#day five: hostage

[keepswingin]

Jeongin has been here long enough to know how it works.

Raid another town, board another ship. Threaten until some gold ends up in your pocket, and then take the rest. Kill those that would rather visit the depths of the sea than give up their treasures. Don't stray too far from the crew, or else he would be next.

He wasn't like this, before they had dragged him onto the ship, proclaiming some nonsense about needing a new mate. He was softer then, before the floor he slept on became coated with his own blood, before a harsh rope tied around his wrists kept him so still.

Before they taught him all they knew, even if he never wanted to learn.

"Innie-yah!" A voice shouts from across the village, bouncing between the buildings in a way that makes Jeongin cringe. Such a loud sound could only ever be Changbin, though the knowledge of who it is doesn't make him feel any better about being called upon.

The name Changbin uses stems from the nickname they've given him, another way to show that they held all the power when it came to his own freedom.

A scream echoes from outside, shrill and strained - a warning. Jeongin quickly finishes picking through the bedroom, swiping a few more pieces of jewelry before ducking back through the doorway and making his way to the front of the house. 

The front door is crooked on its hinges as he pushes it out of the way, wincing at the way it creaks loudly in return. He turns his head to avoid the stares of the helpless family that stand lined up on the outside wall of their home, some stunned silent, others trying to muffle cries. The ones who had spit threats of violence had already been taken care of by Lee Know, in ways Jeongin was all too familiar with.

A shiver slips down his spine at the very thought.

"There you are," Changbin sneers from across the way.

He's always so loud, always makes Jeongin miss the silence he used to have while sitting down at the beach, scribbling half stories and drawings during the time he wasn't caring for everybody else. 

The middle of the village is marked by a bell that hangs low over a well, tattered rope swinging back and forth from the wind that drags in from the sea. The crew is gathered around it in various states, but it's Changbin who marches towards Jeongin and meets him halfway there, rough hand digging into his collar and pulling. Jeongin stumbles forwards, face to face with someone who grins in the face of danger like it's somebody else's problem. 

"Find your worth?" he asks mockingly, eyeing him up and down in distain. Changbin has always hated him in a way the others didn't, before they molded him, after, it didn't matter. The hatred persisted.

Jeongin nods silently, one hand slipping into his pocket and removing what he had been able to gather before holding it up so that the other could see. 

Changbin's lips curl into a knowing smile as he picks out rings and handcrafted bracelets littered with shining gems, releasing Jeongin without another glance. "Hannie taught you well," he calls over his shoulder as he turns away, leaving Jeongin standing alone with a raspy chuckle.

"You thought he wouldn't?" Lee Know questions, tone deceivingly calm. 

When Jeongin looks over, he is leaning against the well, arms crossed, Han sitting beside him close enough that their sides are touching. There's something about those two that Jeongin is sure he's missing, the way they never leave each other's side. The way Han doesn't flinch when Lee Know slumps against him in a hug, blood sticking to his clothes. The way no one else dares to bother them, when they're below deck. 

"No," Changbin says with a roll of his eyes, "I just thought the rat wouldn't be smart enough to learn." 

There's some huffs of laughter. Smirks. Jeongin diverts his eyes, wanting nothing more than to disappear. He would willingly jump into the sea if he could, swim as far as his arms would allow. Dying to whatever was out there surely had to be better than forever being trapped here with pirates like these. 

"Enough with this." Chan spits from the other side of the well. He saunters towards Jeongin with an nonchalance he has never been able to figure out, and grabs at his chin with a calloused hand, forcing him to look up. "Did you do what was asked of you?" 

Jeongin freezes under his gaze.

One moment passes, and then two. 

Chan's grip grows tighter. Painful. "Hm?" he asks, eyes flicking across his face. Trying to read what Jeongin can't bring himself to say, because no, of course he didn't...kill that woman for her necklace, or her ring.

How could he?

There were plenty of other shiny things prime for the taking without the need to harm anyone. There was an abundance of children here, like Jeongin's own shore town had back when he had been taken. Stolen. Whatever word fit best for being torn away from everything and anything someone had ever known.

"I found more in the house," he finally says, forcing the words from where they hide deep within his chest. Chan's eyes lock with his, head titling. "There's - There was no need to do any of that, when they had plenty hidden away."

His heart is pounding, all too suddenly. Desperation claws at him. 

They're all unpredictable, he knows they all are; half a moment's notice and a row of people could be dead, others wounded, laughter echoing. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Seungmin and Hyunjin carrying crates full of gold back to the ship. Changbin is standing on Lee Know's other side, burly arms crossed over his chest, while Yongbok lingers just out of sight, keeping an eye on those that called this place home. 

"Innie, Innie, Innie, Innie," Chan tuts, slowing shaking his head. He inches closer, eyes turning dark. "Was it not enough?" he hisses, slowly punctuating every word. "I thought Lee Know shed enough of your blood for you to - " 

"I - I learned," Jeongin stutters, stumbling back half a step in pure terror as soon as Chan releases him. "I swear I learned, I - I don't need to - I - " 

"Careful, Chan," Lee Know calls. "I'd rather not have to find another one so soon." 

"But I like him," Han interjects sadly. 

"Soft heart," Changbin mutters. "Going to get us killed one day, with that." 

Chan's sword lifts, silencing them all as Jeongin stares in pure terror. 

And then he swings.

[zmrzeltm]

you don’t wanna know how much i paid for this meet n’ greet w/ dean ambrose . . 😮‍💨 @ofviolentia

[soon-palestine]

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised. No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October – quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid. And yet while the western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence, Israeli atrocities are excused or quickly forgotten. Accusations against Hamas are endlessly reheated to paint a picture of a supremely dangerous and bestial militant group, in turn rationalising the slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s population to “eradicate” it as a terrorist organisation. But equally barbarous atrocities committed by Israel – not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood – are treated as unfortunate, isolated incidents that cannot be connected, that paint no picture, that reveal nothing of import about the military that carried them out. If Hamas’ crimes were so savage and sadistic they still need to be reported months after they took place, why does the establishment media never feel the need to express equal horror and indignation at equivalent or worse acts of cruelty and sadism being inflicted by Israel on Gaza – not five months ago, but right now? Israel's torture of doctors, its sexual assaults of Palestinian women, it's leaving premature babies to die after its forces stormed a hospital. Where is the outrage? This is part of a pattern of behaviour by the western media that leads to only one possible deduction: Israel’s five-month-long attack on Gaza is not being reported. Rather, it is being selectively narrated – and for the most obscene of purposes. Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media – including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times – have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide. The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November’s US presidential vote. If Russian President Vladimir Putin was a madman and a barbarous war criminal for invading Ukraine, as every western media outlet agrees, what does that make Israeli officials, when every one of them supports far worse atrocities in Gaza, directed overwhelmingly at civilians? And more to the point, what does that make Biden and the US political class for materially backing Israel to the hilt: sending bombs, vetoing demands for a ceasefire at the United Nations, and freezing desperately needed aid? Worrying about the optics, the president expresses his discomfort, but he carries on helping Israel regardless. While western politicians and commentators worry about some imaginary existential threat those brief events of five months ago pose to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, Israel is quite literally wiping Gaza off the map day by day, quite undisturbed.

[batsyheere]

The Bats tend to have favorite civilians, paramedics, cops, that they love to mess with or claim. It gets even worse when multiple Bats favor the same person and try to call dibs.

Danny ends up as one of these people.

It starts when he gets off of work late and finds Red Hood and Red Robin sitting on the curb eating pizza. He hadn't eaten anything all day, and it smelled delicious, and so what few braincells Danny had left scattered and he asks, "Can I have a slice?"

Both vigilantes turn to look at him, then each other, and shrug. They let him take a slice.

It was only the beginning.

Spoiler gets a tired "thanks" saving Danny from a mugging.

Black Bat practically buzzes with glee when she learns Danny knows sign language and helps her speak with a child witness.

Signal gets a more energetic Danny, though also a cautious distance after Signal once smacked into Danny and spilled his coffee all over the poor man.

Nightwing gets the brunt of one of his bad days when Danny decides he's done being held hostage and slips out of the bindings to chuck his shoe at the Riddler. Nightwing hi-fives him later for managing to hit Riddler in the face.

Even Robin has moments with Danny, after catching him taking care of some stray animals amd chasing off idiots who were looking for dogs to put into a recent (and very quickly shut down) dog fighting ring.

When everyone actually figures out Danny is the SAME Danny they all have been seeing around, Bruce has to fight the instinctive headache at the incoming fights. And resist the urge of looking up what seemed to be just a random Gothamite.

Danny at this point just wants a nap. And for these weird undead beings that didn't do well with his ice to stop coming for him. He had student debts to pay.

[boneless-mika]

Whenever TV acts like Stockholm syndrome happens when you spend years with your kidnapper I just want to remind them the incident where the term was coined lasted for a total of five days

[slowdivinqs]

Easy

Joel Miller x f! reader | 18+ MDNI

summary: waking joel up in the best way possible.

warnings: implied age gap. no use of y/n , no outbreak AU, p w/o plot, consensual somnophilia, unprotected P in V, creampies, dirty talk, established relationship, daddy kink, soft dom! Joel, a few spanks, soft cock worship, pussy pronouns, can imagine game Joel or Pedro. Reader is described as having hair and dimples in her back, as well as Joel being able to manhandle her.

W/C: 3k of non-proof read smut.

A/N: I’m so blown away by all the love on Golden, love you all. Thank you for 150 followers ♡ happy holidays!

masterlist

———————————————————————————————

The duvet needs to be chucked outside.

You throw the blanket off of you with a quiet huff, your arms flopping forward onto the mattress once the duvet has flown nothing short of five centimeters off of you.

Joel Miller is a furnace, one who is insistent on holding you hostage - or cuddling, as he likes to call it - the whole night.

You may act like it’s the bane of your existence, shooting him glares in the middle of the night when your face feels like it’s on fire and you want to jump into a bucket of ice, but you still love it.

You turn over and snuggle into your man’s chest, deciding to forgo the annoyance at being warm, feeling the coarse hair tickle your cheek before you hear his deep, rumbling groan of sleepy approval. His arm clumsily wrapping around you and pulling you forward against him as he keeps sleeping soundly above you.

You can’t help but think of a big bear, deep in hibernation. It makes you smile to yourself before you’re falling asleep in Joel’s arms.

The sun decides to target your eyes the next time, and you glance over to see it’s now 10 am. Joel is still fast asleep above you, the arm that’s not cheekily resting on your ass is behind his head, making those biceps of his look even more delicious. You want to bite them, but your man needs his sleep. It’s his only day off after all.

You blink lazily, not really one for laying in bed once you’re awake, so you admire Joel sleeping next to you. That scruffy beard of his, unfairly long lashes, his full bottom lip, the trail of hair on his stomach that leads bellow the band of his boxers.

Your attention has been captured.

You lean your cheek against his chest - still nuzzling - as you stare at his underwear, eyeing the covered bulge of him that drives you feral every time.

You think back to last week, the day you had a very important meeting. The way he woke you up with his head between your legs, his hot mouth wrapped around your clit.

It’s only logical to return the favor, right?

Joel mumbles a sleepy protest as you escape from his arms, subconsciously grabbing your pillow and bringing it to his face, wrapping those big arms of his around it. Inhaling the scent of your shampoo and body cream and letting out a hum of approval as he promptly falls back asleep.

It makes you smile, momentarily losing focus as you slowly pull off his boxers.

His soft cock is a sight to behold. Ironically more enticing to you than when he’s burning bright red and dripping for you.

He was never embarrassed about it like your previous partners were. Whenever Joel got out the shower, with a towel wrapped around his waist, you could see the outline of him underneath, sometimes the towel would even slip, giving you a view of his tip.

You drool just thinking about it.

You shimmy his boxers down further, slowly lifting his package so his heavy, hairy balls sit above the fabric. Running a finger along his soft skin, humming at the sight of his tip leaking a small trail of sticky precum, twitching softly in your grip. You spend a few minutes just admiring him.

Stretched out on the bed like one of those Roman statues, his muscles on display under his hairy arms, tummy and chest. His thighs bent slightly, soft cock resting perfectly. His face, oh he’s so handsome. You love him, more than anything.

His hair has gotten fluffier, you suspect he’s been using your shampoo.

You lick a line up his cock, gathering that delicious pre on your tongue as he shifts in his sleep with a soft sigh. You still, waiting until he settles back into the cushions, you slowly take him into your mouth then, sucking down down down until he’s fully resting in your mouth, slowly twitching to hardness as your mouth warms him.

You stay like that for a few minutes, gently sucking on the warm weight of him until he’s dripping his precum down your throat, grunting in his sleep as his legs twitch up slightly - stomach clenching and relaxing again as his head turns to the side, a moan bubbling up in his throat.

You pull off as slow as you can, savoring the feel and taste of him against your tongue. The smooth, warm skin of the underside of his cock sliding out your throat. Moving your tongue so as to not graze the underside of his sticky tip - he’ll definitely wake up if you do that.

You let his cock fall gently from your lips, nuzzling your head lower, until you’re sucking one of his heavy balls into your mouth.

You feel a hand in your hair a moment later.

“Atta girl, keep doin’ that.” He groans with that sleepy, deep morning voice you love so much, his hips shifting up to guide more of him into your mouth. He keeps you pressed closer against him, inhaling that musk that's uniquely Joel. He spreads his hair-covered legs wider, stretching his back with the groan he always does as he lets you suck on his sac until he’s pulling you off him with a grunt and instead flipping you down on the sheets, climbing on top of you until his wet cock is nudging at your clit.

“You drive me crazy, Y’know that, angel?” He murmurs, his teeth nipping at your earlobe as he spreads your legs, humming in approval when he sees your wet pussy.

“You weren’t supposed to wake up.” You huff, your hands automatically going to his broad shoulders as he kisses your neck like he can’t stand to not kiss you as soon as he wakes up, you know he can’t : every morning you’re littered with kisses until you eventually open your eyes. It’s the best way to wake up you can think of, makes you feel warm and fuzzy and full of giggles. After, he usually spends ten minutes kissing whatever part of you he can until you either brush him off and he follows you into the shower, or you don’t even make it that far.

“Can’t stay sleepin’ when a woman like you ‘s between my legs.” He murmurs, his big palm groping your breast as he licks the sensitive space above your collar.

“Mmm come here, I miss you.” You whisper to him in your own sleepy voice you know he loves just as much as you love his, kissing his lips softly as he slides his hands under your shoulder blades, holding you up.

“I’m right here.” He says with a gentle smile, but you can see behind that softness he’s desperate from your teasing, that he wants to be inside you even more than you want to feel his cock stretch you, which seems impossible.

“I still miss you, I need you.” You whisper, and he brushes your hair back off your forehead with that big palm of his, placing a soft kiss on the skin he’s revealed before he’s pressing his drooling tip against your weeping entrance.

“Come here, my baby.” He whispers, lifting your hips so his tip can push past your entrance, making room for itself inside your wet walls until the rest of him joins in a hot, slow roll, stretching you open so deliciously you have no choice but to let your eyes roll back as you arch against him, peaked nipples almost brushing against his own strong chest. The weight of him inside you is warm and heavy, leaving your clit throbbing as you clench around him.

Your mouth pours out whimpers of his name, holding onto him tightly as he pushes forward until the coarse hairs at the base of him meet your twitching clit, and he’s kissing you softly while his hand cups the bowl of your skull - the other your lower back, his thumb and pointer finger finding your dimples.

“I love you.” He whispers, gazing at your face and admiring you even when your eyes are closed and your mouth hangs a bit open. He’s fighting to keep his own eyes open, to not let them flutter shut as yours have - he needs to see that face of yours he loves so much. Needs to watch the effect of him inside you.

“I love you.” You whimper, and you smile to yourself before your thumb brushes over his nipple cheekily, wanting him to react in the way you know he will.

He lets out an irritated noise that’s the closest to a growl you’ve ever heard from him, and your mission has been accomplished . “Naughty girl, you’re playin’ with fire.” Watching your expression he seems to be looking for what you want. He gives a jerk of his hips, and hums as your eyes flutter.

“Why don’t you teach me a lesson ‘bout being naughty, then?” You say softly to him, biting your bottom lip in a way you know will drive him wild. Your hypothesis is proven when he flips you onto your stomach, raising your ass in the air for his viewing pleasure. You whine when his cock slips out of you, leaving you empty and dripping.

“Yeah? You want me t’be rough with you baby? Bruise those walls n’ this sweet ass if yours?” He emphasizes his words with a chomp to your ass cheek and a slap. Joel Miller loves ass and tits, but you know his neurons activate whenever he sees your backside jiggle. There’s a strict rule about what pants you can wear when he needs to focus, for his own sanity. He’s missed too many deadlines at work due to him being unable to resist you walking past his office. He knows the rule is futile as it became more of a prompt to do the exact opposite of what he asked for.

You both know he doesn’t mind.

“Yes, daddy.” You whimper, your legs kicking back and forth slightly as he spanks your ass again, spreading your cheeks to watch your puckered hole flex and pussy drip down on your clit. He presses a kiss over his bitemark before shimmying his hips up, his large hands finding place on your hips, thumbs digging into your dimples like grips. He spends a second admiring the sight of his cock between your cheeks, no matter how many times he’s seen it.

“That’s my pretty girl.” He coos, his heavy hand holding his cock as he moves it up and down teasingly through your slit, his tip catching on your entrance before he’s pushing into you again. The angle makes you gasp, his cock sliding so deliciously along your front wall, to that spot that makes you dumb, that you can’t help the way you cry for him.

It’s all ‘daddy, daddy, daddy.’ as he starts moving his hips, mixed in with the louder slaps of his hips meeting your ass - noticeably with his increased effort.

“Oh, baby, this pussy is so sweet.” He groans. You can’t see it, but his head falls back, his hands grip your hips harder. You can’t even register what he just said, your mind is nowhere. You can’t think about anything except the pounding of his cock into you - the hot drag of him as he slides through your wetness like you were made just for him, just for his fat cock. “Squeezin’ me so tight, gorgeous girl.”

He smacks your ass again, three times in a row, inhaling sharply through his teeth when you clench around him, feet kicking up from their position against the mattress and into the soft flesh of his own backside. He grunts out a small laugh before he’s spreading your previously closed legs with his thighs, driving back into you when he’s made space for himself.

“How m’I supposed to stay mad at you when this creamy cunt’s cryin’ for her daddy?” He whispers as he leans over you, his chest pressed to your back as his arms wrap around your front, holding the opposite breast in each hand. He’s right, your pussy is creamy, proven by the white ring around his cock you can’t see, and it’s certainly crying for him - it sobs, mourns, yearns, weeps for him. His fist curls around your hair before he’s tugging as gently as he can to make your head tilt back, holding you like that.

“Oh, daddy-“ you hiccup, your voice shaking with his thrusts, every crack of his hips makes your words and moans break. It’s too much, and it’s not enough. You need him like this always, buried inside and holding you in a way that fixes you and breaks you apart all over again.

“I love you- she loves you.” You cry just as your pussy clenches around him again, you don’t care that the sounds of his thrusts are becoming increasingly lewd with the wetness seeping from you. You know he loves it like this:

Warm, messy and wet wet wet.

“I know baby, I know- she’s makin’ such a mess of daddy’s cock, should see the way your slick’s stickin’ between us- fuck.” He growls the last part, no doubt watching the webs of your wetness stretch whenever his crotch pulls away from your ass, judging by the way he’s twitching inside of you - veins thrumming.

You’d probably appreciate the thought a lot more if you could actually think it.

Joel grunts again, and soon you’re being rolled ontop of his chest after he moved himself similarly, his back pressed to the sheets as yours feels the tickle of his chest hair and happy trail. He plants his feet on the mattress, and you bite your bottom lip with a smile before you know it’s going to fall away with a silent scream of a moan as he starts bucking up relentlessly into you.

Your cries are hardly heard over the sound of his heavy balls smacking wetly against you. His hands have grabbed onto the underside of your thighs, holding them against your body as he thrusts with an amount of energy that should be impossible for a man in his fifties that just woke up.

His hands slide from your thighs, over your stomach to your breasts - his gasps, moans and grunts right next to your ear, sending goosebumps down your neck that feel like electricity. Your whole body is tingling. Not even his delicious sounds are enough to distract you from the slick, sloppy thrusts of him inside you, his tip seeming to target just the right spot again and again until your eyes scrunch closed and your brows furrow.

You can feel his smile against you when you suddenly go quiet, the only sounds leaving your mouth being gasps for air.

Your fingers blindly reach back and thread through his hair, just as he parts with one of your breasts to rub your clit with the rough pads of his fingers in little circles - it makes you arch away from him in a manner that he wishes he caught on video, just to save the moment forever. He flips you around once more to pulll himself out to the top, pressing you into the mattress as he slams back down into you. You’re both jerking forward with every thrust, his hand releasing your bouncing tit to wrap around your neck, squeezing gently to make you float up to that space only he can take you. The sloppy ache of him ramming into you further takes your breath away

“That’s my girl -mmph,oh fuck, cum f’your old man, cum for daddy-“ his growl breaks off into a breathy moan that has your toes curling, your cunt clenching around the thick, warm length of him.

What choice do you have but to listen?

Your orgasm hits you like a train, fire lighting through your body and shooting down your spine. Your hips jerk, pussy fluttering around him so deliciously he rewards you with one of his lewdest moans yet. Just when you think you’ll fall into a blissful afterglow, he speeds up.

“God fuckin’ damn, baby.” The words are punched out of him, broken and rough - just like his thrusts. “Good girl, ‘m goin’ t’flood this perfect pussy, then I’ll fuckin’ eat me outta you jus’ to pump you full again.”

It’s the best thing you’ve ever heard in your life, your head rolls back in bliss at the mere thought, not even mentioning the feeling of his sticky balls slapping against you, so plump and full you know he’ll be able to make good on his promise to keep your cunt stuffed until the sun dips down once more.

You can’t even cry his name when you feel his cock twitch upwards, spurting his release deep inside you, filling you with his warmth in a way that makes you feel blissfully cozy, like you’re safe and snug - ready to settle under the blankets with your scented candles burning in the room while Joel occupies himself by cleaning your cream-pied pussy with his tongue.

He kisses down the back of your neck as he gently pulls himself out, turning you on your side so he can kiss your cheeks.

“You okay, baby?” He whispers, continuing to kiss over your face as you keep your eyes closed.

“Yes.” you sigh, finally in that little blissful afterglow. He hums in acknowledgment before he kisses your lips softly, his hands pressing between your shoulder blades from where they’re wrapped around you.

“‘M gonna make us coffee, then I’m eatin’ that pussy ‘till I can’t no more.” He ends his filthy statement with a sweet kiss on your forehead, and you smile at him from the bed as he gets up, stretching your back.

“I love you.” You hum with a sweet sigh as your back pops. He’s currently picking up some laundry on the floor, bare as the day he was born.

“I love you, honey bee.” He says softly.

You admire his muscled back, shoulders and ass as he leaves the room, snuggling into the warmth of the sheets - no longer overbearingly hot - until Joel comes back to keep you warm instead.

———————————————————————————————

thank you so much for reading, please reblog and comment if you enjoyed ♡

[sayruq]

Police in the Turkish city of Adana detained 11 suspects, five Israeli and two Syrian, on allegations of organ trafficking, the Daily Sabah reported on 5 May. The Provincial Directorate of Security's Anti-Smuggling and Border Gates Branch began investigating after examining the passports of seven individuals who arrived in Adana from Israel about a month ago by plane for the purpose of health tourism. The two Syrian nationals, ages 20 and 21, were found to have fake passports. Further investigation revealed that Syrian nationals had each agreed to sell one of their own kidneys to two of the Israeli nationals, ages 68 and 28, for kidney transplants in Adana. During searches at the suspects' residences, $65,000 and numerous fake passports were seized. Israel has long been at the center of what Bloomberg described in 2011 as a “sprawling global black market in organs where brokers use deception, violence, and coercion to buy kidneys from impoverished people, mainly in underdeveloped countries, and then sell them to critically ill patients in more-affluent nations.” The financial newspaper added, “Many of the black-market kidneys harvested by these gangs are destined for people who live in Israel.” The organ-trafficking network extends from former Soviet Republics such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova to Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, and beyond, the Bloomberg investigation showed. Accusations of Israeli involvement in organ trafficking also apply to the occupied Palestinian territories. In 2009, Sweden's largest daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported testimony that the Israeli army was kidnapping and murdering Palestinians to harvest their organs. The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israeli army, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs. "'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," wrote Donald Bostrom, the author of the report.Bostrom also cites an incident of alleged organ theft during the the first Palestinian intifada in 1992. He says that the Israeli army abducted a young man known for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the Nablus area. The young man was shot in the chest, both legs, and the stomach before being taken to a military helicopter, which transported him to an unknown location. Five nights later, Bostrom said, the young man's body was returned, wrapped in green hospital sheets. Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Institute harvested skin, corneas, heart valves, and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, and foreign workers without permission from relatives. The Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place, but claimed, "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer." Israel’s assault on Gaza since 7 October has provided further opportunities for the theft and harvesting of Palestinians’ organs. On 30 January, WAFA news agency reported that the Israeli army returned the bodies of 100 Palestinian civilians it had stolen from hospitals and cemeteries in various areas in Gaza. According to medical sources, inspection of some of the bodies showed that organs were missing from some of them. On 18 January, the Times of Israel reported that the Israeli army confirmed reports that its soldiers dug up graves in a Gaza cemetery, claiming its soldiers were trying to “confirm that the bodies of hostages were not buried there.”

[gutsby]

Honor Among Thieves

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Marrying Brooklyn’s most dangerous man was easy. Divorcing him proves to be a bit harder—particularly when you’re pregnant with his child.

Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Oral (f!receiving). Breeding kink. Hurt/Comfort/We-Almost-Just-Died-Sex. Morning sickness. Manslaughter. Brief coerced kissing. Beefy, mob boss Bucky is a possessive expectant father who just wants to make sure he knocked you up properly

Descriptions of violence throughout

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

“You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Bucky’s words reverberated like a shotgun’s report, skimming across two dozen feet of marble, glass, and stainless steel before reaching your ears on the opposite end of the room. He was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, and your back was turned to him. Lucky thing, too, or else he would’ve seen the smile threatening to tug at both ends of your lips—effectively blowing your cover.

“Really, I don’t have the slightest idea, Barnes,” you told him, and it took everything in you not to laugh. Having just narrowly preserved your composure, you continued, “You keep me locked in this prison all day and expect me not to find ways to entertain myself? Well, this is all it is.”

Like hell it was, you could already hear in Bucky’s head. Feeling him eye you up and down from the archway, take his first steps into the room, loosen his tie, most likely.

“Prison?” You registered a low scoff, and his voice was already so much closer than it’d been five seconds ago.

Your husband was striding as quickly as his smooth, dark, tailored suit would allow, and he was undressing as he walked. You could hear the clothes coming off but pretended not to notice. Instead staring more intently at the crab bisque simmering on the stove before you, you licked the spoon you were holding and hummed a little.

“Yes,” you answered, simply, “Prison.”

Bucky was by your side in no time at all. Up close, he smelled like rosemary, oakmoss, and gunpowder.

“Well, this is news to me,” he said. He dragged out the middle syllables of his words longer than was necessary, likely to make his move sidling up closer to you. The last sound had scarcely died in his throat more than a second or two before you felt an arm loop around your back. A hand coming to rest on your hip, then his voice, again:

“See, I never knew they built ‘prisons’ up in first-class penthouse apartments in Brooklyn. Must be pretty nice.”

Bucky stepped behind you, and you were half-certain the black suit jacket he’d come home wearing was fully removed. Again, you pretended not to see, or care.

“It’s a metaphor, James.” But your voice wavered.

“A metaphor?” Bucky’s head sank into the soft groove between your neck and your shoulder, and he kissed it.

“Yes.”

Your mouth made a sound more akin to a breath than a real, enunciated word, and you knew Bucky felt it too. He sensed this headstrong, no-bullshit façade of yours was sure to come crumbling apart any second, and each new brush of his hands and lips would be making it happen. Knowing this, he wasn’t in a rush to get the rest of his clothes off. He did, however, start to toy with yours.

“Tell me more. Am I really holding you hostage, doll?”

You took a ladle and started to stir, trying to stay cool. Meanwhile, your husband tugged gently on your dress.

“Hostage, housewife, same thing,” you muttered, low.

For once, it was Bucky’s turn to break character, as he laughed. It was short-lived and sweet, and he pressed another kiss to the skin of your neck, as if in apology.

“Right, right. I forgot. You were forced to marry me.”

“Right,” you shook your head, just slightly emboldened by the way you’d made him crack, if only for a moment, “I’m forced to marry you, move into this horrific little shanty in Brooklyn”—gesturing to the multi-million dollar apartment surrounding you both—“and then you leave me here, all by myself, with nothing to do while you go play Godfather with your mobster friends. It’s not fair.”

By the tail end of that last sentence, you and Bucky both were already grinning a little, coming to terms with just how ridiculous it sounded when you phrased it like that. Still, your husband seemed game to keep the bit going.

“Now that’s just not true,” he said, tone all faux offense.

You felt the soft snap of a ribbon coming undone, and in a second realized it was the satin bow holding the back of your dress together. The fabric loosened, and Bucky’s hands slid down your sides, over your front—of course.

“I didn’t leave you ‘by yourself’ at all, doll,” he said, and suddenly, his palms were fanning out, over something, “Gave you this baby to keep you company, didn’t I?”

The ‘something’ he was touching now was your belly. All soft and smooth and protruding out in a perfect little globe beneath your dress, no bigger than when he’d left for work that morning. Bucky treated the bump like it was a novelty all the same—like he was seeing it for the first time and couldn’t believe he was actually the one responsible for making it get like that. It had gotten to be a hobby of his, nearly, just how much he loved watching it grow. He had his fingers splayed out across your tummy virtually every chance he could get, and that didn’t stop whether you were out in public or sharing a moment in the comfort of home; he couldn’t get enough.

Which was why Bucky was right when he’d said you knew exactly what you were doing when he came home that day. You knew just the kind of effect that wearing a tight, white dress while cooking dinner would have on him, and you hoped it would rile him up just like this: with his hands roaming over every inch of your body, making soft, sweet circles along the swell of your belly, and kissing your neck again and again. Biting some, too. Getting so worked up he was all but gnawing at the skin as he drank in your scent and got lost to pure instinct.

If it wasn’t clear that Bucky had had a breeding kink before, you saw it written plain as day across his face every morning and night since he’d first learned you were pregnant. Like all the life force within him was just a byproduct of the knowledge that you were his—and this baby, growing bigger each day, was a mix of you both.

You hated to say it, but fatherhood suited your assassin-trained, mob-heading, bloodlusting husband better than anyone could have predicted in a million years or more.

Presently, Bucky flipped you around and sank to his knees. He slid you over to the counterspace area, away from the stove, and made sure to flip each knob to ‘off’ to make sure there wasn’t a chance you’d get burned. You cast one last look at the crab bisque and knew at once your hard work would have to be put on the back burner for now, because Bucky wasn’t hungry for that.

Still, you kicked a foot in soft, muted protest when you felt him slide his hands up your legs, under your dress, and start to reach for your panties. You let out a breath.

“I spent two hours perfecting the seasoning on that, Barnes,” you chided him, gently and without much admonition in your voice as you pointed to the soup, “You say you want a good little housewife but won’t even leave me un-fucked long enough to try any food I make!”

“And I’m very sorry about that, Mrs. Barnes,” Bucky replied, head disappearing beneath your skirt so he could take your underwear off with his teeth instead.

But, much like your reproach, your husband’s strained apology held less than half of its professed sincerity. Your blue cotton panties were discarded in a second, your hips pushed back against the cool white marble behind it, and Bucky, almost too cheekily, brought his head back up from underneath your dress just to steal a quick look at your belly, then up at you. He was smiling.

“Anything you make tastes amazing, honey. Daddy just needs to eat a little something beforehand, that okay?”

He already knew what you’d say. The sweet, shit-eating grin hovering over your lower half knew all that and more. Bucky just loved to tease, taking the hem of your dress between his index and thumb, and rubbing all the more tenderly, murmuring again, ‘That alright with you, pretty girl?’ and ‘My wife likes getting tonguefucked in the kitchen, doesn’t she?’ while his breaths spread over you.

You nodded that you did. Momentarily forgetting the three-course meal you’d had planned for him since early that morning, you let your knees fall limply apart from one another, and Bucky’s broad form filled the space in between. The fabric of your dress was snug, especially so over your belly. Your husband pushed the material up your hips and let it rest just high enough to expose your warmth to him. Angling your hips back the slightest bit, trailing his fingers up your thighs and inside them, gently, Bucky let out a low groan against your body, and you could feel the vibrations of it travel up your spine.

“I really am mean for keeping you here all day, aren’t I?” he teased, sliding the tips of his fingers between your glistening folds and watching you jolt in response.

“So— so mean. Bucky, please.”

Your voice was far more hoarse than circumstances would seem to beget; your husband had just eaten you out that morning. Nevertheless, your hand was trembling as it reached for his head. Your pull was taut and dire. While your fingers threaded in through his hair and your body opened itself more and more for him, you could feel that kind smile, even if you couldn’t see it. Frankly, the swelling of eight-and-a-half months made it difficult to see much of anything below the waist, but Bucky made sure to let you know he was there. By holding your hand, skimming his lips against your skin, starting, just then, to sink his fingers in toward the heat of your body, and softly pulling his face away so he could look up at you.

“Baby?” he breathed.

Your eyes locked with his as he slid two fingers inside you. The stretch alone was enough to put your brain on the fritz, but, fighting the first shockwaves of pleasure:

“Y-Yeah?”

He withdrew. Pressed them back in and let out a grunt.

“I need you to do something for me.”

You couldn’t fathom what that might be, but you nodded anyway. ‘Anything’ was what you managed to choke out.

“And you might not like it, doll.”

Your eyes widened some.

“O— O-Okay, what?”

Bucky’s fingers curled inside you, and a short, sharp streak of dizzying pleasure pulsed through your body. Your knees felt weak, and your mind even worse, but with what little resolve you had left, you were able to keep your eyes entirely open and fastened to his. A look that struck you as almost bittersweet crossed your husband’s features, and you saw his gaze soften again.

“I need you to wake up,” he said, calmly.

“What?”

Your toes curled tight underneath you, and the warmth between your legs leapt up to over a thousand degrees.

“Melaya, I need you to wake up.”

At the same time, your blood ran cold in your veins. Surely, you couldn’t be hearing him right if the voice he used was so gruff and low—and laden with a Russian lilt.

“Bucky? What— What do you mean?”

But you knew. Or suspected something of it anyway.

Now the sound from your own throat was hardly one that you recognized as yours, so shrill and high and strange—what could he mean by that? Why was he watching you in that way? Your husband wasn’t smiling so brightly anymore, and the once-gratifying conflagration between your legs had grown to an almost scorching degree, no longer nice, generous, or pleasurable in the slightest.

“We need you to wake up now, honey. Right now.”

His tone, too, was distorted. Grating.

“Bucky, I-I don’t underst—”

“WAKE UP!”

“WAKE UP!”

Natasha shook you hard, and it hurt.

She didn’t mean for it to. She just needed you up and out of bed, and you’d been asleep for almost fourteen hours.

You started at the fifth or sixth shake, nearly punching yourself in the face when you tried yanking a set of covers up and over your head and discovered, shortly, that there was none. You were splayed out on a bed in an as-yet unfamiliar home—Steve’s new place—and, while you slept, you’d kicked all of the blankets you’d been given the night before off your body and onto the floor.

Your eyes were wide as saucers as they darted to Nat’s.

There was no need to say what had happened—she knew these dreams were getting worse by the day.

It’d been a week since you fled your Brooklyn apartment in an all-out terror. A week since a senseless, short-sighted idea on your part had led to the discovery that your husband was once part of a HYDRA sleeper cell whose activation phrase turned him into an agent of total destruction at will. A week since you’d seen a half dozen bodies litter your living room floor, more still being bludgeoned by the so-called ‘Winter Soldier,’ as Bucky had formerly been known. A week since you’d sobbed in Natasha’s arms and begged her not to let you go back. A week since you’d been obliged to hide out in Steve Rogers’ new bachelor pad upstate, because, frankly, there was nowhere else you could safely live until this whole ordeal with Bucky was settled—if it ever would be.

A full week since you’d learned you were pregnant, too.

As far as you knew, your husband was wholly unaware of this fact, and of Steve’s most recent real estate purchase up in Buffalo, and you’d been existing in a semi-serene and largely dissociated state for the past seven days.

Your gaze adjusted to the light, and you blinked up at Nat, feeling damp in just about every place on your body. You looked down and found yourself drenched in sweat.

“Hydrate. Please.”

It wasn’t so much a request as it was a standing order: Nat holding out a glass of water and instructing you to drink. Though your first instinct was to make a face and shake your head—you’d found that any new fluids in your body this early in the morning would only get thrown back up when you made your first frantic trip to the toilet—you accepted it anyway. You drank three big gulps to appease the woman standing next to the bed, then wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled

“I’m gonna go puke now,” you said.

“Aim for inside the toilet bowl if you can,” Steve called out from the doorway. By the look on his face, you’d been doing a pretty shit job of aiming vomit lately.

“My bad, Rogers.”

You had a hand on your stomach, slowly easing back up into a seated position, when you heard something being flung across the room, followed by a ‘HEY!’ and a crash.

“Your aim sucks, too, Romanoff,” Steve griped, loudly, “And I was kidding. She can puke wherever she wants.”

By the door, a hefty hardcover book lay open on the floor. Apparently Nat’s options for projectiles had been limited.

“All good, Rogers,” you offered anyway. Fighting a smirk.

You were starting to stand, and your head felt as if you’d just taken your first steps off a rocking boat. Your other hand jumped to your mouth, and you muttered, ‘Fuck’ before brushing past Nat and her outstretched arms.

She held your hair while Steve retrieved the glass of water, as well as a towel. The unsightly first trimester ritual proceeded as it had for all of the last week, with Nat rubbing circles in your back and Steve making well-meaning but completely useless live commentary like, ‘Babies are a real pain in the ass, aren’t they?’ At the conclusion of each new stupid remark, Natasha would shoot a dirty look his way, but you never let her shoo him away. Through no conscious choice of your own, Steve had become something of a comfort blanket over the course of the past chaotic days. At the very least, you two were no longer at each other’s throats flinging accusations and exorbitantly-priced tumblers in the other’s direction, which was a marked improvement from where you were the day after you and Bucky’s wedding.

At length, you lifted your head from the toilet, and he daubed at your cheek with the towel—mostly just trying to wipe off spit and your own queasy-looking expression. He succeeded in clearing away just the former, but you forced a smile all the same, then shared it with Natasha.

Nat couldn’t smile back. In fact, the grimace on her face only etched even deeper, and her forehead creased.

“This is a horrible time to be asking you this, I know—”

“Nat, please.” Steve groaned.

Nat, what? There wasn’t a lot more that could catch you off guard after all the shit you’d come to see that week. Still, Nat’s breaths were both measured and slow, and you could see she was chewing on the inside of her cheek like she wasn’t quite sure how best to phrase her words. This, coming from one of the most astute legal minds this side of the Hudson River, gave you pause.

“Ask anything. I’m pretty numb, if you haven’t noticed.” You rapped on the side of your head for comedic effect, but neither Natasha nor Steve laughed or cracked a grin.

“How do you feel about filing for divorce tomorrow?”

At the sound of Nat’s words, you felt the bile jump back up your throat. You knew there wasn’t enough food or fluid to make much of anything now, but all the same, you craned your neck back over the toilet and retched. When nothing came out, as expected, you turned back.

“What?”

Natasha looked a little ill herself, but still, she continued.

“How do you feel about just…fast-tracking a divorce from him and taking off new? We’ll talk assets later.”

Assets? Fast-track? Divorce? What the fuck?

“What the fuck, Nat?” you repeated as much out loud.

It normally wasn’t your thing to be so blunt with her, but the inquiry certainly seemed to invite some extra candor. You swiped at your mouth for any excess spit that might’ve trickled out, crudely, and in a second, Steve was handing you the towel. Then helping you to your feet, holding your arm and lower back in a grip you could feel was secure. You were unsteady on your legs, so he and Natasha guided you over to the sink, where you could regain your bearings and freshen up a bit. Sneaking a look at your reflection in the mirror was a bad idea; your face was sallow, and the rest of your body had every appearance of being horribly weak, for lack of a better word. You caught a glimpse of a gash sitting just above your left temple and immediately looked away. Stupidly, you hoped Steve and Nat hadn’t seen it.

“He did that to you,” Nat said without missing a beat.

You winced, and you washed your hands, not looking up.

“I thought you said it wasn’t him. Soldat, you told me.” And for a second, your eyes flickered to Steve, whose expression was a touch more sympathetic, if not visibly discomfited now. Like he didn’t want to speak for once.

He did, anyway: “Doesn’t matter if it was Winter or him, really. Point is he hurt you while trying to protect y—”

“And yet, you asked me to forgive him just last week for killing my dad in the same type of rage,” you replied, and instantly regretted the accusatory tone you’d taken on.

Your anger was misdirected at Steve. It wasn’t his fault for sharing the truth about your husband’s—his best friend’s—past when you’d asked him. These were queries you’d made, helping to form justifications for your own decision to stay after what had happened in Madripoor. Obviously, Steve would be biased to help support his friend in a time of need. But now things were different; Bucky had never been activated as soldat and ended up hurting someone he’d loved before. Steve was free to change his mind after seeing that happen and urge you to leave, or at least reconsider, your marriage to Bucky.

The second look you gave him attempted to convey as much, a bit more apologetic as he and Natasha led the way out of the bathroom. Steve smiled and held your arm again, though you probably didn’t need it. You walked downstairs to the kitchen together. Over by the toaster, Sam was inspecting a charred bagel with a scowl

“Rogers, you really need to ditch this shit,” he said, gesturing to the rusted metal contraption that appeared to be from 1918, and had just burnt two bagels to a crisp.

“It was a gift from a friend, piss off,” Steve replied, grinning a little. Reaching for the blackened bread roll and even going so far as to take a bite, crunching loudly.

“Did your friend happen to fight in World War II?” Nat asked. She lent one look to the archaic machine but said nothing further, opting instead to take a seat at the kitchen table, where a sea of papers was strewn about.

Then, to you, “Come. Sit.”

Somewhere in your tentative stroll from where you stood to where she sat, and in the middle of the men’s toaster bickering, Sam called out that he’d have bacon and eggs ready in a second. Steve offered up his singed sesame bagel in the interim, and you told him no thanks. With a still slightly throbbing skull and a nauseous gait, you took the chair next to Nat’s and looked down at her papers.

Honestly, you thought your present condition might warrant some leeway when it came to holding off on the heavy-hitting topics first thing, but, to your surprise, Natasha slid a crisp white packet over almost instantly.

“Nat, what the fuck?” you groaned for the second time.

“Read it. Give it a second to digest, then we can—”

“No!” you cut in, pushing the packet back to her with a little more force than you’d meant, “I-I can’t. Not now.”

On the very first page, in bold and capitalized typeface, there was printed a brief string of words you’d never wanted—or thought you would ever need—to see:

‘VERIFIED COMPLAINT: ACTION FOR DIVORCE’

“It’s just the petition. No harm in taking a look,” Nat said.

You could hear a faintly gentler tone in her voice, even as you shook your head and looked away from the papers.

“I don’t want to. I can’t do this right now.” You kept shaking your head for a couple seconds after, turning your gaze instead to the bay window of Steve’s kitchen.

A nice, sprawling yard stretched as far as you could see. In the distance, a fuzzy white horizon was punctuated the slightest bit by the outline of a wood fence, but apart from that, the land was empty. The lot was secluded. Happy and effervescent in a nearly cloudless sky, the midmorning sun cast its rays without so much as the threat of a storm’s hinderance. You fixed your eyes on the clear expanse above and silently wished it would rain.

Before more than a minute or two had passed like that, Sam was approaching the table with two platters. Steve balanced four more by himself, watching the sway of one plate of scrambled eggs in his arms with a wary look before setting each one of the dishes on the table.

“Bon appétit,” Steve said, butchering his French just about as badly as Sam had the bagels. You and Nat thanked them both anyway and started clearing off the table, pushing papers away in favor of steaming plates. Sam and Steve sat down, and all of you began to eat.

While you dutifully piled on each scoop of eggs, bacon, sausage links, biscuits, gravy, and grits—far more than you knew you could feasibly consume—you wished again for a rainstorm, and maybe a quiet breakfast. One that wasn’t marred by talks of legal separation and lengthy battles in court, if you could help it at all. To this end, and perhaps against your body’s best interest, you shoveled two supersized spoonfuls of egg in your mouth, so that if Nat tried reviving those subjects again, you could put off the conversation by simply continuing to chew. You felt your stomach turn inside you but, stubbornly, ate more.

You had just swallowed it all, about to make way for a warm, flaky buttermilk biscuit, when a sound cut in, and your belly flipped again. Your teeth had barely sunk into the bread a second when Nat set her own food aside, then used two fingers to push something toward you.

“Just skim it. Let me explain what the process can be,” she said, tapping her index on the first line and meeting your eyes as if to plead. She had to have known she’d be met with resistance—from you, of course, but also Steve. She raised a defensive hand to him before he even cut in:

“Come the fuck on, Nat. Will you give her a break?”

“I’m saying this for her sake! I’m doing it for her.”

“And throwing divorce papers in her face over breakfast is really the best way of going about it? Is that for her?”

Sam swallowed whatever he’d been chewing on, glanced down at the top paper, and seemed to brace himself.

“Guys, is now really the right time—” he started.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Steve barked over him.

Natasha ignored the plainly disdainful look from the latter, lifted her hand off the paperwork and instead trained her gaze solely on you. Just like she had in Zurich. Focusing intently on your face, ignoring whatever Steve or Sam were saying in the moment, she turned to you and found your expression was stale. Unmoving. Frankly, half of what was running through your mind right then was how badly you wanted to puke again. As if the eggs had turned rotten in your gut the second they reached their destination in your GI tract, you felt a heavy, oppressive fog of nausea taking shape between your ears, and you just wanted everyone to stop talking.

Sam and Steve continued on without a hitch, agreeing vaguely but also appearing to bicker over other things, like when was the most appropriate time to have this conversation. Natasha was leaning in, reaching for your hand this time, and you knew she meant well. You would bet any large sum of money there wasn’t a malicious bone in her body, and she was doing this for your benefit. All the same, you were grateful when the front door swung back on its hinges, and a new person walked in. Nat, Sam, and Steve all suspended their conversations.

“Hey, wh—” the blissfully unaware, semi-stranger began.

“Sharon!” Steve cried, “Would you tell Romanoff she’s being a goddamn pest with no sense of boundaries?”

Sharon halted at the threshold of the house, skating a look between Nat and Steve at first, then Steve and Sam, then just at you. The look didn’t linger for long, and before you knew it, she was setting down a fistful of grocery bags and twisting her mouth into a frown.

“Will you shut up, Steve?” was her only response.

Sam rose from his chair and pointed as if to say, ‘Yeah, that’ before joining her in the foyer to help carry in the Wegmans bags. Natasha leaned back in her chair with a vaguely pleased look, and Steve just rolled his eyes. He slapped his palm overtop the stack of divorce papers still laying before you and, seemingly undeterred, continued,

“Do you think it’s fair for her to force divorce papers on this poor soul—” pointing to you, the poor soul, apparently, “—when it’s been a week since she left?”

Sharon started handing off the frozen stuff first, sliding a box of Stouffer’s across the counter to Sam, who then deposited it in the freezer. These exchanges took place in relatively quick succession, with Sharon only chancing a look toward the kitchen table once or twice as they did.

“I think she should do whatever the hell she wants,” she said, “And I think their divorce is none of our business.”

Fair enough take. One that you could respect, at the very least, even if you weren’t certain she particularly cared for you at all. You reckoned she had no reason to, and on the whole, appeared to be a pretty reserved person.

You wanted to add a word in her defense, reiterate to Steve that he didn’t have to go to bat for you, the poor, defenseless soul, right now. Instead of being able to speak, though, you felt an upsurge of something heavy in your throat. You clamped a hand to your mouth again, cheeks flushing with the heady sensation and also out of embarrassment, then pushed your chair back and stood.

“I— gotta—” you stammered, just audible to the table, through the wall your fingers had made over your lips.

You sprinted up the stairs without another word.

The first trimester ritual repeated, and ten minutes later, you re-emerged from the bathroom feeling two big spoonfuls of scrambled eggs lighter and still none the happier, healthier, or wiser. You took a peek in the full-length mirror at the other end of the room and discerned from a distance of ten feet that you looked like dogshit.

You flopped down on the bed face-first, heedless of the pool of sweat that still encompassed roughly half of it, and let out a weak, muffled breath into the sheets. Someone had been gracious enough to replace all the blankets and pillows you’d kicked off last night. When you heard a knock on the door, it sounded a lot like Nat’s.

You rolled to the side, eyes screwed shut in frustration.

“If you’ve come to tell me my marriage is a fucking dumpsterfire, I agree completely, Natasha. I’m dumb.”

A little huff of a half-laugh sounded from the doorway. You opened your eyes and saw Sharon standing there.

Up close, she looked a little paler than you’d remembered seeing her last in Switzerland. Soft beads of perspiration dotted her neckline from what had likely been a hot and arduous journey walking up the driveway with all the food, and presently, she seemed tired. She wore a simple gingham blouse that had her eyes shining with vibrance, though, and both hands, you noticed, were full—she had a mug in one and a spoon in the other. She smiled kindly.

“The mob tends to have that effect,” she said, strolling in. Setting the mug on the nightstand and easing the spoon into it, stirring, “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

You had no idea what all she knew about your marriage. You weren’t so sure you could extricate yourself from all the blame of having the thing go up in flames in four short weeks. Nevertheless, you smiled back and offered up something good-humored in return, like, well, I’m not exactly winning wife of the fucking year anytime soon.

Again, Sharon chuckled. It was small. She leaned back against the nearest armchair and, pointing to the cup she’d left to rest on the nightstand, said in a soft voice,

“Give that a minute. It’s hot.”

You glanced over and saw a little string that you guessed was attached to a teabag sitting at the bottom of the mug. The drink smelled like chamomile, maybe. You sat up, readjusted your pyjama top, then slid your socked feet underneath you so you could scoot closer to the edge of the bed. On a deeper inhale, you decided the tea was definitely chamomile. And too hot, as Sharon said.

“Thank you,” you told her.

“It’s not poisoned, I promise,” she replied. Letting out that funny little chuckle of hers—one too low to be considered a full laugh, but very close—and then, seeming to realize what she said might’ve sounded off, “Like— I heard what happened with Schröder. Him trying to drug you after the wedding and all…that. I— I’m sorry.”

Bad time to be making jokes, she appeared to chastise herself, but you just nodded along with the faintest grin.

“It’s OK. I’d pay money to be knocked the fuck out now.”

You grinned bigger, and she smiled too.

“It should make you sleepier, if you wanted to nap.”

You replied that you would, in fact, love to be unconscious right now if it meant not having to put up with all this bullshit morning sickness, and you slowly reached for the mug. Sharon stood up, and while you took your first sips, she fluffed the pillows behind you.

She was right. The tea felt like a hug. You settled under the covers and brought the cup to your lips once more, taking two big draughts before setting the drink aside. Yeah, that shit’ll put you right out, no drugs needed. You sank even further under the sheets and watched Sharon hover between the bed and the doorway, looking around as if trying to find something to do—some way to make herself feel more useful, if you had to guess from the pensive look in her eyes. Finally, she settled closer to the door and gave you one, fairly sanguine look. The warmth of your drink had already begun to nestle inside your weary bones, and your eyelids felt heavier. Still, you tried to return the sunny look before getting fully settled.

“Thanks again, Sharon. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, of course.”

She started to leave. In fact, she’d already made it three-fourths out of the room when something stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to you, and you looked up.

“This…probably doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from me, but—whatever you decide to do with Bucky…is okay. We’ll support you, whether you choose to raise this baby with him or do…whatever it is you want to do. Don’t let Nat or Steve or Sam or anybody tell you differently. It’s your choice, y’know, whether you wanna stay married…”

Sharon trailed off, and somewhere inside, you could tell she meant to finish with words like, ‘…even if you didn’t get to make the choice to get married in the first place.’ You appreciated it. You beamed with just your head poking out from over the covers and thanked her again.

And, before she left, for the second time, she stopped. She walked over to the nightstand and bent slightly at the waist, just enough to set something small down. You turned to the side and saw a vial—a minuscule tube—on the surface. Your eyes widened, realizing what it was.

“Sam picked it up in Madripoor. He said Steve had given this to you…to, uh, give to Schröder, and I thought you should have it back,” she said, pausing, “Just in case.”

You eyed the little vial of poison on the nightstand and nodded, still not completely understanding. Your head throbbed, your stomach was still turning, churning. Your brain was about ten blinks away from logging off entirely and drifting to sleep. All you could do, then, was repeat what Sharon had said as you exchanged one final look.

“Just in case.”

Your eyes closed, and you fell asleep very soon after.

You couldn’t have been out for more than an hour; you were sure of it. However, the next time you glanced over at the clock on the bedside table, you saw it read 11:04.

P.M.

Shit.

SHIT.

That chamomille tea was no fucking joke.

Just as your thoughts drifted back to Sharon, the conversation you’d shared, the drink she’d given you, the poison she’d left behind for you to keep, you heard her voice all over again—and now, not just in your own head.

Presently, she was standing over your bed again, though the room was much darker this time around. She pressed a finger to her lips, hey, please, please, be quiet, alright? At first you wanted to make a sharp and strangled sound. A cry for help? You weren’t sure. Didn’t know. Couldn’t see very much of the woman at all, except for the outline of her face from the moonlight streaming in through the window. She stared and ‘shh’ed’ some more.

And you were contemplating yelling out a loud obscenity in response to it when next she cut in, markedly gentler:

“Keep it quick. Nat and the guys will be back in thirty.”

You blinked hard into the darkness and waited for your vision, or else your still-missing voice, to return. It didn’t. You just stared back, eyelids going up and down and up and down like a goddamn idiot gone sluggish off one too many Quaaludes, and it was several seconds more before she gestured behind her, into the shadows.

You tensed under the covers, chock-full of terror. You squinted, and shrank, and might’ve nearly pissed yourself were it not for the intervening force of a face.

A familiar face.

Bucky’s face.

You leapt up from the bed, displacing each one of Sharon’s cool and careful warnings from your mind all at once. You didn’t mean to, and as soon as she’d shushed you again, you shut your mouth. Fell still. Sharon slipped out of the room, reminding you both, again, that you had to be quiet, and you had to be quick. Then it was just you and Bucky. Silence and slightly less than five feet of space between you two. Then, shortly, no space to spare at all, as you ran to meet each for a hug a second later.

Your head struck his chest, and it was hard. That, alongside the python’s squeeze he wrapped around your body, hugging you to him in the tightest embrace imaginable, had your mind reeling, skull pulsing just a bit. You pulled back and stood smiling up at Bucky, whose eyes were wide, drinking the sight of you in.

‘Are you hurt?’ were his first words.

You shook your head that you weren’t, still unable to talk.

“Why are you— Who— who brought you— I didn’t—”

It seemed Bucky was equally hard-pressed to form a sentence himself, while his eyes were roaming wildly, all over you. Looking for bumps or bruises or cuts, whatever the wound might have been. He stumbled to the lamp and flicked it on. You tilted your head left, reflexively.

“I’m fine, Bucky,” you said. Sudden and swift, “I’m good.”

But you didn’t move your head too far to the right, either, for fear he might see the cut above your temple—the one soldat had caused when he’d pushed you to the floor, trying to protect you from a threat he couldn’t see.

As it was, your husband seemed to be too much in shock to see anything else apart from what stood immediately in front of him. He hugged you again. He kissed the crown of your head. He constricted your body so tight in his arms you felt a pressure start to build behind your eyes, and suddenly you weren’t so much pulling away as you were wrenching your body from him. When you met Bucky’s gaze again, the sweet blue irises were glossy.

“Nat wouldn’t say where you were, just that you were safe and needed to be…be alone for a while, but I—” He stopped, and it was as if he couldn’t even finish with the words, because his breath was stuck in his throat and his eyes were stinging too much. He looked down, briefly.

You wanted to reach for his hand but hesitated. He took yours a second later, holding extra tight as he continued:

“I thought I’d— thought you might’ve…left. I don’t know. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and then she— Sharon, she called me tonight, said you were here, so— so—”

You felt a pang of guilt holding his gaze, seeing how all the hurt that had come to accumulate behind those eyes over the last week went spilling, at length, into emotions he was either too overcome or sleep-deprived to express. The weight of this suffocated him, made him extra quick to speak his mind but slow to make sense of just about anything that was coming out of his mouth. He stopped, sucked in a breath, then pinched your hand in his, and you didn’t know what to do. You had no idea what to say.

“I was scared, Bucky.”

It sounded pathetic coming out of your mouth. Your husband nodded as though you’d just said the most profound thing in the world. His knuckles went white from just how hard he was gripping your hand, his head bobbed along in agreement, and for a moment, you winced to think that he might hug you again. Instead, the fingers tangled between yours just made a tighter knot.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.

“You scared me,” you added, voice wavering.

Your left hand was going numb. You didn’t want to give him pause—possibly hurt his feelings—by freeing your touch from his, but that grip was brutal. Deathly rigid and unforgiving. Thoughts of Brooklyn and Madripoor came flooding back; Bucky was so much stronger than he realized. His tone, in contrast, was dulcet and soft.

“I didn’t know I’d get like that. I should’ve told you, doll.”

“I shouldn’t have tried the activation in the first place.”

You shouldn’t have tried digging into Bucky’s past all. When all there seemed to be at every turn was a brand new way for him to hurt you, or the people you loved, maybe there came a time when you had to stop asking questions altogether. Maybe that was what his mother and all the women who’d gone before her had known to do, what you had been too stupid to see all along. There was no knowing these men at all, only taking them as they were and learning to cope with what they became.

Bucky shook his head.

“No, doll, it’s not on you,” he murmured low. Still forceful

Thankfully, he released your hand to cup your cheeks, and he kissed your forehead. You felt your pulse in your palm, throbbing from where he’d held it. When he let go the second time, his expression was considerably softer.

“Listen, I’ll take you home, we can talk things over. As long as I know you’re safe, it doesn’t have to— to—”

Hey. He was already halfway toward the door before he realized you weren’t following him. He turned and gestured forward. He beckoned you, brows drawing in.

“Baby? C’mon.”

You didn’t budge.

Your feet were rooted in place, as though cemented to the floor. No matter how much you wanted to appease him, go along with whatever he asked, you couldn’t. You shook your head, and Bucky tilted his own, confused.

“Baby?”

“I’m leaving, Bucky.”

You couldn’t hear your own words slipping out between your teeth, only the blood rushing through your ears. Bucky stopped and turned to face you completely.

“What?”

“I’m leaving.”

“What— what do you mean, ‘you’re leaving’?”

“I want a divorce.”

That part you did hear yourself. You wished you hadn’t.

You wished you hadn’t seen the light break off from Bucky’s eyes, expression going limp the instant your words registered with him. You nearly wished you hadn’t said them at all, seeing just how far his face fell and how hurt he looked by them—but quietly, from somewhere more rational-headed inside yourself, there was a voice reminding the rest of you that it needed to be done. You couldn’t keep pretending like this wasn’t what had had to come next. What you’d been skirting with Nat all day and hadn’t been able to bring yourself to admit before now.

Your husband still didn’t seem to be computing it fully. He walked closer to you, and his gait was unsteady.

“Divorce?”

Your vision was bleary; you hadn’t even realized tears had begun to brim at your waterline as you watched him.

“It’s what we need, Bucky,” you could barely get it out.

“I don’t,” he shot back, not missing a beat, “I don’t.”

“It’s what I need.”

“You don’t mean that.”

His voice was hoarse, face shifting from lax incredulity to one of a wince—screwed up in a way that said he felt ill. You shook your head but couldn’t look away from him.

“You don’t mean that,” he repeated.

“It’s what I want,” you pressed on, just as sick yourself.

“You said what you wanted was me.” Again, Bucky’s voice splintered, and you could feel the pain in it.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.”

Gritting your teeth, unsure where else to fix your stare on his face but those eyes—while your own betrayed their feelings too easily, fraught with wet, rolling tears—you shouldn’t have been surprised when his went wider.

“What are you talking about?”

The question was short, sharp, and biting, spoken with such haste as might be mistaken for anger, but the eyes softened his look at once. The anguish painting them now as he stared back at you were a proof, beyond a doubt, that it was betrayal, not rage, which steered him. He turned, and it was as if he couldn’t see a thing but you; his elbow clipped the lamp and knocked it over, but still, he just stared. In turn, the ceramic appliance rolled onto its side, toppled the mug and the vial beside it, and all three went crashing to the floor. Bucky didn’t blink.

“Wh—” he started again, but you didn’t hear the rest.

You remembered Sharon. Heard a flash of her last admonition in your head—be quiet, be quick—and without thinking, you fell to your knees. You tried retrieving what pieces of chipped lamp and shattered mug you could, quickly. You spotted the small vial on the floor and shoved it in a pocket. Your hands swept over the broken pieces without any real idea of what you were doing—all except needing to clean Bucky’s mess—and then swiftly, stupidly, you tried picking it up by yourself.

Of course, a shard cut you. The little slit that was left in its wake could have been no wider than a fraction of an inch, but still, it bled. You looked down at the cut, just then starting to sprout red from left to right along the side of your palm, when a new sight crossed your vision. It was fast, too. All but thoughtless in the way it broke in, gripping your hand in his, and yanking you to your feet. Bucky hadn’t seen that you’d cut yourself, it seemed, and, out of instinct, had grabbed your hand to help you up. As before, his grasp was like a vice, and his thumb pressed right inside the lacerated flesh, sending a whole new maelstrom of pain shooting up your wrist and arm. Now, as then, he was heedless of his strength and his sheer, brute force, that he didn’t even see the effect of his grip. He just held on, held you, tighter, tighter, and—

“STOP!” you shrieked.

You shoved him off. Pried his touch off your palm and gripped your forearm in your other hand and pored over the sight, seeing the gash almost doubled in size from just where Bucky’s finger had sunk into the fresh wound. You let out a sharp, muffled cry through lips that tried to stay closed—remembering Sharon again. You shook your head, clenched your jaw, and tore off the other direction.

And when your husband reached out, eyes wide with their own shock and apologies, ‘Baby, fuck, I’m so sorr—’ you threw him off again. With your non-bleeding palm, you thrust your hand against his chest and pushed hard:

“Don’t touch me!”

When he reached for you again, as if by force of habit, you held up a defensive arm and sobbed out, ‘Stop!’

‘Don’t touch me, don’t—don’t—don’t fucking touch me.’

You screamed it. You didn’t mean to. Thinking only vaguely of the need to be quiet, and almost entirely on the stabbing pain in your hand, the imprint of Bucky’s touch on your body, and the blood trickling down your forearm, you darted into the bathroom and threw the door closed behind you. You locked it. You meant to.

Twenty minutes might as well have been twenty years in Bucky Barnes’ mind. In a moment like this, following yet another supreme fuck up on his part, he felt powerless. He had had to fight the instinct to barge into the next room over with every fiber of his being, and, making fists by his sides and pacing the floor and hating himself was all that seemed capable of occupying his mind just then.

He’d knocked on the bathroom door at least ten times. He’d been ignored each time, no matter the duration.

He still had your blood on his thumb, and it made him ill.

You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.

While he uncurled his hand from a fist just long enough to stare at the streaks of red stretched over his finger, he heard those words replay over and over again in his head. He’d said it—swore it—himself, and still your blood was turning a cool, dark, dry shade of crimson on his thumb.

This wasn’t how he’d meant for any of this to go. Still, notwithstanding his best intentions, none of it mattered. He’d seen a sincere look of fear in your eyes looking up at him, and nothing in the world would change what he’d done, or who he was. He’d caused you pain tonight, last week—though his memory of that was still so hazy and dark he hardly knew what else had happened, even now—and above all, he’d failed you as a husband, a protector.

You were likely curled up in a ball by the bathroom sink, cowering in fear because of him. The thought sent another tidal wave of nausea thrumming through his skull, a lump in his throat growing larger alongside it, and before he knew what he was doing, Bucky was striding back to the bathroom door. He banged his fist against it.

“Honey?”

No answer.

“Baby, please open the door.”

More silence.

The moment brought to mind a memory from the night you two had been married. How you’d fled to the en-suite bathroom and locked yourself in it; how Bucky had rattled the whole doorframe with the force of his knocks, demanding you come out. He’d hardly known you then. You hardly knew him now. The realization of this made the weight in his throat all the more excruciating as he stood, and, wincing with pain, Bucky kept knocking.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”

Pleading now. His voice was hoarse all over again.

Had he been the slightest bit more desperate and reckless, he might’ve been tempted to muscle through, kick the door in with his boot. But Bucky knew better. He could already guess how much that action would terrify you now, while tending to an injury that he himself had inadvertently made worse. Barreling inside would be neither romantic nor sweet, just sinking what may then be a lethal dose of salt in the deeper, metaphorical wound. He refrained. Instead of continuing to knock, he dropped his forehead to the door and closed his eyes.

“Please believe me, baby,” he tried again.

He’d said it so quietly he feared you might not hear it. Then, a little bit louder, ‘Please, please believe me.’

No sound to be heard inside but running water.

“You mean everything to me, doll.”

By now, his voice was clogged with pain, teetering on the brink of agony as he rested his hands on the door, and willed you to open it. Say something to him. Anything.

“I’d never mean to hurt you. Not in a million years.”

For a moment, he heard nothing more. Just how desperately he needed to hear a voice in reply could not be overstated. Craving a new sound worse than oxygen in his lungs. At first, when he heard something other than himself nearby, it nearly knocked him back with joy.

A voice right next to his ear, “But you did, didn’t you?”

The joy lasted less than a second.

The voice beside him was low. And close. Not coming from the other side of the bathroom door, as he might’ve reasonably expected from you, and not even in the tone of a female’s voice, as he might’ve seen, were Sharon to have appeared by his side. This new voice was deep, and masculine, and in his ear now, chuckling some as a gloved hand pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple.

Bucky didn’t blink.

You stepped outside not wanting to see him.

The bleeding had long since stopped, thanks to the aid of a cool, damp washcloth and a few minutes’ pressure, but even once it ceased, your legs were reluctant to carry you back. You dreaded the thought of having to resume your conversation with Bucky—of having to look him in the eye and tell him all over again that it wasn’t safe for you to be married to him. But you didn’t have much of a choice now, either. This wasn’t your honeymoon, where you could stay locked in the bathroom, try climbing out a window, and hope for the best like you’d done before. You had the man’s child inside you, for fuck’s sake.

That uncomfortable subject and at least a dozen more were already swarming your brain as you made your way out of the bathroom. You’d taken a few extra squares of toilet paper to press into the cut, were looking down at it with a tense, uncertain gaze as you ventured out, when you were obliged to stop just a few steps into the room.

“Hi, honey.”

It wasn’t Bucky.

Your eyes snapped up to the source of the voice in an instant, and, on seeing you were right—that it wasn’t Bucky but a gaunt, grinning blond with a gun to your husband’s head—you almost screamed at the sight.

You’d wanted to scream, anyway. It would’ve been the sane thing to do, and one that nobody could’ve blamed you for in the moment, you reckoned, but strangely the sound never came. You just stared at the two, eyes wide and jaw slightly more lax as your lips made an ‘o’. Bile jumped up in your throat. You wished it would choke you.

‘Please. Don’t.’ was all you could get out.

Johann Schröder’s smile stretched wider.

“Don’t what?”

The question was clearly meant to be derisive, rhetorical. Still, with your fingers trembling, you tried answering:

“Don’t hurt h—”

“Why?”

You watched the gun sink deeper against your husband’s face, and he flinched. Your stomach clenched inside you.

“Why shouldn’t I hurt him, hon? Seems like he’s gotten pretty damn good at doing it to you,” Schröder sneered.

His words stung. The grin didn’t flinch. And, as if to punctuate his sentence, or else remind your husband that he was tied to a chair and entirely at his mercy now, Schröder struck Bucky in the face with the butt of his gun. If an onlooker hadn’t known better, they might’ve mistaken you for the one who’d been hit, though—at last, you unleashed that scream, and you reached out for Bucky, hands open and pathetic and desperate to help.

“Think it hurt as bad as your hand?” Schröder hummed.

Your feet were stumbling forward, “He didn’t mean—”

Another resounding thud against Bucky’s skull, this time hard enough to split his lip in half. If he’d grimaced in the slightest, you would’ve seen the teeth smeared with blood. But, true to form, James Barnes didn’t wince. He hadn’t even seemed to acknowledge the blow as it landed. Just stared at you and, with eyes as hollow and deadened and faintly pleading as you’d ever seen them before, manifested their silent apology to yours—again.

“Bet he didn’t mean to hurt anyone as the Winter Soldier, either. Still couldn’t have felt too good for all the folks he butchered, though.” At that, Schröder’s sick amusement morphed into a laugh, and he was taking Bucky’s collar in his other hand. Shaking him lightly while he spoke.

“Couldn’t have felt all that great for your dad, I bet.”

The diversion turned to you, all toothy smiles and mocking eyes. He didn’t care. He let you stagger another step toward the two of them, even try to get your hands close to Bucky. But when you’d drawn too close, he stopped you cold. Not thinking much else in the moment, you made a move to push Schröder’s arm away, hard, and were shortly rewarded with a shove of your own. He knocked you sideways onto the bed, and you landed on the hand you’d hurt. Before you could let out so much as a sound yourself, Bucky’s voice tore in:

“Schröder.”

Schröder turned. He raised his Ruger to your husband’s head again, as casually as if he’d asked him for the time.

“Yes?”

“Don’t touch her.”

Schröder turned to you. Though he didn’t move the Ruger again, he did point his finger at your form, haplessly curled into itself amidst the covers and pillows.

“Why? Saving all the rough stuff for later, are we?”

You cowered as his free hand reached for you, and just as your husband’s eyes went wide and a vein nearly tore through his skin from how hard it protruded, you cried,

“What do you want?!”

Schröder stopped. He brought his hand to a halt just south of your thigh—and then he dropped his weight on the bed beside you. He gestured indistinctly, almost disbelievingly, toward Bucky. The latter appeared near-apoplectic, nails raking down either arm of the chair.

“What do I want?” Schröder quipped, incredulous, “What do you want, doll? To stay married to him?”

And you knew he’d intended the question to be hurtful; you knew it by the glint in his eye, the goading tone of voice and the look he’d flitted to Bucky—nondescript and yet saying a world more than words could ever convey. He knew what had gone on between you, had likely heard your last conversation in its entirety, and was now using it against you. Mostly to taunt, then to injure your husband with truths he hadn’t yet uncovered himself.

Schröder’s eyes were shining with sadistic delight as he took your hand in his. He didn’t waste another second.

“No, no, that isn’t what you want at all, is it?”

Ignoring the screech of Bucky’s restraints as he tried to lunge out of his chair. Hearing him curse when he failed.

“—you said you’re leaving him, right?”

Schröder slid the thin, glistening ring off the hand he’d been holding before you could even think to stop him.

“—said you want a divorce, is that it?”

Then his grin got so big and conceited and enlivened by the sight of pain working its way onto Bucky’s face that any good sense you’d had left inside you was abandoned in a blink. You didn’t hesitate, or else try and make a pass to retrieve your ring—you just hit the man in the face.

Your fist was small, and his chin was hard. You knew before you ever threw the punch that it’d probably hurt you more than him, but you did it anyway. It succeeded, at the very least, in catching Schröder by surprise and swiftly pissing him off. Seeing this and feeling a bit bolder, you were somehow able to dodge his hands when he lurched for you again. Inside, your own anger flared.

“Why the fuck do you care?” you spat.

You found momentary respite in the corner of the bed, sliding back against a wall that would only protect you for so long. As soon as Schröder regained his bearings, he had you back in his sights and his grasp just as quick.

He dragged you back. He pulled you up. He dug the tips of his fingers so hard into your side that you thought the flesh might tear in two across your ribs. But it didn’t. Crescent-like indentations did leave their mark in a grisly set of five, though. You felt the sting of it as Schröder loosened his grip, then sucked his next breath through his teeth as if calming himself. Your gaze only hardened.

“I care,” he said, once he’d completed this slow inhale. He replaced his touch by pinching your face in one hand and bringing it up to his, expression more like a snarl. Then, raising the gun to your face in his other hand, “because I made a deal with your father. Remember?”

You did. Your head jerked back by force of instinct, but he held it. From every direction, then, you had nothing to hear but the sound of your own pulse thrumming a fast, panicked tempo in your skull. You tasted blood in your mouth without a drop on your tongue. And, had that deafening fear and revulsion been anything less, you likely would’ve heard something else beneath it all.

Would’ve felt it, if you weren’t already so numb: Schröder’s hand sliding its way down your body, diamond ring still stuck to the tip of his index finger. You sensed it as though seeing yourself from another perspective—watching his hand trail lower, lower, lower until something in Bucky split in two and he bellowed:

“SCHRÖDER—”

He said something more after that; you were sure of it. You just couldn’t hear him, or see him, or discern much of anything else but your own racing heart as the man who’d just beat your husband twice and lifted a gun to your head proceeded to press his touch to your belly. Almost conscientious and gentle as he lowered it.

“Was this part of the deal, too, doll?”

Your eyes widened. Realizing—then feeling fear seize you completely. Forgetting the metal at your temple and shaking your head with a force, but slow enough that your husband wouldn’t see it. Meanwhile, across from you both, Bucky seemed more than sufficiently occupied by his own blinding rage—he spit a glob of blood to the floor and, with his teeth bared again, swore he’d kill him.

Over and over and over again, oaths of taking Schröder’s life and making it gruesome and painful and slow filled your ears, but none of it stuck, for either you or Schröder. Instead, your maniacal captor just smiled, leaning in.

“I said, was this part of the deal, Mrs. Barnes?”

The heel of his palm sank into your stomach, and as the shock of his first words began to fade, a pain replaced it. His hand made an impressive demonstration of flattening and forcing itself so hard against the skin that a flurry of stars cropped up in your eyes, and you cried:

“Stop! I-It wasn’t— just— just stop. Stop.”

“Stop? Was it part of the deal or not?”

Schröder bore down even harder.

“It just happened!” you keened. Unsure why you felt compelled to answer for what had gone on at all—addressing the baby in this awful, oblique way—though reckoning it had something to do with the pressure he was applying to your stomach. You tried to squirm back.

But your stuttering pulse and your pleading gaze and the ache in your stomach proved to be all too much for any real progress to be made. You’d scarcely moved off an inch before he drove his palm deeper, and with the agony of a body about to rupture beneath it, a shriek clawed out of your throat. Your mouth fell open, and for once, you couldn’t curtail the pain, or fear. Schröder’s hand had just forced the noise from your mouth, along with some mindless, broken pleas to stop pushing, it hurts, please, please, when the face above yours only brightened. Schröder’s cruel, snide mouth flashed a smile above you, and before you could whine again—

He kissed you.

It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second.

Still, the moment seemed to stretch indefinitely. And felt perverse. So deeply nauseating and unsettling to every last nerve, muscle, tendon, and bone in your body that the response it evoked could be nothing less than visceral. You didn’t need to think at all to shove him off. Whatever might’ve given you pause with a loaded gun to your head was forgotten in a second, and soon enough, you weren’t alone in letting your reproach be known.

It started off with a crack, then a harsh, crude splintering of wood. A violent rift, from what you could hear of it, and when you turned your head, your suspicions were confirmed: Bucky had snapped half the arm of his chair away from the seat, and his right hand was almost freed.

Whatever barrier he faced in being bound more than four times over with rope seemed immaterial to him now. He could strain as hard as he pleased—feel the coarse synthetic fibers dig into his flesh and leave streaks of red, if not break the skin itself—and any pain, as before, hardly appeared to register with your husband at all. He just muscled through it, thrusting his wrist even harder. The whole force of this movement rocked the chair on its legs, and just when you sensed it might collapse beneath his weight, you felt Schröder stand up. The man didn’t need to move too far or do much else other than drop his hold on you and flip his gun to point it at Bucky instead.

Even when he had, though, Bucky didn’t flinch. His hands were in fists and his drive was like a machine’s—he tried forcing his way out of the right hand’s restraints, and the second the wood gave way, he was shoving it off.

Blind to the firearm Schröder was holding, or his words:

“Stay where you are, Barnes.”

Bucky was just then shaking off the rope that had been loosened by the break in the wood, jaw still tight as ever.

“You’ve got three other limbs to free, my friend, just—”

Schröder was still speaking when you saw his finger slip to the trigger, and it seemed to you it was itching to pull.

“James, stop!”

That plea came from you. More of a strangled cry, really—no more pleasant for either man to hear than it was for your throat to shriek. It did, however, stop Bucky cold. Your husband paused just long enough to meet your gaze. And in it, you saw, at least, that he was all there, if not enraged. But not soldat, or anyone else but himself.

You sighed in relief, despite what seeing two red rivers seeping out of Bucky’s mouth might otherwise provoke.

It was him. You might’ve smiled if another hadn’t cut in.

Schröder seized Bucky’s wrist. With it, you saw his hand just as mangled and bloodied as his lips. Knuckles cracked, slit, and soon to be littered with bruises of every shade, he shocked you again by how calmly he took it. Even when Schröder sank a thumb inside a big, gaping crater of a flesh wound he’d found on the back of his hand, your husband didn’t blink; he just looked at you.

‘I’m sorry.’

When the barrel of the gun returned to his head—this time, at the rear, as Schröder had circled back around the half-broken chair and was leaning over him—you could see the apology lodged in his eyes on full display.

“For safekeeping.” The man wielding the gun seemed almost pleased as he dropped your ring inside the breast pocket of your husband’s shirt, before patting it gently:

“Now where were we?”

A beat. Bucky’s right hand twitched beside him, but evidently, he knew better than to move in that moment.

“Right, right—” Schröder pretended to be remembering, tapping steel to Bucky’s skull, “She’s leaving, isn’t she?”

More silence.

You wanted to speak, beg Schröder for mercy, anything.

“Do you know why that is, Bucky?”

But before you could utter even a word of protest, the voice pressed on. Schröder was leaning in his ear.

“—what you did to her?”

The baby. Brooklyn. All the bloodshed that had ensued last week, leaving your husband completely in the dark. Of course, he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been himself, and was scarcely more able to control his actions as the Winter Soldier than he could in a dream.

To your horror, Schröder reached down for Bucky’s hand, and, still holding the gun to him with the other, lifted it.

Pointed it.

Pushed it closer to you.

“C’mon, Buck. You don’t want me touching her, right? Why don’t you feel for yourself what she’s been hiding?”

Your blood turned to ice. You’d never felt so immobile—paralyzed—in your life, but seeing the hands drift closer and closer and feeling defenseless to their course, your body went numb. Your limbs grew heavier than lead.

And when you felt the smug, smiling blond guide your husband’s touch toward your head, you understood it all.

You were perched at the edge of the bed a foot away. Schröder was nudging Bucky forward in his chair, urging him to reach out and tilt her chin a little, go on, that’s it. And neither one of you had a choice, so he touched you. His fingers, directed by someone else, were obliged to brush the skin of your chin, your jaw, your cheek, and your brow, before finally settling above your left temple.

Your husband felt the cut—touched the stitches.

You winced, but not from any physical pain. It was Bucky’s face as the tips of his fingers skimmed the wound. The look of chagrin that crossed his eyes. Then bewilderment. Fear, as plain as anyone could see it— was he the cause of that? Had the hurt been from him?

You couldn’t bear to answer him, so you looked away. It was Schröder, again, who had all the power to speak.

“Can’t remember pushing her down?” he said, tone dark, “Making her split her head open on the bedside table because soldat didn’t know his own strength—only that he had to keep her safe—and sensed a threat outside?”

Bucky shook his head. His face was grave.

Schröder kept making him prod the skin.

“It’s bruised here, too. You feel it?”

Your husband did, and you thought it might break him. So tender and forlorn were the eyes, raking over every spot where a touch, his touch, had left you hurt before.

If nothing else could bring you back to your senses, the wounded look in Bucky’s gaze was sure to get it done.

You hardly thought again, just croaked: ‘It’s not his fault.’

Schröder’s hand then descended your neck, your torso.

As if he hadn’t heard you at all—

“You already saw what happened to her hand.”

—and forcing Bucky’s touch lower still.

“But what about here?”

Your breath hitched in your throat when you felt your husband’s hand come to rest on your stomach.

It was like a fire had ignited in your lower half, and nothing close to the soft, pleasurable kind. Not the flutter felt in anticipation of a touch from your husband, not the desirous sort. In fact, you dreaded it now; seeing Schröder over his shoulder, urging him closer, making him flatten his big, broad, scorching palm over your belly.

What should’ve been the ecstatic scene you’d conjured in your mind at least a hundred times since marrying him—the picture of domestic bliss as you said it, smiling, I’m pregnant—was now nothing short of torture. Choice all but stripped from you here, forced to emerge inside this terrible place, you found yourself needing to shrink back, shake your head, look to Schröder’s stubborn, unyielding gaze and beg him not to make you do this now. Not now.

Not here, with Bucky’s skin a shade of glacial white and his eyes going wide, taking on a look you’d never seen.

“What do you—”

He stared hard at the hand on your belly, but it didn’t last for long. As if realization were trying to seep in, he couldn’t meet it. His eyes flitted back to your face.

“Baby, what’s—” he tried again, stammering.

“—right, that’s it, Mr. Barnes.” That was Schröder.

Satisfied in the suspense of the moment keeping your husband still, he lifted his hand from Bucky’s and snapped, that’s it, and clapped him over the shoulder.

Congratulating him before the truth had even sunk in.

“A baby, that’s right! You’re going to be a father, Buck.”

And how far was the look on Bucky’s face from the one you’d dreamed before. The lips you’d envisioned in a smile now twisting bleakly, parting slightly, and the eyes you’d once hoped to be bright and elated only staring back with rings of red enveloping the irises. Whatever tears formed at his waterline were decidedly not of joy.

Only guilt.

“You did it.”

Desperation.

More moisture in his eyes as his hand started to tremble across your stomach, voice hoarse and soft, “Is it true?”

You didn’t need to nod. You just watched him, let your own eyes fill with the worst, stinging tears you had felt in your life, and from the silence that followed, Bucky knew.

As if the life beneath his palm were something dear, but still too much for him to comprehend, he shook his head. He stroked his thumb over the cotton of your pyjamas and tried inching closer, as much as his restraints would allow him. Then, with words that were audibly strained, but always gentle, he lowered his voice—as if to keep the communication between you two, despite your position:

“I love you.”

His hand was still on your belly as he said it. He reached up to cup your face. Even lower than before, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry.

That much was evident from every look he’d given you tonight. Every move he made a de facto apology, all actions in the vein of atonement, it couldn’t possibly escape your mind or his that he knew he’d done wrong. It was only a matter of accepting this—maybe coming to terms with the fact that your life wasn’t safe in his hands—for the guilt plaguing Bucky to multiply. Paralyze him.

There was no better time for Schröder to strike. Just as the anguish had flooded Bucky’s face completely, and his hand had had to lower itself from want of strength, a sound split the air. Bucky was so lost in his thoughts that it didn’t even register at first, but the impact was real, and it was harsh: Schröder punched him squarely in the jaw. The next, swift snap was his nasal bone taking a blow, and breaking beneath it. Blood breezed down and into his mouth. Feeling warm, his lips and chin doused in a second, he sensed nothing else. He might’ve groaned.

He caught another swift right hook, and his mind went blank. Nothing of substance threatened to materialize between his ears, save for the rush of blood through and from his skull and the dim recognition of something ugly.

Something horrific.

He couldn’t protect you.

His body was as much an idle waste as it was a danger. Useless now, as he was tied to this chair, and a risk to your well-being even if he weren’t. The hazard was him.

Schröder hit him again, and Bucky realized that the ringing he’d heard in his ears was your screaming.

“I’m doing her a favor,” Schröder spat before shoving him back in the chair, almost knocking it sideways.

The blond advanced with ease. His knuckles were drenched in blood; none of it was his. When he reached for Bucky again, the resistance was slight, and a simple, firm grip on the collar was all that was needed to drag his frame to sit straight. Bucky was barely upright for a second before the next—and worst—blow struck his face. His whole head rang with it, reeling, but still, he could make out the words as they were spoken to him.

“She’ll never be safe with you, Barnes. Never—” and at the last, Schröder lowered his gun. Started to loosen the rope from Bucky’s left arm, “—I could free you now, and you still wouldn’t get within an inch of what you want.”

He nudged the rope away and let it fall to the floor. Bucky lifted his hand, but the effort was in vain. No sooner had a finger of his stirred than Schröder was delivering a kick to the chair and letting it splinter. Topple. Skitter a half-foot across the hardwood floor with Bucky’s ankles still bound to it, before finally, gracelessly, breaking apart.

Bucky was on the floor, blinking through a stream of blood and a sea of muddied thoughts when Schröder kicked the chair again. The rope slackened some more.

“Her own father knew as much, so he made me a deal to take her off of your hands. Settle his debts the way he should’ve done the first time around,” Schröder said, and now his tone was lower. Lethal as it ever was, and stern.

“I know how much you hate to lose your playthings, Buck, but this one’s better off with me, I promise.”

And, as if to emphasize his point, Schröder turned and reached for you. Bucky’s own hands were slow, fumbling in fits and bursts to get the rope unwound from his ankles, but they were determined. He just couldn’t get the bleeding to stop, the ringing to subside, or his brain, in its concussed state, to let him move with a little more agility. He’d been hit too many times. He could barely lift his head off his shoulders and hold it straight, so he was forced to stay where he was, keep at his task, and listen.

“You’re weak when you’re not soldat.”

Using his knuckles, Schröder brushed the blood that was evidently all Bucky’s across your cheek, and you flinched.

“When you make the switch, still…you’re inhuman.”

Then he tilted your head, making you show them both the mutilated, stitched-up flesh above your temple. Again, you tried to slink away, but his touch was firm.

“Don’t you think your bride deserves better than that? Your child? Forced to live in fear of that thing you are?”

Blood coursed down Bucky’s face, and his lips were curled apart in a grimace, mouth hanging slightly ajar. His eyes fixed their look on you. The rope was undone.

He’d just started to try and stand when the edge of his vision blurred. He felt the lacerations in his face pulse as one, and with it, half his sight went skewed to the left. Schröder couldn’t help but crack a smile seeing him stumble, pitch back, and barely catch himself on the bedside table. When he stood, he was mostly hunched.

“Look at you, Buck. You can’t try and save her like this,” Schröder taunted, drawing you closer, “So stop trying.”

The man’s hand was like ice holding your face. The grip grew tighter when he saw your husband limping your way, and before either one of you could move, the index of Schröder’s other hand had slid down to the trigger. He didn’t wait to give another warning before he did it—just pointed the gun and fired one shot over Bucky’s head.

His aim was good. The bullet missed your husband by less than an inch. The gun had gone off by your ear, and immediately, you seized the side of your head as a sharp, searing pain cropped up. Your skull was still ringing when you heard the thing discharge again, and you realized it had been aimed at Bucky’s neck. He’d ventured another step, and Schröder had fired a second round to graze the top of his shoulder. Crimson bloomed through his shirt.

Bucky should’ve stumbled again. He might’ve staggered back with a grunt of pain, lifted a quick, reflexive hand to feel the wound, but the sense of it all was slow to reach him. The moments that passed him were delayed just the same, as if the world around him were distorted—the fibers of time tugged and stretched before his eyes—and he could hardly keep himself straight. When he got another look down the barrel of the gun, he didn’t blink. Couldn’t see, really. It was all misshapen sights and sounds and a dim recognition that his mind was in a fog.

Somewhere from within that mist, he heard, faintly:

“I’ll go— I’ll go— I’ll go with you, I’ll go— just stop.”

Schröder turned to you, and the smile that he wore was cruel, but Bucky wasn’t able to make out the expression.

All he could see then, to the faintest extent, was you—your face, gripped hard in another man’s hand, eyes pleading and wet with tears, and a slightly slack jaw.

“Leave him for me?” Schröder repeated, sneering.

You nodded. Blinked. Rolled your tongue along the inside of your cheek before pulling it back and biting down once. There was a hint of a wince in your eyes, but, from what Bucky could tell, it vanished just as fast as it came.

Your lips parted again. Your eyes widened a little.

“So the girl has some fucking sense.” That was Schröder.

He’d had his weapon re-holstered and your face firmly seized in both of his hands in no more than a second.

What came next surprised no one, though the sensations of disgust and rage were as quick to turn a stomach as the shock would have done. Schröder bent down and, having pulled your face closer to his, kissed you again.

Schröder’s mouth was glistening with a grin and Bucky’s own blood—smeared all over your face from how hard he’d been holding you—when he looked up and turned.

“Sensible and sweet, isn’t she? Tastes like it, too.”

Bucky saw nothing but red. It wasn’t just blood crowding his vision now but violence and rancor and outright hatred, stirring his limbs to start moving again when the rest of his body was plainly too battered to venture an inch in that condition. He staggered again, watched you again, and had made it almost halfway across the room when another sight slowed him, if only for a moment.

Schröder’s lips were back on yours, as if to mock him, but what startled him, really, was the way you’d opened your mouth. You couldn’t mean it. Clearly. Schröder was gripping your jaw, forcing it open—it had to be—and he was coaxing your tongue out from inside and weaving it with his. Once more, time moved like molasses, and that was all your husband had had to see: you kissing him back, gripping his arm through the thick, black tactical gear, and still parting your lips more and more for him. Like you needed a touch, or something, worse than ever.

That stalled Bucky, though he was nowhere close to stopping now. Briefly preoccupied, and seemingly shocked as well that you’d accepted the kiss so eagerly this time, Schröder didn’t see the approach. If he had, he likely would’ve turned and made a move for his Ruger, but as it was, he had only to blink—and there was Bucky.

He hit him with a force that was blinding, directly to the side of his head so hard that he’d had no choice but to separate from you. Schröder was stunned one second and on the floor in the next. Bucky threw him there, kicked him down, and, wavering for only a moment to cock back the shoulder that’d been shot, he ignored the pain and punched the man again. And again. And again.

There was a callousness, an indolence, and an ease with which he was able to inflict the pain, that much was evident. What didn’t seem so natural, at least in Bucky’s mind, was the weight that was in his hands: Schröder’s body felt limp before he’d even landed the second blow.

The pressure grew heavier and heavier in his hands the harder, and more frequently, he delivered each hit, but for now, he didn’t care. Bucky kept on punching until the face beneath him was gnarled and bloody, and his own fist, too, slashed every which way with more cuts than he was able to count. He would’ve kept going—could’ve ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder for as long as it would take to ensure the man was dead—but as it was, he refused to ignore the voice he heard. It was yours.

Muffled now, as your body was bent to the side and your head drooped lower still. Your voice was soft but clear:

“Bucky, please, stop.”

He did.

He dropped the man’s collar from his hands as soon as he’d heard you say it, and he turned away as if nothing had transpired behind him at all. His focus was on you.

“Baby—”

To his surprise, he watched you spit on the floor.

Your face was grim and almost sick, and you spit again.

The look grew even worse, and afterward, you didn’t waste a second more; you stood and left the room.

Bucky was stunned at first, and his instinct had been to follow. Then he heard a rattling sound beside him. He glanced down and paled, seeing Schröder there.

His face had turned blue much sooner than Bucky had expected—and not from any bruising but a lack of oxygen in his lungs. He was choking, foaming slightly at the mouth while he gasped for air. Surely, it hadn’t been the hits that caused it. The whites of Schröder’s eyes were as conspicuous as he’d ever seen them. Desperate.

Bucky swiftly got the sense that the life of his former captor was lost, and frankly, he didn’t care enough to watch him die. He left what remained of Schröder’s form to continue writhing on the floor, choking and sputtering for a breath that would never come, and went after you.

Downstairs, he found you hunched over the kitchen sink—spitting, retching, and trembling, too, but breathing.

You let the water from the faucet fill your mouth, and you rinsed again. You winced as something stuck your cheek.

Bucky drew closer, quickly, and when he was right by your side, he saw you spit a shard of glass into the sink. He looked over to the counter, and he spotted three more

They were minuscule, really. Nothing quite the size to leave a wound too deep, but sharp enough to cut your lips, your tongue, or the insides of your cheeks. When Bucky leaned in, he saw droplets of red joining the flow of the water beneath it. You coughed over and over again

“Don’t,” you croaked, seeing Bucky reach for the glass.

Before he could reply: “It’s the poison. From Madripoor.”

Your husband’s blood went cold in his veins. He didn’t touch the glass, but he did press closer to you, feeling his insides churn as the cogs started to turn in his head.

The vial of poison you’d been given to slip in Schröder’s drink at the Foxy Den—how the hell had you gotten it back? Why would you think you needed it, if he— but no, that couldn’t be the case. There wasn’t a shot you just—

“—put it in your mouth?” Bucky couldn’t curb the fear in his voice. He reached for you and spun you to face him.

“Did it kill him?”

Your eyes were wide for entirely different reasons. Bucky couldn’t believe what he was seeing; his mouth was dry.

“I didn’t want to kiss him,” you went on, voice shaking a little, “I didn’t— I just— I couldn’t get him the poison any other way. I knew he’d kiss me again, and when he did—”

“I know,” Bucky said. He smoothed the hair from your face, shaking his head. Feeling his stomach clench with fear and dread as he hurried to get a look in your mouth.

You’d snuck the vial inside your cheek, then crushed it between your teeth before Schröder had kissed you. You’d all but forced him to swallow the poison, shoving your tongue down his throat, but what of the stuff that remained? The rough, trembling fingers of Bucky’s hand were trying to pry your lips apart as gently as they could, ensure all the serum was out, but at present, you wouldn’t let him. You pushed back gently, though not too far to prevent your own touch from roaming his shoulder.

“The bullet—” you started.

“Barely nicked me,” Bucky cut in, “Baby, I need to see—”

That you’re safe. That you won’t be hurt in any way. He couldn’t finish the thought himself, having seen what the poison did to Schröder. Instead, he just held you closer and fought the lump that was starting to form in his throat. Adrenaline had worked well enough to clear his mind of the haze, but the rest of him was all high-strung.

Your clothes clung to you both, wet with blood and sweat. Your breaths were fast. Your expressions were feral, eyes no calmer as they scanned over the other’s form and soaked in every trace of what had happened. Bucky in his formalwear and you in something close to a chemise—like your honeymoon night all over again—you each got a glimpse of the gore ornamenting yourselves and let the room fall quiet, if only for a minute or two.

Your husband was the one to break the silence, at length, with cracked and grisly hands sliding down to your hips.

“You’re okay?”

His touch shifted you back in place to sit on the counter.

“I’m alright.”

You wanted to say more; assure him, in a voice as sedate as you could manage, that this wasn’t his fault. Whether he would believe a word of what you said was a separate question, but, at any rate, it didn’t matter. The next thing you knew, Bucky was slotting himself in the space between your legs and pulling you into his arms.

In spite of himself and all the wounds, he held you tight.

“You’re alright,” he repeated.

His face sank into the crook of your neck, and you felt his muscles contract again—pulling you closer—as he drew a shaky breath against your skin. You hugged him back.

“Are you?” Your voice was small.

In a blink, Bucky resurfaced. He lifted his head from your neck and, still holding you, hadn’t seemed to have heard.

“The baby,” he said quickly.

He stepped back. Lowered his gaze and his hands to trail over your hips and near your stomach, and he stared, as if trying to make sense of something dire. His blue eyes were wide, and they assumed such a look of panic that you feared a blood vessel might actually burst in one.

After all the great lengths he’d gone to, ensuring you were safe and taking extra precautions, on the off-chance you might be pregnant, here you were.

And there he went, sliding his touch lower and lower again until his hand was pressed into your belly, and the gaze you’d once thought soft before had all but melted into tenderness—delicacy. Complete, loving unreserve.

When his eyes met yours a second time, they were shiny.

Wet with the only kind of tears you’d want to see in them.

“You’re really…” he started, just to taper off, blinking.

And then his cheeks were dotted with the tiny, round droplets, and he’d finally ventured a smile for the first time in what seemed like ages and you couldn’t keep from reaching for him. The second you’d lifted your arms you were back in his, lips and nose smushed against the front of his stained white button-up and breathing deep.

Or trying to, anyway. Bucky had you squeezed so tight to his chest you had nothing but his shirt to inhale at first. You didn’t mind, and when he pulled away a moment later, you realized that your eyes, too, were filling up quick. You had to steel yourself against a maelstrom of emotions that threatened to emerge—the aftermath of a half-dozen traumas laid bare over the last hour—but the longer you were here, and the more your husband stared at you like that, the quicker your courage was depleted. In the span of five seconds, your senses were shot to hell. All you could think was what you could feel, and all you felt was Bucky: his arms and his hands and the raw, blistering heat between your bodies. The rest was noise.

It surprised you both when you kissed him. Physically, your mouth and his were hardly up to do it, injured as they were, but the impulse was strong, and it flowed between you. As soon as your lips latched onto his, Bucky was holding your face, molding his body to yours without so much as a second thought, and the mouth you met was sturdy. Hungry in the way it kissed back.

A string of words from Schröder flashed in your mind—‘Never be safe’—and you grit your teeth together, snagging the cusp of Bucky’s lower lip as you did it. He groaned. Before you could even try to apologize, though, he was gripping your face harder in his hands and coaxing your mouth open with his tongue. His front was still flush with yours, and your legs were starting to wind around his hips. Your husband nudged you back against the cabinets, and from the force of that push, you felt it.

Felt him.

Surely, it had had to take two very fucked up individuals to get all hot and bothered from a bloodbath that had just taken place; but, again, here you were—together.

And there you went, grinding your lower half with his.

“Doll?” Bucky broke out, word slurred just a little.

For a second, you thought he was going to stop you. Your eyes scanned his, and you were already planning to apologize for being so horny, it must just be the—

“You know I love you, right?” he breathed.

You blinked. You were about to nod, when you felt the bulge in his slacks start to rub against your barely-clothed heat, and something akin to a shockwave coursed through your frame. It couldn’t be helped. A monsoon of hyper-sensitized pleasure trembled over the skin in a way you’d never felt it before, and suddenly you were letting out a moan: a muffled cry of, ‘Yes, I-I know.’

Your husband swallowed and stared, slightly taken aback by the reaction his erection had produced. He’d never felt that either. At least from what he could remember.

The truth was that he’d never had a pregnant wife before—someone whose body was now extraordinarily responsive to his touch, nearly aching for him.

When you scooted your butt to the edge of the counter and dug your heels in the backs of his legs, humping him, almost, he got the idea. Bucky swallowed again.

“I love you too, I— I—” you started, already out of breath, “I just really need you to fuck me. Can you— please—”

Bucky didn’t need to be asked once, much less twice. He already had his belt, button, and zip undone before you could even look down, and then your own pyjama shorts were sliding off too. The counter was cool against your skin, but your husband’s warmth was more than enough to compensate for the loss. You smiled again, sheepish.

“It’s just…hormones,” you said, quieter toward the end.

You weren’t sure why you felt so ashamed to simply say, ‘James, I’ve been damn near insane with desire ever since you put a baby in me. Can you give me five more?’ But you did. You felt your cheeks start to heat as your lower half was left exposed to the air, and Bucky slipped his hand down between your legs, practically groaning:

“Honey, you’re soaked.”

There wasn’t one iota of shame in his tone.

He was more than happy to find you drenched beneath his touch. He had a smile on his face and a warmth bleeding from every fingertip as he caressed that soft, tender spot. You didn’t need to tell him what was on your mind, either. He sensed something was making you shy, and rather than have you say it aloud, he just touched you gentler, stroked the skin more affectionately, and tilted his head so only you could hear him, quiet as ever:

“That’s my girl. Feeling good for me?”

You felt your heartbeat between your thighs.

“My baby,” Bucky went on, voice dulcet and slow.

Your body was trembling at the edge, waiting. Impatient.

“My wife,” he said that with a smile, into your neck.

He lowered you onto his length, and you whined.

“Mother of my child.” The smile got bigger.

You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it. Feeling him slide inside the most precious, wet, pliable part of you, stretching you out, you couldn’t help the sounds you made. You felt full in a whole new way; the groan Bucky let out when you were impaled down to the base of his cock said he shared the feeling. He throbbed inside you.

“You’re—fuck.” Bucky’s words broke off at the sensation.

Your walls were as slick as ever, your body delicate, rolling your hips to the first gentle thrusts that his shaft carved inside. Neither one of you could last long like this.

Still, at the threat of sublime pleasure, you felt fear, briefly: Schröder’s implacable stare—and the thousands more like him in HYDRA. You couldn’t help but grip Bucky tighter, willing these thoughts away with the rhythm of your body over his. Feeling him fill you up, fuck you with quick, deliberate thrusts and hold you, ‘That’s it, take what you need, sweet girl, you’re okay.’

You wished you were. You wanted to be. With every stab of Bucky’s hips, you hoped this would be the last night you ever feared for you or your child’s life, but deep down, you knew that wasn’t true. This was everything your husband’s varied ‘enterprises’ entailed, and a life with him meant never knowing a day without it—fear.

The head of Bucky’s cock grazed an especially sensitive ridge in your walls, and you whimpered into his shoulder.

You smelled blood.

He pushed you back against the counter and pounded harder, breaths heavy and labored and gruff as he spoke:

“You’re okay, baby, it’s alright.”

Your mind tried clinging to that thought, nodding along as if to convince yourself. The pleasure grew stronger, and your body was hot. Everything was heightened. Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes or his lips or his rough, bloodied touch from roaming you wherever he could reach, and he kept rutting his hips, assuring you gently, again and again, that it was all okay. He was right here.

The pleasure from the depths of your body was beyond your control—you couldn’t help it when the band inside of you snapped. You held Bucky closer and you moaned, more desperate and needy and soaking for him, taking something from him, and knowing the bliss you felt would only steal the dark thoughts for a moment or two.

Bucky’s eyes said it just the same. He couldn’t keep stuffing you full, feeling his pleasure hit its peak, and finally painting your insides without sharing that look.

You were less than halfway down from your highs when you felt him go still, panting fast, then hold your face.

“I love you.”

It was desperate. Hoping for something.

“I love you, too,” you told him, and you meant it.

But there was more. Both of you knew there was more.

“I can’t be married to you, Bucky.”

You didn’t know why it had to come out now, but the emotions were there—his gaze had all but drawn it out.

Still sheathed inside you, your husband tensed. He looked as if he might try and shake his head, but the movement was stalled by his own momentary shock. He’d known the words were coming, but the sound of you saying them now wasn’t any less jarring to hear. Before he could reply, you found yourself cutting back in:

“Not now, at least. We need some…time. To think.”

You weren’t sure what you were saying, just that your lips were moving and every new word was hurting him more.

“Even with Schröder gone, there are so many…dangers for both—or, all—of us, and I don’t know…I just can’t—”

—imagine bringing a child into a world like this. Like his.

You didn’t need to say it.

The pain in Bucky’s eyes already communicated as much, and the conviction in your own only convinced him that you’d meant it—and what you said was the truth. You couldn’t stay in a marriage that wasn’t safe.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something more, the man surprised you when he squeezed your hand.

Nodding, almost imperceptibly, in front of you.

“I can wait,” he said, “Whenever you’re ready, doll.”

His voice was hoarse, words strained from the lump in his throat as he spoke, but the message was sincere.

“Whenever you feel safe,” he added, softly.

You wanted to hold him again. Like before, your eyes began to well with something stinging and harsh, but the look you’d fixed on him was filled with nothing but love. You would’ve reached for him then, if he hadn’t moved his hand to his pocket. He felt around inside it, briefly.

Then Bucky retrieved your wedding ring.

Holding you up against him, pressed snugly into the counter with your legs still wrapped around his lower half, he pinched the silver band between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to you. It glistened in the light.

“The next time you wear it, I want it to be because you chose to marry me. Not for anything, or anyone, else.”

Nothing arranged, no game, no being forced to stay.

You nodded and had to blink through a layer of tears.

Bucky’s thumb traced the moisture, cupping your cheek in one of his hands. He’d had to keep blinking himself, and before you could reach for him, he kissed you.

“I really hope you marry me again one day, Mrs. Barnes.”

You smiled, having parted but still holding on.

“I think I would like that, too. One day.”

The next thing you heard was a sound at the front door: what sounded like a crash. Half a dozen sets of feet stumbling inside, crowding the foyer, making a loud, frantic clamor that you and Bucky knew only too well. The two of you scrambled to get your clothes back on as Steve, Nat, Sam, and Sharon all seemed to yell at once.

You had one hell of a story to tell them.

Taglist: @vicmc624 @she-could-never @mcira @kentokaze @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007 @wilsons-striped-ties @pono-pura-vida @geminiflanagansblog @buggy14 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @kunakizen @ghostiebby06 @blackhawkfanatic @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @lunaroserites @first-edition @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @mostlymarvelgirl @yujyujj @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @5thgoddess @oogaboogabeepboop @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @mimimarvelingmarvel @counteveresttt @thepetitemandalorian @diannana @aagn360 @aka-tua-braindump @shortnloud @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @ladyvenera @gyokujyn @bigtreefest @winterschildren8 @mega-kittyglitter-1

[b3ach-bunn7]

C U GIRL

Bakugo loves his girlfriend

based off this texpost and @laffythefaffy request!

slight nsfw, fluff, prohero!bakugo

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bakugo didn’t believe in relationships.

Romantic ones, at least. Platonic ones he’d been convinced of, after the relentless nature of his classmates, but Bakugo could safely say that, at the age of twenty five, he had never been in love.

It didn’t depress him. He’d had experiences. He’d kissed and he’d fucked, and it felt good, and still he’d never had a girlfriend. His childhood was a mess of war and pain and death, and so there was no time for it then. And now, his days are filled with patrolling and missions and he doesn’t really have time for it either. Where is he supposed to meet one, anyway? The only time he goes out is when he gets dragged to the annoying 1-A meet-ups at the bar in Nagoya that are always far too loud for his liking. And Bakugo would rather keel over and die before he tried to flirt with someone in front of Denki.

But Bakugo was happy with his life. Content. Enough as a busy hero could be.

And then he met you.

He’d been patrolling that day. Quite possibly the worst part of his job. It’s more for publicity than safety, he thinks. Civilians like seeing a hero walking around and cruising the streets. It makes them feel protected and it makes his agency look good for looking out for the public. All it means for him though, is way too many people asking for interviews and pictures and the waste of a day at work.

And then he’d heard it. A loud crash and screams that echoed down the street and the sudden rush of civilians from the bookshop a small ways away. They scattered like ants and Bakugo pushed through them, breaking into a run.

Something, or someone, had crashed through the front door, glass scattered in sharp jagged pieces on the floor. That seemed to have been the extent of the damage. He ignores the clammer of a crowd behind him and steps inside, eyes scanning the shop for the source of the destruction. And he assumed the poorly dressed man standing in the middle of the place was the cause. It looked like a home-made costume that reminded him of Deku’s first ever costume, and the man wearing it looked just as weak as he had.

Bakugo sighed internally. They get a couple of guys like this every so often. People with too big dreams of fame or villainy or both, and a flashy enough quirk that they think some damage will get their name plastered on the six o’clock news. More often than not, it ends with Bakugo nearly blowing up their face and the next few years in prison.

Balugo kicked a fallen book. The man caught sight of him and stood straighter. It might have been a show of strength but Bakugo saw his hands quiver as he pointed them at the crying civilian next to him.

“Not a step closer, Dynamight! Or I’ll blow her brains out!” He yelled.

Considering the damage to the door and the way he’s wielding his hands like the weapon, Bakugo assumed this was a quirk attack. His eyes darted around to assess the situation. Other than fallen bookcases and the dust of a broken wall, there wasn’t too much damage. The place was pretty small anyway. There were four people in the room, including the villain, and judging by the fact they’re all on their feet he didn’t think they were injured. Even the one being held hostage looks fine, other than the flurry of tears falling down her face. She looks young, and Bakugo scowls.

“Let her go and I won’t have to blow your fucking hands off.” Bakugo demanded.

“No! I-I make the rules here!” It was sad, really. The kid was practically shivering. Definitely not villain material. 

Before Bakugo could do anything, like explode the sad fucker into the nearest juvenile detention centre, there’s a loud thud, and the man crumpled to the floor. Confusion flitted across his face and then he looked up and saw you. 

You, hobbling forward on one ankle, a hard-back dictionary in your hand, breathing heavily. Your clothes were wrinkled and your face flushed, chest heaving as you looked down at the man in front of you. The dictionary dropped to the floor and you cursed.

“Fuck. Did I kill him?” You mumbled, nudging his shoulder with your good foot.

You hadn’t killed him. Just knocked him out, he found after pressing his fingers against the man’s neck. He clicked on a pair of quirk cancelling cuffs and handed him off to the police, who had just arrived. He watched as they started talking to the other victims and he turned his attention to you.

“That was real fucking stupid. Don’t ever get involved in a fight like that.” He snapped.

You pouted. “I got him, though.”

Red eyes flicked down. You were looking worriedly at your ankle, hands holding you up on the counter beside you. He studied your face, the small crease of worry between your eyebrows. You suddenly glanced up at him. You gave him a small smile and he shook his head.

He crouched down, beckoning you with his hand. “Idiot. Show me your ankle.” 

You held your foot up gingerly, and Bakugo pressed his fingers against your bone, touching lighter when you wince slightly. Behind him, he could hear the commotion of paramedics checking on the other civilians, the blare of sirens from outside. Your fingers drum against the counter you're leaning on.

“Don’t think it’s broken. Just fractured.” He said, standing up again.

He saw you squeezing your wrist, stretching it out and wiggling your fingers. He nodded, gesturing at his own wrist.

“You fuck that up too?”

You laughed slightly. “No, I- I think I just hurt it when I smacked him with that book.” You shook it once. “I’ll be fine, though.”

“You got him good though. Nice swing.” 

The little comment surprised even him, and you laughed, out of shock more than anything else, and he allowed a small smile to ghost his own face. 

“Thanks. Your agency need any extra hands?” You teased and he rolled his eyes.

“Not one as dumb as you.” He drawled and you just grinned back.

He watched you glance behind you at the paramedics and back down at your ankle. You winced, pushing yourself up so that you could start the walk towards them, but he waved you off.

“Hold on.”

In one swift motion, his hands came up under your thighs, the other sweeping behind your back, and he lifted you up with ease. You made a sound of surprise in the back of your throat. Your hands wrapped around his neck and your body was warm against his.

“I’ll get you to the paramedics. They’ll fix you up.” He said.

And you were close enough that when you replied, a soft okay, he felt it rumble against his chest, could feel your fingers curl against the small of his neck. He felt an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach at your proximity. Not one he’s used to when he’s saving civilians.

He held you tighter as he bent over the door frame, making the disappointingly short journey to the bank of the closest open ambulance. A smiling woman came over and listened as Bakugo relayed your injuries, and you watched in keen interest as she used some healing quirk over your ankle.

Bakugo could’ve left. He should’ve left. He isn’t the type to sit and check up on the victims, he’d usually be back carrying on patrol, but. Bakugo lingered. He watched as the paramedic told you to take it easy for the next few days, and you beamed that smile at her he itched for you to aim at him. She wrapped a bandage around your ankle and you thanked her. And once the paramedic left, and your attention was back on him, he could appreciate you a little more. Outside, in the bright summer sun, your eyes shone, your skin glistening in the light as you rolled your ankle around.

“God. It must be nice to have a quirk that can just fix someone up like that.” You hummed. 

“You don’t got a quirk?” He asked and you shook your head.

“Nah. Don’t really need one when you’re running a book store, though.” 

Bakugo crossed his arms over his chest. He hoped you saw the bulge of his biceps that he definitely wasn’t trying to show off. “Right. You be more fucking careful next time.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Me? You’re the one who needed rescuing, if my dictionary wielding is anything to go by.”

He barked a laugh. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. But don’t worry. I’ll forgive you once you help me fix the store.” 

It was Bakugo’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “And who said I’m fucking doing that?” 

You didn’t bristle at his tone. Just flash those pearly whites up at him. “I’m going to have to send my workers home after that fiasco, so. I’d like an extra pair of hands. And I’d hope one of Japan's top Pro heroes would help a book owner in need.”

He rolled his eyes. “Suck up.”

But he did come back. After his shift was over, he stalked his way over the streets he’d just been patrolling and he helped you organise your shelves once more. It was unprofessional. There was probably some code or some rule in the Hero conduct that stated you definitely were not allowed to meet up with civilians you just saved and flirt with them as you alphabetised stacks of books and lifted heavy shelves.

But he did it anyway.

And then he started appearing at the shop more. It was on his patrol route, after all. And he was looking to start reading more as well. And the door to your office is rickety, and he knew how to fix that, so he had to come by again. 

And then he asked you to dinner one day and everything sort of went up from there.

So now he has a girlfriend. And a fiance soon, if things go well next week. And now that Bakugo has it, a person he can call his, he doesn’t know how he lived without it for so long. 

Bakugo doesn’t know how he spent so many years sleeping alone, when now he wakes up and his legs are tangled between yours and your head rests on his chest. You trace the scars that litter his body so gently, gentler than anyone has ever handled him. You know how to match Bakugo’s temper, but better how to calm him down when his flares too much. But it’s more than that. It’s the little things. You always make him lunch for work because you know how busy he gets, and you always leave his towel at the top of the pile because you know he gets up before you. Such small noncommittal things that make all the difference in the world because it shows that you care.

It makes him regret. He wishes he’d given these things a chance when he was younger. But he doesn’t need to think about that because he has you now. It also makes him appreciate patrolling a little more but nobody could beat that information out of him if they tried.

Bakugo sighs. The TV blares a movie he’s not paying attention to. He’d clicked the first thing that had come up in Netflix, some horror movie with an awfully predictable plot. He’s more focused on his phone, more precisely the clock, which tells him you’ll be home in about five minutes. 

Bakugo loves his days off. Any hero does. They are so far and few between that he has no choice but to enjoy them, the few days a month where he can do nothing and not worry about the fate of Japan for one day. What he likes most, though, is that he gets to see you. Before, days off consisted of sitting in his apartment alone or being dragged out to whatever activity Mina had organised for the day. Even then, the odds of them all being off was slim, and so he usually ended up doing the former. He didn’t mind it. Bakugo caught up on his hobbies, tried new recipes. The only perk is now, he gets to do it with you.

And like a miracle, he hears the jingle of your keys in the lock, and he can feel the tension in his shoulders drop. 

The door swings open and you walk in, calling out to let him know you’re home. He leans his head back on the couch until he can see you, and you grin up at him. You’re wearing an old pair of jeans and one of his hoodies, and you hang up your jacket, sighing heavily.

“Why was the store so busy? It’s Sunday.” You grumble, walking to the kitchen to drop off bags of groceries.

“Idiots like you who left their chores until the last minute.” He says, and you stick your tongue out at him.

“Shut it. I nearly beat up this old lady in the fruit section. Trying to take my watermelon.” You mumble under your breath.

You slip off the hoodie, grabbing the t-shirt you’d left on the couch. You weren’t wearing anything underneath, and Bakugo got a beautiful eyeful right before you slip it on.

“Uh huh. You sure you need that shirt?” 

He tilts his head and you smile, pulling out the claw clip holding up your hair and scratching your scalp. You slip off your jeans, throwing them on the floor, and shuffle your way over to him.

“Yes. I’m cold.”

“I’ll warm you up.” 

You snort. You clamber onto his lap and Bakugo sits back, hands smoothing over your thighs as you lean your head on his shoulder. You smell like your sweet perfume and outside, and Bakugo lets a hand run up your back and into your hair.

“That’s cheesy. I could wear more layers.” You ponder and he tuts, hands moving down to slip beneath your shirt. 

It’s baggy and oversized, and covers far too much if you ask him. His hands are warm against your cool skin, and his fingers dance against your hips and up, past your waist and to your chest. You sit up, smile curving your lips and your own hands settle on his shoulders.

“So handsy. I was trying to tell you about my day, Suki.” You pout and he reaches up and kisses you.

“Go ahead. M’listening.” He nods, kissing your cheek and your jaw and down your neck.

Bakugo is selfish. He’s self-aware enough to admit that. He’s selfish with his work, the way he fought his way to the top, and still does. He’d improved on it in his growing age but he finds that when you’re involved he doesn’t give a shit. He wants every part of your, every breath, every noise that comes out of that pretty little mouth of yours.

“So, of course I tried to be nice. I’m no animal.” 

He’s not paying as much attention as he should be. In his defence, it’s been far too long since he’s gotten a chance to be with you. He’s been far to busy, and the small hours you meet in bed before you both drift off into sleep is not enough. 

“Stop being nice. It’s your biggest weakness.” He raises an eyebrow.

You flick him squarely in the forehead and he scowls. “Ow.” 

“You need to start being nice, Mr Pro hero. But anyway, she started like, trying to tug it out my hands! And you know what old people are like. So entitled.”

Bakugo nods. You feel great under his hands but. He wants something more. 

“And so now I’m in this fruit aisle sort of shouting a little because I had the watermelon first, and- Katsuki, get out of my shirt!” You laugh as Bakugo slips his head beneath, kissing his way up your stomach.

“That’s- Your hair, it tickles.” You try to push him out but he groans.

“Piss off. Keep talking. Did you kick her ass?”

You sigh. “I- Okay, wait.” 

You quickly pull your shirt off. “Is this better?”

Bakugo grins, lazy and sharp. “Much.” 

Your hand reaches up and cards through his hair. He mumbles into your skin for you to continue, and kisses his way up to your chest.

“And this employee comes over. And he started trying to diffuse the tension, but then he started defending her! And saying I should ‘respect my elders’.” You huff.

Bakugo nods. He kisses across the valley of your breast, the soft skin that presses against the stubble of his jaw. 

“You want me to beat him up?” 

“Hm. I don’t think it will look good on your agency if you beat up Whole food workers.” You sigh.

Bakugo sucks a nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing against it. You make a noise in the back of your throat. 

“And. And then I got kind of fed up. The employee had a really annoying voice.” 

Your eyes flutter shut a little when he moves to the other one. His hand comes up to grab the breast his mouth isn’t working on and you sigh.

“He. So I just gave her the watermelon. Cause it wasn’t really that serious.”

Bakugo nods. He lets go, breath cooling the air around your nipple and he glances up at you.

“You should’ve called me. I’d have blown that old hag to the nearest nursery home.” 

You giggle and he grins. His hand presses into the small of your back and pushes you closer. He diverts his attention from your tits and kisses you softly instead. At least it’s soft at first. But then you whine ever so slightly into his mouth and it’s all over after that. His lips almost devour yours, and he can feel your face heat as he nips at your bottom lip, tongue darting out to tangle against your own. Bakugo drags you closer but you huff. Your hand running through his hair pulls his head back and Bakugo frowns.

“The fuck?”

“How is it fair that I’m sitting in my underwear and you’re fully dressed?” 

“I was waiting for you to finish your story first.”

You smile warmly. Bakugo doesn’t know of anyone else who looks at him with so much love. You grab his face and squish his cheeks together.

“You’re so cute.” You coo.

“Shut up.”

“Okay, you made me too horny to finish my story. It was a stupid one, anyway. Can we go fuck now?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

bakugo kiss challenge go kiss me NOEOWWWW

ive been sooo lazy to write recently.. this took me ages to write and it's nnot even that long.. but i hope u all enjoy!

[gingerswagfreckles]

I just want to make it clear that Hamas shot and mutilated and burnt alive 38 children on October 7th including seven children under the age of six. They also kidnapped 42 more. Hamas shot and killed one of the child hostages, a 12 year old autistic girl, and her grandma, a few hours after kidnapping them, presumably because they decided that keeping them as hostages would be too much of a hassle because of the girl's disability. They burnt an entire family, including a two year old toddler and twin five year old girls, alive. They shot a different nine month year old baby than the one who is being mourned today in the head. Another 12 year old girl was burnt alive that day along with 13 other civilians who were kidnapped, and her body was so mutilated it took a month to identify her remains. What happened to the Bibas children is not an anomaly. This is the organization that people around the world have chosen to celebrate and the organization that student groups at elite universities globally are choosing to very bluntly support and champion as #resistance against imperialism or colonization or whatever the justification for child murder is today. They are antisemitic terrorists and absolutely nobody has the right to act like what they have done is a shock. They announce over and over that this, Jewish civilian death, is their goal, and they repeatedly attain it because the entire world enables them and celebrates it when they kill Jewish kids.

[aprilisthecruelestmonth]

April is the Cruelest Month Whump Event 2025!

Here we are again! The second year of AitCM!

It's a good month to whump our favorite characters!

In AitCM, to complete, you only have to write 15 days, and the other fifteen days you read & rec a fic that fits one the prompts for the day. (Feel free to create and promote art pieces as well!)

This not only makes it easier to fit into a busy schedule, but it helps promote your favorite writers!

You are more than welcome, of course, to write all thirty days or rec all thirty days—or both—but that is not necessary to complete the challenge.

Join us in filling the world with spectacular whump stories!

Tag us in your stories, recs, and art!

The prompt list for your convenience:

Day One:

Cornered-|-Whipped-|-Blood on hands-|- “Please… let me go”

Day Two:

Brave face-|-Branding-|-Self-sacrifice-|- “Pick on someone your own size”

Day Three:

Paranoia-|-Framed-|-Can’t Speak-|- “I don’t want to hear it”

Day Four:

Falling from a high place-|-Hunted-|-Fever-|- “I’m scared”

Day Five:

Slavery-|-Mind Control-|-Forced to beg-|- “It’s too late to ask for forgiveness”

Day Six:

Overprotective-|-Hidden Injury-|-Amputation-|- “I can’t do this”

Day Seven:

Panic Attack-|-Poisoned-|-Exhaustion-|- “No, no hospitals”

Day Eight:

Blackmail-|-Cursed-|-Made to watch-|- “Why did you do it?”

Day Nine:

Amnesia-|-Explosion-|-Failed Escape-|- “I don’t feel a pulse”

Day Ten:

Touch starved-|-Gunshots-|-Presumed Dead-|- “It’s your fault”

Day Eleven:

Nausea-|-Concussion-|-Secret Reveal-|- “Why did you come back?”

Day Twelve:

Dehydration-|-Tied up-|-Torture-|- “I wish you were dead”

Day Thirteen:

Explosion-|-Fainting-|-Fighting through the pain-|- “What did you say?”

Day Fourteen:

Medical Injury-|-Drugged-|-Pre-mortem Autopsy-|- “It’s not too late”

Day Fifteen:

Screams-|-Drowning-|-Fallen through the ice-|- “I’m so, so sorry”

Day Sixteen:

Sleep Deprivation-|-Choked-|-Hostage Situation-|- “Give them room to breathe”

Day Seventeen:

Phobias-|-Burned-|-Public Execution -|- “Just grin and bear it”

Day Eighteen:

Abandonment Issues-|-Used as Bait-|-Unconventional Weapon-|- “We can’t leave them”

Day Nineteen:

Stranded-|-Animal Bites-|-Self-surgery-|- “Not everyone makes it out”

Day Twenty:

Earthquake-|-Collapsed-|-Suffocation-|- “Everything hurts”

Day Twenty-One:

Stockholm Syndrome-|-Broken Bone-|-Withdrawl-|- “Don’t leave me here”

Day Twenty-Two:

Migraine-|-seizure-|-Running on Adrenaline -|- “Don’t speak”

Day Twenty-Three:

Confrontation-|-Stumbling-|-Scar Reveal-|- “Don’t let them in”

Day Twenty-Four:

Vengeance-|-Humiliated-|-A Game of Roulette-|- “Why can’t I move?”

Day Twenty-Five:

Stalker-|-Blindfolded-|-Friendly Fire-|- “You said you loved me”

Day Twenty-Six:

Infection-|-Beaten-|-Failed Escape -|- “It’s too late. They’re inside”

Day Twenty-Seven:

Weeping-|-Kidnapped-|-Running out of air-|- “It’s not my blood”

Day Twenty-Eight:

Over Work-|-Accident-|-Head Injury -|- “Where does it hurt?”

Day Twenty-Nine:

Windstorm-|-Broken Trust-|-No place to go-|- “I don’t want to talk about it”

Day Thirty:

Being Carried-|-Hyperventilating-|-Waking up disoriented-|- “I just need a hug”

Alt prompts:

1- Insomnia

2- Fall Guy

3- Whumper turned Caretaker

4- Twisted Knife

5- Pick who dies

6- Hot Coals

7- Ice Burns

8- Pulling Teeth

9- Waterboarding

10- Electrocution

Choose one or more of the prompts daily (or use an alt prompt) and get to work!

The minimum requirement is 100 words. It's not terribly strict. If 100 words seems too daunting, try to get as close as you can. There is no maximum word count, though.

Post your stories to our Ao3 collection:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/April_is_the_Cruelest_Month_2025_Event

Do your best and get to whumping!

Special thanks to Lynn(justanotherinterneruser) for helping put this together. <3

[daiku-hokage]

Snack Time

Synopsis: You're in your second trimester of pregnancy and hormones are kicking in. Cravings hit hard but even harder for Sylus.

Sylus x fem reader

A/N: A mix of fluff and smut. The ramp up to the smut takes a sec but I promise it is there. This is my first ever fic so thoughts are appreciated <3

Tags: fluff, smut pregnancy, after care, comfort

There is no predicting how the outcome of these things go. Morning sickness and active nausea to specific scents overwhelmed you for the first month. 

While you had a knack for snacking,  recent food cravings transformed your snack supply into a bizarre territory. Mangoes dipped in peanut butter, guacamole with Cheerios and Hot Cheetos in instant ramen was even a surprise delicacy to you. Sylus found it amusing but admitted it’s not in his ball park to participate in exploring these foods alongside you. To keep up with the increasing abstract demands he had Luke and Kieran doing daily food shopping to your personal pantry. 

“Your turn today, the Miss is gonna need a restock on cucumbers, queso and lets see…Ah! Hot Cheetos flavored mac and cheese” Luke read from a handwritten note.

“Sweet Lord, I don’t know how Boss still kisses her as she is right now, last week she was eating pickles dipped in spinach artichoke dip. You can’t tell me the wind from her breath or ass isn’t gnarly as hell by now” Kieran shivered with his hands rubbing along his sides. 

“Hey man, that's Boss’s baby growing inside of her, just be happy she hasn’t had a craving for the blood of his enemies as of yet” Luke retorted.

“That’s true…Oh! But if she does that means less work and more days off for us!” 

Both twins high fiving each other.

The second month your body was slowly taking on a new form with new weight along your thighs, hips and of course your belly. Constantly becoming annoyed at how the expansion of your stomach protested against every item in your wardrobe aside from sweatpants. Your breasts were soon following suit as you began to notice a bit more pinching on your sides when putting on your bra. 

The third month however leads you down a far more complex path to navigate, not as simple as avoiding aromas or obtaining more maternal sized clothing. Oh no it was a consistent wave of horniness taking every aspect of you hostage. In reading further online you came across some articles discussing how pregnancy often sparked changes in levels of libido for women. Hormone level changes could cause either a sharp increase or decrease but there was no information available on how to regulate it. You weren’t the type to accept no as an answer though. Back at the hunter association you inquired by the water cooler with Tara. 

“I heard from Meredith when she was pregnant it was non-stop, she said the hormones had her on top of her husband like he was a pogostick for weeks.” Whispering the details to your ear as to not reveal your colleagues details to those passing by. 

“Are you serious?! Oh man this is so damn annoying, is there really nothing to calm this down. I feel like it's just one thing after the other. After patrolling my feet ache; I take 4 snack breaks just to avoid feeling like I'm going to faint from hunger. Now my body wants to go at it like a damn rodeo show, who decides this shit!” you say while blowing hot air and squeezing your water bottle in hopes of releasing some frustration.

“The whole thing is a journey, I get it, but hey chin up! It’s not forever and in a few months you’ll be back to normal”. In the meantime maybe…ya know lean on your husband a bit more if you know what I mean.” Tara trailed off in her words so you could catch her drift. 

Your eyebrows contorted toward each other. “I-I’m not incapable of it, obviously as you can see” waving your hand over your stomach. “It’s feeling more like a burden that I can’t stand the idea of. He is already doing so much to keep up with me and the baby. Body aches/nausea/morning sickness, food cravings, new wardrobe, doctors appointment, all on his already busy schedule. To suddenly jump on him when he has a moment of rest because I can’t keep it in my pants, feels greedy.” You sighed lazily leaning against the wall in a sense of defeat. 

“Well to be honest, him not keeping it in his pants is ssoortttaa of how you both got here in the first place.”

You blew raspberries and giggled at her response “Good point there” *

“Listen the way you talk about Sy, I can tell you want more alone time to care for your new ‘urges’. It wouldn’t be difficult to add to his to-do list. Just communicate with him what’s going on and quit beating yourself up about it” 

You released a deep sigh and dropped your arms to your sides. “Tis very sound advice, thanks Tara.”

The convo you had with Tara stuck with you and her outlook made sense when you reflect the past few months. 

Sylus the man that he is, was always of no complaint to you in your transition through pregnancy thus far. When the morning sickness came he was at your side holding your hair back with one hand and fresh tea prepared in the other. At times when you had sudden craving for the most odd of food combinations he had three more chefs hired to be ready for your request at all times of the day.

Accompanying you to purchase a new wardrobe to compliment your new curves was of a delight to his spirit. He spoiled you with high end attire and quality fabric that in any other circumstance you would protest was far too expensive and unnecessary. This new sex drive on the other hand meant more than what his black card was capable of correcting, it meant him and all of him.

The thoughts sweeping your mind were embarrassing to your consciousness. The sight of the simplest of actions had you driving up a wall.

One evening he had returned with a haul of baby items and decor for the new nursery. He easily could have gotten Luke, Kieran or any of the other employees at the estate to manage organizing the space but he insisted on doing it himself. 

While on a snack run you noticed him lifting and pushing around heavy furniture across the room. A bit of sweat building above his collarbone down to his chest. Not in his usual classy work attire but a work out tank and joggers. You stopped in your tracks at the door watching him cutting boxes open with a knife and his bicep flexing in the motions. You began to fall into a daze as you imagined the bicep around your throat and his massive form towering over you from behind. The day dreaming got the best of you and you forgot the bag of chips you were holding as a few fell crumbling on the ground. Sylus turns around hearing the crinkle of your potato chips to face you.

“Snacking again I see, it might be worth me investing in surgically giving you hamster cheeks so you can store your late night snacks more efficiently and conveniently.” He joked while separating the crib pieces according to the instructions. 

His words broke your fantasy and red began to flood your cheeks and ears as you subconsciously hoped he hadn’t realized the intentions behind your stare. 

“What’s the matter, baby’s got your tongue?” He smirked, leaning back on his forearms giving him  a more interesting view of you from below. 

“If you're not going to rest, you can spend some time here with me to look at wallpaper decals. I was thinking either crow or dove feathers” He gestured for you to come closer to inquire about the sample prints he had for the wall art. 

You felt your body heating up and ultimately your lower half followed suit. You didn’t want to risk where your thoughts began to wander.  Not wanting to risk where your thoughts begin to wander, you stay rooted in the spot, not daring to get any closer. 

“Uummm my butt is aching, I feel like laying in bed, text the vendor I’ll take a look at it later.” Racing away you hurried back to your bedroom to avoid him or risk revealing your secret symptom. 

Watching you rush pass the door and further down the hall, Sylus’ mouth curved into a slight frown as his eyebrow raised in curiosity. 

Cupping one side of his mouth to channel his voice “Don’t fall asleep with the potato chips in your hair again darling!” 

(A few days after your conversation with Tara.)

Sylus just arrived back from his Onychinus obligations ready to settle into a warm bath with you. He looked forward to  you snuggling above him in his tight embrace surrounded by playful bubbles and candles. When he reached near the bathroom entry way he heard nothing, not the sound of water filling the bath or your soft spoken comments about how much bubble bath is too much bubble bath. Disappointment began to settle into his mind as he began to search for his expected company. It had become a bit of a ritual between the two of you. It was a moment for him to unwind from the demanding lifestyle of his work in N109 zone. Even more so it was a time where he could both figuratively and literally soak you in, inhaling your scent and  caressing your soft plush skin. He would listen to your cute quipped stories from your day away from him, transitioning from topic to topic, he’d lose himself in you no matter how ordinary the tale. As of recently your pregnancy disturbed this special time for you both for various reasons. Early doctors appointments, random morning sickness that left you in need of care, an emotional tantrum about your weight followed by water works. Today he knew none of the above could be the case, as Mephisto had been adjusted to be more sensitive when monitoring you in his absence. No such notifications appeared to him prior to his arrival. He soon finds you on the couch in front of the fireplace sorting through paperwork from the association's human resource department. Sylus strolling into the room from behind the couch leaning forward reaches over to grab one of the papers from your hand. 

You gasp from the swift movements and his sudden appearance behind you. 

“Hey! You just get home and start stealing my things, rude much”  Turning your head toward him with a glare for claiming your document. 

“I’d say it was a cheap fee for not finding my adoring partner surrounded by her favorite vanilla scented bubbles upon my arrival.” He teased holding the paper above your head. 

A bit of guilt began to pour into you, you hadn’t forgotten about it, you were avoiding facing your Sylus fever until you built up the courage to talk to him properly about it. You had been running so many scenarios in your mind on how to go about approaching the topic without sounding pathetic. Still you didn’t want to make him feel rejected considering you both had been missing out on this intimate time more frequently than anticipated in the past few weeks. Regardless you had to keep your guard up until you discerned a path you were comfortable with. 

“Oh you know I got so distracted with reviewing some reports I lost track of time, silly me. Not to mention my feet are so achy today from messing around with Mephisto yesterday I thought I would take a breather here first and wait for you to get back.” You gave a slight smile attempting to play off your lie the best you could. Sylus was typically not one to fall for your fibs and had a hunch you were keeping away from the truth for another reason. He’d play along momentarily while he uncovered what he really wanted to know. 

“Such a dedicated woman to her craft, I should have you coaching more of my henchmen in your ways. Care if I take a seat here to rub away these pestering aches while I review–” He paused to take a moment to glance at the paper and quickly scanned the content. It was a notice from the association alleviating you from engaging in patrols until after delivering your baby and completing your maternal leave for recovery. While scanning the document  he took a seat on the couch and grasped your feet into his palms, slowly engaging the knots in your muscles with care.

“Seems like the association is taking proper measures as you enter the second trimester, good. Saves me time from having to negotiate with your superiors.” 

Since the start of your pregnancy Sylus had been insisting on you working remotely. You protested suggesting you were still capable of combat for at least two months into your first trimester. While not easy with your various symptoms you felt obligated to your duty as a hunter. *Out of respect for you he agreed but on his own “Sylus like terms” which basically consisted of  Luke and Kieran following you each day to ensure your safety. You understood and respected the association's policy, deep down you knew the protection of your womb was of the utmost priority at the moment. However, going in person to the office just to file paperwork at least meant some sort of down time from your mind constantly racing about how to undo Sylus’ clothes with your teeth. Working at home meant not only encountering him at all times of the day but being at your peak of sexual frustration. Smelling his scent, staring at the clock wondering when he would be back home, glancing at your esteemed bed envisioning how many positions you could manage in your new size. You were spiraling. 

“I know you have been wanting me to start working from home but still it feels odd.” Your words felt stubborn to agree with you as he worked your feet and you pictured having his massage service every morning. 

“What’s the issue here again, kitten?” He applied a bit more pressure to your heel and locked eyes with you. 

“I just feel like I’ll be bored working from home ya know” You were clenching your swollen stomach avoiding eye contact with your husband in hopes his crimson eyes wouldn’t capture the true intentions behind your disapproval. 

“Boredom, really, when here you have access to the horse stable, personal theater, shooting range and a botanical garden? You fear lack of entertainment?” Sylus snarked back sarcastically while circling the pressure between the soles of your feet and your ankles. 

“Well it's not like everything is here, like my favorite coffee shop…and the bakery! They are right next to the office, I’d miss them during the day” you were scrambling for any avenue you could to redirect the conversation in your favor. 

“Hhmmm oh you don’t say, as for coffee, it is restricted from your usual consumption currently until after our child’s arrival, last I checked. As for this esteemed bakery, I’m aware of your sweet tooth and attraction to decorative goods. Hence the recent new hire from overseas that is award winning and nationally recognized for her pastries on call at the estate. I’m sure her work excels far above, oh what was it called, donny’s dough(nuts)” Sylus retorts in confidence. 

Your brow flinched with nervousness by his usual directness and clear points. You recoil your feet from his grasp and tuck them beneath yourself.  

“Hey don’t discredit donny’s ‘ the donut holes 10 for 3 deal’ those got me through a lot of late night reports with Tara at the office I’ll have you know” Puffing your cheeks and arms crossed hoping to amplify your defense.

Annoyance begins to creep unto Sylus expression. “ something is not adding up here, while I am fully aware of the new physical and emotional changes sweetie, I can’t help to notice your reluctance around me as of recent” 

-Crap, he’s on to me- You shout to yourself mentally.

He slides over closing the distance between you both on the couch, reaching over he places his calloused hands on your thigh. You recoil a bit hoping he doesn’t notice the attention your eyes have on his body and attempting to conceal your thoughts from his intense gaze. 

“See that right there, it’s as if my presence discomforts you these days, actually scurrying away from me like a frightened kitten. You have even gone out of your way to prevent me from seeing you for our typical morning baths. I have to say love, if I were not the handsome man that I am, I’d think you’ve become disgusted of me” 

“What?! Of course not, the complete opposite!” You gasp a sharp breath at the realization of your words. 

“Oh the opposite you say” He reaches over, placing his large hands around your shoulder and other wrapping around under your knees pulling you into his lap. 

“Enlighten me then darling, to what crime did I commit to owe scarcity in your recent lack of affection” Snuggling his face into the dips of your neck with a heavy inhale of your scent. 

“I do all in my power to comfort you during this journey honey and without a need for recognition but here my loving wife leaves her devoted husband, for donut holes, surely I’m more valuable to you than that” 

His words trace over you like a knife ready to pierce you at your vitals. The dam withholding your hormonal waves has now cracked at his swift vulnerability. You are one sudden move away from cracking under the pressure. 

He begins to rub your thighs in a circular motion running up and down between them and your round belly. Lowering his face to your stomach he whispers “you hear that kids, your dear papa may have lost your mother to donny the baker, how cruel your mother can be” Sylus pouts in a mocking tone, followed by a pepper of kisses on your stomach nearing dangerously close to your chest. 

“Dramatics are un-befitting of you” you scoff.

“Oh sweetie, trust me I can take it to ten if need be. Would you like to test it out or care to share with the rest of the family what’s really going on here” His tone low and rough, he craved an end to your avoidance.

You froze, his crimson eyes piercing into you like he could read your thoughts. You could feel the red rushing to your cheeks and ears. Your eyes dart between his hands and lips in turmoil between your body's wants and ego's pride. 

“Talk” His voice stern, the dam has failed. 

“I..didn’t know how to voice it but…as of recently I’ve been facing some new pregnancy symptoms” you whispered delicately beneath your breath, avoiding eye contact and pressing your index fingers against one another like a child confessing in a principal office. 

“Go on, what are these symptoms, is it emotional or physical discomfort? I'm all ears, I’m here for you.” Sylus stares intensely in anticipation of your words. 

“Well…I-I’d say a mix..I have been feeling more determined lately” 

Sylus eyebrows raised, unclear by where your confession is trailing towards.

“Darling I can speak several languages as you know but pussyfooting is not a dialect I have explored, so do us both a favor and be straightforward will you” 

“I want to have sex with you” You responded sharply. There you unraveled before him, nothing to hold back and with that your efforts tossed to the flames. 

Pure confusion flooded Sylus’ face. “Sex, you mean the same art form that I, your husband,  engaged with you to -placing both hands on your belly- make them, that sex yes. Surely, Linkon educational system covered basic reproductive health.” 

“I know how I got pregnant, dummy! What I mean is, I can’t stop thinking about having sex with you. One moment I am folding your clothes and the next I’m inhaling your scent through your underwear ready to ride myself out on the corners of our bed. Even you massaging my feet here I’ve been on edge holding myself back to not pounce on you like an animal. I feel so embarrassed by how often it keeps happening. I’ve been using work at the association to keep from being at home and facing my frustrations….I just feel like such a horny teenager” Just like that your previous efforts to script your confession had dissolved like paper in water. You bury your face in your hands muzzling your last few words fighting back an urge to tear up amidst your confession. 

Sylus pauses and gives a brief exhale before speaking. He wraps his arm tighter around you, he removes your hand from hiding, raising your chin to meet his eyes directly. 

“Sweetie, since you tested positive on your pregnancy test I could not have been more overjoyed. Despite the challenges we both anticipated ahead I took time to take each with care with you in mind. That includes holding myself back as well.” 

You let out a small gasp and dwell on his words. “What do you mean by, holding back” 

Sylus sighs, staring at the ceiling and back down while pinching between the bridge of his nose. 

“At some point in your first trimester you began to…glow in a way I can’t quite put into words. You have and will always be a beauty in my eyes but as your belly began to swell, the way you talk, the way you lay in bed at night, put on dresses with more thought out movements. I found myself capturing each moment and desire building up to take you to bed and ravish you. Your cravings for more hardy foods and bizarre snacks is noticeable filling in various areas in your form, each one taunting me.” He gripped your sides to emphasize himself.

“Why taunting, why haven’t you made a move?” You exclaimed back quickly, eager to decode his words. 

“Similar to you I don’t want to be perceived as a selfish inconsiderate male. To expect sex from you in this new state and at a higher frequency than usual made me feel…greedy. The last thing I would want is your perception of me as a monster hungry only for your body.”

Your chest rises in a quick breath at the realization at what you both were hiding from each other. The pure irony that you both shared a similar guilt of harboring the sin of greed to one another. Now all of a sudden your coy plans to avoid your lover seem pathetically irrational. Had you voiced yourself more freely, this entire misunderstanding could have been avoided. 

You cuff Sylus face in your hands and pull him in for a passionate, long yearned for, kiss. A muzzled grunt from him leaks into your throat as you deepen the connection with your tongue and pull him in closer with your arms wrapped around his neck. His large hands straddle your waist driven to join you closer to him while being mindful of the noticeable bump between you both.

Your faces twist and turn, searching to take in as much of each other as possible, grunts and moans filling the atmosphere with each intentional movement. The tension in your lower sexes elevates to dangerous levels making your desires palpable. You both break free for a moment  for air, leaning your foreheads against each other for balance and exhaling rhythmically in sync with each other.

“Your playing a dangerous game here kitten, as I am right now with you, I don’t know how well I can hold back, it’s been 94 days, 3 hours and 12 minutes counting since I’ve last had you, I might go mad” 

You lay your hand on his chest and lean your lips near his ear. 

“I’m ready to clock in Boss, please take good care of me” 

Sylus’ crimson eyes dilate and his body swiftly picks you up bridal style with no hesitation taking large strides to your bed covered in black silk sheets. Like holding a delicate jewel he places you in the center and hovers over you with your hands cupping his cheeks. 

He bends over just a hair thickness away from your lips 

“I hope you saved your strength, we are likely to be working overtime tonight” He spoke with a growl coated in his throat from his desire and painted with a devilish grin ready to sink his teeth into you. 

You caress his cheeks and flash him an endearing smile “Lucky for you I’m such a well rounded and dedicated hunter, a master of her craft.” You lick his lips playfully to toy with him and set him a blaze. You were ready to have all of your built up passions flood the space around. It had been a considerable time for your track records since you last laid together. Those numbers meant nothing to you at this moment though. The time wasted circling each other in this tense dance was no longer of your concern. What mattered was just you and him diving into one another after denying each other for such an extended period. The thought did interrupt your impulse suddenly as you realized the new challenge of love making with the extra weight on you. Could you manage the same performance you were quite well versed in prior to now. A fear of not seeming as sexy creeped into the back of your throat as your eyes soon become glossy with incoming tears. Sylus immediately catches wind in the sudden shift of your expression. 

“Sweetie, what has suddenly gotten a hold of you. It's ok don’t cry, I’m here, talk to me baby.” He sweeps his thumb across your eyes to momentarily hold back the tears threatening to escape. 

“I-*sniff* what if I don’t feel as good to you, what if you don’t enjoy me as much because of the change” Your voice cracking a bit trying to keep from breaking out into a cry beneath him. 

Sylus lifts you onto his lap with your legs straddled around his hips, he places a soft kiss on your cheek and wipes away any loose tears. Locking eyes with you in a deep tone Sylus whispers over your lips “Addiction isn’t nearly close enough to describing how I yearn for you. Each moment I get to hold you in my arms I fall under a trance and I am a captive vulnerable to your will. Never has it ever crossed my mind that your beauty has been tarnished in any way as you are now than from the day my soul found yours. The sinner that I am can only hope to never desanctify the sacred temple of my goddess. Despite my unholy nature you took in my seed willingly and all of the strife that comes to bearing our proof of existence. I’m unworthy but nonetheless greedy to be your exclusive and devoted worshipper. Darling, believe me when I say my vows remain true, there is no love purer than mine.” 

Your heart skips a beat as you clench onto his words wishing you could etch them into your mind forever so as to never doubt him again. All of the insecurity you felt prior melts away and a sense of longing overtakes you once more as you crash your lips into his. Your tongues dance and lips lock both competing for the upper hand over the other. Roughly inhaling and exhaling through his nose, Sylus tries to keep up with your demand as his body’s need for air becomes a balancing act on the scales of your passion.

Sylus’ hands run over your back and soon find their way to gripping your ass and pressing your lower half to grind on his hardening member. The sensation of feeling his hardness deepens your arousal and you hunger for more. Moans escape from your mouth as you capture his cheeks in your hands. You bite on his lower lip sucking on it while pulling away to draw in his thirst for you, taking the opportunity to catch your breath. In a series of huffs you speak lustfully “Don’t you dare hold back on me.” Before there is even a second to pass at the end of your plea Sylus pushes you down onto the bed with force from a deep throated kiss. You wrap your arms around his neck to pull him in desperation and deepen the connection. His hands find the collar of your silk nightgown and in a swift move he tears it right down the middle completely in half to expose all of you to him. You gasp in his throat and pull away for a moment to witness the small display of his strength exclaiming 

“Sylus! Tha-” 

Cutting you off mid sentence speaking gruffly he responds “I promise to buy you a hundred more replacements.” 

Wasting no time he pushes your breast up and lowers his tongue to your nipple. He makes playful circles lubricating the peaks before intaking the entire plush mounds into his mouth to suck on. His other hand twists and tugs on the other triggering a loud moan from you. He alternates between your breasts making sure to provide each with equal attention. The wetness in between your legs spreads seeping through the fabrics of your panties. 

“Oh–fuck, Sylus I—”

In the middle of your cry he sticks his index finger and middle finger into your mouth while still sucking on your nipples with rough slow flicks of his tongue. Your instincts can’t help themselves at this point and you begin to suck on his fingers curling your tongue along their length. 

He pulls them out and traces them from your mouth down your neck all the way to your panties where he tucks his hand beneath the delicate fabric. He presses the two fingers on the folds of your entrance and rubs against it in circles. 

“I see my beloved is eager for more” 

“Sylus please I–I need yo–” 

“Shhh my queen, you need not say more” 

He kisses between your breast, underneath each, down your stomach slowly until he reaches your gates. 

“Allow me to recite a prayer” 

He places a kiss on your wet lips, from the base, he presses his tongue down with a deep long drawn out lick. He finds your clit immediately once he reaches the top, flicking it repeatedly. 

You moan out loudly, one hand gripping the bed sheets and the other at his hair as you feel yourself nearing the cliff of an orgasm. The motions he takes on the clit is relentless, just when you thought he couldn’t be any more intense, he draws an S on your clit with his tongue. Your hips buck up in response but he forces you down in place on the bed with hands on your hips. Languidly he forms a Y, followed by an L, then a U, he spells his name out on your most sensitive area as your thighs tremble in response. 

“Oh—oh my fucking go—”

“Sshhh that's my line, sweetheart” . Ceasing his calligraphy for a brief moment, he wraps both his thumbs at the side of your panties. He tugs them down your legs to provide himself full access to his meal. No longer hindered by any remaining clothing on you, a second wave of vigor ignites in him. Quickly returning to your clit he begins to suck on the tiny bean, chasing this new high he brings his index and middle finger to your entrance and pushes in slowly. Once inside you fully, he glides his fingers around your slick walls before pushing in and out rhythmically. The sounds of your now penetrated cunt fill the room along with a low grumble emitting from Sylus' chest, relaying his delight in your taste. You can’t hold on much longer at the onslaught he is conducting. The pleasure flows through you like a river from the stiff tongue protruding from your mouth to the tip of your curved toes digging into the mattress surface.  You are so close, your thighs press on the sides of Sylus head in a begging call for climax. Sylus, familiar with your distress signal, slurps violently on your clit and raises the stakes of his penetration, slipping in a third finger. At first maintaining his initial speed now with the third digit he soon increases the pace to chase your orgasm. A ripple of heat envelopes you, your voice releases Sylus’ name in a high pitched outcry. Cum spills down Sylus’ knuckles and halts his penetration as your back arches upward. Your body collapses back down in sweet surrender to the moment you had been burning for, for months. Giving one last kiss to your clit he gradually exits your now exceptionally wet cunt. 

“Kitten, listening to you purr like that after so long and seeing what a mess you’ve made. I’m sure this will take more than just one night to properly satisfy us both” Sylus shoots you a smug expression while licking the corner of his mouth where a stray drip of your cum lingered. Still seeing stars from your orgasm you weren’t sure at first whether to protest or encourage his next move. 

“Didn’t you say earlier that you wanted to properly honor my temple.” Raising your foot to meet his hard bulge practically piercing through his dress pants, you playfully massage the tip and shaft. Your touch causes Sylus to groan. As his high relaxes from chasing your climax, his attention now directs to his rock solid cock, commanding to take control. You place your hand on his cheek to redirect his crimson gaze back to you.

“I believe an offering shall suffice.” 

Sylus’ eyes dilate at your words, oh how you drove him mad. Everything about you was like a perfect symphony designed and destined just for his ears alone to indulge. He lets out a low rumbling chuckle at your decree. Raising himself above you he tears open his dress shirt  stained with your essence. Pulling his dress pants off his 8-inch cock flops out in display, slapping itself against his muscular abdomen. 

“Sweetheart, I just can’t hold back anymore, oh please won’t you accept my humble offering” 

He grabs your ankles dragging you a few inches toward himself, he spreads your legs wide open. He takes a moment to admire the image before memorizing your dazzling features to keep securely seared into his mind for safe keeping. A drop of his precum from his tip falls on your stomach, teasing at the load he is bearing. His eyes are hungry like a predator just before making its final moves on its prey. Caressing your cheek with the back of his fingers over your drunk like expression, he breathes out heavily in anticipation. 

“If for any reason you feel uncomfortable, you need to change positions or if I’m being too rough don’t you hesitate to tell me, ok darling. This moment is for us. I won’t allow you to not savor not even a second of it” 

Even at the cusp of his breaking point he upholds your well-being as his highest priority. The man that Sylus is, how could you have ever had reservations of his intent. 

You nod your head in response to his declaration to confirm your needs. Caressing the side of your thighs with one hand, he uses the other to guide his cock to the front of your entrance. He presses the tip in, immediately it becomes soaked from the wetness you have trailing from your recent orgasm. Sylus breathes out a rugged groan and grits his teeth at the sweet familiar sensation that sends electric waves rushing through his veins.

“Do you want it, kitten?” He asks with his voice heavy with lust. Like a reflex to his question you wrap your legs around his hips with an unspoken assertion of your desire. The anticipation of him about to ravish you triggers waves of wetness drowning his tip.

As if profoundly making a binding vow he grasps your hands, intertwining his large rough fingers with yours. Without any further needs for affirmations he drives himself into your fortress. Hissing a curse under his breath at the long awaited reunion with your walls, it fit him perfectly like the heavens modeled your sex’s with precision for one another. Ecstasy washes over him like a thick midst that surrounds a waterfall. Lost in his raw arousal he grounds himself tightening your small hands in his, he plunges into you pulsating his strokes in your core like a war drum. Every collision he executes is explosive drawing you nearer to a second apex. 

“Sylus fu-fuck oh oh god please please har-harder I want it harder, fuck me harder daddy” 

The whine for stronger force intoxicates him and Sylus soaks in the moment of you unraveling before him like a flower in bloom. Your bidding further fueled his ambition to serve both of your insatiable hungers. Sylus releases a hand from yours to take hold of the luxury velvet headboard. Manipulating the headboard allows him to better choreograph his pounding on you. Clinching with flexing muscles, veins all along his arm project intensely. Soon the display of his might is so overt sounds of small cracks in the thick mahogany wood penetrate into the atmosphere. You both are so close. 

“Ah-da-darling fu–you’re so marvelous, my gorgeous wife, matriarch over my soul, please say my name” His strength and momentum of his thrust hit their peak, sweat accumulating all over his chest, a testimony to his labor. Your free hand latches onto his shoulder followed by your nails piercing into the meat of his toned flesh. 

“Mmmmmm yes  Sy-Sylus, Sylus! oh god yes fucking yes yes yes yes don’t fucking stop right there, right fucking there SYLUS!” Exclaiming his name in a loud winded cry you buck your hips upward and in a moment of synchrony collide with his thrust. 

Harmoniously, you baptize yourselves in each other's essence, his seed erupting in your womb like a geyser and the silk of your core outpouring down his shaft. Your thighs tremble violently at the blissful release and Sylus groans your name nearly breathless into your ear. His hand slipping from his previous intense grip on the headboard is lost and his forearms catch him so as to not collapse on your small figure. The expression of your face flushed with red painting your cheeks is dazzling, a display of your fulfillment reached. Your chest rising and falling in union with your racing heartbeat, almost all strength from your body escaped when you climaxed. 

Sylus’ hand finds your cheeks and thumb swipes over your plush lips. Lowering his head he lays his lips on yours softly at first but quickly deepens in it with his tongue to satisfy any last remaining drop of lust.

“Unfortunately I’ll need to pull out of your walls now sweetheart. I’d love to partake in that bath now though, if you’ll indulge me.” He smiles at you sweetly and kisses your forehead. He pulls out of you and the collection of your cum slides out and onto the bed sheets. The departure of his member from your insides leaves you feeling empty but eager to refresh yourself. 

“I gladly accept this additional offering of yours my love.” you respond, laying a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. Sylus rises up above you and off the bed, he picks you up bridal style carrying you to the large bath. You both rinse off in the standing shower. Sylus fills the bath 

with all of the works creating a concoction of your favorite bubble baths and bath bombs. As the piece de resistance he lights a candle and turns off the ceiling lights allowing the candle to magnify its presence. He dips you inside the bath and follows after, placing you in between his legs he wraps around you and rubs your belly in gentle circles. 

“How are we feeling now dove” 

“Mmmmm incredible, it’s like all of a sudden the tension in my body has disappeared.” You hum in delight from your new found relaxation and comfort. 

“Marvelous, I’m glad and pleased to be able to serve your needs so well. Perhaps now we can be in more alignment in our honesty for intimacy moving forward, yes” Lowering his head toward your ear he nibbles just above your earlobe. 

“Hehe that tickles and yes honey, you can count on that. Although granted you don’t mind me as a pillow princess for the next coming months.”

“I’d have it no other way, I’m sure the baby would appreciate it as well�� He spoke in a tender tone near your ear while gathering a ball of bubbles along your thigh and stomach. 

Soaking in the bath felt like a long awaited curtain call to finally laying down your guards at one another. During the bath you make playful cat ears on Sylus head with the bubbles while exchanging on topics about the baby and plans to further prepare for them. 

After changing the sheets Sylus big spoons you from behind, inhaling your fresh scent from the top of your hair. 

“You know I would never harm you, either of you, right?” he murmurs. 

“Hhmmm you know good and well how such a thing was not once a fear of mine.” You respond back promptly without hesitation. Turning over on your side to face him you press your forehead against his, tangle your legs in between his and place your hand on his chest. 

“I think a good take away from this morning's exchange is that holding back because of fear won’t serve either of us. I know there are times you battle with the concept of our child viewing you as frightening. I’ve held you on several occasions when nightmares from the past strike your core. Each time they did I was here to fulfill my role too as your goddess, to purify you, banish that which attempts to corrupt your heart and soul from loving freely.” Grabbing his hand and placing it on your stomach “This child serves a purpose too, proving that your devotion is true, proving that your love truly is the purest. I’d choose no other than you to grace my womb with motherhood. You are no monster, you're mine, you are our Sylus” 

His gaze softens from your words of reassurance, his crimson eyes touched with a hint of mist. Placing a kiss on your lips he slides his body down to rest his head on your belly and hands relaxed on your hips.

“I truly do adore you”

..............................................................................................................................

Epilogue 

Luke and Kieran walk through the halls and pause when through the walls they hear muffled noises. 

“Yes! That makes ten this week, I win again, hell yes!” Luke spits out slapping Kieran’s shoulder out of excitement. 

“Uuuhhhhh how the heck do I keep losing, I’m starting to think it’s him jumping on her like a rabbit now. You sure the terms of these bets are even in the same playing field at this point!”  

“Hey man, like they say, don’t hate the players hate the game, and this player just scored as Boss continues to score with Miss hunter. So pay up” Luke retorts smuggling. 

“I hope she ends up with twins now and he pins you with diaper duty.”

-End-

[babyleostuff]

― FIRST SNOW

there is a superstition that if you witness the first snowfall with the person you like, true love will blossom between both and it will be long-lasting.

𝜗𝜚 THEME: fluff, cuddly and in love love gyu 𝜗𝜚 PAIRING: idol!mingyu x fem!reader 𝜗𝜚 WORD COUNT: 518

💌 natalia’s note: ik it may be a bit early for winter fics but recently we had first snow in poland and i just had this urge to write something about it [edit: and now korea also had its first snow so yippie]

“look!” 

you hummed and nodded weakly, though instead of opening your eyes you snuggled further into mingyu's warm chest, basking in the softness of his sweater and the steady beat of his heart underneath your ear. 

days off were the best. 

“baby,” your boyfriend murmured excitedly against your temple and ran his cold finger along your cheek. “it’s snowing!” 

with mingyu’s arm holding your waist in a tight grip; not that you complained, the afternoon teddy bear cuddles, especially in the colder weather were the best, it was a bit difficult for you to actually move to see the supposed snow. 

“it’s so pretty,” he said in awe, as if it was his first time seeing it. “look, look!” he said and pointed at the window that was behind you.

“gyu?” you mumbled and propped yourself on his chest as much as you could. “i’d really love to see it, but you’re holding me hostage and my neck is too sore to turn it all the way around”. 

mingyu’s eyes widened, and a small pout appeared on his face. “oh shit, right. sorry.”

you cupped his chin and placed a kiss at the tip of his nose. "'s okay," you said, before sitting all the way up and turning around towards the window.

and your boyfriend was right. even though your view of the city below was very blurry due to mingyu's apartment being on a high floor, you could still imagine how pretty the streets must look now, covered in the white fluff. 

“i can’t wait to beat your ass in a snowball fight,” you said and turned back to your boyfriend. 

you weren’t sure if it was due to the bad lightning, since mingyu insisted on turning all the lights off and lightning some candles, but you could’ve sworn he was blushing, but before you could ask him about that he took a hold of your hand and pulled you back to his chest. 

“you know what the first snow means, right?” he asked after a beat of silence. 

nodding, you couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on your face. 

“we’ve been together for five years, gyu. i don’t think that superstition counts for us anymore.” 

he hummed and nuzzled his cheek against the top of your head. “maybe,” he said. “but i like to believe that every first snowfall we witness in this life will allow us to meet our next ones,” you felt his hand brush the hair from your neck in a gentle manner, “and i hope to witness as many of them as we can.” 

not really knowing what to say, because who the hell says things like that, you lifted your head from the crook of mingyu’s neck and looked at his ruffled dark hair and shiny brown eyes that were looking at you with more love than it should be legal. 

“you’re impossible, kim mingyu,” you shook your head with a laugh. 

all you got in response was an irresistibly devastating grin, before he leaned in and sealed your lips in a kiss that could melt any amount of snow.

taglist (if you want to be added, check my masterlist): @jeonghansshitester @weird-bookworm @sea-moon-star @hanniehaee @wonwooz1 @byprettymar @edgaralienpoe @staranghae @itza-meee @eightlightstar @immabecreepin @whatsgyud @hyneyedfiz @honestlydopetree @vicehectic @dkswife @uniq-tastic @marisblogg @aaniag @daegutowns @carlesscat-thinklogic23 @embrace-themagic @ohmyhuenings @nidda13 @hrts4hanniehae @k-drama-adict @isabellah29 @f4iryjjosh @bangantokchy @mrswonwooo @bangtancultsposts @lllucere @athanasiasakura @onlyyjeonghan @haecien @caramyisabitchforsvtandbts @hannahhbahng @valgracia @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @mirxzii @hhusbuds @wonranghaeee @rosiesauriostuff @gyuguys @tomodachiii @veryfabday @lilmochiandsuga @asasilentreader @mrsnervous @bewoyewo @sharonxdevi @wondipity @gyuguys @raginghellfire @treehouse-mouse @waldau @wonootnoot @hellodefthings @dokyeomkyeom @sourkimchi @bbysnw @hoichi02 @aaa-sia @haneulparadx @minvrsev @zozojella @wonootnoot @kimingyuslover @wntrei @honglynights @jihoonsbbygirl @uhdrienne @bloodcanbehot  @iamawkwardandshy  @icyminghao @heeseungthel0ml @goyangiiwonu @bath1lda @ruurooozz @ny0sang @luuxian @onerubii  @hurrican3-insert-nam3 @mekuiikore @luvseungcheol @thenotoriousegg @yuuyeonie @soffiyuhh @svtficsarchive @hyperdramas @huen1ngk41 @lesuneczka @oc3anfloor @gyuguys @fr-freak @bewoyewo

[kismetlotts]

cw: angst, mentions of sex, best friend Simon Riley, mentions of knives, mentions of hurting yourself but no implications of actually doing so or having done in the past, mentions of cheating, mentions of alcohol, clueless Simon Riley, crying in each others arms, helping out your best friend, reader is self less

part 2 of Best Friend Simon Riley Angst (I recommend reading part one first to understand certain elements better)

You woke up in the morning, daylight shining through your curtains and you already knew it wasn’t sunshine- bound to be nothing but grey clouds out there, flooding the sky like a polluted ocean. Your nose and head ached in the silent flood of last nights memories, your crying, your actions and worst of all, your best friend.

Oh Simon, what a dickhead you were. Why did you have to come here?

Your body flushed against the cold sheets behind you, a weightless bed, giving you the impression he’d done a runner. Typical him honestly- you wouldn’t be surprised if that was what initiated their breakup; the same breakup that was at fault for all of this.

He was always so forward, front and confrontational within the field. The notorious ‘Ghost’ that installs fear in every enemy he has to face. He’s a fighter at work but ironically, in life, all he knew was how to retreat. Pull away before he can cause anymore damage, pull out before the mess gets bigger.

You flung the covers off you, their pretty, pink, innocent pattern already making vomit surface in your throat. He’d flopped down on that bedding countless times in the past: memories which made it hurt more came to mind. The knives that were already jammed in your gut, heart and what’s seemed as your brain, twisting a little deeper before freezing up in place.

You remembered the times when his body would accidentally fling you around the mattress, grunting and smirking while he settle down and got comfy. You remembered the way his fingers tapped on the cotton as he leaned over to see what you were looking at on your phone. Nosy but never prying in too much.

Imagining how you looked when you watched his hand sweep across the duvet on movie night, pushing every crumb onto your bedroom floor with a laugh and an apology leaving his lips. His hands, shooting into the air as he surrendered in playful shame. Not really paying attention as your voice scolded him for eating in your bed.

Your fingers stripped the bedding from its covers. Tossing them into a pile on the floor beside your laundry basket, the sheets so stained with both of your sweat and dirt from the situation, your nose scrunched up at the sight. You left it there ready to put in the wash later.

Though, a part of you can’t help but wonder if they will ever feel as clean as they did before.

If they’ll ever give you the warm, comforting sensation you got every night before nodding off to sleep. Would you ever hear their soft cries to slip back in bed when you wake up early for work? The covers flopped back in agony, silently pleading for you to come back and have five more minutes?

No. Now they just feel like you never got out of that bed, the duvet still wrapped around your body keeping you hostage and forcing you to go about your day. The weight of everything on your shoulders enough for you to trip and fall on the material.

You’d burn them if they weren’t so big.

The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous, why the fuck did you let it happen anyway? The sex with him wasn’t anything like you’d wished or dreamed of nor would it have never been.

He didn’t love you but something inside you obviously can’t comprehend that. Every chance you get to show or pretend that the two of you were more than what you were- you’d leap for it: eyes sparkling with the same hope a lost kid has.

He used you last night and you let him like the pathetic, lovesick loser you always were. It wasn’t sex, it was nothing more than a mere distraction and waste of time. A waste of his time, more hassle just for him.

Your fingers wrapped around your smooth doorknob as you pushed open your bedroom door, trailing into the kitchen before an aroma of pancake batter and fresh baking gripped you by the throat. Your big eyes meeting Simons, his familiar, large figure pressed against your kitchen counter as he sucked on his bottom lip.

His face was pale and his brown pupils never left the plate of fucked up pancakes, left on a placemat on the table.

You laughed. You laughed because you couldn’t trust anything else to come out- You couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t break down crying, that you wouldn’t scream or hurt yourself in front of him, that you wouldn’t wince at this- idiotic gesture.

Was this an apology? Was this all you meant to him? A plate of sweet treats you’d have to force yourself to eat, to swallow down and help you forget everything bad that happened. Maybe, or perhaps it was pure coincidence it summed up his perspective of the night; perfectly.

“Did you make me pancakes?” The tremble and nerves in your voice was apparent and he nodded slowly, gesturing to the massive bag of groceries on the countertop.

“With berries and sugar on top. I’ve got some other things here though, chocolate- all kinds, some syrup and honey and other fruit in that bag if you want any. I just added berries because I know they’re your favourite.” He rambled on.

“When did I tell you that?” Your head turned to the side, twitching in uncertainty as you sat down in front of the plate. Eyes squinting as you bit the inside of your cheek.

“You said when we…-oh.”

That’s not her, Simon.

His hand lifted to his eyes, rubbing them to avoid looking anywhere. The rise and fall of his chest grew faster and you just knew how is heart felt, flooding with guilt and embarrassment at his own actions.

Staying mad at him was hard when you knew him so well. Mistakes get made and feeling get trampled on but he wasn’t a bad person. That’s why you fell for him all that time ago.

The knife in your hand cut through the pancakes like butter, your posture up straight and distant from the plate while your appetite warned you not to bite. Your eyes flickered over to Simon again, seeing his hands still firmly placed over his eyes, broad shoulders retracted inwards as his body jolted in silent cries. The metal rattled against the table as you put the knife down and jumped out of your chair.

“Simon don’t do this-“ You spoke comfortingly, lunging over towards his body. Your soft skin met with the roughness of his arm but before you could say another word he shoved your body away from him.

A voice you’d never heard before coming out loud and brute, as you took a step back from his harsh rejection.

“Can you just fuck off trying to make me feel better constantly- I know i’ve fucked up and I know i’ve upset you. Stop acting like everything is alright when it isn’t, you do this every time- i’m not a kid!” His fist clawed at his shirt. Pulling it away from his chest as if he wanted to rip his heart out to stop the torture he was suffering.

Spit flew from his mouth and his eyes looked red, sunken with despair. Your voice died in your mouth, tongue soaking up all your saliva and you tried to swallow.

He was lost. He ruined the thing he needed the most- fucked about and caused chaos with his lifeline. You were his saviour and always had been. He didn’t need for you to fix his relationship or his problems, he needed you to fix him. He didn’t sleep with you to use you intentionally, it was a drunken mistake and a shitty timing.

He inhaled through his mouth, his throat croaking as he gripped the counter for stabilisation. Face was locked down to the floor, glued and staring at his shoes on your kitchen floor.

The drops of his tears on the black leather of his boots and the drops on your tiles reminding him of how pathetic he was being. He was a man, he worked in the military. He had slept with people before, cheated, and ruined relationships but nothing hurt like this hurt. Nothing knocked him down so hard he was afraid to get back up, he was afraid to lose you. Simon was scared.

“I made a mistake and I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what I can even do to make it up to you- fucking pancakes- it is stupid I should know better and I should know what to do but I-” The whiteness in his knuckles disappeared as he lessened his grip on the counter. Hands falling to his side as he broke down on the spot.

The hard armour he lived in unraveling like flimsy pieces of ribbon. His wet eyelashes hitting his cheeks as he wiped his nose and face on the back of his wrist.

“I can’t think. I can’t be me without you here and I don’t know what to do, please, i’m so sorry just please come back to me. I know i’ve lost a part of you and I will fight until the end of day to get it back, but for now just let me have the rest back. I need my best friend back.” His hands met your lower back as you flung your arms around his neck, your own eyes dripping with tears of outrage and hurt but above all you needed Simon too.

You sobbed silently into his shoulder as he held you close to him finally getting his breathing back to normal. You bit your lips shut and breathed slowly so he couldn’t feel your body shake for air. You didn’t want him to realise how much you were struggling in his arms- how lost and abused you felt. You didn’t want your emotions to worsen his because he had to come first.

He’d lost the love of his life and he needs someone to be strong for him, help him get on his own feet. Be beside him with wide arms and a welcoming face. It wasn’t him being selfish, it was something you had to understand Simon to understand.

The two of you stayed like that for a moment before you hesitantly sat down and talked. It was a long talk hidden by cheap smiles and forced laughter but of course, he didn’t catch on. You let him speak, you gave him advice- hugged it out and as weeks passed by, the two of you were back to normality again.

He’d found a new girl quicker than you thought he wouldn’t, pretty girl and ironically she your figure and eye colour. The more you watched them interact the more they seemed to happy together, kissing, hugging, buying each other gifts. It felt just like how it was before.

Back to Simon and his lovesick best friend that will always be there for him even if he’s never there for her. Back to Simon and his awful dating life as he hops from one awful breakup to the next because they all are missing something.

All he wants, is girl with your hair colour. A girl with your eye colour and your smile. All he longs for is a girl that he can hold hands with but can also roll his eyes at when she teases him for being too cheesy. He wants a girl who can laugh and joke with him but still support him and by there for him in more ways than one. Not just a girlfriend but almost as if a best friend at the same time. That’s all he wants and asks the world for but for some reason she just isn’t out there for him.

And until he realises why he looks for you in every girl he meets. Until he steps back and opens his eyelids to everything right in front of him. She won’t ever be.

[astraystayyh]

Israel doesn't want to repopulate Gaza, you loveable dummy

Seriously, find one Israeli on this site who'll say otherwise. And no, quoting Ben Gvir doesn't count (assuming you even know who that is) anymore than quoting, say, Rudy Giuliani would count for anything, even though he supposedly spoke for the president of the USA for a time.

Hamas has 136 hostages. Including women, and actual literal babies, assuming they're still alive, that is. This could all have ended weeks ago if they'd fucking returned them. Israeli society would physically march on Benjamin Netanyahu's home and remove him in a coup if the hostages were returned tonight. But as long as they have Israeli people, and are unwilling to negotiate their return, that's an ongoing war crime. Is Israel evil for being a bull in a China shop trying to get back a "mere" 136 innocent civilians? Maybe. But Hamas started this and they can end it, they just don't want to. Please, justify that.

Hello, since you asked for one Israeli, here, I'll give you multiple statements:

Hundreds of activists at an Ashdod gathering in late November called for the reestablishing of Jewish settlements. “Let it be known that you support the appeal to renew Jewish settlement throughout all of the Gaza Strip. The nation is waiting for you”— Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council.

Israel “should fully occupy the Gaza Strip”— Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.

An Israeli real estate firm pushes to build settlements for Israelis in Gaza. “Wake up, a beach house is not a dream” reads the ad.

Israeli Knesset member Limor Son Har Melech posted a video of herself in a boat with other settlers off the coast of Gaza. “Settlement in every part of the Gaza Strip … A large, extensive settlement without fear, without hesitation, without humiliation. This land is the land that the creator of the world gave to us.”

Israeli Settler, Daniella Weiss says Palestinians who live in Gaza, have no right to stay in Gaza.

An Israeli soldier saying that Israelis should start “investing” in Khan Younis.

Also why would the words of Ben Gvir not count? He is an elected minister, his words hold weight and they expose Israel’s clear intent to make Gaza inhabitable for Palestinians so that Israelis could settle in there— by destroying the infrastructures, making the health system collapse entirely, bombing entire residential neighborhood, Israel is trying to ensure that Palestinians wouldn't be able to return back to their land, because there is nothing livable left there.

And I'm glad you bring up all of this ending if the hostages were returned— Hamas tried to strike up a deal for the return of ALL the hostages, in exchange of the release of all Palestinian prisoners. Israel refused. You know why? Because this has never been about hostages and their safety for Israel.

There is a reason why Israel shot its own hostages when it mistook them for Palestinian civilians, waving a white cloth. There is a reason why the IDF called to shoot indiscriminately on Oct. 7, knowing that it could kill some of the hostages too. Because Israel wants to kill Palestinians, to "thin out its population" (or maybe we shouldn't take into account the says and actions of Netanyahu too ://). This is why it targets schools and mosques and hospitals and ambulances and refugee camps. Israel knows that if it does get all its hostages back, then there would be nothing to “justify” its genocide in Gaza (although, as UN Secretary-General said : "Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond words")

Israel is the only reason why the hostages aren't fred yet. THEY are unwilling to negotiate the return because they don't want to stop this genocide. What good is a five days ceasefire only for the bombings to return? Do you even realize how psychologically traumatizing it is to have a countdown of when your massacre would resume? The only acceptable deal is for Israel to establish a permanent ceasefire, something that it refuses to do. The only one to blame is Israel.

And you say Israelis would instigate a coup to oust Netanyahu, that's nice, then what? Will you return the land to its rightful people? Will you give back Palestinians their rights unequivocally? Will you call for the dismantlement of Israel that was built on massacres? The reason why Israelis are angry at Netanyahu is rooted in the unresolved hostage situation. Just because you don't support Netanyahu doesn't mean that you aren't a zionist who finds the murder of more than twenty thousands Palestinians justifiable. A young girl had her leg amputated with no anesthesia on the kitchen counter of her home and you talk about “Israel being a bull in a China shop”? You consider the targeted attacks on civilians as careless actions by Israel? It actually astonishes me how inhumane some of you can be.

And here is what Dr. Refaat, who was targeted and murdered by the IDF btw, had to say about this matter:

Whether it's Netanyahu or someone else, it does not matter because Israel as a whole is an occupation, one built on the bloodshed of palestinians.

And it is funny how you choose to distort history whichever way you like it, to regard October 7th as an isolated instance that happened out of the blue. Hamas didn't start anything, Hamas was created in response to the indiscriminate and careless shooting of palestinian civilians in the first Intifada, that was decades ago. October 7th was a resistance to an ongoing colonization, Israel started this when it displaced and murdered palestinians on 1948. None of this would've happened if Israel did not colonize Palestine. It has been 100 days of this ongoing genocide, wake up and stop deluding yourself into a reality where Israel is the victim.

[kiemiu]

voice notes your boyfriend matt leaves you pt.2 | ( fem!reader ) fluff + soft hours. established relationship drabble wc 402 (library) + (request)

one. i hope you have a good time on your girls trip..please, don't get kidnapped. i don't know what i'll do if fucking— i don't know, mafia boss zayn malik took you hostage. you might like it there, and-and i can't have you getting kidnapped by 1D in a foreign country! or whatever the hell happens in those fics.. i mean, who'd watch gravity falls with me?

two. schedules all cleared up for the rest of the day, (relieved sigh) i can't wait to come home to you. i miss you even though i've been gone for 5 hours at most. (quiet realization) i might have some sort of separation anxiety with you..

three. (in that baby voice) birthday! birthday! it's your birthday! happy birthday, yay!

four. mr. wrinkleton misses you. i think you should come over, to..cheer him up and stuff.

five. i'm not letting you put off the new clairo album any longer, i'm coming over and we'll listen to it together so i can see your reaction live, and yes, i'll stop by taco bell for you so, please, don't fill up on fruit snacks.

six. facetime date today?..i know you're not feeling well, but i—i really miss talking to you, and i've probably looked through our joint photo album like 6 times today...just wanna see my girl.

seven. "add up my looooove, oOoOoOOo, add up my loooove, honey was it enouuuGgghh? is it ever enouuu-" don't i sound just like clairo? she should get me on her next album.

eight. new psychological horror movie just came out, and i know you're into that spooky shit so i bought it on amazon prime. but it's on my account, soooo, you'll have to come over. (chris in the background: and bring pepsi!) and chris says bring pepsi, please.

nine. you left just before the rain started to pour down really hard...i hope you didn't get caught in it. and if so, stay safe and call if you need anything. if ya' need me to, i'll come get you myself and drive you back here until it calms down.

ten. i know you're most-likely taking your midday nap right now but—(sniffle) i don't know, i'm just happy to have you. you—uhm, you really mean a lot to me, so, please, don't go anywhere anytime soon. i–i don't know what i'd do with myself.

' 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ' 🥡: @emely9274 @ginswife @madifilipowiczslvt @chrisstvrns @conspiracy-ash @sturnina @lovetaylorrussellgrr @nervoussagittarius @sacaydia @chrissturnsss @hearts4werka @oliviagirlsworld @koilaniazul @starsforu @sturn777