#and i wanted to throw up for the rest of that day AND the next day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

treatbuckywkisses · 2 days ago

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HI I STAYED UP WAY TOO LATE TO READ THIS PART !!!! :))

(also this might be my longest rb so far)

SIX UPON A TIME

"You weren’t sure what you wanted him to do, but it was fun to watch the time bomb tick." - let's kiss him on the mouth 🫶🏻

"A reason to get up in the morning." - SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH.

"But then you blink back into reality again when Bucky sits you down on the closed lid of your toilet and slowly makes you let go of his shirt, kneeling down in front of you. The blue of his eyes is devastating, even though you have to keep blinking to keep him in focus." - No I can't do this

"Maybe that’s the most terrifying thought of them all. You would die for him. Once, twice, however many times are necessary if that meant that he’s safe. " - Nika I'm fucking crying. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm actually fucking crying before 10pm.

"But it seems like you haven’t known it at all, because right now, you feel the knowledge of it, of him, surge through you with all its facets. You can’t even begin to put it into words, because where would you start? How do you explain what he makes you feel when he hasn’t been there himself, not in any way that matters or sticks? And if it’s never happened at all, if time keeps unraveling like this, how can it even be real? " - the woman that you are. Oh. My. God. You are completely unreal this is phenomenal.

"His breath hitches when they dip lower, almost reaching the place you’ve watched dimple when he laughs, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t laugh, either." - I have actual tears in my eyes you are so evil

"That day, he dies with your stupid nickname on his lips, twisted into something that looks strangely close to that earlier smile. This one doesn’t have time to reach his eyes, though." - Nika I'm fucking sick to my stomach what the fuck is wrong with you

Brief intermission bc I got too into it and read the rest twice before coming back to make notes (I was too immersed)

A crack in the sky you are insane I would FREAK

Where TF does bucky go during the day. As a naturally nosy gal the unknowns in this story make me ITCH I can't wait for everything to be revealed

"Why won’t you look at me? " - this is so hurtful why are you being so mean to me

HOW IS THE DELIVERY MAN EARLY IM LITERALLY IN SHOCK AND WE MOVED ON FROM THIS TOO FAST????????

"You take a sip of your tea and some feeling returns to your translucent fingers. Strange’s cloak draws itself around your shoulders." - hehe we have the cloak 🫶🏻

""I came to you," you realize. "Or, I will, once I get out of this." The relief that washes over you makes you want to sob. "So there is a way out?"" - why did this make ME relieved like I'm stuck in the loop too 😭 I literally have felt anxious for our dear reader like I'm sick and this has soothed my heart the smallest bit (I'm still scared of you)

"You can’t help but wonder when he’s last tried the bed." - Frick you for putting him in the floor what has my baby done to you let him be comfortable 😭😭

"No," Strange answers. "This is just when he wakes up." - this made me LAUGH I needed that

CAPS BDAY IM CRACKING UP THATS SUCH A FUN SILLY MOMENT

"He might has well have doused you in a bucket of ice water. You’re suddenly very aware of every single cell in your body, and you don’t like the challenge sparkling in his eyes." - THEY ARE SO IN LOVE MY GOD IM SICK

Why are we waking up to silence I'm gonna throw up Nika

What did the powers do

Alpine can see us that is both cute and scary 😅

"You lose a few hours here and there, time seemingly speeding up at random sometimes now. One morning, Bucky isn’t in the gym like he usually is, and you work yourself up over it so much you nearly have a panic attack. In the end, you almost crash into him outside of his room, and a rush of reassurance floods through you with such force you can’t even look at him." - what is wrong with you

"That time, Sam is there when Bucky gets shot, and it’s his cry that follows you into the next day. Your hands are clean this time, and somehow that feels worse." - how dare you write these 2 paragraphs and also put them so close together????????

"And then it’s you who’s speechless, because the shock on Peter Parker’s face is more than you bargained for." - FULL. BODY. CHILLS. WHAT A MIND YOU HAVE NIKA. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THIS.

"Sweat pearled on your forehead as you and the universe held your breath again. You could feel your hold slipping with every second that wasn’t allowed to pass. Time was impatient with you." - THE LAST LINE ?????? I'm speechless

"And with time stumbling and flailing around in confusion, you made it out of the building and into the waiting cab." - ok chapter 7 pls 🫶🏻

I'm kidding you are PERFECT I can't believe I missed out on this for as long as I did?!!!!!!! Thank you so much for sharing your incredible brain with me I want to kiss you on the mouth I love you!!!!!!!

time after time [6]

series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

word count: 12.8k

chapter warnings: maybe reacquaint yourselves with the story premise, it's been a hot minute; characters refusing to be honest with themselves and each other; violence against side characters, minor injury descriptions; strange is still annoying

a/n: this is quite possibly the scariest fic update i've ever made. a lot has happened since the last chapter was posted, and i won't bore you with all of it. suffice it to say, i missed sharing this story. thank you for being patient with me.

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

six: butterfly effect

Working with Sam and Bucky was different than working with Natasha and Steve had been.

At the Compound, it had felt terrifyingly easy to find your place, to slip into the new role they granted you as if you were always meant to fill it. You’d felt that way before, and it hadn’t turned out quite so well. Maybe that was why you used to dread the end.

Now, however, for the first time in a while, you constantly had to prove yourself in order to not be left back in that dark place they’d found you in, alone and trying to make sense of any of it. And you liked that. The challenge was something you could live with, something you could enjoy more than the ever chilling anxiousness that things were simply too good to be true.

So when Sam called you on for a follow-up mission shortly after the first one, you jumped at the chance.

It didn’t matter that you barely talked about anything but work, even when you were hanging out in your spare time; in fact, you much preferred that to digging up the past. You even learned to find a wicked sort of enjoyment in provoking Bucky’s initial dislike of you to the point of where he would barely speak to you at all unless it was to snap at you.

You weren’t sure what you wanted him to do, but it was fun to watch the time bomb tick.

It wasn’t as easy to get under the new cap’s skin.

"You’re making us sound like we’re partners in a law firm," Sam said, a smile clearly audible in his voice even though his eyes didn’t betray it. Bucky didn’t even dignify you with a clench of his jaw.

"What?" you said, crossing your legs. "Every newspaper in the city calls you 'Wilson and Barnes'. Don’t you ever read the articles about yourselves?"

"Unlike some people, I don’t have all the time in the world," Sam said, leaning back on the couch with his eyes closed.

"Pity. The Bulletin called you the 'nation’s new dynamic duo' last week." You looked at Bucky, your eyebrows raised in amusement. "You’ve officially been downgraded to a sidekick, Barnes."

He answered with an empty glare of his own. "And what does that make you?" he said, but not like a question.

"Nothing at all," you still grinned. "Everything is right in the universe."

The reporters had yet to pick up on your addition to the team, which was proof enough that your powers still sufficed to fly under the radar. Combined with the fact that you were actually regularly talking to people again—and people who weren’t your therapist or your customers no less—, things almost felt like they were settling into a new kind of normal. Still somewhat weird, and still a struggle each day, but somewhat hopeful, nevertheless.

You’d almost forgotten what that could feel like.

“Right. You’d prefer people not knowing about your creepy powers.”

"Aww." You tilted your head to the side happily. "You think I’m creepy."

Bucky scoffed into his mug, refusing to look at you like he always did, and then he strolled off again.

In truth, you couldn’t blame him all that much. You’d lived with your powers all your life and still found them unsettling sometimes, particularly when they got away from you and left you trapped in a universe that refused to move.

That was none of his business, though.

Besides, Bucky had taken to moving around so quietly you could never tell he was there until he’d cough and you’d flinch, usually dropping whatever you were holding in your hands. You’d already cracked your phone screen twice.

Not that he’d know, or care if he did. It gave you great satisfaction to erase his amused smirk from existence.

"Give it time," Sam said without moving. "He doesn’t like new people."

"Neither do I," you murmured, and he snorted. "What?"

"Pretend with me all you want, but maybe do a bit of introspection there."

You crossed your arms with a pout. "You sound like my therapist."

"Mhm," Sam hummed, opening one eye to look at you. "You owe me fifty bucks for that."

"Fuck you."

"Oh, would you look at that, the price just went up."

He chuckled as you flipped him off and went to look for the coffee pot.

Of course, your way got blocked. The downsides of not hating having people around.

Bucky was leaning against the counter, considering you. "You go to therapy?"

"You should try it some time," you said distractedly, reaching around him to get your favorite mug. Bucky recoiled like he was afraid you’d burn him. You shook your head in annoyance. "Helps with the stink eye."

"Is that what they told you?"

"They told me I needed to process my grief, but I decided to focus on some more achievable goals." You took a sip of your coffee, sighing in comfort. "We came up with a compromise."

Bucky scoffed, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He still hadn’t taken his gloves off around you.

"Sounds like a way to drag it out," he said.

You frowned into your cup. "It’s not a race, Barnes. There’s no finish line for this shit."

Something odd went over his face, but he went back to avoiding your gaze when you tried to make it out. You knew him well enough by then to get the hint, and so you left him alone.

What was it to you if he didn’t want to warm up to you. That had no bearing on the fact that overall, your situation wasn’t all too bad anymore.

It was something, you supposed as you curled up in your spot on the couch with your book later that day, slipping in and out of time to keep your company a little longer because deep down, you knew you were sick of being alone.

It was weird and different, yes, but it was still something anyway. Something to do with your afternoons again.

A reason to get up in the morning.

*****

"What are you talking about?" Bucky asks quietly, carefully, but he makes no attempt to pull back from your embrace. It allows you to take another shuddering breath, inhaling his scent until it makes you dizzy.

The fact that you probably won’t be this close to him again any time soon makes you press into his chest even harder, hard enough to feel his heart flutter against your forehead, the shock of the situation making it pick up speed.

For a split second, you slip into a sort of vacuum, your thoughts quieting as he keeps mumbling to you, and in that blissful moment, your situation doesn’t seem quite so dire anymore, more like a bad dream. You’re safe now, aren’t you? How could you not be?

But then you blink back into reality again when Bucky sits you down on the closed lid of your toilet and slowly makes you let go of his shirt, kneeling down in front of you. The blue of his eyes is devastating, even though you have to keep blinking to keep him in focus.

You don’t want to have to do this, you realize once your gasps for air start calming again. You’re not sure if you can bear it.

But nothing in this loop has been about what you wanted.

And so your resolve is made, with your heart sinking until it’s hidden away deep, deep inside of your chest. You ball your hands into fists to keep your fingers from twitching.

Two or three times he watches you inhale, start to say something, halt before you can, almost choking on it. Like your body is refusing to go through with it.

"How do you know when I’m lying?" you finally ask, and your voice sounds oddly clear in your small bathroom.

Bucky’s face goes from concern to confusion, his frown deepening. You want to smoothe it away with your thumb.

You close your eyes so maybe the temptation goes away.

"What?" he asks, and he still sounds so damn gentle.

"I’ve never been able to lie to you," you say. "What’s my tell?"

You can feel him move away from you and the ache of it makes you look again. His shirt and his hands are covered in his own blood, and you’re sure there’s some fucking metaphor in the way it stains the golden inlets of his vibranium arm crimson but for the most part, you can’t unsee the damn irony of it all.

Because you’ve pissed him off now.

"You scared the shit out of me, Y/N. And Sam, too." There’s the sharpness in his voice you know all too well. You haven’t heard it in a while. "What the hell is going on?"

"I’m trapped in a time loop," you say, squeezing your fists more tightly. "I’ve been reliving this day for weeks, my powers aren’t working, I’m the only one who can stop time from completely collapsing, I can’t do that without my powers, and you’re gonna die later today. Am I lying?"

It’s maybe the worst way you’ve ever told him, because watching Bucky’s face change is almost too much. This is exactly why you’re doing it, though; as long as you’re going through this loop with a giant guilty knot in your stomach, you’re not going to make any progress. And you need to put an end to all of it.

So you meet his gaze, almost unwavering, and you don’t blink.

His shock bursts free as an incredulous laugh. "What?"

"I’m stuck," you say again, slower, nodding at his hands, his blood, continuing to push, "and you keep dying."

Bucky looks down, then, before his gaze falls back onto you and he sits back on his heels. The pause lasts for way too long, heavy and smelling of iron, and you’re pretty sure you’re suffocating. He only says one word, and it sounds so defeated. "How?"

You swallow heavily. "You got shot on a mission," you say, but he shakes his head, the fire returning to his eyes.

"No. How did you get stuck?"

"I …" You blink, because you’re not prepared for this question, because you can never predict what he’s going to say, because he keeps doing that to you, because somehow, and not like you’ve expected, you feel like you’ve been here before.

How did it happen? That’s not … Okay.

"It was an accident," you finally say, helplessly, defensively.

There’s a flicker of something in Bucky’s eyes. "What happened?"

"You died. You died that first time and I didn’t—I couldn’t …" You swallow the sob that threatens to shake your voice again. Damnit, you’re supposed to push him away.

He moves his arm, then hesitates, as if he wants to reach out to you but changes his mind at the very last moment.

Right. He doesn’t normally do that.

Except he has.

He has held your hand and pulled you closer and written on your arm and let you lean on him with the full weight of your body, as if to him, you weighed nothing at all. He’s been offering to carry your load so many times, and he doesn’t remember a single one of them.

"Please don’t look at me like that," you say tonelessly, watching Bucky retreat.

"Like what?"

"Like I’m gonna fall apart at any moment. And yes," you add when his mouth opens, "I—I know I just did, I’m aware of the irony, but this is exactly why I can’t keep telling you, I don’t—I can’t stand it." You press your wrists against your temples, ignoring the buzz of the whirling time symbols against your skin, the stinging in your eyes. "You shouldn’t even—I mean, are you even the slightest bit worried about yourself? Because I feel like I’m the only one here, and I should’ve just—"

You stop yourself, shaking your head. Your hands are very clammy all of a sudden, and when you tug at your rings just to do something, one of them slips off your finger and clangs against the tiles as if to punctuate the silence.

When you reach down, you move your wrist in a way that makes you hiss in pain and flinch back. Bucky’s eyes flit between your own and your hand, his frown deepening in a strangely soft way. "Did you break it?" he asks quietly.

"I’m fine," you mumble, and he looks at you disapprovingly. "You’d grabbed my hand just before …"

His jaw twitches as the blame settles in again, and you would do fucking anything to finally make him understand that none of this is his fault. That you should be in pain for what you’re putting him through.

"It should’ve been me," you tell him, because it’s true.

Even earlier in the week, you would’ve taken great delight in seeing Bucky Barnes’ face fall at something you’d said. Hell, you’d have probably enjoyed it on Thursday, because there used to be this easy sort of gratification that came from riling him up, from catching him off guard.

Seeing it now, though?

It makes your fingers twitch.

"Don’t say that. Not even as a joke."

"I’m not joking." You can feel your pulse in your ears. "They aimed a shot at me, and you pushed me out of the way, and you died. So by all accounts, if your instincts weren’t so damn noble all the time, it should’ve been me, and if I weren’t such a fucking coward, I’d have gone back and switched places with you weeks ago."

The thought terrifies you, even though it’s true. No part of you wants to go through the things Bucky is, but if someone gave you the choice between either one of you right now, you wouldn’t even have to think about it.

Maybe that’s the most terrifying thought of them all. You would die for him. Once, twice, however many times are necessary if that meant that he’s safe.

"I’d like to see you try," Bucky says, and something slams into your chest as an old familiar shiver runs down your spine.

There’s a pained edge to his gaze, contemplative and heartbreaking and …

"You’re doing it again," you say, your voice barely above a whisper.

"What am I doing?" His hand brushes your knee, and your skin is left searing.

You swallow heavily. "Being noble."

Bucky chuckles softly, and his eyes leave yours for just a moment. "Don’t exactly feel like that."

He’s beautiful.

It’s a new thought, despite everything. Even when you’ve noticed it before, you’d roll your eyes at the fact and move on, because this was Bucky. So what if his face was delectably handsome?

But it seems like you haven’t known it at all, because right now, you feel the knowledge of it, of him, surge through you with all its facets. You can’t even begin to put it into words, because where would you start? How do you explain what he makes you feel when he hasn’t been there himself, not in any way that matters or sticks? And if it’s never happened at all, if time keeps unraveling like this, how can it even be real?

So it’s pure instinct that makes you move, like someone would pinch themselves to ensure they’re not asleep, even though you’re very aware that this isn’t just a dream. You need to confirm that Bucky is real, though.

The air stands still when your fingertips trace along his cheekbone, leaving a delicate flush behind in their trail, barely touching and yet …

And yet.

His breath hitches when they dip lower, almost reaching the place you’ve watched dimple when he laughs, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t laugh, either.

There’s a scraping sound at the closed bathroom door, followed by a short knock. You flinch backwards.

"I’m leaving the first aid kit on the bed," Sam calls from the other side. "Just … holler if you need me."

"Thanks, Sam," Bucky says coarsely, and you can hear steps receding. The scratching continues, though. That damn cat.

Finally, he breaks eye contact, clearing his throat.

"Do you want me to help you clean up?"

You shake your head. You’re not sure you could stomach more of this. "I’m good, don’t … Don’t worry about it."

Bucky drags a hand through his hair, muttering something to himself you can’t quite make out. Slowly, he gets to his feet again.

"We need to come up with a plan," he says, and you want to cry except … you’re tired. Tired and sick of this.

"I need to come up with a plan," you correct him. "We have been trying to do this as a team for weeks, and it doesn’t change anything except waste time and …" And hurt. "I can’t do it anymore, Buck."

There must be something in your voice that thaws his defiant glare a little. "So what’s the plan?"

And with a sigh, you fill him in on everything that’s been going on with Strange and your powers. Again. One last time.

You have to do this alone.

Bucky ignores your insistence that you can manage just fine and sets your wrist while you talk. Alpine, now free to roam wherever she pleases again, has decided the bathroom isn’t quite that interesting after a short look inside, and is now taking a nap in the spot of sunshine next to your bed.

"New deal," he says once you’re done, once he’s thought about it all, and you raise your eyebrows. "Don’t do anything stupid."

"You know me," you smile, checking the makeshift dressing around your hand. The green symbols are hidden by the layers of gauze.

Bucky doesn’t bite. "I’m serious, just—don’t."

"How would you know?"

"I wouldn’t," he says, snapping the first aid kit shut so vehemently Alpine’s tail twitches. "But I trust you."

Your head whips up at his words, even though his back is still turned to you. He doesn’t see your face as your heart is jostled into a new rhythm, so violently and unexpectedly that you lift your hand without thinking, pinkie outstretched.

"Promise."

He smiles when he notices, and you wish you could take a picture to carry with you through the rest of this nightmare.

That day, he dies with your stupid nickname on his lips, twisted into something that looks strangely close to that earlier smile. This one doesn’t have time to reach his eyes, though.

***

There’s been a change in the weather.

Not literally, no; of course not literally. Fuck, you long for a single cloud, a raindrop, a damn hailstorm to break the streak of endless perfectly sunny days that don’t fit your mood in the slightest.

But there’s a tinge to the sky that makes your stomach turn. It’s not very obvious to anyone who hasn’t looked at the exact same sunset for weeks on end, just a single strip of color across a storybook horizon. It looks like a crack.

"Do you see that?" you ask warily when you notice it for the first time, ominous and yet almost completely hidden by the trees and the buildings. Just dancing around the edge of your vision like another mockery.

"What?" Sam asks, eyes not leaving the path ahead.

"That … thing in the sky. What is that?"

Bucky stops and squints at where you’re pointing. "It’s called a cloud," he says dryly.

"With that color?" you murmur, but continue walking when he stops to turn to you, your wrist tingling. His stare is searing your neck, but you ignore that, too.

The best course of action, you’ve learned, is to shut your brain off as soon as you get out of the quinjet and just go through the motions, trying to ride out the mission like you’ve done dozens of times before. There’s a sort of autopilot you’ve fallen into after a couple of days, and it’s the only thing keeping you somewhat sane. Most days, it means it’s all over quickly, and you can’t help but feel glad about that.

You’ve given up trying to change your own actions to get him through the day.

But this …

It’s something new, and in all this monotony, that thought is both frightening and exciting. It distracts you enough to get you off script.

"Lovely interior design," Sam mumbles like he always does.

"Remember how this was supposed to be a day off?" You kick one of the pebbles in your path with a sigh. "What happened to 'don’t worry, Y/N, after training the day is all yours'?"

"Occupational hazard," Sam says, checking his map for the thousandth time.

"You know what I mean."

"Don’t you have tomorrow off?" Bucky says over the intercom.

Tomorrow. "Right." It comes out somewhat strained, your fingernails digging into the palm of your hand. "And why do you know that?"

Sam shakes his head and there’s a brief crackle of static in your ear. For a fraction of a second, you nearly dare to hope Bucky will give you an answer, even though you have no clue what it would be.

"They’re heading your way now," he says instead, "so get a move on."

And just like that, you’re back on track.

Quickly clearing your throat of the lump that has formed there, you say tonelessly, "I probably only have one reset left. Two, if we’re lucky and you two aren’t being stupid again."

It’s taken you a while to get used to it. To the constant lying.

You’ve worn fingerless gloves on missions before, so that’s not raised any questions from the others yet, and your rings stay hidden away. You’ve been more reluctant to take them off since the one you lost on your bathroom floor vanished into thin air.

The other thing you’ve picked up on while endlessly repeating this day is that Bucky is less likely to catch you in a lie if he can’t see your face.

So you’ve made an effort of spending as little time as possible with him.

It’s surprisingly easy to stay in your room for the majority of the day, because he doesn’t remember it ever being any other way. Even today’s little exchange will be lost to the loop soon enough, just like that little pause he made, just like the bullet through his heart.

Still, when you wake up with a start on Friday, July 4th, you look at the sky first. Its perfect blue doesn’t soothe the sinking feeling in your stomach at all.

You’ve been waiting for something to change for weeks, and now that it’s here, you don’t like it at all.

"What did you expect?" Strange says with an infuriating composure once you’ve nervously recounted your experience. "I told you, time isn’t supposed to get stuck in this way. Of course your reality was going to act up sooner or later."

"I really feel like you should be more concerned about this," you mutter, letting a ball of green energy pass from your left hand to the right. It’s about the size of a quarter now.

"Honestly," Strange answers, "I thought something like this would have happened a while ago." He taps his fingers together. "Again. Slower."

"So what am I supposed to do then, just ignore it?" The green ball pulses with your indignation, turns around itself once and then sinks into your palm again.

"In all likelihood, it’s a one time glitch. If everything is back to normal today, I wouldn’t worry about it."

Your thumb rubs across the empty space on your finger. "Easy for you to say if you’re not the one who’s stuck in an endless hellscape."

"Aren’t I?"

You both roll your eyes at each other, but then you bite the inside of your cheek again, unable to shake the feeling of a whole new shade of dread. "What if it’s not just a one time glitch?"

The corners of Strange’s cloak roll up on themselves, and he doesn’t meet your eye when he says, "We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it."

It’s still early when you return to the present, too early for Bucky to be back from wherever he’s always going, so you decide to venture out of your room again, stretching your tired limbs. You’re pretty sure at this point that waking up on the floor is never going to feel fun.

Sam is in the kitchen as always, reading something on his laptop. He’s still sitting down, which means that it’s even earlier than you expected. You miss these early parts of the day, the calm before the storm.

If today were only made up of these few hours, you suppose, it might not be half so bad.

You pull up a chair next to him and lean a cheek against your hand. "What’re you doing?"

"Research." Sam sighs, rubbing his temples. "Remember that ULTIMATUM group?"

"Never heard of them," you say with a small yawn. "Is that an acronym? What does it stand for?"

Sam gives you a glare and your mouth twitches slightly.

"Anyway," he continues, turning his laptop so you can see the article he’s reading. "They’ve been more active again lately. Acquired a couple thousand dollars’ worth of lab equipment through one of their contacts and then went underground again."

Of course, you know all this. You’ve been over it again and again, back when you were all still trading information like it could save Bucky’s life. Like there was a deeper meaning behind any of this damn loop other than the fact that you, and you alone, fucked up.

Useless.

You close the mental door on those thoughts and take a deep breath. You hate to admit it, but all of this sitting around with your thoughts bullshit you’ve been doing has actually helped you to clear your head somewhat—if only to make it through the parts of the day you can’t avoid.

"And now what?" you ask, pretending to just have reacquainted yourself with the topic.

"Now," Sam says, taking his laptop with him as he stands up and strolls over to the kitchen island, "I’m waiting for Torres to get back to me so we can decide our next steps once we’re all recovered." He gives you a meaningful look and you scowl.

Then, slowly, his words register in your brain, and you stare at his back as he stretches and then moves to make some coffee, wordlessly taking one of your mugs out of the cupboard as well as his own.

"You don’t seem too worried," you say hesitantly.

Sam shrugs. "Until we have a proper lead, there’s not much we can do. And I doubt they’ll be doing any actual damage any time soon. They’re a lot more covert than the Flag Smashers ever were."

"Right," you say, more to yourself than in response.

"Try that again, less convincing?"

"I don’t know," you mutter, slowly following him to lean against the fridge. "Just … what if Torres did find something? Should I be getting ready?"

Sam frowns. "Are you not telling me something again?"

You try to shake the thought, pulling your arms around you. "Forget it."

You don’t, though.

It keeps bugging you, because that day like any other day, he knocks on your door at 4:32 on the dot, and you go on that mission anyway. And even though this has been happening for weeks, you’re just starting to suspect that you are, in fact, still not getting the whole picture.

***

Catching a glimpse of Sam’s phone turns out to be more difficult than you first thought.

You’re still trying to get the timing exactly right a couple of days later, and you miscalculate enough to catch Bucky on his way upstairs.

"Hey," he says, his shoulders tense when he looks at you. There’s a restlessness to him that he’s not quick enough to hide; or maybe you’ve just grown more perceptive when it comes to him.

"Hi," you say, crossing your hands behind your back. "Where’ve you been?"

He shrugs. "For a walk."

You already know he won’t elaborate if you try poking, so you don’t. "Was it good?"

"Lotta people." He hesitates when you continue to not meet his eye, and then he says, "Do you want to talk about it?"

You swallow, ignoring the tingling sensation on your wrist. "Not particularly. Do you?"

Bucky’s jaw twitches. "Nah."

Somehow, you feel like that’s also a lie. Once again, you’re left wondering.

The silence between you stretches as you continue to not quite look at each other, until you finally clear your throat, nodding at the front door. "I’m getting coffee, do you want something?"

Honestly, it’s just an excuse as to why you need to leave before he notices something off again somehow, but Bucky tilts his head in amusement.

"Didn’t you just get some this morning?"

"So? I like coffee."

"Really. I never knew."

"Screw you."

You can hear him huff behind you, but thankfully the door falls shut before you can do anything stupid. Like turning around to face him, for example.

You miss his eyes.

Why won’t you look at me?

When the elevator doors open, you almost yelp into your delivery guy’s face. He stumbles a half-step backwards, somehow managing to keep a hold of the boxes precariously balanced on his arm while he’s reading something on his phone.

"Oh my god," he lets out, "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was just …"

"Early." You blink.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing," you say, frowning only a little. "Wait, let me get that."

You quickly sign for the delivery and open the door with your keycard, holding it open for him. You’re not exactly afraid of burglars these days, and besides; you know this guy by now.

"If you could just go straight ahead and to the right, that’s where the kitchen is."

"Sure thing," he shrugs. "Thanks—"

His mouth snaps shut and he blushes a little as if he wanted to say something else but thought better of it.

You’ve introduced him to Sam enough times you know he’s going to be fine, so you just smile and wave him in.

When you step out on the street, you instinctually look up at the sky. It’s outrageously blue, blatantly perfect for an endless Friday, and even when you squint, you can’t make out any irregularities.

It’s a tiny relief, but a relief nontheless.

Lucy is leaning against the wall just out of sight of the storefront, an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips as she rummages through her pockets. Her colorful makeup has begun to melt off in the sweltering heat, making the red-white-and-blue stars on her cheeks bleed into each other to look somewhat purplish.

"Are you off or on break?" you call over.

She lifts her head, the glare vanishing when she recognizes you. "Counting the seconds," she says. "Don’t you have anything better to do?"

You sidestep a couple of pedestrians hurrying to cross the street and join her. "Not really."

"I hate you." She finally fishes a lighter out of her back pocket, sighing contentedly as she takes her first drag. "I swear, this day just won’t pass."

Fine. Maybe your chuckle is a little shrill. "I’m sorry."

Lucy waves you off with a gesture crude enough to make a young dad with a stroller send the two of you a dirty look. "You without your shadow today?" she asks, inspecting her nails.

You blink. "My shadow."

"You know. Your friend who’s been in here eight thousand times and still gets confused when he orders." A cloud of smoke vanishes into thin air. "Kind of the lingering type, isn’t he?"

"He’s old," you say, because for some reason nothing else comes to mind.

"Not that old."

"No," you agree, "not that old."

For a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to ask you to pass her number along to him, and you’re already scrambling to find an answer somewhere in the depths of your brain, coming up empty. That’s the problem with being able to unhave entire conversations; you don’t usually really have to deal with reactions if you don’t want to.

Without your powers, though, you’re stuck, and it’s making you wish you hadn’t come here at all.

Instead of any of that, she pulls a flyer out of her other pocket. "Sorin and Cass are doing a gig in Brooklyn next week, do you wanna come with? They’re still terrible, but they got a new bassist who seems alright."

You take the flyer, staring at it. "I didn’t know they’re in a band," you admit.

The truth is, you’ve never paid that much close attention to the people you work with. Maybe that’s been a mistake.

Lucy shrugs. "You’re always doing your own thing." It stings, even though you’re pretty sure she doesn’t mean for it to. "It’d be fun if you came, though."

"I’ll think about it," you say, and your smile is a little unsure, but genuine.

So is hers.

"If you don’t want to hang with us all night, you can bring some friends, too." Her emphasis hangs in the air between you like a dare.

You snort. "I feel like this isn’t quite their scene."

"You feel like or you know?"

"Isn’t that the same thing?"

"No." She puts her cigarette out on the wall behind her. "Knowledge is based on experience. On memories. Your feelings don’t sit in your head. And so they don’t make sense and they’re not necessarily true." She winks.

"You’re weirdly smart," you say, shaking your head.

"I know. It’s a curse." Lucy sighs. "Anyway, think about it. I gotta get back to hell."

"You know," you say with a grin, "I could really do with a frappuccino right about now."

"You know what you could do?" she answers in her sweetest customer service voice, pointing you down the street. "Get in a trash can."

Damnit. You might actually grow to like Lucy.

She taps her fingers against her temple and then shuffles back inside, a hot rush of air blowing out of the AC as the door opens. You fold the flyer up to fit into your back pocket, hoping you’ll make it to that concert one day, and then you walk on, aimless again for the moment.

***

Time passes while it’s standing still.

The problem is, at least for the moment, that by all appearances you’ve reverted back to square one. Going through your day as though any of this is even remotely normal, counting the hours and minutes to reenter the astral plane and feel some semblance of control again.

It’s been nice, really, if you’re ignoring the constant underlying feeling of dread.

Which you’re getting better at.

You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.

Rinse and repeat.

You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.

Even on days when you’re sure you’re making progress with your powers, every reset makes it just a little harder to keep dragging yourself onwards.

You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.

"You look like shit."

Your head rolls to the side slowly, allowing yourself a glance while Bucky is still distracted with his arm. Concentration makes his brows knit, and something warm spreads in your chest.

"I’m so tired," you say, voice barely above a whisper.

He doesn’t look at you, but you’re grateful for it for once. Your eyes are stinging a little.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Yes. Yes. Yes.

"Not particularly."

"Do you want to talk about something else?"

You almost smile. "Like what?"

Bucky shrugs with one shoulder. "Like the fact that you just planted Sam into the mat head-first and yet made a face like you killed a puppy?"

Sometimes you wonder how he still manages to slip in without you noticing, no matter how many times he does it.

"Did I?"

"Did you kill a puppy? I’d hope not."

Your body’s been getting stronger, anticipating Sam’s every move. At this point, it’s not so much training as it is an exercise in muscle memory; but how would he know that?

It still isn’t enough. It’s never enough.

You pitiful, selfish, useless bastard.

"You’re doing it again," Bucky says and you blink.

"Doing what?"

"I don’t know, but I don’t like it."

Something inside you twinges uncomfortably and you wrap your arms around your knees, pulling them into your chest. "That might just be me, period."

Bucky huffs. "Take the towel on the right," he says. "I already used the other one."

So you do.

And then you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume, and then you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume, and then you wake up with blah, blah, blah.

"I can’t do this anymore."

Strange watches you, but you don’t get up from where you’re lying, blankly staring at the ceiling, feeling like your chest is about to explode.

You don’t want to feel like something is tearing you apart every single time, even though you know it’s not permanent. There’s always the tiniest glimmer of hope that this will all be over soon.

Or maybe it’s dread.

"Maybe you can’t," Strange answers.

You blink, sitting upright. "What?"

"Maybe you are actually incapable of cleaning up your own mess. You’ve never had any training before, after all. Maybe you’re too weak."

Useless. Not good enough. Waste of time.

"If this is reverse psychology, it’s not working," you say through gritted teeth, pressing your eyes shut so tightly they don’t burn anymore.

Strange ignores you. "Maybe you’re going to be stuck in this loop forever. If that’s the case, there’s no point to keep trying either. Maybe we should just call it a day."

You can feel your breaths coming in shorter.

"Maybe you’re just going to keep failing to save anyone for the rest of your life."

"Stop it!"

An explosion of power goes through your body, bouncing off the walls and bathing the room in a ghostly green light. You cough and curl into yourself as you watch it billow, still echoing the words back at you, "too weak", "stuck in this loop forever". Your bones are heavy with exhaustion.

Strange crouches down next to you and a cup of fragrant tea draws itself up to the side of your face.

"You’re drawing the bulk of your power from pain. From a desire to fix things that you think you alone are responsible for when the truth is that each and every one of us is constantly creating reality."

"Fuck you," you mumble. When you sit up, your head is still swimming.

"You cannot keep this up."

"If I’m such a lost case, then why do you bother?"

"I’m trying to tell you that you’re not." He points at the walls, still covered by that greenish fog. "This is the strongest display of your powers I’ve seen from you yet, and it only happened because you were lashing out. Pain is not a sustainable source of energy. Imagine what you could do if you could be in control."

Do as I tell you.

"There’s no way to control my powers on a larger scale. It’s impossible."

"You keep telling me that, and yet you keep coming back. Why?"

You push yourself up to your elbows, wiping at your face. "Because I have to hope, right?"

"And there it is."

You take a sip of your tea and some feeling returns to your translucent fingers. Strange’s cloak draws itself around your shoulders.

The wizard himself stays quiet for another minute or two, before he asks, "Why do you think I’m talking to you right now? Helping you, even, nevermind your constant whining and your insistence that this won’t work, after you’ve spent your whole life running away from anything resembling actual responsibilities."

"I didn’t—"

"Answer the question."

"Because I created a time loop?" you guess.

"But you already know that this loop is just one point on the timeline. A single day, repeated endlessly, but going exactly like it was always supposed to, once resolved. So, without the time stone and my privileges as the Sorcerer Supreme, and with your protections still in place, how would I have found you?"

He knew exactly where and when to look for you. But he’s right, that shouldn’t even have been possible unless …

"I came to you," you realize. "Or, I will, once I get out of this." The relief that washes over you makes you want to sob. "So there is a way out?"

"Of course there is," he says, surprisingly gently. "Time isn’t supposed to get stuck."

You sit with that for a minute, hiding your face in your hands as Strange stays silent. Finally, you take a deep breath and look at him again with newly sharp focus.

"So why don’t you just tell me how to do it?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You know that’s not how it works."

"Yes. It is. It’s literally what I do all the time."

"What you do is leaving realities you don’t like by turning backwards."

"That’s not true."

"Just because your motivations aren’t entirely selfish doesn’t mean you’re right."

You’re so damn exhausted. The frustration of this whole thing is really starting to scratch at your sanity, and there’s an ache in your chest as you stare at your own sleeping face, biting the inside of your cheek, thinking.

Strange snaps his fingers to get your attention back.

"I’m not a mind reader," he says. "Out with it."

"I want to see him," you say, getting up. The cloak flaps around you in a very satisfying way. "Bucky. It’s early this morning, right? Just before the loop starts again. That means he’s upstairs."

"And what’s seeing him going to do?"

You ignore him and walk towards the door, reaching for the handle. Your hand goes right through it. You try it several more times, to no avail.

"Heaven help me," Strange mutters behind you.

Shutting your eyes, you take a deep breath. The circle of green tingles around your wrist.

Then, you walk through the closed door.

You fully expect to crash into the wood head first, but instead you feel the door moving through your noncorporeal form, and then you’re standing on the other side.

With a startled hum, you turn left, not waiting to see if you’re being followed.

You only hesitate in front of Bucky’s bedroom door. You’ve never actually been inside his room since he’s moved in; well, apart from that time he patched up your feet and you woke up in the astral plane for the first time. It feels odd to consider entering without him actually being aware of it.

Then again, there’s quite a few things at this point that he’s unaware of.

Before you can make up your mind, the door swings open just a little, and you automatically take a step back. Alpine sleepily slinks through the gap and trots off in the direction you came from, probably to sit in the kitchen and mope until FRIDAY activates the food dispenser again. On the stairs, she passes Strange who raises an eyebrow at you.

"Changed your mind?"

You glance into the room.

At first, you can’t find him. The bedding looks untouched, and there’s a brief flurry of panic that makes you step inside before you can keep questioning yourself.

Bucky is lying on the floor next to the bed, his hands balled tightly into an old throw blanket. It’s haphazardly draped across his torso, like he’s been trying to wriggle free during the night. He grimaces in his sleep.

Try the floor.

You can’t help but wonder when he’s last tried the bed.

"Can he hear us?" you ask quietly, not needing to look over your shoulder as you sink to the floor next to Bucky.

"No," Strange says. "Not until you put in a lot more work."

"Would he remember if I did?"

"I don’t know."

You do look back at him, then. "You know, considering your position you don’t know a whole lot of things."

You concentrate on your own hand until you’re starting to feel cool metal underneath your fingertips, ignoring the throbbing of your head. Carefully, you touch the crease between his brows, smoothing it out tenderly.

Bucky sighs a little in his sleep, but doesn’t stir. Doesn’t stop quietly murmuring in his dreams.

"You feel better?" Strange asks.

"Not really." You’ve already reached out to him without it having any repercussions too many times. "But that wasn’t the point."

"What was?"

"Just …"

Comfort. He brings you comfort, even when he doesn’t know it. It’s the same reason you keep waiting for him to arrive in the gym in the mornings, even though you could probably hurry up and miss him.

Even if the loop never ends, it’s still good to see that it’s bringing him back like it’s supposed to.

How incredibly selfish, you think as you continue looking at Bucky and letting a quiet, hesitant wash of calm come over you.

And then, all of a sudden, his eyes open.

You flinch backwards, but even though you’re almost face to face, he seems to stare right through you, his breaths heavy.

"Did I do something?" you say quietly.

"No," Strange answers. "This is just when he wakes up."

You watch as Bucky drags a hand over his face and then gets up with a determined tick in his jaw, grabbing a notebook from the nightstand. He scribbles something down, hastily, like it’s threatening to get away from him if he doesn’t hurry. You don’t have to read it to know it has something to do with what he’s seen in his sleep.

When the words stop flowing, he sits on the edge of the bed for a minute longer, but the tension doesn’t leave his shoulders. Finally, he rolls his left arm a few times before pulling on a shirt and his running shoes.

He always goes for a run in the morning. You’ve made fun of him for it before, but you hadn’t put together that while Strange was trying to get you to clear your own head through sitting still, Bucky might be doing the exact opposite to get the same result.

The door clicks shut.

"Are we done with the spying, then?" Strange says.

"No need to get weird about it," you mumble and take his outstretched hand.

***

Something changes once you know that your situation actually has an end date, even though Strange either cannot or will not tell you how many more loops you’re going to have to go through until then. Even so, there’s a new assurance to your every step again, a determination grown from the knowledge that all this isn’t for nothing. That there is an out.

You can cling to that.

"What would you do if you were stuck in a time loop?" you ask, letting your legs dangle over the ledge of the roof.

"Ew, no," Lucy replies, shaking the few remaining ice cubes in her cup emphatically. "My shift was long enough as is, and I’ve been looking forward to my Sunday off all week."

"Fair point," you concede.

It’s early afternoon then, and you’ve found a quiet spot on the top of the Tower. If Lucy was at all confused why you’d shown up at the store right when she clocked out and asked her to hang out, she’s not showing it. Over the past couple of loops, you’ve learned that she really likes to go with the flow, and you appreciate that.

"If it’s not today, though," she continues, like she’s thinking aloud. "Imagine the books you could read. You could try out all that stuff that you say you want to do, and then you never have the time to actually do them."

It’s a good thought, but a lack of time has never really been an issue for you. "Nothing you do would really stick, though."

She squints against the sun. "You realize that’s a pro, right? No consequences whatsoever. I could cut my bangs again and they’d be gone the next day."

"You used to have bangs?"

"Never, and I’m willing to state that in a court of law."

You smile and lean back on your elbows. "If something good happened, that’d be gone, too, though. You don’t get to keep that, either."

"Yeah," Lucy says thoughtfully. "I’d still remember it though, right? It still happened. I could make it happen again."

"Maybe." Your thumb scratches the empty space on your pinkie. Even though you’ve turned your entire bathroom upside down, your ring is still gone, like it just up and disappeared from this reality. You can’t help but wonder if that rift in the sky from a few todays ago has anything to do with that.

"What about you?"

"Hm?"

Lucy takes another slurping sip from her almost empty cup. "What would you do in a time loop?"

You can’t help but laugh. "I’d try to keep making the good things happen, I guess."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

It is.

"Are you out of your damn mind?" someone shouts behind you. "It’s in the fricking nineties today and you’re baking?"

"Technically, we are baking," you say, nodding at Lucy and leaning back further so you can look at Sam upside down. "And we’re baking for you."

"Hi, cap," Lucy says, pulling her sunglasses off.

"Hey." Sam crosses his arms and fixes you with a very cap-like glare. "Why are you baking for me."

"Y/N said it’s for your birthday."

"My—" He cuts himself off, rubbing his temples. "My birthday’s in September."

"Whoops," you say, your grin just believable enough. "My bad, cap."

"You’re not funny," Sam says, "I hope you know that."

You know.

Of course, today isn’t actually his birthday, not even if time were allowed to pass normally. It is day forty-fucking-nine of the loop, though, which makes it your fiftieth time living through this crap and frankly, you all deserve some damn pie.

It’s not going to make a difference in the long run, of course, and yet you can’t help but feel like keeping count of those little markers of time helps to hold your head above water. Making the good things happen, even if they don’t change a thing and no one but you is going to remember.

So you simply say, "It’s turtle pie," because you know that it’s Sam’s favorite. "Hey, what’s the time?"

"Oh, it better be," he says, holding his phone up for you to read and then marching out of your field of vision.

Sadly, you’re just about a minute early.

"He could’ve stayed," Lucy says when you let out a frustrated huff.

"He has that thing at the Garden," you tell her distractedly, taking a mental note to stall Sam a little longer next time.

"There you are."

You flinch at the sound of Bucky’s voice, barely daring to move your head when he sits next to you, his back to the brink.

He never comes up here. That’s the whole point.

"Hi?" you say carefully, and a grin tugs at his mouth.

"Not you," he says, nodding to the ground in front of him.

You turn around fully to find Alpine taking a nap just a few feet behind you, her snowy tail wrapped around a flower pot.

You let out a relieved breath and ignore the small sting in your chest. Of course he’s not up here because of you. Why would he be?

"Gee, thanks," you murmur, quietly shifting around so your hands are hidden underneath your legs. "You sure know how to charm the ladies."

You glance back at Lucy, but she’s looking at her phone, her eyes once again indecipherable behind the large sunglasses.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Think you could handle my charm, Y/L/N?"

He might has well have doused you in a bucket of ice water. You’re suddenly very aware of every single cell in your body, and you don’t like the challenge sparkling in his eyes.

So you do what you always do and you block it out. Dismiss and distract.

"Does Alpine seem weird to you?"

He tilts his head, his jaw tight. "Weird how?"

"I don’t know," you say, staring at her. "She’s just been acting … odd, lately. Today, I mean."

And following you around in a way you’re pretty sure she’s never done before. Not before the loop, at least.

Bucky sighs. "Did you make her scratch you again? Because I’ve told you before that I’m not getting rid of her for enforcing her boundaries."

"First of all, I never make her scratch me, she does that well enough on her own."

"That’s victim blaming," Lucy says without looking up. Bucky snorts and you almost roll your eyes.

"Second of all, she’s up to something. I know it."

"Oh, yes," Bucky says dryly just as Alpine makes a small noise in her dreams, her nose twitching. "That’s the embodiment of evil right there."

"I don’t trust her," you mutter.

"And yet the cat’s the weird one."

"I hate you," you mumble, standing up. "I’m gonna go check on the pie."

"There’s pie?" Bucky says.

"Not for you!"

You turn at the door to see Lucy leaning in to show Bucky something on her phone; the frown has disappeared from his face, his shoulders relaxed. If he’d pull off his glove right now, it’d almost be like sitting in a park.

That’s good, you tell yourself as the door slams shut behind you with a bit too much gusto. Reminds you that there’s nothing special about you in particular, which is much needed, really.

Can’t wait to punch that one out of your system later.

Again and again and again and a—

"Whoa, whoa, you alright?"

You blink. Riff slumps to the ground in front of you, body limp.

Bucky stares at you in concern, his hand still on your shoulder. His lip has split open and there’s the usual bruise already forming on his cheekbone. You can’t help it. Your gaze is drawn down, your breathing shallow.

You screw your eyes shut to snap yourself out of it, but when you open them again, Bucky hasn’t moved an inch.

"Never better," you whisper, and for a split second, you almost believe it yourself.

Liar, liar, liar.

***

At least, you suppose, reality seems considerably less broken these days. No more cracks in the sky.

You get your wake-up call when you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY …

"… FRIDAY?" you say into the silence of your room, your heart pounding wildly. This cannot be happening. Not now.

Not yet.

He got shot again yesterday.

A pleasant jingling sound rings out. "Good morning, Ms. Y/L/N."

You look at the clock on the wall. Ten to eight, just like every morning. "What day is it?"

"Today is Friday, July 4th."

You can taste bile in your mouth despite your relief. There’s an impatient thrum to the symbols around your wrist, like a noose that’s tightening.

What did you expect?

"Rise and shine, McFly! Time to get your ass kicked!"

"Didn’t you set FRIDAY to wake me?" you ask Sam as you’re climbing the stairs, nerves on edge.

He looks at you weirdly. "I did. You’re up, aren’t you?"

You bite the inside of your cheek. "Didn’t sleep well."

That much, at least, is still true. Full nights of sleep are a long distant memory from before constant back-to-back repetitions. The only time your body shuts off is when you manage to sleep for a little bit in between your astral visits and the mission call.

"I hope you don’t think that’s an excuse," Sam says, bumping your shoulder, and you manage a tired grin.

"You wish."

Today, you let him win, even though your ankle makes an odd crack when you land on the mat. You’ll take care of it later.

"You look like shit."

Grief and relief, you’ve learned, both taste like salt and iron, but the latter is so much easier to swallow.

"That makes two of us," you say, sitting up slowly. "How was your run?"

"Good," Bucky says, putting the cloth away and stretching his fingers out. They catch a ray of sunlight. "What’s wrong with you?"

Not this again.

"Later, okay?" you answer, because that’s not a lie. "Let’s just … not, right now?"

"Alright," he says.

And, oh, you want to tell him again. Because he doesn’t press it. Because you miss having someone to share things with. Because you miss telling him the whole truth. Because you’re scared, and tired, and sick of losing him.

But those are egotistic thoughts, and so you keep them all to yourself and take the towel on the right.

There’s one good thing about this today. You make it to the living room just in time to finally catch a glimpse of Sam’s phone right when it pings with Torres’ message.

I can check it out on Monday if you’d like.

That’s it. No urgency, weirdly proper spelling, not even an exclamation mark.

In other words, you’re not sure what you expected but you’re no closer to answers than before.

"What does it matter?" Strange sighs when you tell him all of this with a frown.

"It matters," you reply, "because if we hadn’t gone on the mission, Bucky wouldn’t have died that first time and none of this would’ve happened."

"So what?" he says. "It’s already done."

"But if I could prevent it—"

"It already happened."

"I can make it not happen."

"You and what powers?" Strange says sharply. "Even if you did that, it wouldn’t stop the loop."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you’ve already seen first-hand that it’s bound to you and your powers, not to whatever you do or don’t do during the day. Karma is a fairy tale for those who don’t want to take responsibility for their actions."

"Do you really still think this is me not taking responsibility?" There’s a green flare that goes through you, hot and seething and making goosebumps crawl down your arms.

Strange smiles at the sight. "Let’s find out."

He extends his arms and slowly opens his fists until orange symbols dance across his shaky fingers. The band around your wrist prickles at the weight of his magic flooding the air.

Strange’s cloak nudges you towards the center of the room and your heart gives a heavy thud. "What, right now?"

"Would you prefer being stuck for a couple weeks more?"

"Of course not it’s just—I don’t feel ready."

"No one ever feels ready until they try."

And maybe it’s because it reminds you of something Steve once said, but it makes you step up, falling into the stance you’ve practiced over and over again. You breathe in deeply and close your eyes.

The pull comes easier now. Your powers have just been resting, nestled somewhere deep inside your bones like glowing embers, waiting for you to call upon them.

When you look at your open palm, the green wisps of your powers have curled up to the size of a ping-pong ball. You take another steadying breath and let it glide to the tips of your fingers, carefully letting it balance itself out for a second before moving your other hand.

"Good," you can hear Strange say quietly.

Slowly, carefully, you let the threads untangle until they’re just about to touch the green band circling around your wrist. You can feel the electric tingle of it, the soft beat of each passing second contained within, and you push past it.

You’ve done this before, so you’re not surprised when you feel the energy drain from your body almost immediately. Up until now, though, it’s just been trial and error, not expecting anything to happen. This time, you have Strange’s magic feeding some of his strength into you as well, and so instead of hesitating, you press on, your heartbeat speeding up.

The band around your wrist does the same.

"Don’t lose your focus." Strange’s voice sounds very far away, almost warped.

Very funny, you might have said, but you’re too busy watching it all unfold.

The whirring inside of your head grows louder as the circlet of time keeps rotating with accelerating speed, faster and faster until your eyes start tearing up and there’s something that looks almost like a crack.

You gasp quietly. At first, you think you might have just imagined it, but then the split starts growing, the symbols growing farther and farther apart as the band itself keeps spinning. Your pulse is beating in your ears. Your wrist feels like it’s being set on fire.

There are voices, then, quiet and fast, like you’re watching a sped up movie, music and noises and chatter and birdsong and a whooshing sound like something flipping right past you. Then, something like distant shots.

I’m getting Bucky out of this, you think as the green band continues rotating until suddenly, there is a shockwave of green light that takes up your entire field of vision.

You close your stinging eyes, keeping your feet firmly planted on the floor as your powers rush through you once more and then, with a shudder, settle down again, exhausted. The glare subsides. Something like a trickle of sweat runs down your noncorporeal neck.

"Did it work?" you ask, your voice rough, not daring to look for yourself. There’s no answer, though. "Doc?"

Slowly, your eyes readjust to the gloomy darkness of your room in the astral realm. The only source of light is the glowing green band continuing to circle around your wrist, the rifts stabilizing again like it’s clicking back into place.

You swear under your breath and turn around to ask what went wrong, but Strange is no longer standing beside you.

You’re all alone.

***

Three, two, one—

"Iced grande extra whip caramel macchia—shit!"

You catch the plastic cup before it drops onto the suit of the business man standing in line in front of you. "Here you go, sir."

He grabs his drink with a grunt and hurries back outside. One of these days, you might ask him why he’s in such a hurry, but it’s not today.

You’ve grown to adore the noise of the pre-noon rush. The cacophany of the whirring machines, the AC and the people is just loud enough to make your head calm down a little. Besides, being alone in a crowd has never been easier than when you know for a fact they are not going to remember you.

The drinks are starting to pile up at the hand-out, and because you feel bad for your colleagues, you start handing them out to people. You’ve been here a lot, after all.

"Tall hazelnut latte for Misty!"

Plus, it helps to keep your mind from wandering back to everything that’s going wrong.

Strange still hasn’t returned.

The astral dimension feels different when you return the day after your experiment, like someone’s been pulling invisible strings to make everything just slightly more disordered and dark.

It’s cold, too. You watch your body shiver in her sleep as you wrap your arms around yourself. The books are still there, shimmering slightly with the magic they contain.

"Doc?" you call out, and the vibrations of this place hum it back at you. There’s no answer.

The book at the top of the pile is still opened to a page, as if it’d just been left a moment ago, and you pick it up. The words glide around like they are looking to jump back into an inkpot, and you have to squint to make out any of them.

Incursion, the section header reads. Result of a contraction in a universe’s timeline. Can cause premature disintegration or collapse of any one reality within the multiverse.

"Just great," you say, slapping the book shut again. "I get it, alright? You can come out now."

But there’s no sound apart from your own heartbeat.

Your noncorporeal head is swimming with pressure as you pass through the closed door and into the hallway. The walls seem larger than usual, the stairs warping ever so slightly underneath your feet so that you can’t look at them for too long without feeling seasick.

Upstairs, the air doesn’t feel quite as heavy. The silence follows you, though, lingering in the grayish morning shadows like the remnants of a nightmare.

Bucky still mumbles in his.

You can’t make out what he is saying, and you wouldn’t have understood the words, anyway, but there’s sweat on his brow again. His fingers are tightly clutching the thin throw blanket like it’s shielding him from whatever he’s seeing in his dreams.

You take a step closer to him, desperate to do something, anything, when you notice movement out of the corner of your eye.

Alpine is perched on top of the bed, complacently tucked into herself on one of the fluffed up white pillows like it’s really her room, not Bucky’s.

And she’s staring right at you.

You take a step to the side, then another. Alpine tilts her head, her large eyes fixed on you. They follow your gestures as you wave your hand.

A quick glance tells you that Bucky is still sleeping. You take a deep breath and conjure up a small dot of bright green light, letting it dance across your fingertips. Alpine uncurls herself in interest, her tail twitching.

"You can see me," you whisper, and the little spec of your power disappears.

The cat meows in disappointment.

Carefully, you move closer to the bed, reaching out your translucent hand until you place it on Alpine’s head.

She rubs against your palm.

You chuckle incredulously, scratching behind her ears. "You little devil."

Alpine seems particularly pleased with herself. She starts purring.

This is simply bizarre, you think as you continue petting her soft fur. You’re expecting a sarcastic comment from behind your shoulder any minute now, but it doesn’t come.

So, you lower yourself down on the floor next to Bucky, the tips of your fingers not quite grazing his arm as you swallow heavily.

And then you wait until he gets up.

It’s possible, you think as you watch him leave and then make yourself wake up too, that Strange is simply messing with you for the hell of it. You don’t like the timing of this, though. Your day still continues on and on and on, like it always does, but it seems just a little too pointed that this would happen right after you had your first hopes of getting out of here in a long time.

It doesn’t help that the reality glitches have decided to return with a vengeance.

Every day is still July 4th. You wake up with a start, you train, you get coffee, you fight over lunch, you take your astral visit, you go on that damn mission. It’s the details that start to get … fuzzy.

In the beginning, every single thing around you was the exact same every single day. Now, though, there are sometimes details that are just wrong. A different mug left on the drying rack. A mess all over the tables in the lab. Weird noises all over the Tower.

You don’t know what to make of any of it, and so in general, you follow Strange’s rule of thumb and simply ignore the things that are wrong one day and then right the next—which, thankfully, is all of them. You just go with it, telling yourself that this is simply reality malfunctioning a little, like a machine that needs oiling.

Weirdly enough, that doesn’t reassure you in the slightest.

But what else can you do?

You lose a few hours here and there, time seemingly speeding up at random sometimes now. One morning, Bucky isn’t in the gym like he usually is, and you work yourself up over it so much you nearly have a panic attack. In the end, you almost crash into him outside of his room, and a rush of reassurance floods through you with such force you can’t even look at him.

That time, Sam is there when Bucky gets shot, and it’s his cry that follows you into the next day. Your hands are clean this time, and somehow that feels worse.

Everyone’s back to their usual stuff again, and that’s that.

Another time, you’ve barely rolled out of bed and into your bathroom—"Rise and shine, McFly!"—when you’re suddenly jolted forwards and you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume. Your stomach feels like it’s still turning, nauseous, as if you’d sat up too fast.

That feeling still leaves a bad taste in your mouth, sticking to the back of your mind like the blood you haven’t even had time to wash off.

The thing that demands most of your attention, though, is the pile of books waiting for you in the astral realm. Since you don’t have any control over the loop itself, you pour all of your energy into trying to understand the theory behind your powers. It’s giving you a constant headache, and it takes a lot longer than you would like to admit, but at least you feel like you’re doing something that’ll last.

Nothing else will.

There’s one last lonely cup sat on the counter next to your own, which signals that the rush is over for now. You can see Lucy wiping her forehead as you wave your goodbye, picking up both drinks on your way out and handing one of them to the guy just hurrying back downstairs.

"Here you go," you say without stopping, glancing at your phone. You haven’t stayed this late before.

"What the—" you hear behind you, just before the doors glide open and you’re greeted by the sound of traffic and a hot breeze of air.

If you’re lucky, you can make it back to your room without anyone seeing you. You’ve moved on to a particularly hefty tome about relativity, and you’d like to—

"Hey! Miss? Hold on a second!"

You look over your shoulder to see the delivery guy has run after you, cup still in his hand. His bike is leaned against a lamp post nearby, his cap dangling off one of the handles.

You found out a couple of weeks ago that he takes his break just after dropping off your order, but you don’t usually make eye contact anymore.

Now, he holds out his cup accusingly. "That’s my drink."

You smile. "Good for you."

"No. No, that’s not—I mean—how did you know it was my drink?"

And because nothing really matters and you really want to go home, you say, "It has your name on it, doesn’t it?"

You expect him to look at you with wide eyes, just like people normally do when you know things you’re not supposed to. His mouth will drop open, speechless, his frown will deepen, and you can wink at him and continue on your way so he can spend the next couple of hours wondering what just happened.

The cup falls out of his hand, but somehow he manages to catch it before it hits the sidewalk. When he looks up at you again, and his expression is unlike anything you’ve seen coming.

"But that’s not …" he says quietly. "Do you remember me?"

And then it’s you who’s speechless, because the shock on Peter Parker’s face is more than you bargained for.

*****

"Honestly, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this," you said quietly, looking over the rim of your glass at the crowd.

"You complaining?" you heard Sam’s voice say over the little earpiece you were wearing.

"Not at all."

Apparently, people connected to terrorist organizations threw incredibly fancy parties.

You hadn’t felt this glamorous in a while, if ever, dressed up to the nines in a dark green jumpsuit with an incredibly flattering cut that you’d never had a reason to wear before. Despite your initial doubts about this whole thing, you felt great, for the first time in way too long.

"Are you gonna move any time soon?"

Well. Mostly.

At least Barnes cleaned up nice, you supposed; it almost made up for his grouchy demeanor.

With a sigh, you downed the rest of your drink and got back to work. You let the crowd swallow you up, seemingly on your way to the restrooms, and then you stopped it all to slip upstairs unnoticed by prying eyes and cameras.

You didn’t hold it for very long; you had to rattle some doors, after all, and despite your espresso martini, it was still hard to tell if you could manage several redos back to back. After all, you’d only been back in the game for a couple of weeks.

It took you a few tries to find the right office, and locating the files was comparatively easy with what you already had access to. There it was, proof that ULTIMATUM had managed to secure most of the Flag Smashers’ previous supporters as well as some high brow weapon dealers.

While you copied everything onto a flashdrive, your eyes caught one of the designs. You frowned.

Even though you couldn’t pinpoint what it was, exactly, something about it seemed just slightly too highbrow for an organization of the international bad egg committee that was supposedly still mostly underground. Your gaze started drifting through the rest of the office, noting the usual boring books and glass awards in the bookshelves on the far wall. You pulled open one of the desk drawers.

"You almost done in here?"

"Fuck!" You slammed the drawer shut again, getting your pinkie stuck in the process. "Damnit, where did you come from?"

Bucky pointed over his shoulder.

"Fuck me," you murmured, your eyes stinging at the pain.

Bucky looked nonplussed. "Can’t you just undo it?"

"Great input, thank you." The flashdrive beeped softly and you shut everything down again. At least you were definitely sober now. "What are you, anyway, my babysitter?"

"Wouldn’t have to be if you could check in on time," he answered, checking the corridors, then nodding for you to follow.

"Time’s a social construct," you murmured, but followed him, the flashdrive hidden in your fist.

You didn’t even make it to the staircase.

"Didn’t I tell you?" a voice said right before several triggers clicked and you both froze. "I knew I’d recognized that arm. And who do you have with you here, Winter Soldier?"

No one, you thought, and then you yanked time backwards so forcefully you stumbled into the desk, your heart still racing. The copy sat at 57%.

You felt almost seasick with the rewind, but there wasn’t any time. "Keep going upstairs," you said into your earpiece.

"What?" Bucky said.

"I’m fine. Don’t come get me. Just keep going," you gritted through your teeth, trying to calm your breaths. 70%.

"Exit plan C, then," Sam said.

Bucky didn’t answer. You looked at your hands. There was a slight tremor to them, but nothing too bad. If you could get the nausea under control, you could probably make it past the cameras one more time.

You should’ve eaten more.

As soon as the flashdrive was done, you ripped it out and forced everything to a halt again. Your palms were sweaty as you hurried out of the office and in the direction of the staircase, your lungs burning. This didn’t feel like a good sign.

You stumbled over your damn heels and the noise returned for that moment you lost your concentration.

Not good enough.

Sweat pearled on your forehead as you and the universe held your breath again. You could feel your hold slipping with every second that wasn’t allowed to pass. Time was impatient with you.

A small crowd had assembled at the bottom of the stairs. As you closed in on them, you felt a jolt go through you and suddenly found yourself surrounded by people as time attempted to right itself again. Your nails dug into the skin of your palm so hard you could feel yourself draw blood.

It went quiet again and you moved through them, almost blindly. Everything seemed to be spinning.

Behind your shoulder, you could hear several people talking, interrupted only by the world stopping around them every now and then.

"—d’you—see that—"

"—could’ve—sworn there—”

And with time stumbling and flailing around in confusion, you made it out of the building and into the waiting cab.

chapter seven

thank you for reading!! you can follow my library blog @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 💚

#time after time #nika <3 #i am not okay #i need to go to bed

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anotherjheastan · 14 hours ago

Text

No Fooling Me

A Jey Uso x Rhea Ripley FanFic

CW Suggestive, mentions sex, fluff

I leave before you wake up

The sun up

Now I’m having coffee, eggs, and regret

Am I the only one in your bed?

You just wanna have fun

And I thought I wanna have fun

…

But I want you to be true, at least true with me

You can lie to all the other boys but no fooling me

- No Fool by Joseph Solomon

Jey slowly blinked open his eyes. He smiled when his eyes focused on Rhea. He carefully sat up and stretched and looked at her again. He wondered how she could look so beautiful even in her sleep. She had one arm curved over her head and her face was relaxed.

I could get used to this, Jey thought as he reached out and touched her cheek. She didn’t move, but the smile faded from his face because that was a serious thought and they weren’t serious. They weren’t together.

They were having fun and getting to know each other, but Jey knew enough. He knew he wanted her for himself, but he didn’t think she felt the same way about him. He heard her phone buzzing as he slipped out of bed. He put his boxers and sweatpants on. He had checked her phone before and she hadn’t minded so he just touched the darkened screen to light it up. His heart sank. Messages from Matt 🖤. A few weeks ago, he was the only one with a heart next to his name: Jey 💙. So what did that mean for him? She hadn’t told him she had met anyone. But maybe she was planning on doing that. Because although she had told him he was the only one with a heart, a few days later, she canceled their date. They started hanging out less and texting less too. Yesterday was their first date in a while and it was fun: dinner, drinks, and dancing. Jey was going to go home after, but she asked him to stay. She said she had missed him and apologized for being distant. And then one thing led to another.

Jey threw the rest of his clothes on. He quickly brushed his teeth with the spare toothbrush she had given him yesterday. He had gotten his gym bag out of the car yesterday when she asked him to stay so his date night clothes were already packed up. Maybe he was overreacting, but he couldn’t be there any more. He didn’t want to talk about Matt and whatever feelings she had for him. He only cared about how she felt about him, but he feared that didn’t matter any more. And it was too early to feel such complicated feelings. He looked at her one more time, sleeping soundly. He could wake up to that face forever, but Jey accepted that this would be the last time. And he left.

He went to Waffle House since that’s where they were planning on going. He sat in the back and pretended to look at the menu like he didn’t know what he wanted to get. He tried not to think about her, but she had been on his mind for over a year, even before they started talking. Getting Rhea off his mind wasn’t going to be easy. He figured she’d be getting up now and if he was there with her, she’d pulled him into the shower with her. And they’d take forever to get ready since they’d be fooling around the whole time. The last of the breakfast crowd would be filing out by the time they’d finally get to Waffle House.

Jey half smiled and shook his head. The waitress came and took his order: two hashbrowns scattered and covered, three scrambled eggs with cheese, two chocolate chip waffles, and a lemonade. She refilled his water glass before dropping his order off.

His phone buzzed. It was a text from Rhea.

Rhea: Where are you? Is breakfast off?

Jey didn’t respond. He didn’t want to get wrapped up in her again if this was the end. And if it wasn't the end because of someone else, it would probably be the end because he pissed her off.

Jey thought about their first date. He was so nervous. They had gone axe throwing. They agreed to meet there. When he saw her come in, he realized she was nervous too. But it didn’t take long for them to relax and have fun. He got it before she did so he helped her.

“Let me show you my technique,” Jey said.

Rhea laughed. “Oh you have a special technique now? Show me please.”

“You gotta let it go before you think you need to,” Jey said, smiling.

He stood behind her and put his arms around her, his hands on her hands holding the axe.

“I feel like this is an excuse to get close to me,” Rhea said.

“I’m trying to make sure you don't accidentally hit anyone with these wild throws you’re doing.”

“Oh this is for public safety?” Rhea asked, not being able to keep in her giggles.

“Exactly. Stay focused,” Jey said, chuckling.

As much shit as Rhea wanted to talk, she did land the next throw and the ones after that.

She called as the waitress brought the lemonade. He listened to the voicemail.

“Jey, what’s going on? Are you alright? Did something happen? Can you call or text me please? I’m starting to worry.”

Well he didn’t want her to worry.

Jey: I’m good.

Rhea: Gee thanks. That’s it? You’re usually not the have sex and vanish guy…Do I have to worry about that now?

Jey shook his head, but couldn’t bring himself to text that she didn’t have to worry about him at all.

A few minutes passed and Rhea sent a text with question marks: ???

Jey didn’t respond. He had to start the separation process. Rhea would be okay. She had Matt Black Heart Emoji to keep her company.

As the waitress brought out his food, Rhea walked in. Jey tried to not to look at her, but their eyes locked. A confused and hurt look crossed Rhea’s face as she approached him. She sat down in his booth.

“Oh can I get you something?” The waitress asked.

“Can I get a coffee please? Black?” Rhea asked.

“Coming right up,” the waitress replied.

“Thank you,” Rhea said.

Jey quickly stuffed hashbrowns in his mouth. Rhea rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

“Jey, you’re acting weird. What’s going on?”

Jey pointed to his mouth.

“Yeah, I know you just shoved food in your mouth so you don’t have to talk to me. We had fun yesterday I thought? Are we okay?”

Jey swallowed and sipped his lemonade. So this conversation was gonna happen. Got it.

“Who’s Matt?” Jey asked.

Rhea’s face softened slightly, but her arms were still firmly crossed. “I started talking to Matt a few weeks ago. I’m getting to know him.”

“The same time you started being distant,” Jey said.

Rhea dropped her arms and sighed. “Jey…”

“You think I’m stupid, Rhea?” Jey asked, anger bubbling up.

“No,” she snapped.

“You think I wouldn’t figure out there was someone else?” Jey asked.

He ate some more hashbrowns and started cutting into his waffles.

“It’s not like that, Jey,” Rhea said.

“Really?”

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it. We had this conversation. I just got out of a relationship. I’m not jumping into a new one. If I meet people I like, I’m going to talk to them,” she said. “And you said okay, remember?”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

The waitress, wide-eyed, gently put the coffee cup in front of Rhea and scattered.

Rhea’s eyes quickly widened with shock before anger settled on her face.

“No. I’m only sleeping with you,” Rhea said, words dripping with disdain.

She sipped her coffee and Jey sighed.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Rhea drank her coffee, cutting her eyes at him every so often. Jey focused on his food, ignoring the pangs he felt when she had her eyes on him.

“So you like Matt?” Jey said.

“Yes. And you what? Saw his name in my phone and got upset? That’s why you left?”

“You’re not ready for a relationship, but I can’t share you,” Jey said, looking at her.

Rhea’s breath caught and she sat back in the booth. They stared at each other.

“I don’t mean to make it seem like I’m playing games because I’m not,” Jey said. “I know how I feel about you. And it’s not casual. And I wanted some space because if you like someone else, if you wanna explore shit with him, I need to process that.”

Rhea looked down at the table. The waitress came back.

“Did you want to order anything, hon?” she asked.

“Can I get some chocolate chip waffles to go?” Rhea asked. “Two please.”

“Right away,” the waitress said. She walked away.

Rhea looked at Jey. Their eyes met as he finished the last of his eggs.

“You didn’t tell me how you were feeling,” Rhea said quietly.

“It didn’t hit me until this morning,” Jey said. “You’ve been distant, remember? And then I saw Matt with a black heart next to his name and I figured it didn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Rhea said. “I care about you, Jey. Our time together means a lot to me. You’ve helped me through so much.”

“But Matt’s not nobody, huh?”

Rhea sighed. “I’m sorry. He’s not nobody.”

Jey nodded slowly. He felt tears burn his eyes, but he blinked them away.

Silence settled between them a little more comfortably this time.

“So why did you sleep with me yesterday?” he asked.

Rhea sighed and covered her face. She looked at him. “I missed you. You’re special, Jey. I don’t know what it is about you. But I needed to see you yesterday. Like I needed this breakfast with you.” She reached her hand out to him.

“I missed you too,” Jey said, taking her hand in his.

“The problem is you’re not nobody either,” Rhea said.

“You can’t have us both,” Jey said.

“I’m not ready to choose,” Rhea said, squeezing his hand.

Jey let go of her hand. “Not choosing is choosing though.”

Rhea’s eyes watered, her empty hand lingered on the table. Jey looked away.

“It’s okay, Rhea,” Jey said. He sighed and looked at her. “I want you to be happy. You deserve happiness, especially after last year. If talking to Matt makes you happy, do it. We’ll always be friends.”

The waitress dropped off Rhea’s waffles and two checks. She collected Jey’s empty plates and asked if he wanted another lemonade. He shook his head. She left.

Jey grabbed both checks and pulled out his card.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rhea said. “I can pay for mine.”

“It’s okay. I got it. Next time, it can be your treat,” Jey said, a soft smile on his face.

“Next time?” Rhea asked, locking eyes with him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let me know if it’s a friend date or not.”

Rhea smiled. “Okay.”

The waitress took his card and came back. He left a big tip for her.

“You ready to go?” Jey asked. “You must be starving.”

“Yeah I am starving,” Rhea replied, standing up. “You gonna walk me out?”

“Yeah,” Jey said.

Once outside, Rhea leaned against her driver door and looked at Jey. Jey slipped his hands in his pockets, looking her up and down.

“I was dreaming about you,” Rhea said. “And before I opened my eyes I was like wait he’s actually here and I was so happy. And then I look and you’re gone. And then you’re not texting me back. And I didn’t just know something was off. I felt things were off. And it still feels off and I hate that. And I’m gonna get in my car and go home and miss you. I will miss you all day today. But I know it doesn’t matter. Because there’s someone else. But I worry that I won’t be able to let you go either.”

Jey leaned into her. He heard her breath catch and he smiled. “If you can’t stop thinking about me even when you’re with him, you come back to me,” he whispered in her ear. “But I won’t wait forever.”

He leaned away and she nodded, her face flushed.

He grabbed her chin. “No. Use your words.”

He was certain flashbacks of last night were on both of their minds then.

“I-I’ll come back to you,” Rhea whispered.

He smirked and let go of her chin. Rhea bit her lip.

“Bye Rhea,” he said, heading toward his car.

“Bye Jey,” Rhea said breathlessly.

He watched her get in her car and drive away before sitting in his driver seat. Jey sighed, clicking on the dating app he had downloaded last week. He still needed to set up the profile. He figured he would get started on that today. He started his car and drove home.

Alternate endings coming tomorrow (1/11)!

#Spotify #jey uso #rhea ripley #jhea #wwe #wwe fanfiction #jhea fanfiction #jey uso x rhea ripley #jey uso fluff #cw suggestive #cw mentions sex #rhea ripley fluff #fluff #jey uso fic #no fooling me

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gosecretscribbles · 1 day ago

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Stanuary 2025 Week 2: Wanted

Ford tries to get juice for Stanley, who is still recovering from heatstroke. He's got no money and no way to get it, though, so he resorts to stealing.

Slight trigger warning for nongraphic attacks on Ford for his six fingers. In one scene, someone throws things at him and he gets hit in the head. Injuries are minor and nongraphic, generally on par with canon violence.

AO3 link

Stan had a massive headache the rest of the day and into the next. And he kept shivering. That made Ford nervous. Shouldn’t he have stopped by now?"

“’M not sh-shivering,” Stan grumbled into his pillow. “G’roff.”

“You’re all gross,” Ford said, hand pressed against his twin’s forehead. “And you’re sweating again.”

Stan turned enough to open one eye. “Juice?” he asked hopefully.

“Of course! Hydration! Be right back!”

He ran downstairs. He’d given Stan the rest of the rather questionable orange juice last night. But maybe he’d missed something? He combed through the refrigerator. There was a head of lettuce slowly turning to soup at the back, but that was it.

Wait – vegetables! That was basically the same as fruit, right? So if he got some canned vegetable broth that was practically the same thing! Ford went to the pantry, grabbed a can, and cracked it open. He poured it into a cup and sniffed it.

“Hmm…it’s still missing something. Oh, I got it! Juice is sweet!”

He had to climb up on the counter to reach it, but he got into the baking cupboard. He wasn’t sure how much sugar would dissolve in a cup of broth, but Stan had a pretty big sweet tooth. So maybe two or three tablespoons? Heating the broth would increase solubility, but hot juice sounded gross and that’s what he was trying to make. So he added the sugar cold. He stirred it a lot to help dissolve it and then hurried back to their room. He poked the back of Stan’s head a few times.

“Ow – cut it – out!”

“Juice!” Ford said proudly, holding out the cup.

Stan felt for it with his eyes closed and Ford put it in his hand. Stan gulped down at least half of it before he spat it out, coughing. He dropped the cup and leaped back to avoid the splatter on the floor.

“Hey!” he yelped.

“Guh! Ugh, what is that?! Are you actually trying to kill me?”

“It’s just vegetable juice! I added sugar and everything!”

Stan groaned and flopped back onto his pillow. “Zombie juice. You made zombie juice. I’m a zombie now.”

“Quit being dramatic,” Sixer said, halfway between upset and annoyed. Fruits and veggies were in the same food group! So vegetable juice was the same thing! Except it had smelled weird. And Stan really was sweating a lot. “Can’t you just drink water?”

Stan mumbled into his pillow.

“Okay, okay! I’ll – I’ll go get juice, okay? Don’t die or I’m stealing all your toffee peanuts.”

Stan didn’t even move. Which was fine! He was asleep and definitely not dead or a zombie. Ford pushed at the pillow to check, and when he wasn’t sure, he held his glasses in front of Stan’s face. They fogged up. So there! Alive! Sort of! Did zombies breathe? They had to exhale to make noises, so they had to breathe, which meant Stan could maybe technically be turning into a zombie.

Juice. He just needed some juice and they’d be fine!

Except that Ma was out on the boardwalk doing her fortune telling, and Pa was guarding the register. Ford checked all the usual spots for loose change – Ma’s makeup drawer, the couch cushions, the key dish. Three cents and a claw from Shanklin. (Was he fighting the trash mutant rats again?) School was over for the day, and anyway they only got juice on Fridays. He couldn’t run to school and beg for an extra carton.

Ford paced the kitchen, thinking hard. He couldn’t buy juice. He couldn’t beg for it. It wasn’t something he could borrow. All their neighbors hated them too much for him to ask.

Should he…steal it?

The thought was terrifying. Stan stole stuff all the time, but he was Stan. Ford was Ford. He was already a freak and that got him in trouble enough. That time with the pitchforks, or the astrologer, or the tourist… He didn’t do anything and people hated him. How much worse would it be if he really did do something wrong?

But Stan was practically dead on the beach yesterday! He could be turning into a zombie right now!

He took a shaky breath. Fine. One! He’d steal one bottle of juice. That was it. He’d wear his aviator jacket and hide it underneath. Stan stole all the time! How hard could it be?

Pretty hard, as it turned out. He tried the general store two blocks away, but he’d barely stepped inside before the cashier made him and chased him out with a broom. He thought maybe it was because he looked like Stanley. So the next store he tried, he gave the clerk a friendly wave with all six fingers.

That…hadn’t ended well.

He hid his hands at the next place. He was a good two miles from home, almost at the library, and the store he picked was pretty big. He wasn’t sure if he should just walk in or sneak over to the juices, but the cashier started following him, and the cashier was big.

Ford tried to steal anyway but his shaking hands dropped the bottle as soon as he’d picked it up. The cashier chased him out, this time shouting “YOU HIDING A THIRTEENTH FINGER, FREAK? YOU FREAK! JINX! WEIRDO!”

Ford stopped around the corner and dry-heaved into a dumpster. He’d been gone for at least an hour. His legs were shaking and his hands were clammy. His stomach hurt. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t steal and he couldn’t save Stan and his brother was going to turn into a zombie. Zombies were cool, but not if it was Stan.

He wiped at his nose and started dragging his feet back home. His jacket was so hot. Maybe he’d get heat stroke too, and he’d make more zombie juice. Then at least he and Stan could be zombies together.

He took a different street back, and this time he saw a small shop he’d missed before. Hardly a surprise. The building was practically a shack, and the bin of lemons out front was half-swarmed with flies. Ford almost kept going. Then, through the dirty window, he saw an icebox full of juice against one wall.

One more, he thought to himself. He squeezed both hands into fists and headed over. A broken bell made an abortive clink as he stepped inside.

“Back again?”

He looked up. A bored teenager leaned over the counter, chin in her hand, short hair curling around her ears. It looked like she’d been doodling on her arm in black pen. She looked kind of like a pirate queen that way. She just needed the hat and bandana.

But what did she mean, ‘back?’ It was his first time in here. “I didn’t –”

“Murphy put your picture on the wall.”

She pointed. To the left of the door was a board so covered in layers of flyers and notices, so thick that the stratification had to be decades old. Ford was pretty sure he saw a clipping in the corner about the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Featuring most prominently were several copies of hand-written wanted posters, his brother’s face drawn at the top.

“That’s not me,” Ford said, spreading his hands. “See?”

She glanced over and looked mildly interested. “Huh. You a thief, too?”

“Um – I’m not Stan.”

“Not what I asked.”

This conversation was not going as expected. Everyone else had looked at his hands and booted him, loot and all. He hadn’t thought of a back up lie. What had been his plan that morning, again? Stuff it in his jacket when the cashier wasn’t looking? But she was really looking at him now. He’d showed her his hands and everything.

What do I do? What would Stan do?!

She saw him panicking and smirked. “Jacket,” she said, pointing to it. “On a summer day? Might as well strap a billboard on your forehead, dweeb. Get lost.”

“I’m not…Stan’s the…”

“And you’re not?” she retorted. “A freak can still be a thief. You can be two things at once. In case certain people hadn’t noticed.” She shot an annoyed glance over her shoulder. There was a doorway with an ‘Employees Only’ sign next to it.

“Are you two things at once?” he asked, curious. His eyes lit up. “Oh, wait, are you a supernatural creature in human disguise? Are you a changeling? Are you a selkie?!”

“Weirdo.” The word didn’t hurt the way she said it. She almost sounded impressed. “You’re the knucklehead’s twin, yeah? Why’re you stealing stuff?”

“He got heatstroke. I wanted juice. And I’m not stealing!”

“Yet,” she said, just as flat as before. But this time her eyes looked like Ma’s when she was about to pull a fast one. “Just juice, huh?”

That sounded like an offer. “…Aspirin?” he tried.

“Over there. Be quick.”

He hurried. Acetylsalicylic acid was good. Or should he get acetaminophen? Both? Ibuprofen? That one needed food with it, though, and Stan hadn’t wanted anything to eat. Acetaminophen didn’t require any food. That one, then. He grabbed the smallest bottle, put the others back, and –

“What’s he doing here?”

A heavyset man stepped out of the back room. There was a scarred gash across his chin and his forearms bulged with corded muscle. Ford opened his mouth and almost said something until he caught the stone-cold look in the man’s eyes. He backed up so fast he tripped. The three medicines went flying from his hands. The man shifted, stepping around the counter, and Ford scrambled back. The man’s hands curled into fists. His eyes flashed just like Pa’s glasses.

“You squirming piece of vermin –”

“HEY!”

The girl jumped up like she’d just noticed what was happening. She pole-vaulted over the counter, skirt and all, and began pulling the nearest merchandise out of the icebox. “You – little – sneak!” she shrieked, hurling products at him. Some of it hit Ford’s face and he yelped. He tried to get up, run, and block his glasses all at the same time.

“That’s right!” she shouted. “Get out, Stan! GET! OUT!”

He got. And he was nearly at the door before he realized what she was throwing. He doubled back to scoop up two bottles of juice. Another one bounced hard off his forehead. He grabbed it on the rebound and shot for the door. The man sounded like he’d figured out something wasn’t right. He heard shouting, and there was a whooshing in Ford’s ears like the man had made a grab for him. But he was already out the door and down the street. His heart pounded in his ears and he didn’t dare look back.

He ran until he was a block from home. He walked the rest of the way. There was a nasty stitch in both lungs, but he didn’t care. He did it! He had juice!

When he got home, he let himself in and hurried up the stairs. “Stan! Stanley! I got it!”

Stan was in the exact same position Ford had left him in. Ford checked that he was breathing it his glasses. Foggy, good. “Hurry up, Stan! You gotta drink it so you won’t become a zombie!”

Stan blinked up at him. “…Huh?”

“Juice.” He smooshed the bottle against Stan’s mouth. Stan gave a weird grunt-shriek and shoved him. Ford batted him back with his other hand. “What are these, limp noodles? You’re zombifying already! Hurry!”

“Okay, geez.” Stan took the juice and squinted. Apple juice. Stan made a face and pulled the cap off. He drank. And kept drinking until he’d finished it. He exhaled sharply, looking more awake.

Ford cheered. “It worked! You’re not a zombie!”

Stan scoffed and flopped back down. “’Course I’m not. Did Crampy beat you up again or something? You got a big ol’ bruise.”

“Nope,” Ford said proudly. “I stole it.”

Stan’s eyes went wide. “No. No way! Really?!”

Ford grinned and wagged the bottle. “You may have ten sticky fingers, but I’ve got twelve! Also the cashier helped, a little. She knew I was stealing but left me alone until a guy came out the back. I hadn’t even grabbed the juice yet. I got some of what she threw. She had a wicked arm, Stan, you shoulda seen it!”

“Rusty’s Local?” Stan asked, and smirked when Ford nodded. “Yeah. She’s a weirdo. Gonna play sports.”

“She’d win. How much have you stolen there, exactly? You had a wanted poster!”

Stan gasped so hard he choked on the juice. “W-wanted? I gotta see it.”

He tried to get up, but his legs were as weak as his arms. Ford hauled him back to bed, lest he once again become a zombie. Stan resorted to begging Ford for a replica. “Please? Pretty please? C’moooon, I bet you can draw it waaaay better!”

“I could, actually,” Ford mused. “Okay, hold still. I’ll get some paper.”

It took about five minutes and another jar of juice. Stan finished it much more slowly this time, in between suggestions about embellishments. Ford ignored most of them, but agreed to adding a mustache and a pirate hat. He remembered everything under the picture, too. He completed the poster just as he was done with his juice.

“Tada!” he said, and turned it around.

Stan leaned forward slowly. Ford put out a hand in case Stan was actually falling over. Stan leaned against it a little too heavily, but there were almost literally stars in his eyes.

“I’m wanted,” Stan whispered. “Ford, look! I’m wanted! People would pay money for me and everything, look!”

Ford rolled his eyes. “I know, dumb-dumb, I drew it myself.”

“I’m putting it up on our wall!”

They put it up with a few bits of tape and a used wad of gum. Ford had to admit, it didn’t look half-bad next to his poster of The Lost World.

By now his forehead had gotten sore, and he was tired. It had been a really long day. They set the last bottle of juice on Stan’s nightstand. Then Ford crawled into bed. He wanted to stay awake, just in case Stan became a zombie after all. But he was tired from running and Stan wasn’t shivering anymore. He made a mental note to record Stan’s partial zombification, for science purposes. Then he closed his eyes and snuggled in for a nap.

week 1

#stan pines #stanley pines #stanford pines #ford pines #gravity falls #stanuary 2025 #stanuary #week 2 #wanted #week 2 wanted

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hunterofartemis7 · 1 day ago

Text

Calypso sat sadly on the beach of her island. She missed her “lover” Odysseus. Why did the gods have to take him away!?

“Calypos..”

Calypso turned to the voice behind. She was rather surprised to see a scarred goddess of wisdom standing behind her. Her surprise quickly turned to annoyance. “Go away, Athena.” Calypso told her, turning back to face the ocean.

“No,” Athena says, “we need to talk.”

“Well I don’t want to talk to you so go away!” Calypso yells at her. Athena didn’t listen and walked up, taking a seat on the sand beside her. Calypos pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. “Are you happy now?”

The sudden question kinda caught Athena off guard, “pardon?”

“Odysseus went back to his “wife” and never has to see me again. In the 7 years he was on my island he never called for me, but the second he got the chance he calls for you! He called for you and the next day Hermes tells me I have to let the love of my life go so I ask again, are you happy now!?” Calypso yelled at Athena, tears starting to flow down her face.

Athena doesn’t say anything, just looks at the crying goddess with pity. Calypso turned away from her, wiping the tears off her face.

“I am, but not the reason you think.”

Calypso looked back at Athena, who was watching the waves come up to the shore. “What?” She asked.

Athena answered again. “You asked if I was happy now, I am, but not because he’s off and you’re alone.”

Calypso was confused, but mostly still upset. “I don’t understand.”

“Odysseus is back where he needs to be, with the people who really loved him—“

“I DID LOVE HIM!!” Calypso cut her off, getting up and yelling in Athena’s face. Though she was unfazed. “You loved not being alone anymore. You loved the idea of finally having someone here all to yourself and didn’t think about how he might feel.”

“Shut up..!”

“Calypso I don’t doubt that you loved him, but not the way you really think you did—“

“I SAID SHUT UP!!” Calypso yelled furiously, using her magic to entangle Athena in thorny veins. “YOU DONT KNOW WHAT LOVE IS!! YOU NEVER FELT IT!! I DID!!”

Athena was unfazed by this, she knew calypso probably did love him and wanted him, but it was more she didn’t want to be alone anymore. “You’re right, I’ve never experienced romantic love, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it between Odysseus and Penelope and that wasn’t what you and Odysseus had.” Athena snapped and the vines disappeared around her. She brushes the sand off her clothes completely unbothered by Calypos attempted to intimidate her.

“Why are you doing this!? Why are you telling me any of this!?” Calypso yelled again.

“Because I want to help actually learn how to have a real connection with someone and not a forced one.”

Calypso was ready to strangle Athena, or throw her off her island but her last comment made her curious. “…why?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you want to help me so bad? I figured you of all people would hate me.”

“Because I’m trying to make the world a kinder place, what’s a better place to start than here?” Athena answered. “Plus…I was willing to give up everything to help Odysseus, who’s to say i can’t help you too.”

Calypso just stared at her before walking up to the goddess. Athena was bracing herself, thinking Calypso was going to punch her or something, but she didn’t. Well, she was going to, but stoped last minute and started crying, hugging Athena and burying her head into her chest. Athena was a bit taken aback by this, though wasn’t entirely surprised and just hugged the poor goddess, stroking her hair and letting her cry.

“I…I hate being alone..!” Calypso sobbed.

“I know” Athena coed, “I know.”

After calming down, calypso agreed to let Athena teach her about actual having an emotional connection with someone and how not to force anyone to do things they don’t want to. They had to get Hermes involved cause while Athena was getting better at her own emotional connection, there were some aspects she still needed work on. Athena considered introducing Telemachus and Calypso, or having Calypso apologize to Odysseus, but figured it was better to keep everyone apart.

Someone better at character writing than me please write a fic about Athena going to ogygia post Epic to rehabilitate calypso and teach her how to make actual genuine connections for once (she’s gonna be to calypso who Telemachus was to her) (spreading her new warrior of the mind agenda of making the world a kinder place)

#athena #athena epic #odysseus #epic the musical #greek mythology #athena goddess of wisdom #adopted heros au #epic odysseus #calypso #epic calypso #hermes

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goldsbitch · 13 hours ago

Text

Twelve grapes

chapter 3 - Obsessed with me "Let me get this straight. You want me to throw a party for your Ferrari seat that nobody’s supposed to know about, but definitely everyone knows about, and now it’s going to be on a yacht you don’t even have yet?"

This is not how Charles imagined this conversation.

„Pierre, you're not being a supportive friend with these useless comments," he says, opting for emotional blackmail.

warning: unhinged reasoning, endless pining, 7k words

For a moment, Charles is everywhere - and then, faster than a blink of an eye - he is nowhere.

He doesn't give Max enough time to adjust, react or even comprehend what just happened. Has him standing there, frozen and...confused?

There is panic in his chest and when that happens, he wants to talk. So used to addressing complicated situations verbally. The art of feedback and analyses burned into him since the early age. It helps him process things.

He can't speak to Charles right now. A - he is on a plane. B - he is the one person he wants to talk about.

Images flash in front of his eyes like a film on fast-forward. Glimpses of the intruder that Charles inevitably was. At his motorhome, his childhood cottage and with his hand on the back of Max's head. Lips melting into lips.

Autopilot in his head worked and he's now parked in front of his hotel, without having any memory of driving there.

Deep breath in, and out. He pops his knuckles and turns the damn radio off.

And then he whips his phone out and calls the one person he feels like he might speak to.

The phone rings one, two, three, seven thousand times. Just as he considers hanging up, Daniel’s voice pulls through, bright and ready.

"Maxie! What’s this? A late-night call? I gotta tell you - I’m already back from the bar, if you finally decided to show up. And I’m not alone, if you know what I mean.“

Max groans, leaning back against the headrest of his seat. "You’re an idiot."

"True," Daniel replies easily. "But you still called me. What’s up? Couldn’t resist the charm, huh?"

Max hesitates, his free hand gripping the steering wheel even though the car isn’t moving. He tries avoiding looking into the mirror.

"Just…,“ The words are there, tangled in his throat, but none of them feel right. "Wanted to check in," Max says finally, cringing at how pathetic he feels right now.

There’s a moment of silence, unusual for Daniel, before he speaks again, his tone softer but still laced with curiosity. "Check in? Mate, you’re not exactly the type to call for a chat. Is everything all right?"

Max is debates turning the car on and crashing into a wall. "No. Nothing happened. Just... a long day." He decides that a hospital visit ins’t something he needs to add to this day. He is already barely breathing.

Daniel hums, and Max hopes he manages to pick up a more convincing tone for the rest of the call. "A long day? Or a long day?"

"What does that even mean?" Max snaps, his voice edgier than intended.

"It means," Daniel prolongs his vowels, "that you sound weird. Like, you’re sick of something.“

Max presses his lips together, his jaw clenching. Daniel has this talent of getting under people’s skin, which many people find annoying. Max is usually on the sideline, laughing. Not today.

"Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone who’s not a complete idiot," Max retorts, his tone too defensive.

"Ah, so you called the next-best thing, nice" Daniel shoots back, his laugh making it clear, that he is unaffected by the awkwardness max must radiate. "Come on, Max. Spill it. You sound... I don’t know, off."

Max opens his mouth to respond, but freezes. His mind flashes back to the kiss—Charles’s hand on the back of his neck, the press of his lips, the way he ran like he was being chased.

"I kissed someone," Max blurts out.

The line goes dead silent for a second, and Max can practically see Daniel’s eyes widening.

„Niiice,“ Daniel says finally, his voice tinged with approval. "You? Kissed someone? Like, willingly? Without a contract forcing you to?"

"Shut up," Max mutters, running a hand through his hair.

"Okay, okay," Daniel says quickly, "Details. Who was it? When? And do I need to send flowers or an apology note?"

Max hesitates, the words hovering on the tip of his tongue. He could tell Daniel. He should tell Daniel. He needs to share with someone. But something inside him stops him cold.

"No one important," Max whispers, his voice raspy. "Just... a stupid mistake."

"Max... you don’t sound like you think it was a mistake." Daniel speaks like he knows something that Max doesn’t and it’s pissing him off royally.

"Forget it," he says and decides that this time, talking to other people won't solve his problems.

"Noo, come on. Tell me who it is. Someone I know?!" Max panics even more, realizing that even though he wasn't the brightest, the last person Daniel saw him, with was Charles. And out of nowhere, the thought of Daniel figuring it all out freaks him out.

"I’m hanging up now," Max says definitively, his thumb already moving toward the red button.

"Max, wait-"

The call ends, the screen going dark, and Max sits in the silence of his car, his heart pounding. He tosses the phone onto the passenger seat and leans back, staring at the ceiling.

Charles’s face flashes in his mind again—his lips, his hand, the way he looked before he ran.

Max exhales sharply, running a hand over his face.

"Idiot," he mutters, though he’s not sure who he’s talking about anymore - Charles, Daniel, or himself.

And then - he puts a crown onto his own inexplicable recklessness of this day. He's been acting like a lunatic the whole day, why stop now. He reaches back for his phone and types quickly, before left side of his brain realizes what the right side is doing. Send.

Have a safe flight.

Charles never replies (no matter how much and how often Max stares at his phone) and ultimate, Max blames the Swiss mountains, where the Sauber HQ lies for the obvious lack of cell phone service.

Daniel teases him endlessly when they're alone, so he makes sure that there is someone from his side of the garage following him at all times. Be it an engineer, his trainer, the PR coordinator, an intern, a reporter or even the fucking cleaner - just so that he does not have to be reminded of his slip up. He also makes sure that he picks the people who like to talk. Preferably about anything not involving the Sauber team, their drivers and kissing. No order of preference.

It is Monza next, or as Max likes to refer to it - the headache race. Tifosi everywhere, even at places one would think is not suitable for humans. He is surprised no one has jumped at him yet from the toilets.

And this year, it really delivers in it's name. People racing around him making stupid mistakes and inevitably costing him a podium. He is mad, furious in fact. But if he were to pick one podium to have snatched from his hands, it would the god-forsaken Monza.

Now, however impatient and hot-headed Max is on track, it is something completely different outside the car. He is used to playing the long game - think of a goal, set it and follow methodical steps until he reaches it. This is what he did with Daniel - these past few months, he got real fed up of seeing everyone having all these friendships. He figured it was finally time to crack that can of worms. It wasn't his first choice, he had several people "in development", but the loud Australian is the one that actually worked. And now - there was a different kind of problem that required some long term plan.

The Charles element of this all is on his mind almost nonstop. The list of questions, one tripping over another, yet if he were to somehow say all of them, it would always come out as the same, one sentence.

Charles, do you regret it?

Max Verstappen was not a man prone to introspection. His world was one of facts, numbers, and actions—things he could control. But Charles Leclerc had thrown a wrench into that system, and now Max was stuck trying to decipher emotions he’d spent years ignoring. Not only he has to focus on racing, get into the car every weekend for these next three weeks, he now has to take into account that anytime he merely thinks of Charles, he freezes, mumbles and his brain switches off. Off all the things he should be worried about - like for example, does the fact he has to control himself, in order to not think about the kiss mean he is gay? His head spins when he thinks about that. So, he decides not to even open that question. He will figure that out once he finds out how Charles feels. No need to be going on a self-discovery journey, that might shift his world upside down and create more harm than good, if Charles considers this a mistake.

Now, it was starting to become painfully obvious that his brain is set on clearing that out. He could do that. Of course. If this also wasn't combined with the absolute fear and embarrasment he felt at the thought of talking about this with anyone, especially Charles. No, Max is not going to initiate this conversation. This is just how he's going to be for the rest of his life.

Max doesn’t have to look for Charles at Monza. His move to Ferrari, not yet announced, but heavily rumored, makes him the topic number one, almost outshining the actual current drivers in the scarlet team. The reporters are on a hunt, people talk and heads turn whenever he walks by. And he, the man who was kissing him just few days ago, has to catch glimpses over the crowds. There is a part of Max that is waiting for Charles to make the first move. After all - he is the one who did not respond to his text. It is only when Max catches sight of him during the driver parade, that Charles, all sharp smiles and practiced nods, actually looks at him. They stand so far apart that talking is not on the table. But, there is a moment - Max thinks it's about five seconds - when Charles's eyes practically bore into his own. And it's like anything that happened since the kiss was a mere, pointless dream. Max is coming to terms with the fact he is feeling things (not ready to analyse which things).

He spends his evenings locked in his room. The risk of running into Charles unaccompanied is low, but not minimal. Max is hiding from the one person that hold the key to the madness happening on the inside. He is not ready, but also wonders if one ever is.

It's like people forgot there are other topics than Charles moving to Ferrari. Not only does Max have to listen to his own PR manager feeding him lines to deflect reporters from the questions, the frenzy has infected the other drivers as well.

Max wonders how and why he finds himself, standing next to Pierre Gasly, who is blocking his exit and borderline interrogating him.

“Why would Charles tell me anything?”

Pierre leans in, little devils dancing in his eyes. “Because you’re Max Verstappen. He’d probably think you already know. You’ve got, like, Red Bull spies or something.”

“Spies,” Max repeats flatly and debates internally whether crawling away from this is socially acceptable. “I don’t know anything about Ferrari.”

“You don’t?” Pierre narrows his eyes like he doesn’t believe him. “Come on. You guys were talking after Belgium, weren’t you?”

Max's stomach flips three times. Talking, joking, kissing, smashing cars. Then he ran away from me, because I am disgusting.

"Aren't you suppose to be best friends or something? Why would you think that I know if you don't know?" he opts for the reverse-attack strategy. It is, however, a question he keeps wondering himself. One would expect someone like Pierre to have that information, especially if Max already knows. His face goes blank—the Verstappen Default Setting for don’t ask me anything else.

"You know how he is," Pierre waltzes around it and Max is running out of ideas.

No, I apparently don't know how he is.

Pierre is good at reading the room and doubles down a bit. "Look, just tell me what you talked about and I'm off."

Max's first instinct is to say something along the lines "Go, ask him yourself," but he doesn't, because Pierre and Charles talking together about him might just about be the worst outcome of this all.

“We were talking,” Max says, picking his words carefully, “about... tires.”

“Tires,” Pierre deadpans.

“Yes. Tire degradation. Very important topic.” Max crosses his arms, hoping he looks convincing. “You know, something that involves actual racing and not rumor hunting.”

Pierre studies him for a moment, then raises an eyebrow. “So, let me get this straight. You and Charles Leclerc, standing alone after Belgium, decided to have a heart-to-heart about... tire degradation?”

“Yes.” Max nods. “It’s a very pressing issue.”

Pierre snorts. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Max rolls his eyes. “I’m not lying. I don’t care where Charles ends up next season. Why would I?”

Pierre's eyes light up as he looks somewhere behind Max's head. There is a glimmer of hope in Max, the potential end of this interaction. One that dies very quickly.

“Charles!” Pierre calls cheerfully, waving him over.

Charles walks up to them, not really having any other choice if he wants to get to the other side of the paddock. Max does not look at him. He is busy trying to keep his expression politely neutral and it's proving to be a tortuous task.

"Pierre. Max," Charles acknowledges and it feels weird to hear his own name rolling of Charles's tongue. Nobody says it in this specific accent.

Max gives a small nod, feeling like he’s caught in a trap. He wonders how long people usually look at each other, as if he lost the ability to function in a society. He makes all the effort not to glance at Charles. Like he's not even here. Then he panics, because that might just be the most suspicious way to go about this. So he turns his eyes towards Charles, without moving his head too much. He figures that is a good compromise. His mouth turns into a smile, but he can't escape the notion his eyes are giving it all away.

“Just talking about you,” Pierre says casually. Max wants to die.

Charles’s eyebrows shoot up, his gaze flicking to Max. “Oh?”

Panic, pure undiluted panic floats over every part of him. Max glares at Pierre, silently willing him to stop. Damage control, now. No, no, no, not talking like that! Oh, my God, now he's going to assume I'm so desperate that I go and talk to his best friend about it. “We weren’t—”

Pierre cuts him off. “Max was just saying how much he loves racing against you. Right, Max?”

Max’s jaw clenches and the smile he gives is one of his fakest, reserved for the truly, most awfully annoying PR activities. “Right. Love it.”

Pierre continues glaring at Charles, suddenly not interested in the Dutch driver at all, puts his arm around him and drills him over the Ferrari rumors as they slowly walk away.

Max has to try really hard to remember where he was going. Hell, probably.

The post race media pen is its usual chaotic mess, with microphones shoved in faces and reporters almost fighting for space. Max finishes his last interview, giving the practiced nods and all the right answers. He’s just about to leave when he sees him.

Perfection incarnated, as always. His jaw is set, his walk determined and measured. He's ready to hand out smiles, like he owns it to God for making him this handsome. The paddock bends over to get a moment of his attention.

It’s not deliberate - Charles isn’t walking toward him; he’s just there, and Max freezes at the sight of him.

Their eyes meet briefly, and Charles hesitates before changing course, heading straight for Max. It’s momentary, just a flicker, but something in Charles’s face shifts. Hesitates, but keeps walking.

Max is seriously considering bolting out. He hates how his pulse quickens, how the world feels suddenly too loud and too quiet at the same time.

But, he misses all the chances he has on a swift exit and the man of the hour is standing right in front of him. Second row away from the reporters. “Max,” Charles says quietly, his tone low enough to be buried under the surrounding noise. But Max hears it. Of course he hears it. Again, with the accent. Max is starting to hate it.

Max raises an eyebrow, and replied a little too sharply. He feels cornered. “Charles.”

A quick glance over to the reporters nearby let's Max know Charles is also hyper aware of how exposed they are. Somehow, he can't shake away the feeling this is intentional. “I need to...” His voice trails off, and he shifts his weight, the faintest hint of unease breaking through the polished exterior.

Max waits. But nothing comes. “You need to...?”

First response he gets is a loud sigh. Rude.

“About Belgium.” Charles shifts and pulls his cap further into his face, as if to hide. “I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have-”

Max stiffens, his stomach twisting. He doesn’t want to do this here - not with a dozen cameras pointed at them. Of course, Leclerc, the menace he is, chooses the one place where Max can't have the luxury of a proper reaction. It is infuriating. Hundreds of moments and Charles picks this one? It’s infuriating.

"It's nothing," he dismissed it and only when he overplays this conversation back in the safe space of his hotel room over and over again realizes just how badly it came out. What he meant to say was: It's nothing to worry about. Not it's nothing. Because it is anything but that.

The Sauber driver visibly gulps, his composure cracking. "I never wanted-" he starts, but it comes out too rushed, sour undertone lacing both words. Before he can continue he is pushed by his PR manager to the hoard of reporters. Max watches as Charles is swept away, his apology unfinished, his expression unreadable. But then - then - Charles turns back. Just for a moment. His eyes meet Max’s, and there’s something there, unspoken and lingering.

What. The. Fuck. If Charles was trying to make Max question his sanity, he was doing an excellent job. Between cryptic apologies and half-finished sentences, Max was starting to think he’d imagined the whole thing. Maybe Charles Leclerc is just another fever dream, a perfect proof that Max is riding a train to an asylum.

He knows better. He should let go of...whatever this it. It's exactly what all the stupid mental coaches blabbed about.

But the look in Charles’s eyes? That was real. And it’s going to drive Max insane. He should let go.

He does, in fact, not let go.

The evening is spent collecting extra steps into his daily count, despite how tired his legs feel after the race. Some clarity is gained at the end of the day - and it has nothing to do with anything Charles said or did. It is gained despite his lunatic actions and words. Max is proud of himself. He, unlike someone, is able to get his thoughts in a coherent line, before he bothers others by speaking. It's a new thing he's trying. Desperate times.

After a full analysis of his own mistakes - credit where credit is due - he shifts onto exploring what exactly bothers him most.

The fact that Charles ran. He was gone so quickly and didn't even bother to face what had happened.

It's different this time when he rewatches Charles's race. They could have as well raced on different days all together, both far apart on the track, no way of interacting in the way they know best. Outsmarting each other with late breaking and bordeline dive bombs. He's sitting on edge of the random hotel bed, in the same uncomfortable position he took in an hour ago.

Max presses play again, the race replay sparking to life on his laptop screen. His heart still beats too fast from his own disastrous race. An overtake attempt that turned into a near-miss, everyone blaming him for "forcing Bottas off the track" (total bullshit, of course) and mediocre points finish. His accidental radio show and poor performance, something Helmut will absolutely make him relive tomorrow.

But it’s not his mistakes he’s watching. It’s Charles.

Charles in his Sauber truck, threading the car through Monza like he owns the place, despite the car being no more than an underdog trying to keep up. Charles late-braking, like he’s piloting a Red Bull, not a machine held together by duct tape and prayer. Making moves that, objectively, have no business working but somehow do. To watch him finish just off the points makes him regret he didn't push Bottas further into an actual spin. He got the penalty anyway, so what.

Max rewinds the clip, watching the Sauber dart into a gap that doesn’t really exist, Charles perfectly timing the pass to avoid disaster. The commentators praise him, calling it brave, daring, genius. Max cracks his knuckles.

“Stupid,” he mutters under his breath. “That’s what it is. Stupid.”

Because it is stupid. It’s the kind of move Max would have made last year, the kind that gets you called reckless and wild and dangerous. The kind that gets you a lecture from your race engineer or worse, your dad.

Except Charles gets away with it. The golden boy he is. He doesn’t just get away with it—he gets praised for it. The commentators cheer, the fans love him for it, and Max can’t stop watching because... because he’s probably a bit stupid too.

Max fast-forwards. There was this one move that he can't stomach. He dives to the inside, the car twitching slightly but holding. Max watches, his heart pounding in time with the replay.

“Why there?” Max mutters, rewinding again. “Why not wait for the straight? DRS was right there.”

But he knows why. Because waiting is boring. Waiting is for people who don’t believe in their own instincts. And Charles? Charles believes. Even it end with him in the wall. Better there, than in a 17th place.

Max exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s not like he’s one to talk. His own race today was hardly a masterclass in patience. He’d thrown his car into gaps that barely existed, cursed out his engineer when things didn’t go his way, and barely kept his Red Bull from spinning into the gravel.

Maybe that’s what bothers him most. Seeing his own recklessness mirrored in Charles but wrapped in a smile that makes it look effortless. Max’s recklessness is raw, angry, a middle finger to anyone who doubts him. Charles’s recklessness is different. It’s calculated chaos. Beautiful in a way that Max hates himself for noticing.

Another rewind to avoid the boring laps. Charles overtakes two cars into Parabolica, threading the needle with infuriating precision. Max freezes the frame, staring at the screen.

“What are you trying to prove?” he whispers, though the question feels aimed at both of them. He certainly does not seem to be the type to run out of a fight.

His chest tightens as he remembers Belgium, Charles’s hand on the back of his neck, the kiss that came out of nowhere. The smell of damp air cut with Charles's cologne. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? The same recklessness, the same audacity to leap without looking. And then Charles ran, just like that. No explanation, no closure. Just gone. Max is sure he would never do that in racing. He is angry at him. Why does he use all of his bravery on track only. Charles kissed him. He kissed him back. And then, the ever so brave Charles ran away.

Max turns the thing off, the sudden silence in the room deafening. His heart races, the adrenaline from the replay mixing with something deeper, something he doesn’t want to name.

He tosses the laptop onto the bed, pacing the room like a caged animal. His thoughts are all over the place, colliding and crashing like cars at the first corner.

Max races like he has nothing to lose. Charles races like he has everything to prove. Maybe that’s why they’re drawn to each other, why the kiss feels less like a mistake and more like a fuse waiting to be lit.

Max stops pacing, staring at the blank laptop screen, his own reflection staring at him back in on the dark screen. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling. Frustration, longing, anger. Maybe all of it. All he knows is that Charles Leclerc is in his head, and he can’t get him out.

And maybe, Max thinks, he doesn’t want to.

It's the following morning, as all the teams depart for their next destination of this triple header, when he sees him again. Standing in the hotel lobby, waiting for a transfer and there is something about his smile making it seem like this man just won the lottery.

Max tries to go about his way. His excuse is that there is too many people auditioning to be nosy witnesses and he does not want to repeat the whole "Pierre Gasly Interrogation" again. But, as soon as Charles sees him, he rushes over to him, with a smile Max imagines is on his face when he completes one of his brilliant overtakes. It's hard not to smile back. His body is doing it on his own. Because there is so much lightness in Charles's face, childlike carelessness and brutal honesty. You can't fake a vibe like that, no matter how good of an actor you are.

Max nods to greet him, unsure what to say, all the words dying in his throat. He does not have to, Charles looks like he is going to explode if he does not talk soon.

As soon as he is next to him, closer than a stranger would be, his smile grows even wider, something Max found impossible. Is Charles so happy to see him? What happened to him overnight that changed his attitude so drastically? Max considers it to be a blessing to be on the receiving end of Charles's wide grin. He watches him take a deep breath in, like he is about to say something really big.

He leans in, faces almost touching and the hairs on the back of Max's neck stand up. He is pretty sure Charles must be able to hear his heartbeat. The cologne Charles uses must have been made with clear intent on getting Max drunk in broad daylight.

"I signed the Ferrari contract," he states quietly, so subtly Max has to pierce it together for few seconds.

Of course. That's the cause of the smile.

Charles leans back and searches eagerly for Max's reaction in his face. And when Charles Leclerc looks at you like that, there is no other option in life than to retaliate. They stare at each other for good few seconds. Max wants to reach over and hug him. Tell him he's proud of him and that he never doubted that. He wants him to hear that he is looking forward for Charles making his job harder. He wants to tell him that he is not at all surprised. That this might be the one good decision Ferrari has made in a while.

He tries to fit all of that in one muffled "Nice. Good job." It takes everything he has to keep himself in check. Charles seems to be satisfied with this. He nods and before he departs, squeezes Max's shoulder two times. And just like that, he floats away on his Cloud 9.

Max stays glued at the same spot. He does not bother watching Charles rushing back over to his team. The only wish he has is that one day, maybe, Charles looks at him like just did, only because he is happy to see him. Max had let himself hope for a minute there, before he found out what the source of Charles's joy is, and it's like any other kind of drug. Slowly invites you in and before you know it, you can't think of anything else.

Max recalls when Charles showed his first photos with Sauber into his face that one time. There is a bitter sweet feeling in his mouth. Today, he's probably pay more attention if he'd showed him his first photos with Ferrari.

The Ferrari deal is done. His future is set. Years and years of dedication and sacrifice paying off. It is so much to wrap his head around. The whole weekend has been focus on meetings with Ferrari officials, so much he almost forgot they were suppose to race there. He drove on complete autopilot. But finally - last night, it happened. He wants to dance it the streets (and he eventually does, to amusement of the rest of his team). And yet, for some reason, the memory of Max’s faint smile and his quiet “Nice. Good job,” lingers in the back of his mind, warm and confusing all at once.

He's been full on ignoring this part of his life ever since his grand exit at the airport. Put all of this in a tiny box in his brain and locked it, with the intention not to open any of it until Monza is over.

Alas - Monza was over. But he is so wrapped up in the Ferrari of it all, that he postpones it - whatever it is. When he saw Max in the lobby that morning, he just acted on his impulse. He was already containing so much. The curse of unprovoked split-second decisions is looming on him whenever Max is nearby. Charles figures Max is simply a victim of some voodoo hoodoo. Maybe he forgot to resend a mass email chain and now he is cursed. He should be glad Charles didn't kiss him again. On a day like today, he took no remorse. But, there were too many people anyway. Max is cursed, but not that much. In Charles's post-contract-hyper-dopamine brain, this all makes sense. Everything is brighter, the colors are all alligning and even the airport is an amazing place to be. Charles is loving life and everything will be great from now on.

The first thing Charles does when he gets home is drop his bag by the door and collapse face-first onto the couch. One of the perks that getting a dream contract apparently is that his mom leaves him to do that and does not bug him about taking his shoes off. He is so, so tired. All the turmoil, stressful meetings followed by unmasked and unfiltered joy are bound to take a tool, even on someone so young and fresh as Charles.

For the first time in weeks, he dreams.

It takes him a moment to realize he is standing barefoot on the track. Blood-orange sky locks the scenery in. He knows he's in Monaco, but it looks nothing like it. There are fields and deep woods lining the track. The stands are empty and there are only few people dressed in multicolored fireproofs working the track. The ground shifts and he notices his father, standing, leaning casually against the Red Bull pit wall.

"Nice suit," he says and it's only then when Charles realizes he is wearing a Ferrari racing suit. It's now impossible to ignore that it is two sizes too small.

"It does not fit," Charles whispers, but know his father can hear him.

“You’ll grow into it.”

Charles wants to reply, to argue, but the track shifts beneath him, the world tilting like a kaleidoscope. He’s suddenly in the cockpit, the roar of the engine filling his ears. The lights above the grid turn red, one by one. He knows he needs to start. But he doesn't. Instead, he stays put as about million race cars pass him by.

He knows he should have started, but before can do so, there is and impossibly bright light and without hearing or actually feeling it, he knows someone rear ended him, full F1 speed. Max is out of his Red Bull, Charles is out of his Ferrari and they both examine the damage. There is a green liquid leaking out of the car. Charles’s blood boils.

"Why would you crash into me?!" he shouts at Max.

“You’re running,” Max says, his tone soft and calm. “Why are you running?”

“I’m not running,” Charles snaps. Even in his dream, he feels tired.

Max tilts his head, studying him. “You kissed me.”

Charles’s breath catches. “I-”

He is woken up by the smell of home cooked dinner.

The little five hour nap only made him more tired and disoriented. He is immediately pulled into family dinner, his mama obviously unable to contain herself where there is good news. She is unapologetic about things she love and moments of excitement. Charles likes to think he inherited that from her.

He is slowly eating the food - his favorite, made just for him - even though he is not hungry, not even a bit. He does not usually remember his dreams. This one is clear as day.

There is barely a moment for him to breathe, given how many questions his giddy mom asks him, expecting him to answer while simultaneously clearing his plate. Laughter fills the room and it's all so domestic and comforting.

Until, of course, faith decides that Charles has had quite enough of that for one day.

“Oh, by the way, Max is coming over to my salon on Thursday,” she says casually, sipping on her red wine.

Charles chokes, forcing himself to dislodge a piece of carrot before it kills him. “Max?” His mouth is full. It's the first time he speaks like that and mama is shooting arrows at him for bad table manners.

“For his haircut,” she replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You know, he’s been coming here for months.”

He stares at her, his brain short-circuiting. “Since when?”

“Oh, since...maybe February? Possibly March? He said he needed someone reliable, and you know how picky I am about hair.”

Charles stares into nothing, his thoughts racing. Max had been coming to his mother for haircuts. For months. Without saying a word. That explains the sudden glow up and the mysterious disappearance of his spiky hair era, when the only thing Charles wanted to do was buy many, many hats for him to wear.

“And he’s such a polite young man,” she continues, oblivious to the storm brewing inside him. “He always asks about you, you know.”

Oh, this is just perfect. His mom and his overly complicated pseudo crush are chit chatting regularly, apparently, and none of them thought Charles should be made aware of it. Polite young man my ass.

Charles freezes. “He asks about me?” he repeats, after catching up with his new reality.

She nods, sipping her tea. “Last time, he wanted to know if you were always so competitive. I told him yes, of course.”

Plan A - ignore everything and pretend life is normal - is no longer an option. This is becoming a Plan C situation (whatever Plan B was anyway). He needs to address this properly with Max before the incidentally two most chattiest people in his life meet again.

The affects of this going unsupervised could be catastrophic.

You don't have these conversation over the phone, Charles thinks as he spends his entire morning figuring out whereabouts in Monte Carlo Max could be, so that he can "run into him accidentally." Or - stalking, as it is usually referred to by the police. It's fine. They know each other. It's completely okay to do so.

He's gonna run into him, properly apologize, they will laugh it off and then, Max is free to go to have his hair cut by Pascale Leclerc. Only, of course, after he swears on his secrecy. Charles has two days before the early morning appointment on Thursday. His mom made few comments about how Max is always the first customer she has, as he insists on coming in as early as possible. This was the final piece of information Charles needed in order to finally declare that Max is a crazy person. He knew it already, but lacked evidence.

In the next two days, Charles ends up going on five runs, visits the one ice-bath in Monaco seven times, buys three coffees and four croissants at the bakery Max mentioned once (all on separate occasions) and tries to bribe the gym receptionist, where apparently Max is a member, for information. All without any result what-so-ever.

Technically, he could text him and just ask to meet him. Yes, that is an option normal people see as a possibility and it's probably effective.

But, Charles has a plan. And when that happens, he's not going to resort to something as pathetic as texting him. He needs to play it nonchalantly, can't have him thinking that he cares about the kiss in any way.

It is Wednesday afternoon when he start to panic properly. Like, he's about to set his mom's salon on fire kind of panic. There is one thing he can do before resulting to destroying his family's life long business.

What are friends for if not for desperate times.

"Let me get this straight," Pierre says on the phone and it's like Charles can visibly see his face just by tone of the voice he is using. "You want me to organize a party... tonight? Like, two hours from now?"

They'd done wilder things in the past. Honestly, Charles finds Pierre's disbelief mildly insulting.

"Everybody knows Wednesday is the new Friday," he argues, knowing he could do better. If his tired legs weren't occupying his mind. He did sort of ran a half-marathon in the past 48 hours.

Pierre laughs so loudly that Charles has to pull the phone away from his ear. "Tonight? Do you know what Monaco is like on a Wednesday night?"

"Perfect for a party," Charles says, forcing a casualness that isn’t remotely convincing. "People here don’t need a notice."

"You’re insane," Pierre replies, still laughing. "What are we even celebrating? Or is this just you being bored?"

Charles has bitten off all of his nails, but tries one more time, while he brainstorms. "Friendship," Charles says firmly. "Good vibes. You know, c'est la vie."

"Good vibes," Pierre echoes, flat and skeptical. "That’s the best you’ve got? Not that little Ferrari deal everyone and their grandma already knows about?"

Charles's stomach flips. He is joking. "Nobody knows about that."

Pierre snorts. "Charles, come on. Monaco is basically one big group chat with yachts.

Charles freezes, the words clicking into place. "A yacht," he mutters under his breath, his brain spinning wildly.

"No," Pierre says, suddenly cautious, already knowing where this is going.

"A yacht!" Charles exclaims, suddenly full of life. "It’s perfect! Not a club - a boat party! It’s more intimate, exclusive. Very Monaco. And..."

And Max loves boats, but he manages to stop himself from saying it out loud.

Pierre snorts. " Ok, allow just one tiny question. Do you have a yacht, Charles?"

"I’ll find one," Charles says with a confidence only sleep deprivation can provide. "This is Monaco. It’s basically the yachting capital of the world. I’ll call... someone."

"Right. Someone," Pierre deadpans. "Let me get this straight. You want me to throw a party for your Ferrari seat that nobody’s supposed to know about, but definitely everyone knows about, and now it’s going to be on a yacht you don’t even have yet?" This is not how Charles imagined this conversation.

"You're not being a supportive friend with these useless comments," he says, opting for emotional blackmail.

He can almost hear Pierre eye roll. "Fiiiine. I'll take care of inviting the people and pretending this was my idea. Who do we want there?"

This is the spirit! Now, he just needs to be as coy and subtle as possible. "Um...yeah, it should be like exclusive, I think. But, like not too exclusive, my team, your team if you want, some girls," he adds, knowing this will keep Pierre engaged, "Oh, definitely some drivers. But like, our age. You know? I'm not sure Vettel is the right vibe."

Perfect. Charles is so proud of himself for coming up with that.

"Ok, understand," Pierre responds. Finally, an answer Charles wanted to hear.

"Is it ok if I invite Max?"

Why must God hate Charles so much.

"Um...," he thinks how not to come off too eager or too indifferent. "Sure, if he's free. He's been acting like less of a dick than usually, so why not."

Charles is a genius. Or at least thinks that he is right now.

"Got it, just wanted to check before. He's been staring at you so much, when he thinks nobody is watching. I wasn't sure if you were still on speaking terms."

He has to applaud Pierre for his observation skills. But only silently.

"Nah, we're good. Invite him, whatever. Gotta go - I have a boat to find!" he says and hangs up quickly.

So. A party. On a yacht. With Max. What could possibly go wrong? He is trying not to over-think Pierre's comment about Max staring at him.

------- @chezmardybum

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salubriwrites-blog · 17 hours ago

Note

The way Leviathan was written in Barbatos’ story was really interesting. Can I please request something super angsty with you and him? Maybe unrequited love on Leviathan’s part? It’s not even that you love someone else. You still sleep with him (and others) often. You just could never love him because of his personality. And that destroys him.

Oh Man.

This got a little unhinged but here we gooooo-

He always woke up before you, adjusting the curtains in his private chamber so when the sun rose it struck his face first. It was the best way without disturbing you, understanding that waking you up quickly meant a faster reality check. Laying on his side, Leviathan traced his fingers between strands of hair plastered to your face. In the early morning when the sun filtered into the room, you were beautiful. Even more than when you were doubled over on top of the devil, hips grinding together with such intensity that he felt your orgasm in his bones. He loved you in all of your forms, but it was these dark, quiet moments that he loved you the hardest.

Hovering, watching your jaw hang open and relaxed, arms and legs splayed out like tree roots in his sheets, it was perfection. Lilac hair stretching out and getting into everything, twirling it around his finger like a spool of the finest fabric. It was easiest to love you like this, when the only conversation available was that of dreams. When you were awake it was the worst; because the gentle snatching of your hand out of his, and graciously side stepping him, were the harshest reminders. That you did not love him with the same lasting ferocity. When you were awake, you were capable of killing Leviathan and you both knew it. Loving you in the light of day where everyone could see you reject him was dangerous, but the poor devil couldn't help himself. Made in God's image of perfection Leviathan was just a man, and you were a shooting star that he could only wish upon.

Somewhere deep in the palace there was a shudder of commotion, no doubt Barbatos waking up the rest of the staff to greet the day. Squinting dangerously at the door, Leviathan hoped that his fiery glare would warm the door knob enough that the sunny devil would think twice.

It was too late though, the vibrations of footsteps scurrying outside woke something in you, and your body tightened with a yawn.

When you opened your eyes Leviathan was there, a respectful distance now as he sat in bed, blinking down at the sheets.

"Good morning," you hummed, crawling across the expanse with your hips twitching like a prowling beast. Your breath was hot in his ear as one hand danced underneath the sheets, frowning when there was no morning glory between his legs. "Did you sleep alright?"

"I slept fine, I should be asking you that question," Leviathan replied curtly. If it were any other day, when you did this little morning ritual you'd instead be throwing yourself under the covers, ass in his face while you played his length like an instrument. Together you wouldn't leave the bed until the sun was casting its light on the other set of windows on the West side of the room. It was paradise by the morning light, to have you as he had before. Knowing it was the only way he would have you. Lustful, only taking, taking all of him.

Had it always been so shallow? Was he just there for your entertainment; a soft place to land in this foreign place, a pair of lips to suck you dry, hips to drive you to perfect climax over and over? Were you using him?

Yes, the devil of Envy decided as you shrugged at his impotence and climbed to the edge of the bed next. You were using him and he loved you for it.

"Would you like breakfast brought here, or do you want to take it in the dining room?" Leviathan asked, waiting until you disappeared into the opulent bathroom before getting up next. Searching for a shirt while you showered, he slumped with his back against the bathroom door, listening to the water run down your body. It was not fair that you had more love for the heat of the water than him. It wasn't always like him to be jealous of a shower, right?

"I don't have time for breakfast, actually," you called back slowly, waiting until the faucet had quietly shut off the steaming flow. "Sitri is coming to bring me back to Gehenna... for a while."

A while?

"What for?" He prodded next, knowing that your affairs in Gehenna with that insufferable Prince weren't his business. The jolting stab in his stomach at your words though? That was his business. Leviathan didn't mean to sound possessive at that question, and quietly he cursed himself when you didn't reply immediately.

"Satan asked me to come back... I've been in Hades for a minute, and besides you're probably behind on all of your responsibilities. You don't need to spend all your time catering to my every whim." You laughed to try and distract from the heaviness of your words.

Yes he did. He needed to give you every second of his life, he needed to cater and worship your time and drink up your soft replies to his generosity. He needed to show you that he was the perfect gentleman. The perfect lover. The perfect partner. He needed to be the man you loved, and would gladly give you all of him if that's what it took. What good was it to be the perfect specimen, the perfect image of God, if it wasn't perfect for you?

Leviathan didn't say a word, just stared at the empty bed where you had just been. So beautiful and lovely, he wished to return there, order Glasyalabolas enchant you to sleep so he could love you like he knew best. Except that wasn't what Leviathan wanted either. Loving you in the dark was not what he wanted. He wanted to love you in the light of day, with the sun illuminating your hair and cloud shadows kissing your cheeks. He knew he could love you with his eyes closed, but what he would do for you to love him back with your opens.

"I understand," he lied while knowing the truth. It stung bitter as holy fire in his mouth as he helped you pack and prepare for your departure. He'd overplayed his hand, showering you in too many favors, giving you the best of himself at every opportunity. You didn't want it. Something about his posture, his cadence, maybe even his personality off set all of the best parts of himself. You were running away, and the worst part wasn't that he was going to let you. Leviathan knew that just having you wasn't enough. The worst part was that he had done everything in his perfect power.

"Don't think of yourself as a burden on me or Hades," he said instead of all those things. How he hated himself in that moment, standing at the front steps of the palace where Sitri waited dutifully. Even in the general's arms you looked at home. "Your time with us has been... a welcome intrusion. I look forward to your next visit."

Waving over your head, not even the kings of legends could have pulled him away from the steps until he was sure you were gone. A part of Leviathan followed you out the gates of Hades and into the valley of Gehenna. Not knowing that he'd ever see it again, the attendants of the Prince of Envy stood back and watched him retreat into the palace.

"Can we get you anything-" Orias began to ask, but before he could rattle off all of the Prince's perfect titles, Leviathan interrupted him.

"My coffin," he replied, and all the devils in the room looked at each other. Needing to quietly ask that what they just heard wasn't their imagination. The crack in Leviathan's voice was a crack in his armor, and therefore a breach in the otherwise perfect paradise he built. If the perfect Prince of Hades was falling apart, Hades would surely follow in his footsteps. That would not be allowed to happen. “I will not be disturbed."

As if they had spoken its true name, the devil's coffin manifested from a corner of the room and appeared before him. No one said a word as the fine pressed clothes, the gemstones, and the ornaments befitting a king clattered loudly to the ground. Stripped naked of everything that made him regal, until he was just a man, Leviathan crawled into the perfectly lined casket. "Bury me."

"Most beautiful-" Barbatos began, but shut up wisely when he saw the tears. Perfect, silver strands of pearl-like tears that solidified and clattered to the ground.

"I said bury me. I want to be alone."

Nodding dutifully, Leviathan's most perfect and most proud attendants swarmed the coffin, clasping it shut with the same reverence they practiced to dress him. He didn't feel it when they hiked the container up onto their broad shoulders, nor did he feel the pressure of soil splashing on top of and down the coffin's sides. Leviathan didn't feel much of anything as he cried, letting the pearls of sorrow roll down to his feet. They would slowly fill the coffin and if he was lucky he'd drown in them.

Alone at last, Leviathan held himself and listened to the sound of roots wriggling through the dirt. Barbatos must have been growing some kind of garden on top of the site, a means to hide the resting place of the broken Prince. Except-

Leviathan wasn't alone, not even in that spacious coffin filling with his tears. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the devil stared at the crude carvings in its lid. You were here, in the doodles and initials scratched into the wood. This was far from perfect, the Prince of Envy knew that, but as he lay in that shallow earth, buried with all the words he never said and only with the power to love you in the dark, this was perfect for him.

#whb leviathan #whb mc #angst #one shot #so much angst #Get this man a hug #what in “hell” is bad?#thanks anon!#but also like #fuck you anon #respectfully of course

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atleastpleasetelephone · 1 day ago

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Gentle on My Mind - Chapter 9

Initially set in 1967 when Elvis is filming Clambake. Feeling miserable and trapped after the Colonel banishes Larry and the spiritual texts, Elvis invites Gloria to keep him company through the last five days of filming. Gloria is an aspiring movie editor and more importantly she's a lot of fun. Will she be what Elvis needs to get him out of the depressive funk he's in?

Catch up with the other parts here.

Many thanks to @sissylittlefeather being my beta reader on this one.

A/N: We're up to 1972, and just to flag the triggers on this one, still some dark topics being handled here.

Pairing: Elvis x OC - Gloria, a budding film editor.

Word count: 5.2K

TWs: Infidelity, angst, angry!Elvis, panty-sniffing!Elvis, some reference to domestic abuse (Elvis is not involved), reference to Elvis' bad health, dirty talk, phone sex, size kink, 70s views about women, crying, body shame, body worship, drug use.

Elvis thinks of Gloria often, wondering what she’s doing, how she’s feeling. Whether she’s going to turn up without warning to any of his concerts. After what she said about the postcards he resists the temptation to contact her. Jerry had found her address and phone number for him and he’s had to hide them from himself so as to avoid calling her whenever he wants to hear her voice. He runs their conversation through over and over again in his head, looking for clues. There was something off about the way she’d behaved, even accounting for tiredness, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. He frowns and thinks it through one more time, and then pulls her panties out of his pocket. He seems to be carrying them everywhere he goes.

***

“It’s over, Elvis. I want a divorce.”

Elvis doesn’t think this is the way he should be spending Christmas. Alone, crying in his bedroom. He desperately wants to call Gloria. He digs out the number from the giant pile of papers he’d hidden it in months ago and stares at the digits. It’s the middle of the day. Fuck it.

“Hello?”

He recognises her voice immediately, and sighs with relief. “Glory.”

Gloria’s entire body goes cold. And then hot. She starts to feel dizzy and sits down.

“Elvis,” she whispers. “You can’t call me here!”

“Cilla wants a divorce.”

“Roger doesn’t,” she snaps, irritated that he’d call her here with no regard for the consequences.

Roger had lost interest in her lately. She’s pretty sure he’s fucking the maid, not that she can work out when he’d have the time to do it. She’d struggled to lose any of the weight she’d put on after Jackie, and if anything she’d probably put a little more on since. People kept asking her when she was due. It was embarrassing, but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. The only benefit was that Roger thought it was disgusting, her being so heavy, the bags under her eyes, the spit up on her shoulder. So he didn’t touch her any more. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had the habit of dragging her around roughly by her arm and occasionally he slapped her when she said something he didn’t like. Just once, he’d pulled her into the kitchen by her hair. But he certainly didn’t touch her intimately anymore.

There’s a dead silence on the end of the line, then the click of Elvis hanging up. Gloria stares at the receiver in shock and then slowly puts it down. She spends the rest of the day torn between relief that Roger can’t walk in on her talking to him, and a desperate need to hear his voice again.

Elvis grabs the phone and throws it at the wall, shaking with rage. How dare she? How dare she speak to him like that?

***

Elvis spends the next few months trying to put Gloria out of his mind. Once Cilla tells him she’s shacked up with Mike Stone he tries to put all women out of his mind. Goes through a brief period of being convinced that celibacy is the option, reading the bible every day and praying to God that eventually he’ll stop feeling like this. So lost and alone.

***

Despite the fact that he hung up on her, Gloria wants to see Elvis. She just writes that whole phone call off as a dead loss and pretends it didn’t happen. She plans a trip to Vegas with two of her old friends and her sister, to catch the end of his residency there. Gets Roger on a good day and is surprised when he agrees that she can spend the weekend somewhere other than their house. Her prison. That’s how she’s started thinking of it lately, imagining bars on the windows.

One day when he’s at work she digs around in the purse she’d taken with her when she went to see Elvis play Cow Palace. Eventually finds what she’s looking for - the little scrap of paper he’d hastily given her when they parted, with a private phone number scrawled there.

“Hello?”

“Hello, it’s um… it’s Gloria. Is…”

The voice on the other end of the phone interrupts her. “Just wait a minute.”

Her stomach flip-flops as she sits there, tapping her foot on the floor impatiently. She hadn’t been sure he’d want to talk to her, but the way the person who picked up the phone reacted she’s starting to think she was wrong. And then she sits there, and waits for ten minutes. Then another ten minutes. The pretence that had been holding up so well up until this point starts to fall apart. Maybe the phone call did mean something. Maybe she shouldn’t have snapped. Maybe this is some kind of elaborate punishment. Should she put the phone down this time?

“Glory?” His voice sounds muffled, and like he’s slightly out of breath.

“I thought you were never coming to the phone.”

“Sorry… sorry… baby. I’m sorry about the last time too…” he trails off. His head hurts, his stomach hurts, everything hurts right now. He’d had to drag himself out of bed when Charlie had told him who was on the phone. It had taken far too long, but he’d kept blacking out.

“Elvis, are you okay?”

“Hmmm. Mmmm. Belly’s a little sore, Glory.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

Elvis bursts into a peel of laughter at the question, and it hangs in the air somehow, even though they’re on the phone. All he does is see the doctor. Doctors.

“Yeah. I’ve seen a doctor.” He finally replies.

“Okay. Um… I was planning on coming to Vegas in the summer… if you wanted to see me…”

“Of course I want to see you, baby. When are you coming? I’ll get one of the boys to pick you up from the airport and bring you here.”

They discuss the details for a while, and Gloria thinks Elvis is starting to sound a little more like his old self. Then she starts to suggest hotels she might stay in and he cuts her off.

“Don’t waste your money on a hotel room. Stay with me.”

“Oh, Elvis. I don’t know… I mean I thought I might spend some time with my friends…”

Elvis grunts in frustration. “So you don’t really want to see me, then?”

Gloria rubs her face with her hand and sighs, exasperated. What is she supposed to say now?

“I want to see you more than anything.”

“Then stay in my suite.”

She groans. “Can you just let me at least have my own hotel room? Even if I don’t stay in it? I just want somewhere to go back to if I need it.”

She’s starting to feel decidedly like there’s two disagreeable men in her life now.

“Fine,” he replies, sullenly.

There’s a long silence.

“Mr. Presley…” she drawls, deciding this is how to break it.

“Hmmm?”

“You still got those panties?”

She can hear the smile in his voice when he replies. “I sure do. Though they don’t smell as good as they used to.”

Her eyes flick around the room quickly, somehow feeling like she has to check for other people before she does anything this bold.

“What’ve you been doing with them?”

Elvis swallows, hard. He’d been annoyed just a minute ago, frustrated with her and feeling like no women wanted to spend time with him any more. But suddenly the tone of her voice and those words have transported him back in time to that trailer on the set of Clambake.

“They help me think about ya when I…” he trails off, awkwardly, feeling his cheeks start to colour.

“When you what? Stroke that big dick of yours?”

Her heart is pounding as she says it, she hasn’t said anything like this in so long. She feels a tingling between her legs and moves her hand there, over her panties.

“Oh,” he says, quietly. “Is that what ya wanna know about?”

“Please,” she breathes, softly. “It’s what I think about when I touch myself. Wishing you were here.”

Her fingers rub circles on her clit as she talks.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It’s what I’m doing now.”

Elvis groans quietly, feeling his erection getting uncomfortable, even in his loose pyjamas.

“It’s what I um… I-I think about ya a lot, Glory.”

Gloria giggles. She can imagine his red face, see his eyes darting around the place, feel his awkwardness.

“Are you touching yourself?”

“N-n-no.”

“Why not?”

He doesn’t know what to say. He’s never done this before. “Y-y-y-you want me to?” He finally stutters out.

“Are you hard?”

“Yes,” a strangled whisper.

“Then I want you to.”

He unties his robe and reaches into his pyjama bottoms to free his dick. Slowly pumping it up and down he can’t help but moan. Gloria bites her lip and slips her hand into her panties, sliding her fingers through her arousal and spreading it around her clit. She breathes hard into the receiver.

“I wish you were here right now,” Elvis mumbles.

“What would you do if I was?”

“Fuck ya senseless, princess.”

It’s Gloria’s turn to moan now, overwhelmed by his words. “I’d love that,” she whispers.

“Would ya?” He starts to feel his orgasm growing inside him, confidence building with it. “Is that what you want? To be fucked with this big dick?”

She whimpers. “Please, Daddy. Fill me up.”

He grunts as his hand moves faster and faster, making his words come out in a series of pants. “I’ll… fuck ya… stupid…”

“Please…” she begs again, her fingers moving more and more quickly on her clit, racing towards her orgasm. She starts babbling. “I can’t wait to see you. I want to be with you all the time. I don’t have to get a hotel room. I just want you… ohhhh.”

Hearing her climax, he only has to stroke himself one or two more times before he joins her. His moans sending shivers down her spine too.

“Shit,” he mutters, looking at the mess he’s just made.

Gloria giggles. “Did you enjoy that?”

He can’t help sniggering back. “Maybe a little too much.”

She bites her lip, trying to picture him. Enjoying the mental image. Then she thinks back to what she said when she was just about to come.

“I meant it. I’ll stay with you in your suite. I don’t need a room.” She feels desperate for him now, wanting him to hold her now she’s done.

“No, honey. I’ll pay for a room for ya. Then you can decide how much time ya wanna spend in it. I shouldna snapped before. My belly’s been hurtin’ and… it’s been a rough few months. I’ve missed ya.”

“I’ve missed you too. Still miss you now. Wish you were here, holding me,” she sniffs, somehow unable to keep any of her feelings in.

“I wish I was too, honey. I’ll see ya in September. Ya need me, call.”

***

“Listen. It’s none of my business what’s going on with you and Roger, or what you’ve done with Elvis,” Patricia begins, as they drive to the airport together. “I just want to know if we’ll see you at all on this vacation.”

Gloria smiles. She’s grateful that her sister is about as interested in what’s going on with her as she is in figuring out other people’s motives. She’d barely said a thing after the Cow Palace concert, only checking if Gloria was alright and making sure they had a story for Roger as to why they were back so late.

“I don’t know, Pat. I want to spend time with the girls but Elvis wants to spend time with me too.”

“Do you want to spend time with him?” Patricia asks, gently.

Gloria nods quickly. “Of course. It’s not every day I get to see him, is it?” Or even every year, she thinks.

“It’s not every day you get to see Sandra and Carol either.”

“Well they never come and see me, it’s not like they live far.”

“You never go and see them.”

Gloria sighs deeply. This is far more intrusion than she’s used to from her sister.

“Roger doesn’t like it.”

“Doesn’t like what?”

“Me seeing them. So I don’t. It’s just easier that way.”

Patricia frowns, but she doesn’t push it any further. She supposes Roger has a right to decide what his wife does, to a certain extent. Not that her husband was like that at all. But she never did anything he disagreed with, and Gloria could be quite a tearaway. Or certainly had been in the past. Roger probably thought she needed a little discipline.

***

Gloria is overwhelmed with joy to see her friends again. They drink cocktails on the plane and laugh and talk about old times. Then they talk about Elvis a little. They both know something has happened from the look on Gloria’s face when they say his name, so they question her about it in hushed tones. Neither of them are entirely convinced, though, until they see the limousine pull up for them outside of the airport. Elvis has spared no expense, there are bottles of champagne inside and he’s left instructions with the driver to take them to all the most exclusive boutiques, telling them to charge his account with whatever they want. Gloria finds he’s left her something else too - a beautiful glittering evening dress at the first store they pull up to.

She takes it to the fitting room to try on and almost cries. It’s far too small. This is for a pre-pregnancy Gloria. A Gloria who delighted in running about in the skimpiest of clothes, who loved being naked whenever she could. She sniffs. She supposes Elvis didn’t really notice the additional weight too much, when she saw him last. She’d tried to dress cleverly to disguise it and he’d been very occupied teasing her. Besides, she wasn’t at her heaviest then anyway. She’d really started eating junk that Christmas and not stopped since.

She wipes her face and tries to put on a smile for the shop assistant.

“I’m… I’m really sorry but it’s too small…” her voice comes out more quietly than she expects, but she’s just greeted with a broad smile.

“Oh don’t worry, you can exchange it for a bigger size,” the assistant tells her, leading her over to the rack.

The dress she pulls on is two sizes bigger than the one he’d picked, but it does look good. It’s just about sparkly enough to distract from her extra weight, and luckily it’s not skin tight. She walks out to show Carol and Sandra, and they gasp when they turn around and see her in it. They were a little shocked at how she looked when they first saw her after so long, and tried their best not to say anything. Having two small kids is tough, lord knows they’d both struggled. But the dress was such a contrast. She’d pulled her hair out of her usual messy bun and it tumbled over her shoulders like strands of gold. The combination of that and the dazzling sequins made her look like a movie star.

“Oh my God! You look incredible! He is going to fall at your feet in that, Gloria.”

Gloria can’t help grinning in response. “Oh, thanks! He’s got such good taste,” she replies, twirling around and looking at her reflection in the long mirror.

“He certainly does.”

The limo driver explains that Elvis has more plans for them, and takes them to get their nails and their makeup done and their hair styled, and then finally to their hotel. He waits outside for them to check in, get changed and leave their bags, and then drives them to the Hilton.

Gloria doesn’t think she’s ever been this dolled up in her life, and she loves it. They’re ushered to Elvis’ private box just in time for the music to start and the curtain to come up. She watches him walk on stage with her heart in her mouth. He looks just as gorgeous as ever, although a little different from the last time she saw him. He’s in a beautiful powder blue suit and it sparkles in the light. She can’t help but feel that he picked her outfit to match him, and imagines them standing side by side. As he starts to sing and move about onstage her daydream develops. Suddenly this is her wedding dress and her and Elvis are taking their vows, dressed like this. And then they welcome people into their house afterwards, into Graceland, her arm in his, both of them glittering like the sun.

***

Elvis is eagerly introducing Gloria to everyone in the suite. She can’t believe how much space he has, there’s a lounge with a piano and several bedrooms, as well as at least one enormous bathroom with a jacuzzi bath. But all the space is filled with people. She enjoys it at first, and then rapidly starts to get tired. She used to be such an extravert but after so long with only her kids for company she’s forgotten how to talk to people. And it’s so late. They only arrived in time for the midnight show and it’s already 3am. She’s used to an early bedtime, and she keeps having to cover up her yawns. Elvis can’t take his eyes off her though. He keeps her at his side the whole time, showing her off to anyone who’ll listen.

Gloria leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. I’ll just rest them for a second, she thinks. Elvis goes to get up to get involved in yet another round of singing around the piano, but as he does he realises the weight on his shoulder is strangely heavy. He looks down at her, eyes closed, peacefully sleeping against him. Oh Glory, he thinks, wondering if he can pick her up and move her without her waking. Then she stirs and her eyes open slowly.

“Oh… sorry…” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes and smudging her make-up a little.

“Shhh. Why dontcha go to my bedroom? I’ll get rid of everyone else.”

She nods and gets up slowly, kicking her shoes off and then padding over to the main bedroom. He smiles as he watches her go. Her ass looks damn good in that dress.

Gloria makes a cursory attempt at washing her makeup off and then strips, looking around for something to wear in bed. Unable to see anything straight away she gets in naked, thinking she’ll figure it out in the morning. There’s no way she can stay awake long enough to do anything with Elvis tonight, maybe by tomorrow she’ll find a nightie or something she can wear to cover herself up a little.

It takes Elvis a while to chat to everyone as they leave, he hadn’t wanted to just chuck them out unceremoniously, but he starts to regret that as soon as he walks into the bedroom and sees Gloria in bed, fast asleep.

He gets changed into pyjamas and slips into the bed beside her, swallowing down his pills. Stroking her hair gently, he thinks how glad he is that she’s here, slipping off to a dreamless sleep almost immediately.

***

Gloria wakes at 7am as usual, sees the time and immediately closes her eyes again. Not. Enough. Sleep. She tosses and turns for a bit and then finally manages a couple more hours. When she wakes again she knows there’s no point in trying to sleep any more. Groaning, she turns over and looks at Elvis. He’s fast asleep and shows no signs of waking any time soon. She gets up and rummages about in his drawers, finding some pyjamas and putting them on, rolling up the legs and arms since they’re far too long for her. Since he’s still dead to the world, she makes her way out of the room in search of coffee.

It’s quiet in the suite too, but she finds the kitchen and in it is a tall handsome-looking man with longish dark hair.

“Hi,” he says, warmly, holding out a hand. “I’m Jerry.”

“Hi. Gloria.” She pauses, looking around. “Any coffee?”

He nods, picking up the jug on the hotplate and pouring her a cup. “Cream and sugar?”

She shakes her head. “Black is fine.” She doesn’t usually take her coffee black, but suddenly she’s thinking she should’ve spent less time over the months leading up to this having so much cream and sugar.

“Elvis ok?” He asks.

She frowns a little. “He’s still asleep.”

Jerry shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot for a moment and then decides he should just tell her.

“Usually someone keeps an eye on him.”

“Well, presumably not since his wife left him. Or do you guys go in there? Is that one of your little jobs?”

Jerry snorts. “No. But I mean… usually there’s someone with him.”

Gloria takes a sip of coffee and winces at the bitterness. Then she realises what he means.

“Oh, you mean some other girl.”

He nods and grimaces a little. “Sorry…”

“No need to apologise. It’s not you. Besides, I’ve got no claim on the man. Haven’t seen him in just about two years,” she shrugs. “And I have a husband. So I’m in no position to judge.”

She doesn’t say it, but it does sting a little. Knowing he’s had other women, even if they were just one night stands.

Jerry looks at her and smiles. “He’s sweet on you though. I haven’t seen him like this for anyone else.”

Gloria raises both eyebrows. “Oh, really?”

His smile broadens. There’s something lovely about watching her face light up when he says it. As if she hasn’t had a compliment in a while.

“Had us running around like mad men trying to get everything ready for you. The way he talks about you, I think it’s you he should’ve…” he pulls himself up short, realising what he’s about to say. “I-I mean… it’s none of my business but… well he was virtually a recluse at the start of the year, but he told us all that if you called we had to tell him. You’re the only girl he wanted to speak to.”

Gloria pauses for a moment to take all this in. “It took him 20 minutes to get to the phone,” she says quietly, at last.

“Probably the effects of the pills. Or…” he trails off again. “I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff, he wouldn’t like it.”

Gloria smiles again. “It’s okay. You think I should go back in there though? To watch him?”

Jerry nods. “Check he’s still breathing, hasn’t choked on…” he trails off again. Something about Gloria makes him want to tell her everything, but he knows Elvis would be pissed if he knew.

Gloria guesses what he was about to say. She just nods. “I’m a mom. I can look after people.”

They look at one another for a moment and then both smile. Gloria had always doubted the integrity of the guys around Elvis, doubted their utility as well really, but she likes Jerry. He seems genuine.

“You want breakfast? I can order you something from room service and bring it in, if you’re not going to go back to sleep.”

“Oh, that would be great. Just some poached eggs on toast please. I should be watching my figure.” She rolls her eyes.

“Sure, I’ll knock when they’re here.”

Gloria thanks him and as she walks away Jerry thinks she’s not the only one watching her figure right now. Then he shakes his head quickly. It doesn’t do any use to start lusting after Elvis’ girls. That only leads to bad things.

***

Gloria spends the next few hours drinking coffee and watching Elvis sleep. At some point Jerry brings her the eggs and she eats them sitting on the bed too, somehow completely captivated by the man lying next to her. He’s not even doing anything, she thinks. How can I just be sitting here, watching him, when he’s not even doing anything? She wonders about the snippets of information she got from Jerry, and then resolves not to ask Elvis about them. She only has this weekend with him, and then God only knows when she’ll see him again. She doesn’t want to waste precious time talking about things neither of them will enjoy. Not unless he brings it up.

Eventually he wakes up, groggily, and his squinting eyes finally see her in the semi-darkness. She hasn’t even really wondered about the blacked-out windows, but they do make it pretty dark even though it’s past midday.

“Glory,” he whispers. “What time is it, baby?”

“Time you woke up,” she teases, reaching down to stroke his cheek. “I’ve been all lonely here without you.”

He lets out a snort and then slowly tries to make his way to a seated position. His hair is sticking up everywhere and Gloria can’t help laughing. She tries to smooth it down.

“Big boy, your hair is out of control.”

His face lights up at the pet name and he splays his legs out, patting his lap for her to get on. She frowns a little.

“C’mon baby. What’sa matter? Thought ya were lonely without me?”

“I um… I’ve put on a little weight, Elvis. I don’t wanna crush you.”

He pulls a face. “You? Crush me? Don’t be silly.” Without warning he leans forward and grabs her by the hips, manhandling her into his lap. She is a little heavier than he remembered but she’s still easy enough for him to move around.

Resting her forearms on his shoulders she looks at him almost shyly. “I guess you’re pretty strong.”

His hands pull her against him, splaying over her back and making her almost feel small again. “Strong as an ox, Glory. And you’re looking good.” One of his hands moves to her ass and grabs a handful. “This ass in that dress last night…” he whistles. “Hard to keep my hands off it.”

She finds herself giggling and blushing a little. It’s been so long since someone complimented her like this. She’d almost jumped Jerry in the kitchen when he was the tiniest bit kind to her earlier.

“Oh is that so?”

“It is. Made me think how much I can’t wait to have ya from behind…” he chuckles naughtily, raising an eyebrow.

Gloria can’t help smiling back, but she knows she has to tell him how she feels.

“I um… I feel a bit self-conscious about my belly though… I should’ve… dieted or something before I came here…” looking around awkwardly.

Elvis shakes his head, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. “Nothin’ to be self-conscious about baby.”

Gloria grumbles slightly as his hands slide up and down her back reassuringly.

“Ya mind if I touch it?” He asks, sweetly.

“Oh, um… I’m not sure…” she protests, weakly.

“Mmm. C’mere,” kissing her and letting one hand drift under her pyjama top. “I’ll be gentle.”

He keeps kissing her, melting her, his fingers slowly moving under her top. He can feel her tremble as his hand moves over the squidgy flesh of her belly, fingers lingering where she hates to even look. He slowly unbuttons the top and then both of his hands are all over her, feeling her, her breasts, her collarbones, her abdomen. He pulls back to admire her flushed face and her naked body, eyes roaming all over her. She quickly tries to pull her pyjama top back together again, blushing harder, the spell momentarily broken.

“Nuh-uh,” he tells her, gently picking her up and rolling her onto her back, with him on top. Kissing her lips until he feels her relax again, and then making his way down her throat, between her breasts and over the curve of her belly. Paying particular attention to the flesh there, kissing as he moves it around with his hands.

Gloria feels drunk on all the kisses and she doesn’t want to fight him anymore. Tears prick her eyes as he carries on with his feather-light kisses, loving on her.

“Baby, you are so beautiful,” he tells her, looking up at her. “I don’t wanna ever hear you say anything negative about yourself again, y’hear?”

She nods dumbly, swallowing hard and trying not to let the tears out. He moves back up her body, kissing her lips again.

“What happened to my filthy-mouthed little girl, hm?”

The tears she was trying to hold in suddenly spill out, and she’s crying again. Every time she sees him now, she cries. So much for not wasting the precious time she has with him.

“I shouldn’t have married him!” She sobs.

Elvis rolls off her onto his side, pulling her with him and into a tight embrace, shushing her and stroking her hair.

“What’s he done?” He asks, when he feels her sobbing start to subside. “You need me to hurt him? Glory I’ll kill him if he’s laid a finger on you.”

“N-no,” she stutters, “he hasn’t hurt me. Not like that.” Well, he had. But was that really worth mentioning now?

“What has he done?” Elvis is insistent now, pulling back so that he can see her face.

“I just… he doesn’t want me anymore. Now I’m done making babies for him, he’s not interested anymore. I’m sure he’s fucking the maid.”

Elvis looks furious. “Fucking someone else when he has you.”

It briefly crosses Gloria’s mind that that’s exactly what Elvis is doing, but she knows better than to mention that right now. She doesn’t want to get Jerry fired.

“Hmmm.”

“Why don’t you leave him? Come and live with me? Cilla and I… well you know she left me.”

Gloria knows. She remembers the phone call. She remembers seeing it in the papers. She knows that’s why she’s here, on some level. But it’s not as simple as all that. This is Elvis Presley.

“My kids, Elvis. I can’t just… up and move them. And he’ll fight me for custody, I know he will. How will it look, me fucking a rockstar? I hardly seem like mom of the year right now…”

Elvis huffs. “But you’re mine. You should be mine. You should be here, with me.”

Gloria frowns a little. “I am here with you, big boy. I wish I could be with you all the time, but it’s not just me I have to consider…”

“Your kids would love it in Memphis. They’d have little Yisa to play with too.”

She sighs a little. “Yeah, I’m sure they would. But I have to get a divorce soon, and you know how long that might take…”

He snorts with annoyance. “Damn divorce. Damn money. Damn woman.”

Gloria frowns again, feeling like he’s not making the most sense right now. Then she thinks of something.

“You want breakfast?”

He suddenly snaps back into the room, after angrily staring into space thinking about his divorce.

“Shit. Yes. I’m starving.”

She smiles. Maybe that was it. Maybe he’s just hungry. That’s what she’ll tell herself.

***

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