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perzawa · 4 years ago

Text

→ happy birthday!

jumin han x fem! reader

desc: after a wonderful birthday spent with your family, you think that was all the night had to offer. that is, until jumin gives you just one more surprise.

genre: smut

warnings: degradation, pet names, squirting, very very small mention of past trauma

word count: 2.8K

“now are you sure i can’t drive you both home? i’d love to say goodnight to my daughter in law that way,” the chairman said, kissing your hand. you didn’t oppose him dropping you guys off at home, but jumin consistently pleaded that he’d call a cab for the both of you and that was it. usually, when jumin had his mind set on something - no one could change it. so why object?

both you, and jumin, stood outside - patiently watching multiple cars pass by on the road. subconsciously, you rubbed the side of your arm, still in awe from the afternoon you spent with your family. it was your birthday, after all, so everyone decided to surprise you by taking you out. jumin originally planned to take you out alone and spend time with you himself, but mr. chairman objected, deciding everyone assumed it would be more respectful to wish you a happy birthday to your face.

who were you to say no?

jumin must’ve cared a lot, because he could really care less about being anywhere with his father and his new girlfriend of the year. or, for the week, he would say when he complained to you. she seemed extremely sweet, though, and was equally just as pretty. her hair was a radiant shade of blonde and her body was curved, dress exposing every corner of her figure. you could see why he’d be attracted to her in the first place. not only that, but she spoke with such elegance. words flowing smoothly anytime she opened her mouth to take a sip of her red wine. maybe you were a bit naïve, but you’d trust her with your life.

jumin didn’t share the same thought process, sneering at her whenever she so much as asked if he wanted the salt and pepper shakers to be passed to him through the air or slid on the table. you couldn’t blame him, especially with the history he bore with his father and his unique taste in women. now, Jumin would never call you an idiot to your face, but when you didn’t have a problem with the women his father courted that particular time, he’d make a few comments under his breath about how you needed a lesson in not being a fool to obvious tricks.

what could you say? seeing the best in people was your forte - for better or worse. that is how your relationship with jumin evolved, isn’t it?

“what’s got you so lost in thought?” he inquired, peeking over at you after a moment of checking his watch. the same one you got him last christmas.it made your heart swell to see him still wearing it.

“oh, nothing,” you smiled back at him, rocking on your heels. “just really grateful you guys took me out. thanks, baby. i could use this.”

he scrunched his eyebrows. “of course. it's your birthday.”

“i know, but still.” you stared at the sidewalk with a small grin plastered on your features. you never actually celebrated your birthday. growing up, your parents were too busy to even remember most days, so you’d spend that special day cooped up in your room with your sister eating whatever you could find in the refrigerator until they arrived at home, crashing in bed as soon as they stepped foot in the house. the cycle always continued, for both you and your sister. jumin knew this. it was the first thing you told him when he tried to have fun with you on your last birthday.

“you’re sweet.” he muttered, feigning a nonchalant attitude - when really, he was ecstatic to spend the day with the love of his life.

“the day isn’t over yet,” he spotted the car pulling up in front of you both and held his hand out for you to take, taking your hand gently. “there’s still one thing i wanted to give you before your day is over. okay?”

heat rose to your face, inciting you to smile wider than before. “a surprise? aw, jumin. you’re so sweet.” you lightly tapped his shoulder to showcase your gratitude, demeanor changing. the man only nodded and opened the door for you, both of you walking in together. it didn’t take long before you arrived home, jumin paying the cab before he took your hand once you both left the vehicle. he reached for his keys, slowly unlocking the door. thin arms pushed the large door open, jumin now smiling over at you once he witnessed your calm demeanor shift into a happier one. one that was more excited and a bit confused.

you walked in slowly, your eyes watching the red lights and roses leading up the staircase. sure, it was a little cliché, but if jumin did this for you, it was special.

“how? h-how did you have time?” you choked on your words, expression lighting up as you viewed the lights - eyes gazing over every crevice covered.

“i paid jaehee,” he stated plainly, observing you for any other movements or hidden emotions.

you blinked at him. you’d really have to take her on a spa trip after this to apologize. hell, if you knew it was his sadly overworked assistant, you’d just prefer to decorate the house yourself.

“go on,” he spoke, motioning up the stairs. with patient breaths, your feet slowly stepped up each stair, different flowers on each shiny step. daisies, roses, chrysanthemums. they were so pretty - your heart swale in awe.

“baby…” you whined, reaching the first room, your bedroom. your shaking hands twisted the handle on the door and pushed it open. now, there were candles here. they illuminated the large room, floor full of roses. heavy hands found themselves clutched over your heart. your grin widened, imagining all of the effort put into this. into pleasing you.

you bit your bottom lip, strutting closer to the large bed you shared with your lover. there, two different toys had been placed on the sheets. you blinked at them and then blinked at Jumin, turning to face the toys again. “i-,” you trailed off, a clear understanding of what the surprise was now. you gulped, face burning in embarrassment now - eyes wider than ever.

the tall man walked closer to you, stopping once his body was pressed against your back. he held onto your waist gently, his fingers tickling your soft skin in the dress you wore.

“you’ve been working so hard, kitten. every single day,” he whispered in your ear. observing your shy, but welcoming reaction, he continued. “let daddy relax you.”

you breathed out. “o-okay,” you whispered back. your body twitched at his lustful words, eyes focusing on the vibrator and purple dildo that stayed still on the sheets again. jumin held on tighter to your hips, pressing soft kisses to the sides and the back of your neck, whispering a compliment with each kiss.

“you’re so pretty,” he whispered, kissing your earlobe.

“and you’re all mine.” his quiet voice tickled the hairs on your skin, a quiet chuckle rumbling from his mouth. he swiped his tongue along your warm neck.

“i want you so much. every day, i promise...”the man with raven hair admitted, voice low as he assaulted your neck, kissing the sides while he left purple bruises to blossom along your skin. a small moan fell from your lips and you leaned your head to the side - allowing him access.

“so glad to have you. i’m so happy this is the fourth birthday i’ve spent with my baby.”

you could feel a rush of blood speed between your legs, pussy gushing with arousal. you rubbed your legs together to abstain some type of friction on your clit, whining when his hands freed themselves from your waist.

“i wanna see something. do you trust me to make you feel good, y/n?” even after four years together, he always made sure you were comfortable with everything taking place and you couldn’t help but respect that. this wasn’t your first time with him, but every time was always so perfect and comfortable. words couldn’t describe the type of man he was to you. you nodded eagerly, crawling on the bed as the mattress croaked.

“wanna watch you play with yourself. would you like that, too?” his sultry tone caused your breathing to hitch, “you want that? you wanna see me stroke myself to you playing with that pussy of yours?” you caught a chill from the vulgarity of his word choice, nodding again. your body burned with lust, face just as hot as the rest of you. you grabbed both toys and positioned yourself on your back. biting your lip, you spread your legs and slid your panties down, kicking them to the floor. your dress was pulled up, exposing the heat between your legs, slick trailing down your thighs.

“you get this wet from me barely touching you? god…”

his words were like serums full of pleasure, causing you to gush more slick from your cavity. you’d never used a toy a day in your life, but it seemed easy. even then, you were an avid porn consumer. your diligent fingers pressed the plus sign and clicked it until the vibrations were as high as you needed them to be. jumin’s breath died in his throat as he viewed your sinful act intensely. you pushed the head of the vibrator to your aching clit, screaming from the pleasurable shock. jumin, palm pressed to his clothed cock, chuckled darkly - as he watched your innocent face contort into pure debauchery. the touch sent electricity into your body, empty hole gaping over nothing. you were quick, prodding the artificial cock against your opening to gather enough slick before pushing it in, the stretch sending you into another shock. your body arched off of the bed, eyes rolled back into your socket as you moved the vibrator around your sensitive nub, twitching with each roll of plastic on your body. after finding a good pace to fuck yourself at, you bit your lip and looked down at jumin.

the man was almost moaning himself, palming his hardening cock, eyes lidded and pooling with lust while he watched you stuff your wet channel, wishing it were him. the overwhelming drag of the plastic against your milky walls caused your eyes to tear up, small, salty tears falling as you cried out, toes curling and uncurling the sheets beneath you. you could feel an overwhelming shock build in your stomach as you forced yourself to stare into the dark eyes of your lover - husband watching you fuck yourself. thrust after thrust, your pussy almost reached its peak - body still lustful and needy. the tears on your cheeks began to dry as the bud in your stomach snapped, walls spasming while you came over the plastic.

jumin groaned, throwing his head back after painfully watching you have your way with your own body. he bit his lip and crawled on the bed, snatching his tie and hauling it across the room - jacket and shirt following after. your breath had died down now, body still wildly twitching, vibrator still assaulting your overused nerves. you whine, drool slipping from the corners of your mouth, stomach bubbling with pleasure again just to witness jumin watching you with such intensity. you could cum again and again just watching him watch you.

he snatched the vibrator from your grasp, turning the toy off as he threw it on the ground. the dildo followed.

“you’re so good, kitten. so, so good. you want daddy’s cock this time? are you ready - you okay with that?”

still buzzed out, the most you could do was moan and nod eagerly, fingers running through your slit to gather slick on your digits, bringing them up to your husbands lips. wet eyelashes blinked up at him, tears drying a bit while newer ones still damped your cheeks. he took them into his mouth, sucking your fingers clean. with his tongue swirling over the thick liquid, jumin groaned, palming at himself from your taste alone.

“please, jumin. hurry, i’m gonna get so wet again, please. please, please, please, i want you so much.” the words fell so easily from your lips with little to no hesitation. in such a state of babbling, you could care less about what you were saying - as long as your husband played into your blissed-out fantasy.

wasting no time, he unbuckled his black pants - slim fingers wrapping around his thick cock. you backed into the bed frame, legs still spread wide, eyes glued to jumin’s cock. he groaned, rubbing his cock up and down your pussy to gather enough lube, wetting his dick enough to painlessly slip in. you gaped over nothing, fingers traveling down to rub your sensitive bud. jumin scooted himself closer to you, lifting your ass up in order to line himself up with your wet pussy, cock slipping in slightly. his head filled you, body heaving while you threw your arms around him. he pulled you into his lap, wrapping your legs around his waist as he replaced your spot against the bed frame. “fuck…”

you could cum on the spot just from feeling him inside of you. just from feeling the head of his cock hit against the hilt of your pussy, walls swallowing his entire cock in an attempt to draw the man in deeper. the shocks of your stretched walls made you convulse, body shaking in pleasure and agony.

“shit, you feel so good. so right. always,” he spoke in fragments, huffing out his breaths with each word he attempted to speak. you buried your nose into his neck, his hips thrusting upward, cock continuing its assault inside of your pussy. loud cries of antagonizing pleasure rang through the home, your nose now buried into his shoulder, grinding yourself on his lap. jumin gripped your ass, thick length working inside of you while your slick dripped to the shaft of his dick.

“jumin - god, so good. you feel so good,” you grunted, slipping your arm between you both to snake a finger down to your sensitive clit, pussy spamming around his hard length. jumin moaned, both of your pants and gasps of neediness bubbling in the air, loud enough for you both to hear each other but not high enough to receive a noise complaint.

“kitten… fuck, your pussy’s - fuck, a mess. did I get you this wet?” he asked through strained moans and quiet grunts.

embarrassed, your mouth instinctively stayed shut, simply rocking your heavy botty along his - meeting each quick thrust.

“answer, good girl. go ahead. shit - know you’re embarrassed,” he pressed his moist lips to your neck, gripping your hair with one hand. you released a small moan, edging him to go on. he gripped the strands, “i know you want this. tell me who got you this way, tell me how much of a slut you are for me.”

“jumin - please, you. you, you, you, you, you. god, fuck - i’m so fucking wet for you. feels so good inside me, gonna cum.”

he thrust his cock into you at a faster place, the tip of his cock hitting against your g-spot. more tears rushed down your eyes and he wiped them away, whispering praises in your ear while he fucked his load into you, the branch in both of your stomachs snapping. for the first time, you’d both cum at the same time.

jumin grunted, his hips stuttering inside of you, making sure no cum would escape.

“gonna push this as deep as i can. make you a mommy.” you moaned at the implications that he would impregnate you, the thought causing your body to begin shaking, his quick-moving cock sparking a different feeling, an overwhelming one. you could feel the heat rush to your pussy, your body sore - but you kept fucking yourself onto him. couldn’t stop even if you tried. a warm feeling bubbled in your stomach, nails raking his pale back, marking him as yours and no one else’s. you clenched your toes, a clear liquid gushing from your pussy and onto the bed, wetting his chest in the process. You instantly fell backwards, head hitting the sheets on the bed with a loud screech.

your pussy twitched, his cock now slowly removing itself from your cavity while you laid exposed on the bed, breathing erratic and sped up.

“squirting all over me. what a bad girl.” sweat rained down your forehead, as well as jumin’s, body paralyzed from the excessive amounts of pleasure rushing through you.

jumin pulled you off of him and was now on his knees, cock soaked in your juices. the over sensitivity made him groan before he tucked himself in. the man with raven hair leaned down into your ear, kissing your earlobes before whispering.

“happy birthday, slut.”

#jumin han #happy birthday jumin #jumin x you #jumin x reader #jumin x mc #jumin x y/n #jumin smut #jumin han smut #mystic messenger #mystic messenger x mc #mysme #mysme jumin #smut #mystic messenger smut #otome game #otome fandom

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capitainelevi · 3 years ago

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For @pufferssss, happy late birthday!! ❤️

Waiting for sunrise

Words: 2968

The first and last time Levi visits Petra`s grave.

Levi arranged his cravat again, self-conscious at the thought of visiting her for the first time. He stood frozen in place, with a bouquet of orange lilies in his hand. Her favorite flowers. Just a mere coincidence, not an effort on his part, of course. He never imagined he would visit her here so early on. Staring at the newly carved headstone, he tried to set aside the nagging thought that the earth underneath it only held an empty coffin.

What should he say to her?

“Your dad came to see me after the mission, and I had to tell him that I don`t even have a body to bring back home to him”?

“I failed in getting justice for you and the guys”?

“I miss your tea”?

The only words he could spurt out were “Hi, Ral.”

He groaned at his awkwardness and settled on presenting her with the flowers he chose for her. He could feel his hands getting sweaty from anxiousness, much to his confusion. He had nothing to be nervous about. It was just Petra in front of him. His subordinate. Petra, who fought by his side for years. Who swore to devote her life to him. Just his Petra.

Levi sat on the ground next to the gravestone, unconcerned about the dirt he would have to clean out of his clothes at the end of the day. “I hope you can hear me, wherever you are. I like to think you`re listening.” He never spent much time concerning himself with death and the life that supposedly followed it, but ever since losing them as well, he found himself wishing they were happy. He knew that those brats would be wasting the rest they earned to look over him, no matter how much he objected.

“I hope you like the spot I chose for you. It`s sunny, but you also get some shade from the tree. I thought you`d like listening to birds singing." On their free days, he could always spot Petra with a book on her lap, under the shade of the oak tree in their yard. He never dared to bother her, worried he would disturb the angelic aura of the image, content with being fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of it. He never dared get so close to the sun.

"I`m going to bring some flowers we can plant next time I visit. I know you had a green thumb.” Levi omitted in letting her know it only took a month for the plant in his office that she cared for years to wither away in his care. Or maybe it just knew Petra would never be back.

Levi closed his eyes, lulled to sleep by the quietness around him and the feeling of the afternoon sky on his skin, considering if someone would bother him if he moved to the tree trunk to nap. He craved some peace.

“I`m sorry I didn`t get to come earlier. You missed a real shit show in Sina.” He took a glance at his wounded leg and sighed. “It`s not as bad as it looks, no need to mother me.”

Without raising his eyes from the ground in front of him, Levi admitted to her in a hoarse voice- “I kept calling out orders for you, and Erwin had to remind me that you`re not here anymore. Like I could ever fucking forget.”

Despite the emptiness in his chest, he went on- “Eren misses you. I really wish you could help me manage that brat. You always knew what to say to him. Hange misses you. I… everyone misses you.” They left a hole behind that he doubted he would ever patch.

Levi cleaned off some dust from her headstone before promising her he would be back as soon as he could.

As promised, the second time Levi visited her, he got her some daisies to plant next to her resting place. After wiping his hands clean on a rag, Levi sat down against the tree trunk to admire his work. He was sure Petra would be proud of the progress he made regarding gardening. He had even gotten a new plant to replace the one on his desk.

“Tch, not talkative today, are we? That`s alright, you know I always talk a lot.”

Visiting her calmed his restless spirit. His anxiety over the plan, his worry over Erwin`s wellbeing, his longing to have his old squad by his side again, they were all pilling up for the last few days. Levi found himself losing even more sleep lately. But he would never tell her that since it would most likely end in another one of her scoldings.

“You`re missing it, the final push. The brat`s finally going to do it, he`s going to seal the Wall.” Levi hoped that they would be able to carry out the mission. That his squad`s sacrifice to keep Eren alive would not have been in vain.

“You`re not being fair, are you? You already know what we will find in the basement, and yet you keep it all to yourself. Tch, be like that.” Would it all be worth it? The pain, the countless sacrifices, and the lives lost along the way? He wished Petra could answer that for him.

He never wanted to upset her, but Petra always encouraged him to let others help him carry the burden. Levi took a deep breath before speaking again- “I think Eren misses you. He`s been going on about how he wants to visit you again. Bring you flowers. To help me maintain this place clean." Levi rolled his eyes again and the memory. "Like I would ever need his help with that.”

Levi took the ribbon out of his pocket and started fiddling with it, ignoring the slight pang of guilt at how he came into its possession.

“I hope you won`t mind I took that.” The first night he spent without them, Levi found himself roaming the empty corridors of the castle. When his steps took him in front of Petra`s door, the urge to hold on to something physical to remember her overtook his sense of shame. He was aware that her belongings would go back to her parents in the next few days, but he hoped the red ribbon Petra used to tie her hair with would not be missed.

“I took your patch at first. I was going to keep it in my breast pocket. To have a reminder of your sacrifice. But when I saw that kid eaten up by guilt, I knew what I had to do. I knew what you would have wanted me to do with it.” He had no regrets about that. It was the perfect way to honor the kindest soldier the Survey Corps ever had.

When the light began to fade, Levi got up from his spot and left without saying another word to Petra. He did not want to say goodbye to her. Levi felt no need for it since death could be in his cards the next day. And he could get to see her again sooner than he thought.

The third time Levi visited her, it was not with a flower bouquet in his hand but with a bottle of cheap alcohol he found on Moblit`s desk. That night, Levi allowed grief to consume him.

"Erwin died. But I have a feeling you know that already, don`t you?" Levi wiped his nose with the back on his hand, too absorbed in his anger to even care about the disgusting habit.

"Are you mad at him? Are you mad that he chose to sacrifice your life?"

But only silence greeted him.

"Are you mad that I didn`t even question it?"

No answer again. The rage burning inside him overtook him, and Levi smashed the bottle against the headstone.

"Shit. I`m sorry, I shouldn`t have done that." Levi crouched down and collected the pieces of the bottle into his handkerchief. The grief, the anger, and now the shame for denigrating her place of rest were eating him alive.

"We found out the truth, you know? It`s a shitty world out there, Ral. But I have a feeling not even that would have cut off your wings."

Levi found himself craving touch. Her touch. And for the first time in his life, he felt the need to be comforted. He smiled to himself bitterly. How cruel must the deity who created him be for making him desire the impossible?

The fourth time Levi visited her, he brought a special gift for her. A small, odd thing that Armin called seashell.

“We saw the sea today. Just a big old pile of saltwater. But you would have loved it.”

Seeing the brats play in the water with carefree smiles on their face made him yearn for a glimpse of amber hair in the picture. He missed them all dearly.

“I would have to pull you out of it by the collar of your shirt, I bet.” For as devoted and strict as she was, Petra always seemed to cause him distress. Not that he minded it, of course. Levi found himself wishing to hear her timid knocks on his door again, even in the middle of the night. He longed for those times, where she shyly approached him after needing his help in whatever problem she found herself stuck in again.

While that was not his intention when he first came to her, his heart was heavy with words he never said to her. "The world hates us, Ral." He could never imagine how someone would ever detest someone as kind as Petra just for the blood running in her veins. But if he had to be true to himself, a part of him hated Petra as well.

"Maybe I hate you too."

Petra broke his promises to him, after all. Two years ago, when death was imminent on an expedition, and Petra put down her swords in acceptance, Levi fought with her. He made her promise she would make it to the end. That she would be by his side the day they kill the last titan.

"Do you remember your promises to me? Such bullshit. Never thought you were a liar, Petra."

But Levi knew she would have never left him had she had a choice. That she would have fought for even just a second more by his side. But it never dulled the pain of losing her.

With a heavy heart, Levi said his goodbye for the evening, guilty for blaming her for things out of her control.

The fifth time Levi visited her, it was snowing outside.

It was always a wonder how someone radiating light and warmth could be a winter child. But Levi was sure he memorized the date right. It was an important one for him, after all. Levi fought to make sure he had enough time to get ready for celebrating her birthday. She deserved nothing more than a perfect day. Hange had been more than understanding, the wound left by losing Moblit still fresh in their heart.

Levi put the bouquet of twenty-two golden roses on the frozen ground. “Happy birthday. Twenty-two, huh? You`re turning into an old woman, Ral.” The irony of his words made a slight pang of guilt rise in his chest. The passing of time would never touch her again.

“I have your favorite”- he said, lightly shaking the box containing a small vanilla cake. Sugar was a rarity, but getting a cake was an unspoken rule in his squad. Their lives were too short to worry about the money. The first thing Levi noticed about Petra was the faint flower smell emanating from her. The first thing after setting his eyes on her clean nails, of course. On her first birthday that they celebrated as a squad, Levi gifted Petra a bottle of scented body lotion. And some high-quality cleaning rags, of course. But she did not pay attention to that. She and the rest of the Survey Corps never knew how to appreciate the finer things in life. But Levi did not miss the way her face lit up when he noticed something she enjoyed.

“I could never understand your sweet tooth, but today, I`m going to have a slice of cake.” Levi always refrained from indulging in this vice. Having grown unaccustomed to sugar, the idea of sweetness was unappealing to him. He always felt bad for disappointing her each year when she sat in front of him, with a small piece of cake she had cut for him. “Or two slices. Two is more appropriate anyway. If I get cavities, it`s on your ass.”

The ground was too cold for him to sit down on, and Levi made a mental note to build a small bench close to her headstone. He opened the box and eyed the cake wearily, considering if he should change his mind. He took a small bite of the cake, and he almost choked on it. “Oi, this is so damn sweet. How the fuck could you eat so much of it?” But it did not stop him from finishing his slice.

Levi expected to find some flowers lying in the snow or at least some tracks leading up to her grave.

“Does your old man still come around? I`ve never crossed paths with him since the expedition.” Sometimes, when he closed his eyes at night, he could still recall Mr. Ral`s pained expression when he realized there was no one left for him to wait for.

“Maybe it`s for the best. I bet he doesn`t want to see me again.” To see the face of the man who was supposed to protect his daughter. The face of the man his daughter wanted to devote her life to. The man who could not even bring him a body home to bury.

“I`m a shit. Ruining your birthday with talk like this.” Levi was never good at this. In his spot, Eld would have teased Petra about her first expedition. Tell her how now that she was a big girl, she ought to refrain from soiling herself again. Petra would turn red from embarrassment and elbow Eld in the ribs. Gunther would point out that despite their age, they are still children. And proceed with teasing Petra himself. Oluo would try to defend Petra`s honor to gain her attention, which would make him the target instead. Levi gave a small smile at the thoughts. He missed them dearly, more than he would ever care to admit.

Levi crouched down and cleared the layer of snow covering her headstone. He ran his finger alongside the letters of her name, wishing he would have had more opportunities to write it down.

“Happy birthday again, brat.”

The last time he visited her, Levi had company. Gabi and Falco did not give it another thought before offering to help him see her again before they would all leave for a new life. A better life, he hoped. But without her by his side, it was never going to be perfect. Gabi set down the flowers before they gave him privacy. While they never asked him about who she was, they knew Levi must have cared for her a great deal.

"Hi, brat. It`s been a while."

He had so much to say to her, and yet, he did not know where to start. A part of him expected to join her during the last battle, but fate always had something new in store for him. Levi was uncertain if it was luck by his side or a curse to watch everyone he ever cared about die. But life was looking brighter, and Levi promised himself he would never lose anyone again.

"Are Hange and Erwin with you now? How about the guys?" He wished for nothing more than to be there by their side. But Levi knew they would never forgive him if he did not try to live the remainder of his life to the fullest. And for them, he would try.

"Does Oluo still bite his tongue? Did he try to flirt with you again? Is Eld still teasing you? Does Gunther still treat you as a little sister?" Levi chuckled at the memory of their antics. He learned the hard way that he never appreciated them enough before he lost them.

"I hope there is an afterlife. I hope it`s peaceful. You all deserve it. Such a shitty end..." He closed his eyes and sighed at the words coming out of his mouth. "I`m sorry, I didn`t mean it. But you already knew that. I was always an open book to you."

Levi felt guilty for leaving the home they bled for behind, but if he were truthful, it had not felt like home to him for years. With no one left by his side, nothing was keeping him in Paradise anymore. While neither of them voiced it out, he had dreamed of a future with Petra by his side. And for her, he would try to live a long and happy life. Before he got to be with her.

"I`m sorry... for the future I never got to offer you. The one you deserved. I`m sorry for the house I never got to build for us, for the vows we never got to take, for the brats that will never play in my backyard." Levi knew Petra would encourage him to find love, but he never would again. He could never imagine a future by someone else`s side.

Levi glanced back at her grave for one last time before he set out for the remainder of his life- "I`ll see you soon. Wait for me."

ao3

#petra ral #rivetra #rivetra fanfiction #rivetra fanfic #my writing

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mediocre--writing · 4 years ago

Note

Heyyyyyy can you write something sweet with George Weasley?

Maybe reader works in a flower shop nearby? Or literally anything with him because reasons😄 thanks😘

Summary: After your initial meeting, you and George become fast friends, but what if there’s more under the surface?

Word Count: 2066

Warnings: none

The Weasleys, a large pack of gingers who seemed to always overtake any space they were in, were on their yearly trip to Diagon Alley.

As usual, it was destined that one of them would get lost or get distracted by the pretty displays along the sidewalks.

Ginny, the youngest of them, was entranced by the flower shop near the corner of the street. There was a lovely bouquet of daffodils near the window and their bright color was so magical, she felt as though they were calling to her.

As the rest of the family moved onward, Ginny started walking towards the flower shop.

The twins, ever the distracted, decided to follow their younger sister into the shop.

An older man stood behind the counter, going through the till, wrapping coins into rolls and putting old receipts in a box. Behind him, there was a woman arranging a bouquet of roses and baby's breath.

There was soft music playing in the shop and when the bell above the door rang, both the man and woman turned to look at Ginny, then the twins behind her.

“Hello!” The woman perked up at the shoppers, “What may I do for you all today?”

“Just looking around, ma’am,” Ginny spoke as she looked around the shop.

There were vines crawling down the walls, lavender in bunches hanging from the ceiling, drying out. It seemed as though flowers were being grown in the shop itself, rather than another field somewhere.

A younger girl, probably around the twin’s age, came from the back of the shop, flowers braided into her hair as well as pinned on to her apron.

Fred had followed Ginny over to the window display, where she saw the daffodils, and George had been taking in the spectacular shop. The girl who had come from the backroom looked at George for a moment, recognizing him from somewhere.

“Do you go to Hogwarts?” She asked him, jumping him out of his trance. He nodded, “Me too! What year are you?”

“Going into Third, you?” He asked, unconsciously straightening his sweater.

“Going to Third, as well,”

She has such a pretty smile, George thought to himself as he stared at her face, which had to be made by the gods.

“So why’re you here?” She asked kindly, to which he jabbed his thumb over to Ginny and Fred.

“Sister came in ‘cause she thought the flowers in the window were pretty.”

“Cool, cool,” She nodded. “So what’s your name?”

“George,” he smiled, then nodded over to his siblings, “That’s Fred and Ginny.”

“Well, my name’s Y/n. What house are you in?”

“Gryffindor,” He held himself up a little straighter, as if being a Gryffindor was the greatest accomplishment. “What house are you?”

“Slytherin,” She smiled and he felt his brain hurt after her statement.

She was so kind and sweet and if he had to guess, he would have said Hufflepuff, or maybe Ravenclaw, but not Slytherin.

“Right, well,” He didn’t know what to say, how were you supposed to react to that?

Luckily, he didn’t need to respond, as Fred had called him to leave the shop and go back to school shopping.

“I’ll see you at school!” Y/n yelled to him as he walked out, but she didn’t get a response.

“Make another friend, Bug?” Her dad asked sweetly.

“Probably not,” She smiled the best she could.

While walking away from the shop, Fred noticed that George seemed out of it, he wasn’t laughing along with them.

“What’s up?”

“The girl in there, she was sweet, right?”

“Seemed it,” Fred commented, “You were all blushy around her,”

“She’s a Slytherin,”

“Ooh, bad luck,” Fred said, then the conversation was dropped.

He tried not to think about her.

He didn’t think about her smile and how she seemed so inviting. He didn’t think about the pretty red flowers she had in her hair. He didn’t think about how she had dirt all over her apron and clothes, but still looked absolutely stunning.

He most definitely didn’t think about how in her element she looked in the shop, like there was no other place in the world where she felt so at home.

It wasn’t until they were back in school that he saw her again. But it took a few weeks into the term for them to talk, since they hadn’t been alone.

They talked for the first time when McGonagall had to separate Fred and George, so she stuck George next to Y/n.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back, but seemed tense and reluctant when doing so.

She tried to start conversations, and he talked along, hesitant at first, but ultimately relaxed as she went on about her day, or a story from when she was younger, and he would respond with a childhood story of his own.

And thus began the wondrous friendship between a Goofy Gryffindor and a Sweet Slytherin.

Every once and awhile, she’d sit with the twins at dinners or breakfasts, which got her weird looks the first few times, though people were used to it by the fifth time.

With the years following, they only ever got closer.

She comforted him in their fourth year when his sister, Ginny, had gone missing during the Basilisk attacks.

He wouldn’t leave her side when word of Sirius Black being near the castle was going around.

When he and his family had gotten tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, she’d been invited, being close with the twins and all.

Molly instantly took a liking to her, especially because she showed up with a bouquet of Our Molly Roses Y/n had made as a thank you.

When the attacks happened the night after, George refused to let her out of his sight, insisting that she preceded him while running to the forest.

He’d become a bit more protective after that, not letting her out of his sight when he could help it.

During their sixth year, when he and Fred tried to get past the age line, she was the first to laugh. That year, she also became closer with Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

Ron was a little twerp and Harry had so much anxiety she wasn’t sure how he was still alive. Hermione, however, became a good friend to Y/n. She looked up to her as an older sister, which made Y/n want to cry, being an only child and all.

But as the Yule Ball approached, Y/n was being asked left and right, given her kindness and beauty wooed most of the boys, and some girls, at Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang alike.

George instantly felt inferior compared to all the others attempting to coerce her into being their date. He felt he had an advantage, however, given she’d said no to every person who’d asked her so far, and he was her best friend.

When he’d finally gotten the courage to ask, a mere week before the dance, they’d been laying on a hill far from the castle, watching the sun rise early in the morning.

She was the only person to make him wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to watch a measly sunrise.

She was threading flowers around themselves, fashioning a ring of yellow and green as she picked them from around where they lay.

While she was focusing on her flower crown, peeking up at the vibrant sunrise every once and awhile, George couldn’t take his eyes off of her beautiful side-profile.

He admired the way the new sunlight made her face a beautiful golden shade and enhanced each curve and point of her face.

“Stop staring, Weasley,” She said with a smirk as she continued her ring of daisies.

“Wasn’t staring, L/n,”

“Don’t lie,” she chuckled as she began to wrap the first daisy around the last, officially making the circle.

“That’s a wonderful flower crown you’ve made there,”

“Yeah, I’m giving it to the most amazing person I know,”

The way she looked into his eyes made his heart falter for a moment. He felt like she could see into his soul, like she knew what he wanted to ask her.

However, she proceeded to place the daisy crown onto her own head, straightening it as she kept eye contact with George, who let out a loud snort.

“Of course,” He said through giggles, eventually laying back onto the grassy hill, her body following after his once the crown was secure on her head.

“I mean, could you think of anyone better?”

“Never,” He smiled as he tilted his head to stare at her. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Course,” She smiled, “But if you want the crown you’ll have to fight me for it,”

“Oh, I’d never steal your crown, your highness,”

“Ooh, I like that. You should always call me ‘your highness,’” She smirked wickedly, but her eyes were filled with pure joy. “So what’d you wanna ask?”

He scratched his head, pushing his hair out of his face. “I know you’ve been asked by just about everyone, and said no, but would you want to go to the Yule Ball with me?”

“Yes,”

“That was quick,” He grinned at her immediate response.

“Well I’ve been waiting for months,” She rolled her eyes. “All those other people just wanted to go with me to say they went with me, but if I went with you, then it would really mean something.”

“You mean a lot to me,”

“Same here,”

They laid there, in their chunky sweaters and pajama pants, on that hill, until they could see kids walking to their first class of the day.

George and Y/n had the same first period class, so they leisurely walked to the greenhouses in their warm pajamas and none of their school supplies, to which they talked their way out of a detention with Sprout, and then got dressed and grabbed their stuff before going to their second period.

As the Yule Ball drew closer, Y/n became more and more frazzled.

The night of, she’d promised to help Hermione first, given she was going with Victor Krum, and therefore had to have the first dance. She’d done her hair and gotten mostly ready, apart from the dress and final details, then gone to prepare her little friend.

Y/n had done Hermione’s hair, which looked great, thank you very much, and helped her learn to walk in the heels she’d gotten, which was a lot harder than it needed to be.

About 20 minutes before Hermione needed to leave, Y/n had gotten her dress on, since it needed to be tied in the back, and gotten Hermione’s opinion on her hair and makeup.

Y/n then sent Hermione to the dance.

She was still making sure that her hair wouldn’t get too out of place and was fastening her shoes when she began to hear music from the Great Hall.

She was running so late.

She raced down as quick as she could in her heels, trying not to sweat too much as she got to the Great Hall.

Waiting until the first song finished, she pushed open the door and began searching for George, who was already staring at her in awe.

So was most of the hall.

Scurrying over to the ginger, she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

“You look…” He let out a breathy sigh as he couldn’t find the words.

She had on a deep green ball gown that had a faint floral pattern on the skirt, shining in the lights. In her hair, just like the day they’d met, she had flowers braided into her hair, yellow ones this time, and they looked almost as beautiful as she did

“And you as well,” She chuckled as she took in his maroon, velvet robes that had lace detailing on the trim, though it looked really good on him, or maybe she was just biased.

“Shall we dance, your highness,�� He bowed jokingly.

“Ahh, you remembered my real name, how nice,” She laughed as they went out to the dance floor, twirling around and smiling brighter than any other couple there, and drawing the most attention, too.

For good reason though, they gave hope to others that happiness bloomed from the heart, and despite scary times, love would grow endlessly.

#george weasley #george weasley x reader #george #weasley #weasley x reader #harry potter #yule ball #harry potter x reader #weasley twins x reader #george x reader #x reader

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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

Text

Prequel to ‘The Crow’s Funeral’: How Agnes + Gerry met, then proceeded to set Jon on fire.

Exactly what it says on the tin. This exists because I was rereading TCF and went “hey did I ever figure out how Agnes and Gerry met”. I didn’t, so this is it. Rest under the cut. No specific warnings except for the fact that, shockingly enough, Jon had gone through a lot of character development prior to the start of TCF and was actually a complete asshole for a year or two.

“Daisy? What are you looking for?”

Agnes’s expression stretched into terror. She mouthed ‘fuck!’, and slapped a hand over her mouth. She didn’t breathe, and her chest never rose and fell, but she abruptly started trembling.

For the first time, Gerry reached out to reassure her. But her body heat had abruptly tripled, and Gerry was forced to pull back. In the small, unventilated space, it quickly became overwhelmingly hot.

“Shut it off!” Gerry hissed, as quietly as he physically could. “They’ll feel it -”

“That is the most dangerous monster in the world,” Agnes whispered, and Gerry fell silent. “Don’t move.”

For the first time in a very long time, in an apocalyptic world built on terror and fear, Gerry felt afraid.

Agnes was back.

Gerry didn’t know how she had found him. His hiding place was pretty well hidden, thank-you-very-much. Adults were always trying to barricade themselves in houses - stupid, when the nightshades could drift through shit - and kids were always trying to hide in closets or attics. But Gerry was the perfect mix of adult and child - or, as they’re known, teenagers - and he had way too much experience stripping houses down for the possessions of the recently deceased.

So Gerry knew about crawl spaces. Like in the Magician’s Nephew, some older row houses had little secret tunnels between each house. You couldn’t quite get into each house normally, but there were always gaps and weak points and hatches. Even better, at the very top there was a hidden attic where the generator and power box lived. It was small, and there were definitely some gross animal corpses that Gerry could have sworn moved, but it was mostly safe. So much as anything was safe.

But, somehow, Agnes had found him. Gerry didn’t know what she was doing exploring row houses for fun, but judging from the scent of smoke that’s been in the air lately he didn’t want to know.

The sharp rapping echoed through the small attic, directly under the hatch with a huge heavy space heater dumped on it. Gerry had other means of entry, and Agnes thought that was the only door. Please! As if Gerry would live somewhere with only one escape exit. That was just asking to get stuck in a nightmare for a month.

But, then again, maybe Agnes had never had to worry about that.

“I brought food!” The high, clear voice called out - slightly muffled from the ceiling/floor, but unmistakable. “It’s Twinkies! Come down to eat it!”

“No way!” Gerry called down back. “I bet you put offal in it!”

“What does offal mean!”

“It’s, like, organs! Go away, lady!”

“I told you!” Agnes called back, weirdly delighted. “My name’s Agnes! I’m a Princess!”

“Princess of what, being lame!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you, Princess Agnes!”

“Fuck me yourself!”

Ugh! She was so annoying! This was her fourth fucking time coming by here, and ever since she had realized that he was just a teenage boy she had been leaving food in front of the attic door. It was always weird food, too. Didn’t she know what humans ate?

Stupidly on cue, Gerry’s stomach rumbled. Ugh.

“Go away,” Gerry called back, eager for her to just leave already so he could eat the shitty food she had undoubtedly left. “I don’t feel like getting turned into a candle today!”

For some reason, she didn’t reply to that. Gerry wondered if she was trying to fool him into thinking she was leaving, but joke’s on her - Gerry could hear footsteps all the way through the house. He waited with bated breath for a minute, two minutes, slowly growing confused why she wasn’t either yelling at him or leaving.

He’d never tell her, but he kind of enjoyed fighting with her.

Finally, she called out, with an emotion in her voice that he had never heard from her before, “Is that why you won’t come out? You think I’d turn you into a candle?”

Gerry was flabbergasted. “Yes?” he called back. “You turn everyone into candles.”

“...it’s not just because you don’t like me?”

Aw, man. Gerry abruptly felt a little bad for the flame monster cult leader lady. She couldn’t be any older than him. “You’re really nice,” Gerry called back, feeling like an idiot. “I just didn’t make it this far by not being careful! Thanks for the food, though!”

A longer silence this time. For some reason, Gerry felt a weird kind of anxious. Not the normal level of ‘aaah im gonna get eaten’ anxious. But something different. He couldn’t describe it.

Finally, Agnes called back, “Do you want me to stop bothering you? I’m sorry if I’ve been harassing you. I’m not good at - at all of this.”

Gerry sat in his own silence, sitting cross-legged in front of the space heater on top of the hatch. His baggy jeans clung to his legs, slightly sweaty and definitely unwashed, and his raggedy thin black jacket was also a little sweaty. His hair was plastered to his head, limp and dirty. Wherever Agnes went, heat followed.

People who made dumb decisions didn’t live very long. Gerry had lived for quite a while - well, he was fifteen, but he had made it all year without getting eaten, which was really quite impressive.

And he had made it alone. When he woke up in this green and terrifying world, Mum hadn’t been there. He had looked for her for months. He had almost been ripped to shreds in Pinhole Books. She wasn’t in any of their usual London hideaways, either. Maybe she was outside of London, somewhere far away…

In all of Gerry’s books, he’d pack up his backpack and set out to look for Mum. He wouldn’t stop until he found her. Then he’d find out that she’d been embroiled in some plot to stop all of this, and he’d help her, and she’d hug him…

But it wasn’t a book. No matter how strange this new world was, fiction couldn’t begin to match. And Gerry didn’t really miss his Mum. Not really. He missed the fact that he was alone. He missed the fact that she was powerful and smart and talented, and definitely would have been able to protect the both of them. Gerry had to protect himself now, and he missed that safety more than he ever missed Mum.

Gerry wondered if Agnes was lonely. How could she, with a whole cult?

It was a stupid decision. But Gerry had always trusted too easy, anyway.

He stood up and pushed the space heater with a thick, screeching grinding sound that scraped uncomfortably along the wood. With a final heave, he pushed it off the hatch, and reluctantly bent down to lift the hatch and unfold the ladder.

“If you turn me into a candle I’m giving you an allergy attack,” Gerry called down, and the girl known as Agnes Montague smiled up at him brilliantly.

***

That wasn’t how Agnes and Gerry started. But it had been, maybe, how they got going.

Agnes, Gerry found out very quickly, was a hot-tempered girl. Save the jokes. She was always dressed like a sixties hippie, and her long red hair was always somehow glistening and clean. She let Gerry touch it, very carefully, and - yep, even the hair was wax. What a weird person.

After a bit of frantic introductions and suspicious squinting from both sides, Gerry and Agnes had eventually sat down cross-legged from each other as Gerry stuffed Twinkies in his mouth and she eyed them warily. She had eyed them with a bit of trepidation, but Gerry’s obvious joy at eating them must have made her curious. That was one thing Agnes was: curious. Almost to death.

“You really live up here? And you’ve never gotten trapped by a nightmare?”

Gerry shrugged uncomfortably, sucking at his fingers. “Yep. I run around town a lot too, cuz I get bored otherwise. It’s easy to evade all of that shit if you know how.”

“Wow.” It was probably her being a fire person or whatever, but Agnes’ eyes seemed to sparkle a little bit. “My cult members barely even let me outside by myself, and I can set shit on fire. You’re really weird for a human.”

Gerry couldn’t help but puff out his chest a little, even if he would have preferred her to use any other word than ‘weird’. “That’s what happens when your Mum trains you since birth to be a demon hunter.” He faltered a little. “I’m not sure if she knew this would happen, but I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Your mum knew?” Agnes gasped. “I thought nobody knew about the Entities before the apocalypse!”

“Your cult members must have known, right?” Gerry pointed out, and Agnes nodded in concession of the point. “Yeah, there were always a few of us. Not a lot, though. Tight-knit community, everyone knew each other. Hobbyists, you know. It sucked. Most of the people who got involved in the supernatural were jerks.” Actually, now that Gerry thought about it… “That crazy apocalypse prepper Salasea must be coming out like a bandit right now.”

Agnes nodded sagely, as if she knew who Salasea was. Maybe she did? Gerry had always gotten the impression that if all of the demon hunters knew each other, then maybe all of the demons did too. Eventually word about Mum had really started to get around.

“You’re the first interesting human I’ve met,” Agnes said thoughtfully. “Most of them just - like, scream, you know? Or pretend I’m not there. Like if they don’t acknowledge me then I can’t hurt them. And, like, that’s the way it works for a lot of these things! But I’m a person too, you know?”

“You really aren’t.”

“I have feelings,” Agnes said firmly. “But maybe the reason why you’re still safe isn’t because you’re a super cool human hunter, Gerry.”

“It has to be a part of it,” Gerry said aggressively, eager to assert his masculinity and how cool he was.

“Of course,” Agnes allowed, making Gerry huff. “But I think it’s because you aren’t scared. You were wondering how I found you, right?” Gerry nodded slowly. He had been wondering how Agnes had caught on that he was living here. “It was because I felt a person - I can always feel body heat - but I didn’t taste any fear. I was setting some row houses on fire just to feel something, and you weren’t feeling anything either!” She set her expression firmly, almost bravely. “I think we’re the same.”

“A goth human teenager living in an attic and a flame princess of the fire cult?” Gerry asked skeptically. They couldn’t be less similar. Gerry lived each day in - well, as Agnes pointed out, not fear, but he was constantly just trying to survive. It was all he had ever known, but he knew that others didn’t live like that. He had known when he was a kid - that other kids were normal, were happy - and he knew it now. That a small handful of people in this world were having a blast, and that everyone else suffered. “We’re nothing alike.”

But Agnes faltered, just a bit, and Gerry just a little bit of that loneliness in her expression again. “You’re the only other kid who’s had a conversation with me.” She paused a beat. “Besides, like, Callum, but he’s a baby.”

Maybe, in a schoolyard or a town or a world, Gerry and Agnes weren’t so similar. Maybe they’d have nothing in common. But maybe, in this world that was both so isolated and so unified, they could be a little similar after all.

“I’ll allow it,” Gerry said graciously. He wanted to shake her hand, but he deeply knew that it was a bad idea. Instead, he broke his Twinkie in half, and held out the other one to her. “Friends?”

Agnes eyed the Twinkie warily. “Do you become friends by asking to be friends with someone?”

“I dunno, I don’t have any friends.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

But she took the Twinkie. It was a start.

****

Of course, Gerry and Agnes were far more alike than they had first thought. Mostly in the fact that their evil mothers had killed their fathers (which Gerry had the sneaking suspicion wasn’t a universal experience) and that the both of them were actually kind of literally protagonists of a YA book.

Well, Gerry had always been the protagonist of his own life. But he would write a story about Agnes too: about the spoiled princess who rejected her destiny. Who had a really cool previous life where she was all dramatic and sad and stuff, who died tragically only to be reborn as a magical teenage girl. Seriously, it was right out of a Sarah J Maas novel.

Maybe they latched onto each other too quickly, but it was the kind of latching on when you made friends with another kid at the orientation to summer camp and then religiously stuck to the kid once the actual camp started until you got another friend. Maybe. Gerry's never been to summer camp, how was he supposed to know.

But Agnes was sharply quick, surprisingly kind, and fiercely protective. Gerry had never met somebody who cared as much as her. It was really weird. He supposed that people like her, the powerful and destructive, had the privilege to care.

Agnes snuck over more and more often, and sometimes Gerry went to go visit her. Eventually they started roaming the streets together, loitering in businesses and committing general acts of tomfoolery. Gerry was an old hat at tomfoolery - he had only been vaguely supervised most of his life - but Agnes encroached every second of minor rule breaking with cautious glee.

Not that there really were rules anymore. Even if you were the kind of juvenile delinquent that got adults yelling at you and caused minor or major property damage, it wasn’t as if the cops were going to come and take you away. Either you got away with it, or you were eaten for a while. This was very natural to Gerry, and after a little bit of convincing it came easily to Agnes too. Maybe they really were well-suited for each other after all.

If Gerry’s Mum could see him now, she would call him ‘dreadful’ and ‘ill-mannered’ and ‘badly behaved’. But...she wasn’t there, so she could hardly complain. Served her right.

Months - maybe - later, Gerry and Agnes were hanging out in Gerry’s crawlspace again after a long day terrorizing demons and old men alike. They were splitting a blood orange - literally - and letting the sticky juice (juice?) run down their hands, laughing as Agnes imitated the look of shock on the old man’s face. Sitting down on the floor, flavor bursting sweet on his tongue, as Agnes teased him for dropping peels everywhere...Gerry was almost happy.

Rookie mistake.

Agnes sensed it first, stiffening slightly as her body pulsed slightly warmer. Gerry scooted a little further away from her carefully as she turned to look at the thin plaster wall, brow furrowing.

“Is it a nightmare?” Gerry whispered. “Or a person?”

“Neither,” Agnes whispered back. “It’s…”

Then Gerry heard it too: the clack of nails on hardwood, and a sound so terrifying it made his gut tie itself into knots. It was a growl, bestial and wet. Something was snarling outside.

Gerry stopped breathing, sitting absolutely still. The sounds of sniffing and snarling were loud and distinct, and he couldn’t help but stare at the sticky, juicy, smelly orange in his hands. Agnes was also still, far more completely than Gerry ever could be, carefully listening.

He wanted to whisper to Agnes, make a game plan, but the monster would hear them. Part of Gerry wanted to tremble in fear, but that wasn’t useful. He forced himself to calm down as best as he could while keeping his breaths minimal. Remember Dune. Fear was the mind killer. Fear is the little death.

But then Agnes smiled at him faintly, making a gentle gesture with her hand. Agnes was a literal fire messiah. She could take almost any monster. Gerry had never seen her afraid of anything, just contemptuous or annoyed. Having her there with him was more reassuring than any book quote, and Gerry exhaled softly as he smiled back at her. Agnes was going to torch that monster, and it would be super cool, and they’d high five, and -

“Daisy? What are you looking for?”

Agnes’s expression stretched into terror. She mouthed ‘fuck!’, and slapped a hand over her mouth. She didn’t breathe, and her chest never rose and fell, but she abruptly started trembling.

“Shut it off!” Gerry hissed, as quietly as he physically could. “They’ll feel it -”

“That is the most dangerous monster in the world,” Agnes whispered, and Gerry fell silent. “Don’t move.”

For the first time in a very long time, in an apocalyptic world built on terror and fear, Gerry felt afraid.

A faint yipping echoed through the space, almost like a dog. It could never be mistaken for a dog.

“Well, yes, there’s people everywhere. Other places have more people, even. Why can’t we just go there?” Another bark, a low bass cut. “Oh, if it’s a Hunt, then it’s alright.”

The heat was growing oppressive, and Gerry frantically motioned for Agnes to cut it out. He was withholding his own ragged breathing, and abruptly Gerry felt as if he couldn’t breathe. It was just making him more scared, the sweat trickling down his neck -

There was another yip, so close it might as well be made in his ear. It clearly came from directly in front of him.

Gerry couldn’t help it - he screamed, overwhelmed with fire and heat and fear and the wolf at their door.

The wall exploded.

Dust and insulation burst outwards in a fine white cloud, and Gerry and Agnes were abruptly coughing intensely and the wall cracked, folded, and collapsed inwards. Gerry was showered with fragments of wood and plaster, stifling another scream, and screwed his eyes shut against the sudden influx of light.

He cracked them open as quickly as he could, unwilling to meet whatever was in front of him with his eyes closed. Instantly, overwhelmingly, Gerry was brought face to snout with a giant wolf.

Gerry firmly believed that people weren’t meant to see apex predators up close. Nobody should be able to touch a bear, was Gerry’s opinion. What was an anaconda? Gerry was on the opposite side of the room. He wasn’t afraid, but he hadn’t made it to the ripe old age of fifteen without being highly cautious.

It wasn’t right, staring this wolf in the face. Every inch of it stood out to him: the slobber, the snarl, the canines almost as long as his hand. It was silvery white, with a thick ruff and coat, and Gerry watched in awe as the wolf snarled and -

And stopped snarling. It started looking at him curiously instead, bushy tail sweeping gently side to side.

The immediate problem almost solved, Gerry was able to take in the figure behind the wolf.

He was a guy. Unfairly tall, Black with curly hair drawn tight into a ponytail. Sharp features, undercut by unnaturally green eyes. He was in a suit that looked like he had put it on three months ago and had never changed. He was...wearing a trenchcoat? He was just a guy!

“A human!” The man - monster? Guy? Nightmare? Avatar? - cried. “Oh, good job, Daisy! You’re a fantastic investigator.” The wolf - Daisy was a stupid name for a wolf - barked lowly. “Yes, it is like an oven in here, isn’t it?”

Gerry opened his mouth, then closed it. He was still cowering on his ass, covered in dust and plaster. This guy was Agnes’ monster? Maybe she had mistaken him for someone else. “Who -”

“He’s even talking!” The man exclaimed, as if he was a dancing monkey. “They never talk to me voluntarily, you know.” Daisy barked again. “I think it’s cute! Kids are so repetitive, but this one smells great. Good job, Daisy.”

Before Gerry could protest the man stepped forward and looked down at him, and a sick realization trickled through him.

The man had nothing behind his eyes. Bright green, sick and churning, radioactive and poisonous. His expression was absent and vaguely curious, like a child watching an ant crawl through its anthill. Slowly, intensely, the man’s placid expression broke into a sharp and demented smile.

It wasn’t the smile of a human staring at a tasty sandwich. It wasn’t even the smile of a monster drawing a human into a nightmare. It was the smile of a child holding the magnifying glass to the ant: triumphant, because now the child got to see what happens when an ant blackened to a crisp. Elated, because they were the child, and not the ant. Victorious, because they could only remember the distinction in the act of causing harm.

“Statement of -”

“Leave him alone!”

The monster exploded into flames.

Agnes leapt from her position in the crawlspace, slightly tucked away out of sight, and shoved at the wolf hard. The wolf yowled, her handprints blackening its fur, and it retreated snarling.

It was not the first time Gerry had seen someone set on fire. It happened a lot, when you hung out with Agnes. But the man burned, in bright and beautiful red-hot flames, crackling and searing the skin and air and sky. His mouth was open in a silent scream.

Something green shone from within the flames.

Then the flames were gone. It was as if he had never been set on fire at all. At most he smelled vaguely of burning flesh, and his hair had broken free of its ponytail to settle in fuzzy waves.

The monster looked mildly peeved.

Agnes grabbed Gerry, leaving red-hot scorch marks on his hoodie, and yanked him behind her. Gerry was not embarrassed to say that he absolutely hid behind Agnes as she put herself between him and the monster and his wolf. The wolf who was now snarling deeply at them, and the slightly irritated monster who shook ash off his unharmed trench coat.

“I don’t care if you called dibs on him,” the monster bitched. “You don’t get to stop me in the middle of a - oh, Agnes!” The monster’s expression brightened as he snapped his fingers. “Agnes Montague, right? Your cult introduced me to you at - what was it -”

“Annabelle’s annual party five months ago,” Agnes said flatly. Her wax hair was still burning at the ends, and although Gerry couldn’t see her expression he knew it had to be fierce. “Nice to see you again, Jon. Now stay away from him.”

“If you called dibs then you shouldn’t have let me try to eat him,” Jon - which was the dumbest name for an evil monster - complained. He smelled his arm, grimacing. “Setting me on fire’s downright rude, Agnes. Didn’t Jude teach you any manners?”

“Go away!” Agnes yelled. Gerry realized quietly that she was still shaking. “He’s not yours! He’s the one thing you aren’t allowed to hurt!”

Jon frowned at her. Gerry could practically see it: Did_not_compute.exe. It simply didn’t make sense: that there was something in the world that he wasn’t allowed to hurt. That there was something in the world that was not his.

Before Jon could speak again, his wolf barked harshly at him. She kept barking, completely indecipherably, as Jon’s expression screwed up in uncomprehension. “What does it matter if they’re children.” The wolf barked. “I mean, I don’t actually care if we piss off the Desolation or not.” Bark, bark. “Why are you always guilt tripping me!” Bark, bark, bark, bark. Eventually Jon’s expression turned somewhat abashed, and then downright embarrassed.

“Right, right.” He turned back to Agnes and Gerry, a little sulky. “Sorry for trying to eat your human, Agnes. In my defense, he was quite -” The dog yipped. “ - innocent, and I’m sure he’s very fun. Great. Well, this was a waste of time. Call me if you get tired of him, Agnes.”

Jon turned to go, and Gerry could not see his back soon enough. The heat had died as Agnes calmed down, her arms crossed over her chest and scowling fiercely.

“Apologize to him!”

Jon froze, halfway across the room. Gerry quietly wanted to die.

The monster slowly turned on his heel, looking at Agnes with a faintly flabbergasted expression. “You can’t be serious -” The wolf barked again. Gerry had the impression that the wolf was in charge of him. “Stop ganging up on me -” Bark. “I don’t know how to talk to humans, don’t make me!” A very firm bark.

“Do it,” Agnes said firmly. “Or I’ll set you on fire again.”

Unbelievably, the monster groaned. He turned to Gerry, fluorescent eye twitching. “Alright, alright! Listen, uh - kiddo? Kiddo. I am very sorry that you tasted - I am very sorry that I tried to scar you for life and consume your trauma. I cannot stress enough how it’s nothing personal. There.” Weirdly enough, he looked a little proud of himself. “Hah. Totally rocked that talking to a human thing.”

“Uh,” Gerry said, too dizzy with the events of the last ten minutes to care very much about what he said, “is the wolf in charge of you?”

Even more unbelievably, the man brightened. “I’m her assistant! Not very many people pick that up. You’re very bright, little human. Do you want to pet her?” Jon glanced at Daisy, who looked unimpressed. Very loudly, he hissed at her, “Do children like petting dogs?”

The wolf, somehow, seemed to inform him that yes, they did.

They were in too deep now. Gerry walked up and petted the wolf. It was fucking awesome. Agnes groaned and pulled him back again very quickly. She seemed a little jealous. The wolf yipped at her and Agnes reluctantly petted the wolf too.

Jon clapped his hands. “Well! That was very unpleasant. I won’t ask what you’re doing hiding in a wall, Agnes. As a personal favor to you.”

“Thanks,” Agnes said flatly.

“Tell Diego and Jude that I’m not doing it. Or eating your human. As a personal favor to you.”

“Definitely will.”

“Fantastic.” Jon’s eyes glinted, in the soft light of Agnes’ flames. “I’m very happy you’ve reincarnated into that fun child’s body, Agnes. Children are so tempestuous and impulsive. I wouldn’t have tolerated an adult setting me on fire. You understand that, don’t you?”

Agnes nodded, almost shakily.

“You understand that for an adult, that would have had very different consequences.”

Agnes nodded again.

“Fantastic!” Then Jon was beaming again, all carelessness and laziness. “Have fun, you little delinquents. Come on, Daisy. I’m famished.”

He swanned off, wolf following closely on his tail. But the wolf looked back as it crossed the threshold, large yellow eyes piercing in a way that Gerry just couldn’t name, before they both disappeared. As slowly and terrifyingly as they had come.

Ten seconds passed, then fifteen.

Agnes crumpled to her knees and bent over the floor, shaking, and her hands pressed hot scorch marks into the wood. She was still shuddering, and Gerry bent down next to her. He couldn’t physically comfort her, but he could put his hand close to hers on the wood. As close as possible, yet never touching.

“We are so lucky to be alive,” Agnes breathed, before abruptly groaning. “I set him on fire! I set The Archivist on fire!”

The title tickled something in Gerry’s brain, bringing up an insane amount of questions, but he brushed them all aside. Gertrude was dead - or at the very least, very far away, where she was no good to him. She had to be, otherwise he would have noticed her cutting a swathe through Britain by now.

“Who is he?” Gerry asked. He didn’t really want to know, but...well, he was himself. He wanted to know everything. It was kind of his whole thing.

Agnes sat down on her knees, rubbing her forehead, and Gerry cautiously sat down next to her. “He’s the monster who sold the world. The most dangerous man ever made.”

“The most dangerous man in the world gets bossed around by his dog?” Gerry asked, before the words sunk in. “Wait, I thought that was Jonah Magnus!”

“Jonah Magnus doesn’t kill people because they annoy him!” Agnes snapped, before she groaned into her hands again. “And I set him on fire…Diego is going to kill me!”

“For what it’s worth,” Gerry said awkwardly, “I’m glad you set him on fire. He was kind of a dick.” He paused again, uncertain of how to say it. “And...thanks for caring, I guess. You really don’t have to.” He shrugged, unwilling to state what had always been unsaid between them. “I’m a human. These things happen to us. You just have to deal with it.”

That was the way of the world. It had always been that way, even before the apocalypse. The strong and powerful and important like Jon kicked around smaller people, and the smaller people just hoped they survived it.

Gerry was a survivor. Nobody had ever saved him before. Maybe because nobody had ever saved him before.

Agnes tackled Gerry in a tight, pressing hug. She wasn’t hot at all, just mildly warm - an incredible act of effort and concentration on her part. Her arms were solid and unyielding, never mistaken for flesh, but she clutched at him with a unique desperation. Gerry cautiously hugged her back, letting her bury her head into his shoulder.

“Not to you,” Agnes whispered. “Nothing bad’s going to happen to you. Not even The Archivist.”

“You can’t promise that,” Gerry whispered.

“We’re family.” Agnes separated from him, stubbornly fighting boiling tears. “And I’m sick of just dealing with it.”

Gerry opened his mouth, then closed it. “Family?” He said weakly.

Agnes blushed hotly. “If you want!” She tightened her fists on her skirt, winding the fabric between her fingers anxiously. “It’s just that - I know you don’t have anyone...and I have my cultists, but they don’t really care about me, not like you do...and I know it used to be different, that family used to mean something different, but I don’t care about what old people thought family meant. I care about you, and we’re sticking together, so that’s what we are.” She faltered a little. “If you want.”

“Siblings, then,” Gerry said faintly. “If you want.”

And he did want it. More than anything, Gerry wanted this.

When Agnes smiled at him, and she hugged him tightly again, Gerry was halfway certain that yet another disaster was about to befall them. He knew that meteors were going to strike, that the ground was going to open up and engulf them, that the world would end in fire and ice, because Gerry was so happy it clenched his heart. He was so happy he couldn’t breathe.

“It’ll be okay,” Agnes said into his shoulder, “we’ll never have to deal with Jonathan Sims again. I promise.”

****

It was not a promise Agnes kept.

They ran into him again. And again. And again. Eventually, after meeting a monstrous golem of fear and suffering that induced paralyzing fear so frequently, said simulacrum of human experience became slightly tiresome. And you realized that he was, actually, really not that bright. Or at the very least not very mature. And that his wolf sister kind of wore the pants in that relationship. That he and his wolf sister were like Agnes and Gerry, in every possible way. And that he was, weirdly, deeply kind. And that he loved, so bright and pure and fearsome that it had brought down the world. That he was capable of loving Gerry. Maybe even, given enough time, anyone.

Many months later, as Gerry, Agnes, Jon, and Daisy sat in an ice cream shop splitting blood orange ice cream (with real blood!) and bickering endlessly about if Friends was the Flesh or the Stranger, that Gerry thought he might feel something familiar in his chest.

Something that clenched his heart, something that made him so happy he couldn’t breathe. Something that felt like fire and ice and meteors and disaster.

Jon must have felt it. He looked at Gerry, surprised, with ice cream slowly dripping from his spoon and congealing on the table. “What’s wrong with you? Are you ill? Agnes, is he ill?”

“No,” Gerry said, wiping at his eyes. “I guess I’m happy again.”

Everybody stared at him, slightly dumbfounded.

Daisy barked.

“You’re quite right, Daisy,” Jon said.

He didn’t tell them what she was right about, and Gerry never asked. He already knew.

#my writing #be nice to jon this is like his first time talking with a human outside of eating them #how would YOU feel if people started waving a chicken in your face and told you to apologise #nobody asked for this and i haven't thought about jonbackers in a while but you know what? maybe i should #also I found an old scrapped short story of mine that was 'hey you know if jon hadn't run from martin in the beginning #then NONE of this story would have ever happened'#might post that too not sure #gerard keay #agnes montague #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #why the fuck do i write anybody other than teen gerry

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star-spangledstud · 5 years ago

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PARADISE

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: The Avengers enjoy a hard-earned vacation.

Word Count: 3700-ish

Warnings: Fluff (None)

Blistering heat. Skin sticky from several layers of coconut-scented sunblock with built-in self-tanner, causing a dewy glow to set upon your bronzed, heated skin. A bright pink cocktail stood beside the tanning bed you were laying on, a slice of fresh lime and a tiny blue umbrella hanging off the side of the glass. Drops of condensation made their way down the length of the fishbowl shaped glass, collecting on the palm tree coaster it sat on. You sipped it every minute or so through a neon yellow plastic straw, allowing the icy drink to cool you down while the alcohol warmed the back of your throat as it went down.

You turned the page of your romance novel, green doe eyes covered by large black sunglasses following along the words written on the tattered paper. A glance up from your book to the pool area in front of you revealed toned bodies in brightly colored swimming trunks and skimpy bikinis sprawled everywhere. Natasha sat beside you on Wanda's sunbed. She'd braided her hair and was busy putting flowers in it. Fake daisies by the looks of it, made of cloth with little plastic stems. You smiled and took another sip, savoring the sour taste and slushy texture and took a mental note to order the same thing over dinner later. Then, you turned back to your book.

Steve loved summer. Perhaps it was the stark contrast provided by the sun's rays to the ice he was trapped in for so long or the scent of nature in bloom all around him that sparked his admiration for the season. He wasn't sure. All he knew is that he enjoyed the blistering heat and the breeze carrying the scent of fresh flowers across the resort.

His skin had become wrinkly from spending hours on end in the pool with the guys, but he was finally starting to win the game of volleyball against Sam and Thor, and Captain America did not like to lose. He'd tried to convince Tony and Bruce to join them but they were sitting in the shade, stacks of paper and two laptops covering the sunbeds around them. You smiled and shook your head at them, but didn't comment on their constant need to work, even though it was Tony's idea to take everyone away for a two-week paid trip to paradise in the first place. Maybe he just really loved showing off his money. You didn't care, because you were sipping on your fourth free cocktail.

Your eyes drifted back to the water glistening beneath the rays of the sun, to Steve, who was laughing so hard at something Peter said his hand went to his chest.

Steve felt your eyes on him as soon as you lowered your sunglasses to the bridge of your nose so you could watch him lose the game. He held his hand up to the guys, motioning for them to continue without him. Peter begged him to stay, knowing he could never win the game by himself, but Steve already waded to the edge of the pool. Instead of using the metal stairs, he gripped the edge of the pool and lifted himself out in a fluid motion. Water dripped from his torso and out of his shorts, leaving a trail of it on the marble tiles as he closed in on you.

He softly took a hold of your calves, lifting your legs and placing them into his lap so he could sit down on the sunbed. You placed your book on your chest, marveling at drops of water that ran down his milky white torso. That boy did not tan.

"Tired?" You teased, eyes drifting to Thor smashing the ball across the water.

"I can go all day, remember?" He replied, a soft smile playing on his lips.

"Sore loser then," you retorted, "nothing wrong with admitting defeat."

"'S not in my genes, I'm afraid," he paused, "so, what' cha reading?"

Even after the sun had set behind the palm trees, the heat remained. The air was still heavy and humid by the time you woke up from your pre-dinner nap and the second you stepped out of your shower, your skin was sticky again. You'd already given up on washing your hair. It would just get greasy again.

It was nearly nine when all of you met up at the restaurant. Overlooking the beach, you had a perfect view of the waves that crashed upon the shore from your seat at the table. You ordered the same ridiculous cocktail and were sipping it quietly, listening to your teammates conversating. Shadows of the palm trees waving gently in the breeze cascaded across the candlelit tables, hypnotizing you for a moment.

Tony's laugh broke your trance and you smiled, not really having listened to the joke. He stood up, scraping his chair back across the cobblestone. His glass of white wine swirled when he rose and he used a fork to tap the side of his glass. Silence immediately fell over the table.

"A toast, to the most annoying yet best teammates a guy like me, could ever ask for," he grinned, "the only reason why I'm saying this is because I've been day-drinking. They make hella Pina Coladas here."

"We know," Natasha said, grinning widely, "we love you too, Tony."

Waiters circled around the tables that had been pushed together to accommodate all of you, plates filled with various kinds of gourmet dishes balancing on their arms and in their hands. You raised your glass, smiling while everyone else did the same.

You looked at Steve, who had taken a seat beside you. He'd traded his swim shorts for a pale blue button-up shirt of which he'd rolled up the sleeves. A shark-tooth necklace, courtesy of one of the salesmen down at the beach who just wouldn’t leave him alone, hung around his neck. It was perfectly visible through the undone buttons on his chest. His hair was fluffy and soft from being in the water all day. You could tell he hadn't tried to style it with gel.

You almost hated yourself for watching him, even from the corner of your eye. It was a habit that had crept into your system over the course of four months. A habit that resembled an addiction to drugs. It was just fun at first, but your constant need to have your eyes on Steve had turned into a necessity, into a way of life.

The two of you had always hit it off. He was the first person to introduce you to the rest of the team when you were initially hired and he had taken it upon himself to show you the ropes and guide your training after that. He made you feel comfortable in an environment filled with strong, confident people during a time in which you felt like a small fish in a big pond. He watched your back on missions and took you to the city on days off - although admittedly, he mostly brought you along for his own selfish reasons.

He forced you to take him to places like McDonald's and KFC, not because the food - although advertised as such - was finger-licking good, but because he'd missed out on the experience of greasy fast food when he was growing up in the previous century. He forced you to take him to BestBuy, not because he was in the market for a new smart-fridge, but because he needed you to explain the appliances that had been invented after he went into the ice without judging him for his continuous stream of questions. It wasn't until your throat was sore from all the talking that he would take you to a coffee shop so you could sit down and enjoy a hot beverage. Not Starbucks though. Way too crowded and the drinks were too complicated. What the hell was a Frappuccino, anyway?

It was during those days where you began to glance at him. Peaks, out of the corners of your eye when he was trying to figure out whether to order a Quarterpounder or a Big-Mac. Admiration for adjusting so quickly in a world so far away from his own, for accepting it. Glances turned into zoned-out stares that focused on his features until he'd wave his hand in front of your face and ask you what planet you were on. Your cheeks would heat up every time, a sight he loved - but would never admit - and you would stammer and make up a stupid excuse about being tired.

You hated the feeling of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach whenever he would brush his arm against yours during the movie nights, or when his knees would hit yours as you sat opposite each other in the coffee shop. You hated the lopsided smiles he gave you when he thought you weren't looking and hated how close he would stand to you in the kitchen when you were making breakfast, shirt off and sweatpants riding low on his perfectly sculpted hips.

You hated how you'd begun to develop a crush on Steve Rogers. It just crept up on you, silent and deadly like a black viper. It had wiggled its way into your heart and settled there, causing it to hammer skip every time you were near him. You wanted to punch yourself for acting like a lovesick puppy because you were sure it was a one-sided thing and yet even as you laid in bed at night with thoughts racing and images of Steve flashing before closed lids, you couldn't turn your fucking brain off long enough to think clearly.

You and Steve were friends. Not just friends, either, but best friends. You spent so much time together it made Tony gag. Natasha couldn't stop obsessing over the two of you, constantly trying to prove that you were secretly dating. Even Bruce caught wind of the closeness of your supposedly platonic relationship and when he caught the two of you in the common room late one night doubled over in hysterical laughter, piles of blankets and fluffy pillows surrounding you on the couch you were sitting on, even he was convinced there was more going on than you were letting on.

As you were sitting on a tropical island, surrounded by the people that you cared for the most, a part of you wished there was. How nice it would be to experience a vacation at a fancy resort in the tropics with a romantic partner. You snorted, picking up your knife and fork while shaking your head. There was nothing going on between you and Steve and as far as he was concerned, there never would be. You were friends, after all, best friends at that, and there was no way that Steve could be interested in you in any other way. He was so perfect in every way and you were just, ordinary. Plain, a Big-Mac without toppings.

Dessert came before you even realized what was going on. You were buzzed at this point from all the cocktails you'd consumed and instead decided to order a glass of ice water to accompany the chocolate lava cake you had ordered. You only ate half, stomach feeling like it was going to burst at any point if you ate any more. Steve, being the gentleman he was, took the fact that you placed your spoon down as a sign and finished it for you.

"Y/N?"

You hadn't heard him coming.

He was standing behind you suddenly, shirt unbuttoned further than before and hair blowing in the wind that had started to pick up. Of course, it had been Tony's idea to host a private party after dinner in the club that was attached to the resort. Employees of SHIELD and the Avengers were dancing inside, booze flowing just as smoothly as the music. You'd stepped outside for only a moment in desperate need for some fresh air and time to think.

It was still warm outside, the soft breeze feeling wonderful on your slightly reddened skin.

"Hey," you said, elbows leaning on the railing that separated the resort from its private beach, "what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he said smartly, offering you a sip of his sprite, "This is a nice place."

"It's beautiful," you mused, watching the gentle waves and the pearly white sands ahead.

"Yeah," Steve mumbled, "it is."

Seeing you in a white triangle bikini was the single most amazing thing Steve had ever seen. It had taken all his strength not to rip you from the beach and into your bungalow where he could kiss you and have you all to himself at last. The salty water had transformed your hair into waves, and the sun had kissed your skin and made you glow. You were on a towel on your stomach, book in front of you and sunglasses hiding your eyes. A bottle of sunscreen poked out of the tote bag you brought and a bottle of water stood perched up into the sand. It had to be warm by now, but you didn't care.

He loved seeing how much you enjoyed this. How naturally you adjusted to the change of pace, how you blended in with the scenery as if you'd always been there. He got to see a side of you he'd never seen before when you were in New York, where the rain seemed to permanently hang over the city. He loved how you interacted with people you were so used to seeing only at work, but this also made him jealous. He was used to being one of the only people you would hang out with in private but now, you'd practically been glued to everyone but him. How badly he wanted to take you out for a stroll on the beach alone or enjoy a cocktail with you with no-one else watching. Hell, he'd even dance for you at that club with the music he could hardly call music if it meant he got to spend more time with you alone.

He was playing volleyball again, on the beach this time. Half of your party had gone out on scooters for an island excursion, but not you. You had decided that your book was more important, and so you were reading the final chapter with the sun cascading on your back. He'd tried to get you to join him earlier, but once again, you'd declined. Not now, when you were so close to finishing the book. The main character was about to confess her love for the man she'd been chasing for years. She had finally built up the courage to tell him how she really felt. Her words caused your stomach to clench and your heart to pound. You had to know how it would end.

But even the most experienced of readers required a break every once in a while. You were hot, extremely hot and in desperate need of something to cool you off. Alas, the water you'd brought had warmed up, offering no relief from the constant heat blazing down on you. You got up, placing the book into your bag so it wouldn't get covered in the sand and stretched your limbs.

You looked around the beach for a while, noticing it was a lot quieter with half the staff gone for the day and exhaled, allowing a deep breath to escape your lungs while you began to jog across the hot sand.

"When are you going to tell her you're in love with her?" Tony asked with a smug smirk on his face and the ball in his hands.

Steve swallowed, catching the ball with ease.

"You're supposed to hit it back, not catch it and stand there like a dead guy," Tony commented, "Anyway, you dig her and for some reason, you're too afraid to just man up and tell her. Why?"

"Because," Steve said, "we're just friends."

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Look, nothing's ever gonna change unless you act and you're an idiot if you think she doesn't feel the same way. Plus, I made a bet with Tash, so you better step up your game and get to it. Like, right now."

"Tony, I can't do that."

"Give me one good reason. Go on, I'm waiting." Another cocky smirk.

"We're coworkers."

Tony rolled his eyes, "Oh please, Fury doesn't give a shit and neither do I. Sign a couple of forms if you have to. Listen, pal if you don't make a move soon, someone else is bound to come in and sweep her off her feet and you'll be sorry forever."

Steve thought for a moment, watching as you walked further away from him and cursed Tony for being right. Again.

"She's the only one who can tolerate your shit, Rogers. Don't let her get away so easily."

Your feet were just touching the water when a hand around your upper arm stopped you from walking into the ocean. You'd ventured out to a more quiet area of the beach, where the only sound audible was the crashing of waves and seagulls over your head. You could still see your towel from where you stood, but the details had become blurry. Perfect.

"Hey," you said, voice sounding startled after you'd turned to look at whoever was holding you.

"I don't know why I allowed Tony of all people to convince me to do this, but I wouldn't be here if what he said to me didn't have a truth to it so I suppose it was for the best." Steve stammered, hands now on your shoulders as if to shield them from the sun.

"What are you talking about?" You asked, confused.

"Do you like me?" He asked, cheeks reddening more and more with each passing second. You couldn't tell through the darkness of your sunglasses, but he didn't know that.

"Of course I do Steve, you're my best-" He cut you off, testosterone and adrenaline taking over now.

"Not like that. Listen, you make me happy. Like, happy, happy. I don't mean the kind of happy that I get when I run into Sam at the gym and he has a fresh smoothie and a bagel for me, or when we successfully complete a mission and return home safely. It's not the kind of happy I get when I drink my favorite coffee, or when I see a dog at the park."

"What are you saying?" You whispered, eyes hidden by tinted glasses sliding across his face for any sign of fuckery.

There was none. You're suddenly painfully aware of the water swishing against your legs, aware of the grains of sand beneath your feet and his touch, which burned hotter than any sun in the universe could ever do. It's like you'd taken a step inside the book you were just reading.

"You make me feel things I haven't felt before, but want to feel all the time. I crave you when you're not there. The brush of your fingers, the softness of your voice and your laugh, Y/N, I need to hear it all the time and hell, I don't want to even think about having to share it with anyone else because I can't stand to bear the thought." He realized he was being dramatic, but he didn't care.

It disgusted him how easy it had been for Tony to convince him to tell you, but he was right. Walking on eggshells around you was ridiculous and even though Steve realized that being this honest could ruin everything in a matter of seconds, he also knew that lying was a habit he hated and he had been lying to himself for far too long by pretending to accept your friendship as the endstage.

Your hand was on his chest before he knew what was happening. A small smile played on your rosy lips, yet there was hesitation hidden behind those sunglasses. Hesitation, because what if the only reason why he said those words to you was because of a stupid bet? You were almost convinced of it, but his blue orbs told you the truth far better than any of his words could ever do. He was searching for confirmation, waiting for you to tell him you felt the same. Hell, they were begging you to say something, anything just to get the anticipation out of the way. It was like a horror movie, where you knew a jump scare was coming but you didn't know when.

"I do like you," you said finally, "more than dogs at the park."

An amused expression on your face allowed him to finally breathe again. Bright blue eyes still intensely scanned your face, just to make sure you too were telling the truth. He wasn't a walking lie detector - unlike Natasha - but he could tell you were honest.

"I want to take you out," more adrenaline, "properly. Not a coffee shop date, but a real date. With flowers and dinner."

Your heart clenched, second hand finding his chest, "I would like that."

It was hard to stand on the tip of your toes while being in the sand. You sank a little, so it kind of defeated the purpose, but still, you did your best to gain some height on the tall man in front of you. His piercing blues traveled across your shoulders, followed a trail of glimmering sunshine along your body and you sighed, almost fearful you ended up with a heat stroke and were currently delusional. Or drunk. Or both.

But his lips, salty from the ocean water he took in when he went under a while ago and soft, felt very fucking real. You could hardly believe it because did dreams really come true, but hell yeah they did, because you were in one right now and you were not asleep. You were kissing, mouth on mouth and it didn't stop there, because your tongue soon slipped in - you blamed the alcohol you had earlier for your sudden boldness. Blamed him too, for overwhelming you with it.

You didn't even care about the fact that Tony and some level 6 SHIELD employees were watching you guys make out on a private beach. Didn't give a damn about the fact that Tony picked up his phone to call Natasha about how she now owed him $200, or how your sunscreen was starting to wear off and your skin would soon turn red. You finally had Steve right where you wanted him, really had him now, and you didn't plan on letting go anytime soon.

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers smut #steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #imagines #steve rogers imagines #captain america imagine #steve rogers #captain america #captain america smut #marvel imagine #marvel imagines #marvel smut #marvel #avengers imagine #avengers smut #avengers imagines #steve rogers fic

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utterlyinevitable · 4 years ago

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Hurricane (Part 4)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Rebecca Lao) Word Count: 2.1k Warning: Small bit of cussing Summary: A hurricane is falling over Boston. Edenbrook has been evacuated and some very different doctor’s end up seeking shelter together.

A/N: This series was inspired by an anon prompt request for “protection”. I hope I did it justice! This is a multi part story. ALSO I love Gatsby and Fitzgerald and so self-indulgent in this chapter 🤣

________________________________________

Once Becca and Ethan brought order back to Naveen’s kitchen, she bounded back into the dining room with a bottle of pinot noir in each hand for them all to share much to everyone’s elation. Ethan hung back during the first bottle, opting to gather blankets and towels for the guests.

The group of gossips played card games and continued letting the conversation flow as freely as Naveen’s hand. Running out of hospitable things to keep him occupied, Ethan poured himself a generous glass and observed the people around him. With much convincing from the group he eventually gave in to the pressure and joined the game of ‘Bullshit’. When that got boring they moved rooms in the name of tranquil comfort.

They all sat in the living room watching Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby as the storm raged on outside. Naveen was quick to make sure everyone had copious amounts of wine and cheese before retiring to bed. Without the scrutiny of his father figure Ethan felt he could be a little more carefree.

Under the cover of darkness Ethan let himself drape his arm behind Becca against the back of the love-seat, making sure to keep his touch a distance away, the soft cushions dipped under the weight of his muscle. She felt the warmth of his presence along the base of her neck. The short invisible hairs stood up at the electricity emitting off him, igniting her senses in the best possible way. Becca smiled to herself, moving a bit closer to him so their sides were completely touching. She leaned into him just enough that the fabric of their clothes were pressed flat against the other.

Her eyes darted around the dark cabin. Elijah had moved from his wheelchair and to the edge of the three-seater sofa. Sienna sat next to him in the middle and was now lounging out over Naveen’s deserted seat with a throw pillow cuddled deep in her small embrace.

The coast was clear. Everyone was too engrossed in the film to pay any mind to the diagnosticians on their left.

Boldly, Becca rested her head gingerly on the curve of Ethan’s shoulder. Her friends were none the wiser.

Pushing their luck a bit further Ethan slid his arm closer to her shoulder blades. She reciprocated their game by placing a hand carefully on his muscular thigh.

Ethan’s enchanting blue eyes did their own quick survey of the scene to make sure Sienna and Elijah were still oblivious. When he was certain her friends were too caught up on the imagery, Ethan cupped his free hand over hers. The corner of Becca’s lips noticeably perked as she laced their fingers together.

“I love this story,” she whispered into his ear.

“Why? It’s a tragedy. There is not one likable character in the whole plot,” he whispered back.

“That’s what makes it so compelling. They’re flawed and real.”

Before Ethan could rebuke, her favorite line was about to be said.

“Gatsby? What Gatsby?” she mimicked looking over to Ethan.

Her eyes held the same adoration reflecting from Daisy Buchanan’s character. It was hopeless and all-consuming, fiery and full of… something Ethan couldn’t place. All he knew was when that line fell delicately off her tongue he couldn’t help but parallel the feeling of him and Becca being the only two people in the universe. Ethan had that smile - that one smile reserved only for her. That one smile full of eternal reassurance and pride, making it as if his whole world revolved around her in that soulful moment. A glimpse into who Ethan was and not who Dr. Ramsey needed to be.

Becca was mere inches away. One movement and it would all be over. Her eyes flickered down to his lips and back to the large television screen, ever so enchanted by the modern classic playing out before them. Ethan was thankful for her lack of focus. He let out the breath he was holding in he held onto her hand just a bit tighter.

As the evening passed on Ethan let himself fall a bit more into comfort.

For a brief moment he thought maybe, just maybe, everything could be this simple. They could be together and the people in their lives could all know, and no one would care. No careers could be in turmoil by the mere mention of their romantic relationship.

No politics. Just love.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works.

Ethan was far too well-versed in cynicism to let himself fall any further than this moment. Holding hands in the darkness was all they could ever have with others around. He let the moment last, trusting her word that her friends wouldn’t destroy their ephemeral happiness.

No, that was destined for them.

Once the credit scene began to roll Sienna was the first to disturb the peace.

“Come on I think it’s time for bed,” she sat up and tapped a dozing Elijah on the shoulder.

Sienna dared to glance over at the love-seat - doing a double take to make sure it was really, truly happening before her very eyes. There in the warm glow cascading off the television was Becca curled up against Dr. Ramsey. Ethan was cradling her against him with his right arm securely at her waist as his left held up a book. He began reading the closest literature he could find towards the end of the film when he was sure Becca was asleep and wouldn’t castrate him. Neither diagnostician made an attempt to move.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Elijah agreed, lazily moving back into his chair while Sienna made sure to put the pillow back where she found it. “Night Becca, Dr. Ramsey,” he called as Sienna wheeled him to their room for the next few days.

“Goodnight, Dr. Greene. Trinh,” Ethan acknowledged without breaking focus on his book.

Once the friends were safely in their room with a click of the door Ethan began to migrate, casting the book aside and reaching for the remote on Becca’s armrest to shut the television off.

“No,” she whined as his small motions rock her gently to disturb her slumber.

With a smirk Ethan scoffed, “You’re basically asleep.”

Becca grumbled back as she threw her arms over her eyes, “I don’t care.”

Ethan took the challenge and swiftly rose to his feet. Becca’s cheek immediately met the crater in the cushion as she flopped down without her supporter.

“Hey!” her objection was partially muffled by the old paisley printed cushion.

Ethan couldn’t help but chuckle at his resident. Her legs were still awkwardly folded under herself and he’d imagine they’d at least be tingly with pins and needles by now, she still had her jeans on and her top exposed the pale skin of her midriff, and her brown locks were wildly strewn about. With a bemused shake of his head he brought the remainder of the dishes into the kitchen.

When he came back Becca hadn’t moved an inch, her body still lolled to the side where he was previously sat.

In four long strides Ethan was back in front of her. Becca heard his shallow footsteps yet was too comfortable to acknowledge his presence. Suddenly the couch flew out of under her and Becca was in free fall. Before she could open her eyes taut muscle and bone made contact with her rib-cage.

Ethan had slung her over his shoulder.

“Ethan!” she hissed. Normally Becca would appreciate the delicious view of this new position however the generous amount of wine mixed with the blood rushing to her head was not working in her favor.

“Shush, you’ll wake everyone up.” Becca’s bottom jiggled from Ethan’s playful smack.

She argued back, “You woke me up!”

“It was that or have a stiff neck tomorrow,” Ethan began to rationalize as he took each step carefully so as to not to lose his balance. “And I’m not dealing with your complaints.”

Naveen’s master bedroom was large with glorious vaulted ceilings and exposed wooden beams. It was much too big for one person. Keeping with the cabin theme, the bed was wooden with four tall posts, the outer wall was lined with windows looking out over the river, and the adjoining bathroom led right into a modest yet bare walk-in closet.

Ethan placed Becca down on the soft springform mattress conscientiously. She reveled in the waft of cinnamon and cedar of the quilt and deep red cotton sheets. Becca appreciated how Naveen also had an affinity for pillows - four medium firm and two down were waiting patiently for her noggin. Becca was too enticed by sleep to rummage for pajamas in her bag. Instead she began to unbutton her jeans haphazardly from her horizontal position.

Ethan watched as she fumbled continuously, not quite grasping the button enough to pop it through the hole. After the fourth try he swatted her hands away, taking the reins. Ethan expertly flicked the button, dragged the zipper down and freed Becca’s legs from the thick day-ridden material. She sighed as the cool air met her clean-shaven skin. Her toes then hooked and flicked off her socks while she sat up and pulled her shirt off.

Sitting cross-legged on top of the duvet in just her nude bra and purple lace panties she asked, “Staying or going?”

Her jeans were now folded on top of the wardrobe where Ethan stood with a cocked eyebrow, “What do you think?”

BOOM!

A close clack of thunder rattled the wood causing them both to jump.

CLACK!

TSS

“Fuck!” she screamed in exasperation as quietly as she could. “Do you think a tree fell?”

“Rookie, are you scared?”

“No. I’ve been through loads of hurricanes,” she asserted, moving up the bed to crawl safely under the covers. “There's just a lot of wood around here. One wrong bolt and we’re all up in flames.”

Ethan perched himself at the edge of the bed next to her nearly nude form. “I highly doubt that will happen.”

“But it could happen.”

“Theoretically.”

The covers sat around Becca’s waist. Her supple curves of her exposed breasts called to him. Ethan began to reach for her but the rational doctor did all he could to stop himself from caressing the addictive skin. Instead his hand rested on her inner thigh, just the thin duvet separating their warmth. Her hair was a frizzy halo around her rounded face and her lips stained deep indigo from all the red wine. And yet she was still - always, so beautiful.

She watched as his eyes trail over her and his chest rose and fell a tad quicker.

“You should stay. I know you want to.”

“You know I can’t.”

“You know they already think we’re dating anyway.”

Ethan was taken aback at the brazen accusation but not enough to remove his hold on her, “We are doing what?” Instinctively his calloused fingers tightened their grip slightly.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she all but rolled her eyes at his idiocy. After a beat, her brown eyes fixated on his expert hand, she added, “Ethan… are you single?”

Her small voice was full of shaken vulnerability. She yanked the covers up higher, releasing his hold on her, and curled herself further into them, shielding herself from his answer. Or lack thereof, there were too many seconds hanging in the space between them.

He reached out to tuck a few strands behind her ear. The wait was killing her.

“No… I’m not.”

Those words. Becca felt like the air had been stolen from her lungs. How long had she been waiting to hear them? How long has she been hoping Ethan Ramsey would commit to only her with a promise of forever? She couldn’t recall anything other than him at this moment moving in closer to her. Their noses brushed every so slightly, his affirming and hopeful words lingering warm against her flushed cheeks.

“Stay,” she breathed.

The way she was imploring him could crumble the Great Wall of China. Every ounce of Ethan’s resolve came crumbling down as he finally admitted his feelings to the universe. He thought she knew by now how he was irrevocably hers without words needing to be shared. Dr. Ethan Ramsey would continue living a solitary life until he could freely be able to love Dr. Rebecca Lao and without fear of completely destroying her bright future.

Ethan wanted so badly to dive into the covers with her and never come back up - her sweet embrace was all the sustenance he needed to survive. But the little voice in the back of his head told him not to cut the line just yet.

“Only until you fall asleep,” he agreed. “Wouldn’t want Naveen thinking we were being indecent in his bed. He’d never let me hear the end of it.”

________________________________________

Taglist: @ohchoices @dulceghernandez @aylamreads @binny1985 @ramseysno1rookie @interobanginyourmom @queencarb @perriewinklenerdie @rookiefromedenbrook @eramsey28 @choicesficwriterscreations @heauxplesslydevoted @schnitzelbutterfingers @purpledragonturtles @ramseyandrys @ermidc @mrsdrakewalkerblog @doilooklikeiknow @overwhelminglyaquarius @drethanramslay @edgiestwinter @rookieoh @lucy-268 @mvalentine @lilyvalentine @starrystarrytrouble @angela8756 @pitchblackstars @custaroonie @sanchita012 @thegreentwin @openheart @tsrookie @adrex04 @togetherwearerapture @ezekielbhandarivalleros

#open heart #open heart fanfic #choices open heart #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #choices fanfic #choices oph2 #ohsy #oph2 #oh #choices oh #oph #oph ff #ff #sienna trinh #naveen banerji #elijah greene

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kaidans-alenko · 4 years ago

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take this as me poking you, what would you say the difference between each of your shepards that romances kaidan and their relationship dynamics with him? 👀

Ohhhh~ I like this question 👀

Lily: She's what us weebs refer to as a "tsundere" and Kaidan is a v romantic boi and the two...don't really mix if he were insecure he'd probably think he's doing something wrong but that's the thing...he loves that she's like that. He likes the back and fourth, the chase.

Kaidan and Lily: you've read willow(which 🥺🥺🥺💕💕💕) so you have a pretty good grasp of their dynamic I assume and it's very opposites attract

"I hate you 😠"

"I know, I love you too 🥰"

Kaidan knows she can be harsh but she's also been hurt before, he knows it's fear so he's very understanding in that regard and Lily is never cruel she know what's too far and she loves him the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt him. In fact he's the one person she's the most sweet on.

Rose: She's gentle, kind and patient and she clicks so well with Kaidan because of that, because she's been married before and has a kid she is very hesitant to date she doesn't want to bring someone around Alex and risk him getting attached only to have that person leave but she immediately had the feeling Kaidan wasn't the kind of man to do that.

Rose and Kaidan: he didn't immediately try to parent Alex which she 1000% appreciated and understood that he needed time to process all of it and that meant the world to her because that was her biggest fear. Eventually Kaidan started treating Alex as his own but as far as she could tell it wasn't forced, they have a deep understanding and respect for each other, for slightly different reasons ofc.

Daisy: she's aromantic so she never wanted a relationship she was fine with flings...until she met Kaidan, she came into the world with a broken family and she loved her dad very much but she knew how hard it was, how lonely he was without her mother and a part of her hated herself for that so in attempt to not end up like that she buried the part of her that wanted a family and wanted stability and to settle down.

Daisy and Kaidan: Think fearless by ts, she never wanted anything as special and as real as what she had with him, Kaidan was her first heartbreak but her first love as well and Daisy was the one who finally pulled him out of solely dedicating himself to work and nothing else. They wanted the same things but never truly attempted it for Kaidan it was a pipe dream and for Daisy it was out of fear.

Azalea: she's always loved Kaidan, from the moment he saved her from those playground bullies, just at the time she didn't know what that feeling was and had no idea how to define it. Because of her upbringing she has trust issues and never felt important. Kaidan made her feel important, she's the one person who gets to see the soft side of her. The side that loves musicals and keeps a dairy, not a datapad but an actual notebook because she likes the smell and loves caramel lattes.

Azalea and Kaidan: well for one child hood friends is their trope so ofc it plays into their dynamic but because he was whisked away to jump zero before he could say anything to her and how he didn't contact her after she felt betrayed by the one person that cared about her(think betty, mr. perfectly fine and right where you left me) despite her renegade nature she's a softy, once he explained himself she forgave him because after everything she still cared about him.

#lilyshep #rose shepard #daisy shepard #azalea shepard #f!shenko #kaidan alenko

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dansnaturepictures · 4 years ago

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08/06/21-Garden birds at home and more and Lakeside

I was thinking last night that it didn’t feel like I’d taken many photos of the garden birds lately. I had less than a week prior but with me taking so many pictures daily currently including lots of the young birds at Lakeside in the week things that were quite recent can very easily seem a long time ago which shows I am having fun with time flying I believe. So it was fitting and maybe always obvious that today became a very memorable one for seeing and photographing birds in the garden or beyond the garden out the back whilst working. I took the first picture in this photoset of a Collared Dove on the roof opposite visible from my room. I also saw and photographed Woodpigeon and the possible young Feral Pigeon in the garden again as the day went on. And alongside House Sparrows picking at vegetation again and Starlings in great numbers, as well as Jackdaw out the back on the roof I very much enjoyed seeing my favourite garden bird the Goldfinch. And with the window opened as I worked at one point I loved hearing a Goldfinch belt out its strong, fluent and attractive call which was great to hear. When I was younger and I still have them at my Dad’s house where I grew up I had small RSPB cuddly toy figure of birds I did like my cuddly toys as a youngster that if you squeeze it, it makes the bird’s call. I had three, two of my favourite birds the Puffin and Osprey and famously within our family before my voice dropped the bird I screamed when I first saw along the road in 2007 the Goldfinch. So at a time I was still very much learning bird song it took us a while to learn it after getting into birdwatching to be honest I knew this one. But I don’t think I’ve often really took notice of a Goldfinch calling in real life so it felt great to hear this so purely. As I have done this year before it was interesting to see Woodpigeons menacingly approaching another on the roofs and making it fly off and Collared Doves would do it tonight too.

I took the second and third pictures in this photoset of a lovely dog rose on the bush in the front garden which was lovely to see I saw my first one of the year on Thursday at Lakeside and saw roses on the bush yesterday I took a photo and tweeted it on Dans_Pictures of one this lunch time too so it was great to have the dog rose come on in the property now and the third photo is of daisies that had been around in the front garden as well which I’ve found quite notable in this little patch of quite well built garden and then I was thrilled tonight to notice some speedwell with it. A flower I’m used to seeing in the wild this family one of the big revelations of my year or so of really learning flowers now so this felt like a great and key garden moment this year. I walked through the estate a bit more before approaching Lakeside from the tarmac path north of it today. And right next to the roofs of the garages where I see them a lot I noticed a lovely group of House Sparrows. With angelic sunshine hitting their bright brown backs it made a great unique angle for photos and I took the fourth picture in this photoset as well as one I tweeted on Dans_Pictures of them. Photos I quite liked taking. There were so many sparrows around today bolstered by the youngsters probably and I saw a couple that appeared to be fighting sort of flying at each other and battling in the air going down near to a drain pipe. Interesting behaviour to witness.

Walking down towards Lakeisde I loved coming across another patch of flowers in the urban area to the usual one I go to which I found with a few great species on Saturday night finding this lovely patch that evening too. Seeing cornflower and vetch there looking very colourful and bright I did love on Friday, but today I was thrilled to spot poppies of three colours traditional red, pink and red and white with the other flowers around nicely too and the poppies all looked enormous which was lovely to see. Here I loved spotting an electric looking Blue-tailed Damselfly which I enjoyed for a great few minutes on another very sunny and warm day I am having a great spring for them and I got the fifth picture in this photoset of one. I tweeted pictures of the poppies on Dans_Pictures tonight.

Then it was into Lakeside to walk along the northern path, with a meeting at 2 not the most time spent at Lakeside on lunch as I lounged a bit before walking in my lunch hour. I took the sixth picture in this photoset going into Lakeisde a beautiful view with greenery and the sky. Then I tested myself to see if I could find the quite hidden bee orchid which I marveled at and did so much for me yesterday one of my most anticipated moments of the spring and greatest moments this year. And as I studied the long grassed fringes of this rich northern path I did after seeing the white flowers possible snowball flowers spot the glorious bee orchid. With my macro lens on in a two lens operation with the big lens this lunch time the sun went in just a little as I spotted this bee orchid again. I had anticipated I may hopefully see more bee orchids this year based on my experiences with them last year but I hadn’t really decided if I would take another picture of this one if I got the chance I was happy with the one of it yesterday. But with the sun slightly in it then created different light conditions to yesterday. So I went for it going for a different angle taking from the side rather than kneeling down on one knee to take it from the front as I did yesterday as well to yesterday and it meant after I had 10 exclusive pictures to Twitter in my Tumblr post and tweeted the bee orchid picture yesterday but today taking 31 photos so not having any exclusive ones it gave me a chance to put a bee orchid photo in a Tumblr photoset the seventh in this photoset. I enjoyed taking the eighth picture in this photoset going along the northern path of a really nice view and I liked hearing young birds chirping along the way which was nice.

I took the final two pictures in this photoset at home tonight of a beautiful view out the back in a balmy evening with the grass and vegetation looking really nice. I did notice this and took a photo earlier but I felt it looked even more beautiful in the slightly more shadowy landscape of the early evening. The last photo is of a lovely sky scene out the back tonight. Out the front Blue Tit, Goldfinch and House Sparrow all kept me interested in the balcony feeders. whilst watching now BAFTA award winning Springwatch which I had been looking forward to congratulations to them on that award as I tweeted on Sunday its been so well deserved for so long for their consistent high quality broadcasts in all the watches from remote locations and hugely brilliant and inspiring content filmed, narrated and researched so well and at other parts of the evening. Also a very beautiful, big, bold and bright brown moth the Waved Umber flew in which looked stunning to watch and is camped at the top of our living room wall as I write this. I had just wondered in this warm weather when my moth season would kick start other than day flying ones which I’d seen this year already and it certainly has now. I hope you all had a nice day.

Wildlife Sightings Summary: Tufted Duck, Lesser Black-backed Gull out the front nicely flying and on the green, Black-headed Gull well today, Blackbird well, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon, Jackdaw, Starling, House Sparrow, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Blue-tailed Damselfly, Waved Umber moth, spider and other insects in the house.

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prettyinlimegreenboots · 4 years ago

Text

Twelve Days of Holly, Jolly Tidings - Day 4

Disclaimers: I watched “Dash & Lily” the other day on Netflix. This story is LOOSELY based on that book and Netflix series. I do not own “Dash and Lily” or Newsies or anything recognizable within the series. There are occasional curse words throughout the series, nothing too horrible but there’s some.

Monday, December 16

Walking into The New York Times that morning, she smiled at the guard as she scanned her ID to let her onto the elevator. Pressing the 14th floor, she glanced around the elevator and sighed, letting her head hit the back of the wall. Mentally, she counted along as the elevator climbed before it stopped at her floor, as she scooted out of the small space. Taking a deep breath, she made her way to her cubicle, dropping her bag on her desk. She smiled, seeing a pink padded envelope on her desk. Taking a seat in her very comfortable chair, she quickly opened the padded envelope, her smile increasing as she pulled out the very familiar notebook.

Good morning Kat!

Happy fourth day of Christmas. I hope your morning has started off swimmingly- if not, I hope this brightens your day. I’ve got quite the challenge for you today. You’re going to have to put on your investigator’s hat today to find your surprise.

You’re going to have to go into the basement - I know you hate it down there but I promise this will be well worth it. You’re going to have to find the New York Times from July 1889 . . . there’s a certain story that gripped the headlines. Read the story and that’ll lead you to the next clue.

Looking over her desk, she had nothing that couldn’t wait until the next day. She had turned her articles in for the week and needed to do some research for an upcoming story. Standing, she grabbed her bag, sighing. She really hated the basement - it was so quiet that it was creepy. Grabbing the notebook, she stuffed it into her bag, swinging it across her shoulder.

Hitting the button for the elevator, she headed to the basement. Trying to psyche herself up, she knew she needed to get in and out without creeping herself out.

Stepping into the quiet basement, she flicked the lights on before walking farther into the abyss. Her eyes adjusted the dim lights before walking over to the beginning of the archive. She had spent enough time in that basement that she had the layout down pat. Heading to the filing cabinet for that particular decade, she pulled it open, coughing as a cloud of dust escaped.

Grabbing the notebook from her bag, she set it on top of the filing cabinet. She grabbed a newspaper from July 1889, scanning the front page. Nothing jumped out at her as she continued to review papers. It wasn’t until she came across the July 19, 1889 edition, did she find a sticky note attached to the paper.

Continuing reading the notebook

She quickly scanned the article about the Newsboys Strike. She smiled reading it - it had always fascinated her when she read the story about how a group of kids had come to fight her great grandfather.

So you found the article. That was the thing that initially drew me to you. I had overheard you in the library the day before we “officially” met. You were working on a project regarding the Newsboys Strike and the way you talked about those boys and what they accomplished with such passion, I knew I had to at least meet you. What I didn’t anticipate was falling in love with you - but I don’t regret it for once second.

Over the last 5 years, you have opened my eyes to so many things that I probably would’ve never ever thought about. You’ve always challenged me to think outside the box and expand my horizons - and I’ve never thanked you properly. I know I’ve told you this but I’m going to write it down so that it’s in ink - you’re brilliant, amazing, and always keep me on my toes. I never know what you’re going to surprise me with and I hope that you never stop doing that.

Pausing in her reading, she wiped away a few stray tears that had clouded her vision. Jack was a sweetheart, he always had been. But this was a new side to him.

But now, you have to go on another adventure. Try to find the New York Times paper from September 19, 2014 - there you’ll find a thing or two.

Grabbing the notebook, she pushed the drawer shut before walking further into the room. She passed many file cabinets before finding the one that housed the 2012 through 2015 archives. Pulling open a draw, she saw that she had guessed the right drawer. Searching the drawer for the September issues, she quickly found them before flipping through until she found the 19th - an envelope was sitting there awaiting her.

Picking it up, she slid her finger under the flap, ripping it open. A photo and a charm was inside. She looked at the photo first. Holding it up, she smiled seeing it was the first photo her and Jack had taken together - her roommates had demanded that she take a photo with the mystery boy so that if she didn’t turn up at the end of the night, they would have a photo of her killer. She had laughed but complied with their request. After their date, she had printed it off and placed it in a frame that sat on her desk through the remaining days of college before moving it to her desk at the Times.

Slipping the photo back into the envelope, she grabbed the charm. It was a newspaper charm, the paper rolled up as it used to be when the Newsboys would hawk the newspapers.

Congratulations, Kat. You figured everything out. I figured I’d shake things up a bit. The Newsboys article is obvious why I picked it but do you know what September 19 means?

Stopping her reading, she thought back to September 19. As she flipped through the last few years, nothing really stood out on that particular date. Other things around those dates stood out but September 19, as much as she recalled, was a normal day.

I’m guessing you don’t know what that date signifies. Since you don’t know, I’ll clue you in. That was the day that I heard you talk about the Newsboys Strike. I “accidentally” ran into you on the 20. But truth be told, it wasn’t really an accident that I ran into you - I kinda staged it but in the end, I think it’s all worked out.

She laughed, shaking her head. Now that she thought about it, it was in September that she had run into Jack and the rest, as people say, is history.

And the charm - a newspaper - is kinda self explanatory, I think. I’m in awe every time I watch you write an article or do research. It’s really special to see you work and watch you connect the dots, all very quickly, in a matter of seconds.

I’ll see you later tonight for our date night. I love you!

Jack

Closing the notebook, she stuffed it back into her bag. Making sure she had everything, she shut the lights off, heading to the elevator, getting back to safe terrority. Once in the elevator, she let out a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding. Chuckling to herself, she shook her head as she left the elevator, making her way back to her desk where a gorgeous bouquet of flowers greeted her. She looked around the floor but no one was near her desk.

Dropping her bag on the ground, she pulled her chair out before her eyes swept the bouquet. Bright colored roses, Alstroemeria, Gerbera Daisies, and Carnations were arranged in a pretty vase. Her eyes searched the bouquet for a card, and grinned, pulling it free.

Kat,

Just wanted to say that I love you and that I’m looking forward to our date tonight. Hope you have a wonderful day at work and I’ll see you at 6pm.

Love, Jack

He was something else, she smiled. If she didn’t know it before, she would be convinced that he really was the sweetest man in the world. Four days down, all making her days, and looking forward to what the remaining eight days held.

#Newsies #Newsies Fan Fiction #writing #Twelve Days of Holly Jolly Tidings #jack x katherine #Holiday Fic #Newsies Holiday Fic

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corvidshipping · 3 years ago

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here’s uhhh the excerpt from A Pair of Sorrows i wrote. keep in mind

this has spoilers for Dead Things and A Pair of Sorrows

it’s pretty late in the story too so it has like… major ish spoilers in it

it’s not finished and it might change significantly considering this is a late scene in the last story and it’s written extremely out of order

content warnings: description of dissociation, discussion of a fight (non graphic), description of a received injury (non graphic although the specific injury is stated), mentions of fire, mentions of guns

this is a j.es.per x bryn fic. my city now

“I immolated a man today.”

It was the first time Bryn had spoken that day. Their voice was hoarse and quiet from disuse. For the past several hours, they had sat silently in the sitting room, staring at the wallpaper, trying to make sense of the abstract florals, and at the same time, trying to make sense of the abstract events of their life that had led up to this moment.

Jesper, across the room, looked up. “I know, I was there. I saw. You looked incredible.” His tone was lighthearted, something that Bryn just couldn’t understand in light of what had happened.

He was cleaning his guns, where he stood by the window, for the fourth time that day. At some point, in the afternoon (Bryn only knew it was afternoon from the yellow light pouring in), he had walked into the room that they had stationed themself in alone early that morning, settled himself into a chair, and begun disassembling one of his guns, all without a word. He’d been at it nonstop ever since, switching between them every so often, and it had been so long that the sun was nearly below the horizon and Bryn was beginning to suspect that it was more of a nervous habit, a need to keep his hands busy and working, than that Jesper’s perfect guns were truly that dirty from firing one round.

Bryn simply stared at him as he continued fiddling with some mechanism, wiping it with a handkerchief that kept coming away as clean as if it had been freshly washed, until he finally looked up to meet their gaze. It was a blank stare, as if though they were looking at him they weren’t truly seeing him - and perhaps they didn’t, perhaps their mind was elsewhere, far away, and their ears were filled with the ring of twin gunshots right after each other, and their ribs were filled with the bruising and breaking pain of a bullet, and their vision saw no friend but was filled with blaze and smoke, and it all blurred together as a cocktail of misery to make it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to feel. Maybe they just saw through him to the wallpaper behind, once again picking apart the flowers the way a small child picks apart a daisy. If a gaze could have weight, this one would have weighed on Jesper like two tons of iron and like nothing at all; if a gaze could have a feeling, this one would have felt like a shard of ice working through his heart, filling his lungs. He supposed the way to describe it was a bit haunting.

Bryn was brought back to the world with the sound of Jesper’s deep sigh, his footsteps crossing the wood floors. The sound of his boots was familiar - it almost passed for comforting. The couch beside them shifted with his added weight.

Jesper - the first one to trust them, the first one to tell them his name, the first person since Czarina to look them in the eyes and call them pretty, the first person since their sisters to look them in the eyes and call them beautiful. He sat, quietly, beside them, offering no words, nothing save his presence. But his presence, for Bryn at least, was enough. In one hand, he flipped his revolver over and over, as if examining every inch for imperfections, but the other arm he reached out, encircling his compatriot. Bryn allowed themself to be pulled in, wordlessly leaning into his body, and laid their head on his shoulder, nestling into his warmth.

An odd memory interrupted the smell of smoke and gunpowder, instead occurring to Bryn the smell of sunshine on fur and warm breath. It was the memory of Freyja, the tomcat they had raised since kittenhood, when they found him shivering at their window as if he had arrived exactly where he meant to be and was waiting for them to show up. Though it had only been months, it felt like lifetimes had passed since they left Freyja behind at their sisters’ farm, and not a day had passed since they missed hearing his meows waking them, demanding food and attention as soon as the sun rose. Freyja, among all the cats that they had rescued, was different, special. It wasn’t that they didn’t love the other cats, they had wept for so many both in joy and in sorrow, but Freyja was simply different. Holding the other cats, of course, awakened a protectiveness, a parental urge to protect them as if they were their own child. But when they held Freyja, though he was no human, it wasn’t just the protectiveness they felt - they felt protected, they felt as if he understood them, even if he couldn’t communicate it. As if, when they looked into tawny eyes and spoke, he knew their troubles, and they felt somehow secure that he would guard them against anything, at any cost.

Vaguely, from somewhere outside this microcosm of memory that Bryn had retreated to, a thought passed through their mind that the man next to them smelled unexpectedly nice. With as many bullets as he had fired since they met, they had always expected that if they were to approach this close they would smell simply gunshot residue, acrid nitroglycerin and powder clinging to his clothing. But instead, it was a pleasant, subtle scent, like amber, no trace of gunpowder to be found. Underneath, the smell of clean linen and silk, evidence of how carefully he kept his clothing.

And he was warm. Of course he was warm, since he was a living body. But it was an odd feeling for them, to be so enveloped in another person's warmth. At the inn, they had been very affectionate to their sisters, but it had been some time since they had seen them, and they had grown used to a certain distance from their compatriots. Kaz wasn’t the type to freely offer a hug when a friend seemed down - though the thought of an open-armed Kaz equipped with an unsettlingly warm smile was somehow amusing - and so they became accustomed to their only touch from another person being when Inej, infrequently, would place her hand over theirs gently, comfortingly, or when Jesper would clap his hand on their shoulder when he made a joke. This touch was different, nearly overwhelming in comparison.

Slowly, Bryn was drawn out of their thoughts as they considered these scents and feelings, and their perspective shifted; until now it had felt like they were simply watching themself, a facsimile of a facsimile, as they experienced this. But Jesper’s touch - his warmth - the faint smell of his shaving soap that clung to his collar - began to feel more and more real. Bryn became aware of more they hadn’t noticed, the softness of the shirt he wore as it hung loosely from his frame and brushed their side, a sort of… nuzzling feeling at their head. Jesper had buried half his face by now into their hair, as if he were trying to hide himself in a copper forest. It began to occur to Bryn, then, that maybe this wasn’t just for them. Maybe he needed this as much as they did. They wondered if he, too, had been watching his hands move from behind and above himself, if he had spoken to the others as if he were reading from a book, if the smell of the powder in his bullets had also reminded him incessantly of the wheezing, breathless sound a person makes when a bullet makes contact with something hard in their breast pocket instead of their heart.

Bryn started to realize, then, why that thought of Freyja, how protected they felt by just their gaze, had been brought up.

They squeezed their eyes shut, and turned their head, allowing their face to fall in the crook of Jesper’s shoulder. His hand moved from their shoulder to their head, deft fingers combing through the strands, and a smaller hand found its way to his opposite hand. In one movement, he had flipped the unloaded chamber back into the gun he held, and placed it onto the table at his side, before returning the hand that had held the gun to find the hand which had been offered to him. Slender fingers inched into his palm, until he caught them in his own fingers and wove them between each other. This was how they stayed - in the dark, the sun long past set, with fingers interlocked, facing into each other, each burying themself in the other - until Jesper broke the silence abruptly.

“Inej told me that she wanted to check your chest today, if you felt up to it. Said we shouldn’t wait until it got worse.” His voice was soft, barely over a murmur.

“Mm,” Bryn hummed, the only response he received.

“You probably have a few broken ribs, if not a collarbone. Trust me, you don’t take a bullet without consequences. Although, you took it much better than most people I’ve seen.”

Bryn laughed, finally, the first time that day. “Well, it was my first time getting shot. I’m sure next time it’ll be easier.”

“There won’t be a next time.” His voice darkened from the joking tone it had been, a serious statement that anyone could tell he fully intended to back up.

“I’ll try,” they responded. There was a pause, a quiet but comfortable silence, before the continued. “There’s a bruise. It’s dark, and it’s still sore. But I’m breathing okay, so my lungs shouldn’t be damaged. I think I'll be fine.”

“Probably,” he said, “but I agree with Inej. You should make sure there’s no permanent damage. And you need rest. And food.” He pulled himself away, reluctant, to look Bryn in as near as he could approximate their eye given the darkness. “You haven’t eaten since we left yesterday, you know.”

“Since when do you keep track of things like that?”

“Since you missed the barmaid try to flirt with Kaz. Oh, I wish you’d have been there. You could have made the situation so much worse.” The two laughed before Jesper continued. “You should come downstairs with me and eat. I managed to fend Nina off from some of the waffles. She was vicious. I don’t want that to have been in vain.”

“It must’ve been a brave and honorable fight. And now they must be the perfect rubbery, cold consistency, just how you know I like them.”

“Eh, just drown them in sugar or something. You were going to do it anyway.”

Bryn smiled, and nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

From the side table, Jesper retrieved the revolver and, with a flourish, returned it to the holster at his hip as the two of them stood. His hand remained on their back, as though he were guiding them - or possibly just reminding them of his presence - as they exited the room into the comparatively blinding hall and began to head down the stairs.

As the others’ faces came into view, Jesper’s face cracked into a beaming smile, and he gave an odd sort of flourishing bow, as if showing them off. There was no fanfare from the ones watching below, but Jesper provided one of his own.

“May I present to you our hero, Eriksdottir?”

#paper_heart.txt #lucky stars #Keeper of Strays Quartet #A Pair of Sorrows #c: i’d miss me too #s: a cat amongst crows

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astraeagreengrass · 4 years ago

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Hope Springs Eternal

Bucky Barnes has one last thing he needs to do before he goes to war

Pairing: 1940s!Bucky Barnes x reader

Word Count: 2.583

Warnings: angst, mentions of war and war-related themes, light smut - not explict, but please don’t read if you’re under 18!

A/N: This is my extremely late submission for @thinkoutsidethebex’s 600 Follower Writing Challenge - thank you Bex for having me! Special thanks to @xbuchananbarnes for proof-reading this. This story is part of When The World Was At War We Kept Dancing, but can totally be read as a stand-alone. The banner picture was found here. I hope you like it ♡

It was an ordinary wedding.

Early Sunday afternoon, in a tiny church in Prospect Park. The ceremony was brief, less than thirty minutes long, presided by a minister that confused your last names.

"Barlow sounds nothin' like Barnes,” you heard Steve grumble from Bucky's left, cut off by Becca's loud shush. You didn't have it in your heart to rebuke the priest: your wedding was his fourth of the day, and he still had a dozen or so more to go ahead of the sunset. Besides, he'd been kind enough to move the nuptials forward when Bucky's furlough dates changed, so you could grant him that mishap.

The groom wore his army greens. Olive jacket and pants, shirt and necktie in shades to match. The gold buttons shone bright and brand new, like American glory. The long months at Camp McCoy had changed Bucky - his hair was shorter, his shoulders broader, his palms rougher. You'd waved goodbye to a man in November and welcomed another in June: a Sergeant, with a suit and cap to match his responsibilities.

You felt the calluses as you slid the ring on the left finger of his right hand - the same hand he now used to reload bullets and pull triggers. According to Steve, Bucky must’ve been extremely good at it, otherwise they’d never have promoted a young, conscripted soldier like him to Sergeant so quickly.

You wanted to be happy about it. To not feel an atom of fear as the minister declared you husband and wife. To not tremble behind your veil or choke in the words you had to repeat. There was no time for personal vows - too many women in white were waiting to walk down that aisle, wondering if they'd only ever be granted two weeks with their spouses before a war they never asked for ended their marriages that never had a proper chance to start.

Uncertainty was a typewritten letter on military-stamped stationery, a snow-barren Wisconsin field, a ship departing to England on the fifteenth morning of July. It left a bitter taste in your mouth when you and Bucky kissed for the first time before God, your families and your country. From that moment on, you were his and he was yours, the minister said.

You just couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he was more theirs than he was yours.

My love,

In seventeen hours, I’ll be home. One last bus trip and one last train ride until I see your face again. This letter will probably arrive at your doorstep after I do - and by then I hope you’re not there anymore. I hope it gets lost in the mail because you’ve changed your name and moved to the home you’ll share with your husband. And I hope you know that lucky bastard will be sure to tell the postman you’re Mrs. Barnes now. Y/N Barnes. It sounds pretty good if you ask me.

“Promise me you’ll write as soon as you get there?” you asked.

The train’s whistle drowned out Bucky’s answer, and you grimaced, muffling out the deafening noise with your gloved hands.

When it was over, Bucky gently removed your palms from your ears and laced them with his. He gently pressed his thumb to the knuckle of your finger, feeling the ring underneath the fabric. It was a simple band with no stone, far from luxurious but still more expensive than he could afford. He was almost embarrassed as he proposed, mumbling about the ring “not being enough” for you, but you shushed him with a kiss, whispering that you’d marry him with a twisted piece of wire.

“I’ll write to you everyday until I get home,” he promised. “You’ll beg the postman to stop delivering my letters.”

“Never,” you swore.

Three minutes to nine and you were one of the last couples lingering at the platform. Bucky's train would leave at the top of the hour to Chicago, and from there he'd go to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin until the army granted him a short furlough before the eventual departure to Europe. You were trying awfully hard not to think about that last part.

“I’ll miss you, Jimmy,” you said, holding back tears.

A shadow of a smile bloomed on the corner of his lips. Your handsome soldier - strong and unwavering, even as the unknown lurked on the corner of his life.

“I’ll miss you a lot more, doll,” he declared, pulling you in for a hug.

“Impossible,” you replied, voice muffled by his jacket.

Bucky grinned.

“Wanna bet a dance on that?”

The train whistled one more time and the railway man started screaming for the last passengers to board. Your answer was lost to the smoke billowing from the locomotive.

“Take care of my girl for me, will ya? If anyone gives her trouble, tell ‘em her man’s away at training camp. He’ll be back before she knows it.”

You rolled your eyes.

“She’ll be fine. Just hurry home.”

One last peck and Bucky was gone, the last passenger in before the train door shut with a bang that echoed in your heart. You waved at your fiancé from the edge of the platform until his figure was long gone, the engagement ring he gave you weighting your hand down with all the promises this war was daring him to keep.

My journey home seems longer than wintertime in Wisconsin. Did I ever tell you that there was still some ice on the ground in early April? I thought nothing would ever bloom in that place, but then some daisies sprouted on a patch of grass near the barracks a couple of weeks ago. They reminded me of Mrs. Roberts and the daisies she used to keep at the front windowsill of the boarding house. Are they still there? Do you think you’d like to have some daisies at our house? Or maybe roses?

The conscription letter burned a hole in Bucky's pocket.

He swore he could smell it, even. There was something foul prickling his nose and he thought it was the letter aflame, scorching the paper, his pants, his life. It's what he wished he'd done to it, anyway: set the rough parchment on fire like he would a cheap cigarette, then step on the stub for good measure, but it was useless.

The letter was Bucky and Bucky was the letter. It'd given him a number made of ashes, and now he was no longer man - he was ember, stoking the flames of the fire that laid waste to his world and time.

All the way to the boarding house you called home, Bucky thought of Steve. He'd hate that Bucky was drafted - to the 107th, no less - and he wasn't. It would only make him restless, even more determined to join a war that Bucky wanted no part of. And he hated the part of him that was envious of Steve's bravery right now, because the other part was busy making plans to run away with you to Mexico.

Bucky was supposed to marry you, not sail across the Atlantic. You'd been dating for over two years and he'd saved enough money for an apartment. His Ma kept complaining about grandchildren and Becca resorted to dropping not so subtle hints over Sunday lunch, like if you'd rather have emeralds or sapphires on your engagement ring. His savings weren't enough for neither, but Bucky still hoped you'd take him as your husband.

Hope was a funny thing for a young man like Bucky Barnes to have in 1942. Hope that you'd marry him. Hope that Steve wouldn't find a way to join the Army. Hope that he wouldn't lay to rest in a shallow grave with hundreds of other men in Europe.

Mrs. Roberts, the landlady of your boarding house, was tending to her daisies when he approached. She was a grouchy old woman whose husband died in the Great War - the greatest one so far, at least - who ignored Bucky most days, unless he did something she considered incredibly scandalous, like bring you home after 10 P.M. Today, however, she cast him a glance from behind the bushes.

“Well then,” she started. “They called ya name, didn’t they?”

Bucky was confused.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’ve seen that look on your face before,” Mrs. Roberts said, plucking a flower from the stem with a pair of gardening scissors. “It was the same look my husband had when he came out that very door to get the mail one morning and found out he’d been conscripted.”

She waved to the front door of the boarding house with the hand that still held the scissors.

“How are you planning to tell her?”

Bucky cleared his throat.

“I’m not sure yet.”

The woman shook her head.

“There’s no easy way to do it - and I mean all of it. Wars are nasty things, son. No one really wins them.”

In a fraction of a second, Bucky thought he could see a young Mrs. Roberts, before the grief and the heartache, yet as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

“I’ll marry Y/N before I go,” he declared with all the certainty he could muster, but his promise sounded empty.

Mrs. Roberts smiled, and before then Bucky never knew that a smile could be sadder than tears.

“Just don’t forget to come home to her.”

Whatever you want, we’ll have it. One of the boys in my regiment said you should toss rice on the newlywed couple as soon as they leave the church, did you know about that? According to him, it’s good fortune. Or maybe he was just teasing me (‘cause he said something about a garter belt, as well. Now, I am no Becca Barnes, wedding expert, but I’m sure that can’t exist).

You and your husband walked out of the church hand in hand, under a soft smattering of rice thrown by your few guests.

He kissed you under the arched entryway, pulling you in against his chest with more vigor and less modesty than he had on the inside. The buttons of his green jacket pressed your breastbone through the fabric of your dress.

Steve was the first to congratulate you, hugging you and Bucky at the same time. You were surprised to see that, behind him, Ms. Roberts was discreetly wiping her tears. Bucky’s mother Winnifred was delighted, cheerfully announcing to the guests of the next wedding: “Look at my children!”

There was no reception or party. The greetings at the front lawn of the church were brief, and soon another bride was walking down the aisle and Bucky was holding the door of a taxi open for you.

"You look beautiful, Mrs. Barnes," he whispered in your ear as Brooklyn rushed by.

The apartment was a small two-bedroom on the third floor of a building that probably housed more people than it should, yet, in your eyes, it was perfect - even with the handed down pots and pans, and the two or three boxes of clothing you hadn't had the time to unpack the previous week. It was simple, modest and perhaps a little messy, but it was yours.

Bucky surprised you by lifting you in his arms and carrying you through the threshold. Your giggles echoed off the walls, dissolving in a sigh when he laid you gently on the bed. The sheets smelled like him from having slept on them the night ahead, comforting you. It wasn't the first time you and Bucky had sex, but it was the first time you'd do in your own home, your own bed, as husband and wife. This realization brought a shiver down your spine.

He took your shoes off, placing them on the floor with care before running his hands carefully up your ankles and calves, through the light fabric of your stockings. When he got to your knees, Bucky pushed the white fabric of your dress skirt away just far enough that he could graze your thighs, until his fingers brushed your garter belt.

He grinned, blue mischief tinkling is his gaze.

"I knew it!"

You wanted to hide your face in embarrassment, and curse Becca for having such a terrible idea in the first place, yet Bucky was quicker, pulling the garter down with the left stocking and then quickly reaching for the right one. He turned the strip of lace in his hand, a sly smirk in his pink lips.

You rose to your knees, pulling him to you by the green tie. You ripped the jacket from his shoulders with such force that some of the gold buttons flickered to the ground in twinkling melody. The bed creaked and Bucky laughed at your eagerness:

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes," you breathed into his collaborne, pressing kisses in whatever bit of skin you could find.

“Do you love me?”

“Lots more.”

His deft fingers found the zipper of your dress, and he pulled apart just enough to undress you. Your lingerie was made of the same fabric as the garter belt, and Bucky's eyes widened.

"How did I get so lucky?" he breathed.

The muscles of his back hypnotized you as he took off his shirt, dragging you to his lap, legs tangling together in the mattress. Your nails left indents on his biceps and a twisted thought occurred to you that maybe they could stay there forever.

That way even Death herself would know Bucky was yours, and wouldn't dare take him from you.

“Touch me,” you gasped. “Touch me, James, please.”

Your lovemaking was lascivious and fast. You and Bucky had been apart for too long and there was too much frustration, absence and lust clouding your judgements. Tiny droplets of sweat descended from the underside of your chin down your throat and the valley of your breasts, which were pressed firmly against Bucky’s chest. You wanted to keep your eyes open, to record in your memory the way his hands gripped your waist and his hips girated against yours, but the absolute ecstasy of having him again was nearly maddening.

Bucky came mere just seconds after you did, groaning curses in your temple. Your tired bodies collapsed in the bed, yet your feet were still somehow entwined, making it look more of a tumble and less of a graceful catch of breath. The late afternoon sun reflected on your husband's wedding ring and you wondered how long it would take for him to have a tan line.

Bucky pulled you to him and you rested your forehead on his shoulder.

"I love you," he said.

You didn’t reply, instead just breathed in the salt on his skin. After the pictures, the greetings and the sex, fear showed it’s ugly face again. You weren’t religious, but you found yourself hiding in the crook of Bucky’s neck, praying to the same God that united the two of you in matrimony.

Please don’t take my husband away from me.

I want more than two weeks.

I want a life.

Bucky called your name, raising your chin with the tip of his forefinger.

“I love you,” he repeated. Then smiled: “Mrs. Barnes.”

Something in the sound of it made you believe that everything would be alright.

“I love you too, Mr. Barnes,” you laughed. “I really do.”

I guess I'll see for myself when I arrive. It won't be long now, darling. Wait for me, I’m almost home.

Always yours,

Bucky

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #1940s!bucky x reader #40s!bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #corneliabarnes #my writing #hope springs eternal

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astraeal · 4 years ago

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Commission for @thedashasaproblem! Hope you enjoy; read it on AO3 here.

Farmer Marie, original character, belongs to @thedashasaproblem. Stardew Valley, and all characters and settings therein, belongs to concernedape.

“Okay! We have quite a few things we need to get done today. Marnie called – you know how I asked her to let us know if she had any more available chicks? Yes? – and said there were some new ones we could pick up, which is perfect and just in time because Robin wrapped up the coop yesterday! And that means we need fresh hay in the coop, and if we need to restock the silo then we’ll mow too. Bessie needs to be milked and we’ll check if Sweetpea has any this morning or if she’s still nursing – ugh, little Delilah is going to be so stunning when she grows up, I can feel it. Oh, and good morning babe!”

Elliott blinks from where he’d stumbled into the kitchen, his hair thrown into a messy bun and loose auburn strands hanging around his face. He is in no way prepared for Marie’s chipper enthusiasm, but that’s what made him love her, after all. And, this entire situation is something he brought upon himself.

Head full of fantastical pastoral fantasies, he’d asked Marie to keep him appraised of what it takes to run Shady Land Farm. He was good with books, which was helpful – while Marie was running about the Valley in search of delicious fruits and rare stones, Elliott appointed himself the financier of Marie’s assets.

It had been difficult; he’d consolidated sticky notes scattered about the house with haphazard reminders about supplies owed to Robin, and items to sell to Pierre at the general store vs. what should be distributed to townsfolk directly, and birthday reminders, and favorite gifts, and occasional notes written in a script he couldn’t parse but appearing on a fantastical dark blue page that made his writer’s intuition spark. (That, and his fingers burned a little whenever he held such a note, as if it knew that he was not the intended recipient, but he never let Marie know that.)

After his book tour had completed, he had taken the better part of their first fall together to consolidate these notes and square the books. It had been helpful when Marie decided to go forward with the basement upgrade, and suddenly Shady Land’s wines and cheeses were worth quite a lot more. They’d only recently begun talking about incorporating more animals into the farm, hence the phone call to Marnie. With the addition of more animals, and Marie’s additional time spent working on repairing the old Community Center, Elliott wanted to assist more. It was only fair, after all; he still got most of his writing done at night, and there was no reason he couldn’t spend more of his mornings helping around the farm.

Marie had been ecstatic, of course, and he’d glowed with the anticipated appreciation for his efforts. So far, it hadn’t been that difficult. Sprinklers handled most of the watering, and with Marie’s clear eye for design, he wasn’t getting lost in the fields as he had feared he would.

But he still wasn’t a morning person, and his brain isn’t entirely on all the way, especially when his wife has inundated him with information and her beautiful visage so early in the morning.

Marie looks up at him, wide blue eyes and a warm smile on her face, blonde hair tucked away in two braids that usually resided beneath her sunhat. The hat now rests on the worn kitchen table, two steaming mugs of coffee and cozy breakfast platters set on the table. Still processing his wife’s words, Elliott makes his way to the second breakfast platter and pours some milk into his coffee, knowing he’ll need it to make it through the day.

“Good morning, my dear,” he murmurs as he finishes those first three blessed gulps of caffeinated beverage. “Would you like me to fetch the chicks? Or shall I stay on the homestead and you venture to the forest?”

Marie takes a bite of her eggs, done up with some goat cheese – “I bought it from Pierre but when we get some we’ll make our own, and it’ll be probably fresher than this stuff!” – potatoes, and sausage in her own little scramble. Elliott’s breakfast is far more tame, scrambled eggs and farm fresh cheese, with toast on the side.

“If you want to take Miss Daisy to Marnie’s, that would be great! She could use an excursion, and she loves the woods.” Marie sets her hand – soft, thanks to the gloves she uses, but still strong and capable – over Elliott’s wrist. “If you don’t mind, that is. I know coming back with newborn chicks might be a little…difficult.”

He warms at her touch. “I’m sure Marnie has a basket or some such thing I could use, don’t fret darling. She’d never let anything happen to the animals in her care.”

Marie smiles at him, and pecks his cheek. “Alright, babe, I’ll head down to the barn –”

“Oh, I can do that!” He blushes a little after his outburst, but still gives his wife a smile. “Let me handle the animals today, my dear. The first fruits of spring will be in the orchard, and you’ve got a better sense for flora than I.”

They both remember the catastrophic effort in Elliott’s old cottage when he watered his rose with sea water and was confused as to why it was dying. That had been one of the many points Elliott began to consider Marie as more than a friend.

She gives him a look clearly conveying that she’s thinking of the same moment he is. “Well, alright. Apricots and cherries, what a combination. Oh! And the wine! I’ll be right back!” She darts away, down the basement stairs, presumably to see if any wine has finished maturing yet. Some things she pulls out early, just for a little extra cash – Gus is always appreciative of a finer quality of any type of ingredient, especially alcohol.

Elliott knows it will take her a little while to check each barrel, so he quickly finishes his breakfast and coffee, and then stands, ready to take on the day.

First, to get himself prepared.

Then, to tend to Miss Daisy.

♢♢♢

Marie loses some time in the basement, checking each and every barrel, weighing the pros and cons of switching out some of the wine barrels for cheese barrels. With Bessie and Sweetpea both producing such quality milk, Shady Land has a near excess of cheese and she knows Gus would pay a fair amount to have some for his pizzas and salads.

Then again, better quality cheese keeps her going in the mines and other excursions, so there might be some incentive to keep some around? She’d probably ask Elliott for his thoughts, but by the time she surfaces from the basement and sees the clock perched over the coffee maker in the kitchen, she realizes it’s already 2:49pm.

She’d left her husband alone for hours. Elliott isn’t incompetent, but there’s still etiquette for handling new animals, especially babies, and all of Grandpa’s farming books are written in family shorthand, something she’d been meaning to teach Elliott but just kept forgetting.

Alarmed, Marie runs out to the front porch, expecting some sort of catastrophe. Bessie to be loose – not that she’d do much but perhaps wander up towards the house and eat a few tulips or something – or maybe Aspen to have fallen into the lake (again) but instead all’s quiet. She can hear the soft bells hanging from Bessie, Sweetpea, and little Delilah, but she can’t see them through the orchard.

She doesn’t run, lest she startle anyone, but she heads towards the tree line as quickly as she can. As she approaches, she can hear her husband’s voice. She quiets her steps as she enters the dappled shade of the orchard, the apple and orange trees still dormant for the season, yet producing beautiful flowers regardless. A sweet spring wind guides some fallen petals towards her, beautifully framing the tender scene she sees before her.

Elliott sits on a stump, Miss Daisy, Bessie, and Sweetpea, grazing peacefully beside him. He and little Delilah, however, are looking down, enraptured with three small fuzzy brown and golden chirping fluffy chicks in the grass. The chicks are barely visible from her current distance, but as Elliott straightens up his long hair goes back into place, revealing a fourth little chick curled up in his hand, which he gives little pets to every once in a while.

“You’re not too different from the crab that once lived in my pocket,” the story crafter begins, murmuring to the little chick in his hand. The chick chirps in response, and Elliott chuckles. “I haven’t told you that story yet? Well, I absolutely should.”

Marie takes another small step forward, not wanting to encroach on the moment nor startle any of the beings involved. The more she watches the scene, the more she sees things she hadn’t before. Like how all the adult females stood firmly on the edge of the lake, prohibiting the chicks, Elliott, or Aspen from wandering too close to it. And a small – hopefully empty – milk pail sits next to the stump, as if her husband had finished a chore and then simply couldn’t be away from the chicks for much longer.

What gives her away is another small fluff ball in the grass, this one bigger than the chicks, a brilliant white that rockets out of the higher grass and directly into Marie’s arms.

“Aspen! Who’s a good boy?” she coos, on reflex. Miss Daisy looks nonplussed, as if she knew Marie was there the entire time, while Delilah startles a little and runs back to the safety of Sweetpea.

Elliott also startles, which startles the chicks, who all climb and jump up his pant legs and into his lap, chirping loudly until they can take cover in the safety of Elliott’s lap. “Darling! I didn’t hear you arrive!” He looks caught red handed, though with what, Marie’s not sure.

She walks over, Aspen tucked to her chest, and sees with no small amount of relief that the milk pail isn’t full of milk, but rather water. Now, she can also see a small basket, no doubt from Marnie, in which the chicks probably arrived.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disrupt…you just looked so cute, babe! Everyone treating you nicely?” Marie leans forward, letting Aspen back down to the ground, and gives an affectionate rub to Miss Daisy, who wandered over searching for some treats.

Elliott blushes, visible even with the mid-spring flush he seems to always have on him. “Yes, quite. Everyone has been remarkably kind to me. Miss Daisy had to guide us home herself! I was, ah, a little preoccupied with the newest young ones.”

The wind picks up a little, carrying more flower petals through the air. Elliott’s long auburn waves glint caramel in the sun, unfurling to the side, revealing the turquoise earring usually kept tucked away. Marie had mined that turquoise herself; the earring had been a wedding gift from Clint, repurposing a stone Marie had sold him a few weeks prior to their proposal. (She had briefly wondered if maybe Clint and Elliott had been in on it together, as the timing was so perfect, but maybe she was simply overthinking things.)

Elliott looks completely at home, sitting cross-legged on the stump, worn down by spring rains. With the chicks in his lap and the errant flower petals in his hair, the man looks ever more like a regal prince from all the books and movies Marie had seen growing up.

“They’ve taken a liking to you,” she observes, reaching a finger in to give gentle pets to the soft downy chicks. They accept them, curious and cautious in their new home, but feeling brave under Elliott’s protection. “Have you thought of any names?”

Her husband looks up, green eyes wide. “Names? Oh, darling, I thought that was all you.”

“Nonsense! You picked them up, you should at least be able to name them. These ladies will need fine names, if they’re to live here on Shady Land. And you’re a writer, names are what you do!”

The chicks chirp in agreement, looking up at Elliott.

“Well…I was thinking this one could be Carmelina,” he murmurs, touching the lightest brown one. “Caramel, for the color, but the full name also means “vineyard of Yoba” so I find that fitting for the main exports of Shady Land, don’t you?”

Marie blinks. “You…knew the meaning of the name on the spot?”

“Of course! Clara was almost named Carmelina in Camellia Station, but I thought that would be too close to the title of the book, so I changed it. Still kept the C though.” He gets that wistful look on his face, a little lost in thought, as he usually does when trying to come up with next big ideas for his writing career.

The farmer giggles, giving more pets to Miss Daisy, who finally nosed out the cookies in Marie’s pockets. She gives one to her steadfast companion, looking at her husband with a newfound appreciation.

She takes a seat on the stump beside Elliott, looking up at him as they discussed further names for the chicks. The sun dripped down through the orchard’s branches, spreading dappled shadows up the short grassy expanse. Eventually, the cows and Miss Daisy wander back to their respective barns and stables, and the chicks doze off in Elliott’s lap. Marie delicately takes a couple – the newly named Carmelina and Dahlia – and heads off to the newly constructed coop to set them inside.

The chicks barely move when they’re set down in their new hay lined beds, clearly Elliott’s handiwork while Marie was tending to the house. The two of them hold hands, walking through the fields of Shady Land.

“You know, we could wash up and head to town. Get a late lunch at the Saloon, then maybe walk down by the beach?” Marie suggests, watching her husband for his response. She likes to spend as much time with him as possible before she loses him to his nightly writing routine, and there’s something a little tender about meandering down by the places they had fallen in love.

Elliott beams, nearly glowing with happiness. “That sounds delightful, dear. I’ll be sure to put on my best shirt.”

It’s not necessary to dress up for a 4pm lunch at the Stardrop Saloon, but Elliott likes to go the extra mile, and Marie can appreciate the little efforts to glamorize being a farmer’s husband. She kisses his dirt smeared cheek, standing side by side on the porch, and marvels at how far she’s taken the farm since her grandfather had worked the land.

Maybe someday she’d tell her husband about the vision she’d received a couple weeks ago, with her grandfather and the ultimate judging of her efforts so far, and the new, strange, blue flame candles on her grandfather’s shrine in the northwest corner of the farm. Someday. But not today.

“I wonder if Gus will have crab cakes,” she teases, stepping into their home, to the sounds of fire crackling in the fireplace and her husband enthusiastically waxing poetic about his favorite dish in the entire Valley.

Truly, it’s home.

#commissions #stardew valley commission #stardew valley #sdv #thedashasaproblem #i think after typing it so many times i NOW can read your url correctly #but i think it will always partially be 'the dashas problem'#hope you enjoy!! 💖💖💖

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