#Fanfiction: Tales with Roger

[anika-ann]

Ocaruj me (Bewitch Me) - S.R.

Type: medieval/fantasy/fairy tale AU; drabbl-ish; a part of this pseudo-medieval-fantasy AU

Pairing: knight Steve Rogers x reader   Word Count: 2k

Summary: Knight Steven Rogers is a man with love. That love is you. His beautiful lady who bewitched his soul even without the supernatural powers you possess. He'll follow you anywhere.

It that means bathing in a lake in a moonlight, so be it.

Warnings: 18+, nsfw, smut, unprotected sex (shocking in medieval times huh), bit of angst, fluff, knight Steve ‘cause he’s a warning, Slovak language ‘cause I can

A/N: Actual title is Očaruj mě (Bewitch Me) ...tumblr cannot handle a "č" and an “ě“ in their title 🙃 DIVIDER by @firefly-graphics; inspired by THIS ask (you can find headcanons and a playlist there)

A/N 2: Chronologically fits before the events of Pomiluj mě, but if you read this first, you will spoil some of the reveals.

Magic is a dark evil thing; that is what all knights of the kingdom are reminded during their studies and training.

Magic is the wicked twine that curls around your wrist when you reach out a hand, grips you tight and drags you towards perdition.

Magic takes face of a twisted beauty, a temptress, and leads you down the path of sin with a smile worth of the Devil himself.

Magic only knows curses and wrongs.

Sir Steven Rogers knows these axioms by heart.

Steve knows they are horseshit; or at least fail to fulfil the basic rule of an axiom, which is supposed to be universality.

In Steve’s eyes, people are corrupted by many things, amongst which there is the power that comes with magic. That much is true. But the nature of magic itself is pure; t reveals the person wielding it and amplifies who they already are.

Steve would only agree with part of the axiom second to last, assured whenever he sees you. He would now too, standing near the bank of a lake, still fully clothed, his gaze inevitably drawn to the enticing image in front of him.

You, standing to the waist in the water, dressed in but the luxurious robe of moonlight caressing your skin and wearing the lake like the richest skirt; your hair cascading down freely like an elaborate veil, the commonly dark ink of your tattoo reaching from the side of your neck down your shoulder shinning bright.

When you glance over your shoulder, eyes glimmering more entrancingly than the moon and the stars combined, lips curling in a smile, the last thing Steve would compare you to would be the Devil, a dark evil thing.

The truth, however, is that if you did decide to drag him towards his end, he would follow voluntarily, heart pounding just as hard as it is now, with warmth in his chest and searing heat in is gut.  

When you speak his name, a sweet ‘rytier moj’, you indeed are every bit of a temptress, the seductress steering him toward the most beautiful of sins; but not in the name of evil.

In the name of love.

“How is it that you are not cold, bosorka moja? And by gods, remind me, love, why is it that I should follow?” he asks with a grin on his lips, as if he does not feel every ounce of his body being pulled to you by the alluring image of you alone, by the promise of the feel of your skin under his fingertips, of the taste of your lips, of your wickedly delicate hands touching him in ways no unwed lovers should.

You have told him there was a deeper meaning in bathing in that particular lake on this very night, but as fascinated as he always is by your faiths and magic, you have been convincing him with your lips whispering to his own, causing his memory to be considerably less reliable, his mind much more pliant.

You turn around to face him fully, your watery skirt swirling; Steve’s mouth turns dry at the sight of your stiff nipples and plump breasts, his last reservations dispersing as his pants become uncomfortably tight.

“For this lake is believed to possess supernatural properties, rytier moj. For I know it does,” you remind him gently, your gaze trailing down his body in appreciation as he sheds his cloak, his tunic and pants.

You once told him what you saw when he did and have aided him in recalling it quite frequently.

Beauty.

Strength.

Goodness.

Safety.

Home.

And desires personified.

Steve is only a man; all these are virtues in his mind, privileges, and the one that is not makes him preen all the more.

Dark eyes glimmering in the moonlight, your smile earns a teasing edge even as your words begin with gravity.

“Bathing in the light of the full moon nearest to the summer solstice makes one stronger. Something my knight might appreciate. I know I for sure would, since he insists on recklessly risking his life.”

His own lips curl up, heart humming with tenderness; he is cared for. He is worried about. He is loved. He is not the only one who has the comfort of a lover on their mind. Perhaps it is for ‘lovers’ is not quite the word fit for where his heart quivers in the matter of you and him. Not the only word.

Desire personified.

Gorgeous temptress.

But also beloved.

Láska moja.

Bosorka moja.

Home.

“All knights do, bosorka moja,” he says as he steps into the water, the liquid welcoming him with an unexpected sensation of cold and warmth combined.

Where his skin meets the water, immersed deeper with each tentative step on the invisible rocky floor, he is enveloped with an unfamiliar sensation, the warmth seeping into his skin almost violently, leaving gentle tingling in its wake.

His lungs expand. His heart thunders. His muscles ache until they feel as light as a feather. His large bones seem to harden, his joints feel stronger but pliant. His blood pumps vigorously, forcing a shuddering breath out of his chest.

Well, he’ll be damned; he would be if he wasn’t so blessed. He would never doubt you again. Not that he ever truly did.

You watch him, a hypnotic and hypnotizing gaze, soaked in the satisfaction and desire having thickened your tenderness. Your skin almost glows and Steve understands that his eyes were not deceiving him earlier. He is not the only one absorbing power; yours might be different in nature from his, so different and ethereal, a true force of nature, but a power nevertheless. And as you soaked in the water, your immense power grew further.

“And yet, I have not seen any knight, soldier or mercenary, nor the clumsiest commoner with as many scars, nor I saved them from so many,” you oppose him, still playful; yet, your voice has earned a husky quality Steve is drawn to like a mot to a flame, his steps growing confident.

For almost every step he takes, you take one back, away from him, sinking deeper, hiding your tempting body from his hungry sight. A delightful feigned chase begins, one of which you both know will only end in bodies intertwined. A dance Steve knows, for he has felt its thrill before, for he has danced with you before; he has danced lips to lips, hands to hips, hips to hips, lips attached to your mound with hooded eyes too, senses enveloped with heady primal need, laced with love both corporal and intangible.

It all hums within him, pounds with force bolstered by the magic surrounding him. You feel it too; he reads as much in your features.

“You haven’t seen them naked either,” he notes, a slight smile remaining.

The conversation continues even as it fades.

You hum with a smile of your own, stopping at last as takes three long strides and catches up with you, gazing up at him with a sweet challenge he cannot refuse. “That is true, rytier moj.”

But that is not what your body whispers, already miles ahead when only inches from him.

Touch me, it coaxes him instead.

Hold me.

Love me.

Have me.

Fill me.

Make me sing for you. Only for you.

Do as you crave; I crave the same, just as much.

Who is he to deny a lady? Who is he to deny you, especially when the wordless pleas entice him, please him, echo his own?

The slight prickle of strength reborn, one unknown to ordinary men, still heats his very core, his lips speaking on their own even as his fingers wander with purpose, over the skin of your waist, down your hip, over your belly button, to your sternum, over the swell of your breast, stepping closer to feel your hardened peaks brush against his chest, eliciting a breathy sound of his name amongst his questions.

“What of other blessed nights bathing in this lake? Equinoxes as well?”

Your hands move with purpose too; mapping the constellations of freckles and moles on his body, caressing the planes of strengthened muscle with teasing lightness. Your touch is surprisingly warm, Steve realizes distantly, his head and hands full of you; if he did not know better, if he did not know you were a witch, he would think you an entirely different magical species.   

As you nod and explain, your hand rises above water, stroking over his shoulder – the water follows seemingly effortlessly, swirling and curling around your palm; even as you speak, he shudders under the touch where your hands could not have possibly reached him, not at so many places at once; and yet, every single of these caresses are just as warm, loving and teasing as those of your own fingers.

With how you bended the water to your will, Steve would have thought you were born to do so. He would have thought he found himself a water nymph instead. His breathtaking, enchantingly playful water nymph.

“Bathing in the lake on a new moon nearing the spring equinox breeds rebirth, ridding of all old aches, body and heart,” you explain quietly, intimately, as your fingers tease along the dip along his hips, his own hands grasping your soft flesh with urgency growing. “First new moon after the autumn equinox calls upon the forest spirits, their protection, bringing the wiseness of our ancestors with their blessings.”

Steve’s head is full of you; your words, almost fairy-tale like, but spoken with reverence of a person who knows them true, whose rituals has called upon the forces of nature and has been rewarded for it, blessed by them.

His hands are full of you too and as his heart sings.

The rest of his body vibrates with need, impatient fingers slipping lower, towards your core, teasing alongside your slit. Even as he asks the only natural question, his focus is elsewhere, fingertip dipping into your welcoming heat, his lips whispering against yours, your hips eagerly meeting his touch.

“And what of winter solstice, bosorka moja? Tell me,” he coaxes, revelling in your playful touch turning into a grip on his hip instead, other hand wrapping around his own to urge him to sink his finger deeper, for another to join.

Who is he to deny you again? His bewitching water nymph, whose heat would envelop him just as welcomingly as the water of the lake and fill him with just as much exceptional powerful sensation...

Love her.

Take her.

Protect her.

Make her mine.

“It keeps your heart warm,” you sigh, mouth chasing after his, fingertips finally brushing over his hardness, curling around the length and squeezing and twisting enough for his strained muscles to melt, rushing to lift your leg to wrap around his waist, opening you up for him, your taste, your scent, your husky voice like the most tempting trap he rushes into with vigour and pride. “Keeps your love safe. On the full moon close--- oh Steve— closest to the solstice- preserving it even through the— the harshest of winters----Steven!

The steady movements of his fingers stutter at the needy pulsing grip around them, eliciting another and another, his thumb brushing over your clit, mouth slanting over yours to swallow your cries of ecstasy, cradling your head to his as your hips keep rocking into his hand. You’ll feel like heaven, like you always do, but the burst inside him at feeling your pleasure coaxed by him is almost, almost enough.

“I’ll be here,” he promises against your lips, kissing you again, tipping your head back, your body so gorgeously pliant to his greedy touch. “I will be here, with you, every quarter a year. Every month, every day, love.”

“Ľubim ťa,” you gasp and Steve makes another promise, to not meet you here, but bring you. Bring you from your shared home at last, because even by the damn equinox, he will have done you right, a ring on your finger, his everything made yours, as you deserve.

“Ľubim ťa, bosorka moja,” he whispers back, a chuckle escaping him when his eyes flutter open, offered a sight of soft sprinkles and curls of water rising above the surface and glimmering in the moonlight.

Your magic exploding outside of you as pleasure fills your veins.

Steve is certain it will never cease to amaze him; or spur him to coax something even more fascinating when chasing his own peak and yours together, even as that alone is a gift he cherishes.

Your hands slide to his shoulders for leverage as his fingers leave you empty, moving to your bottom to lift you up, sliding in almost effortlessly.    

No words are needed then. As you connect your bodies and souls alike, the water keeps dancing.

You glow behind Steve’s hooded eyes, tattoo shining as bright as your affection, beauty and goodness, a reminder that no, magic could not be further from the darkness in corporal form. In every waking moment, he would swear he has never seen, nor heard, nor felt anything more beautiful and lighter than you, even with a face and voice of a temptress you embody.

The only sin you have led him to, the only speckle of shame on his honour, is the one he will remedy soon and has nothing do with your magical nature.

No, not the Devil; a goddess in your own right.

And you have not cursed him, no. Sir Steven Rogers, tvoj rytier, entirely bewitched, feels blessed.

Other headcanon and playlist

S.R. masterlist - contains other knight!Steve fics, independent of this universe

Complete masterlist

Terms of endearment from Slovak language: Rytier moj (My knight) Bosorka moja (Witch mine) Láska moja (Love mine) Ľubim ťa (I love you)

I hope you enjoyed, loves 💕 Please consider leaving feedback/reblog/anything if you did 🥰

May April be kind to you 🌼✨

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Commander's Omega"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: alpha/omega, dystopia, sex slavery, forced breeding, mutilation, rape, corporal punishment, fascism, hurt/comfort, power imbalance, mpreg, age gap (38/23), mentions of abortion

Summary: After years of a mass infertility crisis, the United States is overtaken by religious fanatics, and Bucky Barnes finds himself thrust into a brutal world of survival. When he's discovered to be fertile, he's forced to serve as a vessel: a caste of omegas who bear children for the political elite.

Chapter III. Freedom to

Story Masterlist

Before:

First, the president and the ranking fifteen closest in command are assassinated. There’s an explosion that nobody can trace, and just like that, the whole cabinet goes.

Bucky’s halfway through his Wednesday physics lecture when the professor stops what she’s doing and grabs the remote. The tv gets turned on and the one hundred and twelve freshmen in the lecture hall watch it play out on the news with a sense of surrealism.

NYU winds up suspending all classes, and Bucky takes the train home to spend time with his parents. George and Winnie put him up in his old room, which they haven’t yet bothered to empty out. There’s still a poster of Nine Inch Nails on the back of the door from Bucky’s alternative phase. Becca, Trudy and Clair come home within the following week, and the house is just as cramped as it ever was.

That’s how he finds himself at home when the news breaks that Congress has been eliminated. Eliminated, that’s the word they use. Not an assassination. Now it’s a terrorist attack, and the martial law that’s been in place since two weeks ago has everyone in their homes by sundown. But there are already guardians patrolling the neighborhood streets as if they’re the ones in charge.

Bucky gets a text from his bank, notifying him that his accounts have been frozen and will be transferred to his Alpha spouse or next of kin. He's still what-the-fucking that with his sisters when his mom steps out of the room to go call his dad and urge him to come home early from work. All their phones start shrieking with emergency alerts, telling them to shelter in place, that people on the street could be shot.

In the next few hours, Bucky's father comes home, looking wan and disturbed. Bucky can't get him to give a straight answer on what he saw out there to make him so upset, but the occasional pops of gunfire and revving vehicles outside are a hint. Bucky keeps getting text messages from his bank, from the University. When he tries to log into his accounts, he's blocked, and repeat text messages are triggered to his phone.

Becca, Trudy, and Clair are beta: they don't get any text messages.

His mom and dad come back into the living room and join Bucky and his sisters in sitting on the couch and watching the tv. Within hours, the news programs stop broadcasting. The tv shows only static. Within days, the missing news programs are replaced with just one: a state news channel.

The new broadcasts are bare-boned, but they are very informative. The anchor who used to do the six o’clock news comes on for her slot. She sits poised behind the news desk, making no comment for a long minute. There’s sweat visibly beading on her brow, but it’s obvious that she’s trying hard to maintain her composure while sitting in front of the large banner they’ve set as a backdrop. It's a symbol Bucky recognizes from a Christian nationalist group that's been in the news these past few years. "That's ... that's the Sons of Jacob flag," he says.

"Sons of what?"

"Holy rollers," he breathes, dread welling in his stomach. "They have a chapter on campus."

“Good evening,” the news anchor says, when someone or something offscreen prompts her. Her hands clasp tightly atop the desk and she begins cheerfully reading off the news: "As of six p.m. eastern time today, security in the capital has been declared restored," she announces. "The worst of the fighting is suppressed, and recovery efforts are being prepared for deployment in all major cities north of the Knoxville-Raleigh line. In Washington D.C., the government is reported to be secured and solidly in place."

"Oh, thank goodness," Winnie says, but Bucky is frowning at the tv and shaking his head.

"I don't think they mean the US government, mom."

"What?"

"Insurgent forces have suffered devastating defeats, and have been pushed back beyond the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Reports of smaller insurgent camps located in the Pennsylvania mountains are unsubstantiated at this point, but government officials are warning civilians in the Allegany Mountain range to avoid travel. An extended shelter in place order is expected to remain in place for the region."

Bucky looks worriedly to his mother, because he’s not stupid. The newscaster lady looks almost exactly the same as she always had before, only now there's an odd enthusiasm radiating from her; a sort of glassy-eyed, desperate-to-be-believed look that doesn't sit well with Bucky. It doesn’t take him long to learn what that look is, or what it means.

It’s fear. And it means that he should be afraid too.

After:

“Ofsteven, good afternoon.”

Bucky looks up from his seat at the window. Today is the third day in a row that he’s sat there, time spent mostly staring out at the back yard. There’s a black guy who wears beta blue and tends to the flowers and bushes out there. Sam. Bucky's been wondering if he might go down and poke around the little greenhouse that's attached to the kitchen, or if he'd be chastised for getting in the way.

But now Commander Rogers is standing awkwardly in the doorway to his little room, and Bucky snaps to attention. It's odd, hearing himself referred to by this new name. Up until not too long ago, he was called Ofwarren. Then at the red center, it'd been back to James, and now it's back to the goddamn patronymic. “Commander,” he says respectfully. "Blessed day."

The Commander gives him a tight sort of smile. “Blessed day." He steps a little farther into the room. "You can call me Steve,” he offers. "If you want."

"What?" Bucky shifts uncomfortably, realizes that he's not joking. “But ... That’s not allowed."

“I run my household a little differently, you’ll find,” Steve says. “Commander is ..." he makes a face. "It's very formal. I’d prefer it if you called me Steve. Especially since we’ll, erm ... you know. Be getting to know one another better.”

In another life, Bucky would’ve blushed, but he’s been indoctrinated in some ways whether he’d like to admit it or not. He’s used to his role as an object by now. “Okay,” he agrees quietly. "Fine."

He doesn’t want to seem too eager to be breaking the rules, since this could just be Commander Rogers’ way of tricking him, of sussing him out. There are true Believers who get their kicks that way, and vessels like Bucky are already known for rule breaking, criminally sentenced to their roles as broodmares for the state. Steve might just be trying to lure him into a false sense of comfortability by feigning friendliness. Commander Putnam had been that way. The bottoms of Bucky’s feet have scars from his misplaced trust in years past, and he isn’t keen on earning more.

“You can call me Bucky if you want,” he reluctantly offers.

Steve nods, brightening a bit. “Okay. Bucky it is." His mouth quirks and he tilts his head. "I take it that's a nickname of some sort?"

"Yeah. My one sister started it, back when she couldn't pronounce my middle name." He shrugs. "It's what my family called me."

Steve smiles, encouraged. "Are any of them still around?”

“No.”

He's surprised yet again, when Steve makes it clear he's going to join him for lunch.

Bucky'd thought commanders like Steve were too busy to take meals outside their offices. Even now, nearly four years after the institution of biblical law, there's still a lot of work to do: insurgencies to hunt, population crises to handle, people to surveil, torture, maim. Kill. The restructuring of the country is still in its infancy, and just because the iron fist of fascism has closed firmly around their necks doesn't mean there's ever a shortage of work to be done.

Bucky doesn't yet know what Commander Rogers' specific role is, in this brave new nation of theirs, but so far, every Commander that he's encountered has held an instrumental position. He tries to remember that, when his first instinct is to trust Steve's surface-level kindness. Steve isn't like him. He caused this. He wanted this.

Steve leads them downstairs, down to the conservatory that connects the kitchen to the greenhouse. It's set up as an informal dining room, and Bucky’s taken aback when, after placing a simple lunch of soup and sandwiches onto the table for the Commander and Bucky, the Martha named Sharon puts out four other place settings. Shortly thereafter, Sharon and the redheaded servant—Natasha, Bucky learns, and the gardener and the driver (Sam and Clint) join the table as well.

They eat in relative silence, and Bucky spends the meal sneaking surreptitious glances around at everybody. They’re all eating together as if they're equals, when Bucky knows they very much are not. Gender roles have been staunchly enforced in the past four years, and it's become a rare sight indeed, to have alphas, betas, and omegas interacting together all at once.

Steve is sitting at the head of the table, and it comes as a shock when he says, “So how has everyone’s morning been?”

Bucky keeps his eyes on his sandwich, sure that he’s not expected to answer. Natasha is the first one who speaks, saying, “Pretty good. Got the vacuuming done."

"Upstairs, or downstairs?" Steve asks pointedly.

"Downstairs. Upstairs isn't ready yet."

"Dammit," Steve grunts.

"All the laundry's done.” Natasha glances reproachfully at Sam. “Unless somebody makes an awful mess of his clothes going forward. Blood isn't exactly easy to get out, you know.”

Sam chuckles. “I have a dirty job, sue me.” He looks pointedly at Steve. "I got the hedges done."

"Did that go smoothly?" Steve asks without looking up from his soup. Bucky frowns, wondering how trimming the hedges could go wrong.

"There were a few dead spots, but they came off without a hitch."

"Disposed of?" Steve asks.

"Yep. Threw 'em in the burn pit."

Steve nods in somber approval. "Good riddance."

Jeez, Bucky thinks, these people take lawn maintenance very seriously. He realizes after a beat that his mouth is gaping a little, and he snaps it shut. This is the first time in nearly four years that he’s observed alphas, betas and omegas speaking so freely with one another, acting like equals. It’s almost like before. The thought puts an ache in his chest, which he quickly squashes.

“How about you Bucky?”

His eyes shoot up to find Steve and everyone else at the table regarding him. He quickly swallows the bite of sandwich in his mouth to answer, “Um, I’ve been okay. Just ... been in my room.” The answer is so dull that it almost makes him feel embarrassed. Even now, when the highlights of other people’s days are as tedious as laundry and gardening, Bucky himself has nothing to offer in the way of conversation. He doesn’t dare complain, though. There are worse things than being bored.

“You must be getting bored up there in your room,” Steve observes.

“Um …”

“I have a modest library in my office. If you like, you can poke around and find something that interests you.”

Bucky's stomach sinks, and his fingers feel cold where they grip his sandwich. “Excuse me?” he asks. Surely, this is a trap. This is the Rogers’ household trying to see whether he’s a True Believer or not. They're testing him. Bucky feels sick at the prospect of getting in trouble, so he mumbles, “I don’t think so,” and looks back down at his plate. “That’s not allowed.”

There’s a long beat of awkward silence, and then Steve says, “Guys, can you give us a minute?”

Four chairs scrape against the stone floor of the conservatory and Natasha and the others file out through the kitchen, disappearing back into the house. Bucky feels dread well in his gut. Has he said the wrong thing?

“Bucky,” Steve says carefully. “Do you really think that it’s wrong for an omega to read?”

Bucky can feel Steve’s eyes boring into his head, so he looks up. Steve doesn’t look upset, he looks interested. Bucky licks his lips nervously. “Well. I dunno. I ... was an engineering major, in college,” he says. “I minored in English Lit.”

Steve nods sympathetically. “I take it you were quite an avid reader, then.”

“I guess.”

Steve continues to eat his lunch as if Bucky hasn’t said anything wrong, and it gives Bucky hope. Surely this can’t be, he thinks. Surely there aren’t people like this, aren’t households like this, anymore. “Did you really mean it?” he asks, heart lifting with new hope, about ready to bust free of the scar tissue that’s kept it tethered down for so long. "You'd let me read?"

“Yes,” Steve says. “You can come to my office tonight, after evening meal. You can pick out some books.”

Bucky’s heart soars. “Can I take some back to my room?”

“Absolutely not,” Steve snaps, sounding like a true Commander for the first time yet. He levels Bucky with a stern look. “My office is the only room in the house without windows. Do you understand? You may only read them in there.”

Bucky swallows heavily and ducks his head, cowed. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Okay.”

Before:

Bucky’s naked toes scrape the ledge of the exam table. He’s only wearing the paper gown they gave him, and frankly the room’s too cold for that. The door to the exam room opens again, and Bucky’s eyes shoot up. He sits up straighter. “Doctor?”

The man doesn’t look at him. He walks over to the cabinets in the room and drops the folder he’s holding onto the countertop with a flourish and a sigh. Bucky screws up his face at having been ignored. “Um … what did the—”

“You’re pregnant,” the doctor says flatly, still not turning around. “Congratulations.”

Bucky’s heart sinks. Sure, he’d suspected. Hell, he’d pretty much known. Two positive at-home tests and a smiling pharmacist when he’d been desperate enough to buy a third had told him so. It’s why he’d come to the clinic. But still, shit. “Okay,” he says, swallowing heavily. “Okay. So, do I need to make another appointment to come back? Or can we just …”

The doctor’s shoulders tense up through the material of his lab coat. “Excuse me?” he says. He turns around and the expression on his face makes Bucky want to shrink away. “‘Can we just’? ‘Can we just’ what?”

“... I told you,” Bucky says, wary of the man's anger. “The pregnancy. I want to terminate.”

If he had any doubts about what was going through the physician’s mind, they’re quickly quashed by the way the man’s face now dissolves into disgust. “Well isn't that a pretty way of putting it,” he spits. “You want an abortion?”

“Uh, yeah.” Bucky juts his chin out in defiance. “You got a problem with that?”

The doctor scoffs. “Yes, I do. You know, hardly anyone can have a baby anymore. You manage to get pregnant, and you want to kill it?”

“It’s my choice.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Bucky stands up, heedless of the fact that he’s dressed in only the flimsy paper gown. “I don’t think you’re being very professional,” he says. Really, it’s not that this doctor’s opinion is that different from a lot of people’s these days, but Bucky still feels infuriated at the fact that he’s having to have this argument with a doctor, of all people. “Now, do I have to make an appointment to come back?” he grits. "Or can we take care of this today?"

The man’s features harden. “You’ll have to go somewhere else if you want to murder your own child. We don’t do that here.”

Bucky grinds his teeth. “This is a city-funded clinic.” He’d specifically come here instead of the private doctor that his parents’ insurance could easily cover. “You have to provide reproductive health care. It’s the law.”

“The law’s going to change real soon.” The doctor turns his back to Bucky and heads for the door. 

Bucky watches in disbelief as he's utterly dismissed. “Excuse me?”

“Get the hell out of my clinic,” the man says as he flings the door open and steps out into the hallway. He spares Bucky one last contemptuous glance. “There’s a special place in Hell for people like you.”

Bucky gapes as the man goes, and the door slowly shuts behind him. Suddenly, the room feels even colder than it had before, and Bucky’s desperate to get his clothes back on. He stoops to grab his jeans and underwear from where he’d put them on a chair, and he shucks them on, followed by his shirt. He rakes his hands through his hair, feeling overwhelmed tears pricking at the edges of his eyes. He’s had enough shit to deal with lately, what with midterms, his boyfriend breaking up with him, and now this pregnancy scare (well, not a scare anymore, as it turns out). He really didn’t need to deal with such a shitty person on today of all days.

“Well fuck you too,” he mutters to the empty room, bitterness burning in his gut. He’s going to go straight to the next city clinic, and the next, and the next, until he finds someone to agree to help him. Because no way in fucking hell is he having a baby one semester into undergrad.

After:

Bucky trails his hands over the spines of the books that line Commander Rogers’ library. Steve is sitting at his desk, distracted by whatever he’s looking at on the screen of his computer.

There must be over a thousand books in the office. Steve has books on everything from philosophy to horticulture; from biographies and novels, to antique encyclopedias and foreign language art books. Bucky can’t help but be impressed. And jealous. "This is amazing," he murmurs.

Steve spares him a glance from over at his desk. He looks vaguely amused. “It’s just a library.”

Said like someone who's never had anything taken away from him, Bucky thinks peevishly. “Must be a thousand," he guesses.

"Close to twelve hundred, last time I counted."

"Are they all yours, or did they come with—” he cuts himself off before he can complete the question.

It’s not talked about openly, isn't considered polite, but everybody knows that the Commanders of the Faithful all live in grand houses that were taken and not bought. Taken from people deemed unworthy by the government. Gender traitors, freedom fighters, apostates. There are plenty of things that can get a person killed these days, their house stripped away along with everything else they own. There’s a strong chance that this house they’re standing in right now got snatched from someone else; a person with a life, hopes and dreams, furniture, family. A person with possessions and passions. With books. 

Bucky tenses when he comes across an entire section stuffed full with different spiritual and holy books. There's one whole shelf dedicated to nothing but an assortment of bibles: King James, Catholic, Greek, and New Republic versions, all. Old and new, English and Latin. It seems to be a collection, and Bucky moves away down the line of books, uneasy at the evidence of Steve's religious fervor. "You're a collector?"

“Sort of. Took me over a decade to build all that up, though," Steve says. "I brought them all down when I moved. Couldn’t choose which ones to leave behind."

"Behind?"

"In New York.”

Bucky snaps to attention. “New York City?” he asks.

Steve looks over and sees his reaction—which must be telling, because a knowing smile splits his face. “What borough?” he asks.

“Brooklyn. Red Hook."

He scoffs and thumbs at his own chest. “Gowanus. Wow. I guess it’s a small world after all, huh? We probably grew up less than twenty minutes apart from each other."

Bucky bites his tongue to keep from saying any number of inappropriate, unfriendly things; about how their shared West Brooklyn origin is probably the only thing they have in common, how their situations are nothing alike, how Steve is obviously older than him, so they definitely were never “growing up” at the same time together, no matter where they lived. "Yeah,” he grunts. “Small world."

He keeps his focus on the books in front of his face. He's nervous just from perusing the titles; feels like he’s thirteen again, sneaking into his parents’ wine fridge, about to be caught and grounded at any second. Silly perhaps, but he can’t shake it. He doesn’t want to get into an unnecessary discussion on his appreciation for Commander Rogers’ library, or his own affinity for reading. Reading is forbidden for people like Bucky now. If caught, it could cost him a finger, or god forbid a whole hand. Since he’s only got the one left to work with, he’s got to be careful. The back of his brain keeps itching with the niggling reminder, over and over again: This could still be a trick.

In another life maybe he’dve be embarrassed of such paranoia, but he isn't now. He’s been conditioned to be this suspicious. At this point it’s simply survival instinct, to resist the twitch of his fingers as they linger over Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It's sandwiched alphabetically right between Huxley and Orwell, with a little metal placard overhead that's engraved in tidy letters: Dystopian Fiction. Bucky starts to reach for the book.

“You a fan of the genre?”

His heart leaps and he jerks his hand back and looks over at Steve. “What? No. No I just …” Steve watches him keenly, with an inscrutable expression that does nothing to calm Bucky's nerves. He hastily shakes his head. “I’d seen the movie once, is all. Before.” He doesn’t have to expound on what “Before” means. They both know. Before the government collapsed. Before the regime took over. Before the world went to shit.

Well, he doesn’t yet know if Steve agrees with that last part. Regardless, Bucky knows he can’t place all of his trust on this man and his considerate treatment thus far. It isn’t worth what little bodily integrity he has left. He's got to be careful. “It was a depressing movie, anyway,” he mumbles, and moves on down the line of books to look for something else.

He winds up choosing a pulpy science fiction novel that he’s never heard of, by an author he’s never heard of, with subject matter completely removed from real life. It’s a cheap paperback, with a worn spine and outdated, sun-bleached cover art. Looks like something somebody dug out of a bin at a yard sale. It's probably not a very good read, but if Bucky’s going to be caught reading anything, it’ll be least painful if it’s something that has nothing to do with anything. Nothing … subversive. 

Steve doesn’t seem to care one way or another, though his eyes do seem sympathetic, as if he knows that Bucky is holding himself back. “You can come at night,” he tells him. “After dinner. I’ll be in here most nights. Sometimes doing business with other people, but when it’s just you and I alone together, I'll lock the door. You can stay and read whatever you like.”

Bucky tenses up at that wording: “alone together.” Since Gilead began, there’s only ever been one alpha who went out of his way to be alone with Bucky, and it hadn’t been for charitable reasons. “But it's not … It’s not a trade, right?” he checks nervously. When he works up the nerve to look at Steve's face, he catches the tail end of a shocked look, which rapidly bleeds into a scowl of insulted indignation. Bucky panics and tries to backtrack. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You don’t have to come in here at all, if you don’t want to,” Steve snaps. “Go to your room instead, for all I care.” He goes back to his typing at the computer, visibly incensed. “I don’t expect anything from you.”

Bucky winces, mortified at having pissed off his new Commander so soon—and when the guy was only trying to be nice to him, too! There’s so little left in this miserable world for people like Bucky, and now he fears he might’ve ruined the one good thing that was being offered. “No,” he hurries to say. “I’ll stay. I-I'd like to. I mean ... if that’s still okay?” 

Steve shrugs and doesn’t look over. “Do what you want.”

Feeling cowed, Bucky goes over to sit on the couch. He curls up in the corner nearest the room's fireplace and flips past the copyright and the title pages. He begins reading chapter one. It’s only as he’s re-reading the same paragraph for the third time that he realizes he’s not taking any of it in. He sighs and looks over at Steve. “I’m sorry," he says. "I wasn’t trying to insult you."

"It's fine."

Bucky bites his lip and looks back down. After another moment, he quietly adds, "Really, though. It's ... it means a lot, you letting me read in here." He peeks up again and finds Steve regarding him again, this time with a softened expression. Bucky tries to smile a little, and uses his name like a peace offering: "Thank you ... Steve."

Steve inhales deeply and nods, satisfied. “You’re welcome. Bucky.”

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[swan-of-sunrise]

1,000 FOLLOWERS!!!

I've been super busy for the past several weeks (having your house fumigated for termites sucks lol) but holy shit, guys, we've crossed into 1,000 followers! When I first created this blog, I never expected to have even 100 followers so seriously, thank you guys so freaking much for following, either for my fics or my reblogs or my opinions lol it really means a lot to me, so thank you for 1,000! 🥰

[blackwood4stucky]

maybe we’re just born with stardust in our blood | aspen blackwood

james “bucky” barnes x steve rogers | mcu | complete

tags: ws!witch!bucky, bucky barnes centric

synopsis: Team Cap search for the one thing that could send Bucky back to where he started.

read: ao3 | ffn | sqwa

teaser | full playlist

bingo fills: ch 1 | ch 2

[ronearoundblindly]

The Stark Legacy (19)

Delight, part of Book II: Mind (see previous or series)

Summary: The compound deals with everyday challenges alongside holiday struggles.

Warnings for canon-level language and discussion of drugs and abuse. Rated Teen, 15+ ONLY, please.

CHAPTER NINETEEN—December 2038

“Ok, guys,” Peter Parker started energetically, “I gotta get back to decorate the tree tonight, so here’s what I got so far.”

“Go ahead,” Steve allowed.

“Bad batch of drugs is killing kidnapped homeless people, and now some of the same drug has been interspersed in huge illegal shipments around the world,” Peter rambled.

“Why didn’t we catch this earlier?” Bucky was given exactly the time it took to walk from the quinjet to the conference room to settle in. After yesterday’s all-nighter and a long flight, he was in a sharp mood.

“I found out when I ran into two kids who were experimented on,” Peter said.

“Romanoff and Thor got very little out of the drug’s creator,” Steve added. “We’ve had this professor in custody for a while,” he continued, sliding a file over to Bucky, “and he’s a full-blown nut job, with too many connections. It’s been a joke trying to track all the crime this guy might be involved in.”

“Seriously,” Bucky mumbled, “I’ve been sunning myself instead of helping with this?”

“Buck, we’ve got dozens of agents,” Steve snapped. He had rested no better than his friend. “T’Challa needed you more than us.”

Bucky scanned the file. “You have to be joking. D-Lite?”

“Yup.” Peter checked his watch.

“That sounds like an off-brand soda.”

Steve sighed in frustration. “Parker has two informants, Tandy and Tyrone, was it? They told us where the experiments took place, past tense, and now we are trying to help them control…whatever it was that triggered in them by this heroin substitute.”

“Whoever it doesn’t change, it kills flat out.” Peter’s face sank, remembering the stories he’d heard from his young recruits. “And it gets a little weirder because the survivors said that Professor Marshall was helped by a demon.”

“What the hell—”

“Yup. Basically. Named despair, at least that’s what Marshall called him, it, whatever.” Peter looked at his watch again and punched in something on the table’s comms. “And that’s it for me, so Natasha can go from here. Bye.” He bolted to the door, yelling a “Merry Christmas” to everyone on his path out. 

Steve leaned over. “He told me earlier that Christmas is the only time his teenager isn’t a ‘total douche,’ his words, so he’s a bit excited to go home.”

Nat’s face popped up in familiar blue. 

“Boys, I’m sending you new info that we’ve gathered, but,” Nat paused, “this is a mess. Only a fraction of these shipments have been tampered with, and there is no way to test all of it. We’ve got to destroy everything we find. You can imagine how many friends we’ve made.”

“And the other doctor affiliated with Marshall?” Steve sorted a few windows on his tablet.

“Clint was tracking Dorcas until the trail went cold. It’s like he actually disappeared into the ocean. We asked King Namor to keep a guard up just in case. The Sub-Mariner said he’d heard a legend of D’Spayre,” Nat cleared her throat, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but according to Atlantian lore, the demon D’Spayre was created from the fear their ancestors experienced when the whole kingdom sunk into the ocean. Hell of a bedtime story.”

“Well, the devil attacked us last year, so…” Bucky was going to need some time to absorb all this, line the players up on the field in his mind. “Alright, let’s get more details from Clint. Fresh eyes can’t hurt.”

“He’s states-side now,” Nat clarified.

Bucky looked at Steve. His friend shrugged. “And Sharon is waiting for me at the house,” Steve said, tentatively, “her rule when I came back. Home for the holidays unless…you know, disaster.”

“Guess it’s just me, Doc, and Wilson,” Bucky grumbled. “When does Stark get back?”

Nat pursed her holographic lips. “Gamora and Rocket send us subspace messages, but Tony’s been out of range for weeks. There’s a whole other problem…I’ll have to…we don’t know much, so I’d like us to wait for Stark to brief us. We’ve got enough to handle now.”

“Fine,” Steve allowed again, “keep us posted.” Nat’s form vanished.

Bucky leaned farther back in the conference room chair, sorting through what he’d just heard and known for a while.

“I think I liked being lower on the totem pole,” he said tightly. “There was a lot less to worry about. Go here, kill this guy. Go there, one more. Chill out and do nothing for a few months—”

“Buck,” his oldest friend interrupted, leaning forward with hands intertwined, “maybe you shouldn’t joyfully reminisce about single kills, yeah?”

Bucky swallowed inside his clenched jaw.

“For right now, I need you and Sam to work together,” Steve continued.

“She’s in Wakanda,” he replied quickly.

“Actually, both of them. Big Sam seems to respond well to Lil’Sam, and I think she can help him focus during training.”

“I should have just brought her with me,” Bucky mumbled.

Steve sat up. “Wait. So who…”

It only occurred to Bucky as Steve trailed off. No one had invited Samantha home. No one had even thought to do so just in case. All the pieces moved on the chess board and swiveled right past her. Her only remaining family was zipping through space somewhere. Clint hadn’t known he’d be back until the last minute. Natasha was flying around constantly. Bruce—

As if summoned by the thought, Banner pressed the door open with his back and looked up from his tablet. “Hey, gang, can we talk about Sam?” Bruce looked up over his glasses, unaware of his timeliness.

Steve’s expression said it all. “Shit.”

Samuel Wilson shoveled food into his mouth as if he were starving. A few people wandered in and out of the kitchen while Bucky looked on, mortified.

“You’re gonna get sick, buddy,” Bucky said as if he too would be sick.

“I’m in training, man. I lost so much muscle mass—it’s a bitch to put back on.” Sam gulped from the huge water bottle he carried everywhere.

“Glad to see your mood improved after sleep.”

“Bite me,” Falcon coughed between fork-fulls.

He ignored that rousing invitation. “You seemed to respond well to Samantha,” Bucky started.

“Lil’ Sam,” the hungry, hungry hippo corrected.

 “—so I thought she could help us out the next few flights. What do you think?”

“Whatever.” Sam continued to eat. Bruce had warned Bucky not to expect much real interaction from Wilson. After waking up, the onslaught of high brain activity had plateaued, and his personality was still recovering, if it was coming back at all. Wilson’s moods still jumped around, and his focus was erratic. Bruce had suggested trying some unconventional, new methods of acclimating Falcon back into the team. This was as good of an idea as any other.

To Bucky’s surprise, Samantha jumped at the chance to help, and he could she her projection sitting on the disc in the yard as he and Falcon approached. He was even more surprised when Little Sam took the reins right away.

“Tell you what, Big Sam,” she started, smiling, an odd thing to see for the first time on a projection. It seemed foreign somehow. “You beat me at cards, and you can skip flying today. Deal?”

Wilson perked up immediately. He stood straighter. He smirked. He bounced in his step, what he’d several times described to Bucky as ‘swagger.’ “You’re on. That’s what I’m talking about. See?” He glared at Bucky, “not everything has to be serious.”

Samantha dealt cards onto her platform, scooting off to lean only her face and arms into the projection, and Falcon took off his flight pack and curled up in front of the circle like a kid with a new toy. Bucky watched for a few minutes. Wilson stayed excited, fun, sarcastic, and competitive, but even when Samantha had a good hand that beat his, Wilson playful congratulated her. He never got cranky; he never snapped at her. Bucky left them outside, keeping a watchful eye from just inside the building. He couldn’t tell who was winning the entire time because they both seemed so genuinely excited for each other. The two Sams clearly joked and chided each other, talked animatedly, and finally, both threw up their hands in shock.

Samantha did a small victory dance while Wilson pressed his comm. “Alright, Barnes, it’s flight time. Fair and square.”

The whole practice was derailed by Samantha’s intermittent challenges for Falcon to fly in a certain way or pattern, once was hands flat by his sides like Iron Man launching, another was a figure eight, but Bucky didn’t mind as soon as he figured out what she was doing. He never caught her eye to confirm, but Samantha deliberately asked Wilson questions during flight, rehashed old memories, and left small details for Wilson to correct. Bucky suspected she was testing him, yet Wilson became his old self for the first time in half a year.

Sixty minutes became ninety. Ninety minutes became three hours, and still, Falcon flew strong. He’d successfully flown by a neural link alone twice without noticing because Samantha suggested he show off his dance moves. After a particularly fluid, in-flight Bruno Mars impression, Bucky clapped for Falcon’s achievement, assuming Samantha was equally impressed. When he turned to look, however, she wasn’t on the platform anymore. He could only see a combat boot on its side at the circle's edge.

“Sam,” he called, “did you trip?”

The foot did not move.

“Samantha,” Bucky tried with more urgency, “are you okay? Say something. We can’t see you.”

There was a quiet moan, and the foot dragged off out of view. “Ow…”

“Seriously, are you alright?”

“Lil’ Sam, come on. What’s up?” Wilson sauntered up. “You still got two left feet?” Bucky could hear the calm tone, but Wilson’s face showed only concern. They stood looking into thin air, helpless, unable to even reach out a hand.

Finally, a hand stuck itself into their view and gave a shaky thumbs up. A strained chuckle vibrated through the speakers. “I—I—just I need to eat is all.” Her voice was too quiet.

“What the hell? How long has it been since you ate?” Bucky put his hand to his forehead, demanding, “go into my place and eat something. You fainted.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll go lie down too.”

“I’ll send someone to check on you,” Bucky added.

“No,” Samantha said, leaning into the circle, her face stern, “I’m not built like you guys. I’ll just rest and see you tomorrow.” She switched off the platform from Wakanda.

“What’s wrong with Lil’ Sam?” Wilson stopped immediately in front of Bucky, so close Bucky could feel his breath. “Is she sick? Why didn’t she come home? She should be here.” The anger rose quickly in his voice.

Bucky raised his arms defensively without touching Sam. “Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t told to bring her back, and—” He stopped, himself a little hurt by the reality. “No one…” Wanted her home? That was a cruel way to put what seemed like a simple oversight. Asked her home? Did a Stark actually need to be asked to do anything? She could feasibly do whatever the hell she wanted, and did from what he saw. Remembered her? Bucky had to admit that he repeatedly forgot about Sam until he found a use for her today. “You’ll see her tomorrow, Sam. I’ll make sure of it. She’s fine. I’m looking after her.”

Falcon stormed off, knocking him against the shoulder hard as he passed. “You better,” he hissed and mumbled about food on his way inside. The quick turn of his friend’s dark mood shocked Bucky. They’d been doing so well.

Bucky thought back to years ago when Wilson had been so ashamed of falling out of touch with Samantha. How close had they really been? He flicked back through the recording of their card game. 

“—I definitely taught you how to bluff better than that—”

“—when you trained me to beat Nate with that trick shot before his basketball tryouts? He was pissed for weeks—I studied all the birds around the farm. I was gonna tell you all about them on your next visit—”

“—I should have taught you a good punch for those kids who called you that—”

It reminded Bucky of all the fellow soldiers at Lehigh who took over parenting him after his father’s accident. He had pieces of friendship and advice from everyone, but he remembered how sometimes the niceties only made him feel his loss more deeply. No single person could replace his father, and the more and more support he got, the more alone he felt when no one was around. His own father had died though; how did Sam feel knowing her father was still alive but took no part in raising her?

Bucky had always understood Stark’s perspective, perhaps because he felt so deeply responsible for how Tony became the man he was. Tony lost his parents to violent, evil forces, and after a period of burying his head in a bottle, he worked constantly to stop that from happening to anyone else. It was a full-time, all-time, forever job that only grew bigger and more complicated as the years went on. Now Earth needed two super soldiers, demigods, aliens, lab accidents, young drug-created recruits, and a veritable army of Inhumans running whole departments in every region just to keep evil at bay. Giving up on that to raise just one child alone, without her mother, the love of his own life, was such a foreign skill set, why wouldn’t he have outsourced it? 

After all the pain he put those he assassinated through, Bucky would never choose to be tortured by reliving what he’d done to their families. He would admit it, go through it for their benefit if he must, but if he didn’t have to, he would hide in a shitty apartment in Romania. Which is exactly what he did once. So Bucky had never blamed Tony for living separately from his daughter. Bucky shoved his head in the sand, hoping the world would heal and move forward without him; Tony dove head-first into protecting the whole world and hoped his daughter would be safer for it.

She was safer, in a way, but Samantha wasn’t really Tony’s kid anymore. She wasn’t really anyone’s kid entirely, and even though the responsibility had been spread thin over a dozen or so people over the years, no one, in particular, claimed her. Big Sam and Little Sam had obviously started a friendship that looked like family, but it died somewhere over the last decade. Bucky stood mesmerized by the ease at which the Sams picked up interacting with each other; he’d never seen Samantha so comfortable, friendly even. It was a little unnerving, like watching a stage performance before the curtain closed.

The footage paused when a message from Samantha popped up on his tablet. “Big Sam counts cards without knowing it. Can be distracted from doing it, but is capable of complex cognitive tasks he could not previously do. Tell Bruce.”

So, she really was testing him. Smart girl.

[Chapter 20: Nourish]

[thekingofthenameless]

Yet another OC for Emerald Embers!

Her name is Rachel Rogers!

(No relation to Steve Rogers.)

Assuming Jim is eight, she’s worked at the Arcadia Oaks hospital for seven to eight years and she has no friends?? She’s literally amazing?? She has a tendency to call her Barbie to mess with her. #letBarbarahaveafriend2022

[chasingmidnights]

If You Thought the Head Trauma Was Bad

Title: If You Thought the Head Trauma Was Bad 

Summary: Living on a ranch meant that there were many ways you could have an accident. You knew the ins and outs to avoid such things. However, when an unexpected storm rolls in and spooks a couple of the horses, you find yourself in a bit of a situation. 

Warnings: going blind; blunt trauma from an animal; minor/major injuries to character; mentions of tests being done on the brain; takes place during a storm; hospital stay; and I think those are the major ones. I apologize if I miss anything but you are responsible for what you read. 

Author’s Note: Kind of a Marvel AU and Peter is in his mid-twenties so he’s not in high school in this. Also, there's Steve and Bucky (with a mention of Sam) being ranch hands! I hope you enjoy!

Wordcount: 1,577

The morning of your accident, you were greeted with a roaring storm. The thunder booming outside is what ultimately woke you up. You groaned, annoyed that it was storming. Last night when you checked the weather, it showed no signs of rain, let alone a storm. Otherwise, you would’ve secured the barn and made sure the horses were all set for the weather. You tossed the covers off of you and climbed out of bed. You quickly changed into some proper clothes before grabbing your rain boots and coat. You should’ve known better than to go out there and tame multiple horses by yourself but you really didn’t have a choice. 

By the time you had reached the barn and inside of it, you were completely soaked. Ignoring how drenched you were, you immediately started working on closing up the barn. To say that the horses were upset would be an understatement. Their whining rang throughout the barn and their hooves banged against the walls of the stalls and their doors. You knew who the main culprit was for getting the other ones so riled up, Marvel. She was a beauty but she couldn’t handle storms, they gave her extreme anxiety. A light rainfall wouldn’t trigger her but anything more than that would set her off. Her partner in crime was Winter, who was just as anxious. You worked as fast as you could to secure the barn. The rattling of a loose hinge on one of the stalls catches your attention. Ugh, you had asked Sam to fix that a few days ago. You roll your eyes and make a mental note to scold him later. 

Boom! The sound of the thunder strikes fear into the two horses causing them to neigh and buck up in their stalls. You rushed over to them and did your best to soothe them. However, nothing you did seemed to be working. The hinge continued to rattle and shake. Boom! Another loud clap of thunder resonates throughout the barn, sending the horses into a frenzy. Winter gave the door to his stall a good kick causing it to fly open. You rushed over to the freaked out horse to try and calm him. He had other plans though. As soon as you were about to take your first step towards him, he charged at you. So, you didn’t get run over by him, you jumped out of the way, landing on your side on the concrete floor of the barn. Standing back up, you quickly went over to Winter before he started to mess with the other horses. Between the thunder and the neighing of the horses, it was hard to hear yourself think. 

You’re not exactly sure how, everything was happening so fast but you ended up with your back against one of the stall doors. Just as another clap of thunder sounded, the horse behind you reared up on its hind legs. When it was coming back down, it ended up kicking you in the back of the head. Between the impact of the hoof and hitting your head on the concrete floor, it rendered you unconscious. When you woke up the next day, you started to panic. Your breathing became labored and you couldn’t see anything. You were completely in the dark. Not being able to see caused you to panic even more. When someone began to touch you, you instantly pulled away not knowing who it was, frightened you. 

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down. It’s me Peter.” Peter says, in a calm and soothing tone. 

“P-Peter?” You inquire, still unsure. 

“Yeah, Whisper, it’s me. I’m here.” Peter reassures you, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. You squeeze his hand in return and end up intertwining them. 

“Peter,” You start, a little more confident but your voice is still shaky. “I-I-I can’t see anything Peter.” 

Later on, you had found out that Peter was the one that had found you unconscious. He brought you straight to the hospital as quickly as he could and hasn’t left your side since. The doctor explained to you that the hoof hit the area of your occipital lobe causing severe damage. During your stay at the hospital, they did several tests, making sure no other part of the brain was damaged. Two weeks later, you were finally released. However, even though you were going home, you still hadn’t regained your vision. The doctor said that there was a possibility of it returning but the chances of that happening were slim. 

When Peter got you home, he helped you get settled into your house. It felt good to be home, you couldn’t deny that but now without your vision, you were unsure how you were going to get around. Peter said he would stay with you as long as you needed to and you appreciated him for that. He helped you with anything and everything you asked of him and didn’t complain once. Even the other ranch hands pitched in more when Peter had to run an errand or something. Since being hom, you hadn’t stepped into the barn. You wanted to so badly but you just couldn’t get over the growing fear that something else might happen. You truly missed your horses, you did. But you just couldn’t push yourself to do it. 

One morning, you slowly got ready for the day and by now you had gotten into somewhat of a routine. You were determined that today was going to be the day that you were going to go back to the barn. You needed to, it was killing you not to. Before leaving the house, you shrug on your jacket, grab your new prescription glasses and slowly make your way outside. When you got outside and stepped out onto the porch, the warmth of the sun felt nice on your face. A small smile tugs up on the corner of your lips at the feeling. You carefully walk over to where the porch railing was and walk down the few steps to the gravel ground. Across the drive, Steve and Bucky are working on a chore and they spot you. Bucky nods his head in your direction as he speaks up. 

“Steve, what is she doing?” Concern laced in his voice. 

Steve looks up from what he was doing, to see what his friend was talking about. “I’m not sure, let me go find out.” Steve then pulls his working gloves off and jogs over to you. “Hey Whisper, what are you doing out here?” Steve gently calls out to you, not wanting to startle you. 

You stop in your tracks when you hear Steve calling out to you. “I-I wanted to come out to the barn, to see the horses.” 

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Steve inquired, worry was strong in his voice and concern etched his features. 

You take a deep breath. “Y-yeah, I think I am.” 

Steve puts his hands on his hips for a brief moment before letting out a huff of air, feeling like he might be going against his better judgment. “Alright, at least let me go with you.” 

You nod your head in agreement and Steve places a hand at the small of your back. He walks with you over to the barn and you’re joined by Bucky once you reach the entrance. The two men wait patiently for you to take your first step into the barn. You take another deep breath and are about to take a step forward when one of the horses has a sudden freak out. The outburst from the horse spooks you causing you to jump back. Steve instantly goes to comfort you while Bucky darts into the barn to try and calm the horse. Steve has you wrapped in his arm and is holding you close to his chest. He rubs gentle circles into your shoulder as he waits for you to calm down. 

“Do you wanna try again? I think I’ve gotten him calmed down.” Bucky says as he re-emerges from the barn, dusting off his hands. He and Steve exchange a look of concern when you don’t reply right away. 

You shake your head into Steve’s chest. “N-no, I just wanna go back into the house. Please.” 

“Alright Whisper, let’s get you back into the house.” Steve agreed. He then leads you back into the house with you clinging to his side. 

The rest of the day, Steve stayed by your side and helped you around the house. When Peter returns, Steve excuses himself and Peter takes over. You tell him about today and he sits there listening intently. Taking a careful sip of your coffee that Peter had made for you, you wait for him to say something. Even though you couldn’t see his face, you could tell that his gears were turning. He took a final sip of his coffee before he finally decided to speak up. 

“You know, I might know someone who might be able to help.” He pauses, before adding, “If you’re interested, of course.” 

You take a moment to think about Peter’s offer, what could go wrong? You definitely need some help if you want to continue living on the ranch and work with your horses. “Yeah, I think I would like that.” 

A huge smile curls up on Peter’s lips. “Alright, I’ll reach out to him and see if he’d be willing to help.”

[trinittyy]

fic recs

just a little assortment of my favorite works to keep track of them and also show love to the respective writers.

note - a majority, if not all, of the following works contain dark content that some could find triggering. tread carefully.

divider by @firefly-graphics

toxic affection - @love-toxin

warnings: harassment, bullying, some violence, forced relationship

pairing: yandere!bakugou x reader

literally unashamed to say that BNHA fanfiction is what brought me to Tumblr

but this was one of the first I found and it's epic

what's your escape - @gotnofucks

warnings: obsession, possessive behavior, non-con

pairing: dark!sherlock holmes x reader

the man is disastrously down bad for the poor reader

she was so witty and clever but in the end, he got what he wanted in the most satisfying way

infatuation - @darkficsyouneveraskedfor - masterlist

warnings: mentions of stalking, obsession, non-con

pairing: dark!clark kent x reader

poor girl didn't have a clue or a chance in the world to escape this man

sidenote: I can't add Roo to the recs without mentioning just how talented she is. She was the first proper introduction to dark fics in the Marvel fandom and I've been hooked ever since. The amount of detail and dedication that goes into her work is noticeable and she's a talent that deserves recognition. It's one thing to make me like a fic or two of my favorite Marvel men but another to have me thirst over shit I didn't think I'd like.

naughty ransom holiday tales - @jtargaryen18

warnings: kidnapping, non-con, dub-con

pairing: dark!ransom drysdale x reader

guilty pleasure series

hate to love ransom but I can't help it

what the king has - @sincerelythedarkside

warnings: dub-con, character death

pairing: soft!dark steve rogers x reader

royal au

love me a good jealous steve

plot twist shocked the shit outta me

smut was out of this fucking world

love bites - @cherienymphe - masterlist

warnings: character death, jealousy, non-con

pairing: dark!steve rogers x reader, peter parker x reader

modern vampire au (what's not to love there)

this actually made me cry like a bitch

ongoing series

sidenote: Seeing as Cherie will be on this list many times, I have to say it's difficult not to add every piece of work on this list because while some writers have a magnum opus, everything she writes is a work of art. Her range and the backstory she puts in her characters make each story feel like a movie I just can't get enough of. Will forever love her writing.

kryptonite - @cherienymphe

warnings: non-con, obsession

pairing: dark!bruce wayne x reader

the build-up and tension gave me actual chills

trailer park babydoll - @mypoisonedvine

warnings: dub-con, infidelity, age gap

pairing: wayne munson x reader

guilty pleasure fic

absolute filthy smut

wrath of the dragon - @straywords

warnings: non-con, chasing

pairing: dark!daemon targaryen x reader

yet another down bad man

overdue - @darkficsyouneveraskedfor

warnings: creepy curtis, non-con, obsessive behavior

pairing: dark!curtis everett x reader

there's little to nothing i love more than a good ole broody man with attachment issues

anxious - @syntheticavenger

warnings: stalking, kidnapping

pairing: dark!peter parker x reader

tasm peter

cutest in a way lol little fic

the dream that got away - @dotieeee

there's not nearly enough dark fics ft my fave peter so I love this one

warnings: dub-con, non-con, manipulation, controlling behavior, obsession

pairing: dark!morpheus x oc!mera

probably the first dark fic about morpheus

each chapter was a masterpiece

and i still haven't seen the show lol

thanks for the invite - @syntheticavenger

warnings: non-con, bitchy friend behavior, implied drugging (i think), oral (f receiving), slight bondage

pairing: dark!lloyd hansen x reader

a funny little unhinged lloyd fic

rsvp - @syntheticavenger

warnings: dub-con, hide and seek, exasperated bodyguard, exhibitionism (a bit)

sequel to the fic listed above

lloyd is still unhinged and reader is still suffering

[mrssylvatica]

"The Other Fairy Tale" - Different Fairy Tales (AU?)

~560 words || The members of Crown, represented by different fairy tales than the originals used in the game.

This fanfiction is rated for all audiences, but keep in mind that the game, Ikemen Villains, is intended for a more mature audience.

◇ CW: None...?  Nothing too serious. Let me know if I should add any warnings. ◇ Let me know if you'd ever like to be tagged in my posts!

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

William: Rapunzel (original version)

sorry for the jumpscare

You’ve always been a dreamer.  You’ve always wanted to see the world, but the walls built around you prevented you.  Ah, mother (Victor) warned you not to fall in love with anyone (prologue), but look at you now.  You could never see the world, no matter how much you wanted to.  It took a prince to whisk you off your feet and guide you to free will.  Even if William was blinded by thorns, he’d still be able to find you in the dark.

◇

Harrison: Cinderella

Black hearts may mistreat you, Only a miracle could save you, But he’s able to see through the lies, as well as your disguise, because his love is one that is true.

◇

Liam: The Little Mermaid (original version)

It was an impossible relationship.  You are of land, while he is of sea.  You’re worth more to him than you’ll ever know.  He loves you so much, oh, he’d die for you.  He saved you so many times.  Liam sacrificed everything just for a chance, a small chance to love you.  Learn from the Prince’s mistake.  You better love him back and not leave him for another.

◇

Elbert: The Little Mermaid

All the beautiful things he heard about on the surface brought him jealousy.  For years, he would collect every little scrap that fell to him from the sky.  When Elbert looked up at you from the sea’s surface, he fell for you in an instant.  The siren, entranced by you, the most beautiful of them all.  But perhaps he would do something different.  Instead of dragging you to the surface, he would drag you beneath the depths.  A place where he could love you forever.  And now you belong to him.

◇

Alfons: Red Riding Hood

The wolf will lead you astray with the beautiful flowers on the way. He’ll devour you whole, And take hold of your soul. You’ll never see another day.

◇

Roger: Pinocchio

Roger will always fix you up when you’re chased, injured, and on the verge of death. It doesn't matter if you're flesh or wood.  He’ll hold you close and shield you from the world.  In a world surrounded by death, in which life is increasingly bizarre, you’re real to him.  You may be a fool, but you’re the only thing keeping him sane.

◇

Jude: Aladdin (Disney's version)

He’s a rich, feisty prince.  You’re a robber on the streets, on the run.  Strange how you two fell in love.  Quit trying to impress him, he isn’t interested.  Oh-  oh dear.  Jude crosses his arms and sighs.  You should have just been yourself in the first place.

Well then, what are your three wishes?

◇

Ellis: ??? ("Happy Ending")

The world is full of unhappiness.  Ellis would rather kill you to preserve your happiness than to have the possibility of it being tainted.  He’ll stop time when you’re at your happiest, letting you stay in that happiness - forever.  That’s his happy ending.

◇

Victor: The Little Match Girl

Victor already knew your fate, but he must let life take its course.  He’s tortured by the visions of the deaths of those he loves.  Ah, but despite their sins, he loves them all so much.  Death watches over the girl, letting the flames remind her of love and kindness.  May you die with a smile on your face, and let the loving Death carry you to Heaven.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

SHITPOST MAIN: @rou-luxe

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Author's Notes

I remember seeing something similar for Ikemen Prince, and I decided it must be done for Villains.

I had to choose a fairytale that's different from the one they originated from. No similar characters either, which means Roger wasn't allowed to be the Huntsman from Red Riding Hood.

Harrison and Alfons' seemed too short... so I just made them into limericks...

Just something I was tempted to include in Roger's. But this fox and cat are rather antagonistic, so I decided against it.

The line from Ellis' is a reference to petite-otome's translation of his trailer~

My favorite is definitely Elbert's. It has such fanfiction potential. Maybe later. But my least favorite is probably Ellis'... I couldn't think up anything better than "happy ending".

Elbert mermay art might come out on my main anytime. @rou-luxe Elbert merman and lighthouse keeper Alfons... my Elbert merman AU... it never stops...

[whisperingthorns]

(Yandere Ticci Toby x Reader) Charmed by Shadows

Chapter 1: A Glimpse in the Shadows

__________________

Silence. Toby walked through the woods leaves crunching under his feet. He was looking at the floor, looking at the little bugs scuttle through the leaves. Tobias Roger’s was a quiet man. At least today he was. He paused watching a bug crawl under a leaf. It had been a couple weeks since he arrived in the town of Ravenwood in Maine.

Masky and Hoodie were not to come to this mission. So it was just Tobias by himself today…and everyday for the year he supposed. This mission should take some time. A whole year old solitude? Slender should know better then to leave the unstable Proxy alone. He didn’t wanna seem like pussy though. He took it. The job that is.

Though for the past couple weeks he’s been plagued by this dream. Sometimes it was a nice dream, other times he woke up crying. The dream is stupid. Too stupid to even write in his journal. It’s about a princess who sits and talks with him. Sometimes he pushes her on a swing, sometimes he eats her cooking for a picnic, it’s always in the woods though. He’s heard tales of the fae and such, maybe that’s what she is? It just feels so real. He just sits there and talks, even about problems he has in his waking life and she always manages to make him feel better. He wonders if maybe he’s developing a new disorder and she’s a figment that will manifest herself eventually.

Toby’s face snaps to the side when he hears a noise, much like singing. Singing? In the woods? What is this? A Disney movie? Toby shuffles to the tree line. Toby’s face scrunches up when he sees her, the girl practically skipping through the path in the woods, ignoring how it pretty much ending a couple yards back. She had to know that right. She was wearing and dress, once he recognized but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Having nothing better to do, Toby took a seat and watched her pass, fingers pulling up the grass as he fiddled with it.

Her dress flowed around her perfectly. Her black shoes kicking up dirt. She had to be around the same age as him, but the way she was acting was a bit childish to say the least. Toby thought about running from the brush and burying a hatchet in his skull, hearing her scream, and look up at him in her final moments, the dark red ruining her dress forever. ‘Pretty girl.’ He thought giving a grin. ‘Wonder how long it takes for anyone to notice she’s missing. Will anyone come looking for her? Prince Charming perhaps?’ If this was a fairytale, he wondered what role that would make him. Certainly not the hero.

Tobias wasn’t the hero in anyone’s story. Not even his own. Especially not hers. However Tobias didn’t kill for no reason. He’s seen the stories online. The fanfiction they write, but he also sees what some of the public thinks of him. He wasn’t any hero. Though sometimes he liked to google his own name he found interesting things. From old articles to art, to fanfiction of him rescuing forgotten and abused like him. Bring them with him. Toby wondered if he would have felt that way if he wasn’t involved in the debacle. Would he wish the slenderman take him too? Would he leave his window open and still draw the proxy symbol on his wrists in hopes he would be rescued?

Must be horrible to realize that the faceless man wouldn’t ever show up. He was picky. The girl was looking at something on a tree now, some sort of bird. She was delighted when it came closer. “Bitch has never se-seen a bird b-before” No but seriously what was her deal? She’s in the woods…alone…in a dress…playing with birds. How does she know someone like him won’t come up and…lift that pretty dress? Toby thought about shoving her up against the tree, teasing her a bit. He shook the thought away. Gross. You shouldn’t think that way about random girls in the woods. Wow that’s a sentence. Random girl in the woods…he looked her over again. He really could kill her here.

Toby got up, gripping his hatchet. She was so unsuspecting. He was literally feet from her. Him! A killer! A proxy! She wasn’t even sensing his presence. It was like watching a suspecting deer through a sniper scope.

Suddenly Toby threw the hatchet, and it catch the girl in the throat, her eyes widened, blood pouring from her neck as the bird flew from her finger, and she collapsed to the ground. Jerking as her eyes wildly searched the sky. As if asking why this had happened? Why her? Who would come to look for her rotting corpse?

Toby blinked, coming back to reality, the girl was throwing bird feed on the ground so they would gather around her. It was a boring scene really. Except for her. How can someone be so dumb? In the woods all alone…feeding the birds…it was kinda…it was kinda cute. Toby stopped picking the grass and watched. How sweet. He wanted to go up and say something. Something mean for some reason.

‘Those birds don’t even like you. They just like that you’re giving them food’ He wanted to say. Yeah. What did she think she was special? That she was some sort of princess of the forest? Who the fuck did she think she was? Waltzing in her all happy, feeding he birds. After this she’s probably gonna go home and eat a hot dinner…with family that probably actually likes her and doesn’t kill people for a living. Probably go and do whatever she wants tomorrow too because she doesn’t have a faceless man pulling her along like a puppet.

If only those kids who left their windows open and drew things on their hands knew what it was like: The life of a proxy. Sure he saved Toby but if Toby could just do it again he wouldn’t go with him. Toby would just burn and die. End of story. The girl seemed to finish. She stood. She left.

Only cause Toby let her.

‘Yeah.’ He told himself. ‘Only cause I let her!’ He started picking at his nails, feeling a little frustrated. Ignored even. How could she not know he was right here? Whatever. He started to bite his nails, and knew he went too far when he tasted blood. Oops. He wiped it on his dirty jeans.

…

Toby quickly made his way through the trees silently, wondering if he could catch up with her, and he did! She had stopped to feed a bunny. Who weirdly enough didn’t seem that scared of her. The bunny nuzzled her hand and she laughed. Her laughter, soft and sweet like birdsong, drifted through the air, making his heart pound in a way that felt almost… painful. Toby didn’t deserve to hear it, but he stayed hidden among the trees, selfishly drinking it in.

He knew he recognized the sound from somewhere, and now that he was getting a good look at her (e/c) eyes and sweet smile everything clicked.

The princess! From his dreams! The one he saves all the time and talks to. He actually almost stood to call out to her before he realized that he was being unreasonable. They probably just looked similar! That girl was just a figment of his mind he can’t just talk to every girl that looks like her.

⦻

After the next few weeks Toby watched. When he finished the mission he needed for that day, he would quickly dash to her house. She was a simple girl with a simple routine. Tobias loved simple really. His life was anything but. She walks the same path everyday it turns out, just to sit at that rickety old bench. He also picked up on some of her mannerisms. Like how when she’s happy she tends to skip and lean on the balls of her feet, almost like a bird about to take flight, but hesitant to do so? If that makes sense. When she’s stressed or frustrated she walks flat but not just flat it’s almost like slap to the floor. When she sad she tends to mess with her hair a lot. A nervous habit he supposed. She also hums or sings to herself a lot. It sounds…wonderful.

Toby has heard plenty of nice voices before but her voice…it wasn’t just nice or beautiful it was almost…haunting. Like it was something he wasn’t even supposed to be hearing in the first place. As if she was calling to creatures that didn’t exist in this worldly plane. It made his head buzz. In a weird way.

Anyway, he was happy for her carefree nature because it made it incredibly easy to follow from day to day. She never saw him, not really. Sometimes, she’d pause, her head tilting as if she sensed something—or someone—just out of view. But Toby was good at hiding, blending into the shadows like smoke, his eyes never leaving her.

Sometimes, when he was feeling brave, he’d clean himself up, and slap a bandage over the gaping hole in face, he’d even run an old brush through his hair, and wash it, he’d wash his clothes, and head out into town where she was. He would walk past where she was, his head down, their arms just barely brushing, it made Toby’s skin tingle with excitement. Sometimes when she was with her friends, he’d stand nearby and stare if they were distracted enough.

One time, he slipped up. He was doing his usual routine. She was at the arcade with her friend. A male friend but from observation Tobias knew they were nothing more than that. Toby loved the arcade…used to go all the time before the incident.

…

Toby watched as she encouraged her friend ‘Moon’ to win her a prize at the claw game. (Who names their fucking kid that by the way? ‘Moon’ it’s gotta be a nickname right?) That’s when it happened…right there.

Through the glass, through the moving claw, through the people passing through, she looked up once, then a second..very briefly, she locked eyes with him. For the briefest of moments, her gaze brushed his, a spark of recognition flaring in her eyes before it faded. She didn’t know him, not yet—but he could feel the connection, thrumming beneath his skin like a secret waiting to be told. Toby felt his face burn. ‘Moon’ cheered and held up a stuffed animal. “I GOT ONE! (Y/N), I GOT ONE!” (Y/n)….Tobys eyes glazed over.

That was the first time she had even actually seen him. He was watching her again the next day in the forest, she made her way back to that bench she liked so much…he was thinking about cleaning it for her. It was sunny day today, hot one would say. Tobias couldn’t tell. He can’t feel pain, he also can’t feel temperature. Seeing her in the sundress not only made his heart pound, but reminded him to remove his jacket. Masky wasn’t here to rudely yank it off in reminder so he had to be careful not to overheat. Someone would have called the scene beautiful. Sunlight peeking through the trees, leaves fluttered in the wind, bird sung at the new day.

Tobias, hidden away, felt detached from it all. Like all the dark spots of the forest floor were only meant for him. While she deserved to stay in the sunshine…The forest was alive with warmth and light, but all Toby could focus on was her—how she glided through the golden beams, her hands brushing the leaves like they belonged to her. His world had shrunk to the size of her silhouette.

His fingers curled, digging into the bark of the tree as she tilted her head back to laugh at something he couldn’t hear. He wanted to be closer—to hear it, to see her smile up close—but he stayed rooted in place, afraid of what might happen if he dared to step into the light.

He stood, like a frozen statue, waiting, watching…longing…needing. It felt like a need. Like when he needed to drink or eat. When was the last time he ate again? He remembered (Y/n) had french toast for breakfast and spaghetti for dinner last night while she watched her shows and played…sims? (Honestly the things she was doing in that game would be considered questionable but he wasn’t too worried about that while he watched her giggle….and trap random men in her basement it seems.) Just as he came to the conclusion that his last meal was two days ago he saw her stand to leave, slipping away as the wind picked up, slipping the the ribbon out of her hair without realizing it.

As soon as you were out of sight Toby dashed into the clearing, tripping over a root as he did and taking a tumble and grabbing the ribbon into his fist. He laid in the leaves as he looked at it, clutched in his fist, the sun shining down on him as he grinned widely. The fresh baby blue contrasting against his pale gray skin. It’s a sign. A sign of the secret bond between she doesn’t realize they share. Yeah…maybe she dropped it on purpose. Or maybe whatever fucked up force that ruined Toby’s life was trying to gift him something.

Either way it was his now.

And so were you.

(If you guys could comment or just interact that be great I’d love to hear feedback or just parts you liked 🩷🎀 Helps me keep writing if you want another chapter Thank you darlings)

Edit: New chapter coming out Friday, September 27th for those who are interested.

[writerscafehub]

𝙸𝙽𝚃𝚁𝙾𝙳𝚄𝙲𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙱𝙰𝚁𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙰 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚈: @fushic0re

ೀ ㅤ۫ ㅤ۪ㅤ۫ ㅤ ♡ ㅤ . 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐀:

From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

        I’d say a 3.5. I’m proud of my work, but there’s always room to grow and improve. 

2. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

        I think my writing style focuses a lot on the complexity of the inner emotions the characters feel. I like to take a lot of time fleshing out their inner selves that way when there’s dialogue or they commit a specific act, readers are able to say to themselves “yea, this is very them”. All in all, I like a lot of emotion. 

3. Are there any writers that inspire you?

        My fellow writers café members inspire me! Everyone has such different styles and ideas, it really makes me want to be more innovative. I don’t really have any specific muses, to be honest–the fanfiction fandom in general makes me want to write and see my ideas developed.

4. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

        “Take Me Into Your Arms, Siren’s Call” and “Dance In The Dark”. 

5. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write and which do you find most difficult to write?

        Steve Rogers for sure is my easiest. I love that man with my entire being and have dissected him and my interpretation of him so many times. I find Geralt of Rivia a bit difficult to write, hence why there’s no work for him.

6. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

        There’s not really a who, more like a what–my emotional wounds. Writing is used as a tool for me to not only bring my ideas to life, but use them as vessels to work out these emotions and proverbially close that chapter of my life by turning them into something positive. 

7. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about!

        I have a very cute “Spy x Family” meets “The Incredibles” one shot for Miguel O’Hara in the works featuring Filipina!Reader, Gabriella O’Hara, and reader’s daughter hehe 

8. First fandom you ever wrote for?

        I’m really gonna expose myself here…it was for Black Veil Brides LMAOOOO 

9. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

        GIRL (gender neutral); black cat gf x golden retriever bf, the mean one being soft for the sunshine one, enemies to lovers, reincarnation. 

10. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

        Mafia/mob boss. I have one singular wip with that trope and after that, I’m retiring it. Cannot stand it, no offense. 

11. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

        Definitely my demon! Lee Bodecker and ghost!Steve Rogers fics. Those were RIDES.

12. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, BLACK CAT GF x GOLDEN RETRIEVER BF, and THE GRUMPY ONE BEING SOFT FOR THE SUNSHINE ONE. I clearly have a preference. 

13. Do you listen to anything while you write?

        Either bossanova, classical music, jazz, lo-fi, or a playlist I made specifically for whatever I’m writing.

14. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

I don’t have a preference tbh. they’re both very impactful, it just depends on the plot in question. 

15. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

yES ALL THE TIME. especially for fluff pieces with family dynamics, I always wanna create little side drabbles in the style of “modern family” like they have their very own sitcom. 

16. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

writing for Geralt of Rivia. The deep lore for The Witcher seems like a lot of ground to cover. 

17. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I can’t remember anything specific, but my fic “Take Me Into Your Arms, Siren’s Call” received a good amount of super meaningful feedback from Filipino readers that meant a lot to me. They expressed how much it meant for them to be seen, especially in a fantasy-fairy tale like story that incorporated our culture.

18. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

Yes, lore building for “Take Me Into Your Arms, Siren’s Call”! I’ve never written anything in the fantasy genre, so that was definitely a challenge. It turned out amazing. I loved writing it and that fic is one that is near and dear to my heart. 

19. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

I’m a fucking baby and I can only have angst if it’s followed with fluff…..but I do love angst.

20. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

EEEEEE I currently have one OC for a re-write of my series called “Keeping Up With The Starks”. Her name is Camila Santos Stark, a Filipina-American who is the only daughter of Tony Stark. She’s a spoiled heiress but is definitely a no-nonsense woman who you do not want to underestimate. She’s described by others around her as the rational version of Tony–the snark is there, but so are a bunch of other characteristics that Tony doesn’t possess. Steve Rogers is her love interest. He thought she was a spoiled brat, but look who fell in love!

21. If you could enter the universe of any one of your fics, which would it be and why?

Definitely “Take Me Into Your Arms, Siren’s Call” – it’s pure fantasy which sounds amazing. Plus, Namor! 

22. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

Eh, there’s nothing really interesting going on behind the scenes–I just write at night with a candle lit. 

23. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

        “I’m a beauty, I’m a beast, it defends on the feast” – “So Cool” by Dounia

24. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

        If writing frustrates you, that’s a sign for you to step away and take a break. If you initially started writing because you love it, continue to lead with love–don’t kill the joy.

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Commander's Omega"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: alpha/omega, dystopia, sex slavery, forced breeding, mutilation, rape, corporal punishment, fascism, hurt/comfort, power imbalance, mpreg, age gap (38/23), mentions of abortion, miscarriage

Summary: After years of a mass infertility crisis, the United States is overtaken by religious fanatics, and Bucky Barnes finds himself thrust into a brutal world of survival. When he's discovered to be fertile, he's forced to serve as a vessel: a caste of omegas who bear children for the political elite.

Chapter VI. The Shudder Before the Slide

Story Masterlist

Before:

The first time Bucky hits heat, he’s just turned fourteen years old, has just had a great birthday party over the weekend, and is stressed out over all the stuff he’s gonna have to learn now that Rabbi Schmeckle gave the green light for his mom to start planning his bar mitzvah. Alpha boys get one at 13, but beta boys have to wait until they’re a year older at least, to make sure they aren’t “late bloomers” (a euphemism for an omega son—what Bucky learns later in life is every Jewish mother except for his own's worst fear).

He’s in homeroom at 7:15 am, backpack slung across his lap and foot tapping as he eagerly awaits the bell. Harriet Falsworth is in his third period English class and he’s got a not-so-subtle crush on her. He can’t wait to slide his hand-made valentine into her locker. Just thinking of Harriet makes his heart beat faster. … Lately, it’s made other things happen, too (there’s a reason he’s got the backpack over his lap, right now). If half the kids in his homeroom have put space between themselves and him, he certainly doesn’t notice.

“Hey Barnes, what the fuck?”

Bucky turns around in his seat to look back at where George and Seth are sitting. “What?” he hisses, not wanting to get in trouble for talking out of turn in homeroom. Sister Joan is a real hard-ass when it comes to stuff like that. Everybody hates her.

“Why d’you smell like that?” Both boys snicker. “Is it your time of the month or something?”

Bucky scowls. “Huh?”

“That’s enough,” Sister Joan says from the front of the classroom, making George and Seth shut up. Bucky’s still left confused over the remark, though. “Everyone work on your homework,” Sister Joan snaps. 

All the students in the room are quick to pull out notebooks and at least pretend to be working on something, meanwhile Sister Joan’s attention has narrowed in on Bucky. He gulps as she comes over to him, thinking, great, what’d he do now? (Bucky can’t prove it, but he thinks Sister Joan picks on the kids who she knows aren’t Catholic.) 

“James,” she says, using his first name rather than the crisp ‘Mr. Barnes’ that he usually gets from her. Her kinder-than-normal tone is also concerning.

Bucky wavers uncertainly as she stops in front of his desk. “Um, yeah?”

“It’s alright. You’re not in trouble. I need you to gather your things and come out into the hall with me, Dear.”

He frowns at the ‘Dear’, certain that he is in trouble, somehow. She’s just tricking him, trying to get him away from the other kids so she can really light into him. Bucky frowns, trying to wrack his mind for what he’s done lately that somebody could’ve snitched on. But he’s been good! He’d promised his mom that he’d try harder this school year not to make trouble. He glances back to George and Seth in the row behind, confused and annoyed about why they’re still snickering at him. He can’t help but feel that he’s missed out on some soft of joke. “Erm, but ... why?” he asks Sister Joan.

Her lips thin and she straightens her spine. “Because I said so.”

-

Bucky’s forced to leave school early that day. They send him home in a taxi, since his mom and dad are both at work and can’t come to get him. He tries hard not to cry in the backseat of the cab, but it’s a challenge. He’s presented as omega. That’s what Sister Joan, and later the school nurse, had told him. Apparently they could tell it even before he could. Something about the way he smells. It’s embarrassing in a way he can’t quite yet put his finger on, and he hates it. His mom had sounded really upset on the phone, but like she was trying not to be.

Bucky squirms uncomfortably in the cab and itches to get home so he can Google about this, maybe find some fact that can prove they've made a mistake about him. He doesn't feel omega. He has a vague memory of a fifth grade puberty lecture, but he hadn’t paid attention because boys hardly ever turned out to be o!

He can’t get his mind off the way that George and Seth were laughing at him, and it sticks in his mind as the first lesson he ever gets about being omega: it’s nothing to be proud of.

“Alexa: what’s that Tony Stark quote about Isaac Asimov?” 

“Here’s what I found on the web:”  

Bucky takes an absent-minded sip of his latte as he listens to the answer. It’s gone cold by now, but he hasn’t been able to peel himself away from his laptop for over an hour. Not when he’s on such a good roll. Halfway through his paper on the practical applications for intelligence simulation in robotics, and he is in the fucking zone, hyped up on caffeine—okay, and maybe just a little bit of Adderall that he bought from weird-Kevin in the Library. His fingers skip over the keyboard as he tries to keep pace with his fast-flowing thoughts. 

On the other side of their dorm room, Dylan is working, too. Or, he’s supposed to be. But Bucky’s pretty sure he fell into a YouTube rabbit hole a while ago.

“Ohh, sweet baby Jesus,” Dylan croons.

Bucky glances over. “What?” he asks, taking a second sip from his latte and wincing. He really should just warm it the fuck up. The microwave’s only ten feet away from where he’s sitting.

Dylan removes his earpods and looks over. “Henry Cavill,” he says, as if it’s a complete sentence. 

Bucky arches a brow. “Don’t you have a paper you’re supposed to be writing?” 

“Yeah.”

“Pretty sure it isn’t on Henry Cavill.”

“S’for Family Studies,” Dylan says absently. He’s distracted, still staring at his computer screen with dreamy eyes.

Bucky scoffs at the mention of the course name. “What’s your paper on?”

“‘Gender dynamics in mate selection: A case for traditional marriage.” Dylan catches the nasty look that Bucky shoots him and defends himself with a hasty, “Well I didn’t pick it. It's a diversity requisite.”

“Stupid waste ‘a time,” Bucky mutters. “Making us take a bunch of dumb 101’s that have nothing to do with our majors. And we get the privilege of paying for it. It's extortion. I don’t get how it's even legal. I mean this is friggin' NYU."

"It's private. I guess they can do what they want, yeah?" Dylan shrugs and keeps dicking around on YouTube, his disregard for his coursework once again reminding Bucky that his roommate comes from money.

Unlike Bucky himself, who can’t afford to be careless about anything. Not when he’s depending on maintaining his GPA to keep his academic scholarship. They’re only a few weeks into fall semester right now. Dylan’s an incoming freshman, and he has to take all the same bullshit gender and family courses that Bucky himself put up with last year. He’s got no need to maintain his grades the way that Bucky does, though. Lucky fucker’ll probably nab a paid internship straight out of college, just with his family’s connections.

Dylan sighs happily over at his desk (presumably over Henry Cavill, and not his Family Studies paper). “There’s all these videos of him, like, visiting children’s hospitals. He shows up in his Superman outfit to cheer up all the little cancer kids. Ooh! and this one here: he's holding babies at Comic Con!"

Bucky rolls his eyes, attention back on his computer. “So what?”

“'So what?' So I think my ovaries just exploded, is what! So I need this man to breed me, is what.” Dylan turns his laptop to show the video where Henry Cavil is, indeed, holding a baby, then shoots Bucky a peevish look for not reacting appropriately. “He’s unf—with a capital UNF.”

“He’s okay I guess.”

“... You’re gay,” Dylan declares. “You gotta be. Your ovaries never explode. This man is prime. alpha. real estate, he’s worth like fifty gajillion dollars—”

“Pretty sure he’s not.”

“—and he’s shredded, and he’s so sweet, and he likes babies!” Dylan whines helplessly as he puts his earpods back in. “Did you see his bicep? It's bigger than the baby's head!—and I'm sorry but that baby has a fat fucking head. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Breed me Daddy.”

Bucky hisses and waves his hand. “Hey! Watch it with the God stuff, would you?”

Dylan looks over his shoulder at the door. "Door’s shut.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Bucky scolds. “Alexa’s listening. You think that shit doesn’t get reported back to the RAs?” 

“I—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Can you repea—”

“Alexa, never mind!” Bucky snaps. He looks back at Dylan. “They clock you for too many JFC's and they’ll write you up for creating a ‘hostile environment’ for the rollers,” he scolds. 

Dylan winces. “Right, sorry. Just …” he gestures at his computer screen with a happy sigh. “Ovaries.” 

“Yeah yeah.” Bucky pushes out his desk chair and goes over to stick his cup in the microwave for sixty seconds.

He hasn't been in a very charitable mood about the university's 'decency' code, lately, not since he got into a tense altercation with his ethics professor, after the guy had unfairly ruled on a debate that Bucky had clearly won. The debate had been about the campus’ recent ban on porn viewed through the university wifi—Bucky had been against, his opponent for. The professor hadn’t equally applied the debate standards. And even if he had ... Bucky’s been growing increasingly disturbed with the more things he notices changing around campus, not to mention the broader world.

"Sorry man," Dylan promises. "I'll put a post-it up to remind myself."

Bucky almost laughs. “Good idea. And you want my advice? You’d better stop joking about your ovaries all the time, too. Or your heats."

"Exploding ovaries is my go-to!"

"Find a new one. If the rollers get wind of you being fertile, they’ll never leave you alone.” He pulls his cup out when the microwave beeps and carries it back to his desk, making a long-suffering face as he blows on the top. “Trust me, I should know.” 

Of course by now he’s started taking all the precautions that they tell you to take, these days. He’s stopped getting his suppressants from the campus health center, ordering them from an online pharmacy that uses discreet packaging, instead. He uses incognito mode on his parents’ cell plan to watch any porn, or to buy condoms, or search for anything that’s even remotely controversial. He’s deleted his heat tracking app, changed his documented religion from “Jewish-Agnostic” to “Non-denominational,” edited his dating profiles on all the apps from saying “wants kids” to “unsure,” and has even had his father sign for legal control of all his O-HIPPA forms so that nobody can ever data mine his medical records again—Emphasis on “again,” as he certainly hadn’t done it in time to prevent it from happening once. 

Somewhere out there in the digital ether, somebody already has his medical information in their database. And they’ve definitely been selling it to others, if the nonstop emails, spam calls, and junk mail he’s been receiving are anything to go by. Ever since he got the abortion last semester, various fertility-for-profit and pro-life groups have been bombarding him with heartfelt appeals for his surrogacy, offering compensation for his eggs, extolling the virtues of omega motherhood, bemoaning the population crisis, blessing him with prayers, entreating him to join up with this congregation or that one, begging him to surrender to God’s will for his 'biological destiny'. Oh, and Bucky’s personal favorite: threatening him with surprisingly graphic descriptions of eternal damnation if he doesn’t repent for his sins and produce more babies as penance for killing his unborn child. 

He even received a signed copy of somebody called Serena Joy's book: An Omega's Place. Bucky's never burned a book before, but it'd been damn tempting to start, once he'd flipped past the title page and realized what it was: a flaming shitpile of anti-omeganist trash. He'd shelved it in the library, right next to a book about infectious diseases of the bowel and colon.

“Don’t you want kids?”

Bucky presses his lips together at the presumptive question, trying to cut Dylan a break. The poor fucker probably has ADHD, and to be fair, he doesn’t realize how insensitive he's being, because Bucky hasn't told him about the abortion. “Sure," Bucky says. "I guess. Like, one day if I get married or whatever. Just not now. Not for a long time.”

“Yeah. Me too I guess.” Dylan reaches for his computer mouse with a dirty snicker. “Unless I find an alpha like Mr. Cavill. Then it’s baby-makin’ time.”

“You’d better watch your mouth,” Bucky mutters. “Pretty soon they’re gonna start a womb draft.”

“Oh come on. That’s never gonna happen.” 

“You just wait and see. They’ll be going after abortion soon,” he warns. “Then who knows what else.”

Dylan ‘tsks’ and goes back to scrolling on his computer, telling him that’s an extremist and unrealistic way of thinking. “That’s about as likely as me getting with Daddy Cavill.” He makes a sad, mournful noise. “Son of a bitch is taken. Why can’t I meet a nice alpha like that?”

Bucky hums in false sympathy and goes searching in his desk drawer for a pair of earplugs to drown out any more distractions. He’s joking about the womb-drafting thing … mostly. But he’s actually got a bad feeling about the abortion part of it.

It’s been months, but he hasn't forgotten that rude-ass doctor from back at the first clinic he’d gone to, over break. He remembers the man’s face screwed up in disdain, and more worryingly, the confidence he’d had in turning Bucky away. Bucky can’t get the guy’s parting words out of his mind:

“The law’s gonna change real soon.”

It’s silly to still be thinking about it, he knows. Because he’s checked, since then. He's been keeping up on current events, reading up on national and local politics, keeping an eye out for anything in the news about any change or challenge to reproductive freedoms in New York, or even at the federal level. But other than the usual sanctimonious op-eds and click bait about holy rollers losing their shit outside Planned Parenthoods, there hasn’t been anything happening. 

Still ... He can’t quite get the words out of his mind. 

Base camp for the resistance is a scattered collection of trailers and hastily-constructed shacks in the Appalachian mountains. Bucky knows that they’re somewhere in Pennsylvania, but that’s about all he knows. When he’d first met his contact back in Brooklyn, it’d been very secretive. Nobody had trusted him at that point, and he’d been driven around and then led into camp with a blindfold on.

That’s just fine with Bucky. He knows what he needs to know. Other people shuttle them out on missions when they need to go. Bucky’s quickly made rank as sniper. He’s killed something in the range of fifty or sixty guardians of the faith, and he’s relished every kill.

His mom wouldn’t like that if she knew, would tell him it’s sinful to be glad about killing people. But she hasn’t seen the things that The Faithful are doing nowadays. They’re hanging people who won’t convert. They’re kidnapping omegas and doing god only knows what with them. The few omega refugees that the resistance takes in don’t talk about their experiences out there, and Bucky doesn’t ask. He’s heard rumors though, ridiculous things about sex slaves and breeding centers. He’s got a hard time believing that. It’s a little too outrageous of an idea, even for The Faithful.

Anyway, Bucky’s mom is tucked away with his sisters, safe in Toronto. She hasn’t seen the things he has. Bucky likes to think she’d be proud of him, if she knew what he was fighting against.

He sits next to two other guys on one of the cots that crowd the medical tent. He and the other serving omegas are waiting their turns to get suppressant injections. Bucky had cycled naturally until he was sixteen, then his mom had taken him to the doctor and he’d gotten set up with oral suppressants. He likes the way his body feels when he’s on them, and it’s a relief that he’ll be able to stay on them here. He hadn’t expected that luxury. Sex with anyone but your own hand out here is rare, so pregnancy isn't something he really worries about. But not having a heat while he's trying to shoot some motherfuckers? Yeah that's just peachy.

“Barnes,” the medic calls out. Bucky gets up from his seat and goes over to the guy. “Let's see your ID.” Bucky shows it to him and the man checks something off on his clipboard. “Alright,” he says. “Roll up your sleeve.”

Bucky does. He watches as the medic preps the syringe. It’s been explained to him that they do injections out here instead of pills because it’s more reliable. Makes sense. One shot every three months and you’re good to go. Can’t exactly depend on having a daily pill available when you’re out fighting for weeks on end. And the last thing that’s strategic on the battlefield is an omega in heat.

He holds out his arm for the doctor to shoot him up.

Bucky grunts as Brock and the other guardian pull him out of the back of the van. This is the second damned time he’s been dragged into the red center against his will, and it makes him feel like a hell of a failure for getting caught. At least he doesn’t have a bag over his head this time, but that’s about the only thing that’s improved.

“Thought you could run away, huh?” Brock says, as he tugs on Bucky’s arm to get him to follow along. He looks over, notices the blood crusted on Bucky's neck, and pauses. “You hurt?” 

“No.” Bucky tries to pull away, but he can’t. He growls in frustration when Brock reaches up and tucks his shaggy hair behind his right ear. 

"Aw, hell kid," Brock says when he sees the mess. "What the hell did ya do to yourself?"

Bucky jerks his head away and scowls without looking at him. "What I had to do." They pass through the outer fence, then the secondary, then the inner checkpoint. Each gate locks behind them with a click and a computerized ‘beep’, the sounds like physical blows to the deepest pockets of Bucky’s remaining hope. They hurt. Those are the sounds of his freedom being stripped away, again.

Brock takes him through the gymnasium and into the old locker rooms, back by the showers. He makes Bucky take off all his clothes—beta blue that he’d stolen off one of the caretakers—and tells him to wash the grime off himself. 

Bucky turns the water on and waits for it to get hot. The old pipes behind the tiled shower wall clunk and groan as the water pressure comes through. He holds his hand under the water, noticing the coat of dirt on his forearm and the back of his hand, the blood crusted under his fingernails. He’s been living rough while trying to figure out a way to get past the city limit checkpoints. It’d been okay building up a stink. At least it’d done a bit to cover up the smell of his heat. 

The Faithful don’t believe in the use of suppressants, think it’s against God or nature or some such bullshit. So of course Bucky and the other vessels are never allowed to have them. He hadn’t been able to find any when he was out on the street, either. Being in heat had made the escape harder, but not impossible. He’d gotten out and joined a homeless encampment underneath the 495 overpass near the northeast edge of the city, had traded handjobs with one of the alphas there in exchange for protection, for him scenting Bucky up real good each day and night. It’d worked, until it hadn’t. The camp got raided, and Bucky and a few other omegas were grabbed in the chaos before they could make a real run for it.

Now he’s right back where he fucking started. 

He pumps out soap from the dispenser on the wall and rubs it over his shoulders and his neck. He peeks back at Brock. The alpha isn’t averting his eyes. He’s leaning back against the wall all casual like, watching Bucky wash himself, his mouth turned up slightly at the corners. Asshole. “So what was the plan?” he asks. “Hitch it all the way back to New York?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Or basecamp. Whichever.” He’d thought about heading for New York, or the Canadian border, but that was a long fucking way to go without being caught. From D.C., the rebellion’s basecamp in the Pennsylvania mountains had been the closest option. And even then …

“You wouldn’t’ve made it,” Brock says. “Don’t feel bad. Nobody could, not with the way they’ve got the roadblocks set up. Checkpoints, patrols, citizen tip line. It’s impossible right now. You were always gonna get caught.”

Bucky wonders if Brock’s really trying to make him feel better, or if he’s just in the mood to rub his nose in his own failure. He shrugs, sluicing the water back off of his hair. “I had to try,” he says dully. “You know that.”

Brock hums in agreement, but doesn’t say any more. Bucky pumps out more soap, washes his face, rinses. He turns around and lets the spray beat down on his back, not caring to shield his modesty at all as he stands facing Brock. He lets his eyes slip closed for a beat, enjoying the hot water. 

“You should’ve waited until your heat'd passed,” Brock says. “Bought yourself more time.” 

Bucky grits his teeth and fights not to snap back at him. Of course he knows that, now. But he’d gotten emotional and had panicked. He'd jumped the gun—and Caretaker Kevin—when an opportunity presented itself. He’d acted before he could stop and analyze his options more rationally. Remembering it now just makes him feel awful, so he purposefully stops thinking about it. He opens his eyes and looks at Brock instead, who’s leaning casually against the wall and looking at Bucky’s naked body with mild but undisguised interest (Bucky’s not worried. Brock’s never tried to take liberties before, and he’s had plenty of chances).

But contempt curls in his gut the longer he watches the other man, watching him, standing there at ease in his Guardian’s uniform and his alpha insignia armband, a radio strapped to his chest and a stun baton hanging from his utility belt. 

“Why do you do this?” Bucky asks bitterly. He knows that Brock isn’t a zealot like some of the other Guardians of the Faith are. “Why do you help them, huh? Why not fight?” He watches as Brock’s expression turns grim. For a second it doesn't seem like he'll answer, but then he says,

“I come from a big family. Italian. Catholic.” His eyes flick up to Bucky’s face and he and Bucky just sort of stare at each other for a long moment. 

Bucky wasn’t expecting that answer, and he feels like an asshole. “They alive?” he asks. 

Brock nods.

“They get out?”

“Couldn’t. Not before the borders closed.”

“I’m sorry.” Bucky swallows thickly, looks down and shakes his head. “But that still doesn’t mean that you have to—”

“Oh, they converted,” Brock says, cutting him off. “But we weren’t just a little bit Catholic, right? We were a lotta bit Catholic. Known in the community.” He gestures to himself. “I had to join up. To help sell it.”

“Oh.”

“And my kid sister? She’s o. Married to a divorcée.” 

Bucky’s guts sink. The Faithful don’t recognize divorce, or second marriages. He’s met plenty of other vessels at the red center who were ripped from their "invalid" marriages, their “unspouses” executed for adultery, their kids given away, and their wombs rented out to the state. 

Brock nods again when he sees Bucky’s wan expression. “Yeah. So. One day I take inventory of what I got. I’m ex-special forces. I’ve got marketable skills. And ex-colleagues with those same skills. I approached a Commander, back home, and we came to an understanding. He’s the only reason my sister hasn’t been salvaged.”  

Bucky just stands there under the pouring water, wishing he hadn’t asked in the first place. It’s easier just to hate. He doesn’t feel angry or self righteous anymore. He just feels … tired. Like he did right after they took his arm. “You could’ve at least tried to do the right thing,” he says, but it lacks heat. “You could’ve fought back. I did.”

Brock’s eyes harden. “And watch them string my Nonna up on some wall? Uh-uh. I’ve got too many people I love to fight back.” He points his finger at Bucky, angry. “You picked up a gun in a losing fight cause you had the luxury of knowing that your family got out. So don’t you fuckin’ stand there and judge me.”

Bucky’s jaw clenches and, bizarrely, he feels tears press up hard at the backs of his eyes. He blinks and looks away in humiliation. They’re tears of despair more than anything else, he realizes. Despair at how fucking fucked the whole world is. For everybody. He clenches his teeth and turns back around to face the shower wall, not wanting to chance letting Brock see how stupidly close to tears he is. His face feels hot, and by the time the water hits his face again, he feels a sob working its way up in his chest. He gasps and breathes open mouthed under the deluge of the shower spray, throwing his hand up to lean against the tile wall and calm down.

Behind, he hears Brock sigh heavily. “I didn’t choose any of this, kid. S’just the hand I been dealt, same as you.”

Bucky wants to snap something back to him about that, something nasty about how Brock and he are nothing alike, how Bucky had done the right thing and Brock had been a coward, and wherever their families were didn’t excuse choosing the wrong side. But he holds his tongue and reaches for the soap dispenser instead, pumps out a bunch more of the shower gel and finishes washing off a month’s worth of grime from his body, feeling more drained and hopeless than he has since the day he woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed and looked over to see a stump where his left arm used to be.

Brock’s right: His mom and sisters are all safe in Canada right now. He’d joined the resistance knowing that his actions couldn’t hurt them. Would he have done the same if they were still living in New York, under the regime? He’s never stopped to wonder. Now he’s not so sure.  

“Please!” Bucky begs, struggling against Brock and the other guardian as they manhandle him down the hallway and into one of the old classrooms.

The red center is set up in what was once a high school, and this is one room Bucky’s never been in before. Having heard the screams echoing out into the hallway, though, he’s got a good enough idea about what goes on in here. There’s a padded table with straps that makes his blood run cold and his imagination run wild, and he jerks harder in their hold as they push him closer to it. “No please!” he begs again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He’s crying, but Brock and the other guardian ignore him.

“God, shut up already and take what’s coming to ya,” Brock complains. “I thought you used to be a soldier.” He doesn’t say it like he’s trying to make fun of Bucky, but the other guardian snorts like it’s a joke anyways. Bucky tries to headbutt him, but Brock catches him in time and stops the other man from striking him. “C’mon kid,” he warns. “Don’t make us tase you, too. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Nnngh!” Bucky might’ve been able to overpower just one of them, if he still had both of his arms. But he doesn’t, and he can’t. They get him up on the table and restrain him face-down. Straps over his back, arms, waist, thighs, calves, and ankles hold him completely immobile. Bucky’s bare feet hang over the table’s edge as he sobs and begs in fear. “Please!” He’s nearly screaming it at them by the time the caretaker walks in, and his heart seizes in fresh terror when he sees who it is. 

It’s Caretaker Kevin—the one whose clothes he’d taken, whom he’d left beaten and tied up and gagged in the school’s boiler room while he made his escape. The man walks in holding a bundle of short, frayed metal cables in his hand. “Under His Eye,” he says to Bucky, as he approaches.

“Please!” Bucky begs, eyes unable to move from the sight of what Kevin’s holding. He knows what that’s for. He’s seen other omegas brought back to their cots, bloody feet bandaged and dragging behind them. “Please don’t do this! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, I believe you, Sweetheart,” Kevin coos, reaching out to pet Bucky’s hair back in fake compassion. He tuts when he sees his bloody, mutilated ear, then steps out of sight towards the foot of the table. Bucky hears his horrible, saccharine voice say, “Forgiveness is God’s gift to us all, James. That’s the miracle of His love. But that forgiveness comes through redemption. Do you know what redemption means?”

Bucky sniffles and repeats, “Please, please, please,” against the table’s padded surface, wet from his terrified tears. 

“'Renewal through blood', Ephesians 1:7-8,” Kevin recites. “We all must be punished for our sins.” Down at the end of the table, he makes a slight movement, and Bucky yelps out in fear as something cold and hard touches lightly at the bottom of his right foot.

“No no no! Wait, wait!” He looks helplessly over to where Brock and the other guardian are standing sentinel by the door. “Please help me!” he cries. It’s pathetic even to his own ears, and Brock turns his back to him, looking pained. The other guardian however, seems to want to watch. Sadist. 

Caretaker Kevin takes an audible breath back where Bucky can’t see. There's the sound of displaced air, a 'swish', and then a searing, unbearable pain in the sole of Bucky's right foot. 

He screams bloody murder.

-

They drag him back to his cot that night, bandaged and barely coherent, his eyes swollen and face snotty from crying. Once the caretakers turn in for the night and only a few remain to do the usual nighttime rounds, Bucky gets a slew of apologetic murmurs in the dark from the other nearby vessels. He doesn’t thank them, just cries miserably into his pillow. He thinks of his family and of the unending pain in his feet. He misses his mom.

Within six weeks the wounds are healed, and Bucky’s left with some pretty unique scars.

After:

One time, when he was a few months away from turning fourteen—not long after he’d presented omega, and after the embarrassing debacle of having to cancel an already planned-out bar mitzvah for a "late bloomer" who was no longer eligible for one—Bucky’s whole extended family went on a cruise to Antarctica with the money that Grandpa Herschel left in his will. 

Bucky doesn’t remember too much about the trip, other than sneaking crab legs off the buffet with his cousins and being a moody fourteen year old who was not happy about presenting omega. But one day he’d been standing out on the stateroom balcony with his dad (having a “talk” about how life was apparently going to get better) when they’d witnessed a huge chunk of iceshelf break off from the Thwaites Glacier. It’d felt almost alien to Bucky, surreal, just standing there listening to the incredible noises it'd made, feeling in awe of how something so massive and sudden could seem to happen in such slow motion.

It was the most beautifully terrifying thing he’d ever witnessed up until that point in his life, and after the trip he’d gone on a bit of a geology tangent, reading books about glaciers and watching specials on the Discovery Channel about the polar ice caps.

Looking back on it now, it’s eerie how parallels can be drawn, between icebergs and what wound up happening with the country. Because you see, the thing about the shelves breaking off like Bucky and his dad saw, is that it’s a process. It happens over a long time, and most of it goes unnoticed. The cracks starts early, and small, and they don’t look like much. Sometimes they can’t even be seen from the surface at all. But underneath, they deepen, and they deepen, and they spread, and turn into fissures. Then caverns form underneath, unseen, getting hollowed out and eroded by the seawater, bit by bit. Then the caverns disappear entirely, and it’s just this big, massive iceshelf attached to the glacier, waiting for that final crack that’ll bring it all tumbling down.

The part that you see happens all at once, in a big, dramatic rush. But there’s a ton of groundwork that needs to be laid before that to make it breakable. Then one day it happens. There's this horrible, screeching groan of ice on ice, deep inside, the shudder before the slide. And the next thing you know, the entire shelf is collapsing in this huge, dramatic cloud of ice and snow, breaking off into the water, loud, cataclysmic. And when you watch it happen from the sensible distance of a stateroom balcony, it seems like: wow, dramatic, so horrifically sudden.

But it isn’t. Not really. It happens over time, with lots of cracks you don't see.

-

Bucky’s got no real patience for metaphors, anymore.

He takes things for what they are, and doesn't think too deeply on anything when he can help it. He definitely tries not to think about his old life and how things used to be. The only thing worse than that is thinking about whether he'll ever live a normal life again, or see his family again. One day at a time—isn't that what the alcoholics say?

That day it's cool out, mid fall, the neighborhood trees having dropped about half their leaves, the temperature having dipped noticeably overnight. Bucky enjoys it, likes the way the air smells at this time of year, with all the leaves piling up on the sidewalks and starting to rot, the neighbor houses burning woodsmoke out their chimneys. It's not a smell he associates with home back in the city, so it doesn't bring up any painful sort of nostalgia. He likes that, too.

He sits cross-legged on the front porch swing and watches Sam working at unloading pumpkins and pots of brightly colored mums, hefting them out of the truck bed and bringing them over one by one to sit on the porch at either side, going up the steps and framing the house's stately front door. He’s arranging a nice, autumnal display.

Rich people, Bucky thinks with a smirk, trailing his fingers idly over the bottoms of his feet. He's barefoot even though it's cool out. His red cloak draped over his shoulders does the job of keeping the chill away, and he sits there and plays absently with the texture of the scars on the soles of his feet, contemplating the ridiculousness of seasonal porch decorations in this brave new world of theirs. He wonders if it annoys Sam and the others, to have to put up with all of the mundane domestic tasks that they have to do, to serve as cover for … whatever else it is that they do.

Probably, Bucky thinks. It would certainly annoy him if he had something more important to be doing. Though as it is, Bucky would kill to have a daily routine full of tasks like gardening and bread baking. Anything to cull the hours of boredom that he faces each day, with no reprieve to look forward to besides the couple of hours Steve allows him in the office each night—and he does look forward to it. Bucky is insanely grateful to have that.

He and Steve have become more comfortable around one another, maybe even something resembling friends. Almost. Steve still refuses to talk to him any more about The Secret. He either doesn't trust Bucky enough, wants to keep him out of the loop for his own safety, or both. Bucky thinks it's both. Natasha and Sharon and Clint and Sam have clearly been told to keep their mouths shut, too, because they haven't yielded to any of Bucky's prodding questions.

Sam arrives back at the porch with the last of the mums, setting it down in one spot and then stepping back to judge its placement. He comes back to turn it at a slightly different angle.

“Hey Sam?” Bucky says, knowing that he can talk to the others without worrying about rules of propriety. “Do you think we could carve some of the pumpkins? In private? Just for fun?”

Sam gives him a look. “C'mon. You know we can’t.” Carving pumpkins has been forbidden, along with all other Halloween-related things, since the regime took over. It’s a pagan ritual that The Faithful scorn. Sam seems aware of Bucky's boredom, though, and he glances back at the truck. "I picked up a crate of sugar pumpkins for Sharon. She'll probably need help scooping those out for pies, or whatever she makes with them." Bucky looks pointedly at his empty left sleeve, and Sam shrugs. “Well she could cut, you could scoop?"

"Maybe."

"Eh. She won't be doing it today, anyway."

"Right," Bucky says, resigning himself to his boredom.

Sam gives him a considering look. "... I could use a hand raking all these damn leaves, though," he offers. "If you're—"

"Sure!' Bucky’s never been so quick to agree to yard work in his life. He unfolds his legs and hops off the swing, hurrying for the front door. “Let me just get my shoes!"

-

Later, just as he’s raking to merge his pile in with Sam's, a black van marked with the Gilead government crest pulls into the driveway. Too many bad experiences in the backs of such vans have Bucky freezing in place and staring. Could it be guardians? he thinks. Someone come to take him away? Has someone reported him for reading? Has someone reported Steve? He gulps as his heart rate ticks up in apprehension.

The van’s side door slides open with a jarringly loud sound, and a man gets out. He’s dressed like a guardian, with an alpha’s insignia on his armband. He has slicked-back hair and a scar across his chin, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a duffle bag over the other. He’s got a grim set to his face as he spares a glance around the property, barely looking at Bucky and Sam before dismissing them and heading for the front door.

He goes up on the porch and rings the bell, and meanwhile the van he arrived in pulls away and heads off down the street. Bucky’s shoulders relax somewhat once it's turned the corner and gone out of sight. No van in the driveway means nobody’s getting black-bagged and hauled away. He still watches the newcomer with a sense of unease, though. In a moment, Steve has come to the door and is stepping out onto the porch to shake the guy’s hand, speaking with him like he was expecting his arrival.

Sam appears close at Bucky’s side. “That’s Steve’s new head of security,” he tells him lowly. “Rollins. He was assigned here. Steve didn’t pick him out.”

“Does that mean he’s not one of you?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says. He doesn’t seem pleased.

Bucky resists the urge to let his eyes slide sideways. “Should I … act on protocol, then?”

“Follow Steve’s lead,” Sam says, after a moment of tense silence. 

They both watch as Steve gestures in their direction, talking to Rollins and ostensibly telling the man who they are. Rollins’ eyes do another cool sweep over Bucky, and without realizing it, Bucky’s lowering his eyes in a deferential move that’s been drummed into him since his earliest days at the red center. When he dares to peek back up, Steve and Rollins are just disappearing through the front door into the house. 

“Definitely keep your mouth shut around him,” Sam advises. "As far as he's concerned, this is just another Commander's household. And as far as we’re concerned, he’s an Eye."

"Right."

Together, they go back to raking the leaves. Eventually Bucky works up the nerve to ask a question that he isn’t sure he really wants the answer to: “Why does Steve need a head of security?” Commander Putnum hadn’t had one.

“Death threats,” Sam says. “Not a big deal,” he assures him. “We get them all the time. Mostly it’s nothing.”

“Mostly?" Bucky scoffs, wondering who’d be dumb enough to threaten a Commander of the Faith. "Sounds like a good way to end up on a wall," he mutters.

“Most of it’s noise," Sam excuses. "Untraceable. The ones we can trace almost always lead back to resistance members."

“But I thought—”

“Other resistance members,” Sam says lowly, shooting Bucky a look that clearly says he should shut up. Nobody in the household has yet confided to Bucky just what sort of organization they work for. “Militia remnants, like the ones you used to pal around with, apparently.” Sam smirks and knocks his rake against Bucky's, then goes back to pulling in the edges of the pile they've got. "I should go get bags for these.”

Bucky ducks his head and represses the urge to ask more questions about Steve and Sam and the rest of them: who they work for, what their mission is, how they communicate with—

“This Rollins guy might not just be here for security,” Sam warns, just as Natasha appears at the front door and gestures for them both to come inside. They drop their rakes and head for the door. "There could be another reason."

"You really think he’s an Eye?” Bucky asks, hoping it isn’t true. Whenever eyes start getting involved, people start being disappeared.

Sam doesn’t deny or confirm, but the unhappy set to his face says plenty. “Treat him like one,” he mutters, as they go up on the porch and into the house. 

In the darkened interior of the foyer, Natasha is holding an armful of bed linens. “Commander Rogers is welcoming Guardian Rollins to the Household,” she says, speaking in a way that Bucky only picks up on as being fake because he’s observed how everybody talks now when their guard is down: this isn’t it. Natasha nods for them to come with her, and they follow along behind as she starts up the stairs. “They’re in the office, having drinks. Dinner is in an hour—just them, but we’ll be on standby. Then he wants us all presentable in the parlor for the evening.”

Sam and Bucky share an unenthusiastic look, but say nothing. For the life of him, Bucky can’t imagine what they’re all going to do in the parlor with their new houseguest that evening. At his last placement, the Putnams would frequently entertain guests, but Bucky was rarely ever requested to be present for such things. He’d been quite content to remain in his room in the basement—out of sight, just the way Mrs. Putnam had preferred it. 

“I’ve gotta make up a bed for him,” Natasha says at the second floor landing, and they all part ways to head off to their respective parts of the house. 

Bucky goes up to the attic level to wash up and change clothes. He tries to think of what he’ll be expected to do whilst spending an entire evening with Steve and this new guy that they need to stand on ceremony around. With all the protocols he learned back at the red center, and knowing how things were at his posting with his first Commander, he’s not expecting to enjoy the rest of his evening very much. All he can think of is that he’ll probably be expected to remain quiet and tucked aside, only speaking when spoken to, and only very politely and perfunctory at that. He gets grumpy about it, because this means that his usual routine of eating a nice relaxed meal with everyone else at the dinner table and then getting to immerse himself in books in Steve’s office is out the window for tonight. Maybe even for the foreseeable future. Oh god, he hopes not. He hopes that this new guy Rollins won’t wind up staying long. He’d hate to lose the one thing he’s come to enjoy. 

He usually makes a firm habit of trying not to let himself get his hopes up about anything, but in this one thing, he realizes he’s failed. He’s fallen into the trap of wanting, and now it’s going to lead to the same inevitable result it always does: disappointment. 

He dresses the way he knows he’s expected to: in a fresh pair of soft red pants, long sleeved red shirt, tidy red sweater, white socks, brown indoor shoes that are more like slippers than shoes. Red’s not his color, but at least the clothes are comfortable. He stands in front of the bathroom’s crappy plastic mirror and combs his hair, which has grown longer since they last cut it at the red center, before this placement with Steve. If it grows much longer without being cut, it’ll reach his ears again soon. Bucky considers the blurry reflection of his left ear, with the tiny redtag curled over the cartilage … and his right one. He brings his hand up absently to touch at the mutilated place where he’d used scissors to do what had to be done. He feels oddly apathetic about it, though it’s anything but attractive. What’s the point in worrying about a little ear mutilation when you’ve had ninety percent of your left arm lopped off? 

Still … maybe Steve won’t care if he lets his hair grow out.

Story Masterlist

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[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (21-27 Apr 2024)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😊 rounding third, sliding home. (througheden) - 68K, enjoyable steddie AU with pro baseball player Steven & massage therapist Eddie

🥰 Daddy Issues (His Boy Next Door #39) (RJ Moray) - reread; just a big fan of Jack & Channon & their ongoing story!

🥰 Common Ground (His Boy Next Door #40) (RJ Moray) - LOVE that Jack & Ewan are finding some common ground - really love that this series is showing how two people who don't particularly care for each other can work to find connection for the sake of the people they DO love

😍 ACT-verse series (ann_anotherthing) - truly outstanding series about middle-aged Steddie getting a 2nd chance romance after their first one flamed out 25 yrs earlier. Full series is 117K but it starts with A Certain Type (54K), which is a fully complete story with satisfying HEA - the rest are flashback fics or wonderfully indulgent epilogue/vignettes, full of fluffy and delicious porn. The author confesses to basically turning them into her middle-aged OCs but 1) I think her projections of their characters in middle-age with these particular life experiences seem reasonably plausible and more importantly 2) I don't fucking care because this story and these characters (main & supporting) are AMAZING.

💖💖 +227K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

When you stop being a ghost in a shell (Bittersweet_in_Boston) - MCU: Stucky, 12K - Hydra finds Steve in 1952 & then they have The Asset and The Captain. Except they really should have known better than to ever let them see one another.

Where the Sunflowers Grow (AidaRonan) - Stranger Things: Buckingham, 30K - incredible Chrissy recovery fic with bonus Buckingham. Just. So Fucking Good.

Early Returns (rageprufrock) - Inception: Arthur/Eames, 15K - fabulous AU where Arthur's an editor who has everything on lock, dammit & Eames is a reporter who wants to mess him up. Also the newsroom is nothing but a high-pressure high school when it comes to gossip.

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Murdoch Mysteries - s16, e14-20

Um, Actually - s9, e5; s1, e3, 4, 6-20

Game Changer - s6, e6

Smartypants - s1, e1

Ghosts (US) - s3, e9

D20: Fantasy High: Junior Year - "Untapped Rage" (s21, e16)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Honor the Cock" (s16, e16)

Dead Boy Detectives - s1, e1-3

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Worlds Beyond Number - WWW #13: Of the Gentle Sea

Worlds Beyond Number: Fireside - Fireside Chat for WWW ep13 "Of the Gentle Sea"

Worlds Beyond Number - WWW #14: There is an Ocean Vaster Than This One

Worlds Beyond Number: Fireside - Fireside Chat for WWW ep14 "There is an Ocean Vaster Than This One"

99% Invisible - The Power Broker #04: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

What Next: TBD - The Internet Archive Endangered

⭐ The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tree Week: A Tasty Tale about Meyer Lemons

⭐ The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tree Week: Love Letters

The Sporkful - Priya Krishna Writes The Kids Cookbook She Wished She'd Had

The Allusionist - 193. Word Play 3: Lemon Demon

WikiHole - Cicadas…LIVE (with Matt Rogers, Carl Tart and Claudia O'Doherty)

In Defense of Fandom - Season 2 Episode 3: Fanfiction fixit data

Vibe Check - Her Mediocrity Cannot Touch Me

Code Switch - How Jewish Communities Are Divided Over Support of Israel

Short Wave - Beavers Can Help With Climate Change. So How Do We Get Along?

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tree Week: Oh, the places you will go …. to see these notable trees

⭐ Decoder Ring - Making Real Music for a Fake Band

Ologies with Alie Ward - Columbidology (PIGEONS? YES) Part 2 with Rosemary Mosco

All Songs Considered - Cruel songs for the cruelest month

Pop Culture Happy Hour - What Makes A Good Sex Scene?

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tree Week: Killer Trees with Mary Roach

Shedunnit - Agatha Christie's Many Houses

⭐ 99% Invisible #579 - Towers of Silence

Worlds Beyond Number: Fireside - Fireside Chat: Sound and Music Talkback Extravaganza: The Sound and the Fury: Music is All Around Us Volume 1

Dear Prudence - My love language with friends is touch, but it makes my partner jealous. Help!

Worlds Beyond Number - Fireside Chat for Chapter 1 of The Wizard the Witch and the Wild One

⭐ Endless Thread - The Jackie Show

Worlds Beyond Number: Fireside - Fireside Chat for LEVELING UP (1 to 2)

Today, Explained - Honey, We Saved the Bees

Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! - Renée Elise Goldsberry

⭐ Hit Parade - The Bridge: What Made Them Beautiful

History Is Sexy - Episode #86 - Napoleon III

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

'80s Pop Party

Village People radio

[swan-of-sunrise]

1,100 Followers!!!

I've been so busy these past few weeks taking care of my mom post-hip replacement surgery that I didn't realize that we'd passed 1,100 followers! I know I've already said this but when I first created this blog, I never expected to have even 100 followers so seriously, thank you guys so freaking much for following, either for my fics or my reblogs or my opinions lol it really means a lot to me, so thank you for 1,100! 🥰

[pawfulofwaffles]

This was supposed to be a small textpost but, as evident in the story I tell in this textpost, if I'm passionate about something a short piece can turn into a lengthy tale. Just me going on about my unnecessarily angsty Welcome Home story and the way it began, read if you want.

Randomly remembering that I started writing my Welcome Home story(or fanfic ig but I like calling it a story) all because of one TikTok I watched... I could probably find it, I watched it on the day that I fell down the Welcome Home rabbithole and got unhealthily, addictively, and obsessively hyperfixated...

Basically it was just a joke suggesting the idea of the neighbors making Wally go work at Howdy's whenever he stole, paired with audio from Brandon Roger's "Elmer HATES his job" skit IIRC. Now, in one post I mention that my brain LOVES making stuff angsty. Normally, I'll see one prompt, I'll write a oneshot about it. One incorrect quote can turn into a short, written scene to match it. However, if it has the potential to be angsty? Yeah, I'm going to expand on it, I'm going to find a way to make men cry if it's the last thing I do.

So, of course, upon seeing a simple funny TikTok about Wally going to work at Howdy's for misbehaving, my brain went "Ok but what if he was stealing for a good reason, like he was starving or something? What if he started mentally deteriorating while there, what if it got super bad and sad and-" and at first it was a simple, small idea I had in my head, where Wally needed to work at Howdy's for like a few days but in that time-- because of Home's manipulation(sorry Home lovers Home is like the Disney villian of my story 😔😔 dw tho I don't really have an opinion on actual Home even tho I wanna kill my version of him in my story) Wally was like "damn now all my friends will hate me" and there was gonna be self-loathing but then comfort when Howdy found out-- ANYWAYS, I'm not gonna give too much away if I actually ever do put part 1 on my ao3, but basically it was simply a TikTok turned 14 yo's angst prompt.

Until sometime,

unknowingly on Clown's birthday,

I began writing.

Now, I have a 74-page long fanfiction, one part being 58 pages long and being about Wally stealing and then being forced to work at Howdy's, and the other part, yet to be finished, I'm not telling you about lol it's a surprise

(I just know this is gonna be one of those things I post about then regret later ok anyways)