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darkwritingsnshit · 3 years ago

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Ruined Christmas

Warnings: Uuum no warnings except this is anti-Christmas and a semi abusive family.

The holiday season has always been and will always be trash. Right around the time the weather turned cold and snowy, the seasonal depression set in and suddenly you were supposed to spend money you didn’t have on presents for people you couldn’t stand. Not to mention, anytime you had the audacity to reveal that you didn’t like the holidays people took that as a personal excuse to make you feel terrible.

The thick envelope was heavy when you grabbed it from the post office, golden wax seal foreboding. Cracking it open in the car, you saw that your family had outdone itself this year. A gorgeous photo of a mansion dusted in snow covered the front of the card, an invitation bearing the date, time, address, and dress code, along with an “invitation” to bring a plus one. Awesome.

The invitation to your family’s Christmas party was not actually an invitation, it was a mandate, as it always had been. The ‘suggestion’ to bring a date was also not actually a suggestion. By the time you turned sixteen a date had been mandatory, the fun little phrases of your family’s passive aggressive language always carried double meanings.

Shoving the card into your purse, you cranked the heat in your beat-up car and headed home, thinking too hard about how terrible the holidays were. Walking into the house you were hit with a wave of cinnamon and warm apples, even in your own home you couldn’t escape the holiday fervor. Somehow your roommate dancing badly to Christmas music and pulling warm cookies from the oven was a brand of the holidays you didn’t abhor.

“Anything fun in the mail?” Bucky jumped in front of you with a smile and a cookie, enjoying the look on your face.

“No presents if that’s what you mean, but I did get an invitation to my family’s Christmas dinner that I’m going to throw out.”

“You never do anything with your family, I’ve never even met them. Are you really going to skip Christmas with them too?” Bucky was a good roommate, but he didn’t understand your complicated familial relationships.

You could see why Bucky thought you were going overboard on throwing away the invitation, but you had kept your distance by design. For you it was better to have no relationship with your family than to keep up a fragile and semi abusive one. You had kept Bucky away from them to spare his feelings and their judgments

“Look Bucky, family isn’t always easy. Besides I’d rather have Christmas with people I actually like.” You flopped on the couch after grabbing a few more cookies.

The last few Christmases had been surprisingly tolerable, waking up late, staying in pajamas all day was the type of Christmas you decided you wanted. It always beat getting uncomfortably dressed up for no good reason and a formal dinner. The idea of letting go of a comfortable day made you unhappy, if you were an adult you could choose to do and not do the things that made you happy.

“Well, what if we did Christmas morning with Steve and Sam, and then for dinner you could hit up your parents’ house? That would probably make them really happy.” Bucky said, sitting down beside you with a cup of tea.

If you had a normal family, you may have been inclined to agree.

“You don’t understand Buck, first of all, I can’t just ‘hit up’ my parent’s house, it’s always a huge ordeal. Second off, I’m not allowed to come without a date, and since I’ve been single for years, I don’t even qualify.” Seemed like an easy enough out.

“I could be your date!” Bucky seemed all too happy to volunteer, eyes lighting up.

“Okay, you’re still not getting it. I can’t just bring a platonic date; my parents always expect me to bring someone super serious. And then they grill them about their intentions are and when we’re getting married, it’s embarrassing. And they’re mean, my whole family is mean.” You hoped that would be enough of a deterrent that he would stop trying to encourage a visit.

“But you’re not mean,” Bucky insisted, “you think you’re mean but you’re not. I’m positive your family cannot be that bad. Besides, I’m your friend I’ll help you get through the night.”

“Bucky! My whole family will be there! My grandparents, my cousins, aunts, uncles, my brothers and sister, everyone. You want to show up and lie to them all night?” Once the words left your mouth a grin began to spread across your face.

“Bucky, I think you’re onto something!” Suddenly the idea of bringing Bucky to your parent’s Christmas didn’t sound so bad. “We can just lie our asses off the whole evening!”

“Okay, definitely not what I was thinking at all. I’ll just be the boyfriend cover and we can have a good evening; you haven’t seen them in years.” Bucky snacked on the gingerbread he made. It was far too late, the wheels in your head were already turning.

“It looks like we have some negotiating to do Barnes.”

The tie that matched your dress was lose around Bucky’s neck. You stepped closer, tightening, and straightening it, calming your nerves on your mother’s front steps.

“You know what we talked about.” You told Bucky, nervously touching the bows on top of the present he held.

“We didn’t agree on what we talked about!” Bucky whispered beside you. “I am not going to ruin your family’s Christmas, okay?”

“We’ll see about that Barnes.” The two of you had been in disagreement on how to pull this night off.

The door swung open to reveal your father, looking sharp in his black suit but smiling warmly.

“I almost can’t believe my eyes! You finally accepted our invitation, it’s so good to see you, my darling.” Your father beckoned you inside before turning to assess you and Bucky. “Don’t be so rude, what’s the name of this strapping young man?

You cringed.

“Dad, this is Bucky.” You said with a sigh. Your father raised his eyebrows.

“James.” Bucky said, extending his hand. “It’s James. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you sir.”

With a pleasantly surprised expression your father grasped his hand and smiled at you, leading you both down the hall towards the living room.

As you expected, the living room was full of your relatives taking up most of the space and jabbering loudly. You noticed everyone’s full glasses and the booze flowing from behind the bar. To make things worse, just as you entered the room your clearly drunk cousin lit a cigarette from his chair in the corner and began to have a screaming match with your aunt.

“This is America, I can smoke wherever I want!” The smoke began curling across the room.

“Don’t you dare start with me young man, I swear I’ll swat your ass right now if you don’t put that out!”

“Enough!” Your father was already yelling, it hadn’t even been five minutes. “We have a million balconies, just take it outside!”

You weren’t sure if he meant the argument or the cigarette, but cousin and aunt stood with a huff and left the room. You looked at Bucky, an apologetic look on your face.

“The longer you stick around, the more you’ll get it.” You said just so he could hear over the yelling.

Looking great as usual, your mother came to greet you, your older sister in tow. Looking you over, she took the present Bucky held out to her and kissed him on the cheek. You tried not to roll your eyes.

“Darling, who is this sweet man you’ve brought along?” Your mother was hardly seeing you, she seemed swept up in Bucky’s looks.

“James.” Bucky said with a smile, facing both your mother and sister. “It’s lovely to meet you both.”

“I don’t know how you managed to pull this one off dear,” your mother said looking at you, “he’s certainly out of your league.”

It was hard to bite your tongue. Bucky glanced at you disturbed.

“What do you do, James?” Your sister asked cloyingly, cozying herself up to Bucky.

“Um, I work for the government.” He was clearly uncomfortable.

“A good job for a good-looking man.” Your mother chimed in, oblivious to the expressions on both of your faces.

“Let me show you around the house, James.” You interrupted, choosing to escape the situation before it got worse. You grabbed Bucky by the wrist and pulled him away from your family.

“Wow.” Was all Bucky said as you almost ran down the hall to the library.

“I’m so sorry,” you started to apologize.

Suddenly your name was called loudly, echoing off the floors and walls of the quiet library. You had thought you were alone, but you heard footsteps before your ex boyfriend stepped out from behind a shelf.

“I can’t believe you’re here, you never come to family events!” Your ex looked good, you would admit that much, but not as good as Bucky which made you smug.

“Yeah, this is a family event, why the hell are you here?” You realized you had kind of left Bucky to take context that you weren’t giving him, but he had signed up for this.

“Ever since we broke up, your mother always kept in close contact with me,” your ex explained. “She always invites me to family events, I thought you knew that.”

“How and why would I know that?” You growled through your teeth. Your ex laughed then rolled his eyes, always thinking he was better than you.

“Well, I’m not sure. I guess your mom likes having someone intelligent and thoughtful around, but maybe she was hoping you would show up and we could… figure things out.” He had gotten too close to you, didn’t care that you were glaring daggers.

This time Bucky cleared his throat behind you. Stepping closer, Bucky put a hand on your waist, you could feel his chest at your back.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” Bucky’s tone was different, assertive. Your ex just smiled.

“No, you didn’t.” Your ex turned on his heel and left, finally leaving you and Bucky alone in the library.

“Okay,” You could feel the vibration of Bucky speaking, “now I’m starting to see why you wanted to ruin your family’s Christmas.”

“I told you!” You spun to face him. “I did not expect them to bring in my ex, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Bucky looked at you like you had a second head.

“You’re not surprised? Why would your mom do that to you? Didn’t she know you were bringing a date?” He was incredulous.

“I told you there’s a reason I don’t see my family! My mom was super upset when we broke up, she’s been trying to get us back together ever since.” You hung your head, wanting only to leave.

“Why?” Bucky asked.

“Because he’s a lawyer and has his own firm.” You said as though it were obvious.

“But he doesn’t make you happy.” Bucky countered.

“Do you really think my parents care about if I’m happy? I’m wearing an evening gown, you’re here in a suit and tie, we look like assholes. They don’t care about happiness they care about appearances.” You could see some of the pieces beginning to click in Bucky’s mind, but you were sure he didn’t get it quite yet.

Instead of looking confident, Bucky looked defeated.

“I’m so sorry you’re going through this; they’ve been nothing but mean to you. But like I said, I’m your friend, and we’re going to get through this night, okay? Let’s leave right after dinner.” You made a face at him, wanting to leave immediately.

“Can’t we leave now?” You asked.

“I think we can make it through dinner, we’ve got this.” Bucky took your hand and pulled you towards the door.

Making your way back to the living room you saw that most people had left, giving you space to breathe. Bucky msought out the bar, returning to you with a glass of scotch that was very much appreciated. Seeing that you had made it back, your mother waved you over to the couch where she and some of your immediate family had taken up gossiping. Your sister seating herself uncomfortably close to Bucky made your eyes roll, but this time he took it in stride. You were impressed by how neutral he kept his face.

Pouncing on the opportunity, your family decided it was your turn through the gossip wringer.

“You’re not still teaching, are you?” Your mother asked. “All that work and for what? Certainly not for the salary, and they aren’t actually your children. Those kids hate you, don’t you know? They’re not going to actually learn anything, children are animals.” She wiped her mouth and took another sip of wine.

“She’s still teaching because she hasn’t gotten married yet.” Your grandfather chimed in across the coffee table, grandmother nodding along with him.

“I doubt she would get married; she certainly isn’t looking to attract anyone wearing that color.” Your grandmother gave you a side eye.

“Well, it’s not like anyone is going to hire her for anything else, she got a degree from a state college, like some public-school kid. What use is that?” Your sister loved to remind you that you didn’t go to an ivy league school, though that meant nothing to you.

“She doesn’t even have her masters yet,” your youngest brother chimed in, to laughter around the room.

At your side, Bucky looked sick. How could your family treat you so horribly? He thought of his family when they were alive, the warmth of Steve’s mom, how kind Sam’s family had been when he met them. Now he saw what you did, these people were horrible. They hadn’t said a single nice thing about you in any of the hours you had been there.

“Please, it’s not like she could get into graduate school with a teaching degree from a state school,” your oldest brother joined in, “they give anyone a degree like that. I could buy one from some hobo under a bridge.”

At least you could provide some humor to your stuck-up family this holiday season. Saving you from the rest of it, your father stuck his head in the room and let you all know that dinner was being served in the dining room. You could hear the breath of relief from Bucky.

Bucky pulled you aside after the rest of them had headed to the dining room.

“You know what? You were right.” You loved hearing those words, but this time it didn’t bring as much joy, because you didn’t want to be. But it was true and now Bucky could see it. “Let’s ruin this Christmas dinner.” He looked determined, the soft, kind look had faded from his eyes.

“Are you serious?” You looked up at him in excitment. “Can we really? Are you saying you’re on board for this?!” It was hard to keep from jumping up and down.

“I can’t-” Bucky shook his head. “I can’t imagine growing up like this, I’m so sorry but your family kind of sucks.”

“I told you!!” You yelled, but you were happy. If you had your way, this would be the absolute last family event you were ever invited to.

“Look, I want to ruin this as much as you do, but don’t you think this is overboard?”

“Shut up and drink it. You absolutely don’t want this as much as I do, we’re doing this my way, amateur.” You knew your plan was good.

You made Bucky take off his suit jacket, tie, and button down, leaving him in his undershirt. He had volunteered to have a couple drinks but was surprised when you poured vodka on him to make him smell like liquor.

The two of you had disappeared once your father let you know dinner was being served, you were determined to make your family wait as long as possible to eat. Leaning in, you pressed your lipsticked mouth to Bucky’s neck twice, making sure to smear the marks. Next you ran your hands through both of your perfectly set hair, pulling at the strands you had tucked into pins to give it a suck out look. Bucky refused to unbuckle his belt but you two had compromised at leaving his zipper undone.

“I’m counting on you to fuck this up.” You told Bucky, waiting at least another fifteen minutes to make your entrance.

“Trust me, by the end of this dinner they’ll never want to invite you over again.” Bucky said with a smile. His disheveled appearance made you smile, the smell of liquor coming off him was perfect. He held your hand as you ventured down the hall to the dining room where your entire family was seated, waiting for you.

In the doorway, Bucky leaned in and gave you the wettest, sloppiest kiss you’ve ever had and moaned into it. When he let go, he slapped your ass, making you yelp as you made your way to your seats. Every eye was on the two of you. Conversations started back up, there were looks being thrown your way.

“Nice of you to join us, the food is almost cold.” Your mother narrowed her eyes at you.

“Sorry hon,” Bucky spoke up from his seat with a wink, “we were a little… busy.” His hand ran up your thigh and squeezed your leg. “Can I get a few more of these?” He raised his now empty scotch glass. Eating up the uncomfortable tittering around you, you clinked glasses with Bucky and the two of you threw back your drinks.

“James, I’m so glad that the two of you decided to join us this year.” Your father looked uncomfortable across the table.

“It’s Bucky, actually.” His mouth full of food. “I haven’t gone by James since my mom kicked me out of the house for dealing drugs.” There was a collective gasp, the air leaving the room.

You were happy to see that Bucky had forgone his fork, instead picking up the turkey leg on his plate with his hands and biting off a chunk. Every time anyone looked over, they quickly averted their eyes in disgust. Conversations mostly petered out, but your grandfather was determined to make sure dinner was as bad as usual.

“You know, things are bad all over the country right now, it’s these damn Democrat’s fault, with their liberal bullshit and too many genders.” Your grandfather began, looking for an excuse to talk politics with your father and brothers. You didn’t expect or plan for it, but Bucky jumped right in.

“You’re damn right!” He exclaimed, pounding his hand on the table. “First, they take down statues of Civil War generals, what’s next? Teaching kids about how slavery is bad, or how Columbus raped, pillaged, and stole his way across the Americas that he didn’t discover? It’s goddamn unamerican!” The looks from your family weren’t enough to stop him, he kept going and you kept smiling.

“I don’t think they should teach pronouns at all; I mean come on, do they also expect our kids to learn about verbs? When does it stop? Clearly our children are traumatized by all these pronouns. You know what would make them feel better? Having teachers bring AK-47s into the classroom, why isn’t there open carry allowed in schools, I mean how do we keep the children safe?” The room had fallen silent, you were trying so hard not to laugh. You couldn’t tell if your grandfather wanted to agree with Bucky’s satire or yell at him. Instead of responding, your aunt broke up the silence by bringing up her daughter’s college grades, and the attention shifted.

“I always thought you two would end up together, it’s such a shame how things ended. You would have had such beautiful children.” You had been tuning out the chatter around you, checking in with Bucky and getting you more drinks. Bucky wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t sober either; you appreciated how far he was going to help you out. When your mother began speaking with your ex the uncomfortable attention was again on you.

“Well, if not this year, maybe next year. We’ve always had such an up and down relationship, she’ll come around eventually.” Your ex laughed, talking about you like you weren’t sitting a few chairs down.

Luckily Bucky saved you from a response.

“You know, it’s really good to meet someone’s exes, you get to see how low their standards are.” Bucky managed around a mouthful of food. “I mean this guy seems pretty together, but man should you see some of my exes. Ugly bitches, every one of them, obviously I have a type. He winked at you. He was doing great.

“It’s really good to see their family too, I’m really glad I met you. I mean, her sister is way hotter, but her mom is in good shape. Anyway, if we don’t work out maybe I could get with your sister, she’s super hot.” Your father audibly choked.

“Well, the babies you two make will be just radiant.” Your Aunt tried to save the conversation.

“Babies?” Bucky choked out. “Yeah right, like she could be a mom. I mean she doesn’t even have her master’s degree.” He rolled his eyes and looked at your brothers expectantly. “You know what I mean?”

The air was tense, conversations strained. You and Bucky were the source of this delightful tension that only kept building as the evening wore on. Bucky acted more and more drunk, spit out snide remarks to family members and halfway through dinner pulled out his phone to text and ignore the conversation.

When your father began to lay in on you about school, marriage and why you were still renting instead of buying a house, Bucky finally had enough. He had never seen a more dysfunctional family. Here was your father berating you over life choices, that Bucky didn’t think were so bad at all, your mother was constantly on you about marriage and kids, your sister had tried to sleep with your date, and brothers who didn’t support you at all. There were two cards that Bucky really wasn’t going to play, but at this point everything was out the window.

“Which is why if you don’t stop making horrible choices, you’ll end up penniless and alone, but you seem to be alright with that don’t you? You’re throwing your life away.”

You wouldn’t make eye contact, but Bucky would.

“You know your daughter calls me daddy too, right?” The smallest smirk crept over Bucky’s face, while your father’s turned bright red.

Only a few aunts and uncles were talking by the time dessert came around, everyone else far too uncomfortable. Considering where the two of you had been at the beginning of the night, you thought everything worked out perfectly. You just wished your family weren’t so god awful it was necessary. Knowing you would be leaving soon, you gave Bucky a nudge under the table and nodded towards the door.

“Twenty minutes, okay? That’s all.” Bucky nodded his head with wide eyes, you could tell he wanted out too.

“That’s twenty minutes too long. Are you ready to leave?” It was your turn to nod, you had been ready to leave hours ago.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” Bucky whispered to you.

You weren’t sure if he was really going to do it, he had seemed almost nervous, but by god if Bucky didn’t pull through. Tearing a piece off the place card that had been on his plate, Bucky had twisted the paper into an absolutely god awful looking paper ring that he now pulled from his pocket. Getting everyone’s attention, Bucky got down on one knee in front of you.

“After everything we’ve been through, after meeting your parents and your hot sister, I think I know what’s best now. You may never be as good as my exes, you’re not as pretty, smart or have enough money, but I also know I’m your only option. Either marry me or be alone forever.” Bucky’s words were music to your ears. He did it. He was able to disgust and insult almost every member of your family, and topped it off with the worst, most insulting proposal you had ever heard.

“Yes!” You screamed, “Yes a thousand times yes!” You jumped into his arms and grabbed his face, pulling him into a deep kiss with tongue, hoping to convey how grateful you were with the action.

Around you, there was swearing, noises of disgust, a chair was pulled out.

“Get out! Get out of my house!” Your father’s face was red, he was almost spitting in anger.

With the quickest motion, you snatched your purse and ran as fast as you could through the house and to the car you and Bucky had arrived in.

By the time you had gotten back to your shared house you were laughing so hard you were in tears.

“I hope you’re not expecting a Christmas present doll, because that was everything I had in me.” Bucky had sped away from your parent’s house as fast as he could, relaxing more and more the farther you got.

It was hard to stop laughing long enough to answer him.

“That was the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten Buck, thank you.” You leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, glad that the holiday season was over.

#My writing #my works #bucky barns x reader #bucky barnes #this is a christmas hate blog #where holidays are ruined #holiday post

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lesbianrobin · 4 years ago

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hey guys it's me again back on my bullshit <3 wanna hear my theory about how tommy created king steve? warning it’s like 2800 words long okay let's go!

So, at first glance in S1, the Steve and Tommy dynamic seems somewhat obvious: King Steve and his loyal sidekick. This post is me arguing that the only reason we really have this perception is because Steve is the more attractive of the pair (no hate to Chester Rushing, he’s very cute, but. Joe Keery) and because Tommy himself encouraged it. Tommy was actually the more “dominant” partner in the duo. I believe that it was Tommy who encouraged Steve to lean into the “King Steve” persona and who encouraged belief in this persona among their classmates, all for his own benefit.

Before we can really get into it, I have to establish something about Steve’s character, specifically that he bases his self-worth and self-image almost entirely on what others say and think about him. I’m basing this assumption off of a few key moments in the series, but I don’t want this to be insanely long so I’ll try to focus on season two where this trait is most evident.

At the Halloween party, Nancy tells Steve that they killed Barb and that their “love” is bullshit, and then later outside of the gym she insists that he isn’t being fair or reasonable in his anger with her. The next day Steve shows up to her house with roses, rehearsing an apology (”I’m sorry... what am I sorry for?) even though he doesn’t feel that he’s done anything wrong. That’s important: apologizing even though he doesn’t actually believe or understand his feelings and actions to be wrong. He’s trusting Nancy’s perception that he’s been unreasonable above his own hurt feelings and his own perception that he’s done nothing he needs to apologize for. Then, at the end of the season, he tells Nancy that he may have been a shitty boyfriend, but he’s a pretty damn good babysitter.

Sometime between going to the Wheelers’ house with flowers to apologize and talking to Nancy at the Byers’, Steve did a pretty serious 180 from “What the hell am I sorry for, what did I even do wrong” to “I was a shitty boyfriend and you should go be with Jonathan.” The last time he interacted with Nancy was prior to the flower incident, so what happened to cause this shift in perspective? I’d like to suggest... that nothing happened!

See, Steve is on a pretty linear emotional path in S2 after the Halloween party. At first, he’s so upset that he can’t even look at Nancy, asking Jonathan to take her home. The next day he avoids her until she confronts him, at which point he’s rather confident in his own feelings that Nancy has hurt him and doesn’t love him like she should. As time goes on, though, he loses confidence in his feelings. He buys her flowers to apologize. He isn’t remotely angry with Nancy or Jonathan once they show up together and it’s pretty clear that something’s going on between them. Finally, he calls himself a shitty boyfriend. I think that the more time passes, the less Steve believes in himself, and the more he tends to default to believing others despite his own feelings. As the anger fades, he questions himself, and since he loves and trusts Nancy, he’s inclined to believe her! Since she doesn’t love him, he must have done something wrong. Because Nancy doesn’t love him, because she wants Jonathan, because their relationship was “bullshit,” he now believes he must have been a shitty boyfriend.

Sidenote, in S3 he says a lot of shit about how he’s a loser with no future, and the way he says it indicates (to me) that it’s something he hears quite often, likely from his father. Even though it’s pretty normal to be working minimum wage the summer after you graduate high school and not have things figured out yet, even though he’s literally helped save his friends’ lives, perhaps even helped save the whole town, Steve has internalized the idea that he’s a total failure at the ripe old age of 18 (19?) and I can’t help but think that it’s because his father has told him. So. Also in S3, he says his hair is his greatest feature, and apparently people literally call him Steve “the Hair” Harrington so like, maybe he just knows he has really good hair, but he ALSO might be responding to the nickname by saying like, “Oh, okay, the hair is Objectively my best feature, okay.” Just a little bit of speculation!

I know this is a lot of my own personal opinions and speculation, but if you can get behind it, let’s keep going! If Steve is someone whose every belief about himself is a direct response to the words and feelings of those around him, if he places the opinions of others above his own feelings, it would logically follow that he might be easily emotionally manipulated.

So, let’s apply this lens to his friendship with Tommy!

Let’s run down the list. Steve cleans up after Tommy, making excuses for his shitty behavior, even wordlessly giving Carol his own food at lunch after Tommy ruined hers. He allows Tommy and Carol to have sex in his mom’s bed, and as indicated by their familiarity with the bedroom and knowledge of where the spare sheets are, this is a regular occurrence. He’s also always seen driving the two of them around.

Neither Tommy nor Carol is ever really seen doing anything kind for Steve. They tease his girlfriend, then later use his heartbreak as an excuse to graffiti some shit and make cruel jokes about Nancy and Jonathan. That’s just not the behavior of a couple hangers-on to the most popular kid in school! Neither of them ever even pretend to give a shit about Steve. It seems that Tommy and Carol were very comfortable using Steve for his big empty house and his nice car and his popularity at school because they’d been using him for years at that point, and they thought there was no way he’d ever ditch them.

I think it’s generally accepted among fans that Steve and Tommy have been close friends for years. Tommy’s familiar with Steve’s father’s infidelity, and is comfortable enough to joke and laugh about it with Steve. The two of them just... operate like people who’ve existed around each other for a long time. So, if we accept that Steve and Tommy have been friends for awhile, we can then accept three things: the two of them know each other very well, Tommy is used to having fun at Steve’s expense, and Steve is used to allowing it.

When Steve does finally stand up to Tommy and Carol, Tommy turns on him immediately. It’s an incredibly fast turn. He shoves Steve up against his car, physically threatens him, and proceeds to taunt him angrily even as he’s driving away. Specifically he yells, “That’s it, run away Stevie boy, run away! Just like you always do,” and continues to shout variations on this phrase even after Steve’s driven far enough that Tommy’s only yelling to himself. The fact that Tommy keeps shouting after Steve can’t hear him indicates that he is genuinely very upset by Steve’s standing up against him and Carol. His fury, however, as indicated by the speed with which he turned on Steve, seems to be less like that of one who feels betrayed by a friend and more like one angry at some perceived loss or threat.

Now, let me just state the obvious: that was a really weird thing for Tommy to be yelling!

There’s no real precedent at this point (or any time) in the show for Steve “running away,” unless you count him running from the cops, which... Tommy also did, and which also happened, like, ten minutes ago, which I don’t think would really qualify for the wording “like you always do.” Tommy also suddenly calls him “Stevie boy,” which (correct me if I’m wrong) nobody has called Steve thus far. Maybe he’s just trying to mock and belittle Steve in any way he can think of, but it’s just... weirdly specific. The whole thing is a bit of a non-sequitur.

But! Remember how we established that Steve and Tommy, by virtue of having been friends for a significant period of time, know each other pretty well? Remember how Tommy is knowledgeable about Steve’s father’s infidelity, so familiar that he’s comfortable joking about it? Keep that in mind.

This phrase that Tommy shouts at Steve only makes sense in the context of some offscreen information that we the viewer are not privy to, but which Tommy and Steve are. What might that information be? Nothing in the show indicates that Steve has a history of picking fights prior to the incident with Jonathan. He’s a fairly respectable suburban kid, what is Tommy accusing him of running from? It’s my opinion that the only logical answer is that Tommy’s referencing a specific event with Steve’s “asshole” father, or a specific phrase that Steve has perhaps often heard from his father. I’m gonna ask you to sit on this assumption for a minute, and I’ll come back and support it soon.

Okay, so that’s S1 out of the way. At this point, a few things are clear: Steve has issues with his dad. Tommy knows about those issues. Steve allowed himself to be used by Tommy and Carol for some indeterminate yet significant amount of time before finally snapping and dumping them completely, something which infuriates Tommy.

Tommy is also in S2! And... all he does is tell Steve that Nancy and Jonathan are skipping school together. He never actually interacts with Nancy or Jonathan; he shows up in S2 entirely to mock Steve, to use his deepest fears and insecurities against him.

First thing: in the S2 shower scene after basketball practice, Tommy makes it a point to shove Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship in Steve’s face. Billy doesn’t know Steve, so he attacks his basketball skills and his keg stand record, but Tommy? Tommy knows about Steve’s dad cheating on his mom, he was there for the S1 fistfight, he knows how monumental infidelity is to Steve, especially in the case of Nancy and Jonathan, and so that is what he chooses to torment Steve with, and it clearly strikes a nerve.

Now’s where I circle back to my assertion that Tommy was referencing/quoting Steve’s father while yelling at him back in S1. S2 makes it clear that Tommy knows Steve’s biggest insecurities, and he intentionally exploits them for his own purposes. This, combined with the way Tommy demonstrates intimate knowledge of Steve’s family situation and the fact that his words just don’t quite make sense in context, the fact that “Stevie boy” sounds like something a father may call his young son, makes me believe that at some point, Steve told Tommy about something his dad said that hurt him, and Tommy remembered that to use against him later.

This paragraph is just speculation on what Tommy might be referring to, so skip if you want, it’s entirely my own opinion. We know that Steve’s parents sleep in separate bedrooms and his father can’t be trusted not to cheat, and thus we might assume that they argue a lot. Maybe his parents get into lots of arguments, and whenever Steve chooses to remove himself from the situation, he’s accused of running away. Maybe Steve runs off whenever he gets in trouble with his father. There’s a lot of possibilities, but either way, “run away, Stevie boy, run away just like you always do” just... sounds too personal and specific to be something random and meaningless that Tommy came up with on the spot.

Now, in S2, Tommy also appears to have latched onto Billy rather quickly after Billy’s arrival in town. Coincidentally, Billy is kind of obsessed with Steve and taking him down, despite the fact that Steve never sought him out or challenged him in any way. Steve has been minding his own business! When they later end up in a fistfight, Billy says that he’s “been dying to meet this King Steve” that people have been telling him about, and I can’t help but think... who would make it their priority to talk to Billy about Steve Harrington? Like, new guy from California moves to my small Indiana town, I don’t want to tell him about some popular guy at school who’s gotten kinda lame and quiet lately, I want to ask him about himself, or tell him what we do for fun around here, right? So who might be incentivized to talk Steve up to a guy who’s clearly itching for a fight, a guy dying to prove that he’s top dog? Who did we see hanging out with Billy a couple of times?

Did you say Tommy? Because it’s Tommy! It certainly seems to me as though Tommy saw an opportunity in Billy. The opportunity to befriend someone with a certain social power (much like with Steve), but also the opportunity to torment or get back at Steve in some way. I think that Tommy intentionally inflated the character of “King Steve” to Billy in the hopes that Billy would pick a fight with Steve and Steve would get his ass kicked without Tommy having to get his hands dirty.

Which makes me wonder... what if Tommy played up that King Steve image to people besides Billy? Other kids at Hawkins High... or perhaps Steve himself. Remember how Steve internalizes things? Believes that he must be whatever others see in him? Yeah.

Let’s say you’re an asshole teenage boy who wants it all. You want to be popular. You want to have a spot to hang out with your girlfriend with no parents around. You want to feel strong and powerful. You meet a kid who could give you all of that, and all he wants in return is friendship. He doesn’t even seem to care if that friendship is genuine or not! All you have to do is hang around and make him feel like a cool kid. Convince him to throw a small party, you and your girlfriend get free reign of his nice big house. Make sure he knows that he’s got Prom King potential, that he’s the top dog, and you get to be one of the popular guys, too. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you can recognize the opportunity for what it is.

One last thing: Actual Steve is nothing like he seems around Tommy and Carol in the start of S1. Making friends with Dustin and coming up with a goofy handshake, singing to cheer Robin up in S3, singing into the bat to try and cheer Nancy up in S1, holding her hand during their first time, unabashedly telling her she’s beautiful and that he missed her even if only an hour had passed... Steve is a very emotional, dorky guy, and we never really got to see that side of him when he was around Tommy. I just find that interesting in light of the fact that Steve and Tommy seem to be otherwise rather close. Steve was clearly playing a part to some degree while around them, and in S3 he explicitly says that he behaved the way he did in high school because he was concerned about what others would think of him, about losing his popularity. Even prior to their argument, Steve was wary around Tommy, concerned about losing his friendship despite the fact that Tommy was a pretty objectively shitty friend.

So, here’s what we know. Tommy knows a lot about Steve, including his private family issues, and he isn’t above using that knowledge to hurt or manipulate Steve. In fact, he seems to be really good at it. Tommy benefitted from Steve’s popularity, from him throwing parties and living up to the “King Steve” image. Steve followed Tommy’s lead in their friendship, cleaned up after him, made excuses for him, and let him get away with just about anything. He masked aspects of his personality that didn’t fit the image that he and Tommy aimed for. He was desperate to retain Tommy’s friendship and afraid of letting the mask fall. Tommy was furious when Steve rejected him, taunted Steve with deeply personal jabs, and a year later he latched onto the new “top dog” in town with record speed. Steve is a completely different person when he’s around Tommy versus when he’s around Nancy, Robin, and the kids. Most importantly, we know that Steve has a tendency to construct himself in the image provided by others.

Taking all of this into account, I think that Tommy Hagan met sad, rich, handsome little Steve Harrington, saw just how lonely and desperate he was to feel a sense of belonging, and used that to nudge Steve into striving to be the person that Tommy wanted him to be: King Steve.

#steve harrington #stranger things #this is. so fucking ungodly long skdncdnm #but at least five of you asked for it!!!#if i don't get at least five notes on this ur all fucking fake and i don't wanna hear it #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon

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yellowmagicalgirl · 4 years ago

Text

A Different Sort of Rage

“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.“ – Anne Carson

Toby grieves Claire. He also helps to save the world, again.

You know, at least once while writing this, I asked myself why I’d even bother. Claire doesn’t affect 3Below Season 2 at all, so why would that change because she’s dead? Well, Toby deserved better.

That’s right, almost a year later, the 3Below Interlude to Juliet Dies in This has been completed! That being said, you don’t need to have read Juliet Dies in This to understand this story; you just need to know it’s an au where Claire didn’t make it out of the Shadow Realm during the Eternal Night.

If you did read Juliet Dies in This, then this takes place between chapters 3 and 4.

Trigger/spoiler warning: there is drowning, mild body horror, and talk of suicide in this fic.

AO3

FFN

Toby clung to a set of wooden planks with one arm; the other was wrapped around Jim’s unconscious body. Saltwater slammed against his lower body, cold and angry. On the other side of the planks was Claire and a heavy anchor connected to a length of chain. With each moment that passed, the planks splintered just a bit more. Too much longer, and there wouldn’t be enough wood to hold on to.

“Can you keep the planks steady for me?” Claire asked. “Then I can shove the anchor into the ocean, and we won’t have to worry about it.”

“Be careful,” Toby said, adjusting his grip on the planks and Jim. Claire hoisted her entire body onto the planks. With a grunt she lifted the anchor and began to scoot it to the ocean.

She was about to drop it when the chain glowed gold and wrapped around her.

Toby didn’t let go of Jim, who would surely drown with no one holding onto him.

Toby didn’t let go of the planks, because he wasn’t a strong swimmer even without a friend to hold on to.

Toby didn’t grab Claire. Instead, he watched in horror as she fell into the cold ocean, her hair indistinguishable with the blackness that she was pulled into.

And then Toby woke up. It had been a while since he last had nightmares about drowning and sinking boats. He had had one or two back when Jim had been in the Darklands. Most of this species of nightmare had occurred before he started puberty but had been old enough to really understand just what had happened to his parents.

“Wingman okay?” AAARRGGHH!!! asked.

“Yeah,” Toby said. “It was just a dream.” He glanced at his clock. 12:51 am. He loved having a semi-normal sleep schedule again, but with most of his friends being nocturnal phone calls weren’t always easy. Oh, well. He was awake anyways; may as well call Jim and Claire.

Wait.

Claire didn’t go to Jim and Blinky to find a Heartstone in New Jersey. Claire had disappeared into a black void and Toby had been the one to lock her in.

So that was why he had that dream.

Toby put a reminder on his phone to look into what mental health options his nana’s health insurance had and then went back to sleep. Or at least, he tried to.

Sunshine streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Catholic church that Claire’s funeral was held in, which meant that even if trolls were allowed to go, they couldn’t have. Claire had family outside Arcadia, and to them she had died because she got trapped under rubble in the freak earthquake-and-tornado that had occurred. To them, Claire was inside the coffin, though badly mutilated by rocks that had slammed into her.

Her body was probably mutilated by Morgana, come to think of it.

Toby tugged at his tie. This felt so stupid. Claire was a hero, and her extended family wasn’t allowed to know. He understood, though. They didn’t want to get anyone from the government involved, at least, the non-local government, since obviously Claire’s mom and thus the rest of the city council involved. The trolls were weakened, and Toby didn’t know if they were bulletproof.

It was probably for the best that trolls weren’t allowed to attend the funeral, but that didn’t mean that Toby wasn’t angry with the situation. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! had been Claire’s friend, too. He should be here. Besides, he hadn’t been the one responsible for this mess.

The unsettling calm in the week-and-a-half since the Eternal Night had given Toby a lot to think about. Specifically, how everything had gone wrong.

He should have smacked Morgana into the Shadow Realm with his warhammer and then destroyed the staff. He should’ve been smarter. He had been fighting alongside Claire for months; surely, they could’ve come up with something so that she would be either in Arcadia or on the road to New Jersey.

There was one thing about this funeral that wasn’t a farce: Claire was dead. Toby didn’t think Morgana would be interested in keeping Claire alive. After Merlin cleared away the Eternal Night, Jim had proposed going to Trollmarket to see if there was anything in Blinky’s library to see if it could help them save Claire. Blinky had told them that he had had one book on constructing magic items, but it was among the first of Dictatious’s books he had burned. Strickler, for all the dark magical knowledge he had from the Book of Ga-Huel, had nothing on making a new Shadow Staff. Probably to keep the changelings from rebelling against their Lady Creator, the former history teacher had mused.

To Toby’s right, Darci and Mary and their families stood for a prayer. Toby’s eyes traveled upwards to the rafters. One troll, or rather, changeling, had made it despite the odds. NotEnrique would probably deny the fact that he had been crying later.

“Dude, you sent me a thousand texts, what is your data plan?” Toby asked as he crawled through Eli’s window. It was easier than he had expected, despite his gym pass not feeling as intense of a work-out as fighting trolls and sparring Jim and – sparring in the forge. That was, that was pretty good, actually, he wouldn’t be the reason for anyone else getting hurt or worse if he tried to keep getting stronger.

“Some of them might’ve been queued up,” Eli said, shrugging as he held up a flashlight under his chin. “I… this is important, but I thought I could’ve gathered more evidence and, well…” Eli frowned and dropped the self-important tone. “I wanted to give you some time, since the funeral was a couple days ago.”

The light returned to Eli’s eyes, or maybe it was just the flashlight glinting off his glasses. His voice once more took on an air of self-importance. “Now, Tobes, are you ready for me to rock. Your. World?”

Toby glanced over at his girlfriend and Mary, who was complaining about boredom. Toby’s hands curled into fists. They had been friends with Claire for longer than he had been, how could they be so, so normal?

“TP, come here! I wanna talk to you about something!” Steve called from where he was leaning against Aja and Krel’s house.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I mean, it means vaguely the same thing as buttsnack but nicer?” Steve said as Toby made his way over to the house.

Toby rolled his eyes. Well, at least one person realized why he hadn’t wanted that nickname. If only Claire had realized that, before she, before she, before she had spread it around the school.

Toby blinked several times, trying to get the stinging sensation out of his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Dude, relax,” Steve said quietly enough as to not let Mary and Darci hear from their spot by the pool.

“Relax? Relax?” he whisper-shouted. “How am I supposed to relax when we’re in the middle of a war that will decide the fate of not only Earth, like the one with Gunmar and Morgana, but also Aja and Krel’s planet too? I relax, people die. If I’m not alert, someone else has to take the hit for me. If I don’t pay enough attention, then I’m the one responsible for trapping someone in an alternate dimension!”

Steve just looked at Toby for what felt like five insufferably long minutes.

“Stop freaking out,” Steve said, pinching his brow. “Or else you’ll be so high strung that you’ll end up swinging your oversized mallet at the wrong thing.”

“Warhammer,” Toby corrected, even though Steve did have a point.

Toby’s therapist said that it was important to have hobbies. Between trollhunting and school, Toby was used to having to be constantly alert and vigilant, and that may have been helping to contribute to his restless mind. Granted, Toby hadn’t told his therapist about the ruthless Akiridion dictator trying to attack Earth because that probably fell into the “I will alert the authorities if you’re going to harm yourself or others” clause in the doctor-patient confidentiality forms he and his nana had signed. However, filmmaking was both a good way to bond with his friends as well as maybe destress.

Pretending that he was only interested in making a short film made him seem vapid, like less of a threat. He didn’t trust these military goons, but he also knew they probably underestimated him. What could a short, fat kid with a warhammer possibly do to them?

Rule One of Trollhunting was to always be afraid, with the caveat of goblins. If Area 49-B was unafraid of Toby, then they’d underestimate him.

Besides, these people wanted to capture all sorts of extraterrestrials. Who knew what they’d do to trolls?

Toby still didn’t know if trolls were bulletproof or not. He got the feeling they wouldn’t be laser-proof.

Angor Rot hadn’t been laser-proof, if that’s what Morgana’s magic had been.

Angor had been their enemy, but he had saved them, too.

Tronos had been their enemy, but he had just saved the entire world.

“Get in my phone!” Toby yelled at the armored extraterrestrial as the Area 49-B goons approached, clearly interested in his warhammer. It reminded him a little of the robbers who had kidnapped them.

“What?”

“You did it before! I’m not letting anyone else die.”

Toby and Tronos barely escaped with the others.

“Okay, so, just so that we're clear, by ‘Earthly forces’, you mean me, Eli, Steve…” Toby said, covering his mouth to hide the sound from Darci. He didn’t want to worry her.

“And the brute,” Zadra said. “Yes.”

“Technically, AAARRRGGHH!!!’s a troll.”

“I'm not confident about your chances, but these are desperate times.”

“Well, not even the word ‘hopeless’ is void of hope, I guess,” Toby said.

“What?”

“Trollish saying. I, we’ll do our best.” The call ended; Toby turned to his girlfriend. “Hey, babe, you seem like you got this stapling thing down pat.”

Darci crossed her arms, suspicion in her eyes. “Toby, what’s going on?”

“It’s… a long story.”

“Then start talking.”

Toby looked away from his girlfriend.

“Is it more troll stuff?” she asked.

“No…”

“Then what’s. Going. On?” Darci grabbed his hand. “Toby, I’ve been to enough funerals this year. I don’t want to go to any more of them, and I really don’t want to have to go to another funeral angry that the person I cared about lied to me about the supernatural battles they were fighting. Not when I could’ve maybe helped.”

Toby sighed. “Okay, to make a long story short, there is life on other planets, including a planet called Akiridion-V. That’s Aja and Krel’s home, but it was taken over.” Toby tugged his hand away from Darci’s, giving her an apologetic look. He grabbed his warhammer and expanded it. “And the guy who took it over is going to attack their house so I really gotta go make sure they’re safe so bye I promise I’ll tell you more later!”

Between all the other problems of his life, having a creative outlet was a great way to destress. Usually. Theoretically. Considering that Chompsky broke character on every take, this was really just another source of stress.

His film wasn’t as important as the Akiridions in orange pods.

“Are those your parents?” he asked Aja and Krel. “Do you want me to help?”

“No, we’ve got it!” Krel shouted, waving him off as he, Aja, Varvatos, and Stuart set up the daxial array.

“What are you doing?” Aja asked.

“Well, while I was holding down the fort, I thought I’d finish my director’s cut.” Toby scowled. “But then Chompsky started acting out.”

There was chattering that only one who had lived with a gnome for months would understand. He was almost surprised that Bagdwella never learned how.

“No, I can’t make you taller in post!” Toby had a realization as he walked away from the gnome. “Wait, does this mean you’re going home soon? Back to Akiridion-V?”

“Of course,” Krel said with a glance towards his parents. “That was always the plan.”

Right. The plan. Aja and Krel were going to leave him. They had more important things to do than live a life in Arcadia Oaks. They were royalty from another planet.

“But wait, not yet!” Toby protested. He wanted more time with his new friends, and maybe he had just the thing to get them to stay. “I’ve got good news! Captain Kleb is going to premiere before Gun Robot 7 at the local drive-in!”

“That’s amazing,” Krel said, sounding surprised. He gave an almost incredulous chuckle. “All our friends are going to be there!”

Not all of Toby’s friends, but a good portion of them.

“Yeah,” Toby said, less enthusiastic than he was a moment before. “We’ll be local celebrities.”

Maybe they city would dedicate a nice park bench to him, for all his combined work as a filmmaker, trollhunter, and crook-catcher. He didn’t deserve an entire street, even though Domzalski Drive had a nice ring to it. Besides, Jim Lake Lane and Claire Court sounded better, more fitting.

“Your moving picture party will be the perfect way to celebrate after we stop Morando,” Aja said, breaking Toby out of the beginnings of yet another depressive spiral.

Toby turned to Aja, Krel, AAARRRGGHH!!!, and Varvatos. Sure, the crystal staircase didn’t light up with each step, but they were about to see the most incredible place ever! It deserved every bit of gravitas that he, Jim, and Claire had been given. “Welcome,” he said in his best impression of Jim and Blinky, “to Heartstone Trollmarket!”

Toby gasped.

“This is ‘the most incredible place ever?’” Krel said.

“Was,” Toby sighed, “before the Eternal Night.”

It was probably a good thing, that Blinky and Jim went to New Jersey so they wouldn’t have to see it. That Claire, Draal, and Vendel would never have to see it. The darkened, broken heartstone and the rubble-strewn streets were horrible to see; this was a place that Toby had considered to be practically a second home. He could only imagine just how terrible his Wingman must have felt at the sight of it.

“I know what it’s like, to lose one’s home,” Aja said as they passed by Bagdwella’s old shop. She was better at comforting AAARRGGHH!!! than Toby himself was. Probably Krel and Varvatos, too. They had left behind their homeplanet, and their house was gone, too.

“Your friends, Jim, Blinky, and the trolls are safe, and that’s what matters the most,” Krel said. Toby was about to thank him for the reassurance – he had gotten good at dealing with human feelings – when rocks collapsed.

Varvatos was right. There was definitely an aura of death and decay. Stupid Morgana, ruining everything.

“That looks… deep.” Varvatos said.

“How do we get down there?” Aja asked.

“We don’t!” Toby said. Memories of watching Jim’s cage fall filled his mind. “If you go down there then you face your deepest fear!”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Krel asked. The light from the Soothscryer came back up again insistently.

“It’s a long story,” Toby said as the light spiraled downwards once more. “Jim made it out alive, and unfortunately, he’s the only one who has.”

“We don’t have much choice,” Aja said. “We have to find Gaylen’s core before Morando.”

Krel held two of his arms in front of his sister. “I’ll go!”

“No, if we have to fight then it’s better to have safety in numbers. We’re stronger together,” Toby said.

“But you and Varvatos need to fight whatever’s coming,” Krel said as Aja pulled out her hoverboard.

“We will,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said. He raised his voice to a slightly higher pitch. “So, fight!” he imitated, before lowering his voice. “Make proud, Wingman.”

“Will do.” Toby pulled out his warhammer and followed the Tarron siblings down into the Deep.

Unfortunately, Toby followed them straight into a stony wall.

Toby stood on a dock, watching a cruise ship sail away. His nana waved good-bye to him, along with two relatively young adults. They were familiar, just like the ship was. They were familiar from blurry memories and from morbid curiosity because at age twelve, Toby wanted to know just how his parents died.

“Don’t go,” Toby pleaded softly, but he knew it was no use. He looked over his shoulder and caught Jim’s eyes.

“Well, bye, then,” Jim said flippantly. He began to walk away, and Toby realized that so did all the other trolls. Darci, and Dr. Lake, and pretty much everyone Toby knew walked with them.

Toby tried to catch up, but each step was a herculean effort. Eventually, everyone passed beyond the horizon. It started to rain, and Toby realized that he had managed to find his way to the bridge where everything always went down.

A dark sliver appeared in the thin air in front of him. It widened, and Claire stepped out of it. Except “stepped” wasn’t quite the write word, not with how her limbs and neck bent at all the wrong angles. Golden manacles with small lengths of broken-off chains were attached to her wrists and ankles. A noose connected her neck to the Shadow Realm, and when the portal closed Claire collapsed, almost like a puppet whose strings were cut. She caught herself at the last second, dust swirling off the bridge to reform the Shadow Staff in her hand. She stretched each of her limbs as they popped into place with the sound of crunching bones and scraping metal. She then rolled her neck, the noose catching on one of the spikes of her helmet. It didn’t seem to bother her, but it added a gruesome effect.

Claire’s brown eyes opened, going from blank to full of hatred in the span of an instant. “You,” she said. Her voice echoed above the sound of rain and distant thunder. “You let me die!”

She lunged for him, and Toby found that the sluggishness to his limbs was gone as he jumped out of the way.

“You killed me!” she screamed, disappearing through a portal. She came out from almost directly above him, staff pointed to skewer him.

Toby caught it with his warhammer, sending it away from himself. “You, you told me to. You told me to break the staff,” Toby said.

Claire attempted to stab him in the back. “And you didn’t think to wait, did you? You didn’t think that maybe you should have waited for Blinky to have saved me?”

“There was no time, and you know this.” Toby knocked the Shadow Staff out of her hands. It crumbled into ash. “It’s not my fault that you didn’t think of any other way to end Morgana. It’s… it’s not my fault that you’re dead!”

The rain stopped, and the clouds started to part. As Claire looked up to the sky, Toby realized that he was crying.

The sun was eclipsed by the moon and then by even darker clouds. Claire closed her eyes as it began to rain again, this time even harder than before.

“You want to know what’s the best part of being dead?” she asked in an eerily soft voice.

She opened her eyes. They were purple and black. “I don’t have to look at your stupid fucking face anymore.”

Claire lunged for him, knocking his warhammer out of his hands. She pinned him down with one hand. “No one wants to have to look at it. And I’m going to be the fucking martyr that makes sure no one will ever have to again.”

And then she began to punch his face, the edges of her clawed armor piercing him. With each punch more cracks began to grow on her face and hand, but Claire didn’t seem to notice them. She didn’t look like she was in pain like the last time she had grown those cracks. If anything, the lightning glinting in her eyes made her look sadistic.

And then Toby woke up.

“I did it,” Krel said, overjoyed. “I did it!”

“I’m proud of you, little brother,” Aja said, rubbing at her arms. She sounded spooked. “Congratulations, you probably beat me by half a mecron. What… what did you see?”

“Morando destroying Arcadia Oaks and everyone in it, which he’ll do if he gets Gaylen’s core,” Krel said with a slight frown. “And you?”

“The same, but with Akiridion-V,” Aja said. The two of them turned to Toby.

They were going to have to leave anyways; they didn’t need to know that Toby’s worst fear was a combination of Claire hating him in her dying moments and everyone he cared about leaving him.

“Oh, well…” Toby gave a slight chuckle, and hoped that they’d believe the fat stigma. “Dieting.”

They had no time to question his lie because Varvatos and AAARRRGGHH!!! came crashing in.

“Purple. Pretty,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said, gazing at the altar to Gaylen’s core.

“Claire would have loved to have seen this,” Toby sighed, and then startled with a realization. “Kanjigar, do you know if Draal and Claire are, you know, resting in peace?”

Unfortunately, the previous Trollhunter had gone back to the void.

Toby supposed it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, not with Aja and Krel being shot down. Still, closure that his friends were okay in the end would have been nice.

“Where’s Krel and Varvatos?” Toby asked as he dismantled yet another OMEN. “Would be nice to get a little more help.”

“Krel’s working on getting us some reinforcements,” Aja said, “and Varvatos is protecting my parents and Stuart. I trust him enough to not try to power the canon with my parents’ cores twice.”

“Wait, why would he do that? He’s not evil enough to power things up using unwilling people!”

“I thought that too, but since two royal cores are needed it’ll be Krel and I and not my parents.”

“No.” Toby brought his warhammer down enough that deep cracks were left in the concrete where the OMEN once stood. “Aja, you can’t. That’s suicide.”

“It’s not suicide, Toby. It’s sacrifice. Of all people, I thought you understood that.”

“Oh, trust me. I understand that. I also understand that those two look really similar sometimes. Aja, promise me that I won’t have to attend any more of my friend’s funerals this summer.”

“I can’t, but that’s why Krel’s working on reinforcements. I don’t want to do this, but I will if that’s what it takes.”

Toby would have argued had an OMEN not thrown a truck at a random kid. There had to be another way, one that wasn’t trying to fight a losing battle. One where all his friends made it out.

“He’s too strong,” Toby said. “He’s stronger than…”

No.

Morando was not stronger than Morgana. He couldn’t let himself believe that. They were all going to live, and no one was going to sacrifice their life for the good of everyone else, even if they were on the very same bridge where Angor and Claire died.

And Toby had legitimate hope when Zadra and various ships from Akiridion-V came through the wormhole.

Except they weren’t enough. Morando grew red wing-like appendages and created a massive explosion of red light.

“Morando is too powerful,” Krel said.

As the Tarron siblings hugged each other for what shouldn’t be the last time, Toby tried to think of another way to kill Morando.

“Go back to town,” Aja said. “Make sure everyone’s safe! And… I’m sorry, Toby. There’s a reason why I didn’t promise.”

“On it!” Steve said. “Please don’t get stepped on!”

“You too, my Palchuk!” Toby couldn’t tell if it was cruel or not for Aja not to say goodbye.

There had to be a third option.

“What are you waiting for, give me a ride!” Steve shouted. Toby fired up his warhammer.

Morando was at least as strong as Morgana. Maybe he was stronger. Two people would die. Someone’s hand would get cut off by a –

There was another way.

Toby set Steve down and began to fly off in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going, buttsnack?” Steve shouted.

“To save your girlfriend’s life!” Toby began searching through his phone to find the number for Akiridion-V. They could try to open a portal from within Morando’s body, and hopefully Akiridion anatomy was such that it would kill him.

It was probably a good idea that Toby had used his warhammer instead of the Shadow Staff. Too gruesome.

He was on the second ring when he watched Aja and Krel fire the canon.

He felt relief, and then guilt.

It was over.

Toby didn’t know what to say. Aja, Krel, and everyone else from Akiridion-V were leaving. So were the Foo-Foos and Eli.

“Do you have to leave?” It was selfish. Of course they had to leave. Toby closed his eyes and tried to drown out Deep-illusion-Claire’s words. They weren’t leaving because of him; Aja and Krel had to go and rule an entire planet.

“Thanks for keeping that promise about me not going to your funeral”? Too selfish. It put the focus too much on him.

“Being an orphan isn’t so bad, just look how I turned out”? Too insensitive, considering that he could barely remember his parents.

“Sorry about your parents, but I’m glad they’re dead instead of you”? That wouldn’t stop the guilt.

Except, Krel was staying.

Toby would figure out something comforting to say, eventually.

The world was going to end. Again. And this time, Toby’s new allies were a talking, bipedal cat and a pair of teenagers who were currently going through their emo phase. Said emo teens were about a year older than Toby, and supposedly they were wizards, but honestly? Aja and Krel seemed more competent than these two.

At the very least, Aja and Krel were better at lying. The minute after the cat had called them out on “experimenting unsupervised”, Zoe had started rambling about college apps, which had segwayed into summer homework, which somehow turned into how she and Douxie could make non-exploding potions without Archie’s supervision.

It was a little creepy, just how exasperated the cat looked.

Douxie stared at Toby quizzically before interrupting his friend’s rambling. “Your friend – the possessed one. Is she okay?”

A cold sort of rage crept into Toby’s bones, and with it, came the desire to scream at Douxie for having noticed that Claire wasn’t okay, and not having really done anything. Storm out of the apartment, telling Steve to tell Toby anything important, but refuse to work with the wizards.

But Claire made her decision. There was nothing that Toby could’ve done to change that, much less a guy who went to their rival school.

So instead of yelling, Toby took a breath, and said coldly, “Let’s just say that Claire’s at peace now.”

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teacup-crow · 4 years ago

Note

Tom/Jody, whump? Or fluff! (still obsessed with that Zombies, Make! prompt fill you did, btw.)

*slaps the side of my Google doc* this thing can fit so much whump in it!

Tom protecting Jody emotionally for once (well, more he gets a bit of a break for once), here we go!

CWs (warning, spoilers!): torture including eye gouging (not described in detail) minor death and major blood

Mid Season 6. Jody’s on a mission in Ministry territory and gets distracted.

“Please don’t.”

It’s the little catch in the girl’s voice that stops Jody cold.

She’s on a reconnaissance mission, not a rescue one. Her orders are to grab the documents detailing the invasion of Abel and get out, leaving Sigrid’s generals none the wiser. And doubtless, there will be moments like this in Ministry territory - her supporters are a bunch of overpromoted authoritarian nutjobs on a power trip, after all.

But she didn’t think it would shake her like this.

On the other end of her headset, Tom is silent, and she knows he heard it too. The break in the screaming. The girl’s voice sounds so pitiful and so small. Jody needs to ignore it: she needs to grab the papers while they’re distracted with whatever sick shit they’re doing and-

They’re laughing. Those men think this is funny.

“Tom,” her voice is low. She’s still in a crouch in the Admiral’s study, her heart hammering, but in her head she’s back in the punishment cells in Abel. She’s listening to Cameo in the cell next door, half an hour after picking a fight with some sneering jackbooted Ministry thugs, whimpering now that they can’t hear her. In her head, she’s lying curled up on her side with three broken ribs, knowing that she’s failed in Janine’s absence to protect any of them, knowing everybody she loves is dead, and-

“Jodes.”

He’s going to tell her to stick to the plan. That she’s too valuable to play hero. In, out, that’s the job. Laughing, screaming, put it all to the back of your mind, it’s not important. Everyone’s lives could be at stake for this data.

“Tom, I can’t - I have to help her.”

“Jody,” his voice is strained. “We don’t leave anybody behind.” He clears his throat. “There are three of them in there; you’ve got two bullets left after that horde on the way in. Your best bet is to distract them somehow. Got a grenade?”

“Wouldn’t leave home without one, babe.”

“You’ve been listening to Steve’s radio broadcasts too?” she can hear him smirk. “Okay. Grab the documents. I’d use it in the street outside - inside there’s no way to do it without risking hurting her or yourself.”

Jody slips a few of the papers into her pack, too distracted to even check if they’re the right ones, and sidles out of the window. The girl is crying, now, almost silently, and she doesn’t want to see herself in that sound but she can’t help it. Her stomach is a ball of white hot rage as she slides down and runs into the road. A few residents see her, but scatter.

“Sit rep?”

It’s been a while since she felt this powerless, burnt so much with righteous indignation. She rummages through her bag, and swears through gritted teeth.

“The pin. It’s jammed! The grenade’s fucked. I’m going in there.”

“Jody, don’t!”

“You have a plan B? You said we don’t leave anybody behind.”

“This is war, Miss Marsh,” says Janine’s voice unexpectedly. She’d almost forgotten they weren’t alone together on comms. “You know that sometimes we have no choice.”

“I’m going in there,” she replies. “Sigrid doesn’t get to win this.”

She throws the door open and charges upstairs. Her face is recognisable to everyone in the region, paraded on wanted posters on Ministry trucks for months, so lying probably won’t help her. At least it’s a photo from before the apocalypse, when she used conditioner and showered every morning and she wasn’t marred with scars, or thin and rangy and desperate. There’s a chance, however small, that they won’t shoot her on sight.

At least if they do she’ll get that whimpering out of her head.

She reaches the top of the stairs, and slams into the door with her shoulder, blurting the first lie she can think of in Janine’s accent of all impressions. “It’s the Minister! Someone’s stabbed the Minister!”

The bolt on the door is drawn back, and the piggish eyes of Admiral Denton look her up and down. “And who sent you, sweetheart?”

“I dunno, nobody, I don’t know anything, I’m just a messenger, but somebody’s shot her, I mean, stabbed her, she might die, they need you, sir!”

He nods, and shoves her to one side. “Quick, Hugh, you’re with me. Andersen, keep an eye on these two. If this is bollocks, I’ll want to know exactly where to find you. I don’t entertain people who waste my time, do I, Alyssa?”

Alyssa’s pale little face is covered in blood, her left eye hanging out of its socket halfway down her cheek, and Jody’s stomach flips inside out. Tom’s breathing gets heavier. She wishes his hand were in hers.

The footsteps thunder down the path, and she takes the pistol from her leg holster and points it at their guard.

“Who the fuck are you!” he shrieks, hands above his head in an instant.

“Did you help with this? Were you complicit?”

“I was just… you’ve seen what they can do, I was just following -”

She shoots him through the chest.

***

Alyssa is sixteen years old and her entire settlement is dead. Zombies overran their walls, and because they refused to ally with the Ministry, nobody came to help. She’s been working in the kitchens here for six months before she accidentally burnt the admiral’s joint of lamb. She doesn’t say much, but grips Jody’s hand like a vice as they run over the border to the sound of sniper fire. She knows a bit about Abel, she says - she used to listen to Jack and Eugene as a kid. Jody gives her the headset, and Sam soothes her down the line, throwing the occasional direction and zombie warning in a way that makes running half blinded through the wasteland funny rather than terrifying. He’s good with kids. He holds Sara up to the mic, and her babbling nearly coaxes the girl into a smile.

Maxine whisks her away at the gates, and it’s Tom who’s there to grab Jody and stop her from falling, to lead her back to the farmhouse.

“I’m fine,” she hears herself say from far away, smiling at citizens commending her bravery or patting her on the back. “I’m fine,” at the kitchen table, a nurse gingerly removing a bullet she caught in the shoulder. “I’m fine,” she tells Tom, who is patting down her bloodstained arm with a flannel.

“No, you aren’t.”

She’s looked away from everyone but can’t avoid him. His voice is deliberately steady as he dabs gently around the stitches. “You saved someone today. You killed someone today. You are not okay.”

“I shot him in the heart.” She feels her jaw. It’s still speckled in the man’s blood. Her whole body screams in pain, but she refused the morphine Maxine offered. Alyssa’s going to need their whole supply.

Besides, she’s frightened of falling asleep.

“You did what you had to. You’d do it again, and you’d be right to.”

“I know he was just, just playing his part, but all I could see is one of those soldiers hitting Cam, and knowing they were going to hurt me next, and I felt this, this pain in my head, and she wouldn’t stop crying, and I can still hear it even now.” Her voice feels flat, like it isn’t her own. “And I know you’ve had it so much worse - the poor kid’s had it worse - but I-“

“Hey,” his voice is gentle but stern. “This isn’t trauma Top Trumps, Jody. You’re allowed to hurt. And you don’t have to protect me from it.”

“Trauma Top Trumps sounds really terrible,” she manages a small laugh, trying to make her tone light. “Shooting a guard dead at point blank range - trauma, seven; nightmares, four; fear factor, three. Seeing a little girl get her eye torn out-”

She stops, feeling the colour sap from her face.

He looks at her reproachfully, and daubs the blood from her chin.

“You held it together out there. It’s more than I could have done. But you’re home now. You can let it all go.”

“No, I can’t. Don’t you get it?” She’s angry now, pushing the chair back from the table with an unpleasant screech across Janine’s kitchen floor. “I can’t let it go because if I’m not ready to do something at any moment, someone like Denton could make me powerless. I could lose someone again. I could lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere-“

“But someone could take you. Something could go wrong in the field.” You could lose your grip on your sanity.

He doesn’t promise that it won’t happen, but he takes her face in both hands, and presses his forehead to hers. She breathes sweat and smoke and cocoa butter. “Let go, Jodes.”

“No!”

She pulls away, and there in the doorway is someone with two laden dinner plates. The smell of roast lamb hits the back of her throat before Tom can get them to leave, and she gags, and retches, and then at last the tears are flowing down her cheeks. He cradles her in his arms, and keeps the world blocked out for a while.

#zombies run #zr #jody marsh #tom de luca #zrs6 spoilers

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dutten-does-the-fanfic · 5 years ago

Text

telling you means losing you (but what if what if what if)

Title: telling you means losing you (but what if what if what if) Pairing: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington Warnings: Language, implied sexual content, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced recreational drug use, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) Word Count: 3.758

Notes: Set right before season 3 - slight spoilers

AO3

Summary: ”You talk in your sleep, you know.”

"Oh?"

Billy hums from behind him. Steve doesn’t have to turn around to know how he looks; lounged in his bed, suntanned, and with the sheets pooling artfully around him even if it’s too fucking hot to even be partly under the covers.

“Can’t even get you to shut up when you’re asleep.”

He should tell him, he thinks. Feels like a hypocrite, feels like bullshit, because that’s what Nancy had wanted to do, had wanted to tell Barb’s parents there was no reason to hope when they should be grieving.

He should tell him, he thinks again. What if it’ll end up being what saves his life?

”You talk in your sleep, you know.”

The blinds are rolled down and the white, completely see-through curtains are closed too. Steve can’t see that the sun is already high in the sky and burning everything in its wake, but he can feel it because the room is positively sweltering.

It doesn’t help that they close the door, too.

There’s no actual need, because they’re alone. No one is ever in Steve’s house, but it makes them feel safer having the visual of the door fully shut.

“Oh?” He hadn’t been aware, actually. No one’s ever been around to tell him. Nancy definitely never said anything.

Instead Steve keeps staring at the door, keeps sitting on the side of his bed. The floor isn’t even cold against his bare feet.

“Can’t even get you to shut up when you’re asleep.” Billy’s tone is sharp and his words are harsh, but Steve doesn’t flinch at either. He wants to laugh.

Because he knows Billy – or, he can read Billy. He doesn’t think anyone actually ‘knows Billy’, maybe not Billy himself. And while Billy sure sounds it, he isn’t being mean right now. Not like he can be, when his words bite the worst and make Steve flinch away even though he knows Billy won’t physically hurt him ever again.

So Steve’s grinning even as Billy can’t see it and says, “You wouldn’t want me to, anyway.”

Billy doesn’t reply, so Steve doesn’t know if he’s grinning too, or scowling, or has that sappy look on his face he always refuses exists when Steve brings it up and that he hides away if Steve’s able to see it.

He figures Billy would look really good with a cigarette right now. Would look good bathed in sunlight too, but Steve never draws the curtains, so they’ll have to make do with the light coming off his bedside table.

He’s provided Billy the perfect opportunity to say some gross shit like, know something else I’d rather have your mouth be doing, but Billy doesn’t take the bait.

Ironically, it’s the quiet that makes Steve anxious, not the words. You talk in your sleep.

Steve isn’t good with sleep. He isn’t good with a lot of things, but sleep in particular doesn’t come easy to him anymore.

Sometimes it’s falling asleep that’s the problem, mostly it’s staying asleep. Sometimes it’s impossible to not wake up in the middle of the night screaming, or on the worse night where he doesn’t have enough air to even do that, when the darkness is oppressive and fucking terrifying. Or, not the darkness, but what hides there.

Billy knows about the screaming. And the not screaming. He’s been there for both, has jolted up from the bed to seek out the threat, to fight off whatever’s made Steve so afraid he’s shaking apart in his bed, until he seems to realize there’s nothing there, it’s just the two of them and there’s seemingly no reason for Steve to be as scared as he is.

Yet he can’t stop shaking. Not until long after Billy’s curled himself around him, warm and solid and breathing and alive and safe, they both are, do his limbs fall heavy and the sobbing threatens to take over instead.

It’s not as bad now as it used to be. Isn’t as bad when Billy stays over. Steve’s even started sleeping through the night again, on those nights only.

Steve dreams. Or more accurately, he remembers, with added on events of just how wrong things could’ve gone, nearly did go. Dreams filled with darkness and screams and too many teeth and danger, danger, danger until the anxiety makes him want to tear off his skin and hide away forever.

It’s gnawing at him now, not knowing what Billy may or may not know right this second.

“What’d I say, then?” he asks, going for casual, but his skin is too tight and the line of his shoulders too rigid that Billy will know just by looking at him.

“Loads of things,” Billy says. His voice is deep and a bit gravely, the way it always goes when he’s just woken up.

The lie-in had been accidental. At least they both have the closing shift today. Billy has to stay late to teach the kiddies in the late afternoon and Steve has to lock up the ice cream shop and ask Robin if she wants a ride somewhere, even if she always declines.

“You talked about the ocean,” Billy finally tells him. Tensely, which tells Steve it’s not the entire story. “Kept going on about waves and sunshine and driving down long, deserted roads.”

Oh. Steve feels his mouth go slack as all his muscles relax. It happens so quickly, too quickly. He nearly slumps down so much he slides right off the bed. His skin is too sweaty to glide anywhere, though, which is probably the only thing that saves him and his dignity.

Because what Billy’s leaving out isn’t the part about too many teeth and growls and a bat with nails and keep them safe. It’s that Steve thinks about the ocean and waves and sunshine and driving down long, deserted roads with Billy.

Steve can’t help the smile the breaks out on his face. He can still feel the anxiety swirling around inside him, now there for a different reason because Billy doesn’t really do… this. Feelings or commitments or whatever you might want to call it. He gets scared and makes stupid, impulsive decisions, or he wants to test someone, push them to their limits to see if they’ll really follow through on what he’s pushing for them to do.

Steve talking about not only going to California, but going with Billy is definitely something that’ll make Billy scared enough to do something stupid before he shows up at Steve’s front door again. Tired and worst case bloody and just so fucking sad and filled with anger that only slowly starts to ebb out when he’s got his face pressed into Steve’s hair and Steve’s got his face pressed into Billy’s neck.

“Did I bore you with my travel plans?” Steve lilts. He’d meant to tease, because Billy likes it when he pushes back and Steve loves to push back, but he doesn’t end up doing that.

Billy snorts from behind him and it makes Steve grin wider. Duck his head down even as he knows Billy can’t see how his mouth is stretched out in a smile.

He notices he’s got a set of teeth marks indented in his skin, right on the bone of his wrist. It’s red and a bit sore when he moves his hand around. It’s just deep enough to still be there as a remnant from last night, but not deep enough to have drawn blood that have scabbed over.

He likes it. He always does, and Billy knows that which is why he keeps giving him little marks and bruises he’ll get to run his fingers over during the day when he can’t remember what is a dream and what is reality.

He’ll have to wear a watch to work, though. Robin would give him looks, probably thinking he did it himself while jerking off to keep quiet. And it’s a bit of an awkward place when he has to hand ice cream over to sweaty, tired parents and too hyper children all day. No need to cause a scandal.

“Always yapping away,” Billy groans, but he sounds less tense, has less anger looming right underneath the surface.

Steve hums. “Could stop listening, then, if I’m so annoying.”

And he should sound like he is annoyed, but he really isn’t. This is just how they are, this give and take, push and shove.

Billy’s physically unable to stop listening. Is always paying attention to the point where it’ll go from being a nuisance to too much and the anger will boil over and Billy will snap for whoever’s talking to shut up.

He never does that with Steve. Even with how Steve admittedly does have a way of yammering on and on, words just falling out on top of each other in a mess until he isn’t sure what the point he’d been trying to make was.

Billy’s always sweet when Steve talks. He’s sweet too when the words refuse to come to Steve, when all he can do is gasp for air that’s evading him, Billy’s still listening patiently then too.

He keeps seeing too many teeth, and too many teeth and Billy, and it fucking terrifies him.

And he shouldn’t be thinking like this, because they closed the gate. It’s over. All the demodogs had been taken care of the following couple of weeks; the first one because Steve, Hopper, El and Mrs. Byers had gone out and taken care of them, but after that first week they’d just started to drop dead. They couldn’t handle being cut off, weren’t strong enough to survive without that something tethering them to their own world. They’d only had to dispose the bodies after that.

Billy moves around. Steve hears the sheets being shuffled, feels the dip in the bed as Billy’s probably moved to face him better.

“How would I ever know what you’re thinking, then?” Billy asks, voice light but so heavy with teasing.

Steve should get up and go take that shower he desperately needs. They both have work in an hour or two, and they both need to shower and eat before that, and they won’t have time for either if Steve turns around and takes a look at Billy.

Because he knows what he’ll see and he knows what he’ll want to do instead of all the things he needs to. Knows he’ll want to crawl back onto the bed and down Billy’s body until he can press his nose into the v of his legs, or maybe just settle on top of him until he can sink down, down, down.

“No one ever really wants to know,” Steve tells him a bit distantly. Eyes fixed on the two sets of yesterday’s clothes tossed on the floor right by the door. “The truth can be inconvenient, and people hate being inconvenienced.”

He’s thinking of rows upon rows of teeth and screaming, wishes he could just be thinking of beaches and the ocean and sunshine and worrying if Billy will or won’t want to go with him.

Billy shuffles from behind him again. Steve feels the heat of his hand hovering over the bare skin of his lower back, but Billy never closes the distance.

He’s always been weird about that, careful not to initiate touches if Steve isn’t looking at him.

“You still high, baby?” Billy asks, and Steve wants to laugh. Wants the knots in his stomach and chest to go away until he can finally be content.

He never comes closer to that feeling than in moments like this one. Moments where it’s easy to breathe even with everything he’s trying to leave behind.

Their work uniforms are lying in a tangled heap on Steve’s bedroom floor where they’d dropped them last night. The red of Billy’s swimming trunks shines brighter than the rest of the clothes. They’ll be all creased and messy by now, and Steve will have to iron the sailor suit before he goes to work, which Billy will make fun of him for, but he can’t just not do it. He really needs to get started on his day if he wants to have time for everything.

Instead he turns around. Slides back fully on the bed, settles between Billy’s legs, and holds himself over him, perched up on his elbows by Billy’s head. He’s careful not to press down on Billy’s hair, to not accidentally squash any of the golden curls.

Billy’s a fucking vision underneath him, is a vision in general.

“High on life,” he drawls exaggeratedly. Takes a risk and presses a kiss to Billy’s chest.

“High on love.” Doesn’t look further up than Billy’s mouth, can’t take the risk of looking him in the eyes. He’s still smiling, soft and sweet, and his body hasn’t grown tense underneath him.

“High on you.”

Chances a look. Billy rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling and relaxed and letting Steve do whatever.

Billy raises his hand, runs his fingers along Steve’s jaw, up his cheek, down his nose, over his cupid’s bow, over his lips and settles on his chin. The pad of his thumb presses down until Steve gets the hint and lets his mouth fall open easily underneath Billy’s administrations.

His thumb moves up, traces over the line of Steve’s bottom lip, holds down until the wet, shiny bit of Steve’s mouth starts to show.

“Jesus, you’re pretty,” Billy mutters. His pupils are blown and his gaze is fixed on Steve.

And Steve loves it.

“Got to be, don’t I?” Steve asks when Billy isn’t holding his mouth open anymore. Drops down from his elbows until he’s lying fully on top of Billy. “To keep your attention.”

Billy snorts. “Oh, yeah. You’ve got so much competition, pretty boy.”

Steve beams. Likes it when Billy breaks out the sweet names that are only slightly mocking. Likes it when Billy unintentionally reveals just how much moments like these mean to him too, that it’s not just Steve who feels it.

Steve hums. “Bathing suits have never sold this well before, you know.”

That startles a laugh out of Billy. He’s shaking with it, and in turn shaking Steve.

He’s got laughter lines around his eyes and his mouth, Steve realizes. He likes the look of them, likes knowing he was the one who brought them out this time. Made Billy laugh hard enough that they couldn’t keep hidden in smooth, tanned skin.

“Saw Mrs. Wheeler get a new one the other day,” Steve continues before Billy’s managed to settle down.

“That so?” Billy’s still giggling. His hand smoothes over the line of Steve’s torso, tickling along his ribs until he wants to squirm with it, but he keeps still. He’s being good. “Think you’d look prettier in it, baby.”

Steve can’t help the pleased smile that shows on his face. “Not quite my colors.” Finally squirms when it becomes too much.

Billy’s grinning, looking like a predator with sharp teeth and clever eyes. Like someone who’s just caught their prey, and it makes Steve want to squirm until he can burrow his way into Billy’s chest and just stay there.

A hand runs through his hair, tugs a bit until his mouth falls open reflexively.

“Every color is your color,” Billy drawls. Steve can tell he doesn’t really care about that though, isn’t thinking about which colors are complementary to Steve’s skin tone. “If you can rock the sailor outfit anything works.”

Steve scowls at him. “I look fucking cute in that sailor outfit, asshole.” It’s not his fault there’s a stupid hat.

Billy tugs a bit harder around his handful of hair, sending a deliciously sharp pain sparking down the line of his spine, makes him shiver with it.

“Said so, didn’t I?” Billy reminds him.

He had, Steve has to concede in the end. Doesn’t do it verbally, because he doesn’t want Billy to gloat for, like, a week, which Steve knows he’ll do. He’s an infuriating asshole like that.

He still presses another kiss to the sleep-warm skin right near his mouth. Makes it a bit wet, licks with just the tip of his tongue until Billy’s eyes darken and Steve can feel his pulse picking up.

He tastes of salt and sweat and Billy, and it’s so good. He moves along his skin until he ends up at Billy’s right shoulder, just over the top of his bicep, right at the tattoo.

He’d gotten it on the night of his 18th birthday, back in April. Had had a bloody nose the day after and a proper shiner.

Steve had laughed when he first saw the tattoo, because it’s so Billy it’s slightly hilarious. It’s so fucking dramatic, but it’s also so fucking sad or some shit, so it was either laughing or crying and Steve does enough crying in front of Billy during the night.

Because maybe it’s for bragging rights, like Billy claims. Some kind of street cred about having a skull tattooed onto your body that Steve will never fully understand, but Steve sees.

The cigarette dangling out of the skull’s mouth, the smoke curling up towards his shoulder, reminds him a little too much of the way Billy likes to leave a cigarette in his mouth, likes to feel the way his lips will curl around it, the way he can hold it still between his teeth.

If the skull didn’t say enough by itself, the dead look in his eyes that Billy sometimes gets should be the final nail in the coffin. At least it’s summer and Billy’s lack of a uniform, so to speak, means there’s nowhere to hide away the bruises. Steve’s also fairly certain Billy’s and Max’s mom and dad are out of town, because he’s seen Max run around the mall with the boys at all sorts of hours that he knows she never would’ve been allowed out at if Billy wasn’t the one in charge.

He should tell him, Steve thinks again. Tries to dismiss the thought, because, no.

Not only will Billy laugh and call him a nutcase, Billy will leave. He’ll leave and he’ll never come back.

And Steve is selfish. He’s selfish and he’s bullshit and he falls in love with all the wrong kinds of people. And he doesn’t want to be left alone again. He can’t.

“Can’t believe you went out and bought new shoes just so you could color coordinate.” Billy says the word like it actually pains him to acknowledge he has that term in his vocabulary, even though Steve’s fairly certain he knew about it before Steve ever told him.

Steve frowns. “But they’re literally the perfect match? How could you honestly expect me not to –“

He umph’s when Billy suddenly drags his body up along his own. They’re both too sweaty and it burns when their skins stick together, but then Steve’s close enough that Billy can kiss him quiet.

He should tell him, he thinks again. What if it’ll end up being what saves his life?

It’s a nagging little thought that never fully goes away. Is there every single time Steve looks at Billy or thinks of Billy or worries about Billy when he wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and Billy isn’t there.

And he shouldn’t even be thinking about it, because the gate is closed. No more monsters, no more weird labs, no more getting beat up, no more weird mysteries, no more deaths. It’s done and over with, and telling Billy would put him in danger along with Steve, if it’s any indication the way the government officials had hunted him down afterwards and made him sign wads of paper after paper.

But what if, a voice in his head traitorously whispers. Then Billy licks over the seam of Steve’s lips and it’s easier to not think about any of it.

Billy would leave, but before that he’d call him stupid, an idiot, crazy, exactly what everyone else calls him, and what Steve hates being called, and what Billy never calls him because he knows Steve hates it.

He’ll tell him, he decides when Billy rolls them over so he’s on top, situated between Steve’s legs, hands wrapped around his wrists and holding them up over his head, and kissing him lazily like they have all the time in the world, if it ever comes down to it. If it’ll ever be necessary. He’ll tell him.

If it ever comes back, if it ever seems like ignorance isn’t bliss anymore, like knowing might just end up being what’ll save Billy’s life, Steve will tell him. About everything. About monsters and too many teeth and screaming and all the deaths and constantly being so fucking scared. He’ll tell him.

And he’ll let him laugh at him and he’ll let him call him bad names that’ll haunt him for a long, long time, and it’ll all be worth it because it means Billy’s alive to do it.

He’ll tell him, and then forgets about everything else and just focuses on kissing Billy.

Four days later, he’s trapped in a Russian elevator. Dustin and Erica are asleep while he and Robin try to figure out something that could help them break out of here, but it’s difficult when all Steve can think about is how he should’ve told Billy when he had the chance.

Mind you, he never would’ve thought Russians were what they had to be afraid of. And they have no reason to think any of this is connected to the Upside Down, but Steve still feels the regret festering in the back of his mind.

He hasn’t seen Billy since Friday morning-noon-ish. Since Billy had pressed him up against the inside of his front door, trailing biting kisses along his skin until they’d both nearly been late for work.

Steve hopes it hasn’t made a difference not telling Billy. Billy, who, theoretically, should be safe, because he spends most of the day at the pool, which is so public no monster is going to be charging through there all willy-nilly, and Cherry Lane is far enough away from the woods that it should be secure. Safer than Steve’s house, apparently, maybe even ironically, considering the other type of monster that lurks around Cherry Lane.

He’ll tell him when they get out of here, he decides. First thing, doesn’t matter if this is only the Red Army infiltrating or if there’s some Upside Down business involved as well, Steve’s going to tell him. Just hopes he won’t be too late to do so.

Because, what if, the voice keeps tormenting.

#harringrove #Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington #Stranger Things fanfiction #Harringrove fanfiction #dutten-does-the-fanfic

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buckysforeverprincess · 6 years ago

Text

You Asshole, Bucky Barnes

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 2293

Warnings: Language, and assholery

A/N: This was the very first fic I wrote outside of my first series. It was written for a challenge, and the first time it received a huge response. I went back through and reworked it, and I hope you guys enjoy it more now than when I posted it almost a year ago!

Bucky Barnes is a flat out, asshole! He really didn’t start out that way, honest. In the beginning he was a pretty cool guy and you even kind of like him a little bit. However, the more you got to know him, the more his inner asshole came out and now, you couldn’t stand to be anywhere near the guy.

Bucky's best friend was your roommate, Steve. Had you known they were a package deal when you responded to the web posting, you would’ve kept looking and not ever felt bad about never getting to know these two. Nothing had prepared you for the amount of fuckery you’d have to deal with daily from Bucky “Asshole” Barnes.

“Morning Steve!” You see your roommate in the kitchen pouring himself a bowl of cereal.

“Morning beautiful!” Steve responds, kissing you on the cheek as you grab a bowl of your own.

“Sleep well?”

“Omg, yes! I'm so glad I bought that new mattress! The pillow top feels amazing and I’m pretty sure I slept like a princess last night!”

Steve laughs at how excited you are over your new purchase. You felt like a kid on Christmas when it was delivered yesterday and couldn't wait to go to bed to test it out. Best night of sleep you've had in forever and you can’t wait to crawl back into again and sleep like the dead.

Opening the cupboard, you look around for your box of Cocoa Krispies, but couldn't find it among the others. You just opened the box yesterday and only had one bowl, so you know it should be here. Maybe Steve placed it somewhere else to make room for his own.

“Steve… have you seen my cereal?” You're looking through the rest of the cupboards frantically trying to locate the brown box.

“Uh, no?” His response doesn't sound too positive and comes across as more of a question than an answer.

“Steve-”

“Good morning sunshine!” Bucky interrupts and you cringe where you stand.

You quickly look over and see him, hair wet from the shower he obviously took and was covered only with a towel around his waist. Sometimes you wonder why Steve needed a roommate in the first place with the amount of time he spends here. Honestly, Bucky should be paying rent but then you remember, he’s an asshole, so that’s probably the main reason he doesn’t live here in the first place.

Ignoring him, you continue to search through the kitchen looking for your box of cereal.

“Aren't ya’ gonna say hello?” Bucky walks closer to the kitchen, and Steve's still shoving cereal in his mouth.

“Nope.” Where the hell is it? You think as you check everywhere around you.

“Can I help ya’ find something, Doll?”

You look up in annoyance, Bucky making his way into the kitchen, closer to you. “Nope.”

It's then you notice the trash can Bucky's practically standing next to. Sticking out, you see the brown box of Cocoa Krispies totally empty. You grab the empty box and tip it upside down.

“Jez, dumpster dive much?”

Turning your head towards Bucky, you shake the box, signaling its emptiness. “Did you eat my cereal James?” There's murder in your eyes and a sneer on your face.

“Oh, was that box yours? I'm so sorry. You'll be happy to know your money was not wasted. Kellogg's still makes fresh cereal!”

“You piece of shit, why are you here?!” You yelled, throwing the box at him.

“Easy there, killer. Don't wanna hurt yourself!”

You're grabbing anything you can find out in the open and throwing it at him. “I can't fucking believe you ate my food! You don't even live here!”

Bucky ducks the water bottle you threw at him, smiling back at you. “But I love you, honey!”

You've had enough of his shit and are pissed off to no end with this asshole. “Eat my fucking ass, dickbag!” You yelled, before stomping off to your room and slamming your door.

“Gladly!” Bucky smirks and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Why do you insist on messing with her?” Steve asks, putting his bowl in the sink

“She's cute when she's angry. Turns me on!” Steve just glares as Bucky turns around and heads back to the bathroom to get dressed for the day.

Your next interaction with Bucky was no different. It had been a particularly stressful day at work, and you were tired and hungry but had zero motivation to cook anything. A hot shower and take out was in your plans for the evening and nothing was going to stop that from happening.

Opening the door to your apartment, you see Bucky sitting on the couch searching through your Netflix queue. “What the hell are you doing here, Barnes?” You head to the kitchen for a bottle of water, trying not to make eye contact with him.

“Netflix and Chill!”

Your eyebrows raise in question, “Chill? Did you fucking invite someone over here?”

Bucky shakes his head, “relax angel. Just you and me…and by chill, I was thinking actual chill. How ‘bout pizza?”

Hmmm…If you ordered pizza, you'd have plenty of time to take a hot shower before it got here. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. “Pizza is good. Can you order one with no veggies. Just meat? I'll shower and be done by the time it gets here?”

Bucky smiles his famous Barnes smile, “of course sweetheart…anything for you.”

You leave Bucky to order food and make your way to shower. The hot water feels so good, and it helps take away the stresses of the day. So what, if you took up all the hot water in the apartment. It was included in your rent anyway.

Towel drying your hair, you join Bucky in the living room and see the pizza sitting on the table. Opening the first box, you know it’s Bucky's pizza…supreme. He likes meat and veggies. Gross! You open the second box and see, not what you ordered.

“What the hell?! Bucky, where's my pizza?

The man shrugs his shoulders and grins at you, stuffing a bite of pizza in his mouth.

“Bucky!”

“No need to yell darling, I'm right here.” He smirks at you.

“Where's. My. Pizza?”

Bucky grabs the box and places it on your lap, “Right. Fucking. Here.” Using the same tone and annunciation you had.

“No it’s not! I said all meat. I don't even see any meat on this shit!” You open the box and shove it in his face.

“No, you said no meat. No meat is a garden pizza. That's what this is. You're welcome, Princess.”

“Fix this now, James!” You're glaring daggers at him.

“Ooh, did you first name me? I think somebody's got a frowny face!” Bucky has resorted to teasing now and you're ready to explode.

“I fucking hate you! I have a shit day, you come here uninvited, invade the space I pay money for monthly, order me the wrong food, and for what? Just to see me pissed off? All I wanted was to eat and relax and I can't even do that without Bucky “Asshole” Barnes fucking it up!”

The nods his head and looks dead at you, “pizza?” Holding the box in your face, acting like he didn’t hear a word you just said.

“Go fuck yourself!” You yell at him, before retreating to your room and slamming the door.

“I'd rather fuck you!”

It's been a few days since the pizza incident and you haven't seen hide nor hair of Bucky. Steve said he went to visit his mom cause ‘he's a momma’s boy and he had something important to talk to her about’. Maybe you can have a nice peaceful day off without the stress of Bucky Barnes fucking it up. Was that too much to ask for?

Laying on the couch, you pull up Netflix and decide to watch Stranger Things Season 2. You've just gotten through the first episode when Steve and Bucky make their way into the apartment, breaking up your peaceful day. Guess his visit with his mom is over and he’s back to raise hell on your life.

Steve goes into his room, and Bucky sits down next to you, grabbing the remote and changing it back to regular tv.

“What do you think you're doing?” You say through gritted teeth, glaring at him.

“Changing the channel. Steve and I came back to watch the game.”

You let out a deep breath, taking a second to calm yourself. “I was watching something.”

“And now you’re not. You can watch that stupid shit later…the game is on now!” He changes the channel to ESPN and begins watching the tv.

“Give me back the remote!”

Bucky gives you a devious look, “you want this?” He holds up the remote to you.

“Duh!”

The man chuckles at your childlike response and has an even bigger assholish come back to go with it. “Come get it…” and he shoves the remote in his pants, possibly his underwear, daring you to go after it.

Steve had already come back out from his room and saw the remote go into Bucky's jeans. “I'm not going after that!” He says and looks at you.

“And you think I am?”

Steve just shrugs at you and grins at you.

“Well someone has too. I nominate Y/N as tribune!” Steve laughs at Bucky's joke, and you look at him with your best resting bitch face.

“You are absolutely disgusting! I hate you and your fucking dick face!” Your face is now red from yelling.

“Aww…but me and my dick face love you so much Princess.”

Something about the way he said ‘princess’ set you off, and before you knew it you were swinging your hand, slapping him in the face. “Don't you dare call me princess, asshole!”

Even being smacked Bucky was still an arrogant ass. “Yes mistress, I won't do it again!” And he blows a kiss in your direction.

Fuming, you get up and stomp to your room. “Fuck you, Bucky Barnes!” You yell, before once again slamming the door behind you.

“I'll be in later to do just that, sweetheart!” He yells back at your closed door.

“Why do you constantly antagonize her?” Steve asks, taking your place on the couch.

“Think she likes me?”

Steve rolls his eyes at his best friend, “no…I don't!”

It's after midnight and you had just turned out your light, when you hear the door open and a see a shadowy figure slip in. The person walks up to your nightstand and turns the light back on and stares down at you.

“Got room in this new bed for your husband?” Bucky asks you with a smile.

“I don't know if my husband deserves to share this bed tonight. He's been an exceptional asshole lately!”

You throw back the covers and Bucky climbs in bed next to you. Reaching over, you shut the light off and scoot closer to your husband. He snuggles up behind you, making you the little spoon, and you begin to relax in his arms.

“I'm sorry, but I thought we weren't telling Steve or anyone yet! We're supposed to make it believable. Trust me, my face believed it!”

Bucky and you had been dating secretly behind everyone's backs for a year. They all thought you hated each other, so you guys kept up the act. Two months ago, he proposed and one month ago you were married in a private ceremony at the courthouse. No one knew or suspected...at least that’s what you thought anyway.

“Baby…you ate my cereal, intentionally ordered the wrong pizza, and told me to go fish for the remote in your pants! You deserved that smack and more if I’m being honest here!” You chuckled at the list of antics.

“And I replaced your cereal, surprised you with take out from your favorite Thai restaurant, included a bottle of wine, and a full body massage. I think I'm a pretty good husband, actually.” Bucky places a soft kiss to the back of your neck.

“Well… you still owe me for today's assholery.”

“I can think of a way to make that up to you Mrs. Barnes.”

You turn to face him now, “How's that Mr. Barnes?” Questioning his change in mood.

Bucky kisses your lips softly, and you melt into the kiss. “It's time I show my wife some extra special attention.” And he starts moving himself down the bed to the area between your legs. You let out a moan at the first touch of his hand to your legs and Bucky stops and looks up at you. “Baby...you have to stay quiet. You'll wake up Steve.”

You nodded and spent the rest of the night in ecstasy as your husband tore you apart.

Little did you know, Steve was on the other side of your door listening in to your conversation. He walks away from the door and pulls out his cell phone, dials a number, and anxiously waits for the other party to answer.

“Steve…its ass early in the morning or late in the evening depending on how you look at it…this better be good.” The female voice says sounding like she had been woken from her sleep.

“You owe me fifty dollars. I told you they were married, Nat. I'm also pretty sure that’s why he went to see his mom…had to tell momma Barnes he's a married man now!”

“Fuck those two!” She yells at the phone.

“They're already doing that themselves. I'll see you tomorrow to collect. Goodnight, Nat.” Steve says, hanging up the phone and walking away to his room with a smile. Never in a million years did he think you’d actually fall for Bucky Barnes’ assholish ways.

#bucky #bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #james barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #james barnes x reader #james bucky barnes x reader #james buchanan barnes x reader

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redheadedramblings · 6 years ago

Text

Lonely Holidays (One shot)

Title: Lonely Holidays Paring : Bucky x Reader Summary: “I know we hate each other but its Christmas Eve and your flight was cancelled please come inside.” word count: 5,053 warnings: fluff, swearing, concerned bucky? A/N : So i had this idea when I had gotten surgery and I needed something to take my mind off of it so here it is! Tell me what you think!

Masterlist

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Bucky hunched over the desk, his body leans slightly over the check in desk while a woman stares at him with a cheerful look on her face.

“All flights have been canceled sir.” she says with a crooked smile on her face.

“What? How am I supposed to get home?”

“I’m terribly sorry sir, but all flights out of the air port were just canceled due to the storm that is moving across the country.”

“What about another airline?” he asked impatiently.

“I am afraid thats not possible, all airlines are shut down until further notice, they just can’t put a plane in the sky in this kind of weather. I can try and help you get a hotel room in the city somewhere…”

“No, no, I don’t want to go to a damn hotel. I just want to go home. Its Christmas Eve! What am I going to do?” Bucky’s voice came out louder than he had expected.

“I’m very sorry Sir, there is nothing I can do. There is a line behind you. Again, I’m sorry there is nothing more I can do for you” Gently she motioned for the next person and Bucky took a couple steps back mumbling silent curses under his breath.

Bucky pushed through the sea of people, inch by inch he moved doing his best not to accidentally elbow someone by mistake. Eventually he found a quiet spot that was a ways past a newly departed gate, standing behind a pillar he stopped to take a breather. This day hasn’t been going well.

He was sent on a small recon assignment, something that was supposed to be small turned into a giant shit show with a bunch of former Hydra agents. The thing was, he wasn’t even supposed to go, but he volunteered to go figuring that it would be a quick in and out, and boy was he wrong. After a long chase, some big explosions, and a bullet grazing his head, he was finally able to get out of there with a bit of his dignity left. Some recon mission that was.

So here he is now, Bucky finds himself stranded in an airport on Christmas Eve with no way of getting home. Bags are beginning to form under his eyes and he drops his duffle bag to the floor while simultaneously grabbing his phone out of the pocket. Finding Steve’s name under speed dial he quickly hits call gritting his teeth together in anxiousness. The rings pass terribly slow and Bucky is instantly fearful that his best friend wont answer his call, but a wave a relief washes that away when he finally hears someone answer.

“Steve.” Bucky blurts out abruptly.

“Bucky?” Steve asks in confusion. “Bucky where are you? Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane right now?”

“My flight got canceled, I am stuck in Chicago.”

“Whens the next flight out?”

“All the flights are canceled. They said the storm won’t let up for a couple of days. Can you send a Quinjet over here to grab me?”

“Buck, there is no one at base right now, everyone is home for the holidays.”

“What about Stark?”

“Bucky…”

“There must be something you can do Steve! I am stuck in an airport! I’m am tired! I’m exhausted! And all I want to do is go home and crash in my bed and sleep till new years!” He knows he shouldn’t be shouting at his friend, but he has been up for way too long and he is a very grumpy super solider. Steve was quiet on the other end no doubt trying to figure out a plan for his best friend, after a long pause he finally spoke.

“You said you were in Chicago right?” Steve asked hesitantly.

“Thats right.” Bucky raised an eye brow at Steve’s suspicious tone.

“Well….Y/N lives in Chicago.”

“No.” Bucky states plainly.

“Bucky.”

“Steve.”

“Its either you go to Y/N’s place or you spend the night in a hotel and we both know how you feel about them.” Bucky shivered just at the thought of the scratchy carpet and the bed bugs. “Plus you probably won’t be able to find one open tonight.”

“I’d rather freeze to death on the street.” Bucky mumbles while looking down and nudging his bag with his foot.

“Y/N lives right outside the city, I will send you her address. Take a cab and go to her house, thats your best option at this point. We can figure this out in the morning, just text me when you get there and rest…Oh and try not to kill each other alright?”

“Fine.” Bucky groaned.

“I will talk to you later.” Hanging up he shoved the phone back into his pocket and pinched the bridge of his nose letting out a frustrated breath of air.

You weren’t exactly at the top of his favorite persons list, you didn’t even make the top ten, and Bucky doesn’t like a lot of people. The two of you would always bicker and harass each other, the team would often have to break up the little verbal quarrels that the two of you would get in quite often. As someone who wasn’t part of the team you sure hung out with them a lot and he despised the way you would always throw yourself into danger without thinking it over.

He hated you, he hated the way you would always laugh at Steve’s dumb jokes. He hated the way you were always able to calm him down from his rage episodes. He hated the way your hair always fell to perfectly on your shoulders, the way your eyes gleamed when you listened to someone talk. The way your lips parted before you were about to speak….

Immediately he shook his head. Yup, he hated you alright.

The car ride was unimaginably long as it took him away from the airport, the traffic was horrendous, the roads were icy and the weather seemed to be getting worse by the minute. Bucky was exhausted, annoyed but most importantly, tired, the only thing that was really keeping him awake was dread of having to show up at your home unannounced. He was taken out of the city after a long wait in seasonal traffic, Bucky was driven out of the city and soon entered suburban neighborhoods.

The driver drove slowly past all the houses and Bucky’s eyes roamed each one admiring the glows of the lights and decorations sprawled out on the lawns. Stopping at the end of the street the car came to a halt, on cue the solider unbuckled and hoped out of the car into the icy blizzard. The moment he opened the door a chill hit him hard and the snowy winds gave him goosebumps as he slug his duffle bag over his shoulder. Damn, he hated the cold. With chattering teeth he handed the driver a fist full of bills while simultaneously wishing the man a happy holidays, only to receive a grunt in return.

He watched as the driver slowly drove away and was long out of sight before looking back at the her house, it was small as it stood wedged in between two colossal homesteads. It was blue with a white trim around it, the porch on the front wrapped around the side and looked freshly shoved, however the pathway did not. The dwelling had two floors with only a few windows which had the curtains pulled over them hiding the insides from prying eyes. The only light he could see was coming from a room on the first floor and he was beginning to rethink his decision on coming here.

Inhaling deeply he slowly walked up to the front door, looking around again he noticed that her house was the only one that was not decorated in the christmas fashions. All the homes were decked out in holiday lights with knick knacks all spread around the yards, but hers was plain and baron.

The light in the window was dim and he was beginning to feel sick, what if you turned him away? What if you weren’t awake? It was cold and he turned his head to look down the street before shifting the weight from one leg to the other. Bucky was mere inches away from the door and took a deep breath before ringing the door bell and clenching his jaw in nervousness.

An excruciatingly long minute passed, until a light finally flicked on illuminating the front porch, the snow all around him began to twinkle from the rays. The door opened very slowly, too slowly for his liking, he held his breath and slowly he saw your figure step out of the darkness of your house.

Your body was cozied up in a sweatshirt while some long sweatpants covered your legs, a handmade blanket laid around your shoulders keeping you warm. Bucky flinched when your eyes met his and he could see your expression melting from a fake smile to an annoyed frown in a millisecond. He opened his mouth to speak but all of the sudden you slammed the door shut right on his face and he jumped.

“Y/N.” Bucky stated rolling his eyes and pushing out the breath he was holding in. “Y/N.” he calls about again this time raising his tone. He dropped his shoulders in annoyance from the lack of response coming from behind the door, even though he knew you were still there. “Y/N!” he called out once more and knocked hard on your door with such great force he could have sworn he heard the hinges rattle.

The door swung open and you took a step forward once more glaring at Bucky with irritation written all over your face. Bucky had to desperately hold back a laugh by faking a unpleasant cough as you crossed your arms and leaned against the door.

“What do you want?” the words were harsh as they left the mouth.

“Merry Christmas to you too.” Bucky replied with a cheeky grin on his face.

“What are you doing here?” your tone didn’t falter.

“I…Didn’t Steve tell you I was coming?” Bucky asked suspiciously.

You raised your eye brow skeptically and gave him a look over.

“I will take that as a no then. Well I was on assignment and I was supposed to fly back to New York but my flight was canceled because of the storm thats coming through. So I…”

“So instead of calling for a Quinjet you decided to come to my house.” your words interrupted him while you adjusted your form while keeping a stern look.

“There was no one at base.” Bucky mumbled in annoyance while scratching the back of his head and looking down at the ground. “Coming here wasn’t my first call to be fair, believe me.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I have no were else to go.” Bucky’s tone begins to become defensive. This isn’t going well.

“Why didn’t you just stay at a hotel?”

“A…A hotel? Do you know what day it is? You think I could find one that was open right now? I don’t understand why this all of the sudden turned into an interrogation! ”

“Look, I am just trying to figure out why you are here, Barnes.”

“If you want me to leave so bad, just tell me!” his voice raises slightly at your attitude.

“I am just trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Bucky Barnes is on my porch at this ungodly hour!”

“You know what? Fine!” Bucky throws his hands up into the air like a child throwing a fit and marches down the steps of the porch. Leaning your head back you let out a growl while running your fingers though your hair. He walks to the edge of the street and crosses his arms and begins to look down the street looking for nothing in particular.

“You are being so difficult!” You cup your hands to project your voice to him. Bucky doesn’t answer, instead he turns his head back to you for a moment and gives you a menacing glare before returning to look at the street once more.

“Now what are you doing?” The body leans against the door frame while you pull the blanket up further.

“I am leaving, what does it look like I’m doing?” His voice was being taken by the winds while he spoke.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, maybe I will die out in the blizzard. We are just going to have to wait and see won’t we? he shouts back in while you roll your eyes at the drama queen.

Smirking you now realize that the two of you look like angry toddlers screaming at each other out in a snow storm. He seems to realize it too because he turns back around trying to conceal a half angry smile while pouting on the street in the snow.

“Bucky, its like 15 degrees outside!”

“I don’t care! I’m the Winter Solider, Winter is my middle name!” he says while you catch him shiver.

“Bucky! ….God you are such a stubborn asshole.”

Looking around you take a large deep breath and let the air trail away in the winds, the snow is falling harder and your fingers are starting to feel numb. The temperature is dropping again and the strong cold gusts of air are nipping at your poor cheeks.

“The weather is getting worse….I know we hate each other, but its Christmas Eve and your flight was cancelled please come inside.”

He doesn’t respond at first and you fear that he may actually walk out into the storm and you wold have to chase him down. But he slowly turns around and instead of a “I knew you would give in eventually” look, he just looks a little dumbfounded while he stares at you in your doorway.

Steadily, he walks back up to the porch and up the wooden steps where you are waiting for him holding the door open wider and motioning him to come in. Carefully he takes a large step into your house and is immediately feels the warmth hit his body.

“You are going to catch a cold.” you say under your breath while he wipes his boots on the welcome mat.

“No I’m not, I am a super solider remember?” he glances over at you with a crooked smile.

“Well I am not a super solider, shut the door.” he sees you point to the door and he closes it shutting out the stormy weather. When he turns back around he suddenly realizes something off, he notices instantly that you are walking weird. Your body was stiff and rigid, your hands began to hold onto the walls as you walked down the hall. The legs wobbled as the feet took each step very slowly while you limped.

He opened his mouth to voice concern but he then closes it abruptly. Oh. Thats right, you had been shot. It happened early in November, when you were tasked to protect an foreign ambassador while he was on a diplomatic mission representing his state. There was an assassination attempt on his life and you nearly lost yours when you shielded him from the wave of bullets, while getting shot in the stomach in the process. The last time he saw you, you were being rolled into the ER while the doctors were preforming CPR. He was told you lived but he didn’t see you after that for you had turned in early till the end of the year. He had tried to get that memory out of his head. Guilt began to push up his throat and he now felt a bit guilty snapping at you in your condition.

“You want something warm to drink?” you ask over your shoulder.

“That would be great thanks.” he speaks softer while setting his bag on the ground without taking his eyes off of you. He steps silently behind while he follows you into the kitchen, he flinches and holds out his hands every time you wobble or slide. Rounding the corner he stands behind the counter while he watches you hobble over to some kitchen cabinets. Stepping on your tippy toes Bucky scurries over to your side in a flash, not allowing you to stretch your body as you reach for a mug. He is quick to grab it before you get a change to react, spinning around you lean back on the marble counter.

“I want this one.” he says playing it off. You raise an eye brow and looked down at the mug in his palm.

“Worlds greatest Aunt?” you as smirking.

“What can I say? I am the worlds greatest aunt.”

Letting out a huff in amusement you take the mug from his hands, he feels your fingers, they are freezing. He looks around the dark kitchen while you begin to pace over to the stove.

“Coffee?”

“Decaf, please.”

He sits at the table while a cup of hot coffee in his hands, he takes a few sips while watching you fiddle around cleaning things up in the kitchen. The atmosphere is very awkward, he doesn’t really know what to say to her an apology should be on the top of his list. But with his anxiety unfortunately building up with each passing second he remains silent with his lips pressed together in a firm line.

“Were you expecting someone else when you opened the door?” He finally speaks after an eternity passes.

“Pardon?” you ask while setting down a wash rag.

“Were you expecting to see someone different at the door? I mean you seemed a little too happy.”

“As a matter a fact, I was. The pizza man.” he hears you laugh.

“You ordered pizza? On Christmas Eve? At this hour? Isn’t everything closed?” Bucky chuckles.

“You would think. But this place is a 24/7 pizza restaurant, and its even open on Christmas Eve so I decided to treat myself to the cheesy goodness of an extra large pizza.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And I didn’t just order a pizza I’ll have you know, I also got some wings and some cheese sticks.”

Bucky lets out a loud laugh and throws his head back while you just stand there with the biggest guilty smirk on your face. A loud doorbell interrupts his laughing fit and he stiffens up to the sound as he watches you limp towards the door. “Speaking of a healthy Christmas dinner…” he hears you say. Leans his body off the chair slightly he watches carefully as you pay quickly for your food and the pizza boy scurries back into the storm.

“You hungry?” he hears you ask as you walk back into the kitchen with a few piles of boxes. The smell immediately runs into his nose and his mouth begins to water as you open each box on the counter.

“Nah.” he lies. A loud growl from the super soldiers stomach catches her ears and he slightly slumps in the chair embarrassed.

“Are you sure?” she chuckles.

“Shut up.”

“Well I guess if you’re not hungry… I will dig in then.” She begins to chew on a slice of pizza and Bucky’s hunger pains begin to get worse in his stomach. It doesn’t help that she is making slight moans when she eats with overly amplified chewing sounds just to get a reaction out of him.

After a few painful moments of watching her eat he finally stands up in his chair and stomps over to the counter. He rips the slice of pizza out of her hands and takes a big bite while she you just laugh with a mouth full of food. His body melts while he quickly devours the pizza and reaches for some cheese stick and chows them down.

The two of you sat on the carpet of the living room, the lights were dim and the flickering from the muted television illuminated the empty boxes that lay on the wooden coffee table. Your backs were pressed to the couch while warm blankets and pillows were scattered around on the floor. A christmas movie played silently while you both sat there will full bellies and tired eyes watching the quiet film.

“I think that was the best Christmas dinner I have ever had.” Bucky spoke up.

“Please, don’t be ridiculous.” you huffed out a laugh.

“I’m being serious. I am always by myself or with Steve over the holidays, and although I love Steve, I can’t stand his cooking. This is more laid back and familiar, makes me feel like I’m at home again.”

“Oh, you had pizza for christmas dinner in the 40s?” You mocked turning your head to look at him.

“Nah, we would always have an over salted ham and some beans that Ma made that I never cared for, I would have rather had this. I am gunna have to make this a tradition.”

Snorting you let out a laugh and he couldn’t help the feel of red creeping up his cheeks as he watched you giggle at his dorkiness. Bucky watches you as your laughs slowly die down, slowly you sit up slightly hugging your knees to your chest.

“What are you doing Y/N?” He says out of nowhere with sadness in his tone.

“What do you mean?” you asked him curiously.

“I mean, what are you doing here. all by yourself? Why aren’t you with family or friends?” Shrugging, you glance down and wiggle your toes though the blanket, Bucky feels wrong for asking that question so suddenly. He wants to take it back while watching you contemplate your answer in your head.

“I usually spend the holidays getting drunk very slowly and sleeping for days.”

“Oh thats nice.” Bucky lets out a breath of air. “How do you usually spend Christmas?”

“By myself. Well, Last christmas I spent it on an assassination job in Slovakia getting shot at but…I don’t have a family to spend it with, I have been by myself for a long time.”

“I’m sorry.” Bucky states quietly and looks down at the floor.

“Don’t be. Don’t be going all soft on me now.” he feels you nudge his arm softly and he gives you a smirk.

“Doesn’t it get lonely sometimes?”

“I would be lying if I said it didn’t.” he sees your sad smile.

You throw your hands up in the air and stretch your limbs out, a satisfied groan leaves your libs and the arms fall back into place. “I am not much of a christmas person anyway…”

“Is that why your house is so dull compared to your neighbors?” he slightly teases.

“Thats right, just thought there wasn’t a point to celebrate it when I had no one to celebrate it with.”

He suddenly feels sad at your words and realizes that this whole time you have been living a lonely life with no one to share it with. He thinks back to all the recent Christmases he had spent with Steve only only to think that you were all alone that entire time. Bucky feels bad about complaining about what he had when he now sees that you had nothing.

“Well now you do.” He smiles at you.

“Yea.” you smile back. “In fact, this is the first time in a long time that I have had company over for the holiday, or even my house for that matter…”

Your voice trails off and you become silent, a bright commercial flashes on the screen and he watches you look around at the table distracting yourself from Bucky pitiful gaze. Standing up quite slowly you shed the blanket off your shoulders and throw it onto his lap while he watches.

“Well, I am going to clean up and throw these boxes away.” you speak avoiding his eyes.

“I’ll help…” he begins but you cut him off.

“No, no, its alright I got it. Its wont take long, I will be right back.”

Stretching the arms you reach to quickly grab all of the greasy boxes and stacking them on one another before limping out of the room. Grabbing the blanket he pulls it over his legs keeping your warmth intact for you while he listening to the awkward footsteps hobble down the hall.

Bucky knows something is wrong immediately when he hears a faint thump, the sound wouldn’t have been heard if he didn’t have enhanced hearing, but a thump is what he hears and he feels his guts turn the instant he heard it. You had been gone for quite a while, after a couple of minutes of hearing you wobbling in the kitchen he expected you to return right away but you didn’t and that made him uneasy.

Standing up fast, he listens carefully to the world around him trying to hear any other sounds. Suddenly he hears a muffled whimper and he darts out of the room, his heart beating hard in his chest as he rounds the corner. He stops fast when he sees you and panic fills him up to the core as he sees your crumpled form hunched over on the ground.

“Y/N.” he breaths out slow. He doesn’t get a response instead he hears a painful cry leave your lips.

In a flash he is next to you trying to pull you up to take a look at your face but the body is stiff and your head ducked low to the floor. “Y/N?” he asks while his hands roam your body trying to inspect any sign of damage. “Y/N?” this time his tone is full of fear. “Hey, hey, are you alright?” Bucky hears you say something under your breath but even his super hearing can’t make out what you said.

“What? Whats wrong? Y/N, tell me whats wrong.”

“…pills.” you painfully mutter out only to wince at your words.

“What?” he asks confused.

“pills…my pills.” he sees your hand shake as you point to the stairs.

“Where?” he asks sternly.

“…Dresser.”

He lets go abruptly and your body falls even more as he sprints up the stairs, finding your room he grabs a couple of pill bottles off the dresser and runs back down and kneels back down on the floor in front of you. “Which one? Which one?” he asks almost in a panic. Bucky sees you shakily point to the bottle with a blue lid and he practically rips the top off of the bottle to retrieve a pill. Putting the pill in your fingers he runs to the kitchen while the shakes fingers place the pill on your tongue. Running back he carries a cup of water in his hand and lifts up your chin and places the cup to your lips to help you drink. After a moment of watching you breath, he sets the items down and props your body up against the wall. Anxiety was still laced in his system and he had to take measures of his own to calm an impending panic attack.

“What happened?” He finally asks after calming down.

“My medicine wore off… I tried to catch myself before I took a digger. But I guess I ended up eating the floor.” He knows you are trying to play it off, he sensed embarrassment in your tone but also pain. Bucky sees your eyes closed shut as the head leans back onto the wall, your fingers grip at your gut hard while a fake smirk is plastered on your face. He scotched next to you and leans his head back against the wall spreading his legs out on the floor of the hallway.

“Its my fault.” He regretfully says though his teeth. The eyes open and you turn to look at him.

“What it?” you ask softly.

“Its my fault that you got shot.”

“What? No its not, what are you talking about? You didn’t shoot me, you had nothing to do with it.”

“I was supposed to be assigned with you that day, but I refused because I didn’t want to be teamed up with you because…” he trailed off. “…instead I sent a rookie into the field. I though that it would a good learning experience for him, but he ended up getting killed. Its all my fault. Its my fault that you got shot, and its my fault that you are in so much pain.”

“Bucky.” you said sternly, he turned his head to look into your eyes. “There was nothing you could have done, Yes, maybe if you were there I wouldn’t have gotten shot, but something else could have happened. Who knows? But none of that was your fault. Don’t put the blame on yourself. I didn’t die, I’m still here, and now…” You pointed to your stomach. “…..I have a good conversation starter dinner parties.”

“You’re so stupid.” he laughs and turns away. “You don’t go to dinner parties.”

“Well, if I ever did, thats what I would lead with.” you smiled up at him with beaming eyes.

Bucky carried you back to the living room for the legs were too weak to move, he placed you on the couch and covered you with the handmade blanket. Slowly the body begins to stop shaking and he seats right down next to you with his arm around your shoulders as you snuggle into him. Its late and the chimes from the grandfather clock fill the house while the snow silently hits the windows from outside.

“Looks like that storm isn’t going to pass for another few days.” he says looking out the window.

“Thats alright I have room, we can wait it out.” you smile and he tucks some hair behind your ear.

“I am glad I got to spend the holidays with someone, even if its with someone I hate.” He teases beaming down at you.

“I hate you Bucky.” she smiles and her head falls on his shoulder.

Bucky pulls your hair back and kisses your forehead.

“I hate you too. Merry Christmas Y/N.”

“Merry Christmas Bucky.”

-End!

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xxsteveharringtonxx · 7 years ago

Text

Him & I [Steve Harrington x Reader] pt 1

Plot: You’re Carol’s best friend, but naturally you’re close with Steve seeing as neither of you are really bad people like Tommy and Carol are. Things never got romantic between you and Steve purely because you were afraid to tell him how you feel, and you didn’t really tell anyone because even your best friend is a bit of a bitch. However when Steve starts dating Nancy and literally drops you and the others you cant really help but feel abandoned once you realised you weren’t putting up with Tommy and Steve because of Carol you were actually putting up with Tommy and Carol because of Steve. Set after season one.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Warnings: Swearing

Him and I

Part One

“Anyway told him if he carries on flirting with her like I don’t exist I’m going to flirt with Billy, because you know he’s actually hot.” You heard Carol drone as you were sat on the bleachers watching the practise.You weren’t particularly listening to her as your eyes followed Steve on the floor, but your attention was drawn away by Tina joining you both.

“So girls, Halloween party at mine this year. You coming?” She asked with a grin which you couldn’t help but return, Tina was a whole lot nicer than Carol and you nodded.

“We’ll be there. Tommy and I are going as Danny and Sandy from Grease, I’m seriously so excited.” Carol gushed before her and Tina had their own conversation without you, and you didn’t complain as you pulled out your chem book.

“Seriously Y/N do you have to act like such a nerd the boys are playing shirts and skins!” Carol barked catching pretty much everyone’s attention, including Steve Harrington who looked over at you with a weird look on his face, it was almost as if he wanted you to bite back. It did him good but he has Nancy, and believe it or not Jonathan. You wouldn’t have anyone.

“I was just taking it out to grab one of my scrunchies!” You excused pulling out the band from the bottom of your bag to tie up your loose dark curls that actually looked nice down today, shoving the book into your bag you sat and mindlessly watched the game. At the end of it you were stood at the lockers finally free to go home and get away from your so called friends who were gossiping and waiting for Tommy and Billy, who you despised.

“Hey guys I’m heading off my mom wants me baby sitting Charlie tonight, so see you on Monday?” You questioned hoping they would just let you go.

“You’re always babysitting Y/N, like you’re hardly ever partying with us any more and you know Tommy is having a gathering tonight.” Carol moaned as the boys exited the showers, followed by Steve.

“I’m sorry but you know my mom.” You tried to make another excuse but Carol scoffed.

“Yeah and she was cool once. Fine just go Y/N but you know Billy was really excited for you to come.” She teased as she rolled her eyes, was that really suppose to make you want to come?

“Sorry. Guess Billy can take his pick out of all the other girls going.” You snapped just really wanting to get out of the situation, and Steve who was trying really hard to act like he wasn’t listening.

“Fine just call me tomorrow.” Carol spat and believe it or not that meant we wasn’t arguing over this. When you finally got outside and both Billy’s and Tommy’s car drove out the parking lot you sighed in relief.

“Thank God.” You said out loud sighing with relief.

“What was all that about? You’re not dating Billy right?” You heard Steve ask from behind you making you jumped slightly as he mumbled an apology.

“Billy? God no, he’s uh, well gross. I just don’t feel like a party tonight.” You weakly tried to convince him you were still the fun girl he knew a year ago but he just gave you a look.

“You know who you’re talking to right? You don’t belong with them Y/N just drop them.” He urged as he looked at you with a needy look, as if it was the best thing he ever did.

“Steve it’s not that easy for me okay? You left for Nancy, if I leave I’m on my own okay? I’d rather not spend my senior year as their enemy and alone. So you just drop it? If your life is so great without all of us why are you even talking to me?” You snapped once again losing your patience.

“I didn’t mean to drop you too okay? It’s just how it worked out you know? With you comes Carol-” You cut him off by opening your car door.

“Right because I’m not my own person? I carry Carol around with me everywhere I go? Please Steve, I don’t know if you noticed but I don’t even go to parties anymore! Or the drive in, or, or pretty much anything! I’m trying to be a better person just like you but you were the one I was planning on doing it with! Remember we made a whole lot of plans to ditch them together but you decided to do it without me so you’re not use trying to tell me to do it now.” You yelled angry that he’s trying to convince you to do what he did, when you were supposed to do it together as friends because you both knew first hand how cruel they were, especially now with Billy in the mix.

“Y/N I didn’t mean for it to happen like that okay? It just happened. I can’t even go into it right now. But you need to try and be a better person, you are a good person, hell you were even on my case to quit it before I knew I wanted to. Look you’ll have me just- just think about it okay?” He begged before you slammed your car door shut and drove home.

Fucking Steve Harrington can’t waltz into your life since leaving you with those two idiots and then tell you he’s going to be there for you, like come on you weren’t an idiot. The only reason he was okay after all this was because he was so wrapped up in Nancy Wheeler.

You weren’t jealous of her at all, you actually liked the girl really. But you were jealous of the fact that she has Steve and after every thing the two of you went to you’d of thought maybe in the end it would have been you and Steve.

Guess Nancy Wheeler was a good girl, the type he wanted in his life which was refreshing. Not someone who just like him was hiding behind a bad girl facade to avoid the risk of getting hurt. Now you were still hiding and a little bit brokenhearted too.

#steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x reader #steve imagine #king steve #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things #season 2 stranger things #stranger things 2 #joe keery #joe keery imagine #steve x reader fanfic

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marvelsquicksilver · 7 years ago

Note

I WANT FLUFF PLEASE, PURE STEVE ROGERS FLUFF

Here you bloody go, I wrote half of this whilst I was drunk and didn’t bothe proof reading so bloody ENJOY.

Word count: 1952

——

“Hey, are you there?”

My head snapped around from my book tocheck my radio on my bedside table—I wasn’t sure if I was hearing things or ifSteve Rogers was paging me at 3am in the morning.

“Hellllooooo,” the radio crackled again—Iwasn’t imagining it.

“Hello?” I answered quickly, my voicefilled with curiosity—what the hell did he want?

“I knew you’d be awake,” I couldpractically hear him smile down the line—I didn’t have to see him to know that hisstupid grin was plastered on his stupid face.

“Well yeah,” I rolled my eyes as I set downmy book, “I literally told you this morning that I haven’t been able to go tosleep before 5am.”

“Meet me in the stairwell of level 12,” Hecompletely ignored the fact that I’d outed him.

“What?!” Why the fuck did he want to meetin the damn stairwell? “Are you joking?” There was no way he was being serious.

“I’m being one hundred per cent serious,five minutes, I expect you there.”

“Jesus,” I huffed down the line, “way to bepushy, but yeah okay whatever, see you in five.” I rolled out of bed and shovedmyself into my dressing gown, praying that whatever he had in store for me wasworth leaving the comfort of my sheets.

–

“You better have a good reason for doingthis Rogers,” I said monotonously as trudged up the stair with him. I’d met himon level 12 like he’d requested and he’d graciously let me know that we’d bewalking up two more levels because our stupid elevator was down.

“Trust me,” he stopped in front of the doorto level 14, “You’re going to love it.” He pulled out a key from his backpocket and I wondered to myself why the door was locked in the first place.

“So,” he turned to me as he shoved the keyin, “this is where I come when I can’t sleep and I want to share it with you.”He opened the door slowly before standing aside so that I could make my waythrough.

“Uh—“ I could feel my throat run dry as Ilost all sense of how to speak. “Um, yeah okay.” I was so nervous, I’d neverhad anyone share their safe space with me before and I didn’t know how I wasgoing to cope.

My heart began to race as I made my wayinside—I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it definitely hadn’t been anindoor garden. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Despite only being dimly lit bylanterns the garden was breath-taking. There were vines covering the walls,bushy ferns in the corners, garden beds filled with almost every flowerpossible and most importantly, there was a lily pond, right in the centre ofthe room.

“Holy shit Steve, this is beautiful.” Ijust couldn’t understand how what I was seeing managed to exist, how had he hadthe time?

“Your favourite flowers are lilies right?”He raised an eyebrow as he took my hand—I almost jolted away, I hadn’t beenexpecting it.

“Yeah, wait how do you know that?”

“What?” he said as he sat down on a smallbench in the middle of the room right next to the lily pond. “You think I don’tlisten to you when you ramble on in the kitchen?”

“Yeah!” I laughed lightly as I sat downbeside him, “No one ever listens to me when I ramble.”

“I listen,” he entwined his hand with mineagain and I gulped uncomfortably. “I know your favourite flowers are lilies,that you’re afraid of the dark AND the ocean. I know that your favourite bookis a tale of two cities and that you read it every night because you can’tsleep till early parts of the morning.” He used his free hand to nudge my facetowards his. “I know that when I wake up the first thing I think about is whatyour daily joke is going to be, I know I think about knocking on your doorevery night and asking you out to dinner—“

“You what?!” I didn’t think he realisedwhat he was saying, “Steve—“

“I’m being serious,” his thumb grazed overmy knuckles. “I’m not good at this whole dating thing you know?”

I nodded sincerely, he’d complained to meabout it a few times and I truly felt bad.

“But I want to try with you, honestly.”

“With me?” I swallowed the lump in mythroat. I’d never thought about Steve in that way. I mean I’d always thought hewas good looking, but I never considered dating him. It made me giddy to thinkthat someone actually listened to all the stupid things I had to say—everyoneelse just seemed to brush me off, Steve never had and I’d only just noticedthat.

“Yes,” he nodded, “with you.” He leanedover to fish out a lily from the pond. “So will you?” He held it out to me withthe most innocent eyes and I’d never been so mesmerised by a man before. I wasseeing someone in a whole new light and I honestly couldn’t believe I’d missedit.

I wasn’t sure completely, but the way hewas presenting himself made me want to try. “I mean,” I admired the flower fora second before plucking it gently from his hand. “There’s no harm in trying.”

“Perfect,” he grinned, “How about I pickyou up at 7pm tomorrow?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

–

Three knocks on the door let my nervousstomach know that Steve was at the door. 7pm had taken all day to arrive andI’d spent all morning feeling like I was going to be nervous.

“Hi,” I smiled as I opened the door to anervous looking Captain—who to my surprise was holding a bouquet of peonies.

“Hi,” he replied as he cracked his knucklesnervously. “I—um—got these for you.” He held out the flowers to me and Igraciously accepted them before planting a kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you—I might start my own garden atthis rate.” I motioned for him to come inside as I trudged towards my shelvesso that I could locate a vase.

He let out a small laugh as he shoved hishands into the pockets of his black jeans. “Don’t think I’m helping, I’ve got awhole one of my own to look after and barely any time.”

I laughed—really laughed and I had no ideawhy, because his joke hadn’t been that funny. It was clear that things were changingand I wasn’t complaining, because I knew it was for the better.

“It’s okay I might just get Bucky to helpout,” I teased knowing he would hate it.

He scrunched up his face “I mean sure, goahead.”

“Stop it,” it was my turn to place anencouraging hand on his shoulder, usually that was his job.

“I won’t lie,” he smirked, “that made meslightly jealous.”

I laughed lightly “I could tell.”

“You know what,” he looked towards my TV,“how about we forget the dinner reservations, we’ll order some take away and wecan watch any show you want to.”

“You’re kidding, I would fucking lovethat.” I’d never felt so relieved in my life—I hated dates, the thought of themmade me nervous to the point where I was almost sick—I was surprised that Ihadn’t already vomited.

“Perfect,” he grinned as he walked towardsmy sofa. It was times like these I was thankful that Tony had given me a masterbedroom.

“Do you mind if I change?” I asked, alreadyunzipping my dress, not waiting for his answer.

“Sure,” he gulped.

I smiled to myself as I flung the dress Iwas wearing back into my cupboard—I knew he was watching me.

I pulled on an oversized t-shirt and mademy way over to the sofa.

“So,” I said as I plopped myself downbeside him “have you watched stranger things?”

“No,” he shook his head, “but people keeptelling me it’s good.”

“Wonderful,” I grabbed the remote frombeside me, “you’re about to be shown a masterpiece Rogers.”

–

I’d fallen asleep at about episode 5 ofseason 1—I assumed that all the wriggling Steve was doing was because he wastrying to regain feeling in his arm.

“Shit,” I recoiled, “I’m so sorry.” Trustme to have fallen asleep on my date.

“No!” he quickly stopped me, “it’s okay!”

“Are you enjoying it?” I smiled as I lookedtowards the TV. I’d already seen season 1 which was probably why I’d fallenasleep—that and the fact that I hadn’t had a good nights sleep, despite beingshown Steve’s beautiful garden.

“It’s good—but,” he placed his knuckleunder my chin and I felt a shiver run through my body. “I think I would ratherbe spending my time doing this—“ before I could gather what he meant, he wasalready crashing his lips against mine and boy I wasn’t complaining.

Everything about him was gentle and I justcouldn’t handle it—I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer,eliciting a groan from him as his threaded his fingers through my hair.

“Shit,” I moaned against his mouth as hedecided to act with more urgency. We were like hungry animals—Steve Rogers wassomething that had been in front of me for so long and I hadn’t known I’dneeded him until he was shoving his tongue down my throat.

“Please don’t rip my shirt off,” he joked—Ireally was tugging hard, my brain clearly didn’t understand he was already asclose as he could be.

“I’m so tempted to,” I tugged hard again, justto show him I meant it.

“I don’t have expendable funds to buy moreshirts to take you on dates—“ he breathed before placing a trail of kisses downmy neck.

“Oh my god,” I sucked in a breath, “do notfucking do that again or I’ll literally rip all your damn clothes off.”

“Oh?” he had the audacity to do it again,but ten times slower.

“That’s it—“ suddenly I was struggling hisbelt buckle, but he was pushing me away.

“No,” he scolded as he pulled away. “No,no.”

“Why not?” I really didn’t see why it was aproblem.

“I just—“ he turned away, “I’m sorry—shit,this is gonna sound so stupid, but I’d really just like to wait, I want this tomean more.”

I grabbed his hand, “stop it Steve, it’snot stupid at all, I get it I promise.”

“Yeah?” he turned back towards me.

“Yes.” I wrapped my pinky around his,“look, why don’t you sleep—we can finish the series tomorrow.”

“That sounds like a plan.” He pulled myhead towards him and planted a kiss against my forehead, “goodnight.”

“Goodnight Steven.” I stole a quick kissfrom his lips, my head feeling somewhat giddy at the fact that I was seeing himthe next day.

“Oh wait,” he fished for something in hispocket and finally picked out a key. “This is for you,” he held it out to me, “yourpersonal key to the garden for when you can’t sleep.”

Attached to the key was a small lily keyring and I swear I felt like crying.

“Get out,” I scolded as I grabbed the key, “hurrybefore I kiss you again.”

He let out a loud laugh, “goodnight, I’llsee you tomorrow.”

#Steve Rogers #captain america #captain america oneshot #captain america x reader #captain america fanfiction #captain america x ofc #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers one shot #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x ofc #FLUFFFFFFFY #FLUFF HEHE #steve rogers fluff #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel oneshot #fluff

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lionheartsthings · 7 years ago

Text

Rate Me

*NOT MY GIF!*

Sam Wilson x reader

FLUFFY

Beginners post.

You sit on the couch with some popcorn and Tony's good rum and continue to watch the SPN series.

"Dean you are one fine piece of ass." You mumble under your breath. "Oh sure you admire his ass but what about mine." The familiar voice sends shiver through you, Sam Wilson give you a toothy grin. "I give yours a 9 but Dean, Dean is a 10… thousand." You laugh at his expression of defeat. He sits close to you, and you can smell the Giorgio Armani cologne coming off of him. You try to look at the TV but you can't help it. You wanted to be cuddled, you wanted to be touched, you wanted to be loved… but Sam never saw you that way. You knew that but it didn't stop you from reaching and caressing his face. He grabs your hand out of reflex and he holds it in his. He keeps his eyes on the screen and he pulls you into his embrace. You feel warm and comfortable, you feel safe. "So his brothers name is Sam too?" "Yes, and he is gunning for the 10 thousand crew too." You smirk at the screen. "They has to be a superpower dying and living again the next seasons and Cas, he's badass. I'd give him a 12… million." He looks down at you and you are in shock. "I keep up with the Winchesters too. They are an interesting trio." "And Crowley?" "That asshole? What about him?" Sam raises an eyebrow at the screen. "What do you rate him?" You ask wrapping your arm around his chiseled stomach. You swore he was flexing just for you. "I give him a 5…" "You're cruel." You giggle as his arm around you tightens. Your breathing hitches as his hand caresses your legs. "Sammy?" You move away and turn your body to face him. He stops looking at the screen and faces you. "Yes y/n?" "On a scale of 1-10 rate me?" You ask the impossible of him. He doesn't know how to answer but the pause made you feel awkward. You nod and give him time you get up and begin to clean up the area. When he doesn't answer you feel a bit uncomfortable, you force yourself to laugh and turn off the TV. "I'm just kidding. Relax Sam." You walk away to the kitchen washing the bowl, tossing out the trash, and just try to ignore the stinging feeling in your chest. "Y/N…" Sam walks into the kitchen almost whispering your name, you can barely hear him over your own heart beat. "It's alright Sam, I was kidding around. I just remembered I had to do something for Tony. I'll see you later." You leave the kitchen and make a beeline for the elevator. Sam stands there confused at what just happened. She wouldn't look at him, it was like he was a disease to her. "You know, she was giving you a hint there buddy." Tony says grabbing his near half empty bottle of Rum off the counter. "What?" Sam's trying to collect his thoughts. "She likes you Sam, she always has and still does. Thought I don't know what for, you always keep her in the friend zone and yet you treat her like a girlfriend… I don't maybe you're kind of leading her on?" Tony pulls out a cup and fills it and hands Sam another cup filling it as well. "I never put her in the friend zone… and I am not leading her on." Sam gets defensive. Tony raises his hands, palms out. "It's just what I'm reading. You have to be blunt with Y/N otherwise she will move on…" Tony grabs his bottle and heads out of the kitchen waving as he walked away to the stairs. "I'm an idiot… why did I think he would ever be into me?" You cry out to Wanda who just lets you lie on her lap as she strokes your head. "No you're not, maybe Sam does like you, did you even ask him?" "No… I can't. I'd rather us just be friends than ruin it with asking him that question." She sits up trying not to cry. "Hun don't do this to yourself, I'm sure he doesn't even know you like him like that… if fact, do you know for sure that he doesn't like you?" You go silent and listen to her. "Just talk to him and if he doesn't like you, there is always Bucky, Steve, Coulson, Happy, hey and maybe even the King of Wakanda." You throw a pillow so hard at Wanda she falls off the bed to the floor. She is laughing and sends it flying back at you as you laugh. "I as, Queen of Wakanda, banish you Wanda Maximoff." You joke and shake your head. "I am sorry my Queen…" They both go into a laughing fit. "So the Queen of Wakanda… huh?" Sam's voice interrupts your laughing as you sit up quickly and highly embarrassed. Sam gives you a side ways glance, you get off the bed and walk toward him. "Sam.…how long have you been standing there?" You ask. "Long enough… Sorry I'm not the right black guy." He walks off in a huff. At this point your run after him completely angry with him. "What the hell does that mean?" You practically shove him into a corner. He glares at you but there wasn't anger tinting his eyes but pain. "I mean, I guess you're into the rich suave guys huh?" His voice cold. "Sammy, you don't get to say that to me. As long as we have been friends, since when have I ever looked at a man for his riches or his status?" He doesn't answer but looks over your head out the window. You grab his chin and direct his focus on to you. "Sammy, I love YOU. Not the King of Wakanda! You're such an idiot." You storm away from him leaving him dumbfounded. "You let him have it!" Wanda laughs walking out of your quarters to give you two some space. You sit fuming playing some old school R&B to soothe your angry heart. He finally comes fumbling into your room, he can't get himself to look at you. You find something to fiddle with in your room. "So, I may not be a King, but I would love to take you out." He says with a sly smile. You narrow your eyes at him not even cracking so much as a grin. "Y/N… I'm sorry, I just can't believe someone so damn amazing, so sexy, so talented, and so unique could love someone like me… I never knew that the one I've been looking for this whole time has been in front of me." He pauses and caresses your face, sending shivers through you heating your core. "y/n, please…" He leans in, looking into your eyes then down to your lips, you bite your lip instinctively. He runs his thumb over your soft lips and he kisses you. You drop the item you had in your hands, you feel your stomach tighten as he pulls away. You both smile and without another word you straddle him and look into his beautiful brown eyes and ask,

"Sammy, so what from a scale of 1-10, what do you rate me?" "None, the limit does not exists." He says smugly giving you a boyish grin. "Smart man.…now what were we doing again?" You says coyly. "This…" He flips you onto the bed, pinning you as he envelopes you into a deep passionate kiss. If you were standing your knees would have buckled. "So… did he take the bait?" Tony asks handing Wanda a glass of rum. "Oh yeah. He took it." Wanda laughs, downing her shot, she turns to leave to find Vision. She wanted to know what he would rate her as.

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