#god fuck its so fucking hard living thousands of miles away already

[hikeyzz]

idk just pining for my beloved who is always in my heart but physically never by my side and just wishing to feel the warmth of his presence and embrace

[dysfunctionalcrab]

cooking chaos

pairing: quackity x reader

pronouns: gender neutral!

description: chaotic cooking stream with your boyfriend, alex

warnings: some swearing. but it’s quackity so what do you expect?

“heyyyyy, what’s up chat!” you suddenly heard him yell. he finally went live. “how’s it going?” he asked, chat started spamming all sorts of different answers.

seeing as everybody really enjoyed the last cooking stream where he made a pizza and failed. he decided to do another one, but with you, his beautiful s/o as a special guest.

for a good 5 minutes, alex read out the donations, answering their questions and thanking people for the gifted subs, you were in the other corner of the kitchen, washing your hands and putting on your apron.

“today,” he said. “we will be making burgers, burgers, so good, that mcdonald’s will start knocking on our door, and so tasty, that burger king will beg us stop making them” he joked. you shook your head at your boyfriends silliness and enthusiasm

“and today, chat, i have mi amor with me,” he pulled you into the view of the camera. you gave a small smile and sheepishly waved at the camera. chat started blowing up even more. it wasn’t often that alex brought you into his streams, because as much as he loved you, he knew people were going to be judgemental and people that were going to hate for no reason. he just wanted to protect you.

“we are professional chefs,” he stated. “you saw my masterpiece of a pizza and now we are going to make the best burgers in existance,”

“the pizza was disgusting,” you interrupted

“shut the fuck up [y/n],”

-

“here we have our mince meat,” he slapped his hand on it. “our burger patty seasoning, and the beautiful lettuce and tomato and other fillings, and lastly, our burger buns” he waved his hand in front of them, adorning them and showing them to chat

“if you’re white, then let me take a second to explain to you what seasoning is,” he said

“alex!” you scolded, causing chuckle to erupt from him.

he started presenting all the different spices. salt, pepper, paprika, onion power and so on. you decided to just unwrap the mince meat and start off the patties

“and look at these burger buns chat,” he held up the circular bread. “so soft and squishy,”

you giggled, obviously recognising the dirty joke he was insinuating. but then he started to get a little distracted, so you had to pull him back him to remember the real purpose of this stream.

“babe, i agreed to be in this stream if we were actually planning on making burgers,” you told him. he looked at you, offended

“i am,”

“you’ve been making jokes about the burger buns for 2 minutes,”

“i’ll let you know that i could make these burgers all by myself,” he smirked at you.

you put your hands on your hips and nodded sarcastically. “oh okay, gordon ramsay, then how about you actually start seasoning the damn meat, show me how it’s done,” you passed the board of mince to him.

“with pleasure,” he answered, you eyed him carefully as he sprinkled the mix of different powders. rolling it and kneading in the flavour. you were feeling pretty hungry and you were in the mood for some burgers. so you really wanted this to go well.

unluckily, when he came to sprinkling the pepper, the lid slipped off, causing all of the pepper to fall out on top of the meat.

“alex!” you slammed a hand to your forehead. “what the hell?”

“that wasn’t fucking me!”

“you were having a party with the spices a while ago, did you unloosen the lid?”

“no!” he replied defensively

you crossed your arms and shot him a playfully angry look.

he scrunched his nose. “okay, maybe i accidently did,”

you couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“you little shit,” you giggled. “let’s just brush it all off,”

-

as you two collected all the excess pepper, and double checked that all the lids were properly tightened and sealed. you felt a tingling sensation in your face. before even coming to acknowledge it though, you sneezed. all over food.

alex looked at you in dissapointment

“babe,” he hid his face in hands. “are you fucking serious?”

you were a little mad at yourself but you couldn’t help it. pepper always made you sneeze. “i’m sorry,” you said in a genuine tone, but a smile did creep up on your face.

chat was having a great time, they were probably clipping every single bit of this stream

“throw those covid-infested patties away and start over” you read out from a donation. what other choice did you have?

thank god you didn’t use all of the meat in the beginning. so you were able to start over and get it a right a second time

-

“okay, chat! second time lucky!” alex shouted. you had now turned on the pan and buttered it, ready to actually start cooking the burger.

in your first attempt to cook the burger. the outside was rock hard, it was definitely burnt.

“still edible,” alex claimed. and casually took a giant chunk out of it, revealing the uncooked inside. he spat it out.

“not edible,”

-

your second attempt went well, it appeared beautifully brown on the outside and when you slightly cut it open to check the inside, you were presented with a gorgeously cooked patty.

“let’s go chat! we did it!” alex celebrated. he added the burger bun along with the chosen fillings, before taking a bite out it.

“mmm,” he exaggerated. “this is so fucking good,” he kissed your cheek. “try it,” he passed it to you and it was surprisingly pretty delicious.

“that’s really nice,” you admitted

although, as you two were enjoying your creation and started rolling your second burger into its shape. chat seemed to start going at an absurd speed of a thousand miles per hour.

user: FIIIIRRREEEE

user: THE TEA TOWEL GUYS ITS ON FIRE

user: YOU IDIOTS LOOK BEHIND YOU

alex was completely oblivious, but you caught on. you turned around and sure enough, a blue tea towel which one of you idiotically left on the stove had caught on fire. half of the towel was already black and almost burnt to crisp in a giant flame that chat could see rising from behind you.

“oh my god!” you screamed. alex turned around, panicking.

“what the fuck!” he yelled. alex grabbed the fabric by the only unburnt part of the towel and threw it into the sink. “turn on the water!”

you did as told and switched on the tap, water started to run and the fire was quickly out.

you took a minute to process what just happened.

“chat just saved our lives, thanks chat!” you laughed. catching your breath after that moment of pure fear.

alex cleared his throat. “i’m actually so goddamn hungry right now,” he said. “this has been very fun, you guys. but i think that was a sign from the lord that it’s time to end the stream,” he said

“thank you all for hanging out today, we’re gonna continue making these burgers off stream but soon you’ll see me on karl’s jack-box stream, so be sure to join that later on in the day!”

he read out a couple more donations and then at last, ended the stream. you two just stared at each other, a silence filling the room.

“well,” he started. “that went well,”

“shut the fuck up, alex”

———

masterlist

[imjusttpeachy]

bumpy roads & broken promises. (c.h.)

EDIT: Lmaoooo I did not expect this to actually get notes, thanks guys! I already made it onto someone’s fic recs-- I feel special. Actually might end up writing more if this gets more attention. :^)

I wrote this as a vent/comfort fic for myself but figured others might like it. Corpse has been my new safety youtuber ever since the old nosleep reader--deep voice/no face gamer went to shit so... yeah. 

Heavily inspired by @mmonamona ‘s fic “Petty Fights and Lonely Nights” just more angst. 

playlist

feng suave - sink into the floor

current joys - a different age

feng suave - venus flytrap

rei ami - do it right

summary: Corpse gets frustrated with work and snaps at the reader when she tries to ask what’s wrong, triggering a bad memory from a past relationship. 

word count: 2, 932

WARNINGS: she/her pronouns used, coarse language, shouting, panic attacks, reference to past relationship trauma (no retelling, nothing detailed)

(angst, hurt/comfort, crying! lots of it)

>>>

“God would you just fuck off already?!”

Frozen. Your body tensed up as the deep growl echoed through the cramped dark room.

You had been staying at your boyfriend’s apartment for about a week while you were on break from college. Flying out from the UK to California so you could spend as much time as you could with him before ultimately having to return to 5am facetimes while drowning in papers and essays.

Even before you’d booked the tickets, Corpse was already apologizing for everything under the sun. The size of his apartment and its cleanliness, the fact that he couldn’t do much more than order take out for you, his irregular sleeping patterns.. the list could go on and on. And while you assured him every time that you didn’t care, that you were coming to see him— not his apartment, not home cooked meals, and definitely not to scrutinize him for things he couldn’t control due to his mental health. But he wouldn’t buy it.

Not one bit.

He’d offer you a weary half-smile, pulling you into his chest or ruffling your hair before placing a soft kiss on your temple and changing the subject. You didn’t press any further knowing how often he was at war with his own mind and couldn’t help but think the worse of every situation.

As the days carried on, you’d spent most of your time tangled up in each other. Whether it be a movie, or playing some co-op games, or even just laying in his bed with him, you could barely stand to spend any time apart. But, of course, you were adults with responsibilities that would tear you from one another eventually. While you did miss his presence every second he wasn’t around, you couldn’t help but try to make his life even better for when he got back and for when you’d eventually have to leave him once again. Now, a week into your stay, his apartment was a good amount tidier than how it’d been when you arrived. The cupboards and fridge were stocked with groceries that would hopefully last for some time after you left, on top of the home made meals you’d make together or for him everyday. New picture frames were hung up on the wall of the two of you that you’d gifted to him when you arrived; it actually started to feel like home. Well, as much as it could without those familiar strong arms wrapped around you every second of the day.

Unfortunately, this evening was one of those times. Corpse had already been locked up in his office for a few hours now, the sounds of button mashing and frustrated exclamations making its way through the thin walls every so often bringing an amused smile to your face. He’d woken up a bit anxious already knowing he’d have to both leave you alone and put up a brave front for the stream that was planned that evening. You didn’t push him or try to talk about it, knowing that it would just make it worse; so you two had spent the day as it normally would (though he always looked and felt on edge) until he was forced to retreat back into that dreaded workspace.

You occupied yourself on your phone and laptop for a while, checking up on friends, reviewing anything you’d need for the upcoming semester, just scrolling through your socials— y’know, the works. But by the time you’d gotten bored with your scrolling, you’d notice it was a perfect time to start dinner that you’d hopefully be able to eat together with Corpse. You’d gotten to work right away, doing your best to be as quiet as you could to not disturb his work as the different aromas began to spread through the small kitchen in his apartment. Finishing up the dishes after the meal was all cooked, you dished up two servings and set them on the coffee table in front of the couch before you went to retrieve your other half.

Turning the knob of his office door slowly, you peered into the dark room; only the silhouette of the floppy mop of hair you adored so much was able to be seen in the dim light of his computer monitors. Taking a hard look at his right-most monitor you notice an editing software pulled up instead of the usual live chat he had on while streaming, so without any worry of interrupting you opened the door and stepped into the room. It was a cozy room for sure, and it always seemed to smell just like him— which of course is a given but with how much time he spent in this room, it was even more so present. Walking up slowly to his right side so you wouldn’t startle him with just your voice you watched his gaze flick to your form before steadying itself back in the monitor. Furrowing your brows at his strange behaviour but not letting it get to you, you opened your mouth to speak.

“I made dinner!” You smiled down at him, taking a few steps back toward the door so he would be able to get out of his gaming chair without you in his space. However, the hunched form of your focused boyfriend didn’t move an inch. Your heart sunk a little at his attitude but decided to just try again.

“Corpse, baby, dinners ready.”

“I’m not hungry.” The short statement left his mouth in a low grumble, if you hadn’t spent all this time with him studying his voice and begging him to speak more to you, you probably wouldn’t have been able make it out at all. You huffed out a sigh, this was new for him, you really hadn’t seen him as anything other than the cuddly baby you’d grown to know and love. But, you thought to yourself, love would come with days like this and it was bound to happen eventually. Trying your best to not get frustrated or angry with his snappy attitude, you kept your voice light and cheery as you tried again to coax him out to eat.

“Corpse you’ve barely eaten today I-“

“I said I’m not hungry.” Startling at the angry tone you’d never heard from him before, you could feel yourself start to get choked up. Pulling your hands up to hug your arms, trying to sooth yourself, you could feel yourself starting to slowly freeze up. Goosebumps ran over your skin, a chill snaking  it’s way up your spine as you gulped, trying your best to muster up the bravery to speak again. You didn’t know what had gotten into him, he knew how the tone affected you— he was usually even the one to comfort you after an episode triggering something like this. As your mouth began to run dry, you took a deep breath deciding that he would definitely come to his senses in the next moments, you opened your mouth to speak again.

“Is everything alri-“

“I’m FINE! I’m not a FUCKING CHILD I don’t need you constantly checking up on me! God would you just fuck off already!”

You didn’t even notice the tears dripping off your cheeks until they splashed against the bare skin of your hand. Slipping into the defense mode you knew so well, your body switched onto autopilot as you began to backpedal out of the room, almost tripping a few times as you sputtered out a choked “okay, I’m sorry,” before closing his door once again and stumbling messily down the hallway to his room. Your mind was moving a thousand miles a minute yet was completely blank at the same time, and before you knew it you were tucked away inside the dark closet in his room.

This was the routine, this is where you’d be safe.

Trying to slow your erratic breathing you hugged your knees even closer to your chest, praying that in some way it would ease your shaking body. But inevitably, you felt the sobs that you’d kept trapped in your throat since you’d left break through. Your chest heaved with the breaths you took to keep your sobs as silent as possible. You thought you had trained yourself well enough for this, you’d done this a million times before— but in the back of your mind you knew that this time it was different. Shrinking into the corner of the closet, the only thing on your mind was all the broken promises he’d sworn to keep.

>>>

Corpse sighed, his body weighing him down in his chair heavily, head aching with all the work he’d been doing that evening. Pulling his attention back, he stretched his arms as his sore eyes glanced over at the clock in the corner of his screen. 11:34pm. Fuck. That much time had passed already? Raking a hand through his hair he yawned sleepily, he knew he should probably spend more time working before calling it a night but all he wanted to do was curl up in bed with you-

Shit.

Finally snapping out of the heavy trance he’d set himself in every time he sat down to edit, he thought back to the last time he had seen you— calling him for dinner where he snapped at you to leave him alone… almost 3 hours ago. The memories of the past moment flooded into his head and seconds later he was scrambling out of his chair and out into the hallway. It was dead silent, Corpse felt like his heart was practically breaking his ribs with how hard it was pounding in his chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Gripping at the right side of his shirt he rushed into the living room, rubbing frantically at his eyes as they darted around the room quickly looking for any sign of you.

“(Y/N), baby?” He rasped out, voice caught in his throat, walking through the living room and spotting the now cold meals she’d prepared waiting uneaten on the coffee table. His heart sunk as he hurried to the kitchen only to see the rest of the meal out on the counter, not doing anything to ease his mind. He called your name again and again; rushing back into the living room his eyes darted to the front door, a tiny bit of relief pricking his system as he saw the door was still locked and latched, as well as seeing your shoes and jacket by the door. Rushing back into the hallway he peeked into the bathroom, flicking on the light switch and with no sign of you, continued down the hallway to his room.

“(Y/N), please baby.” Flicking on the light his eyes scanned the room not catching a single sight of you-- when he heard it. Slowing his breathing down as much as he could in his panicked state he focused in his hearing on the small heaves of air coming from the closet. Stomach dropping, Corpse collapsed onto his knees, legs giving way from underneath him when he realized where you were and what was happening. Crawling his way toward the closet door he stopped right outside of it, he heard your breath hitch and knew you were holding it out of practiced instinct which made him want to vomit. But it wasn’t about him right now, so with a deep breath he finally managed to whisper out.

>>>

“Princess, I’m gonna open the door okay?”

Finally releasing the breath you had been holding, your lungs heaved for air as light flooded into the dark closet. Peeking an eye out from where it was buried in your knees, you blearily made out your boyfriend’s blurry figure kneeling outside the closet. With your body feeling like it was completely out of your control, sobs once again began to rack your huddled form as you shrunk away from him as far as you could into the corner of the closet.

“I’m gonna come in and sit with you okay, I won’t touch you unless you say I can alright?” You could hear some shuffling before hearing the door creak shut again engulfing the both of you in almost complete darkness, save for the few streams of yellow light coming from the cracks of the door. Corpse stared forward in complete silence, long legs bent uncomfortably and body hunched over in the cramped space of the closet trying to give you as much space as possible but knowing that the first step was sitting with you. The man beside you sighed softly, feeling his heart splinter with every heaving sob that raked over you; he could feel his own tears prick at his eyes and a sob starting to well up in his throat but he held them back. Mustering up the courage and will he finally opened his mouth to speak.

“(Y/N) I am so, so fucking sorry,” his voice pitched just above a whisper because he knew if his voice got any deeper that it would startle you and scare you even more than how you were already feeling right now. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. It never should’ve hap-“

“Y- You br- broke your promise.” Your reply came in watery, stuttered breaths; the knot in Corpse’s throat came right back up, tears filling his waterline as much as he tried to keep his composure for your sake.

“I know. I know I did.” The man beside you managed to choke out thinking back to the day where he first lost his temper around you. You’d told him everything about your experience with your past relationships and how you were treated, what you used to cope and what he could do to avoid that in any way possible. He promised that day that he would never again raise his voice, or move too fast even when he was angry or frustrated, and made sure to note down anything that would possibly trigger you to completely avoid altogether. And he kept those promises… until today. Tilting his head to glance over at you, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the closet to see you staring straight ahead, tears pouring endlessly down your damp face as your body still shook with soft cries.

“I can’t lose you (Y/N)” Corpse’s voice shook as he tried to figure out the right things to say that would keep you from walking right out that door.

“I’ll do anything. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ll be better, I swear on my life I’ll be better. Anything you need— it’s yours. I just.. I can’t lose you. Not like this.” He hated how much he sounded like he was pleading when he’s the one who fucked up. The last thing he wanted to do was manipulate you into staying with him which was exactly what your ex did when they made the same mistake time and time again; something he swore he’d never even think of doing. But here he was, and here you were glancing up at him with bloodshot eyes, hair sticking to your tear slicked face and body shaking so much you’d think it was below freezing in there.

Tearing your gaze away from his, you heaved a watery, shaky sigh trying your best to get your thoughts in order. While you had your issues, you knew he had his as well; and with as much patience and understanding he gives you with your snappy, frustrated, sad days, you needed to give back that same patience and understanding with his own. You needed to be brave here.

“Baby-“

“C-Can you just hold me? Please?” You sputtered out just above a whisper, and before you could even unwrap your arms from around yourself Corpse was pulling you into his lap; strong arms encasing you as he pushed his face into your hair. That’s when you found out he was shaking just as much as you were, chest rising and falling erratically with contained sobs as he tried to keep his brave demeanour up for you. Tucking your head under his chin he leaned back against the wall as he crushed you to his chest, the droplets hitting the top of your head giving way to the fact that he was crying too. Pulling your arms up from your side, you slowly wrapped them around his shoulder as he pushed his face against the crook of your neck, sobs finally giving way as he cried helplessly into your shoulder; further dampening the already tear-soaked cloth of the hoodie you were wearing.

“I’m sorry,” Corpse sputtered, hooking his chin over your shoulder so he could keep up with the heaving of his chest, pulling an arm up from around your waist to rest on the back of your head. As much as he wanted to run his hands all over your body and bury his fingers in your hair to feel and memorize every inch of you, he kept them still not wanting to overwhelm you more than this kind of touch already did.

“I love you, I love you so much, I love you..“ he whispered over and over into the darkness of the closet as you both began to breath slower as one. Shushing him softly, you repeated the soft words back to him before wrapping your arms tighter around his shoulders, ensuring him that you were going to be alright.

There would be bumps in the road but Corpse was worth it.

__________________________________

[avintagekiss24]

APPEARANCES || FRANK ADLER

pairing: Frank Adler x black!reader || word count: 5,898 || warnings: smut, sex, slight ass play, a little bit of dirty talk, swearing || request: your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere during a downpour and Frank comes to you rescue 

authors note: fic number #2 for the 4k celebration! this was requested by @stargazingfangirl18​! hope you like, babe! line divider by @firefly-graphics​​!

“Uncle Frank, where are you?”

You smile gently as Mary’s words hit your ears. You send your eyes towards her as she talks on your phone, pacing slowly, her little fingers playing with the hem of her Girls Scout vest. You hear a deep, muffled voice on the other end and turn your eyes back to the laptop in your lap, continuing to tap away at the keys.

“Okay, okay… yes… no… okay… I will… okay, bye.” She plops down next to you, holding out her hand containing your phone,  “He’s on his way. He said thanks for sitting with me.”

You wave her off, winking, “I owe you for all the help you’ve given me this semester.”

The young blonde leans over, placing her hands on your lap as she starts to read the dissertation you’re working on. She pushes some of her blonde hair out of her face as she mumbles, “This is good, except you forgot the negative here… and you need to carry the two here.” She says, pointing to the screen.

You tilt your head and squint your eyes, rereading your work quickly before you shake your head as a slow smile creeps on your face, “Shit.”

Mary looks back at you and smiles widely before leaning back over in her spot, “Can I play Angry Birds on your phone?”

“Well, I owe you again for telling me to carry this two, so yes,” you laugh as you delete the last two lines of your work to start treworking the problem, correctly this time, but you can’t get your fingers to move. You glance down the hallway as students in the small college building move about and spot the vending machine - your stomach rumbling as if on queue, “You want some chips or something, Mary?” you ask, grabbing your purse.

“Doritos please,” She answers, not looking up from your phone, “And a coke.”

You laugh a little as you stand, “Your Uncle is gonna kill me.”

“No he won’t, that’s what he had for breakfast this morning.”

“Wow,” You laugh, shaking your head as you start for the machine, “Don’t move, please.”

You move to the vending machine, pulling out your debit card and swiping it before tapping on the Doritos for Mary and the Cheetos for yourself. You pay for two cokes, (you’ve already ruined your diet with the Cheetos, might as well go all out) and turn on your heel to head back to your seat by the front doors. Just as you're handing the snacks to Mary, the doors open, a cool gust of wind washing over the two of you.

“Finally,” Mary says, rolling her eyes as she stands, “You’re late Uncle Frank.”

“I know it, I know.” He starts, running his hands through his damp hair, “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Mary asks, scrunching her face at him before she turns her attention back to you, “Thank you for the chips and the coke.”

“You’re very welcome. I’ll see you Monday, study buddy?” You ask, raising your hand for a high five.

The little monster slaps your hand with hers, her toothy grin stretching across her face, “You got it.”

“Thank you for sitting with her,” Frank says, glancing up at you as he helps her with her backpack, “And for feeding her.”

You wave him off as you pack up your own bag, “It’s no problem. She’s literally the only reason I’m passing this class, so I can certainly sit with her for fifteen or twenty minutes here and there.”

He smiles at you and you smile back at him, diverting your eyes after a few seconds. You don’t have time for hot uncles. Especially hot, tan uncles who work on boat engines for a living that wear loose Hawaiian button downs and old, dirty jeans. You certainly don’t have time in your life for hot uncles whose bicep muscles flex softly as he puts his nieces backpack on her shoulders.  Nope, you definitely don’t have time for hot, slightly grumpy uncles.

“You be careful out there, the rain is supposed to get worse for the rest of the night.”

“Thanks,” you say, unable to wipe the stupid smile off your face as Frank and Mary move towards the front door, “You too.”

He smiles again as he pushes open the door for the little human, “See you Monday.”

You lift your hand, wiggling your fingers a little as they push out into the wind and the rain. You watch as they run towards his old truck, Frank throwing open the passenger door for her before he slams it shut once she’s in. He jogs around the front of the trunk and then peels out of the parking lot, leaving you standing there, staring out of the glass doors like an idiot. You sigh - you really wish you had time for hot ass uncles.

You throw your messenger bag over your shoulder and grab your math book, holding it over your head as you push through the threshold of the doors out into the rain. You jog towards your old - and when you say old, you mean old. Your baby has two hundred thousand miles on her, a wonky tail light that sometimes comes on and sometimes doesn’t, and a passenger side window that doesn’t roll down all the way, but she’s always done right by you; until recently. You just need her to hold on for a few more weeks - until your dad comes down to visit his favorite girl and shell out a downpayment for a new car.

You toss the heavy math book into the passenger seat and dumb your bag onto the floor board before you put the key in the ignition and turn. It takes a minute, but the engine finally turns over and you pull out of the parking lot to head home - but you should stop by the store because you know you’re not going to want to do it later.

You groan as you slow to a stop at the intersection, cutting your eyes towards the Whole Foods to your left, and then the Taco Bell that sits on the corner to the right. God, a Mexican pizza sounds good… a Mexican pizza, Warrior Nun, and your couch sounds even better. A car honks behind you, startling you out of your daze, and you quickly take a left, heading towards the Whole Foods. Your scale will thank you later.

----

You waste longer than you intend in the Whole Foods and by the time you’re finished, it's pouring outside. Being the responsible adult that you are, you of course left your umbrella at home. So, of course, you and your groceries are soaked by the time you get them into the backseat and you get yourself back behind the wheel. You huff, pushing your wet, soon to be frizzy hair out of your face before slamming your key back into the ignition.

“Come on baby,” you whisper, “Come on, come on.”

After a few more prayers, it turns over, the heat (which is about the only thing that works the way it should) blasting over your chilled body. You rub your hands together quickly, eyeing the Taco Bell as Linkin Park blasts through the speakers. You’re soaked, starving, and no thanks to the thoughts of hot ass uncles and their stupid Hawaiian shirts, suddenly super horny - you deserve a Mexican pizza… and a chalupa… and some nacho fries… and a Baja Blast.

----

Your mood has improved greatly as the smell of tacos fill your nostrils. You tap along to the loud metal music blasting from the speakers as rain pelts down on your car. Ten more minutes and you’ll be home, in your pajamas, stuffing your face - this day can finally end.

Your car jerks suddenly, violently. Lights start flashing on the dash, the gauges pushing into the red as the car starts to die.

“Fuck!” You shout as you grip the wheel tightly, your eyes going wide, your heart starting to pound as you steer the car into the grass.

It rolls for a while before it finally comes to a stop. You turn the key, and hear nothing but clicks, “Shit,” you mumble, turning the key again and pumping the gas pedal, praying that it’ll start up, “Please, please, please.”

Click, click, click.

“Don’t do this to me!” You whine, turning the key again.

Click, click, click.

The lights on the dash flash again, the radio starts, the heat starts to blast, “Yes!” You squeal, bouncing in your seat.

It dies again.

You celebrated too soon.

“Fuck!”

You turn the key again.

No clicks.

No nothing.

You slam your head back into the seat and let your arms fall to your sides. Fuck. You sigh heavily and reach into the backseat, fumbling around until you feel your purse and pull it into your lap. You pull out your phone and tap the screen, but it stays black. You tap again, and then again, but nothing happens. You push the side button and groan when the red battery flashes across the screen. Of course. Of fucking course.

You throw the dead phone into the passenger seat and open your door, running around to the front of the car. You pop the hood, grunting and cursing as the heavy, hard rain drops down on you. Once the hood is up, you just stare at the engine. You don’t even know what you’re looking at, let alone what you should be looking for.

You tug on a few wires, push on the battery, you know, to make sure it’s in its place or whatever, wipe away old, wet leaves - but you’re completely lost, out of ideas and out of your element… in the middle of a downpour, with a dead phone. Just your luck.

A car drives by, splashing the puddled rainwater up onto you as you stand huddled under the hood. You slam your eyes closed, sucking your teeth before you count to ten, trying not to shout obscenities. You hear another car coming and naturally shift over a few feet to avoid being splashed again. A truck zooms past, but you hear it slow down within seconds. You peek over the hood as the truck comes to a complete stop and then is put in reverse. You’re half grateful but also half afraid - it is Florida.

“I thought that was you,” You hear a familiar voice call to you before a door opens and slams shut, “What happened?”

Relief floods over you as none other than Frank Adler, hottie McUncle pants, jogs towards you and joins your side, “God, I don’t know!” you whine, “I was driving home and it just stopped.”

“Let me take a look,” he mumbles more to himself than to you as he starts tugging and pushing on random wires, “Does it click or no, when you try and start it.”

“It was clicking, but now it’s not.”

He grunts a little, “Sounds like it’s probably the battery and the starter. When’s the last time you got an oil change?” You glance towards the sky, scrunching your face as you try and remember, “That’s too long to go without an oil change.” he chuckles, “I can get you fixed up, but not in all of this rain. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“No, I can’t - I can’t ask you to do that, I’ve taken enough of your time already and now you’re all soaked and,”

“I’m not gonna leave you in the rain,” he smirks, “Come on.”

“No, no, really! I can call somebody.” You lie, knowing good and damn well your phone is beyond dead. He scoffs, grabbing your hand, “I mean it, I have a backseat full of groceries!”

He pulls you into the street, opening the passenger side door to his truck and helps you in before he jogs back to your car. You watch as he grabs all of your groceries, all of them, in one hand at that, before he jogs back to his truck, opening the door again and depositing them at your feet. He runs back to your car, grabbing your backpack, purse, and your Taco Bell, before he jogs back to the truck, this time climbing into the drivers side.

“Frank,” you start, laughing nervously, “You really don’t have to do this. Really.”

“Don’t worry about it. I owe you anyway, for watching Mary whenever I’m running late.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “Not really, but okay. I live off of Ventura.”

“Ventura?” He says as he pulls off, flipping a u-turn, “That’s like fifteen minutes from here. You can chill at my place, get cleaned up, eat your food, then hopefully the rain will have let up and I can come back and change out the battery.”

His place? You swallow hard. This is not how you’ve elaborately daydreamed about finally being alone with Frank Adler, “You don’t have to do that, I’m sure you and Mary have plans.”

“Nah,” he says absentmindedly as he drives, “She stays with Roberta on Friday nights. It’ll just be you and me.”

Great. Now you don’t even have a buffer. You tap your fingers nervously against your knees as you stare out the windshield, your mind - and heart - suddenly racing. You clear your throat and glance over at him, which is a bad idea. His skin is damp, his loose dark gray t-shirt - now soaked - sticking to his chest and stomach. You push your eyes to his outstretched forearm and have to take a breath. How is it possible to be attracted to a forearm? Has it honestly been that long for you? You flick your eyes back towards the windshield - you’re not even going to chance looking at his face.

He pulls you into a small trailer park, parking his truck in front of a turquoise house. The two of you grab your belongings, him again grabbing all of your groceries in one hand - another thing that turns you on that shouldn’t - and run towards his front door, Frank pushing his weight against it to pop it open.

He lets you push in first before he closes the door and sets your groceries on the counter. You glance around, finding an orange, one eye cat meowing at you from its place on the small table pushed against the wall.

“Fred,” he says, pushing the cat softly, “Off the table, come on man.”

Little remnants of Mary are scattered around, her small sneakers tucked underneath the chair, her Spongebob DVDs piled on top of the table, with advanced math books and an apple laptop. Frank is also scattered around the small, but strangely cozy place.  A motor - or what you think is a motor - sits on the coffee table in the living room, tools strewn around it, and an open but turned over philosophy book lays on the couch.

“Do you wanna shower? I have some clothes you can change into if you want.”

You snap your head towards him, blinking rapidly as your brain tries to keep up with his words, “Oh, um, yeah. Okay, yeah.”

You follow him nervously to the bathroom, where he points out that you how to jiggle the knob a little to get hot water before he disappears into his room, only to return with a pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt, a large pullover hoodie, and some socks. Just as he leaves the bathroom, there’s a hint of a smile, more like a smirk, on his face before he dips his head and shuts the door behind him.

The butterflies that fill your stomach.

You turn towards the shower, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You slam your eyes closed. This is definitely not how you’ve envisioned this moment.

----

You step out of the bathroom twenty some odd minutes later, drowning in his sweats and hoodie, but warm and definitely feeling a lot better. Rain still beats down on the small house, seemingly harder than before. The TV is on, either wrestling or MMA or whatever playing, the sound low. Frank is in the kitchen, changed into a slightly dirty white t-shirt, complete with a little pocket, and baggy jeans, his feet bare - something else that turns you on that shouldn’t.

He hasn’t noticed you yet and you’re unsure if you want him too. You run your hand over your hair, towel dried as best as you could and pulled into a tight bun to try and keep it from curling and frizzing, with a scrunchie that you hope is Mary’s. You shove your hands into the front pocket of the hoodie and take a few steps, clearing your throat as a small, nervous smile plays on your lips.

Frank glances over at you as the microwave beeps, “Feel better?”

You nod slowly, “Much. Thank you again.”

“Not a problem, although, I’ll need you to keep this to yourself. I have appearances to keep up.” He says with a straight face.

“Oh yeah?” You chuckle.

He nods and points at a house across a small patch of grass, “My neighbor, Roberta, thinks I’m a nice guy,” he shrugs and you laugh again, “So, I constantly have to remind her that I am not.”

Your smile grows as you see your phone plugged into the charger, knowing that you weren’t the one to do so, “Of course. I will be more than happy to let people know that you sped right past me in my desperate time of need.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles, holding out a plate to you, “You know they’re getting rid of the Mexican pizza, right?”

Your eyes widen as you take your heated up tacos from him, “No way!”

He throws up his hands as he pulls his microwavable burrito out of the wrapper and throws it on his plate, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

You follow him into the living room and plop down on the opposite side of the couch, as far as you can get away from him, and tuck your feet underneath your butt, “The Mexican pizza is the staple of their menu, how could they do this?”

Frank shrugs again, “Trying to class the place up a bit I guess.”

You snort as you take a bite, “You can’t class up the drunk capital of the world, baby.”

The two of you fall into an easy silence as you eat, the rain still falling hard as you watch whatever it is you’re watching. You grimace as one man punches the other in the jaw before tackling him to the mat as they start to wrestle. You close your eyes and turn your head away, groaning as the same man starts rapidly punching the other in the face, “What um, what is this called?”

He chuckles, grabbing the remote, “Sorry, I’ll change it. Mary and I usually watch MMA together.”

“You let Mary watch this?” You ask shockingly, laughing a little.

He scrunches up his nose as he hisses, nodding his head slowly, “I probably shouldn’t, right? Too violent?”

“I mean,” you start, “Just a tad. I can see why she hit that kid in the face now.”

“Ah fuck, she told you about that?” He laughs, falling back into the couch.

“Oh yeah, she did.” You laugh harder.

He covers his face with his hands, “Not our most shining moment.”

You push your elbow into the back of the couch and prop your head up with your fist as you smile back at him. Hot uncle is really… hot in his element, and when he’s talking about the small, blonde human. It makes your ovaries quake.

“She’s a great kid, you know.” You say, “You’re doing great with her.”

He rolls his head towards you, a smirk tugging at his lips, “You think?”

His question catches you off guard a little - the earnesty of it. Like he really wants you to say yes. Like, he doesn’t believe that he’s doing a great job.

“Yeah. You are.”

He blinks at you - once, and then twice before he looks back at the tv, touching his knees together before he pushes them back out again. Mark down a third thing that turns you on - the manspread.

“She talks about you a lot,” he says after a few moments, “Not just to me, but Roberta too. She really likes you.”

You smile softly, “Yeah?”

He looks back over at you, nodding slowly, “Yeah. That’s half the reason Roberta comes to get her, you know, so she can have some girl time - talk about girl stuff. She needs that,” he nods again, clearing his throat, “And you, you know, you kinda help out with that in an unconscious way, so,” he clears his throat again, “It means a lot, it really does.”

You drop your head as a large smile spreads on your face, “Well,” you start, “Somebody has to offset your asshole-ness, so Roberta and I are doing our best.”

The two of you laugh again, him dropping his head, you glancing back at the tv as the air around you starts to suddenly shift. He takes a swig of his beer before he places it between his legs, holding the neck with both of his hands. He taps his thick fingers against the green bottle a few times before he turns his heads towards you, blinking as he chews on his bottom lip. Your lips part as your breath gets shallow, your eyes bouncing around his face.

Within a second, his lips are on yours, taking you by complete surprise. You’re frozen for a few seconds, your eyes still open, your breath hitching in your throat - but then… oh, but then. Your eyes flutter shut as you lean into his kiss slowly, placing your hands on his shoulders and gripping ever so tightly. He releases your lips quickly before he delves back in, this time harder, his tongue pushing into your mouth for the very first time.

You can taste the faint alcohol on his lips and you moan - slipping your hand around his neck to push your fingers into his surprisingly soft hair. He fumbles with his beer, stretching out his arm trying to find the table. The bottle clangs against the edge and then the top before he just lets it go, letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud as the rest of the golden liquid pours out onto the carpet.

He crawls towards you, his knees sinking into the couch as he loops his arm around your waist, pulling you into his lap and further down onto your back. You slip your hands up into his shirt, sliding them along his sides and up his sinewy back. You push yours hips into his as you feel his muscles flex underneath your fingers. The tips of his fingers are still cool from the beer bottle as they skirt across your stomach. You break the kiss to laugh at yourself when you jump at his touch, Frank’s low chuckle harmonizing with yours.

“You okay?” he whispers, a smile still on his face, his lips brushing against yours.

You nod, still giggling like an idiot, “Yeah, sorry,” you whisper, leaning up a little to kiss him again.

His hand continues to travel the length of you, reaching your bare breasts, where he cups gently. You gasp lightly as the pads of his fingers graze over your nipples, exciting them further as they tighten and protrude. He pushes his hips down into yours and rocks forward - so you can feel him. You dig your fingers into his sides, matching the slow pace of his hips with yours.

His lips push down to your jaw and neck, where he nips and sucks, his arm looping around your waist again. He pulls you into his lap as he sits back into the couch, his hands dragging up your back. You lean back and bite your bottom lip in uncertainty as your eyes search his. His lips are red and swollen, his eyes wide and sparkly as they drop to your lips before linking with yours again. He drops his hands to your waist, holding you firmly as he pushes his hips into yours.

You bunch the baggy hoodie and t-shirt that cover your chest and pull, bringing them both up over your head in one fell swoop and drop them to the floor. Frank takes a breath - deep and slow - as his eyes drop to your exposed flesh. He sends his eyes back up to yours seconds later and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth as his hand slips up your back. He wraps his long fingers around the back of your neck and pulls you down, crashing your lips to his.

You reach for the bottom of his shirt, tugging it up, helping him shrug it off quickly before you fumble with the button on his jeans. He digs his fingers underneath the band of your sweatpants, lifting you up to yank them down your legs and throw them to the floor. You pop the button of his jeans and pull down his zipper before you reach for him, palming his warmth. He hisses, and pulls your body into his, tightening his grip on you as you stroke him.

He releases you just long enough to pull his jeans down his legs. He then grabs two handfuls of your ass, spreading your skin as the tip of his cock pushes against your slit. You grip his shoulders as you sink down on him - throwing your head back as he penetrates you. You feel his eyes on you as you gobble him up, wiggling your hips slowly as you adjust to his girth. He sinks back into the couch, resting his head on the back of it as his eyelids droop over his blues, his hands still gripping your ass.

You start to move. Pulling up on him before you sink back down, hissing as a fire starts to rage through you. You dig your nails into his shoulders before dragging them down his biceps as you let your head roll back on your neck, your mouth falling open as your eyes close.

Frank leans up to peer around the curve of your body to watch the primal connection between the two of you. He palms your ass hard, squeezing your flesh in his hands as he spreads it apart again as you bounce and rock into him. He slips a large hand up your back and spreads his fingers to push your naked chest into his. The hardness of his body against the softness of yours - your supple, full breasts pushing against his wide, hairy chest is… wildly erotic. The sturdiness of him, the tightness in which his hands hold you.

He starts to fuck up into you, bucking his hips to meet you on your way down - all the while keeping his hands full of your ass, kneading and groping -  feeling you. You wrap your arms around his neck and lean back, pulling him with you. He peppers hot, wet, furied kisses over and between your breasts and along your clavicles as his hips dig into yours.

It feels good - he feels good. He leans away from you, pulling you up with him as he stands, He wraps his hands around your thighs and kisses you hard as he starts to pull you through the living room and the kitchen, back into his bedroom. He closes the door with his foot and lays you down gently, climbing over top you, his knees pressing into the mattress. He drags his dick through your folds before he centers at your slit, pushing gently - slowly -  like he’s savoring the feeling.

He grabs your leg and hooks it over his waist as he starts to move again. He runs his hand the length of your calf, over your knee, down your thigh as he fucks you - harder than before, on the couch. You sweep your hands up his sides and along the small of his back, feeling his muscles as they flex while he fucks you good; deep. His name falls off your lips as more heat blooms across your skin, and he likes it - growls at it - the sound of his name rolling off of your tongue.

He grunts, squeezing your thigh in his hand as he pumps into you, “You feel so good, baby,” he slurs, “As good as I thought you’d feel.”

As good as I thought you’d feel. You slam your eyes closed as you groan at his admission. He pulls out of you suddenly and pushes his hands underneath your body, flipping you right over onto your stomach. He grabs your sides, his rough hands pulling you up onto your knees. He slips his hand between your folds and massages your clit with the pads of his fingers as he pushes into you again.

His free hand slips up your back, grabbing your shoulder and squeezing as he starts to fuck into you again. You grip the sheets in your hands as you lunge forward with each of his thrusts, your breasts bouncing, the sound of his skin slapping against yours filling the room. He releases your shoulder and flattens his hand between your shoulder blades, pushing hard to get you to rest your head and shoulders against the mattress. He grabs your hands and crosses them at the wrists over the small of your back as he holds them in just one of his large hands.

“God, Frank,” you groan, “Fuck.”

His thrusts are long and hard; pushing deep into your sex, stroking you in places that haven’t been touched in ages. Your wet muscles start to squeak with each push of his hips, a soft squish sound filling your ears. He grabs your ass again, squeezing hard, spreading you open so he can see all of you. You feel his fingers drift through your cheeks, circling your tight hole before his thumb starts to press gently.

You grit your teeth and push back into him as hard as you can, meeting his hips halfway. Your head swims as sweat and goosebumps pop up along your skin, your heart slamming against your chest. Electricity flashes through your body, making your toes curl as your ungodly howls float through the trailer. Hot uncle is a hot fuck - that’s for sure.

Frank slips out of you again but stays close - the tip of his cock still pressing against your slit. You open your eyes and glance back at him, your lips parted and breath heavy. He stares down at your cunt and ass, stroking himself from his base to his tip slowly, his free hand pulling softly on his balls. You pull your hand around to your sex and push your fingers along your clit, arching your back as you hiss loudly. You lick your lips as you keep your eyes on him - his hard, wide chest and thick biceps flexing as he pumps himself.

“This is a pretty pussy, baby girl,” he praises, releasing a deep breath, “So pretty.”

You whine at the words, your fingers picking up their pace as his praise falls over you. Your cunt is hot and swollen - so wet that your fingers glide with ease through your folds, your slick starting to slide down the inside of your thigh. You push your fingers into your opening and pump them quickly for him, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip as he growls at the sight.

You pull your fingers out and start rubbing your clit again, pulsing your hips slightly as you watch Frank stroke himself. His tip glistens as precum spurts from his slit, dripping off of him and splashing on the sheets. He grabs your ass, jiggling your flesh playfully before he slides his cock through your folds. He positions himself right at your opening, but doesn’t push - he just waits.

You wiggle your hips, giggling a little before you push back onto him, a smile curling onto your lips as your muscles spread for him. You push until you’ve swallowed him whole, until your ass is flush against his hips, and you feel him deep. You pull forward and then push back, over and over until you’re thrashing against him; you’re eyes slammed closed, your sounds loud and high pitched.

He pulls you up onto your knees and flattens your back to his chest. He nips at your neck with his teeth as he glues his hands to your bouncing tits, tweaking your nipples between his thumb and index fingers. He pants in your ear, mumbling not so sweet nothings, his hot breath washing over the side of your face. He snakes his hand down your stomach - right down to your sex - and touches you ever so lightly.

That’s all it takes. Just the gentle tap of his rough fingers against your sensitive, sore, clit; and you’re gone. Your body tenses and then shudders as your orgasm spreads through you like lightening. Heat blooms across your skin as your pussy convulses - your clit jumping with each contraction, your muscles tightening around him.

He gets louder, his voice deeper and gruffer as each stroke gets harder and faster. Within minutes of your undoing, he’s spurting into you, coating your insides with his milky warmth. You fall forward onto your chest, Frank onto his back next to you as your chests heave. You stare at the opposite wall, blinking slowly as the world starts to center again - the sound of the television comes back to you -  the sound of the rain.

You roll your head towards him and he does the same, the two of you just blinking at one another until a fit of giggles erupt from you. You don’t even know why. You laugh so hard that you have to cover your face with your hands. This definitely isn’t the way you’ve imagined this going when you’ve had your hand down your pants at night in your apartment. He rolls over onto his side and props his head up with his palm, smiling at you as you laugh.

“Sorry,” you mumble, “I don’t know why I’m laughing.”

“It’s okay,” he shrugs, “You have a nice laugh.”

“That’s not very asshole-y of you, Frank.”

He chuckles, nodding slowly, “That’s right, okay, yeah. You have an awful laugh.”

You point at him, “Appearances, right?”

----

You wake with a slight start. You sit up quickly, your eyes squinted as the sun breaks in through the crack in the shade over the window. A sleeping Frank lays beside you. He’s on his stomach, his hands shoved underneath the pillows that hold his head, facing away from you. The tv still plays in the living room. Your discarded clothes still in a heap on the floor, the beer bottle still tipped over.

You glance back at the window and lift the shade slowly, a smile spreading on your face as you spot your old Jetta parked next to his old truck. You lay back down and pull the covers up over your head just as he shifts beside you, stretching out his long arm until it finds your hip.

You close your eyes.

You can’t wait to tell everybody how big of an asshole Frank Adler is.

[texanstarslove]

10. “Did I wake you up?” With Nolan please!?😘🖤

This is sickening how sweet this is....and it’s just for you, K. 😘

Having alone time when you live with someone else is often hard to come by. Since deciding to move in together, you and Nolan had obviously been spending more time with each other. Most of the time it was great, your relationship with him was approaching its second anniversary and not just by chance. You both genuinely enjoyed being around each other, spending time together is one of your favorite things to do when you had coinciding days off. But with any relationship, spending a little bit of time apart had proven to be beneficial in keeping that healthy dynamic going. You both had no shame in needing alone time, separating yourself from each other for just a little while, a reset of the mind.

That’s why when Nolan went on road trips with his team, you were the most productive with work, chores, or even self-care. It’s not that Nolan hindered your ability to do any of those things, quite the opposite actually, but there was just something about being able to focus solely on the task at hand without any...distractions. Like when you decided that a soak in the tub was something you needed you were able to sit and relax, listening to one of your playlists made for such relaxation without the potential of being interrupted by Nolan and one of those distractions. Or when you decided to finally try the new Indian restaurant down the street, not having done so since Nolan wasn’t too keen on the idea. It was never that you were held back from doing the things you wanted to do, you were just able to appreciate the things that you enjoyed without worrying about anything else, and Nolan understood that. He enjoyed things like playing his video games and while you didn’t mind sitting and watching while you were both home, you just didn’t get the appeal and that was okay. Of course, you always missed each other but you both had a mutual understanding that sometimes doing things separately actually brought you closer together as a couple in the end.

But even though you enjoyed the short time apart, toward the end of those road trips you couldn’t help but start to miss him just a little bit more. In the beginning, you enjoyed being able to spread out in the king-sized bed you shared but as the days went on, you began to feel the chill in the sheets, missing the warmth of his body next to yours. It slowly became harder and harder to fall asleep without his arms wrapped around you. The goodnight phone calls carried on just a little bit longer, his voice bringing you peace and helping calm you so you could eventually drift off to sleep.

Tonight, however, was a different story. You had hung up the phone with Nolan a couple of hours prior yet you found yourself tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. One more night, you kept telling yourself, One more night and he’ll be home. Your inner mantra had almost done the trick, your eyes beginning to feel heavy as you dozed off when the loud ringtone of your phone startled you awake. You rolled over in bed, grabbing your phone off the nightstand, seeing Nolan’s name flash across the screen. You’re brows furrowed, not understanding why he could be calling you at almost 2 am. You answered quickly, trying to conceal the groggy concern. “Nolan?”

“Shit, babe, did I wake you up?” He asked, the rich sound of his voice already bringing you a little bit of comfort.

“No.” You whispered as you slowly sat up in bed, rubbing your eyes and pushing your hair out of your face. “I mean, kind of but that’s okay. What’s wrong, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” He grumbled, a heavy sigh following after, “I couldn’t sleep but I’ll let you go back to bed, baby. I’ll be alright.”

“No, it’s okay,” You spoke quickly, “Nols, it’s fine, really. What’s on your mind?”

He sighed once more before he replied, “I just wanted to hear your voice again, that’s all.”

A big grin broke out across your face. “Aw, Nolan,” You cooed jokingly, “Do you miss me, baby?”

“Not if you’re going to be a jerk and tease me about it.” He scoffed, the playful tone apparent in his voice.

You giggled softly at his reaction, practically hearing the smile you know was gracing his features. “For what it’s worth, I missed you too.”

“Yeah, you better.”

You loved the banter between the two of you, it was something that always came so naturally in your relationship. You both sat in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the company of each other even if it was just through the phone before Nolan spoke softly again.

“The moon looks pretty awesome tonight.”

Ah, yes. The moon. One of your favorite things to do with Nolan when he was away on the road was admire the moon. It had started toward the beginning of your relationship after you had spent a night out with friends while Nolan was down in Florida. There happened to be a full moon that night and when your not so sober self was amazed at its beauty, you drunkenly called Nolan to gush over it.

“God, Nols, you should see this thing!” You slurred, holding the phone up to your ear as you craned your neck up to look at the sky, “It’s fucking beautiful.”

Nolan could hardly contain his laughter at your antics. You sounded absolutely nuts but he loved your enthusiasm. He was in his hotel room winding down for the night and noticed he had a balcony. “Hang on, babe. I’ll look at it with you.” He pulled himself from his bed and stepped out onto the balcony, staring up at the full moon.

“Aw, we’re looking at the moon together!” You cried dramatically, “This is so romantic!”

From then on it became something the two of you did regularly. You felt like it brought the two of you together, made you feel like you were right next to each other even if he was thousands of miles away from you. It eased the feeling you both got when you began to miss each other even more than usual.

You smiled at the memories of the past and slowly made your way out of bed to find your perch at the bedroom window, the moon perfectly visible from your spot. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Nolan sighed, “It definitely is.”

“I can’t wait for you to come home, Nolan.” You whispered, “I miss you laying in the bed with me.”

“I miss you too, baby girl.” Nolan mumbled softly, “So much.”

You pulled your knees to your chest, still staring at the moon as you two spoke for just a few minutes more. A sense of peace fell over the both of you and eventually, you began to feel the sleepiness take over.

“Get some sleep, babe.” Nolan finally told you, sensing how tired you were, “I’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Okay,” You sighed, “I love you.”

“Love you more.”

A smile graced your lips as you hung up the phone. You knew sleep would come easier when you got back into bed, but you couldn’t help but stare up at the moon just a little longer, a warm, contented feeling flowing through you knowing that Nolan was doing the exact same thing.

[djarinbarnes]

me olvidarás - four

･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･

Pairings: Javier Peña x female reader

Warnings for the chapter: soft javi. also grumpy javi. dry humping... kissing and flirting. two dumb idiots, probably in love.

Word count: 3.2k

Summary: an undeniable warm summer vacation in Bogotá. simply trying to get away from your nosey, boring parents and live for once, you meet a man who impresses you beyond where your imagination could ever take you.

a/n: fluffy filler chapter. the good kush is coming soon :3

previous chapter · series masterlist

･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･

The drive back to Bogotá was shorter than you remembered, but the drive there had felt longer than anything else you’d ever experienced. Javi knew just where to find empanadas and beer, and before you knew it, you were both sitting on the hood of his car, eating empanadas while looking over the city.

“This is so fucking good.” You say with your mouth full of potato and corn dough. You had no idea deep-fried dough with filling could be so delicious. You felt Javi laugh beside you, his mouth clearly full of food as he didn’t let out that heartfelt laugh you wanted to hear over and over. You both pushed the last bit of empanada into your mouths at the same time, watching each other out of the corners of your eyes.

With mouths full of more empanadas, Javi decides to tell you a joke, which makes you laugh so hard you have to clasp your hand over your mouth to prevent him from seeing the chewed-up empanada in there. You hadn’t expected him to be one to tell jokes in the middle of dinner, but you weren’t ever going to complain.

When you’d finally stopped laughing, you took hold of the beer you held between your legs, where it’d left an ice-cold imprint, but at this moment you truly did need a little cooling down. Being in Javi’s personal space, breathing him in and having him touch you with fleeting touches starved you in a way you’d never felt before. You wondered if he felt the same.

You scoot back on the hood of his car, leaning against the windshield. You watch as he follows you, thankful that he’d put the blanket under the two of you. It warmed you a little, and it was better than sitting on a cooling chunk of metal. The heat from the engine under the hood helped as well. You turned your body slightly, simply watching Javi as he looked over the city, occasionally sipping his beer. The silence between the two of you wasn't deafening like it usually was. It was good this time. Welcomed.

His left hand is sitting against his thigh, completely unoccupied, just waiting to be held. Or so you hope. You reluctantly reach out to take his hand in yours, and you mentally high five yourself as his fingers tighten around yours. He lets go of your hand soon after, though, making your heart fall in your chest and your mouth to turn into a slight pout.

Until he twists his wrists and intertwined his fingers with yours. It feels like your hands were made to be intertwined, his fingers fitting perfectly in between yours, and warmth instantly spreads from your hand, through your body and right into your heart. Yeah, you were definitely falling for him.

With your right hand now occupied, you’ll have to make do with drinking and eating from your left. You reach out and grab another empanada from between the two of you, before you bite into it, looking back out over the city. “So, tell me,” you say after you swallow the bite you just chewed through, “Where is everything?” you point to the city, empanada in hand. A few seconds pass before he speaks, lowly.

“I think you’re gonna have to come a bit closer for you to see where I’m gonna be pointing to…” He’s speaking at such a low octave it takes you aback. God, you wanted to hear that in the bedroom. You remove your hand from his slowly, moving the empanadas and the half six pack of beers on the other side of you, taking its previous place between you.

He lifts his left arm and welcomes you into his side, tugging you close. Your hand finds his again, as it’s wrapped around your body. Your head rests against the side of his chest, and he was right. When he points to the city, it’s very easy to see where he’s pointing too. “That’s the embassy. The white building right there,” you spot it easily, it being lit up by the streetlights in front of it.

“And I live right there.” His finger diverts slightly, now pointing to an older building, which you nod at. “That’s you.” He points the other way, and true to his words, you recognize the rented apartments you’re living in. It wasn’t far from where Javi lived.

He points to where you can see a plane take off in the distance, lights glittering as it ascends the sky. “That’s the airport. The Salt Cathedral.” His finger glides over the skyline to a giant white block of concrete with a laugh, “That’s the Museo del Oro. I know it doesn’t look like it, but there’s a fortune in there.” You nod before you let out a giggle as well.

“What does Oro mean?” You whisper, feeling stupid that you know so little Spanish. He lets his arm fall around you and pulls you closer, placing his mouth right above your ear. A short puff of breath makes goosebumps rise on your skin as it fans over your face. You close your eyes lightly, just enjoying having him close.

“It means gold.” He almost whispers, and it’s one of the most sensual things you’ve ever heard. His voice is deep and raspy, and you silently wish that you could hear him talk like that all the time. Hushed whispers and his body so close to you, you feel like you could combust from the sheer fullness you feel when you’re close to him. It’s like he’s the only charger within a thousand miles that can charge your batteries.

You smile at that thought. Yet it unsettles you - it was weird. You had started thinking about him as something you couldn’t go without, and it’d only been a mere 24 hours since you’d first met the man. You couldn’t allow yourself to think of him like that. Even though he’d already given you some damn good adventures so far, he was still a stranger.

You look up at him longingly, your eyes meeting his. He’d been looking at you. You offer him a smile before he cranes his neck down to place a kiss on your lips. You lift yourself slightly to meet him halfway, and you know he’s grateful for that. He must have a pain settling in his back from sitting so uncomfortably on the hood of the car, even though you were more comfortable than you’d ever been before.

You move yourself further up to relieve his back of some of the weight you’re putting onto him, and he’s silently grateful. You reach out for the beer you had placed by your side when moving closer to him, and upon discovering you’ve drunk it all, you pull another one from the carton. You offer one to him first, and he accepts it with a smile before you’re pulling out another for yourself, settling back into the crook of his arm.

“I think this is one of the most romantic dates I’ve ever been on,” you smile at him before taking a sip of beer, enjoying the way it slightly cools down your heated body. Even though the air around the two of you were cold, the heat of his body seeped into yours, making you flustered. You look up at him with a smirk. “It’s definitely in the top tier.”

He laughs at your statement, and you love the feeling of his chest rumbling by your side and the sound of his laugh. You admire the way the wrinkles surround his eyes as his smile gleams, and you get the urge to just… watch him for eternity. You don’t even know how you ended up here, on the hood of the most beautiful, older stranger you’d ever met.

“How many dates have you been on, hermosa?” you watch his mouth move, but you barely hear what he’s saying. You’re too distracted by his lips, his hand moving over the length of your arm, his body so close to yours. You hear it, though.

“Hmmm… Let me summarize… I was on a date this morning with a handsome guy.” The hand not containing a beer slowly traces the front of his shirt, your fingers tracing the buttons all the way until they’re right over where the shirt is tucked messily into his pants. “Then the handsome guy took me on another date by this beautiful lake, and he even skinny-dipped with me.”

Your fingers make their way all the way up to the button on his chest, the last button made to shield his chest from you. Your fingers move on their own accord as they pop open the button slowly, before you lean in, exposing his chest to you before you place a kiss against the bared, tanned skin. “Made me cum on his fingers all shamelessly, for the whole world to see.”

You feel how his heart beats in his chest, and how a deep breath is sucked into his lungs. Your fingers undid the next button slowly, the one right over the lower part of his sternum. You twist your body slightly to give yourself more space, yet you’re still holding on to the beer in your hand. You place another kiss a little lower than the first, before you speak again.

“Then he bought me dinner, took me to this wonderful, secluded outlook post so we could watch the city while we ate.” You pop another button, looking up at him in the dark to see the effect you had on him. You took in his parted lips, his hooded eyes, and the way he was looking at you told you everything you needed to know. He wanted this just as much as you did. “So, three in total.”

He lets out a breath before he’s running his hands over your hair gently, grabbing you by the chin to draw you in for a kiss. “Sounds like he likes you, hermosa. Should I be jealous?” You giggle as you pepper small kisses on his lips, never tiring of the way his lips feel against yours.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” You whisper against his lips before you finally give into your temptation and swing your leg over his, straddling his thighs. He lets out a huff as you find your place on his thighs, damn well knowing you’ll easily get what you want from him. You lean down and reattach your lips to his, whining slightly when your knees dig into the hard metal of the hood of his car. You set down the beer by the others, not wanting to spill anything on the two of you.

He does the same before his hands find your hips as you slowly move your hips closer to the bend of his body, right where his groin was. You’re shuffling slightly closer to where you desperately want him, before you finally situate yourself on top of him, whimpering out at the contact. You feel his hands tightening on your hips as you grind down on top of him, and he pulls away from your lips.

“Hermosa…” he whispers against your lips, licking his lips, his tongue lightly reaching your lips as well, making you shudder. You silence him by placing your lips over his again, pushing your tongue into his mouth to really shut him up. He groans into your mouth as he forces your hips down against his, his bulge pressing into your core for the second time that day.

“Don’t want to hold back,” he groans against your lips, his left hand coming to the back of your neck to pull your face closer, basically mashing your nose into his cheek at the force he’s holding you close. “Want to take you.” His tongue finds its way back into your mouth and you whimper, making his cock twitch under you. “Want you so bad.”

“Take me, Javi.” You whimper again, grinding your core even harder against his achingly hard cock, closing your eyes at the wonderful feeling of how he’s able to draw you so close to the brink of letting go in so little time. “Please.” You breathe into his mouth, before finding his tongue with yours, exploring his mouth while your hands switch between unbuttoning his shirt and burying themselves in his hair.

He groans as he comes to his senses, quickly finding your upper arms with his wandering hands, holding you away from him as he pants, taking in your swollen lips and hooded eyes. God if you weren’t the most beautiful thing, he’d ever laid his eyes upon. “Hermosa…” he says under his breath and you huff, quickly getting off his hips and off the hood of the car altogether. You grab the beer from where you set it down, finishing it in one go before you squeeze the can together with your fist.

God, he annoyed you so fucking much. First, he acted like he was going to fuck you senseless, but then he turned all careful and considerate and you literally hated him for it. You hated that he wasn’t giving into you, hated that he wasn’t succumbing to his needs as easily as you wanted him to. You sighed as you grabbed another empanada from the bag, now turned cold, but it filled the hole in your heart slightly.

He watched as you grumbled right in front of him, clearly agitated by yet another refusal from him. It, again, reminded him of how young you were compared to him. It was clear you had a healthy libido that you wanted to use, but he just didn’t want to force you into something you would regret afterwards.

“I’d like to go home now, Javi.” You watched the way his face stayed set in stone, and you almost wondered if he was mad at you. You just hated that he apparently thought about you as a child that didn’t know what you wanted. It hurt you a little bit, and you felt bad about it. You just had no idea what to do about the situation, other than to back out of what the two of you were doing.

“Fine.” He said as he slid down the hood of his car, his back audibly cracking as he stood straight on the ground in front of his car, pulling the beers, food and blanket off the hood before throwing it in the back of his car. He motioned for you to get into the car, and even though you didn’t want to after the abrupt stop of your date, you found no other way to get home, and you sure as hell wasn’t walking home through the forest at this hour, in a foreign country.

With a flustered sigh you got into the passenger side of his car, literally grumbling all the way through the forest and down on the bigger roads. You barely talked as he drove you home, and the silence bothered you more than you would’ve liked to admit. When the car finally stopped you let out a sigh before you turned to face him.

“Thanks for the ride.” You whisper out, afraid to pull him out of the trance he’s in as his eyes are still trained on the road in front of him. He huffs slightly before turning off the car, letting you know he was listening. His eyes still didn’t meet yours, though. “Thanks for dinner. And for today.” He offered you a nod, and you felt your blood coming to a boil. Why the fuck did he act like this all of a sudden?

“Okay, what the fuck did I do?” you raise your voice at him, causing his brow to twitch slightly. You feel your heart beating faster and faster as you watch his face contort into many emotions all at once. You keep watching him, wanting just a spark of something that would tell you what you’d done wrong. “Javi, seriously. You can’t just go all oyster on me.”

“You’re mad at me because I don’t want to sleep with you.” He finally says, and you feel the heat rise in your cheeks. He was right. You wanted to sleep with him, you wanted him to take you with everything he could muster, hell, you wanted him to fuck you into senselessness. But he wasn’t giving into you, and it made you furious.

“Yes. That’s part of it.” You say, drawing his attention to you. You can see the conflicting emotions behind his eyes, and you understand his struggle. You really weren’t being nice to him, at all. “I’m mad at you because you make it seem like I’m a child that doesn’t know what they want. That they have so many options but don’t know which ones to choose from.”

He takes in your words, almost like he’s tasting them. “I don’t think of you as a child, hermosa. You’re just young. Too young for someone like me.” He tells you, and you can tell it comes from his heart. It breaks your own slightly, Javi thinking that your age has anything to do with what he should decide. You lay your hand on top of his, drawing his eyes from your face to where your skin is leaning against one another’s.

“Javi. I don’t care how old you are. This thing that’s going on between us… I don’t know if you feel it the same way as I do, but to me it feels like it’s working. I like what’s going on between us. I like the dates we’ve gone on today. I like you, Javi.” You tell him, and you watch his face as he once again takes in your words. Then he’s turning to you, his hand slowly coming up to grasp behind your neck, drawing you in for a kiss.

It’s short and slow, nothing like the other sensual and heated kisses you’ve exchanged so far. It feels good and there’s a certain domesticity in it that leaves you craving more as he pulls away from you. “Alright,” he says as his eyes find yours again. “It’s not happening today. It’ll happen when the moment is right. Not outside, not anywhere that is uncomfortable. Like I said, I want you to be comfortable.”

You nod with a small smile as you look at him. He’s bathed in the light from the lamps on the street, and he looks so good in that lighting. His shirt is still unbuttoned from when you were straddling him, and it tugs on something in your abdomen. You really would love to see his chest more than what’s already revealed to you at this moment.

He gets out of the car swiftly before he’s opening the door for you, holding out his hand for you to take. You slide your fingers in between his, like it’s their home. He follows you to your front door, watching you as you unlock the door to your apartment before you turn to him. “I’ll see you soon, hermosa.”

He presses another kiss to your lips, pulling you close to him to have you close one more time before he pulls away from you, turning back to get into his car. “When, Javi?” You yell, just before he gets into the driver's seat, causing him to look up at you.

“I’ll call you.” He offers you a smile and a wink before he gets into his car, leaving you to your own thoughts on the front steps. He didn’t even have your number…

･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･

next chapter

[fumingspice]

kiss me hard before you go

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x Reader

Angst because someone (not naming any names) *cough* @lilypadscoven is too happy to write angst. Such a strange excuse, i know. Like whose even happy anymore? That’s so 2014, Freya.

Warning: Angsty as shit! I think. Idk im usually a happy person. Mentions of cheating, mentions of smut etc. 

Requests are open!

taglist: @sarahp-stan @jumpoffabridge-t @sarahpaulsonsoftie @definitelynot-a-writer @bottom4delia @delias-bitch-craft @creepingwolfberry @thesapphictimelady @goodeday2u @that-fucking-error @saucy-sapphic @sarahp-stan @winters-witch-bitch @rainbow-hedgehog @pearplate​

You frowned to yourself, flicking through the endless posts on Instagram. It was some godforsaken hour in the morning and no matter how hard you tried or how deeply you tried to ease your restless mind you could not fall asleep. You scrolled on social media endlessly. 

God, what time could it even be? 04.27.

You gave a defeated chuckle. Even time was in on the universe’s cruel joke. She exited Instagram and went to messages. You couldn’t count the number of unsent messages and thrown out speeches you had started and couldn’t bring yourself to finish.

Billie Dean Howard.

The contact had found itself hidden deep in the archives of old messages. You hadn’t contacted her since December when you had walked away. 

Walking away was better that being the one left behind, or so you had tried so hard to tell yourself. In hindsight, the truth was that Billie Dean was going to end up leaving you anyway. Was it courage of conviction or just the simple knowledge that you couldn’t live knowing that the only person you had ever opened your heart to was going to leave you?

What was the last thing she said anyway?

Goodnight :(.

Always with those stupid text faces. Those stupid, adorable text faces. How did she have such a powerful effect on you that you could see Billie’s face in a colon and a bracket? Why hadn’t you blocked her yet? What was left to hold onto other than movie-like memories that had slipped away like the changing of seasons.

You slipped from beneath the covers, Your hair tickled Your shoulders. There was no one beside you for you to reach for in your infinite loneliness anyway. It wasn’t infinite. Why did it feel infinite? Why did you allow one person to waltz into your heart and make you home there? You reached for an unopened bottle of wine and paused. Billie had left this bottle there. You never drank unless it was around Billie. 

“Dom Perignon,” Billie told you. You were never interested in the details of fine wine. All you knew was that the older it was the more people liked it.

“Isn’t that expensive?” The brunette asked, reading the label.

 Billie nodded with a throaty chuckle. “Only the best for my girl. I thought I would save it for a special occasion.”

A special occasion. You chuckled in spite. The occasion in question was supposed Billie’s birthday. A party with many guests. One too many. The house was brimming with sets of both of your friends. You could recall reaching for the same wine all too well before being stopped by your friend’s girlfriend. Erin took you by the wrist and guided you out to the garden. 

“No one’s out here,” you protested. Erin’s face was almost forlorn. 

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

Sorry for what? You snapped out of your confusion. You could see the side of Billie’s body. Pressed against the wall beneath someone else. The anxiety had somehow eased when you watched Billie kiss another, fading into nothing because you knew that there was quite literally nothing that could get even worse than what you were watching.

You pursed her lips. When you imagined these moments, you had always imagined screaming bloody murder. You imagined punching and yelling. You couldn’t move. No tears. Hell, you couldn’t even feel. Erin grabbed your arm and trailed you back, but not before the sight of you, heartbroken in a red dress. had registered in Billie. She barely had time to pull away from her kiss and have the shock of what she was actually doing register. 

It was always a red dress. Red dresses end up in heartbreak. A goddamn blaze in the dark.

Now, you found yourself standing at the window that looked out into the garden. Looking at the spot where you had seen her lover betray every bit of trust that you had. What would have happened if you didn’t see? What if you had seen but Billie didn’t? Would you have said anything? Would Billie have said anything?

It doesn’t matter anyway.

Billie was wine. Aromatic, warm in her stomach. She was a magnificent swirl. She was the impossible to hide stain on your favourite white dress.

Every inch of this house had Billie in its essence. She was inescapable. 

It got even worse when a buzzing noise brought your attention to your phone. “Who the fuck could that be?” you asked yourself. Your heart dropped at the contact.

Billie Dean Howard is calling...

Your world collapsed for a moment as you stared at the phone buzz. Your head told you not to answer, your heart launched for it like a desert oasis. You let it ring a moment too long. You barely managed to blurt out a cracked, “Hello?” when Billie hung up. Presumably giving up.

You bit your lip. Your thumb hovered over the redial button as you fought with yourself. Maybe she’ll call again. That’s a huge maybe. Your finger jolted down unintentionally. Billie picked up on the third ring.

“Y/N?” Her breath hitched. “Y/N, can you hear me?”

You swallowed hard. “I’m here,” you stated flatly, “I can hear you.”

“I didn’t think you’d answer.”

“Honestly,” you replied. You felt no need for warmth. “I don’t think I meant to.”

“Oh. Uhm, how- how are you?”

“What do you want, Billie? It’s five in the morning,” You cut off. You could hear Billie’s breath falter a little.

“To be honest, I just wanted to see if you would pick up.”

You shook your head, cursing how well you knew the medium. “Don’t lie to me, Howard.”

Billie chuckled. “How can you tell?”

“You were the medium, but I was the human lie detector.”

“You’re a lawyer with an Irish mother and Scilian father. It would be more shocking if you weren’t one.”

You smiled, before catching yourself in an eyeroll. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m in town. I wanted to see you.”

“It’s five in the fucking morning.”

“You’re telling me that I actually woke you up? You were sleeping when I called?”

You bit your lip. “Yes.”

Billie chuckled again. Like it was a fucking game to her. “Well, now who’s lying?”

“What do you want, Billie?” You scoffed.

“I already told you. I want to see you.”

The audacity of the last sentence. The fact that you knew Billie Dean would come whether or not she was invited boiled your blood.

“Why.” It was more of a flat remark than a genuine question. Why. Why now.

Billie was silent for a moment. “I just want to see your face.”

Your groaned internally, another eyeroll coming into play. You scoffed. “You know the address. Find your own way over.”

And she did. The door knocked almost immediately.

You opened the door so quickly that it creaked aggressively.

“You have some fucking nerve. You know that right?” You snapped. The medium’s eyes widened in shock.

“Nice to see you too.”

You stepped aside and ushered her in, cold from the whipping air. Refreshing if you weren’t standing in shorts and a cardigan.

Billie turned around to face her. Tension grew, like insulation keeping everything in. You could choke on all the words you never said. 

“You look beautiful.”

“Je vais te tuer avec mes mains nues et dormir comme un bébé après.”

“I’m flattered.”

You groaned and walked away from her and into the kitchen. You didn’t know if you would slap her, kill her, or kiss her. You were just as prepared to strangle her as you were to fuck her hard on the kitchen floor then and there, kissing every single freckle and mole on her skin. “You have three minutes,” You muttered, pouring yourself a cup of coffee to stop yourself from looking in Billie’s direction. Your heart raced at a thousand miles a second.

“I just dropped in to say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

You were unamused. “Is that it? Are you going get out of my life again?”

Billie frowned. “Am I? Y/N, you left me.”

“Because you fucking cheated on me, Billie Dean! What? Did you want me to pretend I didn’t see it? Pretend nothing happened? Do you want me to pretend that you didn’t rebuild my ability to trust people just so you could knock it down yourself?” You shouted. The words were coming out thick and fast now apparently.

“I was so drunk, Y/N,” Billie whimpered, her eyebrows furrowed. She was in genuine pain, you could see the guilt right in her brown eyes.

And you couldn’t give a shit.

“I’ve heard this a hundred times.”

“How many times do I have to say sorry for this?”

You raised your mug to your lips. “You can say it until I’m dead.”

You met the medium’s gaze. Brown eyes waterlogged with tears. Billie dipped her face in her hands. “I don’t know if I can go through with this again.”

You snapped again. “Good,” you said. “Because I’m done.”

“You can’t be serious.”

The pair met, closer than you had in months.

“No matter what stupid, thoughtless, selfish, idiotic, drunken things you said or did. No matter how many times. I have never stopped loving you. I’ve never fallen out of love no matter how many times I told myself I had. I haven’t gone to sleep without imaging your goddamn mouth on my lips and hands on my body and I fucking crave to hate you for it,” you spat, venom on you tongue and tears spilled down your face. “I don’t sleep, Billie. I don’t sleep because I know your arms aren’t there to hold me when I’m still awake at four in the morning. Because I can’t reach across the bed no matter how angry I am at you and feel your hair. I fucking love you goddammit. You threw that away. Not me.”

 Tears streamed down Billie’s face. “I regret what I did every. Single. Fucking. Day. I miss coming home and seeing you writing those stupid fucking reports that I know you hate writing because I know you hate your job. I miss seeing your face when you’ve won a case that has been scratching you for weeks,” she inched forward once more, her hands close to Mallorie’s face. “I miss seeing you reorganising the goddamn silverware every few weeks to keep the Fair Folk happy in the same way I miss seeing the way your mouth curls when you come.”

 You scanned Billie Dean, searching despreately for a bluff, something that would give way to the fact that this was all a lie; a gimmick for a one night stand so that you could just shut her out and go back to hating her. Hating the person you love is so much easier than having your heartbroken again. You couldn’t find that bluff. Even your gut-instinct that panged you when someone lied to you wasn’t alerting anything. Billie’s words were as genuine as her tears and it was killing you to see that Billie loved you. The lawyer had hoped- prayed even- that the medium’s words had been bullshit, sweet nothings that could be whispered into the ear of any lover that had fallen into her bed. But you weren’t just a one time fling that had walked into a casual meet. You had walked into her long-term girlfriend with her tongue down another’s throat. You had stashed that little red box with a diamond engagement ring inside even further into the closet that night, and that’s what had hurt you.

A raw truth in her words soaked into you. Refreshed you. They were the words that the ocean screamed back at you when you stood on the cliffside begging for a reason to go on.

And so you gave in. Almost, at least. You stepped forward into Billie and allowed her storm to engulf you. There was no calm here. There was a raging appetite for destruction and creation. What was that lyric? A tornado has met a volcano. Her lips ravaged yours to the point of being rubbed raw, the type of sting that bothered virtually every moment of your waking day, one that went on for days. You bit down on her lips, her tongue, her chin and cheek. Whether in was in spite or the desperation to seek and find every single piece of her that you could was unclear. 

Those fateful memories crept back, and you pushed hard against her chest. Billie’s lips, now red, white and swollen, pressed against yours again, retracting when there was no return.

“I’m sorry,” you lied. “I think there’s a possibility that I don’t love you.”

Billie’s eyes resembled a broken mirror, or maybe the view of a dying star. The thing about dying stars is that they died a very long time ago and you only notice years later. She nodded with a weak smile. “I understand,” she whispered, pressing her head against yours. She picked up her bag and turned to leave.

You stopped her. What on Earth were you doing? Let her leave so you can hate her in peace.

“Kiss me. Before you go,” you pleaded. “Hard.”

Billie shook her head, her face scrunched before throwing her face at you. The force drove you into the counter sending a glorious shock of pain up your back. Billie was doing what you had asked.

“Fuck you,” you pulled away and muttered, as if she had gonr too far in teasing you.

“What did I do?”

You raised your hand and slapped her face, lightly. “Fuck you for proving that I still love you.”

A rush of relief knocked Billie, visibly. She returned to your lips, much more gently this time, as if she were savouring every part of you.

“I told you to kiss me hard,” you whispered, although not necessarily opposed to Billie’s touch.

“I’ll do anything you really want,” she replied.

You paused for a moment. “Anything?”

Billie smiled. “Anything.”

You kissed her once. Soft. Tentatively. “Fuck me. On the table.” 

[batarella]

3 birds 1 stone - BLUE

From a world once so cruel, that never seemed to have granted them the time enough to be together, it’d never built up into anything more perfect.

WORDS: 7785 WARNINGS: Sexual Content

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST | RED | YELLOW

-----

Dick:

It was concerning how at the moment he stepped into the narrow elevator, he wasn’t the least bit surprised at the pile of animal shit at the corner. It wasn’t until the doors closed when he noticed it, or rather his nose did, and he had to clog his nostrils just so he doesn’t pass out on the floor.

“Gar!?” he yelled just as the doors opened. No one was there, save for Raven with a book sitting at the couch. She didn’t glance at him. “Gar, I swear if you took a shit in the elevato-“

“That wasn’t me!”

Gar’s voice came from the kitchen, panting and occupied with something unruly. Then he heard plates falling to the floor, breaking, then there was a whimper. Not one that came from a human.

“Then who was it!?”

His question was soon answered, when a dog, a brown-furred mutt, sprinted out into the living room with a strip of bacon lodged in its teeth. “Gar!”

“I told you!”

Gar came out of the kitchen with a leash that had been ripped. “It wasn’t me!”

“You brought a dog into the tower?!”

“It was hungry!”

The mutt had finished off the bacon and headed straight for Raven’s lap. She gave it a scratch under its ear.

“Not on the couch,” Dick said.

“But Dick-“

“You’re not allowed on the couch either,” he told Gar. The boy murmured something Dick couldn’t hear, and after a second, no longer was he a boy but a green parrot. It squealed against Dick’s ear before it flew to Raven’s book.

“Jesus-“ he rubbed his ear. “I’m not in the mood.”

“SQUAWK-,” the parrot said. “WHAT’S UP WITH YOU?”

Having some coherent answer to that would only cement it as some grueling reminder. Hell, even thinking about it hurts more than the coward’s way out of pretending the past year never even happened. But then again, here he was, back in the Titan’s Tower to escape from the love of his life he could never be with and force himself into this infernal damnation of having forever to get over her. Here. Thousands of miles away. Where he’d only have his thoughts to battle and nothing else.

But all he said was: “Nothing.”

Dick should have told her, at least. Given her that kind of closure instead of his current disappearing act without so much as a note or a text or even a notice memo at the manor’s announcement board, which Alfred insisted with there being eight kids around.

But being away will be good. For her. For him. The first step to moving on. And with that, cutting all ties. Make it hurt less for both of them.

Maybe not all ties. He’ll have to go back to Gotham soon enough. But at least he was trying something. Not like the past five, six, seven years. God, has it really been that long?

She was probably over at Tim’s office, or Jason’s apartment doing whatever. Thinking about it won't do him any good. Doesn’t mean he subconsciously won’t.

It was apparent, and out into full consciousness, when he pulled out his phone and saw her name in five missed calls, with voice messages she’s left behind. A whole lot of minutes of them, too, it seems. She’d called while he was on the plane.

He could listen to them. Hear her voice one last time. Let his mind trail away. God, he was pathetic.

Dick put it up to his ear, his other hand stuffed to his pockets as he went out to the tower’s highest balcony so at least the air wasn’t so stuffy and he wouldn’t choke so much.

He wasn’t even nervous when he heard her speak. “Hey, Dick.”

A plane. A helicopter. Some folks over at the apartment building nearby partying it out. At least he’d have something to look at. He was exhausted, too. It was eight am over at Gotham. Shouldn’t have taken the overnight flight.

“You weren’t at the manor. I tried calling there first. I wanted to see you. Call me when you get this?”

He might. After he listens to the four other messages she’d left behind.

“Hey. I know it’s only been an hour. But please call me.”

Another one.

“Dick, where are you? I hope you didn’t change your phone. or I’ll look stupid leaving all these messages behind, which I’m not about to stop doing. Call me. Please. No one knows where you are but no one’s panicking either. It’s worrying me.”

Next one. From another hour after. He’d been gone a little over ten hours since he left. If Bruce didn’t have a tracker on him, they’d have called the police by now. But he highly doubted Bruce would take the time to announce his little trip to the West Coast to everyone in the house.

“Dick, if this is you ignoring me, you’re doing a hell of a good job at it. Did I do something?”

He heard her huff over the phone. No one else seemed to be around her.

“Please, I just wanna talk. Call me.”

The last one. Sent just four hours ago, which meant she’d been awake at four in the morning.

And, on top of that, the last one was five whole minutes long.

A call to tell her she was dating Tim again? Explaining how there are no hard feelings? Catch a movie sometime? An ass of him to think she’d be that cruel, but he was jetlagged and exhausted and the smell of dog shit still hadn’t left, which could be explained because that mutt had made a home just a few feet away from where he stood.

Dick played the message despite all that. Even if she called to tell him she’s getting married. He’d answer it.

“Dick…”

He could hear the rain, sheets shuffling under her feet.

“I’m sorry…” she said. “I… I probably took too long… I guess, if you’re ignoring me, you still deserve to know. I hope you get this message. I’ll tell you now, I guess. So you won't have to respond if you don’t want to.”

Tears. He could hear her wipe them off her skin.

“I kept you waiting for… I wanna say months but it’s a lot longer than that. Years… God, and I didn’t even see it… I took too long trying to figure this all out for myself, and you just kept waiting for me. No one should be worth waiting for that long.”

He was laughing as if it were one of her god-awful jokes. Funnily enough, it was worth it. Even when it sent him nowhere in the end. All that waiting was worth it. Somehow.

“Which is why I don’t blame you. Because you shouldn’t have taken this long. I thought even if I took another few weeks before I’d have enough courage to finally ask you to be mine, you’d still be there waiting for me. Selfish as it is, but I guess that’s your fault, too. Spoiling me and whatnot. Now my expectations for men are out of hand. Sorry.”

She even fucking laughed all the while he could hear her biting back her sobs. If he were there, he’d hold her by the shoulders and squeeze the fucking sense back into her and tell her yes, I did wait for you, and I’d wait for you for a hundred more years if I had to but I know you love someone else and-

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Backtrack.

What the hell did she just say!?

“I mean, I’m…” she continued, completely ignoring his panic. Was there a rewind on this thing??? “The past two days all I did was read your letter. Over and over again, trying to find something I could have missed. I memorized it by now. I’m a wreck. I’m sorry. I know it’s all so complicated, but I can't stop thinking that if the timing had just been good to us the past few years, all this would have been so different.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT, is she actually saying she-

“I’m so sorry, Dick…” she sighed. “I kept you waiting. But even if… even if you’re not anymore, I already made up my mind. I’ll be here. It’s my turn to wait for you. As long as it takes. I love yo-“

Something hit the back of his knees.

Which, unfortunately, with him not in some defensive stance, caught him in a rather vulnerable position.

And with that, Dick tumbled off his feet, almost fell off the railing, and failed to catch his phone from slipping right off his hands.

“NO!”

“DOWN BOY-SQUAWK!” Gar the parrot cried and followed the obnoxiously unruly dog running around the terrace. “SORRY, DICK!”

The dog kept running around and almost crashed to his feet twice with it being too fast even for Gar's supposedly swift wings, and if he wasn’t so frozen and horrified, watching his phone descend from almost a hundred stories above ground, he would have grabbed that mutt by the neck.

“GAR, I SWEAR TO GOD-“

“I’m sorry!” He turned back into a human and caught the dog. “It was him!”

“My fucking phone just fell over the railing!”

“Want me to go get it-“

A car alarm. He could hear it even from above. Or Gar did. Because he went to look over and caught sight of his phone breaking a car’s windshield below. He scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“I have to…” Dick pulled on his scalp. “I have to go call her.”

“Call who?!”

“Give me your phone!”

“I don’t have a phone!”

“Give me Raven’s phone!”

“She talks to people with her mind,” Gar twirled his finger against his temple. “She doesn’t need a phone!”

“Just get- UGH!”

He stormed back into the building. “Where the hell is everyone else!?”

“They’re all out of town!”

“So it’s just you and Raven in here?! Without adult supervision!?”

“Why do you think we got a dog into the building?!”

Said dog stuck his tongue out at him like it was just so awfully adorable.

“Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok.” He can do this. He can calm down. “I have to go back. Or call her at least.”

“You’re going back to Gotham now?!”

She said she’ll wait. But to hell with keeping her waiting. “Yes. I do. I’m going back now. As soon as I can call her and tell her I’m on my way-“

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Raven didn’t even look up from her book, legs up on the couch as seemingly relaxed as if the whole wreck of a home they lived in wasn’t a mess at all.

“Next flight to Gotham’s in an hour.” She levitated an apple to her mouth and took a bite. “And the one after that’s in two days.”

“Two days!?”

“Airline shutdown. Some strike is happening,” she pointed at the TV playing the news. “I’d hurry if I were you.”

“God fucking dammit-“

“Good luck.” Raven took another bite.

Of course. Of course, this would fucking happen.

But, fuck, he didn’t know if he should just leap out the window to keep up now that everything he’s ever wished for had finally come to be. Because, to his own beliefs up in the clouds, he could probably fly with just the flap of his measly arms.

Y/N chose him.

He left for the elevator, just before Gar stopped him for leaving his wallet, then he was sprinting his way back to the airport.

.

You:

“I already made up my mind,” you said to your phone as if there were anyone else on the other line. As if he was there, listening to you. And that in a few seconds, he’d respond.

“I’ll be here. It’s my turn to wait for you. As long as it takes. I love you, Dick.”

Quite haunting how easy it was for those words to just roll off your lips, because as much as you thought all this to be so complicated and difficult, it was the easiest thing you’ve ever had to say.

At four am, alone in your studio with all your lights off and your sheets in an unkempt mess. You stuck your knees so close to your chest, trying to conceal at least some kind of warmth against you. But even with it so easy, it didn’t mean it wasn’t hurting.

“I can't,” you stuck your palm to your forehead. “I know things are so hard between us… and this past year is just…”

You breathed, longer than you’d hoped, just to get enough air into your lungs just so you wouldn’t collapse.

“God, I don’t even know what to tell you anymore. It all just… It feels like it’s too late. Everything went so wrong between us and I can't stop but think maybe it’s the world saying we’re just not meant to be,” you swallowed. “And the scary thing is… I don’t even care.”

The blue rose you painted, staring back at you once so bright, but as the passing days of you still wondering if were brave enough to do this at all, it had dried up and was now blank, patronizing even, that maybe it just wasn’t right, even when you wanted it to be.

“I don’t care if it’s so complicated, I want you…”

On the bed, just by your feet, you locked your eyes onto Dick’s beautiful handwriting, some that had been smudged with the sweat from your hands with the paper now crumpled up after all those months of reading and rereading.

You closed your eyes.

“You sent me an awfully painful, heart-breaking letter,” you said. “This is my awfully painful, heart-breaking reply.”

.

‘I usually just say all this in my head. That’s when I get poetic. Sometimes I write it down. Most of the time, I try to paint them. I think of galaxies and meadows and skies and flowers and all that, metaphors as they are, but I’ll say everything I’ve got. Right now. Because you deserve to know that all those years of you thinking nothing could ever go how you wanted, that it could end being just that.

.

Dick:

“Hey.”

Hands on the counter, the attendant looked startled at the least.

“I need a ticket for the next flight to Gotham.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, after taking a while to look at Dick’s handsome yet frantically uneasy face. “You just missed it-“

“I know, I know, I missed the last one.” The one that left just five minutes ago because of fucking California traffic. “But I need to get on the next one. Please.”

“All flights from San Francisco after the next hour are canceled I’m afraid.”

“Any connecting flights? Anything that leaves before that?”

“Sir, I-” she stretched her fingers. “I’ll look for something.”

His fingers, tapping onto the counter until the tip of his nails started to hurt.

“The best option’s a connecting flight to Denver, then to New York.”

“New York!?”

“Then there’s the railway transits to Gotham. I can book you a ticket for that, too.”

From a seven-hour flight to a seventeen-hour trip with layovers and a crowded train.

But as soon as he heard best option he pulled out his wallet quicker than when they told him his rent was three months overdue and that if he weren’t to pay the doorman that very instant they’d evict him.

He rushed to the first plane, closed his eyes, and prayed she hadn’t said anything in her voice message too important for him to miss out on.

.

‘The universe, or whatever it is out there that has a say in all this, they didn’t make it easy for us at all. If they did, we would have met long before we went too far into this mess. We were friends, sure, and you have no idea how much I value our friendship.

But I guess not even that friendship’s strong enough for us to deny what’s really going on. And that’s why it’s all so hard. I can't even look at you without thinking about kissing you, or holding you, or touching you. I can't hold your hand without wanting to never pull away. I can't even be in the same room with you and not stare, even when you’re just reading a book or talking to someone else. You are… you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and you’re just as beautiful within, which is why it was so easy to love you, and so hard to keep it in.’

.

You:

Morning. Eleven am at that. You slept before the sun was up, at least. But you were up all night.

Nothing. Not a call, not even a text from him.

Everything shattered, and you were still half asleep. The next thing you did, and the next thing to do, was wrap yourself up with the thickest layer of your blanket and hide in the dark, even with it such a lovely day.

Another message wouldn’t be such a good idea if he still hadn’t opened the last five, which seemed highly unlikely with him gone for almost a day now.

A day. It had been a day.

But nothing on GCPD’s notices reported a missing person’s file of an utterly gorgeous, half-Romani hunk of a man in any of their websites. You called the manor, again. Still, there was nothing.

Twelve at noon. All you had for lunch was a bagel from three nights ago. It stuffed you, at least.

You sat at your dining table and stared at your phone.

If there was a moment for so much love to come crashing at once, it would all have been too great for that to be possible.

But the moment you realized it was there at all,

A few weeks ago. Steph’s birthday.

A party at the manor. It wasn’t much. Just a little get together with everyone at the parlor.

Everyone was talking, laughing, and frankly you wished you’d joined them. It looked like fun.

But instead, you were looking out the window, at the gardens white with melted snow and winds strong enough to knock the leaves out the branches. But you couldn’t hear any of that, which made it peaceful. It was the trees that danced, birds instead of planes that hovered over the sky, not a star above but perhaps it was because it was so full of clouds. It looked cold. Cold always looked so beautiful when you were looking out from the warmth of the inside.

Dick walked up to your side, just a reasonable distance away so he wouldn’t touch your shoulder, but close enough that you’d smell the jasmine from his neck.

“You’re just gonna stand out here and watch the glass fog up?”

You remembered laughing, probably at something else he’d said after that.

“It’s pretty when you look hard enough.”

And all the while, he didn’t pull your arm and drag you over at the crowd. He didn’t tell you to join them, to loosen up and have fun or have a drink or in any way stop you from what you were doing.

He just stood there and joined you, instead. Ditched his family. Didn’t even speak much.

He stood there because he wanted to. Because you staring out the window was more interesting to him than a whole crowd of kids doing whatever.

When he balled up his fist, covered it with his sleeve, and wiped the window right in front of you to rid it from the fog so you could see the gardens clearer, you knew you loved him.

Such a small act that was, but it was the finality of everything else that built up to that moment.

Then, you remembered what you told him last night, in a voice message that lasted way too long and sounded far too painful.

.

‘I don’t regret what I had with Tim… but I do regret not saying anything the past four years when I had the chance. You were there. You were there and I could never have had it any other way. When we’re not trying so hard for everything to be alright, everything’s at its best. I’m not even your girlfriend, and already I think about every minute I spend with you and laugh before I’m off to bed. I think about your jokes way too long than they should ever last. And your smile, god your smile, saying that that it’s all I could ever think about wouldn’t do it any justice. You have drawn out the ugliest laugh out of me that never should have come out of any human in existence. And frankly, I’m glad you do. Because just when I thought I could never smile again, you made me the happiest I could ever be.’

.

Dick:

Of all days. Of all times.

His survival rate at that point, rushing through Denver Airport with just a fifteen-minute layover period, with his shoelaces undone, probably wasn’t one he should have relied on. He was starving, but he had the appetite of a mammal in hibernation with the horrible airplane food costing a hundred dollars and everything else taking too long to prepare.

With just thirty seconds to spare, he fell to his too-narrow coach seat, shuffled along so his large ass-damn this cursed asset-would fit through the aisle and breathed just as the air hissed into the cabin after they closed the service door.

Head against the back of the seat, eyes up the ceiling, at the smoke that blew in through that gap outside the overhead locker, he ignored his dried skin, his dry mouth, his feet that were close to standing on a thousand knife tips, his eyes so close to just shutting out, his wallet painfully thin with this whole trip costing the equivalent of a round trip to Shanghai, and his whole body about to collapse. He hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours. It didn’t look like he was ever going to sleep at all.

And he hasn’t even called. God, what was she doing at home? Is she okay? Is she eating okay? Is she worried about him, staring at her phone wondering what she did wrong when she was nothing less of a perfect creation of all the gods that existed, an angel the earth didn’t deserve?

He really, really had to call.

Someone just sat next to him. A child. And next to him was his mother, who just put down her phone from a call.

“Excuse me.” Dick put on his award-winning smile, pretended he wasn’t sweating his balls off or that he was in any way close to psychological death, and hoped he looked the part as well.

“Yes?”

“Is it okay if I, uh, borrow your phone? I have to make a call. It’s sort of an emergency.”

“The plane’s about to take off.”

“It won't take long. I promise.”

He probably didn’t look as charming as he’d hoped. His hair was a mess not even a bird would settle into. The woman looked at him quizzically, up and down, and shrugged. Like it was handed to him on a silver plater, she gave him her phone.

The aircraft was about to take off. He only had so long.

He called Y/N’s number that he didn’t even know he memorized and settled back. It started ringing.

“MOM!”

The kid beside him. He was tugging on his mother’s shirt.

“MOM, I’M BORED.”

“We’re in a plane,-“

“I’M BORED. I WANNA PLAY ROBLOX-“

“Not now, we’re in a plane. Sit down.”

“GIVE ME YOUR PHONE-“

“That man has my phone.”

Fuck.

Y/N, fucking pick up.

“HEY, GIVE ME MY MOM’S PHONE BACK-“

“Kid, I hear ya. But you have to give me this one-“

“GIVE ME THE PHONE-“

That kid, a chubby one not older than six, stood up from his chair and was wild enough to grab Dick’s hand away from holding the phone up his ear. If he weren’t so desperate, he would have let him have it.

But god almighty, he’s never been as desperate as a starving man in a desert.

“Kid. Just one minute.”

“NO, GIVE ME!”

The mother put on a sleeping mask and faced the other way.

“KID-“

“GIVE ME MY PHONE-“

Back and forth, both grabbing onto the phone and the kid having the strength he did not at all expect, they ended up wrestling it out in the cramped-up economy seats until the kid was screaming out his ears.

He’s never looked so ridiculous but jokes on everyone else if they thought he could care less.

“Excuse me.”

An attendant, bags under her eyes and giving both of them, not just the kid, a dirty look.

“I’m sorry, sir, but the other passengers have complained about the noise. I’m gonna have to ask you to take your seat.”

“NO!” the kid screamed.

“DID YOU JUST BITE ME!?” Dick cried out.

“GIVE ME THE PHONE!”

“I NEED TO CALL SOMEONE!”

Dick grabbed the phone off his hands, palm to the kid’s face to stop him from reaching out to his outstretched arm. “Don’t you have some kind of coloring book you can give him?”

The attendant smiled, albeit forcefully, and walked back over to the back of the cabin. The kid did not stop trying to grab it off Dick’s arm.

She gave the kid a bag that probably had books and crayons and whatever stuffed inside. It looked so old. It had to have been in storage for the past ten years.

But as if some miracle heard him, the kid shut up, took the bag, and settled on his seat. Then he was as quiet as a mouse.

Fucking finally.

He held the phone up his ear and closed his eyes, fingers easing the tension on the nerve on his forehead.

“And sir?”

The attendant smiled at him. It didn’t look so much of a smile as it was a death threat.

“I’m gonna have to ask you to turn off your mobile device.”

To say he wanted to squeeze the life out of everyone in the whole aircraft, including himself, wouldn’t cut it.

And he didn’t even have it in him to protest.

“Hello?”

Her voice. At the other end of the line. That word was all there is to it, the only thing he heard.

Dick sighed, closed his eyes, counted to three, then ended the call after just two seconds.

The next thing he heard, for the next three hours, would be the screams of the child at his side, kicking on his seat like a fucking soccer ball.

.

‘That call from a year ago. The one about Kori. Fuck, I don’t even know where to begin. I overreacted. By a mile. Did some stupid shit to make up for that guilt and masked it over as another heartbreak when really, it was me refusing to have to go through all that again. I had to see you with that woman when I was in love with you for three years. Of course, it hurt. But I shouldn’t have an excuse. It was so stupid. Just thinking about it makes me want to break. I’m so sorry about that, Dick. I know we’ve already been over that months ago, but I just want to clear everything while I still can. God, I don’t even know if you’d listen to all this. I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I put all the blame on you when I had my share of mistakes. A whole lot of them. I’m sorry. I love you. And I’m sorry.’

.

You:

Hung up after two seconds. All you heard on the other end of the line was breathing and huffing, and nothing else. Whoever it was, they’ve been calling the past two minutes, just as you stepped out of the shower. And you almost cracked a rib flying from your bathroom to your kitchen table with just a towel around you, hoping to see his name on the screen. But alas, your luck just wasn’t at its peak.

You put your phone down, still with nothing to do, nothing else you could think of doing, than to just wait on that seat, stare at your phone, and hope Dick hadn’t hurt himself going after some goon alone the night before. Still no missing persons report. Nothing from the rest of the team, either.

Maybe just once more. You could call him. It wouldn’t annoy him too much. It had been hours since the last one.

You called, put the phone up your ear.

No ringing. It went straight to voice mail.

You opened your mouth, thinking you had something to say.

But you didn’t have anything to say. Not anymore. Not after you poured your whole heart out on the last one and now your throat was as dry as your palms were sweating.

You put your phone down, facing away from you, then you sank to your arms, burying your crumbling face away even with no one to see you.

.

‘That’s why I hate myself for not caring if this was difficult. Because I know, somehow, that’s it’s all still gonna be worth it. With you. Just thinking about the things we’d do, you’ve been the light of my life, the one person I look for not just because I need it, but because being with you makes so much of my day, every day that I see you. I look for you in crowds. I turn to your face when I want to look at something pleasant. I stare at doors, constantly hoping you’d be the one to walk in. I seek out for your voice, call you even when I know it’s a bother, find the most ridiculous excuses and the most stupid questions just so I’d have a reason to stand close to you, to have you talking to me, wanting all that everyday. I’ve never met anyone like you, Dick. I’ll never get used to you, and there’s no way in hell that I’d ever get tired of you. And maybe that’s the price to pay with all this being so hard. As complicated as it is, the troubles aren’t half the worth of the happiness it comes with.’

.

Two flights, three within the past thirty hours, jet-lagged far beyond a night’s repair, and his stomach in so many knots that even the bag of peanuts from the plane was too much to digest. And it wasn’t from poisoning or hunger or whatever it was. Everything in a whirlwind, one he can't even track.

He got to New York before it was dark, and he wanted to kiss the floor.

But he wasn’t at Gotham yet. This trip wasn’t over.

And if it weren’t for the half a million people crowded over at the airport, he would have been in Gotham right at that second.

Past the crowd, fumbling and running for whatever life he had left that wasn’t a spirit descended into something infinitely better than this, he made it over to the other side of the terminal, with his pits sweating his shirt off and his legs made of cooked chicken drumsticks and dough.

He got to the railway station, over at the attendant behind the counter.

“Excuse me,” he panted, and just like the one at the San Francisco airport, it startled her. Except now, there was no using his charm or his looks when he looked like he crawled out of a swamp.

“To Gotham,” he said.

“Ticket?”

He reached for his wallet, hands shaking so horribly it was worrying if he hadn’t known it came with his mind being as much of a mess as a wrecked ship from the 1800s.

And all the more did they tremble, down to his sorry knees, when he opened every flap there was on his wallet to find every pocket empty.

No.

No. no. no. no. no.

He searched his pockets. His jacket. His pants. His fucking shoes. If he had a hat he’d probably look into that too.

Nothing. Not a stub. A tiny stub that would have easily been blown by so much as a gust from a fan, let alone running a marathon in three airports in a single day.

“I,” he swallowed. “I seemed to have lost my ticket.”

Yeah. He wasn’t getting out of this one. The attendant looked at him and snarled like the annoyance he was.

“All the trains are sold out. And I’m afraid you can't board the train without a ticket.”

“Ma’am, I really, really, have to get to Gotham-“

“I’m afraid you’re gonna have to step out of the line.”

Like every force in the universe was out to get him.

“Do you have a phone? A payphone at least? I really need to call someone-“

“Sir, please step out of the line.”

“Please, ma’am, there has to be some way you can squeeze me into one of those trains-“

The attendant waved at someone behind him.

Two security guards were at his side before he could even turn around.

“Alright, alright, I’m leaving,” he huffed. “You guys don’t happen to have a phone I could use?”

Both guards ignored him, set him aside against a pillar.

And, with the excruciating exhaustion finally crashing into this one blow to the face, he stuck his back against the column, head up to the ceiling, then fell on his ass.

God, what does he even say to her after this?

If he actually gets to talk to her, that is.

“Final call for boarding!”

That light. One, single light. Or two, if he focused his eyes. The headlights from outside the revolving doors, from a bus that just opened its doors. It was a light, because it had GOTHAM in bold letters pasted onto its windshield.

And a line of people stepping inside. Kids and adults, old people alike.

He sat up from the floor, hungry, tired, and in pain.

But this was all going to be worth it. Every minute of this.

He just knew, that one last push, after this tormenting, inferno of a day, would all come to an end he’d dreamed about since he first laid eyes on her that day at the Wayne Manor’s library.

Dick got in line outside the bus, told the conductor he’d pay when they get inside. And after he did, he had just a quarter in his wallet to spare. No one sat beside him. The others were at the back. The one across was fast asleep. He couldn’t call her.

He’ll just have to hope, that whatever worries she had waiting for him to come up, that she’d forgive him enough for all this to end the way he hoped it would.

Three hours on a bus.

Didn’t even sound like it was remotely a long time.

The moment he took his seat, the bus doors hissed closed, and the air so silent, so did everything else calm.

He’s waited so long.

But he just had to wait for another three hours. In a bus. Then he’ll see her.

He closed his eyes.

.

‘I don’t even know why I rambled so much about all this being so complicated.

Because even if I had to walk up to the sky, I know there’s a galaxy waiting for me at the end. You are worth it. You are worth everything. I’ve never been so obsessed with anyone my whole life. You are, with my whole heart, my greatest love. And you are so beautiful that I never want to look at anything else ever again. And I never thought I’d get know beauty the way I do when I talk to you. You are everything I could ever want. And so much more.

And that pain, that hurt we both had to go through after all those years. That pining and waiting, and the heartbreak just because I was too stupid to understand that it didn’t have to be so hard after all, it doesn’t even matter, when at the end, I get to be with you.

I’d go through all that again if it means I can be with you.

You are the man I’ve dreamt about since I could first dream, and I’m lucky enough to have you in my reality. It’s you I want, Dick.

So I’ll wait for you. As long as I have to.

I love you so much.

Please, for the love of God, call me.’

.

You:

That message.

The longer you stared at your phone, the more you wondered if it was the right thing to do at all.

It was four am. You were tired. And worried.

And it was four am now, a whole day after.

Not a single call.

You’ve done it this time. You tripped at the finish line.

You were selfish enough to keep that man waiting for so long hoping he’d keep going, just as he had been for years.

And now, this is what you get.

You have yourself alone, in your apartment, one you haven’t cleaned in a week, and your heart in the same shatters as it often had been.

Your phone rang. You weren’t so excited to pick it up. Rightfully so when you saw it was just Bruce.

“Hello?” you said, your weight against the table’s surface, also surprised that it hadn’t broken.

“Y/N,” Bruce said. “I heard you were looking for Dick.”

“Mhm?”

“Sorry I haven’t called. Anyways, the last location I can point him to was at the Titans Tower in San Francisco.”

Okay.

You’ve had your heart broken before.

But it wasn’t just that that had broken right then.

Everything else, every bone, every bit of flesh there was, it was this numbing buzz you couldn’t even fight.

“What?”

Just then, someone knocked on your door.

And it wasn’t just a knock. They were pounding against the wood.

The ringing in your ears hadn’t even subsided, and you were breathless, muscles stiff. You just let the pounding go on until you heard Bruce hang up on the other line.

Life didn’t even give you so much as a second to process all that, of what he could be doing there, who he was with.

Your walked to the door, and without looking into the eyehole, you unlatched the lock and opened it.

Some glitch there was if all this were nothing but a simulation.

But it was as if the last five minutes-no-the last two days hadn’t happened at all.

Dick never looked like such a mess.

But, nonetheless, the way you stared at him was as if he was as beautiful as he ever was.

Everything that had broken, the moment you looked into his eyes, had fallen right back into place, into an entity far stronger than any quake could knock it out of.

Dick shut the door behind him.

He grabbed your face.

Then he kissed you. Without words. Without letting so much as a speck of time, however it worked now that it’d stopped, pass and waste away.

.

Dick:

Whatever she told him in that message he never got to hear, everything she ever had to say, the instant he felt her kiss him back, it was like every word flew out of her lips. How she wanted him. How she chose him. How in love she was with the mess of a human being he could be. How all the trials they’d been forced to go through, all the misunderstandings and the fights and the long months of this troubling, awkward place they wanted nothing more than to climb out of. He got all that with the way her lips molded so wanting and harsh, pressed so hard against his dried, chapped pair that have never witnessed anything more beautiful and so awfully perfect.

No more time to be wasted.

Not another second.

He had her. He finally had her.

He got the girl.

Not a chance that he wasted so much as another second.

He pushed her against the wall and the gasp that came out of her wasn’t at all out of pain, but at the sheer desire that had sparked at such impact that only knocked her into the same place he’d long settled in. And he could just feel, how much she wanted so badly to speak, to tell him what was raging in her head that was as much of a mess as his. But they’ll talk. Eventually. After.

All he wanted, right then, was to have her. Love her. Love her. To send her off to some paradise that long surpassed oceans and mirages and heavens that stood on clouds, to culminate that seemingly endless torture into a reward so great, that to say it would have been worth it would be so much an understatement. To play every instrument there was and let the song resonate into her body, and make it last for the rest of his life for so long as he could touch her. All that, he was going to give her tonight. Tonight. Right then and there.

Grabbing her legs up to his hips, her hands pinned to the wall above her head, it was too much of a flash for him to rush into this beautiful thing that shouldn’t be rushed at all. But he couldn’t slow down if it meant that he lives. Even if he died right after, he just couldn’t hold back.

He was pushing himself into her and the sounds that he earned out his lips were more than any songbird could cry out. After just having her against that wall, he finally got the sense to take it to the bed. It was dark. Not a light was on. And it was raining outside the one window she had near the bed and just the streetlight outside was enough to make him see her face. Dick placed her on top of his lap, on which she enjoyed herself to her own pace. Her hips were like waves, the ocean that rocked about, and the stain on his pants that she’d left behind was just as wet as so.

At that moment even she didn’t want to wait and talk any longer.

He took off her clothes, lied back.

Then he hoisted her up so the sweetest part of her body was just hovering over his mouth, her strong, beautiful legs, one of skin and the other of metal, on either sides of his head.

.

You:

You were made of gemstones. You were shimmering.

Of diamonds and rubies and emeralds, of the most precious rocks that could be found on every soil on earth.

Everything. That pain. That darkness. All the troubles and hardships, the disputes and every tear you’ve ever had to shed. Gone. Gone when he drew out this wonderful melody of sensations from his sweet, sweet tongue quivering you to every core. You were rocking, shaking, trembling, barely keeping yourself up. Not long after you screamed, and like the skies heard you it screamed back with a thunderous roar.

Then Dick shed his own clothes and moved inside you, rolling your hips with your two bodies now this one, beautiful entity, like you were holding his hand, just as you did right then, as you both ran through the darkness of a cave that has long haunted you, with creatures and bats and ghosts flying about, just to reach the end that was a light so close and so bright, you chased yourselves, chased that very light.

And once you reached it, that blinding, flashing white light that shone with this painful, glorious sting to every bit of your flesh, to say you found that end would be wrong. It wasn’t an end. It was this continuous, tantalizing aroma that would last a lifetime. It was beauty. You felt beauty. And it was in ripples you couldn’t see. A blur you couldn’t comprehend.

You had so much to tell him and ask him about.

But just as that wonderful night showed you, you had the rest of your life to do just that.

.

Epilogue

Dick:

Life could only ever be so cruel.

But life gives its niceties. Sometimes, to the people so used to it that they take it for granted.

But it’s even more so of a nicety when it’s the people who’ve long deserved it.

Not to say he deserved the world, but it was just that he’d gotten. From a world once so cruel, that never seemed to have granted them the time enough to be together, it’d never built up into anything more perfect.

Watching her from his car’s driver seat, from where he had a perfect view of her looking at the wondrous scenes flash by outside the window. It was even more beautiful, more than ever before, now that he could take just a second off his time from the steering wheel just to kiss her.

Just a little over six months together. Never has there been anything so rewarding in his life. A rainbow, ten of them at least, that filled what was once this depressingly grey sky. He always knew it’d be worth the world. But even he surprised himself.

When they parked the car, got out into this wide, orange field, a farmland just outside of Jersey with a valley at the farthest end, the only thing that battled the brightness of her smile was the sun itself.

“It’s beautiful, Dick.”

Her voice, even more so.

He set up her canvas, all her paint, and her brushes. They found a spot on the grass that was clean enough for them both to sit on. She didn’t use her easel. Instead, they both laid on this plaid red and white sheet over the grassy soil, her using her own knees to hold it up. And Dick sat beside her, watching her as the hours ticked. Without looking away, no longer ashamed when she’d catch him.

Just before the last of the sun had set, he pulled out from his pocket a ring, one with a diamond a shape of a white rose on top.

He got it a week after they got together.

Her face, her lips wide open as she realized what came in front of her, then he asked her to be his. Forever.

She said yes, just as the sun fell.

-----

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST | RED | YELLOW

-----

MAIN TAGLIST:

@idkmanicantenglish, @wunderstell, @birdy-bat-writes, @multifandomgirl-us, @icequeen208, @offendedfishnoises, @arkhamtoddler, @elsenthal, @lucy-roo,  @loxbbg, @reclusive-chicken-nugget, @l-inkage, @http-cherries, @river9noble, @zphilophobiaz, @annoylinglyaries, @knightfall05x, @hyp-oh-critical, @satan-s-ass, @1-800-starmora, @flowersgirl02, @nahcho, @thatonecroc​, @trixie-bb, @daddyissuesmademe, jasonsbitch, @shadowsndaisies @jaybirdbooty @writing2sirvive

SERIES TAGLIST:

@spaceservicestation, @thedeadlythoughts, @vanessafabricius, @pinkforest05

[akemiiiii]

Like waves crashing.

[before anything else, i know i only put my art here, but I do write from time to time hehe, so I'm sharing this one with you all, much love! I hope you enjoy it!]

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

“What the fuck?”

The first thing that Iwaizumi registers in his sleep-addled mind is that the bed is too soft. It did not feel like the firm mattress he always sleeps on in his apartment.

The second thing he registers is the soft scent of bergamot and pine which reminds him of Oikawa.

Which was definitely weird because Oikawa isn’t anywhere remotely near him at the moment, in fact, he clearly remembers he was 6 thousand miles away.

His eyes open to see a white ceiling, a grey duvet cover, and the king-sized bed he was currently on.

”What the fuck?”

Iwaizumi was thoroughly confused. He doesn’t remember anything that would sufficiently explain where he was.

The last thing he does remember was his sleep-deprived thoughts of missing Tooru because they’d yet to see each other for a year now and a pixelated face on a screen does not count.

And now here he is on a soft mattress that does wonders for his body, a room he does not recognize, and a scent that reminds him so much of his best friend.

“Did I die from missing Tooru so much?” Iwa anxiously gets up from the bed and heads to what he assumes is the cabinet. Right now, the idea of lying half-naked on a stranger’s bed did not seem appealing.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth for reasons unknown to him. But as Iwaizumi scrambles to open the cabinet, his sight lands on two very conspicuous shirts.

Hanging isolated on the right end of the closet was a black shirt that housed a small Japanese flag right above where a heart would be when worn. Besides the black shirt is a blue jersey, a huge ‘13’ smack right in the middle with an Argentine flag on the corner.

For the 3rd time that day, Iwaizumi curses.

Was Tooru already 1st string on his team? Was he already playing for Argentina? Wait, no, that’d be impossible Tooru would have to be an Argentine citizen for that ti happen.

Thoughts beeline in his brain, too fast for him to process. While Iwa was trying to understand what he was seeing, voices past the door of the room catch his attention.

Iwa stands still, eyes wide, fearing he’d be caught. Any hopes of these people leaving burn to dust as the knob turns slightly.

Then his eyes meet the soft brown burned and buried into his heart.

“Tooru?” Iwaizumi doesn’t take notice of the fact that Oikawa’s taller, bulkier, and more tanned. He was too happy to finally see his best friend after a year of not having him near that he barrels past the unfamiliar room to crush said man into a fierce hug.

“...Iwa-chan?” Oikawa squeaks out

“Tooru! Gods, I missed your stupid face, how are you here? Why are you here?” at this Iwa moves back to glare at the man “You better not have skipped out on your practices dumbass, you know better than to…”

“What the fuck?” The fourth curse surprisingly does not come from Iwaizumi. Well, not from the one who just bear-hugged Oikawa.

Iwa’s eyes move from Oikawa’s wide-blown eyes, past his shoulder, to see his own face staring back at him. A more muscled, more robust, maybe slightly taller version of himself.

Iwa curses for the fifth time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wait, wait, wait, you mean to say it is currently 2024?” Iwaizumi asks this supposedly adult Tooru.

“Yeah! We’re like, 30 now, Iwa-chan!” For the most part, Tooru looks extremely amused at what was happening that he couldn’t stop looking back and forth between the younger Iwa and the older.

“Damn, Iwa-chan, look at all the wrinkles you’ve accumulated, I told you all that scowling was gonna stay.” Oikawa chatters on excitedly

“Shut up ‘kawa” On the other hand, Iwa’s older counterpart now looks on calmly, as if this mind-blowing event was a normal part of his everyday life.

“Wait, you said we’re in Japan? And we’re...living together?? What about Argentina? Did you come back to Japan after all? But that wouldn’t explain the jersey…” There was so much Iwa wanted to ask about, but these were his topmost concerns.

“Hmmm, how much am I allowed to say? Will this affect the past? How did you even get here?” Oikawa directs the first 2 questions to the Iwaizumi closer to him (the adult one) and directs the last one to the Iwa sitting in front of them.

“I suppose you can say the condition we’re in now. But not the major ones.” The adult Iwaizumi offers

“But Iwa-chan! How am I supposed to know which ones are ‘major’ ones?!” Oikawa whines out, dramatically air quoting his statement.

The older Iwa heaves a sigh and faces his counterpart, “Yeah, we’re living together, we’re in Japan, as for Argentina, you’ll know in time.”

“...Huh.” Younger Iwa just huffs at that, but living together wasn’t really a big issue, in the back of his mind, Iwa thinks he knew all along that they would end up like that anyway.

Living with your best friend doesn’t really pose any much problem for him, plus he’d get to spend the days with Oikawa at his side and take care of his dumbass, so it’d be a win-win.

Younger Iwa still doesn’t realize why exactly he was very much pleased with the information that he and Oikawa living together was a great thing.

“Wait, I wanna know how old you are though Iwa-chan, you look almost the same as I remember when we were high school, but with major eye-bags.” Oikawa shifts closer, and younger Iwa stares at the freckles prominent on his face, the wide smile, and something in him clicks.

The one difference that he couldn’t pin, the one thing that made him believe that this Tooru really wasn’t his Tooru. This Tooru exuded happiness. Exuded contentedness.

He must’ve stared too long because Oikawa’s clearing of the throat makes snaps him out of whatever he was trying to comprehend.

“..Ah. well you aren’t exactly wrong, its been a year or so after we graduated as seniors. I’m at the end of the 2nd sem of college,” Iwa explains

“Holy fuck, that’d make you 19, ah youth! You’re so young let me pinch your cheeks!” Oikawa doesn’t wait for the go before both hands grab at younger Iwa’s chubby cheeks.

“Ha-ji-me~~ your baby fats are all still here! How wonderful!”

The sudden use of first name leaves Iwa blushing in Oikawa’s hands, panicked eyes seek help from the man beside Oikawa but adult him just laughed at his plight.

“Oi, ‘Kawa stop, he’ll combust.”

“You mean, you’ll combust?” Oikawa turns his head to face his Iwaizumi and wiggles his eyebrows. Younger Iwa doesn’t miss the gleam of affection that passes his eyes, and suddenly he is very aware of the lack of insults these two were trading.

If they were them, in the future, surely they’d have the same amount of banter he and Oikawa have, right? the roughhousing and all that, right?

But the only thing Iwa sees are casual touches here and there.

Like a switch, Iwa realizes a lot of things.

The apartment seemed to only have one master bedroom. In that room was a king-sized bed. With two pillows. The closet seems to house both of their clothes.

Oikawa was leaning into adult Iwa’s space more than the usual Oikawa would have been to younger Iwa.

There was a lot of gentle and almost, Iwa daresay, loving affectionate stares the two in front of him kept having in this hour alone.

And the most glaring, most shocking, most unbelievable thing Iwa has finally, finally noticed: The shining, demanding gleam of two matching rings.

“Are you married?” Iwa blurts out, the need to know suddenly engulfing him in ways he can’t fathom. How? Why? Since when?

The two in front of him exchange glances. And as an answer, both lace their fingers together. It is the older him that speaks softly, “Yeah.”

The word silences him. Once again, thoughts swim in his mind furiously crashing back and forth like waves.

How? Did he actually love Tooru all this time or did he come to fall in love with him? Was it when they were separated??

Why? Was this a need or a want or a what? What exactly could be the reason that they’d end up married???

Since when? When did they fall in love, when did they decide on marriage, when did they realize that the other was the one person they wanted to spend their entire lives with?

Iwa’s mind was a mess, but honestly, he knew every answer. He was probably in love with his best friend. No, not probably. Definitely. He started the moment they met and never stopped.

He loved Tooru. Loved his stupid collection of alien merch, loved the way his eyes lit up when they were on call, loved the way he took the spot next to Iwa as if that was where he was always supposed to be.

Iwaizumi loved and hated the way he was separated from Tooru, because of the space it left and because of the growth it pushed in them.

In the back of his mind, Iwaizumi hoped, wished, and knew that whatever their future may be, he’d always be beside Tooru, even if they were physically apart.

He’d known for years now that his future would have been with Tooru because the only future he pictured himself happy was with Tooru.

Fuck, he was in love with his best friend.

“Holy shit.” Iwa breathes out.

“Yep. Hard to swallow that you’re in love with this ass right?” Older him chuckles out, nudging Oikawa’s shoulder

“Hey! I’m a fine piece of ass. You’re lucky enough you got me!” Oikawa shoves back, the smile evident behind his pouting face.

“I really am.” The casual confidence in which his adult self replies to this is another blow to Iwa.

He fell in love with his best friend.

He gets to live with his best friend.

He gets to marry his best friend.

He gets to spend the rest of his life loving the person who has always made his soul feel alive.

“I love that I’m getting to see firsthand your reaction to realizing you’re in love with me.” Oikawa pinches the younger Iwa’s cheek with his free hand, and all pleasant thoughts of Tooru fly away, getting replaced with irritation at his smug smile.

“Well, knowing me, you have no other option but to fall in love with me Iwa-chan. I mean really, did you really think you’d get rid of me that easily?? My bi realization happened in junior high, you shit!”

Oikawa’s hold on his cheek strengthens, as he forcefully wiggles Iwa’s face right and left. Adult Iwa was apparently finding it amusing.

“Like what the hell! You were up in my room all shirtless in summer when it’s hot! And sweat!! And you had the fucking gall to play wrestle me without even knowing the internal turmoil I was having!”

Oikawa finally lets go of his abused cheeks, it was probably beet red from the amount of force he used to pinch, but also because of the words Oikawa was spewing.

“To be fair, ‘kawa, you liked the play wrestles because you said it gave you a reason to touch the developing muscles I had.” adult Iwa smooths over.

“It was still unfair because up until we were seniors I was literally dropping hints left and right and the entire fuckin’ team knew, and you were still there being the slowest idiot I have ever encountered in my life. Even your parents knew, how slow can you be Iwa-chan?”

Oikawa’s glare was directed at older Iwa, but it could have also been aimed at him from the amount of mortification he had. So that was why Oikawa loved holding hands when going home back then.

“Ah, the sweet taste of knowing the exact moment you realized you love me. Can’t believe it took for you to meet the future us to fucken know. Iwa-chan, you a rare breed.” Oikawa winks at him.

Older Iwa snorts, “Oh my god, never use that phrase again Tooru, what the fuck” He shoves him playfully, while Oikawa just wiggles his eyebrow back at him, prompting older Iwa’s fuller laugh.

And seeing this domestic scene in front of him somehow calms Iwaizumi enough to the point that everything in the world rearranges itself because he has found the answer that settles his very core.

“Ah. Times up.” Older Iwa says, looking straight at him. He dons a secretive smile, and for some reason, Iwa understands that he’s probably going to go back to the past now.

“Wait, last thing, are we happy? together?” Iwa frantically asks. Because no matter how he wants what this future paints, he wants what makes Oikawa happiest the most.

Adult Oikawa moves closer to him, leaving a lingering kiss on his forehead. “Ah, my Iwa-chan, I was never, will never be not happy when I’m with you. Now off you go! Don’t make things too hard for me, ‘kay?”

A last caress is what Iwa feels before he wakes up back in his shitty apartment with clustered notes and dirty laundry. It was currently afternoon, which means Tooru would be lounging in his own bed, probably reading.

Iwaizumi picks up his phone to ring him immediately. It’s answered in less than a minute, and the fluffy cocoon blanket of Tooru is what greets him first, before the scrunched-up nose of his best friend.

“You’re late Iwa-chan! Did you forget about lil’ ol’ me?” He pouts, and even though he was just with Tooru a second ago, he missed this Tooru still.

“Never. Hey Tooru.” The first name surprises Tooru, a blush rising, and before he would’ve just waved that off, but now that Iwa knows what he knows, he can easily see the pleased and happy gleam Tooru feels.

“Hey Hajime. So, how was your day?”

Iwa opens his mouth to tell him what he had just experienced, but adult Oikawa’s last words ring in his mind. It wouldn’t be fun at all if Hajime makes it known that he knows Tooru likes him, and him vice versa would it?

He closes his mouth and hides a grin. Nope. Not fun at all. Guess he’ll let things flow for now and keep Tooru at his feet. Someones gotta have to, right?

“Nothing much, I just woke up late, anyways tell me that gossip you had with your Abuela.”

“Oh yeah!! Iwa-chan you won’t believe what's happened, Juan’s partner got…”

Really, Iwaizumi muses that he should have realized long ago that he can’t imagine anybody else’s voice filling up his days in the future.

[Ok omg, tell me what you think, I know there're probably a lot of errors in grammar, hshshs, i'm still trying to get a hang of writing :D, I really hope you enjoyed reading this !!]

[moonbeambucky]

Hey Neighbor (Part 18)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Word Count: 5308 Warnings: fluff

Summary: You had a plan and then life came along with one of its own. With your future almost derailed you worked hard to get yourself back on track and finally everything seemed to be going right… that is, until your new neighbor moved in.

A/N: Wedding weekend starts now and I know you’re all very excited! Feedback is always appreciated!

HEY NEIGHBOR PART 17 | HEY NEIGHBOR MASTERLIST

Sweat trickles down your temple as you climb up the stairs from the subway, inhaling a deep breath of fresh air. It was a little thick but a thousand times better than the overwhelming stench of sweat and other odors from those that didn’t understand the concept of deodorant. The sun was pounding on you for the rest of the walk home, as your heart and mind raced, calculating if there was enough time to pack and eat something before you had to leave. This weekend may not bring a reprieve from the heat but at least things would be able to slow down.

In preparation for the wedding this weekend you had been working as much as possible, spending most of Memorial Day at the hospital to get a jump on making up for some hours, and getting to Stark Industries a bit early each day in order to get your proposals for an upcoming project completed. You weren’t drowning yourself in work to avoid Bucky, nope, that definitely wasn’t it.

Technically you weren’t avoiding him, he kept in touch during the week through messages, making sure you were all set for this weekend. When he asked if you wanted to grab food you told him the truth, that you couldn’t because you were too exhausted. If he asked last week you would have gone out with him despite your exhaustion but ever since you witnessed one of Bucky’s thousand hookups in your face this past weekend you weren’t in any mood to see him.

It was better to keep the distance, allowing the time you spent apart to let the logical side of your brain take the reins from your heart and stop it from falling for someone you know you shouldn’t. None of this was new. You knew exactly who Bucky was before you even met him, hearing the revolving door of women screaming out every night. He was a nice person, a good friend, but someone to date? Never.

Bucky: hey.. the trains @ 4:19 so you wanna head out a quarter to?

Somehow he always texts when you’re thinking about him… or maybe you just think about him too much.

You responded quickly, taking advantage of the time you didn’t think you had to make something quickly. In between bites of a sandwich you ran around your apartment, gathering together the things you would need through Sunday.

“Fuck!” you barked in response to the knock at your door. It wasn’t even three o’clock, did you read Bucky’s text wrong?

With worry settling on your brow you opened the door, relieved to find Wanda standing there instead.

“How’d you get in?” you asked curiously, letting her inside your apartment.

“Hello Wanda. How was moving, Wanda?” she said, mocking with sarcasm.

Your hands came up in playful defense, “Sorry, sorry.” You laughed, giving Wanda a real greeting as you pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry I haven’t checked in. How was moving? Are you all settled in at Sam’s?”

“Hell no,” she laughed, making herself comfortable on your couch. “Unpacking is like fighting a hydra, empty one box and two more take its place.”

You offered her something to drink along with your services to help unpack her never ending boxes when you get back.

“That would be great!” she said, taking the glass from your hand. “Anyway, Clint let me in because you didn’t respond to my texts. I thought maybe Bucky was here and you might have been… busy.”

The smirk her mouth pulled into made you roll your eyes. “Wanda, no… just no. There is nothing between me and Bucky, okay? You saw that girl last weekend. That’s what he wants. One and done, nothing more.”

Her lips pressed together as her head shook ever so slightly. “Mmmhmm.” With a hand digging in her bag she spoke, “Well, all I’m saying is you should be prepared, just in case.”

Wanda threw whatever she pulled out of her bag towards you. Catching the small box in your hands your eyes widened at the logo. “Condoms? Really?” you huffed, throwing them back at her.

“What? I want you to be safe!”

You turned away from her, taking a moment to compose yourself. Wanda didn’t know how bad you were feeling this week, you really were too exhausted to reach out to anyone. Maybe if you had a chance to speak she would have known not to joke about you and Bucky.

It’s not completely unreasonable, the idea that you could have sex with him but you didn’t want to be another girl on his mile long list. You wanted something he could never give, and the fact that your hopes were up and subsequently crushed in front of you didn’t make any of this easier.

“Take those back Wan, I promise you I won’t be needing them.”

“Fine,” she huffed.

Wanda helped you go over what you packed to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, razor…”

“Oh shit, yes. Gotta shave my legs tomorrow.” You grabbed the bag that held your toiletries, taking it to the bathroom with you to pack your razor and anything else you might have forgotten.

Wanda looked over your bag pulling out the clutch you packed, staring at the glittery reflection of sunlight on your walls. “You should wrap this in something,” she called out, waiting for you to return towards the bed. “If not, the glitter will get everywhere.”

She made a good point. You searched through your closet for something you could place in it and handed it to her, thankful that your dress was still hanging up and unaffected by the ubiquitous glimmering speckles.

“Oh shit I almost forgot!” Wanda went back into her bag to dig out something you actually wanted.

She handed you a beautiful gold necklace meant to wear down the open back of your dress, with four diamonds spaced out evenly along the dainty chain. “You’re going to look incredible. Bucky won’t be able to keep his– ”

“Wanda! Nothing is going to happen between me and Bucky!” you shouted, cringing at the fact that he probably heard you through the walls. With a groan you squeezed your fists tightly, releasing them with a heavy breath. “Those condoms better be in your bag, okay? I’m serious.”

She pulled the box from her bag, scrunching her face with her tongue slightly sticking out at you. A smile broke the hardened look on your face, you could never stay mad at her. Before she left Wanda hugged you, wishing you a nice weekend and thankfully she didn’t mention Bucky anymore.

Everything but your dress was packed so you texted Bucky to let him know you were ready. He was bringing a garment bag for his suit so he offered to put your dress in there as well. A few minutes later you heard the knock at your door and remembering you locked it after Wanda left you had to open it up for him.

“Oh my god!” you gasped, staring wide-eyed at Bucky who sported a new look– short hair!

His head hung down, scrunching his eyes shut to avoid any more of your reaction. He hadn’t cut his hair in years and honestly he never really planned on it but something changed over the week and Bucky knew exactly what it was.

Last weekend surrounded by all of his friends who were happily coupled up really showed Bucky what he was missing and the run in with Whitney reinforced everything about how he’s been living his life and what he wants to change. Bucky wanted a relationship and he was desperate to start one with you.

He couldn’t believe that after all these years of screwing around and closing off his heart that he was able to find someone he could trust with his heart. It’s a crazy thought, for Bucky Barnes, the man who thought he’d live life as a bachelor to have these desires but he couldn’t deny the truth any longer. His revelation came with a need for change.

If Bucky wanted a fresh start he needed to let go of the past, cutting away the dead ends in more than one way. He deleted all the numbers from his phone from the girls he has no interest in sleeping with any more. He deleted the apps from his phone because he didn’t want to meet anyone else, he already found the perfect person and he was sure he had seen sparks in your eyes, the same ones that set off fireworks inside of him anytime you were together.

But this weekend wasn’t going to be about convincing you to date him. He was genuinely happy to have you as a companion to his cousin’s wedding but if there is something between you (and Bucky really hopes his suspicions are true) he would let things happen naturally. And if it’s not meant to be he’ll be there like he always was, as your friend that wants to see you happy, no matter how badly it hurts.

“You cut your hair!”

He grimaced, clenching his teeth together with worry. “You hate it right?” He ran his hand through the short crop, what used to be long strands now a fluff of brown on top of his head.

“No, no, I think it looks great. It’s just… you look so different!” His anxious smile made you clarify your words. “You look great Bucky, honestly. I really like it, I just have to get used to it.”

The soft smile on your face reassured Bucky that his haircut wasn’t a mistake. Deleting apps is one thing but he couldn’t reattach his hair.

You placed your dress in his garment bag, still a mystery to Bucky as it was wrapped in white plastic and then you were off to Penn Station. A large crowd rushed down to the platform of the Long Island Railroad when the train was announced and you had to walk fast down to a further train car to get seats.

Bucky hung the garment bag on the rack above before settling down beside you. He was all prepared with tickets on his phone, declining your offer to pay him. He insisted everything was on him this weekend since you were his guest so you didn’t argue much.

During the long train ride Bucky began to tell you about the people whose wedding you were attending. His cousin Scott was marrying Hope Van Dyne, the daughter of his new employer.

“This is Scott’s second marriage actually. He got divorced after he went to prison.” Your eyebrow quirked at Bucky’s remark. “Scott found out his company was stealing from customers so he hacked their system to pay ‘em back. He did a good thing, shouldn’t have gone to jail in my opinion but anyway, it didn’t help his marriage, ‘specially since he couldn’t see much of his little girl.”

Scott had a daughter named Cassie who he was now able to see regularly since he and his ex Maggie had reconciled and according to Scott she’s going to be the cutest flower girl ever. Bucky isn’t sure how many people would be at the wedding, only that it was taking place on the North Shore of Long Island in a beautiful venue off the water. The hotel Bucky found was about twenty minutes away, something moderate and comfortable for the weekend.

“So, my parents offered to drive us to the wedding, if that’s okay, but I’m assuming they’ll leave early so we’ll probably have to Uber it on the way back.”

“Yeah that’s fine,” you replied. “I was going to meet them at the wedding anyway so we might as well get the awkward introductions out of the way first.”

“About that…” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, feeling goosebumps prick at his skin. “They actually wanted to pick us up from the train and go for dinner.” He turned to face you, biting his lip as he tried to sense how you were feeling about it. “I can tell them no if you don’t want to.”

Bucky appeared to be more nervous than you’ve ever seen him before and it finally hit you why, he’s never had his parents meet anyone before. Do they know about his lifestyle? Running through women like fire through a haystack. Your curiosity took the lead, wanting to see Bucky sweat a little under the heat of his parents' possible interrogation.

“No, I’d love to!” you answered, trying to hide the sly smile that started to creep its way on your face.

“Cool, yeah…” Bucky responded with failing confidence at trying to hide the fact that he wished you would have declined.. “I’ll text them now.”

More people filed into the train at the next stop, sharply dressed white collar workers looking to get a jump on the weekend even if it was just before rush hour. A man squeezed into the seat beside Bucky, making him encroach on your space a little.

You could tell he was uncomfortable in the middle seat, his muscles stiffening to keep his legs as close together as possible and also not play accidental footsie with the woman in front of him. By shifting your body you were able to give Bucky a little more space at the cost of getting closer, leaning into his shoulder.

With a few more adjustments you both found a comfortable position though Bucky can’t say his nerves had gotten any better. You spent most of the ride that way leaving Bucky’s brain to imagine several scenarios of you snuggling close to him; his arm tucked around you, his lips leaving a trail of soft kisses from your temple, down your cheek until he reached those perfect lips.

“Is that our stop?” you asked, breaking him from the trance where he was indulged in fantasies.

“Uh yeah, comin’ up.”

Grabbing your bags you made your way towards the doors waiting to exit. Bucky checked his phone, finding a message from his parents that were already there. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, his stomach sinking like an anchor as he realized what was about to happen, and worse he hadn’t told you something important.

You began walking ahead of him down the stairs from the platform and Bucky rushed behind. With his hand on your shoulder you turned around to find worry written all over his face. “I have a confession to make. He sighed, “My– ”

“James!” A soft bubbly voice called out and Bucky turned his head to find a woman on the next block waving both arms in the air and calling him over.

“James?” you questioned under your breath as you walked over to the woman who was clearly his mom.

She was half a foot shorter than him, with shoulder length hair that reminded you of Bucky’s but with a slightly brighter color. Her eyes crinkled with her mouth opening to a huge grin.

“Your hair!” she exclaimed, cupping both sides of his face to examine his new look up close. “You look so handsome.”

She lifted her heels to bring herself closer to him and Bucky met her halfway for the distance so she could give him a kiss on the cheek. You stood there smiling as you watched the cute exchange.

When they pulled apart her gaze came to you, another smile stretching across her face. “James, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Bucky cleared his throat nervously, “Uh, yeah sorry Mom, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my mom Winifred.”

“Call me Winnie dear. It’s a pleasure to meet you, James told us all about you.”

“Oh really?” you replied, cocking your head towards James who clearly had some explaining to do.

Bucky swiftly changed the topic as he saw his father’s SUV approaching the curb. As he opened the passenger door for his mother you wondered if he was showing off or not. Then again Bucky had no reason to try and impress you. Your friendship from the start has been completely platonic, except for a shared kiss on New Years.

Considering the first encounter you had, where you awkwardly told him his “guests” were always so loud, Bucky had probably figured there was no point in barking up that tree with you. And he was right, there wasn’t. You’re not interested in becoming another notch on his belt.

Bucky’s father George turned around to greet you after you settled in and he bore a striking resemblance to Bucky, sharp jawline, cleft chin and piercing blue eyes. His smile was different though, still a very warm and friendly one but there was always something about the way Bucky smiled that makes your heart skip a beat. Made. It used to do that but not anymore.

In no time you were at a diner, being seated next to Bucky in a booth across from his parents. Right away they began asking about The September Foundation; apparently Bucky really has told them a lot about you.

“That sounds like a wonderful opportunity to enrich so many young lives,” Winnie said.

“And speaking from the social work field, it’s a great alternative to keep kids active and away from harmful situations. A lot of the programs are STEM based but since that doesn’t appeal to everyone I’ve also worked out a homework help program, where kids can connect with a teacher on-site or through video conferences for extra help.”

Lost in the joy of discussing your work you completely missed the way Bucky was staring at you, seeing your face shine brighter than the sun. Winnie didn’t miss it though, as her eyes flitted over towards Bucky’s, catching him in the act which caused him to look away as an embarrassing shade of pink dusted his cheeks.

“October is our official opening even though we were aiming for September, not because of the name but to coincide with the start of the school year. Though we plan on keeping it open all year round, if we can get the donations of course.”

A proud smile spread across George’s face, as if he was listening to the accomplishments of his own child, “I have no doubt that you will.”

Bucky’s blush deepened knowing you had his parents' approval, not that he meant for this. He told them you were just friends, neighbors, that’s all, nothing more. Despite the details of your life he couldn’t help but tell them; how incredibly devoted you were to helping people, how smart, talented and funny you are… how beautiful. Yeah, he may have let that one slip out but it didn’t matter, you were only friends, sadly.

His thoughts were interrupted by a server coming around to take everyone’s order and thankfully the conversation had changed to his sibling Rebecca, giving his cheeks time to return to their normal shade.

“They’re coming tomorrow, right?” Bucky asked.

“Flying out in the morning and has to be back for work Monday,” Winnie began, “Rebecca was just promoted to Director of Avian Care.”

“That’s great ma.”

“It is, but it means they’ll be even busier than before, so next time when they’re in town James you better stop what you’re doing and come over. It’s bad enough you didn’t come over for Thanks– ”

Bucky interrupted with a vomit of sounds to stop his mom from completing her sentence, revealing the lies he had told everyone about his plans for Thanksgiving. “I promise from now on when Bex is in town I will always make time to see them, okay?”

Nervous inflection took over and he cleared his throat, taking a sip of water to clear it away. An opportunity to change the subject had come up as his mom took out her phone.

“You got a new one?” he asked, nudging his chin towards the device in her hands.

“She didn’t need it,” George added, ranting about the high price. “Your mom thinks she’s a photographer now.”

Winnie playfully nudged his arm, cracking a smile as she told him to knock it off. “I can become one if I want to. The camera has a lot of new features... if only I can figure out how to use them.”

You and Bucky shared a smile, an unspoken look that remembered previous conversations about your parents and technology.

“Hang on, let me try something,” Winnie whispered quietly under her breath and before you realized it she had taken a picture. “Look how good that came out!” she beamed, showing off her phone to George who smirked.

She revealed the image to you and Bucky, the moment you just shared, gazing at each other with a smile that shined all the way through your eyes. A lump settled in the back of your throat as you stared at the picture; somehow seeing it from an outside perspective opened your eyes to the truth. The feelings you had for Bucky were written all over your face, no matter how much you tried to hide them and the fact that his expression mirrored yours made you feel conflicted.

His parents knew things about your life that you never expected him to share with them. Does he do that with all his friends? Probably, right? Because you were just his friend. Bucky doesn’t date, you repeat in your mind over and over. But friends don’t look at each other like that.

The jarring thoughts battled in your mind as you stood silently, an innocent bystander in the war for truth with your heart on the line. Looking back at George and Winnie didn’t help at all, not when he leaned in to peck a kiss on his wife’s lips, crinkles surrounding his eyes as he looked at Winnie in a similar manner, the way lovers see each other.

As dinner finished his parents insisted on picking up the check, and after another short drive they dropped you off at the hotel, with plans to speak tomorrow before picking you up. Walking into a hotel with Bucky was something you never expected to be doing but you tried to keep the awkwardness inside.

“Uh, hi,” Bucky said to the man behind the counter, placing his bag on the ground, still holding the garment bag over his shoulder. “Checking in, James Barnes.”

How can you even think Bucky likes you if he wasn’t even telling you his real name? Your thoughts were interrupted seeing Bucky struggle to take out his wallet with only one hand. You offered to hold the garment bag as he handled the check in process.

“Alright Mr. Barnes, we have you staying for two nights. Check out is eleven, breakfast is available in our lobby from six to nine-thirty. Your room is number 342. If you need anything please don’t hesitate to call the front desk.”

He thanked the man and took back the garment bag from your hand as you walked towards the elevators, stepping inside as the doors opened with a ding. He pressed the button for the third floor, looking around everywhere but to you. The silence was quickly broken as you spoke.

“So… James is it?” You turned towards him as a smirk pulled at your lips.

He sighed, smiling as he shook his head. “I knew this was coming.” He swiped at his chin, chuckling under his breath before he began. “My name is James but no one calls me that. Well, except for my parents.”

“So where did Bucky come from? Is that your stage name?” you teased.

“Ha ha,” he said dryly. “I grew up with a friend named James and since my middle name is Buchanan I sorta became Bucky.” A boyish smile crossed his face.

The door opened and Bucky followed your lead to find the room. The card unlocked the door and you stepped inside happily surprised that there were in fact two beds. You didn’t think Bucky lied when he said he was booking this but the scenario did play in your mind. There must have been a mistake and now there’s only one bed, I guess we’ll have to share. At least Bucky didn’t pull anything scummy like that.

The garment bag was hung in the closet and then you threw your bags onto the bed closest to the window, laying back on the moderately soft blanket that was meticulously tucked in.

“You up for a walk?” Bucky’s question prompted you to lean back on your elbows. “There’s a CVS down the block, I wanted to grab some drinks and stuff.”

“Yeah, sure.”

You popped up from the bed, ready to go, taking the extra room key to place in your bag just in case. The white and red illuminated sign was visible from when you stepped out onto the street, and beyond it was a beautiful sunset, the fiery orange sky licked at the clouds above, with blue trickling through like a stream of water.

“I’m in the mood for chips, you want some?” Bucky asked, as you entered the store.

“Yeah, chips sound good and maybe cookies?”

The exaggerated batting of your eyelashes combined with the innocent smile that stretched along your face made Bucky let out a chuckle of laughter.

“Fine, but you’re eating the cookies in your bed. I don’t want crumbs in mine.”

“Oh and chips don’t make crumbs? I guarantee you’ll get tiny flecks of potato chips all over that bed.”

“No, you’re wrong Y/N,” he said, placing his hand on your shoulder, “‘Cause I’m getting Doritos.”

You laughed along with him, browsing the aisles until you found what you needed. Doritos, chewy chocolate chip cookies, a few protein bars and a small package of almonds (to stay healthy of course), along with some Gatorade and flavored water, split between a few bags, with Bucky carrying the heavier items.

“My water’s going to explode if you keep swinging the bag like that Bucky.”

With a mischievous gleam in his eye he said, “Oh, like this?” He shook the bag that held the carbonated water as you pleaded for him to stop.

“I’m gonna make you open it!” you said through laughter.

You didn’t, insisting that it would be fine if you let it sit until tomorrow, but it did mean Bucky would have to share his Gatorade tonight. He poured two cups, placing them on the nightstand in between the beds and tossed the package of cookies onto your bed.

Opening up your bag you pulled out pajamas, along with a bag of toiletries you took to the bathroom to set out. While you were in the bathroom Bucky got comfortable, toeing off his sneakers, and changing out of jeans into loose basketball shorts. He kept his t-shirt on even though he felt a little hot.

He saw your reflection in the mirrored closet opposite the bathroom door, smiling as he noticed your pajamas, a plain shirt, not too loose worn with pink cropped bottoms decorated with happy smiling faces on all types of breakfast foods; a smiling stack of pancakes with a syrup spilling over the edge, a happy frosted donut, bacon and eggs holding hands with beaming smiles.

“You have to wear those when we get breakfast,” he said, a smile pulling even wider across his face the closer you got.

“No way!” you laughed. “You wear ‘em.”

“I think I will,” Bucky grinned.

Propping up the pillows on your bed, you sat back, pulling back the foil of the package to take out a cookie. The remote was on your side so you flipped through the channels to find anything that might keep you both entertained.

The bag of Bucky’s chips crinkled as he opened them, digging his hand in the bag. It wasn’t long after that he craved something sweet. “Cookie?” he asked, sucking the orange powder off his fingers.

“I thought you didn’t want crumbs in your bed.” You raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah yeah… well I like cookies more than I hate crumbs.”

A smile tugged at your lips. “Fine, but only if I can have some Doritos.”

Bucky scooted over from the center of the bed. “Fine, c’mere. Might as well have just one bed covered in crumbs.”

You smiled, tossing the remote to him as you climbed out of your bed and into his. Only when you were sitting so close did you realize how weird this felt. It shouldn’t though, you’ve been close to Bucky before, closer even, but since you’ve acknowledged your feelings you’ve become more aware of how being near him makes goosebumps prickle across your skin.

But this was nothing, just an easier way to share snacks. Nothing more.

“Go back!” you said, as Bucky was flipping through channels. “Look! It’s you!”

The Music Man was on, Bucky’s namesake for when he first moved in. Bucky looked past your finger that was pointing towards the screen towards the main character “Professor” Harold Hill.

“You think I’m a con man?” he questioned, his brows furrowing as his lips pulled down into a sad pout.

Though he looked concerned you saw the smallest twitch in the corner of his lips and decided to tease him some more.

“You didn’t even tell me your real name so…”

His frown broke out into admitted laughter. As Bucky stared at the way your smile reached your eyes he felt his own lips form a soft one, letting out a sigh that made his heart skip a beat. “You know it now.”

The gaze between you was held for longer than you should have let it, your heart urging you to lean in and press your lips to his again, to feel the sweet relief of the way his soft lips caressed your own. Against your wishes you felt your eyes break contact with his for a brief moment, glancing at his lips, your tongue delicately sneaking out to wet your lips… that is until your mind took control of the reins again.

Clearing your throat you dug your hand into the Doritos, keeping your mouth busy in a different way and Bucky shrugged off whatever was about to happen. He grabbed a few chips for himself, knowing he was not going to push you into something you didn’t want.

A hint of tension lingered in the air but Bucky diffused it quickly, joking, “And anyway, Harold Hill can’t even read music so that was a pretty poor choice of a name to call me.”

A smile eased its way onto your face again. “Well I didn’t call you Harold Hill, I called you the Music Man, which was a shorter way of saying ‘my annoying new neighbor that plays every instrument known to man through our thin walls every night.’”

“Not every instrument.”

You chuckled. “Right, right. You don’t do horns.”

Bucky laughed back, the boyish smile on his face retreating slowly as he asked, ���Am I still annoying?”

Your answer was halted as you appraised him, eyes narrowed, lips pursed tightly in an attempt to make him nervous, but you couldn’t hold a straight face for very long.

Breaking out into a smile you couldn’t hide the truth, “No, definitely not.”

It’s amazing how far you’ve come with Bucky, from silently cursing him out in your mind everyday to forming a friendship, one close enough that brought you to this situation that has your heart and mind dueling in a battle for the path you should take.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night, when all you wanted to do was hop into Bucky’s bed, lay your head on his chest and cuddle. Instead you wrapped the blanket around yourself and rolled over, knowing that no matter what side won a part of you would still lose.

PART 19

[the-great-bbe]

The children shriek with laughter as the waves roll against their legs. The sweet sound melds with the crashing of the sea, of Mellario and Ellaria gossiping about their beloveds, of Rhaella sighing and relaxing for once. All is bright and golden and warm, save for their ice-cold goblets of sangria. Elia tilts her head back against her chair and smiles. Let those bastards keep that ugly ass throne, she has all she needs right here.

Or, the sangria beach party that Elia and her loved ones deserved. A short fic to start off Summer is for Dorne!

Among his many talents, Elia’s little brother is a master of mixing drinks.

He is a viper after all, and vipers know their poisons and how to mix them. Tequila from the agave blooming across the hillsides pairs perfectly with lime juice and distilled orange blossom nectar to make a margarita. Horchata foamy and fragrant with Summer Islander cinnamon can be elevated with sugarcane rum. And there’s nothing better on the gods’ green earth than red wine—proper Dornish sweetwine, not that diabetic piss from the Arbor—left to idle in icy splendor with strong brandy and fruit. Blood oranges, black strawberries, white nectarines, even a tart green apple or two. Their cousin Manfrey picked them all fresh from his private orchards near the Water Gardens just the day before. The bounty of Dorne for Dorne and Dornishmen alone.

A pitcher of his perfect sangria rests in a bucket full of ice slurry. Already her goblet is half empty, despite her efforts to sip and savor. It tastes so rich on her tongue much abused by dull Riverlands ale and Reacher wines. There are few blood oranges to be found north of the Boneway, even for a Princess of Dorne, and Elia feels the urge to inhale her drink. She sighs and rolls her shoulders. Just another sip for now. Summer explodes on her tongue, ripe and rich and such a dear welcome home.

Elia doesn’t remember the last time she was this happy. On Dragonstone it was a constant haze of sulfur and marine fog, and Kings Landing reeks from miles away. But here, on a long stretch of beach near Saltshore, the sun burns bright and delicious above the palm trees. Not a single cloud in the sapphire sky, nor any fog to mar the turquoise seas. Elia rolls her head back against her wicker chair. Perhaps later she’ll relocate to the hammock strung between two date palms and let the balmy sea breeze lull her and her children to sleep. But for now her precious Rhaenys plays in the surf with her cousins and Viserys, and dear Aegon builds a sandcastle with Oberyn’s help.

Instead of cowering from the Mad King’s rages and simmering with hatred towards her once husband, Elia lounges in the shade. Zinc paste is cloudy white on her shoulders, nose and ears to protect her from the strongest of the sun, just like the children. But the rest of her body is resplendent with shea butter and avocado oil. Thick aloe leaves already sticky with cooling sap wait in a basket by her feet in case she must ward away a sun burn, but her skin soaks up the midmorning sun like a child returning to her mother’s embrace. Gods, but the sun! She stretches her arms above her head and nearly knocks her wide brimmed hat aside. She swears she can feel the sunlight itself like warm silk through her fingers, like a waterfall down her chest to pool in her stomach and ignite joy in her veins.

She lets her gaze fall back towards the sea. When was the last time Rhaenys laughed this loudly? When was the last time Viserys laughed at all? Poor boy, but he, his mother and his baby sister are well in hand now. Targaryens by birth they may be, but the blood of Myriah Martell and Dyanna Dayne run sevenfold in their veins. Dorne shall never turn its back on any child no matter the color of their skin, and even from her shaded refuge Elia sees the freckles blooming across Viserys’s shoulders. Good; the more sun the better. Uncle Lewyn’s eldest daughter Obara throws him headlong into the waves and he shrieks with joy, while her little sister Nym and Doran’s Arianne demand their own toss into the surf. Rhaenys and Manfrey’s daughter Sarella help Lewyn’s Tyene search for shells and crabs, giggling and kicking seaweed at each other. When they find a proper shell, they bring it to Aegon and Oberyn who add it to their castle. Aegon blows a messy kiss onto Rhaenys’s cheek and Elia’s heart runs over with sweet warmth. Her babies, alive and well and happy.

It was a terribly close thing by the end of Robert’s Rebellion. Elia’s correspondence was cut off by Aerys in his paranoia, but she was able to smuggle out a letter to Oberyn when Rhaella left for Dragonstone. He returned with his sellswords to rescue them from their imprisonment, and not a moment sooner—Elia remembers how Kings Landing burned from her view on the ship home to Dorne. To think of what would’ve happened had they stayed…they say that Aerys was cut down by his own Kingsguard, and that the royal nursery was torn to shreds by the Mountain That Rides in search of children to kill.

Elia shudders. Perish the thought, banish it to the seven hells. Rhaegar is dead, and her children are Martells now. Even Rhaella forsook the Targaryen name when they alighted in Sunspear and she was hurried into proper birthing chambers. Daenerys came to the world not as a Targaryen princess but as a Lady Martell of Dorne, with Rhaella Martell the new Lady of Planky Town. Viserys and Aegon shall not give their lives to the Wall and Rhaenys shall not be chained to a Baratheon prince. Not if Westeros intends for Dorne to remain in the Seven Kingdoms, and truth be told Elia wonders if Doran intends to leave anyway. They entered into a kingdom with a union, and perhaps they shall leave with the sundering of one…

But that’s not what matters today. What matters is refilling her goblet. Elia raises it high, and Doran shuffles over with the pitcher. Her dear older brother is shirtless, stained with sand and salt, and there is a sweet flush to his cheeks. Even his bad leg seems fine with the therapy of burning sunlight illuminating their bones from the inside out. Mellario must certainly appreciate that! Her good sister lies on a spread linen sheet on the sands with Ellaria, Oberyn’s paramour. Both of them are bronze in the sun, a silk turban around Mellario’s head and Ellaria’s curls formed into twists down her back. And its’ said that Cersei Lannister is the most beautiful in Westeros, obviously people are blind. They look up at them with mischievous grins, before bumping their heads together and giggling. Elia smirks at Doran. “Careful now, habibi. I believe you’ll be ambushed later in the night and whisked away by a mystery woman.”

He laughs and his eyes crinkle at the edges. “I’ll be sure to not fight back too much.” He plops down next to her and sips at his lemon water. The maesters forbid him from alcohol and sugar until his gout is under control, a true tragedy in Elia’s eyes as the sangria is excellent. But even more excellent is seeing how happy her brother is. Gods, to imagine him mourning her and her babies as they did for uncle Lewyn, it’s a fate she would not wish on her loved ones. She intends to live to a hundred and twenty, just to ensure he’ll always smile at her with crinkled eyes.

Elia leans against his shoulder and peers out towards the cabana higher up towards the oasis grove. “Has Rhaella returned from Saltshore yet? Dany was giving the wet nurse a bit of a hard time.”

“Missed me, have you?” Rhaella, emerged from their cabana and the platters of fruit kept safe from the sea salt there, calls down to them. It’s been only a few months, and Rhaella is unrecognizable. Elia is glad to see the plump roundness of her stomach and thighs where before she was only skin and bone. And her skin, once as pale as parchment and twice as translucent, is as dark as her great-grandmother Dyanna. It glows against her silver-gold hair and lavender eyes, and there is happiness in her face where before there was only stifled fear.

Elia waves Rhaella over to the empty wicker chair by her side. Perhaps later, when the children sleep off their lunch and the adults are properly sauced from sangrias and margaritas, they’ll return to the cabana and lounge on the day beds. Maybe even one of the cabana boys—cabana men in truth, with their strong arms and backs—can give them all shoulder massages. Rhaella has a little favorite who is always eager to help his new lady relax. Elia raises her eyebrows at her good mother and she takes a long sip of her margarita. Elia is far from judging, as Rhaella deserves whatever happiness she can grasp.

They all do. How long have they all suffered these last years? Suffering Aerys, suffering Rhaegar, suffering the war that they wrought upon Westeros. Elia still remembers the screams from Rhaella’s chambers during their terrible stays in Kings Landing, she remembers the cold silences before Harrenhal and the even colder absences after. And now those men are dead and thousands with them. All over some Northern girl, and a prophecy that probably foretold the coming of the seasons than any promised prince!

Well, fuck them. Westeros has a new king now, in that stinking castle filled with blood and shit and ghosts, and the Baratheons and Lannisters can figure it out now. Let them have the starving smallfolk ready to rebel after a harsh winter. Let them have the honor of bartering away pieces of their souls until all that remains is bleeding pride. Let them have it all. All that matters to Dorne is the rice crop, and managing citrus exports, and the wellbeing of its people. Elia plans to build a new school for smallfolk children and petty gentry in Sunspear, as she is now Princess of Sunspear. More Martell branches for a blood orange tree to bear wondrous fruit. All beneath the sun, so bright in that perfect sky…

Elia sips her sangria. Oberyn and Aegon are finished with their sandcastle, and now he’s pulled out a guitar from somewhere and tries to teach his nephew how to play. Rhaenys perches on Obara’s shoulders and pretends to joust with Arianne who is on Viserys’s. Manfrey and his Summer Islander wife Bellegara Otherys finally finish up their romantic walk up and down the shore, with Bellegara joining Mellario and Ellaria’s whisper pile and Manfrey pulling Doran away to talk drunken business. Something about making a fleet of ships to rival Nymeria’s, and selling sweetwine to Sothoryos in exchange for coconut and date liquor. Elia giggles and can’t stop. Not with the sun so warm on her skin, not with Rhaella raising her goblet and toasting the coming summer.

It’s still winter north of the Red Mountains, but not here. No, summer is here for Dorne, and it is here to stay.

The children shriek with laughter as the waves roll against their legs. The sweet sound melds with the crashing of the sea, of Mellario and Ellaria gossiping about their beloveds, of Rhaella sighing and relaxing for once. All is bright and golden and warm, save for their ice-cold goblets of sangria. Elia tilts her head back against her chair and smiles.

Let those bastards keep that ugly ass throne, she has all she needs right here.

[heyheydidjaknow]

I do not have a decent title for this. I’m also not even going to bother with an image (even though I know it would generate more traffic) because I’m not going to steal someone’s shit. It’s about 3500 words, so have fun with that.

Chapter 1

Dying is not fun.

I do not know if you knew that until last night. Maybe you figured that since it was romanticized so much that it would not suck as much as it so clearly and obviously did. Maybe you dreamed of dying relatively peacefully, surrounded by your loved ones. Alas, those dreams were dashed last night when you, oh so wise Y/N, decided that you were going to try baking and forgot the most essential step; taking the thing out of the oven. You remember that night so clearly, the screams of your family begging for their lives still bouncing around in your ears like a torturous golf ball that made a habit of forcing itself into your throat, the feeling of your hair catching alight as your skin bubbled and charred, and rational thought became a foreign concept. You do not remember if you had died from a heart attack or hyperthermia or smoke inhalation, but you had a general idea that, yes, that night had been your last on Earth.

So, where the fuck are you?

You pull yourself into a sitting position, your back pressed against something hard as your eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness. The air smells like rotten food and exhaust engines as you pull yourself off the concrete, looking around the alleyway that you had found yourself in. It’s small, narrow, unremarkable in every way, with graffiti covered dumpsters near the entrance. Dazed, confused, generally out of sorts, you make your way to the entrance, patting yourself down for injuries you did not seem to have.

You rub the side of your face with your hand. ‘My head is killing me.’ You slip your hand into your jacket pocket, feeling a key and a piece of paper. ‘God damn it is cold in this alley.’ You zip up your jacket, walking out into the open as you pull the note out, beginning to read.

“Dear Y/N,” you mumble as you read, “we are pleased to inform you of your acceptance into our transference program, yadda yadda yadda, whoopdeedoo…” You skim ahead of some introductory jargon before getting near to the point of the note. “From this point forward, enjoy your permanent residence at ten West.. fifteenth street… apartment number six two two… New York, New York?” You blink. ‘I… that’s not my address.’ You pull out the key. ‘Wait, hold on.’ Your eyebrows furrowed. ‘New York? Wait, I was dead, wasn’t I?’ Your eyes become unfocused. ‘I don’t live anywhere near NYC. Where am I?’ You look around for some sort of landmark, street name, anything to give you some idea of where you are.

You hear a car squeal to a stop on the street corner in front of you, snapping you out of your stupor. As identical men start climbing out of the back of the vehicle, all marching deliberately towards you, a fifteen-year-old girl, your immediate reaction is to run like hell. Unfortunately for you, apparently your speed was not comparable to that of the men who quickly apprehend you, scooping you up and dragging you kicking and screaming into a van. You hear vaguely familiar voices outside, but your focus is less on the mayhem and more on the more pressing matter of getting yourself out of the van. You pound at the door, feel for any sort of locks on the inside, something, anything to get you out of the van, still screaming your head off as you hope whoever was outside had the common sense to call nine one one. You feel your eyelids droop as your breathing slows, your voice dying as your pounding becomes less intense. You slide to you knees, eyes closing even as you mentally scream at yourself to get up, keep at it. You passed out.

--

You wake up laid on the floor this time, the pulsing of electricity above your head almost soothing as you open your eyes. You stagger to your feet, looking around your well-lit enclosure, pink florescent lights lining the ceiling and walls like arteries. After taking note of your new bruises and checking to see if you still have your few personal belongings—you do—you ran over to the door, eyes fixated on the mind boggling, ridiculous scene taking place in front of you.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ You back away from the slot in the door, trying to process the blatant larping headassery. You had not thought that you would honestly be able to say that, apparently, you were kidnapped by the mother fucking Kraang, yet, in some stroke of tomfuckery on behalf of whatever deity controls your universe, you have, obviously, been kidnapped by some seriously hardcore cosplayers. If nothing else, you must admire the obviously advanced set up.

You run your fingers through your hair, chuckling almost manically. “So,” you say to yourself aloud, “I got kidnapped by TMNT fanboys. Great. Fantastic, even!” You pace around the room, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “I guess this makes me April O'Neil, then? Cool.” Your voice is extremely tight as you shake with intense, mostly negative emotions. “So, I’m somewhere in New York, kidnapped by the Kraang in the worst convention ever. Let me guess,” you laugh, losing your mind a little as you speak to nobody. “I’m gonna have a run in with the Teenage Fucking Ninja Turtles next, right?”

As if on que, you hear laser blasts and shinking metal. The high pitched beeping on an alarm sounded as you heard people—‘Male, teenagers… fuck my life,’— talking about power or something as their footsteps approach your room. You pound on the door. “Hey! Over here!”

You see a brown set of eyes look in through the window. Your suspicions are confirmed; ‘Definitely TMNT larping.’

“We found her,” the owner of said eyes, the one cosplaying as Donatello, calls to the others. Lasers shoot by his head as he turns to stare death in the eyes.

“We’ll hold them off. You pick the lock.” ‘Leonardo.’ You breathe a soft sigh of relief; if nothing else, you are apparently on the side of the people trying to get you out in this game. You hear footsteps going towards the firing.

“Don’t worry,” “Donatello” reassures you, voice tight with apparent anxiety, “I’ll have you out of there in a second!”

“Thanks, Donnie.” You give him a half-hearted thumbs up, trying to see what he was doing through the window. “Take your time.”

His eyebrows furrow. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

You sigh. “Look, man, I don’t know the script for the first episode by heart. You’re gonna have to cut me some slack for not being off-book.”

“Off—what?” He stares at you blankly.

You purse your lips. “I’ll explain if you let me out,” you promise. “Just pick the lock before the blue one gives you shit.”

“Oh, right! The lock!” He nods, grasping onto the logical thing you say and leaning down to start working on the alien technology. He pulls the cover off a control panel by your door, starting to fiddle with the wires.

You lean against the door, watching him work curiously. You hear the battle cries of “Michelangelo” and the toppling of robots as he works, clearly focused on his task. You zone out again. “This is some serious shit,” you mumble.

He mutters in frustration. The one dressed as Raph marches over, more impatient. “Oh for the love of—get out of my way,” he snarls, proceeding to take a very real looking sai out and stabbing the panel with a very in-character ferocity. You almost feel the urge to applaud the acting, and you might if this weren’t such a high stakes situation.

The door in front of you and behind you open at the same time and, deciding against getting captured again—you remember something about hanging from a helicopter in that scenario and you want nothing to do with that—you run alongside the turtles like your life depends on it, stumbling to a halt once you reach outside and slamming the doors closed behind you, blocking it with your back.

Your feet scramble to gain some traction on the cement. “Donnie,” you snap, almost impressed by the force used to pound against the doors, “put your staff in the handles of the door. We gotta go ASAP.”

“Wait, hold up.” The one dressed as Raph jabs his thumb towards you. “How do you know his name?”

You groan. “For fucks- it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not fucking Happy Sugar Life. Get the thing in the thing before the vine thing kills us!”

“The what?” Donnie and Raph seem much more confused than before, staring at you inquisitively and angrily respectively.

“Uh, guys?” Mikey pointed. “I think she means that vine thing.”

From the shadows emerges a towering creature made of plant life, its vinelike limbs draping across the ground like roots as it rears its ugly head. Its exposed, pulsating heart pressed against what remains of the creature’s ribcage. “You did this to me,” It growls. “Now you’re going to pay!”

“It’s-“

You cut Leo off. “Snake guy. Mutated into a weed. If you wanna kill it, go for the heart.”

He looked back at you, joining the other two pairs of piercing stares. “Cut that out.”

“Then don’t monologue and kill it before it has mobility!”

“On it.” Raph charges at its lumbering form, and within moments, it falls to the ground in a heap.

The pounding against the door is getting more intense. “Donnie! Staff!”

“Right!” He runs over, sliding his staff in between the door handles.

You stumble forward, the pounding already starting to crack the wood. “Alright, now we can leave.” Without waiting for the others, you sprint away from the building like your life depends on it. The others, clearly confused, follow.

You got a fair few city blocks away before you slow down, breathing heavy and palms stamped with the outline of the key you were holding desperately onto. “You run really fast for cosplayers,” you pant, “with all the- the paint and all.”

“Yeah, about that.” Donatello stops next to you, a thousand questions apparently swimming around in his head. “How do you know our names?” His mouth moves a mile a minute. “How did you know the weakness of that vine creature? What do you mean, cosplay? Who are you? Who were they?”

You cut him off. “One question at a time, hot stuff. Deep breathes.”

His pupils dilate. “H-hot stuff?”

Leo cuts in. “How did you know what we were—uh—cosplaying?” he asks tentatively.

“Odd time to cut the act, but alright.” Your heart rate lowers to a decent pace as your mind still struggles to comprehend what had just happened. You slow your breathing. “I mean,” you explain, gesturing with your hands, “it’s TMNT. It’s iconic.”

“Iconic?” He nods. “Well, since you know so much about it, then why don’t we test your knowledge? To see if you’re a real fan..”

“Y-you think I’m hot?”

“I don’t see the point, but I’m down.” You shrug, deciding to ignore the melting turtle for a second. “Shoot.”

He thinks for a moment. “Who’s the main character?”

You shrug. “You four, I guess.”

Mikey jumped in. “What’s the theme song?”

“Gonna have to be more specific there, buddy.”

“Is it really a great idea to just talk out here in the open?” Raph crossed his arms across his front.

“Probably not.” You look around. “Unless you have a map on you, I’d suggest we go back to your lair.”

“Our—what kind of stalker—”

“Look, honey,” you sigh, “if we’re going to go over every aspect of their lives that I know about we’re going to be here for a long time. For our purposes, just assume I know everything I need to know, and if you’re curious about specifics, we’ll go on a case-by-case basis.” You start walking down the sidewalk. “I’m guessing you guys hang out in the sewer, right?” You feel almost tempted to say that they’re just flat out psychotic, their blatant conviction in their own characters almost frightening. ‘I’ve heard of kinning,’ you think, pulling up a manhole cover you see at the end of an alley and wincing at the smell, ‘but this is ridiculous.’ You blink at the surprising lack of weight.

“Yeah.” Mikey—no, the Michelangelo cosplayer—walked over, already hopping in. “Our show must be super popular, right? Who’s the favorite character? How long have we been running?”

“Oh, you guys are—” You stop talking. “Wait, what year is it?” You start climbing down.

“Two thousand and twelve. Why?”

You step off the ladder, starting to walk behind him as he lead the way. “Well, it’s not tweny twelve where I’m from. It’s twenty twenty.”

“Wait, hold up.” He turns around to face you as he walks. “You’re from the future? That is so freakin awesome!”

You rub the back of your neck, trying to ignore the smell. “I mean,” you confess, “being from the future would be cooler if I was from a better time, I think.” ‘I wonder where they—’ You shake your head. “But, If we were running on the same time, I’d only be seven, I think, so it’s pretty cool I get to be here, I guess.”

“Dude, totally!” He turns a corner. “Our first day up top and we meet a time traveler?”

“Technically,” a voice from behind you makes you jump, “if what she’s saying is true, she somehow also knows interdimensional travel as well.”

‘Mother fucking ninj—cosplayers, focus. Don’t let them pull you in too.’ “Well, I really wouldn’t say—”

“Guys, is there not a clearly bigger concern on our hands?” You were already getting sick of not hearing footsteps. “Like, say, I don’t know, the fact she’s claiming we’re fictional characters?”

“Look, man,” you roll your eyes, “I already said I’m more than happy to answer any questions I can. In fact,” you continued, stopping in your tracks as you stared the red—clad turtle in the eye, “I’ll even stay put until we sort this whole situation out.”

“Fine by me.” Leo and Raph both face you, eyes boring into your soul as you stand there awkwardly.

“Let’s start off with the basics.” Leo’s tone is awfully light compared to his blatant skepticism. “What is everyone’s name?”

You force yourself not to roll your eyes again. “You’re all Hamatos.” You point at the tall one with the gap in his teeth. “That one’s Donatello, the yellow one next to him is Michelangelo, you,” you point at the red one with the broader shoulders, “are Raphael, and the sensei appointed leader is Leonardo. Easy.”

Leonardo nods. “Okay, you got the easy one.” It is at times like these when you wish you could read people. “What are we?”

“Teenage mutant ninja turtles.” You don’t have to hesitate.

“How did we become the way we are?”

“Splinter had a Kraang run in and you got ooze on you. Last thing you touched before you transformed was a person, so you became turtle/human hybrids.” You rest a hand on your hip. “Oh, happy birthday, by the way.”

A sea of blank faces face you. “Wait, you know who those things are?” Donatello is the first to speak after a pregnant pause.

“Well, yeah.” You shrug, the reality of the situation not yet dawning on you. “They almost take over the world in at least two season finales.

“They what?”

“Yeah.” You stick your hands in your pockets, fingering the key and note, confused by their apparent horror. “I mean, I’m still on the season three finale, but alien invasion is this show’s bread and butter for the most part.”

“I- what?” Raphael appears to be having a stroke. “What- bre- I- huh? What the-“

“Is he okay?” You look, completely unconcerned, at Donatello, who is swaying on his feet.

“Alien.. invasion…”

You blink, walking over to him and placing your hand on his cheek. You were surprised at the feeling of skin under your palm. ‘Not face paint..’ You look his incredibly pale face over curiously. ‘Not a mask…’ “Oh.” Your fingers slide down and off his jaw, falling slackly. “You weren’t joking, were you?”

If nothing else, he seems less concerned than he did a second ago.

Leonardo—‘The actual—hold on a minute.’—grabs your shoulder. “This isn’t a joke.” His face is stone. “You’re being serious, right?”

You felt blood drain out of your face. “Sadly? Yes.” You force yourself to take deep breaths so as to not pass out. “But, on the bright side,” you smiled weakly, “I can guarantee your survival for at least a few months.”

“What do you mean a few months?” Raphael is shaking as he yells, his voice roar echoing in the enclosed space. “How is it only—what the hell?”

“The show only ran over the course of an in-universe year.” You fight to keep your voice steady as dread seizes your throat. “I don’t know what happens after the year is up, or if it even lasts the whole year.”

“So we have less than twelve months to live?”

“This is so not cool.” Michelangelo is having a bit of a mental breakdown. “So, so not cool.”

“Hey, it’s not a guarantee!” You put your hands up reassuringly. “That’s just how long the show runs. Besides, it’s a kid’s show. There’s no way they’d kill off the main characters.”

“The hell they—who the hell is they?”

“Nickelodeon.”

“What the fuck is Nickelodeon?”

You groan. “Look, I’m just saying that you four are definitely going to survive the next few months!” Your voice rises easily to his volume. “I don’t know what happens after those months are up! I haven’t gotten to that point!”

“Why the hell not?”

You ran your fingers through your hair, laughing incredulously. “What, do you think I knew I was going to meet the IRL Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and had a chance to plan accordingly? No!” You throw your hands up in the air. “I died last night and now I’m here! Hell, I don’t even know where the fuck I’m going to go, fuck knowing who’s going to get the fucking axe between now and the series finale!”

“Will you two both cut it out?” Leo snapped, shutting you two up.

You put your hands up, still fuming and glaring at Raphael. He responds in kind.

“What’s your name?” He looked at you.

“Y/N. Y/N L/N.” Your breathing slows slightly.

“Alright. Y/N, you said you’ve seen up to season three, right?”

“Yeah.” You nod.

“Meaning you know what’s going to happen in the next few months, right?”

You nod at the leader.

He thinks for a moment. “Then we need to stay in contact. If what you’re saying is true, your knowledge of our show could be extremely valuable to us.”

You rub your eyes with your hands, sighing, trying to cool down. “I can do that.” You put your hands down. “If nothing else, I’m more than happy to offer up emotional support. The next few months are going to be extremely physically and emotionally difficult for you guys.”

Donnie pipes up. “Do you have a place to stay?”

You pull out the piece of paper. “I have an address and key, but I don’t know my way around NYC.” You smile slightly at the unintentional rhyme. “Do you guys know where ten west fifteenth street—wait, it’s your guys’ first day.” You nod. “I forgot.”

“It’s alright.” Donatello is oddly quick saying that. “I-if you want, I—we can help you find it.”

You rub your arm, your previous indignance replaced with extreme embarrassment at your previous actions. “Nah, it’s alright,” you reassure him. “I’m sure I can find a map or something.”

“It’s really not safe to just wander around New York so late.”

You pause at that. “That is an extremely good point.” You nod. “Alright. But I owe you guys dinner or something for trusting me this far. Also,” you smile teasingly, “what you’re currently eating is legitimately revolting.”

“Amen to that.” Raphael, if nothing else, seems to have calmed down.

Mikey hopped in. “Oh, we just found this crazy awesome food—”

“I can order pizza,” you reassure him.

He punches the air excitedly. “Let’s go!”

“If you want, you can sleep on the couch for tonight,” Leonardo offers. “It’s going to get light pretty soon, and we really shouldn’t be seen.”

You shrug. “Works for me.

As you follow the teenagers down the sewer, conversating as you walk, you take a moment to reflect on all that has happened so far. A part of you, oddly enough, is almost excited by the prospect of spending time with these guys. But a stronger, darker part reminds you sweetly of the dangers you knew lay ahead.

You close your eyes. ‘I’m never going to see my family again, am I?’

How that is the least of your worries, you don’t know.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 2

[passable-talent]

Hi yes so I just finished the anakin punk au and it was uh perfect? And you should 100% please write more in that au it doesn’t even have to be in some coherent storyline, just more punk anakin please I am hooked

say no more my dear

I write this. and I think to myself “punks. they like weed. they drink. I should talk about that.”

and then I don’t. because I have a,,, responsibility to promote good health I guess?

don’t do drugs kids. most of them arent worth it i promise

and yes just like i mentioned wattpad in the last one tumblr is coming up on this one we’re breaking the FUCKING fourth wall

part one here

You passed out on his shoulder, exactly as he predicted, at about 2:00 AM.

He didn’t notice for a few minutes, and once he had, he had to make a very hard decision. 

He knew you were leaving in the morning, you had other places to be. And he had to get home, Cliegg was going to be pissed he’d been out this late as it was. But- just like you, he never wanted the night to end.

At 2:15, he shimmied out from under you, finding your room key quickly. Once he’d slipped it into his pocket, he picked you up, carrying you all the way back to your room. The door seemed to scream as it opened, but none of the girls were awake. He laid you onto the only empty bed, leaving your room key on the dresser, and kneeled at your beside, for just a moment. 

A night he wasn’t going to forget. One he wasn’t willing to leave behind. 

He found the notepad left by the hotel for guests and its nearby pen, scribbling his phone number onto it before smacking it onto your room key so that he knew you’d see it. 

He wasn’t taking any chances. He did everything he could to make sure that you were safe, that you’d sleep soundly, that he’d see you again. It was a bit of a walk back to where he’d left his car, at the venue, but it was worth it- he shrugged his jacket up around his neck against the cold and kept going, remembering how it’d felt to hold you. 

But, in all of his kindness, he had made one mistake. You didn’t get to say goodbye. 

You woke up in the hotel room the next morning, for a moment thinking that maybe you’d dreamed the whole thing. But then you realized you still had your shoes on, and you were laying on top of the sheets, why the hell would I do that, and you phone hadn’t been plugged in, and- 

And there was a phone number on the dresser. 

You weren’t really ‘dating’- you shouldn’t call it that. If you were going to call it that, then there would inevitably be a post on someone’s tumblr that you had a boyfriend, and who was he, where was he from, yada yada... that damn website already had half the internet convinced you were dating Padme, you didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire. 

So no, you weren’t dating. But you were texting every day. You learned so much about him, about how he was raised by his mom and worked at her friend Watto’s auto shop, about his step-brother and future step-sister-in-law, how his mom died when he was nineteen, about how he’d tried to move to California with his friend Obi-Wan a few years ago, but it fell through. In return, you told him about your life- living in the outskirts of San Francisco, being pushed into ballet lessons as a kid (as he said- ‘that’s why you look weightless on stage!’), being cut out from your family for quitting college to pursue music. 

You texted every day and every night, sent him videos from gigs, and he sent dumb little snapchats from underneath whatever car he was working on. You expected that to be it, probably for a long time- neither of you had the money nor the time to see each other more often. So you held onto the connection you had, the night you’d spent together. 

And you thought that’d be it. But- the universe has a funny way of surprising you. 

Your record label was based in LA, so you lived in Salta Ana, about thirty miles away, where the real estate was way cheaper. The band lived together, close as four friends could be, so they knew all about how you’d fallen for Anakin. Ahsoka would notice you glued to your phone, and ask snarkily “texting skyguy?” to which you always scolded her that his name was Skywalker. 

Living so close to LA made it easy to do gigs at any venue that would take you- bars, clubs, a particularly anarchist biker hall. A bar- such was the case for tonight. 

Like usual with a gig like this, Aayla had taken to instagram and called any fan in the area, so the bar was mostly filled with people who knew the music, but there were regulars, too. People who couldn’t be damned to listen to the lyrics, and just let the atmosphere move them. 

The setlist changed, when you were at a place like this. You didn’t necessarily rely on the hundred voice chorus that you loved so much, and so couldn’t include some of those songs. Your music strayed a little more to the rock end of the spectrum, when you played in places like this. With that high energy came faster music, more running around the stage, more movement, but you weren’t tired, when the set ended at 11:25. You were more energized than usual, in fact.

“Pads, I’ve never heard you solo like that!” You said, a bright smile on your face as you pushed out of the employee entrance of the bar. She gave you thanks, but not a moment later stopped dead, not saying a word, staring at you. You paused, looking at her, then Ahsoka and Aayla, who’d both stopped, too. 

“What?” Ahsoka and Aayla, though, were looking at something past you, which made you realize that Padme was, too. You turned, and leaning against the wall was- was Anakin. 

“Oh my god,” you said under your breath, dropping into a run toward him immediately. “Anakin!” He shoved himself off of the wall, letting you run into his arms, and just held you. You pulled away to look at him, amazed that after months, here he was, right in front of you, real. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked, bewildered, surprised, ecstatic. 

“Visiting Obi-Wan,” he said, and he lifted his hand to your face, giving you a good look at that tattoo you hadn’t quite forgotten, dark lines reaching from his elbow to his palm. 

“And you,” he added. You couldn’t help it- you hadn’t seen him in so long, you couldn’t help the way you leaned into it when he pulled you into a kiss, and this time you weren’t exhausted, and you could let yourself feel it, you could pay attention to his chapped lips and the way he slid them over yours, still soft, even after waiting in the cold. You never wanted to leave this moment, like so many of the others that you spent with him, his hands on your face keeping away the January air. 

“Yeah, I’m heading home,” Ahsoka said, making you break the kiss. “Coming, or not?” You looked back at her with a bit of a glare, letting Anakin’s hands fall to your neck. 

“You guys go ahead,” you said, checking your jacket pocket for the essentials- wallet, phone, house keys. “I think I have a tradition to uphold.” 

The bar you’d played at tonight was a bit far away from the place you wanted to take Anakin, but you didn’t mind the walk, since it was with him. You’d been texting every day, and yet it felt different, there was so much more to talk about now. 

Apparently, Anakin hadn’t seen Obi-Wan since he’d left to move to LA, so it was a visit to an old friend as much as it was an excuse to see you again. 

“So you’re staying with him?” You asked, leading him by the arm down the street. 

“Yeah,” he said, hooking his elbow into yours, which let him keep his hands in his pockets. “He’s got an apartment in east LA, it’s got a nice couch.”

“East LA, not bad. What’s he do?” 

“He’s a talent manager, actually. Went to business school and everything.” Anakin paused, suppressing a chuckle. “He told me that he’d love to represent you, if you didn’t already have someone.” 

“Sadly, we do,” you said, playful, “but I’ll keep him in mind.” 

You’d pretend it was the winter chill that brought the flush to your cheeks- he’d told his friend about you. That had to mean you were important to him, right?

“Where are we heading, anyway?” He asked, and you, luckily, could channel your inner dramatic and turn toward the doorway you’d been heading toward all along. 

“Right here,” you said, and you took him inside. 

This was your recording studio- it was always open, so that any artist could stop in and get out whatever creativity they had. You showed your ID card to the lobby clerk, who approved it and called the elevator. Anakin followed your lead until the door closed, and just like you had on the night you met him, you pressed the button for the highest floor. 

“This is one of the buildings for our record company,” you said, the elevator so familiar. 

“Which would explain why he let you in,” Anakin said, a slight teasing tone to his voice. All you could do was chuckle, waiting for the elevator to reach the top floor.

From there, you lead him to a glass door, and swiped your ID card through a reader near its frame so you could step outside. 

“This is the rooftop set,” you said, gesturing to the wide space, “It’s where we film a lot of music videos.” This close to the door, it was hard to see over the side of the building, and so you took Anakin’s hand.

“The city lights keep us from stargazing,” you said with a smile, and brought him to the guardrail at the edge of the roof. “So I thought I’d show you the city’s version of the night sky.” Looking out across the city, there were a thousand orange sparkles, windows illuminated in buildings stretching as far as the eye could see. Criss-crossed between them were lines of red and white, LA traffic clogging the city streets even so late at night. 

No matter how many times you came up here, you’d never get tired of the view. Fifty-five stories up, there were other buildings that dwarfed this tower, but the west was free of them, so your view to the horizon was clear, even in the LA overcast. 

“Wow,” he said, looking out over it all beside you. “I’ve never- I don’t think I’ve ever been up this high.” You fixed him with a surprised expression, leaning your elbows down onto the banister. 

“No? Really?”

“I didn’t grow up in a city, like you,” he said, settling in beside you, his arm pressed to yours. You let your head rest onto his shoulder, remembering the night you met. 

“I’m glad you came out to LA,” you said, “though I’m hoping you’ll stay a while. I  want to go on an actual date with you.” You heard him exhale.

“You don’t call this a date?” he asked, and you lifted your head, looking at him, the lights of the city giving his face the slightest, golden glow. 

“Well, I mean-” If this was a date, then so had been the one after the show, back in October. Which meant this was your second date, and you’d technically been ‘dating’ this whole time, which kinda made him your- boyfriend? 

“Is it?” Anakin slipped his hand into yours, lacing your fingers together.

“This is better than any dinner and movie we could’ve gone to, I think.” He turned over your hand, tracing his first finger over the skyline tattoo that bisected your forearm. “Especially since it seems like this means a lot to you.” You couldn’t believe he’d noticed that tattoo- it meant he really was paying attention to you. 

“Yeah,” you said with a smile, lifting your arm up, his hand still held in yours, aligning the tattoo with the skyline you were looking at. “I got this done after we did our first video.” Silently, he examined the ink and compared it to the sky, seeing what you meant. 

“That’s really cool,” he said, bringing your hand back down, since his fingers were getting cold in the wind, and he had to assume yours were too. 

“How long are you going to be in town?” You asked, resting your temple down onto his shoulder again. 

“A week, or so. Watto says he needs me to work on a mustang that we’re getting- I think Cliegg told him to say that since he doesn’t want me in the city.” 

“Well, I don’t want to undermine your dad,” you said, “But I wouldn’t complain if you stayed here a lot longer than that.” You ran your thumb over the back of his hand. “It’s really nice to actually have you with me, and not over the phone.” Anakin turned to kiss the top of your head.

“Tell me about it. It’s worse for me, I promise- I listen to your music all the time, and it just makes me want to see you.” 

“Sometimes I forget that you were once just a fan,” you said with a laugh, “listening to our music.” 

“The luckiest one in the world,” Anakin added, and you almost wondered how you’d ever lived without him. 

You let a moment pass, in silence. 

“I’m twenty five,” you started, wondering if you had the courage to finish, “do you think I’m too young to be in love?” Anakin didn’t respond, at first. He turned to you, lifting his furthest hand to your face, making you look up at him. You could never get over those blue eyes- you’d forgotten how intense they were. 

“I guess it depends on the guy,” Anakin said, his teeth quickly catching his lower lip. “Do you think you are?” You reached up past his arm to his face, your first finger tracing his eyebrow before your palm came to rest on the ridge of his cheekbone.

“No,” you said, and you rushed forward to meet his lips. 

-🦌 Roe

[queen-sands]

Hi! Could you do a Geralt x reader angst? Like the reader gets injured or dies? Thank you!❤❤

Thank you so much for your request! I hope you like it :)

—

“You are important to me.”

“You cannot.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It is not safe!”

“Jaskier gets to go with you wherever you go. Why is it different with me?”

Geralt didn’t even spare a glance at the bard as he said, “Jaskier is not important.”

Jaskier gasped from his perch on the far corner of the room. “Excuse me?! I am offended.”

They both turned to him and spat, “Not now, Jaskier.”

Once again they returned to their continued staring match.

Geralt could name a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t even be with him, let alone go along with him on dangerous hunts all over the continent.

She had just one reason why she should - she loved him, and she wanted to be close to him. In any way that she could.

Except of course he didn’t know that.

They had never really specified what they were to each other. Most of the time they had together, they spent in bed in her small room up above the tavern she worked at with her cousin. He stopped by when he could, more frequently of late, as if he too could not get enough of her. They didn’t talk much. After all, Geralt rarely did. And after their strenuous delicious physical activity, she would be too tired to talk herself.

Now, after years of this back and forth between them, she was ready to leave her dreary old life behind. She wanted more. More of this world, and more of Geralt.

She didn’t even have to think twice about choosing to go with him.

“Might I interject this strange staring match you two got going on here?” Jaskier called out to them but as expected, received no response. So he continued, “Think about it this way, Y/N. You’d be sleeping on rocks and twigs in the wilderness. Your life will be in constant danger. And there’ll be a lot of walking on foot because Geralt here is very stingy with Roach.”

“I will sleep on Geralt, and that’s plenty comfortable enough,” she countered, earning a snort from Geralt. Jaskier eyed Geralt’s hard muscles as if to ask “really?”

She continued, ignoring both of the disbelieving men. “I am traveling with the mighty White Wolf,” she said, knowing very well how much Geralt despised the glorification of his life. “I pray for those who’d dare even think to harm me. And lets be real. Roach prefers my company far more than either of yours.”

As if to prove a point, the horse nudged her gently with its snout, eliciting a smug smile from her.

Geralt continued to glare at her.

“All quite fair points, Y/N,” Jaskier agreed sagely. “Which brings us to you, Geralt.”

“Fuck off, bard. This doesn’t concern you.”

Unfazed and quite used to his friend’s rudeness, Jaskier continued as if Geralt hadn’t even spoken. “She is a far better cook than either of us, which will be handy on the road for sure. And we won’t have to travel miles and miles for you to find some...uhm...comfort.”

“I will not take her with me on a journey that could surely kill her just so I could bed her whenever I want.” If looks could kill, Jaskier would be dead and buried.

“But it is quite a bonus. For both of us,” she said, her eyes sparkling with humor.

He wanted to kiss her so bad but he was also very angry with her. He could not relent on this. “You are not going, Y/N. That’s final.”

“I am going, Geralt,” she said resolutely. “Either you can take me with you, or I will follow you on my own and get myself killed along the way. It’s entirely up to you.”

And just like that, she took the choice right out of his hands.

———

He enjoyed her company far more than he should have. It was easy though. Comfort and joy amidst so much bleakness. With her around, his life didn’t seem so bleak anymore.

When he came back, mud caking his body and blood dripping all over, she greeted him with a smile that rivaled the brightness of the morning sun.

When his day would haunt his night, he could turn to her and find peace within her. He was far from human but she made him feel.

He knew she loved him. She never said it outright, though it had almost slipped out in the heat of the moment. He knew it nonetheless. It was so clear in her eyes every time she looked at him. Every touch of her lips spoke of reverence as he’d never known before.

He knew he didn’t deserve it, but it didn't stop him from taking it. All the love she had to give, he wanted it. He needed it.

He wished he had said it when he had the chance.

———

Of all the things that could have killed her, it was a fucking Kikimora.

She and Jaskier had been far enough away that it wouldn’t have hurt either of them at all. Except when Geralt had cut it down in the midst of the battle, one of its limbs had projectiled their way with the force of the blow...the sharp edge hitting her right in the chest.

Geralt hadn’t even known for a while longer. It was only after the battle had ended, and he had finally killed the beast, that Jaskier’s screams reached him.

He was upon them in an instant.

For a split second, Geralt couldn’t breathe. Her body was already pale, blood drenching her tunic, coloring it in red.

Then he was all movement. There was no time to waste.

He couldn’t let her die. Not her. So many people he had to let go of in his unnaturally long life.

He refused to lose her. Not today. Not when they hadn’t had enough time together. Not when he hadn’t even told her how he felt.

“Geralt…” Jaskier’s voice interrupted his thoughts as he held her up and got on the horse with her cradled in his arms.

“We don’t have time for nonsense, Jaskier. I need to find a healer.”

Jaskier simply nodded. He didn’t have the heart to tell his friend that it was possibly already too late.

———

Geralt rode as fast as he could. He remembered seeing an encampment of soldiers so he rode that way, knowing they’d have a healer. They did.

The woman asked him to wait outside as she tended to Y/N but his glare stopped her before she could even finish the sentence. There was no way he would leave.

So he stood and watched as the healer cut open the tunic to see the wound. It was a deep gash, but the blood seemed to have already stopped.

Either it was healing, or she had no more blood left to bleed out.

Geralt halted that line of thinking quickly. He wouldn’t think about that. She had to live.

He needed her to. He didn’t know what he would do if she somehow didn’t. So he couldn’t think about it like that.

She had to live. That was all there was to it.

When the healer finished up her work and left him alone with Y/N, he allowed himself a moment to finally breakdown.

It wasn’t as if he fell apart in tears. He wasn’t capable of that. At least he didn’t think so.

His heart felt heavy though, as if he couldn’t bear to carry it anymore.

He knelt down by her pallet to hold her hand in his. It was so small...like a child’s. Had she heard him say that she’d have smacked her with that small hand but he couldn’t deny it. Compared to him, her frailty was real. She was mortal. She was weak...at least her body was. Her heart had the strength to love even an anomaly like him but her body was still weak in its mortality.

What had he been thinking?

Oh fuck.

It was all his fault.

Everything he touches, even with the best intentions, surely dies.

But more than anything, what killed him the most was how he had not told her how much she mattered to him while he still could.

“You are important to me.” It was just a hoarse whisper in the melancholy room. One that broke almost...the words getting stuck in his throat. What the hell was wrong with him?!

“You are important to me, Y/N,” he repeated brokenly. “I should have fucking told you when I had the chance.” His hand tightening around hers, praying to unknown deities.

“She ain’t dead, Witcher. Gods ye young ones are all so melodramatic.”

Geralt turned around to find the witch standing behind him, smiling bemusedly at him.

“She isn’t moving,” he said, glaring.

“She is sleeping. Can’t you see her breathing?”

Geralt wanted to knock that mocking smile off the old hag’s face but he simply turned towards Y/N. In his grief and panic he had actually missed her chest move. It was faint, but it was moving. Slow and steady.

The relief he felt expelled out of his body with a sigh, and he collapsed on the side of her bed, still holding her small hand. No one saw the tear that slipped past his lids. No one was meant to.

———

He knew death would come for her first. Him being what he was, he knew all along that he would have to one day watch her fade away and die. He knew what it meant to fall in love with a human. That it could never last.

But today was not that day.

He got to keep her just a little while longer.

All he could do was to make it count. It was all he could hope for.

——————

A/N:

Requests are still open via ASKS. I’m slowly making my way through them! :) thank you for your patience! I love you guys!

[samwritesforyou]

On My Guard (pt. 2)

Summary: After inviting your bodyguard to stay over, because you needed some genuine company after a long day, you discover something new about him. Which also leads to some memories that were long almost forgotten.

Warnings: gender-neutral reader

Wordcount: 1.1k

A/N: god, i really hope i won't disappoint anyone by this chapter, but basically i wanted a little twist like this probably from the very beginning already, hehe. for now i have no idea where this series could be going, but its definitely fun to write!

Originally requested by: @ellefosterg​

part one can be found here!

You ordered pizza that evening when you were suddenly not alone in your huge house. You had friends over often, of course, but it was never him yet. The day was crazy, your privacy was invaded and people were trying to grab you as if you were some kind of possession, more than of a human being that you actually are. You shook your head at your disturbing memories, trying to blink them away and focus on the current moment. Your eyes wandered towards your bodyguard, who was now just awkwardly standing in the middle of the hallway and the living room, not sure of what to do next. As soon as you came home you automatically threw the jacket on the hanger and stayed dressed in a simple shirt and some comfortable jeans. It was rather hot outside and inside. And yet... Diego was in his full gear, as always. Black turtleneck and pants of the same colour, with a firm belt. “Aren’t you warm?” you asked and smiled a little curiously, leaning over the kitchen island that was situated just next to the living room, without a wall between them, something like an open-space room designed on the first floor for most of the areas. This caught your guest off guard and he opened his mouth a few times like a fish, no sound coming out. “I.. have only a light undershirt beneath it,” he said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand. “And?..” you raised your eyebrows and then giggled, turning on your feet to the fridge, “I think the temperature here is just right for some undershirt!” you concluded, grabbing both of you two cans of beer and slamming the door shut. There was a faint “alright” that you almost didn’t notice, so when you made your way towards the couches, he was already sitting there, indeed, without a turtleneck. His body was very well built because you could get a glimpse of his six-pack even through the fabric of the shirt. You turned your gaze off of his body immediately though - not letting yourself being caught staring - and just gave him one of the bottles. You sat in front of him on the second sofa and finally took a good look at him because Diego was preoccupied admiring your place. As he was holding the glass, you detected a tattoo on his wrist and tilting your head you tried to get a better sight of it. “Whatcha looking at?” he squinted his eyes, putting the hand to his lips and taking a big sip of the liquid. That startled you and made you flinch, colour rushing to the cheeks quite instantly. He didn’t feel like an employee that was working for you right now. And you liked it. “Ahh, it’s just.. you have a tattoo?” you waved your hands in the air in embarrassment and then pointed with a finger towards one of his wrists, biting your lip. You couldn’t even see it properly yet, dammit. Diego briefly spared it a glance himself and then slowly turned his gaze to you once again. “Shit.. there was definitely ‘no tattoos’ rule in the employee qualifications, I’m sorry y/n,” he furrowed his brows and sighed heavily. That... wasn’t at all what has crossed your mind! And also... “I didn’t even know that there’s that point in the contract! I wasn’t talking about that, Diego, I was just genuinely curious. I can’t really see it, uh..” you tried to change your sitting pose billion times now, trying to see it clearly, “here, just let me,” you didn’t even finish your sentence when you quite impatiently just plopped yourself on the space next to him, now examining his wrist. Slowly, as your brain was absorbing the meaning of his ink, your eyes widened and you couldn’t bring your eyes up to meet his. “This is... the umbrella academy tattoo,” you didn’t even ask, it was a statement. Because you knew it. You were a fan, back in the day. Hell, everyone was! “Yeah,” he almost barked out and jerked his hand away, sipping on his beer. “Wait.. wait wait wait wait wait,” you started remembering something with that fact, tangling your fingers into your hair, “oh my.. god.” “What?” Diego asked, visibly nervous. Maybe he thought you didn’t like that new fact about him?... You were feeling almost nauseous from the feeling of finally connecting the dots because this whole time you knew something just wasn’t adding up! You excitedly put your legs up and say more comfortably, now finally looking at your bodyguard. “A robbery!” you started, “one year ago?... You were badly injured and I offered you patching you up after you chased the bad guys away?” you were moving back and forth on the sofa, looking with the sparks in your eyes as you awaited his reply. His cogs were spinning and head steaming, he was really trying hard to remember, until mentioned memory finally hit him and his eyes went wide too. “There was no electricity, so you used your phone and some candles to have some light to clean me up from that mess,” he continued instead of you now, knitting his eyebrows even deeper. “Yes! Yes, oh my god! It was you!” you were now just out of it as if you just finished a movie with some last-second plot twist that changed the whole storyline. And it kind of did. Because as you clearly remember, after you finally tended to his wounds, even though he had some partial mask on his face, you two started quite mercilessly flirting with each other... and it ended in one passionate kiss. After which your unknown hero had to leave because it was “so late already, I can’t keep you up at night like this, we don’t even know each other, sorry, but maybe we can meet again!” and jumped away from your window into the dead of night. ... Fuck. It seems like the memories of that evening sprung in Diego’s mind just as clearly as yours and now you were just staring at each other in silence. Your lips were slightly parted from the persisting surprise that you were still overwhelmed by. Since you were watching Diego’s face intensely now, you’ve caught that millisecond when his eyes landed on your lips, lingering just for the briefest moment, until he literally blinked his gaze away from you, sighing in disbelief. He was now leaning forward on his elbows, hands clasped together and head sunk between the shoulders, you couldn’t even get a view of his face like this. Okay, what can he possibly be thinking about? Your mind was going thousand miles per hour, trying to figure out the emotions of your only guest tonight. You excused yourself to the bathroom and despite all your efforts to make it look like a calm walk, you basically fled there and slammed the door shut behind yourself for a good measure.

Taglist for Diego works: @radcloudenthusiast @spacenerdpascal​

[cherry3point14]

One Helluva Car

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Minor car fetish, one paragraph of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smut, a little jealous!Dean, this is crack babes’, I can’t stress this enough: car fetish Word Count: 3,500. Summary: Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world and then one day she sees Baby... A/N: @alexwinchester23​ hit me up a THOUSAND years ago with the prompt: dean x reader where she is more “in love” with deans car and it makes him a little jelly lol. And I was like, ha ha ha sure I’ll write it. It’s been half written ever since. So, I finished it. Someone please be proud of me for finishing. (Not like that you animals.)  This also fills Driving In The Impala for @spndeanbingo​

It’s Monday lunchtime when you see it. Her? It looks like a her. The best cars are ‘hers’ and even from a distance, she has curves that only a good woman could possess.

You’ve had a morning of shitty, old trucks that have been run hard for too long, and new cars that you plug into the computer to diagnose, which takes all the fun out of life. It’s easy to see a mile off that she isn’t shitty or bogged down with modern tech. She’s a well looked after classic. A thing of beauty. A freaking masterpiece. She’s polished enough that the sun bounces off of her black surface like she’s made of glass.

If only your arms weren’t laden with brown paper bags of food you’d take a detour to get a closer look. You could ghost your hand over her hood and take a look at the interior. You bet it’s the softest fucking leather your ass would ever hope to feel.

You’d generally drool over her without actually drooling because God knows spit is not good for the paintwork. Unfortunately, you do have bags filled with hot, meaty subs intended to feed your workforce. And you’re wise enough to know that making a garage of hungry mechanics wait for their lunch is not a good move. It’ll only result in some sort of unnecessary disaster this afternoon that you, their boss, will have to fix or pay for. Or both.

The only thing you can do is take one last look at her, memorize that beautiful shape while you heft the bags closer to your chest and carry on walking. It’s not like you’ve never seen a good old fashion American muscle car before, you have your own ‘70 Mustang at home.

It’s just… this is a Chevvy Impala, arguably the first car to flex its muscles. You don’t see one of those every day.

Your hobby is like a much cooler version of birdwatching. You have an appreciation for cars, classics in particular. The craftsmanship, the design, and the sounds they make as they tear through the world like moving time capsules. Nothing generated by a low emission engine compares.

That’s how you spot her for the second time, on Wednesday.

Well, you hear her first.

You’re closing up for the night. Everyone goes home early on Wednesdays, the shop closes at three, except for you. There’s always paperwork that needs to be done and you hate the idea of taking it home if you can help it. Taking a car home you’re always happy to do, but paperwork? You refuse to dirty your private space like that.

It’s just before six when you’re locking the doors and thunder screams in the distance. At least you think it’s thunder, you wonder where the clouds are until it moves too fast to be a weather condition.

The closer it gets the more the sound transforms into pure, uncut horsepower. It’s the deep rumble of an engine that demands to be heard. It tears your attention to it whether you like it or not. An announcement of the coming vehicle before it arrives.

Then she glides around the corner of Maple and Third before peeling down the street past you. It’s her again, she’s still in town. You know it’s the same car, she isn’t a vehicle made for stealth and your little ol’ town isn’t exactly heaving with beauties like her.

You know she’s not a local, it must be a flying visit, you’re lucky enough to have seen her again before she left. Not just seen her though, heard her. Heard her engine and the screech of her tires on the tarmac. Experiencing her in action is breathtaking enough that you gawp at her like an idiot as she zooms away.

It’s not a fetish or anything. You don’t exactly cuddle an exhaust pipe in bed. You appreciate cars more than your job requires you to, simple. It’s a respect that was drilled into you from a young age. Your dad owns a franchise of shops across the state and never had the boy he always wanted. He didn’t mope about it, he taught you to fix an engine instead. To appreciate every individual piece like an unsolved puzzle. And because your dad is a big ol’ softie he taught you that classic cars can’t be beaten, he favors Camaros in particular. He gave you a garage to work in until you’d labored enough to earn it for keeps and manage it as your own. Your dad raised you to bleed motor oil and sweat gasoline.

Cars are your life. Ok, maybe you’re a bit of a gearhead is all. You can’t help it if that Impala is a fine wine you want to uncork.

You watch the street lights make a hazy path for her to follow, another corner and she’s gone.

At home, you curl up on your sofa and scroll through your usual sites to see how much your own Impala would cost. In good condition, you’d have to sell one of the two cars you already have but there’s this smashed up ‘68 in New Jersey that might be worth the drive for the price. It would basically be a new car by the time you rebuild it but that doesn’t matter. All you needed were the bones of the thing and you never shy away from a project that involves weeks of hunting down original parts, that’s half the fun. For tonight at least it gets bookmarked. The decision left for another day, if it still seems like a good idea in the morning then you’ll make the call.

Hell, maybe tomorrow you’ll see something else and forget all about her. Maybe.

Good looking guys come through town from time to time but Dean is a rare treat. He’s the picture next to ‘handsome’ in the dictionary. He’s got these full lips that you’ve stared at, without an ounce of shame, while he sucks on a beer bottle. A jawline covered in scruff that you’ve already imagined between your thighs. And then there are those hands of his. It could be your line of work but you always loved a man with hands like his. Broad hands and thick fingers. Mechanic hands you’d call them, you half wish they were covered in oil and grease.

He was tapping away on the bar for a while, drumming aimlessly while you drank, but now he’s toppled in your direction. He’s standing between his barstool and yours, while you're still seated, which makes you the perfect height for him to slip an arm around you. His thumb has settled in on tracing the edge of your jeans while he talks to you, tickling your back where your tank had ridden up.

Honestly? He doesn’t even need to be a good lay to be worth the trip to bed.

“I know you said you’re in town with your brother…”

He winces at the start of your sentence, “with the things I’m thinking about doing to you honey, you can’t go mentioning Sammy at the same time.”

Underneath the stained overalls, you’re still a woman and you’re not sure if there’s anyone alive who could resist Dean’s charms. When you laugh at his ridiculous propositioning, you don’t even try to fight when it tails off into a giggle.

“I was going to ask if you had your own room? Or are we going back to my place?”

You’d almost think he’d been playing it cool up until this point. Everything had been measured and smooth. But you ask him that and he finally cracks, urgency slips through that charm offensive. He tilts his head forward as his face hardens into something intense, eyes hooded under the light of the bar. His hand slides up underneath your top enough that his whole palm skates against your skin. “How about a compromise? My car, your place?”

You lean in until you’re almost touching his lips, your tongue peeks out to wet them and flicks against his, taunting. “Deal."

He doesn’t need to know that you walked here and needed a ride home anyway. That's irrelevant.

Stumbling out of the bar is messy. Not because of the alcohol, neither of you have drunk that much, it’s his hands on your waist. They’re possessive and so there.

Maybe he’s not so bad in bed. Maybe he’s actually, pretty good in…

Oh fuck. It’s her.

You’re stopped in your tracks by the sight of your very own white whale. Well, black and shiny Impala but the metaphor stands.

You stop and Dean bumps into you, not expecting it so soon. For a brief moment, you’re frozen in awe, reverence. Even in the dark, she’s perfect. Street lights bouncing off of her smooth exterior. The night is chilly and there’s a hint of condensation creeping around the edges of the windshield which only serves to make her sparkle.

“Wow, she’s-”

“Mine?” Dean finishes, a wry grin on his face and keys dangling from those fingers you’d been drooling over moments ago. Fuck him and his fingers now.

“Shit, Dean. I’ve been seeing this car all week. She’s beautiful.” You walk towards her, carefully, in case you spook her. She’s an old soul, probably jumpy. Your hand reaches out but doesn’t touch her yet because you’re being respectful.

You’d have thought Dean might have appreciated your care. Instead, he laughs and it catches you off guard. You whip your head back around to glare at him and he encourages you, “she won't bite.”

When you finally make contact she’s cool and glossy under your touch, but even so, you don’t run your hand over her like you want to. You can feel the waxed surface that you don’t want to ruin. You know how much effort goes into a good wax job like this. Instead, you trade your whole hand for your fingertips and trace her edges as if trying to remember her shape for when you rebuild your own.

“Ahem.” In the distance, Dean clears his throat. Sucks for him. You’ve got a new love interest.

“Sweetheart?” He asks again, stepping up closer to you as if you didn’t hear him. He sounds needy like he wants you, but it’s edged with this vulnerable envy. You already noticed his bright green eyes in the bar, now you're wondering if there’s a different green-eyed monster at play.

He needs to understand, you saw the car first. She’s held your heart all week, Dean piqued the interest of your lady parts about half an hour ago. You might say age before beauty but this Impala has Dean beat on both fronts, older and more beautiful.

“Where’d you get these rims, if I didn’t know better I’d almost say they’re original,” you spare him a glance over your shoulder. “But I do know better.”

He looks like he’s struggling with not having your full attention, you’d almost say he’s pouting. Then he sticks out his bottom lip and he's definitely pouting. He shuffles from foot to foot and steels his jaw. It makes it even more difficult for him then when you ask questions that he wants to answer. You can see the cogs turning where he’s trying to work out if he should encourage your interest or not. As much as he wants sex, in the end, the gearhead wins out.

“Fixed her up a lot over the years, found those in a junkyard if you believe it.” He steps up next to you now with a proud smile.

“I can believe it. I’ve seen the stuff people throw away. They’re perfect. Can I?” You slide out your phone and wave it at him.

He nods, although a little dumbstruck.

You bend down and snap a picture, explaining. “I was looking at a sixty-eight to rebuild, maybe. Actually, yours gave me the idea, saw her and couldn’t get her out of my head. I have a friend who might be able to help me out with these.”

“You wanna build one?” He sounds interested but not enough to get him off track. The track being you.

“Yeah. I told you I’m a mechanic. Building these things is in my blood.”

The air is cool and you start to feel it, not having intended being outside this long. He sees you shiver and steps behind you running his hands up and down your arms. “Sixty-eight ain’t a sixty-seven though, is it?” He asks, voice dripping with cocky arrogance about his car.

Oh, fuck. He’s figured out the way to your heart. He’s got you all turned around and leaning against her. Back pressed against her metal and glass enough that you’ll be feeling her for weeks.

“No, it’s not…”

“Wanna ride my Baby?” Dean presses his lips to the corner of your mouth with the question, leaving enough space for you to let out an almost inaudible gasp.

You’d be inclined to say men name their cars the dumbest shit sometimes but ‘Baby’ fits somehow. It’s perfect. She’s Baby.

“Yeah,” you nod. Right now, it's all you’ve ever wanted.

He walks you to the passenger’s side door and opens it’s for you. It’s not even romantic, it’s a fucking turn on.

Maybe you do have a car fetish. You should probably figure that out, like, another day.

In the time it takes Dean to strut to the other side you have sunk into the leather and just as you imagined, it’s soft. Worn and loved, like everything else about this beauty. This is what’s makes her special and that’s why you would have to love your own extra hard. To make up the years of neglect.

“Ready to go?”

He’s looking at you, smirking in your peripheral, and you’re looking at his fingers on the keys. You know what’s going to happen when he turns them. You’re still not prepared.

“Let’s do it.” A grin slides onto your face.

She rumbles to life beneath you. The vibrations from her engine shudder through the seat straight to your core. From there you swear the horsepower zips to every nerve ending in your body like electricity powering a city. And the sound could strike you down. She somehow purrs and roars at the same time. Each rev is a scream but her engine sings between each turn.

“Two eighty-three?” You ask, bottom lip caught behind your teeth.

“Get out of here with that two eighty-three crap. She’s a three twenty-seven.” He snaps, but not really, pressing his foot on the gas again just to see you quiver. Another rotation of the engine, her power, rolls through you.

He pulls out onto the road, leaving the dive behind, and drifts a little as he does, the back of her floating into the road. You slide over the seat an inch and he’s half focused on you, half focused on driving, so you're not even sure if he planned it. You scoot closer to him and he weighs his arm, the one not currently steering, around your shoulders. You’re becoming increasingly aware that the car smells like him, or he smells like her. Leather, sweet and spicy, musky. It’s a complicated mix where you’re not sure whether it's more her or him. You want to wrap yourself up in it all the same but Baby can’t wrap you up, Dean can.

“Dean I… Next left… I really, really love this car.”

He licks his lips as he looks down at you, his pupils wide, probably has a clear view of your chest, “yeah? How much, sweetheart?”

“A lot.” You pant in his ear, teeth grazing his lobe. “Second right, then it’s the third house on the left.”

A growl comes out of him. Determined. And you’re not so sure you care about fucking Dean anymore but each time you work him up a little higher, he revs that gorgeous engine and you get to feel that thunder. It’s the best circle jerk you could imagine, everyone is truly happy.

He pulls up in front of your house in record time because Baby is gunning 285 horsepower, so she’s not exactly going to be beat.

The problem, that you hadn’t really planned on, is arriving at your destination. As soon as he cuts the engine you puncture. Missing the everything about her straight away and wishing you’d kept driving for hours. Still, you have the scent of leather everywhere, burdening your senses with the smell of a bygone era. You hike a leg over Dean and sit in his lap. A knee either side of his thighs, denting her seats and Baby’s steering wheel holding the curve of your ass. Your hands skip Deans’ shoulders in favor of the seat behind him, the cushioned bench under the pads of your fingers, as you attach your mouth to his. Sandwiched between Baby and Dean, and you never want to leave the spot.

Your tongue curls into his mouth at the same time that he presses his fingers into your hips so tight you’re sure there’ll be bruises. You’ve never worried about a tight grip on you before but he starts pulling you towards him and away from where you’re wedged on Baby. The more you lean your body into Dean, the less you feel his car.

“Baby.” You murmur into him. Dean must mistake it to be a pet name you’re borrowing, calling him, because he pulls you again. Actually you’re telling him where you want to be, to stay.

Here. With Baby.

“This is a nice neighborhood.” He hums in this tone that’s deep but it doesn’t go through you like the sound of a turbo V-8. “We should take this inside.”

He’s right. Carl from the damn neighborhood watch is probably already doing just that, watching. The pervert.

“Right, sure.” You agree despite the way your stomach drops at the thought of leaving her.

You’re all untangling limbs getting out and he kisses you once more against Baby before you allow him to drag you away. It already feels different, normal, boring.

Dean’s fine, he’s good, he’s handy. Like you’d thought he would be.

You wrap your mouth around his dick because you’ve always liked looking up through your lashes and seeing the way a guy goes breathless on your tongue. He works you open on his thick fucking fingers until the pressure in your stomach snaps with his thumb circling your clit. He pushes into you and the stretch, the burn, is perfect. Dean is better in bed than you’d expected him to be.

And yet, it’s empty. Dulled. It doesn’t scratch the itch like good sex used to. The whole experience dampened compared to what you’d felt sitting in the front seat of his 1967 Chevy Impala.

You slip on some oversized shirt from your floordrobe to walk him out when he leaves. Neither of you under any impression that he’s staying the night. He’s got this satisfied grin on his face that he hasn’t been able to wipe off since the first time he came. He stops at your doorstep, “thanks, sweetheart. This was fun.”

“Sure was,” you agree, not giving him the full story. Standing at your doorway you’re looking at Baby instead of Dean, again. “Let me know if you’re still in town tomorrow, I’d love to go for another ride.”

He nods and backs away a few steps until he’s in your line of sight along with his car, “will do, baby.”

He must think you mean sex. You wouldn't be opposed to it but you mean a drive. A real drive with wide roads, and opening the taps. You can break that to him tomorrow if he does give you that call. If he doesn't then there's only one thing you need to say before he leaves. One thing you can't let her leave without saying.

“One helluva car you got there, Dean.”

Second A/N: Look, this didn’t start out as a full on car fetish but I was writing it and SOMETIMES I HAVE NO CONTROL. Sometimes these characters they say, “fuck you!” and do what they want. I was going to write a nice little jealousy thing. Dean wants some attention. That’s all. You only have yourselves to blame readers!

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewill-blog @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23 @jesseswartzwelder Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278 @bloodydaydreamer @iamabeautifulperson18 @erins-culinary-service