#dialed it down and got an easier one and now things make sense and it's not so scary any more | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blueberryinko · 4 months ago

Text

Ahsoka’s Swell Retirement Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Love Between Friends

Over the next few days Ahsoka got used to being in the village. She missed the Jedi, missed fighting, but the part of her that longed for safety knew she was better off.

She wondered how Anakin was doing without her, but Salvo was good company while she was here.

“Hey Soka?” Salvo cornered her one morning. “Listen. I know we both have tension between us, but.. I can’t help but feel the need to clear things up.”

Ahsoka turned her head. “What’s up?”

“We’ve been, y’know, ‘sleeping together’ the past few nights, but I know you’ve been.. staring at me.” Ahsoka gasped, and she suspected she wasn’t going to like the next words to come out of Salvo’s mouth.

“Salvo.. what’s up?” Ahsoka asked quietly, her hands floating to her bloated belly. “I-I’m uh… I’m asexual.” Salvo admitted.

Ahsoka took a moment. That wasn’t what she was expecting. Well, she’d been expecting a rejection, but not like that. It took the edge off of the sting. She’d been developing a crush for a while now. “Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense.”

“It does?” Salvo asked gently.

“Yeah, I um- it’s gonna hurt for a while, you’re attractive and I think I’m gonna need a few days, but- but I’m glad you were able to tell me.” Ahsoka told truthfully. She waddled up to Salvo and hugged her friend. “I’m sorry Soka.” Salvo murmured into her shoulder.

“Hey, no.” Ahsoka pulled away sternly. “Don’t do that, my feelings are on me. Not you. And hey, I probably shouldn’t be looking for love right now anyway.” She wondered if she had anyone out there for her, it was too soon after leaving the Jedi to tell, but she wanted to be loved so badly.

“Hey, stop it. You just helped me, now let me help you.” Salvo affirmed. “You had that guy, right, Ana-something? Call him, see how it goes.” Ahsoka’s heart leapt and she suddenly felt a pit open in her stomach. Was she that obvious? “Salvo!”

Salvo cackled as she ran off to help tend the fields and Ahsoka pouted, crossing her arms over her tingly, swelling breasts.

Hormones, she told herself, but even so waddled back info her barn, taking out her comms unit. She fingered it softly, wondering if it was worth it. Screw it, she told herself and slammed the button down, then promptly screamed internally as she waited for the dial.

“Snips!” Oh fuck it, was him.

“Anakin!” She was totally naked right now, what was she doing?

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, what’s up?”

“Nothing!” Oh, she was a terrible liar when she was flustered. Anakin watched her carefully, he hadn’t seen her with this much lack of composure since Geonosis. “Ahsoka, c’mon, we’re best friends, you can tell me.”

Ahsoka swallowed. She couldn’t tell him. She chose an easier truth. “I miss you, Skyguy. Badly.” She watched as Anakin processed that information and hoped she hadn’t fucked up.

“I talked to Padme.” Anakin replied. Ahsoka leaned in closer and listened intently. “She thinks I should take the Resistance and leave as soon as possible. She says things are gonna go bad, but Palpatine-“

“Palpatine’s a creep.” Ahsoka reasoned. Anakin frowned. “What- how could you possibly say that-“

“He stared at my tits Anakin!” He’d done more, but Ahsoka revealed the tip of the iceberg in hopes that it would be enough, “Wait, what- that-!”

“Anakin, if Padme thinks it, I think it too.” Ahsoka told him firmly. Padme had been an older sister to the two since Ahsoka had been thirteen and Anakin fourteen, and they’d learned to listen to her on matters concerning the Senate.

“But I can’t just abandon the Temple-“

“Yes, you can.” Ahsoka argued. “Anakin, I don’t like it there anymore. It feels wrong.” She’d watched through her childhood as the Jedi became warriors, soldiers, not the peaceful culture they’d been made to be, and warped by politics. She’d seen firsthand the impact of the Jedi and she wanted it to stop.

“It’s either this or Tatooine for me Snips.” Anakin told her sadly. Ahsoka shook her head furiously. “Bantha fodder Anakin, you have me!”

“What-?”

“Come live with me on Vell, just disappear with me, retire. We can be happy!”

“I-“ Anakin was seriously considering it, and he hated the hopeful look Ahsoka wore, hated how it opened a door he’d never thought about before and suddenly he felt a yearning almost as if he could feel her need for him across the stars, across lightyears.

“Okay.” His mind was made up.

“You mean it?” Ahsoka gasped, jumping up, belly wobbling as juice flipped inside her. “Yeah. I’m gonna pack my things, I-I’ve missed you Snips.”

“Me too Skyguy. I’ll see you tonight.”

As the comm unit switched off Ahsoka squealed. It was happening! She rushed outside into the fields, her belly so bulbous and round it shook with every ounce of juice as she ran towards Salvo. “He’s coming Salvo, he’s coming!”

“Whoa girlie, take it easy!” Salvo was taken aback by the sudden energy her friend exhibited but the sheer joy on Ahsoka’s face told Salvo that she’d just taken a huge step for herself. “Your boy’s coming here?”

“Yes! I mean, tonight he is, but I haven’t told him how I feel yet- oh kriff, I haven’t told him how I feel yet-!”

“Whoa, whoa, there’ll be time for that when he gets here!” Salvo chuckled, hugging her friend. “You wanna plan any surprises for him or do you just wanna show him around?”

“I think I want it to be just us two, I think.” Ahsoka admitted. She couldn’t keep her enthusiasm in check and Salvo noticed. “Go take a walk, you need it Juicer.” Salvo’s nickname for her, Ahsoka noted, was just as affectionate as usual, and Ahsoka gave a wry grin.

“Fine, I’ll go and waddle off, but I’m just so happy!”

“Waddle your big blue ass out to go calm down, shoo!”

Ahsoka waddled into the forest and her mind raced. She bit her lip, examining her naked self, exploring her waistline. “God, I’m getting big again.” She murmured to herself. She poked her bulging belly and she gasped. “Kriff, that feels good.”

She squeezed her breast and a spray of juice splattered onto her belly. “Oh!”

She bucked her hips and found a nearby boulder to rest herself on. Slipping her hand over juicy fat thighs her fingers found her cunt, and she began to play. Gently, slowly, she thrusted, gently bucking atop her digits. “Oh, oh, kriff!” She swore, breathing shallow and quick.

Her thoughts turned to Anakin. Him holding her, holding her belly. She imagined herself, full of his pups, belly bulging and ripe. Imagined herself on his arm, collared to him and very happily his.

“Oh, Skyguy!” She gasped, her thighs slick with juice, labia pulsing as she fingered herself again. She found the tiny button of her clit and came with a gush, yelping. “Shit!”

She continued to buck, riding her first gush with frantic enthusiasm, bouncing and writhing in ecstasy. “He’s coming, Ani’s coming, fuck, Skyguy’s gonna put his babies in me-“ She stammered. Her belly slouched over her knees and she slapped it with her free hand. “So big, gonna be so fat, so kriffing pregnant, all for him, all for Skyguy-“

Ahsoka bit her lip, riding her high as she climbed to her peak, getting frenzied, blood rushing, nipples hard as rocks and her breasts the size of watermelons she bucked hard and ground herself into the boulder. She opened herself up to the Force, legs spreading wider and she felt something penetrate her sex, her dripping womanhood accepting the protruding thing jamming its way into her cunt and she howled.

“Yes, yes, fuck me!” She shouted to thin air, she’d never imagined she could use the Force like this, but as her tits spewed like a fountain she found her lecherous usage the most powerful thing she’d ever done to date, hopping and grinding around the thick phallus that was now pressing up against her cervix.

She gripped her belly as fat arms got increasingly more bloated, her lekku tingling as sparks bolted through every inch of her body, pulsing and jumping like a bitch in hest, fat calves kicking as her thighs grew to be part of her. “Yes, yes, make me cum! I wanna cum, fuck me!” She demanded, forcing the phallus faster, forcing it inside her swollen cunt like she was willing it to impregnate her, like it was Anakin pumping his pups into her belly.

“Stuff me, fuck me, I’m a huge fucking blimp!” Ahsoka lowed like a cow, and she came with a yell, her crotch touching the ground as her arms were sucked into her, and her breasts ballooned to the size of a probe droid, juice splattering all over the clearing and onto the tree as her blimp-like carapace roared with lust.

“UWAAAAAA!”

She was spent, and somehow miraculously still upright. “Wh-whooa!” She giggled, her sex-addled mind slowly coming to. Ahsoka had never cum that hard in her life, and she wondered how she’d ever been so sex-repressed back then, laughing in spite at the old-fashioned rules the Jedi had had. No wonder they were all so pissed off, they couldn’t get any!

Her underside was drenched in juice, a little more than usual, but it was no matter for her as she waddled back to the village.

She was preparing for his arrival that afternoon and Ahsoka wondered how she’d explain the barn situation. She had her juicing equipment set up and all, but the roommate situation was gonna be something to tell him about, she eyed all her new furniture. The village people had taken it upon themselves to welcome her and Salvo with handmade gifts, and it had been the best thing that had ever happened to her since meeting Skyguy.

She felt accepted by the village and they had taken her in as one of their own almost immediately. Which is why she was on her way to the market with Salvo to sell a couple gallons of her juice to head off to the next village along.

“You excited?” Salvo asked knowingly. “Yup.” Ahsoka was vibrating. She had four hours until he was underway with orbital landing, she couldn’t wait to see him. She checked in every hour at this rate and even when he’d tell her nothing had changed she didn’t mind just talking to him.

“You never really told me how you guys met.” Salvo commented. Ahsoka flapped her hands, waddling alongside Salvo as they entered the market, immediately heading towards the farmers’ stalls.

“Oh, it was on a mission outside of Corellia, I was pretty much thrown right in alongside him as new recruits, we were Padawans together under Obi-Wan and Plo Koon, I pretty much ended up having to help him out from underneath a tank and we fought together with the clones to get out of dodge that day.” Ahsoka explained.

“You helped him? You, big, chubby berrygirl Togruta, helped him out?” Salvo teased, poking her friend’s belly.

“Hey, I wasn’t always this big!” Ahsoka pouted jokingly. “I’ll have you know I was once thin!”

“Ha!” Salvo cackled, and Ahsoka right alongside her. They reached the market stalls and the farmers waved to them. “Girls! Right on time, we’re about to start loading!” Shimrin, the farmer’s wife hollered over, waddling towards them, big pregnant belly leading the way.

“Whoa, careful big mama, don’t exert yourself!” Salvo chastised gently. Shimrin rolled her eyes. “Eleven months pregnant you two, c’mon, you’re gonna be like me one day,”

“Not me,” Salvo pointed out. “Never one for kids me, but this one,” She jabbed her thumb towards Ahsoka, snickering. “She’s got her best friend coming down today to live with her, if you get my drift.”

“Salvo!” Ahsoka’s cheeks burned but the friendly ribbing made her giggle too. “Oh, Soka, you’ve got yourself a boy! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I haven’t told him yet!” Ahsoka chirped, embarrassed. “What if I screw it up? What if he doesn’t like me like that?”

“Oh, he definitely likes you like that.” Salvo points out. “Girlie, I don’t fuck, and yet even I can tell that boy wants to roll you over and rail you like a runaway mine-cart!” Ahsoka squeaked. “Salvo!”

“Oh please do tell.” Shimrin cackled. Ahsoka groaned as Salvo began helping the farmers load up all the massive kegs of her juice into the next hover-transport, while Shimrin interrogated her. “There’s nothing to tell! We were just Padawans together, that’s all!”

“Oh, is that all?” Shimrin questioned, Ahsoka huffing. Shimrin took one look at her and saw the nerves building up. “Look.” The Twi’Lek woman sat down on a crate, rubbing her belly.

“You’ve been friends for what, six, seven years now?”

“Almost.” Ahsoka confirmed, wondering what Shimrin was getting at. “My husband and I were the same y’know, and I was so scared to tell him in case he didn’t feel the same, but the fear is worse than the result. Trust me.”

“But- I can’t lose him, he’s been the reason I kept living for years.” Ahsoka reasoned. Sure, she was her own person outside him, but she always came back to him.

“Then he will be whether or not you tell him anyway.” Shimrin reasoned. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’d make our friendship weird, and then he’d go back to the Jedi!” Ahsoka worried.

“Maybe. But give him a little faith, what if he feels the same way?”

“He doesn’t!”

“How are you so sure?” Shimrin questioned.

“I-I- I just am.” Ahsoka finished lamely. Shimrin hummed, not believing her in the slightest. “Sure. Just give it some thought.”

She was still thinking about it four hours later, Salvo helping her prep dinner when she heard the unmistakeable boom of a ship entering atmosphere.

“It’s him!” Ahsoka turned on the spot as fast as her fattened body would allow and waddled, heavy and ungainly out into the field. She watched as the Resistance flew down into the clearing and landed, grass blowing and flying everywhere as the hatch opened, the ramp descending.

He looked as good as he always did and Ahsoka felt her breath catch, flutters in her belly tying themselves into knots as he approached, immediately hugging her. His robotic hand felt strangely warm to the touch and she gasped at how strong his arms were. She’d forgotten. “Hey Snips.” His voice was warm and steady, and she fought down the urge to gush right there.

“Hey Skyguy.” She tried to act nonchalant, and hoped she wasn’t failing miserably at it. “How’ve you been?” She tried.

“Oh y’know, running away from the Jedi and all, I guess I’m a bit of a bad boy huh?” She smirked. “Oh please, you the bad boy? Need I remind you who hosted a gigantic sleepover with the younglings last year because they got scared of the dark? You could never be a bad boy to me.”

“Oh really? And you’re such a bad girl?” Oh shit, she was in trouble. She forced down a squeak and pretended to be nonchalant. “Maybe, you don’t know my reputation.” She snarked back. Anakin played along. “Oh, no, have I fallen into the trap of some evil Sith temptress?”

“Oh, of course!” She cackled. “I’m the big, fat, evil Sith lady and I’m going to make sure you get tortured. Tortured with love!” She belly bumped him and watched as he fell butt first into the ground, squeaking. “Oh Force, are you o..kay?” She trailed off as she saw him laughing, breaking off into giggles as he rolled around on the grass.

“Oh Force, I’m really free aren’t I?” Ahsoka nodded, and at his realisation he beamed. “I’m free! C’mon Ahsoka, I wanna see everything!” She giggled and followed him, before he realised how slow she currently was.

“Want me to roll you?” He asked gently. She trusted him and as she looked into his eyes, she gave her permission. “Please, Skyguy, my feet are so sore you’d think I was pregnant.” She was exaggerating of course, she was used to waddling long distances, but what she didn’t expect was the damn-near spit-take Anakin did as he approached, rolling her onto her back.

She pretended she couldn’t feel his gaze on her nethers at that moment as he walked around to her side and began to gently push on her frame, sending her rolling. “This place is amazing.” He commented, marvelling at the sights.

“It really is. They’re wonderful here Anakin, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” They conversed as she rolled, and as they reached the barn Anakin nodded approvingly. “What, you sleeping with the cows? Figures you’d fit right in.”

“Hey! You know they have a pig trough for you in there too Skyguy!” She replied with a snicker. “So, you were living with another girl right, Salvo?” Anakin asked. Anakin beamed, she’d never miss an opportunity to talk about her new friend.

“Oh yeah, Salvo’s great! She’s been helping me out around here and she helps me get juiced if I need it, which is rare nowadays.”

Anakin rolled her into the barn, taking in her new home. It was roomy and airtight enough that a fire would heat it sufficiently, with a gigantic bed made especially for Ahsoka’s gigantic proportions, some of her bare essentials and some juicing pumps. “Nice place. Why the pumps if you don’t juice.”

“Maybe I’m saving it for a rainy day Skyguy, you never know.” She teased with a wink. “Also Salvo uses it in her protein shakes.” Anakin rolled her onto her feet and Ahsoka’s body let out a loud, single slosh. Face to face with him she still had to look up to meet his eyes. Her diameter was ten times wider but she never got any taller. “How are you such a giant?” She pouted.

“You know what they say about tall people Soka.” He replied, then stopped when he heard how it sounded, Ahsoka gasping. “What do they say about tall people?” She asked knowingly, smirking. Anakin swallowed. “Never mind.” Ahsoka pouted. “Come on, I can take it.”

Anakin felt her press up against him and his breath hitched. Blood rushed south and suddenly the sight of his best friend was enough to get him to cum right there. “S-Soka, oh Force…”

“Anakin.. I’ve been waiting for a week. I.. I have feelings for you Anakin. I love you.” She just came out and said it, heart hammering within her diameter.

Anakin couldn’t believe it. “Soka… I’ve loved you since Geonosis. I never told you, I thought it’d ruin our friendship.” Ahsoka gasped.

“…I think you and I have been a bit stupid.” She remarked, tears threatening to break free. Anakin leaned in and kissed her, and Ahsoka was never more happy to kiss him back, his lips tasted like chocolate and honey roast coffee.

They parted and Ahsoka’s cheeks were hot. Anakin loved how violet they got, trailing a finger down her lekku. “Skyguy.. take off your clothes.” She begged. Ahsoka watched as he slowly undid his robe, biting her lip. She eyes the long scar running down his chest. “Can you.. take off your boxers?”

“How do you know I’m wearing boxers.” He challenged jokingly. Ahsoka raised an eyebrow. “I do your laundry Skyguy, you exclusively wear boxers.” He chuckled but stripped right down. Fully nude like Ahsoka, she whined. “Anakin, I need you.” She begged.

Anakin started to work his shaft, rubbing up and down, and she watched him massage it. It throbbed, and however much she ached for it, she knew she had to be obedient, knew she needed to wait. “Skyguy…” She moaned. He was rock hard, approaching and rolling her onto her front, pillowy breasts sinking into the floor. His cock dangled under her lips, waiting for her to take.

She enveloped his cock, bouncing her head in time with his thrusts as he took hold of her head, easing her movements for himself. She sucked hard as she could, bobbing up and down. Pre-cum leaked down her throat, swallowing it dutifully. “God ‘Soka, we’re free.” He groaned against her. They were finally out, finally away from the order.

Somewhere, an ancient Sith Lord died of an aneurysm in his Senate seat.

Ahsoka moaned, licking the length of his cock, a vein throbbing. He groaned, bucking against her face, her nose pressed into his waist, v-line so sharp she could cut herself on it. “Soka, good girl, good berry. Swallow my cum, swallow like the berry cow I know you are,” She lowed, a lustful moan erupting from her throat.

His cock stiffened, and she knew she had him right where she wanted him. Ahsoka hummed, the vibration making Anakin freeze. “Oh, oh, Soka, Soka, right there, right there, right-“ He came, and Ahsoka guzzled his cum hungrily, amazed that one man could produce that much spunk. She swallowed load after load and Anakin pulled out.

“Skyguy, please, it aches…” She tried to convey just how desperate she was, hearing Anakin shush her. “One minute Snips.” He stroked his cock, his balls throbbing as she watched, waiting. “Gonna get you pregnant Snips, you’re gonna be my pretty little housecow, gonna-“

He came again, and his cum splattered onto her breasts, dripping between her cleavage. Ahsoka groaned, her dripping sex suddenly forcing itself into overdrive. “Ani, Anakin, oh, Force-!”

Anakin looked upon her, satisfied she was ready enough, walking around her, making sure to trail his cock along her diameter. She flapped her hands desperately, barely able to rock herself with how big and fat she was.

“Do the villagers know?” Anakin teased. “How much of a slut you are? How desperate you are to carry my babies?” His voice drilled into her head, each word like a poem to her, like reprogramming her. Anakin was in tune with her in an entirely different way, his cock rigid as he eyed her perfect, plump blue pussy. “Breeder.” Her eyes snapped open after a blink, breath going short.

He slid into her wet sex with a powerful thrust, manipulating her body. “Fertile.” She whimpered. She needed him to make her his. These words, they were recoding her in her entirety. She hadn’t heard these words since Geonosis, since they’d- She focused on the now, and she felt Anakin railing her with reckless abandon.

“Anakin-!”

“Heifer.” There was this powerful sweep within her, the Force guiding her every whimper, her every gasp. She was getting pregnant tonight. “Anakin, fuck me!” She begged. “Balloon.” She could see herself now, half juiced with a belly as big as her entire torso, milky balloons for tits constantly lactating, chasing after some toddler or the next while carrying another in her arms.

“Violet.” She gushed around his cock and he still wouldn’t let up, plugging her pretty blue pussy with his cock, gripping her asscheeks and ensuring she was tighter than a locked cage, her toes curling as he used her like his bloated sex toy.

“You’re gonna be my baby mama ‘Soka. You’re gonna be so bloated with my babies you’ll be begging me to pop you.” She whimpered, building up to her climax.

“Would you like that honey? To pop out baby after baby for me, building our family bigger? Outbreeding the village, showing them just how handcrafted you were for making me the happiest dad on the planet?” She felt tears slipping down her face, beaming as he drew longer, more purposeful thrusts, her pussy aching for release by now.

“I promise Ani, just please lemme cuUUUUM!” She howled, gushing around his cock as he rutted inside her, ballooning her womb a full few inches tauter, bloated and full to the point his cum was leaking from her nethers, sticking to her labia and dripping down her underside.

Anakin rolled her upright and gazed down at her. “You look amazing.” He told her honestly.

Ahsoka was glowing, her cheeks sheened with juicy blue sweat, her forehead damp with exertion. He wiped her down as she flapped her hands. “There’s no way I’m not pregnant now.” She told him.

“Good.” Was all he said, nestling into her. Ahsoka mewed lightly, leaning into his shoulder as he swayed her. “Did you mean what you said, about keeping me permanently bred?”

“Mm-hmm.” Anakin growled into her neck, her gushing pussy quivering.

“Oh, we have a lot of work ahead of us then.” She teased.

#multiples pregnancy #blueberry inflation #blueberry expansion #pregnancy kink #hyperpregnancy #weight gain #roleplay #blueberryinflation #hyperpregnant

5 notes · View notes

breakaway71 · 1 year ago

Note

I know about a lot of your WIPs, obviously, but for the WIP titles game, tell me about The Song you Sing in the Shadows because I don't think I know that one?

You might know it without realizing you know it LOL, although I haven't talked about it in some time. This was what I tentatively titled my Vampire!Reggie fic, which was basically... The boys died from vamps instead of hot dogs, Reggie got turned instead of killed, has to spend the next 25 years adjusting and trying to forget his best friends. When Julie finds their old demo album and accidentally summons Luke and Alex as ghosts, Reggie is not prepared. I still go back and poke at this one sometimes, but it turned into something really daunting and kind of got backburnered. (I also started a different vampire Reggie fics in the meantime, wondering if I should just scrap this one as Too Much, but in the end, I couldn't do it, so I keep hoping I'll go back and really give it the time and attention it deserves one of these days!) snippet:

He hears the approaching footsteps, the sound of a steady heartbeat, like something out of a dream. It drags him out of the darkness he's trying to drown himself in, makes the torrent of tears slow, then stop. Reggie has the half-hearted idea that he should move, he should run, because anybody who finds him like this is going to think he's homeless or dangerous (he guesses maybe he's both, now), but he doesn't want to move.

Let them come, he thinks. What's the worst they can do?

"Reggie?" he hears, and it startles him enough that he looks up, blinks through wavery vision to see the young woman coming towards him until she's close enough to kneel beside him. "It's Reggie, right? Your name?" Her voice is soft. Accented. He recognizes it, but it takes him a long, addled moment to place her.

"Rose?"

"Dios mío," she breathes. "I heard what happened to your friends, but you weren't with them when the ambulance came, everyone said it was just two from the band, and I feared… So I came looking." She places a hand on his arm. He blinks down at it, confused, thoughts moving too slow for whatever is happening right now. "Come, we need to leave the streets. I can help you."

Reggie doesn't know how anyone can help him now, but she's been the single bright spot since this nightmare began and at this point, he thinks he'd be willing to follow her anywhere, if only to have some sort of direction.

"I can hear your heartbeat," he tells her, very quietly, as they walk.

There is the slightest hitch in her step, something Reggie isn't even sure he would have noticed if his senses weren't dialed up as much as they are. It's easier to focus on her movements than the blinding streetlights or the blazing club signs or the cars…so many cars and they're all so loud. "I know," Rose finally says.

Reggie stares at her, the clench of her jaw and the tightness around her eyes and the purposeful way she's walking. But it's her heartbeat he notes above all, the way it remains entirely steady. "Why aren't you scared?" Because he's still oscillating between numb and terrified out of his mind, and it might be nice to have some company there.

She darts a glance at him, frowning. "You're not hungry yet, are you?"

Hungry. God, in all the time since he woke up and realized what happened, what had been done to him, he somehow never stopped to consider the connotations hungry would have for him now.

"No…not really." The street dog dinner he'd been looking forward to feels a million years away from this moment, and the only thing he's feeling in his stomach is gut-roiling nausea.

"Then I've got nothing to fear," Rose says.

#julie and the phantoms #ask meme #snippet

14 notes · View notes

h0n3yk1tt3n · 2 years ago

Note

thoughts on the squip?

It's. Complicated.

Well the complicated part is what the fandom thinks of/does with the squip. Actual Canon squip in the show? ..also complicated bc Two River and Bway are vastly different ALMOST to the point of not even being the same character bdjdbddj OK ITS ALL COMPLICATED BUT FOR DIFFERENT REASONS, I'LL TRY NOT TO RAMBLE BUT I CANT MAKE PROMISES

Two River Squip

To me it's the best blend of intimidating "I wanna be that" and intimidating "I'm scared of that" where we can actually feel threatened by the "everything about you makes me wanna die" AND STILL get lulled into a false sense of security with "everything about you is going to be wonderful." It shifts between the two so well that you Think it's on your side Most of the time, but has questionable actions that you don't really know whether to trust or not. It goes from the encouraging "of course [she's talking about you], I've been activating your pheromones. Keep it up" to the almost menacing (albeit absurd) exchange of finding out about eminem. For anyone that needs a refresher, it goes as follows:

Jeremy: did you know this was going to happen?

Squip: of course not!

Jeremy: so it's a coincidence you told me to wear this shirt?

Squip: of course not.

Jeremy: what- did... did you kill eminem??

Squip: nooooot exactly. My quantum processor allows me to envision probable futures. While I did not know that today eminem would be impaled by that rogue hockey stick, I was aware of the probability of a... favorable outcome?

Jeremy: ...favorable for who?

Now this conversation doesn't change in the bway script (as far as I'm aware) but the tone of the scene changes significantly between productions for me because bway squip just. Doesn't come off as menacing to me, which leads intooo

Broadway Squip

I hate to say it because it just sounds like the same shallow shit from 2018 off-bway, but I just can't take the surfer dude voice seriously. And you can argue that you're not supposed to! This is kind of a comedic show first and dramatic show second. I mean it IS dramatic bc everything is dialed up to 11 but it's over-the-top dramatic and not oh-shit dramatic. Which is fine! It's a different take on the tone of the show! I just can't buy the intimidation of "everything about you makes me wanna die" or how fucking manipulative it REALLY is when the squip sounds stoned.

Headcanon Squip

I likes me a squip that feels much more cold and calculated. It'll Act Like it has your best interest in mind, but it doesn't care how it gets the results it wants. Doesn't care who gets hurt or Literally Dies to make all the pieces fall into place. Just reeeaaally lean into the emotionless computer tied solely to its programming aspect. Now ofc it'll Act Out emotions, but as a mimicking/manipulation tactic to get Jeremy to trust it more.

"A squip's sole purpose is to improve its user's life," it'll say, while electrocuting and psychologically tormenting you and arguing that, on a TECHNICALITY, your life is better because you have more friends and your dad wears pants now. Yes you hurt your best friend, yes you took advantage of a girl that really liked you, yes your friends got injured in a house fire, but it all worked out in the end didn't it? You win some, you come out of others with a little bit of PTSD.

Fanon Squips

Don't get me wrong, the shitposts are funny. Seeing all the squips riffing off of each other and showing their different personalities is great. Hell squip x squip ships are the ONLY ones ill accept. PEOPLE CAN SHITPOST ALL THEY WANT. I just think that the shitpost personalities put on the squips (particularly bway) make people forget that... this is the main antagonist of the show. And it's easier to forget that with bway I think, because this villain is made So Campy that you Forget To Take It's Actions Seriously.

This thing emotionally and physically abused Jeremy, and it's been boiled down SO MUCH into Haha Silly Sexy Computer that people forget (or flat out ignore) that THE SQUIP EXACERBATED DYWH.

Remember who the real villain is (Spoiler alert: not Chloe)

I've already gone on a whole tirade about how Chloe gets so much fucking hate for a goddamn teenager going through the hellish hierarchy of high school, AND I WILL REITERATE THAT IM NOT DEFENDING HER ACTIONS, but for fucks sake THE SQUIP PREVENTS JEREMY FROM MOVING. Can you think of how fucking terrifying that must've been? Not only is your girlfriend's drunk best friend trying to jump your bones, but the squip LITERALLY TAKES AWAY HIS ABILITY TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. The squip MAKES HIM drink the alcohol. The squip MAKES HIM kiss Chloe. THE COMPUTER IN HIS HEAD THAT CAN CONTROL HIS BODY HAS RENDERED HIM POWERLESS. As soon as the squip shuts down, HE GETS THE FUCK OUT OF THERE BECAUSE ITS NOT CONTROLLING HIM ANYMORE, showing that he ABSOLUTELY could've escaped sooner IF NOT FOR THE SQUIP.

Let's tally up those sins real quick.

Chloe, getting mixed messages as to whether Jeremy actually wants this or not because he 1. Says he has to go, but doesn't leave 2. Calls her the hottest girl in school (which Chloe misreads and takes as a kissing invitation) 3. Says he isn't a drinker, but drinks from the bottle anyway 4. Kisses her (which SHE doesn't know to be the squip's doings and not Jeremy's) 5. Finally conveys "I don't want this" with enough body language for Chloe to get the idea, at which point her only concern is just making Jake THINK she slept with Jeremy rather than actually DOING IT: let's call this 2 sins, because she 1. should've stopped her advances after Jeremy said he has to go and 2. Shouldn't have kissed him unprompted. Everything beyond that was ambiguous because she didn't know that the squip was controlling Jeremy.

Squip, KNEW Chloe wanted to jump Jeremy's bones and didn't CARE if Jeremy didn't want it, TOOK AWAY his ability to escape, DIDN'T WARN him that Chloe was about to kiss him, MADE him drink the alcohol, MADE him kiss Chloe, and had NO SIGNS of letting Jeremy go UNTIL IT GOT TURNED OFF: that ALONE is 6, NOT COUNTING THE REST OF THE SHOW.

In conclusion, Two River squip comes off as a more menacing villain than Bway, fanon squips are funny but feel like they've been watered down to jokes or thirst traps, and Chloe isn't WORSE than the squip (she fucked up, she's not IRREDEEMABLE)

#asks #mj says shit #squip #chloe valentine #jeremy heere #this post ate my fucking morning and i have to go to work in an hour #i hate evening shifts with a fiery passion

13 notes · View notes

bravewolfvesperia · 10 months ago

Note

'Responsible Commandant' has somehow turned into 'Flynn the Discovered Lightweight.'

He'd only meant to reprimand these off duty knights for being rowdy whilst drinking, but with a couple of well timed, much needed compliments and guilt tripping, there Flynn sat amongst them feeling terribly out of place. He's never really taken the time to get to know the others in a more leisurely setting; he's always got his nose in a pile of paperwork, or his legs carrying him from one place to another to handle what felt like a million and one tasks in one day. It's the only reason he agrees to 'loosen up' for a little bit, just to gauge morale and see if there's anything he can do to make things easier for them on the work side of things.

But they don't want to discuss work. No, they want their fearless, admired Commandant to ACTUALLY loosen up, so when that glass of the bar's specialty is slid his way, he hesitates. He is... technically off duty, too, and can't think of a reason not to have just a few sips... but, for someone who, literally, never drinks, a few sips is all it takes before he's got his head down on the table, his collar buttons loosened as well as his lips.

"Hey, sir! Are you committed to anyone? Ya know, romantically?"

"... wha---?"

"Do you have a partner, sir? Girlfriend?"

"... no. 'M... no.

"Well, has anyone caught your eye? Surely, even you have admired someone or two with how popular you are. Go on sir, your secret is safe with us."

Flynn falls silent, not because he doesn't want to answer the question, but rather, because the room is somewhat spinning and he'd much like to make it stop. After certain he is, in fact, still seated in his chair, he dares to lift his head up with a lopsided grin.

"Yuri. Yuri is... beautiful. Gorgeous. He... I admire. Yuri... love... mm... "

And right back down he goes, whilst the other knights sit around him with widened eyes and mouths agape.

"Yuri!? YURI LOWELL!?"

If they're looking for further confirmation, they won't get it. The Commandant, unfortunately, has already fallen asleep.

@tenebriism

Apparently Flynn had been seen going into a bar and... didn't come back out. Yuri had gone after him after hearing about it, just hoping there wasn't trouble and that this would be an easy get in, get out. Flynn wasn't usually in bars unless there was trouble, and lately there had been trouble involving Lower Quarter citizens being harassed at bars, so Yuri tended to stick his nose in... but Flynn being there first and not coming back out in a timely manner left Yuri wondering what was going on in there.

Instead of just getting in and checking on things and getting back out, he found himself standing there dumbfounded before he could even say anything to Flynn. The knights around their commandant looked up from him to Yuri, back down to Flynn and back up to Yuri's hopefully not red face. It was burning like a fever, and if he was lucky, that was all it was. For a moment he tried to speak, opening his mouth and closing it, pulling his lips in as he tried to find something to say.

He hadn't heard the full conversation, and it seemed the knights weren't even sure if he had. Yuri knew they were talking when he approached, but he'd only really tuned in properly at hearing his name. Hearing Flynn talk about him wasn't unusual, but he couldn't help dialing in at hearing his name in general.

It just... was not what he expected to hear. Maybe the admire part wasn't so shocking - they both admired each other and it would be pretty useless to deny that and the fact that they both knew it - but the rest of it had thrown him for a loop. Gorgeous...? Love...? Maybe it made sense that Flynn had never told him that outright, since something like that might have needed a certain setting, but...

Wait, he said love?!

Flynn looked... passed out. Had they let him drink...? He wasn't exactly against the idea of Flynn drinking, but evidently it was... no ally of his. Not between his head now resting on the counter and the words that had slipped with no restraint. Flynn wasn't the type to joke around or play some drinking game either, much less say something like that in the middle of any of that.

"So... I came to... check on him..." His eyes looked from Flynn to the knights, eyes still wide as it felt like the entire room was staring at him. There was no way that was the case with how many people were in the building, but it felt like the whole world could be staring right at him right about him. "He... looks like he... needs to be... carried out..."

At this point the knights didn't even have any questions about Yuri checking on him. On an ordinary day one of a bunch of knights might have asked what his business was, and he had no way of knowing if these guys were the type to act up like that, but at the moment, not a single one of them seemed to know what to say or do except nod and agree awkwardly. "So... can I... have some help getting him up...? I can carry him back..."

Now the knights hurriedly shifted and agreed. Yuri couldn't tell if they were awkward about the drunken confession itself and that it was about Yuri, awkward that Yuri had heard it or both. He wasn't even sure how he felt that some of these knights seemed to know his name like that, but he wasn't processing that part very well when he was too distracted with... uh... other words he'd stumbled into.

The knights were hastily getting Flynn safely out of his seat and onto Yuri's back, and it seemed like none of them had a single complaint in their awkwardness. Similarly, neither did Yuri. He might have had something to say about Flynn drinking at all, because it was odd that he would be at all, and he suspected the knights may have dragged him into it or convinced him into it after making it too difficult to say no, but he found that he physically could not voice those thoughts right now.

Would Flynn remember this when he woke up...? Did that even matter when there was no chance of Yuri forgetting it? Were they going to have to talk about this?! Eventually Flynn would notice Yuri acting like a weird mess!!!

This was going to be the weirdest mess of a night in Yuri's life, in fact. There was... processing... to be done.

#tenebriism #{ ic asks }#{ verse: post canon }

2 notes · View notes

fearoftriangles-art · 1 day ago

Text

Art Log: January 2025

I figured I'd start organizing my thoughts in a monthly check-in like this so I can, like, actually make sense of them lmao

What I liked about my art this month-

I think I got pretty good at "seeing the shapes" in things, and I definitely improved at sketching what I saw!

idk what the fuck happened with that giraffe on Jan 3. what a GLORIOUS fluke. I think it turned out so well because I was thinking actively about the different parts of the animal and how I could make it look multidimensional. the only thing that kinda sucked about it was that I conned myself into having to draw and color all those spots lmaooo

things like drawing my hand on Jan 6 and the water deer yesterday made me realize that shading is not actually that scary. I'm not great at it, but it's doable.

The snow texture in the "snow jackalope" drawing came out very well! All I did was look up a guide and it took like 2 mins total. I may regret saying this, but I'd be down to draw more snow.

I had so much fun drawing fandom bullshit and my oc's. definitely more of that to come. and having practiced with different poses made it easier!

What I didn't like about my art this month-

omg bitch please learn to draw water/grass/rocks/dirt (specifically in the hills drawing on Jan 24 and the sea star on Jan 28 and the water deer yesterday) it's honestly embarrassing

honestly backgrounds in general. cause wtf I never know what to do...SO MANY of my drawings this month were just on like a plain bg with only one color. YAWN. BORING.

some of my drawings still look pretty static (I'm looking at you, snow jackalope).

this is not a gripe against my art itself, but holy fuck I need to learn not to death-grip my pencil. my wrist hurts like a BITCH. and if I don't get out of the habit, between this and piano and guitar I WILL give myself carpal tunnel.

Goals for February-

Consult my crazy insane talented artist friends more often. like hello bitch are you dumb you've got michaelangelo and da vinci on speed dial. maybe take advantage of that.

Focus on coloring

Focus on adding texture to drawings (fur for animals, smooth surfaces like rocks, things like that)

Focus on backgrounds and landscapes and skies

Draw some plants

Draw 'on the go' more often (I tend to have art be a whole production where I sit down and I tell myself "okay I'm going to do art now" but like. I need to make it more a part of my daily life. that will make it more enjoyable I think)

Practice with more exaggerated facial expressions and gestures- I love love love cartoony styles and would like to emulate that

to stay motivated, indulge obsession with The Character (it's ford pines. it's fucking always been ford pines. 2025 marks 10 full years since it's been ford pines. I have a major issue)

How am I feeling, art-wise?

Motivated and open to expanding my skillset! Gonna be super careful not to bite off more than I can chew, though. because wow those are a lot of goals for february lmao

#text #art thoughts #long

0 notes

the-firebird69 · 2 months ago

Text

We have some food on the stove they wanted to check it every few seconds but really he should check it now and it's for how much boiling it's doing and it's doing too much and his experience says less than number two and it's getting dialed it down and it'll be like the stew it's kind of the idea so he's moving on it and we are and helped and it is good

Several other things today are not that great he is on a bunch of medicine and he kind of needs it and we know why they swelled a little bit and he noticed and he was in a lot of pain with his back and he noticed it so trying to help and he slapped and he feels better and he needs better sleep and thank gosh for this mattress he says and we do too and his wife it is really a lifesaver and she has a bunch of ones and new ones she got a new one out and said he does so I do and it was needed and she likes it. And he says perfect and it says you have to get over this poop fear and he says I will and it's going to be easier without this problem and it's going away slowly and soon it will be but we have a couple announcements

--this group of people is very annoying they are under the gun they are having problems with Mac proper they do see our son is correct they have run into these people from Concord so they're going to try and go there right now several groups are holding Lily and Jason out it seems that they don't want the apartment to be finished and it's very weird but it makes sense they want to be in and about town to like fracture the pseudo empire and they're starting to realize it and Stan suggests the hospital in essence is no and I can get it done and I think I'll take over your stupid little hospital and we're going to start doing that we don't need this guy has a big mouth it's a huge a****** to have some I said it before but really this has to happen this guy is rude very rude and he has to go out on missions too cuz his stuff is disappearing while he's hitting sitting here masturbating to whatever our son says he's ridiculous get a job he says get a job so he's looking at stuff and some ass and Jason and Lily are taking stuff of his

Using their delay as a threat

More shortly

Olympus

0 notes

noah-atwood · 1 year ago

Text

NOAH ATWOOD

Full Name: Noah Daniel Atwood

Nicknames: n/a

Pronouns and Gender: He/Him, Cis Male

Age and Birthday: 28 years old, December 27th

Birth place: Aurora Bay, California

Sexuality: Biromantic Bisexual

Status: Single

Occupation: Paramedic & seasonal lifeguard at Blue Lagoon Pool

Education: High School Diploma + Paramedic Schooling

Residence: Fisher’s Cove

Time in Aurora Bay: 28 years

Face claim: Justice Smith

tw: parental death, drug use mention, abuse, custody battle

HISTORY —

Noah had been born December 27th, to a mother who passed during birth due to complications, and a father who had to find a way to feed a hungry, newborn baby when putting food on the table had already been hard enough. It was a difficult feat to accomplish on his own, so of course the aid of his grandparents was necessary while his father took to working two jobs.

For this reason alone, Noah looks to his grandparents as the people who raised him. He gets it now — SoCal is an expensive place to live — but as a kid he oftentimes neglected to mention he even had a father. Not out of spite or anger, just the simple innocence that his grandmother picked him up from school and packed his lunches while his grandfather prepped him for his youth soccer association.

Until his teens, Noah found himself spending most of his time outside of school and after school extracurriculars at their house. He'd fall asleep on the couch there, wake up in his own star and planet patterned space blanket beneath the glow in the dark constellations hanging from his popcorn cieling. And when he'd gotten old enough to tend to himself, he would still visit… outside of seeking out food banks so he could try and make his own meals and, maybe, some to surprise them with as a thank you for all they've done.

By fourteen, his father met another woman and quickly moved her in. Things were fine, but Noah felt rejected in a sense. That time and effort could be put into her, but he'd been dropped elsewhere so things were 'easier'. Turns out, it had been for the better, because he'd learned through the walls his booming voice, and her trying to yell back and hold her own.

Things he might've been wise to had his mother survived delivery, and he never spent days upon days in the care of his grandparents. He barely knew the woman, but it made him sick to his stomach that he couldn't do a thing to help her.

Noah did try once with a 911 call. She lied for his father, though, and nothing happened beyond the brief accusation of it being him who called. It had been a fortunate thing she insisted the neighbors must have overheard their arguing, so it had been put to bed. After a few days of reprieve as a result for the police visit, the fights started again. There had been months of it, it became the new-norm. He fell asleep easier, but his grades did begin to suffer just as his social life. He withdrew in school, got fidgety, and lost his desire to pursue any sports.

He came home the day of his sixteenth birthday to find her nodded off, with a needle sticking out of her arm. Lethargic and like a ragdoll, vomit down her front, Noah panicked. For the first time since the only phone call he'd dialed out to emergency services, he called for an ambulance. For the better, too, as they were able to revive her and bring her to the nearest hospital for medical treatment.

Noah's father didn't appreciate this as he worried it put a target on him. As it turns out, there was a few narcotics stashed in his room. An argument ensued, Noah defending his decision, his father belittling him for putting his nose into someone else's business, and Noah swung on him. Once, twice, three times until he was down.

His vindication quickly turned to panic and terror and he ran to the safest place he knew. The one he should've ran to long ago: back to his grandparents' home. As expected a custody battled followed, and was easily won so that the remainder of Noah's years as a minor he was to remain in their care, and his father had no claim. If asked, however, Noah doesn't regret that time back living with his father.

For as short as it was, and how his own mental health started to fall off, he recognized that at the very least he'd done something to save his dad's (now ex) girlfriend's life. Like he'd been meant to be there to make that phone call. It also is the very thing that pushed him into his current career.

Becoming an EMT was his first step, starting as a cadet and attending courses for CPR certification and emergency first aid. His hours put into that had been strictly volunteer to begin, so he also worked part time at the local pet store for cash. His grandparents supported this venture. He wasn't charged rent or any money so long as he continued his efforts to stay on this path.

Noah inevitably put himself through paramedic school, and it had been the happiest he ever felt. He wanted to learn more and do more, and this was where he could begin. He passed his tests with flying colors, and he may have not been top of the class in the fitness assessment, but he rolled through it effortlessly enough. One year of schooling, Noah became a paramedic by twenty-three years old.

TRAITS.

+ Ingenious, sensible

+/- Disciplined, neutral

- Sarcastic, self-critical

HEADCANONS.

⊹ Noah might live in Fisher's Cove, but he frequents his grandparents' home in Seabrook Quarter to drop off meals and pay them surprise visits.

⊹ Noah rarely drives the rig as he prefers to handle the patients in the back. He's oftentimes chosen to fill out the paperwork as his handwriting is meticulously neat.

⊹ He has a three-legged, long-haired tabby cat named Stanley that is ten years old. He adopted it from the shelter when he moved into his own place so that he wouldn't feel so alone.

⊹ He cannot stand the taste of poultry, but is always down to order a double cheeseburger from the bar. Burgers and pub fries, thank you.

⊹ Noah has a mild fear of heights. Not so much that if he is in a building at the tenth floor looking out he panics, but he will not be the one opening the blinds, thankyouverymuch.

⊹ he also has a strong aversion to ketchup.

⊹ he has a stomach of steel until vomit is involved.

CONNECTIONS.

romantic connects will be added in the future once I get Noah more established. Once again, a brand new babe, but I am open to working on it if chemistry and heavy plotting occurs. Aurora Bay native, he has room for friends, ex-classmates, or even any potential enemies. I’m down for exes, past hook-ups, etc. just need to be plotted out more. If you think he can fit anything for your muses, by all means. He isn’t a wallflower, but doesn’t necessarily put himself out there. He has a tendency to project his morals on others and has high expectations of those around him which can make him very easily disappointed.

♡ @priyaxdesai - childhood best friends that were inseparable.

♡ @nomadjones - noah respects and admires dallas. fellow first responder and soccer fan, there isn't a moment where noah doesn't find comfort in dallas's presence. he enjoys the time they spend together scrimmaging out in the field.

♡ @firefighterrojas - fellow first responder and PoGo partner, angel is a steady and comforting presence.

♡ @atticus-cortes - long term friend first, ex-boyfriend second, and now they're trying to do this awkward dance to figure out where each other stands after mutually agreeing to call the relationship off.

♡ @willxmeyers - patient of that noah saved on scene after an OD incident at Oasis.

♡ @emersonxcassidy - friend to noah who he met by happenstance, and sharer of cat stories.

♡ @noralevin - she stole his crayons in grade school, and he's never forgiven her. (they were the 64 color, Crayola box with a built in sharpener, thank you.)

♡ @edietello - worked the masquerade, noah just hopes she's doing alright. he really does.

♡ @edenxoconnell, @cricketcampbell, @sullivanxshaw, @solaadisa - D&D group, fellow nerds, and some of his newest friends.

LINKS.

⊹ pinterest

⊹ inspo

⊹ playlist about noah

@aurorabayaesthetic

#// about : noah #intro post #aurorabay.intro

1 note · View note

eclvpses · 1 year ago

Text

For all the reckless things they’d done in their life, Leo never got used to just how terrifying this part was. He wasn’t exactly careful where his future was concerned - hadn’t ever stopped to think about it, had always just taken what his dad used to say to heart with a laugh, a grain of salt. That one day he’d either end up dead or in prison. Leo could be either before the day ends, but he wasn’t going out like this. Neither was Saige. His Saige, who he still loved even though she was terrified of him and he was actively hurting her - despite his promises. They weren’t supposed to hurt her, but it wasn’t easy anymore. Holding people down, getting them to listen to him when they were at their weakest, finally giving in. Leo was worn out, weak - caving in on them self as Saige wept and protested beneath their hands. This had to be worth it - Leo needed this to be worth it. “It’s okay.” He mumbled, almost numb to what was happening right in front of him, under his own hands. It was harder to close off his senses the harder Saige fought against him. Everyone always fought, but it cut extra deep when Saige did it. She’d cried in his arms before, black out and completely unaware of what’d even transpired waking up the next morning - they were both almost always too wasted to ever piece together a full night. Now she was crying because of him - Leo’d never seen her look like this. They’d seen every piece of Saige - but not this. Not pure fear and desperation - terror that’d started becoming something recognised his reflection in. The image was glaring, bouncing back from Saige’s eyes. “Ow - fuck! Saige!” She’d clawed savagely at his cheek, turned all his senses back on and dialed all the way up. Numb then angry then numb again then frustrated - Leo’s blood pounded in his ears as he tried to keep up with the complexity of his own emotions. They’d never had a good grasp on them as is, a hot head and temperamental at best, but this was different. Nothing would ever get done this way - Leo felt it, the moment they gave in and knew they couldn’t treat her with kindness anymore. He really really hated this part. “Saige! Stop!” Still gripping at her throat, Leo lifted her into the air for a fleeting moment, before slamming her down onto the floor beneath their feet. Tried to straddle at her to keep her legs from flailing, still wanted to press against her throat - the air had to have been knocked out of her, it’d make everything easier. But Leo was already at a ten, skin itching - he needed this over with. “STOP IT!” Tucked into the waistband of his corduroys - where they used to have their drumsticks for safekeeping during practise, when his lungs didn’t feel so clogged and his brain didn’t overthink so much - Leo yanked out a sharpened screwdriver. Plunged it into Saige’s side before they could even take in their next breath, let alone before they had time to stop and think about it. Kept it in their to staunch the bleeding, but Leo wasn’t a doctor - they never thought about where to drive home the pain, how to avoid anything important. “Shit - shit, okay. God - okay, it’s okay. I won’t let you bleed out, just -.” Hoping she was weaker now, Leo squeezed her throat again - tighter. Adrenaline and desperation fueling his pathetic muscles to work overtime. “You made me - I didn’t want it to hurt! It was going to be good, it wasn't going to be like this, fuck!”

For a long time - Saige had wanted to die. She always phrased it differently - I want to mysteriously go missing, I want to like - disappear from the public eye, I like - really, really, don't want to be here anymore. She'd ruminate on it - the thoughts swirling behind her eyes to match the spinning rooms whenever she opened them - maybe that was why she always acted on impulse, without a second thought - always reckless, always borderline dangerous to herself. If it's an accident - it's not as sad, is it? But here - now - a dull throb beneath her skin from how tight Leo had been holding onto her, pinning her to him - Saige was terrified of it. Of dying. The thought alone sent another cold shiver down her spine, her skin prickling with goosebumps as Leo's words gained some sort of recognition inside her. "Leo, please -" The knot in her throat thickened, her vision blurring with fresh - sprung tears, warm against her cheeks, "- you're hurting me right now - please - I don't want to die, I like - really, really don't want to die -" She could still feel his hand on the back of her head, even as he dropped it - a sharp inhale turning into a wavering sob; she couldn't control her breath, or the way her chest rose and fell in fear - the hyperventilation that shook at her shoulders. She didn't want to die - not like this, not by the hands of someone she thought she knew like the back of her own hand; not by Leo. Late nights in a too fast car flying down the empty roads, pills shared in the middle of the club - tongue pressed to tongue - just a floor above them, his face hung in several different photos. All smiling, laughing - happy. This wasn't the Leo she knew - this wasn't the Leo in those photos, this wasn't him. It couldn't be him, it couldn' - Saige let out a gasp as his hands encased her throat, as his thumbs pressed into the soft spot of her throat, where he'd kissed so many times before - right there, please - her hands grasping at his wrists, as if she could pry his hands away from her. As if she could stop him from killing her. She could see it clearly now, the look in his eyes; the desperation, stark against blue specks - once as bright as the sky above them. "Leo -" she choked out, "- stop, stop - you don't have to -" Between her tears, the sobs - and the pressure against her throat, she could barely breathe. Couldn't even catch her breath - couldn't even think. Her dad would be disappointed in her - all those years of militant punishment for nothing. She couldn't even protect herself against a clear threat - she should've known right away. She should've known better, she should've - done better, been better - "- Stop!" Her foot swung against Leo's shin, once, twice - three times, hands clawing at whatever she could; the neck of his shirt, his cheeks - once plump, once full - anything she could reach from an arm's length away.

#leo | interactions #leo | saige #violence tw #stabbing tw #attempted murder tw #LKSDHGKHSDGKLHSDLKHGSKLDHGKLHSDGHKLDSG #insane tags.

10 notes · View notes

hyperfixated-gvf · 3 years ago

Text

Déjà Vu

On the eighth day of Tropemas, hyperfixated-gvf gave to me:

A fake-dating Josh fic that’s got a bit of everything.

Christmas Song Pairing: “Fall in Love at Christmas” by Mariah Carey, Khalid, and Kirk Franklin

~~~

Pairing: Josh Kiszka x Reader

Warnings: Language, angst, masturbation and references to sex

Words: 9.3k

Josh: I need help.

Josh: Please.

The text came through late one night, and it terrified you. You woke up from the semi-conscious state you’d drifted off to and dialed a number you hadn’t really interacted with much over the past three months.

“Hello? Hello? Josh – Josh are you okay?”

“What? What do you mean? Y/N? Are you okay?”

You frowned. He didn’t sound like he needed help. “Josh. You just texted me ‘I need help’ with no context – what the fuck did that mean?”

Josh made a noise of understanding across the phone. “Oh shit, I didn’t mean I was in – yeah, no, it wasn’t that kind of help. Sorry, Y/N, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

You collapsed back against your pillows with an audible sigh of relief. “I thought you’d finally found yourself drunk and in a ditch.” He laughed quietly. “Are you drunk?”

There was a shuffle and the dissonant twang of something hitting the strings of a guitar, and you weren’t surprised that he happened to be around one instrument or another.

“No, not drunk. Just…a little guilty. Angry at myself.”

“Mmmm,” you hummed, the spike of adrenaline that had appeared with Josh’s cryptic text message settling back into your bloodstream, “why?”

“I – fuck. I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I – fuck.”

You frowned again. “Josh, you’re worrying me. What happened?”

He sighed, his mouth right by the phone, so you heard him muttering more curses. “I never told my family that we broke up.”

“Oh…kay?”

“And tomorrow, I’m leaving for Michigan to stay until Christmas. My mom texted me just now. She thinks you’re coming with.”

You didn’t see the problem. “So…tell her that I won’t be there. If you haven’t told them, now would be a good time.”

Even after the months you’d been broken up, you could still see his expression – chewing on his lip, fiddling his fingers, bouncing his leg.

“I would have. But then she said she’s had your gift since June and that she’s so excited to finally give it to you and – and I just went along with it. I don’t know why,” he admitted. “So, since we, you know, since we’re still on relatively good terms, I thought – maybe if you were free, you could come with – just for the hell of it –”

“Josh,” you started.

“—just to not make a big deal out it. I know –”

“Josh,” you said again, and he sighed.

“I know. Sorry for bothering you. Happy Holidays,” he said, voice dripping with humiliation and something reminiscent of regret, but it couldn’t be.

He had been the one to break up with you. Well – you liked to consider it a mutual thing, but he’d been the one to initiate it.

You weren’t over it. But your pride still stung and your sense of self-preservation still tried to make you hate him, and while the very notion of admitting it made you reel – in all truth, you missed him.

“Josh,” you said quietly, hoping he hadn’t hung up.

“Yeah?” He sounded tired. Down.

“Will this be easier for you?”

He was silent for a second. “Not if it would be harder for you.”

His words struck a chord of indignancy in you. Harder for you? As if you were over here, wilting away like a flower without water?

You were no one’s to ruin. He didn’t have that sort of power over you.

(At least, you didn’t want him to know that he did.)

“You know I love your family, Josh. And…yeah, we’re still on good terms. I wouldn’t be talking to you right now if we weren’t. If you really don’t want to deal with – with breaking up a second time right before Christmas, I understand. And I’ll do it, if that’s what you really want.”

You heard a few chords being played softly on a keyboard from his end, and knew that if he started playing now, he wouldn’t get to sleep for a few hours.

“You’ll really do it?”

You turned over in your bed, heart clenching dangerously, whether in a misplaced hope or a preemptive grief, you weren’t sure. “Sure. I’d like to see your family.”

One last time.

“That’s great, because they’ve been bugging me about you visiting since we left the last time.”

His words struck up memories of the 4th of July, watching the boys set off fireworks in the unsafest manner they possibly could, drinking yourself silly, and playing card games until the wee hours of the morning.

You really did love his family, but you knew that the real reason you said yes with so little convincing was that deep down, you recognized the flimsy reasoning Josh had presented and hoped that maybe he felt the way you did. That maybe he’d been presented with the opportunity to rekindle your relationship and was offering you an olive branch.

“So are we…we’ll be pretending that we’re still dating? Or that we’re just friends?”

“I mean…yeah, yeah, we’re still dating. Like we were last time.”

Stolen kisses around corners. Secret glances at the table, cuddling on the couch as his family told stories. It wouldn’t be like last time, but you looked passed that detail.

“Like we were last time,” you repeated softly, “okay. Um - well, when are you leaving tomorrow, then?”

“Probably around 11 am.”

Your mind raced through things you’d need to pack and potential gifts you could bring for everyone, and then looked at the time.

“Could you swing by and pick me up when you leave? I’m gonna have to pack, so…”

“Oh yeah, of course.”

You didn’t know what else to say after that. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yes,” Josh said, voice sounding considerably more upbeat, but still rough with exhaustion. “Yes, I’ll see you then. Thank you so much, Y/N, I know that you didn’t have to do this, and – and I just hope you know how much I appreciate you doing this.”

You smiled. “I know. Now get some sleep, Josh, you sound exhausted, and we have a long drive tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. “We do.”

…

You wanted to say that you were composed and waiting for Josh when he inevitably showed up an hour late, but you’d be lying if you did. Except, who could really blame you when you’d had less than 12 hours to pack for a week-long winter vacation and Christmas shop for an entire family you hadn’t been planning on shopping for.

Which is why you were still scrambling to wrap presents when the knock came at 12:06 pm.

“Just a second!” you yelled, securing the piece of tape on the seam the wrapping paper made against the box. You jumped up and unlocked the door, pushing any wayward emotions down before you opened it up.

You smiled and tried your best to not let your gaze wander, instead meeting his eyes and taking in what you could from there.

His hair was a little fluffier, his eyes the same kind brown, his smile still wide and toothy. But the dark bags under his eyes had gotten deeper, and there was a stiffness in his stature that was inconsistent with his easy-going attitude.

“Hey, Y/N,” he greeted softly. “It’s been a while.”

You shrugged, trying to disperse the rush of unconscious affection that rushed through you at his gentle tone. “It’s no longer than you’ve had to be gone for tours and promotions before. Come on in,” you said, turning back to your wrapping station, “I’ve just got to finish wrapping Jake’s and Ronnie’s gifts.”

“Oh.” Josh sounded surprised. “Were you sending them gifts?”

“No,” you said, refocusing on pressing corners in and folding sides over. “I ran to the mall this morning to do some frantic, last-minute shopping. I found something for everyone, though – it’s not a big deal. I figured if your mom got me a present, it would be rude of me to show up empty-handed.”

Josh immediately started protesting. “You know they wouldn’t have cared –”

“Yes, yes, I know, but I – if we were still dating, I would have gotten them gifts,” you said, not looking up from your work. “And we’re supposed to be dating still.”

“Right.”

You finished the wrapping job on Jake’s present and then setting Ronnie’s in a spare gift bag you had, fluffing some tissue paper on top of it and calling it a day.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Josh took some of the gifts in his arms. “I’ll get the gifts, you get your bags?”

You nodded, picking up a tall gift bag. “I’ll take Sam’s gift, though. I’m not sure I trust you with an armful of gifts not to drop it, and it’s definitely not something we want to drop.”

Josh took one glance at the bag and smirked. “I wonder what could possibly be in the bag.”

“Yeah, big surprise, I’m sure,” you deadpanned back, rolling your eyes.

Josh maneuvered the door open and tossed a quick, “I’ll meet you in the car,” behind his shoulder, and then he was gone.

You licked your lips and went to retrieve your bag from your bedroom, slinging it across your shoulder and doing one last check around your apartment for anything you missed.

Everything was alright.

So…normal. Of course it was a little bit stilted, but all in all, everything really did seem just as it had been. Except you were quietly drowning in the knowledge that it wasn’t real.

You made you way down to Josh’s car, where the trunk was already popped open and waiting for your stuff. You arranged it so that the bottle of alcohol was nestled between the back seats and your bag and went to the passenger’s side door, peeking in the window and frowning when you saw Josh with his eyes closed, leaning against his hands which were braced on the top of the wheel.

He lifted his head and smiled when you opened the door, but it morphed into confusion when you didn’t get in. “Did you forget something?”

You twisted your lips. “You don’t have to drive, you know. I’ve got a GPS and my feet reach the pedals. Why don’t I take first shift?”

“No, no – I wouldn’t make you –”

“Stop it, Josh,” you said heatedly. “You’re not making me do anything. I agreed to this trip and I offered to drive – stop trying to make a martyr out of me.” You didn’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it did, and Josh looked taken aback, but you were tired of this weird tiptoeing that was passing for normal but devoid of the natural comfort and give and take that your relationship had subsisted on before.

It wasn’t that you expected it to be the same; of course it wouldn’t be. But that didn’t mean it had to be like this.

You sighed. “Look, Josh. If you’re going to act like I’m gonna snap at any moment and – and catch an uber from Michigan to Nashville and leave you to explain to your family that we’ve been broken up for a few months now, I might as well not go. They’ll know something it up and it’ll be much more awkward trying to explain why you didn’t just tell them in the first place while I’m there, too. So please – stop treating me like a time bomb.”

“Sorry,” he apologized, looking more nervous than you’d seen him in a while. “Sorry. I’m not meaning to, I’m just – I’m just tired. Maybe it would be better if you drove for the first few hours; I’ll drive after we stop to get gas.”

You nodded in satisfaction at his complicity, and as you passed by each other at the front of the car, you grabbed his wrist, causing him to stop in his tracks and turn towards you, only to be pulled into a hug.

He was stiff at first, but then he returned it, and as much as you had meant for it to be quick – just a reintroduction to casual touches – you found yourself without a desire to let go, and Josh’s tight hold told you he didn’t mind either.

The bubble of hope in your chest grew.

“It’s good to see you again,” you said against his shoulder.

“You too,” he said back, and you released him shortly after, smiling and then getting into the driver’s seat, readjusting the position as Josh buckled himself in, leaning his seat back.

“Ready?”

He met your gaze. “Ready.”

…

Josh didn’t take the second shift.

In fact, he snored right through getting gas and food, and only woke up once you were only a couple of hours away from his parent’s house.

“Shit, Y/N, I didn’t mean to sleep that long,” he murmured sleepily, inhaling deeply and looking out the window. “Where the are we?”

“About to enter Michigan. You just had about a full night’s worth of sleep,” you teased. “Haven’t been getting many of those, lately?”

He rubbed his forehead, stretching up and twisting his back. “Unsurprisingly, no. You could have woken me up.”

You shrugged. “I was fine. Stretched my legs when we got gas. I also ran into the Subway to get some food – there’s a sandwich there for you, by the way.” Josh was quiet, and when he opened his mouth to speak, you beat him to his thought. “And if you tell me, ‘Y/N, you didn’t have to’ – yes, I know. But I did. Thank you will be just fine.”

He laughed – a real laugh. “Thank you,” he said, unwrapping his sandwich. “You remembered my favorite!”

You snorted. “It’s not hard when it’s what you ordered from every single sandwich shop we ever visited.”

“I’ll pay you back for gas and food.”

“Do, don’t – it’s no skin off my nose. I’d have paid for half, anyways.”

Josh spoke through a mouthful of sandwich. “No you wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have let you.” He swallowed his food. “You’re doing this for me – it’s the least I can do for you. And I am not trying to make a martyr out of you, it’s just common decency.”

It kinda amazed you how well you knew each other still; how you knew what he was gonna say before he got the words out and vice versa.

The observation caused a pang in your chest, and you refocused on the road. “So what have you been doing the past couple of months?”

Josh flicked the edge of the sandwich paper. “Oh, you know. Writing. Playing. Recuperating. Drinking,” he chuckled. You didn’t return his laugh – you hoped he didn’t mean more than usual. He must have caught your expression. “Not, like, heavily or anything. Just the normal – you know, beers with my brothers.”

You nodded. “Yeah, of course. Not my business, really,” you said lightly.

He cleared his throat. “What about you?” he asked, and then took a too-big bite out his sandwich.

“Oh, you know,” you said, unintentionally imitating him. “Working. Writing. I did start taking a yoga class at the gym a couple blocks over – I think you’d really like it, actually.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It is. A nice way to pass the time.” There was a stretch of silence where you let Josh eat his food in peace and you navigated the car from one interstate to another. “We’ll have to stop and get gas one more time before we get to your parents,” you said, glancing at the meter.

Josh nodded. “We should…talk, you know, before we get there.”

“About?” You were feigning confusion. You knew exactly what you needed to talk about, but just the thought of it made your stomach squirm and skin itch with possibilities.

“Once we get there, I don’t want to overstep any boundaries you might have.”

You sighed, and despite everything in your being resistant, or perhaps looking forward to, the reinstitution of intimacy between the two of you, you wanted to get it out and over with. “Josh, let’s just – let’s just act like a couple. This doesn’t have to be difficult.” You swallowed the bitter taste of a lie on the tip of your tongue. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

You’d wanted to say ‘this doesn’t have to mean anything’ more than you wanted air, but you didn’t.

You’d gotten the impression that Josh wasn’t totally over your relationship either, but it was the principle of the concept. It was the lingering hurt and wounded pride and perhaps a little bit of masochistic, self-defacing vindication that you wanted to prove to yourself that you weren’t under this man’s thumb anymore.

“Right,” he said quietly. “You’re right. This doesn’t mean anything.”

Your heart broke a little bit.

…

You arrived at the Kiszka household late that night, trying not to shiver at the colder Michigan weather as you both grabbed your bags and as many gifts as you could manage so that you could make it in one trip. You knew someone would still be awake – it was before midnight, after all. But you didn’t expect everyone to be awake.

Karen popped her head around the corner when you closed the door and smiled so brightly that you would have come just to see her. But then Josh dropped everything with a, “Hey, Mama,” and you knew your expression went soft.

Shit.

“Josh and Y/N are here!” she yelled into the living room, where you heard a chorus of hellos from different voices – you could pick out Sam, Ronnie, and Kelly, and you assumed the other two were Jake and Jita, but you weren’t sure.

“Look what Santa brought to town,” Jake said, rounding the corner. He gave Josh a quick hug and then moved on to you, quickly letting you go and looking at the present in your arms. “Something for me?”

You rolled your eyes and started to continue to the living room to drop them off under the tree. “Maybe. Here I was thinking that I was the present this year.”

Jake wrinkled his nose and took some of the gifts from you. “You’re a given, not a gift.”

All the breath whooshed out of your lungs, and your eyes met Josh’s, who had come up next to you. Jake hadn’t intended to disorient you, but the level of ignorance really hit you out of nowhere. You’d thought Josh had at least told Jake – there wasn’t much they didn’t tell each other, and the fact that Jake had called you a given at Christmas pushed the ache and longing that you had been squirreling away to the forefront of your mind.

Karen took the rest of your gifts with a hug and a kiss to your cheek, leaving you and Josh to take your bags to his room. As you unpacked a few necessary toiletries, you inhaled deeply and cleared your throat on the exhale. “You didn’t tell Jake?”

The soft sounds of clutter being moved around paused for a second and then resumed. “No. No, I never did.”

“What did he think when – I mean, didn’t he wonder why I wasn’t around?”

You turned just as Josh shrugged. “We’ve been busy. I just told him that you were too. And he believed me, so, you know, that was that.”

“Oh.”

You weren’t sure if you believed him. Jake was more observant than that, and both twins were stubborn as hell when it came to each other, but you didn’t say anything more on the matter.

You pulled your pajamas out of your bag and took your toothpaste and toothbrush in hand. “I’m gonna go do my bedtime thing – I’ll see you out there?”

Josh sent an affirmation your way and you headed to the bathroom, feeling a little bit detached. What were you doing here? Why did you go along with these flimsy-ass plans based on a flimsy-ass excuse if not for the hope that Josh would get over himself and maybe – maybe fall back in love.

Two and a half months hadn’t been nearly enough time for you to have fallen out of love with him, and some part of you wanted to believe that that was the case for him too.

You poked your head into the living room where everyone was still congregated once you’d finished and were met with smiles all around. The only seat left was an armchair settled near the fire, even though it was the best seat in the house.

You settled into it happily, though.

“So where have you been, Y/N? Josh said you’ve been really busy with a new project these past few months,” Jake said casually, arm draped across Jita’s shoulders.

You chuckled. “Oh, just a personal thing that’s been a work in progress for a while now. I just happened to have gotten inspired one day and kinda got lost in my own little writing world, I guess. Sorry I stopped coming by.” You could play this off – lying wasn’t something you liked to do, but you were pretty darn good at it.

Jake laughed. “Well, Josh spent enough time at your place to have made up for it.”

Your blood turned to ice at the prospect of Josh not spending his nights at his apartment, because you could only guess where he was and what he was doing otherwise, but you forced another smile onto you face. “Exactly. Still, it’s nice seeing you again, finally. I’m glad Josh talked me into taking a break and spending some time out of my apartment.”

“You were thinking of not coming?” Ronnie asked, acting offended. “How dare you.”

“How dare she what? Are you causing problems, already, Y/N?” Josh said, walking into the living room, and you saw his eyes searching around the room for a free spot.

“Me? Problems? The only problem I’m gonna cause is a ruckus if you don’t come here.” He smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes.

“I would never keep a lady waiting,” he said, moving over to where you were seated and holding out his hand. You took it and let him tug you up, knowing that he preferred holding you on his lap than sitting on yours.

You curled into him once you got settled in and pressed a kiss to his temple.

Just like last time.

His fingertips flexed against your thigh, drawing you towards him.

Just like last time.

You sat there and laughed and conversed like everything was fine and ignored that insistent, deep ache that was exaggerated by all the ‘just like last time’ little things until eventually, you yawned and kissed Josh on the cheek.

“Well, I’m going to head to bed. It was nice seeing everyone tonight, I didn’t think you’d all still be up when we got here.”

Kelly waved his hand. “Had to show you we could still hang with the youngsters. Looks like the youngsters can’t hang with us,” he teased, nudging Karen.

You grinned and ruffled Josh’s hair. “Well, I had a long day of driving with Sleeping Beauty over here.”

“—I offered to drive, don’t even,” he protested.

“I know, I know. I’m just glad you got some sleep,” you said affectionately. “But now its my turn. Good night everyone!”

They each bombarded you with good nights and you walked the hallway to the bedroom, about to push the door closed until only a crack remained, and almost jumped when Josh put his hand on the wood to keep that from happening.

“Shit – you scared me. I don’t remember you moving so quietly,” you chuckled. “You can stay out there with everybody, you know; you don’t have to babysit me.”

He shut the door behind him as he entered the room. “I think everyone else was about ready to call it a night, and I know I don’t need to babysit you, but a good boyfriend would never let his woman go to bed alone,” he said, and you caught the double entendre that laced his words and rolled your eyes, smiling, your underlying bond of friendship bubbling to the surface with the warmth of family and friendship still flowing through your veins, making you happier than you’d been in a while.

“Is that so?” you hummed, walking to your side of the bed and plugging your phone in. You pulled the covers back and stared at the ceiling. “Well then, you’d better get here before I conk out.”

You didn’t watch as he climbed into bed as well, instead feeling his weight dip the full-sized mattress in his direction and hearing his breaths.

“Good-night, Y/N. Thanks again for doing this.”

“Good-night, Josh. You’re welcome.”

It wasn’t just for you.

…

“Up and at ‘em, already!”

The loud voice was followed by a louder pounding on the door, and then you heard Kelly sharply say Sam’s name and a few other mumbles, and the jarring presence outside the door left.

“Little brat,” Josh slurred from the other side of the bed. You were rolled over, not facing Josh, but hummed in agreement.

“It’s supposed to be Christmas break – I thought he would be the last one up. What – hang on, what time is it?” You fumbled with your phone and squinted, laughing once your brain actually comprehended the time on the screen.

“What? Did we sleep in?” Josh asked, and you felt him roll over to face you. You turned your head as well and nodded, getting caught up in his gaze.

“Yeah, we’re a couple of late risers today. It’s already 1 pm,” you said, closing your eyes for a second. “It’s been a while since I’ve slept in this late.”

Josh shifted the blankets. “You always were the first one up out of the two of us.”

You blinked your eyes open to see him smiling, so of course you smiled back. “You just can’t ever get that head of yours to stop working early enough at night to get up at a reasonable time.”

Josh’s eyes softened, and he smiled. “You always made the late nights bearable.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you glanced away, the intimacy of the moment weighing heavy on you.

You rolled over and unplugged your phone, sitting up to stretch. “Well, I’m sure there’s plans for today, so I’m gonna get out there.”

Josh groaned and threw the blanket over his head. “Will you tell them I’ll be out in a minute?”

“Of course, Sleepy the Dwarf.”

“Hey!”

You laughed as you shut the door behind you, wandering first to the bathroom to brush your teeth and then to the kitchen, where Josh’s parents, Ronnie, and Sam were.

“Good…afternoon, I guess,” you greeted with a smile. “Sorry we were lazy this morning. I was just telling Josh, I can’t remember the last time I slept in like that.”

“It’s Christmas, everyone deserves a little extra rest this time of year,” said Kelly. “Would you like some coffee?”

You accepted their offer, and then on a last-second decision, grabbed another mug for Josh. His mom looked from the pair of mugs to you and gave you a soft smile.

You pretended not to see it.

Instead, you made up your coffee first, then Josh’s, hoping his taste hadn’t changed in the past two months. “Where’s Jake and Jita?”

“They ran to the store to get some candy for the Gingerbread house competition tomorrow.”

Your eyes lit up. “Gingerbread competition? That sounds like fun.”

Ronnie laughed. “It used to be a tradition until they got all famous and couldn’t come back for Christmas, and we don’t do it if someone’s missing.” She shot a glare at Sam, and he stuck his tongue out at her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I win every year, anyways.”

All three other Kiszkas protested at that, and Ronnie started listing off previous winners. Josh rounded the corner and smiled at the scene, then caught sight of the mug beside you, coming up behind you and placing a soft hand on your lower back.

His lips at your ear sent goosebumps racing up your arms, even underneath your sweatshirt. “Is that for me?”

“Of course it is,” you said softly, leaning back into him. He accepted your weight willingly and even pecked you on the cheek.

Karen was the first to notice Josh had come into the room. “Oh, good afternoon, sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”

“Better than I have in months,” he said. “Must be that childhood bed charm.”

Sam coughed, but it sounded suspiciously like ‘sex,’ and Kelly backhanded him lightly on the head while Ronnie hid her smile in her mug.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Sam said, flinching away from his father, but not expelling the shit-eating grin from his face. “I know what they sound like having sex, and there was nothing going on last night!”

He had to raise his voice after the first part of the sentence to be heard over you, Josh, and Karen all throwing various phrases of disgust at him, batting at Kelly’s returning backhand. You tried not to let your face heat, but you could have fried an egg on your cheek – you knew every single other member of the band had most likely heard you and Josh going at it at one point or another in the time you dated, but you didn’t want it to be acknowledged, much less in front of his parents.

You leaned back and turned your face into Josh’s neck. “Were we really ever that loud?” you asked quietly.

Josh chuckled, hand sliding to loop around your waist. “I mean…” He left it at that and you groaned in embarrassment, but Josh just chuckled.

“I never minded.”

You felt the vibration of his words in his throat and shifted on your feet, pulling your face away, your stomach tightening at his admission. “Of course you didn’t.”

His thumb stroked across your lower belly once before it stilled and Josh stepped back, putting a few inches of space between you two.

You missed his warmth.

…

You had never loved anyone more than you loved Karen and Kelly Kiszka for keeping extra snow suits and thick gloves and scarves at their place and Ronnie for being roughly the same size boot as you.

Because trekking up this steep-as-hell hill would not have worked out in your favor had you been stuck with only the clothes you had brought. But the payoff would be worth it, you were assured. You and Josh had been dating this time last year, but you had friends coming into town, so you hadn’t been able to go with Josh, and were therefore quite unprepared for his family’s Christmas activities.

“So doesn’t having double the weight on one sled give you an advantage with increased momentum?” you huffed, any exercise you may have been doing previously not seeming to help in your climb. “Wouldn’t that be unfair to any single people?”

Josh laughed. “Oh, couple races are only one part of the event. We have singles, sibling, backwards, tied together, and then non-competitive runs. That’s why you had to bring a sled, too.”

You looked behind you in defeat. “I have to climb this hill again? Multiple times?”

“Only on the races you participate in. So,” he paused to calculate, “like, four or five times minimum, yeah.” He turned a smug gaze on you. “What, not up to the Kiszka challenge?”

You wanted to snark back about the things you did for him, but no one was really in earshot to hear, so it would take on different meaning if you did. “There’d better be more of that hot chocolate when we get back to the house,” you grouched good-naturedly instead.

“Papa K’s special. I’m sure we even have some liquor to add into it, if you need.”

“Fuck yes, I need,” you scoffed, your fingers having already gone numb.

There was a thump and a laugh from behind you, and both you and Josh turned to see Jake facedown in the snow, shaking his head while Ronnie and Jita giggled and ran as fast as they could toward you

“Hey Jake,” Josh called with a grin, “you, uh, got a little snow there.” He gestured around his face and Jake didn’t look amused, swiping his face across his sleeve, which was also snowy from the fall.

“Fuck you,” he called, starting up again.

You finally reached the top of the hill and felt a swirl of excitement when you realized that the sled down probably would be worth it.

“Okay!” Sam called out. “Individual round first, then?”

There was a call of agreement and you settled your sled next to Josh’s, still a safe distance away, Jita on your other side.

“Three, two, one, go!”

Kelly gave the countdown and as soon as the last word was out, you kicked off, trailing behind most of them since you hadn’t gone sledding in a hot minute.

You grinned as you picked up speed, attempting to drive the sled, but ultimately just letting it go where it pleased. You passed by Jita and then Josh, laughing all the way down the hill you’d just spent the last seven minutes hiking up and feeling the sting of snowflakes that sprayed up from the front of your sled.

You and Josh were neck and neck, but at the last second, you pulled out in front of him, flattening yourself to the sled to give you more aerodynamic speed. The slope finally flattened out and you slowed down, coming to rest right behind Sam in a respectable fourth place, Kelly taking first and Ronnie taking second.

As you crawled off your sled, you grinned back at Josh, red-cheeked and laughing. “You know, for a Michigan native, you sure know how to lose,” you joked, and Josh started forming a snowball. “No!” you screeched, grabbing your sled and running as well as you could up the hill again.

You heard the snow crunching behind you and Josh’s maniacal laugh, and your heart kicked up a notch, the feeling of being chased sending adrenaline through your veins.

You were leaned so far forward in an attempt to combat the snow pulling at your boots and the incline of the hill that the impact of the oddly-shaped snowball was all it took to bring you down. You tried to twist your torso so that you wouldn’t eat snow in the split second you realized that you weren’t going to be able to keep your balance, but it was so deep it didn’t matter – half of your face disappeared into the ice anyways.

You recoiled from the chill immediately, and Josh tried not to kick more snow at you as he approached you, offering a hand.

The sky was white-gray and bright, so you had to squint to look at his face, boisterous and happy against the dreary background. You took his extended hand and let him pull you up just as Ronnie, Jake, and Jita passed by.

Ronnie gave you a secret smile and then smashed a snowball over Josh’s hat, the snow falling down to settle in the crevices between his scarf and neck. He yelled out in surprise, spinning to find the culprit, and Ronnie laughed. “Justice for Y/N!” she said, giving you a gloved high-five.

You laughed. “You see where allegiances lie.”

Josh shot you a loaded look, and that alone made you regret voicing the quip.

Because it was the last time.

Your mood dipped, but you quickly dispelled the feeling and smiled again. “What race is next?” you asked, stomping up behind Ronnie and Jita.

“I think Mom and Dad were saying couples next,” said Ronnie. “I just want to be up here for the race afterwards. Sam’s staying down there to judge.”

You nodded and glanced back towards Josh. “Are we using your sled or mine?” you asked.

“Well, obviously you slicked yours up before we came, so yours,” he said, still pouting from his loss.

“Uh-huh, that’s definitely the reason I beat you on your home turf.”

He stuck his tongue out at you and then poked you with his sled. You were all too busy huffing and puffing to say much after that, reaching the top of the hill and settling your sled in the same place you’d been before.

Josh immediately picked it back up, settling it to the side of the hill you trekked up, which had a treeline bordering it. “We can’t set it in the same place, or else the paths get all wonky, so we have to pick fresh spots until there aren’t any left.” He shrugged. “Family rules.”

“Well then, who am I to argue.” You stared at the sled for a second. “So how’s this going to work?”

Josh hummed. “It’s also been established that there can be no horizontal stacking – couples must be in a sitting position.” You smirked and Josh raised his eyebrow. “For safety reasons, Y/N.” He couldn’t hide his smile, either though, so you didn’t feel attacked.

“You want back or front, then?”

He sat down on the front of the sled. “Front. I’ll try to steer.”

You sat down behind him, letting a couple of inches of space exist between your bodies. The other couples – Kelly and Karen and Jake and Jita – all got situated, and then from behind you, Ronnie yelled out the countdown.

“Go, go, go!” Josh said, furiously pushing his heels into the snow to get you going. You tied to help, but one boot got caught in the snow, throwing your sled sideways right as it tipped down, gathering speed. “Oh, shit!”

Josh tried to get it back on track, wrestling with the wet, flimsy cord attached to the front, but the damage was done, and the sled started to veer off towards the trees halfway down the hill. As it crossed the hiking path, Josh let go of the string, grabbing your leg instead.

“Abandon ship! Abandon ship!” he shouted, rolling you both off the sled and into the snow while the sled skidded across the path and into the trees.

You didn’t realize you were laughing until breath became hard to come by – except that might have been Josh, who had landed on top of you and was cackling right along with you.

“That was totally your fault,” he wheezed, face within inches of yours.

You didn’t care.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you said you could steer!”

“Not when you’re sabotaging me!”

Your giggles trailed into heavy breathing, and you blinked into the brightness, once again only seeing Josh’s face. He was heaving, but not laughing anymore either. His eyes dipped to your lips, and you could have sworn he moved in infinitesimally.

Your lungs were stuck – frozen like the snow beneath you until Sam’s voice broke into your little bubble.

“Hey! No horizontal sledding!”

…

“Aw, shit.”

The words falling out of Josh’s mouth made your blood run cold. “What? What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Uhh…”

Well, that wasn’t promising at all. You were three sides and three and half hours into the gingerbread house competition, and supplies had been relegated to couples instead of individuals, so you and Josh were tasked with building a house together – and you knew from experience that Josh didn’t do well with delicate things.

“What did you do?” you moaned, thinking about all the time you spent painstakingly putting details into the design. The house was not professionally decorated by any means – you didn’t bake and decorate all that often, but you were still proud of the relatively neat and pretty design you had managed this time, and if all your hard work was for nothing, well, you might end up calling that Uber after all.

Jita broke out in giggles from across the table as a roof piece that Sam had been trying to stick to his walls slid off, prompting a panicked yelp from the other man. “My roof!”

There was icing all over the table – drizzled and dropped and smeared and spilled – and mounds of miscellaneous candies scattered between houses.

You had been arranging one of the last candy wreaths to stick to the front of the house when Josh had let out his curse.

“It’s nothing bad, I swear! I’m trying to get this icing out, and a dried piece of it fell into the roof design – I’m trying to get it out without messing it all up.”

A wave of relief swept through you. “Oh. Okay, well, I’ll get the piece out, and you keep trying to unclog that tube.”

Josh made a noise of disgust. “’Unclog’ is such an unattractive word.”

“You’re an icing-plumber,” you joked, grabbing a toothpick and trying to push the dried crumb of gluey royal icing out of your nice, neat rows of green and red icing patterns. “Try rolling the tube a little more,” you suggested.

In your peripheral, you saw Josh put the tube on the table and begin to roll up the remaining contents until the top was stiff again. He pressed down and shifted his hand up, the pressure pointing the open tip up, and tried flushing the dried stuff out.

“I got it!” you said in satisfaction, brushing the errant icing piece away from your work and turning back towards Josh just as he picked the tube up and tried squeezing it as hard as he could. “Josh, the second the dried icing comes out, you’re going to make a huge—”

Josh’s hand was jerked up the tube with a sudden release of pressure from the tip, and with the position Josh had it in, the resulting explosive shot of white icing was shot straight across your face, landing first in the hair at your hairline and then draping diagonally across your nose, touching the corner of your still-open mouth.

You pursed your lips and nodded your head. “—mess.”

Everyone at the table burst out in laughter, and you couldn’t help but join them, thumbing as much icing from your skin as you could and licking it off – grateful that it at least tasted good.

The sexual innuendos that could be taken in the situation weren’t lost on you, and you couldn’t help but glance at Josh, who was laughing along with everyone else, but whose eyes also never left your face, watching the icing disappear with your finger between your lips in ill-contained rapture, pupils dilated.

You took no small amount of joy knowing you still had that effect on him.

“I bet that’s not the first time Jo–” Sam started, but you turned to him with a glare, finger pointed at him across the table.

“Don’t. Even.”

His comment the other morning was one too many on your sex life, and you didn’t need another joke at the expense of your (secret) lack now thereof.

“Or what? You’ll sabotage my house?”

You watched as the newly-repaired roof started sliding again since Sam had gotten distracted. “You’re doing just fine on your own, actually.”

Sam glanced to his forgotten house. “My roof!”

You returned your attention to Josh, who was still smirking in your direction – at least he was until you swiped a fingerful of icing that had dropped onto the table from the explosion and darted your hand to swipe it across his cheek. He tried to avoid it, but you grappled with him until he had the sticky sugar smeared from cheekbone to jawline. “Just a little bit of retribution before we continue.”

He pouted, wiping it off. “Menace.” You grinned as you turned back to your workstation.

Falling back into that casual intimacy during the past couple of days was easier than you thought it would be – you’d had your doubts that you wouldn’t be able to fully get past the knowledge that everything was fake, that you’d be too rooted in reality to be able to commit to believable interactions.

Except despite having the knowledge that it was, it sure didn’t feel fake.

And that was exactly what would make it so much more difficult to settle back into reality – the tumultuous hope that maybe it could have been real if not for the fact that neither of you had the courage to confront the ambiguity.

…

You woke up silently – disoriented and blinking into the darkness and feeling your breath even out from the abrupt change of conscious state.

You were tempted to grab your phone and see what time it was had you not already taken in the fact that there was no light peeking in from the spaces between the slats of the blinds on the window. You were also entirely too tired to want to squint into an LED screen when you were almost certain that it was before 5 am.

In fact, you weren’t quite sure what woke you up. The night was still and quiet and for once, Josh wasn’t even snoring.

Snuggling back into the mattress, you sighed quietly and relaxed again, drifting off again when you heard exactly what it was that woke you up.

A quiet, yet violent exhale of breath. The shift of the blankets came next, and then you felt the mattress dip near your feet where Josh must have dug his heels in, ever so slightly, so that he – so that he could –

You knew those sounds. Josh was jerking off, right next to you.

He’d always been vocal in bed, so you knew it was a respectable task for him to be as silent as he was being. You were turned away from him, and fought to keep your breathing even and body relaxed – you were certain he’d been listening for any telltale signs you’d woken up, so when you had, he’d stopped until he was convinced you were asleep again.

You kept listening, a voyeuristic streak flaring to life at his sounds and making you wet. The room was filled with harsh breathing and the soft scrape of skin on skin and the slightest grunt you’d ever heard from him; the minute shifts of his body that you wouldn’t have paid any attention in a normal situation took on new meaning.

He worked himself – you could only assume slowly, or his movements would be more detectable – and as much as you would have liked to claim to have fought the images that came to mind, you welcomed them like an old friend.

His thumb brushing over his tip, putting a pressured slide to the underside of the head, right where that vein was most prominent, lightly callused fingers scraping against skin. The twist of his wrist on the way up. The caress of his fingers against his balls once he’d reached the base of his cock.

You knew his preferences intimately and he, yours - during the course of your relationship, you had each witnessed the other pleasuring themselves – both by accident and by request.

A vicious jerk of his body was the only way you knew he’d come, and his body relaxing afterwards made you want to clench your thighs together.

What you’d have given to watch.

He sighed into the room, and you wanted to kiss the air out of his lungs and drink in all his noises, wanted to swallow down all his sounds so that he wouldn’t have to work so hard to stay quiet.

You hadn’t felt this kind of arousal since the last time you slept together, and it was intense.

So intense that your pride and hurt were battling tooth and nail against the idea of rolling over and having your way with him, consequences be damned.

But the longer you laid there, pros and cons racing indecisively through your mind, you couldn’t help but think back to all the loaded looks he’d given you over the past three days. Of the way he’d almost kissed you in the snow yesterday. Of his flimsy excuse for you to come with him to his family’s Christmas and the very little convincing that you’d needed.

You were still in love with him. You knew that. And you were almost certain he still held feelings for you, too.

Your heart kicked up a notch as you made a decision, and let out a measured breath.

“Josh?”

He wasn’t asleep – his whole body stiffened at the sound of your voice, but the room remained quiet for a second.

“Yeah?” His voice was tight – he knew he’d been caught.

There were some things you needed to know, first, though, before you acknowledged his getting off. “Why didn’t tell your family? Not even Jake? I want the truth.” You rolled over to face him, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling, letting the soft buzz of the night stretch between you.

“I was hoping you’d continue to let me…I thought maybe you wouldn’t ask me. Hoped you wouldn’t,” was what he finally whispered.

“Why?” Time seemed slowed down in this moment – words lazy and quiet and the desire for a response faint, the pace of conversation sluggish.

Josh sighed. “Because I don’t have a reason.”

But there was more to it – you just knew it. He was keeping something back, and you were pretty sure you knew what it was, and emotion built up in your chest at the prospect. “Josh.”

“I was wrong.”

His voice was quiet, and for all his stubbornness, he’d always been able to apologize to you – always except for that last time. So now, with his words of admission, it almost seemed as if the past few months hadn’t happened – like you were laying in bed after a round of make-up sex and the two of you could finally reach past your pride and into the love you held for each other to find the words of apology.

“I am too,” you offered back, but he disagreed, finally turning on his side to face you.

“No. No. You – it takes two to argue, but I was the one who – it was my fault, Y/N, that everything happened and that I’ve been...that I’ve been so damn miserable ever since we – fuck, I can’t say it even now.”

Broke up.

“I didn’t tell my family because not even a week after you left, I thought – I hoped that maybe things would resolve themselves. It was stupid, and I should have just apologized, and maybe things would be different.”

You nodded. “I’ve been miserable, too.”

Josh’s intake of breath and harsh swallow were magnified by the silence, and your chest almost hurt when he reached out to take your hand in his, but didn’t say anything, so you continued.

“I was hurt. And that was the only thing that kept me from knocking on your door to apologize. I…I wanted – want – things to be different than they are now. Want them to be the same as they were before.”

“Just like last time,” Josh said, voice impossibly lower.

He started to lean in closer, but there was still something that Jake had said on your mind. “Josh?”

He stopped immediately, cocking his head. “Yeah?”

Your hand made it’s way to his face, and he leaned into the touch. You felt bad bringing this up now, not wanting to throw the time you were apart back in his face. Because you had been broken up, miserable or not. Regrets or no regrets. But still, the words were seared into your brain.

“Jake said you didn’t sleep in your own bed some nights. And I know that it isn’t my business—”

“It is your business, though.” Josh kissed the palm of your hand. “Jake did notice something was going on. About two weeks out, he mentioned you and I – I obviously hadn’t come to terms with it yet, so I lied. I went and drove around. Almost wound up at your door. I went to the studio and played around. I’ve become more acquainted with that couch in the past few months than I have since we moved to Nashville.”

You let the relief sweep through you and closed your eyes, shifting closer to him and curling your hand around his neck. “I won’t say that I’m not relieved,” you chuckled softly.

“I felt like I was still cheating any time someone even looked at me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to—”

You cut him off with a peck. “Do that?”

He answered with his lips and hands, dragging you over by the waist so that you were draped half on-top of him. “Not with anybody else but you, darling.” He pulled you down for another kiss, a deeper kiss, the kind that you’d been longing to give and to get from him.

You hummed in contentment, making the final move and shifting to hover over him, opening your mouth to him and beginning to breath his air, to breathe him.

His hands began to wander and you were shed of your clothes within the space of a few minutes, making quick work of his flannel pants, too.

“Y/N,” he breathed. “I love you. I hope you know that I never stopped.”

You smiled against his lips and snuck your hand down to where he was growing against your thigh, but you thumbed his hip instead of wrapping your hand around him, not wanting to take the moment away from your words. “I love you too. Perhaps in the future, we both let go of our pride – to save us from our own self-inflicted misery.”

Josh grinned. “What are we without our choice of the seven deadly sins?”

You decided the moment was over, and took him in hand, basking in the lovely gasp that escaped him.

“Well, right now, I choose lust.”

Josh nodded vigorously. “My hand’s just not the same, baby. Lust has been the sin of choice for the past few days – fuck – every time the urge struck, it was you and your face –”

“—let me guess, covered in white icing?”

Josh’s fingertips gripped into your ass and he buried his face in your neck, trying to stifle his laugh – too loud for the hour.

“You were a menace for that, by the way. Do you know how difficult it was trying not to fuck up a sprinkle dusting trying to hide a hard-on from hell?”

You ground down into him, cutting off his giggles. “About as difficult as it was for me not to give myself any friction knowing you were jerking off right next to me.”

He groaned quietly. “Well, feel free to now.”

The temptation was there, and this time with no reservations, so you reached over to fumble at his bedside table. “Are there condoms in here that didn’t expire when you were still in high school?” you laughed.

“Probably not. Let me up and I can see if I can sneak one from the bathroom. I know my parents usually keep a box here for when the girlfriends visit – they don’t want a conception in their house and they know what goes on – it is sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, after all.”

You rolled your eyes and then flopped down next to him, trailing your fingertips down your body to the wetness between your legs. “Well, then, I’ll be waiting.”

Josh groaned again and made a mad dash, naked, to the bathroom.

…

“Merry Christmas Eve!”

You went around the room exchanging the informal greeting, tired eyes accompanied by a yawn.

“Did you not sleep well last night, sweetheart?” Karen asked from by the stove.

Josh appeared behind you with a hand wrapped around your waist and a kiss rather inappropriate for polite company, taking the handles of two mugs in his hand and setting them on the counter.

“I woke up to a weird noise around 1 am, actually, and couldn’t fall back to sleep for a few hours,” you said, faux-confused, and felt Josh’s fingertips rake down to your hip from your waist, the quiet huff of a laugh escaping his lips.

Karen frowned. “Huh. I didn’t hear anything – did you guys?” She turned to the table where everyone was hanging around, and Sam’s eyes lit up in mischief, bringing his elbow up to his mouth. You knew what was coming, and you would have said something to stop him—

Except you didn’t like to lie.

“Sex,” he coughed.

Kelly backhanded him on the head.

~~~

NOTE: Hey guys! A new publishing schedule will be implemented for the final four fics - every other day instead of every day (I bit off a little more than I could chew during one of the busiest times of the year...whoops).

Also, given the chance, I may come back and edit this fic to turn it into a multiple-part series, since the fake dating trope tends to feel rushed if the slow burn aspect of it is smushed into a one-shot. If that happens, it won’t be until I can finish a couple other projects and requests that have been put off.

~~~

Taglist: @fleetsonfire @theweightofstardust @theatrekidjosh

#12 days of trope-mas #josh kiszka x reader #fake dating #josh kiszka fanfiction #gvf fanfiction #greta van fleet fics #gvf smut #gvf angst #gvf fluff

417 notes · View notes

darcyfangirlsfrequently · 2 years ago

Text

Okay so I have a reboot theory/headcanon/fanfiction thing

(I never know what to call these… they're not proper fabrics, but they're not entire theories either)

So Penelope has come back to the team, and there is banter, there is flirting, and there's a bit of awkwardness around her and Luke. Everyone on the team knows what happened, but they don't address it since they don't want to make it MORE awkward.

Anyway, they're working on this one case, and it's pretty bad, as their cases are. Something about this case, though, strikes a cord with Emily. She swears she saw something like it in her days at Interpol. "Hey, Garcia," she says over the phone. "I know no cases like this other than our victims have popped up in the states, so could you try to see if you could search Russian databases? Specifically around the St. Petersburg area? Same MO and signature. It might take you a while to cut through the red tape, but tell people I sent you, it should make it easier."

Penelope agrees and runs the search. (I know you all know where I'm going with this, but please pretend you do not.)

About an hour later, it is Luke's phone that's ringing. He finds this odd for two reasons. Number one: she hasn't called him to give him information since she's rejoined. Always someone else. Number two: he hasn't asked her for anything.

"Hey, Penelope, what's up?" (He can't think of her as Garcia anymore… ever since he asked her out she's always just been Penelope to him.)

She is panicking, and you can hear it. She's on the verge of tears. "Luke, it's him."

"Who? What's him?"

"The Russian search, Luke, it's Alexei Stanovich."

*cut scene*

*cut to Luke explaining the Alexei Stanovich situation to the team while he runs around packing things.*

"He was bothering her online… well she said bothering. It definitely more constituted stalking. Messaging her, asking why she wasn't barefoot and pregnant, detailing all the ways he was going to kill her…"

The team lets out a sharp gasp at that.

"It's been going on at least two years. At least that's when I found out. The stalking case of that student of hers. I told her if anything ever happened she needed to keep me on speed dial. And damn if I'm going to let her be alone in a different state now that he's in the country."

"Luke, are you sure that leaving's a good idea?" Emily asks. "I mean, like you said, she's in a different state. And she's at Quantico, she's completely protected."

"Far be it for an unsub to divert us while he goes after his real target. Are you ordering me to stay?"

"No. I am not."

"Then I'm going."

He grabs his stuff and walks out and the team stares out after him. "Wow," Tara says. "He's still in love with her."

"I'm not surprised," JJ says. "I mean, they only got to go on the one date before Covid shut everything down, right? They never really had any closure over anything, and now they're working together again… and especially with this, it makes sense those feelings would be coming back to surface."

Emily sighs, almost wistfully. "I really hope they can work something out."

"Me too," Rossi agrees. "They'd be good for each other."

They stay silent for a moment longer before returning to work. They have people to save.

*Meanwhile, at Quantico*

"Luke, I cannot believe you left the team to keep an eye on me. You do not need to be here, I'm fine."

"If I didn't need to be here, why would Emily and Rossi have let me go?"

"He's in a different state, Luke! How's he going to get to me?"

"He hasn't dropped a body in a couple of days, Penelope. What if he's on his way over here? I'm not leaving you alone, it's not safe."

"I'll just stay here, in my office! I've done it before! When Cat Adams and her group of hitmen were after me I lived here for over a month."

Luke's eyes go huge. "Cat Adams and her group of hitmen were targetting you?"

"Yeah. You didn't know that?"

"No!" He would have killed Cat Adams the first time he met her, had he known. "Then I'll just stay here with you. Rossi has a couch in his office I can crash on."

"Luke–"

"Penelope, I didn't leave you alone when you were crying because Reid was hurt in prison, do you really think I'm going to leave you alone now?"

***

When they finally solve the case and get Alexei into custody, Penelope and Luke cheer in celebration. She grabs his face and kisses him briefly, just a spur-of-the-moment, celebratory kiss. She doesn't even think anything of it, she just keeps on celebrating. Then it hits her exactly what she did. She turns to face him and he's just staring at her. And then he kisses her for real.

Idk I just feel like this would be an emotionally satisfactory way to explain them not being together right away, deal with the AS thing, and get them together for real

#Garvez #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds reboot #Criminal Minds Evolution #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #Garvez Fanfiction #Luke Alvez #Penelope Garcia #Emily Prentiss #Jennifer Jareau #Tara Lewis #David Rossi

34 notes · View notes

whirlybirbs · 4 years ago

Text

( another gif by @unearthlydust from this beautiful set ! )

✪ — VACANT MIRRORS ; B.B. | 3/?

summary: you find out about bucky’s past, he finds out about yours.

pairing: bucky barnes / f!reader

tags: set before & during tfatws, friends to lovers, therapy positive, trauma healing techniques, ptsd mentions, the normalization of anxiety disorders, and a good ol’ slow burn

word count: 6.4k, va va voom

a/n: oh look out here comes the plot, charactization, and growth between to pals who are maybe starting to feel a little something begin to take shape. but ignore that, there’s danger afoot. no spoilers for tfatws here!

( PREVIOUS | AO3 | MASTERLIST | NEXT )

“You know I have to ask these questions. It’s part of the check-in.”

“Yeah,” you fire back, flat enough to warrant Dr. Hart’s scowl to grow. You can’t see it over the phone, but you know the way her words whip around you means she’s upset, “I know.”

“If you’re not following the action plan set out by the judge,” she begins, leaning forward as her tone drops into a scalding hot sort of seriousness on the other end, “You will go to prison. You know this. So, do you want to spend ten years of your life behind bars? Are you trying to get yourself locked up? Come on.”

You can’t look up from your computer’s screen. Or maybe you can, but right now, there’s a dangerous mixture of anger and guilt and frustration boiling under your skin.

“I’m trying.”

“Trying isn’t good enough for the GRC,” Dr. Hart snaps, “You know this. They’re giving you a chance — they know you’re talented. You have the ability here to go straight, to earn a living, to finally make up for those years of blackhat work.”

“Everything I did,” you fire back, ripping your eyes up to meet Dr. Hart’s, “Was for others. I didn’t get a fucking penny.”

“You’re not Robin Hood,” she shakes her head as her tone softens, “We all make mistakes. But, everything has a consequence. You know this. And this conversation isn’t even considering the other charges.”

“You know the extortion case would never hold up in court.”

Dr. Hart sighs raggedly. “And I don’t intend on ever seeing it play out in court, because you’re going to follow the conditions of your pardon.”

“The GRC is a bunch of fascists—”

“Enough,” she snaps, “If you want to go and appeal your case with the judge, be my guest, but I can almost guarantee you’ll be perp-walked out of that Federal courtroom in cuffs.”

She’s right.

Dr. Hart is right.

Your knee is bouncing, up and down and up and down. You’re wound up around yourself, arms crossed tight, brows knotted. With a shaky exhale, you just nod. You breathe, and you remind yourself that she’s right. She’s right, she’s right, she’s right. It’s not worth it. Dipping yourself back into that world, the layer of the web beneath the surface, isn’t worth it.

The GRC is your way out.

Just be a good little girl and do as you're told.

“So, I’m going to ask you again,” Dr. Hart begins, pen clicking alive on the other end of the phone call, “...Have you engaged in any illegal activities online in the last seven days?”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Inessa Sidrova’s photo stares up at him from its place on the speckled marble counter, stacked neatly next to his notebook where her name is scrawled in chicken scratch — between two other names: Zemo and Henrikson.

His laptop, technically on loan from the FBI, sits beside both.

(When Barnes had agreed in that closed doors meeting to the conditions of his pardon, a certain FBI agent by the name of Jimmy Woo had been rather insistent that Barnes needed a personal computer in order to carry out his portion of the conditions insofar as tracking down the remaining HYDRA pawns in the States. Woo had also insisted, to the agreement of Dr. Raynor, that a personal computer would help better acclimate Barnes to the new world he’d been dropped into.

Woo was even nice enough to take an hour of his own time to show Bucky enough to get started — but was whisked away for some investigation out in New Jersey.)

Bucky rubs the cold vibranium of his left palm into his eye, then exhales long and slow.

He’s done all he can. And still, no leads on the woman.

Rounding the kitchen island, he digs his cell from his pocket. He goes back to staring at that text — the one he’d laughed out loud at the moment it lit up his phone — and he can feel that ol’ bite of anxiousness creep into his arms. His fingertips tingle.

On the television, a laugh track plays over a clip of The Three Stooges. Blue eyes flick upward, and he partially wishes a ladder would put him out of his own self-induced misery.

Outside, the antics of a Saturday night in Brooklyn roll on.

In the last few days he’s parsed through his thoughts enough to realize it’s not telling you that scares him — no, it’s telling you the truth. The whole truth. All of it. After all, the good comes with a lot of bad; the sort of bad you chain in a chest and sink in the ocean. And Bucky finds that, even still, the good is questionable at best. The good is… small. Microscopic. Completely and totally tainted by the fuckin’ decades of brainwashed, war dog bullshit.

He groans and drops his head back against the wall.

He tries, for the next twenty minutes, to formulate some sort of reply to your text message. But, half the battle is figuring out what to say, and the other half is actually typing it out. This whole flip phone purchase was really starting to sting like regret — and as much as Bucky loved technology back before the war, and all the magical possibilities it held, he can’t help but feel like an ornery old man now.

It’s the change. Steve was right. Too much change.

He can’t find the space button and he can’t figure out how to delete the random 3 he’d accidentally punched in — so, with a grumpy huff of disapproval, Bucky simply dials your number.

You pick up on the third ring.

“Don’t you know it’s Saturday?” your voice is a welcomed sound, “The History Channel is running a bunch of old war documentaries you might enjoy, grandpa.”

Bucky snorts, fiddling with the hem of his hoodie. “What makes you think I’d wanna watch that shit?”

“Everyone knows that old men like two things,” your voice is light, half-distracted from the sounds of it, “World War Two, or grilling. And honestly, you don’t strike me as the grilling type.”

“I like a good burger.”

“Yeah?” you snort, and Bucky can hear you shift your phone from one ear to the other, “Is that why you called? To hint at being hungry?”

“No,” he exhales, looking out the window, “No, I was trying to reply to your text but I can’t find the fuckin’ space button. Calling is easier.”

“Oh my god—”

“Shut up,” he barks with a laugh, sitting up, “Don’t even start — are you hungry?”

“Almost always, why?”

“Got any plans tonight?”

“... You do know who you’re asking, right?”

Bucky grins, a little boyish and a little tired. “Good point. Loser.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re the one calling me to hangout,” you snort, leaning to prop your feet up on your desk and lean back. Your chair wheels backwards, far enough for you to get a good look down the street. It’s a nice night, cool enough, and it seems like the whole borough is awake, “But, I’m only hanging out if you tell me what the fuck is up with court mandated therapy. I can’t wait another three days.”

Your anxiety has been pricked the last few days over it.

“... Do I get to pick the place?”

You roll your eyes. “Fine.”

“Great,” he exhales tightly, “I hope you’re in the mood for sushi.”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Izzy’s is busy, but there’s privacy in the bustle.

Bucky had buzzed your apartment’s ringer and you’d flown down the stairs, looking… alive. The sort of alive that was new — like a fresh bud beginning to bloom in spring. It had made him grin, and he’d watched you push a tress of hair behind your ear as you decided it was warm enough for no jacket tonight. The light of the crosswalk sign lit you up like a star.

He was sweating.

Dr. Raynor was right — that was it, of course it was — that it was getting too warm for his usual outfit. So, he’d settled on the next best thing: a sweatshirt that was big enough and black enough that he could bury himself in it. His hands are tucked neatly into the pockets.

No gloves tonight.

He feels naked.

He shoulders the door and holds it open with the toe of his boot as you duck towards the back of the restaurant. There’s a booth in the back by a large bamboo plant — you weave through the place with a new found confidence. There’s anxiousness in your shoulders but it melts when you look back at Bucky. Like a watchful guard dog, he nods.

You settle into the booth, toss your jacket in the corner, and smirk.

“I get out sometimes,” Bucky remarks before you can even say anything. He shifts in the booth and reaches up to scratch his cheek with his right hand, “Not often, but I do.”

“I didn’t say anything...”

“You were going to,” he nearly smirks back, his brows raised as he adjusts the chopsticks on the table, “I know that look.”

You snort, nudging his boot under the table. That works a huffed little laugh out the man across from you. Almost immediately you can sense anxiousness rolling off him — it’s the tightness in his mouth that gives him away, the way he’s fussing with the soy sauce dish and trying to get it to line up perfectly with the marbling on the table. Worry flashes in your eyes.

“Bucky.”

He raises his head.

“You alright?” you ask quietly.

“You have to promise not to flip out.”

Your brows knot tightly — but before you can even question what the fuck he means, he’s casually dropping his other hand onto the table.

And you almost don’t notice at first. Your brain fills the gaps in, figuring it’s his glove. But, then you blink and his hand catches the light and you realize it’s not leather. It’s glittering obsidian, garnished with gold, and it’s moving. Flexing. Seams bending and warping and there’s a gentle hum coming from the appendages and you squint because he’s tapping his fingers on the table and there’s a metallic tik-tik-tik that meets your ears.

Then, your eyes jump to his face.

He looks pained.

You’re confused.

And then you’re not.

“You’re —”

You slap a hand over your own mouth. You have to promise not to flip out. Your eyes are eighty miles wide and your jaw is falling open and you’re leaning forward, whispering in a rushed tone because what the fuck.

“You’re that Bucky?!”

Oh, you feel stupid.

The hostess appears, suddenly. You snap backwards in the booth, Bucky tucks his hand away, and you both muster forced smiles to the waitress. She’s young. Pretty. Her name-tag says Sarah.

She asks about drinks.

Bucky gets a beer.

Slowly, you knock your knuckles against the table and drop your head into your hand. The look on your face is exhausted. “Do you guys have Mai Tais?”

The answer is yes. And you’re glad. Because you’re going to fucking need it.

The two of you are quiet until the drinks come — avoiding one anothers gazes for completely different reasons. Bucky is sheepish, a bit mortified, like he always is when people recognize him. It’s why he shaved his fuckin’ head. It worked well enough but… the arm was usually a dead giveaway.

Meanwhile, you’re wondering if you could shave your own head and disappear. Because there’s no easy way to explain the weird elation swirling in your chest right now.

Bucky’s first to speak. His beer is in his good hand. He inhales quickly, eyes darting to you as he leans forward and whispers incredulously. He speaks quickly and his words are pointed with an edge of curiosity.

“...What do you mean ‘that Bucky’?”

“Y’know, I knew there was a reason you acted like you needed a senior citizen discount. And you know exactly what I mean,” you rush out all while waving your Mai Tai and jabbing the side with the umbrella towards him, “Listen, this is a lot to take in, Mr. Avenger.”

“I am not an Avenger—”

“You helped reverse the Snap. You’re the Winter Soldier. That makes you an Avenger—”

Bucky’s shaking his head, eye screwed shut tightly because the sudden equation to his past self being considered a hero is like being socked in the mouth. He stutters over his words and shakes his head more vigorously, like he’s trying not to hear what you’re saying.

“I am not the Winter Soldier. Not anymore. And it’s not like I’m not on the fuckin’ roster, doll—”

You hold a finger up, stopping him there, and take a long sip of your sunset colored drink. You swallow. You exhale. Bucky swigs his beer.

“One, don’t call me doll,” you say curtly, then raise a second finger. You lean in and squint, “Two… Christ, the haircut really makes a big difference, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying,” he sighs raggedly, dismissing your scrutiny.

You puff your cheeks out and exhale. Leaning back in the booth, you try not to feel so fucking insane.

“...I can never have you over now.”

Bucky’s brows narrow quickly and his eyes snap to yours. “What?”

“I can’t have you over,” you explain slower with your eyes rooted to the soy sauce in the corner, “Because I don’t think I could ever handle you seeing my signed and framed Captain America poster from his USO tour in 1943.”

Bucky’s face is deadpan. “You’re kidding.”

“I really wish I was,” you gripe, “It’s an original.”

“...You’re a Cap girl,” he says suddenly, leaning back with this look in his eye. It’s less of a question. You can’t pin it down. It looks like he's damn near traumatized.

Bucky thinks — honestly — that this is the cherry on top. Every girl back then was a Cap girl, too. It figures, now, in this new century where he’s making new friends that… as per usual, Steve gets the cake. That fuckin’ pint sized bastard.

He’ll have to tell him about this.

You yank your eyes up to Bucky’s face. His mortification is shifting to surprise to amusement. You’re fast to sit up, mouth opening to fire a retort — but Bucky’s suddenly really enjoying the look of pure horror on your face at the insinuation. He’s smirking. Plain as day. He swigs his beer.

“No, no—” you raise a finger, “No, stop it. Don’t make it fuckin’ weird, Bucky, it’s not like I have his name tattoo’d on my ass. And I knew a girl in college who did.”

His brows rise sharply and you’re finding you’re regretting everything that’s coming out of your mouth.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you guffaw, gesturing for him to show you his hand again, “I wanna see.”

Bucky sighs and plucks his hand from his hoodie pocket.

With a sort of tenderness Bucky wasn’t prepared to handle, you take his metallic hand into your own. There’s an immediate twinge — one that’s procured by flashes of violence from years of being a walking weapon. He breathes, and he reminds himself that this arm is not the same that tethered him to HYDRA all those years ago.

This arm is his, it is not him.

The sensation is different. He isn’t used to anyone touching him like this; he’s used to the feeling of flesh on the other end of a punch, or a throat caught in his palm. Not the gentle pass of your fingers, delicate and purposeful, over his knuckles.

You turn over his hand, eyes alight with curiosity — and Bucky, desperate to stamp out the hotness growing in his gut, moves quickly to flick your nose.

“Ow—”

“Don’t stare,” he says coyly, “It’s rude.”

The waitress is back. His hand is tucked away, and you wrestle the stupid expression off your face long enough to order a plate of assorted maki rolls and some fried tofu. Bucky orders what seems like his usual — shrimp tempura and spicy tuna rolls.

The waitress, Sarah, disappears with a smile.

You’re grinning.

“So… Does this make me the sidekick?” you whisper playfully.

“Shut up,” Bucky laughs, his lips almost darting into a smile.

You cock your head, pushing your chopsticks across the table with a horribly coy look on your face. It’s comical. “...I think this makes me the sidekick.”

“It — stop it — it does not make you the sidekick,” Bucky says slowly as he sips his beer and pins you in the booth across from him, “I’m not a hero. You’d have better luck asking Cap on that one.”

You grow silent. There’s a question hanging on your tongue. You’re wrestling with yourself — Bucky can see that much. He frowns.

“Spit it out, Goose.”

You blink. “Was that a Top Gun reference?”

“You wanted to be the sidekick.”

You wave it off, blinking into your Mai Tai. Your voice is quiet. Even as you speak, there’s a hesitancy akin to walking on eggshells. “What happened to Cap? Is he… alive? He’s gone off the grid. It’s, like, this massive conspiracy theory online.”

“He’s upstate.”

You blink.

“That’s ominous.”

Bucky shrugs. “Someday I’ll take you. It’s… nice.”

You go quiet. You freeze, drink halfway to your mouth. Bucky can’t help but smirk at that. His laugh is more of a scoff than anything.

“Relax, Miss America.”

“Shut up — do you mean that?”

“What, that I think you’re in love with Captain America?”

“No, you bastard, that you’ll take me. To meet him.”

Bucky’s words are easy. They roll off his tongue without a second thought. He feels… okay. Like this part is okay. Not as bad as he thought it could be. His anxiousness isn’t as heavy now. He feels like he isn’t losing you. But then again, he hasn’t gotten to the bad part yet.

“He’s my best friend,” Bucky explains plainly, “And so are you.”

The admission is warm. As easy as breathing. Two months in the making.

“Your only friend,” you say quietly, offering the joke as a cover for the softening tone that dances over your words. It’s affection, you realize, as you mimic his shrug, “But, go on.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Bucky chirps, “But, yea, I mean it. He’d like you.”

You raise your chin, wiggling a bit in the booth. It’s pride — and as much as Bucky likes the look of it, he can’t handle the ridiculousness that comes along with it. But, it’s sort of comforting. He knows this playfulness, this easiness, it’s all because he’s him. You trust him. In.a way, it strikes Bucky with guilt. There are wall of his still built up high. Maybe they’re slowly coming down, but… he’s like a stray dog, slow to trust.

“Safe to say,” you breathe, “I have a few questions.”

“I figured as much.”

You sip your drink and swallow. You raise a hand. “But — I wanna know the boundaries. I don’t want to… I don’t want to pry about shit I have no business knowing, alright? It’s your life and even if we are friends, I don’t need to know everything.”

The relief is almost immediate. He thumbs the label of his beer.

“Ask anything. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to give you the answers.”

“And I’ll leave it at that,” you say sternly, propping your elbow up on the table and offering your pinky finger, “Until you want to talk about it. Promise.”

He crooks his pinky in yours, squeezing gently. You smile.

Sarah comes back with the food, and then Bucky offers his usual half-exhausted, half-amused smirk.

“You get three questions now. Then, we shut up and eat.”

You fold your hands neatly over themselves, eyeing your food as you try your best to sort out what questions come up with the most urgency. There’s… a lot. I mean, everyone knew about the Avengers — and everyone had their opinions. The Sokovia Accords, Lagos, the Blip… and SHIELD. Years of bullshit culminating around those who were considered the heroes. The kickback usually ended up on everyday citizens like you. After the initial amazement, the reality of it all set in.

But, to Bucky’s point, he wasn’t really an Avenger.

Nowadays, there really wasn’t a team at all. No up-state compound, no leader, no Stark and no Rogers.

You’re sure the GRC will try — that the military will try. Morale and hope and blah, blah, blah.

You narrow your eyes. “How old are you?”

It’s quick. “One hundred and six.”

“How’d they keep you alive that long?”

There’s a wince that flashes across his face like he’s been stabbed with a white hot poker in the ribs. You see a twitch of irritation bubble across his lips. Not with you. No, it’s that this question is still hard for him to answer. Bucky exhales sharply.

“Next question.”

You feel a pang of guilt flare in your chest. You move along.

“Who kept you alive that long?”

“The Russians. HYDRA, if you wanna get specific.”

You exhale and settle on the fact you now have more questions than answers. But, you nod and snatch up your chopsticks. Enough of the twenty questions game.

In all honesty, it’s not like Bucky’s existence was common knowledge. The Winter Soldier was known mostly, sure, to those who had floated in the same circles as him when he was nothing but a rabid cur on a choke chain. He can’t help but be a bit thankful for the minor erasure of his new self — sure, in the eyes of the U.S. government he was a high-level threat to be reintegrated as soon as possible and surveyed at all times. But, to the average New Yorker, he was just another person. Everyone was so used to seeing the heroes in their costumes with their bigger than life personas and…

Bucky was just Bucky.

Even he didn’t really know who that was. He was starting to.

His pardon had come with some flak from some of the more political news outlets but… somehow, the details of the Winter Soldier’s exact crimes were being kept silent. Probably to avoid panic. And, even then, the connection between the newly alive James Buchanan Barnes and The Winter Soldier hadn’t been made yet in the public eye. He was glad.

The haircut definitely helped.

It’s like he was a walking classified redaction.

Bucky has a sushi roll in his mouth when he finally speaks. “For such a Captain American fan, I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me.”

“Oh, you’re really not gonna let that go, huh?” you say as you chew, covering your mouth. You swallow and waggle your chopsticks at him, “Listen, it’s been a while since I’ve… y’know, had my Avengers phase. That was years ago. It was at its peak when I worked for SHIELD. And besides, you’re kinda new to the whole superhero scene.”

Bucky frowns. “You worked for SHIELD...?”

“For a year,” you say tightly, “Back before the collapse.”

“Only a year?”

“It was for my graduate program,” you wave it off, “I won out on the most competitive internship NYU had to offer. I was working within their cybersecurity division. I will say I spent more time trying to sort of email phishing scams than anything else, though. I’m sure they saw my record and wanted to keep me away from the juicy stuff.”

Bucky squints.

You offer a sheepish shrug.

“I got into trouble when I was younger,” you sip your drink and sigh, “I always liked computers. I used to spend all my time on forum sites just… reading and talking to people and figuring out how these sites actually worked, so learning how to write my own code was just the next step. When I was fifteen, I learned how to tap phones. At sixteen, I was hijacking my neighbor’s internet conenctions and remotely controlling his laptop.”

“Sounds like a good time.”

“Yea, well, he was a sitting Senator who was having an affair with the nanny,” you mutter, “And I was stupid enough to try and blackmail him for cash. I wish I could say I learned my lesson.”

Bucky exhales long and hard at that, like he knows where that snap of misguided judgement goes. It’s not like he’s passing judgement onto you, but… like he knows the feeling. And you manage to not feel so small, then — telling him this is easy. It’s not your favorite part of your life by any means, but Bucky is listening. Really listening.

He fiddles with the paper wrapper of the chopsticks.

“So, less a Goose and more a Kevin Poulsen type, huh?”

You snort. “For an old man, I’m surprised you know who that is. But, I wasn’t hacking into the Pentagon at seventeen. I was too busy doing community service.”

“HYDRA had their eyes on him in the 90s,” Bucky mumbles through a bite of spicy tuna, the memory popping into his mind and flying out before he can stop it, “I remember… I thought his username was stupid.”

“Oh, you didn’t like Dark Dante?”

“Like I said,” Bucky chortles, “Stupid.”

“You wouldn’t have liked mine, then,” you smirk lightly, “It’s worse.”

Bucky raises his brows, somehow doubting that entirely. “Really?”

“...I was hackrabb1t for a long time. Y’know, with a ‘one’ for the ‘i’,” you cringe, “People kept thinking I was a furry.”

There’s a pause. Bucky’s face is set in an unreadable emotion. It’s confusion mixed with amusement mixed with… something else. When he speaks, he clears his throat and tilts his head.

“It’s clever. But,” a pause, “What is a furry? I’ve been seeing that word all over PlentyOfFish.”

Your jaw flies open. You raise your hands as your head reels around. Bucky has a look on his face like he knows, he knows he shouldn’t have asked and he definitely shouldn’t have given you enough context to know where he’s seen that phrase before, because now you’re looking at him like he has seventeen heads and they’re all on fire.

“Y’know what, nevermind—”

“—Oh, no, no, there’s way too much to unpack here,” you lean forward, “You’re on PlentyOfFish?”

“ChristianMingle wasn’t really my speed — stop laughing.”

“Shut up — stop it, stop — this is too much,” you say with a high voice, “If you get catfished, I’m not helping you track the person down…”

“—What the hell is a catfish?” he nearly cries, raising both hands in a desperate shrug, “I don’t even know what any of these words mean.”

“Oh, you sweet, naive, innocent, man—”

“No, no, no, no,” he chirps, raising a finger with a deadly look of seriousness on his face, “No, I am not naive or sweet or any of the above. I’ll take ‘cute’, sure, but none a’ those.”

“Is that what the furries call you on PlentyOfFish? Cute?”

He drops his head back against the booth and stares at the ceiling.

“Our friendship was a mistake, rabbit.”

You choke out a laugh. “Shut up, you walking claw machine.”

You’re both laughing now — quieter but sustained and everytime you think you’ve calmed down enough to sip your Mai Tai, you just have to look at the distraught, scruffy man across from you to break into another fit of muffled laughter. Finally, after what feels like forever, you both manage to calm down enough to finish the plates in front of you.

There’s a warmth that’s settled in Bucky’s chest — it’s eaten away at the usual jitter in his legs, the anxious twitch of his fingers. It’s a different emotion. Acceptance, maybe. Comfort. Affection.

Then, while you’re piling the last bit of sushi rice into your mouth when your phone, set on the side of the table, begins to go off. It hums erratically, dancing in a circle, and all you do is stare at the name flashing across the screen. You’re smiling, hugging her. It’s from Jaimie’s wedding — out in some big, wide open orchard with the sun setting behind you. The picture there is old; you were both different people then.

Before… everything.

MOM Morristown, NJ

You scowl and stare.

Bucky blinks.

“You gonna get that?”

Quickly, you snap out of it. You reach and silence the buzzing with two quick taps. Quietly, you offer up a somber sigh.

“I never do.”

Bucky frowns again, this time with a worried look that digs deep into his eyebrows. You ignore it on purpose, pushing your plate away and leaning back in the booth. He knows what you’re doing — you’re avoiding his gaze, and therefore his own questions.

“Rabbit.”

“Oh, is that my new nickname, then?”

“It fits,” he chirps before crossing his arms, strategically hiding his metallic hand, “What’s up?”

You grow quiet — then it spills out.

“I can’t talk to her.”

“Why?”

You chew your lip. You bite your tongue and you hold back on the finer points of your anger — ones dredged up by the still present sting of your check-in with Dr. Hart this afternoon.

Here it comes.

“As a part of my pardon, I was ordered no-contact with my family,” you exhale, controlling the level of your voice, reciting the court papers you’d read over and over and over, “It was deemed that further contact would impact my progress towards reformed behavior and judgment.”

Bucky’s eyes are wide. His jaw is tight.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘pardon’?”

It’s your turn to cross your arms now, to ignore the sting of his look. It’s the kind that screams disappointment more than anything. You hate that you’re getting it from Bucky of all people.

“Like I said, I didn’t learn my lesson when I was a kid,” you shirk, “Last year I was arrested on a number of counts — I’d been evading the FBI, CIA, all of them, for years. I was doing it all for people like me. The ones who got left behind.”

Bucky’s tone is flat. It’s serious. His next sentence is less of a question, more of an order. The cadence is rhythmic and it reminds you of your brother the night he found out about the first time you’d been arrested; you decide, then, that Jaimie and Bucky would have gotten along.

“What did you do?”

“Whatever I could,” you wave your hands, “Identity theft, falsified documents, insurance fraud. Anything. There were people, like me, that in a blink, lost everything. Accidents, deaths, evictions and no one did anything for us. The insurance agencies wouldn’t cover damages related to The Snap. Life insurance policies, social security… It all got snatched up by people at the top while the system collapsed around us. I had to pay for my brother’s funeral out of pocket. And there were hundreds of thousands of people just like me, just trying to get by. And everything failed us.”

Bucky is stuck in silence. It’s like mud, dragging him to the bottom of a pond — the sort that’s dredged with misery. In an instant, his veins are on fire with an anger he hadn’t felt in a while. It manifests itself in the tightening of his jaw. He rubs his face and props his elbows up on the table.

“Why won’t they let you see your family?”

You fiddle with your napkin.

“My brother… His wife was on maternity leave when she disappeared in the Blip,” you mutter, “She came back to no job, a dead husband, and no home. Their apartment complex had been abandoned. She’s trying her best to make ends meet. She lives with my Mom in our old home. Neither of them can find work. They… The court thought that I’d be influenced to do something if I was around them.”

“What, like help?”

“They see me as a criminal,” you manage, “But I’m useful, so they’re keeping me around.”

Silence falls between the two of you once more — and the sad look on your face makes Bucky’s chest tight. He can see anxiety beginning to spill over; you’re wringing the napkin, fiddling with the edges. Suddenly, Bucky realizes you’re feeling exactly how he was an hour or so ago.

Your voice is soft. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you.”

“Looks like we’re two birds of a feather,” he says, knocking the toe of your sneaker with his boot, “Listen, we all do stupid shit. I’ve got a lot worse weighing me down. I get it.”

You look up, sadness glistening in your expression like sun off a lake. It’s harsh. He wants to look away.

He doesn’t.

“... So, that means you’re good with computers?”

◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

That’s how you find yourself in Bucky’s Brooklyn apartment at almost midnight, wandering behind him in the long halls and watching curiously as he digs his key from his pocket and shoulders the door open.

It’s a small apartment. One bed, one bath, a kitchenette and that’s really it.

For its size, it’s hardly lived in.

You suppose it makes sense — Bucky didn’t have a lot of personal belongings, and with the hints he’d dropped about his life before The Blip, you were beginning to understand that he may have never really had that much to begin with.

There’s a blanket on the floor by the television and a single couch pillow. It’s tucked in the corner, behind a small sofa. There’s a chair in the living room, one from an old dining set. At the kitchen counter, there’s a stack of papers and a single laptop. Even though all the kitchen’s wares are older models, the bones of the apartment are good. Bare, but good.

You stop in the doorway to the bedroom and stare at the untouched bed. The sheets are tucked tightly in the corners — there’s something militaristic about it. Across the hall is the bathroom. It’s small. You can see a few amenities scattered across the sink’s top.

Being in here feels something like an open wound.

It was lonely. Quiet. Cold.

“We need to make a trip to HomeGoods,” you mumble as Bucky flicks on the lights, “I get the whole minimalist thing, but sheesh.”

“I don’t have a lot,” he says, kicking off his boots by the door and shrugging off his jacket, “And I don’t need a lot either.”

You watch as his shoulders sag a bit, like he can finally let down his guard just a little in his own space. It’s endearing. You perch yourself up on the kitchen counter as your eyes follow him; he moves to fling open a cabinet and grabs a mug. Then, he hesitates.

“You want tea?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Tea?”

“Dr. Raynor said,” Bucky reaches for a container of tea bags from the top shelf. His henley lifts enough to flash a bit of skin along his lower back and you swear you see a scar, “It would help with my anxiety.”

You swing your legs a little. “Then sure.”

“You can use my Captain America mug,” he chirps, laughing a little to himself, “Seeing as you’re such a big fan…”

“God, I regret even saying anything to you,” you spit as you hop down and lean around him to get a look at the mug, “Did you seriously buy that?”

“It was a gift.”

“Bullshit.”

Bucky snorts as you shake your head and wander backwards, eyeing the rest of his apartment with a bit of astonishment. It’s really nothing impressive — but, you suppose it makes sense. Whatever meager disbursement that the government was willing to give Bucky for his efforts in fixing the Snap was better than nothing.

Your gaze hangs on the blanket in the corner.

He watches you; and he notes the sore sadness that dissolves your posture at the sight of the nest in the corner. A bit of shame colors his cheeks as he heats up the water. When Bucky speaks, it’s slow.

“The bed was too soft. I couldn’t sleep on it,” he shifts from foot to foot and focuses on taking the tea bags out and methodically wrapping the strings around the handles, “Dr. Raynor said that’s a typical thing for soldiers to experience when they come home from war.”

You’re quiet for a while after that, only speaking when he rounds the counter with your tea. He offers it up with a tilt of the head.

“You never got to come home, though, right?”

“No,” comes the short reply as you both watch the lights outside the window, “No, I didn’t. Not until now.”

You nudge his arm with yours. You lean a bit. Bucky leans back.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he manages after a sigh and sip of the tea, “I can’t just feel sorry for myself anymore. I’m trying to fix the wrongs I did — and that’s why I need your help.”

You quirk a brow. He reaches around you and grabs the stack of papers on the counter. With a steady grip, Bucky presents the photo of a woman who looks strikingly familiar. You can’t place her face, but there’s something about her that feels like a slap across the cheek. She’s young here, in a faded photo with tattered edges. Beside her is a man who is laughing. The photo is candid, and they’re both beautiful. They’re both wearing a uniform — but you can’t place the era or location.

You turn to Bucky for answers.

“Back in the 70s, at the height of the Cold War, HYDRA was working in tandem with the Russians to spy on American forces,” he offers easily, staring out the window, “The American HYDRA cell hadn’t yet been planted. This man, Andrei Kuznetzov, was a spy. He was feeding the Americans information on the Russian nuclear program. His wife, the one in the photo, was ordered to kill him. She refused.”

Bucky’s fingers twitch.

His words are soaked through with pain.

“I,” he continues, “killed him.”

You hold your breath. Then you spare him a mournful look.

“Inessa Sidrova went on to help form the same HYDRA cell that ended up taking over SHIELD here in America,” Bucky mumbles, “She’s dangerous. There’s others like her, ones who I helped create, all over the world. But, she’s my top priority. I just haven’t had much luck tracking her down.”

“That’s why you need my help.”

“I’m 106 years old,” Bucky deadpans, “The microfiches at the library were getting a little tedious.”

“But,” you chirp with a sly smirk, “You figured out how to set up a PlentyOfFish account?”

He shoulders you again as you sip your tea and laugh.

“Shoulda never said anything,” Bucky grumbles, “Dr. Raynor thought it was a good idea. Y’know, to get back out in the world.”

“I can promise you,” you say with a stern shake of the head, “The metal arm will get you plenty of chicks and dudes in due time.”

“Good to know,” Bucky replies as his words lilt with a playful sort of questioning that you purposefully ignore. You’re not feeding his ego today. Maybe tomorrow, after you take a crack at figuring out where this woman is.

It’s going to be a long night.

#vacant mirrors #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x you #winter soldier imagine #tfatws imagine #bucky barnes #marvel imagine #bucky x reader

2K notes · View notes

holdingforgeneralhugs · 3 years ago

Note

Emmaaa❤️❤️ may I request a headcanon where the easy boys fell in love with a shy reader? Maybe with Bull, Tab, Luz, Speirs Babe and Malarkey? Thank you❤️ love you

Aaahhh Fran my dear, what a great way to start off my birthday week tysm for sending one in💓

Bull Randleman:

Bull is super protective of you, always has been.

He got 10 million times more protective when he realises he's head over ass in love with you.

He's always there, always got your back no matter what.

He likes that you're most comfortable when you're with him, makes him feel like he's special.

When he was stuck in that barn in Holland, separated from everyone, thinking about you was the only thing that kept his strength up.

Its then he decides he has to tell you how he feels.

He's pretty direct about it, he doesn't want to beat around the bush with this.

"Look darlin', I ain't gonna mess around here, because to be completely honest I'm head over heels in love with you."

You get all blushy and stuttery and he thinks it's probably the most adorable thing he's ever seen.

He can tell you're flustered, so he grabs your cheeks in his hands and rubs his thumbs over them gently.

"Can I kiss ya darlin'?" He asks softly

You can't even speak you're so surprised, so you nod and he leans in and kisses you slowly, not wanting to rush anything and ruin the perfect moment.

"Hell Bull," you giggle, "I've been hoping you'd say something for ages."

"And why didn't you say anything, huh?" He laughed.

"Because I was too scared you'd turn me down."

"Well," he sighed, kissing your forehead, "I just can't quite believe I ever gave you the impression I'd turn you down. Guess I'll just have to prove to you how much I love you from now on."

Floyd Talbert

Tab is a total flirt

He's all cheesy pickup likes at first and they make you blush like hell but you'll never give him the satisfaction of laughing at them because they're so ridiculous.

But he takes your blushing as encouragement so he keeps going for weeks until eventually he gets a giggle out of you and it makes all his efforts worthwhile because you have the most lovely laugh.

After that you start getting to know each other a little better, and you start to get closer.

He's delighted when you start to open up and share more with him.

It kind of hits him like a slap in the face that shit, he's in love love you.

He's a total softie with you

He's quite subtle about it at first. He does small nice things for you; makes you coffee, gives you half his k ration when supplies are low.

He's surprisingly reluctant to profess his feelings for you. He thinks there's no way you'll see him as anything other than a friend.

Chuck tells him he's an idiot, that you've clearly got feelings for him too and be should just tell you already.

So he does...in the most muddled way possible. It all kinda comes out like word vomit.

"So-I-Just-wanna-tell-you-I-think-you're-wonderful-and-I'm-a-little-bit-in-love-with-you."

You're dumbfounded, and you can't quite comprehend what he's just said.

"Wait," you whisper, "are you being serious right now?"

"Yeah," he laughs, "I've kinda got it really bad for you."

You giggle and blush like hell, and he grins like an idiot because he loves that giggle so much

"How about I take you out for dinner sometime?" He asks cheekily, and his grin widens when you blush harder and agree to go.

He saunters over to you and plants a quick kiss on your lips, before putting his arm around your shoulder and leading you off, pointedly ignoring Chucks wolf whistles when the two of you walk past him.

George Luz

George is the biggest flirt around, and he makes no secret in the fact he likes you.

He goes out of his way to compliment you; tells you that you make Rita Hayworth look plain, that you make sunshine look dull.

The more he makes you blush, the harder he tries. He knows he can crack your shy shell and find the gem underneath.

He's a big fan of cheesy movie quotes, which you adamantly refuse to indulge him with, but he keeps trying nonetheless.

He's tried them all, so he decides this time to pull out all the stops and be as direct about his feelings as possible.

"See that's what's wrong with you," he starts smoothly, "you should be kissed, and often. And by someone who knows how."

He pauses for a second to judge your reaction, and when he sees you smiling he sweeps you into a dramatic dip and kisses you passionately, Clarke Gable style.

He quite literally swept you off your feet, and he knows it too.

Once he knows he's successfully gotten your attention for real, he softens. He dials down the flamboyant flirting and instead he just talks to you and gets to know you for real.

He loves to cuddle you in close and have whispered conversations for hours.

He's very affectionate too, always has to be holding your hand or have his arm around you.

He brings you out of your shell, his enthusiasm and fun nature is so infectious you can't help but be swept up by it and join in on the fun.

Ronald Speirs

Ron is incredibly different when he's with you, much to everyone's surprise.

He laughs with you, like....a lot.

At first you were very cautious with him. You'd heard the stories and weren't too sure what to make of him.

But when you get to know him you realise that he is totally different to what everyone said.

You found that he is really easy to talk to, and he has a wicked sense of humour.

He liked that you were a bit more quiet than others, it made you much easier for him to talk to.

He tells the most brilliant stories, and the two of you usually end up talking for hours about all sorts; history, movies, music, anything and everything.

Its obvious to everyone but you that he has feelings for you.

He thinks you must surely know, that it was completely obvious he'd fallen in love with you. I mean he spends all his free time with you, and he never talks to anyone else the way he does with you.

Lipton eventually realises that no, you don't actually have a clue how Speirs feels about you, so he tells him that you're oblivious.

Naturally Speirs is all action and matter of fact, so he decides to just tell you how he feels and see what happens.

He's kinda nervous despite outward appearances, but he'd never admit it to himself or anyone else.

So he literally just comes out and says it one day; no frills, no fuss.

You're disarmed by his straightforwardness. You'd hoped that he might return your feelings but you'd thought there was no way.

You've never seen him smile brighter than when you told him you returned his feelings.

He wasted no time after that; he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you in to a passionate kiss, his other hand cupping your jaw.

Everyone was delighted you'd mellowed out ole Sparky a little, but of course nobody was brave enough to say it out loud in case he found out.

Babe Heffron

Babe....is a bit of a mess around you.

He tries to act all cool and smooth, but he's really a total disaster because he's so distracted staring at you.

When you first start getting to know each other he does most of the talking. He's nervous as hell around you so his mouth just keeps going.

Lucky for him though you find it endearing, and it helps you feel more comfortable with him so you start to open up too.

After that he prefers to listen instead of talk, because he's fascinated by everything you tell him.

You're two peas in a pod, and everyone thinks you're a miracle worker because you've managed to get Babe to stop talking for 5 minutes.

Its clear to everyone that the guy is totally in love with you, they're just waiting for him to do something about it.

So of course Bill is the one to tell him to get his act together.

"Get your goddamn head out of your ass Babe and stop acting like a lovesick puppy. Go tell her you love her and get the goddamn girl."

It takes him awhile, and he really has to gear himself up to do it. He's attempted to say it so many times but he keeps chickening out.

One night you two are hanging out just the two of you and he manages to get it out.

He stutters like hell, but you think it's seriously adorable, and you're grinning like an idiot by the time he's finished.

"Well, don't leave me hanging," he says nervously, "do you feel the same or...?"

You say nothing, instead leaning towards him and kissing him sweetly.

You're both blushing like two cherry tomatoes, but you're smiling so much your cheeks hurt.

Then you're even more inseparable. Bill thinks you're joined at the hip or something.

You're really cute together though, always holding hands or cuddled up.

What you don't see is that Babe rarely takes his eyes off of you, and he still looks like a lovesick puppy but honestly he couldn't care less.

Don Malarkey

Don tries to act all cool when the boys are around, but when he's alone with you he's much quieter.

It's those quiet moments alone together that you enjoy the most.

He's a great listener, and he has a gentle way of pushing you to open up and be yourself with him.

You guys grow close pretty quickly, and start spending more and more time together.

He finds himself getting lost in conversations with you, and getting distracted staring at you.

He realises one day when you're telling a funny story about your childhood and he hears your wonderful laugh that he's totally in love with you.

He doesn't say anything for awhile, thinking it all over. He contemplates if he should even tell you or not because there's a chance you'll laugh I'm his face and tell him no way in hell.

Eventually he decides to screw it and just tell you. But he's not gonna just come out and say it, he's gotta do some kinda gesture. But nothing too overly dramatic because you wouldn't like that.

So he turns up to meet you with a bunch of flowers he picked himself, and he's been trying to fix his hair for the last goddamn half hour.

He's got a speech prepared and everything, but he's pretty sure he's forgotten half of it.

"Look I...I don't know if you feel the same or anything but...I just want you to know that I am head over heels in love with you. And I don't expect you to return the feelings or anything but I'm hoping you'll give me a chance."

You could tell he was nervous about the whole thing, and it was quite possibly the most endearing thing you'd ever seen in your life.

You took the flowers from him and placed them on a side table quickly before jumping into his arms and hugging him tight.

"Woah," he chuckles, "I'm taking this as a good sign then."

You pulled back your head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes happily, nodding your agreement.

He eyes crinkled when he smiles and he leans in, pressing his lips against yours firmly.

Its clear to everyone how perfect you are for each other; you calm his wilder side and he brings out your more outgoing side.

Well there you have it! Hope you all like it and ilysm Fran thanks so much for such a fun request to kick off the birthday week fun💕

Taglist: @tvserie-s-world @geniedocroe @generousdreamlanddestiny @sunsetmando @cagzzz107 @howunexpectedlyso @alejodi0nysus @sunflowerchuck

#band of brothers #bob #bull randleman #floyd talbert #george luz #ronald speirs #ron speirs #babe heffron #don malarkey #band of brothers x reader #hbo band of brothers #band of brothers fandom #band of brothers imagine #holdingforgeneralhugs #birthdayweekbonanza

212 notes · View notes

from-the-clouds · 4 years ago

Text

Kiss Me More (Part IIII) - Zemo/Reader

Masterlist | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |

Summary: Reader ponders the decision they made after meeting Zemo in Riga. Series now complete!

Words: 5.2k

Warnings: Kissing, marijuana & alcohol abuse, heavy angst & depression, small reference to suicide, implied casual sex, yearning

A/N (also check out A/N at end when finished reading): This is it, everyone! I was going to end this completely differently originally, but after some thinking -- and some light peer pressure from ya’ll, I did something a little different. I did fight with this part the most out of all of them, so I hope it’s still good. Please enjoy. And thank you for all the love on this series, it’s been so fun to write! Also I was listening to this song while writing this.

---

The incessant buzz of her alarm clock jolted her out of her dreamless sleep. Fumbling in the dark, she slapped the top of it, hitting the snooze button and looking at the interface with bleary eyes.

4:00 A.M. It stared, indifferent, back at her tired face.

She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut and lamenting, bargaining, half expecting the clock to turn back time when she opened her eyes again. Unfortunately, it did not. With a huff, she threw back the covers and stretched, disturbing the orange cat that slept in the empty spot next to her where her husband used to lay.

Snorting, the cat lifted its head to look at her as she climbed out of bed before curling back up in a ball where her feet had been.

“Don’t mind me, just getting ready for work so I can feed us,” she said, grumpily, then in a moment of repentance, affectionately scratching her behind the ears.

She had always been a night owl, so she didn’t think it would be possible to ever get used to waking this early. No human was meant to function at this time. It was the one part of the job she hated most. The rest of it was manageable, though it was still work.

Setting about her morning routine, she showered, made coffee, and donned her uniform. Eating a day-old bagel and nursing her coffee on her tiny balcony, she looked out over the darkened horizon. It was far too early to even enjoy a sunrise.

There was a saying, time heals all wounds. After her husband died, she’d heard it a lot. It was a saying she had come to find true. But it’d been well over a year since she’d left Helmut, alone in that swanky hotel room, and it still hurt like it was yesterday.

“I understand,” he’d murmured, and she felt the ghost of his kiss on her forehead, arms around her waist, even now. She shivered, not from the chill of the morning air.

She’d left her old life behind, all of it. Sam and Bucky, too, about a month after their time in Riga. She couldn’t look them in the eyes after what she’d done.

But, she was proud of what they’d accomplished. They’d defeated the Flag Smashers. Bucky seemed happier, more at peace. Sam had accepted his role as the new Captain America. John Walker seemed to have faded into irrelevancy. All the loose ends had been tied up in a pretty little bow.

Except for hers.

Which is why she moved, sold all the stuff in her tiny NYC apartment, and packed her car full with what she couldn’t bear to part with, some photos and momentos from a different lifetime. Her car didn’t stop until she hit the Atlantic Ocean, on an island just south of Charleston. All but undiscovered by tourists, the residents in the sleepy beach town kept to themselves, and she could go about her life in peace, undisturbed.

She couldn’t just run away from her problems, that was why she’d left Zemo. It seemed counterintuitive, but in her mind, it made sense. The problems would catch up to her, like they always had. The dissatisfaction she had with her life, with herself, was always going to return. And she knew she had to be alone to deal to face it head on. Like a wounded animal, crawling into the woods, there were only two ways things could end here; either she’d heal and come out stronger, or eventually she’d die. And so far, the healing part wasn’t going great.

Each day was a matter of convincing herself that she’d made the right choice. Especially now, as her eyes burned, fighting to stay open against the inviting embrace of sleep.

Despite it being dark outside, the bakery was bustling already when she walked in the service entrance. It smelled amazing, as always. Sweet and warm, a cacophony of aromas, baking bread, fresh coffee, sugar.

She set about the usual preparations to open up, packaging orders for the regulars, sweeping the floor, wiping down countertops. Once the place was open, she didn’t have to work the register, as she prepared batches of dough in the back for proofing, to be baked the next day.

Before, she’d been a terrible cook, but she’d grown comfortable in the kitchen after learning to bake. There was something satisfying about working with her hands, at this point she’d memorized all the recipes and the work became second nature to her. Now, she always had fresh bread and pastries in her kitchen, although they were the slightly disformed, ones the shop owners deemed too ugly for the glass display cases. Daylight was cherished, even if she barely saw it inside the shop. Because while she was awake, busy with work, her thoughts remained pleasant.

At night it was the hardest. Things got quiet, lonely. When she got home, she poured herself a drink. Cheap whiskey, the kind that came in a plastic bottle and burned on it’s way down. She had never been much of a drinker before, she was now. Her thoughts were more manageable after a drink. Especially because she was usually thinking of Helmut.

It was often that she wondered what he may be doing, and those thoughts usually ended with the image of him lying in the sun, poolside, on some island in the Pacific Ocean, drinking expensive champagne with a supermodel. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought to her, and yet she was plagued by some variation of it every night.

Sometimes, she’d humor herself, and imagine what they might be doing had she decided to stay with him. Unfortunately, thinking of that was more upsetting. She wanted it, selfishly, though she wasn’t willing to admit it.

When she was younger, it had been so easy to block out the pain, to just press forward, no matter what. Much to her dismay, it didn’t get easier as she got older. Years of watching those she loved in pain, years of being in pain had taken a toll on her resilience. She wasn’t the strong woman she once was, she was weak.

That night, one drink had turned into two, into three. Wallowing in her own self-pity had become second-nature, she felt like Hamlet, lamenting her circumstances, a constant turmoil monologuing in her brain. But this night felt particularly worse, for some reason.

For the record, she had been doing better. But she was all-too-familiar with how grief worked, pulling her back down the dark side of the mountain, where she was forced to fight her demons over and over again. At some point, they were going to win.

It was a funny thing. Despite the loss of her husband, who she had loved dearly, his death had been easier to accept. Final. She couldn’t bring him back. Helmut on the other hand, was still out there, an open wound that could never fully heal.

Before she knew it, she was four drinks in, at her bedside table, fumbling through the bottom drawer, until she found what she was looking for.

Back on her couch, she stared at the card in her hand, the hastily written phone number on it, an international line. Helmut had given it to her, the day she left, stuck it in her purse while she wasn’t looking. She didn’t discover it until she had returned home.

It had been months since she last did this, pulled the card out of its hidden place in her drawer, placed it on the coffee table in front of her next to her phone, and considered dialing it. It had been a frequent occurrence when she first moved here, when she couldn’t find a job and spent most of her mornings either hungover, or stumbling home from rendezvous with men whose names she wouldn’t remember, and she wouldn’t care to, because there was only one man she really wanted. She could only hope he’d be as close as one call away. But she never called.

I mean really, he’d probably moved on by this point. If she was going to call, she should have done it months ago, when there was more of a chance that he’d give a fuck.

She considered this a setback. But she’d made her way halfway through the cheap bottle of whiskey, it was the drunkest she’d been in ages and she was curious. She didn’t know whose number it was, who’d be on the other end of the line, and never knew why Helmut would want her to have it to begin with.

At this point, she wasn’t capable of good decision making. In general, it hadn’t always been her strong suit. So why did doing the right thing matter now? It didn’t, she decided.

Taking a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle, she ensured she wouldn’t remember what happened next, at least not clearly.

The phone rang twice before someone picked up. “Hello?” she didn’t recognize the sound of the man on the other end of the line immediately, so she didn’t answer. All she had wanted to do was maybe hear Helmut’s voice, he didn’t even need to know it was her that was calling.

“Hello?” the man repeated, and she realized it wasn’t completely unfamiliar. The grandfatherly, comforting tone wasn’t her former lover, but someone close to him. And she supposed that wasn’t terrible.

“Is this Oeznik?” she asked.

“It is,” he said after some hesitation. “May I ask who’s speaking?”

Truthfully, she was shocked she’d allowed herself to go this far. This was a bad idea. If she stopped now she could get off without doing any real damage. But just as she was about to hang up, she heard her name, muffled, on the other end of the line.

“H-How do you know it’s me?” She raised the phone back to her ear.

“I thought you sounded familiar,” Oeznik chuckled, low and soft. “Helmut told me you might call.”

“He did?” she squeaked. “Yes, although it was awhile ago. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I uh….I….well….” she managed. “I guess I just….I guess I wanted to see how he was doing.” Her words flowed together like the liquor she was drinking, she knew she sounded drunk.

“Good, since we last spoke,” he said. “I don’t hear from him much these days...maybe every couple months. As you might imagine, he’s trying to keep a low profile for the time being.”

She nodded. Perhaps Zemo was as lonely as she was, hidden away in some cabin in the middle of nowhere. Though she had to imagine it looked much nicer than her current place, and maybe he had better company than a portly orange cat that begrudgingly liked him. “I understand.”

“How have you been?” he asked.

It sounded stupid, but she realized it was the first time someone had asked her that. Sincerely. Checked up on her. Even if she was the one who had dialed the number in the first place.

“I’m good,” her voice cracked. “Just keeping busy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Helmut always had such nice things to say about you.”

“Really?” she couldn’t stop herself.

“Of course, would you like me to let him know you called?”

“No, no...I wouldn’t want to bother him,” she choked on her words, something catching in her throat.

“Are you sure you’re alright, dear?”

“I’m okay, I just….” she felt tears prick at the back of her eyes, lowering her voice, since she didn’t think her normal register would come out as anything other than a whine. “I think I made a horrible mistake.”

“What’s the matter? What did you do?”

She shook her head, shaking the tears loose and now they were lining her lashes, threatening to spill over. However, she managed to make the next words she spoke come out clearly. “Nothing, I just...it’s really stupid, I really shouldn’t have called.”

He sighed on the other end of the line, and she felt like, despite her attempt at staying calm, he could still see that she wasn’t somehow. “It seemed Helmut was awfully sweet on you,” Oeznik’s words next came hesitantly, calculated. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but he told me if you ever called, to help you with whatever you might need, no matter the ask.”

Oh God, what had she done? A sob left her, one she couldn’t control, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle any more. Her tears were flowing freely now, tracking down her cheeks and along her chin. She wiped at them clumsily, clearing her throat.

“That’s very kind of him, but you can’t help me. I’m so sorry to bother you, please just forget I even called,” she forced a smile on her face so that hopefully he could hear it. “Goodbye.”

She hung up, horrified, and within seconds had deleted the call log from her phone. She’d been thoughtful enough not to memorize the number, and the lighter she used whenever she smoked sat in front of her. Without a second though, she burned the card, watching the paper blacken and disintegrate, until it was all but a pile of soot on her Wal-Mart coffee table. It was a fair punishment, and ensured she’d never get the chance to embarrass herself like that again.

And then she cried, sobbed into a pillow next to her, until her tears ran dry and she wore herself out, falling asleep on the couch alone. When she’d wake the next morning, the only evidence of her actions would be a throbbing headache and a dead phone.

She wouldn’t remember the call.

----

Life went on, as it always did. It had been about a month, and since that night she grew more indifferent, remembered how to ignore heartbreak. For now, she was stuck in her purgatory, waking up before the sun and falling asleep before it set, smoking joints, drinking cheap liquor, and going on the occasional date with people who she didn’t really like, tourists who would leave after a week and wanted temporary company.

Despite everything, she partly believed things were getting better. Maybe they weren’t, but the possibility that someday they would seemed feasible. And that was enough, for now.

On her days off, she’d walk to the beach and lay on a blanket, reading a book until the sun dipped below the horizon and lit up the sky in hues of pinks and purples. She found a record player at an antique store and began collecting vinyls, listening to obscure artists whose albums she found in the $1 bin. It wasn’t so bad. Life wasn’t so bad.

She took a shower after work. Tomorrow was her off day, and she wasn’t sure what she had planned besides maybe watching a movie and getting stoned. Maybe she’d try going to the beach. The weather was getting warmer, and she could even go swimming if the water wasn’t too cold.

Exhausted from her day of work, she laid down in her bed, still in her robe, her hair wrapped in a towel around her head. The sun was setting outside, the windchimes she’d hung outside slowly clanging together, birds singing in the warm spring air. Her cat hopped on the bed, offered an affectionate trill and curled up at her side, purring, in a rare display of affection. A cool breeze drifted through the open window. And for the first time in over a year, she felt content. Closing her eyes, she savored the moment, committed it to memory, so she could recall it the next time she was drunk-crying in front of her TV.

She fell asleep slowly, so slowly that when she woke, startled by something in her kitchen clattering to the floor, it felt like she hadn’t even been sleeping at all. The clock next to her red 11:31 p.m. and it was pitch dark outside, the cool breeze from before had grown stronger and her bedroom curtains were billowing, wind whistling loudly through the apartment. Her cat had left her side, and she frowned, shivering in the sudden cold.

Pulling the towel off her head, she made her way over to the window with the intention to close it, sleepily, lazily, until she heard something else. A creak in the floorboard. A heavy footstep in her kitchen. That wasn’t just her cat.

Some kind of muscle memory was ignited then, an ancient instinct that called to her from a different lifetime. Darting across the room, the gun she kept was in her hand, stealthily pulled from its hiding spot beneath her mattress. Truth be told, she never thought she would’ve needed it. Anyone looking for her would be smart enough to kill her in her sleep, not be so foolish as to wake her first with their heavy footsteps.

A dark silhouette stalked through her kitchen, moving slowly. It was a man, she assumed, based on his broader figure, and lack of coordination. In her experience, women were often stealthier without trying. He took another step, the floor creaking below him, shuffling on bargain linoleum.

Staying low, she crept forward, ducking stealthily behind furniture, avoiding the spots on the floor she knew made noise. It didn’t appear the intruder had a weapon, in fact, it seemed he was bumbling about, searching for something. A burglar, and a bad one at that. An island full of vacation homes owned by rich doctors and they thought they’d find valuables in her shitty apartment?

It wasn’t until she was standing directly behind him, gun aimed at his head, that she finally spoke up.

“I believe you’ve come to the wrong place,” she said flatly. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’d be in your best interest to leave empty-handed.”

Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but the intruder froze, arms slowly raising in defeat, empty-handed, as he turned around to face her. In the dingy room, she couldn’t make out any of his features, could only see that he was clad in all black.

“Unfortunately, liebling, that wasn’t my intention.”

She would’ve recognized that voice anywhere, though the endearment he’d used was enough to clue her in. Hitting the lightswitch with her free hand, she was face to face with the man she’d spent the past year trying to purge from her memory, Helmut Zemo.

Her gut twisted, her mind raced, but the only thing currently bubbling up, over the surface of every other emotion was the pure, seething rage left behind in the wake of fearing for her life.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she stepped towards him, gun still raised, fuming.

“Hey, hey!” he staggered backwards, hands raised, eyes averted.

“I thought you were a fucking robber!” she hissed. “I thought you were here to kill me!”

“Lower your voice,” he scolded. “You’re going to wake your neighbors.”

Taking a deep breath, she realized she still had her gun trained on him and she lowered it, clicking the safety and discarding the weapon on the countertop. “What the fuck?” she asked. “What the hell is wrong with you? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I didn’t know you had such a mouth on you,” he smirked, but she wasn’t finished, and she glowered at him.

“You broke into my apartment!” she growled.

“I had to be sure I was in the right place.”

“Yeah? You couldn’t have knocked first?”

He nodded, eyes trailing down to her hands, which were trembling, she hadn’t even realized. He seemed to understand what he’d done then, and she flexed her fingers, eyes locking with his. “I suppose...you may be right,” he said, surrendering.

She felt the rage subsiding as she took in his appearance. He looked not so different from the last time she’d seen him, except a fair amount of stubble covered his jawline in a short beard. He was still devastatingly handsome. Zemo’s dark eyes, filled with longing, drank her in, tilting his head as his gaze shifted to her lips. It was like she could read his mind, she knew what he wanted, what he was thinking. And her body was going to betray her if he kept it up.

Despite everything, she was still upset. Upset and embarrassed, as the light was doing an unflattering expose of her tiny, cluttered apartment, full of mismatched furniture and water-damaged wallpaper that her landlord refused to replace. It probably gave the prison cells that Helmut had spent years in a run for their money, and was in stark contrast to every other aspect of his life.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing to the empty liquor bottles on her countertop, stowed in her trash can. “Have you been drinking?”

“Not tonight,” she quipped, on guard. Had to be. As much as some old instinct told her to throw herself into his arms, press her lips to the underside of his jaw, and let him envelope her in the comfort of his embrace, she knew she couldn’t.

“Hmm,” he brushed past her, frowning, looking disappointed, as he made his way to her living room.

“How did you find me?” she asked, eyeing him wearily.

“I’m a wanted man, I trace every call that comes into my estate,” he said over his shoulder.

Helmut was taking inventory of the cramped space, staring at the photos she’d hung in a collage on the wall behind her couch, with a few watercolors painted by her late husband. One in particular, that he was focused on now, was from her wedding. Of all the memories she chose to hang, this one was her fondest, her former partner was all dark curly hair falling into deep blue eyes, and she was the portrait of a blushing bride, wearing a dopey love-drunk smile, gazing at him, ignoring the camera.

“You looked so beautiful on your wedding day,” he said, turning over his shoulder to look at her. He was so out of place here, standing in her living room, for a moment she thought he might be a hallucination, some physical manifestation of the heartbreak she’d experienced. “Although that doesn’t surprise me.”

She flushed, suddenly self-conscious in her thin black robe and still-damp hair. It occurred to her that she wasn’t looking her best, which made this whole situation that much more disconcerting. However, the compliment disarmed her slightly, and the anger she felt began to dissipate, slowly. She was going to offer him something to drink until her cat, who had been absent through the chaos, suddenly jumped up on the back of the couch and promptly hissed at him in an attempt to defend her territory.

“Pumpkin, be nice,” she said, although it was mostly to placate Helmut. Pumpkin never listened to her.

Helmut let her sniff his hand, and she was stunned when the cat rubbed her face against it. Of course, Pumpkin would like him of all people. That made sense. Then again, she supposed it made them not so different. He turned away to look at the rest of the room. “I see you haven’t kicked that bad habit you told me about,” he gestured at the ashtray full of roaches on the coffee table.

“Did you just come to my place to insult me?” she asked, putting her hands on her lips and feigning confidence. She could’ve rolled over and cried and told him how much she missed him, how many nights she’d spent crying over him, and while all of it was true, she felt indignation was the better option for her self-preservation.

“That’s a good question,” Helmut turned to face her now, hands in the pockets of the leather jacket he was wearing. Completely inappropriate for the weather here, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. “Why do you think I’m here?” he asked.

She shrugged, feigning indifference. “I don’t know, but you shouldn’t be.”

He snorted, his frustration evident, and she saw a glimpse of the man that so many feared, the side that had earned him his dangerous reputation, that had him locked away in a high-security prison for nearly a decade. “I didn’t come all this way for nothing, draga, we’re going to have it out.”

“Fine,” she said, lacing as much venom as she could into her words to prepare herself. “Then get on with it.”

He stared her down, and the expression her wore startled her, something sparkled in his eyes, mischief, relief maybe? It was insulting. Like he didn’t take her seriously. But there was something else there, too, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it was wiped from his visage before it registered.

The tension in the room dissipated slightly when Zemo sat on the arm of the worn couch she’d bought from a yard sale, and she winced. “I spoke to Oeznik the other day,” he said flatly, snorting, eyes focused on a stain on one of the rugs she owned. “He told me he had the pleasure of speaking to a friend of mine about a month ago.”

Frowning, she tilted her head, her eyes meeting Helmut’s. Something in her brain sparked a memory she’d once dismissed as a dream after a particularly bad night of drinking.

“He was concerned, you see, because this friend didn’t seem to be in the best state of mind,” Helmut rose from the arm of the couch, stalking forward slowly, and she couldn’t move backwards, not even if she wanted to, as he could pin her easily against the front door. His voice grew louder, faster as he went on. “He said she was crying, slurring her words, he told me he thought maybe she might be-” Helmut cut himself off abruptly and closed his eyes, clenching one of his fists, a look of distress on his face as he took in a terse breath. “I won’t finish that thought, but you’re a smart girl, you can imagine what I’m getting at.”

Swallowing hard, the phone call came back to her in pieces, the tears, sobbing on the phone to a man she hardly knew. It was the night she finally admitted to herself she’d made a mistake, even though she’d already known it, deep down when she left him in the hotel room.

“Please forgive me for breaking in tonight,” Helmut said. “But I couldn’t bear the thought of you not answering the door, I needed to see with my own eyes that you were okay.”

Exhaling through her nose, she looked at the floor. “It’s not like that. I had too much to drink.” she said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “It was just a bad night.”

“Then tell me, what was the horrible mistake you made?” he asked, stepping closer. He was close to her, now. So close. And his proximity made everything more difficult.

God, if only she could remember exactly what she’d said, the only thing that came to her were the emotions, desperation, sadness, grief. It was all too much, and he was threatening to bring them all back to destroy her again.

“I shouldn’t have called,” she said, shaking her head. “And I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? What do you want from me?”

“What do I want from you?” He asked, tilting his head, his eyebrows pulling together. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? How hard it was to sit on a plane when all I wanted to do was be here? With you?” His hand rose to cup her cheek, stopping just short of her face when she flinched away from his touch.

“Please stop,” she managed, the burn of tears behind her eyes almost menacing. The last thing she needed was to cry in front of him. “You’re undoing everything.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You’re….you’re here,” she murmured weakly, wetness seeping, glossing over her pupils. “I only have so much capacity for pain right now, if you touch me now, you’ll ruin everything.”

No one ever had this kind of hold on her, she’d never bent her rules to appease anyone else, and she’d gone toe to toe with super soldiers. He was just a man, and yet, he terrified her.

“You really want me to leave?”

She couldn’t answer, but one tear escaped, sliding down her cheekbone, and she sniffled.

“I’m not the one who did this to you,” his thumb, swiped along her face gently, wiping it away. He’d touched her, just barely, and she was reeling.

“I know,” she stuttered, gasping. “I know it was me, but I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You are so stubborn.” His expression softened as he looked upon her, his thumb tracing underneath her jaw, tilting her head upwards to look at him. Malleable, she obliged. “I’ve thought about you everyday since the night we spent together. You’ve plagued me. That can’t be a coincidence. Are you really happier this way? You must be honest with me.”

She shook her head, blinking out fresh tears. “No, I’m not. I just thought...by the time I realized I made the wrong choice, you’d have moved on. People like us don’t get to be happy.”

“Says who?”

How could she refuse him anymore? This would continue to go on until she gave in. And from the beginning, she wanted to give in. There was no use in fighting the inevitable. The small point of contact -- his hand on her chin -- radiated impressive warmth, and she could feel every part of herself being attracted to him, quelling some ache deep within her.

Reaching up, she clutched at Helmut’s palm, which didn’t last long, because he pulled her into his arms, nestling her head underneath his chin. She melted into his embrace, finding solace in the warmth of his solid frame.

“Come home with me,” he coaxed softly.

“I will,” she murmured, surrendering to the comfort of his presence. “But you have to let me bring Pumpkin.”

He chuckled, warm and amiable, the vibration of his chest echoing in her own. “Of course, you’ll bring Pumpkin,” he murmured into her hair. Oh, how she had missed hearing him laugh. They could’ve stayed that way for hours, and she would’ve been content, but he pulled away, hands on either side of her face as he studied her.

Unable to hold back any longer, she leaned in to kiss him. It was chaste at first, all the memories of her last night with him came flooding back quickly when he parted his lips to deepen the kiss, but she didn’t want that quite yet, just needed a moment to process this. The simple comfort of being held by him, kissed by him, was more than enough for now. He’d been waiting for this, she could assume in the way that he responded, pulling her impossibly close so she was engulfed in him.

Her stomach flipped, a warmth blossoming in her chest as he pulled away, their foreheads touching. “Oh, I missed you,” she sighed, shivering as his beard tickled her neck, his mouth on her sensitive skin.

“And I, you,” he murmured. His eyes studied her, carefully, up close, and for the first time since meeting him, she really let him see her, teary-eyed and vulnerable.

She would never let him go again.

---

A/N: So here we are! I know it’s been a ride, but I’m really excited for these two. However, I don’t feel like I’m done writing for Zemo yet. If ya’ll have any headcanons, thoughts, questions, requests, etc, feel free to drop them in my ask box or shoot me a DM. I’d love to talk more about him. I also would be down to write more oneshots based around this series, because I am sort of like….okay, they obviously have a connection, but they don’t know that much about each other, and I may or may not have a light future already mapped out for them. I might do an epilogue at some point even. But if you have anything you’d like to add, let me know!

Taglist: @juice-1981 @sapphiredreamer26 @tatooineisdry @marvelsvision @spookycereal-s @trelaney @fireghost-x @booksarekindaneat @thunderingbats @felicityofbakerstreet @takacsgram @mischiefmanaged71 @fanfictionedagain @merelyhooper @gyllord @mundaytuesday @friday18eo @lovegood7553 @adara-wolfhart @a-djarin @farawaywasteland @sky-writes-stuff @fuckinglittlekitten @katyasrussianaccent @agent-jbarnes @neoarchipelago @pattispunk @kpopnena @purebloodwitch @spookyconsultingcriminal @msmarvelwrites @professorrw @lazyradeecal @captainrexstan @notyourfuckingbusinesss @felicityofbakerstreet @unlikekiana @maeday-18 @friendly-letters @fandom-lover-4 @meefal @queenfairyfangirl @gogomonbebelf @scullys-alienpussy @the-multiverse-approach @sky-writes-stuff @safiakillspop @eggofhumiliation @originalcollectorsaladsstuff @archangelproperty @friday18eo @jayden-rose-leon @actuallyanita @mayhemmachine @kermuddgen @zadiewrites @pach-inks @theokatz @reichelhache @autumnsoidier @mischief-siriusly-managed @danaaeaa @joey-motorola @singlemomslayer @stevesbestgirl @dinna-fashh @popriskra @xaanyhs @adorable-punk-superheroes

437 notes · View notes