#HAVE YOU EVEN LISTENED TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN WS

[harrylights]

hooooooly shit

[seanhowe]

THE THREE FACES OF CHICO (Warner Brothers, WS 1344) 1959

Chico Hamilton (d), Eric Dolphy (alto sax, bass clarinet, fl), Nate Gershman (cello), Dennis Budimir (g), Wyatt Ruther (b), plus Paul Horn (as), Buddy Collette (ts), Bill Green (bar) & String section.

Los Angeles, February-August, 1959.

Notes by Chico Hamilton

We've called this new album "The Three Faces of Chico" because I play three roles in it. I guess this set may surprise some people. and it even may annoy others. But I hope there's something of real interest in it for every jazz fan.

First of all, I guess I'm best known as a drummer. And that is one of the roles I play here. There are three tracks that are unaccompanied drum solos—Trinkets, Happy Little Dance, and No Speak No English, Man. On each of these I haven't tried to prove anything. but have tried to inject a little humor into some listeners' thoughts.

In regard to these drums tracks. I can only say that it's diffient for a drummer to play anything different than any other average drummer; although each drummer does have his own individual styling. I used the standard equipment I have with me whenever the Quintet takes the stand: two cymbals, sock cymbal, snare drum, tom toms, and bass drum. I didn't use tympani because I'm not a tympanist ... and I just don't carry them around. Instead, I work with sticks. mallets, and brushes to obtain different sound textures.

On Trinkets. for example. I worked eyclusively with brushes. It's a welcome change of sound. For Happy Little Dance, I used mallets throughout. And this one could be danced to, if you dig folk dancing. For No Speak No English, Man. which is a sort of wild thing, I worked with sticks, and played a lot on the rims. I wanted to get a sound like Indian drummers talking to each other.

We did these solos in one take each. I didn' work from a score but laid the sequences out in my mind before we started the tape rolling.

The second face I wear on this set is that of a singer. Now, this is a new thing for me on records, although I've done some singing on the floor with my group, mostly Foggy Day, because that was the one song I knew all the way through.

But having worked with such singers as Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, and Billy Eckstine, I felt I could do it. Actually, what I'm really interested in is phrasing. That's the most effective thing for a singer. That, and good material. I figured that if I was going to sing something, I'd better sing something everyone knows, so they could recognize the tune, if not the melody.

I used a reed section because I wanted to bring back the old Jimmie Lunceford sound with reeds. It's not often you hear a reed section playing ensemble choruses. Gerry Wiggins arranged The Best Things in Life Are Free, and John Anderson scored the other vocal sides: She's Funny That Way, Where or When and I Don't Know Why.

There's not much more to say about my singing, except that I hope you like it.

The third face I wear is that of the leader of the Quintet. My group consists of Wyatt Ruther on bass. Eric Dolphy on flute and reeds. Dennis Budimer on guitar, and Nathan Gershman on cello. Quite frankly, of all the Quintets I've had in the past, I think this one is the swingingest.

On these tracks, you hear a little different Quintet than what you've been used to. The Quintet is four years old and we've been constantly trying to broaden its range. Some may resent the hard swing we're going after, but one thing for sure: in the future we're going to try to please everyone's musical appetite with regard to the Quintet. Music and sounds don't stand still; you have to progress with the people. We play some hard swingers, but in our own intimate way. They're different than the average because of our instrumentation. Our old audiences, we feel, are still satisfied because we play numbers out of our o!d book. Then there are a lot of new people who are following us, and these hard swingers seem to be what they get excited about.

The only way to really broaden the range of the Quintet is by hiring new writers to write for it. In this set, we're introducing three. More Than You Know was arranged by Herb Pilhoffer, a pianist originally from Germany and now located in Minneapolis I think he captures the mood of the song and the Quintet very well Miss Movement is Eric Dolphy's first attempt at writing for the Quintet. Being an exciting player, he'd write an exciting kind of jazz tune. Kenny Dorham is a wonderful trumpet player and he's also a wonderful writer. Newport News is his first chart for our book. It's typical of the inventive, fine arrangements that I'm always grateful to have come my way. Without these, Chico would have no face at all, let alone three!

[iviarellereads]

Nona the Ninth, Chapter 21

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Slashed Third House icon)(1) In which we start careening toward the endgame.

We Suffer listens for a few more minutes, then throws her earpiece on the table. A lackey comes to offer explanations of Judith's disappearance, but WS dismisses them. Cam tells WS that went better than she deserved, and WS says that didn't go at all well. She believed Crown's promises. Crown even arranged for the headshot to be at herself, not at Ianthe, if she was found out. Then losing Deuteros and Pyrrha, WS feels doubly betrayed.

Nona says Pyrrha wouldn't betray them. WS starts to protest, but Cam suggests not making Nona angry. Nona is a little ashamed when WS hesitates. Cam suggests scanning the earring frequency for other active bugs in the same location. WS asks why, but Nona says Pyrrha just told them she was fine.(2) WS stares for a moment, but complies.

Nona walks over to Cam, and says she doesn't feel well. Cam gives her a big hug, and compliments her two-hand form when she had her tantrum. Nona says it was just like sword practice, but Cam says they practice one-handed. Nona pulls back and looks into Cam's eyes, once Pal's eyes, and feels something odd: a trickle of blood from her nose. Cam says she has to talk to Pal.

WS interrupts any hope of that by thumping the table and yelling they found another bug to tap into.

“It’ll be on Judith,” said Camilla, untangling herself a little from Nona. “Give them time. I knew the moment she brought Deuteros out. Pyrrha confirmed it. Nona was right. She gave us codes.”(3) We Suffer said intently, “What did she tell you?” Nona said, “She said to fall in—that it was safe—and I think she said she found a whole bunch of cigarettes.” We Suffer looked as though she did not understand, so she used a phrase she had often heard from the Angel: “I’m afraid that’s typical.”

WS asks if they can trust Pyrrha, and Cam says she's ninety percent sure Pyrrha's acting to get to the shuttle. WS accuses them of always planning to leave, but Cam says not without the hostages WS still holds.

WS says perhaps the game is not lost, then. Just precarious. They must proceed with caution. Cam says that's exactly opposite what they should do. This is so unlike Cam that both WS and Nona stare at her as she gives way to Pal who immediately asks for an update. Nona fills him in, and he tells WS who he is. WS is understandably skeptical.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” said Palamedes. “If you prefer to think that Camilla’s got a psychological condition and sometimes flips her entire affect for no obvious reason, please believe whatever you find most comforting. The point is that there are some things you don’t know and I’m the one best placed to explain them. Listen. If we can get the body of Gideon Nav—the key to the Locked Tomb—out of that barracks, will you give us the Sixth House?”(4)

WS says for that, she would give almost anything in her power. Pal says that wasn't the question, and WS agrees to the condition. So, they get down to planning. Ianthe is constrained by her distance-puppeting of Babs, so they have her in the corner, but she has Gideon Nav and Pal can't begin to guess why Ianthe brought her. Still, WS needs her for the mission, and Pal thinks he needs her to save Nona from dying.

We Suffer suggests a strong attack, but Pal talks her around to a sneakier approach: Ianthe gave them an excuse to bring Cam in, and Pyrrha's already in place.

Then, Pal's time is up, so he tells Nona to tell Cam everything. Then Cam's body leans forward, and sits back up, and Nona says Pal told WS everything. Cam doesn't know why she bothers, but this convinces WS that it wasn't a pantomime. They agree to the terms discussed, though Cam adds that they'll want to keep the shuttle. We Suffer asks that they bring a package anywhere-but-here if they go. Cam refuses to accept a metaphor. WS almost begins to explain, but Pyrrha's voice rises in the bug feed.

Pyrrha and Crown are arguing about not trusting each other. Crown asks why they're dressing Gideon up and wheeling her around like a doll. Pyrrha suggests asking Ianthe. Crown complains, too, that they keep it locked up, and Pyrrha says it's a trap. Crown suggests leaving Judith's care to her, but Pyrrha is skeptical of this and threatens that Judith will be a corpse if Pyrrha finds Crown alone with her again.

At this, Crown laughs and Ianthe, distant from the bug, asks what the joke is. Crown explains about Judith's sedatives and condition, and Ianthe says she told "him" (Pyrrha) to keep Crown away. Crown gets mad, and Ianthe says fine, allow her. She wards Judith, to keep her unconscious a while yet.

Then, Ianthe tells Corona to come and talk with her a while.

"That’s a hint to make yourself scarce, by the way, Duty. God, how to refer to you? We’re going to need to give you a nickname to differentiate. What did Harrowhark used to always call you? Tortoise? Blorgus?" Pyrrha’s voice was cool. “You cut slits in her brain.” Crown said, “You pardon?” “Long story. Very funny. Come and hear it,” said the third voice. “Let’s lock this door … I don’t want Deuteros crashing the party, sweetheart.”

Cam has written a whole page of notes, and WS asks if that exchange meant anything to her. Cam asks Nona what Pyrrha's nicknames for her are, and Nona lists Kiddie, Junior, Small Fry, Cutie Pie, Li'l Bits, Small Cam, Hairy Maclary, Nums, No-No, Nope, None, Sweet Nons, Nona-Palona, and The Big No. Cam says Pyrrha ought to be arrested,(5) but alright.

WS asks again what Cam has, but Cam ignores her further and asks Nona to look at her. Cam touches her forehead and says she's running a fever. Nona says cheerfully that she's dying, but she's got whole days if she doesn't "do anything stupid", at which Cam asks if Pal knows. When Nona says yes, Cam gives her a suspicious I'll-talk-to-your-mother-later face and says Pyrrha thinks Nona is the key to what they want, but Nona will have to be brave. Nona volunteers to do anything.

Camilla smiled at her. For that smile Nona would have lived, if she had had any say in the matter. She did not answer, but said to We Suffer: “How long until sundown?” “You have over eight hours.” “Can you get the Sixth House by then? Can you get me some materials right now?” “As you promised me, so I promise you—I will devote every resource I have to the attempt. Tell me what you need.” “A pair of scissors,” said Camilla. “Iris dye.” She looked at Nona’s button-up shirt, which was unbuttoned to show the T-shirt underneath. “And the blackest clothes you can find.”(6)

=====

(1) Why the slash? Ianthe is fine. Corona's heart may or may not be broken. Or perhaps, Corona is realizing that she had a life outside of Ianthe, for this past almost year and a half, and perhaps there's hope of more, and the Third House princesses are experiencing their own schism. Or some other thing I'm not accounting for, feel free to share your thoughts in the replies! (2) The code words! "All clear" with a side of "important resource, come help me extract it", which Nona interprets as cigarettes later because that's all she's seen it used for. There might even have been extra code words just between Pyrrha and Cam/Pal in there as well. (3) Extra codeword, or revealing via reverse psychology on Ianthe? Ianthe is primed to be contrarian and do the opposite of what "G1deon" (Pyrrha) asks anyway. Suggesting killing Judith would both provoke Ianthe to save her, AND tell Cam she's important. And admittedly, Pyrrha didn't say a lot of words to convey meaning with. (4) Note that phrasing. He doesn't say they'll give Gideon's body to the BOE, only that they will get her out. (5) What a set of nicknames, honestly. Pyrrha missed her calling at naming things. But, I assume she's also been leaving encryption ciphers this way. (6) It's time to become Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

[fox-buried-in-maple-leaves]

and 26 to 50 for iceheart's aria

Ask Game

Do any of them have bad habits that the other can’t stand?

Honoré doesn't like Harper's habit of internalizing his feelings, especially if its in response to Honoré's feelings. Who is more down to earth?

Harper, absolutely. Are they affectionate in public? Is it too much?

Not supremely, mainly cause Honoré is a little bit shy about PDA and because Harper is an idol and all. How are they affectionate in private?

Very lovey dovey in private. Honoré is incredibly touchy once the public's eye is turned away. Cuddles, kisses, hugs, (redacted). Just the whole nine yards. How does your OC react to being broken up with?

"You.. Wish to bre.. bre.. you're.. leaving me..?" He's not surprised, not really, Honoré is a very broken man with a very messy past. He's hard to handle, and his problems are hard to face. But god does it hurt.. He left WS for him.. Abandoned everything he knew, for him.. Even Tesla can't get him out of his lab for the next month. He considers going back, its the only other home he knows. Do they fall in love easily?

Not at all. He loved the same person for one thousand some years. Your character is in love, do they confess? If not, how long do they wait?

Honoré prefers to wait, test the waters, make sure Harper loves him too. He's so afraid of being rejected, or worse, used again. He can't do that again. Who was the first to say ‘I love you’?

I forgor... Who is more stubborn?

Harper. What moment did they realise that they were in love?

When Harper didn't judge him for being unable to stand properly in the bar after ingesting too many substances. When Harper hooked his arm around him and helped him to his shitty shoebox apartment. When Harper didn't leave him alone, staying to take care of him. Even as he cried about previously being something more. How long have they been friends? Would they consider each other best friends?

Ah yes, love at first one night stand. So yeah, not friends for all that long before they get together. But they become best friends very quickly. Harper is the first person Honoré tells everything to. How did they become friends?

Honoré was tasked with collecting intel on AE and any other targets of interest in the area. This included Harper. Their meeting was a tad more purposeful than Honoré would like to admit. Who’s more ticklish?

Honoré isn't at all ticklish so maybe Harper? Idk. If your OCs has/had a child, who would be the stricter parent?

Honoré probably. But I don't think they'd ever have kids. What do they do when they miss one another? Is one more needy than the other/s?

So uh Honoré will cuddle Harper's pillow or smell his shampoo and then maybe cry a little bit. He's not outwardly needy except for when it gets late and he's feeling particularly lonely. What green flags do they have for one another?

Kind,, charismatic, listens to him, kind... patient. Have they ever been jealous?

Honoré is an insanely jealous person which.. you're poly... dude come on.. he's more jealous than he should be. He got it from Kevin. Is one more introverted/extroverted than the other?

Honoré introvert x Harper extrovert. Who’s the better cook?

Harper lol.. But Honoré is really trying to learn for him!! Are they good at comforting one another? Does someone hide their feelings usually?

Honoré tends to hide his feelings because its just easier. Would they have been friends with each other in school?

Became friends during a school project imo. Who made the first move?

Harper did. Bought him a drink, brought him home~ Do they get on well with each other’s family? Is family important to them?

Well you see the thing about that- Do they tease each other? What about?

Anything and everything, Honoré is such a bully sometimes lmao, sorry Harper. Is there anything that scares them about their friendship/relationship?

Well one is a warrior destined to protect humanity, one keeps getting dragged back into it. Just surviving is so uncertain. And that's scary.

[commanderquinn]

Good Space Chapter 1: Flower

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

—

master list / ao3 chapter link

—

She’s the one good thing about trips to medical in the Avenger’s Tower.

Every other day, at her direct insistence, her lab is the only place in the entire wing that he’s willing to go to. It smells warm and safe, nothing like the antiseptic that makes him want to break a limb. For the first two weeks, he tries to tell her that she doesn’t have to do this. He’s been looking after the link from his arm to his brain for years. There’s never been a problem with it that he couldn’t handle, and he’ll come back if anything ever feels off. No matter how much Steve hovers, she doesn’t need to waste her time on this.

By the start of the third week, he can’t bring himself to suggest that anymore.

—

psa: there’s some gross ass (sometimes detailed) nazi medical shit all through this fic, so if lobotomy talk of any kind is a no for you, skim over any brain talk. your best bet is just to skip the lab scenes where you can ❤️

fic title is a song by skrillex! we needed bouncy shit that vague hinted at plot. the chapter title is a moby song to lay out the v i b e s 👾 im always going to list these, so y’all have a song to listen to while reading

all i can think that needs to be said for canon clarity (ill make it all clear over time dw) is post-WS buckaroo got picked up by steve and sam to be taken for a shower and therapy. no civil war, no age of ultron. we're taking parts of it and doing other shit, you'll see. fury’s publicly alive and director again, shield got flushed out because mmmmm i said so i guess. no red room here. its not about nat, the lack of consent history hanging between them isnt something i want with this. i want to focus on other parts of their trauma bond. alsomaybeishipnatwithsomeoneinthis.

im sorry, but i never started wanda content on my end, and AI jarvis is comfy nostalgia i want to play in, so likely not a lot for her here. yes, we will be having shuri bully bucky, ofc, she’s the pin that holds this whole plot together (what else is new)

oh and i treat bucky’s arm as more of an atompunk feel rather than “the nazi’s had bleeding edge limb tech in ww2 that only affects bucky’s arm, definitely not anything else”

other than that, we’re firmly in good ‘ol stark tech magic and too many open wiki pages for all my plot device needs

also my grammar aint the good. i write these mf's in my spare time while baked af, you're gonna have to give a bitch a break babes 👾

—

Febuary 17th, 2018

"That's not what I'm asking about."

Tony throws up his hands from the other side of the conference table, then lets them smack back down against the polished surface dramatically. "Illuminate me then, Rogers. I'm running out of ways to explain that she's the best I've got to offer for this."

Steve pushes a hand through his hair with a frustrated huff. "I'm not a brain surgeon." 

"No shit, that's what she's here for."

"I meant that I don't know what the fuck I'm looking at."

"Now I know you're worried if you're willing to," Tony clutches at the front of his shirt in mock horror, "swear in public." Pepper smacks his shoulder without even looking up from her tablet. The sight would make Steve smile under normal circumstances. 

"You can hand me any resume you want, Tony. I'm telling you that I won't be able to see a difference. I know you're giving me a team who can do the work; I'm asking if they can do it while it's Bucky."

"Are you worried about his safety or theirs?" Pepper asks, finally looking over. Her tone isn't judgemental. If anything, it's veering towards the gentleness it has when she's talking Tony down.

"I'm not worried about theirs. I will be there every time. Even if he has a bad day, I'll make sure that—look. Nothing's going to happen. It's just...." Steve flips open the folder he's been carrying for a week. The edges of it are starting to wear down at this point. Sighing, he slides his summary notes to their side of the table. "He still doesn't... he doesn't talk about the previous escapes. No matter what his therapist tries. He just can't bring himself to do it. But it's not hard to get a clear picture of what used to happen. He does this every time. He builds himself a strong house, then a fallback point, and then he goes to work trying to fix all the damage alone, which he'll never be able to do. No one could. And there's not going to be a goon squad rolling in to drag him back anymore, so he's just going to—"

"Yeah, yeah, push him to help him; I grasped the concept the first hundred times," Tony cuts in. If he weren't so damn anxious, Steve might honestly feel bad about being so far up everyone's ass over this. "You've got me on board. So, what's the concern here? Will she quit the first time he bites her head off? That's a pretty chauvinist perspective, especially coming from you."

"She's had to put up with Tony long enough to befriend him; that should be proof enough." Pepper smiles as the nightmare himself points toward her in silent agreement.

Steve raises his hands amicably. "I'm not trying to insult anyone's professionalism. I'm sure she's had more than her fair share of problem patients to get where she is today. I'm... I'm more asking if—Christ. I'm sorry in advance, alright? But... Tony, I need you to look me in the eye and tell me that you'd have trusted her to get you home."

A stiff, all-consuming silence falls over the spare meeting room. Pepper and Steve waiting on bated breath; Tony frozen as he looks back at him with an expressionless face. 

Steve despises himself for doing this to him. The knowledge of what happened in that cave is something the man is unimaginably protective over. It took years—and a night of blackout drinking on Tony's end—for the story to even slip out of him. Talking about Yinsen is the only time Steve's seen him cry that he can remember. It was just one overflow, barely even two tears that got scrubbed off his cheeks within the first minute, but it was there. It's the only way Steve knows to get his point across.

Tony looks down at the table and adjusts his posture. His head shifts and his lips purse in that signature move of his, the one that comes up when he's forced to be a person. With feelings. Pepper's arm moves, no doubt taking his hand under the table. 

He looks back up, meeting Steve's eyes as his posture relaxes. "I wish they could have met. I think Yin would have gotten a kick out of her fashion taste. I think she'd have gotten an even bigger one out of putting him in it."

It's the most ringing endorsement he's ever heard the man give. More importantly, Steve knows just how much weight sits behind the guarded words.

—

"I've got their personnel files if you want them. They all volunteered them to you willingly."

"I'm alright."

"Do you want their names ahead of time?"

"No."

"Not even their first ones?"

"They can tell them to me."

"Okay."

"...."

"...."

"...What are they?"

"The ones that'll be behind the glass are Hannah and Wyatt." Of course Steve knows to start there, where his nerves will fixate the most. Asshole. "You probably won't even talk to the two of them today, but your main doctor for this will definitely offer to let you. Her name is Ava. She's going to check in with you for confirmation on a lot of things before she does them. I shadowed her for over a week, asshole. It's not about you; she does it for everyone."

Bucky grunts. "I wouldn't have jumped on her for it."

"No, you'd have sat there brooding like a petulant jackass instead, probably making her feel bad." Steve pauses for a long moment, fiddling with the paper coffee cup in his hands. "You should read Hannah's file, Buck."

"Why?" He shouldn't ask. He can hear the motive sitting in his best friend's voice. It's a fucking trap, and he fucking knows it, but he also can't stop himself.

"Her last name is Schuster."

He absolutely despises the way the situation makes his gut clench. They're dead. They're all dead, and the ones in their place have been declawed for much longer than he's been off ice. He's probably not even going to talk to the woman, at least not today. He might catch the sight of a name on a coat, however. Or on a chart.

He wanted to do this without letting old habits in. He wanted to at least start this feeling like a person, not a weapon. But he gets why the dickhead is trying to baby-step him into it.

Bucky holds out his hand. Steve silently passes him the tablet he keeps. Neither of them says a word as he reads the SHEILD file to himself, line by line. Taking in a stranger's entire professional life. Her family, her known associates, every residence she's ever held. It takes a moment of hovering his finger over the subfolder with her medical records to talk himself down from opening it. Nothing is lingering in those shadows; Steve wouldn't allow it. That's not a line he needs to cross anymore. 

He hands it back when he's done. "The other two?"

"Nothing I could think of. Ava's seen your hard limit list—you remember I told you I was gonna give it to one of your—?"

"I remember. It's okay. That's why you have it."

"Yeah." Steve takes another long pause. "You remember that she knows—"

"I know."

"Good. The others don't. She says they don't need to for any of it, and it's never going on record again." He looks over out of the corner of his eye. "She's going to bring it up today."

"I had a hunch."

"I just wanted to make sure it didn't surprise you."

"I know."

"Good." Steve picks up his coffee to drain the last of it in one swig. He tosses the empty cup into a trashcan by the wall a few tables over before looking back at him. He extends his now-empty hand. "Ready?"

"Not in the fucking least." Bucky raises his hand to lock with his best friends momentarily. "Let's go."

There's no wing in this tower—and he's been through all of them by now—that he dislikes more than medical. The place makes his skin feel like a thousand goddamn spiders are crawling all over him, and the smell of it, fuck. It sits in his head like a fog while it burns up the inside of his nose, making him want to break anything touching any part of him. He'd make Steve be here with him no matter what; that's a given. But the fact that there's going to be a doctor poking at him today while he's trying to power through it all makes the guy's presence non-negotiable. Bucky needs the safety net for the good of everyone in that room.

Steve doesn't try for talking to distract him, mercifully enough. There are times when it helps. Today isn't going to be one of them. He doesn't even have to bring it up for Steve to know, and the reminder that he's understood helps his nerves. It's been an incredibly long time since he had an incident. He's proud of every last one of those days. He won't be upset with himself—well. He'll try not to be upset with himself if that streak ends. But he really, really wants that day not to be today.

Bucky treats it like a mission. He's braced and ready for the antiseptic when they first get through the entrance. He doesn't flinch or huff through his nose at the invasion, not even as they make their way to the specialized divisions. He's walked these hallways before; he's walked every single one in the tower. It was the only way he could get himself to sleep during his first week here. Aside from a few trips to the emergency intake, he hasn't had to force himself back. 

He's definitely never bothered with meeting the specialists themselves. It took long enough to convince himself not to memorize the names of every staff member in the tower. He doesn't need to do that anymore. That's what his therapist and the Star Spangled Spandex keep insisting, anyways.

The door Steve goes for sticks out against the sleek hallway long before they reach it. It's painted, and not just a solid color; it's covered with a garden scene done by several different hands, going by the skill variation. Bucky runs his thumb over one of the hundreds of flowers as they walk past it to feel how thick the tiny acrylic mountains are. One of the petals cracks under the light pressure of the move, making him frown. The mural's not sealed at all, despite being long dried. Not the kind of thing maintenance usually overlooks.

An absolute shock of color hits Bucky's eyes when he gets his first look at the neurosurgeon's office. The walls he can spot from this side of the entryway are lined with tie-dye hanging cloths, and the floor is covered in fluffed-up, vibrant rugs. There's not a hint of SHIELD regulation left in the architecture, with all the walls that aren't glass holding even more heavy paint globs. Some of the murals are more flowers, but a majority of them are space themed. 

The stench of antiseptic fades the farther into the room Bucky goes. By the time the door shuts behind him, it's entirely replaced with the warm aroma of apples and cinnamon. A long, curved desk is off to one corner, pushed against the glass wall overlooking the city and covered in picture frames. An arrangement of chairs piled with pillows matching the rest of the decor sits in the center. Each one of them is fucking massive.

The room itself is separated in half by a thick glass wall. He can spot two doctors sitting behind an array of equipment on the other, equally decorated side behind the glass. There isn't any creative paint in there from what he can spot. If it weren't for that, he could almost forget that he's standing in a medical lab. 

Almost.

"Hi there," comes a voice to his right. 

The woman it belongs to almost blends in with the office once Bucky turns his head to look at her. The lab coat that comes down to her knees is a solid blue rather than tye-dye, but it's covered in stitched designs. Most of them are shaped like bees. Bucky barely stops his eyebrows from raising at the sight of the outfit underneath. Loose cloth pants hanging low on her hips, with even more bees on them, and a hand-knit top that would have been called obscene during most of the decades he woke up in. The bun she's pulled her hair into must have been done this morning; more than a few bundles are hanging down haphazardly. Bucky hasn't met a lot of brain surgeons that he knows of, but he doesn't remember any of them having glasses as thick as hers. He's pretty sure that good vision is something most of them need for the job. Not that he's nervous.

She walks over with a warm smile, already extending a hand to him. She's a short, round little thing. Barely five feet, if his guess is accurate. It always is. "I'm Dr. Ryder. You can call me Ava. I'm told you're my newest patient."

He accepts the shake with a nod and tries not to think about how sweaty his hand might feel to her. Wiping it against his pants would have been too weird. "James."

"But you prefer Bucky, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Ava," he corrects himself quickly.

"Oooh, someone's stepped on some toes in the new century." Her smile takes on a teasing edge. "I'm originally from Canada; you won't find me taking offense. Ingrained cultural manners are a bitch to hold back."

"Careful, they're the only manners he's got," Steve warns, already heading for one of the chairs. 

"Ignore him. I'm house-trained," Bucky assures her. Taking his hand back, he hikes a thumb over his shoulder, needing something to stall with. "You sure you don't want someone to give your door a few clear coats? It'd be a shame to see all that work chip off."

Ava waves dismissively. "We redo it a lot; it's a relaxation project around here. It'll look different pretty soon." She points toward the glass wall separating the two halves of the office. "I've got the rest of the team working on a project to give us some space, but I can bring them in for a minute if you'd like to meet them?"

"I'm... I'm alright for now, thanks. I can meet them—whenever."

She doesn't insist further or comment on the blatant nerves in his voice. Her hand waves at the arranged chairs as she moves to sit in one. "Take your pick of the lineup, then. Typically I'd offer to take you to the corner of the roof that we've claimed for ourselves as an alternative. But, I need to keep you in environmental controls for sanitation, at least for the initial visit."

Bucky nods a few times as he sits in the one next to Steve's. His ass sinks nearly a foot into nothing but pillows, and his spine goes rigid. "Here's fine." 

He'd have said no anyways, not that he'll mention that. Too many open sight lines with his anxiety on edge. He'll be revisiting the roof before his next appointment to familiarize himself, though, that's for sure. His last trip up there was long before she was even hired. The mental image of bead strings and tye-dye throw blankets on patio furniture flits through his head. If she decorates the same way everywhere, he's guessing it won't be all that hard to find the space. 

Ava pulls up a tablet from the coffee table to rest in the middle of her folded legs. He's guessing she's into yoga in her spare time. One of her eyebrows arches at them in amusement. "You know, I've never actually seen someone fill one of these before now." 

"The benefits of dosed living," Steve quips, his tone a little too positive. It makes Bucky's foot start to bounce silently against the floor on instinct.

If she notices, the doctor doesn't mention it as she focuses on Bucky. "Steve tells me you prefer when doctors keep things direct with you."

Bucky shifts his eyes over to the man in question, who busies himself with one of the pillows, picking at the hanging fringe. Fucker's going to be hearing about this later, that's for damn sure. 

He looks back at Ava. Time to get it over with, he encourages himself. "Yeah, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. I know Steve's already told you, but I want you to hear it from my mouth. I have The Soldier's activation memorized."

He can't stop the gut instinct to swallow over hearing the words, but he nods. "I'm okay with it."

"It's not in any of my notes; it never will be. My team understands that there is a specific trigger in place; they need to in order to do their job. But they have no indication of what it is. I'll never write the words out or speak them where they can be picked up. Steve helped me with the pronunciation and the order when he first gave me your records, but you have my word that I won't be repeating them."

"You should," Bucky insists immediately. "If anything happens, you should, and you shouldn't hesitate about it."

"She knows, Buck," Steve assures him with a murmur. "I took her through the worst case drill. She's got a panic button on her."

"Steve tells me that my reaction time is fast enough for working on your case safely." Ava's head tilts to the side slightly. "Your comfort is the priority here. We can always run through a silent drill together if you'd like the reassurance."

He thinks about it. Honest to god, he lets himself sit in the idea of putting Steve's training to the test for more than a few moments. Neither of them push him for an answer. "I might take you up on that at some point."

She nods, the hair hanging closest to her face bouncing slightly. "Whenever you want. That offer is permanent. I'm taking this case on because I want to help undo what's been done; I'm not here to let it be continued, not even in research." Her eyes shift to Steve, with a bitter defiance building in them. "I trust that'll be clarified to the director if our work here ever reaches his ears, captain."

Steve nods, finally looking up from where he's moved on to picking at the pillow's stitches. "There's no more mud in that water. Fury understands how far over the line we went."

Ava doesn't look convinced in the least. Bucky doesn't blame her, not with the scattered memories of his role in all of it sitting in his head. When she looks back at him, the distrust leaves her eyes. "I'd like to get a better idea of what we'll be working with. I know that's probably going to be one of the most difficult parts of this, so we can try to get through it now if you'd like. Or we can wait until you're feeling more comfortable. It's entirely up to you."

Shifting slightly to straighten out his shoulders, Bucky nods. "I'm ready now."

It's an outright lie, but that doesn't really matter anymore. There's never going to be a time when he is ready. He still needs to do this.

"I'm going to need to adjust your head a few times today," she tells him with a relaxed, melodic tone as she stands up. She lifts a black briefcase from the coffee table and brings it over to rest on the arm of his chair, where he can easily see it being handled. "Is there anywhere you'd prefer me putting my hands? Or anywhere specific you want me to avoid?"

Bucky sees Steve shift his head slightly in his peripheral and wants to roll his eyes. Asshole. He'd have made a joke at the most; he wouldn't have been insulted. Probably. "I can't think of anywhere to steer you away from. You're good to do whatever you need to do."

She doesn't take him into the other section of the room like he thought she would. She doesn't even make him stand back up. All it takes to get the nightmare he's been dreading for years started is Ava pulling a wired, plastic wreath from the briefcase to put over the top of his head. She doesn't push a cold faceplate over his eye and against his temples; no bite guard gets shoved in his mouth. There's no frigid metal probing into the top of his neck to make his teeth buzz until he wants to rip them out of his jaw. The air around him isn't humid and suffocating like it was in that bunker. He can't hear the hum of electric coils or the squeak of leather boots on linoleum. 

He's not in Siberia. He's in New York. This isn't a HYDRA agent strapping him down. This is a hippie, who definitely smoked pot this morning, putting a sensor on his head that barely has any weight. 

"Here, hold this for me," she tells him from behind his chair, offering her tablet over his shoulder. He takes it silently, bringing it to rest in both hands. A digital scan of his brain is already being mapped out on the screen. It's the first time he's seen the anchor that wraps around his brainstem since the X-rays HYDRA used to leave up like trophies. "We can get a look at this thing together."

Bucky takes a deep breath in. It's… not a pretty sight. Whatever they put in him isn't registering in the bright blue lights of the rest of his brain. They're all dark spots, primarily lines branching out from the anchor that might as well be a black hole. 

"You see that?" Ava leans forward to run her nail up the path of one of the lines. It starts at the anchor, and it's attached to another point further up, but that junction is the source of even more lines that go all over. There's a fucking mechanical spider web in his brain. "That's your motor cortex, and those links are tethered to your arm, starting there. That—the one right there—is what's making your cybernetics work."

"What's the rest of it?" There's a fucking lot of it, whatever it is. A lot more than he remembers being put in. 

"Considering the intent of the Nazis that had you, the end goal was probably total control." Her finger moves, tapping several things that look way too fucking important as she keeps talking. "All of those there are connected to your essential functions: breathing, heart rate, consciousness. From there, they branched out into trying for control over your limbs. Jesus." She leans further over his shoulder and pinches at the screen to zoom in. "It looks like they were already building into your entire cognitive process."

"What does that mean?" Steve asks, worry rising in his tone. 

"It means they were reckless on top of being cruel. And fucking stupid—pardon my French."

"You're talking to soldiers, doc," Bucky reminds her quietly, his brows drawn in as his eyes trace the black spots in his grey matter. 

"Right. In that case, fuck every last one of them and the horses they rode... into whichever circle of hell they're burning in, I guess." Bucky's lips twitch slightly as she zooms back out. "They were venturing into parts of the brain that haven't been studied enough for human testing, even by today's standards. Blindly poking just to see what worked; my guess is because they knew that you could survive it. You see that big scary thing under your hippocampus?"

Bucky nods as she taps at the anchor. "Yeah. Yeah, that was… that was the first part. That got put in, I mean." He clears his throat when it starts to scratch. "I'm. I'm pretty sure it was the first part." 

"Do you want to know why you don't feel sure?" she asks gently. Her voice has dropped to something much softer. It makes him sit back in the overly comfortable chair incrementally. 

"Yeah," he tells her quietly, honestly. He wouldn't have a year ago. 

Ava circles her finger around the center of his brain, where one of the more prominent lines from the anchor holds several thinner, black branches. "That's your limbic system. It controls emotion, memory, behavioral habits, that kind of thing. They fried it at some point trying to get to your memories, I assume. My team has the photograph from your HYDRA file, the one with the X-ray from your initial brain surgery. I've studied it with my own eyes. That serum in your bloodstream is the only thing that brought you back from being a vegetable. The salvaged notes from the initial facility they kept you in mention months of unresponsiveness and varying levels of brain activity. 

"There's a reason you can't remember who you were then, Bucky. They wiped you clean because they knew you, out of all their test subjects, could recover from it. There wasn't enough left of your mind to hold memories, much less any kind of higher will." He hears her clothes shuffle behind him and sees Steve turn his head to look back at her from the corner of his eye. "I'm more than willing to testify to that in any court on Earth, captain. So we're clear."

"Understood," Steve replies, his voice thick. "I appreciate that."

Fuck, so does Bucky. Too bad he can't get his throat to open back up at the moment. 

"Now, let's talk about the hard part." He hears Ava sigh. "From what I can see, there's no way we can remove any of this. Not by any standard that I'm willing to entertain, at least."

Bucky shakes his head and tries clearing his throat again. It doesn't feel anywhere near as successful this time around. "That's fine. I don't—I don't think I'd… I wouldn't be ready for that. I just want to know it's not…."

"Capable of being controlled remotely?" she offers when he trails off. 

"Yeah. Aside from the code. I don't—that's not a problem. They're dead. Anyone else that had it, I mean." Christ, his foot's going to bounce straight out of his boot, right through the leather. 

"I can't make any kind of assurances at this stage when it comes to that. But you have my word that it will be my team's primary focus." Her hand pulls back, and he feels four of her fingertips lightly rest on his shoulder. "I'd prefer to check that connection point they left over your spinal cord before you leave today, but the rest of what we need for diagnostics can wait until another time."

Bucky pulls in a heavy breath through his nose. "Yeah. I'm ready to do that."

"I need to get a few things for it and check in with my team." She taps at the side of the wreath lightly. "You don't have to keep looking at the scan, but you should leave this on while I'm gone so we can get some basic readings."

"You're the boss, doc." He tries not to make it look like he's in a hurry to get the thing out of his hand when he dumps the tablet on his leg. 

"I'll be back in just a bit," she tells them, calmly shuffling off into the other half of the office. The glass door hisses loudly as she goes through it, confirming it's a sterile lab. The wall frosts over shortly after with the privacy screen activating.

Neither of them says a word for the first few minutes.

"Well," Steve finally offers up, his voice still as thick as when he thanked the doctor. "There's the confirmation you've been waiting for."

"That's not what that was—"

"Alright, you know what? Fuck you very much, Buck—"

"Fuck me? Fuck me? Yeah, I guess that's how it works now, what with you making alll the fucking calls—"

Steve's finger comes sailing into his face. "This affects more than just—" He stops with a short, muted groan and yanks his hand back to shove through his hair. After a moment, he lets it fall to his thigh in a clenched fist. "You want to sit here blaming yourself for it all, fine. I've got no right to tell you to stop when I'm still doing the exact same thing. But I'm pulling you through this whether," his voice goes high and mocking as he turns to glare a hole into the side of Bucky's head, "yooou like it or not. I let you fall once; I'm not fucking doing it again, asshole."

Bucky stares down a lava lamp sitting on the coffee table for a long, silent moment, his face pinched. He counts the number of wiggling blobs floating from the top to the bottom. He takes in their shared color and picks as close to a stupid paint name for it as possible. One by one, his photographic memory goes down the list of stupid colors from that stupid swatch wall at the stupid art supply store that Steve takes him to when he can't sleep at three in fucking the morning. He decides on fuchsia because it sounds extra stupid. There're twelve in total, they're fuchsia, and his best friend is as stupid as the name of their color.

The anger eventually eases up. "You're the asshole."

Steve sits back in his chair with a sigh. "Love you, too."

It takes a long minute of grinding his teeth for Bucky to force out the question that won't stop echoing in his head. "She doesn't know about the others?"

"She knows there were other attempts, but no, I didn't tell her any of them were successful. I left my notes in her file on what's been held back from her, along with the things she knows that her team doesn't. You can tell her whatever you want; that's up to you. I really think you should read through all of their files."

"Yeah?" Bucky snaps mockingly. "I really think you should kiss my ass."

Steve reaches out to grab one of the magazines from a stack on the coffee table. His posture is resigned and absolutely screaming I know better than you right now, idiot. "You should grow the fuck up."

—

There's no way the notes from HYDRA cover all his surgeries, not with this much framework built up inside his brain.

Steve warned her to expect something like this. The bastards passed Bucky around like a science experiment over the decades. Whenever a station was compromised, all of its records were destroyed to safeguard HYDRA's critical secrets, the work and confirmed existence of the Winter Soldier being one of them. Only a handful were raided by SHEILD efficiently enough to prevent further loss of his medical history. What remains is the scattered works of solitary minds spanned across decades. 

In Ava's opinion, not one of those minds should have been granted the mercy of seeing daylight again after their senseless, abhorrent, despicable crimes against the sergeant. Never in her life has she been a violent woman, but given a blunt object and five minutes with the lot of them, she'd have been very tempted to rebalance nature with ruthless gusto. 

A hand nudges at her arm, pulling her from her distraction with a quick inhale. "Sorry, repeat that?"

Wyatt's eyebrows pull in sympathetically. "Y'can hand this part off to one of us, boss."

"You can hand it off to him," Hannah interrupts briskly, her eyes never moving from where they're pressed against a microscope. 

"Y'can hand it off to me," Wyatt rapidly corrects with a warm smile. He drums his stylus against his arm and leans against the lab's center console. The movable hologram program Tony gifted them is already building detail into one of the darkest acts in human history. Right there, in front of one of the most gentle souls Ava's ever met. The contrast makes her stomach drop. "I mean it; y'know me, I got a real sweet touch. Betch'a the sergeant wouldn't even know I'd been there til it was over."

"Don't make me say it, Combs." Hannah almost sounds bored. The former marine is in a good mood today.

Wyatt doesn't even bother with throwing a quip back at her. He's usually wise enough to know when he's in a losing battle. Reaching out, he gives Ava's shoulder a supportive bump. "You said so yourself; he's alright with meetin' us."

Ava shakes her head, bringing her hand up to rub at the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are stinging hard enough to make them water. She shouldn't have pulled an all-nighter before this; it definitely isn't helping her frustration. "He's okay with it; that doesn't mean he's ready for it. You should see the way he's practically vibrating in that chair. There's not one part of this he isn't forcing himself through. I want to try to limit contact until he feels like he's in control of the space around him."

"That won't take long," Hannah comments quietly, reaching for another slide. "There are certain habits infiltrators don't lose."

"Speakin' from your own experience on that one?" Wyatt asks, curiosity creeping into his tone. Their eternal beacon of southern sunshine has yet to give up chasing details about her, unlike everyone else who visits their little medical corner. 

"Infiltrator is not the classification I would have given myself. I was never very subtle in my old line of work."

"Yeah, 'cause subtle's definitely the word I'd pick for your blunt ass now." Wyatt rolls his eyes and extends his hand to rapidly spin the projection of Bucky's brain with the flick of a stubby finger. "Either'a you looked at these trenches much yet? There's different cablin' in every major section. None of it's got a set standard, far as I can tell."

"I don't think he ever had the same doctor for more than two surgeries." Ava leans heavily against the console with a sigh, trying not to let herself venture into the mindset of a terrified soldier. She has to stay detached, or this will eat her alive before they're even halfway done. The enlarged hologram already hurts to look at in more ways than one. "Steve confirmed that HYDRA intermittently lost sections of his records through the years. All of this could be fractured by the decades; we won't know until Paige starts getting a read on the programming behind that main port."

"How do you want us to handle data transfer?" Hannah asks.

"Let's keep this off our internal server as much as we can help it. Tony sectioned off a virtual instance that we can burn when needed, but the only time you should be using that is for his scans. Put everything else on an isolated hard copy here in the lab, wherever you can do it without hindering the work. I want the equipment analysis kept as off-record as possible. I don't want this being recreated. By anyone."

"Definitely agreein' with you on that one, boss." Wyatt pokes his finger into the projection's left frontal lobe, halting its slowing spin. "I know we said extraction ain't the goal here, but I'm gonna be runnin' some sims on that when I've got the time. I don't like the idea of leavin' any'a this shit in, even if we do get it identified and nuked."

Ava nods and reaches up to give his shoulder a warm squeeze. "Let me know what initial paths you route; we can build from there. I doubt he'll be ready for any extensive work for years to come, but the least we can do is present him with some options." She takes a deep breath through her nose as she looks over the port connection on the hologram. "Alright, I'll be back after I finish his consultation."

"Good luck, boss," Wyatt encourages with a smile. "Tell the sergeant we said hi."

She waves her hand over her shoulder with a hum and braces herself to face her latest patient again. 

The sergeant himself is sitting just as stiffly as he was when she left, but the captain has moved on to relaxing with a magazine in his hands. They both look up at the sound of the door opening, with a laid-back smile on Steve's face and a forced one on Bucky's. She almost wants to tell him that he doesn't have to make an attempt. 

"Sorry for the wait; needed a quick check-in with the brain trust." And to not want to throw something heavy through Tony's fancy glass walls. "They wanted me to pass along their hello's. Dr. Combs, in particular, is very excited to meet you."

Bucky huffs a silent laugh through his nose as she returns to stand at the side of his chair. She doesn't try to move behind him for the moment. "Yeah, I'm sure I'm real—"

"Buck," Steve cuts in softly with a side eye in his best friend's direction.

"Fascinating?" Bucky's eyes lift to Ava's at her teasing guess, and his responding nod is sheepish. She smiles at the attempted manners. "Your case is as interesting as it is horrific, that's for sure. Lucky for you, we're a morbid bunch, so you can go for the gallows humor whenever you want." She taps at Bucky's arm with the pad of her index finger, trying to warm him up to repeat physical contact. "However, I'm pretty sure Wyatt is looking forward to asking for your autograph above everything."

The sergeant's eyebrows rocket toward his hairline. "What's he looking for? Love, The Winter Soldier?"

"Bucky." Steve doesn't even look over this time; he just drops one side of the magazine to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

The sight of an exasperated Captain America sitting in her office makes Ava snort loudly. She doesn't miss the way it makes Bucky's lips raise at the corners. "He comes from a long line of history buffs who believe accurate preservation is the best tool to prevent it from repeating. The guy grew up with battle models and field testimonials from every major war. I'm guessing he had some Howling Commando envy as a kid, though he won't own up to that on his end."

"He knows I was one of them for all of five minutes, right?"

"None of us were Howlies for long," Steve forcefully insists, one foot coming over to kick Buckys. "But that doesn't change the good we did while we were."

"It also won't stop him from chewing your ear off about it if you let him." Ava crosses her arms over her chest in amusement. "My advice is to stop him early. Definitely before he starts asking what you remember about the maps. You've got a real Milo Thatch working on your brain now." Bucky looks up at her in confusion. "Haven't gotten around to Disney movies yet? Milo's a character from Atlantis, one of my personal favorites. He and Wyatt share a certain level of academic excitement."

"I'll add it to the watch list." A small smile comes up, making her wonder what his cheeks look like when he really lets it go. "And keep the point of no return in mind."

She stops herself from gushing about the beauty of the art behind the movie, wanting to honor his headfirst approach. "You ready to get the last part of today's visit over with?"

His shoulders rise with another resigned intake, making her want to be ferociously violent toward the closest available Nazi. "I'm ready when you are, doc."

"My go-to hardware specialist built a prototype connector based on the scans Tony got during your initial intake. It's only the first iteration for the sake of data extraction, so be sure to speak up if anything feels off. Anything at all, even if it's just minor discomfort. She can work on changing it for the next build. I'm sure Steve can attest to Paige's efficiency at her job by now."

The slightest hint of a blush comes over the captain's cheeks at the teasing mention of his numerous visits to the engineering department. "Ms. Findley—"

"Does she ask you to call her that?" Bucky jumps on his best friend with immediately. Ava would feel bad about chumming the waters, but the banter is making him relax against the chair. 

Steve shuts his mouth momentarily. The blush gets a shade darker before he opens it again. "Paige is a very dedicated worker. And a lovely conversationalist. How do you two know each other? Through Tony?"

Now Ava really does feel bad. She puts a hand on her hip and tries to keep her smile from growing. "No, I'm the one who introduced them. She's been my best friend for about fifteen years now."

Steve freezes, and Bucky's grin takes over the lower half of his face. The sergeant sits all the way back, with shoulders that are perfectly at ease. "Oh, good. If I think of anything later, I can just have Stevie drop it off for me. I'd hate to forget between appointments."

Ava pulls the wireless reader and its port connector from the briefcase on Bucky's chair. She steps up behind him and tries not to let her eyes linger on how his smile lights up his face or how it warms her chest to see. Her free hand comes to rest on his left shoulder, leaving the exit door in his right peripherals. "This shouldn't take more than a few minutes at most. Ready?"

"Hit me." It almost doesn't sound forced. 

She lifts his hair and runs her thumb over the port once to brace him for the new sensations before lining up the connector. As she'd explicitly requested of Paige, the mechanism doesn't snap into place when she locks it in, meaning there's no responding vibration to move through his skull. The notes from Bucky's therapist that were passed along didn't mention it, but they hardly mention anything at all. There's a lot he's holding back, there has to be, and she's been trying to preempt as much of it as she can. 

Bucky's nails dig into the arm of the chair, and he inhales sharply. After a moment, his fingers start to relax one by one. Ava watches them all, her eyes moving between his hands and neck repeatedly, while the reader begins its data harvest. She gives him long enough to get a few steady breaths in. 

"Have you started any animated movie binges?" she prods, wanting to stall for time to get a closer look at his implant. With him letting her hold up his hair like this, it might be her only chance for the foreseeable future. 

"Sam's gotten me to sit through a few of his picks," he replies tensely. 

"Mmm. I'm guessing Mister Feathers is a Pixar fan." 

"I know that's an animation studio, but that's the extent of my expertise on the subject. Are they the ones who made Lilo and Stitch?"

"He did not make you watch that one first."

"He did, but that's technically not my first animated movie. We had them back in the 30s, you know."

"Some of us still call it animation's golden age," Steve mutters in the most crotchety old artist fashion, his eyes back on the magazine in his lap.

"Take a look around this room, Rogers," Ava sasses. "Do I look like someone who'd argue with you about its significance?"

"Point taken." 

Her eyebrows pull in while she looks over just how much of Bucky's spinal cord is exposed to outside influence. She knows how far the port runs thanks to the scans, but now she's getting an eyeful of movable hatching and flesh that will never get the proper chance to heal. 

"How are you handling the daily care of this?" she asks, running her finger around one edge of the port.

"I do it," Bucky tells her simply.

Her eyes lock on the back of his head in disbelief. "You do… what, exactly?"

"I've got a morning routine for it. Clear the excess buildup, sterilize the whole area, work the skin, that kind of thing."

"You understand that this has direct access to your brainstem, right?"

"I know." He shifts his weight in the chair. "I'm careful."

"I have several medical degrees, one of which is entirely focused on the human brain, and even I would hesitate to approach this on my own body. If anything that can give you so much as a hundred-degree fever touches this, you're dead, Bucky." She lets the hand not holding up his hair come to rest on his shoulder. "I'm not trying to scare you with this, but as your doctor, I need to make sure you understand the severity here. I don't want you doing this yourself anymore; I want you to come to my office for it."

"That's not necessary—"

"What time do you want him here in the mornings?" Steve asks, ignoring Bucky entirely. 

"I don't need to come here in the mornings—"

"It doesn't have to be every morning," Ava offers, wanting to give him a compromise. She's definitely not letting him go back to doing it himself. "I can set up a stable cleaning routine every other day whenever you have the time to come in."

"I have it handled, really—"

"I wouldn't push it past three days, though."

"Every other morning," Steve agrees. "That's perfect. JARVIS can keep an eye on the schedules for him."

"I've got working fucking eyeballs," Bucky almost shouts, making Ava and Steve finally let up. 

She squeezes her hand on his shoulder, half in apology, half in sympathy. "Yes, you do. But they happen to be in the front of your head. My eyes can see the back of your neck without a mirror, and they've got a decade's worth of disgustingly thorough medical training behind them. You came here because you're ready for this to get done. Now you actually have to let me do it."

Bucky lifts a hand as if he's about to argue but then lowers it with a soft sigh. "Yeah... yeah, alright. But I'm not always going to be here in the mornings—"

"She said it doesn't have to be the mornings," Steve cuts in again.

"You know what I mean, jackass. I'm not always going to be here consistently. I have, you know, a job that you try to boss me around on—"

"We can make sure you've got a trained medic to help—"

"No, Grant."

The words are said softly, and it takes a moment for Ava to even remember that it's the captain's middle name, but something happens in the wake of them. Steve's relentless push stops on a dime, and the fight leaves Bucky's shoulders. The two of them relax marginally, and Steve nods once. "Okay. So, we establish the routine here. Get it ironed out; get you practiced with it. Then I'll clear you for doing it yourself on missions. But if you miss even one while you're here, so help me—"

"I got it, I got it."

Steve watches Bucky with a tightly held expression for another long moment. Then he looks up at Ava with a nod. "He'll be here, and I'll make sure he's not cleared for another mission until you two have a stable routine for taking care of this."

Ava gives Bucky's shoulder another light squeeze. "I promise it'll be quick every time. I'll work with Paige on making you a field kit. In the long run, this shouldn't interrupt your normal day-to-day much at all."

"Appreciate the effort, doc." Bucky gives a soft grunt. "Sorry for the. Y'know. Pushback."

"I think the world owes you a little more than patience as backpay, Sergeant. I'm happy to help where I can."

—

Febuary 19th 2018

"I can handle it if you want me to."

"No. No, I... I can do it."

"You're sure?"

"You think I can't?"

"I think you look like you're about to throw up on my shoes."

"I don't like the idea of... starting off like that."

"That's why I'm offering to do it."

"No. It should be me. There are things you won't be able to explain."

"You can always fill in the blanks when she shows up for Soldat training."

"What a great alternative first impression! Hello, ma'am, not only am I a complete jackass, but I also delegate my role as—"

"You're not delegating; you're assigning the right person to the job. And this takes away the need for you to be a jackass."

"Leaving you to be a confrontational bitch in someone's eyes?"

"What's the issue there?"

"That's not what you are, Nat."

"Says who?"

Steve reaches out to smack the side of her arm. "That's one of my closest friends you're ragging on."

"She can take it." Natasha looks over at him, a bored hike to one brow. "Let's stay focused on what the doctor can take. This won't be like the therapists. We can't put him through multiple doctors on this. We'll only get one or two tries before he draws the hard limit."

He nods, turning his eyes back to the closed elevator doors. "Right. Right, it's for a good reason. I can do it."

"You don't have to. I can handle it."

"I know. But it should be me." He knocks the side of his boot against hers. "Thank you."

"Always. Let me know how it goes."

Natasha's off the elevator before the doors are even finished opening, leaving Steve to collect himself alone. He pushes off the back railing with a heavy sigh. No part of this is going to be easy to stomach. He's accepted that. He exits the elevator with a resigned set to his shoulders.

The medical wing is dark this late into the day. JARVIS already confirmed that the doctor is still in the building. From the AI's reports, she pulls late nights like this regularly. It bodes well for what he'll have to ask of her and her team.

He stops to admire the heavy paint on the outside of the lab's door. There's days worth of work here, clearly a labor of love. It takes until he's admiring the fourth flower of his perusal to notice that it's not all the same artist. He scans it a bit quicker after that, trying to take a guess as to how many different hands took part. His best guess is four.

Accepting that he's been inadvertently stalling, Steve pushes it open roughly. He probably should have expected the onslaught of color in the room from seeing the door. It still hits him hard enough to make him do a double-take through his exaggerated annoyance. The doctor sitting on the other side of a very large desk nearly jumps out of her chair.

"Christ Al-fucking-mighty," she swears, one hand coming up to brace against her chest. Steve gets nailed with a furious glare. "Knock much?"

Well, that's one test passed. "Are you Dr. Ryder?"

"I am. Who the hell wants to—oh." Recognition dawns on her face as Steve gets close enough to be illuminated by her desk light. The fury in her shifts toward indignance. "I happen to hold a lot of respect for you, at least during normal business hours. So, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and let you have a moment to explain yourself, captain."

He almost starts with an apology, but he catches himself in time. "I've been told you're one of the best neurosurgeons we're in contact with—"

"No, you've been told I am the best." She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair. Her head inclines toward him. "You can continue."

Steve's reservations about her being able to handle Bucky are leaving rapidly. It almost makes him smile. He holds it together with his best captain voice. "I need your expertise on a consultation. A private consultation. Completely off SHEILD books."

"Am I being roped into the organization's second overhaul?" There's bitterness lingering in her tone. The kind Steve remembers feeling on his own end for months leading up to Fury's near-assassination.

"No. When I say private, I mean private. This isn't under SHIELD purview. I'll be expecting discretion if you think you're up to the case, so we're clear."

The doctor's eyebrows sail up, and her head moves back far enough to hit her chair. "I'll be expecting you to hand over some details before I agree to a damn thing. As a follow-up, you can provide me with an explanation as to why this needed to be done an hour before midnight, with no forewarning and definitely no respect. Otherwise, you can turn your happy ass back around and go find the other neurosurgeons you didn't feel like harassing first."

Damn. He really should have gotten Natasha to do this; she's faster with proper comebacks. "You'll be given information as you need to know it. First, I need to make sure that—"

"First, you can fuck off." Her head shifts to one side as he pauses. "I don't respond well to authority, captain. I'm sure whatever's going on is very important if it's got America's Sweetheart making an ass of himself in the middle of my office on a Monday night. But that's not really my problem. It could be, were I given a reason to care about it."

"Does rectifying war crimes warrant your valuable attention, doctor?" The words feel awful leaving his mouth; she doesn't deserve to get barked at like this. But he needs an honest indication of how she'll react to a bad day.

Ava watches him with a slightly open mouth for more than a few tense moments. Then recognition dawns for a second time, and her eyes roll dramatically. "Oh, for god's sweet sake. You could have just asked if I have experience with PTSD patients. Hell, you were clearly sent by Tony, and I met the man at a veteran's benefit, so you could have asked him. Barnes' presence on the Avenger's roster isn't exactly a secret these days."

Steve holds himself still, then shifts his weight to one foot. "You met at a veteran's benefit?"

She nods slowly, with a bit of mockery behind the motion. "Yes. Almost a decade ago. He funds most of my work with the VA."

That hadn't been included in her resume. He didn't want to invade her privacy by pulling her file until she agreed to it. Steve feels heat rise to his cheeks. Then the anger starts to surface. "You know, I'm not one hundred percent sure I was supposed to know that."

"You think?" The words are bone dry, and her posture is still defensive, but there's a smile working its way up from the corners of her lips.

"Look, I...." Steve raises a hand to the back of his neck sheepishly. "I apologize. I promise it's not about doubting your professionalism—"

"It's about protecting family, yeah, I get it." Her arms don't unfold from her chest. But her eyebrows do come back down.

"He's very important to me. I want to make sure he's in good hands, that's all."

"Well?"

Steve's brows draw in. "I wasn't trying to dump the case on you right now—"

"No, idiot." Her eyes roll again, with much less aggression. "I'm asking if I passed."

"Oh." He nods, his cheeks still feeling far too hot. "With flying colors, so far. There's still a lot more to cover before we get Bucky involved, but. Yes, ma'am. I think you'll handle him just fine."

With a sigh, her arms finally lower. She extends a hand out in his direction. "Ava Ryder. It's very nice to meet you, Captain Rogers."

He takes her hand with a firm shake, inclining his head apologetically. "It's very nice to meet you, as well, doctor. You can call me Steve."

"You can call me Ava. So can James whenever I'm finally graced with his presence."

Yeah. She'll do just fine. "He prefers Bucky. And I'm sure he'll provide you with a much more agreeable first impression. All that can wait until you don't look like you're going to fall asleep on your keyboard, though.

Ava smiles warmly at him, falling back against her chair as she takes back her hand. "I'm looking forward to it. You can send me the details on the case at a reasonable hour to make up for scaring the shit out of me."

"Yes, ma'am." He tips his head respectfully, already backing up from her desk. "Sorry for the scare. And for being so disrespectful. He really is—"

"Important to you." She waves her hand dismissively before reaching up to push at her glasses. "I get it, don't worry. I'd be twice as much of a wreck in your shoes. You're doing fine."

Sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, there are benefits to having the worst moments of his life in the history books. "I appreciate that, thank you. You have a good rest of your night, ma'am. I'll send—I'll have JARVIS send you his file—"

"Captain Rogers is unaware of how to forward SHEILD files, doctor," the AI cuts in gleefully.

"I had my suspicions, JARVIS; thanks." She waves her hand again, this time in goodbye, as she looks back at her computer screen. "Please don't trip on my carpet and bust your ass on the way out of my office."

Steve pointedly turns on his heel, glad for the excuse to hide his burning face. He all but races to the door. "I'll be in contact, doc."

"Mhmm."

When he pulls open the painted door, he's almost unsurprised to find Natasha leaning against the other side of the hallway. She doesn't move at all, but one side of her mouth lifts in a smirk.

Steve lets the door shut softly behind him before cocking his head to the side. "Very cute. You two in on it together?"

"No, but sniffing out Tony's bait didn't take long. You'd have noticed, too, if you weren't so far up Bucky's ass." Her head tilts in the opposite direction as his. "Feel better?"

He straightens up with a nod. The motion feels confident. "Much."

—author's end notes, yoinked straight from ao3—

“what’s paige like?” well. to put it simply. she is every last ounce of karma that steve has earned by lovingly terrorizing his best friend 😌

i feel like the overall theme got covered enough with this to tell if the plot is for you or not. flirting starts next, but isn't super blatant until chap 4. i am in zero rush and will have no problem with dedicating an entire chap to cuddling tbh, this is a comfort project im in for the long haul. check back later for * to get full smut taste, current (possibly changing) map has it in chap 9. OR you can check back for kinktober, i have all 31 days outlined for these idiots. i need starfield to be good so i can do smut for that too, bethesda pls

keep in mind this will get sci-fi weird at times, and loosely ref/revolve around greek myth tropes bc iiiii like ‘em ❤️ im a fandom ancient who takes no issue with cleaning out the dickhead comments 😌 also i might edit shit. im still not clear on what ao3 will email about a bookmark (god willing its not edits that dont include a new chapter) but just in case i figured id warn for anyone who doesn't want email spam

im gonna try to keep ava and paige as vague as possible, aside from a few scattered physical details so i have SOMETHING to write. my favorite bucky fic in existence is a reader!fic (safe with me is Ungodly levels of good, and i dont just say that as a fellow west wing addict. i constantly forget that his apartment in it isn't actually canon and there're no m&ms hiding for eternity somewhere) so you wont get any judgment from me on replacing both of them right down to their names, that’s how im writing them!! it just feels unfair to tag it a reader fic with them being given SUCH a heavy “presence" i guess

main pov's (the undated ones) will always flip between bucky and ava. the dated ones are other characters pov's OOOOOOR its a flashback in which case it could be the two of them, but ill always try to make it clear whose headspace is focused up front, so i dont think ive set up a hurdle there

thanks for reading ❤️ i love and appreciate feedback immensely ❤️ feeds the brain chemicals 😌 no worries abt spoilers, i feel like anyone looking there knows what theyre risking lmao

[hiddencolleges]

The Conversation

Written by 'WS'

The room was dark and gloomy, like a never-ending void on both sides. In the middle is a table and a hanging lightbulb that can barely emit light at this point, sitting there are two men. 

The men stared into each other’s eyes as if its the only thing that matters. One of them looks young but looks tired and restless. The other one has a stark look, sharp and cunning but his face is wrinkled and old- time has already taken a toll on his face. But neither of them can read the other person’s mind. They have been sitting at the table for god knows how long and never broke their stare into each other’s irises. It is as if time didn't even exist in their enigmatic world.

“Fifty years ago-” the old man said but was quickly stopped by the other person “we have been through this, saying it again and again will never change anything.” the young man said. “I need you to listen to me” the old man paused and continue speaking “Fifty years ago we are at the peak, we were the best everyone envied us and wished that we were them”.

“But it's no longer that, is it?” the young man retaliates “yes, yes it is” he said in a cold and guilty voice.

“See that’s the thing!-” the young man shouts, “now hold on, let me finish-”.

“No! We had everything, the wealth, the praise, the acknowledgment, we were what others would kill just to be a speck of what we had accomplished!” the young man said angrily

“But noooo you had your pride, your ego, and now look at us! Look at us!” he stared sharply at the old man. “We were one of the greats back then, but you just have to let it all go!” he said disappointingly sadden by the horrible truth. 

“I did… I did what I thought was right.” the old man said slowly. “I did it with the thought that it would be for the best, and it was for a while.”.

“People were happy and everyone had plenty of everything.” the old man continued

“Then it all changed, something happened and it turned everything around.” the old man stared back.

“What happened?” the young man asked.

“You happened.” the young man was baffled but before he could say anything the old man continued

“You with your pride, your ego, we had everything. All you needed to do was to improve and adapt.” the old man said loudly, but you can never feel resentment in his words.

Only disappointment.

“You and your entitlement ruined everything! Yes I did mess up and I tried to change from them, so don’t you pass the blame to me when we both know that in the end, it's your fault.”

The room was quiet again, the void seeping back and the presence of sound slowly dissipates.

“How did you even end up in that conclusion!” the young man roared trying to understand what the old man even said. “The audacity to even think that it was the US who made the problem when well in fact it was you! All YOU!” the young man shouted.

“Yes, we are the ones that messed up at the start and we are trying to make it right. But you have to realize that you also have to take accountability for the wrongs that you have done.” the old man said in a raspy voice.

“Accountability?!” The young man said in shock and irritation. Flabbergasted by the statement of the old man he boldly says “Tell me at least 3 things that we should be accountable for.”.

The old man stared at him and didn’t speak for a couple of minutes, he remained quiet for a while and said “with pleasure.” 

“You are lazy.” he said plainly.  “Let me expand it so that you won’t misunderstand what I am saying” the old man followed up quickly.

“You are a person with self-perpetuating thinking towards laziness, you never do anything other than the things that will benefit you now over later.” the old man said, trying to further expand his thinking process to the young man

“Yea, I do it as well as everyone, it's not that we don’t want to look forward but we need to cover things on a daily basis because of your screw-up!” the young man retaliate trying to not lose the argument. 

“Along with it, you are arrogant!” he said sharply, “You are always a show-off, there was never a time that I saw you humble yourself down, you try to act with elegance and etiquette while in reality, you are less than deserving to be one.” the old man continued, saying boldly with every statement.

“How dare you! Do you even have any idea on what you are say-” before the young man was able to continue, the old man stood up and said. 

“YOU. ARE. A PERSON. WITH NO LOYALTY!!!”  The old man shouted, he cough up and cough up but he seems to not bother the drawback. 

“You never once stood up for us, I know for a fact that when given a chance to ditch us you would not even think for a second and just go without a second thought!” the old man proclaimed

The young man looked at the old man and stared “And I would do it again and again and again until I’m no longer stuck here with you in this room.” 

The room went quiet. The darkness finally seeps all the sound that remains in the lightless room the two men are stuck in.

The men stared into each other’s eyes again as if its the only thing that matters. Neither of them can read the other person’s mind. They have been sitting at the table for god knows how long and never broke their stare into each other’s irises. It is as if time didn't even exist in their enigmatic world.

And it never did, for time is repeating in this world. 

The only way to freedom is by finally realizing that they are both the same person.

P.S: Inspired by Why are Filipinos so Poor? by F. Sionil Jose

[captain-aralias]

fanfic writer challenge!

@mostlymaudlin invented this challenge and was kind enough to tag me. it took my brain a few days to wake up enough to respond, but here i am.

instructions:

list & explain the three lines/moments from canon that are most fundamental to how you write your fave character

challenge 3 more fic writers to do the same!

ok - i'll do baz too, so we can compare.

first thing from me is i'm going to cheat, because i can't cover baz in 3 quotes. both he and simon change so much between carry on and WS/AWTWB that although they have a trajectory from one state to the other, and though i love people backreading AWTWB into CO!Baz.... i write them super different.

CO!Baz

1. And I'm hopelessly in love with him.

this comes at the end of a massive monologue - and then leads into another massive monologue. all about how baz is SAD but his love for simon is BEAUTIFUL and all consuming. it's so dramatic that he literally puts it on its own line, and then cuts to a new chapter. but it's also... resigned. nothing to do about it, just pine.

these are the chapters that i tend to listen to most often, as it's a long run of baz stuff, but i also do think it's pretty typical. (and i love him)

2. The World of Mages never had taxes before. Taxes were for Normals. We had Standards instead.

i thought about removing this a few times, it seems harsh - i only get three choices. but going to keep it in. baz has internalised a lot of shit, he uses learned hatred of others to protect himself against simon amongst other things. speaking of self-protection ...

3. 'You slept in my arms,' he says. / 'Fitfully.'

baz has got what he wants, but he's not able to believe it's happening so backslides immediately. it's a funny line, too - like he knows the audience will laugh with him, even if he doesn't mean simon to laugh. it's also (obliquely) the last thing i would say about CO-era!baz, which is that when faced with an opportunity to kiss simon awake or tell him he's interested in him..... he chooses not to do that. baz doesn't act, things happen to him - except on his crazed quest about his mother.

WS/AWTWB!Baz

1. i'll have the cheesecake factory scene, too - it does what rory says, and also tells us what (i believe) simon loves about him.

my favourite line is:

"I would never want to date you," he earnestly replies. "But it's not because you're mule-headed. That's practically my type."

ha ha. but also - it's true! and it's very kind of him to try.

2. 'I love you," I say. (And I know that's not a thing. I know it doesn't matter.)

so brave to come at all and track simon down! so brave to say it! it feels so unexpected to me and changes a lot of my baz characterisation from here on. now, i'm like: woah, baz can be the proactive character.

3. n.b. i spent a while thinking about what this would be. there are things that i think should be baz characterisation that i don't use enough (the playfighting at the ren faire; the fact he considers his culpability after america), and there's like.... the formal politeness. i've got kindness from WS, so we don't need the bit where he takes daphne home.

i think i'm going to go with ...

Is he scared? Embarrassed? Overwhelmed? Did he even want that to happen? He's never been with a guy, maybe he didn't like it. Maybe it wasn't what he was expecting. It's messier than being with a girl. (Isn't it?) (I don't know anything about being with girls.) (I don't know anything about being with guys.) (I know a lot about furtively bashing one out while my roommate is off fighting magickal crime, then hoping he doesn't wonder why I'm taking a shower in the middle of the afternoon.)

this is just a really fun passage in lots of ways. it has lots of short clauses, repetition, baz correcting himself. being funny, but it also has two new things. the first is that baz is like 'oh no, simon will have a freak out' and doesn't NOTICE that he himself is having a freak out, right now, a terrible spiral ... massive deflection onto simon. and using humour to deflect from own feelings too! (a personal favourite).

and the other is that.... before AWTWB, i enjoyed the shared headcanon that baz had researched himself into being a gay sex savant. what we find out from this paragraph is that he has literally not researched it at ALL, the same as he hasn't researched vampirism AT ALL. he's useless.... in this one very specific way, because he does know loads of other things. but there are things that he's afraid to look at too closely and it's this stupid fucking blind spot - and apparently sex is one of them. simon has to take the lead from now on, RIP to all future sexgod!baz fics. sexgod!simon only from now on.

tagging 2xthree people, since i did two batches: @artsyunderstudy @annabellelux @bookish-bogwitch @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @carryonvisinata @nightimedreamersworld as well as anyone who sees this post and wants to write about a character. please tag me in your post, i'd love to see it.

[colibrie]

knock knock

Who is there?

Me again!

A sick fic snip for the Wind Lovers, with a healthy dose of Time and Malon being an amazing married couple.

Tw for: Winds cursing, fever driven delirium, violence, and a small amount of blood.

"Wind," Warriors said, his words slow and firm as he kept his empty hands raised. "Wind, I need you to put the sword down. You aren't well and need to lay back down."

"Bullsh't," Wind spat, the point of the Phantom sword wavering between Warriors and Twilight as the pirate swayed dangerously. "Wh're are they? Wha'd you do wi m'frnds?"

"They're fine. They are in your world." Four replied, stepping forward to join the knot around the sick hero. "We are at Lon Lon ranch, in Times Hyrule. Remember the portal?"

"Prtal?" Wind repeated, voice laden with confusion that was mirrored in his fever flushed face.

"Yes," Four prompted, remaining still as the Phantom sword swung to point at him. "The portal from the Snow Peak ruins in Twilights world. You caught some illness while we were there."

"Cold..." Wind mumbled, his glazed eyes looking past them into a private memory only he could see. Time had seen that look in his own reflection many times, and it never meant anything good.

"So cold...m'fault...gotta get er back..." Wind whispered, his sword dropping slightly as he repeated the words under his breath.

"It's not your fault, you’re just sick," Four replied, edging forward as he reached for the hilt of the Phantom sword. "Let’s get you back in be-"

Winds fist cut off the rest of Fours sentence, whipping out with surprising speed in a blow that knocked the smallest hero flat on his back.

"WIND NO!" Time cried, lunging forward.

"WHERE IS SHE?" Wind screamed, his sword slashing down to press dangerously on Fours exposed throat.

"Where is who, Wind?!" Sky asked, his voice holding a desperate kind of calm as Time motioned for Twilight and Warriors to fan out, completely cutting of any means of escape.

"WHERE IS TETRA?!" Wind bellowed, his hand shaking as the first beads of blood began to paint the delicate skin of Fours neck. "I KNOW YOU HAVE HER! AN I'M NOT GONNA LET YOU HURT HER! TELL ME WHERE SHE IS OR THIS GUY GETS IT!"

"Wind, she's-"

"Here," Malon's voice cut in, and Times heart plummeted to his toes as he watched his wife slip dexterously past Wild to stand within striking distance of the delirious hero of the Winds. Her only defense was an earthen mug full of gently steaming milk.

"Malon get back!" He hissed, attempting to grab her, Rather than listen she stepped out of his reach.

"We had to take her to another room to help her." Malon continued, her very being radiating warmth and concern as she dropped to one knee next to Wind and Four. "She's been worried about you, and so have Gonzo and all your other friends. She asked me to come check on you"

"You...know Gonzo?"

"Mhm," Malon hummed.

"Bt...But Tetra ws stone...He turned er to stone...How'd you elp her?" Wind asked, his eyes welling with tears even as he glared at Malon with suspicion.

"She was stone," Malon agreed, her voice pitched to the tone she used with skittish or injured horses. "But she said you saved her. You broke the curse, remember?"

"I...I did...I did?" Wind muttered, his voice tipping between hopeful relief and frightened confusion.

"You did," Malon assured. "You were brought here to recover. Tetra is okay, and she wants you to get better too. I have some milk here, with her orders that you "drink it or else.""

"Thas Tetra." Wind sniffed, the tears rolling down his face as Malon gently pressed the mug into his free hand.

"She's quite the woman. I'd listen to her if I were you." Malon agreed, steadying the mug as she helped Wind raise it to his lips. "Let’s get this in you, then you can go see her."

"Promise?" Wind asked, for once sounding like the fourteen-year-old kid that he was.

"I promise," Malon affirmed, her free hand gently directing the edge of the Phantom Sword away from Four’s throat.

Wind looked at her for another long moment, then nodded and started to down the mugs contents.

"You poor thing." Malon said sadly, sweeping Winds sweat soaked bangs out of his eyes as he gulped down the milk. "You've had to do so much. Carry so many burdens all alone. Why don't you rest here for a while? You and Tetra both."

"Cn we?" Wind slurred, his eyes drooping as he lowered the now empty mug.

Beneath him, Four began to slowly inch back, using his elbows and heels to slip out from under the ailing hero. The blood from his neck left a small trail behind him. Hyrule didn't even bother looking at Time for direction, slipping forward on silent feet to pull Four up and further from the circle, his hands flying to check the damage to their smithies throat.

"You can." Malon reaffirmed, not even flinching when both the mug and the Phantom sword clattered to the floor. She simply slipped her arms around Wind, taking his weight and guided him to rest against her as his legs gave out.

"M' tired..." Wind whimpered, tears mingling with the sweat on his face as he pressed it into Malon’s shoulder.

"I know. Sleep now, go see your friends. They miss you so much." Malon soothed, gesturing for Warriors to grab the bead spread. Their Captain’s face was a mask of heart break as he slowly wrapped their shivering sailor in the quilts warm folds, and Time mentally resolved to talk to him about it later.

"C'n we g'back t'the boat?" Wind asked in a small voice, sighing at the comforting weight of the blanket. "l'ke it better...l'ike the rockin. S'hme."

"Sure, you can. Close your eyes," Malon said, gently sweeping her fingers over Winds fluttering eyes lids to coax them all the way closed. That done, she slowly began to sway, gently rocking the young boy back and forth. "Snuggle down in your hammock now. Everyone will be waiting for you when you wake up."

It only took a few moments for Winds breathing to deepen into soft snores, illness and medicine working in tandem to pull the young pirate into the world of his dreams.

"Four, are you okay sweetheart?" Malon asked quietly as she continued to rock Wind.

"I'm fine." The Smithy replied, stepping back into the circle of the group with Hyrule close behind. The cuts were gone, but dark stain on collar and hood of his tunic was a sobering reminder of how close things had come. "How's Wind?"

"Still hot, but the fever reducer I put in his milk should start to help with that," Malon said, gently caressing Winds flushed cheek with the back of her fingers. "I also put in something to encourage sleep, though I think his body will do that naturally. Poor thing is worn out."

"Here," Twilight said, stepping forward with open arms. "I'll put him back to bed."

"That's sweet hun, but I don't think I'll let him go just yet. You can help me to the couch in the main room," Malon said, giving Twilight a warm smile as he obediently moved to do so. Wind let out a soft whimper at the shift but was quickly soothed back to sleep by a quick sweep of Twilights hand through his hair.

"I'm going to check on Legend." Hyrule said, holding the door open for Twilight and Malon. "Let me know if there is anything I can do to help."

"Thank you Hyrule," Malon said. "Take anything you need from the pantry, and don't overdue that magic of yours. Last thing we need is for you to wear yourself down an get sick too."

"Yes ma'am," Hyrule murmured, splitting from the group to head towards Legends room.

"The rest of you can take care of the chores." Time said, watching from the corner of his good eye as Malon settled on the couch with Wind tucked in her lap. "The horses need care, and there is fencing that needs to be fixed on the far western paddock."

"Wild an I will take the horses," Twi said, fussing over Malon and Wind for a few moments as he ensured both were comfortably settled. "Wars, you wanna take Sky an handle the fence?"

"Link can go with you." Malon chimed in, ignoring the look Time shot her."

"Four can-"

"Four is going back to the barn. I need finish those shoes for the injured horse Talon brought in," Four cut in, already moving towards the door.

"Make sure you put that tunic to soak first young man," Malon called, halting the smithy in his tracks. "Otherwise, that blood is going to be a bear an a half to get out of those colors."

"Yes ma'am." Four sighed, pivoting and heading back up the stairs.

"Come on Sky," Warriors said, his gaze averted away from the couch. "Lets get supplies we will need."

"I'll meet you out there," Time said, his good eye locked with Malons.

"Sure thing Time," Sky replied, subtly ushering Warriors out the door.

The room was silent for a few long moments, still save for the soft rustle of wind through the trees and the soft rasp of Winds snores. Time continued to stare his wife down, and she continued to stare back, her warm eyes holding a core of steel that he knew nothing in any world could break. Eventually though, the stalemate of their silence was broken.

"I'm not a mind reader fairy boy. You have to tell me what's eating at you."

"I don't want you to be alone with him," Time said, crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to be firm. "Not while Wind isn't in full control of his capacities."

"Nothing that happened earlier was his fault," Malon quietly defended, softly patting Winds back as she rocked him.

"I know it’s not," Time sighed, one hand raising of its own volition to push through his own tawny locks. "He didn't ask to be sick, and I know what a bad fever can do to a mind that has seen what we have seen."

"But..." Malon prompted when he paused, her voice holding and endless patience whose depth he had yet to find.

"But I'm already praying he doesn't remember what happened with Four. I don't even know what I'd do if he hurt you."

"Oh Link," Malon sighed, gazing at him with eyes that saw through him every time. "This isn't your fault."

He opened his mouth to speak, then wisely closed it when she shot him a look that said she wasn't finished.

"You are not to blame for Wind and Legend falling ill. It's just part of life. What happened with Four was a misunderstanding."

"It was a mistake. Mistakes cost lives," he stubbornly rebutted, dropping his gaze to scowl at his boots.

"But this one didn't," Malon pushed on, her own brand of stubbornness wearing away at his like water over a stone.

"Wind woke up scared and confused. He panicked and the fever took it from there. In the unlikely scenario he wakes up before you're back he will do so with someone here to assure him that everything is okay."

"But why can't that person be Hyrule?" Time protested, even though he knew it was unlikely to have an effect.

"Because I... I need this too," Malon admitted quietly, dropping her head to place a tender kiss in Winds tousled locks.

"I hated seeing him like that, so frightened, trying his best to be brave for his friends. He's only fourteen Link! Sick and alone with his family a world away. He's told me about his grandmother, and if she were here, I know she'd want to hold him too. Since she can't, I... I want to."

Time felt his heart explode, overflowing with love and pride for his wife. Swift strides brought him to her side, where he wasted no time in pulling her close to press his own kiss to her forehead.

"Goddesses, just when I think I can't love you more," he breathed, pulling her against his chest. "Where did you get such a big heart?"

"From watching a certain fairy boy give his own to protect not one, but two worlds," she murmured, melting into his side, and pressing a kiss to his throat.

"You are going to be an amazing mother love," Time said, freeing up one hand to gently stroke Winds hair.

"I'm certainly gettin a lot of practice with you lot around," Malon teased. "Now, you told the boys you'd meet them outside. Get goin an make sure they are doin alright."

"Yes dear."

[doctorstethoscope]

Moment || Aaron Hotchner x gn Reader

A/N: hiiii besties expanding on a lil prompt from the weekend due to popular demand! Thank you to @the-modernmary for  helping me with it!! If u liked this teeny bit of angst u will love her fics!!

just a little note for those of you who read The Right: I am going on vacation this coming Saturday-Wednesday. I will have the chapters queued to post for y’all, but I will not be able to respond to taglist requests or update the masterlist until I come back! Still let me know what you think about the chapters though, they’re some good ones! ok onto this fic.

contains: slight cursing, alcohol consumption

wc: 1.7k

You take a deep breath as you walk out of Strauss’s office, taking exactly one beat to regain your composure before hastily making your way over to Hotch’s office, letting yourself in without knocking. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” you said by way of greeting as you crossed his office and settled into one of the chairs across from his desk.

“Tell you what?” Hotch asks, looking up from his paperwork with confusion knit across his brow. 

“That Strauss was going to harangue me the second I walked into the building this morning. I seriously didn’t even make it past security before she nabbed me.” You told him, disgruntled. 

“I didn’t know. What did she want?” Aaron asks, and you look up and see that he’s telling the truth-- he really didn’t know. 

“Oh… I assumed she would have cleared it with you before she asked me.” You said, your boisterous energy deflating the longer you sat in the chair. 

“Is she pulling you for undercover work? She always does that, and she never asks if we have anything coming up or what your consult workload is--” 

“No, Hotch. She’s, uh, she’s not pulling me for undercover work.”

“What is it?” 

“She said the director tapped me to lead the field office in Vegas.” You confessed, looking up and seeing the air leave Aaron’s chest. 

“Wow.” Aaron says, blinking. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. 

“And you’re going to take it?” He asked. 

“I told her that I needed some time to think about it.” You answer him.

“What’s there to think about?” He wonders. 

There’s a moment where you think you might actually roll your eyes at him. There’s a moment where you consider begging him to give you a reason to stay. There’s a moment where you consider crossing the desk and depositing yourself in his lap, kissing him with the weight of all of the feelings that had you wanting to stay. 

But, after a moment, you realize that none of that’s happening. He’s sitting across from you, looking at you like you’d be the biggest fool in the world not to take advantage of this opportunity, and maybe he was right. Maybe you would spend the rest of your life wanting him one-sidedly, wondering what good you could have done for the world if you had simply accepted that he’d never love you back. 

“Nothing,” you answered, after a moment. “There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all.”

****************************

Aaron’s barely even distracted when you swing his door open and plop yourself into one of his chairs first thing in the morning. He’s used to it, by now. He may have been a less-than-willing participant in your friendship at the beginning of your relationship, but now he was glad to call you someone he was close to. His closest friend, really. 

His ears perk up when you mention Strauss. “Is she pulling you for undercover work?’ He starts to rant, already planning the tirade he’s going to deliver to Erin when he notices your demeanor change. You’re… shy, all of a sudden. You’ve never hidden from him before. He doesn’t like it. 

“She said the director tapped me for the field director position in Vegas,” You revealed. The sentence hit him like a punch in the gut.

“Wow,” is all he can manage to get out, fighting the way his throat threatens to close up. “And you’re going to take it?” He asks, although he knows the answer will break his heart. 

“I told her I needed some time to think about it.”

“What’s there to think about?’ He asked, allowing himself to hope for a moment that you’ll make some grand confession, to imagine for a moment that you might possibly feel the same way he does, to believe for a moment that he’s worthy of your love. But he’s not.

“Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing to think about at all,” you tell him, standing up and leaving with a forced casualness. 

Aaron had been married long enough to know that that tone and those words together mean the exact opposite of what they are supposed to mean-- but he was still confused. What could possibly make you stay? And how could he find it before you left? 

*****************

The following days between you and Aaron had been chilly, to say the least. You didn’t bounce ideas off of each other on cases like you normally would. You came to the opposite conclusions at every turn. You were out of sync, and everyone felt it. So when the case wrapped up on a Friday afternoon, you were more than happy to rush home to a bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, your moving boxes and some trashy reality television.

You’d given up on packing after about an hour. Your heart just wasn’t in it. So instead, you lounged in your pajamas, sipping at your wine in the hopes that it would guide you to your first full night of sleep since you’d spoken with Strauss. You’re just about to head to bed when there’s a knock at your door. You swing it open, revealing Aaron, holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. 

“I was an asshole.” He offers. “Am I interrupting anything, or?”

“Just packing,” you say, wanting to twist the knife a little bit even if it wasn’t truthful. Aaron is undeterred, and steps inside anyways. 

“I didn’t want you to leave with us still in the middle of the fight. You can be as mad as you want in the morning, but have a glass of champagne with me?” He asks, with those big brown eyes you could never refuse. 

“Fine,” you sighed, still easily won over by him, even when you were heartbroken and mad. 

“Here, you open it. Congratulations,” he tells you, handing over the bottle. You start picking at the foil, and he speaks up in the silence. “Things are going to be different without you, you know. I like that our team is structured the way it is… as a team, but you know, in a lot of ways, it was nice to have a partner in you.”

“You know, come to think of it, I’m not sure if I even have cups. They might be packed away,” you say, still picking at the foil and decidedly not looking Aaron in the eye. He chuckles a little at your comment.

 “I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’re gone. I mean, who else can rein in Derek, or get to see me the big picture, or talk Emily off the ledge when I’m sure she’s about to go rogue?’ 

“It’s going to be okay,” you tell him, setting the bottle on the counter, still unopened. Aaron heaves a sigh. 

“You should stay.” He says, after a moment. 

“What?” You say, blinking, because surely you must be drunk or dreaming or something else. 

“You should stay here. You don’t have to take the job in Vegas.” 

“Haha, very funny,” you joked, bringing your attention back to the bottle to avoid looking him in the eye. 

“I’m serious. Listen, I know I said there was nothing to think about, but I changed my mind.” 

“Oh, did you? And what if I haven’t changed mine?” You asked, getting angry now. 

Not able to hold back for another second, he takes your face in both of his hands and kisses you. “Just, think about that before you board a plane. Okay?” He says, and before you can even speak, you hear the door swing shut behind him. 

Damn you, Hotchner. 

You don’t sleep a wink.  When 8am finally rolls around, you pull yourself out of bed and get dressed, heading over to Aaron’s. As you buckle your seatbelt, you realize that you know you have to go over there but you have no clue what it is you even want to say to him. You hope you’ll figure it out without sounding completely insane as you knock on Aaron’s door, and he swings it open, still in his sweatpants and incredibly surprised to find you on his doorstep.

“I’m even more mad at you right now than I was last night,” you tell him by way of greeting.

“That’s understandable. I haven’t been very fair to you,” he agrees, and the fact that he’s being so reasonable only makes you angrier. You slip past him and step inside the apartment. 

“I don’t get it. You couldn’t just let me move on, start a new life and forget about the torch I’ve been burning for my boss the entire time I’ve worked here? You had to have the last word, even if I was leaving forever.” 

“No,” Aaron says, and you bite your tongue, trying to allow him a moment to respond even if you weren’t feeling all that gracious. “No, I couldn’t let you move on thinking the torch you were carrying ws unrequited.”

You’re struck by his words. “What are you trying to say?” 

“I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. It’s a great opportunity for you in Vegas. I’m happy for you, and you shouldn’t let this--” 

“Hotch, what are you trying to say?”

“Just that I’m proud of you, and I know that you’ll do excellent work, and--”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to hide from me.” You call him out, and he looks at you for a moment. This time, you don’t break his glance. 

“I’m not trying to hide. I’m just too late.” He tells you, looking down at the floor. 

“Tell me, Hotchner. Tell me, please.” You beg of him, shifting to try to get him to look you in the eye.

“I love you, and I figured it out too late.” 

You draw in a sharp breath, and he’s sure he’s ruined any vestiges of friendship that still existed between the two of you in this moment, and that you’ll board your plane to Las Vegas and he’ll become a creepy old boss that you never think about again. He takes a moment to look at you, a moment to mourn what might have been, a moment to remember the way your laugh made him smile while the memories were still fresh. He takes a moment, and then you speak up.

“No,” you correct him. “You figured it out just in time.”

tagging: @choppa-style @wanniiieeee @zheezs14 @torykjamie @maureen4y

@ssavanessa22 @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @ssahotchie @infinite-tides

 @itsmytimetoodream @averyhotchner @msmarvelsmain @hotforhotchner11 @hotchinkevlar

hi besties I tried to tag everyone who said they wanted to be on my regular hotch list and a few of y’all who regularly interact with the right but if i made a mistake/u want to be removed u can lmk I will not be offended!!!

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Mon 15 March ‘21

FIRST TIME GRAMMY AWARD WINNING ARTIST HARRY STYLES!! From the bottom of the stairs to the top of the fucking world baby, get itttt!! He won Best Pop Solo Performance for smash hit Watermelon Sugar-- the other two categories he was up for went to others but he was a dark horse for any of them so getting one is awesome! Yeah the grammys are shit but I’m so happy for him to see him receiving validation and acclaim from the industry that has never appreciated what he (and his bandmates) are and can do as artists, it’s a fucking start you know? We can enjoy the moment! Harry did! His acceptance speech was short and it feels like he was blindsided and forgot everything (including not to swear on TV and as pro as he is you know that means he was absolutely reeling, I love that) but later he said “I want to thank my fans for giving me an environment to be free to make the music that I want to make and supporting me along the way the last ten years”, yes that’s right we have helped you find a place to feel good, and “this is an incredibly sweet icing on the cake of what I get to do everyday so thank you.”

But that’s not all! He also performed, and wore things! Say what you want about Harry (or better yet please DON’T at least to me but that’s a losing battle) we always get so hyped up about even just seeing his outfits and he does not let us down! BLACK LEATHER, TITS FULLY OUT, DICK BANANA CHARM, AND A MUPPET BOA? Yeah he did that! Shirtless under a patent leather suit, I mean: wow. Very glam rock, very… well listen it’s just very GAY in like so many different ways??? Harry Lambert said they wanted “something darker, sexier, and more unexpected” which is definitely about that look I’m assuming and not the pastel thrift store rummage bin hodgepodge he wore later, unless Harry(s) and I have very different ways of interpreting “darker”. (Harry L also said “free the nipple” and we can all see that he MEANT it.) Harry red carpet-ed and accepted his award in a lavender muppet boa, tits slightly less out but still cleavagey, and with a seemingly random collection of other garments YES BABY OKAY you just WEAR THAT THEN! About that Harry L said, “we wanted to do something that felt British and eccentric, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll and a little bit camp,” but the people have spoken and they said ‘we think he looked like Cher from Clueless’ so, sorry Harry(s)! Esquire struggling to describe the look-- “the kind of thing that Styles seems to make wearable” klasjdlk the doubtful ‘seems’ is sending me. Either way we can definitely all agree on the camp part, and that the matching face mask (as seen in the audience shots and in adorbs pics of him camping it up with Lizzo backstage) is amazing, love that (even if he does spend way too much time nervously pulling it on and off omg just LEAVE IT) and it even went also with outfit number THREE (or at least it did as well as any of his anything went together lol) which was a big floppy orange coat and plaid pants and a THIRD BOA, a dignified (haha JK NOPE it’s still a muppet) black number this time.

It seems the performance was filmed in advance rather than done live-- there were clues suggesting this might be the case, but the real giveaway was when a picture from it leaked before the broadcast, lol. Way to make it so we “can’t even tell if it’s live or not” Ben, and why is he STILL so obsessed with trying to gaslight us anyway my god just say what’s prerecorded it’s fiiiine. ANYWAY Harry played Watermelon Sugar and only WS; well after all it is his GRAMMY AWARD WINNING SONG. Plus it was a really nice version, all smooth and funky, with a highlight of the night being Harry’s full on 60s girl group choreo move with the backup singers, omg. Those backing vocalists were the duo G.A.W.D., and there was extra accompaniment by fellow nominee Devonte Hynes aka Blood Orange (who also directed the performance and no I do not know what that means) and “Spencer and Josh” on horns (the closest I can find to someone crediting them so, apologies guys). Anyway! All of them (regular HS band included) were decked out in matching gucci black leather too and looking good. And Harry looked so happy to be up there performing, just beaming like a lighthouse, so overall- good good stuff, I just keep on dancin!

The real bombshell of the performance though was subtle and needed confirmation after for the excitement to really hit-- it was Sarah drumming  decked out in tight black leather and visibly pregnant!! That’s right, band drummer Sarah Jones is PREGNANT by (Grammy Award winning) guitarist Mitch, there’s a HARRY STYLES BAND BABY on the way!!!! WHAT A NIGHT! It wasn’t enough for Harry to find love in his own band, he’s somehow cupid-ing that energy all over the place and spreading it around, AMAZING!

And Liam comes through with not just a sweet congratulations for Harry (“what a huge moment, proud to be your brother” awwww) but also the final word on the performance look- goddammit it IS one of the rejected Best Song Ever video looks, LMAOOOO. But did he tag HSHQ instead of Harry directly in acknowledgment of how the awards system really works and that they are all to be congratulated or simply because it was easier? We will never know.

Additional tidbits-- bassist Hynes was apparently playing creative director Molly Hawkins’ dad’s bass- did we know her dad was a famous bassist who played with Fleetwood Mac and many other 70s stars?! If I did I had definitely forgotten! And more Molly news-- she’s also pregnant!! Harry will soon be surrounded by quarantine babies, dreams really coming true huh? Harry posted a pic of himself with Mitch and Devonte looking very cooool, we saw the ceramic watermelons label execs were sent for the WS release last year, and Rebecca Ferguson who knows 1D from way back when (and has recently drawn attention for talking frankly about how fucked up the industry is and about having seen unnamed boy band members literally slammed against the wall by their management) congratulated Harry and posted a couple of baby pop star Harry pics, cuuuute. Louis’ merch handlers, in response to no complaints whatsoever, sent out emails apologizing. They say they’ve run out of lanyards which were meant to be sent out so they will “be adding a freebie which we know you’ll enjoy” to affected customers’ orders. That is sucky about the lanyards but that’s customer care! Niall posted about his cool bright limited edition merch to remind that it will be gone gone gone tonight and also shared a pretty and touching picture from a the large anti violence rally held in London to protest the killing of Sarah Everard today. And finally some good advice from Bebe Rexha, loved by larries; she says she loves us right back but please don’t kill anyone for not streaming her new song! Yes good plan.

[alice-angel12x]

💔Naga!Bakugou x reader

"Y/n has committed a horrible crime. She was found guilty of eloping with a monster," our elder's voice boomed over the crowd.

Y/n was my best friend, and my long-time Crush. I stood in front of the crowd looking at the body that was y/n. When the village found out that she was in love with a Naga, they killed her and now they placed her body here and covered her body with a white cloth, for all too see.

I looked around the crowd to see so many familiar faces. Her parents, her mother was crying oceans. While her father had nothing but disgust in his eyes. Some of her friends we're discussing what they thought. Some believe that she was tricked or manipulated into loving this creature. While on the other side they thought she was nothing but a w****.

I knew none of those things were true. I would know, I'm the one who told the others about her little secret. And now that was my greatest regret.

It all started 5 years ago, when y/n and I we're taking traded Goods back to our village. We were playing on the bridge between the cliffs. It was as nice game of I Spy. I wish I was paying more attention that day, because one of the wooden planks snapped and she fell right through.

In normal situations, she would have fallen to her death. But she was saved by that creature, the Naga.

 He had spiky ash blond hair with red piercing eyes, and had a long red and orange tail like a snake. He jumped for her and saved her from falling to her death. As I got closer I could see it in her eyes. Not only was she thankful he saved her life, but that was when she fell in love with him. And something deep within me told me, this was not the first time the Naga met or saw y/n.

From that day on, she started spending more and more time in the forest than in the village. And she was an herbalist so most people overlooked it. But I knew where she was really going. I followed her one day into the forest, she did not pick plants and any herbs. She went to a cave, his cave.

 No matter how hard she tried to hide all those hickeys on her neck. I knew they were there, but luckily no one else did. As the days went on I could feel my jealousy grow deep within me. Some days I would be in the forest and I see them together. Eventually I learned his name was Bakugou. But I'd see them together,

y/n in Bakugou's embrace. Her lower half of her body wrapped in bakugou's coils. I'd see him kiss all over her neck. I wanted to be the one to give her those kisses.

I can't hold my jealousy and any longer on that day. The day when bakugou showed up one day, near the edge of the forest, and in his hands was a small Palm sized hunk of sapphire. And he proposed to y/n, and took her from me. That day I told the elders and The Village. They were so Furious that they ambushed her when she came back from the forest. She had the most beautiful flower crown I've ever seen on her head that day. That day I'll regret the most, seen the girl of my dreams being murdered by the very people she healed.

 " This wenches body will be burned at sunrise tomorrow, may she be forever damned in hell!" The elder spat.

 The crowd dismissed as they went back to their daily routine. I went to the shack where her body was being placed for now. But when I got there, I saw him, Bakugou.

  He was coming out of the shake with Y/n's body in his hands. He was trying to steal her from me again. Before I could even say anything or even scream, he slithered off into the forest with her. I grabbed my bow and arrow and I chased after him.

 I followed him into the forest, and led me to a cave. Sneaking inside I travel deeper into the cave toy saw a large opening, and there he was, bakugou. In his arms a beautifully dress y/n, still lifeless in his arms.

 "Y/n... Y/n wake up please," Bakugou begged as he brought her to a odd structure.

 Looking at it I was able to tell it was some sort of wedding setup. Bakugou was getting ready to marry y/n, but this all happened. As he continued talking I didn't know what to feel I felt sad and awful. Although on the other hand I felt nothing but anger and jealousy at his words.

 "Y/n please... I love you. I love you with all my heart," he sobbed as he tighed his hug on her.

His red and orange coils slowly tightening around her as well. Suddenly he started saying something , or humming in his native tounge.

As I listened I accidentally knocked something over alerting him. Bakugou quickly looked over in my direction. At first there was a look of shock and fear on his face, which quickly turns to anger, hatred and recognition.

"YOU!" He shouted at me.

"You're that bastard who couldn't keep his mouth shut! Why must you humans take everything from me! My family, my friends, my home, and know my wife," he said, seething in anger.

 " I'll kill you, I should have killed you a long time ago!" He shouted as he lunged at me with full force.

I quickly is my bow as a way to block him. He pushed against my bow pinning me against the wall. He opened his mouth wide, revealing his long serpent like fangs. As he tried to reach over and chomp down on my neck.

I quickly grabbed a sharp Rock and sliced his face just missing his eyes. He quickly released me while he was in pain. While he wS distracted I quickly grabbed y/n's body and ran out of the cave. As I ran to the forest with all my might I could hear him hissing, and him crying out.

"GIVE HER BACK!! SHE'S MINE!! COME BACK HERE YOU BASTARD!" Bakugou called out into the forest.

I quickly hide behind a nearby tree, with Y/n in my arms.  Once I caught my breath, I started to run. Only to trip on a root and drop y/n watching her tumble down the hill. I tried to get up, that's what I heard him behind me. Before I could do anything, bakugou's coils wrapped around my neck. He lift me off the ground Till we were eye to eye.

"If y/n hadn't stopped me, I would have killed you that day on the bridge," Bakugou hiss.

  I could feel his coil tighten around my neck. No matter how much I clawed at his serpent tail, it only tightened more. The edge of my vision started to darken, as my breath became more and more shallow.

 As I looked bakugou on the eyes, I could see that his eyes looked at something past me. I knew it was y/n, as he immediately dropped me and slithered his way over to her. Once I was able to gather my breath. I quickly grabbed an arrow and ready to my bow, as I ain't where his heart. I took one last deep breath and fired my Arrow.

 It's shot through the air pierced bakugou's heart. He cried out in pain as he tumbled down the rest of the Hill. He pulled himself over to y/n's lifeless corpse and pulled her into an embrace. His coils wrapping around y/n's lower half.

  When I finally got down there I could see a smile on bakugou's face, as he looked at y/n one last time, before his eyes closed forever.

What all was said and done, I found no joy in this. What's my jealousy cleared I couldn't see any monster. All I saw was another being who was alone and fell in love with someone. All I felt was sadness and guilt. As I stood there I heard something in the Wind.

   "Bakugou~," it was y/n's voice.

I looked around and saw something near the edge of the forest. It was a bright silhouette of y/n. But she was not alone, she was with three other nagas. Two of them looked like bakugou's parents, while the third was a naga with spiky red hair and a red tail to match.

 "Over here Bakugou," the red naga called out.

As I stared at them, Bakugou's silhouette rushed passed me and to

y/n. They happily embraced and y/n pulled Bakugou into a passonite kiss.

 "I thought I lost you forever," Bakugou said in a breathless voice.

 "You never lost me. Know we are all together," Y/n replied.

 Put a smile they all disappeared into the forest never to be seen again. I wish bakugou and y/n Eternal happiness.

[ratcandy]

CoGR Abridged/Summarized

Hello hello! My name is Clam, otherwise known as Squeakyclam on Ao3, and this is a heavily summarized/shortened version of my HK fic Camouflage of Great Renown. For anyone somehow finding this that doesn't know what it's about, CoGR focuses on Zote and his story through the game and what preceded it. He recounts his entire life up until the end of what's known in canon, and this includes a whole lot of angst, growth, realizations, and Trauma Revelations.

Oh, and he's a nosk. Zote is a nosk. Yep.

I've had a few requests for a summary, as the work is super long and reading through 130k+ words of Zote dialogue may not be for everyone, hehehe so I've compiled all the important plot points and wrote them out here in order of his story, rather than the plotline CoGR goes through specifically (in which big events in his history are revealed later on).

If I had to recommend reading the fic for anything, it'd be the... impact, I suppose? 'Cause reading the summarized events here will NOT be anything like reading it in CoGR. Seeing as the fic is all in Zote's pov and he actually has to force himself to admit all of this aloud. But I digress!!

Here's a summary of Zote's life according to CoGR.

THIS IS A VERY, VERY LONG POST DESPITE BEING A SUMMARY. I'm sorry, CoGR just has a lot happening! T/W for mentions of death.

A lot more heavy stuff happens in CoGR, but in this summary I do my best to step around those subjects. If you think more T/Ws should be added, let me know, and I'll put them here

Nosks were a species that inhabited Deepnest, specifically living in a den towards the nest's depths. It split off into lots of tunnels and caverns that each nosk lived in. "Society" there was very hostile and unwelcoming, as nosks valued brute strength over just about anything else. Caring for another nosk - be it kin or otherwise - was considered weak. "Burdens" to the den, such as nosks that were badly wounded, would/could not hunt, or were simply getting too old would be killed off. Death in and of itself was very common and hardly anyone would bat an eye at it.

Think the Mantis Tribe but largely feral and without a shred of decency of morals.

Runt donning mask of citizen was born into the nosk den alongside his brother, who would become hunter donning hide of tiktik.

(Before anyone asks, these are just the naming conventions that nosks have. No one but the nosk superiors - the leaders of the den - are granted actual names.)

A third egg was among them, but the brother broke it open and ate the younger sibling not long after hatching.

The two were born under a superior (their mother) and her chosen mate (their father). They were expected to grow up strong and eventually overtake their mother and become superiors. Or, one of them would, maybe.

The runt (Zote) was immediately scorned by the mother, as he was extremely frail and useless, and she just about killed him off right after he hatched - but his father stepped in, and the runt was left alive.

Zote grew up to be a weak nosk who could barely defend himself in a den full of beasts that would gladly kill him if doing so wouldn't be a direct offense to a superior. His brother was cruel to him, his father berated him constantly, and his mother was hardly in the picture at all. Only ever watching him distastefully from afar.

His father did, however, train him, if only sparingly. The least he could do to keep Zote alive. (Doing so would be a death wish were any other nosks to find out about it...)

However, an elder in the den - hunter donning mask of weaver - gained Zote's attention as she told him fantastical stories from outside the den. This elder had spent a good portion of her life among the Weavers, initially being sent to learn about them (to make them easier to hunt) but growing interested in their culture and choosing to stay. Until she did something to get her chased out.

At any rate, she told the stories from the Weavers to Zote, alongside news of what was happening outside of Deepnest. This caused the runt to become obsessed with the idea of being a knight, as the stories just sounded!! So amazing and heroic and awesome and!!! :D Yea!! He wanted to be just like that!

To the point where he even carved a sword out of the shellwood... with the den elder's help. He named it Life-Ender eventually.

At some point, however, his father found out about all this. His father figured that the only way to eliminate this problem - as wishing to be something heroic that saved lives or whatever was SO unnosk-like (and would get him killed) - was to kill the den elder.

Before she died, the elder told Zote to run away from the den, and not to return no matter what. The idiot did not run, and because of this, he witnessed the Den Elder's death at the hands of his father and some other nosks.

Man! this does, however, cause Zote to be more... "open" about his ideas. By this I mean he begins carrying Life-Ender around instead of hiding it in his nest. what do you mean it's a comfort item what! no he's just rebelliously showing off how much he wants to be a knight. totally. 100% /s

well, anyway, not long after this, the idiot's father dies at the claws of his mother. Zote unfortunately witnesses this as well. When he tries to run, his mother catches him, nearly killing him as well. Luckily(?), this attempt is thwarted by Zote's brother, who was very distraught over their father's death. The brother swears to kill the mother before storming off. Zote runs into hiding (still in the nosk den), and begins devising his plan so to get the hell out of there.

Of the few times that Zote leaves his nest after his father's death, 90% of them ended with him getting pummeled by his brother. The latter was livid, blaming the father's death on Zote and frequently bursting into fits of emotional rage. Rage is great for nosks, other emotions not so much.

On one occasion in particular, the brother goes too far, nearly killing Zote. In the scuffle, Life-Ender is shattered, and that sends Zote into a blind anger (mixed with survival instinct as he's About to Die). Zote then kills his brother.

A crowd had gathered around them during the fight. In that crowd was Zote's mother, who looked to him approvingly after he'd killed off his brother. This terrified Zote, so he gathered the pieces of Life-Ender and fled the den forever.

Stopping at the hot spring in Deepnest, he made a disguise for himself based on the vessels that nosks would often capture. He made a new name for himself, took on an entirely new identity, and decided to abandon the idea that he was ever a nosk. He would just go to the City, be knighted by the King (who he'd heard of from the stories the Den Elder would tell him), and live out his life as a knight. Just like he always wanted. Not as a nosk. because he's not that.

The events that follow now are just very short summaries of things that happen throughout cogr.

- He breaks a statue in the Queen's station on accident after a bug finds him there. as a nosk. oops

- He obliterates the entire uoma population /j and burns himself in the process

- He repairs Life-Ender originally using mushrooms in the Fungal Wastes. Fungal adhesion is real I checked I swear

- He makes it to the City of Tears! and while there, he

Gets caught by Hegemol who mistakes him as a vessel

Drowns in the City's gutters

Purchases a cloth to wrap around Life-Ender

Hears the Pale King talk one (1) time and immediately decides he hates him

- While leaving the City, he finds a grub. That grub never really gets named, but as he frequented calling the little thing "Fiend," and the grub eventually began responding to that title, he just considers it a name for them now.

- Zote travels with the grub throughout the Crossroads until he drops them off with the Grubfather, being rewarded for reuniting them but overall feelings pretty :( about it.

- He then goes to the. So you know the houses that are underneath the Gruzz Mother's lil arena? Yea that place. he goes there and "guards" it, becoming that place's self-proclaimed knight.

- then he starts being paranoid about the grub and returns to the grubfather only to see all the grubs have been stolen. he presumes Fiend is dead from this point on (and dodges around ever using the word).

- Then he goes back to the lil town place only to see everyone's infected :(

- We then spend TEN CHAPTERS!! in Greenpath. In which he

eats a plant and dies

Stands in No Eyes's tomb.

Visits the Lake of Unn (and nothing bad happens)

Sees a nosk at the entrance to Fog Canyon and proceeds to have a panic attack

Kills everything

Gets caught by the Vengefly king

Gets saved!

has a breakdown

Yells at Ghost and then Leaves

- Canon starts!

- He stops in Dirtmouth, listens to Elderbug talk, gets told the Myth of the Great old Nosks who are now all Extinct. The news that nosks are now extinct freaks Zote out a little, but he absolutely refuses to return to Deepnest. He doesn't need to make sure. It's fine.

- In an effort to convince himself not to go to Deepnest, he goes to the City again, thinking it can't possibly be all that ba-- oh no everyone's dead!

- he inadvertently steals a map marker from Ghost and decides to use that as a pin for his cloak

- Zote returns to Deepnest. He's very upset with himself for this, but he just has to know if all the nosks are actually extinct now.

The answer is yes

but before that he gets caught by dirtcarvers and put in a web and has to be saved. this makes him angry

Upon seeing all the dead nosks once he gets to the den, and noticing that the last nosk was mimicking Ghost (evidenced by the mask left behind) before it died, he decides that he's gotta Kill Everything again

- more specifically we're going to the Colosseum now.

- Zote's fear of water evaporates as he goes through the secret passage in the King's Station to get to Kingdom's Edge. He only found it because he saw Ghost go that way

- While at the Kingdom's Edge, he gets caught by the Fools, who he stupidly challenges and then immediately gets caught by.

- sits in dumb baby jail for a while. mean to tiso

- Then the colosseum battle happens! He does not win he then gets dropped down into kingdom's edge with little regard toward whether he's dead or alive

- He grabs a Fool's helmet before leaving, going back to Dirtmouth, and intending to bury that thing

- this goes wrong as he bumps into Bretta. He then sits and talks with her for God Only Knows how Long, spacing out while doing so, and not even noticing when she eventually gets up and leaves him.

- He buries the helmet, shuts himself away in his house, and gets stuck repeating his precepts to himself. At the end of CoGR it is revealed that he hasn't been talking to anyone, and is instead talking to himself endlessly as no one is left to listen to him

and that's it! that's cogr. yeah

[1ddotdhq]

💿Sun 13 Dec ‘20💙

Happy Birthday, Fine Line! Have a Louis show! (Seriously, why can’t I get cool shows for my birthday like that??). So today’s been a busy week, huh? 

It is, of course, Fine Line’s anniversary, and the celebration kicked off last night, with a twitter emoji (it's Harrrry! Doing the FL pose so so tiny!) and the DYKWYA website changing. It’s pink and black and blue and white, and now tells us that we’re “loyal” and “marvelous” and “memorable” and “powerful” and “rare” and “real” and “staying six feet apart” (or 70 other lovely options). So either HSHQ got their thesaurus out, or they tuned into Louis’ show last night, because that’s EXACTLY how I would describe it. Anyways, the day started with a Harry sighting! Well, a video from last week that is, of him doing a MakeaWish FaceTime in a blue snapback. And then there was a Harry Lambert interview, where he directly addressed the discourse around Harry’s fashion choices, saying, “Harry will never wear something that he doesn’t want to wear...I always say, 'I‘m not doing my job if I’m making someone wear things' because I just think if someone gets comfortable in what they’re wearing, then it doesn’t matter if I think it looks good.” He went on to say, “There’s never an element of me forcing him to wear anything”. So - TAKE THAT, transphobes! We all recognize that saying “the mean gay man is making Harry look gay/genderqueer” is, uh, a REALLY bad take, right? Anyways, hopefully that’s the end of it, but we all know it won’t be. He also told us that Harry chose the (fake) pearls, asking “can I just wear these every day?” and they were only replaced with real ones after that strand broke, that he tried to get H out of the Vans for the Golden vid but he said nah, and about the Golden and WS videos “I kind of saw it as the same man just in a different place in the world” which, well- yeah? But the implication that that man was not Harry is interesting. Aside from that, we got some more terrible merch from HSHQ (including a shirt that is a glove with legs stuck on it, wtf), a few celebratory tweets from HSHQ, The Forum, Jeff Azoff (there's a theme here lol) etc, AND! A post from Harry himself: “I couldn’t be more grateful for you all continually finding new ways to change my life. Thank you for listening, and for everything else. I love you always, but especially today. H”. What? That’s his name, isn’t it? 

But, of course, H wasn’t the only one celebrating online today! Louis came back and answered some of our questions about the show. The first is that he sold over - are you ready for this? - OVER 160,000 tickets for the show, making it the biggest online show of 2020 by a solo male artist, and the third largest overall of the year. Even the Sun had to admit how “exceptional” that is, describing the show as "the equivalent of eight nights at London’s O2 Arena." Doing the math, this means he raised over $3.1 million from ticket sales alone! HOLY SHIT! Hearing that, Louis came on twitter to say (in reply to a quote by his PR company lmao), “This is truly incredible. No major label, no radio, yet here we are. The feeling of support I get from you all every time I do something is unbelievable. Forever Thankful! And they never see us coming!”. Of course, this incited another round of label discourse, wondering if this means he is still an unsigned artist. Does this simply mean the livestream wasn't put on by a label, yes, does Louis absolutely know about the discourse and is he being deliberate, I would also say unmistakeably yes. Which is not to say we know ELSE it might mean -- is he signed to an indie? Still label shopping and waving how much more they need him than vice versa in the hopefuls' faces? Signed but the contract doesn't start until there's a record in play (which when you negotiate your own contract and establish artistic freedom, as we can be very sure was Louis' priority, is what labels DO - they don’t manage every aspect of an artists career)? Signed by a major label, but shading the FUCK out of Syco about radio play for Walls? What we DO know is that it wasn't a label that put the livestream on, and damn if that doesn’t make it 1000% more badass. “Memorable”, “powerful”, and “rare” indeed! He’s still early in the process of LT2, as he told us yesterday, so we might have to wait a little longer to figure out what’s happening business-wise, but he made sure to tell everyone that his fans were an integral part of his processing the most inspiring way possible: “the power and the magic comes from the people you guys,” I COULD CRY that's MY inspirational leader THANK YOU. He goes on to say “don't undermine your role in all this... together with your support we're unstoppable!” He also called us “fucking relentless” (god knows that's true) as Walls hit the charts AGAIN, and talked about how the money raised will go a long way. “WE did that!!”

And with that, let’s talk a little bit more about last night’s (“bold”, “extraordinary”) show! ‘‘Copy’ is making its rounds on the internet, but YouTube continues to take down recordings of the show, which SUCKS, because everyone should be able to see it! Maybe in a few days when some time has passed, they’ll let it go up without an issue, or maybe they'll answer our pleas (come through one more time Louis!) and put out a DVD (and live album too how about, YES? Yes.), til then there are the downloads going around tumblr! Good thing we got Louis' seal of approval or just imagine the discourse. The ‘H’ shirt Louis was wearing last night is a Reebok shirt, which was being distributed in a few different places, such one where you could get a discount if you used the code ‘HL40’ and another where it was $28, lol. Was it the loudest Louis shirt ever- I mean I would say an unqualified NO but many are voting YES and are reeling so that's really fun! Welcome to the gang guys. Not likely to win any awards for being loud with such incredible competition but still very good SBBing-- Louis was wearing a stuffed bear t shirt in rehearsal pics. When you know you know, I guess! ;) The band is also soaking in the praises (as they should!) and have been re-posting fans’ stories on Instagram all day (as did LTHQ) - cheers, boys! 

Today’s Liam and Roman alarm was ALL us (well, not allll us, Roman did explain that the alarms would feature fans every Sunday, but then he handed the mic over). “Waking up to Liam and Roman is the best thing EVER! I don’t know why it gives me so much serotonin,” said one fan. I do! It’s because Liam is a real, live puppy dog and he’s so genuinely sweet to his fans. Love him lots, but I love him even MORE when he’s ON the advent alarm!

[lovee-infected]

Hi there! How would the twst boys react to their s/o being slapped by Eliza 😂. Thanks for feeding us the wonderful headcanons! 💜

I love writing for such brilliant ideas , enjoy !

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle goes blank for a second , unsure what to say or how to react : Half of him wanted to act in and condemn ghosts for their arrogance to lay a hand on you but on the other hand , he knew that he didn't have the right to ; It was their brides choice and she did have the right to do it - which wasn't really pleasant -

You give him a sad look , expecting a show of mercy of sympathy , but he didn't move an eyebrow

You run to a silent corner to cry , and he comes after you . Riddle gives you a hug and apologizes that he couldn't help anything back then

He criticizes your movements as well , how you didn't present yourself properly and why Eliza could've changed her mind

But in the end ; he gives you a small reminder : " Perfect or not , know that you're enough for me ,"

Trey Clover

He got slapped himself so he understands how the world flashed before your eyes for a second

You look a bit down about failing so easily while you were trying to help ; but so did Trey . You get each other on that point

He barely notices it but he literally doesn't know how to flirt , but he tries his best to cheer you up "Ah don't give me that face ! At least you were waaay better than me,"

Well , maybe you weren't such an overly perfect being but neither was Trey , he was just an ordinary guy you'll get to see everyday ; not a stunning prince . It seems like the two of you come from a rather similar level

Perhaps that's why the two of you get along pretty well

Cater Diamond

You didn't expect him to even put his phone down for you but he eventually did ; you find it pretty odd to see him this eager about anything without wanting to share it via Internet , but it also means that he does care for you

He doesn't bother touching your cheek and asking if it hurts

He plants a small kiss on your blushing face and then goes salty again : " So glad that she didn't get you , means you're still all mine ! "

He brings up his phone and before you could've recognized , takes a selfie of him kissing an all shocked you . You beg him to delete it but he isn't listening , but he insures you that this one's a private issue so he won't post it ; perhaps the first selfie he isn't going to share anywhere

Ace Trappola

Trey and Riddle grab his body and mouth before he could do something stupid , how dare she , how dare she slaps you !?

Ace ws already tired of this drama with the hopelessly romantic bride , and you were the final shock .

" SHE IS A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER THAN Y-" Ace tries to shout at Eliza but Riddle grabs him by collar and puts a hand on his mouth : "YOU IDIOT WHAT ARE YOU..."

You come to calm him down , insisting that it's really nothing important , you didn't care . He still seems to be really pissed off at Eliza : " Huh , does she really think that she's any big deal ? My- girls are really crappy sometimes ,-"

Ace refuses to believe that you don't feel any offended so he pulls you to his embrace and keeps on sending you positive vibes non-stop : " You're gorgeous (y/n)! I mean it ! You're smart , talented , dignified ..."

Deuce Spade

He is low-key happy that you two join him at the losers bench . At least you won't now see him as the awkward loser he was in front of Eliza ; not too much to say

"So you too got slapped ?" he tells you he has no idea how to start the conversation

He knows that he is supposed to do something better but he is just blank about it

One half of him wants to hug you and tell that it's fine , then ask if you think he's awkward or something . But the other half just doesn't know what to say

He says that you two must learn some social skills together , that's the most he can do to flirt now : He soft boy

Leona Kingscholar

He actually doesn't mind insulting you a little for getting slapped . He's pissed off himself so he appreciates teasing you

From putting on a cocky smile and smirking to playing with you using sarcastic words

His very last sarcasm seems to be the worst : " I can say that you are way lower than royal standards ,"

But he puts a different end to his words : "...But since I as well got rejected , I guess we're now rejected mates ,"

Is it his sarcastic way of saying a small "I love you" ? Yes it is

Ruggie Bucchi

He didn't bother to come and try proposing , but wasn't expecting for you to try either . He lets out one of his Hyena-like giggles and comes to you

" Was that bride this savage ? Then I'm thankful that I didn't show up ! " he sneakers

He disappears for a second and comes back with an ice-pack : " Geez , it's my third time doing it today . Come over ," he tells you

He already did it for Leona and Jack because he was told to , but he is all ready to give you all those services and more to you

He does enjoy teasing you , but nursing you in situations like this is another hubby of him , after all you're an exception

Jack Howl

He kinda feels guilty about you getting slapped ; he shouldn't have let you tried it anyway . The possibility of you making it was low and you weren't a NRC student anyway

He knows that everyone else were the same but when it was you who got slapped right in front of everyone , he fears it being an issue

He quickly checks on you to see if you're fine and or need a doctor

He is a bit worried about your face swelling so he takes you school's nurse

On your way back , you thank him because of caring for you and he starts to blush and denies it all : " What do you mean ? It was nothing important . No need to thank ,"

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul grabs your hand , wishes Idia a happy marriage and the two of you leave the rest in the middle of chaos

He nags under the lips , telling how he wished others to let him turn her into a little clam

He telles you what an unfortunate soul Eliza is , not only did she die on her marriage day but she also lost perfect lover such as you

He doesn't care about the rest now , so he decides to leave them on their own and instead , have some free time with you

While you wear having some tea at mostrolounge , he shakes head and insults Eliza : " You are surely too much for her , my dear (y/n) . Ghosts always envy humans ; specially when it comes to someone as great as you ~"

Jade Leech

Eliza is now pretty odd to him , first she dislikes the flowers , and now , she rejects you ? Ghosts seem to be even weirder than surface creatures , he thinks

He understands the high standards required while choosing a partner , but you don't seem to lack anything ? How strange

He even cares to ask Eliza about what she might have disliked about you since you don't seem to have any problems , but he avoids it anyway because he isn't ready to get secondly slapped

He offers you a short walk with a bright smile , and you accept

" Miss Eliza surely has weird standards , (y/n) sweetie . You were perfect enough to win ,"

Too bad Crowley insists on them respecting their ghost visitors as long as the stay , Jade is really encouraged to give them a lesson . But uh , he has to have a hold of himself as Octavinelle's vice dorm leader

" Too bad she is dead , flowers would have had an interesting effect if she weren't ," he sighs

Floyd Leech

This bride is getting on his nerves , loud , dumb , in love with a blue , awkward chicken and finds silly excuses to reject everyone proposing to her. If she weren't dead , Floyd would wish her to be . Some brats are better dead

He doesn't see any need to spoil you , but he decides to spill somevtea since it was you " Don't worry shrimpy . You may not be perfect , but she's worse than you , " he flirts .He gives you a tight hug and squeezes you , rambling that it's because Eliza didn't let him do that

He actually finds the red mark on your face cute , saying that it makes your skin color just similar to a shrimp .

He can't help loving your -shrimp-like face - and so , he lowers his head and gives it a small kiss

Vil Schoenheit

If Eliza were alive , Vil would love it now to burn her alive in a huge dig of poison . Or maybe feed him to the dogs , both seem nice

He gently holds your face within his hands and carefully looks at the mark Eliza left behind

He curses under the lips and then pulls you into a soft hug : " Don't mind her love , lowly creatures are unworthy of true beauty , don't let their though bring you down," he mumbles

He absolutely hates being disrespected like this , so he leaves it to Rook and Epel ; though he doubts them being any helpful

He takes you to Pomefiore for firstly , making sure that your slapped face won't swell and then , giving you a full day spa . From extreme showers to putting on your makeup

When you're done , he stares at you through the mirror and smiles : " What an idiot she was to lose this stunning beauty of yours ,"

Rook Hunt

This bride keeps fascinating him , first Vil and now you ? Good god , she is pathetic

Rook really looks up to both of you as a symbol of beauty , grace and in general , perfection . Seeing the two of you being insulted like this is a real pitty

He is being relied on as one of the only four guys who didn't get slapped so he sadly doesn't have much time to comfort you now ; so he comes up with a new idea :

He asks you to give him the pleasure and be his : Bride model ; he has got plenty of tricks up his sleeve , but he still needs to practice them on someone

His long and beautiful poem which was hiding an I love you within its words , and his brilliance ways of winning one's heart leave you speechless ; not ever imagining that he might be this much of a romance man

He practices literally anything he was planning to do with you , and then comes up with the final words : " Dearest (y/n) , would you give me the honor of being your servant of love for eternity ? "

Epel Felmier

You got...what ? Epel was a normal guy at least in his own opinion , Vil senpai was surely beautiful but...not perfect either . But why you ? You didn't seem to have any specific problems . He doesn't like this thing with proposing anyways , so he was hoping someone , specially you , to succeed before he has to...

He is supposed to be practicing dos and don'ts of being a perfect groom , but he just can't do it without checking on you

He comes to you and gives you a tight hug , asking if you're alright

He confesses that he as well is now really scared since he has never even kissed a girl before , but he's going to try his best and put an end into this

He isn't the best of his own , but if a prince on a white horse is what this Ghost needed , he is going to make it , and prove it to you that he can

Kalim al asim

He doesn't know what is going on when you face him with your half red face , he gasps and worriedly starts asking questions : was there a fight ? Did you get hurt ? Was someone trying to bully you ? Who on earth had dared to do this to you !?

You explain the whole issue with he ghost bride and how almost everyone got slapped , making him calm down a bit

He now wants to have a word with this bride , it's rude to slap people just because you don't like them and that really bugs Kalim

Jamil stops him by reminding that it's none of Scarabia's business and as the dorm leader , he has to stay here taking care of more important stuff

Kalim has to agree but he isn't quite satisfied , but he comes up with another way to cheer you up :

" Imagine you're the bride and I'm proposing to you , let's see if I get slapped or not ! "

Jamil Viper

Just as Kalim , he can't imagine why you got slapped for at first but when you explain , he chills a bit

Most of the brides Jamil know gave in to marriage after being given tons of gold and jewelry , but since it is with a ghost , he wondered what might actually attract her. Princesses have to marry people from the same level as themselves , probably a prince or someone pretty rich ; so he isn't really fascinated that you and others all got slapped

He can't help it much , but perhaps insulting all other guys losing their chance is something he would appreciate talking about . It isn't clear if he wants you to feel better by neglecting every other guy or is just trying to chill a bit ; anyways it's joyful for you to talk and having him spending some time with you alone

Idia Shroud

Idia is locked inside the room ,, but he hears sound of you trying to propose to Eliza . His feeling are a bit complicated , both hopeful that Eliza would give up on him because of you and jealous of Eliza , whom you proposed to. No one's here to see him can freely admire your beautiful words coming one after one , and then an unexpected sound : You got slapped

Idia now has lost both his very last hope to get freed and his temper : His hair is slightly turning read . This crazy bride made him lose the global championship league of his favorite video game (since he was tied up by her ) and now slaps you !?

His thoughts are really wild now , especially because of how he can't do anything at all . He wishes he could see you and tell how beautiful and great he thinks your proposal was , hopeful that it'll make you smile

You still went out of his way and tried to free him , and that was more than enough for Idia . All he wishes is to see one more time and get to tell how he feels for you♥

Ortho Shroud

This ghost : Kidnapped his brother and now , slaps you

Who says robots can't feel anything ? Because now , Ortho is mad

He really does want to hack all of NRC's servers and share pictures of ghosts who dare kidnapping and insulting students without the principal doing anything . That'd be an end to Mr Crowley's career but since he isn't doing anything serious , he deserves it

You apologize him because of failing to save his brother , but he just gives you a hug telling how scared he is

You and Idia are the most important people in his life , he just can't stand having you hurt . Not even imagining what he might do if he loses any of you

Malleus Draconia

He wasn't there to recognize this any sooner , but Lilia and Sebek did tell him everything .He shouldn't show up in front of any other students (because they might spoil his real name ) and shouldn't show up in front of any ghosts (because they may catch him and force him to propose ). He was thinking of meeting you in front of ramshackle drom ; your regular corner but since there as well is haunted by the ghosts , he can't help but to wait for this drama to cool down

When you finally return to Ramshackle dorm in the middle of the night , your unexpected guest , tsuno-tarou , is waiting for you

You are suspicious that you didn't see him at all today , so he explains that due to some reasons he couldn't make it . He says hat he doesn't really know what had happened since he stayed in dorm all day , so you go on telling everything from the very beginning . He already knows everything but wants to hear it all from you one more time . He likes to see what they all might've looked like into your eyes . When you're done telling him the story , he giggles and asks one more question ; just curious to see how you'll answer : " So didn't you try proposing , or did you as well get slapped...?"

Lilia Vanrouge

This day was getting more and more complicated... First getting rejected for being too cute and having his 500+ year reputation ruined like this and now , you being the second to get slapped ; this isn't fair

He can help but to let his tears fall , if he's too cute then it's fine for him to cry . Sebek and you freak out in fear of him being through some sort of serious pain or injury , then he just laughs and tells you that he's alright . He just needed to comfort himself but freeing those tears

He doesn't see any need of today getting worse , so he doesn't mind flirting a bit . He jokes on whatever you rejected for not being more frustrating than being too cute and laughs

He thinks that you may like to talk more , so he brings up a more interesting issue : His hundred years experience with women

You are fascinated at how many times he has joined ladies for dances or drinking , yet has never been on a serious relationship

He's actually trying to spill more tea of his low experiements with relationships , hopeful that you get his point

Silver

You return along with Lilia and Sebek. , all of having half of your face red . Silver wasn't there to know what was going on or why Sebek is shouting at him for being a coward not trying to propose like a real man . Poor boy is just blank

Lilia takes Sebek along with him and leaves the two of you alone , so you start telling everything over . He tries his best to hide his laugh at the point where Sebek got slapped but he failed , then Lilia and finally , you

You tell him that you really feel frustrated about failing others and not being good enough , but it makes Silver gently laugh : " Well , from Leona Senpai to Mr . Vil , they all got slapped one by one , doesn't it sound a bit weird ? "

You surely don't get hos point so he continues : " When someone keeps rejecting everyone one by one , it means that they don't really know what they want. They're seeking perfection ; but no one's ever perfect enough for them . Through lovers would still love each other aside lacking too much on their own , and that's what makes their love last : They complete each other "

His words really move you and make you ask how he can tell all these words so beautifully

He gives you small smile and adds : " Well , it's because I've experienced it all with you "

Sebek Zigvolt

Having both master Malleus and you insulted on the same day : This is too much !

You shouldn't have been the one forced propose while others like Silver were laying comfortably on a sofa dreaming of rainforests and colorful birds , it wasn't your right !

He doesn't even ask , he immediately takes you to the nurse office to put a stick on your slapped face . You insist that it's be too much but he isn't listening

He then , apologizes for about an hour for not talking you out of something that wasn't even your duty and promises that there won't be a next time on it

You really get concerned at how stressed out this boy suddenly gets over nothing , so you cut him off by pulling yourself to his embrace and giving him a hug . He freezes at first , but then relaxes and hugs back

" Promise that I'll never let you down (y/n) , never"

♦♥♠♣

Tagging : @lilyholo @yourlittlerunt @minteasketches @epher-posts @takumipineapplexd @yandere-of-your-dreams

[shackleton2]

I need to learn more about making my profile not boring and sad but I want to share stuff more than I want to do that SO here's a flashback snippet from my post-WS fic I'm trying to figure out.

1943

       “C’n I tell you a secret?” Bucky’s voice was slurred and soft as they stared at the dark ceiling. They were lying side by side after Bucky had stumbled in late, bragging about the girls while changing, and then slid into Steve’s bed with artful thoughtlessness.

Steve tried not to focus on the teetering, unreal feeling the question filled the space between them with. Infinite possibilities. He didn’t know what he wanted to hear or what he would even guess he was about to hear, he just knew it was Bucky’s last night and he was afraid.

“Course, Buck.” He didn’t turn to look at him and neither did Bucky. Secrets were easiest spoken to a dark ceiling or a night sky. They’d known that for a long time, they’d told each other a lot of secrets.

“I know I fight a lot. Well, you do,” Steve snorted, “and I get involved. Plus boxing. But. Well, ” Steve could hear him lick his lips, uncertain and confessional, “boxing, you know the other guy’s in it just as you are, for money or fun or whatever reason, even if it gets bloody, it’s not personal. And the fights you pick, even if you pick far too many of ‘m, they’re, they’re for good reasons every time. ‘N keeping assholes from beatin you to death in alleys is a good cause if I ever knew one. ‘S just…” he sighed and his voice was clear but he had to be pretty drunk to be talking this way and for there to be the quiver Steve heard in his exhale, “I never…wanted to hurt anyone. ‘N I still don’t, Stevie. An’ they act like that’s wrong, in boot camp, like we gotta be excited to kill these guys. I know we gotta do it, I know it’s right, but liking it… I don’t wanna do that, I don’t wanna be that. And these other guys are so— bloodthirsty, they talk like they’ll be havin a fuckin ball shooting and killing people. And they want me to be a sharpshooter, that’s not even a fair fight, that’s picking guys off who don’t even know you’re there, how’s—whassat gonna be—”

“Buck, listen.” And now they were turned to each other, Bucky’s eyes shining and face creased in distress in the dark. “I guess this war’s gonna turn a lot of us into…into killers.” Bucky’s eyes narrowed at the us that implied Steve was still determined to make it over there, but Steve soldiered on; he wasn’t sure what he was saying but lack of plan never stopped him before.

“There’s nothing wrong with being bothered by that. Nobody should want to kill another person. But it seems like they’re sending you over there and you’re gonna have to do it anyway, so listen. Hurting people’s never been who you are, Bucky, and it never will be, even if a whole lotta blood gets spilled in this war, and you’re right there in the thick of it.” Steve couldn’t bear to picture the things he was saying so confidently, but if he couldn’t be by his friend’s side he could at least try to give him something to hold onto with his measly words. “All that shit that comes with fighting, even killing, that’ll never define you, Bucky. You don’t hurt people. You protect ‘em. And that’s what you’re going over there to do, and that’s what you’ll be doing the whole time, even if it doesn’t feel like it. That’s who you are, and nobody could ever make you anything else.”

Bucky blinked. He looked a little thunderstruck.

“Hell of a speech, buddy. They oughtta put you in the pictures.” Then his eyes crinkled the way they did, and everything on his face was warmth. “You’re a real good pal to have, Steve,” and as he said it his hand laced with Steve’s quick and smooth as thought and squeezed it firmly, and his eyes were even shinier, and he would be gone in the morning and Steve could hardly remember Brooklyn without Bucky in it except that he had been real lonely there, and there wasn’t anything else to say or do but squeeze back and force a smile and the words,

“Well, good or bad you got me, Barnes. Till the end of the line.

 …Now if we’re done bein sappy you’ve got a train in a few hours, and we ain’t gotta say some big goodbye cuz I ain’t your dame and I’ll be joining you before you know it.”

 He felt a surge of thrilling resolve at the truth of his words, at the 1A stamp he had just gotten hours before that Bucky didn’t know about because Steve was really a skunk who kept secrets from his best friend the night before he shipped out. Bucky just humphed and rolled his eyes dramatically as he started to turn over. “Get some sleep.”

“Well maybe I would if you’d put a sock in it for once,” as they turned back to back.

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

In 2014, in another dark room, miles from Brooklyn, Steve Rogers put his head in his hands and sobbed.

------I don't really get down with comic canon but I DO get down with certain fantastic images in the comics. This is definitely inspired by this scene/page where Steve is reading the Winter Soldier file knowing it's Bucky and remembering him from the past:

[wonderwomanfantasy]

Love for Gang Orca

oh what a big softy I love him, 

Gang orca x Reader

warnings: none? cursing, that’s bout it

word count:1,000 (bout)

summary: Midnight and Present mic are c h i l d r e n just trying to make sure their favorite ship gets together. 

You respected Kugo Sakamata more than any of your collages. He was so strong, intimidating, scary even. But he was so kind, once you actually spoke to him you saw a completely different person. Maybe respect was the wrong word for how you felt about Gang Orca, crush was probably a better term for it. 

Kugo, as it happened, had been crushing on you since you had met. He had been working at UA for a few years before you were brought in. He had met you on your first day while you were teetering down the hallway towards your office trying to balance a box of books and a leafy house plant. 

While you were a strong hero, you weren’t a strong hero and you were struggling more than a little bit “Here let me help” someone said lifting the heavy box out of your hands.

“Thank you so-” you paused seeing who had saved you, before smiling at him directly. 

“Thank you so much,” you said leading him to your new office. And he had been hooked on you ever since. 

He ate lunch with you every day, although sometimes he did worry that his dietary choices, mainly the tuns of fish he ate every day, but you were more than happy to keep him company. In fact, almost every little habit of his that he was insecure about, you found endearing. It was almost like the two of you were made for each other. At least that’s what you thought, and as it happened, you weren’t the only people to think that way.

Neither of you weren’t exactly subtle about your affections, so it was inevitable that someone would notice. And of course, it was your two nosest coworkers who picked up on your affections. 

“So (y/n), girl to girl what kind of men are you into? Anyone caught your eye?” Midnight asked, cornering you in your office one morning.

“Uhm why do you ask?” you squeeked, your cheeks going pink. 

“Well, I didn’t want to asume anything but word around the teachers lounge is that you are into Sakamata,” she asked looking at you over the rim  of her red glasses. You felt your heart sink realising you had been caught.

“Is it that obvious huh?” you asked, she offered you only smll smile.

“Sorry to say it byt everyone knows,” she said

“Everyone?”

“Well- every one except Sakamata if that’s what you’re worried about,” You relaxed knowing your crush wasn’t completely revealed. 

“I think you would be good for him, I mean just think of the hight difference! You two would be so cute,” She gushed. 

“I don’t think He’s all that inro me,” you said softly, thinking back to some of your interactions with him. Sometimes it seemed like he did enjoy spending time with you, but every time you tried to flirt with him he turned cold and distant, eventually you took the hint that he only saw you as a work friend and stopped trying to push past that. 

“No way he’s totally into you, you can see him blush every time the two of you talk!” she protested

“I don’t think he can blush Nemuri,”

“That’s beside the point,” she slammed her hands on your desk and leaned in bringing her face close to yours. 

“Do you want to prove that he’s into you?” she asked, a dangerous, wicked gleam in her eyes. You were too intimidated to say no. 

You didn’t know it but Gang Orca and Hizashi were having a similar conversation right down the hall from you. 

“I’m telling you man She is in. to. You.” Hisashi said punctuating each word with a jab to Sakamata’s chest. He was seriously considering picking Hizashi up by the collar and literally kicking him out of his office. Especially with how persistent he was being. 

“She doesn’t, now will you please leave me alone?”

“No,” he said taking a deep breath before continuing on his rant “Even if she didn’t like you, which she does, what’s the harm of asking her out? You’re a man you can take a little thing like rejection, and she’s such a sweetheart it’s not like you couldn’t be friends after that!”

Gang Orca had listened to maybe half of his rant before tuning it out, It was clear that while Hizashi had figured out that Sakamata liked you, he didn’t understand anything else about this issue. 

“She’s scared of me, there’s no way,” he said. Hizashi seemed to think about that before grinning at him. 

“We can change that,”

You couldn’t believe you let Nemuri talk you into this. The X rated hero had dressed you today, in a tight-fitting pencil skirt, a low cut shirt, thigh highs, and stilettos. You felt a little silly but you were deciding to trust her. 

Midnight had convinced you that Sakamata would drop on his knees and beg you to be his if you just showed a little more skin, And seeing how many men tripped over themselves to get a glance at her, it seemed like her theory had some weight to it. 

“Good Morning (l/n),” Sakamata said with a small nod as he fell into step beside you. Unfortunately he didn’t look impressed or even flustered by your attire. Under Normal sercumstnces, he would be, but he was too focused on his own plan.

Hizashi was going to trip you, and then Sakamata would catch you cementing him as a hero in your mind. He didn’t really like the idea of it, but Hizashi wound’t take no for an answer. Before you could even get to where Hizashi was hiding, your heal caught on a crack in the ground teetering forward with your arms windmilling, completely out of your deapth with these new clothes. Sakamata reached forward and steadied you, not even catching you as was the plan but just grabding your arm ans setting you right on your feet. 

There was a brief moment where you both just looked at eachother and laughed. Before you could properly thank him , there ws  girlish squeal. And you turnd to see Midnight and mic cooing over you two.  You flushed pink and Sakamata removed his hand from your arm. 

“What a cute couple,” Midnight teesed and if Sakamata could blush, he would have. 

“I’m sorry, this is all my fault.” you said quietly. 

“No, actually it’s mine, Yamada found out I like you and He’s taken it into his own hands,” He explained 

“Oh, well, midnight found out about my crush on you, she also planed something out,” you admitted. Sakamata smiled to himself

“In that case should we go out and put their teasing to rest?” He asked. 

“I doubt that would really stop them, but I’d love to,”