#I just can end up crying while talking :'>

[marvelstoriesepic]

Like he means it

Pairing: Roommate!Bucky x Reader

Summary: You can’t take another night of hearing Bucky fuck a girl who isn’t you.

Word Count: 13.6k

Warnings: Bucky is a fuckboy (but he’s still a sweetheart); lots of talk about unrequited love (but is it?); mentions of sex; crying; lots of desperation; longing; heavy confessions; feels; happy ending

Author’s Note: This is written for the lovely cinema themed writing challenge of @elixirfromthestars ♡ I had this kind of idea for a while but when I read those lyrics it somehow immediately came back to my mind and I needed to make something out of it. This is kind of inspired by your Boulevard Confessions because I loved it so much! And damn, I've already written so much about roommate!Bucky but I can’t help myself lol, I love him. Also, this got a little long, I'm sorry. Still, I hope you enjoy! ♡

Hold My Hand "Pull me close, wrap me in your aching arms. I see that you're hurtin', why'd you take so long to tell me you need me? I see that you're bleeding, you don't need to show me again. But if you decide to, I'll ride in this life with you. I won't let go 'til the end." — Lady Gaga

Masterlist

You hear the giggling before anything else.

It’s always the giggling.

And, as always, it grates on your nerves.

It carves through the air, seeps into the walls, into the floorboards, into you. It tears its way inside and scrapes its manicured nails along the rawest and most sensitive parts of you, only to bury itself deep, where you can’t simply dig it out.

Then comes the keys.

The light, metallic jingle, so careless in its melody, but so troubling in its meaning.

Then the lock turning, the click soft and yet so irrefutable.

Then the door opening.

More giggles.

His breathy chuckles.

Then the door closing.

Shoes being kicked off, one hitting the wall.

You press the pillow harder against your ears, as if you could suffocate the sound before it reaches you, as if you could bury yourself deep enough under the covers to escape what you already know is coming. But you can’t. You never can.

Your brain usually does you the favors of drowning out the parts in the hallway, knowing it will probably make your heart stop in an instant. Today, it doesn’t do you any favors and you close your eyes, accepting the sting behind them.

And then, his bedroom door.

And if all that wasn’t torture enough, it was only the easy part.

Because now is when it really starts. It’s when your throat closes up, the breath in your lungs turns heavy, thick, impossible. Because no matter how many times this has happened, no matter how many times you laid here in your bed, still, so still, waiting for the agony to stop, pretending it doesn’t happen - it never stops hurting. It never stops breaking your heart - or whatever’s left of it.

At first, there is silence. The small period where you almost dare to believe, to hope.

But then comes the moaning.

High-pitched and breathy, hinting at a pleasure that strikes you with a hammer.

Someone else. Always someone else. Someone who is not you, someone who never had to try, someone who will never know what it means to ache for him like you do.

Then, quieter, but just as devastating, Bucky’s voice. The low sound of him unraveling. The sound of something slipping from him that you will never be able to take.

And that’s what breaks you most. That’s what turns the ache into utter misery. Madness even. It’s the inescapable proof that he has something to give - something deep, something intimate - and he is giving it away. Over and over again, but never to you.

You close your eyes, as always. It doesn’t help, as always. The sounds don’t stop anyway. The images come anyway - the touches you have imagined, the way his hands would feel against your skin, the way his mouth would shape your name if you were the one beneath him. The way he might look at you, if only he could see.

But right now, you are just the ghost in the next room, curled in on yourself, ears filled with the sound of someone else living the life you always wanted.

And in the morning, or right after, when the door will open again, when the giggling will turn to goodbyes, you will still be here, where you always are. Where you always will be. Waiting. Wanting. Breaking. Wishing you could turn it off, this feeling. This unendurable and never-ending heartbreak.

And that finally makes the tears flow.

They well up before they spill over, down the slope of your cheek, gathering in the hollow beneath your nose before falling onto the pillow and wetting it like a pool.

You squeeze your eyes shut, so tightly it should hurt, so tightly it should make them stop. But they come anyway. They come despite the barricade of your willpower, despite the way your body coils tighter in on itself. They come despite the desperate war you wage against them.

They come because you have lost. Because it’s too much.

The moaning doesn’t stop, and it’s too much. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s too much. It’s the third night in a row, and it’s too much.

Bucky’s hushed voice shatters something inside of you, you didn’t know was left intact a few seconds ago.

Your breath turns sticky, only half of it making its way up your throat. The other half stays attached to the walls of your throat like honey gone rancid. It refuses to leave completely, snagging and trapping you in the awful space between breathing and choking.

Maybe if it stopped altogether, it would be easier. Maybe suffocating would be gentler than this slow and unsparing death of heartbreak.

Your hands are shaking. You bury your face into the pillow, willing it to just take you as a whole and never let you leave again. The fabric muffles the shuddering sobs, but it cannot do anything for the way your body trembles. But you know that the sounds of pleasure in the other room will tune out the sounds of your cries. The pillow is being clutched so tightly, you might tear the fabric. But it’s your heart that’s being torn into so many pieces. So what is a pillow compared to the ruin of your heart? It’s nothing.

You are alone in your grief.

The moans stop for a second - abrupt, cut off mid-breath.

Bucky’s voice comes. He says something but you don’t catch his words.

However, you do catch the displeased groan of his girl for the night. Drawn-out and petulant. Annoyed.

Bucky speaks again. Firmer, this time. Again, it’s too quiet to catch it.

And then you hear your name. It’s muffled still, but you would hear your name coming from his lips always and forever. You know the exact cadence of it shaping his mouth.

Everything in you halts. Your breaths are suspended somewhere in your throat, caught between shock and devastation.

The girl scoffs. It’s a snappy sound. Almost whiny. You would have rolled your eyes if you weren’t so troubled.

The moaning resumes. But it is quieter this time. Controlled almost. A courtesy. A mercy. But not for you. Not in the way you wish.

And it makes you know.

He asked her to keep it down. For you. He must have told her he has a roommate - you - and that they need to be mindful, that you might be trying to sleep.

Somehow, in all the infinite ways he could have cared for you, this is the one he chose. Not to love you, not to want you, but to make sure his flings don’t disrupt your sleep. As if that’s the worst of it. As if the noise is what truly keeps you up at night, and not the agonizing truth of it all.

Harshly, your teeth sink into your lip, fighting to stifle the sob that trembles on the edge of you. But again, you are losing.

Because hearing your name in the middle of something so intimate, spoken in the same breath of his pleasure, is pure anguish.

Because your name should not exist there. Not like this. Not casually sneaking into a mind occupied with pleasuring someone else.

If he were to say your name in a moment like this, it should be a soft whisper against your skin, entangled in sheets, buried in kisses that steal the air from your lungs. It should be something private, something sacred.

Not an idle afterthought. A consideration. A passing thought before he loses himself in someone else’s body. You have never heard him say any girl’s name before when sleeping with them, but hell you also don’t try to listen too closely.

You won’t talk about this. You never talk about this. When the morning comes and you meet Bucky in the kitchen for breakfast, you will not mention it. Just like you never mention the other nights. Just like you never dwell on the soft apologies he offers when they got too loud. And just like always, you will brush it off, force a brittle smile, and tell him that it’s fine.

It’s not. It never has been. And you don’t think you ever manage to make it sound like you mean it. But you are gone before Bucky can push or apologize again. Or see how deep the knife has gone.

Because he might be careful to be quiet. But he will never be careful enough to stop breaking your heart.

So what is the point?

You don’t want to do another morning like this.

You can’t do another morning like this.

Not three times in a row.

Not when the night has already taken your soul and what was precious of it, barely sewn together by the time the sun fights its way through the window.

Not when you know how it will play out. Like it has the day before. And the day before that.

The door to his room will creak open, the girl already gone. You will hear the shuffle of his bare feet against the floor, the sigh as he stretches, and the yawn that usually makes it past his lips. He never tries to stifle it.

And then, him standing there and watching you.

Disheveled. Bed hair sticking up in a mess. You never let your mind wander to how her fingers might have something to do with that. His shirt would loosely hang over his frame, probably thrown on in a hurry, collar askew, revealing a sliver of skin you shouldn’t be looking at.

That lazy and slightly flustered smile. Sleep still in the corners of his eyes, his lips, his voice, when he greets you with a scratchy morning.

Like nothing happened. Like he didn’t shatter you into a thousand unfixable pieces last night. And the night before that. And now this night.

You will do your best to greet him back without sounding pained. Focusing on making coffee. The way the steam normally curls into the air, the warmth of the mug in your hands. You will have to focus on it as if it’s the only thing keeping you upright.

And despite knowing you shouldn’t - despite hating yourself for it - you will slide a cup toward him. As you always do.

His smile would shift. Settling into something fond, something warm, something that digs its claws into your ribs and refuses to let go.

Because that’s usually the worst part. He’s always so sweet with you. Thoughtful, affectionate in ways that don’t count. In the ways that make you feel like maybe if you just hold on a little longer, if you wait just a little more, he might start feeling what you do.

But you are certain, he won’t.

Because for him, everything seems fine. For him, this will be just another morning. Another easy, comfortable start to the day. With his eyes on you and sipping his coffee, exhaling like he is finally at peace, and leaning against the counter with a lightness that always has your stomach all up in shambles.

He always makes it seem so normal. Starting conversation with you, talking to you as if nothing has changed. Like you didn’t spend the night curled in on yourself, swallowing down sobs so thick they feel like razor blades. Like you didn’t spend the night choking on the sound of him with her.

He never mentions them. Never says any of the girl’s names, not that you even know what they are. He never makes plans to see them again. Just another faceless but very loud girl. One to be forgotten.

But tomorrow night, there will be another.

Tomorrow night will be the same.

And in the morning nothing will have happened.

Only him standing there with his sleep-mussed hair and that sweet, easy smile, drinking the coffee you should have stopped making for him a long, long time ago.

You rise out of bed, not even aware of it. The cold air nips at your tear-streaked cheeks, your sheets thrown back in a mass of tangled fabric still warm from the ball your body was curled in, breaking in silence. The pillow is still wet.

Your hands move on their own, tugging on slacks, yanking a hoodie over your head as though the fabric could hide you, save you from the devastation caving a hole into your chest.

You fumble for your phone before throwing open your bedroom door.

The moans are louder again. Yanking at your resolve and laughing at the way your tears keep coming.

Your feet move faster. You don’t actually run, but it feels like running. Like fleeing. Escaping a burning building before it collapses. The living room comes into view and it’s like a cruel trick, like the universe is taunting you, because all you see are phantoms.

The coffee machine on the counter. How many times have you two stood there, still tousled with sleep, you making coffee for the both of you because Bucky burns everything. How many times did he lean on the counter, watching you with that stupid little half-smirk, pretending to judge your process but always humming in satisfaction when he took the first sip.

The bookshelf in the corner - the one you swore you could build on your own. And you tried, you really did, but the second the screwdriver slipped and you gasped out loud, Bucky was there immediately. Hands on yours, worry furrowing his brows, grumbling about your stubbornness and continuing to grumble when he passive-aggressively built it himself.

You sat cross-legged on the floor, watching him, pretending to be annoyed but secretly savoring the way he kept glancing at you, again and again, to make sure you were okay and giving you instructions as to how it’s done but throwing you a glare when you insisted on trying again.

The carpet. The same one you both collapsed onto after a night out with your friends, too tipsy to move, giggling like teenagers as you pointed at the ceiling, pretending to find constellations in the uneven paint. He named one after you. You named one after him. You fell asleep there, side by side, and when you woke up he was so close. So close.

The couch. The one he practically melted into last week when he had a fever, whining dramatically until you caved and brought him soup. He kept pulling you back when you tried to leave, pouting like a child, demanding your attention because I’m sick, doll. Can’t ignore me when I’m sick. Until you sighed and sat down, letting his head rest in your lap. He fell asleep like that. Snoring. And you didn’t have the heart to move.

And now he is in his room, tangled in her, moaning into her skin, kissing her - like it doesn’t mean anything. Like none of it ever meant anything.

Your breath is uneven, your hands shaking as you grab your shoes. The laces blur, your vision fogs, but you can’t stop.

You throw open the door to your shared apartment, barely thinking, barely breathing, only moving. It swings back into the frame with a sharp sound echoing through the hallway, louder than you had intended. But it doesn’t matter now. Because you are sure that Bucky doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t notice. He is otherwise occupied and you are utterly drained of thinking about with what.

The air outside the apartment feels different. Lighter and cooler, but it doesn’t bring relief. It’s thin and hard to pull into your lungs properly.

Natasha’s place isn’t far. Fifteen minutes on foot. You tell yourself that over and over, like a mantra, like something to grasp on.

No more moans. Lost to silence, left in a place that feels little like home right now. Still, they resonate in your skull, haunting reminders of that pain you can’t dismiss, that hurt that hangs off you like a heavy burden.

You slow your steps on the staircase and inhale deeply. It trembles on its way out.

You hate how fragile you feel. How breakable. Hate how much this affects you. How much he affects you.

But you keep walking.

Just yesterday, you talked to Natasha and she offered you to stay with her for the night, looking at you all sharp and knowing, but in her own way sympathetic. You declined. Because you thought you’d be fine. Well, you were wrong.

It’s past midnight now, completely dark, but you don’t care.

You know, Natasha will let you in. And that will have to be enough for tonight.

The city is alive even at this hour. Neon lights glow in the distance, their reflection shimmering in rain-slicked puddles that dot the cracked pavement. Somewhere across the street, there is a group of people laughing, and disappearing around a corner. A car flies past, with headlights unlocking long shadows lengthening down the sidewalk.

You focus on those things. On the shoes thumping against the pavement. The way the crisp air is somehow refreshing as it weaves through the fabric of your hoodie and stings slightly at the tear-streaked skin of your cheeks, keeping you awake and propelling you forward. Not that you need any more motivation to leave.

You wind your arms around yourself like a shield, like a last-ditch effort to keep yourself from falling apart completely.

You don’t look back.

Somewhere above you, there is a creak of a window opening.

It makes you freeze for a small second, before tightening your arms around yourself and picking up your pace.

Your stomach spins violently because fuck, you know that sound. You know the groan of that window when it moves, just a little off its hinges, just enough to make a noise you’ve heard a hundred times before. Because it’s the window of your apartment. And it makes a noise that has never felt so much like a punch to the gut.

“Y/n?”

You close your eyes.

“Y/n!”

Your name spills from his lips, laced with confusion, infused with something that makes your fingers clench around your arms.

You could ignore him. You should ignore him. Just keep walking, keep moving, pretend you didn’t hear.

But you can’t. You never can.

With a slow, dragging breath, you turn around.

Bucky is leaning over the frame, his torso reaching out the window, bare from the shoulders down. He is bathed in the hazy yellow glow of the streetlights.

His hair is messed up, brown tendrils all sticking in different directions. His brows are knitted in confusion. His lips in a frown so full of worry. And it’s just too much.

Too warm. Too intimate. Too familiar.

Your chest stutters, lurches, and swirls itself into a dozen moving shapes that hurt more than they should. Because he stands there shirtless. Shirtless. And you know why.

You swallow back your hurt, but it stays stuck in your throat and crawls right up again to make you taste it on your tongue.

You force your gaze away from staring at the curve of his collarbone, the slope of his throat, the soft lines of his skin, the hard lines of his muscles that she had her hands on just minutes ago.

“Where are you going?”

The tone highlights his concern, thick with the kind of worry that would have meant everything if it weren’t coming from him like this, not now. His voice is rough, remnants of the time already spent with that girl, but all you can hear is that damn worry in it.

As if you owe him an answer. As if he isn’t the reason your chest feels like it’s been hollowed out and left to rot.

You draw in half a breath and look away - down the street, down at your shoes, the bricks of your building. Anywhere that isn’t him.

“To Nat’s.”

It’s clipped and short. You don’t want to explain, don’t want to talk, don’t want to stand here in the night air beneath the window of the apartment you share with him like some pathetic wreck while he worries about you.

“Nat’s?” You can hear the bewilderment in his voice, the way he is trying to piece it together, the way his brain is already working overtime, scrambling to make sense of this - and you can practically feel the moment he decides he won’t let it go.

“Somethin’ happen?” His voice just won’t stop to be so perplexed, so concerned. It is softer now, but you only glance up at him briefly before averting your eyes again.

Because damn Bucky, yes, something happened. Everything happened. Every night that he brings someone home, every touch that belongs to someone else, every soft moan that isn’t meant for you.

All these moments, all these memories, every feeling left unsaid that swivels and stings and grows into what it is now - a storm inside your rib cage, a hurricane of almosts and never wills and why does it have to be like this?

But of course, you can’t say that. You won’t say that.

So you just shake your head, tighten your arms around yourself, and take a step back.

“Go back to bed, Bucky.”

Because you can’t do this right now. You won’t do this right now.

Not when you are already about to break.

“I- What?”

His voice is a little raspy, puzzled, and under any other circumstance, it might have been endearing. On a normal day, if this were some cozy Sunday morning and not the breaking stretch of midnight, you might have smiled at the sight of him like this - hair in a wild mess, eyes a little heavy from the day, bare shoulders shifting in the glow of the streets.

But this is not a Sunday morning. And nothing about this feels good or cozy or right.

You are so damn exhausted. So damn drained.

“You-” he starts again, brow furrowing deeper, but before he can get another word out, hands appear - slim fingers wrapping around the thick of his bicep, tugging, pulling, trying to drag him back inside.

Bile is pooling at the base of your throat.

She’s alone with him up there, in the space that you have spent so much time making into something warm, something filled with comfort. A space where you feel home. With him. And yet, it’s that random girl in there, laying in his bed, under his covers, in his scent, in him.

“Bucky, come on.” Her voice is thin and peevish, thick with impatience. And exhaustion you believe she has no right to feel when you are the one who has spent the time suffocating under her presence.

But Bucky doesn’t move.

His hand only grips onto the windowsill tighter, muscles in his arm locking.

And his eyes stay fixed on you.

Still searching. Still confused. Still trying to understand.

And it makes your hands clammy.

The way he looks at you like he is reaching for something just beyond his grasp, something that eludes him no matter how hard he tries to hold onto it.

He huffs out a breath that just borders on frustration when her fingers won’t stop pulling at him.

“Hold on, doll-” he calls out to you and unwinds her hands from his arm, barely sparing her a glance as he leans out the window again. There is a little something in his tone when he speaks to you again. Something like exasperation. But it’s not meant for you. “What’re you doin’ at Nat’s? Tell her it’s the middle of the goddamn night. Why would she let you walk over to her? She knows it’s not safe.”

You shake your head, already half turning away again. You just cannot do this right now.

“It’s fine. Just go back to bed, Bucky.”

“Y/n - hey. What’s wrong? What’s this about?” There it is. That softness in his voice. That concern. And it hurts. Because he doesn’t get it.

“Go. Back. To bed,” you repeat, sharper now, gritting it out between clenched teeth.

But Bucky has always been stubborn. And so infuriating. It’s like he doesn’t hear you at all.

“C’mon doll, did something happen? Talk to me,” he urges, voice gentle but he doesn’t seem to like the way you look as if you would bolt around the corner any second. His tone is coaxing in a way that makes you ache because this is what he does. This is what he has always done - pulling you in, making you feel safe, making you feel cared for, making you feel like you matter. Like he means it.

And it’s cruel. So cruel.

Because you are in love with him.

And he is standing in that window, bare-chested and rumpled from a night with another woman, while you are in slacks and a simple hoodie beneath him with your heart cracked wide open, bleeding into the pavement.

“I don’t wanna do this right now, Bucky,” you snip, voice losing patience. But you are so tired.

Bucky sighs and runs a hand through his hair, frustration growing, seeping into his voice. “You’re killin’ me here, sweetheart. Just tell me what’s goin’ on. It’s cold out, doll. You’re not even wearin’ a jacket.”

You swallow down a choked breath.

Because this is making things so much worse.

That he cares. That he is looking at you like this, like you matter, like you are his.

Like you are something he wants to figure out. And he wants to take his time with. Like he wants to fix you.

But you are not broken. You are just in love.

“Bucky,” that girl calls out again, dragging his name out, voice honey-thick and pettish. “Come on babe, let it go. Just-” She tugs at his arm again, nails skimming along his forearm. “Come back to bed.”

But he doesn’t move.

Doesn’t even glance at her.

His mouth twitches, jaw ticking as he exhales sharply through his nose, shaking her off with a firm roll of his shoulder. “Would you quit it for a sec?” His voice is edged now, tinged with a kind of terse impatience he seldom ever lets out. “Jesus, m’tryin to talk here.”

The girl huffs, clearly displeased, but Bucky doesn’t spare her another second.

But the one second he threw his head around at her was your chance. Your feet move before you can think, before you can talk yourself into staying, because if you do, if you let him pull you in, let yourself hope-

“Woah, doll, hey. Wait, I-”

His voice is frantic, stammering over its own syllables and filled with too many things your mind is too jumbled to focus on.

But it makes you stop your body in the midst of a step. And you grind down on your teeth against the frustration burning inside you.

You should keep walking. Shouldn’t have stopped.

But Bucky is leaning even further out now, his knuckles bracing against the sill, the night air tousling his hair, eyes wide and concerned, searching. One of his arms is reaching out, down to you as if he could touch you like this.

“Hold up, yeah? I’m comin’ down.”

You whip halfway back to him, brows snapping together, heart slamming against your ribs.

“No, you-”

He’s already pulling himself back inside, shaking his head as if it should be obvious. “I’m coming down,” he repeats, more insistent, more sure. Leaving no room for argument.

Your fists squeeze the fabric of your hoodie. Your stomach churns. “Bucky-” you try again. But he has already made up his mind.

“Wait there, alright?” His voice dips lower, steadier but still urgent. Resolute, as if he would run after you if you bolted down the street. “Doll. Promise me you’ll wait.”

Something in his tone, the look he is giving you, like he’s begging, almost a sweet-talking declaration. It’s catching your breath somewhere in your throat.

You could run.

You should.

You should turn right back around, disappear into the night, and leave him standing there, shirtless and confused and worried.

But you hold his gaze for just one long and heavy beat, then exhale shakily, shoulders dropping slightly.

“Okay,” you say weakly.

Bucky nods determined and taps his fingers against the windowsill, before rushing away, leaving the window wide open.

And you stand there hating yourself for waiting.

Hating yourself for hoping.

Technically, you could just leave.

Take a different route to Nat’s apartment, slip into the dark veins of the city where his voice wouldn’t reach, and let him walk out onto an empty sidewalk with his hair still tousled from another woman’s fingers and the taste of someone else’s lips still lingering on his own.

You could make him feel just a fraction of what you feel, with something hollow pressing up against his ribs when he finds nothing but cold pavement where you used to stand.

But you don’t.

You know you won’t.

Because it wouldn’t just frustrate him. It would hurt him.

And that’s the one thing you could never bring yourself to do.

Not Bucky.

Never Bucky.

You know him. The way he chews at the inside of his cheek when he’s trying not to say something reckless. The way his brows pull just a little too tight when he’s agitated but trying to play it off like he is fine. The way he folds his arms over his chest, not because he’s closed off, but because he needs something to hold onto.

You know exactly how he would react if he stepped out here and you weren’t there.

How the slight crease between his brows would deepen. How his fingers would twitch, opening and closing, like he’d missed his chance to catch you. How his lips would open and he would stare helplessly around and call your name.

And god, as much as this pain is devouring you from the inside out, pushing its way into the light but leaving you sitting in the dark, as much as your heart feels like being torn apart with unsaid words and unmet confessions - you cannot stand the thought of hurting him.

So you stay.

With feet planted on the concrete, fists clenched so hard, that your fingers start to cramp. You lift your trembling hands to your aching cheeks to hastily scrub away the fresh wave of tears surging forth downwards, willing your body to erase any evidence of your devastation.

But the more you wipe, the more it hurts.

You believe your cheeks are red from the effort of wiping so much, eyes swollen and puffy, your body trying to rebel against all of your commands.

Inhaling shakily, you force the breath down, down, down where you can pretend it doesn’t hurt so much. You angle your face slightly away from the building, hoping the dim spill of moonlight won’t betray your inner struggles.

Because the moment Bucky steps out that door, it will be the same as always.

He’ll look at you like you are his best friend. Like you are his safe place. Like you are the person he can always count on.

And you will look at him like you aren’t falling apart.

Like your heart isn’t unraveling at the seams.

Like you aren’t drowning in a love that will never be returned.

The door swings open with a force that startles you, the sound of it hitting the frame a little too sharp against the night.

Bucky storms out onto the sidewalk like he’s got something urgent to say, like the world might stop spinning if he doesn’t get to you fast enough. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t pause. Just moves straight to you, his steps quick, closing the space before you can change your mind about standing here. He has a crumpled shirt thrown on and it hangs a little off. But it makes you want to run so hard.

His fingers wrap around your arms, not hard, not forceful but firm.

Those warm hands on you make you want to crumble.

His breath is coming fast, chest rising and falling, like he ran down the staircase to get here as fast as possible.

His eyes are so deep, deep and blue, roaming your face with so much intensity, searching and scanning and pausing.

Shadows cast over his sharp cheekbones at the way his brows are furrowed, his lips slightly parted.

“What’s going on, doll? You been cryin’?” His voice comes out rough and he talks fast. Urgent, breaths spilling over themselves as he rushed through the words, almost tripping on them in his desperation to get them out. “Why’ve you been crying? What happened?”

His thumb twitches against the fabric of your hoodie.

You open your mouth, close it again. Your throat is dry from the sobs you tried to silence earlier. You shake your head, a knee-jerk reaction.

“I was just going to Nat’s, Bucky. Nothing happened.”

It’s a weak excuse, said in a weak voice.

And you hate how it makes Bucky’s expression shift. That tiny wounded something that crosses his features, something that shouldn’t be there, because you did wait for him, you didn’t leave, but it’s still not enough. You lied to him. And he knows it. And he’s hurt. And you hate yourself.

He shakes his head, his jaw going tight.

“No,” he murmurs, eyes never leaving you, voice so low. “That ain’t nothin’, doll. C’mon. You’re runnin’ off in the middle of the night, how could this be nothing?”

You look away. Because if you keep looking at him, him with his concern and confusion and hurt all interflowing in the pool of those blue eyes, you won’t be able to hold yourself together much longer.

You swallow hard and force yourself to breathe slowly.

The sting behind your eyes is never really leaving you.

Bucky leans in, just a little. His grip on your arms tightens, but it’s not harsh. Only insistent. Desperate for you to give him something here.

“Somethin’ up with Natasha?” His voice is gentle, like he knows this has nothing to do with her, but he has to ask anyway to go through all the possible options of what might be going on.

“No,” you croak, barely managing the word.

He softens at the sound of it, but that frown doesn’t ease.

“What’re you doing then, huh? Why’re you running off like that? S’ not safe, you know that.” His voice is soft. Almost like he’s trying to soothe a skittish animal. But the concern is wrapping around every word. “What’s got you so upset, sweetheart? Talk to me, yeah? Please?”

His voice takes on a desperate intensity. Like he’s begging you to just let him in. To make him understand.

You bite down hard on your bottom lip, willing it not to tremble, willing your face not to crumble right in front of him, but the air is too thick for your airway, making it harder and harder to breathe.

And Bucky is looking at you, like you are breaking his goddamn heart. Like you took a shot straight for it.

He is so full of worry, it looks painful, the crease of his brow always there when he’s thinking too hard, when he’s feeling too hard. His lips are still parted, like he wants to beg for an explanation, for some string of words that will make this all click into place and turn this into something fixable.

Because Bucky Barnes fixes things.

But this might be the only thing he can’t fix.

His hands on you are a contrast to the way you feel as if you’re falling apart. You hate how much you just want to collapse into it, to let yourself lean into him, let him hold you up. Because he would. You know he would. He would pull you in without hesitation, wrap his arms around you like he has done so many times before.

But you don’t want him to hold you. Don’t want him to hold you like a friend.

You want him to hold you like he means it. Like you mean something more than the sum of all the nights you spent choking on your own silence, swallowing words you could never say.

So all you can do is stay frozen, bones locked, eyes burning, heart splitting itself open in the middle of the street where he doesn’t even know he’s killing you.

“I-”

You try. You really try.

But then the door swings open again. And the sound of it alone is enough to send a bolt of ice down your spine.

Because this time it’s her walking out.

She steps out onto the sidewalk like she has every right to be a part of this moment.

Like she hasn’t spent the first part of the night in Bucky’s bed. Like she hasn’t been touched by him, kissed by him, fucked by him, wanted by him in a way that you have only ever ached for.

Like she hasn’t taken something that was never hers to have.

But it’s not yours either.

She looks so composed, too. More put together than you would have imagined. Her hair smoothed, clothes adjusted, skin glowing in a way that tells you she wasn’t just sleeping up there - she was living in something you’ve been dying for. She probably took a moment in your bathroom to check herself, to fix her lipstick, maybe even to admire herself in the mirror while you were downstairs, breaking apart.

She had the time for that.

Meanwhile, you can barely stand.

Your body is alive with magnitudes of unspoken things, suffocating. You feel like you’ve been sanded down, like a piece of wood, leaving nothing but the ache and longing and all the words you can’t say. This destruction is slow and ruthless, it doesn’t come with an explosion, but rather a slow erasure.

Like you’re being unmade. Piece by piece.

Like you were never meant to be here in the first place.

And Bucky is still looking at you.

Not at her.

You.

And maybe that should be enough. Maybe it should mean something.

But it just puts more pressure on the knife that is already turning around in your flesh.

The girl doesn’t leave and Bucky stiffens.

“Bucky,” she drawls, almost lazy, like she’s bored with this already. “Are you coming back up, or…?”

Your stomach lurches.

You feel exposed, scraped raw, like you’ve been trampled over, flattened by something massive, left behind for everyone else to step around.

Bucky lets out a slow breath through his nose. His jaw works under pressure. And then, he huffs. Annoyed. Like she’s interrupting something important.

“Go home,” he flatly tells her, his attention still on you. Not even addressing her with a name. Perhaps he doesn’t even know it.

“Seriously?” she scoffs, crossing her arms. Her eyes flick between the two of you.

Bucky exhales another breath and drops one of his arms from you to scrub it over his face, pushing through his hair. He turns toward her just a little, stance rigid.

“Yeah, seriously,” he mutters, already turning back to you. “I’ll call you a cab if you need-”

“God, you’re such a dick,” she snaps, cutting him off, rolling her eyes with an exasperated huff. “Unbelievable.”

And then she’s gone.

But so are you.

You don’t even think about it. You just move.

Your arm slips from Bucky’s loosened grip, your body already shifting, already turning, already pulling you down the sidewalk, away from him, away from this.

It’s pathetic. You know this. But you have to get away.

Your vision is a blur, the streetlights smearing into a soft, hazy glow against the wetness welling in your eyes, and no matter how much you try to breathe through it, it’s too much. Simply too much.

You’re hurting. And you need to go. Now.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Woah, whoah, hey!” His voice is quick, rushed, and then he is moving, closing the space between you. And this time, he cuts you off completely, stepping right into your path, right in front of you, blocking the way like a wall. He’s so broad in front of you, and so fucking present, making it impossible to escape.

You stop so fast it almost sends you stumbling back.

His eyes flick over you so quickly, so intensely, scanning for something he doesn’t understand but is so desperate to find.

“Alright,” he exhales, low and careful, holding his arms out as if ready to stop you again if you make a run for it.

“You want me to put you in chains to keep you still?”It’s a weak and failed attempt at humor.

And it’s not funny. Not even close.

His voice is too thin, too strained, and there is something in his eyes, something tight and aching, that makes it clear he is not even trying all that hard to make his joke work.

You don’t smile. Don’t look at him. Arms still around yourself.

Bucky’s throat bobs as he swallows, as he shifts his weight, as he lets out another slow and deliberate breath. He moves so slow. As if any tiny movement of him would make you walk away from him.

“What’s going on with you, mhm?” His voice is so soft. So concerned. Brooklyn warmth and worry combined with something gentler than you can handle right now.

“What’s this - this fight-or-flight thing you got goin’ on?” he continues, tilting his head just slightly, watching you too closely, reading too much. “You’re rushing off like the damn place is on fire. The hell is that about, doll?” Still so soft. So cautious.

His eyes are on you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like he’s trying to solve you, like if he just looks long enough, he’ll figure it out.

But if he really understood, if he really found out, everything between you would change.

And you can’t handle that. You can’t handle anything at the moment.

“Just drop it, Bucky, alright?” It comes out sharper than you mean for it to. Harsher. A little spit of venom that you hate yourself for the second it hits the air. He doesn’t deserve your attitude. But you can’t hold it back.

You see the way it lands. The way his brows pull in tighter, the way his lips press together, the way his chest rises and falls so measured. But it’s all not out of irritation. He just tries to figure out where that came from. What is happening. What has you react the way you do.

His voice is even and calm. But oh so careful. “I don’t think I will, doll.”

You look anywhere than at him and his troubled face.

Your throat tightens so fast, you have to swallow hard against it, teeth digging into the inside of your cheek as you blink up at the sky like maybe that keeps the tears from spilling over.

And Bucky watches all of that.

His expression stays soft, but his eyes are burning with something deep, something real, something that makes you feel like you might actually drown if you keep looking at them for too long.

“Y/n,” he almost whispers, and it sounds so pained. “Why are you crying, sweetheart.” He’s so gentle, so tender, so fucking careful like he’s afraid that if he pushes too hard, you’ll just break.

You shake your head, arms around yourself tightening. “I’m fine.”

Bucky makes a quiet noise in his throat, somewhere between a sigh and a scoff, something deep and disbelieving.

“See, that’s bullshit.”

You’re about to turn again, but he anticipates and gets hold of your arms.

“Look,” he sighs, heedfully taking off a hand of you to rub it down his face. “You don’t wanna talk? Fine. You wanna bite my head off cause I’m askin’? Fine. But don’t stand here and tell me you’re okay. Because I’ve got eyes, doll, and I can see that you’re not.”

You want him to stop.

You want him to turn around.

You want him to leave you here to fall apart in peace.

But he won’t.

And you don’t know what to do with that.

And you break.

No matter how hard you bite your lip, it doesn’t matter.

The tears slip and streak down your face before there is anything you can do. A sob follows. You can’t choke it down. Your shoulders shake, your breath stutters, and your face tilts towards the ground as you bring trembling hands up to wipe at your cheeks, in a futile and desperate attempt to regain composure. It’s useless.

You feel so pathetic.

Embarrassed. Ashamed that you ran off like this. That you’re standing here, crying in the middle of the night, on a sidewalk with no explanation, making a fool of yourself in front of him.

And the second your face crumbles, his does, too.

The second your breath hitches, he is moving.

Strong arms envelope you, winding tight, pulling you straight into his chest like he doesn’t even need to think about it. Not for a single second.

You let him.

Because it’s either this, or you’ll collapse down onto the asphalt.

His grip is firm, grounding, warm in a way that makes you ache even more. His hand cradles the back of your head, tucking you against him, and you feel the press of his lips there, gentle, but somehow rough.

Like your pain is his own.

“It’s okay. Shh… it’s okay,” he breathes, pained and low, the words pressed into your hair, into your skin. Making space between your ribs. “Oh, doll.” He presses you tighter to him. His hand brushes over your hair. “It’s okay.”

There is something so deep and aching in the way he talks to you, like the sound of his own voice hurts him. Like you hurt him.

His other hand moves over your back, soothingly, trying to give you some strength.

“I gotcha,” he breathes. “M’here, doll. Okay? Just breathe. Gotta breathe for me, baby. Please.”

It’s a slip. Baby. A mistake.

And it makes you cry harder.

Because it’s so soft. Gentle. Because it falls from his lips like something that’s always been there, something that’s always belonged to you.

Except it hasn’t.

It doesn’t.

Not in the way you want.

You don’t know what he calls those girls he takes home. If they get to hear him say it. Girls who have felt his hands in places you never will. Girls who have heard his voice rasp against their skin in the dark.

But you are not one of those girls.

You never will be.

And you know you will never be able to untangle that damaging wrench in your stomach.

So hearing him call you that. Baby. Like it means something. Like it’s yours. Like it hasn’t been whispered in the dim glow of your apartment, murmured against someone else’s lips, someone else’s skin, just someone else just hours ago.

It’s too hard. too cruel.

You wish it didn’t matter. You wish it didn’t rip through you the way it does, splitting you down the center, carving you open.

But it does.

Because even if it doesn’t belong to you, you still want it.

So you cry harder.

Sobs wrack through you, your chest hitching with the force of them, your hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, clumping it in your fists.

Bucky feels it and he hears it and he grips you tighter, pulls you closer.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos, voice just above a whisper, more desperate now. Like he’s drowning in your hurt right along with you.

“Sweetheart,” he tries again, voice strained, thick. His lips are in your hair. “Please talk to me. Make me understand, baby, please! Tell me what’s wrong.”

But you can’t.

Because what the hell would you even say?

That you’re in love with him?

That you’ve been in love with him?

That seeing him with her - hearing the sounds that bleed through the walls, the ones you’ll never be able to unhear - feels like being skinned alive?

That you want him in a way you shouldn’t?

That you want him in a way he will never want you back?

You won’t.

So instead, you just press yourself harder into his chest and squeeze your eyes shut, letting him hold you like you are something precious. Like you are his. Even if you are not.

“Help me understand here, baby. Please,” he repeats with a voice so soft, that makes him seem afraid you might break apart completely if he speaks any louder.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe you’re already in pieces at his feet, shattered beyond repair, and he just hasn’t realized it yet.

He lets you cry when you don’t answer, hand stroking up and down your back, the other soothing over your head. He whispers into your hair, words you can’t even process, just the deep cadence of him, the low rasp of his voice against your temple.

His lips move to your forehead, brushing over it. His breath is warm against your skin. You don’t have it in you to pull away, but you wish you would.

Because none of this makes it any easier.

Because his hands feel too good, too steady, too right - and it’s a lie.

Because it’s him.

And that means it hurts.

You wish he would just go and let you have your pathetic heartbreak alone.

But Bucky Barnes has never been the kind of a guy to leave things unsolved.

He pulls back just slightly after a while, just enough to get a better look at you, and when you try to duck your head, to keep him from seeing too much, he doesn’t let you.

Strong, warm fingers cradle your face, thumbs brushing over the damp skin of your cheeks, tilting your head up and forcing your gaze to his.

He looks wrecked.

His brows are drawn, lips parted, chest rising and falling unevenly. His hands tremble just a little against your skin, but his grip stays firm. Solid.

“Don’t look away, doll. Eyes on me, yeah?”

You swallow hard, jaw tight. “You just ruined your good night,” you say, the words falling out bitter, self-deprecating, stiff with something that tastes like resentment but feels like heartbreak.

Bucky’s frown deepens, his lips pressing together, eyes scanning over your face like he’s searching for something, anything that’ll make this make sense.

“The hell I did,” he scoffs, shaking his head. Confused you even brought this up. “I don’t give a shit about her. Don’t even know her name, if I’m bein’ honest.” He lets out a huffed laugh.

But you don’t.

Because somehow this makes it worse.

And you hate it.

You hate that some part of you wanted her to mean something.

Because if she meant something, if she was special, then at least this ache in your chest would have a name. A reason. A shape you could hold in trembling hands and squeeze so hard that it stops hurting at one point.

Then, at least, you could maybe finally accept that there is no hope. No reason to hold on to those feelings.

But Bucky just shrugs.

It meant nothing. It never meant anything. Not with them.

Not with the girls that come and go, the ones who pass through his nights in the same easy way the hours do - fleeting, ephemeral, touched, and forgotten.

Not with anyone. Not even with you.

You have spent so long feeling this, holding onto it, trying to keep it hidden beneath layers of friendship and longing and careful restraint. You have spent so long pretending that it is fine, that it doesn’t matter, that you can live like this - on the sidelines, just the girl in the other room, in the shadows, in the spaces between what you want and what you’re allowed to have.

And he stands here and looks you in the eyes, telling you that it is nothing. That she is nothing. That they - all of them before her, and all of them after her - are nothing.

You can barely breathe past it.

You don’t say anything.

And Bucky freezes.

His hands, where they cup your face, stop their soft, absentminded strokes. His thumbs, which had been tracing reassuring circles along your cheekbones halt. His breath catches and his eyes shift.

There is something uncertain in there.

And then, his lips part. His brows go up ever so slightly. His pupils flare.

Something settles over his expression that you don’t recognize.

Like a switch has been flipped.

Like a puzzle piece has clicked into place.

Like suddenly he is seeing something in your eyes, something like an answer, something that has been there all along.

His fingers tighten, anchoring himself. Making it seem that if he lets go, if he moves even a fraction, something will break. In him, or you, you’re not sure.

He pulls back. Not far. Just an inch. But he needs to see you better. Just enough to search your face for something he needs to know. His gaze locks onto yours and holds you there, testing something, making sure.

His voice is hushed when he talks. Breathless.

“Is that what this is about?”

It’s quiet, the way he says it. Like he’s afraid of it. Like he’s careful with it. There is disbelief on his face. Astonishment.

You shake your head too fast, too sharp, like if you deny it hard enough, it’ll erase the way he’s looking at you right now. That it’ll undo the meaning of his words and the way they sit between you. Something fragile on the verge of breaking.

“No,” you say, but it barely comes out, barely sounds convincing. Your voice is hoarse, scraped raw form holding back everything you don’t want to say. Your lungs refuse to work in sync with the rest of you. You swallow, eyes darting away, grasping for something to latch onto.

But Bucky doesn’t let you.

“Doll…” It comes like a sigh. Weightless and soft. His hands don’t drop from your face, don’t loosen, don’t give you the space you’re so desperately trying to carve out between you. If anything, his grip grows more robust. Just enough to keep you there.

“Hey. Look at me.” His tone is low, carrying the kind of warmth you’d usually like to lean into, but now all you want is to get away from it. You don’t want to meet those stormy blues.

Bucky’s thumbs are sweeping, so feather-light, over the curve of your jaw, smoothing along the damp trail of your tears, and his voice dips even lower. Softer. He is so close.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Give me somethin’ here.”

It’s not fair that he gets to call you all those sweet names like he means them. Like you mean something. Like it’s not the same word he probably called her and all those others who got to have him, even if only for a night.

“I don’t-” you try, but your voice is trembling and thick with tears, and Bucky’s gaze shadows.

“Don’t what?” he coaxes, leaning in just a little, close enough that his breath skims your skin, warm and stable in a way you aren’t. His fingers slightly move against your cheeks, as if resisting the urge to pull you closer.

You shake your head again, your hands wrapping around his wrists - not to push him away exactly, but to have something to hold onto. You have no idea what to say.

“It’s- It’s not-” Your words trip over themselves, stuck somewhere between your throat and your ribs, tangled up in everything you’ve never let yourself say.

But Bucky just watches you, unreadable things swirling in those impossibly blue eyes. Wary things. Still so damn careful.

He exhales and his hands slide down, skimming the column of your throat, settling against the curve of your neck like he’s grounding you. Holding you both together.

“Doll,” he sighs, and it’s too much.

It’s not teasing. It’s not playful. It’s not easy. Not the charming lilt he likes to throw in his tone.

It’s vulnerable. Tender. Substantial.

“You’re breakin’ my heart here.”

And that’s what has another tear slip over your lashes.

Because you’re breaking his heart?

What does that even mean?

You were the one trying to escape the heartache he caused and now he tells you it’s his heart that hurts?

“Please,” he whispers, and his voice is wrecked, gravel thick in his throat. “Just tell me, doll. Tell me what I did. Tell me so I can fix it.”

His lips stay parted, trying to find air, trying to find some kind of solid ground. There is a sheen over his eyes.

“I can’t-” Your voice cracks, but you don’t look away this time. His hands won’t let you. He won’t let you.

His eyes are pleading.

“Can’t what, sweetheart?” he urges, dipping closer, voice just a rasp of sound between you. His thumbs wipe away the new tears and he winces while doing it as if it actually causes him pain that they fell.

The streetlight flickers above. It casts shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw, the tight pull of his mouth. His fingers flex against your face.

“Is it-” he starts, then stops, then starts again, throat bobbing and voice rough and hesitant. “Is it those girls?”

A shallow gasp slips from your lips. Fractured and tripping over something unseen. Your shoulders grow stiff.

You can’t answer. You only shake your head, not in denial, not in confirmation, but in something else, something tired and so fucking done with feeling like this.

You try to pull back, try to slip free from the heat of his palms, try to turn away. Another tear drops onto the back of his hand.

Your reaction must be answer enough.

Bucky’s head, Bucky’s hands, Bucky’s eyes, Bucky’s whole body - everything is moving so much, keeping you from slipping away, reaching for you, not letting you go.

A breath. A pause. Like his brain needs an extra moment to process what this all could mean. His breath catches in his throat and you can feel the exact moment he gets it.

The exact moment he realizes.

“Shit,” he breathes, so quiet you almost miss it. His grip tightens. It grows distressed. Despairing. Keeping you from leaving his hold, although you don’t stop trying.

You sob and his hands press into your cheeks, thumbs smoothing away tears like he can erase this, like maybe if he holds you tight enough, he can go back five minutes, five months, five years, to a time before he made you feel like this.

“Shit, doll, I-” His voice breaks, gravel and regret and anguish - and something so painful - landing with every syllable.

You don’t stop trying to pull back, trying to push him away. You can’t talk. You can’t stop crying. You can’t look at him.

But Bucky is devastated. And he is desperate. And he won’t let you go.

“No, no, don’t - please, Y/n, don’t.” He runs through his words, frantically getting them out, frantically trying to make you look at him.

He reaches your face again and holds on like it’s important. Your tears won’t stop falling. A whimper falls from your lips when you realize he won’t let you leave.

Bucky panics.

His swallow seems to hurt him. Everything he does seems to hurt him.

“Oh, sweetheart - fuck, fuck, I didn’t-” He lets out a rough breath, one of his hands letting go of you to scrub over his face, pushing through his hair in frustration.

Not at you.

At himself.

“Doll, I didn’t - Jesus Christ, I didn’t know.”

It comes out hoarse, scraped down to nothing but feeling. Each word drags from his throat like sandpaper against silence. Coarse and raspy.

And then he’s shaking his head, hands sliding to your shoulders, his hold firm, his eyes darting over your face like he is trying to memorize it, searching for the right words in the curve of your lips, the glisten of your tears, the way your breathing is a single shuddering mess.

“I didn’t - fuck, I didn’t mean-”

He seems to hold back a scream.

Sucking in another sharp breath, he squeezes his eyes shut like he’s in pain, angry at himself, wanting to go back and rewrite everything, tear out every page where he made you feel like you were anything but his.

You wish you could believe it.

“Bucky-” you croak out.

“No, don’t-” His head doesn’t stop shaking. His jaw is clenched tight. Hands shaking against you. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” Your voice is whisper-thin.

His breath shudders out, and when his eyes meet yours again, they are so earnest. Glossy with a sheen of tears.

“Like it’s over.”

Your throat closes around your next breath, never making it reach your lungs.

Because what is he saying? Nothing ever had the chance to be anything.

“I didn’t know, doll,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. You gotta believe me, I - fuck, I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted you to feel like- I didn’t think you’d-”

He cuts himself off, voice choking.

His hands drop suddenly, like he doesn’t even deserve to hold you anymore. Like the guilt is weighing them down.

And then, unsure and hesitantly, he lifts one of them again and pauses before cupping your face, waiting for something - permission, maybe, or just a sign that you won’t pull away this time.

When you don’t, when you just keep standing there, frozen and broken and bewildered, he lets his palm settle warm against your cheek, his thumb brushing so lightly it sends a shiver down your back.

“Tell me how to fix it. Tell me I can,” he pleads, like he means it. Like he would do anything. “Tell me what to do, baby. Anything. I’d do anything. Just gotta tell me. Please,” he chokes out.

Cars roll past you. There are voices in the distance. A neon sign flickers. But none of it touches this.

This thing between you.

Bucky’s hand shakes against your cheek. His breath stirs against your skin so ragged and he leans in. His forehead presses to yours, his body curling toward you like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, just needing to be close.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps out. “God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Never have you seen Bucky like this. He keeps things easy, keeps things light, and shrugs off pain like it never quite reaches him. But it does now.

It consumes him.

His fingers curl at the back of your neck, not pulling, just holding, grounding himself against you. And when you continue standing there, breath shaky, tears still trembling in your lashes, his whole body sags.

His chest heaves with a breath so deep it sounds like it’s costing him something.

“I never meant for this to happen. Please, believe me.”

His forehead presses harder to yours, seemingly trying to press his words straight into you, that maybe if he gets close enough you’ll feel how much he means them.

And you do. You just don’t know what the hell is going on.

He lets out a sound that resembles a sob. And then you feel the damp heat of a tear where his face brushes against yours.

Bucky is crying.

It breaks you. You don’t know what to do with all this pain. His and yours. Don’t know how to ever let it go.

You pull back. Just slightly. Just enough to breathe, to think, to process.

But Bucky’s whole body tenses, and his eyes squeeze shut as if he knew it was coming but it still pains him. Bracing himself for something he already knows is going to hurt. His hands drop to his sides.

And maybe that should give you some kind of satisfaction, a tiny sense of justice for the nights you spent lying awake, wondering if you meant anything to him while he had his hands on someone else.

But it doesn’t.

Because the way he is looking at you, when he cracks his eyes open again, when he meets your gaze with so much open ache, makes your chest hurt. It makes something inside of you quake.

“Bucky,” you start, but your own voice is so small, so lost. You shake your head, scanning his face, trying to piece it together, to make sense of something that refuses to fit. How the tables have turned. You just can’t seem to find the irony in it. “What are you even - I don’t - I don’t I understand.”

His throat bobs, thick and tight, and he pulls in a breath like it’s the last one he’s going to get.

“I love you.”

Your mind blanks. You flatline. Your knees go weak.

He says it like it’s the simplest thing to say. As if it is the most obvious thing in the world. But it isn’t.

Because if it was then why has he spent all those nights with those seemingly meaningless girls. Why has he let you ache for him while he touched someone else.

“I love you,” he says again, softer, trying to make sure you believe it.

But you don’t know how to.

Your lips part, but nothing comes out. You feel the words, heavy and warm and terrifying, but your body doesn’t know what to do with them. Your mind is screaming at you to run, to protect yourself, to build the walls back up before it’s too late, but your heart doesn’t listen.

Bucky’s hand trembles when it reaches for you, fingertips ghosting over your jaw, waiting, waiting, waiting for you to pull away.

You don’t and he steps closer again.

His whole body thrums as if he is scared to touch you but more scared not to. He looks at you with those red-rimmed and puffy eyes, so tremendously bare, holding onto your own eyes like he is drowning and you are the only thing keeping him afloat.

“Say something, doll,” he pleads, his voice so unsteady, that it guts you.

But what could you say?

Because love is not supposed to feel like this, to hurt like this. It isn’t supposed to feel like your heart has been split open and stitched back together all in the same breath.

But looking at him and at the way his eyes are just as pleading as his words, at the way he is breaking right in front of you - it makes you wonder if maybe it was hurting him all along, too.

“You-” you begin, voice barely more than a whisper. You have to stop, have to pull in a breath that doesn’t seem to want to settle, have to force your hands to stay at your sides instead of reaching for something - for him - that you don’t know if you can take. “But that-” Another inhale, sharp and broken. Your chest hurts. Your whole body hurts. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Bucky exhales, long and slow and then he drops his head. Shoulders slumping, spine curling, like something inside of him, has just given out.

Guilt.

It sits heavy in his frame, in the set of his jaw, in the way his hands jerk like he wants to touch you but knows he shouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he mutters, a humorless little laugh escaping, barely more than a breath. He drags a hand down his face, through his hair, before letting it fall uselessly at his side. His voice is lower when he speaks again, raspier, weighed down by something that feels an awful lot like regret. “I know.”

You watch him, waiting. Because he owes you this. Because he cracked open something you weren’t ready for, something you tried to bury, and now you need to understand.

And Bucky must feel that. Because after a beat, after a deep, shuddering breath, he looks at you again.

“I didn’t think I could have you,” he admits, voice quiet. Cautious. The words fragile in his mouth. “Didn’t think I was allowed to even want you. To this extent, anyway.”

Air enters you unevenly, shaking on the way in like a shiver made of sound. “Bucky-”

“You’re my best friend,” he pushes on, stepping in just a fraction, like he can’t help himself. His voice is getting rougher, rawer, like something in him is unwinding too fast for him to stop it. “I didn’t wanna mess that up, y’know? Didn’t wanna lose you over somethin’ I couldn’t control.”

Something tightens in your chest. Something shifts.

“So you-” you swallow, shaking your head, trying to put it together, trying to make sense of it. “So you just went around to go get yourself other girls you can fuck?”

Bucky flinches. Actually flinches.

Gaze dropping in shame, his features form a grimace. “I tried,” he croaks out, gesturing at his chest with one hand. “Tried to stop feeling like this. Tried to move on, tried to-” He exhales sharply, tilting his head side to side, something torn playing out with the movement. “It didn’t work. Nothin’ worked. Didn’t even make it easier. But I was afraid to face it. Really face it. So I just kept going.”

It hurts.

It hurts in a way you don’t know how to hold. Don’t know how to carry.

You thought, for so long, that the way you love him, ache for him, is a one-sided agony.

But he is confessing to you, eyes red and weary, voice splintering, telling you that he’s been afraid to speak it aloud too.

That he loves you, that he tried to kill it, that he thought losing himself in someone else would somehow erase you from his mind.

Bucky’s words are a fist curling around your ribs, squeezing the air from your lungs.

It should matter. It should mean something that he’s standing in front of you, breaking apart, pleading for you to understand. Shouldn’t it be enough that he’s telling you it was always you? That no one else ever came close?

But he still touched them.

Still chose them, even if only for a meaningless night.

While you sat in your room, staring at the ceiling, wondering if you were going insane. While you clenched your fists so tight beneath your sheets at night, biting your tongue, swallowing it down, because Bucky is your friend and friends don’t ache like this.

And yet, he is telling you, showing you, he aches too.

But instead of sitting with it, instead of letting it consume him the way it consumed you, he tried to make it disappear.

He tried to fuck it away.

And now he looks at you like you are the only thing that has ever mattered, like the ground beneath his feet, is unsteady, like he is afraid you are going to bolt at any second.

You feel like the ground beneath your feet shits a fraction of an inch, not enough to send you falling, but enough to make you question if you were ever standing solid in the first place.

“But, doll, it-” he rushes forward, watching your pain, stepping into your space until there is barely anything between you. “It never meant anything. Swear to god, none of ‘em ever meant something to me.” His hands wrap around yours, squeezing, grounding, begging. “They weren’t you. Couldn’t be you. Didn’t matter how hard I tried, how many times I told myself to stop thinking about you because you’re supposed to be my best friend, but I wanted so much more than that - it didn’t matter. Nothin’ worked.”

He is struggling to force the words out, but he does. And they leave him with a catch in his voice. Faltering.

“I thought about you, sweetheart. Every fuckin’ time.” His voice turns frantic and he leans in to make it convince you. He watches your lips tremble and shakes his head quickly. “Thought about how you’d feel. How you’d sound.”

Your breath stalls.

Bucky swallows, taking a quick pause but continuing, voice growing softer. Lower. Reverent. “Tried to picture you instead. How you’d look under me, wrapped around me. So goddamn beautiful.” His voice cracks. “But it wasn’t you. And I know it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it.”

He stumbles over his words, afraid of saying too much, of pushing too far, or admitting too much - but it doesn’t stop hurting.

Even if you know it might not be fair.

But the thought of him with them, the thought of his hands gripping someone else’s skin, his lips murmuring something soft against someone else’s throat - it makes you sick.

And he sees it.

You try to blink back another wave of tears.

His hands are on your face again, thumbs swiping furiously at your damp cheeks like he can rub the hurt away.

“Please tell me I didn’t ruin this.” His voice cracks through the words, the panic breaking through. Your silence seems to suffocate him, squeezing his ribs until there is no space left for air.

“I’m so sorry, baby! I wish I could take it all back. I would.” His bottom lip trembles and he bites down on it before continuing. “Tell me I can fix this. There’s gotta be somethin’ I can do. Anything.”

You blink rapidly, vision swimming, breath hiccuping in your throat. You don’t know if there is anything to fix, if there was ever anything there, to begin with, but he is looking at you like there was. Like there is. Like it is still hanging in the air between you, waiting to be caught, waiting to be named.

And you want to catch it. To press it to your heart and cherish it.

But the wounds are fresh. Still bleeding. Still open.

The images you conjured up in your mind, him with all those girls. The sounds of him bringing one after the other home - the routine.

The giggling. The keys. The apartment door. More giggling. His chuckles. The hallway. His bedroom door. The goodbyes. The mornings.

But worst of all is that you can’t even blame him.

Because what was he supposed to do? Wait for something that was never promised? Hold out hope for something that was never offered?

You had no claim on him.

But still, you hate how he tried to fuck you out of his system. Hate that he couldn’t, that he’s standing here now, telling you it was all for nothing, that you were always in his head, in his bones, and that that somehow is supposed to make it better.

You don’t know if it does now. But you hope - you hope so dearly - that it will get better. If he’ll stick with you.

“No more girls.” The words choke out of you, weak and broken, barely a breath. But he jolts like you have screamed them.

“Never,” he breathes immediately, shaking his head as if to get rid of his own images, gripping you tighter, his thumbs pressing into your cheeks, his eyes burning through yours. “No more, baby. No one else. Not ever.”

Your breath catches, body sways.

There is a burn behind your ribs, not quite pain, but not far from it. It is something that pulses in time with your heartbeat. Too quick. Too uneven.

“Only you,” he adds, his forehead dropping to yours, noses brushing, his breath warm against your lips, his hands trembling where they hold you. “It’s only ever been you.”

Heat rises up your throat, something between nausea and electricity, a burst of too much all at once.

“I got a lot to make up for.” His tone is unraveling at the seams. But it sounds firmer now. Convicted. “I know that. I know I- fuck, I screwed this up before I even knew I had a chance. And that’s on me.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, because it’s too much - his voice, his touch, the way he is looking at you like you hung the damn moon when you’ve spent years feeling invisible to him in the way that mattered.

“I don’t wanna rush this, alright?”

You blink up at him. Your chest feels stretched too tight, as if the ribs themselves are holding onto something they shouldn’t, something too large, something too consuming.

“I don’t wanna mess this up more than I already have. I don’t wanna push or expect anythin’ from you - I just wanna do this right. For you.” His voice wavers on the last word, still scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of losing something he only just realized he had. “You understand me?”

You nod wordlessly. Almost feeling hypnotized by him. His eyes are so intense. So full.

“I’ve been waitin’ for this, hopin’ for this - Christ, I don’t even know how long.”

Your stomach flips, something curling in your stomach at the heaviness of his confession, at the realization that you weren’t alone in this. Maybe never have been.

“And now that it’s happenin’ - now that I have you, even if I don’t deserve it - I wanna take my time. I wanna make this good for you. Have to. I have to make this right,” he says, voice filled with something gravelly, rough like something barely holding together.

His fingers slide over your jaw, tracing along the column of your throat, memorizing the feel of you beneath his hands.

“And I hate-” his voice falters, eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he forces himself to look at you again. “I hate that it’s happening like this. That I hurt you first. That I didn’t see this sooner.”

“Bucky-”

He cuts you off with his eyes and a shake of his head.

“Please I- I gotta do this. Gotta say this, baby.”

You nod.

He closes his eyes again for a moment like he wants to go back and shake his past self by the shoulders, tell him to wake the hell up and stop hurting the one girl he ever cared about.

He continues, voice hoarse. “I would do anything to make this different. Better. The way you deserve.”

Your breath is shallow, not quite catching, but hovering just short of where it should be, as if your body can’t decide whether to brace itself for collapse.

You’ve spent so long breaking for him, wanting him in ways he never seemed to want you back. But now he is pouring his heart out and asking for something he already has but isn’t sure he is worthy of.

“You don’t gotta say anythin’ right now, doll,” Bucky whispers. Afraid of scaring you off. “I know I shoulda told you sooner.” He grimaces, disgusted with himself. “I shoulda known sooner. I was so fuckin’ stupid. So fuckin’ blind.”

You don’t even notice you started leaning further into him.

Bucky stares at you for a moment. You look back.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says quietly. Whispers really. He exhales shakily and you feel the breath fan along your cheeks. “But I swear to God, I will.”

You don’t weigh the hurt against the want, don’t let the war in your head talk you out of your next move.

Your hands reach up, curling into the fabric of his shirt and before he can say anything else - before he can tear himself apart further - you kiss him.

And for a split second, Bucky freezes.

Not believing this is happening, not expecting it even after everything he just told you.

But then, he exhales this soft and quivering breath against your lips, relief knocking the air out of his lungs.

One hand flies to your waist, pulling you in, the other threading into your hair. He kisses you back like he is starving, like he has been dying for this, like he can’t believe you are real and this moment is something he’s imagined a thousand times but never thought he’d get to have.

And he is so warm. So solid. His lips move against yours, soft and slow at first - savoring you, afraid to go too fast, to push too much. But when you let out a little sigh and your fingers tighten, Bucky melts, pressing in closer, enveloping you in his arms in a way that has you feeling he tries to make sure you never go anywhere else again.

He breathes you in like you are something holy, tilting your head and deepening the kiss. He is not forceful. He takes what he can get and he cherishes it. Like he said, he wants to take his time with you. It makes you fall in love with him even more.

It’s like he can’t believe you are even letting him have this. But he kisses you with a hope and a determination that this will not be the only time he gets to have this.

And when you pull back again, he rests his forehead against yours once more. You feel the way his chest rises and falls against your own, the way his breath shakes, the way his grip does not loosen at all.

“Jesus, doll,” he rasps, panting. “You tryna kill me?”

And the way he says it, the way he looks at you, so full of longing and desire and relief makes you realize that maybe he’s been suffering just as much as you have.

“I want you. It’s as simple as that. I’ve spent a great deal too much of my life already trying to convince myself that I can make do with less but I can’t. You hear me? I’m done. I’m not giving up. A life without you is not enough.”

- Beau Taplin

[bitchinbarzal]

Hold onto me | C Keller

Summary: After months of distance and unresolved tension, divorce papers sit on the kitchen counter, threatening to end everything you built with Clayton.

-

The house is quiet. Too quiet.

You used to love the silence. Back when it meant comfortable mornings together, when Clayton would slide behind you in the kitchen, pressing lazy kisses to your neck while you sipped your coffee. Back when it meant lazy Sunday afternoons spent curled up on the couch, half-watching movies you’d seen a dozen times, his fingers tangled in yours.

Now, the silence is suffocating. It’s filled with every unspoken word, every fight that ended with one of you walking away instead of fixing what was broken.

And today, it all comes to a head.

The man you once thought you’d spend forever with stands across from you, hands braced on the kitchen island. His jaw is tight, his expression unreadable, but you can see the tension in his shoulders—the same tension that’s been there for months.

Between you, a thick envelope rests on the marble countertop, taunting you both. Divorce papers.

Your name is already signed at the bottom.

Clayton hasn’t picked up the pen yet. He hasn’t even moved.

“This is really it, then?” His voice is hoarse, rough like he’s been swallowing back words he’s too afraid to say.

You take a slow breath, trying to keep the shaking in your chest at bay. “I don’t know what else to do, Clay.”

His head snaps up, eyes locking onto yours with a desperation you haven’t seen in so long. “You don’t know what else to do? What does that mean?”

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to hold his gaze. “It means I can’t live like this anymore. We don’t talk. We don’t touch. We don’t even look at each other.” Your voice cracks, and you hate it, but it’s the truth.

Clayton flinches like you’ve physically struck him. “That’s not true.”

You let out a bitter laugh. “When was the last time we actually talked? Not about schedules or who’s picking up groceries—actually talked?”

He doesn’t answer, and the silence that follows is heavier than anything else.

Your eyes burn, but you refuse to cry. Not now. Not when you’ve already mourned this relationship over and over again.

“I know things have been bad,” Clayton finally says, his voice lower now, strained. “But I didn’t think it was this bad.”

“That’s the problem,” you whisper. “You stopped seeing me. I stopped seeing you. We just… stopped.”

The words sit between you, stark and painful, and for a second, you think he might just pick up the papers and sign them, putting an end to the last five years of your life together.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he steps around the island, closing the distance between you. His fingers twitch at his sides, like he wants to reach for you but doesn’t know if he’s allowed to anymore.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he finally says, voice raw. “I know I’ve been—fuck, I know I’ve been distant. I just thought if I pushed through, if I focused on hockey, I could fix things without actually talking about it.” He shakes his head, laughing humorlessly. “Turns out that was the worst thing I could’ve done.”

You swallow the lump in your throat. “I didn’t help, either. I let the resentment build. I shut you out, too.”

His hands finally lift, hesitant as he cups your face. His touch is warm, familiar, and it breaks you.

“I love you,” he breathes. “And if there’s even the smallest chance you still love me too, then I don’t want to give up on this. On us.”

Tears spill over, and you grip his wrists, grounding yourself. “I don’t want to give up either.”

Clayton exhales sharply, relief flashing across his face. “Then let’s fix this. Together.”

The divorce papers sit forgotten on the counter.

That night, neither of you sleep.

You talk.

For the first time in what feels like forever, you talk.

At first, it’s hard. Every word feels heavy, every confession laced with regret. But as the hours pass, the tension begins to fade.

“I hated coming home after games,” Clayton admits quietly, lying beside you in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

You turn your head toward him, heart twisting. “Why?”

“Because you weren’t there,” he says simply. “I mean, you were physically there, but you weren’t there. And I knew it was my fault.”

Your breath catches. “Clay—”

“I’d walk through the door, and it felt like I was stepping into a stranger’s house.” He lets out a slow exhale. “I didn’t know how to fix it, so I buried myself in hockey. I thought if I just worked harder, if I just gave it time, it would go back to the way it was.”

You close your eyes, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I felt like I was waiting for you to come back to me.”

Clayton turns then, shifting onto his side to face you. “I’m here now,” he murmurs. “I never stopped loving you. I just—” His voice falters. “I just forgot how to show it.”

Your chest tightens, emotions crashing over you all at once. You reach out, fingers tracing over his jaw, the stubble rough against your skin. “I missed you,” you whisper.

His eyes darken with something raw and unguarded. “I missed you too.”

And then, he kisses you.

It’s not hurried or desperate—it’s slow, filled with every word you haven’t said. His hands slide into your hair, holding you like you might disappear if he lets go. You press closer, melting into him, your fingers gripping his shirt like you need to anchor yourself.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he promises.

You don’t know if it’ll be easy. You don’t know if the cracks will ever fully disappear. But you do know one thing:

You’re willing to fight for this.

For him.

For you.

For the love that never really went away.

[wlwsoccerfics]

World Cup Semi-Finale Drama(StephCatleyXGwinnReader)

A/N: i Hope you enjoy this request.

Warnings: Lots of Angst and self doubt. Mental health struggles.

Summary: you are the captain of your national Team cause your sister is out injured and you Play against your wife's team. Australia wins and you blame yourself for the loss.

There it was. The final Whistle. You were Out of the world Cup. Losing in the semi Finals against Australia. Your wife's team. So there was now one Captain Catley that made it to the finals and one captain Catley that was doubting all of her skills. You were the second one.

You had been dreading this day. This Game. Everything felt like the world was ending. Which in a way it did for you. Not knowing If you would ever get another Chance to make it this far in the world cup.

Of course you were proud of your wife. She deserved it. But you felt like your team deserved it as well. You weren't a good captain and that's why they lost.

Your wife and her Team were celebrating. Well your wife was struggling. She was over the moon that she Made it to the finals but she saw you sitting on the pitch. Hiding your head in your Jersey. Your entire Body was shaking from the sobs. Your best friend Laura was sitting next to you. Hugging you close. Even though she was crying as well. Your sister made her way over to you as well.

"Babe..." Steph whispered out. You stood up quickly. Looking at your wife. Giving her a hug before pulling away just as quick.

"congrats. I am proud of you, stephy!" You told her, you couldn't even stop crying while talking her. She really wished she could make you feel better but she knew she couldn't. And the distance you put between you and her was a sign that you clearly couldn't deal with being close to her. Not while you had so many negative thoughts about yourself running through your mind.

"she is gonna come around." Your best friend and teammate whispered to your wife. Steph sighed sadly and walked away. Greeting Fans and giving Interviews. Thankfully you didn't have to give one. Sara & Klara did.

Harper ran over to you, hugging your legs so you picked her up.

"auntie Y/n. Don't cry! You can always win another Game!" She told you. It was the child Like innocene of not understanding how important this game was for you and your team. And that you felt like you also let the Fans down. Not only your Team. No you let everyone down.

"i will be okay. You are right. I can always try again." You told her. Then she just held onto you and you held onto her. She always managed to cheer you up or at least take a little bit of the pain away when things were rough. Giulia, your sister was rubbing your back, she was sad as well, you could tell because of how quiet she was and it looked like she was trying not to cry.

After a while you put Harper down cause she went back over to Mini and the rest of the team.

You and your team left the Pitch and walked inside to the changing rooms. You took a few deep breaths before you spoke up.

"i would like to apologize to you. I let you all down! I take full responsibility for what happened Out there! I wasn't a good Leader!" You told them.

"y/n...this isn't your fault! We are a Team! We win together and we lose together! It hurts right now! But we all were Out there and didn't make it work!" Sara told you.

"yeah Sara is right! Like i think you did so well as a Leader. You managed to Score the only Goal we Made. Yes we lost. 3-1 but this Is not your fault!" Felicitas stated.

"i am proud of you! You stepped in for me! You did a good Job! You were leading until the end. Sometimes things just don't work out in our favor!" Giulia answered.

Before you could speak up again, your other best friend showed up in the doorway. Kyra was also one of your teammates at Arsenal. Your coach also showed Up.

"y/n? I wanted to check in. Sorry about your loss Guys. But you all did a great Job." She said, walking over to you. Pulling you in for a hug. You hugged her back. Tearing up again. The rest of the Team congratulating her.

"thanks Kyra. I am proud of you!" You let her know. Hugging Kyra close. Sobbing again. "Where is Steph?" You asked her. Knowing you couldn't just let this go like this. You needed to talk to her. Maybe it was a good thing that Kyra showed up cause you were tempted to step down from international Duty for Germany and just Focus on your Club. It was something you had thought about before and this day kind of pushed you more towards it. But you were emotional right now so this might not be the right time to drop something like that in case you might regret it in a few days.

"she is in the changing room with the others. let's go See your wife. Cause she is struggling as well. She is over the moon we won but also sad and actually cried cause of the pain you are going through!" Kyra admitted. You frowned softly. You didn't intend to make your wife feel that way.

"Go See your wife!" Jule said.

"now!" Your sister stated.

"i agree!" You coach replied.

you left with Kyra to the other changing room.

"Steph? I have someone who wants to see you!" Kyra stated. You were greeting your wife and her team with a sad smile.

"hey, congrats guys." You spoke up.

"thanks. You did great as well. And we are all proud of you!" Mini told you.

"thanks you! It's appreciated." You answered and looked at your wife after replying. Walking over to her. Hugging her, giving her a soft kiss. Wiping away her tears. She hugged and kissed you back.

"auntie y/n is Not Mad at auntie Steph anymore!" Harper announced. You pulled away from the kiss and gently pushed a strand of hair behind your wife's ear.

"i was never mad at auntie Steph. She is the best. I was just hurt cause i didn't feel like i was a good captain and that i let the fans and the team down!" You tried to explain to her. The reply surprised everyone. They knew you were heartbroken over the loss, but they had no idea how you put all the blame on yourself.

"Baby. You fought hard. You were an amazing captain. Don't blame yourself!" Steph said, kissing your forehead gently.

"i am working on letting that go. It just...i am sorry for not reacting more positive and congratulate all of you earlier." You explained.

"what are you sorry for? Your emotions matter. I understand how difficult this must be for you, love!" Your wife replied. You kiss her her cheek.

"means alot to me to hear! I love you." You replied.

"i love you too. Always will!" Steph answered.

"i Love your love!" Macca said. You smiled at her. There still was a hint of sadness which was probably gonna stay for a bit but you genuinely did feel a bit better being in your wife's Arms.

You talked to your sister, your best friends and your wife about your thoughts on ending your international career. They listened and didn't judge. They also helped you figure out that you don't want to retire just yet.

You played for the third place against spain and won. Your wife and her Team were there to Support you.

Australia won the world Cup against England and of course you were there wearing your wife's Jersey. Sitting in the stands with Harper & Harley in your lap. You were so very proud of the entire team.

[reinbouxsworld]

Hey so like sorry if you're the wrong person to say this to but I love Jamil's character so much and it makes me so mad that the fandom takes Kalim's side in his ob when they're so much more sympathetic to everyone else's ob situation. Like all the ob's are caused by trauma so no olympics but Jamil was Kalim's slave??? He was literally fighting to stop being his slave? To the son of a rich merchant family that could decide the fate of his whole family?? The stakes were so fucking high. Kalim not knowing says everything about his relative privilege and nothing about his innocence. Kalim's saving grace was his willingness to change when he learned, but that slave-relationship was multigenerational and Jamil had no guarantee it would happen if he "asked for his freedom". I think the fandom has some real inner reckoning to consider about why Kalim crying is more upsetting than Jamil's (and his family's) life.

OKAY I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ON THIS ONE.

﹙𝑡𝑤𝑠𝑡.﹚ ─ WHY JAMIL TRAUMA IS (BUT SHOULDN'T BE) DOWNPLAYED

﹙ or why i support jamil viper rights and wrongs﹚

──────────────────────────────────────

٬٬ I think the most obvious reason is that Kalim, by being a very kind and often naïve person, wins people over quickly (myself included). He’s sweet, kind, and honest. He just wants to have a good time with his friends—he’s easy to be around and talk to. More often than not, a "happy person" is easier to forgive than someone you’re not as close to.

But what do I mean by that?

Jamil is not used to being himself. He always has to manage and calculate his every step to ensure he doesn’t overshadow Kalim’s presence, even though, by merit, he could be in the spotlight (which, at this point, I see as an unspoken Viper family tradition). And it’s not just when Kalim is around — even when Jamil is alone, he’s still under pressure to maintain his facade. We do see glimpses of him sometimes, especially after the overblot, where he's a little bit more acidic, smug and sincere, but the reality is that his entire life has been shaped around a forced role. The most frustrating part of his story is that when Jamil got to NRC, he had a brief moment of freedom—only for it to be taken away again by Kalim’s overwhelming presence. And the worst part? He wasn’t even chosen to be there. Kalim literally bought his way into NRC just to be with Jamil. I don’t think people fully realize how hopeless that must have made an already frustrated teenager feel. He had no choice but to start over, once again masking himself under Kalim’s shadow.

I won’t go into the nuances of his initial actions leading up to the overblot, but they clearly show his frustrations, especially when he hypnotized Kalim to do his own work as a housewarden.

And then, right after all the resentment and fight, we get Kalim crying over his friend. Of course, as you said, Kalim’s willingness to change is a big reason why the fandom takes his side. It makes sense— he genuinely wants to be a good friend. But the frustrating part is that people still reduce Jamil to just "the scheming servant" while ignoring everything else we see in the chapter. Kalim’s willingness to change is important, but it doesn’t undo the years of pressure, resentment, and lack of autonomy Jamil has endured. At the end of the day, Kalim can change, but Jamil? He’s still bound by the same expectations, the same role, the same system.

If you don’t look deeper into each chapter, it’s easy to sum up an overblot with a simple explanation: "Riddle is acting like his mom," "Leona is throwing a tantrum because he’s not king," and so on. I think we are often drawn more to the breaking point than to the underlying cause of it. But in Jamil’s case, the most obvious problem is also the one people tend to overlook: Jamil was — and, by definition, still is —Kalim’s servant. More than that, all Vipers still are.

The reason Jamil seems "fine" is because, unlike the others, he can’t change the very thing that made him feel this way in the first place. To be clear, I’m not downplaying any of the other boys' trauma—I’m speaking from a storytelling and borderline objective perspective. Most of the other characters could change their circumstances if they wanted to (again, i'm not saying it is easy or simple). Many of them have the resources and/or support networks to do so. But Jamil doesn’t. Even after his overblot, while Kalim gets to grow and change, Jamil is still stuck playing the same role. He may have a little more space to breathe, but his reality remains the same—his life is still controlled by the Al-Asim family.

────────

[white-poppie]

𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒 ⎯⎯ Finale of the '𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇' series

SYNOPSIS — Your life was a mausoleum of sickening memories until light found you again at the end of the bleak tunnel, peering through his big cerulean eyes. Spitfires vanishing till you found your everlasting effervescent flame. And that's how it ends, because you still have your youth.

💿 — Mia and Sebastian's theme from La-la land

TW —breastfeeding, pregnancy, post-partum, grief, loss, crying (obv), jealousy.

WC — 5k

Series masterlist Moon Child ⏮ ⏸ ⏭ Now playing: Part 3

“Hey…shh..it’s okay…I’m here.” He mutters as he winces, closing his eyes while the remnants of his best friend's cursed energy remain.

The next few minutes go by Satoru holding you to his chest, silently as you sob. Now he’s sitting in the front seat of his car, the tinted windows drawn up as he regardless looks outside cautiously while you feed a hungry Tsukiko.

Satoru’s gaze falls to rear mirror, his eyes briefly catching your tender expression when you look at Tsuki as she stays latched to you and an inexplicable warmth erupts in his chest. He cranks up the AC silently, noticing you’re sweating a bit while feeding her.

You can’t help but smile as he turns up the AC, he notices these little things, the things Suguru should have been here for.

You sigh and lean on the headrest of the car, the smell of the faux leather making your head pound harder after crying. Tsuki suckles with soft whimpers, her face covered by your t-shirt. "It’s strange isn't it?" You murmur. "You are doing few of things Suguru was supposed to be doing for his daughter..."

He’s quiet for a long moment before he finally speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s his loss. He missed out.”

You look out of the window, tears pricking in your eyes yet again. Your eyes burn from crying, yet it seems as though gotten used to it, gotten yused to the uncomfortable warmth of excessive tears burning down your eyes.

You tell yourself you’ve gotten immune to heartbreak but image of Suguru tenderly holding Tsuki. His eyes filled with so much regret and pain like he would turn around everything if he could. It’s burned in your head. “I’m so tired, Satoru…” you whisper.

He’s quiet as he listens to you speak, his heart breaking as he hears the way your voice cracks again and how your words carry such a sense of exhaustion and pain, like you’ve been carrying burden that no one could understand. You’re not the same person that you were when you were just shy of seventeen. You’re not the same girl that he used to know at sixteen and he knows that better than anyone else..

"I feel so lost- I no longer know what I am working for. There is this anger that bubbles in me, This vile feeling of resentment towards everyone, everything...hell sometimes even towards Tsuki." You choke, "I feel so selfish for thinking all this when I have a sweet daughter. I hate myself that sometimes my mind conjures up this feeling of anger and blames this little girl who has no fault. I love her so much, but I can't help these sudden feelings."

His heart aches at the way you blame yourself, it all just feels so unfair. It feels…cruel. He can do nothing but sit here and listen to you talk it all out because you so clearly feel suffocated like you’re drowning.

"When he told me he was leaving the Jujutsu society. It felt as though my heart was being ripped apart, like I would stop breathing without him. I dug my nails into him. Clung to him that entire night. I got a call from Shoko in the morning when he had gone rogue and filled so many people. I wanted to rip my skin apart yet not wash the flesh he had touched" You sob viscerally, lowering your head in shame.

At times, it felt like you were living a bitter love song. Penelope unthreading the tapestry, grieving, loyal to gone Odysseus. Yet, ambivalent. Somedays, you unthread the tapestry, other days you beg Artemis to end it instead.

He can’t stop the feeling of pure agony bubbling in his chest, his throat dry. Your grief feels so real. So tangible. You’ve lost yourself to him. A part of you must have still been hoping he would come back, as foolish as that hope was. He reaches out to gently take your hand in his. “It’s okay…it’s not your fault.”

You gulp, wiping your tears with your trembling hands upon realising Tsukuba is done feeding, you fix your shirt, wiping her mouth with a handkerchief. Her litttle features relaxed into a blissful expression after having her fill, her pouty pink lips making you smile despite your sorrows.

“Can I hold her?” Satoru asks suddenly hesitantly. The corners of his eyebrows upturned and furrowed almost adorably.

"You are asking as if you weren't the first one to hold her in the hospital." You croak out humourlessly and hand her to him and shift in the front seat beside him.

His face softens as a small smile spreads across his lips and he gives off a quiet breathy chuckle as he sees the way your shoulders soften and the small, weary smile that spreads across your face as you hand him the baby. His eyes are so gentle and loving as he carefully takes Tsuki and cradles her against his chest. The way he’s holding her, it’s so natural - as if he was born to be a father.

Your heart feels so heavy at the scene. Its supposed to be Suguru...Its supposed to be Suguru holding Tsukiko, not Satoru. But there's this swell of affection when you look at him cradle her. She's so loved...

"She looks so tiny against you." You whisper, The way they look like yin and yang makes your breath hitch. Tsuki with her black her and eyes and Satoru with his white hair and blue eyes. Suguru and Satoru—Yin and Yang—the strongest sorcerers.

His lips quirk up in a soft smile as he gently pulls Tsuki just a bit closer to his chest, his hand gently wrapping around the back of her head in a tender hold. “She really is a tiny little thing, isn’t she?” he whispers right back as he continues to softly stroke his hand across her back. “She’s so precious and fragile, like a baby bird.”

“”It’s both a blessing and a curse that she looks exactly like him.” You whisper looking at his strong arms hold the baby.

Satoru looks at you, her eyes softening with a mix of pity and affection for the child in his arms. “She really is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.”

Your shoulders relax you take in a shaky breath, your head pounding like a those drums from from Physical education classes that banged rhythmically. Sighing you raise your legs up to your chest and lean the seat back.

The sight of you curled up in the passenger seat of his car, the car which, you’ve just about proclaimed as your property is so domestic to him that it hurts a little bit. “You’re tired,” he says softly as he continues to cradle Tsuki against his chest.

"Mhm." You nod as you look at him, eyes fluttering. "You should give her here or you won't be able to drive."

He lets out a sigh as he reaches over to gently buckle her into her baby carrier against you. His breath stutters as his fingers brush against your arms and he finds himself gazing into your eyes before gulping and drawing back.“She’s just so tiny and cute and precious, I just don’t want to let her go.” He mutters, his voice slightly deeper than intended.

You chuckle and carefully cradle her neck so she’s leaning against your chest "She's a very charming little girl." You press a kiss to her forehead.

He watches silently as your breaths even out in a semi- lucid state before he whisper to himself in response. “Just like her pretty mama.” He utters and starts to drive to your house.

The smell in the car is saccharine, your vanilla perfume, and the oddly sweet smell that comes from babies; combined with a heady mix of breast milk and baby products.

Tsukiko and you are settled and curled into his front seat as if you belong here. It's so natural. To think Satoru is being the haven Suguru could never be, he's picking up cracks of you shattered, broken heart; you don't know what to call it, but it feels right. Unclear, whether it’s pity or friendship that makes him care so much for the girl and the kid his best friend abandoned.

You arrive back at you place as he helps you out of the car. You look at Satoru with heavy eyes, "Come in, I'll make tea." you say with a tired smile.

Initially, he thinks of rejecting, yet seeing your swollen red eyes and that weary slouch of your shoulder blades; he surrenders.

The little apartment that's less of a home but a sanctuary, its a cute tapestry of memories. Baby products are neatly kept, such as cribs, baby toys, polaroids of the baby, plants, and, in progress, a crochet baby hat on the couch and adorable little trinkets around.

But to you, as night comes it becomes a glum, cold sanctuary for the most part-- filled with reminders of Suguru. Everywhere. His large shoes were on the front door, his coat was on the rack, his picture with me was on the fridge, and his cologne was on the dresser. Almost everything of his is untouched the way it was, despite everything, you don't have the strength to throw out his things the same way he threw you out of his life.

The more his gaze lingers, his mind immediately drifts to the last time he came here; when Suguru was in your life. The house reeks of his memories. The place doesn’t look like a home, it looks like a museum that’s dedicated to the relationship you had with Suguru, almost like a shrine. The longer he looks at it, the more his chest aches. When he speaks, it comes out as a barely audible whisper. “Y/N...”

"Hmm?" You mutter slowly, tucking Tsuki in her crib. You walk back into the kitchen, your house sandals dragging across the marble flooring.

“Can I just…hug you for a second?” he whispers.

Your eyebrows furrow at his words, pausing midway while putting the pan on the stove. "Where did that come from?" You ask confused, but your voice softens immediately, turning into a whisper by the end of the sentence.

"I just…want to hug you right now.” he says in a tender, whispery voice. “You look like you need it.”

You gulp, keeping the pan down and wrapping your arms around him he leans down, his arms wrapping around your waist. A shaky breath leaves your throat at how warm he feels, your throat constricting and nose and cheeks feeling warmer. You close your eyes, a silent tear rolling down your cheek.

His arms slowly snake around your waist as he wraps you in, pulling you to his chest, cradling your soft, exhausted body and holding you against his larger, firm form. His eyes close as he feels you shaking in his arms, his embrace so tender that it hurts. “It’s okay,” he whispers softly to you. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

Your chest aches at how comforting his embrace feels. You are suddenly reminded of the way Suguru used to hug you- but for the first time, I push the thought of Suguru away quickly. It’s Satoru in front of you, not Suguru.

"I’ve got you,” he murmurs right up against your ear. “I’ve got you.” He lifts his hand to brush his fingers across your hair, his fingers running across your scalp.

You feel my heart beat faster inexplicably as you raise your head up to look at him. “Satoru, I need your help.” You whisper out as you gulp, briefly closing your eyes.

“Help me…help throw his things away please, I don’t have the strength to do it alone. it’s so haunting." You choke, "I want to move on, I want get better, in a more stable mental place for Tsuki, and I can’t do that with these reminders of him everywhere…” You vent out in one breath.

“You really…want to throw away all of his things?” He asks, his voice a mix of hurt, and relief.

“No.” You reply immediately, “but what other way is there? I don’t want Tsuki to grow up with me being an emotional wreck over a man who abandoned us."

Your eyes fall over to the tiny toddler in the crib, unable to peel your eyes from the beautiful girl.

"I want to keep everything of his, to look at them and grieve for a man who’s alive. I want to keep that damn scarf of his, I don't have the strength to remove his picture from my wallpaper, and his pillow that I sprayed with his perfume and hugged to sleep during pregnancy because his smell calmed me during morning sickness. It’s pathetic I know…but how long am I going to hold on?” You choke up, tears rolling down my eyes.

He feels his breath hitch at your words. He slowly lowers his head to rest his forehead gently against yours, his eyes fluttering shut as he breathes in slowly and trembles slightly as he gently pulls you into him, his breath trembling and catching in his throat again. “Oh, Y/N,” he whispers in a voice broken with emotion. “Oh sweetheart…”

For a second he wants to gather all of Suguru's things and keep them for himself on the other hand he wants to shatter everything. He's been like the same paradoxical situation as you, day in and day out. He's been a hypocrite. Telling you to move on when he could not get over his best friend. The only person he could ever confide in without being superficial, the only one who cared.

He's aching, just as much as you are. And he aches even more to see his first love so terribly broken apart by his best friend.

"I want us to heal, 'Toru." You mutter. "All of us: Me, you and Shoko. Of course the pain can never truly be gone, but we can't let our lives stagnant like this." You whisper, cupping his face in your palms, your eyebrows furrowed as you stare into his cerulean eyes.

He feels his heart skip several beats in his chest as he feels your soft, warm palms gently cupping his face, your eyes peering into his. He takes in a slow, shuddery breath and swallows again in an attempt to get rid of the aching feeling in his chest - the aching he feels for you.

His eyes glance over towards the crib, seeing the small infant that ties you to his best friend in the most undeniable way that he could never possibly compete, yet she draws him and you closer than ever. From the day he laid his eyes on her, he loved her.

He raises his hand slowly and gently rests it over one of the ones that are cupping his face, his fingers intertwining with yours. He holds your gaze for a long moment in silence, just trying to calm the thundering of his heart in his chest. He let his feelings sit in the backseat when you and Suguru started dating. It hurt, but the ache soon simmered and he accepted reality, he knew his feelings had never left and yet it didn't feel hard to think otherwise. Hell, he was ready to be Suguru's best man. He's finally letting himself be selfish.

"Toru," You breathe out shakily, unsure why you uttered his name like so. This feels like the precipice, the intermission of the movie of your life, right at the climax. These inexplicable feelings brewing in your heart are so heavy. You feel guilty, for letting yourself feel this way, for letting yourself move on-- to develop an affection beyond friendship for Suguru's best friend and your friend.

His heart skips a beat at the way you breathed out his name like so. It almost sounds like a plea, almost like a desperate beg. Toru. It never felt this good, never felt this right, for you to say his name like that. It's so good to hear the way his name sounds when it leaves your lips, your lips that he has never once touched.

His throat aches as he leans down and captures your lips against his own he's wanted this for so long. For so so long he's ached for you. Satoru knows its wrong, you're both vulnerable, but he feels like he would break and sob like a child if he doesn't embrace you. If he can't love you. Its physically impossible for him to control his affection anymore. His nose is red, eyes burning.

A gasp leaves you as you freeze, your fingers clenching into fists. You stand unable to react, frozen still. Your heart beats in a sickly rhythm at the confusion swirling in your chest.

He swallows thickly and instantly pulls back, his eyes wide as he looks into your shocked expression. He takes in a shuddery, shaky breath. He's a idiot, he's an absolute idiot. He knows you don't feel that way about him, knows you're still broken over Suguru, and yet he still kissed you.

"I-" You stutter, your heart shattering at his slightly red eyes. "I'm...I'm sorry..." You breathe out, unable to utter anything else. You want to pull him in again, to kiss him with the same tenderness. His glassy eyes make you sick, but you are not sure you can do this to him, not when you are so conflicted about your feelings...he deserves better than that.

He shakes his head adamantly, his hands trembling slightly as he gently reaches up to place them on your shoulders to keep you at a distance. He doesn’t want your pity. He can’t take your pity.

"You don’t—" Satoru whispers shakily, his eyes still burning. "You don’t have to feel sorry for me. Please, don’t pity me because I feel this way for you."  

"I don't-- I don't pity you 'Toru, not a bit. But you are not a replacement, I never want you to feel like that. I am- there is so much to heal in my heart, I don't think I can love anymore. I am so damn scared after all that I went through." You breathe out reaching to him hesitantly. "You deserve better than whatever mess I am right now."

His heart shatters even more as he feels the way that you demean yourself so harshly - you have no idea how much you're worth. You have no idea how many times he's had to restrain himself from kissing you, holding you, loving you - so many times he's had to tell himself that he has no right to try and love someone that's not his. But his heart is a fragile, weak thing in the face of your sorrow.

"Your daughter needs you," he whispers, his voice cracking a bit. "You're amazing.

“Would you give me time to heal Toru? For myself? For Tsuki? Maybe even for us.” You whisper with a soft voice. “I want to reclaim myself, I’ve lost that ambitious girl somewhere, I want to get her back before I can ever try to find love again.”

.

6 months pass by in a blink of an eye, wasn't she born yesterday? Tsuki's already 8 months old, its a bittersweet feeling. Yet somehow when you think of the times your blood used to run cold when someone mentioned Suguru when you trying to heal; it reminds you how long the year really was.

Those six months were a lifetime for you and Satoru too. He was there all along, for you and Tsuki. He watched you grow and change - every day, every moment, he witnessed the way you healed and slowly came back to yourself. And with each day that passed, the more that he found himself completely and hopelessly in love with you.   

You smile, wrapping the scarf around Tsuki as she sits in her stroller, wide-eyed, observing her mama dressed up differently. A red, velvet a line dress. It feel so weird to wear old clothes again, like watching yourself in your middle school yearbook pictures, cringing at how you looked, but feeling warm as you remember how truly happy you were.

You gulp, fixing your hair for the nth time, waiting for Satoru to pick you. You roam nervously in the apartment, wound like a spinning top and you jump when the bell rings.

You quickly walk up to the door, there he stands in his glory, in a tailored Italian suit, an Armani watch, his fluffy white hair parted at the side with a bouquet of peonies in his nimble hands.

And he freezes just as you do, his Adam's apple visibly bobbing up and down trying ti muster, suave words of praise, but nothing leaves his starstruck self.

“You look so handsome, Toru.” You say fondly.

He slowly holds out the bouquet of peonies for you as his eyes scan over you again. His voice feels weak, barely a whisper as he speaks to you. "Look who's talking."

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” You say taking a sniff of the fragrant flowers. Your heart feels warm, despite the chill in the air; warm toasted bread with sweet milk tea in the sheets, an odd sense of euphoric comforting.

"Just beautiful things for a beautiful woman."  He says, finally with his flirtatious grin which causes you to roll your eyes.

You chuckle and look over at Tsuki. “Let’s wait for Shoko” It’s the first time she’d be away from you, she’s too small, too tiny, it makes you anxious for her to be anywhere except in front of your eyes. This is the first time you've ever been apart from the infant who's been attached to your hip since she was born.

"Shoko's a doctor, she'll take good care of her. It's just for a few hours, sweetheart."  He says, interrupting your thoughts.

Soon enough, the bell rings, and the tired woman makes her way in. You go over the same things, same scenarios multiple times until you feel relieved and Shoko on the other hand, exasperated.

"And for the love of god don't smoke around her," you say and finally hug her. "Thank you for doing this Shoko."

Shoko freezes as you suddenly hug her; for a moment, she feels as though her eyes are getting bleary after seeing you smile so brightly after so long. "All good..." She murmurs, unknowingly tightening her grip around you.

"Let's go," you whisper to Satoru, holding out your hand. For a few seconds, he just stands still, unable to form a coherent emotion at the sight of your hand extended to reach his. Gulping he intertwines his large fingers into your palm. the path to his car feels sacred, intimate; he feels as though he's holding you as you walk down the aisle to him. It's an exaggerated, delusional reverie that makes his chest all tight.

The ride towards the restaurant is mostly silent, with you looking out the window and watching as the world passes by like a blur. Satoru steals a few quick glances at you every now and then as he drives, feeling the familiar ache in his chest everytime he looks at you in your beautiful, beautiful red dress.

"You look beautiful, you know that?" He whispers, his voice hushed almost as if he's afraid if he speaks too loudly, the moment will be shattered.  

Your eyes soften at his reverential tone, you tilt my head, staring at him. "You've told," you answer. "But I like hearing you say it."

"I'll say it till you get sick of it," he says with a soft chuckle, his bright cerulean eyes undoing all defenses, all inhibitions. They shine so bright, like stars.

"I don't think I can ever get sick of it," You whisper. It's peaceful, you realise. Not the wild, passionate sort of love you experienced with Suguru, where the flame was brightest before it blew. But this feels like a soft light, whispering in the dark, ebbing the strongest shadows away. It draws you in like a moth to flame. This tender light ignites my very being from the dull, colourless life you were trapped in. You never realised that what you wanted was warmth; you hunted it in a spitfire, but found it in an everlasting flame.

His heart skips a beat at your soft, but honest words. The car slows down as the light turns red, and he takes the opportunity to take a good a long look at you. You are sirenesque, it takes his breath away. He finds himself leaning closer, red lights of the signal reflecting off his face. The soft jazz he put to sound fancy is all static under your gaze. He is all static under your gaze.

Both of you flinch as a car behind you honks, pulling the two of you out of your reverie. You realise the light has already turned green and clear you throat.

He lets out a soft sound before he starts driving again, looking ahead at the road to distract himself from the way his heart still pounds in his chest.

The restaurant comes into view as he parks the car with a sigh. 

You smile as he helps you out of the car. It's a fancy restaurant, the kind you'd see in old Hollywood movies where the main characters take the heroine and a cute song starts playing. You wait for your orders, and there's an awkward silence; neither of you speak for a while. A mix of embarrassment and nervousness blended in with being clueless about what to talk about.

"So...I was thinking," he begins, his heart beating rapidly against his ribcage as he fiddles with his fingers. There is a moment of hesitation as he looks up at you for a second, his heart skipping a beat at your calm expression. He gulps and decides to say it, his words leaving him in a low murmur - barely above a whisper. "Wanna dance?"

"Dance?" You question your eyes fluttering in confusion as you look around and then back at him as if to question, 'here?'

He nods as his nervousness melts away into a small, genuine, bashful smile as he stands up and gently extends his hand towards you from across the table. "Yeah...dance." He mutter, his heart feeling a bit lighter at your innocent question.

He looks at the small dance floor in the restaurant, not even a whole dozen couples dancing on it. "Just one song." 

"Alright, until the food comes in." You smile tenderly and take his hand as the two of you walk to the small wooden flooring. You look up at him as he wraps his hand on your waist, another interlacing with yours. And the song plays, ironically enough, Mia and Sebastian's theme from Lalaland, and you roll your eyes. it's a fancy restaurant; they should at least play jazz or something. Nonetheless, you sigh and just look into his cerulean eyes, and your heart pounds in your ribcage.

He can't stop the way that a small chuckle leaves him at your eye roll. He is in utter bliss in this moment, being so much closer, so much more intimate than he'd been with you in ages: everything around them feels so surreal.

You two dance at first, for a few minutes, a sophisticated pair dance before the two of you just sway, eyes peering intently into each other. The light is dull, dim, centered just at the floor, but nothing shines brighter than his hopeful, loving eyes, and you can't help but feel like you are melting as he holds you in, swaying to the music.

He holds onto you as tightly as he can, his eyes never leaving yours, his breaths growing more labored with each passing second. He can't help but be utterly enamored by you. He can just barely hear his own voice over the sound of his own rapidly beating heart. "I love you." 

Your eyebrows furrow at his admission again, and you can't help but huff out a fond chuckle. He's so sincere, despite all, despite how torn you were, despite how you had hurt everyone, including yourself. He's been there. He's been there and made you realise you don't have to beg for someone's love. It's not transactional as it was with Suguru. "I've made you wait for so long, haven't I?" You whisper, your eyes a little bleary looking at him.

The corners of his eyes crinkle with your huffed chuckle. He smiles softly as you speak, his hand on your waist gently caressing your body lovingly. He smiles and reaches his hand up to caress your soft cheek, gently stroking your skin with the rough pads of his fingers.

"Forever." He mutters, his own eyes slightly glossing over as he looks at you. "You could've made me wait forever, and I still would've waited."

You wrap your arms tighter around him and lean up to kiss him, eyes fluttering close. He tastes like mint; its sweet, and it soothes you so. You let out a shaky breath, and he leans in and kisses you tenderly at first, but then with an adolescent vigour that has you dipping in his arms.

You can't help but giggle at his excitement, somehow, the sound gets him to tone it down, tender and soft, his fingers shaky. You part away to breathe and chuckle fondly. "You've got lipstick on your lips." You shake your head and wipe his lips clean.

"We still have a dance to finish," You say as I keep your hand back on his shoulder, and start to sway, laughing as he spins you around

Outside the restaurant after a late night tussle of the girls begging for icecream and him giving in, Suguru walks with Nanako and Mimiko. Their little hands holding the ice cream he brought, trying to not make it drip.

"Geto-sama, isn't she the woman in the photo frame?" Mimiko points out cluelessly to through the glass to you and Satoru dancing. A woman she's only ever seen through the photo frame he keeps close to him, fondly smiling at the,mystery woman that the twins love to inquire about.

"Hmm...?"

Suguru looks towards the glass, and it takes a few seconds for him to process what he sees. He sighs. It's hard to breathe, but you look so radiant it's like life is back in you. It's so different from when he last saw you six months ago in the grocery store. You looked like your world was crumbling down; you were tired, depressed and alone with his daughter you gave birth to. "Yeah." He says with a smile, his voice heavy.

"That's her."

He keeps looking at you, his smile still on his face as he stares at the sight of the two of you on the dance floor. He can't explain the feeling he has in his heart: hollow and heavy, a feeling of losing something he had and messed up so terribly. The feeling of watching you fall in love with someone else, while he still is in love with you. 

But this is different. He looks at your smiling face now, and all he can feel is a strange sense of peace. His chest feels tight, an inexplicable pang of nostalgia and loss as he watches you dance with his best friend, but the pain he feels in his chest is replaced with a strange sense of acceptance.

It feels nostalgic, you're dancing with Satoru the way you used to with him, old jazz music playing as you stood on his feet and he swayed you around, sneaking kisses on your soft lips, your arms wrapped around him. But just as he remembers these memories, he is reminded of what become of your relationship.

It hurts like crazy but still doesn't compare to the soul-crushing guilt he felt when he saw your in the grocery store with Tsukiko, the baby of his love that he left unknowingly and despite knowing her existence, he was far too gone to step up. All he can remember is the utter agony you held in your eyes when you stood with that little infant so tired, so terrified. He made you go through hell.

The two of you finally stop with the dance. You glance away for a second and freeze as your eyes fall onto Suguru. Your lips part, feeling these conflicting, wretched emotions of anger and bitterness.

He is stoic before he breaks into a smile, a content, tired smile. The smile you give to someone, a goodbye, a good-luck, a smile of nostalgia and well-wish.

You breathe out as if you feel a burden off you existence, your lips twitching up to a smile too.

He looks at you and then glances at the girls, and something in him just wants to approach and hug you so tightly, ask for forgiveness and stay like this, all of you together again.

And yet, when your lips twitch into a smile at him, he smiles back, lifting up his hand to wave softly before walking away.

Life didn't end when he left, though it seemed like it would. Sometimes, we find escapes closest to us, but grief makes us blind. Satoru and Shoko were there to help, but drowning in the agony of loss you didn't find the strength to reach. The point is, no one can help you, unless you want to help yourself.

And once its over, one day you'll find yourself at crossroads with your past again. And its then you'll have courage to look it in the eye and smile, because that's how it goes:

Aches of present become memories of past:

a testament of Our Youth.

[theconstantsidekick]

Sad and Funny

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader (future), Steve Rogers x Stark!Reader (past), Tony Stark x Stark!Reader (siblings)

Genre: Angst? I think?

Summary: Bucky gets an unexpected call on a random Tuesday night, asking him to come to a bar and be the designated driver for Y/n Stark... the woman whose family he murdered? Yeah, that one. But she used to be his best pal's best girl, so he can't not show up, right?

(This takes place before the events of  Falcon, The Winter Soldier and Static. However, it can be read as a stand-alone piece. But it’s fun. I promise.)

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Near Alcoholism, Mentions of Past Traumas, Grief, Self Deprecation, Self Hate, just an overall sad time tbh.

a/n: I read some destiel fic about dude a crying about dude be to dude c and this idea just sprung up.

Bucky Barnes, The Boyfriend (other one-shots) | The Falcon, The Winter Soldier and Static | Static: Get, Set, Glitch | Static Verse Masterlist

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m—I’m looking for—a girl? She’s apparently really drunk, looks like an Avenger?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” a voice calls out to him from the end of the bar. “This way!”

With a hushed thanks to the bartender he’d been talking to, he makes his way through the bar.

“Thanks for coming, Sergeant Barnes,” the guy puts out his hand for him to shake.

Bucky takes it. “Murdock, right?” He searches his brain for the full name. “Matt Murdock? The lawyer?”

The guy—Murdock, smiles. “Yes. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances considering the last time, but this is as good as it gets for a guy in my line of work.” He seems very sincere, like he actually is very happy to meet Bucky at a shady little bar in Hell’s Kitchen. And what does Bucky know? Maybe he is. 

“Yeah,” Bucky replies in a non-reply. But Murdock doesn’t seem to mind, and well, no one really should. Bucky’s mind is elsewhere. “I—I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what I’m doing here.”

Murdock fidgets, fixing his red glasses while his smile falters, only a little. “She’s—uh—” his lips curve up again”—pretty out of it,” he points behind himself, at the table. “I didn’t think I’d be very capable at handling that situation given… my predicament.” Murdock nods at the walking-stick in his hand. And, well, yeah. Fair enough. “So, she asked me to call you.”

“Why?”

Murdock stills for a second, gripping the handle of his walking stick with both hands. “Don’t you think that’s a question better posed to her?” 

Well, yeah. 

He can’t fucking ask her, though. Can he?

But Murdock doesn’t give him the chance to counter. “So, can I count on you?”

“What?” Bucky’s so fucking lost right now.

“Can I count on you?” He repeats. “To get her home safe?”

Oh, shit! Yeah. “Yes… Yes, of course.”

Murdock hands him a napkin, “Great! That’s her address and her keys are in her pocket.” Bucky nods, still very lost. But Murdock smiles at him again, “Thank you so much for doing this. I have an arraignment early in the morning, so I gotta be on my way. I’m really sorry for dumping her on you like this.”

“It’s—it’s no problem.”

He nods then, smile still intact. “Thanks again, Sergeant.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, not completely registering what’s going on. Murdock takes the opportunity to walk past him, and make his way towards the door.

Bucky’s intently staring down at the napkin he’s just been handed and he can’t help from wondering… did Murdock write it down? He couldn’t have, obviously. So, does that mean some random person in this bar just knows her address now? Should Bucky be worried about that? But then again, he’s gotten his ass handed to him on a platter enough times to know, it would be frankly, silly to take her on. However, the world has gone to shit lately, so maybe—

“For what it’s worth,” Murdock calls out, halfway to the door, “she seemed quite—content when you agreed to come.”

Bucky’s left speechless.

“Take care, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Yeah. See you around, Murdock.” Oh fuck.

The moment the words are out of his lips, he knows he’s fucked up. He’s fumbled—hard. He winces and his hand slowly comes up to clasp his mouth in pure embarrassment. 

Mudrock pauses at the door, head falling. 

Bucky’s thanking all the Gods above for his super hearing right about now, cause he can hear Murdock chuckling at Bucky’s horrifying fumble. 

Before he can apologise, Murdock’s already out the door.

He sends out a silent prayer cum apology to the universe, and adds this to his never ending fuck ups.

Trying to shake off the embarrassment, with measured, slow movements, he takes a seat on the table, opposite the woman who’d apparently asked him here.

“Y/n?” 

She’s sitting—if he can call it that—with her head on the cold, hard table. There’s a slice of lemon in her mouth that’s sticking out and her hand is gripping onto her liquor filled glass like someone might steal it. 

She looks like she just conked out mid sentence, and fell face first onto the table. 

He tries again, “Hey, Y/n?” No response. 

He doesn't want to jerk her awake, but it doesn’t seem like he has a choice anymore. 

“Y/n?” He gently touches her elbow. And motherfucker! She’s up in an instant.

The first thing she does the moment she’s up is spit out the slice of lime from her mouth and down her entire drink in one go. 

Once she’s done, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, slamming the glass on the table. “Tess!”

Who the fuck is—

“What do you want?” The bartender from before shouts back.

“Another drink—for me and tall, dark and brooding over here,” Y/n replies, pointing at Bucky. 

“I already told you, you’re cut off!” Tess, the bartender, throws back from behind the bar, as she continues to work.

“You can’t cut me off, Tess! I’m an Avenger! I saved the world! You can’t cut me off! Them’s the rules!” Y/n argues. Bucky can clearly smell the liquor on her, he thinks he could probably do that even without his enhanced sense of smell. But her competence doesn’t seem all that hindered because all of that made very clear sense. And sounded borderline logical too. You save the world, you get to drink however much you want? Seems like a fair bargain to Bucky. 

“Not in this bar!” Clearly it doesn’t seem fair to Tess.

Y/n huffs, deflates. “Fine,” she gives in. “I’ll take a look at the refrigerator in the back, tomorrow—when I’m sober, if you give me and my roguishly handsome comrade here another round. How about that?” Bucky’s entire body stops functioning. But Y/n either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. “What say, Tess?”

“There’s something wrong with the lights in the office too—”

“I’ll look over the entire bar’s electrical grid.”

“... One last round and then you’re done.”

Y/n rejoices like she’s won a war. Clapping her hands, she shouts in excitement. “You’ve got yourself a deal, sweets.” And then she turns to him, “What will you have?”

Bucky’s been rebooting so far, so instead of saying anything competent he just makes a noise that sounds something like, ‘What?’

“The drink? What’s your poison?”

“Uh, no. I—I’m good.”

She rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Come on, man! Just have a drink.”

“I’m supposed to be your designated driver, wouldn’t it be pretty irresponsible to drink?” Bucky shifts nervously and shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. 

But she doesn’t think his excuse is anywhere near valid. “You’re a super soldier, dude. One drink won’t even touch you. Just—gimme some company, alright?” She huffs, “Please?”

He swallows thickly. “Whiskey,” he tells Tess. “On the rocks.”

The bartender nods, “Two whiskeys on the rocks, coming up.”

The bar is fairly free of commotion, if you discount Y/n Stark’s antics. It’s a cosy little joint. Bucky must have walked past it a million times without paying any attention to it before. But now that he’s here, he can see why someone like her might enjoy it. It’s dimly lit, there’s a jukebox in  the other corner, playing songs that Bucky knows for once in his life and all the patrons are on the older side, and completely unbothered by the presence of two Avengers amongst them. 

Maybe he’ll come back here some other time. Neat place, nice bartender and no-one ogling him, the place meets all his criterias.

“Oh!” Y/n exclaims suddenly. “Where are my manners?” She sits up straighter. “Sergeant Barnes, thank you for coming. I won’t pretend that I’m not surprised to see you, but thankful regardless.”

“Yeah,” he says, slowly, brows knitting together. “Don’t—don’t mention it.” He can’t help it, he has to ask, “Sorry but, are you drunk? I really can’t tell.”

“Oh, I’m plastered,” she answers casually, grabbing another slice of lemon from a shot glass full of them. She begins nibbling at it.

“How’d you manage that? Isn’t your metabolism like mine? It would’ve taken you at least a couple bottle to even—”

She looks at him dead straight, “I own half of Stark Enterprises, and I’ve been drinking like a tankard since I first tasted freedom—back in ‘53.”

Fair enough, he thinks to himself. “So, you’re saying you’ve got practice.”

“And then some.”

Tess brings their drinks just then, and places a glass each in front of them.

Both of them quickly express thanks.

She raises her glass, he follows too, because what the hell else is he supposed to do?

“To Steve Rogers, the lying piece of shit.”

Oh.

She clicks her glass with his and takes a sip.

Bucky just cocks his head in mild disagreement and sets his drink back down on the table. “That’s what we’re drinking to?”

Eyeing him suspiciously, “Why? You got a problem?”

He sighs, “I understand why you’re upset with him, but he’s still my best friend.”

“Why?”

He bites his lip, trying to control whatever emotions are stirring inside him.

But Y/n Stark isn’t one to back down. “He left you,” she says. “Just like he left me—except yours is worse.” She smiles, and it’s the most cutting and painful thing Bucky’s seen in a while. “End of the line, he’d said.” Snorting, she adds, “Guess his line ended a lot sooner than yours, huh?” Bucky’s jaw clenches. And she must notice the shift in his demeanor instantly—which he has to admit is a feat considering her claims of being plastered. Her hand comes up to lips, covering them, like a child caught saying a cuss word. “That was—that was mean. I’m sorry—I wasn’t… It wasn’t a jab at you—really. It was,” she stumbles over her words, finally seeming drunk. “It was—it was meant for him. Not you.” She shakes her head, sadness clear in her motions. “Not you.” She raises her glass again then, “To life,” she begins, “that’s mostly sad, but sometimes—like in this moment—funny.”

Bucky’s not sure what to do next, so he decides to do the obvious thing. He raises his glass, clicks it with her and takes a drink. “Funny?” He asks, “How?”

“It’s tuesday night, and I’m so fucking hammered that I had to call up the one guy who hates me more than I hate myself to come drive me home.” She takes a sip of her drink. “Don’t know about you, but that’s pretty fucking funny in my book.”

He’s more lost now than when he walked into this joint. “Hate—I don’t hate you? Why would I—Why would I hate you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” She asks him like it’s the most obvious thing. But it’s not. And she must see that to him it is not obvious at all, because then she explains, “I am the reason why he left, pal.” She points to herself so hard, Bucky wants to pull her hand away,  “I am the reason why he left you. Why don’t you hate me?”

His heart breaks. 

“He—he didn’t leave because of you, Y/n. You—you have to know that!”

“Didn’t he?” She challenges with her head cocked. “If I could make him love me enough, then he never would’ve left—he never would’ve felt out of place in this world, in this time. If—” She lets out a hollow, broken laugh. “If I could make him love me enough, he would’ve stayed.” She closes her eyes briefly, before opening them to face him again. “I’m your culprit, Sergeant. If I had been… enough then you wouldn’t have had to navigate this shitty new world all by your lonesome.”

Fucking hell, Steve.

“That—that’s not true! He loved you.” She begins to protest, but Bucky cuts her off. “I knew that guy since before he could stand up long enough to pick a fight, and I am telling you—he loved you.” He really did. Steve really did love her, completely and utterly. “He just needed—” he sits back. “He needed to go live the life he lost. It—it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t because you weren��t enough… He loved you, more than you know.”

“Well, he had a funny way of showing it,” she remarks, feigning ease. Taking another swig from her glass, she says, “But that’s just life, isn’t it? Sad and funny—sad that he left, funny that he maybe loved me even as he did it.” Bucky has to look away. “Still, at least he gave me this.” When he looks up she’s pointing at him. “Another curiously morose, and remarkably hilarious moment.”

“I want to ask, but I’m afraid to,” Bucky admits to her, with a curious look over his glass.

She holds up her finger, “Think about it, Sergeant Barnes—ex-Hydra assassin,” she points to him, “ex-Hydra assassin,” she points to herself. And then slowly she spreads her arms, motioning to the entire place, “United States of America, baby!”

Bucky can’t help it. He shakes his head with a hint of a smile.

“Can you imagine? If Armin Zola saw this?” She asks, clearly finding this all very, very funny. “Do you think, when he was creating us—the Winter Soldier and Static—that he could’ve even imagined a scenario where I would call you up on a random Tuesday night to be my designated driver?” She begins laughing. “Can you—can you imagine if someone were to tell him that this would happen? Do you—” she’s having a hard time getting her words out, with all the giggling, “Do you think he still would have created us? Hydra’s two most lethal weapons, sharing a drink in Hell’s Kitchen?” She cannot physically control herself, cannot stop the laugh that bursts out of her.

And Bucky’s gotta admit, that is pretty damn funny.

Sad and funny.

“Come on, you think it’s funny too,” she accuses. “I can see in your eyes, Barnes.”

“Fine,” he says, his smile blooming as he takes a sip. “It is kinda funny.”

“I remember,” she begins in between her laughs, “Peggy used to tell me Red Skull said that he could see the future, in the Tesseract, and man! That’s a load of shit, cause if he actually could, and he knew this would be the outcome, I don’t think the man would have experimented on himself and turned, you know?”

“Red?” Bucky supplies, smiling wide now.

“Red!” She shakes her head, still chuckling. “He was so fucking stupid. I mean—all of Hydra’s fucking stupid.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Bucky counters, adjusting in his seat.

“No, seriously, consider this for a second!” All of a sudden, she’s all excited and pumped. She takes another sip of her drink before she starts, “They were fucking useless, man. I mean, name one great plan of world domination that worked out for them?” 

Bucky—he stops. “What—that’s—What?”

She puts her hand up and begins counting, “Started a war, lost the war because of a kid from Brooklyn who juiced himself up with a serum they could never really recreate.” Well, okay. Bucky can concede to that. “Infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., schemed for decades, only to be found out, by the same fucking guy.” Alright, that’s fair, too, he supposes. “Created Babayaga, a fucking ghost story,” she motions to him, “but then lost him too, cause they were dumb enough to send him on a mission to encounter his best bud—who, again, same fucking guy.” In retrospect, that does seem very stupid on their part. “Decided to commit mass genocide again, tried to kill 7 milliion people but got taken down by a guy in an eye-patch, a dude with wings, an ex-Widow, a fucking ex-Hydra employee,” meaning her, “and the same fucking guy!” 

Put it like that?

Bucky’s not sure what to say.

“You have to be a special kind of incompetent to screw up that bad, and be defeated by the same fucking guy that many times,” she surmises. “I mean, did they ever even actually accomplish anything?”

“I think you’re forgetting the countless assassinations they orchestrated,” he counters, leaving the ‘and we pulled off’ part silent.

She meets him eye to eye then, “Sure, we killed a bunch of people for them but—I’m gonna talk about the one thing we don’t talk about, now. I’m sorry, but it’s important to the point I’m making here—take Howard and Maria, for instance. The Winter Soldier killed them and stole the last of the serum, sure. And then what? They made more Winter Soldiers that were killed in their sleep by Helmut fucking Zemo?”

Bucky’s having a hard time breathing with the crushing weight of his guilt burning a hole through chest, but Y/n seems distinctly unaffected by it.

“None of the shit they did, or made us do, ever really panned out,” she summarizes, easily. Like she isn’t technically stating that her family died for nothing, that he killed them for nothing.

“Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean there wasn’t any damage done, Y/n. That’s not how it works,” he argues, with a curt tone.

She must notice it too, “I understand you must think I’m inferring that your… misery was all for naught. Which, I suppose I am, but I hope you can also see that if I make that statement with respect to you, it also reflects upon me.”

“Let me get this straight, what you’re saying is—we both got the shit end of the stick, years of torture and guilt, for absolutely nothing?” He leans forward, elbows on the table.

“Yes,” she answers simply.

“And that—that’s fine with you?”

She shrugs. “Isn’t all misery meaningless?” She throws back, not impolitely. “Furthermore, if there were a meaning behind our misery, would it be any less miserable?”

Well, fuck.

Bucky’s at a loss for words.

Because while it pisses him off to no end, she isn’t wrong. If there had been a reason behind Hydra’s years long torture of him, would that have made any of it better? Would it really have mattered to him? Would it have changed anything other than the fact that he’d feel far more guilty about it? And if there really isn’t any meaning to it, does it make it hurt any less?

While she’s clearly sympathetic to Bucky’s spiralling inner monologue, she doesn’t seem all that affected by it as she looks over at Tess and wordlessly asks for the bill. “Look, pain is pain is pain. Meaningful or not makes no difference. My comment wasn’t on either of ours, though. I just meant—if one has the kind of power and resources Hydra did, I’d like to think they’d do something a little more significant with it.”

It takes a second for Bucky to readjust to her casual tone and even more casual words. And that’s not even taking his spiral into account. So, his answer comes out after a short pause, “I thought you already did.” She cocks his brow at him in question. “You founded S.H.I.E.L.D.”

She tilts her head, impressed. “Most people don’t know that.”

He shrugs, “I’m not exactly most people.”

She smiles, giving in. 

Tess comes to them with a check, and Y/n pays it leaving a hefty tip.

“I may have been a founding member of S.H.I.E.L.D.” she says, once Tess has left, “but you forget that I also worked for them as an agent.” Both of them begin getting up from their seats. “I went on just as many missions for them, as I did for Hydra, if not more… But knowing what we know now, I couldn’t tell you where the orders really came from.” With that she puts on her jacket in one clean motion and walks past Bucky towards the exit.

When he catches up to her, she’s outside, staring at his bike.

“That yours?” She asks.

He pulls the keys out of his pocket. “Yeah…” His eyes fall to the ground as he adds, “Steve gave it to me.”

“Figures,” she says with a hint of annoyance. “It’s a Harley-Davidson Sportster, right?” Her eyes are set on the bike in front of her, but Bucky nods anyway. And though she can’t see him, she continues, “He gave me the same one in red.”

“You—you’ve got a bike?”

She turns to him then, “I’ve got several.”

Color him surprised. “Huh,” is all he can say. And to make up for the lack of words he begins walking over to the bike. “You coming?”

“Coming where?” She asks, blocking his way with her body.

He nods to the bike, he sidesteps her to finish his initial task of getting onto it. “I thought the whole point of calling me here was to drive you home.”

“On that?” She questions like she doesn’t already know the answer. “I’m shit faced dude, and you’re a fucking furnace. I’ll fall asleep on your shoulder in 10 seconds flat and fall off the damn thing.” The image does something to Bucky that he doesn’t want to look too closely at—not the falling off part, the other part.

“You said the word ‘furthermore’ in there like it was something people say in casual conversation. The longer I stick around, the more I wonder if you’re actually even drunk,” he argues. 

She rolls her eyes and stomps her feet. “Yes, because being babysat by you was on top of my Make A Wish list.” She puts her hands in her jacket pockets. “My place isn’t that far from here. I’ll just walk home. Don’t worry about it.”

“Y/n—”

“Thanks for showing up, especially because you didn’t have to,” she smiles at him. “You’re a good man, Sergeant Barnes.” With that she begins walking away.

And fuck him. 

Fuck this all to hell.

He gets off his bike and catches up to her in a few steps.

At first, she doesn’t acknowledge him. But then she says, almost to the world, instead of Bucky, “My place is actually really far from here.”

“I know,” he replies.

“You could’ve just put me in a cab,” she offers.

“You want me to hail one for us?” He asks.

“No,” she confesses, like it’s a secret but not one she wants to hide from him. “I want to walk.”

“It’ll take an hour on foot,” he reminds her.

“For most people, yes. But we’re not most people.”

He sighs, “So, we’re walking?”

“I know I’m walking—to my place. You can still run back to your bike and just ride off into the sunset… or moonlight, whatever.”

Yeah, right. 

Like Bucky’s gonna do that. 

So they walk.

It’s not all that late, the streets are still buzzing with pedestrians, none of whom neither care nor notice the two Avengers walking around.

Bucky’s gotta admit—it is peaceful.

“You like bagels?”

He’s caught completely off-guard by the question. “What?”

“Bagels, Sarge. I know they had them in the ‘30s. And I’m certain they are a thing in Wakanda, so you can’t—”

“Yes, I like bagels.”

She smiles. “Great! Come on!” She takes a right on the street and Bucky, as is the theme of the night, lost and confused, follows her.

The bagels are pretty fucking great. 

Bucky had skipped dinner to rush over, so he really needed to put something in his stomach so you won’t really hear him complain. He’s not all that picky about what he eats, never had a chance to be. But these—they are really good.

Well, except for—

“Why is mine rainbow colored?” He asks, but eats it anyway, it’s his last bite.

“To make up for the lack of it in your life.”

That makes him snort. 

“Can I ask you something?” She says then, looking deceptively small.

“Will it stop you if I said ‘no’?”

She makes a face that says, ‘you’ve got me there, Sarge.’ “Why’d you come?”

He almost chokes. 

Clearing his throat, he composes himself a little before he answers, “Your friend, Murdock sounded… worried on the phone.”

“He is not my friend,” she tells him laughing, as if it isn’t a sad thing to say. “We’re just… acquaintances. Even that might be a stretch. He hates me, actually. Well, maybe not hate. Let’s just say he doesn’t like me an awful lot.”

“You make it a habit of drinking with people who don’t like you very much?” He doesn’t really mean anything by that. He’s just making small talk.

But then she looks at him sideways, with a smirk. “It would seem so, yes.”

He gets up from where he’s sitting on the bench. “I don’t what gave you the impression that I don’t like you but it’s wrong.”

“Is it?”

Bucky’s not sure why he’s getting so worked up over this. All he knows is that he doesn’t want her to think that he holds any ill will against her. “I have no reason not to like you—none whatsoever. You, on the other hand, have plenty not like me!” She laughs at him. And that works him up some more. “So, tell me, Y/n, what the hell am I doing here? Why the fuck did you call me?”

It might have been all the blood rushing to his head courtesy of getting worked up, or maybe it’s just plain old carelessness. Because Bucky knows, as soon as the words are out, that he’s fucked up. 

And the atmosphere immediately shifts. 

He was supposed to emphasis on ‘me’ and not ‘fuck’. 

“Y/n—” he tries to walk his words back but it’s already too late.

“What, you had something better to do?” She asks, cutting and unkind towards him for the first time in the entire night. Bucky looks away. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says, triumphantly. “Did it cross your mind that maybe I called you cause you’re the only person on my contact list who I knew wouldn’t have any big plans tonight? Seeing as the only friend you ever had left you hanging like a ditchable prom date.” She looks at him, accusing, “And yet, you still won’t kick him off that damn pedestal.” She laughs, pacing now. “You’re fucking pathetic, Barnes.” Oh. So that’s what this is. “You’re stuck here, still holding on to him, looking up to him like a beacon of hope, defending him—for what?” He really should have known that this is what this was. “I don’t know whether to pity you or laugh at you.”

He can’t help it. 

He laughs.

“Something funny?” She bites back, still raging.

He relaxes. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Sad and funny, like life.”

“You wanna share it with the rest of the class, Sarge? Tell us what’s got you giggling like a teenager?”

He looks at her then, with all the patience in the world. “You called me to pick a fight.” Her face loses all color, it goes slack. “You’re drunk and you’re sad, and you wanted to fight… And who better to pick it with than me?” Her jaw clenches. “Look, I know you’re hurt. You’re mad at him for leaving and it hurt—I get that, I do, better than anyone else—”

She cuts him off. “No. No! You don’t get shit. Don’t do that—don’t act like you and I are the same. We are not!” Her hands are flying everywhere. Her anger is very animated. “When he left me he was being an asshole, but when he left you he was being a fucking traitor.” And just like that, Bucky’s left dumbstruck as all the anger leaves her body. “We—we weren’t together, not really. I mean, we weren’t even a thing anymore, not since Siberia. He didn’t owe me shit anymore. But you? He owed you the fucking world and he left you anyway. So, we are not the same! Because I have absolutely no right to be mad at him!” She turns away from him. “You’re not the ditchable prom date, Sergeant Barnes—I am.”

It feels like a gut punch hearing her say that.

“Hey, look at me.” She doesn’t. She’s stubborn. But he can be stubborn too. “Look at me, come on.” She relents. “You’re a ditchable anything, alright? Now, he may be my friend, and I can understand that he had to go live out the life that was stolen from him, but that doesn't mean I didn’t tell him he was a jerk for leaving you behind.”

“You did that?” Her brows furrow.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because it was a jerk-y thing to do?”

And then, and only then—when she’s laughing does Bucky feel like he can breathe again. 

“I didn’t call you to pick a fight, James—can I call you James? I’m gonna call you James. Sergeant Barnes is really hard to say when I’m this drunk—but yeah. I didn’t call you to pick a fight with you. I called you, because you’re the only person I could.”

Bucky’s lost all over again. “What are you talking about? You could’ve called Rhodey? Or Pepper? Or Banner, or that guy with the bow and arrow, whose name I can never remember—”

“Clint Barton.”

“—Barton,” he corrects and continues, “Hell! You could’ve called Sam and he’d come running. You’ve got people, Y/n. People who care about you, a lot.”

Sighing, she slowly walks over to the bench and takes a seat. Shoving her hands in her pocket, she begins, “Rhodey’s got a hot date tonight. And Pepper’s probably reading some stupid book, after having tucked Morgan into bed. Banner is deep underground, somewhere on an Island, which you never heard from me. Batron’s youngest got this cold that won’t quit. And Sam is on a mission.” She looks up at him from where she sits, “But even if every single one of them weren’t busy, I still would’ve called you.”

Bucky’s gonna happily ignore how the sentiment warms his heart. “Why?”

She takes a second. She pauses to find her words.

Once she has them, she begins, “Apart from Sam, they’ve all done the picking me up from a bar when I’m shit-faced routine at least ten times over, each of them.” Ouch. “The last time it happened, Rhodey read me the riot act and yelled some sense into me,” she confesses. “He—he said, ‘I get that you’re grieving, Y/n. But if you don’t pull yourself together sooner rather than later, you won’t have anyone left to come pick you up from your bender.’ And yeah. He was right, but that’s not why I didn’t call him.” She clenches her jaw. “I didn’t call him, or Pep or Banner, or Barton or Sam, cause they’ll always presume that I’m grieving—and don’t get me wrong, I am. But—” her voice breaks. “I’m also trying to get over the world’s most extraordinary break up.” She sniffles and Bucky’s legs almost give out at the sound of it. “They—they think this is about Tony, and fuck. It should be about Tony! It is about Tony! But—but it’s about Steve, too! I mean, fuck. Yeah. I lost my brother, but—but I lost the only man I’ve ever loved too, goddamn it!” She’s crying now and before Bucky can think better of it, he walks over and kneels in front of her. “And—and I can’t tell them that. I can’t tell them, that I’m out here drinking myself into oblivion because of a fucking boy! Because, how fucking stupid is that?”

“It’s not stupid at all.”

“Of course it is! My brother died, James. He fucking died! He sacrificed his life to save the whole world! And I’m sitting here crying cause I got dumped!” Bucky wishes he was back in the ‘40s when he always had a handkerchief in his pocket for a dame to wipe her tears, because she’s crying in earnest now. “You know what’s the worst part?”

“What’s the worst part?”

“The one person—the one fucking person I want to call to pick me—fuck that. The one person I want to drink my sorrows with, the one person I want to go on a bender and paint the town red with is fucking dead!” Well, fuck. “Not that it stops me—you know? When I’m drunk, and I mean three sheets to the wind, kinda drunk, I completely forget that he’s—that he’s not gonna answer the fucking phone anymore.” Sniffling, she tries composing herself. “That’s probably why I drink, I think. Cause for those 30 minutes, when I’m plastered, I forget that my best friend, my brother, my Tony is dead.” And she laughs, surprising him and herself both. “I mean, that and the fact that America’s Golden Boy fucking dumped me for the most amazing woman there has ever existed in all of existence.” He can’t help me, he laughs a little at that too. 

She wipes away her tears and composes herself fully. “I called you, because you’re the only person who probably won’t think I’m an asshole for sometimes being just as heartbroken about losing Steve as I am about losing Tony.” She looks at him with her wide eyes, vulnerable and open for the first time since he met her all those years ago in whichever Hydra base they were trapped in. “I called you because, you, Sergeant Barnes, are the only person who I wouldn’t guilty with, for setting my all-consuming grief aside once in a while to let myself drown in my heartbreak.” 

Bucky Barnes doesn’t know this yet, but in a few years, he’ll become her permanent designated driver, for all time, always. He’ll become her emergency contact. He’ll become her ride to every single event. He’ll become her safe place.

In a couple of years, Bucky Barnes will become the man she loves more than she’s ever loved anyone ever before, and he’ll love her back with everything he is and everything he has—steadfast, unwavering, without hesitation.

And while Y/n Stark will give up drinking in the memory of her relationship with Steve Rogers, she’ll never fully outrun the grief of losing her brother. It will come in waves, fierce and unrelenting. And on the nights when it feels too heavy, she won’t reach for a glass of whiskey. She’ll reach for him. She’ll find him, just like tonight. But instead of throwing verbal punches, she’ll ask him to hold her. And he will—like he’s holding the world, because he will be, indeed and in fact, holding his entire world. 

He’ll even ask her about this night. Only to find out that she has no memory beyond the point of falling face first into the bar table. He’ll laugh, shake his head, and tell her the whole story. She’ll groan in embarrassment, apologize too many times, and he’ll just smile, admitting that this was the night he first knew—if he spent too much time with her, he’d fall for her completely.

She’ll tease him for being a sap.

But that comes later.

Tonight, here, he doesn’t know any of that. 

So tonight he’ll say, “Come on, let me take you home. I think we’ve had our fill of sad and funny things happening for one night.”

Find other one-shots here. Find other Static Verse works here.

[munsonsmixtapes]

hi! i have a jayvik prompt for your consideration, with jayvik finding it difficult to concentrate in the lab while you are there, and keep making mistakes because of it. can be as spicy or sfw as you like ofc

This is the first fic I've written about Arcane so please be gentle with me!

cw: allusions to smut

You know how difficult it is for Jayce and Viktor to focus when you’re in the lab. You only end up there because you love to hang out with them and maybe you’re trying to get them to admit that they’re interested in you. You’ve been conducting an experiment of your own, to see how long it will take them to finally make their feelings known, but it seems that wearing low-cut tops and short skirts had only just made them drool instead of making a move. 

Viktor at least compliments you while Jayce just gets flustered when you get close. His cheeks turning bright pink as you shamelessly flirt with him as you back him up to the desk. You love making pretty men stutter. He wants you so bad, always staring at your lips when you talk to him. It’s pathetic but he doesn’t care. You actually find it to be adorable.

Viktor is very upfront about his feelings, though, making it very clear that he wants you. He’ll lean on you when he doesn’t feel like using his cane and he loves that you will hold onto him, letting him lean his head on your shoulder. 

And while Jayce does feel a little jealous, seeing you together ultimately just sends him into a bi panic. He loves watching the way your hand slides up and down Viktor’s back as he writes on the chalkboard and the way you’ll help Viktor sit on the desk when he gets tired then stand between his legs as he pulls you into his arms. How can he even be upset when the two of you look so good together? 

Today, though, you’re sitting on Jayce’s desk when he comes into the lab, kicking your legs back and forth as you eat the sandwich he had left there for you this morning. Your face lights up when you see him, finishing your last bite as you motion for him to come closer, holding your arms. 

“Hey, handsome,” you greet as your arms wrap around his shoulders, his wrapping around your waist, his face burying into your neck just like always. This is his favorite moment of every day that he sees you, he thinks, being wrapped up in your touch as you hold him for however long he wants. 

This is going to be a long hug. He’s been struggling with one of his Hextech inventions and just needs your reassurance to be able to fix it. You’re always so encouraging and he feels like he needs that to today. 

Once he reluctantly pulls away, he sits in his chair, having to turn away because he can see up your skirt and he knows that he shouldn’t be looking. He just turns every so slightly, picking up his screwdriver to work on one of the weapons he’s created, trying his hardest to not think about how badly he wants to bury his face between your legs and eat you out until you’re crying his name. 

Viktor can’t focus either having dropped his pencil more times than he can count as he’s been trying to work on a sketch of one of the newer projects. You just look so beautiful and he can’t focus, his eyes staying on your lips as you flirt with Jayce, leaning over ever so slightly, giving him the perfect view of your cleavage that he stares at for a few seconds before snapping out of it. 

It’s getting sad, you think, so you’ve finally got to do something about this whole thing, finally make a move on both of them. You love the longing looks, but this is just getting pathetic at this point. So you turn Jayce to face you and hold his face gently in your hands, pressing your lips to his. He gasps into your mouth but quickly melts into you, pliant under your touch, willing to let you do whatever you want to him. He’s putty in your hands. 

Viktor is becoming concerned with how much he’s enjoying watching the two of you kiss, concerned with the fact that he’s getting hard. He’s always been attracted to the two of you separately, but seeing you together is making him want you even more, desperately wishing he could be part of it.

Your hands slide into his hair and he’s moaning into your mouth as his hands slide up your thighs as your place a foot on each side of his chair. He’s trying to pull you into his lap when you pull away, watching his eyes fill with lust. He lets out a whine as you hop off the desk and you just shake your head at him. 

“There’s no need to be greedy, baby,” you tsk. “Viktor needs a turn.”

Viktor turns around fully and his eyes widen as you lean down over him, kissing him more hungrily than you had kissed Jayce and he’s eating it up, whining as your tongue slides into his mouth, roaming around as you put something in between his shirt and vest. You give it a pat then pull away, smiling down at him, seeing his parted lips as he stares up at you, his eyes filling with lust just like Jayce’s. 

You motion for both of them to come closer with your pointer finger and they’re quick to stand, Viktor moving slower as he has to reach his cane. You’re moving to the door and they’re both following you like lost puppies, desperate for more of whatever you just gave them. 

“Viktor has a key to my apartment where I’ll be waiting for the two of you after you’re done here. I think we all could have some fun together considering the chemistry we all have. If you don’t come, I completely understand, but I’d really like for you too.”

“I’ll be there,” they both say in unison, so quickly that you barely understand them, but your face lights up at their agreement. 

“Perfect!” You respond then press kisses to each of their mouths before fleeing the lab, leaving Jayce and Viktor, neither of them wanting to discuss the fact that this is going to turn their friendship into something vastly different and it will never be the same. Neither of them care, though, looking forward to spending the night with you and each other, counting down the hours until they’re done with their work.

[quokkicidal]

L.M. | Husband Material

Genre: Fluff, established relationship

Warnings: None

Pairing: non-idol!Minho x gn!reader

A/N: Not a full on story, just some little blurbs :)

Requests open

Materlist

The kitchen smelled of your favorite breakfast, being cooked by your one and only Minho. He offered to make it because that’s just how he shows his love. Small gestures that build up, and you can’t help but to feel so lucky.

He looked at where you were sitting at the kitchen island and said, “How do you want your eggs?”

“Hmm, scrambled please!”

He just nodded his head and continued cooking. He started humming as he brought your food to you, placing the plate on the table and a kiss on the top of your head. You said thank you and he sat down and ate with you. He was the only person in your life that you could tell everything. He made you feel so safe and you truly cherish all the moments you have together, even the simple ones like these.

———

In the grocery store, Minho pushed the cart. Not because he wanted to, but he knows that if you pushed it you guys would be getting way more than what you needed. “Alright, next on the list is beef.” He said reading from the list you and him worked on together.

“Let’s go to the freezer isle then, and we can pick up some ice cream while we’re over there and we can have a movie night!” Minho smiled at your enthusiasm for movie nights and ice cream. It’s one of his favorite nights because you guys cuddle and make fun of movies together. One time you were watching Benji and Minho was trying his hardest not to cry, but there’s just something about animals in a sad setting that really pull at his heart stings. Of course you were crying too, who wouldn’t. But every time you bring it up to tease him, he always says, “You were crying more than I was!” When in reality he cried harder than you.

———

If you’re having a bad day at work, he’ll make sure to run you a bath before you get home. Filled with your favorite bath soap and your favorite candle lit on the counter. Despite what his friends see, he truly is a romantic at heart. Acts of service is definitely his love language. Before you get out of the bth, he’s already handing you a towel he previously tossed in the dryer to warm it up. He truly treats you like you’re a queen. You Al’s do the same for him, but in a different way. If you wake up before him, you make sure to make breakfast for the both of you and you iron his clothes if he has to dress formal. You know it’s not needed but he appreciates the crisp fold of a white button up.

———

Date nights are always looked forward to between you two. Whether you’re just going out to lunch, or you’re going to a full on five star restaurant. You tell him that he doesn’t need to do all this, but he’s planning something. As you both finish your dinner you share a dessert, which he lets you choose, he makes small talk. To be honest, he’s a bit nervous. He feels so safe around you, enough to let his guard down. When you first met him, you never would’ve expected being one of the few people that he lets in his bubble, but you are so happy that it ended up this way. The waiter eventually comes back to the table, and asks you guys to come with him. The waiter led you both to a back secluded garden area, which was absolutely beautiful. It was covered with flowers and even had a fountain. You stop by the fountain marveling at the work, and beside you, Minho gets down on one knee. As you turn, you couldn’t help but to start tearing up. “Oh my god, is this what I think it is?”

He nervously smiled, “Only if your answer is yes?” You couldn’t believe it, “These past three years have been the best three years I could have asked for. You truly are someone so special to me and i wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life if you weren’t by my side, will you marry me?”

By this time, you are full on waterworks, “Yes yes yes, of course I’ll marry you!” He put the ring on your finger and hugged you like it would be the last time he saw you. Through tears he says, “I love you, i love you so much.”

You laugh and say, “I love you too, and I always will.”

[emo-gremlin]

how emotional would Harley be if he saw the one he loved down in the factory and he reunited with them? What are you head canons for that?? (I just wanna see tears and angst tbh)

💻 He genuinely thinks it's some kind of programmed hallucination when he first sees you. He wouldn't put it past Leith, the two hated each other with a passion.

💻 The second he sees you, and realizes its...it's really, truly you...his anger rises. Not at you, but at Leith, at Stella, at Dr. White, at EVERYONE who put him in this accursed machine!

💻 The fact that Leith never gave you any closure boils him to no end. He NEVER wanted you to see him this way. He had hoped that the bastard would have at least told you he died on the job, or SOMETHING, ANYTHING but making you stay up at night without any answers.

💻 He knew he wasn't a good man, he wasn't the best partner either, he'd admit that. But you...you never deserved to be part of this, to even SEE any of this. You were too good, too pure for this.

💻 He tells you, no, COMMANDS you to leave. To forget about him, forget everything you've seen here. He'd make sure to get you safe passage to the surface, he'd deal with the Prototype.

💻 When you tell him you're not leaving without him, you can hear the pain and sorrow in his voice. He was not the best at talking about his emotions, he never was, but you could tell...He regretted everything, it was HIS fault that you came here, HIS fault that these monsters were hunting you down...

💻 While he still had pride in his work, his accomplishments, the progress he'd help make, it hurt him to see you, battered and bruised, all because of what he'd created.

💻 He tells Yarnaby to stay by your side. He may not be able to stick by you, but at least he can give you more of a fighting chance.

💻 Its the Prototype that takes him out, his final words...."I'm so...rry m-my...lov..."

Don't mind me imma cry in a corner

[poisonf0rest]

I saw the prof raf brainrot and now I have Thoughts about the others also being professors so uh I hope the shitty hc dump is ok

zayne is ostensibly a bio professor but I imagine he’d also be a good chem professor. like objectively the best one, takes everything seriously and pushes his students but doesn’t drop piles of work on them when midterm week rolls around, makes interesting labs, etc. everybody wants to work in his lab but like 4 people a term actually make it in

xavier is hard to think of but I feel like either astronomy (we all know why) or quantum physics (he can teleport) is his field. I hate to say he’s the worst prof but I just feel like he’s so much more into his research than teaching. notoriously hard courses but also very veeery interesting ones. I mean why pay tuition if you can’t get your brain melted by your phys prof

caleb is a mech eng prof, easy. curves grades and is very smiley, but leaves slightly sarcastic comments when grading your tests. and the tests themselves are probably pretty rigorous: not so difficult that everyone starts crying, but def very thorough. it’s fine tho cause you walk out of it with like a 94, a very very strong appreciation for the wonderful world of physics, and probably a godawful crush for the rest of the year

sylus is hard for me. I want to say literature. like his courses would hyperfixate on, idk, 18th century gothic lit. you’d go in with three pages worth of analysis on some obscure poem and then he’d systematically rip everybody apart, then you’d walk out a fundamentally changed person. But! For the purposes of humour, sylus is a CS prof (canonical programmer), which instantly drops any hotness factor he had by like 234322.

sorry sylus rip. sadly programming is the act of swearing at your screen at 2am while scouring the same 12 lines of code over and over for any kind of bug (you will find the actual source of the bug 100 lines down). not even he can make that cool

MHMMM ANON YOU'RE COOKING!!

Zayne is definitely an orgo professor-- everyone wants to hate him since they're failing his class and lab, but honestly he's just strict with the material and has little tolerance for error because error in the real world costs human lives. But should you come to his office hours with the intention to learn then you'll find he's actually a very patient, receptive, and likeable professor with an amusingly dry humor. Everybody definitely wants to work in his lab.

Absolutely agree with Xavier lol, his students hate him since he does NOT want to be there.

Caleb would be the type to answer stupid questions with a little more bite and subtle snark that makes any students who are actually paying attention snicker and hope not to get on his bad side. Would be the campus professor crush, no doubt.

HOW DARE YOU TALK DOWN ON CS PROFESSOR SYLUS- HEY, CS PEOPLE CAN BE HOT :( He absolutely would teach either machine learning or maybe game theory if not then a high level C++ class be so fr. He absolutely can make coding cool, if anything than for the fact that he has a stacked resume and single-handedly proving that you CAN be a CS major and still end up running your own company, marrying the love of your life right after college, and raising a happy family while still being a nerd. and taking more than regular showers

[makiruz]

Edit: Part 2 now available

Okay, I have read two fics fitting Liir into the Musical Verse, I don't really like either, but both have really interesting elements that really fascinate me (I just can't get into the sum of their parts)

So I am kinda making up with my own version, with the things I like, like Fiyero being a scarecrow and not out of his son's life, you know like that.

Keep in mind I haven't read any of the Wicked books and I most I know comes from the Wicked Wiki

Okay, so Liir, Elphaba and Fiyero's son grows up in Oz, raised by Glinda (I think this is from the book???); and I really like the idea from this fic that Glinda is passing him as her son with Fiyero, I mean is the books Liir is a known orphan, and Glinda is a known lesbian, but in the musical Glinda was Fiyero's fiance. Also I like the idea of Glinda finding out Elphaba is pregnant while they both think Fiyero is dead (loosely here)

Alright so it's like this, Elphaba gets pregnant from As Long As Your Mine, and we're past Fiyero getting crucified and something happens and Elphaba tells Glinda she's pregnant; Glinda is kind of excited, but we're all in agreement this is a terrible situation, Elphaba is Public Enemy Number One and Fiyero is dead, and also Elphaba's mother died in childbirth and what if the baby is green? The reality is that Elphaba doesn't want to terminate the pregnancy, she'd rather die instead but Glinda knows she doesn't mean either, and notes that Fiyero died so she could live, do you really want to throw away his sacrifice? So that's when they decide to fake Elphaba's dead; the Wizard already sent the girl Dorothy and her posse after Elphie so they're gonna use that, then Elphaba will go into hiding until the baby is born and then she'll leave Oz forever, and Glinda will keep the baby, and if the baby is green, Glinda will think of something; it's for the best, whatever life Elphaba is gonna have is not a good for a baby

So meanwhile Fiyero is not actually dead, he's a scarecrow and for whatever reason he wasn't able to get a message to Elphaba that he's alive, so he's not in it when the gang confronts the Witch; and so when she "melts" the Scarecrow is fucking distressed and no one understands why. Like the dead of the Wicked Witch is horrific, even Boq who was all gung-ho on killing her looks sick and horrified (yeah, turns out killing your college friend does not make you feel better about being made of tin); but the Scarecrow is a mess, when she finishes melting he practically jumps to the puddle and looks around, as if looking for something he can't find, "it's only water!" he says sounding distraught, eventually he takes the Witch's hat and holds him to his chest and it's clear that if he could cry he'd be wailing (side note, if Boq suspected who Scarecrow was, this confirmed it)

Anyway, after they have returned to Emerald City and Glinda has sent Dorothy back home following Elphaba's advice, the Scarecrow talks to her, he is still holding the Witch's hat for dear life and looks like the world is ending; "how is it possible? It was just water" he asks Glinda in despair, "pure water could destroy her wickedness, as marked for her green skin" someone says (not Boq, he has just realized he loved Elphaba as a friend and he's mourning), but Scarecrow insists, "but she was always green, but she wasn't always wicked!". Glinda had anticipated this kind of questioning (but not anticipate who would ask) and has an answer "the Vinkun soldiers heard the Witch chanting on her tower, she must have cast some sort of spell on herself" "ah! to make herself more powerful!" "sure, let's go with that" but Glinda notices the Scarecrow gets her real meaning Elphaba cursed herself to die, which only makes him more depressed, what is up with that?

Okay, so eventually the baby is born, and not only is he a normal human color, he looks just like Fiyero so Glinda can easily claim he's her son with her late fiance Fiyero Tigelaar killed protecting Glinda from the Wicked Witch of the West, she hid the pregnancy due to the unfortunate events of the past few months and everyone understand. Now the actual Fiyero, has spent the past few months in the Emerald City moping and helping with The Reconciliation and he knows something's up with Glinda's baby because he knows for a fact that Glinda wasn't pregnant and even if she was, it wouldn't be his because they hadn't slept together for months before his scarecrowification; but he gets it when he sees the baby, little Liir does indeed look just like him but he has Elphaba's eyes. Fiyero gently strokes his newborn son's face with a gloved hand, he is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen; and it means Elphaba is still alive, probably close by because Liir is only a couple of days old, she can't have gone far so soon after delivery, and he has an idea where Glinda might have stashed her: the Lake House, no one goes there since her father got injured and stopped fishing.

Once Fiyero goes to the Lake House he finds evidence Elphaba was indeed there, but she's gone now; dammit, she could be anywhere in Oz right now, she could be anywhere outside of Oz right now, finding her could take months, even years! But then he thinks of a little boy in the Emerald City who is gonna grow up without a father, and his son is his first priority, he'll find Elphaba later (and she won't just abandon her son either). So in the following years the Scarecrow who help killed the Wicked Witch of the West, becomes a constant presence in the life of Liir Tigelaar; Glinda doesn't know why the Scarecrow cares so much about Liir, but being a single parents is hard and she needs all the help she can get so she won't question it; meanwhile Liir comes to see the Scarecrow as a father figure, as ridiculous as it is (don't worry, he'll realize the irony eventually)

At this point, I realize this has gotten too long already so I'll continue with part 2 later

[lvcky-g1rl-syndr0me]

hai bby! hru?

so idk if this is going to make sense but i've had this thought on my mind for a while and i wanted to request something if it's not too much to ask for.

so like, rich sunghoon who's very protective of y/n and is cold to everyone but y/n and their rich kid friend group. and rich y/n who even tho is rich, is still very kind and caring. they're both in school (college or high school) and they're like the "rich and popular" kids. so basically, y/n's super innocent and sweet and hoon is trynna figure out how to confess? can be angsty with fluff? and you can decide whether it's written or a smau.

i'm so sorry if this makes no sense 😓 and if you can't do it, that's totally fine too. hope you're well love!

-⭐

youre not for sale (request) ☘︎ park sunghoon

warnings: fluff, comfort, angst, mutual yearning, reader being a bit blind, i think thats all!! if there's anything else let me know!!

park sunghoon was in love with y/n l/n. that was a fact no one could deny. It was obvious to everyone. Well, everyone except one person. y/n. He was constantly buying them things, from flowers to expensive jewelry. but to y/n, he was just “being a really good friend”. to sunghoon, they were the kindest, sweetest, ad most attractive person he had ever met in his whole life. that brings us to now. sunghoon has been with jake all day, coming up with a speech to tell y/n he likes, scratch that, is in love with them. “what the actual fuck do i say to them man? ‘hey y/n i know were super close and all, oh by the way, i'm in love with you’? hell no. shes just- sweet, and, i dont wanna say fragile. but shes innocent. i dont wanna hurt her or confuse her.” so far, its going…not so great. “i really don't know what to tell you bro. you just need to grow a pair and tell her.” sunghoon gives him a glare, “easy for you to say, you got your girlfriend by just being pathetic and following her around like a puppy”. “OH FUCK YOU MAN” safe to say, jake didnt take too well to his jab. sunghoon felt like drowning in self-pity. his friends were no help, and with each passing day he fell for y/n more and more with no idea how he should confess to them. especially when everyone around them knew all of their business. y/n on the other hand, could not have been more oblivious. “i’m telling you noo, he does not like me like that”, they say. oh how wrong they were. sunoo looks at them as if they were insane, “are you serious right now y/n? that guy looks at you as if you created all things good in the world! i’m serious!”. in that moment, he thought they could never be more dense. 

a week went by of sunghoon helplessly wondering, crying for help to his friends, and buying flowers for y/n that reminded him of them. he sees y/n walking to their class and runs up to them. “y/n! Hey! um- do you wanna hang out later? Maybe like grab some lunch or get boba or something” he asks, desperately hoping that they say yes. “oh my god yes! i’ve been craving boba like crazy!” for a moment, sunghoon truly believed there was something in the universe on his side. he spent the next 3 hours trying to think up someway to confess. flowers? the ring they've been talking about wanting? unlimited trips to their favorite restaurant? he needed to come up with something, and fast.

the pair somehow end up back at y/n’s dorm, playing video games. sunghoon had just beat y/n at mario kart *again*, and y/n decided they needed a break. “god, how do you win every time?’ they grumble while walking to the kitchen. sunghoon replied before even giving a second

thought, “i’m just that good baby”. y/n had never turned around so fast in their life, “what?”. He froze, nothing coming out of his mouth, eventually, it all just started coming out before he could save himself. “i love you. you’re so amazing, and kind, and pretty. i don't even think i deserve you but i really hope you’ll give me a chance! i’ve been trying to figure out how to confess to you for so long and this really isn’t how i planned it but this is how its happening. you just make me so nervous but in a really good way and i just really hope you feel the same or you hear me out and at least let me take you out on one date.” he stops speaking abruptly as it all just happened so fast. silence filled the once loud room that was overflowing with their laughter. “sunghoon…” they trail off, “you really feel that way?” he doesn't respond and simply stares down at his feet in embarrassment and defeat. “i’m gonna go, i'll see you around.” he abruptly stands up and leaves with y/n protesting behind him and telling him to stay. he beat himself up the whole night, this isn't how he wanted it to go, not at all. he couldn't believe he let himself word vomit like that! he just blew it with the person of his dreams, he could never tell his friends about this. they’d definitely use it against him for life, and he can’t bear the thought of reliving his worst heartbreak.

y/n wasn’t completely sure what to do, or how to handle this. sunghoon liked them? there's no way. he’s handsome and kind, he's perfect. and he seriously likes them? as she runs through every possible scenario of how this situation ends in her head, she impulsively decides to go to his dorm. she hesitated before knocking on his door. sunghoon opened the door, to see, to his shock, y/n. “i really really like you too and i’ve never known how to tell you and when you just said everything to me i froze because i didn't know what to say! you're the most amazing guy sunghoon and i want this to work out. so please just tell me if you want to make this work too.” he stood in the doorway, his mouth parted in shock. he spoke quietly after a moment, “you really mean it?” y/n looks at him incredulously “are you kidding? of course i mean it!” sunghoon swore he felt his heart stop for a solid 5 seconds. “i thought i lost you for good, oh my god!” he sighs in relief. “you could never lose me don't be stupid.” he gives them a glare before wrapping his arms around them, not caring who in the hall saw. “does this mean i can take you on a date now?” he asked softly. “i mean obviously”

masterlist

luckys note!: guys lets pretend it didnt take me 6 months to write this... um anyways ENJOY!!!

© lvcky-g1rl-syndr0me, 2025. do not copy, translate or upload any of my works without my permission.

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dm me or send an ask to be added to either!

[multiheadcanons]

THE MERCS WATCHING ME DO MY JOB BECAUSE IM SICK OF WATCHING THEM DO THEIRS

scout: what if i throat chopped him instead. he will want to talk and i can’t work and talk at the same time… at all. he’d be asking veterinary questions and i’d have to be like bro… i’m not that guy. you may think i’m that guy but i’m not that guy. i’m not that guy at all bro. his puny brain cannot comprehend how i take a dirty nasty dog and turn it into a beautiful, clean, fresh smelling dog. like the process baffles him after the scrubbing part of the bath. but he enjoys watching it.

soldier: he will try to help and i will have to politely tell him to sit his ass down and watch. might have him lift the big dogs on my table. also marginally baffled at how i manage to do my job. finds it funny when i have to climb into the tub. he asks questions i should feasibly know, but i just can’t talk and work at the same time. if he has questions he should wait until after i’m off. he’d be fun to bitch to off the clock.

pyro: they will watch politely, and occasionally ask to pet a dog, and then i’d have to tell them i’m not insured for anyone else except me touching the dog. i might let them pet the ones i know are very nice and friendly. but not for long, since i do still have to do my job. but they’d be a very nice spectator, and i’d let them pick bandanas and bows if they so wished to. every animal that steps off my table looks nice to them, and sometimes i will have to cringe and accept the uneducated compliment.

demo: asleep in the kennel. joking! kinda. but in all seriousness he’s genuinely interested in my work! he recognizes the necessity of it, and applauds my efforts to do my best. finds it somewhat humorous this is my occupation; though the more he thinks about it, he finds that he couldn’t imagine me doing anything else, really. happy i made something of myself.

heavy: a quiet watcher. will not give an opinion unless i ask for it, which is incredibly welcomed. very much a rubber duck type. he won’t talk while i’m working, and if anything will tell me to quit talking and work, that i do better work when i’m quiet, and he is very right about that, so i will oblige. but as we both look at the dog, he might point out something i don’t see, especially if it’s a larger dog and he knows i’m losing steam from staring at the dog for so long. best for last minute catches and fixes.

engineer: appalled and frightened by the state of my clippers. work will stop so he can fix them. and the entire time i am getting an earful about the importance of maintaining my tools. while i get it, if the guy only comes on fridays, and i gotta call… i just ain’t got the brain for it sometimes engie, im sorry. he does still realize the quality of my work, he just knows it’ll be easier with a new blade drive. and he’s certainly not wrong.

medic: the doc doesn’t want to see me do a good job on a nice dog where it’s sunshine and rainbows and happiness and love and joy and i can make the dog look great. call him when i’m suffering. he’ll be there when i’m sitting with the dog on my table and my head in my hands. he wants to see the work come to a complete stop. he wants to see the ones that wreck my time management for the day. he wants to see the crisis cases. he wants watch me cry so he can laugh about it. tell me this is the job. shape up and finish it.

sniper: every dog looks great. once i pull out the thinners he’s impressed. but it is only occasionally when he is interested in details. will normally watch in silence. polite enough to wait for me to be off work to ask his questions. and if i can answer them, i will! he finds it to be an odd, niche job. but he doesn’t think it in a negative way, he himself has an odd, niche job. just interesting to see how odd and niche it can get on both ends.

spy: finally, a man with some strong opinions. spy will be critical and i will welcome it, no question. he’s so picky that when i parse through his comments on my technique i find that he’s actually saying things i can use. or at least things i should consider. he’s a good stand in for a client, staring over my shoulder, parsing through my notes, especially if i got to interact with the client beforehand. i get good results with him.

[ragnarockz]

Agnes meeting up Alice over ohhhh almost 20 years?!😭🙃💔

Continuation from this post

Agnes takes the number Vidal gives her. It takes her almost a week and a half to even punch the number into her phone. She expects it to either be busy or deactivated but it rings

Alice picks up on the 3rd ring and Agnes' heart catches in her throat when she hears Alice's voice. She sounds the same, maybe a little older now but, still the same voice she carried around in her memory all these years

Agnes takes a breath to answer; nervous as ever and there's silence on the other end until Alice just whispers, "Hey, sweetheart"

And Agnes is sucked right back into those 5 years with Alice and everything they shared, everything they dreamed

She has to stop herself from crying; pulling up her strength in her voice as she asks the usual questions

And Alice can hardly believe she's talking to Agnes and god, does she sound the same. A little rougher, bolder. She can tell she fell into herself since they saw or talked to one another last and Alice is genuinely so happy

They set a date and time to meet up at Agnes' favorite coffee place

It's like stepping back in time for them; staring at each other and still seeing that young woman just as they remembered last. Now there in this coffee shop, 20 years later and 20 years older and has time ever really passed?

They both 'know' of each other through work; that wasn't a surprise - it was just never in the cards for them to cross paths again

Alice telling Agnes she was surprised to see her working for Westview and not Eastview. Agnes explaining she couldn't leave her roots that easily and, she wanted to bring some good to Westview's name

Alice asks first because she can tell Agnes is trying to avoid bringing up or touching on the topic,

"So...you seeing anyone?"

And Agnes gives Alice this look that Alice has soon to forget; mischievous and doing her best at trying not to gush. Alice laughs, grabbing Agnes' arm to shake her playfully. A phantom touch; something Agnes both remembered and forgot

"Yeah...uh..you know the Agent who-"

"Oh my god...Vidal?!"

Agnes is just :V like, how do you know her?!

"Everyone knows her, she's one of the best of the best...damn, Agnes" JUST SIZING HER UP LIKE SHIT, I TAUGHT YOU WELL 🥺

Agnes just brushes it off, blushing like she got a instant sunburn

"And you? I'm sure you have someone; I mean shit, Gulliver..."

"Ok, so you still can't flirt...knew it."

Alice showing pics of her and Jennifer on her phone. Little milestones, birthdays, parties, trips. Agnes approves; genuinely happy for Alice

"Look at us, huh? How did we get so lucky?"

And Agnes is smiling at Alice, shaking her head but there's still that gnawing sensation inside of her. Gnawing at something she lost, something she can't get back. The feeling that something in burning her thigh through the pocket of her jeans; the unspoken words. The years that passed without words at all

They both turn a little serious as they sip their coffees in silence; the unspoken weight of personal history on their shoulders

"I kept every card...whatever you had left behind in that apartment. Notes, pictures...especially the pictures...god, Alice, I couldn't get rid of those? It felt...wrong..."

And Alice just nods because, she too, kept what she took. Her notes, her pictures. Cards that Agnes gave her while they were together

"Fuck...I still have that orange flannel shirt I bought with you..."

"How much have you told Vidal?"

And she's serious. Not in the angry sense but in the sad, grieved sense. And Agnes can't look at her face; can't face Alice's eyes

"...Did she reach out to you for your number because, I didn't ask her to go looking for it..."

"She really loves you, you know? Agent Vidal? You gotta let her in Agnes...you can let her in like you did with me..."

And she knows Alice is right. Her words are true. She knows how much Vidal loves her, how much she trusts her. She couldn't picture her life now without the Agent by her side. She nods, looking up at Alice's face

"Don't lose her Agnes, not this one."

They make plans to meet up again, talk again. They have each others numbers saved now; shooting a test text to make sure

Alice has Agnes saved as Sweetheart 💙

Agnes has Alice saved as Sunshine 🔆

Agnes pulls off just a little ways on her way back home after the meet up. She's got her favorite song blasting through the stereo as she pulls up to Norm's Pawn Shop

Norm is working which, works in Agnes favor because she knows he'll know exactly what she's looking for

A vintage, simple yet elegant emerald ring

[wannabanauthor]

Now I don’t know if I’m trying to manipulate myself, but the more time has passed since the BuckTommy breakup, the more I’m excited for potential messiness if Tommy comes back.

Note: this only applies to the potential of Tim and the writers getting them back together. If Tommy never comes back, fuck everyone and their momma.

Buck is one of the main characters and Tommy isn’t, so the relationship looking one-sided could be practical or intentional. We don’t know at this point.

But I feel like Tommy maybe fell in love with Buck and didn’t realize it until it was too late, and the best thing he could do for himself was to walk away.

Because as much as Tommy tries to be honest and realistic with Buck, he’s the one who charmed the pants off Buck. Tommy made the first official move, and then the second, and gave things another try with Buck, and was consistently acting like a perfect boyfriend.

My thought process is “why not husband if husband-shaped?” Tommy was putting forth this persona of a good partner, and then pulled away once Buck felt comfortable moving things forward.

And that’s what gets me angry. Tommy intentionally sought Buck out after the basketball game, kissed him, asked him out, then gave Buck a second try, dated him for 6+ months, then ended things.

My point is Tommy was going beyond what he needed to be a good boyfriend, and yet he was surprised that Buck held him to that and wanted to be more serious.

It’s probably just the writing, but it irritates me that they went from talking about deep personal stuff in Season 7 to not even knowing each other’s sexuality, exes, or that Buck dislikes basketball in Season 8.

And as always I completely forget what the point of this post is. Oh, yeah, potential messiness.

Because what if post-breakup, Buck and Tommy start hooking up with no strings attached. Buck thinks it’s a good idea because he can at least be with Tommy in some way, and what if Tommy feels the exact same way. They could both be pining for each other while also piping each other.

Hell, we could even throw in an old cliche trope of “no kissing” because kissing could be a sign of intimacy, and they’re not ready for that.

And maybe it makes for some comedic scenes in the show. Maybe Buck and Tommy are trying to avoid anyone else finding out, but the FireFam are suspicious that Buck has stopped talking about Tommy altogether after pining for weeks.

Even better, what if Buck and Tommy run into each other at Eddie’s farewell house party? And everyone assumes it’s going to be awkward because they don’t know that Buck and Tommy are still fucking.

And once Buck and Tommy barely interact with each other at the gathering, the FireFam now have some circumstantial evidence about the two of them. Their suspicions grow when they see Buck and Tommy actively avoiding each other, and it’s not the usual type of avoiding the ex scenario.

So maybe a day or two later in a non-Buck group chat, Eddie is happy that Buck and Tommy can be together in the same room with no drama. Only for Hen and Chimney to rain on his parade with the texts saying something like “they’ve been secretly seeing each other since the breakup”, but they don’t know the details.

So one day, Eddie tries to bring it up by inviting Tommy and Buck to a Zoom call. Eddie says “hey, the rest of the gang thinks you’re dating again, so you might want to set that straight for them before it spirals into a thing”

And Buck and Tommy are dead silent, and Eddie realizes. “No way, you couldn’t have told me?!”

“Well, we’re not dating,” Tommy says.

Buck is a little hurt but it’s the truth.

So Eddie says “if you’re hooking up, you might as well date again. Same perks plus cuddles and spending time with each other.”

Tommy abruptly leaves the Zoom, and Buck looks like he might cry. Eddie tries to cheer him up, but Buck starts crying.

Then Buck hears someone knocking on his door. It’s Tommy. Eddie’s still on Zoom, so he gets to watch and record them deciding to get back together. Win-win for everyone.

[xoxochb]

dated february 28

——— ౨ৎ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

this has been the most uneventful and boring and stupid week of my life.

I’ve been sick since saturday with the flu and while it is for the most part gone it’s still there faintly.

but at least I get to be babied by percy. or really that’s until I start complaining and complaining and then he ignores me. I pull his hair and that gets him talking. kinda like a children’s toy !

I think he’s been doing something differently because he’s looked extra nice this week. maybe he’s pregnant and that’s why he’s glowing. he told me once that female seahorses get the males pregnant because they have a pouch which can carry the eggs.

I asked him once if he’d like to be seahorses with me so I could get him pregnant. he said “no thank you” but offered to impregnate me instead. unsurprisingly, I said “no thank you” and to wait until we’re older. that made him happy so I was happy too.

but I seriously think he’s doing something though. or maybe it’s just because summer is on the horizon. I can’t wait until it’s hot outside and I get to see him shirtless every day. though I do during winter too anyways…

on that thought, I do everyday. but you get the point, it’s still nice.

he convinced mr. d to let him take a week long trip to see his family. which I’m happy for him because I know he misses them. but I’m going to miss him too! maybe even more! :(

but luckily I’ve prepared myself for this moment! I took a couple of his clothes back to my cabin so he can’t find them so when he leaves, his clothes will still smell like him so I can wear them. and cry in my bed maybe possibly probably.

percy asked me not to cry while he leaves but it’s hard not to because we’re together 99% of our lives and when he’s gone it’s kinda boring.

and it’s sad because I’ll miss him.

but I won’t think about this until the time comes.

today I made a playlist for us. it’s songs I like that remind me of percy and some of him and me both. I almost let him help me find the perfect songs but I knew he’d end up making it just a bunch of led zeppelin songs so I decided against that idea.

but I did make him sit through the entire playlist and rate each song. he said it was a 10/10 playlist because I made it. I guess that’s progress!

percy told me he was going to make a playlist himself for me so I’m kinda excited to see what he’s putting on it. and kind of nervous you never know with him.

he’s kind of suffocating me right now. he passed out after we shared a bowl of ice cream but I presume that any minute he’ll be up and bouncing off the walls. by then I would become sleepy. that’s a later problem though…

for right now I’ll just enjoy watching his peaceful state. I like watching him sleep it’s nice. he’s very pretty and I like his hair. and his eyes, sea green is my favorite color. but his eyes are closed right now. I’ll take a look later.

I think I should go to sleep before he wakes up so well actually get around to sleeping tonight because most nights we don’t sleep and stay up until, like, three in the morning and that’s usually when he crashes.

then we miss breakfast and he cooks me something for brunch. today he made me heart shaped pancakes and they even had chocolate chips!!!!!! I gave him a large kiss in return. he asked for more since he had even taken it upon himself to add powdered sugar. I told him tonight.

and that idiot remembered. so as he asked, I granted.

but I just keep talking….. I should rest my eyes and my wrist before it falls off.

xoxo, sweet girl <3