#a good feral penny fuck sounds good

[elsfairy]

꒰⠀HUSH, DARLING⠀⠀⎯⎯ ⠀⠀SEVIKA. 🏒 ꒱

Sometimes she needs to be put in her place. That snarky attitude can only go on for so long until you’re pulling her away from her friends, and their obnoxious laughs that always put you on edge. Maybe the way her game had ended so severely made her so snappy, ready to fight someone just for looking in her direction. It could be because a stupid idiot on the opposite team had decided to push her against the glass, leaving her winded and feeling sick at the sudden rush and force of the push. Or it could simply be because she didn’t eat the proper meal which made her angsty, but either way, it didn’t make up for the fact she was so much more rude & blunt towards you and the help you offered her. That was not your Sevika. If she was mad about something on the ice, it stayed on the ice until the next game, not join you both at the apartment.

Usually, your shared home was filled with laughter, shared kisses, and overall joy. Tonight was not one of those nights. It was quiet, a penny could drop and wouldn’t change anything. Sevika was quiet, too quiet than her usual self. It was either grunts or hums in response to whatever you had asked her. She wasn’t in the mood, anyone could tell that from miles away, you could tell just from the tension in the air. “You gonna tell me what’s bothering you now? or do I have to ask one of your friends to tell me?”

“For five minutes, can you just stop talking?”

Put her in her place. 

It was her own fault.

Just because she was angry at someone else didn’t mean you deserved to bare the aftermath.

She should have seen it coming. From the way your eyes hardened on her figure sitting on the couch. The way your nostrils flared at her attitude. She should have seen how your fists bawled up by your sides, and how tight your jaw was clenched. Utterly should have seen every single sign but she was wrapped up in her own bubble to notice just how angry she’s made you from eight single words. You weren’t usually the one to get mad, but you were.

You were pissed. 

And she still didn’t understand that.

Of course, she didn’t understand your angry mood until 10 minutes later when you had both her hips pinned down on the bed. Her loose-fitted shorts and most respectful Jersey were disregarded behind you somewhere in the room, not really caring where exactly. 2 of your fingers buried knuckles deep in her sopping cunt. Lips sucking harshly at her clit. One of her hands tangled in the messed up bed sheet, and the other gripping onto your shoulder. Her quiet pants and moans filled the room so softly. “Yeah, this is what you needed wasn’t it? Just need me fuck you until you’re not mad or stressed anymore. Gotta fuck the stress out of you, hm? my big, strong player”

The prettiest sight.

The snarky, loud-mouthed brick wall of a hockey player. Your girl. A sweaty, flustered mess under you. Hair sticking to her forehead, wispy strands sticking out in different directions. Begging & pleading at your mercy. Whimpering for something more, for you to go faster, to fuck her harder. Her head lulled back, hips bucking up into your touch, trying to fuck herself against your mouth & fingers. The grip on the bedsheet so tight she was worried it would tear under her touch. She loved you, of course. But most of the time it was her pleasuring you. She got off on the sight, sound of you. Just seeing you cum for her was more than she needed. She was feral when it came to seeing how many times she could make you cum in one night. So for her, to let her guard down and let you fuck her like this, was new.

Lewd.

Obscene.

Pornographic.

“Fuck, you’re so wet. Do you like when I put you in your place? Hm? Get so fucking soaked at the thought of me putting you in your place and not standing for your snarky attitude towards me when I just want to help you? Of course you do, look at you. Taking my fingers so good, not even letting me go”

The pathetic whimpers & hums in agreement never get old.

If you could snap a picture of her right now & savor it for the rest of your life, you would. She just looked so good under you, taking your fingers like such a good girl and you didn’t have it in you to leave her like this, all pent up and stressed. The photo can wait for another day. The real thing was so much better anyway.

There was only one thing that stopped you from sliding your hand down your underwear and sinking your fingers into your own cunt, and that was seeing the desperation and need in her eyes. The way her cunt glistened with your spit, and her own slick. She needed this. More than anything. Yes seeing her absolutely ruined and fucked out under you was enough for you to get so turned on, but it was about her tonight. She wouldn’t care if you were to fuck yourself while fucking her, but you did. You needed to take care of her tonight, you could touch yourself later but for now, it was all her.

Stone cold-faced Sevika, needs you to make it all better.

Needs you to take care of her.

“b..baby.. need more, please…”

“Hush, Darling. You’ll get what I want to give you until you learn that you can’t back-talk me and have an attitude”

[ohtobeleah]

Kitchen Quickie with Bob that gets interrupt by the squad/while the squad is at the house (Bob is a dirty dirty boy who can't keep his hands to himself)

#strictly scandalous

Brain go brrrr.

Warnings: This is Strictly Scandalous. Smut ahead.

It’s Saturday afternoon and you and Bob are hosting the weekly dagger dinner. Every Monday morning before pre-flight checks, the daggers would all throw their names into Fanboys gross ass hat and draw a name out. Whoever’s name was drawn? Hosted Saturday night dagger dinner.

“Dinner’s pretty much ready Bubba.” Bob was on the back deck, neatly placing the cutlery you’d sent him out with alongside the placemats that littered the outdoor dining set you’d both dropped a pretty penny on a few years back. “Wanna come in for a taste test?”

“Coming darlin.” It's a simple reply, but one that makes your heart swoon for your Fiancé. Bob finished what he’s doing before he’s sauntering inside, chasing the captivating smell of tomato and basil lamb shakes that could honestly kill. They smelt so good. “Baby, It smells amazing in here.” Bob rounds the corner into the kitchen to find you slicing up some homemade bread. You’d gone all out for this danger dinner and he was so thankful for everything you had done.

“Hmm—“ You're leaning over the slow cooker, frowning as you stir the contents. “I just hope to potatoes are cooked enough otherwise I’m never gonna here the end of it from Hang—“ Before you can finish saying how Jake would never let you forget it if the potatoes weren’t soft enough, Bob is twirling you around in his grasp, so stunned at his suddenness you drop the ladle, it makes a mess when the red sauce covered utensil hits the gray tiles of your kitchen floor. “Robert Floyd!” You giggle as his lips make contact with the juncture of your neck, hands roaming the small of your waist as he lifts you up onto the countertop, pushing the chopping board aside. “What has gotten into you?”

“Thought I might be able to start with dessert first?” Bob mumbles, he’s hungry for something only you can give him. “You’ve put so much effort into this dinner, makes me horny as shit just thinking about how you would have been roaming the isles at the grocery store looking for everything you needed.”

“Oh woah—“ You chuckle, leaning back to catch a glimpse at the flushed hume creeping over Bob's cheeks. “Talk dirty to me more, Lieutenant.” You worked in the base cafe, serving up stellar coffees to all ranking men and women. It was where you’d met and subsequently fallen in with Robert Floyd when he’d returned to TopGun for a second time. A few years on and the two of you were inseparable, planning a wedding, ready to take on the world together.

“Love when you get all domestic and cook up a feast.” Bob was feral, really. But in a different way to lost men you’d dated in the past. He was a respectable feral. Always found something so sincere and genuine to love you for.

“Does it turn you on to know I’ve already ironed your flight suit and hung it up in the cupboard for Monday morning?” Bobs groaning into your mouth as his hands work to unzip his jeans. Pulling them down just below his ass in a feverish haste.

“I’m in love with you, you know that right?” Bob's hands go from his jeans to the hem of your sundress, pulling it up as his lips never leave yours, pushing your panties to the side as his digits slip past your folds. “So wet.”

“What can I say, I’ve got a thing for military men.” That was a very true statement. “Fuggh—“ Coaxing his fingertips against your velvet walls, Bob revels in the slight squelching sound that echoes through the kitchen, standing between your parted knees as his fingers disappear inside you. Buried to the hilt. “Bob—baby—“

“There’s no fucking way.” Rooster is stopping at the front door, he’s got a clear view straight into the kitchen via the window right next to the front door. The blinds are open, the window is cracked and your whimpers can be heard from afar.

Bradley’s holding his arm out in front of Phoenix, stopping her in her tracks as her chest collides with his forearm. “Nope—“

“Bradshaw—?”

“Shut up, listen.” Although Phoenix could have very well slammed her elbow into the sternum of Bradley Bradshaw at his sudden demeanour change, she was caught off guard by the sound of supple whimpers and deep airy groans coming from inside the Floyd household.

“Oh my god go, go.” Phoenix is as wide eyed and bushy tailed as ever as her and Bradley race back down the three stairs and book it back to the Bronco. Scared they’ll never get the sounds out of their heads and know they don’t need an x-rated image of you and Bob to go along with it.

“Bob honey, need you now.” It’s needy and it’s hard to keep your head level as Bob pulls his fingers from your cunt, sucking your nectar from the lengthy digits before he’s guiding himself inside you. Moaning as he does.

“Ahhhh god—so tight all for me angel.” Bob hissed as he slowly lifted your legs to hook over his arms, angling you just right so that you could take every inch he was willing to give. “Be a good girl and keep those pretty eyes on me baby, wanna watch you unravel.”

You do as you're told as Bob starts a slow pace, building up the pressure before he’s setting a rhythm so fierce it has the slow cooker dancing beside you. Threatening to jump off the edge of the counter.

“Aarruugghh—Bob! Fuck!”

“So good for me darlin Ohh—keep those pretty moans coming.” It’s thrilling, it’s damn near pornographic the way Bob is talking to you, the way he’s handling you, the way he’s working you towards your high.

“Ahhh! Fuck keep going! Keep fucking me baby just like that—“ Its a short lived moment though, because unlike Rooster and Phoenix who had retreated back to the Bronco of shelter, Mickey Garcia and Javy Machado were not so smart, walking right in and into their worst nightmare.

“Oh god!” Javy is turning around in an instant, while Mickey closes his eyes tight, too afraid to move. He’s convinced himself that if he doesn’t move Bob won’t see him. “Bob! You knew we were coming right!?”

“Bobs got you up in his arms and ducking behind the counter the second he hears his colleagues voices, still stuffed inside you as he covers your mouth and watches your eyes roll into the back of your head as your orgasm washes over you. A part of you is very turned on by his protectiveness.

“We got carried away!” He shouted back. Still watching you cum on his cock. “Give me like, two minutes!”

“Fucking hell Floyd—“ Fanyboy sighs as he blindly feels around for the front door. “Never again.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Strictly Scandalous Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd

[leynaeithnea]

( sweety a 100% answer only when you have energy don't worry I know these essays are NOT easy to cook up hahaha ) (also thank you so much for using your energy on me and these little discussions we have going on, you're the best akskksks)

22. Different beast

I'm going to expose myself for how clueless I am and you are allowed to judge but just a little. When I listened to the song for the first time I had no clue what that whistling sound was, I took it in stride and went on. Then I started seeing posts of people being like "he shot the siren " "not Ody shooting the siren " and don't ask me why but my brain went " Yes , clearly Odysseus got a whole ass pistol and shot her " even though I KNOW his whole thing is being a really good archer and that is how Penny recognizes him when he gets back to ithaca et cetera et cetera

So yeah, thank the gods for you and your animatics playlist bc they finally helped me realize my man is clearly using fucking bow and arrow

Okay back on track you are so right he is so mean and pissed and scary akksjsjsns

The drums and the whole part about his real wife and his plan are fricking glorious, no notes , also once again thank the gods for your perspective bc yes!! He's clearly showing his fatal flaw!! The hubrys that makes him feel untouchable, like he can overcome anything!!!

The chorus of " we are a different beast" and "he is a different beast" make me go ballistic bc they are so supportive! They're like "see that one? Yeah he's our captain and he's ruthless now , and so are we btw :))" and it feels to me like they are proud of him?? Which is a huge mistake and they'll soon learn that maybe it would have been better for their sakes if they had greeted the world with open arms or smth

( No idea what you are talking about bc I am NOT good with subtleties like these BUT if you're right that would be cool as shit , and I don't put it past Jorge to do something so insane just to stay true to the story and the fact that they can't hear a thing )

The sirens DO sound so eerie ajsjsjjsjs I love how the animatic in your playlist doesn't make them pretty and just humans with tails but actual slimy fish-like monsters bc that's what they are !!!

THIS MONSTER REALLY DOES RAWR RAWR RAWR I WAS SO BAFFLED WHEN HE KILLED THEM LIKE THAT

( hahahhahahahaOH MY GOD not Ody snacking on the sirens like it's fucking sushi I CAN'T BREATHE the fact that you choose to interpret "he is the one who feasts " like that is so iconic of you I love you so much I don't think the image of feral Ody eating the sirens will ever leave my mind OH GOD it's so unhinged HAHAHHAHA )

Btw super random but the last line being Odysseus makes me think a little tiny bit about the ending of Remember them (?) bc that one time he choose to let the monster live and paid the price for it , this time he does the exact opposite, becoming he himself the bloodthirsty monster. Is this anything? I might be overanalyzing stuff here lol

Btw no, I don't know how we got here and I don't know when I stopped asking questions and started analyzing everything with you as well but yeah, I'm not complaining at all about the outcome this is so much fun akskksksnsns

Ngl these give me much more energy and motivation than they take I was just knocked out from walking so much for three days BUT ALSO i wont judge you I Probably wouldnt have known myself if it wasnt for the stage directions and animatics in the livestream segsegisegsej and the animatics in general and watching a good bunc of Jorges rambling and reading up on other peoples interpretations and also! actually watching a lot of reactors on youtube, if youre ever bored and want more EPIC content and watch people slowly suffer and loose their mind over the brilliance of this musical I recommend watching people react to it and analyze it (lmk if youre interest bc then ill send you a list of youtubers for that, and if youre already doing that ignore me seigjs) without those people i really would have not caught MOST things really

Btw super random but the last line being Odysseus makes me think a little tiny bit about the ending of Remember them (?) bc that one time he choose to let the monster live and paid the price for it , this time he does the exact opposite, becoming he himself the bloodthirsty monster.

Youre right I think and additionally I also think it's a first hint to song 37.....I kind of want to keep my analysis here mostly free of spoilers for the next three sagas...but if you know you know :))) so excited for it 23. Scylla the way every single female voice in this musical is slaying so hard oml I loveee the melody in this one, and the way Odysseus sings "The lair of Syclla, this is our only way home" its so eery and foreboding and grim And then Syclla omglllllll the way these lyrics have double meaning and the way they get sung parallel to whats happenign on the ship ITS SO GOOD

Deep Down "You're quiet today" Deep Down "...not much to say" (ODY KNOWS WHAT HES GETTING THEM INTO; HE CANT BRING HIMSELF TO PRETEND THINGS ARE FINE WHILE HE IS GUARANTEED TO HAVE PEOPLE KILLED TODAY; HES HIDING IT DEEP DOWN" Deep down (why does the choir join in exactly in this part I wonder??? WHO Else is hiding things? is it Scyllas heads or the crew that sings this? (actually, imma look this up in the livestream reaction from Mortius) (ok i checked the livestrema didnt say, maybe its just scyllas heads slowly rising up or smth like that) you hide a reason for shame (WHEN WE FIRST LISTNe, this soundS like the line is about Eurolychus because of what he says directly afterwards BUT IF YOU KNOW the second tiem you listen you realize nu uh htis is about BOTH of them, because Ody is alSO hidign a reason for shame. he is leading his men into this lair without telling them about it because their ears where blocked while he had his chat with sirenope and they were busy catching the other Sirens so they dont know about Syclla---) "Ive got a secret I can no longer keep" he tried back on Circes Island but Ody just shut him down because he wasnt ready to hear it yet. He his now the monster rawr rawr rawr, he is ready. Deep down (MORE harmonies omgg haunting, beautiful) you know we are the same (I still havent read up on Scyllas mythology, but I suppose we can break it down to "we are monsters and do what we must") "I opened the windbag while you were asleep" STUPID MAN YOU WERE IN SIGHT OF ITHICA YOU COULDVE WAITED UNTIL YOU Were oN LAND AND NOT ON the oceAN ANYMore (in homers odyssey i believe its confirmed that Anticlea, Odys Mom saw the boats, and the storm and thought her son had died and then threw herself off the cliff because of that, so thats FUN) Leaving them feeling betrayed Breaking the bonds that you've made (AGAIN THESE LYRICS ARE SO GENIUS, this is OBVIOUSL YABout Odysseus feeling betrayed by Eury for what he has done, either unexpectantly or just confirmed at last, BUT ITS ALSO FORSHADOWING FOR MUTINY, I LOVE JORGE SO MUCH THIS IS SO GENIUS) "Im so sorry" ...yeah ... There is no price we won't pay (NOW THIS is referring to Ody, he got his confirmation. he knows he must sacrifice men to make it through to scylla. Hes ready. He is the monster rawr rawr rawr) "forgive me" ...sorry buddy We both know what it takes to survive (again, refering to what Odys about to do, also Thunderbringer Foreshadowing...omg this is so goooood)

"Full Speed Ahead" the callback to that song T_T Deep down, we only care for ourselves... (He iS THE MONSTER RAWR RAWR RAWR) Eurylochus, light up six torches (...he is the monster rawr rawr rawr......also one of the Torches is held by Eury, its confirmed :D ) Deep down, we're lonely demons from hell (....fair but Hel is norse mythology and bible isnt it----------anyway) Captain...something approaches (THEY DIDNT KNOW WHAT THEY GOT THEMSELVES INTO) Hello (creepy, pretty, haunting) The strings after that omggg and then the drop before "ROW FOR YOUR LIVES!" (just get tf out of there asap) Drown in your sorrow and fears (THE GRIP IN HER VOICE; also the way it becomes so BRUTAL now) (first torch guy gets gored) Choke on your blood and your tears (second torch guy gets gored) Bleed 'til you've run out of years, We must do what it takes to survive (third torch guy gets gored) Give up your honor and faith (fourth torch guy gets gored, Eury tries to help one of the grew members) Live out your life as a wraith (foreshadowing????? Eury hands the torch to the one he just helped up, to get his hands free to fight, fifth torch guy gets gored, Eury realizes what the deal with the torches is, he turns around in panic realizing he just handed his friend a death sentence he tries to save him) Die in the blood where you bathe We must do what it takes to survive (sixth torch guy gets gored, Eury is too late to reach him, he falls to his knees as the exit Scyllas Lair, Odysseus looks onward and doesnt look at the bloodbath of the Ship) (this is seen in the animatic Jorge commissioned for this scene, its SO good, but terrifying to watch at like almost 6am at that point) THe lyrics are so haunting and good We are the same you and ... I AND the OdY JOINS IN oN THe "I" BECAUSE This song HAS NEVER REALLY BeEN ABOUT EURY ITS ALL BEEN ABOUT HIM AND His WILLINGINGness NOW TO SACRIfice hiS oWN MEN TO geT IT HOME ALIVE HE IS THe monSTER RAWR RAWR RAWR ok i think this was like the whole song line by line, but its just so GOODODDD

[pennycat83]

I don't usually leak my stories until I finish 'em but I am willing to serve up some good shit

(⚠️Following contains mentions of death/graphic violence, as well as a described panic attack and other poor mental health.⚠️)

I fully admit this is another feral moment regarding a shitpost FNaF fan game, but somehow it also works as a relationship study? I don't even know what kind of coincidence went down for this to happen but I digress. I wrote this a bit different too for weird external reasonings (that and this is a shitpost fangame).

I hope these two goofy weirdos keep being friends and possibly killing stuff ! (also I apologise if this makes no sense, I used the Evil Ending from the third game since it makes the best reasoning for them interacting. I refuse to imagine anything outside of the TTS voice used on Dave since the idea of him talkin' like that as a person is brilliant)

Penny Cat

Cold...hell felt so much colder than he had assumed. Wandering aimlessly as those final words pounded through his crushed head, "I...love you". To the person who had abused him, to the person who sided with Him. His heart dropped as the thought festered more, "I love you", nothing in his isolated life had ever even brought him close to saying those words with sincerity, and he blew it. He ruined his one relationship without even realising. He...HE-

"Yoyo!". The sharp, friendly robotic tone made him jolt, shifting his arms and stance into something like a wild animal. "Y'good?", "W-WHO'S THERE?!". He braced, his eyes had already adjusted to the darkness but it was near impossible to make out the voice. "Shi-ni-gami at yer service!", "y-you mean...". His heart dropped, legs starting to buckle slightly as he stumbled back. "P-please...I...I didn't want to...I...I'm sorry...show me SOME kind of mercy Mr-p-please!". His demeanor breaking down with his voice. Slow wheezing started to emanate from the Davetrap suit.

"Yo, hey cool it bud it I ain't gonna fuck with ya!". It sounded softer now...The voice came into better view with the speaker. Short clops broke the silence as they gained less of an echo. The speaker finally gained more of a discernible form. They stood shorter than even Him. The mention added another surge of pain into his already pulsating breathing. The white cloak rippled slightly as they proceeded further, muffled metallic clanking came with each footstep. The 'face', however, was what his eyes couldn't peel away from.

The helmet was the same ghostly white as the cloak, a large black screen covering most of it. A pair of plastic transmitters stuck on top, giving more devilish illusions. That same synthesized voice spoke up. "David Miller", "d-d-don't call me that". He tripped on one mangled foot, stumbling back, hands scrambling with his legs as they etched further and further. The being stopped, crouched down and stared. A pair of comedically large gloved hands emerged from the cloak, supporting the beings non existent cheeks whilst propped up on their knees in an amused pose. A silence wavered out throughout the void, he continued to twitch slightly as he studied their movements. They stayed static, mimicking him slightly as they continued to linger back. "W...w-what are you...", "Shinigami fer duty sir!", "w-what the hell is that?", "I mean technically it can be translated in two ways, God killer or the Grim Reape-".

"S-SO YOU A-ARE GONNA-!". He jolted back once again, falling even harder on his ass as they...stayed. "Ok bud seriously, cool it I'm NOT gonna hurt ya, I have no reason TO hurt you". They raised a large fist to the rim of helmet, mimicking a slightly humoured, thoughtful pose. They watched, then raised one of the hands out for his. He hesitated, curling up slightly as he declined. "A'ight". They remained static, "w-where am I?", "midway", "s-so I can-" "wouldn't, come back as a zombie basically and still end up here". They extended their arm out once again. Their grip wasn't as strong as he assumed, if anything there was a slight warmth in how they slowly lifted him back up. Subtle movements preventing him from his already shaky heart from caving in. "Ya good?", "l-lil bit...", "welp even if ya ain't 100% yer still somethin'!". He stared at the knight (? It felt weird to call them a grim reaper due to the upbeat attitude... although personality didn't always equal your job), it continued to watch him expectantly. "T-thanks?", "no prob". They heaved a slight sigh, their entire facade deflating with their stature as their shoulders sank, "...I'mma be honest I can't do this shit righ' now, jus'".

In a single cape swoop the full armoured figure changed into her casual outfit. A, pin-...cat...girl...thing? His mind was already spinning at the concept of being greeted by a hypothetical  reaper in a poor man's space suit. "I'm sorry, what the hell are you again?", "yes!", "huh?!", "I don't like being a 'Thing', like doin' my own stuff". She shoved a hand in her jacket pocket as her other waved a cut motion to emphasize her point. "Y'could say I'm a cat creature tho", "but cats don't have human hair", "eh, like havin' it", her hand flipped it slightly.

He still felt rigid. "Penny chan". She extended a hand, "right...", "yer fine by the way". He paused, "huh", "ya seem tense... this place ain't gonna hurt ya. Yer safe". He looked around again, the atmosphere remained the same smoky inkiness he had stumbled into. "Y-you sure?", a hint of concern barely managed to line his tone. "Well I mean I'm here, folks tend to say I'm pretty safe t' be 'round", "...". He moved back, arms folded slightly as he moved away.

"...I mean hey, don't blame ya fer a sec! Y'wanna talk fer a bit?", "I...I'm good, thanks". He etched further back, she stayed. "A'ight well I mean I gotta say yer dead so I ain't gonna kill ya, no one can, vice versa...also that's the wrong way". Dave paused, bracing himself, his heart still straining under the soul crushing anxiety...He booked it passed her. "Don'y ya even wanta...i-it's cool!". He didn't stop, pulse revving into full steam as he continued, further and further.

He tripped slightly. Heart physically trying to pump itself up and into his mouth as he heaved. It hurt, it all still hurt. Jack...Henry...all of it. He wanted to let it out, get SOMETHING out of this. Tears began dripping to the floor, glistening against the inky space. He curled up, struggling slightly from the springlocks piercing and digging into his flesh. Heaving, shaking like a damn leaf. "...ey...hey...". She was back, mocking him just like Henry. He barely knew her and yet all he saw was another Him.

"1...2...3...4, hold 1...2...3...4, release 1...2...3...4". Her voice almost seeped softly out, his gaze shot up to her. Just like before she knelt down ahead of him, subtly motioning him to mimick her breathing pattern. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YA WANT FROM ME?!". She raised her hands slightly, "n-nothin' man. Just felt like helpin'", "so you can make me do whatever you need me to?! S-so you can break me!". A slight look of surprise came across her face, the calm energy didn't leave her. "N-no...I jus' wanna help ya", "bullshit!", "eh, fine then...don't believe me if ya want". She sat down cross legged across from him. He stared at her more. "Whad'ya do to calm down then?". He stayed silent, "look bud even if ya don't trust me, least I can do is make ya feel a bit better". Her tone remained the same softness it had before... the heat left his brain slightly as he struggled to even remember."Hug..w-well I did hug my f-friend", "guessin' that ain't so easy to do". He shook his head.

"How 'bout ya hug me!". He seemed to physically recoil at the notion. "What ya think a fully deoderated gal ain't good enough?!", "I don't even frigging know ya", "that's true...then again...". She made another offer to lift him up, continuing her conversation as she gently assisted him back up. "Hugs're the best way to trust som'one, so...", she raised her arms out in antici...

Pation, he falteringly embraced her. The metal pressuring against her arms slightly as he await a response, almost automatically, her arms completed the embrace, finding their ways around the back of his neck and resting gently on his opposite shoulders. His breath hitched at how...safe it felt, melting in her embrace. His breathing steadied out slightly as she began rocking to the sides slightly. "There, there, it's alright...", her voice was like cotton candy by this point, his chin started quivering slightly. Her grip loosened after a while. Eventually dipping back down to her diminutive size. 

"Feelin' better?", "y-yeah...I...I-I think-". His voice broke, in a brief instant he broke into a blubbering fountain of tears. "You good?!", the genuine concern in her voice only drove his tears more as he looked up, piercing white pupils wavering from behind the Davetrap mask. "W-what, I...I, w-why are you...". She offered out her hands once again, feverishly accepting her gentle strokings of his head as she continued to reassure him. "Jus' in my nature bud, ain't that complex...people like ya come my way, I do what I can t' help".

"R-really?", "dude if I wanted to fuck with ya then I'd have a reason", "do you?". She laughed, a warm full chested laugh rang out, barely echoing amidst the void. "HA! nah dude yer fine!". She continued stroking his head until he pulled away. "Yer...nice, heh a-ain't had somethin' like that for a long time", "wan' me to keep going?", "n-no! not now...". She nodded, shoving her hands back into her jackets.

In a quick move, she whipped her fingers back out into finger guns, snapping them as she lent against one leg for extra emphasis. "Oh shit! ya wan' that thing off?!", "y-you can do that?!". She made grabby hands at his head once again "yeyeyeyyeyeyeah", slowly beginning the process of removing the mask, "don't ya need a hand cra-", "yer dead". He struggled to nod a sign of comprehension until it finally came off. "So ya are cute~!", the sudden flirtatious tone caught him slightly off guard. She continued to etch the rest of the suit off him, finally pulling him away by  one free hand before any further springlocks claimed a freebie.

His height was one of the things she was already aware of, alongside his neck cracking as it completed his towering height. But the jarring 2 dimensional, almost, blocky, feel of Dave still caught her off guard, though slight puncture holes and open wounds broke the illusion here and there. He looked down at her properly, pulling a few muscles. "Thanks for that. Didn't think ya'd care enough to be honest", "why the hell wouldn't I give a shit about ya?!". He seemed to have finally had a mental shutdown on that comment. "Y-you...", his laughter rang out as he doubled over. "Eh...I don't really mind if ya believe me 'r not...kinda stuck with me bud", "eh-heh...hah?", "I mean I know this place better than ya so like...". She rolled her hand to conclude her sentence, "so what's to say you ain't doin' this to fuck with me?", "good point...how's this, I make you do horrible shit 'n I blow my-".

She faltered slightly on that proposal, "nah...too intense 'n 'dundent...".  She pondered for a moment until she pounded a fist into an open palm. "NYAH! I don't fuck with ya, ya can be my friend!, "...but...". In a rhythmic pattern, David then started contemplating. "I'm gonna be honest yer makin' my head spin a lil", "Penny chan, hire able as the Shinigami if ya need. Lover of tech, terrified of slugs 'n kids", "why'd you bring up a fear?", "eh, jus' felt like it". He contemplated her words, "Dave, love simple things...I dunno what I really hate to be honest".

"Eh it's fine", "really?". His tone perked up at the notion, "yeah, no pressure dude, go your flow". Her wording kept adding more and more complication to his situation. "Wait, so I don't gotta...". He seemed to falter more. "I mean it ain't that complex, some shit y'just gotta keep to yaself, y'know?". She seemed slightly fixated on his arms, "oh shit, brb". "br-", in a split instant she had disappeared.

Nice enough to help him out the suit like it was nothing, willing to embrace and console him...His head was still pounding from the comment before. "'Sup". She was back, medical kit shoved under her shoulder. "Huh?", "what, some peeps gotta fix up their wounds 'fore they go on 'less they linger". He rubbed his temple slightly, "yer gonna...fix me?", "I mean the wounds yeah", "I-I'm sorry this is just startin' to fuck with me ya know?", "oh no dude totally get it, just gonna bandage up yer wounds 'n let 'em heal so yer body can learn that 'n do it automatically".

Penny chan gestured for him to sit as she began rummaging around. "So, how exactly does this place work?", "I mean not all people end up here, some just kinda get dropped where I am. If ya do tho then ya gotta wander there yourself". Her clawed fingers delicately dabbed antiseptic on the wounds, moving it around to clean up the edges. "As I said before though, some folks ain't lucky 'n end up with permanent deformities from their deaths". She made a subtle flip of the clump of hair covering her right eye, he lifted it. A nearly 10cm gaping hole greeted him, it's fleshy depth seemingly infinite. He shuddered, "eh know some poor bastard who got his upper torso ripped clean off, got a fear of losing his central spine's control now". She continued cleaning up the wounds before pulling out the plasters, "Y'want Hello Kitty 'r My Melody?", "I don't really know those guys", "My Melody it is". She stuck the smaller ones over the minute punctures whilst using regular plasters and  extra bandaging over the gaping holes covering his arms. One done she motioned him to sit up a bit better so she could address the one caving in his chest. "I mean hey, already got the immortality thing goin' for ya". She moved closer, leaning over as she began work on it. His chest physically pulsated under her touch as she worked, politely ignoring it until she grappled around for the bandages, his hand met hers slightly as he brought them up to her, "thanks...", "no prob.

Finally, he looked somewhat better, despite the fact his face was now 10 shades deeper than the rest of his body. "Feelin' better?", "yes'm. He squeaked his response out as she sat back, tidying up the medical kit. "Ya wanna head to my place then?". They had already lingered for what seemed like an eternity, sitting crosslegged as they blathered back and forth. "You have yer own place?", "ye". She nodded her head rapidly, causing her tongue to slip out from the corner of her mouth. It seemed to change in shape and size, from goofily rounded to it's natural state? (he wasn't completely sure if it was supposed to be point and nearly 15cm but-)

She helped him up once again, letting him put some of his weight against her shoulder. "Listen, I know this sounds kinda dumb seein' as I don't even know what ya do or where you're takin' me but...are we, like, friends now?", "I dunno, y'wanna be? I mean I just kinda let people call me whatever", "how's about old Sport". That familiar warm laugh wheezed out of her, "go nuts! dun really care". He beamed, "thanks fer that Sportsy!" "no prob pal!". She gave him a slightly unsettling grin, "sorry, kinda suck at controlling my face", "it's cool", "manage t' convince ya I ain't a threat?". He seemed to contemplate that question. Nice enough to console, get him out the suit and bandage him up and give him weird advice. "Ya I'd say so", neat!". She patted his back gently as they continued past the registration desk.

[puppet-purgatory]

Very curious. Have any ( if substitute) was redeemed headcanons.

Also love you’re art and blog

HI!!! thank u !!!

There's some things i want to draw w the substitute, but they're very Ambitious bc i believe he (& the professor) Deserve The Good Stuff. the rendering. the effects. da big colors. i tend not to post my headcanons/ideas Without art because if it Does have a picture it's more likely to get attention/will be less annoying. ANYWAY,

I think it will Not be easy for the Substitute Redemption Arc to happen, as much as i'd be into it. Like he's so fucked up in So many ways, it'll take A Lot of work. ESPECIALLY now that the real professor is back. he's going to Know he's obsolete. It makes me kind of sad because he was Angry before and now he's going to be angry And scared. he's literally like a feral cat.

I do not think it would be easy for him to get better, nor would it be without its Downs; he's exactly like the Professor, isn't he? Has all his memories and Looks exactly the same? So why wasn't he good enough? And now the Professor is back again, and better than ever- now he's got parents, he's made up with Ryan, he's even gotten bigger! What's the point of being around at all? At the very start he wasn't good enough for the puppets at the funeral, and they sent him away. I think the regular Professor already has problems with being left alone, but this is a completely new flavor of that.

He's clearly very bitter toward them for their initial reaction to him, so he won't be glad to go back there (he's just going to be forgotten in the excitement of the Professor's return anyway!) if he's somehow destroyed. he's very fucked up about his state and seems to blame it partly on them and God; i find it fascinating he sounds so derogatory when he talks about God when the actual Professor has always said "he's a great guy" and has a literal line directly to him. I think that reveals a lot about his mental state- he's suffering a lot, so it's easy to blame it on others, especially if they're in higher places.

It sort of feels like he's lashing out on purpose, maybe even to Avoid more of that abandonment? Like, you're not the one being Left if you do the leaving. You cut the ties Yourself and it makes you feel more in control. If he tries to come around to the 'good' side he'll be reminded at every turn of what he's Not, and he'll always feel a little ostracized. So why not just go all in? In for a penny, in for a pound. My life will never be whole or happy so neither will yours.

all this to say that we can hope and theorize all we want, but i don't know if it'll have a happy ending. I know the S5 finale end was a generally 'happy' one, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Substitute's is a story of an enemy who tries to go out and take as many people with him as possible, or of someone who tries and tries but meets their end without ever getting 'better'. They might prove us wrong, though! I hope they do.

[iamthescalesofjustice]

had a locked tomb dream in which one of gideons lowkey-only-bc-she-glosses-over-it-in-her-narration powers was teleportation as in she fucking kept teleporting and didnt seem to notice or think it was weird and when people called her on it she was like ‘yeah its called flash-stepping i read about it in some ancient-ass comic books i dug up in a back corner of the library on the ninth’ and everyone is like ‘???’ bc she says its not a necromantic technique bc everyone who did in it the ‘comic books’ (only the sixth know what manga is) she read was a warrior and most of them used swords so clearly its a secret advanced cav technique. and, she says, its not like it uses any spooky necro stuff, its ‘just a matter of honing yourself until you can move really fast’ so it might look like ‘teleportation’ to all of them but clearly that just shows that she got really good at it and is better than all of their fancy smancy ‘properly trained’ cavs. anyway, it turns out that using flashstep as the framework is the only reason why its been short line-of-sight bursts for her until now, once the penny drops she can straight up pop between planets. also she at one point mentions how ‘the wind’ roars really loudly in her ears while doing it and it turns out thats the sounds of the feral river ghosts bc she is, and i cannot stress this enough, constantly taking brief dips into the river. 

[chokemewithyourclaws]

Can Pennywise aggressively fuck my hangover away?

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

It's interesting to see how Simon descends into madness (because he's jealous, because he's so worried Lamb would "steal" Baz away). As unhinged and feral and chaotic as Simon is, if you remove Baz's POV (showing us that he's drawn to Lamb as a mentor–Baz is lost and Lamb is "an elder who guides him to feel more comfortable in his identity and in public") is so much easier to see how, from where Simon is standing, he's totally "justified" and "reasonable" in his reactions, thank you very much. (And how it also goes hand in hand with Simon being protective)

It all begins with the phone call, where Simon can see what's happening, he isn't there to read the situation, and is forced to hear another man "constantly" flirting with his boyfriend (and his boyfriend isn't "rejecting his advances"!) Penny tell us that Simon is very visibly starting to lose his shit.

Shepard's line (and Penny's reaction) shows how Simon isn't alone in getting the vibes that Baz is on a date (and Simon notes that Baz is doing things he never does with him!!). This was before Shepard knew for sure that Simon and Baz are boyfriends, so he's just unknowingly stocking the fire here lol

By this point, Simon has had enough. He already sees Lamb as a serious threat, and has let his insecurities completely misread Baz, mistakenly thinking Baz wants to kiss Lamb (when Lamb was actually threatening him with a fucking lighter! and this is interesting because Simon's instincts for danger are usually crazily good, but thinking he has just seen Baz "wanting to kiss someone else" is distressing enough that it fucks with all his instincts). He doesn't voice "you can't flirt" (which is part of what bothers him so much) but he does tell him "you can't leave with him again"

Baz says "maybe Lamb wants privacy" and Simon immediately goes "hell no, fuck that"

Simon specifically asked Baz one thing and what did Baz do? he left with The Vampire lol Simon really just says fuck the thumbs-up signal and spreads his gay wings to go after them.

This is maybe the most interesting part, because Simon seems unhinged as hell here, but from his POV, the antiquity exchange sounds like flirting, and then Lamb is immediately jumping Baz, and then he hears Baz calling for him (he can't hear what Lamb is telling Baz). And this all happens in the Vampire's Bedroom. The optics here are not very good; you can't really blame him for thinking Baz might be in trouble on top of the whole "another man is trying to get handsy with my boyfriend". Simon attacks when he hears Baz calling his name.

A Vampire's Bedroom! Simon is clearly reading that Lamb has "sexual intentions" towards Baz, thinks he has just seen Lamb trying to act on said intentions, and so is losing his whole goddamn mind. There's also him noting that Baz not listening to him has resulted in Baz "walking into danger".

Simon "when in front of potential competition, I'm Baz's boyfriend first and a person second" Snow

Simon treasures that he's the closest one to Baz, the one who knows him the best (he sees it as him being the closest to Baz's heart) so when in front of potential competition, he can't help but bring up his "#1 Baz-connoisseur" card.

"If I'd rescued you" implies that Simon did feel (at least on an instinctual level) that Baz was potentially about to be on the receiving end of unwanted sexual advances. Rescuing goes with reading danger into the situation. That does call for a bit of stabbing imho. This is also Simon voicing his fear that Baz might be falling for Lamb.

Afterward, Simon has a whole page where he's once again losing his whole damn mind because he's jealous (you can't trust vampires!! how dare Baz trust this one just because he looks at him with pretty eyes and an impeccable suit!!)

He's still consumed by jealousy here: watching the enemy/"rival's" every move with his gay wings out and visible. Simon not letting his wings be hidden in this situation is the same as Simon screaming "I'm his boyfriend! (Baz is taken!!)" to Lamb.

And after all this....

Please, my man is traumatized lol having to listen to Baz being in danger or Baz potentially going on a date with someone else again, while being powerless to do anything, are both Simon's biggest concerns here. He simply can't go through this shit again.

But honestly, my favorite part here might be Simon deciding he simply can't trust Baz's instincts/read on other men because he has no vibe-check. Clearly, if Baz wasn't able to pick up the extremely gay vibes of Simon being unable to leave him alone, constantly trying to get his attention for years, what hope is there? After failing to get the vibes from Simon, who's as into Baz as any living thing can be? (Never mind that Simon himself was unable to pick up on his own extremely gay vibes for years either lmao)

[moxfirefly]

Okay but like #19 said by female reader to Hellboy because Hellboy really do need some love 😫😫

YOU BET YOUR BOOTS FRIEND

He deserved that and a heck ton more!

Rated Tame (honestly the flow took me to this but if you want a more smutty one pls feel free to send another prompt!)

Your friends have always said that your eyes betray you. That you speak volumes with just the way you look at somebody.

So it was at the forefront of your mind almost any time you looked at somebody or something with just a faint little amount of interest. That they could tell what exactly your mind was thinking.

Faint little amount, you could bitterly laugh.

Working at the B.P.R.D had landed you in one of these moments. Because the very second you saw Hellboy, there was something of a feral scream in your head. Not of fear, no, but of instant attraction. It didn’t help that he was half naked on a daily basis. Sometimes covered in battle wounds, sometimes covered in blood and sweat...

You stopped in your tracks, an agent muttering something about almost spilling their coffee. The mission briefing in your hands wasn’t looking exactly nicely printed anymore. Your current task was to find Hellboy in the workout room and just hand him this. A simple rudimentary task, mostly your job since you weren’t yet a field agent.

As you approached the weights room you swallowed and took a few deep breaths. Don’t make it obvious, just don’t make it obvious. Knocking before stepping in you were met with the sounds of heavy music. This particular workout room was reserved for him, the amounts of weight in most of these barbels and plates were insane, nothing a normal human could handle. Hellboy could be found between here and his room unless he was out saving the world. He was on a bench, lifting dumbbells.

Oh fuck.

You bit the inside of your cheek and prayed, prayed that your eyes wouldn’t betray you. He saw you through the floor length mirror, setting down his weights he dug his phone out of the pocket of his sweats and lowered the volume.

“Sorry to interrupt but I have your latest assignment” Well that came out very professional, just as rehearsed.

Then he stood up and you felt your brain liquify. He was a little sweaty, maybe his workout had started just some time ago, he wiped the excess with a towel. When he walked towards you, all rippling muscles and enticing red flesh, your brain albeit liquify was basically one eternal scream.

“What they got me doing? It better not be a wendigo, hate those nasty fucks” Standing before you, you had a moment where your illogical self said ‘fuck it’ and just ate up the sight of him. Handing him the papers, he set up reading the mission brief with a frown.

Meanwhile you had abandoned your own commands and had just gone to town with admiring every inch of him.

His biceps, his hands, his chest, his jaw...

“Serbia and vampires, well this should be fun” He sighed, already dreading the sharp claws that would naturally find their way onto his flesh. Turning the papers over his gaze fell on you.

Hellboy raised a brow ridge.

This pint sized girl was, well mesmerized to put it simply. He was used to people being scared or at the very least put off by his presence.

But you?

With the way he saw your eyes travel across his body he could almost swear you were... checking him out?

“You alright there?” He asked with a small smirk.

You snapped out of your fantasy (and boy was it the good one) and looked up at him. The proverbial hand in the cookie jar and great now your face was as red as his skin.

“Um, yeah, yeah” You nodded, embarrassment spread through your body. Rubbing the back of your very heated neck, your tempting gaze found his own. Hellboy was curious, apprehensive but intrigued.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He crossed his arms, that stone limb making you twitch and this stance only made his chest all the more pronounced.

God, fuck it, what did you have to loose aside from your dignity and maybe having to switch jobs for never being able to live it down.

"I'm sorry I keep staring, but you're really the hottest thing I've ever seen in my entire life and I don't know what to do about it." Your words tumbled out and it hit you that this was you quite literally shooting your shot.

Hellboy let that information bounce in his brain. Aside from the swell of pride and the fact that some gorgeous girl had just spilled their guts to him like that, he really wished he wasn’t going to Serbia for a few months. Oh what the hell, he was never one to deny a nice game of flirting.

“I bet you tell that to all the guys you meet” He laughed a little, that made you feel like there was even ground again. You shook your head with an embarrassed smile.

“Trust me none of the guys I’ve talked to look like... this” You motioned to all of him, a slight bite to your lower lip. Hellboy really never expected this from you, some mythical goddess who wanted to use him to destroy the world? Yes. A really sweet, mild mannered and perfect lips broad? No.

He quite liked it.

“I know you’re gonna be stationed in Serbia for a few months...” Your heart felt like it would jackhammer out of your chest, the suggestion threatening to slip from your lips would be the cause of your heart attack. This was too brash! Certainly he would take offense at the very least. But dammit, you were here already and you had been fawning over him for months now. “Do you maybe want to come by my room tonight?” You had enough bravery to look up at him and there was something rather delighting in his startled golden gaze.

Did you just subtly ask him to hook up?

Hellboy felt his own reserve enter ‘Fuck it’ mode.

“Sure, I’d like that” He answered.

Yup you just asked him to hook up.

[scxrsgxrd]

*pulls up at the drive-thru window* yeah can I get an order of Eric having a sassy mouth while his human girlfriend is trying to domme him with a side of 'oh shit' when she threatens him with silver okay thanks i love you

Ma’am, please proceed to the next window to collect your order alongside an extra helping of all my love for you.

WARNINGS: sexy Eric stuff, brief mentions of blood.

Eric’s penchant for teasing didn’t come without its issues. It was often easy to forget that this man had been alive for a millennium, so what felt like an hour to him was a whole evening - dusk until dawn - for you. As the first few rays of morning sunlight flooded your bedroom you audibly groaned, the aching between your legs was like nothing you had ever experienced before, but that was the unfortunate consequence of hours upon hours of edging. Of course Eric hadn’t actually let you have your release. You felt foolish for believing that, before he was due for a week away at some vampire conference he had to keep shtum about, he would allow for your immediate gratification. After all, your neediness was Eric’s biggest kink. He wanted you to ache for him while he was gone, to pine for a release at his hands. A frown began to take its form on your lips as you considered the fact that you had to deal with no company for a week, with no Eric for a week. So how was it fair that he got to dictate your bedroom activities on his last evening in Shreveport?

What Eric didn’t know is that you had become wise to his tactics, to his desire to be in control when it came to sex, which is why you had paid a visit to Fangtasia, and more specifically Pam, when Eric had left.

“You’re asking me for sex advice?” The look of amusement on Pam’s face caused a blush to spread across your cheeks.

“Forget it.” You shook your head and silently cursed yourself, wishing that you’d listened to your gut when it told you to stay home that evening.

“No, now I’m intrigued. Pray tell, little fox.” The blush immediately returned when Pam flashed her million dollar smile while delivering the pet name she had become accustomed to using for you.

“Eric likes control, right? Well what if... I don’t know, what if-”

“I don’t have all fuckin’ night.” Pam growled, her smile swiftly disappearing as she reminded you that her patience for humans was infinitely less than that of Eric’s.

“What if I took that control?”

For a few moments Pam stood silent, and that was the first time you had ever seen her lost for words. She cocked her head to the side, studying you as she considered your question, her amused and slightly mocking expression never leaving for a second as she processed your options. Then, she took a step closer to you, her eyes bearing down on yours as her smile appeared once again. You gulped. In the presence of Pam you always strived to appear defiant, remembering Eric’s comment that “Pam can smell your fear, and it’s her favourite flavour of human”.

“Well, aren’t you just an adorable little fox.” You felt your breath hitch in your throat as Pam’s icy fingers brushed against your cheek, shifting a loose strand of hair off your face as her eyes bore into yours. You felt frozen, unable to respond to the intimidatingly beautiful vampire whose face was now mere inches away from yours.

Pam laughed, clearly satisfied with her effect on you, and opened the door that led down to the basement, gesturing for you to follow her. You stayed still, wary of the implications that could arise from you following Pam into Fangtasia’s specially sound-proofed basement.

“Oh honey, if I wanted to fuck you I wouldn’t do in the basement.” Her response to your caution provided you with some relief.

“I’d do it in Eric’s torture chamber.”

You expected her to laugh again, but this time she didn’t, she just cocked her eyebrow and once again gestured for you to accompany her down to the basement. Still somewhat suspicious, you began to descend down the stony steps below the bar, wincing as a musty smell -  one you couldn’t quite pin down - immediately filled your nostrils. You figured it best to hutch up your sweater over your nose, not willing to ask Pam what the smell had originated from.

Despite wearing heeled boots, Pam made her way down the stairs with ease, sighing impatiently when she saw you were more than halfway behind her, carefully trying not to slip on the suspicious pools of liquid that were dripping down each step.

When you had eventually caught up with her, Pam led you over the corner of the basement, where a few cardboard boxes had been stacked up with ‘Pamela’ scrawled across the front of them in black marker.

Pam flicked open one of the boxes, a smirk appearing on her lips when she delved inside and produced a pair of industrial looking handcuffs. She flung them into your hands along with a small key, and you dangled them in front of your face. Although the handcuffs looked pretty substantial, you were still sceptical that they’d manage to restrain Eric.

“They’re silver lined. If he struggles while wearing them he sets off a trigger where the casing releases the silver on the inside.” Pam was looking at the cuffs intently, clearly feeling nostalgic as she relayed the instructions to you. You opted not to question where she had gotten them from.

“Thanks, Pam.” You flashed her a smile, about to walk back up to the bar when she pressed a small piece of silk material into the palm of your hand. You were slightly confused when you saw that she had handed you what looked, and felt like, an extremely expensive blindfold.

“Why would I need a blindfol- oh.” You nodded, suddenly remembering the hypnotic charm of your boyfriend that could enable him to compel you into submission.

“Have fun, but if you need someone to test out on the cuffs well, you know where I am.”

-

You had spent a good portion of the week shirking your responsibilities while you daydreamed about Eric’s return, about how you were going to finally give him a taste of his own medicine. At multiple intervals during each day you had dug out the cuffs, your belly fluttering with excitement as you eagerly awaited Eric’s return. The days passing by felt like months, until one night you felt a coldness enter your bedroom. It was like a breeze, except there was no whistling or rustling outside your window, there was an eerie silence. You pulled your blanket up to your chin, eyes wide as you listened into the darkness.

After a few minutes of nothingness you felt a body press against yours, a hand gripping at your hair as you were pulled into a kiss. Eric was back. He wasted no time in re-acquainting himself with you, his hands wandering over every inch of your skin as you whined, pushing your hips toward the bulge that had formed in his jeans.

“I... missed... you.” Eric murmured between kisses, keen to keep his lips pressed against yours as he gave your hair a slight tug, earning another whine from you as you started to push his jacket off his shoulders.

“Is this what you want?” He paused for a moment, his forehead resting against yours as you began to pant, nodding your head quickly in response.

You were so wrapped up in Eric being back in your bed that you had almost forgotten about your plans for that evening. Eric groaned in protest when you pulled away from him, reaching over to turn on your lamp and then leaning over the side of your bed to where you had concealed the handcuffs and blindfold.

“Mmmm, I like this view.” Eric slapped your ass before starting to snake his hand between your thighs, leaving you powerless to move as his fingers started to graze across the slick of arousal already dripping from you.

“Eric.” Your protest came out as a squeak, relishing in the feeling of his touch after seven days of his absence. Thankfully Eric sensed that you had other plans in mind, and removed his hand while you turned around to face him, nervously toying with the handcuffs as you watched his eyes snap down to them.

“Lie down with your arms above your head.” You were surprised at the amount of conviction in your voice, and it seemed that Eric was too. He obliged, shuffling his legs down he bed as he lay down, stretching his arms above his head and keeping his wrists together.

You clambered on top of him, positioning yourself on his stomach as you attached the cuffs to his wrists, ensuring that they were secured and locked before moving back onto the mattress.

“Someone’s got their big girl panties on tonight.” Eric turned his head to face you and you could tell he was trying not to laugh, unaware that any annoyance would only worsen and prolong the payback you had planned.

Eric’s gaze remained on you as you yanked down his jeans and boxer shorts, watching intently as his cock slapped against his stomach, resulting in a small sigh from Eric as the constraints of his clothes were finally removed.

What you hadn’t anticipated was Eric’s deviousness coming into play so early, and when you pulled your nightshirt over your head he snapped his wrists apart, expecting the handcuffs to bust open and allow him to take back his control. A loud hiss filled your bedroom, and you threw your shirt on the floor to see Eric’s fangs were out, and that was writhing around on your bed, his toes starting to curl as he frantically tried to free himself.

“Stop wriggling, it’ll only stop if you’re still.”

Eric stilled immediately, his eyes blazing as you positioned yourself between his legs.

“Pam.” He growled, the penny dropping as he remembered a tale she had told him many moons ago about a custom pair of handcuffs she had specially made for her and an ‘old friend’.

At that moment, you knew it was time to introduce the blindfold. Eric was clearly unamused, and you didn’t trust him not to use his supernatural abilities to his advantage. Another, more feral growl erupted from somewhere deep in his throat as you fixed the silk blindfold across his eyes, obscuring his view and ensuring that he couldn’t charm his way out of the cuffs.

“Is this what you want?” You placed a kiss on his knee.

There was a brief moment of silence before Eric nodded. Despite his initial rage, your attempt at dominance was beginning to intrigue him, and he knew that not making your job easy for you would likely cause you to relinquish your control over him.

“Then we’re doing it on my terms. I want you to keep your smart mouth shut, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Slowly, you wrapped your hand around his cock, twisting your hand in a clockwise motion as Eric’s lips parted, the small beam of light from your lamp reflecting off his fangs as his tongue swiped across them.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Eric’s hips bucked off the bed, encouraging your movements as you pumped your hand up and down his cock, waiting for the tell-tale moment when his whole body went stiff. Sure enough, after a few strokes of your hand a long, loud string of moans left Eric, and you ceased your movements.

“What are you-”

Your hand connected with his cheek, but he didn’t flinch.

“Ooo, that tickled.”

“I thought I told you to shut the fuck up.” You swiftly delivered another smack, but it didn’t deter Eric, instead it only seemed to encourage him.

“Is this the hell I’m paying?”

The anger began to bubble inside you and you opened your mouth, ready to raise your voice when you managed to stop yourself. This is what he wanted. He wanted to rile you up so that you’d let him take over once again.

When you didn’t respond and he could no longer feel your touch Eric’s brows began to furrow, he lifted his head off the pillows as if attempting to strain his eyes to find your whereabouts. That was when a soft moan left you, and the sweet scent of your arousal hit Eric, causing him to struggle against he restraints once more as he no longer needed to see you to figure out what you were up to.

Once again he hissed, this time adding in a few colourful cuss words as he triggered the punishing response of the cuffs.

You moaned once more, and Eric could hear the sound of your finger dipping in and out of your entrance, his heightened senses making your actions all the more painful as for the first time he felt powerless, something he hadn’t experienced in centuries.

“Please.” Admittedly you would’ve liked for him to sound a little more pleading, but decided to relent.

“Are you going to be quiet? Be good for me?” There was an edge to your voice that Eric had never heard before, and the aching of his cock was beginning to become unbearable. His time away from you had been excruciating, so he nodded, willing to subvert his authority if it meant he could have your touch once more.

So Eric complied, clamping his jaw shut and fighting against all of his natural instincts as you exercised your newfound control, continually edging him closer and closer to his release before stopping your actions completely. You knew how much Eric was itching to snap as you watched his thighs begin to quiver, more and more liquid leaking out of him as his fangs sunk into his tongue, causing his lips to become stained with his crimson blood as you gently traced your fingers along his stomach. A quiet mewl escaped from Eric’s lips as you gently moved your middle finger up the length of his cock, he was so sensitive that he was sure he could come just from that minor touch. But you knew that too, so you withdrew your finger and pressed a kiss against his thigh, letting him have a minute or so before you began your ministrations all over again.

-

When the digital clock at your bedside relayed the time to you, you retrieved the key for the handcuffs. It was 5:30am, just enough time for Eric to return home before sunrise, but not enough time for him to release his frustrations out onto you. No, he would have to wait a whole fourteen hours before he could his exact his own payback.

You carefully removed the cuffs, discarding them onto your bedside table. You were about to free Eric from the blindfold when you heard a tearing sound, and then felt two hands clamp onto your waist, the remains of the blindfold sitting on your pillow as Eric pulled you down onto the bed, his lips engulfing yours. As much as he was deeply irritated at the nights events, he was also proud of you. Proud that you had managed him and his attempts to vex you.

Knowing that he couldn’t afford even another minute of chancing, he gathered up his clothes and dressed himself, watching as the sun had just started to peak over the horizon. His bulge was still extremely prominent in his jeans, and he winced a little as he fixed up his belt.

“I will deal with you tonight.”

And then he was gone.

[neonponders]

I’m so sorry that I don’t remember who originally posted about Steve accidentally calling Billy, Daddy, and Billy - naturally - going feral for it.

But daydreaming about this helped me sleep so ~ enjoy! (If anyone knows the post I’m talking about, I’ll happily add a link to it in a reblog and the ao3 notes.)

Read on ao3 here.

Featuring reunion/aged up trope ~ (I didn’t really keep canon in mind for this, but if you want it to be post season 3, that’s fine.)

It’s a strange twilight zone, meeting someone again. Being complete strangers with a history.

Not the best history, either, so Steve just had to laugh to himself while he sat on Billy Hargrove’s couch. The guy looked up from the kitchen counter across the open floor plan. “What?”

And Steve might be internally combusting a bit-

A lot.

Because Billy’s hot. Like...Steve can actually appreciate it now. It’s not the first time he feels like a fool for being too slow. Billy was a looker in high school; easily one of the guys who completed puberty first and knew it. Made him an asshole for it. And people liked assholes.

Steve guessed he just didn’t do it right. Being the mean guy. But that was far behind them, now, and Billy’s late twenties were doing him favors.

Steve supposed if young, spry, Adonis Billy came with being a complete dick, then he could appreciatively leave him behind. Because Billy wasn’t a complete dick anymore. And the man strolling back across the room with a pair of whiskey sours was definitely, 100%, burning a hole through Steve’s jeans better than the show-off from high school ever did.

Steve reckoned Adonis never got laid nearly as much as Zeus or Poseidon anyway, which he only knew from Robin’s ramblings about her Greek theatre class. Steve earned a distinct wrinkling of her nose when he said, “Lettuce? Adonis is symbolized with lettuce? Yeah, no. Aphrodite, that cougar, fell for a twink while Daddy Poseidon was getting whoever he wanted with his beard and all.”

Robin had barked a laugh but chided, “Please don’t ever call Poseidon, “Daddy,” ever again. Oh my god.”

Joke’s on her, because now she referred to the gods and heroes by whatever name Steve gave them.

And the joke was on Steve. Because he was definitely the twink in this new situation he found himself in.

Billy had always been stacked. But the guy walking through the university gallery to make Steve’s heart stop beating in his chest was something else. He wasn’t even bigger, really. Something just...happened as soon as a person could see 30 closer than 20. Steve had first noticed it with Robin, because they spent the most time together. Obviously that crush had been snuffed out with her gentle coming-out to him years ago, but Steve still had eyes in his head. Robin aged really well. Steve had begun to wonder if he was aging nearly as gracefully.

Billy, that bastard, strolled right up to him with a freaking mustache of all things, invited them to lunch the next day - where he had switched to clean shaven - and now sat on his couch in his newly built apartment complex with a sweating, rattled Steve. He had neatly pulled him aside before the three of them parted the restaurant to invite Steve over for drinks that evening.

Steve was unprepared for the sculpted scruff on the man’s face now. He’d never seen a guy switch facial hair styles like he was changing shirts. Frankly, he didn’t know anybody who could just grow it that easily.

Steve gulped loudly around his whiskey sour.

It was Billy’s turn to laugh under his breath. “You okay? You never answered me.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, a little out of breath. “I’m just...reeling, here. I think the last conversation we had involved a fist fight.”

Billy laughed again and Steve’s eyes trailed over the shirt fitting perfectly around his built shoulders. Maybe Billy is bigger. In like a...domestic sort of way. Like he still had all his muscle but didn’t throw a fit over a bowl of pasta. Steve is still taller. Steve still had that, at least, but he sure felt like his second puberty hadn’t graced him yet.

Billy was talking. Pay attention, Steve.

Something about Robin. Steve replied, and hoped he was answering close to whatever Billy had said, “Robin teaches there and some of her students were in the exhibition. It’s an art nerd thing. Everybody’s involved, even if it’s not your subject.”

Steve couldn’t tell if the pause was Billy processing or if Steve had been completely off the mark. Deflect. Reroute! his brain told him, so he asked, “Did we ever ask how you knew about the gallery?”

“Max goes to school there.”

“Oh,” Steve chirped bluntly. “Small world.”

Billy hummed a sound low in his chest. Something vibrated inside Steve and he closed his eyes in a hard blink, grasping at flimsy straws for composure. Billy finished, “I was in the area. Definitely a pleasant surprise to see your familiar face.”

“My Lego head?” Steve gestured vaguely at himself. “I guess this block always did stand out.”

Billy huffed a surprised sound, like he hadn’t expected that, but he let it tumble into easy laughter. “You look good. I never saw you with short hair.”

His fingers pushed the arching swoop of Steve’s fringe behind his ear. The briefest touch across his temple finishing on his neck...

I’m going to have a heart attack.

“Thanks. That goes for the both of us.”

Just like he almost missed never snatching a chance with high school Billy, Steve only kinda missed never getting his hands on that mullet. Only to know how soft that hair actually was. Not like Billy needed it, of course. Truly absurd, how he rocked any hair situation on his head that wasn’t shaped like a Lego person’s.

Steve finished his whiskey in the next gulp.

He could feel Billy’s laser blue eyes notice this, and then he stood from the couch. “I’m getting us some waters.”

“Okay,” Steve chimed dumbly. Feeling dumb.

Jesus Christ, it’s Scoops all over again. You suck. You suck-

“Poseidon liked a twink too, you nimrod,” Robin had teased back. “His name was Anteros.”

“And he dies too, right?”

“Nope. He’s basically Poseidon’s husband and chauffeur.”

“Aw. Good for Daddy P.”

Billy returned. “Are you one of these people who likes seltzers?”

Steve blindly took the can while his thoughts slammed mutinously into, Daddy B. B is kinda cute. Shorter-

“Thanks-

Billy.

-daddy.”

Steve opened the can before it sank in what he’d just said. Carbonation gently kissed his skin as he held the can to his lips but didn’t drink. Some may or may not have landed in his lap before he lowered it to see Billy’s unreadable face.

“Oh my god.” Steve rushed to place the can on the coffee table and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Did you...?”

“Don’t say it,” he pleaded, removing a hand as if to physically defend against the words in the air.

“Steve-”

His words came muffled from where he hid inside his hands. “Oh my god. I’m gonna throw up.”

He stood up - to go where, he didn’t really know. Probably best to just leave at this point. Way to choke. Way to absolutely choke, Harrington. You don’t even know if Billy’s bi and you just deep-dived into WEIRD-

“I’m really sorry,” he rushed as he stepped around the coffee table.

“Steve.” Billy gripped his arm and pulled right back onto the couch as if it were easy. Steve more than landed in his spot, he landed flush against Billy. His thigh felt Billy’s warmth, and his lips stayed parted to keep breathing when he realized how close their faces were. 

Billy this close was something else, and Steve didn’t have the brain power to navigate it.

“Say it again.”

So it took him a long minute to absorb that. Was he seeing stars? So much for breathing.

“Huh?”

Steve’s lashes sagged heavily over his eyes when Billy leaned tantalizingly close. Either of them could stick their tongues out and taste the other’s lips.

Don’t, he commanded his mutinous subconscious.

“Say it again, Steve.”

He wondered which was louder: his thunderous heart or the racket in his brain trying to turn rusty gears. He whispered against Billy’s skin, “I didn’t mean to say it.”

A hand, gentle but there, found Steve’s nape. “I’m telling you to say it on purpose.”

Was he making fun of him? Steve couldn’t tell. He hadn’t spent more than a handful of hours with him. But his voice made that thing in Steve’s body vibrate and his brain had officially declared itself a lost cause.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Steve closed the gap - tiny as it was - and involuntarily moaned at the softness of Billy’s lips. The hand on his nape tightened and another came to hold the front of his throat; not pressing against his windpipe, but Billy’s fingertips held Steve’s jaw in place and his palm surely felt the drumming of Steve’s heart.

Steve’s tongue couldn’t help itself. He touched the plush skin of Billy’s upper lip, ever so lightly-

Billy groaned, wanton and hungry as he pushed entirely into Steve’s personal space. The latter gasped at the sound, and then he really did see stars as Billy’s tongue fucked against his own. He tasted sour and sweet and the citrus mixed with Billy’s natural taste in such a way that Steve tilted his head for more, pushed right back into Billy’s space.

Steve’s body rotated enough that his knee bumped into Billy’s. Then Billy was gripping that joint hard enough to bruise so that he could pull Steve all the way around to straddle him. Steve clumsily climbed onto his lap, grateful for the influx of air as Billy planted wet kisses and pressed his tongue into Steve’s pulse. He didn’t really know what the boundaries were anymore. This was explosive and sudden and Steve sat, unsure, higher up on Billy’s thighs-

“Ahh!” he burst when Billy gripped his hips and yanked his pelvis flush against him. Steve’s moan clipped short into a small ache of pain. The way his jeans tightened with the stretch of his thighs crimped into his already throbbing erection.

Billy opened his jeans. Steve’s voice escaped with his gasp when the colder backs of his fingers touched his belly as he dipped into Steve’s underwear. He stood up on his knees to give Billy the room to free his erection, and Steve couldn’t help the moan that exhaled out of him when he sat back down, feeling Billy’s soft shirt against his red cockhead.

Steve shivered as Billy’s hands slid up and around his body, mapping out Steve’s topography and shoving his shirt as high as Steve’s collarbones. Steve felt like a lewd wet dream: an exposed, panting mess on Billy’s lap. His heart ricocheted around his ribs with the sharp tickle of stubble, and he whimpered as it scraped over his nipple and chest.

“Your shirt,” he heaved, knowing he was dripping precum. “Billy-”

“Call me what you did before.” He reached into the back of Steve’s jeans and gripped a handful of his ass that had Steve lurching forward and bucking into the softness of that shirt and tummy, the warmth of Billy’s body. Steve whined when Billy held him down, unable to move.

“Say it. Whatever you want. Just say it for me.”

Steve bought a little time by kissing him, hard. Hard enough to make Billy lie back into the couch, his head tilted up to moan into Steve’s mouth. Steve’s lips nuzzled the side of his lips and began an exploratory trail across Billy’s cheek and jaw, down to his throat.

“I just...wanna feel all of this on me. I wanna feel your beard so much I’ll still feel it tomorrow... Daddy.”

Steve’s voice pitched to the ceiling when a hand gripped his hair. Billy’s other hand released his ass cheek to push encouragingly on Steve’s lumbar the same time he drew Steve’s earlobe into his mouth. Steve gripped the couch upholstery behind Billy’s shoulders as he bucked against him, rutting like a teenager. Billy’s own jaw fell for his moan to escape when Steve’s ass and backs of his thighs moved over his own cock trapped in his pants.

Steve tried to slow down a little, to rub against him without making the fabric chaff. “Daddy, what do want?”

If he didn’t feel Billy’s heartbeat before, he sure as hell did now. Steve felt it against his hands as he sought to know the contours of Billy’s shoulders and chest. He watched Billy’s swallow through the gorgeous neck that lay open to him as Billy gazed up at him. One of his hands traced the gently twitching artery on the side. Steve began to pepper slow, audible kisses against his face. When he landed on Billy’s lips, Billy kissed back, and when he wandered all the way up to Billy’s temple, Billy let him. Only his hands moved sluggishly between Steve’s thighs and his waist, seeking skin underneath his shirt.

Steve came back down to whisper against Billy’s lips, “Daddy?”

It was a blur of movement punctuated by Steve’s surprised yelp of glee as Billy threw him onto his back on the couch. Billy kissed the laughter out of his flushed, red throat, growling in satisfaction at how those bubbles of mirth sank into breathy moans.

“I’ve wanted you for years, pretty boy.”

Steve’s brain didn’t absorb that so much as his body did. Pinballs of emotion and sensation darted to and from his groin. He lifted his leg to rest across the back of the couch and to give Billy access to whatever he wanted.

Strong hands moved carefully - fondly - over Steve’s thighs. A stuttering breath left him when Billy clutched the backs of his legs. A sweet ache to have the muscle squeezed there.

“Don’t hold back on me now, baby,” Billy taunted, pressing his hands into the couch on either side of Steve and aligning his bulge with Steve’s hole and undercarriage still inside his jeans. “Let me hear you.”

Steve’s other leg wrapped around him and he lifted his pelvis to grind against Billy’s front. Billy’s bravado melted into an anguished, blissed-out frown as he shut his eyes against the sensation. When he opened them, Steve held his cock in hand, pumping himself in time with his pelvis rolling up to meet Billy.

It was sloppy and desperate and Steve didn’t think he ever did this even as a teenager. It had all been a small town rush to get hands or mouths on skin and get rid of the stigmatizing V-card. Except when Steve was in love, and allowed to take his time...

Steve didn’t know if he was in love now. But as another wave of ticklish warmth darted through him, Steve laughed a little.

“What?” Billy asked, not unlike the first time.

“I just...I just like this, that’s all,” Steve admitted. “You feel good. You smell good. Ahh! I’m close.”

“Let me see you, baby. Let me taste the mess you make.”

That didn’t so much as nudge Steve off the cliff as it drop kicked him into his orgasm.

“Hahh! Daddy, I’m there! I’m there...”

The mind-halting knot of sensation burst inside him with a force that let Steve not even care that he craned his face toward the arm of the couch, moaning and splashing his hair over the upholstery like a romance novel cover.

He realized somewhere in the middle that Billy had grasped his cock and was the reason his climax kept going. Milking little dribbles of cum out of him. Steve hadn’t cum like this in years, and he lay riveted to Billy hastening his rhythm to chase his own cliff edge.

The furrowed brows of concentration on Billy’s face were wiped off by Steve gripping his shirt and yanking him down for Steve to taste him, to plunder his mouth and feel that soft material against his own bare, messy torso. 

Billy shuddered and pushed, pushed against Steve like he meant to bury his cockhead inside as he came. The visual sent an aching thrill into Steve’s core, knowing how Billy looked when he came and knowing that he’d cum inside. It made Steve eager to feel the pressure of his thrusts and the aftershocks when he pulled out to repeat it all again.

Steve had just cum like a seventeen year old and wanted to go all the way, with Billy’s hands all over his backside and his scruff against Steve’s ass cheeks-

Billy’s hand brushed over his hair and eased around to cradle his head. “What are you thinking behind those big eyes?”

Steve blinked drunkenly up at him even though it certainly wasn’t whiskey giving him this high. “My eyes?”

“Mmhm,” Billy hummed through lips pressing into a content smile. He hovered over his elbows, still framing Steve in but not crowding him. Fingertips pressed little swirls over his scalp, drifting around his ear. “I like your big, doe eyes.”

No one ever commented on his eyes. His hair, obviously. His butt. His shoulders. His moles. Billy gazed down at him, searching through Steve’s thoughts. The way he always had, really.

“Thinkin’ about you creaming me instead of your pants.”

Billy turned his head to the side so he didn’t laugh directly in Steve’s face. “Only if I’m not dreaming this time.”

This time.

God, Steve liked what that implied.

His arms came around Billy’s shoulders, loving the broadness and weight of the man on top of him. He kissed him softly, bumping his nose against Billy’s and eliciting a groan while Billy tilted his head and deepened the kiss.

“Again,” he begged through the kiss. “I want you again, Daddy.”

[angrylizardjacket]

it's in the blood // this is tradition

Summary: Children inherit all sorts of traits from their parents. Not all these traits are good.

"My reputation preceded me before I was born."

[ charlotte & lola au ]

A/N: 2292 words. Halsey's new album killed me on the spot. i talk a lot about the next gen being mirrors of their parents, but i'd like to go into detail about that not necessarily being a positive. @misscharlottelee this made me feel things. i love these kids.

Warnings: overdose mention, addiction discussion, mentions of drug abuse.

Penelope Dingley-Lee

Tommy can count the amount of times he'd seen Razzle truly angry on one hand, and here and now he can see it again, written all over his neice's face. He'd thought she would look like Charlie when she's angry, and occasionally she does, the way her lip curls derisively, dismissively, that's very reminiscent of his cousin, but here and now, her blue eyes are hazy, cloudy, and her lips twist with an irate arrogance that is worryingly familiar.

Angry and high and wearing clothes that don't quite match, in this moment she's exactly her father's daughter.

She's been in the papers again. Her tits have been in magazines again. Tommy bites down on his instinctual desire to repremand her; she'd call him a hypocrite, call him an old man, tell him to keep his opinions to himself while she could still buy his sex tape out of a shady car boot down the street.

Charlie was like that too, on occasion, wit too quick for him to keep up with. When she got into a mood like this, Tommy didn't have to worry so much; usually Razzle would egg her on, but knew when to pull her back.

"It's my god given, motherfucking right to go feral -" he'd heard Charlie back in the eighties holler at three in the morning, high on amphetamines and waving a gossip rag above her head. Razzle would be on the sofa, equally fucked up, but gazing at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

"Lola gets photographed at least once a month stark naked along the strip like it's a sport, why is my Playboy shoot a national crisis?! My tits are fantastic!"

"They are, my love," Razzle nods seriously, and Tommy pulls his pillow from beneath his head, trying to either block out their voices through the thin walls, or maybe smother himself. The girl beside him, the groupie whose name he doesn't know, asks blearily why there's so much yelling. Tommy doesn't answer.

A week later, Tommy is the one to bail out Charlie and Razzle for public indecency, and they're both beaming from ear to ear.

Here in the present, Penny is draped out on the sofa, laughing low and pleased as she watches TV.

"TMZ blurred out my tits," she snorts, "cowards."

"Penny..." he can't help the faintly disappointed notes in his voice when he says her name.

"Thomas, I've read The Dirt," Penny fires back venemously. Hypocrite he hears in her tone, you have no power over me.

There's something hollow in her eyes in the photos he sees of her in the papers. She wears her father's inflluence and her heart on her crushed velvet sleeve, on the arm of a shallow, pretty, band boy who plays badly and loudly. But she laughs louder, though tthe sound is low and unconvincing if anyone bothered to listen hard enough, and Tommy wonders if he has enough dark hair dye left for when that boy breaks her heart.

Jupiter Lee

Tommy is proud to watch Jupiter on stage, but he is afraid.

Their anger is something he remembers from Lola, the way they cling to the past with vitriol echoes their mother, but on stage, they drink up the attention, get high off the love the audience gives, and he sees himself in those moments.

A child of addicts, Jupiter had drawn lines in the sand for themselves that they refused to cross; no alcohol, no drugs, and they'd stayed loyal to that. But highs come in all forms; they simply picked a different kind of poison without realising.

On stage, halfway between the gutter and a god complex, Tommy knows the smile they wear all too well.

Rebellion from Jupiter didn't shock the world like it did when it was Penny's name in the papers. Jupiter's trajectory was spot on in the eyes of the public, but rebellion wouldn't be the thing that broke them.

Once, so long ago that it's a miracle the memory survived, Tommy remembers asking Lola what she would be doing if she wasn't with the band. Lola gave him an easy, bleary smile, laughing sweetly when she told him that one way or another, she'd be here. In the moment it overwhelms him with love. In hindsight it breaks his heart.

"Come on, I think this is inevitable," Jupiter smiles on television as an interviewer asks them the same question; if they weren't making music what they'd be doing, "as if I'd do anything other than this."

'Don't you know where I come from?' is left unspoken, but Tommy still hears it.

He tries to picture himself in a life without the world at his feet the way he has now. No image comes to mind. Nothing else makes sense. Even if he wanted to do something else, wanted to grow up to be something else, he couldn't even begin to picture it for himself, tragedy and all.

They play their parts. They let history repeat itself. Jupiter makes mistakes Tommy and Lola had already learned from. Penny plays Jupiter's conciousness until the role grates on her nerves, diving head first into chaos, taking Jupiter with her with little convincing.

Tommy remembers this too.

When the world looks at Penny and Jupiter, they like to remember how Lola was seen as a bad influence on Charlotte, but forget that Tommy would have followed Charlotte in to Hell without hesitation.

Leo "Seo" Sixx

Lola has google alerts set up for her son, Seo, because he disappears for months without warning. Tommy asks how he is, and Lola looks to her phone with a tight smile, telling him that he's competeing in a skateboarding competition in Prague. She learned that from Twitter.

Seo comes and goes without warning, and talks to his siblings more than his parents. He loves them, but he hasn't allowed himself to stop for years. He doesn't know how. Then again, neither did Lola or Nikki.

"Jupiter thinks a lot about legacy, don't they?" He's in Tommy's kitchen, eating a poptart, when Tommy returns home one friday evening. He's waiting for Penny and Jupiter to finish getting ready, the three of them going out.

"Do your parents know you're in town?" Tommy asks with faint amusement, though there's a twinge of guilt in his gut when Leo considers that he should probably let them know. Says he forgot. Tommy's not sure if he believes him; like his parents before him, he tends to leave a lot unsaid. It's part of his charm, the world seems to think, but Tommy knows all to well how deliberate of an act it can be.

"Jup's got all this stuff in their head about legacy and who they should be," he continues his earlier thought, "which I guess makes sense, they tie a lot of themselves up in their identity," he shrugs, then, "I don't know Leo."

Tommy's not sure if he's talking about the grandfather he's named after, or himself.

"You've given this a lot of thought," Tommy says quietly, humouring him.

"I think a lot," Seo responds, "I've been thinking about going back on my meds, its weird being off of them." Of course this concerns Tommy, who knows objectively that Seo isn't his kid, but he's close enough that Tommy feels like he's allowed to be concerned. "I'm worried a doctor's note isn't going to be enough to let me compete at the Olympics on speed," falls too casually from Seo's lips, alarming Tommy in an instant. Though it must clearly show on his face, as Seo breaks out into an apologetic grin, "dextroamphetamine, for my ADHD. I've been trying to wean off it for the Olympics, it's been hard -" but his next words, said so blithe, so casual, have Tommy's heart stopping in his chest as he's thrown back thirty years, "I've been on them since I was like eleven years old; it was great, I could think, like the right amount, but now I... I think everything. I feel everything. Its a lot." He shrugs, like he didn't just become an echo of his father.

Seo's parents both died twice from overdoses, and now their son feels like he can't function without amphetamines.

Objectively Tommy knows that they work for Seo, that he's not abusing them he simply uses them to help him function, but the irony is not lost on him. It's a lot to unpack. He doesn't think to ask about the Olympics; it slips his mind until he sees Seo and a silver medal on his Twitter feed.

Lola calls Tommy in tears. She's proud, but she wishes she'd known, wishes she'd been able to watch it live, or go over and support him in person.

No-one in Seo's life seems to fully know or understand his intentions or actions, no-one can predict his next move. He puts up a bright facade, but like his parents before him, he does not trust the world to know him.

They don't know where he goes in the few months after the Olympics, all they know is that he doesn't come home.

Cerie "CerieThree" Sixx

Since she'd turned sixteen, Tommy has never seen Cerie Sixx without a smile. That is a very deliberate choice that she's made.

She's made a choice to rise above the percieved grime of her origins. She's halfway across the country, smiling for a camera she can control, editing her image before she lets it out into the world. Cerie Three - even the name the world knows reflects this; she's picked apart the context she was born into, disecting it, deciding which was useful to show the world, disposing of the rest.

She speaks warmly to her family, from what Tommy can gather, but the people on the peripheries of their life seem more like associates in the coldest sense of the world. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes half the time when she sees Tommy, and she shakes his hand when her brothers will hug him. The internet is closer to her than he is.

Cerie looks the most like her mother of all her siblings; she's 21, the exact same age Lola was when she met Tommy, but half the time he can barely see the resemblence. Lola had let the world see a villain at that age; Cerie had learned from that, had rejected that, rejected the cold, hard humanity of her mother's fronting. Cerie wanted to be perfect. Cerie had to be perfect, hyper aware of her own image, like her siblings seem to be, but the way she'd so effectively shaped her public identity was kind of terrifying.

Perhaps this was what it was like for people who didn't know Lola, only allowed to know the image she put out into the world, or people who only knew Nikki for his stage presence.

But the more Tommy thinks about it, the more he remembers just how effectively Lola had wrapped the band around her little finger when she set her mind to it, how she talked her way around exectives despite being dressed like she'd woken up in the gutter and fucked up on any number of drugs. Lola understood people, and it seemed Cerie did too.

Cerie Sixx, twenty one, doesn't stop creating content, doesn't stop studying, and doesn't stop smiling. Two of those three things are inhereted traits, inhereted determination, and the third is a choice.

Cyrus Sixx

Though Cyrus had inhereted much of his parent's musical talent, the same way Jupiter had, Cyrus had also inhereted a love of the high life. Even so, he's so full of love, kissing his mother on both cheeks before he goes out to get shitfaced in the bars she was decades before he was even born.

He works hard, at his job, on his music, but his partying matches it just as well. He knows exactly how far he has to fall before he meets the depths his parents' had sunk to, and though he doesn't voice this, his arrogance comes across in his actions.

There'd always be someone to pull him away from swan diving to rock bottom. He takes that for granted, and keeps getting closer and closer.

The only one of Nikki and Lola's children who still lives at home, he's the only one like them in the way they'd feared.

"He's going to have more success than he will ever be able to comprehend," Nikki had told Tommy, the day after Cyrus had been admitted to hospital after staying up for four days while high and obsessing over a song he had been working on. Nikki had found him having a fit after having fallen from his desk chair. Now, sitting on Tommy's patio in the sunset, he looks tired, he looks afraid, "if he doesn't end up killing himself first."

A month ago, the fire department and the police had to pull him, kicking and screaming and bareass naked from a tree in the middle of town. His parents had bailed him out, had felt a familiar sting of guilt as they find themselves reminded of their own youthful exploits. They repremand him, of course, but they both know the only reason they stopped climbing trees was because there had been no-one to pick them up after.

Nikki sees himself in his sons mistakes, but he'd had to learn concequences the hard way.

Tommy loves his family and all it's strange branches, as well as their raucous youth, but his closest friends were some of the most volatile people he'd known, and somehow he'd forgotten that as time as taken people and memories from him.

But these children were made in their image.

[babbushka]

Better Luck

Flip Zimmerman x Reader 

A late night bubble bath takes a deadly turn, when a face you thought you'd never see again comes crashing into your home. Lucky for you, Flip doesn't take too kindly to people trying to harm the most precious thing in the world to him.

5.6k ; Content warnings for home invasion, stalking, murder, graphic descriptions of violence, mild gore, blood, misogyny, implied/referenced past domestic abusive, and NSFW (Bathtub sex, murder kink, PIV)

(events of Hide Your Smile are mentioned)

Also available on AO3! 

                                              ----------------------------

It’s been a long day, you know. Flip was out late, was out for a real long time, but now he was home, and his muscles were sore, he was achin’ for a bath. So in the bathroom you are, naked and lounging among a pile of bubbles, fragrant and delicate as they pop in the air around you.

He’s looking at you with that doe-eyed expression of his, the one he gets when he’s had a couple beers or has been away from you for too long. This is the latter, you know, his eyes are clear with sobriety, just soft and sparkling with love. You look right back at him, admire the way his wet hair makes those ears of his stick out, admire how his dimples crease and crinkle around his goatee when he smiles.

“Penny for your thoughts, foxy lady?” Flip asks you after a moment of sweet eye contact that you reciprocate half hidden behind the suds.

“Just thinkin’ about how handsome you are, it’s unfair.” You reply, lifting your foot to rest it cheekily on his shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” He grins, huffing and puffing on the cigarette he’s got, blowing smoke towards the vent in the ceiling, turning to press little smooches against your ankle, “Why don’t you tell me all about it.”

“Come a little closer and I just might.” You nudge him towards you with your foot, and he stubs out the cigarette to move across the tub and cover your body with his.

His mouth is on yours teasingly. His lips are plush and full and just barely out of reach, making you work for it, making you giggle and grin and nip little bites at his cheek. He smiles and you cup his neck and hold him close, his wet hair shagging down around his face and enveloping you both in a curtain of brown. Your eyes slip closed and he gives in, breathes in deeply the scent of you and the soap and the suds and –

There’s a CRASH! downstairs.

Flip freezes, he hears it first, his reflexes attuned to the world around him ever so quicker than yours.

His voice is hard all of a sudden, jaw clenched together as he’s lifting himself out of the tub, grabbing a towel and ordering you to, “Stay here.”

With the thud of your heartbeat pounding behind your ears, you ignore him and follow him out of the tub immediately. The thought of leaving him to deal with whatever that crash was alone is simply unbearable, almost as terrifying as the thought of staying upstairs by yourself. Not now, you couldn’t sit in this tub alone now. You don’t even bother to drain it, only going so far as to blow out the candles so they don’t catch onto the curtain and burn your house down.

Flip sees you getting dressed hurriedly beside him and is already frowning, scowling deep and heavy as he tugs on the pair of jeans he was wearing earlier that day and a t-shirt from the hamper. You pull on a nightgown, just something to cover yourself up. Neither of you are completely dry, but there’s another crash from downstairs, and you can’t find it in you to care, not when your heart is racing as fast as it is.

You stand behind Flip silently, not daring to make a single sound, not going to make a single breath as he grabs his gun from the dresser and begins his descent down the stairs.

It’s dark, downstairs.

It’s quiet.

Flip avoids the creaky floorboard and you do the same, hovering just before that step, not wanting to make Flip angry by going any further. You’re lucky he let you go this far.

He goes farther.

There’s a SMASH! then, the sound of glass shattering, likely the little window above the sink in your kitchen, and Flip bolts.

He’s deadly silent as he runs through the pitch black of the house, Flip is. You can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, there’s no sound of struggle or gunfire yet, not yet. Just the heavy thud of boots on carpeting and wood panel flooring, and your heartbeat hammering hammering hammering in your ears. You’re trying not to scream, and the impulse is getting harder harder harder to hold back when you finally hear,

“Let me go! Let me – I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” It’s a man’s voice, a man who you recognize, and the blood drains from your face when you do recognize it – it seems almost like a lifetime ago, an age ago, since you’ve heard it.

The sounds of struggling are loud now, scuffling as Flip wrestles and wrangles the intruder to the floor. You descend the stairs slowly, in disbelief, your body going numb, going cold, as you hear the crunch of a nose being broken and the grunts that accompany it. You’re frozen, frozen in place as your eyes widen as far as they will go, vision blurred from the way you’re shaking. Are you shaking? You can’t tell, you’re numb, you can’t feel anything.

“Shut the fuck up.” Flip shouts, his voice louder than anything you’ve ever heard before, it echoes in your brain a thousand times. When you turn the corner you can see him standing over the man, pistol whipping him in the face with the butt of his gun, shouting so hard that his face shakes, that spit flies and catches in the moonlight, “I said shut up!”

You hug the corner of the hallway that faces the kitchen, where the sliding glass door is open and broken – not the window then, you think fleetingly – and Flip whips around to face you.

His face is deranged, eyes wide and black and filled with rage, blood dripping down from his fingertips from where the man’s nose was broken under his fist, his gun. The expression on Flip’s face is one that you’ve only seen once before, a long time ago when you were just a teenager, when he…well. You don’t need a reminder of what he did, how he saved you then.  

Flip turns to face you more fully, and you can see how your husband has this intruder pinned so beautifully underneath him. Flip has one big knee slammed down on the cavity of his stomach, bent over to grip him by his throat. The gun is in his other hand, and though Flip looks just shy of feral, the gun does not shake. Despite that, despite his calm, you feel something clawing up your throat, a scream, a shriek of terror when your eyes adjust and the familiar outline of the man’s face is revealed to you.

Time stands still.

He looks so different, and yet exactly the same.

It’s a little hard to tell, with his nose smashed in the way that it is, with blood dripping oozing flowing down onto his lips – but you know him, you know this man. A friend of…his, your ex. The very same one that Flip disposed of over a decade ago, that ex. This man, one of his cronies, you remember these features.

They’re as disturbing to you now as they were then, the face that haunted your every step. Standing outside your window in the dead of night, lurking behind parked cars in lots, always on the same side of the street – following, watching, waiting.

Hunting.

He’s older now, hardened, the man. But the thing that has yet to change, the thing that chills you more than anything else, is the look in his eye. That sparkle, the glimmer of madness, the vacant shine – like a shark.

“Alex? Is that you?” You stand in silence for too long, holding your breath. The words fall out of your mouth seemingly on their own, like you’re surprised you remember the name. But how could you forget? How could you, when he had done everything in his power to make you pay for what happened to Josh?

Alex's ribcage expands under the pressure of Flip’s knee, and he takes in a ragged breath, a strained one. He’s in pain, you can tell, he has to be in pain, but he doesn’t show it.

“Answer her.” Flip doesn’t shout this time, his brain working a million miles a minute. He looks at you, confused, concerned. He waits, his eyes on you. It’s easy for him, restraining Alex, the man is as thin and gangly as he was back in high school, like he never grew into his body.

“Long time no see.” Alex grins at you, blood on his teeth.

You come closer, one foot in front of the other as you enter the kitchen. Alex doesn’t struggle against Flip’s hold, he knows it’s of no use. But he’s slippery, a slimy bastard, he’s going to wait for an opportunity to get out from under Flip’s grip and then he’ll lunge for you.

You know this.

You know Flip won’t give him the opportunity.

“I thought they put you away for good.” You say, your voice entirely too calm.

“So did they.” Alex replies, his grin wider.

You give him a sparing glance, he’s still in his prison uniform, covered in filth and grime and muck. Irrationally, a flare of anger shoots through you for how you just mopped the floors. Flip seems to notice that at the same time, and he breaks his silence.

“You know him?” He asks you gently, calmly, a voice so laced with venom that it’s soothing and terrifying at the same time. Flip wants to rip him to pieces, his jaw is clenched so tightly that you’re worried for his teeth.

“He’s the one I’ve told you about, the one who wouldn’t ever leave me alone back in high school.” You reply, nodding slowly as you take a few more steps closer closer closer, inching towards the monster who has sought you out once again, “Remember I called the cops but they said they couldn’t do anything since he only stalked me? They found him trying to kidnap a girl at the college, found a padlocked cooler in his truck, knives. She was the fourth girl he had gotten to.”

“I remember.” Flip turns his attention back to the man underneath him, who is now starting to squirm, starting to get flighty. He’s waiting for his opportunity, he doesn’t know he’s not going to get one, not with Flip, not when Flip continues, “Liked cutting women up, isn’t that right, Alex? Liked hearing them scream for you, got off on it, right?”

“Maybe.” He’s struggling, the pressure on his lungs, on his throat growing too much for him. You watch watch watch, as Flip makes up his mind.

“Is that what you came here for tonight? To cut my girl up?” The questions are hypothetical, but they’re not at the same time. Flip knows what he’s going to do, he just needs Alex to say it so he has the permission.

“Maybe.” Alex chokes, and Flip doesn’t like that.

“Maybe’s not a fucking answer!” Flip shouts so loudly that the veins in his neck stand out as he grasps Alex's sandy blonde hair as tightly as he can and bashes his head against the floor, blood splattering out from the broken nose in an arc across the wood paneling.

“What are you going to do with him?” You whisper then, your heart racing, thudding hammering pounding in your chest.

“What do you want me to do?” Flip looks up at you with wide open eyes, his gaze imploring, near begging.

“I want you to kill him.” You say without even thinking about it.

You say it too quickly.

You’ve been wanting to say it for so many years.

But this…this is different than the last time. The last time you were both young, much too young.

The last time it was an accident, a mistake that had to be covered up.

The last time Flip hadn’t planned on killing the boy who beat the shit out of you.

(You don’t know, but yes. Yes he had.)

He’s a detective now, a lieutenant now. He could lose everything if someone were to find out. He could be locked away for the rest of his life, he could be put to death. They just reinstated capital punishment, just this year, you know. You know you know you know – and yet.

And yet, Flip cannot imagine doing anything else to this man, cannot imagine any other outcome for him.

“Honey-bunny?” He asks you softly, sweetly, as Alex begins to struggle more significantly underneath him, growing impatient, growing scared.

“Yes Phil?” You whisper, watching watching watching.

Flip looks at Alex, mulls it over for a moment before licking his lips and instructing,

“Go put a tarp down in the basement.”

                                                        ---------------

It’s surreal, doing this. The moment the words leave his lips you’re running, bolting down the hall and to the stairs that go down down down. As soon as you’re out of sight, you hear a gunshot, and a scream.

You don’t look back.

The basement’s not the most frequented place in the house, you almost forget that it’s there half the time. Nothing but storage, big cardboard boxes labeled with holiday decorations that it’s not time for.

There’s a single lightbulb that flickers on and off for a moment before settling on the low light of an orange glow. You have to search for a minute for where the tarps might be, eventually finding them in the back from when you had all those renovations done last year. Your friends playfully mocked you for keeping them back then, but who was laughing now?

Clearing a space on the floor, you put the tarps down, and as quickly as you can, you push all the boxes as far out of the way as possible.

It’s only a minute before Flip is kicking the door in, Alex screaming and thrashing in his hold. Your stomach churns when you see that he shot a hole through Alex's cheek, has hooked his finger through it and is using that to pull him down the steps. Flip doesn’t give a shit if his cheek tears clean through, he doesn’t care, he’s seeing red.

“You picked the wrong fucking house to try, the wrong fucking woman.” He throws Alex's body onto the center of the tarp and before he can even try to get up, he kicks Alex in the chest to knock the wind out of him.

The tarp is already going slick with blood as it gushes out of the bullet hole in Alex's cheek. Flip rips open the buttons of Alex's, taped to his body are knives that he must have smuggled out of prison. Makeshift torture tools, shanks and shivs that he spent who knows how long working on.

“Just kill me already!” Alex begs, but Flip shakes his head.

“No.” He grits out, yanking the duct tape off Alex's flesh as he tears the knives away from his torso. “No, that’s too quick, too easy for you. You don’t deserve that.”

It’s like an out of body experience, watching this. You step closer, placing a hand on Flip’s shoulder. He doesn’t recoil, he recognizes your touch, he knows it’s you.

“Flip, let me do the first one, please?” You ask, watching Alex's eyes widen far far far, so far that they’re almost popping out of his skull. You take one of the knives from Flip, slide it from his palm to yours as you whisper in his ear, “Please, I want to do the first one.”

“Go ahead, I’ve got him princess, my sweet girl, I’ve got him.” Flip encourages you, turns to kiss at your cheek, the soft skin by your jaw, your ear. Something about the praise, about the tone of his voice, the full faith he has in you, makes your pussy throb. Your thighs press together when he says, “Go ahead.”

Flip holds Alex in a headlock, and before the man can say anything, you’re stabbing him in the gut, hard.

The knife slips into his flesh easily, and you watch in morbid fascination as it sinks deeper deeper deeper, until it’s all the way in, piercing slicing serrated and cruel. You look up to Flip, half terrified for what you’re doing, and half enthralled. You’ve never done this before, you’ve never done anything like this before – not even the last time.

There’s no going back now, you both know. Not now, not now that there’s a knife embedded into his stomach.

Flip nods.

Alex screams.

“No one can hear you, no one will come for you.” Flip says lowly, dangerous and dark as Alex writhes shakes scream scream screams in his hold. “Do it again, ketsl.”

You yank the knife out and stab him again, a little higher this time. There’s muscle here, something, you don’t know, you never paid very close attention in anatomy class. You have to slam the knife in a little harder to get it through, the force of the impact blurring your vision for a minute.

“You’re doing so well sweetheart,” Flip’s voice is quiet, but loud. So loud in your brain, in your mind. He might be whispering, he might be screaming, you wouldn’t know. “Let me take over, you’ve done enough.”

You pass him the knife again, and he’s quick to continue what you started. Again again again, Flip stabs him, ripping the knife out and plunging it back in, slashing him up. You’re turned on, so turned on by the way Flip does this for you. It’s revolting, sickening, how wet your thighs become, but you love it, you can’t stop watching the way Flip’s muscles move flex tense as he kills this man for you.

The more Flip does it, the more cathartic it becomes, the more elated you feel.

Tears bubble up, well up in your eyes, but they’re not of sadness, they’re of relief.

“Remember how no one wanted you? How no one ever spoke to you because they thought you were a lunatic? Remember how I tried so hard to be a friend to you? I did everything I could for you, I stood up for you, listened to you, cared for you!” You don’t hold the words back, the volume of your voice growing louder and louder with each stab of this knife, the knife Alex had brought to use on you. “And this is how you repay me.”

Alex thrashes, rages against Flip’s hold. He kicks his legs out in fury, his eyes blank, blood choking up through the wounds in his stomach, pouring out of his mouth, of his cheek.

“This is your fault!” Alex screams, “Your fault! You – you led me on! You lied to me, I thought you were mine! You were supposed to be mine!!”

“I don’t belong to anyone.” You smack him sharply across the face for the audacity of his words, “But if I did, it wouldn’t be you.”

Alex hemorrhages on the floor, seizes, the toll of his wounds taking over him. The force he must have exerted in his screaming fit must have ruptured something, you watch him shiver and tremble uncontrollably on the floor, rolling in his own blood.

“I’ve had enough of your noise.” Flip says to Alex.

Flip grabs Alex's face, hooks one hand around his upper teeth, the other around his lower, and snaps the jaw clean off its hinges with a sickening crack!

It’s unsettling, the way that it hangs there, unattached by anything other than muscle, limp and weak.

He then reaches inside one of the cavities made by your stab wounds, and squeezes Alex's heart, strangles it, forces a heart attack, making him thrash and gurgle hot steaming blood in his throat, until it stops.

It all stops.

It’s quiet, again.

Flip lets Alex drop limply to the floor, the tarp crinkling, slick with blood. He pulls his hands away, smears the red against Alex's face to close his eyes. He doesn’t want him looking at you, not even in death.

“Holy shit.” You breathe, looking down at the corpse in your basement.

“Are you okay?” Flip faces you hesitantly. He’s covered up to his forearms in blood, chest heaving. He’s afraid of scaring you, afraid of causing you more stress, you can tell.

“Yeah, just,” You reach out your hands for him, your own blood-stained hands, hands that somehow, somehow feel more clean than they ever have before. Flip gently takes them in his own, you admire how broad and handsome the palms are as you look up at him and whisper, “I’ve been living with the fear of him finding me in the back of my head for a decade. And now thanks to you, it’s gone. Thank you – Philip, thank you.”

The tears are back, the intense relief of this nightmare being over hitting you like a ton of bricks. Flip crushes you to his chest, wraps his arms around you and lets you cry, lets you mold yourself to his body and tuck your face under his chin, lets you let him hold you.

“Nothing will ever hurt you, not as long as I’m around.” He caresses the base of your skull, pets your hair down, neither of you caring about the blood on his hands. He kisses your temple, “You understand me? Nothing, no one. I’ll kill them, I’ll kill anything that ever dares to try.”

You pull away slightly, just enough for you to look up at him with tears of love and relief in your eyes as you whisper, “Kiss me.”

He doesn’t hesitate, the taste of iron and salt on his tongue is intoxicating. He licks into your mouth and you sigh into his, exchanging silent I love yous in the way your lips move together. It’s slow, it’s unhurried, it’s careful yet fulfilling in all the best ways.

“I’m so wet for you Flip.” You mumble against his lips, bringing one of his hands to slip under your nightgown, for him to feel how much you want him, how much you want him to, “Fuck me, hard.”

“Not here.” He pulls your hand back up to kiss at your wrist.

“Phil,” you whine, worried for a second, but he just shakes his head sweetly and kisses your wrist again.

“No sweetheart, not here. Not where he can see you.” Flip leads you towards the stairs, bringing you away from the body, the corpse that bleeds slowly, steadily on the tarp. He doesn’t let you look back, pulls you slowly, gently up the stairs. “I don’t want him looking at you.”

“Take me to the bathroom then, the tub should still be full.” You remember suddenly, “Let me wash you clean.”

You smile at one another, Flip locks the basement door just for good measure, and up to the bathroom you go.

It’s strange, being back in the rest of the house. On your way up to the master suite you see the tracks, the mess that will have to be cleaned up in the morning. The glass from the sliding door, the mud, the blood. You’re too wound up to care right now, too focused on the ache between your legs.

But still, it will have to be dealt with.

Flip brings you to the bathroom, and the tub is still filled. He keeps the lights off, it’s so dark, dark everywhere in the house. Dark enough that this almost feels like a dream. The water, somehow, is still hot, and it makes you wonder how long you were even really gone.

It could have been ten minutes or a weekend, you don’t know. There are no windows in the basement.

Flip steps into the tub first, and you follow after, sitting with your legs straddling his thick strong waist. His cock is hard, it bumps up against your thigh as you settle yourself above him, trying to get a good position for you to sink down down down, the stretch filling you as his cock bottoms out.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. I’d do anything for you, anything.” Flip groans, dunking his hands in the bath water to quickly rinse them of their grime, before cupping your breasts as you sigh and moan softly above him.

“I know handsome, I know, I would do the same.” You bite at your lips, your hands bracing on his chest as he gets more comfortable in the hot water of the tub. You can only imagine that the water must be stained red, clear.

Something about that makes you anxious for a minute, so you unplug the drain and let it quickly empty, before plugging it and turning on the faucet once more. The pipes creak from the sudden demand for hot water, boiling hot, steaming hot, and Flip sighs happily as it soothes his tense muscles.

“You’ve got such a tight pussy.” He moans as he gets his purchase on the bottom of the tub and thrusts up slightly, pushing his cock further into you. “I could live here, I want to live here, ohhh fuck.”

You let out a little yelp from the feeling of it, of how he drags that cock of his in and out of you, how you can feel all the thick veins and ridges pushing and thrusting against your walls. You settle back against his thighs where his knees are bent in the tub, looking up at the small mirror that he bolted to the ceiling some years ago.

“Look how good we look,” You gasp as he thrusts faster, as you bounce on his cock, his hands on your tits and pinching at your nipples. “Look how nice we fit together, Flip, fuck – oh Flip!”

“So beautiful.” He sounds drunk, you think with a smile, drunk off your pussy. He watches his cock disappear in and out of you instead of looking at the mirror, and that’s fine with you because you can barely see straight as it is.

“Oh yes, yesyesyes, please, more, Flip!” You watch yourself get fucked, watch as your mouth drops open, as you bounce bounce bounce, his hands gripping you grasping you all over, holding you tight, fucking you fast. His hand moves somehow in slow motion to rub hard circles on your clit, making your body shudder, drooling all over yourself.

You come, and maybe it’s the adrenaline, maybe it’s the relief, maybe it’s the sheer power and strength of the man underneath you, but when you come it’s like firecrackers in your veins, sparking up and shooting up your spine, making you gasp sharply, loudly.

“Say my name over and over again and, once you think you’ve said it loud enough, scream it.” He snarls, close to an orgasm himself, just teetering right over the edge.

You move your hips in little circles that make his head thunk back onto the rim of the tub, make him whimper and snap his teeth together as his thrusts fuck you through the bliss of orgasm.

“Flip, Flip – Phil! Philip oh, yes, yes!” You shout shout shout until your voice breaks and it goes up to a high pitched scream, the feeling of his cock throbbing pulsing spilling inside you enough to make you dizzy.

“Shit.” He groans low and dark as he bites down hard on your throat, hands squeezing and kneading your tits.

And then there’s nothing but the sound of heavy breathing once again. But this time, this time it’s bliss, sheer and utter joy that permeates from his body into yours as he comes down from his high.

You smile down at him, big grin, so happy, tucking his wet hair behind his ears as you shut the faucet off. The tub is filled to the brim, water sloshes over the side of the porcelain, but you don’t care. Your body is still tingling, nerves on fire, warmed inside and out.

Flip gives you that doe eyed look of his again, and you once again cannot help but think how handsome he is. You huff out a laugh, how surreal the entire ordeal was. You wonder if you’ll scream, if you’ll cry, if you’re just in shock.

You don’t feel like you’re in shock, you feel like you’re flying.

“Penny for your thoughts, foxy lady?” Flip asks, reaching up a finger to caress the bridge of your nose.

You both break out into absurd giggles, and you shrug, reaching across the tub to grab his pack of camels. The little match glows redorangeyellow when you light it, and the both of you stare at the small flame as you bring it to the cigarette you’ve stuck between your lips. It burns the edge of the cigarette, and when the tip glows red you pass it to Flip, to your husband.

There’s a sizzle as you drop the match into the bathwater.

“What are we gonna do?” You ask him, voice broken, barely above a whisper.

“About what, ketsl?” Flip hums, breathing smoke thick and heavy out of his mouth and nose on the exhale. It travels up up up and clings to the mirror on the ceiling, the mirror that’s now foggy with the hot steam of the bath.

“The body in our basement.” You reply casually, as if you were asking what he’d like for lunch.

He shifts a little, more water sloshes around. If there were more light in the bathroom, if it weren’t so dark, you might be able to watch it wash away the blood on the tile, thinning it out until it disappears.

“Don’t worry about that.” Flip whispers, his hands rubbing soothingly against your back, your sides. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You won’t get in trouble?” For the first time your voice wavers, the thought of anyone taking your husband away from you dripping like a cold terror down your spine.

“No one’s going to find out, I promise.” He shakes his head, assuring and reassuring you.

You have every reason to believe him, to trust him, so you do. Wholly and completely, you do.

                                                       ---------------

The next morning you wake up alone. It’s early, but that’s just because you’re used to waking up early with Flip and his job. The alarm clock is ringing, and you have to roll over to Flip’s side of the bed to turn it off. Carefully, you slip out of bed and tip-toe downstairs, blinking in surprise at what you find.

There’s no mess anywhere. Nothing, no mud no blood no prints or marks. You creep down to the basement, find it perfectly clean and empty. The only sign of trouble is the broken sliding door, but even that has been taped up with big pieces of paper, all the glass swept away.

Flip comes home then, the front door opening and closing softly. Tucked under his elbow is a brown paper bag, the smell of freshly baked bagels filling the living room as you go to meet him.

“Clyde knows a guy who’ll come fix the door.” He says after he kisses your cheek and wishes you a good morning.

“Clyde knows?” You take the bag from him and go over to the kitchen, him following hot on your heels like the duckling that he is.

“It was my turn for a cauliflower.” Flip smiles against your cheek as he smooches his favorite spot there again and again and again, as you pop a bagel into the toaster, wanting him to have at least something small to eat before he has to go to work.

“I’ll swing by the bar later, bring him lunch.” You resolve, thankful for your friends.

“Keep an eye out for the three o’clock news.” He whispers, even though there’s no one there to be listening. He turns you to face him, kissing you properly, soundly on the lips, “Love you ketsl, I’ll be home early tonight.”

You grin at him, not bothering to flinch when the bagel pops out of the toaster, and slather cream cheese and lox on it for his drive over to the station.

He’s got an icy cold Shirley temple waiting for you when you walk into Duck Tape, Clyde does. Clyde doesn’t ever really smile much, he’s too much like Flip that way, but he looks at you warmly, opens his arms up for you as you walk behind the bar and give him a tight hug.

“Hey darlin’, I was hopin’ you’d come round.” Clyde taps his knuckles under your chin playfully.

“Heard you helped my man out today.” You offer him a nicely packaged lunch and a smile.

“Wasn’t no trouble at all.” He replies. Even though there’s few patrons in the bar at this time of day, he still keeps his voice down. Thankfully Clyde’s always been soft spoken, no one pays it much mind.

The news turns on then, a breaking report just out of town. You and Clyde both force yourself to be as casually interested as possible, as a woman in a blazer stands just outside a line of yellow tape and police cars – cars you recognize, one car in particular that you recognize – explaining how a convict had escaped and was found mauled to death by a wild bear late last night.

“Damn,” One of the regular men at the bar whistles, “What kinda bad luck? Breaking out of jail and gettin’ killed after not ten minutes of freedom.”

“Pretty bad.” You reply with a nod.

“To better luck.” The drunk raises his beer and tilts it towards you.

You grin, pick up your shirley temple and clink the glass against his.

“To better luck.”  

[sunmoonandeddie]

i don’t need a roof

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3,496

summary: Bucky thinks he’s running out of time, and needs to make sure his girl knows she’s taken care.

warnings: Bad words, almost death

a/n:  So this was inspired by this song from Big Fish the Musical.  There are lyrics from the song in the dialogue.  Also, this is the brownstone they were talking about.  Also I’m so sorry if this hurts, but there is a happy ending.

Bucky was cold.  In all the time that you’d known him (three years and four months, actually), he’d never once been cold.  He’d always been your own personal space heater, even before the two of you started dating.

But as you held him in your arms, his head on your chest, you were struck with the fact that he was cold.

The HYDRA agents that were holding you had injected him with something a few days ago, some glowing liquid that made a weight appear in the pit of your stomach.  But you could only watch as they injected it into his bloodstream.  You were too weak to do anything, too weak to protect the love of your life.

When the agent holding you had let you go, letting your kneecaps hit the concrete floor with a thud, you’d rushed to him, holding him as close as you could.

You’d never seen him in so much physical pain.  The super soldier serum was trying it’s best to keep up with whatever he’d been injected with, but it was like it set his blood on fire.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered as you rocked him back and forth, your head resting on top of his.  You didn’t realize you were crying until you tasted the saltiness of your tears on your lips.  It was all your fault.  You were the reason that you two got captured, and had been held in this cell for at least a week.

At least they hadn’t separated you.  You would’ve gone absolutely feral if they had even tried that, not to mention what Bucky would have done.

“Agent Twelve, on your right!  Incoming!”

You turned to see a HYDRA agent with his knife in hand, ready to strike.  You waited for just a second for him to get close enough, before ducking and sweeping out his legs in the same motion, catching his own knife in your hand and shoving it into his throat.  “Got him,” you said, yanking the knife out with a wince.

The sound of someone choking on their own blood as they died was never one you could get used to.

This was supposed to be an in and out mission.  An hour or two, tops, with minimal fighting.

But your intel was wrong, and you’d been led into the trap.

It felt like with every agent you took down, two more appeared.  They kept multiplying, like bunnies.

“No, not like bunnies,” you mused to yourself as you fought off two more agents.  “I like bunnies.  These guys—”  You grunted as you wrapped your legs around one of the guy’s heads, squeezing and twisting just as Natasha taught you to do.  “These guys are fuckin’ rats!”

You could hear Bucky snorting on the commlink, and spotted him shaking his head in amusement as he took down three separate agents at once across the airfield you two were currently fighting on.

God, your man was fucking hot.

An entire year, eleven months, and twenty-four days together, and he still made you sweat like a teenager going through puberty anytime you saw him.

Which reminded you.  You had your two-year anniversary in, like, six days.  You knew that he definitely had something special planned, the secret romantic that he was.  Fuck, you needed something to do for him.  Despite the fact that he always said you didn’t have to, you wanted to.  You wanted to make your man feel just as special as he made you feel.

Flowers.  You could start with flowers.  People were always so surprised to find that your boyfriend loved flowers, but he did.  It was sweet.  His absolute favorites were pink begonias, since they reminded him of his mother’s garden.  Well, the flower box she kept on the window sill, since they didn’t have the space or money for a full garden.

What else?  You couldn’t just get him flowers.  Two years was a big deal!  Especially considering the kind of people you two were!  The both of you were stubborn as an ox and lacked communication skills.  You were both used to doing things on your own, and dealing with issues without asking for help.

But that doesn’t work in a relationship.

You knew a lot of people thought you wouldn’t make it a month, and they were almost right since you two had your first fight at three weeks and a day, but then something happened.

Bucky stopped in the middle of the fight, running his fingers through his hair with a sigh came from his bones, and said, “I’m not doing this.  I love you too much to let something as stupid as this ruin us.”

It had been the first time he’d said ‘I love you.’

And you hadn’t heard him at first and kept yelling, before abruptly stopping and staring at him like he’d grown two heads.  “I’m sorry.  What?  You…  You love me?”

And he’d simply nodded, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I…  I love you, too,” you said, clearing your throat as you shuffled your feet.

After that, you two decided to go see Donna, a couple’s therapist.  You were both already going to therapy separately, but going together was an entirely new ball game.

And it worked.  Sure, it wasn’t always smooth sailing, but it wasn’t like you were screaming and shouting at each other.  You handled your problems like a team, because that’s what you were.

You could always get one of those little USO showgirl uniforms…  As much as you hated Amazon, their Prime feature really was a godsend for times like these.

Or maybe you could pay a shit ton of money for someone to make it in five days or less, since you had money now.  It’d be worth it, and there were thousands upon thousands of costume designers and seamstresses in New York City, the world capital of theatre.

And you still had that red lingerie he loved so much that you could wear underneath it…

“TWELVE!”

You shook yourself out of your daze just in time for a HYDRA agent to plunge a needle into your neck, black quickly overtaking your vision as you passed out.

“I’m so sorry,” you gasped out as you held Bucky that much closer.  It hadn’t been hard for you to connect the dots once you’d woken up in the tiny concrete room, a steel door being the only way out.  Bucky had been captured because he’d been trying to save your ass.

He grunted as he moved, his eyes squeezing shut in pain.  “It ain’t your fault, baby doll,” he said, his hand grasping onto your forearm.  “Stop blaming yourself.”  He leaned his head slightly to the side so he could look at you, reaching up to wipe your tears.  “Wipe that frown off your pretty face.  ‘M right here.”

“Yeah, but—”  You were cut off by him placing a finger over your mouth.

He took a deep breath before he spoke, his face pale.  “Now, baby doll…  I need you to listen real good, okay?”  He waited for you to squeeze his hand in confirmation.  “There’s a brownstone at 154 Hicks Street, Brooklyn,” he said, wincing with the effort it took to talk.  “Now, I know it’s in Brooklyn, and you love Manhattan, but—”

Brows furrowed, you cupped his cheek in your hand.  “Brooklyn is just fine, but what are you talking about?”

You could visibly see the cogs turning in his head as he carefully chose his words.  “I already paid for it in full, so no need to worry about that.  Sam knows where the keys are.  And—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” you said, cutting him off.  “Why are you talking like this?”

His flesh hand reached up and cupped your chin, his thumb running over your bottom lip.  “You always said you’ve never had a home, but you wouldn’t mind having one with me,” he said, his voice barely audible.  “So I got you one.  It’s got a garden and everything, so you can plant flowers and... and a peach tree.  ‘Cause I know just how much you like peaches.”

“Then stop talking about Sam knowing where the keys are,” you chided.  “You can show me the garden yourself.”  You knew where he was going with this, but you didn’t want him to.  You didn’t want him to say it, because then that might make it real.

“Baby doll, I don’t think I’m gonna make it out of here,” he said as gently as possible, his voice cracking.  “So you gotta listen to me.  It’s all paid for.  Every penny.  The papers are in my desk in our room, the second drawer from the top.”  He took in a shaky breath, trying to hide the pain.  “There’s a ring there, too.  It’s yours, but I thought you might wanna live together for at least six months before I popped the question on ya.”

“Stop it,” you said, leaning your forehead against his.  “You can propose whenever you want, but you gotta stop talking like that.”  Your nose nudged against his as you tried to hold back a fresh wave of tears, though you were quickly finding that was impossible.  “Stop talking like you’re not getting out of here, too.  We’re gonna make it out of here, okay?  And then you can show me the brownstone with the garden in Brooklyn.  So stop talking like you’re going to die because you’re not.”

“My stubborn girl,” he said with a weak laugh, his smile watery.  “I got you a home.  For our two year anniversary, which...”  His brows furrowed, his head cocking to the side a little.  “I think it was four days ago?”

Sniffling, you grabbed his face a little tighter, leaning back so you could look in his eyes.  “Don’t you get it?  You’re my home.”  Letting out a huff, you wiped a tear from his face.  “In your face, I see a lifetime.  In this place…”  You pressed your hand to his heart, feeling the slow but steady beat under your palm, through his thin white undershirt.  “I feel at ease.”

He looked at you like he wanted to interject, but didn’t, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

“Wallpaper peeling, paint wearing thin,” you said, teasing him a little about his age like you always did.  “Here’s where I end and begin.”  In his eyes, you could see all the trouble of his past, swirling in those brilliant blue depths.  “I don’t need a roof to say, ‘I’m covered.’  I don’t need a roof to know I’m home.”  You curled up on his chest, right where your hand had been.  It was much nicer to be able to hear it as well as feel it.  If you closed your eyes, you could imagine you were in your bed at the Tower, going to bed together like any other night.  “There could be a single shingle dangling overhead.  I don’t need a roof to make my bed.”  Fingers running up and down his flesh arm, you tried to get him to relax.  “Close your eyes, I’m still beside you.  No goodbyes needed today.”

Thunder cracked outside, and if you listened close enough, you could hear the soft pitter patter on the roof.  His breathing was starting to even out, and you didn’t know if it was because he was calming down or if he was actually starting to go.

“Hear what the rain says, know what it knows.  After the rain, something grows.”  Your fingers intertwined with his as tears ran slowly down your cheeks, and you squeezed softly.  His metal arm wrapped around your waist, holding you between his legs.  “I don’t need a roof to say, ‘I love you.’  I don’t need a roof to call you mine.”

If you got out of this, you were retiring, and you’d make him retire, too.  You wanted to live a life with him without worrying about possibly dying before you got a chance to see him go gray.

If you had children, you wanted to be alive to see them grow up.

You’d give up being an agent.  You’d become just a consultant, or you’d give that up, too.  You didn’t care.  You’d just be Mrs. Barnes for the rest of your life, and you’d be perfectly happy with that.

“I don’t need adventure in some far away frontier.  I don’t need a roof to feel you near,” you said, starting to get choked up.

He was definitely fading.  His vibranium arm around your waist was starting to go limp, his grip on your hand loosening.

A lump formed in your throat as you clutched onto him that much tighter.  “All I need is you and you forever.  All I feel is true and absolute.”  You leaned back, holding his face in your hand.

His blue eyes fluttered open as he tried to stay awake for you, tried to fight the darkness overcoming him.

Your lower lip wobbled as you ran your thumb over a cut on his cheek bone.  “I don’t need a legal deed to help me play my part.  I don’t need a roof to hold my heart.”  You leaned in and pressed your lips to his.  “Stay with me,” you whispered against his lips, desperately.  You could taste the mix of your tears and his.  “Stay with me.”

But god, he was in so much pain.  You could see it in his face, feel it in the way his grip on your hand readjusted, like it was taking up all of his energy just to hold on.

It probably was.

Swallowing down the sob that was threatening to come out, you said, “It’s okay, Bucky.  It’s okay.  I’m here.”  You pulled his head to your chest, so he could hear your heartbeat in return.  Your fingers worked their way through his tangled hair.  “You’re my home, Bucky.  It’s you.  Please, stay with me.”  But you knew he was close to the end, and the likelihood of him making it out of there was getting smaller and smaller with each passing second.  “I’m here, love.  I’m here.”

Your mouth opened in a silent sob as you felt him go still, your nails unintentionally digging into his arms.  Small puffs of air were still coming from his nose, but his heart was maybe going at five beats per minute, if that.  Your body shook as you rocked him back and forth, unable to let go.

The love of your life was leaving you.  You were feeling him slip away in your arms.

“Bucky?” You whispered, almost afraid to speak at all.  “Baby?  Bucky, please…  Please, stay with me.”  Your voice cracked as you buried your face in his greasy hair.

You didn’t want a brownstone or a ring if you didn’t have Bucky.  You didn’t want anything if you didn’t have him.

You squeezed your eyes shut, kissing his hair.  “I love you.  I love you.  Please, Bucky.  Please.”

The faint sound of footsteps approaching the door made you raise your head, and you steeled yourself, ready to fight back against the HYDRA agents that had no doubt been watching the two of you.  The monsters were just waiting for him to die, and then they were going to take him from you.

Not if you had anything to say about it.

You tightened your grip around him, not bothering to hide your tears.  There was no point.  A lack of tears wouldn’t help you.

The footsteps stopped outside the door, and there was a pause.

Then it blasted open with a bang that startled both you and Bucky, who’s heart rate picked up just a little bit at the sound.

You cried out with relief as you saw Tony standing there in his full Iron Man suit.  “TONY, HELP HIM, PLEASE!” You begged, urging him to take Bucky from your arms.  “HELP HIM!”  Sobs wracked your body as the man nodded, taking him without hesitation, and getting out of there.

Despite their past, Tony loved you, and had learned to love the super soldier by extension.

You sat on your knees, your forehead resting against the ground.  “Please, please, save him,” you cried, your nails dragging painfully against the concrete floor.  Your heart was in absolute shreds.

You had no idea who you were praying to, or even if you were praying at all.  You didn’t know if he could be saved at this point, but you were willing to ask every deity you could think of.

“Twelve?  Twelve, come on.”

Strong hands gently pulled you up, and you found Natasha guiding you towards the door.  “You have to help him, Natasha,” you croaked, dazed and stumbling over your own two feet as you walked forward.  “You have to save him.”

“I know,” she said quietly, her own voice thick with tears as she held you up, making sure you didn’t collapse in the middle of a HYDRA base.  “We’re gonna try, okay?  It’ll all be okay.”

You weren’t able to go to the brownstone with the garden in Brooklyn for three weeks.

You couldn’t leave Bucky’s side.

Tony had gotten him to New York City in record time, and had immediately thrown him into Doctor Cho’s cradle.

He was in there for thirteen days straight as his body fought the new serum, the cradle being the only thing keeping him alive.  It kept his heart and other organs working, his brain functioning.

After two days of you sitting in a chair by the cradle, unable to do anything else but wait, someone wheeled in a hospital bed for you to sleep on.  You’d actually been asleep when he woke up.

And then, when you finally did wake up, the first thing he said to you, his voice muffled by the glass, was, “How long has it been since you showered?  You smell worse than Sam after the gym.”

The absolute asshole.  He almost died and he had the nerve to get onto you about how much you smelled.

It had taken everything in you not to throw yourself at him.  You scrambled off the bed, clinging to the side of the cradle as you looked down at him, frantically hitting the button to get the lid off.  “Bucky,” you said, reaching down to touch his face.  You almost pulled it back, afraid that if you touched him, he’d disappear.

But he simply pushed himself up onto his elbows with a wince, leaning his face into your hand.

“You almost died,” you said, letting out a weak laugh as you rested your chin on the edge of the cradle.

He looked up at you then, his blue eyes just as bright as they always had been, even if they looked a little pained at seeing you such a wreck.  “We’re gonna have to talk to Donna about that, huh?”

A little over a week later, and he was cleared to go home with you.  He was still weak—that serum did take a lot out of him—but he was alive.  And according to every single doctor Tony brought in, there was no chance of him just dropping dead now.

And if they were wrong about that, they’d have you to deal with.  And they all knew that the new Mrs. Barnes was no one to trifle with.

“You got it, baby doll?” Bucky asked as he followed you up the front steps.  He had to take it easy, and you told him that he should consider getting a cane since it was still a little difficult for him to walk.

You were only half kidding about that, though.  They still didn’t know if he still had the original super soldier serum in him after what HYDRA had done, but he was slowly gaining his strength back.  Either way, you didn’t care.  You’d love him with or without his super strength.

“Yeah, I got it,” you said as you slid the shiny gold key into the lock, turning it and opening the door.

The U-Haul truck was sitting on the street, waiting for you two to carry all of your boxes in, but that could wait.

You walked into the front foyer, taking in a deep breath.  It was completely bare, but the furniture that you two had ordered while sitting in his hospital room together was in the U-Haul as well, ready to be arranged.  Sun was streaming in through the large windows, giving a warmth to the house that you couldn’t find at Tower.

“Welcome home, baby doll,” Bucky said as he came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist.  His chin rested on your shoulder, and he pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek.

Your eyes pricked with tears as your hands grasped his forearms, making sure he was there with you.  A large diamond ring glittered in the late morning light on your left hand.  “Welcome home, Bucky.”

[amandaoftherosemire]

And Hell is Just a Sauna -- Part Three

And Hell is Just a Sauna -- Part Three

Fandom: Marvel/MCU

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Characters: Bucky Barnes

Author: @amandaoftherosemire

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 6,091    

Format: Short Series (Complete)

Warnings: Language, violence.

Summary: You meet Bucky Barnes upon your mysterious and deadly escape from a power obsessed cult leader and his followers. Though you carry a secret in addition to the wariness of trauma, you can’t help your attraction to Bucky and his irascible demeanor. As for Bucky, he is drawn to the light he sees in you while he fears the things you’re hiding. Can you trust him with your secrets, and your life? Will you have a choice?

A/N: Over the course of the last year, I have decided to fully embrace the swamp witch aesthetic that I have been side-eyeing for a long time. What this means for my blog is that I emerge from The Rosemire every few weeks to offer up what I’ve made, only to immediately disappear again. I don’t know if this is an explanation or an apology. Maybe a warning? Up to you I guess.

 Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four

And Hell is Just a Sauna -- Part Three

Bucky was watching you. Again.

He was trying to be subtle about it, as per usual, not wanting to make you uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help himself. To Bucky, you were endlessly compelling.

You took a couple of hours in your office every afternoon for researching… something… and he’d gotten into the habit of hanging out on the couch in there, originally intending to nap. Rather than sleep, however, he’d found himself watching you, enthralled by the serious demeanor he’d discovered in these moments. Between the narrow-eyed focus on whatever you were reading and the low muttering under your breath, he found you both charming and intriguing.

The intrigue made sense, considering your discomfort when he asked what information you were seeking in these hours in front of your computer. You hadn’t tried to deceive him, but you’d made it clear that you weren’t ready to talk about it. That had been before you’d let him into your bed, however, and he’d been hoping you’d share the truth ever since.

And so, he found himself stretched out on the couch in your office, watching you from under his lashes and trying to understand the mystery you presented.

Bucky was fascinated and frustrated by the puzzle of you. He’d spent hours talking to you, even more hours simply existing around you, endless days considering everything he’d observed about you. He hadn’t figured you out yet, nor had he uncovered why he was so obsessed, though he was getting an inkling.

He was pretty sure he was falling in love. He’d once had the heart and soul of a romantic, had been able to fall in love every other day, with a woman’s voice, scent, smile, but something about you was different. Something about you made him yearn for more.

He didn’t think it was the mystery alone, though that was part of it. You were in most ways an open book, outgoing and full of stories about anything up to and after your captivity. What happened to you in that blank spot you wouldn’t or couldn’t say, but he heard you whimpering pleas for help or mercy along with the name ‘Joseph’ in your sleep. The terror in your voice always made him want to destroy something. Instead, as he would pull you into his arms to comfort, he’d deliberately remind himself that those he wanted revenge upon were beyond him, but he could care for you.  

Most days, however, you were light-hearted and happy and being around you made him feel brighter, more like himself. Every day he woke up next to you was a good day simply because he knew it would be another opportunity to bask in the light and heat of you, the crackle and snap of the searing energy that arced between you. He wanted to understand you, wanted to understand that heated energy. He     was certain that there was something vital to be found there.

If he was being completely honest, however, he had to admit he was watching with as much interest the way you absent-mindedly brushed the pen in your hand over your lips as he was listening to your muttered asides about flames and one-way doors. He was utterly obsessed with the seemingly unconscious sensuality that characterized almost everything you did, but he couldn't be sure it wasn't something appealing particularly to him.

The fact was, if he was still the boy he’d once been and you were a girl he'd met before the war, he would already be thinking about claiming you permanently. However, he was in a new century, with new rules, new realities. Old evils still nipping at his heels. The boy he'd been would have adored you as much as the man he'd become, but the man was only comfortable enough to indulge that adoration thanks to his certainty that you could protect yourself should those evils catch him.

Except he was not at all certain he could have resisted you, regardless. The emotion that made his heart race and leap and ache was too powerful, the glory of what you gave him, the joy of giving back to you too exquisite. He'd begun to dread the day he was inevitably forced from your side. He wasn't entirely certain you'd let him go without a fight. He wasn't entirely certain he wanted you to.

You had made clear your genuine enjoyment in him, but he also wasn't certain how deep your feelings toward him ran. He wanted to believe that the softness in your eyes wasn't his imagination, that the tenderness in your touch was proof that you were as taken over by this as he was. But as long as you continued to keep secrets about things that terrified you, he couldn't be sure he wasn't anything more than a diversion. As long as you kept your own counsel about your past, and in the absence of explicit words, he had to assume that your feelings didn't run as deep as he might hope.

On the other hand, Bucky couldn’t help but notice the less than secure way you hid whatever it was you were researching. Every day you closed down your computer and put your paper notes in your desk drawer, which you then carefully locked. He knew that you were aware that the lock on your desk was something he could pick half-conscious with his eyes closed after a bender, and that was the point. That you trusted him to stay out of what you’d made clear was private told him how you felt. You evidently trusted him to respect your privacy. Maybe it wasn't a proclamation of undying devotion, but it was a start.

When it made him so warm and soft inside, he couldn’t even think of breaking that trust. No matter how mad it and you drove him with curiosity.

"I'm pretty sure you're not asleep, you know.” The sound of your voice startled him, so engrossed he’d become in watching the way you rolled the pen over your lower lip. “I feel like I can hear you thinking from over here." Though you weren't looking at him, a mischievous smile was playing around the corners of your mouth and Bucky felt the low-burning embers of desire that had been teasing at the edges of his consciousness burst into full flame. He always wanted you, but he wanted you most when you were teasing him.

Bucky smirked, but otherwise didn't move as he replied in a slow drawl, his eyes bright and blue as they glittered at you from under long dark lashes. "That pen of yours is giving me thoughts, the way it's playing with your mouth."

He was sorry to see said pen yanked away from your mouth, but the bashful grin you shot him as your laughing eyes met his more than made up for it. "Hey now," you mock scolded as your eyebrows lifted in playful challenge. Bucky adored the pretty way you played with him, the fearless way you challenged him. His grin turning feral, he sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

“Don’t get up,” you ordered with a smirk as you tossed the pen down on the desk and got to your feet.

Bucky sat back with a grinning leer as you circled the desk, hoping he'd managed to tempt you into his lap. When you dropped to your knees in front of him, skimming your hands up his thighs to his belt buckle as your mouth spread in a sly smile, he laughed in breathless wonder, grateful to be wrong.

"Fuck, doll," he sighed happily as your hands went to work on the button of his jeans as your eyes burned into his, "a penny for your thoughts."

Bucky's whole body tightened in desire when you leaned forward with a sultry laugh.

…

A long while later, after you'd destroyed first his body, then his mind with your wicked mouth, what was left of his heart crumbled when you led him from the room toward dinner without shutting down the computer or putting away your notes. He followed you without a backward glance, certain that the day was coming soon when you'd confide in him. He could wait until you were ready.

The intruder alert connected to the security system sounded from your phone at the same time the hissing, spitting panic of your friend had Bucky sitting up from behind you where he’d been sleeping curled around you as big spoon.

“What the fuck?!” he spat in a furious and confused whisper as he rolled to his feet in a move so violently graceful you caught your breath even as your heart picked up in fear at the sound of the low humming coming through the cracked window.

You scrambled out of bed and snatched up the nightgown you always left draped over the foot of the bed for just this moment. You’d almost started to think, hope, that it wouldn’t come, but you’d never been that lucky. “Kiki!” Your voice was hoarse with the terror that prickled at the back of your neck when the chanting started.

“What the fuck!” Bucky had put himself beside the window and peeked around the edge into the yard. He now sounded disgusted in addition to infuriated and if you weren’t facing your worst fear you would laugh at the aggravation all over him. Only Bucky would be exasperated by what appeared to be robed and hooded cultists surrounding the house.

When you peeked around the other side of the window and saw one man with his hood thrown back, a chill ran down your spine. The mask covering his face did nothing to disguise his identity. You’d recognize Joseph’s shining gold hair and arrogant stride anywhere, even if only by the light of a crescent moon.

You snatched up the phone on your nightstand and pulled up the controls on your security as you hissed. “Kiki, how is he still alive?” You couldn’t help the panic coloring the question, but at this point there was no reason to keep anything from Bucky any longer. You felt Bucky’s eyes on you when the popping hiss came in response and wished you’d had the courage to introduce him to Kiki before catastrophe struck.

Bucky crouched to pull the rifle from beneath the bed where he’d placed it when he started sleeping with you every night. As he loaded the gun and checked it over, he seemed only mildly curious when he asked, “Who’s Kiki?”

“Very small, Keek,” you said softly as you lifted your hand and turned it so that the backs of your fingers were facing up. Across the knuckles, a tiny orange and yellow flame with a vaguely animal shape, like a small lizard, jumped and pounced until it turned blue flame eyes on Bucky. You smiled a little at his raised brows. “This is Kiki.”

The flickering shape of Kiki’s face spread in what was unmistakably a smile even as the jeweled blue of her eyes narrowed in flirtatious charm as they rested on Bucky. He laughed a little, one of his scoffs of astonished humor, when she hissed and whistled in what could only be appreciation.

“Keek thinks you’re hot, for a human,” you said when Bucky’s eyes met yours over the happy little flame perched like a bird on your fingers. Your smile was a little sick around the edges and Bucky could see the fear that lived there. He was too familiar with the terror of rejection because of what one couldn't help but become to not recognize it when it was all over the woman he loved.

Bucky reached out and took your free hand with his own and squeezed gently as he smirked. “I guess Kiki would know, considering.”

You huffed out a laugh of relief. You could hear in his tone that he wasn't angry, that he understood. No wonder you'd fallen head over heels with the man. He was perfect, at least for you. “I was trying to figure out how to tell you," you rushed to explain, afraid to believe it'd be this easy. "Batshit cult outside kinda figured it out for me.”

“This works," he answered with a shrug. You'd trusted him when it was important. He had faith that the next time, you wouldn't hesitate. With a wink and a flirty grin, he nodded at the little flame still sitting on the backs of your fingers. "Pleasure to meet you, Kiki. You wanna help finish these assholes off?”

Your breathless laugh of wonder chased by adrenaline followed the low, long gleefully malevolent hiss from the little creature. You grinned fiercely at Bucky, ready to defend your home and everyone in it. “Keek likes the way you think.”

"Darlin'?" The deep Southern drawl that haunted your nightmares floated in through the window and sent a shudder of terror running over your skin. Bucky looked down when your hand clamped around his. Using that grip, he tugged you close, letting go to wrap his arm around your waist and crush you against his body as he took your mouth with his own.

"I'm not gonna let him hurt you." He growled the words not like a promise, but as a statement of fact, and one that required no further explanation. The sound of his utter confidence, his complete commitment helped you slow your breathing as he turned you both toward the bedroom door.

A shiver of fear still ran through you at the shouted "Darlin'!" coming through the window, however. Despite the still polite tones, you could hear the undercurrent of cruelty, of barely leashed violence, and the sound reminded you of the time you'd spent as his prisoner before that last horrible night. "I think I've been awful patient with you, darlin', but I'm already a mite annoyed that I had to chase you at all. Why don't you come on out here and we can talk about this like adults?”

Bucky kept you tightly snugged into his side as he pulled you into the upstairs hallway that ran between the bedrooms. He ignored everything but you as he spoke in calm, soothing tones to counteract whatever was in the other man's voice that made you shake this way. Fury lit a fire within him, made him want to leap into the fray with nothing but his knife to take vengeance for you in blood. Only his determination to see you safe could overcome that white-hot rage.

"I have an idea. Go to your library window," he murmured in a voice as soft as velvet as he led you down the hallway toward the room in question. "Stall him a bit while I get into position downstairs." He lifted the rifle still in his other hand, but his reassuring smile drew your eyes and gave you a much-needed boost of confidence. "Let him manipulate you downstairs, but you're only going to the front door."

You looked into eyes so blue the sight made your heart sigh and relaxed in a fundamental way for the first time since you'd been kidnapped by the man that was still taunting you and calling your name. You took a quick breath and leaned forward to snatch a kiss from that gorgeous mouth. With a quick grin into that stormy blue, you turned into the room to face your demons.

"Uuuugggghhhh!" As you threw open the window next to your reading nook, you shouted in hostile exasperation and hit the button on your phone that turned on the flood lights. Bucky grinned in appreciation from the shadows behind you as he turned to make his way silently to the ground floor.

Dropping into the seat with a huff, you leaned out to sneer at Joseph, the villain in your story, who was blinking and shielding his eyes from the sudden light. "What is your fucking problem?!" you sang out with malicious glee.

You'd learned very quickly as a matter of survival how to both fascinate and frustrate Joseph during your time as his captive. Like many psychopaths, he hated boredom above all else. Keeping him amused, even by irritating him, had made you a favorite, kept you alive. It had also led to your place as the vessel for his occult summoning, unfortunately.

"Ah, there's my girl." You were pretty sure you saw his grin flash with that familiar Southern charm. The mask only covered the top of his face and his voice was warm and appreciative. "You sure are a sight for sore eyes, there, darlin'."

You narrowed your eyes and ignored the flattery. He'd sounded the same even as he'd staked you to the ground, spread eagle for what he'd believed to be a demon. "Why’re you hiding your face, Joe?"

The face in question fell into cruel and bitter lines, the charming smile gone as though it had never existed. Despite the warm presence hissing reassurance in your ear and the burly man with the giant gun downstairs, you felt a chill run down your spine at the sight of Joseph angry. "I'll take off the mask if you promise to still think me handsome."

“I told you when we were dating that I have an ugly temper.” You kept your voice bored and unconcerned, well aware it drove him crazy. “If I did some damage on my way out the door, it was only to be expected.”

The dark and sinister cast to his features snapped off and his mouth spread in a wide, cheerful smile. The speed with which he switched from charming and pleasant to cruel and menacing and back again chilled your bones, despite Kiki’s ever-present heat. “I fell for that fire before it burst into flame, darlin’. Why do think I’m here?”

 You smiled at him, a thin baring of teeth that carried no hint of amusement. "I thought I made myself clear when I left that I was breaking up with you." You tilted your head in a taunting kind of curiosity. "Was setting everything on fire too subtle?

"I'm not mad, if that's what you're afraid of," he ignored the question with a sly smile. You were only half paying attention as Kiki was hissing warnings and instructions into your ear. Like the night you'd met her, she sounded both calm and competent, the neurotic worrywart you'd come to love these past months gone now that you were once again in danger. "I know you were a mite hysterical."

One corner of your mouth lifted in a darkly amused smile at the sound of Kiki's offended hissing. Describing the destruction that she'd rained down upon Joseph and his cult as 'hysteria' was an insulting understatement and only served to cement the little elemental’s determination to not hold back this time.

"Do I seem hysterical right now?" You drawled the question with a raised brow as you gazed calmly down at your nemesis, that mildly amused smile still playing around your lips.

Joseph let loose with an appreciative laugh that made you vaguely uneasy for reasons you couldn't quite put your finger on. He had a decent sense of humor for a psychopath, and he'd always seemed to enjoy the wryly sarcastic attitude with which you treated him. This laugh, however, had an edge that hadn't been there before, a sound that made you sick to your stomach.

"No, darlin', you sure don't." With another laugh, he pushed the mask up and onto the top of his head and the sight of his face made your blood run cold. His eyes were dark and red and raw, the skin around them cracked and blistered, as though he was burning from the inside out. "I gotta say, I like this side of you.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully, but you could not respond in kind, only look at him in dawning horror. “Feisty."

Kiki’s low hiss communicated both fear and horror and terrified you more than anything else. Kiki was a fire elemental from beyond a portal into another dimension. If she was scared, you wanted to shake in your boots. The warnings she was muttering in your ear only added to your dread, concerned as they were with evil creatures from her realm, as powerful as she but without her kindness, or control.

"Joseph," you said in a voice gone cold with that dread, "I don't think we should hang out anymore. I'd appreciate it if you and your friends left now." With that, you pulled your head back in the window, lifting your arm to pull it closed behind you when Joseph's voice stopped you with a boom that made your ears pop.

"Except you didn't leave alone, did you now, darlin'?" Your eyes narrowed as his eyes began to deepen and darken. Kiki sighed in relief as she recognized what you were up against and knew she could defeat it, though there was hesitation in her mind that worried you a little. Still, it was an easy answer when she asked of you the same thing that she’d asked the night you met, the night she'd almost destroyed the man in front of you. "You took something with you!” Joseph bellowed. “Something that belongs to me."

Yes, you breathed, in the huffing sigh Kiki had taught you would allow her to work through you to channel her power from her own dimension into yours. Your eyes lit to flames as you replied in a voice that sighed with the same horrific rush of sound that accompanied a wildfire as it tore through a world. "I don't have anything of yours."

Downstairs, Bucky lifted a brow at the tone and timbre of your voice, the sound sending a rush of relief through him at the knowledge that you and Kiki were working together. He'd heard this the night he'd met you, knew he had nothing to fear. He glared, cold-eyed, at the people on the other side of the window that he'd silently cracked so that he could slide the barrel of his gun outside, and hoped for their sake they did nothing to provoke Kiki. Or you.

"You didn't set those fires on your own." Joseph sounded almost petulant, and the sound had you frowning in consternation and disgust. "That was supposed to be my patron, my power."

"Your power, my burden," your breath was starting to flame as Kiki settled more firmly into your form, her thoughts, her emotions sharing the same space as your own. When you were merged like this you worked in concert, each able to read the other. "You had no intention of carrying a demon on your back in return for that patronage. That was my job." Kiki spoke through you, trying to mislead the thing that Joseph didn't seem to realize accompanied him. "I took the patron and the power since I'm doing the work, thank you."

You and Kiki chuckled together when he took the bait and his demeanor shifted to convince, his tone to a wheedle. "Then let me take that burden. If you won't use the power on my behalf, then give it back. You never wanted any of this. Give him back to me and I'll leave you in peace."

Him? You asked the question in the popping language you'd painstakingly learned over the months you and Kiki had been companions.

(Her name, of course, wasn't really Kiki, but the sound you'd learned from her that represented her name started with a double scoffing sound that reminded you of the nickname. She liked the sound of it and so encouraged you in the familiarity.)

Kiki responded with her own confusion, not sure who or what Joseph had been trying to pull through the portal when she'd gotten caught in it. She was almost certain the thing that was currently hitching a ride with him was not what he was referring to, as it was highly unlikely that he'd meant to pull another elemental like herself through the portal.

"Why should I believe you?" You let your voice tremble, just a little, but enough to give the question a touch of vulnerability. You wanted to make Joseph think you were wavering, that he might have a chance at talking you into making a mistake. "You forced me into this before. What's to stop you from turning on me once I give it to you?"

At the tone of bitter betrayal, the sneer of suspicion that curled your lip, Joseph smiled gently and replied in a croon. "You know I never wanted to hurt you." He reached out with one hand and gestured in a come-hither motion. You wondered that you'd never noticed the condescension when you were dating. "Come on down here, darlin', and let me try to convince you. You have to be tired.”

"I am tired, Joseph." Bitter and weary, the words carried the weight of condemnation and the sting of disdain. "He's cruel and it scrapes at my brain. But I don't see how I can trust you to fix that for me. Since it's your fault in the first place." You folded your arms over your chest and glared mutinously down at him.

"There now," he chided, and the sound of his voice made heat climb from your heart up into your throat, your own anger feeding Kiki's fire, "you know you're my girl." If he'd been closer, he would have seen the flickering light behind your eyes, but he could easily see in the flood lights the smoke starting to climb from your hair and hurriedly changed his tone. "I always meant for us to do this together. Come on, darlin', you can't look me in the eye from up there and I want to make a deal with you." His act was completely believable, and if you hadn't already learned what he hid beneath the just-right remorse that cloaked him, you knew you'd have been fooled. "I bet you can smell a lie these days. I only want to take care of you."

This was what Bucky had asked you to do, and Kiki agreed that you'd made Joseph work for it enough that he wouldn't find your agreement suspicious. You glared down at him with narrowed eyes and an indecisive curl to your lips for a long, long moment. His expression didn't shift, except to grow softer and more wistful, as though he believed he could make you ignore the molten burn around his eyes.

When you relented with a deeply wary and resentful, "I'll come down to the front door," he looked both relieved and triumphant. You moved to exert just enough control to allay any suspicions and make him feel magnanimous in agreement. "But I’m going to get dressed first. Everyone stays where they are, got it?"

"Of course, darlin'."

With that same wary glare, you pulled the window closed with a snap and whirled to dart into the bedroom. You were on a clock and you still wanted to talk to Bucky before you stepped outside to face the fire.

Downstairs, Bucky had been listening to you almost as carefully as he had been watching the man in your front yard. After living with you for months, loving you for nearly that long, he knew you well enough to hear both the smoke he now knew was named Kiki as well as the shining brilliance of your canny brain. The way you allowed Joseph to believe he was talking you into doing what Bucky had asked of you had Bucky grinning like a fool.

He couldn't have asked for a better partner; even being back in the fight wasn't as bad as it could be when he had you by his side. He felt no conflict in the fight, not when he was fighting for you, for the home you'd shared with him, allowed him to make his own.

He would do anything to protect that home. He'd say the same about you, but the hellfire he could still hear in your voice reassured him that you were more than capable of protecting yourself.

Still, his eyes scanned the hooded figures on your front lawn with his enhanced and careful gaze, determined to miss nothing. He felt the satisfaction of a hunter's patience when he heard you snap the window closed, saw Joseph tilt his head to the side, and watched the shadow at the edge of the woods move to slip around the house.

Gotcha, he thought, and silently set his rifle on the floor next to the window and got to his feet, listening to discover which point of entry the shadow would choose. He could hear you upstairs, sounding like you were hopping around on one foot, but he could have kissed you for distracting the intruder.

Evidently, the shadow was either blessed with an abundance of confidence or cursed with a lack of imagination, because they had chosen to enter through the mud door into the laundry room at the back of the house. With a sneer of disdain, Bucky moved to the wall beside the door the intruder should come through if they were following the sound of your footsteps overhead coming from your bedroom to the stairs at the front of the house.

Part of him was surprised when the shadow, tall, slim, and largely androgynous, came through the door as expected, without a sound, but barely aware of their surroundings. Bucky easily had his metal bicep around their throat and was choking them into unconsciousness. He frowned in suspicion, worried that this shadow was meant to distract from something else.

If this was the best the bad guys churned out these days, no wonder HYDRA had still been using the Winter Soldier well into the 21st century.

You were coming down the stairs as the shadow was going limp in Bucky's arms. Your eyes widened in surprise, but your night vision had recovered while you'd changed and come downstairs so you recognized Bucky and, in his arms, Joseph's second-in-command losing consciousness from lack of oxygen.

Your eyes narrowed again, flames flickering behind the pupils. Brit had helped hold you down as Joseph had staked you to the ground the night of your escape. You'd never forget her face, and you had no sympathy for her feeble struggles.

You gave the two of them a wide berth as you ducked around Bucky into the kitchen down the hallway at his back. When you came back, Bucky was lowering Brit's body to the ground and you were carrying a hank of clothesline you'd gotten out of the junk drawer.

Bucky flashed a grin so bright with appreciation and warm with affection it made your breath catch, even with Kiki setting fire to your mind. You'd seen him through the curtain of flame when you'd first set eyes on him and had cried out inside that you should have to destroy something so beautiful. That cry of regret had made Kiki pause despite the gun he held and given you a chance to speak through the blaze.

His wry, irritated confusion had done the rest.

Joseph had lied and manipulated you with a carefully cultivated façade so that he could make you the vessel for evil to use its power without paying its price. He had also never even frowned at you until he had you captured and soon to be sacrificed. After that, Bucky's scowl had been irresistible.

Bucky snatched a kiss as he took the rope from your hands, thinking that he'd been completely right when he'd decided his luck had changed when he'd met you. "Do you hate the way he's talking to you as much as I do?" he asked with a smirk as he bent to tie up the intruder.

You snorted in response, wondered if Bucky realized how adorable he was, with his sharp eyes and gentle teasing. "Only with all my heart." You wished you had time to tell Bucky the whole story, wished you had told him before now about Joseph and the strange time in your life that you'd been under his spell.

Somehow, Bucky seemed to understand that because when he straightened up again from restraining your uninvited guest, he held his hand out for yours with a wolfish grin. "You want him alive for any reason?"

You laughed a little as you took his hand and moved into his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck. "Can't think of one."

Bucky was mesmerized by the flames that still twinkled in your eyes as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you tight against his body despite the heat pumping off of you in waves. With a quirked eyebrow, he sniffed at the smoke still clinging to your hair and made you smile. "No complicated feelings? No need for revenge?"

"Nope." You stretched forward the few inches left between you to kiss him gently, with soft, warm lips that left heat spreading through him. The look on your face as you did so, bright flames in paradoxically gentle eyes, made his heart race. "I would love to be done with all of this forever."

Bucky's lips met yours with a tender greed that took your breath and made your ears ring loud enough that you couldn't hear the sound of Joseph getting impatient and shouting for you. Bucky could hear him but didn't care. He would show you how much he adored you before letting you walk out the door to finish this once and for all.

If he'd intended to distract you from the fear that had been shivering down your spine at the thought of having to confront Joseph face to face, it had worked well enough to have your knees trembling with lust instead of fear. When he broke the kiss and released you, it took you a second to steady yourself on them.

"Leave the door open and don't go too far out." As he spoke, he turned back to take his place at the window, kneeling down to pick up the rifle he'd left there. Sliding the barrel of the gun back through the crack he'd opened earlier and speaking in a soundless whisper. "If I start shooting, let Kiki do her thing."

You followed him to the window to give him the warnings Kiki had given you as you'd thrown on clothing while you were upstairs. "Kiki says that he must have dragged something through the door along with her because only something from her world could be keeping him alive right now."

Bucky calculated angles and checked the trees at the edge of the yard for the direction and speed of the wind. "What does that mean for killing him?" The bored tone to his voice had you smiling. He'd sounded much the same the night you'd met. It was clear Bucky found this kind of thing to be tedious in the extreme. Considering how he'd spent the 20th century, you could understand his ennui.

"If you see her come in from the right, shoot him as she hits. From the left, wait until she passes through." Bucky only tilted an eyebrow in your direction as you grabbed ahold of Brit by the rope around their ankles and began dragging them forward. As he'd left them on the hardwood floor, the lack of friction meant you didn't need to ask him for help getting them to the front door. "She didn't know how to explain further."

"If you trust her, I do."

"I trust her."

"Good enough for me." Bucky tipped a wink at you before focusing back on the man shouting impatiently for you in the front yard. "I can't believe you dated this guy. Anyone who doesn't know you're your own girl is clearly not good enough for you."

"I love you." The words had Bucky's head snapping around to stare at you in shock. Your gaze devoured his face, wanting to remember the look on his gorgeous face the first time you'd said the words to him. Plump, pretty lips parted on a breath of surprise, bright blue eyes wide with what looked like hope. You huffed out a little laugh and shrugged. "In case I don't escape him a second time." With that, you flung open the door to confront your own personal demon.

Bucky shook his head and snorted. "We're gonna have to have a talk about your timing, doll."

Part Four here >>

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[pvremichigan]

Trust My Gut. [Hell Arc Drabble 4]

‘I can’t feel my face.

The redhead ran through the streets, blood being coughed up far too often. She had not yet found her soul and this replacement was slowly killing her. She has no time left, really. Day by day she grew weaker.

‘I don’t know where the fuck it could be. Where would my soul even reside in this nearly endless pit of agony...’

It’s been empty, but cries of the beasts within the realm shrieked out everywhere around her. They’re hiding, and every waking second she dreads the day they all come out. Mich fears it’s the moment she gains her soul...

‘I’ve searched every fucking building, every alley way... Every corner, every street I can find.’

The sounds of her shoes hitting the pavement echoed along the alleyways. The gray hue they radiate from the shadows. No one can truly be sure if the shadows are the alley’s own... There’s just too many of them.

‘A couple days ago, I saw my family. Penny wouldn’t talk to me... She just dragged along weeping into her hands. I couldn’t see her face. Every time I tried to get closer to her, she just ended up turning another corner. As soon as I turn that corner... She’s turning another. She was never running, but no matter how much I ran, I couldn’t catch up to her. I couldn’t reach her. No matter if I ran at her, as soon as my vision was taken off of her, she would be across the street turning another corner. I tried to keep my eyes on her but it never worked. It’s like she was meant to repel and stay away.’

The streets seemed familiar, but yet so uncanny. Some things she just could not recognize, like waking up in a daze where nothing you knew made any sense anymore.

‘Around the same time... I heard screaming in the buildings. I’d look up... And David would be screaming in terror, tears in his eyes as he banged on the windows like he was crying for help. Seemed to be another trick... When I would enter those buildings and reach the floor and exact room I saw him in, he was no where to be found. This place loves to toy with me... Because I’d look out the window and see him in another building, doing the same thing. I should’ve learned my lesson... But I still tried over and over to get him. Sometimes when I’d look out the window, I’d look down to the street... And see myself doing exactly what I had done before I ran into the building.’

‘Terrifying really... Because she’d run into the building... And I could hear the aggressive stomping up the stairs. The more I listened, the more I realized it didn’t sound like me. Sometimes, out of panic... I’d jump out the window after hearing the feral growling ascending the stairs with the pace of a hungry beast stomping as it ran.’

There was a feeling in the air... As if it was calling to Mich without a word spoken. Nothing in this realm was easy to trust, but her gut was clawing at her to follow. Seeing how much time she has left, how little there is, the woman had no choice. Maybe she was getting closer.

Or maybe she was being lured into a trap.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

‘I’ve been mauled for the first time. Killed. Torn to shreds. I couldn’t fight back and I couldn’t even see what was tearing me apart. The pain was unimaginable. It felt amplified from pain in the realm of the living. I felt weak, I felt like I stood no chance here. I screamed.’

The air began to grow colder. The endless buildings that had polluted the streets had grown farther into the background as Mich continued forward. Had she finally escaped that maze of a city? No... No she wouldn’t count on it.

‘I screamed like I’ve never screamed before. The only thing I could compare it to was being restrained by Jack. Even then, that was nothing compared to how I tore my vocal chords apart before the attacker even could. I don’t know why I bothered, I knew even if I could be heard... I wouldn’t be reached. In that moment, I sincerely thought I was done for. Like I failed or something. Like all this was a waste of time, like I lost my final chance. As soon as I let my body give out, I was unconscious. Seemed like only for a couple hours.’

Mich didn’t look too good. She was beginning to rot away from the destruction of her physical being from Xephrel’s soul. It was supposed to protect her... If this was protection, she didn’t want to imagine what this place would be like without the help of his soul. No doubt there’d be no winning for her.

‘I woke up in one of those buildings. I think it was the same building that beast chased me out of. I only say that because once I woke up, I heard the same exact feral noises it made before the attack. Thank god I recognized it in time, I jumped out that window again and ran.’

Her knees almost gave out, she was merely dragging herself along. Despite her weakness, there was no intent of giving up through this suffering. She was planning to keep going even when there’s nothing of her left.

‘I ran. I kept running. I didn’t fucking stop. I kept going until the growling was gone and kept going even in silence.’

The atmosphere grew darker and darker still, the more she traversed the uncanny concrete path forward that resembled the outskirts she lived around. At least there was more familiarity in this area... To recall some of these buildings was a relief, a weight lifted off her shoulders. The more she paused in her steps to remember the neighbors and street signs, the less uncanny it became.

So remembering was the key to piecing the unrecognizable together...

The memories are slowly fading back.

She must be getting close...

‘I don’t trust this place. I don’t trust anyone I come across. Hell, sometimes I don’t trust myself.’

This street... Was there a force of some kind giving her back her strength? What was going on... The sidewalk morphed from a dull gray to the more vibrant tan cement that she was most familiar with. This street... It was too familiar. But the reason for it was the hardest to recall.

‘But even then...’

Looking up and around, there was a light post hovering above the sidewalk. The light shined down on the area. The chain fence to the right side of the fence. Tears pricked the sides of her eyes, the weight on her heart and the tightness of her throat grew stronger and stronger after coming out of no where. It was all so sudden, like drowning in a wave of realization. It hurt, it was torture. The overwhelming flood was too much for her to handle. Her body hunched over as she experienced the same disgusting action as she did before she left. Vomiting up only blood. Nothing else but blood... She took a second to catch her breath, a look of terror on her face as the confusion grew worse and worse until she finally looked up. There... A bright glowing essence hovered over the sidewalk. An essence that Mich felt drawn to. Warm, familiar, like something she had lost long ago.

Her soul.

Behind it stood a familiar face... Green hair, golden eyes, a brown jacket... The tall figure stood and looked down at Mich. The gaze on the mans face was warm and cold all at the same time.

“Ry...”

‘I can still trust my gut.’