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phanlight · 4 years ago

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Twin Flame

. ✧ ✵ ✧ . ✴ . ✦ . . ✦ . ✴

thank u so much to anyone and everyone who’s stuck by over the years had it not been for ur constant support i would not be doing this rn not in a billion years also i hope i still remember how to write

this is gonna be v slow burn [like a big ol sage sticc] so I apologise for the steady pacing for a first chapter but I wanna set sufficient enough ~ foundations~ so things will pick up soon i promise lol

I digress ANYWAY have some magic

I literally don’t know what to describe this as I guess artist/mage/psychic!dan (if that isn’t a thing i’m making it one), bamf!phil (gotta stay tru to the roots), enemies-to-lovers, semi-surrealism, ethereal-surrealism (I s2g this is gonna be about 5 diff genres wtf am I doing)

✴ . ✦ . . ✦ ✴

summary:

Dan isn't lost anymore. He's finally okay with being an explorer, not a seeker. Content with being a wanderer rather than a wonderer. His checkered luck often leads him to almost hear the laughter of Fate ringing in the sky, but he puts it down to entering the world on the Thirteenth night of June; a Friday full with the Moon. A time where forces higher than usual ripple through the atmosphere, through the night. But he’s okay with that. He’s become okay with that. He’ll look for the light in life, live for the sparkle on summer tides. He’ll find answers at the end of paint tubes and poetry books; get by on his own moral philosophies rather than those of a shattered system. But when he falls into a realm in even further ruins than his own, he himself shatters – and suddenly the cycle begins again. Seeking, wondering – lost down to the soul. But with destruction comes construction. With darkness comes light. With bad comes good. And to exist, they must co-exist.

✴ . ✦ . . ✦ . ✴

actual plot bc that said nothing about what acc happens:

dan’s a lonely ass painter who loves crystals and one day finds a passage in an abandoned lighthouse that transports him into a spirit realm where he meets someone more lost than him. they don’t get on but for reasons they’ll have to.

. ✴. . . .✴ .

.✴ . ✴ . ✯ . ✴ . ✴.

opposing forces, they attract;

yin won’t exist without its yang.

a sunless moon, a silent act;

in idleness it hangs.

galactic compounds in the skin,

harbour chemicals and cells,

particles, atomic, sub-

vibrate with polar spells.

the grounding force attraction

it ties every single bond.

becomes the gravity,

of life; existence as One.

.✴ . - Love .

✴ . ✯ . ✴

✴[AO3 LINK]✴

Dan stares at the pale tornado swirling inside the china. Seagulls cackle outside, as if in response to the disgusting abundance of milk.

Fuck this.

The ruined tea goes down the sink with a steamy slosh, and he chokes on the eruption of vapour that partially enters his lungs. Great. The universe has now given him enough to decipher exactly what type of day today will be.

He calls them his Horseshoe Days. He’d had one once – a gift from his grandmother. At the time it seemed something strange to give to a seven-year-old. He was at the age where he wouldn’t know what a horseshoe meant if one came hurtling down from above, bonking the top of his skull.

And it did once – well, nearly. It was only while dodging the thing falling from the shelf, only milliseconds away from meeting his forehead, he realised they might actually be as lucky as she’d promised.

That was, until perhaps, he placed it back on the shelf upside-down. His parents were both blissfully none-the-wiser when it came to anything outside the ordinary – the superstition veining back to his occult-practicing grandmother on his mother’s side (and skipping generation in the process, it seems). They saw a horseshoe as nothing more than a crescent of iron that for some reason sits in the kitchen, whichever way up. It was only once events later that day began to unravel in an unfamiliar manner did a bubbling suspicion of a correlation arise. Dan had vaguely remembered something about the blacksmith Dunstan and how a shoe upturn drains its ‘powers’, but it was only a crashed bike, scraped knee and flattened football later did he actually pay any attention to why his day might have been going so badly.

Well, eventually.

The entire exchange sits still at the forefront of his psyche, each detail in sparkling clarity. He sees it now, even hears the voices.

“That’s why!” he’d burst out over dinner.

His parents had jumped in unison, and his stepfather elbowed over a glass. The table shone with a thin spread of water, trickling across the mahogany.

The hardness of Gerald’s voice is still nailed into the back of his memory. He used to hate it when he shouted.

“Jesus!” he’d have yelled, scrabbling around the table with a napkin. Dan remembers the kitchen towel surrendering immediately, from sheets to soggy mulch in seconds. He’d then have followed with a favourite catchphrase of his; “Do you have to yell like that?”

It was nothing they weren’t used to. He had a habit of sneaking up on everyone. ‘Feather-Feet’, his grandmother used to call him.

Dan remembers ignoring him, stretching up out of his seat and reaching for the overhead shelf. He doesn’t reckon an upturned horseshoe has ever made anyone this happy but he remembers feeling nothing but delight. It’s a bit of a backward attitude. “I knew I wasn’t just naturally unlucky!”

Being born on Friday the thirteenth certainly doesn’t help, despite giving every single birthday wish to a promise of better luck.

His grandmother used to say it was a good omen. Actually lucky; despite its reputation in amongst the ladders and scaffolding and cracked pavement tiles. The Thirteenth night of June, a Friday full with the moon, she used to muse, eyes bright with love. He misses her.

“What are you doing?” his mother had narrowed her eyes, watching her son reach for the horseshoe. When his elbow disturbed a spherical paperweight in the process and it began a bloodcurdlingly slow descent off the shelf, they flew open wider. “Careful! Mind my-“

He was already ahead of her, he remembers. Fingers clasped around the iron and flipped upright in a fraction of a second. In the other he outstretches his hand, feeling the paperweight plop into his palm in one piece instead of millions more. He‘ll never forget the sigh of relief from somewhere behind him.

He remembers the feeling. The weight of the crystal. The coolness of the cast iron. Saved antique in one hand, upright horseshoe in the other. The absolute thrum of electricity through his bloodstream. He remembers smiling and looking up. “See?”

“See what, exactly?” Gerald had then snapped, masking his panic with anything other than fear. “You nearly ruining our wedding present? A repeat performance of Aunt Nora’s teapot?”

He glanced to his mother, still completely ivory with shock. Her eyes are fixed on the swirled quartz as if it were seconds away from leaping off of his palm again by itself; under its own magic.

“Did you not see that?” Confusion begins to seep into his initial delight. Were they even concentrating at all?

“I saw you being idiotic,” his stepfather had spat. Dan winces like he did fifteen years ago. The word still holds its weight, even now. He doesn’t know why.

“The horseshoe,” he’d tried to explain. “It wa-“

“I don’t give a shit about the bloody horseshoe!” he’d suddenly exploded. Both Dan and his mother jumped back in their seats.

“Gerald,” he remembers the softness of his mother’s tone, a diametric opposition of the echoes of steel his stepfather had the nerve to call an indoor voice.

“No, I’m sick of it!” he’s erupting now. Bubbling over the surface. A temper like a needle to an overfilled balloon. “He’s always flailing about. Knocking things over. Your mother told me about the vase, by the way,” he spat aside.

Dan’s stomach had dropped. She’d sworn not to say a word. She’d promised.

“You never know what the boy’s next move is going to be,” he continues. “I’m sick of it,” he repeats again, as if repetition be the highest form of emphasis. He snatched the paperweight but ignored the horseshoe, and Dan remembers how it had looked in his grip – the glass probably having more chance of shattering inside his big burly palm than the solid stone floor.

He vanishes and reappears two seconds later, marching back with a face of beetroot and a brow of iron, pressing a daggered glare into the back of Dan’s head. He could feel the warmth burning the nape of his neck, the stare scalding the skin.

“He’s not to be trusted,” he announced as if there were thousands of other ears also listening.

A delicate frown threaded its way across his mother’s brow.

“Wh-“

“Leave it, Penelope,” he’d cut her off before she’d even had a chance to finish the word, let alone the sentence. Dan used to hate the way he spoke to her. “If the boy wants to behave like a child, he’ll get treated like one. No more ornaments in the kitchen.”

Dan remembers thinking then it would kind-of be nice being addressed by name. Just once. Maybe. Gerald’s also about the only person capable of criticizing a seven-year-old for behaving like a child. Make it make sense, Gerald, he doesn’t say. And my name’s Dan, but you’ve probably forgotten that.

She’d thrown her son a quick sapphire glance; a gleaming silent apology. Dan’s heart had lurched at the glint of panic in her eye.

It lurches now. That absolute demon must have given her hell. He’d never been more thankful to see his mother out of a marriage. He was horrible.

And he couldn’t fucking cook. He even remembers what they were eating on the night because it was so inedible. He’s always detested mashed potato, and he’s certain Gerald knew this. He remembers stabbing the offending white lump on his plate during the sacred three seconds of silence His Lordship could manage before that cruel mouth of his opened again.

“Bloody cold, now,” he’d grumbled.

Dan remembers holding back a smirk. As if any amount of heat could make this cement any less torturous to ingest.

He’d briefly wondered if suffocation was in his hidden agenda all along. It wouldn’t surprise him. Death by potato has an interesting ring to it.

Anyway, the whole situation could have been history in under ten seconds. He could have had the horseshoe upright and the paperweight saved in three of those. Job done, panic over, back to dinner in the remaining seven. He imagines Gerald’s reaction had he spoken his mind at the time.

That was fifteen years ago, of course. Being seven, someone could have told him the sky was pink and he’d eventually believe it (maybe if it happened to be during a sunset). From that point onward he hadn’t exactly lapped up old wives’ tales, myths spinning into each other like silver silk, but his superstition remained a conscious glow in the back of his mind; going no further than avoiding three drains and ladders and watching black cats slink across his path with his breath held. Sometimes even whispering a quick wish when eleven lines up the clock (most days he misses, though).

He vowed from that very moment to save anything considered slightly out-of-the-ordinary for those who actually want to hear about it. Those who understand.

He looks at the horseshoe. It’s the same one – it always has been. Seeing three new house-changes and a hell of a lot of life, it sits, still – tightly nailed to the overhead beam of the kitchen. There’s no way it could slip now.

His eyes travel down from the horseshoe at the dazzling abundance of crystals lining and clustering every free available space surrounding the entire kitchen. He figures Gerald’s little ‘no ornaments in the kitchen’ law wouldn’t bode too well here. He’d scream in fear of the raw amethysts by the kettle. Sob at the sight of the glittering chunks of hematite by the sink. Shield his eyes from offending lines of onyx near the spice rack and the little malachite cluster by Rosa (one of many house plants). And as for the great big slabs of rose quartz and Himalayan salt on the windowsill, the glow of sunrise warming the atmosphere each morning; kissing the space with shadowy peaches and dusty pinks – well, his face would be an absolute picture. Priceless. He grins whenever he dusts, love bursting in his heart for each one and humming through every vein in his body. They make him feel like a proud father.

A short, sharp buzz on the countertop interrupts his thoughts. His consciousness snaps back into reality. Shit, how long has it been? Once he gets thinking about Gerald and everything he put his mother through he gets angry, and then half the day disappears and he finds he’s done little else other than stare at a drawer or a wall for the majority of it. It’s easy to get carried away. It happens when he thinks about crystals too.

You okay?

It’s Zema. Part-time housemate, full-time soulmate. It’s almost like he’d heard his thoughts; the voices so powerful they resonate externally. Part of Dan wouldn’t be surprised if he had – Gerald was certainly shouting loud enough in there.

Been better, he answers truthfully. Just made the worst cup of tea known to mankind

I wondered what all that clanking was

There’s a pause, followed by another quick buzz.

HSD?

Dan grins at the screen. Horseshoe day. He’d even remembered their abbreviation.

“H – S – D,” he’d once said. “It’s like LSD. But shitter.”

Dan had snorted. Zema’s about the only person who would compare having ‘one of those days’ to a psychedelic trip.

“Exactly,” Zema had said once Dan had told him this. “It’s not. That’s why it’s shitter.”

Dan hadn’t exactly agreed with him. He didn’t even think it was worth mentioning Horseshoe is actually all one word, but he’d gone along with it because HSD is a lot less effort to type and sometimes it’s good to have a code. Zema’s about the only person who knows about this. He doesn’t trust anyone else enough not to judge him when he tells them he’s basically superstitious, however blanket that definition may be. It’s probably not the correct term, but he doesn’t know how else to describe it. Drawn to the unknown? Like it matters either way. It’s not as if he’s particularly vocal about it. A twenty-three-year-old male, unusually innate occult-esque interests and a static, stagnant society don’t exactly fit together with jigsaw-like ease. Dan doesn’t know why. Dan doesn’t see what the harm is in allowing others to gravitate towards their own pleasures when the concept alone of interests and hobbies is entirely subjective. That’s the beauty of it, he finds. No two beings have exactly the same range, however similar.

Maybe the harm is that there’s no harm at all, and that scares him. The lust for destruction scares him. This planet scares him.

Something like that, he taps back, before pocketing the conversation.

He gives up with tea involving milk and unlatches the wooden box neighbouring the kettle. It’s stuffed to the brim with teabags of spanning across the entire flavour spectrum.

He picks one up and presses it to his nose, inhaling. Ah, Jasmine.

He picks up another. Camomile and- something. He frowns. Lemon?

He puts it back. Can’t be. He finished the lemon last week.

He picks it up again and sniffs. Ginger, that’s it.

Nah, he tosses it back in for a second time. He only touches the ginger when he’s feeling jaded the morning after a night involving too much wine and not enough water (they happen more often than not).

He picks up another, inhaling the rich, fruity aroma. Red berries. It even smells like the colour red.

He puts it back nonetheless. Strawberries and- well, just about everything else with –berry tagged onto the end – just wouldn’t cut it right now. Ambitious Ribena, that’s what Zema calls it. It hasn’t really tasted the same since he said that.

He picks up another. Jasmine again, he rolls his eyes. He’s seldom ever in a ‘Jasmine’ mood. He doesn’t even know why they have so many – Zema barely touches it either.

He finally settles for a plain green tea. A bit of simplicity wouldn’t go amiss right now.

His phone buzzes again.

Don’t think I can’t hear that kettle. I’ll have a ginseng pls x

Dan huffs out a laugh. Cover blown.

We’re all out of ginseng.

Look under the sink.

Dan rolls his eyes and yanks open the door below him. Six boxes of the stuff stare back at him.

Six??? he taps with one hand, grabbing a box and tearing the cardboard open with another. Really?

Didn’t wanna run out is all that follows.

He shakes his head, but lets the grin tug his lips.

Panic-buying tea now, are we?

Don’t start. You bought six crystals the other day

Ok that’s different. Mercury is in retrograde right now and we’re not taking any chances

What does that even mean

It means u need to stop buying so much tea

I’ll stop buying tea when u stop buying crystals

Dan smirks. He’ll be waiting a while, then.

He assigns Zema the age-old High School Musical mug. It was a gift from Axel one or two Christmases ago, and he imagines the Disney franchise probably didn’t have temperamental dishwashers in mind during the manufacturing process – the boiling steam had left the majority of the characters eyeless and Troy Bolton completely nose-less. He leaves it next to the kettle with texted instructions for Zema to leave the duvet cave immediately before it turns cold, but for what it’s worth, the other boy isn’t exactly famous for his pro-activity early in the mornings. He wouldn’t be surprised if it reached stone temperature before passing his lips. Judging by the lack of audible movement, he’d be safe in assuming he’s probably fallen back asleep.

He pads into the lounge with a steaming mug and a bookmarked copy of Le Fleur Du Mal; completely falling to bits and half of the pages contemplating a permanent escape. Despite his attempts, even the strongest duct tape couldn’t keep this copy together.

There’s something about a parallel translation that fascinates him. How meaning can so flawlessly transcend dialect. He wonders if Baudelaire had this in mind. Whether he knew his works would one day be read in languages far from his mother tongue. Did he know his own craft to be so acute, so fine, that whichever order, whichever laws of letters they’re under – the same meaning shines through? The same rhythm, the same senses, colours, emotions rippling through each sign and symbol? That’s poetry.

His eyes scan the neighbouring verse. Learning a bit more French would definitely help, that’s for sure. His own skill is rusted from years of neglect; having abandoned all hopes of igniting his love for such a beautiful dialogue after school had strode into his life and seeped all the joy and passion out of just about everything he once loved. He’s glad to have reignited that. It was years until he picked up a paintbrush again.

He’s only three words in before he’s interrupted by an all-too-familiar sound.

He rolls his eyes, peering over the edge of the pages. “What now?”

Two eyes wait for him. One emerald, the other azure.

“No,” Dan immediately answers.

The reply is longer, louder.

“Ugh,” his glance scours the ceiling for a second. “It’s literally been an hour, Vee. Where are you storing it all?”

The eyes answer with an innocent glitter, but Dan knows better. His eyes flicker back to the page:

What will you say tonight, poor lonely soul,

What will you say old withered heart of mine,

To the most beautiful, the best, most dear,

Whose heavenly regards bring back your bloom?

We will assign our pride to sing her praise:

Nothing excels the sweetness of her will;

Her holy-

Then there’s a gentle chirrup. He feels his heart turn to jelly. She knows exactly what that sound does to him.

“Venus,” he groans in defeat, elongating the ‘u’. He plops the book down next to him and hauling himself up from the sofa. “Only one, okay? No more.”

She slinks down from the stool, her stool – only about fifty years old and fraying at every single edge. What was once a delicate floral tapestry now existing as aged blobs in various shades of pastel. All four legs, previously smooth mahogany, are now a splintered beige from years of busy carving. He doesn’t understand how such soft paws bear such ceramic claws.

They’d tried everything. From cardboard and cereal boxes to actual climbing towers she would barely look at, let alone touch. Beds she ignored; choosing only Dan’s favourite satin pillow. And she’ll only ever drink water out of a specific pint glass.

“We’ve adopted a human, not a cat,” Zema had once said.

“It’s like she owns us,” Dan had agreed.

She’s trotting along the kitchen floorboards now, her tail high. She stops once she reaches the drawer under the crystal cabinet, throwing her human a demure glance.

“Alright, alright,” Dan catches her up, grabbing the bronze key. He’s thankful cats don’t have the power of thumbs. The world is already chaotic enough.

He ends up giving her three. It’s those eyes, he tells himself in a small bout of self-justification. Those fucking eyes.

“Venus flytrap,” he mutters, running his fingertips along her silky back. “What are you like, eh? Where do you put it all?”

“Hollow legs,” a voice appears from behind him.

He almost leaves his own skin.

“Jesus!” he clutches at his chest. “What happened to the No-Giving-Dan-Cardiac-Arrest-Before-Noon rule?"

He whirls around to find Zema sat cross-legged on the marble surface just beside the sink, all silken robes and bed-beaten hair. A smirk gets bitten back under his teeth.

“I texted you."

Dan can’t quite believe the twenty-first century has come to this. Texting those who not only live in the same property, but are on the same floor.

They’re not actually too dissimilar in appearance – his head also home to a gigantic mass of thick brown waves, although in a darker shade to Dan’s own hair. His eyes stare back at him in a shade of gentle grey. Chameleon Eyes, Dan calls them; for they reflect their surroundings. He remembers how they looked when they’d first met that day at the beach – bright turquoise; matching the sky and the sea. He remembers how perplexed he been the second time they’d met and his eyes were suddenly a shining shamrock; sharing the glow of the grass. Then a gentle grey on the street under overcast clouds. He’s always wanted to go into one of those rooms covered completely ground-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, in mirrors. His eyes would probably boast galaxies.

He’s shorter than Dan (a rare occurrence among his friends) and about fifty times as agile – something he and Venus have in common is their blatant disregard for actual furniture. Even she sits on a stool more often than he does. Zema the Lemur, he calls him.

“Because chairs don’t exist,” Dan mutters now, his tone soaked with sarcasm. “Christ, you’re worse than her,” he nods down towards their little family member, still fixated on the drawer.

She trots up to Zema, seizing the opportunity.

“Are you hungry, honeybear?” Zema coos, his eyes sparkling. He gets an emphatic ‘mew’ in response.

“Don’t be fooled,” Dan interjects quickly. “She’s had a bowl and two treats already today.”

“Those eyes,” Zema grins knowingly. Green flashes in his direction. They’ve noticed she responds to ‘eyes’ faster than her own name.

“Those fucking eyes,” Dan shakes his head in agreement. The eyes in question now dart towards him. Whenever ‘eyes’ happen to crop up in conversation between the two, she looks as though she’s watching a tennis match. Dan’s abdomen still aches at the memory of the night they’d made the revelation; both curled up either side of the room in tears of laughter at her light-like response. “How’s the tea, by the way? Not too cold, I hope?”

“It’s lovely,” he sips appreciatively. “Good mug choice. Always better when it’s from Troy Bolton’s brain. It’s like I can taste his thoughts.”

“I didn’t know Gabriella tasted like ginseng,” Dan says. “Cut her open and she bleeds the stuff.”

Zema smirks. He holds the mug up, examining the worn surface in all its glory. “Looks like someone already has. God, this thing’s falling apart,” he thinks aloud, bringing himself ear-to-lip with the partially eroded character. “What happened to your nose babe, eh? Did it fall off during basketball?”

“Troy Boldemort,” Dan mutters immediately. Zema all but chokes, droplets showering the countertop.

He loves mornings like these, mornings where neither of them have any prior academic engagements and they can just sit and talk for hours about – well, anything, really. The final year of University boasts a monumental amount of focus and preparation and just a general resounding ‘oh-shit-this-is-actually-real’ feeling that apparently never really goes away; not even after you graduate, according to one of his cousins.

For Dan, nothing has really felt real since he was about fifteen, so it’s not something that particularly bothers him. He could just do without that ten-tonne workload.

“So what are you up to today, then?” Zema swings his legs over the edge, giggling as Venus begins an attack on his slipper. “Anything exciting?”

“Not much,” he sips thoughtfully. What can he do today? It’s been so long since he’s had a free day he’s forgotten how he spends time on his own terms. “Might get another painting done.”

“Paint me,” Zema beams, carding a hand through his fringe.

“Oh yeah?” Dan raises an eyebrow. “How the fuck would I go about painting your eyes?”

“Paint me in a field,” Zema continues. “And a beach. I wanna see-…” he hesitates. “We need to go to, like, a strawberry field or something. I wanna see if my eyes would go red.”

“Just smoke some pot. Then you’ll be halfway there.” Dan says, before hesitating. “Anyway, if we went to a strawberry field it’ll be mostly green. The strawberries are only the berries.”

“A poppy field, then,” Zema says.

He literally has an answer to everything. Dan rolls his eyes.

“One day,” he finally affirms, and the other boy grins. “In Spring.”

“I’m glad you’re painting again,” Zema says. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you do anything creative.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles, taking another sip although the tea’s losing its heat. It’s always the case when talking to Zema – the rapid, quick-fire pace of every conversation leaves barely enough interval to drink (that is, of course, unless it’s alcohol). “It’s been so long I doubt I even remember how to paint.”

“I highly doubt that,” Zema fires back, gulping more tea and placing the ghostly mug beside him.

“How about you, then?” Dan gulps down the remaining liquid before it has a chance to grow any colder. “What are you doing with yourself today?”

“I’m off out,” Zema stretches, his voice slightly strained. “Need to be at Eddie’s by ten. We’re doing the bass today.”

They’re two of a wide circle of musicians playing in each-other’s orbit. Zema’s never anywhere without his guitar, Axel the same with his saxophone (Saxel, he’s often referred to as), and Eddie would be the same, he imagines, had he not chosen the piano as his instrument of choice. He bites back a smirk, picturing him struggling with a rope, trying to drag his enormous Bösendorfer Grand onto a train for a gig. Thank almighty Yamaha for the existence of keyboards.

Dan winces, his eyes flickering to the clock. “You’re cutting it a bit fine, then.”

Zema’s own eyes flash towards the time. “Oh, shit,” the remaining tea gets swallowed in seconds and the ghostly mug falls into the sink with a steely clatter. “I’d better go.”

“Nothing they’re not used to I imagine.” Dan smirks.

“Don’t,” Zema cringes, grabbing his bag and shooting down the corridor into his own room. “They brought up my punctuality only the other day,” his voice continues. “Fuck, Dan. Why do I do this to myself?”

“Alarms exist.” Dan calls after him.

“It wasn’t even that,” he reappears holding a handful of guitar picks and a capo, shoving them into the front pocket of his case. “I decided to stop off on the way. Never in my life have I seen such a queue for the drive-through. It was ridiculous.”

“At least they got a couple of fries out of it.”

Zema stares at him. His expression speaks for itself.

“Okay. Well at least you got a couple of fries out of it.”

“Cold fries. And a melted McFlurry,” he mourns, hauling his guitar over his shoulder and looking Dan dead in the eye. “Word of advice, Dan. Never try eating ice cream while you’re driving. It doesn’t work. There’s a time limit.”

“There go my plans for the day,” Dan scoffs. “I don’t even drive.”

“And it’s about time you learnt, eh?” Zema grins. “Give your bestie a break from all that parallel parking. It’s doing my head in.”

“If it means getting you to places on time, I’m more than happy to,” his eyes flicker to the clock. “You have nine minutes, Zee.”

“Fuck’s sake!” Zema groans. “I’m doing it again. I’m going, I’m going-” he flusters around, filling both arms up with various belongings. “Can you grab my keys for me? They’re on the plate.”

The Plate, Dan smirks to himself. Keeping vital belongings within reaching distance of the door, it’s the porcelain base to everything – keys; both car and house, cards; both debit and SD, alongside an ocean of lighters, loose change, semi-important receipts, and a Pizza Hut flier that had been there when they moved in. He remembers the delight they’d both shared upon discovering the possibility of five-pound large pizzas – crushed immediately by disappointment upon realizing the flier was from 2006.

It’s filled now to the brim with such a pile had it not been for Zema’s obnoxiously large keyring collection it would have taken him an age to locate them. He grabs them by the ‘Amsterdam’ pipe-shaped bottle opener.

“There,” he thrusts them into his hands with a jingle. “Now go.”

“Lifesaver,” Zema clutches them, slipping out of the door. “I’ll see you around five, yeah?”

“See you,” Dan grins, watching him jog to his vehicle. “Safe journey. Don’t drive through anything this time.”

The look he receives tells him all he needs to know. He watches the smaller figure amble up the road to his car; a battered blue thing with a collage of stickers plastering the rear. It was a seventeenth birthday gift; four metallic walls capturing four years of freedom. Despite having known Zema for only two of those four years, they’d already ridden up and down the country in it; halfway back home they’d had to make an impromptu visit to a tiny town somewhere along the south coast due to a faulty tire, but that ended up being one of the best decisions of their lives.

Because had they not set foot into the first tavern they’d walked past whilst the car was being repaired somewhere up the road; a crooked, old thing with bookshelves for walls and a resident cat asleep on the stool, they would never have been served by a bartender with a nose ring and hair the colour of moss (Dan remembers wondering how someone can suit such surroundings whilst simultaneously looking so out of place). They would never have stuck up a conversation about the clock on the wall and discovered it was an original nineteenth-century piece passed down from Germany, and the bartender would never have noticed Zema’s obsidian pendant and asked him about its origins. They wouldn’t have spent the remains of the afternoon sunk into the floral upholstery, swigging ale-upon-ale with this vibrant character as the sky loses the light before reality dawns and they realise they came here with a car that needs attending to.

He still can’t believe this was how they met Axel. All three of them have evolved so much since then, all grown in each other’s orbit.

(The rapid blossom of the butterfly effect has never failed to astound him. It never will.)

The fade of the engine introduces a silence he hasn’t heard since seven a.m. His smile seemed to have travelled along with the car; with Zema. Shit, has it always been this deadened without him? The quietness cuts into his eardrums, growing sharper and sharper the more he strains; searching for something, anything – a whisper of a tree, a yelp of a dog, a-

He paces away from the front door, finding comfort in the soft pad of his own footsteps. The floorboards groan with every movement, and he’s thankful for the noise.

He can never find his way back to sleep upon awakening on a Horseshoe day. It’s the tell-tale sign for him – if he claws his way out of a biting nightmare bathed in sweat, scrabbling around the duvet until his fingers touch cool amethyst, rough and raw, he knows there are challenges waiting for him.

He doesn’t know why it happens. Or how. He’s only ever tried to explain the whole thing to Zema a handful of times and even then he doesn’t really get it, doesn’t really understand how he can just know something’s about to happen before it does, just feels the flames underneath his ribcage, anticipation burning the embers red.

“You ought to get on those Beta-blockers,” he’d once told him through a mouthful of raw bagel. Several crumbs fell to the floor, something Dan viewed as a skill if not anything; uncooked bagels are near impossible to eat that messily. “They helped me when I started getting those anxiety attacks. No way would I have survived college without them,” as he took another bite, more crumbs parted ways.

“I don’t think the buckets of coffee every morning particularly helped,” replied Dan, before adding, “and every evening.” He’d stopped then, frowning. “And wherever else in the day you can- okay, that’s not the point. It’s not the same as anxiety,” he paused, the corners of his mind struggling to describe something so utterly inexplicable. “It’s-… different. It’s never constant, it’s not like that.”

As he reminisces, he feels the jolt.

Something’s going to happen tonight. Today. Sometime.

That is all he’s absolutely certain of. That an event is around the corner, and that it’ll happen sometime within the frame of the day. Good or bad, positive or negative, it’s the same spike in his gut, the same blade of intuition cutting into his senses. Such a skill sits somewhere on the fence between a blessing and a curse.

He makes every effort to swallow the feeling down, place it anywhere but the absolute forefront of his psyche, and treads upstairs. If there’s one thing he’s learnt during the years of having to contend with this (whatever ‘this’ is), it’s not to dwell on it, not to feel it too much. Whatever happens, will happen. No amount of thinking, feeling, sensing, will change that.

As far as superpowers go, it’s a pretty shit one to have, he thinks. Enemy, up ahead. Wait, it might be a friend actually. How close are they? Fuck knows. We might be waiting a while, but it could be any minute now. I know they’re coming though, trust me.

It would be useless.

He reaches straight for the art supplies as soon as he opens his bedroom door, grabbing as many paints as the laws of physics operating his satchel bag will allow. He relies on oil for today’s medium, seizing handfuls of small foil tubes spanning the entire visible colour spectrum, all thoroughly crinkled with use. A couple of sponges leap into the leather (stained, but he doesn’t have the capacity to start his cleaning ritual right now. Cleaning one art supply leads to another, and another, and then ‘just one more’ until the day sits partially behind him and all he’d have to show for himself is an empty canvas and two very wet sleeves), along with a healthy selection of paintbrushes, and the remaining dregs of his paint thinner (he really ought to get some more. He keeps forgetting.).

He releases a breath he didn’t know was taking up his chest. He’s actually ready for once. Wow.

Breakfast is crunched in seconds, accompanied by two planet eyes and a mass of black fur.

“Vee,” he mews through a mouthful of toast, his eyes rolling. “I’ve barely even started mine.”

Her expression doesn’t falter, her gaze only glittering more. He lasts two more bites before caving in and heading to the cupboard. Her paws are feathers; silent little things, but he doesn’t need to hear her (or even see her, for that matter) to sense she’s trotting along behind him – tail in the air and eyes to the sky. He awards her a third treat, internally self-justified by his forthcoming absence for the rest of the day, and watches as her nose delicately pokes the pea-sized thing before accepting it with much grace.

“What is it about you, eh?” he scratches the very top of her head, loving the way her eyes close in response and a deep purr begins rolling. “How do you do it?” his tone is weirdly devoid of rhetoricism. “All you domestic cats do is sleep and ask for food.”

He hesitates.

“I mean, that’s not all you do. You knock stuff over. Both solid and liquid. And scratch things up. And sleep on important documents. And make me late for things sometimes,” she purrs louder – almost solid confirmation cats can understand humans. Of course that would please her. “Yet we love you unconditionally,” his fingertips travel behind her ears and she leans into his touch. “All you have to do is exist.”

If only that were the case for humans.

His toast is cold by the time he returns to it, but he doesn’t care. He wasn’t particularly hungry to begin with – he doesn’t have Venus’s appetite. They should have named her Jupiter instead.

Binning the remains, he slings his art supplies onto his back and reads the weather through the net curtains. It looks fairly promising; the sky slightly overcast but showing no immediate threat of rain – they’d fallen victims to a heatwave not long ago and then a raging storm the following week.

September is often precarious; not quite summer, but not yet autumn. The sun smiles at him but he makes a mental note to pack an umbrella just in case.

✵

His concept of ‘perfect beach weather’ is a bit weird.

His perfect beach weather welcomes a threat of rain. Embraces stronger breezes. He doesn’t care if there’s a cloud bigger than the sky heading in his direction. As long as it’s comfortable enough to sit and paint without the wind claiming just about everything he arrived with, he’s happy.

When he looks out of his window towards beams of warmth, that’s forest weather. That’s lay-in-sunlight-pools-and-read-the-tree-trunks weather. When whites and greys cut the sky, that’s when it’s time for the beach.

This beach is his home. His sanctuary. The only surroundings that actually manage to cut through the thickening tar of anxiety coating his soul, the sound alone of the hissing waves setting him free of any spikes of fretful darkness still latching onto him.

Here he can think.

Feel.

Be.

His eyes match the horizon. Solitary. Still. He doesn’t understand how an element moving so fierce can appear as nothing but a perfectly straight line.

Then again; Jupiter’s a raging mass of storms and still the perfect sphere remains. As for Saturn.

He whips out his sketchbook, the A1 pages immediately making friends with the breeze. He eventually claws the pages into a surface at least half-sketchable, the paper sheets cutting through his gentle grasp as he tries to wrestle with giant flaps of paper, great white veils. The definitive opposite of a bat, he concludes decidedly. He’s probably a good ten minutes into this whole endeavour before the thought of whipping anything colourful out crosses his mind. His hands hurt now.

He starts with the greens. He always does. Touches of evergreen, of shamrock and a blue-tinged teal make their way onto the palette first. He takes a tiny amount of the brightest and begins creating a dusty emerald sky, the bristles massaging the canvas with gentle strokes. He’s never seen a green sky before. He’s seen skies spamming across the entire palette of the planet’s warmth, all rubies and vermillions and even violets. But never green. Green seems to stay on land, he finds. Maybe the trees will be blue.

The trees end up purple. He’s painting what he can see right now; a thick smatter of bushes lining the top of the cliffside. The forest. His forest, he secretly calls it, already hearing ‘you can’t own a forest, Bezos’ from a mini Zema somewhere in his mind.

He’s painted this view, this vast stretch ahead of him, so many times he found the shades to be somewhat restricting despite the sun making all the difference – indigo in the rain and a glittering turquoise in the summer light. So he’d swapped the cool palette for warmth one day, and fell in love with the idea of a ruby ocean. The sands had become a dusty lilac; something that had later appeared in a dream of his. The sky he’d kept to its natural shade that day – a gentle grey; accentuating the heightened colour of the other two.

It was like a fuse had exploded inside him after that. He’d come home from the beach with armfuls of half-damp paper; all thoroughly watercoloured at first – before experimenting with the oils and the pastilles upon realisation that soluble paints and rain-threatened skies do not mix. He’d branched out; grasping at all ends of the visible colour spectrum; knocking on every door, pushing every possible boundary. Rockpools became crystals, the shores began to sparkle – really sparkle; once he figured out how to paint with glitter correctly, - and colours began to multiply. Soon there were three colours in the sky – the gradient fading one into the other and often bearing complete contrasts; reds eloped with greens and purples entangling golds.

He’d combined just about every colour; primary, secondary; tertiary – but never attempts to create the same shade twice. It’s more fun that way, he decides.

He reads the horizon. The line of beach huts are still just as colourful in reality as on paper, so he’d taken to embellishing each door with swirls of gold using his thinnest brush. The shadow of the overhanging clouds looks to have deepened the ocean’s bed, and he wonders just how far the floor of sand slopes down. How many miles of ink until he reaches the earth. He’d swum countless times (some while drunk, thanks to a team effort involving Zema’s persuasion and his own impulsive nature), but never dared to venture anywhere past the Lighthouse a stretch of metres away from the shore.

Dan doesn’t quite know when it became derelict. How long it’s been since a beacon pierced the night with neon light; guiding the lost and the found, the leavers and returners. There are no windows; only wooden squares where light once seeped through – but the Widow’s Walkway still remains weirdly open in the air, the iron cates curling up at the top.

Some say it’s been months. Others longer. Having only lived in this town for the generous part of two years, he has no real clue himself – but every new crack on the surface, every new splinter of wood or peeled paint, doesn’t go unnoticed. However long it’s been, it’s definitely no longer in use.

It’s taken many forms on his papers, behaving slightly different with each medium. He once even took to disregarding colour altogether and using only black ink and silver glitter; each curve, dot and line finely constructed. That one, he must admit, was a personal favourite. He’d turned every crack into a vein, pumping midnight blood into every inch of the tower. Every chip of paint revealed a crystallised surface underneath – its inner beauty begging to see the light.

He adds colour today – but always acknowledges its signs of time. If it’s cracked up there, it’s cracked on the page. If he strolls by one day and there’s a chunk of brick missing; a gaping hole in the surface, he wont lie to the paper.

He’ll just cram a million stars into the space.

His eyes sink back into his own page. The violet trees have a teal cliff to sit upon, and today the sea is a concrete grey – not too many shades off exactly what he’s seeing right now.

It’s another different combination of colours; a new one, but there’s something missing. He reads the page, eyes darting between his creation and his surroundings.

He looks up, bending his neck and staring at the clouds until his eyes water. They glide over him, over them, over everything, like glaciers in the sky. The beautiful thing about just a slight threat of rain, is the sheer metamorphosis they seem to undergo a priori. He sees one turn from Yoshi into an ice cream. One that starts off as a squashed Darth Vader before growing a tail and turning into a seahorse. Another that begins as a boot, considers turning into a palm tree, before finally joining up with another and becoming the Cheshire Cat. A couple that look like skyships. And one that looks exactly like Appa, much to his absolute delight. Even down to the horns.

An idea grips him with such force he jumps, elbowing his paint water into the sand. Punished by Karma for being creative. Great.

He grabs his lightest pastels and reads the emerald sky again.

One sweeping motion, and there’s now a moon; a glowing crescent against the green hemisphere.

Two soft strokes, and there’s a surrounding haze. He softens it with the very tip of his finger, and feels something flood through him. Yes.

Three quick dots of white, and a belt sits in the sky. After another dozen more, a shield. Then a bow joins.

He’s grinning now, inspiration thrumming through his veins like a current.

After seven more, there’s a plough (Trough? He can never remember which one it is. More like the fucking saucepan. Or square with a tail.).

Completing painting after painting in colour after colour, how has this idea never occurred to him before? He should even include a couple of planets, he thinks as his pencil scrapes in a suggestion of Saturn.

Two moons later he grins at the page, sparkling with new celestial life. He throws his eyes up to the sky, wondering how inhabitable the earth would be had his interpretation somehow become scientifically correct overnight one day.

He tries to imagine a sky with three moons. Scarily large asteroids. Comet trails scarring the atmosphere.

Then his smile vanishes and his eyes return back down to this A1 universe beneath him. Tries to chow down the growing realisation that inhabitability is probably inevitable anyway with the way things are headed, and that the problem is down here, not up there – and he dabs in a small Pleiades. Up there is safe. Under the watchful eye of the Seven Sisters; that’s protection.

Aliens are probably avoiding us on purpose. Who can blame them?

#mywriting #phanfic #phanfiction #phan au #dan and phil #dnp #magic au #chaptered #amazingphil #daniel howell #here have a thing #im probs rusty as fuck still but i hope this is ok pls

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buckymcbuttfacebarnes · 6 years ago

Text

Devotion

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3300

request: this has been done a few times but i really want ur take on it and a bitch loves angst and drama so uh. maybe reader/bucky are in a relationship but like its a secret and its in the early stage but Then bucky gets a little too close for comfort w somebody else and yeah. i feel corny as fuck for saying alla that but,,please (requested by anon)

summary: bucky barnes and y/n struggle to define the parameters of their relationship, especially when y/n sees him with another girl.

warnings: angst fluff and vague ass smut like bitch i aint never written smut b4 so LMFAO

a/n: i tried to make this as not-cheesy as possible, but i know that its still gonna be corny as fuck bc i love corny bucky shit! love u anon,, i hope you enjoy pls lemme know what u think!<3

my fics

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Bucky glances at his watch before tugging you into the small room with him. You want to resist, but you can’t. You are putty in his hands. Each brush of his lips against your skin sets your nerves alight, warming you completely. His kisses are wet and feverish. Almost desperate. When his lips touch your neck your eyelids flutter shut, his metal fingertips are cool to the touch, they make you shiver.

“Bucky—” the half-hearted warning escapes your lips quietly.

“Y/N,” he murmurs in playful return, mimicking your tone. You can feel his smile growing.

“We have to get to the party…” your voice trails off when his hands come to hold your sides and his lips move to the sensitive skin beneath your ear. You like the feel of his beard scratching at your skin, the way his breath cools the places where his lips have been. “Buck, c’mon,” you start again, but his hand slides down to hook beneath your thigh and you instinctively wrap your leg around his hips. His cologne is intoxicating, but you breathe it in anyway, longing for it to fill your lungs. “We have to stop…” you say breathlessly, “They’re gonna notice if both of us are missing.”

But he doesn’t stop and you don’t want him to.

Your fingers fumble clumsily with the buttons of his shirt, crisp and white, you’d ironed it yourself.

He laughs and you feel it in your chest, as if it had been your own chuckle, your amusement, not his. It rings in your ears in a way that makes you wish you could hear it again and again. You grin broadly at him, and he grins back. All teeth, his blue eyes glint with each sinful thought that crosses his mind. He is so beautiful.

“The things I wanna do to you, doll,” he muses.

You hastily push the fabric away from his shoulders, hands on his bare skin. You hadn’t even noticed that he’d already unzipped the side of your dress, but then he lets go of your thigh to draw the straps from your shoulders and let the jewel toned gown fall to the floor in a pool of rich fabric.

“I could have just pulled the dress up,” your words are sound slurred together, they interrupt the clash of lips, teeth, and tongue.

Bucky shakes his head and he’s breathless, pulling both of your legs around his waist. The wall’s surface is cool against your bare back. “I want to feel you.”

And he does.

His hands touch every inch of your body, holding you close as you pant out his name. Your fingers get entangled in the waves of chestnut brown (ruining the neat bun that had been knotted at the nape of his neck). Bucky tucks his face into the crook of your neck, his grunts send chills up and down the length your spine. His teeth graze your collarbone when you tug at his hair, his hands clutch at the backs of your thighs.

“Fuck,” Bucky hisses quietly.

Your fingertips dig into his shoulders, you tilt your head back and it bumps against the wall. You don’t care enough to think about, too engrossed by the rush of excitement pooling inside of you. But then Bucky’s hand grabs your chin, his thumb drags down across your lips and he meets your longing gaze. You wind your arms around his neck, little space between your faces. You inhale and exhale the same air, parted lips almost close enough to touch. He says your name, quietly, he breathes it. Your breath nearly catches in your throat. There’s a crease between his brows and his lower lip is caught between his teeth. His hands hold you tightly, as if he’s afraid you might slip from his grasp at any moment.

His movements grow quicker and less precise. “Y/N,” he pants when your noses touch, his eyes fluttering shut. His eyelashes are dark against his flushed cheeks. You will yourself to keep yours open, but you can’t. Bucky moans and the tightly wound coil that had formed in the pit of your stomach finally snaps. The snap of his hips grows more sloppy with each moment, he finds his release in time with yours.

The sound of your name on his lips is a whisper that’s barely there, just a wispy exhale of air, but he says it all the same. Y/N, Y/N, Y/N…Again and again and again. It sends chills down your spine, you hold him closer.

He kisses you on your lips, wet and painfully slow. His hips adopt a languid pace, you struggle to catch your breath, so does he. He gleams with a thin sheen of sweat. He’s the most handsome creature you’d ever laid your eyes on.

“Bucky.”

He kisses your neck, right back at where he started.

You buttoned up his shirt and he zipped up your dress. You combed your fingers through his hair and pulled it into a low knot. A warm, comfortable silence blooms. He touches your cheek with gentle fingertips as you wiped the traces of your lipstick from his skin.

“What?” you asked, with a raised brow. There was something anticipatory in his lingering gaze. “I’m irresistible, huh doll?”

When you rolled your eyes he laughed. Childish, but good-natured as always, yet there was still something his was withholding.

“What?” you ask again, playfully impatient.

You see his jaw clench and he exhales loudly through his nose, his expression growing thoughtful, but only for a split second.

“Nothing,” he says too quickly. He glances down at his watch and grins crookedly, “Just think, doll, if I can do that to you in under ten minutes, think about what we could do with thirty...or an hour...or a whole night.”

Bucky speaks with a manner that seems nonchalant, but part of you knows that he’s rather serious. You know the implications of such a charged suggestion: How serious is this? We both know we aren’t ‘just friends’, why keep it a secret?

But you weren’t ready to answer the unspoken questions, so you just smile and smooth out the wrinkles in his white shirt, hoping he hadn’t caught a whiff of your apprehension.

Bucky leaves the comfort of the cramped janitor’s closet (the spot for all of your most recent trysts) first. He had told you it was better that your arrival times were staggered, rather than arriving together. He glances down at his watch, he only had about ten minutes before she arrived.

Before turning down the hall towards the ballroom he turns his head to look at you, but you’ve already shut the door. He walks to the ballroom alone, flushed in the face. While he stands outside and waits he thinks about the way you clutched onto him and that moment when he’d peered into your eyes. Those innocent, heavy lidded eyes, caught in the midst of ecstasy. The taste of you was stuck on his mouth like beer on the lips of an alcoholic.

You leave the closet almost immediately after Bucky because the air still is charged with an odd, indescribable tension and you can still smell his cologne in the cramped space. You slip away and spend time in a the mirror, adjusting your hair and fixing your makeup. When you looked at yourself in the mirror you smiled, though you weren’t exactly sure why. You leaned forward and looked closely at your neck and collarbones. No marks, you had sternly told him. And though he often liked to annoy you by placing a hickey at the base of your neck or at the spot near your jaw, beneath the ear, he hadn’t tonight. Your own fingertips ghosted across your neck. It felt hot still, as if his lips had only been there seconds ago.

You wait an even thirty minutes before you head to the party.

“Fashionably late as always, huh?”

It’s Steve approaches you with a good-natured smile and two champagne flutes in hand.

“That’s the only reason to ever be late to anything,” you lie, accepting on of the glasses with an appreciative smile.

He laughs. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, you look great. You all alone tonight?”

You nod. “Why? Need a wingman?”

This makes him laugh.

When you see Bucky again it’s about an hour into the party. You spent time sipping at champagne and making small talk with a few friends, making rounds with Steve (who was also dateless), but all the while you had been scanning the large room for him. You didn’t know what for, you were both rather hesitant to seem too chummy in a public setting like this, but there was something about him tonight that had made you want more. You wanted more of him, even if that meant faking a strictly friendly friendship. You suspected he wanted more of you too. It went beyond his vague suggestion of spending more time together. You had heard it in his call of your name, seen it in the stain of your lipstick on his cheek, felt it with the touch of his thumb to your swollen lips.

You feel him before you see him. He bumps into you by pure coincidence and his hand shoots out to hold your elbow, steadying you.

“Oh, Y/N...sorry about that.” When he smiles it seems odd and half-hearted, but you ignore it. Instead you find yourself focusing on the sudden lump in your throat and your urge to kiss him again and again.

“I was actually looking for you, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh yeah, doll? What’s that?” He was distracted, eyes flitting from you to someplace above your head, someplace behind you. Still, it didn’t seem to register.

“Earlier you said something and I just think that—”

You didn’t know her, a pretty girl with eyes like smokey quartz. Her lipstick was a shade of pink and made her face look washed out. Yours was a shade of red that complimented the glow of your skin tone. You don’t feel embarrassed when her eyes meet yours or when she brushes past you, stopping you mid-sentence, to loop her arm through Bucky’s as if they’re some sort of buy-one-get-one pairing. She kisses his cheek. Her lipstick doesn’t stain him like yours did. You don’t smile or frown, something in you deflates.

“Oh, are you on a date?” you ask Bucky, slowly shifting your gaze from her to him. Your disappointment is apparent in your tone, though you tried desperately to hide it.

He doesn’t sputter for words or fumble for an excuse. He never does. “Yes.”

You nod because you don’t have a right to be angry. You walk away because there’s nothing left for you to say.

Behind you, you think you hear the girl asking, “What was that about?”

That night he is at your door, you know it’s him because of the (unnecessarily) distinctive knock. Two solid raps, brief pause, two, pause, two, then silence. A heartbeat at your door.

“C’mon, Y/N.”

When you open the door he’s leaning against the doorframe, still dressed in his white shirt and dress pants. He looks surprised when the door swings open, then relieved. You wished you didn’t feel anything when you looked at him.

“What’s up, Buck?” you ask when he doesn’t say anything.

“Don’t act like this.”

“Like what?”

He sighs, and a quiet settles. Most everything he says is so calculated, picked with care, searching for the most concise way to say what needs to be said. He never struggled to speak, but always took his time in doing so. He never seemed lost, he was always in control. He’d never been one for drawn out conversations, especially when it came to the prospects of your relationship with one another. You were friends first and foremost, you both knew that. Keeping the relationship a secret was the logical thing to do. Friends would treat you the same instead of seeing you as a pair, it would allow the two of you to privately define whatever it was you had. Up until recently the secrecy and the games seemed to work well. It had all been fairly straightforward: he feared commitment, you swore up and down you didn’t want anything too serious with him. You didn’t know you had been lying until tonight.

“Like you aren’t bothered,” he finally says.

The air between you grows taut. You lift and release your brows.

“I don’t have a right to be bothered.”

Respecting the agreement.

“Right…” he says, lips curling into a coy smile, “but you are.”

Silence.

“You were mad at the party, you’re mad now.”

“I’m not mad, Bucky. It’s just—”

“Just what?” He’s leaning forward, arm still on the door frame. He is poison. He thinks this is a game.

“Tonight,” you begin, hating the way he makes you feel, “you—It felt different.” There is a lump in your throat. “It was different and then...and I wanted to tell you, but then I show up and look for you the whole night and turns out, you’re with some girl.” Your bring your eyes up to his and a heat flares in your chest, realization creeping up on you like a cruel shadow. “Is that why you kept looking at your fucking watch?”

You see his jaw tense. He swallows hard. Suddenly he’s serious...and for some reason that makes you angrier.

“Fuck, it makes so much more sense now,” you’re speaking more to yourself than to him at this point. “God, Bucky,” your cheeks puff with the air you exhale through your mouth. “I’m so stupid.”

“You aren’t stupid.”

“Yes, I am, because I actually thought I felt something with you tonight!”

He sends you a warning look: Keep it down. You hadn’t even realized how loud you’d gotten, voice echoing in the hallway. When he pushes past you through your door you don’t stop him, you keep talking.

“Something really—something real! And I was going to tell you that.” You send your gaze to the ceiling in exasperation. “I was going to tell you, can you believe that?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because of that fucking girl, Buck.” You pace the floor, you don’t want to look at him, but you can feel his eyes on you. “You knew what the fuck you were doing, you planned this.”

He tries to interject, but there’s no stopping you.

“No, no, you did. I know you did. That fucking watch,” you point to the device on his wrist, “you had this night all scheduled out, huh? Sleep with Y/N, she’s a quick fuck, then get to my real date at the party. That’s fucked up.”

With eyes narrowed: “I didn’t plan things to turn out this way.”

“So she showed up on her own then?”

He shakes his head, this is the first time you ever see him with his lips parted, clumsily searching for the right words to string together. That’s not what I meant.

“Right,” you mockingly quip, looking him in his eye. “You don’t get to do this to me.”

“I’m giving you exactly what you wanted!” The volume of his voice catches you off guard, his face goes hard. “This is what you asked for, you wanted something secret, something quiet, and I’ve given that to you. You wanted this, not me,” he is suddenly seething, hands spread wide and out at his sides. He looks to you with darkened eyes, they seem to hold the vast tumult of the sea. His gaze is frigid. Icy waters.

“Well then...what do you want?” You question venomously, interrupting the weighty silence.

He could have crossed the room to stand close to you, but he keeps his distance. He watches you pace. He watches you watch him.

“I want to be with you.”

“That’s bullshit.”

He shakes his head, face screwed up in disbelief. “You’re the one that didn’t want anything serious!”

“You’re the one that ‘can’t handle commitment’!” You throw finger quotes in his face, he fights the urge to take you by the throat and kiss you until you can’t breathe.

“I have tried to tell you that I want more, but you just fucking brush it off or pretend like you didn’t hear me, when I know that you do. Like tonight. Tonight I didn’t even mean to hint at it, but I did, and what did you do? You fucking ignored it like you do with everything else!”

“I can’t take you seriously, you treat everything like some stupid joke!”

Bucky stares at you open-mouthed and in disbelief, but you know he won’t deny you because you both know that you’re right.

“I didn’t plan for this to happen,” he reiterates.

“The watch—”

“Jesus Christ, the watch, the watch, the fucking watch, who gives a fuck about the watch, Y/N?” As he speaks he’s taking the watch off. He holds it by the black leather strap and looks at it as if it disgusts him. “Look, I brought the girl, but it was only because Steve introduced me to her a few days ago. People keep asking about you and me, and it’s so fucking annoying, and I know how badly you wanted to keep this—” he points between the two of you with his forefinger, he’s exasperated, “—a secret! So I invited her, but I told her to come an hour after the party actually starts because I knew I was going to be with you. I wanted to be with you. It just looked good if I walked into the party with her. That’s it. That’s all.”

Bucky stands in front of you with a face that’s open and expected. Lips slightly parted, eyes wide and watchful. The silence swallows you whole.

He had helped you pick your dress before the party (Wow, pretty lady, hot date tonight?). You ironed his shirt, hung it up and kept it crisp. You left late, too caught up in one another to recall the time. He insisted on walking together, but promised to keep a good amount of space between you. If anyone saw it would look strictly platonic. Then he grabbed you by your wrist and tugged you into that goddamn closet despite your half-hearted protests.

We don’t have a lot of time, Buck. We’re already late.

I don’t need much, doll.

“I didn’t think that you’d decide tonight that you wanted something serious,” he admits quietly. When he sighs his shoulders move up towards his ears, then rela again. Half of his mouth quirks upwards crookedly. “Hell, if I knew that, I never would have brought the girl. We wouldn’t have even gone to that stupid party, we would’ve been too busy...doing other things.”

Suddenly you are aware of the heart beating your chest and the warmth of the room. A heat creeps up your entire body, your fingertips seem to buzz. You cross the room, meeting him where he stands.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

He whispers your name quietly, a repetitive sound on his lips. Y/N, Y/N, Y/N.

You want to hear it again and again and again.

Two hands, one warm, the other cool, rest on either side of your face and you smile. “I want you.” Secret or no secret. “I just want you.”

Bucky kisses you until you feel lightheaded. He kisses you until you’re dizzy and your legs feel wobbly and you can’t tell where you begin and he ends. He touches you with hands spread wide, he wants to feel every part of you. He burns your skin with his hot kisses, a trail of marks left to show where he’s been. You breathe him in until he’s invaded your system, you breathe him in until your lungs are filled to the brim.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky angst #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes smut #james buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes x reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky fanfic #marvel imagine #marvel fanfiction

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witchery-bitchery-witchery · 6 years ago

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COLE’S CHEAP-AS-FUCK ANTI-ANXIETY SPELL JAR

(DISCLAIMER: This spell and magic in general is not a substitute for medical, mental, or emotional health. See a fuckin doctor y’all. I use this spell on top of going to therapy, which I have been doing for two years)

What’s up bitches!! It’s me Cole, your friendly local witch doin his thang with some fuckin SPELL JARS hell yeeeeeeee

This is my first ever spell jar, and I’m actually really pleased with the results?? I am one magical boy so it seems. But, if you’re like me, you’re frugal to the point of concerning your acquaintances, so you don’t wanna break the bank with your witchery. That said, all the ingredients in this jar are mostly easy to get a hold of, and you likely already have them in your kitchen or wherever the fuck else y’all store your herbs idfk let’s gET INTO IT

GENERAL SHIT YOU NEED

1. A FUCKIN JAR (I use a tiny little guy I wear around my neck but whatever works for u)

2. TWO LITTLE PLATES SO YOU DON’T GET SHIT EVERYWHERE WHEN YOU PUT YOUR INGREDIENTS INTO THE JAR

3. A FUNNEL FOR THE SHIT IF YOU’RE CLUMSY LIKE ME

4. GLUE OR WAX OR WHATEVER SEALANT U USE IT REALLY DON’T MATTER (I used tacky glue)

OPTIONAL SHIT

1. A RUG IN ANY GEOMETRIC SHAPE U DESIRE (I used a hexagonal throw rug bc that’s what I had)

2. CRYSTALS IN NON CHIP FORM TO PUT ON TIPS OF THE GEOMERTRIC SHAPED RUG OF YOUR CHOICE, IF YOU HAVE A CIRCLE I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO(I used two amethyst chunky dudes, two clear quartzes, and two rose quartzes)

3. FAKE CANDLES, OR REAL IF YOU’RE EXTRA LIKE THAT just follow fire safety rules

INGREDIENTS

order doesn’t really matter except for the first and last ingredients, so go nuts, also put whatever the fuck else you want in here, it’s your witchcraft

1. SALT (for protection and also because I like starting my jars with salt on the bottom for that sweet sweet aesthetic)

2. AMETHYST CHIPS (For soothing nerves and protection. I put twelve in there to represent each month of the year but like it really doesn’t matter)

3. CHAMOMILE (To soothe nerves. I tore open a fuckin tea bag for this so you don’t need to get all fancy

4. LAVENDER (To soothe nerves and it smells nice so if you’re a closeted witch like me you can say it’s so you can smell the lavender when you’re nervous and just never disclose the fact that you sealed this shut with glue :) )

5. ROSE QUARTZ CHIPS, BC PRETTY and SELF LOVE (also put in twelve to represent the months of the year but again doesn’t really matter)

6. ROSEMARY (For happiness!! Probably some other things but at this point I was excited)

7. SUGAR (to sweeten the spell and clean the fuck up any negative energies, also bc sugar is great)

8. CLEAR QUARTZ CHIPS (at this point I was just throwin shit in there but again I put twelve)

9. CARNATION PETALS (for protection! I used four white ones bc that’s what I had)

10. ROSE PETALS (for self love! I used two pink ones and two yellow ones bc that’s what I had)

11. ONE FUCKIN CHIP OF GARNET (One final piece of protection! JUST ONE and would rec it be on top so it protects the spell and so if the spell goes to shit it protects it)

STEPS (bolded are optional)

1. Take all ingredients and lay them out overnight the night before so that they soak up the moon’s rays n shit. I did this on my windowsill*. CLOSE THE WINDOW SO NO PETS OR WEIRDOS GET TO THEM *charge however you like

1.5 Assemble shit on the night of

2. Lay out your optional rug or go to wherever you do you spell shit. I did this at night on a Sunday I think idk it’s been a while, but it doesn’t matter

3. Lay out your crystal globs on any points on the rug

4. Place your dish in the very center of wherever you’re spell casting, and have your smaller dish in front of it

5. Place your jar in the center of the dish and put your funnel in there. I made mine by rolling up a piece of paper, it looked really fuckin suspicious let me tell ya

4. Measure out your shit in any way you please and in any way you want to order it EXCEPT FOR SALT AND GARNET, SALT FIRST, GARNET LAST other then that do whatever

7, Thank ingredients for their aid!!

8. Recite any loopholes and fail safes you want, but remember to infuse the jar with the intent to assuage your anxiety

9. Take that tacky glue or whatever and seal that shit (I put the glue on the cork, in the top of the jar, and around the edges for extra security bc I wear mine around my neck)

10. Clean up ur shit

11. Wear jar or carry it on you, and whenever anxious look at it or shake it or whatever

12. Go to therapy

13. Thanks for coming to my TED talk

14. I hate the number 13 so I had to put a 14 for my own sake lol

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES FROM COLE

So that’s my first jar! I’m fairly relaxed with my whole process, and I’m fairly new, so if this isn’t up to your speed, I apologize, bc I ain’t know SHIT

I hope you like it!! Go to therapy and happy witchin

#witchblr #witchcraft #spell jars #cole's original content #my progress #spells #baby witch #cole's cheap as fuck spells #magick #spell bottles #jar spells #bottle spells #anxiety #anxiety tw

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obciidian-archived · 5 years ago

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mother of the year award goes to... ianthina !

excitement glistens in the mother’s eyes ; filled with pride and proudness . this day only came once an year . seunghwa’s birthday had been marked down on her calendar . she only hoped that the young boy would love his presents that were neatly displayed on his bed ; artemis curling beside the items as if the small cat herself wanted to wish the young boy a happy birthday . the witch wished she could be here to see him but with an emergency that beckoned her and lao ; she would have to wait until later tonight . for now this would have to do until she had the chance to give him a hug in person . gentle , for the final time , she organizes the two boxes on his bed ; one that would contain new shoes for the young soccer player and a much smaller one — a necklace that was laced with her magic . a pendent of moonlight charged cherry quartz . months of being soaked in protection herbs and tracing magic . it was sure to keep him in good hands .

my dearest of hwa .

happy birthday ,seungie . another year wiser and hopefully more happier . i wish i would be home to see your face when you see this but sadly , a small emergency has came up. i promise to be home later tonight and we can go out to celebrate but for now — enjoy these . the biggest box if you haven’t been able to tell already is new cleats . i noticed you might need some new ones so , enjoy . use them to continue your passion and let them carry you beyond your desires . as for the second box ; it’s a necklace. its something i’ve been working on for a while and you know me , i’m all into that herbs and stuff . so keep it on you at all times . i hope you enjoy them , seunghwa . i’m so thankful to have you in my life. may you always be so bright and kind . you are truly a beautiful star awaiting to shine brighter than the sun and i know one day you will. never let anything get in the way of your happiness and of your dreams. you are still so young but i know that the future has many great plans for you . happy 17th birthday , hwa .

-love noona .

ps. don’t overload on the cake first , i left you some birthday dinner on the table under the mesh food cover . i’ll be back later tonight , promise . for now have a good day , little one. i love you , kiddo .

oh, never has this meager little obsidian tinctured heart felt such felicity – to extent profound, unfathomable… he is filled to the brim with naught other than sheer jubilation and relish. to such degrees that he must erupt at any given moment. the grin embellishing his plush lips is oh so vast nothing can compare – as vast at oceans, washing over all false trepidation one adolescent’s heart occupies by the waves the foam that hits the shore brings sole bliss to his palpitating thorax. seunghwa confides that there must be nothing furthermore gratifying than coming back home to one loving pair of arms to embrace him – he confides that there is nothing better or furthermore forcible than the love ianthina stores for him in that golden heart of hers. and hues now saturated with incandescence, he is most feasibly the happiest pubescent to this very minute. a letter held close to his heart,an object to cherish for keepsakes as of many years in the future he shall look at it and recall the sweetness of candidly unconditional covet and endearment. it is pressed tightly against his torso, heaving with exhilaration – before in a hasty moment he checks the presents which he is so beholden of – the notion behind them keeps him at a state of brittle emotionalism, and only with the utmost onerous vigor dare he halt the tears from his eyes. fingers which roam over the necklace hand - made for his own rapture, they place it on his neck. and in a moment of sheer exuberance, he is agitated to capture one of his infamous selfies to send to the woman he loves most.

[ sms: my one and only 😍 😘 ]

noonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

!!!!!!

come back home asap or i’m eating all the cake w/o u

this was the best gift ever btw i’m so happy i can’t talk adsdfgnfddfgn

u spoil me sm icb ily tho ur like ,,,,,,,, the best

come home so i could Kiss Your Beautiful Face

i’m so thankful tho dude this is like the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me

i stan a queen 👑

my queen

ok enough sappiness come home or u won’t have any cake left over !!

#hwa bday tag.#ian tag tba.#zephyrvm #we don't deserve ian #gdi hwa loves her sm icb #submission

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aharris00britney · 6 years ago

Photo

ASKS 09

random stuff, some facts about me, some sims questions, video requests, hair sneak peaks, umm and other stuff too…. also I am 10 candies from being able to evolve that dumb fish so wig

Anonymous said: Do you have a car?

Nope!

Anonymous said: Hi wcif the shirts in your coming soon in June update ps I love your cc x

hey! for any WCIFs for that stuff, I am probably going to wait until the posts for the hairs are up because I know that people won’t check when the hairs are posted for my old wcifs.

@angelamariacalle said: you could make a WIP the eyes that you use in your post with ice cream?

i have no idea what you were trying to say ;-; the eyes I used are my default ones which you can download here

@ayoshi-sims said: Once you get this SHARE 6 facts about yourself and send it to your 10 favorite blogs ✨

I still play pokemon go (fight me)

I think that pop music was the best in 2007-2011 (One of the Boys, The Fame/The Fame Monster, Circus/Blackout, Animal/Cannibal, The best damn thing)

I am a super middle child! (two older siblings, and two younger ones as well)

I keep all my kpop albums on my dresser, with my Red Velvet one hanging in a red/white flower crown I own :)

My favorite food to snack on is either a tuna kit, or pickles

I am a bottom XD

Anonymous said: When you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy! Then, send to the last ten people in your notifications anonymously. You never know who might benefit from spreading positivity!

aaaaah okay um

my kpop girlies i stan

my angel rocky (my old af pug)

my friends (irl and online <3)

the concept of love is always something that makes me happy omg i know that is cheesy but like… imagine finding someone that is perfect for you will always be there when you need and like just GOD I NEED A MAN NOW

charli xcx music umm yeah it’s 5 in the morning

Anonymous said: Hello, I was wondering if you have your sims on the gallery? Thanks for your time. :)

Yeah! I have a few sims for download on my origin which is SPOTHARRIS I also have them for download on this page

Anonymous said: Hello!! Just wondering wicf the freckles from the discontinued model in your older posts (e.g. momo buns) thank you!!! BTW I love your stuff soo much! :)

Hey! I no longer have that file or even know where I got them from :( Here is an OLD af wcif I answered of them though

Anonymous said: Where are you from?

I am from Virginia, which is on the east coast of the United States :)

Anonymous said: Hi!! I feel like this is such a silly question but oh well I’m a noob. If I use your Quartz eyes V2 will they be inherited in the next generation if my sims have kids? Same with your hair colors as well?

I honestly have no idea how any of that stuff works :( I’m sorry! I assume it should but also maybe not? ;-; again, sorry!

Anonymous said: omg the hair with the flowers in it! *-* i love!! will you also make a version without the flowers? I also wanted to say I’m really happy your life is going well and congrats on the 30k followers

thank you so much!! and I the hair will obvi have no flowers :P the flowers should be accessories if everything works out. There are some clipping issues rn but I think it is fixable :) here is a pic without the flowers. If you guys have any recommendations about then pls send them my way

Anonymous said: Would you ever consider doing really long curly hair like the singer Sza’s?

I personally don’t like super long hair in TS4, it just doesn’t look well with most clothes and has clipping/weight issues :( I’m sorry!!

Anonymous said: Do you know what happened to SimpleSimmer?

I don’t, no. But I am sure she is fine :) sometimes people just take breaks

Anonymous said: Hi! So, i really love your sim with the dark brown hair (for your hair cc) and i was wondering if you could ever share that sim! Because she has a beautiful face. Also i am wondering which skin overlay (etc) you are using! You can find me in the gallery under the name: xThisGirl (if that is an easier way for you to respond :)

Hey! You can find her download here, along with all my other sims :) I am glad you like her <3

Anonymous said: Hey! I know you probably won’t read this as fast but I wanted to ask, how do you shift the hairline to the side or any of that? Like your daisy hair, briana hair, and that one wip you had in a tutorial video of yours! I really want to do that but I just don’t know how :(

I will maybe record something for this! No promises bc I have to get someone to edit the videos for me and I don’t wanna bug him but I will see if he can edit it for me if I film it :) It is pretty simple to do once you get the hang of it

@sims4storiesandstuff said: I just wanted to say, your hairs are the shit! Absolutely stunning. I rarely use the EA hairs anymore! I think you deserve every follower you have.

Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate stuff like this <3 I don’t play the game myself much so it makes me happy knowing that my hairs make other peoples games so much more enjoyable uwu

Anonymous said: hello can you make please a video when you make a hair and upload it?

I would like to! I just do so many random things while doing a hair like showing pictures to friends and getting their advice. So I will have to see, would you guys mind if the video had conversation stuff in it? As I said earlier, someone edits the videos for me so I don’t wanna get him to do more work for it by editing them out :( I will look into it for sure though!

Anonymous said: That hair wip in your lil video tutorial is absolutely beautiful!! Can’t wait until it’s released !! 🧡🧡

thank you so much!! Here are some more pics of it:

Anonymous said: are you korean? If not, how can you like kpop if you dont understand it?

I am not korean haha, but music is about more than understanding. It is about the feelings it vibes you get from it and the moods it puts you in. People love screamo music even though it is hard to understand, and music like instrumentals and dubstep heavy are just… what the music makes you feel. I listen to ‘normal’ pop, kpop, instrumentals, artists like grimes that mumble their songs a lot with production heavy stuff. I think that as long as the music is something you enjoy, you shouldn’t be judged for liking it. I know you aren’t trying to be rude with this ask so don’t think I am attacking you please! I am just trying to give you some insight into why different music interests people :)

Anonymous said: I’m so happy to see that you’ve made a patreon account! you really make amazing CC and that’s such a gift to the community, I’m happy that now I get to feel like I can give something to you haha :) have a great day/evening!

thank you so much! and thank you for supporting <3

@lesyatim said: Hello, it’s not ask. I only want to say that you make very beautiful hair and THANK YOU! I Love You💕💕💕💕💕 P.S. I’m from Russia and I don’t now English very well♡)

thank you so much!! Спасибо большое (that is suppose to say thank you in german lmao)

Anonymous said: When did u make a skin?

it is a hidden gem :P It is mainly to fix the collarbones bc I use multiple skin overlays so I that is why is was never posted :)

Anonymous said: Congratulations i hope you have a happy family 😄

ummm?? I GOT IT I GOT I GOT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT

@dangerouskindofmind said: I actually don’t have a question! I just wanna say you are one of my favorite sims 4 creators out here. Your hairs; snatched. Your clothes; beautiful. Your sims; amazing. And your personality looks just as good lol. I’ve probably downloaded like 99.9% of your content and I just wanna say thank you for all you do to make my sims 4 experience loads better. I also hope you’re having a great day

thank you so much!!!! I appreciate it a ton, I love that my content makes people love this game more <3

Anonymous said: Just wanted to say that literally all of your CC is beautiful and from what I’ve seen, I absolutely adore your personality. Keep it up my dear, you’ve got crazy talent. Much love <3

thank you, thank you!!! My personality irl is kind of shitty lmao I am really shy and like reserved ;-; and it is just memorizing how to do some editing to hair meshes, not much talent involved <3 thank you so so much again though!! I love getting these kind of messages

Anonymous said: Are you gonna make an outerwear cc pack when the seasons expansion pack releases?

I don’t make much clothing CC so I highly doubt it. I am working on a swimsuit that I might post later this month though! We will see what happens though :D

Anonymous said: thank you very much for a playlist that you shared with One Shot,Two Shot,I’m totally in love ur the best

yesss BoA is such a queen, listen to the full mini album if you can! It is one of her best releases in my opinion.

Anonymous said: aharris00britney awnsered me,cuz I remember my question and it’s on the asks recent post AND i’ll shake this print in all my enemies face thx,I asked about the patreon and I’m doing it right now bby <3

hehe thank you!! <3 you show them enemies

– just so the eating ass juicy booty ask so yep that is all I have gotten in the past month that I can answer :P

#asks #i also got the shiny kyogre #i tried to battle a the evolved form of larvitar and lost #i have gotten like 4 absols from the research things tho

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