#but I hope you like this

[writingloveandaffection]

Imagine your f/o's thoughts jumping to you first when they want to do something with someone. It can be something as mundane as a grocery store trip. They want you there because your company makes them happy. It makes boring tasks just a little more bearable, because if you're there they can make you laugh, just as you make them. If it's somewhere fun or special, of course they'd want you there. What better way is there to have a good time than spending it with someone you care about? Maybe it's just watching that new show. They were going to watch it anyway, but maybe you might want to see it too. Or maybe you've already started it or even seen the whole thing. Still, they want you there. Because they love you and want to spend time together. Just being in each other's presence is enough. You dont even have to be doing something together. They just want to be near you. And they know they can go to you just as you could easily go to them.

[jaeyxns]

Heeseung + Hearts ♡

➻❥ for @usergyu ₊˚⊹♡

[automatonfreak]

could you draw a mind doing anything?? :3

sitting seething high atop his stolen throne (he pushed heart out of the chair)

[doom-dreaming]

I wanna know how he'd react to an anonymous love letter

"Welcome back, Blue Team," Roland greets. "Chief, there's a message waiting for you in your quarters."

The green and gold helmet tilts just a few degrees to one side. "Send it through to my HUD, I'll read it on the way to S-Deck."

"It's not digital, sir. It's paper."

There's a healthy pause. Chief nods. "...thanks."

Roland salutes and the holotank flickers back to gray.

John's mind drifts as he goes through the post-mission motions. Paper meant official. At the very least, paper meant important. Not even the frequent attempts to put him up on a different, higher-ranking shelf usually come to his attention through such formal avenues. He wonders what's wrong. He wonders if someone else has died. If his team has any thoughts on the matter, they're keeping quiet about it.

They've all drifted in separate directions by the time he makes it to their quarters. Kelly had nudged his shoulder and jogged off down a hallway. Fred had mentioned getting something to eat. Linda had simply disappeared somewhere between the equipment lockers and the door. He enters the room alone.

The letter sits on the desk. The envelope is plain, unmarked; no seals or insignias, just his name and his number, printed in writing that looks as though it's trying to be cleaner than it naturally is. John-117. For a second, he considers it might be Halsey, but she would have dropped the number altogether. Besides, he knows her handwriting. This isn't it.

He turns it over in his hands, crosses the room, reaches under Fred's pillow for the knife they all knew he kept there. He opens the letter with a clean, careful cut. Official or not, it still had to mean something to the person who'd sent it. Why else would they have gone to all this trouble?

The message inside is handwritten in the same script as the envelope, but there's less care paid to its appearance. Letters bleed into one another, words are scribbled out and rewritten; there's a sense of desperation in it. Not life or death, not the frantic scrawling of someone running out of time, but the desperation to get the right words out in the right order, no matter how messy the process was.

He reads it over again. Three, four times. Different phrases find sticking points between his ribs on each pass. Whoever had written this was right. Technically, this letter was nothing new. But it was...earnest. Heartfelt. Sincere in a way so different from the usual flavors of attention he received.

If he really wanted to, he could find out who wrote it. But anonymity was a precious miracle amidst the meticulously-tracked digital trails of the modern age. It felt borderline disrespectful to rob this person of that, along with their hope that he might...

He shakes his head. Folds the letter. Returns it to the envelope. Whoever they were, he could do them this simple favor and hope that, somehow, they could feel it.

[lavellenchanted]

where the lovelight gleams

A belated Merry Christmas to @behindthelabels! Tis I, your Secret Santa! Thank you for being so patient with me while I worked on this and apologies for the lateness, but you can blame Covid finally getting me right before holidays.

You said you wanted lots of feelings and liked huddling for warmth and a canon setting, so I’ve tried to put all that together in a little something set during The First Avenger timeline. I hope you enjoy it and had a wonderful festive period.

AO3 link here

--

Winter, 1944

The safe house had, at one time, been a farmhouse.

They were somewhere in Central Europe, the closest town (which wasn’t particularly close) small enough that most maps of the area didn’t bother labelling it and they needed only to drive a short distance in any direction to cross a border. Most notably to the west was the German border, which they had retreated back over during the night after taking out a Nazi blockade.

The safe house itself was ensconced in woodland, set a good couple of miles away from the nearest road – a deliberate choice, since it meant lights or movement were unlikely to be spotted if any Nazi or Hydra patrols were sent in this direction. It had clearly once been a family home; there were still small, child-sized bed frames in a couple of the rooms, and the window shutters and door lintels were all hand-carved with hearts, roses and the sort of pretty designs you might think to find on a gingerbread house. The sort of designs chosen with love to fill the place with life and joy, all of which was very noticeably missing now.

Whether it had been abandoned early in the war or forcibly requisitioned Steve wasn’t sure, but certainly it had fallen into disrepair. The paint on the walls was faded and peeling, the window boxes that must once have held fresh, colourful displays of flowers were empty and the fields outside overgrown and choked with weeds.

In a way, that was what made it the perfect safehouse; from a distance it looked entirely unsafe, with little to recommend it. Up close it was another matter – despite the dingy décor, the doors were still air and watertight, secured by multiple locks, the glass in the windows intact, the electricity in good repair, and the cellar beneath the house a perfect to drop and store food and emergency supplies for agents and soldiers on the move and in need of resupplying.

Or, as in the Commandos’ current case, waiting for a contact to debrief them and provide instructions for their next move.

“Well, it ain’t the Ritz, but it’ll do for a couple of days,” Dugan had said cheerily when they arrived before going to look for firewood. Standing at the window now, however, Steve was beginning to wonder if they might be here a bit longer than a couple of days – it started snowing a few hours ago and was starting to come down heavily, in thick white flakes would no doubt have blanketed everything around them by morning.

He only hoped their contact reached them soon, or they might be stranded in the middle of a snowstorm and trying to mount a rescue mission with no idea who they were looking for.

“Ha – read ‘em and weep, boys!”

Bucky’s triumphant shout made him glance over his shoulder, where most of the Commandos were playing poker, the stakes being whatever ration coupons, cigarettes and breath-mints they had in their pockets. As Dugan, Morita and Jones all groaned at the sight of Bucky’s cards laid out on the table, Steve gave a quiet laugh.

“I did warn you,” he said, quite truthfully – he had learned the hard way not to take Bucky on at poker in his early teens.

“That was my last pack, too,” Dugan sighed forlornly as Bucky tucked the cigarettes he’d won away into his pocket, then lowered his forehead on to his arms in the perfect picture of despair.

Bucky was unmoved. “You could always try to win them back.”

“Oh, right, so I can lose the last of my gum as well?”

“You might win.”

“Don’t fall for it.” Falsworth, who had opted not to play – he had never quite gotten the hang of poker – looked up from where he was sat knitting what Steve thought was supposed to be a sock. “You can have some of mine if you’re desperate.”

Bucky pulled a face. “Come on, Falsworth, you’re ruining my fun.”

“Ruining your hustle, you mean. Now, if we had a chessboard here I could show you a thing or two. That’s a game of skill –”

As the room dissolved into a debate over the merits of chess versus cards and exactly how much skill it took to play either one, Steve shook his head and turned back to the window – only to realise that in those brief moments his attention had been distracted a shape had emerged from the trees and was making its way towards the house.

“Guys.” Steve’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the arguing and immediately everyone turned to look at him. “I think our contact’s here.”

“D’you recognise them?” Gabe Jones asked.

“Too dark to tell. Just . . . be ready.”

Steve didn’t have to look to know their hands were all going to their weapons. He was doing the same, reaching for the shield propped against the wall beside him; just in case this wasn’t the agent they were expecting but someone who had discovered the safe house, they didn’t want to waste precious seconds arming themselves while they were being fired on.

He had just gripped the edge of the shield, his shoulders tensed, when the first knock came. The was room was hushed as they all held their breath – and then it was followed by two shorter knocks and then another two longer ones.

That was the signal that it was their contact.

A collective sigh of relief rippled through all them. Steve let the shield drop again and crossed to open the door –

– where he found him looking down into a pair of familiar dark eyes, that sparkled with warmth above a curling, lipstick-perfect smile.

He could only stare. He had wanted so badly to think there was a chance their contact might be her, but he hadn’t dared to let himself hope too much.

“Good evening, Captain,” Peggy Carter said, clearly enjoying the look of surprise on his face. “Perhaps you could let me in? It’s rather cold out here.”

--

“One of our scouts has identified another Hydra base.”

There had been smiles and warm welcomes from the rest of the Commandos when they realised who was at the door, but Peggy, professional as ever, had been straight to work as soon as the hellos were done, her coat was off and a cup of tea made for her.

A map had been produced from her bag and now lay unfolded on the table where shortly the card game had taken place, and Steve had made markings on it to indicate where they had found and dealt with the blockade, the routes affected and the path of their retreat as they gave their report.

Peggy had listened quietly, interjecting here and there with questions – never noting down their answers, in case she was ever caught and her things intercepted, but memorising them. Her dark eyes traced the lines of the map, a furrow of concentration between her eyebrows, but every now and then she would glance up and meet Steve’s gaze, and each time he caught his breath.

It had been over a month since the last time he had seen her. Her hair had grown a little longer in that time, beginning to just brush the tops of her shoulders. There had been a flurry of snowflakes in the glossy dark curls when she came in but now they had all melted away in the heat from the fire. When she bent her head to look at the map a stray lock would fall forward across her cheek, and Steve ached to lean across the table and tuck it away behind her ear.

She wasn’t wearing the uniform he was used to seeing, or even a practical field outfit such as the Commandos wore and he had occasionally see her don for other missions, but the same sort of winter clothing the few locals they had seen wore; a thick, woollen sweater with simple pair of trousers and boots that wouldn’t look out of place on any farm. Good for the warmth, Steve guessed, but also to keep her from standing out too much if there were enemy patrols about.

It certainly wasn’t her typical get up, and he didn’t think it was something she would ever choose for herself – it didn’t quite seem her, somehow – yet even so, she was captivating. Mostly likely she could wear a paper bag and still be so. Steve remembered the first time he had ever seen her at Camp Lehigh and thinking she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and every time he had seen her since he found something new and interesting about his face to hold his attention; this time it was the small dimple in her right cheek that appeared every now and then like the sun breaking through the clouds.

“It’s on the Austrian side of the border, in the Alps, we think about here,” she continued, indicating a mark on the map. “We intercepted some chatter on the radio, a communication – we’re still working on fully decrypting it but what we have so far suggests there something of significance to Hydra there, so if you can get it to and cripple it we’ll hopefully deal them some real damage.”

“If it’s that important, there might be senior Hydra agents there as well,” Steve said.

“Exactly. Normally we’d get you back to base before setting out again, but you’re in a good position to get there from here so Phillips wants you to head straight for it. You can resupply on basics from here, and we’ll have a weapons drop waiting for you on the way here.”

Another mark on the map.

“So, if we come down this way and cross the border here, we should be able to make the drop in a day or two.” Steve reached out and drew the imagined path along the map with one finger; as he did so, he let the side of his hand just brush against Peggy’s. Her skin was warm and soft to the touch. Her eyes darted briefly up to his and then down again, unreadable, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smile cross her mouth. “Then get to the base in another day.”

“That’s the idea,” she confirmed. “Although given the weather, your departure might have to be delayed for a couple of days.” She nodded at the window, where the snow was still coming down thick and fast, and they could see the trees bending as the wind picked up. “As will my extraction. But all being well, you can have shut down the base within a week and be back in England by Christmas.”

There were murmurs of excitement from the Commandos – less at the promise of Christmas in England, as it was difficult to summon up much festive cheer on the front lines of a war than at the though of being back in a base with indoor plumbing, proper beds and decent food (at least compared to the field rations they were living on now).

“I thought you’d like that idea,” Peggy said with amusement. “Shall we talk travel arrangements?”

Steve started to agree, but was cut off by Bucky.

“Maybe we can do that tomorrow? Like you said, we’re gonna be here a while. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat and would like to hit the hay.”

There was a brief pause as he looked – somewhat pointedly, Steve thought and felt his cheeks heat as he started to realise what was happening – at the other Commandos.

“Oh, oh, yeah!” Dugan raised his arms above his head and yawned in a not-entirely-convincing manner. “I’m ready to sleep.”

“Me, too,” Jones agreed, and the others all gave nods and murmurs of asset.

“Of course, if you two wanna talk shop we can’t stop you.” Bucky aimed a wide grin at Steve and Peggy. “You can always just tell us the plan in the morning.”

He had started moving backwards as he spoke and now lifted a hand in a casual wave.

“Night, all.”

“Dibs on the bed,” Dugan quickly put in.

“Oh, no, you don’t –”

Tuhus, arguing all the way, they vanished so quickly up the stairs you might have thought it was a practised manoeuvre.

Steve and Peggy stared after them for several moments, then both caught the other’s eye and dissolved into quiet laughter.

“They’re not exactly subtle, are they?” Peggy said with warm fondness in her voice, looking up at him once their laughter had subsided. Something tightened in Steve’s chest as he met her gaze and realised they had unconsciously leaned in closer to one another.

“To be fair, neither are we.”

Her eyebrows arched upwards. “I think you’ll find one of us is more subtle than the other. I haven’t yet been caught on camera with your picture.”

Unable to deny the justice of her comment, he only grinned.

“Yet? Does that mean you could be?”

He couldn’t help being curious. At the time it had happened they hadn’t defined what this thing between them was, although they both knew something was there, and the picture of Peggy in his compass was one he had clipped himself from a newspaper – he hadn’t been able to resist when saw the paper lying in the commander centre, not when he knew he was starting to be sent off on missions that might mean he went for weeks without seeing her – rather than a gift.

Being caught with it on camera had been entirely accidental, though the next time he had seen Peggy after the film had been approved she hadn’t scolded him for his presumption, as he thought she might, but had just given him a small, secretive smile and murmured as she passed him in the hall that, “I rather enjoyed seeing the footage of you on the front lines. It was very . . . enlightening.” Nor had she asked him for a photo or anything in return, so if she was carrying one around it meant she had found one for herself, just as he had done.

Now she just gave him a coy smile and replied, “I think it’s unlikely, since my missions aren’t being filmed.”

“But if they were …?”

“If they were, several of our intelligence operations would be horribly compromised.”

Recognising he wasn’t going to get the answer he was looking for, Steve moved back to flop on to the couch and gave a loud sigh, which just made Peggy laugh again. He wished he could bottle that sound, to listen to whenever things were hard – which, these days, was more often than not.

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Says the woman who shot at me.”

Her cheeks flushed an adorable shade of pink as she shot him an outraged look. “That was – very specific circumstances, as you are well aware –”

“I know, I know,” he quickly assured her. The few days that she had given him the cold shoulder over that incident had been some of the worst, as worried quietly gnawed at him that he might have ruined something completely before it even really had the chance to begin. “I’m not saying there weren’t. I’m just saying it was a kinda dramatic reaction.”

Her lips pressed together into a line for a moment before she relented with a huff of annoyance.

“Oh, fine, I suppose it was a little dramatic.”

As if the world itself wanted to agree, a gust of wind chose that moment to rattle against the windows and a chill breeze swept through the room, causing the fire in the grate to flicker and the temperature  to drop. Peggy visibly shivered, goosebumps breaking out on the back of her neck.

“You’re cold. Here.”

Steve reached out without thought, drawing her down to sit with him. She went still for a moment, then let herself be shifted so that she could sit with her back against his chest and his arms wrapped around her. A rough blanket hung off the back of the couch, so Steve pulled that down as well and tucked in around them both – leaving them cocooned together in what a detached professional should think of as a huddle but what felt far more like an embrace.

This was the closest he had ever been to her. Though there were still the thick layers of their woollen sweaters between them, he could feel the soft lines of her body pressed against his and his mouth was suddenly dry and his heart pounding so hard he was sure she would be able to feel it through his chest. She was close enough that some of her curls were brushing against his jaw and throat and he had  had dreams about running his fingers through them but he could never have imagined how silkily soft they felt, or how they smelled of the rose-scented soap she used. Steve closed his eyes and clenched his jaw for a moment as that scent wafted over him, trying desperately to push away the raw desire and longing it sent pulsing through him.

Pure instinct was all that had driven him, seeing her cold and needing to rectify it and thinking only that body heat was the best way to combat this sort of adverse weather (never mind that they were in a house with beds and blankets and a fire). Now, confronted with the reality of having Peggy in his arms, he was amazed both by his boldness and his by stupidity – because now he could barely fashion a coherent thought, his mind lost in fog that was made up only of the feeling of his hands holding hers where they rested on her stomach, of her legs stretched out against his along the couch, of the sight of her ear just in his eyeline, peeking out from behind the curtain of her hair.

A vision passed through his mind of what his life might have been like in other circumstances, of a little house like this one but kept in good repair, sweetly decorated with a Christmas tree in one corner and stocking hanging by the fire, of Peggy in his arms after a long day at the office and – maybe – of their child sleeping upstairs.

The thought made something in him ache. Could such a life still be possible, once this war was done with?

He wanted to ask her, but even as he opened his mouth the words dissipated into nothing on his tongue. They had by unspoken agreement never really talked about the future, other than to imply they might go dancing. No one did. It was too difficult to think of now, when every day brought news of another death, another bomb, and they could see the grief and destruction wrought all around them. What hope they had was left vague, shapeless, an idea of something better that they were fighting for without knowing exactly what that something would be.

So instead he just asked, “Better?”

“Much.” Peggy leaned back to rest her head against him, tucking it just beneath his chin. His breath caught with the intimacy of it, and his arms tightened a fraction around her. “You’re lovely and warm. Like my own personal hot water bottle.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, well, one of the side effects of the serum is that I run a little hotter than most people.”

“Helpful, when you’re out here.”

“It can be.”

A note of teasing entered her voice. “Do you offer your services as a heater to the other Commandos as well?”

“No.” He leaned down to speak softly near her ear. “This service is reserved just for you.”

Another shiver ran through her, but he didn’t think this one had anything to do with the cold. His heart gave another hard thump against his ribs.

“Well, then.” Peggy said softly. “I’ll have to take advantage of it more often.”

They lapsed into silence for a time, just listening to the gentle sound of the fire crackling in the hearth and their own breathing. Steve started stroking one hand up and down Peggy’s arm, feeling a warm, cosy contentment settle over him, and wished it were possible to stay like this with her forever.

Her other hand shifted beneath his, until he felt her fingers lace between his and squeeze tightly. Smiling, he squeezed back and said, “I guess you don’t mind staying an extra couple of days then?”

“Mmm, well, obviously it’s a trial but I expect I’ll manage.”

He chuckled, and then finally gave into temptation and reached up to brush her hair back. “I’m glad it was you at the door. I hoped it might be.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to be Agent Andrews, but he got delayed on a mission in France and I was able to volunteer. Probably more quickly than was entirely subtle,” she said with a quiet laugh, and Steve could just imagine the look on Chester Phillips’ face. “But I didn’t want to lose the chance. I’ve missed you.”

The tenderness that filled that those three words was like nothing he had ever felt before.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

Peggy turned in his arms so that she was looking at him, her eyes soft and entreating. With a smile, Steve leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Her mouth was warm and welcoming, the kiss slow and languid, both of them wanting to stretch it out as long as possible since the opportunities they had were so rare and fleeting.

With effort, Steve kept his hands still, though the quiet moan that escaped Peggy’s lips almost undid him. It would be so easy to flip them over so that he was on top of her, and holy god, he wanted to with a ferocity that was difficult to control, but quite apart from the fact that the Commandos were upstairs and would probably hear everything, they had talked about their relationship and decided (with some reluctance) not to rush things in one of the few stolen moments they could manage but to wait and take their time.  

Which didn’t mean they were entirely chaste, but those sorts of things Steve did want to leave until they had more privacy on the base or could grab a hotel room for a night rather than having a potential audience upstairs.

Although it was struggle to remember that when Peggy had brought her hand up to curl around his neck, her fingers in his hair, or when, in the brief moments their lips parted, she met his gaze and he could see in her eyes that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. When she looked at him like that he knew he would hand his heart over on a silver platter if she asked for it.

But clearly he wasn’t the only one thinking such things, as when they stopped to regain their breath she suggested, “Maybe we could send the Commandos out for a while tomorrow . . . to check the roads and – and gather firewood.”

“We will need to make sure we’re well supplied,” Steve agreed.

It wasn’t subtle, but as had been pointed out already, neither were they.

“Just for an hour or two.”

“Or three.”

She laughed and snuggled back down into his arms. Quiet fell over them again, and this time Steve was beginning to feel the heaviness of sleep draping across him when Peggy spoke again in a hushed voice.

“Do you think, one day, we’ll be able to stay like this for as long as we like? Without having to worry about the world outside?”

Heart aching, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and whispered back, “Yes, Peggy. I really do.”

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[spineless-lobster]

I am not the divine masculine or the divine feminine I am the divine comedy and you will address me as such

[youthofpandas]

What’s up with how the dunmeshi fandom just lies about this kind of stuff all the time. It is easily confirmable information that it was a monthly series, something incredibly common in the industry.

A not weekly magazine schedule is literally common !! Especially in the seinen shoujo and josei demographics, sometimes monthly, sometimes biweekly, sometimes every two months, sometimes seasonal! Please stop lying about how Dunmeshi was some special unique creation that defies all standards of manga just to hype it up because it is so clear that every single one of these comparisons is centered around Weekly Shonen Jump (and understand that SJ has many magazines under its brand that are monthly or semimonthly). Not everything is WSJ and it needs to stop being the only point of reference in conversations like this 🤧

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[iscariotapologist]

today in church one of the priests referred to trans people as "those who are growing into the gender they were called to be" and i'm kind of enjoying the idea of like....divinely ordained top surgery

[devildaisies]

🔥 H-O-T-T-O-G-O 🔥

[canisalbus]

✦ Fashionably late ✦

[kensatou]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[kotse]

@hg-aneh your honor they’re silly

edit: i am NOT aneh!! i love and have borrowed their character designs, no affiliation!!

[erabu-san]

K'uhul Ajaw