#feels like I’m talking to all my English major friends who moved to New York with no job and maxed out their credit cards trying to sustain

[champagnemoon]

It’s so wild that this was written in the 90s and not 2023

[quantumlocked310]

Order Up! Part 1 of 2

Extra Hot Hvitserk Macchiato for @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom on the bar!

Summary: You finally run into the cute barista from your favorite coffee shop when he’s not working. Will he be charming enough to lure you into bed? Or are you confident enough to invite him in yourself?

Warnings: Tooth Rotting Fluff, Slow Burn, Smut will be in Chapter 2

Note: This is technically a sequel, but can be read without reading Pour Overs and Pastries. (but that one is really cute, so you absolutely should if you haven’t)

Crossposted on AO3

+++++

The new job was going swimmingly. Your coworkers loved you, and you were crushing problems left and right. You’d even saved the company several thousand Krone by finding a smoother, more efficient way to execute some accounting procedures. The company was so happy they’d taken the chance on you, even though they had to go through all the trouble of coordinating the visa and moving you from New York to Denmark.

You’d fallen in love with the city, and your new life. Each workday you begin with coffee from Lothbrothers. The office has a little kiosk in the foyer, but the coffee from the little shop with the cute barista is worth the extra expense.

For three months your morning routine is peppered with pleasant conversation from Sigurd, local gossip with Ivar, and a whole bunch of covert staring at the muscles in Hvitserk’s back as he putters around the bar.

Two weeks into your daily trips to the shop, Ivar had turned to you while waiting for your drink and demanded your name saying, “Du er kommet her i to uger…” before seeing the look of immense confusion on your face and switching to English while rolling his eyes. “You’ve been coming here for two weeks now. Guess you’re a regular. Why are you in Denmark?”

You’re a little taken aback at his abrupt tone, but seeing as he has spent the last two weeks staring holes into his computer it is possible he’s just a little intense. You turn to him and say “A new job. I moved from New York,” but almost can’t spit it out, because as soon as you turn to answer him his icy blue eyes capture you in their magnetic pull.

You blink and he’s no longer looking you in the eye. “New York is a long way. Why Denmark?”

Shrugging you rest a hip on the counter and check your watch quickly. “It was the first overseas company I found willing to hire an American in the position I wanted. I’m very lucky, and very good at my job. Not to mention the perk of viking men.” You wink at this handsome stranger, and he looks away, a little flustered. Perhaps if you can’t catch the barista’s eye, you’ll have fun with this Dane instead.

“Latte for Y/N.” A voice growls from your side, and you turn around to grab your drink.

“Thank you, Hvits…” He is gone before you can finish his name, without so much as a “Thank you for coming,” like usual.

You frown, but suppose it must be busier than usual and turn back to the stranger you’d been conversing with. “Excuse me, I have to run to work, but it was very nice to meet you.”

“And you as well.” The stranger waves you off, and you scurry away, mind a flurry with thoughts of what you could’ve possibly done to piss off the cute barista. Was he just busy? Did you say something to the stranger that made him angry? You realize you never got the stranger’s name, but the rest of the anxious thoughts flow away with the calming walk to your office building.

+++++

The next day you learn the stranger’s name is Ivar, and you strike up an interesting friendship. Each morning you greet each other and while you wait for coffee he tells you all about the other patrons. You learn the large man on the bench from your first day is Bjorn, Ivar’s half brother. “But that’s a story for over drinks, not coffee.” You laugh together, but you have to go before he can ask you out for those drinks.

Ivar says the man at the window is the leader of a local church. Not a priest, and not a cult leader, but almost. Ivar is unashamed about his belief in their higher power, but makes it clear he doesn’t have a large commitment to Loki’s teaching specifically. The way he speaks of the older man, it seems like something had happened between the two, but Ivar is stubborn and refuses to speak anymore on the subject.

After six weeks of talking, Ivar tells you he’s an editor for a major Danish publisher. His sharp and ruthless mind makes sure no mistake is unaddressed and you get to sample some of the works he reads as he complains about plot holes or token characters.

Ivar seems to know everyone in the cafe, or can at least point someone out as new and predict if they will come back or not. Hvitserk will sometimes chime in with a comment about a patron. That they like this or that drink. That they don’t like raisins. That he thinks yellow isn’t their color. Or he bets they work for this lawyer or that restaurant.

Over the weeks you find out more little things about the two men, and you stop flirting with Ivar. You’ve noticed it gets him flustered and he seems to actually get uncomfortable, but he refuses to talk about it and changes the subject whenever you try. So you move on, and continue the friendly banter and non-sexual subjects. You’ve learned Hvitserk will stand up for the other employees. When someone is rude to Sigurd he will take over with a menacing glare and put in their order without a smile. If he hears harassing comments from people in line he will kick them out without thought, and Ivar supports him every time.

Your affection for Lothbrothers grows with every week you spend going to the coffeeshop, and your friendship with Ivar, and your crush on Hvitserk soar with it too.

+++++

Bright and early Saturday morning finds you browsing the local market for fresh finds. On the weekends you indulge your Farmer’s Market Aesthetic side and cook anything you can find. You’ve even started to befriend one of the local boulangers after he realized you love to hear about his process for choosing bread flavors for the day.

While talking to Pierre about his sourdough starter, you notice out of the corner of your eye a tall man approach the market stall. Pierre pauses in your conversation and you turn to get a better look at who is buying.

“Hvitserk?” His name slips out of your mouth in shock. You’d never run into anyone you know, who wasn’t a vendor, at this market before.

His head whips around, eyes impossibly wide as he stares at you, clearly thinking something similar.

“It’s Y/N. From the coffeeshop. Good Morning!”

“Yes, Y/N. Ivar’s new friend. Good morning.” He seems to pause, perhaps thinking about if it’s socially acceptable to turn tail and run. But then he simply asks “How are you?”

“I am well thank you. All the better for Pierre’s delicacies.” You smile toward the seller then ask, “How are you?”

“Well also, thanks. Do you come to this market often?”

“Only every Saturday for the past, oh, five weeks? Do you come here often, as well?”

“I have not been back in a long time.” He seems to think inwardly for a moment before coming back to the present. You wonder what makes him look like that. Who ruined this peaceful market for this gorgeous man?

“Well then you won’t have met Sara yet!” You grab his free hand and start pulling him toward one of the newer market stalls. On the way over you seem to realize what you’ve done, and try to pull your hand away out of propriety, but Hvitserk tightens his hold just a little and you can feel your face heat as you continue to hold hands.

There are a few people in line when you arrive, so you continue to make small talk, asking “So what made you decide to come to the market today?”

“I like to see what’s new or in season to add to the menu for the shop. Unfortunately the schedule doesn’t always allow me to scope things out as often as I like. Yourself?”

“I try to cook locally on the weekends, since I don’t have time during the week. There is amazing produce here, wait ‘till you try…” You’re interrupted by Sara proclaiming “My favorite customer!”

You laugh and hug your friend awkwardly over the counter. “Good morning, Sara. I want you to meet Hvitserk. He’s the barista at that amazing cafe by my apartment.”

“Co-Owner and barista, actually. It’s nice to meet you.” He reaches out his hand to greet Sara.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn't realize. How cool!” In all your talks, Ivar had never mentioned. You panic for a quick second before continuing. “Sara is the best beekeeper in all of the North. She also works part time with me in the office.”

“Welcome to ‘Sweet as Honey’! What can I get for you?” Sara chimes in with a big smile.

“He wants the small tasting jars. Lavender, Jalapeno, and Chai.” You turn to Hvisterk “Her flavors are ingenious and she comes up with new ones all the time. She brings in samples to work, so I'm both spoiled and biased.”

“I can’t wait.” He smiles softly. You go to pull out your wallet, but Hvitserk is already handing Sara some Krone. “You’ve bought enough coffee from me. I think I should return the favor.” He winks and inside you swoon a little. His flirty smile is a welcome change from the cool professionalism you get from him at Lothbrothers’.

“Thank you for stopping by! It was nice to meet you Hvitserk. I’ll see you on Monday, Y/N?”

“Bye, Sara! See you then.” As Hvisterk turns to walk away, Sara looks at you and points at him, then fans herself and pretends to faint. You give her a quelling look and shake your head no. She gives you an incredulous look in return, as if to say “Why not?” You shrug briefly thinking “I don’t know where this is going.”

You turn around to find Hvitserk has claimed a small bench by a tree a few feet away from Sweet as Honey. He pulls out the first of the jars, a small bag with six little cubes of bread inside, and a tiny wooden stirring stick. The heat of his body is scalding where you can feel it next to you, the bench only large enough to allow a sliver of air between you.

His large hands open the top on the Chai infused honey, and you watch his long fingers use the tiny stick to spread just enough honey on the first of the bread cubes. He offers you the cube. It would take nothing to grab it from him and pop it in your mouth, but you hesitate. He’s offered it at face level, so you take the chance. Your plump lips wrap around the soft bread, and your tongue sneaks out to lick any remaining honey off the tip of his thumb and forefinger.

In the time it takes you to chew and swallow he has acquired his own piece of honeyed bread. His is prepared lightning fast while barely taking his eyes off your face. The green of his iris is just a sliver, almost completely taken over by the black of his dilated pupils.

A quiet moan seems to force its way out of his chest as you make eye contact. “How does she get the delicate blend of cardamom and cinnamon?”

You clear your throat, but your voice is still a little husky. “I told you she was a genius. Try the Jalapeno.”

Together you try all the honeys, and Hvitserk comments on the balance of flavors, the texture, and how he would love to use some of them in either the pastries or the drinks at the shop. He also reveals that while they now have some bakers help in the morning, Hvitserk is still the one who recipe tests and makes all the menu decisions.

He puts his hand on your knee. “Stay here for a moment while I talk to Sara? I’ll be right back.” You watch him walk away and stare unabashedly at his ass perfectly hugged by his skinny jeans. He talks to the beekeeper, and you watch them exchange business cards

This day has turned out to be amazing, and you don’t want it to be over. Hvitserk has turned out to be an incredible conversation partner, and you can feel in your gut that the two of you click in a way you haven’t felt in a while.

When he returns, Hvitserk offers you both hands to help you from the bench. You take them, and as soon as you stand up you blurt out, “Come over for dinner tonight?” You wince at your tactlessness, but continue with “I bought so many good ingredients, and it would be an honor to share them with you.”

“I’m at Lothbrothers’ until 7. Can I come by after that?”

“7 is great. What’s your number? I can text you the address.”

You both exchange phones and add the new contact. When he gives yours back, you see he’s put Hvitserk Lothbrok in, but he’s also listed himself as “Hot Barista.” You roll your eyes at him when you look back up, and he throws you a flirty wink before saying goodbye and giving you a kiss on the cheek as well.

After watching him walk away you run back home and start prepping the menu, cleaning your apartment, and making sure you have some good wine to go with the meal.

Read Chapter 2 here.

Tag List: @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​ @appledressing​

[slaylinski]

5 Times Something Almost Happened And 1 Time It Did

Pairing: Sam x Bucky (AU) 5+1

Word count: 8704

Warnings: angst, major character death (mentioned), grief, miscommunication, Sambucky can be absolutely idiots sometimes, mutual pining, fluff, happy ending

Prompt: Sam and Bucky are obviously in love with each other, but each secretly thinks the other is the boyfriend of their recently deceased friend (Steve) and that they should respect the bro code. 

A/N: So, I recently saw that prompt on IG and since there is no fanfiction out there that covers that I decided to write one myself. Prepare yourself for some misunderstandings, angst, grieving and sambucky fluff!

btw, shoutout to @januarystears and @gwen-novella for being my beta reader and emotional Marvel supporters🥰💕

Please be aware that English is not my first language.  

1

Bucky was looking at the tombstone in front of him, still not able to process what happened the last few days. Steve Rogers was his childhood best friend. He remembered them being 5-year old’s trying to steal some of the cookies his mother had baked; he remembered Steve calling him at 3am on a Sunday, crying and telling him about his mother‘s car accident, the one that had made him an orphan. He remembered his parents not even hesitating for a second before they took Steve in. 

And now Steve was gone. And everything Bucky had left were a few memories that were already starting to fade.

Since his parents were dead not many people came to Steve’s funeral. A few friends he had met in Chicago, Bucky’s family and of course Sam Wilson. 

After he and Steve had finished college, Steve had gotten an amazing job offer in Chicago and since Bucky had decided to stay in New York, they had had to adapt to not being able to see each other every day. They had still managed to see each other monthly, most of the times Steve coming to New York, since Bucky’s family, meaning Steve’s family, was still in New York as well. And every time they had visited each other Steve had talked about Sam. Every damn time. Bucky had felt like he already knew the other man. Obviously, he had been happy that Steve had found a boyfriend in Chicago.

Since Bucky was bi and Steve had been gay, they had had a few first times together. From having their first kiss with each other to some things he was not going to mention here. They had tried to make their relationship work, but ultimately decided they were better off as friends. Since then they had not really talked much about their relationships. The only thing that had mattered to Bucky had been that Steve was happy and the way he had talked about Sam had made Bucky realize that he had been happy.

“You okay, man? “ Bucky looked to his left and stared into a pair of brown eyes.

“Yeah, I am okay," he said quietly, which was far from the truth. He still could not believe that Steve was dead.

“I am Sam, Sam Wilson," Sam introduced himself to Bucky, which made the latter chuckle. “Yeah, I already know that. Steve talked about you, a lot," Bucky tried to smile but his eyes were still focused on the tombstone in front of him.

“You know, it is a shame that he never introduced us," Sam said.

“It really is, but I feel like I already know you from all the stories Steve told me about you. I am glad he had someone in Chicago who took care of him. I am sorry for your loss," Bucky felt terrible. He felt like he could not breathe, like drowning but not being able to swim to the surface.

“I am really sorry too, Bucky," Sam whispered. Bucky barely remembered the next few hours. They went to the Barnes house for a funeral service. He saw his sister Becca who tried not to cry but miserably failed, he met his parents’ eyes. His mom was silently crying, and his dad wore sunglasses, trying to hide his swollen eyes as well. To his parents it was like they had lost one of their children. To Becca and him it was like they had lost their brother. And Bucky could not even imagine how hard it was for Sam to lose his boyfriend, his significant other, the person he wanted to grow old with. However, Sam looked more pulled together, like he tried his best not to cry in front of Bucky. Which Bucky understood, it was not like they knew each other very well.

“Do you want something to eat?" Sam asked and tried to feed Bucky some of the cake that was sitting on the kitchen counter. It was one of the many cakes people had brought over to the Barnes house after they had found out about Steve’s death. Everybody had loved Steve Rogers and it was a real shock to them that he had died at such a young age. Bucky, however, did not feel like eating. He felt like sleeping. Like the kind of sleep that makes you forget reality, the one that comforts you. He had not slept for the last couple of days, he was afraid of dreaming, afraid of dreaming and waking up. Afraid that his mind was going to dream about Steve and then him waking up and realizing that it was only a dream and that he was really gone.

“No, thanks. Do you want something?" Bucky asked but Sam shook his head. It was the first time that Bucky took a closer look at Sam Wilson. He was a little bit shorter than Bucky. His brown eyes were warm, and they looked worried, and Bucky felt like Sam was as close to breaking down as he himself was but tried to hold it together. The longer he looked at Sam, the more he understood Steve when he had talked about how warm Sam's eyes were or how good his smile looked. Sam was exactly the type of guy Bucky would go for. Sam tried to comfort him, and Bucky did not understand why. It was not like he had lost his boyfriend. He had lost his best friend, which was pretty hard as well, but not as hard as what Sam was going through now.

“Sorry, I need to get out of here,” Bucky told Sam and rushed out of the house.

The Barnes house was pretty small, barely enough room for two children, but they had squeezed together when Steve had moved in. The backyard had a small garden. A bench facing the giant cherry tree Bucky and Steve used to climb up.

Bucky felt his lip tremble and sniffed. He was all alone now. Steve was gone and there was nothing he could change about that. He felt a tear slipping down his face and tried to wipe it away with his shirtsleeve, but his stupid shirt was too tight, and he could not reach his eyes, and everything was just stupid.

A few moment later his vision was blurred with tears and he tried hard not to sob. It was horrible. He had not even realized that Sam had followed him outside until he felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. “Hey, it’s going to be alright, Bucky,” he said and tried to calm him down. The second he noticed Sam; Bucky felt like shit. Sam had just lost his boyfriend and Bucky was out here crying and not even thinking about Sam for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky looked at Sam. “I just… I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now and I-,” he tried to continue but Sam interrupted him.

“If you try to apologize for having feelings, Barnes, I am going to throw you into your neighbors’ pool,” Sam pointed to his right to the swimming pool next to them. “I’m not joking. I don’t know what Steve told you about me, but I’m a man of my word,” Sam laughed. Bizarrely, Bucky laughed as well, like a real laugh, not the ones you fake to seem polite.

“You know, he would’ve hated that,” Bucky declared.

“What? “

“Us here, moping around. He would have wanted his funeral to be party. Has he ever told you about the first years of his life?”

Sam shook his head.

“When we were younger, Steve used to be sick, like all the time. He had the worst allergies and asthma and everything you could possibly imagine. Some winters were hard, there were times when he was in the hospital for week.

Then one time he had this stupid idea to plan his funeral because somehow in his 10-year-old brain he was thinking that he was going to die. And me, being the other 10-year-old, agreed to that so we were in that chapel and he was reading a text that he’d written and playing some weird ass song he’d found on his Mp3 player and then we were all mushy and crying. A couple of weeks later he was home again. A few years after that, he got his height boost and most of his allergies were gone and he became the Steve you know,” Bucky hadn’t even realized that he was crying again but it was a weird combo of crying and laughing.

“God, I miss him so much already,” he sniffed.

“So, Steve Rogers would’ve wanted a party for his funeral? “Sam grinned, and Bucky couldn’t help but start to notice Sam’s laugh. The way his eyes crinkled and the way his whole body moved when he laughed.

“We’re going to get through this, Buck. I promise,” Sam put his arm around Bucky and patted his shoulder.

“You know, you can always call me if you want to talk,” this was the first time that Bucky saw that Sam had tears in his eyes as well. Sam quickly looked in a different direction but left his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky was not mad that Sam called him ‘Buck ‘, he felt horrible. He was a horrible person. His best friend had just died and all he could think about was how badly he wanted to kiss his best friend’s boyfriend.

 2

Sam Wilson was fairly sure that Bucky Barnes was one of the strongest people he had ever met. He could not even imagine what it must feel like to lose his boyfriend. Well, until the funeral, Sam hadn’t been quite sure if Bucky really had been Steve’s boyfriend because even though he had known Steve for more than 4 years, he still did not remember one woman or one man that Steve had ever mentioned with as much enthusiasm as he had radiated when talking about Bucky. So, it was kind of weird to Sam that they had only visited each other occasionally and still hadn’t been living together after so many years, but he hadn’t wanted to ask why. It was not his business anyways.

Even though he did not know much about Steve Rogers’ love life, he considered him one of his best friends if not his best friend. Therefore, it was hard on him to have lost Steve so suddenly. He had never heard of somebody dying of an asthma attack. Especially someone who hadn’t had one in more than ten years. He remembered Bucky’s call and nearly dropping his phone. Bucky’s parents had been Steve’s emergency contacts, so it was unsurprising that they, and thus Bucky, had gotten notified first.

He had been in the middle of cooking dinner for him and Steve, since they were sharing a flat. It was not like they were poor or not earning enough money, it was more about not being alone and being able to save up a bit for the future. None of them minded living with a roommate, though.

After the call he had travelled to New York to attend Steve’s funeral. It was not how he’ imagined his first trip to New York and it certainly wasn’t the way he had wanted to meet the famous Bucky Barnes. After the death of Steve’s parents when he’d been a teenager, Bucky’s family had been all he’d had left.

Sam had felt a little anxious, and even though two of his and Steve’s friends, Wanda and Pietro, had come with him, he still felt like an intruder. He still could not believe that Steve was really gone.

He recognized Bucky immediately. He had seen a lot of picture over the years and even met him one time via face time but that could not have prepared him for what he saw the first time he looked into Bucky’s eyes.

Even though he was on the verge of crying, he looked like one of the most beautiful men Sam had ever seen, and the second he thought of that Sam wanted to slap himself. He felt like the worst person on earth. His best friend had just died and all he could think about was how good-looking his boyfriend was. He was going to end up in hell.

For the next couple of days Sam felt numb. Bucky kindly invited him to stay over at his flat in New York, so Sam didn’t have to bother booking a hotel room or anything like that.

Since his boss had known Steve as well but could not attend his funeral due to business, he kindly gave Sam two paid weeks off. Sam was not sure how he was going to handle going back to the flat he shared with Steve. He already felt lonely and was not sure if he could handle throwing out Steve’s stuff.

But right now, he was thinking about a lot of different things, for example about Bucky, who was sitting right in front of him, eating a bagel for breakfast.

Bucky’s flat was not what Sam expected. After living together with Steve Rogers for nearly three years, he thought that he knew the way Steve liked to live. Pretty messy was an understatement. His room looked like it belonged to a messy 3-year-old. Bucky’s flat however was completely clean. So clean that Sam would not have been bothered eating off the floor. The thought of Bucky constantly reminding Steve to put away his stuff made him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Bucky looked at him curiously and swallowed the last bit of his bagel.

“Oh, nothing,” Sam tried hide his grin.

“Hey, that’s not fair. Tell me,” Bucky protested but he was smiling as well. The pretty smile, the one that made Sam’s heart flutter. He quickly put that thought aside.

“Well, you knew Steve better than me and when I see how clean your flat is all I can think about is how messy ours used to look.”

That made Bucky laugh as well. “You know, I asked myself the same question. Do you remember when you were on that business trip? That time I visited Steve, and it was the first time I saw your flat and I was shocked how clean it actually looked. Not that Steve was a messy, but I’m amazed how you managed to get along with him not putting his stuff everywhere.”

“Well at least he tried with you, whenever he was coming home, he just threw his jacket on our couch and went into the bathroom,” Sam laughed. `

“Yeah, he tried his best whenever he visited me,” Bucky answered.

‘Perks of being the boyfriend, Sam thought but didn’t say it out loud. He did not want to upset Bucky and tried to talk as little about Steve as possible, only referring to him when Bucky told him a story about them.

“You know what, Sam?” Bucky asked after they put away the dishes from their late breakfast. “I’m done sitting here and moping around. I need to get out of here, get some fresh air.”

“Do you have something in mind?” Sam looked at him. It was weird, even though he never met Bucky in person he felt like he already knew him. Steve used to talk about him all the time, mentioning him even when he was talking about the most unnecessary things. At first Sam thought it was cute, but after a while it kind of annoyed him. However, Bucky really was as great as Steve had described him. In the last days he got to know him and found out that he was one of the most generous and humble persons he had ever met.

“I actually do. I have been craving ice cream ever since I saw that Ben and Jerry’s commercial last night and thought that we could go to the Central Park,” Bucky suggested.

“Sound great. Let me get my jacket and I am good to go”.

They each grabbed their phones, wallets and jackets. Bucky stuffed his keys into the pocket of his leather jacket. Sam could swear that Bucky had at least five different versions of the same leather jacket in different colors.

Bucky’s flat was close to the Central Park since he lived in Manhattan. Sam was not quite sure what kind of job Bucky had but it must have been paying really well if he could afford living that close to the city.  They didn’t talk much while walking to the park, but Bucky took the time to show Sam some of Steve’s favorite spots, for example his favorite coffee shop. Whenever they walked past a shop or cafe Steve used to like, Sam knew immediately because Bucky tensed up.

Obviously, Sam had never been to the Central Park in New York and he had only ever seen it on pictures so far, so he was surprised how big it actually was. There were a lot of children, parents and young people walking around. A couple of them were inline skating or even skateboarding. It was a sunny afternoon, which made for a crowded park.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” Bucky asked him after they sat down on a free bench they found.

“Pretty much any ice cream flavor,” Sam laughed.

“You know, that was Steve’s answer to that question as well. He ate pretty much every flavor of ice cream I bought so I always had to hide it or buy an extra pack,” Bucky smiled but his eyes looked sad.

Sam wasn’t sure what he could do to make him feel better. And the worst was that he was still thinking about how good-looking Bucky was. “Just surprise me, okay?”

Bucky nodded and quickly walked away to the nearest ice cream van.

Sam leaned against the bank and closed his eyes. His mind was still trying to process Steve’s death. When he was younger his dad had died, and his mom had made him go to a therapist for a couple of months. The woman had told him about the five different stages of grief, and Sam was sure he was still stuck in denial. He just couldn’t imagine his life without Steve Rogers, and he still did not know how he would manage living on his own. He might get a different flat, one that was smaller.

His thoughts were interrupted by Bucky, who returned, carrying two ice cream cones in his hands. There were at least three scoops of chocolate ice cream on each one. Sam’s eyes grew big once Bucky settled the ice cream into his hand.

“I thought we might as well treat ourselves,” he only stated and started eating his ice cream.

If there was something worse than having the hots for your dead best friend’s boyfriend, it was watching his so-called boyfriend licking ice cream.

He quickly looked away and stared at the ice cream in his hand, which was slowly starting to melt.

“You know, I bought this for you so you could eat it. Not watch it melt, but you do you,” Bucky raised his eyebrows and looked at the ice cream that was slowly dripping around the cone.

“Yeah, of course. Is it a coincidence that you chose chocolate because it is Steve’s favorite ice cream or is it your favorite flavor as well?” Sam asked curiously.

“You got me there. It’s my favorite ice cream flavor, too. So now you know why I had to hide my secret ice cream stash in the freezer whenever Steve came around,” Bucky laughed.

They were quietly eating their ice cream when Bucky stood up all of a sudden and grabbed Sam’s hand. Bucky’s hand was warm, warmer than Sam had imagined. The former quickly pulled him to his feet and Sam felt himself blushing. Hopefully, Bucky didn’t see that.

“Come on, we are going to see the ducks,” Bucky shouted and ran to the lake that was in the middle of the park. Sam just laughed. Sometimes he felt like Bucky was still ten years old and not 28. He followed Bucky and found him a few seconds later, throwing the last crumbs of his ice cream cone to a little duck family that was quickly picking up the crumbs.

“You are such a child, Bucky.”

Bucky just rolled his eyes and tried to pet the small ducklings. However, the mother duck was not having that and tried to pick at Bucky’s hand. It even started to flutter towards him. Bucky let out a scream and started running to Sam. “Help me, ahh. It’s trying to kill me. Sorry duck, I was only trying to pet your babies,” Bucky exclaimed. “I wouldn’t hurt them.”

Sam was trying his hardest not to burst out laughing. He noticed a couple of other people around him who were watching them. A few seconds later he just gave up and completely doubled over. He was wheezing and already feeling the weird looks he got from the people surrounding him. Tears started to form in his eyes and that was the first time the last few days that the reason for them was not him being sad.

Bucky finally came over to him, laughing as well. “They were so cute, I just had to,” he exclaimed, and before Bucky was able to say another word, Sam grabbed him by his hips and pulled him over to him. He let his hand sit on Bucky’ waist for a short moment until he realized that Bucky was staring at him, especially at his hand. Sam felt blood rushing into his head. He probably looked absolutely flustered and he noticed that Bucky was blushing.

“Anyways. They were cute and Steve loves, I mean loved, ducks,” Bucky said quietly.

After hearing Steve’s name Sam felt guilty again. Following that awkward incident, they quickly went back to Bucky’s apartment and never mentioned it again.

 3

Ever since Sam had left to go back to his flat in Chicago, Bucky felt lonely. He had never felt that way when Steve had left him to go back to Chicago or when his other friends visited. It might have to do with the fact that Sam was the first person who really calmed him down after Steve’s death. His parents and his sister tried their best, but they were still trying to process the fact that Steve was gone. Sam’s reaction to Steve’s death was different. It almost made Bucky a little angry, because how could he not have cared about Steve, but then he remembered that Sam hadn’t know him as well as the Barnes family. Sam might have tried to pull himself together because he had not wanted to cry in front of Bucky. The last couple of days Bucky had gotten to spend with Sam he understood what Steve had loved about him. Sam was kind, made him laugh and the best thing, he was honest to Bucky.

Bucky’s last relationships had not been exactly what he pictured. The last girl he had dated had been someone named Natasha, who he’d met through work. She was nice and pretty, but after a few months she’d told Bucky that she did not see a future with him. He wasn’t sad that their relationship ended, he was sad because it meant he was alone again.

Right then, he was sitting on his couch, watching his favorite tv show. Suits. The first time he’d watched that show he couldn’t decide whether he would rather sleep with Donna or Harvey. Seeing that he was a lawyer himself, he knew the series was nowhere close to being realistic, but he still liked it. Practicing law wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured it in college but still, it made him happy.

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone ringing. He quickly grabbed it and smiled once he saw the name displayed on the screen. Sam Wilson.

“Hey, Bucky,” Sam greeted him.

Bucky felt his chest flutter but tried to ignore it. Sam was his forbidden fruit, but he already felt like Eva ogling the red apple in garden Eden. Apparently, he and Eva would share going to hell.  

“Hey Sam,” Bucky answered quietly.

There as an awkward pause.

“Something wrong?”

“Well, I don’t know if this might seem weird to you but yesterday, I was finally able to enter Steve’s room and was trying to sort his stuff and because he doesn’t have any family left, I thought you might want some of this and- “

Bucky interrupted him. “Sam, you are rambling. What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I was just wondering if you might want to fly to Chicago and look through Steve’s stuff. Like, I know he would have wanted you to get most of his things. I understand if you are occupied with work but honestly, I don’t know if I’m ready to get rid of his things. It feels like I’m starting to forget him. I’m already starting to forget what his voice sounded like, and it’s starting to drive me crazy. And I know it’s a lot I’m asking of you and it is a shitty thing of me to cry to you about it, since he was your-,” Sam sniffed and before he could continue Bucky interrupted him again.

“To quote you, Sam: If you dare apologize for having feelings, I might throw you into your neighbor’s pool. Even though I don’t know if your neighbor owns a pool, but you get what I’m trying to say here,” Bucky could hear Sam laughing, although his voice was still a bit cracked. He sounded like he had been crying for at least a couple of minutes. Then again, Bucky would probably react the same if he’d had to sit down and sort out Steve’s stuff.

“I’m flying out to you tomorrow,” Bucky stated. He could hear Sam breathing. “You don’t have to if you have work to do or something else, I can get Wanda or Pietro to help me,” Sam said, guilt lacing his tone.

“No, you’re right. I should have thought about that earlier. It must be hard for you. Of course, I can help,” he assured Sam.

“Thanks, Bucky,” Sam replied.

“You’re welcome, Sam. I’ll text you my flight information.”

However, he did not mention that he was excited to meet Sam again. He was sure that the last thing Sam was worried about right now was finding a new boyfriend, and Bucky still felt guilty about even thinking that he had a chance with Sam. Sam had been Steve’s boyfriend and was grieving, and Bucky was selfish for thinking that Sam could like him that way.

Immediately after the phone call ended, he grabbed his laptop and started looking for flights straight to Chicago. Since it was on such short notice, the flights were way more expensive than usually, but he didn’t care about that.

The day he arrived in Chicago was rainy. The weather was characteristically bad, so he was glad that Sam had offered to pick him up from the airport. Once Bucky had grabbed his suitcase, he made his way into the arrival hall of the airport. He already noticed Sam from far away, due to the fact that the other man was waving like crazy at Bucky, which made him laugh. Sam was such a dork.

“Hey, I’m glad you made it. Thanks again,” Sam tried to carry Bucky’s suitcase, but Bucky pushed his hand away.

“I got it, thanks,” he still thought it was cute.

They walked outside to Sam’s car, talking about random things. Bucky noticed that Sam didn’t mention Steve’s name. He was probably waiting until they got home, and Bucky did not want to upset Sam any further, so he did not mention the deceased’s name as well.

Bucky could count on one hand how many times he had been to Steve’s and Sam’s flat. It was still weird to him that they did not sleep in the same bed. But after knowing Steve Rogers for nearly two decades, it was impossible for even him to sleep next to Steve. Whenever the latter had slept, he’d snored so loud that Bucky had been sure the neighbors next door could still hear him, so he did not blame Sam for having wanted a separate bed.

The flat had not changed much since the last time Bucky had been there. The walls were decorated with a lot of artwork - most of it done by Steve. While Bucky was not able to draw a straight line, Steve had been able to draw the most amazing things with only a pencil.

“You can keep some of them, if you want,” Sam commented and squeezed his shoulder.

“Yeah, that would be nice, but you should keep most of them. They’re in your home, anyway, so why should I take ‘em with me.”

Sam only stared at him in confusion.

“I guess I’ll move into a new flat once we are done here. It’s too big for me anyway. Might as well get another roommate,” Sam stated.

“Roommate?” Bucky looked at him “Aren’t you a bit old to live with a roommate?” he asked, seemingly confused. He knew Sam was nearly 3 years older than him and Steve.

“I am what?” Sam raised his eyebrow.

Immediately, Bucky felt bad. He was such an idiot. Sam had been living with his boyfriend for the last 3 years, of course he was going to feel lonely living on his own. “Nothing. Forget it. So, where did you put Steve’s stuff?”

Sam pointed to a couple of boxes that were lying in one corner of the living room. “I got rid of most of his clothes and furniture, apart from some t-shirts and hoodies. Thought you might want to keep some of these.”

Bucky’s eyes wandered to a green hoodie that was crumpled up in one of the boxes. He quickly snatched it and pressed it against his chest. It was the hoodie Steve had worn the day they had gotten their college acceptance. It even smelled a bit like Steve.

“You should keep it,” Sam mumbled, “I have so much of his stuff, and you have nothing and…” His voice started to crack.

Bucky felt helpless. He was trying to think of something that would make Sam feel better. The only thing he could think about right then was a hug.

He quickly wrapped his arms around Sam and pressed his chest against the other man’s. He could feel Sam’s breathing and heartbeat.

Sam started to calm down, still pressed against Bucky. They stayed like this for a moment until Bucky started to feel something. ‘Oh god’, he panicked. Not now. It had been a few months since he’d last had any physical contact and it was starting to show. Sam clinging and moving against him did not make things better. Bucky felt his face heating up and tried to think of a way to break out of the hug.

“You, okay?” Sam asked and quickly ended their hug. He’d probably felt something was wrong.

Bucky was still red and quickly looked away. ‘So much to not thinking about Sam in that way,’ he thought to himself.

“Yeah, everything’s alright,” Bucky just knew Sam had felt it. However, he was glad that he didn’t mention it. It was already awkward enough for him. They continued to look through Steve’s stuff and neither of them said another word.

“I am glad you are here, Bucky,” Sam whispered after a while.

“I am really glad you called me,” Bucky responded. It was going to be okay.

  4

“What movie do you want to watch?” Sam asked and started zapping through Netflix. It had been a couple of months since Bucky’s visit to Chicago, but he and Sam had been in contact with each other nearly every day. Bucky had started to slowly crawl into Sam’s daily life, but he did not mind it. Quite the opposite. The more he talked to Bucky, the more Sam caught himself thinking about the way Bucky smiled and laughed. The way Bucky’s eyes lit up when he talked about his work or his cat, Alpine. The cat was cute. Sam remembered Bucky finding her near the trash cans in the backyard of his flat and the moment he’d seen her he’d known that she was supposed to stay with him. Just like Steve and Bucky used to do, the two chose at least one time a month to meet up with each other. That month it was Sam’s turn to visit Bucky.

Right now, they were sitting on Bucky’s couch. Bucky was on his phone trying to figure out what he wanted to eat for dinner. Alpine was cuddled against Bucky’s chest.

“I don’t care. Chose something you want to watch,” Bucky answered Sam’s question. He stroked Alpine’s white fur. The cat snuggled closer to Bucky and purred. Sam could not blame her. Bucky’s chest did look comfortable.

“Okay, then.”

It still took Sam more than fifteen minutes to find a series he wanted to watch.

“Have you decided on what you want to eat?” he asked Bucky, who was still scrolling through his phone.

“No,” Bucky let out a groan. “They have so many options. How am I supposed to choose? I want fries and sushi and pizza at the same time,” he exclaimed.

Sam laughed. One of the many things he had learned about Bucky in the last couple of months was that Bucky loved food. It was close to being an unhealthy obsession.

“Well, how about we just get something small of everything and share?” Sam offered but Bucky did not seem convinced.

“Sam, I don’t want to share,” he pouted.

“Okay, well, that’s your problem. I already know what I want to eat,” Sam crossed his arms and leaned back against the couch. It was comfortable and probably cost more than Sam’s monthly salary. He had learned that Bucky was a corporate lawyer, which explained how he was able to live so close to Manhattan. It also explained the amounts of money he was able to spend on food. The first few times, Sam had tried to split the bill, but Bucky had always protested. Sam had stopped trying after that. It was sweet of Bucky, and Sam wondered if that was the way Bucky had treated Steve as well. The more he got to know the other man, the more he caught himself falling for him. He knew it was wrong, and that Steve would probably hate him for feeling that way - he even hated himself a little bit for it - but he couldn’t change his feelings. He tried his best not to get too touchy with Bucky, but he failed sometimes.

“I want pizza.”

Sam looked at Bucky. “Are you sure?”

“Yep,” Bucky started to scratch Alpine’s belly, and the cat purred in response.

Sam shrugged his shoulders. He knew that Bucky would probably change his opinion once the pizza was here, but he still called the pizza place and ordered.

45 minutes later the doorbell rang, and Bucky stood up to answer. Alpine looked up in confusion once she noticed that Bucky was gone and started walking towards Sam. After looking at him, she decided he was worthy and cuddled against his chest. Sam patted her.

“Oh, this is so cute, I need to take a picture,” Bucky had returned with two large pizza cartons and a smaller one containing some garlic bread. Sam smiled, but the second Bucky got his phone out, Alpine jumped up and quickly walked away.

“Stupid cat,” Bucky mumbled. It was almost like she heard him because she turned her head and hissed at him.

“Great, now she’s mad,” Sam sighed.

“She’ll get over it. Here’s your pizza,” Bucky gave him his carton and settled down to eat his own pizza.

“By the way, my sister wants to finally meet you,” Bucky said after a few minutes. It didn’t take him long to finish his pizza and he moved on to the garlic bread.

“I can’t wait to meet her. Steve used to talk about her all the time. He really loved her like a little sister.” Sam didn’t know Becca personally, apart from that short meeting at Steve’s funeral, but back then hadn’t really been the right time to get to know her better.

“Yeah, he really did. She is our little sister,” Bucky mumbled, a sad undertone present in his voice. Sam wasn’t going to lie, he thought about Steve a lot, but whenever he visited Bucky or got a message from him, the thought of his best friend was pushed a little bit further back in his brain. Every time he caught himself doing that, he felt guilty. Guilty for starting to forget the way Steve’s voice sounded, for getting a smaller flat because he couldn’t stand continuing to live in the same flat, he used to live in with Steve and mostly, guilty for slowly starting to fall in love with Bucky Barnes.

He wondered if Bucky sometimes forgot about Steve, too, or if Sam was just a horrible friend. He didn’t have the courage to ask Bucky about it; he did not want to lose the closest thing he had to a best friend since Steve.

They continued to watch the series. After a while, Alpine came back from wherever she had hidden. She settled into the crook of Bucky’s arm and looked into Sam’s eyes. He almost felt caught by her. He did not really like cats; however, he made an exception for Alpine.

Shortly after the movie, Sam noticed that Bucky was snoring. He was leaning against Sam’s shoulder, Alpine still lying on him.

Sam caught himself watching Bucky for a few seconds. He looked so cute and calm and the way he was resting against Sam’s shoulder gave him goosebumps. His skin looked so soft, and Sam had to fight with himself not to touch his cheek. He decided to close his eyes for a few minutes as well.

The next morning, Sam noticed something furry on his nose, tickling him. He sneezed and opened his eyes, only to look at something white. He tried to push Alpine away from his face and started to look around. He remembered falling asleep on Bucky’s couch. He noticed that somehow during the night, Bucky had shifted and was now laying on Sam’s chest. Sam’s arm was wrapped around Bucky’s torso. He tried to shift without moving too much but failed. He looked at Bucky’s face and noticed that the younger man was still sleeping peacefully.

‘Great and now I have to pee’, Sam thought. He ran his other hand through Bucky’s hair. It was as soft as he imagined. A few minutes later Bucky’s eyes fluttered, and a pair of blue eyes started into Sam’s.

“Morning,” Bucky said with a rusty voice. It took him a while to notice that he was lying nearly on top of Sam.

“Have you slept well?” Sam asked.

Bucky nodded and stared at him so intensely that Sam briefly thought he was going to kiss him. However, Bucky quickly sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“So anyways. Do you want some breakfast?” Bucky changed the topic, already half up off the couch and on his way into the kitchen.

Sam stared after at him. ‘What the hell was that’, he thought but shook it off and quickly followed Bucky into the kitchen.  

 5

Today was the 6th month anniversary of Steve’s death and Bucky’s day had already started out shitty. Firstly, he’d nearly missed his alarm clock, then his client had stood him up for lunch and finally he’d managed to spill his coffee all over himself and had to ask his assistant to get another one. He was currently sitting in his office, staring at the framed picture in front of him.

It was a picture of him and Steve when they were younger. He still could not believe that Steve had been gone for 6 months. It felt like yesterday to him how he’d called Steve nearly every evening to talk to him about his boring day.

The only thing he was looking forward today was that he was finally going to see Sam again. Thinking about the dark-haired man made him smile. The last time Sam had visited had been kind of weird. That one morning, they’d woken up all cuddly and Bucky had nearly kissed Sam. Thank God, he’d caught himself in the last moment. Sam would have probably thought Bucky was a horrible friend, and Bucky refused to lose his newest friend to something as stupid as a little crush.

He probably felt like that because the last time he’d had sex had been back when Steve had still been alive. Yeah, that was the most reasonable explanation as to why he could not stop thinking about Sam’s lips and his toned arms. He quickly looked back at the file in front of him. It was a case about a holding company that was trying to sell one of their firms they owned. It was boring, to say the least. He tried to get it done as quickly as possible.

Finally, a few hours later, Bucky was able to close the file. He looked at his clock; it was 20 past 7pm already. His eyes widened. He was supposed to meet up with Sam at 7pm at his flat. He pulled out his phone and noticed that he had a missed call from Sam and a few text messages.

 Barnes, you there?

Buckyyy

Where are you, man?

Okay, I am just going to let myself in, I know where your spare key is 😊.

 Sam had added a bunch of random emojis, and Bucky smiled. Of course, he knew where Bucky’s spare key was.

Bucky packed up his things, bid goodbye to the colleagues who were still in the building and made his way home. He was pretty sure Sam was comfortable enough in the flat to entertain himself, so Bucky ended up picking some food on the way. Thai. It was Steve’s favorite food.

As he opened his apartment door, his hands full of takeaway boxes, he could already hear the TV. Once he entered the living room, he could see Sam lying on his couch. Alpine was sitting on his lap and Sam was cuddling her. It was adorable.

“Hello, person who does not live in my home,” Bucky said and walked over to place the food on his couch table.

“Well, I decided I do now.”, Sam exclaimed. “Your cat likes me better anyways. Isn’t that right, Alpine?”

The cat snuggled closer to Sam.

“Traitor,” Bucky whispered. But he was glad that Sam liked her as much as he himself did. They were a package deal.

“What is that?” Sam pointed to the food boxes.

“Food, duh. Thai. It was Steve’s favorite,” Bucky said. After mentioning Steve’s name, he noticed how Sam tensed up. Bucky decided not to comment on it; instead, he sat down next to Sam and started opening the food boxes.

“Fuck,” Sam whispered and ran his hands over his face. “I can’t believe it’s been 6 months already. How has he been dead for 6 months? I feel like it was yesterday that I talked to him, we were planning a trip to California this summer. We wanted to take my nephews to Disneyland. There were so excited and devastated when I told them we could not go anymore and cried when I told them why.”

Bucky felt his heart aching. He knew Sam had nephews.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Bucky said and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance.

“I still cannot process that he really is gone. Some days I forget that he is dead, just for a short moment, and then reality hits and I feel like I just want to fold myself into a corner and cry. He was my best friend.” Bucky looked down and noticed that Sam had started to sniff.

“You know, I still get nightmares about the day you called me,” Sam admitted.

Bucky saw a single tear roll down Sam’s face and he quickly wiped it away with his sleeve. The man next to him looked so small and vulnerable. Bucky wanted to hug him so badly.

“I always wonder what would have happened if I had been with him. I should have made sure he’d take his inhaler with him. God, I am so sorry, Bucky,” he started to sob.

Bucky froze. It was the first time Sam cried in front of him. He felt helpless, the only thing that he could do was try to comfort him.

“It’s okay, Sam. It was not your fault. Steve was an adult, he should have known better than to not carry his inhaler with him, even if he hadn’t had an asthma attack in more than 10 years,” Bucky tried to calm him down, but that made Sam even more upset.

“I was supposed to look after him, you trusted me to look after him-“Sam was starting to hyperventilate.  

“You did, Sam. You did. It was not your fault, and it wasn’t mine either. It was just a stupid, terrible thing to happen, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Please stop trying to blame yourself for his death,” Bucky shouted. Apparently, this was the only way Sam understood he was not responsible for what had happened to Steve.

Sam stared at him, not being used to Bucky raising his voice.

“I’m serious, Sam,” Bucky said again.

“You are way too good; do you know that Bucky?” Sam said with a weird mixture of laughing and crying. “God, I still miss him so much.”

“I miss him too, Sam, but Steve would have wanted you to move on with your life. He would have wanted us to live the best life we could possibly have. And I know that sounds harsh but please don’t blame yourself.” Bucky wasn’t sure if his words were what Sam wanted to hear. He would either think that Bucky was a total asshole for thinking that he should move on this quickly after his boyfriend died or he would agree with him.

“Yeah, you are right. He would have wanted me to move on. He would have wanted that for you as well, Bucky,” Sam answered quietly, and the next thing Bucky knew he was pressing his lips against Sam’s.

 + 1

Sam felt Bucky’s lips pressing against his own. At first, he was shocked that Bucky really was kissing him but after a few seconds he returned the kiss. He pulled Bucky closer to himself and started moving his hand to the other man’s neck. Bucky groaned and started to move closer to Sam.

It was everything Sam had dreamed about for the last couple of months and if Bucky was ready to move on from Steve, Sam was ready for that as well. They continued to kiss for a while, none of them saying a word. The sound of them kissing was the only one heard in the apartment. Sam was already starting to slip his hand under Bucky’s t-shirt when Bucky suddenly pulled away from him.

“No, no, no-,” he exclaimed and looked at Sam, both their lips slightly swollen from their kissing.

“This is wrong,” Bucky whined.

Sam could almost hear the crack his heart made the second Bucky stopped their kiss. Of course, he thought it was wrong. Steve and Bucky had been together for more than 5 years or maybe even more, obviously, Bucky wouldn’t move on so quickly.

“God I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, Sam,” Bucky looked at him with blue eyes and Sam wanted to kiss him again, so badly.

“Sorry, I just thought that… you’re right, this is not fair to Steve. God, I’m a horrible person, Steve would hate me,” Sam whispered ashamed.

“No, I’m the bad friend. I kissed you. I kissed my dead best friend’s boyfriend. I’m pretty sure they have a special place in hell for people like me,” Bucky let out a groan.

Sam looked at him confused. What the hell was he talking about?

“I was his what now?” he asked and stared at Bucky.

“Boyfriend, partner, significant other, I don’t know what you called each other, but I’m pretty sure that if there was one rule for friendship it’s that you don’t make a move on your friends’ partners,” Bucky gestured between Sam and him.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he was out of breath and pushed his hair out his face. His cheeks were starting to get redder.

“No,” was the only thing Sam said at first. “You’re his boyfriend”, he continued and pointed at Bucky.

“Huh?” Bucky replied, still confused.

“No, you are. He always talked about you and he visited you nearly every week and-,” Sam was starting to ramble, but Bucky interrupted him.

“You two were living together?! I thought you were his boyfriend, what was I supposed to think? I didn’t assume two grown men would be living together as roommates,” he exclaimed.

“Hey,” Sam felt offended.

Bucky quickly noticed the way Sam looked at him. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just…I thought you were his boyfriend.”

“No, I’m his best friend,” Sam answered, this time a bit louder. What the hell was going on?

“No, I’m his best friend,” Bucky mumbled, still trying to process what had happened in the last few moments.

“Wait. So you’re not in a relationship with Steven Grant Rogers, and you never were?” Sam asked slowly.

“No,” Bucky answered, though it sounded more like a question. “I mean we used to when we were teenagers, but that’s nearly a decade ago.”

“And you’re not in a relationship with Steve either, right?” Bucky added and looked into Sam’s eyes.

“Nope, and I never was.”

There was an awkward silence between them until Bucky asked Sam, “So, the last few months you thought I was grieving my boyfriend, while I thought you were grieving your boyfriend?”

It was the thing that made Sam crack. He started to laugh. Loudly. He even started wheezing, tears forming in his eyes.  

“I cannot believe this. That little shit,” Sam cried out. “He never corrected me when I referred to you as his boyfriend. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

Finally, Bucky busted out laughing as well. “We’re so stupid. We could have just asked each other but instead we just assumed that the other was the grieving widower.”

Sam could feel the way Bucky was staring at him, trying to figure out what to say next. Sam, on the other hand, knew already what he was going to do next. He got closer to Bucky and kissed him again.

This time Bucky didn’t hesitate and pushed himself against Sam. “You know,” he mumbled between kisses, “We could have done that way earlier.” The complaint was evident in his tone.

“Better late than never,” was the only thing Sam answered before he kissed Bucky once more.

And somewhere out there, Steve was looking at them, smiling to himself and thinking how much of an idiot both of his best friends were.

Feel free to leave any comments or any suggestions for improvement!

Thank you so much for reading my first ever English written One Shot! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm really looking forward to writing more Marvel fanfiction, especially Stucky and Sambucky.

much love, your local stucky shipper xx

 ***

[random-fandom1]

I’ve been thinking about this for ages and have just gotten round to writing it. 

Some quick background information before we start. Peter is 27 in this and is dating Bucky who is genetically still 28 - 32 because of the cyro freeze. They’ve been dating for 3 years now and no one knows they’re dating (well, maybe some people know. They live with two assassins so Natasha must know, Wanda must suspect at least and Loki knows because he walked in on them doing the you know once. They had to slave after him for a week to make sure he didn’t tell anyone). 

It’s not like they’re hiding it but are at the same time. Who knows what Steve and Tony would do if they found out their precious little peter was dating one of their closest friends. 

Enjoy!

__________________________________________

The avengers have just finished fighting a villain, some kind of alien or something. Like any other time they’re in a fight, they didn’t all get out unscathed. It’s not too bad this time, Peters just fractured his wrist and dislocated his elbow when swinging around and falling. His dads (and Bucky in secret) insist that he goes to the hospital wing to get it checked on. 

This is how they’ve ended up in this situation.

6:48 pm

“But Jamieeeeeee! I want to do the interview, it’s James Corden. You know how much I love James Corden. My hand and arm are fine!” Peter whines trying to get out from under the scratchy hospital sheets Bucky wrapped him in. Bucky rubs the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. He loves his boyfriend but he can get really whiney and clingy when he’s doped up on pain killers.

“Doll, you know you have to stay here. We’ll have plenty of times to go on to The Late Late Show in the Future. For now, you have to rest,” he says as a nurse walks into check his vitals, “I’ll be back later Peter, be good for the nurses”. Bucky starts to exit the room, looking back as he reaches the doorway to see his boyfriend chatting away to the nurse with a pout on his face. ‘He’s probably asking her if she can discharge him without his dads knowing’ he thinks to himself. James smiles to himself as he walks down the corridor to the main floors so he can get ready for the interview.

8:34

It was going well. The avengers had just been introduced and had taken their seats on the 3 couches they brought out for them (Couch 1 = Tony, Steve, Natasha and Thor/Couch 2 = Wanda, Vision, Clint and Pietro because he never died/Couch 3 = Bucky, and supposedly Peter.) Tony and Steve were running late but promised they’d make it by 8:45. Traffic must of gotten bad because of all the paparazzi.

Once the audience had stopped cheering and they had all been introduced to the audience, James started off with the obvious question.

“I notice that we are missing a few people. Does anyone know whats happened to the Roger-Stark family?” James asked. Before anyone could answer they heard a voice coming from the back of the audience

“We’re here, we’re here. The Stark-Rogers are here. This one insisted we take him, no matter how much meds he was on. Children am I right?” Came the voice of the one and only Tony Stark-Rogers. Tony walked in front of Steve who was carrying Spiderman who was wrapped in a blanket burrito. They walked to the front where the rest of the crew were sitting, Steve going to the last couch to dump Peter. 

Bucky could feel his emotions swirling around in him. The frustration of Peter not listening to his advice, worry about his boy’s injuries and if they’ve healed properly as well as adoration for how adorable he looked wrapped up, while completely out of it. As Steve puts Peter on the couch, he let out a small ‘oof’ which James had to resist cooing at. Instead, he gives Steve a nod of acknowledgement and returns to surveying the area with a cold, emotionless look on his face, trying to keep up his dangerous, assassin persona.

At least that was what he was trying to do. It was kind of hard to be a murderous assassin when your precious boyfriend is all tired and clinging onto a blanket a mere 3 feet away from you. He tries his hardest to ignore him. He really does. But all hope is lost when Peter starts to slowly shift closer to him, muttering something about the warmth and ‘my bucky bear’. Peter, bless his little drugged out self, slowly and discreetly shimmies over to his boyfriend. All the attention is on the most well known of the avengers at the front so no one notices Peter nuzzle into Bucky’s side. 

“Babe, doll, what are you doing? We’re on live TV.” Bucky whispers, subconsciously wrapping his metal arm around his boy. 

“Oh Jamie, your nice and warm,” Peter says, muffled from where his head is buried in the crook of his neck. Everything blurs out in the background and the only thing Bucky can focus on is Peter. About how his steady breathing is hitting the exposed skin of his neck and how his petite frame is starting to koala hug his own muscular built one. The boy is perfect in his eyes. His boy is perfect. His. He can’t help but to copy his boyfriend and bury his own face into the boy’s neck.

“Bucky, what are you doing back there?” Comes an English accent from somewhere around him. As if on instinct Bucky replies,

“Hugging my boyfriend what does it look like?”

There’s gasps heard around them

Shit! He must have zoned out badly. Bucky looks up from where his face was in Peter’s neck, face a scarlet red and eyes like a deer caught in headlights. Looking around him, he sees a majority of the avengers with their eyes wide open, mouths agape. The crowd aren’t much better. The studio is dead silent. Peter lifts his head slowly, totally dazed, and innocently asks,

“What did I miss Jamie?”

Buckys eyes land on his boyfriends face, momentarily relaxing but quickly his eyes catch the ones of the people in front of them. His best friend and his best friends husband. Peter’s parents.

Gently placing Peter to the side, Bucky stands up with his arms out, as if he were approaching a lion. Steve has a look of shock and hurt on his face while Tony’s is radiating off pure anger. 

“We, I can explain. Stevie just - fuck, Stevie just listen to me. I love h -” 

Before he can finish the sentence Steve is grabbing him by the arm and taking him backstage into a private room.

8:58

“MY SON! MY SON BUCKY! You were telling me about this relationship for months! About how you’ve been seeing someone, someone younger. But you don’t really have a choice now with people your age, you can’t exactly go chasing 102-year-olds who look 30! He’s 27! Buck, how, why, Bucky -” Bucky cuts him off by placing a hand on his shoulder and massaging

“Stevie just shut up,” Bucky still knows how to shut him up when he’s about to have a panic attack, “Look, first I want to say that I’m actually only physically in the 28-32 age range. You are now older than me punk,

“Secondly, I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t feel this way, you have no idea how many nights I wasted trying to convince myself that I didn’t like him. I love him, and he loves me. You know better than most that you can’t control who you love. Peter, god Peter deserves so much better than me but I’m going to stay with him for as long as he’ll have me. I, I just adore him with every cell in my body. He makes me happy, when I see him he just lights up a room. I, I just love him, words can't express how much ”

Steve stays silent for a moment, looking deflated. Like the small, frail boy he was back then. He looks at Bucky and in that look, Bucky knows, knows that he is forgiven, given half the permission he needs, that he still has his best friend.

“Come here Punk,” Bucky says stepping over to Steve and pulling him into a tight embrace.

"Love you Buck"

"Love you too, Stevie"

9:17

Bucky and Steve had been hugging for just over 7 minutes when Tony barges in with Peter groggily walking in behind him. He's still confused on what's going on, why are his dads so angry at him and Bucky?.

"Bucky," Tony starts off, "I give you forgiveness, a roof over your head, I fucking convinced the government that you weren't a threat! And you go ahead and date my SON!" You can see Tony slowly growing more angry by the second. He continues

"I'd have every intention to throw you out if it weren't for the fact that your Steve's best friend and Peters boyfriend. That would hurt them and I dont hurt those who I love, not anymore. So, I'm here to hear out your side of the story because funnily enough, doped up Peter can't really say things that make sense.'" All eyes turn to Bucky as he gulps but nether the less, starts talking

"Tony, and Steve because I didn't tell you the whole story. I'm going to be honest with you guys, yous deserve to know. I want to start of by saying that I am forever grateful for everything yous have ever done to me. I love yous,

"It was 4 years ago, just after I moved into the tower when Peter came up to me. The kid wouldn't shut up. I wanted to be alone, at least that's what I thought I wanted. We slowly became friends. I trusted him with my life. I helped him with school work, he helped me with nightmares. We clicked, we worked. Feelings started to develope after a while and one night when we were studying on his little balcony, he kissed me and I kissed back. We've been dating 3 years now and they've been the best 3 years of my life. I love him, so so much. So please, don't make us break up, I don't think I'd survive without him. He's my light, my star. I want to marry him and start a family, live in a house just outside of New York so its still convenient for spiderman and avengers business. Maybe have a dog and definitely some goats. I want all that with him" Bucky finished with a tear rolling down his cheek. He really hoped Tony would understand, understand that they love each other 

Tony sighs and rubs his forehead. All the gears in his head are turning and he's getting a headache. Tony sighs.

"Well, I guess there's not much I can do. I believe you Bucky, your a good man. I give you my blessing or whatever to date him. Can we go home now" Tony says walking away, talking to no one in particular. Steve chases after him, leaving the boyfriends alone in the studio room. Bucky is grinning like the Cheshire cat, that's not how he expected that to go. There was definitely more shouting in his head. Peter suddenly comes up to him and plonks a kiss right on his lips.

"Well then Bucky Bear, shall we go home?" Peter holds his hand out but instead of taking it, Bucky scoops him up and carries him out of the room.

"Of course doll, anything you want"

[rorodawnchorus]

The Chinese journalist who’s been writing about Uyghur people

"Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.” - Uyghurs For Sale

Vicky Xu was born and raised in China. She thought the Tiananmen Square massacre was fake and she used to be very nationalistic, often standing up for the CCP. Now, she has been writing about the oppression and cultural genocide Uyghur people have been experiencing for years. In this tweet, she talks about her experience and why she was driven to do investigative journalism on human rights abuses in China, particularly Xinjiang. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/xu_xiuzhong/status/1377527819715010561

(I won’t be translating her thread word for word but I’ll translate some quotes and also the gist of the thread) 

She says she’s questioned herself about taking huge risks and writing about Xinjiang and Uyghur people. She’s wondered if it was all “worth it”. She says “no matter how difficult it is, I must report about all that has befallen on Uyghur people. The root of the oppression on Uyghur people stems from the governing authority which is held by the majority Han Chinese government and this is the destruction of Uyghur people and culture.” Using the excuse of anti-terrorism policies, Uyghur people who are just average citizens with no intention to overthrow the government, they’re being put into concentration camps that are called “re-education camps” by the CCP. “As an ethnic majority Han Chinese” she says, “I cannot sit by idly and remain silent.” 

In 2017, when she was writing for New York Times, she was told that articles written in English would more likely fly under the radar of the CCP so she decided to do that. However, her articles had been translated and she has been cyberbullied, her family and friends have been harassed in China, and deepfake sex tapes/nudes have been spread online with claims that it is her. 

When she graduated in 2018, she joined Australian Broadcasting Company. However, due to lack of funds, she was only able to interview Uyghur people who have moved to Australia (there is a community in Adelaide, as per her tweet). At first, she noted, they were reluctant to open up to her and share more with her. She says, “At that time, all I could do was to write and tell the truth. Even if no one cares about it now or what the truth is, at least I’m leaving a historical record.” She would listen to her interviewees in tears, talking about their captured relatives in Xinjiang. Then she would return to her office and draft an email asking for China’s formal response on these claims; she would always watch as her hand tremble, hesitant about sending the email. 

In 2019, she wrote a piece for the NY Times which had enough international attention which put pressure on the CCP to release the relatives of the two families in that article. Ever since then, her family and friends in China began receiving threats and were harassed. Her Uyghur friends said to her at the time: “You’ve become like us.” 

Later, she joined the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and was the lead author for a research publication, Uyghur For Sale. In that report, it was mentioned that “Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.” 

“This report” she says in her tweet, “illustrates the undeniable relation between every other person to the human rights abuses against Uyghur people: Everyone could possibly be wearing a product that was manufactured through forced labour. This research report was passed on within the journalism industry and the influence it has far exceeds the expectations which my colleagues and I initially had. I haven’t purchased any new clothes or mobile phone this year for I know that once I step into the mall, I would see all the brands involved which I have written about and I would feel guilty (about buying any one of them).” 

She says the State Security has been detaining, interrogating and harassing people in Mainland China who are close to her. They’ve also attempted to paint her in a bad light by “exposing” her sexual affairs, etc. 

Recently, she has been accused for being the mastermind behind the “fake news” of Xinjiang Cotton. She clarifies that she’s never written about “Xinjiang Cotton” specifically but have only been reporting on supply chains involving forced labour. She also emphasised that in the past years, countless journalists and scholars have been writing about these human rights abuses. This was how so many countries were able to arrive at a conclusion regarding the allegations of human rights abuses, thus making policy decisions to stop import or penalise any companies involved. 

She says “China is using “Xinjiang Cotton” to confuse the public (divert attention). The fact is that many companies, whether they are fashion houses, electronics companies or medical equipment manufacturers, or even food product manufacturers, they have all had some kind of relation to the Uyghur forced labour (through supply chains). This problem runs deeper than “Xinjiang cotton”*. The Chinese government is attempting to equate the forced labour issue in Xinjiang with the China-US trade war, completely ignoring the fact that Australian, American, European, Japanese and even some Chinese consumers are concerned about purchasing products that were manufactured through force labour.”   

“At first, I chose to become a journalist because I didn’t have the courage to become an activist. While working in the newsroom, I was less outspoken and seldom expressed my personal views. Now, I see myself being labelled “a devilish woman”, “Han traitor (a traitor to China)”; I feel helpless but amused at the same time. I started from “secretly writing in English to leave some historical record” to becoming the target of State machinations, painting me as the female monster causing disaster to befall on countless Chinese people.” 

“If I previously held onto the faint thought of remaining silent to save my own skin, I have become purged of all these thoughts after going through the cyberbullying. All I can do is to continue writing; I shall write to the day these “re-education camps” are closed down; I shall write until I see the day forced labour is put to an end; I shall write to the end of the earth. Personally, I must carry on doing what is right. The price which I must pay will all be worthy for the troubles I have caused to the people around me, I will repay them myself.” 

*** 

Note: The CCP and their 50 cent army/Little Pink movement online constantly tries to place the focus on Xinjiang cotton, pulling out a photo of enslaved Black people during a press statement, saying “Look! The US did this. We, on the other hand, use highly mechanized harvest operations in Xinjiang.” to claim that there are no human rights abuses taking place there.  

She concludes her tweet by saying she has not written in Chinese for some time and the CCP machinations has forced her to use a “translation tone Chinese” in her writing as response to the cyberbullying from C-netz. So this is basically  a translation of a Twitter thread written like a translation O_O

I would like to add, though, the way I see the CCP works is that they like to use nationalism and patriotism to inflame C-netz and cause them to “take things into their own hands”. They caused this “national boycott” of Western fashion houses within Mainland China using nationalistic sentiments and “a sign of loyalty”; to act in any other way online or in public could bring about verbal attacks. Some Chinese staff of Adidas or other stores in China are being cyberbullied as well. Some Taiwanese consumers have expressed that they feel less guilty about shopping at fashion houses like H&M since they took this stance but I wonder how many people around the world actually cared enough to take on the personal initiative to consciously choose what they are purchasing? Obviously, a Twitter thread can’t go into the complex psychological workings of all that’s going on. 

(Hopefully this adds to the voice for Uyghur people as well. Do not be confused by the whole “Western imperialism against China” talk. It does not erase or reduce the fact that there are human rights abuses happening.)  

[uomo-accattivante]

I recently came across a bunch of press articles and photos about Oscar Isaac that are so old, they appear to be out-of-print and pre-date social media. Considering they were probably never digitally transcribed for internet access, I’m guessing that the majority of current fans have never seen this stuff.

Even though a lot of these digital scans are challenging to read because they are the original fuzzy news print, I think there some gems worth sharing with you guys. Over the next several weeks, I will transcribe and share those gems on this page. Hope you enjoy them!

Let’s start with this fantastic 2001 profile piece done before Oscar was accepted into Juilliard:

South Florida’s rising star isn’t just acting the part

By Christine Dolen - cdolen@herald.com

February 4, 2001

As fifth-graders at Westminster Christian School in Miami, Oscar Isaac and his classmates were asked to write a story as if they were animals on Noah’s Ark. Oscar turned in a seven-page play – with original music – from the perspective of a platypus. Then he starred in the production his teacher directed.

He hasn’t stopped expressing himself creatively since. Today, Isaac is one of South Florida’s busiest young theater actors, and certainly its hottest. And not just because he’s a slender five-feet nine-inches tall with an expressively handsome face and glistening brown eyes.

Since making his professional debut as a Cuban hustler in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage in July 1999, he has played an explosive Vietnam vet in Private Wars for Horizons Repertory, a pot-smoking slacker in This Is Our Youth at GableStage, another Cuban on the make in Praying With the Enemy at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the entrancing narrator of Side Man at GableStage, a Havana-based writer in Arrivals and Departures for the new Oye Rep and, most recently, a young Fidel Castro in When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater.

Beginning Wednesday, he’ll be juggling five roles in City Theatre’s annual Winter Shorts festival, first at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, then at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But that is not all: During the two weeks he is doing Winter Shorts, he’ll also be playing dates with the punk-ska band The Blinking Underdogs (www.blinkingunderdogs.com), which features him as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Oh, and he just got back from auditioning for New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Drama.

All this for a guy a month shy of his 22nd birthday.

Sure, you could hate a guy who’s that talented, that charismatic, that transparently ambitious. But the people who have worked with Oscar Isaac don’t. On the contrary, they’re all sure he has it – that magical, can’t-be-taught thing that transforms an actor into a star.

Playwright Eduardo Machado, who put in a good word for Isaac at Juilliard, says “he does have that star quality that makes your eyes go to him. It’s great that someone with that talent still wants to train.”

“He has a star quality that’s rare in a young actor,” adds Joseph Adler, who directed him in Side Man and This Is Our Youth. “Without a doubt I expect to be hearing great things from him.”

‘I JUST LOVE CREATING’

Isaac, who also makes short films, can’t say exactly why he was attracted to acting. He just knows it makes him happier than anything, that it’s what he was meant to do. And he’s been doing it since he was a 4-year-old putting on plays in his family’s backyard with his sister Nicole.

“I just love creating, whether it’s music or films or a character on a stage. I love taking people for a ride,” he says. “In Side Man, every night I would love being that close to the audience. I felt like I was talking to 80 of my closest friends.

“I could feel what the audience was feeling.”

His powerful, mournful-yet-loving monologue near the end of the play, he said, “worked every night. I knew it would get them. I’d hear sniffles.

“But it had less to do with me than with the atmosphere [created by the playwright and director].”

You could understand if Isaac, surrounded as he is by praise and possibility, had an ego as burgeoning as his career. Instead, he channels the positive reinforcement into confidence about his work.

“He has such a charm and an ease onstage, but he’s very modest,” says New York-based actress Judith Delgado, who shared the stage with Isaac in Side Man. “He’s hungry. He’s got moxie. I was blown away by him.

“He saved me a couple of times. I went up [forgot a line] and that baby boy of mine came through. He’s a joy.”

FORGING HIS OWN PATH

The son of a Cuban-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Isaac was never a stellar student. But he found ways of turning routine assignments – like the Noah’s Ark story – into creative challenges.

His science reports were inevitably video documentaries underscored with punk music. He acted through middle and high school, though he had a falling out with his drama teacher at Santaluces Community High in Lantana over his misgivings about a character. When she refused to cast him in anything else, he got his English teacher to let him play the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors his senior year.

His skepticism about authority and love of playing the devil’s advocate have long made him resist doing things the usual way. His post-high school “training” consisted of one semester at Miami-Dade Community College’s South Campus (where he met his girlfriend, Maria Miranda), touring schools playing an abusive character in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Breaking the Cycle, and working as a transporter of bodies at Baptist Hospital, where he absorbed the drama of people in emotionally intense situations.

“It was the most magnificent dramatic institute I could’ve attended,” Isaac said. “I was able to observe the entire spectrum of human emotion, people under the most extreme duress. I was mesmerized watching the way people interacted with each other in such heightened situations.

“I learned everything about the human condition, and it was real and harsh and brutally honest.”

Yet even given his propensity for forging his own path, something nudged him another direction while he was in New York making his Off-Broadway debut in December. Walking by Juilliard one day, he impulsively went in to ask for an application. Though the application deadline had passed, Isaac persuaded Juilliard to accept his, noting in his application essay that most of the exceptional actors he admires had acquired “a brutally efficient technique” to enhance their talent by studying at places like Juilliard.

Though he won’t know whether he has been accepted until the end of this month, his audition last weekend went well, he says. He did monologues from Henry IV, Part I and Dancing at Lughnasa, adjusting his Shakespearean Hotspur to a more fiery temperature at the suggestion of Michael Kahn, head of Juilliard’s acting program – though not without arguing that Hotspur wouldn’t be speaking to the king that way.

Isaac, not surprisingly, loves a good debate.

Adler, GableStage’s artistic director and a man who is as liberal as Isaac once was conservative, savored the verbal jousting they did during rehearsals for Side Man.

“He knows exactly how to pull my chain,” Adler says with a laugh. “Intelligence is the cornerstone of all great actors, and he’s bright as hell.

“He has relentless ambition but with so much charm. He’s very hard to say no to. He has incredible raw talent and magnetism that is very rare in a young actor along with relentless energy, perseverance and ambition. I see his growth both onstage and off. He’s mature in both places.”

Part of his growth, of course, will necessarily involve dealing with the rejections that are part of any actor’s life. His career is still too new, his string of successes solid, so it’s anyone’s guess how failure will shape him. But director Michael John Garcés, who picked him for When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba after Isaac flew to New York at his own expense to compete with a pool of seasoned Manhattan actors for the role, believes his character will see him through.

“Oscar is realistic, but he’s so willing to go the whole nine yards,” Garcés says. “He didn’t go out when he was in the show here. His focus earned the respect of the other actors, some of whom have been working in New York for 30 years.

“He hasn’t had a lot of blows yet, when the career knocks the wind out of you. But he has talent, determination and focus, and if he has perseverance – my intuition is that he does have it – he could achieve a lot.”

FAMILY TIES

His father and namesake, Baptist Hospital intensive-care physician Oscar Isaac Hernandez, couldn’t be more proud. (Isaac doesn’t use the family surname in order to avoid, in his words, being “put in that Hispanic actor box.”)

“I’m ecstatic that he’s probably going to be going to the most prestigious drama school in the United States,” he says. “School will help him focus his energies and give him discipline. He’s got the raw material and the drive.”

Isaac’s mother, Maria, divorced from his father since 1992, is a kidney-transplant recipient who acknowledges that she’ll miss her son if he moves to New York. But, she adds, she wants him “to live out his dreams. He amazes me every day. He calls me every day. I’m very proud of him.”

Even the other guys in The Blinking Underdogs are fans of Isaac’s acting, though it could take him away from South Florida just as the band appears to be, Isaac says, on the brink of signing a recording deal (it has already put out its own CD, The Last Word, with songs, lead vocals and even cover photography by Isaac.

“Oscar’s the leader of the band, a great musician who amazes me and motivates us,” says sax player Keith Cooper. “I’ve been to see every one of his plays. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I completely buy into his role in every play. As close as I am to him, I forget it’s Oscar.”

His South Florida theater colleagues credit that to Isaac’s insatiable desire to learn and grow.

Gail Garrisan, who is directing him in Donnie and One of the Great Ones for Winter Shorts, observes, “It’s not often that you find a young actor who is willing to listen and who doesn’t think he knows everything. He loves the work.

“He really brought the young man in Side Man to life. When I saw it in New York, it seemed to be the father’s play. When I saw it here, I felt it was his [Isaac’s] play.”

Oye Rep’s John Rodaz, whom Isaac calls “the best director I’ve ever worked with,” gave the actor his first important job in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage. They met when Isaac came to see Area’s production of Oleanna and the actor, knowing Rodaz ran the theater, introduced himself.

“He has so much energy and such a sparkling personality,” Rodaz says. “He knows how to move in the world. He seems to take advantage of every situation in a good way; he’s not a cold, calculating person who’ll stab you in the back.

“[But] he wants it so badly. Everything he does, he’s the leader. When I was 21, I was taking naps.”

Rodaz coached Isaac on his Juilliard monologues and found the experience energizing.

“I got chills just watching him. That happens so rarely. I was so exhilarated when I came home that I just had to go out and run. You just know he’s got all the tools.”

Christine Dolen is The Herald’s theater critic.

###

[we-are-inevitable]

new javid au?? you bet!!

hi ok so i thought of an au. basically a stereotypical hallmark movie but make it javid. this au featuures: jack “i was raised on a farm and practice saying important conversations to my cows” kelly and david “i went to college in a big city because i’m built different” jacobs

i might eventually write this out into a fic !! soooo,,

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

the jacobs family lives in a small town in a southwestern state.

david jacobs is, of course, a bit of an outsider in the town. he's not interested in farming or country things, he's more into the Big Outside World and wants to study something that isn't very "traditional" for his area (i'm thinking comparative literature or journalism (with a minor in queer studies that he Does Not Talk About because Hello, Small Town!)

anyways he has a devoted friendgroup that he spends a lot of time with:

sarah (david's twin sister, who isn't afraid to get into trouble and has never been very 'ladylike'; plays softball and runs track with tony)

jack (latino farm boy with a heart of gold, a shitty father and a hidden artistic talent; basically the glue that holds the group together)

katherine (a girl who constantly feels trapped in a close-minded small town and wants to get out; also into journalism)

tony (who they call racetrack because he's an all-state cross country runner; biggest dumbass but can solve any math problem ever)

sean (he's basically a god on the football field; extremely intelligent, can play at least 6 instruments; called 'spot' bc Freckles)

charlie (Literally The Best Human Ever; student council president, National Honor Society president, also in drama)

and albert (probably a stoner but he's chill and legitimately the funniest person; troublemaker but also a literal golden retriever)

there's more of them that float between friend groups, but, of course, Davey, Sarah, Jack, Katherine, Tony, Sean, Charlie, and Albert are the "core" friends.

but. surprise: davey is the only one who goes out of state for college.

the rest split up, but stay in state. Jack goes to a trade school (he takes welding courses at the local vo-tech), Tony and Sean end up going to a community college together about 30 minutes away from home, albert goes straight into the workforce under a relative's wing, and charlie, kath, and sarah all go to a big university about 3 hours away from home.

but not davey. no, davey goes to a school in new york, just because he needs to get away from everything.

because davey goes to school on the other side of the country, he rarely gets the chance to come home. this, of course, means that he slowly drifts away from all of his high school friends- aside from sarah, obviously, because he still sees family a lot, but he doesn't talk to anyone else that often... especially jack.

now, jack and david were never a "thing," but there was always some underlying tension. longing stares, late night talks on the roof of jack's barn, hangouts at the diner in town. they were inseperable, pretty much. by far the closest friends out of the group... until jack and katherine started dating. and, yeah, david is happy for them. he's so happy for them- he jumps up and down and screams and shouts when kath and jack show up to school one day holding hands- because jack and katherine have been his closest friends for YEARS. they’re their own little subgroup- Jack, Kath, and Davey- and they go pretty much everywhere together. sometimes sarah tags along too, so david isn't third wheeling, but most of the time it's just the three of them.

but it hurts so much, because david likes jack. but jack is apparently straight. so david goes away. goes to a school across the country instead of, yknow, facing his feelings.

FAST FORWARD TO ABOUT TEN YEARS LATER!!!

david is a successful 28 year old. after graduating from college (where he ended up double majoring in english and journalism, with a minor in queer studies), he works for a publishing company and has a pretty cushy job as an editor or something, idk yet, and he's doing really, really well for himself- until one day, he gets a call from his mom, Esther, and finds out that his father is sick. sicker than he should be, really, and they're just now convincing him to get checked out.

of course, after hearing the news, David is torn. his family is from a small town, so job opportunities are hard to come by... but regardless, within a little over a week, David has moved back home to help take care of things.

pretty soon, david has a job. thanks to his background knowledge in journalism and his writing ability, he's able to score a job from Joseph Pulitzer, who runs a few newspapers in their town and others in the surrounding area. he feels like he's gotten a whole new start from the past he disliked so much, until it all comes back to bite him in the ass when he runs into Jack Kelly at the co-op. 

"Davey?"

"Wha-- Oh! Jack?"

"Good to see ya, man! What are ya doin' back?"

"I moved back a few weeks ago. Missed home, you know?"

"Just couldn't stay away, could ya?"

"Guess not."

they talk for a few minutes, but eventually have to split apart- jack has to get his feed back to the farm before his girls, aka: his cows, get angry, and davey has to get the chicken scratch back home before esther maims him. they exchange numbers, though, and promise to catch up sometime soon.

after that encounter, Jack Kelly ends up showing up a lot more often. davey sees him all the time without meaning to. in line at the grocery store, at the co-op, stopped next to him at the one stoplight in the middle of town- everywhere. they're never able to talk, though; not until one evening, davey gets a call from jack. 

at first, conversation is a bit tense- but only because it's been so long since they've talked. once the ball gets rolling, though, they're laughing and carrying on like they never stopped talking. when the conversation calms down a bit, jack asks davey if he'd like to come over.

"i'd love to, if your wife doesn't mind having a guest, of course."

"i... actually don't have a wife."

"oh-- oh, i'm sorry, i just assumed-"

"nah, it ain't nothin' to twist yourself up about. you know where i live, yeah? swing by 'round seven."

"sounds like a plan." 

and that's how davey finds out that jack owns the land that his father's farm was on. the house, though, is different- and he soon realizes that jack has completely remodeled. the porch isn't rotting anymore, and the yard is green and trimmed, and the pond out in the back yard doesn't look god-awful anymore, much to davey's delight.

dinner goes off without a hitch. everything goes right, just like old times. they swap college stories. jack tells davey about inheriting the farm and making it his own (likely to scrub every piece of his father out of his life), while davey tells jack about the big city and how different it is being home. it's nice. comfortable. familiar.

jack and davey try to meet up as often as they can after that night, which is difficult considering their schedules, but they somehow make it work. they make it really work, in fact- they have dinner twice a week (usually with some old friends), they fish together (read: jack fishes while david sits on the back of his truck and talks to him), and they even go to rodeos and football games together (to look back on they're youth, of course). 

one night, about a week before jack's 29th birthday, they meet up at the bar in town and spend hours drinking beer and whiskey and talking about life. once they make it back to jack's house, they continue talking on the couch, but talking turns into cuddling ("just for old time's sake") and cuddling turns into confessions ("i only dated those girls because i thought it would help me get over you") and confessions turn into tears ("when he found out, he kicked me out of the house") and tears turn into promises ("i loved you then, jack, and i'll love you now") and promises turn into more. 

eventually, more turns a knee on a ground and a ring on a hand. eventually, a ring on a hand turns into a wedding. eventually, a wedding turns into memories, years down the line, while sitting on an old porch swing and watching grandchildren play in the front lawn.

the end !!!!

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

Fanfic recommendations part six: 100% Alternate Universe stories.

Hey! It took me a while to post this and I’m sorry, got too caught up with, well, you know, life (ew). But I’m back!

All the stories listed in this are stories are 100% AU (yes, I’m including the Soulmate AU’s in this category). I’ve read and enjoyed them all.

Accidentally In Love by the bohemian flow.

Rachel Hyde was a witness to a strange romance that blossomed between her twin brother, Steven, and Jackie Burkhart, of all people. Her and Steven weren't the biggest fans of Jackie, but now, he loves her. How could Rachel possibly put up with her brother's girlfriend?

AU where Hyde has a sister. Not 100% focused on J/H, since it’s from Hyde’s sister POV, but it’s still pretty good.

This story is a WIP and it’s being updated constantly.

109k words, 28 chapters so far.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, OC/Kelso, OC/Eric, Eric/Donna.

A Different Start Could Lead to a Better End by SoftBubbles

Instead of Hyde meeting her as Kelso's annoying girlfriend, what if he met her as his annoying English partner, whom he quickly learns is more than she seems.

This story is not complete, it was last updated on July of 2020, and I pray for the author to come back to it one day, it’s a really good story.

Trigger warning for child abuse.

13k words, 14 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Bad Moon on the Rise by Badfanfic

Set around season 2. Jackie starts to develop feelings for Hyde, even though its the last thing she wants. Hyde is just trying to survive but is having difficulty controlling himself, especially around a certain cheerleader.

Hyde is a werewolf in this story. And THIS IS GOOD Y’ALL, I’ve read this like 10 times already.

Unfortunally, I think this story is abandoned, the last time the author updated was in June of 2020, but I still have hope, it’s really good and I’m DYING to read more. I absolutely adore stories with supernatural elements, and it’s so hard to find good ones in this fandom. Please read this.

13k words, 9 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Focus by Jenny7

After a metaphysical awakening, Hyde develops the ability to telepathically connect with a single stranger. What he doesn't expect is that the girl that he shares the connection with, a rich cheerleader with a complicated past, will forever alter his views on life and love.

SO GOOD. It’s complete and it has a sequel (that’s not complete but still worth the read), called Darlin, Walk Awhile With Me.

2k words, 19 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde.

History Rewritten by kezztip

What if Hyde got his Season 1 wish and stole Donna away from Eric? And then what if Eric had turned to a certain tiny cheerleader instead?

This story is complete, and if you have a soft spot for Eric/Jackie, than you might like this a lot.

81k words, 25 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, Jackie/Eric, Hyde/Donna, Eric/Donna.

(I absolutely hate the Hyde and Donna pairing but it’s temporary so it’s okay).

Playing Pretend by isnotme

Caught up in her teenager concerns – and some wounds to heal, Jackie didn’t realize that her parents' marriage was crashing down for real, causing a major turnaround in her world.

.

In the edge of seventeen, Hyde had too much on his mind. With graduation coming so soon, he knew too well he was about to be kicked out of the Forman's home. But when Bud’s illegal activities came to knock on his door, Hyde saw his plans falling apart once again.

Or

An AU where Jackie and Hyde get themselves in one of those fake relationship situation and somewhere along the way, they find somethings in commun. Highly inspired in every cliché Rom Com ever made, including Netflix's most recents TATBILB and Isi and Ossi.

This story is a WIP and it’s being updated often.

33k words, 13 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, background Eric/Donna

Pretty in Wisconsin by BelleBae

Jackie Burkhart has a lot to deal with. Her dad is in prison, her mum can't get it together and one of her best friends is in love with her. Will she be able to sort everything out by Prom? Inspired by Pretty In Pink.

Cute and complete.

20k words, 23 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Rock You Like a Hurricane by zeppelinandunicorns (yours truly)

Alternative universe where Donna met Jackie before meeting Eric and the rest of basement gang.

Jackie and Donna are 16 and 17 when they finally met the four basement misfits after a Fleetwood Mac concert.

This story is a WIP, and I do not plan on abandoning it, I love it too much to do that.

77k words, 15 chapters so far.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, Eric/Donna, background Red/Kitty and eventual Fez/Laurie and Kelso/Brooke.

Also Available on AO3

She Belongs to me series by QueenBookBuff

A universe where Kelso cared a lot more about Jackie and Hyde getting together and implications of a deeper background for both Jackie and Hyde and Kelso and Jackie.

This got me hooked, it’s really good, please read it.

It’s complete and there are sequels! They are called All Our Tomorrows

and The Scarlet and SJ Chronicles.

27k words, 7 works in total.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Summer Music Series by Wickedfetch

What if Hyde and Jackie didn't meet until 1985?

Complete.

7k words, 3 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Also Available on AO3

That 70s show by Zenmaster21

What if Jackie had dated Hyde from the beginning instead of Kelso? This is simply a re-write of the episodes had Jackie and Hyde always been together.

One of my favorites stories from the entire fandom.

Not complete, but please read it, it’s worth it.

Trigger warning for child abuse.

152k words, 37 chapters.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, Eric/Donna

The Fifth Forman by BlueZeppelin

What if it wasn't just Eric and Laurie? What if they had another sibling? Like...Jackie? What would happen with Hyde? Would Eric be happy with his sister dating his best friend? Would Red like his daughter to be with one of the basement dumbasses?

This story is complete!!

52k words, 18 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

The One Where Jackie Moves In by Floweerchild96

Jackie has been living in New-York with her family but after her father goes to jail and her mother abandons her, she is forced to return to a town she thought she was done with for good. How will Jackie's reemergence in the basement effect the gangs lives?

A really good story, but unfortunally, it’s not complete. Still worth the read.

103k words, 20 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, background Eric/Donna.

Wall Around Your Heart by ourinvisibleink

Jackie Burkhart-Forman was adopted at almost ten years old by Red and Kitty, after her parents flee the country for drug trafficking crimes. Laurie grapples with addiction, Eric is messed up because of Red’s verbal abuse, Steven’s arrival is brought on by Jackie, Kelso is neglected, Fez is victim to racism, and Jackie befriends Jason, the new kid who happens to be gay.

This story is really good, but it deals with some serious stuff. I still love it.

Complete and it has a sequel called Plastar and Mortar.

52k words, 26 chapters.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, Eric/Donna, Fez/Laurie, Red/Kitty.

One-shots:

A Little Less 70s, A Little More Modern AU by fairytalesandfolklore

A modern AU where the characters from That 70’s Show grew up in the 90’s x early 2000’s instead.

Cute as hell!!! Worth the read!

1k words.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

found a wife and a home (and a family that matters) by blackorchids

Hyde’s been part of the Forman family for years before they make him move in.

I placed this in the AU category because apparently Jackie and Hyde always dated, it doesn’t specify much.

1k words.

Rated G.

Pairings: background Jackie/Hyde and background Red/Kitty. This is not focused on the couples, but on Hyde’s relationship with the Forman’s.

Lady and The Tramp by soobeans

'See, I, myself, don't like you. I find you abrasive. But if I didn't know you, and I'd never talked to you, I'd think you were totally hot.'

In Point Place, Wisconsin, there are only three distinct areas. The Western area consists of the burnouts, thugs, outcasts, hopeless dreamers, poor people, and overall, tramps. The Eastern area holds the classy, rich, and more fortunate ladies and gentlemen. In between is where the two are forced to intermingle, but of course, they found a few ways to separate themselves.

8k words.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, some minor background Eric/Donna moments.

That Disco Episode: Zenmasters Style by springsteenicious

What if Hyde had learned how to dance to impress Jackie instead of Donna? And what if Jackie hadn’t been dating Kelso?

That Disco Episode, rewritten for Jackie and Hyde.

2k words.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Bonus: Soulmate AU’S:

I am so in love with Soulmate AU’s that I’m currently writing one, I wanted to make a special post just for this category but it would be too small so I just included it in here. 

Finders Keepers by nannygirl

It's said that before you find your soulmate you will find one of their lost items first, so what happens when Hyde finds a gold bracelet in The Formans' backyard? Will it lead him to his soulmate, someone who he's sure probably doesn't even exist?

This story is not complete, but worth the read.

5k words, 2 chapters.

Rated K+.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, some background Red/Kitty

It Takes Time to Fall in Love by yabookreader96

Jackie can't wait to meet her soulmate, but a dire mistake on her part leads her to mistakenly identify him as Michael, while Hyde watches his soulmate clock hit zero and immediately knows that it's Jackie. Years pass, Jackie with Michael, Hyde saying nothing as he knowingly watches from the side. Will this dynamic be permanent or will destiny bring the true soulmates together?

This story is complete.

18k words, 12 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, temporary Jackie/Kelso.

Mistaken Messages by MistyMountainHop

Jackie longs for her soulmate to accept her, and Hyde hopes his will leave him alone because he's in love with someone else. A stack of mystical index cards lets them communicate with their as-yet unidentified soulmates. But the more their soulmates write, the less control Jackie and Hyde seem to have over their fate.

This story is complete.

23k words, 5 chapters.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde, background Eric/Donna

Also Available on AO3

Until We Get There by poetdameron

Running away from their own wedding is the craziest thing Hyde and Jackie have ever done together. But the tug he feels at his heart when realizing she doesn't want to marry him? The worst.

This story is complete.

39k words, 8 chapters.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Also Available on AO3

Voodooized by mc_1

Eric’s been noticing something weird going on between Jackie and Hyde. At a party one night, all of Eric’s suspicions are confirmed when the two become love-marked- an event that occurs when soulmates are ready to be together, resulting in a mark on the skin that bonds them together for life. The unlikely couple puzzle over how they could possibly be paired together as they struggle to understand each other.

This story is a WIP.

14k words, 4 chapters.

Rated M.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde. Eric/Donna

Where It Wasn’t Supposed To Be by moved-ao3

Jackie thinks it's a blessing, Hyde a curse. Set in an alternate universe where characters receive a list with their soulmate's worst qualities, Jackie and Hyde struggle to navigate their feelings for each other when everything else seems pitted against them.

Not complete, and it makes me want to cry, but it’s really good.

15k words, 5 chapters.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Also Available on AO3

One-shots:

all i need by orphan_account

"When he is six years old, the words 'Pudding Pop' appear on his wrist in the curliest, loopiest handwriting he's ever seen. There's even a little heart dotting the 'i'."

1k words.

The author didn’t rate this one, I would rate it as T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Blush by springsteenicious

On a person's eighteenth birthday, they swap bodies with their soulmate. Hyde doesn't have high hopes for his soulmate, but when he wakes up in a very pink room with posters and painted nails, his life is changed for the better.

4k words.

Rated T.

Pairings: Jackie/Hyde

Also Available on AO3

I believe this is all!

I’ll repeat this at the end of every single post (seriously, I literally copy and paste this every single time): Speaking as someone who writes, it would be really cool if you guys decide to leave a review (or a comment, if the story is on AO3) in the stories you read, especially the unfinished ones. It really motivates the authors, and receiving a compliment is always a mood lifter. I’ve seen some authors updating stories after years because of nice reviews, so… yeah, this is just an idea.

Feel free to reply to this post if you think I left out a good story!

Next category: Christmas fics!

[detectiveinchicago]

Sparks Fly: Chapter 11

Chapters list here

Note: Hi guys! I’m back, yesterday I was inspired so I wrote this chapter. Thank u for all the comments and reviews, you are amazing. If you want to be tag in this story please let me know. English is not my first language. Enjoy xxx.

DISCLAIMER: GIF IS NOT MINE.

WARNING: Bad language, PTSD and sex. A LOT OF SMUT IN THIS CHAPTER. 

After a few hours she signed the discharged papers and start changing her clothes. The shoulder was killing her, but she didn’t want to abuse the pain relievers Dr. Marcel had given her. They had given her a sling however Marcel clarified that if he did not move his shoulder too much, she would not need to use it all the time. Will was going to take her to Molly’s after finishing his shift. She had met some of her brother’s coworkers, all of whom were kind enough not to ask too much, although Caitlyn could tell that they all had questions.

Caitlyn was talking to Maggie, the nurse was scheduling her next check-ups when her brother approached them both ready to go. One bad thing about injuring the shoulder was that she couldn’t drive, she was going to need a driver for the next few weeks if she ever left the house.

“Are you okay with going to Molly’s?” Will asked as she drove.

“Yes, the boys are going to before they go back to New York” Caitlyn commented looking out the window.

“And when will you come back?” he asked.

“I don’t know, I have to come back to Chicago Med so Dr. Marcel can check my shoulder and after that, I guess I will pack everything” Caitlyn replied turning to see him “You can always come to visit me”

“When? I hardly have time to see Jay in my free time, if I have free time” Will commented.

“I know,” said Caitlyn “I don’t take holiday either, but we’ll make it work”

“I don’t want you to go,” Will said “Now that you’re back”

“I don’t want to leave either but my life is in New York, Will” Caitlyn replied “I’ll visit you again”

“Nothing to make up for lost years?” Will asked.

“Why recover years? We both made mistakes Will and we have to leave them in the past” she commented while her brother parked the car “I don’t hold a grudge Will, I know you did what you could”

Will looked at her and smirked, “Then we’ll make it work”.

“Nice place” Caitlyn commented as they walked towards Molly’s.

“The owner is a firefighter” Will informed her.

“And he also owns a bar?” she asked raising her eyebrows.

“In his spare time, Herrmann is a good guy” Will replied opening the door for her.

“Here you bring your dates?” Caitlyn asked “The place is very cozy but it has many people”

“First, no, and number two I won’t talk about my love life with you” Will replied.

“Don’t worry, I already have a good idea” Caitlyn informed him rolling her eyes.

“Will, how are you?” asked a girl with a hair full of curlers when they approached the bar.

“Hi Stella, this is Caitlyn, my sister” Will introduced her to the girl.

The girl named Stella raised her eyebrows “I didn’t know you had a sister”

“I get that response a lot lately” Caitlyn replied rolling her eyes “I live in New York”

“Oh, are you part of the team?” she asked pointing to the table where her coworkers were “What happened to your shoulder?”

“Long story, I’ll tell you if you pour me a coke” Caitlyn replied raising her eyebrows.

“No beer?” Stella asked raising her eyebrows too.

“I’m with painkillers” Caitlyn explained.

“Deal done girl, I’ll go get something for you” Stella replied “Will? The usual?”

“Yes, I am going to greet some acquaintances, ok?” Will told his sister

“Will, I’m a big girl, I think I can take care of myself” Caitlyn replied rolling her eyes.

“Well, just don’t drink any cocktails Herrmann offers you,” Will told her “What is more, drink nothing because you can’t” he added before disappearing leaving Caitlyn in doubt about Herrmann cocktails.

“Herrmann has the habit of preparing powerful drinks” explained a blonde girl who was sitting next to her “I’m Silvie”

“Caitlyn” she replied shaking her hand, “Nice to meet you”

“I heard you are Will and Jay’s sister” Silvie commented.

“Yes, I would like to say that I have nothing to do with them but sadly I can’t” Caitlyn replied rolling her eyes.

“What brought you to Chicago?” Silvie asked as Stella handed them their drinks.

“Work, I’m FBI” Caitlyn said taking a sip of soda “I came to investigate the serial killer case”

“Heard you caught him” Stella mentioned.

“Yes, my shoulder is a witness” Caitlyn replied pointing to her shoulder, “He stabbed me, are you firefighters?”

“Stella is a firefighter, I’m a paramedic” Silvie explained.

Caitlyn nodded “I like the bar”

“Molly’s is a shelter” Silvie informed him “The police, the firemen, the paramedics, they are always around”

“It has a friendly atmosphere” Caitlyn agreed.

“Who is the girl praising my bar so much?” asked a man approaching them.

“Caitlyn, this is Herrmann, Herrmann, this is Caitlyn, Will and Jay’s sister” Stella introduced them

“Nice to meet you, nice place, we don’t have things like that in New York” Caitlyn praised.

“It’s Chicago magic, girl” Herrmann replied.

Caitlyn had lived in Chicago for a long time and she could describe that city but she wasn’t sure she loved the city enough to say it was “magical”, it was probably the product of poor memories the city gave her. She saw Sheryll signal her and apologized to the firefighters for reaching out to her coworkers.

“How you feel?” Sheryll asked her when she approached.

“It hurts but I’m fine, I’m a little sleepy anyway” Caitlyn replied sitting next to her.

“Sleepy? You slept a whole day” Hanna told him.

Caitlyn shook her head. “Feel like I’ve been run over when do you fly back to New York?”

“Tomorrow” said O.A “What about you?”

“I still have to go to Chicago Med for a checkup this week” Caitlyn replied.

After that Sheryll, Hanna, and O.A fell into a conversation that Caitlyn wasn’t paying much attention to, to be honest. Instead, she was looking at another table where Jess, Clinton and Kenny were standing alongside whom Caitlyn recognized as some members of the Intelligence Unit. Kenny looked good. He was laughing at something Clinton had said. Caitlyn could swear she could hear his laugh from there, he looked happy and Kenny happy was Caitlyn’s favorite Kenny.

Their last time of marriage, when they were still together, had been heartbreaking and painful, so seeing him smile was something that made her smile too. Kenny was a fun person with his friends. Usually, he used to have a facade of seriousness and solemnity around him but Caitlyn was glad to know that he had at least smiled again.

Kenny was angry with her, Caitlyn understood, she had left him when he needed support with PTSD, but she did not regret it. Despite everything, he would continue to do it because that was how he had finally accepted that he needed help and that he could not do everything alone. The best thing had been that she left. And it had hurt, the first time it had hurt like hell, but therapy had helped her to feel better little by little and to overcome some unfinished problems that she had from her time in Chicago.

Caitlyn didn’t want to admit it but seeing Kenny again brought back memories, good and bad but memories at last. She just wished things had been different, that they just had more time or met at a different time. Caitlyn was too concerned not to repeat patterns she left looking back all the time and what might have become of them.

“Guys, I think I’m going to retire for today” Caitlyn commented putting aside her thoughts. Her friends protested, but Caitlyn promised they would have a drink when they got back to New York. She grabbed her coat and thanked Stella for the drink before leaving. Since her brother had given her a ride, Caitlyn should call an Uber but decided she was going to walk, it was summer and she liked to exercise. She carefully draped her jacket over her injured shoulder when she saw Jay leaning against her truck.

“When were you going to tell me you were married?” her brother asked her.

“I didn’t think it was your business” Caitlyn told him.

“At least you could mention it” Jay added.

“Before or after you judged me without reason?” Caitlyn responded wryly, “Or maybe after you stopped talking?”

“I expected more from you, Caitlyn” Jay replied.

“I’m sorry if you are disappointed by me and I’m sorry if you think I’m not good enough to talk to me” Caitlyn was furious because Jay believed he had the right to judge her after all that time “You left me for years and now you think you have the right to judge me or any of my decisions?”

“I went to fight a war, Caitlyn” Jay replied rolling his eyes “I wasn’t playing in the park, you know?”

“Yeah, I perfectly know that myself” Caitlyn reproached him looking the other way “I counted on you Jay, we were a team and you left me and after that, you just stopped talking”

“You are judging me as if I would have preferred Afghanistan to be at home

“We both know that you ran away when you turned 18”

“As if you had done any different” Jay replied.

“I ran away because dad took the shit out of me every day because I ended up in the hospital 8 times in a year because dad couldn’t control himself, because staying here was killing me slowly and because you and Will left me!” Caitlyn yelled at him “I was in pain too; Don’t you think Mom was important to me too? She left us all and yet you and Will had the option to run away while I had to stay here enduring all the crap from dad” She turned to continue walking towards her apartment “I’m sorry if I turned out in a major disappointment but this me is the best I could do with what I had to work with”

Caitlyn turned the corner feeling anger wash over her and collided with someone.

“Damn,” he muttered when he saw it was Kenny.

“I think the way you were yelling could say that” Kenny answered, raising his eyebrows.

“I’m not in the mood” Caitlyn told him, rolling her eyes and continuing her walk.

“Why do you insist on fighting with everyone?” Kenny asked, causing Caitlyn to turn around in a fury.

“I don’t know Kenny, you tell me, why do you insist on being such a hard ass to me?” Caitlyn answered approaching him.

“Sorry, do you feel bad that I was harsh on you when you left me unexplained?”

“I didn’t think you needed them, you were smart enough to figure out just why by yourself,” Caitlyn told him with sarcasm.

“You left me because suddenly that I was fighting wasn’t that attractive to you, huh?”

“I left you cause I was dead inside!” Caitlyn screeched tired that people believed they had the right to judge her “I lived for you when you didn’t want to live for yourself” She added moving her shoulder a little that was hurting again “I really tried to bring you back, I begged you to start therapy, Kenny. I begged you to do something for you, for me, for us, and you didn’t even try it for me”

“You left me anyway, Caitlyn” Kenny replied a bit stunned by his wife’s speech “You left me, you turned your back away from me when I needed it the most, you left even though you knew I needed you”

“You didn’t need me, you needed to lose me to understand that therapy was the only way to solve your problems” Caitlyn told him making a strange smile with her lips, “Some say you don’t know what you have until you lose it, I think we both know that’s true now”

She resumed her way leaving Kenny behind; it had been a more than stressful night, she could feel her shoulder giving her stitches of a pain asking her to rest. Caitlyn found herself unable to think. First, she had confirmed that her brother Jay wasn’t too happy with her. That was okay. It wasn’t like she was too happy with him either.

Unlike Will, Jay had always been the closest to Caitlyn growing up, and Caitlyn had always considered Jay her hero. Jay was always there for her while they grew up, when she was 7 years old and a boy threw her off his bike Jay went after him to beat him up when he was 11 and gave his first kiss Jay went again after the bastard who had touched his sister when she turned 14 and her heart was broken for the first time. Jay was always there until one day he said he had enlisted in the army. That day had been very sad for Caitlyn because she realized that Jay was going to go far away from Chicago.

When their mother died, Jay returned to Chicago for a time, but as soon as he could, he re-enlisted and disappeared. She later understood that they limited the time to send letters or communicate with someone abroad, but what she never forgave him was leaving her with her father. The only thing that ever hurt her was feeling abandoned when she most needed someone to protect her. Someone who would kick her father’s ass when she still couldn’t, because what Caitlyn had wanted most was that she had learned to fight in her teens, so she would have kicked Pat’s ass.

On the other side was Kenny, Caitlyn was exhausted. It was better when she didn’t have to see it. She hoped she could at least take some blame for her ruined marriage. However, Kenny seemed hell-bent on throwing her in the face whenever he could that she had left him without looking back. That was a lie. She had called Jess to ask for updates until he told her it was unhealthy for her to keep worrying about Kenny like this if she had left him. It was the truth. It hurt to hear it, but Jess was right.

What had always intrigued Caitlyn been why Kenny had never looked for her, she hadn’t been hiding so at any moment in those five years he could have contacted and talked to her? However, Kenny had stayed on the sidelines. That had always intrigued her. “Why, if she was so important to him he still felt so hurt five years later, hadn’t he tried to get her back with him?”

Then Caitlyn decided that she was not going back to her apartment yet. She crossed the street and started walking the other way towards the downtown hotel where Sheryll had told her the team was staying. She and O.A were already settled in apartments when the team arrived. She showed up at the front desk and used her badge to be told which room Kenny was staying in. When she got to his door Caitlyn took a deep breath before knocking. Kenny opened the door and Caitlyn remembered why she liked him so much, there was nothing more handsome in the world than Kenny in a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

“Why did you let me go?” Caitlyn asked before Kenny could even open his mouth, “Why did you let me out the door that day if you needed me so bad?”

“I only wanted you to be happy” Kenny replied after a few seconds “Even if it wasn’t with me, I’m sorry it wasn’t with me”

“You were the love of my life and I thought I was yours too” Caitlyn murmured “But I was wrong, you don’t let the love of your life go out the door and you don’t go after him”

“I wanted you to live your life, the life that I hadn’t let you live while you were with me”

“I think loving you wasn’t enough for you” Caitlyn said.

“You always meant the world to me” Kenny confessed “I’m sorry if I let you forget that”

“Why did you never go looking for me?” She asked, staring at him.

“I went to see you one day, and I saw you leave your apartment with O.A, you were laughing at something he was telling you so I left,” He told her.

“O.A and me? That’s ridiculous”

“Now I know but at that moment I thought the best thing was to let you be happy, even if it wasn’t with me, your life seemed fine” He shrugged.

“It just seemed like that wasn’t true anyway” Caitlyn whispered “You were always so noble”

“You deserve to be happy” Kenny clarified.

“With whom? I did not know anyone who told me I was worth it until you arrived and after that, I think nobody was ever good enough” Caitlyn explained biting her lip with a grimace “Sorry I gave up on us when you never did “ she added turning around ready to walk away.

“Caitlyn?”

“What?” she asked looking back at him, but before she got an answer, Kenny kissed her. And by God, Caitlyn could swear it took her breath away every time he did. She stroked his hair as he took her by the waist. His touch could make Caitlyn’s body explode. It had always had that effect on her. It made her feel like a child who was having her first kiss.

He lifted her slightly off the floor to enter the room and close the door before pressing Caitlyn against it. God, he would never tire of kissing her. Every time he did, it was like it was the first time. He could never get enough of her. He lifted her into his arms and laid her gently on the bed. It was crazy; he knew it and he was sure Caitlyn knew it too, but neither of them wanted to stop.

Kenny took off her jacket and jeans as he stroked her legs before removing her panties. He slid down and fondled Caitlyn’s intimacy. He moved his fingers against her center and caressing her, making Caitlyn sigh. He ran his tongue over her folds and sucked on her clit slowly. Another thing Caitlyn missed about Kenny was sex. They always had the best sex in the world.

“Oh, shit” she said, throwing her head back and stroking his hair. Caitlyn moved her hips against him as she pulled on Kenny’s sweatshirt to remove it. He moved his tongue in circles against her center as she stirred against him, sucking on her clit once more before removing her top and bra and start kissing her lips again. Caitlyn kissed him and untied his tracksuit bottoms and then remove his boxer shorts. She wanted to move and give him back a little of what Kenny was giving her, but her shoulder wouldn’t stop bothering her.

Kenny nibbled on her nipples while inserting a pair of fingers into her intimacy, Caitlyn let out a little cry of surprise before beginning to moan out loud. He sucked on her nipples, causing her to shake. Caitlyn was shaking with pleasure when he settled down and thrust inside her. They both moaned. He kissed her neck before starting to ram into her.

“God” Caitlyn muttered throwing her head back “I had forgotten it felt so good” she moaned.

“Baby” he groaned, “You’re so tight” He could feel the walls of her vagina pressing against him. Sex with Kenny was hot, it was sexy but soft and delusional until Caitlyn discovered that it was her favorite type of sex, rough but soft at the same time. He took her breasts between his hands, kissing and sucking them as he started sucking on Caitlyn’s neck. Caitlyn arched towards him seeking to intensify the contact, his rhythm intensifying causing her to moan louder.

“Cum baby, cum for me” he whispered with gasps, and Caitlyn couldn’t wait much longer to fulfill his request before cumming between moans being followed by him a few seconds later.

She could feel her body shaking and her shoulder begging her to stop moving. Having sex with Kenny still made her shiver. It still felt as good as the first day. That was crazy. They hadn’t seen each other in five years and there they were, having sex as if time hadn’t passed. “Having sex” was a simple euphony because they both knew there was more than sex in that room. Caitlyn just closed her eyes, trying to calm the hectic rhythm of her heart. To be honest, she didn’t want to open her eyes and see his face. She was wondering how she had accepted this madness and how she had ended up in this situation. With all those thoughts in mind, she fell asleep.

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

Tag list:

@proceduralpassion @lovecatystuff @bethii1 @give-jack-a-lightsaber @thevelvetseries @lovingfanofupstead @thetwit @anotheronechicagobog @sadsot @chicagogirl2019 @cpdfan231 @bxrgesses @onechicago-upsteadrhekker​ @slytherinwitchy​ @itsdesiree86​ @halstudandruz​ @hereforthedale​ @cactiem​ @nhcwdw​ @anotherfan07​ @pinkrockstar19​ @rochyu​ @mollyc70 @fangirlings-things​

[jawira707]

Miraculous Ladybug New York Special fanfic - On the Plane

Info: I read yesterday that some people wanted a sweet Adrinette fic, where they fall asleep next to each other on the plane like they did in the Startrain episode. So I hoped someone would write that. Then I thought, maybe I should write that. This is my first fanfic  in nearly one year I think, but why not, why not...I hope you like it! (Spoilers (even though no major spoilers) from the NY special!)

Word Count: 1462

Summary: Adrien had never fallen asleep on a plane, Plagg was on the Titanic and Mari had no earplugs with her...but luckily, they had each other.

Pairing: Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Warning: None

(Disclaimer: this fanfic is not sponsered by Air France, but I want them to know despite my critique they’re still 100 times better than American Airlines. Merci)

Title: On the plane

Adrien had never fallen asleep on a plane. No matter on how many trips he had gone, to the US, to Italy, even to Australia and China - mostly business related traveling in first class because his father insisted on that-, he just couldn’t get used to the dry air and the constant noise of the machine. He vividly remembered being scolded for not trying to rest and being too tired for shootings after they had landed, but luckily Gorilla didn’t care, absorbed in his own little word, listening to his meditation podcast, while Adrien kept moving around in his seat trying to find a more comfortable position. He was tired of scrolling through the entertainment program on his screen and additionally, he started to feel cold.

Looking around in the dark, he tried to find anyone that was not asleep, another classmate to talk to, but all the lights were out and he could hear snoring all around. I should have stayed in Paris, he thought guiltily, I should have convinced my father to let me stay. But how? Another voice in his hand, that suspiciously sounded like Plagg, replied. If Ladybug ever finds out, she would be so mad at him. Putting his head in his hands Adrien felt terribly alone, wishing once again his partner knew his real identity so he could explain to her why everything was so complicated at times.

„You’re here for Marinette and your friends too, remember“ The little whisper in his pocket really came from Plagg this time.

„Sorry, did I wake you up?“

„Sleeping with you is like being on the Titanic. And trust me I would know, because I was there! Do you ever sit still?“

„My leg has fallen asleep“

„I have never heard that human body parts sleep separately…“

„It’s just a saying Plagg“

„Well, then here’s another one. Stop worrying so much! Your friends are happy you came“

„You just want cheese and you know it“

„Sure. I live in France to go for cheese to the United States…“

„But you said-…“

„I want you to have some fun, kid, just relax!“

„I can’t“ Adrien gave back, tiredly. Finally giving up on trying, he stood up and started walking back and forth between the rows. The sun hadn’t risen yet and there were still hours to fly. Yay.

Suddenly he saw someone getting up a few rows in front of him. The person was stretching and didn’t seem to be headed to the bathroom or elsewhere. As he approached, he could already tell who it was. He felt a wave of relief wash over him, already not feeling that abandoned as he had a minute before. Maybe he could talk to her? He just had to be careful not to startle her.

„Hey, Marinette“ he called out quietly.

„Hi? Oh…WOAH…I mean, hi Adrien!“ Marinette nearly stumbled as she turned around quickly, her elbow accidentally making contact with her seat neighbor. Her face had turned the color of deep red, but luckily in the dark, no one noticed. „What are you doing here? I mean, it’s nice that you came, it’s not that I don’t want you here, I just-„

„I couldn’t sleep“ Adrien gently interrupted her nervous rambling. „Why are you up? You’re not feeling air sick, do you?“ He remembered her mentioning this earlier, but Marinette seemed confused.

„Me? Oh…no, it’s a…calm flight“

„I’m glad to hear that“

For a moment there just stood next to each other in silence and Adrien wondered if she wanted to sit down again and didn’t do so out of courtesy. „Well, if you would like to sleep some more…“, he started, but didn’t finish because she shook her head.

„No, at least not here, our principal is snoring like a champion.“

Adrien chuckled at this.

„Oh..Adrien?“ He nodded, wondering why she suddenly sounded concerned. „Sorry, but are you feeling air sick?“ She felt stupid for not asking – he always was so caring, complimenting her and asking how she was doing. Maybe he had walked here not to chat, but to consult one of their teachers which were sitting next to her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Next, she almost flinched away before she realized he had put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

„Ah non. Thank you for asking. I’m used to flying, I just don’t like it. It’s loud and stuffed…I know, I sound like a spoiled child“ He chuckled again,making her heart flutter. „Normally, I fly in first class. I’m more chatty when I get tired.“

„Do you want me to come with you? I mean …sit next to you?“ Wait, did she really just asked him that?!

„That would be great.“

„Let’s go“ Wow, Marinette congratulated herself, maybe it was because she couldn’t really see Adrien’s face and his beautiful, wonderful green eyes in the dark or because she also was exhausted, but she was sure that these were the first coherent sentences she had spoken to him recently. And now he was holding…her hand!

„I will lead you, be careful, there’s a lot of backpacks and jackets lying around“ he told her and she couldn’t disagree with that logic. Nope, it made perfect sense...

As they reached the seats, Adrien sat down first and this time she joined him without any hesitation. „I still can’t believe you convinced my dad to let me come“ Adien started, making her blush.

„Yeah, me neither. But I guess, he realized how important it was to us“

„Oui“ He sounded happier now. „Do you want to play a game?“

„Huh?“

Adrien turned on his screen again. „There’s not a huge selection but there are some quiz games on here…alone it’s boring, but maybe it’s more fun playing together“

„Yes“

Marinette had no clue what he was talking about, but a few minutes later they both tried to answer questions of different categories as quickly as possible.

„Wow, I’m dumb“ Adrien said after the first round. „I have only 4/10 correct answers in the geography section“

„Geography is hard“ she reassured him.

„But I selected France, Paris as the main category“ And then she laughed and he laughed too.

„Well, Monsieur Agreste“ she teased him, again surprised about her sudden boldness, „I guess you have no clue where you’re living“

„True, I have not seen so much of Paris after all, haven’t I? If there was a category „My room“ I would win for sure!“ He kept on laughing, but Marinette realized she needed to change the subject.

„Let’s play this word game…it’s in English though“ „Fine, we should practice anyway“

It turned out Marinette excelled in this game and nearly found all the hidden words. „Can you find another one…one is still missing?“ As he didn’t answer, she turned towards him, realizing he was about to fall asleep, his eyes closed and him leaning back into his seat. „Okay... good night, Adrien“

She smiled and thought about getting up but just then the boy unconsciously moved his leg in front of hers. It’s not so bad, being small after all, she thought. All the tall boys had to be much more uncomfortable in the small space than she was. If she got up now, there was a chance she would wake him up. „Mari…?“ Speaking of which…

“Adrien?“ He didn’t seem to be fully awake, murmuring something unintelligibly.

"What?“

„Stay“

Oh…my…

“Please“ he whispered and she felt his weight against her side. He wasn’t heavy and apparently longing for contact, instead of actually falling asleep on her. His little „please“ moved something inside her and she placed his hand on his arm.

„Shh…“

She couldn’t think too much about this, she realized.Therefore she closed her eyes as well, leaning into him as if to hide away from all her fear, her awkwardness and no matter how little sense that made, it worked. Adrien rested his chin on her head, her ear close to his chest, so that she now heard his steady and slow breathing. He felt so much better and warmer with Marinette in his arms.

The motor noises were still just as loud and the air just as dry, but there were by themselves in their little world, blocking out everything around them.

The little timer for the game on the screen showed 0:00 seconds and the score was displayed „You found 9/10 hidden words“ it read. The 10th word is „solace“.” Then after a few moments the screen got dark automatically, because no one had restarted the game.

Adrien shifted in his seat, pulling Marinette closer to him, sighing contently as he felt her wrapping her arms around his waist.

At the same moment, in a different time zone, the sun started rising in Paris.

And Adrien Agreste was finally asleep.

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

Thank you for reading! I’m always happy about reviews, here some little things that didn’t make it into the story:

- Marinette sitting on Adrien’s chocolate bar he placed on the seat next to him instead of eating it

- Plagg nearly getting stuck in the ventilation (a drama, really)

- Adrien and Mari sharing headphones to listen to music on the plane (classic to fall asleep or Jagged Stone to have themselves their own little party, your choice)

I hope you like this little story =)

[aellynera]

Don’t Forget the Napkins (Llewyn Davis x Reader)

DON’T FORGET THE NAPKINS

Word count: 2733(ish)

Warnings: Just a little bit of language, really (I mean, it’s Llewyn, so...) Like one sentence about Pappi’s creepy tendencies.

(with prompts: “Call me now, it’s urgent”; “Have you lost your mind”; and “So...can we go eat?”)

Another Saturday night at the Gaslight. There was nothing odd about that, it was where you spent pretty much every Saturday night for the past year and half, working behind the bar and waiting on the tables out by the stage when needed. Sure, it was dark, smoky, and kind of dingy, but it helped make ends meet and you got to listen to music for free.

The music is what you had first come to the Gaslight for, right after you graduated from college and moved to the big city. You loved the music and started coming in every chance you got, no matter who was on stage, just to sit in the room in the moment and experience the music. Pappi had taken a shine to you, said you reminded him of his little sister. You had no idea if he really had a sister, nor did you care, but it was certainly less creepy than Pappi telling you it was because he wanted to fuck you, so you let it slide. You had heard him make the latter suggestion to more performers than you cared to admit, but he was a decent boss and you got on well at the job, so it all worked out.

You had majored in English and wanted to be a famous writer, maybe even write some songs that people would talk about and still sing years from now, so where else would you go other than New York City? That’s where the culture was. That’s where the art scene was. That’s where the nightlife and bright lights and intellectuals were. And that’s also where Llewyn Davis was.

Llewyn. Now there was a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery.

You had seen him perform quite a few times at the Gaslight, and even bought his record when it came out. You talked to him just about every time he was there, because he always sat at the bar both before and after he performed. He had seemed quiet at first; well, he still did, really, but by now you knew the right combination of idle chit-chat, soft smiles, and whiskey straight up to get him to drop the first line of defense. Once that happened, he would talk to you all night. And if you weren’t busy, you’d let him. At some point, you had told him about your dreams of writing and creating songs that people wanted to sing (there was no way you were going to sing them yourself, at least not in public; your stage fright was too monumental and soul crushing). He had just looked at you thoughtfully for a moment, pushing one of his perfect dark curls off his face, then finished his drink and went up on the stage. When he came back, he ordered another drink and started up random conversation again. Then the night was over.

And that was his mystery - he spoke of many things, but he never really told you anything. You had an easy back and forth, a friendship even, but it felt like he never let on more than the bare minimum.

But the night after you had told him about the songwriting, you had come in to work and there was a note for you behind the bar. Two lines, scribbled on a napkin. You read them a few times and realized it was maybe the beginning of a poem...or lyrics. So you quickly wrote two more lines, and when Llewyn came in that night, you walked up to him and stuck the folded napkin in his pocket. He looked surprised, but you caught the slight upturn of his lips a few minutes later when he took it out, looked at it, and then carefully put it back in his pocket.

The next night, the napkin was back. Two more lines. So you added two more. The same thing the next day. And the next, and the day after that. It kind of became your thing, without anything else ever being said about it. Sometimes there was a whole verse written out and you would start a chorus, and vice versa. Once it was one word at a time and that had honestly gone off the rails pretty quickly, but it was fun.

And it had been going on for just about a year. You saw it as a mental game to keep your writing sharp and your brain engaged and your friend entertained. He certainly did more than his fair share in entertainment from his stool on the stage.

So when you got to work that night, it wasn’t a surprise to find another napkin meticulously folded and placed behind the bar where you normally stowed your pocketbook and keys. The place was more packed than usual, but there was some new guy named Dylan or something that was playing and there was a lot of buzz around him. So that was normal too. Smiling to yourself, you picked up the napkin and read the familiar scrawl.

Call me now, it’s urgent.

That was..not normal. Your face scrunched up in confusion, you quickly looked up and caught the mop of dark curls hunched over at the end of the bar. Grabbing a clean bar towel and the bottle of his favorite whiskey, you made your way over.

“Oh...good, you got my message,” he said, raising his eyes ever so slightly to meet yours over the rim of his tumbler. They were (beautiful and dark and compelling and soft and…) sort of glassy and red around the edges and maybe a little bloodshot? And was that a smirk inching its way onto his lips? You sighed.

“You’re sitting right here, Llewyn,” you said, taking the glass from his hand and refilling it without him asking. You pushed it back to him. “So thank you for saving me the dime.”

He snorted. “Come on, it was...a little funny, right?”

You shook your head, but you couldn’t keep your own small smile off your face. Did he realize the irony that you wouldn’t have been able to call him anyway, since you never really knew where he would be staying? “And you’re a little pissed already, huh? Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“Nah, not really. And I’m not drunk. I am alcoholically reinforced,” he took another sip of his drink.

“...what does that even mean?”

He shook his head, that one particular curl flopping over his forehead and into (those beautiful, soulful, deep, enchanting…) his eyes. He totally ignored your question. “So, uh, look,” he started, suddenly seeming a bit more unsure of himself. “I really wanted to ask you, if…”

“No, you cannot borrow my couch tonight, Llewyn. My sister is in town.” You idly wiped at the bar top with your towel, raising an eyebrow at him.

For a split second he looked offended, but it was so brief you almost missed it. “What? No, no, I don’t need a place to...look, I just needed to tell you...well, ask you really, but also tell you…”

“Hey, Llewyn!” Pappi’s voice suddenly boomed from the other side of the room. “Lay off the help and get your ass up on stage! You’re not gettin’ half the basket just to sit here and drink all my booze!”

Llewyn sighed. “Yeah, yeah, all right,” he yelled back. His attention turned back to you. “So, listen, really though I need to…”

You swatted at him with the towel. “You need to finish that glass and get up there before we both get in trouble, is what you need to do. It looks like it’s gonna be a crazy night, I’ll catch you after, yeah? We’ll go grab a burger at that place down the block, my treat.” You flashed him a grin as you walked away before he could say anything else. And by say anything else, you really meant say no, because that man needed to eat a good, hot meal. As usual.

Llewyn watched you walk off and start tending to other patrons, then threw back the rest of his glass in one gulp. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he walked to the stage. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me…”

As Llewyn picked up his guitar and got himself situated, you filled drink orders and watched him as you did so. It was getting harder to deny that he was the most beautiful man you had ever seen, especially when he was up there, under the single spotlight and surrounded by the smoky haze of the crowd and his own cigarette smoke. There was just something about him. But the puzzle and mystery and enigma hung over everything and you were fairly certain you’d never crack the actual code, so you just let your crush be a crush. It was part of what made the Gaslight worth it, after all.

The night went on, busy and loud and musical. This particular crowd was really getting into his set and you couldn’t help but feel proud of him. He deserved the attention, and you knew he wanted it, even if he liked to pretend he didn’t. After a few songs, you took a pint glass of water up to the stage. It was something you always did for performers, but especially for Llewyn (since he tended to drink more than his fair share of whiskey in the meantime). You were about halfway to the stage when he strummed a few notes and started to introduce his next song.

“So, uh...well, this is a new song for me,” he started, noticing you coming his way. “And I didn’t really plan on doing this until maybe about an hour or so ago, but well...I dunno, sometimes when something just feels right, it’s right, you know?” His eyes meet yours as you set the glass on the small table next to him on the stage, and he momentarily seems to search for the next words.

“Y’know I usually work alone, but, uh, I wrote this next song with a friend. A good friend. Someone who is really talented and good with words, better with words than I am. And...and she doesn’t know I’m doing this but I’ll ask for forgiveness later.” He chuckled and the crowd did too in response.

Llewyn cleared his throat. “So, yeah. This is a song I wrote with the help of a lovely lady you probably all know. If you do, ask her to make you a drink, and if you don’t, well, go back to the bar and introduce yourself.”

You were almost to the back of the room, back to said bar, when your eyes shot wide and you spun on your heel to face the stage. Oh no, he did not just...did he? It’s kind of hard to clearly see his face from back here with the light and the glare in the smoke but you could swear that jerk is grinning, like full on guilty smiling, and in that instant you swore if you weren’t working and there weren’t so many people shoved into this space you might go up there and actually punch him. Your face was on fire and your stomach felt like it was going to drop out the bottoms of your feet. Your mouth dropped open before you could stop it.

Every pair of eyes in the room suddenly turned on you. There were maybe a hundred people there? Around that many. A hundred people times two and that’s how many eyes were suddenly staring right at you. There was only one pair of eyes you really cared about, though.

You managed to catch Llewyn’s eyes for a moment and you mouthed at him - Have you lost your mind? He shrugged slightly, closed his eyes, and started playing his...your...song.

It was beautiful. From the second line you recognized the napkin it had come from, one that got passed back and forth about four months ago, during a particularly cold week when it didn’t quite snow but the rain was still frozen. It was a back and forth about two people realizing they were in love but being too afraid and preoccupied and aloof to do or say anything about it. Typical unrequited love stuff. But oh, suddenly, oh now it had much more meaning. You listened, and watched, from the corner behind the bar, transfixed and unable to look away as every emotion you knew and some you never knew existed washed over you in time with the notes from the guitar and Llewyn’s gorgeous voice.

Once the song ended, you somewhat got your bearings and turned back to the bar. People were already coming over to tell you how beautiful the song was, ask if you really wrote it with Llewyn Davis, tell you how much they enjoyed it, ask if you had written any others...you were only vaguely aware of most of it and managed to pour some drinks and answered things as best you could, until finally one voice broke through all the others.

“So. Um. Did you like it?”

You closed your eyes for a minute, biting your lip. “Llewyn...I...what just happened?”

He looked down for a second, then reached over and took the glass you were holding and the bar towel out of your hands. He gently wrapped his fingers around yours, giving you a light squeeze. He didn’t say anything for a few more seconds, but when you didn’t pull away, he continued, “I tried to tell you...shit, I kept every single one of those napkins since we started doing that, and I turned some of ‘em into a song and wanted to play it tonight. I tried, but...well...fuck, you’re not mad at me are you?”

You weren’t mad. God, you were anything but mad at this man. Stunned, and surprised, yes, but definitely not mad. He kept all those napkins? You’d always half-wondered what happened to them, but never really gave it much thought, but you hadn’t really expected that to be the answer. Your brain still couldn’t quite process your own words correctly, so you just shook your head no and squeezed his hands in return.

Llewyn let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank fuck. For a few minutes there I thought I really fucked things up.”

You finally got your head back straight and laughed. “No, you didn’t,” you smiled. You cocked your head to the side and studied his face for a moment. “I still can’t quite figure you out, but you definitely did not fuck anything up.”

“Good,” he nodded. He lifted your fingers to his lips and brushed his lips along your knuckles, suddenly pulling away when Pappi snorted from his corner of the bar. You both turned to him, scowls on your faces, and Llewyn whipped the bar towel at Pappi’s head.

“So...can we go eat?” Llewyn asked, turning his attention back to you and ignoring Pappi’s continued string of bemused and somewhat lewd sounds.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Eat. Y’know, burgers? At that joint down the street? You said something earlier about buying me dinner?” Llewyn asked dryly.

You rolled your eyes. “Seriously? You sing me a song that I helped you write, and then you expect me to buy you dinner.”

“Well, you did offer.”

You bit your lip again as your smile grew wider and a blush crept further up your face. “Okay. But make sure you don’t lose these, we’re going to need them.” You grabbed a few pens from underneath the bar before coming around to his side and shoving them in Llewyn’s coat pocket.

“Okay, sure? But what are those for?” he asked, slipping and arm around your waist and leading you to the door.

“Because,” you replied, your tone implying that he should already know, “there are a lot of napkins floating around that place.”

Llewyn pulled you a little closer and you smiled into his embrace. “Ohhhhh.”

“And Llewyn?”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t kidding about the couch, my sister really is in town. But I’ve got a much more comfortable place you can stay tonight.”

~end~

[helloprettybb]

previews

I have a lot of things in the works, so I thought, why not show some previews. I don’t know when a majority of these are coming out, but I promise they will eventually. There are a lot more than just these, but they aren’t as fledged out. The title names may change in the future, once I finish, but the summaries will be the same. The eta’s may be really off, but I’ll try to get them out.

orders

summary- you disobey Steve on a mission and now you have to pay the consequences.

current word count- 2.3k

eta- 8/17-8/21

“What did I say?” Steve asks, once you close the bedroom door behind you. His voice is low and angry, which is scarier than if he were yelling. If you were being honest, you deserved his exasperation. What you did was reckless and completely disobeyed orders, but in the heat of the moment, you didn’t really care.

“Retreat,” you mumbled, knowing how much trouble you were in. Steve hadn’t spoken to you since the mission ended and the two of you could be alone. The moment the jet landed, he stormed off to his room. Steve didn’t even need to tell you to follow him, because you knew whatever was coming would be much worse if you didn’t.

“And what did you do?” Steve questions, knowing you knew the answer.

“I proceeded with the mission,” you replied, head low and eyes stuck on the ground. You were usually confident and brimming with enthusiasm, but on the receiving end of Steve’s anger, you couldn’t even lift your head up. Steve senses your timidness, so he grabs your chin and forces you to meet his eyes. Unlike their usual softness, his eyes are tough and piercing. You fight a little to lower your head, but Steve’s strong grip stops any resistance. You know he’s angry with you, but you can’t stop the dirty thoughts that rushed in your mind.

“You did. And what happens when you disobey orders?” Steve asks, his tone leaving you trembling beneath him.

“I get punished,” you answer meekly.

-

captain idiot

summary- Steve finally tells you how he feels, but then tells you it won’t work. Maybe a couple of people can knock some sense into him.

current word count- 943

eta- late august-early september

It’s the day you’ve looked forward to since you joined the Avengers and you’ve never wanted a day to end more. It was actually a good day and when Steve told you he wanted to talk, you thought it would be even better. Oh, how ignorant you were.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” you ask, trying to contain your excitement. You bite the inside of your lip to prevent the giddy smile from forming. Sitting beside him in the common room, you force your leg still as you wait for him to speak.

You’ve had a massive crush on Steve ever since you joined the team. Actually, you liked him even before that, when you saw him on TV for the first time. You were only sixteen at the time, but seeing people like you saving New York inspired you. All of your life, you’ve been ostracized and cast out for your abilities. While your parents tried to be supportive, they still held some fear. You don’t blame them, especially after your accidentally split the house in half with a tree.

You were only seventeen when you first met Fury. He offered a position on the team. At the time, you wanted to attend college, so you declined, but you kept in touch and after graduating, you decided to join the team. Tensions between the team were high as Steve, Natasha and Sam just rejoined the team and the Accords were dropped. But gradually, strain eased and the team seemed back to normal. Tony started talking to Steve and Bucky even joined the group. Everyone lived in harmony, until today.

“I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just be blunt.” Steve states, his intense eye contact piercing into your soul. “I like you. More than just a friend.”

You try to remain calm, but you can feel the childish joy rise in your chest. Steadying your tone, you reply, “I like you, too.” For some reason, Steve doesn’t smile, but looks more serious.

He sighs and asserts, “I was afraid you’d say that.”

-

swindler’s trick

summary- Steve Rogers needed to clear his head. Haunted from the war and his past relationship, Steve sets sail for England to reunite with an old friend and hopefully distract himself from his life in America. His distraction comes in the form of a beautiful young girl, who proves to be a worthy distraction, but will she be enough to help Steve move on from his past?

current word count- 7.3k

eta- mid-september

“Perfection is relative, old friend. You’ll understand when you find it.” Anthony advises wisely and as if on cue, an angel walks through the doorway. Well, not literally, but you are the closest thing to a saint on earth.

With your smooth hands and polished nails, you don’t look like a servant, but for your status, you dressed rather simply. As opposed to a large, decorated dress, you donned a dark, modest gown. You dressed closer to a middle-class maiden than a noblewoman, yet Steve took note that no outfit could diminish your beauty. Instead of the intricate up-dos he’s seen many high-class women wear, you have your hair down and pulled back.

Anthony notices your entrance and greets, “Y/n, dear!”

Steve knew Anthony favored beautiful women, but he did not expect for him to marry someone so young. Steve’s seen his fair share of older men and young partners, but he didn’t think Anthony would be that kind of man.

Strolling up to Anthony, you greet him lovingly by placing a gentle kiss on his cheek. Turning to Steve, you acknowledge politely, “Hello, sir. To what name shall I call you?” The moment you address him, Steve forgets every word in the English language. His mouth runs dry and he starts to regret denying Anthony’s tea offer.

Your stunning beauty and air of confidence fluster Steve and he manages to stutter out,“I- I am Captain America Rogers. I mean, Steve Rogers.” Attempting to recover, he clarifies, “I’m from America and I served as a Captain in the Army.”

You laugh lightly and Steve could have sworn an angel acquired its wings. “Well, Captain America. I appreciate the background information, but I figured from your accent that you were not from here.” you quip.

Anthony glares as you and gently scolds, “He is an old friend, y/n. Please be nice.”

You smile softly and tell him, “Oh papa, I hold no malice. It was a simple jest.” You turn to him and say, “But if any offense was taken, I do apologize. I’m aware that my tongue can be quite scathing.”

-

powers of persuasion

summary- you’re an expert assassin with ‘powers of persuasion’ who happens to be at the top of S.H.I.E.L.D’s most wanted list. catching you was the easiest part, now comes the hard part: turning you into an Avenger.

current word count- 1.4k

eta- mid-september

You are one of the most insufferable, arrogant, rude people he’s ever met. You are the one handcuffed to the chair, not him. Yet you acted like you were the one in control. No, he had the upper hand in the conversation. You definitely did not fluster him when you implied something about the handcuffs and Steve certainly didn’t imagine a scenario where he’d put the handcuffs to use.

Fine, you’re attractive, but you already knew that, which is one of the worst qualities about you. You know that you’re beautiful and use that to your advantage just to mess with people’s minds. That and your actual ability to mess with people’s minds.

Steve didn’t think he’d get that angry in such a short span of time, but something about the smug look on your face and unfazed teasing made Steve want to snap the table in half. He had to leave and clear his head.

Steve leaves the interrogation area altogether, needing to get as far away as possible. He talked to you by yourself, which was his mistake. Hopefully back at the base, he can find someone who will sympathize and agree that you are selfish, annoying, disrespectful...

“She’s joining the team,” Fury states. Steve couldn’t even hide his reaction, as his jaw dropped and eyebrows furrowed.

“Fury, are you serious?” Steve asks instinctively. While they are basically the same rank, Steve still treats Fury with respect, but right now, all of that flew out the window.

“Yes, Rogers. She’s useful.” Fury responds, “Not only is she an expect fighter, her persuasion ability will be advantageous.”

“So what? She’s untrustworthy!” Steve exclaimed, his voice rising more than he’d like.

“Well, learn to trust her,” Fury says in his blunt tone that shuts everyone down. “Besides, it’s better to have her on our side.” His last sentence shut all of Steve’s protests down. When Fury sees that he ended the argument, he places a key in Steve’s hand and commands, “Bring her to the Compound. You’re training her starting tomorrow morning.”

Before Steve could start another argument, Fury walks away and leaves Steve alone with his angry self.

the flirt

summary- Peter’s a sucker for British accents. Especially when they’re attached to a beautiful girl with glowing eyes.

current word count- 1.1k

eta- unknown

Peter Parker is a very anxious person. Whether it was asking strangers for help or working in group projects, he found it very difficult to speak up to newcomers. So when Mr. Stark called from a mysterious location and told him the Avengers gained a new member, Peter instantly began to worry. He asked for any information on them, but Tony insisted that it should be a surprise.

“Do you know who it is?” Peter asked Clint. He’s spent his entire morning bugging everyone at the compound. So far, he’s received a groan from Bucky, a ‘go away’ from Sam and an ‘I don’t know’ from Wanda.

“No,” Clint replied bluntly. subtly turning the knob on his hearing aid to block out Peter’s pestering. Nat looks up from her phone and shakes her head.

“You’re not going to get anything from us, kid.” Natasha simply states. Peter plops beside her on the couch and Natasha doesn’t even try to hide her eye roll.

“Wait, so you do know something?” he asked. His bouncing irritates Nat and she puts her phone down.

“Yes, but I won’t tell you. Besides, Tony will be here in a couple hours.” Nat says. Peter flops on the couch dramatically.

“But I can’t wait a couple hours!” he announces. Fed up with his antics, Nat gets up from the couch and leaves Peter to his thoughts. What if the new person doesn’t like him? It took him years for the others to like him and they still get annoyed. Now he has to get another person to tolerate him!

Peter bounced between pacing his room and annoying the other Avengers as he waits for Tony’s arrival. He only stops when Bucky threatens to ‘put him to sleep.’ Peter then, on his own, decides that he’ll stay in his room for the rest of the time. He’s pulled out of his thoughts when F.R.I.D.A.Y announces, “Mr. Stark has arrived.”

“O-okay voice lady,” Peter replies nervously. He sprints downstairs and meets with the others at the compound’s entrance. Steve’s standing with his arms crossed and stoic like usual. Bucky’s arms are also crossed, but he has a bored expression on his face. He doesn’t know why he’s so bored. There is going to be someone new living with them!

Natasha and Wanda on their phones, probably texting each other so they don’t have to talk in front of the guys. Sam leans down and tells Peter, “They call her the Green-Eyed Monster.”

He knows Sam only said it to scare him, but what kind of name is the Green-Eyed Monster. She must be evil to get a name like that. And if she’s evil, why would Tony willing bring her in. Wait, Sam said her?

As if on cue, Tony Stark opens the doors and following behind him is the most beautiful girl Peter’s ever seen.

[schattenjagd]

Hold on

A/N: This Oneshot/Songfic is my contribution to @xxwritemeastoryxx 1K Celebration Writing Challenge. Congratulations again ! I’m so happy for you :) So this has really turned out differently than I thought at first and maybe the length got a little out of hand, but I hope you like it. So, two weeks of work, two root canal treatments and a jaw abscess later we are finally here and you don't believe how happy I am. Oh, and I just have to say that english isn’t my native language. So sorry for any spelling or grammatical mistakes.

Prompt : “Please...stay.” (I will make it bold)

Word Count : 10.6K - Yeah, like I said : It maybe got a little teeny tiny bit out of hand.

Warnings : Angst, major character death, deadly disease Okay, this Fic is like the saddest I have ever written. If you are offended or triggered by any of these warnings, please read at your own risks.

Pairing : Elijah Mikaelson x Reader

This was inspired Chord Overstreet’s beautiful yet so sad song “Hold on”

Loving and Fighting

An icy cold went through Elijah when quietly opened the door to the intensive care unit and entered the room. It almost seemed as if a black veil was suddenly covering him.

His hands were shaking. It was a long time ago since they had last done it, but now they didn't want to stop. His whole body trembled at the thought of what awaited him.

Her quiet and weak heartbeat was drowned out by the shrill, constant beeping of the heart rate monitor and Elijah swallowed hard. Her heart had always been so strong, always so loud. Its tone had given him strength. But now that he heard it only so weakly, it seemed to have drained his strength.

She was no longer wearing the colorful dress she wore in the afternoon. In the shock room, it had been taken off and exchanged for a drab hospital gown. He could hear the rustling of her blood and his eyes fell on the pronule that she had on her left arm and with which she was given strong pain relievers.

He hadn't noticed that he had stopped. He looked at her closely and when he saw her like this, he felt like he had really failed for the first time in his life.

Slowly, he took a few steps across the room and quickly blinked the tears in his eyes away. He had to be strong now; strong for her.

He sat carefully on the edge of the bed and looked at her. Her face looked cramped and sunken. Her otherwise red lips were dry and pale, as was her skin. The sight frightened him. She looked so weak so ... lifeless.

He cautiously reached for her hand and stroked gentle circles on the back of it hand with his thumb. He timidly heard her heart beating faster and saw her move a little.

"Hey," he said softly as he watched her eyelids start to flicker. It seemed to be an act of strength for her and yet he felt her gently squeeze his hand.

,,You are here."

Her mouth was dry and it was difficult for her to even say a few words at all, but she smiled when she could feel his presence and forced herself to open her eyes slowly. Slowly she turned her head and finally looked at him from cloudy, y/e/c eyes.

"Yes," he replied, and the corners of his mouth also rose a little. ,,I wont leave you."

I can‘t imagine a world with you gone

The music was loud. Way too loud.

The courtyard was illuminated by cool blue and purple lamps. People strolled through the courtyard in extravagant robes, waving their overpriced champagne in their hand and chatting with other important people.

The short version was that Y/N wished to be anywhere else, just not here. Parties had never been her thing and never would be. The only reason she was here was her old student friend Cami, whom she had met during her semester abroad in New York. And now that Y/N had recently moved to New Orleans, Cami hadn't missed the opportunity to let her know about its nightlife. However, she didn’t expect that with “nightlife” she meant such an extravagant party for the super rich.

,, Ow, don’t make that face. Come on, have a drink. "

"I don't make a face," denied Y/N and let her friend give her a glass of champagne. "I just should have known where you were going to take me when I saw the dress."

Y/N looked demonstratively down at herself and looked briefly at the long, burgundy and tight-fitting dress with the slit on the side that flattered her figure. She brushed a strand of her y/ h/c hair from her face, which had loosened itself from the elaborate up-do, and sipped on the expensive but extremely bitter champagne.

"I hope this Klaus is worth it," she grumbled and Cami gave her a warning look.

"It's not because of him," she said a little too quickly and Y/N grinned to herself.

"Of course not," she murmured instead and was left shortly afterwards when her friend had spotted said acquaintance and disappeared.

"No, of course it's not because of him," Y/N said to herself as she looked after her friend and sighed. Looked like she was the one to fil the gap for the time when Klaus wasn't there to keep Cami busy.

Instead, Y/N went looking for the bar and was happy that free drinks appeared to be a high priority for the rich.

"Whiskey on ice, please," she ordered from the bartender, put her half-full champagne glass on the bar and smoothed her dress.

"The same for me, please."

She squinted at what she was doing when she heard a deep male voice only a few yards away. He looked good, even she had to admit that. He was wearing a suit, had one hand casually in his pocket, and was leaning against the bar with the other.

"The champagne does not seem strong enough for you", he noted,, looking over at her.

Y/N looked back and sipped the drink she had just received. "Unfortunately not nearly."

"You don't seem to enjoy the celebrations as much as many others here," he said and now turned completely to her, leaning his side against the counter.

"No, you're right," she agreed, taking another sip of her drink. "I'm afraid I'm playing in a different league than yours."

Y/N had already noticed because of his suit and how it flattered his well-built body that he must be one of those super rich who attended such a party every week.

"You accommodated yourself very well for that," he replied, and Y/N could see the slight twitch of the corners of his mouth as he eyed her from top to bottom and let his eyes slide over her dress. She blushed.

"Thank you, then I did everything right, I guess," she laughed softly and took another sip.

"I'm sure of that," he smiled, taking a quick look around the crowd. ,, But I am curious: Others would commit murders for an invitation. Why don't you ? "

,, I ? Murdering for something like this ? Certainly not,” waved Y/N off. ,, So, the music. It is much too loud and ... inappropriate ? I don’t know.  And the champagne. A bottle probably costs as much as my car, and yet it tastes just like the cheap one from the gas station, which always makes me sick.”

In her heated list she didn’t notice how he listened to her attentively, not taking his eyes off of her and the corners of his mouth rising further with each of her words.

"To be honest, I'd much rather sit in front of my TV in my pajamas and watch some junk. Excuse my directness, but it’s just exactly like that. "

When she finally looked back at him after all, she misinterpreted his grin. ,, Oh my god, I didn't mean to offend you. That was totally rude, that ... "

"It's alright," he calmed her down and took a sip of his whiskey. ,,Everyone has their own opinion. I am not a friend of big celebrations myself, my brother sees it differently. But from time to time those are necessary. "

Y/N nodded, she understood. In today's world, splendid parties weren’t only there for fun, but also to make new contacts or maybe find and convince trading partners.

"I am Elijah."

Her eyes darted back to him and he could see the y/e/c flashing briefly. She gave him a bright smile and took his hand. "Y/N, it’s nice to meet you, Elijah."

"The pleasure is mine."

He also smiled sincerely at her and Y/N actually got a little dizzy. Well, the man in front of her was handsome, charming, nice ... What more could a woman want ?

"Mister Mikaelson ?"

And he was the organizer of this party.

Y/N's smile slipped from her face and she couldn't put it back there when she saw another man in a suit approaching Elijah.

Her eyes widened in shock and she looked at him in panic as he turned back to her. ,, It was a pleasure to meet you, Y/N. And thank you for your honesty, ” he replied charmingly and by no means unkindly. As if in a trance, she watched him blow a kiss on the back of her hand and then disappear into the crowd. Frozen, she looked after him.

"I see, you got to know Klaus’ brother. "

"Yes, after telling him that I think his party is shit."

Cami laughed next to her and sipped her champagne glass. "You couldn't keep your mouth shut. I should’ve known," she laughed.

,, He’s one of them. But he doesn’t look like them. "

"Like an Original vampire ?"

Y/N shook her head and watched Elijah talk seriously to the man who had just interrupted their conversation. "Not in the slightest."

Cami just shrugged and emptied the rest of her glass. ,,What can I say ? You are a witch. Nothing should really surprise you anymore. "

Y/N just swallowed and looked at her friend with a frown, turned back to the bar. "Okay, now I need something really strong."

The joy and the chaos, the demons we‘re made of

That evening was a long time ago. When Y/N woke up that morning, she was awakened by the jazz music that flew through the open window from the streets into the bedroom. She blinked a few times and looked around briefly as she opened her eyes fully.

She was lying in a big bed, wrapped in a soft duvet with an even softer pillow.

When she tried to turn on her back, she became aware of the strong arms that were wrapped around her waist and which pressed her tightly against him.

Y/N smiled and turned carefully in his arms.

Elijah was still sleeping, but he didn't seem to want to let her go even in his sleep. Carefully, she raised a hand to brush a strand of hair from his face and looked at the brunette. They had danced around each other for a long time now, had never come closer; the family had always been a higher priority for Elijah. It was a chaos of feelings. Until Esther captured him. She didn't know what she had let him see, but he had been different when he returned yesterday.

Y/N smiled slightly at the feel of his skin on hers and drawed gentle patterns on his chest with her fingers, closing her eyes.

She opened her eyes when she felt him quickly grabbing her hand and stopping her by planting a kiss on her fingertips.

Slowly, she raised her head and smiled. "How long have you been awake ?"

"Long enough to know how you looked at me."

He also opened his eyes at his words, gently looked down at her, which only made her smile wider. She raised her head and squinted at the old clock between the windows. Y/N groaned in agony.

,,What ?"

"My shift in the hospital starts in two hours," she sighed, dropping her head back onto his chest. "I have to go."

,,I do not think so."

Her eyes fell back to Elijah while he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him. Y/N laughed when he let his fingertips dance across her waist and breathed gentle kisses on her neck. "Elijah, I'm serious, as much as I would like to stay here in this bed, I have to go to work."

"Hmh," he just agreed and put his lips on hers and caught her in a hot and steaming kiss. Y/N involuntarily groaned when she let his tongue in and when she could feel something pressing against her stomach.

Half an hour later, Y/N groped barefoot through the old halls of the Mikaelson estate. She had slipped pn Elijah's white shirt from the night before and was looking for her top that she had lost on the way to his bedroom last night.

"So, you're the woman my brother gave his heart to."

Y/N paused at the unmistakable accent. The door next to her was open and she could see Klaus standing in front of an easel with a painting brush in his hand. She swallowed briefly when she remembered that she was actually only wearing panties and Elijah's shirt, but remained confident in the doorframe.

“Seems so. Any problems with that ?"

"Actually, yes."

Y/N involuntarily took a breath and frowned as the hybrid slowly walked towards her. "And that would be ?" She asked bravely.

He just gave her a mild smile. “Even if you witches are very good at nighttime activities - and you are, judged by the sounds you and my brother made last night and just now - you're a pain in the ass. "

Y/N smiled mildly. She knew about Klaus' Mikaelson's aversion to witches and had already been prepared for something like that. From the moment that Cami introduced her to him and he learned what she was, he had been against her. Klaus Mikaelson hated witches even though he his daughter was one.

"I know you aren't particularly addicted to witches," she replied carefully. "But I have no bad intentions towards your family, believe me."

"Yes, if Celeste DuBois had told me, I would have believed her, too."

Y/N's eyes narrowed. She knew who this witch was, had helped to kill her herself, and yet Klaus didn't trust her in the least. She turned to walk away, but his voice stopped her.

"You don't know about the red door, do you?"

Y/N paused. Slowly, she took a step back and looked again from the door frame to Klaus, who smiled contentedly. "The red door," he continued when he saw her look. ,, All my brother's demons; all the people he killed. The victims, all the suffering he has done. "

Y/N opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew what this was going to be. Klaus wanted to unsettle and intimidate her. But Y /N had known who she was dealing with from the start and the man she had fallen in love with.

"I know about all of this," she lied, proudly raising her chin. ,,I know what you're trying and it won't work, Klaus. I'm not one of those gullible, weak, little witches."

When her tone got a little too sharp, he took another few steps towards her. "Is that supposed to be a threat, love ?"

Y/N swallowed and looked up at him. She concentrated, looked him straight in the eye. Satisfied, she noticed how beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. Klaus gasped, his eyes widening slightly as his blood started to boil.

,,No of course not. For such a pain in the ass like me, it's really foolish to threaten the Original Hybrid, isn't it? "

He struggled for words and the two were only interrupted when Y/N heard the footsteps behind them.

,,That's enough now. Niklaus, Y/N. "

Klaus gasped abruptly as he got cool again and Y/N broke eye contact when she looked behind her at Elijah.

The relationship between her and Klaus Mikaelson had always been ... special.

Elijah held the top she was looking for in her hand and she quickly took it from him and disappeared back towards his bedroom. She didn't hear Elijah's words to his brother: "If she gets hurt, she dies, if she catches a fever, if she gets bitten, she gets hit by lightning, anything - anything happens to her, brother, you will pay for it. "

I‘d be so lost if you left me alone

Many months later, Y/N left the hospital where she worked at exhausted and overtired. Her feet ached and killed her. An emergency heart operation had given her a 36-hour shift and she just wanted to sleep.

Exhausted, she climbed up the stairs to her apartment, kicked the now uncomfortable sneakers off her feet after she closed the apartment door behind her and threw her handbag into the next corner. When Y/N took off her jacket and hung it on the coat hook, she paused. It smelled of ... food.

She raised her eyebrows in confusion and groped across the hall into the living room. On the dining table were two plates of pasta that seemed to be still hot. A slight smile crept onto her lips when she recognized Elijah. He was standing with his back to her leaning over the kitchen counter. But when he turned to her, her heart skipped a beat and the smile disappeared. She swallowed hard.

There was pain in his eyes. She could see it, see how hurt and disappointed he was. He lifted the package insert of the pills on the kitchen counter and pointed to it. "I found these when I was looking for matches."

Y/N glanced for a split second to the candles that were on the table and then back to Elijah. Her heart contracted painfully at the sight of him and she could feel the tears coming up.

"When did you want to tell me ?"

Y/N swallowed and took a few steps towards him. She reached for his hands, but he pulled back. A stab in her heart. She could hear the pain in his voice and hated herself for being the source of it. She took a deep breath and didn't know what to say. She wanted to scream and cry at the same time.

She carefully arranged her words. "I got the diagnosis shortly after I met you at the party."

Elijah swallowed, looked at the half-empty pills pack on the kitchen shelf. He kept his eyes down, but he could see the tears that had formed in her eyes.

She licked her dry lips. ,, My mother has already died because of it. Actually, it skips a generation in our family but ... "

"How much time do you have left ?"

Y/N fell silent. She hadn't been prepared for this question and when she became aware of the answer, she pressed her lips together in a thin line. A telltale tear rolled down her cheeks and more followed. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from sobbing and the only thing she could do was shrug her shoulders. "I - I don't know ...", she brought out with difficulty and more tears followed. "It was recognized too late and the only thing that keeps me on my feet are these," she pointed to the pills. ,, There is no cure and ... I don't know, Elijah. I - I have no idea. I don’t know."

"Hush," he said reassuringly, pulling her close as her body began to shake and tears ran down her cheeks uncontrollably. Her fingers reach for his vest for help and she closed her eyes. He could hear her sobbing and every further one was another stab in his heart.

"I didn't want to tell you anything because ...", she started and was interrupted by another sob. "I - I didn't want you to only see this disease in me then."

Y/N looked up when she felt him brush a strand of hair from her face and behind her ear. "I could never do that."

Y/N smiled sadly, but she could see the pain that had cast a dark shadow on his face.

Elijah closed his eyes when he hugged her tightly. He breathed in her smell, that fine scent of lavender and vanilla and he put a hand comfortingly on the back of her head, placed a loving kiss on her head.

The prospect of not being able to do all this anytime soon frightened him. He would never be able to smell her smell again, never again would he feel her soft skin or lips on his, never again could he hold her. He felt that someone had torn his heart out and for the first time in his life he thought he knew what all the victims he had done this to had felt. The woman in his arms would die. He didn't know when yet, but she would and he thought he was cursed. Tatia, Katerina, Celeste ... All the women he loved died. Loving him was a death sentence. And now, the first woman he saw at his side in eternity was doomed to die. With all the dangers like werewolves, Mikael, Esther, Dhalia, the Strix ... A deadly disease seemed almost ridiculously primitive, and yet it reminded Elijah of the incredible vulnerability of humans.

"I'll find a way," he said as he buried his face in her y/ h/c hair, so Y/N couldn't see the tear that escaped one of his eyes.

She smiled at his confidence. ,, There is no way, Elijah. No vampire blood, no back door, no loophole."

"You won't die," he replied firmly. "And if I can't move heaven ..."

"... I will raise hell."

You locked yourself in the bathroom Lying on the floor when I break through

The mood in the past few weeks had been tense. A new force and new enemies of the Mikaelson had risen from the darkness and were now chasing the family.

Y/N had been living in the Mikaelson estate for a long time now, Elijah had insisted that he could "protect" her better this way. But Y/N was sure that there were other advantages that he derived from the fact that they now lived together. She always successfully repressed the thought that it was because they had already been allowed too much time together and instead put it down to the fact that she could help them with her witch skills.

While Elijah and Klaus were out, she was sitting with Freya in the fireplace room over a stack of old grimoires when the two heard a rumble in the courtyard. Both women looked up in alarm and Y/N's eyebrows raised suspiciously. "I thought you’d cast a boundary spell."

"I did."

Y/N swallowed hard and got up - just like her friend -, following her out of the room into the gallery. She walked quietly after the blonde, careful not to make a sound.

,,Find them ! Now !"

Y/N's blood froze in her veins when she heard a man's deep voice and then the steps of the vampires hurrying up the stairs to the first floor.

"Damn it," Freya swore, immediately turned and pushed Y/N in front of her, towards the nursery, in which little Hope had already started to cry.

Silently, Y/N let the blonde allow, pushed open the door to the nursery and Freya locked it behind them.

Y/M immediately turned to the little girl, carefully lifting her out of bed and rocking her to and fro in her arms. "It’s alright, hush," she said reassuringly and gave Freya a troubled look. "How did they break the spell ?"

"I have no idea, but now we have other problems," Freya replied and looked around the room.

"What do you think, how many are down there ?"

Freya shrugged. ,, Maybe a dozen. I couldn't see much. "

,,And what do we do now ?"

"We won't let ourselves be killed until my brothers arrive."

Y/N frowned. ,,You gotta be kidding me."

"We have to get Hope out of here safely. I distract them, you take her and hide. Protect my niece."

Y/N looked suspiciously at her friend. She didn't like her plan and she had a bad gut ffeling, apart from the dizziness that has haunted her since the vampires surfaced and her body was on alert.

Y/N had no way to say anything against the other witch's plan, because in the same second the first vampire burst through the door, that shattered under its weight.

"Now !" Freya called, dodging the attacking vampire and ramming a wooden pole through his back into his heart.

Y/N looked wide-eyed at her for a moment, then took off running when she realized that she had a small, helpless child in her arms.

She disappeared through the side door into Klaus' adjoining bedroom. The rest of the vampires, spurred on by Freya, rushed into Hope's nursery while Y/N ran through the hallways of the property, trying to calm the little girl on her arm and find a safe hiding place.

And then she heard footsteps in the hallway. She cast a panicked look over her shoulder, couldn't see the vampire who was apparently on her heels, and with luck, she hadn't been spotted. Nevertheless, Y/N quickly opened the next best door and found herself in one of the old guest rooms. Looking around in panic, she saw the door to the adjoining bathroom and disappeared into it.

The bathroom was small and old, but at first it seemed safe. Y/N carefully placed the toddler on the floor. She closed her eyes in submission when she heard the door to the bedroom open again.

She was afraid of what was to come and briefly rubbed Hope's cheeks. The little one had become calm now and was looking at Y/N with big gesture eyes, almost as if she understood what was going on.

Y/N took a deep breath, crouched, and left the bathroom.

"I think you took the wrong room."

Y/N looked around. A pencil lay on the old, dusty desk. Maybe it could help her.

The vampire in front of her grinned broadly and slightly shook his head. ,,I don’t think so."

At the same time, his eyes grew darker and the veins under them became visible. Y/N had just enough time to took a step away when he rushed towards her - but he caught her anyway. She flew in a high arc through the room and landed on the desk that gave in under her weight. A sharp pain went through her spine when she painfully hit the floor and the splinters of wood pierced her back uncomfortably. Desperately, Y/N tried to drive the blackness out of her field of vision and gasped. Hope had started to cry again.

Dazed, Y/N had to watch the vampire straighten up and walk slowly towards the bathroom door.

She clumsily raised one arm and made a sweeping, swift gesture, whereupon the vase on the old wooden chest hit the vampire's head with a muffled sound.

Y/N struggled to her feet. "Don't you dare touch her."

The vampire grunted deeply and angrily while the laceration on the back of his head slowly healed and he turned to face her. "That was your death sentence, witch."

Y/N pressed her lips together, could barely raise one hand when the vampire started to attack her again. He cringed painfully when this throbbing pain in his head became unbearable and one aneurysm after another burst.

Y/N quickly took a few steps back, looking around. She would have to get past him to get to Hope's and into the bathroom and to be able to entrench them there. Her eyes fell to the broken desk and the large pieces of wood. But before she even put foot in that direction, she felt a hand wrapping around her ankle and yanking her off her feet. Again, she hit the ground hard and this time it wasn’t so easy to get the blackness out of her sight.

She screamed angrily, turned to her back, but the vampire was already over her. His fist whipped down on her jaw and Y/N’s sight went black again. She gasped as a throbbing pain spread through her jaw.

"A real waste," said the vampire, pulling her into a sitting position, causing Y/N to groan in pain. She could see how he was looking at her, how the pulsating veins were slowly visible under his eyes and she widened her eyes.

"No," she pleaded weakly, and immediately cried out in pain when she felt his sharp teeth pierce the delicate skin on her neck. Her skin burned like fire and she could feel the pressure in her carotid artery as the vampire slowly sucked the life out of her. No, she definitely won’t get killed by a vampire now, certainly not.

Resolutely, she drove the dancing asterisks out of sight, hit the vampire wildly with one hand, and groped for a piece of the desk with the other. And her heart skipped a joyful beat when she actually felt a long piece of wood in her hand. She gripped it tightly, raised it and shortly thereafter the wood pierced the heart of the vampire, who was only gurgling now. His eyes widened, his skin slowly turning gray.

Y/N gasped, pressed her hand onto the bleeding wound on her neck, and tried to control her pulse. Her heart pumped her blood through her body at three times the speed of panic, and it was a miracle that her already weakened body hadn’t given up yet.

Hope. She abruptly stood up, staggered helplessly for a few moments until she regained her balance, and then staggered toward the bathroom door. With a shaky finger, she opened the door and pushed it shut behind her shortly thereafter.

She instantly took the little girl in her arms again. ,, Hush, everything is fine. It’s alright, ”calmed Y/N/N Hope and then turned to the door. While she held the girl with one hand, she directed the other towards the door. "Apné sà mene," she casted the room isolation spell, which was supposed to protect her and the child from the rest of the vampires. ,, Apné sà mene. Apné sà mene. "

Y/N swallowed at the returning dizziness. The spell had worked, she knew that. If their enemies have no witch on their side, she and Hope would be safe in here. She anxiously blinked several times to drive the blackness out of her sight. That wasn’t good, definitely not. This excitement, the fight with the vampire, the loss of blood, now the exertion by this spell. It was too much for her weakened body.

"We sit down, okay ?" Y/N spoke lazily to Hope in her arms, held her tightly and then went down to the floor, leaning lazily with her back against the bathtub. Suddenly she was incredibly tired. There was nothing she could do about it when her hand, which she had pressed on the bite wound on her neck, fell down to her side. She was just glad that she was holding Hope tightly and that she was safe.

Already when Klaus and Elijah saw the main door, which was wide open, they sprinted into the courtyard. About a dozen vampires lay motionless on the cold ground. Someone must have broken their necks. The two brothers could hear fighting noises from the second floor.

,,For God's sake."

Elijah looked at the lifeless vampires at his feet with his eyes wide open before he heard the sounds of the fight.

"They’re in Hope’s nursery," the brunette stated, when his brother had already let out a deep growl and was gone. Elijah quickly followed him, repressing the panic fear that threatened to spread inside him. Nothing should have happened to her.

When Elijah arrived in the door frame, Klaus was already holding the heart of a vampire, whose head was rolling over the wooden floor, in his hand.

"It's great that you finished your Sunday stroll," the blood-soaked blonde said when she saw her two brothers.

,,Where’s my daughter ?"

,, Y/N fled with her. I don’t know where they are."

Elijah's heart skipped a beat and he and his brother exchanged a look before Klaus burst out of the devastated children's room.

"Y/N !" He screamed so that it echoed through the old walls of the building and trudged off, Elijah was close on his heels.

Elijah swallowed hard, looked around in search. She couldn't have run down the stairs to the main portal, that would have been too dangerous. He knew Y/N, knew that she wouldn't do anything that would endanger Hope’s welfare. No, she must still be in the property, looking for somewhere safe to hide with his niece. And for the first time in his life, he prayed. He prayed that they were alright.

"Y/N !" Klaus called again and was forced by his brother to stop. He glowed at him.

"What is it, Elijah ? ..."

Just when the hybrid wanted to add something, Elijah held up a hand and Klaus fell silent. Now he was listening carefully, too.

A whimper was carried to them quietly, very quietly. Elijah swallowed. It was his niece who made this sound and he closed his eyes for a moment.

,,Here."

Klaus started to move with vampire speed, Elijah followed his brother through the several corridors to the open door of an old guest room.

Perplexed, the brunette stopped in the door frame. The room was completely devastated. The shards of an old vase were scattered all over the floor, the old desk was now just wood splinters and a dead vampire was lying in the middle with a piece of said wood in his heart. There was an unpleasantly penetrating smell of blood in the air and Elijah's heart contracted painfully. He inflated his nostrils. It was her blood, no doubt. He saw the drops of blood that led to the bathroom like breadcrumbs and clenched his hands into fists.

Klaus wasn’t in the slightest interested, his thoughts were all about his daughter, whose whimper was dampened by the locked door of the bathroom.

"Y/N ?!" He called and wanted to bang on the door, but barely touching it, he flew across the room and landed between the remains of the desk. "Tell your girlfriend to break her barrier spell," Klaus growled angrily.

Elijah hurried to the door too, but didn't touch it. "Y/N ?" He asked carefully, listening intently. ,,It’s alright, it’s me."

"Freya !" Niklaus meanwhile called his sister in the background ,whose hasty steps Elijah could already hear.

"Y/N ?" Asked the brunette once again, but he didn't get an answer. His fingernails pierced painfully in the heel of his hand as he continued to clench his hands into fists. If anything had happened to her, she would have been ... He swallowed hard.

"Y/N, I beg you, open the door," he continued to plead and briefly closed his eyes. Something worried him so that he fell silent. Klaus, who misinterpreted his brother's behavior, narrowed his eyes and came up to him, looking at him questioningly.

Suddenly, Elijah's heart pumped his blood through his veins at three times the speed and his chest rose and fell rapidly. No, it couldn't be. Not her, not ...

"I only hear one heartbeat."

Klaus' pushed the pent up air out of his lungs and looked at his brother with wide eyes. He added up one and one. His daughter was crying and alive on the other side of the door, but Y/N’s blood led the brothers straight to the bathroom. That meant ... He closed his eyes, devotedly.

"Freya !" Elijah for the first time cried. He was desperate. He had no way to get to her as long as the barrier spell was working. He wasn’t be able to help her. "Freya !"

"I'm here, I'm here," the blonde hurried into the room.

"I ... I can't hear her heartbeat. She spoke a barrier spell. I have to get to her. "

Freya gave her brother a brief look with wide eyes, but then nodded, carefully pushing him to the side and raising her hands to the door, closing her eyes.

Elijah nervously watched his sister's lips moving, but he couldn't hear what she was saying. His thoughts only revolved around Y/N and this panicked fear of having lost her now. He couldn't think clearly anymore, he could ...

,,Broken."

As soon as Freya had taken a step back, Elijah shot forward, but the door was still locked. He took a few steps back and then threw his entire body weight against the door, whereupon the lock gave way and he stumbled into the room, followed by Niklaus.

When he saw her, he held his breath. Blood kept flowing from the bite on her neck. One of her hands, covered in blood, lay on the floor beside her. She had slid to the side, lay motionless in the corner, but one of her arms were wrapped tightly around little Hope, as if she still wanted to protect her by all means.

Her jaw was swollen and her lip had split open. Her skin was pale and her eyes closed. She didn't move.

I pull you in to feel your heartbeat Can you hear me screaming „Please don‘t leave me“ ?

,,No no no no."

Elijah dropped to his knees, while Klaus picked up his daughter and soothingly stroked her head. Meanwhile, Elijah pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, bit his wrist without another thought. His blood quickly flowed out of the wound and ran down his wrist, dripping onto the cold tiled floor.

He carefully lifted a hand and placed it on the back of her head, pressing his wrist against her pale, full lips.

"Please," he pleaded softly and briefly closed his eyes. He could feel his blood running down her throat, but she didn't swallow. "Please don't leave me."

Quietly, very quietly, he heard her blood roaring in her veins and ... a single heartbeat. Elijah suddenly looked up, looked at her. He carefully brushed a y/h/c strand of hair from her face and hopefully looked at her. He watched how the wound on her lip slowly closed. The swelling of her jaw faded and the bite became smaller and smaller with every second until it completely disappeared.

Hold on I still want you Come back I still need you

,,Please..."

He kept stroking his thumb over her cheek, waiting, praying, pleading. But nothing happened. She didn't move. He could hear her quiet heartbeat, but the silence in between them was still too long.

"The vampire blood is working, why doesn't she wake up ?" Freya asked, also concerned, and Klaus gave her a quick look. He comfortingly weighed his daughter in his arms, gave her a kiss on top of her head, but he had a dark guess. He would never admit it, but his heart ached when he saw his brother on the floor, in front of him, the woman he loved. Elijah had his head down, his eyes closed.

Klaus swallowed. "It healed all the injuries it was able to heal."

Elijah slowly opened his eyes when his brother's words came to him. Niklaus was right. Vampire blood did not heal all injuries. If he was actually right, then ...

Elijah's head immediately went up. He got up, wrapped an arm around Y/N's waist and lifted her into his arms. "We have to take her to the hospital."

"I'll get the car," Klaus nodded, handed Hope to his sister, and then left the room with vampire speed.

When Elijah stepped out of the courtyard with Y/N in his arms, Klaus braked the big off-road vehicle in front of the entrance portal, got out and opened the car door to the back seat for his brother so that he could get in with Y/N. No sooner he had closed the door than his brother depressed the accelerator pedal.

A long endless highway, you‘re silent beside Drivin‘ a nightmare I can‘t escape from

Elijah held her tightly in her arms. None of this was allowed to happen. It was like an inevitable nightmare from which seemed to be no escape and Elijah wanted to wake up. He wanted it so much.

He didn’t hear Niklaus swearing loudly when a small Fiat 500 twitched down the road ahead of them, taking all time in the world, and he did not hear him honking loudly and then overtaking it - to the disapproval of the oncoming traffic.

None of this was allowed to happen yet. The time was not ripe, they hadn't had enough. She was the woman he wanted spend eternity with and now she was going to die ? That was a bad joke. It had to be. Even their enemies couldn’t have imagined anything more cruel than the terrible reality did.

Helplessly praying, the light isn't fadin' Hiding the shock and the chill in my bones

He gently stroked a  strand of hair out of her face and examined her face closely. Everything had to be fine. He couldn't lose her, he couldn't.

The two brothers had been flashed at least twice on the way to the hospital, but they didn't care when Klaus braked hard in front of the emergency room and several paramedics looked up in alarm.

Niklaus got out, opened the door to the back seat and Elijah climbed out of the car with Y/N in his arms.

"We need help !" He shouted as loud as he could and some of the paramedics were already hurrying towards them.

"Everything is going to be fine," he whispered softly as he looked down at Y/N, who was still motionless in his arms. The sight made him terrified. He had never seen her so weak, so lifeless, as if the vampire had sucked all life out of her, despite the vampire blood that had healed the most serious injuries.

They took you away on a table I pace back and forth as you lay still

Meanwhile, Elijah hurried straight to the emergency room. Some nurses met him with a table.

"Put her here."

He did as he was told. He carefully her on it and swallowed hard when he saw her lying there. He was caught up in his personal nightmare from which was no escape. His hands had started to shake and he clenched them into fists to stop them. Y/N was immediately surrounded by several nurses and a doctor.

"What happened ?" the doctor asked. That was the question of all questions.

,, She has a serious disease. Dr. Pace is responsible for her,” Elijah just replied. "I found her like this."

They pull you in to feel your heartbeat Can you hear me screaming, "Please don't leave me"

"Weak pulse," another nurse noted. Elijah's eyes suddenly flew to her and the doctor also turned to the nurse. The brunette didn't notice how his brother pulled the doctor to the side. He only had eyes for the woman he loved.

"Listen," Klaus said meanwhile and his pupils dilated when he made eye contact with the doctor. ,, I want you to do everything possible to keep this woman alive. Everything. No matter how much the drugs cost, you give them to her. "

The doctor swallowed and then nodded quickly. “Of course."

Meanwhile, like in a trance, Elijah watched them push Y/N away. He wanted to go after her, but two nurses stopped him. He didn't have the strength to manipulate them, and frankly, he didn't know if it would be that good. Her life was in the hands of the doctors now.

The large double door closed and the corridor in which they had followed the doctor's staff had become quiet. It was dead silent.

He just stared at the door, tried to hear something, but the doors didn't let a single sound pass.

He weakly dropped into one of the hard chairs at the wall, just staring straight ahead at the gray hospital floor. Only now did he notice the blood on his hands - her blood. His hands trembled uncontrollably and he could only stare at them.

Almost startled, he winced when he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.

"Elijah ?" It was rare for Klaus' voice to sound so careful and gentle, but his brother didn't respond. His mind was a mess that he was no longer able to organize.

"She is strong," the blonde continued and dropped onto the chair next to his brother. ,, Stronger than most people ... and witches. She won't give up without a fight. "

Elijah just nodded absently and Klaus swallowed hard. He felt a sting in his heart when he saw his brother sitting there; like a heap of ashes and only because the woman he loved was in mortal danger. He was almost surprised, when he heard his voice after some minutes of silence.

"I can't lose her, Niklaus," he said in a rough voice and when he looked at his brother for the first time, his eyes were red. ,, Not her. Just ... not her. "

"You won’t lose her," Klaus assured him, but he also knew that he could not promise anything.

Hold on I still want you Come back I still need you

It took full two hours. Two hours during which the entire corridor in front of the intensive care unit had been occupied by the Mikaelson clan.

After walking uneasily up and down the corridor for an hour, Rebekah had persuaded him and he finally sat down on a chair again, holding his head down and supporting it with his hands. Hayley was sitting opposite him with Freya, Klaus was leaning against the wall next to them with his arms crossed and Rebekah had leaned her head back against the wall beside Elijah and was staring at the white concrete wall.

When the door to the intensive care unit opened again that day, everyone present hopefully looked up. And this time, Elijah's heart beat a little faster when he recognized Y/N's doctor, who was now approaching them.

,,How is she ?"

Elijah immediately got up and expectantly looked at her. He still hoped that anything, any luck, could save her. His siblings had also expectantly sat up and listened intently.

Dr. Pace, however, wiped her dry lips and glanced at Elijah's siblings before turning back to him. She was looking for the right words. "She's not stable, but she's in no pain," she started slowly. ,,Mr Mikaelson, I don't want to lie to you. Her vital signs are miserable and her body is very weak. I am afraid that your fiance will not make it ... "

Elijah inhaled sharply, abruptly looked away from the doctor and swallowed hard. There was nothing he could do about the tears that drove into his eyes by themselves and made his field of vision glaze over. He ran a shaky hand over his face. He felt Rebekah's hand dull on his shoulder and heard the doctor's further words as if through cotton wool, but he no longer listened. His heart was squeezed in the most brutal way he could imagine at that moment and all he wanted was to see her. He wanted to be with her.

Until the very end.

Let me take your hand, I'll make it right I swear to love you all my life

,,How do you feel ?"

Y/N studied Elijah for a moment while he sat on the edge of her bed. She made a face at his words. ,,My head hurts."

,, You lost a lot of blood. My blood couldn't heal everything, ” he wistfully said and Y/N encouragingly and lightly squeezed his hand. Both ignored where the headache really came from.

She turned a little further in his direction. It seemed her whole body was on fire and with every movement she did she felt like every muscle was torning and every bone was breaking.

Elijah forced a smile, but Y/N could see what was really going on with him; of course she could.

She watched him for a while, watching him keep looking at her two hands and not stopping to run his thumb over the back of her hand.

"Hey," she finally said, forcing herself to smile, even if it hurt her heart. "We knew that it has to end at some point. We have already been given more time than it should have been. ”

He swallowed hard at her words. She spoke the truth, but it had never hurt as much as it did at that moment.

She saw it in his eyes, saw it in the way he looked at her and it broke her heart, over and over again, every single second. This broken man had stumbled into her life and had ended with his own centuries before at the same time. Only she had managed to make it back to something worth sacrificing.

,, I have no regrets, Elijah. Just that we didn't make more. "

At that moment it occurred to him. So much had crossed his mind that he hadn't thought about where he was with his brother in the morning before it all started.

With his hand that didn’t hold hers, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little box from the jeweler. He forced himself to smile as he opened it and looked at the silver wedding rings that were inside. The Mikaelsons emblem engraved on them. His eyes wandered between her and the rings. "There’s no pastor and this is neither a church, but .."

"It's perfect," she interrupted him, and this time the pressure in her hand was a little stronger.

He smiled at her again, and still struggled to hold back the tears that started to form in his eyes every second. But her smile, her happy smile, made him strong. It gave him strength.

One of her hands vaguely moved to the remote control of the bed, blindly groping for it until she finally found the button that would push the head of the bed a little up so she was sitting upright. Meanwhile, Elijah slid a little further onto the edge of the bed and then took her two hands.

Y/N sniffed once and then smiled again as she started to speak. "I hereby take you, Elijah Mikaelson, wholeheartedly to my husband, accepting your weaknesses and your strengths as you accept mine. I promise to trust you and support you in everything, and always make the happiness of our love and our family my number one priority. I will be your partner in wealth and poverty, in sickness and health, in success and failure and in life and death. I always promise to stand by your side, no matter what life has in store for us. I believe in you, in the person you will be and the couple we would have been together. You are my love, my life, my today and the rest of my life."

At her words, a single tear ran down his cheek. A single tear that represented what could have been and what could have become of them; but they were denied it.

He took a deep breath, looked at their hands, whereupon another tear dripped onto the white bed sheet below. He swallowed, then looked up at her, who was also struggling with tears.

"I hereby take you, Y/N Y/L/N, to my wife from this day on. I promise to love and honor you. I promise to give you my infinite love and affection, to always be sincere, to appreciate you and to share my thoughts, hopes and dreams with you. It is an honor for me to be able to spend the rest of my life with you. I hereby promise to love you. Always and forever."

But now it was Y/N, who had to sniff at his last words. Always and forever. That was what it meant to the Mikaelsons. An always and forever was of the utmost importance to her and she knew that Elijah in particular would do anything to keep that promise. She was part of his family now. She had already been a long time ago.

She gave him a sad, yet so happy smile as she reached with a trembling hand for the ring in the box,  carefully removed it, and then took his hand to slide it over his finger.

Elijah did the same with her ring, took her dainty hand and pushed the ring down her ring finger.

She happily looked at the piece of jewelry on her finger. This may be the last minutes of her life, but it were also the most beautiful. Nothing could have been nicer for her.

Now, the tears ran down her cheeks and she looked at Elijah, looked deep into his eyes, as he did. In a shaky voice she said: "You may kiss the bride."

Elijah carefully leaned forward, careful not to pull any of the many hoses or cables while she clumsily raised a hand and finally put it on his neck as his lips carefully touched hers.

It almost seemed as if he was afraid that she would break if he touched her and yet, for Y/N, it was the most beautiful kiss out of all. She could feel the love he put in it, the pain, and the salty taste of tears on her tongue. But she didn't care; it had always been what she longed for in life, he had always been the missing piece of the puzzle in her life that she didn't even know she needed. At that moment she had lost everything and had had everything at the same time.

He leaned his forehead against hers, one of his hands on the back of her head supported her a little. She closed his eyes like he did, could feel his hot breath on her face and the tears he was desperately trying to hold back.

,,I love you so much."

A smile formed on her lips and she tried desperately not to scream and break into tears.

,, I love you too, Elijah. Always and forever."

At those words, he kissed her again and her heart contracted painfully. It had long been clear to her that this would be her last moments and with every passing second the pain grew.

,,Do you lie down with me ?"

There was so much hope and despair in her voice that Elijah felt like someone was zealously tearing his heart out of his chest.

The tears on his cheeks were dry, he had made an effort that no more would flee from the corners of his eyes, yet his eyes had a steady, moist shine.

He cleared his throat, swallowed the lump in his throat. He had taken off his jacket some time ago, the tie was right next to it over the back of the chair. He had rolled up the sleeves of the white shirt and opened the first two buttons of it.

Elijah slowly nodded when Y/N gave him a little space and slid aside so that he could lie down with her.

He carefully lifted the tube of the infusion, lay down next to her and immediately felt her seal up to him and put her head and left hand on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

He closed his eyes for a moment after putting his arms around her and pulling her closer. He gave her a kiss on the forehead and rested his chin on top of her head. He looked at the heart monitor which recorded her steady and now slowing heartbeat, with mixed feelings.

He carefully grabbed one of her ice-cold hands, gripped it tightly with his, and closed his eyes just like she did.

Hold on, I still need you

Y / n woke up to the sound of the rushing waves and the screeching of a few seagulls. She blinked in confusion, turning to her side.

When she opened her eyes, she was blinded for a moment by some sun ray, but found out that she was lying in a very comfortable bed. Slowly, she recognized the outline of the open bedroom and looked through the opened wooden sliding door to the deserted, untouched beach.

She raised her eyebrows in confusion and looked beside her, but the space was empty. She glanced down at herself, found out that she was wearing one of Elijah's dress shirts and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Now, she could hear the soft piano music, which was  very quietly carried to her through the open door.

She barefooted tapped over the wooden floor, gazing at the sea and the waves outside and only following the music.

She smiled when she saw him, stroked the y/h/c hair on one side and tapped to him. She finally wrapped her arms around him from behind and watched his fingers continue to dance elegantly over the black and white piano keys. She kissed his neck and shoulder and briefly closed her eyes until the music stopped. But she knew what this was. And she knew this little, cute hut on the island off Brazil too well.

"You proposed to me here," she stated and slightly smiled at the memory.

"The best weekend of my life."

"And that only happened because we fled from your brother," Y/N laughed quietly, remembering how Klaus had barely given them privacy in the New Orleans estate.

"His ego wasn’t too hurt," Elijah replied, pulling Y/N onto his lap so that she leaned back against the piano and could wrap her feet around his waist. She did the same with her arms and his neck. She closely watched the man in her arms and gently ran her index finger down his temple to his jawline.

"I loved it here," she admitted. ,, No one had ever done that for me before. And that just made me love you more. "

Elijah smiled slightly and yet Y/N noticed the dark shadow in his eyes that he was trying to hide from her. But he had never been able to completely hide everything from her.

I don't wanna let go I know I'm not that strong

For a moment, he just closed his eyes and buried his face in the crook of her neck. "I can't do this without you."

Y/N forced a smile and stroked her fingers soothingly through his hair as she felt him take a deep breath. ,, Yes, you will. I know you, Elijah. When you are about to lose your footing, think about how much I love you, whatever you do. "

"Please ... stay."

Y/N devotedly closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a thin line. She tilted her head back, but couldn't stop the tears. "I can't," she said and her heart contracted painfully at the thought.

Elijah listened to her voice and the sound of the waves. A seagull was screaming a little away from their little hut.

“I should have found a way. It's my fault."

"Hey," Y/N immediately said in a firm voice and leaned back a little to look him straight in the eyes as she grabbed his face with both hands. ,, It's not your fault, Elijah. If you dare to think that, I'm gonna haunt you as a ghost and kick your ass. It's not your fault. Vampire blood doesn’t cure all diseases. "

But he shook his head slowly, trying to blink the tears away. "There has to be another way."

"It doesn't exist," she denied, forcing an encouraging smile. “Stop doing that. You did everything you could do, okay ? When I got the diagnosis ... it was already over for me - until I met you again. Thanks to you, I have weighed my entire life within a few years. You made it worth living and if it should be over now, then it’s okay. "

She gently stroked an escaped tear from his face and gave him another of her smiles before she finally got up and reached a hand out to him. The piano started to play the melody Elijah played before when she pulled him to his feet.

"Am I gonna get my wedding dance ?" She asked with a happy smile on her lips as she led Elijah a little into the room. He also smiled as he took her hand, pulling her by his waist and pressing her against him. She carefully laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes as they slowly began to move to the delicate piano music. Suddenly, she had become incredibly tired and Elijah had been ignoring the slowing, dull beeping that came from far far away and that only he could hear.

He gave her a gentle kiss on her hairline and led her over the old wooden floor.

I just wanna hear you Saying baby, let's go home Yeah, I just wanna take you home

Slowly, very slowly and lazily, she finally raised her head again and looked at him with tired eyes. Still, she smiled.

,,I love you."

The beeping grew louder. And it slowed down.

Elijah closed her eyes and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He gently stroked a strand of hair behind her ear and examined her face closely. Y/N had always loved it when he did that, but now there was a whole different reason: he was afraid to forget her.

He pressed his forehead against hers, closed his eyes. ,,I love you, too."

Y/N smiled happily. ,,Always and forever."

She pulled him down for a last kiss, felt his soft lips against hers, and smiled into it. She could taste the salt of her tears and pressed Elijah tightly against her. She didn't want to go, but she had no choice.

A shrill, continuous beep tore the moment and Elijah's heart at the same time when he realized what it meant. The scenery in the open hut on the beautiful island was gone, faded like fog in the morning sun.

No, no, no, he desperately thought and his eyes widened, the tears now unstoppable. An incredible anger over his inability came over him, but the grief was greater and he didn’t want to believe it.

His breath was faltering and frantic, he almost didn't dare to do it when he propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her.

The tears ran down his cheeks. Her eyes were closed, a satisfied, little smile was on her lips and one could almost think she was sleeping. And in a way she did; she had fallen asleep peacefully and happily.

"No," he whispered as one of his tears dripped onto her shoulder, making the fabric darker there. He carefully raised a trembling hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. She didn't move.

The other Mikaelsons had also gathered in front of the window to the hospital room. They too had noticed what had happened. They all had tears in their eyes. Tears to see therr brother there and tears because a part of her family had left them.

"No ...", he sobbed and put a hand on her cheek, but it was clear that she would no longer feel it; she wouldn't feel anything anymore.

And then he broke. He could feel his heart shattering and leaping in a thousand pieces, his tears falling down his cheeks in the event of falls, and he carefully lifted her up and buried his face in her chest. He didn't want to let her go, he couldn't let her go. She was gone and something in him refused to accept it.

He sobbed and cried desperately, still smelling the light hint of her perfume as he buried his face deeper in her chest.

She was gone and he was alone now. He was completely alone. He had no one left.

Hold on, I still want you Come back, I still need you

[sleepywinchester]

Fool For You Pt. 2 ⏤ Oscar Díaz.

Summary: You are back in your hometown Freeridge to take care of your sister Jasmine and your father after being away for six years. You left Freeridge looking for a better life but in that process you had to let go of someone you loved. But you’re back and things are not the same but they sure feel like it.

Words: 4,038

Warnings: Smut (ish) - Abusive Ex Mentions 

A/N: I usually don’t write smutish fics (honestlyyyy i think i suck) but I TRY. On this part things get heated and you guys can see a bit more of their backstory but there’s still so much more to be revealed. 😈

(english is not my first language, might be some typos around)

❤

The continuous loud hard knocks on the window woke you up. Sitting up from the bed you let a loud groan, glaring at your sister on the other side of the window. 

“Open the door!” Jasmine shouted.

She watched you stand up from the bed. After what happened last night you didn’t want to talk about it because you are still processing it. But you knew Jasmine and she wouldn’t leave you alone until you two talked. Opening the door she barged in, standing in the middle of the room and taking a hit of her inhalator. 

Closing the door you turned to see her in the eye, “¿Que?”

Jasmine’s eyes got wide open, “¡¿Que?! LAST NIGHT I CAUGHT YOU ALMOST BONING SPOOKY AND ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY IS ‘¿QUE?’ BITCH I NEED ALL THE DETAILS. ¿Cuéntamelo todo?”

You rolled your eyes walking by her, “I told you I buried that shit when I left.” Turning on the coffee pot, you turned and she was glaring at you. 

“Well it seems like last night he was going to bury his D!” Jasmine shouted.

“JASMINE!” You shouted with wide eyes. “Gosh,” you leaned against the counter.

“In that spot,” she mocked and you rolled your eyes. “Okay fine, I’m being extra but this shit is huge. Like freaking Spooky and my sister? Bitch! Who knew you had it in you?!”

You cocked an eyebrow, “Had it in me? Bitch! I got needs too.” 

Jasmine busted on laughter, “Yass Queen! I can’t believe you’re actually my sister!”

Shaking your head you turned and began to pour coffee. “Anyways,” you looked at her over your shoulder, “Oscar and I have a lot of history. We have known each other since we were kids. We were together until-,”

“you left his ass and went to New York City,” she cut you off completely bluntly. 

Your head tilted to the left as you shrugged, “Pues si, lo deje. I wanted to leave Freeridge, I wanted so much more than just this hood.”

“And he didn’t?” 

“He did,” you sighed and your head dropped. Thoughts of all that could have been rushed through your mind. You and Oscar often talked about a life together out of Freeridge but there was also one major factor in between. Turning around you met her confused eyes, “He couldn’t leave Cesar alone with his mom. She-.” It was so hard to talk about this because his story and yours reflected. “She was a drug addict.”

Instantly Jasmine’s face transitioned into a sadder one. It wasn’t about gossip anymore, this shit was real and it made her think about mom. 

“I’m sorry,” you sat next to her, placing the coffee mug on the table and holding her hand. “This shit hits hard for us especially with mom…” Jasmine was holding in her tears. You felt guilty for not being here for her, she was the one dealing with mom being everywhere but her home taking care of her kid. “Perdón por no estar para ti cuando mas me necesitaste. I know you said you got it but you shouldn’t, you should be going around with your friends being as crazy and loud as you want.”

“I mean I still did that…” she smiled softly, “I just didn’t want to spoil what you had with Alex in NYC.”

“Boo,” you slightly fixed her hair, “that shit was already spoiled.”

She frowned, “What do you mean?” 

“He hurt me, Jas. In so many ways and the fucked up thing is that I thought it was my fault that I deserved that until one day it got out of control and I said no mas. I remembered who I was and my value.” Your voice broke a little, talking made you think about the awful times. Jasmine holds your hand tightly. Showing you she was there for you. “I was at my lowest point but you called me and…” you smiled, “you saved me, mana.”

“I love you, girl. I’m so sorry,” Jasmine stood up from the seat and hugged you so tightly. Knowing you were unhappy and being mistreated made her mad and sad. But you were safe now and she finally had her sister back.

Hugging her built tears in your eyes, “I love you too.” 

She was on her way out when she turned, “I never told you this because it didn’t really make sense but… Santos helped us so much when mom left. They are scary as hell but they take care of their own.”

Your lips created a small thin smile, “How did they help?” 

“Groceries and utilities, papi’s check doesn’t cover all of it,” she shrugged. “Anyways, I’ll see ya at school, need to prep dad before leaving.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll do it. You get to school,” you told her. She smiled and walked away.

You got dressed quickly, put on a pencil skirt and paired it with a yellow blouse that had small flowers and went into the house. 

“Hola pa’,” you spoke sweetly to your dad sitting on his wheelchair. He wasn’t the same man after being deployed in Afghanistan.  Before the war he was the most optimistic man you ever met. He would always have the biggest grin on his face. “¿Te acuerdas cuando me ayudabas con las tareas?” You spoke as you got him ready for his day. “Those were the days and I did not even know it,” you continued. “I miss those days.”

You looked down at him, his eyesight was lost in the background, oblivious of what was happening. A part of you envied that, being able just to be numb to everything happening around. 

“Jasmine?” You heard a thick Mexican accent walking inside the house. 

“Hola,” you said cheerfully walking out of the bedroom to see Milagros, the woman who used to babysit you so many times as a kid was the same person who took care of your dad.

It took her a couple a seconds to recognize the little girl that had transformed into a woman. Milagros eyes sparkled when she placed the dots together. Instantly she flashed a big grin as she walked forward and wrapped you in her arms.

“¡Muchacha!” she exclaimed, “It’s been so long.”

The way she was reacting to you being home made you grin widely. Hugging her back brought memories of when she would pick you and your sister from school and babysit. Every time your mother would go away, Milagros would always be there for your family. She filled the void of not having a mother at all times. 

“Estas igualita,” you grinned. 

She grinned so much her eyes were difficult to find. Cupping your cheeks with her hands she placed a kiss on your forehead. “Estas hermosisima, mija.”

You shook your head, “Not as beautiful as you.”

Milagros laughed and gave you another kiss, “¿Cuando volviste chamaca?”

“Hace tres días,” you told her, “volví y I’m already working at the school teaching.”

“Siempre quisiste ser una teacher,” she grinned, “me da mucha alegría que estés de vuelta. We missed you so much.”

You kissed her forehead, “I missed you too. Take care of my pa’ por favor.”

“Pos claro,” she said glancing at your dad, “I have a full day planned.”

You chuckled and grabbed your bag saying goodbye at the same time you strolled out of the house. Couple of kids rode their bicycles by your house, all of them laughing. 

As you walked down the street the events of last night appeared in your mind. The thought  of that prophet trying to do something made you so nervous. But instead of drowning in your own thoughts, you decided to raise your chin and focus on other things. This was Freeridge and shit like that happened all the time. 

Looking around you noticed a Santo sitting by his porch, he looked at you as he took a drag of his cigarette. Changing your eyesight to another house, another Santo catches your eye. Soon enough you noticed a good amount of Santos outside which was really rare at that time in the morning. 

The sound of a car made your head turn, another Santo. 

“Oscar…” you said under your breath continuing the path to school. 

You had no time left to go and talk to him but it was definitely in your to do list. He had almost the entire Santo gang on subtle escort duty, all of them around the neighborhood from your house to the school.  

That day you saw Cesar and his friends at school talking and mostly scheming, they seemed troubled about something. 

Is he in the gang too? You asked yourself.

That wouldn’t be a surprise if he was a Santo, it was his family’s legacy to be part of that gang. Learning from the past events you left right at four after the bell rings.  Once again a couple Santos were spread around the block. You smirked, shaking your head as you strolled. You wanted to be upset and even mad at him for taking what happened that night to the extreme but there was no way you could be mad at him for making sure you got home safe.  

You thought that after a couple days the subtle escorts would stop but they never did. Couple weeks passed and The Santos were like clock work, always out and watching. Oscar hasn’t been seen around that much, it’s like after that night he got into a business or something. You’d lie if you say you didn’t want to see him because you did but your pride got the best of you and pulled you away from walking by his house and looking for him yourself. 

When the colmado came to sight the thought of a couple things crossed your mind and you went with it. Going in Selena Quintanilla sounded on the speakers, the viejita was dancing to the cumbia behind the counter as she restocked the cigarettes. She looked at you and engaged you to dance with her. Shaking your head you said no but gifted her a smile. 

“Vamos, vamos,” she walked out of the back, continuing to dance. 

You chuckled and slowly following her moves, somewhere else this would be such an unusual thing. In this hood even though everyone was going through their own bullshit, they still put it aside to laugh and have fun. 

Bidi Bidi Bom Bom rhythm was so contagious that La Abuelita did the infamous washing machine dance.  “Come on, mija!” Her smile brought light to the store. You couldn’t leave her hanging and started to do the dance yourself. Dancing to this song brought you memories of your mother teaching these moves to you and Jasmine. You moved your hips in circular motions to the rhythm of the song.

“Se emociona, ya no razona, no lo puedo controlar,” you sang with her. 

You haven’t been or felt this carefree in years, this moment filled you with joy. 

“Bidi bidi bom bom,” she sang, “mijo baila con ella!” 

Turning to see who she was talking to, your sight locked with Oscar’s brown sparkling eyes. You slowly stopped dancing, his grin didn’t show any of his white pearls but his eyes were so bright. 

“Hey,” you fixed your hair, catching your breath. 

“Muy bonita. ¿Que no, Spooky?” La viejita told him.

Oscar looked you up and down, nodding to the lady. “She is.”

She softly patted your hands a couple times, “I haven’t had that much fun in a while. Thank you, mija.”

You chuckled, “Neither have I.” 

“Spooky?” She said his name walking by him, “She knows how to dance and she’s not wearing a ring. Ándale,” Her whisper was everything but a whisper which you thought was hilarious. The old lady patted his arm softly as she continued to the back of the store. 

The two laughed at what she told Oscar. He had both hands inside his pockets as he reached closer to you. Seeing him made you realize you actually missed him after not bumping into him for weeks.

“What up?” He looked you in the eye.  

You shrugged, grabbing a basket, “Nothing much. You?”

“Igual,” he also took a basket.

Oscar and you walked side by side around the corner store both picking similar items. This would be a perfect moment to ask him about the cholo security you felt you had as you walked on the block but you didn’t want to ruin what was going on. 

“You still got moves,” he said as he got a corona from the fridge. He glanced at you, asking if you wanted one with his eyes. You nodded and he grabbed it and placed it on your basket. “La batidora siempre me volvió loco.”

You chuckled, “Everything makes you crazy, Oscar.” 

Oscar smirked at your words, he grabbed a handful of limes that were right next to you. Pouring a couple of those limes in your basket as well. His chest was pressed against you, “Everything you do makes me crazy.” His whisper turned on all your senses throughout your body. 

You grabbed hot sauce, looking back at him to see if he wanted any. Understanding his small nod you grabbed a second one and handled it to him. 

“Any plans tonight?” He asked, grabbing nopales and placing them inside his basket. You grabbed the sweet potatoes next to them and added them to your haul. 

“Aside from grading quizzes and maybe unpacking,” you turned to him, “nada.”

“You still got all those boxes laying around?” You shrugged guilty of being a procrastinator. The click of his tongue was followed by a soft chuckle. “Wanna go to a party?”

You cocked an eyebrow, “Santos party?” He nodded. “I don’t know... Don’t wanna get behind on grading those quizzes.”

“It’s all good,” he told you. Deep down he knew you weren’t the biggest fan of being around his gang and he didn’t judge for that. 

The two paid and walked out of the corner store, you were holding your bags with both hands. The sunset was in full effect, pastels of pink and blue painting the sky. Oscar gazed at you as your eyes were lost in the beauty of the colors. 

Licking your bottom lip, your eyes met with his. “Thanks for the protection.”

He looked away flashing a grin, “You noticed…”

“Your crew is really hard to miss,” you smiled. “Thank you.”

Oscar shrugged, “Just making sure you’re safe.”

Without asking for consent, you tiptoed your way to his cheek and placed a kiss on it. “I know,” you said, turning around and walking away. You looked over your shoulder when you felt his eyes on you. “Te veo, fool.”

“Nos vemos, fool,” he said watching you walk.

The corner store was a couple houses away from your place. You couldn’t see it but Oscar put his bags inside the car and leaned against the hood of his car. Lighting a cigarette he watched you stroll to your house and got in safely. 

/ / / 

Your skin felt refreshed after taking a shower and washing your hair. Only wearing a towel wrapped around your body, you began to look for something to wear.

“Where are my freaking t-shirts?” you roamed around the boxes on the floor. 

There were too many unopened boxes to find the one that had your sleeping t-shirts in them. Meanwhile the ones that were open had everything but you work blouses. The Harley Davison’s ones you’ve been using have become dirty. Your eyes roamed around the floor and found Oscar’s black flannel lying by one of the boxes. You sighed walking towards it and picking it from the floor. Your finger tips instantly feeling the softness of the material. Taking a quick sniff you noticed Oscar’s scent on it and better yet, it wasn’t dirty.

“What the hell,” you shrugged, putting it on. 

You could smell him on the shirt, God how much you loved his scent. Wearing his shirt made you feel close to him even though he wasn’t there with you.

Grabbing a Corona from your fridge, you took a sip from it and began to unpack. You’ve been procrastinating about it for almost weeks now but tonight was the night all of these boxes were going to be empty.

You were drinking the last of your beer when the knock on the door made you look over your shoulder and pause on the sixth box. ‘It’s probably Jasmine’ you thought, not worrying to stand up.

“It’s open, Jas!” You shouted, turning your focus back to the box of old pictures. 

“Not Jasmine,” Oscar's deep voice filled the room.

Looking over your shoulder, you saw him standing by your door with one 40’s on both hands. You stood up quickly noticing how Oscar fully scanned your body. Seeing you wearing his shirt turned him on. How the shirt covered enough to see most of your thighs and legs. It helped that you didn’t buttoned the flannel all the way through, giving him a good sight of your cleavage. He couldn’t help but roam his eyes, admiring every inch of you. 

Oscar cleared his throat, licking his lips before speaking. “You said you were going to be here unpacking and grading papers…” He paused, his eyes were lost on you. “Uh-,” he shook his head, “I just wanted to pass by and maybe help.”

Your eyebrows rose, “You want to help me unpack?”

“Yep,” he spat. 

“Don’t you have a party going on?”

He shrugged with no worry, “Me vale. I can go if you want.”

You shook your head obviously not wanting him to leave, slowly licking your lower lip as you walked towards him. He took a deep breath once you were in front of him. You smirked, grabbing one of the 40’s, “You can stay and help. I’m actually opening the old picture box.”

He watched you turn and sit on the middle of your bed. Oscar having a seat by the edge of it. You handled him your beer for him to open and watched him twist open his.

“I was wondering where my flannel ended up,” he teased, grabbing the box next to him and opening it. 

“I actually didn’t see it until today. Needed clean clothes and,” you looked down at the flannel, “this was clean enough.”

Oscar chuckled softly as he started to take out old photo albums. 

“I can give it back if you want…” you teased.

He glanced at you over his shoulder, “Keep it, te queda mejor a ti.” 

You smiled at his response, looking down to the photos laying in your lap. There were a couple of you with baby Jasmine in her crib. Your abuelita always got you guys the biggest and colorful bows.

Oscar looked back at the album on his hand, brushing through the pages he found an old picture of the two of you in High School. “Mira,” he said.

You got slightly up and looked over his shoulder. Oscar clenched his jaw and his breathing began to get heavy as he felt you so close to him.

Flashing a grin you chuckled looking at your younger self sitting on his lap both with big wide smiles. “This was the first day we missed school to go to the beach.”

Oscar nodded with a small smile, “Si.”

“Todo era mas fácil,” you let out a sigh.

Looking at him, Oscar continued to look at the picture with nostalgia. You wished to be able to listen to his thoughts. Once again you were unsure if you should do what you felt. Kneeling next to him, you rested your chin on top of his shoulder. 

“You remember what happened that day?” you said softly. 

Oscar looked over his shoulder locking his brown eyes with yours. “Como olvidarlo.” 

You smirked, “We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing.”

He clicked his tongue, “We still enjoyed it though.”

“Hell yes,” out of habit your lips touched his skin for a second before placing your chin back on his shoulder glancing down to the picture. 

Oscar froze, his sight going down to your lips as he licked his and looked up back to your eyes. Being that close to each other was the only approval both needed to do what both were craving. He pressed his lips with yours, his right hand grabbing the back of your neck as he kissed you with passion. Your body followed your instincts and got on top of him. His fingers roamed inside your hair as his lips moved in sync with yours. 

The taste of his tongue is warm and lemon from the beer. He moaned when you bit his lower lip, listening to his moan turn you on even more. Your hands were holding the back of his neck. You could feel his hardness between your legs as you slowly moved your hips. 

His hands went under the flannel shirt you were wearing, gripping on your thighs and his fingertips finally finding the thin waistband of your panties. You stood up for a second, eyes locked with his as he slid them off your body. 

You wanted to tease him, you wanted him to build up the level of him wanting you. Slowly you began to undo your buttons, Oscar growing impatient. 

“Don’t tease, mami,” his voice was so deep and his accent so thick it made your skin tingle. He reached a hand over to you but you stood back, clicking your tongue as you moved your index finger left and right. 

“Paciencia, Oscar,” you said softly. 

Oscar smirked looking down at his lap before looking up to watch flannel drop to the floor, his hand reaching your nalgas and gripping tightly, pulling you forward. Looking down to your hip, he realized the black ink still on it. “Todavía lo tienes?” Oscar’s eyes linked with yours.

You looked down to the small cross tattoo on your hip. Turning so slightly you gave him a better look of it. Oscar’s hand touched it, reminiscing of when you first got it. That night was one neither was able to erase. 

“Damn,” he caressed it, “that was the night we-,”

You cut his words with another passionate kiss. He ignored his thoughts or what he wanted to say and continued tasting your lips. Oscar turned you over, laying you flat on the bed. You looked down at him, biting your lower lip watching him take his clothes off. His strong arms flexed as he crawled on top of you leaving trails of kisses all over your body, moans escaping with every kiss he left. Your lower back arched while your eyes shut to the sensation.

“Mírame,” he said, kissing right under your belly button. 

Biting your lip, your eyes locked with his, “I-,” you moaned when his hands cupped your breast. 

“Use your words, mi amor,” he said against your delicate skin. 

His tongue danced in a way only Oscar fucking Diaz could make it dance. He knew all your spots and how to work them. Your hands gripped the sheets of your bed tightly as you bit your lips holding the loud moans that wanted to escape your inside. 

“I can feel you holding your moans out,” Oscar told you, his look full of lust and hunger for you. “Let it out, bebe. Let it all out.”

“Fuck!” you let out a loud moan as he continued to eat you. In a matter of seconds he built you up back again. With every second, you could reach the stars more and more, until there was a full explosion. “Oscar!”

He kissed his way up to your lips, “Así me gusta.” 

“Me llevaste a las estrellas,” you kissed him. 

“Si?” He arched an eyebrow, his hand on your hip. Oscar kissed first kissed your chest, then kissed the left side of your collar bone. He left a trail of wet kisses all the way up your neck. He kissed your earlobe, you could hear his steady breathing. 

“Tonight I’ll take you to the whole damn galaxy,” he whispered in your ear.

______________________________________________________________

CHAPTER TRES

GOT FEELINGS TO SHARE? ❤  

follow tag #fool for you, for updates

[quixotic-writer]

The Impractical Gattosby: Chapter 1

~Oh???? My god???? This was fucking INCREDIBLE!!!! Thank you for this spectacular submission! I’m truly blown away! Please please PLEASE post this on AO3 or Wattpad because I want you properly credited with this work and I want so many others to read this!

In Murr’s younger and more vulnerable years his father gave him some advice that he’s been turning over in his mind ever since.

“James, whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told him, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more but they’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and he understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence he is inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to Murr and also made him the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that at college, Murr was unjustly accused of being a ferret, because he was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently he has feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when Murr realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. He is still a little afraid of missing something if he forgot that, as his father snobbishly suggested, and Murr would snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of his tolerance, Murr came to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point he didn’t care what it’s founded on. When he came back from Staten Island last autumn he felt that he wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; he wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gattosby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from Murr’s reaction—Joe Gattosby who represented everything for which Murr has an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “comedic genius"—it was an extraordinary gift for confidence, a type of shamelessness such as Murr has never found in any other person and which it is not likely he should ever find again. No—Gattosby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gattosby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out his interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

Murr’s family were prominent, well-to-do people in the northeast for three generations. The Murrays are something of a clan and they have a tradition that they’ve descended from Italian and Irish nobility, but the actual founder of his line was his grandfather’s brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale business that Murr’s father carries on today.

He never saw this great-uncle but he’s supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father’s office, sporting a shiny bald head. Murr graduated from Georgetown University in 1915, and after he decided to go to New York and learn the motion picture industry. Everybody he knew was in the motion picture industry so he supposed it could support one more single man. All his aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for him and finally said, “Why—ye-es” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance him for a year, using the funds that would have otherwise gone towards purchasing for him an automobile, and after various delays he went to New York, permanently, he thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and he had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that they take an apartment together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the place, a weather beaten cardboard apartment at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Los Angeles and he went out to the country alone. Murr had a dog, Penny, at least he had her for a few days until she ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made his bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than Murr, stopped him on the road.

“How do you get to Staten Island?” he asked helplessly.

Murr told him. And as he walked on he was lonely no longer. Murr was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on him the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—he had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. Murr bought a dozen volumes on motion pictures and cameras and they stood on his shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino knew. And he had the high intention of reading many other books besides. He was rather literary in college—not only was he an English major, but one year Murr wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Georgetown News"—and now he was going to bring back all such things into his life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that he rented an apartment in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous boroughs, identical in contour and separated only by water, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Upper New York Bay.

Murr lived at Staten Island, the—well, the less fashionable of the two boroughs, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. His apartment was at the very tip of the island, only fifty yards from the Bay, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on his right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gattosby’s mansion. Or rather, as he didn’t know Mr. Joe Gattosby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. His own apartment was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so he had a view of the water, a partial view of his neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable Brooklyn glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening he took the Staten Island Ferry there to have dinner with the  Vulcano-Quinns. Sal Vulcano was his former brother-in-law from when Murr had married Sal’s sister for three days, and he’d known Brian “Q” Quinn in his Monsignor Farrell High School days.

Sal’s husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever worked for the Fire Department of New York—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family was enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d come to Brooklyn in a fashion that rather took one’s breath away: for instance he’d bought three cats named Benjamin, Brooklyn, and Chessie. It was hard to realize that a man in Murr’s own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came to New York, Murr doesn’t know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Sal over the telephone, but Murr didn’t believe it—he had no sight into Sal’s heart but he felt that Q would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable fire to fight.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening he rode the Staten Island Ferry over to Brooklyn to see two old friends whom he scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than Murr had expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Brian Quinn was at the front porch.

He had changed since his Monsignor Farrell High years. Now he was a sturdy, dark-haired man of thirty with a rather magnificent beard and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant hazel eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his newsboy cap and silk American-flag print scarf could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were guys at high school who had hated his guts.

“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” They were in the same Improv Club, and while they were never intimate Murr always had the impression that Q approved of him and wanted him to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

They talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

“It belonged to Mrs. Calabash, my neighbor.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”

They walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two men were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their clothes were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. Murr must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Q shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two men ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. He was extended full length at his end of the divan, completely motionless and with his chin raised a little as if he were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If he saw me out of the corner of his eyes he gave no hint of it—indeed, Murr was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed him by coming in.

The other man, Sal, made an attempt to rise—he leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then he laughed, a loud boisterous laugh that soon had him falling to the floor, and he laughed too and came forward into the room.

“Oh my gawd, I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.”

He got up to  only laugh and almost fell to the floor once again, as if he said something very witty, and held his hand for a moment, looking up into Murr’s face, promising that there was no one in the world he so much wanted to see. That was a way he had. Sal hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing man was Jost. (Murr has heard it said that Sal’s murmur was only to make people lean toward him; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Casey Jost’s lips fluttered, he nodded at Murr almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped his head back again—the object he was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given him something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to Murr’s lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from him.

Murr looked back at his former brother-in-law who began to ask him questions in his low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. His face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright green eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in his voice that men who had cared for him found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that he had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

[dameronsgalaxygal]

I’ve Been Waiting For You - Chapter 3: Voulez Vous

series masterlist

Pairing: modern!poe x reader

Warnings: language, drinking, mentions and implications of past abusive relationship, light angst, things get steamy.

Word Count: 3176

Song Link: Voulez Vous

A/N: this took a really long time!! @rewritingstarrs and I filled the doc with notes/comments/suggestions and I still feel meh about it but hopefully it doesn’t disappoint!! don’t worry, things will be fine. don't forget to listen to the song! as always, feedback and comments are appreciated! taglist is open!

Summary: A night out in the city with your friends leads to the unexpected with Poe. 

The first few weeks in Florida had been pretty good. Your things were completely unpacked, your room decorated to your liking, and to your surprise, not one missed call from Kyle. Rey and Rose had toured you around Miami Beach, and as promised, Poe sent you the information for his aunt’s bookstore down at the shore.

You were walking down the beach with your roommates when you saw the little store across the street named “Solo Reads”.

“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later. I’m gonna go look inside this bookstore” You pointed across the street.

“Sounds good, text me when you’re done.” Rey said before trailing off with Rose.

The bookstore was small and antique-style. It looked as though it had been in this location for hundreds of years, the walls slowly starting to fall apart, but it added to the aesthetic. The smell of polished wood and coffee flooded the room and you couldn’t help but smile. You loved it.

You walked around in admiration until a short older woman peeked from behind an aisle. “Hello, dear. Can I help you find anything?”

Smiling gently, you approached her. “Hi, I was actually wondering if you were hiring. Your nephew is a good friend of my cousins and he referred me to you.”

She smiled back. “Ah, yes. Y/N, is it? Just moved from New York?” You nodded.

“I’m Leia.”

“Pleased to meet you, Leia.” You stuck out your hand to shake hers and she took it, grabbing your hand with both hers, squeezing tightly.

“You as well, Y/N”, she let go of your hand before walking behind the small checkout desk. “So when can you start?”.

“Start?” You were confused. You had just met the woman and you hadn’t even been interviewed yet.

“You know, start working. I need someone to care for the books more than I can. These babies, they’re old. I’d like to make sure they live as long as possible. Some customers aren’t so gentle in handling them. You were an English major, right? I know you’d appreciate all of these as much as I do.” She brushed dust off of a couple books that were stacked on the counter.

You completely understood. You had collected old novels and magazines since you were a child. Your favorite book being Pride and Prejudice. The idea of someone disrespecting a piece of work that an author put so much dedication into made you sad. You looked around the store before turning to face Leia.

“Absolutely. I will make sure that this place and these books are in great shape all the time”. It was true. You loved and adored all forms of literature, so you would work so hard to keep the place organized.

She smiled. “I know we just met, and that I didn’t give you a proper interview, but my nephew has great judgement in people. He told me you were a sweetheart, and I could tell that he was right the moment you introduced yourself. I know you’ll be good here”.

You blushed slightly. Poe called me a sweetheart?

Suddenly a girl, around the same age as you, burst through the door quickly taking off her jacket. “Sorry I’m late, Leia. I got distracted on the bus by this family who had never been to Miami before and their kid was amazed by the beach, so I missed my stop. But it was the cutest thing! You had to be there.” She made her way behind the desk and put her jacket down.

“Yeah, yeah. Tallie, this is Y/N. She’ll be working here soon.”

“Oh thank goodness. It gets lonely around here.” She chuckled.

“Hopefully I’ll be able to provide some sort of company” You smiled before your phone vibrated in your back pocket. You pulled it out to check the message. It was from Poe.

I’m down at the shore right now if you wanted to meet me and I can introduce you to my Aunt Leia!

You smiled before responding quickly:

I’m actually with her now! I got the job:)

You looked back up at Leia and Tallie who were talking and continuing to dust off the old books. “I can start working tomorrow, if that’s alright.”

Leia nodded. “Wonderful! We can discuss a proper work schedule later, but how does 11am work for you?”

“That’s perfect” Your smile widened. “Thank you so much, Leia. Nice to meet you Tallie!”

The two women said their goodbyes as you left the store with the same feeling you had after leaving Finn’s party a few weeks ago. So far, everything seemed to be going well, and you hoped that this was the start to the kind of life you had always wanted.  

You pulled out your phone to call Rey, but just as you were about to dial her number, Poe called you.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Congrats on the job. I mean, I knew she’d hire you, but still!” You could hear the smile in his voice.

“Thank you. For both congratulating me and for putting in a good word.” You, once again, were blushing.

“Of course. Thought I’d help you get a kick start here in the city. You got plans right now?” He asked.

You bit your lip nervously before responding. “Not really.”

Suddenly his voice through the phone sounded closer. “Good. Then can I treat you to lunch?” You jumped to turn around and see him laughing, his phone still pressed to his ear. A sense of deja vu ran over you as you remembered this was the same way Poe approached you at Finn’s party.

You hung up the phone and scoffed playfully. “You need to stop doing that.”

“I’ve only done it twice,” He laughed, putting his phone in his pocket.

You chuckled lightly before looking around. “So where are we going?”

“There’s a nice deli a couple blocks down. You up for sandwiches?”

Your mouth nearly watered at the thought. You hadn’t eaten since early this morning and it was only a couple slices of toast. “That sounds fantastic.”

The afternoon you spent with Poe was familiar. Just how you two talked for hours on his couch at Finns party, you two spent hours in the Deli talking about almost everything under the sun. He told you about his childhood growing up in South Miami, and he also revealed that his mother had passed away due to cancer when he was 18. You appreciated him sharing something so personal with you, and you wish you could do the same and talk to him about your past. But you had met him not too long ago. If you could hardly tell Rey who you have known your entire life, there was no way you could open up to your new friend right away. You had to admit though, every moment you spent time with Poe felt natural. It felt easy.

Over the next few weeks, your friendship with Poe skyrocketed. You had been working at the bookstore, and sometimes Poe would stop by to see Leia. Leia had mentioned that he had never visited this often, which made your heart flutter. You brushed it off though. You were enjoying your friendship with Poe and have someone brand new in your life. A blank slate.

You were sitting on the couch watching a movie with Rey and Rose when your phone buzzed. You smiled when you saw it was a text from Poe.

Hey! Just landed back to Miami and was thinking about going to the club with Finn tonight. We were wondering if you and the girls wanted to join.

“Poe wants to know if we want to go out tonight with him and Finn,” You asked your roommates, who didn’t take their faces off the TV.

“Yeah, I’m down. What time?” Rey asked and Rose nodded in agreement.

Yeah that sounds fun! What time were you thinking?

How bout 8? We can pick you up!

Sounds good. See ya then, Dameron.

Can’t wait :)

Smiling, you put your phone down. “Eight. They’ll pick us up” You reached for a chip from the bowl on the coffee table before returning to watching the movie.

Rose checked her phone. “That’s two and a half hours from now! I need to go get ready.” She stood up and headed to the bathroom to shower.

You laughed. You had gotten used to Rose spending at least an hour in the bathroom making sure she looked, as she liked to call it, “photogenic enough”.

Just as you were about to continue watching the film, Rey pressed pause and looked at you.

You cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

“What’s going on with you and Poe?” She asked with a smirk.

“What are you talking about? He’s my friend.” You chuckled before munching on another chip.

“Oh come on. When he’s not working, you’re with him. You smile every time he texts you. Him and Finn used to come over a lot, but since you’ve moved in, Poe has started coming over without Finn. Even Finn has noticed. He talks to me about it at work. Are you two-”

“No! No, Rey, it’s not like that.” You said sharply. You sighed when she didn’t reply at first, taken aback by your tone. “Look, I like Poe. He’s the first friend I’ve made after moving here. We get along really well and I enjoy being around him. Nothing’s happening between us. Okay?” You were saying this to Rey, but really you were trying to remind yourself of these things. You did like Poe. You were starting to like him in the way you had thought you liked Kyle, and it scared you. From what you had witnessed from the weeks you had spent being around him, you knew Poe wasn’t anything like your ex, but feeling something towards him meant feeling vulnerable. Were you ready for that?

“Besides, I don’t want to jump into anything right now. Not after everything with Kyle. I’m..” You paused to take a breath, your memories rushing back. “I’m still trying to get over that”.

She nodded, knowing that you hated bringing him up. “I’m sorry”.

“It’s okay” You reassured her. “Let’s finish the movie.”

The movie ended about half an hour later, giving you and Rey still enough time to get ready for your night out. You had been to a few bars with Rey since you had gotten to Florida, but not a club, and not with Poe.

You checked the temperature on the weather app, seeing it was going to be 80 degrees and humid. You changed into a pair of shorts and a crop top with a pair of white converse and gold earrings. You curled your hair and put on some light makeup. Your first time at a club, might as well look cute, right? Or were you subconsciously trying to impress Poe?

A few minutes after you had finished getting ready, there was a knock on the front door. “Coming!” You said as you headed towards the door, opening it.

Poe and Finn stood before you, smiling. “You look nice.” Poe smirked.

Your cheeks heated up once again, a familiar feeling around him. “Thanks”.

Finn rolled his eyes before chuckling softly. “You girls ready?”

Both Rey and Rose emerged from their rooms, “Yep!”

You all headed to the car after locking your apartment. You asked if it would be better to uber, but Rey wasn’t a big drinker and was always the designated driver. You trusted her to call an uber to take you all back home if she wasn’t feeling sober.

The club was huge. It was crowded and hot, bright and colorful LED lights that flashed through the entire room. The music was so loud that you could hardly hear your friends talking to you. But after a few drinks in, there was really no talking necessary.

You, Rey and Rose were on the dance floor allowing yourself to let loose. This was the first time you had actually felt a sense of joy. Yes, you were slightly intoxicated, but you had your friends, good music, a job that you enjoyed, and you were in Miami. You had seemed to forget about your past, and it felt so good.

Poe and Finn were getting more drinks at the bar, Poe unable to take his eyes off of you.

“You like her?” Finn yelled over the music for Poe to hear.

Keeping his eyes on you, Poe replied, “Fuck, man. I think so.” He laughed softly.

“Then go get her!” He nudged him, in which Poe smirked before heading to the dance floor.

You smiled as he approached you, reaching your arms out to grab him and pulling him to you. If you were sober, there was a likely chance you wouldn’t have allowed him to be as close as he was right now. But again, your past had seemed to leave you in the moment, and it was Poe.  

You danced together, jumping and spinning each other around until his chest was pressed against your back, hands on your hips. One of your hands was placed on his, the other snaked up to reach around his neck and run through his hair.

You could feel his hot breath on your neck as you grinded your hips against his. There was no denying that the man was getting very, very excited. Your breathing started to pick up, what with the humidity in the club and the alcohol in your system, not to mention the fact that your ass was pressed against the crotch of the guy you were starting to develop a crush for.

You felt Poes lips press against your neck and you gasped at the feeling. They were soft and warm and they provided a sense of comfort even in such an intimate setting. He continued to trace kisses up your neck until he spun you around to face him. You looked up at him to see dark eyes. You bit your lip before wrapping your arms around his neck, tugging on his dark curls as he pulled you closer. Lips nearly brushing over each other, you two continued to dance against one another.

At that moment, nothing else seemed to exist. Your foreheads pressed together, both of you smiling nervously, he leaned in to kiss you. Hesitant at first, you kissed him back. You swore you could hear fireworks going off in the background as you pulled away, music still pounding through your ears. You looked up at Poe as he jerked his head toward the door and whispered in your ear loud enough for you to hear, “Do you want to get out of here?”

With hardly any hesitation, you nodded. “Yes.” You had been drinking, but you were consciously able to respond verbally and process what he was really asking you. Everything you had mentioned to Rey earlier completely left your mind. You wanted Poe.

Poe smirked before grabbing your hand and pulling you out of the crowd. You looked around nervously to see Rey, Rose and Finn glancing at you and Poe as they continued to dance. Rey shot you a look and you nodded, letting her know that it was okay, and she winked at you.

Surprisingly unlocked, Poe opened the back door to his car and pulled you in, immediately latching his lips to yours as you shut it behind you. The kiss was rough and hot, but his lips fit perfectly against yours and you moaned slightly into the kiss as his tongue traced your bottom lip. His hands trailed from your waist up to your stomach and you pulled away for a breath.

Poes hands reached up to cup your cheeks, holding your face close. He leaned up and kissed the corner of your lips. Instantly, it all came back to you.

You were lying on the bed as Kyle hovered over you. Tears in your eyes, you stared at the wall. He leaned down to kiss the corner of your lips.

You had completely sobered up as the memories of Kyle came flooding back. Kyle used to kiss the corner of your mouth. The small gesture had brought back so many terrible memories and you decided that you couldn’t keep going, not tonight. You let out a breath, “Stop, Poe.”

Still in the heat of the moment, Poe responded without thinking. “No, no, no, hey baby, it’s okay.” his voice was calm as he brushed hair out of your face before leaning up to kiss you again.

“No, Poe. Stop!” Your voice was louder than you had intended. He pulled back immediately. “I’m sorry,” you avoided making eye contact, getting off of his lap and sitting in the seat next to him. “I want this. I really do….but I’m just not ready.” You looked down, hands fidgeting. “Uh, I think I’m going to go. Thank you for tonight, Poe….I’ll call you.”

You quickly got out of the car, walking through the parking lot as you opened your phone to call an uber.

“Y/N, wait! I’m sorry!” Poe called after you, but you kept walking. Poe leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He let out a sigh, completely sobering up. “Fuck.”

You texted Rey as your Uber approached.

Got an uber home. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just tired. I’ll see you when you get home.

It wasn’t a long ride back, but each second felt like hours. You started to wonder if you had just ruined what you had with Poe. If you did, it would mean losing the spark that you felt with him, losing a good friend, and that was the last thing you wanted. You weren’t angry at Poe. He had no idea. You were angry at yourself.

After what seemed like forever, you were home. You thanked and tipped your driver, walking into your apartment. Feeling exhausted, you went to bed right away, or at least tried to. It was difficult to sleep with so many thoughts running through your head. Memories of Kyle, walking away from Poe. Dancing with Poe. Kissing Poe.  

You are pulled from your thoughts when your phone that was resting on your bedside table buzzed.

Hey Y/N. I’m really sorry about earlier. I never intended to make you uncomfortable. I hope this doesn’t affect anything. Let me know if you want to talk. I’ll have my phone next to me all night. If not, no worries and I hope you sleep well.  -Poe

It gave you some relief knowing that Poe wasn’t freaked out by your outburst and that he wanted to talk. You wanted to reply to him, let him know everything would be okay, but you needed to allow yourself to calm down. The night may not have ended the way you intended it to, but there was still a huge chunk of you that still needed to be healed. Poe didn’t deserve to be treated like a rebound. You liked him a lot. You wanted to do this right, but you needed to be ready.

You let out a deep breath before putting your phone back down on the table, closing your eyes before you drifted off.

taglist <open> @twomoonstwosuns​ @rewritingstarrs​ @darksideofclarke​ @writingforhoursonend​ @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​ @lanatheawesome​ @fanfiction-trashpile​ @fantasticcopeaglepasta​ @softly-sad​ @aidela​ @yeeintensifies​ @the-cry-of-youth​