#Please chew on bubblegum for once dammit

[zappedbyzabka]

Hm

[slasherholic]

warnings for this chapter: gore and death, mentions of abuse

Read chapter one here!

End of the Line | Michael Myers x Reader | Chapter Two

You make it thirty steps before the blackness bites you.

Your foot catches on some stiff piece of metal and your brain can’t catch up with the rest of your body to realize why you’re suddenly laying face-down in the dust on your stomach, why your legs aren’t still pumping, your arms not still pistoning—and then, all at once, it hits you.

You’ve tripped.

If you weren’t such a small and frightened animal you would start to cry again. But that’s not what frightened animals do, screams your lizard-brain, frightened animals run. So get up. Get up and keep running.

You do. You barrel back into the unknown. If Michael’s footsteps are still behind you you can’t hear them over the blood rushing to your ears, sweeping through your skull, dizzying your vision in a sickening way. A sticky hot wetness drips down your back from where he cut you but you don’t care about that right now. Run. Run.

You run for a long time. Until reason tells you that you’ve left Michael far behind—but reason currently has no place in your oxygen-starved thoughts. The sound of his breathing still rings in your ears and your mind is plagued with a terrible prophecy that your next stumble will be headlong into his chest. That he will lunge out from the blackness and seize you and it will all be over.

Hugging the wall, you dash around another corner—

—and there, at the end of the corridor, you can’t believe it. You think your mind is playing some cruel trick, so you keep looking down the hall, keep stumbling towards it, but no, there is no trick, it’s really there—

—a light.

Making the hallway before you not black but rather a shade of grey, like an old-fashioned photograph. And somewhere around the next corner must be its source.

You are a moth drawn to a flame. Nothing matters but that light.

Tearing through the dusty hallway, you see now what’s been tripping you—toppled desks, scattered all up and down the corridor, their metal legs jutting dangerously out.

Oh, comes your realization. It’s a school.

The corridor is a cluttered wreck of disrepair. Every classroom door you blitz past is boarded up with nails and planks. The paper on the walls peels like a bad sunburn. Wires hang down from broken panels in the ceiling.

And now, you understand what that suffocating must-smell hanging like a stiff blanket overhead is—the reek of abandonment. Michael has brought you to an abandoned building. There does not exist a more perfect hunting ground. Scream as loudly as you want because nobody will hear you, run in any direction you please because you are a rat in a maze, a fish in a barrel—escape was never a possibility in the first place. 

But you don’t think about that right now, only about the light. Reach the light. Reach it before it fades. You tear around the corner—

—the light is blinding.

Wincing, your forearm shoots up to shield your eyes from the horrible strain.

“Stay the fuck back.” Barks a voice. “I’ve got a knife.”

And you nearly topple over in shock. Raising one hand to cover the beam, you blink past it, heart racing in your chest.

Three wide-eyed faces gawk back at you from behind three flashlights, all of them trained on you like rifles. The guy in the middle—the only guy—wasn’t lying about the knife. He holds it out across his flashlight in the sort of way that a police officer might hold a gun, but he doesn’t have the look to complete the image. With his dirty-blonde hair collecting around his shoulders and studded black leather jacket, the knife-guy looks more likely to get arrested himself than to be the one doing any arresting.

He leers at you like you’re a convicted felon anyway.

“You see this?” He continues, swishing the knife a bit. “I don’t wanna use it—don’t make me use it. You just take it easy and stay right the fuck there.”

You hardly hear knife-guy’s words. What your brain clings to instead is the fact that there are People. You are not alone in the darkness. There are people in this building. 

The realization makes your pounding heart soar and for a second your head is in the clouds and all you can think is maybe I won’t die tonight after all.

To knife-guy’s left is a short and trim Mexican woman with thoughtful eyes like black pools, the biggest you’ve ever seen. She clutches tightly at his bicep with one bony hand and stares across the hall at you like you’ve sprouted a second head. The tall girl on the right must be some sort of athlete, with strong legs and golden-tan skin and a high brunette ponytail. She gawks like she’s just seen a ghost—or like she might be giving up her own ghost at any second.

Nobody moves for a moment, and in the end you just stand there, looking each other up and down.

And then some cold and bitter voice in your head reminds you, these people are lined up for a slaughterhouse. 

The hopeful thoughts in your head crash like a fiery trainwreck. Your eyes go round and horrified.

Graphic images assault your brain, of cuts so deep that you can see yellow fat and sinewy muscle and bleach-white bone, of dumbly gaping mouths, of dead, unfocused, cloudy eyes, sightless—the look of a corpse. You see in your mind’s eye that look on the faces staring back at you and your racing heart does a flip-flop into your stomach; you clench your jaw shut tight and think about not throwing up. Please don’t throw up. Please don’t throw up.

“Listen lady,” Knife-guy says, breaking the silence, sweeping his hair out of his face with his elbow. “We don’t want any trouble, alright?”

Too late for that, you think.

“If you’re trying to screw with us it just ain’t gonna work, yeah? So I’ll cut you a deal; you turn around, we turn around, we go our separate ways, and then we pretend we never even saw each other. That sound fair?”

Panic flares in your belly and all the moisture is sucked from your mouth.

“No!” The plea leaves you before you can even think. The tall girl on the right utters a little gasp at your outburst, jumping like she’s been burnt.

“No, no you don’t understand.” Your words are desperate; you hold your hands up in front of you like you actually are a convicted felon, just because it seems like the right thing to do; knife-guy seems to think it even more now.

“I’m not gonna hurt anyone. I promise, alright? But please, please, you have to listen to me—”

“Jesus!” Knife guy clutches his knife tighter. “I’m trying really hard not to be an asshole right now, okay? I don’t wanna be that macho douchebag that yells at girls, but honestly lady, you sound like some sort of nut! And believe me, we don’t want any of—”

“Oh Travis, honestly, quit it!” The short girl, silent as the grave until now, hisses sharply, elbowing Knife-guy in the ribs. Knife-guy shoots her a little look of what the hell dude, which she ignores.

“There’s something wrong, dammit—I mean, look at her!”

You assume she’s talking about the look of horror sprawled across your face, or about the cold sweat clinging to your reddened cheeks, or the fact that you must look like something that just came crawling out of the woods.

But then, you feel it again. You feel it trickling down your lower back, down your side, making your shirt cling to your skin, wetting the hem of your pants. And oh, that’s right. You’re a bloody mess.

Now, the pain registers. Your salty sweat stings the wound in an agonizing way. Paling, you reach gingerly beneath your armpit, toward your back, dreading the inspection, but doing it anyway. You need to know.

Your palm meets the cotton. You whimper, because your shirt is soaked-through.

Pulling your hand back, trying not to tremble too hard, you glance down at your fingers. They’re coated all the way to your palm in dark, shining red.

Michael cut you deep.

“Holy shit.” Travis breathes, his jaw tightening. You blink up at him again, fighting tears now.

“I’m—I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?” You stammer. “But please, you need to listen to what I’m telling you.”

You pause to lick your lips and swallow and the silence in your stead is horrible, as if every breath is being held.

“This isn’t a prank, it isn’t a joke—you guys need to get out of here right now, and I mean now.”

The silence stretches on; the short girl, the tall girl, the knife-guy—Travis, the short-girl called him—they all gawk at you as if you’ve spoken in tongues.

Then, chaos.

“Fuck that.” Sobs the tall-girl, her voice breaking. “Fuck that, I’m so not staying here. I can’t believe I let you guys talk me into this, we could have gone to see a movie! Let’s find Ashley and Josh and go.”

“Wendy, come on! She’s just trying to freak us out!”

“Well it’s fucking working, dude!”

“Both of you cut it out!” The short girl hisses, her volume a near-whisper. “Keep it down! Travis, for god’s sake, she’s telling the truth—you seriously think she did that to herself?” She eyes you anxiously, her gaze lingering on the blood eating through your shirt.

“...how did it happen?”

Her words twist something in your gut and you grimace. No, you can’t answer that—you can’t even think about that. You’re going to be sick.

But the short girl stares at you like you’re about to divulge the cure to cancer, and she isn’t going to leave it alone. So with a shuddering breath, in a voice so frail you can hardly hear yourself, you choke out the barest-bones answer you can muster.

“There’s someone else in the building.”

Your dread is a virus and the virus is contagious. The tall girl—Wendy—wilts visibly, terror overtaking her features. You think she might faint. Travis goes deathly silent, his expression hardening. The short girl chews her lip like a wad of bubblegum.

Good, you think. Great. They believe you. Now let’s get moving, please and thank you, because you simply can’t stay here any longer. Michael will not have given up the chase so easily. Any moment, the ghost-white of that awful mask is going to breach the dark. You know it. You can’t stay here. You need to get moving again.

But the short girl still isn’t satisfied.

“Who?” She asks, tears shimmering in her big brown eyes. Her words hang on her lips. “Who’s in the building?”

Your heart beats as fast and hard as if Michael’s hands are around your neck this very moment. 

Will they believe you? If you look these people in the eye and tell them the honest-to-god truth about who is lurking and stalking and hunting his way through these unlit corridors, will it tip the scales swinging in their heads hopelessly back into disbelief? Will they tell you to get lost, and to take your sick, twisted, poor-taste-of-a-joke with you, and what kind of a person pokes fun at something like that, anyway?

“It’s—he’s—”

You never get to finish. A sudden scream rips like shrapnel through the air.

The faces behind those blinding flashlights go paler than sheets. The blood in your veins runs cold. 

It is a bloody, piercing sound. It seems to rattle the walls around you. It goes on and on and on. When it cuts off it is abrupt and final and all the sound in the building is sucked away with it.

A cold, sneering voice in your head whispers, Well they’ll have to believe you now, won’t they?

Michael’s found someone.

~

He knows the hallways well. Even in the dark.

He stands at the intersection with the broken water fountain on the ground and does not move except to fill his lungs with air, listening. The girl had been loud; her footsteps carried far. He followed the echo and hunted her easily.

Now the echo has gone silent.

Looking down, staring at the floor beneath his boots, he sees them; shoe prints. Sitting freshly in the dust. Hers.

He does not need the girl’s sounds. Only her prints.

Studying them, he knows that she did not turn off here. Knows she kept on going down the hall. Toward the locker rooms.

He lifts his head and looks into the dimness after her, breathing the stale air deep into his lungs.

The hunt will be over quickly; the girl is running in a circuit.

Taking the left, stepping over the broken water fountain, he walks silently down the hall. The heat at his hips throbs, impatient. His thumb rubs back and forth across the handle of his knife. 

The girl will not see him coming. Not until it is too late.

He will grab her by her hot neck. Will let her twist in his hands. Will make her—

...

—he stops. Listening.

Hears footsteps.

Turning in a slow circle, looking over each shoulder, he searches the hall. Sees a set of double-doors. Listens more. Grips the knife harder, watching and waiting, breathing the stale air...

The doors swing open.

...and it is not the girl.

There are two of them. Two with flashlights. They keep on walking down the hall and do not look in his direction. Do not notice him standing across the way.

He watches them go. The heart in his ribs pulses steadily and rhythmically. The urge comes—follow the prey.

He follows.

He will have the girl later.

He will have her for a different urge.

~

You have never seen so much blood. Not even on Michael.

It shimmers starkly against the faded-blue lockers, streaking down in heavy wet lines toward the floor, pooling between the divots in the tile like tiny rivers, which trickle outward, extending their reach down the hall.

To your right, Wendy slaps her slender-fingered hand over her mouth. She sucks in big gasps of air and her shoulders shudder violently.

The short girl—Diane, you heard Travis calling her—stands next to Travis, her arms wound so tightly around his waist that if she squeezes any harder you suspect she might bisect him.

Travis just stands there. Shining his light at the gore. Entranced.

Your mind is blank as you yourself drink in the mess—blank and numb, thoughtless.

But when the smell of it hits you the tide of nausea comes racing back towards the shore.

You are no stranger to the tang of blood but this differs from the stench that clings to Michael when he comes home from a hunt. That smell is mixed among the salt of his sweat—muted by the scent of him—and the result is more primal and heart-pounding and less knock-you-on-your-ass dizzying.

But this smell is raw and undiluted. Straight from the source. It drains all the color from your face. It threatens to bring you right down to the floor.

You place a hand on a clammy locker door to keep from staggering.

“Look.” Diane whispers.

She untangles one arm from around Travis’s waist, raising her flashlight, shining it at the floor behind the puddle. You see what she’s pointing at. Bootprints.

The pattern on the sole is unmistakable. They are Michael’s.

They lead ten paces down the hall where they stop in front of a closed door. Squinting, you can just barely read the painted black letters on the door, letters which may have once read “Boy’s Changing Room.”

“Those aren’t Josh’s.” Travis breathes, squeezing the leather grip of his hunting knife tighter.

To your right, Wendy’s gasps become sobs. She collapses suddenly back against the row of lockers, their doors rattling harshly. You wince; Michael’s going to hear her.

Travis and Diane are on her in less than a second.

“She’s dead.” Wendy gasps. “She’s dead. We have to get out of here—”

“Christ, Wendy, stop it.” Travis hisses. Shoving his flashlight into Diane’s hand, he kneels at Wendy’s side, quick to clamp his hand over her mouth.

“You cut that out right now or you’re gonna get us killed.”

“Breathe,” Diane adds, sinking down to stroke Wendy’s hair.

Wendy tries to breathe, but it’s more of a blubbering in the end.

“You don’t know that, anyway.” Travis continues. “She could be alive right through that door, bleeding out. No way are we leaving until we find her.”

“She’s not.” You state.

Travis whips around. His scowl says it all.

Getting to his feet, he plucks his flashlight out of Diane’s hands and stands up rigidly straight. He shines the beam right in your face and you wince, wrinkling your nose at the brightness.

“Yeah lady? Alright, prove it; I don’t see a body.”

The tough-guy act is only skin deep. Blinking past the blinding beam at Travis’ face, you can see he’s tenser than a wire. He knows you’re right. He knows his friend is dead. He just doesn’t want to admit it.

You eye him sternly and hold your ground.

“I’m just being realistic; that’s a lot of blood.”

Travis’ nostrils flare, and all of a sudden he is walking across the hall with lurching strides.

The man approaching you is not small by any means—Wendy is taller than him, but only by an inch. His jacket is thick and puffs out around his arms, making him wider at the shoulders than he probably is, but his stature is sturdy, and his figure is close enough to Michael’s to plunge you into panic-mode.

Your limbs lock up habitually. You brace against the locker for hurt.

Travis stops at an uncomfortable distance from you, the leather of his jacket nearly grazing your chest. His breaths come heavily through his nose and you can feel them beating down on your face, hot and shallow. 

“You had better tell me right goddamed now,” He whispers through grit teeth, “What the fuck is in this building with us.”

The tightness in his voice is enough to unlock your limbs, enough to bring you out of your submissive trance, enough to make your lizard-brain realize that the man standing over you with a knife in his fist is not Michael, not even close—he’s just some college kid. Just as scared for his life as you are.

You don’t try to mask the hopelessness in your eyes as you finally spill.

“Do you know who killed all those people in Haddonfield last year?”

It’s a rhetorical question. Everybody with a working television or radio knows. Everyone who bothers to pick up their newspaper from their driveway in the morning knows. Everybody in the entire god-damned state knows. Hell, the entire god-damned country knows about those murders. It was all over the national news stations for a week into November, delivered each morning by a solemn news anchor:

And now, an update on the grisly string of murders which took place just last week in Haddonfield, Illinois—unofficially dubbed “The Babysitter Murders.”

The Haddonfield police department released an official statement this evening identifying the primary suspect in this ongoing case: Michael Audrey Myers, psychiatric patient and former Haddonfield resident, who escaped from government-mandated care on the night of the 30th.

Travis seems to hold his breath. When it comes out again it makes his upper body shudder. He knows, alright.

“Wait—” Wendy stutters, her frail voice cracking hard. “Wait, but I thought, didn’t they catch that guy?”

“They didn’t.” Diane pronounces quietly, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes are glued to the blood on the floor but they look unfocused and distant, like her mind is elsewhere.

“I’m following the Myers case for my thesis, and no, they never caught him.”

Travis’s invasion of your personal space finally relents. He steps back and begins pacing between you and Diane, his brow scrunching up in thought. He reaches up with his arm to wipe his hair out of his face.

“Okay, so you think it’s Myers,” He begins. “But come on, how do you know? How do you know it isn’t just some other freak? I’m sure there are plenty of real sick fucks out there, all I’m saying is that there’s no way you can know for sure it’s—”

“Guys?” 

Every head whips toward the changing room, and every flashlight follows.

There, peering tentatively out from behind the door where Michael’s boot prints lead is another tear-streaked face, a college-aged kid, no older than nineteen. The grey hood of his too-big hoodie is drawn up over his head.

“Josh!” Diane whispers.

Josh studies you sheepishly, his glossy eyes round and anxious. Then, he sees the blood. His eyes squeeze shut tight in an instant and his forehead lolls toward the door frame, knocking against it with a dull thud. His entire body begins to heave with silent sobs.

Diane shoots up from Wendy’s side like a rocket, tip-toeing around the gore. Reaching Josh, she embraces him in a tight hug, and Josh buries his face eagerly into the nook of her neck and only shakes harder. Diane caresses the frizzy ringlets around his ear and shushes him.

“If you saw anything,” She whispers, “You have to tell us. We need to know what happened.” 

“Is she dead?” Wendy sobs up from the floor, her slender fingers still clamped over her mouth.

“I-I don’t really know, man.” Josh chokes out. “It happened so fast. We were just coming to find you guys, a-a-and she saw the court, she tried to go check it out, b-but when she opened the door she got—she got—”

He gives a strangled little whimper and shakes his head weakly, burying it back into Diane’s shoulder, done.

She got grabbed, you finish in your head. It’s not a guess—it’s a fact. You don’t need Josh’s commentary to piece together what happened here.

Looking back at the smeared blood on the lockers, you see now where Michael did it, where he smashed this Ashley girl’s face into the aluminum doors, leaving divots and dents behind in the metal. At some point, Ashley had started screaming.

You drop your gaze to the heavy splatter of dark red on the tile again. 

She screamed, until Michael slit her throat.

“He followed me in there.” Josh sniffs, jerking his thumb at the locker-room door. “I ducked in a locker and he walked right past—but then he stopped and just stood there, like he was—I don’t know, waiting for something. Or—or listening for something.”

Josh wipes his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie.

“I was so scared, man. I thought I was dead.”

You listen to Josh speak and the unease in your stomach twists.

“Where did he go?” You ask. Josh eyes you warily.

“Um. I dunno, he just kinda… left.” 

All the hair on your neck stands on-end at that. You know how Michael’s mind works—at least to some extent—and you know how he hunts. And you would bet your life on the wager that he hasn’t gone far at all.

Your eyes dart up and down the hall and you squint past the reach of the flashlights, into the edge of the looming blackness. Josh’s words play like a tape recorder in your mind: She saw the court. She went to check it out. You squint at the closed doors leading to the basketball court. Your breaths shallow.

Oh; that’s where Ashley is.

“No offence or whatever, but who the hell are you?”

“She’s just some lady we found.” Travis answers for you. “Look, did you see him kill her, man?” Travis grabs Josh suddenly by the shoulders, shaking him like it’ll knock the sense back into him. “Come on, you gotta remember so we can get outta here. Where is she?”

You point an accusing finger at the basketball court.

“I think she’s in there.”

Everyone with a flashlight trains it at the doors. Another strangled sob leaves Wendy. Thick red handprints glisten wetly on the beige wood, just above the door handle.

Travis eyes the gore for a moment. Then, knife at the ready, he approaches the double doors.

It is for a wickedly selfish reason that you do not utter some warning of he’s still in there, moron, and your friend is dead, and you’ll be next. It is for a reason more potent than the fear of stumbling blindly through the darkness again; a reason more powerful than the fear of being alone in this desolate place. A reason that you are ashamed of for even thinking, but one that your lizard-brain—the part of you that cares only about your own continued survival, and to hell with everyone else—gurgles gleefully: If Michael kills them, maybe I’ll get to live.

And if not, then at the very least you can make a break for the exit while he’s busy sheathing his knife in their guts.

You look silently on as Travis carefully, carefully, nudges the door open with his shoe.

The room inside is just as abysmally dark as the rest of the school. Travis, hovering on the edge of the door frame, not daring to step foot beyond the hall, shines his flashlight around to inspect. It’s a basketball court alright, and surprisingly uncluttered. Sets of stadium bleachers line the walls on either side and loom like metal giants. Travis shines the light all around its periphery, illuminating every dark corner. There is no Ashley to be found—or Michael.

But there is more blood. A trail of it, leading out across the court, wrapping around the bleachers, disappearing from sight.

“Travis, no.” Wendy whimpers. “You can’t—oh god, please Travis, don’t go in there—please don’t. Please don’t.”

“Yeah,” Diane quickly agrees. “I think the best thing we can do for her now is to call the cops. Travis, he could still be in there.”

Travis looks anxiously back over his shoulder at her. He swallows like there’s a lump in his throat.

“Look. There’s no fucking way in the world I’m gonna leave her here with that psycho. Not until we know. This place is empty, alright? So as long as you guys stay close behind me... that fucker isn’t gonna get anyone else. I promise.”

Guilt flares in your gut. Your eyes fall to the floor. You can’t look at him. You know that not a single person standing in this hall will live to see the sun come up.

For simple fear of being left in the darkness again, when everyone shuffles into the court, you do too. Beams from all four flashlights rove the walls like spotlights. Every head is on a swivel. Travis is at least right about one thing: the room is huge and empty. There’s no way that anything could sneak up on you in here, not a housecat, not a tiger. Not even Michael.

The thin trail of blood disappears behind the bleachers—your heart pounds in your throat as the group draws nearer. The silence weighs like a heavy blanket.

Reaching the corner of the bleachers, everybody peers around the bend. You squint into the dimness.

There, suspended five feet off the ground, swaying sedately back and forth—a figure.

Travis shines his light up at it.

It is the limp body of a woman. She hangs from her neck by a length of climbing rope dangling down from the ceiling.

Somewhere in the background, Wendy starts to wail. “Oh god. Oh god. Oh my fucking god.”

The body turns, slowly. When it turns all the way around you can just make out the messy red ruins of her throat beneath the rope, slit quite literally from ear to ear.

Reality stares you in the eye, gape-mouthed and grotesque, and it will not let you look away. You drink it in and all your thoughts, even the lizard-brain thoughts, are silenced.

You study the blood seeping from the gaping gash in Ashley’s neck. You watch the way it drips down her sternum, how it eats in splotches through her white tube top, the garment pulled half-way down her chest, exposing her breasts on one side. You look all the way down to the puddle of glistening blood beneath the body and watch the droplets trailing off the slender ankles, dripping to the floor and making tiny ripples in the deep, dark red puddle beneath.

When your thoughts finally return you realize all at once that you have never witnessed Michael commit a murder. You have never had to see him plunge his knife into a screaming, crying, terrified body, but oh, you can picture it so vividly, can hear the pleading and the begging, can imagine Michael twisting the knife deeper, can see him tearing a life away with the ease of one kicking sand over a fire to snuff it out.

You know that will change tonight.

You know other things too, things that make nausea bubble up your throat, and you know before it happens that you are going to vomit, but not because of the body.

You know that Michael is a monster; you know it like you know that grass is green. You know what you are to him and you know that you should despise him for it. You know that you should want to see him burn—and a part of you does. A part of you wants nothing more in the world. A part of you wants to be the one who lights the match.

But there exists another part of you which sits like a gaping black hole right in the middle of your chest, and when the hole is open—which is most of the time—you feel cold and hollow and empty on the inside, and when it is closed you feel complete again, if only for a short while.

You know that the hole is need. And the need wants only one thing.

Standing here, staring up at the reality of what Michael is, of what he does, of what he will do to you tonight, even now, the hole in your chest still needs him like lungs need air.

He will kill you and it will not make you need him any less. Will not make you want him any less.

And as terrible, twisted, perverted, fucked-up as it is, it won’t make you love him any less, either.

It was Michael who held you down and cut open the hole in your chest; and now Michael is the only one who can fill it.

The bile rises up your throat and you are sick.

[bitsandbobsandstuff]

Right there

Summary: Love stories aren’t always grand, sweeping epics. Sometimes they come soft and slow, made up of a million different things, and you may not even recognize what you have until it’s right there in front of you. This is one of those stories.

Characters: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: Brief mission related trauma. Oreo thievery and dirty bubblegum. Mostly just buckets of fluff.

A/N: Hello Tumblr friends! I’ve been in a writing drought lately and it feels like forever since I posted anything, so here’s a short, fluffy fic while I try to Stella my groove back. My plan was to make this snappy and snarky, but it went full scale mush by the end. Guys, I just really love Bucky Barnes. ♥️

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

*****

“Right there. Do you see?”

The murmur is low in your ear. Smoothing the folds of emerald green satin, you follow Bucky’s glance down and see the tips of your freshly painted toes, clad in sparkly sandals and peeping from beneath the evening gown. Nothing out of the ordinary, until you notice one thing.

“Gross. What the hell is that?” you whisper.

Stuck like glue to the front of your right shoe, curling over the edge and dangerously close to your bare skin, is a piece of neon blue bubblegum.

Keeping one eye trained on the crush of inebriated party goers, searching out the mission target for the evening, you try a few options.

Scrape the edge of the shoe on the marble floor. Pointless.

Give a couple stealthy stomps. Useless.

Try to wipe it on Bucky’s trouser leg. Bucky sighs heavily and sure, that’s entertaining.

But no matter what you try, this appears to be the superglue of all gum. Bucky stares straight ahead, eyes roaming the crowd, but you see him periodically glance over, gauging your progress.

There’s no real harm, you can fix it later, but every time you shift your weight, the tacky feel of it sticks to the floor and makes a small snick sound. Like a parasite, the dirty, chewed up wad creeps further up the shoe, so close to defiling your pristine toes, and the whole thing is driving you bananas.

“Pay attention to the mission,” Bucky whispers sternly, but as of immediately, there’s a new mission in town. So, when your revolutionary idea arrives in a wave of brilliance, you take immediate action.

Nestled snug against Bucky’s lower back, hidden beneath his tuxedo jacket, sits his favorite knife. Without a thought, you reach up and tug it from the sheath, turning to face the back wall, balancing on one leg and gripping his forearm for support.

And then, frozen in shock, Bucky proceeds to watch you use his favorite knife - the one he sleeps with under his pillow, the one he keeps beside his morning Cheerios, the one he painstakingly sharpens after each and every mission - to dig at the dirty blue bubblegum fused to the bottom of your shoe.

“Disgusting,” you mutter. With a twist and flourish, it pops free and you fling it away, sending it flying into one of those tacky potted ferns by the bathroom. Smothering a laugh, you shoot Bucky a challenging look - and then slide the sticky knife back in the sheath.

You slide it back in the sheath without cleaning it.

Bucky grinds his teeth so hard his jaw locks up.

There is no earthly reason you should still be alive after this sacrilegious approach to basic knife protocol, but when he subtly leans over to voice his intense displeasure, he has the sudden desire to laugh.

“Everything okay, Barnes?” you ask under your breath, resuming your scan of the crowd. An insanely devilish grin tugs at your lips, and he huffs at the playful nudge of your elbow.

“Just fuckin’ peachy,” he mumbles drily, and then he marvels at the thought that follows.

Because right there, Bucky Barnes decides that maybe that proper knife etiquette isn’t all that important.

As long as he can see you smile.

*****

“Right there. Do you see?”

Bucky stands stoic at the open kitchen cabinet, pointing at the top shelf, his furious glare driving daggers into Sam’s heart.

“Dude, I swear I didn’t touch them.”

“You’re a lying liar who lies, Wilson.”

“Dude, I fucking swear. Get over yourself, damn.”

Sam stands with his arms crossed, an equally exasperated sneer on his face. Sitting on the couch, buried under a mountain of blankets, you watch with interest. Back and forth they trade barbs, a verbal tennis match full of snarky comments, childish quips, and the occasional mention of each other’s mom. Finally, Sam throws his hands up and whirls away.

“You’re fucking impossible, asshole.”

Bucky bangs the cabinet door shut and stomps over to you, plopping into an armchair to sulk. Smiling in commiseration, you stay silent, furtively trying to swallow. You’re so close to success, but then it happens.

No matter how hard you try, the crinkle of an Oreo package is too obvious.

At the sound, Bucky’s head snaps up.

“What was that?” he asks, suspicious. Eyes wide, you shrug in silent innocence. Bucky scrutinizes your pile of blankets, realization dawning. “Was that - did you steal my Oreos?”

Another silent, vehement shake of the head. You’re close, so close, just one more swallow -

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Prove it. Whistle for me.”

Damn.

When you purse your lips and blow, nothing comes out. Well, nothing except flecks of black Oreo crumbs. Swallowing the rest of the cookie, you fish out the bottle of milk hiding under the blanket and wash it all down, smacking your lips.

“Oh, sorry. Were these your Oreos?” you ask sweetly.

Bucky bites the inside of his cheek and tries to be mad, he genuinely tries really hard, but it doesn’t work. Launching himself from the chair, he bounces onto the couch next to you, sending your milk sloshing and you squawking in faux anger.

“You dirty little thief,” he deadpans, snatching away the package. Shoving three cookies in his mouth, he steals your bottle of milk and chugs it down. When he finishes, a white milk mustache is painted above his lip. It turns this dark man, someone with decades of gunpowder on his fingers and bloodstains on his soul, back into a young boy. Carefree and innocent, brimming with happy laughter. Swallowing hard, you reach over and carefully wipe it away with a firm brush of your thumb.

And right there, Bucky Barnes discovers the simple beauty of cookies and milk and the feel of your cool fingers on his skin.

*****

“Right there. Do you see?”

No. You didn’t. And that’s the problem.

Every blow of your fists unleashes something inside.

Smack, smack, smack.

Harder and faster, the punching bag absorbs all the pent of anger and lingering fury of a failed mission.

Smack, smack, smack.

It was so close. It was right there. You should have seen it. Should have remembered the bad guys never play nice, and the price of hesitation is a life. Memories trigger memories, sparking through your brain like a circuit board of bad decisions, lighting up one after another. Bucky stands on the other side of the bag, silently watching you pummel those demons trying to burrow into your skin.

“Talk to me,” he says quietly, and you frantically shake your head.

Smack, smack, smack.

Tears spill over. They blur your vision, turning the punching bag and the tall soldier holding it, into shapeless blobs. Blinking them away, wiping your runny nose on tape covered hands, the salt of tears and sweat drips into the busted-up gashes across your knuckles. It stings, a vicious reminder of what was lost. The scent of blood fills your nostrils and there are those memories again, a tsunami of pain barreling through.

Smack, smack, smack.

“Go away, Bucky. Leave me alone,” you snarl, aching arms still swinging at the punching bag. He ignores the request, a stalwart statue. It infuriates you in an unexplainable way and you spit the words in his face. “God dammit, fuck you, I don’t want - I don’t need - I don’t - I mean it. I fucking mean it. Please, just” smack “fucking” smack “go.”

Smack.

Like a booming clap of thunder, your last punch is so hard, it explodes the fragile wall holding the tears at bay.

Knees buckle. Shoulders slump. Fists slam the floor. You go down hard, and the result is devastation.

Ugly, wrenching sobs claw up your throat, stuck behind your clenched teeth until you open your mouth and howl. It hurts to cry this way, to let everything loose and accept the consequences of your failure. You will never save them all, and that clarity is a special brand of destruction.

Bucky says nothing. No words can solve this pain. No one knows that better than him.

Instead, he lays down on the sweat drenched mats beside you. Without a word, he wraps you into a hug, tucking you against his chest. Even if you don’t deserve this comfort, you cling to it. Clutching his shirt, the only lifeline you have left, you cry until that bottomless well of pain and misery finally runs dry. It takes hours, but Bucky is patient, never ceasing the comforting strokes up and down your spine.

And when it’s done, when your exhaustion leaves you unable to open puffy eyes, he simply lifts you up and carries you to your room. Places you gently on your bed and pulls the blankets over you.

“Bucky. Don’t go. Please don’t leave,” you beg hoarsely, and the misery in your voice breaks him. The bed dips as he climbs in beside you, wrapping you in his arms once again and you feel his lips brush your forehead.

The night bleeds into a dreary grey dawn, and right there, Bucky Barnes sinks into the comfort of a dreamless sleep, with you cradled tight in the heat of his arms.

*****

“Right there. Do you see?”

Eyes closed against the shining sun, you offer a sleepy hum. There’s a rustle of movement, and something soft tickles your cheek. It runs across your nose, touches your eyelids, sweeps light as a feather over your lips.

Eyes struggle open, and there you find Bucky watching, a little purple flower held in his long fingers. The look on his face is unreadable. He does that sometimes, looks at you like he wants to say something more, but he always hesitates, the words stuck in confused silence.

The petals wave faintly in the breeze and you smile.

“Pretty,” you say.

“Just a weed,” he shrugs.

“Still pretty,” you say. “Hand it over.”

Bucky places it in your outstretched palm. Gives a wry shake of the head.

“You’re the only one I know, who thinks weeds are beautiful.”

The small blossom sits thoughtfully in your hand and you hold it up, squinting to the sun.

“Just because something has a bad name, doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful.”

There’s a peculiar hope in Bucky’s face as he considers the statement. He likes those words. He likes them a lot. Wants to believe they might even include him too. But nervous silver fingers pick at the threadbare edge of the picnic blanket, and you see a shadow of self-doubt flit over his handsome face.

“Sometimes a weed is still a weed. Even pretty words can’t change that fact.”

The reference is clear. You know exactly what he means, because the list of negative metaphors Bucky uses to describe himself has grown extensive and colorful over the years. Rising to your knees, you shuffle closer until you’re facing him.

“Hey,” you say gently. Careful hands cup his face, the scratchy feel of his beard on your palms softer than you expected. “You better not be calling yourself a weed, Barnes. I’d hate to kick your ass out here in public.”

The shimmer of unshed tears in those blue eyes makes you ache for him. But when Bucky sees the determination in your face, he blinks them away. And like the little weed in your hand, a tiny smile begins to bloom.

He clears his throat.

“Kick my ass, huh? I’d really love to see how that goes.”

“It’ll go my way,” you say confidently. Picking up his heavy hand, you turn it palm up and peel his fingers back. Laying the purple flower in his hand, the vivid color glows against the bright silver. “See? Beautiful. Just like you.”

He stares at the flower. Looks up.

It happens right there, in the sun-soaked summer fields of Central Park; Bucky Barnes feels his heart stop at the taste of your kiss.

*****

“Right there. Do you see?”

Lost in thought, Bucky startles at the question.

Following the line of your arm, he sees you pointing into the infinite ocean of blue-black. Stars are speckled through the heavens, patterns of constellations and figures that you always manage see, but he can never seem to find.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere, the two of you walk along, miles from civilization. The first hint of winter settles all around, hard frost covering the tips of the grass, coating the pebbles edging the abandoned road, turning your breath to thick white clouds. It should make him anxious. Bucky hates the frost, despises the frozen blue that weaves maliciously through his worst nightmares.

But on this cold, moonlit night, with you warm by his side, he finds he doesn’t mind so much.

“What am I looking for?” he asks.

“Shooting star,” you say breathlessly. Tilting your head back, you go still, a beacon of patience awaiting a cosmic miracle. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Bucky peers up at the sky, but as the minutes click by, he knows he’ll never find what he needs up there.

He turns to look at you instead. Watches you watch the sky, his chest burning with contentment at the sight of your profile in this moonlit night.

“Sure,” he says. “So beautiful.”

Gloved fingers find yours, and you turn your gaze from the infinity of space, to this man beside you, solid and real and here on Earth. There is nothing in the world but the two of you, nothing else matters as you move impossibly close.

“Such a sap,” you murmur, your mouth a mere breath from his. The tip of his nose is icy against your cheek, and you can feel him smiling as he returns the kiss with a shiver.

The world is funny. Because this - this is your love story.

Built on blue bubblegum and stolen Oreos, blood-stained bandages and purple flowers, shooting stars and an endless night sky, this love bursts with highs and lows and a million variations in-between. Wrapped up in the delicious comfort of your kiss, Bucky wonders what in the world he ever did to earn this.

This perfectly imperfect life. Here. With you.

There’s no real answer, of course. Love is like that sometimes.

So instead, he dusts off those three words from another life, ones he’s stored away for decades, and he hands them over, because they’re the one thing he can always see, no matter how dark his world becomes.

“I love you,” he whispers. “More than anything.”

The words are drenched in happiness, syllables shaped with a quiet joy that glows brighter and fiercer than every constellation hanging above. And in the space of a single second -

Your heart skips.

Your breath catches.

You swear you could fly.

Because this is it, this is the moment. This is the big one.

And that right there is when you return those three words, the ones Bucky Barnes has been missing his whole life and the ones you’ve held close, since the night you found that blue bubblegum tacked onto your shoe.

The words are perfect. You kiss him again.

“I love you too, Bucky.”

*****

[defendersofspaceandtime]

Could be an scenario where Keith realize that his is madly in love of his s/o and he can't hide it anymore. Obviously, the others know, even before that he actually realized of that, so they press him to confess until finally he blows up in front of her. Ps: you are amazing!

 Absolutely!

Thank you!

I hope you enjoy!—————————

“I’m…I’m gonna tell them!” Keith cried, his hand held up victoriously in the air as the others stood around, watching him pour his heart out, 

“Yeah!” Shiro cheers on, clapping Keith’s back, “That’s the spirit! You can do it!”

“I’m gonna go right up to them a-and…and kiss ‘em!” Keith spoke with vim and vigor, excitement gripping his voice with every passing second. Shiro grinned, watching the red paladin with a small, small sense of pride,

“I’m sure they feel the same way, Keith! Now go on, sweep them off their-” Shiro paused, his eyes widening at the swiftly changing figure in front of him, “Keith?”

  Glug

  Glug 

  Glug

  Lance screeched, almost launching himself across the table onto Keith, 

“What the quiznak! Keith! You’re lactose intolerant!” 

“And I’ll drink ‘til it fucking kills me,” Keith whispers back, his eyes burning with an unnatural, dark gaze. Pidge’s eyebrows shot up, slight amusement in their voice,

“Didn’t you just say you were going to tell Y/n that you-?” 

“Nope. I lost all motivation. Every little bit,” Keith replied, a milk-mustache prominent on his lips, “I…I thought I could, but-”

“But what? Keith, this Y/n we’re talking about here, they’re not going to eat you!” Hunk chimed in from the back, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes sparkling with passion as he spoke, “They’re the sweetest ever! Even if you get rejected, I’m sure you’ll be let down gently!” 

  Lance simply looked at Hunk incredulously, 

“Dude…” 

 Keith slammed his head into his arms, his grip on the glass of milk lessening slightly, 

“I mean they’re so…them. You know? And I’m…me.”

  Shiro merely looked on at the interactions with his team, watching as Keith jumped from feeling like he was on top of the world, to feeling like dirt; Hunk and Lance were trying to console Keith, though their ideas of consoling were very different to each other- and Pidge simply stood in their corner, chewing bubblegum, their eyes as wide as ever. 

“C’mon Keith, you’re not that bad! I mean, you gotta weird glove fetish-”

“It’s not a fetish! MY HANDS GET COLD! We’ve been over this!”

“I don’t know man, I’m with Lance on this one,”

“Oh, so we’re taking sides now?”

“Yes.Yes, we are. Thank you, Hunk,”

“I’m going to actually fucking murder you,”

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure that the milk is doing that to you already- AH!” 

  …It was kind of mesmerizing to watch. 

  Like a train crash. 

  You kinda…can’t just look away, can you?

  Shiro laughed at that thought in his mind, his gaze returning to the wrestling paladins on the ground, both screaming obscenities and yelling at each other recklessly, with abandon. 

“What’s going on?” 

  Everyone jumped at your voice- the calm, collected tone had shifted the chaos of the room into that of pure and utter stunned silence,

“Oh! U-uh, hey, Y/n,” Keith said sheepishly, still holding Lance in a headlock- you had heard all of the commotion from down the way- just what in the world is going on?

“Hey, Keith,” You say with a smiling, giggling at the awkward position the red and blue paladin were in, “I think the training room is three doors to the left,” 

  Keith’s eyes widened as if he just noticed Lance, who was now doing his best to not pass out. Promptly dropping Lance to the floor, he swiftly stood up, looking away from you nervously, “I-I, um, we were just seeing how, uh, far we could go without…breathing.” 

  Though your heart said otherwise, you merely nodded your head, “Right…you know, there are easier ways to do that than sticking your friend into a choke-hold, right?” 

  Keith was looking a bit green around his cheeks, suddenly, his face paling as he responded with a very weak, “Right.” 

 - 

  Once again, Shiro felt as if he was watching a train full of orphans derail into a nearby ravine- because good God, it was painful looking at this transpire. 

  Come now, it was obvious! The way you spoke to him, the way you looked at him with your big, glimmering eyes like you just found all the luck in the world- 

  When you looked at him, it was very obvious that your heart seemed to cease its beating. 

  Keith, perhaps, was slightly less romantic. His lips would be pursed, his eyes pulled together as if in anger, his face would turn a very sharp, very scary scarlet- but still full of heart and soul all the same. He loved you, Shiro mused himself, the red paladin, the guardian of fire and known all too well for raising hell-

  he loved you. You crippled his ego, his ‘threat’, his danger…and you made him into the goofy, lovesick mess that couldn’t so much as lay an eye on you for a confession! 

  Perhaps out of spite, or something less ill-intentioned, Lance spoke up, finally catching his breath, 

“Keith wanted to…to tell you something,” 

  You raised an eyebrow, surprised, “Oh?”

  Your crush frantically shook his head, 

“N-No, I don’t!”

  Shiro chuckled, “You sure?” 

“Yes!” Keith cried, “I’m…” his voice cracked, “I’m sure.” 

-

  You bit your lip, bracing yourself, and knocked on the door, 

“Keith?” You called out, “Keith, I have some medication!” 

  A groan was your answer, a sorrowful, embarrassed one, 

“Y/n? I’m…I’m fine…hngh…” 

  Your face scrunched up at Keith’s painful tone, 

“Are…are you sure? Because you had milk earlier, and I know how you can get-”

“Y-Yes! It’s…it’s not as bad as last time!” 

“You were in there for three days, last time!”

“Y-yeah, but I mean…I mean…hnghhh…” Keith’s response ended in another groan, much to your dismay. Sighing, you slid down to the floor, taking a few pills from the bottle, 

“Can you at least take some of these, then? Please? For me?” 

“I…I don’t want to!” 

  By God, it was like fighting with a child, 

“Please? Keith come on, take the damn meds, will you?” 

“I said I don’t need them!” His voice was strained, “Why do you care so…so much anyways?” 

  You gawked at the question, “Because I care, dammit! Why don’t you listen?” 

  He didn’t say much after that. Instead, you quietly rolled the pills under the door, a shadow picking them up, 

“…Thanks, Y/n,” 

  A tug of a smile was on your lips, 

“No problem.”

  It was steady silence thereafter. Occasionally, you’d knock on the door, Keith would respond with a grunt, and the waiting game continued. 

  Did you have anything better to do? 

  Probably.

  Did you care? 

  Not really. 

“…Are you still there, Y/n?” 

“Yeah, something up?”

  He hesitated, his voice lower than usual, 

“This….this is probably a really bad time, um…I…” 

  You didn’t say anything, but your ear moved closer to the bathroom door, Keith simply continued, 

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Y/n, but I…I appreciate you, and I- uh…” 

“…and?” You pushed, waiting with baited breath for the answer, 

“I like you. A…A lot. A-and I thought that all of this was gonna…uhm…go ruin things, but you’re still here, so…that…that has to count for something, right?” 

-

  It was like watching a train crash, Shiro thought. 

  Looking on from a distance, his body hidden by the shadow of a corner, he watched with a proud grin. 

  It was like watching a train crash because the both of you professed to each other whilst one sat in the bathroom, but Shiro supposed it was about as good a time as any.

  But this time, unlike the morbid curiosity of watching something get destroyed, it was the hopeful aspirations of something a little bit better for you and Keith. 

…Though again, perhaps you and Keith should save the rest of your conversation until much, much later, yeah?