#again KEEP TAGGING ME IN SUNDAY SIX IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING HAPPY OKAY

[woundedheartwithin]

Haaaaaaaaaa….

[lubdubsworld]

Bird Bones

Chapter 1  /  Chapter 2  / Chapter 3/ Chapter 4

Chapter 5

“So, did you guys think about it?” Seokjin asked casually, watching me struggle back into my shoes after getting down from the examination table. He looked a little nervous as he stared at me and I bit my lips.

“I haven’t seen Jungkook in a while. He’s gone to Seoul with Hoseok for their dance showcase.” I said hesitantly. The last few weeks had been hectic, with Hoseok preparing for the showcase and me having to tell the administration I was pregnant. Surprisingly, most of my professors were kind about it, agreeing to share notes with me personally on days when I had to miss classes. I would miss out on a few lab credits because they coincided pretty closely with my due date but that was a whole six months away and I didn’t want to worry about it right now. 

Seokjin hummed in response and waited till I was sitting down in front of him before leveling a look at me. 

“I see and ….he would have to agree too...because?” Seokjin asked pointedly, and I flinched. 

 It was a loaded question, one that made my throat dry. 

We weren’t married. There was zero reason to have his approval to put the baby up for adoption. 

With Jungkook out of town , his parents had contacted me again about the NDA. I’d told them to sort it out with their son first before approaching me again , but I knew they were getting nervous. Jungkook was making it clear that he was sticking around and it was making everyone nervous.

Including me. 

“Its not... I’m not going to say no if he says no or anything like that. It’s just ... he asked me to keep him in the loop that’s it.” I protested. 

“I’m not saying anything.” He held his hands up. “ Just ....remember who he is, yeah? He’s not.... He’s not for you.”

It was hard to forget , I thought miserably, what with everyone throwing it at my face every day. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I continued to stay at Hoseok’s place while he was at the showcase. It was better than the dorm for sure and I knew that it only made people resent me more. As a professor in my college, Hoseok had a lot of perks and most of my peers thought i was enjoying them in exchange for sleeping with him.

On the weekend before he was due to come back home, Hoseok called me from his hotel room.

“How are you holding up?” He asked casually and I could hear voices in the background. I wanted to ask him about Jungkook but I didn’t.

“I’m fine. I got my check up and Seokjin oppa told me we could fix a date to meet Yoongi and Namjoon.” I said softly, settling into the comfortable couch and tugging on the phone line. 

“Hmm.... fair enough. I’ll let Jungkook know. He’s out with Sana tonight so-”

“Sana?” I felt my breath catch in surprise. 

“Oh, yeah. she tagged along....you didn’t know?” Hoseok said casually and I gulped.

“Uh...no.. I mean ...whatever...they’re....she’s his girlfriend, right...” I laughed, sounding incredibly hollow to my own ears. Hoseok would see right through it.

“Fiancee.” He said curtly.

“What?”

“She isn’t just a girlfriend. She’s his fiancee...he proposed to her last year on the Han river with a hundred grand ring.....” His tone was dry and emotionless and yet each word cut to the bone. I couldn’t fucking breathe.

“You’re....you’re trying to hurt me.” I accused hoarsely.

He growled.

“No, I’m fucking pissed that this thing , this fact that Jungkook is engaged to Sana has been true for a whole damn year and yet all of a sudden it fucking hurts you because you’re letting your emotions get the better of you... Have I not taught you anything, Dasom?” 

I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down, my breathing ragged. He was right. He was absolutely right but it stung because Jungkook was.... Jungkook was so kind. So ridiculously endearing with his childlike amazement, his adorable possessiveness over me and yet somehow  so non judgmental and so eager to be a part of the baby’s life and how on earth could I not like someone who only seemed to want to care for me?? 

And he was wrong. 

I wasn’t an idiot. I had no intention of building castles in the air, dreaming of a happily ever after with someone like Jungkook. I would get through this and things would go back to the way they were. 

Just me and.... well Just me. Alone. By myself. The way it has always been.  

I took a deep shuddering breath. I wasn’t up to explaining all this to Hoseok. Not tonight when he was clearly angry. 

“I hope the showcase goes well, oppa.” I whispered, hanging up before he could respond. The phone rang a second later and I left it off the hook after disconnecting it.. 

I sat there for a long time, staring into the darkness. I had to talk to Jungkook as soon as he got back. We needed a game plan. A clear end to this thing between us. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hoseok oppa thinks we should meet Yoongi and Namjoon this weekend. “ I said casually, watching Jungkook closely as he sipped his iced tea. He stopped for a second, eyes widening before landing on mine.

It was a late Sunday afternoon and he had agreed to meet me for coffee so we could talk about the dinner. He looked just as good as ever, bright and cheerful. The showcase had gone really well according to Hoseok and Jungkook had gotten offers from a whole bunch of entertainment agencies. 

“So soon?” He asked evenly, grip tightening on the drink. 

I shrugged staring at the long smooth fingers. Somedays i tried to remember that night. I couldn’t imagine us being graceful, having sex while drunk out of our minds . Had he been gentle? Rough? What did he like in bed? I vaguely remembered the finger shaped bruises on my wrists, like someone had gripped them together. 

Staring at his hands now, I wondered how it must’ve felt, being held like that. 

I shook my head to clear it. Nothing good would come from going down that path. 

“I’m thirteen weeks along now...First trimester is over ….there's not a lot of chance to miscarry and-”

“What the fuck why would you say that?” He whisper shouted and I frowned.

“Jungkook....”

“That’s our child you’re talking about! Don’t even say that word!”

I could only stare at him. 

“It’s going to be very difficult for you if you don’t distance yourself from this baby “ I said quietly.  And me. 

Jungkook just stared at me , his eyes blazing. 

“Our baby....  Say it. It’s  our  fucking baby. It’s not just a baby or this baby. It’s ours. We made it. Its’ going to...fucking look like us, and it’s going to get our traits and ….I just don’t understand how you can be so callous about something so amazing and----it’s our baby, Dasom...” He was looking at me in disbelief and I couldn’t take it anymore. 

“No it fucking isn’t!!!” I hissed angrily, my heart beating fast, “  It’s not ours, Jungkook. It’s... it’s not something we should be celebrating..... You and I... we’re a fucking mistake. That night was a fucking mistake and this, this baby is nothing more than an unfortunate soul that’s going to have to share the consequences of our horrendous mistake that night!” I felt tears sting. 

I refused to let his words get to me. To make me feel guilty. Jungkook with his golden life, with his perfectly gorgeous fiancee and his filthy rich parents could afford to wax poetic about the joys of parenting but i couldn’t. 

I was a poor fucking orphan with a mother who had only cared about what was between her legs. I had to fight tooth and nail just to break out of the mould everyone had made for me,. 

“Dasom-”

“No, stop...Just...stop and for once get rid of those rose tinted glasses you have on, and listen to me okay?  We’re going to give the baby up for adoption....He or she is going to be raised by kind, loving parents who can provide a stable happy environment . We’re going to stop talking to each other after that. You’re going to go get married to your Fiancee ….I’m going to go and try and build a life for myself. That’s what’s in our future....Not some utopian universe where we raise this child , taking turns changing diapers and weekends at the fucking zoo!!” I finished bitterly.

“Why do we have to stop talking to each other?” He shot back defiantly and i felt my pulse pound. 

I glared at him and he just kept staring back at me.

“Don’t-” I began but he held his hand up. 

“I told you , I’m not going to do everything my parents ask me to. I’m... I’m trying to build a life for myself too alright? I’m not going to just... I’m not married yet. I’m not married yet.” He repeated and I felt a laugh of disbelief bubble up inside me.

“What the fuck does that even mean? You’re engaged-”

“I was engaged before I was fucking born. “ He snapped, running fingers through his hair in evident frustration. “ Sana and I grew up together. We just...we’ve been told that we'll be together all our lives and its all we have ever known. But that doesn’t mean its too late for us to think about other things...other options...”

“And you’re saying I’m another option? You don’t even like me JeonJungkook-” i laughed in disbelief.

“I think you’re beautiful.” He said softly and I felt my jaw come unhinged. 

What.

 What?

“ I saw you two years ago when you dropped by the practice room to meet Hobi hyung.. I thought you were beautiful then... So wildly uncaring about what others thought and I thought you looked amazing with your long hair and easy smile...I still do.” He was staring right at me and i felt heat creep up my neck. 

I shook my head. 

“I’m not listening to this nonsense.” i said sharply, reaching for my bag from the chair next to me.

“Hyung knows... Its why he’s always telling you not to trust me.... He knows how I feel about you and he doesn’t want the competition...” He sneered and I felt my hackles rise. Jungkook’s jealousy towards Hoseok was the most irrational thing in the whole world and it pissed me off so bad. 

“Now I know you really are full of shit-”

“He’s in love with you. He’s always been in love with you and you’re too caught up in your own self pity to notice that.” He grabbed my wrist when I tried to get up from the chair. “ Sit the fuck down and let me finish.”

“You’re spouting nonsense. I’m not interested in it...” I hissed back and he laughed.

“Nonsense? I’ve never hidden how I felt about you. Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed me watching you , because everyone else has. Why else do you think Sana is so threatened? She knows... She knows I’m attracted to you...Knows that I want-----” He stopped and I knew he was going to say ‘you’ 

‘ Sana knows that I want you’ . 

I stared at him in disbelief. 

But he just barreled on,  completely unbothered by how upset I was. 

“ I want to get to know you better. And fine, even if you don’t want to keep the baby, there is no fucking way I’m going to stop talking to you.... “ He finished. 

I tried to gather my sense which felt like they’d been scattered to the seven winds. 

“Really, you talk about your fiancee so flippantly....but I heard you had a cozy little honeymoon in Seoul during your showcase...what of that?” I hated myself as soon as I said it because it made sound so horribly jealous. 

Jungkook snorted.

“Let me guess, Hobi hyung told you that huh? I bet he conveniently failed to mention that she was attending a different showcase , a whole damn district away? That we only went out for dinner one night and I was back in like an hour?” 

I stared at him, thrown . I felt confused and disoriented, not sure what was happening and why.

This had gone on long enough. 

I could not let this man do this to me. I just couldn’t. 

“Your parents met me again.” i said softly, staring right at him. “ They wanted me to sign the NDA. Did you tell them this? Can you go tell them this? Go break up with your fiancee, tell your daddy you want to date the  girl you knocked up while you were drunk out of your mind. And then, once he disowns you and kicks you out of your house and you have nowhere else to go, come see me. We’ll go out on a date, yeah?” 

 I waited for him to respond but he didn’t. So I stood up. I slung my bag up on my shoulders and stared down at him. 

“I’m meeting them on Saturday. If you want to be there, you can. And regardless of whether you turn up or not...I’m going. I’m giving the baby up for adoption and I’m getting on with my life. ” I said quietly. 

I walked out of the cafe without looking back. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoongi sat across from me, hands twisting nervously in his lap while Namjoon poured us some water from the cut class decanter on the table. Next to me, Jungkook looked subdued and upset, eyes darting between the two men on occasion. I hadn’t talked to him after my outburst at the cafe

I peered around the house, an expensive three bedroom flat located in a good neighborhood. It was decorated tastefully and I could tell that even Jungkook was reluctantly impressed by how clean and neat everything looked. I played with the hem of my blouse while Hoseok finished his phone call, not sure what to say or how to start. 

“How are you feeling, Dasom?” Namjoon asked finally, flashing me a smile with deep dimples on either cheeks. 

“I’m doing good. I’m fourteen weeks along now and the nausea has gone down.” 

Yoongi hummed.

“My sister says the first three months are the worst.” He smiled a little and I smiled back, taking in the soft curves of his face and the nervous fingers on the lap. He looked just as terrified as I felt. 

“I’m glad you guys could meet with us. We just want to say that we’re so grateful that you guys even considered us.” Namjoon said in a rush, eyes flooding with warmth as he glanced between me and Jungkook. I felt him stiffen next to me and reached out, curling my fingers around his, pulling him closer. I linked our fingers and squeezed lightly. He squeezed back. 

“We only want what’s best for the baby, right Kook?” I said softly. He looked up at me then and I felt my heart crack at the light sheen I saw there. 

“Yeah...I...I love the baby.” He whispered and I felt a lump in my throat. 

The past few weeks, I had found myself hanging out with him way too much for my liking. For some reason, Sana stopped talking to me. She would throw occasional glares at me but she stayed away. Jungkook was conspicuously respectful. Never crossing a line enough for me to kick him away. He would throw that occasional remark that implied he was interested and shrug it off when I rejected him again. 

But he also told me that he had always wanted a family first. A wife, two kids, picket fence and all that. He loved kids,  had always been the designated babysitter to his umpteen cousins. He loved babies and he wanted as many as his fututre wife would give him. And then without warning he had just stared at me.

I hadn’t trusted myself to respond to that. 

The mind games left me exhausted. I didn’t ….not like him. He was funny , sweet and intelligent. He liked talking and he liked listening. It was just hard to enjoy when I knew what he was . A chaebol heir to a fortune. He spoke of his family with a casually dismissive attitude, about how they didn’t really give a damn about who he married and that it wouldn't be a big deal if he broke up with Sana.

But I had to remind myself that he hadn’t done it. He hadn’t broken up with her. And that meant that no matter how dismissive he was, he knew that something like that wouldn’t go by without repercussions. The fantasy of Jungkook leaving his gorgeous girlfriend because he couldn’t live without me was just that, a fantasy.  

Hoseok’s voice broke me out of my reverie.

“They’re both too young to go through with this.... Its going to be painful but like Dasom says, its the baby we need to think about.” Hoseok had hung up the phone and he stared at Jungkook, his gaze softening when he saw how miserable the younger looked. 

I pulled myself together and watched Namjoon pull out a file, containing all the formalities we would have to go through. /As i heard him explain everything, his eyes clear and intelligent, his tone gentle and kind, I felt myself making my choice. Yoongi and Namjoon loved each other deeply . They leaned on each other, evident in the way they held hands every few minutes, smiling and reassuring each other. They loved each other and they could love this baby. 

They would love this baby. 

My mind was made up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You need a ride home?” Hoseok asked casually, two hours later after we had bid goodbye to Yoongi and Namjoon. 

Next to me Jungkook stiffened. 

“I’ll drive her.” He said curtly and Hoseok ignored him, still holding a hand out.

“That’s fine Oppa, Jungkook and I need to talk.” I said tiredly. We did. There was a whole lot of formalities to be done with regards to the adoption and I wanted to talk to him about the possibility of an open adoption. Just in case he was interested. 

“You can talk tomorrow. Its already past ten-” Hoseok began but Jungkook laughed, loud and jarring. 

“What you think I’ll have my way with her and knock her up? Bit too late to worry about that right?” Jungkook drawled next to me and I felt my eyes widen in shock.

“What the- Jungkook are you crazy? Apologize!!” I hissed but he glared back at Hoseok defiantly.

Hobi chuckled a bit.

“You’re really asking to get your ass kicked Kook-ah... I’d tone down the blatant disrespect if I were you....” He said , eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“Maybe I will, if you stop lying to Dasom about how you really feel about her.”

I lost it entirely, turning around to shove him away.

“Jungkook what the fuck?!” I shouted but he gripped my wrists, stopping me from hitting him again. 

“Tell her hyung....tell her how you picked up a fucking engagement ring in Seoul....? How you told Seokjin hyung that you were going to propose when she graduates because, let me quote you, ‘ she’s docile and adjusting. She’ll make a nice companion’“

I froze. I turned around to stare at Hoseok and felt my heart drop at the sharp sharp look of guilt om his face.

I stopped struggling against Jungkook, sagging against him when ice cold disbelief flooded my veins. 

No. No , it couldn’t be.  

“You-what?”  I whispered. 

Hoseok stared at me. 

“ Don’t tell me you didn’t see it coming.” He said blankly. I felt bile rise up my throat. 

“Oppa-”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” Hoseok snapped. 

I flinched when Jungkook’s grip tightened around me , a growl making his chest tremble. 

“Hyung , don’t-” He began angrily but Hoseok cut him off, staring at me with blazing eyes. 

“You’re always around me ..” Hoseok ground out, “ You’re literally the only person I’ve known and loved all my life.... So sue me for wanting to take responsibility for you and-”

“I’m not your responsibility.....I’m twenty years old...”

“And look how well you’re doing yeah? Knocked up with some guy’s bastard .....Just like your moth-”

I felt Jungkook move behind me and my instinct kicked in. I turned quickly gripping his arms and putting myself between them to stop him from lunging at Hoseok. 

Hoseok looked unapologetic as he stared at me. 

“If you marry me, you’ll at least be respectable.” He said softly and it was like a veil getting torn, showing him for who he really was. 

Someone who thought I was a charity case. A poor , flailing mess of a human that needed his charity to survive. 

I nodded quietly. 

“Okay. Thank you for lowering yourself enough to consider marriage with someone like me....” I said softly and he hissed.

“That’s not what I-”

“That’s exactly what you meant.” I said sharply, turning around. I couldn’t look at him anymore.

“Take me back to the dorms, yeah?” I looked at Jungkook and he nodded.

“Anything you want.” He whispered, wrapping his arms around me before throwing one last glare at Hoseok. 

Author’s note : Send me an ask about what you thought and I will love you forever <3

[everyhowlmarksthedead]

❛ FAMILY ❜

Headcanon.

with Neron ‘Creeper’ Vargas.

Request: Oooh yes yes yeah 😁 I show u take request 🙈 I would read something with Creeper dates a girl who already have 4/5 sons of a precedent relation. Maybe about how he create relationshion with their ? Like one love bike, another by playing football ? An the older is septic but one day he understand have Creeper for stepfather is having all Mayans for family. Sorry if it's sound to specific.

BY ANON

Warnings: none.

Word count: about 1.3k

Aurora says: this writing hasn't been edited, you may find some grammar mistakes, I'm sorry about that!

Gif credits: to the author, I found it on Google.

Masterlist.

Creeper couldn't believe you were alone in charge of three kids, when you moved onto his neighborhood. And he knew you didn't have a husband around because he had never seen him.

The problem was when he realized he was in love with you, with your scent, with the sweet tone of your voice and with that smile which could stop a war.

“Wait, wait! Lemme help you, mama!”

You hear a voice behind you, making you turn around from the trunk of your car full of bags. A man covered with tattoos and a helmet hanging from his forearm, is walking towards you.

“Oh, no, no. Don't worry. It's okay”. You mutter somewhat ashamed with a fleeting smirk on your lips.

“Nah, ain't nothing better to do”. He just shrugs his shoulders, grabbing three bags in every hand and greatly surprising you of his strength.

“Than—Thank you…” You just say, taking the three left, before closing your car.

Walking in silence straight to the porch, you open the door with some difficulties making you both laugh until it finally opens. Following you to the kitchen, he leaves the groceries over the counter, having one quick look but without wanting to look like a creepy stalker.

“I'm (Y/N), by the way”. You say then, raising a hand at him hoping it's enough for a formal greeting.

“Neron”. The man answers, narrowing it softly, a little bewitched by your touch.

“Can I… maybe offer you a coffee or something…?”

Whenever you two were free of responsibilities, you used to sit on your porch to share some drinks and talk about work, or about your lives in general. And only when he knew that it could be something serious, he just talked to you about what he really does, one bit at time.

After some months, more or less, hanging out, you two decided to introduce him to your girls. Two twins of six years old and a pre-teen of fourteen. You were aware that he wouldn't have any problem with Lia and Marta. But Carlota was another history.

Since Creeper has sat at the table, after helping you to settle the table, you can see the younger whispering and chuckling with that kind of gesture that they use when they want to ask something, but they're too ashamed. Narrowing your eyes, as the man does, you look at them.

“C'mon, girls, spit it out”. You say with a funny smile on your lips.

“Can we color your drawings one day?” Marta and Lia ask in unison, pointing at his bare arms.

You can't help but laugh rubbing your faces.

“Sounds like a cool plan”. Creeper nods pretty convinced.

“Fuck this shit”. From her silence, Carlota drags backwards her chair, getting up to step out of the living room.

“Hey, mama”. Neron says grabbing your left wrist, when you're about to follow her. “It's okay. Give her time”.

“I can't let her behave like that”. You grunt sitting down.

“She is fourteen, baby. We both know what her father did. And probably she thinks I want to replace him, but it's not. She will see it, okay?”

The months kept passing by, taking the next step when you decided to live together. At this point he has already introduced you to his brothers, being more kindly than you thought. At least, they didn't thought that Neron was fucking out of his mind, for getting related with a woman with three kids.

Lia and Marta were delighted having him at home, playing with them whenever he had five minutes, or cooking pancakes on Sundays. And of course, letting your girls color all his tattoos.

Carlota, by the other hand, started to be hard-nose. Always locking herself in her dorm when she was at home. And it was breaking your heart, trying to talk with her about what was bothering her, even if you already knew. But the worst part was when the principal of his highschool called you to tell you about a fight that involucred your daughter with another three girls.

“Hey, mama, I got this, okay?”

What you didn't know is that Neron was already conscious about what was happening. So he was to take care of that business.

Your daughter was sitting on a bench in the peak time of finishing classes, crying unconsolable with her hands covering her burning face. She wasn't expecting the loud buzz coming closer, raising her blurry gaze to the road. Nine motorbikes made their appearance, getting parked backwards next to the sidewalks. The whole student body with their parents and some teachers turned at them, mostly whispering about how good those nine men looked. Taking off their helmets, Neron's brothers waited for him, having some cigs, while he started to walk towards your surprised daughter.

As soon as he was able to kneel close to her, he knew by just one look who were the other girls. He didn't say anything, standing up to lead his steps to the three families with their eyes fixed on the man.

“I know that your daughters are teasing my kid about me, about my club and about what we do. So, lemme tell you something, as parents you are, the only thing you want is the happiness of them. Keep it in mind. Because next time my kid comes back home crying, I will not be this… polite”.

The girls were trembling, hiding behind their parents who were terrified too because of his words. Showing them a fake smile, Neron turned around to your daughter to make her a sign.

“I want you to say ‘sorry’ to her, and promise that you will never gonna fuck her up again”.

“Sir, yo—”.

“Shut the fuck up, man. I'm talking to your ill-bred kids”.

“We… We're so—sorry, Carlota”.

Your daughter looked at him, clinging to his arm, pouting a little and pulling him back.

“Good. Never forget to be kind”.

That night, Carlota didn't stop talking about how scared everyone was because of Creeper, totally freaking out too about when he appeared with his brothers in such cool motorbikes.

It was almost two am when your boyfriend came from the clubhouse, a little tired and needed for a cold beer. Taking off his boots at the entrance, to not be noisy, he walks straight to the kitchen to grab one from the fridge. Opening it with not much difficulty, he has a sip turning to the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Jesus fucking christ, Carlota…” He whispers with his heart racing. “What you doin'ere?”

“I couldn't sleep”. She just says, having another spoon of ice cream.

“At least, turn on the lights… You're gonna gimme a heart attack, kid”.

She laughs low, shaking her head, before getting up from the stool. Walking towards him without saying a single word, your daughter hugs Creeper wrapping his waist with both arms.

“Thank you for today”. She mutters resting her cheek on his chest.

Your boyfriend doubts for a second, not knowing if it's real or an illusion, but it feels so good that he could help her somehow. Hugging her back, the man kisses her head, smiling like a fool. Being happy to see that she's finally accepting him in her family.

“Listen, Carlota…” He says then, pulling himself away to leave the beer over the counter. “I don't wanna replace anyone, okay? We don't have to play this dad and daughter game. I wanna be your friend, I want you to trust me and talk to me about your problems, if you have some, okay?”

“Okay”. She just says. “I'm sorry if I hurt you ever”.

“Nah, it's okay, kid. I just want you to be happy”.

“I am, Creep'”.

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[delcat177]

The "Sunday School Stories are always good" tag reminds me that despite having NO religious upbringing I've always been enamored with Noah's Ark because it's just like, this one man went through all that trouble to save all the animals!! It's so sweet! The idea that he probably even saved ones he didn't like or was scared of because God made them and he recognized their value!

I'm surprised that it's not brought up in like, conservation-related outreach to religious groups more, like Noah didn't save all those animals so you could let them go extinct because they don't benefit you!

I kinda went on a tangent there but point is that I love Noah's Ark so much I wanna get like a little handmade wooden ark playset or something because it just makes me happy!

WORDDD

Let me tell you(s), as someone who was in church for his entire childhood, Sunday School meant a story and a craft, and I was ALWAYS crossing my fingers for the same ones: Jonah and the Whale, Noah and the Ark, and Easter was especially fun because that was the annual to-do about Moses, and that meant ANIMALS and PLAGUES. Granted the animals WERE the plagues but I got to keep the flannelboard frogs one year, that shit was MAD RAD.

(We also made a lot of cottonball sheep, Lord is my Shepherd and cottonballs are 97 cents for 200 so it was economically feasible)

One of my early childhood toys was a fabric ark that came with pockets on the side, so when you put the fabric animals (two of each, assorted zoo) and Noah and his family in, it looked like they were smiling out the windows. I’d forgotten until now and I don’t know how I did, I’m suddenly sense-memory’ing it SO hard--the stitch on the giraffes, the little goofy 8) smiles on the family. I loved just taking them out and putting them back in again and sailing them around.

I also enjoyed playing out the grisly fates of those not in the Ark in the bathtub (SEE: LAST POST: “Onward came the meteors!”). I was always a dark creator, it was too much fun to resist.

I wasn’t the one who drew dots on the foreheads of the people in one of our coloring pages in green marker and went “They have the Mark of the Beast now!”, that was a church friend. When the Sunday school teacher asked “why would you do that?! they’re going to go to Hell now!!” she responded “because they’re BAD and I WANT them to go to Hell”, giggling wildly, and the teacher couldn’t really put down a six-year-old, so it became a weirdly warm moment.

Exvangelical is some wild shit, I assumed all these things were the average household experience and now they’re my water cooler “so hey wanna hear a fucked one” among my writing group/friends/mutuals. I might get a book out of it yet 8V

TL;DR omg yes, ark playsets are the best <333 There’s one in Thief of Always (Clive Barker) that is like a plot point and the way he describes it, hand-carved by his father and with one elephant with mismatched eyes because he ran out of blue paint..there’s just something there, y’know?

(I would like to wish all of my Jewish followers a happy sorry we colonized your religion, I hope it’s okay to agree that Moses and Noah were mad lads and there is Respecc)

[black-streak]

Waiting for the Worms - Empty Spaces

Part 2

Please heed warnings of part 1. Added warning of suicidal tendencies. If Anything about suicide makes you triggered, don't continue reading this particular story. Please be mindful of yourself. This WILL get worse.

Tag list of known masochists (I'm playing, you guys are amazing):

@northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @wuvpancakes @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @lysslovsanime

~---~

Coming to in Marinette's body was jarring to say the least. Moments earlier, pain was all he could register and now he was leaning back on a bench in the back of a classroom. 

Leaning forward and hiding his face in his arms, he focused in on the tug in the back of his mind, trying to bring it forward. To force the switch back, only to be met with harsh resistance.

"Dammit Mari, don't do this. Let me back!" He whispered under his breath, panic starting to lurch to the forefront. He started to shake all over, the longer the connection lasted and the longer she resisted.

"Marinette, please stop, please? You can't keep doing this," he murmured, slowly rocking back and forth, pushing with all he had at the bond.

"God, how pathetic can she get? Faking a breakdown for attention," a voice from the front spoke, pitched just right to be intentionally heard by him.

"Why don't you mind your own damn business," a haughty voice exclaimed from his left, before a body drew closer, arm wrapping around his shoulder. He held back a flinch, trying to tune into her normal reliance on others for comfort, instead leaning into the body, vaguely recognizing it as Chloe. 

The resistance dropped and finally the tug calmed down. He still couldn't switch back, but she wasn't fighting him anymore either. He let out a sigh as the shaking calmed down. Bruce must've found her. She was safe, but likely exhausted and unable to switch back. As much as he hated her taking the pain for him, all he could do now was wait for the bond to pull again and leave a letter detailing exactly what he thought of her little stunt here.

This time Jason did flinch. He felt the first few blows Joker landed, he could only imagine how much pain she must be in now.

"You okay there, marzipan?"

That was a new one. Glancing up into worried baby blues, he gave one soft nod and slumped into her side, paying attention to the lesson. Mari would be upset if he let her fall behind in her studies while she was gone.

…

It had been four days since then and Jason couldn't help feeling like something was horribly wrong. It wasn't the first time they switched for an extended period of time, by any means, but his gut told him this time was different.

Sure she had claimed his body for well over four days before to wait out an injury or get more extensive training with Bruce before and he had held her body hostage for over a week once when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, but normally a tug or two would tell him that one of them was holding out on the swap.

This time, nothing came. His mind was achingly devoid of her and as the days passed, he feared he might end up here longer than planned. It would make sense. Multiple broken bones, blunt force trauma, and the sheer force of their swap could easily have overwhelmed his body and dropped it into a state of unconsciousness. 

He took to her computer, trying any combination of words related to the accident to see if anything had been reported only to come up empty handed.

That couldn't be right, if she were in the hospital, if his body was properly reported as a Joker victim, the report would be made public, even if the identity was kept under wraps for being an unknown minor. Anything to indicate someone was caught up in the accident. Surely Bruce wasn't relying solely on Alfred to patch them back up?

It wasn't until a week after the incident that he received his answer, buried in a tiny little notice in the back of a Tuesday local newspaper. Like an afterthought. Amongst the obituaries. A tiny note that the late Jason Peter Todd had died.

His soulmate died in his body and didn't even make it into the citywide Sunday paper. Just a local midweeker with barely more than two sentences.

Disbelief struck first.

This couldn't be real, right? Soulmates weren't able to just. Die in the other's place. That wasn't a thing. It was his body, if anything, he would have immediately been evicted the second his body died and moved on while she returned to hers. So how the fuck was he still here?

Next came anger.

How dare Marinette die in his place. How dare she end her life for his mistakes! And by the Joker! The fucking Joker deserved to die for torturing and killing his sweet little soulmate. He deserved a life worse than death. To be strung up and peeled apart inch by inch until he begged for death. And Batman... How dare he not make it in time to save her. It'd be okay if it were him, but not her! She didn't deserve this. Mari had her own life, her own desires and dreams, her own villain to hunt down, and that was torn away from her because Batman let them down. But even worse, Bruce barely cared enough to be open about his death. To mourn the loss of her like he did, even if the man didn't know it was an innocent in that body and not him. And even if it had been, it hurt knowing that he alone wasn't worth more than a barely there acknowledgment that he was once alive in an unseen back page.

Last came devastating grief.

She was gone. Marinette, the girl who never even really met him, cared so much for him, she sacrificed her own life for his. Forced him to stay in her body and took his as her own to the grave so he could live as her. With her loving parents and colorful room and warm heart. She gave him everything and wanted nothing in return. Slept on the streets for him at times, took brutal fights on as Robin so he could have a reprieve, skipped meals so he could taste something he'd never had before that her parents made that night. Learned English from an early age so they could talk and he wouldn't be alone in the world. And now that one of them had died, she ensured that he would be left in the best environment she could provide him, even if it had become rougher around the edges from when they were younger. And now she was gone. Dead. Never to return. And as he turned towards the mirror and looked into her beautiful, glowing blue eyes, he saw the tears trail down her face before he collapsed into himself, cursing anything and everything in the universe for allowing such a cruel fate.

…

For the next month, he moved through life like a zombie. As much as he hated her classmates for treating her the way they had, he couldn't help but feel grateful that no one wanted anything to do with him. They still muttered under their breath and glared and purposefully manipulated situations against him, but no one tried to ask what was wrong.

Everyone but Chloe and Juleka avoided him like the plague, which felt accurate in a sense. He didn't have to fake a smile or pretend to be okay like he had when the class still loved her. He could sulk and cry and grieve and it went unquestioned. The others hated him and the two girls, while worried, knew that sometimes she needed the reprieve of just letting her negativity go unchecked for a little while to make up for bottling so much of it all the time, so they let it go as well. The teacher barely glanced his direction. If it weren't so beneficial to him at the moment, Jason would be pissed at the obvious neglect his soulmate had endured at the hands of this lot. As it stood, he just cried a little harder at night in his grief, Tikki curled to his neck with tears of her own. 

The two quickly bonded over their mutual loss and the inability to talk about it to anyone else. Despite the stress of it, Jason refused to let anyone else know that Marinette had died. Her parents didn't need to suffer her death while looking at her living, breathing body, knowing she wasn't in it. That it was his fault she had died in the first place. And he couldn't even imagine having to tell them how she died.

So he resolved himself to live in her stead. To live as she would for the sake of her loved ones and in her honor. He had enough practice in the past to pull it off. It helped that they had both learned to suppress their emotions to the point of nonexistent in the light of facing Hawkmoth.

That was another thing entirely, though. While he resolved to fake a smile and play the happy designer in her civilian life, Ladybug took a turn from that day forward. He warned the cat off him, not playing into the teasing and banter, becoming stoic and professional. And when the kid got too brash, too pushy, too unreliable, he stripped the ring from him and moved on. Built a team she would've been proud to lead.

Over the next three months, he slowly adjusted her mannerisms to be more natural for him. Not enough to be noticeable or seen as anything more than growing older and slightly more jaded, but enough to make it a touch easier and less like he was living a lie.

…

Six months had passed and everything was different. 

The rest of the class didn't bother him. Didn't make accusations. Throw insults. Acknowledge his existence in any way. And maybe that was meant to be punishment. To be treated as a ghost haunting an unknowing audience. But it was pure bliss. He couldn't thank them enough for their continued silence. 

At least this way he could pretend her last days of life were happy and surrounded by people who cared for her. That they were grieving her just as he was.

There were still mornings he forgot. Times he'd walk by a mirror and smile, seeing her looking back and thinking it just another of their sporadic swaps where he'd wake as her and find a note waiting for him. 

Then reality would crash around him as the little kwami would come out and look at him with those sad eyes, nuzzling his neck (her neck, this was her body god dammit). On those days it hit him differently. Sometimes he'd shut it all down, going through the motions for the rest of the day. Other times he'd break down and cuddle the small being as close as possible and share in her despair, not bothering to leave the house. Usually anger would coarse sharp and deadly through his heart, urging him to seek vengeance. On those days, any remarks made his way were brutally rebutaled, until the remarks stopped entirely. Ladybug fought with just a little more violent intent; he couldn't avenge her until Hawkmoth was defeated. Those gorgeous blue eyes set into her face turned into a deadly storm of promised danger. 

It all kept swirling and cycling through him over and over until one day, the desperation and grief and hurt all hit a little too hard and he laid on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling, wishing he could be by her side. That he could join her and not have to feel like this anymore. That it could all just go away and he could be happy for once in his miserable life.

That night he wished for nothing more than to die. If it hadn't been for the absolute heartwrenching sight of her little, pale hand wrapped around a too big knife, he has no doubt he would have gone through with it. 

Afterwards he could only thank his cowardice for preventing him from destroying her body like that. She wanted him to live and who was he to deny her? 

That night, he curled up on the cold, hardwood floor and begged her forgiveness, promising to do better. To be better. He knew she couldn't hear him, would never respond, but he begged all the same.

[sadaboutniall]

something about you;

introduction | masterlist | tag | wattpad

Thirteen. March, 2012. 

Niall can’t sleep. 

It’s three o’clock in the morning and he’s fucking exhausted and he’s in New York and he can’t sleep. The day’s been long: an early wakeup call, a never ending album signing at a mall somewhere in New Jersey, a long drive back to the hotel. He spent a few hours fucking around with Louis afterward, playing FIFA, eating pizza, just generally chatting shit and he’d felt fine, mostly, just tired, until now. 

For the most part, the homesickness thing hasn’t really gotten to Niall over the past two years—at least not the way it gets to Louis and Zayn and even Harry sometimes. He doesn’t spend hours curled up in his bunk on the bus on the phone to home, doesn’t feel like he needs things like Barry’s Tea or Club chocolate bars to Tayto crisps to remind him of what he left behind. He loves Ireland, of course he does, but he loves adventure, too—he loves the wide, open roads of American highways, the constant hum of New York City outside his window, the unmatchable energy of screaming fans everywhere he goes. It feels like he’s made a good trade off, if he’s honest—he had to lose to gain, but, most of the time, he doesn’t feel like he’s lost all that much. 

But today was St. Patrick’s Day. All day he’d fielded questions about Ireland: about what he misses, what his favorite slang words are, what he wants to do whenever he goes back next, as if he even knows when he’ll be able to go home again. By the middle of the day it felt like someone was banging him over the head with a hammer, shouting at him to miss Ireland, think about Ireland, call home to Ireland. 

And then there was a girl. She was one of the last ones in line for the signing and couldn’t have been older than six, long blonde hair, a shy look on her face. She clung to her mom’s leg and looked up at the five of them with wide eyes, like she couldn’t quite believe they were real, and when Louis asked for her name she whispered ‘Isla,’ standing up on her tippy toes to watch Louis scribble it onto her copy of the album. 

Bang, Niall felt, hammer over his head again. Bang, bang, fucking bang. 

And now he can’t sleep. And he can’t stop thinking about it. And St. Patrick’s Day is technically over but he feels weird, antsy, a little clammy. He wants to take a walk but not through the city, his only option right now—he’s thinking about backroads in Mullingar, overgrown fields and muddy ground along the canal. He needs to move: to jump, to run, to do something that isn’t laying on his back in a hotel bed and staring at the ceiling. 

He needs to talk to Isla. 

They’re not talking anymore. It was an on purpose decision, one they made together a few weeks after the breakup, when he’d called her in the middle of the night to tell her about a movie he’d just watched and she told him this had to stop, told him it was too painful to keep talking the way they used to, told him they had to take this break up seriously, if that’s what he really wanted. 

They’d drawn a hard line in the sand then: no talking except for birthdays, holidays, and emergencies, and all conversation had to be strictly platonic. Isla’d offered to write up an official contract for them both to sign, Niall’d told her it wouldn’t be binding until she actually got accepted into law school. She’d laughed and hung up on him, and that had been the end of it, really. He hadn’t even had time to see her over Christmas, because he was only home for three full days. 

And so, when Niall does crack at 3:47 in the morning New York time, he shouldn't be surprised that Isla answers the phone with simply, ‘are you okay?’

‘Hello to you too,’ he says, warmth immediately pooling in his stomach. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Why are you calling me, then?’ Isla sounds a little tired and Niall does some quick math: 8:47 am in Ireland, on a Sunday. ‘This is a breach of the contract.’ There’s a smile in her voice, one Niall matches instantly. 

‘Is not. St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday.’

‘That was yesterday,’ Isla says, feigning annoyance even though Niall can hear her laughing. The sound of it melts over him like a duvet, warm and familiar. Safe. ‘And it doesn’t count.’

‘Why the fuck doesn’t it count? It’s our country’s national holiday, it should count the most.’

‘You don’t live here anymore,’ a rustling sound, a chirping bird. Isla’s outside. ‘It doesn’t count for you.’

‘I respectfully disagree, barrister,’ Niall settles down a little more comfortably in bed, imagines Isla’s smile. ‘As a citizen of the great nation of Ireland and a budding national treasure I retain all my rights to—’

‘Shut up,’ she laughs. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing, really,’ Niall admits, shrugging his shoulders even though Isla can’t see. ‘Couldn’t sleep, thought you might be able to bore me to death.’

‘Time’s it for you?’ Niall hears a gust of wind down Isla’s end of the phone, bites back the sudden urge to ask if she’s wearing a jacket. 

‘Uh, nearly four in the morning. I’m in New York.’

‘Sick. Have you eaten one of those massive hot dogs?’

‘Yeh, first day we got here,’ Niall laughs. It had been one of the first things he and Liam did. ‘They’re so good.’

‘You there for a few more days? Hasn’t your mam got cousins in New York? You should call round.’

‘I did, saw them the other day. The kids are super cute,’ he ignores the stirring in his stomach, the way it gives him butterflies to know that Isla remembers these kinds of things. This is strictly platonic. He carries on, ‘don’t want to talk about me, though. What are you up to? Sounds like you’re outside.’

‘Observational,’ Isla laughs, and Niall imagines her giggling in the early morning sunlight, March frost curling in the air. ‘I stayed over at Emilia’s last night, just came out in the garden to take your call since she’s still asleep.’

‘Oh, did ya? Girls’ night?’

‘No, bit of a party, actually,’ Isla says, and Niall hates how it clangs in his stomach, hates how he still feels left out knowing that his friends are having fun without him, that life carries on when he’s away. His life now is more exciting than he ever could have imagined—yet somehow the thought of his mates drinking cans in Mully’s basement without him makes him jealous, makes him forget about just how much he dreamt of what he has now. ‘Everyone was here.’

‘Ah, what was the occasion?’ Niall tries to keep his voice light, not like he’s digging. ‘Paddy’s Day, or?’

‘Yeah, Paddy’s Day. And celebrating, too.’

‘Celebrating what?’ Niall feels suddenly like he’s missed something. 

‘Uh, me,’ says Isla, sounding a little embarrassed, and a little confused. ‘I, erm. I got into King’s College last week. The law program.’

It feels like he’s been in a car, going 75 miles on the freeway, and had to slam on the breaks. It feels like whiplash, like falling on his face, like that hammer from earlier, bang, bang, fucking bang, life goes on without him. ‘Isla,’ he manages to say, deep breath in, deep breath out, ‘what the fuck?’

‘Sorry?’ she asks, confused. ‘What do you mean what the fuck?’

‘You didn’t tell me?’ He tries not to sound angry, accusatory, but there’s a feeling he doesn’t recognize bubbling over in his stomach. The fact that something like this could happen in Isla’s life and he didn’t get to be a part of it makes him feel like someone else. 

‘Niall, we agreed—’

‘This counts as an emergency,’ he insists, sitting up in bed. He feels cold all of a sudden, like he wants a blanket, or her body, on top of him. ‘Isla, holy shit. I’m so fucking happy for you. I mean, I knew you’d get in but still, fuck, I can’t believe this is happening.’ It’s not a lie, the fact that he’s happy for her. But, he thinks, a rank feeling he doesn’t like still curdling away in his stomach, it’s not the whole truth. He should’ve been there with her when she got in. He hates himself for not. 

‘Thanks,’ Isla’s smiling, birds singing in the distance. Niall imagines her with her face turned toward the sun, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her body. He imagines her in his Derby jumper, the one he’d left in Mullingar for her to keep. ‘It’s a crazy feeling, isn’t it? I guess both our dreams have come true in the end.’

‘Yeah,’ Niall says, a tight cramp forming in his stomach, a lump pressing against his throat. ‘I guess they have.’

He can think of at least one dream of his own that hasn’t.

####

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[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Fifty-Five

A/N: I'm dedicating this chapter to @xpoisonousrosesx , HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY, BEAUTIFUL!! I hope it was a good day, and I pray this is your best year yet. I love you!!💕💕

Words: 3.8k

Warning(s): explicit language, mentions of drug abuse

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I smooth the hair dye through Nikki's roots, wiping my forehead with my forearm as he chatters on and on about the album.

"Tommy's fixed on making a song about strippers, and Mick's giving pretty good riff ideas, but Vince is too busy frying in the fucking sun to give a shit. As usual." He complains and I lick my lips and keep quiet. "Don't even get me started on how I showed him 'Veins' and he outright said he wasn't singing that 'shit'. If he doesn't like the fucking lyrics he can get his ass off the fucking beach or pull his cock out of cheap-bitch pussy and write a fucking song himself. Lazy fucking bastard. Then he wants to groan about how hard he works. Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware standing in front of a microphone and giving half-assed vocals is so fucking exhausting--which counting how much energy he spends talking back to me or Mick or Tommy, he probably is exhausted by the time he's done laying vocals and blowing load after load down a line of groupies' throats while Sharise is at home taking care of their fucking child. Fucking asshole."

"Vince has always been that way. I don't know why you're just now realizing this." I mumble, sectioning off another piece of his hair before glopping dye onto it.

"No, no. He had an attitude to begin with but it was the perfect amount for the band. Now he's getting singer syndrome and I'm not dealing with his prima-donna bullshit."

"He's not perfect, Nikki, maybe he's just going through something and he'll get better once whatever it is passes."

"He's not going through anything, he's just drinking again." He states and I raise my brows.

"Nikki, he's not drinking again."

"Yes, he is."

"How do you know?"

"I know what beer smells like. He reeks of it anytime he's in the studio."

At least it's not crack.

"So, this song about strippers..." I change the subject, starting on another section of his hair.

"Tommy just has the main tagline of the chorus in his head and we're working on lyrics and music for it, now. I think it'll be a good single."

"What's the main tagline for the chorus?"

"I can't tell you, it's a surprise." He grins when I step out from behind him to look down at him. "But you'll like it."

"Whatever you say." I sigh, finishing his hair, taking the gloves up. "Alright, leave it in for twenty minutes then we'll go rinse it out." I tell him, turning my back to go throw the box dye supplies and empty bottle away.

"Hey, does this stuff stain the floor?" He calls while I'm in the kitchen.

"...Yeah." I reply before it hits me why he's asking.

I rush back into the dining room to see him swiping the towel that was once over his shoulders, being wiped back and forth against the floor by his boot, probably trying to soak up what dye he got on the floor.

"Nikki!" I exclaim.

"I'm getting it up." He reassures me, laughing me off.

"It's getting on your shirt now!"

"You know how to get it out in the wash, though, so it's fine." He shrugs, smirking at me and I have to keep myself from screaming at him, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

"Okay. Okay." I say to myself, aloud, feeling his hands hold at my waist and I open my eyes, looking up at his dye soaked hair that's dripping down his shirt now that he doesn't have his towel on his shoulders to protect him. "You wouldn't take your shirt off before I started dyeing your hair, you wouldn't keep your towel over your shoulders and now you have dye on your shirt and I'm gonna have to scrub at it with vinegar and soap. You are a child. I am married to a man-child."

"You can spank me if you want to." He raises his brows and I have to keep myself from cracking up, holding back my smile.

"It's not funny." I tell him.

"It is." He argues.

"No it's not."

"It kind is."

"No, it's no--ahh!" I squeal, jerking away from him as he tickles me.

He stops in a split second, his eyes focused on something over my shoulder.

I turn my head to see Vanity standing at doorway, and I can practically feel the anger rolling off of her as she grinds her teeth.

She doesn't look as sweet as usual.

"Where the hell were you last night?!" She asks him, and I feel him tense up like a cat with it's fur standing up due to being threatened.

"With my wife."

It seems like she twitches at the word "wife" before she rolls her jaw.

"That's the third time you've bailed on plans made with me, Nikki. I'm really starting to get the impression you don't wanna be friends anymore."

"I've been working on music and trying to take a step back from the drugs, Vanity. When I feel like going down hill again, I'll give you a call." He states to her and she glares daggers at him before looking at me.

"You should be very proud of him, Vivian, I mean, really." She sarcastically let's out. "He really takes his marriage so serious."

"Vanity, you're stoned. Get lost." Nikki orders her and that seems to make it worse.

"Get lost?! I'm trying to figure out what's wrong, Nikki, and why you don't want to see me, so I can fix it!"

"And I'm telling you I'm busy working on the album, trying get sober, and, oh, yeah, spending time with Vivian because my life doesn't revolve around my friends. I have other priorities and you're not on that list anymore."

Her brown eyes shift to me, her jaw tightening and loosening the more she focuses on me.

"He only wants you around because you're sober. Just like he only wanted me around because I know how to have a good time."

"Vanity, I'm sure he'd be willing to hang out with you if you weren't constantly on something." I politely interject. "I was the one that suggested he manage his time spent with his friends that were involved in the things he was trying to get clean from." I add. "And we've been together for six years. I don't think he wants me around just for my personal preference of sobriety."

Her and Nikki seem to be having an entire conversation with just their eyes before she's letting out one last breath.

"Fine. Just call me up when you're desperate for an escape, again." She tells him before turning on her heel, stomping out of the house.

"What the hell was that about?" I ask him and he just shakes his head.

"Don't worry about it, Viv. She's fucking crazy." He mumbles, giving the direction she walked out in, one last glance before going to rinse his hair out in the shower.

When he gets out, I've got big, velcro rollers in my hair and I'm putting on makeup.

"Where you going tonight?" He asks me and I finish my mascara before giving a small shrug.

"Duff and I are gonna go try to see about finding him another place to move. They're starting on the album and when he starts getting money from it, he wants to get a nicer place." I explain.

"That's what you said last night, Viv. And the two nights before that." He adds, fixing his towel around his waist.

"Feel free to come with us, Nikki, I'm sure he'd love the company of another guy." I offer, not even realizing what he's getting at.

"Well, maybe I was gonna take you out." He tells me and I look at him for a moment.

"Nikki leaving me in a club while you go shoot up in the bathroom isn't 'taking me out'. It's using me as a coverup." I sigh.

"I'm off smack, Viv." He states, finishing smearing shaving cream over his jaw, picking his razor up.

"Is that why you were hanging out with Robbin last night?"

The thud of his razor hitting the sink has me jumping slightly, and I glance at him from the corner of my eye to see him staring at me, obviously pissed.

"Nikki, don't look at me like that. I'm being honest."

"For once." He scoffs out and I stop what I'm doing and focus on him.

"What's that suppose to mean?" I ask.

"I've just heard stuff, Viv, that's all." He informs me and I raise a brow.

"Heard what from who?"

"Vanity said she's seen you out with Duff more times that you've failed to mention to me." He throws.

"Oh, Vanity. The same woman you discredit because she's 'fucking crazy'?"

"She's not lying about that, Vivian, because she has no reason to. It's all in the fucking papers, anyway."

"What are you talking about?" I snap and he raises his brows before stepping out of the bathroom, coming back with a stack of cheap news papers...I'm on the cover of every one, with Duff.

I'm wearing church dresses in a few of them.

Shit.

"I didn't wanna say anything because I get that you're your own person and can do whatever, but you can kinda see why I scratch my head when my wife tells me church service ran late and then shows up on a magazine with another guy.

"Nikki, there's nothing going on." I reassure him, finishing my makeup.

"Then why the fuck have you been lying about it?"

"To avoid this!" I motion between us before grabbing the papers from him and throwing them towards the garbage can in the bathroom.

"If I was spending every sunday afternoon on a fucking date with some chick and lying to you about it, it'd be the end of the fucking world, Vivian."

"Duff isn't just some random person, Nikki. You know him. You're friends with him. Why the hell would anything happen? Do you really think I would do that to you--that he would do that to you, knowing that all you'd have to do is call him out for it publicly, once, and ruin his shot at music?" I ask harshly and he licks his lips.

"Next time you two hangout without telling me about it, I'll do just that. Don't fucking try me, Sixx. You're lucky I'm not kicking you to the curb for this shit." He states, his voice graveling.

"It would make sense for you to do that to me, Nikki, it really would. I stay with you after you treat me like shit, shoot me, ignore me, laugh at my fear for your life and safety and the second you think I'm spending a little too much time with my best friend--completely your paranoid opinion, by the way--I'm an embarrassing whore and you're wanting to kick me out of the house. I swear to God, I have no idea how someone can go from thinking they're God, to being an insecure little bitch."

"I don't care if you hang out with him but fucking tell me the truth about it!"

"Like you tell me the truth about Vanity?! How much time is she really spending at our house, Nikki, because almost every fucking time I go out and come back home, I'm getting whiffs of her perfume and freebase. And I know you aren't just around her to talk. When she's around, so is the crack."

"I'm not listening to this shit." He gives one last swipe of his razor over his skin before he's finished, getting the left over shaving cream off before grabbing his hair dryer.

"Yeah, you love putting the things I do under a microscope but the second Nikki's in the hotseat, it's an invasion of his privacy, right?!" I call after him as he slams the bathroom door behind him when he leaves.

I knew he was bound to find out I was lying to him, but when he did, I expected him to be angrier or make more of a show patronizing me for it. I didn't realize he didn't give much of a fight because he already had the sick gears in his mind turning.

I pull my dress and heels on, stepping through the house to find Nikki.

He's in Karen's room, probably venting to her about me, when I walk in to see him pacing back and forth in front of her bed while she patiently listens.

"Can I talk to you?" I ask him and he just looks me up and down before rolling his eyes, trudging toward me, shutting Karen's door behind him. "You're not an insecure little bitch. You have a reason to be upset with me and I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth about the Duff thing. But you overreact when it comes to me, Nikki, you really do. It's like you can have all the girls around you that you want, and I don't know who the hell they are, but the second a guy even glances at me, you're on the defense. Do you not trust me?"

"You lied to me about it, Vivian."

"To try to protect you."

"From what? There's nothing wrong with you and him hanging out!" He tells me, losing patience. "...Is there?"

"No, there's not, Nikki."

"Okay, then. I don't care. Apology accepted. Go have fun." He carelessly waves his hand to the door, but I know he does care, he doesn't accept my apology, and "go have fun" means "just fuck off and leave me alone."

So I do.

"Alright, bye."

"Bye."

He shuts himself back into Karen's room and I head to my car.

"You're All I Need" was written that night while I was out with Duff and once it was written, Nikki found trouble.

I unlock my car as Duff and I finish leaving the Franklin Plaza after just looking at one of the suites.

"I'm sold." He tells me.

"Really?"

"Yeah, why not." He shrugs and I chuckle.

"Okay, so now what?"

"We wait for a check, and then pack my shit--which consists of three t-shirts and two pairs of pants--and then move in." He says.

"Sounds good." I agree.

"Now, to celebrate..." He starts, thinking for a second. "...food, and then find the guys on the strip."

"Deal." I reply, heading to Denny's.

Once we're done eating, we decide to just walk down the strip in search of at least one of the other four members of Guns N' Roses.

Seeing Duff's car, that Steven borrowed, parked on the side of the street, we find a place to park.

"Rebel Yell" blares through the speakers of the Cathouse once we get inside, and we automatically look in the direction of the bar.

Like we expected, we see Slash, Steven and Izzy, all down drinks.

I pluck Izzy's hat off his head and turn it backwards before tugging at the end of Stevie's hair.

They snap around, and Izzy's lightly hitting my arm in retaliation while Steven's pulling me to him.

"The hell have you been?" He asks me over the music and I brush some of his blonde bangs from his eyes.

"I could ask you the same thing." I tell him, poking at the end of his nose and he kisses my cheek, squeezing me to him for a second.

"I've missed you." He states as Duff and Slash have a brief side conversation.

"Izzy." I acknowledge him and he nods a single time.

"Viv." He replies, taking a sip of his drink.

"Where's Axl?" I ask Stevie, glancing around.

"He's meditating in the bathroom." Steven in forms me and I furrow my brows.

"He's what?"

The blonde looks at me, takes his arm from around me, holds his hands out and touches the tip of his pointer finger to his thumb, closing his eyes for a second, imitating meditation.

"He's meditating." He repeats, obviously finding humor, chuckling when Izzy holds back a smile and knocks him in the arm.

"Better than doing smack in the bathroom I guess." I shrug.

"Oh, speaking of which." Izzy blows smoke past his lips, looking at me. "Nikki and a friend of his is in V.I.P. he came by and said, 'hey' to us and invited us over." He states.

"Why'd you say 'friend' like that?"

"'Cause she was hot." Steven states. "That Vanity chick." He adds.

"Are they still here?" I ask them and Izzy shrugs.

"Hell if I know. She's fucking coo-coo for cocoa puffs, though." Izzy says. "And she's touchy-feely. A little too much."

Izzy didn't like Vanity because he could tell from first glance Nikki and her were fucking around.

The reason he didn't join Nikki in V.I.P that night was because he told Nikki I was more of a man than he ever would be with the shit he was pulling with Vanity.

That pissed Nikki off.

"I'll be right back." I say to them, heading to V.I.P.

I get in, seeing Vanity giving a near strip tease, completely absent from her mind while Nikki completely disregards her, staring off, looking like he just had a hit of junk.

I feel like I'm spying on him, being nosy, and turn to go back to the guys to avoid pissing Nikki off.

"You find him?" Steven asks me and I nod.

"Yeah."

"You find her?" Izzy asks next.

"Yeah. She's really not that bad, Iz."

His eyes nearly bug out of his head as he snaps his attention to me, scoffing out: "what?" in disbelief.

It occurs to him that I'm friends with her and his expression shifts to a sort of sadness before he's finishing his drink and quickly brushing off his demeanor.

He started to slowly distance himself from Nikki after that...that was a low even he wouldn't try to swing to.

Izzy never told me about Nikki and Vanity, not to protect Nikki, but to protect me.

I couldn't be angry at him when I found out he had known, because I knew without a doubt he would have told me had he thought I would have been able to handle it.

The rest of the night ends with me trying to keep a drunk Steven, Slash and Duff out of trouble with Izzy and Axl encouraging their foolery.

When it gets time for them to start going home or either finding chicks to go home with, all seem to disappear...except for Duff.

I'm walking him back up to their apartment, laughing as he almost face plants, stumbling over himself, giving out a sound that sounds almost like Goofy's laugh from Mickey Mouse, only making me laugh harder.

"Sorry." He tells me, grasping at my hand to steady himself so he can get the key for the apartment out of his jacket pocket.

"It's fine." I say when I calm down.

I watch him struggle to get the key into the doorknob.

"That's weird, I usually always can get it in the hole." He says as a joke, and my face turns red as he laughs at himself. "That was a pretty good one."

"Yeah, it was."

"Here, you do it." He hands me the key after struggling some more and I easily unlock the door, causing him to stare at me.

I just smile a little and make my way into the apartment.

"You need help with anything else or you got it?" I ask him as he steps in behind me, taking his jacket off and leaving it in the floor, going to the kitchen.

I pick his jacket up and place it on the couch, going to the kitchen to see him pull a bottle of vodka out.

"No, no." I calmly stop him, gently plucking the bottle from his hands. "You've had plenty for tonight. You're gonna be sick tomorrow." I explain.

"Oh, yeah." He doesn't argue and I put it back where he got it as he leans against the counter.

"Get some sleep. I'll see you later." I order after a second of him just looking me up and down.

"Wait, wait." He stops me, his hand enveloping mine.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"Can we talk about something?"

I feel a lump form in my throat and I blink at him.

"It's really important."

"O-Okay." I nod.

"Viv, I love you." He says. Relief fills me, not even giving a thought to him meaning it differently, and I grin up at him.

"I love you, too, Duff." I say and he scrunches his face up in frustration.

"No, I, like, love you." He repeats, and I raise my brows.

"I-I love you, too."

"That's not what I'm trying to say." He argues, rubbing his face.

"Well, what are you trying to say?" I ask and he groans.

"I love you."

"Duff, I know you do. I said--"

"--That's not what I'm trying to say, Vivian." He starts getting flustered.

"Well, what are you trying to say, Du--" I'm cut off with his lips on mine, despite his sudden move, it's a sweet kiss that doesn't last but a few seconds, not even giving me time to react, once he pulls away.

"I love you." He repeats and it clicks in my mind what he means.

I just slowly blink up at him, the breath taken out of my body as my mind races.

"Duff," I say, catching my breath. "I love Nikki that way."

"I know. And you don't have to feel that way for me, I just needed to tell you, Viv." He says.

"Thank you, but you can't do that again." I tell him. "I'm married. To Nikki. Your friend."

"I only hangout with him because he's married to you."

"Duff."

"I'm just saying. He's a fucking asshole. He doesn't deserve you."

I don't take what he's saying seriously, he's drunk and tired.

My hands hold at his face, making him look me in the eyes.

"Get some sleep. I love you. Goodnight."

I played it off but I was terrified. I drove home that night a sobbing mess. Not because I was confused and didn't know whether to choose Duff or Nikki, I knew not having Nikki wasn't ever an option for me. I didn't want anyone else. But I was upset because I wished Nikki would have been more like Duff.

Once our affair ended, I realized Nikki was like my heroin.

And Duff was my krokodil, which is what some addicts, that are desperate enough, resort to shooting if heroin is unavailable.

It gives the body a bigger high, but does so much more damage than heroin...even if it doesn't feel like it.

[chickensarentcheap]

Best Part of Me -Chapter 38

Warnings: none

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @alievans007​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @ocfairygodmother​

“How much do you think Kyle knows?” Esme asks, several hours later as she stands at the end of their bed with Addie in her arms. Her body sways from side to side; the movement solely to calm her shaky nerves baby, the baby already fast asleep. Her voice is low; eager to keep any eavesdroppers -especially little ones- from hearing their conversation.

“Might not know anything,” Tyler replies, as he slips into a pair of cargo pants, tending to the zipper and button.

“What’s the chances of that?  Considering all the time he’s been spending over there, getting to know her. In the biblical sense.”

“How long were you able to hide what you did for a living from your family?”

“That’s a valid point. But I didn’t live under the same roof as them. And Kyle’s been over there every day for a week and a half; we barely see him. Can you be with someone THAT much and still be totally oblivious?”

“Maybe she’s really good at her job and knows how to keep things on the down low. She fooled us, didn’t she?”

“I’d just like to take this opportunity to swallow my pride and admit that you were right all along. You didn’t trust her from day one. “

“You called me paranoid and overprotective,” he reminds her.

“Usually that’s all it is,” she reasons. “You can be VERY paranoid and overprotective. I thought you didn’t want some strange all up in your personal space. You don’t like people disturbing your happy place.”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t think there was something...off...about her.”

Esme shrugs. “I thought maybe she was just eccentric and outgoing. Friendly.”

“Overly friendly. Like she was trying too hard.”

“Well you ARE a tough nut to crack. I guess it is sort of strange that  she seemed so hell bent on being friends with you; you’re not exactly the warmest and most welcoming person. And the whole thing wanting to touch you all the time,” she frowns. “I mean, I can’t exactly blame her for wanting to. I’d want to feel you up too. But she was so...I don’t know...insistent.”

“And you encouraged it. That night she had dinner here.”

“I was joking around and you were a really good sport about it. I just thought she was being goofy and totally harmless. And I was right there. It’s not like she was being sneaky about it.”

“Like when she came over here and I was alone and she started making comments about my dick?”

“It’s a very nice dick,” she playfully comments. “Guess she just knows a good thing when she sees it.”

“It was weird. Normally I don’t  mind being checked out, but that was fucked up.”

“Maybe she wanted to bang you and see if you lived up to your man whore reputation,” Esme teases, and he gives a small laugh and snags a belt from the closet; slipping it through the loops on his pants. “I don’t blame her for being thirsty. I’ve been thirsty for seven years and I feel no shame for that.”

“Yeah, but I like when it comes from you. Other people? Not as much. And she’s a little…”

“Overbearing?”

“That works.”

“I don’t understand how he didn’t hear or say anything,” she muses, watching her husband as he finishes dressing. Shrugging into a short sleeved button down; olive green and fitting ‘just right’ across that broad chest and shoulders and snug around the biceps.  

He’s changed a lot in seven years; physically speaking. Heavier and wider, stronger and more powerful, a touch more gray scattered throughout his hair and in his beard. More tattoos and scars that are still healing; injuries he’d sustained at Michael McMann’s home in Ireland. But the most drastic difference -despite the horrors and struggles with PTSD and everything that comes with it- are with his personality. The edge is still there. The grittiness and the toughness that comes with years of serving in the military and then as a ‘gun for hire’; the often haunted look in his eyes, caused by the things he’s seen and heard and had been forced to do to stay alive. It had taken years for all those walls to come tumbling down; a full time job even after they’d gotten married and having Millie AND the twins.

It had been a struggle for him; opening up to someone, trusting them, allowing himself to have those softer and vulnerable moments. He’d grown up with an abusive father and went straight into the SASR after graduating high school; had a wife that cheated on him regularly, had a child diagnosed with a terminal illness, then made the unfortunate -and entirely selfish- decision to abandon him while he was dying.  But little by little the cracks in that hardened exterior began to spread and grow wider.  He began laughing and smiling more easily; genuine smiles that would light up his face and crinkle the corners of his eyes. Letting go of the constant need to be the strong and stoic one; afraid that too much emotion and showing -and receiving- too much affection made him ‘soft’. Weak.

Slowly he’d come around; his children managing to strip away at the last of the layers that he found it so hard to get rid of. They’d  always been there. The empathy.  The compassion. A heart ten times bigger than his body. Just needing to be reminding that it was okay to expose those sides of himself; to allow himself to feel.

To be human.

“It would be hard don’t you think?” she continues, as she places Addie in her bassinet.  “Keeping that kind of secret when you’re under the same roof?”

We’ve kept a lot of secret things from each other,” Tyler points out.

“That’s different. We have a past and a lot of bad things happened in it. Anything we’ve held back from one another, has been done with good intentions. She’s just over there doing her thing and spying on us and having her colleagues over. She’s probably just been using him to get close to us. Or to find things out about us. Kyle isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and he wouldn’t twice about it if she started asking him things. If she’s that sneaky…”

“Maybe what’s going on between them is legit. Maybe the dick’s that good.”

Esme grimaces. “Ewww. That is my brother. Let’s not talk about that. He probably could have given you a run for your money during your days as a whore.”

“I was not THAT bad.”

“Bullshit you weren’t! I bet half those scars on your back aren’t even from the job. I bet they’re left behind from some stripper with those tacky long nails that are like daggers.”

He grins, then leans it to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “She was a Sunday school teacher, actually.”

“Yeah, and I bet now she can’t even walk into a church without bursting into flames because of how badly you corrupted her with your filthy ways. I was an innocent, good girl until I met you. And now look.”

“You may have only been with two other guys before me, but there was nothing innocent about you.  What went on those days? Even just that first day? Good girl, my ass.”

“I can’t help it that the voice and the accent brought out the nympho in me,” she says, and directs a swat to his ass before he heads around to his side of the bed. Watching as he removes the Glock remover and its holster from the lock box in the nightstand; slipping the latter onto his right hip before covering it with the bottom of his shirt.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” Tyler reasons, when he catches her observing with wide eyes.

“And if all else fails, she probably has a garden rake you can borrow and kill someone with.”

He smirks.  “It’s not too far-fetched to think maybe things between your brother and Salena are the real deal. What would she have to gain by banging him just to get to us?”

“Orgasms? Hopefully.”

“It makes no sense that she’d do that.  Hook up with him to get to us. That’s way too much work.”

“None of this makes any sense,” she grumbles, and then sheds her housecoat in favour of pulling on  a simple white and yellow striped Maxi dress over her bra and panties.

Tyler doesn’t argue with that.

“Okay, so we’ve established that it is possible Kyle knows nothing. But explain this to me: why would Mahajan give us Ovi if his intention all along was to come after you? Wouldn’t that just put Ovi in harm's way all over again? And why would he wait this long for revenge? The kid’s been with us for six years now.”

“I dunno, babe. He’s got his reasons I guess.”

“It’s been seven years since Dhaka. If he held a grudge against anyone, it would have been Saju. For not taking you out.”

“But he’s dead and I’m still here. So…”

“That line of thinking makes no sense,” she argues. “Why would he wait all this time to exact revenge?”

“Probably to catch me off guard.”

“Hmm...I guess…”

“Or maybe he was waiting until I had a lot to lose. So it would make a bigger impact.”

“That’s just fucked,” Esme declares. “And if that’s the way he thinks, he’s an even bigger monster than I thought. Waiting until a man has a family?”

“More lives destroyed that way,” Tyler reasons.

“That’s messed up.”

“You what kind of people these are. You’ve worked closer with them than I have. You were the one that would go in and make nice with them and get them to trust so you could get the info guys like me needed. You can’t tell me you didn’t hear and some fucked up shit.”

“Of course I did.  But this is different. This is personal. We aren’t talking about random strangers we’ve been hired to help. We’re talking about OUR family. You’re not just some guy off the street that I barely know. You’re my husband. And those are my kids downstairs and…”

“Nothing’s going to happen to the kids. Or you.”

She scowls. “I noticed you didn’t put yourself in there.”

“I gotta do what I gotta do, yeah? Keep you and the kids safe. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Well it matters to me if you’re still breathing at the end of it. And can we not think all doom and gloom? If Salena is telling the truth...if she is who she says she is and she’s working for Neysa and her ‘people’ are keeping an eye on things...maybe things won’t escalate. Maybe it will just be all idle threats and nothing will come of them.”

“You really want to just sit back and hope nothing happens?”

“What else can do?”

He takes a seat at the end of the bed, grimacing at the pain in his knee and the small of his back. “I can eliminate the threat.”

“You said yourself that you can’t just walk into the prison and shoot him in the head. And it’s the people he has doing his bidding  that we have to worry about.”

“So I stop them before they can cause issues.”

Esme frowns. “You’re talking about tracking them down  first? Before they can even get this far?”

“Take them right out of the game before it even starts.”

“That’s a little risky don’t you think? How would you even know who  these people are? I doubt Mahajan is going to willingly give you their names.”

“There’s ways of finding out.”

“How?” she asks, and leans back against the dresser across from her.

Tyler stares at her pointedly.

“Oh hell no!” Esme objects. “I am not getting involved in this.”

“You already ARE involved in this.”

“I am NOT  going to Mumbai to talk to Mahajan.  There is no way I’d be able to get information out of him. Why the hell would he tell me anything? If he really IS after you, he’s going to tell your wife who’s working for him.”

“I wouldn’t let you go there anyway. But you know people. You still have contacts in the game. Probably some that are in India right now.”

“People that I haven’t talked to in years,” she reminds him. “I can’t just call them up and ask them for help. It isn’t the same kind of relationship you have with your contacts. They’re glad to hear from you’; they’re happy you’re even still alive. Mine are hoping I’m dead. That’s a lot of burnt bridges, Tyler. And some of them? Going to them for help would only make things worse.”

“So you give me their names and numbers. I’ll talk to them.”

“And that would be better, how? I lied to them years ago and now I turn around and give their info to a mercenary? You can see why that would be problematic, right?”

“Then just give me their names and I’ll find their numbers another way. I don’t even need to bring you into it. They don’t need to know how I found them.”

“They’d figure it out.”

“Well we need to figure out who these people are. The ones working for Mahajan. Before shit does hit the fan.”

“WE don’t need to do anything,” she informs him. “Let Salena and her people take care of it. It’s what they’ve been doing, right? Keeping an eye on things?”

“I’m not going to trust complete strangers with your life. Or our kids’ lives. I’m just not.”

“So you’re just going to find out who these people are and hunt them down one by one?”

“If I have to.”

“Tyler...no...just no. How is that even an option?”

“It’s the ONLY option.”

“The hell it is! Salena and her people are already on this!”

“And I already said I don’t trust them. Not with you, not with my kids. I trust myself. And a couple other people. That’s it. And I’m not going to just sit back and and wait for things to go to shit. I need to stop it before it happens.”

“You don’t know that anything is going to happen.”

“I’d rather not take the chance that it will.”

Sighing heavily, she crosses her arms over her chest.

“You trust me?” Tyler asks.

“Of course I trust you. You're the only person I do trust. But I also love you and I don’t want to just send you out there to  get killed. These are bad people. Extremely bad people.”

“I’m not some rookie going in blind,” he reminds her. “This is what I do. It’s who I am.”

“No. It’s part of who you are. There’s a difference.”

“And right now, I need to be that ‘part’. I need to be the old Tyler. And I need you to be okay with that. I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing it because I have to. You’re my wife. Those are my kids. And without any of you, I’m nothing. Which is why I need you to let me do this.”

Another sigh. Heavier this time. Resigned. “Can we at least give it two weeks? For the kids? Because we’re going away next week and then it’s Millie’s birthday shortly after. And we can not take that away from her. She’s a little girl. And she’s so happy and so excited and it’s going to break her heart enough when you leave and I’d rather her not find out until AFTER her party. Can you do that at least?”

He nods. “But if anything happens…”

“If anything happens then you go and take care of it. But for now can we just act like nothing’s going on? For them? Because they're kids and they don’t need to worry and stress over adult things. Can we just pretend around them that everything’s fine? Because it’s going to be hard enough when you leave without the anticipation of it hanging over their heads. Please? Can we do that?”

“Of course baby.”

He reaches out and takes hold of one of her hands, gently tugging her into him, placing her between his legs. And he presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist and then wraps both arms around her waist; pulling her tight against him, forehead resting against her chest. Eyes closing as he feels her hands on him. First in his hair. Fingers combing through it before her nails lightly scratch against the nape of his neck, then the tips running softly over the outer edges of his ears.  And when her palms come to rest against his cheeks, he looks up at her, attempting a reassuring smile when he finds those huge dark eyes filled with tears.

She’s silent as he watches her. Fingertips travelling over the older scars that mar his face; the one across the bridge of his nose, then the left side of his forehead, followed by the one alongside his left. Then she moves to the one that he’d sustained during the incident at Michael McMann’s house. Starting at the top of his right eyebrow;  spreading up onto his forehead and disappearing -for several inches-  into his scalp.

She kisses him. So soft and sweet sweet...the tenderness and the love so evident...that it takes his breath away and nearly brings tears to his eyes.

“I can’t lose you,” her voice is just above a whisper. “I just can’t.”

“You won’t,” he says. “I promise.”

She manages a small smile and places a kiss on his brow. And he tightens his hold on her; falling backwards onto the bed and tucking her securely into his chest; one hand on the back of her head, the other on the small of her back. Feeling her body trembling against him and the tears that dampen the front of his shirt.

****

She plays the part of a perfect hostess; bringing out carafes of coffee and tea and a jug of ice water, along with plates of various small desserts and finger foods.  Tyler had noticed the drastic change in her the moment she’d answered the door. Her usual flowing and brightly colored sundresses or tropical themed shorts and band t-shirts replaced with well tailored dress slacks and a crisp white blouse; her usual bare footed approach abandoned in favour of a pair of black heels. But her personality change is the most baffling.  No longer loud and boisterous and bordering on obnoxious, instead both soft AND well spoken. Now that  the truth is out -or at least part of it - she no longer has put on the front of the affable, annoying, and overly friendly new neighbour. Now she’s professional and courteous. Polite. And almost too apologetic. A continuous string of “I’m sorry” and “I wish things hadn’t come out this way”  as she led them out onto the back deck. Telling them help themselves to food and drink before disappearing back into the house.

“Is it just me or did things just go from weird to really fucking weird?” Esme whispers to him as they sit side by side; their knees touching and his hand on the small of her back.

It’s comforting. The simple brush of his body against hers and his familiar scent; filling her with a sense of security and effectively calming her nerves.  He won’t leave her side now, making sure she’s always close enough to touch, never out ear shot and certainly not out of eyesight. His protective nature kicked in high gear.  And for good reason.

“It’s not just you.”

“It’s like we’re living in the Twilight Zone,” she mutters, and then issues a long, shaky sigh.

“It’s okay,” he assures her, as he rubs the small of her back. “Everything’s going to be fine. The worst could have happened already. If she was working for the other side, she would have had guys here to ambush us the second we walked in.”

“How do you know they’re not hiding inside for the perfect moment?”

“Not a rookie, remember? You have to trust me,” he  presses a kiss to the side of her head. . “Just trust me.”

She manages a small smile and leans into him. A hand resting on his thigh   and his lips lingering against her temple; hand slipping off her hip and up onto her side, rubbing comfortingly. Selfishly he enjoys having this role in her life: the fierce and loyal protector. It’s an ego boost knowing that she has that much faith and trust in him.  And he knows he’s more than capable of living up to her expectations; confident in his strength, skills, and abilities.

“I promise none of it has been tampered with,” Salena comments upon her return, noticing that their cups remain empty and the food hasn’t been disturbed.  “As I said earlier, I’m not here to hurt either of you. Or your children.”

“So why are you here?” Esme asks, her hand slipping from Tyler’s thigh as he moves beside her; pouring himself a coffee and her a tea. “And why the big production? Why show up out of the blue and act as if you wanted to be friends? You could have  just been honest right off the hop. You think it would have bothered either of us? This isn’t the first time someone has threatened us in the past seven years.”

“I know it isn’t. I know everything there is to know about the two of you. About everything that went down in Dhaka; start to finish. And I know about your little return there. About Mumbai and Ireland and New Zealand. Information is easy to get when you know the right people.”

“And when you’re willing to pay big for it,” Tyler adds. “Something tells me Nik Khan helped you out quite a bit.”

“Nik and I have a very good working relationship, “ Salena admits, and Esme gives a derisive snort. “I don’t approve of her transgressions. Or attempts at them. But as far as business goes, she’s one the best there is. And we trust her completely.”

“Who is we?” Tyler inquires. “And who are you? Why don’t we just cut the shit and get down to it. You wanted us here to talk, so talk.”

“My name...my REAL name...is Allison Rav.”

“Rav?” Esme arches an eyebrow. “You’re related to Saju? How?”

“Related by marriage only. My husband...ex husband, I should say...is Saju’s youngest brother. Former special services as well. We parted on good terms and have remained friends. And business partners. After Saju died...correction, after he was murdered...Anil left the military and started things up; in Saju’s memory. A way of both honoring him and avenging him. This…” she lifts up one of the plates of food and removes a file folder -one of many- from underneath. “...is everything there is to know about it. About us. About who we are and what we do.”

She offers the file to Tyler and he accepts it; dropping it into the empty chair beside him.

“Are you a mercenary?” Esme asks, her body and nerves starting to relax; comforted by the mention of Saju’s name and the woman’s connection to him.

“Far from it,” Allison gives a dry laugh. “None of our people are. We strictly provide security. We’re trained to assess potential threats and stop them before they happen. But we do seek out mercenaries; when things because too volatile and need...permanent...results.”

“When you want guys like me to go in and put our asses on the line and get blood on our hands.” Tyler smirks.

“Our area of expertise and concern is providing support to those being harassed and threatened by the Mahajans and the Amir Asifs of the world. And there’s a lot of them. So when Neysa contacted us and said that she was receiving threats of bodily harm and death against her and her son, we didn’t hesitate to help. We have her and Aarav in hiding. A safe house just outside of Mumbai.”

“You really think that’s smart?” he asks. “Being that close to Mahajan and his people? Doesn’t leave much room for error. Why not move them somewhere further away? Other side of the world if you had to. Doesn’t make sense for them to be that close.”

“It’s what she requested; to be close to home. We move them when...and if...we have to. We ended up here..I ended up here...when Neysa ‘disappeared’ and Mahajan’s people lost track of her. That’s when he changed his game plan, so to speak. His first thought was that she came here. What better place to hide them with someone who could protect her and Aarav if need be? The person who worked with Saju to get Ovi out of Dhaka alive. What a turn of events THAT was. He was supposed to eliminate you and in the end you worked together. Not what Mahajan expected.”

Tyler gives a tense smile. “How about we NOT talk about Dhaka.”

“Fair enough,” Allison agrees, and pours herself a cup of coffee. “When he thought she’d come here, we were ready. We already had eyes and ears on the situation. He hadn’t sent anyone here or sent out any official threats, but we knew it was going to happen. So we acted first and got here as soon as we could. But things ARE picking up. He is escalating things. This is a man hell bent on revenge and will stop at nothing to get it.  You both know what these kinds of people are like. They don’t care if there’s a woman and children involved. They’ll be their first targets to get to who they really want.”

Esme issues a heavy, shaky sigh and Tyler gives her a small, reassuring smile; arm wrapping around her, palm softly and comfortingly rubbing her shoulder.  “It’s been seven years,” she says. “Why now? Why wait all this time? And why Tyler? Mahajan gave us his son. So Ovi could be safe and have a normal life. A real family. Why would he let us have him if this was his plan all along?”

“There’s two reasons,” Allison replies. “The first is that Saju failed his mission. Yes, he helped get Ovi out of Dhaka. But he didn’t eliminate everyone standing in his way. He wasn’t supposed to leave anyone alive. You two survived. And I understand why he didn’t kill you; he would never harm a woman in that way. I’m sure he looked at you and thought of Neysa and realized he couldn’t go through with it. But you…” she looks at Tyler. “...you put up one hell of a fight. He didn’t expect that.”

“What’s the second thing?” Tyler asks.

“Did Ovi tell either of you that his father has been in contact with him? On a regular basis?”

Tyler frowns. “What?”

“Even behind bars, Mahajan still holds a lot of influence and power in the drug world. He has a lot of money stashed away in several offshore accounts. Enormous amounts of money. He needs someone to run the business now that it’s booming again. And what better person to be his successor than his only son? But that kid is tough. Resilient. He isn’t giving in. He wants nothing to do with that kind of life and isn’t afraid to tell his father that. Which naturally has enraged Mahajan. He’s taken it as a sign of disrespect. Dishonour. And he’s not going to let that slide. He feels the only thing standing in Ovi’s way...preventing him from doing it...is the two of you. But especially you.” she nods in Tyler’s direction.  “He thinks Ovi is completely under your influence and is only saying no because of you.”

“I’m starting to finally see why he wants into the game so badly.” Tyler says to Esme. “It isn’t about the actual job or the money. It’s about being able to protect himself. And us if he has to.”

“That’s why he didn’t want to tell us,” she laments. “Or why he gave us such bullshit excuses. Because he knew he’d have to tell us that he’s been speaking to his father.”

Tyler nods.

“Mahajan wants the obstacle removed,” Allison continues. “He really just wants Tyler out of the picture; he’s the biggest hurdle and true threat. And it would be a way of righting Saju’s wrongs. That’s why we’re here. To prevent any of that from happening. We’re here to protect you. Not hurt you.”

“I’m more than capable of protecting my own family,” Tyler informs her. “I don’t trust just anyone with this. And I’m especially not going to trust you. You could have just told us all of this right from the beginning. Not put on some big, ridiculous show.”

“Neysa asked us to keep this quiet. She didn’t  want to scare either of you. Or your kids. And now that you’re getting back into the mercenary business, there’s an even bigger target on your back. Mahajan sees that as a direct threat.”

“He can take it whatever fucking way he wants. I don’t care if you and your people stay on the sidelines or keep in the background. But I’ll protect my own family. I’m more than capable of doing it and I know my wife and my kids trust me. They know I’ll keep them safe. Better than any of your people can.”

“He’s right,” Esme speaks up. “There’s no else I trust with my life. With my kids’ lives. And we’ve got people working for us that can always lend a hand if they need to. We don’t need perfect strangers fucking things up.”

“We’re highly trained,” Allison argues. “We’re more than capable of...”

“Tyler can do it. And that’s who I WANT doing it. I don’t care how highly trained you or your people are. No one can protect us the way he can. No one. And if that pisses you off and you pull your people out of here…”

“We’re not going anywhere. Neysa wants us here and this is where we’re saying.”

“I want to talk to your ex husband,” Tyler says. “There’s information I need. About who is working for Mahajan. Who these people are he has after us.”

“Anil expected you’d want to speak to him. That you would  have a lot of questions for him. All his contact information is in the first folder I gave you. There…” she pulls the other files from under the plate of food. “...are your files. Everything we have on the two of you. There’s also  a file about Dhaka and everything that went down there. And one with copies of all the threats that have been made so far. To Neysa and to you. I trust this information will be in good hands?”

Tyler nods and accepts the folders, placing them with the initial one she’d given him.

“We kept this secret because  that’s what Neysa wanted,” Allison explains. “She didn’t want to alarm anyone. So I HAD to put on a good show. I had to get myself into your life. I had to get close to all of you and get you to open up to me and tell me things. And I know that you know what that’s like, Esme. Having to lie to people; fool them. Having to trick them into giving you what you want.”

“And my brother?” she asks. “What about him? You used him to get to us? He broke up his engagement for you. And all along you were just using him? Why did you have to stoop THAT low?”

“We do what we have to to get what we want. Kyle has no clue about any of this. I’d like to keep it that way. Because he’s a good guy and there’s feelings...legitimate feelings...involved now. On both sides. It started out as part of the job, but it’s become more. So much more.”

“Yeah…” Esme smirks. “...sure it has. Can we go now?” she addresses Tyler. “I really want to go. I’ve heard enough and I just want to get the hell out of here.  I just want to go home.”

“We can go,” he confirms, and then gathers the folders off the chair and stands up. “I don’t want any of your people near my house,” he informs Allison. “I don’t want them watching me or my wife or my kids. Especially my kids. You tell them to back off. That I’m more than capable of protecting my own. Because if they get in the way and totally fuck things up? If that happens? You’ll end up a few employees short because I won’t hesitate taking them out too.”

Allison nods in confirmation, then stands as well. “We’ll continue to keep an eye on things. Just as Neysa asked. And if you need our help…”

A smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth, and he lays a protective hand on the small of his wife’s back. “I won’t.”

[drethanramslay]

Part 5: Life and Death

Pairing: Aurora x MC (Iris Everette)

Word count: 4.2 K words

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Warning: Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse, torture, mention of suicide, violence slight description of blood. This chapter takes a dark turn and I am warning you guys.

Author's note: I usually keep this for the end but I just wanted to say, keep a box of tissues on standby.

Taglist: @miyakokurono @agent-breakdance @trappedinfandoms @vampiregirlsblog @openheart12 @sekizincimektup @lilyofchoices (let me know if you want to added or removed from the tag list)

Songs: Iris by Goo Goo Dolls , Numb by Declan J Donovan , Forever and Always by Parachute

Forgive me if there are any mistakes

"Seems like we will be here for sometime." Aurora said as she slid down to sit on the floor. Iris sighed as she sat opposite her.

A beat of silence passed over them, no one knowing where to start. Many times Iris opened her mouth and closed it like a goldfish, but nothing came out.

How did we come to this?

"I'm-" Iris began.

"Sorry." Aurora blurted out.

"What are you sorry for? You didn't do anything!!"

Aurora stammered. "I-I- I am so sorry that I called for a break when you were going through shit. I am so, so horrible and such a ginormous asshole-"

"NO." Iris moved towards and held her hands. "Do not for a second think that you are an asshole. You are an angel on this earth. A fucking blessing for my worthless self. You are- just...wow. I am so fucking lucky to have met you."

Aurora gave a small giggle. "You are not worthless babe." Iris smiled.  If she had a future, she would have spent all of the time making her smile and laugh.

"God I missed making you laugh so much.."

"I miss you too... You and me...are we good?"

Iris gave a fragile smile before sighing. "All my life, I have been alone. I had learnt from a young age that the world is evil place and that you can only depend yourself...when you left me, I could have spent a few days moping around and eventually gotten over you. It would have sucked but I would have been okay."

"Are you saying that you don't want me anymore?" Aurora's bottom lip quivered.

"No...the old me would have packed up and moved on....But I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to live alone anymore. I don't want to run anymore. I want to be with you. I want to see you happy. I want to share the good, the bad and the ugly..."

Aurora leaned forward and hugged Iris. Iris clutched on to her like she was the anchor in this shit storm. Aurora placed a kiss on her crown. A pregnant pause later, Aurora spoke up.

"Adara...what did you mean by 'don't waste tears on a dead woman'? Are you....sick?"

Iris sighed. "No I am not sick. Just that my luck is fantastic... Guess it's story time because I am just tired of hurting you and me.."

"I was adopted by Grayson Alejandro and Francesca Everette- Alejandro. My mom could not have babies as a result of a bad accident that's why they were forced to adopt. My mom loved me as if I was from her own womb, and not for a single moment did she make me feel neglected. She would sing me Spanish lullabies and hold me when the thunder would scare me. There will always be a place in my heart for her." Iris teared up a little. Aurora squeezed her tighter, not letting her go.

"My dad? Not so much. He always resented my mom for a problem which wasn't even her fault. And he hated me, because to him, I was just an outsider stealing away all his wife's love. He had his days when he he actually acknowledged that he was a  father and was a good husband... But those were so rare that I could count those instances on one hand.

When I turned ten, his business started dipping into losses. He made couple of bad investments, which just made situations worse. Instead of using his fucking brain and doing something about it, the fucker would go and get drunk. Initially, he would just head to his room and sleep it off... But then, shit hit the fan."

Iris took a deep breath, bracing herself to continue the story.

"I was home alone one day, just doing my homework on the dining table. My mom had gone out to get groceries. I was pretty comfortable staying by myself. He entered home, drunk as usual but, he was angry. I could feel his wrath, emitting from him like seismic waves. He wanted to vent it out. And what is better than a small ten year old girl-" Iris choked.

"He picked me up by the scruff of my neck and threw me across the room. I hit the wall hard and landed on my side. I was in shock. I didn't understand what had I done. When I proceeded to ask him what was wrong he became even angrier. He grabbed me by my hair and slapped me, screaming that 'I' was the reason behind his ruin. That I was just a cursed child."

"I ran to my room when I heard my mom's home keys jingling. I went to the adjacent bathroom and tried to provide first aid as best as I could. I had such a nasty bruise on my hip, that I couldn't sit for a couple days. But I played it of, and prayed that this was a one time thing."

"It again happened within three month's time. The frequency and the intensity of the beatings slowly increased. He broke my left wrist twice in a matter of eight months. He had become daring and it was becoming hard to hide it from my mom. I didn't want her to know this. She was already stressed with the financial situation and I didn't want her to be beaten up by Grayson."

"I had turned thirteen and that was the first time he made me bleed. Earlier it was just throwing me around, kicking me and a ton of nasty bruises. It was so bad. I think I had forgotten to switch off the hallway light that one night. So, he stormed into my room and dragged me out to the kitchen. He bent me over the kitchen counter and he took a steak knife-" Iris sobbed. Aurora was flabbergasted. She had tears streaming down her face.

Iris took a deep breath to centre herself. "The scars you see on the back of my legs? That was his tally. A track on how many times I misbehaved. I have 24 full lines and a half. I just lay there screaming till my throat was sore but he didn't once stop." Iris' hand unconsciously reached for the back of her legs, feeling them through her scrub material.

"Did he ever r-"

"Thankfully no. Otherwise I would have ended my damn life."

Aurora sobbed. "Please don't talk like that Adara..please.."

"I'm sorry Rory..." Iris kissed he cheek as they lay in each other's arms.

"He used to beat me up when my mom was not around. One day, she found him and the meltdown that happened..." Iris shuddered at the memory.

"Did he ever abuse your mom?"

"Emotionally? Yes. Physically? He just backhanded her once when she tried to step in. After he was done beating me black and blue, my mom would tend to my injuries. She would cry and try to kiss them better. She always put forth a strong front, to keep our hopes alive and to keep me motivated. But we knew, that nothing would ever be okay as long as he was around."

"When my mom was hospitalized, god, it was hell. He stopped me from going to school. He would lock me in my room, give me food once a day. He didn't allow me to go meet my dying mother. He tried breaking my spirit by making me weak so that he could easily treat me as his punching bag. Some days I was so bruised that I looked like a Dalmatian."

Aurora was full fledged crying. Ugly sobs poured out of her, her heart breaking for this beautiful trauma in front of her.

Iris continued, rushing to unload all her baggage. "When I got that call that she was going to die, I escaped through my window. I ran to the hospital just in the nick of time. My mom had tears in her eyes when she saw my state. I held her in my arms and comforted her, just like she used to do for me... She told me that she had collected money which was just enough for me to finish high school and get through college. She gave me her will, because she trusted absolutely no one. She apologized for not being brave enough. She told me to never let my-"

"-spirit break.." Aurora completed the sentence, remembering the night she stitched her up in the empty hospital room.

"Yeah... I said my goodbyes and she passed away in my arms. When I reached home, entering through my window, he was waiting there. He wasn't even drunk.. that day I got one of the worst thrashing ever. Broken wrist, black eyes what not. He cut of the electricity to my room. He cut the water supply to my room as well. He even went as far as to nail my window shut." Iris blinked and more tears fell on Aurora's scrub.

"How did you get out?" Aurora asked as she caressed Iris's hair.

"My room was facing my neighbor's  window and they were so close that you could look into the room. Two weeks after my mom passed away, a family moved in. My current lawyer, Thomas's room, was facing mine. When I saw him move in, I immediate stuck a help me sign on the window. It took some time but then it finally caught their attention."

"We conversed through the window and I told them everything. Thomas's dad was a lawyer and we slowly came up with a plan. They both came home one day when I was still locked in my room half dead from thirst and starvation. My father greeted them and let them in. They laughed and chatted. Thomas's even asked him if he had any children, and guess what he said... He didn't?! That motherfucker was so mental that he forgot about his daughter who he hit seven ways to Sunday."

Aurora just held on to Iris, kissing her crown repeatedly.

Shit. This just is so fucked up...

"They bugged my house with hidden cameras and microphones. The local police had been informed and they were just waiting for the right moment. And that moment came."

"Grayson was pissed when he came home that day. He unlocked my room and dragged me to the living room. He wanted me to get water for him or something but I was so weak that I couldn't even pick up a tray. So I tripped and fell. And, he went ballistic.”

“He picked me up and threw me into the coffee table. It shattered under me due to the force. The scars on my back, it was because a six inch long glass had embedded in my back. It was so close to my spinal cord that even if it would have moved a little I could have been paralyzed neck down. He kicked me so hard that I fractured my ribs. He brought his favourite steak knife to carve another tally mark. At that moment I thought I was gonna die. And, I wouldn't have minded that. I would be in a happy place with my mom. I would be free from all this."

"I waited for the final blow but it never came. Police had stormed in and they were restraining him. Paramedics were running towards me and then I blacked out."

Aurora shuddered. Her heart ached so much. Thu carry such a painful party, sure would have taken a toll on anyone. Even the most beautiful roses have thorns, to protect themselves from predators.

"Thomas's dad represented me free of cost. They were going to jail him for 25 years but I don't know how, his lawyer reduced it to 12 years. And as he was leaving the court room, he said quote unquote- ' Don't for a moment think that I am going to give up. When I come out, I am going to come for you and kill you."

"After that I stayed with the Mendez family. They were literally blessings on earth. They paid for most of my bills. Mrs, Mendez, after I came home from the hospital, made sure I ate four times a day. And Mr. Mendez employed a home tutor, to cover up the portion left, so that I could graduate on time. And Thomas, god he is such a sweetheart. Initially, if any male touched me I would go into a full fledged panic attack. He would always be there whenever I had an attack... He would watch shows with me and kept me company whenever he had free time. It had been so long since I felt someone loved me."

"You deserve every good thing in this world Adara. You are always worth it."  Iris gave a fragile smile.

"Thomas had gotten out of law school and I was his first client. I had to go through intense physiotherapy to regain my strength. I was in and out of hospitals, be it for follow-up surgery or therapy."

"Therapy helped a little but I don't think anyone can every get over something like this. I discontinued it when I entered med school because I wanted it to be a fresh start. I could have gone and worked in Seattle or any place I wanted but I came back to Boston. To my roots. To be closer to my mom. And now, he is back. I was running from him when you found me."

"Oh MY GOD. I AM GOING TO KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH. LIKE HOW DARE HE TRAUMATIZE MY GIRLFRIEND!! THE HELL HE IS GONNA LAY A SINGLE FINGER ON YOU. HE IS GONNA CATCH THESE HANDS I-" Aurora's angry rant was interrupted by a giggle.

She looked down and saw her giggling. "Gosh. OMG you look as angry as a little kitten. So cute." Iris giggled again.

"Hey! These hands can giveth life and taketh them as well."

They laughed a little more, before they settled in a comfortable silence.

"Why do you think people say I love you?" Iris asked.

"I dunno man. Maybe because they love each other." Aurora snorted, kind of confused by the sudden change in topic. Her heart was beating faster.

Oh it's happening. Aurora stay calm. STAY FUCKING CALM.

"Yeah I know but I honestly feel there is a difference in 'I love you' and 'I'm in love with you'. The former is with family and friends who most of the times stay loyal to you. But the latter is when you have romantic feelings towards a person. It is just so weird y'know? There is just a difference of one word yet the meanings are so different."

"That's true. But why the sudden change in topic? Not that I mind." Aurora asked breathlessly.

Iris turned towards Aurora with vivid green eyes. "Because I am in love with you Aurora Lucille Emery."

Aurora's breath had been taken away for the second time that evening.

She loves me. SHE FUCKING LOVES ME.

With tears in her eyes, she cupped Iris' face, "I am completely and utterly in love with you too Iris Adara Everette. I have been since the day you broke Vincenzo's hand. I loved you even when we were on a break. And I will, continue loving you till the last breath."

The way Iris' face lit up, was one of the best things she had ever seen in the world. Their lips met and they could feel firecrackers burst around them, their hearts bursting with the amount of love they had for each other.

They were sitting on the floor of an elevator, which was stuck in a storm, but nobody gave a damn.

This was their moment.

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

"So what do we do Thomas?" Aurora asked as she rubbed Iris' back. They were in Ethan's office, deciding what is the steps they need to take. Ethan was pacing in the office, his eyes looking like a slow brewing storm.

"Well first of all, we are going to apply for a protective order. Iris I know how you feel about it but that was a decade ago. The laws now will protect you better. Trust me." Thomas spoke in a very somber voice.

"Okay. Tell me what I need to do." Iris took a deep breath.

"Grayson was made aware of the restraining order filed against him by you. And since he violated them twice once by calling you and the second time by showing up at your work place, we can hold charges against him and that can throw him in a holding cell temporarily."

"That's good right? We need more time so that we can send his ass packing into prison." Aurora spoke with such determination that Iris was blown away.

"Now, Iris correct me if I am wrong, he threatened you, right?"

"Yes. He said that he would kill me. I can send you the voice recording now if you want."

"Yes, that would be perfect. Now I want you to listen to me carefully. I know that no court would be open now. So, go home and get your evidence ready. You will go to court the first thing in the morning tomorrow and sign the affidavit asking for the Protection Order. They will give you temporary one before they set a date for hearing."

"Do you have your restriction order on you right now?" Thomas asked.

"I have it with me. I will send a photo." Ethan piqued in.

"Good, good. After you assemble your evidence, go and stay in a hotel for the night. Take a friend or your girlfriend with you. It's so that nobody can get caught as collateral. And you can stay safe."

"Ethan and I will take her home and then head to a hotel." Aurora spoke into the phone.

"Yes. And I will be coming down tomorrow as soon as possible, 'kay? Luz would like to meet her aunty Iris as well."

Iris gave a small smile. "Thanks Tommy. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, bye Iris. Please stay stay and don't you fucking die."

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"If you don't come down in five minutes, I will call the police and the fucking army to storm your penthouse. And no, I'm not taking any criticism." Aurora spoke in a stern voice.

"Yes ma'am." Iris gave a fake salute. Despite things being bad, she felt some hope. Hope that this could end once and for all.

Hope. What a wonderful thing.

"I am going in with her." Ethan said as he unfastened his seat belt.

"Okay let's go." They both stepped out into the Boston night. Iris took a deep breath, smelling the night wind with hints of the sea. When she stepped into the lobby, she expected to see Hugh, their security guard but he wasn't there.

Huh. Strange. Must have gone to take a leak probably. Iris brushed off her doubts.

They stepped into the lift and she pressed the button to the penthouse level.

"Thank you Ethan."

"For what?"

"For helping me. You are my boss and you didn't have to-"

Ethan rolled his eyes and stopped her. "Shut up Everette. You are like a younger sister and I would really like to to see that asshole behind bars. So relax."

They reached the her home and she unlocked the door and entered.

"Go and get your stuff. I will be waiting in the living room."

Iris turned to head towards her room. She started packing her old papers, her restriction order and enough clothes for a night into a messenger bag. She was fast and thorough in her work. She was about to head out of her room when a crash and bang stopped her in her tracks.

It could not have been Ethan. Ethan was not clumsy and he had the hands of a surgeon. Stable and sure.

She picked up her trusty pocketknife and hid it in the sleeves of her leather jacket. She knew it wasn't much but it would atleast help her evade the attacker.

She slipped into the darkness, walking softly, making sure her footsteps weren't heard. She almost screamed when she saw Ethan's body, lying face down. She quickly rushed to his side, bend down and pressed two fingers to his neck.

She felt a pulse. It was weak but he would survive.

In the quiet environment of the penthouse, she heard the soft click of a gun. She froze in her place.

"He will survive. Didn't do much damage. But can't say the same about you mija. Get up. No funny moves."

Iris slowly got up. While she was at it, she sneakily speed dialed Aurora's number, so that Rory could hear some part of the conversation and call the police.

"Lift your hands."

She raised her hands above her head and turned around. "Grayson." She spat his name. She hoped that she won't be stick with this guy for a long time.

Stall him. Attack only when necessary.

"God you need to start showing me some fucking respect." He slowly stepped out of the shadows.

"I don't show respect to dickheads."

"Wow. When did you get so ballsy? The old you would be whimpering on the floor."

"I grew up. Matured with time. Can't say the same for you. You look like a wrinkly ball sack."

God Iris why can't you for once use your fucking mind and shut your trap. It's a life and death scenario, dammit.

"I'm gonna enjoy tearing you limb by limb." Iris looked around, assessing the place. The entrance was blocked by him and there was no point running into her room because that would be nothing but a dead end. The only place which looked like a safe bet was the kitchen island, where Sienna's knives set was placed. Finding the fastest route she turned her flashing eyes towards him.

"Try me bitch."

He let out a war cry and started shooting at her. Iris ducked and lithely slipped behind the island counter. She felt a twinge of pain in her arm, where the bullet grazed her but she didn't pay any attention to it. She grabbed the sharp knife and waited with bated breath.

I need to get that gun a way from him.

"Oh, so we are gonna play hide and seek huh? Ready or not here I comeee." Grayson sang out.

She waited and waited and when she saw his shadow approaching her she leaped out her hiding place and struck his hand, forcing him to drop the gun. She kicked it under the fridge. She vaulted herself with the help of the kitchen counter and kicked him in the chest.

"Now this is a fair fight." Iris gripped her knife tightly and ran towards him.

She sent a flurry of jabs and hook shots on him. He cowered, trying to block the best he could do. Her knife sliced his stomach and blood poured out in copious amount. But that victory was not very long lived. He punched her on the face, momentarily disorienting her. He took the hand with the knife and smacked it against his kneecap, resulting in her to drop her weapon.

"You bitch!!" He aimed for her in the stomach again but this time, she was prepared. She blocked and hit both her hands on his temples. She then thrust her palm upwards, breaking his nose.

"You should plan for retirement, probably in a jail cell asshole." Iris taunted, enjoying the blood gushing down his face. She knew it was sadistic but this man, tormented her for six consecutive years. He deserved worse.

"Aaarrghhhhh!!!" He tackled her and landed on top of her, knocking the breath out of her. He wrapped his hands around her throat and started choking. "I wanted to extend this playtime with you but you aren't being cooperative-" he squeezed some more. Iris was choking and her vision was getting darker on the periphery.

I won't go like this.

Iris started flapping her legs, trying to get a good hit but, Grayson's grip was tight. "Adios, puta."

"Why don't you adios your ass outta here!!" Aurora screamed as she hit his head with a baseball bat.

If iris wasn't half unconscious, she would have found it hot. Coughing, she tried to get large gulps of air into her screaming lungs.

Aurora was relentless, she continued to beat the fucking shit out of him. She hit him so hard that the fucking bat broke. Iris had her jaw on the floor. She tried to get up but a sharp pain went up her hand and leg. She saw that she has another bullet embedded in the meaty part of her thigh, bleeding profusely. Her wrist was sprained and she had a black eye.

Grayson, even though he looked more like human pulp, kicked Aurora's legs out and she fell. That guy is like a cockroach, Iris groaned internally. They wrestled and stood up. There were punches and curses thrown at each other. He was about to attack Aurora when gunshots rang through the air. The police were at the door and they had shot.

Grayson collapsed and groaned in pain. Aurora stood there, catching her breath. She slowly let out a long breath. She turned towards Adara and smiled. She tried walking to her, but she stumbled.

Falling.

"RORY NO!!" Iris dived forward, ignoring the pain in her leg, to catch the falling woman. She caught her in her arms and when she looked down, she saw a knife sticking out from her stomach. Blood was just pouring out fast and pooling around them, like a red halo.

"Rory you fucking idiot." Iris cried out.  She took out her top and pressed against the wounds but, there were too many stab wounds.

That son of a bitch!!

"Don't worry..... Doesn't hurt." Aurora wheezed out, but she winced.

"Don't fucking lie to me. Why would you fucking do that?!" Iris cried out, feeling completely and utterly helpless. She tried to stop the bleeding by applying pressure, but it didn't help. More and more blood poured out, just like a river.

"We need EMT's right now. We have three casualties and two of them are severely injured." The policewoman spoke into her com.

"You...are free...now." Aurora gasped out. The pain was too much. Too damn much.

"What is even the fucking point of being free when you are not there?!" Iris cried as she pressed her head against Aurora's.

"I...love you...so much.. I am so-" Aurora coughed, and blood coating her lips. "-so greatful to have...met you."

"No Rory!! I want to have a future with you. I want to marry you, adopt children with you. Get fat and old with you. Spend every waking moment beside you. I love you so fucking much, I can't see my future without you in it. Don't you get it?! There is no 'me' without you!!"

Tears rolled down Aurora's eyes. At this point, it was hard to differentiate whose tears they were. "I am so lucky...to die in the arms of a...woman I love...nobody gets...that."

The darkness was slowly calling out to Aurora like a siren. It was so so easy to just slip into the other side. So tempting. There was just a single rope tethering her to the world.

Iris. Her Adara. Her little red.

"Rory NO!! You feel fucking stay alive for me okay?! You are gonna fucking fight this and survive. I just can't loose another person I love to that son of a bitch!!"

"It's okay little red... Go live your life for the two of us....Make me ...prou-"

"RORY FUCKING NO!! HEY LEMME GO HEY- RORY PLEASE BABY STAY ALIVE STAY-"

.....

...

..

.

I had to take breaks while writing this because it became so hard to type with blurry eyes.

before you guys come at me with pitchforks, there is an EPILOGUE. Be on the lookout, you do NOT want to miss that.

Thank you for giving me a chance to share this story with you guys:)

[amnachil]

The College Society Chapter 4 Part 1

And here we go !

This is the last chapter of Liam’s 1st year at the university. It’s a long one, so be ready ;)

A new pov will replace Barbara starting now, I hope you’ll like it.

Damian-Nicholas Smith Carrey Friday March 8, in France

When people said him that he could write a book about his life, he never imagined what kind of book it would be. But now, he had quite an accurate idea. He would call it : 'How to change from the most famous hunter to a stupid and naive man in love'. He had gone through step one for a long time now : have a fucking ridiculous teenage crush. And now, he started step two : be in a relationship with your so-called crush. Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey wasn't someone easily flustered. At least on paper. But when it come to the baboon, it was a true disaster. He must have left his pride back in the US.

"What do you think ? Isn't this one better ?" asked Liam.

The junior looked at him, his brows furrowed. They were doing shopping for souvenir. Well, the baboon searched little things for his siblings and Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey tagged along.

"I dunno. There are the same to me."

One was a key chain with the eiffel tower, the other with the Arc de Triomphe. Both were low quality products anyway. But the baboon finally picked one, and they went out of the store.

"Where are we going next ?" asked the blond lad. "There is plenty of time before our departure..."

"I bought everything I wanted." replied his boyfriend. "So I thought we could hum... take some time for us ?"

He blushed when he said the last word, which made Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey blush too, and then they both blushed even more. This is an endless circle of  pathetic shyness. I mean, I eat ass every other day, so why am I so prude right now ?

"Fine." he agreed anyway. "Lead the way."

They honestly had a good time. It was fucking weird to enjoy this at much as sex. Maybe even more. They went for walk the length of the Seine. Liam ate a box of pastries along the way and they talked about this and that. This is the end of my damned life. I'm having a silly conversation with someone. It must be the first time since... I don't even fucking remember. They were on their way back when Liam sighed.

"I'm happy to have you Dami." he whispered.

All this romantic bullshit was so embarrassing. Do I like it or not ? Just get a grip dude ! Not only he was having a damn date with his boyfriend, but he also looked like the flustered one here ! No one must ever know it happened. The baboon took his hand.

"I'm serious you know ?" he continued. "I mean, I'm still very worried about a lot of stuff... Nate is my main concern, but I'm also still preoccupied by my father. And I can't deny my story with Kilian is giving me an headache. But I'm really happy to know you're here."

"First of all baboon, it doesn't suit you to be so serious." replied Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey while trying to regain composure. "Secondly, there is nothing in what you said that can't wait tomorrow. You've the right to enjoy a little time for yourself with someone you love."

Liam blushed. He kissed his boyfriend to thank him. Holy crap. I'm getting good at the cheesy stuff too. Well, it wasn't surprising : Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey was good at everything.

This evening on the plane, the junior felt a weird dread through his whole body. Suddenly, he stressed about his relationship. But there is nothing new... I mean, we already were a couple before. So what is different ? He quickly put his finger on it. I said to the baboon I loved him. I confessed my weakness. The hunters shall never know. Nobody in the university, for that matter. There are already too many fucking people aware of our relationship. I don't trust anyone about this.

"Hey dude."

Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey glared at the sophomore who hailed him. It was the dipshit called Matthew, Theo's heir.

"What the hell are you doing here ?" he asked. "Want to suck my prick ?"

The cocky lad (it was obvious this guy was an arrogant bastard) smiled.

"Maybe another time. I just wanted to say D.R sent me the contract regarding Barbara. She has to stay away from Colton and all his friends starting now. So you won't see her again much."

"Don't give me that crap, idiot. I don't care about the roach. You can fuck her, so go on. Isn't it what you wanted since the beginning ?"

Matthew's smile grew larger. I can definitely see the ressemblance with this shitty Theophile now.

"Just go away, moron." he concluded.

Liam Sunday March 10 back in the US

"This trip has done some damage..."

The young lad bite his lips. I knew I had indulged a lot but that's quite a change...

"Do you dislike it ?" asked Nate, while slumping on his bed.

"Not really..."

He had been ages since the last time Liam had looked properly at his reflection. He was pleased with his general body shape. His face was finely chiseled. He had strong biceps and triceps. His legs were robust but thick just like his chest. His pecs were nicely standing out. Even his back was kind of burly. But where three month ago he had a blossoming six pack, he had now a modest amount of squishy flab. His bulging waistline was easily noticeable since he was only in briefs. But he wasn't dissatisfied.

"I think I like myself." Liam whispered.

"And that's a good thing." mumbled his bestfriend, his eyes closed. "You have nothing to be ashamed about, trust me."

The chesnut lad outlined a smile. I'm glad to see Nate is talking more and more. He was also pretty sure Dami won't judge him for a little bulk.

"I mean..." resumed the other lad. "You're even well-endowed."

It made Liam blush like hell. (Not that he didn't take the compliment.) (Who could blame him ?).

The freshman expected things to improve since they came back from France. After all, Nate was getting better, Nick was actually making some progress at swimming and Dami literally confessed his feelings. It looked like the unicorns were finally powerful enough to repel the forces of evil. (After all, he had been feeding them with his dreams for months now !). So when a girl went to talk to him during his training this afternoon, he completely ignored her. (Not on purpose of course !). He was just so happy that he couldn't focus on anything. He went throught weight lifting and then legs exercises without noticing the many people who accosted him. He left campus without taking note of the lustful looks around him. I think I'm happy. The talk with Kilian had freed him. He was so glad to know the force of evils failed to take his ex-boyfriend. Anyhow, he finally went to work. As soon as he arrived, Judy came to him.

"Oh god Liam here you are ! I was so worried !" she shouted.

He blinked, not sure to have heard right. (Not that he often didn't heard people or anything...). What was she worried about ? Did he forget something important ? Something life-saving ? Maybe the aliens were gonna attack soon ?

"Liam focus ! I'm trying to have a conversation here !"

Judy clicked her fingers right under his eyes, breaking his thoughts.

"Are you alright ? Did someone do something to you ?"

"What ? No." he replied, surprised. "Why ?"

She frowned.

"Are you and Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey still a couple ?" she eventually asked.

Liam blushed. I think I'm supposed to keep it a secret but... He could trust Judy, right ?

"We are." he replied. "But what is your point ?"

"Be prudent when you're not with him okay ? I never thought I would say that one day, but I think you're safer with him around. Even if I still bet he'll hurt you in the end, like he did with everyone else."

Liam nodded. Their boss was calling them. I'm not sure I understand what she meant... However, he was certain Dami wouldn't said "I love you" so lightly. I'm special to him, I'm at least sure of that.

When he arrived at their flat tonight, Nick announced Nate wasn't there. Apparently, he had left for a talk with Archibald. It reminded Liam there were still things he wanted to improve in his life. My bestfriend and my poor family situation should be my priorities. He had no doubt the unicorns would agree on this. Besides, everything was linked to the forces of evil anyway. He grabbed a slice of pie in the fridge and joined his roommate. (Of course a pie made by Dami. Now that he had tasted his boyfriend's pastries, it was very hard to eat anything else to be honest.). (Once you visited heaven, you wouldn't come back, right ?).

"I can tell he's doing better." said Nick while staring at the screen of his console. "But I also can tell he went through something very disturbing. What do you think they're talking about so often ?"

"I don't know." admitted Liam. "But Dami assured me Archibald was a good guy so I trust him."

Of course, the chestnut lad wanted to help. And yes, I want to know what happened. (Curiosity is not a sin). (Glutonny is, but Liam didn't think much about it).

"Yeah well, until now we can say whatever he's doing is working." agreed Nick. "You should go to sleep... Wait, are you snacking ?"

Liam took a mouthful of his pie and chewed happily.

"This is just too good." he explained.

"You were sooooo against food at the beginning of the year." laughed his roommate. "I never imagined you were such a foodie."

Well... Seems like I changed my mind.

Nicolas Monday March 11 – Tuesday March 12

< Imagenius : yo what's up ? >

< TheSavior : long story short it sucked. I m better looking at my screen and playin'. Wht abut you pal ? >

< Imagenius : long story short my roommate is fuckin' loud while talkin' with her new friends. I hate people with actual life you know ? They remind me I'm a loser >

< TheSavior : won't say I know the feeling cuz I dont. >

< Imagenius : lol becuz right youre so popular >

< TheSavior : at least i hav friends outside a lame chat bruh >

< Imagenius : bruh >

< Abeautifulwomen : guys I do to. >

< Imagenius : as if a man who claims to be a girl could. Anyway Sav can you send us another pic of  this cute roommate of yours ? Pretty please ? >

< Abeautifulwomen : Same. But hey Ima are ya gay ? >

< Imagenius : Joker ? >

< TheSavior : need 2g. I'll turn the chat off. I don't hav any another pic >

* Abeautifulwoman is offline *

* Imagenius is offline *

* TheSavior is offline *

Nick sighed and looked at the clock. Almost midnight. Nice. I can still play. He slowly stood up and headed to the kitchen. First of all, he needed supplies. The raven-haired boy opened the fridge and grabbed a slice of pie and a beer. Two beers. He knew Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey had cooked it for Liam but whatever. His friend wouldn't mind. Nick came back to his room and turned his console on. A sligh whine came from his roommate's bedroom. Nate was having a nightmare again, he guessed. It was happening every other day. Not like if I could just ask what's wrong. If he doesn't talk to Liam, he won't talk to me. The lad drank his beer and started to play. He was good at it at least. He finished the level rather quickly, only to notice he had already ate the pie and emptied the beers. Again, he stood up and headed to the kitchen. Not that he was hungry, but he liked to play while chewing something. This time, he opted for ice cream. And beer of course. Then, he took his playing up again. One hour later, he was done with two more level. And he had devoured the ice cream. So once more, he stood up and headed to the kitchen. No wonder I'm fat. He put his snacks on the counter and patted his belly. When he had entered college he had been a twig. But the sudden freedom allowed him to indulge without his parents constant nagging. Maybe he had enjoyed it a bit too much. When he had come back at home for the christmas holidays they weren't very happy about his changes. Himself had been surprised to discover he had already hit the freshman 15. Now this limit was beyond him. I checked when we came back from France. I weight 89 kg (196 pounds) now. Almost 200. Nick shrugged. He didn't really care. He took his snack and continued to play.

The next morning, he got ready quickly. Unlike Liam, he wasn't dozy on the morning. Well, Liam was dozy all the time so bad comparison. They left together for the first lecture. When they arrived, the first thing Nick noticed was Barbara. The girl hated him for some absurd reason. She was so obnoxious. Then, he glimpsed Rebecca. Another one he couldn't understand at all.

"And to think I've been interested in her..." he mumbled.

Liam didn't hear him. That was the good thing with this dude. I could've been screaming, he wouldn't notice. They joined Colton who greeted them warmly. Nick turned on his gameboy but he wasn't paying attention to the screen. He knew the game by heart since middleschool anyway. Instead, he looked at his friends. He often did that without them noticing. Everyone assumed he was just another nerd but he was an observant nerd. Their trip in France had took a toll on Liam waistline aswell. If I'm looking closely enough, I'm sure even Colton's ever slim frame must've softened a bit. Nick was pretty sure this one would lost it in one day or two. As for his dreamy roommate... I think he will keep it on purpose. He seems to like it. Well, both of them were handsome anyway. The raven-haired boy didn't have this luck. He heard someone laugh behind him. The person whispered something about pokemon being a lame game. Another talked about his little bathing in the Seine. Not a day I want to remember. Seriously, classes were so boring...

Noon eventually came. Nick hit the buffet of the cafeteria like a ravenous beast. He needed his daily amount of junkfood to functiun properly.

"What do you think about the math assignment ?" asked Colton. "Shall we work on it tonight ?"

"I finished it already." he revealed. "But I'm sure Liam would be glad to do it with you."

Of course, his roommate wasn't listening. He was looking away while munching on home-made cookies. And new thing, he was crooning. I know some very weird people but they can't hold a candle to him. Nick discreetly kicked him under the table.

"Uh... What ?"

"Welcome back to earth." he said. "Colton wanted to ask you something."

Nick didn't listen to their conservation. He had glimpsed Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey in the crowd. Another strange dude. Since I came here, I met too many real character. He looks pissed. I mean, more than usual. He was talking to a girl. Well, probably insulting the girl to be fair.

"... Swimming tonight ?"

The raven-haired lad turned his attention towards Colton.

"No thanks." he replied when he had guessed the question. "I'm not very... at ease when there are so many people watching me."

His friend smiled.

"Of course."

* TheSavior is online *

* Abeautifulwomen is online *

* Imagenius is online *

< Imagenius : yo ! Day was booooring. How was yours ? >

< TheSavior : Same as usual. Couldn't wait to be back in my flat >

< Abeautifulwomen : Mine was fine. I don't actually leav my flat. Lucky me ! >

< Imagenius : Btw guys there is something up in my college. I heard ppl sayin a big hunt started. Don't know what that meant but they were very excited. Apparently, the prey is one of a kind ! >

< Abeautifulwomen : Funny. Do you think they hunt human ? >

< TheSavior : I'm sure they're talkin abut a treasure hunt or smthg. We shuld play. >

< Imagenius : Nah Sav it was about a real person. They want him but idk why. Maybe he did something wrong. Beauty yu didnt hear anythg from your boss friend ? >

< Abeautifulwomen : He doesnt control every college in the country duh. Last time he called he was very very very very very angry :3 I got a dick pick thanks to that ! >

< Imagenius : You really are gay. >

< Abeautifulwomen : I told yu im a girl >

< TheSavior : Come play and stop the chichat. Wdc abut a fke hunt nor ur fke dick pick >

< Imagenius : Aye sir >

< Abeautifulwomen : Aye sir >

To be continued

Tadaa. Something is going on in the community, but what could it be ?! I can only tell you Damian Nicholas Smith Carrey will have a lot of work to do. Liam is in a happy bubble, but you know me, it won’t last long.

And welcome Nick. He has been a steady presence in the background since the beginning, so he earned his own pov. He’s on a group chat with two other people... Maybe you’ll be able to guess who they are ;) 

[etherealwaifgoddess]

What He Wants (Pt. 7)

Main Characters: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader

Summary:  On going series of Bucky getting his shit together and falling in love with you.

Warnings/ Content: Grumpy Bucky cursing, some angst. Nothing terrible though.

Word Count: 1725

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Rock bottom is behind us and our boy is awake and trying to figure out what to do next. He’s still in rough shape but we’re starting the climb back up to a better place. 

If you missed the first few parts, you can read them here: One Two Three Four Five Six

XOXO -Ash

What He Wants, Pt. 7

Bucky wakes up almost a full day later in a sterile white hospital room. It takes him a moment to orient himself in the room, panic filling his chest before his current memories rolled in. It is too similar to waking up in a HYDRA facility, his memories wiped, his body healing from the latest round of experiments they had performed. His breath comes in ragged sobs and he pulls desperately at his hair, trying to focus on the present. 

“Hey Rumpelstiltskin.” You say, startling him. 

His face pales and for a moment you think he’ll pass out again. Just as quickly though his cheeks heat, embarrassed to have his moment of panic witnessed. 

“What day is it?” Bucky asks, his voice full of gravel. 

“It’s Sunday. You’ve been out almost a full day.” 

He curses under his breath but makes no attempt to continue a conversation.

You go on anyway, needing to fill the silence. “We had to evac you to the nearest military hospital, you still had bullet fragments in your leg. You were in surgery for over an hour but they said you’ll be back on your feet in a few days because of the serum. You might have a slight limp for a while though, there was considerable damage to your calf muscle.” 

For the first time since he’d woken up Bucky looks down at his right leg which is wrapped up and slightly elevated in the bed. “At least it’s still attached” he jokes grimly. 

“Not funny.” You chide him. “We’re going to have to talk about what happened.” 

“Why? Shouldn’t you be off hacking into someone else’s brain?”

You let the barb pass, refusing to be baited by someone who currently looks like he can't sit up on his own. “Nope, the mission was a success. I’m back on my own free time now and I’ve decided to hang around and piss you off some more. So, would you like to tell me when exactly you decided to off yourself?” 

“I… I wasn’t… It’s none of your concern. I’ll be out of here by tomorrow and you can go back to pissing off the other people in your life.” 

“Stop dodging. And there are no other people in my life. It’s just me, and all I’ve got is time.”

Bucky winces slightly at your confession. He knows what it was like to have no one but yourself and it is more painful than he’d ever admit. “I’m real sorry to hear that.” 

His sympathy shocks you, as does the pain radiating from him. The agony you had a glimpse of two days ago must have been only the tip of the iceberg for him. “It happens.” You brusquely move on, refusing to let him keep dodging the subject. “You said something before you went down on the compound, a name, Stevie. You were talking to Steve Rogers, weren’t you? Is that what this was all about, losing Steve?” 

Bucky would have rather taken twenty more bullets in the leg than have this conversation with you. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Steve was my best friend and he lived a full, happy life. I’m glad he got to live the life he dreamed of for all those years, even though it meant we lost him so soon.” His words don’t match his eyes and for an ex- assassin he is a pretty terrible liar. 

“But what about you? Your life?” 

“Well, doll, that was almost not a problem. But you had to butt in.” 

“Damn right I did. What about your life, Bucky? Shouldn’t you get your happily ever after too?”

Bucky straightens himself a little at your use of his name. His insides clench curiously at the sound of it tumbling so delicately off your lips. “My happily ever after died the second I fell from that train back in 1944. Every moment since has just been a prolonged purgatory.” 

His words hit you like a ton of bricks but you steel your emotions, not wanting him to see how much his pain affects you in fear he’ll clam up. “I’m sure you still hate me, and you absolutely can, but I have to think that our paths crossed for a reason. I only know what I’ve read in your file and heard of in the news, and none of it adds up to the guy sitting in front of me.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” 

“See, there it is. You act like a tough guy but it’s all bullshit. I promise I won’t go near your mind without your explicit permission but I want you to come back to The States with me. I have a place that’s secure, only Fury knows where it is and he’s a tight lipped son of a bitch.” 

“Why in the hell would I go back with you? Why would you want me to? And I will never, ever, give you permission to fuck with my head. I had seventy years too much of that shit.”

You switch tactics, desperate for him to give himself a chance. “How did it feel, seeing Steve come back at the end of his life? Knowing he had found a way to get married, have a family, grow old with the love of his life. You had what, three months with him before he passed?” 

Bucky’s whole body shakes, he looks so frail under the flimsy hospital gown, dark circles haunting the undersides of his eyes. It’s like your words sapped him of any remaining strength he had. “Why are you doing this?” He whispers, barely holding on to his emotions.

“Because I want you to think, Bucky. Think about what you want the rest of your life to look like. You know what Steve did with his, how happy he was. I know he was ‘Captain America’ and all, but why does that mean he gets a happy ending and you don’t?” 

“If you knew half the shit I’ve done over the past seventy years you would already have the answer to that.” 

“Nope, not buying it. I’ve seen the files and I know what they did to you. You had no choice over what you were doing.”

“Still did ‘em though.” 

“Yes, physically it was you. But mentally you were checked out. That’s how mind control works, and they did a hell of a job on you.”

“He’s still in there, the Winter Soldier. Deprogrammed or not, he’s still lurking, waiting for a chance to pop back out. The world is better off if I eliminate the risk” 

“Bucky, of course he is. He’s part of you, you can’t just erase him. Deprogramming will remove the triggers that bring him out but that’s it. You need to make peace with that. The world will be better off with you in it. You have the potential to do so much good.”

“Like what, huh? What good can I do? Most of the world will never see past the monster and I can’t keep doing these missions. I’m so fucking tired, doll. I’m just done.” 

“So retire. Walk away. This mission payout was high enough to live on for two lifetimes, take it and come back with me.”

“I don’t take money from missions.”

This is news to you. “What? How do you survive without it?”

“Savings. Steve. And the Avengers. SHIELD knows not to deposit my pay, they gift it to a handful of charities I picked out when I signed on. I won’t profit from warfare.” 

Your heart sinks in your chest, he has more good in him than he realizes and you become even more determined to help him see it. “Well, I have enough stashed away from mine to keep us afloat. Do you know what I do back home?” 

“You sound like a fucking shrink.”

“Good call. I work with returning soldiers and trauma victims. I was one year away from graduating with a psychology degree before the attack on New York. The therapy center near my home is kind enough to look past my lack of a degree considering how close I was to finishing and my unique qualifications. I get to use my ability for good, to help people move on with their lives.”

“So I’d just be homework then.” Bucky wonders for a moment how much his life would have changed if you had been there when Steve tried to save him the first time. If you had been able to bring back the past Hyrda erased when they created the Winter Soldier. Your angry snap at him breaks him from his thoughts. 

“Hell no. And stop it. I want you to come back with me because I think once you get your damn head on straight you would be a great addition to our team. You would be able to help us care for some of these guys with a level of empathy that you are uniquely equipped to give.” You purposely squish down the tiny part of you that’s screaming you also want him to come back so you can keep getting lost in those pale blue eyes and help mend his aching heart. 

Bucky shifts, uneasy at your proposition, and forgets they had taken off his metal arm. Where he expects to brace himself, he finds just air and he topples over, scrambling with his right hand to keep himself from falling off the bed. The hole in his right leg pulls and he swears. You’re a mess, he screams internally at himself.

You jump up as soon as you see him tip and grab his shoulder, trying to steady him. He jolts at the contact, staring into your eyes with a mix of fear and surprise that takes your breath away. Bucky shifts himself up, trying to get comfortable and your hand lingers along the wide plane of his shoulder. You rub it soothingly above where the metal starts and he shudders. No one had dared to touch him in years except Steve, and even he never went anywhere near the mutilated part of Bucky’s body. Your soft fingers rubbing at the sore muscles make him want to beg you to keep going. His eyes shut, rolling back in his head for a moment. 

“Okay.” He finally murmurs, startling even himself at the decision. 

Tag List Lovelies: @my-current-fandom-is @blacklightguidesnic @amazonianbeauty

[wolfpawn]

Life is a Game of Risks, Chapter 60

Chapter Summary - Alexianna begins to get morning sickness and not long after; the first hospital visit, leading to the reality of everything hitting home for Tom who is not prepared for the experience, while Alexianna is forced to deal with an issue within her own mind that she has had to fight since this began.

WARNING - CONTAINS REFERENCES TO PAST POST-NATAL DEPRESSION

TRIGGERS - Past domestic abuse, Past emotional abuse, Past sexual abuse.

NOTES - 

a few things; - Morning sickness tends to begin circa 6-8 weeks into gestation. - a pregnancy is usually dated from the beginning of your last period/menstrual cycle pre-conception, so though conception usually occurs halfway through a cycle (*usually* but not exclusively day 14 of a 28-day cycle) so where alexianna can date the conception to a particular event, it is still calculated to 2 weeks previous. - Portland Hospital is the fancy hospital of London, Ben and Sophie's boys were born there, royal babies are born there, the Beckham's kids were born there, translation, it is *the* place to have a baby, and Tom would only want the best for his prince/princess. - In Ireland, and I'm fairly sure Britain, vaginal ultrasounds are *NOT* the norm, I know in some countries they are, but not in this neck of the woods. I have not had a baby in Britain, but from the women I have compared public health services with from here, they are only done, like in Ireland, for particular reasons as it is seen as unnecessarily invasive. - I know I keep dragging Alexianna back to certain things, but like all abuse victims, she is forced to bear scars of her trauma, but she is fighting valiantly to move on.

Previous Chapter

Tags: @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @theoneanna

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Alexianna did not have to wait long for the morning sickness to start, and like with Lily, she did not think the title for such illness to be accurate. The first bout of it started on a Sunday afternoon at just over seven weeks. Tom had just returned from Ace Comicon in Arizona. She thought nothing of it as she prepared dinner for them, herself and Tom planning to decide what date to plan for the initial hospital visit, as they were due to have her first check-up, once Lily went to bed. She was innocently seasoning the salmon Tom had brought for their dinner when the smell of the raw fish turned her stomach completely, forcing her to hold her hand over her mouth and pray she did not vomit as she felt herself gag. Tom quickly removed her from salmon duty. He cooked the fish, but every attempt to get into the kitchen for Alexianna resulted in her gagging again, she settled to hide until the smell was gone, then eat some vegetables.

It was at its worst in the afternoon, though six PM seemed to be when the vomiting liked to begin as opposed to just nausea. Tom commented she seemed best when she woke up and very much suggested she work around that, leading to Alexianna eating the most of her day's intake of food between six in the morning and midday. It left her with a very complex situation at work, she was eating throughout her office hours, much to the notice of her manager, who was less than impressed but could say nothing as she still did her work. She also changed all of her afternoon shifts for morning ones when possible and rarely stayed in work past five, opting instead for coming in an hour earlier to ensure she was not there for the evening time, her most ill times. College was more difficult, but she forced her way through it.

The hospital agreed that her best options were to continue as she was doing as she and Tom explained her situation to her Obstetrician on the first visit. Tom had insisted that for privacy and level of care, there was going to be no discussion on the matter, Alexianna would have the baby in Portland Hospital, the private exclusive hospital in London that Ben and Sophie had their sons in, where anyone of note in London had their child in. Though Alexianna stated that the care she received with Lily was quite good, she agreed that the non-existent queueing times, having the same staff throughout the pregnancy was a settling situation and with Tom being who he was, knowing that it would not be slapped on the front page of the paper by midwife before she even had a chance to tell Daniel or even Emma gave her incredible ease of mind.

The midwife spent over an hour documenting every last detail of Alexianna’s medical history, discussing the notes that had been sent from the hospital she had given birth to Lily in and discussing the issue that had forced her to get a C-section. Tom also was subject to questioning on his own health, hereditary diseases in his family and other such details. It took an age to go through it all, as well as getting blood samples from Alexianna to ensure everything was as it needed to be. Tom was every bit the concerned and supportive partner through it all, asking her if she wanted or needed anything, ensuring she was happy with her surrounds, everything. When the time came to get a scan to see if the heart was beating, Tom was practically vibrating with excitement. He seemed transfixed with the gel going onto Alexianna’s stomach, which, he realised the week before, was already getting an ever so slight rounding at the bottom when she stood before the screen began to show an odd grainy image. The doctor moved the wand of the machine around for a moment before clicking on the image.

“There it is, a little camera shy, but in there, all the same.” She smiled. “I will just make sure we only have one before we can focus a little more on measurements. I know this is uncomfortable on a full bladder, and I am very sorry, but we need to be sure.” She moved the wand around Alexianna’s lower abdomen, pressing slightly as she did. “Okay, we do seem to have just one in there. Give me a moment to do my measurements and we can have a better look then.” She pressed on the orb like dial on the machine a few times, taking the length a few times before bringing the screen around so they could see properly. “This is the baby. It is about nine weeks, four days, as your dates would suggest, so your prediction of the first of September is very much accurate. It is no longer an embryo but a foetus now, as no doubt you have read, and that,” she pointed to the centre of the bean-shaped object on the screen, where there was a peculiar movement every second or so. “Is it’s heart. It’s got a good strong rhythm, so that is great. I will print you a couple of photos for you to take away, I dare say your daughter is excited?” She smiled, having read about Lily in the file.

“She doesn’t know yet, but she will be.” Alexianna knew that when they did tell Lily, she would be lucky if she would be allowed to keep even one of the scan pictures for herself. She looked at Tom, wondering why he had gone so silent only to see him staring at the screen. “Tom?” He did not respond. She leant over and touched his hand, causing him to look at her. “Are you okay?”

“It’s actually a baby.” There was a notable amount of shock to his voice.

Alexianna could only give a small laugh as a response. “What were you expecting?”

“It’s just, it’s so real.”

Alexianna squeezed his hand a little. “Is this only hitting you now?”

Tom half nodded, half shook his head. “How am I...Fuck.”

“It can be like that for father’s sometimes.” The doctor nodded sympathetically. “It is so much more real to a mother, since she is the one ill and feeling the changes happening. The fathers tend to only realise when they see the baby on the screen, or in some cases when they are physically holding them.” She rose from the chair. “I need to get some roll to wipe this gel off you, I won’t be a moment.”

Alexianna nodded slightly and watched the other woman leave before looking worriedly to Tom. “Tom? Are you having doubts?”

Tom had gone back to looking at the image on the screen. On hearing her question, his head immediately turned to her again. “What, no. I...are you?”

“No, I am perfectly okay with this now, but you seem to not be. Is everything okay?”

“We made a baby.” He pointed to the screen. “We made a little human being. It’s alive, we made it.”

“I know, I was there.” She joked, she amazed smile on his face told her it was nothing bad that was causing his stunned demeanour. “What else did you think was in there?”

“I just….This is amazing.” His smile grew. "And we get to tell our family and friends soon."

She could only smile in response, elated that Tom was so thrilled with the situation, forcing herself to not allow Jonathan’s reaction into her head. His smile at the news was never as reassuring as Tom’s and she had not felt so sure of how everything would go from one day to the next. With Jonathan, she was always waiting for the man she had married to return, the belittling and horrible man that made her feel worthless, but Tom, he gave no such feeling, and she made sure to remind herself of that. That was something she had been so adamant of doing; reminding herself she had not repeated her past mistakes, Tom was Tom, he was the man she had loved for so long, the boy she trusted so deeply since she was just a child, he was not Jonathan, he never would be. The loving smile on his face, the way he kissed her hand with a loving look in her eyes made her see that, even if her mind sometimes for a brief moment tried to lie to her and say it would be the same, she knew it was wrong. It could be, from time to time. Mr Barrows had told her, our thoughts, as much as they try to convince us otherwise are not always right.

[crashdevlin]

Wishverse- Turn Left

Author’s Note: The reboot begins. A big shout out to @bamby0304 for being awesome, helping talk me through some of this stuff and motivating me to make Wishverse happy, fluffy and smutty as all get out!

Summary: Y/n finds herself back in the beginning of November 2018, and she sets to fixing the mistakes she made.

Pairing(s): none yet

Word Count: 1200

Warnings: mentions of prostitution, mentions of non-con, mentions of PTSD, mentions of cheating (all of these things are bare mentions)

You bit your lip and picked up your cell phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, this is Dean. Is this... y/n?” A little gasp escaped your throat. It was him. It was him and he didn't know you and holy shit, how'd this even happen?

“Yes, I am.”

“I got your message and you're in luck: I'm free that week. But since that's a multi-day event you're asking for and you're a new client, we’re gonna have to meet up, make sure you even like me enough to spend a weekend pretending to be head over heels for me, then we can do details and shit. You busy tomorrow?”

You blinked. You weren't sure what you were doing tomorrow. Your tomorrow was almost eight months in the future… but you knew you were free at 2 PM because that's when you met with Sam at Starbucks. “Not for lunch, I'm not. Why don't we meet up at Biggerson's on Cedar Ave, discuss terms over a couple slices of pie? 2 PM?”

“Oh, you said the magic word, sweetheart. I'm definitely into grabbing pie. 2 PM. See ya then.”

“Okay, bye,” you said, telling yourself you were going to earn back ‘princess’ and turning the cell off. You brought up the news. November 2, 2018. You shook your head in amazement. How the hell had this happened? “Charlie!”

The small redhead padded out of her room and into the living room. “So, who'd you pick? I was gonna get you a date with, uh, Dean. Or Sam.”

“Charlie.”

“Yeah?”

“What is today’s date?”

“Uh, the second all day, why?”

You shook your head. “This is unbelievable,” you whispered.

“What is? That you just hired a hooker? I know! It's completely out of character for-”

“Char, do you believe in magic?” you interrupted.

She turned to you, fully, her eyebrows raised. “Is this you telling me you're a witch and the Wizarding World is real, because I'm gonna be honest, I don't think I would take that too well, mostly because I never got my Ilvermorny letter and if magic is real and I ended up a muggle, I'd be so disappointed.”

You shook your head. “I can't do magic, but I think I've had magic done for me.” You took a deep breath. “When I got up this morning, it was Sunday June 30, 2019. At the end of the day, I made a wish to change things and suddenly it's last year.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don't believe me.”

“I mean… I'm X-Files, but it's kinda farfetched, sweetie.”

You sighed, then smiled as you remembered something. “On Monday, this coming Monday, Roman stock is gonna go through the roof… like a hundred twenty points.. you're going to get an email saying that all supervisors are getting a percentage bonus because of it. It's gonna come out to a nice, even $1337. You're going to make a leet joke because you can't help it, then you're going to say something about how you have been internetting for far too long. After that, I want you to call me, okay?”

“Wow. You're really serious about this.” Her eyes were confused and intrigued and a little bit scared. “What happened in 2019 to make you wish yourself back?”

You shook your head. “I don't want to talk about that until you really believe me, Char.”

“Okay, well, can we talk about how Wish universes never work out? ‘Be careful what you wish for’ is, like, one of the most overused tropes in fantasy fiction.”

“Okay, true. Counterpoint: that's usually some powerful entity trying to teach the protagonist a lesson, to be happy with what they've got, and I honestly can't think of a single way this wish could make my life worse.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah.” You gave a tight smile. “But I can fix it. I turned right last time, but this time I turned left. Like I should have the first time.”

“Is that a Doctor Who reference?”

“Of course it is.”

“Wait.” Charlie's eyes fell on her laptop. “Is this about the hookers?”

“Escorts, and yes. I'll explain everything on Monday.”

“Okay? Well… who’d you pick?”

“I picked Dean this time.”

“And your first time?”

“Sam.”

“Oh, with the monster cock!” You flinched at her words. “You okay?” she asked, worried.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Everything will be fine this time.” You smiled, tightly, and took a deep breath. Charlie studied your face and you could tell she was warring between her rational brain telling her that you had to be fucking with her, and the nine years of friendship telling her that you just weren’t that good of an actor. You grabbed your phone and headed toward your bedroom. “Don’t worry about it, Char. Just forget it ‘til Monday.”

Your face in your mirror caught your attention as you passed your dresser. The vision of you before Sam, before the twenty-five pounds of stress-induced weight loss, before the sunken eyes from the insomnia, before the loss of yourself… it made you realize just how bad things had gotten.

But this time? This time things were gonna be different. Even if you couldn’t get Dean to want you, even if you never spoke to him again, you could get yourself out of the hole you put yourself in because of Sam… and maybe you could get Adam safe, somehow. Even if nothing came from the blank slate except the opportunity to completely distance yourself from the Winchester family after Thanksgiving, to treat them like a chapter in your book that needed to be edited down to almost nothing… if all that came of this wish was one good weekend with Dean and remembering what could’ve been for the rest of your life, you’d be okay with that.

You wanted Dean, of course, and you were going to use the knowledge of the man gained from six months of alternate timeline friendship to get his attention, but if that didn’t work… at least you weren’t stuck with Sam’s cheating junkie ass. You could move on.

As you lied down to sleep, a knock came to the door. “Hey. How do the midterm elections turn out?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, yeah. That’s in a couple days,” you whispered. “Dems take the House, Republicans keep the Senate. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets the vote and becomes the youngest woman elected to Congress. Two Muslim women tie for first Muslim congresswomen, Colorado elects the first openly gay governor. The… oh, what’s her name? You were really excited about… uh, Sharice Davids?”

Charlie squealed and slammed open your door. “Kansas elects a Native American lesbian?!”

You chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, and there’s gonna be another pointless recount in Florida that turns into a meme with the ‘What year is this?’ scene from Jumanji.”

“That’s… very specific.” Charlie eyed you suspiciously and back out of your room.

“And Beto O’Rourke loses!”

“You’re crazy! He’s got all kinds of celebrity support!”

“Guess we’ll see on Tuesday!” you called across the apartment. You got comfortable in your bed and looked up at your ceiling. A blank slate. Eight months of knowing what’s coming. A chance to fix everything, to change everything. “Tabula Rasa,” you whispered, closing your eyes.

KITCHEN SINK TAGS @heyitscam99 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mrs-meghan-winchester @henrymorganme @lonely-skys @allykat2108 @mogaruke @flamencodiva

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[everyhowlmarksthedead]

WE ARE SAMCRO

Marcus Álvarez x Jackson Teller's sister!Reader

Anon asked: could you write an imagine with Marcus Alvarez in which you are Jax sister and you’re dating Alvarez behind Jax back. and he finds out because he finds you two cuddling

Word Count: 2.6k

Thanks to my lovely beta reader @chibsytelford 💘

Author comments: I hope you all enjoy. Gif isn't mine.

Tag list: @starrynite7114 ​ @chibsytelford ​ @dazzledamazon ​ @mara-mpou ​ @sammskellington ​ @gemini0410 ​ @1-800-imagines ​ @briana-mishell24 ​@sassymox @whyisgmora @aquamento @sadeyesgf @viviansafizada @samcrobae @jade770 @witchy-wish @rebel-without-cause-x ✨ (if you wanna be tagged, send me a message!)

Taking off the helmet growling because of the pain burning in your lower lip, you crossed the wooden door to the bar. The place was full of bikers from Cali and neighboring states with rock music playing through the speakers, and old beer smell in the environment. Some men greeted you with something similar to a reverence, as you walked to the bar. Sitting on a stool, in the farthest corner, you gave your helmet and the Samcro' kutte to James, an old bartender that knew you since ever. Your father used to take you there on Sundays, to play pool with his friends. Now you only used to go whenever you had a bad day, even if your life wasn't good at all. Unsheathing the gloves that covered your hands, you tried to stretch the fingers of your right one with some dry blood on your knuckles.

“Clay?” The man asked offering you a cold gel pad to put it on. You nodded, knowing you didn't need to use any words. He already knew what was happening between you and your mother's boyfriend.

“I need something strong”. You just said, lying your cheek above the forearm supported on the old bar.

Putting an empty glass close to you, James served you a premium whisky before push a little the drink to you.

“Aren't you Jackson's sister?”

Behind you, a mexican accent claimed your attention. Your lips were touching the edge of the glass, drowning a heavy sight there before having a long sip.

“Not tonight”.

Chuckles at your back, trying to figure out at what time you told a joke to make him laugh. You turned your body over the stool with a lot of curses piling up in your tongue, hushing your restless mind when you read ‘Mayans Oakland’ on a leather vest like yours. Shit, the only thing you needed to crown yourself that day. Swallowing saliva, you licked your lips somewhat nervous.

“My apologies, Álvarez”.

You didn't know him, not personally, but you heard about Mayans and his deals with Samcro. And maybe you saw him at Teller-Morrow once, but you weren't sure at all.

“Rough day, mija?”

“I wish”. Crossing a leg above the other, you supported your back against the wood. “I'm fine, okay? Oakland and Charming's deals doesn't include me. You don't have to babysit me”.

Maybe it sounded rude, but you didn't really care about what image he had of you. Sitting up and turning again to gave him your back, you continued trying to enjoy your loneliness on the corner your father used to drink, feeling something closer to him. The amaranth liquid scraping your throat, trying to control some tears that wanted to fall down by your cheeks, made you remember old times you thought you had forgotten. Your phone ringed, sparkling your brother's name on the screen, pushing you loud to reality. And when you were about to hung up the call, a finger with a golden ring in it did it for you. The mexican sat next to you, grabbing your phone to turn it off. You noticed that he wasn't wearing the leather jacket anymore, whilst he was attracting the bartender's attention with the same finger raised up to indicate him to serve two more drinks. After that gesture, he offered you his right hand on air.

“Marcus”.

You looked down to it, doubting for a second until you understood what he was trying. At least, be pleasant. Putting away the cold gel pad over your knuckles, you narrowed his softly, enough to not hurt your hand a little more.

“(Y/N)”.

“Rough day?”

“Most like a hellish one”.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Sounds like I could fix the world telling you my shit”.

“Not at all, but letting go all that shit and drinking four glasses more, you will sleep better”.

“Will you take my bike, ride me home and tuck me into bed?”

━━━━━━ ﹅ ━━━━━━

It has been six month since that night when Marcus, without knowing it, saved you. You know he had a talk with Clay that made your stepfather's behavior change with you. You don't know what happened inside the SOA's meeting room, although you're sure that Álvarez didn't tell him anything about you were together, but if he touched you again Mayans wouldn't keep the deal with Sons. And that did not suit Clay. And you started to feel more happy and full of life, especially when Marcus used to come to Charming. It was pretty fun pretend that you were just somekind of friends, or most like a man treating with respect a girl who enjoyed her work as mechanic at Teller-Morrow. But whenever you could hide from prying eyes, you fell a little more for each other. No one suspected about you two.

┅┅ ┅ ┅ ┅┅

Marcus spent the day touring Cali coast from the mexican border and it wasn't on his plans to stop in Charming, being that he should visits Samcro in a couple of days. Oakland was only an hour away, more or less, but stand with you for a night was what he really needed. And you weren't even waiting for him, so it was a surprise when you opened the door and found him there.

At first it takes you some seconds to react, noticing how his face turns to somewhat confused, till you practically jump into him wrapping his body with your legs and his neck with your arms. Hugging him as Marcus guides his feet inside the flat to close the door behind his back, you fill with kisses all his face finally reaching his lips. Catching them between yours in a soft and dearly gesture, you can feel how he melts under all the love you always give him.

“Did you miss me, ah?” He mutters touching his nose with you, keeping closed his eyes.

“Didn't you?” You reply back with some chuckles.

“I'm here”.

Continuing his steps to the huge sofa placed in front of the TV, he lays down there making himself a space between your legs. It's impossible not miss Marcus, seeing him every four or five days with some luck and having to pretend that you're just friends. Leaving some caresses and gentle touches on his scruff and head, you kiss his right cheek as he lets you do whatever you want with him.

“I just wanted to come home, have a shower and sleep with you”. He says drowning a heavy yawn, resting his forehead on your chest. “So, don't move. I'll be back in five minutes”.

“Okay, amor”.

Giving you a last smooth kiss, for the moment, he gets up walking towards the room you usually share, supposing to take some comfortable clothes. Whilst the man is inside the room, you can't help but thinking about how amazing sounded the word ‘home’ in his tongue, giving you some tickles in the stomach. Somewhat inexplicable. You never thought you could feel something like that for anyone, always believing that the only thing you aspired to was being a simple mechanic at the orders of others. From your house to the workshop and vice versa.

When he's done, looking like he's a new man, Marcus accommodates his body with yours wrapping your waist with his arms and tangling his legs into yours. Leaving a relaxed sight on air and resting the head on your chest, he closes his eyes. You can feel how tired the Mayan is, dragging softly your nails above his bare back wanting to make him feel more relaxed. Sometimes you think about the difference between he being alone with you and he being with his crew. You have seen him in action with a gun in his hand threatening whoever, as if he hasn't any feelings, nor even heart. But then, he comes to your house and tell you thousand times how much he loves you whilst preparing you some dinner or cuddling at bed.

“Next month we're going to close an allies' deal with SOA”. He says a little sleepy and lowly. “I think we could stop hiding after it”.

You feel some nerves running through your skin, when you hear those words. You really want to do it. And actually, if no one knows nothing about you to, except some Mayans, it's because you asked him to keep the secret. You don't care about what your mother, nor Jax, nor Clay could say, but because of Mayans deals. You don't want to fuck up his MC. And that's why you feel somewhat scared. You have the feeling or the sensation that could suppose the end of your relationship. And Marcus is the only good thing you have in life. You don't want to lose him. You can't.

“What you think, ah?” He asks then after some seconds in silence, licking his lips as he gets up a little, enough to look at you with your gaze away. “Your mouth can lie to me, but not your eyes, mi amor. Tell me what's inside that brilliant mind”.

“I just…”

Lying by his side over the sofa, Marcus holds you tightly against his body pulling a bristle of hair behind your ear. He's worried, but not as you are.

“I just want you to promise me… that if one day you're between the sword and the wall… choose the MC before me”.

“I'm not going to promise that, (Y/N). Because that's not going to happen and I'm never going to choose the MC before you”. His voice is firm without hesitation, leaving a ephemeral caress on your left cheek, following with his eyes his own fingertips touring your skin. “You're more than a pretty face and an intelligent brain. You're my safe place. And I want you to be my family. I'm not scared of losing everything, if I have you by my side”.

“But…”

“No. There is no 'but' here, (Y/N)”.

Your name is the last word he has to say, ending the talk even if you want to continue. For him, it's enough and he doesn't want to carry on with something it has no sense. He has already chosen you ahead of the rest. You just nod leaning some inches to crash softly your lips above his, whilst his hand tangling in your hair. Sinking your face on his neck, under his chin, you leave some kisses there before falling asleep focused in his calm breathe, as usually when he's at home. There are no nightmares when he narrows you into his arms so warmly you could melt, you don't even has any kind of dream. You sleep placidly like never and waking up pretty rested.

But when you open your eyes, the sofa is empty and cold. Sitting up and rubbing your eyes with the knuckles, you yawn looking around. At the exact moment you find his kutte hanging on a chair, you see next to it a SOA one. Your heart stop, feeling how your skin begins to pale. Walking barefoot and putting on well the Marcus' shirt your wearing, poking the head out the door at the terrace, your heart jumps. Jax is there. Drinking coffee and smoking with the mexican. Swallowing saliva, you take another step outside. They stare at you in silence. You're about to sweat, cry or run away, you're not sure.

“There's more coffee in the kitchen”. Your brother just says. But your throat is full closed.

“You ok?” Marcus asks then, making you twist your neck with confusion.

“What ar—”. You can't finish the question as your brain is collapsing.

There's no blood on the floor, nor a gun on the table. They're simply good. Talking calmly as if they were friends since ever. Walking in silence to the farthest chair from them and sitting on, you rest your forearms above the table. Your brother push a cigar over it, making it roll to you. Lighting up in your lips, you have a deep smoke pulling it out by your nose.

“At first I thought you were just losing your shit, with all that happiness and sudden vitality. Then I thought you were maybe hanging out with a Mayan. Someone like Rafi or Jaime, but I didn' say nothing 'cause I can't remember when was the last time I saw you smiling”. Jax is the first to speak, moving the spoon inside the mug with his gaze on his fingers, before raising both blue eyes to you. “I'm okay, if you're okay, (Y/N)”.

Those words hit out the weight you've been carrying on your shoulders for six long months, feeling that finally you can breathe again.

“Clay and Gemma are gonna freak out, but you don't have to give a shit”. He says then shrugging his shoulders, whilst you're taking another puff. “I'm gonna take Samcro' presidence, and I just want you to be happy”.

You can't help but letting a tear falling down your cheek, the same one that Marcus cleans with his fingers in silence. You nod looking at your brother, licking and biting your lips softly.

“I'm sorry I didn' tell you, Jax”.

“You don' have to. You were scared, I understand it, (Y/N). I would probably do the same on your position”. Your brother replies with a low tone, holding your left hand above the table to narrow it softly.

“I have to come back to Oakland”. The mexican speaks then, turning to you with a fleeting smile on the corner of his lips. You nod at him. It wasn't the awakening that you had expected, but at least Marcus and you don't have to hide anymore. “I'll call you when I'm at the club, okay?”

Getting up from his chair, he leans towards you to leave a lovely kiss on your forehead, keeping some respect to Jax and don't kissing your lips.

“I love you”. He mutters maintaining your eyes with his.

“I love you too”. You just say pursing your lips on a shameful smile.

Colliding his shoulder against your brother's, narrowing his hand as a farewell, Marcus pick up his stuff before leaving your flat.

“Are you gonna leave Charming?” Jax asks when the main door is closed, before having a sip of his coffee.

“I don' know… We didn' talk about it”.

“I would miss you”.

Sobbing for a second, you lie down on your chair with your legs pending by the armrest.

“Wha'? It's true, little sister”.

“I'm just… thinking that it's a dream and I'm gonna wake up when I less expect it”.

“Why?”

“Seriously, big brother?” You ask playing the sarcastic card. “Me, with a chicano. I mean, I don' care about… where he's from, nor shits like that. But SOA does”.

“We are Samcro, (Y/N). Our father was the first founder, never forget it”. He replies pointing at you with his forefinger. “Clay is just like a… fuckin' cancer, that we're gonna kick'ut from the heart of our club. And even so, no one will ever tell you who you should be with. I'll not allow it, you hear me?”

[probably-writing-x]

Just thought you should know (Prequel)

Request from my fave @bringmethehorizonandpizza : alright, but a super angsty prequel of just thought you should know, where they break up!! would you do it? pretty please? 💖💖💖💖

~~~

There had been an odd atmosphere around this place for the past few days - everyone seemed to be treading on eggshells around you and it constantly put you on edge. These boys were hiding something.

"Hey boys!" You smile as you waltz into your apartment where Harry and Sam had currently set up camp on the couch for the day, "What are you still doing here?"

"We thought we could have a movie day!" Sam calls back to you but you can see straight through his nonchalant nature.

"We had movie day yesterday," You roll your eyes, "And, anyway, Haz isn't even home yet s-"

You see both of them simultaneously wince at your words as soon as Harrison - your boyfriend of two years - was mentioned.

"What? What was that weird thing you just did?" You question, walking cautiously over to the twins.

"No... Nothing," Harry furiously shakes his head, curls spilling over his forehead wildly.

"Guys, come on. You've barely left this place all week and you're constantly checking up on me. What aren't you telling me?" You sigh, sitting down on the coffee table to face opposite them.

The boys exchange an uncomfortable look before Sam takes a big sigh.

"There's something we need to tell you, about Harrison," He admits, running a hand through his hair.

You sit in silence and let him proceed - a million possibilities running through your head.

"He's not exactly on a filming thing right now," Sam continues, "We told him to get away for a week or so,"

"What?" You laugh, "Why would you do that?"

Harry starts up again now, "Last week, all of us boys went out, right? Well... Harrison had a few too many to drink and ended up saying some things he definitely shouldn't have said,"

Your jaw clenches, "What did he say?"

The twins look between each other, mouths opening and closing but no words being expressed.

"What could he have said that was that bad?"

"He..." Sam takes a deep breath, "He said all of this stuff about how you two had been together for so much longer than he expected and that you made him wait so long for you two to... And that sometimes he wonders whether its worth the effort..."

The clench in your jaw changes to an overwhelming lump in your throat, one that has the power to make your bottom lip tremble a little.

"We're so sorry (Y/n/n)," Harry frowns, hand squeezing your knee in comfort, "We just thought you should know,"

"Yeah, yeah, no," You shake your head, forcing yourself to fake such confidence, "Hey, I'm glad you told me. And, you know, maybe he's right. Maybe I'm not worth the effort,"

"No, no, no," Both boys shake their head and come to sit either side of you, wrapping an arm around each shoulder and pulling you into a strong embrace.

"(Y/n) you're worth a thousand times the effort he gave you," Sam encourages, "Harrison, he just... He had too much to drink and he-"

"And he said what he felt," You mumble, finally letting the tears spill free down your cheeks - the kind of tears that wrack your body and make your shoulders shake like the whole world around you was clattering down.

~~~

The next day, Harry and Sam still hadn't left as they refused to leave you like this. You'd cried... A lot. You'd tried to eat but it all came back up pretty quickly and you hadn't got much sleep. But Harrison came home today, and it was your chance to face what you dreaded so much.

He knew something had happened. He knew the boys had told you and he was preparing for consequences... But not nearly this big.

With the twins opting to leave you two alone, it is just you and the boy you once promised you'd never stop loving.

"(Y/n) I-" Harrison begins, dropping his bag at the front door as he sees your state - cold, harsh, emotionless to him.

"Don't," You seethe, jaw clenching as you stand up from the couch to face him, "Don't start with an apology, start with a fucking explanation,"

"Baby I was drunk out of my mind!" He exclaims, "I don't even remember half of what I said and I sure as hell don't mean any of it, honestly,"

"Honestly?" You scoff, "You think I fucking trust you to be honest right now? And you don't remember what you said, then let me give you a little reminder.

"Babe please I-"

"How about telling the boys you wished you hadn't committed so much?" You step closer to him, "How about telling them you almost gave up just because I wouldn't give you the one thing you wanted? Or maybe the fact that you decided I'm not worth it?" Your words crack on that final part and you internally hit yourself for letting your emotions override this pure anger.

"Come on honey, you know that was all absolute bullshit!" He shakes his head, eyes following your every move as though he could decide your next response, "I was out of my mind and I was over thinking and I said some shit I didn't mean,"

You're close enough to him now that he can see the fury seeping from your moves, mixed with the worst feeling; disappointment.

"I thought," You begin, your voice calm and cautious, "I thought you could never, ever hurt me,"

Harrison clenches his jaw and fights back his building tears, "Don't say that," He's whispering now because the tears are threatening to spill and words will break the dam.

"I want you to leave. Just go and I'll pack up the things you've left here and get them to you soon," You sound so methodical that all emotion feels futile, "But I dont want to see you or hear from you, not for a while,"

"Darling, please," Harrison chokes and you watch as a tear falls down his cheek, still having to fight the desperate urge to wipe it away.

You look away and that's when he truly givea in to his feelings.

"No, no," He sounds angrier now, furious at himself for risking this, "I can't lose you. We can't give up on this,"

You feel cold, dried of all sympathy.

"I can't lose you," He repeats, "I can't lose you waking up and drawing silly imaginations in my chest," Harrison moves his hands to take yours, pressing a delicate kiss on each.

You watch his movements and stand rigid as he does.

"I can't lose you on Sundays when we've lost all our energy and we just want to cuddle until someone tells us we have to get up," His arms wrap around you and his face buries in the crook of your neck.

And for a moment, you really consider it. You think about being the forgiving one - telling him it's going to be okay and letting him kiss you, hold you, make love to you like everything is as it was. But every second takes you back to what he said. And you lose the possibility.

"It's time to go, Harrison," You pull his arms away from you and step back, arms retracting to cross over your chest as you realise you're now crying as well.

"Baby, please," He pleads once more, stepping forward to take your hands in his again, "I'll do anything, I'll make this better, I'll do whatever it takes to fix this mistake,"

You lift one hand away from his and cup the side of his face, thumb smoothing over his dampened cheek, "Maybe you're right," You pause and calculate your next words, "But actions don't take back what you said. And, Harrison, I can't afford to just be another one of your mistakes,"

And, with that, you drop your hands from his touch and walk away, retracting to your bedroom and crying endlessly against the closed door behind you. You don't know Harrison did the same outside of your apartment, slumped against the door like it was his last feeling of you.

What he didn't know was that, for the next six months, that really would be his last feeling of you...

~~~Four Months Later~~~

"Come on Tom you're playing like a rookie!" You exclaim, nudging him in the side to encourage him a bit more as the two of you competed in a Mario Kart team race.

His eyes are fixed on the screen but he doesn't seem aware as he drives straight off the edge.

"Dude!" You laugh, pausing the game, "Are you awake or?"

Tom shakes himself from his daze and looks at you, his eyes absent of their typical boyish joy.

"I-" He stops himself, "There's something I need to tell you, about Harrison,"

Oh damn. Those same words as his brother had spoken only months before. But what could possibly be worse than what you were told four months prior?

"What is it Tom?" You frown when he doesn't continue, "Wh- is he okay? Is he hurt?"

"Yeah, no, he's okay," Tom wipes his hands across his joggers, "He... Um, he got a girlfriend," He scratches at the back of his neck.

"Oh," You manage to respond, mentally kicking yourself for instantly worrying about Harrison instead of assuming something like this.

"It's only been for a couple of days but she's been at the apartment quite a bit. I thought I should tell you," He nods, hand reaching over to squeeze yours, "I'm sorry, (y/n/n),"

"What?" You scoff, with a gentle exasperated laugh, "You have nothing to apologise about. And, hey, I'm happy for him. He's moving on and that's a good thing. No need to keep thinking about something that's over, right?"

Your friend was evidently surprised by your strong response, "You don't need to-"

"No. No," You shake your head, "I'm good. I'm good, really. Let's carry on,"

He lets his eyes linger on you for a moment longer before turning back to the screen.

You were fine. Apart from the ache in your chest and the empty feeling remaining from feeling your repairing heart shatter once again. The temporary plasters you'd placed on it couldn't withstand something like this. You were fine. Apart from that feeling like you were falling, through this couch with the hopes that Harrison would be there to catch you. You were fine. Apart from the spilling tears.

"Oh, love!" Tom sighs when he sees you crying beside him, "Please don't cry," He throws his controller to the side and engulfs you in his arms, pulling you to his chest and letting you soak him in emotion.

"I've lost him, T," You sob, "I've really lost him,"

~~~

Tags: @imarypayne @sunshine112 @bringmethehorizonandpizza @supernatural-girl97 @vibhati123 @butithasntkilledyouyet @faefictions @carisi-sonny @trap-house-homiecide @shamelessbookaddict @tommydaspidey @oneblckcoffee @darlingtholland @fanficparker

[aphrodaisyacs]

Stoki Fic Rec List

No Six Sentence Sunday this week just me and my first ever fic rec list. This is the result of me caring too much for a rarepair that not enough of the fandom cares about but ANYWAY. The fic rec lists I’ve seen for this pairing are quite a few years old, so I decided to make a new one of my own. The list is sorted in chronological order of the MCU timeline, and also quite long, which is why I put it under a read more:

under bright stars burning by @thelightofthingshopedfor (nearly 21k words, Teen and Up)

When Steve is a kid, he meets a boy named Loki who says he's a prince and shows him real magic. It's kind of weird (but that doesn't mean he doesn't like it).

A fic where Steve and Loki sort-of grow up together, but it’s still set in the canon-verse (don’t worry, the timeline discrepancy gets explained). Kid!Loki and Kid!Steve are so damn adorable, there’s quite a bit of angst between them but there’s also more than enough hurt/comfort to make up for it. I was so disappointed when this fic ended where it did, because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted it to go on forever.

Silver Moon by aurilly (23k+ words, Mature)

Steve and Bucky meet a weirdly dressed guy who claims to be a banished prince from some place they've never heard of. Most New Yorkers would have left the lunatic right where they found him, but Steve and Bucky have never been good at doing things the easy way.

Okay so I cheated a bit, because this fic is actually Steve/Loki/Bucky, but. It is so well-written that I’m including it in this list anyway. In this universe Loki discovers his heritage far earlier than in canon, which leads to a series of events resulting in him getting his powers stripped then banished to pre-WWII Midgard- specifically, Brooklyn. After repeatedly failing to convince Heimdall to return him to Asgard, Loki eventually settles into a life with Steve and Bucky. But then WWII happens. Slow build, quite a bit of angst, but there’s an optimistic ending.

Those Who Favor Ice by CatalenaMara (18k+ words, Explicit)

“You haven’t said anything incorrectly so far,” Steve said, and could hear an edge in his voice.

“Men of such beauty and strength and talent often feel they must outshine everyone they meet. That they must cast a very large shadow so that the world sees only them.”

So many emotions crossed Loki’s face so quickly that Steve could only interpret a few. Resentment. And longing. And need.

“I wasn’t always strong,” Steve said slowly. “Not as a child. I was sickly - so weak that anyone could beat me.”

Loki’s gaze sharpened. “And did they? Beat you?”

Don’t mind me I just love fics that feature Jotunn!Loki and/or Loki dealing with his heritage and Jotunheim in general. We get to see a possibility of what might have been if Heimdall hadn’t betrayed King Loki, which apparently involves Loki running off to become King of Jotunheim and later Steve’s lover. Beautiful prose, smut that doubles as character study, A+.

Madness by @scotlandevander (19k+ words, Teen and Up)

Time makes a deal and when Time makes a deal, it plays out till it is fulfilled. Steve Rogers is learning this the hard way and he’s quite sure it’ll end in madness.

Steve is stuck in a time loop spanning from the moment he wakes up in the 21st century to the events of T:DW. Needless to say it doesn’t take very long for him to run out of fucks to give. I really love the gradual development of Steve’s relationships with Bruce, Natasha and of course Loki throughout the loops. The progression of Stoki is slow mainly because Steve’s a useless bisexual and nice to read. Definitely one of my all-time favourites for this ship.  

Living Contradiction by Ebyru (1k+ words, Teen and Up)

Loki hates Captain America, but over time he realizes it’s a lie.

Excerpt: "Captain America is brave, strong, independent and an astounding leader. Maybe no-one can tell, but far beneath the mask of strength he wears and the flag he carries, Loki can see he’s just a follower."

Something short and sweet set vaguely post-Avengers (2012). Contemplative character study as Loki learns more about the man underneath the Captain America costume. I recommend this if you’re in the mood for a quick pre-slash read.

In The Land of Gods and Monsters by thisiswhatthewatergaveme (nearly 5k words, Explicit)

Steve makes a mistake: he lets his guard down. He lets a momentary relief cloud his judgment. He doesn’t spring into action when Loki spins around and presses a tight-lipped kiss against his mouth. Doesn’t even move when it softens, slightly, Loki’s hands curling over his arms.

And then the god is gone and Steve realizes something important. He realizes, perhaps for the first time, that there are different kinds of war.

While the author has tagged this fic as Porn Without Plot, I think it’s more accurate to say that there is plot, it’s just that the entire plot is centred on the build-up to the porn. And said build-up is mostly Loki catching Steve unawares to kiss him, interspersed with Steve suffering some moral crises over being attracted to his enemy.

Thawing Universe by Vulcanmi (17k+ words, Teen and Up)

A what if that starts after the events of Thor: the Dark World but before Winter Soldier. What if Loki had gotten tired of playing Odin?

Parts 1, 2 & 3 are purely Stoki, while part 4 & 5 are Thor/Bucky-centric with background Stoki. Loki gets bored of pretending to be Odin rather quickly, and thus he goes down to Earth to continually invite himself over to Steve’s apartment. Steve has exactly zero say in all of this. This series makes the pairing seem way more adorable than it has any right to be, all the while keeping everyone in-character. Part 1 builds the relationship, part 2 has the other Avengers reacting to it, and part 3 has Steve finally getting off his useless bisexual ass and asking Loki out for real. One of my favourite depictions of this pairing for sure.

Strange Love by @dvswraatins (12k words, Teen and Up)

It starts with a simple taunt.

Spoiler alert: the aforementioned “taunt” is Loki putting on a great show of seducing Steve in order to piss off Thor. Featuring Loki being unapologetically a piece of shit, Loki as a part-time Avenger and narration that becomes hilariously descriptive whenever Thor enters the picture. One of the things I adore about this fic is that it explores a dynamic for this pairing I didn’t know I needed- of Loki trying to use Steve for his own gain, but Steve manipulating him right back.

The Dreamfasting by suchaprettyface (80k+ words, Explicit)

This is the highly unlikely and yet somehow inevitable story of how Captain Steve Rogers, Avenger, becomes the lover of Loki Odinson, younger prince of Asgard and Public Enemy Number 1 according to the FBI database of known offenders.

Steve and Loki discover quite by accident that they are connected by a very old form of magic whose initial purpose seems to be getting them in each other's pants as often as possible. But there's far, far more at work than that...

To break this series down to its bare essentials: lots of porn + lots of plot. Post-AoU, Loki gets captured by SHIELD but almost immediately after Steve runs into him again, the two of them begin sharing wet dreams. The more dreams they share, the stronger the indescribable connection between them grows. Yet, in the background of all the dream-fucking, there is the mystery of why these dreams even exist in the first place, as well as Steve finding himself physically changed by them. 

Look At Me Now by @arimabat (33k+ words, Teen and Up)

Steve is on the run. His already complicated life becomes just a little more complicated when an old enemy shows up unexpectedly. But Loki has changed since their last encounter and he could have crucial information to stop a fast-approaching threat. If he’s willing to tell Steve.

Or, the one where Loki keeps bothering Steve until he figures out a way to get something useful out of it and then it all just becomes a mess.

Post-Civil War, pre-Ragnarok. Loki is absolutely delighted by a jaded, cynical Steve, and Steve is very much unamused by the unwanted attention. Steve attempts to take advantage of this attention anyway by interrogating Loki about the Infinity Stones, which leads to the gradual development of a relationship neither of them expected. I absolutely love the conversations and banter between everyone in this fic- not just between Steve and Loki, but also between Steve, Natasha, Sam and Wanda. However, (spoiler alert) the ending for this fic isn’t all too happy BUT the good news is that it’s part of a series, which isn’t complete yet at the time I’m typing this up.

Be My All-American Boy by @gavotteangel (6k+ words, Teen and Up)

It's Steve Rogers' birthday and it's Independence Day. Naturally, the freshly reunited Avengers vacation to a lake house and throw him a party. Nothing goes as expected.

Or: LOKI HAS A BIG FAT CRUSH HAPPY 4TH OF JULY FOLKS

Post-Ragnarok, post-Civil War, with a dose of Infinity War being cancelled. Highlights include Loki having a crush on bearded!Steve and abhorring the fact that the crush even exists in the first place, Loki trying his best to hold back his stabby instincts on his new allies, Loki and Natasha being drinking buddies and Loki eating the rest of Steve’s birthday cake out of pure pettiness.

I’m also going to shamelessly self-promote and rec my own series Mischief Managed (nearly 20k words, Teen and Up)

Set post-Ragnarok in an AU where Infinity War is cancelled and Steve and Tony have gotten their shit together.

The series follows Steve and Loki while they form an unlikely bond as they team up to prank others, again and again.

Initially based on this headcanon, with Steve getting the opportunity to confront Loki about it, which somehow leads to both of them teaming up to prank the rest of the Avengers. Part 2 expands on the unlikely friendship they formed in part 1, except this time Steve and Loki take advantage of the media circus and fake date to piss off homophobes. Meanwhile, the Avengers are forced to watch this train wreck happen in real time. According to the comments this series is funny enough that it made people laugh not that I’d be able to judge properly since I’m the one who wrote it. 

Tangerines are Sweet Enough by @fel-as-in-tumbld (4k+ words, General)

(Steve is seven, cold and hungry and it's Christmas morning; he's seven, sitting on the floor, pulling perfect miniature suns out of the foot of his stocking. Tangerines; he's seven, and he can feel the flesh tear under his thumbnail, can taste the burst of flavour on his tongue, the juice slide down his throat; he's seven, and he's sitting with his mother and everything has been cold and hunger, but there is this--tangerines, like eating the sun with his mother, and the warmth of her laughter--

Steve hasn't eaten a tangerine since she died, since Bucky vanished off to war; too many memories, too much intimacy.

Post-Infinity War fic where Loki actually gets revived I’m looking at you Russos. It has beautiful prose which sets a soft, wistful tone to the whole thing, helped by the fact that it takes place during the winter holidays. Steve and Loki’s relationship here is... well, melancholic, mostly, but it does end on a warm note. 

*

This rec list only reflects my personal reading experiences (and are also only limited to AO3), so feel free to add more suggestions in reblogs or replies!

Honorary mention goes to Remember This Cold by @veliseraptor (nearly 800k words, ranges from General to Explicit depending on the part) which I didn’t include in the main list because let’s be real, anyone who’s looking for Stoki fic recs has already read this series.