in love with a man that would sell his face to save as much of yours as he could. “Who the fuck would I tell?”
The slope of his shoulders relaxes, and he moves closer to you, once again shielding you with the massive bulk of his body, warming you in the cold air. Tucked under his chin, you can study the soft suede-like material of his body, how the bark covering his arms gives way to a ruff of dense, double-layered fur around his shoulders and his long, muscular neck. 
The rest of the muscle on him is horrendously hard, flexed like steel cabling under a layer of fat. There is something about this body that reminds you of the shape of the human one so well–long legs, a nipped waist, and flat hips built to strut and rock, all of it buttressing a broad set of shoulders.
You press your face into the ruff, pushing your fingers into it. Dear god, your hand goes deeper and deeper, and it just never seems to stop. His scent is–it’s almost familiar. He’s in there, somewhere–his musk, the metallic tang of blood seemingly sunken into his skin–but there’s so much more to it. Green, and earthy, almost like soil and moss. 
A sound comes from his body, like a house settling. A deep, broad creak. The trophies on his horns rattle together, clinking like dull wind chimes. “More,” he says simply, leaving you to figure it out. Simple enough.
Your hand drops from the ruff, tracing over his convex chest, down to his stomach. Another shudder, and he pulls those big arms around your entire body, a fuller, more protective hug than you’ve ever felt. 
“Schatzi–would you let me
” he breathes, a heaving sigh. 
Another laugh cracks out of you, hysterical, constricted by your mask. Why not? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve always been a woman that loves monsters. You, yourself, are one. You can’t find a reason to halt your hands, nor your body, nor his desire.
In an odd show of tip-to-tail, you push the mask off your face, and kick off your boots, going for your zipper. “Yeah. Yeah, honey, come on. Show me,” you urge him, pawing at his massive waist as you struggle out of your jeans. 
He groans and this obscene trill escapes his body–a low, rattling moan that travels miles through every cell of your body, his legs spreading wider. You laugh in delight and mania, watching rapt as his cock slides out of a sheath you hadn’t even caught sight of, his monstrous body a foreign land you hadn’t traveled yet, but, fuck, do you want to learn the lands well enough to call them home. 
It’s heavy in your hands, a little slick, and, childishly, you almost giggle (holy shit, that is a sound that has never left your mouth in your living memory, and yet, here you are). It’s hot, hotter than you expected, and a vulnerable shade of pale, like a plant slip. Oh, and it’s elegant, almost spiraling. He huffs as you stroke the length of it, pushing your fingertips into his sheath at the base. 
“I don’t think this is gonna fit,” you warn him, and it somehow feels as if you’re challenging yourself with the statement.
He takes it as a challenge for himself, though, and an aspiration to hold for you, “You are going to take all of it. I’m going to make sure.”
His massive hand comes to the back of your waist, finding your fulcrum without needing to search, pulling you off your knees to hold to beneath him. “You naked yet, or still fucking around?” he asks, breathing heavily, and you shove your jeans off the rest of the way. 
“You’re being a little bitch,” you snipe, a dumb swipe at reclaiming dignity after you realize you’re so wet that it slicks your thighs, having darkened the crotch of your freshly abandoned jeans pathetically. 
He throws another coarse laugh, haa-haa, shifting his massive body long, pulling you into place. 
It’s on you, then, to figure out the logistics. Somehow, it just works, even through layers of physical translation. Under your hands, he reads König, loud and clear. 
There’s a brief, flighty moment of terror as you rub the head of his cock between the lips of your cunt, rolling your hips to stimulate your clit against it. It is just fucking enormous, almost half again the size of his human cock. But then you grit your teeth, tipping your weight back so your shoulders rest against the dirt, bleak and unyielding ruthlessness seizing your mind.
You do not back down, you have never done it once in your life, and tonight is no different. 
His head lifts, bottom jaw dropping, and he bays as you push yourself down on his length. The sound crashes into you, rocking your entire body, and the stretch burns, but you buckle down. What are the people in the houses just at the edge of suburbia thinking? Has the fucking abberation that has been slowly killing its way through their number taken to a different form of punishment? Has someone unlucky fallen to its new tastes?
It cuts your mouth into a horrid grin. If they only knew that you were no victim at all, if only they had an inkling of the fact that you are a victor. That you are the hand holding this nightmare’s collar, and he attacks for the sake of you.
Inch by inch, a slow journey, he fills you, pressing completely against your walls, body shaking with the effort it takes not to thrust fully into you. Oh, what destruction that would result in, what a wreckage that would make of your body, what lengths he would go to not ruin you in such a fashion.
“Fuck–fuck–Liebes,” he mutters, just for you, the moment he is as deep in you as he can go, most of his length still outside of what your body can handle, pleading, “I can’t–I. I have to move. Please, meine Liebes.”
“Go. Go-go-go,” you answer back, almost frantic, too full and occupied, needing motion or you might split apart into atoms. The way he answers is instant, undeniable, desperate, rocking into you as if testing waters, going faster as if he finds them warm and welcoming. 
You lose yourselves to it, and your eyes threaten to roll back into your head, gripping onto the elbow of the arm suspending you, blood rushing to your head in an ache from the way you hang off him, forcing you lightheaded. Sap-like blood from where you’d hacked at him in rage drips down your arm, your waist, clinging to your skin in a way that feels permanent. 
He tenses all around you, panting, clouds of steam fogging the air over your head from his pants. Words escape him, leaving nothing but animalistic grunts, the grinding of his dry, exposed teeth as your desperate pussy sucks him deeper and tighter.
You’d taught him as a human to find your g-spot, to destroy your brain with a steady climb, and he doesn’t even need to search now, every movement pressing every inch of his cock into it, and unrelenting onslaught that makes you shake and nearly drool, being fucked like a sacrifice. 
König raps his other fist above your head and pulls out without warning, shaking his head and breathing roughly. 
You imagine brutally grabbing him by the scruff and biting his ear–what kind of punishment would that even be, no worse than a bug bite to him, more likely than anything else–for the loss of his cock. Mostly just an impulsive fantasy, too barbaric and stupid to actually act upon, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, and it feels like hell to be split open against him with nothing inside you.
Breathless–and naked, sweating, and trembling in the woods–you start to sit up on your elbows, cunt throbbing. "What is it? Are you okay?" you ask, your love for him–your fear for him–overwhelming even your damnation-worthy starvation. 
König, massive and so dark he's almost indistinguishable from the night apart from his skull, shakes his head again and puts up a clawed hand. Fine, the gesture says, and you’re realizing he’s beyond words now, but trying his best to communicate. Then he curls it into a loose fist and pantomimes masturbating and finishing.
"Christ!" But you’re laughing, tugging at a tuft of fur on his chest, spun out in your giddiness. It’s still him, you’ve already known, but to see it. To find him through this–this utterly new reality. "They teach you that signal in the forces?"
In his hollow sockets, twisting his body to watch you closely, he looks pleased with himself, ducking forward, bracing on his free hand to one side of your head as he nuzzles into your neck and breathes deeply.
He huffs, rough fingers running over your back, claws trailing the parts of your spine he can reach as he holds you, before he taps the side of your thigh with his other hand. At your eye level, he turns his finger in a slow loop. Roll over, maybe? It's worth a shot.
"Okay. Alright," you sigh, relieved. When you try to roll in his palm, he shakes his head and sets you down, pressing down against your body, pushing his arm under your ribs. With his other hand, he gestures a flat line on the ground. You ask, "On my stomach?"
Two knocks against the ground next to your head. Yes.
You stretch out flat over the frost-crisp grass, too hot to even register the chill against your bare skin, and König lowers with you, sliding the arm under you down to your diaphragm. With his knuckles, he taps your outer-thighs until they're drawn back together, and your breathing hitches when you understand what he intends.
With his legs on the outside of yours, he uses his free hand to run his cock up the length of your seam to tease your pussy, but he takes his sweet time with it. Impatient, you slide onto your knees with near-perfect timing, driving your entrance against his head, snarling with indignation when he bows away. "Fucker!"
He rumbles something almost humanoid, between a laugh and a gruff, trilling ‘rrrr’ you recognize as cousin to a sharp, challenging hum he makes when faced with an idiot comment in his human shape.
"Stop teasing me. I can't stand it," you try instead, turning to give him big eyes over your shoulder because you know that it works well on him.
He bends down and barely-barely nips the top of your ear, a startling move that leaves you perfectly inflamed all over again again. Greedy brat, it says to you, so pleased in the fact he is so desperately wanted. 
The feeling of him inside you is extraordinary. He lubricates in this state, but you hardly need it with the nearly absurd way you’re wet, slick down your thighs. You wonder if your cunt is glimmering under the dim moon and streetlamps, because he'd said that to you once. Heilige sheiße, you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever fucking seen, could just stare at how wet you get for me forever, he'd laughed during one delirious, marathon session of staying sunken between your legs.
He begins to rock his hips, growling quietly and pleased at the wet sounds of your of cunt squelching around him–another sound he enjoys, a marker of pride, how wet can I make my girl get–settling onto his forearm and pressing a little weight against your back. 
He rests his head across your shoulders, burying his snout in your hair, breathing in hard-bought bursts of restraint.
"Yes, honey," you almost seethe, loosening your body, giving up a little of your own iron will to become just a little lost in the feeling of him. You relax your walls in a bid to take more of him, breathing tight, voice pitching up into a plea, "Yes, baby, that's perfect. That's so perfect, keep going. Just like that."
He rocks a little faster, thrusts a little deeper, breathes a little harder. The hand around your waist shifts up to your breast, but isn't dexterous enough to do more than give it an encompassing squeeze. 
With your thighs pressed together, you feel as if your body can't stretch properly to take as much of him as you want (and you want all of him, every burning hot inch, fucking him so well that he cannot disappear into one of his miseries where he will not let you follow, because they all live in his head). 
He ratchets back his speed, tries a new motion with his hips. He rolls instead of thrusting, a more fluid movement, brushing your insides in new ways that leave your swollen clit screaming for attention and your eyes watering. You breathe in ragged pants, fingers digging into the turf over your head, trying not to rip it with the force of your grip by the fistful.
You might cum. You might cum. You want to cum, and you might, and he's so much deeper now, panting hot as fire against your shoulders. You can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench and dance, his horns cutting the air in swipes of agitation above you, and he is so much this way. König: bigger, sometimes bloodier, but always so, so amplified.
"Honey, honey, honey," you whine in a chant under your breath, trying to ground yourself, trying to encourage him. You squeeze your thighs together for the extra stimulation, but you know you’re going to orgasm from him alone, no extra assistance needed. You’re just greedy, you just want it all, but you want him the worst.
When he pulls out this time, you snarl loud and gnash your teeth, digging your dirt-packed nails into his unyielding skin. You were full to the brim and on the wire-edge of climax, and he is so suddenly fucking gone it's almost as abrupt as violence. 
"KÖNIG!" you shout, his callsign cutting from between your teeth like the desire to slit a throat, shattering the quiet around you both, reeling to find him with your burning eyes. 
He collapses onto his side, cock jumping and leaking, and he whines deep in his throat, pulling at you with the flat of his hand. Your thigh, then his hip, your chest, then his–more hand signals, a story-told like a man with a sucking chest wound needing saving. He snakes his arm under you again, whining growing deeper, and you understand.
You roll, throwing your thigh over his hip, tucking tight against his chest. You give yourself one second of feeling cool air against your overheated pussy before you take him in hand and direct him home, and his deep, slick slide into you knocks the air out of your lungs like a punch to the solar plexus. 
You’re only seconds away, and he can't be much farther, driving his head under yours to give you something to rest on that isn't the ground.
You don't utilize his offering, craning your neck as if you'll somehow get a glimpse of your connection from this angle–flat against him from belly to breast, resting your cheek and forehead against his heaving chest. His whine turns into a series of small, strangled howls and gasps as your voice crawls from whimpering to keening.
You’ve known you were going to cum, but you’re still somehow surprised with yourself at how quickly it's raced up, and how overwhelming it feels like it's going to be. You feel like you’re going insane.
His other arm wraps your ribs, too, squeezing you to him like you’re the only thing in the world worth keeping close, and damn him for it. You don't know why, but damn him.
"Cum, baby, cum," you instruct, gasping when you aren't clenching your teeth. You curl close to him, as close as your body will allow, spreading your legs as wide as you can. You drive back down into his thrusts, giving as much of yourself as you can, taking as much of him as you’re able. 
You want it all–everything–every little bit of blood and bone that's built him into a home he offers only to you. "Cum in me. I'm ready, I want you to cum," you demand, finding it truer than true, finding yourself right on the razor-edge.
The command is all it takes. Three hard thrusts, and he's buried in you to the base, punching the wind out of your lungs, and filling you to the point of what feels like impossibility with his spend. It forces you to finish as well, lighting you up like a lightning storm, swallowing him deeper as you cum and cum like you'll never be able to stop, soaking the both of you. 
You gasp a raw-throated howl, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, and you praise him as his cock kicks and kicks, emptying everything he's got to give into you.
A pressure builds inside you, beginning nearly unpleasant, until something just gives and his knot anchoring him to you feels right. 
It feels special and dazzlingly intimate, and you’re boggled, again, with the knowledge you’re the only person in the world that he's ever shown himself to this way. It’s just a thing you know in your marrow, an immutable truth, like the sun setting in the west, or the cruelty of witches without their wants.
You wind down, sweating and panting and filthy in each other's arms, and you rock against him,  holding him inside, clenching around him what little you can. You feel so wonderfully safe, so immaculately powerful, so stupidly, crazily, fantastically in love.
When your combined breathing evens, and the knot between you retreats, you groan when König shifts back into his human form, but only for the resituating you both have to endure. 
The body against yours is familiar again, and you’re dreadfully sleepy, though you want to clean yourself and eat. You crave something raw, something bloody. You hunger the way an animal hungers after a hard fuck. His spend drips out of you now that his cock's returned to normal, and it forms a trail of cooling wet down the crease where your thigh meets your ass.
You feel lovely.
König laughs, rough and spent, tucking hair out of your face and kissing your closed eyelids. "Holy fucking shit, Schatzi," he marvels, looking at you like you are the only god that has ever mattered. 
Your smile cuts sharp, and your fingers find his pulse point, tracing it thoughtfully. “You hungry? I bet you're fucking starved,” is all you say in return, eyes trailing the way his hand finds the charm bracelet newly returned to your wrist, touching it like a token.
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It’s late and dark when you both manage to stumble your way back to your rental. He stays close, needy and soft, his hand on your hip, tugging you into his body when he can, careful of not knocking into the big, silver knife you’d placed back in the scabbard on your belt. 
The hood is back on his head, rolled up to his nose, and his split mouth kisses against your neck and behind your ear, his eyes closed like he endures a waking dream. You, in your own filthied mask again, allow it, craning your neck to give him more room, anchoring him with an arm around his waist in return.
It is late now, and the neighborhood is silent. Again, you wonder what the quiet lives inside must be thinking–whether they think the crimes have increased into a new field of brutality, if they are fearing and wondering what body parts they will find at the treeline come dawn. 
You know they will not leave the safety of their homes to investigate. They would be stupid to do something like that.
“That shower is going to feel so goddamned good,” you mutter, unlocking your door, and he nods against your skin.
“Oh, yeeaah,” he says, and the familiarity of the phrase makes you hum a laugh, shutting your eyes as you push through the threshold. "Get that blood off your skin before it stains. Your poor face, your poor arm. Poor Schatzi."
He splits off from you with a facsimile of a kiss–your masks pressing together at the mouth–and he pinches your ass before he takes off to the kitchen, his stomach growling, not even bothering to take off his boots.
You, however, kick off your shoes, and pull together clean clothes, heading toward the bathroom in the hall, the one with the big shower, in case he decides to join you.
Sleepy and content, you listen to his boots move heavily over the kitchen tile, the sound of the fridge door hissing snickt as he pulls it open, and shoves things around in his search for food. You nearly sway up to the closed door–why is it closed, you barely manage to wonder–your eyelids lead-weighted.
It takes only one thing to make them snap open wide, your back going ramrod straight. A dark smear, curling around the knob, around the edge of the door where it seams to the jamb.
Cold grips your lungs, sending your heart galloping painfully in the cage of your ribs, wondering if it really is copper you smell, or if it is a trick of your mind. The hall is too dark to tell if the swipe on the white door is red or black–if it is blood, if it is König’s or yours. 
There is a presence at your back, and enormous hands on the door on either side of your head, so fast you cannot tell if you were even able to blink before you saw his wide, scarred, and knuckle-broken limbs spreading wide across the wood.
Your hand finds the grip of the knife, looking at the brutal gouges you had hacked into his forearm earlier in the night, and you are thinking faster and harder than you ever have in your life, realizing in a terrible microsecond that you will have to make a decision–that you will have to choose what reality you are willing to live with, or that you are simply mistaken. 
Either way, you are moments from learning.
“Something wrong, Schatzi?” your boyfriend’s familiar voice asks, low and raspy, hot against the nape of your neck.
The laugh in his tone is cruel, and you can’t tell whether it belongs to König, or something pretending to be him.
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tag-list: @alittleposhtoad @bitchoftoji @dotcie @kastlequill @miyabilicious @moths569 @parttimeprophet @pssytrux <3
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emjayewrites · 4 days ago
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days in douala ‱ aurĂ©lien tchouameni (fouled by fate one shot)
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SYNOPSIS: Aurélien Tchouaméni, one of football's rising stars, is used to navigating the pressures of the pitch-but nothing could prepare him for an arranged marriage. With his family's legacy and cultural traditions at stake, Aurélien reluctantly agrees to marry a woman he barely knows. But as they're thrust into the public eye, sparks fly in unexpected ways. The two must navigate the complexities of love, duty, and fame, all while figuring out if they're playing on the same team-or if their hearts are destined for different paths.
PAIRINGS: Aurélien Tchouaméni x Zuri Awanto Nchang (faceclaim Samira Ahmed @/iamsamiira)
WARNINGS: cursing, football b.s., dry humor/wit, slight arguing, angst, smut (18+/minors dni)
TAGLIST: @rougereds @f1-football-fiend @lettersofgold @hopefulromantic1 @deonn-jaelle @perfecttrashface @2serenity0 @muglermami @sucredreamer @julescpu @greyishbach @certifiedlesbianbaddie @trinitoldyouso @bbgkoo @pepfectionary @peyiswriting @rosiesdior @yeea-nah @kj77 @imjustheretomanifest @judesvirtual @whoevenisthiz @mufasathatniggatho @alika-4466 @127hydrangeas @sailurmewn @cocobutterqwueen @irishmanwhore
A/N: Y’all didn’t think I didn’t have nothing for AurĂ©lien and ZuZu did you?
The afternoon air was thick with humidity as Zuri and AurĂ©lien stepped out of the airport in Douala, their driver already waiting with a sign reading "M. TchouamĂ©ni." Even though they'd both been to Cameroon several times before, something about being here always felt like coming back to something deeper than just a place – the mix of tropical flowers, street food, and diesel bringing back memories of previous visits.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Tchouaméni," the driver greeted in French, bowing slightly before turning to Zuri with a respectful nod. "Mademoiselle." He efficiently loaded their Louis Vuitton luggage into the black Mercedes, and soon they were weaving through the bustling streets of Douala, headed toward K Hotel.
Aurélien's hand found Zuri's as they drove, comfortable in the silence that came from knowing each other so well now. "Way different from MegÚve, non?" he teased, referring to their Christmas spent in the snowy French Alps with Jules and Senait. "Watching Jules try to teach Senait to ski was the highlight of my year."
"Just a bit," Zuri laughed, watching the city pass by. "I still can't believe you managed to convince Carlo to let you ski with that healing foot."
"Ah, ma belle, what Carlo doesn't know won't hurt him," he chuckled. "Besides, I was careful."
The K Hotel was impressive, all modern elegance with subtle traditional influences. The camera crew for AurĂ©lien's foundation was already set up in the lobby, getting B-roll of the space before tomorrow's big event at the orphanage. The foundation's logo – Prosperi by AT – was displayed prominently, and Zuri could see the excitement in AurĂ©lien's eyes. This project had been his baby for months.
Anne-MaĂŻsha spotted them first, switching effortlessly between French and Bamum as she rushed over. Her energy matched her brother's, even if she'd never admit it. Behind her, Yannis approached with that teenage cool that dissolved the moment he reached them.
"Yo!" He dapped up Aurélien before pulling him into a quick hug. "Flight good?"
"Not too bad, a bit bumpy," Aurélien responded. "Everything good with you?"
"Aunties annoying the heck out of me about getting a girlfriend," Yannis said with the most dramatic eye roll Zuri has ever seen — no, actually that was definitely a look AurĂ©lien gave her as well.
Tchouaméni genes and expressions are really gene-ing and expression-ing.
Then Yannis turned to Zuri, his whole face lighting up. "Sis!" he shouted proudly, wrapping his arms around her.
The hug was warm, genuine but quick, and Zuri felt that familiar flutter in her chest – still getting used to having younger siblings, even if by marriage. The way his family had just... accepted her, embraced her, particularly his father's quiet support...
The thought of fathers sent her mind spinning toward darker places, memories of control and chaos threatening to surface. But then Aurélien's hand was there on her lower back, anchoring her to the present.
"You alright, ZuZu?" he asked softly.
"Yes," she nodded, glancing up at him, and his lips found her cheek in a gentle kiss.
"Ew! In front of me though?" came Yannis’ voice but he was immediately met with a playful swat on the arm by Anne-Maïsha. "Ow! Ani!!"
"Stop being a weirdo," chided Anne then she shot both Zuri and AurĂ©lien a wide smile. "They’re in love."
Yannis opened his mouth to retort but AurĂ©lien interjected with: "Let’s head inside before Maman gets too impatient."
And all four of them made their way to the restaurant because God forbid if you let an African mother wait one more unnecessary minute.
The hotel's restaurant was alive with activity when a striking woman approached them first – tall and elegant like AurĂ©lien's mother but with a modern edge, her traditional dress perfectly tailored and paired with designer heels. Her complexion was a shade darker than AurĂ©lien's, and she wore her hair in elaborate braids wrapped in an updo.
"Sabine!" AurĂ©lien's face lit up. "Finally you two can meet. Zuri, this is my cousin Sabine – Maman's sister's eldest." Then he switched to French: "Sabine, voici ma fiancĂ©e Zuri."
His eyes shifted back onto her as he said that particular word — fiancĂ©e. He looked so proud and full of adoration that it caused her to swoon.
"Zuri!" Sabine enveloped her in a warm embrace before pulling back with an apologetic smile. "Je suis dĂ©solĂ©e je n’ai pas pu me rendre Ă  la fĂȘte de fiançailles." (I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the engagement party.)
"C'est bon," Zuri managed in her limited French, making Sabine beam.
Aurélien translated as Sabine excitedly shared details about her upcoming wedding, his hand resting comfortably around Zuri's waist. His parents, Fernand and Josette, were hosting tonight's dinner, and Zuri could already see Josette directing hotel staff about the table arrangements.
"My pretty girl!" Josette eventually called out, coming over to kiss Zuri's cheeks. Her affection was always obvious, warm and open in a way that still surprised Zuri sometimes. Fernand was more reserved but no less welcoming, greeting Zuri with a gentle "Bonjour, daughter" that made her heart squeeze.
"Mon fils!" Josette then pulled AurĂ©lien into a tight hug while Fernand clasped his son's shoulder with obvious pride. The family settled around the large table, and Zuri watched as hotel staff circulated with warm bowls of water and hand towels – a familiar ritual that made her smile.
Zuri didn't hesitate when the food arrived, her hands expertly tearing off a piece of hot fufu and dipping it into the spicy njama njama soup. The familiar taste of home had her closing her eyes in appreciation.
"I miss this food so much," she sighed, making everyone laugh. "Madrid's great but nothing hits like this."
"See?" Josette directed at Aurélien. "This one knows good food. Not like your fancy nutritionists."
The conversation flowed easily between French and English, Anne-MaĂŻsha filling in gaps when needed. Zuri was in the middle of reaching for more soup when Josette asked, "Will you visit your family while you're here?"
"Yes," Zuri nodded, wiping her hands. "Going to see Mamie Adzoa tomorrow after the foundation event. She's still in the village about two hours from here."
"I love your grandmother," Josette said. "We should all come; I would love to see her again."
"Oh, you don’t have to–"
"Nonsense, she’s family!" added Fernand, "and some village life will do us good."
Zuri loved her grandmother, that much was certain, yet Mamie can be
well Mamie sometimes and the woman had no filter. The woman that AurĂ©lien’s parents had met at the engagement ceremony was a much more toned down version of her grandmother. And now they will be on her home turf — literally and figuratively — and she could only imagine what her grandmother had in store for them.
Maybe she’ll try to give me a fertility potion.
Zuri let out a shudder, reminiscing about how her grandmother droned on and on during one of their weekly phone calls about how handsome and viril AurĂ©lien was and how it would "be sacrilegious to not have babies with him". The two of them were lucky that she wasn’t pregnant right now with the way they were fucking like rabbits – and most of it unprotected no less.
"Uh
you sure? I mean we could always–"
At that moment, she felt a hand — AurĂ©lien’s hand to be precise — squeeze her thigh underneath the table, as if silently pleading for her to cut all attempts of convincing his parents to not come along. And he was absolutely right; nothing could come between African parents once their minds were made up. It would take an act of God to make them change their decision. Leave it to African parents to always be as stubborn as mules.
So she did what will be most beneficial in this case. Zuri gave them a wide, toothy grin and said: "It’s going to be a nice surprise for Mamie. She’ll love it."
"We carpool over to her house then," Fernand said with a matching smile as he grabbed the platter of fufu. "We could sleep over too. Mamie told me about her cooking and I have to try it."
Oh fuck. Now we’re spending the night?
Zuri glanced at AurĂ©lien for help – anything to cease this conversation altogether! What the ever-loving heck is his father talking about, like didn’t they know that Mamie will have them out working the fields? Not to mention all the crazy chores she had Zuri do whenever she visited because according to her grandmother’s unspoken philosophy, guests equals free labor.
Aurélien cleared his throat. "Papa, you really going to stay out on a farm?"
His father nodded thoughtfully as he took a sip of his water. "I’m from a village not too far from Mamie; it’s good to go back to your roots from time to time, Djani."
Zuri couldn’t ignore the hint of skepticism in AurĂ©lien’s sigh or the way Fernand uttered her fiancé’s middle name; it was a tad defensive. From what AurĂ©lien and Josette told her, his father really enjoyed the amenities living in the city awarded him, so going back to the village where there wasn’t any WiFi or central air conditioning was going to be quite a challenge.
Aurélien held up his hands in mock surrender, letting out a chuckle in good nature. "Alright, Papa, so when you see a snake and scream bloody murder, it still be good, right?"
Oh, he went there, I see.
Zuri ducked her head in her napkin to try to stifle the laugh that threaten to come up, but it was useless when she heard the sound of Yannis’ booming laugh followed by Anne-Maïsha’s giggles.
"He has a point there, Fernand," AurĂ©lien’s Uncle Izzy said as he chuckled as well.
It was no secret that Fernand had a fear of snakes and the villages were crawling with them, even some venomous ones, but again
African parents
.
His father’s smile was calculated, direct to the point and he interlaced his fingers together, a telltale sign that AurĂ©lien had irrefutably lost this debate. "Thank you for your concern, my son, but we’re still going to spend time at Zuri’s grandmother’s farm. You children can learn a lot from a good day of purposeful hard work."
Check meets mate.
His words weren’t as harsh as Zuri thought it would be nor his body language giving out any hint of obvious disapproval. If anything, it was direct yet held a semblance of respect, as if he and AurĂ©lien had these little moments of conflicting power dynamics often. Given the fact that AurĂ©lien was just as bullheaded as his father — Zuri noted that they definitely had their fair share of bouts.
A flicker of something she couldn’t quite decipher passed on AurĂ©lien’s face. Anger, annoyance — she wasn’t sure but it disappeared as quickly as it came. He nodded curtly at his father, eyes squinting slightly. "We’ll see," was all AurĂ©lien said before continuing on with his meal and the conversations went on around the table as if nothing happened.
Zuri was surprised at how everything ended so quickly. No yelling? No threatening to kick someone out the home or not pay for their schooling? Just two grown men having a disagreement and settling it amicably?
So this is what normal family dysfunction looks like?
She knew that she grew up in a toxic household and still angry that it took getting in an arranged marriage and her father doing despicable shit to finally cut him out of her life, but she found herself unable to fully shake things off. When it came to situations like this, her father would’ve flip a table or something if Malik stood his ground. But nope, AurĂ©lien and Fernand just butt heads then go on about their day, which brings her to see them now laughing over something AurĂ©lien was showing him on his phone.
Yeah, this was definitely something she needed to get used to.
_____________________________________
The atmosphere in their hotel room was warm, a soft hum of the air conditioning blending with the faint sounds of the Douala nightlife outside. Zuri sat on AurĂ©lien’s lap, her legs curled around his waist while his lips moved languidly against the sensitive curve of her breast. His tongue flicked over her pierced nipple, a teasing motion that made her shiver despite the heat of the room. His large hands splayed over her hips, holding her steady, grounding her.
But her mind wasn’t there.
She stared past him, her focus drifting somewhere far from the tender, intimate moment they were sharing.
Aurélien noticed. He always noticed.
He paused, his lips brushing her skin before he looked up at her, his brow furrowed. "ZuZu," he said softly, cupping her chin and gently tilting her face toward him. His dark eyes searched hers. "What’s wrong?"
Zuri blinked, her heart suddenly racing for an entirely different reason. She hated how vulnerable she felt when these thoughts crept in, hated how they stole the joy of moments like this. "Do you
" she hesitated, her voice quieter than usual. "Do you think I’m broken?"
AurĂ©lien’s expression shifted, concern deepening as he studied her. "Where is this coming from?" he asked, his voice steady but gentle. "Zuri, no. You’re not broken. Not even close."
She exhaled, her eyes darting away as she tried to put her thoughts into words. "Sometimes
 certain things just
 trigger me. And I hate it."
His grip on her tightened slightly, his thumb stroking her jaw in a soothing rhythm. "Was it because of me and my dad at dinner?"
She nodded slowly, her voice almost a whisper. "Yeah
 just the tension, the way you two went back and forth. It reminded me of Malik and my dad. They fought at least twice in front of me when we were younger. It always escalated into something awful."
AurĂ©lien let out a soft sigh, shaking his head. "ZuZu, what you saw tonight was nothing like that. Trust me. Half the time, it’s just one of our dick-measuring contests, and it doesn’t mean anything serious." He tilted her chin a little higher, making sure she was looking at him. "I’m sorry it reminded you of all that. I’ll never put you in a situation like that again if it’s triggering for you. You have my word."
Her lips curved in a small, grateful smile. "Thank you," she said softly, her fingers brushing against his jaw. "You and your dad
 have you ever fought like that before? Like an actual fight?"
AurĂ©lien’s response came without hesitation, his voice firm with a hint of bass. "Never." Zuri blinked at the certainty in his tone, and he continued. "My dad might not always like my choices, but he respects them. There’s no need for us to fight like that. I’m sorry that’s what you had to grow up with."
She leaned her forehead against his, exhaling deeply. "I’m still angry, you know? Angry it took an arranged marriage and everything my father did for me to finally cut him off. And even though I did, I can’t fully shake it off. It’s like a part of me is still stuck in that toxic household."
AurĂ©lien’s hands glided down to her hips, kneading the soft flesh there as he listened. "It’s not something you just shake off overnight, mon cƓur. Healing takes time, but you’re doing it. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for."
Zuri tilted her head back slightly to look at him, her lips curving into a faint smile. "You always know what to say."
"Of course I do," he replied with a cocky grin, his hands squeezing her hips playfully. "I’m AurĂ©lien TchouamĂ©ni. That’s part of my job description."
Her laugh was soft, and when his hands started to drift higher, tracing the curve of her waist, her smile widened. "You’re getting flirty again," she said, her voice teasing.
"Can you blame me?" he murmured, his lips brushing the side of her neck. "You’re sitting here looking like this, driving me crazy. I can’t help it."
Her fingers trailed up the back of his neck, tangling in his dreads. "Maybe I like it when you get a little crazy," she whispered.
AurĂ©lien pulled back slightly, his eyes gleaming with mischief as he looked her over. "Oh, ZuZu," he said, his voice low and full of promise. "You haven’t seen me crazy yet."
She grinned, her earlier worries momentarily pushed aside as she leaned into him. "Show me, then."
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The late December sun hung warm in the Cameroonian sky, tempered by a soft breeze that carried the scent of fresh earth and distant fires. Though it was a few days after Christmas, the festive spirit remained strong, the red-dirt paths of the village alive with color and sound as Aurélien and Zuri arrived at the orphanage.
The kids were already gathered, a sea of bright smiles and eager eyes. Their voices rose in song, a chorus of joy and gratitude that filled the air. Some danced, their bare feet kicking up small clouds of dust, while others clapped their hands rhythmically. Zuri couldn’t stop smiling as they walked up the path, AurĂ©lien beside her, high-fiving the children who reached out for them.
The night before lingered faintly in her mind—her body still deliciously sore from the way AurĂ©lien had, as usual, worn her out. She’d laughed at how insatiable he was, how he always made sure to whisper in her ear how beautiful she is before pulling her close and letting his inner freak come alive. And once again, she’d told herself that leaving things solely up to her birth control wasn’t the safest bet anymore. The way he looked at her, the way he finished inside her, made it clear he didn’t mind the idea of planting a seed, and that thought alone was enough to make her breath hitch.
But here, in the light of day, all those intimate memories seemed a lifetime away as the energy of the children swept over them.
They reached a large tent where the elders and chiefs waited in full Bamileke regalia, their outfits a beautiful display of tradition and pride. Anne-MaĂŻsha, AurĂ©lien’s younger sister, stood nearby, ready to translate for Zuri as the chiefs began to speak.
The eldest chief rose first, his voice deep and steady as he addressed the gathering in French. "Aurélien Tchouaméni, we are grateful for the gift you have brought to our children. Your generosity will echo through their lives for years to come."
Anne-Maïsha leaned toward Zuri and translated quietly, her words laced with pride. Zuri nodded, feeling a rush of warmth as she glanced at Aurélien.
Josette was next, her presence commanding the attention of everyone under the tent. She spoke with passion and pride, her hands occasionally gesturing toward Aurélien and Zuri. "This playground and soccer pitch are more than gifts; they are symbols of hope," she said. "And we are so proud of what Aurélien has done, not only for these children but for our community."
When Aurélien stood, the applause was thunderous. He was dressed simply, in a crisp white shirt and matching shorts, but his presence was magnetic. He began in French, his voice steady and warm.
"This project means the world to me," he said, looking around at the children and elders. "I wanted to give back to a place that has given me so much of my foundation. And I couldn’t have done this without my family’s support—and especially without Zuri, mon cƓur." He glanced at her, his gaze filled with affection. "She not only helped me plan every detail but also made sure each of these children feels seen and cared for. Thank you, ZuZu, for your heart."
Zuri felt her cheeks warm as everyone applauded, and she smiled back at him, mouthing a quiet, "Love you."
With a ceremonial ribbon in place, Aurélien took the oversized scissors handed to him by one of the chiefs. Zuri joined him, her hand resting lightly on his as they cut the ribbon together, officially opening the playground and soccer pitch.
The children erupted in cheers, running to the new swings, slides, and freshly painted goals. But before they got too distracted, Zuri and AurĂ©lien handed out the personalized presents she’d collected before their trip. Each child’s name was written on the wrapping, and Zuri made sure each gift was tailored to their age and needs. The joy on their faces as they unwrapped their presents made every late night of planning and shopping worth it.
Once the gifts were handed out, the soccer game began. AurĂ©lien, Yannis, and Zuri joined the kids on the new pitch, laughter ringing out as they kicked the ball around. Zuri wasn’t the best player, but her enthusiasm more than made up for her lack of skill. AurĂ©lien, of course, was in his element, deftly dribbling past the kids and playfully teasing them when they tried to take the ball from him.
As the sun dipped lower in the sky, casting a golden glow over the village, Zuri stood on the pitch, hands on her hips, watching AurĂ©lien crouch to tie a little boy’s shoe. This was the man she was engaged to—a man who gave so much of himself to others, who worked tirelessly to make the world better.
Her heart swelled as she jogged over to him, nudging him with her shoulder. "Hey," she said softly.
He looked up, his smile as radiant as ever. "Hey."
"Thank you," she said, her voice quiet but full of meaning.
"For what?"
"For being you," she replied, slipping her hand into his.
Aurélien squeezed her fingers, his eyes softening as he looked at her. "Always."
____________________________________
The drive to Bafoussam took them through winding roads lined with cocoa trees, the sun filtering through the leaves. After the emotional day at the orphanage – watching AurĂ©lien officially open the new playground and soccer pitch, seeing those kids' faces light up – this visit felt like a different kind of homecoming.
Mamie Adzoa's new house stood proud against the backdrop of her cocoa farm, the semi-modern structure a stark contrast to her old home. Part of the bride price negotiations, though Zuri still had complicated feelings about that whole tradition. But seeing her grandmother employ half the village to help with the harvest, watching her turn the farm into something that supported the whole community... that part she could get behind.
"Ma petite!" Mamie Adzoa's voice carried across the front yard, and then Zuri was enveloped in the familiar scent of cocoa and her grandmother's favorite perfume.
Watching Aurélien greet her grandmother with such easy respect, showing her pictures from the orphanage opening on his phone while Fernand added commentary, Zuri felt that familiar twist in her chest.
"Let me look at you properly," Mamie Adzoa said, her hands coming to rest on Zuri's hips. She made a spinning motion with her finger until Zuri complied, turning slowly while shooting apologetic looks at Aurélien's family. Her grandmother had always been a character, but this was next level.
"Ah!" Mamie's hands settled back on Zuri's hips, her eyes bright with that look that meant trouble. "You know, I had a dream last night." She launched into the old Cameroonian myth about pregnancy prophecies, and Zuri felt her eyes go wide.
"I'm not— GrandmĂ©re, I'm not pregnant," Zuri stuttered, warmth rushing to her face.
Mamie just gave her that knowing look, the one that said 'sure, child' before pinching her cheeks affectionately. Then, without missing a beat, she turned to AurĂ©lien. "And you! So handsome, I can’t take it. The babies will sure be beautiful, yes?"
Zuri and Aurélien stood there speechless while Anne-Maïsha and Yannis practically ran after Mamie as she headed toward the house, promising traditional treats inside.
"She's not—" AurĂ©lien started telling his parents, "Zuri's not pregnant."
"Okay..." Josette shrugged, totally unbothered. "You're engaged anyway."
Fernand just chuckled, shaking his head at Mamie's antics as they followed up the steps.
"I'm going to die of embarrassment," Zuri muttered.
"Same," Aurélien agreed, taking her hand as they headed inside.
The house was quintessential Bafoussam architecture – high ceilings with exposed wooden beams, intricate woodwork around the doorways that Zuri knew local artisans had carved by hand. But Mamie had added her own touches: modern appliances in the kitchen, plush furniture in the sitting room. Fans spun lazily overhead in every room since central air wasn't a thing, but somehow the house stayed cool despite the afternoon heat.
Mamie Adzoa set out a spread of puff-puff that had Yannis and Anne-MaĂŻsha diving in before she could even finish arranging them. She settled into her favorite chair, a carved wooden masterpiece that might as well have been a throne, and immediately started in on football talk.
"This Carlo of yours," she tsked, waving a hand at Aurélien. "What does he know about defense? You're a midfielder! Though," she paused, considering, "you are doing well. Even if these Twitter people don't understand good defending."
Zuri watched her grandmother hold court, switching topics faster than Anne-MaĂŻsha could eat. By the time they moved to the dining room table, Mamie was on a roll, her opinions flowing as freely as the palm wine.
"And these girls?" Mamie raised an eyebrow at AurĂ©lien. "Always in your messages, Zuri tells me. Good thing you have sense in your head, unlike that Benzema boy—"
"Grandmére!" Zuri felt her cheeks heat up. "Oh my goodness."
But Josette was laughing openly while Fernand tried to hide his smile behind his glass. Even Aurélien looked more amused than embarrassed.
Watching her grandmother, Zuri had to smile. At seventy-eight, Mamie Adzoa had earned every bit of her unfiltered wisdom. Five children raised, more grandchildren than anyone could keep track of, and now a great-grandchild too – not to mention surviving everything life had thrown at her. If anyone had earned the right to say whatever came to mind, it was her.
Even if she was a completely kooky old hoot who apparently had pregnancy-predicting dreams now.
"Now about sleeping arrangements," Mamie announced after their light dinner of ndolĂ© and plantains. "Anne-MaĂŻsha, Yannis – you'll take the back room with the bunk beds. Fernand, Josette, you have the guest room down the hall." She paused, a mischievous glint in her eye. "And you two..."
Zuri already knew where this was going.
"The shack in the yard is all set up. For privacy, you know." Mamie winked, actually winked, before swatting Zuri's behind with a pillow as she headed to the linen closet. "Need to get started on my second great-grandchild, after all."
"Grandmére!" Zuri loved this woman, respected her immensely, but good lord. They weren't even married yet and here she was planning their family tree.
"Early morning tomorrow!" Mamie called out as they gathered their things. "The cocoa needs tending!"
Zuri shot AurĂ©lien her best 'I told you this was going to be happen' look as they stepped out into the night air. The Cameroonian countryside was alive with sound – crickets chirping their evening symphony, distant music from the village, and somewhere, a rooster that clearly didn't understand the concept of time.
The stars spread out above them like diamonds scattered on black velvet, no city lights to dim their brilliance. Aurélien grabbed their overnight bags from the car, shaking his head.
"Damn, your grandmother..." he started.
"I know."
"She's really committed to this grandbaby thing."
The shack turned out to be more of a cozy guest house – clearly used for farm workers who needed a place to stay, but comfortable. A big bed dominated the main space, with a small sitting area and an adjoining bathroom that was simple but clean. Overhead fans spun lazily, and a couple of electric ones were positioned strategically around the room.
"Could be worse," Aurélien said, setting their bags down.
"Much worse," Zuri agreed, then grinned.
Zuri flopped onto the bed while AurĂ©lien checked out the bathroom. "At least there's hot water," he called out. "And look – she gave us towels with our initials."
"Of course she did." Zuri stared up at the ceiling fan's hypnotic movement. "She's probably had this planned since we got engaged."
AurĂ©lien reemerged and settled beside her on the bed. The night sounds filtered through the screened windows – more crickets joining the chorus, something that might have been an owl.
"I like how she just... says what she thinks," he said, pulling her close. "
"Oh, you like it now? Wait until breakfast when she starts planning our future kids' names."
His laugh rumbled through his chest. "Better than your cousin asking how many times we fuck."
"Oh god, don't remind me." Zuri turned to face him, propping herself up on an elbow. "Though I have to admit, this is kind of nice. Even with Mamie's obvious meddling."
"The meddling worked once. It helped got us together," he teased. "Maybe she's on to something."
Zuri narrowed her eyes. "Are you for real right now? You’re actually agreeing with my grandma’s antics about a baby?"
AurĂ©lien kissed his teeth, the sound playful and exaggerated. "Non, bĂ©bĂ©, I’m just trying to get this nut," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows that made Zuri burst into laughter despite herself.
"You’re ridiculous," she said, shoving him lightly on the chest, her palm meeting firm muscle.
"And you’re sweaty," he said, leaning in, his lips dangerously close to hers. "But so am I. How about we clean off
 in the shower?"
Zuri arched an eyebrow, already catching the glint in his eye that said there was way more behind his words than just hygiene. She folded her arms. "No more cumming inside me, though."
AurĂ©lien groaned dramatically, rolling his eyes as if she’d asked him to climb Mount Everest barefoot. "You’re no fun."
"I’m plenty of fun."
"Prove it," he challenged. "Take off your clothes."
Zuri tilted her head at him, one eyebrow raised in mock disbelief, but there was a flicker of heat in her eyes. Slowly, she got up from the bed then peeled off her tank top, letting it fall to the wooden floor before sliding out of her shorts. Her bra and panties followed, leaving her bare under the warm glow of the light.
AurĂ©lien’s gaze dragged over her, slow and deliberate, before he reached for the hem of his own shirt and tugged it over his head. His shorts and boxers followed, and in moments, he was as naked as she was, the lines of his lean, athletic body catching her attention like always.
"Come on," he said, his voice lower now as he extended his hand.
They walked toward the small shower attached to the side of the shack. Aurélien turned the knob, and water spilled out in a weak but steady stream.
Stepping in first, Zuri shivered as the cool water hit her skin, but Aurélien was quick to join her, his larger frame shielding her from most of the spray. His hands found her waist, pulling her close.
"You know," he murmured against her ear, his breath warm despite the water cascading over them. "Grandma might have the right idea
 eventually."
Zuri looked up at him, her lips twitching into a smile as she smacked his chest lightly. "Don’t push your luck."
AurĂ©lien chuckled, dipping his head to kiss her neck, water sliding down between them as his hands traced slow, teasing circles along her hips. "Who’s pushing? I’m just saying
 we’re good at this, bĂ©bĂ©."
Zuri rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her. "Just wash up, AurĂ©lien."
"Oui, mon cƓur," he replied, but the look he gave her promised he wasn’t done teasing her just yet.
The cool water cascaded over them, muffling the sounds of their breathing as AurĂ©lien’s hands moved with deliberate slowness, tracing the curve of Zuri’s hips. His palms spread wide, firm yet reverent, before sliding lower to cup her buttocks.
"Aurélien
" she murmured, half a warning, half a plea.
He only smirked, leaning closer until her back met the damp wall behind her. The rough texture grounded her, but the intensity in his eyes as he looked down at her was what stole her breath. His lips brushed her ear as he whispered, "Relax, let me take care of you."
Her hands instinctively gripped his shoulders as his body pressed flush against hers. Water ran between them, slicking their skin, but all Zuri could focus on was the way his hands tightened their hold. In one smooth motion, he lifted her, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist.
Aurélien adjusted her, holding her easily as if her weight was nothing. His erection pressed insistently against her entrance, and she gasped at the intimate pressure. His lips found hers in a slow, languid kiss, a prelude to the rhythm he was about to set.
Zuri’s nails dug into his shoulders as he lined himself up, his eyes locked on hers. There was a pause, a breathless moment where the only sound was the rush of water and the pounding of her heart, before he pushed inside.
She exhaled shakily, her head falling back against the wall as he filled her completely. No matter how many times they came together like this, it always left her feeling the same—full, connected, and overwhelmed in the best way.
"Aurélien
" she whispered again, this time with a note of surrender, her fingers threading through the wet strands of his thick hair.
He groaned softly, his forehead pressing against hers as he began to move, each thrust measured. "You feel so good, bébé. Always."
Zuri’s legs tightened around him, drawing him deeper as her body responded to him. She could never get tired of this—of the way he claimed her with every thrust, of the way her body seemed to fit him perfectly.
AurĂ©lien’s hands slid up her back, holding her steady as he quickened his pace, his lips pressing kisses along her neck and shoulder. "I love how you feel, mon cƓur," he murmured, his voice low and raw.
Zuri clung to him, her body arching to meet his movements. The water continued to fall around them, forgotten as they lost themselves in each other, the world outside the small shower fading away entirely.
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Morning came too early, with Mamie's voice carrying across the yard: "Up, up! The sun is already winning!"
Now here they were, the "kids" as Mamie called them, doing light work in the cocoa fields while the adults lounged on the porch. Well, most of them lounged – Mamie was sweeping with one of those traditional African brooms made from dried palm fronds, somehow making the mundane task look like an art form.
"Yo," Yannis grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Should we start singing while we work? Since Mamie's got us out here like her personal labor force?"
"I tried to warn y'all," Zuri laughed, easily sorting through the cocoa pods. "But nobody wanted to listen."
"I didn't think you were for real!" Yannis shot a look toward the porch where his parents sat comfortably under the fan, glasses of fresh folére sweating in their hands.
Anne-MaĂŻsha rolled her eyes at her brother's dramatics. "We've literally been out here twenty minutes, and this is barely work. We're almost done anyway."
"Mamie better have beignets waiting," Yannis muttered, though there was no real heat in it.
"Oh trust me," Zuri grinned, "give her half a chance and she'll have you so stuffed you won't be able to move."
Sure enough, when they finished their token farm work, the smell of fresh beignets greeted them. Mamie had set out a spread on the porch table – golden-brown pastries still warm from the oil, condensation-covered bottles of water, and that satisfied smile she wore when her plans came together perfectly.
"See?" She said to no one in particular. "A little work builds character. And appetite. Eh heh, look at these children, barely breaking a sweat," Mamie was piling more beignets onto Yannis's already full plate. "In my day, we would be in those fields from sunrise—"
"Here we go," Zuri muttered under her breath, making Aurélien choke on his water.
"And you two!" Mamie rounded on them, that familiar glint in her eye. "Sharing a bottle of water now? Good practice for sharing other things, like maybe a crib—"
"Grandmére!" But Zuri couldn't help laughing. There was something comforting about Mamie's relentless meddling, even if it was completely unnecessary at this point.
AurĂ©lien's hand found hers under the table, his thumb tracing familiar patterns on her palm. Watching him with his family – Anne-MaĂŻsha now arguing with Yannis about who did more work while their parents pretended not to be amused – Zuri felt that warmth spread through her chest that had nothing to do with the morning sun.
This was what family could be. What it should be. The easy laughter, the gentle teasing, even Mamie's unfiltered commentary about their future children's features ("With his bone structure and your eyes? Magnifique!").
The rest of the season was waiting back in Madrid, along with all the pressure and expectations that came with it. But right now, watching Aurélien try to fend off Mamie's attempts to feed him a sixth beignet, Zuri knew this was worth everything they'd been through. Worth all the drama and chaos that had brought them here.
51 notes · View notes
theladyem · 1 month ago
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That’s on u mayor Lewis
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Welcome to Disco Valley- my perfectly normal stardew save
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beomie3 · 1 year ago
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to the mountains - huening kai
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pairing: best friend! hueningkai x reader
summary: your friend group decides to take a weekend getaway trip to the mountains, but it isn't until you stay in a cabin in the woods that your crush on one of them begins to make itself known. mutually :)
wc: 5k
content: best friends to lovers, cozy woods fluff, the rest of txt is mentioned, light cursing, handholding, cuddles <3, and smooches ^3^
♬đŸŒČsoundtrack:
to the mountains - lizzy mcalpine
meet me in the woods - lord huron
let’s go outside - far caspian
apple cider - beabadoobee
evergreen - richy & the coal miners
home - edith whiskers
calico - haux
alps - novo amor
sparks - coldplay
⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒
you trailed your fingers along the soft wind; feeling it grow colder as you watched rows and rows of pine trees line the road, ears popping as the car climbed elevation.
you looked over at the dark-haired boy next to you; your best friend kai who was in the driver's seat, both hands clutching the wheel. a laugh erupted from your mouths when his voice horrendously cracked as he attempted the high note to a song playing on the radio, his contagious dolphin laugh echoing through the car as you both laughed your asses off.
“maybe i should've taken taehyun up on the vocal lessons," he says once he catches his breath, mentioning your guys’ other friend, who also happens to be the best singer you'd both ever met.
you snorted, patting him on the shoulder. "i mean you could right now, he's in the backseat," you motioned to the back where your friend taehyun lay sound asleep, headphones snug as he leaned on the window.
kai muffled a laugh with his hand, looking at the sleeping tae through the rear-view mirror. "oops! i totally forgot he was here," he giggled quieter now, trying to forget how he was once screaming the lyrics to a song.
"kai- we planned that taehyun would come with us and that the choi's would all follow us in yeonjun's caravan. actually- i wonder if they're there yet." you leaned against the window, checking the “six lo$ers” group chat to see if your other friends had arrived to the cabin.
"oh, no, we're definitely getting there first, i need to make sure i get dibs on the room with the comfiest bed," kai stepped on the gas, determined to reach the destination before the other three boys who would surely compete for the same thing. you laughed, rolling your eyes. this is going to be fun.
~
with a minute to spare, kai pulled into the gravel next to a large pine tree in front of the cabin you’ll be staying in, quickly opening your doors and running out of the car once he took the key out of the ignition.
“crap where’s the key?!” he patted his baby blue hoodie frantically, seemingly unable to locate the key to the cabin’s front door. your heart nearly stopped when you heard the familiar honk of a black caravan pulling into the driveway as well. shit! it’s our competition.
"kai hurry!" you held his arm, pulling at his hoodie impatiently as he was starting to panic and screaming his loud, usual screams you were long used to. you stuck your tongue out at beomgyu as he was quickly unfastening his seatbelt and went to open the car door but it was locked, turning to yell at yeonjun which was silent from where you stood.
“quick get in!” at the last second kai found the key in his jean pocket, quickly unlocking the door and shutting it behind the two of you before beomgyu could reach it as he was sprinting towards you. all you heard was his pounding fist and yells on the other side, telling you to open the stupid door!
you and kai stood shoulder to shoulder, backs to the door huffing and laughing as you made it inside first. you didn’t think the shenanigans would start this early on in the trip. but all six of you together? it's certainly bound to happen.
you give kai one look before he grabs your hand, pulling you into the cabin which is quite larger than what you expected. you didn’t quite get the chance to take it all in since you were being pulled down the hallway by your best friend, but it’s warm, wooden interior and cozy ambiance certainly made you feel right at home.
“quick! we need to find the room with the comfiest bed. they have a spare key and they’ll get in soon,” kai whisper-yelled as he pulled you into the nearest room, adrenaline pumping, jumping onto the bed together and rolling around in it before moving to the next.
the next room was a bit bigger, but the moment you hit the mattress, you felt as you had just fallen face down on a rock. “solid no!” you jumped up laughing and the two of you moved to the next room excitedly.
soon enough, you heard the front door rattle and you both jumped on the last bed, immediately hitting jackpot. before you knew it, beomgyu ran into the room with a mischievous look on his face, grimacing at kai. “they’re in here!” he motioned to the other two boys, immediately sprinting over to the bed.
beomgyu jumped right on top of kai, wresting one another and you helped kai by pushing gyu’s arm off, failing miserably when yeonjun also piled on top. soobin just watched from the doorway, shaking his head. “you realize there are other beds right? and where is taehyun?” soobin’s question made everyone stop in their tracks and look at one another.
“he’s still asleep in the car.” kai laughed and you all ran out to wake the poor boy up.
~
the warmth of delicious soup soothed your vocal chords after hours of karaoke in the living room with the boys, eating it on the back patio with kai as the rest of them were either inside napping or doing silly little things in their own world.
the two of you lounged on folding chairs like a storybook elderly couple on a sunday morning, basking in the crisp forest air as you observed the vibrant green trees. occasionally spotting an exuberant looking bird and excitedly pointing it out to one another.
“shh!” kai quickly shushed you as you were in the midst of slurping your soup, stopping abruptly with wide eyes.
“do you hear that?” he leaned in closer, pretty eyebrows furrowed as he cupped a hand to his ear. you shook your head, quietly setting down your soup.
“i think it’s
running water?” he looked over at you quizzically and you really tuned into the noise, at first only hearing the occasional chirp of a bird or wind through the pines, but then you began to faintly hear it. like white noise. water trickling down upon rocks in the distance.
your eyes lit up and kai was quick to notice, his bright smile spreading from cheek to cheek. “wanna go look for it?” he nudged your foot with his, both sporting mismatched fuzzy socks.
“what kind of question is that?” you scoffed, raising a brow; you didn’t even have to explain yourself for him to know it was a solid yes.
kai had a habit of grabbing your hand and pulling you along with him, that’s how your friendship separated itself from the rest of the boys since long ago. he was known to be the closest to you out of everyone, considering you were always practically attached at the hip.
and so he did his usual; grabbed your hand and pulled you into the cabin to get on shoes before heading out in search of this mystery body of water.
beomgyu lay asleep on the floor like an old watchdog, missing his opportunity to tag along when you and kai soundlessly slipped out of the front door.
you followed right behind him, quick footsteps in the gravel and then onto dried leaves and twigs snapping beneath you once you reached the forest. you both swiveled your heads all around and above you, infatuated with the way the tall evergreens and pines tower up into the sky, nearly disappearing into the foggy clouds.
the fresh, pine-scented afternoon air tickled your nose as it was much colder than what you were used to down in the city, but it was more refreshing than anything. it felt good to get away. to be in silence. especially getting to see all these amazing sights with kai.
you only whispered to one another, needing to be extra quiet to be able to hear in which direction the water was coming from. the sound did indeed grow louder, signifying you were getting closer.
kai beckoned you over to where he stood, eyes wide. you jogged over, crunching leaves under your feet as you reached him. low and behold, you had stumbled upon a tall, but gentle waterfall, it’s water cascading down upon large rocks.
your head reached his shoulder when you stood next to him, always a perfect place to rest it as you both looked up at the shimmering water, astonished smiles on your faces.
you made your way over to the body of water surrounded by rocks at the waterfall’s base, occasionally getting splashed by cold droplets that ricochet off of the large boulders.
“kai? what are you-” you shot him a confused glance as he bent down to take off his shoes and socks, slightly rolling up his shorts.
“we’re getting in silly!” he threw his leg over one of the rocks bordering the edge, screaming when his feet were submerged in the ice cold water.
“we’re?” you crossed your arms over your chest, raising an eyebrow at him as he held his hands out to you. you knew kai pretty well— he wouldn’t sabotage you by throwing you into the water like the others would. you trusted him to be gentle and civil with you, as he was more sincere than anything. of course, he loved to joke around but he knew you would despise getting thrown into ice cold water.
you removed your shoes and rolled your pants up before taking his soft and warm hands in yours, feeling his attentive eyes on you as you carefully dipped your foot in, the breath leaving your chest at how freaking ice cold it was. of course, your penguin-like friend was able to get in effortlessly.
“this is impossible ningning!” you grabbed his shoulder for support as you clenched your jaw and stepped all the way into the ice-cold water. he hid the small blush on his cheeks of the endearment of his name he so loved hearing you say.
the two of you waded over to the waterfall, hands occasionally brushing as you were careful not to slip over the moss and small pebbles under your feet.
your necks swiveled to look up at the waterfall, cold water pelting you as you stood mere inches from the cascading water. mesmerized, your hand drew out to run your fingers under the cold stream; kai following as he smiled at the icy sensation.
you watched your hands under the falling water, the only sound in your ears of it plunging in front of you, too loud to hear anything the happy boy next to you had said. you wiggled your fingers under the cold stream, numb by now that you didn’t notice the tips of your fingers had trailed onto huening’s under the water.
he stood there, a bit surprised, but subconsciously moved his fingers slightly closer to yours, hand nearly on top of yours. it wasn’t until he turned to look at you that you felt the need to hide your face, feeling your cheeks grow red and afraid he would notice.
something about the air. about being alone with kai in the forest. you had always found him pretty but right now— right now his beauty struck you in a way you felt your heart beat in your chest. sunshine radiating behind him like a golden halo over his dark locks, dreamy eyes and a smile to melt over. what is happening?
with a shy smile he interlaced his fingers with yours, opening his mouth to say something but not even bothering because what he had to say would be drowned out by the waterfall. so he began to pull you under the waterfall with him, your eyes widening when you realized what he was doing, but your heart took over and inevitably followed.
it was like ice, drenching your right shoulder and then your head and down your hair, then your left shoulder and you were completely submerged, mouth open at the sheer shock as it took the breath from you.
your best friend’s hair had matted down completely to his forehead, covering his eyes completely which drew a hysterical laugh from you. he reached up with your conjoined hands to sweep the hair over his forehead.
he showed you a toothy grin and you couldn’t help but examine his face through the sheen of water, beginning to fawn over droplets scurrying down his pretty nose.
you thought maybe you’d been staring for too long, darting your eyes away from him and over to the rocks around you, curious about the small flowers growing between the cracks.
yet, you caught him staring at you from out of the corner of your eye, small smile on his lips as his eyes darted around your face. you couldn’t avoid the small flutter in your chest.
you and kai were usually on the silly side. prolonged eye contact and blush on one another’s cheeks not exactly what you two usually share.
“whatttt?” you yelled over the roar of water, tilting your head to one side, noticing his apparent nervousness when he shyly looked down at your hands.
taking a small step forward, leaning in close so you could hear him over the roar of water around you, chest nearly pressed to yours.
he opened his mouth to say something and nothing came out but a small laugh, apparently nervous to say whatever it was. you cupped his cheek as to comfort him, suddenly aware of your gesture and shocked as to what you were doing. you’d never touched kai in such an affectionate way.
“you can say it, kai.” you assured him, your voice loud enough for him to hear. how couldn’t he hear you anyway? his face was a mere 3 inches from yours. you felt slightly uneasy at this proximity but you also kinda really liked it? your emotions buzzing all over the place at this unprecedented tension.
but kai didn’t say anything, he just stood there, looking at you like you were the beautiful waterfall in the forest, taking in all of your natural beauty.
out of no where, you leaned closer, standing on your tip toes and pressed your lips to his cute nose. what a stupid, stupid idea. what the hell am i doing?
but he found it absolutely adorable, face scrunching and high pitched laugh exiting his lips.
“you like my nose?” he asked you quizzically, and you nodded, having to look away with a slight tinge of embarrassment, squeezing your eyes shut.
then grabbing your chin to angle your face back to his, still flustered, he musters up the courage to look you in the eyes, flicking them down to your lips and back up to admire you.
you were simply overtaken by his dark brown eyes; noticing the way his pupils dilated as he focused nearly into your soul, sinking into the dreamy trance that you never knew your best friend was capable of pulling you into in this way.
in a million years, you never thought you'd share a kiss under a freezing cold waterfall in the middle of the forest with kai kamal huening. but here you were, leaning into him, the nearest proximity you ever had since knowing him, not paying any mind to the occasional shivers and goosebumps pelting your body.
he closed the small gap that was left between your lips and you stayed there, slightly squeezing his hand as your heart felt it would beat out of your chest. the kiss was short and sweet and you almost wished it had been a little longer. but kai pulled away slowly, his cheeks the reddest you had ever seen them.
“and i like your lips.” he giggled, eyes nearly shut with how big he was smiling. you never knew kai felt the same way about you until now, dropping small hints along your friendship that you didn’t quite pick up on until now, only now getting his message with a sweet peck to your lips.
by now, your body was frozen and you pulled kai out of the heavy stream with you, not able to withstand it any longer since the adrenaline was wearing off and you could now begin to realize just how cold you were.
you wrapped your arms around your body to withhold as much body heat as you could, violently shivering with how cold you were. kai was cold too, but he made warming you his priority, wrapping his arms around you to hopefully try and help.
“here, stand on my feet,” he requested and you did just that, balancing on the tops of his feet as he walked the two of you over to the exit, helping you over the rocks and getting your shoes and socks for you.
you smiled, the only warmth in your body provided by his kind gestures that would melt anyone’s heart.
“race you back?” you looked down at him as he tied your shoe for you, his eyes flicking up quickly at the sound of those words. and before you knew it you were sprinting after kai in the woods; feet numb but heart warm and racing just as fast as you were after him.
~
“never seen that hoodie on you, is it new?” yeonjun asks as he stirs his hot cocoa, gazing at him from your spot in front of the fire place.
“oh it’s kai’s, actually!” you sip your apple cider, snuggling into the oversized baby blue hoodie that kai lent you a couple days ago once you returned from your freezing cold adventure.
“oh so now you’re wearing his hoodies hmm?” beomgyu nudged you, a mischievous grin on his face as he wiggled his eyebrows at you suggestively, exaggeratedly winking at yeonjun from where he stood in the kitchen.
the boys had began to notice your closeness with hueningkai especially recently on this trip, due to the fact you two would sneak out at random times and leave them without a clue as to where you two were.
of course, they knew you were always close in comparison to everyone else, but recently, they hadn’t even seen you two much because of how much time you were spending together out who knows where.
they made conspiracies that you guys were secretly dating and would go out on little cute dates everyday, that’s why you wouldn’t tell them. yet they secretly cheered kai on because he was so happy lately. and when kai was extra happy, everyone was extra happy.
and to be honest, that conspiracy didn’t sound too completely far from the truth. ever since you and kai had kissed at the waterfall, you had grown even closer; your bond deepening and tangling so much that it was almost confusing. you hadn’t felt this way for anyone before and it confused you that it was your best friend; you didn’t want to ruin what you had.
but you wanted to be with kai every second of every day. and he wanted to be with you.
~
and at sunset, you and kai escaped again. hand in hand running into the woods as it was now your favorite place to go.
each time you ran off into the forest, you found something new about each other that you hadn’t known before. hell, you had even discovered what each other’s lips feel like the very first time you even ran off.
you spent your time climbing trees and sharing snacks amidst a deep talk and of course laughter, then carving both of your initials in whichever tree it was, marking it yours.
when you got too tired of walking, kai would carry you on his back, not minding at all. he enjoyed it actually, always offering to give you piggyback rides no matter how tired he got.
you would occasionally go back to the waterfall, sitting on the rocks or skipping stones across the water to see who’s would go further.
today kai wore a loose, earth-toned wool jacket with nothing under but a dainty silver necklace, zipped up enough to expose a bit of his chest. it drew your eyes like a magnet to his pretty collarbones glowing in the setting sunrays.
“i like this jacket on you,” you gingerly traced your fingers along the woven material, a shy smile on your lips. your compliment made his heart skip.
of course, you two were still bestest of friends, doing goofy things and blabbing about anything and everything. but when you caught his eye or exchanged a small compliment, you both got so shy and quiet and blushy around each other.
you were both aware of another option you had now, completely new and foreign to your relationship; the small kiss from a couple days ago. you held the memory fondly since the moment it happened, warmth spreading across your chest at the thought.
your head rested on his shoulder, watching the waterfall together as you decided to look up at him, eyeing the plush of his lips.
“can we..try it again?” you sort of beat around the bush, hoping kai would pick up on what you were throwing down. you felt too shy to ask your best friend directly if you could kiss him.
“what, race to the cabin?” he furrowed his brows and you laughed, head falling back onto his shoulder.
“i meant-”
“i know y/n, just messing with you,” he nudged you, a sweet smile on his lips.
somehow, it felt natural, like this had been something you had both long wanted to do. like something you were made to do. you kept the comfort of your head on his shoulder and he leaned down to place his lips on yours, slowly melting into the kiss with your eyes fluttered closed.
you could sense everything better now; the warmth of his soft lips, the subtle taste of the watermelon you had snacked on earlier whilst sitting atop a tree, the subtle cool breeze blowing pieces of your hair astray. you enjoyed it even more now, since the first was a bit interrupted by the freezing cold waterfall.
after a few moments, you broke the kiss with an interrupted thought, staring into his eyes and then trailing your gaze to the water where you stared at your reflections. his broad shoulders like a large blob in the water, then yours a smaller blob. it was always like this; next to one another for as long as you could remember. you love kai. and you don't want to ruin what you have.
“this
this won’t ruin our friendship, right?” you were hesitant to look up at him in the eye as you slowly look back up at him, almost worried he would regret it.
but he only smiled, shaking his head.
“never, y/n. you’ll always be riiight here,” he pointed to his chest, at the spot right over his heart. you warmly smiled, finding him the absolute most adorable boy in the world. how could you not have the biggest crush on him?
it all made sense now. kai was everything you wanted and needed in a partner, in a friend, in a lover. but you always pushed away any sort of feeling in fear of losing him. but how could you lose him- how could you lose him if he's always been by your side through it all.
“forever.”
~
the front door creaks as you both sneak back into the cabin, completely pitch black as the boys had gone to sleep, considering it was half past midnight.
you both tip-toe down the dark hallway, finding every room was closed and in use except for the one at the end of the hall; the one you and kai had claimed on the first day.
you could see his pearly smile faintly in the dark, silently cheering that they didn't all steal the room with the comfiest bed. you held onto his arm as you blindly walked down the hallway and into the room, flicking on the dim night light to provide just enough light to see his soft facial features, hair slightly tossed by the breeze seeping through the window.
you two were long past the i'll sleep on the floor so you can have the bed phase of your friendship, so you shared the bed as it was normal for the two of you. and through all these years, never once had it felt uncomfortable even in the slightest. all you ever did was look up at whoever's bedroom ceiling in deep conversation and occasionally kick at each other's feet under the covers.
tonight, a certain tension blanketed the two of you as you lay next to one another, pinkies interlaced under the sheets as you stare up at the high ceiling of the cabin, listening to the subtle whir of wind through the trees.
you felt cozy here, in this little cabin tucked away in the wilderness with your best friend(s). you almost wanted to snuggle into him, but that had yet to be established.
“i like you, kai.” your voice suddenly emerges lowly from the still room, the sound of his rustle under the blanket apparent as he tightened his pinky around yours. turning to face you, you did the same, facing one another with cheeks squished to the pillows.
"a lot." you whisper with a growing smile, just inches from his lips as you stare into the chocolate glimmer of his eyes. you could feel your heart pounding in your chest and drumming into your ears.
with a gentle finger, he lightly tucks away a stray piece of hair behind your ear, bringing intense warmth to blanket your cheeks. you couldn't quite see in the dark, but his were dusted with a rosy tinge as well.
“does this mean we can cuddle now?” his voice comes out shyly, smiling and red in the face at his own question.
you giggle, nodding and smiling so big that your eyes are nearly shut, slowly scooching closer to kai. almost unsure as to go about this, considering it's your best friend you're cuddling.
but you just go for it; pressing your chest to his, wrapping your arms around his torso, snuggling your head into him, cheek pressed to his warm neck and filling the space under his chin perfectly.
he wraps his arms around you and pulls you close, silence filling the room again once you both find the spot you are most comfortable in. you can hear his heartbeat as you breathe him in; warm calico fabric like fresh laundry. the closest you've been to this comforting scent that you wanted to be engulfed in eternally.
"i'm glad we agree, but i like you more," he adds. you giggle, burying your face into his warm chest and you can feel his smile grow with the way his voice flows like it always does when he's brimming with happiness, picturing his cute face in your mind and what he looks like right now.
"at the waterfall i did what i've wanted to for so long." his voice vibrates on the crown of your head, feeling his chest sink as he exhales, relaxing into you; relieved to confess what always weighed on him. eyes fluttering shut as he enjoys your warmth and the scent of your hair curling into his nose, tracing light circles into your back.
you pull your head away to the beautiful sight of his face, looking up at him and finding his eyes shut but then flutter open to look down at you, his lips curled into a pretty smile and slightly parted, looking too good not to kiss.
and so you lean up slowly, inviting him to lean down and close the gap for your third kiss, feeling his heart pound against yours. you're infatuated with the way his hand always comes up to cup your cheek, savoring every moment he had with you. in this moment, your love grew for your special boy, falling for him evermore.
~
"kai over here look!" your feet patter against the snow as you run towards familiar rock formations, sprinkled with snow as you point at it, covered in white.
he runs up, giving you a large hug from behind, his large wool jacket engulfing you in its warmth, a kiss to your cheek; now a normal thing.
summer and autumn had passed twice and your souls had intertwined more than you could even fathom; ever since your best friend had become your boyfriend, your life became filled with so much pure happiness that you could easily mistake any day for a fairytale.
with the help of his grasp, kai hoists you up so that you sit on the rock he had brushed the the light dusting of snow off of, threading his arms through yours to hold your waist as he places his chin in the crook of your neck.
it just felt so natural, like this was what the two of you were born to do. always destined to be together and never, ever apart.
the bitter winter breeze wasn't so bad with his warmth seeping into you, cradling you so good and you swear you'd never felt comfort until you fell in love with this boy.
after a few moments of enjoying the view of the frozen waterfall, kai pulls his arms away from you and instead dangles his dainty necklace around your neck, the same one you noticed two years ago in this same place.
the small bead at its end weighed down onto your sweater, drawing your eyes down to the sparkling jewel; noticing it was the shape of a heart. a token of his diamond love for you.
"i wanted to give this to you then," he whispered, a sweet smile on his lips when you turned to face him.
your eyes said it all, holding the words i’ll love you forever in them without having to say a word. he just knew.
“my heart is yours.” he says as he embraces you, hardly able to contain your emotions as you hug him even harder, as hard as you could, for that fact.
his love felt like warm blankets on a cold morning, a crackling fireplace as you sip warm apple cider, cuddles during a midnight storm, the much-needed hug after a long day. he felt like home.
"race you back?" he tilted his head with a sly smile, helping you down before disappearing off into the woods. you chased right behind, sure to beat him this time.
⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒
a/n: this is a very late hueningkai bday fic!! i share an august birthday with him so i wanted to write a comforting fic for our bdays lol :) hope everyone enjoys and happy late bday to anyone who had one in august or having one soon (yeonjun fic coming soon)!! đŸ„ł love u all <3
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thetravelingtyper · 10 months ago
Text
Our Shattered Heart Interlude (Part 2.25) SR (GN! 'Heart' Reader x Taskforce 141)
Loading Track 1 - Work Song by Hozier (SImon RIley One Shot) Kept awake by Soap, Simon takes the time to recollect on a few things close to his Heart.
Warnings: Possible OOC of Simon, Suggestive Content, Cursing, Jealous and Possessive Simon, Konig being slightly unhinged lol
Part 1, Part 2, Part 2.50, Masterlist
As decided by the poll! Here is Simon. You don't need to read the other two parts for this I think but I recommend you do for context! Enjoy - Ash :D
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Boys, workin' on empty
Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat?
I just think about my baby
I'm so full of love I could barely eat
There's nothing sweeter than my baby
I'd never want once from the cherry tree
'Cause my baby's sweet as can be
She give me toothaches just from kissin' me
Simon Riley was a light sleeper if he got any sleep at all. Johnny helped but the Scot tended to talk in his sleep, disturbing him. Price had left that day to return to base but you and the men needed to remain for another two weeks. That day you gave the men an earful about their treatment of you.
You turned to Simon with a simmering fire in your eyes. You walked up to him, poked a finger into his chest, and cursed.
“You! Big trouble mister! You were the worst of you lot! Price got away for now but he’ll hear it soon!” 
Simon nodded, giving a gruff apology and taking your hand in his. You blinked and looked into his eyes. There you found a swirl of emotion restrained by his nature. He set a hand to your face and tilted your head up.
“I’m sorry dove. I was angry at you, more myself, for not being able to protect you. I should not have left you.”
Johnny sets a hand between Simon’s shoulders. 
You lean into his hand.
“It's ok Simon.”
And with that you let him be.
Simon shuffled out of his room quietly, making sure not to disturb Soap who rolled over, pulling into himself without Simon there. Stretching his neck, Simon red the clock, 2:46 am, he sighed, he was going to feel this tomorrow. The man padded down the hall, passing the sound of Gaz snoring in his room. He turned the corner into the kitchen. Opening the cabinet he reached for a glass and a bottle of bourbon. Sighing he poured himself a glass and leaned against the counter taking a sip. His memories kept him company.
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
He and Heart were on a duo mission in the Alps running intel for a botched mission. Everything had gone to shit when Ghost got shot. The shot went clean through, nicking nothing important but he collapsed with a yell from Heart.
“Shit Simon!.” Heart yanked him up and fled. 
The night was almost on you. You rushed to pad the wound the best you could, heart quivering. The kiss had changed things between you two but he didn’t speak on it. You had to think fast! Wait! Kortac! 
You grabbed your emergency phone and dialed the only person you could quickly reach. König. 
The operator had a safehouse in the Austrian Central Alps and you tried your luck
with success. König had picked up with a kurt, 
“Who is this? How did you get this number.”
“König it's me! Heart, I need help!”
His voice changed immediately,
“Schatz! Where are you?”
You responded with your coordinates and set Simon down against a tree, his groaning sharpening to a gruff laugh. You turn to him with wide eyes, his bandage having bled through. You curse, putting your phone in his hand to hold while you repack the would, burying the bloody bandages as it begins to snow.
“Schatz!” Königs voice echoes from the phone drawing Simon's sharp eye.
You try to take it from him but Simon grips the phone tighter.
“You called the Austrian?”
It's sharp, venomous even, his eyes trying to focus on you. You just gape at him, the sting of his voice carrying something you couldn't identify. You yank the phone from him while König confirms your location, he could be there in an hour. You praise him with thanks and try your radio again as the weather worsens. Nothing. You pace before you hear a gasp of pain. You turn to see that Simon has pulled himself up to lean against the tree.
“What in the fucking world are you doing LT?!?” 
He just glares at the phone. Arms reaching forward to jaggedly pull you to him.  The tactical vests kept you inches apart but the glower of his combat mask took up the entirety of your vision.
“You called König?” Simon hissed, having set your rifles aside he cusps your neck and pulled your face as close as he could with your helmets on. You pause before you simmer,
“You’re bleeding like a stuck pig Ghost!” 
You want to throw your hands up but his form entraps you. With strength you didn't know he could manage, he turns you both and pins you to the tree, breath heaving from the exertion. He grips the back of your neck with a gloved hand. 
“I don’t like him.”
You gawk at the man who’s form starts to sway,
“You got freaking SHOT! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? 
He chuckles deeply, caressing your neck, and his free hand reaching to lift his mask above his mouth. 
“What is this about Ghos-” You are cut off when he slams his lips against yours for the second time. 
Boys, when my baby found me
I was three days on a drunken sin
I woke with her walls around me
Nothin' in her room but an empty crib
And I was burnin' up a fever
I didn't care much how long I lived
But I swear I thought I dreamed her
She never asked me once about the wrong I did
You gasp into the kiss, Simon pinning you further and taking the moment to open the kiss. You shove against him and he grunts, parting with heavy breaths and dilated pupils.
“Simon! What, how, why? You've been shot this is not the freaking time!”
His head staggers to your neck, lips parting with a deep chuckle that reverberates against you. He presses a kiss to your exposed neck that has your legs quaking. Your hands push against him with a little more success, but he is stubborn.
“Stop.” It is a deep-voiced command you push anyway.
“You need to sit down Sir.” He groans at that, but your phone rings again igniting something fierce in Simon. You go to pull it out but he uses his free hand to pin yours back.
“What the fu-” He bites your neck and your head knocks back against the tree neck as the phone continues to ring. He tongues over the mark before tracing up your neck. You give a breathy whimper before looking into Simon's eyes. His pupils are blown but his face cripples in pain as the phone rings. You push him, finding he gives with, stumbling, his bandages reddening. 
You dash for the phone, grabbing it as Simon reaching for you collapses, clutching his side. You rush to grab him, answering Königs questions. 
“Simon!” He blacks out.
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
König arrives in 30 minutes, dressed in winter gear, and helps you to rewrap Simon and take him back to the safe house. You both rush into an open area with two single beds. König and you set Simon down and you are panicking. König grabs medical supplies while you work getting Simon’s equipment off. You strip his top off peeling the bloody compression shirt off and leaving his scarred abdomen open. You rewrap his wound and lean him back against the pillows.
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
Simon faded in and out, lured to moments of almost consciousness by your laughter. His eyes momentarily open, muddy eyes from the shot you have given him earlier. As he comes to, unable to move he sees König and you close together, sitting at the table and eating. Something deep in his gut, not nausea nor pain, burned as he saw König reach an arm around you. 
My babe would never fret none
About what my hands and my body done
If the Lord don't forgive me
I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me
When I was kissing on my baby
And she put her love down soft and sweet
In the low lamplight I was free
Heaven and hell were words to me
Night fell quickly as you rewrapped Simon and then used the shower, reappearing in a spare one of König’s shirts and your winter pants. You checked on Simon who was still out cold. Under the eyes of König you run a hand down his masked face, eyes tracing firm and scarred muscle. König then sees your neck his eyes darkening.
“Schatz”  
You turn to him in question.
“Are you and the Ghost together.” 
The question startles you and you look to the taller man with wide eyes. He takes the moment to stand, and to your surprise pulls off his sniper’s hood. Underneath was a handsome face, pale eyes, and dark brown hair. He reached back and undid his bun letting his hair fall. He steps forward, towering over you.
You stutter a no, a “I don’t Know.” 
König nods looking almost sagelike. He reads your body and eyes.
“It's complicated ja?”
You just sigh and nod, a hand running through your hair. You then sit down on the other bed and he joins you as you just spill it out. Everything, Soap, Gaz, Ghost and then Price. You go on for an hour just talking with König listening. As you end he sets a large hand on your knee in comfort as you collapse onto the bed with a huff. Your eyes turn to you and he smiles, making your breath hitch. 
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
Something in Simon's mind stirs, he shifts and feeling exposed his eyes open. He shifts up against the pillows he is propped against and his eyes seek you. What he sees makes him freeze. Your back is on the bed with an unmasked, lessly dressed König leaning over you. Your laughter chimed out. Simon's heart freezes seeing Königs hand on your knee before it lifts to hover over you. Ghost tears through him then something black and vicious. Simon practically throws himself up with a grunt, then he's on his feet. You shoot up, knocking into König whose eyes fly to the standing Lieutenant. 
“Back the fuck off of them.”
He barks the order as he steps forward rage balling his fists up and tensing his muscles. König chuckles and stands, putting himself between you and Simon. 
“What will you do Geist?” He says calmly, something in Königs brain raising in glee at a challenge. You wrap an arm around König and pull but the man doesn’t move.
“König! Stop!” But the man continues tempting Simon, like baiting a wolf.
“You can’t protect them, what can you and your team do if I..” König spins around and gives you a knowing look,
“Wha-” 
He grabs your face and presses his soft lips to yours. With you in shock, he deepens the kiss in a mock way. Simon snaps, lunging forward and tackling the bigger man as you step back in shock. König is strong but Ghost tears through Simon as rage and pent-up emotional adrenaline rush through him. He flips himself on top of the man, falling on top of him to the floor. His hand grabs for his knife and he pins König to the floor with a growl and a knife to his neck.
“Simon!” You yell it out but the man doesn’t move, dark eyes staring into König as then König laughs, a hearty sound that rumbles under Simon. His ice eyes gleam with delight. He had been wanting to test the famous Ghost. Simon, mind clear and now awake sees this then and stabs the knife into the wood floor next to König. You rush forward then wrap your arms around his bare chest.
“Simon that's enough.” Those possessive eyes then shoot at you in Königs shirt. He surges up off of König and crowds you, backing you up until you fall back onto the bed. He follows, his knee bracing on the other side of your thigh and hands, arms, and chest caging you in. König stays sprawled out watching the show. 
Simon's eyes burn into yours, something hot and possessive burns there. You gulp unsure what to do, but the position does something, sending a simmering heat to your belly. Simon breaths heavily, rage dissipating, his eyes catch the spot he marked on your next, and pleasure surges through him. His eyes flicker to König who watches with a smirk, he realizes then. It was a test. Simon’s eyes meet yours and you find your hands reaching for his face to try and comfort him, but he does something a lot more intimate. After pulling his mask up, His lids droop and he dips his mouth into you in a languid kiss. You moan into the kiss and he chases the sound, lowering his weight onto you. 
His hands run at the edges of Königs shirt possessively, Jealousy burning at his fingertips as they skim your skin but don't go under. No. Simon parts from your lips, tracing a kiss down your jaw and then to your neck as your arousal builds.
“Si-” He sucks at the junction of your neck that has you arching your back under him. He pauses then kisses there and hums against your skin as his arms work their way around you. 
König stands, turns, and enters the bathroom and Simon relaxes fully. 
He then, grabbing you, rolls so you're on his chest. The position allows you to finally take a deep breath and still your wildly beating heart. Simon runs a hand through your hair as you stare at him in wonder. His eyes soften before he tisks in pain, You try to get off him but his arms shoot out, muscles pulling you back to him.
“No, please stay.” 
His voice is soft, something tender and sweet. You look down at him and feeling a push from your heart, clenching so tightly it takes your breath, you kiss him. SImons eyes widen before closing as your hands brace his wound before traveling up tight muscle. You echo him earlier by then parting and tucking your face into his next in embarrassment. 
“No Dove, let me see you.” 
Simon murmurs and you pull back as he cradles your cheek. You see the adoration then, in a brief flash before the bathroom door has Simon's eyes becoming guarded again. You take the moment to roll off him and sit up. König reappears with the knife, standing with a smirk regarding you as Simon sits up. You stand to approach König but Simon stands and wraps you in his arms, pulling you flush against him. The Skull glowers at König but the man waves Simon off, offering his knife back by the blade. Simon reaches and takes the blade in silent agreement with the Austrian. You relax then in SImon’s hold as König flips off the light and gets into bed. 
“Goodnight Schatz,” he says as he turns his back to you too. 
Simon huffs, releasing you to lie down on the bed, pulling himself tenderly under the covers. To your surprise, he pulls his balaclava off. You go to get a wipe for his eye black but he just takes your hand and pulls. You sigh, murmuring a good night to König, and shuffle into bed minding Simon’s wound. He quickly pulls your back to him and engulfs you with his arms. You blush but as the actions of the day finally catch up to you you find yourself nodding off in your Simons arms. 
He presses a final kiss to the side of your head and after you fall asleep he murmurs a deep,
“I love you.”
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
SImon finishes his glass of bourbon as there is a noise. There is a quick light as you shuffle out into the kitchen. You then notice Simon.
“Si,” you yawn, “Why are you up?” 
He sets his glass aside. He opens his arms and you immediately come forward into them. You press a tender kiss to his jaw and he embraces you. 
“Just thinking Dove.”
He pulls you in for a secret kiss, fingers dancing down your arms and intertwining your hands,
“Just thinking.”
End Track
Taglist:
@ghostlythots, @00ops1e, @rafaelacallinybbay, @iloveslasher, @character---obsessed,
@ashy-kit , @fruitymoonbeams-blog, @my-amazing-nerdyness , @star-struck-universe , @br0ken-rec0rds
@buckysjuicyplums, @cod-z
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sunriserose1023 · 2 years ago
Text
Ignite Your Bones
PAIRING: Bucky x Avenger!Reader WORD COUNT: 10k SQUARE FILLED: Bleeding Through the Bandages WARNINGS: Canon-level violence, injuries, explicit mentions of blood and bleeding, medical terminology, medical situations, angst AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been working on this one for quite some time. It's a fill for my @badthingshappenbingo card, along with a little enemies to lovers vibe. Title taken from "Fix You," by Coldplay, which definitely fits the last section of this story.
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You slammed the door as you walked into the compound, narrowing your eyes at the questioning looks from the people on the couch in the common room. 
“The next time you send me on a mission with him, expect him back in pieces, Captain.”
Steve opened his mouth, closing it again when you stomped out of the room. Two seconds after your boots stopped clicking on the kitchen floor, the door slammed again as Bucky made his way into the common room. 
“Never in my life have I dealt with anyone so reckless, so 
 stupid, and I grew up with you, Steve!” “‘Stupid?!’”
Bucky muttered “Goddamn it” under his breath as you stomped back into the room, a bag of Doritos in one hand, orange dust-covered finger poking him in the chest. 
“You think I’m stupid?” “Running into a building of heavily armed combatants—“ “Ooh, breaking out the big words, Sarge.” “Get that finger out of my chest before I break it off.”
You dragged your dusty fingers through the stubble on his cheek, smiling wickedly at the disgust on his face as he lifted a hand to wipe off Dorito dust. 
“You’re disgusting.” “Kiss my ass, Barnes.”
You turned and walked away before he could say another word, and Bucky glared in your direction before he turned back to the couch. 
“Next time you want to send me on a mission with her, don’t.”
Bucky walked down the hallway, muttering under his breath as he rubbed a hand over his jaw. Back on the couch, Steve studied the floor and beside him, Natasha rearranged herself, toes crawling under his thigh until he sighed and shifted, picking up her ankles and setting her feet on his lap. He started massaging her heels, finally looking over, making eye contact with her, seeing the joy in her eyes. He shrugged as he spoke. 
“So maybe I did that on purpose.” “You know they hate each other.” “‘Hate’ is a strong word.” “Hiding an even stronger emotion?”
Steve smiled, popping her toes. 
“Guess we’ll just see, huh?”
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“Of all the rude, idiotic, downright miserable human beings 
 I mean 
 he’s such an asshole! Right?”
You turned around, the pure white cat sitting on the floor behind you. She tilted her head, tail swishing back and forth across the tile floor. She gave a questioning meow and you nodded. 
“Yeah, Bucky Barnes. I never thought I’d say this, but he’s the bane of my existence. I can’t even breathe right around him. Can you believe that, Alpine?”
She meowed again and you nodded back. 
“Trust me, you’d hate him, too. But I’d never subject my best girl to the likes of him. He’s awful, Alp. Just awful.”
She stood up, stretching her paws, arching her back. She walked over to you, weaving her way in and out of your legs, her tail looping around your calf. You bent to scratch your nails on her head, and she bumped her head against your hand. 
“Don’t worry, Alpine. We’re better off without Bucky Barnes in our lives. I promise.”
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Bucky aimed his gun and fired, turning slightly towards his right before firing again. He straightened once his targets had fallen to the ground, seeing Natasha and Clint on the roof of the building, hearing the steady idling of the quinjet. He heard a distinct sound in his earpiece, watching Natasha turn towards it and he blew out a breath, running towards the east. He shook his head as he saw his target recoil from the punch he had thrown, cursing under his breath as he raised his gun and fired again, the target crumpling to the ground. Bucky tucked his gun away as he slowed to a walk, shaking his head as he loomed over you. From your place on your back on the ground, you slowly met his eyes, squinting your eyes as the sun glared behind him. Bucky sighed, offering a hand. 
“You know 
 sometimes I think you like getting punched.” “Oh, shut up.”
You laid a hand in his as he helped you to your feet. You groaned, lifting a hand to your forehead as Bucky held your shoulders.  
“You okay? Seeing double?” “God forbid. If I had to deal with two of you
”
You shook your head, going still and groaning again. 
“Take it easy.”
You moved to lean against him, and Bucky wrapped an arm around you, laying his metal hand over your left ear. 
“Talk to me. What year is it?” “It’s, uh
 oh god.”
You pushed him away and Bucky stepped back just in time as you threw up at his feet. He wrinkled his nose and turned his head, closing one eye as he looked up to Nat and Clint. He turned back just in time to catch you as you fainted, shaking his head and lifting you into his arms. 
“I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”
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You laid on your couch with Alpine on the arm at your feet, watching as she licked her paw. 
“You know we have a room you could use specifically for bathing.”
She didn’t dignify you with a response, and you sighed as you gingerly rolled your head towards the television. Netflix was playing softly, the documentary you’d tried to watch long since lost your attention. You sighed and turned the TV off, tossing the remote to your coffee table and gently turning your head. You closed your eyes, pulling the blanket up to your chin, exhaling as the throb in your head made itself known again. You gave a quiet moan, smiling when Alpine crept over and curled up on your stomach. You took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. 
“Miss Y/N, Sergeant Barnes is requesting entry.”
You gave a quiet moan at the soft voice sounding through the speakers of your apartment. 
“Let him in, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”
He was just going to have to fend for himself, because your head was hurting too badly for you to do anything except nap. You heard the door unlock and then open, heard it softly click shut. You grunted when Alpine used your belly to launch herself to the back of the couch, tail swishing as her blue eyes studied the intruder. 
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
His voice was soft, and you answered in turn, not opening your eyes. 
“Her name is Alpine. She’s very self-sufficient and she adores Happy. He takes care of her for me when we go on missions.” “Huh.”
You heard Bucky’s careful footsteps as he walked to the couch, giving a sigh when his shadow fell over your face and hid the light. You cracked open one eye when you heard a distinct purr, finding Alpine preening under his gentle touch, moving her head to keep in contact with his hand. 
“I think she likes me.” “She has questionable tastes.”
Bucky chuckled as he stepped back, Alpine meowing in protest. You moved your eye to follow Bucky and he nodded to you. 
“Sit up.” “No.”
He blew out a breath. 
“I’m here to help you.” “My head throbs when I move.” “I know. Bruce sent a pill with me to help that.” “I don’t want—“ “I know. It’s just going to knock you out. Your concussion isn’t that bad. Just painful. Come on.”
You moaned and groaned as Bucky helped you into a sitting position, and he managed to roll his eyes only a few times. You gripped his flesh arm as waves of nausea rolled over you, the throb in your head seeming to echo with every heartbeat. 
“Just breathe.”
You whimpered, leaning into him, allowing your head to rest on his shoulder. He leaned his head on yours, shushing you softly, the stubble on his chin tickling your forehead. 
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“You okay?” “I think so.” “Let me get you some water.”
You nodded, eyes closed as he walked into the kitchen, filling a glass and walking it back. He put the glass in your hand, setting the pill in your other hand. You opened your eyes, wincing as you did. 
“What is it?” “It’ll help.” “Bucky.” “I’m not a doctor, but a doctor gave it to me. We trust them, remember?”
You snorted. 
“Them I trust. You, not so much.”
He rolled his eyes, but smiled. 
“Just take the damn pill.” “What if I’m allergic to it?” “That’s why I’m here, and I’m staying until we see how it affects you.”
You gave a shake of your head, moaning softly. 
“Nat busy?” “Yes, and Wanda was, too. Sorry, kid. You’re stuck with me.” “I’m not a kid.” “Then take the damn pill.”
You sighed, putting the pill in your mouth and quickly drinking. You wrinkled your nose at the bitter taste, finishing the water. 
“Atta girl.” “Don’t patronize me, Barnes. Let me sleep.” “That’s the plan, cupcake. Lay down.” “Do not call me ‘cupcake.’” “Just lay your ass down.”
You did, rolling onto your side and closing your eyes, doing your best to ignore the throbbing in your head. You felt the blanket cover you, but you couldn’t open your eyes again. You felt Bucky’s gentle touch to your forehead, heard his soft murmur to get F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn off the lights, and your headache started to ease as you drifted to sleep. 
Bucky stood over you, shaking his head as your breathing evened out, your eyebrows relaxed, and the pain that had been evident on your face disappeared. Bucky watched you sleep for a moment, turning and going into the kitchen to put the soup Wanda had sent with him into your fridge. He turned and stopped, staring at the cat in the middle of the kitchen floor. Her tail swished back and forth over the tiles, blue eyes locked onto him. 
“I come in peace. Even though your mom would probably disagree.”
Alpine chirped back at him and Bucky’s eyebrows raised. 
“So you’ve heard of me.”
Alpine turned her head and Bucky chuckled. 
“I’m sure she’s bitched about me to you, but I’m not that bad, I promise.”
He knelt down and Alpine walked to him, sniffing the hand he held out before bumping it with her head. Bucky smiled, petting the cat. 
“See? You can tell I’m a good guy. Well, I mean 
 might not go that far. But I’m okay.”
He moved to sit on the floor, sighing as Alpine crawled into his lap. 
“Your mom just brings out the worst in me. I don’t know why. I mean 
 you know how she can be, right?”
Alpine chirped and Bucky nodded. 
“Exactly. You get it.”
Alpine leaned closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Bucky moved his hand to scratch under her chin. 
“She’s really not so bad. It’s just easy to get her riled up. And now we’ve just always acted like this, so why change, you know? But she 
”
Bucky glanced towards the living room, where you were softly snoring on the couch. He sighed, shaking his head. 
“She’s got to stop being so stupid in the field.”
Alpine gave a quiet hiss and Bucky looked at her with wide eyes. 
“I didn’t mean anything by it, but she doesn’t think. She just goes balls to the wall and one of these days she’s going to get killed. I swear to God, she's just like Steve. I’m like a magnet to little bleeding heart do-gooders with no sense of self-preservation.”
Bucky lifted a hand to rub over his face as he sighed. He shook his head, gently ushering the cat off his lap, smiling at her offended glare. 
“Come on. I’ve got to stay at least another hour to make sure she’s alright.”
He walked back into the living room, finding you sound asleep and breathing fine. He grabbed a book from your bookshelf and sat in a chair, smiling when Alpine jumped into his lap and curled up, purring when his metal hand began gently petting her. 
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“I swear to God, if you don’t get your hand off my back, I will break it off and shove it up your—“ “Easy, cupcake. We’re supposed to be deeply in love, remember?”
You smiled as you and Bucky passed a couple in the hallway. You gave the woman a nod, laying your hand against Bucky’s shoulder. When the two of you rounded the corner and it was apparent you were alone, you dug your nails into his neck, pinching right at the pressure point. Bucky’s knees buckled and he stumbled as he cried out. 
“Son of a bitch!”
Bucky jumped away from you, blue eyes flashing as he lifted a hand to his neck. You looked at him with wide, innocent eyes, blinking once. 
“What’s wrong, dear?” “You’re an insufferable witch.” “Ooh, watch it, cupcake. We’re supposed to be in love, remember?”
Bucky stepped closer to you, the hand you expected was going for your throat gentling as voices could be heard just before people rounded the corner. Bucky stepped even closer, his nose brushing against yours as his hand came to rest on your shoulder, his words muttered under his breath. 
“I loathe you.”
You gave a breathy giggle. 
“Right back at you, toots.”
The people walked away and Bucky stepped back from you, straightening his suit jacket. 
“Can we just get the intel and get the fuck out of here?” “It would be my pleasure. Just—“ “Stay out of my way.”
You blinked as Bucky walked away from you, narrowing your eyes as you followed him, heels clicking on the marble floor. 
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“Priscilla! Oh, there you are darling. You look lovely!”
You took her hands as you accepted the kisses to your cheeks, smiling at the heiress before you. 
“Amelia, it’s so good to see you.”
Amelia didn’t even try to hide her blatant perusal of the man beside you and she gave him a demure smile. 
“Amelia Weatherford.” “Of Weatherford Jewels?” “Handsome and intelligent. My favorite combination.”
Bucky smiled as he took the hand she offered, pressing his lips to the back of it. You blinked at the sudden flame of fury you felt roll down your spine, shaking your head as he straightened. 
“Nicholas Rockefeller.”
Amelia’s eyes widened, as did yours when you turned to Bucky. He winked at you, offering his arm. 
“Miss Weatherford—“ “Amelia, please.”
Bucky nodded. 
“Amelia, will you excuse us? I promised Prissy a dance.”
Amelia grinned, nodding her head and stepping back, allowing the two of you space to walk to the dance floor. Bucky turned to face you, taking one of your hands, settling his other on your hip. You dug your nails into his hand, setting your other on his shoulder. You put a smile on your face, leaning in closer. 
“Rockefeller? Are you out of your goddamned mind?” “You pull out a Rockefeller, no one questions it.” “Maybe that worked in the olden days, Grandpa, but these days that shit can be verified in a few seconds.” “Would you relax and get your fucking nails out of my skin?”
You loosened your hold on him, pulling him closer and studying the room over his shoulder. 
“So how’d you cross paths with a jewelry heiress?”
You smiled, murmuring just as softly as Bucky had. 
“Undercover op in Ibiza, years ago. I’m actually surprised she remembered me.” “Well, it was Ibiza.” “Good point.”
Bucky moved his hand to the small of your back, eyebrow raising at your sudden intake of breath. Your eyes met his and you shook your head. 
“Don’t even. You just took me off-guard.” “Mm-hmm.” “I still can’t believe you went with Rockefeller. That’s not who we agreed on.” “Sometimes you’ve just got to go with whatever strikes you in the moment, cupcake.”
You scoffed. 
“Stop calling me cupcake. And don’t ever call me ‘Prissy’ again.” “It’s a common nickname for Priscillas.” “How many Priscillas do you know? You know what? Don’t answer that.”
Bucky chuckled, pulling you closer, smiling when you gasped quietly again.
“Quit it.”
He chuckled again, cheek brushing against yours when he saw a figure over your shoulder. 
“He’s here.” “Who?” “You know who.”
You slowly nodded, pressing your temple against his. 
“You want to take this one or me?” “I’ll do it. Let’s meet up in ten minutes, cupcake. Don’t be late.” “Fifty bucks says it takes longer.” “I’ll take that bet.”
You giggled, pulling back and staring into his blue eyes. You ran a finger down his nose, tapping his lips before turning away.
“Amelia!”
She rushed to you and you took her hands. 
“Do you know where the ladies’ room is?” “Of course!”
Amelia winked at Bucky.
“I’ll bring her right back, Mister Rockefeller.”
Bucky winked back at her, and Amelia giggled as she leaned closer to you, touching your forehead with her own. The two of you began walking away, and you glanced over your shoulder to see Bucky making his way across the room. 
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“Fifty bucks richer.”
You shook your head, crossing your arms in the cool night air. You glanced around, then went back inside, shivering at the sudden temperature change. You walked to the doorways and looked into the ballroom, quickly scanning the room and coming up empty. 
“Yeah, this was a great op to refuse comms. Stupid boy.”
You looked around the hall, hearing a metallic clattering from a room nearby. You shook your head, a sneer on your lips. 
“Five to ten odds he’s banging a waitress in the back alley.”
You looked from one end of the room to the other, lips twisting as you murmured to yourself. 
You shook your head, putting a smile on your face and making your way through the ballroom. In the hallway, you looked right and then left, before deciding to go left. You stepped to the side when a man in a suit rushed past you, nearly running into you, and you narrowed your eyes at him before you continued on your journey. You rounded a corner and let out a breath. 
“There you are.”
Bucky was standing with his back to you in the middle of the hallway. You shook your head, dress swishing on the ground, heels clicking on the floor as you rounded to stand in front of him. 
“‘Let’s meet up in ten minutes, cupcake. Don’t be late.’ And what happens? Cupcake shows up like always. Grumpy Old Man flakes, as usual.”
Bucky didn’t roll his eyes. He didn’t shrug and turn away from you, like just the sight of you was enough to make him sick. He didn’t make any movement at all, which made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You glanced at his feet, going still at the drops of blood by his shoes. You moved a hand to gently touch his shoulder. 
“Buck? Hey. What’s wrong?”
He blinked, slowly moving his eyes to yours. Your eyebrows furrowed at the look on his face, paler than usual, paler than you were comfortable with. Your ears perked up at the sharp exhalation he gave, and you shook your head as your eyes combed over him. 
“What happened? What?” “I think 
 I think he stabbed me.” “What?”
Your eyes widened, and you grabbed the lapels of Bucky’s suit jacket, opening it and gasping when you saw the crimson spreading over the right side of his stark white shirt. 
“Oh, shit.”
You pressed a hand against his side and he gave a quiet moan. You looked over his shoulders, then behind yours and he shook his head. 
“He’s gone. I didn’t 
 I didn’t get—“ “It’s okay. Can you walk? We need to get out of here.”
Bucky nodded, and you stayed beside him, hand pressed against his side as the two of you took a step together. Bucky shook his head, reaching to grab hold of your arm. 
“Damn it, that hurts.” “Hang in there, Buck. Just one foot in front of the other.”
He nodded, looping an arm around your neck. He grunted with every slow step the two of you took, sweat breaking out over his forehead. You could feel your hand getting wetter as the bleeding continued, but Bucky refused to stop until the two of you were outside. You looked around, speaking as you scanned the parking lot.
“Let me get a cab.” “No, I—“ “You can’t walk all the way to the hotel.” “No, but I can’t bleed all over a cab either.”
Your mind was racing, and you turned your head to look at him. 
“Do I need to call an ambulance?” “No. Just 
”
Bucky blew out a breath, blinking wide eyes before exhaling again. 
“Do you know how to hot-wire a car?”
You narrowed your eyes. 
“Do I look like a natural-born idiot? Of course I know how to hot-wire a car!”
Bucky grinned, sweat rolling down his pale face. You swallowed as you looked at his side and he nodded. You helped him take his jacket off, balling it up and pressing it against his side. He moaned, squeezing his eyes shut, nodding as you moved your hands away and moved his to hold the jacket in place. You ran through the parking lot, ignoring the shaking in your hands as you found a nondescript dark-colored SUV, easily picking the lock on the driver’s side door and quickly hot-wiring the car. You drove to where you’d left Bucky, helping him into the passenger’s seat. You pulled open the glove compartment and almost cried in relief. 
“Look! First aid kit.”
You pulled it out and opened it up, finding the biggest bandage you could. Bucky gritted his teeth as he lifted his shirt and you pressed the bandage to his skin, doing your best to ignore the immediate spread of blood under it. You shook your head, pulling his shirt down, going to the driver’s side and climbing in, speeding away from the gala and towards the nondescript motel you were staying. 
“Are you—“ “I’m okay.”
You nodded, both hands tightly gripping the wheel. You kept your eyes on the road, shaking your head. 
“I thought you had the serum to heal you.” “I do, but it’s not always 
 instantaneous.”
You bit your bottom lip hard, making yourself smile. 
“You don’t have to try and impress me with big words, you know.”
Bucky barked a laugh, but it trailed into a groan. You white-knuckled the steering wheel, breathing a sigh of relief when you saw the motel. 
“Thank god. We made it.”
You looked over to see Bucky with his eyes closed, big body slumped against the door. 
“No! No, Buck, stay awake. Bucky!”
He jumped when you threw an arm over, smacking his shoulder. He blinked wide eyes and you shook your head. 
“Don’t go to sleep.” “Okay.” “I mean it, Bucky. Stay with me.”
He nodded, groaning as he pressed a hand to his side. You parked the car and jumped out, running to help him out of the car, looping his arm around your neck, helping him lean onto you as the two of you hobbled into the room. He immediately collapsed onto the bed and you stood over him, ripping his shirt open and giving a shaking breath. 
“Jesus, Buck.”
You bit your tongue as you saw the blood-soaked bandage you’d placed on him. He nodded, wincing as he squeezed his eyes shut. 
“Fuck, it hurts.” “I know. Let me 
”
Your words trailed off as you ran into the bathroom, gathering towels and wetting one. 
“My 
 suitcase.”
You poked your head out of the bathroom to see Bucky pointing and you unzipped the front pocket of his suitcase to find a bottle of rubbing alcohol. 
“Thank God.”
Bucky nodded as you hurried back into the bathroom, gathering the towels and the alcohol and heading back to him. You walked into the room to see Bucky with his eyes closed, blood-covered hand hanging over the edge of the bed. 
“No! Bucky, no.”
He jumped at your sharp tone, eyes sluggishly opening. You shook your head as you dropped your supplies onto the bed before looming over him. 
“You stay with me. Do not close your eyes.”
Bucky smirked as you turned away. 
“First you 
 rip my shirt off, then you 
 boss me around. Keep 
 keep it—-“ “You can’t even talk, much less pretend like you could get it up. Don’t even.”
Bucky laughed, groaning when you pulled the bandage off his side. You tossed the blood-soaked bandage off the bed, pouring alcohol over his wound before pressing the wet towel against his side. You increased the pressure and his groan grew louder, metal hand moving to grip your arm. 
“I’m sorry.” “Don’t. You’re 
 fine. Don’t let me hurt you.”
You nodded, trying your best to clean the wound. Blood continued to bubble out and you shook your head. 
“God, there’s so much blood.” “Might’ve n 
 nicked the liver.” “No, there’s got to be 
 oh, fuck. Fuck, Bucky. He got you twice.”
Bucky rolled as best he could when you tapped his shoulder, and you gave a quiet whine when you saw the wound to his back, inches from the first wound. You shook your head as you moved the towel and pressed both of your hands to both of his wounds. 
“Goddamn it, Y/N.” “Don’t give me shit right now. I’m trying to save your life.” “I know. I’m just 
”
He wheezed out a breath, and you quickly set a thick bandage on the wound on his back. Bucky rolled back to his back, wincing as you put another bandage on his front. 
“Just breathe.”
Bucky nodded, widening his eyes. You shook your head, leaning over him. 
“Come on, bionic man. You’ve got an arm made out of the strongest metal in the world and you’re going to let a little prison shank take you out?”
Bucky wheezed out a laugh, his metal arm moving to cup your elbow, thumb rubbing over your skin as his sleepy eyes met your own. 
“I’ll be 
 fine.” “Please don’t leave me, Buck. Stay with me.”
He nodded, eyes drifting closed. 
“No, damn it. No! Open your eyes and keep them open. Bucky, please. Oh, look what you’ve done. You got blood on your dog tags.”
He blinked his eyes open at that, looking down to see your blood-covered fingertips grab onto his dog tags before letting them sit in your bloody palm. He shook his head, your thumbprint perfectly outlined on the smooth side of the metal. 
“You did that.” “Prove it.”
Bucky groaned, head falling back on the pillow. 
“Fuck.” “I know. Just hold on.”
Your eyes widened when you looked down at the bandage, blood seeping out from under it. You swallowed and pulled the bandage off, cleaning the blood as best you could before finagling a piece of gauze and taping it to his skin. Blood quickly soaked through the gauze and bubbled around the tape. 
“You’ve got to 
 stitch it up.”
You looked up and met his eyes, shaking your head. 
“What? No. No, I 
I can call for—“ “For what?”
You looked at his pale face, watching his eyes slowly blink open, the icy blue dull around his widening pupils. He gave a slow shake of his head. 
“They 
 won’t make it.” “Buck, I can’t.” “You 
 have to. You 
 you’re my only 
 hope.”
You squeezed your eyes closed, shaking your head. You opened your eyes again and he gave you a small smile. He nodded and you blew out a breath. 
“Oh, god.” “You 
 can do this.”
You nodded, stepping back from the bed and to his suitcase, pulling out a sewing kit. You blew out a breath, shaking your head. 
“Goddamn it.”
You grabbed a needle and some thread, moving back to the bed and picking up the bottle of alcohol, pouring it over the needle. Your hands shook as you tried to thread the needle, stilling when you felt metal fingers gently brushing your elbow again. You looked at him and Bucky smiled. 
“You’ve got this.”
You shook your head, staring into his sleepy eyes. 
“I’ve never sewn anything before.” “Nothing 
 to it. Just 
 back and—back and forth.”
You nodded again, doing as he instructed, listening to his murmurs as he walked you through how to knot the thread. You blew out a breath and wiped the towel over his skin, cleaning away the blood. 
“Pinch the 
 skin together.”
You did as he said, doing your best to ignore his wince. He shook his head. 
“Don't 
 pay atten—attention to me. Just do it.” “Okay, Nike.”
He gave a breathy laugh, groaning as you took the opportunity and pushed the needle through his skin. Your eyes were wide, mouth open when you saw what you’d done to him, the stark black thread standing out against his skin. 
“Oh my god.” “Keep—keep going. In and—“ “Out. In and out.”
Bucky nodded, groaning again as you pulled and tugged, pushing the needle into his skin, pulling it out, closing the wound on his side. You tied another knot in the end of the thread, helping Bucky move the slightest bit onto his side. You couldn’t stop the whine from escaping your lips when you saw the blood-soaked bandage on his back, pulling it off and cleaning the wound as best you could. You licked your lips and cleared your mind, focusing only on the task at hand, going through the same motions as you stitched up the other, albeit smaller, wound. You gave a sigh of relief, laughing softly. 
“Okay. Okay, that’s it. They’re closed.”
You rolled Bucky back to his back, the breath catching in your throat when you saw his eyes closed. 
“No, no, no. Bucky? Buck, open your eyes.”
He didn’t do what you said this time. Your hand gently slapped his face, and you let the tears come when he gave a soft moan, trying to move away from you. You nodded, your hand resting against his cheek as you brought your knees up, resting your elbow on them as you put your forehead against your wrist and cried. 
After a moment, you sniffed and stood up, going into the bathroom and staring at yourself in the mirror. Your gown was stained with Bucky’s blood, your hands were covered in it, it was caked under your nails. You even had blood on your forehead. You closed your eyes, opening them again to see your blood-soaked reflection staring back at you. 
“Carrie. I’m Carrie at the prom.”
A laugh bubbled from your lips and you lifted a hand with the intention of covering your mouth. The laughter died as you gasped instead, staring at your hand. You took in a shaky breath, glancing over your shoulder and watching Bucky’s chest rise and fall a few times. You walked to the shower and turned it on, not even bothering to check the temperature before you walked into the shower fully clothed. 
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You sat on the side of the bed, eyes focused on Bucky’s chest as it rose and fell. You’d at least combed your hair when you got out of the shower, leaving it in wet ropes around your head. You’d pulled on a pair of sweatpants before rifling through Bucky’s bag and stealing one of his Henleys.
You’d felt so cold ever since you’d gotten out of the shower. 
You looked down at the phone in your hand, taking in a breath before letting it out slowly. You tapped the screen until you found a number, lifting the phone to your ear. 
“Hello?” “Hey, it 
 it’s me.” “Hey, you. How’s it going?”
You looked to the bed, shaking your head as your bottom lip wobbled. 
“Not 
 not great.” “What’s wrong?” “Bucky got stabbed.” “Jesus. Is he okay? Where are you?” “We’re at the motel. Clint, I had to sew him up.”
You couldn’t fight back the sob, and you put your forehead in your hand as you heard Clint murmuring through the phone. 
“Y/N, it’s Steve. Is he alive?”
You nodded until you trusted your voice. 
“He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing. I had to sew up the wounds and I’ve never done that before. You need to come get us and get him to a doctor.” “I’m sure you did fine.” “There was so much blood.”
Steve didn’t say anything after your whisper, and his voice was shaky when he spoke again. 
“We’re on the way.” “We didn’t finish the mission.” “That doesn’t matter now.”
You nodded, closing your eyes as Clint came back on the line, telling you they’d be there in a few hours. You hung up the phone, moving to the other bed, lifting a shaky hand to brush through Bucky’s hair. 
“They’re coming, Buck. Steve’s coming and he’s going to help you. You’re going to be okay.”
Bucky muttered nonsense words, and you shushed him, hand coming to rest against his cheek. Bucky murmured again, leaning into your touch before settling down again. 
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You sat on the other bed and watched as Steve ran in, hitting his knees beside the bed where Bucky was still sleeping. Clint pulled up a hologram of Helen Cho, who praised your stitches and instructed the boys to get Bucky to her cradle ASAP. They were loading him onto a stretcher when Wanda walked in, kneeling before you. 
“Hey, you. Let’s go home.”
You turned your head to meet her eyes, your own eyes narrowing. Even though you’d been watching and hearing everything that was happening around you, you felt far away, like you’d been watching television instead of real life. You swallowed, giving Wanda a nod when she murmured your name again. She held out a hand and you grabbed onto it, holding tighter than you realized. You blinked when you noticed Sam grabbing your suitcases. 
“The 
 the dress.” “What dress, honey?”
You blinked as you looked at Wanda again, like you weren’t entirely sure if she was there. 
“The dress for the gala. It’s 
 it’s in the bathroom.”
Wanda nodded to Sam. 
“We’ll take care of it. Come on, sweetie.”
You followed her lead, still gripping tightly to her hand as she led you to the quinjet. 
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Two weeks later, Bucky walked into the kitchen, heading for the fruit bowl. 
“How are there never any bananas? I swear to god, I put them on the grocery list yesterday.”
Natasha’s eyebrows raised, but she didn’t say anything as she spread peanut butter over the piece of bread in her hand. Bucky blew out a breath, muttering to himself as he picked up an orange instead. 
“Nat, are you stealing all the bananas?” “Do I look like a banana thief?”
Bucky shrugged his metal shoulder as he peeled his orange. Natasha glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. 
“We have knives for that, you know?”
Bucky grinned at her with a section of orange in his mouth and she rolled her eyes. She finished her sandwich, leaving the room without a goodbye. She made her way down the hall, knocking softly on a door, hearing F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s announcement of who was at the door. At the click of a lock, Natasha walked into the apartment. 
“Hey, I brought you some lunch.” “Just a sec.”
Natasha walked into the kitchen, hearing you curse under your breath. She sighed, looking at the pile of banana peels at your elbow. 
“Y/N
” “Hey, Nat.”
You scrambled to hide whatever was in your hands from her and Natasha narrowed her eyes. 
“What are you doing?” “Nothing. Did you say something about lunch? I’m starving.” “It’s just a peanut butter sandwich.” “Ooh, my fave.”
You pushed your chair away from the table, turning your back to Natasha quickly so she wouldn’t see your hands. 
“What are you trying to hide from me?”
You faltered at that, pausing a moment before walking to the sink. 
“Nothing.” “Y/N—“ “Drop it. Please.”
Natasha sighed, setting the sandwich down and crossing her arms over her chest. She waited until you walked back to the table, staring you down until you sighed and sat in the chair. 
“What’s going on with you?”
You put your head in your hands in lieu of answering her. Natasha shook her head. 
“Come on. You’ve been avoiding the team ever since you got back from that mission with Bucky. Steve’s about ready to mandate therapy for you.” “Steve can’t do that.” “He’s the Captain. He can do what he wants.”
You snorted and Natasha sighed, sitting across from you. 
“Come on, kid. Talk to me.” “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Can I have my sandwich now?”
You let your hands fall by your sides. Natasha stared at you, but you stared right back, and she eventually sighed and nodded. You slid the plate closer to you and took a bite out of the sandwich. 
“So you’re the one that’s been stealing the bananas?” “I thought this was lunch, not an interrogation.” “The evidence is overwhelming.”
Natasha rolled her eyes at the way you spoke with your mouth full, then motioned to the banana peels at your elbow. You swallowed the bite you’d taken, lifting your shoulders. 
“I’m really into smoothies?”
Natasha just cocked an eyebrow and you blew out a breath. 
“I made banana bread last week.” “I know. Clint kept making perverse comments about how good it was.”
You smiled at that, looking down at the sandwich. You gently pushed the plate away, your sandwich with one bite missing staring back at you. 
“Hey.” “I’m not doing anything illegal or unmentionable with the bananas.” “You know I don’t care about that.”
Natasha reached over and laid a hand on your wrist. 
“I’m worried about you.”
Her eyes softened when you lifted tear-filled ones to her. You shook your head and she tightened her hold on you. You gave a shaky exhale and shook your head again. 
“I’m sorry about the bananas. I’ll make my own grocery order or something.” “Honey, that’s not the point.”
You tugged your hand away from her, wiping your eyes. 
“I, uh 
 I’ve really got to clean out my bathroom. It’s horrible. Can’t even remember the last time I mopped it.” “Talk to me.” “I’m just busy, Nat. I'm fine.” “You’re not—“ “Can you lock the door on your way out?”
Natasha sighed as you walked away, closing a door down the hall. She closed her eyes, hanging her head as she exhaled again. She picked up the sandwich you didn’t eat, biting into it herself as she left your apartment, locking the door behind her.
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“No.” “Come on, Wanda. It’s for the greater good.”
Wanda raised one eyebrow as Sam tried to hide his smile. Natasha was unperturbed, taking one of Wanda’s hands. 
“Something is going on with her. She hasn’t been to movie night or game night or even dinner in two weeks. Almost three! You know how she is.”
Sam tilted his head. 
“You know that last mission took a toll on her.” “I know it did, but she usually bounces back quicker than this.”
Wanda laid her other hand on top of Natasha’s. 
“You didn’t see what we saw when we picked them up, Nat. She just needs time to process this.” “It’s been two weeks. This is past ‘processing time.’ This is mentally fucked up time now.”
Wanda looked to Sam, who stared back at her, a silent conversation passing between them. Wanda sighed, turning back to Natasha.
“I don’t like this.ïżœïżœïżœ “Let the record state she doesn’t like this.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but smiled. Wanda sighed again, standing up and brushing off the dress she was wearing before making her way down the hall. She stopped outside your room, putting her ear to the door, closing her eyes as they began to glow red. 
“And pull slowly 
 there. Perfect.”
Wanda turned her head slightly as she listened to your thoughts. 
You can’t even see it! That’s a surgeon’s precision there. “Excellent work, Agent. Do you want to try the chicken now?” 
Wanda blinked her eyes open when she heard the second voice. It sounded different, further away, and she thought the voice had to be coming through your phone or computer. 
“Ew, it’s slimy.” “You knew it would be. Remember how we talked about it?” “Right. It’s more like normal skin, and with an injury, slime is a possibility.”
Wanda heard a tinny laugh, and she closed her eyes again as your voice went silent, save for the one in your head. 
Take a breath. You need this practice. You have to do this right. Next time could be life and death.
Wanda’s brows furrowed as she laid a hand on the door. 
In and out. In and out. Don’t forget to breathe. In and out. “Very good. Go just a bit deeper 
 that’s it. Perfect.”
Wanda’s red eyes opened when the soft sound of your thoughts echoed in her mind. 
I need to figure out how to make this bloody. It’s slippery enough as it is, but the blood adds an extra obstacle. Remember how Bucky’s blood soaked the needle and thread? “Agent, clear your mind. Keep your focus on the task at hand. That last stitch slipped.” “Sorry.” “It’s still very good.”
Wanda turned the doorknob, silently making her way into your apartment, stopping at the entry to your kitchen. You were sitting at the table with your back to her, your laptop on the table, along with a small pile of bananas and a raw chicken breast. 
“What are you doing?”
You jumped, quickly turning in your chair. 
“Wanda? What the hell are you doing? How did you get in here?” “Agent, I think this will end our session today. Very good work.”
You turned back as the video call ended with a chime, and you blew out a breath as you hung your head. Wanda stepped further into the kitchen, eyes scanning the room. 
“What are you doing in here? Why do you have so many bananas?” “Wanda, you need to go.”
Wanda’s eyes started glowing as you tried to hide the contents on the table from her. 
Shit. God, she can’t know. Nobody can know. They won’t understand. 
“What won’t we understand?”
You whirled around, eyes full of hurt. 
“Are you in my head?”
Wanda blinked, her eyes cooling back to their normal color. You gave an almost silent laugh. 
“You were. You were listening. You promised you’d never do that.” “Everyone is worried about you. You won’t leave this apartment. Ever since your mission with Bucky, you’ve closed off.”
You couldn’t help but flinch when she mentioned Bucky and that disastrous mission. Wanda’s eyes softened as she took a step closer.
“This has something to do with that, doesn’t it?” “Can you just mind your own business?” “Not when you’re hurting this badly and won’t let any of us help. We know what you’re going through.”
You whirled to face her, eyes wide. 
“How?! How could any of you know what I’m feeling? You weren’t there. You didn’t have his blood all over your hands, all over your dress. You didn’t stand in the shower and watch his blood flow down the drain. You didn’t do everything you could to help him and it wasn’t enough.”
Wanda’s eyes filled with tears as yours did.
“You didn’t watch him almost bleed out. You didn’t have to push a needle through his skin to try to hold him together.” “Oh, honey.”
You shook your head, stepping away from her. You went to the sink and turned the water on, pumping soap into your hands and rubbing them together. Wanda lifted a hand to her lips as she watched you, tears sliding down your face and dripping into the sink. When she noticed the steam from the water, she rushed over and turned the water off, turning the cool side on and gently moving your hands under the water. 
You gripped the edges of the sink as Wanda turned the water off. She took your hands in hers, drying them off gently. 
“You don’t have to carry this by yourself.”
You lifted your head, tear-filled eyes meeting hers. She gave you a sad smile, pulling you into a hug. You put your face in her shoulder and let her hold you, not seeing her eyes start to glow red, but feeling your own eyes grow heavier and heavier until you couldn’t help but close them. Your knees slowly buckled and Wanda helped you, going with you until you were laid out and sleeping peacefully on the floor. 
Wanda sighed, going to your door and opening it, whistling softly. Sam and Natasha popped their heads around the corner as Wanda raised an eyebrow, then motioned for them to come. Natasha’s eyes narrowed as she looked around the kitchen, widening when she saw the bananas and the chicken, the needle and thread. 
“Oh my god.” “Sam, can you
?”
He nodded, gently brushing past Natasha as he walked to you, kneeling and lifting your sleeping body into his arms. You curled against his chest and he closed his eyes before carrying you down the hall and into your bedroom. 
Natasha met Wanda’s eyes and Wanda crossed her arms over her stomach. 
“She had a doctor on the computer who was talking her through stitches.” “That’s why she kept stealing the bananas.”
Wanda raised an eyebrow and Natasha walked over, picking up a pristine yellow banana. 
“If you do it correctly
”
She unpeeled the banana and Wanda’s eyebrows raised at the neat black stitches on the peel. 
“You can’t even tell it was peeled.” “She’s out. What’s going on with the prep line in here?”
Natasha showed Sam the stitches in the banana peel and he closed his eyes before crossing his arms over his chest. 
“Shit.”
Natasha and Wanda nodded. After a moment of silence, Wanda spoke. 
“Now comes the hard part. Do we tell Bucky?”
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You woke up with a headache, feeling quite hungover even though you hadn’t drank a drop of alcohol. You sat up in the bed, putting your head in your hands. 
No matter how hard you’d tried, you just couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky and the last mission the two of you went on. You couldn’t get the sight of his pale face out of your head, the way the blood wouldn’t stop, soaking through the bandages you’d tried to put on him. You felt like Lady Macbeth because in your dreams, you couldn’t get his blood off of your hands, no matter how hard you scrubbed. 
You crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom, trying and failing to avoid your reflection in the mirror. There were dark circles under your eyes, and your complexion was dull. You hadn’t left your apartment in a few weeks, hadn’t even gone outside. You were too preoccupied with the bananas and the stitching. 
You sighed and pulled your unwashed hair into a bun on top of your head, leaving the bathroom and coming to a hard stop when you saw the man sitting on your couch. Bucky lifted his eyes to yours, metal hand still as Alpine sniffed all over it.
“Long time no see.”
You nodded. 
“I’ve been busy.” “You’re the one that’s been stealing all the bananas.”
You shook your head. 
“I mean, yeah at first, but I’ve done my own grocery order for a while.” “Why?”
You lifted a hand to scratch at your neck. 
“No reason.” “Babe, we’ve got to work on your tells.”
You felt your cheeks heat up, dropping your hand and looking down at the floor. 
“Tell me why you needed so many bananas, Y/N.” “I went on a banana diet.” “Stop going up on your toes. That's another tell.”
You went to your flat feet, eyes cast down. You heard Alpine’s annoyed mrow as Bucky stood up and when he took a step towards you, you took a step back. He took a step back and you lifted your eyes to his. He held up his hands, sitting back down on the couch. Alpine moved to sit in his metal palm and he smiled. He brought his eyes back to you, seeing you staring at the floor still. 
“Cupcake, look at me.”
You did as he asked, and his voice was gentle when he spoke. 
“Why did you steal all the bananas?” “Why are you so obsessed with bananas? Did they not have them back in the old days?” “Quit deflecting and answering my question with a question. Tell me the truth.” “It doesn’t matter.” “To me, it does.”
You looked away from him as tears welled up in your eyes. Bucky sighed, dragging a hand down his face. 
“If you’re not going to tell me the truth, let me tell you what I think, alright? I think you stole the bananas to practice stitching them up. Because if you do it right, you can’t even tell the banana’s been peeled.”
You looked down at the floor, Alpine sitting up and jumping down from the couch beside Bucky to walk to you. She gave a curious meow when a tear fell from your eyes and landed on her nose. 
“You’ve been practicing stitching until you’re damn near perfect at it.” “I’m not perfect at it.” “Yet another lie.”
You lifted your eyes to his, shaking your head. 
“You don’t understand.” “Enlighten me.”
You didn’t notice your hands were shaking as you spoke, the tears also falling unnoticed. 
“You were dying. You were dying and I was trying to hold you together. I was holding the stupid bandages against the holes in your side and you were dying. I can still smell it, Bucky. The whole room smelled like copper and I couldn’t make it go away.”
You moved your shaking hands to press them against your stomach, and Bucky’s heart lurched when he realized you were pressing on your body the places where he was stabbed. He stood up and you backed away again, the tears coming harder. 
“I kept begging you to stay with me and you kept trying to fucking die. I had to hold your skin and literally stitch you back together with a needle and thread. I’ve never sewn anything in my life and the first thing I ever sewed was you.”
Your back hit the wall and Bucky stopped inches from you. You shook your head, unable to do anything but sob. Bucky took hold of one of your hands, ignoring Alpine’s warning meow and hiss, pressing your palm against his chest. You tried to pull your hand from his grasp, but he had an iron hold on it. 
“Breathe.”
You did, shaking your head as you sobbed. Bucky flattened your palm against the center of his chest and spoke again. 
“Feel that?”
You shook your head, and he squeezed your wrist for a split second, urging you again. 
“Do you feel that?”
You took in a ragged breath, feeling the steady thump of his heart under your palm. You met his icy blue eyes and he raised his eyebrows in question. You nodded, and he adjusted his grip so that both his hands were holding your wrist, holding your palm to the center of his chest. 
“You saved me. My heart is still beating because of you.” “There was so much blood.” “But you stopped it.”
You shook your head. 
“I didn’t do enough.” “Not enough? You saved my life, cupcake.”
You shook your head again. 
“I should have known what to do beforehand—“ “What, because you knew I’d get stabbed?”
Your eyes met his and he shook his head. 
“It doesn’t matter anymore. You did what needed to be done and I’m still here because of it. Because of you.”
Your knees buckled as your hand fell from his chest, but Bucky gathered you in his arms before you hit the floor. You clung to him, arms holding him tightly as you cried into his chest. He held you, flesh hand gently rubbing your back, shushing you softly, but letting you cry. 
He shifted and lifted you into his arms, and you put your face in his shoulder as he carried you down the hall. You felt yourself be lowered to your bed, but you stayed clinging to Bucky until he lay down with you. 
“I got you. Shh. I’m here.”
You kept holding onto him, staying close when he rolled onto his back. You kept your head on his shoulder and an arm around his stomach, one of his arms steady around you and holding you close. You slid your hand up to the middle of his chest, closing your eyes when you felt his strong heartbeat under your palm. 
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Bucky woke with a start, eyes opening to find white fur filling his vision. Alpine tilted her head as Bucky met her blue eyes, and he glanced towards the door when he heard your voice. 
“She’s not the best about sleeping in. I tried to tell her to leave you alone, but
 I think she has selective hearing.” “Wonder where she gets that from.”
You rolled your eyes, pressing your towel to your wet hair. Bucky sat up in the bed after sliding Alpine off his chest, smiling at her irritated chirp. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, shifting to where he could look at you. You moved the towel off your head to hold it in your hands, speaking more to it than to Bucky. 
“Thank you for staying with me last night.” “You needed a friend. I didn’t mind.”
You slowly nodded. 
“So we’re friends now?”
Bucky softly smiled as he looked down at his hands, clenching his metal one into a fist, then releasing it. 
“Do you think we are?”
You sighed. 
“I thought you hated me.” “I never hated you.” “You’ve got a weird way of showing that.”
Bucky nodded. 
“You want to know the truth?” “It’d be nice.”
Bucky smiled as he looked over at you. 
“You’re good. And smart, but you listen to your heart more than your head. You’re so much like Steve, and I knew if I didn’t rein you in somehow, you’d sacrifice yourself into the ocean just like he did.” “And that morphed into you hating me 
 how?” “I never hated you.”
Bucky blew out a breath. 
“It was just easier to fire up that brother/sister relationship with you. And then you gave as good as you got and it was easier to make you think I hated you than to really—“
Your breath caught in your throat when he cut himself off. He shook his head, standing up and heading for the bedroom door. 
“Really what?” “You want coffee?” “I want you to finish what you started.”
He grabbed onto the door frame, looking back over his shoulder at you. 
“You really don’t know where that sentence was going?”
You swallowed and shook your head, and he blew out another breath. 
“C’mon, cupcake. There’s no way you can’t know.”
You did. At least, you thought you did. All those times you caught him looking at you with that soft smile, the way he tried to cover it by rolling his eyes and looking away. The gentle touches when you were hurt, the way he always seemed to be the one to volunteer to go on missions with you. 
The way your heart pounded when you realized he was hurt. 
The fear in your chest you thought would consume you when you couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. 
The begging you did for him to just stay with me, don’t leave me.
“Cupcake?”
You met his eyes with tears welled up in yours. He stepped away from the door and walked to you, shaking his head. 
“What did I say? I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
You shook your head, laying your hands on his chest. 
“You didn’t. I just 
 I haven’t cried this much in a long time.” “I think you’re sort of emotionally constipated and it’s all coming out now.”
You laughed as you shoved him away. He stumbled back, a blinding smile on his lips. You shook your head. 
“You’re the worst.” “You know you love it.”
You crossed your arms over your chest and looked at the floor and Bucky gave a quiet sigh. He turned away and when he was at the door again, you spoke. 
“I didn’t realize. I mean 
 I kind of did. But you always acted like you hated me, so I pushed it down and tried to convince myself that I 
”
He kept one hand on the door frame, turning his head towards you, keeping his eyes away from you. 
“That what?” “That it wasn’t attraction I felt towards you. Then I tried to convince myself that you were like a brother to me and that hurt more. So I just locked it down and like you said, gave as good as I got.”
Bucky fully turned to face you and you swallowed again. 
“Everything was fine until you got hurt. Faced with the prospect of losing you 
 I lost it. I tried so hard not to let it show, but I 
 Bucky, I was so scared. You were so pale and there was so much blood and no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop it.” “You did stop it.” “I thought I was too late. I just prayed that you would wake up and I went and showered with my dress on. Watched the blood go down the drain.”
You sucked in a breath when you saw him in front of you. You’d been staring at the floor, lost in your own mind. Bucky reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from your face. 
“You can’t hold onto that anymore. It’s over. It’s done. No matter what happened in that hotel room, I’m here and I’m fine.” “I can’t stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes, I see my hands covered in your blood. After I stitched you up, I went into the bathroom and I swear I looked like Carrie after the prom.”
His eyebrows furrowed and you shook your head, waving him off. 
“I can’t just let it go, Buck.” “Then give it to me.”
You looked up and met his eyes, the icy blue earnest as he stared into your eyes. 
“Let me carry it for you.”
You started to shake your head and he took hold of your hands. 
“If not me, then someone else. We’ll find you someone to talk to, who can help you through this.”
You held tightly to his hands and he leaned forward, resting his forehead against yours. You sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly as you closed your eyes. Bucky lifted his head to press his lips against your forehead, and you stepped forward, putting your face in his chest. He smiled as he wrapped his arms around you and you turned your head to where his heartbeat was directly under your ear. You kept your eyes closed as a Bucky started to gently sway. 
“Does this mean you’ll go on a date with me?” “Have you asked me to go on a date with you?” “I thought it was this unspoken thing.”
You shook your head, leaning back and staring up at him. 
“You’re old, and your mind must be going.” “I’ll show you—“
You shut him up by going on your toes and pressing your lips to his. Bucky’s shocked inhale sounded a second before his hands tugged you closer, and you threw your arms around his neck. When you broke apart, both of you silently panting for air, Bucky gave a quiet laugh. 
“Took you long enough.”
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