#gonna watch film red tomorrow (for my birthday :3)

[foryouthegays]

my plan for the manga is like. i wanna take my time with this im not gonna Rush .but also oh my god i want to be caught up so bad i want to know whats happening in elbaf im so jealous of yall who r caught up

guess whos entirely fucking caught up on one piece babieeeeee

[outofsstyles]

a/n: This is by far THE MOST requested fic I’ve ever had and (a year later) it’s finally here!! First of all, sorry that it took me so long but when I first wrote Wildest Dreams I never intended on it having a follow up, but the amount of love I got from it was so overwhelming that I decided to put this together for you all :) I’m not gonna lie, I’m a bit nervous about it, considering the amount of requests I’ve had the past year, I know there’s gonna be a lot of expectations and I wanted to do something a bit different so it’s not too predictable lol. So yeah, as always, feedback is very much welcomed!! If you enjoy please reblog it to support my writing, it would mean the world to me <3

word count: 13.7k

warnings: none!

concept: It’s Evan’s birthday and he decides to do something a bit different.

Wildest Dreams: read part 1 here :)

                                               ~*~ ~*~  ~*~

In the last two steps, you have to use your leg to support the box as it starts to slowly slip down your fingers. This serves as a reminder to start exercising again now that the midterm is over — meaning that you should finally give in to Nia’s pleas to join her in the free week of Pilates classes she got when signing in at the gym, “Exercising is one of the best ways to relieve stress!” She would argue, to which you’d simply reply with something along the lines of: “So does binging another trashy reality tv show!”

Thankfully, no one seems to notice your struggle, sparing you the embarrassment of listening to their teases due to your difficulty in carrying one of the smallest boxes of the bunch. Nate barely glances at you once you finally reach the car to hand him the box, only shooting the longest smile you’ve ever seen coming from him—which somehow still manages to be probably the quickest when compared to any other regular person. His girlfriend, who stands with hands on her hips, entirely held his attention. Nia’s purple strands of hair poke out of her half-bun in every direction and her bottom lip has found its permanent spot between her teeth as her eyes fixate on the vehicle in front of her, barely blinking.

“Everything alright, Ni?” You prompt, trying to even your breathing. “Forgot something? There’s still time to check.”

“It’s not that.” She mumbles, shaking her head to break out of her thoughts. “My keyboard doesn’t fit.” Nia nods at the instrument lying on top of the car’s ceiling.

“Oh,” You say, frowning your lips as you take in her stressed figure. Clearing your throat, you attempt to blurt out a joke, “Maybe it’s a sign you shouldn’t move it and stay right here in our little flat with creaky doors.”

She breathes out a sharp laugh, finally looking at you as she drops her arms. “Don’t start.” She warns, “You promised; no crying today.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good at holding back the tears.” You give her a soft smile, pulling her smaller frame into a hug. The sudden reality of your best friend and roommate leaving you hitting you at once. “Gonna miss you, Ni.”

You feel her sigh into your shoulder, arms circling around your middle. “I’ll be ten minutes away.”

“Not the same.”

“I know.”

The two of you sway in silence for a moment, and you watch from over her shoulder as Nate attempts to awkwardly pick up the keyboard, almost dropping it on the sidewalk in the process. He grunts, the instrument tilting in his arms, and you giggle as you hear Nia sigh once more. Tightening your arms around her, you release each other as she turns to check on her boyfriend who holds the instrument as you would a newborn — except this one is half his size and hard as a wood plank.

He glances between the both of you, helpless. “Uh, where does this go?”

“You can put it with the other big boxes upstairs, babe. We’ll take them Sunday.” Nia says, moving to close the trunk. She looks back at him, calling back in a sing-like voice before he disappears inside, “Thank you!”

You lean back against the car, a playful pout plumping your bottom lip. “Am I only seeing you again on Sunday, then?”

“Nope, I’ll pick you up for Evan’s birthday — did you forget about it already?”

You have. “Of course not. It’s on — tomorrow.”

“Is it tomorrow?” Nia gasps, eyes widening. “Holy shit, tomorrow’s Friday.”

You nod slowly, just as shocked as she is about how quickly the past couple of weeks have flown by. Between piles of book reports and stress-tear-stained essays during midterms week, you also had to find some time to help Nia with packing boxes while searching for a new roommate for yourself. If you managed a five-hour sleep on these past days, that would have been a well-rested night. So you can’t really blame yourself for forgetting about Evan’s birthday when Nia herself had it slipping through her mind.

“This is an emergency,” Nia says, eyes focusing on a point beyond you and, you feel like, if you listen close enough, you can hear the engines inside her head working. “I’ll have come here earlier so you can help me with my outfit.”

You chuckle. “What even is the theme this year?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Nia says in a huff. “But, on the bright side, I don’t think this year he’ll do anything too crazy — he was too busy these last couple months with that short film I told you about, remember?”

“Evan doing something low key? That’s a first.” You raise your eyebrows, skeptical.

“I mean, I don’t know. I’m just guessing.” Nia shrugs, picking at her nails. “I’m only saying because he mentioned once he was only inviting, like, twenty people.”

Now, this is a surprise. “I’m glad I made the cut, then.”

It’s not a secret to anyone who’s ever had any kind of interaction with Evan that he’s fond of the dramatics of life — his bright-colored outfits with mismatching patterns being the first example that comes to mind — and that reflects as well in his events. Especially when it comes to his birthday.

To be fair, you’ve only actually been to two birthday parties of his so far — considering the invitation usually finds you because he’s close to Nia and sees you as some sort of extension of her. Nevertheless, they were both impactful enough that left a clear impression of how much he enjoys celebrating himself. Last year in particular you remember quite well. It was what he called “Evaney” themed; being a mix of himself and his favorite artist: Britney Spears. And, while you and Nia showed up as one of at least fifteen different variations of the Baby One More Time schoolgirl outfit, Evan pulled a perfect match of the Oops! I Did It Again red bodysuit that he got one of his fashion student friends to tailor for him, as well as freshly dyed beach blonde hair to suit it. He even went as far as photoshopping pictures of himself on Britney’s body and had them printed on posters hung on every single room of the house. There were even custom-made cups and napkins with them — two of them that Nia stole at the end of the party still sit somewhere in your kitchen to this day.

Another particular thing you remember quite clearly was that there were enough people crowded in his living room to fill up your entire apartment, as you recall. And that’s about how a typical event at his home is like — even on his friendsmas dinner there were much more than just twenty people eating turkey out of disposable hot pink plates. So, Nia’s information leaves you wondering what he could have in mind for tomorrow with such a limited list of people.

Before you can voice your wonders to her, though, Nate pushes through the entrance door again. You can tell he, much like you minutes ago, is trying to cover his heavy breathing. “I left it on top of those big boxes with a bunch of books in ‘em.”

“Brilliant! Thank you, baby.” Nia grins, wrapping an arm around his middle. “By the way, we just remembered Evan’s birthday’s tomorrow.”

“Is it tomorrow already?” Nate asks, and you hold back a giggle at the way his face scrunches in discontent. He hates going to Evan’s to a point that’s nearly comical. “Fuck’s sake.”

“And I think I’ll come here early so we can get ready together.” Nia nods towards you.

Nate grunts. “Do I have to go this time?” 

“Of course, darling.” She rises to her tiptoes to pinch his cheek, to which he brushes it off.

Nate looks at you, and you only send him a tight smile in solidarity. The two of you share similar experiences with Evan, considering the only reason either of you even gets invited is that because you’re close to Nia, and she’s close to Evan. Although you like Evan, even if you’re not that close with him, you can still put on your social mask for a couple of hours and have fun at his parties. Nate, on the other hand, is likely the least sociable person you’ve ever met, and it’s obvious how uncomfortable he gets every time. 

Nia seems to sense how tense he gets as well, because she steps in front of her boyfriend, finding his eyes with her doe-like ones. “I mean, if you don’t want to, then you don’t have to.”

He sighs, “Of course I’ll go with you.” He looks up at you. “Maybe this time we can actually count how many faces of his we can see from the couch.”

This time you don’t hold back a giggle. “I have a feeling we’ll have an easier time this year.”

“Hope so.” Nate taps on Nia’s back. "Let's go, then? Is everything you need in the trunk?”

“Yup.” She answers, circling the car and opening the door to the passenger’s side. Before entering, she gives you one last look. “Do you want me to bring anything for you tomorrow?”

“I’m good.”

“‘kay!” She enters, closing the door behind her in a click and leaning over Nate to wave at you from his window. “See you tomorrow! Don’t cry too hard tonight!”

“I won’t!” You wave back.

Watching as the car pulls back, before driving away and disappearing around the corner, there’s a light breeze that raises goosebumps on the exposed skin of your arms. You cross them under your chest, leaning back into the wall of your building, not quite ready to go back to your empty home yet. The seconds blend into minutes and you stand there The promise you made to Nia not even a minute ago already pooling in your eye, knowing you wouldn’t be able to keep it anyway, you let it tickle its way down your cheek.

A rougher gust of wind hits you and, this time, you turn to go inside.

                                              ~*~ ~*~  ~*~

The days are still not long enough so that the sun can shine proudly at seven in the afternoon, but as spring just about rounds the corner there’s still a golden glow as the rays provide one last warmth before disappearing on the horizon. And that’s how the sky greets you once you step out of your building to make your way towards Evan’s house for his birthday.

As planned, Nia arrived at yours with plenty of time so the two of you could help each other get ready, a bag filled with clothes she’s just taken to Nate’s yesterday under her arm for you to help her choose. “I’m thinking something monochromatic tonight.” She said as she walked in, making you jump in your spot on the couch as you didn’t hear her using the spare key. “I’m just not sure what color.” 

She ended up choosing red. There was an old box of red hair dye you found lost inside the bathroom cabinet after Nia left — along with two different brands of shaving cream, although those belonging to Nate — and, after presenting it to her, she decided to go all for it, taking it as a sign. Nate showed up just about an hour after his girlfriend, still in his work attire and barely batting an eye at Nia’s new hair color as she blew dried it. The only comment leaving his mouth being, “You look like a tomato,” before kissing her forehead and excusing himself for a nap while the two of you finished getting ready.

What neither of you realized was that Nia’s last-minute decision took more time than you predicted, giving you barely enough time to get dressed. To her, that wasn’t exactly an inconvenience considering she had an outfit ready to match any color she wanted — in this case, was a red-dyed denim two-piece. and a matching jacket that ended up discarded after she noticed it covered her newest shoulder tattoo (though you tried to argue she could just have Nate carry it so she could wear it considering she eventually would get cold at some point). To you, however, was more of a stressful task, seeing you hadn’t taken in mind to think of an outfit beforehand. So you ended up just going with the safest option that didn’t give you a lot of room to overthink, choosing to finish your makeup on the way so Evan wouldn’t have any of your heads on a plate for being late.

You’ve found that applying mascara on a moving vehicle is not the easiest task, as Nia holds your elbow to help you keep steady while talking nonstop with the driver about a topic you stopped paying any mind to about ten minutes ago.

“I’m loving our black and red moment, by the way.” She turns to you, loosening her hold as you finish the last coat. “You look like one of those hot businesswomen with your teenage daughter who likes to dress like an animated character.”

You laugh at her comparison, only now noticing the discrepancy between both your outfits. Without even realizing it, you also ended up going for the monochromatic look. Except unlike Nia’s, yours completely lacks any color. “That’s actually the best comparison you could make.”

“I know — You can take a left right here — Here, I have lip gloss.” Nia fetches a small tube from her jacket (that she ended up taking, after all), presenting it to you.

“Do you not have lipstick?”

“Are you not planning on smudging it later?” Nia wiggles her eyebrows, teasing. The hint behind her words makes you roll your eyes, snatching the lip gloss from her hand without bothering to give her an answer. There was about a month or so, just before winter rolled around, that Nia felt as if she had a mission to get you with someone. You suspect, knowing too well how her mind works, that she must’ve felt some sort of guilt for what happened during her film project last year. It was clear that her attempts came from a place of good heart, but this doesn’t mean that it made them any less annoying. However, after her plans to move in with Nate became more concrete, her cupid persona seemed to have disappeared, or so you’d thought. But now that there’s nothing else filling her mind anymore, it looks like she’s back at it, and you can’t help but snort. “What? I’m just saying-”

“You say a lot of things, most of them are incorrect.” You say, “I’m not smudging anything tonight. Not on a party with twenty people, for fuck’s sake.”

“Don’t say that before — right there! The big house on the corner!” Nia leans over the console, signaling to the driver where to park. It’s so sudden that you notice how he jumps just slightly from his seat, chuckling to yourself at how Nate snaps his eyes at her. 

The front of Evan’s Victorian home is unusually quiet once you step out onto the sidewalk. So much so that, if it weren’t for the lined cars parked along the street and filling his driveway, you would’ve thought you’d typed in the wrong address. 

The discrepancy is clear to you when compared to other gatherings Evan hosts in his house, but especially for his birthday. Last year, you could hear Toxic blasting from his place from the moment you turned on his street, and a small crowd gathered on his front yard — most of which you recall being comprised of people plastered out of their minds, particularly one semi-naked man who was using one lamppost as a strip pole while swinging a stuffed snake

That’s more or less the standard one could expect when invited to a party at Evan’s. So, to find the street as silent as any regular day is, to an understanding, odd. 

“Are you sure it’s the right date?” You ask as the metal creak of the front gate mends with gushes of wind whistling through the air.

“Yup,” Nia says simply, walking in front of you. “You can hear the music inside, shush.”

You come quiet, listening in, and, surely, you can hear the faint keys of a piano coming from the other side of the stone walls, but it only brings up more questions to your head than answers. Evan seems like the last person on Earth who would listen to classical music. Deciding not to voice your question this time, you follow short behind Nia, kicking some loose stones on the gravel path leading to the front door.

There’s no need for more than a single knock for it to open almost immediately, revealing a lace-clad Evan downing the last bits of his wine. Without the barrier you can hear the music more clearly, the keys of the piano meshing in a peculiar way, not like anything you’ve ever heard in a classical song— at least not ten years ago when you tried to learn piano for a year before giving up.

“Look at my favorite people!” Evan says with his purple-stained lips, pulling Nia for a hug with the arm that’s not holding the door open while pointing at a spot behind her. “Did you greet Jonathan when you passed him? It’s his birthday as well.”

He points to a spot where a gnome statue sits in the dry grass, face painted in clown makeup. Nate’s voice comes from behind you, “Christ.” 

“Nate!” Evan chirps, going straight for the man standing with a sharp smile and throwing his arms around him. “You know you’re my favorite grumpy, right?”

Nate only taps on the shorter man’s back, quickly moving to Nia’s side as soon as he’s free from the embrace. With that, Evan turns to you, hands finding your elbows as he takes you in, “And what have you been up to, bug? It's been ages.”

“You know… Books and… Stuff.” You chuckle, brushing it off. “Happy birthday, E.”

“Thank you!” He claps his hands together. “Now, c’mon, let’s get all of you started.”

Following him inside, you’re met with a glittery box standing right next to the entrance; rolls of tape seal it shut, and a hand-sized hole has been cut on top of the lid. You try to peek at what could be inside, but strings of colorful crepe paper are stuck to the hole, making it harder to know its contents.

Evan picks up the box, holding it to his side. “So, I need each of you to grab a piece of paper inside the box. There will be a number in it but for now just hold on, drink, and chat while waiting for further instructions.” His voice lowers at the end to give his words more of a mystery behind them.

Nate tenses in front of you and you have to keep yourself from chuckling at his desperate gaze moving from the box to his girlfriend as he moves uncomfortably on his feet. Nia, however, only gives him a pat on his back, barely looking at her boyfriend as she does a little dance in excitement. “Oh, this feels fun.” She says, quickly reaching her hand inside the box and retrieving a piece of paper. “Mysterious, but fun. What do you have in mind, sir?”

“Nothing too crazy this year, darling, you can relax — We’re all too tired.” He moves the box towards Nate, who reluctantly reaches inside. “Just something to mesh people together that won’t give me too much of a headache to clean tomorrow.”

“Smart.” You say, peeking at the box as it’s presented to you before reaching for a paper inside, quickly reading the number eight written on it before folding the piece between your fingers.

“Nice! As always, drinks in the kitchen. We’re starting in ten minutes!” Evan claps, hushing the three of you further inside.

Surprisingly, this time around there are no posters of his face in sight as you follow Nia and Nate to the kitchen. There’s a mild mash of voices coming from the living room — where the sound of the piano is the loudest, and you wonder if he got an actual piano or if it’s just a Bluetooth speaker —, but it’s not nearly as loud as you’re used to from past times. The lighting has been lowered to a buttery yellow; you realize once you enter the kitchen that feels too bright to your eyes in contrast to the hallway.

“Is there any alcohol?” You wonder out loud, and Nia glances at you with her eyebrows shot towards her hairline. “What? I’m just asking ‘cause everyone is unusually quiet.”

“There’s wine and — what are these guys right here?” She picks up one out of four plastic jars sitting on the kitchen island, reading the label stuck to it out loud, “Strawberry Mary — ooh, this looks fun.”

You reach for the other three to check their contents, but all have names similar to the one Nia now fills her cup with — fruity, yet mysterious: Lana Banana, Jenny Berry Mix, and Pineapple Suzan. “Did he come up with these?” You chuckle, reaching for the berry mix.

“It was probably Adam,” Nia says, and you frown. “That bartender guy? The one with the pet snakes.”

“Oh, yeah. I know him.”

The room comes quiet as you serve yourself, and only after you glance up you realize a tension lingering in the air. Nate stands awkwardly in a corner, eyes fixed on Nia as he moves his head around subtly. Glancing between the two of them, you notice how their expressions change as they keep their eyes locked, not a single word being uttered out loud. To you, it almost feels as if they are reading each other’s minds, and the heat of their silent argument becoming clear once Nate huffs, shaking his head. 

Nia clears her throat, seemingly uncomfortable, shooting you a knowing look. It’s only when she gives you a toothless smile that you realize the silent question behind it. “Uhm, I’m going to check if there are any sweets outside.”

Beelining towards the doorway, you quickly make your way out of the room. The hallway is empty and, from where you stand awkwardly in the middle of it, you can tell Evan’s left his spot by the front door, meaning he’s likely gone to the living room where the rest of the guests are. You can hear them chatting, although like you previously pointed, the voices are much more controlled than what you’re used to, and that makes you oddly flustered by the thought of walking in alone. 

Considering the limited amount of invitations this year, the chances of you knowing anyone are slim and, to add to your sudden nervousness, most of the people from Evan’s closest circle of friends are — like himself — inexplicably intimidating. This is mostly because it feels like this unspoken competition that everyone has settled with each other, to subtly brag about your success whilst simultaneously pretending to be impressed about the other’s accomplishments. And for you specifically, considering you’re not part of this artist clique that they lock themselves into, it feels particularly tiresome to be part of those interactions. 

So, you opt to wait for Nia, pretending to admire one peculiar painting hanging on a wall opposite to where the doorway leading to the living room stands. Every so often, you catch yourself glancing over your shoulder one way or the other, either towards the kitchen to check if your friends are joining you, or to the doorway where the rest of the guests are in. At one point, the voices get louder, joining in a laugh before tangling together in a mess of noise you can’t make sense of. It’s after a minute that you hear footsteps coming from the living room, making you freeze on your spot, carefully turning your back to whoever’s about to catch you avoiding the party, and focusing on the piece you’ve been staring at for the past five minutes.

The painting you first thought was just random strokes of earth tones abstractly put together you now realize it’s a man and it doesn’t take you more than a second or two to recognize Evan’s side profile in a peach shade. Your hand claps on top of your mouth as you fight the urge to laugh. The sound comes out muffled, but it stops as you hear the footsteps falter as they turn into the hallway. Keeping you back to them, you listen as the wooden floor creaks as whoever was approaching makes their way back. You peek to catch sight of who it might be, but all you make out is the shadow of mustard corduroys turning the corner.

As if on cue, Nia and Nate finally appear from the kitchen, thankfully neither appearing to be sour after the talk in the kitchen. 

“Finally.” You say, still feeling giggly from your finding. “Nate, you have to check this-”

“Okay! Let’s start, then. Do we have everyone in the living room?” Evan’s voice interrupts you as he calls out. Nia guides you along with her to the living room. And, as soon as the three of you enter, Evan nods at you, before continuing, “Now that all the bunnies are trapped, we shall begin!” He laughs, clapping his hands together before motioning vaguely to everyone. “Before I explain what I have planned, I want to pair you all. So, I’ll call out the numbers that each of you picked when you arrived, so everyone can find their pair.”

You frown, confuse yet curious about what Evan’s up to as he calls out the numbers. Now that you stop to glance around the room, you note how there are more people than you’d expected. It’s still not nearly as many as previous parties of his, but it still feels like the room is nicely filled, maybe just a dozen people above twenty. And amongst them, there’s quite a few you recognize as they pair up together — like Georgia, the first one to be called, whom you spent a good half of the New Year’s party with, or Taylor, who gets paired with Nia (you remember him particularly from a film festival that Nia had been part of — he produced and directed a short film comparing the second wave of feminism to the wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest, and Nia couldn’t stop complaining about how bad it was for the entire week after). 

It’s when Evan jokes with someone on the other side of the room, however, that you see him.

He’s tucked in a corner, right next to the bookshelves, arms crossed under his chest in a way that makes his tattoos pop out of his biceps, something you notice even standing on the opposite end of the room. His smile is subtle as he watches the scene in front of him, but it’s still enough for a dimple to poke at one side of his face -- it’s barely there, but you’ve seen it up close enough times that you notice those details. His hand holds a drink, but you pay no mind to it because what calls your attention is the mustard corduroy hugging his hips, the same one you watched run from you not only five minutes ago.

He laughs, and you avert your eyes, mouth still hung open. You wonder if anyone will notice if you leave.

But, as though he could read your mind, Evan calls the number written on that sits crumbled inside the pocket of your jacket. “Where are my number eights?”

You step forward and, like a magnet, your eyes glue on Harry as he raises his hand. 

Shaking your head in disbelief, you have to fight against an urge to shut your eyes tightly as the regret of having left your room at all tonight becomes almost overwhelming. All you expected for the night was to forget about book reports and endless essays piled up on your computer, to relax, maybe drink a bit more than you should while watching Evan’s friends dancing with a taxidermy beaver or something of sorts (that was on his friendsmas party two years ago). Instead, here you are on what feels like the first day of class dynamic your teacher has imposed to make everyone interact with each other. And, suddenly, the long pages of (insert boring book) don’t seem that bad right now.

And to make matters worse (because the universe just likes to add a little more spice to your tragedies) of all people standing in this living room you just had to be paired with the one with whom you had a fling-like relationship six months ago.

It’s awkward before he even approaches you, the tension making you fidget in your spot anxiously, barely being able to shoot a tight smile his way. 

The last time you saw Harry was through the rearview mirror of a car, standing on the sidewalk like an abandoned puppy with his tail between his legs. Though you admit you let your dramatics take away when you turned away from him to leave, the feeling behind it was genuine. You were upset. He had led you on, after all, made you think he wanted to have something more just to ignore you for months and, later, appear with a redhead under his arms and call her his girlfriend. So, yes, it wasn’t the best note to leave on.

But despite how you left the last encounter, the spark of nervousness that shoots through your stomachs right now doesn’t come exactly because of his presence, but more so for the awkward nature of this encounter. At the time it happened, you avoided any activity that had the slight possibility of seeing him again like the plague. You were hurt, and you were mad — though the second part was more directed at yourself than at him. But that was six months ago. After all, as much as you felt enchanted by him and as much as those two weeks you spent together were nice, that’s all that it was: two weeks. Yes, you were sad and, yes, maybe you shed a tear or two while watching Love, Rosie with Nia afterward, but that passed as quickly as it came.

That is, until now.

“Your hair is shorter” This Is all you blurt out when he stands in front of you again.

“It is, yeah.” Harry runs his hand through his hair. The strands that last time you saw him, curled around his jawline, now peek just under his earlobe. “Did it myself, actually.”

“Really?” You take a big gulp from your drink, gaze going anywhere but meeting his own. “Found yourself another talent.”

“Another?” You can hear the smirk in his voice.

“I mean, besides acting.” You grin, holding the cup to your lips and sparing him a glance. “Suppose after your debut you’ve gotten yourself busy with casting calls”

“Of course” Harry laughs. Now that you’re closer you have a better look at his dimples as they pop out, as well as the constellation of freckles hugging his nose, and the mole right under his lips. You avert your eyes again. “I’m set to be the next Bond, in fact”

“Oh, wow.” You raise your brows, grinning at the brim of your cup. “I can see it.”

He turns to you, “Can you?” You peek at him. "Why is that?”

This is exactly what you were afraid of all those months ago after last seeing him. The entire reason you ran from any possibility of seeing him again afterward. You can still remember clearly how much of a flirt he is, even when he doesn’t mean to be. It’s not a secret that Harry’s a charming man. His words are like honey, and when he uses them just right, you know is enough to have you melting. And it doesn’t help how well you seem to click together. Even now, you still feel it by your impulse to flirt back, to look him in the eye, and get just close enough to feel the scent of his cologne. Do all that just to turn away in the last second. Tease him the same way he did you. But you don’t do any of that, of course, because you’re as petty as you are bitter. So, instead, you click your tongue. “Don’t get too comfortable, Harry, bet your girlfriend wouldn’t be happy about that.”

He chuckles. “What girlfriend?”

This time you turn fully at him, brows shooting up not in defiance, but surprise. “Yikes.” You say before you’re able to hold back.

“Yikes.” Harry still holds a smile when he repeats it, head falling as he lets out a — nervous? — laugh.

A question pops into your head. One that lingered in your mind for a good while now, but comes back a bit louder now that you have the information that his relationship was short-lasted after all. It’s a short one, but one that requires a long answer, you suppose. What happened? You think. But you don’t dare to voice it, you don’t want to have this conversation with him. Whatever the explanation is, it’s not going to change anything. So you just avert your gaze back to Evan, who now calls for everyone’s attention again.

“I know you’re all dying to know what this is all about. So, I’m going to explain it all.” And with that introduction, Evan dives into a monologue you only pay half mind to. It’s hard for you to focus on the words rapidly leaving his mouth as you can feel Harry glancing at you every so often from the corner of your eye. You listen in to Evan describing himself as a feisty kid and mention his love for drama, and then you feel the ghost of Harry’s arm bumping against yours as he sways on his feet. You try to pay attention to the story being told of the events leading up to this birthday party, and then you have to hold yourself back from meeting Harry’s eyes once you feel them at the side of your face once again. He makes a comment under his breath that you don’t quite catch, and you’re about to question him before Evan’s voice comes in an even higher pitch. “I wanted tonight to be exactly that: chaotic. I didn’t want anything to quite make sense, and I didn’t want to think much, if I’m honest, last year of film school is taking a big chunk of my functioning neurons and m’dad’s whiskey collection is taking the rest of them.”

There’s a collective laugh that takes place and, once again, Harry’s eyes peeking at you. “Everyone can relax, it’s not one of those murder mystery parties, as I’ve heard some people guess — for fuck’s sake as if I have the time and patience to plan something like that.” He says with a sip directly from a wine bottle you just now realize he’s been holding. “It’s a scavenger hunt, you have a partner and an envelope with clues. Each pair will find something related to moi and after it’s all done, we’ll eat burgers and talk about me for the rest of the night.” 

“Sounds easy enough.” Harry mumbles.

Evan claps his free hand on his wrist, hushing everyone. “So off you go, c’mon! I’ll be hungry in an hour.”

“This is gonna be…” You start. “Interesting.”

“Interesting is a great word to describe it.”

“Well, let’s try to do this as quickly as possible, then.” 

 The side of his lips quirks up. “On a rush?”

“This is not exactly a comfortable position to be. I think you get it.” You say, fidgeting on your feet. You wait for a second for him to say something so you can start the activity, but he doesn’t and you realize there’s a piece missing. “Do you have an envelope?”

Harry nods, reaching for his pocket where the envelope sits folded in half. He swiftly opens it, taking out a card.

 “Well?” You prompt, “Read us the first clue, Bond.”

There’s a smile that Harry fights against at the nickname and you’re not sure due to the dim light, but you think there’s a hint of a rosy tone on the apple of his cheeks. “An activity that grows lives and ruins manicures.” He reads out loud, pausing for a moment before laughing to himself. “I know this one.”

“Grows lives?” You frown. “As in, a pregnancy?”

Harry shakes his head, leading the way towards the corridor. “As in, gardening.”

“That’s a very weird way to put it.” You say, following him. “Does he garden?”

He walks into the kitchen, greeting two people you don’t recognize who are searching for something — their clue, you assume — inside the cabinets. “No, but his sister does. There’s a greenhouse in the back.”

You simply hum in response, muttering a quick thank you as he opens the door for you that leads to the back garden. The greenhouse is not unfamiliar to you from the outside, there have been a good amount of summer gatherings in his back garden for you to know of its existence. But you’ve thought nothing more about it. If you’re honest, you never really paid much attention to it. If anything, you assumed he used it as storage at most, never taking Evan as someone who enjoyed gardening. Though now you know you were right, you've also learned that his sister lives with him and you wonder why he’s never mentioned it before.

The curiosity inside of you wants to question Harry about it, to ask him what else he knows you don’t. When you think about it, there’s a lot you want to ask him about. Not just regarding Evan, but also regarding him. You wonder what he’s been up in the past six months if he ended up adopting the kitten he’d told you about back when you were still filming or if he read any of the book recommendations you wrote on his notes app one particular night the two of you chatted for longer than the moon could hold itself up in the sky. The part of you that begs for you to say something on the short walk is so strong you have to physically bite your tongue to be able to hold back.

You don’t have to hold for long, however, as Harry takes it upon himself to say, “So,” He starts, clearing his throat, “How- uh- how are you doing?”

Somehow, his words click something inside of your mind. They remind you of why you shouldn’t let that curious part of you win. The sole purpose of it not falling for his charm. You shake your head, “We’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?” He frowns, his steps faltering for a second.

“Small talk.” You answer, focused on your goal. “We’ll just solve this thing as quickly as possible so I can go back home and finish my Euphoria marathon.”

“Right.” Harry nods once, and you can’t help but notice the way his lips quirk down, the frown not leaving his face. You can’t lie and say it doesn’t make your stomach drop the slightest bit to see you’ve upset him, but you have to remind yourself how much he’s upset you, too. 

It’s protecting yourself, you think. After tonight, you don’t have to see him ever again.

Inside the greenhouse, you’re greeted with a mix of scents you’re not prepared for before stepping in. The space is compact, with a single corridor narrowed with garden beds on each side. Dozens of branches and leaves tickle you as you walk in, most of them belonging to different flowers that, despite the chilly weather that still lingers outside, are already blooming. It’s a blend of colors, bright reds, and ocean blues, soft purple petals kissing pink and yellow ones. 

“We should look for gloves.” Harry’s voice startles you, chuckling as you jump a bit.

“Huh?” 

“Gloves.” He says. “I think whatever we’re looking for has to do with the gloves, ‘cause he mentioned manicure.”

“That makes sense.” You look around. Many gardening tools are piling under the tables that hold the garden beds; watering cans and empty pots. You look between bags of fertilizer and drawers filled with shovels. There’s so much stuff to look through that, at one point, you sit back on your calves, glancing around, lost.

You hear Harry leafing through as you’re doing, feeling his legs brushing against your back as he passes by and you stop, watching him from your spot on the floor. He’s got a concentrated look on his face, bottom lip worried between his teeth as he scans through the walls before he opens another drawer. That’s when his gaze falls, catching yours. You quickly turn away, pretending to go through another pile of empty pots and blocking the sound of a chuckle coming from his spot.

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the clicking of ceramics and the opening and closing of wooden drawers. That is until you hear from Harry, “A-ha!”

You look up again, seeing him move to the back where few pairs of gloves hang on the wall — so obvious yet still hidden between raincoats and summer hats. “Right under our noses.” You say, getting up.

Harry searches inside the gloves, tongue trapped between his teeth. “Bingo!” He says, pulling out two tiny bottles from inside one pair.

“What is it?”

“Liquor.” He grins, peeking at you from under his lashes before ripping a piece of paper attached to it. “It says ‘one for each, now get to clue number two.’” He holds up one bottle, offering it to you, to which you take it. “It’s chocolate flavored.”

“Of course it would be a drinking game.” You open it, feeling the artificial chocolate scent braid with the alcohol. “Christ.”

“Don’t smell it, or it’ll be worse,” Harry says, downing his with one quick tilt of his head. “‘S not that bad, actually.”

You mimic his action, letting the drink swiftly burn its way down your throat. Unlike Harry, you can’t help but scrunch your nose at the taste. “You’re a fucking liar.”

Harry only giggles in response, taking the empty bottle from you and placing it back inside the gloves, along with his own. 

And then again, silence. You turn to the flowers to find some comfort.

A family of tulips glances back at you, their petals in a full red, it’s the kind of beauty you’re scared to ruin if you touch, so you just rest your hand on the wood. “They’re beautiful.” You only notice you say it out loud when Harry hums back in agreement.

“They are.” He says quietly but somehow feels loud by how close he is. “Tulips are my favorites.”

You stop, brows raising incredulously at him. “No, they’re not.”

“What?”

Cursing the universe for playing with you like this, you can’t help but laugh at the situation. “It’s just- they’re my favorites, too.” You look at him. “My nan used to plant them when I was little.”

“That’s sweet.” He says, smiling and you nod. “The red ones represent true love.” He points. “And the purple ones represent royalty.”

You blink at him. “Do you just look up tulip facts in your free time?”

Harry laughs. “Yeah, basically.” He looks down at you, and you can’t help but notice how the greenery around brings out the shade of his eyes. “I worked at a flower shop for a tick.”

“Really?”

He nods. “For eight months. My favorite part was writing on the store board every morning.” His face lights up as he recalls his experience. “I used to write silly stuff like, ‘one day I’d like to meet tulips.’ The old ladies loved it.”

You shake your head, breathing out a laugh. “You’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Why’s that?”

Because you’re sweet, you want to answer, because when I think I won’t get charmed by you again, you hit me with tulip puns. Your lip finds its spot between your teeth, you’d be damned to give him the satisfaction of hearing you tell him that, so, instead, you shrug. “Because.” You can tell he wants to dig more by the way his lip twitch up, teasing a smile, but you just nod towards the door before turning away from him and heading out. 

There’s a distinct change of temperature when you step outside, and it’s only when you do that you notice the greenhouse was heated. Thankfully, the night is not too windy as it would get a week or two ago when winter was still insisting on making itself present, but it’s still chilly so that it makes you hug your jacket closer to your body. Harry also notices the difference, as you hear him wince as he steps out from behind you — unlike you, he’s not wearing anything to protect his arms from the cold, which only makes it harder for you to not ogle the tattoos hugging his skin.

“So, what’s next?” You prompt.

Harry reaches for the card again, taking it from its spot on his pocket before reading the second clue. “‘Not feeling too creative to write this one, it’s on the third tree on oak.’”

“I mean, at least we don’t have to think too much on this one.” You say, “Oak Street is the one to the left, right?”

“Yeah.” Harry sighs. “Can’t believe he’s making us go out on the streets.”

You start to make your way back towards the house. “Too tired for a stroll?”

“‘S cold,” Harry says, scrunching his nose. “Here, there’s a side gate.”

He guides you through a gravel path to where the black gate stands, hidden between bushes and branches. Strings of fern hug the bricked fence and the surrounding grass is high enough that it tickles your calves through your tights, making you believe this path has probably been left unused for at least a couple of months now. This information brings out an extra worry for you, as you take a better look at it, noticing how the gate is closed shut to the fence.“Is it open?” You wonder out loud.

“Shit, I don’t think it is.” Harry huffs under his breath. “But, I mean, we could easily jump it.”

You stop, turning to glance at him as the suggestion leaves his lips. He stands there, hands on his hips, examining the gate, tongue poking out as he frowns. After a second, he meets your eyes. “What? It’s not that tall.”

“I suppose.” You say, looking back at the fence that ends just below your shoulder length. It would be easy enough for you to climb it with a boost, however, “I’m wearing a dress.”

“Oh,” Harry scratches the back of his neck. “Let’s just go inside-” He turns back.

“Wait,” You stop him, not sure if it’s the slight amount of alcohol in your system already making you more adventurous, you train your gaze at the gate, analyzing it again, before looking back at him. Squinting your eyes, “You have to close your eyes.”

He laughs, “Are you sure?”

“It’s not that high.” You shrug. “But I need your help.”

“Of course.” He moves next to the brick wall, kneeling before it and nodding towards you. “C’mon, step up.”

Hesitantly, you glance at his thigh stretching his trousers, a sudden wave of insecurity hitting you. “Are you sure you can lift me?”

Harry simply puts his hand out in a silent request for you to hold. “Of course.”

“No peeking.”

He shuts his eyes tightly, chin meeting his chest as he looks down. And then you take his hand, feeling his fingers lock in a firm hold as he helps you use him for support. You hesitate again before using his thigh as a step, “Wait, I’m gonna ruin your trousers.” You worry, but Harry only shakes his head, still keeping it facing the ground, the strands of his hair falling above his eyes in a makeshift blindfold. When he doesn't feel you stepping in still, he encourages you with a squeeze in your hand. 

You attempt to do as quickly as possible with your dress clinging to your legs, tightening your hold to Harry’s hand to step on his thigh. Once you let it go, you can still feel it lingering behind your back as you use your arms to boost yourself up the wall, sitting on it for a moment before jumping to the other side with a huff.

“Can I open them?” You hear Harry’s voice calls from the other side, and you smile, nodding even though he can’t see it.

“Yes!”

And then his face appears as he stands up in a jump, grinning at you. “See? Easy Peasy.”

“I feel like a teen sneaking out.” You say, and you instantly give another meaning to your words as Harry boosts himself up. This time, you certainly don’t hold yourself back from staring at the way his muscles flex at the movement, the tattoos on his arms stretching, and his shirt rolling up. He makes it look so easy, so effortless, barely taking five seconds until he’s jumping in front of you.

“That was fun.” He puffs, patting his trousers lightly.

“So, how are we finding the tree?” You ask, taking a quick glance to where his hands brush on the fabric of his trousers. “Should we read the clue again?”

“I know which one he’s talking about,” Harry says, nodding to the left before beginning his stride in that direction. You follow him, trusting his words as the two of you turn the corner where Evan’s house is located. 

The street in question is much calmer than the one you were just in, with no cars coming or going from the residences — that stand much closer to one another, you notice, giving the whole street more of a narrow feeling to it --, which is not exactly odd, but certainly is a contrast with the main street that Evan’s home faces, that one being more lively with people either coming home or leaving it to enjoy their Friday night. The sudden lack of background noise makes the walk to your destination a tad awkward, as none of you make an effort to strike a conversation. Instead, you resort to silently observing the surrounding area as you walk alongside Harry, noticing how the trees here bend over the sidewalk, their naked branches slowly but surely growing back the leaves they lost months ago — it makes you wonder how beautiful this must look during the peak of springtime, their full branches blending together, making a ceiling of flowers.

“Here.” Harry stops abruptly, making you almost bump into his shoulder, as you were too busy with the scenery you’ve made in your own head. “‘S this one.”

“I thought it said the third one.” You frown, looking back and noticing the way you’ve passed way more than just three.

“This one is the third.” He says, motioning to a small birdhouse stuck to its trunk with a number ‘3’ painted to the front in blue. “It’s a bit of an inside joke,” Harry chuckles to himself. “Now I get why the bastard wanted me to have this card.”

You look closer at the tree, trying to see if there’s something attached to it besides the birdhouse, but there’s nothing. Before you can question it, Harry opens the front of the tiny house, retrieving two tiny bottles from inside of it, similar to the ones you found in the greenhouse.  “Oh, no.” You say, laughing. “Did he just put liquor inside a stranger’s birdhouse?”

Harry shakes his head, “This is not a stranger’s birdhouse.”

“Huh?” You frown, glancing back to the house where you stand in front of, its front completely dark, showing that no one must be at home. You point to it over your shoulder. “Do you know who lives here?”

“Yeah,” He starts, offering you one bottle. “I do.”

Your brows shoot up in surprise, glancing back and forth from the house to the man standing in front of you, an amusing grin growing on his face. “You live here?” You ask, “This is your birdhouse?”

“It is, yeah. In fact, I was the one who built it.” He gives the birdhouse a small pat.

You can’t help but let your mouth hang open for a second. “That’s-” You pause, not sure which word to use. Impressive? Amazing? Hot? “That’s nice.”

Harry smiles, and the two of you stand there for a moment, admiring his work in silence. You suck your bottom lip in, keeping yourself from inquiring further. 

Being presented with how little you know about Harry only peaks at your curiosity at what had happened last year in your brief experience with him. When you were with him it felt as if you’d known him for months rather than weeks, but looking back at it now, you wonder if your infatuation fooled you into thinking the two of you were close. Maybe that’s why you were so upset at the premiere after all because all that did was prove to you how much you didn’t know him at all. No matter how many sleepless nights you spent together sharing bits of your lives, it wasn’t enough for you to get to know him.

It’s only when a car turns into the street that you break away from your thoughts, looking up at him and clearing your throat. “We should take this back to Evan’s.” You say. “I’m not sure how it would look from an outsider’s point of view to see us downing these tiny bottles in the middle of the street.”

“You’re right,” Harry says. “Should we read the last clue while we’re at it?”

“Sure, yeah.”

He reaches for the card inside his pocket, presenting it to you. “You do the honors this time.”

You take the card, brushing your thumb over the words before stopping for a second to read them out loud, “You’ll find your prize behind the words of buried legends.” You snort. “That’s so corny.”

“Words of buried legends,” Harry repeats, letting out a hum. “Bet he was feeling quite poetic when he wrote this one.”

“Maybe because it has to do with poems.” You peek at him, a slight raise to your eyebrow. “‘Words of buried legends’? like dead poets and stuff?” Upon reading it again to make sure, you mumble, “He really made this card especially for you, huh?”

“Makes sense.” Harry agrees before nudging you playfully with his arm. “Look at you with your literary mind!”

“Could’ve used some better wording but I’ll let it pass.” You giggle, shrugging as you hand him back the card. As you do so, you notice there’s something written on the other side. “What’s in the back?”

Harry’s brows meet. “Huh?”

“In the back of the card, something’s written on it.” You nod towards his hand as he’s about to pocket the card again. 

Harry turns it around, reading it with a chuckle. “Ice breakers.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” Your mouth drops open in amusement. “Well? Go on, then. Break the ice.”

Harry makes a show of clearing his throat before reading the question as an announcement, “What celebrity do you think you could pull on your best day?”

“Is this the actual question?” You squint your eyes at him and he turns the card to allow you to read it as well. Surely, the same question reads right on top of it and, as you take a glance at the ones below it, they’re not that much better. You shake your head, “God, I have no idea.”

“I know mine.”

“You didn’t give a single thought on that one.” You say. “This should be good.”

“Jennifer Aniston.”

“Jennifer Aniston?” You stop on your tracks, raising your brows at him. “You know she was married to Brad Pitt, right?”

“Ouch.” Harry makes the theatrics of putting a hand on his heart, head falling dramatically to the side. “Right where it hurts.”

“I’m not saying you’re bad-looking, but he’s Brad Pitt.” You emphasize with a laugh, pushing him playfully as you keep walking. “Like he is the male beauty standard. Personified.”

The front of Evan’s feels more vivid than it was when you first walked in hours ago, the lights inside seeming lighter and the curtains having been pulled back, showing people wandering around on the inside. You walk past another pair crouched in front of the bushes that line next to the front gate that creaks as you open it.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Sure, let’s hear yours, then, sweetheart.”

“Ew, don’t ever call me that again.” Your nose scrunches and your face grows hot, but you attempt to shake it off, stopping to think of the question. “Huh, on my best day? I think… I don’t know, maybe Drake?”

“Oh, no!” Harry’s hands cover his face as he shakes his head into them. “I feel like that’s the most basic answer anyone could ever give to this question.”

You gasp. “Did you just call me basic?”

Harry holds the front door open for you and, before he’s able to give you an answer, you bump right into Nia. She instantly blurts out your name, as if she’s been expecting you to appear. “I’ve been looking for you!” She says, sparing Harry a glance over your shoulder before pulling you slightly to the side. “Do you think we could talk for a second?”

“Sure.” You hold out the word, looking at Harry before focusing on your friend again. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, nothing happened. Just—” Nia starts, locking your arms as she guides you back outside, pulling you to a corner a few steps away from the front door. “How are you? How's it going?”

“I’m fine. Why?” Your brows knit together at her interference and you wonder if it has anything to do with her conversation with Nate.

“I’m talking about-” She looks over her shoulder, clearly checking if anyone is listening in. Even after making sure that there’s no one there, she still lowers her voice. “When I saw he was your pair, I wanted to rescue you right away, but fucking Taylor pulled me with him and I didn’t get the chance.”

Oh. “Oh.”

“Is it too awkward?” She keeps her inquiry, holding your hand close to her chest. “We could ask them to switch so we can do the rest together, I’m sure Evan’s too plastered to notice.”

“Nia, I-” You smile as you come to realize that she pulled you aside just to check if you’re uncomfortable, having witnessed first-hand your whines and cries over Harry last year. “It’s okay, really. It’s not that bad, surprisingly.”

“Really?” Nia blinks, taken aback. “I- What happened?”

“Nothing.” You reassure her with a squeeze on her hand. “We’re just chatting, it’s not that awkward.”

“Okay.” She nods and nods, before falling serious again. “But if anything happens you just have to scream for me and I’ll be right there, okay?”

“Okay.” You say, pulling her for a brief hug. “Thanks, Ni.”

The two of you return inside just as Taylor brings up his brother’s hair sculpture collection that’s being exhibited at a local gallery — a subject you already have been the victim of hearing for about an hour during New Year’s and, by Harry’s face, he seems as helpless as you did back then. Nia doesn’t waste a second before pulling her pair away, “Let’s go, pal, those clues won’t solve themselves,” she shoots you a look over her shoulder, pushing Taylor towards the living room and you chuckle.

“He really is one of a kind, that man,” Harry says with a sigh before meeting your gaze. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just lady talk.” You brush aside. “Let’s find those poets, shall we?”

“We shall.” Harry smiles, looking around for a second before guiding you down the hallway, turning just before entering the kitchen where a staircase. This is a way that — like the greenhouse — you’ve never been to. Still, Harry navigates so casually as if it were his own home and, to some degree, you suppose it is. You follow him up the first flight of steps, stopping just before turning into the next one where a door you never really noticed before stands. Harry rests his hand on the handle, turning to you before saying, “There’s an office hidden right here.”

You watch as he opens it, motioning for you to walk in first. And, indeed, the inside of it is an office, just a bit smaller than the living room on the opposite side of the house. Two bookcases that go from the floor to the ceiling mostly covered the wall, only leaving a single space in the middle for a dark wooden cabinet. In front of it, an L-shaped desk takes up the middle of the room, most of it is filled with files and paper stacks, as well as two computers lying asleep. For a moment, you just stand by the doorway, admiring this room you’ve never known of its existence, your eyes quickly sweeping through the bookshelves completely packed with dark cover books of all sorts. “Do you think this is where it could be?”

“Probably, yeah.” Harry nods, turning on the lights. “I don’t know where else he could have any poetry hidden.”

You move towards one bookshelf, the one closest to the door, reaching to brush your finger through the spines perfectly lined. “But look at the size of these, we’ll take forever to find anything in here.”

“Those big ones are mostly law books, I think,” Harry says, opening cabinets at the other side of the room, right next to where a white couch stands. He turns to look at you, “His sister’s a lawyer, this is her office.” Harry says, “But Evan’s got a corner right here where he keeps some of his stuff— like books of sorts. It’s the only place I could think of.”

You hum, not knowing exactly what to respond to this information.

“You can go through the ones on that side, it could be there as well.” Harry nods towards a cabinet right next to the door where you came from, and you nod.

The first two cabinets are of no luck, both being mostly filled with boxes full of children’s books and old toys — some of them mixed with more stacks of paper, but those, instead of having long texts, have drawings of all kinds from what you could gather in a glance, from child-like scribbles to actual sketches. You can hear Harry going through drawers on the other side of the room and, upon closing another empty cabinet, you peek at him, watching his broad back flexing under his shirt as he moves around. Averting your eyes as swiftly as you looked, it’s still enough to bring warmth to your cheeks.

Finally, you open the cabinet at the very bottom of the shelf. On the top, there are piles of DVDs, most being different variations of Barbie movies, but, right at the bottom, you find books. You don’t stop to check their genre at first, simply moving them away until you stumble upon a small box, the top of it marked with the word ‘prize’. “Found it!” You call back, taking the box away from the pile before setting the books back in place again. “Under Rupi Kaur? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure she’s very alive.”

“Don’t tell Evan that,” Harry says as he crouches next to you, taking the box from your hands. Inside, there are, as expected, two tiny bottles like the ones you found before but, what calls both your attention, is a small bag of sweets lying in the middle. Harry takes it, “Oh, those are nice.”

He hands it to you and you open it, quickly shoving a jelly candy into your mouth before nodding. “Yeah.”

“So…” Harry starts, peeking over his shoulder, “Do you want to go back there?”

You glance at him, his eyes hovering above yours, lips twitching up just barely. “Uh… Maybe not right now.” You answer, “Unless you feel like sharing our Jellies with other people.”

Harry only laughs, shaking his head as he sits back and you do so too, right next to him. He reaches for his pocket, presenting another tiny bottle, the one you found inside his birdhouse, “We still got these.” 

“Right!” You fetch your own out of the pocket of your jacket.

Harry opens his, holding it up towards you. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” You say, mimicking him.

Both of you down your drinks, the liquid tasting bitter, like medicine on your tongue, the only reminder of alcohol being the burn as it slides down your throat. You rest your head back on the cabinet behind you as the two of you fall into silence once more. A part of your mind is already beginning to swim around the space inside your head, and you decide to not take the last drink just yet, laying it next to your leg. Though you’ve only had the equivalent of two shots, you realize the long break you’ve had from drinking for the past couple of months -- which wasn’t exactly an intentional choice, but more like the result of your lack of free time -- is showing itself to have been enough to make you more of a lightweight. 

And even though the night so far has been strikingly surprising in terms of how comfortable you felt being around Harry again, it doesn’t mean the questions you’ve been carrying since last year have gotten any quieter. They’ve only gotten louder. More persistent, even. The curiosity you feel to know what happened is almost suffocating now. And you’d be damned if you let a drunken mind stop you from having this conversation.

You glance at him from the corner of your eyes, only watching the back of his head bobbing along with the music -- still the piano -- that comes faintly from behind the closed door. Your lips part, feeling the question form right at the tip of your tongue, but not knowing how to voice the words. Will it be awkward? You think so, but what if it ruins the night? Tonight, that’s been so oddly refreshing. A night that only served to remind you how you became so infatuated with him in the first place.

But you know you won’t be able to let go of this ich inside your head unless you bring it up. And you want to, you do, but as you take too long to think of the right way to do so, Harry decides to break the silence, murmuring next to you, “That’s a good one.”

Your brows knit together, trying to make out any trace of familiarity within the song that’s playing, but you don't find any, which only leaves you even more confused.  “Do you like classical?”

“Love,” Harry says simply, his eyes closed as he moves his head with the piano keys. “Especially this one. One of the greatest works from one of the greatest contemporary composers: Billie Eilish.”

Your lips fall open, “Shut up. Is she playing this?”

Harry laughs, a full one, that brings a grin to poke at your lips. “I mean, as far as I’m aware, no. It’s a version of her song — listen in.” He points to his ear, nodding with the melody as he sings along, “So you’re a tough guy, like it really rough guy.”

You shake your head incredulously, “Of course he’s playing classical versions of pop songs!” 

“Did you really think Evan had a taste for Chopin or Debussy?” Harry asks both dimples poking on his cheeks.

“I think at this point I’d believe anything you tell me about him.”

Both of you laugh, the air surrounding you light and warm, before falling quiet again. This time, however, you simply stare at each other for a beat. You watch his eyes, with their almost hypnotizing jade shade, glancing between your own. He rolls his lip between his teeth, nibbling at it. This is the closest you’ve been to him all night, and the details on his face only feel like a reminder of your doubts. Like the nostalgia you feel with a bittersweet memory.

“Should we-“ You stop, the words falling from your lips before you can think about them. “Should we talk about the elephant in the room?”

You half expect Harry to frown, to play dumb, and question you the meaning behind your words. For a second, you even expect him to shake his head, to get up and leave the room. And, for some reason, you kinda want him to do so. To finally break the mask of the nice, sweet guy he’s been putting on all night and allow himself to play the role of cold prick you put him on for the past months. 

But he doesn’t do it. He only gives you a short smile. “I was thinking about how to bring it up.” Harry’s gaze falls to his lap for a beat as he scratches his nose. “We should, yeah.”

You nod, more to yourself than to him. This is it. The moment to ask what you’ve been waiting for for six months now. You decide not to think much anymore, allowing the question to roll freely, “I don’t really know how to word this better but- pardon my French- what the fuck happened?”

Harry chuckles, but not an amused one. It’s more of a dry, nervous laugh. “How cliche is it if I tell you I was really fucking stupid?”

“Pretty cliche.” You say, “But also pretty true, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry for that.” He looks up, eyes meeting yours again, his own softening upon seeing you. “I really am.”

“Thank you for apologizing.” You smile a little, “But I think I deserve an explanation.”

“You do.” He speaks quietly before clearing his throat. For a second, he doesn’t say anything else, just takes a sharp breath, focusing on his fingers that play with the hem of his trousers. “I- Uhm- I know this might come as a surprise, but I’m not very good at letting people down.”

“A bit, I guess.” You try to humor, but your tone doesn’t show it. You sound quiet, hurt.

He peeks up at you, and continues, “Jess- the girl you met at the premiere- she’s lovely and all, but- how do I say this- we were never really supposed to be together.” Harry sighs, “I didn’t like her like that.”

You frown, “Then, why did you?”

“A couple of months before we met- before Evan even mentioned the film project to me, one of my mates kept insisting that I should meet his sister.” He pauses, “That was Jess.”

“I figured.”

Harry nods, “As I said, she’s a lovely girl, really nice, but we just- didn’t click like that, you know?” You hum in agreement, ignoring a small twist in your stomach when he repeats the endearment term. “But I guess she really wanted to try it, and, for months, I just kept pushing and pushing, cause I thought maybe with time I could bring myself to feel the same way.” And then again, another humorless laugh, “But- spoiler alert- I couldn’t and I should’ve just told her that.”

Your mouth hangs open for a beat before you decide against saying anything. It’s clear as you watch him explain that the entire situation for him felt more complicated than you’d ever considered. Not once did you think about the possibility of him being caught in a twist of his own decisions, and not once did you regard his feelings with the whole situation. In your bubble of gloominess, all you could think of was how he played you and used you for a bit before moving on to the next girl that fell for his sweet talk. 

Looking at him now, however, his head low and brows set on a permanent crease, lips frowning down, you can feel the internal conflict pooling out of his pores. You’re not sure if it’s exactly a look of remorse that he gives you, but it sure seems close to it.

Harry huffs in what feels like frustration as he keeps recalling the events, “But all my mates kept taking the piss, pushing me to ask her out and then, in the middle of it, I met you.” He finally smiles a bit, and you have to look down to hide the warmth that spreads on your cheeks, “And we-uh-” He shrugs, “I mean, we clicked, didn’t we?”

“I think so.” You say, just above a whisper.

“I think so, too,” Harry says, holding your gaze with his own. “And when I was with you I let myself forget about that, forget about the pressure to be with someone else, I guess.” His lips fall again, eyes meeting his lap, “But when we came back, there wasn’t much running away from it anymore. The night we got back I met that friend of mine and, I’m not sure if he said anything to Jess, but she asked me out.”

“And you said yes.”

“I said yes.” He repeats, shaking his head, “I shouldn’t have, but I said yes.”

“So you just dated her? Even if you didn’t like her like that?” You say, trying to understand his thought process. Even if his words tug at your heartstrings -- which you try to not think about right now -- you still can’t help but feel a bit for the other girl.

“I thought I could- I don’t know, I thought with time maybe I could-” He stumbles around with his speech, before finally letting out a sigh, “I don’t know what was going through my head, to be honest. I was a prick.”

“At least you can admit to it.”

“I was a prick to both of you.” 

You fall quiet, hoping he takes your silence as an agreement. When he doesn’t offer anything else, you speak up again, “Did it work, though?” He frowns, and you clarify, “Letting time force feelings into you?”

“I found very quickly how hard it is to develop feelings for someone when there’s someone else on your mind.” He says, and you bite back a smile that wants to spread on your lips.

“It’s very easy to say that now.”

“I know.” He agrees, “And I wish I could’ve realized that earlier, before even bringing you into this mess.” Harry reaches for your wrist, which lies on top of your lap, giving it a gentle squeeze. “For that I really am sorry.”

“I know you are.” You reassure, turning your hand to find his, squeezing it back. “And what happened to Jess?”

“She was rightfully upset when I told her.” His thumb brushes against your knuckles, moving the rings on your fingers around just slightly, and it’s almost enough to distract you from his voice. “We broke up a day after the premiere.”

“Ouch.”

“But it’s fine now, she’s got a boyfriend now who actually cares for her the way she deserves,” Harry says.

“That’s nice to hear, at least.”

“It is, yeah.”

You look down at your hands locked in your lap, squeezing his one more time before letting it go with a sigh.  “You really made a big mess, huh?”

He chuckles, a guilty smile poking on his face, “I did.”

You nod, finally reaching for the tiny bottle left forgotten next to you, opening it. This time you only take a sip, but it’s still enough to end half of the liquid inside. You click your tongue, “I’m glad we talked, though.” You look up at Harry again, who’s already watching you, giving a small tap on his thigh. “It’s nice to have closure, you know? To give it a conclusion and wrap with a nice little bow.”

Harry rolls his lip inside his mouth, “Is this a conclusion, then?”

You raise your brows, “Is it not?”

“I guess it could be.” He shrugs one shoulder, leaning closer to you just barely, eyes trained in yours. “But I’m hoping that, after today, maybe we could start over?”

You laugh, scrunching your nose at him as you shake your head. “Not a start over, no.” You poke his side, “You’re not getting away that easy.”

“You’re right.” He says, still not budging as he frowns his lips. “But I wish it didn’t have to be an ending as well.”

“Is that so?”

Harry nods, you can tell his eyes hold a shyness that wasn’t here a minute ago, but at the same time -- as paradoxically as it seems -- there’s a boldness as well, one you’re more familiar with. “Maybe we could chat again. This time with fewer ice breaker cards and more bags of sweets.”

You smile, rubbing your chin as you pretend to ponder about his suggestion. “That does sound very promising.”

“I really do think we clicked.” He drops his playful tone as if wanting to make sure you feel the sincerity behind his words. “Wasn’t just saying it.”

“I know.” You say, “And I think so, too.”

His smirk grows, and he doesn’t offer anything else to say, but you can tell he’s holding something back. With the silence, you suddenly become too aware of the way your arms brush together, and how his knee bumps against yours. You notice how his eyes fall a bit from yours, so quickly you could’ve imagined it, but you choose to not think so. If you lean forward, you know he will too, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. You’re not letting yourself make the first move.

Surely, you’re aware these thoughts are a direct result of the alcohol sweeping through your mind, testing how much of your pride you’re willing to ignore. There’s no questioning of the wall that you built all those months ago after walking out of this very house with this very man on your tail blurring out apologies. It still stands, tall and strong, and you're not letting sweet words mixed with a drink or two pull it down. Not that easily. But at this moment, looking at his stupidly beautiful face with his stupidly beautiful eyes so close to you, you feel like maybe you could peek through a window, or open up a door — just a creek, just to have a sample of what it would feel like if you were to pull it down.

“Do you want to go back?” Harry asks again, this time more quietly, this time his question has a different implication than it did before.

You're quick to shake your head, voice quiet, “Not yet.”

The corner of his lips quirk up and you raise your brows, silently daring him to ask what he’s been holding. You see his hand moving from the corner of your eyes, but you don’t break your gaze from his, not even when you feel his fingertips moving so gently against your cheekbone, brushing your hair away from your face. Harry leans closer, again just barely, and again, you stay still, only smiling softly in encouragement. Now, you’re stuck in your own silent conversation; both seeking the same thing but not making the move to achieve it -- either for pride or apprehension. 

“I’d really like to kiss you right now,” Harry whispers finally, eyes moving down again, this time slowly, making sure that his intentions are clear.

“Do it, then.” You tease.

Harry breathes out a laugh, his hand caressing its way down to your jaw. He rubs his thumb against your cheek, a feathery touch, taking another second to look at you before pulling you in. Your eyes fall closed, as you focus on your senses, and allow yourself to peek from that window, or creek that door open just a bit, to have just this moment to remember when you first got lost in his touch. 

First, it’s the warmth of his breath tickling your cupid bow, making your hold your own breath in anticipation. Then, the tip of his nose, gentle against your own, and you can’t help but lean in a bit more when you feel the ghost of his lips on yours. But he pulls back, just so slightly, hoping to have you reach for him again. Except you don’t, knowing what he’s trying to do.

“Uh-uh,” you shake your head, pulling back just a bit to look him in the eye. “You don’t get to tease me.”

Harry huffs out a laugh, “That’s fair.”

This time, there’s no teasing. Still, he goes in just as slowly as he did the first time around, curving his lips around your bottom one so softly it almost makes you lean in again. His kiss is cloud-like in a way that makes you a bit dizzy and when he presses his lips harder, you have to refrain from letting out a dreamy sigh -- still too stubborn to give him the satisfaction. It’s when you feel the tip of his tongue poking out to lick at your bottom lip in a silent request, that you pull away completely.

It’s your turn to smirk now, licking your lips before announcing, “I think we should go back now.”

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Stark Spangled Kinks

The Devil Wears Nada

Summary: Steve’s fed up of getting cock blocked during what was supposed to be bit of alone time and would make a deal with the Devil herself to get some alone time with his wife… Warning: SMUT SMUT SMUT- (NSFW, 18+) Like seriously, if you’re under 18 get off my blog.

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark.

A/N: This is possibly the filthiest thing I’ve ever written...and I’m not even sorry. It follows on directly from Bumps In The Night which was written by @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​ as part of Stark Spangled Banner’s Birthday Party. Give it a read, its wonderful!

SSK Masterlist // WIYPT Masterlist

 Katie and Steve headed back inside, Katie diverting into the lounge to go and retrieve the candy off the kids before they ate too much of it in one sitting. Steve had to snort at the various cries of protests that rang round the lounge and his wife’s stern voice telling the three children in there that she didn’t care if it was Saturday, they weren’t consuming enough E-numbers to fuel an army before bed. He made his way into the kitchen and was completely unsurprised to find Bucky already had his head buried in the fridge.

“Make yourself at home.” He deadpanned and Bucky looked at him, thrusting a beer in his direction. “Gee thanks.” Steve’s dry sarcasm still present as he looked at his friend who was offering him his own fucking beer. Bucky grinned and shrugged as he passed one to Sam as well as he strode into the room, the three men popping the tops. Steve took a long pull from his as he eyed Bucky “Why are you here?”

“Rude much?” Bucky asked, his eyes still checking out the contents of the refrigerator. “We were concerned uncles…you weren’t with the kids.” “They were with Emmy and Queens” Steve arched an eyebrow “Perfectly safe.”

“They showed up on Tin Man’s doorstep.” Sam grinned “We were halfway through studying a couple of files and they basically swamped us and said it was their last stop of the night. Bucky thought it would be fun to come back with them.”

“To bug the crap out of me or…”

“I wanted candy.” Buck shrugged.

“Then you should have gone Trick Or Treating.” Steve replied “And let’s face it, with a face like that, who needs a mask?”

“Ouch, Stevie…” Bucky looked at him as Sam chuckled in the background, before he turned his attention back to the fridge “Oooh, your Missus made a cheeseboard.”

“What are you a fuckin’ mouse?” Sam asked as Bucky pulled out the platter, setting it on the side.

“Just ‘cause I appreciate the good things in life, Seagull and you can’t.” Bucky shrugged, unwrapping the film from the cheese. “You know, Steve was just like this growing up.”

“Yeah, well, now I have better taste and I’m also big enough to kick your ass so stop eating my food and go home before I throw you out.”

“What’s got into you?” Bucky looked at him.

“You’re disrupting my plans.” Steve said simply.

“What pl-ooooooh!” Buck’s question morphed into a noise of acknowledgment as he looked at his friend “Then you should have taken advantage of the empty house earlier.”

“School boy error, Cap.” Sam smirked and Steve let out a growl of frustration.

“Well our various attempts to were thwarted one way or another, and now you two punks are ruining it again.” Steve glared at them “Put the cheese back and piss off.”

Bucky smirked. “Imma tell Katie you’re being nasty to me.”

Steve narrowed his eyes knowing full well the soft spot his girl had for Bucky and Sam. If she got so much as a sniff he was being a bit of a shit to either of them he’d be in for it. “You wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t what?”

At the sound of his wife’s voice Steve jumped and turned to see her clutching the huge bowl that had previously contained their candy by the door and now sported the combined content of their kids’ bags, Harry toddling behind her, his eyes fixed on the prize.

“Oh this is gonna be good.” Sam smirked, leaning off to the side unwrapping a Reeses which he pulled out of his pocket, slowly chewing as if watching a movie.

“Hey Doll Face” Bucky grinned at her “Steve won’t let me eat the cheese.”

“Ignore him, you help yourself Buck.” She waved to it as she passed Steve the bowl of candy “Stop being so moody, stick that up high somewhere.”

“You know that won’t stop Jamie, Rori or him don’t you?” Steve looked at her as she picked Harry up who watched shrewdly as his dad placed the bowl on the top shelf of one of the cupboards “All 3 of them had scaled the refrigerator by the time they were 2.”

“No but it might delay them enough for us to catch them.” She shrugged, her eyes moving to Bucky who was eating a block of cheddar like it was an apple “Buck, do you want some crackers or…”

Bucky nodded but Steve cut him off. “No he doesn’t.”

“Yes I do.” Bucky smirked as Katie looked at Steve, arching an eyebrow at his unusually frosty nature towards his friends. She set Harry down on the counter by Bucky who grinned at the toddler, offering him his hand in a hi-five. Harry grinned and slapped his Uncles palm before he looked at the cheese.

“Absolutely not pal.” Steve said to him and Harry looked up.

“Dinosaurs don’t eat cheese.” Bucky shook his head at Harry who stared at him and blinked before he shrugged.

“But I hungry.”

“You can’t possibly be.” Katie looked at her son

“I am Momma.”

“Now look what you’ve done.” Steve glared at Bucky.

“Me?” Bucky scoffed, his mouth full “What did I do?”

“Set him off, look, why don’t you go and eat Jen’s cheese?” Steve asked and at that there was a pause before Sam, Katie and Bucky all burst out laughing. Steve groaned “Ok, that came out wrong.”

Sam snorted “that’s what she said.”

Katie laughed harder and Bucky grinned, swallowing his mouthful as Katie headed into the pantry. “Innuendo aside, I can’t. She’s got something going on at the coffee shop. Bunch of teenagers doing Halloween activities or something, I don’t know. She won’t be free until later.” He turned to Katie as she walked back in, handing him the box of crackers and he thanked her “So I thought I’d come see my best friends for a beer seeing as it’s not even half 8 on a Saturday yet.”

Katie smiled at him “You two are always welcome here, you know that. Isn’t that right Steve.”

Steve fixed a smile on his face and glared at Bucky who was positively beaming at the fact he knew he was being a cock-block. “Course it is honey, course.”

“Right my little Jurassic baby…” Katie picked Harry up and he giggled, the hood of his dinosaur costume falling over his eyes. “Bath time.

“No bath Momma” he shook his head furiously, looking up at her as she pushed the clothing back off his head “I have one tomorrow.”

Katie looked at him, “Your face is filthy.”

“Wash my face then.” He looked at her and Katie raised her eyebrows and looked at Steve who chuckled.

“Wanna help me out here daddy?” Katie asked and Steve looked at his son.

“Ok, how about momma washes your face tonight but you’re having a bath first thing in the morning.” Steve looked at Harry as his son considered it for a second. It was late after all. Skipping bath night one evening wouldn’t kill him.

“Deal” Harry nodded, holding his hand out. Steve shook it as Bucky and Sam both gave snorts.

“You need a hand?” Steve asked.

“No, I got it.” Katie shook her head “I’ll get him sorted. You can send Rori and Jamie up in 15 though.”

“Sure.” Steve nodded.

“Say goodnight Harry.” Katie said, turning round so Harry could see Sam and Bucky.

“Goodnight Harry” he grinned, before he cackled at his usual joke. The tot had no idea why it was funny, but when he had first said it, it had cracked both Katie and Steve up so now he seemed to say it every night. Bucky and Sam obligingly laughed as Steve dropped kiss to his son’s head, before pecking Katie’s cheek as she carried him out of the kitchen.

**** Half an hour later, after Rori had done one final parade around the kitchen in her princess cat outfit, beaming when Bucky had declared her the “prettiest kitty cat in all the world” and Steve had once more told her “no, you can’t have a real cat”, all 3 kids were clean and in their rooms. Harry and Rori were both tucked up in bed, lights off, whilst Jamie was watching TV with a warning from Steve that he had 30 minutes before it was time to turn it off. Steve knew Jamie would listen, it was part of the deal that he got to have a little time like that in his room as he was the eldest one now. Jamie took it seriously, knowing full well that abusing said privilege would mean it was revoked just as it had been a few weeks months when he’d been giving Steve some serious back chat and cheek. Steve had sent him to his room and Jamie had simply shrugged responding sarcastically “Fine, I’ll go watch my TV, what a huge punishment.” Steve had seen red and headed straight into the garage before coming back with a pair of pliers. He’d walked straight into Jamie’s room, cut the plug off the TV leaving his son staring at him, open mouthed as he breezed out of the room with a simple “watch it now, smart ass…”

The 4 adults were all sat in the lounge, sprawled across the various sofas with a drink each as the fire roared giving the large living room a cosy, homely feel. Stark was stretched out on the rug in front of the fire, snoring slightly, and the stereo was on playing a little background music whilst the rain pattered against the large ceiling to floor windows. Steve adored this time of year for precisely this reason. Katie snuggled under his arm, her back resting against him as she lay stretched out down the cushions, his arm looped around her crossing her chest. The hand that wasn’t holding her wine was gently rubbing over his forearm, her nails softly skating across the skin. Steve dropped a kiss to her head as they both listened to Sam who was recalling how Bucky had ended up with a load of candy stuck on the hand of his metal arm without realising, which he had then stuck in his hair when he’d run his hand through it.

“He cried like a bitch when I was pulling the gummy bears out.” Sam grinned and Steve tipped his head back, a huge laugh rumbling through his chest as Bucky glared at him.

“Punk.” He looked at Steve who simply smirked and took a drink from his bottle

“You know, I gotta say that these kids take it to the next level nowadays.” Sam swallowed a mouthful of beer. “I mean, some of those costumes are awesome. We saw a really cool Iron Man who had the reactor in his chest all lit up.”

Katie smiled “Yeah, Tony does seem to be a popular choice.”

“We got a Captain America.” Steve offered, not one to be out-done and Katie smirked to herself, “And by that I mean when it was me, or I was it, whatever. He may or may not have gotten extra candy.”

Sam and Bucky chuckled and Katie sipped her wine before she tilted her head back and looked up at Steve.

"At least we got no clowns this year..." Katie smirked and at the mere thought Steve shuddered and Bucky let out a huge snort.

"What...you're scared of clowns?" Sam looked at Steve but before he could answer Bucky jumped in.

"He ain’t just scared man, he's petrified. When we were about 8 and my folks took us to Coney, this guy dressed as a clown tried to give Steve a balloon and he ran away, but the best thing was…” Bucky leaned forward, his words coming between his howls of laughter “this clown kept doing it up until Steve was about 18 because he was so small and looked like a 10 year old.”

“Fuck you.” Steve narrowed his eyes at Bucky as he and Sam fell about laughing. Katie kissed his arm and sat up, pointing at Bucky.

“Stop making fun of him…he was cute when he was a smol bean.”

“Thanks sweetheart.” Steve grinned, pressing a kiss to her head. 

“Coulrophobia” Sam nodded sagely, “Quite common actually.”

“I’m not surprised.” Steve shook his head “They’re horrible. I mean, who on earth ever thought they were suitable as entertainment?”

"I dunno, it was kind of entertaining when Jamie dressed up as one.” Katie smiled and Steve physically shivered at the mere memory of that particular Halloween.

“Wait, what?” Bucky asked, looking at Katie and Steve groaned as he steeled himself once more to be the brunt of a joke.

“You seen IT?” Katie asked, “As in the newest one?”

Bucky nodded, grinning “A particular favourite of mine and Jen’s….although last time we watched it we kinda got distracted.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Katie snorted.

“Don’t wanna know,” she shook her head as Sam Hi-fived Bucky “but anyway, we had a Halloween party about 9 years ago at Tony’s. Emmy asked if she could be in charge of hers and Jamie’s outfits so we said yes. Little did we knows she’d had a little help from my dearest brother and just as we were about to set off…” she snorted and started to laugh “they come down the stairs and Jamie’s dressed in the BEST Pennywise outfit I’ve ever seen.”

Bucky’s face split into a huge grin as Katie continued to laugh, shaking her head. “So he’s toddling towards Steve and his face…” she stopped talking, as her laughter was now uncontrollable and she shook her head and Steve sighed.

“It’s not funny.”

“It is.” She stuttered, wiping her eyes. She took a deep breath “You stood there stock still, this look of utter horror on your face and I knew you were fighting the urge to turn and run…”

At that Bucky and Sam both burst out into laughter and Steve shook his head. “He was so upset when I wouldn’t pick him up.”

“You stopped the car at the top of the street because you couldn’t drive as you kept seeing him in the mirror…” Katie howled, tipping her head back in absolute, unadulterated laughter and Steve shook his head.

“You heard Sam, it’s a phobia…” he looked at her “I can’t help it, any more than you can about spiders.”

“Horrible eight legged bastards.” She shuddered as her laughter died down and she glanced up at him winking, as her voice dropped. “But you know the way to my heart…”

“Kiss you often, fuck you well, feed you snacks and kill the spiders.” he intoned, grinning as she chuckled “I know Doll, I know.”

**** Despite his best laid plans going to shit, Steve had to admit it was a nice evening as all 4 of them chatted and laughed but by the time Bucky and Sam left some 2 hours later, Katie had already gone up to bed about 15 minutes prior saying she was tired which meant Steve was now very doubtful he’d be fucking her well at all. Cursing Trick Or Treaters, counter surfing dogs, hungry babies and cheese eating, beer drinking friends he cleared the empty bottles off the coffee table and dumped them in the recycling before he let Stark out into the back yard so he could do his business. Steve stood watching him, the cold October air biting at his skin a little as he glanced up at the now clear sky, the rain having stopped roughly half an hour or so ago. He couldn’t believe it was November tomorrow. Another year almost done with. They were flying by, far too quickly for his liking. This year had marked 7 years since they’d reversed the snap and it still seemed like only yesterday since he’d walked away from it all and passed the shield to Sam, settling down into the domestic life he’d never dreamed in a million years he’d get. He was jerked from his thoughts when Stark walked back up to him, nudging his hand with his cold, wet nose and he smiled, petting the dog’s head as he walked past him into the little laundry room and sat obediently waiting for his paws to be dried. Steve shut the door, locking it and then towelled the dog down before the tan and white mutt shot off through the kitchen and into the hall. Steve heard his collar jangling as he bounded up the stairs to Jamie’s room whilst he himself made his way through to the lounge. The fire was still going, but he knew it would die down over night and he was just moving the grate to the front of it to avoid any embers spilling onto the floor when his ears picked up footsteps on the stairs. He instantly knew they were Katie’s and found himself smirking a little. Maybe he was gonna get a little frisky after all. And then he heard her walking across the hall and frowned, because it sounded like she was in heels.

“Honey?” he called, standing up straight and turning to see his wife leaning against the door frame, one arm extended above her head, the other hand falling to her hips as she looked at him, biting her lip. Steve felt his mouth drop open as he took in her appearance. She was indeed wearing heels, a pair of sparkly, high heeled red Jimmy Choos- her “Ruby Slippers” as Rori dubbed them, and his eyes scanned up her bare legs to the hem of the sheer, red negligee which finished mid-thigh. He could see the outline of a pair of matching, red lace panties underneath as he continued to take in her appearance. The top of the garment was low cut, her cleavage amplified somewhat as her breasts swelled over the lace cups and he swallowed as he felt his cock twitch whilst he simply stared at her, slack jawed. Fuck, she was the sexiest thing he had ever seen in his entire life and when she did stuff like this…Jesus.

He glanced at her face, her hair falling over her shoulders in waves and it was then he noticed that on the top of her head sat a pair of fake red horns. Steve’s mouth curled up in sinful grin as Katie gave a dirty giggle, her green eyes sparkling with mischief as Steve strode towards her purposefully, one thing on his mind.

“Read to sell your soul to the Devil, Solider?” she asked and Steve let out a chuckle as he stopped in front of her, his hands gripping her hips

“I sold it to you years ago, Doll.”

She grinned at him as he pulled her closer, his fingers curling against her gentle curves, tangling in the soft material of the negligee as he dropped his head to hers, kissing her deeply. Her hands smoothed over the top of his grey Henley coming to rest on his chest as he curled one arm around her waist, pulling her closer. At the feel of her pressed against him, Steve let out a soft moan

“God I’ve been waiting for this all night” he mumbled and Katie grinned against his lips.

“Well like I tell the kids, a little patience goes a long way Stevie.” she purred and Steve shrugged, his hands dropping to the back of her thighs as he easily lifted her, her heel-clad legs wrapping around his waist.

“And as you know when it comes to you baby girl, I have very little self-control.”

“Don’t I know it, there’s reason we have 4 biological kids.” she pondered for a moment and Steve laughed as her lips met his again and her hands raked into his hair, her nails biting gently against his scalp.

With steady strides, Steve carried her over to the spot in front of the fireplace where he gently set her on her feet and knelt in front of her. The light of the fire cast a bronze glow against her smooth skin and taking his time to simply enjoy the moment, his hands traced up the back of her calves to her thighs, his touch feather light as he reached up to her ass. He gave her flesh a squeeze before pulling her forward a little and her hands reached out to rest on his shoulders for support as he pushed his head under the bottom of the lace garment, nose skimming along the waistband of her panties. He peppered hot, open mouthed kisses across her soft skin, before he dropped his head lower and nudged his nose over her covered mound. She whimpered a little as he brushed her nub and her hips moved forward, seeking him out.

“Now who’s impatient?” He looked up at her and she glanced down, arching an eyebrow.

“It may have escaped your notice…” she took a deep breath “My self-control is also pretty non-existent around you too.”

“Well, I’m not one to keep a lady waiting” Steve smirked and in a swift movement he hooked an arm round her waist causing her to shriek a little before she laughed as he deposited her gently on the rug, caging her with his arms. He glanced down at her, brunette waves fanning out over the light grey and black of the soft tuft wool and leaned down, his nose nudging against hers.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” she frowned a little, as Steve brushed his lips over hers.

“Good, now remember that. Because I’m about to fuck you like I don’t.”

Katie barely had time to register what he said before he’d moved down her body, hands skating up the outside of her thighs where his fingers bunched in her panties. With a sharp tug he’d snapped the elastic and tossed them to one side, grabbing her ankles and moving her feet so they were planted on the floor, the heels she was wearing caused her pelvis to raise up off her floor slightly. Without another word he pushed her knees apart and his mouth was on her, and he wasn’t holding back.

Katie’s body jolted as she let out a soft sigh of his name which was laced with satisfaction as he set his mouth to work, devouring her with the enthusiasm of a man starved, which in all fairness he was. He was low key horny around her all the time and he’d been sporting a fucking semi pretty much since the first time they’d been interrupted that evening. Having her so close yet out of reach all night so to speak had driven him wild.

His tongue licked, and lapped, flicked and curled over and over and Katie’s groans and pants grew louder and louder as he worked her into a frenzy. She curled the fingers of one hand into his hair, the other gripping at the rug underneath her as she arched her back even more, pushing herself against his face as her head began to spin. The contrast of his short beard scratching at her sensitive skin to his soft tongue and mouth was sending her entire body into overdrive and Steve could tell. He gently grazed her bud with his teeth, inserting 2 fingers inside her, both actions causing her hips to violently buck, her nails dug further into his scalp and he gave a chuckle which vibrated against her clit causing her to groan loudly.

“Jesus Christ Steve…” she panted, looking down at him. He peeked up from between her legs, a cheeky glint in his eyes which shimmered in the light of the fire, full of a blaze of their own as he continued, his tongue flicking at her entrance, before he sucked on her bud and then she was gone. Her legs trembled as her hand pulled his hair, almost to the point it was painful as she gave a loud cry, her other hand reaching to his head as she used both to push him away from her sensitive sex. He moved his head back but his fingers stayed exactly where they were, curling against the soft sponge of her walls as she clamped down around them, giving a little groan as she did, her legs flopping down flat on the floor. With a smug sense of satisfaction at having undone her to the extent he had, Steve pushed himself up, wiping his wet face with the back of his forearm and crawled over her, cupping her cheeks, kissing her again, his tongue tangling against hers. Katie moaned wantonly into his mouth as she could taste her arousal as his mouth dominated hers before he pulled back, his thumb and forefinger gently gripping her chin making her eyes open and lock onto his.

“On your knees sweetheart.” His tone was low as he used his Captain’s voice to issue the instruction, telling her not to argue. Not that she would, as mouthy and stubborn as she was this was the one area of their relationship in which she was always willing to surrender to him completely. With a graceful movement she pulled her legs back towards her and turned her body, rising to her knees, palms planted on the floor.

Steve pushed the waistband of his sweats and boxers down before he moved his hands to her hips, pulling her back with a swift action, placing one palm on the base of her back. With the other he took his throbbing cock in his hand, gave himself a few quick strokes before he lined himself up. With a snap of his hips he buried himself in her heat, balls deep, jolting her forward. The rumble from his throat slipped out of his mouth at the relief of finally being inside her, drowning her cries out.

His pace was relentless from the outset, just as it had been when he’d worked her with his mouth and his hands gripped her waist tightly as he drove in and out of her over and over, in fast, deep movements, pulling her back onto him with each thrust he made. He watched her face as her head fell forward between her arms, her bottom lip clamped between her lip, eyes closed in pleasure, those dirty little noises she made joined the sound of skin slapping skin as he did just as he’d said he was going to do, and fucked her hard.

It was raw, animalistic even, and a far cry from the usual way Steve liked to love on her but hell, it felt just as good to Katie as anything he ever did and after a particularly deep drive she cried out, fisting her hands into the rug, as she felt him bend over her, his large frame crowding hers from behind.

“God you feel so good baby…” he groaned, his chest was pressed to her back, his mouth nipping at that spot on her neck as she felt the heat pooling in her belly again. In an almost automatic movement, her head rolled to the left, allowing him access to her neck where he nipped and sucked at her skin, her gasps growing louder as he continued to thrust. “So fuckin’ good…”

As he spoke, Steve reached up and wrapped one large hand around her neck, tipping her face round to his so he could kiss her. It was all Katie could do to kiss him back, allowing him to control the pace as she was completely gone, the sensations lancing through her body had left her totally pliant to his ministrations.

“Captain…” she panted softly against his mouth as Steve gave an almost pathetic whine at the sound of that name slipping from her throat as he continued to push into her, driving deep before he stilled, his hips flush to her ass. Katie gave a squeak as he rotated his hips, letting go of her neck and pushing himself back up as his hand slid down her body, between her legs drawing a long wail of delight from her mouth as he fondled her bud, “Shit…I’m…Steve I’m gonna...”

“Go on, come for me baby…” he hissed, his jaw clenched, the sweat beading on his brow as he rutted forward again, once more grinding against her “Give it to me, let go…”

With a last, loud, filthy lament she came, hard, her knees almost buckling, but Steve’s arm quickly looped around her waist holding her up as she blissed out completely, the entire world fading around her as she felt nothing but the familiar hot, warm pleasure as her abdomen contracted and relaxed as her walls spasmed around him over and over.

“Good girl.” he praised as he continued thrusting through, the heat in his own belly now beginning to spike even more, “Such a good girl for me.” Katie preened at his praise, relaxing slightly as he bent over and kissed her neck once more, picking up the pace slightly. And then, she pushed back suddenly catching Steve off guard, sending him sprawling onto his back. She went with him, his cock still stuffed inside her, her back sliding on his chest as he continued to fuck up into her, his knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Katie’s head fell back against his shoulder, her face tilting to kiss his as she lay on him, legs spread, feet planted either side of his hips. His hand crept over her stomach, dipping into her folds as his fingers and palm furiously toyed and played with her, brushing against his shaft as he rocked in and out of his wife.

“Steve…” she whined “I can’t…it’s too much…” “You got one more in you.” he all but growled, “I know you do. And I’m taking it, whether you want me to or not.”

True to his word he continued his unyielding assault on her senses and before long her breathing had risen and his name was slipping from Katie’s lips in that familiar staccato pant. She gave in, and this time the climax almost feeble but still just as pleasurable as she fluttered around him. At the feel of her round him, and the sound of the exhausted, sultry groan she let out into his hear Steve was done for, and with a final, violent buck upwards he came, biting down gently on her shoulder, muffling the noises of satisfaction and pleasure that rolled from the back of his throat.

The pair of them lay still, chests heaving  and Katie licked her lips, eyes closed as she waited for her body to gain some form of control over itself. After a little while, she felt Steve’s hands gently slid up her side to the outside of her arms, giving a gentle rub as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

“You ok?” he asked.

Katie hummed a little and grinned, tipping her face round to look at him “I’ll say…that was…”

“Yeah…” Steve nodded, the pair of them chuckling. “It was worth the wait.”

Katie’s head lolled back against his shoulder and she closed her eyes again. Not wanting to move just yet, the feeling of her lay over the top of him whilst he was still buried inside her was too nice, Steve wrapped his arms around her front as he shifted slightly so he could press a kiss to her lips. She wiggled her hips a little and he gave a low grunt at the sensation and he looked at her as she arched an eyebrow.

“You want more?” he asked, his voice low and she fixed him with a look that was half suggestive, half apprehension as to whether she could actually take anymore. Steve grinned and pressed his lips back to hers, the kiss deepening as he felt himself starting to grow hard inside her again, and just as he had pushed her up into a sitting position, backwards on his lap, the security system sounded and the front door clicked open.

Katie’s head turned back to look at him over her shoulder, both faces sporting expressions of utter horror as Emmy and Peter’s voices drifted up the hall.

“Shit…” Katie jumped up, glancing down at herself as Steve scrambled to his feet, tucking himself into his pants, hastily yanking at the crotch in an attempt to make them a little less snug, so to speak.

“Give me your shirt…” Katie hissed and he reached over, grabbing a fistful of it in his hand. Yanking it over his head he tossed it to her and she shoved it on over her skimpy little outfit, before she kicked off her heels, and she’d just smoothed her hair down when the door to the lounge opened. Emmy and Peter stopped dead. Peter hastily turned away as Emmy’s eyes roved over Steve’s shirtless form, then to Katie who was stood in his Henley which thankfully was big enough to cover her body down to the middle of her thighs, hiding the red lace garment underneath. Whilst they might have hidden their modesty for the most part, there was no hiding the fact both of their faces were flushed with exhaustion and sexual gratification…nor was there any disguising the fact Katie was stood with her legs crossed in a desperate attempt to stop Steve’s release from dribbling down her leg. And then just to make it even more obvious, Katie’s shredded red lace panties were dumped in the middle of the floor right by her discarded heels…

“Jesus Christ…” Emmy mumbled, backing out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Katie and Steve glanced at one another, and Katie burst out laughing at the look of utter horror on Steve’s face.

“Cheer up Steve…” she patted his chest “Could have been worse.”

“Seriously?”  he blinked “What could be worse than basically being caught in flagrante by our daughter and that boy?”

“Ok, first off, his name is Pete…and actually I can think of a few things.” Katie shrugged, bending down to pick up her shoes and her destroyed underwear “Had she come in like 2 minutes earlier she’d have caught us in a much more compromising position…or even worse than that, we could have walked in on her.”

“Doll, just don’t!” Steve held his hand up, giving a groan.

Katie laughed and made her way to the door. “I’m going upstairs to clean up and get in bed, can you bring me a bottle of water up please?”

Steve sighed and nodded, watching her go. Taking a deep breath he wandered into the kitchen were Emmy was stood scowling, leaning against the kitchen counter as she glared as his topless form, Pete hastily averting his eyes.

“You two are disgusting.” Emmy shook her head “It’s bad enough hearing you in your bedroom but…fucking hell Dad!”

“Watch your mouth Emily.” Steve said sternly as he felt the heat rising in his neck. He made his way to the fridge, pulling out two bottles of water before he straightened up. “We weren’t expecting you back so early.”

“Clearly.” Emmy arched an eyebrow.

“You know what?” Steve’s temper flared a little “This is mine and your Ma’s house, and well, frankly, we’ll do what we want, where we want.”

At that Peter gave a little cough and pushed himself up off the counter, “I’m gonna…yeah…” he said, pointing to the utility room door “I’ll be in the cabin Em.”

Neither Steve nor Emmy paid him any attention as he scuttled off, the door clicking shut behind him.

“Dad!” Emmy spluttered, her face in her hand as she shook her head “That was so embarrassing!”

“Well it wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs for us either you know Em!” Steve groaned “Like, seriously, why did you even come in here anyway? You don’t need to come through the house to get to your annex!”

“We were hungry.” She whined, “Mom said she’d leave us something in the fridge although frankly, now I’ve lost my appetite.”

Steve wiped a hand over his face before he shook his head, taking a deep breath “I’m gonna go up to bed. Can we just forget this happened, please?”

“I’d love to.” Emmy practically growled as she made her way towards the rear of the kitchen. “God, I need to scrub my eyes with bleach…once you’ve finished using it to mop wherever you were…you know.”

Steve arched an eyebrow and that little devil on his shoulder reared his, or her as the case may be,  head and he couldn’t help the sarcastic response as it flew from his mouth “I hate to break it to you sweetheart, but I’d need a lot of bleach to wash down each surface of this house I’ve had your mother on.”

Emmy’s mouth fell open and she looked at him, before she let out a loud groan. “You’re disgusting. Like, I can’t even…”

She shook her head and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. Steve shook his head, watched as the security light clicked on whilst she stormed across the back garden to her little annex and with a chuckle he made sure the door was locked and turned off the lights.

All in all it had been a damned good day now he thought about it. He’d carved pumpkins with his kids, seen them all have a great time, eaten Italian, drunk beer, chatted to his friends, fucked his wife exceptionally well and now embarrassed his eldest.

“Mission accomplished…” he snorted to himself as he took the stairs two at a two, padding across the hallway and entering his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Forever

One Shot: The Devil Wears Nada

Summary: Steve’s fed up of getting cock blocked during what was supposed to be bit of alone time and would make a deal with the Devil herself to get some alone time with his wife… Warning: SMUT SMUT SMUT- (NSFW, 18+) Like seriously, if you’re under 18 get off my blog. This is, possibly, the filthiest thing I’ve written for Steve to date!

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark.

A/N: So this follows on directly from Bumps In The Night which was written by @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​ as part of Stark Spangled Banner’s Birthday Party. Give it a read, its wonderful!

If you are currently reading Stark Spangled Banner for the first time as it is being reposted then this contains MAJOR SPOILERS and I recommend you wait until you’ve finished so you don’t spoil anything!

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Stark Spangled Forever Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Katie and Steve headed back inside, Katie diverting into the lounge to go and retrieve the candy off the kids before they ate too much of it in one sitting. Steve had to snort at the various cries of protests that rang round the lounge and his wife’s stern voice telling the three children in there that she didn’t care if it was Saturday, they weren’t consuming enough E-numbers to fuel an army before bed. He made his way into the kitchen and was completely unsurprised to find Bucky already had his head buried in the fridge.

“Make yourself at home.” He deadpanned and Bucky looked at him, thrusting a beer in his direction. “Gee thanks.” Steve’s dry sarcasm still present as he looked at his friend who was offering him his own fucking beer. Bucky grinned and shrugged as he passed one to Sam as well as he strode into the room, the three men popping the tops. Steve took a long pull from his as he eyed Bucky “Why are you here?”

“Rude much?” Bucky asked, his eyes still checking out the contents of the refrigerator. “We were concerned uncles…you weren’t with the kids.”

“They were with Emmy and Queens” Steve arched an eyebrow “Perfectly safe.”

“They showed up on Tin Man’s doorstep.” Sam grinned “We were halfway through studying a couple of files and they basically swamped us and said it was their last stop of the night. Bucky thought it would be fun to come back with them.”

“To bug the crap out of me or…”

“I wanted candy.” Buck shrugged.

“Then you should have gone Trick Or Treating.” Steve replied “And let’s face it, with a face like that, who needs a mask?”

“Ouch, Stevie…” Bucky looked at him as Sam chuckled in the background, before he turned his attention back to the fridge “Oooh, your Missus made a cheeseboard.”

“What are you a fuckin’ mouse?” Sam asked as Bucky pulled out the platter, setting it on the side.

“Just ‘cause I appreciate the good things in life, Seagull and you can’t.” Bucky shrugged, unwrapping the film from the cheese. “You know, Steve was just like this growing up.”

“Yeah, well, now I have better taste and I’m also big enough to kick your ass so stop eating my food and go home before I throw you out.”

“What’s got into you?” Bucky looked at him.

“You’re disrupting my plans.” Steve said simply.

“What pl-ooooooh!” Buck’s question morphed into a noise of acknowledgment as he looked at his friend “Then you should have taken advantage of the empty house earlier.”

“School boy error, Cap.” Sam smirked and Steve let out a growl of frustration.

“Well our various attempts to were thwarted one way or another, and now you two punks are ruining it again.” Steve glared at them “Put the cheese back and piss off.”

Bucky smirked. “Imma tell Katie you’re being nasty to me.”

Steve narrowed his eyes knowing full well the soft spot his girl had for Bucky and Sam. If she got so much as a sniff he was being a bit of a shit to either of them he’d be in for it. “You wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t what?”

At the sound of his wife’s voice Steve jumped and turned to see her clutching the huge bowl that had previously contained their candy by the door and now sported the combined content of their kids’ bags, Harry toddling behind her, his eyes fixed on the prize.

“Oh this is gonna be good.” Sam smirked, leaning off to the side unwrapping a Reeses which he pulled out of his pocket, slowly chewing as if watching a movie.

“Hey Doll Face” Bucky grinned at her “Steve won’t let me eat the cheese.”

“Ignore him, you help yourself Buck.” She waved to it as she passed Steve the bowl of candy “Stop being so moody, stick that up high somewhere.”

“You know that won’t stop Jamie, Rori or him don’t you?” Steve looked at her as she picked Harry up who watched shrewdly as his dad placed the bowl on the top shelf of one of the cupboards “All 3 of them had scaled the refrigerator by the time they were 2.”

“No but it might delay them enough for us to catch them.” She shrugged, her eyes moving to Bucky who was eating a block of cheddar like it was an apple “Buck, do you want some crackers or…”

Bucky nodded but Steve cut him off. “No he doesn’t.”

“Yes I do.” Bucky smirked as Katie looked at Steve, arching an eyebrow at his unusually frosty nature towards his friends. She set Harry down on the counter by Bucky who grinned at the toddler, offering him his hand in a hi-five. Harry grinned and slapped his Uncles palm before he looked at the cheese.

“Absolutely not pal.” Steve said to him and Harry looked up.

“Dinosaurs don’t eat cheese.” Bucky shook his head at Harry who stared at him and blinked before he shrugged.

“But I hungry.”

“You can’t possibly be.” Katie looked at her son

“I am, Momma.”

“Now look what you’ve done.” Steve glared at Bucky.

“Me?” Bucky scoffed, his mouth full “What did I do?”

“Set him off, look, why don’t you go and eat Jen’s cheese?” Steve asked and at that there was a pause before Sam, Katie and Bucky all burst out laughing. Steve groaned “Ok, that came out wrong.”

Sam snorted “that’s what she said.”

Katie laughed harder and Bucky grinned, swallowing his mouthful as Katie headed into the pantry. “Innuendo aside, I can’t. She’s got something going on at the coffee shop. Bunch of teenagers doing Halloween activities or something, I don’t know. She won’t be free until later.” He turned to Katie as she walked back in, handing him the box of crackers and he thanked her “So I thought I’d come see my best friends for a beer seeing as it’s not even half 8 on a Saturday yet.”

Katie smiled at him “You two are always welcome here, you know that. Isn’t that right Steve.”

Steve fixed a smile on his face and glared at Bucky who was positively beaming at the fact he knew he was being a cock-block. “Course it is honey, course.”

“Right my little Jurassic baby!” Katie picked Harry up and he giggled, the hood of his dinosaur costume falling over his eyes. “Bath time.

“No bath, Momma.” Harry shook his head furiously, looking up at her as she pushed the clothing back off his head.“I have one tomorrow.”

Katie looked at him, “Your face is filthy.”

“Wash my face then.” He looked at her and Katie raised her eyebrows and looked at Steve who chuckled.

“Wanna help me out here, Daddy?” Katie asked and Steve looked at his son.

“Hey, Buddy, how about Momma washes your face tonight but you’re having a bath first thing in the morning.” Steve looked at Harry as his son considered it for a second. It was late after all. Skipping bath night one evening wouldn’t kill him.

“Deal” Harry nodded, holding his hand out. Steve shook it as Bucky and Sam both gave snorts.

“You need a hand?” Steve asked.

“No, I got it.” Katie shook her head “I’ll get him sorted. You can send Rori and Jamie up in fifteen though.”

“Sure.” Steve nodded.

“Say goodnight Harry.” Katie said, turning round so Harry could see Sam and Bucky.

“Goodnight Harry.” He grinned, before he cackled at his usual joke. The tot had no idea why it was funny, but when he had first said it, it had cracked both Katie and Steve up so now he seemed to say it every night. Bucky and Sam obligingly laughed as Steve dropped kiss to his son’s head, before pecking Katie’s cheek as she carried him out of the kitchen.

**** Half an hour later, after Rori had done one final parade around the kitchen in her princess cat outfit, beaming when Bucky had declared her the “prettiest kitty cat in all the world” and Steve had once more told her “no, you can’t have a real cat”, all the kids were clean and in their rooms. Harry and Rori were both tucked up in bed, lights off, whilst Jamie was watching TV with a warning from Steve that he had thirty minutes before it was time to turn it off. Steve knew Jamie would listen, it was part of the deal that he got to have a little time like that in his room as he was the eldest one now. Jamie took it seriously, knowing full well that abusing said privilege would mean it was revoked just as it had been a few weeks months when he’d been giving Steve some serious back chat and cheek. Steve had sent him to his room and Jamie had simply shrugged responding sarcastically “Fine, I’ll go watch my TV, what a huge punishment.” 

Steve had seen red and headed straight into the garage before coming back with a pair of pliers. He’d walked straight into Jamie’s room, cut the plug off the TV leaving his son staring at him, open mouthed as he breezed out of the room with a simple “watch it now, smart ass…”

The four adults were all sat in the lounge, sprawled across the various sofas with a drink each as the fire roared giving the large living room a cosy, homely feel. Stark was stretched out on the rug in front of the fire, snoring slightly, and the stereo was on playing a little background music whilst the rain pattered against the large ceiling to floor windows. Steve adored this time of year for precisely this reason. Katie snuggled under his arm, her back resting against him as she lay stretched out down the cushions, his arm looped around her crossing her chest. The hand that wasn’t holding her wine was gently rubbing over his forearm, her nails softly skating across the skin. Steve dropped a kiss to her head as they both listened to Sam who was recalling how Bucky had ended up with a load of candy stuck on the hand of his metal arm without realising, which he had then stuck in his hair when he’d run his hand through it.

“He cried like a bitch when I was pulling the gummy bears out.” Sam grinned and Steve tipped his head back, a huge laugh rumbling through his chest as Bucky glared at him.

“Punk.” He looked at Steve who simply smirked and took a drink from his bottle

“You know, I gotta say that these kids take it to the next level nowadays.” Sam swallowed a mouthful of beer. “I mean, some of those costumes are awesome. We saw a really cool Iron Man who had the reactor in his chest all lit up.”

Katie smiled “Yeah, Tony does seem to be a popular choice.”

“We got a Captain America.” Steve offered, not one to be out-done and Katie smirked to herself, “And by that I mean when it was me, or I was it, whatever. He may or may not have gotten extra candy.”

Sam and Bucky chuckled and Katie sipped her wine before she tilted her head back and looked up at Steve.

"At least we got no clowns this year..." Katie smirked and at the mere thought Steve shuddered and Bucky let out a huge snort.

"What...you're scared of clowns?" Sam looked at Steve but before he could answer Bucky jumped in.

"He ain’t just scared man, he's petrified. When we were about 8 and my folks took us to Coney, this guy dressed as a clown tried to give Steve a balloon and he ran away, but the best thing was…” Bucky leaned forward, his words coming between his howls of laughter “this clown kept doing it up until Steve was about 18 because he was so small and looked like a 10 year old.”

“Fuck you.” Steve narrowed his eyes at Bucky as he and Sam fell about laughing. Katie kissed his arm and sat up, pointing at Bucky.

“Stop making fun of him…he was cute when he was a smol bean.”

“Thanks baby.” Steve grinned, pressing a kiss to her head. 

“Coulrophobia” Sam nodded sagely, “Quite common actually.”

“I’m not surprised.” Steve shook his head “They’re horrible. I mean, who on earth ever thought they were suitable as entertainment?”

"I dunno, it was kind of entertaining when Jamie dressed up as one.” Katie smiled and Steve physically shivered at the mere memory of that particular Halloween 

“Wait, what?” Bucky asked, looking at Katie and Steve groaned as he steeled himself once more to be the brunt of a joke.

“You seen IT?” Katie asked, “As in the newest one?”

Bucky nodded, grinning “A particular favourite of mine and Jen’s….although last time we watched it we kinda got distracted.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Katie snorted.

“Don’t wanna know,” she shook her head as Sam Hi-fived Bucky “but anyway, we had a Halloween party about 9 years ago at Tony’s. Emmy asked if she could be in charge of hers and Jamie’s outfits so we said yes. Little did we knows she’d had a little help from my dearest brother and just as we were about to set off…” she snorted and started to laugh “they come down the stairs and Jamie’s dressed in the BEST Pennywise outfit I’ve ever seen.”

Bucky’s face split into a huge grin as Katie continued to laugh, shaking her head.

“So he’s toddling towards Steve and his face…” she stopped talking, as her laughter was now uncontrollable and she shook her head and Steve sighed.

“It’s not funny.”

“It is.” She stuttered, wiping her eyes. She took a deep breath “You stood there stock still, this look of utter horror on your face and I knew you were fighting the urge to turn and run…”

At that Bucky and Sam both burst out into laughter and Steve shook his head. “He was so upset when I wouldn’t pick him up.”

“You stopped the car at the top of the street because you couldn’t drive as you kept seeing him in the mirror…” Katie howled, tipping her head back in absolute, unadulterated laughter and Steve shook his head.

“It’s a phobia…” he looked at her “I can’t help it, any more than you can about spiders.”

“Horrible eight legged bastards.” She shuddered as her laughter died down. “But you know the way to my heart…”

“Kiss you often, fuck you well, feed you snacks and kill the spiders.” he recited, grinning as she chuckled “I know Doll, I know.”

**** Despite his best laid plans going to shit, Steve had to admit it was a nice evening as all four of them chatted and laughed but by the time Bucky and Sam left some two hours later, Katie had already gone up to bed about 15 minutes prior saying she was tired which meant Steve was now very doubtful he’d be fucking her well at all. Cursing Trick Or Treaters, counter surfing dogs, hungry babies and cheese eating, beer drinking friends he cleared the empty bottles off the coffee table and dumped them in the recycling before he let Stark out into the back yard so he could do his business. Steve stood watching him, the cold October air biting at his skin a little as he glanced up at the now clear sky, the rain having stopped roughly half an hour or so ago. He couldn’t believe it was November tomorrow. Another year almost done with. They were flying by, far too quickly for his liking. 

This year had marked seven years since they’d reversed the snap and it still seemed like only yesterday since he’d walked away from it all and passed the shield to Sam, settling down into the domestic life he’d never dreamed in a million years he’d get. He was jerked from his thoughts when Stark walked back up to him, nudging his hand with his cold, wet nose and he smiled, petting the dog’s head as he walked past him into the little laundry room and sat obediently waiting for his paws to be dried. Steve shut the door, locking it and then towelled the dog down before the tan and white mutt shot off through the kitchen and into the hall. Steve heard his collar jangling as he bounded up the stairs to Jamie’s room whilst he himself made his way through to the lounge. The fire was still going, but he knew it would die down over night and he was just moving the grate to the front of it to avoid any embers spilling onto the floor when his ears picked up footsteps on the stairs. He instantly knew they were Katie’s and found himself smirking a little. Maybe he was gonna get a little frisky after all. And then he heard her walking across the hall and frowned, because it sounded like she was in heels.

“Honey?” he called, standing up straight and turning to see his wife leaning against the door frame, one arm extended above her head, the other hand falling to her hips as she looked at him, biting her lip. Steve felt his mouth drop open as he took in her appearance. She was indeed wearing heels, a pair of sparkly, high heeled red Jimmy Choos- her “Ruby Slippers” as Rori dubbed them, and his eyes scanned up her bare legs to the hem of the sheer, red negligee which finished mid-thigh. He could see the outline of a pair of matching, red lace panties underneath as he continued to take in her appearance. The top of the garment was low cut, her cleavage amplified somewhat as her breasts swelled over the lace cups and he swallowed as he felt his cock twitch whilst he simply stared at her, slack jawed. Fuck, she was the sexiest thing he had ever seen in his entire life and when she did stuff like this…Jesus.

He glanced at her face, her hair falling over her shoulders in waves and it was then he noticed that on the top of her head sat a pair of fake red horns. Steve’s mouth curled up in sinful grin as Katie gave a dirty giggle, her green eyes sparkling with mischief as Steve strode towards her purposefully, one thing on his mind.

“Read to sell your soul to the Devil, Solider?” she asked and Steve let out a chuckle as he stopped in front of her, his hands gripping her hips

“I sold it to you years ago, Doll.”

She grinned at him as he pulled her closer, his fingers curling against her gentle curves, tangling in the soft material of the negligee as he dropped his head to hers, kissing her deeply. Her hands smoothed over the top of his grey Henley coming to rest on his chest as he curled one arm around her waist, pulling her closer. At the feel of her pressed against him, Steve let out a soft moan

“God I’ve been waiting for this all night” he mumbled and Katie grinned against his lips.

“Well like I tell the kids, a little patience goes a long way Stevie.” she purred and Steve shrugged, his hands dropping to the back of her thighs as he easily lifted her, her heel-clad legs wrapping around his waist.

“And as you know when it comes to you baby girl, I have very little self-control.”

“Don’t I know it, there’s reason we have 4 biological kids.” she pondered for a moment and Steve laughed as her lips met his again and her hands raked into his hair, her nails biting gently against his scalp.

With steady strides, Steve carried her over to the spot in front of the fireplace where he gently set her on her feet and knelt in front of her. The light of the fire cast a bronze glow against her smooth skin and taking his time to simply enjoy the moment, his hands traced up the back of her calves to her thighs, his touch feather light as he reached up to her ass. He gave her flesh a squeeze before pulling her forward a little and her hands reached out to rest on his shoulders for support as he pushed his head under the bottom of the lace garment, nose skimming along the waistband of her panties. He peppered hot, open mouthed kisses across her soft skin, before he dropped his head lower and nudged his nose over her covered mound. She whimpered a little as he brushed her nub and her hips moved forward, seeking him out.

“Now who’s impatient?” He looked up at her and she glanced down, arching an eyebrow.

“It may have escaped your notice…” she took a deep breath “My self-control is also pretty non-existent around you too.”

“Well, I’m not one to keep a lady waiting” Steve smirked and in a swift movement he hooked an arm round her waist causing her to shriek a little before she laughed as he deposited her gently on the rug, caging her with his arms. He glanced down at her, brunette waves fanning out over the light grey and black of the soft tuft wool and leaned down, his nose nudging against hers.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” she frowned a little, as Steve brushed his lips over hers.

“Good, now remember that. Because I’m about to fuck you like I don’t.”

Katie barely had time to register what he said before he’d moved down her body, hands skating up the outside of her thighs where his fingers bunched in her panties. With a sharp tug he’d snapped the elastic and tossed them to one side, grabbing her ankles and moving her feet so they were planted on the floor, the heels she was wearing caused her pelvis to raise up off her floor slightly. Without another word he pushed her knees apart and his mouth was on her, and he wasn’t holding back.

Katie’s body jolted as she let out a soft sigh of his name which was laced with satisfaction as he set his mouth to work, devouring her with the enthusiasm of a man starved, which in all fairness he was. He was low key horny around her all the time and he’d been sporting a fucking semi pretty much since the first time they’d been interrupted that evening. Having her so close yet out of reach all night so to speak had driven him wild.

His tongue licked, and lapped, flicked and curled over and over and Katie’s groans and pants grew louder and louder as he worked her into a frenzy. She curled the fingers of one hand into his hair, the other gripping at the rug underneath her as she arched her back even more, pushing herself against his face as her head began to spin. The contrast of his short beard scratching at her sensitive skin to his soft tongue and mouth was sending her entire body into overdrive and Steve could tell. He gently grazed her bud with his teeth, inserting 2 fingers inside her, both actions causing her hips to violently buck, her nails dug further into his scalp and he gave a chuckle which vibrated against her clit causing her to groan loudly.

“Jesus Christ Steve…” she panted, looking down at him. He peeked up from between her legs, a cheeky glint in his eyes which shimmered in the light of the fire, full of a blaze of their own as he continued, his tongue flicking at her entrance, before he sucked on her bud and then she was gone. Her legs trembled as her hand pulled his hair, almost to the point it was painful as she gave a loud cry, her other hand reaching to his head as she used both to push him away from her sensitive sex. He moved his head back but his fingers stayed exactly where they were, curling against the soft sponge of her walls as she clamped down around them, giving a little groan as she did, her legs flopping down flat on the floor. With a smug sense of satisfaction at having undone her to the extent he had, Steve pushed himself up, wiping his wet face with the back of his forearm and crawled over her, cupping her cheeks, kissing her again, his tongue tangling against hers. Katie moaned wantonly into his mouth as she could taste her arousal as his mouth dominated hers before he pulled back, his thumb and forefinger gently gripping her chin making her eyes open and lock onto his.

“On your knees sweetheart.” His tone was low as he used his Captain’s voice to issue the instruction, telling her not to argue. Not that she would, as mouthy and stubborn as she was this was the one area of their relationship in which she was always willing to surrender to him completely. With a graceful movement she pulled her legs back towards her and turned her body, rising to her knees, palms planted on the floor.

Steve pushed the waistband of his sweats and boxers down before he moved his hands to her hips, pulling her back with a swift action, placing one palm on the base of her back. With the other he took his throbbing cock in his hand, gave himself a few quick strokes before he lined himself up. With a snap of his hips he buried himself in her heat, balls deep, jolting her forward. The rumble from his throat slipped out of his mouth at the relief of finally being inside her, drowning her cries out.

His pace was relentless from the outset, just as it had been when he’d worked her with his mouth and his hands gripped her waist tightly as he drove in and out of her over and over, in fast, deep movements, pulling her back onto him with each thrust he made. He watched her face as her head fell forward between her arms, her bottom lip clamped between her lip, eyes closed in pleasure, those dirty little noises she made joined the sound of skin slapping skin as he did just as he’d said he was going to do, and fucked her hard.

It was raw, animalistic even, and a far cry from the usual way Steve liked to love on her but hell, it felt just as good to Katie as anything he ever did and after a particularly deep drive she cried out, fisting her hands into the rug, as she felt him bend over her, his large frame crowding hers from behind.

“God you feel so good baby…” he groaned, his chest was pressed to her back, his mouth nipping at that spot on her neck as she felt the heat pooling in her belly again. In an almost automatic movement, her head rolled to the left, allowing him access to her neck where he nipped and sucked at her skin, her gasps growing louder as he continued to thrust. “So fuckin’ good…”

As he spoke, Steve reached up and wrapped one large hand around her neck, tipping her face round to his so he could kiss her. It was all Katie could do to kiss him back, allowing him to control the pace as she was completely gone, the sensations lancing through her body had left her totally pliant to his ministrations.

“Captain…” she panted softly against his mouth as Steve gave an almost pathetic whine at the sound of that name slipping from her throat as he continued to push into her, driving deep before he stilled, his hips flush to her ass. Katie gave a squeak as he rotated his hips, letting go of her neck and pushing himself back up as his hand slid down her body, between her legs drawing a long wail of delight from her mouth as he fondled her bud, “Shit…I’m…Steve I’m gonna...”

“Go on, come for me baby…” he hissed, his jaw clenched, the sweat beading on his brow as he rutted forward again, once more grinding against her “Give it to me, let go…”

With a last, loud, filthy lament she came, hard, her knees almost buckling, but Steve’s arm quickly looped around her waist holding her up as she blissed out completely, the entire world fading around her as she felt nothing but the familiar hot, warm pleasure as her abdomen contracted and relaxed as her walls spasmed around him over and over.

“Good girl.” he praised as he continued thrusting through, the heat in his own belly now beginning to spike even more, “Such a good girl for me.” Katie preened at his praise, relaxing slightly as he bent over and kissed her neck once more, picking up the pace slightly. And then, she pushed back suddenly catching Steve off guard, sending him sprawling onto his back. She went with him, his cock still stuffed inside her, her back sliding on his chest as he continued to fuck up into her, his knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Katie’s head fell back against his shoulder, her face tilting to kiss his as she lay on him, legs spread, feet planted either side of his hips. His hand crept over her stomach, dipping into her folds as his fingers and palm furiously toyed and played with her, brushing against his shaft as he rocked in and out of his wife.

“Steve…” she whined “I can’t…it’s too much…” “You got one more in you…” he all but growled, “I know you do. And I’m taking it, whether you want me to or not.”

True to his word he continued his unyielding assault on her senses and before long her breathing had risen and his name was slipping from Katie’s lips in that familiar staccato pant. She gave in, and this time the climax almost feeble but still just as pleasurable as she fluttered around him. At the feel of her round him, and the sound of the exhausted, sultry groan she let out into his hear Steve was done for, and with a final, violent buck upwards he came, biting down gently on her shoulder, muffling the noises of satisfaction and pleasure that rolled from the back of his throat.

The pair of them lay still, chests heaving  and Katie licked her lips, eyes closed as she waited for her body to gain some form of control over itself. After a little while, she felt Steve’s hands gently slid up her side to the outside of her arms, giving a gentle rub as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

“You ok?” he asked.

Katie hummed a little and grinned, tipping her face round to look at him “I’ll say…that was…”

“Yeah…” Steve nodded, the pair of them chuckling. “It was worth the wait.”

Katie’s head lolled back against his shoulder and she closed her eyes again. Not wanting to move just yet, the feeling of her lay over the top of him whilst he was still buried inside her was too nice, Steve wrapped his arms around her front as he shifted slightly so he could press a kiss to her lips. She wiggled her hips a little and he gave a low grunt at the sensation and he looked at her as she arched an eyebrow.

“You want more?” he asked, his voice low and she fixed him with a look that was half suggestive, half apprehension as to whether she could actually take anymore. Steve grinned and pressed his lips back to hers, the kiss deepening as he felt himself starting to grow hard inside her again, and just as he had pushed her up into a sitting position, backwards on his lap, the security system sounded and the front door clicked open.

Katie’s head turned back to look at him over her shoulder, both faces sporting expressions of utter horror as Emmy and Peter’s voices drifted up the hall.

“Shit…” Katie jumped up, glancing down at herself as Steve scrambled to his feet, tucking himself into his pants, hastily yanking at the crotch in an attempt to make them a little less snug, so to speak.

“Give me your shirt…” Katie hissed and he reached over, grabbing a fistful of it in his hand. Yanking it over his head he tossed it to her and she shoved it on over her skimpy little outfit, before she kicked off her heels, and she’d just smoothed her hair down when the door to the lounge opened. Emmy and Peter stopped dead. Peter hastily turned away as Emmy’s eyes roved over Steve’s shirtless form, then to Katie who was stood in his Henley which thankfully was big enough to cover her body down to the middle of her thighs, hiding the red lace garment underneath. Whilst they might have hidden their modesty for the most part, there was no hiding the fact both of their faces were flushed with exhaustion and sexual gratification…nor was there any disguising the fact Katie was stood with her legs crossed in a desperate attempt to stop Steve’s release from dribbling down her leg. And then just to make it even more obvious, Katie’s shredded red lace panties were dumped in the middle of the floor right by her discarded heels…

“Jesus Christ…” Emmy mumbled, backing out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Katie and Steve glanced at one another, and Katie burst out laughing at the look of utter horror on Steve’s face.

“Cheer up Steve…” she patted his chest “Could have been worse.”

“Seriously?”  he blinked “What could be worse than basically being caught in flagrante by our daughter and that boy?”

“Ok, first off, his name is Pete…and actually I can think of a few things.” Katie shrugged, bending down to pick up her shoes and her destroyed underwear “Had she come in like 2 minutes earlier she’d have caught us in a much more compromising position…or even worse than that, we could have walked in on her.”

“Doll, just don’t!” Steve held his hand up, giving a groan.

Katie laughed and made her way to the door. “I’m going upstairs to clean up and get in bed, can you bring me a bottle of water up please?”

Steve sighed and nodded, watching her go. Taking a deep breath he wandered into the kitchen were Emmy was stood scowling, leaning against the kitchen counter as she glared as his topless form, Pete hastily averting his eyes.

“You two are disgusting.” Emmy shook her head “It’s bad enough hearing you in your bedroom but…fucking hell Dad!”

“Watch your mouth Emily.” Steve said sternly as he felt the heat rising in his neck. He made his way to the fridge, pulling out two bottles of water before he straightened up. “We weren’t expecting you back so early.”

“Clearly.” Emmy arched an eyebrow.

“You know what?” Steve’s temper flared a little “This is mine and your Ma’s house, and well, frankly, we’ll do what we want, where we want.”

At that Peter gave a little cough and pushed himself up off the counter, “I’m gonna…yeah…” he said, pointing to the utility room door “I’ll be in the cabin Em.”

Neither Steve nor Emmy paid him any attention as he scuttled off, the door clicking shut behind him.

“Dad!” Emmy spluttered, her face in her hand as she shook her head “That was so embarrassing!”

“Well it wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs for us either you know Em!” Steve groaned “Like, seriously, why did you even come in here anyway? You don’t need to come through the house to get to your annex!”

“We were hungry.” She whined, “Mom said she’d leave us something in the fridge although frankly, now I’ve lost my appetite.”

Steve wiped a hand over his face before he shook his head, taking a deep breath “I’m gonna go up to bed. Can we just forget this happened, please?”

“I’d love to.” Emmy practically growled as she made her way towards the rear of the kitchen. “God, I need to scrub my eyes with bleach…once you’ve finished using it to mop wherever you were…you know.”

Steve arched an eyebrow and that little devil on his shoulder reared his, or her as the case may be,  head and he couldn’t help the sarcastic response as it flew from his mouth “I hate to break it to you sweetheart, but I’d need a lot of bleach to wash down each surface of this house I’ve had your mother on.”

Emmy’s mouth fell open and she looked at him, before she let out a loud groan. “You’re disgusting. Like, I can’t even…”

She shook her head and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. Steve shook his head, watched as the security light clicked on whilst she stormed across the back garden to her little annex and with a chuckle he made sure the door was locked and turned off the lights.

All in all it had been a damned good day now he thought about it. He’d carved pumpkins with his kids, seen them all have a great time, eaten Italian, drunk beer, chatted to his friends, fucked his wife exceptionally well and now embarrassed his eldest.

“Mission accomplished…” he snorted to himself as he took the stairs two at a two, padding across the hallway and entering his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

[underoosweb]

5 More Minutes Ch.1

No warnings: Bold italics are thoughts/ Italics are dreams

BuckyxOC!

8.5k words

Serenity laughed, watching her cousin deny she was drunk and now she is currently dancing, singing Lick it in front of her whole family. She looked around watching everyone laugh, it was their uncle’s birthday, everyone had been drinking.

“Come on Tia! Sing it!” Her cousin yelled into the microphone

“MY NECK MY BACK LICK MY!” Everyone's attention turned to their aunt, she turned bright red, covering her face from embarrassment, their uncle staring at his wife laughing. 

“Come on Tia! Sing it to him!” her cousin yelled, everyone stared as their aunt recovered from embarrassment, facing her husband and wiggling her finger for him to come over and everyone laughed. Everyone filmed the whole interaction and then she changed the song.

“THIS SONG GOES OUT TO MY TIO!” the familiar melody filled Serenity’s ears.

“ONE TIME FOR THE BIRTHDAY BITCH, TWO TIMES..” Everyone laughed again, her uncle shook his head and laughed. Her cousin sang her heart out

“And she said she wasn’t drunk.” Serenity turned to her other cousin

“Well 5 jello shots and 5 tequila shots will do that.” she laughed and her cousin nodded

“How many have you had?”

Serenity looked at her cup 

“Your sister gave me a cup of vodka and fruit punch about an hour ago and I’m only about a quarter in, pretty sure she’s going to be yelling at me for not drinking it faster.”

“Probably. Is it not good?”

“It’s alright, just don’t want to wake up hungover.”

“True.” Serenity took another sip of her drink, she watched as all her family members laughed, drank, and told stories about their younger days. She and only 2 of her cousins were around the same age and everyone else was either older or younger than them. She mostly grew up on her own, played on her own, she didn’t become close to her cousins till she turned 21. The sun continued to roll down and she was only halfway done with her drink

“Do you want another one?” 

“I still have half.”

“Damn, so slow. Drink up, girl.” Her cousin laughed, teasing her, Serenity smiled small

“I’m not much of a drinker…” she muttered to herself after her cousin turned her attention to someone else. She sighed and continued her conversation with her younger cousin. It was late and they still hadn’t cut the cake. Serenity looked around 

“I’m going to the restroom.” Her cousin nodded, she walked through the house and into the restroom, staring into the mirror, fixing her makeup, and walking into her cousin’s room. She grabbed her bag and walked back into the backyard just in time for them to sing happy birthday to her uncle

“I’m gonna leave after this.” She whispered to her cousin

“Already?”

“Yeah, I have an early day tomorrow.”

“Alright.” She hugged everyone and bid them goodbye. Blasting her music in the 20-minute car ride home, she sang her lungs out. Completely exhausted, putting on a marvel movie for background noise, her eyes fluttering shut and falling into a deep slumber. 

“Sometimes I think you like getting hit.” Bucky smiled at his friend helping him off the ground

“I had it covered.”

“Sure,”

“You got your orders?”

“ The one-o-seventh. Sergeant James Barnes. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.”

“I should get going.”

“Come on, it’s my last night here. We gotta celebrate.”

Steve was having a long day, he wanted nothing more than just going home, but Bucky decided to drag him to the Stark Expo.

“There are 3 and half-million women here.”

“Yeah, I’d settle for one.” Bucky smiled

“Well, it’s a good thing I took care of that for you.” He nodded towards the girls standing in front of the statue

“Hey Bucky!” the brunette waved, Steve looked at Bucky slightly annoyed for not giving him a fair warning

“What’d you tell her about me?’ He ran his fingers through his hair

“All the good stuff.” Bucky smiled

Steve quietly walked behind the group, eating his popcorn. He looked around

“It’s starting!” Bucky’s brunette friend said in excitement, dragging Bucky to the front of the crowd while Steve followed behind. Applause rang through the expo

“Ladies and Gentlemen Mr. Howard Stark.”

Steve offered popcorn to the blonde girl he was supposed to be on the date with, she stared at him and scoffed, turning her attention forward. Serenity furrowed her brows, why was everything so loud?

“Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you in just a short few years Your automobile won't even have to touch the ground at all?”

Gasps could be heard throughout the crowd, Serenity covered her ears, it’s too loud.

“With Stark reversion technology you'll be able to do just that” Everyone stared in awe when the car started to lift off the ground, then came a loud bang. Serenity jumped awake, still drowsy, looking around, this wasn’t her living room. Lifting herself slightly off the ground, a car with no wheels sat in front of her.

“Well, I did say a few years.” Everyone in the crowd laughed and applauded

“What the fu…” She whispered to herself, one of the showgirls who was standing on the side of the stage stared at her, she felt someone’s eyes on her, she turned to meet crystal clear blue eyes

“Where? Who? What the fuck is happening?” The girl’s eyes flickered back to Howard, he met her eyes and he moved his head to see Serenity in the shortest short’s and an off-the-shoulder top. Her eyes widened in shock,

“No fucking way,”

“Who are you?” Howard asked, the showgirl ran up to her and stood her up, she looked around the crowd

“What in the world are you wearing? You’re showing too much.” Serenity narrowed her eyes

“I’m showing too much?”

“I’m wearing a stage outfit.” Serenity continued to scan the crowd when she heard a familiar melody play over the speakers

“That’s… that’s not possible.”

“You need to follow me.” Serenity turned and grabbed onto the showgirl's wrist.

“Let me go.”

“I can’t”

“I said, let.me.go.now!” she twisted the girl’s wrist, she screamed in pain

“Security!” She turned her head towards Howard

“No!” She ran towards the front of the stage, looking around for an opening to run. She met another pair of crystal blue eyes. Steve looked at the girl, she looked terrified and confused, she was staring at Bucky, another girl?

“Someone, you know?”

Bucky shook his head “No.”

“Bucky?” She said with a shaky breath, then her eyes met Steve’s

“Steve?” Bucky turned to Steve

“Someone, you know?”

“No.” 

Serenity turned back around, Stark was standing there a device in his hand. She checked her back pockets. Her phone.

“Shit.” Serenity took a step towards Stark, he held the phone back

“Give it back.” out of the corner of her eyes she noticed men in black making their way towards her.

“Fuck.”

Everyone stared at the stage confused

“What in the world is she wearing?”

“She’s dressed like a floozy.”  She turned back

“I think she heard.”

“Out of all the things I have to do, it's to run and I hate running.” Serenity jumped off the stage, trying to catch herself, she tripped over her feet

“Damn it,” She stood in front of Bucky and froze, wow the movies didn’t do him justice, then her eyes flickered to Steve, she smiled and winked at him. She watched as his face turned red.

“HEY, SOLDIER! GRAB HER!” That was her cue to go. She did hate running and with Stark’s security and maybe even Bucky running after her, she could care less. Her legs burned, ached, her chest heaving. It wasn’t going to be hard to spot her, a girl with her legs out, shoulders out. She looked back, sighing in relief and she hid in an alley. She had no idea how she managed to outrun them but she did. She checked her pockets in a panic.

“Money… money...Ah! Yes!” Poking her head out of the alley, scanning her surroundings. Taking a deep breath, taking one step before someone covered her mouth and pulled her back into the alley, her scream muffled, eyes widened in panic.

“Be quiet!” The voice... Her brows furrowed, she slowly calmed herself. His hand slowly fell from her mouth and she jumped from him, ready to hit him.

“Woah there, doll,”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What? Doll?”

“I’m not your doll.” Bucky chuckled

“Well, we can change that.” Serenity scoffed

“Well, aren’t you confident? What do you want?”

“I’m just wondering why Stark is so interested in you and where you came from since you weren’t there when the car lifted and then all of a sudden you appeared.”

“Maybe I’m a magician.” Bucky laughed

“I doubt Stark would be this interested in a magician.” Serenity lifted a brow and shrugged

“Maybe I’m that good.” Her eyes flickered behind him, checking to see if anyone else came with him.

“I’m by myself.”

“How? I thought I outran you.”

“You did. I was walking back to my apartment and saw you.” She bit her lip out of frustration

Well better him than Steve She thought to herself

“Also how did you know my name and Steve’s?” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”

Bucky cocked his head “Really now?”

“Yup.”  Bucky took a step closer towards her, she took a step back

“Because I could have sworn..” She felt her back hit the wall, his hands on either side of her head.

“I heard you say my name and his, and trust me doll I would remember a dame like you.”

“You mean to tell me you remember every girl you’ve ever met?”

“Yeah.”

“I doubt that,” Bucky smiled, her breath hitched

“Well, look at that... I believe you're blushing, doll.” Crossing her arms

“I am not, now move.” Shoving him aside, Bucky caught her wrist

“Where are you planning on going?”

“That is none of your business.” 

“Alright, I should just take you to Stark.”  Her head snapped towards him, she could feel his breath on her lips, he was closer than she thought

“You would turn me in, sergeant?” Bucky noticed her eyes scan his body up and down as she said those words, she smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat.

“Now look who's blushing.” Bucky felt a chill run down his spine as she whispered in his ear

“How about this, tell me your name and I might not give you up to Stark.”

“What a true gentleman.”  Bucky chuckled

“It’s Serenity.”

“Serenity?” she nodded

“Nice to meet you, I would introduce myself but it seems you already know who I am.”

“Can you let go now?” Her eyes motioned to her wrist, Bucky dropped his hand and cleared his throat, taking off his uniform jacket and handing it to her. She eyed it.

“What?”

“There are men who-” Bucky stopped as she took the jacket from his hands

“Right, well thanks, but don’t you need this?” She asked, placing her arms through the sleeves.

“I leave tomorrow, I can get it from you then.”

“Who says I’m going to be around tomorrow?” Bucky rose an eyebrow

“Planning on skipping town, doll?”

“Again none of your business but even if I was, how exactly would I be seeing you tomorrow?”

“Because you are coming back to my place.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are coming back with me.”

“No, I’m not. Do you know what year this is?”

“It’s 1943.”

“Exactly, women, especially unmarried women normally don’t go to houses of men they just met without them getting outcast from society.”

Wait. Why was she worried about this? No one here knows her, nor does she exist in this universe. How does she get back? How did she even get here?

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

She did need a place to stay.

“I’ll just say you’re one of Rebecca’s friends.”

Rebecca? 

“Come on now, it’s getting late. I don’t live too far.” Bucky motioned for her to follow him. 

“Where’s your friend?”

“You know his name is Steve.”

“I was talking about your brunette friend from the expo.”

“God damn it.” Bucky groaned in frustration

“I knew I was forgetting something, Connie is going to kill me.”

“You could go back, you know.”

“It’s too late now, I’ll give her a call when we get back.”

“Someone is going to get an earful.”

“earful?”

“Ah, get chewed out?”

“You have no idea.” Bucky sighed

“I mean I would hate for my date to go off chasing some other girl, then start to flirt with, ''said girl and then invite her over to my house.” Serenity gasped sarcastically

“How dare he.” Bucky laughed

“Very funny.” Serenity shrugged

“Come on now, it won’t be so bad.” Bucky sighed again 

“Don’t jinx me now, doll.”

“And you are still calling me, doll? I’m pretty sure Connie is not going to be happy hearing you call another girl that, Sergeant.” Bucky chuckled and shook his head, quirking his brow, raising his hand towards a set of stairs.

“Doll.”

“Truly a gentleman.” She started climbing the stairs, Bucky telling her to keep going.

“Stop.” Serenity stopped dead in her tracks 

“We’re here.”

“I’m so glad, I’m wearing sneakers,” she murmured to herself

“You climb these every day? No wonder you’re fit.”

“Doll,” Bucky smirked leaning against the wall

“Do you have the hots for me?” Serenity’s eyes widened and blushed

“I-I” Bucky laughed

“You are adorable when you get flustered.” 

“Adorable?” She pouted as Bucky unlocked his apartment door. 

“Ladies first.” Serenity walked into the apartment expecting to be bombarded by Rebecca but no one came.

“Where’s Rebecca?”

“Boarding school.”

“Boarding school?”

“Yes.” 

“No back story?”

“No.”

“Alrighty then.” Bucky walked past her into the bedroom, she heard him rummaging through his drawers. Serenity looked around, the whole apartment was completely clean, it was simple, open, the living room only had a golden brown love-seat, television, and a little side table. She walked into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator. He had nothing, hearing a cough she jumped.

“Here you go,” Bucky handed her a pair of his Pajamas

“Ummm,”

“What?”

“Can I use your shower? Or is that empty too?”

“Yes, you can. Let me show you how to work it and no it’s not empty.”

“Alright, here you go. Let me bring you a towel.”

“Here you go,” Serenity took the towel from his hands

“Thank you,” She smiled, Bucky continued to stand in the doorway

“Umm, Sergeant?”

“Bucky.”

“Bucky, you can leave now.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

“Go call Connie.” Serenity smiled as Bucky’s eyes widened in panic. He ran towards the front of the apartment, Serenity rolled her eyes and closed the door, stripping off her clothes, she stepped into the shower. The hot water ran over her tense muscles.

“I hope this is all a dream.” She sighed and just let the water run. 

Bucky winced when Connie sighed. It wasn’t as if they were together, they had gone out on their first date that night sort of a little fling before he got shipped off. Bucky heard the water from the shower turn off.

“I am sorry Connie, I’ll make it up to you.”

“You better, good night Bucky.”

“Good night.” Bucky turned once he heard the door open. Serenity walked out in his clothes, now Bucky had seen countless women walk out in his clothes before but none of them looked like her, she looked breathtaking, her hair had curled from being wet, big doe eyes staring back at him. She smiled and Bucky swore he lost his breath.

“You alright?” Bucky wasn’t paying attention 

“Bucky?”

“Bucky?”

“Bucky!?” Bucky shook his head and came out of his trance.

“Yeah, sorry what?”

“You alright? Connie didn’t chew you out too bad now, did she?” Bucky sighed, shaking his head he played with his fingers

“Ooo, that bad?”

“Well, how would you feel?”

“Honestly there would be no second date, but considering that you are probably one of the more good-looking men out there for her there will be a second even if it means waiting till you get back from war.”

“Come on now doll, no second date?”

“Not if you forgot about me.” Serenity smiled again

“Do you have a comb or an extra one? Also a toothbrush?”

“I do.”

“Huh, a lot of girls sleepover?” Bucky ignored her question and handed her the brushes.

“Thanks.”

“Your hair?”

“What about it?”

“Is it naturally curly?”

“Yeah, I straightened it. I don’t really like curls, it's too hard to manage.”

“You look pretty.” Serenity froze

“I know.” Bucky smiled

“Do you have any extra pillows and blankets for me?”

“You can have the bed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you sleep on the floor or sofa?” She laughed

“Right.” Bucky leads her to the bedroom

“Ma’am.”

“Please never say that again.”

“That bad, huh?” Serenity chuckled

“I would rather be called a doll than ma’am.”

“I thought you weren’t my doll.”

“I’m not, just saying I prefer it over ma’am.”

“Alright then, doll.” Serenity rolled her eyes, trying to hide a smile.

“It’s getting late, soldier, don’t you have an early day tomorrow?” Bucky’s face fell slightly, his lips fell into a tight line

“Yeah, we should go to sleep. Good night.” Bucky took a pillow and blanket from the edge of the bed, walking out of the room

“Good-” Stopping mid-sentence as Bucky closed the door behind him.

“Night... Okay then.” Climbing into the bed, her eyes fluttering

“Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be back home and this was all one big dream.” Sighing, she welcomed the darkness. Bucky on the other hand could not welcome darkness. He tossed and turned on the little love-seat. It wasn’t the best place to sleep, he couldn’t get the fact that he was being shipped off tomorrow. He didn’t want to go to war, hell he didn’t even volunteer but they still drafted him. He was scared. Scared of coming back and not being himself, a completely different person, or worse not coming back at all. Bucky sighed, staring at the ceiling. He checked his watch at 12:45 and he had to be up in a few hours and head out. Bucky sat up, turned on the TV, and tried to see if it would help him sleep, he desperately didn’t want the sun to rise. 

She knew how this was going to end, staring at the date November 15th, 1945. Looking around the train, she knew. She could have stopped this, why didn’t she tell them? In the back of her mind, she knew his fate was set. She ran back towards the middle of the train, why was she even here? How did she manage to escape, she knew he would come for her, even if she didn’t belong in this universe, his fate would still be the same. Him falling off this train. Him being toured. Brainwashed. She couldn’t let that happen to him. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her eardrums, she felt it in the back of her head. She heard the explosion. NO! She ran faster. No, please! She felt the tears sting her eyes. She saw him fly out of the cart. NO! Please! Grab Him! Help him! Don’t let him fall! She grabbed the sidebar…...and reached out for him. Please. She felt the tears run down her cheeks. He was speaking, yelling at her. She ignored him and continued reaching, please just grab onto her. She felt his fingers brush against hers, then she saw the bar start to break. GRAB HER! She felt someone grab her waist. She screamed as the bar completely broke. She felt her body move forward, then they pulled. She screamed his name, kicked and punched at nothing. 

Serenity jolted awake, screaming Bucky’s name. She had tears running down her cheeks.

Bucky jolted awake when he heard a scream come from the bedroom.

“Shit!” Bucky scrambled, running to the bedroom, quickly opening the door he saw Serenity sitting there, tears stained her cheeks. Bucky rushed to her side, hands cupping her face as he sat on the bed.

“What happened? Are you alright?” Serenity blinked slowly

“What?” She replied slowly

“Where?” It took her a while to take in her surroundings and recognize Bucky. Fuck.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m alright.” She placed her hands onto his, giving him a reassuring smile.

“You sure? You screamed my name.”

“Yeah, I just had a bad dream is all.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Bucked nodded and whipped her tears away. She sniffled

“What time is it?” Serenity looked around for a clock

“Ah,” Bucky looked to his right

“4:50” Serenity sighed and nodded

“We should get back to sleep.”

“I’ll just stay up. I have to be up in 30 minutes anyway.”

“Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

“Where do I go after you leave?”

“What do you mean?”

“After you leave, I can’t stay here.”

“Yeah, you can.”

“The apartment is getting paid for and since I won’t be here, you can stay.”

“I don’t think your landlord would be too happy.”

“She wouldn’t mind.”

“Don’t tell me…, you worked your charm on her.” Bucked smiled

“She has tried to take me out……, I’m sure her husband wouldn't mind.” Serenity laughed

“Scandalous.”

“Very.” She didn’t even notice his hands still placed on her cheeks, dropping her head slightly, his fingers ending up in her curls. She froze and pulled away from him. Bucky bit his lip, dropping his hands onto his lap.

“I should get back to the couch.” Bucky felt something tugging on his shirt, her fingers grabbed the end of his shirt. She didn’t want him to leave, she was scared of what was going to happen, scared of why she was still there.

“Stay. Please? We can have one normal conversation before you ship off.” Bucky nodded, sitting back on the bed.

“Since I don’t know much about you, besides your name and that Stark wants you, want to tell me about yourself.”

Serenity thought for a moment, it was 1943 right now her grandparents in middle school/ high school. Her aunts, uncles, parents wouldn’t be born for the next 20 years and her 33 years after that. How is she to explain she hasn’t even been born yet. 

Well he doesn’t have to know all the details

“What exactly do you want to know?”

“About you, your family.”

“I’m the youngest out of 3, I have an older brother and sister. My sister is married, I have 3 nephews. My brother is well... He’s just there. I have way too many aunts, uncles, and cousins and I prefer to be alone most of the time. You?”

“Lost both of my parents, I’m the eldest of 4, grew up as kind of an army brat. Met Steve and have been helping him out since we were about 6 years old.”

“Helping him out?”

“Steve tends to get in a lot of fights,” Serenity scoffed

“Yeah, we know.”

“What?”

“Hmm?” Bucky eyed her

“So, I’m kind of a bodyguard, don’t get me wrong he can hold up on his own but still you would think he would ease up on getting beat.”

“I don’t think that will ever happen.” Serenity smiled and Bucky nodded, letting out a chuckle

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Bucky glanced at the clock

“I should get ready.”

“Okay.” She said softly, Bucky stood, walking back into the living room, grabbing his uniform he headed to the bathroom. Serenity heard the water turn on, reaching over to the other side of the bed. She grabbed onto the pajama bottoms and put them back on. She hated sleeping with pants on. Turning on the side table lamp, she looked around the room. Simple again, a nightstand, closet, and bed. The apartment didn’t feel like a home, there were a few photos surprisingly but it was just of Bucky and Steve. Serenity smiled, Steve was small. Serenity looked up when she heard heavy footsteps echo down the hall and into the room. She wasn’t one for military men, she had been warned about military men multiple times by her friends, but her heart couldn’t help but skip a beat and her breath hitched. Bucky smirked at her, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You alright there, doll?” Shit. His accent came out.

“Y-yeah.” Bucky’s eyes flicked down to the photo in her hands

“How long ago was this?” She asked handing him the photo

“Years ago, it was on Steve’s birthday. His mom had baked him a cake and I decided it would be funny to shove his face in the cake and his mom took this photo, his face was completely covered and it was nice to see them laugh.” Bucky chuckled at the memory, Serenity smiled. Bucky looked up at her, smiling as he handed her back the photo. She placed it back on the nightstand next to the clock. 

“Your jacket?”

“It’s in the living room.” Serenity nodded

“I’m going to use the restroom and be right out.” Bucky nodded, she walked past him and into the restroom. She stared at herself in the mirror, brushing her teeth. Eyes red from crying, bags appearing under them, hair all over the place. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair, flinching every time they got stuck. 

“Shit, I don’t have any clothes.”  Opening the door

“Hey, Bucky?”

“Yes?”

“I just realized I don’t have any clothes..”

“I have some. Hang on.”

“Alright, are they over-sized?”

“I have no idea.” He said handing her the clothes. Her lips fell in a tight line. 

“What size?”

“Depends on the shirt, medium or large.” Serenity nodded looking at the tags, large she let out a little sigh. Closing the door behind her, taking off Bucky’s pajamas, and placing his white button-up, it fit. Her main worry was the pants, it wasn’t like she could wear the shirt as a dress it came down to the top of her thighs. Bucky was lean but she had hips and thighs, his pajama pants fit her snug, she put her legs into the khaki-colored pants. The pants hugged her hips and thighs, luckily it wasn’t suffocating, her shoes were not going to match but something is something. Slipping into a pair of clean socks and her sneakers, she grabbed her hair, ran water through it, brushed lightly, and hopped for the best. Walking out, she saw Bucky leaning against the arm of the love-seat, jacket now on his body. Bucky looked up from his watch, scanned her, and went back to his watch. Serenity saw him shake his head slightly and his head shot up.

“You might get whiplash if you keep snapping your head like that, sergeant.”

Bucky couldn’t speak, he hadn’t seen many women in trousers, they prefer to dress feminine. She left him speechless, his shirt slightly fitting her loose, his trousers hugged her curves perfectly, her thighs and hips on display. Jesus.

“Are you ready to go, sergeant?” She waved a hand in front of his face. Bucky blinked

“What? Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.” Bucky handed her a coat, she wrapped herself. He extended her arm towards her, she hooked her arm through his and smiled.

“Nervous?’’

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“I’m always nervous.”

Bucky and Serenity walked through the Brooklyn streets, they weren’t as busy as she thought they were going to be. New York was known for being the city that never sleeps, even early in the morning, but with a war going on it makes sense that the streets wouldn’t be busy this early. Serenity couldn’t help but take in her surroundings, her eyes constantly darting back and forth, looking back, looking down at her shoes. She knew Stark was still looking for her and if she ran into Steve, she knew he would take her in, and at this part of the story or movie she should say, he meets Peggy. She was shocked that Steve didn’t run after her as Bucky did, but he did have a lot of health issues and to him enlisting was probably more important to him than anything. He would have already met the doctor and he would have recruited him for the experimentation. Bucky could tell what was going through her mind as he scanned her face. 

“Don’t worry, doll.” She looked up at him

“No one’s gonna take you to Stark.” 

I’m hoping to be gone by then.

She nodded. He gave her a reassuring smile. She knew someone would find her, she stands out, a woman in men’s clothing, shoes from a whole different era, taller than the average woman, tattoos behind her ears, tattoos on her arms, side luckily those were all covered. Serenity looked ahead to see a line of soldiers waiting to pile into the transport vehicles. Everyone dressed in different uniforms. A man ran towards the two.

“Sergeant Barnes.”

“Yes.”

“This way.” Serenity dropped her arm

“See you soon,” She smiled

“See you soon, doll.” She placed a kiss on his cheek

“For good luck?”

“Yes.” Bucky walked with the man and waved. Serenity stood there watching as mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives cried as their loved ones went off to war, she knew their fears. The sun rose high by the time all the soldiers drove off, Bucky’s truck was the last to go. She smiled and waved, Bucky watched her from the rear-view mirror, he dropped his head and smiled. Serenity turned on her heel and walked with the other family members, then she stood still.

Shit. How do I get back? 

She was too into her head earlier to pay attention to the route, groaning in frustration, it’s not like she could ask someone, she didn’t know the address.

“Fuck.” She looked around, everything looked the same to her. The city was beginning to wake up, people opening up their stores, walking up and down the streets. She felt someone bump into her.

“Move out of the way if you’re just going to stand there.”

“Oh, fuc-” She stopped herself, moving against the wall. She stared at all the people coming in and out of apartments, kids running to catch their buses, everyone walked fast. She could hear people chatting, laughing, yelling, horns honking. She rolled her eyes, covering her ears. She hates loud noises, how everyone was so lively early in the morning? She had to get back to Bucky’s or off the street before she got caught. Lifting herself off the wall, she walked back towards where they came.

Did we make a right or left? It doesn’t help that she can’t tell her left from her right.

“Fuck.me.” Then she heard him

“Hey! Wait! Stop the car!” Serenity was getting ready to run

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Peggy’s accent entered her ears, she slowly looked back towards her. Steve stood to her side and Peggy had her gun pulled out. She scoffed

“Really? A gun? Do I look like a threat to you?”

“You’re the girl Stark wants.” Serenity turned to face Steve

“I’m flattered that you remember me.”

“It’s hard to forget someone who caused a scene.”

“Ouch,” Serenity pouted, crossing her hand over her heart.

“Well, I am known for the dramatics.” She rolled her eyes

“Where’d you get the clothes?”

“None of your business.”

“Did you steal them?”

“No.” Serenity glared, Peggy walked towards her

“Hands.” Serenity held out her hands and Peggy cuffed her

“Handcuffs?” She rose a brow and smirked

“It’s been a while.”

“You’ve been arrested before?” Steve asked and she laughed

“No.” Peggy stared at her in shock, Steve on the other hand didn’t understand. Ah, the innocence. Peggy hoped in the car first, then Serenity and then Steve. Serenity just kept her eyes forward, she leaned over and whispered into Steve’s ear.

“Sorry for interrupting you guys,”

“What?”

“You and her over here, it’s obvious you like her.”

“No, I don’t”

“Yeah, okay.” Serenity rolled her eyes

“Come back to me when you are ready to admit your feelings.” She knew the exact moment Steve would come to her. She sat back into the seat and closed her eyes.

                                           Hers

“We’re here.” I felt someone shake me awake, rubbing my eyes, I noticed I was resting my head on Steve’s shoulder

“Sorry,” I said sitting up

“It’s alright.” I could feel Peggy’s eyes drilling a hole on the back of my head, she reached out and grabbed my arm, tugging. I scooted over

“Alright, alright. I’m coming.” Stepping out of the car, an Antique store. Steve followed behind me.

“What are we doing here?” he asked

“Follow me,” Peggy said, still hanging onto my arm

“I’m not going to run, you know. I’ve done enough running for the year already.” Peggy looked at me, eyeing me, then she dropped my arm.

“For the year?” I heard Steve ask

“Yes, the year. I hate running and I would very much like to avoid it every chance I get. Not only that she has the keys to the cuffs and I highly doubt someone will help me get out of them unless I run into a mobster. Ooo What a fun story that would be.”

I walked in behind Peggy when she opened the door, the bell jingled. Steve and I both looked around the store. It was dim with furniture everywhere, nothing looked antique. An older-looking lady walked towards the group.

“Wonderful weather this morning isn't it?” She asked

“Yes, but I always carry an umbrella,” Peggy said, while I murmured The same thing under my breath. No one seems to notice, the old lady slightly nodded and headed over towards her desk, reaching under it. I heard a faint buzz echo and Peggy led us through the curtain to a cluttered bookshelf. 

“The fact that people believe this is a real bookshelf blows my mind.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked

“Whoever the artist is, is doing a great job though.” The bookshelf opened hidden doors. Steve looked around in awe. I on the other hand was trying not to have a panic attack, one thing people always told her never to trust military men, and here I was about to be surrounded by them. Peggy grabbed onto your arm again.

“Is she allowed here?”

“Stark wants her.” 

“Yes, ma’am.”  Peggy led them through the cold, dull hallway and then the doors opened, we walked through the doors. Peggy leads us into the hidden lab to Dr. Erskine and his team in a big circular room filled with machinery and a pod in the middle. Peggy still hung onto my arm as we walked down the stairs. 

“Good morning.”  Dr. Erskine says to the group

He shakes Steve’s hand and somebody takes a photograph.

“Please, not now.” The doctor waves him off

The photographer walks away, Steve looks at the pod

“Are you ready?” Steve nods.

“Good. Take off your shirt, your tie, and your hat.” The doctor turned his attention back to us

“And may I ask who you might be?”

“They said Howard was looking for her?”

“I’m looking for who?” I looked over as Stark Howard, scanned my face, and his eyes widened, he rushed towards me, tripping over his own feet. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You found her?”

“Rogers did.” Howard looked over at Steve.

“You know this is a weird way of asking me out on a date. I mean you even had them handcuff me. Usually I don’t let dates handcuff me until at least the 3rd date.” I extended my wrist towards him. Howard blushed slightly, he was a playboy. I didn’t think my comment would cause him to blush.

“I thought you would be used to hearing these kinds of things Mr.Stark, I guess your reputation is wrong. Can you uncuff me now?” I looked over at Peggy

“I’m not going to run and it’s not like I can cause any damage with a room full of military personnel.” Peggy just stared

“You can uncuff her.” She reached for the key and unlocked the cuffs. I automatically rubbed my wrists and looked over at Howard

“Why exactly do you want me?”

“Who are you?”

“You already asked me that.”

“And you never answered.”

“I don’t see the need to.” Howard grabbed my wrist, taking me to a corner of the room.

“Where are you from?”

“Like my family or me?”

“You.”

“California.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Umm... California.”

“No, one second there was no one behind my invention, then a crash and suddenly you appeared behind it and this,” Stark pulled out your phone and it lit up. 

Huh, it’s not dead, that’s a shocker

“What is this?”

“It’s mine and you need to give it back.” I reached for the phone, Howard pulled back.

“No.”

“Didn’t anybody ever teach you that stealing is bad? My mom would have dragged me back by the ear, made me apologize, and probably would’ve…” I trailed off and shook my head

“Anyway, give it back. Please,” 

“Tell me,”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I did, besides you have more important matters to attend to Mr.Stark.”

“Tell me first and then I’ll get back to it,” I sighed

“I’ll tell you three things. One, my name. Serenity. Two, my birth year. 1996 and three,” I grabbed my phone out of Stark’s hand

“It’s a phone.” He stood there confused

“Stark!” He looked over at one of the scientists who motioned for him to head over

“We’ll continue this later,” I rolled my eyes and walked back over towards Steve.

“Comfortable?” The Dr. asked Steve

“It’s a little big. Can you save me any of that schnapps?”

“Not as much as I should have. Sorry. Next time. Mr. Stark, how are your levels?”

“Levels at 100%.”

“Good.”

“We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Agent Carter? Don’t you think you would be more comfortable in the booth?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry.”

“You as well, Miss?”

“Oh, my name is Serenity, Doctor.”

“Serenity, please.” The doctor motioned to the booth, I nodded and turned to walk to the booth

“Serenity?” I turned back, looking at Steve

“Yeah?”

“It’s a pretty name.” I smiled

“Thanks, good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Good.” The doctor says once more. He takes a microphone and taps it.

“Do you hear me? Is this on?”  He asks the small group gathered to watch Steve being prepared to become a super-soldier.

“Ladies and gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of micro-injections into the subjects’ major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays.”

“That wasn’t so bad.” Everyone heard Steve over the microphone after he took a shot.

“That was penicillin. Serum infusion beginning in five, four, three, two, one.” The serum is injected into Steve

“Now, Mr. Stark.”

Stark lowers a leaver, the pod moves upright, and encloses Steve inside. The doctor knocks on the capsule that they’ve locked Steven in for the procedure to change him.

“Steven, can you hear me?”

“It’s probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?”

“We will proceed.” The doctor says to Stark

“That’s ten percent. Twenty percent. Thirty. That’s 40 %.”

“Vital signs are normal.” 

“That’s 50 %. Sixty. Seventy.” Stark states, I covered my ears as Steve’s screams echoed through the lab.

“Steven!” The doctor yelled

“Shut it down,” Peggy said

“Steven!” The doctor yells as he knocks on the pod.

“Shut it down!” Peggy yells worried

“He’s fine,” I said, everyone, turned back and looked at me

“Trust me.”

“Kill the reactor, Mr. Stark! Turn it off! Kill it! Kill the reactor!” The doctor yells and everyone turns their attention back to Steve

“No! Don’t! I can do this!” Steve yells 

“If something happens to him,” Peggy turned back and looked at me.

“He’s fine, trust me I know he is.”

“Eighty. Ninety. That’s 100 %.” Everything overloads until the reactor closes itself down.

“Mr. Stark?” Stark opens the pod. Everyone could see smoke coming out of the pod and then Steve appeared, sweaty, a foot taller, about 100 pounds heavier of pure muscle and chest heaving. Everyone was excited, Peggy looked at me again and I shrugged.

“Steven. Steven.” The doctor says concerned 

As he stumbles out of the pod supported by Stark and the doctor “I did it.” Steve managed to wheeze out.

“Yeah, yeah. I think we did it.” The doctor said, patting Steve’s chest

“We did it.” Stark said in disbelief. Everyone except me and another man stood in the observation booth. I looked over at him, I knew I couldn’t change anything, if I did who knows what it would do to the timeline. I smiled

“You don’t want to head down with everyone?”

“Later.” I nodded and walked past him

“Death,” I whispered under my breath. I could feel his gaze burning a hole into the back of my head

“How do you feel?” Peggy asked

“Taller.” I held back a laugh as Peggy lightly touched his chest, she was completely flustered. I walked up next to her

“You look taller.”

“Look? He grew a whole foot and gained 100 pounds or more of muscle, but I mean if no one will say it, I will. You look amazing. Total beefcake.” I said lifting my hand up and down. Peggy glared slightly at me, I leaned over and whispered

“Jealousy isn’t pretty.”

“How do you like Brooklyn now, Senator?”  I overheard someone ask

“I can think of some folks in Berlin who are about to get very nervous. Congratulations, Doctor.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I felt someone grab onto my arm. Stark. My eyes widened when Kruger pulled out his lighter.

“Duck.”

“What?”

“Duck!”

Then he detonates the bomb in the observation room, everyone ducked, glass scatters over everyone, women screaming and he uses the confusion to steal the last vial of the serum. The doctor is the first to stand.

“Stop him!” The doctor yells and Kruger shoots him twice, he runs up the stairs and shoots an officer, and flees with Peggy chasing after him. Steve kneels beside Erskine who points at Steve’s chest and dies. I pushed Stark away from me and ran up to Steve,

“Go.” He turned and looked at me 

“GO!” He nodded, running after Peggy and Kruger. I looked down at the doctor, tears welled in my eyes, I felt someone place their hands onto my arms, Stark stared at me, and the doctor who was lying on the floor in disbelief.

“How did you know?” He whispered

“I…”

“What you said earlier… it’s true?” I hesitantly nodded my head, he let out a slight chuckle of disbelief.

“You knew this would happen, why didn’t you-”

“This isn’t the time nor the place.” I glared at him.

“We can talk about this later.” I stood from my spot, turning to face Stark.

“Where do you want me?”

“Follow me.”  I sighed, following behind Stark.

“You know, I’m not going to run away. You can stop looking back. I’ll hold your hand if you want or put a leash on me if you’re that worried.”  I could hear him smirking

“A leash?” He turned, eyebrow raised and of course a smirk on his face, I rolled my eyes

“Don’t be a pervert.” He laughed and faked a gasp

“You’re the one being the pervert, I wasn’t thinking about anything sexual.”

“Yeah, right.” I scoffed, he extended his hand

“I sadly do not have a leash on me, so your hand will have to do.” I stared at his hand, he lifted it slightly as if saying grab onto it

“Fine.” I grabbed his hand and he smiled. 

“Where exactly are we going?”

“That my dear,” He turned and smiled

“Is a secret.” 

“We’re going to the SSR compound?” His head turned fast

“Any faster and you could get whiplash.”

“How?”

“I’m pretty sure you, Peggy, and the colonel are going to interrogate me unless you want to keep this a secret, plus Steve should be in there right now getting his blood drawn.” Stark didn’t respond, he opened the doors, the nurse was pulling the needle out of Steve’s arm. 12 test tubes with Steve’s blood were picked up by the nurse, Steve folded his uniform sleeve down. His blue eyes scanned me up and down, his eyes flickered to Stark and froze on our clasped hands. I quickly pulled my hand away from him, Stark rose a brow but looked straight at Steve.

“Think you got enough?”

“Any hope of reproducing a program is locked in your genetic code. But without Dr. Erskine, it could take years.” Peggy stated

“He deserved more than this.”

“If it could only work once, he’d be proud it was you.” 

Stark looked out and down the meds window

“Stay here.” He told me, I rolled my eyes

“Yes, sir.”

“You and Stark?” Steve asked 

“God, no. He just wanted to make sure I didn’t run away again. I offered my hand or a leash but since neither of us have a leash. Hand, it was.” I said, lifting my hand and wiggling my fingers. I could see Steve’s face turn red and Peggy raised her brow and smirked slightly. 

“What? Was the leash too much for you, Rogers?” Before he could respond, we heard the colonel’s voice echo through the compound.

“Great. Why don’t we start with how a German spy got a ride to my secret installation in your car? What have we got here?”

“Speaking modestly, I’m the best mechanical engineer in this country. But I don’t know what’s inside this thing or how it works. We’re not even close to this technology.” Stark responded

“Then who is?” The senator asked

“HYDRA. I’m sure you’ve been reading our briefings.” Colonel responded, Peggy motioned for Steve to follow her 

“What about her?” Peggy bit the inside of her cheek and nodded her head

“I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.” We walked down the stairs into the main room, I saw Stark working on the submarine 

“I’m on a number of committees, Colonel.” Senator responded 

“HYDRA is the Nazi deep science division. It’s led by Johann Schmidt. But he has much bigger ambitions.” Peggy chimed in

“HYDRA’s practically a cult. They worship Schmidt, they think he’s invincible.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” The senator asked the colonel

“Spoke to the president this morning. As of today the SSR is being re-tasked.” He responds

“Colonel?” Peggy asked

“We are taking the fight to HYDRA. Pack your bags Agent Carter. You too, Stark. You’re flying to London tonight.”

“Sir, if you’re going after Schmidt, I want in.” Steve chimed in. I continued to listen to the back and forth, I felt Stark’s eyes burning into the side of my face

“You’re an experiment. You’re going to Alamogordo.” I accidentally let out a laugh. Everyone looked over at me

“Sorry.”

“Who are you?” The colonel asked

“Oh, I’m with Stark.” I pointed at him

“The serum worked.”  Steve interrupted 

“I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough.” The colonel stepped closer to Steve

“You’d be surprised.” I murmured under my breath 

“With all due respect to the Colonel, I think we may be missing the point. I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it.” The senator said while looking at Steve, snapping his fingers toward his aide.

“Paper.” He said, I slowly made my way towards Stark

“Nazis in New York - mystery man saves child” I whispered

The aide shows them the newspaper and Peggy reads it out-loud

“The New York Examiner’ Vol. XCVII No. 33.634, Wednesday, June 23, 1943), headlines: "Nazis in New York - mystery man saves child"

Stark’s eyes widened

“The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands. You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab. Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war?” The senator asks Steve

 “Sir, that’s all I want.”

“Then, congratulations. You just got promoted.” Steve shakes the senators hand 

“Too bad all he does is go around in a costume and fake being a hero.” I said to myself, Stark didn’t say anything

“You.” The colonel pointed at me

“I have a name, but yes?” The colonel ignored my comment

“You will be traveling around with Rogers.”

“Wait, Why?”

“If you can handle being Stark’s assistant, you can handle being Rogers.”

“Colonel, I actually need to” Stark was cut off

“She’s going.” 

“I guess.” I murmured and looked at Steve

“May I speak to my assistant before she leaves?”

“You got 5 minutes.” Stark nodded and dragged me off

“No need to pull, I’ll follow you.” Stark opened a door and pulled me inside, we were chest to chest

“Are you insane? Out of all the secure places in this compound, you choose a tiny ass closet.”

“It would be the only place that doesn’t have cameras and audio surveillance.”

“The bathrooms?”

“Right..” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”

“Now isn’t the time, we only have 5 minutes.”

“Pretty sure it’s less now.”

“Where are you from?”

“California.”

“How old are you?”

“22.”

“Lies”

“Why would I be lying?”

“You look like you’re in high school.”

“Well thank you for the compliment, it’s not like you can look me up I don’t exist.”

“Birthday.”

“Question or statement.” Stark glared

“July 31st, 1996”

“Time travel exists in the future?”

“Well..not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You kind of.. Don’t ex-” The door opened wide, my eyes met Steve’s

Great... Who knows what he’s thinking about me now.

Everyone was just standing there, staring at us. I slipped past Stark and walked towards the group.

“5 minutes are up.” The colonel cleared his throat

“Talk, huh?” Steve said his voice slightly filled with venom

“Seriously? It’s none of your business.”

“It is after I saw you wearing Bucky’s clothes.” I froze

“How do you know they’re his? There’s millions of men on this earth who might have the exact same clothing.” Steve reached to the back of Bucky’s shirt and pulled the tag.

“His initials are on the tag.” I grabbed the tag and tugged it forward there in black ink was J.B.B

“Fuck.” I cursed under my breath

“My mom used to write our initials on our clothes so we wouldn’t get any mixed up when he would spend the night.”

“It’s still none of your business.”

“Follow me.” I walked away from him and followed the senator’s aide

Tags:

@ginger-swag-rapunzel​

[iamseeress]

Tokens For Your Appreciation

Summary: Katsuki isn't into birthdays. But he does appreciate the gifts.

___________________

Katsuki isn’t really into birthdays.

He remembers to get his mom a little something every year, he’d eat a slice of his own birthday cake if someone else buys it, but that’s it. Birthdays come and go whether Katsuki does anything about it or not. And if you miss this year, well, there’s always another one coming.

His dad though likes to celebrate birthdays. Not big productions or surprise parties, just enough to mark the occasion as special. There’d usually be a wrapped gift for Katsuki or his mom, and dinner plans in a nicer-than-average restaurant.

Katsuki doesn’t mind it; he just isn’t gonna plan it. Especially not for someone else.

Once when he was 12, trudging at the mall while his dad picked out a gift for his mom when he’d rather be on a run using the cool shoes he got for his birthday, his dad told him giving gifts is part of being in a relationship. It shows your appreciation for the other person and that you care; and when time comes that Katsuki gets a girlfriend or wife, she’d expect Katsuki to remember special dates like anniversaries and birthdays, and gifts on those occasions would not be amiss.

It was a good father-and-son talk, a valuable life lesson for sure thanks, but Katsuki has a goal to achieve, and relationships — romantic or otherwise — are pretty low in his list of priorities. It was low when he was 12, and it’s still low now at 17 turning 18.

In their first year in UA, his classmates hadn’t been aware that his birthday is on April 20. Classes had only begun 2 weeks before and Katsuki could barely remember his classmates’ faces, much less their names. They eventually found out because Iida and Yaoyorozu were given basic information about each student including dates of birth, but by that time Katsuki’s birthday had already passed.

It had come and gone with only a mumbled "happy birthday, Kacchan" from a nervous Izuku.

Izuku knows Katsuki’s birthday, of course. It’s Katsuki’s fate to be in the same class as Izuku since they were in their baby blue pre-school smocks. There’d been more than a handful of cakes and wrapped gifts between them over the years but none at all past grade school. By the time they were in middle school, they didn’t hang out enough to merit an invite to birthday treats or any gift buying.

They used to though. When Katsuki was younger his dad would have him invite a friend or two to have ice cream with him as a special treat after school for his birthday. When he got a little older, the treat included a side trip to the game arcade and a pouch full of tokens for him and his friends.

Izuku had usually been one of those friends, until they weren't friends anymore and Katsuki stopped inviting people altogether. He doesn’t need extras on his birthday.

In their second year in UA, Sato baked him a birthday cake. Katsuki deigned to stay in the dorm common room 30 minutes past his usual bedtime and allowed his classmates — friends by then he supposes — to celebrate his 17th birthday with him. His parents had called to greet him and the next time he was home they went out to dinner in a nice Thai restaurant that had a lot spicy offerings.

Izuku hadn’t gotten him a gift but he’d been smiling when he greeted Katsuki a "happy birthday, Kacchan” before they walked to class together, discussing their English homework on the way.

Katsuki is turning 18 tomorrow. He expects Sato to bake him another cake.

This isn’t because he’s an entitled ass but because Sato bakes a cake most days and definitely one on each of their classmates’ birthdays. Also because Sato had asked him earlier what flavor he would like.

Katsuki told him chocolate. Sato had hummed then explained that he could make a dark chocolate cake with a little red chili for heat and Katsuki found himself impressed and growled out a thanks.

So Katsuki will have a cake tomorrow and very likely a card signed by everyone in their class — he’s had to sign a card for 19 other people plus Aizawa in the past two years; Yaoyorozu is in charge of buying the cards from class funds — and that will be that for Katsuki’s 18th birthday.

For today though, it’s Saturday afternoon and he’s in the common room eating a pre-workout snack of yogurt and berries, watching chaos unfold.

“Are you sure you can’t repay me another way, Aoyama-kun?” Izuku says, in near desperate tones. “Or, or better yet, and this is definitely the better option now that I think about it, maybe we can consider us quits! I did it as your friend and no repayment is needed. At all. Your happiness, Aoyama-kun, is payment enough.”

“Non, non, Midoriya, mon ami. You have done me a great service and I would be remiss in my duties as a friend if I didn’t repay you in kind. Good deeds must be repaid, especially between friends. Otherwise, chaos would reign in the world, n’est-ce pas?”

“Ha ha, yeah, chaos,” Izuku laughs weakly. He throws a pleading glance at Uraraka seated by the sofa.

She dutifully comes to his rescue. Or at least attempts to.

“Aoyama-kun, as heroes-in-training we don’t expect any repayment from those we help. It’s just what we do,” Uraraka says with a cheerful smile. She pauses and a little furrow appears over her brow. “Not that I’d say ‘no’ if they wanna pay me extra.”

“Uraraka-kun!” Izuku hisses but it was too late.

“Bien sur. We do not expect it but we also do not say no when it is offered and in this case it is not just offered but insisted. Midoriya, I must insist that you allow me to do this for you. As your good friend, and as someone whom you’ve saved magnificently from dire straits,” Aoyama says, an earnest hand on his chest.

Izuku sighs and gives in to the inevitable. “Alright, Aoyama-kun. How do you wanna do this?”

“Fantastique! We meet here tomorrow morning at 9. You bring your charming self and I shall take care of the rest. We should be back in time for dinner with the rest of our merveilleux amis.”

“It’s gonna take the whole day?” Izuku asks, clearly surprised.

“Midoriya, one cannot rush perfection. It will take as long as it will take,” Aoyama says, batting elegantly long eyelashes. “But for now, a bientot. I need to make reservations for our little adventure tomorrow.”

And with a flip of his expertly cut and feathered hair, Aoyama exits the common room, leaving sparkles in his wake.

Izuku collapses on the sofa, rubbing his face with his hands. Uraraka pats his shoulder in commiseration but Katsuki can see her eyes bubbling with laughter.

“Do I wanna know what the fuck that was about?” Katsuki asks, spooning yogurt into his mouth.

“Aoyama-kun wants to give Deku-kun a ‘make-over’,” Uraraka says, very ineffectively muffling the giggles with her hand.

Katsuki raises an eyebrow. “Surprised he can do that in just one day.”

Izuku groans into his hands. “Kacchan, you’re not helping.”

“Cheer up, Deku-kun. You don’t know, you might have fun! He’s probably just gonna take you shopping… ermm, but maybe stay away from flowy long sleeved blouses in case he asks you to get them. I don’t think they’d suit you,” Uraraka says, waving her hand vaguely over Izuku’s well muscled form.

Katsuki imagines Izuku's short, stocky frame in one of Aoyama’s frilly white shirts, the ruffled collars high up his muscle-thickened neck. He snickers.

“Just give it up, Deku. You already said yes. Are you planning to mope there all day or are we doing that spar?”

“Spar please, Kacchan,” Izuku says, standing up. “Make me forget.”

“Always happy to kick your ass, nerd. Meet you back here in 5.”

Katsuki wasn’t quite sure when it happened but barring exceptional circumstances, Saturday afternoons is what he mentally — but never verbally — refers to as ‘Deku time’.

There’s no hard and fast rule about the content, only the participants.

It’s usually some form of physical activity because that’s how they first managed to bridge the gap between them: by fighting until one of them surrendered, got injured, or a teacher intervened. It remains as a way for them to stay in tune with each other, despite that these days they talk more together than Katsuki does with anyone else.

For today, they decide on a no-quirk wrestling match; whoever gets pinned five times should be ashamed of themselves. They are hot and sweaty, muscles bunched up, each trying to get a firm hold on the other — palms, arms, thighs sliding over sweat slicked parts.

An hour and a half in and Katsuki wins: 5 pin downs to Deku’s 3.

Izuku is already pouting underneath Katsuki, getting ready to challenge the last pin down, but Katsuki is taking the win and not giving it back. He grins down on Izuku, flat on his back with a mutinous look in his green eyes.

“That was sneaky, Kacchan.”

“Not my fault you got distracted.”

They had been in the middle of a grapple; Izuku was about to slip away, Katsuki could feel it. Katsuki had his mouth beside Izuku’s ear and he whispered “I wonder what you’d look like after Aoyama’s done with you.”

Izuku had gasped and there had been a tiny lapse in his concentration and Katsuki swooped in. He’d been pinned on the mat in a matter of seconds.

Katsuki should get up, get off Izuku, offer him a hand up, but he was enjoying this too much. He has Izuku beaten, aggrieved and under him. Can anything taste any better?

He’s still gloating, in the middle of relishing his victory when he feels a familiar stirring in his pants. Katsuki clambers off Izuku and gets up, faster than even Iida could have moved.

Teenaged boys get boners. It’s a fact of life.

It generally doesn’t happen when grappling for points or bragging rights — no matter what porn films may show you. The body pumps blood everywhere else except your cock, under the all-important mission of not letting you be pinned to the ground by your opponent.

But the moment the fight instinct is gone, with adrenaline still pumping through you, and you’re in contact with the hard heated body of your stupidly attractive classmate slash friend slash rival, well — blood gets diverted somewhere specific really fast.

It’s happened before, it will happen again. Until all these bullshit hormones stop raging across their teenaged bodies.

Tomorrow, Katsuki will be one year closer to that bliss and he’ll be grateful for it. Because these ‘incidents’ with Izuku have been happening faster, more often, and stupidly harder to get rid off each time it happens. Katsuki has better things to do than rage at his own dick for being a dick.

Katsuki walks off to grab their water bottles, surreptitiously adjusting his pants.

He throws one to Izuku, still lying on the mat with his eyes closed.

Probably willing his own hard-on away, Katsuki thinks viciously.

The bottle bounces on Izuku’s chest, rolls away and gets retrieved with Black Whip.

Izuku eventually sits up and Katsuki reclaims his space in front of him, their knees almost but not quite touching.

“I think I’m nervous about tomorrow,” Izuku says.

“You’re about to be a pro hero and you dress like an 8 year old. Can’t hurt to let him help you,” Katsuki says, blunt as always.

“We’re in uniform when we patrol though, what does it matter what else I wear,” Izuku points out.

“You weren’t in uniform when you fought Gentle Criminal.”

The video had somehow been uploaded, caught viral attention, then picked up by one of the biggest tv news stations a few months ago. It had brought unwanted fame and notoriety to provisional hero license Deku and Midoriya Izuku.

“I suppose we can all be grateful it wasn’t one of your stupid slogan shirts,” Katsuki says.

His muscles are pleasantly tired and an over-all feeling of langour and well-being is washing over him, now familiar after all this time spent with Izuku.

Izuku huffs. “Says ‘Aji Fry’ shirt.”

“Fuck you, I look good in it. You are just a mess.”

Izuku chuckles. “Can’t argue with that. You always look good, Kacchan. If you weren’t such an asshole scaring away people, you’d give Todoroki a run for his money.”

“Better an asshole than a dumb prince.”

“Todoroki’s not dumb,” Izuku says, mostly by reflex than any desire to argue. Katsuki has called everyone worse things.

Katsuki sips his water and doesn’t say anything. Todoroki ranked fifth in their last mid term exams.

“You think this is a good idea, Kacchan? Me getting this ‘make-over’?” Izuku asks.

There is a hesitation in his voice that Katsuki hasn’t heard in a while.

Katsuki knows that somewhere underneath that horrible slogan tee and roomy gym shorts is a body that most pro linebackers would kill to have. Broad shoulders, massive torso, powerful thighs. Built like a freight train and just as unstoppable.

He’s seen it, he’d just been grappling with it. Sometimes he even dreams about it. Stupid teenage hormones.

“You’ll fanboy over All Might even after you’re a pro hero yourself. You’d help little old ladies cross the street by picking them up and their entire goddamned house. You’re always gonna be a crybaby. What does it matter if you can Windsor knot your tie?”

“Just get kitted out with laser boy. If you like it, fine. If you don’t, then don’t do it again. It’s one Sunday. You’ll be a nerd regardless.”

“Kacchan…” Izuku says, green eyes filling with tears.

“What did I tell you? Crybaby.”

“Thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku says, laughing and sniffling at the same time.

“Just go,” Katsuki says, mopping away tears from freckled cheeks with rough fingers. “How bad could it be?”

Katsuki deliberates whether to explode Aoyama, Izuku or himself first.

For as long as Katsuki can remember, Izuku’s hair had been an unruly mass of soft green curls. It clearly had a mind of its own and refused most of Izuku’s efforts to tame it. They tend to stand up more in the mornings when Izuku has just gotten out of bed, and splay themselves out like wonky dandelions seeds during hot humid days.

They’re gone now.

That is, Izuku still has his curls and is not currently bald, but the unruly mess of green is gone. The curls on the lower half of his head had been trimmed away, buzzed off until only a short green fuzz was left. The curls on the sides and top of his head remain intact but they’d been shortened, expertly cut to make the green strands less of a mess that Katsuki had learned to live with and more a temptation he wants to run his fingers through.

Izuku has the audacity, the sheer gall to duck his head down and look sheepish. The soft blush highlighting his freckled cheeks is just overkill.

“I’m still not used to it,” Izuku tells their assembled classmates, “the back of my head feels cold.”

They’re all in the common room, Aoyama and Izuku walked in not 5 minutes ago. Aoyama looking pleased with himself; Izuku looking like he stepped off a fashion magazine, sports edition. The entire room had gone nuts.

Katsuki saw them leave that morning and he knew Izuku had on a pale green tee that said ‘bath robe’.

That’s gone as well and good riddance, replaced by a dark green button up that lent color to Izuku’s eyes and highlighted the planes of his impressive chest. The sleeves are folded almost up to the elbows, exposing arms that Katsuki knew for a fact could lift bridges. The scars only add depth of character to what is already a very delectable picture. The dark jeans Izuku had on actually fit, caressing the tree trunk thighs without being too tight, tapering just right down his legs.

Aoyama had clearly employed some kind of magic. Katsuki’s parents would approve. Short but stacked is not an easy combination to dress up.

Uraraka is clutching Izuku’s arm, looking at him in wonder. Kaminari is running his hands through Izuku’s remaining curls, fluffing them up. Everyone else in the room is crowding him, patting his back, squeezing his arm, telling him he looked great, getting a piece of Izuku’s freely given smile for themselves.

Everyone except Aoyama. Katsuki tears his gaze away from the spectacle that is Deku and finds Aoyama’s eyes fixed on him. He smiles and sparkles at Katsuki.

Katsuki scowls and contemplates exploding Aoyama again for causing this but Izuku is talking now, laughing about something.

“Aoyama-kun wanted me to get my ears pierced. Just one. Maybe get a red stone for an earring. But UA won’t allow that so maybe after graduation,” Izuku says with another laugh.

Katsuki realizes he’s bent the fork he has in his hand into something unusable. He goes to the kitchen to get another fork, bringing his plate of half-eaten cake with him.

He can still hear the laughter from the common area. He slams the plate down on the kitchen counter, but they're made to withstand quirk abuse and doesn’t shatter.

“Do you like my birthday gift to you, Bakugou?”

Katsuki turns and sees Aoyama, sparkling at him.

“What gift?” He asks, confused for a moment. Other than the cake and card, he didn’t get anything from his classmates.

“Sometimes it is difficult to see something if we are too close to it. It’s better if someone else rips away the veil, et voila! And you see what has always been there.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Katsuki would be more irritated with the cryptic conversation except that he welcomes the distraction from all the giggling happening just a few meters away.

“Do you know that the entire day, our dear friend Midoriya has been talking about how amazing ‘Kacchan’ is? He was quite concerned if you would like his new look.”

Aoyama smiles again, looking both earnest and impish at the same time.

“He likes you.”

“‘Course he does,” Bakugou snaps out.

“Sometimes friends are just friends. Midoriya and I, we are bons amis. Sometimes, friends turn to lovers. It doesn’t mean they are any less friends. Or rivals. They simply become more.”

Katsuki stabs his fork into the chocolate cake, lets the dark sweetness of it cover his tongue.

“Happy birthday, Bakugou. Midoriya deserves the best, don’t you think?”

Message delivered, Aoyama leaves Katsuki.

Katsuki has always been decisive.

Unlike Izuku who mumbles and dithers with choices, trying to cover all possible angles, Katsuki is quick to choose a path and explore it.

Right now, decision made, it is easier to bear the admiring looks and constant touching happening in front of him. Izuku looks happy at least.

Half an hour past his usual bedtime, Katsuki growls out a good night. Everyone calls out their own good nights, happy birthday agains, and see you tomorrows, too used to Katsuki’s ways after 2 years of living together to protest at how early it still is.

He’s already reached the elevator doors when Izuku catches up to him.

“Can we pass by my room first, Kacchan? I have something for you,” Izuku says, the look may be new but the smile is the same warm one he’d always given Katsuki.

Katsuki pushes the number 2 button in response, still looking Izuku over.

“Where’d you get clothes that actually fit?”

“Ah, the clothes are from normal shops. It was the tailor that we had to look for. We had to get everything altered. Anything that fit me across the chest would be too long. What could fit my thighs would be too loose in the waist, and again too long,” Izuku said with a wry twist of his lips.

For all of Izuku’s nervous tics, he had never seemed particularly bothered by his height. He’s not short, per se, he’s past the average height for a Japanese man. But for a pro hero, he’s definitely on the shorter side of the field. He just barely tops Katsuki’s chin.

“So you got more of these?” Katsuki said, picking at Izuku’s shirt.

“A couple more but they’re all still with the tailor. I’m gonna go get them next weekend. Aoyama just made them finish this one set so he can show me off to everyone.”

Katsuki nudges Izuku's red shoes with his own. Izuku looks down at the contact and comes back up smiling.

"Yeah, Aoyama-kun let me keep my shoes. He said the goal is to show a more presentable side of me, not change me."

Izuku begins to tuck a curl behind his ear, realizes there is nothing to tuck and scratches the soft skin at the back of his ear instead.

Katsuki reaches out and encircles Izuku’s wrist with his fingers, pulling it away, halting the nervous gesture. Green eyes look at him in surprise.

“Don’t. You look good,” Katsuki admits. “You, this, it all looks good.”

“Oh. Thanks, Kacchan.”

There is a soft pink tingeing his freckled cheeks, more pleased than embarrassed.

The door opens and Katsuki follows Izuku to his room. It’s familiar. He’d spent hours in this room over the last 2 years; Izuku’s spent even more time in Katsuki’s.

Izuku grabs something bright colored from the desk.

“Here,” he says, holding out a small package wrapped in red and orange paper. “Happy birthday.”

Katsuki takes it, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting a gift but perhaps he should have.

“What’s this?” he asks rather inanely.

“Open it,” Izuku says, smiling at him.

Katsuki finds the flap and pulls on it, tearing the paper to expose a small rectangular box. Inside on a bed of white padding is a thin metal rectangle, the size of an ID card if a bit thicker. It’s a black matte finish with orange edging, portraying a stylized version of his hero mask.

The design is familiar. He’d seen Izuku doodle variations of it on one of his many notebooks. Katsuki hadn’t thought much about it; Izuku has been putting pieces of him on paper since they were kids.

On the flip side is inscribed his hero name in beautiful calligraphy, edged in dark green. Despite the small size, it has heft, lying heavy on his hand. A thin strap of black fine leather is looped on one corner.

It feels luxurious; the craftsmanship excellent.

“You know they can’t make merch of us yet. Officially at least. But you’re gonna be so big when you debut as pro hero, Kacchan. You’re gonna have tons of merch. I wanted to make this for you first.”

Katsuki turns the gift over in his hand, running his fingers over the smooth surface and design, feeling its weight.

“Are you really giving me my own merch?”

Izuku grins. “Tell me you’re not super pumped to see your name and colors.”

Katsuki grins back, sharp and pleased.

“Did you get one for ‘Deku’ for yourself?”

Izuku shakes his head. “No, just this.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. Hero Deku will have just as much of an impact in the pro hero scene. But Katsuki understands, it's okay to fanboy over other heroes but not over himself.

“I can’t wear my own merch, Deku. That’s tacky. My mom would have my hide.”

Izuku laughs. “You don’t have to wear it. Just keep it somewhere. It slips in the wallet too.”

Katsuki’s fingers are still playing with the metal card, feeling the texture with his fingers.

“How about you wear it?”

Izuku blinks at him.

Katsuki walks over to the familiar backpack sitting on the desk chair. It’s easy enough to loop the leather on one of the front clasps. The black and orange design is stark against the yellow fabric.

Katsuki feels a rush of satisfaction looking at the obvious branding.

“Are you sure about this, Kacchan?”

“Why not. Maybe if you carry this with you everyday, you’ll catch up to me sooner.”

Izuku touches the metal, a small smile on his lips. “I wanted one done for me too,” he admits sheepishly.

“Of course, you did,” Katsuki says, amused. “You’d probably buy all my merch when they come out, even the limited edition ones.”

“Are you kidding? Especially the limited edition ones,” Izuku says, full grinning now.

“But Kacchan,” Izuku says, losing some of his brightness, “I won’t have a gift for you if you give this back.”

“Who says I’m giving it back? You’re just wearing it cause I can’t.”

“Tacky, I know.” Izuku says, smiling again. “Thank you, Kacchan. I hope you enjoyed your birthday.”

“Yeah, I got a good gift this year,” Katsuki says, recalling what Aoyama said, strengthening his resolve.

He’s looking at his gift right now — freckles, green eyes and a warm smile, all made up just for Katsuki.

He steps closer to Izuku, closer than is comfortable even between friends.

Izuku tips his head back, looking at Katsuki, his eyes wide with questions.

“Kacchan?”

“Actually, you could give me another gift,” Katsuki says, voice unintentionally low and raspy.

He lifts a hand, brushing his knuckles across the newly buzzed hair behind Izuku’s perfectly shaped ear, threading it through the unruly curls higher up. He feels Izuku draw in a shuddering breath, see the tip of a wet pink tongue dart out in a nervous gesture, wetting his lips.

“What gift?” Izuku asks, voice thready.

Izuku’s right hand clutches at the front of Katsuki’s shirt and he realizes he’d been slowly leaning down, leaning into Izuku’s space.

“You could give me a kiss,” Katsuki whispers and bends down to give it to himself instead.

Izuku’s lips are soft, moist, impossibly warm.

“Oh,” Izuku says softly when Katsuki pulls away.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Happy birthday, Kacchan.”

“So far, the best ever.”

Katsuki is surprised to find he knows when Izuku’s birthday is. He didn’t think he remembered anyone’s except for his parents.

It’s still 3 months away. Katsuki has time to get a matching pro hero Deku design made. Izuku can wear it on his backpack too. Their colors will clash horribly with the yellow but he doubts Izuku would mind.

He realizes Izuku would give him a gift every year now. And he’d have to give one back too because no way he’ll lose to Izuku. Maybe he’ll get him an earring next year, the red would look good against his green curls.

Well, Katsuki still isn’t big on birthdays. But it would be easy enough to remember Izuku’s.

___________________ Author’s Notes:  

Later, Katsuki finds out that it’s much more important to remember Inko’s birthday than her son’s. Izuku will love him no matter what but pleasing in-laws is a top priority mission. Did I research on how to dress a short, stocky man? Why, yes. Yes I did.

This fic was created for the BKDK Katsuki Birthday Exchange 2020 as a gift to Mimocha. They wanted an Ikemen!Deku for Katsuki.

[heyyyharry]

My Girl Series: Chapter 4 - Thumper The Rabbit 

…in which Harry tries to mend the past, but Y/N wants to let it go.

Series description: Y/N falls in love with the older boy next door who doesn’t feel the same, years later they meet again at a funeral.

AU: actor!harry, older!harry, younger!y/n; (4-year age gap)

Chapter 3: His Muse - Y/N is finally happy again, but Harry realizes it’s not because of him.

Omg, this is probably the best chapter I’ve ever written in my life. Just ignore all the mistakes you see because I haven’t edited this, but I’m so proud. After this chapter, you’ll see why this Harry is the most difficult character development I’ve ever written.

wattpad link

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"We need to talk. Now."

"Now?"

"Now."

"I don't think so."

Harry and Isaac both turned to Y/N, who had both hands on her hips and an eyebrow raised at the two of them. She had no idea what was going on, but she refused to be excluded from whatever those men had going on between them. Without a second look at her date, the girl took Harry's wrist, and it was the first time in six years Harry had seen her fuming with rage.

"We need to talk," she told him. "Excuse us, Isaac."

"I'm gonna go...wait by the car," said the blond as he exchanged cautious looks with Harry and walked away to give the other two some privacy. Once Y/N was sure Isaac had walked far enough and couldn't hear them anymore, she turned back to the other guy. Harry wanted to comment something about her looking the same as the 9-year-old he used to know, but he thought that would only drive her angrier.

"What the fuck?" She scoffed, widening her eyes at him.

"Language, young lady."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Well, never mind then, Harry thought as he swallowed hard. "Why were you so rude to my date?"

"Because he's not just your date. He's my best friend." The man furrowed his eyebrows, pointing to Isaac, who was texting on his phone and wasn't paying attention to them.

"How the fuck could I know which one was your friend to stay away?!" The younger girl swung her arms in the air, and Harry knew she would only use that much body language when she was seriously pissed off. He then realized, though it was too late, that he should better shut up and just listen.

"I don't understand you, Harry..." Y/N stomped her feet, arms crossed just like her 9-year-old self would. Harry didn't know why he suddenly thought of that while she was scolding him now. "You should be happy for me because that's your best friend! At least now we both know my date is a nice person!"

Now that she'd pointed it out, Harry didn't understand himself either. Isaac was a nice guy, otherwise, they wouldn't have been friends, no, best friends, since their first year in university. He should be happy for Y/N, and Isaac too. Why was he mad? He had no reason to be mad, yet he couldn't help but feel that way, and no excuses his brain had made up could justify for all those emotions inside of him at this point.

"He's older than you," he blurted without thinking twice. As soon as he'd let out those few words he could guess her reaction immediately. Her eyes could pop out of their sockets if she continued to stare at him like that.

"So? I've fucked men older than you and Isaac."

Harry dropped his jaw but no sound escaped. He watched her catching her breath, and this time he had to think twice before he dared to ask, "have you slept with him?"

She took a short pause, which only lasted for two seconds, but those were the worst two seconds Harry had ever experienced.

"No," she said at last. Her voice was lower now. "But even if I had, you would still have no right to say anything about my decision. I'm not a kid anymore, Harry. Maybe in your eyes, I will always be a kid, but to the others, to him, I'm a grown woman who makes her own choices and mistakes." She looked at him in the eyes and took a deep breath. "And I will be with whoever I want as long as that person makes me happy. If you care about me, you should respect that."

Once she'd finished, another paused soon followed. She was looking at him, and he was staring at his feet. Harry knew she was right, yet the uneasy feeling in his chest was still there and he couldn't get it to go away, just like he couldn't convince her to cancel her date with the man who made her happy.

"I'm going now. See you some other time," she said and attempted to leave, and once again he told her to wait by holding back her hand.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, loud enough for her to hear. "L-Let me know when you get home okay?"

It wasn't a request. It was almost like him begging her.

Y/N pressed her lips into a forceful smile and nodded her head once. When she withdrew her hand from his and walked back to her date by his car, Harry felt hollow inside. The scene in front of him was familiar, he'd seen it before, and as he watched Isaac open the car door for Y/N to get into the passenger seat, he began digging up his dusty memories to recall that sunny afternoon. He had to watch a 9-year-old little girl walk away, and she also gave him that look of disappointment. And Harry had never hated himself more than that.

.

.

.

Y/N didn't own a lot of toys because her parents were always too busy to buy her new ones and most of the ones she'd got had been too dirty or broken. That was why on her ninth birthday, when she received a purple stuffed bunny from her grandmother as a gift, she treasured it so much. It became her new best friend, and she believed it brought her protection and good luck. So she could never fall asleep without the rabbit in her arms.

Harry came over one day and found the purple rabbit sitting on her bed, he picked it up but she didn't let him hold it because, "your hands are dirty, Mr. Rabbit doesn't like dirty hands."

"Mr. Rabbit?" Snorted the 13-year-old. "That's the lamest name ever!"

"I...I don't know what else to call him," she said with a pout.

Harry thought for a moment, tapping his forefinger on his lips, his eyebrows knitted together. All of a sudden, his eyes brightened up as he pointed to the ceiling and shouted out his brilliant idea.

"Let's call him Thumper. Get it? Because you're Bambi!"

"Who's Thumper?"

"The rabbit in Bambi. Gee, have you ever watched that film?" He rolled his eyes and his comment made her feel so dumb. She'd watched Bambi but she was too young to remember every character and details.

"You must've watched it a thousand times then," she said to Harry with a smile, but the boy assumed she was teasing him so he started blushing hard and denied having watched that film "a thousand times" because "only girls would do that."

"So?" He crossed his arms, smirking at her. "Thumper?"

The boy was very proud of himself for coming up with that name. And he got even smugger when Y/N said she loved it, and declared her purple stuffed rabbit's name was now Thumper.

.

.

.

Harry switched on the lights as he entered his living room. Usually, he would enjoy the comfortable silence after returning home from a long tiring day. Today, however, was different. The silence surrounding him was suffocating, it only left room for his thoughts to be more vocal. He thought about everything that had happened today, about Ruby, about Isaac, about Y/N, but mostly just Y/N.

His phone screen lit up with a new text message. He grabbed the device in less than a second, hoping it was his Bambi and that she was finally home after her date. And he was disappointed when he saw his manager's name instead.

⌲ Jeff: Get some rest. Big day tomorrow.

Big day?

Right. How could he forget?

The BAFTAs was tomorrow night. And he was nominated for Best Actor.

How could he forget?

Harry had been waiting for that night ever since they announced the nominations. Just two days ago, he was on the phone with his mum, ranting about him getting nominated for Best Actor. Ever since he was a young boy, he'd been dreaming of winning that award, and he’d had a whole speech prepared, because he was ready to step on stage and receive what he'd worked so hard for. But even if he went home empty-handed, he would still be so proud. However, ever since Y/N came back into his life, she'd taken up most of the space in his head, and he couldn't even remember something as big as a BAFTAs nomination.

The young actor quickly typed down two words and sent it back to his manager:

⌲ Thank you.

⌲ Jeff: I have bad news though.

⌲ Jeff: I know Ruby was supposed to walk the red carpet with you. But her assistant told me she wanted to walk with her fiancée.

⌲ Jeff: You know, for publicity.

⌲ Ok. Tell Ruby I wish her good luck.

⌲ Jeff: Sure thing. I believe both of you will win tmr.

Harry should be bothered by his manager bringing up his ex-lover and the fact that she was gonna attend the award in the arms of her future husband. However, Harry didn't feel the sadness he was supposed to feel. He didn't feel as hurt as the moment he saw that announcement. The only thing that had him on the edge of his seat was the fact that Isaac and Y/N were out on a date, and he didn't know where they were or what they could be doing now. He couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of his best friend and his...

The voice inside his head suddenly paused.

There was no appropriate word to fill in that blank space.

What was Y/N to him?

He honestly didn't know. He didn't see her as a sister, because he didn't feel that way about Gemma. She wasn't his girlfriend, obviously. She wasn't even his friend, because they had just returned to each other's life after six years apart.

What was Y/N to him?

He repeated the question to himself, and decided that she was just the childhood friend he cared too much about, too much to even think about something else.

Sighing, Harry untucked his shirt and rose from his seat, about to head to the shower, just in time a new text message arrived. This time, it was the one he'd been expecting.

⌲ Bambi: I just got home. Don't worry about me.

It was like a sigh of relief for him to know that their date had ended early. But to make sure, he had to ask:

⌲ Is Isaac still there?

⌲ Bambi: No, DAD. I'm home alone.

⌲ Dad is very proud :)

Harry was reluctant to type down another line, yet he couldn't keep second guessing.

⌲ How was your date?

⌲ Bambi: I'll tell you tomorrow.

⌲ Bambi: Are you free tomorrow night?

No. He had to attend the BAFTAs. Harry thought for a moment as he typed down 'I'm not :( Sorry', yet before he could press send, another text from her popped up on the screen.

⌲ Bambi: I'm having dinner with my dad and that woman.

Then came two more.

⌲ Bambi: I need you there. I can't do this alone.

⌲ Bambi: But if you're busy, I totally get it.

Harry had no idea why he could make a decision that fast. He didn't bother to ask what the dinner was for, where would it take place, how long would it last. He only knew she needed him.

Quickly, Harry deleted what he'd already typed down, and didn't even think twice as he sent:

⌲ I'm free.

⌲ What time?

⌲ I'll pick you up.

Bambi is typing...

The sound of doorbell pulled Harry's attention away from his device, back to reality. He wasn't expecting any guests this late at night, so there'd been a moment of hesitation before he walked to the door as the person outside rang the bell again. This time, a familiar voice spoke up, "It's me. Isaac."

Harry unlocked his front door and found his best friend standing outside, in the same clothes as before. So he guessed Isaac had driven straight to his place after dropping off Y/N. Without saying a word, Harry stepped aside for his friend to enter, and closed the door as the blond headed straight to the sofa.

They sat in the same spots they had that very morning. But their attitudes towards each other had changed tremendously. Isaac was the first one to speak.

"You wanted to talk. Let's talk."

"I think Y/N has told you quite a lot about how we know each other," Harry replied, leaning back against the sofa and tangled his hand in his own hair, staring down instead of at the man in front of him.

"Not really," said Isaac. "All she said about you was that you two used to be neighbors. So I can't understand why you reacted that way earlier, like a fucking child."

"Me? 'A fucking child'?" Harry scoffed. "You're the one dating a 20-year-old."

"So? Are you jealous?" Isaac's question got Harry tongue-tied. He just stared at his best friend with his lips parted, letting no sound escape. "In the last six years I've known you, you never once mentioned her to me. She was done waiting for you. You don't have the right to declare your ownership on Y/N because she's never been yours."

"Don't talk like you know everything about us."

"I think I do, Harold." Isaac nodded fast. "I've been your friend long enough to know how competitive you are. Even if you don't want her, you still want her to want you. And now that she's moved on, you cannot accept that because you're a fucking narcissist."

Harry chuckled wryly as he lifted his eyes to meet Isaac's. "You've known her for two days. I've known her since she was nine."

"Really? So you're just gonna pretend like the last six years didn't happen?"

Harry didn't say anything. A part of him had faced the fact that Isaac was right, and that he was a fucked up human being who no longer had control of his own words and actions anymore.

His best friend didn't wait for him to reply and just went on still, "You're like a brother to me. I care about you, a lot. So if you feel like you want to change for her, then just say the word and I will step aside for you to be with her." Then came the hardest question Harry had ever received. "Do you have feelings for Y/N?"

He was an actor, a skillful one, and he had plenty of awards to prove just that. He'd been born to pretend, to fake feelings, to act against his real emotions. He'd faced many challenging interviews and had always managed to lie his way out of them, yet now, when there were just him and Isaac, and it was just a simple yes-no question, he took a lifetime to ponder over it.

"No," he finally said, sounding so certain, yet he was anything but.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." No, he wasn't.

"Okay, then...Good night, H." Isaac said as he stood up. Harry said no other word, and just like that, he watched his best friend make his way back to the door.

.

.

.

On Friday that week, Harry had football practice. It was not just any ordinary football practice, because there would be a test that Friday, and the coach would pick out the team captain based on the performance of each player. Last year, Harry had been told he was too tiny to even compete for the captain armband, this year, however, he'd made the shortlist. The boy told himself to try his best to outperform all the other team members, and win that captain title for himself.

"Are you nervous?" Y/N asked Harry as she walked him to school that morning. On the days that she didn't have class the little girl would just walk with her neighbor to his school, then they would say goodbye and she would go home. But Y/N loved doing that because she got to spend more time with him. That morning, she was carrying Thumper in her arms.

"No, of course, I'm not nervous!" He boasted, but his heart was racing and his palms were sweating. Of course, he was nervous.

The little girl could see him through, yet she decided not to point it out because doing that would only discourage him. So as they arrived at his school, she handed him the rabbit with both hands.

"Here. Take Thumper with you."

"Why?" He looked at her in surprise. The last time he asked to touch it, she didn't even let him.

"I can't come with you, so keep Thumper by your side and imagine I'm there to cheer you on," she said.

That little girl's smile had given Harry more energy and confidence, and filled up his heart with happiness. Taking a deep breath, he took Thumper into his arms, then promised her that he would take good care of the stuffed animal and bring it back to her later with the captain armband.

But it wasn't that easy.

"Whose toy is this?" Max, the biggest kid in the football team said as he picked up Thumper from the locker room floor. It was not until then that Harry realized he'd dropped the rabbit when he was too busy looking for his towel.

The scary fat kid approached Harry and held up the stuffed animal by the neck as he asked, "is this yours, Styles?"

The smaller boy should've said yes. He should've protected Y/N's favorite toy, like his promise to her. However, for a 13-year-old, what people thought of him mattered more than what he thought of himself. So he ended up saying what he would later on regret.

"I don't know. I just saw it there on the floor."

The boys dissolved into laughter and started making assumptions about some 'gay kid' on their team who played with stuffed animals. Their mean words made Harry's blood boil, but there was just him against a bunch of bigger kids, he would've got beaten up so hard had he said a single word to defy them. With clenched fists and bottom lip bruised from him biting onto it, Harry watched Max shake Thumper and slam it down onto the dirty floor.

"Let's practice with this thing!" A kid suggested, and Harry watched them kick the rabbit away like a ball.

Harry walked home that day with his head hung low, and the captain band on his arm. Y/N had been waiting for his good news on her front porch. The second the little girl spotted her neighbor from afar, she rushed outside and started bouncing and cheering for him when she saw the armband. Soon she realized another thing.

"Where's Thumper?" The smile on Y/N's face slowly faded away when Harry told her the truth that some other kids had taken the rabbit and there was no way to get it back.

"You're lying, right?" She asked him with tears in her eyes, but he shook his head no, unable to look at her now. The next thing that happened was what Harry hadn't seen coming, she jumped forward and started hitting his chest while weeping uncontrollably.

"You promised to take care of him! Bring Thumper back to me! You're a liar!"

"I...I'll buy you another one."

"You can't! I want Thumper, get him back!"

"Stop being a brat!" Harry shouted and his loud voice got the girl to stop punching him immediately. She was much smaller than him, therefore, couldn't cause him much pain. But Harry was mad at himself and he didn't know what to do so he blamed it all on her trusting him with her stupid rabbit. At that moment, even himself knew it was wrong, but he was just a 13-year-old boy, he couldn't think bigger than that. Harry wished he'd stopped when he saw that frightened look on her face, yet he still went on.

"Grow up and forget about that dumb rabbit!"

Harry instantly regretted those words when Y/N looked at him in fear and immediately took a step back. Without saying another word, she turned and walked back to her house. The boy watched his little neighbor leave, and he wished he'd begged her not to go. She didn't even look at him once. He saw her mother open the front door and ask her why she was crying. But Y/N didn't say a word. She could've told her mother how mean Harry'd been to her after he'd lost her rabbit, but she chose to stay silent. And Harry had never hated himself more than that.

.

.

.

"Do you have feelings for Y/N?"

Harry kept replaying that one question inside his head. He'd said no. The voice in his head had also said no. Why was he still contemplating it? Quickly, he shook off those thoughts. Now sitting side by side with her in a restaurant, waiting for her father and future stepmother to show up, he had more important things to worry about.

Harry had seen Y/N in all states of emotions before. He'd seen her sad, nervous, happy, excited,...yet he couldn't remember the last time she was scared.

She had always been a strong girl. When he was fourteen, he caught a lizard in his backyard and tried to scare her with it, but ended up getting bit and she was just rolling on the grass and laughing at him. She wasn't afraid of the dark either, he would always cling onto her when there was a blackout. Scary movies? She loved them. In fact, he'd never seen any 13-year-old who watched scary movies for fun.

But now, she was scared. Y/N was scared of facing reality. She was scared of meeting that woman who had cruelly replaced her beloved mother and the man who had betrayed her all those years. She was scared of confrontation. She was scared that all of her old wounds might be opened again. She didn't have to tell him. He could see it in her eyes, and the way her hands which were hidden under the table, resting on her knees, were trembling.

He didn't say a word and just reached out to hold them tight. She turned to give him a smile. He hoped she knew he would always be there for her from now on.

Her father and his fiancée arrived fifteen minutes late, blaming the traffic for their tardiness. Harry hadn't seen that man since his wife's funeral, and of course, had never met the other woman. According to Y/N, she also hadn't seen her father in person since she'd moved to London, and just like Harry, this was her first time meeting her future stepmother.

The woman, whose name was Marcy, was the same age as Harry's sister Gemma, four years older than him. The beautiful blonde had been smiling ever since she arrived, her bubbly personality and great fashion sense seemed to be the complete opposite of Y/N's father, who was nearly fifty years old and owned a hardware store. Harry couldn't see how they could be a couple, but unfortunately, they were already engaged.

It started out quite awkward. The four of them named their orders and just sat there in utter silence. Harry took a few quick glances at Y/N, who hadn't made eye contact with her own father ever since he got there. The young man tried to read her facial expression, eventually, he gave up because she didn't show any kind of emotion.

"I'm so glad you agreed to meet us, Y/N," her father broke the silence at the table at last. "Harry, thank you for joining us."

"No problem, Mr. Y/L/N."

The silence once again took over and continued until the waiter brought out their food. This time, it was Marcy who attempted to start a conversation.

"Harry, I love your movies. I'm a very big fan."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Oh, please, call me Marcy. I'm old enough to be your older sister."

"Finally someone said it," Y/N mumbled under her breath. Harry wasn't sure if the other two had heard that, but he spotted a secret smile on her face, and couldn't help but smile along.

"So Y/N," Marcy said to the younger girl. "How's life?"

"Fine."

"Oh...You must be popular for being friends with the famous Harry Styles."

Harry and Y/N exchanged looks and tried hard not to burst into laughter. They didn't know why it was funny, they probably just had an equally bad sense of humor or they both found Marcy's poor attempt to be accepted hilarious. Whatever it was, Harry was glad he'd got to see Y/N smile.

The dinner only lasted for two hours, but it felt like two centuries for the two of them. As soon as they walked out of the restaurant and watched Y/N's father got into a taxi with his future wife, Y/N heaved a long sigh as if she was releasing all of her frustration from earlier.

"She seemed nice," Harry began as he walked her back to her flat, which was just a few blocks down the road. "Maybe you should give her a chance."

"Psst, she was just pretending. She's a husband-stealing witch. He's a shameless cheater. Wait, maybe they do belong together after all," she cried out, making him chuckle.

"If you hate them so much why did you agree to go?"

"After talking to you I thought I might give the other people in my past a chance...But I guess you're just an exception. I really couldn't stand the two of them." The girl scoffed as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in annoyance. She was too busy ranting about how much she hated Marcy to even notice the way he was staring at her. Harry secretly wished she could see how glad he was now that she'd fully accepted him back in her life.

"...and she's the same age as Gemma but now she's gonna be my step mum, that's fucking weird."

She'd just cursed again. Maybe he should really get used to it.

"Relax, kid. Age is just a number."

"What did you just say?" Y/N stopped walking and dropped her jaw, gawking at him. It took Harry a moment to realize how ironic he'd just sounded, so he just started grinning at her. "I can't believe that really came from you, Mr. You're-younger-than-me-so-you're-still-a-kid."

He didn't comment on what she'd just said, instead, he breathed out a slight laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" She glared at him as they resumed walking side by side.

"You look cute when you're mad."

"Cute? I don't wanna be cute." She shook her head fast. The pout on her face only made him laugh harder. "Stop laughing! You're a terrible person, Harry."

When she jumped onto his back and pretended to fight him, they were both drowning in laughter to realize they were being followed. It wasn't until Harry saw the camera flash that he turned around and saw a bunch of young girls with phones in their hands. Y/N freaked out and immediately jumped right behind the man so he could shield her from his intrusive fans.

"Hi...Harry..." Said one of the girls, who were too taken in by his presence to even move.

Harry was clearly shocked, yet he remained calm and walked towards the three girls, giving them a friendly grin.

"What are your names?" He asked.

"I'm Jessica."

"I'm Nadine."

"I'm Carey. We love you and your movies so much! Can we take a photo with you?"

"Sure." He nodded. "But would you mind deleting those pictures you just took of my friend and me?"

The three girls exchanged looks, and the one named Nadine asked Harry, "is this your girlfriend?"

"No, she's my friend. That's why I don't want her to get into trouble if people see the photos and think she's my girlfriend."

The fans seemed to understand so they handed their phones to Harry so he could delete the photos himself. Y/N was still amazed by her first experience with famous actor Harry and not the Harry she'd always known. So even after taking that group photo for those fans with Harry, she still couldn't believe what happening was real. She handed the phone back to one of the girls, and they apologized again for those sneaky photos.

Before saying goodbye, the black-haired one named Carey remembered something as she asked Harry, "why aren't you at the BAFTAs?"

"The BAFTAs?" Y/N widened her eyes at her older friend, who wasn't even looking at her.

The young actor didn't say a word, so Jessica jumped in, "you just won Best Actor!"

"Wow, I did?" Harry seemed calm, yet surprised, like he didn't even expect to win.

"Yes!!!" Nadine clapped her hands excitedly, bouncing up and down. "We were so disappointed when you didn't come on stage to accept it! But thank God we ran into you here!"

The girls walked away after saying goodbye to Harry and Y/N, and thanking them for the second time. Once left alone together again, Y/N immediately grabbed Harry by the arm and spun him around to face her. She was too appalled to even speak right away. It took her a second or two to release the proper words.

"You just won your first BAFTA."

"I did." He chuckled.

"But you weren't there to accept it."

"Yeah, but there's always next year," Harry said as he urged her to keep on walking, yet Y/N refused to follow and just stood there, looking extremely stunned.

"But it's your first BAFTA."

"I know, kid. You already said that." He couldn't help but laugh louder now that her mouth was kept open.

"Why did you agree to go with me? You should've been on stage to receive that award!"

"It's just an award." He smiled. He couldn't read her mind though he'd tried a hundred times or so. However, he hoped a part of her would believe that his words, this time, were entirely genuine. "I could get another one next year, but if I lose you again, I can't get you back."

"Why would you lose me?" She asked him after a long moment of silence. Her voice was soft, the softest it'd ever been. "It's just dinner."

"But you said you needed me. And I wanted to be there for you."

.

.

.

It'd been a week since the last time Y/N spoke to Harry. The 13-year-old boy kept telling himself he had his friends and he didn't need her. He held his pride, refusing to be the first to apologize, but every time he saw her on her front porch and tried to get her attention by walking back and forth in front of her house, she completely ignored him and just went back inside. He waited in the treehouse every day, but she didn't come anymore. For the first time in Harry's life, he'd finally learned what it was like to really miss someone.

Friday came, and so did his first football practice as the team captain. He arrived earlier that morning to get ready. Surprisingly, the big kid Max was also there.

Hiding behind his locker door, Harry saw Max put the purple stuffed bunny into his locker, and he felt the heavy weight lifted from his chest because at least now he knew the rabbit was still 'alive'.  The boy didn't know what had gotten into him at that very moment. For a second there, he thought of Y/N, and the look on her face when he shouted at her.

That was all it took for him to walk up to Max, and said aloud, "give me back the rabbit."

"Excuse me?"

The fat kid towered over Harry. Max was a whole head taller and twice bigger than him, and he could easily knock down the curly haired boy with one single punch. However, Harry didn't run.

He repeated, only louder this time, "I said, give me back the rabbit."

"Is it yours? Harry Faggot Styles? You're the gay kid who plays with girly toys."

"Yes, it's mine and I want it back," he asserted, looking at his enemy in the eyes like how he'd seen the heroes did in comic books. Max, of course, wasn't intimidated by Harry's attitude though he was a bit surprised the wimpy kid had actually got the nerves to talk to him that way.

He gave Harry a shrug and leaned one shoulder against his own locker. "I tossed it away already."

"Liar. I saw you put it in there."

"So? You can't have it back. Grow up, fag."

He pushed Harry's shoulder, causing the boy to stumble two steps backward. The next thing Harry did next was out of his imagination. He jumped onto Max, causing both of them to drop down onto the floor with him sitting on top of the bigger kid as he started throwing punches. Max screamed in pain, but he managed to flip them both over and have Harry pinned down beneath him. Now the smaller boy was the one to receive hard fists in the face. Harry didn't give up. If he walked home that day without Thumper he would lose Y/N forever. He would never give up. He kicked Max right in the crotch and while the fat boy was growling in pain, he managed to escape and crawled five feet away.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Max screamed at him, now astonished by what Harry was capable of.

With a black eye and bleeding nose, Harry struggled to rise from the floor and straightened his own clothes as he said to Max, "give me back the rabbit and..."

His brain told him not to say it, but his heart told him to go on. And he did.

"...and you can get the captain band."

"Are you joking?" Max scoffed, wiping the blood on the corner of his mouth as he sat up. "The coach would never allow that."

"I'll convince him. You have my word."

Max stared at Harry like the kid was insane. "You want to give up the captain band for a stupid toy rabbit?"

"The girl I love loves that rabbit," the smaller boy said after thinking for a couple seconds and catching his breath. "I'll do anything to get it back for her."

Max called Harry a 'pussy' and said it was gross to love a girl. Harry didn't understand what 'pussy' meant and why it was gross to love someone. Maybe Max just didn't know it because he didn't have someone like Bambi in his life, eventually, he would learn. The most important thing was, Harry got Thumper back, though he got a black eye as a bonus and lost the captain title to the big bully.

That Friday afternoon, he walked home with blood still on his shirt and his face beaten up. Of course, he'd got detention and his coach wanted to speak to his mother at the principal office on Monday. But he wasn't ashamed. He was proud. He held the rabbit in his hand like a trophy, and the moment he saw Y/N playing with her broken dolls in her front yard, he waved the stuffed animal in the air to grab her attention.

"Thumper!" Y/N screamed in joy and hopped towards Harry, nearly tripping on her own two feet. She hugged the rabbit despite how dirty it was, and was about to thank Harry when she saw what he looked like.

"What happened to you?" She gasped, reaching up to touch his black eye, but he swiftly pushed her hand away.

"I fell from a tree."

"You climbed a tree without me?"

The look on her face was priceless, and Harry swore he had to try very hard not to burst out laughing.

"Sorry."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore." He gave her a shrug and a broken smile because his upper lip was bleeding. The girl looked at the rabbit, then at Harry again. The beam on her face soon turned into a frown when she realized something.

"How did you get Thumper back?" She questioned.

"It doesn't matter..." He sighed sadly. He could lie to her however he wanted, but he couldn't hide the fact that the band on his arm was missing.

"Did you trade your captain band for my rabbit?"

He didn't even get a chance to say no as the girl walked off without saying a word.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna see your teacher to trade it back for you." Then with a pout, she mumbled, "I want you to be happy."

The boy hurriedly rushed to her side as he held onto her shoulders and looked at her in the eyes. Smiling, he said, "you're not mad at me anymore and we got Thumper back. I'm very happy!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. I can be captain again next year, but if I lose you now...I cannot find another Bambi."

With that answer, he made her grin like a Cheshire Cat again.

"Don't worry," she told him. "For me, you'll always be number one."

.

.

.

"Tea?"

"You drink tea before bed?" Harry asked as he watched Y/N walked to the kitchen after locking the door to her flat.

"Always," she said to him with a smile.

After a cup of tea, Harry followed Y/N into her bedroom, where they lied on her bed side by side and just stared at the ceiling. They used to lie on the grass and looked at the stars together, but you couldn't really do stargazing in the center of crowded London so right now they had to use their imagination and pretend the dirty old ceiling was a sky full of stars.

Harry turned his head to look at Y/N. She had her eyes closed and she was smiling. He wished he knew what she was thinking of. That was when he spotted a familiar object sitting on top of her closet, hidden in the shadow, an old, torn up purple stuffed bunny.

"Is that Thumper?" He asked, pointing at it.

Y/N finally opened her eyes and laughed once she saw the stuffed animal. "It's been so long since I heard that name."

"You used to love him so much."

"I grew up." Y/N snorted as she rolled over to face him. Harry didn't know why he felt heartbroken after hearing her say that. Maybe it wasn't just Thumper. She'd stopped loving a lot of things as she grew up, one of which was him.

Harry also rolled over to come face to face with the girl. Her hair was covering half of her face so he reached out to tuck those few strands behind her ear as they smiled at one another. They held each other's gaze for a little while, enjoying the silence in that small bedroom. It was then that Harry realized he hadn't felt that way in such a long time. He couldn't describe that feeling nor recall the last time he'd experienced it. He just knew it was like no others.

"You were gonna tell me about your date?" He suggested, making her smile.

"Right." She snorted. "It went so well until he dropped me off. I thought he was gonna kiss me, but then he just leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. Then he wished me a good night."

Harry could see a fraction of insecurity in the way she looked, therefore he knew that date with Isaac was still bothering her.

"Do you think..." She was reluctant to continue, yet she did eventually, "Do you think he likes me?"

"Yes, I know he likes you." Harry smiled. Those weren't exactly the words he wanted to say.

"Do you think he's too good for me?"

He shook his head, pressing his lips together as he exhaled. "What are you talking about? You're an amazing girl."

"Thank you," she mumbled, tired eyes looking into his. "For going to that dinner with me, and for choosing me over the BAFTAs."

"Don't thank me, I—" Harry couldn't even finish that sentence. The sound of Y/N's ringtone pierced right through his brain and got her sitting up in a blink of an eye.

"It's Isaac!" The girl exclaimed when she saw the caller ID. "I gotta take this!"

Harry propped up on his elbows to watch Y/N hop out of her bed and flee to the balcony to answer the call. He could see her from over here, through the glass door. She had one arm folded, the other holding the phone, and a huge smile displayed on her pretty face as she started to speak. It was the only moment that night he didn't wish he could read her mind.

She seemed overjoyed. And for the first time, her happiness made him sad. Harry switched his eyes to the purple bunny she'd left in the dark corner of the room, the one who'd protected her from her parents' fights and all of her bad dreams. Thumper used to be her number one, but as a grown woman Y/N didn't need him anymore.

Now sitting on top of her closet, Harry could finally see it through.

[notbang]

that cat’s something i can’t explain

read on ao3

1.

“Rebecca,” Nathaniel says in surprise when he spots his girlfriend weaving through the Mountaintop lobby, flour-dusted apron and all, making a very determined beeline in his general direction. “What’s going on?”

As soon as he says the words, he expects her haughtiness—an affronted why can’t a humble pretzel maker visit her lawyer lover on the top floor, perhaps, or something equally colourful. The closer she gets, though, he can see she’s vibrating with something other than deliberately cloying indignation.

“What’s going on,” she says emphatically, dropping her phone on the front desk with enough force that its momentum slides it towards him, “is that if I had to be subjected to this monstrosity, then so you do you.”

He stops the phone before it can ricochet off the edge of the counter, eyebrows raised as he unlocks the screen.

“Now that we know a love of the theatrical arts is something which we both share—”

“Wouldn’t say ‘love’,” Nathaniel interjects.

“—we can have these very important cultural discussions together.”

He makes it approximately twenty seconds into the video before he turns it off.

This isn’t the first time he’s found himself completely miffed by one of Rebecca’s outbursts, but even in his bemusement it’d be disingenuous of him to paint it as one of her qualities he considers skewed towards the negative. There’s always been something so captivating in the way her feelings tend to command the entirety of her tiny frame, expressing endlessly outwards, always making her seem so much more than what she is.

Still, he’s at a loss for what to offer her in return for her obvious discontent, and he settles for stating the obvious, well aware she’ll hand him precisely the response she was looking for soon enough.

“Don’t see it?” he offers, tone tentative and polite.

Predictably, she scoffs at him, jabbing two accusing pointer fingers in his direction. “Ha. Don’t see it. I wasn’t planning on it, was I? But then they had to go and make it terrible, which is how they reel you in! And not just plain old terrible, either—it’s, like, the uncanny valley, haunt-your-dreams kind of terrible that cancels out how terrible the source material already is, because that’s how negative integers work, for some reason, and now it’s like this… furry train wreck I can’t look away from,” she finishes, gesticulating wildly and scrunching up her hands into frustrated little cat claws.

“Did Nathaniel finally admit he’s a furry?” Maya whispers with conspiratorial glee, popping up unannounced on Rebecca’s immediate left.

“Ugh, Maya, go away,” she groans.

“You don’t work here anymore—you can’t just boss people around,” Nathaniel says, before straightening his shoulders and adding pointedly, “Maya, go away. Please.”

Rebecca raises her eyebrows as the office assistant pushes her glasses up her nose, pouts and scampers away. She leans across the desk to give him a blatant up-and-down. “Wow, look at you—dolling out pleases like you’re Oprah or something. So cordial, yet commanding. It’s kind of sexy, in a Miss Manners kind of way.”

“Don’t you have a storefront you should be manning?”

“I’d be able to hear the fire alarm from here,” she defends, then pushes up on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on his right cheek. Nathaniel pauses in his photocopying, ears pinking, then reciprocates with a brief press of his open palm to the small of her back.

He clears his throat. “I’ll see you at lunch,” he calls after her, but he’s certain she doesn’t hear him, already having summoned Maya back, strangely intent on correcting her opinions on something involving, if he’s heard correctly, Taylor Swift.

2.

When he makes his way down the hall back to her bedroom, still towelling his hair, there’s a message notification waiting on his phone from Rebecca.

“What is this?” he asks, waving his screen at her.

She doesn’t even glance up from the novel she’s reading, a stray lock of her hair looping around her finger in an absent spiral. He watches the movement for a moment, transfixed, until she disengages the curl to flick the page over and finally responds. “It’s Hermione after she messes up her Polyjuice potion in Chamber of Secrets. Obviously.”

“Okay.” Then, after a beat, “Why am I looking at it?”

“Because Paula doesn’t understand musicals or Harry Potter or memes, so it had to go to you by default.”

“Do you understand memes?”

“Plus,” she says, ignoring him, “you’re, like, romantically obligated to find every message I send you entertaining.”

He plugs his phone into charge before joining her on the bed, shuffling as high up on the pillows as he can manage to keep his toes from skimming the end of the mattress when he stretches out. It’s not entirely successful, but if he bends at the knees a little and curls on his side, he knows from past experience he can make it work.

“Am I, just. Even the ones composed entirely of emojis?”

She grins. “Especially the ones composed entirely of emojis.”

Rebecca ditches her paperback in favour of wriggling into his warmth, murmuring her contentment when he slips an arm around her waist to draw her close and drop a chaste kiss onto the crown of her head. Her hair’s still damp and smells vaguely floral, like her shampoo, and he lets his lips linger there, breathing her in.

His phone vibrates twice on the nightstand.

When pulls back to peer down his nose at her, she’s not-so-subtle in her attempt to conceal what she’s cradling innocently between their chests. He sighs, feigning exasperation. “You just sent me a cat emoji, didn’t you?”

“I absolutely did not,” she says solemnly, then, dissolving into laughter under his scrutiny, confesses, “It was more like five. And I think maybe a llama by mistake?”

3.

“It’s like they didn’t even try,” Rebecca announces loudly in the vicinity of Nathaniel’s ear, rudely jerking him back from the precipice of sleep.

“Oh good,” he sighs, blinking his eyebrows higher up his forehead in the darkness. “This again.”

He grunts out his disapproval as the bedside lamp clicks back on, casting half the apartment in dramatic shadow as it burns his retinas with its unexpected blinding light.

“And I’m just saying,” Rebecca continues, oblivious or in the very least unconcerned with his state of obvious discomfort, apparently immune to any such adjustment period of her own, “did anyone consult TS Eliot before reinventing his heartfelt poetry as a vaginal yeast infection in musical form?”

Nathaniel’s nose wrinkles to match the pre-existing scrunch of his face. “What?”

“Never mind, it was a whole a thing. My point is, no film is an island unto itself. People signed off on this. Multiple people looked at those designs and said, you know what’s gonna add a layer of appeal to a musical that already has no plot? Stripping it of its one redeeming feature—AKA the crazy 80s hair—and replacing it with horrifying, humanoid heads that somehow manage to look furry and bald at the same time.”

Even if Nathaniel felt remotely qualified to comment on the topic—which, for the record, oddly flattered though he is at Rebecca’s pervasive belief that he might be, he decidedly is not—it’s late, it’s a weeknight, and he really just wants to sleep.

“If you hate it so much, rewrite it,” he says before pointedly rolling away from her with a yawn and yanking the covers up over his shoulders.

She follows him, flicking him hard in the back of the neck where his nape’s still exposed above the blanket. “Not cute, dude. You don’t get points for that one anymore. And you can’t ‘rewrite’ CGI. Even if you could, a thousand rewrites isn’t gonna change the eyesore that I—nay, humankind—have been subjected to.”

Nathaniel buries his face in the pillow and groans something that resembles her name before it gets jumbled in its muffled pass through the cotton.

“Rebecca,” he says once he’s resurfaced, trying again, tone still undeniably clipped as he scrubs a palm across his face. “I have a deposition first thing tomorrow. Do we really need to have this conversation now?”

She wilts visibly, chagrined, eyes flicking to the clock at his bedside that may as well have ABSURDLY LATE splashed across its interface in red LEDs. “Sorry,” she says meekly, officially rebuked, sinking back into the sheets and switching off the lamp.

The room is blissfully silent save for the collective electronic hum of his appliances, but despite the stillness, Nathaniel finds himself unable to drift back off. Without opening his eyes he pats around beside him until his fingers connect with the phone he’d known with every fibre of his being she was still holding, confiscating and discarding on his nightstand, out of reach.

“Go to sleep,” he admonishes.

“I was just—”

“Sleep,” he repeats, voice gruff with exhaustion, enfolding her firmly in his arms as a preventative measure, practically able to hear her calculating the device’s retrieval in the dark.

4.

“What are we dealing with, here? Minor song lyric alteration? Beloved song exclusion? Reinforced misogyny? Racially insensitive miscast?”

Nathaniel startles at the sound of the door opening, Paula spilling into Rebecca’s house like she lives there and depositing her bags in the entryway with a dramatic thud.

Rebecca, by comparison, is unperturbed by the intrusion, swivelling on a breakfast stool to look at her friend and shake her head. “We’re not talking misdemeanours here, Paula. We’re talking big league. Like, DEFCON-5.”

“Oh,” Paula says. She clucks in feigned sympathy and shoots a knowing glance in Nathaniel’s direction. “This is about the singing cats, huh.”

Even focused as he is on rinsing out her blender, he doesn’t miss the way Rebecca shrinks guiltily away from him in his periphery.

“Did you call an early morning emergency meeting of your girl mob to discuss a movie trailer you didn’t like?” he asks, careful to keep his tone light.

“It’s gurl group, but you know that, and no—Valencia is in town for her sister’s birthday and Heather’s working at this Home Base today and Paula’s new job means she has to like, actually do work now, so breakfast is the only time all of us were free.”

As if on cue, Heather and Valencia sidle through the open doorway.

“Oh, he’s here?” Heather drawls with an exaggerated grimace when she spots Nathaniel. “Looks like you’ve already found someone to rant about your dumb movie to, so I’m gonna just—”

Her attempt to pivot on the spot and leave is thwarted by the arm Valencia loops through her own, catching her before she can re-cross the threshold.

Nathaniel wastes no time in whipping his head around to aim an aha look in Rebecca’s direction, and she’s just as quick to defend, “Yeah, okay, so it’s on the agenda. Amongst other things.”

“Is that so. Like what?”

“Like… topics I don’t know about yet because nobody ever responds to my requests to send me their items for the agenda.”

“God, no more agendas,” Paula grouches, reaching for a mug from the overhead cabinet. “Or meetings. My entire life is meetings and agendas and scheduling conflicts. Can’t we just have a good old fashioned rendezvous? I feel like nobody ever rendezvouses anymore.”

“Ooh, or how about a tryst,” Rebecca suggests, waggling her eyebrows.

“Girl, you know I love you,” Valencia says, “but I’m not trysting with you. I have a fiancée.”

Heather hums, drumming her fingers against the countertop as she hoists herself up onto a stool. “So full disclosure, Hector and I saw the Cats revival with his mom last year, and I liked it. I think the lack of plot worked in Hector’s favour.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Rebecca says, wistful.

“You liked The Lion King,” Nathaniel feels obligated to point out. “That’s technically about digitally rendered singing cats.”

“I tolerated The Lion King because of my deep fondness of the original and because I knew I could bully you into seeing it with me because of its zoological themes,” she corrects. “Anyway, that remake’s issue was that it had no soul. This remake’s issue is that it’s, like, demonically possessed, or something. Which, to be fair, cats, as a species, generally are.”

“Rebecca,” Valencia begins, voice all saccharine and scathing, “need I remind you of one of the many occasions you broke up with this one—” She jabs a thumb in Nathaniel’s face, making him frown. “—with the intention of adopting an entire shelter’s worth of felines?”

“That was a different time,” Rebecca dismisses. “I was punishing a version of myself I wasn’t proud of by resigning her to the fate I believed she deserved.”

Nathaniel tilts his head, bemused. “Huh?”

“Oh, she wanted to be a crazy cat lady,” Heather translates, enunciating loudly, “because she couldn’t bone you in the stationery closet without feeling bummed about it anymore. Just, like. While we’re on the subject of trysts.”

“Heath-er,” Rebecca hisses, kicking her ex-housemate in the shin.

Parsing their less than stellar communal romantic track record with a group of women all too happy to gang up on him afforded the slightest opportunity isn’t high on Nathaniel’s to-do list for the morning, and a flick of his wrist to check his smart watch is all the excuse he needs to make a timely escape.

“On that note,” Nathaniel says, snatching his car keys off the counter, “I’m going to leave you ladies be.”

The conversation barely dips as he sees himself out.

5.

“So in between your being typecast as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, you didn’t happen to don, say, a unitard and leg warmers, did you?”

“What?”

He knows he should be used to this by now—this tendency towards unexpected tack-changing that he’d liken to a dog with a bone, if the cliche didn’t feel somewhat inapt, considering. It’s not like he’s unaccustomed, after all this this time, to Rebecca’s one track mind. It’s just that up until this point, most of the tracks she’s been fixated on treading have usually, admittedly, served his own interests as easily as her own.

“Just checking, because for the record, it’s kind of a massive deal breaker for me.”

She flops into his side, not entirely-unpleasantly sticky, or in the very least, skin virtually indistinguishable from the slick of his own. Rebecca’s ability to pick up intelligible conversation immediately post-coitus is a talent he does not share, and as the golden fog of afterglow suffuses through his bloodstream he takes his time meandering back towards the realm where articulation is possible, content in the knowledge his bedmate will happily barrel on without him until he catches up.

“Just kidding,” she seems to feel the need to clarify, even in the absence of any protest on his behalf. “The knowledge that you were a theatre kid is such an aphrodisiac to me that it well and truly trumps any potential feline faux pas.”

“Wasn’t a theatre kid,” he corrects, the response so automatic he’s not sure it counts as cognitive function.

“Agree to disagree,” Rebecca says, earning herself an exasperated sigh.

Once the drumbeat of his pulse has slowed in his ears, he cracks an eyelid, suspicious of the lack of movement and sudden cease in chatter from the woman sprawled out across his upper torso. Rebecca’s gazing up at him as if she’s been patiently awaiting his full attention, chin resting on her stacked hands, a lazy, satisfied smile stretched across her features.

“You know, for someone who claims to hate Cats,” Nathaniel tells her with amusement after stretching to peck her on the mouth, “you kind of talk about Cats a lot. Some might even describe you as off-puttingly passionate on the subject. Not me,” he backtracks at her incredulous glare, tucking her hair behind her ear with affection. “I find your aggressive diatribe charming.”

Suitably placated, she drops her head back down against his shoulder. “They do say there’s a fine line between love and hate.”

He skates his hand down the bare expanse of her back, letting it settle in the dip between her hips. She undulates with the caress, thighs parting and sliding to bracket one of his. If she’s gunning for a second round he’s still got his refractory period to contend with, but there’s always other ways to keep her occupied, his loose-limbed lack of focus notwithstanding.

She doesn’t push it any further, though, apparently content for now in her own come-down, and he’s just about to give in to the pull towards sleep when it occurs to him what he’s neglected to ask.

“Did you?”

Rebecca’s even breaths, which up until now have been fanning rhythmically across the damp of his throat, catch and falter enough that he takes note of their telling absence.

“Hmm? Did I what?” she deflects, and his eyes narrow at the way she doubles down on the suggestive patterns she seems intent on tracing across his pectorals.

Determined not to be swayed, he shifts beneath her, laughter rumbling through him and muscle mass quaking like tectonic plates beneath the surface of his skin. “Oh, you so did,” he grins, pleased to have been on the money with his flicker of suspicion, eager to bask, as always, in any correct insight he’s managed to garner into his girlfriend’s endlessly multi-faceted brain. “This whole time there’s been incriminating photos of you somewhere wearing tacky fake-fur and an unseemly wig. There’s no hiding your shameful history, now—the cat is out of the bag.”

Rebecca smacks him on the chest, unimpressed, and he can see every telltale corner of her mouth at which the scowl fails to conceal the twitches of her laughter. “So what if my vendetta is somewhat rooted in past trauma? It doesn’t change basic fact, which is that the mere existence of Cats—animal, musical or movie—is a plague against mankind. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t need the wig—my early adolescent frizz was unseemly enough all on its own.”

Where late-night exhaustion-fuelled irritation existed only a few evenings prior, Nathaniel finds himself suddenly capable of only overwhelming fondness. “I think you would have made a very fearsome cat,” he tells her seriously. “All feisty, and nimble.”

He takes two locks of her hair, twisting them up into faux-ears on the top of her head until she bats his hands away, failing miserably at stifling her giggles.

“Stop that. You’re one adjective away from me adding myself back into the Mountaintop text chain just so I can make Maya’s week.”

“Uh-huh. Because I’m the one between us whose levels of preoccupation are concerning.”

He rolls her beneath him, nuzzling his nose against hers in an exaggerated way he can tell irritates her to no end given the context, but muscle memory wins out and she melts into it, the frown lines easing from her forehead as she moulds her mouth against his.

It’s only a matter of time before she’s pressing insistently against him, appetite predictably reawakened, and every sordid pun he could torture her with right now tingles at the ready on the tip of his tongue. But then she sighs into him with a kind of giddiness that sends his mind shattering into static, and as he nips and noses his way down past her belly every teasing thought disintegrates into the ether as he touches her until she’s arching, unraveling, drawing out his name in what can only be described as a delighted purr.

[dailyaudiobible]

03/04/2020 DAB Transcript

Numbers 2:1-3:51, Mark 11:27-12:17, Psalms 47:1-9, Proverbs 10:24-25

Today is the 4th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today. Feeling a little bit more…a little bit more like myself here moving through the jet lag. And today, at least in my life it's a mile marker, a milestone marker. Today is my birthday and I've stopped celebrating the passing of another year in my life in my biological age. I’m 15 today. This is my 15th Daily Audio Bible birthday. So, watch out. You got a raging teenager going lead you through the rest of this year in the Scriptures, but I'll…I’ll try to act more my biological age than my Daily Audio Bible age. But anyway, it's a…at least for me, it just marks…I can’t believe it…15 years. Wow! That is…I can't believe it. But anyway, let's move into the Scriptures and allow God to speak to us into our day. And, so, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. And we’ll read Numbers chapters 2 and 3 today.

Commentary:

Alright. So, in our reading from the Gospel of Mark today Jesus is in Jerusalem, the holy city that we just returned from and He’s walking in the temple complex and it’s like He gets ganged up on because the chief priests, not the minor ones, like the chief priests and the scribes and the elders, they came to Him and…and they're asking Him, “like, by what…” you know… “like, by what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you the right to do this? And Jesus is like, “I'll answer that question if you answer one of mine.” And then He asks the question about John, “is he from heaven or is he from man.” So, we can read this and ho like, “Jesus is very astute. He's very observant. He knows what's going on. He sees what they're doing. And, so, He outwits them with this question.” And although that's…that's true, there's more that He's asking, then it might seem, because He's not just trying to catch them in their own trap or catch them in their own trick. He’s asking a question that would inform, that would reveal their hearts whether or not they have eyes to see and ears to hear. So, he's like, I'll answer that question, but…but I'm not gonna answer that question if you don't…if you can't…if you don't have eyes to see or ears to hear the answer. “So, let me ask you a question? What about John? Was he sent from God or was he just some crazy guy?” And, so, they discuss it and they're not saying like, “hmmm…let's truly ponder that question.” They're trying to figure out the right answer that will keep them protected and safe in their power. Like, so, they’re like, “if we say from heaven then it would be like, why didn't you believe him? But if we say he was from man then the people are going to freak out because they thought he was a prophet.” And, so, they’re like, “we don't know.” And, so, Jesus is basically then saying, “you don't have eyes to see and ears to hear, so I'm not telling you by what authority I do these things.” And then immediately he launched into a parable to illustrate to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, especially because He's…He's there with the chief priests and scribes and the elders. And, so, He's telling this story for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear the story of God and man. So, He talks about a beautiful vineyard being cultivated and developed and made right for…for…for growing. And, so, this man who owned the farm then leases the farm to tenant's, right? These would be the ones in authority. These are the ones Jesus is specifically identifying as these high priests, scribes and elders in this parable. But not just them presently. All the way back. The line of the Levites that were reading about in the book of Numbers. Like, we’ve just zoomed a couple thousand years forward and this is them, at least in office. And He was like, “the time for harvest came and the farmer sent someone to collect and that person got beat. These are the prophetic voices that have been sent all along, calling the people, inviting the people back. But the leaders beat them or killed them or struck them on the head or treated them shamefully until finally, God said, “I'll send my beloved son. Surely, surely the people of God will respect the son of God. But instead they identified this beloved son and decided, “if we can get rid of Him, we can have it all.” And, so, they killed Him, right? In the story is the story of God and man and the story of redemption. And Jesus concludes poignantly, “what will the owner of the vineyard do?” You know, like “after all that's happened, after they've beat up servants, killed servants, and killed his son, what's he gonna do? He will come and destroy the tenants”, right? And the tenant's in this story is aimed at the people Jesus is talking to, these religious elite people who are so entrenched in their tradition and so accustomed to their power that they do not have eyes to see or ears to hear. In so many ways this parable is like an invitation to the chief leaders to open their eyes to what they are not seeing, the kingdom of heaven in the world. And just like the parable goes, they left there and plotted. They’re gonna arrest Jesus and get Him out of circulation. So, if there is one thing that we should be beginning to see fairly clearly as we move through the Gospels, this kingdom is here, it is happening, it is moving forward, it will reach its fullness, but it can go completely undetected if you don't have eyes to see and ears to hear, which is why in part we’re spending this year with this word that we’re just simmering on all year, this word “vision”. We also have a word, “settle”. But this word, “vision”, is a specific kind. It's eyes to see the kingdom at work in this world and our place in it. May we not be deeply religious people who are completely aligned.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite You into that. We way ask again for her eyes to be opened. We may be asking this many many, many, many, more times all year long to keep it on our radar to understand that it's available. We can open our eyes. We just have to look around and stop looking for everything that's challenging us or everything that's bad. We have to look for that which is holding back the darkness. That's the kingdom. And when we see light poking out of the darkness no matter where it's coming from, we need to recognize it. We need to take Your words to be true. Those who are not against us are for us. Wherever light is peeking out, no matter where it's coming from, may we recognize Your kingdom at work in this world. Come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

It’s…well…it’s my birthday. That's going on around here. Probably try to find an hour or two to take a little reflective drive or something and just continue moving through the jet lag. It's…I mean there are some hours now that…that are making sense, but a lot of the hours don't because you’re just kind of moving back…moving back into this time zone. So, thank you for your prayers over that.

Reminding you that…visit the Daily Audio Bible shop. There are a number of resources there for the journey through the Bible in a year. And, so, take advantage of those. They’ve been created for this journey including the Promise Land films that I’ve mentioned a number of times as we were in Israel. That is a great…that resource was created for this journey to. Just to…just changed me when I was able to go to the land of the Bible and get some context, like look around and understand the context of the stories. That's when this whole thing was birthed just to really try to bring as…as comprehensive review of some of the places that we’ll visit in the Bible into our eyes and into real life so that we can see them. So, that's available in the shop. So, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link and it lives on the homepage and I thank you for clicking that link. If you are using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is number to dial or you can just hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Protected by His Wings in Virginia calling for a prayer request. I retired from the Army after over 27 years of service, 21 active duty and I retire in 144 days and I covet your prayers on God’s will…well what I do in retirement. I pray for ears to hear and eyes to see and a discerning heart and I pray that I meet wisdom at this crossroads. And I covet all of the DABbers prayers. I also pray…want to put a shout out for his little Cherry in Canada, Kristi from Kentucky, and Candace from Oregon. I truly love hearing your voices, your prayers and I pray for you daily and I do miss you when I don’t hear you. Lastly, Tina, you called I believe on the 24th…25th of February is when your prayer was called. And you said you weren’t saved but you are hoping to soon be saved. What are you waiting for girlfriend? We love you. Become a child of God today. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Romans 10. Dear sweet woman of God, I hope…hope you say this prayer. I hope you become saved today. Come into His kingdom, come into His arms. He loves you and we love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

Good afternoon Daily Audio Bible by the this is __ __ calling from Cleveland Ohio. I have literally…literally, excuse me, been sitting in my car with full-blown waterworks today. I am grateful to God for you Brian, for you Jill and the entire Daily Audio Bible community. I’m so thankful to my sister Jennifer for introducing me to this community some years ago. Today I want to send a special shout out to Harold. Welcome to the family my brother. I am so grateful, and I was elated to hear the testimony. My sister shared some of it because I hadn’t heard all of the prayer calls. But she shared it on Sunday and then I tuned into some of the calls and I just heard what had happened. I’m so happy for you. So welcome to the community. Welcome to eternity. Just special prayer request right now for my mom who has been fighting this dreadful disease. I’m praying for her strength, praying for healing, praying for my family, praying for my dad. And those of us on the front line with her every day. I appreciate the comments and the commentary that Brian gave today after the message, “what profit a man to gain this world and lose his soul.” And his perspective helped me to articulate what I’ve been feeling and going through with the daily stressors of the unknown and the daily stressors of the known and trying to, you know, just not have fear and not doubt God and to understand that these challenges is where God shows up and He gives His glory. So, I am grateful today. I am happy today. I am renewed today. I’m refreshed today and I love you all and thank you again so much for everything that you do. This is __ __ again from Cleveland Ohio. I can’t wait until there’s an opportunity for me to connect with each and every one of your…face-to-face should I say. I have connected virtually but hopefully one day when there’s another gathering, I will be able to come and touch and agree with some of you…

Hi this is Rachel from Pennsylvania and I just wanted to say, Tina, welcome to the DAB community and…and you hope to be a believer soon, but I think you sound like you already are. Just ask Jesus to, you know, come into your life and lead you and guide you and, you know, as long as you believe He died on the cross for your sins then your saved. I also want to say welcome to Mattie to the community who joined around the time we did the long walk last year. It is so great to have you guys here with us. I also wanted to pray for little Winston who had heart surgery yesterday, February 25th. Dear Lord, just please help Winston to heal quickly and completely so that he can live a full life that glorifies you. I also want to pray for his little Cherry and God’s Smile and Victoria’s soldier. I just pray protection over them from illness and for complete healing. Thank you, Lord for these women and for their encouragement and the joy that they bring every time I hear them call in. I want to lift up our loved ones, all of the loved ones who we’re praying for individually and as a community. I pray Lord that You open their eyes and their hearts and comfort them, give them the desire to follow and to get to know You completely and let them know that You’re real, let them feel Your presence and see You working. Let them learn from their trials and struggles and to come out on the other end with joy and happiness and peace and confidence and excitement to grow your kingdom. I just want to lift up my sister Melissa and her family. They’re expecting a new baby in September and her husband’s getting ready to go under way next week…

Hi this is Jesse from Massachusetts I am a first-time caller and I’m just going to pray for Daniel who is in Singapore and who had asked for prayer for his country that’s facing the coronavirus. So, Lord I just lift up Daniel and I lift up the country of Singapore and in particular the church in Singapore. I pray that You would remind them that You have not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and of love and I pray that You would show Danielle and show the church how You want to use them in this situation which is very dark and scary and difficult for the country and for those around them. I pray that You would give them wisdom to know what to do and…and how to love those around them, especially during a time when it may be easier and conventional wisdom they say that it’s better to isolate Yourself and…and prevent being infected but I just pray that You would give them wisdom to know how to show love in  the situation. And Lord I pray for not just Singapore but for the whole world that’s facing this fear of coronavirus. Lord I pray that You would give wisdom to the public health officials to know how to make good decisions to stop the spread of the virus and with the least economic impact on the world. And I pray that You be with the global church as well and that You would just help us to…to show love and know how You want to use us in the midst of this difficult…

Dear heavenly Father I just want to come to You today I just want to lift up all of those Lord who are struggling with any illness, any medical issue. God I just pay right now that You be with them in the midst of their situation. God, that they would know that they have hope in You Lord Jesus. I know we fully can’t understand God some of the stuff that’s going on, explain Lord why cancer happens, why there’s loss of vision, and why people can’t walk God and why, You know, doctors can’t explain things going on God. But we can trust and know that You have us in Your hands. God, I just pray over those Lord who are feeling lonely and lost in their situation, who feel hopeless. God, I pray that You would give them hope. God, I pray peace over them. And I pray Lord Jesus that there would be answers God, that You would come, that You would fulfillment healing in their lives. Lord it may not be on this earth God but that they ultimately Lord will be healed. And I ask that they would just trust in You. Help us Lord God to just trust in You. I pray Lord that joy would overflow and abound in each of our lives and we thank You so much God that You are our healer by Your stripes we are healed. God and I pray for those in…in their hearts Lord Jesus, those who need a healing touch from You in their hearts who need to come to know You Lord Jesus I pray for their lives Lord Jesus that they would not delay any more God that they would choose to walk with You. We thank You and love You in Jesus’ name we pray.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family, To Be A Blessing in California. Wanted to just say I hope __ find you all doing well. It’s a beautiful day in California, which is wonderful and troubling all at the same time. 75°, February 26th. A little early for the warm weather…weather. So, please pray for us to get rain. We need it desperately. Also, I need prayer of protection and wisdom and guidance. I am in a new position at church, which is great. God has plans which is wonderful which are a wonderful and…and yet at the same time I know that I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I will. I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth. I’ll do that too. But in the meantime, with all of those details where I’ll make mistakes, that God’s grace is sufficient in my weaknesses and that people will be forgiving as I will be forgiving too. Yeah, that would be great. Also, continued prayers for my workplace. You know, there are times when it’s easier than others. I’m grateful to have a job and I’m also finding myself a little weary as well. So, I don’t want to complain and grumble because I really want to complain and grumble. I’ve been grumbling trying to tell people but no one’s available so I called the line. Thanks for the prayers. So, appreciate it. God bless.

[bullet-farmer]

I got tagged in a “Getting to Know You” meme by @once-a-polecat. ONE: name/alias - Jo, or Bullet Farmer. I answer to both.

TWO: birthday - August.

THREE: zodiac sign - Leo, Gemini rising and Moon. :)

FOUR: height - Five foot five/six ish.

FIVE: hobbies - writing, cats, collecting perfume, making jewelry (trying to do that professionally, though), TV

SIX: favorite colors - greens of any shade; black, white, and red in combinations; dark blue

SEVEN: favorite books - The Neverending Story, most of Alan Moore’s work (Tom Tomorrow bored me, though, and The Killing Joke makes me really uncomfortable, and I don’t like it), Les Miserables, and you know what? I don’t know. I don’t read for pleasure much anymore, unless it’s fanfic.

EIGHT: last song I listened to - The Doomed by A Perfect Circle

NINE: last film I watched - Late Night, on Netflix. A great movie about gender issues, racism, and ageism in the TV industry. Written and directed by two Indian American women!

TEN: inspiration for my muse - Not sure. Right now maybe not dying? 

ELEVEN: dream job - My current job, except ADHD and grief didn’t ruin it for me.

TWELVE: meaning behind your url - The Bullet Farmer is one of the antagonists from Mad Max: Fury Road. I sort of got hyperfixated with him and his ride, and now I’m pretty much Bullet Farmer (or KellerProcess) everywhere.

THIRTEEN: top 3 ships: Fuck it, I’m doing more than that: Ebony Maw/Thanos, Beelzebub/Gabriel, Aziraphale/Crowley, Hastur/Ligur/Sandalphon (in any combination of two or more), Beelzebub/Dagon, Michael/one of my OFCs (in an rp a friend and I are doing),  Uriel/Dagon, Sandalphon/Gabriel, Proxima Midnight/Corvus Glaive, Cull Obsidian/The Other (based on an RP a friend and I have been doing for ages), the Bullet Farmer/the People Eater/Immortan Joe (in any combination), Loki/Thor, the Doctor/the Master (in any regeneration with any regeneration, yes even Crispy!Master and Goosnake!Master), Martha/Ten (I am so pissed off this didn’t happen), Utena/Anthy, Hux/Poe, Finn/Rose, Kylo/Rey, Amadeus/Salieri (from the movie, not IRL), Javert/Jean Valjean (pretty much any iteration of them, my goodness!), Elena/Rude (Final Fantasy VII), Charlie/Dee (Always Sunny), Newt/Hermann/Hannibal Chau (Pacific Rim, in any combination), Natasha/Loki (MCU), Mantis/Nebula (new to it, but loving it), Grandmaster & Topaz (queerplatonic friendship), Jukrat/Roadhog/Sombra (in any permutation, though I hate the Overwatch fandom so much), Symmetra/Pharah, Junkrat/Roadhog/Queen of Junkertown (in any permutation), Moira/Mercy, Moira/Junkrat...I’m just gonna stop there

FOURTEEN: lipstick or chapstick - Neither. Only if I need chapstick really badly.

FIFTEEN: currently reading - Lots of fanfic.

Tagging @silentfcknhill, @ineffably-human, @bai-xue, @the-beelz, @standardizedbogey, @gallifreytreeflower, @hasturlavista, @bigbeautifulcartoonpeople, @thefeistydragon ,I don’t know, I’m tired and blanking on people I know I want to add here. Please do it if you want to, and please know I don’t love you any less if I fucked up and didn’t include your name.

[nottswitch]

Can you do 1, 4 and 13, from prompt list 9, with Ben (Barnes) , please? I know he's not really a character but I really want something a bit angsty with him.

Thanks for your request ❤ Sorry it took so long to write, I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

1. "Stop moving!"

4. "Not everything is a joke."

13. "I'm not a child!"

A cold December evening wasn't really the time when you expected your ex of five months to show up at your front door, leaning on the wall and dwelling somewhere between slightly intoxicated and nearly drunk. He woke you up, ringing your doorbell every other minute for a continuous half an hour; several more minutes into this so-called torture and you finally decided to see who had been so hard-bitten. No one was supposed to visit you at one in the morning on any night, hence that Monday one.

"Barnes?"

You didn't believe your eyes at first. Five months, no calls, and he was there, looking at you with his beautiful brown eyes which failed to warm your heart only once. He was in full red carpet glam, as they say — a black tuxedo, matching trousers and shoes, polished to shine. You could swear he wad wearing a bow-tie you gave him among other presents on his last birthday.

"Whom can I thank for such an honour?" you said, trying to give your voice as much irony as you could.

It was still shaking. Damn it.

"You still live here, huh?"

No, it's not fair, you thought, keeping a straight face — as much as you could afford in this situation. Ben's voice had always been your weakness, especially in the state of being a bit hoarse and low, which happened in two situations — in the morning and when he had had too much alcohol, like right the hell now.

"Was I supposed to move?"

"Don't know. I thought you would. You've always been... sentimental," Ben answered, still standing at the wall.

It didn't look like he wanted to come in or something of the kind.

"Says you, wearing my present around his neck." Your voice was cold, but to yourself you thought that you weren't capable of remaining that way for too long.

"Well, it's good."

"This flat is good too. Why are you here?"

Ben gave you a smile, which, however, appeared only in the corners of his lips. Unfortunately, you remembered that this exact smile was on his face five months ago, while he was standing at the same place with a bouquet of flowers, listening to your overly long speech about how you two can't be together anymore.

"To say goodbye," he replied and attempted to make a step, but couldn't keep the balance.

"Stop moving!" you exclaimed, twitching forward at first, but keeping it cold in a matter of seconds. "I don't want anyone to blame me for a murder, you know."

"I'm going back to LA tomorrow."

You didn't let your face show any emotions, but these words caused many emotions, from relief to... disappointment? Yes, it was disappointment. You quickly pulled yourself together, quirking an eyebrow and asking why should it matter to you, but on the inside you were, let's just say, confused.

"I don't know. I felt like I should come and say goodbye." Ben was quiet so you had to listen carefully to catch what he was saying. "I don't have your number anyway."

"You did it? Amazing, now you can go back." You raised your voice a bit to show that the conversation was over. To be honest, you were afraid that if he was to stay for at least some minutes more, you were about to give up and hug him, let him in and cook him dinner. He used to have that effect on you sometimes... and you hated it.

"So you're not even gonna say goodbye? I mean, a year..."

"A year? More like two months because you were filming all the time."

"I didn't ask you to bring up old stuff, right? I just came to say goodbye."

"Oh, stop telling me what to do, I'm not a child!"

Ben shrugged, apparently realising he couldn't do anything else other than leaving. He knew how stubborn you could be.

"Whatever," he said, and he sounded as if he was indifferent to the whole situation to begin with. "I didn't think I'd succeed anyway."

You stared Ben as he straightened his back and turned to the stairs, leaving you standing at the door. You felt like a complete fool with your pjs, furry slippers and messed up hair, watching that ghost from the past walking away, ever so slightly swinging from side to side, but conscious nonetheless.

"Was it some kind of a joke, Barnes?" you shouted, having no fear to wake up your neighbors. You needed a clear explanation. "Five months after we broke up and now you came here."

"Not everything is a joke," Ben answered, already coming down the staircase. "But I guess it doesn't matter anymore."

[yeonjuins]

i hope you had a really good birthday !!! and you got nice gifts and you had a great sleep <3 basically my reaction when i turned 18, i was like ooh i can do new stuff now !! i can get a tattoo, i can see an 18 film (our cinema ratings are different to most places, 12, 15 & 18 films basically mean you have to be that age to view/buy)

i finally started to feel better during the middle of this week but i've had really bad side effects from the antibiotics so i was dealing with that all week :( i feel like my week off has flown by and i'm working tomorrow—kinda miss work but can't be bothered getting up in the morning for it lmao

i'm so excited, i'm gonna get a custom built pc but my s/o is gonna build it for me bc he's all technical and good with computers. he's basically my IT guy when i have computer issues lol 😂 as long as it can run photoshop and my games, i'll be very happy :)))

oh no definitely don't text people half asleep, i should make that note myself, i make zero sense 💀 i dream a lot, my dreams are sometimes very vivid, so if i nap and i wake up half asleep, i'm usually in a very weird mode where i can still feel my dream if that makes sense? like it feels like it's still happening and i'm still dreaming. o.o

i mean, i can understand that, i've been in that position where i've been on medication and stopped taking it bc i felt better or something stopped happening— just make sure if it ever comes back to get yourself checked out <3

what even is a summer blanket. we have a duvet that's SUPPOSED to keep us cool in the summer and does it? ABOLUTELY NOT o.o that's so cute AWW i'm happy it keeps you warm. i think i have 4 blankets. i have a pusheen one, a star constellations one, a red one that the cats use & a grey fluffy one with reindeers :')

I WATCHED THE MOVIE AND IT WAS SO GOOD </3 i sobbed.....as always.......

(lengthy response!)

omg i rlly hope u feel better by the time u respond to this ask ;; i also cannot be bothered to get up in the morning <- took a huge nap today because i slept at like 3am and had to get up at 7am <3 i hope u were able to get up in the morning ;; i'm able to get up but just not go to sleep yanno? the struggle is real with sleep rn honestly (":

!!! custom built pcs omg that's so fun ;; i feel like the market should be fine for customs? i know during peak covid prebuilds were actually better because of covid prices and uh . other corrupt capitalistic things i will not go into <3 so i ended up just getting a prebuilt gaming pc.... the funniest part is that i don't even play games ! PAHAHHA i legit just wanted a quick running pc that can run all my adobe programs and my lord... does it do that and even more <3 (i can run 5 adobe programs at once with performance being perfectly fine on each program) very happy with this purchase and i hope ur pc comes together all well my love (:<

god speaking of texting people half asleep, i feel like it also ALTERS MY DREAMS? i legit was talking about this with a mutual earlier but i ended up dreaming about me having an assignment in class where we had to cover nct u's 'ok' AND I COULDN'T DO IT ? AND I WAS SO EMBARASSED? AND I HAD TO BE COMFORTED AND EVERYTHING AND I WAS LEGIT . WILLING TO MOVE OUT THE COUNTRY BECAUSE I WAS THAT EMBARASSED ADSHKM

i know what exactly you mean... i feel like dreams are only rlly retained within the last part of you sleeping and that's how you're able to remember it ? but don't quote me on that i am no dream scientist </3

i'm guessing a summer blanket is just a really light blanket ? so instead of overheating you, it just covers you and is supposed to cool you down ? i swear i remember having one before and i thought it was godly to use....

TURNING RED WAS REALLY CUTE ! i watched it w my friends and IRONICALLY ME AND MY FRIEND BEGAN CRYING AT THE PART WHERE LIKE . THE KPOP BOYS (they're not kpop boys but in my mind they are the equivalent to it) CAME OUT WHILE THEY WERE TRYING TO SAVE HER MOM AND IT WAS SO FUNNY ASHODIKMLW

[diaryofalonegirl]

Dear Diary 1/17/22

Monday,January 17.

This is my first time writing a Diary, It feels odd. The 19th is my birthday. I hope i can write more tomorrow. I felt like i needed to write more. ok,bye. I plan on keeping the diary for a year. I Feel scared for our upcoming test, since i didn't study nor finish my essay.. Tomorrow I have school. Keeping a diary is kinda boring. Blah blah blah. I just gonna write what pops up in my head. Also if anyone reads this or something. Its 2022, 8:41 pm and I'm in 7th grade. I love this girl. I'm just gonna say her initials for privacy reasons. I.P is really beautiful. I've been wondering if i should kiss her or just give her a peck on the cheek. I'm gonna write about her alot. I'm currently reading the Diary of Anne Frank. Hence the reason i'm writing this Diary lol. I'm also watching the movie. OH. I FORGOT TO SAY MY DAD BOUGHT ME A CUTE COMPUTER CASE. its very big and could probably hold my books. Its 8:47. Now its 8.48. I have a science test. I should probably study. Also i gotta read up to 120 pages of that diary for my D.E.A.R reading. The book can get boring at times. MAybe i should keep a paper diary…

Edit: ( made at 9.03 pm) Idk if i should take off I.P's initials since she’s the only girl with those initials in that grade. Anyways, I think ill tell her to come to the bathroom then i give her a peck on the cheek. Also we saw spiderman no way home today. May dies in the film. Im lesbian but Tobey maugire is kinda cute haha. Also the case is pink. Writing a diary is fun, i can say shit about everyone and they wont know haha! OK lets start with my class. 7A bc there are two 7th grades. Let’s start with my friends. Ill be using their initials for some. Micheal. G is a boy i used to annoy the 2nd grade but now we are friends, he’s SUPER tall and kinda fat… he wears glasses and in the honor’s math. Basically math for smart kids. I'm not in it. I hate myself for that. Then there is Sara.S (im spelling her name wrong just for some extra privacy) i think she is autistic or has ADHD, she is really nice but cant sit still, she’s one of my friends, she is currently out sick for i think 3 weeks now or something. She likes sailor moon, cats, dragons and roblox. And boy does she read! Then there is Anna T. Anna acts a bit like Taylor, my old friend, she loves plants and has some names for them, she has them in her room, she likes island in the sun and I'm starting to like,like her if you know what i mean… I really love I.P but im starting to have some feelings for Anna. me and I.P are girlfriends, i feel bad for liking Anna… Anyways lets move on to the rest of the class. We got abigail. S who is very neat. I envy her. She is so clean and she looks perfect. Next we have Mattie or Matelynn who does not like being called that so we all call her mattie. She is the only red head as well as lefty in our class. She writes perfectly and plays soccer, Im jealous of her hand writing. Next we have honor. Honor and mattie are a brew for trouble, they are chatterboxes I swear. I have for some reason slowly gained popularity among the popular girls. Ima call em pops. For the pops we got

Lauren. C

Mattie. W

HOnor . B

Carissa. M

Addie. T

And Sasha. P

Let's talk about lauren. She has brownish blonde hair and brown eyes. She is really skinny, i'm jealous of her. I don't know much about her academic stuff. She is not in honors. I dont know alot about her bc i rarely talk to the pops. Ok now we have Addie. I think she or they or whatever they are is gender fluid or maybe not, she acts femine and more masculine sometimes. Something that i see in myself as a gender queer person. Ok lets not get into gender rn. They are big, like me, but a lot prettier and they do cheer. THey are bffs with sasha and they are failing in math class, i think their math grade was 56% last time I heard from them. Sasha is a fat short girl who i can't tell is latin american or not. She has brown eyes and brownish blonde hair but also tanner-ish skin. I think she has some South american in her decent. Especially because of her last name. Which I will not say here. NOw we got Carrissa, she is really sweet. Sometimes I feel like she could become one of us normal people if she wasnt with the pops, like on the inside she’s really just a plain person like me, i don't mean this in a bad way. I feel like she is just there to fill in a gap between the pops wall, although maybe im wrong? Idk bc im not really in the pop circle. Carrissa is fat like me, maybe a bit skinnier. SHe has blue eyes and brown light hair. You should see 7A and 7B pops at the lunch table during study hall, they are a lot. Ill cover the boys tomorrow. Lets move onto the 7B girls

Edit: i forgot emma. G. she is shy-ish and sweet, she always had a sty that would never go away in her eye. She has blue eyes and blonde-brown hair. She is friends with Ashley. L, Olivia. B and Abigail. S and Rebbeca. L.

Olivia. B

Mariana. M (pop)

Emme. M

Lea.F

Allie. O

Raf. A

Rebbeca. L

Megan. N

Am i forgetting anyone? Also im getting tired, so ill write tomorrow. I gotta go read my Dear. so i dont get in trouble with Mrs. rock tomorrow. Write tomorrow? What was I thinking ?1 Hey its 9:50pm, I just love writing to you, I wish you were a person I could blab all my secrets to. I think i have a dead spot in my room, when i'm on my bed google docs doesn't work, when im on my rocking chair on the other side it does? Weird. Anyways, I wish i knew Anne Frank. I saw some entry in her book about getting her clothes back from her friends after the war… if only she knew she’d died, it breaks my heart. Wait, what if I die young?! Im really thirsty, alos idk if i should ask for a diary for my birthday, but i would hate to have to transfer all this to the paper diary :(. I must start reading now, or ill be in trouble from mrs. rock. I used to hate her but shes not too bad now. Im going to Gwynedd Mercy high school. Oh god if future me doesn't go ill cry, im scared… will i go? THe thing about this diary is that i can never publish it, i talk trash about some many people i might hurt their feelings. Should i start my entries with that sappy Dearest Diary stuff? I like the song someone purer by mystery jets, its sad but good. Ok Diary I really gotta read now, Ur addicting but my grade is gonna drop if i dont read.

I wanna read Anne of Green gables next. afterAnne's diary. Why not read about a red haired orphan?

THats Anne of Green gables!

Heres anne Frank

She is so pretty.

Here’s my favorite actress from the 1940’s, I have a crush on her

She’s beautiful.

Dear Diary, Ill write more tomorrow, I must go read now (im trying out that 1800’s diary stuff hah)

Dear Diary, I am ready to twist my grandma’s head off, it’s 10:32, I’m trying to sleep and she won’t stop

Praying out loud, I want to sleep!!

I was thinking of giving you a name, so that I feel connected to you better, I like a friend. Should I ? My grandma won’t stop praying, I’m ready to superglue her mouth shut! Oh, dear diary. I am sad, I want a journal so badly, this digital is ok but you don’t know how badly I want a paper one :(, I heard my grandma say my dads name in her “praying” it sounds more like she’s dissing him. Oh diary, I have more, remember when I wrote the 1800’s diary stuff? I will keep doing it, it makes me feel closer to you. I’ll call you peony, the flower for Beauty, because peony makes me think of Isa.P or I.P as I used to call her. I love her, I want to kiss her. Dear Diary, please help me have the courage too kiss her.

[survivormetaverse]

Episode 2 - "Fuck I’m on the cursed tribe" ~Moth

a lil sad to see my girl, Bri, go, but that just makes us one person closer to the goal >:3

dennis is very sneaky. we all had a tribe call and he said he'd come later but he was actually doing the hunt challenge. like that's totally fair, it's just even afterward he acted as if he was not really focusing on it either. im going to play the game assuming he has something, just in case.

GAME AND GAME SHOW ARE DIFFERENT DSJKLFHASJDJFH no but this was hella fun pls let's do it again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX3Fs7lDDQk&list=PLrsCGcojtF16jvLW49C4855pUlLWI9pnn

Dhsjdjsjskksks. First tribal done. We just finished the taboo challenge ... A good bonding experience with my tribe. However, I have a feeling we lost. 😂😂😂😂😂😂 The fact that I was the guesser. Rip. 

I filmed confessionals but my internet got disconnected hahaha so that's neat. Hopefully there will be youtube videos here soon, but new update Jodi and I are in alliances with Dennis and brayden separately which I think would be hilarious if they were also in am alliance together. And it will be funny it my internet is still out for the challenge tomorrow since I'm the guesser 😆 whoops

So this is the beginning of round 2 and here are my thoughts. Might purposely not be helpful in the taboo challenge lol but i have to do it in a way that doesn't show im throwing it? tbh i say this now but when i start playing the urge to win comes in ugh but i just wanna vote one of these people out. I also took a stroll through the wiki page for this org and i love that some of these people (esp brayden and amy) have played before and their stats are there like yassss give me ammunition yassss!!!! anywho i dont care if we win or lose tomorrow i think i set myself up nicely within the tribe and i still really dont think any of these people won the hunt challenge on my tribe but again who knowssss. if we lose the logic would probably be go for josh or ginny aka the least active people buttt i dont think so like i don't wanna go the boring route. i need to keep josh close to get to merge with him we have friends on the other tribeeeeeee so i need them to survive and i need him and i to survive till we swap or merge to link up. im also trying to win a hunt challenge but my god y'all have me fucked up!!!!!!!!! i guess we shall see what happens tomorrowwwwww

It was nice sitting the challenge out, I'm busy tomorrow and the fact that they could complete it is good for me. Also, if we lose, nobody can blame me for the loss. Only drawback is it appears to me some people can be getting close by bonding over funny things in a game. I have to go back and see who may be close, I don't think I'm next on the chopping block, but I'm definitely not in control. To me, I do not need to be number one on this tribe, I just need to survive the next tribal and hopefully make it to the swap at 14 or 15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_dmPuwzzI&list=PLrsCGcojtF16jvLW49C4855pUlLWI9pnn&index=2 anotha one dj khaled

HEY SO KIND OF A LOT OF DEVELOPMENTS TO MY GAME we didn't lose first challenge!! thats great. whatever. no tribal. I've been trying to connect with fellow tribemates but overall we're all pretty quiet. I did have a small 30 minute call with Jay where we kinda connected on somewhat of a game level. I kinda get the vibe that he may not fully trust me or he might see my as a threat, but I want to work with him. I also really like Anastasia and Elle, I think I can connect with them more on a more genuine level. Perfect scenario for me would be setting up a trio alliance of Me + Elle + Anastasia, and then having Jay on the side as my actual #1. idk if I can pull that off, but that was my plan heading into round 2 BUT. AS ROUND 2 STARTED, MY GAY ASS WON THE HUNT CHALLENGE. AMAZING. idk HOW I managed it because like?? I finished and found the hidden link within like 20 minutes? Statistically very unlikely BUT I'm so glad I did it. I WON A SAFETY WITHOUT POWER. It's kinda like a hidden immunity idol, except slightly worse because I can't actually partake in tribal at all. we went ahead and competed in the Taboo challenge last night and boy it was kinda rough. We lost a LOTTA points because we kept accidentally saying forbidden words (I lost us 2 points, woops). But we ended up with a semi decent score. Elle did an amazing job guessing. I really hope we can pull this out. SO YEAH SORRY THATS KIND OF A LOT. OVERALL I FEEL LIKE IM IN A DECENT POSITION, WAY BETTER NOW THAT I HAVE A SWP. I wanna further my position in the game with some allies now. That's my next biggest goal. toodles!!!

So I've figured out that Amy is a comp beast based on us discussing our old seasons and how she did in those: she always talks down her abilities because she's worried she's being painted as a big challenge threat, but I don't think she realizes that doesn't matter to me at all. Ultimately, I think she needed to be at tonight's challenge more than me, so I decided it's ok to sit out since I'm sitting out only because somebody has to, not because I don't want to play. In tribal challenges, it means she'll help keep us winning tribal immunity, and further down the line, if anything, I'll be using her as my "Ken" and if she wins everything, it'll keep immunity away from people I want out. 

I think I did much better in Taboo than I did in endurance, so I'm happy about that. Hopefully my performance this round can help me redeem myself with my tribemates.

Today in the fools tribe: no one is talking 

Holy crap we won yet again this is such a great feeling just like last season :)

Fuck I’m on the cursed tribe this round This time I think I’m on the majority alliance, which is a great place to be. So hopefully everything goes as planned tomorrow 

https://youtu.be/fszNKUHjB_8

So! We did the Taboo challenge and got second place, probs wouldve got first if we didnt get deductions but also we did so good so whatever 😂. I definitely kinda pushed for us to do the challenge last night bc it's Dylan's birthday and I didn't want to have to like, be anywhere specifically today 😅. But yeah we did super good and now I'm gonna go talk to ppl bc I've been gone all day lol

Bye I hate it here. 

~

SO. Here’s the rundown: We lost. Again. Pushing for Shaad to go. Moth, Jared, and Danny all agree with him going. So far I’m getting good vibes with everyone. Danny says he gets along with Jared well and doesn’t talk to Moth that much. Plus, Jared, Moth and I have that little alliance. Jared and I also get along well. Worried for Moth as she doesn’t seem to message a lot. This tribal... I’m feeling safe. I might even make an alliance with Jared, Danny and I. Worst case scenario for next challenge we lose and Moth goes. 

Yay we won again! Anyways, Dennis messaged me tonight talking about how everybody else knows each other from playing Stings games before. He said he checked the series wiki and got freaked out and told me that we're two newbies amongst vets. While he's telling the truth, I'm actually not too panicked because 1) I actually checked out the wiki before he told me about it and 2) I have pretty decent relationship with Amy to incentivize her to keep me around. I worked tightly with Amy for the specific reason that I knew she'll have others to work with, and for her to keep me as a loyal number. I also know that she was runner up of another series and she already recognizes the target on her, so I doubt she wants to risk me putting a bigger one. WOW FOR ONCE I'M NOT THE FLAMING TARGET I LIKE THIS 

Round 1 updates: https://youtu.be/5nhSsLNcnZ0 https://youtu.be/S5-0Yw93wc0

~

Round two rambles: https://youtu.be/CuwgF9IVmUM

So, tbh I've done some research about some previous seasons and I noticed Moth and Jessica have played together before. Moth still has not talked to me but Jessica has been overly friendly. I know they have a group message with Jared and I know he can be the split vote between what happens in our tribal tomorrow. Jared claims he has voted for Moth but we will truly see tomorrow. But honestly, if he chooses us, then Jessica is next unless the tribe swap or merge has happened.

~

Also with that research, I've peeped there's other connections in other tribes from previous games so this is gonna be interesting.

~

I chose Jared to work with mostly because I see he can play strategy.

Fools tribe is bad at playing games. And its perfect for me because I am safe but i am wishing for drama bcs its fun. rn we are doing small talk and being so nice to each other. I think we will form an alliance officially soon but i am too awkward or like i dont know how to say it or bring it up.

WHY! DOES! MY! TRIBE! KEEP! WINNING!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am trying to go the fuck to tribal council but noooo we have to beast all the other tribes yet again. Like a swap is probably coming soon and with my fuckin luck I am gonna get swap screwed like they are gonna look at me from the phantoms and be like yeahhhh theyve been winning lets get his ass out. i would love to lose this next one so the sees look stronger. if phantoms go to tribal I know I''m safe (anything can happen but I set myself up well), and thats all I care about. Jodi and I started to really talk about the vets who are playing this season, and we just realized that we're the only newbies on our tribe. like wow. The fantasy would be to get to merge and have a numbers advantage of newbies against these vets, or make the vets eat their own idk. Lots of thinkin lots of thinkinnnnn. I have been strolling through the wiki page some more and mapping out potential connections from previous seasons. The casting directors work hard but i work harder

https://youtu.be/gsDJIiGiqHE

https://youtu.be/V1ku4_-w0SY

Roses are red We’re on day six Fools tribe worse at challenges than a bag of dead bricks

That im one of the strongest competitors on my tribe, Dennis feels like he is on the outs, but that connects us so i can pull him in as an ally.

It’s been a tricky round 

~~~

Edgic:

Power Rankings:

Phantom

Jodi: Jodi remains at the top of the tribe for much of the same reason as last round. Now, she is even in two alliances with no one wanting to come for her nor do they see her as playing both alliances. Hopefully Jodi’s quick alliance making and constant worrying will help strengthen her defenses in the later rounds to come when people will be looking at her more closely.

Amy: Amy is still playing that stellar UTR game. No one seems to register her as a threat despite their access to the wiki and her performance in the challenge. Her social game is just too strong. Additionally, her greater willingness to work with Dennis than Jodi’s willingness to work with him may provide some good allies for Amy if she ever wants to distance herself from Jodi.

Brayden: Brayden rises in the rankings from last round as he has become more closely aligned with Amy and Jodi. The trio seem to see themselves as the only “active” ones on their tribe and are very quick to bond. Additionally, unlike Dennis, Brayden is not viewed with suspicion by either Jodi or Amy. They definitely feel more like a core alliance than they did with Dennis. Furthermore, Brayden is poised to get the people he wants gone out of this game. He is targeting Josh and Dennis which are good targets, especially the latter. All it takes is for Brayden to push a little for Dennis and I am sure the two girls will take the bait. Finally, Brayden’s connection with Ginnifer is very beneficial since he seems to be the only one willing to work with her at the moment. This gives him a very easy ally and Ginnifer doesn’t have much of a choice besides working closely with him. It is certainly an easy number for Brayden if he ever wanted to backstab Jodi or Amy in the future.

Josh: What lands Josh here is that he performed well in the challenge and is easy to like. Interacting with Josh on calls is always a pleasure. However, by not being part of that main trio, he is in danger of being voted out on a whim. Despite that, he seems to be, in my eyes, the least likely out of the bottom 3 to be voted out. Additionally, there is paranoia around people’s “experience” with ORGs surrounding these bottom 3 from others (despite the fact that the top 3 is composed of 2 people with ORG experience). Josh gets this heat the least.

Dennis: Dennis is in real danger if this tribe goes to tribal council. If Brayden pushes hard enough, Jodi can be easily swayed into turning on Dennis. He needs to back off with the strategy talk and just be more social. What saves him from last is that he is in that alliance with Jodi and Amy. This might make Jodi hesitant about targeting Dennis so soon as she may see him as a number. Additionally, Amy does seem keen on keeping Dennis around for a little while which would help his longevity. Hopefully Dennis can realize people’s perceptions of him before it is too late considering that he gives great confessionals and is one of my favorite players this season.

Ginnifer: Ginnifer may be on the bottom, but she definitely has a chance at avoiding being voted out. Most talk around Ginny is about how she is hard to socialize with, but I am sure, when the strategic game starts becoming more important, she can navigate out of this position. After all, she does have Brayden advocating for her which can definitely help. She would need to push for Dennis if she wants to survive until the swap at this point.

Fools

Jared: He takes the number 1 spot on this tribe as he is working with both “sides.” He is serving as the perfect double agent for Danny and Shaad. Additionally, he is making the smart move of getting rid of an obvious duo wherein he was the third wheel of that alliance. He has a great strategic mind on his shoulders, but is it too early for him to show that off? Regardless, he has earned this top spot by avoiding the target cleanly and betraying his allies perfectly. Jared is definitely a contender for the winner spot as he has shown some excellent gameplay these past two rounds.

Danny: Danny has done well in avoiding the target this round as well. He seems to be more sociable and active than Shaad which is the main reason that he is not the one getting Jessica’s and Moth’s vote. Additionally, he was the one that brought Jessica’s and Moth’s pre-existing relationship to Jared’s attention which caused this flip to happen in the first place. Finally, Danny made an excellent move by pairing himself with Jared as this duo could be something fearsome to go up against in the future. The cards are being laid out for a force to be reckoned with and I am excited to see what Danny will do in the future.

Shaad: It is hard to tell if Shaad did anything himself to avoid being voted out, but, regardless, he did something right by aligning with Danny and Jared instead of ratting to Jessica and Moth. In fact, even if he does rat, he will still land himself at number 3. He is not going to get voted out here, and has an established alliance moving forward. And now that he is putting more focus on the game, I am happily anticipating what he can accomplish now.

Jessica: Jessica is being blindsided tonight. However, at the very least, she is not the one going. Her performance in challenges have helped her avoid the target for the time being. Here we can see that the boys weren’t inactive, they were just inactive with her which spells doom for Jessica if this tribe goes to tribal council again. Unfortunately, the boys found out about her prior connection with Moth. The only thing Jessica could have done was to distance herself from Moth at the beginning of the game, but that seemed unlikely since people were inactive with her. I hope Jessica is able to survive until a swap because it would be devastating to see her go so early.

Moth: There is nothing Moth did that landed them here. It was just an unfortunate circumstance wherein they are targeted because of a prior connection. Additionally, I doubt Moth is going to see this coming.

S.E.E.S.

Colin: With an advantage in his hands and him being the most popular bachelor on his tribe, Colin is quick to make allies and his allies like it that way. It feels as if everyone wants to ally with Colin. His activity in the earlier stages of the game have definitely born fruit.

Elle: Similar to Colin, everyone wants to work with Elle. Her social game is just that strong. Nothing much else to say besides what I said before, but the challenge definitely helped raise Elle’s standings in the tribe.

Anastasia: Similar to last round. Nothing much to say.

Jay: He is keeping out of the spotlight which is good.

Babs: No developments. Still viewed in the same way though has noticeably been less unhinged in the tribe chat.

Jennifer: Still the same as last time: seemingly inactive and might be targeted for it.

[carolina-writings]

Like It’s Your Birthday

Long, angsty harry piece I wrote with fluff at the end of course! Enjoy XO

When you were a small child, your birthday was your favorite day of the year. Always filled with pancake breakfasts, helium balloons, and handmade cards from your family - the day was one out of the year where you were celebrated. A day that your parents were able to put aside their marital problems, and your siblings would put aside their busy lives to make you, their youngest baby, feel special. 

But as you grew older, your birthday lost it’s novelty. Your parents eventually were unable to even play nice one day out of the year, and your siblings lives’ grew busier. It didn’t bother you, as you understood life moved on and people were busy; so by age 10 you learned that birthdays didn’t really matter. 

While other children in your 5th grade class would share about their birthday dinner at a fancy steakhouse, you’d sit quietly, thinking about your own celebratory meal of reheated leftovers and the silence of your dad’s empty apartment. I don’t need to be celebrated - I’m not that special, you’d think to yourself, trying to curb the feeling of disappointment upon not receiving even a text from your mother.

When you first started dating Harry, he never understood your opposition to the day. He’d tease you about it, unrelentingly bugging you until you finally agreed to let him do something. Your first birthday with him, only 3 months into the relationship, it took him a week to convince you to go out to dinner. 

Now, three years later, you’re beginning to love the day again. Harry always goes out of his way to make you feel special, reminding you that it’s not a terrible thing to allow yourself to be celebrated every once in a while. 

So when you came home from work on your special day, you had whole heartedly expected Harry to be waiting there for you. Especially considering the fact that he was gone when you woke, and hadn’t texted you a peep, regarding the birthday at least. 

But when you walk into the apartment to find it empty, your stomach sinks. No, you think, he would never forget. He must be planning something, throwing you off to make you think he forgot. That’s more like it.

Mid-thought, your phone buzzes. 

From: Harry 

Why don’t you have some pals over tonight? I’ll be home late. Happy Friday xx 

You sigh at the message, immediately taking your phone out and calling your best friend, Violet. If Harry truly was planning something, you wanted to know. Although it was looking less and less likely. 

“Vi,” you nearly shout as she answers. “I have a question.” 

“Well damn, birthday bitch!” she responds, laughing. She’s clearly on the subway, chaos ringing in the background of her call. “What’s up?” 

“Okay it sounds weird but,” you pause, thinking of how to phrase this. “Is Harry planning anything for me? For my birthday? Because he hasn’t acknowledged it at all, and that’s not like him.” 

Her sharp breath and mumbled “fucking asshole” is all you need. 

“I’m gonna come over,” she assures you, as you feel tears brimming your eyes. “I’m sure he’s just busy. But I will bring wine and pad thai and more wine.” 

You sniffle, heart hurting and anger swirling. How could he do this to you? Make you finally excited for a birthday, and then leave you in the dust just like your parents would. 

“Ok,” you head upstairs to change out of work clothes and into sweats. “You’re the best.” 

“Girl, I know.” 

Within an hour, Violet was bursting to your apartment with an obscene amount of junk food and wine, her free arm open to pull you into a hug. 

“I brought two bottles of pinot grigio for you,” she smiles. “And one for myself. Drink up, bitch. Forget him.” 

“A savior,” you sniffle, reaching for the bag in question, popping open a bottle and chugging the liquid straight. “I need to be drunk.” 

“Slow down, kid,” she grabs the bottle from your fish-like lips, tilting it down, laughing at the amount already consumed. You two are set up on the couch, wine and food in hand, watching a film. “You haven’t even eaten anything yet. No puking on my watch.” 

“He fucking forgot my birthday, Vi. After everything.” 

“Look, you know me, I’m honest,” she takes another bite from her food, sitting on your counter. “Harry can be a lot of things. He can be grumpy, he can be scattered, he can be a bit of a dick at times; but there’s one thing that I know and it’s that he loves you with all of his fucking heart and soul. Everything he’s got. So yeah, he fucked up, but he loves you.” 

You simply nod, taking another swig of wine. By now, you’re about 3/4 of the way done with bottle #1, and the effects aren’t lost on you and your hot cheeks. 

Just as you were about to respond, the door opened, signaling Harry was home. His Chelsea boots clamored across the wooden kitchen, humming a casual tune as he heads towards the living room where you’re laid out on the floor, chugging the rest of your wine. 

“Oi!” he greets the two of you, taking a seat on the couch in front of you, playfully resting his feet on your stomach. You furrow your eyebrows up at him, pushing them away from you. “This Steel Magnolias?” 

“Yeah,” Violet answers the question, knowing it was unlikely you would satisfy his smalltalk with an answer. “We were gonna watch Sixteen Candles, but this was on.” 

Kicking your friend at the forgotten birthday reference, you polish off the bottle, earning an eyebrow raise from your boyfriend. 

“Full bottle?” he jokes, clearly not realizing that he’s the issue here. “Who pissed you off? Was it tha’ guy from work, wha’s his name? Buggin’ you again?” 

“No Harry,” you say coldly, sitting up to face him completely. You were ready for a fight now. He still has no idea. “Some absolute dickhead forgot my birthday! Which normally, I’d be fine with. I’m used to disappointment. Except for this said dickhead finally taught me to enjoy birthdays again, and then got so wrapped up in his life that he left me disappointed, yet again. Like when I was a kid.” 

Harry’s eyes fill with guilt immediately upon realizing what he’s done, but his jaw clenches with anger at your drunken rant. 

“Bloody hell” he sighs, running a hand through his hair as his voice grows a bit louder. “I’m fuckin’ trying! Tryin’ to balance everything. My career, my family, my personal life, you. It’s all too fuckin’ much!” 

“Oh look at you, Mr. Rockstar!” you mock him. “We get it, you’re fucking busy, but it’s one day. ONE. Even your fucking AUNT sent me flowers, but not even a peep from you!”

“I’m gonna go,” Violet whispers, quietly ducking out as you square up to your boyfriend, your hand planting firmly on your hip. “Call me tomorrow, don’t kill each other. You quite like each other.”

Harry simply shakes his head as you wave her out, standing and turning to pace in the kitchen. You stand up, following him, the alcohol running through your veins making you braver and more combative than usual. 

“‘m sorry! I wouldn’ hurt you,” his words are sweet, but his tone is still angry. “You know tha’. You know it wasn’ intentional.” 

“Doesn’t make it hurt any fucking less, Harry! You left me in the dust, just like my family used to! I thought you were different.” 

He rubs his hands over his eyes dramatically before slamming both fists down on the counter in rage, tears brimming his eyes. 

“Fuck,” is all he whispers, realization hitting him. “You mean everythin’ to me. You have to know that. Please, please tell me you know that.” 

“I do.” 

“I fucked up,” his anger suddenly turns to sadness. As if admitting his wrongdoing lifted his defensiveness off of his shoulder and leaves him with the reality of the situation. “’m so sorry, my love. I’m trying so hard.” 

You inch towards him, all of your rage disappearing at the sight of a single tear streaming down his cheek. A tear that opens the floodgates for even more tears, which compels you to wrap your arms around him, your face resting on his back. 

“We all fuck up sometimes,” you whisper, kissing between his shoulder blades. “I still love you.” 

He turns and looks down at you, eyes red and cheeks stained. You kiss his lips softly, running a thumb over his cheek. 

“It’s jus’ all so much,” he whispers. “I’m tryin’, though. Really am. I’ll do better on our anniversary. And next year.” 

You chuckle a little, kissing him again, and again. The alcohol in your bloodstream tells you to deepen the kiss, hands tangling in his hair and pulling him down closer to you. 

“There’s nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you,” you whisper, looking into his eyes before placing a peck on his nose. “Even when I hate you, I still love you.” 

“Would you still love me if I looked like this?” he inquires, using his finger to upturn his nose and flash you a goofy grin. 

“Yes,” you kiss his knuckle, resting your head on his chest. “Now please, my love, let’s get to bed.” 

“I have jus’ the presen’ for you,” he smirks, slapping your ass cheekily and pecking at your neck. “Y’know, it’s still your birthday for 23 more minutes. I can give you a happy endin’, babe.” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t even try to get upstairs then,” you smirk, hopping up on the kitchen counter, allowing him to consume you with his kisses. “Let’s celebrate my happy ending right here.” 

And you did. 

[california-doom-merchants]

My birthday’s tomorrow. I wrote a thing.

25 Things I Learned Before I Was 25:

1. No matter what, there are people around you who have less than you have and who deserve to have more. The most important thing in the world is to try and balance that out as much as you can.

2. There are millions of ways to tell someone you love them. Sometimes it's with words. Sometimes it's with a hug. Sometimes it's by tagging them online every time you see a picture of Kermit the Frog. @saddadsexclub

3. It doesn't matter if you fail once, or twice, or a hundred times, before succeeding. What matters is the trying. Unless you're a brain surgeon, that you're gonna want to ace first time round.

4. Part of being a friend is listening to their problems and giving advice. If you get into the situation where you feel like that's the ONLY part of being someone's friend, you need to take a step back and re-evaluate.

5. There are very few problems that can't be helped by a cup of tea and browsing bad memes on Facebook.

6. If multiple people give you unsolicited compliments on something, you can probably be pretty self-confident about it.

7. If you're struggling then your friends will help. They're always more accepting than you pictured.

8. Having a shouting match at a train station at 3am is not a good idea and may result in you being deservedly mocked years after the fact.

9. A beard is less your problem than it is to the person who's spending time in close proximity to your face. Take their advice on the thing.

10. Watch lots of films. It's relaxing, it broadens your mind, and it means you're less likely to have people exclaim “you've never seen The Lion King??” at you.

11. That said, if you spend a semester at university barely leaving your room and watching horror films, you're unlikely to look back on that with a sense of fulfilment and pride.

12. Every thing you fret about having not done? After having done it, it feels ridiculous to have worried about it. Every time.

13. In theory. another person's political or religious beliefs shouldn't be a barrier to you being polite and courteous towards them.

14. In practice, an awful lot of people are bigoted upper-class fucks who not-so-subtly want to kill the poor.

15. It's perfectly fine to enjoy obscure movies and obscure music, as long as you're not too smug whenever you see The Big Bang Theory or hear Justin Bieber.

16. Making someone who's feeling down laugh is one of the best feelings in the world.

17. If you follow someone on social media who you've never met and they seem pretty cool, message them, because it's actually pretty simple to make some amazing friends out of that.

18. If you see a typo and you still understand what the author's trying to say then you shouldn't be making a big deal out of it.

19. Minor acts of kindness can have an impact far beyond what you can imagine so, you know. Do them.

20. If you buy a big red coat and wear it on a night out then you will make a lot of friends very quickly.

21. If you get the opportunity to travel, say yes.

22. If you get the opportunity to study abroad, try not to bang on about it too much afterwards.

23. People who put lots of effort into making other people happy are people worth getting to know.

24. The bigger an organization is, the more cynical you should be towards it. Cynicism as an all-encompassing life philosophy is as easy and tempting as it is wrong.

25. The world is a dark and dangerous place. But that's not all it is.