#and still get caught in stubborn stitchings

[sleepingnexttoagrave]

i can’t trust in much, but when i play a song on repeat - at least i know what’s coming.

[nhlclover]

𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐘 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 | 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐇

summary: you finally get to watch will live out his childhood dream, but become a source of comfort when the game doesn't end the way he'd hoped.

warnings: childhood friends to lovers, tooth rotting fluff, use of flashback scenes (which are italicized), appearances from wills family + macklin (very briefly), sad will after the sharks lose

word count: 2.20k

notes: i had so much fun writing this oh my gosh. sucks that the sharks lost but will had a good game (and so did macklin but this isn't about him right now)

The roar of the crowd felt deafening in your ears as you watched Will and Macklin skate out onto the ice, the bright lights of the SAP Center shining down on them like a spotlight. You clutched the teal jersey tighter around you, the number 2 stitched onto the back. Your heart swelled with pride as you watched Will glide effortlessly across the rink, his movements a graceful blend of power and precision.

“I can’t believe it’s really happening.” his mom said, voice trembling with emotion. You glanced over at Colleen who was clutching her chest with a smile that looked like it could light up the entire arena.

Next to her, Grace, Will’s sister, wiped a tear from her cheek as she reached for the both of you, pulling you into a hug as you shared this moment together. Even Will’s dad Bill, who was always so composed, had a telltale glimmer in his eyes, his lips twitching into a smile of unmistakable pride. You’d watched him grow from a gangly kid into a young man now living his dream. And now here he was, skating in his first NHL game.

It was a warm summer afternoon nearly a decade earlier when you first met Will …

You sat in a heap on the grass, chest heaving as you attempted to catch your breath. A fresh scrape ran across your knee, a testament to your failed attempt at learning to rollerblade. The purple and green skates on your feet had been a birthday gift, and in your stubborn independence, you were determined to teach yourself how to skate. But the balancing part was proving much harder than you’d imagined, leaving you bruised and scraped after several falls.

As you sat there, huffing and pulling out tufts of grass in frustration, you heard a voice. “You okay?”

You turned to find a boy standing there, about your age, with shaggy blond hair falling into his eyes. He held an oversized hockey stick in one hand, donning black, sleek rollerblades on his feet. Will, as you'd soon learn, had just moved into the house next door. He smiled with a confidence that seemed far too big for his small frame.

“Yeah,” you muttered, wiping at your tear-streaked face, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. “I just…fell.”

Will nodded, studying your skates before dropping his hockey stick on the ground. “Want me to show you how to stop falling?” he asked.

You tilted your head. “You could do that?”

“Yeah! I’m a pretty good skater,” he said with a proud grin.

Will helped you to your feet, keeping your hand in his as he eased you back onto the pavement. You spent the rest of the afternoon with Will teaching you how to find your balance. He patiently caught you every time you wobbled, never laughing when you stumbled. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink, you could glide down the sidewalk without feeling like you’d crash into the pavement.

“Thanks,” you said shyly, tugging your skates off for the day.

“You’re not bad," he grinned, leaning against his hockey stick like it was the most natural thing in the world. "You just need a little practice."

“Will! Dinner’s ready!” a voice called from the nearby driveway. His mom, Colleen, waved him over. He glanced back at you, still seated on the sidewalk, and smiled. “See you tomorrow?”

You nodded. “Definitely.”

From that day forward, it was always “you and Will”. He became your constant companion. Through scraped knees, missed goals, and late-night talks, you grew together.

It was during your sophomore year of high school when things began to change. You noticed the way Will would look at you a little longer when you were talking, his eyes lingering on your face like he was trying to memorize every detail. You’d find yourself holding your breath when he’d sling an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into one of his endless jokes, but the warmth of his touch would linger long after he let go.

One late night after a particularly tough game, Will dropped by your house, his hair still damp. You were sprawled out on your bed, textbooks and homework scattered around you when he knocked on your bedroom window. He always did that, never bothering with the front door.

“Need a break?” he asked, pushing up the window and climbing in like he'd done a thousand times before.

“Definitely,” you laughed, shoving your books aside, letting him sit on the bed beside you. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged, but there was a nervous energy about him you hadn’t seen before. He ran a hand through his hair, hesitating. “I was just thinking about something.”

You tilted your head, raising an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Thinking about you,” he said plainly, your heart stuttering. “And about how I always feel better when I’m around you.”

You felt your stomach twisting into knots. “What are you trying to say, Will?”

His eyes searched yours for any clue that he should either stop or keep going with his confession. “I guess… I’m trying to say that I like you. A lot.” he laughed, shaking his head as if trying to brush away his own nervousness. “Like, more than a friend.”

Your breath caught, the world narrowing down to just you and him at that moment. You’d thought about this, dreamed about it even, but hearing him say it made it feel more real than you ever imagined. “I…I like you too, Will,” you admitted, the words tumbling out before you could second-guess yourself.

The smile that spread across his face was the most genuine, heart-stopping thing you’d ever seen. “Really?” he asked, disbelief colouring his tone.

“Yeah,” you said, laughing softly. “Really.”

Without thinking, he leaned closer to you, his hand reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. You could feel his breath against your skin, his eyes flicking to your lips before meeting your gaze again. “Can I kiss you?” he asked, voice trembling.

You nodded, and the next moment, his lips were on yours, soft and hesitant at first but quickly growing more confident as he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer. It was everything you’d imagined – and more.

When he pulled back, his face remained close, breath mingling with yours in the quiet space of your room. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he confessed, his thumb tracing circles on your cheek.

“Me too,” you whispered, your heart still racing.

After that, you were no longer just best friends. You were something more, something that had been quietly building for years, just waiting for the right moment to finally come to life. Now as you stood in the packed arena years later, watching him take to the ice, you felt the past and present intertwine.

You felt tears welling up in your eyes, a few slipping down your cheeks despite yourself. Will stopped along the glass in the corner, looking up into the section where you sat. For a split second, your eyes met, and even from a distance, you could see the brightness and unmistakable joy in his gaze. He gave you guys a small wave before looking back to the ice, taking a playful hit from his teammate.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” you whispered, squeezing Grace’s hand.

The game itself was a blur of excitement and nerves. Every time Will touched the puck, your breath caught. You watched him fight for possession, skate with the kind of speed and agility that only came from years of practice.

The first two periods were played well by the Sharks, with them taking a 4-1 lead, but the game soon slipped closer together towards the end of the third. When the Blues tied it with 45 seconds remaining, your heart tensed, the end of regulation buzzer echoing in a silent arena. Will didn’t see the ice in overtime when the Blues ended the game within the first 40 seconds of extra time. A collective groan sounded through out the arena, fans quickly clearing out.

Your heart sank, knowing how much this moment meant to Will. You watched as the team walked down the hall to the locker room, heads hung in disappointment. You spotted Will, Macklin patting him on the back, a small gesture of solidarity, but you could see how much it stung for both of them. They had given their all, but sometimes that wasn’t enough.

Fans continued to flow out of the stands, the usual post-game chatter was quieter, a stark contrast to the earlier excitement. A staff member instructed you to stay in the stands while Will changed and did media. You stood with his family, exchanging hugs, and offering words of comfort, but your eyes kept flicking back to the tunnel, waiting for him. 

Minutes felt like hours, until finally you spotted Will climbing the steps into the stands, changed back into his game-day suit, his damp hair falling in curls over his forehead. His face was a mixture of exhaustion and frustration, but the moment he spotted his family, a small, tired smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Will made his way toward you all, the arena now almost empty except for a few lingering staff members. Colleen was the first to meet him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, and he buried his face into her shoulder for a moment, letting out a deep breath. Bill clapped him on the back, offering a few quiet words of encouragement. Grace was next, standing on her tiptoes to hug her brother, whispering something in his ear that made him smile faintly despite everything.

And then, his eyes found yours.

For a second, you weren’t sure if you should say anything, if you should be the one to comfort him after a loss like this. But when he stepped closer, his body radiating exhaustion and vulnerability, you knew he needed you. Without a word, he pulled you into his arms, his chin resting on top of your head as you hugged him back, tighter than you ever had before.

“You played amazing,” you whispered, your voice barely above a breath.

He didn’t say anything at first, just held you closer, as if drawing strength from your presence. His heartbeat was steady against your ear, but you could feel the tension in his muscles, the disappointment lingering in the air.

“That fucking sucked,” he finally muttered, his voice thick with frustration. “I wanted to win so badly.”

“I know,” you replied softly, rubbing his back in slow, comforting circles. “But you’ll get another chance. Tonight wasn’t the end.”

You felt Will shake his head. “I could’ve done more, I should’ve gotten on the sheet.”

You pulled back slightly, just enough to look up at him, your hand resting gently on his chest. His eyes were a mix of frustration and exhaustion, still tinged with the adrenaline from the game. “Will, it’s not all on you. It’s a team game — you know that. You can’t carry it all on your shoulders.”

He exhaled sharply, his hands still holding you close as if he was afraid to let go. “Yeah, but… I wanted to, you know? I wanted to prove something.” His voice faltered, and the vulnerability in his expression tugged at your heart. You could see how much this moment meant to him—not just the game, but his debut, this night he'd dreamed of since he was a kid. And even though the team had lost, all you could see was how proud you were of him.

“You did,” you said, your voice steady and sure. You brushed back a lock of blonde hair that fell over his eyes. “You proved that you belong here. And not just to everyone else, but to yourself. This is just the beginning, Will.”

He stared at you for a long moment, the weight of your words settling in. You could see the way his tense shoulders started to relax, his grip on you loosening ever so slightly as if he was finally allowing himself to believe it too. A small smile, soft and tired, tugged at his lips. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he murmured, his thumb brushing gently over your cheek.

You smiled back, leaning into his touch. “Good thing you don’t have to find out.”

Will let out a small chuckle, the sound lightening the weight between you. “I can’t believe you came all the way from Boston for this.”

“Of course I did, Will. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” you smiled. 

“I love you,” he breathed out, and before you could say anything else, he kissed you. It was warm and soft and tasted faintly of the Gatorade he’d probably chugged all game, and it was everything you needed to feel how much this moment meant to him.

When you finally pulled away, Will kept you close to him, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured, the words barely a whisper. “For always believing in me.”

“Always,” you promised.

[starhvney]

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌 𝐔𝐏

𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: mcd garroth, gene, laurance, travis

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: fluff? literal hurt/comfort

𝐂𝐖: mentions of injuries but no in-depth descriptions

𝐀/𝐍: me when i spend more time finding the pictures for a good picture header than actually writing. i also did not proofread at all so i'm so sorry for any typos or hiccups in my writing

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐇

the fight has long since been over, yet after searching every corner of the village, you still saw no sign of the head guard. as your last resort, you hurriedly rush across the ruined plaza, climbing over rubble as you descend into the village mines. 

you find him there, tucked back in the main tunnel and slumped over as he holds a cloth over a gash on his side. his gloved hand fumbles with some medic supplies, though his shaky hold renders himself useless as they tumble to the floor.

“garroth,” you sigh, relieved but also annoyed by his insistence on never asking for help.

he flinches, caught off guard by the blood loss dulling his senses. even now, he stoically has every layer of his armor on except for his chest plate, even his helmet stays firmly against his skull.

“i’ll be alright, my lady,” he starts, though the pained wince he lets out a moment later immediately discounts him for his claims. 

quietly, you approach him, kneeling in front of him and pulling the first aid items out of his grasp. while you can’t see his face, you hear him inhale sharply to protest against you. you silence him with a stern glare, to which he sinks back into the uncomfortable stone without a word. 

“you are much too stubborn,” you chastise, reaching to his other hand to remove it from his wound. “your pride will get you killed.”

you cringe as he peels away the blood-soaked cloth to reveal a deep gash along his side. it's a slash and not a stab, thankfully, but it would still need stitches.

it seems he already knew that, based on the thread and needle he had yet to even tie together. while maneuvering the stitching thread into the eye of the needle, you listen to his shallow and shaky breathing underneath his helm.

“aren’t you having trouble breathing with that?”

“…no.”

your eyes dart up, narrowing at the eye slits of the metal in front of you. 

“it's just me. i understand you want to hide your identity, but when it comes to your health—“

you lift your hands up to his helm, firmly placing them on each side before pausing, waiting to hear for any protests. when you hear none, you slowly lift the metal, sliding it off of his head and revealing what was underneath.

for just a moment you freeze, eyes locking onto his. his hair was a stunning sandy blonde that brushed over his brow line in soft curls. they stuck to his forehead, that had a sheen of sweat over it. you could tell his stunning eye color was dulled over by pain, eyelids drooping and his lips pale.

“…there,” you set the helm down, focusing back on his wound. “now you can breathe better, right?”

“…yes.” he winces, leaning back on your command and revealing his wound again.

carefully, you stitch the wound closed, lifting his linen shirt up enough to allow yourself to wrap the bandaging around his stomach. when you’re done you sit back, wiping your hands against your already dirtied clothes and releasing a deep sigh.

you look up, watching as his jaw clenches and his eyes dart to your feet. he still looks pale, but he at least looks more stable than before.

“garroth.” you call, voice barely above a whisper.

his eyes trail up to yours, hesitant and full of a strange sort of guilt.

“you did a good job protecting me. protecting the whole village. but even the strongest need help,” you take his hand in yours. “at least let one person take care of you in return. i was really worried about you.”

he doesn’t say anything, but you know he understands, swallowing down his deep-set need for independence to put himself in your shoes for a moment.

“there’s a cot down here. why don’t you rest, and i’ll bring you back some food and drink to help you regain your strength.”

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄

you knew something was strange, when the beginnings of the evening cricket chirps grew silent, a heavy feeling settling around your cottage. despite the uneasiness and natural instinct that told you to run, you instead looked around the area for the source.

despite the lack of night critters, you notice a strange fluttering of butterflies dispersing from the other side of some shrubbery. you push through the leaves and twigs, noticing the further you advanced the more wilted the plants became. 

on the other side was a man in strange armor you hadn’t seen before. the metal must’ve been smoldering hot, somehow, because the grass around it wilted and burned away from its touch. despite the strange sense of uneasiness in your chest, you take a few steps towards the man, his form slumped over a large stump.

“sir? are you alright?”

he flinches, hand moving unnaturally quick towards a large sword you didn’t realize he had by his side until now. you stumble back with a startled gasp, hands raising in surrender. dark circles line deep blue eyes, black hair stuck on his face where blood poured from a wound.

“i’m not an enemy!” you quickly say. “that injury looks bad, i can help. i’ll go get some bandages for you.”

you quickly run back to your cottage, retrieving your satchel of medical supplies before he could say a word. whoever he was, he seemed dangerous. and the faster you help him the quicker he’ll be on his way and the less likely anything else dangerous is led to you. when you return, he’s still there, though he’s propped himself up in a sitting position and leaning back against the stump.

“i don’t need any help.”

“well those wounds look pretty deep. and�� you’re the one who ended up near my home, so,” you carefully approach him, heart beating erratically fast in your chest. it felt like you were approaching a predator—a wild animal pretending to be a man. “the faster i help you, the less likely whatever did this to you comes near my garden.”

his gaze stayed trained on you for a moment, piercing into you as you kneel next to him. his eyes were a beautiful shade, yet so strangely unsettling and dull. as you glance at them, it almost appears as no light shines from them at all. he smirks, a strangely amused laugh leaving his lips like he found your assistance to be completely entertaining.

“ah, there’s the motive.”

you ignore him, instead using a cloth to wipe away the blood from the side of his head.

“what’s your name?”

“what’s yours?”

you restrain a sigh, biting back the sarcastic quip you wanted to return and instead reciting your name back to him.

“…gene.”

“nice to meet you… gene. how did you get this hurt? are you…” you glance down at his strange armor and sword. “a guard, our some kind of soldier…?”

he says nothing.

“alright, then,” you clear your throat. “no more questions.”

you finish cleaning his head and neck, where another wound was, and carefully place the healing ointment you made from your own magicks herbs. trying to ignore the strange sense that you needed to run away, you finish up your work by placing bandages over the gashes… that seemed to already be healing pretty quickly. 

“there. you’re set.”

a small, “thanks,” leaves his lips, and the two of you met eyes. he seems to contemplate something, before another huffing out another amused laugh.

“you’re very…naive. you should be careful.”

“…what?”

his hand is suddenly in front of your face, cold fingers touching against the skin of your forehead and dragging down, brushing your eyelids closed. somehow your eyes grow impossibly heavy, your head too much to hold up as you slump over, landing in the arms of ge…

…of…who again?

the birds chirp the next morning as you groggily wake from what felt like a coma of slumber. you feel like there was something important you needed to take care of, but you must’ve fallen asleep early last night. you must’ve been exhausted… you don’t even remember carrying yourself into bed. 

oh, that’s right! you had to help… you had to… what was it you were up to last night?

your slump from where you sit, blinking at the floor in confusion.

it must not have been too important.

𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

it’s terrifying, looking into blood red eyes where iridescent pale blue ones had been before. it had only been a split moment—you two were ambushed, a thief’s sword grazing against your cheek and knocking you backwards in surprise as a whole gang of them emerged from the tree line.

laurance suffered an arrow wound, but before you could panic it wasn’t his blood that soaked the ground… but instead the whole dozen of men who tried to attack you.

you stare horrified as dark red drips from him, unsure if it was his own or from the bodies around him. he’s breathing, so heavily, face turned away from you as he stills in the center of his carnage. a few moments pass like this, your eyes trained cautiously on the dulled shade of caramel hair that lays messily on his head. 

“…laurance?” you call out quietly, your voice barely a timid whisper.

he turns to look at you, eyes red and glazed over as he begins to trudge towards you. something about the dark circles and his paled skin splattered with blood frightened you, your uncertainty heightened by his silence and now much taller frame. he towers over you, breaths heavy and sword still tightly gripped in his hand.

“it’s me!” you shakily yelp, regretting your reaction immediately when he flinches, eyes widening.

“…and i’m me.” he frowns, his larger hand brushing against your injured cheek. “you’re scared of me.”

“…no.”

he stares at you, eyebrows pinched together. he doesn’t call you out on your bluff with words, but the look he gives you is enough.

“i felt that something was off. i should’ve done something sooner.”

“it caught me off guard, too. we’re both tired, so—“

“i’m supposed to protect you. now you’re hurt.”

“it’s only a graze, laurance.” you silence his anger towards himself, your hands reaching up to cup his cheeks. “you’re hurt more than me.”

you reach in your satchel, pulling out some healing ointment and bandages you were sure to pack for the journey. he begins to shake his head, hand engulfing yours as he stops you.

“i’ll heal on my own. you know that shadow knights—“

“this will help you heal faster. and help with the pain.”

he sighs, taking a seat on a nearby rock and complying with your insistence despite the lack of need for it.

there were only a few gashes that were deep enough to not be sealed up immediately, dark red blood oozing from the lacerations. you put your focus on cleaning each one, swiping on the ointment and wrapping the bandages carefully onto his wounds.

when you look back up at his face those calm blue eyes have returned, staring back at you as they dart over your face. he takes the ointment from your hands, and with two fingers he motions for you to come closer.

you do so without much hesitation, allowing his finger to dip into the ointment and dab it across your injured cheek. he lingers his hand there for only a few moments longer, before looking away and putting your things back into your satchel.

“thank you, laurance.”

“stay right next to me,” he looks back up, tone and eyes insistent. “for the rest of the way. okay?”

it’s more of a demand than a request, but you simply nod in agreement, unable to refuse him.

“okay.”

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐒

“take your shirt off.” you sigh, sitting next to travis as you dig through your bag.

“woah!” he laughs, a cheeky smirk stretching across his face. “way to be direct.”

you pause, glaring over at him with an unimpressed stare.

“i will add to those injuries. just do it—“

“okay! okay!” he raises his hands up, wincing at the pull of his skin against his wounds. “ow…”

he begins to peel his bloodied tunic from his skin, wincing as he attempts to lift it over his shoulders. you restrain another sigh before you take a glance down at his injuries, instead feeling pitiful at the state he was in. standing in front of him, you help him slide the fabric over his head and off his arms, leaving his whole torso exposed. 

a few previous scars litter across the skin, dipping into different divots of chiseled muscles. he was well built—he had to be for the large claymore he wielded—yet he was still lean, muscles standing out due to the low body fat he had.

“like what you see?” he smirks, catching your gaze that lingered a bit too long on his bare skin. 

“no.”

he flinches at your quick refusal, jutting out his bottom lip.

“ouch, you’re so harsh.”

“why would i like seeing all of these wounds you’re covered in? you’re lucky it wasn’t any worse or you wouldn’t even be conscious right now,” you scold. “what were you thinking?”

“so you were worried about me…” he peeks up at you through his lashes, lips once again turning up in a satisfied smirk.

you roll your eyes, not saying anything as you begin to clean up his wounds. you can never catch a break with this guy, can you? despite his annoying flirtatious jokes, though, you really couldn’t help the worry and care you felt for him. 

he hisses between clenched teeth as you accidentally press against a laceration too harshly, one of his hands reaching up to clasp against your wrist.

“a little more gentle, sweetheart.”

“sorry,” you mutter, shaking your head as you realize what you were thinking.

he doesn’t say anything, instead going quiet as you continue to patch him up. it’s not until you’re dabbing on ointment and healing potions that he speaks up again, his voice strangely soft and unsure.

“you were worried about me, right?”

you pause, glancing down at him. his eyes are strangely… pleading, cool green shining as he searches for an answer on your face. 

you gently place your hand on the back of his head, running your fingers through the soft white strands and pulling him forward and pressing a kiss against his forehead.

“yes, i was. don’t be so reckless next time.”

when you pull away, his cheeks have turned a soft shade of red and his eyes have widened, practically bulging from their sockets. slowly, his jaw opens, mouth gaping as he starts to speak.

“you–”

“shut up.”

©starhvney, 2024. please do not steal or repost my works as your own.

[hunterwritings]

𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 | 𝐁𝐈-𝐇𝐀𝐍

summary: bi-han comes home wounded, trying his best to keep it from you warnings: mention of blood/laceration, stitching notes: i can only think of writing for bi-han rn 😭

You knew that Bi-han was hot-headed, ironically. You knew that he liked to fight and even though he would most likely win, he would still have battle scars.

It was something you expected, but never looked forward to. Bi-han has a problem being vulnerable and asking for help, so whenever he would get injured in battle he would do his best to hide it from you. Sometimes he'd get away with it and you'd eventually find out after the fact, but sometimes he's a bad liar.

It was the middle of the night when Bi-han stumbled into the temple, his brothers at his side. "Please brother, let us-" Tomas began before Bi-han shut him down. "I can deal with my own wounds." He beckons as he pushes them off and begins walking to your bedroom, holding a hand at his side. "He will be fine Tomas, the pain of us helping him would cause more damage than the wound itself." Kuai Liang reassures his younger brother as they turn and return to their own rooms to rest.

A small groan falls from Bi-han's lips as he rips the mask off his face, his teeth grinding together. He swiftly opened the door of your shared bedroom, trying his best to not wake you. As he quietly shuts the door, he turns back to see you sleeping peacefully on your side of the bed. A sigh of relief fell from his mouth at the sight of you, just knowing you were safe was enough to put him at ease.

His eyes darted to the bathroom, thinking that he could make his way there and clean up, while being quiet enough to not wake you. Bi-han would be lying if he said it wasn't difficult with the large wound at his side, but he would rather die than admit that. He took a breath before slowly beginning to walk towards the bathroom, a small wince caught in his teeth as his hand shot to his side.

As if you had super sonic hearing, you tossed in bed and turned your body to face him as your eyes slowly begin to open. Once you saw the shadowy figure in the dark, you quickly sat up. As you realized it was Bi-han, your heart began to relax for a moment. "I didn't think you were going to be so late." You whisper, still half asleep. "We ran into some trouble, it was a quick fight." He bluntly tells you, relieved you weren't able to see his wounded body in the dark. His relief is quickly gone when you reach over and turn on the soft light next to your bed. Your eyes instinctively shut as you held a hand over your eyes and try your best to focus on Bi-han. When your eyes adjust as best they could, you finally noticed the dark red on his blue uniform.

"What happened!?" You ask, now awake and pushing the covers off of your body.

Bi-han just groans before quickly walking into the bathroom. He tries to shut the door on you, but you quickly make your way into the bathroom.

"Are you okay?" You ask with your eyes glued on his wound. "I am fine." He hissed, keeping his gaze away from you. "Clearly not." You said, a bit of anger setting in.

You pushed him back and made him sit down on the edge of the tub. You turned to grab a small bit of bandages and stitching kits from under your counter. You crouched down next to him as he exhaled deeply. His hands reached down and tried to take the needles from you but you pulled your hands away from him.

"Stop." You began to open up the sewing kit. "I can dress my own wounds, go back to sleep." He tries to demand. You look up and give him a sour look before gripping his shirt. "Take it off." You demanded as you pulled up on the upper part of his uniform.

He reluctantly abides, knowing that you are too stubborn to let him do this on his own. Now with his skin exposed, you could see the wound in full. It was a large cut from his upper ribcage down to the side of his lower abdomen. "Bi-han." You breathe out as you touch the skin around the wound, feeling dried blood around it.

"You act as if I am fragile." He snarls, still looking away from you. "I know you are not fragile which is why this is a bit much, but I knw you will be fine." You nod before pouring a bit of alcohol on a rag before dressing his wound. The alcohol on the wound causes Bi-han to wince loudly as he tightly grabs hold of your leg as you stood next to him.

"Do not treat me like a child." He shakes his head, his eyes tightly pressed together. "I am not treating you like a child, I'm treating you like my husband. It is my job to worry about you, to want to help you." You explain, feeling his grip on your leg soften as he finally turns to look at you. "I know you do not want my help even when you need it, but I am always here to provide it. Because I wish for you to be safe and not in pain, just as I hope you'd like that for me." You hold his face in your hands as he looks up at you, his cold demeanor completely faded as soft eyes stare at yours.

"I would freeze the world over to keep you safe."

A soft smile goes across your lips before pressing a sweet kiss to his lips, pulling away and pressing your forehead to his.

Although you interpreted his saying as a metaphor, he meant every single word.

[bluejukebox]

somewhat damaged - ghost x reader ˚₊⊹

The 141 Task Force gets their own special combat medic, one who catches the attention of Simon "Ghost" Riley. ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ warnings: NSFW !! MDNI !! afab reader, blood, stitches, unsafe sex, p in v, vaginal fingering, some dirty talk ☆

They were all huddled in Captain Price’s office when he proudly uttered the words : “We’ll be expecting a new addition to the 141”. Ghost couldn’t exactly say he was happy. He especially couldn’t when the captain was being extremely vague about this ‘new addition’. It wasn’t a secret that Ghost was absolutely horrible with new people, the walls he’s built for himself standing strong and high. Maybe it was a territory thing or maybe a textbook case of trust issues, he wasn’t sure. All he knows for sure is that his ‘distrusting of people’ habit gave him a not so positive reputation around base. His intimidating figure, mannerisms and appearance scared people off, which he definitely prided himself on. He knew that the other members, specifically Gaz and Soap, would try and force information out of Price by continuously whining, so Ghost decided to sit back and observe, per usual. 

“C’mon cap, ya can give us a lil’ bit more than that can’t ya?” Soap immediately perked up from his chair.

Price shut his eyes out of annoyance. “MacTavish, don’t start.", with a deep sigh he continued “If I had more crucial information about her I would’ve already given it, don’t you think?”

“Her?” Gaz and Soap both astoundedly said. Even this little detail caught the Lieutenants attention. He’s worked with numerous women before, to him the sex of a person isn’t a problem as long as they keep to protocol and know what they’re doing. The Task Force 141 would occasionally team up with other ‘groups’, like the Shadow Company, but new members being assigned was rare. 

With yet another deep sigh the captain continued speaking. “Yes, her. She’s a very reputable combat medic. As you all know there’s been some staff shortages in the medical area around here”, he said while cutting the tip of yet another cigar. “- and trust me I know how stubborn some of you guys get about getting your injuries checked out, don’t even try to deny it. In my professional opinion I think she’ll be a valuable asset to our Task Force, you’re all dismissed”. He waved his cigar clad hand towards the boys to signal them to get out. 

Not even a second after Ghost leaves the office he hears the scot rambling on, “Ya hear that LT? A lady, I wonder what the lass is like”.

Ghost frowned beneath the mask, he had expected Soap to be more concerned with the girl’s gender and less her combat abilities and medical skills, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. All he gave in reply was a grunt while he strided back to the ‘dormitory wing’. 

As he left the area he heard the loud discussion between the members about the new mystery combat medic, but it wouldn’t be until a couple weeks later that you’d arrive. 

And god, Ghost was troubled, These complicated, strong feelings all started the second you stepped foot in the base… 

The contrast between you and him was astonishing, you were so vastly different from him. The bubbly personality, and the cute shy way you had introduced yourself to the Task Force really caught his attention. You’re a proper pretty woman, with a very nice physique that was obviously trained hard for. Safe to say he was interested, though he’d never admit this outloud. The man isn’t known for being in touch with his feelings and definitely isn’t known for accepting intimacy, but that’s somehow exactly what you got him to do.

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

It was a rough mission, bad intel all around, your ears still ringing from all the shooting, explosives, the deafening sound of jet fighters flying close to the ground and projectiles. But the numerous injuries needed tending, the severity of them varying was your responsibility, you needed to focus. You needed to mend their wounds and nurse them back to health. 

It was a close call but you all got to safety, hiding out in a little safe house far enough from where all the chaos was unfolding. You immediately got to work, readying your supplies and putting on some gloves to maintain the little hygiene you could. Firstly you treated the wounds that called for the most attention, which thankfully weren’t life threatening if they get proper treatment back at base. After the emergency operations on numerous bullet grazes, scrapes, cuts and bruises the group was finally able to rest their eyes for a moment. 

They all scattered off, sounding grunts and hisses of pain. That’s when you realized there was one person you hadn’t mended to, Ghost. Your eyes lifting to find his, you found him looking at you with his brown eyes, his masked head quickly turning back to observe the treeline outside the window. 

“Someone’s gotta keep watch, you can go take a break” He heavily grunted, exhaustion evident in his gruff voice. “Are you okay? I-I’m here to help, I want to help you”, You frowned, disappointment unmasked in your response. Ghost could feel his heart skip a beat, he couldn’t even remember the last time someone spoke to him the way you did, the feelings you gave him were clouding his judgement. “I’m fine love, go rest up”

That nickname always got the blood rushing to your face, time and time again. You already were a shy person, the guest free and welcoming nature of the members of 141 didn’t change how intimidating they all were to you. But hearing the endearing nickname come out of his mouth, with his extremely attractive accent and voice, it was a no-brainer that you started developing feelings (and fantasies) for the man.  You thought you hid it pretty well, the way you’d become bashful when he spoke to you, the way you’d stutter your replies back. Obviously you didn’t, the others caught on pretty fast. It quickly became a huge trend in the 141 to tease you about your schoolgirl crush. Soap calling you ‘Mrs Ghost’ when you were alone or the looks they’d send your way when the lieutenant would lift the hem of his shirt to tap away the sweat droplets at the juncture of his neck during training. Even Captain Price joined in, it positively mortified you.

It was hard not to be intrigued by the skull mask, the skull sewn onto a balaclava, white paint replacing the place where the mandible would’ve been. There was obviously a lot of thought put into it, maybe love you wondered. Ghost wasn’t one of the youngest men in the military, it was safe to assume he had a partner and family waiting at home. That's why the late night fantasizing about the lieutenant made you feel guilty and gross, and the innocent crushing foolish.

“Alright, the offer still stands. Would it be okay if I stay here, with you?” The grunt you got in response was enough affirmation for you, quickly finding a spot to settle down and silently thanking the gods for the blankets that were still stored in the safehouse. Slowly you dozed off, exhaustion from the day weighing down on you and pulling you down into a light slumber. 

You were awoken by muffled hisses of pain, lifting your head from your makeshift pillow and trying to locate the sound which you quickly found. There was Ghost, stripped from his usual heavy gear, instead sporting a grey t-shirt, awkwardly stitching up what looks like a very deep bullet graze on his left bicep. Your shifting must’ve alerted him because his head shot to where you were resting. He knew he was caught.

“Oh, Ghost.." you sighed “You could’ve told me atleast, it’s my job you know” 

“Didn’t wanna burden ya”, he muttered after a pregnant pause looking properly defeated. He dropped the needle and thread. Slowly you got up from your prone position, standing up to stretch your legs. Cautiously you sauntered over to where he was sitting. “Well you can’t possibly burden me, and definitely not when you’re hurt and in need of assistance” You smiled, your presence truly calmed him. But the way you cared, the way you talked awakened something deeply buried in him, you were so confusing to him, a mystery. 

As you got closer to him, you settled down against a nearby chair. “Can I help you now?”, to which he only nodded. Carefully you placed your hands on his forearm, your touch making him jump.

“Sorry, my hands are pretty cold”, you bashfully said. 

That’s not why he jumped, he couldn’t even feel the temperature of your hands. Calling him touch-starved would be an understatement, the simple feel of your softer hands touching his tainted skin so gently made his blood rush down south. He felt so perverted, he was getting hard from you simply doing what you were assigned to do. 

You simply took over for him, disinfecting and stitching up his wound for him. In the amount of times he’d come to you for help you both felt the tension. It was undeniable, and this time it was the exact same. Even though the safehouse was chilly, even though you could see every exhale you felt flushed. Warmth spreading over your entire body, and pooling in your lower belly. You could barely sit still while tending to him.

“I’m almost finished” You whispered, your tone coming out more breathy than you had anticipated. The arm you were tending to tensed up, in fact his whole body tensed up. Suddenly the air around you both seemed to get heavier. He couldn’t help letting his thoughts transition over to a more inappropriate side of his brain. It wasn’t the first time his mind went there (certainly not the last). On lonely nights he’d have the image of you splayed in different positions, situations, outfits-  He was sure he looked a mess; clammy hands, a tense body sporting a semi. Praying to god his hard-on isn’t as visible as it feels, he wasn’t small by any means, nothing about him was. You both sat in silence waiting for you to finish up, noticeably your movements got more jittery and shaky. He saw the way you crossed your legs over one another in the corner of his eye. How your legs were squeezing together for some form of relief. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not, there could absolutely be no chance you were interested in him, no chance he was the reason you’re getting turned on. One of his specialties is observing people, there’s no way he never noticed the signs.. Now he was staring intently at your face, his body fighting against the urge to kiss you, mark you, push you to your knees- 

“All done” your cheery voice cut through his lewd train of thought. When your eyes met his, your body was uncontrollable, your hand that was patching him up slowly drifting over his bicep, over to the place where his shoulder met his neck. That was the last straw for Ghost. Gripping your waist and pulling you towards him, faces inches apart. He could feel you breathing, eyes shifting down to your plump lips, chapped from the cold. 

Suddenly your face showed uncertainty, which immediately made Ghost drop his hands from your body.

“Do you have somebody waiting for you at home? Please be honest with me”

“Oh love, I don’t, I promise I don’t”

You’ve never heard his voice sound so desperate, so warm and needy. With the vulnerability he’s showing to you right now there’s no way he’s lying. All you could do was give him your signature infectious smile, that was his queue to touch you again. When he started lifting up his mask, placing the hem of it on the bridge of his nose, you were absolutely mesmerized. His strong jaw with a slight stubble and plump lips were on display, all and only for you. 

Your hands sneaked from the juncture of his neck to his jaw, eyes flicking down to his lips and then back to his eyes. Faces inching closer, lips slightly touching but neither of you giving in.  Before your lips finally met, he grabbed a hold of the sides of your face and ground his lips on yours. He grunted into your lips which made you whine back into his. The kiss became more and more needy, hints of nips and licks. Now that he’s gotten a taste of you, he’s become insatiable. He doesn’t even want to imagine never feeling your lips on his again, you were intoxicating. The position you both were in wasn’t comfortable anymore, he manhandled you and made you sit on his left knee, your back to his chest and his knee resting comfortably between your legs. His lips now working his way down the right side of your neck, hands moving from your hips to your thighs. His touch was light, hands moving from your outer thigh to your inner, before gripping lightly and spreading them for you. Your thighs felt so sensitive, his touch made your body light aflame, nobody has ever had this effect on you.  

“Is this okay darlin’?” He spoke against your neck, if his accent didn’t make you crazy before, it definitely made you crazy now. 

“Yes, please don’t stop” you whispered, unfortunately you weren’t alone in the safehouse and you definitely weren’t hidden. All you got in response was a chuckle. His hands kept teasing you, noticing how sensitive you got when he caressed the insides of your thighs, when he got closer to where you needed him most. Slowly his hand inched towards your tactical belt. But you beat him to it, desperately unbuckling and removing it. Ghost could only watch in amusement.

He helped you with the button on your pants, he couldn’t wait to feel what a mess he turned you into. He’s been dreaming about this for weeks now, the way you feel, your taste, the sounds you’d make, all of it. His brain already working overtime to tuck the memories of your warmth, the sound of your voice and the taste of your lips safely tucked away in his brain. It’s something only for him. 

The zipper of your pants being pulled down sent your brain into overdrive. You were so horny, your clit throbbing, positively drenching your underwear. Without thinking you shifted your hips backwards, your butt being driven into Ghost’s arousal as well as your clit making contact with the surface of his thigh. Bunching the fabric of his pants up in your hands while barely being able to contain your whine. What you both were doing was taboo, him being your superior and all. If anybody found out there could be drastic consequences for the both of you, but he obviously couldn’t care less about that now, and honestly neither could you. 

“Take what you need love, god- you’re so beautiful, I can feel you through my pants”

Slowly you started rocking your hips back and forth, the friction and pressure just enough to relieve you even a little bit. Breath hitching at every pleasurable rock against him, he started helping you thrust your hips by guiding you with his hands on your hips. You swear you could cum from this, you were so sensitive. All the pent up energy and all the fantasies you’ve had about him weren’t helping. 

“I-I’m close”, you whimpered, fisting his pants even harder than before, positively stretching the material out. 

"Already? You’ll be a good girl and cum for me, won’t ya?” Your brain was clouded by lust. You couldn’t even detect the humorous mocking in his voice. Him praising you is what set you off, hips starting to rock in a frenzied rhythm trying to reach the climax heavily burning in your core. Ghost started rocking his hips into your ass, simultaneously pleasuring you even more, his mouth so close to your ear, licking and biting on the lobe. His heavenly moans, grunts and heavy breathing pushed you impossibly closer to the edge. 

The fire in your core burned brighter with every thrust of your hips against his thigh. Letting go of your hold on his jeans you stabilised yourself against his hands holding your hips. Your body tensed, you threw your head back against his shoulder and moaned a lot louder than you should’ve when the pressure finally released, the pleasure kept building and building in intensity, every muscle in your lower region tightening in a delicious rhythm. “Good girl,” he breathed out, you were moaning so prettily, he wanted to save every octave and tone you were making in his brain so he’ll never be able to forget. The slow grinding of your throbbing clit against him brought you back to earth from the best orgasm you’ve had in your life. When he saw you came down he started to rub your arms soothingly up and down. He started pulling you even closer to him, the pressure and warmth of his body on yours helped you come back to your senses.

“I-I’ve- nobody has ever done that to me”, you giggled, turning to look at him. Who would’ve thought his touch would be like magic. Your body felt like jelly, but somehow you still wanted more. “You’re so beautiful when you cum”, He said while brushing loose strands away from your face, his eyes staring into yours. It was so incredibly intimate, his touch so tender it was making you melt. His hand yet again wandering to your core, brushing over your shirt clad breasts and travelling down to your open zipper. His fingers found their way inside your pants, he could feel the warmth radiating off of you. The way his fingers immediately felt wet simply just touching you outside of the fabric of your underwear, you had to be dripping. Even the insides of your thighs were a little slick.

“God, doll, you’re so fucking wet”, he groaned out. All you gave back in response was a high pitched ‘mhm’ muffled by your lips. His cock throbbing at this discovery, the fact you were affected by him so badly was making him feel so self-assured, his ego positively growing. Everything about you was perfect to him. 

After caressing you for a while through your underwear he finally decided to put his hand in your underwear, the uncensored feeling of his skin on your sensitive flesh was better than you could’ve imagined. With no fabric in the way it felt twice as good as it did before, you felt him spread your labia with his fore- and middle finger, making you clench, another drop of wetness dripping out of you. His now lubricated fingers moved upwards and circled your clit, you whined and moaned at his actions.

“I want to fuck you so badly but I need to get you ready for me love, fuck- I’ll take care of you”

That’s all he said before his middle and ring finger dipped down to your opening, making sure they were covered plenty in your slick before sliding inside you. You were tight due to your recent orgasm. He stopped halfway, his hands being huge compared to yours, he knew you’d need some time to recover. 

You’ve never felt so desperate for somebody, it was consuming you. Every fiber of your being needed him, you needed him to go faster, to go deeper. You wanted him to mark you, for him to be yours, and you his. 

Your hands grabbed onto the arm that was busy pleasuring you, one palm slipping from his forearm to his hand, trying to push him deeper inside you. He hadn’t even touched you for 2 minutes and you were already close. He was going to be the death of you.

“Ghost- fffuck, go deeper, I need you”, you were shamelessly moaning now, the thought of the other members being inside the building pushed out of your brain by the mind blowing pleasure Ghost was gifting your body. 

“Call me Simon, love”

You chanted his name, feeling yourself yet again get closer to the edge, the knot in your stomach unraveling faster than you ever anticipated. You were gradually getting tighter and tighter around his fingers, it felt even better. The rhythmic rocking sent you into yet another overwhelming orgasm. 

Ghost felt you gush around him, the sound of your slick with every thrust was deafening. He had to do everything in his power not to cum in his pants. You were truly a dream come true to him. 

When you calmed down and he felt your walls around his fingers relax, they slipped out of you. Strings of wetness tied his index finger to his middle, even his palm was wet. He started working on getting you both undressed, quickly pulling off his hoodie and shirt. Seeing him strip had put you into action as well, quickly ridding yourself of your shirt. As you sat there, tits clad with a very tight and uncomfortable sports bra, you gawked at his physique. He was crafted by the gods, muscles so defined and sharp. The broadness of his shoulders were twice, maybe even triple, the size of yours. 

Reaching up to caress his gorgeous chest your hand accidentally slid over his nipple, making him let out a muffled moan. You wanted to make him moan like that more, you’d do anything to hear it again. Hands drifting to the line of hair that disappeared into his cargo pants, slipping even lower and caressing his bulge through the thick fabric. Your pupils dilated at the reactions he gave at every touch you gave him. He looked like a god so you wanted to worship him like one. 

Standing up with shaky legs you pushed your pants that were hanging low on your hips down to your feet. Now standing only in your undergarments in front of him. He wasted no time in ridding himself of his own pants. Relieving some of the pressure on his hard, throbbing cock. 

He was sporting a tent in his boxers, which was now very visible with the fabric of his thick pants gone. You just stared at it, you’ve been with men before but it’s been a while. He certainly was above average, a fact that matched the rest of his physique. You caressed your hands down his sculpted body, ghosting over his pecs down to the hem of his boxers. Wasting no more time you gently pulled the boxers down. He was uncut and leaking onto the fabric of his underpants, which made your mouth water. Everything about him was just painfully attractive, the sight of him sweating, legs spread with his cock out and head thrown slightly back to gaze at you was something you’d never forget. 

“We have to be quick love, it’s already dawn”, Ghost said. His left hand gripping the base of his cock and the other gliding from your waist to your ass, gripping and pulling you towards him until you were standing in between his legs. Both of his hands were now working on pulling your underwear down your legs with desperation. You knew he needed you on him, around his cock as much as you needed him. 

You wasted no more time and sat on his thighs, the air between you two heavy. Ghost gripped the base of his cock and rubbed the tip of him on your clit, before finally positioning it near the opening of your hole. His mouth was open, the man breathing heavily in anticipation.

“Love, ffffuck I need you. You still want me right?”, the arousal was dripping off of his words.

“Mhm, yes-yes please put it in me, I can’t wait any longer”,

His tip slid in slowly, you felt the muscles of your pussy accommodate him. The stretch brought a slight sting with it, you’re not used to fucking men with cocks as girthy and big as Simons. You moved your hips closer to Ghost’s, you felt the overwhelming feeling of wanting to be as close and connected with him as humanly possible. At your motions he let out a symphony of grunts and moans while squeezing your hips to contain his excitement, trying to hold himself back. 

“Please don’t hold back, I need you to fuck me dumb- Simon please”, and the second your words processed in Simons brain he broke. Pulling you completely on his cock until he was balls deep inside you, hips angling upwards so that you’d somehow feel even fuller than before. Gripping his shoulder and nape you started your movements with him, hips moving in sync. 

“Doll, you’re fucking made for me. Born to be my fuck toy, how -fuuckkk is it possible for you to feel this good?”, Ghost said with a strained voice. Hearing his words made your pussy clench even tighter around him, “Hah- you like that? Being mine?”, all you could do was whimper and moan pathetically in response. 

Both of you wouldn’t last long, Simon was already nearing his climax after not even being 2 minutes inside of you. His masked face was pushed into your neck, making you feel the vibrations of his moans and his heavy breathing. Suddenly he let go of your hips and slid his hands under your sports bra you were still wearing, pulling the bra up to expose your chest. He positively groaned when he saw your perfect tits. Bouncing in sync with the rhythm, the cold air hardens your nipples even more. 

“Ahhh- I can’t last any longer love, where do you want me?”, 

“Don’t pull out- don’t stop”,

Your cockdrunk response triggered his orgasm, his thrusts getting slower and deeper to ensure you’re fucked full with his load. Feeling him throb so deeply inside you was fueling your own oncoming climax. You started riding him fast and deep in desperation. You grabbed his hand and started using his fingers to rub your clit, he loved seeing you get off with everything he had to offer. 

Your hips got wilder and wilder, until finally your body shuddered. Gasping and moaning was all you could do, the orgasm seemingly never ending. The soothing motions of Simon caressing your back and him still circling your clit in slow circles helped you come back down to earth. 

Now the only noises in the room were the heavy breathing of you both recovering. Your head falling down on Simon’s shoulders while he soothingly pet your hair, his softening cock still inside you. He kissed you long and soft, you felt him still breathing heavily out of his nose. Finally departing from the sweet kiss, he pulled you close. His face was in your hair. Giving you kisses on top of your head. “Thank you, love. I really needed this”, he whispered.

“I- it was my pleasure, Simon”, you said bashfully.

“My cock is inside you and you’re still this shy?”, Simon laughed. You couldn’t help but join in, all the chaos that took place only a couple hours before momentarily forgotten. 

Simon felt truly at peace. Something he hadn’t felt in a very long time, nevermind this mind-numbingly powerful. After having a taste of you and all that you’ve made his cold heart feel, he wasn’t going to let you go easily. Not that you wanted him to anyways.. <3

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

this is my first fanfic! i'm european so i'm very sorry about my possible grammar mistakes :')) i also posted this on AO3 !

[justkending]

Mr. & Mrs. Hunt (Bonus Chapter)

Mini-Series Summary: Two of the most stubborn people in the group partnered together for an undercover mission are also the two people with the most hatred for each other, so what could go wrong? Or is it, what COULDN’T go wrong?…

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger Reader (Enemies to Lovers) (Fake Marriage Trope)

Word Count: 3700+

A/N: I got some motivation for a bonus chapter and a lot of you guys reached out asking about some. So here is a cute little side story with the two! I hope you guys enjoy it while I take my time getting through all my other WIP!🥰

______________

Bucky’s POV: 

The mission yesterday was brutal for the team—so much so that Tony vogued for us and ensured we’d have the next two days without any form of work to interrupt our much-needed break. That meant we were off-duty, unless a world-ending turn of events came up, for the next 48 hours—starting the morning after we got home from said brutal mission. 

My first stop as soon as I got up and around was Y/N’s room. She had left the field yesterday more beat up than any of us after she was cornered and her backup had fled. Something I was royally pissed about, but it was some lower agent she was paired with to train. I offered, considering the kid was known for being squeamish, and it was originally meant to be a low-level operation. But apparently, someone with a gentler and friendlier disposition was preferred for the agent's training lesson. But of course, the tides turned, and Y/N was left on her own fighting off a dozen armed men, yet unsurprisingly, she came out on top. 

Although she claimed the various cuts, bruises, and pulled muscles in her quad were manageable, I knew she would be horribly sore today and, therefore, grumpy—understandably so. 

I thought I’d get a head start on helping her, considering things have grown between us since our first date two months ago. 

We hadn’t made it official, and we were taking it slow since there was so much to learn about each other after years of distancing ourselves from one another. 

We’ve had as many dates as time allowed since then, and the team has caught on, but again, we’re taking it slow. So slow, in fact that we kept to our respective rooms for personal space outside of movie nights, considering we lived together for almost a month and technically still do live together, even if across from the hall. We saw each other all the time, and we thought it best that we hold on to that piece of individuality at the start of our relationship so as not to rush anything. 

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find any chance I could to come hang out with her in her room and spend time with her as often as I could. I meant it back at the house when I said I envied my teammates for getting to experience a version of her that actually like you as a person. The change in pace has been eye-opening, and I’ve become somewhat addicted to the time I spend with her now. 

“One second!” I heard from the other side of the door after I knocked, and the tone alone showed me she was not happy. 

“I brought you some breakfast and pain meds, Y/N/N,” I said into the barrier. Seconds later, the door unlocked, and a battered Y/N looked up at me miserably. “Hey, sweetheart.” I couldn’t help the pout in my lip seeing my girl beat up. 

There was bruising under her eye, a butterfly stitch on her cheekbone, and a few bruises visible on her legs where she was wearing one of the biggest t-shirts she owned as a nightgown. 

“How bad does it look? I’ve been inching out of bed for the last 10 minutes because of how stiff I feel, and I haven’t made it to the bathroom to look,” she cringed as she rubbed the uninjured side of her face in exhaustion.

“You make black eyes look hot,” I answer, leaning to kiss the top of her head as I sneaked past her into the apartment and move to the kitchenette on the side. 

We all have a fully functioning studio apartment at the compound, but since we share the main spaces of the living room and kitchen, our personal ones are much smaller and more so for convenience than anything else. 

“Appreciate that, but also, I’d rather put on a sexy dress to look hot than get punched by a 250 lbs man with a mean right hook,” she sighed, shuffling to follow after me and sit at the end of her bed as she watched me plate a breakfast burrito and a fruit parfait. 

“Sexy dress or not, you exceed the threshold in the looking hot category no matter what.” I’m lucky enough to get a soft chuckle from her as she pulls a blanket from her bed and wraps it around her body, snuggling close to it with a few grunts and moans of pain. “Outside of that, I’m going to hunt down that twirp from yesterday and give him a nice talking-to about leaving your partner in the dust.” I look up and point to her with a spoon before stabbing it into the yogurt and bringing it to her. 

“Honestly, if I hadn’t seen worse, I would have run the other direction, too,” she wiggled an arm free to grab the cup and thanked me before continuing. “For it being one of their first onsite missions, seeing a dozen armed bodyguards, and not one of them being under 200 lbs running full force at you? I’d be surprised if he didn’t shit his pants on the way out.”

I laughed at the image since Y/N and I had seen far worse, and what she was describing was just another Tuesday to us. 

“Regardless, you don’t leave your teammates to fend for themselves. Especially in that scenario. He could have at least grabbed you and ran the other way,” I mumbled, grabbing my burrito from the counter and moving to sit with her on the bed. 

“Grabbed me and run?” she scoffed, swirling the fruit and granola together. “You’re a funny man, Barnes.” 

“You know what I mean,” I shoulder bump her lightly, and she sighs, digging into the breakfast. “Meds the Doc prescribed you are on the counter. You need to take them with food 2x a day to keep the pain at bay.”

“It’s fine. The pain is manag-”

“If you say manageable, I’m going to make you walk from this side of the room to your bathroom and prove you’re fine. Meaning, no cringing, limping, or grunts in the process.”

She stared at me in a challenging manner. That much had not changed in our relationship whatsoever. I just didn’t get death glares with them anymore.

“I can walk to my bathroom just fine,” she rolls her eyes, staying stationary and distracting herself with breakfast. 

“Sure you can,” I nodded, taking a bite of my own and keeping my eyes solely on her. 

I could tell she was growing squirmish under my gaze. The uncomfortability matched with uncertainty in her claim. I mean, come on. She gave it away that she wasn’t fine when she said it took her 10 minutes to ease out of bed. 

“Stop staring at me,” she grumbled, lazily eating to drag out her inevitable defeat. 

I hummed, standing and moving to grab some hot sauce in her cabinet. “Oh, by the way, the team’s doing a day of pool Olympics tomorrow. Sam’s asked for a rematch in chicken.”

“As long as I get a rematch in categories.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to be participating in the games much,” I scrunched my nose at her with a grin before taking a giant bite.

“By tomorrow, I’ll be back to new,” she groaned and stood up too fast, stilling herself, seeing she’d overdone it. But not wanting to get caught, she played it off as stretching and taking her time. “I have an above-average healing rate, after all.” 

“Maybe, but not nearly as fast as I’d prefer,” I placed the meal back on my plate and wiped my hands off on a towel before coming to her side to help her take some weight off her bad leg.

“As you’d prefer? Please do elaborate on what you’d prefer, Sarge?” The cockiness in her voice made me look down at her and grin at her orneryness. 

“You know I’d prefer you wrapped up in bubble wrap and in a magic forcefield the rest of your life that keeps you out of harm's way. I’ve never liked seeing you hurt or in pain. But unfortunately, due to realism and already trying to do that with Steve, I know it's not attainable,” I answered, both hands on her shoulders. Now, let me take this.” I quickly grabbed the parfait and placed it on the counter before offering my arm. 

“I can walk to the bathroom on my own.”

“Standing showed me otherwise.”

“Are you going to hold my hand while I pee too?” 

“If you asked me, I 100% would. But knowing you, you’re a little too stubborn for that,” I winked as she walked with more weight on me than she’d care to confess. 

“Just a little,” she grunts when she loses her footing, and I catch her. 

“Hm, about that help…”

“Shut it,” she mumbles and shuts the door behind her as she gets ready for the day.

_______________

“Where’s Y/N at?” Wanda asked, meeting me in the hall and following after me. 

“Med bay. I made her go get a check-up with Banner since she’s hellbent on playing in the water games tomorrow,” I answered once she was by my side, my stride slowing so she could catch up. 

“Do you think she’ll actually listen to anything he says if he doesn’t give her the all-clear?” she asked with a laugh. 

“Doubtful, but I can be hopeful.”

“Things are going well for you two then, huh?” I could hear the grin in her voice before I looked down at her. “Crazy to think, considering just a few months ago, I wouldn’t hold it against her to have your head on a plaque hanging in her room just because you looked at her wrong.”

“Crazy the things a little communication can do,” I winked and threw an arm around her shoulders before squeezing her into my side. “That and patience. Lots and lots of patience.” 

“You do have a surprising amount of that stuff in ya, big guy,” she patted my chest as we turned to the hall where Y/N was. 

“Ow, son of a bitch!” sounded from the corner of Banner’s office, and we shared a look. “Obviously, that isn’t going to feel good, injured or not, Bruce!” 

“May need to save his ass,” Wanda whispered, and we hurried our steps to the space. 

Inside, Bruce was laughing as he logged in her symptoms and any other notes doctors take in these instances. 

“Just proving to you that playing any high-impact sports, which are almost any of the ones that include the team, isn’t going to help the healing process,” he told her as she rubbed her thigh with the heel of her hand. 

“Sam told me he doesn’t plan on holding back,” Wanda cut in just as I saw Y/N rearing up to retort something to the scientist. “Something about revenge for the last time we held a water Olympics.” 

“Empty threats,” Y/N sighed, turning to me. I was still getting used to the fact that I caused her body to ease tension rather than create it now. “Banner gave me the all clear,” she says to me in a very convincing way... If I wasn’t a trained spy. 

“I did not,” Bruce was quick to turn and shake his head.

“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t even know what a vastus lateralis is!” she pointed and thought about hopping off the medical table she was on but realized the fast movement would only prove Banner’s point. 

“Um, I very much do know what the vastus lateralis is, considering I just told you you strained yours, and it needs to heal fully before you take on any high-mobility actions. You’re the one who asked if it was a witch incantation,” Bruce pointed a pen at her and moved back to his floating screens. 

“Can confirm it is not a witch incantation,” Wanda spoke up, moving to Y/N’s side by the medical equipment table and started playing with the tools. 

“Who’s side are you on?” she furrowed her eyes at the redhead, and I moved to lean on the table next to her, my thigh touching her knees hanging over the edge of the stainless steel. “I really think he’s exaggerating. I can walk on it and everything just fine.” 

Her eyes are leveled with mine while she’s sat higher up, and she gives me pathetic puppy dog eyes like it’ll sway me. And it almost does, but I cup her face in between my hands and squeeze so that her lips are pursed. 

“Nice try. Not going to work on me, doll,” I grin and kiss her nose before turning back to Banner. “How long are we talking about being fully healed? I don’t know how much more gaslighting I can take about her pain level.” I get a swift smack to my shoulder, but it barely stings. I grab her uninjured leg and squeeze her kneecap as she leans on my shoulder for support. 

“With her enhanced healing, I’d give it about three to five days before it’s healed enough for training or anything else. For any other normal person, it would be about a six-week process. Count yourself lucky,” Banner answers, only looking back for a second. 

“Still bullshit,” she grumbles and fidgets with the sleeve of my t-shirt. “So are you saying I have to be a bystander for tomorrow’s games?” 

“And quite possibly be benched for the coming week. Meaning no more missions until you’re given the all clear,” Banner turns around at his last statement. 

“Wait, what?!” 

“You heard me. You just don’t like what you heard,” he smirks. 

“I don’t quite like you right now, Bruce…” she says lowly, collapsing her head on my shoulder and groaning. 

“Don’t worry,” I turn and offer a hand for her to get down, which she stares at and reluctantly hops down. “I’ll make sure to kick Sam’s ass for you tomorrow in place of you. You know it’d be more than an honor for me.” 

“I fear he may kill him,” Wanda adds, walking to the other side of Y/N. 

“Compared to what I was planning, it would be a mercy.” 

____________

Y/N’s POV

To say I was pissed about the current circumstances would be putting it lightly. I hate being benched, and like anyone, I hate being injured. 

Call it past trauma I may never fully grow out of, but being the weak link made me anxious and antsy. It was like being the runt in a litter of pigs. It can’t fend for itself and tends to meet the slaughterhouse sooner than its friends. 

All that to say, I didn’t take help well while in this state either. But for some odd reason, Bucky’s aid wasn’t unwelcomed. 

Did I give him a hard time? Hard not to. Did he laugh it off and match my energy? 1000%, and I couldn’t be more thankful. It’s made this a touch more bearable, knowing he doesn’t pity me or see me as a weakling but just wants to help get me back to my best. 

And 3-5 days is doable, considering the alternative was over a month…

“Did you take your meds?” Bucky asked, letting himself into my room after a long day. Thankfully, we had another day of resting and for me, it looked like a week of resting. 

“Taken and pumping through my veins,” I give him a thumbs up as I lazily scroll through the streaming services as we set up for a lowkey movie night. “Are these the loopy kinds?” 

“Most opiates are, unfortunately,” he chuckles, placing the take-out bags he had grabbed downstairs on the coffee table. “What time did you take them?

He pulls out his phone and goes to the notes app. I know he has been making detailed notes on my meds, pain levels, doctor’s visits, and any other ailments I complain about. It’s really sweet, and surprisingly, I don’t find it overbearing like I thought I would. It’s nice having someone look out for you in a genuine way. 

“About ten minutes ago, so 6:30,” I pat the seat beside me. “Come on. I need your decisiveness on what movie we should watch tonight.”

He laughed while typing the details into his phone before putting it on the table, sitting next to me, opening the bags, and creating a nice little family buffet of Thai food in front of us. 

I watched him as I had become fond of these last few months. When I see him do the things he does for others and me, I internally punch myself for letting hatred keep me from such a man this long. 

“Question,” I asked, and he hummed, handing me a carton of low mein and grilled chicken. He stabbed two chopsticks into the food, and turned back for his own before leaning back and relaxing finally. “If things were different. If you never had to enlist for the war… What would have done for yourself?” 

“You mean like…”

“What job field would you have gone into?”

He nods his head as he considers the question and takes a large bite of pad thai. 

“I’m not sure… I don’t think I’ve ever really considered it. Especially since war has always been a thing, and given the era I was born into, I had just accepted I was going to be thrown into the military at some point.” 

“Well, that’s sad,” I crinkled my nose and the ache from my black eye had dulled thanks to my faster healing. “You didn’t consider any other paths?” 

“I mean, not realistic ones. I probably would have gone into business of some kind. Sales, maybe?” he said more as a question and poked around at his food. “I doubt anything that would have brought me true joy.” 

“Ok, then. What about now? If things were different, and you had complete freedom to live a normal life, like Beau Hunt,” I nudged him, and he laughed, leaning closer to me on the couch. “What career would you choose?” 

He thought about it, looking down at his food and then at the wall ahead of him. 

“If you’re asking me about today? As in this very moment?” 

“I am.”

“I’d say a chef.” 

I paused, not 100% prepared for that answer, but also not shocked by it. I didn’t reply instantly and felt him turn his gaze to me. 

“Didn’t expect that?” he asks. 

“Just imagining it,” I grinned, digging back into my cardboard carton as I pictured the dreamboat of a man next to me in an episode of The Bear. “I like it.” 

“Think I can get a Michelin-star type of restaurant going?” he hummed, a grin evident in his voice. 

“I don’t think that would be your scene. I could see you in a cool, locally owned, and homey restaurant. A staple piece in Brooklyn where everyone would come from all over to have the best comfort food the city would offer,” I smile at him, scooting down in my seat so I can rest my head on his shoulder.  

His head rested on top of mine after a quick kiss to the top of it. I treasured learning he actually loved showing affection in public, especially in the sweet and wholesome ways he went about it. 

“I can see that much more than what I said,” he laughed, and his body vibrated with the sound. “What about you? Different career choice, what would you choose?” 

“Hmm,” I snuggled more into him as I ate, and the screen on my TV went to screensaver mode. “I think something in social work. Given the things I’ve seen in the world, I’d be able to help kids in dangerous situations and homes get out of it.” He hums and chuckles some, making me look up at him. “What’s so funny about that?” 

“Not funny, just,” he chuckles again and looks at me from the side. “Of course, you’d want to go into the world and make a difference in it while I hole myself up in one spot and do background work for a living. In other words, the less I have to deal with people up front, the better, and the more people you can confront, the better.” 

“You’re a social person,” I laughed, sticking my chopsticks into his container for a taste. “I mean, you’re a better people person than you think.” 

“I have to build that relationship with people before I can become a ‘people person’. On the other hand, you can walk up to a stranger on the street and insert yourself into their life without hesitation.” 

“Maybe. But I also understand not wanting to do those things just cause it’s not your scene. I think our fake imaginary jobs are perfect for us.” 

“I was always envious that I wasn’t one of those people you approached and welcomed in,” he says, but not with annoyance and hurt, just stating a fact. 

“I was an asshole who allowed her backstory to control the present life she had made for herself. I wasn't too proud of that version of myself.”

Bucky turned his body to me, and I sat up. 

“As upset as I was about not getting the friendly treatment you gave to others, I’m happy to say I get to experience it now compared to never at all.” 

I stared into the blue eyes I knew would be my downfall as soon as I saw him for the first time. 

“Who knew force proximity would have this outcome?” 

“Not Nat or Tony. Oh, by the way, did I tell you Tony was in on the deal, too? Gave it three days and lost all his money before he even had a chance.” 

“Serves him right, betting on people’s downfall,” I nuzzled back into the couch as Bucky got comfortable again. “Speaking of… Wanna make a bet on how many games I can make Sam lose without even participating in the games?” 

“I will never not bet to see Sam lose. But I think I can beat you out on that deal, considering I will be in the games.”

“You’d like to think, wouldn’t you?” 

“Is that a challenge?” 

“A challenge would mean I have to have competition. That won’t be the case tomorrow,” I leaned forward, grabbing the remote from him and placing a soft kiss on his lips. 

“You’re much appreciated PDA isn’t going to make me take it any easier on you.” 

“No, no, no. We wouldn’t want that.”  

He laughed and leaned in for another kiss. The TV in front of us forgotten.

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[devilfic]

❝right place, right time❞

IX. I'm the well they're gonna drag you down.

parts: previously / next plot: and they were rooommates. pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x gn!reader. cw: surgeon!reader, secret identities, slow burn, mentions of blood and stitches and drugs and alcohol, this chapter is fluffier because reader deserves a break, reader and bruce discussing their one-night stands, bruce thinks he's funny but he just can't hide how much he likes you okay, jealousy thy name is "disturbed". words: 6.9k. a/n: shoutout to allnurses.com contributing to at least 8 hours of research on how medications are stored in hospitals for one scene. any nurses in chat please do not stone me, I took creative liberties. also, in case there is any confusion, this chapter and the vignette take place all in (mostly) the same day.

The car gets about halfway down the street before Bruce observes out loud, "Something's bothering you."

You're clean and changed, but your hands are shoved between your thighs as you try to control their shake. Knowing what you know now, you have no reason to keep this from him. He is, by all means, the one person you should tell.

But you struggle to work up the courage without a mask looking back at you. The character of Batman you'd created in your head clashes violently with the character of Bruce. You'd written your own Jekyll and Hyde and tripped yourself up in the final act when it turned out they were one and the same, "You have a lot on your plate right now."

"So do you."

You resist the urge to grit your teeth, "It's about Judith."

Bruce thinks for a moment, "The old lady who doesn't like me."

"The very same. I... wasn't there for her last night, when I should have been. She was mugged on her way home."

Bruce doesn't make a big show of a reaction, though you notice he sits straighter, taking a break from gazing out of the window to glance at you every once in a while, "Is she badly hurt?"

"It could've been worse but... she's more shaken up than she wants me to believe."

"And her family?"

"Murdered." Bruce's car rolls by a street corner where a young mother wrangles her child back from the crosswalk, "I tried to convince her to have one of the deacons from church ride home with her from now on but she wouldn't listen. She doesn't want to be babied." Her stubbornness isn't at all unfamiliar.

"Did she see who did it?"

"She said some guys at the liquor store down the way. They hang out there every night," your eyes trail from the window down to the floor before finding Bruce's face. His profile is sharp and clean, the dark neck of his sweater stops just before the hair at his nape begins to cluster. Your eyes follow the bridge of his nose and it mirrors Batman's profile, a mix of pointed and blunt edges, "There's a... an heirloom in her purse. A lighter. She keeps it with her all the time. Her husband had it on him when he... well, he had an awful habit. She'd really like it back."

Bruce turns his head to you and you steel yourself. In the bright early morning, he is annoyingly resplendent. In the unfair way that all pretty people tended to be. It feels wrong to be asking him this. This is a stranger. You're begging for help from a stranger. You force down the sickness rising in your belly, "Please, will you-"

"I'll take care of it." He answers and it is final. He seemed to have made up his mind before you'd even asked.

The resolve in him is enough to slow your shake to nothing. There's a part of you that still doesn't quite believe what you'd seen last night, and so the certainty of Judith's well-being does not deluge you. It trickles down, dripping over your eyelashes, sprinkling off your fingertips.

You let yourself get caught up in his eyes the way you used to. You let the familiarity of them ground you and, though not with a sweeping acceptance, sigh in relief.

It's a small win in the grand scheme of steaming hot bullshit going on in your life.

You’ve taken things from General for Bruce’s sake before. Bandages and needles and disinfectants. This, however… this was a schedule II drug that could land you in prison if you got caught with it. And you were going to walk out of here with it like you were none the wiser.

A hand on your elbow forces you to slow down, drawing you back to your companion’s side. You don’t need to hear it so he doesn’t say it, but you’re embarrassed anyway. How Bruce maintains himself is enviable. “You’re a good actor.” Bruce peeks at you as you guide him through the first floor, “The thing with Gordon. You took it on the chin like a champ. You turned into a whole new person.”

“I avoid implicating myself when I can.”

“The party too. You diffused the tension, like, perfectly.”

Bruce hovers beside you as you call the elevator, a few patients and nurses lingering further behind. You can feel him probing your words for your natural line of thinking, “Couldn’t pull one over on you, though.”

No, you think, you just creeped me out while every bat-shaped clue flew right under my nose.

The elevator door slides open and the two of you squeeze into the back as the rest file in. You find yourself in a corner, braced against Bruce’s side as his hand reaches around your back to hold the railing. One of the nurses catches sight of him and swoons, the other trying (and failing) to look uninterested.

“Coming to see the new wing?” The swooning nurse asks, turning around to grin at Bruce. “Sounds like it’s coming along great. They make lots of helpful noise all day long.”

Bruce laughs good-naturedly, “Hopefully it’ll make up for all the trouble once it’s finished.”

The “uninterested” nurse nods, eyes frantically flashing from Bruce’s eyes to the floor and back over and over, “For sure! It’s really great you give back to General like this. Your dad would be proud.”

His face has no distinct reaction to it, nothing immediately telling that that comment hit too close to home. He smiles as he always does and thanks them as he always should do, and as they get off on the second floor, it’s just you two and an old man waiting for the next stop.

Bruce, to you, had long lived in his father’s shadow. The great Thomas Wayne who, despite his briefly smeared reputation, had been the face of the Wayne family for you. Even the some-twenty years after his passing had yet to shake that image from your brain.

It was his father’s legacy he was tending to here. All of the good and ugly that came with it. You couldn’t imagine how many times he’d heard his father would be proud. Did it comfort him? Frustrate him? Did he do this to make his father proud, or because it was expected of him?

Before the flood, you’d heard gossip about Wayne Enterprises going under, the reclusive in the tower giving no sign if he was alive or dead. Knowing what you know now, you wonder how much he truly wants to be a Wayne… with all the baggage that comes with it.

He’s wound tight. You can feel him against you.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you find his hand on the railing beside you and cover It with your own. He’s shocked, judging by the way he jolts under your touch for a second. You think you’ve overstepped but when you go to apologize, he is already staring wide-eyed at you. Like when you’d caught him on the stairs.

The tension is still there, and his face has fallen in its warmth and friendliness. His hand had only partially slipped out from underneath yours, but as the seconds pass you feel it rest once more, not bothering to shake you away any further.

You both force yourselves to stare ahead until the elevator dings to let you out, but through the reflection on the door, Bruce is still looking at you.

You break first, distracting you both this time as you walk out, “You kept hitting me with your knee.”

Bruce, in a daze, asks, “What?”

“At the party. While me and Roberts were arguing, you’d nudge me with your knee like it was an accident.”

Bruce seems to remember who he is and where you are, because he quickly gets back to himself, “Guess I’m not that good of an actor.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“I knew where the conversation was going. I could feel you thinking.”

You remembered holding your breath as the mayor prepared herself for confrontation back then, “And the second time?”

“I was trying not to laugh.”

You flush. You’d been so impassioned that night, defending your hero who, unbeknownst to you at the time, was hiding a snicker behind his glass. You feared you’d be remembering a lot of moments like that over the next few days.

As soon as you both get into your office, you shut the door behind you, “I need you to wait here for me.” Bruce’s face tightens, “Don’t… argue. They keep extra vials of the antivenom down in the ER. I can grab one from the med room, but I can’t have you following me down there. It’s off limits for anyone without ID, let alone a patient and a donor.”

Bruce doesn’t look comfortable. Since last night, you hadn’t been anywhere Bruce or your police detail couldn’t follow. You hadn’t even been allowed to enter your apartment until the latter had deemed the place safe. A med room not much bigger than your office—locked behind an ID scanner—posed less of a threat than your two-bedroom ten minutes away.

But it was two stories down, and anything could happen in the time you were away from Bruce.

You can see the wheels turning in his head, trying to think up some plan that allowed him to remain by your side. You have to restrain yourself from feeling… flattered.

Flattery turns to bewilderment as Bruce reaches into his pocket and drops something into your hand. It’s a gadget the size of an AirPods case, shining in the light of the fluorescents. It looked perfectly unassuming and hid—lightweight as it was—a marvel of expensive technology. You could tell just by looking at it. “The hell is this?”

“It’s an EMP generator. Put it in your pocket and I can disable any communications within your vicinity, including cameras.”

“Okay, no. This is a hospital, and I’d be going into the ER with this thing. That’s too dangerous.”

Bruce looks offended. You can practically hear him say “You don’t think I’ve thought of that?” with his eyes. He silently holds his phone up to your face and you shouldn’t be as shocked as you are that it’s got live camera feed of the entire hospital. “I can control the radius. You said you trust me. So trust me.”

You swallow back your retort. You did say you were going to trust him on this. Whether or not it would be your doom had yet to be seen. You nod once, dropping the device in your pocket. “I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.”

Bruce’s lips purse together. He still doesn’t look settled with letting you go alone, but he has very little room to argue, “Ten minutes.”

You don’t waste time. You skip the elevator for the emergency stairwell, taking two steps at a time until you’re back on the first floor and walking to the ER. The med room at the very end of the hall would—if you were lucky—be as empty as the waiting room. All you needed to do was get in, grab what you needed and very quickly get the hell out of there. Without raising suspicion. You can feel the phantom pull of Bruce’s hand on your arm, begging you to slow down before you draw unwanted attention.

You round the corner to the med room, scan your ID, and head in.

The two nurses waiting inside greet you, analyzing you curiously, “Hey doc, need something?”

Words rattle in your brain like a d20 on a deception roll. You pray for something good, “I just wanted to grab some meds for my patient.”

One nurse sits at a computer, head titled in confusion, “Did you put in a prescription? You could’ve sent a nurse to grab it for you.”

Your eye catches the camera on the ceiling, its dark glass glinting at you, mocking you. A scrying glass recording your every move. And Bruce on the other side of it, hopefully buying you an alibi. “It’s a… special case. My patient needs it soon, so I thought I’d speed up the process and grab it myself.” You force a lightness into your tone, trying your best to appear apologetic and not at all suspicious.

The nurse hums. Then, she jabs the pen she’d holding over her shoulder, “Cart’s over there. Help yourself.”

You maneuver through the shelves separating either half of the room, keeping your head straight and eyes from wandering.

Your biggest hurdle was at the back of the room.

It’s a clunky cabinet on wheels with a monitor on top and an ID scanner on the side. In one of its many drawers, your golden ticket awaited, but these things kept logs of who checked out what, and if someone were to go through them later and find out you’d stolen a highly addictive drug without prescription…

You swallow. The generator in your pocket suddenly hangs heavy against your thigh. You glance at your phone for the time and note that four minutes have passed. You need to move quickly.

You approach the cart, fingers twitching at your sides, and right as you step up to the monitor, it flickers and goes dark. You give the power button a push for good measure but nothing happens.

Well, not nothing. You hear the cart drawers all click at once, like they’d unlocked by themselves. Tentatively, you try the top drawer and it slides out without issue. Glancing behind you, you check to make sure no nurses have wandered over, but you are the only one on this side of the room.

Your fingers drift down to the right drawer next and that one slips open too—by the grace of some god—and there you see it. It has an alien glow to it, a more subdued blue to its adversary’s green. The top of the tray holding the vials pops open with just as much ease as the drawer, allowing you to sneak one into your pocket. You shut the drawers, slowly backing away from the cart, but the monitor does not turn back on.

“What? This thing too?” You’re startled when the nurse from before suddenly jogs up from behind you, grumbling under her breath as she smacks the monitor.

You rush to cover, “It just went kaput on me.”

“Yeah, so did mine.” She maneuvers around the shelves and back to her desk where you see the other nurse at the desk scratching his head. Their monitor is glitching, having some gory digital stroke, “Here. You can sign out what you take for now and I’ll bother IT about this.”

You write down “Ibuprofen” and your name next to it, “Never seen that happen before.”

“Yeah. Thing froze up on me a minute ago. Guessing around the same time this thing died on you.”

Your stomach is still nervously fluttering, but you do feel a little smug. “Weird.” You hand her back the clipboard and go to grab a bottle out of a different drawer. “Good luck.”

You try not to sprint past the nurses as they fuss with the computer. You’re out and back upstairs before your ten minutes are up.

Bruce is sat leisurely on your couch, no doubt watching you scurry into the office on his phone. He looks from the pill bottle in your hand and back to you.

You toss the bottle into his lap, plopping down on the couch beside him. He frowns at the label. “For you,” you poke his injured leg and his eyes follow your every movement, “you’re favoring the other leg today.”

He can’t bring himself to deny that, even if the look he gives you from beneath his eyelashes says otherwise. You flash the antivenom at him as a peace offering. “How’d I look?”

His gaze flutters slowly from the vial to you before he shows you his phone. The screen is a recording of the medication room. It shows you greeting the nurses, walking up to the med cart, and then… nothing. Black screen for forty-five seconds. When it flickers back on, you're signing the clipboard and walking away. Your body sags into the couch with relief.

“You did good.” Bruce praises you.

“I thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest.”

“There are worse places to do it.” You look at him and he’s smiling just a little. You’re aware, though, that he’s aware of the toll this has taken on you. He takes the vial out of your hands and puts it in his own pocket, holding his hand out to you. “We should get going.”

Bruce follows dutifully behind you as you lead him back down to the first floor. You feel much better than when you'd arrived, but your heart stutters each time a security guard passes you by. Years ago, stealing and getting away with it was second nature to you. You were also arrogant back then, uncaring of what happened to you. How quickly the tides had changed.

You feel Bruce nudge you with his arm. He isn't looking at you, but you know what he's trying to tell you: you've got a few more hallways to turn down before the exit. You just have to-

Someone calls your name.

You spin around, nerves electrified, only to find Em running to catch up with you, "What are you doing back at work already? Is your arm okay?"

The adrenaline rush had done wonders for your pain tolerance. You didn't even think about it until she brought it up, "I'm fine, it's fine. It's-" You go to rush out some sort of explanation but at that moment, Bruce turns around.

You can see the moment of impact across Em's face as soon as she realizes who you're with, her back straightening and hand pressing down flyaways. In an instant, she has forgotten all about you. For better or for worse. She rubs her palm on her leg before holding it out to shake his hand, "Mr. Wayne! Hi! I'm surprised to see you here." Her eyes are twinkling, "Everything alright?"

"Just some leg pain, nothing painkiller can't fix." He flashes the pill bottle for good measure. You're honestly impressed he admitted to being in pain at all, "It's good to see you again, Dr. Madison."

Em's face droops into a frown, "Well, you look fantastic, but you've got a mirror," she pats your arm, "and I'm sure you're being well taken care of."

"Only by the best."

You smile (borderline pleadingly), preparing to dismiss yourselves while you still have your wits about you, but then Em asks Bruce a question and, to your surprise, Bruce is happy to entertain her.

It strikes you that you had landed in your situation with no prior interest in who Bruce was, and it shows in how you barely keep up with the topic of conversation.

It's like watching a tennis match between the two. The topic in Em's court, then Bruce's, then Em's, back and forth without issue. No awkward pauses or uncomfortable looks. She recalls details about him out of thin air, your knowledge in comparison merely fringes of what Em knew.

The longer it goes on, the more it weighs on you that aside from the strange man who'd circled around you like a frightened kitten, you really didn't know anything about Bruce.

You knew Batman. You felt you knew him. Even when his identity was still a secret, you had felt comfortable with him. Vulnerable, even. He'd let you touch him in your home, fixing him up and helping you with this mess and... outside of that, what did you really know?

You feel an odd twist in your chest.

Em's voice floats back in, disrupting your retrospection, "I've always wanted to go to Italy. You must get so sick of these places after having been so many times."

"They still have their magic," Bruce grins, "but I don't like being far from home."

"Really? You could go anywhere in the world and you'd still miss Gotham?" Em's tone is teasing, but curious. Something flickers in her eyes as if she'd just remembered something.

Bruce takes in the hallway, chest swelling with pride, "Lots of things to miss about it."

"Name one."

Bruce's eyes cut to the side as he thinks, "The noise."

"You can get noise anywhere. LA, Chicago-"

"It's special here."

"No, try again."

His smile turns sheepish, "The rain."

"Now you're lying. Come on, pretty boy. I know you've got something. Penthouse, nightlife- heck, I'd even understand the freaks and clowns giving everyone PTSD."

Bruce exhales, purses his lips. His eyes flit around the white walls, "Okay. I'd miss you."

What the hell?

You straighten up. The absurdity (blatant sweet-talk) of the line shouldn't work—seriously, it wouldn't work on you—but Em goes pink in the cheeks. A strand of dark hair falls from her bun and frames her smile just so, "Well," she snorts, "aren't you just a flirt?"

To your utter dismay, they are both eating this up. "You light up the room, Dr. Madison. Your patients are very lucky."

"My patients are usually seven and way more interested in the candy I bring them."

"Candy?" Bruce finally looks at you, all humor and charm, "I never get candy. I just get yelled at."

Something in you is disturbed when Em grabs onto Bruce's arm, hanging off him as she pouts at you, "Oh! You're heartless!"

"Very much so." Bruce is somber.

"I don't-" Your voice comes out strained, a little too defensive right off the bat, "I don't yell." But you'd gotten close, and you got closer everyday, "But if I did, you'd deserve it."

Bruce is amused. You watch as he pretends to cower into Em, even as he dwarfs her in size. They start joking back and forth, more teases at your expense, and you notice that the persona he puts on around others is practically nonexistent here. You'd watched it dissolve within minutes. It's refreshing, you realize, that he seems to really be enjoying himself right now.

You catch Bruce insisting that he ought to get going, sharing pleasantries and desires to visit once more. Em looks genuinely saddened to let him go. The second Bruce's back turns, Em reaches out and squeezes your hand, whispering, "Please tell me he's single."

You fluster. You imagine yourself in the car ride back to the tower asking Bruce what he thinks about Em, offering to exchange numbers between them, and you're disturbed again.

Twenty-four hours ago, you would've been warning her to run for the hills. Twenty-four hours ago, he was only Bruce Wayne. Now he was Batman and all that came with it and, well... once upon a time, you would've wanted nothing more than for Bruce Wayne to sweep Em off her feet. Batman had always been more your style.

Then, you realize, you don't actually know the answer to her question.

Em looks expectant. You shrug. She exaggerates her disappointment but releases you all the same, "Keep me posted."

"I'm comparing the samples from the crime scene to the antivenom. I should have something in a few hours." Bruce taps the antivenom vial, watching the remaining blue liquid slosh against the glass, before handing it off to Alfred.

You're mesmerized by this backyard (or, more aptly put, garage) chemistry lab. Beakers and flasks spread out on the long table as you watch from a stool a few feet away, "How'd you get so good at this?"

"College," after a few seconds of silence from you, he adds on begrudgingly, "I started messing around with stuff down here when I was 13."

"You had all this when you were 13?"

"Some of it, whatever I could get my hands on. I liked to see how things worked."

You have a unique opportunity to learn about Bruce here, so you take it with both hands, "You majored in chem, then."

"And biology, and physics."

Your eyes blow wide. "You had three majors?"

"I bounced from one to another, sometimes double majored if I liked the professors. I followed my interests and they took me everywhere," Bruce picks up the venom test tube, little drops of green pooling at the bottom of the glass, "I've enrolled in more universities than I have degrees."

Your eye twitches, just a little annoyed, "Must've been nice going wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted."

Bruce senses your tone of voice. He peers at you from the side, elbows resting on the table, "I spent a lot of time away from home. It must've been enough because I don't miss it."

"You said the same thing to Em earlier." You recall.

"I didn't think about it as much while I was gone, but when I came home for good... I just couldn't imagine myself leaving like that again."

"He barely liked boarding school," Alfred chimes in from the other side of the room, lazily reading a book at Bruce's desk. Boarding school was posh. You imagined little Bruce in a school uniform like the British boys in movies, "I should bring out the scrapbooks once we have a moment."

Bruce sets the test tube back on its rack with a bit of aggression, "Thank you, Alfred. You can go now."

Alfred chortles. He skims one more page of his book and then shoves it under his arm on the way back up. The elevator clinks and rattles up the tower until it stops some sixty stories up.

It's quiet now. You sort of appreciate the silence- the relative silence. There is the steady drip, drip, drip coming from here and there in the cave. The whirring of the machines, the humming of the lights, the very faint sound of a news anchor forecasting snowy skies this weekend. Bruce's breathing.

It's harder to hear unless you focus on it. His mountainous build hunched over the table—staring into the venom as it stares back—rises and falls in slow rhythm. You watch him being and it captivates you. For the umpteenth time since last night, you are struck with the reminder that this was Batman. In all his broody glory, an arm's length away from you, about a hundred feet under the city.

It's funny; you paid so little attention to the man before, and now you wanted to take him apart and examine his terrible insides. You have accidentally become obsessed with the man.

"I want to take you to Blackgate."

"Sorry?"

"Lucien is there," the name makes your blood run cold, "he was with the Vipers the longest. He could answer a few things for us."

You do your best not to immediately say no. Not because you think he'll force you, but because you know—somehow—that he won't, "What about Detective Gordon? Shouldn't that be his job?"

"I think he'll talk to you." Bruce turns slowly until his back is pressed against the desk, arms crossed over his chest and pulling his shirt completely taut. "He knows you."

You hadn't seen Lucien since the night Alex died. For once, you're kind of grateful Bruce can read you. He turns fully toward you, "I can go alone."

"You just said you think he'll talk to me."

"I can make him talk." His head droops a little to meet your eyes, expression impossibly understanding. You have no doubt he can. Your throat feels like it's on the verge of closing up. Somehow, sending Bruce alone to handle him felt worse.

"But you think I can..." You have to pause to force in a breath, feeling yourself go lightheaded, "You think I can get more out of him." Bruce doesn't respond to that. He's still watching you like you might start stress-sobbing. "Okay."

"You sure?"

"Mm."

Bruce calls your name. You'd been tracing the lines of his arms with your eyes to distract yourself, not processing how much closer he'd gotten until you feel his breath against your eyelashes.

His arms are uncrossed now, one hand pressing into the table beside you, the other hovering by his hip. His fingers twitch. Does he want to touch you? You were about to go three for three with the crying in his arms thing.

You force yourself off the stool and the speed at which you stand gives Bruce very little time to react. Your chest bumps against him, but you're already slipping behind him, "Lemme see your stitches," you rasp, hand ghosting over his shoulder, "need to... redress them, probably."

Bruce tries looking over his shoulder at you but you hide behind him and after a moment, he relents. His shoulders drop in defeat. You watch him drag your stool into the light and sit.

The dismal mood did you a favor. He looked like he'd be submissive today.

You're halfway through clearing away his dried blood when you ask, "Are you single?"

Bruce's shoulder jolts just the tiniest bit, almost driving your finger into the stitch. "What?"

"Em asked," you quickly explain, "and I realized I didn't know."

You don't know exactly what he's thinking, but his answer is as straightforward as you could hope for, "Yes."

"Oh."

"You sound surprised."

"I mean... I sort of assumed..." What did you assume, exactly? You couldn't see him with a long term partner, definitely not like this, but the idea that there wasn't anybody didn't sit right with you, "no flings? Situationships, even?"

"Why? Is Dr. Madison interested?"

Your jaw clenches. You force the muscles in your face to relax, "I just don't want any secret lovers of yours adding me to their shitlist if I go through with your plan. I can't stress how little I want to fake-fight over you right now."

Bruce huffs. You finish cleaning around his wound when he pipes up again, "I had something... someone. It didn't last."

"Oh. Are you... tender about it?"

"Not anymore. I don't have time for that kind of thing anyway."

He says it like it doesn't bother him, but in the way someone might brush off a scrape on the knee or a paper cut. Like it stung, but you had to be a big boy about it. The pain would go away eventually.

You press new gauze over the stitches, taping it down as gently as you could, "I assumed someone like you would have a whole lot of someones, a revolving door even," your eyes flit over his other bruises and healed cuts, "I never made time for relationships either. I was kind of just going through the motions."

"No one interested you?" Bruce rolls his shoulders once you peel away from him. He doesn't look at you when he asks that.

"Just... childish crushes here and there. Sometimes I'd let someone take me home..." Your voice catches in your throat for a moment. You recall a stamped down memory, one of you standing blindfolded in your apartment imagining the Batman with his mouth on your throat. That wasn't very long ago. Your breath shudders as you fit Bruce into the memory instead. You don't... know how to feel about it.

"Never back to yours? And here I thought Judith was just hard on me." You belatedly register Bruce standing, rolling his shirt up his arms before pulling the neck over his hair. His question hangs lightheartedly.

Your shoulders sag, "You're not gonna believe me if I tell you I was paranoid about letting one-night stands into my home."

"Why? 'Cause you let me in?"

The back of your neck grows hot. "What about you? You ever bring yours back to the cave?"

After he's done tucking his shirt into his pants, Bruce shakes his head at you, "No. Just you."

That was the second time he'd said that to you. You were starting to feel special.

You step out of the shower and you think, almost as soon as your foot touches heated floors, that you really despise Bruce Wayne.

The towels are warm too, waiting for you as you preen yourself in the mirror, a clean you staring back. You kept your toiletries bag on the bathroom counter, afraid to unpack anything as you rustled around for deodorant. It was massive and quiet. The water pressure alone had you swearing at the marble lining of the shower.

Bruce eventually lured you downstairs with the promise of making dinner. Alfred was skeptical, but had backed off and allowed Bruce full range of the kitchen, still possessed by his book next to the fire.

He'd asked you what you had the stomach for. Eventually he was copying something out of a celebrity recipe book with you beside him.

You argued that he hadn't really made you dinner given that you had helped him do half of everything, but it was his ingredients and it was his kitchen and the food tasted good so you didn't argue long.

After Alfred offered his stamp of approval, he'd retired for the night and left you and Bruce in the kitchen to clean up. Bruce had left the pots and pans to you when you proved too nervous to handle the porcelain, "Alfred won't kill you if it breaks."

"Alfred would kill me for less, I think."

Bruce gives a short laugh, drying off the last pot. He's pouring you a glass of the wine you'd opened last night when you slide his little gadget across the counter, "I forgot to give that back to you." You swirl your glass, admiring the color as Bruce packs away the leftovers. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself with Em earlier."

"I was. Your friend is funny."

"I... also noticed something you said. When she asked you what you would miss about Gotham, you mentioned the noise and the rain. Would you really miss all that?"

Bruce glances at you, popping a top onto a glass bowl, "Of course. It's part of what makes the city."

Your eyes narrow, searching for the lie, but there isn't one. He's being sincere. "Is that why you became Batman? Because you love this city that much?"

You can feel the mood getting doused with ice water. It forces you upright in your chair, makes your hand clench around the stem of your glass. Anyone with eyes could tell you'd just touched a nerve.

But he answers you, intense as it comes out, "I hated it." The loathing is a mere shell of what it used to be, you can tell, "I hated what it took from me." His eyes cast down to the countertop. "At first, I was aimless. Everyone was worried about the future of the company but Alfred and I were just trying to make it through the day. Over the years, I boiled up with this... restlessness. I still didn’t know where I was going but I was full of something for once. I studied, I traveled, I learned from all manner of teacher. And when I came home, I was... determined."

His words sit heavily on you. You can see flecks of that restlessness in his eyes, the slight tremble of his hands as he rests them against the countertop. "Why a bat?" You whisper.

"They're what I feared the most."

Past tense. "Feared?"

"I got over it. I won't let them close enough to bite, but..." The humor in his voice breaks the intensity of his expression.

You mull that over, "You became what you feared to strike fear."

"Not anymore," his head shakes, "fear is a tool, but... there's enough fear in this city. I wasn't making a change, I was making it worse."

You remembered the first time you'd ever heard of the Batman. Back then, he was just "Vengeance". In the grand scheme of fucked up things this city had to offer, someone running around dressed as a bat didn't register as abnormal. Another Tuesday, maybe. You awaited what they'd say about his crimes: a mugger beaten and strung up on the street, a gang felled and dropped at the GCPD's door. You remembered something stirring in you when he put away the Joker.

"I remember when you became a hero. Like really, to everyone. When you took shape… they were flying in people. I was rushing in patients while you stood on top of the Garden and pulled people out of the flood. I hadn’t felt hope like that since… yeah."

Your admission moves something in Bruce. His eyes find yours, "I was just doing what you'd been doing for years."

"But I never left that hospital. You transcend boroughs, the gangs, everything. I used to think you couldn’t possibly be one guy. I still can’t believe it. How are you not dead on your feet by now?" Bruce smiles knowingly at you and you feel yourself flush, "Besides that. You’ve been doing this for longer than I've been around to patch you up."

"That would be Alfred."

"You should tell him, you know. That you appreciate him. I think he'd like to hear how much he means to you more often." Bruce's eyes soften. He doesn't debate you. "Anyway. How's that sedative going?"

"I'll take another look before I leave tonight."

Oh, yeah. This guy is Batman.

You don't know when next you'll get this chance, "Can I ask a favor? Can I... watch you put it on?" Bruce wobbles to the side, genuinely confused. "The suit?"

He examines you, mouth almost curling up into a shocked smile. He hadn't expected you to ask that, that's for sure. "All of it?"

You grip your glass so hard you think it might shatter, "No." And then, when he has the audacity to snicker, "Asshole."

He stays true to your request.

You watch with your back pressed up against the wall. His under suit hangs undone at his hips while he leans over his desk, digging his fingers into a can of black paint. He uses the reflection of his computer screen to smear it over his eyelids and under his eyelashes until the white skin beneath disappears.

Next is zipping up the under suit. You barely resist rushing over to hold his bandage steady as the suit catches on it, but he manages to get it up and over without pulling it off. Then come the plates of armor. Each piece clips into place, clinging to his waist and chest and arms. You've seen it up close enough times to know the quality of it, a wonder how he'd gotten his hands on that kind of stuff until now.

You don't ask him to, but when it's time to put his cowl on, he turns sideways so you can see.

His gloved hand combs through his hair, pushing back the longer strands so he could fit the cowl over it.

It's kind of embarrassing how it takes your breath away. Bruce had quite literally transformed before your eyes, and now there was no denying it.

Bruce stands still as your eyes bore into him.

After a few seconds of admiring every piece of the suit, your eyes flit up to his face. He's not looking at you, almost shy. Apart from Alfred and, perhaps, his someone, Bruce has probably never put on the suit in front of anyone else. Is it weird you missed seeing him shy? "It fits perfectly." Your voice is barely above a whisper.

Of course it does. You know it's dumb to say. Bruce doesn't say that, though.

He waits a beat before turning away from you, his cape sending a breeze of cool air up against your legs. His car awaits on the train tracks, headlights beaming into the near endless darkness as he approaches and you follow.

The car thrums eagerly with life at the push of a button, sending vibrations through the ground, all the way up to the ceiling where you hear a sudden flurry of wings and chirping. Bowing your head close to Bruce, you watch about a hundred bats scurry about above you, disturbed by the sudden rumble of the engine. Bruce holds his cape over your shoulder, though none of the bats fly low enough to concern him. "They don't freak you out a little bit?"

"They haven't bothered me."

"Well, when you dress like them I guess they get confused."

"I'll be back before sunrise," Bruce promises, "and I'll look into Judith for you. Maybe you should... call first."

You're tickled by the discomfort he's so desperately trying to hide, "Scared of a little old lady?"

He pointedly ignores you. You step back as he throws open the door and settles into his car, but before he can pull off into the darkness, you shout his name to get his attention over the roaring engine, "Hey! Be safe."

Bruce looks at you and... you don't know what he's thinking, only that the muscles in his jaw relax a bit. Was he used to that? Did Alfred often stand on the cold, empty train tracks before every patrol and wish him luck on another night of beating criminals to a pulp? Was he used to the worrying? Annoyed by it, even?

He doesn't say anything. The car leaves in a spray of dust and you hide your face in your shirt to shield yourself from it. By the time the dust settles, you can only see two red lights blurring into the distance.

[lycandrophile]

a breakdown of my one week post-op appointment (after top surgery):

i came in wearing my mastectomy pillow around my chest because it makes walking more comfortable, and i was nervous about that because the social anxiety said it was weird to go out in public like that, even if it was just to the surgeon’s office. when the surgeon brought me into the exam room, though, she didn’t even mention it, so if you’re like me and get nervous about stuff like that, you can rest assured that they’re very used to seeing it.

i was also nervous about having my boyfriend record parts of the appointment, but she was super chill about that too. basically, whatever your social anxiety tells you is weird to do at these appointments to be comfortable or document it or whatever else, they’ve already seen it a million times and they don’t care at all.

for the past week, as we’ve been emptying my drains, we’ve been writing down how much fluid was in each bulb and when it was emptied on a sheet the hospital gave us. the first thing the surgeon did when we got in the office was look over those notes to see how much i’m draining and confirm that the fluid level is low enough to take my drains out.

the next thing she did was unwrap all the bandages and take all the padding off. she didn’t do the big reveal of my chest in front of a mirror that i’ve seen a lot of surgeons do, but i suspect that might be because she knew i already saw it when we had to send some pictures to her.

the only part of getting the drains out that i could feel at all was at the drain sites (the little incisions where the drains came out of my body). i felt a little bit of pain there when she cut the stitch on each side that keeps the drains in place, and a bit when she was bandaging the sites once they were out, but it was nothing bad. when the drains were actually getting taken out, i could feel some pulling on the drain sites, but i couldn’t feel the drains coming out at all. i thought she was still working on the stitches until i saw the full tube in her hand after. the pulling feeling wasn’t super comfortable and maybe hurt a little, but again, nothing nearly as bad as you’d think getting tubes pulled out of your chest would feel. the drain sites are definitely still sensitive now if something directly touches them, but i’m much more comfortable than when the drains were in.

once the drains were out she also peeled the steri strips off of my incisions, which was both the most painful part of the whole process and an incredibly weird feeling. the feeling of them peeling off my skin was decently painful, like a particularly stubborn bandaid coming off, but there was a band in the middle of that feeling where it was totally numb, because the skin around my incisions is super sensitive but the incisions themselves are numb. my boyfriend and dad were in the room with me and, as she was taking the strips off, i turned to them and said “that hurts but it also doesn’t?” that was the best way i could describe it in the moment. all in all, not awful, just like a bad bandaid with a weird strip of fuzzy nothing in the middle. the worst part was just that it caught me by surprise because i didn’t know they would be getting peeled off until she started doing it.

once the incisions were out in the open, she put some moisturizer on them, which felt even weirder. this time, instead of being strips of painful with a strip of non-painful, it was just a super weird liminal space where i was deeply uncomfortable and my brain reacted like i was in pain, but the only sensations i was actually feeling we’re super dull and barely there. doing that myself will definitely be…interesting.

up until this appointment, i had been wearing two ace bandages with two abd pads and gauze strips underneath. when she rewrapped me at the end, she just put the two pads over my incisions with no gauze around them and then put one ace bandage back on me. so my bandages are much lighter now, and it’s definitely more comfortable than before.

she had me make another appointment for two weeks from now (at 3 weeks post-op). she told me that, until then, i should limit my physical activity just as much as i have been so far, even if it feels like i can do more now. she also said that i can shower as long as the water doesn’t hit my chest directly, that i should change the pads every time i shower, and that i should switch to a clean ace bandage once a week (we didn’t have to buy extras, they were given to us). she recommended i get scar strips at some point between now and the next appointment, but said i shouldn’t start using them until she can take a look at my chest at 3 weeks and tell me if my skin is ready for them.

overall, it ended up being a much shorter appointment than i expected, although i’m honestly not sure what else i thought was going to happen. that being said, it didn’t feel rushed at all, and it was really nice to have her look at me and confirm that my chest is healing well.

[midnight-shadow-cafe]

The Deal with the Devil

Pairing: Rick Grimes x reader

Warning: slight angst (usual mentions of walking dead stuff), mostly fluff, brief mentions of blood

Authors Note: this does mention pre breakout reader, they were a medic before this all happened, so I hope you enjoy this fic!

Word Count: 1.2K

Masterlist

MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+

The early morning mist clung to the trees like a shroud as you moved through the underbrush. This was your territory—an isolated cabin hidden deep in the woods, protected by traps and your own self-sufficiency. You didn’t take in strangers; they’d always brought more trouble than you could handle. But that morning, as you stumbled across him slumped against a fallen tree, something made you pause.

Blood pooled at his side, seeping through a makeshift bandage that did little to stem the bleeding. He was clearly a fighter, hands roughened by years of survival, but his strength was fading fast.

When his eyes flickered open, they found yours, piercing blue and filled with a spark of stubbornness despite the pain.

“Who… who are you?” he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Just someone passing through,” you replied coolly, eyeing the wound at his side. “You’re bleeding out.”

He gave a strained laugh, his hand weakly clutching his side. “Don’t… don’t need help.”

You rolled your eyes, crouching down to assess the injury despite his protest. “Looked like you needed it bad enough to try tying yourself up with scraps.” Before he could argue, you helped him sit up, draping his arm over your shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

His grip was surprisingly strong for someone so close to passing out, but he didn’t resist as you guided him back to your cabin. Once inside, you settled him onto a makeshift bed and got to work. As you cleaned and stitched the wound, his teeth clenched against the pain, a low groan escaping every now and then.

“You could’ve left me,” he said finally, his voice rough. His gaze met yours, and you caught a flicker of curiosity there, as though he was trying to figure you out.

“Yeah, I could have,” you replied, finishing up the last stitch. “You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

Rick gave a short, humorless laugh. “Been called worse.”

Over the next few days, he stayed in your cabin, and in that time, you found out more about him than you had about anyone in years. He spoke sparingly, but as he healed, his guard began to drop. He told you about a place called Alexandria, the people he cared for, and the losses he’d suffered. Each story of survival, each mention of the people he fought for, revealed a quiet strength that had kept him going.

One night, as you sat by the fire, he spoke softly, almost to himself. “I had a family. Had a wife… a son. Lost my wife. My son—he’s still alive. Out there. He’s all I’ve got left.”

You glanced at him, feeling a pang of empathy. “I know what that’s like,” you murmured, surprised at the honesty in your own voice.

Rick’s eyes met yours, a softness there you hadn’t expected. “You been alone all this time?”

You nodded. “Since the start. People have a way of letting you down. Figured I was better off alone.”

He was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe. But we’re not meant to be alone. It… it breaks you.”

His words struck a nerve, stirring up memories of the people you’d lost, of the walls you’d built to keep from feeling that pain again. You’d shut yourself off from others to survive, but with Rick, that defense was crumbling.

The silence between you felt heavier, but somehow comforting. As you met his gaze, you saw the same vulnerability, the same quiet loneliness reflected back at you. Before he left, he took your hand, his grip warm and steady, and whispered, “Thank you.”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak, feeling the weight of his hand slip away as he walked out of your cabin and back into the forest. The quiet settled in around you, the familiar solitude returning, but now it felt empty, haunted by his absence.

A Few Months Later

Days turned into weeks, and the memory of Rick lingered in small moments—the sight of a half-empty bottle of disinfectant, the cot where he’d slept, and the faint, almost-missing echo of his voice. You hated to admit it, but you missed him, missed the stories he’d shared, the way his quiet presence filled the silence.

Eventually, though, you had no choice but to focus on survival. Supplies were low, and you were overdue for a supply run. Slinging your pack over your shoulder, you took a deep breath and stepped out of the cabin, steeling yourself for another lonely trip.

And there, as if summoned by your thoughts, he was.

Rick Grimes, standing just a few feet away, his gaze warm and steady, a soft smile spreading across his face as he took you in. “Morning,” he greeted, his voice low and familiar.

You froze, your heart skipping as you tried to process the sight of him. “Rick?” you breathed, disbelief giving way to a flutter of something you hadn’t felt in a long time. “What are you doing here?”

“I came back,” he replied, stepping closer. There was a quiet determination in his eyes, and you felt your heart race as he held your gaze. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Thought maybe… you’d come with me.”

A dozen questions raced through your mind, but only one seemed to matter. “Why?”

“Because I’d rather know you were safer with me than out here by yourself,” he said, his voice softening. “And maybe a little company wouldn’t be so bad from time to time.” He hesitated, the vulnerability you’d seen before flickering in his gaze. “Who knows? Maybe you could help me find my son.”

Your heart pounded, caught between the life you’d known and the new path he was offering. The thought of leaving everything behind was terrifying—but so was the thought of going back to a life of empty days and endless loneliness.

Without another word, you stepped toward him, and he closed the distance, his hand reaching up to cup your cheek. His touch was gentle, almost hesitant, as though he was afraid to break whatever unspoken connection had formed between you.

You leaned into his touch, feeling the warmth of his skin, the strength of his hand anchoring you in that moment. When he tilted his head and leaned closer, your heart raced, but you didn’t pull away. His lips brushed against yours, soft and tentative, and you felt yourself melting into the kiss, a quiet, unspoken promise of what could be.

When you finally pulled away, he looked at you with a quiet intensity, his smile warm and genuine. “So,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble. “What do you say? Come with me?”

You took a deep breath, glancing back at the cabin, at the life of solitude you’d clung to for so long. But as you turned back to Rick, the ache of loneliness faded, replaced by a spark of hope.

“Yes,” you whispered, a small smile breaking across your face. “I’ll come with you.”

And as you left the cabin behind, walking hand-in-hand into the unknown, you knew you were finally stepping into a life you could believe in again—one filled with purpose, hope, and the promise of new beginnings.

Hope you enjoyed! Please consider Liking and Reposting! -Midnight💜

[qwimblenorrisstan]

Stitching Us Together

Chapter 1: Caught

Summary: Brianna Riley, Charlotte Garrick, Isla MacTavish and John Price Jr, a close group of childhood friends, investigate a strange shadowy figure that had been poking around Isla’s front yard with a flashlight.

Word Count: ~ 5k

Warnings: Being watched, mentions of military, family arguing, internal conflicts, police, etc, nothing terrible, also just a note: simon is not abusive dad, just sort of distant/ strained relationship w daughter.

A/N: this is my longest fic yet…can y’all tell it’s what I’m hyperfixating over?? sorry I haven’t been posting much, schools been killing me, but I hope you enjoy this super specific au <3

OG Post | Character Layouts

It had all started with Price, the captain leading the way to something that eventually happened to all of them.

His missus had gotten pregnant, and he’d left service not even a month after, deciding that he was getting too old for it, anyway.

Johnny had been next, honorably discharged after taking a shot to the head, barely surviving, but deemed too fucked up to go back into service.

Then Gaz had quit, claiming he was going back to London, to help run his parent’s quaint little restaurant since they were getting older. All of them really knew it was because of the pretty lady now in his life, though. They'd seen the picture he kept of her in his wallet.

Simon, the stubborn bastard that he was, had only thrown in the towel once he learned that a fling he’d had a few years ago had resulted in a kid he’d never learned about. He’d left after scrolling through the random alcoholic he’d fucked a few years ago’s Instagram, finding a blond haired-blue eyes kid in the background of one of her posts.

He’d gotten custody of the girl, named Brianna, which wasn’t surprising considering the kid’s mom had been a substance and drug abuser.

The old captain had a second kid, a little girl named Josie, with his older boy, John. Everyone just called him Jr, though.

Gaz had a sassy little girl named Charlotte and affectionately called her Charlie.

Soap had found himself a Scottish wife and settled down in London as well, where her family happened to live. They’d had a girl too, naming her Isla, though friends called her Is, or Isa.

They’d grown up together in London close by, their parents just calling each other members of 141 their “uncles.” No one questioned it, and considering the tiny bits of questionable information each of you had on your father’s, no one wanted to ask questions.

Poor Jr had been the oldest by a year, but still the “baby” of the group, since he was constantly bullied by Isa and her quick wit. It didn’t help that Brianna’s little snorts and Charlie’s laughs only encouraged the menace.

“Seriously, I don’t see what’s so funny.” Jr muttered, a hint of pink on his cheeks as his voice cracked. Isla was relentless, mocking his cracking voice while she cackled.

“Righ’, nothin’ wrong with me. All normal over here.”

She said, making her voice much deeper, and forcing little kinks and cracks that Jr scowled out. Charlotte smirked and snickered quietly, and Isla saw Bri’s shoulder shake in silent laughter.

“It’s not funny.” Jr replied, a little frown on his face unlike his usual scowl, a hint of insecurity in those big, brown eyes. A small sign that he was slightly upset, or getting close to it anyway. Bri’s silent laugh immediately disappeared, and Charlie frowned.

Isa clapped him over the shoulder from beside him, where they were sitting in Kyle’s parent’s restaurant that he mainly ran now.

“Ay, didn’t mean it y’know? Jus’ playing with ya, Jr.” She said, a grin still on her face, but a bit more apologetic this time. He shrugged her off, relaxing back into the booth.

“‘S fine, wha’ever.” He said, a sure sign of his forgiveness. He forgave easily, a bad habit of his. Charlie reached a slender hand out, snatching a cheese and bacon bit-covered fry out from the bright red and white paper basket they were in at the center of the table. The cheese stretched, long and warm.

She took a bite, humming at how good it was.

“Tha’ good?” Bri asked, raising a brow. Charlie gave a little nod, chewing before speaking.

“Good as hell, if I do say so myself-“

Kyle’s head poked out from the kitchen, where his parents were both back cooking up whatever orders were up. Plenty of kids came by after school, because of how close it was, and how quick the food came out. Charlie would know since she was here every day after school. Sometimes she got to help out in the kitchen.

He raised a brow at Charlotte.

“Language.” He said, before going back into the kitchen.

Jr smirked, happy to have something to get back at his friend for now.

“Yeah, Garrick, watch your language~” He drawled, dragging the sentence out while Isla snorted in amusement, some water accidentally coming out of her nose.

“Ewww-“

“Not on the fries!”

Brianna only watched in what looked like mild amusement as she pulled the fry basket away just in time, using the stereotypical brown restaurant napkins to wipe the water up. Loud, booming laughter came out of Isa after she’d swallowed or sprayed whatever water had been in her mouth. Her leg bounced under the table while she rubbed her nose.

“Hurts me bloody nose,” She said with a crooked grin they had all come to love.

“Hurts my eyes,” Jr said in a wry tone, giving a tiny little disgusted look to the soaked pile of napkins now near Isa on the table. Charlie made a gagging sound.

“Now the fries are ruined!”

“Now, don’ be dramatic, they’re just fi-“

“You sprayed snot water on them-!”

“Would ya quit cutting me off?!”

As the others bickered, Bri casually grabbed a fry and took a bite, unbothered. The others watched and sighed, deciding that if Brianna wasn’t falling over dead from it, then maybe they were all right. Jr watched carefully as Charlie took a fry and a hesitant bite, then followed and did the same.

“See, told’ya.”

“Shut it, MacTavish.”

Isla rolled her eyes, devouring the fries at an unprecedented rate. Her shoulder-length brown hair was held back behind her ears, glinting just right in the setting sun that it looked almost red in some strands. The diner was going to close soon. Then Bri was going to walk them home, per usual. Probably because of the knife she kept on her, paranoid as she was. Isla kept a Swiss Army knife on her with a tiny knife, scissors, and even a nail file on it.

Charlie sometimes used it in class to file down her nails into shape when the teachers weren’t looking.

John would always give them disappointed looks from the side of the room where he always sat. Closest to an exit, always.

Being children of ex-military did lead to a bit of paranoia always, even if you didn’t know what it was that your father’s had done to be so secretive or have such bad PTSD. Maybe it was that paranoia that had Isla up so late at night, pushing the button on the hilariously pink Disney Princess walkie-talkies they’d all gotten one year.

“Anyone up?”

She asked, peeking out of her window and gazing out at a light in the street. Looked like a flashlight to her. A voice responded a minute or two later, interrupting Isa’s leg bouncing. Her hands fidgeted with the walkie.

“Why.” Bri’s gravelly, I-just-woke-up voice was the one to reply. She’d always been a light sleeper, so it didn’t exactly surprise Isla that a walkie message would keep her up.

“Someone poking around outside m’ house. Any o’ your family out visiting, or sumethin?” Isa asked, frowning as she saw the dim flashlight turn away, the shadowy figure not fully visible against the yellow streetlight’s beams. The light turned her way, and she dropped to the floor below the window, breathing now a lot faster.

“No.” Bri said bluntly.

Jr suddenly decided to join the conversation then, it seemed, as he spoke up, his staticky, cracking voice echoing over the radio.

“Why the bloody hell would anyone be out this late?” He groggily asked, and there was some silence on both ends as Isla watched the shadowy figure walk down the street, in the direction of Charlie’s house, but also the school. They were down the same street, after all.

“Wan’ to go find out?” Briana’s voice, now a bit more awake and alert, asked over the radio. Bri wasn’t one for late-night adventuring, or anything really for fun, Isa thought, so she must either be concerned or mildly curious. Her dad would kill her if he knew she was sneaking out to spy on suspicious people.

“We really shouldn’t-“ Jr began before Isa cut him off.

“Sure, meet me at the house. All black clothes, you get the deal. Bring the walkies, too.”

“What about Charlie?” Jr asked.

“Yeah, what about Charlie?” Charlotte’s voice then spoke up, and Isa could already picture the little snort Bri would give at that, and the way Jr’s cheeks would go slightly pink.

“Meet you in five.” Bri replied, no hint of shame or apology in her tone for almost leaving Charlotte out. That started the race against the clock to get ready before the mystery person got too far to track.

Practically ripping her pajamas off as quietly as she could, Isa changed into a pair of black sweats and a black hoodie. Better to blend into the streets. Her Swiss Army knife remained in her pocket, clasped onto some of the fabric.

Her fingers wrapped around the cold bottom of her bedroom’s window, slowly sliding it up and cringing at the creaking it made. She needed to oil the thing or something, before it woke her dad up one of these days. He was a light sleeper, after all. Always waking up to the tiniest sound, like when she got random 3 am motivation to rearrange all the furniture in her room or organize her bookshelf by color in the middle of the night.

Hoisting herself up onto the window’s ledge, the cool night air kissed her tan skin as she slowly crept out, closing the window but leaving it just a bit open. Just enough for her to get back in. She’d done this before, it was more like muscle memory at this point. Sure, sometimes she’d switch it up so nobody got suspicious of why there were fresh marks of fingerprints disturbing the dust on her window’s ledge.

Her dad would surely notice.

The grass cracked lightly under her feet as she walked carefully out, the cold biting against her ankles where her socks and sweatpants didn’t overlap. It was dark tonight, the moonlight not shining nearly enough, and the streetlights dimmed from their constant use. Lord knows no one would replace them with newer ones. Not in this area.

Creeping down the street, keeping eyes out for anyone nearby, not seeing anyone other than a few homeless, or some skeletal-looking drug addicts with glazed-over looks in their eyes. Cutting down an alleyway, and hopping a few chain link fences, she eventually found their little meeting spot.

It was a boarded-up building, something that had previously been a home but had been foreclosed when the old woman owning it had a stroke and died in it. The stench of death wasn’t very noticeable now, but it was bad enough that no one bought it, and it had been foreclosed on, windows and entrances boarded up.

Of course, no one had noticed where the back window was missing a little plywood.

Isla crouched down, walking over to the house. A loose branch from one of the overgrown bushes snagged her hair, at which she grumbled and tugged it free, hissing when she felt a few pieces of hair rip free from her scalp.

She put her hands on the cold brick ledge of the house, hopping in as the brick scraped against her fingertips. Her hands patted at her pants for a moment, cursing when she didn’t feel a flashlight she could’ve sworn she brought. The house was pitch black at this hour, and smelled like moldy carpet and old people, a faint hint of rotting, too.

She slipped her phone out of her pocket, turning the light on, only to yelp and jump back when Bri’s face greeted her, an amused smile on her lips.

“Hell’s balls, you really gotta stop w’ that, Bri-“

“I think it’s hilarious.”

“‘Course you do.”

With a sigh, Isa turned her flashlight on, finding the little wooden table with some dents in it in the center of the demolished kitchen that they always sat at, she took her walkie-talkie with Tiana’s face on it and set it down there. Brianna’s Mulan walkie-talkie followed.

Pausing a moment as she thought, Isa then turned to face Bri.

“How did ya even get here ‘fore me?”

Brianna paused, a hint of something like deliberation in her eyes before she spoke. The blond began popping her fingers, a nervous habit.

“Had an argument wit’ m’ dad. Needed some air.” She said with a shrug, blue eyes now watching to see what Isa would think. Always watching, always thinking. Sometimes Isla thought she was more paranoid than Jr, and that was saying something.

She simply gave a little bob of her head, not asking anything further. If she’d wanted to share more, she would’ve. It was like watching a flower slowly bloom and open up, if you forced it, then it wouldn’t look right, and it would die quickly.

A heavy silence ensued, which was quickly interrupted by muffled cursing and feet lightly hitting the floor. Charlotte was here.

“We ought to trim that tree, keeps snagging my hair.”

She muttered under her breath, and Jr arrived almost right after, sliding into the window’s brick ledge where he sat, eyes strained, not yet adjusted to the darkness, as he looked down. The poor lad was afraid of heights, they all knew.

“It’s 4 feet, Jr.”

Bri spoke, the tone being more sardonic than anything. Jr sighed, and Isa saw his eyes close as he winced, sliding off the ledge, and releasing a tiny squeak when his feet hit the ground. To think that this was a 17-year-old. He did not act it.

He sighed, walking over to the table, where everyone had now gathered. His Cinderella walkie was placed on the table next to Charlie’s Elsa one.

“What’re we here for, again?” The boy asked with a slight yawn in his voice, rubbing his eyes. Isa rolled her eyes at his apparent exhaustion.

“I saw someone dressed in all black, poking around my front yard with a flashlight in the dead of night, that’s why.”

She said, giving him a look, as if to say that was obvious, while Charlie frowned, lips pressing into a line.

“That’s not terrible, I mean, we’ve done worse and our neighborhood didn’t freak out.” She pointed out with a shrug, and Bri nodded.

“Much worse.” She agreed with a grin in her tone.

This was much better than the time you’d all tried to fry some dead roadkill you’d found by throwing it at an electrical box, only to accidentally make the local's electricity go out for almost an entire week. The electricians must’ve been confused when they found a dead goose beside a smashed control panel. You’d all dipped after accidentally breaking it, anyway.

Or the time you’d all gone to a haunted house, and Charlie had faked having a panic attack so convincingly that one of the girls dressed up as a vampire began crying and called her parents to come pick her up. Poor Charlotte had tried to redeem herself from there, but the damage had already been done.

Brianna had also intimidated a teacher into changing her schedule, once. All of the group had relatively the same schedule in your little high school of around 500 people, but for whatever reason Bri had gotten none of the same classes, so she’d gone on down to the principal's office and forced the principal's hand somehow. How she did it, none of them knew, all she’d said afterward was that she “Knew things.” as if that explained anything.

And Junior…poor Junior, he was always the slowest of the group, for whatever reason, always being found or caught when you all pulled some ridiculous shenanigans. Or there was the one time Josie had put hair dye from her mum’s closet in Price’s shampoo, which had been disastrous. Josie blamed Junior for the entire thing, and Price had been so mad, he’d believed it. Grounded for almost three weeks.

“Let’s just check it ou’, and shave her head if it ain’t worth our time.” Brianna suggested, and they all glanced at each other, nodding their heads in mild agreement. Isla blinked at that, before her face contorted in disbelief.

“Really? I thought you were better than thi-“

“Any ideas on where they went?” Jr interrupted, and Charlie spoke up.

“Mentioned somethin’ on the radio about down the road, right?”

Isa sighed, seeing she wasn’t going to get anywhere with trying to protest the head-shaving in her possibly near future.

“Aye, they went down the road.”

She replied in a slightly annoyed tone, and Bri nudged her shoulder a bit, grabbing her walkie and shoving it into her pocket.

“Perk up, maybe we’ll find somethin’. Got a plan, Jr?”

At the mention of a plan, Jr perked up, picking up pieces of broken ceiling and rocks to represent each of them, and a large stick to represent the school.

“Well, if they went down the road then that’s towards the school. I was thinking we could split up, me and Charlie, Isa, and Bri. We take the alleyways down, I take the right, you all take the left, and we meet at the school, where we can recombine in the back.”

He spoke quickly, fingers drumming against his thigh, working himself into a frenzy while talking. Everyone gave nods, before they split into their separate groups, all taking the same window out, before splitting into their groups. They each gave one last goodbye, a little mock salute before heading out into the darkness.

Junior and Charlotte

“I'm starting to think Isa’s just paranoid.” Charlie said, glancing at the surroundings of the alleyway around them. Scurrying rats, bugs, little grimy posters, and pictures posted on the walls or the dumpsters. She didn’t see anything.

Junior sighed, continuing to walk. He wasn’t the most quiet, which made sense, considering his size. Even if Brianna was taller than him and deathly silent.

“Look, we’re all a bit jumpy. Pretty normal for us, considering our dads.”

He said quietly, crouching down as he walked, eyes darting around to look for anyone. It had been almost fifteen minutes and they hadn’t spotted anyone yet. Charlie stepped on an empty can, crunching it beneath her foot, and Jr jumped at it, immediately looking for something to change the subject before Charlotte made fun of him.

“What did they even do? I mean, obviously, they were mili’ary, but my dad never talks about it.”

He said randomly, and Charlie continued walking through the alley, him clumsily following along. She did pause the slightest moment though, head cocking slightly to the side as he watched her take in his words. It must’ve caught her interest, and he’d gotten lucky.

“They were special forces. Dealing with terrorists, and covert shit.” She said quietly, in an almost hushed tone, temporarily pausing.

He raised his brows.

“How do you know?” Junior asked in the most innocent tone he could muster. Sure, he could see his dad, and definitely Bri’s dad as special forces in the military, but sweet little Kyle? Or Isla’s rowdy but affectionate dad? No wonder they never talked about their pasts.

“Went through some files on my dad’s computer when I was bored. Whole lotta locked stuff, so I found a back door into it, and read it.” She said in that same quiet tone but with a bit more shame in it this time.

“I shouldn’t have, he would’ve told me when he thought I was ready, but-“

“Hey, it’s fine.” Junior interrupted in a soft tone. He wouldn’t let her stand there and talk bad about herself. Not when…

“I would’ve done the same thing if I’d known how to.”

She glanced back at him when he said that, a bit of shock on her face. John Price Jr was the good kid, the one who listened to what he was told and was nice, strong, and compassionate, always helping out. She never took him for someone who could be nosy or disobedient. She guessed she still had a lot to learn about him. A muffled voice came from the walkie by her side, but she ignored it. They were almost to the school anyway.

Not knowing what to say, she stayed silent, looking to change the subject, when the school appeared in view from the left side wall. She peeked her head out, looking at the school a second before Junior. Blue and red lights. Cars. People. She shut the walkie off. Jr’s must’ve died by now.

“Hey, there’s the-“

A hand slammed over his mouth as he was pulled down into the alleyway. His mumbled protests against Charlie’s hand quickly stopped when he heard the footsteps, and then the voice that came.

“And you were alone in the school?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Brianna.

Brianna and Isla

They were crouched in the old, crumbling alleyway, moving as quickly and quietly as they could whilst keeping their eyes out for anyone nearby.

Isla had been rattling off for almost fifteen minutes about something, Brianna couldn’t even figure out what she was talking about half the time, but she was trying to listen. A good friend would listen patiently, even when they had a pounding headache and wanted to scream at someone. Her patience was waning.

She already had anger problems in the first place, and that thought only led to another, one that infuriated her more than anything.

The argument.

“Hey, are you even listening?”

Isla was prone to her anger as well, but hers wasn’t as destructive. Isa could express herself openly, something Brianna was more than jealous of. She made it seem so easy, but anytime Bri tried to open up, the words got stuck in her chest, and her heart stopped beating. It was like a giant wall stood between her tongue and her mind. It refused to be saddled and obey properly.

It was so frustrating, so annoying-

“I said, are you even-?”

“Just shut up.”

She ground out without even realizing. A hint of annoyance and hurt flashed on Isa’s face, before going back to normal. Bri paused. Stopped. Isa looked back, stopping too, as if hopeful.

And the words got stuck.

They were stuck and refused to come out. Like a clogged pipe that no matter how you pumped at it, refused to unclog. It made her want to rip everything to shreds. But maybe, just this once, she might be able to say something.

“I’m..”

She began, words unsteady. Isa’s brows rose, confusion and hope in her gaze. She was that confused, just because Brianna might be apologizing? It made her angry all over again, angry at everything, angry at her father, angry at anyone she could be angry with.

It was one word, it shouldn’t be hard, really.

Sorry.

Five letters.

Just get five letters out, she told herself. It shouldn't be this hard. She should be able to do this. Opening her mouth to speak, her throat suddenly dried up, and she began to whisper something.

“I’m..s-“

There. A flash of movement in the corner of her eye. A shadow. A tiny, dimmed light. The same kind of light that would come from her flashlight when she took one battery out, just so it wasn’t as bright, so it wouldn’t hurt her dog’s eyes when she went to get a midnight snack. Turning the lights on always woke up dad.

She needed to stop thinking about dad.

Isla caught it too, a look in her eye saying they would continue that conversation later, but now, they were on the hunt. A little wave of her hand, and they were both moving, crouched down, interweaving between the alleyway’s dumpsters and trash piles.

The shadowy figure with the dimmed light moved exactly where they thought it would go, into the school. Their entrance? Hopping the chain link fence and using an unlocked door in the side to get in. The school locked all of its doors at night.

Brianna would know.

She and Charlie had once attempted to break in when Charlie had left her notebook in her locker by accident when she needed it for the test the following day. All the doors and windows were secure and locked. Especially the one on the side of the building that the shadowy person was now using.

“They must have keys to the buildin’.” Bri muttered, and Isa nodded.

“So either staff or student.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Wha’ever. Let’s follow ‘em.”

They crept up to the door, still partly ajar but closing rapidly on its own. Isla reached there first, using her foot and wedging it to stop the door from closing further. Bri nodded and walked further in.

The school looked as normal as it could at night. Lights off. Everything undisturbed. No sign of anyone, other than the tiniest distant footsteps she could make out. Towards the front of the building. Maybe the stairwell?

Jerking her head to Isa, they both began carefully walking, rolling on the balls of their feet to make their footsteps as silent as could be. They’d need it.

The footsteps abruptly stopped, and they did too. Peeking around a corner into the main entrance area, Isa saw the front office’s door open.

“In the front office, we should tell the others.” She murmured as quietly as possible. Bri shook her head, and Isa silently asked why with her expression.

“Walkies are too loud. Don’ want to scare ‘em off before we see anything useful.”

It was reasonable, Isa would admit. The others could catch up later. They’d arrive here soon, anyways, and probably quietly take a back exit. Considering Jr’s chronic planning out things, he’d get it all figured out.

Seeing that the stranger wasn’t getting out of the office, the two of them dared move closer and closer, until both of them were right by the door. Peeking in, Brianna found…nothing.

There was no one there. No shadowy stranger, or any odd people.

But the filing cabinets were open. Files and papers were strewn everywhere across the room, and a few things were knocked over and broken. There was no possible way the stranger could’ve done this within that amount of time, let alone do it without alerting them. Broken mugs, picture frames, dented cabinets…

“Somethin’ ain’t right. Someone purposefully shined a flashlight in the direction of your house, walked here slowly enough that we could catch up, and then we found the office trashed?”

Brianna said, standing fully up, before kicking around the pile a bit. Bright, flashing lights blinded her vision next, and Isla’s hands yanked her down.

“Police. Someone called ‘em. We’ve got to tell the Charlie and Jr-“

“Give me a minu’e, yeah?”

Something had caught her eye in that stack of files. Names. Numbers. Familiar ones, too.

She heard Isla radioing the others in the background, only for no reply to be heard. Her hand reached out to comb through the files, and Isla sighed, putting the walkie down, and beginning to help her.

“What are you lookin’ for?”

“There was somethin’ in here. Somethin’ familiar.”

“Are you really gonna get us arrested for something ‘familiar’?”

“I’ll do wha’ever I want, and you can right well piss off if you don’t agree.”

“Whatever, just hurry up, they’re coming.”

Footsteps, and keys jingling from outside. She heard the knob for the front door turn. One more second, they just needed one more second to get this file-

And then she saw it.

The words blurred together for some of the first sentences, some were blacked out with marker, and others were simply marked through with a line saying [REDACTED]. But there was one line she recognized all too well.

Simon “Ghost” Riley.

She took the paper, shoved it in a Manila folder, and pushed it into Isa’s hands as she pushed her friend backward, into a storage closet. The door of the closet clicked behind her. Isla didn’t move, not when the police officer caught sight of Bri, the flashlight and gun pointing in her direction.

“Hands! Let me see hands!”

Brianna did what she was told, sticking her hands in the air, and not approaching the cop. It was a woman. Maybe in her mid-20s, looked like the no-nonsense type. Red lipstick. Darker skin. Hair that had been recently silk-pressed.

“Walk out slowly, and keep your hands in the air.”

She obeyed that, too. Walking slowly out, each step measured and purposeful. The hands and arms remained in the air. She was so fucking done for when her dad found out-

Brianna refused to let herself think about that.

“What’s your name?”

“Brianna Riley, ma’am.”

“Why are you breaking into a school after hours?”

“Forgot m’ work, ma’am, figured I might as well come get it.”

The officer glanced over at the trashed office and raised a brow.

“And that?”

“Already there when I arrived, ma’am.”

She didn’t believe her. It was clear. Honestly, if Brianna were in that cop’s shoes, she wouldn’t believe her either. Two intruders in one night, and a teenager found in a trashed office? It was painfully clear what probably happened. Except she was telling the truth.

“Alright, well you’re coming with me, and we’re going to work this out. Keep your hands in the air, and walk slowly.”

Her gun stayed on you the entire time, even as you passed an alleyway, not daring to glance at who you knew must’ve been Jr and Charlie hiding there.

“And you were alone in the school?”

“Yes ma’am.”

When she got into the car, the officer gave her a rundown of her charges, only minor ones since she wasn’t an adult, basically only receiving a fine of $500, something she could pay because of her shitty fast-food job in town, Brianna Riley knew one thing.

Her dad was going to kill her.

Tags:

@seconds-over-first

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

DEVIL BIRDS (VII)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER VIII ||

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader.

WORDCOUNT: 5.3k

WARNINGS: Various crimes & illegal activity, paranoia, angst, mentions of death, trauma, inner turmoil, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You supposed that grabbing a hat would have saved you from having to worry about being seen, but you’d been too caught up in trying to sneak out as quickly as possible. Jacket flapping, your legs move fast over the open field of your estate, sprinting through the garden beds and past the thick copse with its willow trees and pond. The pathways were overgrown and you nearly trip over upturned pieces of rock. 

But you can’t stop giggling.

Your face pulls in a fast smile, eyes alight with eagerness. You feel like you have a purpose for the first time in years.

“Alright,” you whisper under your breath as you chart your course to the town. Maybe you could even catch Hector closing up and snag a coffee off of him. “Museum. Dad’s old office.” 

At your steady pace, you enter the beginnings of the businesses as the streetlights slip over you like water, bathing you in the glow as your breath puffs out. The air was cold, and you keep your jacket tight to your form as your shoes travel forward, slowing.

In your pocket, you twiddle your coin and wonder if you should have snooped in Gaz’s things for your penknife, lips thinning at the idea.

You were stubborn, but not stupid; you knew this wasn’t a good idea. 

But…it’s too late for that now. 

Shadows grew long as your eyes darted to open alleyways to the dull wind, glee dimming the longer you walk alone. After a moment you peek behind your form and nearly forget that Kyle wasn’t there with a flinch in your step. 

Have you really…grown used to having him follow you around? 

Why did it feel so threatening when he wasn’t there?

Your body tenses as a bottle across the street falls from the sidewalk to the asphalt with a clattering ping, rolling in the way that glass does as you watch. Clearing your throat, you continue on as your heart spreads blood throughout your veins. 

“Keep it together, you’re fine,” you hiss to yourself, not liking this new way of thinking. Sure you were considered a recluse—didn’t enjoy being out more than you had to in loud places—but…hell. You can’t start relying on Gaz for comfort. 

But he saved you. Your mind slashes to the shooting in the park and you sigh as you get closer to Hec’s shop.

Kyle had been kind to you, he gave pieces of himself like leaves from a tree to try and make you soften to him. The watch and the story, the stitches that still live in your hand. Soft words. Your gut bunches in your abdomen. 

You weren’t one to push past hurts—you lived with them, carried them like a parcel of goods at a picnic. The gun, the kidnapping, the…darkness of it all. If the Sergeant was capable of all of that, well, you weren’t sure it was in your best interests to allow him to carve a piece of your soul out with his bright smiles and amused smirks.

Soon the rest of the One-Four-One would be done with their missions overseas hunting down Yaromir Osipov and Mala Kham and it would all be over. You could go back to living in your mansion, alone, with the lack of lights and the sub-par meals. The ghosts. The covered furniture and the dead memories. You press the coin deeply into your palm.

…Why didn’t you like that thought?

Hector’s place came up as you stew in your confusion, seeing the low lights spilling out over the empty streets. You hum before pushing open the door, hearing the call from the back kitchen.

“One minute!” That Jersey accent is the same as it always is. Your body takes you to the counter, shuffling out your wallet and tossing bills to the wood before sneaking a ten into the tip jar. Everything for a moment slips away until only coffee and baked goods remain. “Christ, you folks don’t sleep, do ya?” 

Hector comes out from the back, pausing before locking onto your blank face. 

“Holy shit!”’ He laughs brightly. “Hey there, Kid! It’s been a bit, how’s it all going? I’ll admit I got a little worried when you stopped showing up.”

“School’s been tough,” you lie easily, shifting a smile to your lips. The man gets going on your drink immediately as you explain. “Thought I’d go on a walk and stop by. I’m heading into the city.” 

Hector stills momentarily, fingers twitching as he pours your drink into a cup. His throat hums out slowly, “The city? Ain’t it too late for all of that? What’re you going there for?”

“Just,” you pick up your addiction and let the warmth seep into you. What was the harm in telling him, after all? Hector was the closest thing to a friend you could have right now. “Wanna head by the museum. Feeling sentimental, I guess.” 

You almost hated how easy it was to lie to everyone.

“Ah,” the man nods and you stare at his neck before blinking at the sound of the phone ringing. “Shit,” Hector darts, and you had seen his heart dashing in his breast. “That’s me, Kid. Gotta take this.” 

He slips a hand into his pocket and disappears back from where he came from.

“See you,” but Hector’s already gone and you sigh out, “...later.”

You turn on your heels and leave, something akin to confusion in your chest. Strange, not even a goodbye. If Hector was one thing, it was usually casual.

“Whatever.” 

The train ride is silent as you sit in the back, stiff in your seat and not enjoying the eerie silence at all; sipping on your drink. Every time you look across to the emptiness you’re stuck with a great bout of unease but every time tell yourself that this was the only way to get answers. Your father’s office had to have answers, even as small as a single word. 

There just…needed to be something. There had to be.

When you step off into the station and lightly jog away, you pep yourself up with this thought as you drop your empty cup into the trash.

If you find information about your dad and his dealings, maybe Kyle won’t go absolutely ballistic if he finds out you left. You almost cringe at the thought of his tight jaw and clipped words; his silent broodiness wasn’t in your control. That was what terrified you. 

Like a cat you slinked along the streets, recalling the route you took so often when you were younger—the bookstore across the road, the Irish bar you’d have to pass as you slide left. Skyscrapers and planted trees, fast cars with their lights on. It was all familiar, and in that fact, you took the smallest comfort. 

Despite it all, there were still remnants of a time long passed. There were still pieces, and the museum was the biggest piece of them all.

Your eyes dig into the dark and blackened building with its white pillars; two sets of stairs leading up and up. It’s wider than it is tall and set apart from all other buildings or stores like a sentinel of history. The parking lot is bare besides a handful of cars far out into the open area of plotted greenery, and your vision seeps like water from one place to another. Your father’s old workplace is large and imposing—a giant of cream stones. 

After a minute or two of hesitation, you take the long walk around the museum to the back across its nine acres, climbing up a chain-link fence. 

Now was really when the anxiety snuck in. 

Fingers shaking, you know there are exactly five night guards on duty; had even met a few before the accident. The problem was getting in with the front door locked and sneaking into the employee-only section. Obviously, this amounted to breaking and entering except for the simple fact that…

“Shit,” you let the rare curse growl out of you, staring at the steady blinking light inside of one of the many back windows. 

Cameras. 

When had they added those in this section? Your mind jumps from one thought to the next, straining. 

“Okay, okay,” you calm yourself and rub your neck. “Think.” Blinking, your gaze slows itself on the maintenance ladder leading to the roof, eyes slowly widening. Perhaps with all of these horrendous ideas you’re cooking up like five-star meals, you might end up killing yourself before anyone else can. “Save everyone else the trouble, at least,” you grumble under your breath.

Your foot hits the first rung when you slowly stride over and you take a breath, hands sweaty as they quiver before you grab the metal. At the side, the bright sign burns into your retinas like looking directly into the sun. It was embarrassing, really. 

“NO TRESPASSING: VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.” Red and white mock you in their color scheme. 

“Kyle is going to lock me in the storage closet,” your mouth mutters, but you only shake your head and push upward with the thought process of everything you’d done so far wasn’t worth giving up on. 

Surprisingly, you had less reservations about all of this illegal activity than you rightly should have—a sort of distance from it. As if everything was being seen through the lens of a photographer spreading linen over his equipment before snapping that picture. Already in your head, you were counting the charges that could be levied against you with a blank face. 

Trespassing. 

Your hands and feet take you higher, the steady creak of your weight on the old metal.

Breaking and entering. 

Breath puffing out, you get to the top after a tall vertical climb, pulling yourself over the edge and slapping to the roof of the left side of the museum. Flat concrete holds the bodies of roof ventilation turbines, AC units, and electrical equipment all shades of gray and sun-bleached yellow. Flopping on your belly, you scoot forward until you’re able to shove with your arms up from the roof. 

“...Burglary,” you huff out, frowning. But was it really stealing if it belonged to your dad?

Kyle’s crossed arms and his tight lips slash through your head like the pissed-off angel on your shoulder. 

“Shut up,” you growl out to his image, stalking forward to figure out your next plan of action. “If I wanted your opinion I would have asked.”

After a minute or two of snooping, your only option came in the form of a ventilation shaft jutting out of the museum; a monster of silver metal and roaming sections like a large snake. You blink at it and play with the coin in your pocket, tapping a foot. 

The problem was the grate. 

Twiddling your fingers in your pockets, you bite at your lip and furrow your brows, knowing how much time you’d already lost. At most, you could stay here maybe twenty minutes before you had to rush back to the mansion. 

Is that enough time? After all, you didn’t even know what you were looking for. 

Taking out your coin, you roll it over your knuckles while glaring at the grate—eyes burning into the small ‘+’ of the Combination Head screws set into the four, shining, corners. Above, the moon was letting your shadow lay long over the roof. 

Halting your fiddling, you get the spark of an idea while you catch your coin, the things blue and bronze color subdued in the darkness. Looking down at it in your bandaged palm—dried blood stuck in the old gauze—you run a thumb over the engravings and slowly look back to the screws. 

“Maybe,” your voice whispers out. Flipping the metal object, you walk and slot the side of your precious coin into the head of the top right screw, jimmying it in with a growing smirk as it sits in a straight line. 

Jiggling it, the small fastening of the grate squeaks before its body gets slowly twisted to the side by your tight-knuckled grip, skin thin as it struggles to turn. A small noise of victory leaves you when the rust under the bond flakes off, the screw now quickly moving outward for you. 

You didn’t want to blow your own horn quite yet, but this was going smoother than you could have hoped for. 

When all remaining screws were on the roof and your coin was back in your pocket, you were staring at the gaping wound that is the entrance to the ventilation shaft. For the first time in the night, you wondered about the consequences of acting like this. Your father had preached honestly when he was alive—telling you that the best thing a person could be was true. 

The phone in your pocket was like a brick as your heart stampeded. 

“C’mon.” He speaks blankly, whatever sly teasing and amusement from earlier today completely gone. “Exfil point is a block away—we need to move.”

You can’t do much more than follow, your head screaming at you. 

“B-but what about…” Wanting to ask about the people who are back in the park, not quite understanding the horror yet. 

Sensing this, Kyle knows it’s better to respond briefly. 

“They’re dead.” You flinch at the truth, hearing the bitter reality settle in coupled with the man’s bluntness. 

Dead. Row, the others, your father. “But if I find the answers,” you try to steady yourself, leaning closer to the inky duct. “Maybe all of this can go away. No one else has to die. I have to…” You push forward, “I have to do this.”

Gaz’s words had touched you in the kitchen. His willingness to speak to you. No one else ever bothered. He’d be more than angry—furious with this, but how could you explain that this was so much more to you than a price on your head? You felt he already knew, truthfully, but you’d never been good at listening much less looking into his eyes to see if he’s being genuine. 

There was a piece of you that had wanted to glance up at him while you were against the island, just a swift peek. You’d shut it down just as quickly as it had come, but, still. 

The thought had been there.

Knees hitting the metal, you crawl far into the vent, enclosed on all sides except forward and backward. Not once did you think about how you’d get back out as you start taking the twists and turns of the chilled metal square, on a mission in your own right. Taking shallow breaths, you pull and slide your shoulders through, getting to the first dip and slipping down as your hands squeak. 

“Woah,” you hissed to nothing, your voice bouncing off and echoing back to your ears. “Christ.” 

Your form clanks along, trying to be as quiet as a mouse but only being successful if that mouse was being rapidly slammed against a wall. Along the way, you would have to make decisions about which way to go—right or left—and you would have to imagine yourself walking around the museum as if you were inside it. 

Paleontology down there, your head is bent to the left and you huff and feel sweat dribble down your forehead. I need to be near Botany. 

You take the right with a bit of worry set into your veins. What if you got lost in here? Would they find your body years later? You shiver and grimace. 

“Nothing will go wrong—!” Your voice cuts out as you plummet down a decline, face ricocheting off the metal with enough force to rattle your brain. You groan long and low in your throat as blood fills your nose. “...One thing can go wrong…” Your sleeve presses into your nostrils as you shuffle on slower and steadier. 

You were never making it back to your estate on time.

It’s fifteen minutes of bumbling and cursing, to your mother’s horror, before you turn to a thick grate at a dead end. Across your position, you’re able to make out a plaque on the far wall by straining your eyes through the darkness; you lock on the white letters of the self-designated ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ area. 

Your bloody lower face peels back in a breathless smile as you pant. 

Hands pressing into the ventilation grate, you prod with all of your strength and bite into your lip as you do; lungs tight with exertion. Just as you start to feel a small movement in the metal, whistling hits your ears. 

Immediately stopping, you hold your breath and lock your eyes on the slowly walking form of one of the security guards. A great frozen feeling overcomes your bones—nearly the same that had hit you when you’d been behind that garbage can with Gaz in the park. You stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed, heart in your ears. 

The guard was clothed in white and black, keys at his belt jangling and a flashlight in his hands as he spreads a tune. Large and bald, he paused across the way and turned his head in your direction. You tense and stifle a sharp inhale, ducking just the slightest bit back. 

But he doesn’t bother looking into the vent while he takes out a tissue from his pocket and proceeds to blow his nose as you watch, flinching at every loud snort. 

“Gah,” the guard rubs at his nose, “...gettin’ too old for this. Should be back at home already. Need to have Jerry give me that raise…” 

Tossing the used tissue into an adjacent trash can, the man moves on with a bend to his spine, showing his fatigue as his free hand rubs at the back of his neck. 

You put your fingers over your mouth, blinking incredulously as he turns a corner out of sight—whistles tune getting smaller and smaller.

“I’m going to have a heart attack,” you grunt, waiting a minute more before taking a deep breath and placing your shaking grip back into the grate. “Kyle, you should have tried to make me stay home harder.”

Your digging words hit no one, and you gasp as the vent cover pops off with a slide of metal. You snatch a hand to grab it, panicked, but the thing fully slips from your fingers as your heart gets stuck in your throat.

The sound when it hits the bench right under and then finally slams to the floor is enough to make you get bile in the back of your throat. 

It echoes over the museum like you had just chucked a glass bottle at a man’s head in the middle of High Mass—louder than a thunderclap. The silence that follows after is just as violent. 

It’s like you count the seconds as your hands extend from the dark square, face lacking blood and chin loose. 

Did that…what just…

When the quick, hard, footsteps start running back in your direction, you’re scrambling out of the vent faster than you can think about your limbs moving. Feet slipping and hands latching onto the edge of the opening with a thinning of your pupils as you shove yourself out. 

You land on the bench and clatter to the ground just like the vent but quickly recover against the roving pain on account of pure adrenaline. 

“Shit, shit, fuck!” Your mouth snarls, vulgar curses slipping out as you snatch the grate into your arms and push through the Authorized Personnel door with a loud shoulder shove. Darting to the side of the opened door, you slip behind it into the corner; mind running a mile-a-minute. Think!

Running would only make it worse, the guard would hear you and follow after. You look down at the metal in your hands as a shout rings just feet away—panting breath and the jingle-jangle of keys. 

“Who's out there?! Show yourself!” Your lips thin, thinking over those possible changes again and adding in another.

…Battery. 

When the guard walks through the door and takes a few steps in, wildly flashing his light back and forth, you slowly raise the vent grate in your hands. Taking a small, shaky breath, you tighten your grip and whack the man in the back of the head. 

He falls with a large thump, body hitting the ground as you stand above him with wide eyes and a guilty conscience, bones rattling in your flesh. 

“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” he’s groaning, stunned, as you swiftly place the grate on the wall and run back past him. “It’s nothing personal, really. I…you're going to be fine—a…a bruise, that’s it.” 

Dashing down the hallway, you leave him behind, but only after you steal his keys and begin to read each name tag on the walls, searching for the familiar title of your father at lightspeed.

Theft. 

“I’m such an idiot!” Quietly barking out, you take a left and skid to a stop finding the exact door you needed to get into—the one at the very end as well as the largest and most fancy looking. You could have easily picked the lock with a stray bobby pin and a stick from one of the fake plants outside in the hallway, but now with the keys…

You push through the hundreds on the chain, palms sweaty and breath not slowing down. You’re muttering to yourself in a frenzied state, feet trading weight.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, hurry up!” You find MD carved into the metal and stick the key into the door, twisting and hurrying through. Closing the door behind you loudly, you let your body pant as you hold it shut, palms to the grain; it’s a second before your forehead meets the barrier and you groan lowly. 

Rubbing at your scalp, you stand up straight and turn to the room. 

Except there is a suspicious lack of boxes along the carpeted floor.

“What!?” You yell, before you slap a hand to your mouth. “What?” Your lowered, repeated, question is strained and aggressive, but in reality, you should have expected this. It had been three years, after all. Maybe you had yet to realize the entire world hadn’t stopped just because yours had.

Jogging over to the computer, you slide the keyboard out from inside the desk and tap the spacebar to wake it up, growling to yourself. You knew they had kept your father’s things, but you didn’t know where they put them—you were supposed to have picked them up during the first year but…well, you know how that year went.

You grimace and shake your head, restraining yourself from touching your coin. 

If you could hack into the CIA database, this was a piece of cake; it took no more than a minute, already looking at the wallpaper of a woman named Lorena Bennett with her pet cockatoo on her shoulder. Immediately you head to the emails. 

“Okay, Bennett,” you say, “I need…” Typing in your father's name into the word search, you come upon one of the first emails from only a month after he’d died, eyes slipping from one word to another. “Here.”

Dear Mrs. Bennett,

Due to the unfortunate passing of our prior Museum Director, you’ll find the office assigned to you still filled with his belongings. If you would be willing, please pack up what few personal belongings he had and send them down to Eastern storage—his daughter will be here to pick them up at a later date. 

Thank you, and I wish you well on your first day, 

Member of the Board, Mr. Shaw 

“Eastern storage,” you huff, fingers twitching over the keys as you nod rapidly. “Alright, okay. I can do that.” You couldn’t do that. 

Sweating, you close out the email and power down the computer, putting it all back where it was. Was it wrong for you to want Kyle here with you? You could do with his steadfast patience at this point. Might even applaud him for putting up with you for this long if he could take point on this. 

For doing far more stressful things for a living, you were sure this was easy as cake for him. If anything that pushed you on. Leaving and locking the office, you carefully step over the unconscious guard and utter another apology, watching his back rise and fall with his lungs like a balloon. 

Sneaking through the halls, you pass displays and stay close to the walls, listening with strained ears as your breath seems to be the loudest thing in the museum. Rubbing at your sore nose, you make your way across multiple sections of the building, knowing every turn as if you’d lived here forever. 

“Now,” your father’s voice guides you along and you almost feel his hand on your shoulder as you slip behind a case full of ancient cat furs in the Mammalogy section. A second guard's flashlight slips above you and you crawl on the floor as she passes. “If you ever lose sight of me, I’ll head right to the place between Mammalogy and the Bone Hall. Just follow the arrows and I’ll be waiting for you, alright? I’ll always find you, Little Love.”  

You steady your breathing and slink around another display, heart constricted at the sudden need to hear your father’s voice again. You’d forgotten it after all of this time—the way he would reassure you was only a series of words without flow; a knowledge of the memory but mixed with the desperation to truly feel it. It was just…empty. 

Getting out of Mammalogy, you lock eyes on the direction map placed on the wall as the stolen keys sit in your pocket, muffled metal clinking against the coin. Looking at it, you’re hit with a wave of sadness, brows going downturned, and a rueful frown coming to your lips. 

“Guess not, Old Man.” You mutter to a ghost, shaking your head and pulse spiking when the female guard resets her path and begins to come back. Your body dashes away into memories and shadows with nothing more than a harsh sigh.

—

You stand at the bottom of the long staircase, breathing heavily and staring at the double doors of the museum storage room, grimacing but internally celebrating that you’ve gotten to where you need to go. There were multiple close calls with security, plus the unconscious man near the offices that you had to go back to. 

But here, now, you finally were able to get somewhere. 

Inserting the needed key into the door, you push through one and find rows upon rows of Archival storage boxes and cupboards all in pure white and gray. Blinking, you let the door close behind you as you huff out a scoff. 

“I swear if these aren't in alphabetical order…” Your dim eyes go from one to another, but you grunt and go to find the labeled letters on the sides of the cupboards, the temperature dropping multiple digits to help the items preserve better. 

Fingers twitching over the boxes, you slide them along as you read, muttering to yourself. A few moments into your search, the familiar name of your dad comes into view and you smile softly. 

“Here we are.” Hand reaching out, you peel the object out and place it on the floor, taking a deep breath before popping the top and gazing inside. 

There were two visible objects—a laptop and a journal. 

Intrigued, your hands delve inside and take out the black leather journal with careful hands, feeling the bulk of crinkled, written-in pages. As you hold it up and tilt it over, something falls out and clatters to the ground; the clink of plastic making your eyes widen in surprise.

“And what do we have here?” A USB stick meets your bandaged flesh as you pick it up, sutures under your skin raw and tight. You pay no mind to the second pulse in your flesh and stare intently at the navy blue tone of the small object. “USB stick…? What were you doing in there?”

Your face goes curious, head tilting as you move the stick around in your hand. With a hum and a serious edge to your brows, you hide the object in your jacket’s pocket and quickly take up the remainder of the belongings. Putting the box back where it was, you high-tail it back out the door, lock it, and dash up the stairs. 

This had to have everything you needed in it—a full laptop that with any luck was still intact, a journal, and a USB stick. The stick alone could give you swathes of information, and the journal…you hold back a yell of victory. 

Your dad was sure to have something in all of this mentioning the donations and the moniker. The documents with the same date and printed red ink. There was something there; on the cusp of a great discovery like an anthropologist on a dig site. A pressure in the back of your mind—incessant ringing. 

Something. 

Getting back was easier now that you knew the places to avoid, and as you slip the keys back onto the unconscious guard's belt, you take back up the grate in one arm. Going back, you stand atop the bench below the vent, huffing as you shove your father’s things up first. 

“What would Gaz do?” Your voice questions, hearing the long groaning from the downed security behind you. Sighing, you leave the grate on the bench, climbing back up with your muscles straining. It’s a slow crawl back to a section where you can actually turn your body around and at that point, you’re annoyed with the tightness of the vents. 

But you do it, regardless, dangling your arms out of the square to twiddle your fingers above the grate before you finally claw it back up and twist it around, flesh pinched as you handle the long slats to manhandle it back into position with a defining pop of steel. Like a kangaroo, you slip the journal and laptop into your jacket, zipping it up and letting the objects hang as you shuffle backward—able to turn back around one more time as you begin retracing your steps. 

You’re sure you're going to be sore tomorrow from all of this activity. 

“If,” you bonk your head and hiss, glaring at the ceiling as you climb upward. “If Gaz lets me live that long. I’ll be lucky if he even makes me dinner anymore.” 

There’s a part of you that realizes the effects of what this might bring. A small portion of unease and…fear. But there were things that you had to do alone, and this was one of them. It was your father that had been wronged, and it fell on you to finish this story, for ill or for better.

When you finally make it to the roof, you heave a breath of fresh air, basking in the open land. The grate screws back on easily with the help of your coin and hiking your father’s items higher in your grip, you speed to the ladder. 

Even without checking your phone, you know you have missed calls—missed messages that number in the hundreds. It was far past midnight; you were stupid to think you’d be back on time. 

“At least let me come up with a good excuse before I see him.” But still, you’re filled with a sense of elated accomplishment, your body quivering with adrenaline and happiness as your mouth opens in quick chuckles. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I did it! I’d like to see him hold a grudge against this.” Feet moving quickly, you get to the top of the ladder and bend down, smiling wide and cheeks pulled back with glee.

You looked over the edge of the roof, irises sparkling like gems as your throat holds giggles and puffs of excited breaths. Only you don’t lock into the ground feet below. 

Instead, brown eyes like tree bark glare up into yours with hidden fury.

And then the black vehicles pull up with a screech of tires.

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[getosuguruismyman]

tw: blood, mention of gun and dying The aftermath of you taking a blow for jjk men

kento nanami, yuuji itadori, toji fushiguro, and Satoru gojo x fem!reader

after the mission…

Kento Nanami

you and nanami were in the car driving back home after your mission. It was a quiet ride, you held your waist with pressure as blood seeped through your clothes. Nanami is really mad at you right now because you took a ‘could’ve been lethal’ hit.

30 minutes before

you and nanami were fighting side by side against a strong curse the curse was special grade, you jumped on top of the monster and formed cursed energy in your hand and punched the curse in the face, the curse grabbed you and threw you to the ground. Nanami wanted to go help you but he had to finish this now. You were getting up when you saw the curse made a secret attack from above and nanami wasn’t aware of this so you got up fast and pushed him out of the way, causing you to get slashed through your waist. Not gonna lie it was pretty bad it reminded Nanami of what happened to haibara so he rushed over to help you. He looked at you then the curse he used ratio on the curse then helped you to the car

Now

You guys are quiet in the car because he kinda yelled at you for being reckless and not caring for your body. It basically went like “why did you do that? You could’ve died.” “I did it cause someone was unaware of the attack and I didn’t have time to shout so I went to go save you. I don’t understand the problem.” “You don’t understand the problem?” And you guys just argued the whole time.

once you got home nanami got out the car first to come open the door and help you. He opened the car door for you, as much as you wanted to be stubborn the pain in your waist was so unbearable, you let him help you. You tried to stand up on your own but it was very painful. Nanami saw the look on your face and knew it was painful for you so he held you in bridal style and walked you to the house. You held onto him with one arm then the other arm was on your wound. You guys got into the house and nanami placed you on couch and went to go get a first aid kit. It was kinda late so you had to wait to go to shoko. Nanami came back with the first aid kit and he started patching you up first he disinfected with alcohol, it stung like hell so you winced really hard “sorry” nanami apologized every time you winced.

the tension between the two of you was so awkward. You spoke up first “I’m s-“ “I’m sorry, you’re not the one who needs to apologize I shouldn’t have overreacted liked that. We’re sorcerers we’re gonna get hurt and I need to accept that idea.” You was so caught off guard by his apology and you wanted to smile and be happy but he was stitching up your wound and that definitely hurt. He finished up finally and when he was cleaning up you had the urge to hug him to death. So you shifted from the couch to the floor and hugged him tightly “I love you Nanami I really do and I’m sorry for making you worry i won’t do it again” you kissed him passionately on the lips, and nanami was loving the kiss and hug. He broke the kiss first real quick “I love you too.” He kissed you back passionately.

yuuji itadori

it was a mission with you, yuuji and megumi. You guys were expecting a 3rd grade curse, but it turn out the information y’all were given was false. You’re 15 minutes into your fight and it’s not looking to good for megumi he’s beaten up pretty bad. Yuuji is trying his best to hold his own against the curse. He’s trying to reframe from using Sukuna, you were going to use your most powerful technique against but before you could create all the curse energy you needed, you saw the curse disappear from sight and yuuji didn’t know where it went. You looked up and saw the curse come flying down at full speed yuuji wasn’t aware of this. There wasn’t any time to warn him “ITADORI!” You heard megumi behind you but it still wasn’t enough time. You acted impulsively and lunged at where yuuji was. You grabbed him by his hood and dragged him back. You doing that caused you to fall forward and the curse was just an inch away from you, you moved to the side and doing that didn’t cause critical damage but it still managed to stab you through your side causing you to bleed out badly.

~~30 minutes after~~

yuuji rushed you home. He wanted to take you to a hospital but you refused to go. Yuuji held you in bridal style trying his best to not cause you any pain, but sadly for you every step he took hurt like hell. Once you guys got him he ran you to the couch and laid you there while he went to go get the first aid kit. He came back with the kit and was on the phone with someone. “Yea shoko it’s pretty bad she’s bleeding out of her side she was stabbed first then the cursed moved the sword upwards which made her bleed more.” Of course he called shoko, you refused to go to the hospital so he had to call her. “Ok, ok I’ll do that. Yup I’m pretty experienced at this so it should be fine. Yes thank you.” He took the phone away from his ear and placed it on the coffee table. He then crouched down to start disinfecting and stitching you up. He was quiet. To quiet. “Yuuji what’s wrong?” You said weakly. He looked up from your wound and had a serious resting face. “Why did you grab me? Why did you take the hit for me? Why did you put your self at risk for me?” You were confused on why he was upset at you for saving him “because you were unaware about the curse and there wasn’t any time to tell you.” He gave you a sad look “still y/n I’m a vessel of Sukuna. Even if I died Sukuna would just bring me back.” You looked a little discouraged at what he said “yea yea so what your saying is I should’ve let you died because the demon inside you would wiling bring you back to life? Ok..” he gave you another sad look he didn’t want you to be mad and he didn’t want you guys to argue about it.

“I’m sorry I just wished you cared for your body more that’s all” he kissed you on your forehead. He got up from the floor and started cleaning up. He was done patching you up, you didn’t even notice your guys talk kinda caught you off guard and took your mind off the pain. I guess pain is an illusion. You sat up on the couch it hurt to get up but you were uncomfortable. Yuuji came back and sat down next to you. He still had a sad guilty face. You felt bad, you getting hurt is making him sad. To cheer him up you got an idea. You shifted yourself on top of yuuji you were sitting on his lap. He was surprised you were moving again but also surprised that you’re on top of him. You gave him a seductive look which made him blush a little bit “w-what are you doing?” You leaned in ignoring his question you kissed him passionately. He didn’t stop you he was enjoying himself he started deepening the kiss he placed his hands on your waist holding you down. You grind your hips a little bit, the kiss felt good, he slipped his tongue in your mouth making it a nice and steamy interaction. You then broke the kiss and hugged him tight. Whispered in his ear “wanna go to the bed?” He didn’t waste no time picking you up and taking you to the bed closing the door behind him.

Toji fushiguro

You’re known for being reckless and careless. And Toji loves himself a badass wife, but sometimes you can get too careless. He doesn’t admit it but sometimes he doesn’t like seeing you get hurt.

whenever your in bed together, sometimes you would have your back towards him and he sees all your scars. It hurts him a little bit to be honest. He would kiss them and rub his fingertips over the dry rough spots.

you slammed the front door open, holding your stomach with pressure, Toji followed behind slamming it shout. “Then what the fuck was that huh!? Y/N I haven’t gotten a clear answer!!” He was still trying to finish your argument from the car but you said all you had to say. “So you’re just not gonna answer me?! It’s not the woman saves the man, it’s the man who saves the woman!” You snapped your head around at him.

“excuse me? I’m sorry I didn’t know it was like that it’s only I had to save your ass from being killed cause you don’t know how to control your goddamn urges.” You groaned after talking back to him. The pain in your stomach was already unbearable, you turned around and continued walking to the bathroom.

toji followed right behind you. You just kept ignoring him because listening to him complain was annoying. You walked into the bathroom looking for the stitches. It was at the top shelf, what a pain in the ass you thought, you leaned up to get it and then a sudden sharp pain hit you. You dropped to the floor, on your knees holding your stomach with a lot of pressure. You wanted to cry but didn’t.

Toji saw you and rolled his eyes. He went into the bathroom and grabbed the stitches, once he had the stitches he bent down and picked you up on bridal style taking you to the living room. You held your stomach groaning at the pain you leaned into him so you wouldn’t fall. He placed you on the couch. you didn’t say anything to him because you felt he would try starting an argument again. Without warning he yanked your shirt off leaving you sitting there with just a bra on. “Toji Fushigoru!!!” You yelled at him more for not giving you a warning. “Oh calm down, as much as I love looking at those big tits, I can’t stitch you up with your shirt on.” You were blushing at his comment, he started stitching you up and it really hurt. “I’m- why did you do that? You could’ve died.” You avoided eye contact

~~50 minutes ago~~

you and Toji had gotten a mission last minute you guys had to rush to the sight. The mission was to take down 2 mafia bosses, when y’all got to the building it was an ambush. The intel y’all were told was leaked to them leaving y’all out numbered. “Seriously why can’t we just have a normal mission for once.” Toji sighed he just wanted to pound into you all night. You on the other hand just wanted to sleep. You yawned “honestly this might be the most normal mission we had all week. Let’s just get this over and done with.” You pulled out your katana getting ready.

“You take half and I take half” Toji didn’t say anything he just did what you said. After 20 minutes into the fight you were almost done finishing your half. You snapped the last 2 remaining men you had to take out. You finished finally. You sighed you were so tired right now. you looked over at Toji and see him still fighting plenty of men. You didn’t get involved because it’s Toji and he’s a psychopath who loves fighting and you were just to tired to help.

Toji saw you just watching him finishing up. He smiled “Alright time to stop playing around my wife is waiting for me~” he started to get serious and moving faster. You grinned at him working faster just to get you out of here. You were about to clean up when you noticed one of the attackers moving away from the rest and standing behind Toji, the rest surrounded him making it impossible to get out of. You saw the separate attacker pull a sword out your eyes widen as you rushed between the blade and Toji.

You coughed up blood as the blade was through your stomach. You didn’t feel it at first it was numb down there. You stumbled backwards a little bit. You looked between the blade and the attacker. Yiu snapped the attackers neck. Toji’s eyes were filled with pure rage right now. You stepped over the dead body’s while taking the sword out of you. You walked to the nearest wall and sat against it.

Toji was just killing faster than before. You just wanted to rest and ended up falling asleep. Once you woke up you were in someone’s arms. It was Toji of course he was carrying you to the car. He saw you awake while placing you into the car. “Oh you’re awake. Good. Mind telling me what the fuck was that.”

~~Now~~

”I’m sorry I was being reckless.” He finished stitching you up a lot faster than you thought. While you were apologizing you got cut off to Toji kissing your knees. He made his way upwards kissing you, first he kissed your thighs then he kissed your hips making his way up your neck to your lips. He didn’t want a peck he wanted a full make out session. He kissed you lips passionately and slipping his tongue in. You let out a little moan you were caught off guard by this.

he placed a hand on your bare hips gripping it tightly as he kissed you passively. “Just don’t do that shit again got it? Or I’ll have to pound that information into your head” he was grinning while saying that. “Maybe you just might have to~” he didn’t waste a second he picked you up you wrapped your legs around him while kissing him on the lips. He took you to your room and shout the door. Let’s just say after that you couldn’t walk for a couple of days.

Satoru gojo

You walked in the house first holding the side of your head where you were slashed at. Satoru followed behind you, he was quiet still. He must still be mad at you. You just ignored it and went to the bathroom to find the stitches. You opened the cabinet and found them.

your head hurt so much and you groaned at the pain. Satoru saw the pain you were in, he grabbed the stitches that were at the top of the cabinet and grabbed your hand leading you to the couch. He sat you down on the sofa. You could tell he still was worried about you even while he’s mad.

he wiped your hair out of the way so he could see your cut more. It was deep and it was still bleeding dripping on your face. He frowned at your cut. He hovered over you to start patching you up. It stung but you could mange. “Why did you do that?” You were surprised he cracked first with this silent treatment thing first. “Because you were going to get hurt and there wasn’t enough time for y-“ “that doesn’t matter. You never put your life at risk like that.” He was stern with his words.

~~30 minutes ago~~

you and gojo were sent on a mission to fight rogue sorcerers, not your favorite thing but it’s gonna happen. [im to lazy to write the settings and stuff so you can make it anywhere 😭] you and gojo were fighting them, not what you originally planned but they didn’t listen. Gojo was fighting a sorcerer who could make clones of himself, you fought someone who used curses it was easy to knock them out.

you turn around and see gojo is still fighting the clones he was getting teamed on. You didn’t think much of it because he’s Satoru gojo one of the strongest jujutsu sorcerers, so you waited until you saw that is infinity was turned off. You got a little tense knowing that so you kept an eye on him. You saw one of the clones move out of the crowd with the rest going behind Satoru with a knife.

your eyes widen. And before you knew it you were standing behind gojo taking a the blow for him, the knife cut you deep on the side of your head. Gojo saw this and he was shocked on what just happened, to end the fight he used blue taking out all the clones and original in one blow. You held your head with pressure exclaiming on how much it hurt. Gojo took you to the car and drove you home, the whole car ride was quiet until gojo spoke up. “Why the hell did you do that?” He gritted his teeth. “Do what? Protect you?” You were so confused right now.

~now~

“I’m sorry ‘toru. I’ll try my best to not protect you.” You rolled your eyes at him. He sighed poking you with the stitches you winced every time. He was done stitching you up. He started cleaning up and seeing your cut just hurt him, he felt like he was the reason for the cut. He kissed you cut trying to calm the pain down. It worked obviously. Oh what the hell you couldn’t stay mad at this cutie. You cupped his cheeks and kissed him on the lips.

he was blushing a little bit. You both were. “I’m sorry” he whispered in your ear while kissing your earlobes. You wrapped your arms around him shaking your head slightly from side to side “no I’m sorry I was being reckless, I didn’t mean to make you worried.” You hugged him. He’s so tall that he’s bending down, “I was just scared of losing you…” he started nuzzling his face into your neck it tickled a little bit. You kissed him on the cheek “you can’t get rid of me that quick. You kissed him on the lips, having a steamy make out session, he wrapped his arms around your torso.

he picked you up from the couch, he didn’t break the kiss when he did this. He led you to your bedroom…and you know what happened after that 😉

I’m sorry for the people who were looking forward to Megumi’s story but I will not be doing his no more, I’m sorry

Sorry it took me a while to finish Toji’s story. I was busy with work. I tried to make a it a little longer and adding more details and fluff stuff so I hope that made up for everything. Anyways I’m working on the next story soon.

[dracaesusurro]

May Eywa be our witness pt3

Pairing: Netayam x female reader

Genre: fluff, little angst, mating mentions, sensual scenes, mature

Summary: part 3 to the last two fics !!!!!

————————————

As she ran after him she saw he was about to get on his Ikran and called out to him, “neteyam, Nete wait, one moment..” she thought he would just fly off but he slowly retreated and walked towards her. She wanted to talk but he grabbed both her forearms and stared into her eyes. “Ma y/n you don’t have to go through with this, his delusional! You can’t mate with some water Na’vi you don’t love, what about your choice, what about me!?” You couldn’t agree more but what else could you do, “what do you expect me to do Nete? We can’t be, and if Jake found out it would be a worst fate then to mate with another…” he dropped your hands and scoffed lightly “a worst fate then watching the one you love mate with a stranger, anybody who’s not you? Are you hearing yourself y/n?! This is absurd” he expresses this looking deeply in your eyes hoping you’d meet him half way, when you stay silent, much to his dismay he begins to walk away, back to his Ikran.

“Why do you keep doing this? Putting the worlds decision on my shoulder, why do you enjoy my pain neteyam!?” She is exhausted, of being composed, the understanding one, the one who listens and takes it all. “I don’t ever enjoy your pain, understand me, see me, your pain is my pain my y/n! Why do you insist otherwise” there’s a minimal space in between the two yet it feels yards away, years even. He feels years away. “Then why can’t you see my point, I’m trying to save you from my fate why do you have to be so goddamn stubborn” she’s in tears yelling yet her voice is not as loud as she’d like it to be, it’s faint. “Because I love you, what kind of life do you expect me to live without you huh” he lifts your chin with his hand, getting you to look at him, he studies your face, the other hand on your waist keeping you balanced, “a world without you, isn’t a world suitable for me, listen, hear me, I give myself to you for life, I am yours mind, body and soul. Damn whoever that says otherwise, if we have to fight for our love then I’m willing to do it with my life but I need you by my side, you need to choose me…”

His words felt like a prayer, a healing force, stitching your bleeding heart. You leaned into his touch kissing the palm of his hand, he smiled at you, a smile sweeter than the worlds nectar and you felt a laugh erupt from deep within, a watery happy laugh. “Your wiser than you let on my Neteyam, so wise-” your hands trailed up his chest “so brave” cupping his cheek “so mighty” your fingers tangled in his hair “and so, so beautiful” you breathed out and he could only stare at you, still waiting upon you answer, admiring everything about you silently and so you continued “my life began when I met you, my heart beat for the first time when I saw your smile and my world changed by your first touch. Your world is mine and I am as every bit yours, mind body and soul, I was yours from the first hello” you took a break, caught your breath and brought your face closer to him “I’ll fight with you, I’ll fight the world, the demons, anyone who stands in our way neteyam I’ll fight them for you, Nga yawne lu oer ma neteyam” your foreheads lent against each other a laugh escaped your lips and he soon followed, a relived laugh, happy, hopeful, free.

You didn’t know where the world would take you from here but you Followed him, you trusted the great mother and you let him lead you. He flew you to a river, a breathtaking sight, it was his favorite place he said a place he seeks to hide, to calm himself, a place he needs when he doesn’t have you. He sat you by a tree, golden branches glowing in the black of the night, it was a dream, it all seemed like a dream.

Your head was tilted up admiring the beautiful branches, he was silent, you looked down to see him staring at you “what are you staring at?” You asked teasingly with a genuine smile. “At the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen” he had a way with words, he knew it and so did you. “Oh stop it, you’re being foolish” you giggled looking away from him, your ears a crimson color. “Foolish?! Come here I’ll show you foolish you beautiful girl” before you could react he pulled you into his lap kissing you all over the face and neck, little kisses straying fast but as your laughter died down, so did his speed. He left memories with each kiss, behind your ear, your jaw, your neck, and back up to your face. “Neteyam, I choose you” you stare into his bright eyes, your hands around his neck, “I chose you a long time ago yawne” you brought your lips to his, a slow motion turned passionate his tail brushing against your waist and up your arms before yours began to entangle with his, neteyam leaned forward laying you down on the bed of grass, he looked at you, you grabbed your queue and held it towards him smiley silently your lips inches away from his. He connected his to yours and when you felt the bond a gasp left both of you, a sudden electric motion running through your bodies, neteyam was quick to bring his lips down to yours his hands roaming your body, a moan escaped you lips vibrating against his mouth, this only made him deepen the kiss further, there was nothing between you, no space, the two of you molded into one. With every motion a sound escaped your mouth and that only fed Neteyam’s pride.

As you pulled away you could see the happiness radiating off Neteyam’s body. He looked up at you and smiled, it was almost a sheepish grin, “I was yours mind and soul before but you can add body to the list now” he chuckled his voice sending waves of heat into you heart. “Nete..” you gasped slapping his arm.

He smiled widely before shoving his head into the crook of your neck to savor this moment and you with it, he took a deep breath and laid with you, you relaxed under his grasp, during your moment all you could think about was your love for him, but there are things that had skipped your mind, “neteyam..” you stared off carefully not wanting to anger him, he rose his head to look into your eyes, you cupped his face and stared for a moment. He sat up slightly worried at your features, you hadn’t noticed your frown having been lost in thought. “What is it my y/n what’s in your thoughts?” You didn’t want to ruin this moment but you had to bring it up, it was inevitable.

“What am to do, with the arrangements?” His soft Look faltered, the reminder brought him rage, but when he looked at you all those feelings vanished, he could only feel your love, “whatever we have to do we’ll do it together. You are my mate, we’re bonded for life, they can’t separate us ever” he kisses your forehead softly then your lips, you close your eyes and sigh.

“I’m never going to get used to these kisses, they’re becoming a life source for me” you chuckled leaning your forehead against his chest, his touch relaxed every worry you’ve ever worn.

“I am yours entirely, all these kisses are reserved for you and only you, for the rest of our lives, I promise this to you, may Eywa be our witness”

“Ma neteyam, my eternal love is promised to you, may Eywa be my witness”

He hugged you tightly against his chest leaving his chin on top of your head, “if only you could promise to not be so damn hot headed, your way too stubborn you worry me too much yawne”

A loud laughter erupts from you, his remarks genuine but his reached too deep, “ oh you and I both know that’s a promise I can’t keep not even in the name of Eywa” he laughed along with you, kissing your shoulders, his voice was a melody, music to your ears, that hug lasted an oblivion in your mind. And so did your bond.

Thank you for reading❤️❤️ total power couple here, there is not way in hell his letting Jake mate her off!!!!!

Leave any requests you have for more stories!! I’ll try to get to them all.

[bekkachaos]

🍂 APOCALYPSE BUDDIE MY BELOVED 🍂

aahhhhhh Meegs I know how you love this one! have some of Buck's pov 💕 fun fact this is loosely based on the book "all that's left in the world" which is a gay teen apocalypse story that I LOVED so much

🍂 buddie apocalypse au

He had never met someone so stubborn. Or maybe he had just forgotten what stubbornness was like, how it grated him.

When Eddie had said that he was leaving immediately after finishing the stew (if you could really call it that, it was nothing like the food he used to make), Buck had been surprised. He had seen the state of Eddie's leg once he'd stitched it, and he knew it wasn't going to look any better less than a day after.

Not that he'd checked. He had thought about it, but he didn't want to wake Eddie from his sleep when he so clearly needed it.

So he had let him sleep, letting the thought settle in his mind that Eddie would be sticking around at least a few days until some of the bruising had subsided and he had at least some strength back and with more food in his belly. It was idiotic of him to try and leave now.

What the hell was he trying to get to that was so important he would risk dying for it, Buck thought as he watched Eddie get to his feet like a baby deer. He shook his head lightly as he wobbled, putting his foot down to test it and immediately regretting his choices.

He lurched forward with a loud wince and without thinking it through, Buck did the same, reaching out to catch him and hold him steady.

His hands braced against his ribs and he felt Eddie's hands instinctively clutch at his arms, holding on as he caught his balance and then looking up and into Buck's eyes in a way that scorched him all the way through. Could he feel Eddie's heart beating beneath his hands or was he imagining it? Were there traces of gold flecks in those cedar eyes? Had hands always felt this hot when they gripped his skin? Had he really forgotten what it was to be touched by someone?

He tore his eyes away from Eddie's and gave him a slight nudge towards the couch again, hearing the huff of annoyance leave Eddie's lips as he let himself be guided back down.

Buck stepped away as soon as he was steadily seated, still not meeting his eyes.

He scolded himself for the way his heart thudded loudly against the inside of his ribs, the throb of it reaching his extremities. He clenched his fists to try and drive that feeling away. He couldn't afford to let that feeling get comfortable.

It wasn't like Eddie wanted to stay. It's not like I want him to, Buck chastised himself internally.

pick a wip, and make me write!

[gaysindistress]

As Good a Reason - four

pairing: Mob!Bucky Barnes x reader

summary: when Brock Rumlow picks a fight he can’t win with the White Wolf, he drags his Snake back. Six years after she ran away, Y/N Rumlow is faced with a choice to make; do as she’s told and kill the White Wolf or overtake her father instead because spite’s as good a reason to take his power?

warnings: cursing, violence, weapons

word count: 3k

A/N: Bucky gets darker the next few parts so I’m warning y’all now and no one gets surprised. I’ll add a ⚠️Dark!Mob!Bucky⚠️warning in the parings as well as the warnings.

three | series masterlist

Tag list: @cakesandtom @elizacusi-blog @unaxv @hidden-treasures21 @vonalyn

disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on Google/Pinterest. The women in the banners are not how Y/N is supposed to look. They are merely for aesthetic purposes and Y/N is written vaguely enough for anyone to see themselves in her.

John is sewing up Victoria’s hand as she grimaces and swallows the entire bottle of Vodka in one gulp. Niklaus, on the other hand, is frantically pacing the room, wearing ruts into the floor. John tries to get him to stop or slow down even but he refuses. 

“We’re fucked, absolutely fucked,” he mummers under his breath. 

Victoria practically growls as John pulls at the stitches to tie them off before snapping at her brother, “Of course we are. We let that bastard take Y/N.”

John looks to Niklaus nervously and then back to Victoria. 

“Oh my god, what did you two idiots do?” “Nothing, we did nothing,” Niklaus snaps back at her. 

“No, you did something. Tell me or I’ll throw you both through the window.”

John spills almost instantly, “Klaus made a deal with him last year.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she shrieks. 

Niklaus rushes over to her and quickly puts his hand over her mouth to silence her, “Shut up for the love of god. I’ll tell you if you promise to not say anything. Brock is literally down the hall.”

She nods and he starts in with the tale of how he might have royally fucked up. 

About a year and half ago, Brock caught him and another man together and beat Niklaus to a pulp. He had been laid up in the hospital for weeks and needed routine visits afterward from the injuries he sustained. In addition to being beaten within an inch of his life, Brock had threatened to kill them if he ever caught them again. That had been the final nail in the coffin for Niklaus; after years of enduring the torture that his father put him and his siblings through, he made the decision to get rid of him once and for all.

The most natural choice was the White Wolf.

He was feared across the East Coast and was gaining power rapidly. He threatened Brock’s authority in New York and it made him nervous, sketchy, and scared. Niklaus arranged a meeting with Steve, his community liaison, and set the plan in motion however it all crumbled when Brock caught wind of a rat amongst his ranks. He had Niklaus and John execute too many innocent men and he even made a move on the White Wolf’s men. He’d murdered Tony Stark, one of the White Wolf’s close friends and advisors, setting forth a domino effect of violence. He retailed as one would and with Y/N being dragged back in, it complicated things. Niklaus tried to uncomplicate it and remove her from the equation with the planned ambush at the party but he never expected that she would willingly take the deal. Hoping that she was still the stubborn teen she had been, he’d hoped that the White Wolf would have to take her against her will and keep her locked away until it was all over with. 

“You are the biggest idiot I have ever met,” Victoria says with an equal amount of shock and annoyance, “Why didn’t tell me before? I could’ve helped you plan something better.”

“I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt if it all went south. I figured I could take the brunt of it while John got you to safety.”

Victoria scoffs, “So a suicide mission?”

“No.”

“Yes! You know him better than anyone. He will tear you apart limb by limb, sew you back up and do it again until he gets bored. And even then he’ll find a new way to entertain himself.”

John makes a disgruntled noise at all of her moving and says, “But if Brock’s dead, it’s all worth it.”

“No it isn’t John! You’ve been friends since birth practically and you’re seriously suggesting that him being dead is for the best? Klaus,” she pleads with her brother, “we have to find another way. Call him and find another way. Please, I can’t lose you.”

“There’s no other way. Either the White Wolf kills Brock before he can get to me or I try my hand at it and our father kills me.”

Her eyebrows furrow in pain and sadness as John finishes her hand. The moment he’s done she leaps up and wraps her arms around her brother.

Niklaus grips her back tightly ad if he’s afraid she’ll disappear into thin air and buries his face in her hair.

“You better hope Y/N figured out a better plan.”

He nods against her head.

“I love you, Klaus.”

“I love you too.”

Brock loves to incite fear in everyone around him whether that be with his voice or a violence. He craves to make all those in the same room as him fear for their lives if they so much as breathed wrong and that is especially true with his children. He lives to see the terror that lives in their eyes when they see him or how their bodies go rigid when he walks past them. He wants to see them shutter when he walks too close to them. He wants them to hold their breath until he leaves. He wants them and everyone else to walk on eggshells when he is around. He wants them to fear him in every sense of the word. 

Victoria’s small sniffles piss him off to no degree and he backhands her hard enough that she falls to the ground. Niklaus, ever the loyal son, only flinches at the sound of the impact and does nothing to help his sister. He knows that if he even so much as moved a muscle, he would be next. 

“Can someone please explain to me how the fuck you let that bastard take Y/N?” he growls at them as he rubs the bridge of his nose. 

Victoria climbs to her feet and with hit tears pooling in her eyes, she matches his anger, sneering back at him, “He knew we were going to be there. We didn’t stand a chance.”

“You had Y/N. You had every advantage I could’ve given you but somehow you two still fucked it up and killed her in the process.”

Niklaus risks his head and speaks, “She’s not dead. He took her hostage.”

Brock marches up to his son and grips his face in one bone crushing hand as he says, “That’s even worse. He can use her to get to me.”

“Y/N won’t give you up no matter how much she hates you. She wouldn’t risk Victoria and I getting hurt,” Niklaus scoffs and jerks his head away. 

In a flash, Brock whips out a pistol and pushes against his forehead, “You’re useless, you know that? I’ve done nothing but provide for you and give you everything you could ever want. Still you fuck up and prove to me that you’re only ever going to be a thorn in my side. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet in you and Victoria.”

Victoria makes a startled gasp and lunges at her brother in efforts to push the gun away but John grabs her and holds one of his own to her temple. She whispers insults under her breath and curses him for being “a fucking traitor and a bastard.” Niklaus looks at her for guidance because he’s a loss for words. There’s nothing he could say that wouldn’t get someone hurt. She shakes her head as much as she can, urging him to not say anything. The one piece of information he can give their father to save them would end with Y/N’s head on a platter but it’s all he has to offer.

“Nik please,” she whispers with even more tears in her eyes. 

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Nik you always have a choice. Don’t do this please. Él la matará.”

He will kill her.

“Don’t speak that shit in my house,” Brock growls at her, “Try again and this time peak English.”

She pleads with her brother again in Spanish, earning another growl but with the gun against both of their heads, he has to do something. Giving away himself would ruin any chance at catching Brock off guard in the future so he goes the only thing he can.

Niklaus tears his eyes away and locks eyes with his father as he utters Y/N’s death sentence, “She made a deal with him; in exchange for our lives, she helps him kill you.”

“Is that so?” Brock asks, cocking his head in amusement before turning to look at Victoria, “I think I might have to send a message to that brat if that’s the case.” One shot. 

And a body drops. 

Steve chooses to grab Y/N by her hair this time, keeping his hand wrapped in her braid so that he has complete control of her. The White Wolf gives him a disapproving look but doesn’t say anything as they walk into a looming and dark house. Matching the exterior, the house is black and sleek with no hint of personality anywhere to be found. It looks very much like a house that a mob boss would buy to launder his money and she assumes that this is the case. 

“Stop gawking,” Steve tells her with a harsh tug of her hair and she hisses at the pain. The White Wolf looks back and motions for Steve to bring her forward. 

Taking her arm in his like a pretend gentleman, he explains that until Brock is dead, she will be staying with him. She’s not to leave and if she does, she needs to have explicit permission from him and a security detail will go with her. Steve smirks when her eyes flicker over to him, indicating that he will be the spearhead of that detail. The White Wolf saying her name brings her attention back to him and continues to explain that the house is hers, she has free reign as long as she stays within its walls. He stops them at a door at the end of a hallway, “This is my office…”

She interrupts him, “And it’s off limits. I know the drill.”

He smiles, looking her up and down while he wets his lips, “Smart girl.”

A part of her shutters in disgust but another…. 

“How much time do you need?”

“What?” she questions, searching his face for any hint of explanation. 

“It’s been six years since you left home so I’m assuming you need some time to figure out a plan. How much time do you need?” 

“You make it seem like I left on good terms,” she mumbles, shrinking under his intense gaze. 

He chuckles, “Sorry, RAN AWAY.”

She sighs and looks around her, “He’s living in one of his old properties so I already know how to get in and out. It really depends on how quickly you can get me what I need.”

“And that is?”

“How do you want it done?” He takes a moment to think about it as he pushes open his office door and leads her inside. Steve closes the door, locking just the two of them inside. The White Wolf pours both of them a glass of whiskey and hands one to her before taking a seat on a massive leather couch. However with him and his overwhelming presence on it, it looks child sized. He motions for her to sit in a chair across from him and she hestiants but he insists. 

“That’s up to you, little snake. You want him to suffer, right?” he asks as he takes a sip, wincing at the blissful feeling of the burn. 

“Don’t turn this on me,” she pauses, realizing that she only knows him by his alias,  “I don’t know your name.”

“My name?” “That’s what I just said.”

He narrows his eyes at her before giving her the answer she seeks, “James.”

“Don’t turn this on me, JAMES. It’s not about what I want, this is about your little fight with him,” she snarks at him, “The only reason why I’m involved is because of opportunity. You saw a chance to get back at him for whatever reason and preyed on me because of my past with him.”

James reclines in his seat, allowing himself to enjoy her anger and admire her in the process. 

“Did he tell you what this is all about?”

“No but I don’t exactly care either. All men have an ego the size of the sun and turn to violence when it gets bruised.”

He chokes on his drink at her appraisal but agrees nonetheless, “Fair enough. So what do you need?”

“I’ll need a Beretta M9A4 with a silencer, an M4, and a set of knives.”

“Strange list, anything else?”

“A getaway car and a driver.”

“I’ll have Sam do it.”

“Hm,” she stops him after taking a sip of her drink, “No, I don’t trust him.”

“I really don’t think trust should be something you’re worrying about right now.”

Y/N slips her heels off and draws her legs onto the chair with her, getting as comfortable as she can to level a bored look at him. James takes in her form as she’s curled into herself and he wets his lips with his tongue. 

“Who do you want then?” 

“Steve.”

A beat passes. 

“Or you.”

He questions her with a smirk as he slides through down into the leather couch. He’s lounging at this point, completely ignoring the fact they’re discussing murder. 

“Me?”

“I don’t trust any of your men and most certainly not you but you wouldn’t do anything to put me in harm’s way if you’re involved.”

His phone rings and he picks it up, eyes never leaving hers, “Hello?”

She can’t make out what the other person is saying but she can tell they’re frantic. James lets out an annoyed sigh and closes his eyes as his head hits the back of the couch, mumbling along as the person on the other side rambles on and on. His attention being off of her gives her the opportunity to really look at him. 

Eyes taking over him, Y/N takes in the way his midnight blue suit compliments his eyes and how his white shirt underneath is unbuttoned in an absurdly attractive manner. Just under his suit jacket is a hint of leather, a holster she assumes given what little she knows of him.  

“He’s not going to do anything and even if he did, I have people close by.”

The sheer dismissive tone brings her back to his face where she locks eyes with him. He must have lifted his head when she wasn’t looking and was most certainly watching her checking him out. She finishes the rest of her drink and sets the empty glass on the coffee table between them. 

“Încetează. Seriously calm down and use your brain, Klaus. He’s not going to do anything stupid. If he did, he would ruin any chance of survival he has. ”

She gives him a questioning look and he winks at her instead of explaining.

When he hangs up, she immediately jumps into her line of questions to which he explains that her brother has been working with him for some time now. 

“Klaus? As in my brother Niklaus? He’s helping you?”

“He came to me last year and asked if I would help him with… some business.”

“Why did you make a deal with me if you already had one with my brother?”

“It never hurts to have multiple options.”

She groans in frustration and rubs at her temples. Of course she would’ve been suckered into some farce of a deal by a shady businessman. The temptation to throw something at him becomes too strong and she hurls one of her heels at him. It misses and clatters to the ground behind him to which he chuckles at and gets to his feet. His shoes scuffle the floor as he pours himself another glass. Rather than sitting back in his original place, James rounds the coffee table and sits in front of her on it. 

“Brock would see it coming if I had Klaus do it regardless of how good your brother thinks he is. You, on the other hand,” he starts, pointing at her, “are the perfect option. He still has hope that you’ll find it in your heart to love daddy again so you still have a chance to gain his trust hence why I brought you here. Taking you away from him builds the tension, makes him sweat, makes him vulnerable and reckless. It puts him in the perfect position for me to release you back to him and boom my Rumlow problem is gone.”

“You still haven’t told me what he did.”

James leans forward so he’s invading her space, “It didn’t seem important a minute ago.”

Y/N matches him and leans forward too, “Well it is now. What did he do?”

“He killed a very good friend of mine.”

“You have friends?” She laughs at him and before she can stop him, he grips her braid again and pulls her off the chair and onto the ground before him. 

He yanks her towards him and whispers in her ear, “Learn when to stop, little snake. It’s unbecoming of you.” 

She glares him with all the hatred she feels for men like him but it flatters when his eyes flicker from hers to her lips parted due to the pain in her scalp.

"You look good on your knees for me," he lets spill out before releasing her.

She knows that he meant for it to come out but nonetheless she throws herself back as far as she can to get away from him. James, the flirty and seemingly harmless man is gone and in his place the White Wolf reemerges. He smirks at her desperate attempt to put space between them and winks at her again, this time making her body revolt at the gesture. Standing, he leaves the room without another word to her. 

Whatever safety and trust she hoped to gain tonight is gone the moment he closes that door. 

She’s alone. 

Completely and utterly alone.

[frainstryan]

CHAPTER 4 OF MY FIC! i’m very excited! lots of Gwynriel content in this one!

snippet:

He doesn’t want to annoy her. Which he has undoubtedly already managed to do, but it’s better than her fainting from her injury.

Suddenly, her head snaps to look at him with her bright turquoise eyes, “Don’t baby me.”

“I…” He stutters, caught off guard, “I wasn’t babying you, Gwyn, I know you are perfectly capable of handling yourself. I just know that you can be stubborn.”

“I prefer the term dedicated,” She adds quietly.

He smiles brightly, “Very well, I know you are dedicated,” He emphasises the last word, “and so you would rather be half dead at Nesta’s door than admit you were hurt.”

“I…” Then she cuts herself off, “I don’t care for that analysis… no matter how right it may be.”

“Did you just say I’m right? Or perhaps I’m losing my hearing,” He jest, joining her on the step so she doesn’t have to keep twisting her neck to look up at him.

“Don’t get too inflated over it, even fools can be right occasionally,” She says with a facade of annoyance, but he can see the corners of her mouth tilting upwards.

“Oh, I’m a fool, am I?’ He jokes, astounded.

“Yes, I do believe so,” She confirms, nodding to the sentiment of her sentence.

He can’t help but laugh. He turns to hide his smile against his shoulder, where his shadows have settled – content to watch. “I can’t think of anyone who would call me a fool, Priestess.”

“You're hardly terrifying, Shadowsinger,” She says, looking so sure of herself that it physically hurts him. She couldn’t be more wrong, or at least that is what everyone else believes.

“People are too scared to even talk of me in their homes, worrying my shadows are listening in,” He had meant it to sound like a joke so as not to scare her, but he prayed she could hear the truth in his words.

“What, these shadows?” She playfully smiles. Her hand waves in the air, and to his utter shock, his shadows dash out to dance between her fingers.

He physically can’t get a word out of his mouth as he watches Gwyn. All he can think to ask is, “Your leg… let me see the cut. If you,” He swallows, “are alright with that?”

He watches as she lowers her hand and fiddles with the hem of her now crimson night dress. She makes a small noise that sounds like agreement, then lifts the edge of her dress to expose her blood-covered thigh, “See, it’s not that bad.”

She is right the wound will heal, and he can smell more Illyrian blood than hers, but while it’s covered with dried blood, the cut is still open and gaping. The bastard had fully sliced the side of her leg open, “You should get Madja to stitch it.”

“It will heal naturally,” She mumbles, running one of her fingers over the grain of the wooden stairs.

“Then do it for my peace of mind,” He says before he can stop himself.

“Something tells me your mind will never be at peace,” She jokes and pulls her nightgown back to just above her knees.

He can’t help but chuckle at how right she is and repeats her own words back to her, “As you said, Gwyneth, I don’t care for that analysis.”

She smiles fondly at him. At this moment, he realises that the sickness that had been coating him has ceased, and all he feels is a strange warmth in his chest. He can’t drag another word out, so when he hears the front doors swing open, he feels that light be replaced by relief.