#as well as a wall-mounted television. big kitchen

[shyniisparkles]

Bridgeport Library Enclosed

[shebeafancyflapjack]

A Slip Through Worlds (Part 9)

Annie tries to help Mary, while Silver plays a dangerous game. Based on @idiotwithanipad 's Gore Au.

-

"No, no, no, nos!"

Annie heard the ruckus coming from the top of the stone tower adjacent to her and Mary's little cottage all the way down and through to the kitchen.

She abandoned the sourdough loaf she was halfway through preparing from hand at the sound of feet stomping and glass smashing. After running her hands under the tap, she opened the wooden door to the spiral stone steps, leading up into the tower.

"Mary? Everything well, love?" She called up.

Stupid question, she knew.

Her wife, as official as could in this world that lacked any overseers of legal matters, hadn't been right for the past few days. Not since their window to the Lands Below had been covered with mist, stopping Annie from looking in on her old friends, and Mary from checking on her daughter. She had been twitchy and nervous, anxiety rising in the other woman like she hadn't seen since they were Livings, but Annie had managed to help calm her, assuring her that they would soon learn the reason. And it wasn't as if any harm could come to those already dead.

Her and her big sodding mouth. No wonder it was what got her killed.

The tower had not been part of Annie's original design when she had built the cottage, initially for her and Mary alone. But when she'd watched the quirky teen come into Mary's existence, and quickly her heart, she'd suspected that the cottage would need an extra room at some point.

It had only been when Mary, finally, arrived that she came up with the idea for a tower, something of the same era as the cottage but different style, giving it a fairytale aesthetic that suited the forests and waterfalls where Annie had first laid the foundations. Her daughter was young but close enough to adulthood that she would want her own space, her own entryway to come and go at will, while also connected to her mother's house.

After several years since Mary had ascended, it was almost complete. Annie climbed the stairs two steps at a time, passing up the first floor that was set up for her witchcraft practices, potion and herb mixing and the like, then the second which held a mini library full of all her favorite fantasy books and many that might appeal to her along with a cosy fireplace for her to read them by, and lastly up to the third floor, Silver's bedroom, which Mary was just adding the final touches to.

Annie poked her head through the ajar oak door, taking a look into the room where, hopefully, Mary's daughter would be happy to stay and rest. Stone walls decorated with hanging arms of ivy surrounded her, plush rugs covering the floor, another fireplace, except this time with a wall mounted television placed above the mouth. It faced a queen sized four poster bed with ebony and violet bedsheets, blankets and pillows, looking comfy enough to make Annie want to dive in on it.

Young Amy had visited recently, at Mary's request, wanting some suggestions on what extra furniture to decorate the room. Thankfully, Silver had recently invited Amy into a memory of her childhood bedroom, so she had plenty of ideas for posters and game consoles and stuffed toys to help make her feel at home once she arrived.

When...

"Oh sod it!"

Smash.

Annie winced as Mary broke one of the single plane archway windows with her own fist, shattering it to tiny pieces amidst the floor.

"What are you doing?!" She rushed to her wife and grabbed her hand, checking it over.

No blood. Not that bleeding was something to worry about here but...they could still feel pain.

Mary exhaled, a vein popping in her forehead.

"I is so stupid! I did finish putting up all these windows and then remembered - Little'en won't wants for windows! She doth love sleeping outdoors!"

She smashed another one, this time with a thrust of her elbow at least. Annie winced at the sharp noise.

"They has to all be open. Wes can put enchantments so the rain and snow never comes in...unless she wants it to, o'course." Mary fretted; "She mights not even want for a roof. She'll want to always be ables to see the moon and stars lookings down on her. Does I takes off the whole thing or just makes her a little skylight? What d'you think?"

"I think, my love," started Annie, gently touching Mary's arms; "That's you should sit down. Take a breather."

The taller woman shook her head, fiddling with the amulet she wore frequently these days around her neck. Two small crystals held together in a silver container; obsidian and spinel.

Her ex husband, John, who lived just a short walk away, happened to be fixated on gems, and when Mary showed him Silver in the waterfall, he'd given her the amulet as a present, having crafted it in his own forge.

"Hopefully will make it feel like your little'en be close to yours heart, Mary, love." The bright eyed peasant had said.

There weren't too many men that Annie was fond of, but Mary's ex was one of the few good'uns in her, albeit short, book.

"I can'ts stops, Annie, I can't." She says, breathless, "Gots all this glass to sweep up now, don't steps near it."

She watched as Mary tried to summon a dust pan and brush. Annie interrupted by grabbing her wrists.

"Mary, forget about the glass and the room for just five minutes, yeah? Even if your girl be sucked off this instance, she wouldn't puff into existence here right away. You has plen'y o' time."

Her wife tugged at the sleeves of the thin jumper she was wearing, neither of them favoring to wear the clothes of their own era. They had donned them recently, in order to appear to young Amy when she first got sucked off, just to help her to know who they were. Mary would sometimes were a clean, bright version of the simple dresses she wore as a girl, but Annie opted for anything post 1920's female fashion, the more vibrant and alternate the better.

"T'is not just in case of that's. I...I has to keep busy, Annie, you knows this."

"Yes, my love, I do." It was why she said nothing when, first thing as soon as they arrived home, Mary headed up to Silver's bedroom. Annie had left her to it and gone to the kitchen.

But then came the crashing and cursing. She could hardly risk leaving her wife to have a full blown meltdown alone.

"You be no help to your babe hurtin' yourself." Annie tried to tell her.

"I be no helps to hers at all! This truly be the best I can do? Preparing for her a room she may not use for centuries!"

"It might not be that long."

Heavens forbid the child be cursed even more so than she already be. If she were trapped in that world as their Rogh seemed to be.

"What if she chooses not to stay here? She may prefer to live with her da." Mary huffed, the two of them having briefly met the dark haired man when he came to peek at the waterfall once; "She was fond of him too."

"Even he admitted you spent more time as her parent than he. You is her mum, Mary, she'll be chuffed to bits to know you made a home ready for her here's with us."

Mary ran her fingers over one of the posters that Amy had brought round and helped set up. Annie had no idea what an Evanescence was, but the blinding white face of the woman seemed to be watching them intently.

Carefully, Annie guided her wife to sit on the edge of the bed that had been neatly made. Amidst the pillows was a cuddly toy shaped like a lion cub that Amy had also brought.

Mary reached to grab it and held it on her lap.

"I needs her here now, Annie. I needs her in my armses." She spoke as she stared at the washed out plastic eyes.

All Annie felt that she could do was rub the other woman's back in that spot where she knew the tension gathered.

"I know, love. She will be. Sooner than yous expect."

Mary sighed; "How foolish could I bes to thinks my apology and blessing to have Alison change her name to mine own be enough to protect her fragile mind. T'is not enough. She needs her mum there. Not some piece of papers."

"She has our Robin." Annie reminded; "Amy did say he was taking care of her. I know he'd been a bit of a plonker of late, but he'll be good with her now. Remember how well he looked after little Kitty when she first joined us? And sweet Jemima?"

Her wife nodded, sniffling; "And mes. He was kindly with me, though I barely spoke a word till you cames 'long."

"Exactly. I know she ain't my daughter, but if she were there be no other man I trust to keep her safe than that sweet savage."

Annie could feel Mary's muscles start to relax, though tears still leaked down her face.

"I's just needs that water to work again. If I can only see her, I then know she be okay. But nows..." She gritted her teeth.

A burning smell tickled Annie's nose. At first she wondered if she'd left some bread in the oven downstairs. And then she looked to see the ivy hanging along the wall start to blackened and shrivel.

Smoke began to waft from the taller woman's hair.

"Mary, what is it?" The same thing had happened before, outdoors, when Amy had explained to them what her da had told her.

"I...I cannots feel her. Even without the mirror, I coulds still feel a part of her. My heart would still ache when she did cry, and feel light and bouncy when she danced with joy." Mary shook her head; "But now...there be nothing. Just a void, like there was when my first child dids not wake in her crib."

Damn. Annie couldn't bare to imagine such a pain.

When Mary had first arrived and searched for the babe she lost all those years ago, she found her fully grown after having been brought up by John alone. She got to know the girl with her face and his laugh, even stayed in contact, but time had already passed. She was no longer Mary's child in truth. A blessing then that she had found another, in kind.

"She not be there, Annie. T'is like...my darling girl no longer exists."

-

Robin finally found her in the entertainment room, what had formerly been the ball room back before the renovations.

A balding man in a blue suit was on the stage, crooning some tune about a woman named Mandy.

There were many Living couples, mostly in their sixties and over, dancing slowly together to the tune. Twirling between all of them was Silver, weaving her way around each of them, waving her arms, like some punk gothic Cupid.

"See? Told you she was fine." Julian said, catching up to him.

"Fine? What if she walk through them?!" He berated.

"She seems to have it under control, mate. It's better than keeping her in that room, don't you think?" Interjected Pat, who was already sat in one of the chairs at the side.

He watched her. The same immovable smile still stretched across her lips, but there was a soft sadness in her eyes. Not as distressed as she had been earlier.

"Music seems to be helping the child, Robin." Said Fanny.

They were all too blasé about it. Which made sense, she wasn't their responsibility.

He walked forward and caught her arm before two old men holding each other close could move through her.

"Moonah Girl." He said, softly.

"Oh! Hehehe. You found me." She giggled, taking his other hand; "D'you wanna dance with me, Robin? I already danced with the poet and the nice Scout man. You should get a dance too!"

This wasn't exactly his style of dancing. Too slow and boring, not enough energy. He smiled a little, letting her sway against him for a moment.

"Moonah Girl, you know what time it is?" He asked, gently.

"Uhhh....Lunchtime? Hehehe."

"No. Gone mid night." Robin informed her.

She gasped; "Oh noes! My glass slippers will disappear, hehehe. No wait, that's the only thing that doesn't happen..."

He shook his head. It was a little bit like she had drunk too much puddle water.

"Nearly time for big sleep. You feel very tired soon, 'member? Should get to bed." He told her, feeling like he was back in one of his tribe's many caves, trying to coax his cubs into their sleep-rolls.

The nineteen year old released a huge sigh.

"But I was in that room for aaaages! Want some fun before I go 'sleep." She threw her arms around his neck; "Just one dance, Mr. Robin, please!"

He threw a look over to Pat and the others watching at the side. See what they did? She was already settled in her room, should have just stayed there.

But he can't not indulge her when she's been through so much.

"One dance. Then sleep. Deal?"

Silver giggled; "Deal. Hello, Kya, I can feel you wriggling away in there. You dancing with your daddy too? Hehehe."

He put his paws around her back and rested his cheek against her hair, moving slowly side to side, copying the boring couples around them. Give him another seven year old's birthday disco any day.

Oh well. At least she wasn't asking for her Mummy at the moment.

"Were you cross that I left the room without telling you, Mr. Robin? You were having such a boring talk with the man with no trousers." She explained.

He shook his head; "No, sorry, my fault. You can go anywhere. Just...would prefer you always have someone with you. It very dangerous for Moonah Girl. Could get lost or hurt."

"I'm not a baby. My echolation isn't as good here but I can see a little bit." She told him.

Guilt stung his chest a little. It wasn't his intention to become some helicopter parent. Substitute parent, he should say.

He stroked her hair; "Just...want Moonah Girl to be safe."

"Hehehe. You sound like Mummy. She worried a lot too. Never liked to let me go play on my own." She said, "Took so long for her to let me go play with Amy. And only because she trusted Mr. Humphrey...eventuality."

Robin frowned. Mary never met Amy. And she never had any problem with Silver making friends. In fact, she encouraged her to do so as much as possible. Sometimes it was as if the "Mummy" that Moonah Girl grieved for was a completely different person to the Mary he knew.

With any luck, a month's long rest would help heal her poor head. Rearrange all those memories of Mary and Amy and put them back in the proper order.

"Sweet Robin?"

"Yes?"

She nuzzled her head beneath his beard; "I promise I won't go back to the wall. I won't risk anything bad happening again. I'll stay close. I'll be a good girl."

More nonsense, for the most part. But he nodded all the same, holding her tight.

"Me think that wise, Moonah Girl."

-

"Come now, sweetheart. Almost time." The maternal voice beckoned.

"Oh, please Mum, just five more minutes!" Silver begged, stroking the giant snout of the scaly beast beside her as she sat on its claw.

The witch clicked her tongue; "Little'en, the dragons will all be here when you wake. And I is sure you will see plenty more in your dreams." She stretched out her hand, "Now c'mon."

The teen groaned and picked herself up as if every bone in her body weighed a ton. Skipping off the dragon's claw, she smoothed down the skirts of her dress before turning to run her hand along its muzzle.

"Thanks for the ride, gorgeous. See you in a month." She giggled as the giant lizard blew a waft of warm air into her face.

She left it with a kiss and then skipped off towards the witch, who was smiling at her, wearing her "unburned" face along with a gown matching Silver's style.

The teen linked their fingers together as they walked across the emerald fields and back towards the enchanted forest.

"I knew them beasts would lift your spirits." She smiled.

"It's impossible to not have fun riding on a dragon! That's the ultimate fantasy dream." She grinned.

"Wait till your sister is here. She'll show you all sorts that she gets up to. Stuff mine own mind could not conjure up."

Silver felt the bounce in her feet begin to grow heavy as the night wore on.

"Are you tired already, my love? Would you like a carry?" The witch offered.

"No, Mum, I'm fine." She said, like any child determined to prove her maturity; "It's not that far." Though she did have to rub at her eyes.

"I has made your bed of blue flowers double, so there be space for both of you girls, once you wake. You don't mind sharing, do you?" Asked Mary.

She shook her head.

"I always wanted a sister. A proper one. The one I had...as a Living....well you know how she was."

"Hmm. Buboes and poxes to that wench." The witch tutted.

"Exactly. I'm so excited to have a sister who will be nice to me. And she's basically my clone so I know what to deal with, hehe." Silver chuckled.

"She be very much like you. But also not. I has seen you each has your own personalities. Both beautiful as the moon, just at different phases." The witch complimented, putting her arm around the girl's shoulders.

Silver leaned into her as they walked, feeling the warmth of the taller woman and trying not to think of the charred husk of the wraith beneath the glamour.

When they reached the spot of her bed, Not Robin was crouched nearby. No doubt ordered to keep a vigil as she slept.

He didn't look at her, keeping that grim frown facing out towards the shadows of the woods.

"Rest down there, sweet girl." Said the witch, and Silver obliged, laying down on the blue petals and resting her head at the softest patch.

Other Mary sat beside her, stroking her hair with those fingers cloaked in velvet smoke.

"It warms my blackened heart to see you settle in so quickly. I knew you woulds come to understand, this be where you belong." The witch said.

Silver hummed in agreement; "Hope Amy can handle two Silvers. I know your 'ally' isn't too excited."

Not Robin merely grunted from his spot.

"Oh, pay him no mind. He be grumpy but soft as a hamster within." The witch smiled, winking over at her friend who just turned away.

Silver let out a yawn, feeling her eyelids start to droop as the moon waned against the rising dawn.

"Mum?"

"Yes, sweet girl?"

"It won't...hurt, will it. When you bring other...My sister here?"

The witch tilted her head; "Hurt how, my love? Hurt thee?"

"Me, you...the universe, both of them..." She bit her lip; "S'just. I was always told not to mess with that sort of stuff when astral projecting. Can go really wrong. I mean, look at what already happened. I just...don't want anything bad to happen to the other Silver. Or you."

The witch's hand stilled on her hair. She tilted Silver's face to turn and look at her.

"You lovely little thing. There's no need to fret. My darling girl did not know what she was doing when she broke through that wall. But I do. I mights need some practice but I will find my way to her."

"Are you...Are you sure I can't help? I want to. Honest." She tried, treading very carefully.

Mary shook her head.

"I wouldn't risk losing both of ye. Mummy has it all in hand. You trust that, don't you?"

She nodded.

"Yes, Mum. I'll....go find some more dragons instead." Silver promised with a smile.

"Good girl." The witch leaned down to kiss her brow. "Sweet dreams now. Mum will take care of everything."

Silver nestled her head down, letting the witch continue to caress and hum her lullabies.

Briefly, she caught a glimpse of Not Robin, staring at her from his spot. His ancient eyes showed a suspicion based on his famous sixth sense. An intuition that showed evidence of that sharp mind beneath the savage.

Silver subtly put her finger to her lips before she closed her eyes.

Don't betray her. Please. Don't give the game away.

She might only have one shot at this.

Tonight, or at least before this fucking month was through, she would find her way back home.

[spookyboywhump]

More Eve!!!!! This is her coming home + her first major injury :3c From here it’ll probably stop being chronological whatever I post with her and instead spaced out whenever just for funsies

Word Count: 2,240

CW: pet whump, dehumanization, burning of the whumpee

***

The girl looked around her new home curiously, her hands clasped together behind her back. From the moment they walked through the doorway she was overwhelmed by how neat and pristine everything looked, like the modeled rooms of a furniture store. She didn’t want to risk touching anything, like she would somehow break or dirty something just by putting her hands on it.

The woman, who had explained her name was Natalia Fairfax, but she could only refer to her as Miss, or Miss Fairfax, led her from room to room, a living room with a large television mounted on the wall, a well stocked kitchen and adjoining dining room, an office with bookshelves full of more books than she’d ever seen outside a store or library. Upstairs was Natalia’s bedroom, the guest bedrooms, and the guest bathroom. They were about to walk back downstairs when she finally spoke up, her voice soft and timid.

“Uh- um, Miss Fairfax…?” She asked hesitantly.

“Yes, what is it?” She paused with her hand on the staircase railing.

“Which room will be mine? I-I just want to make sure I ask before it gets too late-“

“Room? You think that pets get rooms?” There was that hint of a smile again, she was amused by what she thought was a simple question. “No, I’m sorry to say that I don’t spoil my pets. Bedrooms are for people, come with me downstairs and I’ll show you where you will sleep.” She told her.

“Yes ma’am…” She followed her back downstairs, being mindful to hide her disappointment. She knew that not all owners were as kind of generous as others, but it still hurt a little, she’d been so hopeful about sleeping in a real bed after so long on a concrete floor or uncomfortable cot.

In the kitchen there was another door aside from the one that led to the pantry, she hadn’t questioned it the first time they went through there. Natalia opened it up and turned a light on, leading her down another flight of stairs into the basement. Each step down made her more and more nervous, she’d always hated going down into the basement as a child, there were always spiders in the house she grew up in, and before she’d been bought she’d heard so many horror stories about owners with whole torture rooms in their basements, not unlike the training rooms she hated so much.

As they actually entered the main part of the basement, she saw it wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d been expecting, nothing special but clean, no weapons of torture in sight, just a nice washer and dryer, some racks containing extra household items and cleaning supplies, what looked like a closet for extra space, and some storage containers stacked up against the wall. She let out a sigh of relief, she almost felt silly for being so afraid.

“I hope you know how to do laundry, you’ll be responsible for all of it now as part of your chores.” Natalia said, and she nodded quickly.

“Yes ma’am, I can do that.” She assured her.

“Good, and you’ll be sleeping in there.” She said, gesturing to the closet door. “I’ve already left some things you’ll need in there, but I’ll have to do something about getting you more clothes and properly fitting shoes.” She said, looking her over, it felt like she was scrutinizing every aspect of her appearance. “You can take a look and take some time to rest if you need to, come find me upstairs when you’re ready.” She told her, and she nodded again. She watched her go back upstairs, waiting until she heard the door at the top shut before she finally relaxed. Natalia put her on edge, she was very cold and her eyes were intense no matter how she looked at her, she felt like one wrong move would get her in big trouble.

Now that she was alone, she went to check out what was supposed to be where she slept. It looked like a closet that had been cleaned out just for her, it was big enough to walk into, probably big enough to comfortably lay down in, but rather narrow. The shelves were almost empty, aside from some folded up blankets, a pillow, and a digital alarm clock.

She looked around the basement a little bit longer, getting herself familiar with another part of the house she’d be working in. Finally, she went back upstairs where she found Natalia in her office. She looked up from her laptop when she entered the room, giving her a disapproving look.

“You’ll want to knock before entering a room unless I’ve called you inside from now on. Go ahead and come here though.” She said, pushing her chair back from her desk. Nervously, she walked over to her, and after Natalia gestured to the floor, she dropped to her knees. “I need to get you a new collar, which means you’ll get a name tag with it. I’ve been thinking about the name Eve for you.” She told her.

“Eve…?”

“Yes. It’s short, but I think it’ll fit you nicely. I expect you to respond immediately when I call your name, do you understand?” She’d been anxious about what Natalia may choose to name her, she’d heard of all kinds of demeaning and humiliating names pets had gotten stuck with, but Eve… she thought it was pretty, she felt lucky even.

“Yes ma’am.” Eve told her, accepting her new name without complaint. She wouldn’t say she had no attachment to her actual name, but she’d happily take this over anything insulting.

“Good girl.” Natalia smiled at her. “As long as you obey me and do your job here well, then you should be fine. I intend to keep you only as long as you’re useful, but you seem like you’ll last a while.” Eve chose to take that as a compliment, she wanted to last a while, forever even. After all, she didn’t want to find out what Natalia did with pets that were no longer useful.

***

Eve settled down n and tried to adapt to the rules here quickly. She learned the hard way the first morning he woke up in the house that Natalia would allow her to learn to cook, but that she should learn quickly as she wouldn’t be allowed to eat anything she hadn’t prepared. Natalia had put instructions for making breakfast on the counter and told her to start learning or go hungry, and sadly, she was not a natural in the kitchen. For the first few weeks her diet consisted primarily of burnt toast and overcooked eggs, most of the other food she messed up wasn’t even edible.

The rest of the chores were easy, but exhausting on a nearly empty stomach. She cleaned her mistakes in the kitchen multiple times a day and tended to the upkeep of every single other room in the house. She felt like she was cleaning before the mess could even be created, but she supposed this was just what was necessary to keep a home like this looking as picture perfect as it was.

She didn’t think it would be hard, only Natalia lived there after all, but with the amount of things that needed to be done every single day, she hardly had a moment to herself until she was allowed to go to bed. That alarm clock would go off at five thirty every morning, when she would have to get up and start everything over again.

After nearly two months there, her skills with breakfast had improved immensely, she could make a variety of things now and she felt more confident in her abilities there, but dinner was causing her to struggle. She was always overwhelmed, there were always so many things to do at once and it never came out right. She’d usually end up going to bed hungry after Natalia scolded her for messing up again.

She’d been punished for some of the most ruined meals, made to kneel on dry rice for two hours after she mistakenly burnt the rice for dinner, salt rubbed into preexisting cuts and scrapes when she seriously over salted one meal, she never resisted the punishments and as she cried, Natalia would tell her she would know better next time now, she wouldn’t have to repeat this, and she’d keep those punishments in the back of her mind whenever she went to start preparing another meal.

The worst of it came late one evening. She’d fallen behind on her chores so dinner was running late, and though Eve was doing her best, she was in a hurry and things were not going well. The chicken she’d been cooking in one pan had clearly burnt and there was no going back from that and the water she was trying to boil for pasta seemed like it would never reach a boiling point. She kept stirring the sauce in the pot on a back burner, anxiously biting her lip as she knew there was no way in which this could end well for her. She froze as she heard footsteps entering the room, Natalia approaching her.

“Again, Eve?” She asked, sounded exasperated.

“I-I’m sorry ma’am, I’m sorry, I was trying but there was just-“

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” She snapped at her. She shoved her away from the stove, looking over the damage she’d done this time. “I feel I’ve been more than patient with you and yet you continue to fuck up completely simple tasks, I’m starting to wonder if you’re even worth keeping around!” The comment felt like a punch to the gut, Eve’s heart pounded in her chest, sweat pricked at the back of her neck and suddenly the spacious kitchen felt much smaller, much hotter, she thought she was going to be sick.

“N-no!” She blurted out. “No, please, I promise I’ll do better, please punish me, give- give me more time, I’ll do better!” She insisted, tears welling up in her eyes. She didn’t know what would happen to her if Natalia decided she wasn’t worth keeping around, she didn’t know if they’d take her back and let her work again or if they’d finally just put her down and get it over with. Natalia just looked even angrier with her, her hand wrapped around the handle of the pot of hot water.

“You do not tell me no.” She said through gritted teeth. Eve took a step back, she knew she was in danger, she hadn’t seen Natalia this angry before.

“I’m sorry…” She whimpered. Apologies meant nothing to Natalia though, and she knew that, it had never helped her before, but Natalia’s punishments were always strategic and thought out. She didn’t take even a second to think about this, she lifted the pot from the stove in one quick movement and splashed the hot water onto her, eliciting a shriek from Eve as she instinctively turned away to protect herself.

She didn’t throw the whole pot of near boiling water on her, but it was certainly enough, and she’d only managed to protect her chest and stomach from getting the worst of it. The right side of her body was still soaked, searing pain from her shoulder all the way down her leg, she could feel it in her ribs, her shorts wet and sticking to her thigh, she desperately shook water off her arm as she cried, stumbling towards the sink for cold water.

“H-hot, it’s really hot, please- please help me, I’m sorry ma’am, I’m sorry, please help!” She cried, trying to run cold water from the faucet over her arm but it just wasn’t enough, too much of her body felt like it was on fire for just the kitchen sink to help her, her legs were shaking and all she could think of was how badly she needed the pain to stop.

“Why should I? You brought this on yourself.” Natalia said, glaring at her.

“Please!” She sobbed, collapsing against the counter, barely managing to hold herself up by gripping onto the edge. After a moment Natalia sighed heavily, she stormed over and opened a drawer next to the sink to get a hand towel before shutting the water off. She used the towel to dry off the remaining water on her, she was so rough in doing so it caused Eve to start screaming again.

“Quiet! I’m trying to help you but I won’t if you’re going to keep shrieking in my ear!” She hissed, and Eve bit down on her lip, whimpering pitifully as she tried to keep quiet. Natalia took her arm in her hand, looking over the damage done with a scowl on her face. “I think you’re going to need to see someone for this.”

“Like… Like a doctor…?” She asked.

“Yes, a doctor.” She said it like Eve was stupid. “Not the kind you’re used to I’m sure.” Eve didn’t know what she meant by that, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

She assumed if she was going to see a doctor, she’d be given treatment, even time to recover. She was already praying that it wouldn’t take too long, Natalia was being gracious enough to get her seen at all, she just hoped she intended to keep her afterwards.

[truckreincarnation]

Cutthroat Kitchen || Execution 2

The Yuliya fumo that Kali had oh-so-kindly brought to the summoning circle fell, tumbling, descending, falling, into an abyss of darkness below. Falling. Plummeting. Diving through the air. Though it was likely ten-twenty minutes away from “dying”, it might as well have already been broken, a sickeningly comical sight.

CRASH. Clatter, rrrr… A cloud of flour spread through the air as it finally landed, crashing into a large metal bowl filled with raw flour. A pair of vines descended from the ceiling, dragging the fumo out of the bowl and onto the floor of what appeared to be a kitchen. The vines wiped away the flour clinging to its fabric eyes, as the remaining flour slowly began to settle onto the floor instead of floating in the air.

As the Yuliya fumo rested, covered in a snow-like powder, it found itself in what appeared to be a… Cooking competition show? In the immediate surroundings were three cooking stations, two occupied by near-featureless villagers sharpening kitchen utensils. The third station was… notably completely empty. 

Also presently empty was a judge’s stand with three seats, a television mounted to the wall directly behind it. Brightly displayed on the television was the single sentence “Please stand by at your stations.” The only exit door on the set appeared to be behind the judge’s table and below the television. The door stood in peace, the lighting of the exit sign blinking on and off like the temptation of a forbidden fruit. This, however, meant nothing to a motionless and mindless doll.

The fumo, however, sat unblinkingly with its usual placid expression. It made no attempt to leave, nor did it attempt to go towards the empty cooking station. This silence went on for about three minutes, before the text on the screen shifted. “Failure to cooperate will result in an applied penalty!” Ignoring that warning, something of a roulette wheel began to spin on the screen, landing on a picture of baseball mitts. An assistant passed through the door and gently kneeled next to the doll, sliding the two mitts on its hands and taping them to its wrists to the point that there was no chance they would accidentally fall off. The assistant retreated through the door as the vines once again descended and wrapped around the lifeless doll.

The vines, one secured around the doll’s waist, brought it to its cooking station. Once in place, the sentence on the television shifted, instead showing the phrase “Prepare an appetizer with muenster cheese as a star ingredient! Time limit: 10 minutes.”

10 Minutes??? Oh Jesus Christ, that was a minimal amount of time even for a usual cooking show, for those who watched them. The second, more-free vine seemed to give the doll’s arms support, puppeting the Yuliya fumo into cooking properly. The “‘fumo” grabbed ingredients and pre-made baguettes in an attempt to create some kind of elevated take on bruschetta, still unconcerned and unblinking. Unreadable. If a doll was capable of emotion, you had no way of telling what those feelings were, anyway.

Still, with the aid of the vines, it managed to set up a plate, and brought it to the judge’s station. The two villagers brought their own dishes to the station, as well, presenting, well… Dishes that would normally take MUCH longer than 10 minutes to prepare.

Out through the door appeared Alvarie, Amber, and Kali, taking their seats at (or on) the table! 

Amber, as someone who cannot eat, was forced to judge off of looks. She gave the Fumo a big fat 0 and Villager A an 8, while Villager B got a 5.

Alvarie squinted at the food and really did try a bit. The baguette. She immediately dismissed the meal based on the poor baguette and gave the Fumo a 0. Villager A received a 9 for quality and Villager B got a 3 for mediocre cooking. 

Kali smirked mockingly. She didn’t even try the food, but gave the Fumo a 0 while the other two each got a 5. High standards for food she won’t even eat…

Villager A, declared the winner, clapped his hands together and glanced at Villager B and the fumo, clearly considering which to apply the penalty to. The fumo was sat on the ground at some point during judging, mitts already on hand, and the villager pointed to it! The roulette wheel on the television began to spin, ultimately landing on…. Bungee jumping? Multiple assistants emerged from the door and lifted the Yuliya fumo up as they put it into a doll-sized harness. From the ceiling before its cooking station, a bungee cord descended, dangling from a hole from the ceiling tiles. Dragging the fumo along, the hook at the bottom was attached to its harness, and the floor opened up beneath it, revealing a spike pit roughly twenty feet into the ground.

(image credit: sketch by Aster, lines by Hes, colors/shading by Cherry)

The television shifted. “Dinner dish featuring a barbecue style. The time limit is 5 minutes.” 5 minutes for a barbecue, as any true southerner would know, was simply impossible to manage. Unlike in the first round, there was no aid from the vines at all to cook on this IMPOSSIBLE time limit, as the villagers removed premade dishes from their ovens.

Amber looked at the dishes for a bit, before giving Villager B a 10 and Villager A an 8. The Fumo got another big 0 for failing to turn in her dish.

Alvarie gave the Fumo a quick 0 and commented on their seeming inability to handle pressure. Perhaps they are not fit for this career? Villager B got a 9 for expert flavor and villager A got a 7 for presentation. 

Kali once again failed to try the food before giving the Fumo a 0. (Not that the fumo had managed to make anything…) She considered the aesthetic of the dishes, before deciding she liked Villager B’s a bit more and giving them a 6, while Villager A gets a 5 again.

Overall, Villager B won!

Having fully declared a winner, Alvarie tossed a dagger at the fumo’s Bungee cord, severing it as it SNAPPED, lashing a gash along the Yuliya fumo’s face that oozed cotton, and sending it plummeting, directly into the spike pit below. 

The Yuliya Fumo has been executed.

[chrisevansjellybeans]

Undercover- Mob! Steve Rogers Part 2

Okay here is the highly requested part two to my Mob! Steve post! I had some technical difficulties posting it but hopefully you guys see it in the tags now :)

Warnings: swearing and smut

Word count: 2.8k

“When I said go undercover, I didn’t mean under his covers, Agent.” Director Fury slammed his hand down on his desk. It had now officially been twenty-four hours since your encounter with the mob boss and you had been waiting anxiously all day to talk with Nick Fury. The rumor around the office all day was that he wasn’t too pleased with how things went down.

“I did what I had to do, sir.” You stated boldly.

Fury scoffed but didn’t respond.

He was quiet for a moment, his eye scanning over the piece of paper in his hand. You fidgeted uncomfortably as your legs were still sore from your romp last night and you tried to hold it together as Fury gave you a weird look.

“Just sit down, Y/N.”

You muttered a thank you as you took a seat.

“Listen, this is all good and fine but I want more. This,” He waved the note in his hand. “Is just a drug felony. I want this bastard put away for life.”

“But what about Stark?”

“A slippery politician, nothing more. I want insight on just more than this. I want it all.”

You sat back in the chair. You understood where he was coming from, but he was also acting like you hadn’t just uncovered a huge piece of information.

“Sir-”

“Which is why you’re going to continue...seeing Rogers. Your undercover assignment has just been extended until further notice.”

“But, sir!” You stood up in protest.

“But nothing, Agent. You’ve made your bed and you’ve already lied in it. Now do it again.” He snapped.

“Are you pimping me out, sir?”

“You did that yourself, Y/N.” Fury snarked. “Anyway, as we speak I have other agents creating an entire new identity for you on the internet so when Roger’s does eventually look you up he’ll find everything we want him to find.”

You felt yourself sinking back down into the chair. He was being completely serious. You suddenly felt very hot as you processed all the information coming at you.

“And what exactly is it going to say?”

“That you are Y/N Monroe. You are the same age as you are now and a barista at the coffee shop just below your apartment. You went to the University of Minnesota and graduated with a business degree, but currently can’t find any jobs. Pity. Your parents died when you were young and you have no siblings-no need to wrap anyone else up in this. We’ve made an Instagram account since that seems to be the most popular app among adults your age. I pushed for no socials but apparently it’s weirder if you don’t have one.”

“Okay...but I don’t have a coffee shop below my apartment.”

“You do now. Your stuff is being moved into a safe house apartment on the other side of town. That’s where you’ll be staying for now. Don’t worry, I have Parker holed up in the apartment two doors down.”

You bit the inside of your cheek to try to calm down. There was nothing else you could do. Fury was right, you had made your bed. You reached over and grabbed the file that Fury had pushed towards the front of the desk. Your new life all put together in a Manila folder.

Damn you, Ma and your slutty advice.

“You can go now.” Fury waved you away, now totally focused on whatever file he had in front of him. You hesitated, wanting to say something but nothing came so you left.

“Y/N!” Peter ran up beside you as you stormed down the hallway. “Heard we’re gonna be neighbors.”

You smiled at how excited he was. “It’s only temporary, Parker. Don’t wet your pants.”

Peter blushed and gently shoved you to the side as you both continued walking. “I know that. But doesn’t mean it won’t be fun. We could have movie nights or something.”

“I suppose we could find some time.” You nudged him back.

“Oh here, before I forget.” Peter shoved a brand new iPhone into your hand. “Fury had me add some tweaks to the geo location so it’s more precise than what Apple has. My burner number is already programmed in there too.”

You studied the burner phone, impressed that they didn’t just give you another shitty tracfone like you were used to.

“Thanks, kid.”

“I’m not that much younger than you.” Peter grumbled as the two of you finally made it to the parking structure.

You smirked over your shoulder as you walked up to your Jeep Wrangler. “Young enough. ‘Night, kid!”

Peter flipped you off but was smiling the whole time as you drove off.

You punched in your new address in the GPS and followed along as it brought you to the older part of town. You had always loved this part of the city but never thought to move out here. Even though it wasn’t the new upcoming neighborhood, the rent prices had been driven up by the young kids moving in who just “adored the old time aesthetic” and the lofted buildings.

Your building was one of those you noted as you parked your car outside of your new address. The old brick building was tall, maybe six stories and had fire escapes littered across the front of it. The front door was a rusted green that you had to yank to budge to get open.

Extra security, I suppose. You laughed to yourself.

Your apartment was on the third floor and right off the freight elevator. You weren’t expecting much when you opened the door but you made a noise of pleasant surprise when you did.

The inside was warm and inviting. A plush gray sofa that resembled a cloud was center in your living room that you saw right away from the small entry hallway. As you stepped in further you saw a decent size tv mounted against the wall and two bookshelves on either side of it, filled with books and records that went along with the record player that was right underneath the television. To the left the living room was the kitchen. Nothing big, which you didn’t mind-you weren’t the best cook in the world. There was a small bar-like counter that had two barstools perched underneath. Down the small hallway you found your bedroom. A king sized bed covered in an off white comforter set with matching sheets. Small potted plants hung from the corner near the window and an array of makeup and perfumes littered the top of the wooden dresser.

Tentatively you opened the dressers to find a whole new wardrobe waiting for you. There were basics: such as t-shirts, jeans, bras and panties but there was also a whole drawer dedicated to skimpy lingerie that you knew was expensive. The walk-in closet was filled with dresses, some formal and some you wouldn’t let your grandmother even see hanging off the rack.

“Well done, Fury.” You mumbled to yourself as your fingers ran down the silk fabric of a long evening gown.

You were settling on to your couch, sweats on and a glass of wine in your hand when you heard a knock on the door. Slowly you got up, grabbing your gun from the plant next to the door. You looked through the peephole and let out a curse when you saw none other than Steve Rogers standing outside your apartment.

You shoved the gun back into the plant and ran your fingers through your hair before opening the door, but leaving the chain attached.

“Mr. Rogers, how can I help you?” Your eyes twinkled as the man in front of you rested his arm on the top of the door frame and leaned close to the opening you had created.

“You said I would see you soon, princess. Looks like soon is now.” The nickname again caused your stomach to flutter.

“I was just getting ready for bed. You’ll have to come by another time.” You feigned a yawn. Steve’s eyes blared as he stood up straight.

“It’s rude to keep your guests waiting, Miss Monroe.” Your heart jumped at the use of your alias. Thank god your team worked fast.

“And it’s rude to show up to people’s apartments unannounced, Mr. Rogers.”

“Open the door, sweetheart.” He hissed, but his eyes held anything but anger. He was intrigued. He never found a woman before who wasn’t afraid to dish back his sass. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

“Say please.” You teased through the opening.

“Please.” He said through gritted teeth.

Chuckling you closed the door gently and undid the chain. Before you could reopen it though, Steve pushed his way through scooping you up in his arms as he did. You naturally wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms held tight around him as you squealed against his neck.

He walked you back into the living room and plopped down on the couch, holding you so you were still straddling him.

You pulled away but kept your arms hanging loosely around him. He smirked up at you as his fingers toyed with the hem of the tank top you had on. His eyes fell to the wine that was only half drank on your coffee table.

“Heading off to bed soon, huh?”

“My bedtime snack.”

There was a part of your brain that recognized him for who he was: evil. But another part of your brain saw him as the man who made your body feel things that it had never felt before and that had your heart racing like a schoolgirl with a crush. The part that recognized that he was so easy to talk and joke with. The great sex wasn’t a bummer either.

His smirk was replaced by a genuine smile as he pulled you down and gave you a kiss that had your toes curling. He moaned into your mouth as you slowly ground your hips against his, your fingers tugging at the hair by his neck. His tongue massaged yours, letting you know exactly who was in charge at this moment. His hands ran underneath your tank top, fingers tracing up your spine before reaching the front and giving your nipples a slight twist.

He moved his mouth from yours and peppered kisses along the side of your neck as he lifted the tank top over your head. He threw it to the side as his mouth attached to your protruding bud while his fingers pinched and toyed with the other one. Skillfully, and with his mouth still attached to you, Steve flipped you over so your back was on the couch and he was on top of you. He lifted his head, his blue eyes clouded with lust as he started kissing down from the center of your chest, down your stomach and down your legs as he pulled your sweats along with him.

He hummed as he spread your bottom lips apart with his fingers, licking a stripe from your hole to your clit. You wiggled your hips against his face but he responded with a smack against your core.

“Honey, you gotta learn who’s in charge here and who’s-“ he kissed your clit ever so slightly, teasing you. “Just a little cock slut.”

His tongue circled over your bundle of nerves while fingers toyed with your slick. Gently he pushed two fingers into your pussy. Your eyes fluttered closed as his steady rhythm and flick of his tongue brought your orgasm to the forefront.

“Shit, Steve…” you whimpered, gripping his hair and pulling him close. “Oh fuck, I’m close!”

“Let me taste you, princess.” Steve growled. You nearly lost it at the sigh of your juices dripping from his chin. “Give it to me like the good girl you are.”

“Oh god!” You called out as he hit that spongy spot that caused your thighs to tighten around his head. Your body spasmed as it rode out your orgasm. Your chest heaving and your legs shaking as he slowly pulled his fingers from you. A moan was caught in your throat as you watched him put his soaked fingers between his lips, a look of pure satisfaction covering his perfect face.

Steve leaned his body over yours but careful not to let his full weight fall on you. He ran his nose up the side of your neck, along your cheek before letting it rub against your own. You grabbed his neck, pulling him into a deep kiss. There was something so erotic about tasting yourself when your tongues met.

“Show me your bedroom?” Steve pulled away. You gave a weak nod. Steve stood up and hoisted you up, your legs weak beneath you.

“Poor baby.” He cooed in your ear. “Only one orgasm down and already can’t walk. I can’t imagine how you’ll be when I’m done with you.”

With that he lifted you and walked down your short hallway to the bedroom. In your hazy, post orgasm mind you hoped the mattress was comfy. You hadn’t even tested out beforehand.

Steve threw you on the bed and you sighed as you fell into the cloud. You leaned back on your elbows and watched as Steve unbuttoned the new shirt and trousers he had on. You stifled your laughter thinking about the wine stained ones back at his house.

“Something amusing to you, sweetheart?” He grabbed your ankle and pulled you towards the end of the bed. He lifted your foot up, setting it over his shoulder as he kissed the inside of your calf.

“No, sir.” You teased.

“You’re a bad liar.” He nipped at your knee.

Not as bad as you might think.

Steve made you come at least four more times that night. Your body completely spent when he finally rolled over and laid next to you, yours and his body covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

You rolled over and threw your leg and arm over his body, nuzzling your head into the crook of his neck. Steve’s fingers toyed with yours as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Spend the night?” You asked into the darkness. It was nearly three in the morning and your eyes were slowly closing no matter how much you willed them to stay open.

“I have some business things that I have to take care of early in the morning.” He answered, his fingers running up and down your arm.

“Oh, okay.” You said sadly. Steve’s chest rumbled with light laughter as he brought your hand that was in his up to his lips and gave it a kiss. You were soon realizing that he was actually a very affectionate person.

“But I want you to come back to the house tomorrow. I’ll send one of my guys for you in the afternoon.”

“Really?” You sat up. Steve blindly reached for your nightstand and turned on the lamp that was on it. His hair was tousled from the numerous times you had run your fingers through it and his lips were red and swollen. He looked like the epitome of sex and it was fucking hot.

“Yes, really.” He chuckled. He grabbed your phone that was on the nightstand and held it out for you to unlock. You did quickly and he took it back and started typing. “I don’t give out my personal number to a lot of people.”

“So I’m special.” You wiggled in your spot, a grin covering your face.

“Yes. You are.” Steve looked back at you and you were taken aback by the sincerity in his tone. He handed your phone back to you and you laughed at the name he had for his contact: Steve Rogers and an eggplant emoji.

“You’re a child.” You giggled.

Steve rolled his eyes and got out of bed and you took the time to appreciate his bum as he walked over to get his pants.

You gathered the soft sheets in your hand and brought them up to your chest. Although you weren’t sure what you were trying to hide, he had seen it all.

Once he was dressed and you slipped on a robe that you found hanging behind the door, you walked him out. He stood in your doorframe, his large figure making the space seem very small. He smiled as he tucked a loose piece of hair behind your head and leaned down and gave you a kiss.

“Make sure to lock all the doors behind me. And text me when you wake up tomorrow.” He demanded softly.

“Mmmkay, I will.” You said hazily.

“Go get some sleep, princess.” He laughed as he pushed away from the door and walked to the elevator. You watched as he got in and gave you a quick wave before whipping out his phone to make a call.

Once he was out of sight you closed the door softly, making sure to bolt everything before heading back to your bed. You were too tired to even clean up before you passed out.

[skzsauce01]

God’s Menu

Synopsis: Two chefs face off in the final dessert round. Who will come out on top, and who will be the next Cooking God? Cooking competition AU inspired by Chopped. Possible cooking/baking inaccuracies.

Warning: none

Word Count: 6.6k

Pairing: fem!reader x chef!Felix

“Who will win and become the next Cooking God?”

This is not a laughing matter, but your nerves about the situation think otherwise. The bright lights of the studio kitchen and the multitude of cameras pointed at you make your pulse thrum at an even quicker pace than the last two rounds. With your opponent in front of you and the host right beside you, you grow increasingly on edge. It’s becoming more real by the second — a chance to win ten million won, your dream of opening your own bakery being fulfilled, your future studded with three Michelin stars.

You would say you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at such a wild scenario, but clearly your body has already decided on that.

Since you’ve already bursted out laughing on the last two takes, you can’t exactly do it again. It’s so difficult though. The host Park Jae is chatty and humorous behind the scenes, but the solemn way he delivers the cheesy line is such a big contrast to himself. It doesn’t help that you can see his jaw trembling as he holds back his laughter. It’s almost an invitation.

With the grin on your face barely concealed, you say, “I will.”

In front of you, Chef Lee Felix replies, “Not a chance,” in an extra deep voice, his thick Australian accent shining through, taunting you to give up your cracking charade of calm.

“Chefs, open your baskets.”

“Cut!”

As soon as the clapper is dropped, all three of you let loose into peals of laughter. Jae and Felix clutch onto each other for support, and you grab the nearby edge of the work surface to steady yourself. It’s all so silly. You wonder if Jae is like this on all episodes of God’s Menu or if he simply finds you and Felix especially fun to be around. Felix is a charmer, but you’re not certain if you feel that way because he’s rather attractive, the head chef of the two Michelin star restaurant Levanter, or simply because you feel like your insides have been reduced to cotton candy ever since you stepped inside the studio. Either way, the combination of you, Felix, and Jae has not been easy for the filming crew.

However, as the director calls for you and Felix to head to your stations, you steel yourself for the most important part of the competition. You glance at Felix once more to see how he’s faring, and he mouths, “Good luck,” at you. You smile back and hope that it’s reassuring enough.

“And… action!”

Jae resumes his professional television persona from the far end of the studio where the judges are sitting. “Chefs, open your baskets.”

With unsteady hands, you pull apart the flaps of the giant wicker basket. Then you immediately grimace once you see the four ingredients you have to use in your dessert. Strange foods are part of the competition, but you are always surprised by some of the things the producers put in the basket.

“You have to make a dessert with camel milk…”

You have used cow milk, goat milk, sheep milk, even buffalo milk once, but never camel. Hopefully, it has a similar composition and taste to one of those.

“Rose syrup…”

This is an ingredient you use daily in the upscale restaurant you work at, so you can possibly modify one of your recipes if the other two ingredients aren’t too absurd. Macarons will take too long, so maybe a decadent flourless rose and chocolate cake. You could easily incorporate the camel milk into a dense, fudgy cake.

“Beer flour…”

Never mind on the flourless cake. The cake idea may still be possible, but what on earth is beer flour? If it tastes anything like beer though, you might have to nix the idea altogether.

“And jalapeños.”

They are bright red and thus, extra spicy. Your first instinctive is to candy them and to use them as a garnish on your maybe-cake. The spice would cut through the sweetness and richness of the cake as well.

“Forty minutes on the clock, and your time starts… now!”

Your previous nervousness dissipates completely. Compartmentalizing while cooking, or soon to be baking in this case, has always been a relatively easy feat for you; your mind forgets the rest of the world and refocuses on the task at hand.

While Felix heads straight to the pantry for his additional ingredients, you tear open the package of beer flour with your knife. Unfortunately for you, it smells exactly like old beer, so you forgo your initial idea. You warily eye the clock and calculate the time needed for the plan you have just created. If you’re quick in the kitchen, you could make a good tart. All the basket ingredients can easily be used for one purpose or another.

Yeah, you think you’ll do that.

As you rush to the pantry for some flour, butter, sugar, and vanilla for your shortbread tart crust, Felix walks past you with a sheet of puff pastry and a carton of cream. You wonder what he’s going to do with his repertoire of skills. Hand pies? Strudels? Something completely out of the box?

You push those thoughts out of your head and gather your ingredients for the crust along with the ones for the chocolate cream filling. The cameraman following you takes several steps back as you stack containers in your arms. You press down the topmost one with your chin and carefully balance them as you speed back to your work station. Fortunately, yours is the closest to the pantry.

While the flours, butter, sugar, and vanilla are being combined together in the stand mixer, you begin slicing your jalapeños before candying them in a pan with some sugar. After a moment’s hesitation, you add in a splash of rose syrup as well to further accentuate the flavors in the rose glaze. You hear a crash of metal on your left. Felix has set a pan on his stovetop and is dropping a handful of sliced jalapeños into his pan.

It’s never early too early to start getting your presentation dishes, is it?

You walk past him — “Behind, Chef” — and peer inside to confirm that he is also making candied jalapeños. It’s a little concerning that you and he have similar elements in this round since the judges may deem the idea “uncreative.” If push comes to shove, you can probably transform the peppers into something else, but you have no idea what else to do with them now. Instead, you grab four ceramic tart pans and head back to find that your dough is fully combined.

As you press a layer of the dough into the bottom of your pans, you overhear the panel of judges speculating over your and Felix’s desserts. Park Jihyo, a celebrity chef known for her wide variety of kimchi dishes, points out that both chefs appear to be making candied jalapeños. Jae mentions something about Felix possibly putting it between his puff pastry like a sandwich. Could he be making a dessert sandwich with puff pastry as the bread? You can’t help yourself. A quick glance over at Felix and then upwards towards the wall-mounted clock informs you that he is pouring something into his blender and that you have thirty-three minutes left, neither of which are helpful.

You place the pans on a baking sheet and slide the tray into the oven to bake. You take a sip of the camel milk, which tastes a little nutty and will work nicely in the pastry cream filling. As the milk and heavy cream heats up, you chop a dark chocolate bar to add into the mixture to melt. The main reason why you decided on a chocolate cream filling is because one of the judges, Lee Chaeryeong, is a self-proclaimed chocoholic as well as a renowned chocolatier and baker. If you can impress her with your dessert, everyone will flock to your bakery.

Being the head pastry chef at Hero’s Soup is fun, but to have full creative control and to make whatever you want, is what you truly desire. You have a menu already drawn up, paint colors selected, and even a storefront scoped out. All you need now is a lot of money to get it opened. Chef Lee Felix and his dish are the only thing standing in your way. He may have gotten his start as a pastry chef, but you have spent the last several years being one at a top restaurant. Only one Michelin star, you admit, but you know your work is superb. The critics at Clé magazine said so.

You whisk in the sugar and slowly add your beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture. You don’t want to risk having bits of scrambled egg in the tarts. After you mix it all until it turns smooth, you check your tart crust in the oven. It’s done blind baking, so you take it out to cool before filling it with your filling. In the meantime, you work on the rose flavored cream to be piped on top.

“Behind,” calls Felix.

As you run back to your station with a carton of whipping cream, Felix heads to the ice cream machine with his blender container. He pours his light pink mixture in. Rose ice cream, it seems, will be in his dessert. Rather unhelpfully to you and more for the cameras, Jae announces that Felix’s dish will feature ice cream.

“An ice cream sandwich maybe with the puff pastry he has in the oven?” he adds.

That certainly is a dessert sandwich. You can’t help but look at the judges’ reactions to that suggestion.

Ok Taecyeon, chef and owner of the Japanese restaurant Winter Hitori, seems pleased by that idea. “Or maybe a mille feuille,” he says as he cranes his neck to look at the ingredients at Felix’s station, “with ice cream instead of pastry cream.”

A mille feuille and a tart are pretty different from each other, but you don’t miss your dessert’s similarities to his. Unoriginality aside, this could become a direct comparison of technical abilities. You’re certain you’ve got him beat on that.

You pause on your rose cream to fill your empty tart shells with the chocolate filling. There is an audible gasp from Chaeryeong as she sees the silky smooth texture being poured into each pan. How can you blame her when you yourself are mesmerized by the shine of it?

“Chocolate’s on the menu!” Jae exclaims. “How do you think it will go with all of the mandatory ingredients?”

You suppress a smile at her excitement as she details the finer points of chocolate pairings. Without a doubt, she is the one you must impress. It won’t be an easy feat, but you think she’ll enjoy your dish.

You stick the now filled tart shells back into the oven to bake. Fifteen minutes left, and not only does the filling have to be baked through completely, it has to cool down with adequate time so you can pipe on the cream. The giant bowl of rose cream is completed and set aside.

Now the only thing left for you to finish are your candied jalapeños, which you should have paid more attention to because they are on the verge of being burnt. The sugar and rose syrup have caramelized into a dark brown mess around the edges of the pan, and the red peppers have gone mushy. At that moment, the camera leans in to get a closeup of the disaster and captures you loudly swearing at it.

They can censor that in post-production.

"Behind. All good?" Felix asks as he rushes by with a casserole dish for ice cream collection. You hope his ice cream base didn't work.

"Mostly."

Jae's theatrical whisper and the approved hums from the judges inform you that Felix’s ice cream did turn out beautifully.

"Behind," he says again.

"Heard."

With an exasperated sigh, you set the ruined pan aside and turn back to your cutting board. You had the foresight to not use all of the peppers, but two measly ones are not going to be enough for the amount you want on each tart.

“Hey,” you shout to Felix, hoping that he can hear you over the whir of his food processor, “you have any jalapeños left over?”

He pushes the plastic container with one finger a smidge in your direction as he pulls off the parchment paper over his freshly baked puff pastry. “Take it.”

With a sigh of relief, you walk over to grab them. You expertly chop them into neat slices and throw them into a new pan. A sprinkling of sugar, a circle of rose syrup, and a turn of the stove knob later, the jalapeños are being candied, hopefully properly this time. As you wait, you check your baking tarts. They are still not done yet, which is to be expected but bothersome.

“Ten minutes left on the clock!”

The nervousness is back, and you whisper, “C’mon, c’mon,” at the oven door like it will encourage the tarts to cook faster. After letting yourself stare for a few more seconds because maybe they’ll suddenly be done in that short time, you pop back up to check on your peppers. They, fortunately, are turning out well. You turn down the heat so as to not let the syrup turn into rock candy as you wait for those cursed tarts to be done. Why did you decide on something so risky? Why couldn't you have done a puff pastry crust and not spend ten precious minutes fiddling around with the dough?

Because of the beer flour and because your pride demands that you prove your skills to all the talented chefs, that's why.

Another minute passes, and you drain the pan of the liquid and let the peppers cool down. Felix keeps running back to the pantry for more ingredients, and the judges voice their disapproval at that. You feel a breeze brush across the back of your neck as he dashes back to his station. It’s never a good sign when chefs grab last-minute items; it either means they’re behind schedule, forgot a component of a key element, or about to screw up whatever they have already made in an attempt to fill up time. Or maybe you’re just being cynical. All your nerves are on fire at the moment. Jihyo and Taecyeon soon turn their attention to you when they realize that your tarts are still in the oven.

“You can’t just look at them all day!” Jihyo exclaims at your crouching position.

She’s right, so you make a quick decision: finish these underbaked tarts in the microwave. You flounder for a towel, pull open the oven door, and walk to the microwave as you fast as you can with a tray of steaming hot pans. As all of the tarts are being cooked, you run back to your station to fill a pastry bag of your rose cream. You have six and a half minutes left, and if you’re quick, you can stick the tarts in the blast chiller to cool a little bit. Never mind that putting hot desserts into a freezer is considered blasphemous, you have a competition to win.

The microwave loudly beeps, and you run back to cart them back onto the baking sheet and shove them in the blast chiller. They could still be underdone for all you know, but that’s a risk you have to take. It will still be delicious at least. Felix decides to grab yet another ingredient, and you watch with interest as he selects a bunch of basil. You can’t say whether rose and basil is a good combination, but you trust that he has an idea of what he’s doing. He flashes you a panicked smile as he runs back. It’s the perfect embodiment of your current emotions.

“Less than five minutes, chefs!”

You’re certain the judges mean well when they begin to shout at you about starting on plating, but it only makes you more anxious. You keep watch of the clock, precious seconds disappearing in front of your eyes. Once it hits two minutes, you’ll take them out. Piping pastry cream is so easy, you could do it in your sleep. Garnishing should be simple too. You can do this.

Taecyeon yells, “There’s no time! Get it together!” exactly when there are three minutes left. One more agonizing minute later, you take out the tarts and head back to your station with the same kind of balancing act you performed when you made a mad dash to the microwave. At first glance, it appears the chocolate cream filling has set and cooled, but who really knows? You pick up your pastry bag and start squeezing fat dots in a crescent on the tops of each tart. The pink cream looks beautiful against the dark chocolate.

“Less than thirty seconds remaining!” shouts Jae.

“I can’t watch,” Chaeryeong declares. “Hurry!”

With a slightly shaky hand, you place your candied peppers on each dollop, grimacing when some of them are just the tiniest bit askew. You quite literally have no time to fix them though. A millisecond after you finish setting the last one, Jae calls out for you and Felix to stop cooking. You throw your hands up, showing that you have stopped. Then with a sigh, you grasp the edge of the table and look down at the final desserts. They all look amazing, minus the imperfect pepper placements, on the outside, so you hope that the insides match, no gooey filling in the center. Out of curiosity, you glance over at Felix and catch him eying yours as well. His mille feuilles look stunning — light pink ice cream sandwiched between golden brown puff pastry, topped with a row of pastry cream, red jalapeños, strawberries, and basil so finely chopped, you can barely see it.

You and Felix meet in the middle and nearly collapse on top of each other. He pulls you in more a congratulatory hug, and your unease about your dessert disappears for a second. His hold is strangely comforting considering you have only met him today. You could stay here all day. Then you remember that all of this is being filmed and that you’re hugging Chef Lee Felix, and your pulse jumps.

“We’re done now. Nice job,” he says. He pulls away and observes your frozen expression. “No laughing fits yet?”

A giggle escapes — they’re back and even worse than before, you can already feel it — and you clamp a hand over your mouth, embarrassed. “They’ve just started.”

“Good luck on the judging.”

“Yeah, you too.”

The director yells, “Cut!” and the moment is gone.

You and Felix idle around by the judges’ table as the production crew takes close-ups of the food. Felix easily makes conversation with all of the judges, especially Taecyeon. He smiles at the right parts, adds anecdotes when appropriate, and you wonder how he is so unphased by the dessert round. It’s all you can think about, replaying every single action you made.

“I can’t wait to try that chocolate tart,” Chaeryeong warmly says to you. “It looks amazing.”

Now all you can do is stare at her in disbelief with the silliest grin on your face. Felix gently nudges you to remind you to speak.

“I can’t wait for you to try it,” you hear yourself reply. It’s uncharacteristically high-pitched, and you feel yourself growing hotter despite the lack of harsh studio lights.

“The fourth one is for me, right?” Felix teases. “I want a bite of that too.”

“Only if I get some of your mille feuille,” you say. “It looks amazing.”

“What about me?” protests Jae, making everyone laugh.

Once the close-ups are completed, you and Felix return to your stations and make the dramatic walk to the judges’ table. The lighthearted atmosphere from before is gone, and your nerves are back in a completely different way. The anticipation from the beginning of the round is nothing compared to the fear you feel now. You stand tall with your hands behind you, the perfect picture of confidence, but behind the camera, you are twisting and knitting together your fingers. Felix, on the other hand, is solemn. Lucky him.

“In the dessert round,” Jae recites, “you were tasked to create a dish with camel milk, rose syrup, beer flour, and jalapeños. Chef Felix, what did you make for us today?”

With a steady voice, he answers, “Judges, I have made for you a rose and strawberry ice cream mille feuille topped with a strawberry rose syrup crumble, candied jalapeños, sliced strawberries, and some chopped basil. I hope you enjoy it.”

There’s a pause as the judges cut into the dessert and try it. Like in the previous rounds, their expressions are indecipherable as they chew and deliberate to themselves. Taecyeon is the first to speak.

“First off, your presentation is beautiful. Everything is very neat and precise, which shows your attention to detail. I especially love the basil. Not only does it complement the rest of the dish, it’s a nice addition of color to the plate.”

Chaeryeong nods. “I agree. Strawberry and basil is a classic combination, and I think you balanced those flavors very well. However, neither of those ingredients were in the basket.”

You can almost feel the temperature in the room drop at that revelation.

“Yeah, you definitely focused more on the pantry than the basket ingredients,” Jihyo adds. “Strawberry is the star of this dessert, and I wish you highlighted a basket ingredient instead, especially since you had so many good choices available. And ice cream wise, I think it is too sweet. And I can just barely taste the rose syrup in there.”

“Where is the beer flour in this?” Taecyeon asks as he lifts off the topmost layer of puff pastry. “Is it in the crumble?”

“Yes,” Felix quickly replies. “I didn’t like the flavor of the flour, so I decided it would be best to hide it with the strong syrup flavor.”

“You definitely did that well,” Taecyeon continues. “And your jalapeños are great, help cut through the sweetness of everything.”

It’s clear that there is nothing more to be said. You note that the baker of the trio of the judges said nothing negative about Felix’s dish.

“Thank you, Chef Felix,” Jae concludes. “Chef Y/N, what have you made for us today?”

There’s another cut as the production switches out the half empty plates for your tarts. Sensing your increasing anxiety, Felix reaches over and pats you on the shoulder.

“Good luck,” he whispers. “You got this.”

You can only give him a tentative smile in return before filming resumes. Jae repeats his line to help the transition.

“Judges, I have made for you a chocolate tart with a beer flour crust, rose pastry cream, and candied jalapeños. Please enjoy.”

Chaeryeong is the first to scoop into the tart with her spoon. When the spoon comes out clean and with a pile of solid chocolate tart, you breathe a sigh of relief. She mulls over it as she takes another bite, but Taecyeon already has one ready.

“This is rich and delicious.”

You stop wringing your fingers together. A smile is beginning to form on your face, and it takes some willpower to remain calm.

“I love the way you cut the beer flour with regular flour because let’s be real,” he continues, leaning in conspiratorially, “beer flour tastes pretty awful. I can still get some hints of it, but it’s not overpowering.”

Jihyo nods in agreement. “You have good textures, from the crunchiness of the tart shell to the silkiness of the filling. My only problem with your dessert is that it’s heavy. There’s a lot of chocolate and then you top it off with something pretty sweet. Your candied jalapeños do help, but the ratio of cream to peppers is off.”

Your joy wilts as you take in her comments. As much as you want for her to be wrong, you didn’t get a chance to eat your creation, so you can’t exactly deny it. However, everyone knows that the judge with the weightiest opinion in the dessert round is Chaeryeong. When you look over at her to see what she thinks, she is still picking apart the tart.

Jihyo, situated in between Taecyeon and Chaeryeong, nudges her. “Anything to add, Chaeryeong?”

She looks up at you, and you realize that likely already made a decision on her first bite. Her words are clear and decisive. “I think you made a lot of good choices. Finishing it in the microwave, using dark chocolate, incorporating the rose syrup in the candying process. I do agree with Jihyo that this is a little too rich though. Your rose syrup cream feels unnecessary, but overall, it’s a delicious dessert.”

Your heart is pounding. Everything feels hot, and you are suddenly hyperaware of the cameras around, waiting to capture your reaction. You remember your fiddling fingers and stop moving them.

“Thank you, Chef Y/N,” Jae says. “The judges need some time to deliberate the winner. Remember that the decision will be made on your dishes from all three rounds. Chefs, we will see you after.” He nods at you and Felix, and as per the instructions from the producers, you and Felix walk to the green room.

No other takes are needed. You follow behind Felix, wondering how he is still so poised after all of that. Inside the green room, there is a cameraman waiting, ready to film some commentary from you and Felix. You settle into a stool at the table, and he sits in front of you.

“You did a great job,” he says in an overly produced way. You bet he was rehearsing this. That’s what you should have been doing during his judging. Now your remarks won’t come out as smoothly. “I definitely focused on the pantry too much, but hopefully the other rounds will help me out. The beer flour really confused me.”

You swallow and try to concentrate on him instead of the tabletop. If you don’t get this right, you’ll have to redo it. “Yeah, definitely a tricky ingredient. It was smart of you to use it in your crumble. But yeah, I think we both did pretty good. May the best chef win.” You stick your hand out for him to shake, and he does.

“Cut,” interjects a producer. “Alright, that’s all for that scene. Let’s start on your interviews.”

You nearly forgot about those. You and Felix share glances, both of which are reluctant goodbyes, before being whisked away into separate rooms. As you sit in front of a green screen, you recount what you did in the dessert round, walking the audience through the choices you made and the emotions you felt. There’s a frenetic energy about you this time unlike the previous interviews after the appetizer and entrée rounds. You are so close to the ten million won, you can almost taste it.

Your interview takes almost all of the time. Just as you swallow your last sip of water, the producers are informed that the judges have finished discussing and that you are needed back to the kitchen studio. When you stand up, you nearly knock over the stool you were sitting on. The walk to the studio is longer than it was before, and you want to push the dawdling production crew aside so you can get there faster. Your heart pounds erratically underneath your mask of serenity.

Felix smiles at you from where he stands in front of the judging panel. The signature cloche of God’s Menu sits ominously from its location on the table, two spotlights illuminating its silver shine. Taecyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeryeong are getting last-minute makeup touches, and Jae is idling around, rereading his script even though he has said the lines numerous times before.

“Hey,” you greet Felix as you take your spot beside him. “You nervous?”

“Yeah. It all comes down to this, right? Ten million won and the title of Cooking God.” He says the last part like Jae does, no theatrics spared, and you laugh. It feels good to do so, like a small bit of tension has been released.

Someone adjusts the lights, and suddenly you and Felix are in the dark. Feeling a little courageous, you tell him, “No matter what happens, I just want to say that it’s been an honor competing against you. It’s been a lot of fun, and I think I’ve learned a few things from your cooking.”

“Same here. You’re an awesome chef and an even better person.” The lights shine back on you and Felix, and he sneaks a glance towards you after a producer calls a warning to begin shooting soon. “I’d say ‘good luck,’ but with the way you cook, I don’t think you’ll need it.”

Your face is as hot as an oven. “Thanks. Same to you.”

The clapper goes down. “Action!”

“Chefs,” Jae starts, “the judges have finished deciding. Let’s see who is our next Cooking God and who is getting ousted.”

His hand wraps around the handle of the cloche, and you hold your breath in anticipation. The sound of your pulse in your ears is deafening. You’re not one to wish for someone else’s downfall, but you hope that it’s Felix’s mille feuille underneath. Everything you have worked for today all comes down to this. You can’t lose. You knit and twist your fingers behind your back, and keep your eyes glued to Jae’s hand.

When you see the dish on the table and the judge’s impassive faces, you begin to cry. Your chest tightens, your throat suddenly has a cherry pit lodged inside, and your vision goes blurry. How funny that you start the round with laughter and end in tears. It’s all too poetic for such a moment.

“Chef Felix,” Jae solemnly says, “you have been ousted. Judges?”

You don’t hear what the judges have to say about Felix’s dishes from the past three rounds. All you can focus on is the wood paneling of the judges’ table as you stifle your bubbling sobs. It shouldn’t be too difficult, right? You suppressed all your laughs in the beginning, so this should be easy.

“It was an honor to cook for you today, judges,” Felix says after he has received all of their critiques. He turns to you and wraps in a warm embrace, making your flimsy grasp on your emotions disintegrate. “Congratulations. I knew you would win when I saw your dessert.”

“Thank you so much,” you whisper.

After he heads down the hallway to the green room to film his exit interview, the cameras are back on you and solely you. The judges give you encouraging smiles, Chaeryeong’s the largest.

“Chef Y/N, you are the new Cooking God,” Jae announces. “Congratulations.”

You wipe away your tears with the back of your hand in a vain attempt to make yourself appear more composed. However, when the applause begins, it all comes pouring out — your thanks, your appreciation, your rambles about the bakery you have planned.

“I’ll be sure to come by,” Chaeryeong says. “Your tart was your best dish of the day. If you put it on the menu, I’m definitely going to buy one.”

“Your creativity in all of the rounds was amazing,” Jihyo adds, “but dessert is really where you shine. Give us a call when your bakery is open.”

Taecyeon compliments your appetizer and also agrees with the other two. “Chef, you should be proud of yourself.”

You beam through your tears. For a momentous occasion, you half expect confetti to start raining down and a symphony to start playing. However, there is only production orchestrating a few more shots of you shaking hands with everyone and a closeup of your face. The small celebratory scene is over soon as you are led to another room for your victory interview. This one is easy, simply you expressing your joy and partially promoting your future business.

When you’re done, you are told to wait in the green room while they set up some paperwork for you to fill out later. To your surprise, Felix is there as well, sitting at the table with a tired look on his face. His water bottle is empty, and there is an unopened one next to it. When he sees that you are there, he lights up.

“Hey there, Cooking God,” he says. “Congrats again.”

“Hey. Thanks again.” You sit across from him and slump against the table. “I thought you would have left already.”

“I’ve got some paperwork to do and one more interview to finish up. You know,” he says, propping himself up on his arms, leaning forward, “I never got to try your tart. I was really looking forward to it.”

You can see yourself reflected in his eyes. He has very pretty eyes. “I never got to try your mille feuille either. Do you think production will be mad if we sneak back in and eat the leftovers?”

“We might have to dig through the trash, but I’m down.” He pulls back. “What are you going to do with the prize money, if you don’t mind me asking? I don’t think Jae asked you about it during the judging.”

So you tell him all about it. You tell him of the empty building on the corner of the street you have been eying for the last year, the late night hours you have spent experimenting with recipes, the white banner and silver ribbons you have envisioned for the grand opening of your dream. He listens intently, nodding along and cracking smiles when you draw the details in the air.

“Wow, you’ve got it all figured out already.”

“Yeah,” you agree, feeling flushed and breathless. “It’s been a long time coming.”

There’s a knock on the door, and a member of the production team pokes his head in. “Chef Lee Felix, we’re ready to shoot the interview now.”

Felix nods and stands up from his stool, taking the both water bottles with him. “I guess this is goodbye then. Good luck with everything.”

“What’s your number?” you blurt out before the nervous laughter starts up again. You just finished one of the most grueling cooking competitions in the country; asking someone for their number should be a cakewalk, but said someone also happens to be a highly esteemed chef. “I’d love for you to be at the grand opening.”

His mouth splits into a grin. He tears the label off of the empty bottle and asks the staff member if he has a pen. Then he scrawls down the digits and hands you the label, the fresh ink against the glossy paper shining underneath the lights.

“See you during the opening,” are his last words to you before he follows production out of the room.

You clutch the edge of the label and mouth the numbers to yourself, trying to commit them to memory. A needless action, but it feels right.

When you are called for paperwork and logistics, you carefully fold the paper and place it inside your chef jacket’s pocket, right by your heart. The check for eight million won — taxes unfortunately exist for prize money — goes in there as well.

The grand opening is a grand affair: customers flocking to the street corner in droves, a giant banner and even a red ribbon celebrating the occasion, and display cases being emptied throughout the day. As promised, Chaeryeong and Jihyo show up to the opening. The day is nearly over when they arrive; only a few people linger around, buying last-minute treats. You decide to close for the night.

Even though the two celebrity chefs say they have finished filming a new episode, they are both in high spirits. They bring along a plaque for you to hang that reads “God’s Menu Approved,” and you are both mortified and thrilled. Chaeryeong wants you to put the plaque in the window, but Jihyo insists you have it behind the counter. However, you don’t really want it in either location. Your office seems like a wonderful place.

“How about a tart?” you ask to distract them. “On the house, of course.”

They nod enthusiastically at the offer, and you set down two familiar-looking ones. “As seen on God’s Menu, the Dessert Round Tart, chocolate with rose-flavored cream and candied jalapeños.”

The bell on the door chimes, and a voice you have not heard in months says, “Any left for me?”

“Felix!” you exclaim, rushing to him. He’s still in his chef’s uniform, and you can almost smell sriracha on him. “How are you here? I thought you said you had a shift.”

He shrugs and smiles boyishly at you. It makes you all sorts of nervous, and your stomach flutters with something that is not laughter. “Surprise!”

“Let me go get you a tart,” you say as you lead him to the same table as Chaeryeong and Jihyo, both who recognize Felix from the show.

You head behind the counter and reach for the last tart left in your hidden stash of desserts. You saved three for the judges, but Taecyeon isn’t here. He is apparently in the midst of opening a new location, and you understand. After all, you’re doing something similar. It all works out in your favor though since Felix is. With more care than the previous two, you place the tart on a small plate and set it down in front of Felix.

“Here you go. Enjoy.”

He cuts into it with the fork and savors the first bite. “It’s even better than I thought it would be. This is amazing.”

“Definitely agree,” says Jihyo. Hers is completely gone, only the smallest crumbs left. “You’ve really refined it.”

Chaeryeong, mouth full of chocolate, can only nod in agreement. You smile, flattered by their compliments. After some pushing from the trio, you sit down with them to eat the leftover desserts from the day and to catch up. Chaeryeong and Jihyo are predictably busy with the filming of God’s Menu and overseeing their respective establishments. Meanwhile, Felix is still head chef of Levanter and has been tasked with adding something new to their menu. You tell them all about the beginning of the day and how a dog almost tore apart the low-hanging streamers outside. Felix sympathetically pats your hand. You then join in on the laughter, yours of which is more induced by his touch than the memory of the dog.

Some time later, Chaeryeong announces that she has to go, and Jihyo follows. You send them off with some lemongrass cupcakes and lie about where you will be displaying the plaque. No matter what, it’s going in your office where only you can see it. Felix stays around, and with everyone else gone, it’s just you and him.

“Hi,” you say, suddenly feeling shy. “You’re not leaving yet?”

He shakes his head. “I wanted to ask you something."

"Oh, what is it?"

"Since you still haven’t tried my mille feuille from the show and since Levanter needs a new menu item, would you want to help me sometime?” He pauses and grimaces at his words. “Wait, you’re probably busy with your bakery now and—”

“I’d love to,” you abruptly say. “Probably only taste testing though, if that’s alright. Business conflicts and all.”

Your favorite thing about Felix, you decide, is the way he lights up, the way the excitement emitting from him is palpable. With a tinge of red across his cheeks, he says, “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other soon.”

You let out a short laugh. “I guess we will. I’m alright with that.”

“So am I.”

~ ad.gray

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Hex Life

Fandom: WandaVision Pairing: Darcy Lewis/Jimmy Woo Rating: E Chapters: 10/10 Word Count: 34k

Summary: Guest starring Agent James E. Woo as himself and introducing Dr. Darcy Lewis as Mrs. Darcy Woo!

Or: Darcy and Jimmy are sent into the Hex to retrieve Captain Monica Rambeau. Finding out Westview has cast them as a married couple is only the first of the surprises that await them.

read ch. 1 one / 2 two / 3 three / 4 four / 5 five 6 six / 7 seven / 8 eight / 9 nine / 10 ten

this fic is now complete!

Jimmy’s going to be a dad. He was going to be a dad in a black-and-white sitcom world and now he’s going to be a dad in a world on the regular spectrum, so the colours really aren’t as big a deal as his impending fatherhood. Possible fatherhood. As much as he’s always secretly wanted his own little Jimmy Woo Jr., he didn’t know if it would be in the cards for him—pun obviously intended—and the last thing he wants to do is influence Darcy either way, especially since he’s only known her a couple days and doesn’t have a clue if a baby was really part of her life plan.

It can’t just be rose-coloured glasses making him see his wife warming to the idea though; when she continues down the hall ahead of Jimmy and Monica, he spots her careful cradling of the baby bump. He can barely stand not touching her. The instinct to shelter others has always been one of his strongest and now he feels it intensely. He longs to protect Darcy, to hold Darcy, to love— Well. Jimmy clears his throat at the very thought and Monica gives him a suspicious side-eyed glance.

“Dry throat,” he lies, tapping his neck in a probably highly unconvincing gesture.

“Uh huh.”

Yeah, she doesn’t sound convinced.

He’s rescued by a burst of sound from the bedroom and dashes ahead of Monica in case Darcy’s in trouble. When he bangs the bedroom door fully open, she’s fine. She’s laughing. He sighs and looks where she points. The queen-sized mattress they shared has changed back to a pair of narrower beds.

“Seriously,” Jimmy says flatly.

“Well, the big bed worked its magic,” Darcy concedes. She pats her rounded stomach. “Mission accomplished.”

“Aw jeeze.”

Ignoring his distress, she sits on the end of the closest bed.

“What I like is that they’re magically made. I didn’t end up having to change the sheets. This is really the next step in home technology.”

“Honey, don’t encourage the magical forces that control our home décor,” he pleads, beckoning until Darcy rises and takes his outstretched hand.

“Better than getting on their bad side. In the AI uprising, you wanna make sure you’re friends with the robots.”

This is an outrageous statement coming from a credible scientist, so Jimmy squints down at her for a minute before saying, “Thanks, house,” aloud, just in case appeasing the Hex now saves him from being closed into a room with no door later, if the walls rearrange to form the ’70s model of their current home.

“You did the smart thing,” Darcy assures him.

As they leave the room, she keeps hold of his hand. He shoots adoring glances at her.

“Hey, Monica,” she says, calling to their guest, who seems to have gone to investigate the walk-in closet. “Accommodations aren’t going to be a problem. I can give you some pajamas too because I think I own at least a dozen pairs, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered…”

But when they look in the closet it’s… not a closet.

“Or maybe the Hex destroyed all my pajamas and I should take back my overtures of friendship,” Darcy corrects.

“Welcome to your nursery,” Monica says. “I’m guessing from the look on Jimmy’s face that this is new.”

It’s spartan, but there’s no doubt in Jimmy’s mind that the room is now intended to be exactly what Monica said. There’s a crib in pieces on the carpet and a rocking chair in the corner. Though he can’t remember this room having even one window, there are now two. The blinds are drawn against the night and curtains patterned with stars and streaking comets hang from a rod mounted above the window. Automatically, he pulls Darcy into his side. He feels her rest her head on his shoulder.

“Man, the Hex is really giving us the hard sell,” she comments.

Just like that, he’s guiding her around by her upper arms and propelling her from the room. He glances over his shoulder to see Monica following with an amused smile. At his nod, she pulls the door shut.

“Ignore it,” Jimmy tells Darcy. “Don’t let that room influence you.”

“Oh, like that’s easy.” She rolls her eyes.

“I know it’s hard not to picture reading Jimmy Junior to sleep in his crib, or watching him learn to roll himself over on the carpet, or cuddling him in your arms in the rocking chair as the morning light—”

“Jimmy Junior?” Darcy asks, interrupting Jimmy’s rapidly solidifying daydream.

“You know what? I’m starving,” Monica announces, putting a hand on each of their shoulders to head off the awkward pause. “How about you two show me some hospitality? I’ve had a long day of being mind-controlled.”

“How ’bout some comfort food?” he asks. “I make a mean bowl of chili.”

“Sounds great.”

So, Jimmy cooks for them. His attention is unequally divided between the simmering pot, Monica leaning against the counter next to him as she recounts the scene at the meeting when Wanda went to take his call, and Darcy sifting pickily through the contents of their fridge. He glances over after putting the lid on the pot to let the chili finish cooking and sees his wife contemplatively holding an egg like it’s Yorick’s skull. Ok, well, he’s just going to leave her to her thoughts.

He sets bowls of chili for himself and Monica on the dining room table. Darcy, justifiably finnicky, takes longer to decide what she’ll be able to stomach, reflexively rubbing the baby bump as she plunders their kitchen. Finally, she comes to sit down. She’s brought a spoon. That’s it. Jimmy’s going to ask, but Darcy just scoots her chair close to his and takes intermittent mouthfuls of his serving while the conversation continues on. He sighs in unannoyed exasperation and alternates dips of his spoon with hers.

It’s just another weird routine they’ve settled into, and like everything else, it didn’t take long.

“You two didn’t know each other before this assignment, right?” Monica checks, motioning between Darcy and Jimmy with a slice of buttered toast.

“No, why?” Darcy asks, dropping a chunk of tomato from her spoon onto his. (Apparently, she doesn’t like tomatoes.)

Monica smiles and says, “No reason.”

She seems ready to accept them as they are, whatever they are. She goes back over the events of this afternoon for Darcy’s benefit—who was zoned out staring at an egg at the time—then the three of them turn to talk of tomorrow. What does Monica feel she needs to try before she’s willing to concede and leave the Hex with them? What can she try? How can Jimmy and Darcy assist her? They talk themselves in a circle of possibilities, limitations, and Monica’s unswerving negative answer to suggestions of her leaving the Hex without getting through to Wanda. Eventually, they decide that the best plan may be no plan, since they’re up against Westview’s ever-shifting magical properties.

“We’ll get up in the morning and see what the world looks like,” Monica says.

Jimmy’s going to reply when the Captain’s expression alters.

“Are you remembering?” Darcy asks her astutely. Monica stares at her. “I don’t want to pry, I’ve just seen that look on a lot of people’s faces lately. People who came back.”

“This isn’t dissimilar,” Monica admits. “When I get anywhere near Wanda or the other characters with speaking parts and start to lose control to… Geraldine—” Jimmy thinks the look on her face is both disgusted and deeply hurt. “—I do get this feeling like the world is going on without me. Only I’m there. I’m right there. I haven’t made up my mind yet if it’s worse than being gone entirely then coming back to find nothing’s the same.”

“Yeah,” Darcy says, soft, sympathetic.

“I don’t know what else the members of this community have been through, but I know I don’t want them to have to keep going through this too. I can’t imagine how tight Wanda’s grip is on the people who were here when she started this. Not sure I’m qualified to be the one to tell her how to let go of her grief and move on.”

Monica blinks quickly and gives a forced smile.

“That was good chili, Jimmy.”

He nods in thanks because he can’t find the right words to say.

They’re all carrying something and Jimmy thinks about that as the three of them clean up, then splinter off to get ready for bed, tired for different and shared reasons. (He changes into his pajamas in the nursery—they found their clothing in a new, regular-sized closet in the bedroom—while Monica and Darcy take the bathrooms.) The Captain’s carrying her recent bereavement and the unignorable sense of responsibility she feels to help Wanda and the Westviewers, possibly precisely because she isn’t ready to confront her own loss. Darcy’s doing some literal carrying with the baby bump her pajama top is buttoned over when she steps out of the en suite bathroom to let Jimmy in to brush his teeth. She’s an astrophysicist who, while studying a television diversion from reality, was brought rudely back to earth by circumstances as real as they come.

What Jimmy’s carrying is actually carrying him: his hope. It’s a good thing to have in his line of work, but a tough thing to keep when the world’s been through what it has. A baby is the least likely and most longed-for thing he would’ve confessed to wanting if someone asked him what was missing from his life.

When it’s acknowledged through awkward glances that, yes, Monica’s taking one of the beds and Jimmy and Darcy will share the other, he climbs under the covers his wife holds open for him. She rolls away from him to lie on her side and he gets comfortable on his back. The Hex has definitely eased up on what it wants for their romantic development because this is the first time he’s been in bed with Darcy and not felt himself caving to the need to have sex with her. Oh, the desire to touch her is as powerful as ever, but the kind of touching he craves is as tender as the flesh of that peach he brought her earlier in the day.

But he doesn’t want to crowd her. Figuratively or literally. Between finding Monica and calling Wanda, making love to Darcy all afternoon and being presented with her pregnant belly in the evening, it’s been a dog’s breakfast of a day. The mission abruptly became just the second most daunting thing he needs to pull off. Now, he’s driven by the impulse to be near Darcy. She doesn’t know it, but she’s drawing him in like gravity and he can only cross his fingers for a soft landing.

Jimmy almost jumps when she reaches for him in the dark, hand feeling behind her until it finds his. She drags his arm over her and he flips onto his side to make it easier. Though Darcy lets him go when his arm’s around her, he doesn’t know where to rest his hand. Tentatively, he places it over her belly and she wriggles back into him. Heart bursting, he holds her more securely to his body, smooths his hand over the bump, and soon falls asleep.

—

The floor wakes him up. He’s just fallen out of bed.

Disoriented, Jimmy sits up in a tangle of comforter and squints at his bed companion in the morning light. They must’ve repositioned while they slept, but that alone wasn’t what forced him to and over the edge—he can see the shape of Darcy’s belly beneath the sheet. It’s noticeably larger than it was yesterday.

He’s still trying to come to terms with that when she sleepily grasps the comforter and yanks it back over her body. Jimmy chuckles and rises into a stretch. Monica’s bed is empty and neatly made, so she must be up already. Before entering the Hex, his internal clock was strict too. Since, he bends to the needs of his subconscious, which seems happiest when it’s allowed to sleep in, particularly if Darcy’s warming the sheets next to him. This is only their third day in Westview and the second time waking up here, but it feels wonderfully routine. As satisfying as completing his consistently-timed morning run or pouring exactly the right amount of milk into his cereal.

Although he’d like to let Darcy sleep, it’s weird now because he’s staring. Anyway, they need to tighten up their operations even further today if they’re going to get out of here soon. Monica requires either success or closure with Wanda, so Jimmy’s determined to help with that. And if Darcy’s pregnancy takes another leap forward, well… that’s another time crunch to consider.

She’s lying on her side, facing him, belly in the space where he fell asleep. Gently, he brushes hair out of her face and strokes lightly up and down her arm.

Darcy gives him a murmured “Hi” with her eyes still shut.

“You gonna get up?”

“Inaminute,” she promises, words running together.

“Alright.”

Jimmy hovers for a second, then darts down to kiss her forehead. She pats his shoulder clumsily in response.

He might as well have had his own eyes shut, blind to everything but Darcy, because it takes opening his wardrobe to realize Monica was correct—everything’s changed again. WandaVision has embraced the ’70s. The shirts and suits he was pretty comfortable with have been traded out. Those items still exist, but now they’re aggressively patterned. There are flared pant legs. There is so much corduroy. Out of the row of shoes tucked into the bottom on his side of the closet, half have platform heels.

“Oh god,” Jimmy groans softly, sifting through for something that won’t feel too much like a cheesy costume.

He ends up with jeans—his only pair of pants without a pattern—and a striped shirt with wide lapels. The Hex’s makeover of his closet has him so beaten down that he doesn’t even pick out a jacket. He doesn’t have the heart for business casual. At the sight of a long-sleeved jumpsuit, Jimmy closes the closet door securely. They have to get out of here. This will be the thing that breaks him.

Slouching into the bathroom, he drops his selections on the counter and takes a shower. As he washes his hair, his fingers slow their scrubbing. Is his hair… longer? He finishes quickly and steps out to find the mirror fogged with steam. He wipes it clean with his forearm, examining his reflection. This place isn’t through with him yet: the Hex has given him a mustache.

Jimmy screams.

“Fine!” Darcy shouts back to his wordless noise of dismay. “I’m up! God, you could’ve just set an alarm and OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF THIS BABY BUMP?!”

He sighs on behalf of himself and his wife, slicks his too-long wet hair back with a comb, then starts in on shaving off the mustache. It immediately grows back.

“Come on,” he complains, cursing the Hex. “Why’d you give me a razor then?!”

Luckily, his annoyance fades the minute he sees Darcy. She’s swearing up a storm about needing to pee and her head looking too small for her body because the Hex has straightened her hair, but he takes all of her restless irritation in with a dazed smile on his face. Adjusting her glasses—now almost circular, with rounded off corners—she catches sight of his new look and erupts into laughter. Whatever the Hex does to mess with their appearance, at least they’re each other’s best medicine to combat it.

“I don’t want to be insensitive,” Monica starts when they walk into the kitchen hand in hand, “but are you significantly more pregnant than you were yesterday?”

Jimmy watches Darcy nod and slips away from her to throw some more bread in the toaster from the bag Monica’s left out on the counter for them.

“You’d think it’s just this big, shapeless dress,” Darcy says, “but no.” She pulls the fabric taut over her stomach to show the size of her belly more accurately. “I don’t want to say it, but the size of this thing makes me think the Hex is leaving me room to grow.”

“And if that dress is only for today…” Monica says.

“Jeepers,” Jimmy concludes.

They eat together in their reconfigured living room. It’s not until Monica’s kicked back in one of their low chairs, ankle propped on her opposite knee, that Jimmy notices her patterned pants.

“Those aren’t from Darcy’s closet are they?”

“No. I’m assuming they’re my clothes from yesterday with the matter recycled for a new decade. Believe me, this outfit wouldn’t have been my choice if I had anything else to pick from.”

���I wouldn’t be too sure. I had a whole closet and still ended up with this,” Jimmy says, motioning to himself.

“My retro Secret Agent Man,” Darcy states admiringly, leaning her head over to bump against his shoulder. Ok, he thinks, smiling at her, I can be alright with this for her.

When Monica rises to turn on the television, Jimmy realizes this is the first time they’ve had one in the house. He remembers seeing a set in the Vision residence when he and Darcy were watching an episode on the S.W.O.R.D. base, but he didn’t notice the lack once they got here. Probably because that first night was taken up with flirting, and then yesterday was split between scouring the downtown for Monica and holing up in the bedroom with Darcy. Watching the screen buzz to life now is like witnessing something truly futuristic and spectacular.

“Well, whaddaya know,” he says as the opening sequence of WandaVision begins.

“You think the TVs in here play anything else?” Darcy wonders aloud.

“Maybe not,” Monica says distractedly as they all turn their attention to Wanda and Vision’s adorable antics—the ice cream, the tandem bicycle. “It’s a pretty big coincidence that this show started right when I turned it on.”

“I can see an even bigger coincidence.”

There’s no need to guess what Darcy means. Wanda’s baby bump is obvious in nearly every shot of the introduction, particularly emphasized when she and Vision dance together, his hand on her belly. It’s all maternity clothes and Vision reading pregnancy books and while it’s wholesome, it’s also chilling.

“We’re doing the same plot,” Jimmy says.

“It’s like we’re… their understudies,” Darcy agrees, shrinking back into the cushions.

“Maybe Wanda figured, if you two wanted to be in the show so bad, she’d put you in the show,” Monica theorizes. “Her show. Exactly the way she’s living it.”

“So she’s teaching us a lesson? On what? Abstinence?”

“Could be a misguided attempt to gain your sympathy.”

“Or it really is all about control,” Jimmy suggests, cynical after the reveal that the pregnancy that’s upended his entire life isn’t really theirs. It’s not original. They’re following a Newlywed Couple template.

“Hey,” Darcy says, grabbing his arm, “this wasn’t all Wanda. She might’ve set the scene and, yeah, maybe we were more the goatherd puppets than we were Fraulein Maria and Captain von Trapp, but we did this.” She pulls his hand to her belly. “Wanda doesn’t decide what we do next.”

“What I suggest you not do next is consult Dr. Misogyny over here,” Monica says, gesturing at the television.

The doctor is condescending to Wanda and Vision about the facts of life during a checkup (in their living room?). He lowers himself even further in Jimmy’s regard when he refers to expectant mothers as “little ladies” and implies that the changes in their own bodies are beyond their understanding.

“What a quack,” he decides. “We’re not going to see that guy.” He’s startled to recall his promise to Darcy the previous evening, about options, his intention not to make up her own mind for her. Lowering his voice, he tilts his head close to hers. “I mean, we’ll do whatever you want. Including…”

Jimmy trails off and casts his eyes down. He still means it, wants Darcy on board with this 100% or not at all, but the whole thing’s been a roller coaster and he’s not great at pretending not to feel anything. With his wife so much further into her pregnancy today, it’s obvious that this baby will be born and they’ll need to decide who’s raising it. He thinks the two of them together could rear a pretty incredible kid, but if she wants out, is he prepared to be a single parent? The other option besides her, him, or both of them raising the baby is adoption. They’d need to leave the Hex before taking those steps (it’s not like he’s going to encourage Darcy to hand the baby over to a mind-controlled Westviewer), and just thinking about it, with everything he already feels for the baby, makes him certain that he’d rather rearrange his entire life than pass on this chance at a family. However unorthodox their beginnings.

“Don’t worry,” Darcy says calmly, pulling him from his spiral. “That guy will never get the chance to compare my uterus to a vegetable garden.”

“Fruit,” Monica corrects without looking away from the television.

“Right. Fruit. He’ll have no say about any of it. And he definitely won’t get the opportunity to be patronizing as fuck while he tries to give us the sex talk.” She looks Jimmy right in the eye and says, “I won’t let the asshole doctor-man say a word about your banana.”

Chuckling, he looks back to the screen. The doctor has departed and Vision’s currently baffled over Wanda’s newly expanded stomach. Uh oh. He jerks his head around to check and, yep, Darcy’s baby bump appears to be keeping up with the sitcom star’s.

“You two stay here,” Monica instructs, on her feet when Jimmy glances over.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“To Wanda’s. If things continue at this rate, she could give birth in this episode. That’s going to make her even more protective of her family and her space and I’ll have an even harder time getting near her.”

“Are you sure you want to interrupt?”

They both glance at the television for a moment to observe Wanda and Vision debating baby names in the nursery. There’s nothing distressing about the scene—in fact, the couple looks as much at ease as Jimmy’s seen them on the show—but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t change, and quickly, if Monica inserted herself. He just isn’t sure how that would go and he doesn’t like any plan where he can’t foresee all the possible outcomes.

“Guess I just have a feeling,” Monica says, looking unsettled.

“Well,” Darcy pipes up, “in the world of science, having a feeling is forming a theory, and in this place… I think having a feeling you should do something might be Wanda giving you your cue.”

“You’re not beyond her control,” Jimmy tells Monica, “just farther away from it. What if Darcy’s right?”

“If Wanda wants me there, I’m not going to resist,” she replies firmly. “She’s the key and we need her cooperation.”

“Good luck,” Darcy bids her.

With a nod to them both, Monica strides across the living room and opens the front door.

“Speaking of keys,” Jimmy recalls, but the door shuts before he can offer to let her borrow their car to get to Wanda’s.

Maybe the Captain has a different plan. Maybe she’s just bending to Wanda’s influence. Whichever it is, he can’t go after her. Monica was right—he has to stay here with Darcy today, especially because her belly seems larger when he looks again. He glances at her face with a question on his and she nods.

“And I felt a kick,” she says.

“Really? Could I…? Do you think I could…?”

Darcy rolls her eyes at his reticence and guides both his hands to the bump. When he feels something nudge his palm, Jimmy tears up.

“That’s our baby,” Darcy confirms.

“Feels like they have my softball windup,” he murmurs.

“Or my pre-coffee restlessness.”

“Our baby,” Jimmy repeats, staring into her eyes—finally blue for the first time in days, give or take a decade.

They’re having a marvelous family moment until the power goes out. Lights, TV, the hum of the fridge in the kitchen, everything. Seconds later, it all comes back.

“That was strange.”

“I wondered what Wanda’s magic was doing to the power grid,” Darcy says. “I’m still curious about the finer points of what happens when electricity meets power generated by an Infinity Stone. Really, I’d expect Wanda to have this kinda thing under control, but I guess if she’s— Ugh!”

Her pained noise has Jimmy cupping her face, pushing back her hair, trying to figure out what happened.

“She’s distracted,” she says.

“By what?”

“Labour.”

“What? No.”

Sure enough, when Darcy stands (with Jimmy leaping to his feet to support her) and stretches her back, her bump looks big enough to contain a baby that’s almost ready to be born. Ready to be born?! Jimmy thinks. In our house? With no doctor? Just because the one on TV rubbed him the wrong way doesn’t mean he’s prepared to write off every doctor, nurse, and midwife in Westview. He would very much like to place responsibility for this delivery in the hands of a medical professional, not his own!

Even as the TV’s flickering back to life, he helps Darcy away from it. That just shows how serious things are. He knows how quickly she became invested in the sitcom when they reviewed the ’50s episode at the base.

After some frantic thought, he’s thinking the bathtub is going to have to do. People do that right? With home births? Although he attempts to guide Darcy in that direction, she doesn’t even want to sit down on the edge, let alone climb in. No, she wants to pace, and as she paces, she rubs at her lower back, wincing.

“We could look at the nursery,” he proposes. “Might take your mind off it.”

Jimmy knows it could be a weak suggestion, an insult to imply that anything could take Darcy’s mind off whatever discomfort she’s currently feeling, but the Hex, with its radioactive walls, smiles down on them for once. With his arm around her to take some of her weight, they hobble into the baby’s room and it’s… perfect.

The walls are dark blue near the ceiling, almost black, fading to periwinkle halfway down the wall. The lower portion transitions from blue to pale yellow, then a blazing orange right before the baseboard.

“It’s a sunrise,” he comprehends.

“Yeah,” Darcy says softly.

Though he feels like he got slightly ripped off by not being allowed a chance to do any of the decorating, he does admire the Hex’s choices. At last, his wife’s been represented in this space, in this house, and it’s beautiful. There’s a shelf full of space-themed board books, a plastic jumble of play versions of scientific tools like telescopes. A dangling mobile of the planets. After easing his wife into the rocking chair, Jimmy holds up a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Should I put these up?”

She smiles.

“I would be all over that shit if I could, but I trust you to do a good job.”

“Oh no. Do you want me to do real constellations?”

“The baby’s not gonna know the difference. Make it look however you want.”

She rocks, assuring him something about the motion is helping her manage the intensifying pain of her contractions, and Jimmy finds a small stepping stool to help him reach the ceiling. The sway of the chair in the corner of his eye, the morning light through the curtains, and the sound of Darcy breathing are things he already knows he’ll never forget.

Before he’s stuck all the stars in the pack to the ceiling’s white paint, she calls him down from the stool.

“I need to walk again.”

Darcy says it with grit and Jimmy doesn’t argue, even when walking appears to put her in even more distress; she groans and pushes her free hand against the wall as they stroll out of the nursery and down the hallway.

“Let’s check in with Wanda,” Jimmy says helplessly.

This is who he is now: a husband in over his head, desperate to gain tips about delivering a baby from a TV sitcom. An overwhelmed real estate agent. A man with a mustache.

They return to the living room and the TV playing WandaVision in time for Monica’s entrance. Based on her free use of ’70s slang and the general discord between the Captain Rambeau Jimmy’s been getting to know and the woman on the screen, he knows they’re looking at Geraldine. Wanda’s back in control of her character alright, and Jimmy wants to know who it’s helping. The scene’s centered around some joke about Wanda attempting to hide her pregnancy, which is no good for him. He needs a step-by-step guide, not a magic-resistant stork!

“There better not be a fucking bird in here,” Darcy gripes, alternately crouching and standing as every position fails to make her comfortable. “If I see a fucking, goddamn, sonofabitch, motherfucking—”

“I know, sweetie, I know,” Jimmy assures her, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades with the flat of his hand.

“The betrayal,” she mutters when Wanda elects to lie down behind a couch.

It completely blocks their view. If this were a regular show, Jimmy would understand that. Sitcom viewers would definitely appreciate a little TV magic over graphic, up-close-and-personal birth footage, but here at the Woo residence, one FBI agent and his astrophysicist wife really just want the truth! If Monica had agency, he’s sure she’d shove the couch aside to help them out, but with Geraldine at the helm, he’s confronting the fact that he and Darcy are on their own.

“Let’s go, Darcy,” he says, steering her towards the bathroom. “We don’t need her.”

“Are you sure?”

He’s never heard Darcy sound so uncertain and knows he’ll have to bluff his way through this. When the Avengers aren’t around, the regular people must step up. Reminding himself of that has gotten Jimmy through more than one tough day on the job and he tells himself it’ll get them both through this.

“Of course.”

In the bathroom, Darcy kicks out of her underwear and uses Jimmy as a crutch to climb into the tub. Her face is scrunched up severely and her hands are braced against the walls of the bathtub, so he tries to watch and understand what she needs. When all the tension in her face and body burst out in a shout, he grabs her hand. Her fingers curl around his palm in a death grip.

“How about some nice warm water? Water, Darcy?”

She nods rapidly, eyes clenched shut, and he turns on the facet, then quickly reaches behind her to plug the drain. The stream wets his sleeve and, when he withdraws his arm, hits her hair around the level of her shoulders and begins to soak the back of her dress. Between contractions, Darcy sighs in what sounds like relief.

“That feels good,” she acknowledges.

“Good,” is all Jimmy can say back. He kisses her face and squeezes her hand in his. “Good.”

He’s back to scrambling for a solution soon enough when the warm flow of water down her back stops being enough to soothe her. He helps her out of her sodden dress, tossing it behind him to splat on the tile floor.

“What do you need?” he asks wildly, leaning over the tub.

“Earplugs,” Darcy tells him before emitting a scream shrill enough to probably be heard by their neighbour’s dog, Dipper, down the street.

Jimmy doesn’t think, he just does. Snatching a towel off the rail, bracing his wife’s foot against his shoulder as her leg spasms, reaching into the water to collect their baby when the Hex (he assumes) does them the favour of letting one long push be sufficient to expel him. Him. Jimmy and Darcy’s son.

He’s beaming through the happy tears, delicately wiping at the wailing baby with the towel and passing him into Darcy’s outstretched arms as she shakes with astonished laughter, hair wet, head resting back against the jut of the faucet.

“That wasn’t so hard,” he jokes.

Darcy sits up, sending a splash of water over the side of the bathtub to slap the floor, and he knows the Hex is interfering again to make her capable of anything besides exhaustion after what she just accomplished. She twists sideways in the tub until she’s closer to Jimmy. He wraps an arm around her wet shoulders and peers down at the face of their boy, already drowsy after exercising his tiny lungs. Jimmy can feel Darcy studying his face.

“Jimmy Woo Junior?” she asks.

And he knows the rest is going to be gravy.

—

Inside the Hex, the magic of television is real. They didn’t need to fake Darcy’s pregnancy with a cushion to make her belly, round and taut as a beach ball, disappear entirely only minutes after giving birth. They didn’t need a set of twins or triplets playing Jimmy Woo Jr. to swap in a quiet baby for one that starts to cry. There’s no trick lighting or fudged angles, just Darcy sitting on the couch (in dry, non-maternity clothes) catching their amazingly calm, less than an hour-old son up on the details of his origin story—Darcy’s wording.

It’s shaping up to be a nice, if highly unusual, family day in, until the tension starts to mount on-screen. Probably something Jimmy could’ve caught sooner if he weren’t spending 50 seconds out of every minute stroking the baby’s teeny-weeny hands while he hopes Jimmy Jr. retains zero memory of his dad’s mustache. When he hears Monica mention Wanda’s brother by name, he’s fully alert to the episode and knows he has to act. That close to Wanda, Monica’s control should be fully suppressed beneath the character of Geraldine. If she’s breaking through to ask Wanda person questions, questions that are almost definitely going to provoke an emotional response, Monica must be fighting like crazy to surface. Jimmy decides that’s his signal to get over there and help bring this thing to a satisfying conclusion so they can all leave the Hex.

“You’re not going to Wanda’s without me,” Darcy informs him, planted in front of the door when Jimmy returns from grabbing his keys.

“Darcy, you can’t. The baby. I’d stay with him and let you go, but I’ve never heard you mention particular skill in hand-to-hand combat and I can’t guarantee things won’t turn violent.”

She snorts.

“Liar. I could be the world’s biggest hand-to-hand badass and you’d still be trying to protect me right now.”

He stares at her and Darcy stubbornly lifts her chin as she holds his eyes.

“Ok,” Jimmy concedes, “yes, I would.”

“Please don’t leave us here,” she says, cheek pressed to the baby’s. No, no, no, he can already feel himself wanting to surrender, to have them with him. Darcy kisses their son’s face, then holds his hand to gesture while she pitches her voice higher, pretending to speak for Jimmy Jr. “I want to meet Auntie Monica.”

He gives her a look and reaches past her to open the door. Instead of trying to exit around his family, he waves Darcy through ahead of him. (She looks down at the baby in her arms and goes “Yaaaay! Isn’t Daddy a soft touch?”)

“You didn’t persuade me,” he says, leading them to the car and holding the door for Darcy while she climbs into the back seat with the baby. “This is strategic.”

“Is the strategy common sense? I feel like you should’ve gone with that from the beginning. Bringing a scientist to a magic fight is good thinking, for, like, balance and shit.”

Jimmy backs down the driveway as gently as he can. Their car’s been modernized (well, for the latest decade) and while it now has seatbelts, it wasn’t equipped with a car seat for their son. He’s going to have to drive with the utmost care.

“Hopefully, there won’t be a fight,” he reminds Darcy, “but if there is, you won’t be anywhere near it. You and Jimmy Junior are staying in the car. Alright?”

When he darts his gaze to the rear-view mirror, he sees his wife looking out her window, making a show of not listening to him. Jimmy sighs.

Without thinking, he navigates back to the street where they dropped Monica off yesterday. Wanda’s house is just down from Dottie’s; he remembers the number from watching WandaVision. Jimmy draws up to the curb and parks. He glances back at Darcy, but she’s still ignoring him.

“I’ll try to be right back,” he tells her anyway, eyes dropping longingly to the serene face of his sleeping son. He’s heard that about babies and car rides.

Jogging up the driveway, he does a doubletake of a ragged slash in the wall between Wanda’s property and her neighbour’s. There’s not exactly anything wrong with a damaged cinderblock or an amateur handyman job, but the crevice in the stone stands out in a world so aggressively styled and manicured.

Wishing for the reassurance of his gun at his hip in case things go south (it’s the first time he’s even thought about the gun since the night he and Darcy arrived), Jimmy enters the Vision residence without knocking.

Orienting himself to what he was just watching on TV in a house less than a mile from here, he walks across the entryway, attracting the attention of both Wanda and Monica. They’re standing across from each other in the living room. Raising his hands to show he intends no harm, Jimmy sweeps his eyes over the scene in assessment, like he has a hundred times before. Monica’s expression is alarmed under superficial friendliness—the look of someone trying to placate an attacker. With her aggressive, forward-leaning posture and the way she’s positioned herself between Monica and the cribs (he’s surprised to see more than one, but he did miss some of the episode while he was delivering his son in their bathtub), Wanda fits that role.

“Wanda,” he says, taking a step towards the seating area, “you don’t want to hurt her.”

“Are you working with her?” Wanda demands. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

“James Woo. I’m not here to hurt you. Neither is Geraldine.”

“You don’t want to hurt me? Then why do you come asking questions? Saying things—” He can see her chin wobble from here as she teeters on the edge of tears. “—about Pietro. You didn’t know my brother.”

Her statement is directed at Monica, but Jimmy tries to bring her focus back to him. Of himself and the Captain, he’s the one with an exit at his back, whereas Monica’s hemmed in by a large bookcase.

“I didn’t know your brother,” Jimmy agrees. “I do know about him, but we don’t need to talk about that. I don’t want to upset you, Wanda, I just want you to let me leave with Geraldine.”

“Oh, I’ll let you leave,” Wanda says, cocking her head as she raises her hands. This motion conveys the opposite meaning to Jimmy’s—she does intend them harm.

He’s contemplating what’ll happen if he tries to rush her when Darcy charges through the front door he left open.

“Don’t!” Jimmy gasps, making a grab for her, but his body is tense with caution and Darcy has the momentum to dodge him, stepping down the level into the living room.

“Look,” Darcy demands of Wanda, whose expression is torn as she chooses between facing Monica and this new intruder.

Jimmy’s mentally composing and rejecting ideas of how to proceed when their unwelcoming host lowers her hands. She’s looking where Darcy directed her to, at the baby in Darcy’s arms.

“He was born less than an hour ago, and I only found out I was pregnant yesterday, but that doesn’t matter. I know it’s the same for you, the circumstances and the… yeah, whatever. You know about the Big Bang, right?” she continues, jumping to the next thought.

“Yes,” Wanda says carefully.

Jimmy’s terrified to move closer and set Wanda on the offensive again. He glances at Monica, who seems to be thinking the same thing, frozen in place.

“From nothing to so much, in an instant,” Darcy’s saying in her condensed history of the universe. “Science is supposed to be full of all these rules. Like, every scientist dude important enough to remember had some law or formula or method that we map everything on top of when we’re pretending we understand all this. Being in science isn’t a goal I’ve had for a long time—I mean, I probably wouldn’t be in it now if the world hadn’t more or less ended—and if all I ever heard about the workings of the universe was rules, I would’ve stayed away. Who likes rules, right? Who wants to be told that things are the way they are because something outside of your control says so? My point is…”

She takes a deep breath, then another one, shifting until she’s blocking Wanda’s expression from Jimmy’s view.

“Sorry, I just gave birth, you know how it is,” Darcy says when she goes on. Jimmy’s stricken with exasperation, adoration, fear, and pride. “My point is that I love science because, while science is laws and rules and equations, science is also standing outside at night and staring up at the dark. There are explanations for every light that’s up there and why, even when you’re away from big cities and the sky seems so black and close, you don’t fall up into it, although it kinda feels like you could. Science can tell me why, and it still feels like magic when I look at the stars. And we’ve all been traveling out here in space together, getting made and unmade and made again because the right ingredients needed to create something as precious as a planet, or a baby, or the clay that’ll make the bricks that’ll make the house never disappear. Suns explode, asteroids collide and get chipped away… things can separate down to their smallest part, life can…”

“End?” Wanda asks.

Jimmy’s stunned to hear the word come out choked. Cautiously, he leans to get a glimpse of Wanda’s face. It’s covered in tears. Darcy’s nodding.

“But everything’s valuable. All matter gets reused.” Jimmy wants to grab her and pull her to safety when she takes a step closer to Wanda. “I get it if you’re sad and you’re not ready to talk about it. I’m not gonna say it’s ok, because I’ve heard Monica’s testimonial on exactly how much it sucks to have you in her head, but I do think you should let us leave now so you have a few friends out there when you inevitably need people on your side.”

“You can go,” Wanda agrees, swiping at her nose. “I won’t hurt your baby.”

“You’re not going to hurt my friend either,” Darcy says, beckoning for Monica to cross the room behind her. “Or my husband.”

“No,” Wanda says.

Monica reaches Jimmy and they wait for Darcy in the entryway.

“I bet all that control feel really good,” Darcy theorizes. “Taking it into your own hands. But I think you know that focusing on the beautiful, magical stuff doesn’t mean the rules no longer exist. Maybe you can find a way to accept them both.”

“It’s time for you to leave,” Wanda says, firmer now.

“Not looking for a life coach, got it.”

She joins Jimmy and Monica, bouncing the baby lightly in her arms. Wanda ushers them out of the house ahead of her. Jimmy glances back to see her close the door after herself with a twist and red glow of her hands.

“What about waiting in the car?” he mutters to Darcy as they stride down the lawn.

His self-proclaimed wife stares at him.

“I’m not the kind of person who waits in the car. Would the kind of person who waits in the car give a speech like that?”

Jimmy’s at an honest-to-goodness loss for words.

She gets into the car willingly enough now, Jimmy in the passenger’s seat while Monica slides behind the wheel.

“Wanda’s told me how to stand, how to move, how to walk since I got in here,” Monica says, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m driving myself out.”

“It’ll part for you when you get there,” Wanda calls to them from the lawn. “The barrier. I suggest you do not attempt to enter again.”

“I think we’ve all had our fill,” Jimmy informs her cheerfully through his rolled-down window.

She doesn’t respond to this, so Monica executes a three-point turn and takes them back up the street the way they came. From there, they turn out of the subdivision, but Jimmy snags a last look at Wanda through the back window. There’s a light breeze blowing her dress and hair and she looks like she could be anyone. A suburban mom of twins? Why not. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see her again in person, but he has plans to catch her show.

“Wanda’s changed the roads,” Monica says as she drives. For his son’s sake, Jimmy’s grateful that she isn’t speeding, though he wouldn’t blame her for trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. “None of them lead out of town.”

“Literal tourist trap. Brilliant,” Darcy declares from the back seat. Jimmy reaches an arm back blindly and feels her close her hand around his.

“But,” Monica adds, “I remember Ellis Avenue being the closest cross street to the edge of town. We find that, then drive over the grass. Things may get a little bumpy.”

“We’ll survive.”

Jimmy twists around to look at Darcy. He nods. They will. They’ll survive.

They cross Ellis and take the car off-road. The barrier remains invisible, but…

“I can feel it,” Darcy says.

“Like we did the day we came in,” Jimmy recalls.

“It still wants us out,” Monica interprets. He sees her staring uneasily ahead. “Was I naïve to think I could change anything by coming in here?”

“No, Captain. It was brave.”

“Didn’t work though. We aren’t leaving with Wanda.”

“It could work,” Darcy says. “We left her with a few things to think about. We’ll watch WandaVision and see.”

“That’ll be strange after being a part of it.”

“You think so?” Jimmy wonders. He takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine, playing with Darcy’s fingers laced through his. “I think it’s returning to regular life that’s going to feel strange. Out there, it’s easy to see all this as a TV show, but everything in here is real.”

“We’ll make Hayward understand that.”

“I’m bringing back some compelling evidence,” Darcy says, followed by kissy sounds directed at Jimmy Jr.

The air just a couple of car lengths ahead of them abruptly glows red as Wanda reveals the wall of the Hex. Jimmy and Monica exchange a look, but she doesn’t slow down. They pass through without resistance. All of a sudden, it’s night. Monica lets out a relieved sigh.

The S.W.O.R.D. base is looming, exterior lights ablaze, but Jimmy looks backwards, checking that Darcy and the baby are alright.

“Same as you left us,” she says, pulling back the blanket to show him the face of his son.

He gives her a slightly melancholic smile.

“Not quite, Dr. Lewis.”

“I’ll have a lot of work to do,” Darcy notes thoughtfully, “but time for you and me to go on dates will be on my list of demands.”

“You have a list of demands?” Monica asks, laughter in her voice.

“After being forced into the Hex, where I could’ve lost my life? Fuck yes, I have a list.”

“What else are you asking for?”

“The coffee I requested on day one and a desk in a better spot so there’s room next to it for the crib that will also be on my list.”

Monica laughs aloud now.

“Is this a benefits negotiation or a baby shower registry?”

“Let’s get back to the part where we’re going on dates,” Jimmy says. “How’s that going to work?”

“Jimmy, darlin’,” Darcy begins, “will you go out with me?”

He leans to look around his seat at her.

“Darcy, we were married. We have a baby. Don’t you think we can—”

“Answer the question, Agent Woo.”

“Of course I’ll go out with you,” he says.

“And that’s how it works. Easy-peasy.”

She gives his hand a squeeze before releasing it to hold Jimmy Jr. more securely as Monica pulls up to a building and brakes. Already, S.W.O.R.D. agents are rushing out to meet them, but Jimmy drops back against his seat and smiles to himself.

“‘Easy-peasy.’”

[sam-and-buck]

At Home With Captain America

Fandom: MCU

Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes

Rating: G

Words: 7.7k

Also on AO3

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

At Home with Captain America

By: Adrien Davis

Published: February 2, 2026, 3:35 PM 

To say I’m intimidated by interviewing Captain America in his own home would be an understatement, and I would never have thought to ask if I could do that if he hadn’t personally invited me. Normally, I’d start one of these articles by describing the location, maybe even throw in an anecdote or two about how I got there, but that’s not going to be possible here.

Sam Wilson lives on [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. It was a windy day.

Here’s what I can tell you: it’s an apartment. A nice one. Two bedroom, two bath.

“Am I allowed to describe the inside of your house?” is one of the first things I say to him, after getting his permission to turn on my recorder.

“Go right ahead,” he laughs, arms crossed over the worn USAF logo on his gray t-shirt. “Just don’t put the street name in there or anything.”

Wilson gives me a moment to poke around. Whoever decorated this place has good taste; it’s no haphazard bachelor pad. There’s an exposed brick wall in the otherwise slate blue living room, several plants (which I assume are fakes—albeit convincing ones—since Wilson is, by his own admission, not home as often as he’d like to be), a sturdy walnut coffee table, and a magnificently squishy-looking red couch.

It’s unmistakably lived in, though. I don’t get the sense that the place has been scrubbed spotless or particularly arranged for my visit. There are two abandoned mugs on coasters sitting on the coffee table, along with several different remote controls, and a stack of half-finished books with dog-eared corners. A pile of mail has been pushed to the side. Next to the door, a wall-mounted coat rack holds several leather jackets in shades of brown and black, and at least as many sweaters, mostly navy blue, charcoal and maroon. The shoe rack underneath houses multiple pairs of black combat boots, worn running shoes, house slippers. And next to that, on the floor, a large, gleaming silver case with red detail that could only contain Wilson’s Falcon wingpack. The legendary shield is propped up against it, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I’m trying to imagine how it would be to leave the house for him. Got my keys, wings, phone, shield, wallet?

There are pictures on the walls and the mantle above the fireplace, under the television. People who I can only assume are Wilson’s relatives by their similarly gap-toothed smiles. Veterans. Wilson in full air force gear next to a blond man I don’t recognize. Then Captain Steve Rogers, in the 1940s with the Howling Commandos, and in the twenty-first century by himself. Wilson with Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff. One conspicuously empty nail where a large frame would clearly fit. 

Scattered among these are several very old, dour black and white photographs of a dark-haired family. The first shows a mother, father and two small children, a boy and girl. The second is the mother and children only, taken some time after, judging by their apparent ages. The third is several years later still; the same children with light eyes and dark hair, but they’re teeangers now, and without parents. They look haunting and out-of-place among the glossy prints of Wilson’s big, happy family in matching 80s colorblocked tracksuits, or Wilson and his sisters in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and toys.

There’s also a wood-framed painting that stands out: an idyllic watercolor of a little farmhouse with a green roof and shuttered windows in a field. A small pile of lumber and a white mailbox make up the foreground. The most distinctive feature is the signature at the bottom: S.G.R. I know those initials. 

“Captain Rogers painted this?”

“Uh huh,” Wilson nods fondly, hands now in his pockets. “Man of many talents. Maybe every talent. Having a hard time thinking of anything he wasn’t good at.”

I hear the unstated in that. A tough act to follow.

I think, for purposes of journalistic integrity, I should probably insert my bias before we go any further. We had never met before this interview, but I am and have always been enormously supportive of Captain Wilson and the work he’s done, and have written myriad articles and think pieces about him over the past several years. He’s shown himself time and again to be a man of unshakable integrity and endless emotional intelligence, and frankly, I’m more worried about the poor sucker who’s going to have to follow Wilson. Rogers did a lot of great things, but among the best of them was choosing a successor.

I tell him as much and he smiles, looking down at his shoes.

“Yeah, I know that’s how you feel,” he says. “I requested you for this piece, actually, because of that. People are going to accuse me of wanting a softball interview here, and maybe they’re right. For this one, I think that’s what I need.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, but he continues before I can ask.

“We should probably do this in the kitchen.” Wilson indicates behind us with his thumb, after I’ve stood silently in his living room for probably way too long. “That couch is too comfortable. I end up falling asleep every time I sit on it.”

The kitchen is, perhaps, a little cramped. There’s a large, dark marble-topped kitchen island that just fits in the center of the room with four bar stools tucked under it. The cabinets are tall, with glass doors showcasing a massive collection of healthy, but non-perishable food. The shelf nearest us holds several well-used bags of pantry supplies: chickpea flour, arrowroot starch, raw sugar. There’s a pasta shelf above it, but no Kraft Mac in sight; everything is lentil-based, chickpea-based, black bean-based.

“Have a seat,” Wilson says, inclining his head towards one of the barstools. “Can I get you something to drink?” He opens the refrigerator.

“We have…” he pauses. “Water. Sorry, just got back from Ecuador this morning. Sparkling or still?”

I accept a glass of still water from Captain America. He sits down on the stool next to mine.

His house, or what I’ve seen of it, is homey in a way I can’t imagine any of the late Tony Stark’s buildings ever were, and I mention this.

“I lived at the Avengers Tower briefly,” Wilson tells me. “Tony liked everything streamlined, really modern. Kinda sparse for my taste. I needed some real furniture when I got out of there, you know? Like, things that were made by human beings. Stuff with ‘character,’ that’s what Steve would call it.”

“So you decorated this place?”

“I think it’s about fifty-fifty,” Wilson says, indicated with vague hand motion.

This is my in.

This interview, as you may have read on the cover description, is actually intended to be an exposé about the working partnership between Wilson and Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, but I didn’t want to be the one who brought him up first. 

All I knew going in is that they’re a package deal in the field, a unit. We’ve all seen the footage.

Also, Barnes lives here too, but evidently, he’s not home.

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

“I hope he apologized to you for that,” I tell him, because I’m not exactly sure how else to respond.

“Oh yeah, of course he did, even though he knows I don’t blame him for it. He doesn’t remember it at all,” says Wilson. “There are a lot of gaps, to be honest. Most of it is gaps.”

What Wilson is likely referring to here is the decades-long period in which Barnes was under the complete mental and physical influence of the Nazi splinter group known as HYDRA. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of Sergeant Barnes, I’ll list a couple of great articles for you to read at the end of this one. I assure you, it’s worth your time. 

Wilson has without a doubt been Barnes’s most ardent supporter. He’s spoken out many times about not judging Barnes based on the actions he couldn’t control, and has masterfully refocused the national conversation towards Barnes’s invaluable contributions in World War II and in the recent war to bring half the universe’s population back into existence. Wilson has been quoted as saying, “The least extraordinary thing about Sergeant Barnes is his vibranium arm.”*

But perhaps Wilson’s most effective act towards building public confidence in Barnes was his decision to designate him as an almost exclusive mission partner. Even if the general populace has been reluctant to trust the Winter Soldier, it is abundantly clear that Captain America does, absolutely. Barnes is a constant in the footage of Wilson’s exploits. The moment he touches down on the ground after a successful arrest or negotiation, Barnes is right there. He’s been sighted treating Wilson’s minor injuries, tightening straps on the Falcon wingsuit before Wilson takes flight, and he stands quietly behind Wilson during almost all of his many public appearances.

Despite his ubiquitous presence in Wilson’s company, Barnes has remained elusive for comment. He has no social media, and the only public statement he’s made to date was in November of 2023, in support of Rogers’s decision to pass on the legacy of Captain America. Barnes expressed his categorical agreement that Wilson is “the best and only choice for this job,” describing him as both “worthy of the honor,” and “equipped for the burden.”**

“Is it fair to say that Sergeant Barnes almost comes with the shield?” I ask.

Wilson makes a face.

“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head. “The shield is an accessory; my partner is not. I really don’t like it when people lump him in with the shield. It sort of minimizes how Bucky and I have made a series of conscious choices to be the way we are now. Especially because he’s experienced being fully stripped of his personal autonomy—as a veteran, I can say I’ve had a taste of that, but nothing like what he’s been through—and I think it cheapens his choice to do what he does if we imply that he, as a person, is a package deal with my title, you know?”

The therapist in Wilson is showing. In addition to his decorated military history and service as Captain America, he has a background in psychology, and a Masters degree in Social Work with a focus on Veterans’ mental health issues. He’s worked extensively with the VA as a leader in group therapy.

“So Sergeant Barnes is by your side day in and day out because he wants to be?”

This, Wilson has another unequivocal answer for. “Yes. He wants to be there, and I want him there. And here at home.”

“Tell me a little more about that,” I say. “After the...steering-wheel-stealing incident. Once he was more or less himself. Did you two hit it off right away?”

Wilson laughs again. “Not at all,” he says. “I think there was this resentment, kind of, in the beginning. Like I’m Steve’s best friend and no, I’m Steve’s best friend. Real elementary school stuff. He really got on my nerves; just everything about him annoyed me, and the feeling was mutual. Looking back…”

And here Wilson pauses for a moment. He chews on his bottom lip, and I notice all at once how nervous his body language has become. His fingers are drumming on the table, the line of his shoulders is taut, his leg is bouncing. He clears his throat though, and seems determined to continue.

“Looking back, I can see where it was coming from. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now I get it. There was this one time, it was during the fight over the Accords. We barely knew each other at this point. Buck and I, we’re fighting Spider-Man—who neither of us had ever even heard of before, like, that afternoon—and he pins us to the floor of this hangar with that goo he shoots out of his wrist. Really gross. I manage to get Redwing [Wilson’s drone] to fling Spider-Man out the window. So we’re just laying there, me and Bucky, stuck. And he goes ‘you couldn’t have done that before?’ And I just turn to him, and I’m like, ‘I hate you.’”

At this, Wilson really starts cracking up. He relaxes visibly, just a little.

“Did you mean it?”

“I sure thought I did,” he says, still chuckling. “Like, I wasn’t about to take it back.”

He continues: “Anyway, so after Steve, you know, passed on the shield to me, that’s when things really changed. Actually, back up a second. After the whole Accords incident, we ended up sending Bucky to Wakanda for like… to hear him describe it, it’s like we sent him for a two-year spa retreat. They unscrambled his brain as best they could—and really, I think it’s a good thing they couldn’t do any more because I wouldn’t wish some of his memories on my worst enemy—and he spent like months meditating in a hut and milking goats and going to therapy every day. When I met up with him again, I barely would’ve recognized him.”

“So that’s kind of when you guys reconciled? The arguing stopped?”

“Oh, it never stopped,” Wilson says with a grin. “We still argue all the time, about all kinds of things. Just ask Rhodey [Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, aka War Machine] or Scott [Lang, Ant-Man] or anybody. But the dynamic shifted a little, I think. Bucky’s got… Like I can’t imagine some of the stuff he’s been through, but he’s just kind of learned to roll with it. He is hands down the most resilient person I have ever met. Easily. It was real hard to keep hating him when he was so dead set on getting me to like him, too.”

“Can you walk me through the process by which you two decided to live together?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the nervousness is back. He smooths his hands on his thighs over his jeans. “So, basically, once I got the shield, we’d just barely come back. Like everyone else who got… I—I still don’t know if this is like an okay question to ask people. Do you mind me asking if you were dusted?”

I don’t mind. “Yeah, I was.”

“So you get it,” Wilson says. “Might be the most vulnerable I’d ever felt. I got nothing. Nowhere to go, just the clothes on my back. Then Steve hands me this shield and this enormous legacy—and I look back and there’s Bucky, standing a couple of yards behind me, nodding like, yeah, it should be you. He was the first person who knew, and he’s been right by my side ever since.”

“So you decided to stick together?”

“The original conversation about it was pretty logistical,” Wilson says, rubbing his beard. “There was so much going on, it’s hard to remember exactly what was said, but I think it was along the lines of him offering to fetch the shield for me while I learned how to throw it, and stuff like that. Just easier to do when we’re together 24/7.”

“So rooming together didn’t actually grow out of field partnerships?”

“It was definitely the other way around,” says Wilson. “Basically, I’d get a call from the powers that be that there was something I had to go check out, and it was easier to just walk across the hall than to pick someone else, try to wake them up, and then have to rendez-vous and strategize.”

“I’ll bet,” I say.

Wilson nods. “Easier and faster. Bucky can go from dead asleep to fully geared up in under three minutes. The first few times were like that, with me just knocking on his bedroom door like ‘hey, I need—’ and he comes barreling out covered in knives thirty seconds later like, ‘where are we going?’ We just… clicked. And I’ll be honest; I was really surprised. He’s got my six, I’ve got his, and I never question it. I started asking for him specifically on all my assignments after that, and Fury [Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.] and everyone caught on quick that that’s how it was gonna be. I don’t have to ask anymore.”

“Do you see this continuing long term?” I ask.

Wilson doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Sergeant Barnes now?” I ask. “Clearly you’re partners in the field, and roommates, but…”

Wilson takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, but he clasps them together in front of him and looks me straight in the eye.

“As of last month,” he says slowly, “Bucky and I are married.”

In the spirit of my interview with Captain America, who stands for honesty and justice and integrity, I think you deserve to know the truth. I want to say that I didn’t drop my recorder, but I did. It clatters to the floor, luckily undamaged.

That startles Wilson into a laugh. For the second it takes me to retrieve my recorder from under my seat, I wonder if he’s kidding.

“Come on,” he says. “Say something. I’m getting nervous.” He’s smiling, but not joking.

“Congratulations,” I blurt out. “I...really?”

“Yeah.” The tension leaves his body in a rush. “We, uh, it’s official.”

I’m struggling for questions at this point. The talking points I was planning on hitting in this interview are all suddenly moot, and I decide to throw out my mental to-do list entirely. I finally settle on, “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over two years,” Wilson answers. “About three months after I took up the shield.”

“How did it happen?”

Wilson grins. “Uh, well. I had sort of been…having feelings about him, you know, for awhile. Actually, it’s more like I had noticed that I was having more-than-friendly feelings in the few weeks leading up to that. I think the main reason we had so much trouble getting along in the beginning is that it took some time to process those feelings as attraction. So in a way, I was interested on some level right from the get go.”

“Even if that person wasn’t...behind the wheel of their own brain, so to speak—” I start, but Wilson interjects.

“I see what you did there.”

“—I think it would take a lot for me to be attracted to someone who had previously tried to kill me.”

“Less than I would’ve expected, that’s for sure,” Wilson says. “But it’s not like I was checking him out while he was busy tearing my wings off my back; I’m talking about once he was mentally present in his body. That was like...two years after the whole steering wheel incident, and I hadn’t seen him at all in the interim. I didn’t even know where he was during that time.”

“So it had at least been awhile since he had tried to kill you?”

“Oh yeah. And plenty of other people tried to kill me in those two years, and they weren’t even sorry about it. You gotta adjust your standards, you know?” he says with a laugh.

“Anyway, if you ask him, he says he’s been all in since the moment he saw me back in Wakanda after his little vacation. Now we’re talking about four years since the steering wheel thing. Me, Steve, Nat and everybody; we landed in Wakanda and Bucky’s there. He and I look at each other over Steve’s shoulder, and like, bam, that was it for him. 

“And then there’s five years where neither of us exist. We get back, we fight the monsters, Steve gives me the shield, and while all this is happening, apparently Bucky has come to the conclusion that he’s in love with me. After that, he was just waiting for me to catch up.”

“And he just knew you’d get there? Did you give him any indication that you were interested, or…?”

“I definitely did, but not intentionally,” says Wilson. “He’s very perceptive—like way more than I was giving him credit for—but I think it’s a combination of that and me not being as subtle as I think I am.

“Because, see there’s this invisible line I’ve drawn here—at least that’s how he was thinking about it—and I keep dancing a little closer to that line every day, the line being the no homo line; the point where you can’t take it back. The flirting, I mean. I, of course, think he has no clue and that I’m being slick about it. Actually, lemme ask—how much detail are you looking for here? Like do you want to know the whole story or just—”

“Lay it on me,” I tell him. “Just however you want to tell it.”

“Alright. Where was I? So I’m just there going back and forth on whether or not it’s a good idea to risk this roommate-partner-buddy thing we’ve got going here by trying to make a move that, frankly, I have no clue if he’s gonna be receptive to. You have to remember we’re talking about a guy from the Great Depression here, like that’s the time period he grew up in. I’m no historian, but I think it’s common knowledge that if you were a man who was attracted to men back then, you mostly kept that to yourself. The chances of him bringing up his sexual orientation unprompted are very low. And like, I’m 90% sure I’ve caught him looking before, but that’s never a guarantee, you know?

“So, instead of sitting down and having a mature conversation about my feelings, I keep doing this thing where, for example, say he’s trying something new with his hair, and I’ll say something nice about it. And then I follow up immediately with, ‘Almost makes up for your ugly mug,’ or whatever, which—I mean, he’s such a good-looking guy, like what ugly mug, obviously I don’t mean that. And he’s not stupid, he knows what he looks like. So he picks up on what I’m doing, doesn’t say anything, and lets this go on for months.

“Eventually, there’s one night… We’re on the couch, watching like, I don’t know, Seinfeld or something. Whatever was on. He’s reading a book on my tablet, looking all relaxed and handsome. I can’t have that, so I start egging him on like I usually do, and I guess I got close enough to the line that he just puts the tablet down, turns to me and says, ‘Sam, you know there’s no line, right?’ 

“And I’m going, okay, what does that mean? Like, is this a conversation I was previously a part of and forgot or...? Where is this ‘line’ thing coming from? And so I ask him—I think I just said, ‘What?’ At that point he looks me right in the eye, and he goes, ‘You can kiss me if you want to.’” So I did, and he was ready for it, like no hesitation. Like I said: waiting for me to catch up.”

This, as you can imagine, is far beyond the level of detail I could have ever imagined I’d get about Captain America’s love life in my wildest dreams. I decide to ask a new question, because I feel like I’d be pushing my luck to delve further when he’s already been so open about this experience. 

“Who proposed and when?” 

“Ooh,” says Wilson, “I guess technically I did, but I’m gonna go on record saying that one was a group effort.”

“Well, now you’re gonna have to explain that,” I tell him. “What’s a ‘group effort’ proposal look like?”

“Hmm. I backed myself into that one, didn’t I?” he says. “First, I want the record to show that before I called you guys to set up this interview, I specifically asked Bucky if there were any us-related topics or whatever that were off-limits to discuss and he said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ and I said, “You better be sure, because whatever I say is gonna be public knowledge after that,” and he said “I know, I get it, Jesus.” Then I dropped it because he sounded like he was getting kinda irritated. If he didn’t want me to tell you any of this stuff, that would’ve been the time to speak up, so here we go:

“We were at… Well, I can’t tell you exactly where we were, but let’s just say we were working. There was nobody else in the room, but we were getting ready to go out in the field; seemed like it was gonna be a pretty...intense situation out there. I had my whole suit on, he was calibrating his arm, and the conversation ended up at living wills. As you can imagine, that’s an important thing to have when you’re in this line of work. So he proceeded to tell me that the last time he’d updated his was never and that his next-of-kin was nobody. And I was like, ‘So what, your grenade launchers are all gonna go to the state? I don’t even get the red one?’ and I’m just giving him a hard time, you know, and he’s like, ‘Sam.’ 

“And then, my god, he just goes all the way off about how much he loves me and trusts me and I—we don’t usually go there. I mean, we’d been on the same page for a long time as far as, we’ve established that we’re in love, this relationship is going well, but it’s not something that we’d verbalized in any real depth. That’s just a level of like, exposure, vulnerability, I think, that doesn’t come naturally to most people, myself included. 

“So he just keeps talking—and I think it’s fair to say he’s not a very talkative guy most of the time—and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because he is not holding back, and this is all clearly unrehearsed. Like, this is just how he really feels about me, apparently. By the time he’s finished, I’m crying, he’s crying, it’s a mess. And so I open my mouth, and I have no idea what I’m gonna say to all that, but what comes out is, “Will you marry me?” I wasn’t planning on it, but suddenly I just knew. Best decision I ever made.”

“And you’ve made some very important decisions in your life.”

“That’s right. I know which ones I’m leaving out by saying this was the best, and I stand by it.”

At that moment, as if on cue, the lock clicks, and Sergeant Barnes walks through the front door carrying two very full bags of groceries on his vibranium arm. He tosses a set of car keys into a little dish and locks the door behind him.

“Hey, babe,” Wilson calls out, catching his eye.

“You did it?” Barnes asks.

“Yeah.” Wilson tilts his head up.

Barnes rounds the corner, pecks Wilson on the lips with all the comfort and familiarity of a couple who have done it a thousand times. I hear him murmur, “Proud of you,” under his breath.

Barnes sets the groceries on the counter in front of me as Wilson introduces us.

“Call me Bucky,” says Barnes, reaching out with his right hand to shake mine. There’s a silver band on the fourth finger, and when I look back over at Wilson, he’s slipping his wedding ring out of the pocket of his jeans and putting it back on his left hand.

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go through with all this,” he says, gesturing to me and my notepad. “I took the wedding pictures down in the living room too, before you got here.”

“I knew he could do it,” Barnes tells me. His voice is low, soft, and so quiet, a hint of an old Brooklyn accent underlying his words even now, despite everything he’s been through and everywhere he’s been. He shrugs out of his nondescript hoodie and tosses it on one of the unused stools, grabbing a kettle and putting it on the stove.

“Hibiscus or chamomile?” he asks me, pulling two boxes of tea bags from one of the grocery bags and letting me choose before turning to Wilson. “Bad news, hon. They were out of your whole wheat pita.”

“Again?” says Wilson, with feeling. “Really?”

“They only had the gluten free. I guess I could check the other store tonight, but it’s supposed to rain later, and I kinda don’t feel like going out again,” Barnes says, head buried in the cupboard as he stacks cans. “I was thinking maybe I could just try making ‘em. How does that sound? How hard can it be, right?”

“‘How does homemade pita sound,’ he says,” Wilson repeats, jabbing a thumb towards Barnes. “Can you believe this guy?”

“I honestly can’t.” It’s the truth. My brain refuses to reconcile this man with the supposed playboy I read about in my 11th grade history textbook, nor the internationally feared assassin.

“Is that a yes or no on the experimental homemade pita?” Barnes asks Wilson, still deep in the cupboard. “No promises on quality.”

“That’s a yes, Buck,” says Wilson, then he turns to me. “Don’t listen to him; he’s a great cook.”

The Winter Soldier is a great cook, I write in my notes. And then I realize this is my moment to shine.

“I actually know a good recipe for homemade pita,” I tell them. “It’s whole wheat.” That gets Barnes’s attention.

“You do?” he says, pulling out his phone. “Can you send it to—hmm.” He frowns. “Sam, it’s not showing the thing.”

“What thing?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s phone from his hand. “Oh, yeah, that’s cause it’s set to Contacts Only, Buck, you have to switch it to Allow Everyone.”

Wilson looks at me, smiling. “Bucky here hates technology—”

“—I don’t hate technology—”

“Oh yes you do, you won’t even let me get you an iPad—”

“Yeah, for what? What do I need it for? I wouldn’t even use—”

“You wouldn’t use one, huh? How about I stop letting you borrow mine for a couple of weeks, then we’ll see how you feel.” Wilson turns to me, passing Barnes’s phone back to him. “He should be showing up on your AirDrop now.”

Sure enough, I’m able to send the recipe link to Bucky’s iPhone. He thanks me and starts scrolling right through it, argument apparently totally forgotten.

As Barnes continues to read, periodically checking on the kettle; Wilson excuses himself to help put away the rest of the groceries, which are mostly produce. 

“I hope you have like, immediate plans for these,” Wilson says, inspecting the avocados as he pulls them out of the paper bag. “They are ripe, man. Tomorrow’s gonna be too late for them.”

“Yeah I do, I was gonna make grilled chicken and avocado sandwiches for dinner,” Barnes replies. “I got tomatoes, swiss cheese—”

“What’s all this about pita then if we’re having sandwiches?” Wilson asks.

“No, the pita is the bread here,” Barnes explains. “You stuff everything in the pocket. I’m gonna have to get started pretty soon; probably gonna double the rising time since it’s cold out.” Wilson hums in apparent approval of this course of action.

I lose Wilson to the refrigerator for several minutes. He stands back up after arranging things in the crisper to his liking.

“Any chance I could get a peek at those wedding pictures?” I ask.

“Oh,” says Wilson. “That okay with you?” He turns to Barnes, who nods, carefully steeping bags of tea in three steaming mugs, and then leads me back to the living room. 

Wilson has stashed two silver-framed pictures in a drawer of the coffee table, apparently in anticipation of my visit, and he pulls them out to show to me. Both are taken in front of a familiar-looking farmhouse, which I struggle with for a moment before placing it as the exact one in Captain Rogers’s watercolor painting that’s hanging to my left. Wilson’s suit in the photo is a matte but brilliant shade of cobalt; Barnes wears black.

One is of just the two of them, arms around one another and foreheads together. It’s almost too intimate to look at; I feel as though I’m intruding on something intensely private, even though Wilson is standing right here offering me a glimpse of it.

He puts that one back up onto the mantle.

The next is them in the center of a large group that consists of some people I recognize and others I don’t. Familiar faces include Dr. Bruce Banner [The Hulk], Clint Barton [Hawkeye], and Maria Hill [Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. Also present: King T’Challa of Wakanda and his sister, Princess Shuri. There’s a young girl in a white dress, carrying a flower basket and missing a front tooth, standing in front of [C.E.O. of Stark Industries] Pepper Potts. Next to them is a teenager with floppy brown hair doing an indescribably awkward double thumbs up.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing at him.

Wilson snorts. “Some punk. Family friend.”

That picture gets hung on the empty nail next to Captain Rogers’s painting.

Barnes knocks quietly on the doorway behind us. “Tea’s ready.”

An awkward silence settles in with us once we sit back down in the kitchen, Wilson and Barnes next to one another, and me across from them. I flip through my notes, taking a sip from my mug.. My drink is sweeter than I was expecting, because apparently the Winter Soldier has added agave to the hibiscus tea he made me. It’s delicious.

Barnes eventually breaks. “So whatcha go over so far?”

“How we got together, how we got engaged,” Wilson answers him. “In detail too, so if you don’t want that published, you’re gonna have to grovel at the journalist yourself, because you said—”

“Oh my god,” says Barnes, old-school New York sarcasm dripping from every word. “How dare you tell people about the best thing I ever did, huh? Now they’re gonna think I’m like, a sensitive, good guy, and here I’ve been coasting along on this murder cyborg image. What have you done, you dick?”

Wilson rolls his eyes.

“So...you’re okay with it?” I ask them, absolutely ready to scrub the record if he hesitates.

“You kidding me?” says Barnes. “Every other week comes up some new atrocity I committed against my will in like...the 70s, and you think I’m gonna be upset with people knowing that once in a while I say nice shit to someone I love? Write it. Please. Knock yourself out.”

Okay then. Since Barnes seems willing to talk, I ask them if I can throw them a few questions I have for them as a couple. Barnes looks as though he wasn’t anticipating this.

Wilson turns to him. “You wanna be here for this?”

Barnes nods slowly, hesitantly, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You’re okay?” Wilson asks. “You decide you’re done at any point and I’ll end it. Or you can go hang out in the other room, your call.”

“I’m good for now,” Barnes decides. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“You can ask whatever you want,” Wilson says to me. “I can’t promise we’ll answer everything, but go ahead and shoot.”

“I guess the first question I have is: what’s the hardest thing about navigating your jobs as a couple? What bothers you the most about that?”

Wilson exhales loudly. “I mean, the obvious answer is the danger,” he says. “The nature of what we do is fundamentally unsafe. I think it goes without saying—I’ll still say it—that we’re always aware that one of us might not make it back from a mission, which is...” Wilson trails off for a moment, shaking his head. “You don’t get used to that feeling. The fear.”

“Mm hmm,” Barnes agrees, from behind his mug.

“And,” continues Wilson, “I’m also aware that by doing this interview, I’m putting Bucky in additional danger. I’m not naive enough to think that the people working against us won’t try to use my relationship with him as leverage against me.”

“That makes sense,” I say, because he’s absolutely right, and pretending that public knowledge of his marriage doesn’t put them both in a new kind of danger seems disingenuous. I face Barnes. “Your turn.”

“Racist assholes,” says Barnes immediately.

Wilson smirks and cocks his head in agreement. “Sometimes I think I’ve talked that subject to death, other times it’s like I could never hope to address it enough. Today feels like the first one.”

A diplomatic, but clear answer. Time to move on. 

I’m about to ask the next question when he adds: “Another thing that gets under my skin is how it’s like Bucky’s image in the eyes of the general public is totally dependent on me hyping him up all the time. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proven himself a hundred times over, and yet if I’m not on T.V. reminding people of that every day, it’s suddenly like ‘oh, the Winter Soldier, can we ever really trust him?’ 

“I just… It bothers me. I want us to come to a collective understanding that everything that happened happened to Bucky, not because of him. It kinda circles back into another of the things I’m passionate about, which is mental health care and awareness. I think if we as a society were better about recognizing and addressing mental illness, and particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I wouldn’t have to keep having this conversation about my husband.”

Barnes’s face is getting pinker and he says nothing, but he’s smiling a little at Wilson, who puts an arm around his shoulders.

“Anyway, we can move on,” says Wilson, his expression going easy again. “Just had to get that out there one more time.”

“Hopefully this one’s a little more pleasant,” I say. “What inspired you to come forward about your relationship? I know you guys—” I gesture between them, ”—have been together for a couple years, so why now?”

“I want to go on a date in public,” says Bucky. “I haven’t been on a date since the 40s.”

“That’s right,” says Wilson. “We’re doing all this so I can take him Denny’s and hold his hand over a $6.99 Super Slam.”

When I finish laughing, Wilson continues. “Part of it’s because we realized it’s gonna get out there whether we like it or not. You already knew when you got here that we lived together, and that’s because that information got leaked to the public last week, so it was always just a matter of time before people found out anyway. I’d rather have some control over that narrative; better you hear it from me and Bucky, how we want to tell it, than in some tabloid.”

He’s right about that: they would undoubtedly have been outed one way or another. Their status as “roommates” was reported by TMZ a week and a half ago, and there was a Buzzfeed piece only yesterday, rife with gifs, entitled 15 Times Captain America and The Winter Soldier Made Us Wish We Were Their Third Roommate, that ended on the note of how Wilson and Barnes are “absolute BFF GOALS.” Wilson continues:

“But I think the biggest reason is that we decided, together, that we actually think it’s good for people to  know. I’ve seen firsthand the impact that having a Black Captain America has had on the Black community and on the national topic of race, and we think—we hope—that a Captain America who is a member of the LGBT community will have a similar effect. 

“The people who already hate me aren’t going to like me any better or worse for being bisexual, but some bisexual teenager out there is hopefully gonna read this article and feel a little bit better about themselves than they did before. That’s really the impact I want to have here. Got anything to add, Buck?”

“Actually, yeah,” says Barnes, staring at the counter in front of him and fiddling with his wedding ring. “I grew up gay in thirties. The idea of being able to just...tell people, that’s still amazing to me. The fact that I’m sitting here talking about it with a stranger and you’re not screamin’ in my face right now…”

“You do know I’m not straight either, right?” I ask him. I’m not exactly shy about that, it’s the kind of thing most people can tell just by looking at me.

“Even so,” says Barnes, finally looking me in the eye. “You fool around with a fella back in the day—or worse, you make a pass and he turns you down—then he knows about you, and then it’s like, what if he tells someone? Some of the worst shit I ever saw came from people who found out that way. So, other gay guys. Basically you never felt safe.”

“What about Captain Rogers?” I ask. “Did he know?”

“Oh yeah, Steve knew,” says Barnes with a dismissive wave of his hand, like that ought to be obvious. “He wasn’t gonna tell anyone; I got too much dirt on him.“

“Pfft. He’s messing with you,” Wilson interjects, directed at me. “There’s no dirt on Steve anywhere; believe me, I’d know by now if there was.”

“I want you to guess how many times I’ve had to clean up Steve’s puke,” says Barnes in a total deadpan, leaning forward. “Whatever number you think it is, the real answer is higher. 

“This again,” says Wilson. “I keep telling you Buck, Steve throwing up on you at Coney Island isn’t the big scandalous story you seem to want it to be.”

“Sam wasn’t there, he didn’t see it,” Barnes insists. “We were with these girls and they just left us standing there by the Cyclone, covered in hot dog chunks. Actually, that part was kind of a relief ‘cause one of ‘em was definitely jonesing for me to kiss her before that, and I really didn’t want to. 

“But seriously, after everything we went through together, I knew I could trust Steve with anything. And that made me luckier than most—at least I had one person. Lots of guys had no one. 

“Anyway, my reasons for coming out with all this are probably more selfish than Sam’s. You know some of those Nazis—we’re callin’ ‘em something else these days, like ‘alt-right’ or whatever, but I know a Nazi when I see one—they have this crazy idea of what I was like back in the day. They’ve got this fantasy, like a golem of toxic masculinity with my face on it, and I just want to publicly shit on their dreams. Every date I ever went on with a girl was a total sham, and I was scared down to my bones that someone would figure that out. I fight because someone needs to and I’m good at it, but I hate hurting people and I’d much rather be sitting here cuddling on the couch with a man. This man.”

Barnes is grinning big and wide by the time he finishes—a real, genuine smile that brings out the sparkle in his eyes—and suddenly I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of what Wilson must be seeing in him. Wilson himself is laughing.

“I like how you snuck your little buzzword in there, baby,” he says. “Toxic masculinity. That’s one of Bucky’s things he learned about from his Wakandan therapist. 

“Obviously super important,” Wilson adds, lest I think he’s making light of something serious.

“I think it’s great that we’re talking about it so openly now, especially with respect to the military.”

Barnes tilts his head in agreement, checking the time on his phone. We’re probably approaching the point at which he wants to get started on that pita bread, and I’m definitely in his way.

“So what’s next for you guys?” I ask.

“Isn’t that always the question?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s right hand in his left and resting them, intertwined, on the countertop. “Sometimes it’s aliens. Sometimes not. Who even knows anymore?”

“Hopefully, a whole lot more of this,” says Barnes, looking down at their hands.

Wilson smiles. “Well, that’s a given. That’s always.”

This is when Barnes gets up to pull a stand mixer out of one of the cupboards, and I read that as my cue to take my leave. I end my recording, Wilson thanks me for stopping by, I promise to give him an advance copy of my writing to make sure he’s comfortable with what I said, and I find myself standing back on the sidewalk of [REDACTED] moments later.

I’m not typically in the habit of including as many details about the dinner plans of my article subjects as I have here—and I’m certainly testing the limits of my editor’s patience with the word count—but in the spirit of Wilson’s wishes for what his coming out story will mean to the people of America, I wanted to emphasize how human his marriage is. 

Barnes and Wilson have extraordinary jobs that they are undoubtedly uniquely suited for and that most of us will never fully understand, but they are also two people who have been through a lot of hardship and found happiness and peace in one another. And that’s something that most of us do understand: love, the human experience that transcends the divisions we give ourselves.

*From a press conference Wilson gave on May 7, 2025.

**From a statement written by Barnes and issued through a S.H.I.E.L.D. representative on November 1, 2023.

For further reading on Barnes, the author recommends: 

1. Greatest Generation X: The Impossible Life of James Buchanan Barnes, by Ariel Guzman, published in 2025.

2. R.Y. Uhlencott’s column “The Wolf of Brooklyn” in the October 2024 issue of Time covers the basic timeline and trajectory of Barnes’s life.

[haddonfieldproject]

<<PREVIOUS⏺<<CONTENTS>>

1.3.11 SATURDAY NOVEMBER 1st, ‪11:46 AM

‬Haddonfield, Illinois

The man walked into the foyer of the large house, squeezing passed the very large security guard who answered the door. A large grandiose staircase arose before him and split half-way up to the second floor, veering off right and left directing toward the two wings of the giant mansion. To his left was a luxiorious dining room with seating for up to twenty. Large renassiance style portraits hung on the walls: picturesque scenes of Italian countrysides and vineyards, the kind of paintings you'd see reproduced on the walls inside of an Olive Garden, only these were no doubt original. To the man's right was a large parlor, with more vibrant paintings, sculptures, antique sofas, and a grand piano in the far corner.

An elderly woman sat on one of these. She was cross-stitching silently. She looked up at him, her eyebrows furrowed, and then she looked back at what she was doing. The man sighed, ignoring her. In front of him, to the left of the stairs was a sliding door that opened into the actual living space of the home. From there he heard the voice call to him, “Come in son, come on in.”

The man entered the room and saw his boss sitting on a large leather sofa, a persian cat on his lap. He was watching the large flatscreen television mounted above the stone-hearthed fireplace before him. More aerial shots of the burning hospital. The man was frail, liver spots speckled his olive skin. His hair, once brown, was gray and thinning at the top, his eyes once black as night has turned to the color of charcoal smoke. He wore a plush royal blue robe and an old fashioned sleeping cap that reminded the visitor of Ebeneezer Scrooge.

The man bent to one knee before the old man. The cat hissed and jumped off the elderly man's lap and ran off toward the adjacent kitchen. The old man extended his hand, “Thank you for coming so soon.”

The man kissed the old man's hand, “Sure thing Mr. Vizzini.”

“I hope I did not trouble you too much last night Andre,” Mr. Vizzini said as Andre took a seat on the couch beside him.

Andre smiled, “Hey boss...a little romp through the woods never hurt no one.”

Mr. Vizzini laughed. “Good. I didn't get to apologize to you before when we spoke. We were...” he chose his words carefully, “too busy speaking of the grave matter at hand.”

Andre nodded.

“I trust you delivered my message to Mr. Tarasenko and our beloved mayor?” Mr. Vizzini asked, turning back toward the television.

Andre turned toward the screen as well, the national news had gotten a hold of Holly West's interview with Rosalita and were now playing it to the nation.

“Yes boss,” Andre sighed, “And I would have called you sooner but I was getting some much needed sleep.”

Mr. Vizzini nodded, “Your insomnia again?”

“Yes sir, it's been a really bitch, pardon my french.”

Mr. Vizzini smiled, “Well we all need our rest. When one is tired, one cannot think.”

“Yes sir.”

“And I need everyone at the top of their mental capacities.”

“I agree.” Andre remarked.

The old man held up a small square device that he had in his lap. It was a gray box with a single solitary red button on the top. He held it up now and pushed it. Somewhere in the far reaches of the house a chime was heard, soft and tonal. After a few seconds, there was a small crackle of static, and a woman's voice could be heard on an un-seen speaker.

“Yes Mr. Vizzini?”

The old man cleared his throat, “Caterina, would you be a dear and bring my guest and I a scotch on the rocks please?”

“Certainly Mr. Vizzini.”

There was a click indicating the speaker went dead.

“So what did our friends have to say for themselves?” Mr. Vizzini cocked his head to one side inquisitively.

“Tarasenko looks shaken up.” Andre said.

Vizzini grunted and nodded.

“And Dodge wants another front, just like you said he would,” Andre smiled.

“And you told him that that would not be possible?” The old man cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes sir,” Andre said, “he asked me to ask you to reconsider, again, just as you said.”

The old man sighed and nodded. He closed his eyes as if wrapped in meditation.

There were footsteps and into the kitchen appeared a young, tall, beautiful red headed woman that Andre had seen before. It was the waitress from Lou Martini's club.

Tina Tomcat, Andre remembered.

She looked tired in the face, but smiled at the two men cheerfully, holding a small glass in each hand of the brown scotch. Little crushed ice floated in each glass. Her corset had been replaced by a very cliché french maid outfit, which covered her private parts and some more of her body, but not much else.

Mr. Vizzini smiled as he took his glass, “Andre, I'd like you to meet Caterina. Caterina this is my dear friend Mr. Andre.”

Tina smiled at Andre and held out his glass. He took it with a smile of his own.

“We've met before,” Andre replied.

The old man waved a wrinkled hand, “Ah I suppose so, at the Rabbit-in-Red!” Mr. Vizzini took a sip of his drink and then said, “Caterina came in late this morning after no doubt a night of considerable carousing. Mr. Andre and I were just discussing how important sleep is to the body.”

Tina turned and waved a hand back at him, “I'll sleep when I'm dead,” she said with a wink, “besides, I make a hell of a lot more at the Rabbit than I do at this place.”

Andre's eyes went wide. He stared at Mr. Vizzini nervously and took a sip of his drink. He winced. It was very strong.

Mr. Vizzini broke into laughter, which then turned into racked coughing. When he was done coughing, he wiped his eyes and said, “That's what I love about her.” He choked another gulp of his drink down. “I appreciate honesty in a woman.” He raised his glass to Tina.

Tina gave a little curtsy, and disappeared around the corner.

The two men looked back at the television. A picture of the Chumway brothers now dominated the screen. The big bold tag line at the bottom read: MANHUNT ENDS IN MAYHEM.

After a moment, Andre cleared his throat, “Sir, may I offer an opinion.”

Mr. Vizzini sipped and nodded, “Certainly. My appreciation for frankness is not specific to the female gender.”

“I worry that this may not be a good time to send a message to Dodge.” Andre looked down at his glass. The old man had a reputation, he didn't want to discover the fine line only after crossing it.

“You think I should give Mayor Dodge the money.” Vizzini said, very frank himself.

“I think it would be wise to, I think we can both agree the situation has changed.” Andre said, gesturing toward the television.

“I think for the better perhaps.” Vizzini replied. “To my knowledge, the shipment has yet to be...spoiled shall we say. There may be time and an opportunity here to...salvage it, and for that I'll need friends in high places, and for that I'll need leverage.”

“I haven't considered that,” Andre admitted, “But there is always the flip side. This place is now crawling with law enforcement at all levels, and no matter how good we are, there is always a trail, and eventually that trail leads to Tarasenko, which in turns leads to Dodge, which in turns leads to you.”

“I have considered it,” Vizzini said. He sucked the rest of the scotch down in the glass with a loud slurp.

“What was done with the van, if I may ask?”

Vizzini waved, “Oh that was easy. The First Congregational Church of Holiness and Power was just bequeathed a brand new cargo van for their congregation. Complete with title in the envelope signed off to the church from a Mr. Juan Pagan of Winchester Indiana and cash to obtain a new tag.”

Andre smiled and nodded approvingly.

“Mr. Pagan even called me this morning and told me the Pastor of the church called him and thanked him personally.”

“Praise God,” Andre lifted his glass.

“Indeed.” Vizzini took some ice in his mouth and chewed it.

“However.” Andre frowned, “If the cops do get the shipment and nab Tarasenko, do you think he'll talk?”

“Doubtful,” Vizzini responded.

“What about Dodge?” Andre asked. “I see the honorable mayor putting a finger on you at the first hint of trouble.”

“Oh please,” Vizzini laughed, “I have the ability to be on flight to the United Arab Emirates like that,” he snapped his gnarled fingers, “Robert Dodge would love to fantasize but as yet he possessed no such ability. He will go down, he will go down hard and he will go down alone.”

“Is that what you want?” Andre asked.

“Of course not. I'm going to give him the money Andre. This is an opportunity with two heads.”

“How so?”

“On one hand, this is a great opportunity to get more out of our arrangement with Dodge. The spotlight is on him now,” Vizzini gestured at the TV which was now in a commercial. Ramon Aguilar of the newly crowned World Champion Chicago Cubs was singing the praises of a Liberty Burger extra-value meal.

“He'll be desperate. Like an ant under a magnifying glass directing the light of the sun, he will have no where to go and he will be like puddy in my hands.”

Vizzini's eyes went dark. I'm beginning to see the reputation, Andre thought.

“From the other angle,” Vizzini continued, “this is a good time to teach a lesson. The mayor has to learn that he is becoming a liability for me. A liability that I can no longer stomach.”

Andre drained the last of his scotch. “I just worry the cops are going to nab the shipment before we can inact damage control.”

Vizzini smiled and patted the large man next to him on the knee. “Worry solves nothing. We will just have to wait and see what happens.”

Andre sighed, “I just wish I knew.”

NEXT>>

[simp-for-spencer-reid]

Flavor shot: Holiday Blend- Blue Christmas: Part 1

Series Masterlist

“See you in like a week?” Cate wasn’t sure if she was comforting Spencer or herself with her words. Despite only being a week and a half ago, it had felt like months since they had admitted their love for one another. The two had spent every night leading up to this morning with each other. Alternating between Spencer’s apartment and Cate’s to make sure Shrimp didn’t get too lonely on his own, though he did prefer the quietness of an empty apartment. 

“Yeah, I’ll uh…” Spencer gestured to his gate at the airport. He had begun to walk towards it but turned on his heel back towards Cate. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go back to New Hampshire with you?” 

“Go see your mom for the holidays!” Cate gently pushed his shoulders. “We’ll be fine! I think we can stand to spend a few days apart.” she laughed as Spencer drew her in for one last hug. At least, that’s what they had said the last few hugs. With a final quick peck on the lips, Cate stepped backward, extending a hand, barely gripping Spencer’s fingers. “Tell her I said hi and that I wish her a Merry Christmas.” Cate smiled as she finally dropped Spencer’s hand. 

Their plans for the holidays were to celebrate with their respective families: Spencer was flying home to Vegas and Cate was going home to New Hampshire to see her family and she would drive back to Quantico with her car so she could have it back in DC. 

Cate’s own flight was booked for the next day. She was all packed for her 3 day trip back to her roots. Marta would be checking on Shrimp, feeding him and making sure he was all set while Cate was gone. Marta was also going to be Cate’s ride to the airport. 

Her flight was scheduled for noon, which would put her in New Hampshire around 2:30. And that’s where she stood right now. Standing with her carry-on and her tote bag, she looked for her dad’s pick-up truck in the terminal. Instead of a truck, she was surprised to see her older sister’s silver SUV. 

“Beth!” Cate’s face broke into a huge grin as she ran to give her sister a hug. The girls embraced each other tightly.

“It has been too long!” Beth pulled back and gave a stern look to her younger sister. “You need to call more.” Cate shrugged, her face flushing.

“I know..” Beth helped Cate put her bags into the trunk of the vehicle and they scuffled into the warmth of the car. Traffic from the airport to their home was brutal. Of course, that’s only typical due to the holidays. But, it gave the girls plenty of time to catch up.

“So, how’s the big city treating you? Still working with Marta?” Beth asked, giving a quick glance to Cate from the driver’s seat. 

“Yeah, it’s great there. It’s busy and it seems like everyday there’s something new.” Cate laughed. “I got a cat, too. A little orange one, his name’s Shrimp.” At the stop light, Cate showed Beth a picture of Shrimp on the couch, nestled in between two pairs of legs. Beth grabbed the phone, and zoomed into the hand that was mid-pet on Shrimp’s back.

“And who is that? Are you holding out on me, sis? You have a man and you didn’t think to say anything?” the light turned green. Beth shoved the phone back at Cate and continued driving. Cate blushed, turning to look out the window at familiar scenery.

“I did meet someone. His name’s Spencer.” Cate thought of Spencer, playing fond memories in her head.

“Am I gonna have to twist your arm to get more information?” Beth laughed, lightly punching Cate’s arm. “How long has this been going on?” 

“Officially?” Cate thought back. “A few months.” 

“So there’s some unofficial business in there? Let me guess, a one night stand and then friends with benefits but you caught feelings for each other?” 

“No!” Cate laughed. “Not like that at all… We were just friends for a while.” Beth gave Cate a pointed look to dish more details. “We’ve known each other for a year! You do the math!” Cate swatted Beth.

“Watch it! I’m the driver! Don’t you want to live long enough to see *Spencer* again?” Beth teased. The girls opted to sing along to the radio for the remainder of the ride. Beth asked a few more questions about Marta and Cate’s apartment back in DC, which passed the time quickly. 

Beth’s SUV pulled down the long driveway up to their parents’ house. Snow covered the ground and glistened in the afternoon sun. Cate grabbed her bags from the trunk, and followed Beth up the walkway to their backdoor. When the door swung open, Cate was met with the smell of vanilla and the warmth of the inside. Kicking the snow off her boots, she entered the house- filled with the sounds of laughter. Immediately, she saw her younger brother playing with their niece and nephew, Stella and Finn, but she was really looking forward to seeing her mom. Cate’s mom was found in the kitchen, baking sheets filled with cookies and dough waiting to go in. Once spotted by her mother, Cate opened her arms, which were still carrying her bags. 

“Hi, Mom.” Cate’s mother bounded over, slinging a dish towel over her shoulder. Cate wrapped her arms around her mom, tucking her head over her mom’s other shoulder. “I’ve missed you.” Cate closed her eyes and she felt like she was a kid again, back in her hometown and living with her parents. Her house still smelled the same. 

“Catherine.” Her mom said gently. She still looked the same to Cate: same pale skin, just a bit more wrinkled at the corners of her eyes, same dark brown hair, but with some grays starting to peek through. Her mother held her out at an arm’s length. “You look too thin, have a cookie.” Cate took a cookie from her mom with a smile. As she bit into it, Beth waltzed into the kitchen too. With an announcement.

“Cate has a boyfriend!” Beth looked smugly to Cate, while their mom looked between the two of them, before settling her gaze on Cate- who was coughing after almost choking on her cookie.

“Beth!” Cate coughed out.

“Wha-? Since when? See, this is why you need to call more!” Cate’s mother was now in interrogation mode. And make no mistake, she would get all the answers she wanted. She sternly held a finger pointed to Cate. “Who is he? And where is he?” 

“I haven’t even put my bags down yet and you’re already on my case!” Cate tried to diffuse the attention on her. Leaving her mother sputtering about Cate’s love life and confronting Beth for all she knew, Cate escaped upstairs to her childhood bedroom. 

It was still painted the same color green. A sheet set of stars and constellations were on her mattress, with a black comforter dressing the bed. All of her old posters still littered the walls and some frameless photographs were taped about the walls in the empty spaces. A smile was brought to Cate’s face, thinking of all the memories this room held. Cate set her bags down on the bed, and slowly walked downstairs. The ambush was partially her own fault. She should’ve kept her mother updated in her life. Cate had no good explanation for not calling her mom. 

“Okay now what is this about a boyfriend?” Cate’s mother was back by the oven, her cream colored apron lightly stained from the years of use. Cate settled into a stool at the island. Beth had disappeared into the living room to watch Stella and Finn wrestle with her and Cate’s younger brother, Robby.

“You’d love him. His name is Spencer and he’s smart, kind, and he-” Cate cut herself off, “He has a good job.” She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to disclose that sort of information. Cate’s mom raised her eyebrows, interested. 

“He sounds wonderful. Is he spending time with his family this Christmas Eve?” 

“Yes, he’s in Vegas visiting his mom for a few days.” Cate informed her mom. She played with some flour that dusted the countertop. 

“Well, you’ll have to come home sometime so we can all meet him.” Her mother smiled, placing a hand on Cate’s. Cate smiled at her mother. “Now, round up your brother and father to go get our chinese food. Wouldn’t be a Bennett Family Christmas without it.” Chinese food had been a staple for their Christmas Eve since Cate was a little girl. One year, Cate’s mother decided to try and cook a Christmas ham paired with mashed potatoes, candied yams, and homemade cranberry sauce. Well, Cate cooked just about as well as her mother, so it’s safe to say that that year, the house was full of smoke on Christmas Eve. The only thing salvageable was the cranberry sauce. Since that year, They’d always stuck to just baking cookies for Santa and ordering chinese food. 

Cate slowly walked to the living room, taking her time to relish in her home. She noticed new pictures framed on the walls of her niece and nephew. There were a few new knick knacks on shelves and hallway tables. The couches in the living room had been rearranged and the old wooden television stand was gone and now the tv was mounted on the wall. 

Beth was perched in the middle of the love seat, a blanket with a christmas pattern draped over her legs. Robby was kneeling on the ground- one arm outstretched and holding Finn at bay from a tickle attack and Stella was on his back, his other hand tickling her feet while she giggled uncontrollably. Cate’s father was sitting on the corner of their large couch, trying to read on his tablet, but getting distracted watching his grandchildren and his son play.

“Robby, Mom wants you and Dad to go get the food now.” Cate couldn’t keep in a chuckle. 

“Nice to see you too, Catherine.” Robby said as he rose from the carpeted living room floor. Their dad looked up over his glasses at Cate.

“Hi, Dad.” Cate met him in the middle as he brought her in for a hug.

“My Catie Girl, how is the big city life?” He asked, parting from her. 

“Oh, you know, busy and nothing like home.” she shrugged. Cate smiled at him. He placed a hand on her shoulder before going to retrieve his coat and some boots to get their order of food. Her brother Robby followed. 

Cate knelt on the ground, opening her arms as her sister’s children each ran into an arm. Embracing them both, Cate expressed how much she missed them and how big they’ve gotten. 

“Auntie Cate, I lost a tooth!” Stella bared her teeth at Cate, displaying a gap where there should have been a bottom tooth.  

“I grew one!” Finn smiled largely, showing a new tooth growing bigger than the rest.

“Oh my goodness! You guys are getting too big!” Cate smiled at them. She pulled her phone from her back pocket, swiping to find a specific picture. “I got a cat! Maybe one weekend you can come visit with your mom and you can meet him in person.” Stella and Finn’s eyes lit looking at Shrimp.

“He looks so soft!” Stella cooed.

“I bet he catches all the mice!” Finn yelled. 

“If there were any mice in my apartment, I bet he would.” Cate laughed. 

It became tradition for the family to sit on the living room floor, gathered around the spread of takeout boxes on the coffee table as a classic christmas movie played on their television. This year, they had voted and Cate, Stella and Finn won with their pick of The Polar Express. 

It was dark outside and everyone had piled their plates with fried rice, crab rangoons, teriyaki chicken and beef filled egg rolls. They shared laughs and stories of the year’s happenings with each other, catching up and making jokes like old times. 

Once filled plates were now over halfway done, Stella and Finn were both slowly falling asleep on the loveseat with Beth sitting in between them. The Polar Express was still playing, Cate’s parents were nestled together on the couch. Robby was laying on his side, leaning against the loveseat. Cate had her back against the couch, a christmas blanket wrapped around her. The house was peaceful and cozy with the glow of the christmas tree and the flicker of the movie. 

A knock on the door disrupted the lull in the living room. Cate’s parents looked quizzically at each other, not expecting anyone. Beth placed a protective hand on each of her children. Cate was the first to stand up, walking to answer the door. She presumed it was a neighbor, coming to wish them a happy holiday, despite how odd that would be.

Cate opened the door to a shivering Spencer, holding a large leather suitcase. A scarf wrapped multiple times around his neck and face muffled his voice.

“What are you doing here?” Cate couldn’t believe her eyes, but was happy to see the tall, long haired man. She let him into the house, closing the door behind him. “How did you figure out where I lived?” He set down his suitcase and unwrapped his scarf.

“I might have asked Garcia to track your phone for me.” his voice seemed off, but Cate would ask him about it later when her parents and siblings weren’t peering into the foyer from the archway into the living room. Cate and Spencer acknowledged them after staring at each other for a moment.

“Spencer, these are my parents.” Cate gestured to her mother and father, who were walking into the foyer. 

“Bill.” Cate’s dad reached out a hand to Spencer. Spencer hesitated, but figured shaking hands would make a better first impression than a spiel about germs. Cate’s mother on the other hand, brought Spencer into a hug.

“I’m Jacqueline, but please, call me Jackie!” Cate’s mother was as short as Cate was compared to Spencer. He had to bend his back far forward in her embrace as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He felt comforted by her motherly mannerisms. 

“Please, come in and help yourself to some takeout! Cate, take his things to the guest room and Spencer, I hope you like chinese food!” Her parents shuffled back into the living room as quick as they had nosed their way to the front door. Cate softly took Spencer’s hand and gave him a smile before starting up the stairs. 

The guest room was two doors down from Cate’s room on the same side of the hallway. The only thing in between them was a bathroom. Spencer felt like he walked into a cabin; the walls were a tan color and the bedspread was a quilt. Cate sat on the bed and patted the bed beside her. Spencer placed his things down on the chair in the corner before joining her on the bed. 

“I’m sorry I just showed up. I know you were spending time with your family and I was supposed to be in Vegas but I just couldn’t be alone tonight.” Spencer spilled out. 

“It’s okay, you’re more than welcome to stay. I want you to stay.” She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. “Is everything okay?” His eyes began to water, but no tears spilled out.

“I, um. My mom was having one of her bad days when I got down there. She didn’t-” his voice cracked. He closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t cry. Cate brought him in for a hug. She tried to say the right thing with her limited knowledge of the situation.

“You’re not alone, Spence. It’s hard, I’m sorry.” Cate moved her hand along his back. She fought back her own tears. Now wasn’t the time for her to cry. They held each other for a few moments and when Spencer felt confident that he wasn’t going to cry, Cate led him back down to the living room where he introduced himself to Cate’s brother and sister. He picked a bit at some of the chinese food, but he wasn’t in the mood to eat. Cate’s parents could tell something was up, but didn’t pry. 

After the movie finished, Robby and Beth carried Stella and Finn up the stairs to bed. Jackie and Bill had gone upstairs to bed as well. This left Cate and Spencer downstairs in the living room. Cate was cleaning up the coffee table and Spencer helped a bit. He was the first to break the silence.

“My mom has Schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s.” Spencer said as he placed some paper plates and empty takeout boxes in the trash. Cate tried not to look at him sympathetically, but she could only imagine how hard that must be.

“Spence, I’m sorry.” Cate paused in her cleaning of the kitchen counter. She made her way over to him, taking his hand in hers. “I’m here for you.” 

“She’s been fine for a while, when I write to her it’s easier because she knows it’s me, but when I was there earlier, she didn’t recognize me at first. Usually, the fog goes away after an hour, but even after I went back in the morning she didn’t know it was me. I just. I’m not ready for her to forget me yet.” His voice trailed off to only a whisper. Cate squeezed his hand.

“You’ll never be ready for that, Spencer. You’re doing the best you can for her and that’s what matters.” Cate tried to comfort him, but knew that there was nothing she could say that would make things better.

Once the rest of the cleaning was finished, Cate led Spencer up the stairs to his room again. She gave him a mini tour quietly as she whispered who was behind each closed door and where the bathrooms were if the one in between their room was occupied. She left Spencer in the guestroom to get changed and acclimated while she went back to her room to change into some sleep shorts and a bigger shirt. 

When she got back, Spencer was sitting in the bed with the side table lamp on. He had his glasses on while he read his comfort book- the same one his mother used to read to him growing up. Cate smiled and walked in, closing the door behind her. As she slipped under the covers, she knew her mother would kill her if she found out that Cate was in bed with her boyfriend under her roof, but that didn’t stop Cate from burrowing into Spencer’s side. He raised an arm to rest over her and he began to read aloud quietly. Before she knew it, Cate was sound asleep.

[bleachanimefan1]

Oblitus Part Eleven

Down In New Orleans

A tall demon strolled over to Valentino handing him an pack full of ice. He took a seat across from the overlord, sitting down in an very expensive leather chair. He was an overlord as well who was slim in figure. His head was a flat screen TV. He was wearing a striped tuxedo and black and red striped shirt with light blue ascot with a Wi-Fi symbol and a red bow tie. He was also wearing a small black top hat with antennas sticking out of it with a Wi-Fi design on it, in red and blue. Vox.

Jagged red and neon blue eyes on the screen stared at Valentino, as the demon sulked, who was watching the Television that was mounted on the wall. It showed his Studio completely destroyed, blown to bits, demolished.

 Valentino groaned as he took it from him removing his hand from his bruised eye. Valentino hissed in pain as placed the cool pack on his eye.

The pimp was sitting on the couch with an ice pack on his bruised eye, along with Velvet, who was holding her severed arm. Vox couldn't contain it anymore.

"What the Fuck happened to you two?!" He exclaimed as he nearly doubled over, howling in laughter.

Velvet narrowed her eyes glaring at the TV demon.

"It's that radio bastard fault!" She growled. "Look what he did to me!"

 Vox stared at her with an amused smile on his face as if it wasn't enough adding more insult to injury. "What are you whining for? It'll grow back." He replied. 

"You're not the one holding an missing arm! This is going to hurt like hell!" The harlequin minion whined. Vox rolled his eyes. 

"What did you two do to piss Alastor off?" Vox questioned. "You've must've really done something to set him off."

"There's some new dame who's under a contract with him." Valentino said looking at the TV demon as he removed the ice pack from his eye. Velvet scoffed. 

"Why he would put up with a human woman, hell if I know, that's for sure?" She replied, shrugging her shoulders, as she slumped further on the couch.

Vox's eyes widen. Since when has Alastor ever been interested in just one woman? Especially, a human one at that, a weak pathetic creature?  Gears began to form in the TV demon's brain as he tried to process this. A light bulb flashed as a plan was starting to form. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. Vox chuckled devilishly and smirked with a wide malicious grin across his screen. He leaned forward in his chair with his hands clasped together.

"Tell me more."

 Angel, Cherri, and Anna returned back to the hotel with Alastor. As soon as Angel opened the door walking inside with Alastor on his back, with Anna and Cherri behind him, Charlie was standing in front of the group with Vaggie beside her. 

 "Hey Blondie, what's up?" Angel asked. Charlie didn't answer him as she pulled out her Hellphone holding it out to them, showing Valentino's Studio in ruins.

 "What did you guys do?! You're all over the news!" She exclaimed furiously.

 "We'll explain it later, princess. Right now, Smiles needs attention." Angel said.

 "What the hell is with all this commotion? I've got a huge hang over so this had better be good!" Husk shouted walking over towards the group along with Niffty. The cat demon frowned as he noticed Alastor. "What the fuck happened to him?"

Angel explained everything to everyone how Valentino captured him, and how Anna, Alastor and Cherri had rescued him. 

"Smiles got hit with an angel's weapon. He's hurt bad." The spider demon tells them.

"Take Al to his room and we'll be up to help once we get some medical supplies." Charlie said. Niffty walked over to Anna.

 "But, first lets fix you up!" She shouted.

Before Anna could protest, the cyclops had quickly darted and started spinning around the human like a tornado until she stopped and was now standing in front of her. Anna looked down to see that her favorite shirt was now stitched up with no rips along with her blue jeans in one piece as well, looking brand new. Anna smiled as she looked down at the cyclops demon.

"Thanks."  She said, gratefully.

"Always willing to lend a helping hand to a friend of Alastor's, especially to a friend of mine!" Niffty grinned. 

Angel took Alastor upstairs with Anna following behind him leading her to the radio demon's room. The spider opened the door and Anna peeked inside. Her eyes widen in shock to see a swamp right in front of her and within the distance a wood cabin. Fireflies glowed in the dark as if lighting the way. The two stepped inside stepping into the muddy ground and Angel closed the door behind them and headed towards the cabin. Anna eyed the murky water carefully seeing seeing several alligators swimming in it. They were watching the two with a hungry look in their eyes as they advanced towards Alastor's cabin.

"How can we be outside while we're inside the hotel?" Anna questioned. Angel shrugged.

"Hell if I know? Smiles is the one who set it up like this. He probably did some voo doo or whatever you call it magic as a portal to his domain." The spider demon murmured. "Knowing him and his strange ways, that's probably what he did."

The two continued until they were arriving closer towards the cabin and reached the front door. Angel opened it and the two walked into the cabin. Anna looked around and saw some deer trophies mounted on the wall along with antlers. A small bed sat near a window next to a bookcase stacked with books on every shelf. A burnt out fireplace was sitting in the middle of the room. There were several photos sitting on the mantel.

Anna walked closer and she saw that there were of a man. Big almond brown doe eyes were staring back into hers, who wearing small round rimmed glasses. He had light brown skin and short brown hair but it looked as if it was difficult to manage. But, what really draw the human woman's attention was the man's unnatural smile, grinning back up at her.

Anna's eyes widen when she recognized who it was in the picture, Alastor.

He looked completely different than he was now, a human. Anna saw that there were some when he was younger and also some with him with a beautiful woman with him. She had light caramel skin and dark brown hair that was up in a bun with a few loose strands hanging on the sides of her face, wearing a bright red dress. His mom perhaps?

However, Anna noticed there was a frame face down. She picked it up and looked down at the picture. It was a family portrait of her and Alastor along with a tall white man who was standing behind them. His head was torn off from the picture. His father, maybe? Why was this picture face down and not standing with the others? Anna noticed that there was something wrong, Alastor and the woman weren't smiling. Anna slowly began to feel uneasy by the photo and she placed the frame back exactly where it was.

Angel walked over to the bed and laid Alastor down onto it as the woman looked silently at the picture. 

 "I'm going to start a fire to help warm up the place. I'll go look for some wood, watch over him will ya?" The spider called out.

"Sure." Anna replied, still looking at the picture. "I'll get him cleaned up."

She heard the door close behind her as Angel left, leaving her and Alastor alone in the cabin. Anna walked out of the living room and quickly into a small kitchen. She opened a cupboard and grabbed a bowl filling it with water and some towels. As she walked back into the living room, Anna saw Alastor stirring in the bed. 

She quickly rushed over him and placed the bowl on the floor. Anna reached out and placed her hand Alastor's forehead to feel it completely hot. He was burning with a fever. She dampened the towel into the water and started to clean the dried blood off from the demon.

As she finished, cleaning some of the blood off from his face, she looked down at the caked blood near his stomach. She needed to take his suit off to clean the wound. Anna felt her cheeks began to burn. Okay, she can do this! It's not like he was going to be naked, only half naked from the waist up. She felt her face lit completely up turning completely red. That did not make her feel any better...

"Just do it quick like a band-aid and it will be over with!" Anna murmured to herself as she reached out grabbing the lapels of Alastor's coat. She carefully pulled the collar down slightly until sliding his suit completely off. She folded it and placed the coat on the floor then turned her attention towards Alastor's shirt. She slowly began to unbutton each button one by one. Anna's eyes widen and her breath hitched as it got caught in her throat. She gasped in shock.

On Alastor's chest and body, up to his neck, was completely riddled in scars.

[badolmen]

tysm to everyone who has interacted with this fun lil fic - your likes, reblogs, and comments never cease to make me smile!  who’s ready for the spooky season? @billy-hoepe @bonniebunz @softupshur and @bandtrees I hope y’all’re doing well and taking care of yourselves <3

Chapters: First, 2, 3, 4, 5

Billy had been to churches before. Old ones, new ones, small ones, big ones, bright ones, dark ones, and places of worship of every denomination. He had slept on pews and stone stairs when the doors were locked. He had spent many Christmas nights bathing in the warmth of candles and songs, the midnight mass providing respite from the bitter winter if only for a few hours.

He didn’t understand churches, of course. His mother murmured of being raised Baptist on occasion or spit angry curses at Catholic and Mormon ex-boyfriends. She would mutter negative sentiments to cultures and beliefs he had no concept of outside of his mother’s warped and hate filled snarls at the television.

Billy knew nothing of worship or prayer or faith.

Sometimes, in Mount Massive, he wished a god would answer his prayers. Sometimes he was sure there was no god listening at all. He wondered, on dark nights and rainy days, that if he had learned prayer the higher powers would listen, that if he had faith, any faith at all, he would hear a response.

The phantom that scratched at the back of his mind didn’t bring any revelations with the pain it caused – it was just static, a ghost and whisper of hate that drove ice into Billy’s thoughts when he tried to explore the concept of the being that shared the same corporeal form as him.

This church was old and big but marred with minor disrepair. The main tower was wrapped in blue tarps to keep out the rain, and the shingles shuddered in the wind. The red brick had been stained a deeper crimson by the moisture, almost seeming to bleed into the gray concrete below.

Blood, smeared across the walls and floors and the stink of rotting flesh and freshly dead meat and insects and flies and maggots and –

“Here we are,” The driver hummed, her car groaning to a halt on the street in front of the massive building. Miles said her name was Beatrice. “I’d walk you in, but…” She trailed off, eyeing the rivulets of rain cascading down her windshield. “Just go right in and head to the room behind the altar, at the back of the building. We gave Fr. Kos the heads up so he should be waiting for y’all.”

“Thank you,” Miles said, stiffly nodding to Beatrice. Billy could feel the tension rising in the man like a spring coiled tighter and tighter. Exhaustion, too. “You good to go Billy? Probably best to make a run for it in this weather.”

“Good to go,” Billy whispered, swallowing back the metallic taste in his mouth. Had talking always hurt this much? Dr. Wernicke complained that he talked too much in their sessions. Maybe he finally fixed that problem.

“Alright then,” Miles grunted, car door opening and closing as he rushed the building. Billy tried to follow in suit but startled at the slam of the car door and tripped over his own wobbly legs while trying to scale the stone steps. Miles reached out, catching him before he collapsed at the top of the stairs.

With an exchange of thumbs up between Beatrice and Miles, the car sputtered away from the curb, leaving the two clinging to each other beneath the eaves.

The door was big, dark and solid wood heavy enough to make Miles’ face twist up in pain as he held the door open for Billy to shuffle inside. But the door closed softly, mechanism clicking in place the two stood in the warmth of the hallway between the church and the outside world.

“Man, forgot to ask if this is the back of the church or if the other end is…” Miles muttered, trying to find a comfortable way to hold his hands. Blood had seeped through his bandages.

“…think it’s this way,” Billy breathed, trying his hardest to keep his voice soft. It hurt less to whisper than to speak. He held open the inner door for Miles and the two treaded quietly across the carpeted floors toward the altar.

The church was empty and quiet save for their breathing and the quiet light of a few candles.

Billy’s eyes searched the many corners and peaks of the vaulted ceiling for cameras – Miles was probably doing the same as the pair slowly made their way toward the door beside the altar. But there were no cameras to be found. The fog that usually clouded Billy’s thoughts seemed to lift, or at least offer a shimmer of relieved clarity.

The door they were walking to opened, and the pair tensed.

“Oh, didn’t mean to startle you,” Billy couldn’t place the accent, but the voice was lighter than he thought it would be. The men or women in black who stood on the altar and wore colorful robes always had hard voices, sometimes even angry. But this man’s voice was soft and gentle. “I’m Father Kos – or Father Sebastian, whichever you care for, you are Miles and Billy, right?”

“Yeah,” Miles said, voice still tight even as his posture relaxed. “Yeah, I’m Miles, he’s Billy. This is Saint Gobnait’s?”

“Correct, come, this way. I’m sure you two will want to warm up,” The man in black stepped back into the room, gesturing that they follow. Miles paused, only for a moment, before stalking toward the entry. Billy kept close behind, eyes still wandering across the stained glass and statues of the building.

This room was warmer, but not by much. Father Kos had begun descending down a flight of stairs, black shoes clicking against the wood.

“Ah,” He sighed, noticing Miles pause again. “There’s a short tunnel to the rectory basement. Would you rather go outside again?”

“Yes,” Miles was quick to answer, curtly nodding to the man. Billy did not want to go outside again – the ice in his thoughts had made a home in his bones and every step felt like he was standing on nails. But he couldn’t tell Miles that fast enough, so he nodded in agreement.

“Alright, here,” Father Kos said, taking an umbrella from beneath his black coat. “Use my umbrella, it’s not far but it would –” He muttered a word Billy did not understand, before gesturing vaguely to the door that led outside. “Bah, never mind, follow me.”

The umbrella was small, so Billy stayed close to Miles’ side, careful not to jostle the man too much as they walked. Miles’ hands kept shaking, bandaged fingers struggling to get a comfortable grip on the handle.

Father Kos seemed unperturbed by the down pour, heavy black coat soaked, and glasses blurred by the time they reached the rectory, a small white building beside the brick church. The trio shook rain from their shoes at the doorway, a breath of blessed warmth working its way into Billy’s aching bones.

“Oh, is that the – Father! You’ll catch your death, go, go take a warm shower and get some dry clothes on –”

“This is Sister Francis, Sister, this is Miles and Billy, the one’s Carolyn’s Place called about,”

Billy shrank behind Miles, hoping to seem small. The woman was shorter than him, stout with a round face and liver spotted cheeks. Her voice was grating and hard, the static in the back of his mind hissed like water on an electric burner.

“I can introduce myself, Father. Go warm up the shower, and try not to track too much water in here,”

“Yes, yes,” The man’s lighthearted laugh calmed some of the building static in Billy thoughts. “What’s for lunch Sister?”

“McDonalds or Burger King; it depends on our guests,” Francis’ voice had softened, the crow’s feet at her eyes becoming more apparent as she smiled.

“I vote for Burger King – they have better fish,”

“Dully noted,” Francis sighed as Father Kos slowly made his way up the staircase. “Leave the umbrella by the door – goodness knows this rain won’t let up anytime soon,”

“That what the weather is saying?” Miles said, voice relaxing as the older woman limped down the hall.

“Yes, flood warnings – very strange for this time of year. Did you hear about the bugs down in Arizona? Flock of locust; they blotted out the sun just yesterday and then poof! No one knows where they went.”

“That…is strange,” Miles breathed, beckoning Billy to follow them as they made their way down the carpeted hall.

“The kitchen’s right there – don’t be in there when I’m cooking, Father might not mind but it’s a small space and I’d rather not smack you with a pan of potatoes by accident.” Francis said in a practiced tone, waving to the small oven and refrigerator for a brief moment before continuing the slow walk down the hall.

Billy didn’t bother looking in the room, his eyes trained on the back of Miles’ head. It was warm – cozy and comforting. The air smelled like dust and the faintest trace of smoke – and mixed with the blood and sweat of Miles’ jacket, it almost smelled like home.

[fuwafuwamedb]

The Blue Haired Boy From the Other Side of the Fire (Rin, Cu Chulainn, Kirei, Gilgamesh)

She’d seen him the first time during a school trip.

The priest had sent her off with the other children, waving as the bus has gone. She’d laughed, chatted away with the other kids on the bus until they had reached the woods. Their teachers had led them into the woods with the other chaperones and parents, helping them pitch tends and build a fire.

All together, they’d gathered in the large open field of a camp ground and sang songs or chattered away more. A few of the girls were making bracelets together, but she hadn’t been able to focus.

The moment she’d turned to ask to join, she’d seen a flash of blue.

There looked to be a boy there, watching from the other side of the flames. His red eyes gleamed like the depths of the fire, drawing her closer and closer. She tried to move around the fire a bit, to go talk to the boy, but he wasn’t on the other side.

She moved back, back to the spot she’d been in before.

The boy smiled, giving a small wave.

“Tohsaka!”

Rin paused as she felt an arm around her waist, yanking her back.

“Tohsaka! It’s dangerous to go too close to the fire.”

“Emiya,” Rin frowned at the redhead, her eyes going back to the fire.

Once more, the blue haired boy had vanished.

“Did you see where the blue haired boy went?”

Emiya followed her gaze, frowning deeper at the empty side of the fire. “Are you talking about Matou Shinji or Ryuudou Issei?”

“No, this boy had red eyes.” Rin frowned, looking around at the campsite again.

She’d seen the boy in the fire. Not around it, not chatting on the other side of it. It was only from the position she’d been in before that she’d been able to see him.

Why was she seeing him at all though?

The campers and the adults all went to bed, the many a couple adults moving to watch the fire for a bit while they rested. She could see one of them scampering off, leaving the fire area unattended for the moment.

So- naturally, she had to go over to the fire.

He was there again, hair messed up and wearing strange armor.

Rin reached out, trying to touch the boy.

“TOHSAKA!”

The adult was back.

Her luck, it seemed, had run out.

Rin listened to Kirei complain when she got home.

Playing with fire, tempting god’s method of smiting; the priest was going on for far too long. He was getting a bit annoying now that she was stuck listening to him. It was him who was making her donate money for his church. She could have been getting more magecraft books, but she had to donate. It was like a bill for mages.

Bills were stupid though.

“Go home.”

The priest glared at her, making her stick her tongue out at him.

“The elegance and refinement of the Tohsaka name is being besmirched by your childish behavior.” Kirei moved to the door. “Your servants will be watching. I would suggest you behave yourself better for them, lest god and all his angels take away the gift of your magecraft. There are many sad ends for little mages who lose their powers to god’s divine will.”

Rin shivered.

Still, fear of divine intervention or not, it was a week later she found herself passing the big fireplace in the living room when she saw that the fire was lit.

The boy sat on the other side of the flames, grinning and waving softly as they made eye contact.

Rin covered her eyes, moving to the stairs.

There was no such thing as fire boys.

The house was older. As much as she wanted to avoid seeing him again, Rin couldn’t help but to light fires each cold winter night. She found herself moving from chair to chair, peeking around their backs to look towards the fire.

Sometimes, the boy was injured.

The would be crisscrossing wounds across his arms or his face. Sometimes his hair was slicked back and sometimes it was falling loose around his shoulders. Sometimes he had a blackened eye or nose. Other times, he was fine, smiling and waving.

He always wore fur clothing and leather straps.

He always smiled and waved her way.

“Who are you?”

She had to ask.

The wind was howling around the house and the winter was being especially harsh. She was trapped in the house and food was dwindling.

He was moving his mouth, but she couldn’t hear it.

“I. Am. Rin.” She motioned at herself, speaking slowly.

The other was talking, but the words weren’t reaching her.

Rin groaned, leaving the fireplace area and walking to her books. She could feel the stirring in her stomach, the empty insides of her stomach pounding at the rest of her body. She couldn’t use the electricity to make something to eat. The food on the counter and in the cupboards was dwindling with the mounting snow outside.

Claws were carving at the insides of her chest as the night went to day.

Looking outside, she could see the blizzard was worsening.

The television wasn’t working. The radio was broken.

She’d turned the knob and the thing had screeched for several minutes before she’d tried tossing it down the stairs. She moved around the kitchen, climbing onto the counters and wondering if the servants would come through the snow to deliver food.

A beast was growling for how loud her stomach growled.

Throwing the rest of the logs onto the fire, Rin moved herself and all the blankets to the hearth sitting area. She moved the chairs to block the colder air in the room.

The boy frowned, moving a little closer.

For hours, she looked over at him, waiting and waiting for something to happen.

She could hear the winds on the rooftop. She could see the flames flicker around the image of the boy.

She could see the food in his hands and closed her eyes, trying not to move more than she needed to. The pain was worsening. Her toes had never felt so cold before.

Blue Hair moved his lips again.

“I can’t hear you,” Rin murmured.

The boy moved closer, raising a hand.

“It’s pointless,” she told him. “Magecraft can’t make a fire a portal to anywhere. I shouldn’t be able to see anyone in the fire right now.”

The boy looked closer, lifting his head a little higher as though to get a better view. His red eyes flashed, his hand motioning for her to wait a moment.

“I never even got to be in a grail war.”

There was so much pain. There was so much coldness. The fire was dying, the flames turning to mere embers as she felt one of the windows in the room shatter under the weight of the snow.

A pair of arms pulled her from the ground. She could feel warmth, great and wonderful warmth, pressing against her chest as her arms were wrapped around a pair of shoulders.

The warmth spun out around her. She opened her eyes, looking around at the flames all around her.

The world was filled with trees and greenery. She could see the air filled with smoke, her body moved carefully to the ground nearby.

“Hang on,” a blurry figure told her. “I’m going to pour some of the broth from my dinner for you. You’re looking like you’re on Dun Scaith’s doorstep, lass.”

Her eyes closed.

~

Kirei moved quietly, cursing the weather and the conditions of the world.

Emergency services were moving around the city, delivering supplies to those in need, but they had failed in getting to the Tohsaka residence.

He could see the window was shattered to the living room, the main floor almost entirely covered by the packed in snow. He had to double back, gathering the foolish king of Heroes from his restful slumber.

“She’s probably dead.”

Kirei shot him a look, climbing off the emergency snow mobile and rushing to the house.

The king pulled a ladder from his gates, helping him into the building and down to the main floor.

Wrappers and trash littered the floor.

The chair and the furniture had been overturned, blocking the view of the fireplace.

“Smart kid,” Gilgamesh mumbled.

She was smart. It’s what would make her a good candidate for part of the grail in the future. They had a couple years before it was time for the war. She was ready for this. Or rather, she would be.

The king had to help with moving the furniture.

The girl had actually taped and glued a blockade around the fire, keeping the heat contained to a smaller space.

But… there was no body.

“Where… Where did she go?”

Kirei looked over at the king, watching the golden haired man moved to the fire and smirk.

“Gilgamesh-“

“I have not seen this kind of magecraft before… I thought you said the Tohsaka girl only did gem magecraft?”

“She only does gem based magecraft. Her father knew nothing else himself. The only magic they can do otherwise is the spirit evocation and their talents at that…” He held off, noting the look from the other.

“This was not simple magecraft that could be done with gems.”

The man knelt down, running his fingers over the ashes.

“This smells divine.”

~

And divine it was.

Rin smiled softly, feeling the familiar pair of arms wrapping around her waist. Her stomach pain was lessening. The world was coming back into focus. Her arms and her legs felt so weak, but the boy behind her didn’t mind that.

Looking at her from before the fireplace in their small wooden home, the boy grinned.

“Feeling up for some food, Rin?”

“I think I can eat it myself today,” Rin replied, turning around and wrapping her arms around him. “Just hand me my bowl and I’ll prove it.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm.”

“I got you something for after we’re done eating as well.”

Something for after they were done eating?

Rin sat up, slowly resting against the wall and the pillows as the boy moved to where his bags were. He was shifting things around, pulling out a small parchment wrapped object.

At noting her eyes upon him, he waved the object in his hands, grinning proudly.

“The witch of Dun Scaith heard me talking during my last training session. She and her sister gave it to me for you. You said you did gem magic so… You’ll have to see what it is after we eat.”

“Cu Chulainn!”

“And not a second before that.” He moved over to the fireplace and settled into one of the two seats.

The flash of a smile was the same as ever.

And, as they settled in, she almost wondered if she had had a life before this.

Time and possibilities had never felt so endless before she had wrapped her arms around the blue-haired boy from the other side of the fire.

[astaralys]

A Frozen modern AU oneshot

Oneshot collection can be read on: FFN | AO3

[Backstory chapter, direct continuation of oneshot #3, Searching] In which Anna officially moves in with Elsa.

-----

Anna sifts through the stranger and collects details like flecks of gold buried in the sands of time.

When she follows her sister through the airport and realises she still has to look up even though Elsa is only wearing flats: Wow, she's taller than me.

When Elsa tries to help her with the luggage and nearly drops it on her own foot: … But not exactly stronger. Got it.

When they get into a small white car: Oh, she does drive.

When Elsa struggles so badly to merge lanes she misses their exit on the freeway: Oh my God. She can't drive.

Anna tries so hard not to grip the door handle for security that she can't remember what she spends the ride rambling about. Her sister is mostly silent, all hums, terse nods and white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel. Anna tells herself it's because all of Elsa's focus is going into keeping them on the road, and not because Elsa, like, hates her or anything. That's absurd.

Right?

When they reach the city, Elsa's driving suddenly improves; Anna suspects it's because there's so much traffic they're barely moving. Sitting at a red light (Elsa slammed on the brakes when it turned yellow), Anna is so captivated by the bustle beyond her window that she nearly misses her sister tentatively asking, "Do you have your license yet?"

Anna snaps her head around too keenly, and winces when she sees Elsa flinch. Is she scared of me? "Sorry? Oh—my license? Ah, no, I kinda, um, failed the test. Twice. But I know how to drive!"

Elsa blinks, and Anna panics—crap, she thinks I'm a total dunce for failing twice—but then the lights go green. Almost immediately, the car behind them honks impatiently and startles them both.

Seeing her sister's shoulders tense up again ignites something inside Anna. She twists in her seat, stares straight through the rear window, and glares at the other driver. She can't tell if they can see her, but she likes to think it was the heat of her wrath that sent them scurrying into the nearest side street.

"What a stinker," Anna huffs as she turns back around. Then she remembers that it's not Kai in the seat beside her, and flushes as she glances towards Elsa. "Am I embarrassing? I'm embarrassing, aren't I? Hans always says so—i-in a nice way, of course. Like, you know, 'you adorable dork' or—"

"You're not embarrassing," Elsa says quietly. There's a pause as she carefully navigates an intersection. Then, "Hans is a friend?"

Oh, Anna realises. I'm not the only one playing detective.

"He's, um, a little more than that."

Elsa's surprise manifests as an especially jerky stop at a pedestrian crossing. "You're dating someone?"

The urge to defend him rises from nowhere. "You'll like Hans! He's a perfect gentleman with the sweetest sense of justice. He just graduated from law school. And he likes chocolate and sandwiches, just like me."

He didn't like you moving across the country, a niggling voice reminds her. Anna purses her lips and pushes the thought to the back of her mind.

"I'm sorry. That question came out strange." Elsa glances at Anna, adding softly, "Sometimes I forget that you're not five years old anymore."

"Well, we're lucky you remembered today, or you never would have found me in the airport. Waaait a minute… why didn't we just go to the information desk and tell them to make an announcement?"

To her surprise, Elsa laughs. "Haven't you had enough of that for a lifetime? You used to get lost every time we went shopping with Mom and Dad."

The memories come flooding in like a storm carving up a forgotten river. "Hey, you got lost all the time, too!"

"You got us both lost all the time."

The warm glow fills Anna's chest and remains there as Elsa turns into a long driveway leading down into the basement of one of the tallest apartments. Elsa takes a full five minutes to park, and then they're zipping up in the elevator.

Following Elsa down the plushly carpeted hallway, Anna discreetly pinches herself. Ow. It's actually happening. It doesn't matter that Hans planted that horrible question in her head ("You haven't lived with your sister in over thirteen years, Anna. How do you know she even loves you anymore?")—she's here. Elsa's here. They'll be coming home together from now on.

Then they reach the door at the very end of the hallway, fitted with one of those fancy keyless locks, and as Elsa reaches for it, she seems to remember something and says rather awkwardly, "It's your birthday."

She forgot.

It shouldn't be so surprising—Elsa hasn't been there for thirteen years of birthdays. Their parents would always give Anna 'a present from Elsa', but Anna knows how hard it is to pick out something for a sister she sees once a year at Christmas ("She likes books," Grandpa replied every time Anna called for research). And Elsa's presents are always a little too perfect, as if she still sleeps on the top bunk and can't escape twelve-year-old Anna gushing about skateboards. And after Anna noticed that, it became harder to ignore the voice that kept wondering if those presents were really from Elsa—a voice that is now smugly saying: I told you so.

"Y-Yeah! It was actually two months ago but time sure does fly. It was a super fun day—Hans and I went to an amusement park. I spent, like, two hours at the bottle toss trying to win this cute Baymax plushie. I've got it in my suitcase; I'll show you later. It's the best cuddle buddy ever."

This gets her an odd look from Elsa, but a beep from the lock distracts them both. Elsa opens the door. She steps back, gesturing shyly for Anna to enter first.

"There had better not be a trapdoor in there," Anna jokes. She doesn't know why she's nervous about this moment. It's a door. It's open.

She steps through.

Her first thought is that everything is minimalistic and very white. An open kitchen with an oak splashback against pale tiles. Cream carpet visible through a glass coffee table sitting in front of a light grey leather couch that looks more like a recliner for one than a place to watch Netflix with friends or sisters.

Even the bookshelves standing sentry on either side of the wall-mounted television contain neat rows of books with the stark pages facing outward. Anna opens her mouth to make a quip about finding any books—but then her curious gaze falls on the small dining table with its single placemat and chair.

Why does this detail hurt so much?

"This place is amazing! I bet myself ten bucks that you had great taste." Even Anna can tell she sounds too loud, too bright. "Remind me to treat myself. I'm craving chocolate fondue right now. Actually, scratch that. I'm always craving chocolate fondue. Any good places around here? Please say yes."

She hopes Elsa still likes chocolate and building snowmen.

Elsa hovers by the shoe cabinet, her left hand loosely gripping her right elbow. "Yes. I'll take you someday. Would you like to see your room?"

Anna catches herself on the verge of saying something stupid like 'Of course! It's the whole reason I'm here.'

"That's the bathroom." Elsa points to a door at the end of a short corridor, then gestures to two other doors on either side. "My room. Your room. I was only using it as a study, so it's very empty after I moved the desk to my room. We can—"

"Relax, sis! I'm so easy. All I need is a—" Anna throws open the door. "—bed."

It's literally the only piece of furniture in the room.

"Woooow. You really weren't kidding about empty, huh?"

Behind her, Elsa sounds apologetic. "I wasn't sure how you wanted to set it up, so I only got a bed. If the mattress is too hard or too soft for you, we can exchange it tomorrow. Or if you don't like the view, you can take my room instead. It really doesn't—"

"I love it." Anna spins around with a grin. "This means we get to go shopping together! But let's get IKEA to deliver to us, yeah? Your Mini Cooper can only fit, like, two-thirds of a flatpack. Ooh, I've seen apps that let you drag furniture onto photos to see how the room looks with—" She's interrupted by a shockingly huge yawn. "Goodness, 'scuse me. Where was I? Right—apps… Elsa? Where are you going?"

Her sister returns with the suitcase. "You just got off a plane; change into something comfortable and get some rest. Dessert and furniture can wait until tomorrow."

"But I'm not—" Another yawn swallows up the rest of Anna's sentence. "—sleepy… Okay, fine. But promise you'll wake me up for dinner, or my rumbling tummy will wake you in the middle of the night."

Elsa promises, and then the door closes with the softest of clicks.

Anna listens, but there's carpet and her sister moves so quietly that it feels like she's back in the big house. Alone. Except she's not.

She checks her phone. Nothing from Hans. She sends him a quick message to say she's arrived at Elsa's place, then looks around at her new room, and decides not to add a photo.

Her suitcase springs open as soon as she unlocks it, spilling her life across the floor. Gerda helped her pack, but none of her neat folding survives the trial of Anna digging for something to sleep in. Anna changes into pyjama bottoms and one of Hans' shirts.

Then her gaze catches on a grey, threadbare sweater.

There's a cartoon graphic of a single slice of pizza. The rest of the pizza is on her father's sweater; a matching Father's Day gift that immediately became a game of chicken. If one of them wore their sweater in the house, the other had to wear theirs, no matter how sweltering the day. It drove her mother crazy. "Can you two please stop wearing those long enough for me to wash them?" she used to sigh.

Now, pulling the sweater over her head, Anna realises in the darkness that it's the little details. It's the fact that their sweater streak was still unbroken when she answered the door to find two police officers solemnly waiting. It's electricity and phone bills that continue to pay themselves, because direct debits don't care that Anna's parents are gone. It's not being able to send videos of Elsa's horrible driving to the group chat because no one else will see them.

A knock on the door startles her. She whirls around with her head still stuck in the sweater and—oh no, bad idea.

"Anna? I forgot to give you… are you okay? I heard a loud noise."

Lying winded on her back, Anna wheezes, "Nothing! My shirt just fell."

"That was very loud for a shirt."

"Yeah, um, that's because I was kind of in it."

The door opens as she sits up. "Did you break anything?" Elsa asks as she helps Anna get her head through the sweater.

"God, I hope not. Keep all your favourite mugs away from me. Actually, keep all your expensive stuff away because I'm ridiculously uncoordinated. As you can see."

"I meant bones, Anna. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Oh." Anna lets out a laugh, rubbing an elbow. "Totally fine. Super thick skull. What did you forget?"

Elsa gestures towards the bed, where she's placed a stack of bath towels. "To give you towels in case you want to take a shower first."

"Thanks. Wow. That's… a lot of colours."

"I wasn't sure which ones you liked."

Anna blinks at her sister. Who might have given her a spare room with nothing but a bed, yet bought towels in literally every colour of the rainbow, just for Anna.

"Oh, and this." Elsa holds out a silver key. "In case the keyless lock fails for any reason. There's a panel you can slide down to open the door normally with this key."

The key feels both light and heavy in Anna's hands. She flashes Elsa a grateful grin. "I'm going to use this every day because that pin code looked so long, I'd forget it every day."

"I don't think you will."

"Hah. You don't know how bad my memory is." And Elsa really doesn't know, does she? There are so many things they don't know about each other.

But then Elsa cocks her head to one side and says, "You can't forget it. I told you: it's your birthday. Month, date, year."

When Anna stares speechlessly for too long, Elsa hurriedly adds, "When I moved in, I was told not to use my own birthday because it's too obvious, so the first thing I thought of was yours—b-but we can change it to your phone number if that's easier for you. Or maybe… Anna? Are you okay?"

The details Anna has collected scatter as she throws her arms around Elsa for the second time that day. Except this time, it doesn't feel like she's hugging a stranger.

When Elsa awkwardly rubs her back, Anna wipes her eyes on her favourite sweater and thinks: That's my sister.

[dekorcompanys]

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[wolf-zer0]

everything not bolted down is fair game (too bad no one told you who else is playing)

Category: Gen Characters: Dream Relationships: None Summary: Dream's been running jobs since he was tall enough to reach locks and fast enough to scale a building sub-fifteen minutes. There's no one else who knows the game as well as him. (Technoblade might beg to differ, but no one asked for his opinion). He's slicker, he's smarter, he's just all around better than all these morons who somehow think they're in his league. When he decides to steal the Manberg Emerald from the Museum of Natural History, he thinks it'll finally show the world who the top dog really is.

(Turns out, there's already a pack of top dogs. And they're all too willing to knock him down several pegs.) AKA Dream's a cat burglar and an arrogant asshole who gets dunked on by a bunch of children AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29952117

“...We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with a breaking news report. Police have announced their findings that Nightmare, one of INTERPOL’s most wanted, is most likely behind the recent robbery at the National Museum of Art...”

“...Nightmare’s true identity remains a mystery. Despite years of activity and dozens of burglaries attributed to him from across the world, no leads have been found. The only evidence authorities have is his signature smiley face symbol spray painted on the wall next to the space where the stolen painting, valued at around $155 million USD, had previously hung...”

“... Investigators believe that his next target is the Manberg Emerald. The massive gemstone, estimated to be worth nearly a quarter million dollars, is currently on display at the Museum of Natural History…”

“... In order to stave off the potential theft, museum officials have moved the Emerald to a secure containment facility within the building, far from public access…”

“...The police are asking the public to watch for any unusual persons near or around the Museum, and report any suspicious activity immediately…”

The night air is cool and crisp around him as he stands at the very edge of an office building’s roof. The city hums beneath him, thousands of feet down. Headlights glimmer against the black of the pavement as people go about their night, mindlessly chattering to one another. They continue their lives without a single glance up.

His silhouette blends seamlessly into the moonless sky. The wind is calm, ruffling the edge of his hoodie just slightly. The smog and bright lights of the big city hide all hints of him from view. It’s the perfect night for a felony. Cocksure grin painted behind the blank smile of a mask, he pulls down the edge of his hood, tilts forward over the edge, and drops.

The wind whistles past his ears as he falls, office windows flickering before his eyes on the way down. The dull roar of the city sharpens. He doesn’t flinch as the lights on the road grow brighter and brighter.

The line clipped to his harness pulls taut. There’s a sudden, sharp jerk as he reaches the end of the rope, and all movement stops. He hangs headfirst in the space between earth and sky, just above the roof of the Museum. With a deftness born only from years of practice, he releases the carabiner and drops safely down onto the roof. Footsteps near silent, he creeps closer to the grating. Strains his ears for any sign of trouble. Nothing. Not a soul notices anything amiss. Perfect.

There’s a reason Dream’s the best in the game. Not a single person could be considered a contender, let alone a real opponent. (Technoblade’s the closest thing, but the guy’s about as easy to rile up as a brick wall. With the social skills to match.) He pulls up the grate he’d found and loosened during his recon and slinks down into the vents.

He loves his crew, he really does. He and Sapnap have been running together since they were kids. They learned how to pick a mark together, how to stitch a wound together, how to run circles around the competition together. Dream honed his sticky fingers, Sapnap taped his fists. They clawed their way out of obscurity, covered in blood and sweat and tears. They took in the view from the top, and they laughed.

George was a recent addition, but not an unwelcome one. Sitting behind his many screens and fingers dancing over the keyboard, he worked his magic in ways neither of them could even imagine. He barely breaks a sweat busting through the most robust security programs. The three of them are a well oiled machine, breezing past crew after crew on the race to infamy.

Dream really loves his crew, they’re his family. But sometimes he thinks he loves running solo even more.

The rush of the chase, the thrill of the hunt, the danger that comes with dancing on the razor’s edge of success and failure where a single mistake can send him plummeting to the ground. It’s fucking addicting and Dream is hooked.

He doesn’t do it often, just often enough to satisfy the itch under his skin. Sometimes, he makes it interesting by letting his crew in on the hunt. George will try to sabotage the security systems, Sapnap will stalk the halls ready to strike. They’ll even recruit help from other crews to add the extra adrenaline he craves.

He’s running without help or hindrance tonight. His only help if things go south is the gear on his back and his ability to get the hell outta dodge. Of course, there’s no real chance things could ever go south.

As Dream soundlessly shimmies his way through the ventilation shafts, his mask’s heads-up display maps out the twists and turns leading towards the Museum’s storage area. It’s honestly kind of pathetic how easy it is to get to the vault. He thought a place with so many priceless artifacts would pose more of a challenge. He may need to find another mark that poses more of a challenge, but first he needs to get what he came for.

He finds the vent he needs quickly, and gently removes the covering. Dropping down from the ceiling, he checks the security camera feed in the corner of the HUD to make sure no one’s watching. All he sees is the lone security guard snoring in the breakroom, teetering dangerously in his chair with his head thrown back. It’s just too easy.

He picks his way through the restricted area of the archives, careful to stay out of camera sight lines. He doesn’t touch a single thing, doesn’t dare leave a tangible mark that he’s been here. Sapnap calls it paranoia, George calls it perfectionism. He calls it pragmatism. Makes the chase that much more enjoyable, watching the authorities scramble for even a fragment of evidence. It’s not fun anymore if he’s not in control.

The vault is massive, with thick steel walls and a shiny control panel. Dream snorts at the laughable protections. This is just so sad. The fact that they thought this thing could keep him out? Hysterical. He could crack it in his sleep. He has before. It’s fucking child’s play.

It barely takes him a minute to get inside. He grins. Add one massive emerald to his stash, thank you very much. He swings open the door with a flourish.

The vault is empty.

Empty, except for a single sheet of lined notebook paper.

The piercing shriek of the alarm drowns out his screech of outrage. In his camera feed, the security guard jerks to awareness, eyes wild and limbs flailing. A warning pops up on the HUD telling him the police are on the way, ETA 5 minutes or less. The paper flutters to the floor as he turns on his heel to make a very quick escape.

Rage bubbles in his chest as he leaps through a nearby window and into the starless night. Running through the alleys and leaping fences, he spits curses at whoever decided to mess with the king.

The sheet of paper lies hidden where it slid beneath a locked supply closet door. As the authorities search the building for any signs of the thief, they somehow overlook the sliver of pristine white under dusty boxes of records. Scribbled on the abandoned sheet is a single line of writing, scratched letters and dark ink mocking in their simplicity.

git gud loser >:3

Far from the museum sits a warehouse. It’s been vacant for years, slowly rotting away as the world continued on without it.

It’s not vacant anymore.

Light from nearby streetlamps streams through the dusty windows, casting watery shadows across a surprisingly comfortable living space. A large, dark wood table takes up most of the room, surrounded by five mismatched chairs with the contents of a first aid kit scattered across it. The kitchen is a mess, with dishes left in the sink, take-out boxes piled around the trash can, and notes like “Whoever ate the last of my yogurt, I’m coming for your eyes dipshit!” and “Please don’t forget to grab some milk at Sam’s, we’ve been eating dry cereal for almost a week :(” stuck to the fridge. The living room has a massive couch, blue fabric worn soft from use and stained in several places, set up in front of a huge television set. Some kind of animated movie is playing, all bright colors and high energy musical numbers.

Climbing gear hangs on the wall across from the kitchen, harnesses and ropes and winches carefully sorted and organized for ease of use. A wall of computer screens sits nearby, mounted over two desks covered in the remains of caffeinated beverages and scraps of circuitry. A closet is tucked into a corner, uniforms and wigs and all sorts of accessories spilling out onto the floor. A well loved punching bag swings slightly next to a dented lead pipe that leans against the wall, gloves and hand wraps nestled into nearby cubbies.

Rather than using the couch, the warehouse’s current occupants are tangled together on the floor in front of the TV. It’s hard to tell where one starts and another ends in the pile of limbs and snarky comments. A lanky blond with fading bruises on his cheekbone and a bandage across his nose is squashed in the center, grousing about some stupid line and earning a pinch from a shorter brunet curled up against his side. Another blond in a deep purple hoodie snorts as he types away on his phone, head pillowed on the brunet’s thigh. A girl wearing a green t-shirt snipes back as she runs her fingers through the two-toned hair of the boy stretched out behind them.

A half-open backpack lies across the kitchen counter, carelessly tossed aside in the mind-numbing high that follows a successful job. The brilliant green facets of a fist-sized emerald nestled inside the fabric glitter in the light of the TV screen as the five jeer and taunt the characters.

Dream may think he runs the game, but he’s not even a player. A single King can only win so often before they’re forced to fold.

And nothing beats a Royal Flush.