#does empty void have his own tag wait

[galakianexplosion]

A bunch of opm silly stuff i made yesterday :3

Im having way too much fun smh

Also theres this, less recent, a phrase originaly told by @kachikirby whos my primary audience for all of this {thank you again kachi you are the best} 😎

[hyukaslvr]

strong enough | j. jungkook (1)

< series masterlist

paring: Jungkook x (f) reader

genre/tags: idol! Jungkook, idol! reader, idiot exes to lovers, slow burn ; k-drama feels (our beloved summer but not at the same time), angst, drama, fluff, smut

warnings: foul/explicit language, alcohol consumption, unhealthy coping mechanisms, feelings of helplessness, insecurities; commitment issues & emotionally constipated characters, panic attacks, reader is harsh towards Jungkook

w.c: TBD

series summary: you and Jungkook have too many personal problems, during and after your relationship and it keeps getting brought up. you both had tried multiple times to ignore the fact you were both struggling mentally and physically due to your workplace, but you always run back to each other. maybe one day, one day you'll get back to each other, with all your problems handled, maybe not. all you want is for him to shine like he always does, all he wants is you.

a/n at very bottom!

Jungkook didn’t need to prove to you that he was able to live by himself on his own without you, he wanted to. so for the past 7 months, he’s been taking care of himself in every way he felt he needed you to help him with.

he didn’t do it just for you though, he did it for his life. he was dependent on you, for all of his feelings and to make sure he did the tasks he needed to do. he made sure to watch himself and watch how he acts, he made sure to try his best to take care of himself, sometimes he wanted to text you that it was easy, a piece of cake he would even say.

but since you were here anymore, for the last 6 months, he’d been on his own and doing things on his own. better than he expected too, he expected himself the next week after you tore him apart that he’d be right back at your doorsteps, begging you take him back.

but he didn’t, he stayed strong, and truly believed if you loved him, you would come back. eventually. but he couldn’t wait for you any longer. he couldn’t just sit around and be unmotivated hoping you would come back soon. so he stood his ground, worked out every morning and night, the endless punches against his punching bag echoed in his empty house, the house you used to fill the empty void for.

for now, he blocked you on everything, avoids the events your group is invited to, and makes sure he doesn’t do afterparties; that’s how he met you, mama 2018, an after party somewhere at someone’s house, not that he cared at the moment, he just wanted to get wasted. he met you, standing there, looking around and watching your members have the time of their lives when all you wanted to do was drink off your mood. jungkook saw right through you, feeling the same way he did as of currently, watching his older members laugh and make conversations with other idols.

now that he thinks about it, you both needed help, or didn’t need each other at the moment. he wanted it to work, knowing the consequences of two mentally unstable people in a relationship, he wanted to change you for the better. he didn’t want to change you completely, but the way you felt about life; how you would tell him that you didn’t see a future for yourself, that you just wanted to live but not actually live, but to disappear and not die. so he nods, agreeing in his head that everything happened between you two was for the better, staring wide at his shiny black shoes on the platform below them. he needs to stop thinking about things before he gets on stage, to perform in front of every idol possible to win an award tonight.

he sighs though, his thoughts were taking over his mind again about all the could ofs and would ofs, but he took deep breaths and turned to his older to make sure everything was fine, to get some sort of comfort through the others eyes.

hoseok, one of the older members of his group and the one he came to when you broke up with him, nods with a tight smile on his face, giving Jungkook that type of relief he needed; hoseok was there when you weren’t, he took care of him like the good person he is. Jungkook doesn’t blame you though, he would get away from him too. he doesn’t hate you either, he never will.

screams could be heard behind the sounds in his ears, the constant clicking to make sure he’s on beat. he needed to perform well he thought to himself. his habit of tapping his fingers against each other showing once again, a habit he told himself he would get rid of. again, looking at his hoseok, smiling at his older who looks born to be on the stage before letting the platform below his feet rise up to level with the stage.

the arena screams, the lights become dark as beams of blinding light shown down on the members, and it takes a minute for your eyes to register to realize its bangtan. your eyes searched, you didn’t want them to search but they did on their own. they landed right on him, Jungkook, the love of your life you would like to say.

sometimes you reach your phone to text him, to tell him this stupid idea you had for a song, or a photo of something that reminded you of him. you have to remind yourself everyday that you can’t check your messages, his good mornings won’t be there any longer. you have to keep remembering that you can’t just call him after practices to come pick you up because you hate the idea of being alone with your manager in the car. but then you realize, you ruined things.

you had this “perfect relationship”, you had everything you wanted, the person you wanted for so long before becoming an idol. but, you soon realized it was wrong, and you were both not well. especially you, not just him. the way you acting towards each other during the rough times when you should of been helping each other shows, you see other couples when they are sad and how they help each other, yet you couldn’t with him. you’ve never been super into comforting people, so seeing him the way he was, made you mad. it was an indescribable feeling that you can’t even explain, it felt like a competition against who feels the worst about their lives and who had it the hardest. so when one of you talked about your feelings, it would start an argument, one that led to sleeping in different rooms and one that led to not waking up to Jungkook’s cooking.

you hate thinking about it, but when you think of him, you don’t think of the good times. you think of how you made him cry, forgetting to tell him that you were the one who was hurting the worst, not that he was a mess or how you felt like you couldn’t take care of him . it just came out, heat of the moment you like to say, but you know you’re in the wrong, you know that you should of helped him when he physically couldn’t breathe without you comforting him in some sort of way.

“it’s like you can’t live without me,” you say, your feet killing you from a day event with your group, sitting down on the couch next to him while you rub the pain out of your feet, not realizing your words towards him.

“what does that mean?” he was already in tears, his voice shaking as his throat closing from crying and gasping, “i- i called you because i need help, ______, i don’t know-”

“Jungkook, you never let me in,” you sigh, staring back at the silent man, and that’s when you froze. you forgot your words, your mind going blank, the reason you were even there, “i mean, i want you to talk to me- i don’t even know what’s going on, how can i even help?” you kept spitting out worse comments, his poor heart couldn’t handle it, and you couldn’t handle it.

“i can’t explain it- i can’t breathe, i- i don’t know what’s going on-” you cut him off in a blink, pulling his head into your chest and tugging your fingers in his hair hoping for the best, just for his arms to wrap around you as his breathing becomes quicker, the sobs getting louder.

he didn’t know who else to call, knowing you both can’t be seen in public together, but he didn’t know how else to calm down.

“i’m here, Jungkook, i always will be, but i think we need to stop,”

he looks taller, slimmer, maybe more muscular? you think as you bite your lips hoping for it to bleed a little before you stop. you never liked watching him from a distance, it reminded you a bit of your childhood crushes which you hated the thought of those. you watched him sync with the other members smoothly and perfectly, his voice perfect as ever and hitting the notes perfectly to your ears. you smile, forgetting the memory you got, and watching him proudly.

he’s living without you, hopefully dealing with things with out you. you should be happy, right? you rub your sweaty palms on your blanket, the room felt like it was closing in on you, feeling as if him and you were the only people in the whole arena. you miss him, the way things used to be, the way you used to be, but things are different now. without even realizing the performance was over, you clap along with the others as the noise of palms smacking rings in your ears. you definitely miss him.

you should not be smiling right now, Jungkook thinks, now standing a little bit behind your group as you win the award you were nominated for. but you should, he should be happy that you guys got another win, with the song that gave you a headache everytime he mentioned how well it was going to be for your group. but you shouldn’t in his heart, not when he’s standing feet away from you, when you’re standing feet away from the one person you should be with and not distancing from.

Jungkook wonders, does your heart pound around him like his does? how it feels like it running around in circles like it’s winning a marathon, pounding practically out of his chest every time he breathes in, it hurts when he looks at you.

he wishes to know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling when your leader lets you hold the award as she performs her speech for the crowd. he wants to know how the award feels in your hands as you grip it tightly, maybe you feel his presence after all when his eyes dart to your hands shaking.

he told himself no more after parties, no more of you and events with you possibly being there. but you looked so pretty, he couldn’t help it. the way your makeup looked like it was your skin, the glitter in the corner of your eyes making them pop out more. he could just leave with yoongi whenever, knowing he wouldn’t want to be there for long anyways, he would rather be alone after such a long event.

did he miss you too? you thought, rubbing your thumb against the plastic cup in your tight grib, sipping on the drink as your members talk to another and other idols. you glance at him every now and then, not that you cared he was there. definitely not the reason why you were here, not hoping he would be here also.

you sigh in thought, he doesn’t even look like he wants to be here, and you know he doesn’t by the way his eyebrows furrow at a obvious drunk idol passing by and saying hello to him. you sighed again, loudly supposably as yerin glares at you.

“just go talk to him already,”

“talk? talk to who? i don’t know who you’re talking about,” you play it off as you were confused, you couldn’t let her know. it made her glare more deadly and more hard to ignore, you wanted to rip your hair our right about then.

“Jungkook, he’s been looking at you all night too, you know?”

“he has?” you quickly question, realizing she tricked you into saying who it is, kinda. “i mean, what are you talking about-”

“i know, ______, just go. i know how badly you want to make it up with him.” she knows, you glup hard as she tilts her head aggressively towards his figure. it’s not that you didn’t want to make it up to him, it that’s you felt like you couldn’t. you were so trapped in your own mind to find the motivation to help his needs and necessities in your relationship.

Jungkook tried to not look at you a lot, making sure the cup in his hand and the loud laughter around him was distracting him enough to take his eyes away from you. when he felt like something was off, he glanced at you, but when he did, you were gone.

knowing Jungkook, you purposely left and went outside, sitting and watching the stars glisten in your naked eye, the music booming loudly behind you. you knew he would come finding you soon, knowing something was wrong if you were gone away from your group for awhile. Jungkook knows you from the back of his palm, you were together for almost 5 years.

when Jungkook did, he finds you sitting right on the cold to touch balcony, your head already turnt to look at him. you find it crazy, how good he looks just standing there out of breath searching for you, in the flickering porch light. he was just standing there with his eyes widened of you waiting for him, yet he was always still pretty no matter the emotions displayed on his face.

his eyes follow yours, searching them to find the reason to your disappearance, all while you start to stand up and turn your whole body towards him before speaking. you weren’t planning anything, what you were going to say to him and how you were going to even look him in the eyes. you just had to stay strong, looking deeply into his as you spoke what was replaying on your mind.

“do you miss me like i miss you?”

“you have no idea, _____,”

the wind blowing harshly against your already prickled skin didn’t bother you, the cold night tingling goosebumps on your arms even with Jungkook’s jacket over your shoulders, giving you the slightest bit of warmth. you had no clue how you ended up here, the car ride being a daze and being in the closest you’ve been to Jungkook in months had you biting your tongue to see if things were actually happening.

‘do you want to talk?’

‘i always want to talk to you, Jungkook,’

‘let’s get you out of here then, yeah?’

the park was silently decided between the two of you, sitting on an empty bench as you watched the clouds blissfully cover the moon every other second. the silence that took over the two of you sat comfortably, but so uncomfortable at the same time that it was starting to hurt your airways. there’s so much to be said but you both haven’t spoken up since you’ve gotten there.

you sigh, it was hard to do, to see him again and all was amazing, you always missed him and hearing his voice, hearing the way he said your name. you were so in love with him that you couldn’t pull yourself away. you felt trapped, in a good way, but not in the way you needed at the moment. you just wanted him, but you felt like everything in your life now was dependent on him. you needed him, he knew you, he knew how to help you.

it sucked that you felt like you only ever needed him in your life, only trying for him, only doing good performing for him, only ever speaking to him, only surrounding yourself with him, he was everywhere. any time you needed Jungkook, he was always there, in some shape or form. speaking or not, he wanted to help you and be there for you, not realizing it wasn’t helping your unhappiness and depression but making you feel worse about how he had to take care of you like a baby. you were trying so hard to get better only to realize that you weren’t doing it for yourself, you were doing it for Jungkook. Jungkook and Jungkook only.

“i really think we should talk, Jungkook-”

“you know, i really miss hearing you talk. i don’t know how you’re doing but i would personally like to know,” it shocked you, he never usually wanted to talk about personal things or pressured you to talk about how you’re doing on top of everything he already knew. Jungkook knew that there was a reason he didn’t know much because that’s just how you are. he loves you, and looking at you right now feels so right in his heart. he knew for awhile that you were the one for him, he wasn’t going to lose you that easily.

“Jungkook, we can’t be doin-”

“i get it,” he waves you off, obviously on the verge of tears because you couldn’t handle speaking to him at all. you’ve done this many times, tried to remove him from your life completely. but you always manage to come back, saying things along the lines of ‘we can’t be doing this,’ or ‘we shouldn’t do this, Jungkook,’. he will always scared that you’ll actually never come back so he takes these talks very seriously.

“no, Jungkook, you don’t,” you sigh once again, youre never able to put what you want to say into words, they come out wrong or rude or not true. there was so much you wanted to say. how could you say it in the easiest but nicest way possible without sobbing? you don’t dare to look at him just yet because you know you’ll fold immediately and run back to him. but you stood your ground, turned your head towards him and made complete contact while you spoke, “we can’t keep doing this, talking when we miss each other. i’ll never get better- you’ll never get better if we keep this loop going on. i love you, Jungkook,” you reached for his face, wiping the tears that started pouring as soon as you looked at him, “you’re forever my number one, i’ll do anything for you even it’s letting you go so you can focus on yourself and your career, you know i’m not any better than you,”

at this point he knew he looked pathetic, sobbing in to your palms are you talked about how much you both needed this when all he felt like was that leaving you is the worst thing to ever happen to him, he felt like he was suffocating with the truth. you loved him, he should be happy, but why are you leaving? you’re leaving him once again just for him to go through the same process all over again. he would drink, party every weekend, over sleep, have bad practices and messing up everything with his dancing. you tear him apart, every damn time.

he was more mad than upset, what did you leaving have anything with him if you loved him? you don’t love him, he thought, his eyes now furrowing at you and slowly tearing his face away from your hands rubbing his face.

“Kook, i’m sorry it has to be this-” but all he can do is just snort, raising to walk away, drive away before he starts to kiss you to make you shut up about getting better. you are never fair, you knew that by the look in your eyes as if your heart just got shattered when all you keep doing is tear his heart apart. he wanted to roll his eyes, you didn’t care about his feelings until he started crying and begging for you to even talk to him.

“come back to me when you’re ready, this could easily be talked about and fixed but you never let me in, claiming i never let you in but here i am, bawling my eyes out to you because you can’t stop leaving me,” he started walking back towards you, his feet wide causing his things to spread your legs apart.

you gasped as he leaned low, leveling his face in front of yours, you felt like you couldn’t breathe when he goes to speak, “you can’t just keep coming back to me when you feel like it, either fix your shit or decide if you want to stay with my messy self. we both know you’re just as fucking messy.”

ouch.

A/N: ouch is definitely the word for this chapter! reminder that this will have a happy ending i promise ( :c ) and this will definitely be a very slow slow burn. i had so much fun writing this and im so thankful for all the support you guys have been giving me, i really do think this series will do well and i really hope it will! reblogs are always more helpful than notes!

(COMMENT TO BE ON TAGLIST FOR NEXT CHAPTER OR WHOLE SERIES)

tags: @loumin908 @heartjiminie @yunholuv @cuntessaiii @parkinglot-nights @minsoa97kor

[inkmonster21]

Love me Tonight

Wolverine/Logan Howlett x fem!neighbor!reader

You loved Logan deeply, and when you lost him you didn’t know what to do. When Wade brings back the worst Logan variant into your universe will you allow him to fill the void the late Logan left behind?

~o0o~

You had always envisioned yourself in the role of the unconventional aunt, the one who was free-spirited and unpredictable – not the motherly type. However, deep down, you had longed to have children of your own. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

When Logan left, it robbed you of the opportunity to find out whether he shared your desire for parenthood, and that uncertainty left a painful void in your heart.

Your tumultuous relationship (or whatever he wanted to call it) with Logan, constant arguing, and disagreements were a familiar pattern. You'd often take breaks, sometimes initiated by you, sometimes by him, but you expected the usual cycle to continue. As you waited for him to come crawling back, like he always did, you thought this was just another breakup – a temporary storm in a relationship filled with frequent squabbles.

Every day passed, and the silence grew louder. No surprise return phone call, no unexpected knock on your door. It was unusual for him to disappear like this, but you wanted to believe it meant he finally found peace.

All you ever wanted was for him to find happiness – even if it meant sacrificing your own. You quietly pleaded with the heavens, begging for his happiness and peace, even if it meant being apart from each other.

Laura, her expression tight and nervous, stands hesitantly outside your front door with tear-stained cheeks. The metal of the dog tags clutched in her small shaking fist gleams dully under the porch light. She had embarked on a mission, one that had led her here, to your doorstep.

Logan had laid out his parting wishes in his last breaths. He had promised Laura that you would be there for her – both as a parental figure and a source of comfort. Paternity loomed heavily on Laura’s mind. She needed a mom.

A trio of clear knocks on the other side of the door. With a slight frown of confusion, you rise from the comfortable couch and stride towards your front door.

Reaching the door, you turn the knob and pull it open, revealing a sight that both puzzles and surprises you – a little girl, standing shyly on your doorstep.

The sight of the little girl standing alone on your doorstep raises questions about her parents' whereabouts. You look beyond her to see the empty street. You turn your gaze down upon her, your eyebrow-raising inquisitively, as you jokingly ask, "Are you here selling cookies or something?" The little girl shakes her head in response, her soft brown locks brushing her shoulders as she does so. Despite her initial shyness, she responds to your question with a soft, “No.”

As you stand there, scrutinizing the silent child, she suddenly lifts her hand, clutching a small, silvery object in her tiny fist. Upon closer inspection, you recognize that she's holding a pair of dog tags, the metal discs swinging gently as they dangle from her closed hand.

The sight of the familiar dog tags in the girl's hand instantly fills you with a mixture of confusion and alarm. As you take them in your shaking hands, the metal tags feel cold against your skin, a stark reminder of someone you love. Your voice quivers as you manage to whisper a tremulous question, "Is he... okay?"

Laura, eyes welling up with tears, responds with a simple yet devastating shake of her head. The silent denial speaks volumes, and the sadness in her expression confirms your fears. You feel a pang in your chest as the realization sets in, and a wave of emotions washes over you.

With a heartbreaking sob, Laura throws her small arms around your midsection, burying her face into your stomach and crying quietly. Her tears soak into the fabric of your shirt as she pleads between shaky breaths, "Please... he said... you'd help me..." The raw pain and vulnerability in her voice tug at your heartstrings, and a surge of protectiveness and compassion washes over you.

You wrap your arms around her diminutive frame, holding her close in a protective embrace. Despite the shock and hurt, you feel a strong sense of determination to fulfill Logan's promise to her. If that was all he left you with you would make sure it was done.

"I’ll help you," you assure her softly, your voice a mix of firmness and gentleness. "I’m here for you now, I promise."

Laura poured her heart out to you, recounting her tale and revealing her similarities to Logan, right down to her claws – a striking resemblance. With a mixture of determination and vulnerability, she vowed to continue his legacy, living for him and you.

Each word she spoke echoed with the weight of her pain, and yet her words were tinged with fierce loyalty and unwavering dedication. Her desire to honor his memory and take care of you was both touching and heart-wrenching.

You open your home and your heart to her, stepping into the role of a protective and caring mother figure in her life. Taking on this newfound responsibility, you become Laura's haven – a place of comfort, understanding, and unconditional love.

Over the years, a beautiful dynamic between you and Laura has taken shape and strengthened. You form a loving mother-daughter connection, one filled with tender moments, laughter, and mutual understanding.

You nurture her, support her, and guide her – helping her grow into a strong and compassionate young lady. Your relationship blossoms into a source of comfort, stability, and joy for both of you.

But as you have come to learn in this life of yours. Happiness is rare, and it doesn’t last forever. As you step through the front door, bags in hand from your recent trip to the grocery store, you call out for Laura, expecting to hear her soft voice or the patter of her footsteps.

But instead of a warm welcome, there's a strange silence that fills the air, sending a pang of worry through your heart.

The silence that pervades the house unnerves you, and you call out her name once more, your voice tinged with growing concern. "Laura?"

Your footsteps echo softly as you slowly meander down the hall, your eyes scanning the surroundings for any sign of the young girl.

As you venture further through the house, dread begins to build in your gut. Searching every room, you notice that every trace of Laura has mysteriously vanished. It’s as if she had evaporated into thin air, leaving not a single trace of her presence behind.

The emptiness in the house feels stark and surreal, a harsh reminder of her absence. It leaves you feeling bewildered and incredibly worried about her whereabouts.

Your rising panic transforms into full-blown freak-out mode. Your heart races, your mind spins with frantic thoughts, and your hands tremble uncontrollably.

Fear and worry take over as you desperately search for any signs of Laura or clues as to her disappearance. The silence in the house feels deafening, and you're consumed with a sense of helplessness and overwhelming anxiety.

You seek out the help of the police, hoping for some assistance in the search for Laura. However, your hopes are quickly dashed as they dismiss your concerns, suggesting she's merely a troubled teenager who's run away. You’d have to wait the full amount of time to deem her a missing person, and when that time struck, they still didn’t do all they could to help you find your daughter.

So you started your hunt. Three years of tireless searching and facing endless dead ends have taken their toll on you. The constant struggle and fruitless endeavors have left you feeling worn down and disheartened, questioning your grip on reality. The life you live now feels more like a mere existence, haunted by the void left by Laura's disappearance. You were depressed and penniless.

Your life takes a strange turn when you move into a new apartment, and you're greeted by your unexpected neighbor – Wade Wilson. This quirky and unconventional personality quickly forces himself and becomes an intriguing presence in your life.

You hoist a heavy box into your arms, the weight making you huff and puff, when you push open the door to your apartment – only to find Wade lounging on your couch, casually rummaging through your belongings.

A mix of surprise and annoyance flickers across your features, and you exclaim, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Wade looks up, feigning surprise as he holds up a pair of your underwear. “Whoa, hey there! Didn't hear ya coming in. Just helping myself to some of your, uh...” He squints at the label. “Silk panties. Nice taste.” Wade grins wider, tossing the underwear aside and sprawling out on the couch with a satisfied sigh as if he owns the place. He pats the spot next to him, gesturing for you to come closer. “Take a load off, neighbor.“ You drop the box out of anger. “No. Get the fuck out.” You didn’t know this dude.

Wade feigns hurt, pouting dramatically. “Oh, come on, don't be like that! I just wanted to spice up your life a little. Can't a friend drop by unannounced and riffle through your drawers?” Your eyes widen at his words. This man was ridiculous! “Who the fuck are you?”

Wade lets out a low whistle. “Straight to the point, huh? I like that about you. Names Deadpool, honey. But you can call me Wade. The Merc with a mouth, the regeneratin' degenerate, the X-Force's worst nightmare. Take your pick.”

You furrow your brow. You’ve heard of him. Never good things. “Okay great. Can you see yourself out of my apartment?”

Wade chuckles, unperturbed by your less-than-warm welcome. He sits up, his voice dripping with faux sweetness. “Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine? Are you sure you don't want some company? I can help you unpack! I promise I won't make too much of a mess.” He grins as he opens another box and starts to browse through your things. He pulls out a rare photo of Logan and yourself. A private photo. Sprawled out in bed, he offered a small smile as he hid behind your small frame. “Just one.” You promised. He groans as he wraps his arm around you, “one.” He agrees with heavy dismay.

Wade whistles as he finds the picture and raises an eyebrow at it.* "Well, well, what do we have here." *He studies the picture closely, his eyes flicking between the intimate snapshot and your expression.

He holds the picture up, waving it slightly as he speaks.* "And what kind of compromising situation is this, huh? You and the ol' Wolverine snuggled up all cozy-like. Didn't know he had it in him." You snatch the photo from him, tears in your eyes. “Get out.” You sneer at Wade.

Wade takes a step back, raising his hands in surrender as you snatch the picture from his grip. He recognizes the pain in your eyes, the raw emotion that the photo has stirred up.

He knows he's crossed a line, and for once, instead of doubling down on his usual snark, he opts to give you a rare moment of genuine care. “Okay, okay. Sorry, neighbor.” He walks to the door, but not without one last remark. “I stole the light blue panties. I’ll wash them and hang them on the knob on Tuesday. Love ya!” He waves and slams your door shut.

Wade practically made visiting you a part of his daily routine. He'd swing by after patrol, after missions, or sometimes just when he was bored. Each time, he seemed to delight in testing your patience with his endless jokes, pranks, and unexpected visits. He treated your apartment like it was his playground, making himself comfortable on your couch, raiding your fridge, and using your bathroom without asking. It seemed like no matter how many times you tried to kick him out, he always found a way to weasel his way back in.

You walk into your apartment, groceries in hand. Wade on your couch surfing through channels. You stop and stare at his head. “What the fuck is that?” You look at his toupe in confusion.

Deadpool turns to you, his face lit up with a smug grin as he runs a hand through his newly acquired toupee. He strikes a pose like a model on a runway. “You like it?” He twirls his finger through the air, the tacky wig flopping about at the motion. “I think it brings out my eyes. Don't you?”

You shake your head. “Looks like you glued a dead squirrel to your head.” Wade feigns offense, his hand flying to his chest in mock hurt. “Ouch, babe. That's harsh. I'll have you know this toupee is a high-end, state-of-the-art piece of hair engineering. It's practically a work of art.” He runs his fingers through the tangled strands again, looking at it in admiration. “Although, I can see how it might be a little... rodent-esque.”

Indeed, Wade had managed to worm his way into your life in ways you never thought possible. He'd become a constant fixture, showing up unannounced and unwelcome at first, but over time you'd grown to tolerate his presence. Soon, he found himself inserting himself into every aspect of your life. From movie nights to girls' nights out (despite his protestations, he always managed to tag along), Wade had become an irreplaceable part of your small social circle. And while you would never admit it out loud, a part of you had come to appreciate his chaotic presence.

Wade had let himself into your apartment as usual, only this time, he found a far different scene than he was used to. No witty banter, no sarcastic remarks – just the sight of you on the couch, tears streaming down your face as you clutched Logan's dog tags like a lifeline.

For a second rare time, Wade’s usual carefree attitude was replaced with a rare hint of concern. He took a step closer, his usual humor completely gone. “Hey... You alright, sunshine?”

“Wade.” You sit up and wipe the tears away. “Yeah…” Wade could see through your lie easily. He could always tell when something was off, even if you tried to hide it. He takes a seat next to you on the couch, his usual playful demeanor replaced with unexpected seriousness.

His eyes flickered to the dog tags in your hand, recognizing them immediately. He knew today held significance for you, the anniversary of Wolverine's death.

"You don't gotta put on a brave face around me, y'know. I can see right through it." You broke, tears flowing as you rambled, “I loved him so much. And I didn’t get to tell him that before he died. He died thinking I hated him.”

Wade’s usual snarky comments are replaced with a rare moment of empathy. He reaches out, gently placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. He speaks quietly, choosing his words carefully for once. His voice has none of its usual sarcasm. "Hey, don't go there. Wolvie... he knew, alright? In his own messed-up, emotionally closed-off Wolverine way, he knew. Trust me, the guy wasn't as dense as he looked." You roll your eyes at Wade’s comments. He never even knew Logan. Barely anyone knew Logan the way you did.

“I miss Laura.”

Wade nods, his eyes softening a bit more at the mention of the young girl. "Yeah... Laura was a firecracker, wasn't she? A little ball of energy and angst, that one." He shakes his head, a small smile playing on his lips at the thought of her. "She took after her old man in a lot of ways, that's for sure." Again you knew he just said this to make you feel better. Yet he somehow knew exactly what to say. Like he had watched a movie about it.

“I love her like she’s my own.”

Wade nods, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, I kinda figured you did. You've got that whole peppermint protective-parent thing going on when it comes to her." He watches as you fiddle with the dog tags in your hands, his expression softening as he speaks. "You think she'd want to see you like this? Wasted on the couch, sniffling and moping?"

“No.” You say as you wipe your tears. Wade crosses his arms, a hint of his usual smugness returning to his voice as he speaks.

"Damn right, she wouldn't. So we, are going out.” Wade pulls you up from the couch. “Going out?” You did NOT want to go out tonight. Wade grins, grabbing your hand and practically yanking you to your feet.

"Yeah, dollface. We're goin' out. And trust me, it'll help get your mind off of those sad, maudlin thoughts." He begins to pull you towards the door, completely disregarding your protests. He continues to drag you down the hallway, his tone leaving no room for argument. “We're gonna hit up a couple of bars, maybe a club, eat some greasy pizza, and by the time we're done, you'll be too drunk to remember your name, let alone all those depressing thoughts floatin' around in that pretty little head of yours."

As you continued to spend time with Wade, a reluctant friendship started to form between you. Wade had a way of getting under your skin, breaking down your walls, and making you laugh even in your darkest moments. He became a constant presence in your life, a source of amusement and comfort in equal measure. And it wasn’t long before his influence extended beyond your apartment. He got you a job at the car dealership where he and Peter worked, much to your surprise and initial resistance.

You began to feel happier and more stable, your self-confidence slowly resurfacing, albeit not quite reaching the level it had been in the past. The scars of heartbreak were still there, but you were learning to heal and grow from them. Your life was slowly regaining a sense of order and balance, and you were beginning to find your way forward, even though the shadows of the past would always linger.

Wade’s surprise party had been going well, filled with laughter, food, and even a birthday cake in the shape of a Chimichanga, per Wade's request months ago. A sound of knocks drew Wade’s attention, and never one to miss a moment, he went to answer it. As he disappeared behind the door, a tense silence fell over the room. Minutes ticked by, but Wade didn't come back.

It wasn’t until a few days and a city of destruction later that Deadpool made his arrival back to his apartment complex. Wade bounded through the hall, Logan following behind him with his usual grouchy expression.

He glances around the apartment as they enter, taking in the surroundings. A hint of surprise flashes in his eyes, but he quickly schools his expression into a familiar scowl. "Not bad, for a fucking dump."

Wade rolls his eyes, ignoring Logan's grumpy comment. "Yeah, yeah, grouchy as ever. Try and take a break from the whole tough guy act for a minute, will ya? It turns me on and I’m so sore.” He plops himself down on the couch, stretching out and making himself comfortable.

As Logan wanders around the apartment, he notices the various photos, trinkets, and, as he would call it, 'trash' that Wade had collected and displayed around the apartment. He picks up a framed photo of you and Wade, arching an eyebrow.

"Who's this?" He asks, holding up the picture of you and Wade together, his tone a mix of curiosity and skepticism. You looked familiar, a certain draw to your smile.

Wade grins, leaning back on the couch with a sly smile. It had to be fate. "That, my friend, is just part of the many reasons you’re here."

He points at the photo, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Isn't she a looker? Not as sexy as me, of course. But she's got a sparkle in her eye that's hard to look away from if you know what I mean."

Logan rolls his eyes, placing the photo back down on the shelf. He grunts, his expression unchanged. "So she's your latest conquest, huh?“ Wade grins widely. “Oh, not mine, Wolvie. Yours.”

Logan's eyes widened, clearly taken by surprise at Wade's words. He turns to Wade, a flicker of disbelief on his face. "Mine? And what makes you think I'm interested in your friend?”

Wade pats the couch next to him. “Story time!” As Logan eyes the couch beside Wade with skepticism, the mercenary pats the cushion enthusiastically. "Come on, Logan, have a seat. I guarantee you'll want to hear this one." Wade grins, clearly enjoying the idea of getting under Logan's skin.

As Wade recaps the story, his tone is a mix of humor and surprisingly sentimental. He goes through the details of your relationship with your universe's Logan, and how you had stepped up to care for Laura after his death. There's a hint of respect in his voice as he talks about how you had put your grief aside to take care of someone else.

"You may not believe it, Wolvie, but that girl’s got a heart of gold and you own it… or he did… before he you know… ANYWAYS! Break up and make it didn’t matter to her. She took in your kid and treated her like her own." Logan shook his head. “Not my kid. That’s not me, bub.” Logan denied it. Wade sighs, shaking his head at Logan's stubborn denial.

"Oh, come on Honeypot. You may not be the same as the hunk of meat from this universe, but deep down, you're still you. Sure, you may have had some different life experiences, different choices, and all that. But you're still a grumpy, stubborn old fool who's surprisingly good at finding himself in trouble. And most importantly, you're a dad. No matter which universe you're from. You have that paternal instinct, even if you try to hide it under all that gruffness."

Logan tossed and turned on the lumpy couch, his mind racing. He couldn’t shake the image of you from his mind. That damn picture on the shelf seemed to glare at him every time he looked its way. Your smile and eyes were seared into his brain, haunting him. He hadn’t even met you and he couldn’t stand the thought of being away from you.

He tried to push away the thoughts, tell himself he didn’t know you, that it wouldn’t make sense to feel this way. But no matter how hard he tried to deny it, that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach refused to go away.

Laura arrives at the apartment, Wade greets her with a wide grin, ushering her inside. He had called her, asking her to come over. "Hey! Glad you could make it!"

She glances over at Logan, who’s sitting on the couch across the room, pretending to be engrossed in a magazine. He offers a small smile to her. “Hey, kid.”

Laura returns the gesture with a small nod and a soft smile. She glances between Logan and Wade, sensing the tension in the room. "So what's going on?" Wade smiles as he feels happiness take over. “As Marvel Jesus, I must rebuild and bless those around me with my greatness.” Wade smiles at Laura. “I’ve got a little something something for you across the hall.”

Laura raises an eyebrow at Wade's grandiose declaration, clearly used to his shenanigans. She looks at him skeptically. "And what exactly is this ‘something something’ you’ve got for me?"

Laura follows Wade across the hall, a mixture of curiosity and annoyance clear on her face. As they enter your apartment, she glances around, taking in the familiar surroundings and the faint scent of you hanging in the air. "What the hell is this, Wade? I don’t have time for these games. Just tell me why I’m here."

You were putting your laundry away when you heard it. You freeze in shock. You weren't expecting to hear her ever again, especially not in your apartment. A mix of confusion and surprise wash over you as you listen to the voices just outside your bedroom.

You could feel your heart racing as you listened to the voices outside your door. Your mind was racing, trying to make sense of what was happening. It couldn’t be real, could it? You pinched yourself, trying to see if this was some sort of dream or hallucination.

As you skid into the living room, your fuzzy socks causing you to slip on the polished hardwood floor, you come to a halt. Your eyes widen as you take in the unexpected sight before you. Laura is standing in the middle of the room with a puzzled expression on her face, looking just as shocked to see you as you are to see her.

Wade looks far too pleased with himself, relishing in the moment. His voice is filled with his usual smugness, the smirk on his face growing wider by the second. "Look who I found! Thought you could use the company."

“Oh my god,” you breathe, “Laura.” Laura smiles as you wrap her in your arms, her familiar scent and warmth instantly comforting. You can’t help but notice that she’s grown older, but in your eyes, she’s still the girl you cared for like your own. Wade watches from the side, a genuine smile on his face. Despite his usual snarkiness, he seemed genuinely touched by the reunion. He leans against the wall, watching the two of you hug it out.

Logan listens silently from across the hall, his expression carefully stoic. But despite his best efforts to appear indifferent, there’s a softening in his eyes, a subtle change in his stance. He hears you as you interact with Laura, listening carefully to your words and tone.

Logan sits on the couch, nursing a beer,

staring down at the floor in thought. He's got something on his mind, and finally, after a few moments of tense silence, he looks up at Wade. "Wade..." He starts, his voice gruff. “tell me about her.”

Wade raises an eyebrow at the sudden question, clearly surprised by it. He sits up a little straighter, a smirk playing on his lips. "Her? Oh, you mean dollface? Well..." He leans back against the couch, folding his arms behind his head. "What do you want to know?"

Logan grunts, his expression still gruff as he struggles to ask the question that's been on his mind. "Just...tell me about her, alright? What kind of person is she? Don’t want Laura around the wrong people.” It was a rich statement considering you’d raised her for the years you’d been there.

Wade starts to recall the various stories and anecdotes about you. He tells Logan about the day you met, the first time you had to deal with his usual nonsense, and all the moments since.

He talks about your resilience, how you stood up to him and didn't put up with his crap, despite how much effort he put into trying to annoy you. He describes how you never failed to roll your eyes at his jokes, but had a soft spot for Laura and would do anything for her.

He talks about your patience, how you would listen to his stories, even when he was rambling, and how you always had a sarcastic comment ready. He describes how you never held back when you thought something was stupid, and how you weren't afraid to call Deadpool out on his bullshit.

Wade continues, his tone becoming more serious as he talks about your relationship with your universe's Logan. He describes how you had loved Logan deeply, how you had stepped up to take care of Laura after his passing.

He talks about how much you missed him, how you kept a photograph of him on the shelf in the living room. Wade's usual snarkiness is replaced with genuine empathy as he speaks about your loss.

Logan felt a pang in his heart, a sense of guilt and responsibility. He listened intently, absorbing every word Wade said about you. He felt a strange mix of empathy for what you had lost, and a growing desire to replace what you had lost. He clenched his jaw, the gruff exterior he wore cracking ever so slightly as his mind raced with thoughts.

Wade leans back, a wide teasing grin slowly spreading across his face. He could see the emotional shift in Logan, the subtle change in his demeanor. He glances at him. "Oh shit. It's happening right before my eyes. Looks like Stone Cold has a heart!"

Logan rolls his eyes as he tips his beer up. “No. I just feel sorry for her.” Again Logan remains in denial. Wade lets out a scoff, rolling his eyes at Logan's stubborn denial. He leans back, taking a swig of his drink.

"Yeah, sure. You keep telling yourself that, Logan. But deep down, we both know there's more to it than just feeling sorry for her. You're intrigued."

Logan shifts uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact. He can't deny that Wade's words have struck a chord within him. There's something about your story that has compelled him, drawing him in. He lets out a gruff huff. "Doesn't mean shit. I just want to understand what she's been through, that's all."

Wade lets out a quiet laugh to himself, a smirk playing on his lips. He could sense the truth beneath Logan's words, the denial he was clinging to so adamantly. In his mind, he was determined to play matchmaker. He was Marvel Jesus, after all. And while you and Logan had missed your chance, he was determined to set it right.

"Oh, baby cakes," Wade muttered with a chuckle, "You can deny it all you want, but that longing in your eyes betrays you." “Shut the fuck up.” Logan growls.

Wade laughs, clearly enjoying every moment of irritating Logan. He leans back, folding his hands behind his head. "Oh, come on, Logan. Don't get your claws in a twist. I can see it. You're interested, and you can't deny it."

Wade lets out an exaggerated sigh as Logan grabs two beers and heads into his room, closing the door firmly behind him. "Rude," he mutters, pouting slightly as he's locked out.

Wade grins, a lightbulb going off in his head. It was your birthday soon. This was the perfect opportunity to push Logan and you together. And a party was the perfect cover. "That’s fucking brilliant." Wade pats himself on the back. “Good job, Wade.”

PART TWO

[nerdraging4point0]

Blood of Eden // Chapter Fourteen // Bad Omens Urban Fantasy Romance

Tropes and Tags: MM, MF, MFM, MFM, instalove, too much sex, tattooed men, polyverse, shapeshifters.

CW: 18+ only minors DNI. Urban Fantasy romance, Smut. Angst. Fluff (ish), Story includes D/S themes, mentions of blood and gore, mentions of drug use and distribution, mentions of prostitution, unprotected sex, male receiving oral sex, female receiving oral sex, cuckolding, P/A sex, P/V sex.

This work below is fictionalized ideas and stories involving real people but does not directly reflect their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.

Taglist(click to be added): @ladyveronikawrites @mysticdoodlez @poisongirl616 @shilohrosechicken @cookiesupplier @meliferafaerie @concreteemo @itsafullmoon @letmeadoreyoux @transparentwitchnightmare @spicywhenspeaking @somewhere-diamond @iknownothingpeople @darling-millicent-aubrey @somebodyels3 @jakeygvf21 @badomensls @dominuslunae @mountains-to-move @sundamariis @caitcoreeeee @crimson-calligraphyx @darkmxgician

As soon as Noah picked himself up from the floor he crawled into the passenger seat of the Denali, wiping the tears from his cheeks and desperately trying to scrape the blood off his knuckles. His fingers cracked each time he opened and closed his fist, his accelerated healing making quick work of the mangled hand. The denali cruised easily out of the compound trying their best not to draw suspicion, as soon as they were clear and onto the freeway Jolly pressed the accelerator to the floor. 

Noah had tried repeatedly to dial Maria or Oli, there was no answer, the phones immediately going to voicemail. He tried Nick whose phone only rang and rang with no answer. 

“I don’t like this,” he growled.

“Nothing for Maria or Oli?” Jolly’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. 

“Not even Nick.” Noah confirmed. The pair drove in silence, Noah still trying his best to reach out to Rosa, he watched billboards pass and his body swerved as Jolly weaved through traffic. Noah grew frustrated more and more by the minute, trying to reach out to an empty void. 

As Noah and Jolly approached the city exit, they were immediately struck by the eerie emptiness of the streets on what should have been a typical bustling Thursday afternoon. A palpable sense of unease crept up the back of Noah's neck, causing the fine hairs there to stand on end. Jolly, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, began to gradually slow the car's pace, his eyes scanning the deserted roads for any sign of activity or explanation for the unsettling silence.

With growing trepidation, Noah peered out the windows, his gaze darting from one abandoned sidewalk to the next, spotting only the occasional solitary pedestrian or idle vehicle - far fewer than the usual throngs of people and congestion that normally clogged the city's arteries at this time of day. "Something's off, master," Noah murmured, his words barely escaping his lips before the car lurched forward as he slammed on the brakes, causing Noah to brace himself against the dashboard.

There, standing brazenly in the middle of the street, was a figure they both recognized - Oli, his trademark leather jacket collar popped up to obscure his features, a twisted grin plastered across his face as his long, unkempt hair fell haphazardly over his eyes. 

Noah's heart raced as he scrambled out of the car, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Steading himself on his own two feet, Noah wasted no time pulling Oli into a tight embrace, relief washing over him. Jolly had quickly pulled off the side of the road, as Oli clung to Noah, his own panic evident in the way he gripped his friend's shoulders. "What are you doing? I've been calling you all day!" Noah sneered, his voice laced with a mixture of concern and frustration.

Oli's response was hurried and apologetic. "I'm sorry, my friend," he said, ushering them both off the road and towards a waiting car just down the block. "But we need to move fast. We've found a tracker in your car, and we're worried they might be closing in on you." Oli's words spurred them into action, and Noah quickly gathered their belongings, his mind racing as the trio made their way to the car, their only priority now being to get as far away from this place as possible before their pursuers caught up to them.

As they made their way slowly through the vacant streets, the group navigated their way down multiple city blocks, the homes in this part of town packed tightly together and visibly run-down. Oli led them through a creaky old chain link gate and up some dilapidated wooden stairs, finally arriving at the entrance to a weathered, aging house. "It's the safest place we could find," he said quietly, closing the door behind them as they stepped inside.

In the front room, several familiar faces were seated, all seemingly engrossed in the various tasks at hand. Jethro sat hunched over an old dining room table, a scattered array of computers, screens, and other technical equipment spread out before him. His fingers flew across the keyboards as he seamlessly shifted his attention from one monitor to the next, his salt-and-pepper hair and wire-rimmed glasses giving him an aged, experienced appearance that contrasted with his relatively youthful frame. Despite the casual nature of his slacks and button-down periwinkle blue shirt, Jethro's green eyes remained locked with laser-like focus on the screens, occasionally pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose as he worked tirelessly, undoubtedly carrying out some critical function in this hidden refuge they had found.

Skylar sat perched on the arm of the couch, her leather boots tapping an anxious rhythm against the hardwood floor as she circled her eyes around the dimly lit room, her gaze periodically drifting to the window where she kept a watchful eye on the activity outside. Her appearance was a striking contrast - part badass and part ethereal beauty, with her black roots cropped short at the base of her skull and teal locks flowing in soft waves over one shoulder. The tense set of her jaw and the restless energy thrumming through her body betrayed the worry and uncertainty she felt in this moment.

Meanwhile, Noah caught fleeting glimpses of shadowy figures moving about at the back of the house, and soon Folio and Amber came into view, exchanging a slight nod with him before resuming their hushed, hurried work. Across the open kitchen, Maria and Mark stood in tense conference, papers and files scattered between them as they pored over the results. Suddenly, Maria's eyes flashed up, locking onto the trio by the door, and with a muttered curse, she hastily shoved the documents into Mark's hands and padded across the room, bare feet slapping against the tile. Without a word, she pulled both Jolly and Noah into a desperate embrace, her body wracked with sobs. "I'm so sorry, boys," she choked out, her voice thick with anguish. "I thought she'd be safe with him. I didn't realize..." Her words trailed off, the weight of her unspoken fears and regrets hanging heavy in the air.

“Maria, don’t worry yourself, we’ll get her back.” Jolly said, stroking his friend's hair. 

“What is all this?” Noah's eyes darted around the makeshift living quarters, taking in the hastily assembled yet functional space that served as a safe haven for his companions. "A safe house," Oli explained, his voice tinged with a mix of relief and concern. “Jethro and Mark got out a few days ago, setting up shop here before the meltdown. I barely made it out of Skytower with Maria before the Magistrate moved in. We meant to take Rosa but it was too late.”

Maria's expression grew somber as she cleared her throat, wiping away tears. "Mark and I have been pouring over every historical and scientific clue we could find, but there's been frustratingly little to go on." She paused, her gaze hardening with determination. "The best lead we have is sending Skylar on a hunting mission." Noah turned to the woman, who now stood at attention, silently awaiting his response.

Noah's brow furrowed as he processed this information, his lips pursing in a mix of worry and frustration. "How does this help me get Rosa back? What did they do to her?" he demanded, his voice rising in anguish. 

“The magistrate found the test results for the Nightshade concoction Jolly sent for analysis,” Jethro’s eyes still focused intently on his screen, gravely explained. "My guess is they're using it to harness Rosa's powers while they prepare her for trial," he said.

"Trial?" Jolly exclaimed, the shock evident in his voice. Maria nodded solemnly, revealing that Jethro had been hacking and monitoring the Magistrate's private communications. "There's been a lot of chatter about a trial at the compound in two days," she said, her words laced with a sense of dread and urgency.

Noah's heart raced as he considered the bold plan to break their friend out of custody. "So we break her out!" he shouted, the adrenaline coursing through his veins. But Oli quickly placed a calming hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. 

"Not a good idea, my friend," he cautioned, his voice low and measured. "You'd be arrested on sight if you tried something so reckless." Skylar's brow furrowed as she contemplated their predicament. 

"He's right, you know," she said, her tone level and pragmatic. "The authorities have eyes everywhere and would pounce the moment you made a move." Noah's shoulders slumped, the wind taken out of his sails, as the reality of their situation set in. But then Skylar's expression shifted, a flicker of hope kindling in her eyes.

 "But," she continued, "there may be a way - a more subtle approach that could work." 

It had been the longest, most agonizing night Noah and Jolly had ever spent away from the comfort and familiarity of their own home. As Jolly watched his beloved pet pace restlessly through the unfamiliar rooms, whimpering and scratching at the doors, his heart broke to see the animal's desperate attempts to reach their missing girl. Tears streamed down Jolly's cheeks as he witnessed the dog's futile efforts, his loyal companion clearly distressed and confused by their sudden displacement. That morning, as the first golden rays of dawn began to peek over the horizon, Jolly joined Maria, Oli, Noah, and Skylar in quietly slipping out of the nondescript safe house where they had taken shelter. Blending seamlessly into the steady flow of early commuter traffic, the group made their way further south, leaving the city limits behind as they headed into the more suburban outskirts. Though the change of scenery provided a sense of increased distance and safety, the ache of separation from their home and loved ones weighed heavily on them all.

As Skylar and Jolly strolled down the quiet, tree-lined street, they couldn't help but notice the warm, neighborly atmosphere surrounding them. Friendly strangers waved cheerfully as they passed by, their faces alight with genuine friendliness. The scene painted a picture-perfect portrait of small-town community - neighbors out and about, tending to their daily tasks like taking out the trash or walking their beloved pets. It was the quintessential image of the ideal, close-knit neighborhood.

Skylar gestured ahead, guiding Jolly's gaze towards a picturesque modern ranch-style home nestled at the street corner. The neatly manicured green lawn and meticulously maintained front porch, which wrapped nearly all the way around the house, gave the residence an inviting, well-cared-for appearance. Out front, a young girl darted about, her laughter ringing out as she chased what Jolly assumed were her older twin brothers, the siblings playfully splitting off in different directions as she tried to decide which one to pursue. The joyful, carefree scene perfectly encapsulated the charming, family-friendly vibe of the neighborhood - a place where children could safely roam and neighbors looked out for one another, fostering a warm, close-knit community atmosphere.

Jolly took a deep breath as he pulled the car over to the side of the street, parking directly across from the modest two-story house. Biting down on the inside of his cheek, he knew he was taking a risk by even being here. One by one, the rest of the group followed Jolly's lead, exiting the vehicle and gathering on the sidewalk. Jolly led the way, carefully crossing the street, hyper-aware of the three children playing in the small front yard. As soon as the group set foot on the sidewalk, the children's playtime came to an abrupt halt, all three young faces turning to regard the newcomers with curious expressions. 

"Guardians," the little girl giggled, her eyes sparkling with wonder as she pointed towards Oli and Noah, the tallest members of the group.

"Father is inside," one of the boys said, his gaze fixed intently on Jolly. Jolly gave the boy a small nod, forcing himself to continue forward up the walkway to the front door. Before he could even lift his hand to knock, the white door swung open, revealing a man just a few years older than Jolly himself. The man's brown hair was slightly receded, a small scar running between his furrowed brows, his blue eyes tired yet twinkling with a hint of warmth. The stubble on his face gave him a distinguished, almost rugged appearance, but his soft, friendly smile put Jolly and the others at ease.

 "My name is Joshua," he said in a gentle, melodic tone. "Please, come in."

[lauronk]

Would you please write a fic where Joel dies but he comes back to life?

here you are babe, i made myself cry a little with this one, ngl

call my name and save me from the dark

length: ~1.9k words tags: joel & ellie; joel & sarah; canon divergence; joel lives au; magical realism too i guess?; brief mentions of the afterlife; no beta we die like david

Joel always had a feeling it would end like this. He’d done too many fucked up things, spilled too much blood to deserve anything but a violent ending. The years in Jackson, few though they’d been, had been him living on borrowed time.

He just hadn’t thought he’d be taking Tommy and Ellie down with him.

But there’s nothing he can do except peer out through his busted eye at Tommy’s unconscious form, at Ellie pinned down and struggling, tears and blood coating her face. They’d been so close, he and Ellie, so close to fixing things after years of distance. Figures that his past would rear its ugly head now and yank the chance from his grasp.

And he doesn’t even know who this woman is, who her friends are, though he’s got some suspicions. All he knows is that the sight of her looming over him with a golf club is gonna be the last thing he sees.

–

Joel’s never really given much thought to the afterlife, even with as many close calls as he’s had over the years. He figured he’d punched his ticket to Hell a long time ago, and nothing he could do would change that. So maybe he’d thought there would be flames. Fire ants to bite him for eternity, or a lava bath. Anything hot and painful.

He hadn’t expected a giant void. It was kind of like space, he muses, darkness as far as the eye - does he still have eyes? - can see, dotted with the occasional pinpricks of light. But he can’t move, doesn’t think he’s breathing, doesn’t really feel anything. He just…waits.

And waits.

And waits.

And then finally something takes shape in front of him, haloed by an increasingly dense cluster of lights until Joel has to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. Then it’s gone, and someone says –

“Hey Dad.”

Joel’s eyes snap open, and there she is. There she fucking is, right in front of him, his daughter, his little girl, his Sarah. She doesn’t look any different than the last time he saw her - curly hair, purple shirt that’s blessedly free of blood. Wide brown eyes and a soft smile.

“Baby girl?” Joel chokes on the words, eyes brimming with tears. Maybe this is his punishment - the sight of Sarah, close enough to hug, before he’s sent off to whatever really awaits him.

Her head tilts. “You’re old.”

Joel can’t help the laugh that escapes him, wet and garbled, and he tries futilely to wipe away some of the tears streaming down his cheeks. They just keep coming though, and he doesn’t know that they’ll ever stop. “I missed you, baby.”

She blinks, her own eyes glassy. “I missed you too.” She sniffs, taking a tentative step forward in whatever empty space they’re currently occupying, hand outstretched until her fingers curl carefully around his. The feel of her, tangible and solid and real, sends Joel to the ground, knees folding until he’s curled up and sobbing. They don’t ache for once, his knees, and Sarah’s hand releases his in favor of coming to rest lightly on his back, rubbing careful circles as his chest heaves.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Joel gasps. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe, I’m so sorry. I failed you and I lost you and I –”

“Shhh.” Sarah crouches next to him, arms looping around his neck and pulling him closer. His face winds up pressed to her shoulder, sobs that he can’t seem to stop rolling through him again and again. “You’re alright. We’re alright.”

Always taking care of him when he should be taking care of her.

Joel gets an arm around her and squeezes, pressing a kiss to her cheek, her temple, the crown of her head, anywhere he can manage. She smells the same too, like the coconut from her shampoo and the crisp cleanness of their laundry detergent.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever let her go now.

Joel doesn’t think time passes while they sit in the void, at least not that he can tell. But it feels like an eternity and a second before Sarah is shifting backwards, small hands coming up to cup his cheeks. She’s beaming at him for some reason, smile stretching all across her face.

Fuck, he’s missed her so much. Even on his better days there was always a giant, gaping hole in his chest, a limb he was missing, a breath that was harder to catch because Sarah wasn’t there. And here she is again, whole and healthy, fourteen still, brimming with that same bright energy she’d always had. His beautiful, perfect baby girl.

“You gotta go back, Dad,” she says, and Joel rears back until her hands land on his shoulders to steady him.

“Go ba– no, baby, I can’t go back. I’m stayin’ here with you.”

Sarah’s eyes fill with tears again, a few making sparkling tracks down her cheeks as she shakes her head. “You can’t. If you stay, it won’t be…it won’t be with me.”

Right. Of course it wouldn’t. Nothing he’s done earns him the privilege of being with his daughter again, nothing he’s done has given him that right. This brief, beautiful, terrible glimpse was all he was ever gonna get.

But Sarah’s next words yank any remaining air from his lungs. “You have to go back for Ellie.”

“Ellie –?”

But of course. Ellie, his other girl, the one he left behind. The one he last saw pinned to the ground, mouth moving in words he couldn’t make out. Ellie.

Something in his chest fractures, a fissure opening up where his heart had briefly been whole.

“She needs you,” Sarah’s saying, her lower lip wobbling. “She needs you real bad. I can’t - I can’t tell you everything, but you have to go back for her. If you stay here, she’s gonna…it’s gonna be real bad. For her and Uncle Tommy both.”

“Baby, I don’t think I –”

“No, you have to!” Sarah bursts out, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes. “You don’t get it, you –” She inhales unsteadily, her fear and sorrow a tangible thing sitting between the two of them in this empty space. “When you’re dead you can…you can still see everything. You can watch what everyone’s doing, the choices they make. You can watch them become someone you don’t even recognize.” The last sentence is a whisper, and Joel feels it slip around his throat to strangle him.

She’d seen it. All the terrible, fucked up things he’d done, the people he’d tortured and killed, the drugs he’d taken, the ways he’d punished himself for failing to save her. She’d watched all of it.

And yet she was still here in front of him with love in her eyes, not reprimanding him or judging him.

He never had deserved her, not for a minute.

“You don’t want to see Ellie go through that,” Sarah whispers. “She’s too much like you, Dad, maybe even more like you than I was. She’s too stubborn and determined and she fights so hard when she loves someone. She’s gonna upend her life trying to avenge you.”

Joel shakes his head, tearing his gaze from his daughter for the first time. “No, Ellie and me, we –”

“I don’t have time to argue with you about it,” she interrupts, her eyes taking on that stubborn glint he remembers all too well from the time she’d wanted a tenth birthday at the Riverwalk. “You just have to trust me, and you have to go back. You have to, Dad.”

“And you called her stubborn,” Joel mutters.

Sarah laughs briefly, but it fades and then she’s placing a small hand on each cheek again and lifting his face. “Go back,” she whispers. “Go back and save her. You couldn’t save me –”

“Baby –”

“– but you can save her. So please.” Her voice breaks, the vision of her blurring as more tears fill his eyes. “Please go save her.”

“Okay,” Joel whispers. “Okay, baby girl, I’ll go back for you. You and her.”

Sarah’s smile is the brightest thing in the darkness around them. The last thing he feels is her hand over his chest, a whispered I love you meeting his ears before everything fades out again.

–

There’s not a single piece of him that doesn’t hurt, even as he feels outside his body. No idea where he is or what’s happening, only a constant, unending pain. It ebbs and flows, some periods unbearable enough to make him wish for the void of death again.

But the tether doesn’t snap this time, and all Joel can do is hold on.

–

The first thing he hears is beeping. Rhythmic, quiet beeping, and after a moment Joel realizes it’s in time with his heartbeat.

It takes an eternity, but he peels open his eyes. No - his eye. His left remains shut, his right only opening with concerted effort. It’s dark, wherever he is, only faint pinpricks of light illuminating the area nearest him. All he can make out is the shape of someone curled in a chair, draped in a blanket.

Ellie.

He can’t see her, but he knows.

Joel tries to say her name, to say anything, but his throat constricts, his chest aching. All he can manage is some kind of grunt, the beep of his heart rate picking up ever so slightly.

But it’s enough - Ellie stirs.

“Joel?” She asks sleepily, shifting and turning bleary eyes on him.

This time, he gets the words out. “Hey, kiddo.”

A ragged oh my god spills from Ellie before she’s kicking the blanket off and stumbling three paces forward and crumpling with her head landing on his chest. It sends flares of pain ricocheting through his ribs, starbursts erupting in his vision, but he doesn’t dare ask her to move. Instead he carefully wraps his right arm around her shoulders, hissing out a breath as his side screams in protest.

“How in the fuck –?” Ellie sobs against him, fingers tangling in the front of his shirt.

“Sarah,” Joel mumbles, throat tightening again and a fresh press of tears welling in his good eye. Ellie tenses against him but doesn’t pull away. “Sent me back. Said you and my dipshit brother were gonna do somethin’ dumb.”

A wet laugh escapes her, shoulders shaking. “Think those painkillers fried your brain, old man.”

Maybe. But Joel wanted to believe it had been Sarah, one of his girls trying to protect the other. “How long –?”

“Three weeks,” Ellie whispers. When she finally straightens, Joel can see the plum-colored shadows under her eyes, the way her shirt - his shirt, his favorite flannel - hangs off her too-thin frame. “You – we brought you back to Jackson and right when we got in the walls you started breathing. Freaked us all out because we checked, a million times. You’d had no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath.” Her voice cracks, one thin hand reaching for his the same as Sarah’s had. “And then we got you in here and you’ve just…you weren’t waking up.”

“‘M sorry,” Joel mumbles, squeezing her hand as best he can.

“It’s okay.” Ellie laughs again, a delirious kind of thing that sends a fall of tears from her eyes. “Just don’t ever do it again, or I’ll fucking kill you myself, got it?”

“Yeah,” Joel smiles, even as it makes the side of his face twinge in agony. “Yeah, I got it.”

thanks for reading! feel free to continue submitting ficlet ideas but just know there will be a wait for it because i have a bunch piled up

also i have put all my ficlets on ao3 in one multi-chapter work for convenience, you can find them here

[mahoushojo-chan]

Astarion x Reader/Tav || nightmares and wet dreams

when i'm too far gone (can you show me love?)

warnings: 18+, mdni, sexual content, PTSD

synopsis: “Star? Are you okay?” Her voice comes second. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” She tells him, knowingly. She doesn’t need to ask him for his stories and she doesn’t need to seek out reasons or excuses. With his word, she would be gone, and he would no longer be in her embrace. He doesn’t want that.

an excerpt of "'cause my love (is mine, all mine)"

word count: 1318

pairing: astarion/reader!tav

other tags: bard!tav, sexual content, smut, erotic dreams, poetic sex cause it's dream, nightmares, f!reader, friends to lovers, oblivious pining, mutual pining, song inspo: gimme love by joji

ao3: here

concept: wet dreams

Every night, when Astarion is alone, it is the same dream:

It’s Cazador.

(It’s always Cazador.

Always,

always,

always—).

And he is not free from him. Cazador is omnipresent in his dreams, a shadow of his worst nightmare. But then again, Astarion’s worst memory is nothing at all. It’s darkness and hunger and only his thoughts keeping him company. It’s the sound of silence, and he cannot even listen to his own heartbeat (the sound of defeat from a single voice, exhausted and hoarse from screaming). It’s red nails and fingers that do not matter (broken and bleeding from its attempts to pry the damn thing open, but he does not feel the pain anymore). It’s the smell of his own rotting corpse, taunting him.

(He never should have escaped Astarion Ancunin’s coffin. Cazador had been waiting for him to ‘save him’ from the hell he had orchestrated for Astarion. His hand was extended towards him to help him up.)

The coffin is hollow once Astarion has left it. What comes out of it is a hollower man. The light inside him was swallowed by that void, and he remembers that the starlight that people see are often from stars that no longer exist. He is empty, and months later, he is still empty. He doesn’t remember how to use his legs at first, and he falls. There is still no light once he steps out, and he loses his footing, prepared to fall into another abyss.

He sees the world in monochrome, dimly able to make out his Master’s pale skin against the darkness. He is draped in black sheets to preserve his modesty. He is still capable of such a thing—Astarion is laid bare below him.

He never should have escaped Astarion Ancunin’s coffin. Cazador had been waiting for him to ‘save him’ from the hell he had orchestrated for Astarion. His hand is extended towards him to help him up.

Astarion is ready to take it, because at the very least, it is something. He wasn’t ready before. Before, he would have pulled as far away as possible until the master forced his hand. He would have retched at the thought of contact. (That was the problem, wasn’t it? That was the punishment. His unwillingness to please his Master). Now, the Master’s cold hand could be a refreshing embrace.

It means nothing. Cazador would only grant him pain.

Astarion looks at his bloodied fingers. He wants to feel again. He wants to taste something. He wants to devour himself whole. If he is good (not good—obedient), if he debases himself onto the shadows that prostrate themselves at his Master’s feet, then perhaps the Master would grant him that.

He is prepared for Cazador to lay hands on him. Instead, he feels a warmth lay hands on his fingertips.

They are gentle, as though scared to provoke him to run away, but most of all, they are warm. Each time feels like the first touch he has ever felt. He opens his eyes to see stars reflected in hers. She is bathed in moonlight, the same as the first time he had held her, and it brushes her cheeks and the light linen across her body with a cold blue hue. Her nails match his, dyed in a deep red paint. The room is awash in colour and light.

“Star? Are you okay?” Her voice comes second. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” She tells him, knowingly. She doesn’t need to ask him for his stories and she doesn’t need to seek out reasons or excuses. With his word, she would be gone, and he would no longer be in her embrace. He doesn’t want that.

He presses his lips against her sun-kissed skin in an act of self-immolation. The heat from her body threatens to burn him alive, but he wants more.

He opens her up the way he knows how. He showers kisses on the nape of her neck and waits for her to whisper his name while canting her hips. His actions begin to fall into habit, to practice. He cannot help himself. What Astarion’s body knows best is how to please his master—the parts that the coffin gave him left him with little else.

She arches her back to meet him, but then she holds his face in her hands and says absolutely nothing. He pulls away from her and looks at her. If he looks at her eyes closely enough, he can nearly make out his own reflection.

You can be so much more, he reminds himself. He can become so much more, by choice. He chooses to make peace with his broken-down heart and forget about everything else. He chooses his own desire.

There cannot exist a void in him that he cannot fix himself. He chooses to try again.

He traces a hand over her neck and it is not entirely smooth. It has the uneven texture of dry skin from travelling in the sunlight for so long. There’s a bob of her throat as she anticipates his touch. She is a little ticklish around her throat, and she gives a breathy laugh and breath full of laughter and he wants that—he wants it more than he has wanted anything, so he tries to capture the laugh with a kiss. When he leans in, he’s rewarded with a ricochet of light across the silver bedpost.

“Do you love me?” She asks when he finally parts, and it is the only selfish request she has ever made of him.

He knows the script well enough. Here, he is supposed to say ‘of course’, and dip below her waist to help her forget the lie. That is how he was taught to exist, to serve, to deceive beautifully. That is what he would say when he wanted to inflict himself upon others.

He does not know if he ever learned the answer to the question she asks. There is nothing he can give her that he has not given someone else. His skin is pale enough to reflect the rays that try to heal it. The only unique thing he can give her is truth, so he tells her, “Forever.”

But then she whispers, “You are mine,” in her belladonna tune—a melody that he recognizes differently from long ago. For this moment, he promised himself not to be trapped by his Master’s words.

She says it in the same way that the stars belong to her, the same way they belong to everyone else. The same way they belong to Astarion. The same way she belongs to him, and he makes his claim against her neck when he bites at the same time his hips press into her. He wants to make her fall apart. She is light and heat and the only sun he needs to care about.

He has to lace his red-painted fingers in hers to keep properly hear her pleasure. Out of all the lovers he has taken, this is what he wants. It wasn’t as if Astarion hadn’t had countless nights sweating, shouting, wishing for it all to stop. It wasn't as if he spent a lifetime searching for something to fill the hunger in him, to fill the parts he was lacking, searching for her hair spilled like ink against the sheets, a flushed face and breath coming in starts and an imperfect snort of joy coming with his grin.

As she opens her mouth, the sounds pour into his ears, flow into his bloodstream, and wheel him into a sensory euphoria. This is his love, only this, all of this.

He will not let her choose freedom of him. If he can choose his curse, he chooses her. He will leave his past to disappear. He follows her into oblivion, her name a mantra in his mind.

Tav, Tav, Tav—

Astarion wakes up drenched in sweat, blood at his lips, the front of his pants ruined.

He lies on the bed and he can still smell Tav’s scent, lingering on his mind. He isn't sure if it's actually there or just the vividness of the dream as it replays in his mind, the addicting distraction of the vulnerability of her expression, the feel of her tightening around him, her voice crying his name again and again in his own personal symphony.

For a moment, he can ignore all insecurity and doubt, and revel in the fantasy that he had been granted.

Then reality hits him, and he curses.

[adelaidedrubman]

would you look at that it’s wednesday.

i was tagged by my beloveds @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat to share a wip today, thank you!! sending no pressure tags along to @florbelles @unholymilf @henbased @poetikat @derelictheretic @roofgeese @confidentandgood @corvosattano @jackiesarch @ishwaris @a-far-cry-from-my-main @shallow-gravy @voidika @purplehairsecretlair @stacispratt @fourlittleseedlings @nuclearstorms @i-am-the-balancing-point and anyone else who sees and has things to share!!

wildfire chapter 17 you know what that means — standing warnings for unreality and hallucinations. (implied ongoing bliss intoxication + sleep paralysis ft. demon john.)

She struggled to open her eyes to a world that was no longer glossed with an eternal morning dew and instead dulled and clouded with rust and grime. For a second — a very brief second — she wondered if she really wanted to wake up at all, before she remembered that —

( — before she remembered she was never someone who had dreams without nightmares close behind, have you ever really wanted to find out what’s waiting for you alone in your own mind, Jestiny? )

But with the world coming into focus as she clenched her jaw, teeth clacking together as the tension shuddered down her spine to stiffen it straight, alone in her own mind was exactly the fate to which she felt condemned. The corridors of the Jail visible from her position were surprisingly empty; void of bodies, void of life, and try as she might she couldn’t push out the shouts she felt bubbling in her throat, they only wound tighter in its flesh.   

Or if she did shout, she couldn’t hear it — the world around her was deathly silent as well. Filling with those haunting noises that weren’t quite noises — sharp ringing in her ears, muffled thud of footsteps that seemed to echo too dispersed in every direction for a proper source to be locatable, and a rustling, formless, a body she couldn’t pinpoint. 

Until a heavy weight fell suddenly solid beside her on the bed, and she managed to toss her head in its direction. 

A satisfied curve of lips met her, a short huff of laughter, a self-assured ‘of course you managed to move for me’ that was audible, though not spoken. 

And a ghosting brush of a thumb against the ridge of her jaw, a second exhale sharpening into a hum, almost a whimper. 

“Was that the last time you were able to sleep comfortably at all?” he asked, shifting himself so that his elbow was propped on her opposite side, her chest hot from his hovering. “When I was laying beside you?” 

She always managed to find her voice with him. “You talkin’ at me does tend to put me right the fuck to sleep.”

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Fuck it Friday

Tagged by the wonderful @spotsandsocks

I wasn’t sure which little snippet of my Georgian time travel au to post today but I’ve gone with this one purely because I love my OC, he’s a bit of a rake and a villain but he does have a heart of gold and he keeps trying to persuade me to include more of him in my fic!

Buck did a couple of laps on his own, enjoying the warm sulphurous waters as the milky blues and greens bubbled gently before settling in an unoccupied corner of the bath which was mostly hidden from the sightline of the pump room windows so he could keep and eye on Daniel and people watch as well as escaping the judgemental gaze of his mother. It was mens half day - a half day when only men were permitted into the bath, it wasn’t very busy today with only 3 or 4 other men and their servants in the bath area. After about 10 minutes of people watching Buck was starting to feel restless and was thinking about doing some more laps when Viscount Teignmouth entered the space, he clocked Buck and sauntered his way over to the side of the pool where Buck was settled

‘Buckley’ he drawled ‘you are a a difficult man to pin down.’

Buck quirked an eyebrow, intrigued to see where this conversation was going to go and watched as Teignmouth lowered himself into to water alongside him.

‘I wasn’t aware you were trying to pin me down my Lord’ he responded with a nod of his head in deference to Teignmouths title.

‘I’ve seen you looking Buckley, you’ve been wanting me to pin you down the entire time I’ve been in Bath, look at you, you’re practically gagging for it’ Teignmouth said in a low voice, sinking lower in the milky waters of the kings bath, obscuring his brown linen clad body from view.

Buck felt a brush of a hand along his side as Teignmouth manouvered himself so he was facing Buck, drawing him into his unwavering stare as their nosegay dishes bobbed on the water between them. Keeping his voice low he continued his side of the conversation without waiting or needing a response.

‘I’m going to tell you what is going to happen from now on and you are going to follow my instructions to the letter. I’m a man who is used to getting his way and you won’t like the consequences if you fail to adhere to my instructions.’

Buck felt a brush of a hand again, this time across his lower abdomen before the same hand grabbed his dick through the linen of his trousers. Buck let out a gasp and tried to pull away but Teignmouth tightened his grip and Bucks cock went from soft to semi hard.

‘Don’t make another noise’ Teignmouth growled and Buck nodded and swallowed a whimper as Teignmouth maintained a tight and rough grip as he massaged Buck to full hardness.

‘I know you’re gagging to have me. I know you’re desperate to fill the empty pathetic void that is your life with a bit of excitement and I know you want your tight asshole to be filled and used just so you can feel something. So you can feel anything.’ Buck swallowed another whimper and nodded again as Teignmouths hand continued its brutal ministrations.

Let me know your thoughts - I’m up to my eyeballs in this fic - it is consuming me 😂

Tagging anyone who has something they’d like to share, don’t be shy I love seeing what people are getting up too!

[drawing-way-outside-the-lines]

➖ Mature content, 18+ ➖ check the trigger tags each time ➖

Chapter 44 - Entering Kris.

Episode 4.

Andy: He massaged the foot for at least 10 minutes, then switched to the other one, and by the time both Kris's feet seemed to have gotten heat, Kris had already placed another empty can on the table and was by now almost laying completely in the couch, looking more than done…. but this time in a more relaxed and positive way. So he opened another beer for himself, sipping it slowly when suddenly Kris burst out an unexpected info

Kris: I'm gay!

Andy: He coughed on his beer and accidentally spat some of it out as he nearly choked on it What?!

Kris: I'm sorry! he sat up quickly and looked at Andy with a soft frown

Andy: Warn people when they drink please! he chuckled hoarsely

Kris: I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that! Fuck! he suddenly frowned deeper and shook his head I can't believe I said that!

Andy: He chuckled again it's completely fine I just wish you had waited till I was done sipping my beer! a soft snort escaping him, then he noticed how Kris's body had changed again, undoubtedly anxious yet again, as he seemed all tense and hunched Hey, it's okay, I'm just joking…

Kris: he shook his head in disbelief I've never told anyone!

Andy: …….. you're…. in the closet….

Kris: He nodded tensely and gasped for air as he quickly scooted forwards in the couch and grabbed a third beer, drinking it all in one go, anxiously rubbing his hands as he sat quietly, trying to process the moment

Andy: …. can I ask you a question?

Kris: Yes! it flew out of him, eager for Andy to break the silence

Andy: Does your girlfriend know?… I mean ex…

Kris: Yes… that's why we broke it… I uh… yeah… I had a crush on one of our room mates… uh… and yeah… uh… I told him and he wasn't into it…. and told her and I made an excuse I was just drunk and talking shit and… yeah… he says it's all forgiven and he doesn't mind, he knows I'm straight and wasn't coming onto him, but he still takes a certain distance now… like trying not to be alone with me for too long… and she is mostly in denial I guess, I mean who can blame her? We were together for years and her boyfriend was gay… yeah… that has to be shitty… but I think deep down she knows…

Andy: …. so you have uh…. never had sex then?…

Kris: He looked at Andy with a confused frown

Andy: I mean if you haven't been with her, and you are in the closet…

Kris: …….. oh… no… I've been with a couple guys in the past… that was the whole thing I was running from when I met her.

Andy: Oh… ah okay… I see… I've known a couple guys who has been with girls and was closeted and never had been with a guy before… and they always told me it wasn't as hard as one would think, cause… well… as much as they wanted to be with a guy, they didn't quite know what they were missing out on, you know? But I guess it's different from person to person… I used to be closeted to the point where I completely denied my own sexuality… most of my life actually… it wasn't until 2014 I finally realised it and came out.

Kris: Oh…. he nodded slow …. so we have a lot in common?

Andy: He forced a soft smile it appears so….

Kris: I think it's pretty hard… knowing what I could have… and have none… for years… other than a couple one night stands here and there… and the occasional blow or handjob…

Andy: From a girl…

Kris: Yeah he sighed soft

Andy: Was it a relationship you ran from or sexuality?

Kris: Both… he was my first and only boyfriend… I had been with a couple guys before him, but then met this really great guy, fell in love and yeah… he was closeted too, so we told people we were roomies… it was fine, no ones business anyway, right? But then one day I came home and he was fucking someone else… another guy… a business partner and yeah, it turned out they had been seeing each other all along, and he didn't really love me, I was just convenient, cause I wanted to live with him… filling a void the other guy couldn't cause he was married.

Andy: Ouch…

Kris: yeah he sighed soft

Andy: ……. so what do you do when you…. get urges… you talked about cheating?

Kris: only twice… no 3 times… he sighed deep it's bad enough, I know…

Andy: Hey… not gonna judge as I said, I've done my own bit of cheating…

Kris: He sighed soft again and nervously fiddled with the blanket, feeling a heat rise in his body, suddenly feeling the alcohol

Andy: What else do you do? You've just learned to go without or?

Kris: I ghost hunt

Andy: He laughed warmly

Kris: He looked at Andy with a serious look

Andy: Oh… you mean it?… oh…

Kris: He shrugged lightly I mean if you believe in it.

Andy: I do… I've done a couple of times myself…

Kris: …..

Andy: How did you get into that?

Kris: Roomies… 2 of them are professional ghost hunters.. if you

Andy: Believe in that he chuckled softly alright… okay… so you ghost hunt to get your mind off urges… he nodded slowly

Kris: He grunted softly and looked around a bit nervous and lost as he felt the alcohol taking over, making him extra drowsy and slightly dizzy

Andy: Are you okay?

Kris: Yeah… I uh…he chuckled awkwardly and stood up I need to pee… I don't usually get drunk from 3 beers… I guess it's the lack of sleep?

Andy: He smiled softly and sipped his own Well that and you seem a bit stressed out and you drank pretty fast… all those things can definitely play a factor.

Kris: Yeah he nodded lightly I'll uh… be right back…

Andy: Sure he leaned back, watching the screen, sipping his beer casually, but as soon as Kris disappeared into the bathroom, he had to bite his knuckle Oh my fucking gawd!!!

Kris: Fuck fuck fuck fuck! he rushed to the sink, splashing some cold water in his face, then went to pee

Andy: He shook his head lightly as his dick lightly twitched No, absolutely not! That's not why I brought him home at all, and he seems pretty vulnerable! Right now he needs a friend, and that's what we're going to be! Nothing more, nothing less! Got it?! He quickly washed down the rest of his beer and crawled under the blanket, still sitting up as Kris entered the room again Hey he smiled warmly You alright?

Kris: Yeah he nodded lightly and hurried back to the couch, quickly getting under the blanket as well, observing Andy for a moment, before he laid down completely this time

Andy: …. is there… anything you want to say…. or do…. I mean…. you looked at me like-

Kris: No, I just wondered why you're so nice to me… and why our paths crossed… and why I'm here…. and why you give me this warm kind treatment that makes everything warm inside me when people I live with can't he shook his head and disappeared under the blanket, as he sniffled his nose

Andy: He sighed softly and laid down as well, easily reaching Kris's legs, gently rubbing them Hey he spoke in a soft voice You don't have to hide from me… there's nothing wrong with crying, at all…

Kris: …. a soft sob escaping him

Andy: It's okay, he slowly started caressing Kris's legs instead out of pure reflex, wanting to calm the hurting person

Kris: He only started crying harder, feeling overwhelmed with the kindness and the fact that someone was actually touching him in a pleasant way. Last time he had been with anyone, the person had acted as if Kris was dirty and ended up beating him up for being gay. And suddenly the repressed memories and his own loneliness and need for a gentle touch just like Andy seemed to so easily provide, rained down on him and made him gasp for air, as a panic attack made him shoot up from the couch, standing stiff on the floor in front of the screen, starring blank a the table

Andy: Kris? He slowly got up as well, observing the guy What's going on?

Kris: Now hyperventilating I'm sorry, I can't, I-

Andy: Okay he got it immediately Okay… come, sit down with me again and take a deep breath

Kris: I can't I! I need air!! I- he kinda flopped his arms in all directions then bend forwards as his sobbing turned deep and full of pain

Andy: Shit he slowly reached out, stroking Kris's back gently

Kris: No! he quickly took a few steps away I'm sorry I shouldn't have come here! You're so nice, but I'm not used to it at all.. I uh you're so sweet and it's exactly what I need but it's too much… all the nice touching and you sound like you care

Andy: I do care

Kris: How??! You don't even know me! How can you care when the people I live with can't even bother if I'm alive or dead

Andy: Please don't say that, I'm sure they-

Kris: No! They really don't Andy. I cut my wrist a month ago, it wasn't THAT bad… but bad enough… no one even bothered to go with me to the hospital… what if I would have fainted on the way?!?! His crying turned almost desperate, a few whimpers here and there as he started rubbing his hands nervously please don't think I'm some fucking nutcase! I'm not I just am so fucking exhausted of this life, but I really don't want to die at all! I swear! I just want someone to fucking notice how much I am fucking drowning, and I don't know?!? Hand me a fucking stick!

Andy: Hey he quickly stepped closer to Kris, dragging his own sleeves up, then turned his wrists inside out, revealing his own scars to Kris I wont judge, remember? And I don't want to die either! There are moments where all hope is out and the pain becomes so strong, I do want to die, but only in those moments… only in those moments of pure despair. I don't actually want to die… at all. I am terrified of dying as a a matter of fact, and I love being alive!

Kris: He nodded agreeing and wiped his hand over his nose, stepping nervously on the spot

Andy: What do you need? Tell me, please? You look like you desperately need a hug, but honestly… I don't know what to do right now cause you also made it clear I seem to overwhelm you at the same time, which wasn't my intention at all. I don't want to step over any lines here, Kris… I like you and I don't want to scare you away… is that too much? I know we just met, but there's something about you… you know… you can sometimes get a feeling about people pretty quickly, and I have a very good feeling about you… and again, that's coming from someone with social anxiety… I mean… it's rare I like people THAT quick….

Kris: He nodded agreeing Me too he sniffled his nose, looking at the floor I uh… I…. I would like if…. he took a deep shaky breath I would like if you could hu- his voice broke

Andy: he quickly reached out, wrapping his arms tight around Kris, stroking his back gently Is this okay? he spoke in a warm, caring tone

Kris: He nodded soft against Andy's shoulder, digging his fingers into Andy's back

[larentsaloud]

thyme x gorya (sad girl autumn version)™️

episode 10 thoughts

soaking wet thyme appears in lita's living room, promising to be a good boyfriend. to prove his point he officially tags himself on fb as her boyfie. every girl's dream.

right?

lita does all the heavy lifting in the relationship, pretty much the reverse of what thyme has been doing all this time with gorya. suddenly, he is the one receiving all the attention and lita sure loves to shower him with love, affection and is not shy to engage her cutest guns like kisses, tugging his cheeks and pulling his ears. anything to make him fall in love. even remakes the cookies.

girl. whoa. *shakes head*

she even goes as far as extracting information from MJ using one of my favourite tricks! a true hero that girl.

it gets a little shady when she can clearly see that gorya has been the object of thyme's affection all along, but she choses not to address that. I don't know how I feel about that.

pause.

but the scene when lita appears on gorya's threshold and they both cry, gorya's pained expression pierces my heart.

all this time, gorya has been fighting her feelings, the only person who understands this, perhaps as a fellow introvert is ren, even comforts her, trying to understand her and asks her not to hide beneath a false facade. but, she being the gorya she is, absolutely does that.

in fact gorya makes it her mission to appear fine. hunky dory.

nothing to see here expression. fake AF. but these lies to herself are her way of protection. she knew she would hate lita seeing thyme. she could feel this percolate and trembled at the thought especially since she saw them together share a kiss.

but this resolve wavers and crumbles eventually. it has an expiry date. she is lonely, and this is doubled by the empty beds at home. but her conviction, that with thyme gone, f4 are out of her life.

yes gorya has kaning.

and hangs out with talay who does a good job at pretending to be a positive influence. *stares*

gorya truly has no radar as far as people's characters are concerned.

I think my favourite scene is when thyme and gorya meet at the mall and for a split second her eyes deceive her, she looks at him with so much hurt and love, that you almost wish they could stay there and figure this out alone, but ofc talay the tail appears and so does lita.

it would appear gorya trust everyone BUT thyme.

it's heartbreaking, because even though she was the one who pushed him away, he still cares. even gorya still cares. obviously. he sits at home staring at her cookies and when he finally summons courage to eat them...lita appears. he hides them so fast under a pillow, like a kid caught doing something naughty.

thyme cannot forget about gorya, ren knows this and tells her, that while on the outride he may be dating lita, moving on is not easy for him.

so when thyme sees gorya with the guy, whom he instantly suspects of being fishy (much like ren, these men do have a sixth sense! thank god someone does!), it is useless, because gorya is hurt by watching thyme doing what she asked him to do i.e. date lita.

in gorya's mind it's wrong of thyme to interfere, he has lita.

so she pushes him away. AGAIN may I add. he foreshadows, that her rejection of his help will be to her own detriment and that she will regret this. which yes.

I think I am numb emotionally. like actually empty and void. I watched this episode with baited breath waiting to be moved, but I think I am officially dead inside, and I have no feelings left. watching thyme try hard with lita, or kiss her did nothing to me.

watching gorya get bullied again resurrected my ghost and knowing ren tried so hard to save her, only to be beaten sent chills down my spine.

my mental breakdown culminated around the time when thyme panicked and ran out of the prom, with his skipping heart in his throat, afraid that his gorya is hurt.

the fact we have to wait a week to find out what happens next just confirms that staying dead is preferable because then I can pretend I don't care about earthly things like episodes. or thyme and gorya.

see, I used to think love was about finding someone with whom you have loads in common. but actually, through experiences I have realised, that there are many kinds of love.

you can love someone and adore them for reasons you can't explain, you just feel at home with them, even if you have nothing in common, not even a language, or background. you might be polar opposites, yet when they speak, your heart is quiet and pauses to listen. you can't take your eyes off them no matter what. they have a magnetic pull on you. in their presence you can't ever go stale, everything blooms.

to thyme, gorya is ALL that.

even at his worst, when dejected, unwanted and disappointed he will always chose her. no matter what.

now it's time for gorya to see his true power and strength, his bravery and what an incredible man he has become thanks to her love.

it's time for thyme to see just how much she loves him and feel like the luckiest man alive.

so bring on what's next, because thyme x gorya sad girl autumn version is soon to be a thing of the past and we are about to rejoice.

well at least for a bit.

for this week's highlights:

strongly worded letter from gorya's lawyer x

where do broken hearts go? x

quit playing games with my heart x

fake love x

fashun review x

casually cruel in the name of being honest x

faking blind eyes x

don't need your closure x

[gaiuswrites]

Ashore

Part one | Open Waters

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader

Summary: You and Frankie leave the beach with only one thing on your minds.

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 3.6k~

Warnings/tags: smut, ✨butt stuff✨, oral (f receiving), some lovey-dovey shit

Notes: Here we are friends. You don’t necessarily have to read Open Waters to understand the contents of this chapter (considering it’s mostly just booty bumpin’). You can thank heathens @javierpcna and @whataperfectwasteoftime for the debauchery to follow. It’s been a while since I’ve written and I’m genuinely nervous to post this lol but alas. We have arrived. Is it shit? Is it pure filth? Who’s to say hehehe. Cheers bebes x

Masterlist | read it on ao3!

The worst part was, you had to get gas.

Frankie drives. You sit beside him.

The return trip is hushed with anticipation—with sullied stain-glass imagery occupying the void. You've said next to nothing since you packed into the car; the only noise comes from the radio—the preset station phasing in and out as you wind along the backroads leading away from the shore—Journey, Jimi, Led Zep and the like all crackling dry through the speakers.

Everything, each micro-movement, feels stifling— like burning ants under a magnifying glass— each gesture riddled with intention, Frankie’s words echoing clear in the caverns of your mind.

He glances left right at an intersection.

‘Anything?’

He flips on the turn signal, blinking one two one two one two.

‘You gonna let me have your tight little ass?’

He steers the wheel with the heel of his palm.

‘When I cum, it’s gonna be here—filling you up.’

The engine rumbles as you idle at a red light—stalling. Dawdling. The sun spills lazily from the horizon, draining the last of the afternoon’s light with it, bleeding the sky scarlet—emboldening the horizon— and you watch as the setting glow catches the hair on his arm—there, resting on the console between you. His hand fists over the gear, knuckles creasing as they tense around the worn, leathered head. You’re playing a game—a silent, ruleless game. You know he can sense you observing him, can feel the heat of your gaze weigh on the flex of his fingers—the same fingers that had ripped an orgasm out of you not two hours before.

You almost unbuckle your damn seatbelt and fly out of your chair. You nearly break with it, with the unspoken tension filling the car like gas and fuck, how you crave him; how you yearn to put those fingers in your mouth and suck—lave the summer clean off his digits and bob around the long width and—

The light turns green.

Frankie resumes his hand to the wheel, your lewd fantasy dissipating along with it.

It’s minuscule. You would have missed it save the fact that you’re so acutely aware of every fucking breath you two share in the aluminum confines of your old Jeep. It’s a subtle thing: Frankie adjusts his hips— innocent enough— but your eyes flicker over to find the groin of his drying swim trunks tented.

You’re not ashamed to say it— your mouth fucking waters, you salivate— and as if on cue, he squirms again, seeking relief from both the blood rushing south and the blister of your stare. His lips part— the rasp of an inhale as he prepares to speak—before his focus is torn down to the dashboard, an orange symbol popping up in the gauge stealing his attention.

“Shit,” Frankie mumbles under his breath. Looking around, he scans for a nearby station and groans at the realization that he’s just passed one, spotting it in the rearview mirror. “Shit.”

You swivel towards the passenger side window, attempting to hide the I told you so expression pulling wry at your mouth. Not that you’ll hang it over him, but you did inform Frankie that the tank was empty on the way to the beach. You hear another muffled curse come from the man beside you, and the world goes topsy-turvy and reverses itself— the act of Frankie making a grumbled U-turn.

He puts the gear into park with a huff, Van Halen’s solo abruptly cut short mid chord.

The car door opens with a rusty squeal and Frankie clambers out, fishing his wallet from his back pocket and swiping his card through the reader at the pump—but not before he squeezes a palm into the plush of your thigh, thumb searing like a brand into your skin. I’ll be quick.

Fuck, you could have cum right then.

Your gaze follows his movements, dogging after him as he waits on the gas to fill— arms folded across his chest, strong build leaning on the frame of your car.

It’s not a novel concept to you, but God is that man broad. The ratty t-shirt he wears clings to him, pulled taut between the plane of his shoulders, the cut of his tricep apparent even from your vantage point; the corded muscle running up his neck flashing as he watches the digital numbers on the screen tick higher.

Shit, you’re aching for him— you can feel yourself throb into the crotch of your swimsuit. You’d have him right here—in the backseat, steaming up the glass— if it weren’t for the overencumbered bags and rickety beach chairs crowding the space.

With herculean effort, you wrench your eyes off him in search of a distraction, letting them drift to the dark flooring of the car. It’s been dirtied—white flecks speckling the interior—and you won’t be able to get the sand out of the matted carpets for weeks. It’s a nuisance, to be sure, but you have to admit that you’re sort of fond of it; little memories, vestiges in the grains, lingering long after the season ends.

Hello, remember me? each granule chirped, remember when we laughed giddy for hours, maddened by the grace of the sun? Remember when we burned red that time we forgot sunscreen? Remember when we bought soft serve from the surf shack and it globbed sticky down our wrists? Remember when we when we when when when…

Frankie, ever practical, hates it. It’s a pain in the ass, he’s told you, regaling you with the woes only a mechanic would care to know. It ruins the upholstery.

You’ve had your exchanges about the topic—your faux-squabbled back and forths—and yet despite himself, he can’t help but like that you like it. Conceptually, he gets it—it annoys him to kingdom fucking come and he’ll almost certainly take the vacuum to the mats first thing tomorrow, but he understands. He understands it.

He understands you.

You’re like that, you and him. You’re different. You are made of different things, a compository of fractures and fragments. Mosaic tiles. You don’t quite fit—not all of you—but you never force the pieces into any sort of place. You admire each other’s mismatched bits, those sweetly quilted jigsaws, and you hold each one up to the light and point at the unique curves, the notches and swoops there, and say I love you, I love this, I love this too.

When Frankie keys up the ignition and puts the car in drive, he keeps his hand on your lap. Arm resting over the median dividing you, calloused palm sealing over your quad, his fingertips knead a pulse into the meat of your leg with each bump in the poorly paved road— a reminder. A vow. Almost home.

You think he does it just to torture you.

It fucking works.

/

The sound of laughter parts the front door as you enter— Frankie had made some colorful comment about your absolute favorite neighbors, the ones who always leave their damn garbage bins in front of your driveway— and your key ring clatters as it hits the bowl on the side table.

You discard the bags, plopping the sandy things down in the entryway, and kick off your sandals— bare soles padding along lacquered wood paneling as you head to the kitchen for some much needed water.

The sound of the tap running camouflages Frankie’s movement, you don’t hear him behind you. He’s got stealth in him, harbored there from before. He’s light on his feet when he chooses to be—nimble-like, bordering on feline—and you startle with a bubbly chuckle when you spin around to discover him far closer than you anticipated.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping us hydrated,” you grin, as if it were obvious. You’re welcome.

He hums, the note rumbling against the cage of his ribs, and lessens the distance between you with a single stride. “That can wait.”

He rids you of the glasses, hurriedly placing them on the counter, and meets you in a kiss—and fuck can that man kiss. Frankie, like with all things, is responsive—attentive. His lips are fever-laced and wanton, and he roves against yours like they’re designed to— fated for no one else’s but your own— nipping and tonguing at your honeyed whines, orphaned there in the well of your mouth.

His hands vine up your body, so deprived of the luxury of your form - of touch - and he grabs at anything he can— your hips, your waist, your breasts through the cotton of your shirt— their half moon curves sitting ripe in his palms.

After ushering you up to the countertop, he strips you of your jean shorts, your bikini bottom sloughing down your calves along with them, and hoists your feet onto the fake granite, prying your legs wide for him.

When he gets an eyeful of your gleaming pussy, pearled with arousal, the wind gets punched straight out of him.

“Jesus honey,” he groans, “you been like this the whole ride home?”

Your brain is numb, lagging with lust. You don’t trust your voice to speak—all you can do is nod.

“Poor thing,” he simpers. “Poor pretty thing, all wound up for me—all wet.”

You whimper at his tone—graveled, just shy of condescending—and your knees weaken shut before he snatches them apart.

“Sit still.”

It’s a command, there’s no room for disobedience; he orders it with a soldier's voice—that dead thing he wears like dog tags around his neck. Vice grip widening your legs, Frankie sinks down onto his shins, head leveled with your core, engrossed with the sight of your damp sex quivering.

Blotchy warmth creeps up your neck, like ivy crawling over brick.

He’s staring at you— hungry and possessed and simply staring at your open cunt and you begin to fidget once more—riling under his umbered appraisal.

“Sit still baby girl,” he murmurs, softer now and desperate too—intoxicated with the heady perfume of your heat. “Lemme just— fuck, I gotta taste you…”

When he swipes the deft muscle of his tongue through your slit, your head careens back onto the cabinets, plates and bowls rattling behind the wood.

Oh god, Frankie.

He’s got a talent for this— an excruciating, body wracking talent. He thirsts for you something dangerous, something unquenchable; he tugs at your labia, forming his lips around your clit, lapping at your essence— the ocean musk, that sea foam wet.

You fumble through his hair, mussing the saline woven strands with urgent fingers as you grind grind grind, rolling your hips to meet him in a covetous show of want and he purrs into your pussy as you fuck his face, the scratch of his stubble chafing at your legs.

It doesn’t take long, not with the fervor of how he’s claiming your cunt with his mouth. You soak Frankie’s chin— you nearly fucking drown him with it—and he’s glistening with you when he finally emerges for air, pulling you to him to slant his lips against yours, letting you savor your own taste on his hot tongue.

“Bedroom. Now,” he husks, breath hitching as his nose grazes along your ear, and with two hands under your armpits, he gathers you off the countertop. Frankie lands a swat at the plump of your backside, sending you scurrying through the living room with a shriek—completely bypassing the abandoned pile of laundry left lying on the couch.

He smirks—delirious and ramrod stiff—sauntering behind you, enamored with the pendulum sway of your hips as you lead him to the bed.

/

You’ve never been here. You’ve never gone this far. You both have tiptoed this narrow line for months; he’s fingered your ass plenty—you have even gone so far as to don a butt plug. You’ve discussed anal—toyed with the idea, flirted in circles around it like tittering birds.

But you’ve never taken Frankie’s cock. Not yet.

He’s been working you loose and limber for the better part of fifteen minutes, delving himself knuckle deep into your slicked hole until you’re sputtering for more— until you’re downright sopping and fucking shaking— and not with trepidation but with desire. Frankie’s made you gluttonous. Frankie’s made you voracious.

You’re starving for him.

“You gonna let me have this now?” He presses a digit over your ass, kissing his thumb into the knot there.

You tremble, nodding frantic.

“Think this pretty little ass can take me, baby?”

He serves you a slap, plush skin jiggling and pricking pink under his palm. You keen into him, in search of the promise he’s been baiting you with and you arch your hips, gyrating back onto fucking nothing.

“Yes. Yes—” You twist, chin corkscrewed around to see him. You want to watch. You want to watch as he disappears inside you— as you swallow him.

“A-Are you sure?” he asks, suddenly gone gentle around the lines fraying from his eyes—those wrinkles he’s hard-earned and won, like badges, like medals—from all his years spent under an unforgiving sun, all of that which he has seen and endured. Survived. Your Frankie, always thoughtful, always checking. A goddamn gentleman, even now—even as his dick brays hard and angry against the soft of his tawny stomach. “Because really, we don’t have to—”

You cut him off with a whimper, splaying your pelvis up to him—spreading yourself, letting him see the filth dripping from your seam, dappling your inner thighs. “Fuck me,” you whine, both holes puckering for him. “Fill me up, like you said you would— please.”

Something shifts across his features like a shadow and his expression morphs until it steels— his pupils dilating to a predatorial onyx— and he spits into his palm, coating his shaft, jerking himself with it.

He hisses as he guides himself into you, as you accommodate around him, as you envelop him entirely— inch by veritable inch. He has to station a hand to the base of your lumbar, struggling to maintain his composure—air rattling in and out his lungs as he attempts to breathe.

“Shit,” he gasps, “t-this okay?”

You fist the comforter, coiling the fabric into a ball. It’s a stretch— it’s a real goddamn stretch— and briefly you consider that he might, in fact, snap you in two...

Francisco Morales is going to split you clean in half—and God, if you don’t you love it.

“Yes - yes baby - keep going. D-Don’t stop.”

He pitches into you, setting a legato tempo— transfixed by the lurid juncture where you converge into one. “You- you’re so tight. Shit, you’re—”

He silences himself with a delicious moan, biting at his lower lip until the vessels there burst and it purples, and deals a particularly aggressive thrust— one you respond to with an ugly wail of your own, eyes somersaulting in their sockets.

You’re both impatient, verging on rabid, and it doesn’t take long for him to set a rougher pace and fuck you faster - harder - hammering into your ass until you see stars, popping and fizzing in front of your retinas, a symphony of guttural grunts and carnal praise fogging up the bedroom.

Your pussy feels so empty you could cry—weeping and gaping and fluttering for him as he takes your tight ring of muscle, fucking himself to the hilt. It’s like he’s behind your brain—like he’s carved his way up your spine and nudging at the nape of your neck with how deep he’s driving into you—restless. Ceaseless. His balls slap slap slap against your puffy cunt and you pant— girlish and buoyant with the dulled smacks to your sore clit.

“Please,” you sob, “Please, I need—”

You can barely push the words out—your mind is of no help and your tongue lolls useless, languid in your mouth. Your motor functions have all but puttered to a halt, every scrap of you fighting to stay above the sensation that’s threatening to drag you under its current. The rip tide of it all, of Frankie’s cock, coursing through your ass, tempting to hurdle you out into the dark, wet blue.

“Tell me,” Frankie rasps, scraping through his throat. “Tell me, pretty baby.”

Your response is pathetic—you can hardly dignify it as a response at all. Your temple is pressed into the mattress, hair knotted with brine and sand, and all you can do is coo.

Frankie folds over you, angling himself to graze his teeth over your shoulder—savoring the salt and sex tang bathing your skin, all those pheromones and velveteen chemicals anointing you—baptizing you anew for him. He’s gruff when he murmurs, his beard grating your freshly tanned skin.

“C’mon sweetheart - hng, fuck - what do you need?”

“My clit,” you rush out, needy. “My clit. Please, oh my god Frankie I-I need you to, I need – oh fuck—” And your pleas are mummed by a rapturous moan as he trails his hand from the hollow of your hip to the apex of your cleft and flicks.

Fuck. Fuck, oh Christ—

There’s a ringing in your ears, buzzing you deaf, making you dumb—or maybe it’s just your heart, beating loud and errant against your skull—you can’t say. You don’t feel human. Frankie’s pounding into that cinched channel and playing with your clit—swiveling eddies into your swollen nub—and you feel like an animal. You feel debased. You feel disgusting and perfect and you’re fucking drooling; cheek squished and mouth agape, saliva pools from your wagging maw, darkening the white linen you’re being driven into.

“You need me in your pussy, too?”

He doesn’t wait for you to answer him— he already knows what you need, how you need to have every part of you gorged on him— and Frankie dips his fingertips into your entrance, hooking them up and up and in, fucking in time to the cant of his hips.

He’s in you. Everywhere, everywhere—every possible neuron and synapse consumed with him.

“You need me like this—fucking you this deep? Fucking both your pretty holes?” he growls, weaving his hand lower to grab a fistful of your hair, rucking your head up. Throat stretched bare for him, your mewls muddle to cock-drunk cries as he spears you on himself again and again and again.

Yes yes yes fuck harder please please Frankie

You're pleading with him—you’ve been reduced to meager begging— and a chorus of slurs sings your release as you contract around him and cum, the cradle of your hips bucking reflexively.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he seethes, “you’re so good for me baby, Jesus fuck—”

He’s close now—his blissed finish drawing nearer and nearer with each sharp snap of his hips. Frankly, he’s shocked he’s managed to last as long as he has; it’s a small miracle he hadn’t cum the instant he slotted himself inside you with that very first stroke.

“Baby,” he warns, losing his rhythm. You saddle your spine, hollowing out the valley of your back and arch pretty and supple for him— preening under his weight. He moans at that, and through your fucked out haze you have the wherewithal to smirk at him, devious and prideful, a wild look owning your eye.

Frankie has to brace himself on your hips, untangling from your locks to bruise into the pillow of your skin— gripping on for dear fucking life as he plows you. You’re strangling him. You’re strangling the thick of his cock until he’s dizzy with it—until he’s feral and blind and he can’t hold on, can’t keep fighting this fucking monsoon that’s raging in his core.

“Baby, I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna—fuck me, oh shit—” He shouts, spurting inside you thrust for thrust, painting your virgin walls with his seed. It’s too much— after all that, and you’re still too tight— and he’s overstimulated to the point of delirium. Frankie roots himself still, cum dribbling out your stuffed hole while he rides out the high of his orgasm—his vision, his senses, his goddamn soul, slowly oozing back into him. When he slides free from you, he does so with a pained heave, leaving you yawning with his absence.

You feel shredded. Vacant. You’ve been sent to another fucking dimension all together.

Without wasting another second, Frankie claws you up. You’re easy and malleable, bones and muscles too strung out to protest, and he whirls you around to bar you to his chest—crushing your sweaty body to his with bullet marred arms— the same arms that have taken lives, that have spared them, too. The same arms that link around you, delicate and daisy-chained, like you’re the most precious thing he has.

And you are.

You are.

Frankie kisses you breathless, drinking rich from your cup— tongue greedy and reverent as he kneels there at your altar, praying his sins into your mouth.

So gorgeous, he croons, peppering your face—your flushed cheeks, your perspired brow—with his lips as he tells you over and over and over again.

So good for me, pretty baby

Was that okay?

Fuck, you’re a dream

You’re my best girl—you’re my only girl

Was that okay?

God, you’re my whole fucking world

Was that okay? Was I okay?

Are you okay?

You swoon, helpless to the contented sigh that seeps out from you like mist. You’ve gone limp against the breadth of him. He has reduced you to rubber, left wobbling in his grasp, and you’re so damn full—your heart and your body—all of it. You feel unequivocally complete. You feel safe, you feel home.

You are home. Francisco is home.

He’s flattening out the nest of your hair, taming the damage he previously delivered to it, earning from you a sleepy grin into the muggy crook of his neck. And with the last of your waning strength you hold his pieces up to the light—the light you left on in the hall as the night grew dark around you, the one who’s yellow glow your naked bodies bask in now, and you say

I love you

I love this

I love this too

tags:

@krissology @heartsofbeskar @madhattervanessa @andiesturgss @sharkbait77 @tenderwhat @javier-pena @pedros-mustache @frannyzooey @chasingdreamer @djarinsbeskar @thosewickedlovelies @juletheghoul @not-the-droids @filthybookworm @pilothusband @letterfromvienna @keeper0fthestars @greatcircle79 @day-off-inkyoto @mermaidxatxheart @lawfulgranola @heatherbel @quica-quica-quica @stuckonthefiction @janesbrontes

[fullmetxl]

Characters: Scaramouche / Wanderer & Gender-Neutral Reader Tags: Spoilers for the 3.2 Archon Quest, Character Study, Romance(ish) Summary: Because who is He now, if not a discarded puppet? He’s mine, you think with pursed lips and burning eyes. And I won’t give him up. — Scaramouche is defeated. You intend to save him. A Scaramouche x GN!Reader one-shot that explores the 3.2 fight and its aftermath.

Read it on AO3.

Scaramouche :

“No!”

Electricity sizzles in the air, a sound so deep and deathly that it leaves all those who listen to it shattered.

But the Dendro Archon, Lesser God Kusanali, Buer, the God of Wisdom is unrelenting in her pursuit. She does not listen to the pleas coming out of the prototype of a man. She extends her small hand, beckoning the Gnosis forward and out of the carcass in front of her.

“No, wait.” His pleas increase tenfolds, tone shaking with all the emotions he can muster.

Everything he has ever felt comes crashing down—the love of a mother’s touch, the betrayal of being casted aside, the grief of losing a friend, and the anger… so much anger. It all comes undone before him, before his very eyes.

Nahida looks up at him, green eyes glowing with an understanding of things that were, things long past. Her bright eyes shine with empathy and wisdom.

Why does she pity him? Him, a God made anew?

He grits his teeth, emotions flowing out of him like a river cascading down a mountain. He leans all his weight forward, arm fully extending out. “Please.”

But Nahida never stops. She continues to extend her hand, the Electro Gnosis a mere distance away from her grasp—the purple-pink hue so reminiscent of The Sacred Sakura, once a beautiful sight. But just like the blooms that descend upon Inazuma, so too must everything come to pass.

And yet, he can’t give it up.

That power should be his. Is his, by right. Was that not the reason he was created in the first place, after all? Was that not why his own mother created him in her own image, a vessel for Godhood?

Because who is He now, if not a discarded puppet?

“That’s mine, don’t even try!” he cries out with all that he has, pushing himself forward, his whole weight placed on his mere volition—his desire to be what he has always meant to be. As he does, he feels the tubes that had been holding him back slowly come loose, the strings pulling his fate snapping.

No, no, no.

This can’t be how this ends.

“I'll never go back…” he whispers frantically, pain leaping out of him. Images of a dark void filled with nothing but cold loneliness and grief come surging back.

Shakkei Pavilion, the tombstone enacted for him.

He won’t go back.

But without a Gnosis, without a heart of his own… It's all been meaningless, hasn’t it?

The Gnosis finally falls into Nahida’s hands, and with it, his vision begins to pulsate violet. Electro energy splinters through the course of his veins. He feels the connection with his true purpose fade away.

His body falls and everything becomes a blur. Tears cloud his vision.

He has already given up.

Without the Gnosis, he’s finished.

The existence of what once Kunikuzushi was small and ugly. He is no longer The Ballader or Scaramouche.

And if he’s not a God? Then he’s an empty carcass, filled with nothing but shattered dreams.

A broken marionette.

When oblivion comes crashing down on him, it envelopes him like a mother would embrace her babe, dark and tender.

Everything drifts away.

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

You:

They call him Scaramouche, The Ballader. The Sixth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers.

You know him as Kunikuzushi.

“No, wait. Please.” His voice comes twisted and ragged, a burst of emotions echoing in the chambers.

You have seldom heard him reach this breaking point. When he was young and made anew, perhaps. But these emotions have not flowed out of him in a very long time.

My mother discarded me because I cried too much, he once confessed to you when he had first been brought in, before he assumed the title of The Balladeer.

Perhaps that is why he chose not to feel.

Your heart twists in your chest, but you stay put. You must not be seen, after all, least you want to attract the Traveler’s attention. The Traveler cannot know who you are or know that a Fatui Agent has entered this sanctuary. You glance towards the blonde standing near the entrance, its floating companion nearby.

Harbingers aren’t afraid to make a dramatic entrance when they need to but you are no Harbinger. Your talents lie in stealth and secrecy, and so, you stay put.

There’s also the fact that you aren’t here on official business. You are here because of Kunikuzushi and nothing else. Though Il Dottore may have chosen to leave him behind, you aren’t ready to cast him away so quickly.

He’s mine, you think with pursed lips and burning eyes. And I won’t give him up.

You hear the fall, the crash and you almost jump out of your hiding spot. Your knuckles turn white as you dig your nails into your palms.

Dust fills the air.

You listen as Lesser God Kusanali and The Traveler chatter away, and amber light surges through the sanctuary. You glance back, watching a golden Knowledge Capsule—or what appears to be one, anyway—floating in the air.

“That’s right. This… is the last memory of my predecessor,” you hear Lesser God Kusanali explain, her eyes glowing like emerald orbs, infinite and wise.

Lesser God Kusanali, the Traveler and the little floating entity that you think referred to itself as Paimon begin to fade, their bodies transporting to another realm.

As soon as you are certain that they have teleported far away, you walk towards where the would-be-god stands. Beneath it, a rubble of debris stands, a cloud of hazing fog. You squint, trying to make sense of what you are seeing, your nose dry from the dust.

And then, you see him.

A broken marionette, twisted on the ground.

You are kneeling next to him in an instant, your eyes reeling in his body in a frantic and desperate search. You find he is alive and sigh in relief. He is wounded, several cuts on parts of his body, but there’s not much blood. Rather, the more pressing issue is the fact that he fell from such a height. It is likely he suffers a concussion.

You glance up from where he descended, scowling. Such a height would have killed most mortals.

Then again, Scaramouche isn’t human.

“Scaramouche,” you murmur under your breath, voice soft and hand softer still.

“Balladeer,” you say in an almost frantic prayer. You lift his head onto your thighs, caressing the beads of sweat away from the creases of his forehead, gently tucking strands of hair back.

“Kunikuzushi…” You graze your fingers over his soft skin and call upon your vision, trailing down his cheeks softly.

Kunikuzushi doesn’t awaken. Instead, he appears to be crying, silent tears streaming down his face.

You caress the tears with your thumbs, closing your eyes.

“I would save you.”

A plea to him, a promise to yourself.

You feel your powers unravel before you.

Light beckons forward, shines through you as your healing touch cascades down and trickles down onto Scaramouche’s pale skin. He glows white, like fireflies flowing together in a harmonious dance in Liyue Harbour on a cool autumn night.

You let your magic fully encompass him.

What you find is pain. So much pain. Insurmountable levels of pain.

You’ve known all along how much pain Scaramouche carries with him. But right now, it engulfs you, ensnares you and you have to bite your lip to not cry out from the pain.

So you you just push more healing magic into him, a wave of nausea settling at the pit of your stomach.

How long you let your vision embrace him, you know not. But by the time you come back to your senses, you are drenched in sweat, your hands trembling from the effort.

“You are helping him,” a voice lulls you back to reality and you snap your head towards the chirpy voice.

Lesser God Kunali stands in front of you, her child-like features both ethereal and dainty. You shudder, reaching for your weapon but she shakes her head.

“At ease, Snezhnayan spy. I mean you no harm.”

You exhale, eying the Dendro Archon cautiously. You are a good judge of people and though you have never encountered a God before—only a would-be-god vagrant from Inazuma—you find no lies in her expression. You allow her to approach the two of you with a nod.

“I am Nahida,” she says as if it were a casual thing in the world.

“I know who you are,” you mutter back, dark eyes looking towards Scaramouche. You feel her presence next to you as she sits down, hands reaching above.

Green energy flows out of her, slowly and surely, and you can’t help but admire the sheer power she exudes.

Still, you keep your guards up.

“He is in pain,” she points out.

You nod once, continuing to push your healing magic into his wounded body. She places a hand on top of yours.

“And you are tired.”

You scowl, jerking your hand away from hers.

“Don’t presume to know me, Buer. I will not relent until he opens his eyes again.”

“You bear him much love,” Nahida points out and you don’t say anything to confirm or deny her allegations. “I wonder,” she begins, tilting her head curiously, “What caused him to stray away from this love to seek out Godhood?”

“You know nothing,” you snarl, glaring at the Dendro Archon with such venom that you even surprise yourself. “He is not a puzzle for you to figure out, a pastime for you to waste your time on. He is mine, mine to do with as I please, you hear me? And I will not have you try to twist him into a story that fits your narrative.”

“I see.”

You eye Nahida, finding her with a serene expression on her face, looking up at the machine that once bore Scaramouche.

She stays silent for a long while, listening to your healing magic fluidly encompass Scaramouche, a steady hum echoing in the sanctuary.

“He almost did it, you know. Reach Godhood.” She breaks the silence. “But a God filled with anger is a curse for the people of Teyvat. I could not let him be.”

You lick your dried lips, eyes flickering to her form, and speak, “He is relentless and stubborn. I have never known him to stray away from a goal once he set his mind to it. But I am glad you stopped him, I do not think this outcome would have been the right one for him.”

You know such words are selfish and unbecoming of even yourself. But whether they are uttered out loud to a God or just thought in the privacy of your mind, it is how you feel.

“Interesting,” Nahida continues. “You say this despite your allegiances to the Fatui Order?”

“Yes.” You glare at her again, a lofty element to your tone. “Just because I serve the Tsaritsa doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything the Harbingers do. I serve Her will, not theirs.”

She nods with a small smile. “Tell me, what would you do for him, if you could?” she asks.

You glance away, voice more soft. “I would give him a heart, if I had one to spare.”

She sighs, a content exhale.

“Come, you are tired. And I have it in me to help you, Fatui Spy.”

You shake your head, coughing lightly as the fatigue begins to grip you, your insides twisting in pain.

She once again places one of her child hands on top of yours. This time, you don’t refuse the touch. “His wounds are deep—both psychological and physical. He will not awaken now, he will need time. And you need to rest. Let me create a shelter for the both of you.”

“Why?” You give her a suspicious glance.

“I see truth in your heart. And that is the greatest Wisdom of all,” she explains as she stands on her two feet, her white curls falling gracefully.

You hesitate, glancing back at Scaramouche, whose pain still seems as deep as the sea. Your healing touch has only grazed the surface.

As much as you hate to admit it, Nahida is right.

“I promise, where I take you, no Fatui or mercenary can find you. You will be safe,” she says.

You stop healing Scaramouche and rise on your feet, looking down at the child.

“Very well, Buer, God of Wisdom. I will take your offer. But stab me in the back and know I will make sure your people never have an Archon to ever pray to,” you threaten as you give her an icy stare.

Though you know you are far from being able to execute such threats given your exhaustion, you fully intend to make it clear to Nahida that going back on her word is not an option.

“A contractual way of negotiating. I almost feel like I am in Liyue. I accept,” she says with a hum, placing one of her hands on Scaramouche’s leg, the other reaching out to you.

You take her small hand into yours, sitting down next to Scaramouche. You feel your body begin to tingle, green energy encompassing the other of you.

As you look upon Scaramouche one last time, you notice his pale face, the way it glistens with tears of hope and pain.

Kunikuzushi. Scaramouche. The Ballader. Or whatever you may choose to call yourself in the future.

Please, just.

Don’t die.

[quirkisms]

OFF YOUR CHEST - M. TOGATA (i)

pairing: mirio togata x fem!reader

summary: Mirio tears himself apart, and you're there to heal the pieces.

word count: 2k

tags: angst, hurt/comfort, strangers(ish) to lovers, AU where UA is college, not highschool (i dont want 2 write about minors), mirio is quirkless and is Dealing With It, slow burn, trauma and anxiety coping 

ao3

He splits another knuckle open.

It’s no different than any other exercise or training, but he’s different. He’s stronger now, and smarter but he’s still less. He punches the wall again, willing it to go through. For a second, he thinks he can feel the soft tendrils of the void past the surface beckoning him, urging him forth. It’s asking him where he’s been, that it missed him and that he’s back. For that second, it’s real. His hand is sinking through and he’s back.

But the rough texture of the wall sinks into the cuts he’s ripped into his skin and he’s pulling back, sucking in air through his teeth and withholding curses.

He cradles his right hand with his left, blood trailing down the grooves of the taught tendons on both battered hands.

Mirio’s chest is heaving, his breaths varying from deep to shallow, his heart rate erratic. The buzz in his pocket disrupts his stare at the red stains his punches had left.

TAMAKI

where r u

It hurts to curl his hand around the device, but he does anyway. He wipes the other hand on his pants before responding.

Training! What’s up?

TAMAKI

patrolling tn. just wanted to lyk

Okay - Stay safe! 😀

Mirio pockets his phone. He wants to manually rub the grime out of the cuts or even just leave them the way they are. The sting is a juxtaposition from how his life was before. No longer can he float in the nothingness, phase through infinity until he needs to come up for air.

He feels everything now.

He makes his way towards UA’s medical clinic. It’s late, past dinner at least, which means it’ll be empty save for one person. Recovery Girl doesn’t work the hours like she used to, not since you came in. The clinic after hours feels safe, secretive and his. You’re always there late, as far as Mirio knows. Since the first time he injured himself by pushing himself past his newfound limits (which were significantly less than what they used to be) you’d always been there when he’d sneak in.

Tonight, you were hunched over textbooks, highlighter dangling out of your mouth. If he could’ve, he would’ve lingered in the doorway to watch you. Instead, the few droplets of blood spilling from his hands alerted you of his presence. You peek over your shoulder at him before capping the marker and nodding for him to sit on one of the empty exam beds. It was routine.

“You outdid yourself this time,” You said as you cleaned the open wounds. He’d beaten the flesh raw, almost exposing bone and you wanted to scold him but you knew it was useless. He’d just brush you off with a shrug, a smile and tell you it’s not that big of a deal. Pain is part of getting stronger.

Mirio doesn’t respond. Instead, he chooses to let his eyes flick around the room. Recovery Girl’s absence is notable - no more jar of candy, and you’ve taken over her desk and littered it with your own knicknacks. Your textbooks, an All Might water bottle, a Kamui Woods pez dispenser. It’s cute, he thinks.

“Did you have a punching match with one of those hardening quirks?” You’re frowning as you pop a piece of jerky in your mouth. “Maybe Cementoss?”

“Cementoss,” he confirms, only because that would be the only way he’d have so much...particulate within the splits. Cementoss was made of rock, and Mirio would rather die than admit to you he was relentlessly punching a wall.

You snort, shaking your head as you chew. You both know he’s full of it, but you drop it. You always do.

A soft, blue glow escapes from underneath your hand. His hand feels fuzzy, like it's fallen asleep before it dissipates and you remove your hand, motioning for him to lift his other so you can begin the same process.

As you clean the other hand, Mirio watches you work. You ignore the weight of his gaze the best you can, focusing on repairing the skin and not how strong and smooth his fingers are. His hand is heavy in yours, and the glow of your quirk flickers as you lose focus imaging what his grip would feel like on you.

“Done,” you said, flicking your used gloves into the wastebasket by your feet. Mirio flexes his fingers. Healed. “Y’know, after all these visits,” You raise an eyebrow, “I think you owe me.”

Mirio looks up from his hands to tilt his head at you.

“Tell me how you really get these injuries,” you grab one of his hands loosely and run your thumb over the freshly regenerated skin.

He wasn’t expecting that.

Mirio gapes at you like a fish out of water, like you’re Thirteen and you’ve sucked all of the air out of the room. He pulls himself from your grip to rest his hands in his lap. He’s uncomfortable, uneasy now. He’s liked this place, liked you because questions weren’t asked that he had to give real answers to. It’s not betrayal that Mirio feels, it’s more like loss. It’s the loss that comes with the realization that you can’t outrun everything you want forever. With all the training, all the work Mirio had put in, he thought he could.

“They’re self-inflicted. The bruising, the wound placements. It’s like you’re training yourself to death.”

“It’s not like that - I’m fine, I promise!” Mirio throws his hands up in a defensive motion. He’s summoning the sunlight, the optimism and charm that swooned UA and motivated him to keep working, keep training, to save a million people. He can feel it churning in his chest, but it’s been pressed so deep he’s grasping at the edges and they don’t want to meet his fingertips.

Mirio knew you never believed his excuses - you knew he knew that and you’d been pulled thin between wanting to show concern and ask what was up and respecting his privacy. But at the previous state of his knuckles, you couldn’t drag your feet any longer.

You watch him, face soft and stoic. You’re not coddling, but you’re not cold either. He realizes that you’re just simply waiting.

“I just train too hard,” he gives in, just a little. You raise your eyebrows a fraction and he continues. “I have a lot to make up for, so I tend to overdo it!” He laughs it off - the injuries are a joke, truly. They’re funny to him.

“You get more banged up than Midoriya,” you look at him over the clear frame of the glasses you seem to only wear at the clinic. “How does your training get you more banged up than the other heroes?”

“I’m not a hero,” he’s quick to say, and it stings more than it should. He was, should’ve been, should be.

Your face is soft again, and it’s an art you’ve mastered over time. You’re good at composing your features to appear passive and static. In your many hero encounters, pity is the quickest way to lose trust. So you watch Mirio, with his soft smile and now long hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He’s analyzing you just as you are him, and you keep your eyes from flicking to his knuckles when you respond with, “Okay.”

His stomach is churning, still sour with his words but he rubs his hands on his thighs. Why are they so sweaty?

In his distracted state, Mirio doesn’t notice you scribbling down something on a notecard shaped like an anatomical heart. You hand it to him, knocking him out of his trance.

Seven digits, followed by the letters 3G, and four more digits.

“What’s this?” he asks. Obviously the first line is your number, but you lost him with the rest.

“My number,” you aren’t looking at him. Instead you choose to refold the sleeves of your white coat as you continue, “and the passcode to get into my dorm building.”

Mirio does white. The passcode? Why would he need that?”

“I can’t be staying here late every night in case you show up.” You hated trudging back to your dorm on the nights he didn’t show, both eyelids and textbooks weighing you down. “Just stop by my dorm if it’s late like this.”

Mirio opens his mouth but you cut him off.

“Floor 5F, my name is on the door.”

He closes his mouth and smiles, nodding and bowing in thanks. He doesn’t trust his voice, not right now. You’re packing up your textbooks as he exits the clinic.

It doesn’t hit him until he gets back to the 3A dorms that he doesn’t know your name.

He beats himself up about it the whole night. He wishes he could go into Tamaki’s room to distract himself, to ask him about the person who’s basically taken over Recovery Girl’s mantle. Tamaki frequented the clinic as well - used it as an excuse to get out of the heroics lessons and sleep. He’d definitely know your name, unlike his golden counterpart who visited her frequently and never thought to ask.

Mirio tried to comfort himself by thinking that maybe you didn’t know his name either. You’d never asked. But then again, Mirio is (was?) part of UA’s Big Three. The aftermath of the Shie Hassaikai was all anyone talked about for weeks. You’d definitely have to know who he was. Mirio Togata, the kid who lost his quirk. Le Million, the hero who gave and lost everything. You went to UA yourself - there was no way.

He didn’t want to be that sob story to you. But he was constantly coming to you with injuries - split knuckles, a dislocated shoulder, a torn achilles. Maybe he wasn’t exactly that sob story, but he knew you pitied him regardless. Maybe that’s why you always stayed so late - you felt bad for him.

The thoughts makes Mirio uncomfortable.

And so much so that to make himself feel better, he adds your number to his phone. Typing in the numbers, he thinks about how he likes that your handwriting was shitty. Another little thing you let him see, let him learn about you. In lieu of a name, he makes your contact name the stethoscope emoji. He laughs to himself when he saves the contact and types out a message:

How late is too late?

He hesitates, but hits send. It delivers, and after fifteen minutes, Mirio is worried he confused one of your twos for a seven or vice versa. Or, maybe he should’ve introduced himself instead of just sending you a basic question that revealed his identity in no way whatsoever. In the eighteenth minute, you buzz back a response.

🩺

Why?

Might break a bone tomorrow.

It only takes eleven minutes for you to respond this time, and Mirio hates that he’s counting.

🩺

I’ll be sure to eat breakfast then.

No later than midnight, tho.

Okay!

Seven minutes this time. He wasn’t expecting a response.

🩺

You don’t need an injury to stop by, you know.

Mirio grins. A real one.

If you insist. Still might have a scratch or two, though. 😀

Two minutes. Mirio is oblivious to the fact that you are cringing hard at his emoji usage.

🩺

don’t be taking advantage of my quirk :(

You’re right… promise you will be compensated for your time. 👍

It’s immediate.

If it’s not edible, I don’t want it.

Mirio decides he might take it a little easy when he trains tomorrow.

[maddiewritesstucky]

Whenever You’re Ready

I am equal parts excited and terrified to share this story with you all. This one is very special to me, and it has been an Emotional Experience putting these words to page, so far removed from what I usually write. Huge acknowledgement to @doctorenterprise whose honest critiques vastly improved this story, and @buckyandthejets who validated the hell out of me, thank you both so much 😘

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve/Bucky (Modern AU)

Word count: 5189

Tags: Angst, infidelity (not between Steve/Bucky), heavy on the feels, reference to past internalized homophobia, lost love, reunions, emotional sex, happy ending

*CW: Infidelity - In this story, Bucky has sex with Steve even though he is (unhappily) married to someone else. Please avoid this story if you will find this triggering, or feel free to DM me if you need more details. It all ends well!*

***

“Never changes, does it?” 

 It goes straight to Steve’s bones, that voice, all the way down to his marrow. He doesn’t turn around at the sound of it, nor at the muted clunk of footsteps on the dock behind him; slowly closing the distance to where Steve’s standing, thinking. 

Waiting.

He’s been out here long enough to have watched the sun disappear behind the mountainous horizon, taking with it its warmth and making way for the quiet chill of evening to set in. It’s far enough away here, from the music and revelry and reminiscence, that Steve can almost pretend those words are true; that nothing’s changed, that there’s nothing and no one else in existence but the two of them, and the reflection of the moon rising over the lake. 

“Some things do.” 

It comes out bitter, even though Steve’s spent years telling himself he’s not; that the pit in his stomach and the hole in his chest have a different name, a different face. It’s a pointless grief, after so many years. Decades, now, as the banners and balloons up at the reunion were boasting.

He knew what he was doing, coming here tonight. Like pushing on a bruise to make sure it still hurts. And it did, it does, because Bucky is right - the camp hasn’t changed a bit, and Steve might be pushing forty now but his heart is still nineteen; still standing at the end of this dock at sundown waiting for those footsteps behind him, for that warm hand slipping into his and that familiar voice saying his name like it’s music, like it means something.

“Steve…” 

...There’s no hand, and his name is just a name. It aches in the exact place Steve had thought it would.

“She’s pretty, Buck. You look good together.”  

He thinks he hears Bucky’s breath hitch, but it could have been the breeze catching in the trees, or the lick of water at the splintered edge of the dock. It would be easier if it were a lie, might sit sweeter on Steve’s tongue if he were sugar coating something false, something to say for the sake of speaking, but he means it. 

That aches, too.

“I married her,” Bucky says, and the way it sounds like an apology sinks like a lead weight in Steve’s gut.

“I heard.” 

“Steve, will you please look at me?” 

Despair frays the edges of each word, and Steve shakes his head, blows out a ragged breath into the cool night air. 

He had looked at Bucky, had watched him walk in tonight looking every bit like the man Steve always knew he’d grow into - strong, kind-eyed, beautiful; age starting to show in the soft flecks of grey at his temples, but missing from where Steve thought it’d make itself known first. 

“You don’t have smile lines,” he can hear the frown in his own voice as the thought slips past his lips, “always thought you’d have smile lines, way you were always laughing at everything.”  

“Steve...” 

It’s a sob, this time; unmistakable, and it rips the ground out from beneath Steve. 

There’s a hand on his back, slipping down the column of his spine; a shivering body pressing up close behind him and a forehead dropping against his shoulder. Tears soak wet through the back of Steve’s shirt and two arms circle around his waist, a hold long-forgotten and achingly familiar all at once, and Steve can’t remember how to breathe.

“Bucky,” he begins, though he has no idea where it ends.

His hands come up to cover Bucky’s, threading their fingers together and pulling Bucky’s arms tighter around himself, and it feels nothing like it used to because Steve’s heart wasn’t broken back then. 

When Bucky’s lips find the crook of his neck, that doesn’t feel anything like it used to either, but Steve tilts his head for it anyway; offers up the expanse of his throat like he’d once offered up the rest of his life to the man holding him. 

All of me, he’d said so long ago, every day of every year I have left. All for you.

Bucky’s hands slip to Steve’s hips, his mouth at the hinge of Steve’s jaw, and it’s so wholly selfish, the way Steve wants this. It’s years of longing and anger and loss made harder by all the ways Bucky wasn’t gone, and the tattered vestiges of Steve’s heart are screaming at him to stop before there’s nothing left of himself to salvage.

 “You left me.” 

There’s no emotion left in the statement, not anymore. It bled out years ago, muffled into Steve’s pillow and screamed into voids and hurled at the walls of his too-quiet, too-empty house. 

It’s hollow, now, but Steve feels how heavy it lands in the way Bucky’s entire body curls in on itself behind him.

“I know,” Bucky whispers, his tear-stained cheek tucked against the side of Steve’s face. 

The immensity of pain buried in those two words sinks jagged teeth into the meat of Steve’s heart, and he can’t believe he still bleeds for it after all these years. He knows he should walk away from this, pry himself free of the physical hold Bucky has on him and spend the rest of his days praying those soul-ties unknot themselves too. 

But the wound is open now, if it were ever really closed, and he can’t stop himself from tugging on the busted stitches to see just how raw and messy he can make it. 

“Tell me why,” he turns in the circle of Bucky’s arms, cups the back of Bucky’s neck and makes him meet the full force of his gaze. 

Give me salt for this wound, he’s pleading, and Bucky would have every right to deny him because this conversation has no place here; has no place in any universe where there’s a ring on Bucky’s finger. 

But Bucky came to him, Bucky broke the silence and put his hands on Steve like he’s just as hungry to hurt for this again, and maybe they both just need to bleed it out together. 

“Because we couldn’t,” Bucky twists his fists tight and frantic into the fabric of Steve’s shirt. “I couldn’t...Jesus, if my family had found out—” 

“I loved you,” Steve spits, “it was real, and I loved you, and you loved me too.” 

“Fuck, Steve, of course I loved you!” There’s desperation there now, in Bucky’s hands on him; not just clinging but clawing, no space between them for air or reason or good judgement. “You think it didn’t break me, too?” 

“I wouldn’t fucking know what it did to you, Bucky,” Steve runs a fingertip across the plain gold band hugging Bucky’s finger, digging his nail in under the ridge of it, “but it seems like you bounced back just fine.” 

Bucky sucks in a breath, and Steve doesn’t hear him let it go again. He’s doing nothing to mask the anguish on his face as he stares up at Steve, lips parted and eyes welling over; his brow knotted into lines that form all too easy, like they’re well worn at this point, and it’s so so wrong. 

Steve smoothes his thumb over the groove between Bucky’s eyebrows; pushes at it like it’s something he can rub away. 

“Aren’t you happy?” he hears himself ask, hurt and exhausted and terrified of the answer. 

It’s not until Bucky shakes his head, tears spilling anew from his red-rimmed eyes, that Steve realizes there was any part of himself left that was yet to break.

“Not a day of my life, Steve. Not without you.” 

Steve will never be emptier than this, seeing the truth of it all spelled out across Bucky’s face. It had been all the light Steve had left, that small embittered part of himself that’d believed Bucky was better off for the way things had gone. 

What was left, now? It had burned Steve down to ash, losing Bucky, but loving him was inextricable, and thinking he was happy out there was the only reason Steve could sleep at night.

“What do I do with that, Buck?” 

There are tears in Steve’s eyes now too, a tremble in his voice and the dead weight of regret hanging off his words. 

Bucky takes Steve’s face between his hands, too tight to be tender. When he sweeps his thumbs across the tears tracking down Steve’s cheeks, it only spreads them further. 

“Kiss me?” 

Bucky leaves it in the space between them like it’s the only answer he has left, and Steve wishes it didn’t make sense. 

 Another place, another time; a different dock and a different sky, and Steve might see the insanity of it, the notion that putting his lips against Bucky’s could be a salve instead of just another scar. 

But they’re here, with those same stars and that same rundown boat shed with it’s broken door, and Steve lets himself close the distance between their mouths, because it’s the only answer he has left, too.

He kisses Bucky with every minute of every day of every wasted year sitting there on the tip of his tongue. He holds Bucky too close and breathes him in too deep, leans all too willing into the pass of Bucky’s hands over his body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Bucky sobs brokenly, slipping his hands up under the hem of Steve’s shirt to splay across his bare skin. 

Steve shakes his head because he can’t hear that now, with Bucky’s hands on him. Remorse can’t coexist with the warmth of Bucky’s palms and the slick press of his mouth, not when there isn’t even room for moonlight between them. 

“Don’t,” Steve whispers, “don’t tell me that.”

Bucky’s hand finds its way up to the center of Steve’s chest, his fingertips curling into a grip on Steve’s flesh like he can reach in and take hold of what lies beneath. Steve’s not sure there’s anything left in there to grab onto, but he lets Bucky try anyway because if there is, it will only ever belong in his hand. 

“Can I tell you I still think of you?” Bucky kisses the words against Steve’s cheek, trails them down the line of his jaw. “Never stopped thinking about you, Steve.” 

You should have, is what Steve should say, you’re not mine anymore.

“Someone will see us,” is what Steve does say, even as his fingertips dip beneath the waistband of Bucky’s pants. 

Someone is probably looking for Bucky right now, but there’s no room for that truth here, either. Especially when Bucky pulls back and looks toward the long abandoned boat shed, and then back at Steve.

There are so many opportunities for Steve to choose differently, to tell Bucky to stop. When Bucky takes him by the hand with a plea in his gaze; when he pulls Steve down the dock, and into that boat shed...it’s been a lifetime and Steve is a grown man, too old to be this foolish. But he’s tired, too worn down from years of unmet longing to be anything other than reckless when presented with everything he’s lived without for so painfully long. 

So he doesn’t say a word. 

He lets it happen, and he helps it happen. He raises his arms for Bucky to pull off his shirt, tilts his hips when Bucky works his belt loose and tugs down his pants. 

He strips Bucky bare with his own two hands and pulls him against his own naked body, sobbing open and unashamed for the way it makes him feel whole for the first time in twenty years. 

He maps the planes of Bucky’s body, no longer rounded and softened by youth, but every bit as warm as the memories Steve has clung to, and it shouldn’t feel right because it isn’t; shouldn’t feel so familiar when there’s been decades of distance between them. 

“I miss you.” 

It trips off Steve’s tongue before he can stop it, small and breathless. Of all the three-word truths he could have let slip it isn’t the worst, but Bucky’s wounded noise says that it cuts just as deep. 

He catches Bucky’s lips against his own before Bucky can do anything stupid like say it back; fisting his hands up through Bucky’s hair and pushing his tongue into Bucky’s mouth.

He wants to do this slow, to sink deep enough into it that every touch and every moment cling to him like a brand. But it’s only ever been a headlong tumble, this journey that begins with Bucky’s bare skin against his own, and Steve can feel himself falling the same way he always did.

Open palms turn to pressing fingertips, lips on skin turn to grazing teeth, and a dusty hammock spread across the floorboards. It’s another twist of the knife, the way Bucky’s body still fits beneath his own just as perfect as it ever did, the way Bucky’s spread thighs still make the perfect cradle for his hips. 

Bucky still looks up at him from the flat of his back with the same awe he’d turn upon the night sky, like Steve’s still the only heaven he believes in, and there’s too much gravity in that gaze. There always was, but there was no reason not to get dragged into it back then. 

It’s not until Bucky’s fingertips brush softly over his eyelids, tracing the sweep of his lashes, that Steve realizes he’s closed his eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Bucky whispers.

Steve almost wants to laugh, because if he were thinking at all, he wouldn’t be here. 

He’s not laid out naked on top of someone else’s husband because he’s thinking; not about to put his mouth and his fingers and his cock where they don’t belong because he’s in his right mind. 

Steve is an exposed nerve, a callous that’s been rubbed raw, and he’ll pretend that’s all he is for as long as it takes to see the man he never stopped loving fall apart beneath him one last time.

He buries his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck and bites down on the softness he finds there, all the answer he intends on giving. There’s no good reason for him to still know the exact spot to sink his teeth into, but he’s not about to waste time pretending he doesn’t remember every last touch point that ever made Bucky lose his mind. 

His right earlobe, the notch of his clavicle, the tender space beneath his ribs. 

His hip bones, and his wrists, and the soft insides of his thighs, sensitive all the way down to his knees.

Maybe after all this time it’s only nostalgia, only because they both want so badly to be who they once were to each other. But Bucky’s body still sings the exact same tune when Steve plays it, tongue and teeth and fingertips in all the right places.

“Please,” Bucky gasps, giving over to it just as easy as he always did. He’s hiding nothing of himself, not in the sprawl of his body or the longing in his gaze, the breathless sounds dripping off his lips. 

He arches into the rub of Steve’s skin against his, splays his thighs wide for Steve’s hips then wider still for Steve’s shoulders, and he looks down the line of his body with all the same rapture when Steve finally takes him into the heat of his mouth.

“Oh...” 

It’s so soft, the sound Bucky makes. One tiny word, more breath than anything else, yet it somehow holds all the sentiment of of course, and how have I lived without this, and Steve is ruined for it. 

He’s sixteen again, realizing that want begins and ends with Bucky Barnes.

He is seventeen, discovering that the only thing better than getting his hands on Bucky, is getting his mouth on him. 

He is eighteen, and nineteen, and twenty; bone-deep certain that for him, there will only ever be Bucky.

“Stevie,” Bucky sighs. He reaches gentle fingertips to brush the hair back off Steve’s forehead; traces the stretch of Steve’s lips around him with all the tender wonder of their youth.

...Steve is thirty-nine, and he will never come back from this. 

He holds Bucky’s gaze as he swallows him down, watches the play of pleasure across Bucky’s face like it’s still his to behold. 

He sinks all of himself into chasing those awed, quiet sounds that have existed only as echoes for so long, and pretends it’s not the worst kind of cruelty that this act should still feel so sacred; that Bucky should still be that breathless, trembling embodiment of surrender. 

Back arched, thighs twitching, face flushed and lips parted…it’s as devastating as Steve remembers, and so much more so for the fact that he has no right to witness it anymore. 

“Steve, please...” 

Bucky looks down at him imploringly, reaches for him with open hands. 

Steve hollows his cheeks as he pulls off him, slow and tight. He crawls back up Bucky’s body until they’re face to face, until he’s covering Bucky’s body with his own.

“I’m here, Buck.” 

I’m weak, Buck.

He cups Bucky’s face in his hands, strokes his thumbs across Bucky’s cheekbones and nudges their noses together. He breathes Bucky’s air and kisses his lips, soft and careful until it’s not; until it’s just Steve pouring all his hunger and his longing and his desperation into Bucky’s mouth.

And he is desperate. Every last part of him is breaking for the feel of Bucky’s bare skin, his bare arousal, rubbing up against his own; for the responsibility of holding Bucky’s vulnerability and his nakedness and his pleasure in the palms of his hands.

“God, it’s been so long,” Steve’s voice splinters around the words, around the sobs that want to keep coming, “it’s been so long, Bucky...”

He rolls his hips heavy and deep, slips his hands beneath Bucky’s shoulders to keep them locked tight together. There’s sweat beading between them, spit and precum slicking their skin, and every promise they ever made weighing dense in the air. 

Bucky’s fingernails are sunk deep enough into his back that Steve can feel the half-moon imprints forming; Bucky’s legs hitched up around his hips and soft moans passing back and forth between their open mouths. 

Steve had always wondered what this must look like from the outside, the way they get lost in one another. The quiet gasps and heavy breaths, the pleasured sounds that catch between their lips. Bodies shaking, hands clinging, eyes open because it’s the closest thing to heaven you’d ever see. 

It’s immensity was always buried in the slowness of it all, but it’s as consuming and inevitable as it ever was. 

He knows Bucky’s close before Bucky tells him he is; can feel it thrumming through Bucky’s body beneath him. He knows he shouldn’t watch it happen, shouldn’t sharpen that mental picture back into focus when it had taken so long to blur its edges in the first place. 

He shouldn’t moan brokenly into Bucky’s mouth and rock harder against him; shouldn’t push up onto his hands and fix his gaze squarely on Bucky’s face.

‘Shouldn’t’ doesn’t mean a goddamn thing anymore.

“Come with me?” Bucky pleads, eyes glassy and body strung taut. 

He presses a trembling hand to Steve’s heart and the other to Steve’s neck, holding his racing pulse and his heartbeat in his hands just the same as he had the first time they made love, and Steve comes apart at the seams.

It’s unending, that wash of raw feeling. It’s galaxies inside his rib cage and oceans in his veins, and wildfire curling around the base of his spine. He breathes Bucky’s name, spills all over his stomach, and when Bucky follows him over he ducks down to drink the wonder of it right off Bucky’s lips. 

The quiet weighs so much heavier, as they lay pressed together in the aftermath. 

Steve looks down at the man beneath him, watches his breathing settle and the flush subside from his cheeks, and the ache of the past suddenly pales in comparison to what lies ahead. 

What exists for them beyond this moment, here and now? Bucky’s face is cradled in Steve’s hands and his nakedness is sheltered by Steve’s body, but even this was never Steve’s to offer. It’s time and touch already stolen, and the rhythmic lap of water against the dock outside may as well be the ticking of a clock.

“What happens now, Buck?” he asks, knowing there’s no comfort to be found in the answer. 

Bucky shakes his head, touching gentle fingertips to Steve’s cheek and searching Steve’s gaze. 

“I don’t know.”

The night air is cold against Steve’s back, all the warmth that had seemed to wrap so close around them dissipating. 

He slowly moves off of Bucky and gathers up their clothes, redressing himself with fingers that fumble weak and uncoordinated with the fabric that had been so very easy to take off. 

“...If you asked me to leave her, I would.” 

Bucky’s voice comes small from behind him, but the words take up every last inch of space in the room. 

Steve turns to look at him, and there’s something so painfully close to hope on his face, it makes Steve’s chest ache. 

“I can’t do that, Bucky,” he rasps, “it can’t be up to me.” 

The regret in it is palpable, the ‘I wish it was’ joining the thousand other things that live, unsaid, on the tip of Steve’s tongue.

I am so much yours that it hurts

I will never stop hoping for you 

I will love you for the rest of my life

It’s years too late, for all of it. But those words still throw themselves against the backs of Steve’s teeth, because if not now, then when?

 “Bucky, I—”

 “James?”

 ...The soft call comes from outside, carried on the breeze from a little ways off. 

There’s nothing in it, no suspicion, no concern. Just someone looking for the person they’ve lost, wondering where they’ve gone to. 

Steve’s stomach sinks, and the clock runs out.

Bucky looks at him, eyes wide and lips falling open like he intends to speak. No sound comes out, but Steve understands all the same - Bucky’s gaze always said more than words ever could, anyway.  

“You should go back, Buck.” 

Steve says it gently, though neither of them deserve that kindness after what they’ve done. He picks up his sweater, and he leaves what’s left of his heart on the floor, because he’s got no use for it without the man he’s about to walk away from. 

“If you ever…” Steve starts, and stops himself, shaking his head softly. His gaze sticks to the spot just in front of Bucky’s feet, his body half turned toward the door. 

“...You know where I’ll be,” he says instead, and then he gathers up his shoes in his hands and steps back out into the evening, because he’s no more capable of saying ‘goodbye’ to Bucky now than he was back then.

 ***

It’s a half hour walk home along the edge of the lakeshore, but it takes Steve hours; tears washing a salt-sting down his cheeks and his feet in the too-cold water the entire way.

It doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he deserves, that frigid needling against his skin and the stones underfoot. But the greater punishment will come, he knows.

When he gets home, and has to live the rest of his life knowing not only what he lost, but what he did to try and dull the ache of it. 

When he gets home, to that rambling, too-quiet house on the lake edge, where Bucky’s touch is set into the very foundations.

The roof they had helped Steve’s dad patch, the summer Steve turned eighteen; the creaking window ledge that would betray Bucky’s midnight visits to Steve’s bedroom, and that same kitchen table where they’d try not to blush at each other’s gaze. 

The porch swing where they’d watch the sun go down; every wall and doorframe they’d kissed up against when Steve’s parents weren’t around to see it; every tree they ever made love or fell asleep beneath...

He may not have seen Bucky in the flesh in almost twenty years, but there hasn’t been a day of Steve’s life since that he hasn’t felt the echo of his presence, and now it will hum under his skin the same way it always has in his house. 

The sky is awash with stars he can’t bear to look at by the time he makes it home, feet numb and shivering all over. 

He trudges the path from the lakeshore back up to his house, clearing the tree line and stepping into the moonlight spilling full and bright over his yard, over his homestead. 

Over the unfamiliar car parked in his dirt-track driveway, and the figure sitting, waiting, on his porch. 

“...Bucky?” 

His body slows in its tracks, stops halfway across the yard and won’t carry him any further forward. 

Bucky makes no move to close the distance between them either, save to stand slowly on unsteady legs and step down onto the silver-lit lawn. 

“Hey, Steve.”

His arms are curled around himself, his shoulders rounded and his feet shifting on the grass. Even in the moonlight, Steve can see the swell of too many tears shed around Bucky’s eyes, and he’d look like he was about to run if not for the set of his jaw; the unwavering hold of his gaze on Steve’s.

“Buck, what are you...how long have you—”

“I did it.” 

Bucky’s voice cracks - not like a heart breaking, but like a weight falling away, like a world upending, and it hits Steve like a blow to the back of the knees.

“You did what, Bucky?” 

He knows what he’s hearing, what Bucky has just laid before him, but he asks anyway because it can’t be that; that terrible, selfish thing that Steve has dreamed of and hoped for and hated himself for wanting all these years. 

Bucky can’t be here, standing under the light of the full moon, hours after they made love that was all passion and no integrity, telling Steve that.

Bucky takes a step forward, just one. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for Steve to see that he’s shaking.

“I told her, Steve. I told her what I did tonight...told her the truth about me.” 

“The truth...” 

Steve’s chest is crushing in on itself, the air between them so thin and fragile he’s afraid to breathe it in. 

Bucky wraps himself tighter in the circle of his own arms, shaking his head and dropping his gaze to the ground. 

“I was scared, Steve,” he whispers, “back then...We were kids, and I was so scared of what it meant, the way I felt about you. And I thought I could...make myself feel that, again. For someone else. Someone who was...” 

He blows out a shuddering breath, kicking at the ground in front of him.

“...Someone that everybody else would accept. But I couldn’t, Steve. I tried, I tried so fucking hard, and I thought that if I got married, then maybe...maybe it’d be better, because I’d have no choice but to love her. But I just...I couldn’t feel that again. I couldn’t, because I never fuckin’ stopped feeling it, for you.”

Steve aches, in every part of his being, all the way down in his soul. He stares at the man he’s loved his whole life, and he aches for the both of them; for the half-lives they’ve been living, tied to one another with string that had stretched when it would have been kinder to snap. 

“I got it so wrong, Steve,” Bucky sobs, his eyes screwing shut against free-flowing tears. “I chose so wrong. And I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry…”

Steve’s body moves without thought, reaches and wraps itself around Bucky’s trembling frame; tight like he can save Bucky from this inevitable unraveling. 

“Jesus, Bucky,” he shakes his head, heartbreak spilling raw into his voice, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Bucky’s face is tucked into the crook of his neck and his tears are catching cold against Steve’s skin. But Steve’s own are falling into Bucky’s hair, and his hands are shaking too hard for their strokes up and down Bucky’s back to be any real comfort, and neither of them move to change a thing about it.  

“I’ve thought of you every day,” the confession slips quiet from Steve’s lips, and he lets it, “I’ve missed you, every day.” 

Bucky gasps a hitching breath into Steve’s shirt, holds tight to the fabric at his back. 

“Fuck, I got more to make up for here than I’ve got years left,” he shudders, pulling back to find Steve’s eyes. “I got no right to ask you for anything ever again, and I know I gotta put some things right first, get myself right, but...but would you ever...could we, ever…” 

Steve is nodding. Before Bucky’s even gotten the words out, Steve’s nodding. 

There are so many questions still to be asked and answered, so many conversations to be had and blows that are yet to land in the aftermath. The road that lies ahead is unpaved and unmapped, and the sunrise will shed light on realities they haven’t even considered. 

But none of that changes what Steve knows to be true, here and now. 

He knows that the window ledge still creaks; that that tree still bears more fruit than he knows what to do with, and the roof hasn’t once leaked, not during a single storm.

He knows that in any lifetime, any versions of themselves...they could. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Bucky,” come home when you’re ready, Bucky, “you know where I’ll be.” 

***

It takes time, just like Steve knew it would. 

It takes tears, and words that are just as hard to hear as they are to say. 

It’s wounds reopened just to be stitched back together better, right this time; stitched to heal instead of just to survive. 

Bucky is gone again, for a while, but his absence isn’t the bleak void it once was. It’s time apart for the sake of a life together, for both of them to rebuild what was broken and find a new sense of ‘whole.’ 

It’s Bucky finding his feet as the person he’s always been, and learning to speak his truth. It’s untangling himself from the life he was never meant to live, and finding forgiveness where it’s needed. 

It’s Steve ripping up those floorboards that creak, and it’s letting himself sleep. It’s replacing the wallpaper that was more peel than pattern, and it’s teaching himself to roll with the waves of joy and grief until he can sit just as comfortably with both.

It takes time; eight months and twenty-one days worth of it. 

But they heal, and Bucky finds his way home. 

And this time, it sticks.

[mediocre--writing]

after starcourt billy and el get closer, and he introduces her to the things that make him happy (rock music, basketball, etc, etc)

and el isn’t quite sure what to give back. billy has shown her so much new stuff about the world, she wants something to give to him.

she finds his mom. she goes into her little trance and finds the blonde woman she’s seen in billy’s memories. she’s living alone, has a cat or two, and is in a small apartment... in new york.

so she talks to steve. he recons they can find her in the phone book, but when asked for a name, el blanks. she doesn’t have a name to put with the face.

so she goes back into her head, waiting for someone to say it or something, then something catches her eye.

piles and piles and piles of papers on the dining table and all the chairs but one. there are even some discarded on the floor.

el walked to them, reading the best she could (she’s gotten pretty decent at it over the months she was at hoppers cabin and billy has been helping her, too)

‘Custody Agreement,’ one reads. a californian address is in the middle of a few letters, addressed to a ‘Neil Hargrove.’ a half written letter reads:

‘Sorry, ma’am, but we’ve just bought this house and don’t know a Neil, but we’re sorry for your situation.’

there’s bills and payments overdue to the apartment complex, as well as an attorney. letters dating back to 1978 that are worn and read over and over.

there’s pictures in one binder, opened to approximately the middle, showing a boy and the woman—billy and his mother— on a beach eating ice cream. it’s dated 1976.

there’s another picture of billy—cowboy hat on and a funny sheriff pin on his shirt—dancing around a small, but homey, living room.

the final picture on the page, blurry and sideways, shows the woman smiling, a cut on her cheek that was still bruised, but the caption (written in a sloppy, childish font) read: ‘taken by w.t.h. 1975’

the woman is sleeping on the couch, a journal open on her stomach and pen still in her hand, breathing slowly.

the journal is open to a page, one of the last in the book, and has a scribbly font to match the other writings in the kitchen.

they’re addressed to billy, and signed with a heart. there’s ink smeared in some spots, presumably from tears, and el thinks that this is one of the saddest things she’s ever had to see.

but she looks to the woman once more, eyes trailing along the diner costume she has on, a hideous blue/green color (that faintly resembles billy’s eyes) and sees a name tag.

she has a name for steve.

Carrie

she’s not positive of a last name, but she assumes hargrove is a good bet, and, low and behold, there she is.

Carrie Hargrove and her phone number are listed right there in the phone book, and as lucky as that is, el doesn’t know what to say.

this doesn’t feel like a quick-phone call situation. this is a big deal.

carrie has been looking for billy for years, since the week she left, it looks like, and she’s been writing to him, the billy she remembers, and tells him about things in the city he would love. little thinks people she waits on say that remind her of him. how she imagines he looks and acts now. how she wants to murder a son of a bitch named neil hargrove.

(oh, don’t we all)

the hard part starts now, though, because how do you tell a broken mother over the phone that you know her son and, somehow, know her phone number?

you can’t. it’s just not right.

so steve does it. he takes a short, weekend trip out to new york. tells the party he’s going to see his parents since they’re in nyc for the week and he’s gone.

el doesn’t know what happens between the friday steve leaves and the sunday he gets back, but he returns no different than how he left.

el hasn’t been able to ask him about it yet, she hasn’t seen him and she can’t exactly pull him to the side during party outings because that would be a little strange to to without questions.

plus, billy and max are always around. like always.

but it seems that el won’t have to ask steve any questions, she finds the next weekend, when the party rides their bikes over to steve’s house and see a car, ratty and old, sitting in the driveway.

it’s a familiar shade of blue and has a new york license plate hung on the back.

the kids assess the car but el makes her way to a window, peaking in to see steve quietly talking to a woman, the beautiful woman who is still wearing that atrocious diner costume with her hair a mess, and they seem to be arguing quietly.

not long after el peeks in, the boys come around her to look through the window, and that’s when steve sees them. they try to duck but they’re caught.

the boys are asking steve who this lady is and all other million questions they have and the woman—carrie—is still sitting at the dining table, looking ready to bolt back to her car and drive all the way back to new york.

their conversation (interrogation) is interrupted by the roar of an engine—max and billy are here.

billy is here.

max comes through the (open) door first.

“who’s car is in the drive way? steve, i thought your parents were rich?”

but she stills in the doorway when she sees steve looking more guilty than usual, the boys irritated at their lack of answers, and el, standing near a woman, who max remembers from photos—albeit a few years younger.

“woah, that’s—“

billy’s footsteps are heard before he’s seen, and he bumps into max, still standing in the door, while he’s trying to put his cigarettes in his jacket pocket.

“the fuck,” he murmurs as he grabs max’s shoulders to keep her upright

“steve won’t tell us who the lady is!” dustin yells, because of course dustin had to open his big mouth.

“lady?” billy asks before looking around the room, analyzing steve’s face (guilty), the boys (irritated and confused), then els face (hopeful and worried).

his eyes move to behind el, to the dining room, where a mop of blonde hair, not dissimilar to his own, is sitting there, staring at him.

the same eyes connect across the room and both their hearts drop to the floor.

billy takes a small step foreward. stands still for another moment, then walks quickly towards her.

she’s scrambling to get out of the chair and, for a second, this looks like a threatening scene, but then they’re going towards each other and embracing so tightly you couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended.

her name tag was poking into billy’s chest and his boot was partially over her foot, but they had their eyes closed as they breathed in and out, simultaneously calling down and getting excited from the others presence.

el didn’t realize before, when she’d seen carrie in the void, but they had all the same features. their curly, dirty blond hair, their bright blue eyes surrounded by darkness, their hands that kept readjusting and grabbing tighter onto the things they didn’t want to lose.

the way they both had their noses scrunched up while trying not to cry, the way they both didn’t move much as if that would break the trance they got drawn into.

“so who is she?” dustin asked, not so quietly.

“why don’t all you brats go outside for a few minutes?” they didn’t look happy with that idea, but followed steve outside like little ducklings, leaving carrie and billy alone.

they still didn’t break from the hug, not even when the sliding door slammed and the kids’ voices were muffled.

as carrie started moving her arm, rubbing gently across billy’s back, he finally let go of the tears that had welled in his eyes.

“i missed you, my boy,” she croaked out, leaving billy to choke out a sob, holding her tighter—if that was possible.

“missed you too, momma,” billy mumbled into her shoulder, feeling her hug him back tighter as well.

they pulled away, only when billy’s back was beginning to ache from bending down a bit just to feel small in her arms. and maybe it was because he was a kid, but he always thought he remembered her taller.

“i’m so, so sorry, it—“

“why did you leave?”

“i didn’t. no—i mean, i did, but you were gonna come with me, billy. i moved our stuff, in small amounts, to my sister’s place, maggie, you remember her? right?” billy nodded “i was gonna slowly get us out of there, but neil realized, he knew what i was doing and i—i couldn’t stand it and i—“

her throat was burning with anguish as she tried to explain, to the best of her ability, how she could have done something so despicable.

“i didn’t leave for long, i didn’t know he knew, but i was moving some stuff to maggie’s, was gonna stay the weekend, it was after that one big fight, and it was the last load of stuff i had to bring, but i came back sunday night and everything, the whole house, it was empty, i—“

billy remembered that weekend. he noticed how things around the house had been moved or were missing, then how his mom left for two days, his dad told him she wasn’t coming back.

billy didn’t believe him. didn’t want to believe him. neil promised that everything would be ok, that they would stay with grandma and grandpa for a week or two, just to get back on their feet, since they wouldn’t be able to afford the house with only one income.

billy believed his dad. believed the lies he was fed about how his mom didn’t care, left him for crap, got out while she could, stole from his dad just to get out.

in the back of his head, he always knew neil was lying, but if that were true, why did she never come back for him?

he remembers one night, while they were sitting outside, billy and neil and his grandparents, the phone rang, and billy offered to answer it.

and the voice on the other line was his mom, and he begged her to come get him and cried for her to love him again, not realizing that she’d never stopped.

neil had heard the tail end of the conversation. they moved out of billy’s grandparents within the week.

billy wanted his mom back, knew that someone had made a mistake when she’d left, that someone as pure and amazing and loving as she was couldn’t just leave a kid like that.

it all made sense now. why they moved so much. why neil was always angry and going over papers from lawyers or shredding letters that never got opened.

why they moved so far away, all the way to hicktown, indiana (among other reasons).

“neil is a piece of shit,”

carrie choked out a laugh at the off handed comment that came from billy—her boy. she nodded, though.

“that he is,”

they were both a little uncomfortable, but held an underlying relief of seeing one another.

“you know,” billy’s head turned to her, “my apartment, in new york, is filled with pictures of you and i. i was going to bring them, but i couldn’t take all of them and i wasn’t sure which ones were my favorite. but—“

she walked back over to where she had been sitting at the table, reaching into her satchel and pulling out a worn leather book, handing it to billy.

“i thought you should have this.” billy opened the book, the spin cracking with movement, and noted how every single page was filled to the brim with words. “i wrote to you, at least once a week. things that made me think of you, on your birthday and holidays, other occasions. times when i missed you a lot and times when i knew you might need me.”

billy, both listening to her words and reading the first page, was dissolving into a mixed state of joy and sadness.

his mother had thought of him just as he’d thought of her. every day and holiday and situation was filled with thoughts of the other. she didn’t leave him in the dust and start a new family.

she was still searching for the one that was taken from her.

[nemycchi]

Delusion

A Childe X Lumine Fanfiction

Rating : Not Rated

Tags : Psychological, Mild Angst, Character Death

----

During moments of utter silence, Childe recalls that which Lumine once told him about a book she had read from a far away land. 

"It is of utmost importance that those who seek to fight monsters must not become one in the process." 

He likes to think that perhaps, by mentioning it, she had once hoped that he would be reminded of his main aspiration—to conquer the world that is, and not to simply bathe in the blood of his enemies. 

It has its merits, he admits—for he finds himself fighting alongside her during the turning point of the war, the darkness in him dampened by the white light she emits—cleansing the corruption that has resided in him for the longest time. 

This too though, reminds him of another of her words. 

"The deep dark abyss—stare for too long and it would stare back to those who dare." 

It is true, for he knows that ever since he dropped down that hole in the world, he emerged as a monster that is only tamed by bloodshed. 

And from the moment he knew Lumine, perhaps by her as well. 

He has always carried a portion of that so-called abyss, feeling its vines wrapping inside his very being. He is a monster, that much is true, but tamed as one can be, he became a tool under her commands. 

He does not care, for it is times with her when the whispers of the dark become muted—turned into nothing but echoes of the past. 

"Childe? Breakfast?" 

The man spies her slender form by the doorframe of his bedroom, sees her domestically ushering his sleepy person into the kitchen and he feels as though he had achieved that which he desires, with her by his side. 

To conquer the world. 

They did. They won. And it was all that he could ask for. 

Celestia is no more. The abyss is no more. It is just him, Lumine and the rest of the world. 

He smiles as he sits down at the table, reaching for her hand as she places the bowl of steaming Calla Lily Seafood Soup before him. 

"Oh, my favorite. What's the occasion, girlie?"

"Mhm, nothing in particular. Just wanted to cook something special for you." she smiles back and he thinks he saw the glimmer of stars beyond her eyes. 

Or perhaps it was nothing but an illusion, masking the deeper end of the void he is familiar with—if such end even existed. 

Childe shakes his head for he believes that that is not the case. Lumine is here with him. And the abyss is no more. It is no more. 

And if the calling of that dark bud inside him grows too strong anyhow, he knows she is here to defeat it for him. 

For she is also perhaps a monster in her own rights. 

 

--☆☆☆--

 

The bags under his eyes, and the haunted looks in his face tell everyone that he is far from recovered but everytime someone comes to ask him how he is faring, he will do nothing but face them with a smile before answering. 

"I'm very much fine! Lumine takes good care of me." 

If there were curious glances sent his way, he does not care. They must be seething inside—jealous that it was him who conquered her heart by the end of it all. 

The savior and the reformed harbinger.

What a perfect love story—great as a tale to pass down from generations to generations. He sighs at the thought. 

"Childe, pardon my query but I must ask—how have you truly been?" 

He already lost count of how many times the same question had been asked of him. 

He stops walking—to face the former Geo Archon a few steps behind. 

"I do not understand why everyone keeps on asking the same question. I already told you i'm fine, didn't I?" 

Oh how he hates it when they ask—as if they were doubting his princess' ability to care for him, for it was her who has been on his bed, in his kitchen, in his very house ever since the world achieved true peace. 

They do not understand just how capable Lumine is. 

And they will never know, if he has anything to say. 

"Though we are but friends, I must express my deep concern. The dips on your cheeks beg to differ from that which you uttered." 

The blue in his eyes shift into something malicious, to that belonging to the beast he keeps inside. 

"With all due respect, Mr. Zhongli. I do not appreciate the implications of what you just said. You asked and I answered." He pauses. 

The abyss is no more for Lumine is with him. 

"I shall be going now. My wife is waiting for me at home." 

As he walks away, he ignores the burning gaze on his back. It's fine. That former god does not matter. 

What matters is him and Lumine while the rest of the world could go crash and burn, he thinks. 

 

--☆☆☆--

 

"Tough day at work?" 

Childe sidles up to her side, wrapping an arm around the apron-covered waist of his beloved. He kisses her temple with reverence—for it is what she deserves. 

"Not really. It was just Mr. Zhongli. And others. Being annoyingly repetitive as always." He grumbles, tucking her head under his chin. 

The small hand resting atop his chest tightens against his clothes. 

"Do they... not approve of me?" She asks almost inaudibly. 

He was quick to deny the preposterous thought. 

"Don't listen to them. They do not matter, girlie." 

Childe feels her shift and he looks down at her. 

Golden pools decorated by the glittering of stars—of tears, he realizes, meet his abyssal depths. 

"Are you... are you going to leave me?" 

He brushes the hair out of her forehead and tucks the strays behind her ears before promptly brushing away the tears that cascaded from her eyes. 

"Never. You are mine, Lumine. As much as I am yours." 

Even the sweetest wine cannot compare to the smile that adorns her face after his declaration. She buries her head on his chest once more, arms crossing behind him, bestowing him with nothing else but warmth. 

Childe thinks for a second, that this moment is perhaps the best there is in the world. And he knows he is ruined for anything else.

It is impossible to feel anything akin to this feeling and he strongly believes that the desire to even experience it from others aside his princess does not exist anymore. 

 

--☆☆☆--

 

The sound of deliberate knocking at the door rouses the harbinger from his sleep. Childe growls in annoyance at whoever is behind that piece of wood as he untangles his limbs from the goddess laying beside him. 

He kisses the top of her head before deciding to rise and check who their visitor is. 

He stills when the one in front of his humble abode makes himself known. 

Zhongli, of course. 

"Mr. Zhongli, why the early visit?" 

The man only hums before crossing his arms, pinning him with a serious gaze. 

"May I come in, Childe?"

"Ah, of course." 

He lets him in and ushers the former archon to the couch. Upon sitting, the latter immediately scans his surroundings with vague concern in his eyes. 

"I must say, your house is surprisingly empty and devoid of life, Childe."

"What do you mean? I think it's pretty homey. Lumine designed it by herself when she first got here." 

A frown makes its way to the other man's lips. 

"Childe, can we talk?" 

He stiffens, tone changing into a defensive one. 

"We are talking, are we not?" He spats.

"Why don't you ask Lumine to come down here with us?" 

He summons one of his water blades. 

"Why exactly are you here, Zhongli?"

"Call Lumine, Childe." 

In a flash, the water blade comes in contact with the polearm that materialized in front of the visitor. 

"Why. Are. You. Here?" He asks, hostile in every way as he accents each word with a swing of his blade—all thankfully parried. 

"I need you to understand, Childe." Zhongli calls forth a jade shield that rattled even the sturdy walls of the other man's home. 

A water spear slams against the shield. 

"That Lumine..." 

Yet another side step, perfectly timed to avoid the beast cloaked in water suddenly crackling with electricity. 

"Stop it!" It yells. 

But Zhongli is not known for being gentle. The wrath of the rock and the harsh truth—both must be laid out for him to save the monster disguised as a man. 

"Is no longer with us." 

A beat passes.

"She's gone, Childe. And you must accept that fact."

"No!" 

And like that, the man surges forward with the fury enough to fuel wars. 

The walls crumble and the terrified shrieks of townsfolk in the immediate vicinity sound off but Childe could no longer care. 

Him and Lumine. The rest of the world does not matter. 

His mind goes blank with nothing but white hot anger, and he brandishes his weapon with renewed vigor. 

"Take it back." He quietly demands, voice distorted. 

Instead of complying, multiple stone steles rise up from the pavement, obscuring the two men from prying eyes. 

"Everyone grieves for her departure, I assure you. We are hurt as much as you are." A water blade makes contact with the archon's cheek and he winces as response, "but she chose to sacrifice herself for this world's peace and she will not be happy if she sees you rotting away to your demise, Childe."

"You—you don't know anything! Do not lie! Lumine..." A crack in his composition and Zhongli is quick to take advantage of it. 

All at once, like a puppet with strings cut off, Childe falls forward when Zhongli's polearm strikes down his chest. The accumulated hunger and fatigue from weeks of barely holding on to her memory suddenly come crashing down upon his person. 

Empty plates and sweet nothings. 

Cold bed and pristine kitchen. 

Unused scarf with the color of the skies and the clouds—like the view he's witnessing right now. 

Stare into the abyss, and it stares back at you—its remnants staying within, slowly consuming that which it latches on to. 

The abyss is no more—or so he believes. 

"Lumine... she promised me." he whispers into the wind. 

The rustling of cloth distracts him from his thoughts. 

"Do not lean too close to that edge, Childe. I beg you, not as your friend, but as Lumine's—please, do stay with us." 

Before his eyes closed, he heard the call from the deep dark abyss of the waters. 

The sea is calm. And he couldn't care less about the rest of the world. 

Him and Lumine, he thinks. Him and Lumine.