#i gotta sniff the marble

[theknucklehead]

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

In Aeternum

Warnings: non/dubcon and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Lloyd Hansen

Summary: your life with Lloyd is a lot of work. Or rather, he is.

This is one of my birthday drabbles. Thanks again for your input :) Enjoy.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

A birthday drabble for Carpe Noctem 

You stare at the small screen of the smart device. The smell of cinnamon fills the kitchen as you stand in wait of the baking desserts. You lean in to get a better view of the news segment. Your ears tweak at the reporter’s words. 

‘The sole survivor remains in the ICU with severe burns but healthcare personnel see a full recovery. As for those who passed, the survivor’s parents, they have been interred in the local cemetery and the service brought out hundred.’ 

They show images of the funeral; flowers, solemn faces, the front of a church.  

“Why are you watching that shit?” Lloyd, as always, knows when to barge in. 

“Alexa, stop playing,” you command the device and the screen returns to rest, showing the time and weather. “Just the news.” 

“I told you not to worry about that idiot.” He grunts as you face him. He tries to cross his arms then puts them straight, shaking out his left. He’s slick with sweat and his workout gear clings to his muscles. “I fucked up. Thought I killed him but the damn cockroach managed to drag himself out. What a pussy. Can’t even save his own parents.” 

“Lloyd. You--” 

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, mimi, your soft heart.” He leers at you and winks. “Softer body.” He sticks his tongue out and wince. He bends his elbow and rubs it. 

“What wrong with your arm?” You sigh. 

“Nothing. Old college injury. You know I was varsity, right? Coulda gone national but I made more money... doing something else.” 

“Right,” you sniff and go to the oven. You peer through the lit window at the spiral cookies. 

“What’s the point of me putting in all this work in the gym when you’re just fattening me up?” He scoffs. 

“You don’t have to eat the cookies.” You glance at the time on the small screen above the stove. 

“I have a nose and a stomach. I can’t resist.” He shuffles around the kitchen and surprises you as he comes up behind you. “Just like I can’t resist you.” 

“The cookies are for the shelter.” You stiffen as he wraps his arms around you and pulls your ass against him. “I told you several times not to touch.” 

“Mimi, you’re spending all my money.” 

You huff and look around at the spacious kitchen; stacked ovens, a hug marble island, a fridge with a glass door, a whole other fridge for just wine, and every single appliance you might need but have yet to use. You grab his wrists as he squeezes your hips. 

“I think you have more than enough. What else am I supposed to do?” 

“Have some wine, put on a thong, hop on my dick,” he purrs and rocks you with him, locking his hold on you. “You got your choice. The hot tub, the pool, sauna, hell, sit out in the sun and read one of your Austen joints. Want me to dress up like Darcy? Bit of role play?” 

“Stop,” you push on his arms and writhe. 

“What’s a matter, mimi? You weren’t so shy last night. Or yesterday afternoon. Or after lunch. Or in the morning.” 

You sneer and tear his hands away from your hips. You turn to him and poke his shoulder. He groans and rubs it. 

“Ow, you know that’s still healing.” 

“I told you to go to a real doctor,” you snip. 

“Mimi, they don’t touch me like you do.” He furls his fingers and his throat bobs. He runs his thumbs along his shorts and tugs. “Damn, just the thought—how about a cool down? I just chugged a protein shake, I gotta get it out.” 

“No.” 

“No?” He tilts his head. “Mommy, please.” 

“No, especially if you’re going to pull that.”  

You spin as the timer dings and you grab the oven mitts. You shut off the buzzer and take out the cookies. You put the pan on the counter to cool and hang the mitts again. 

“Mimi...” Lloyd drawls out as he closes in. 

You evade him. Keeping a step ahead as you scurry along the island. He pursues and you turn to face him as you round the corner. 

“I said no. I’m not in the mood.” 

“Why? Because that limp dick is in the hospital--” 

“Stop.” You whine and backpedal away from him as his advance continues. “Lloyd, I’m telling you to stop. I have to make a trip downtown to deliver the cookies--” 

“Really? You do? Because you don’t leave without me. Remember? Those are the rules.” He gets closer and closer.  

You peer around as you feel blindly and walk back on your heels. You pass through the doorway into the front room. You barely dodge the sofa and the little round table next to it. 

“Lloyd.” 

“Mimi.” 

“Leave me alone. I’m telling you.” 

“Keep telling me. It's making me hard.” He snickers. 

You veer through the next doorway and stumble as he lunges. He pulls back and laughs again. He’s taunting you. 

“Oh, I like this game, Mimi.” 

“I’m not playing,” you reach to grab the banister as you step towards the stairs. 

He takes a deep breath and stops. “Neither am I.” 

His smirk sends a chill through you. You freeze at the bottom step and gulp. You look up then back at him. In an instant, you’re barreling up, desperate to get to the top. As your feet slap on the stairs, his treads trail you up calmly. 

Shit. This is the last thing you need. No matter what or when, you always manage to provoke him. Every breath, every blink, every word only entices him. It’s tiring. Without a job, without your friends, it feels like your nothing more than toy. Any search for a different purpose just amuses him. 

You race down the hall. You have to make a quick decision. You burst into the bathroom and spin to swing the door shut. It bounces back as Lloyd shoves his sneaker between it and the frame. He shoves in after you with a taunting grin. 

You stagger back and search for any form of defence. You know it’s pointless. There’s no escape, no fight to be had, but you just want him to let you think for two minutes without mentioning his dick. You grab the bottle of hair spray and aim it at him. You push down and he coughs, waving his hand through the cloud of stickiness. 

He swats the aerosol from your hand and grabs your other arm. You whimper as he wrenches you toward him. He turns and pens you in against the floating counter. He tuts down at you as you push on his stomach. 

“Oh, mimi,” his eyes flick above you. “That’s a great fucking idea.” He grips your shoulder and twists you around to face the counter. “I’d love to watch.” 

He keeps you trapped as you slap a hand on the marble and try to shove him away with the other. He stretches the elastic of his shorts and they fall to his feet. You wriggle as he wraps his arm around you and leans you against the counter. 

His other hand snakes under your skirt. One of the many pieces stocked in your closet. None of them fit right. They all flutter a bit too high on your thigh. 

“Lloyd,” you beg. “Later. Not—now.” 

“Too fucking late. My dick hurts.” 

“Stop!” You throw and elbow back into his ribs. He grunts and nuzzles your hair. 

“Don’t mess around.” He warns. 

He kicks your feet apart and peels your panties down your thighs. The strip of lace strains around your legs. He bends you further as he feels around. He brings his tip down to your cunt and prods you, tapping, and rubbing. 

“Mm, I feel you shaking for me, Mommy.” 

“Please--” you gasp. 

“You don’t gotta beg,” he boats. 

“Urgh, get—off!” You bend your arm awkwardly and once more poke at his shoulder. He exclaims but persists.  

He lines up as he bares his teeth, hooking his jaw over your shoulder. The anger pulses in his forehead as he glares at your reflection. He snaps his hips and impales you with a growl. You cry out and brace the counter as your legs buckle. 

“Ow!” You plead with him in the mirror. Eyes misty, eyes pouting. 

His lips curve deeper as he thrusts, jerking your hip bones into the marble. His hand crawls up to your chest and he squeezes your chest with a snarl. He tilts his head and sinks his teeth into your shoulder. He ruts as his eyes blaze back at you from the glass. 

His hand snakes down your stomach and delves beneath your skirt. You hide beneath your eyelids as he finds your clit. He flicks over your hood and you spasm. You mewl as he does it again and again. Worse than his strength is his talent at toying with you. Even as you resist, he finds your weak spot and needles away at it. 

“Mmm,” he purrs as he unlatches his teeth and kisses up your neck. 

His mustache tickles as he pounds against your ass, fingers sliding around your slickness, breath fogging around your chest. Your thighs quiver and your feet arch. You bend forward a little more and he hits just the right spot. 

You cum in a ripple of pathetic moans. You’re breathless and weak. You slump onto your elbow and he growls as you open to him completely.  

He frames your hips and pumps into you until his motion turns erratic. He groans and grunts, digging his nails through the fabric as he pulls out. He cums down your thigh as you hang off the counter.

He lets out a gurgle and snaps his knuckles against your ass. He moves rigidly as he turns and leans his bare ass on the marble beside you. He rubs your back as you gulp and catch your breath.

You stand up but he stops you from grabbing a tissue to wipe up. He’s shameless as his shorts still cling around one ankle. 

“Hey, baby cakes, get my shorts for me? Think I pulled something.” 

You scowl at him as he emphatically clutches his side. You sniff and wave him off. You grab a washcloth and wet it under the faucet. You wipe yourself off and toss the balled fabric into the sink. 

“Pull your own shorts up,” you sneer. 

“I mean it, Mimi, my back’s all sorts of locked up. You got me all bound up.” He gives a pathetic whimper. “Please, take care of me like you always do.” 

You shake your head and squat down to grab the shimmering puddle of shorts. This is ridiculous. He lifts his feet to hook it through and as you tug them up his legs, an odd weight hangs in the flimsy fabric. His dick twitches just as you cover it up and let the elastic snap him meanly. 

“You feel that, Mimi,” he catches your hand and pulls it back to him. You try to shake him off but can’t. “Am I happy to see you or is that a ring in my pocket?” He brushes your palm over his dick and to his pocket. The shape you felt is sharper than you expect. You look up at him in confusion. 

“You didn’t even give me a chance to get on one knee.” 

He guides your hand to the top of his pocket and lets go. Your heart thumps as you reach inside and pull out the heart-shaped box. The lid opens like wings from the middle. You reveal the sapphire trimmed diamond inside. Each stone bigger than the next. 

You gape at the sparkling cluster. Lloyd chuckles and strokes your cheek. He cups your chin and raises it. As you look at him, he smirks again. 

“You take care of me, I take care of you,” he traces his thumb along your lip. “Speaking of, I’m fucking serious about my back. Can I get some help?” 

[inkandpen22]

The Princess and The Pogue (Pt. 8)

Pairing: JJ x Female!Reader / Topper x Female!Reader 

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: smut, swearing, underage drinking, drugs 

Part Summary: Y/N must attend the dinner her parents planned. After, she and Topper attend Kelce’s party. 

A/N: not proof read bc school is life rn but I wanna keep updating. ALSO DANG TOPPER IS SPICY IN THIS!!!!

Masterlist

Your dad hands the keys over to the valet as the other Club worker opens your car door and offers you his hand. You accept, slipping out of the SUV gracefully. Rhett meets you, offering you his arm for which you take and follow him inside. 

"I can't breathe," you inhale shapely. 

"Hot?" Your brother guesses as he buttons up his blazer. 

"No, this satin dress doesn't give at all and Mom made me get a size smaller because she thought it made me look thinner," you grumble, tugging at the unforgiving fabric. 

"She's probably just trying to punish you because of the whole diabolical with Crystal," he points out. 

"Oh, I know she is, she hates that some of her and Dad's friends saw it. They wouldn't shut up about it when I got home," you whisper between the two of you as you cross the threshold into the Club. 

You stop in the lobby with your parents a few feet ahead at the hostess podium with Sarah's parents and Topper's mom. You spot Rafe at the bar with a scotch in hand, Sarah nowhere to be seen. If she managed to get out of this dinner you'll be royally pissed, mainly jealous. 

"Where were you last night anyway?" Rhett’s brows scrunch together. 

"After Topper dropped me off I went over to Sarah's," you lie without a hint of hesitation. 

"What?" He frowns in confusion. "But after lunch Rafe, Kelce, and I went back to his house? Rafe said Sarah was with that John B kid.” 

"Yeah, I picked Sarah up before you guys got there and we hung out for a little bit. After, I dropped her off at John B's," you conjure up as you go. 

"So then where did you sleep?" Rhett inquires, pressing further. 

"On Mars, Rhett!” You snap, much to your brother’s surprise. “Jesus, Mary, and the damn camel," you curse under your breath. 

"Why do you swear all of a sudden? It's not polite, especially in this setting," he hisses between his teeth, checking around for any prying eyes. 

"Because maybe I've lost my marbles or PMSing, you pick," you bite back quietly. 

"Whatever, I'm going to go grab a drink," he huffs, holding his hands up in surrender. "You should do the same," he suggests before disappearing toward the bar and lounge. 

You linger in your spot, observing your fellow Kooks go about their business in their fancy dinner attire. You honestly wonder if some of them ever leave the Club or if they keep closets in the locker rooms. 

“One gin and tonic,” Topper announces as he appears beside you with two glasses. 

“God, I love you," you mumble, taking the drink from him and immediately taking a sip. 

He rubs his hand up and down your bare arm. “You seem tense." 

“I’m practically in a corset!" You roll your eyes. 

“You look amazing,” he compliments with a charming smile. 

“Thanks...” You sigh, unsure of where you two stand. 

After this afternoon, after... well... everything said, you don't know the dynamic between you and Topper. Despite the uncertainty, you still depend on him to get you through this dinner. You feel as though your only friends at the table are Topper and Sarah, and even those two don't like each other. 

“Geez Topper...” You huff in disapproval. 

“Sorry! But you gotta admit it’s not exactly the Four Seasons...” He chuckles. 

“Hey Y/N!” Sarah greets, appearing from the bathroom. “Where did you get here?”

“Minutes ago and I’m already over it,” you grumble.

“If you need a ride to John B’s, he’s picking me up after,” she offers.

You exhale deeply, glancing between her and Topper, unsure of what to say. Yes, you have plans with JJ, but you also aren’t confident in speaking about it in front of Topper.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it. I might want to run home first or something,” you satisfy her and remain vague.

“Topper! Y/N! Sarah!” Your dad waves you guys over as the hostess prepares to seat you all. 

“I’ll see you guys out there, I’m going to grab a drink!” Sarah announces before dismissing herself. 

You and Topper begin toward the doors leading out to the patio, a few yards behind your families. 

“Kelce is after a party later, would you maybe wanna come with me?” Topper offers with a smirk.

“I’m supposed to..." You catch yourself before you mention JJ. "Maybe for a little bit.”

“You’re supposed to meet him?” Topper predicts correctly, making you awkwardly take a sip of your drink and avoid his gaze. “Maybe if you drink enough you’ll start seeing two and The Cut wouldn’t look like utter shit," Topper insults passive-aggressively.  

“I’ll come and have a drink, but that’s all!" You agree to go with Topper to the Kelce's reluctantly. "I don’t want anything that Rafe has up his sleeve.” 

“Noted," Topper gives you a reassuring smile.

"Wait," you halt, giving Topper's arm a slight squeeze. You feel the overwhelming need to speak with Topper for a second before you all gather around a table like one big interconnected family. "Do you know?”

“About what?” The boy frowns in confusion. You glance over at your family anxiously, watching everyone disappear onto the patio outside. Topper takes your hand in his and turns to you. “Y/N, what is it?” 

“That our parents practically have the wedding favors picked out," you rush out nervously, unable to fully believe that this is your reality. 

Topper exhales deeply, his eyes falling to the floor. He does know. “My mom has made some interesting passive comments lately," he nods. "I suspected but I wasn’t positive.” 

“My mom spoke to me before we got here," you describe, checking around the room for any eavesdroppers. "She wanted me to gloat, hang on you, and basically show the Camerons that we’re... I don’t even know...” You shake your head frantically. 

“Together,” Topper finishes your sentence. 

“It sounds so ancient but ‘promised to each other,’" you explain in greater detail. "It’s insane! I mean, we’re only in high school!” 

"You don’t have to do anything!” He comes up with a game plan to get you both through the evening. “Let’s just continue as we have been. They’ll be satisfied and we won’t be losing our willpower.” 

“Okay,” you swallow hard with a faint nod. 

“It’ll be okay," Topper reaches up and cups your cheek comfortingly, peering into your eyes. He leans forward, planting a gentle kiss on your forehead. 

__________________________________

Well into the evening, Kelce's house is packed to the brim with teenage Kooks and some tourons that snuck their way in. Music blasts from the speakers in the ceiling and water from the pool are scattered across the tile living room. Everyone's in their bathing suits, traveling in and out of the water. Cups litter the floor and various conversations overwhelm the ears. On the balcony, you find yourself leaning against the railing watching people jump off the roof into the pool below as Topper does lines with Rafe on the coffee table just a few feet away. Your bare stomach exposed by your bikini presses against the cool glass railing, keeping you awake. 

"Come on, Princess!" Rafe waves you over, overtly intoxicated. "Got enough for you!" 

“I don’t want anything Rafe!” You remind him. 

“You will," he chuckles, not believing you for a second. "Once you start drinking you always do. You could just skip the innocent act and let yourself go.” 

Topper rises from his seated position and walks over to join you. He wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you into his side as he leans against the rail. He sniffs a few times, making sure all of the coke remains inside. 

“One more drink and we’re leaving,” you tell Topper quietly between the two of you. 

"I know," he nods, planting a kiss on your temple. “We’ll go.” 

You turn toward, peering down at the people as they mess around in the pool. Topper stands behind you, his arms gripping the railing on either side of you. His chest presses to your back as he leans down and plants a kiss to your neck. You tilt your head to the side, granting him better access, causing him to smile against your skin. You’re not sure why you get this way with him when you drink. You’ve thought it over a million times over the years. Is it because it’s what you soberly want but are too afraid to admit? Or, is it because it’s a way to let go? Either way, you and Topper become insufferable whenever you two get too deep, which why you refuse to do anything. If you get any deeper... well... Bermuda is a prime example. 

1 hour later.... 

The drinks slip by you and you quickly lose track of the number. Tequila shots, margarita mix, gin, and coke, everything's mixed. The music has become louder, the colored lights have become brighter, your senses are doing their best to remain active, but your mind is fading. You love this feeling, not having a care in the world. The weight that your parents have placed on your shoulders has long disappeared. Half an hour ago, you and Topper were sharing a joint with Kelce on the roof and now you two are caught in a beer pong tournament.You're slowly starting to lose interest in the game, eager to jump off the roof into the pool as you've seen daredevils do all night. 

"Come on, Top! Please!" You tug on the boy's arm, pleading with him again to jump off the roof with you. 

He does his best to focus on the game at hand, the ball in his hand to take a shot. He squeezes your hand and brings it to his lips for a quick peck. "One second, Baby." 

Drunkenly, you rest your forehead against his bicep, waiting for him to take his shot. Topper tosses the ball, making it into the final cup and the rules call for no redemption. 

“We win!” Topper cheers, causing you to lift your head. Again! The champions!” 

“Woohoo!” You giggle, raising your cup in the air.

Topper wraps his arms around your waist and picking you up. You wrap your legs around his waist as he spins you. He tilts his head back, exposing his sharp jawline as he peers up at you. Staring into his eyes, you two are so immersed in each other that you get carried away and your lips meet. Neither of you is in the right mind to comprehend it, but this is a pattern. You two get intoxicated on a mixture of alcohol and drugs and your natural touchy friendship gets an intensity boost. 

Kelce whistles at the sight of you, urging you guys on. “They act like they’re not together, then they do that!” He not so well whispers to Rafe. 

"Same shit, different night," Rafe grumbles, clearly jealous. He silently wishes he was Topper. He would give anything to have a chance with you. “I wonder how Rhett would feel learning his sister is a slut for his best friend.” 

Kelce shoves him on the shoulder. “Don’t be an ass. Besides, Rhett knows Topper has a thing for her.” 

“But does Y/N have a thing for him or is it just sex?” Rhett challenges, watching you two and hating it. 

Topper lets you down as your lips part. His hands slip down your waist to rest on your ass, giving it a slight squeeze. You bite down on your lower lip, your attention on Topper's smirk.  

“Hey Top!" Rafe pulls Topper's attention and tosses him a metal canister. "For you my friend!" 

Topper pops open the old Altoids container to reveal a pile of color tabs. "Aw no," Topper laughs, tossing his head back. 

“Woah woah woah!" You place your hand over Topper's before has the chance to even think about taking anything. You glare at Rafe, "what is that?” 

“Candy,” Rafe snickers sarcastically. He rises from his seat position and stands before you, taking the tin from Topper. “Here take one," the boy offers with raised brows.  

You push the container back to Rafe. “No, I said I didn’t want to do anything tonight!” 

Beside you, Topper reaches into the container, selects a square piece carefully with the provided tweezers, and places the rainbow paper on his tongue. 

“Try it, Princess,” Rafe pressures with a smirk. 

You glance between Rafe and Topper. The blonde gives you a wink. "You'll feel good," he assures you, rubbing his hand up and down your spine slowly. 

You think it over for a second to the best of your ability. You said you wouldn't do anything hard tonight, but you also don't want to sober up anytime soon. You feel too good. You wish you felt this way all the time. You love yourself when you're carefree. On a whim, you give in and pick up the tweezers to select a piece. You place the bit on your tongue, earning a mischievous smirk from Rafe and words from approval from Topper. You don't know much about what Rafe does, but you know from watching that it takes a while for stuff like this to kick in, so you wait. 

Thirty minutes later... 

After taking swim minutes ago, you and Topper seek some privacy away from the party antics to dry off. You two travel up to the third floor of the house in the dark, this part of the house practically untouched by the people below. You shuffle along the floor in the hall in search of the balcony. You nearly trip of the runner, but Topper catches you by the waist. 

“Oh shit!” You gasp. Abruptly, Topper squats down and tucks his arm under your legs. You fly up and he begins to carry you bridal style. “Topper!” You giggle. 

“Like a proper princess, let me carry you up the tower!” He jokes. 

“You’re ridiculous!” You laugh as Topper navigates his way through Kelce's room toward the screen door leading outside. 

You tilt your head back, letting your hair flow as Topper carries you out onto the balcony. The night breeze and salty scent of the ocean fill your senses. Whatever Rafe gave you is immaculate. You've never felt so connected to the world before. Suddenly, Topper releases you, letting you fall onto one of those massive round loungers with a squeal. You lay back onto the lounger, pondering the sensation of the soft fabric beneath you. 

“You’re exquisite,” Topper admires, towering over you with a gawking look on his face. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows with a smirk. "You too." 

Topper plops down beside you, sliding to be close to your side. His fingertips glide up and down your arm. “How are you feeling?” 

Your eyes fall shut with a grin. “Like I’m on a cloud," you describe in a whisper as you ponder the sensation of his warm fingers on your cool skin. “You feel on fire. So warm...” 

“Do you like it?” He asks in a whisper and you can feel the warm breath wave over your cheek. 

You hum, focusing on every detail of his touch. You exhale deeply as Topper brushes his lips across your collar bone and planting a kiss on your skin. 

“Do you regret us?” He whispers. You don't see it, but Topper watches you intently with a softly broken expression. He hopes you don't. God, does he want to beg you to be his, only his. 

You shake your head, breathless. "No." 

Glad to say the least, Topper moves his attention to your neck, kissing and sucking hard on the sensitive skin. His hand roams your waist down to your inner thigh, making you inhale sharply. Your back arches off the lounger and toward his hand between your legs. You crave to feel more of him. 

“Are you sure?” He checks quietly in your ear. 

“Yes,” you exhale, too overwhelmed by the pleasure growing inside you to focus on his questions. 

As you kisses Topper, you chase the sensation he’s giving you. You're addicted to the way he makes you feel. Topper's lips travel down from your jawline to your chest. The memories of winter break, Bermuda, every intense moment you and Topper have ever shared are your driving force right now. As Topper leaves a trail of affection down your collarbone to your chest, he begins to untie your bikini. Then, your thoughts fixate on JJ. His face flickers across your mind. Physically, you want Topper, but all you can think about is JJ. You wonder where he is, what he's doing, if he's thinking about you. 

You're so far into your own thoughts that your body goes through the motions subconsciously. You're partially distracted by your thoughts of JJ, but the drugs and alcohol also cloud your mind. You're not entirely sure how things escalated, but deep down you're not shocked. It's you and Topper, you've never been fully satisfied when it comes to one another. You can't help but to feel everything, pondering the glorious and overwhelming pleasure as Topper thrusts into you. 

You bite down on her lip, restricting yourself from accidentally whispering JJ’s name. “Topper,” you pant, focusing. 

“Say it again, Beautiful,” Topper pants, planting a kiss to your chest as he picks up his pace. 

“Please Topper,” you whisper breathlessly. 

“God, you’re so perfect,” he grunts, finding himself getting closer with each syllable leaving your lips. 

Topper is your greatest addiction. He’s everything you're supposed to want. He’s utterly devoted to you and secretly you crave his attention. You roll your hips, making him go deeper inside of you, much to his surprise. 

“Fuck Y/N,” he moans in your ear. 

“Holy shit,” you mutter uncontrollably. 

“You always feel so good," Topper swallows hard. "I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.” 

Your nails graze down his back, knowing how much he loves that. “Keep going, I’m so close,” you plead, needing him closer though you know that's impossible. 

“That’s it, Beautiful," Topper guides. "Cum for me,” he demands more than requests. 

“Yes, Topper!" You moan, chasing the high. "Yes!” 

“You’re gonna make me cum,” Topper whispers against the skin of your neck and planting a kiss on your jawline. 

He lifts his head, meeting your gaze. The moment is intimate and draws you two together. You nod, staring into his eyes. “Cum for me." 

You feel Topper finish inside you, a sensation you've experienced almost a dozen times, but it's never enough. Knowing that you can make Topper feel so free and satisfied sometimes keeps you awake at night. Topper  settles down on the lounger next to you, panting. 

You glance at one another, meeting each other's gaze as you catch your breath. You two laugh, in disbelief of what just occurred. 

“Wow!” Topper chuckles. 

You raise your brows, in awe. “I know." 

“And I thought we wouldn’t outdo Bermuda,” he recalls. 

“I swear Bermuda was the Twilight Zone or something," you giggle. "I only remember flashes of it.”

Topper's eyes grow wide and he places his hand over yours. “Do you remember when we found Rafe with that Brazilian chick!” 

“Oh my God!" You gasp, turning onto your side to face him. "They were on that nasty leather couch that Kelce spilled the grenadine all over!” 

“We were off our asses most of the time,” Topper remembers, pulling you into his side. His arm wraps around you like a protective blanket. 

“Facts, we didn’t see Rafe or Kelce for most of it," you add with a snicker. "I think my brother slept out by the pool every night." 

“I honestly don’t even remember Rhett after the plane landing," Topper confesses, his eyes flicker up to the stary sky. "Plane lands, a week goes by no recollection of Rhett, see Rhett on the plane.” 

“You’re kidding!” You gasp. 

“Dead serious! I swear we left him at the airport,” Topper elaborates with a wide grin. 

“He carried you home from the bar that third night!” You remind him. 

His eyes grow wide, utterly surprised. “I thought that was you!” 

“How could it have been me?!” You swiftly counter, laughing harder than you have in a while. 

“That’s why I was so confused!” He reasons. 

“You’re insane!” You struggle to say between fits of laughter. 

You two share in your laughter, not having had a moment like this in a while. You guys have had so much going on that the last time you truly felt at peace together and free to let go was Bermuda. Had you known that coming home would've meant the end of your two's peace of mind, you're not sure if you would've left. You rest your cheek against his chest, settling in comfortably. 

“I’ve missed this. I’ve missed us this way,” he confesses softly. 

“I forgot how good it could be,” you admit with a content smile. 

 Topper glides his fingertips up and down your spine. “Well, I guess that proves it then.” 

You lift your head, resting your chin on his chest to meet his gaze. “Proves what?” 

“It’s JJ,” Topper sighs, giving you a knowing look. 

Your brows scrunch together in confusion. Swiftly, you shuffle through your memories of minutes before, did you say JJ's name? You're almost certain you didn't. You did everything in your power not to. “What do you mean?” 

“I can tell," he shrugs, bringing a hand up to brush your hair away from your face. "It felt great but also different than before. I knew when I had you. I don’t anymore.” 

Your eyes fall to your hand resting on his chest, avoiding his gaze. He caresses your cheek lovingly, despite knowing the truth. “I’m sorry, Topper...” you mumble, full of guilt. 

“It’s okay," he tries to reassure you. "You can love two people at the same time, just in their own way.” 

"I just..." you sit up, frustrated and unable to fully put into words what you're struggling with. Topper sits up beside you, rubbing your back. "When I'm with JJ I'm this one person and when I'm with you I'm completely different! I'm not sure which one is the real me." 

"You don't have to have all answers, just take it day by day," he advises reasonably. "Right now, let's just forget everything else and be here. Nothing can bother us here." 

You exhale deeply and Topper guides you to lay back down. You two stare up at the sky in each other's arms, the faint sounds of the party below not invading either of your minds. The warm night's air breezes by, coating you in a shield of peace. 

“Do you think ten years from now we’ll still be doing this?” Topper wonders. 

“Kinda wanna be married by then,” you giggle. 

“I know, I’d be your side hoe,” he clarifies. 

You swat him on the arm. “Topper!” 

“What!” He laughs. 

“You can’t plan on cheating on your future wife!” You argue playfully. 

“But it’s you, you don’t count!" He reasons. "It’s the Y/N Hall Pass. My wife is wife, obviously my life partner, but you’re... well you’re you," he adds gently, unsure how to describe it. 

“Wow, that’s real flattering,” you joke. 

“You know what I mean!" He rolls his eyes but struggles to hide his amusement. "You know that movie you made me watch last month uh... My Best Friend’s Wedding!” He remembers. You hum, of course, you do, you love that movie. Topper continues, “well, you’re my Julia Roberts.” 

“You want me to try to break up your wedding?” You question, wondering where he's going with this. 

“No, no! Well... if you really think she’s not the one but that’s beside the point," he shakes his head. "I’m talking about what Cameron Diaz said in that elevator scene.” 

“He’s got you on a pedestal and me in his arms,” you quote, predicting his intention. 

Topper tucks his finger under your chin, making you lift your head to meet his gaze. His eyes pour into yours with such intensity, you know he means whatever he's going to say with the utmost certainty. “No one can compete with you, Y/N. Whoever I end up marrying, if I end marrying anyone, they’ll have to be okay that.” 

You lean forward, gently pressing a kiss to Topper's lips. You're not sure if it'll be your last one, but either way, it reminds you of a farewell or closing note. Topper deepens the kiss, bringing his hand to the back of your head, pulling you in. It carries more passion and longing than any other kiss you two have shared, and you've kissed a lot over the years. 

After a couple of minutes under the stars, you and Topper agree that it's time to return to the party before anyone comes searching for you. 

"Wasn't a bad last hoorah if you ask me," Topper concludes as he helps you tie up your top. 

You spin on your heels to face him, bringing your arms to rest on his shoulders. "We really went out with a bang, pun intended." 

"If he ever breaks your heart, I'm first in line," he winks, bringing his hands to your waist. 

You lift your hand to his cheek, caressing his cheekbone with your thumb. "I want you to be happy, even if that's not with me." 

He scoffs, holding back his emotions. "Why does it feel like we're breaking up?" He tries to laugh it off. 

"In a way, we are..." You admit, causing Topper to look at you with surprise. He hadn't expected you to agree, though deep down, he hoped you would. 

He slips his head to the side and presses a kiss to your palm before lowering your hand to rest within his. "I'm slowly coming to terms that it may not be you, though I always imagined it was. I sorta feel like I'm starting from scratch. Whenever I envisioned my future, it was with you. Now, the face is blank. I have no idea what's going to happen," he confesses with a breathless laugh, a hint of worry behind the sound. 

"How exciting!" You encourage. 

"Always the optimist," Topper chuckles, before draping an arm across your shoulders and guiding you toward the doors. "Us ending up together would've been too easy anyway. I hate being predictable," he frowns in disgust. 

"Agreed, far too simple," you nod. 

Topper pauses before the door leading out to the hallway. Once you two leave the safety of the third floor, this time you've had alone will be over. Things will never be the same once you close this chapter. Topper peers down at you, longing to tell you. “You know I’ll always be there for you, right?” 

You nod slowly, certain of his words. “Me too, Topper.” 

He leans down, planting a long kiss on your forehead and you can feel the struggle behind the action. Everything about this is bittersweet. “I love you." 

“I love you too," you whisper. 

_________________________________________________

Masterlist

Tags:@starkeythinker @bethii1 @thegunnerkelly @cc13723things  @hockeybabe87​ @jolomez​ @plutooryectors 

[passivenovember]

mama said to smile while I still have teeth : PART TWO

(part one)

(or) Billy gets his wisdom teeth removed and Steve understands things will not grow back in the spaces we leave for them.

--

Billy hops down from the passenger side like it’s written in a script or something. Part B of his master plan, logical in the journey of what happens next.

He swings the car door open and charges through wet grass. Neon green blades stick to the heel of his boot, lopsided smile drawn forward to inspect the ferns nestled on either side of a welcome mat that says Bless this Mess. 

It’s as if he’s been here before. 

As if he belongs.

Steve watches Billy collapse on the porch swing, arms and legs folded under him like a house of cards toppled over in the wind. He must not realize that it’s functional, or something, because Billy sits bolt upright and uses the toe of his boot to get the swing moving, once he does.

Really moving, like. Banging against the bay window his mother leaves clear for her azaleas, moving. 

Billy hollers. Makes grabby hands, like, “Push me!”

“You’re gonna get sea sick.” Steve chuckles, watching Billy shrug and take it for a ride. 

Billy brings the swing to a sudden halt, when. “How come you’re all the way down there?” he asks. 

Catching on. 

Steve watches him struggle to get his feet up on the swing. Feels his heart shudder in fondness, when Billy grins up at him triumphantly. 

“Didn’t know there were other options.” Steve says.

“There aren’t. Come here.” Billy gestures to the porch when Steve’s legs decide to fizzle out. “It’s a carnival ride. You got one on your porch, at your house, and--”

Steve claims of the second cushion when Billy removes the thumb from his mouth long enough to spell it out for him. “Cuddles.” He says.

Simple.

And his eyes are so blue. Bright. Steve doesn’t have a choice because, really, they’ve swapped sides with the rope. 

Up and left this dimension all together when the flea got squashed by the acrobat deciding that they could skip the apologies and get to the good part.

Steve realizes that he wants this. 

Billy. Scooting impossibly closer and humming the bridge to Mama Mia. “You smell good, Stever.” Billy says around the pad of his thumb. Dripping more blood down the front of his hoodie, and. Trying to get his face in Steve’s neck. 

Which should be gross, but. 

Steve just clears a path. Makes room for the warm nose that sniffs a trail up and around one ear. “You said I smelled like ass,” He accuses, sounding shaky. Star struck. 

Billy’s breath feels like fairy wings. “Wrong. I said you smell like sweet grass and have a sweet ass, didn’t you pay attention to my context clues?”

“Um.” There’s something warm on Steve’s throat. Going wet in the middle, parting and sucking and--

He pulls away. 

Billy smiles at him. tries to get in Steve’s lap but the bench moves with him and when the bench moves with him, Steve’s got a brick wall glued to his side. 

Shivering. Cold, or afraid. Nervous.

“You tired?”

Billy shakes his head. With his whole body. “Wanna hang out.”

“You can sleep for a little bit. I’ll still be there, when you--”

Billy grunts. Refuses, so. Steve rubs the side of Billy’s shoulder, instead. Fabric and muscle and heat living somewhere beneath his fingertips. “You don’t wanna go in?” 

“Nope.” Billy somehow works his way under Steve’s arm. 

Feels right, striking oil in the heartland.

--

It starts raining again. Somewhere along the way, it starts getting cold and Billy shivers, peering up at Steve like he made it happen. 

Like the heavens split open and bleeding at his command.

Steve chuckles, pushing off the swing and laughing harder when Billy squawks like an angry rooster. 

“Where are we going?” He demands.

“Inside.”

Billy seems to hate that, like. Instantly. 

“Don’t make me carry you, Hargrove.” 

“Oh, look who’s got Popeye arms all of a sudden.” Billy leans back on the porch swing, thighs spread like. He has no idea how fucking--

It doesn’t matter.

“You need to eat.”

“My stitches haven’t fallen out.”

“Yeah, and they won’t. Not for days.” Steve leans against one of the porch posts, trying not to crack a smile when Billy’s thumb finds his mouth again. “Unless you’re planning to eat your hand, we gotta get some mac and cheese--”

Billy’s off the swing before Steve realizes what’s happened. He wanders in between the ferns in their bright orange pots. Jamming a thumb at the number above the doorbell, like, “This door?”

And. “Yeah?”

“This is the one with the cheese?”

“And the mac too.” Steve winks at him, watching a warm blush spread across a sea of freckles. He cocks his head, like, “What’s up?”

“Maybe we can do inside.” Billy says harshly. “For a minute. To kiss the noodles, or something--”

“Kiss the?”

“Open the door.” Billy suggests. “Now.”

So Steve does, biting down on a smile when Billy clomps through the foyer, tracking dirt and grass and pieces of Steve’s heart across imported marble.

“This is so huge.” Billy says softly. His eyes go bright all of a sudden and he’s right in Steve’s face. “You probably have so many pillows here. And chairs. And blankets, too, like. The big ones--”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s build a fort, Stever.” Billy says desperately. He bounces a little, managing to knock more mud onto the floor beneath him. “Let’s build a house. For me and you, and the noodles if they wanna stay the night.”

Steve grins, untangling Billy’s fingers from his hair. “Yeah, I guess we could do that.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” Steve points to the ground. “Boots off first, though.”

Billy jerks away. “No.”

“Stop being a little shit for like, three seconds--”

“Stop being party pooper. For like. Your entire adulthood.” Billy shoots back, collapsing onto the staircase and holding his foot in one hand anyway. 

Steve holds his breath. 

Billy stares at the boot, and his foot inside the boot, like maybe the connection between them is lost. 

Steve feels like an asshole for finding it adorable, but. Billy looks up at him through his eyelashes. 

“I think I’m still high.” He theorizes.

“Yup.” Steve tugs his own shoes off, placing them on the rack by the door.

“I don’t think I can untangle the knots.” Billy says miserably. He tries, though, scowling like the laces have done it on purpose.

Steve watches him struggle, and laughs at the struggle, before holding out his hands. “Give me your foot.”

Billy stares at him. “Really?”

“Our only other option is to wait around until you figure it out, and who knows how long that’ll take.” Steve says, waiting for Billy to shoot back with something venomous. 

He doesn’t. 

He coos, instead. Like a little baby bird, pointing his toes in the air with a giggle. “I’m Cinderella and you’re the prince,” Billy declares, laughing harder when Steve drops to his knees and gets the boot off in one go. “Prince Charming, Prince--”

“You’re just saying that because I have amazing hair and you have little blonde princess curls.”

“Hey.” Billy deadpans, holding out his second foot. “It grows out of my hair like that.”

“Head.” Steve chuckles.

Billy’s mouth falls open in a silent O, brows drawn in confusion. 

Steve puts both muddy boots on the rack next to his own, smiling down at Billy’s puzzled face. “Your hair grows out of your head like that.”

“It does?” Billy asks in wonder. “I like it. Do you like it?”

And. “Yeah. It’s cute.” Steve says, holding out his hand. “Come on. Lunch time.”

Billy lets Steve pull him up, swaying a little bit at their proximity. 

He doesn’t pull away, and.

This close his eyes aren’t just blue, they’re green. And yellow. And brown, like a kaleidoscope. 

“Am I a cute person, Stever?” Billy asks softly.

“The cutest.” Steve says. Without thinking, but.

It doesn’t seem to matter. Because Billy’s high as a fucking kite, wiggling his hips and saying, “I think you’re cuter than me. Softer. Like an opil painting, or maybe a box of raspberry macaroons.”

Steve chuckles, not even trying to pull away when Billy’s fingers try to force their way into his mouth. “When have you had macaroons?”

“I haven’t,” Billy admits easily. “But I always thought that maybe you tasted like one.” 

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but. Billy’s gone after that. Running his fingers along the wall and disappearing around the corner. 

“C’mon, Stever! I want cheese flavored kisses.”

And Steve.

Doesn’t think Billy will remember this. 

--

They order pizza instead. Steve knows that Billy’s gotta be careful with his incision marks. Not go to heavy on the fat and grease less than three hours after his surgery, but. 

Steve tries to hold blue eyes even as they slip through his fingers. Pools and rivers disappearing beneath the Earth.

He’s starting to think that maybe. 

All it would take is bat of those stupid eyelash and Steve would throw every responsible thought out the window. 

Billy says, “You got a laundry machine?” After the pizza performs its vanishing act. 

And Steve says, “Yeah, why?” 

Two seconds before Billy is stripping down naked. 

“Woah, woah, hey--”

“There’s Kool-Aid on my hoodie.” Billy says from behind a wall of fabric. “I can’t walk around with red juice on my clothes, people will know I’m a vampire then.”

“You’re a vampire?” Steve tries to look away from Billy’s stomach. 

The smooth planes of skin, soft just above a layer of muscle. He puts a hand over his eyes for good measure. Safe keeping when Billy gets the hoodie off in one go and he’s standing there. 

Shirtless.

In the middle of the room like some kind of wet dream Steve never even realized he had. 

Billy grins, curls sticking out in every direction. “They’d think it.”

And Steve’s brain is, fucking. 

Offline. Distracted. He blinks, tearing his eyes way from Billy’s chest long enough to go, “Think what?”

“That I’m a vampire.”

And Steve thinks he couldn’t be. Too tan. Too--

Alive. Steve shrugs. “I don’t think it.”

“That’s because you don’t think.” Billy tosses the hoodie onto floor. He points at Steve, like, “Can I wear your sweater?”

And Steve looks down at himself. “This one?”

“Yeah.” Billy says. “Smells like you.”

And Steve doesn’t even have to think about it. Doesn’t even consider what it might mean, pulling the fabric over his head and handing it to an asshole who examines his Kate Bush tee shirt and says, “That one too.”

Like he’s trying to make Steve catch on fire.

Steve shakes his head. “What will I wear if you take all my clothes?”

Billy shrugs, like, “Not my problem.”

And he’s uncovering truths with those eyes. Getting a little too close to the root of it, the revelation, so. 

Steve gives Billy the shirt too. 

And tries not to think about the four seconds that they’re both shirtless. Standing in a room together, just. looking. Charting unmarked skin, eyes glazing silver springs on bronze soil. 

Billy puts the tee shirt on, and the sweater over the top of that, until It’s just Steve. 

Half naked in the living room.

“I’ll go grab another shirt, and then, um.” It feels like the walls are burning down. Steve’s thoughts fall like bullet points. “We should go outside,” He says. “Wanna go sit on the swing?”

Billy frowns. “’S cold outside.” 

“Yeah, but.” Steve picks the hoodie off the ground. “I’ll keep you warm.”

--

Billy’s fingers don’t leave his skin. Don’t soothe, when they light trails of smoke over his collarbone. 

Steve leans into the touch anyway. 

Gives into the pull, anyway, when Billy grabs his cheek and brings their eyes together, looking every bit like he’s got something to say. 

Something important.

“What?” Steve asks. Wanting to touch. Wanting to--

“You know my mom threw a plate at my old man,” Billy says, eyes resting on a scar they both know is there. Hidden, like gold beneath caverns of rock. “The day she left, she. Threw my Mickie Mouse at him.”

“Your plate?”

“It was a bowl.” 

“I’m sure he deserved it.” Steve says easily. “I’m sure it was the only way to win.”

“There aren’t any winners with stuff like that.” Billy says gently. His eyes are watery again. Steve’s getting suspicious of it, like maybe that’s just how the world comes together for Billy. With water and sphere’s of blue. 

God hovering over the surface of the deep. 

Billy sighs, thumb twitching against his leg. “Neil would’ve killed her.”

And Steve hates Neil.

Knows more than be probably should. Pays attention, takes notes.

“That just means she’s resourceful, right?” Steve whispers. “Using the stuff around her to fight fair.”

“Wasn’t fair.” Billy whispers, finally looking away. Eyes studying the rain as it drips from the trees above. 

“Clean, then.” Steve shifts, rocking the porch swing as he sits criss-cross with his knees pressed against Billy’s thigh. “Even fight. Clean break.”

He wonders how he can get those eyes on him again. 

How he can be taken apart. 

“No such thing.” 

Steve doesn’t get it. “What do you mean?”

“All breaks sever the bone.”

And Steve thinks. Maybe. “Are you high?” He squints at Billy’s face, trying to see if it’s written on his forehead. 

Billy smirks. “I think so.”

“Still high.” Steve says, wanting to lift his fingers. Prod at swollen cheeks. He doesn’t, when Billy’s eyes start welling up again. “Don’t cry.” Steve suggests, sliding closer. “Don’t cry, Billy--”

“I’m sorry about--”

“I know.”

“That night. It was. I never should’ve--”

“She’s your sister.” Steve says fiercely. Because. “We were trying to protect you.” And he was. At the root of it all, deep in the center of himself. Steve turns outward again, feet planted on the ground. “We didn’t want you to get roped into our shit. With the monsters, you were.”

Billy’s staring at him. 

Watching. Steve can feel it, so. He closes his own eyes, just to even the score. To make it easier when his lips say, “You’re too beautiful to have your life cracked open like that.”

Billy doesn’t speak until he does, voice flickering like candle light behind a window covered in frost. “Life was already laying in pieces on the rug.”

And there are fingers in Steve’s hair. Brushing tears from his cheeks. Billy grabs him by the throat with more care, more. 

Love.

Than Steve ever thought he would get in this life. Billy moves him until they’re right in each other’s space. Breathing the same air, no longer running races to escape one another. 

It feels right. 

Billy smiles at him. “Thank you.”

And Steve doesn’t know what for. Doesn’t care what for, but there’s a finger on his mouth, parting his lips. Billy’s eyes burn a hole in his tongue. Clear a path through muscle and bone, until Steve is pulled forward. 

Into an embrace. 

Into a trilogy of kisses; on the corner of his eye. On the bridge of his nose. On the bow of his lip that turns biting. And bruising.

Billy asks if he can lay on Steve’s chest, because. 

“I’ve always wanted to do that.” He says shyly. Billy kisses him once more and  and Steve.

Goes down easy.

[typinggently]

I'm still obsessed with that Wincest scenario you came up, based on Coast to Coast, with one brother behind bars and the other free (esp if the one locked up is Sam? Wow)

babe thank you sm...🖤✨✨ honestly the concept is super intriguing to me, too — I love when they’re forced to interact with others independently from each other, I love how weird they are. Honestly, with that concept you could go serial killer AU (which was my first thought, very delicious), or just regular them? Weirdos. Either way, I hope you don’t mind that I’ll take this as an opportunity to, you know —

.🖤.

When you work at a prison, you see all kinds of shit going down during visitor's hours — break ups, reunions, first dates. Tears, laughter, fits of violent rage. You see a lot, you get used to it. And honestly, this here would be endearing.

Would be, if they weren't so fucking odd about it.

It's been about a month now, and the guy's been — difficult. Not like he's out to pick fights, no. Not him. He spends most of his time quietly doing a task or other, always silently busy with something. At this point, they’ve given up on trying to figure out what exactly he's been doing and how he keeps getting his hands on all these tasks and duties, but there's basically not a moment in time when the man isn't doing something. Silently, keeping to himself. But he's pretty, alright? He's got the tan, the handsome face, the trim waist. Guy like him at a place like this — well. So they, the guards, they kinda watch him, watch the way the others watch him. Placing nonverbal bets. Except —

Except, five days in he breaks Trooper's jaw, dislocates Anderson's shoulder and smashes Big Tiger's nose to bits. It's a fucking mess, blood on the floor, shoes slipping on wet tiles, men howling and stumbling, tripping over each other, and the guy at the centre of the storm, tall, pretty, dripping blood. Self-Defense, arguably. Definitely, actually, and by the looks of it, he could’ve done a lot worse but chose not to. So yeah. He's difficult.

It's been about a month now and the other men usually avoid him, let him be pretty and silent in peace. He doesn’t seem too bothered by it, though. Doesn’t try to rise through the ranks despite the fact that he proved he could, easily. Doesn’t open his mouth for more than two words at a time, in fact, letting attempts at conversation slip and drop from him like rain from a lotus flower. Except for Tuesday afternoons, that is. Visiting hours.

Because every Tuesday, 3pm on the dot, the brother will come in. Drop dead gorgeous, tall, summer-sweet ease in every move. Show stopper, that one. He'll sit down, hands folded on the tabletop, shoulders back. Right across from the glass where the guy waits, mirror image. He’ll sit down and open his mouth.

"Look at you," he'll say. "Fuck, I'm sorry, man. This is my fault, isn't it?" That's the usual, of course. Except this guy's pretty like a doll and just as cool, saying the words with the conviction of someone reciting a poem. One could think he’s doing it for an audience, except his eyes don’t seem to register anything in the room that’s not the other guy, hands folded on the tabletop, shoulders back.

"Fuck, baby, 's all my fault, huh?" Face cut from marble. "Let you play with those guns, they always say that oughta mess a kid up in the head. But how are we supposed to know, right? Hell, you never had anyone to teach you good and proper, just me.” Absent father, vet who brought guns and a history of violence into the family, then left. Tragic story, but one has to wonder how it only ever affected just one of them. And for all of those expressions of guilt, the brother is perfectly innocent. Never hurt a fly, apparently, which is at odds with what the judge had to say about the tall one, at odds with what he’s not quite saying now.

“Shoulda known, baby boy." And that's - it's a bit weird. Baby boy, Handsome, Sugar. He says Princess, once, and the other one cracks a smile. Exhales through his nose, flicks his head to the side and the corner of his mouth twitches. Not a word from him, but the brother's pink around the ears, sniffs. "Ah, Sammy, don't gimme that look. Make a guy blush." He doesn't call him Princess again.

"Was it the fuckin' shit you been taking? Break my heart, why don’t you? You said you were clean." - "Clean? Nah, not me." They stare at each other like it's a joke, except no one's laughing. And of course he was tested, right when he came in. The kid hasn't touched pills, syringes, powders in months.

"I'm glad they caught you, man. You were scaring me, baby boy, with the guns and the silver and the chanting at night. They'll fix you right up, I promise. Send you out as a changed man, do a better job of that than I ever could." And he never mentioned that in court, it kinda contradicts some of the other shit he’s reciting, but no one knows what it means. Chanting. The guy sits on his bed at night, sometimes, staring at thin air, a shadow in the dark with glittering eyes, but no one's been smooth enough to sneak a glance at his lips to check if he's whispering.

"Sugar, I shoulda done better by you. You're my baby boy, I shoulda seen it. Always too smart for your own good, baby, too sharp. Shoulda kept you on a tighter leash, kept you closer. Kept you away from those bad influences. Fuck, not like I don't know you like to put your dick where it doesn't belong. Call that nature and nurture, huh?" That’s — yeah, that’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. The guy worked alone, not a trace of any kind of influence to be found. No one but the brother, who’s got a spotless white vest, who’s doing nothing but prove his sorrow, two hours at a time.

And then visitor's hours are over and they get up simultaneously, mirror images, and turn to leave. Neither of them says a word of goodbye, never. As if it’s self-evident that next Tuesday, they’ll be back on opposite sides of that glass, hands folded on the table top, shoulders back. And they are, again and again and again, until one day, neither of them shows up.

-

("Next time," Sam says as he balls up his third wet wipe and drops it into the little trash bag with the others, tinted pink and smelling of iron, "you go in. The food fucking sucked."

"Aw, baby," Dean purrs, "I'll make it up to you. Besides - you look cute in apricot. Your colour, I say."

"Fuck off." Sam shakes his head, but the corner of his mouth is twitching into a smile and he melts into familiar leather seats. Hot with adrenaline, smoke in his hair and sweat shimmering on his cheeks, his temples.

Dean takes his eyes off the road to stare at him, his gaze heavy and greedy, like they haven’t seen each other in months. "So, you make any new friends?" Sam hums, drops his head back, undoes the zipper of his jumpsuit. Rolls his eyes, too, not that Dean would notice. “Yeah, lots.” Dean clicks his tongue, hums, deep and dirty in his throat. “That’s my boy.”)

-

Gotta be all that coco, ayy? Playin' too much of that GTA Playin' too much of that Dr. Dre Doom, Quake, where'd you get the gun from, eh? Really think that metal gonna make you safe? Playing peek-a-boo with the devil these days Black cap back with a trench coat, ayy Living in the valley cuttin' porno tapes

[purplecatdad]

Of Bears and Friends (RDR Reverse Bang)

Written for the @rdrbigbang reverse bang for the wonderful picture of @mgcoco

| Arthur/Albert | General Audience | Fluff | Read it on AO3 |

Arthur sighed as he closed his journal. He had just finished up the sketch of their new camp at Clemens point as he reminisced about the things that had happened. 

Colm had attacked them, right in the middle of the little town of Valentine. That bastard had taken John (and Strauss, but Arthur wasn’t very fond of the feller), and had threatened to shoot him right in front of them. Gladly both him and Dutch were skilled enough with their guns to get the situation under control, even when they were heavily outnumbered. 

Arthur still had been worried about John for a moment, even if he’d never admit that to the other man. He’d become like a brother to him and he’d never forgive himself if he had been too slow to protect Jack from losing his father or Abigail her husband. 

He lit himself a cigarette after his journal was safely stored away in his satchel again and took a long drag, feeling his lungs filling up with the smoke before he breathed out again. He still had to sell that gold bar that he had gotten from that weird German guy. Arthur had thought about just donating it to the camp funds for others to take care of the selling, but right now he felt like taking a break anyway.

Cigarette dangling between his lips he got up, stretched until his bones cracked and shouldered his satchel.He didn’t plan to stay away too long but he knew that sometimes things went differently than you plan them and so he packed up some cans of beans from Pearson’s wagon. He was usually good at hunting his food but sometimes it was nice to just heat up a can instead of crouching in the bushes. 

“I’ll be gone for a bit. Maybe a week or two,” he announced to Dutch, who rested in his little tent, the gramophone blasting some random tune that Arthur had heard one too many times before. 

“Alright. Be safe, son. And better come back with a good lead or two,” the gang leader responded and Arthur just tipped his hat in response. He wouldn’t promise anything but of course he’d keep his ears open and his mind sharp. Life as an outlaw had taught him that there was money to be made at every corner and that one shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity. 

He tacked up the Black Shire he had named Thor, packed his bedroll and some more supplies to make camp before heading out. Firstly he would make his way up north. He had discovered this little, almost dead town called Van Horn before and knew that he’d make good money with the gold bar there. He also realized that it had been a while now since he’d last visited the widow Charlotte who lived up north the Roanoke. He decided to pay her a visit as well, just to make sure that she was alright and skilled enough to take care of herself. 

The sun was still rising as he made his way out of camp, setting a steady pace but making sure not to push his horse too hard. Arthur loved riding fast but it had cost him too many good horses when he was still young. He had learned when it was time to push them and when it was better to let them choose their own pace. 

"You‘re a good boy,“ he praised the stallion as he patted his neck. Back at Horseshoe Overlook, Thor had been quite the brute. One time he had even kicked him hard enough for Arthur to land on his ass. He had thought about selling him when Hosea told him to but something had told Arthur that he should keep his horse. He still missed Boadicea and longed for a horse that he could rely on. The Shire didn‘t seem to be that kind of horse at first but Arthur found him far too beautiful to just give him away to end up in front of some poor farmer‘s wagon. 

He had taken Thor out with him into the Heartlands, naming him after the god of Thunder as the sounds his hooves made when galloping over the endless meadows. It had taken them a while to properly get along, to train him to come when he whistled and to follow up. After two weeks of back and forth between them, Arthur knew that he could rely on Thor, though. Some daring Bounty Hunters had been chasing him, nearly getting him by ambushing him as he was making camp. But Thor didn’t let them. He had kicked them right off of their horses and stomped one of them to death as Arthur had shot the other. 

Since then, they had only been separated whenever he had been at camp or sleeping in a hotel rather than on his bedroll.

His first few hours of travelling were calm and uneventful. The people he passed didn‘t seem interested in him and he also wasn’t interested in them as none of them looked like they were carrying great amounts of cash. He knew that there weren‘t many rich folk up Roanoke Ridge so he hadn‘t expected it anyway. 

As he had passed the swampy area around Lagras the ground became more firm again and the road was taking him through the forest. Arthur felt better here, without the high humidity, surrounded by trees. He generally enjoyed being in nature, especially if it was the forest or the desert … but he hated the cold that they had in Colter as much as the warm and humid air around Lagras. He took a deep breath to enjoy the scent of the trees around him when he heard a familiar voice mumbling. 

"Where are they … I‘m sure they must be some somewhere here …,“ Arthur brought Thor to a halt and looked around the trees until he spotted the man with his camera. A smile spread over his lips as he watched him searching for something. Albert Mason was a strange man but he had actually become a good friend of his during the last few weeks. He had met him several times before, trying to photograph wolves, horses, and alligators. Albert seemed to be that rare kind of person who was born into wealth and still seeked out the adventurous outdoors - without being disgusted by its reality. Arthur still remembered that “gentleman” he had met on his way to Strawberry who had demanded to get a ride into the town while constantly complaining about it. It had annoyed Arthur immensely, so much that a part of him had actually thought about just robbing that man blind and leaving him behind. But Albert was different. He saw the beauty in nature, saw the dangers that lay in it, but also the wonders. And that was why he had started taking his photographs - and why Arthur thought of him as a friend. 

“Did ya lose something’?” Arthur called over to Albert who jumped and almost threw over his camera. He looked around until he saw Arthur and a wide smile appeared on his face. 

“Mr. Morgan!” the photographer exclaimed as he walked up to him and Arthur got down from his horse. “It’s good to see you again. Have you been well?”

Arthur thought about the shootout in Valentine and the German family that he had rescued from the O’Driscolls. “Hmm, mostly,” he mused with a faint smile on his lips and lit himself a cigarette. “So, whatcha lookin’ for?” 

“Oh, uh …”, Albert seemed to need a moment to remember what he had been doing. “I was looking for bears. I’ve actually found quite a few black bears already but I’d like something more …” he seemed to be at a loss of words and just waved around to indicate something big. 

“More … impressive?” Arthur suggested.

“Impressive, yes! They are pretty alright but something like … like a grizzly! That might be a great motive for a picture!”  

“A grizzly?” Arthur barked out a laugh in disbelief and shook his head. “You really do wanna die taking pictures, don’t cha?”

Albert chuckled at that and it almost sounded a little nervous. “Well, now that you’ve stumbled upon me … Maybe you want to make sure I don’t just yet?” 

Arthur looked back at him. “Ya know that we’d better head up to the Grizzlies for that, yeah? Ain’t many grizzlies around here. And I first gotta get some business done in Van Horn and then go visit a friend up at Brandywine Drop …” He wasn’t sure if Albert would be up for so much travelling but having some company actually sounded kind of nice. 

“Oh, if you don’t mind me traveling with you I’d love to join you on the road. I’m sure there will be some more opportunities for me to take pictures on the way.” Albert seemed to be delighted about the prospect of traveling alongside him and Arthur wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. What if Albert would realise what kind of person he actually was and decide that he wasn’t a person he wanted to keep around anymore? What if he himself got annoyed at him? What if … but Arthur stopped his thoughts, took a last long drag from his cigarette and flicked it away.

“Alright then … do you … have a horse?” Arthur had realized that he had never actually seen him traveling around and looked around until he saw a small Criollo hitched to a nearby tree who looked over at them like it was aware of him asking for it. 

“That’s Daisy,” Albert said as he followed Arthur’s gaze on the horse. “She might be small but she is very reliable. Has never let me down so far.”

Arthur walked up to the little horse and offered his hand for her to sniff. Her fur looked like red and grey marble, her mane a dark brown. She gently nudged his hand as if asking for treats and Arthur chuckled low in his throat. “She’s quite the sweetheart, ain’t she?” 

After Albert had packed up his camera, eager to get moving to find some grizzlies up north they crossed the Kamassa River. It already started to get dark, the sun slowly setting over the horizon in the distance. It would have been possible to get to Van Horn and rent out a room somewhere there but considering the state of the town, Arthur preferred to make camp before heading in there. 

“You know, we actually should make camp somewhere. I’ll hunt us something. You can …,” he hesitated, not sure about Albert’s survival skills. “Can you make a campfire?” 

Albert looked up at him from Daisy’s back. “I, uh … can certainly try.”

Arthur sighed at that, only now realizing that he would have to do the muscle work on this trip. “How did you survive in the wild up until now?” 

“Well, I was always staying over in Hotels, mostly. But I’d happily learn a thing or two from you.”

“There’s an old fort close by … if there’s nobody else right now we can use it as a camp for the night,” Arthur suggested and Albert’s face lit up. 

“An old fort? Oh, how exciting!” 

They headed over there, Arthur holding the big doors to the fort open while Albert rode past him inside it. Luckily there was an old, abandoned campfire right next to a small hut within the fort that Arthur brought back to life with some matches and dry twigs that were lying around. 

“You can find some more wood and add to it so it’ll last us overnight. I’ll be back in a bit, there are plenty of turkeys and rabbits here,” Arthur announced and left the fort after Albert nodded. 

After their time in Colter, Arthur actually preferred to hunt on foot with his bow and arrow, at least when it came to harmless animals like deer or rabbits. He had become good at it, thanks to practising it a lot with Charles, but not good enough to guarantee him a kill on attacking wolves or cougars. 

He went into the nearest line of trees and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light there before he looked around for animal tracks. Arthur heard a turkey’s gobble coming somewhere from his right side and ducked down so he wouldn’t get their attention. There was a small group of four of them, so he had a good chance of getting at least one. 

He slowly got closer to them, raising his bow with an arrow ready when he was in shooting range. He was a good sharp shooter but he still needed a little more time to prepare for a shot with the bow. Arthur breathed in, pulling the bow back at the same time and released it as he breathed out again. The arrow hit the turkey at the base of the neck and it fell to the ground with a gentle thud. The others ran off immediately and Arthur went to collect his prey. 

When he got back to the fort, roughly ten minutes after he had left, Albert was gone. Sure, he had told him to collect firewood but Arthur hadn’t seen him around the fort as well and he wasn’t anywhere near the line of trees. He dropped the turkey on the floor, worried that something had happened to his travel companion. 

“Mr. Mason?!” he called out, looking around the fort for a hint where the photographer could’ve vanished too. Both Daisy and Thor, who were hitched at the corner of the fort, looked at him like he was disturbing their peaceful evening. Arthur cursed under his breath, hoping that his friend hadn’t been taken by some ill meaning asshole. 

There weren’t really any tracks on the ground that he could make out as it hadn’t rained in a while. He noticed that Albert had left his equipment at their little campsite though so he figured that he was either still closeby or that somebody had taken him. 

“Mr. Morgan! I’m down here!” He heard a voice calling from … somewhere. He approached the little cabin that was still somewhat standing and looked inside. There was no trace of Albert still but he was certain that it had come from this direction. He walked into the dark room, holes in the wall and the ceiling shining dim light into it. Soon it would be too dark to see here. He made out a ladder that led downwards and peeked inside, noticing a shadow and a dim light.

“Mr. Mason?” he asked again and got a “you should come down here, Mr. Morgan. Check it out!” Arthur sighed and climbed down into the basement, wondering if the building would collapse and bury them underneath and if whatever was down there was actually worth it. When he turned around, there was a dagger directly pointing at his nose. 

“This must be the last few remnants from the war!” Arthur took a step to the side and gently removed the knife from Alberts grip. It was big, like an actual hunting knife. There were traces of blood on the blade, long dried out, the victim probably dead for decades by now.

“That’s a pretty knife alright. You want to keep it? I’ve got my hunting knife but this might come in handy for you some time.” “But .. it belonged to someone!” Albert seemed shocked that Arthur suggested to him to just take it and the outlaw was reminded that not everyone grew up just taking what they needed. Arthur shrugged and stored the knife in the sheath of his hunting knife. 

“He ain’t gonna need it no more. But I’ll take it if you don’t want it.” He might as well just sell it at the fence, along with the gold bar he had found. 

“I also found this …” Albert noted and held up a cigarette card of a black panther. “Isn’t it a fine specimen? Oh, I’d LOVE to take a picture of one some time!” 

Arthur chuckled gently, shaking his head along with his. “You really wanna die, don’t cha?” 

A few minutes later Arthur was finally settled around the fire, strips of turkey meat roasting above it and an opened can of beans slowly warming up right next to it. Albert had excused himself to take some pictures of the fort from the outside and left him alone for a bit. 

Arthur looked up to the stars and enjoyed the silence for a moment. This was what he had longed for when he had left camp. To not be surrounded by nearly thirty people, all chatting and babbling, everybody wanting something from him or expecting him to bring in money. He didn’t mind helping people and he loved the gang like a family. But sometimes it all got too much. Sometimes he just wanted to travel, see the world and enjoy nature. Sometimes he didn’t want to be the great enforcer of the Van der Linde Gang. Sometimes he was content with just being Arthur. A wandering soul, ever moving, traveling to wherever his horse carried him. 

“This really is a lot more … rustic than I am used to.” He heard Albert’s voice coming from the side and was suddenly pulled out from his thoughts. For a moment he had forgotten that he wasn’t completely alone. “But this is very exciting! I’ve always wanted to sleep outside when I was a little boy. Never gotten around to actually doing it.”

Arthur blinked at Albert who settled down on the floor next to him, the camera neatly packed away again. “You’ve never slept outside?” It seemed so strange to him, like a completely different world. 

“Well, I grew up in the city. There weren’t any good spots to sleep outside in New York, Mr. Morgan. And as I said, so far I’ve usually slept in hotels. I’m glad to have this opportunity now, I hope to venture even further out west some time but I’m certain I’ll need more uh ... outdoor skills for that.” 

He wondered if the photographer had any idea about how dangerous the west really could be. “The west ain’t a place for city folk, Mr. Mason. Especially not if they’re all on their own.” Of course, it would be Alberts decision alone but Arthur really didn’t want him to get hurt because he was foolish enough to venture out alone. “Better get yourself someone who knows their way around and who you can trust.” 

“What about you, then, Mr. Morgan? Would you like to join me some time?” 

“Join you? Out west?” Arthur hadn’t expected Albert to just offer it like that... or to be quite so serious about it all. 

“Yes. You obviously know your way around, and I like your company. Of course, I can pay you for your time and the protection as well! I imagine it must be quite the trip there. As long as you don’t have any responsibilities here … I mean … I don’t really know how involved you are around here, of course. It just seemed to be like you’re … well, you seem to be quite a free spirit, in a sense...”  

Albert was babbling again, like he sometimes did. But Arthur didn’t mind it, it gave him time to think about the offer. What if he took it? Earning some honest money for a change and still doing things that he loved sounded good. But he knew he couldn’t just leave the gang behind. He wasn’t John who just left for a whole year or Trewlawny who didn’t even stay with them most of the time. He belonged in camp. What if something happened when he was away for multiple weeks, maybe even months? 

“I’ll think about that offer. Let’s first see how we’ll get along on this trip, shall we?”, He suggested. So far they had only ever spent an afternoon together. Maybe they wouldn’t even get along if they’d be around each other for longer. Arthur knew that he could tolerate a lot - after all, he was in a gang with Sean MacGuire for several years now and had only almost strangled him once - but he wasn’t sure if Albert would still like him if he got to know the real Arthur Morgan. Outlaw, killer, bastard. Nobody a proper man like Albert would usually keep around.  

“Yes, you might be right. But I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. So, my good Sir, what will we have for dinner, if I may ask?” Albert asked, his tone shifted from his usually happy babbling to something that resembled a fine gentleman in an even finer establishment. It made Arthur chuckle and forget his grim thoughts for a moment. Maybe Albert really could stay his friend. 

The night had been uneventful and calm, just like Arthur had hoped. After they had eaten the turkey with the beans, Albert had shared his last bit of chocolate with him. There had been some smalltalk, mostly Albert telling him about places he had been before and places he still wanted to see. All those that Arthur had never seen and probably never would. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. Crowded places that he’d rather avoid. 

They had packed up their things after a quick breakfast with coffee, leftover meat and a shared bread roll, saddled their horses and made their way up to Van Horn. 

“So, what’s that town like? Van Horn, you said? I’ve never heard of it,” Albert asked him as they were moving along the path. 

“It’s a shithole, really,” Arthur explained as he lit himself a cigarette. “Not many people left there aside from some whores, gamblers, and alcoholics. Ain’t sure what happened to the town but it died out at some point and now there’s just the scum left.”

“Oh…” Albert didn’t seem to have expected that kind of answer. “So, what are you doing there?” 

“Well, a German fella that I’ve helped get rid of some … nasty folk .. he paid me with a damn gold bar. And I know I can sell those to a gentleman in town.” 

“Oh, there's a bullion dealer in town?” 

“Something like that, yeah.” It wasn’t exactly the truth but Arthur didn’t want to elaborate any further right now. 

They rode in silence for a while, occasionally stopping when Albert found something he wanted to photograph. 

The first thing they saw was the lighthouse of Van Horn. Once built to guide ships at the broad Lannahechee River it now started to rot away since it got neglected by the townsfolk. Arthur suspected that they simply ran out of funding. Most ships would probably rather find a harbour in Saint Denis down south, with more people being able to board in such a big city and more trades to me made with the large warehouses. He had seen plenty of towns like Van Horn in his life. Promising little settlements who had died out for various reasons. Bad investments, too many outlaws passing through and robbing the place, illnesses and sometimes for no reason at all. Sometimes, like here, there was still business to be made but other times it was best to just stay away. 

He noticed that Albert had grown more quiet since they had passed the last road bend. Arthur suspected that he was a little shocked due to the state of the town, despite Arthur warning him beforehand. He wondered if it was Albert’s first time in a place like this. 

“Don’t worry, we ain’t gonna stay long. Just stay close to me and don’t talk to anybody,” Arthur assured him and he felt Albert’s gaze on him for a moment. 

They rode past the fallen down houses and the saloon. He could see some lonely patrons in there, those who probably hadn’t left during the night and were still there in the late morning, slowly waking up to start drinking again as they had nothing left anymore. Arthur averted his eyes, painfully reminded of his own father. Sometimes he had waited for him in their shabby room right down the street from the saloon. Lyle had often promised him to come back with money that he’d win gambling but Arthur had to learn early that it were mostly empty promises, the money oftentimes just spent on liquor and women while he had waited at home with a hole in his stomach. 

Some women who stood next to the remains of the hotel looked at them with hope in their eyes for a moment, probably hoping for some money from lonesome travelers who wanted to let off some steam but they soon realized that Arthur and his companion were just passing through the town. 

He stopped next to the old post office, telling Albert to wait while he was doing his business. Arthur hitched Thor to a nearby post and walked up to the building in which he knew the fence did his business. It didn’t feel right leaving Albert behind in such a place and the photographer did look a little lost but he preferred it like that. He didn’t only have the gold bar with him but also a few pocket watches and belt buckles that he had taken from some unfortunate souls on the streets. He didn’t want Albert to just see it if there was no need to. 

“I’ll give you 550$ for that,” the fence said after Arthur had put all of the items, including the old knife he had found, on his table. 

“50$ more and we got ourselves a deal,” Arthur responded. He wouldn’t let the fence cheap out of this. 

“560$, last offer.”

He took out his gun and held it up to the fence's face. “600$, or I’ll take the money and the merchandise. We both know there’s no law around to help you.”

The fence stared at the gun for a second, then nodded shortly. “Alright. 600$. I don’t want any trouble here.”

“No trouble at all,” Arthur agreed with a content smirk and holstered his gun again before he grabbed the money that was offered and stashed it away in his satchel. 

“Pleasure doing business with you.” He tipped his hat and left the small warehouse before heading back to Albert. Arthur lit himself another cigarette, glad that he turned the gold into some money now. He frowned as he saw Albert in the distance who was being surrounded by some women who seemed to be a little too interested in him. 

“Come on, sweetheart,” Arthur heard one of them say as he got closer. “I’ll give you the time of your life. Just two dollars, you won't regret it, I promise.”

Albert’s face was red as a tomato, stammering something unintelligible and raising his hands in defense. It seemed like this was his first time being approached by prostitutes desperate for money and so Arthur walked up to them to rescue him out of that situation. 

“Leave him alone,” he snarled. “There’s cheaper ways to catch syphilis. Get lost!”

“That’s rude of you, Mister!” One of the prostitutes said but she also scuttered off like the rest of them when Arthur placed a hand on his gun and said “I ain’t gonna ask again.”

Arthur unhitched Thunder and jumped up on his back again as Albert collected himself. “You alright, Mr. Mason? They’re a little obtrusive here sometimes.”

“Y-yes .. I’m okay. Thank you.”

They headed out of the city again, up North and following the Lannahechee River that was glistening from the sun standing high in the sky. Arthur knew that there were lots of mean folk around here but he still loved the area for it’s lush greens. They rode in silence for a bit, sharing the occasional oatcakes and Albert stopping to take pictures now and again. It was a calm, beautiful day and Arthur enjoyed the ride a lot, even with Albert babbling about some rare species of bird that was rumoured to be seen around here. His babbling was simply different from the buzzing in camp. He didn’t expect anything from him and instead of complaining about too many chores or not enough money, Albert just seemed to be … excited about the things he saw. 

In the beginning, Arthur had found it childish for a grown man to get so excited about animals or nature's beauty. It reminded him of Jack who sometimes got all happy about dandelion seeds in the wind, even if it was such a mundane thing. After meeting Albert multiple times though and getting to know him a little better he found it endearing. It was contagious to see him all excited and Arthur had often caught himself smiling about the same things and always ended up sketching the animals that Albert had taken pictures of. Nature was beautiful, after all. And Albert had reminded him of that. 

“Not long until we’ll reach Annesburg,” Arthur started after a couple of hours of riding. “Should we rent a room there to spend the night?” 

Arthur noticed Albert blushing for a second and wondered why but before he had the chance to come to a conclusion the other man responded. “Ah, I enjoyed camping out with you far too much to get back to the confines of a hotel room just yet. If you don’t mind.”  

Arthur chuckled at that, amused that Albert seemed to have found some joy in staying outside now. Unusual for a city boy like him, he mused. “Sure, we can. I’d say we look for a good spot after we passed Annesburg then. Have you been there before?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been, no.”

“It’s a mining town, air’s awfully dirty there. But you’ll see it soon.” 

Arthur chose the path that wouldn’t lead them directly through the city but rather around it. He wasn’t in the mood to pass through the town, not long ago he had a little argument with the Sheriff because he had accidentally run over a miner. The man had been fine and so Arthur had refused to see it as a crime. He didn’t want Albert to get mingled in that if the Sheriff saw him again and decided that it was a day of justice to be served.

As they got closer to the city, the air started to taste of smoke and stone. It was a strange thing that Arthur had never experienced before and while he was an avid smoker, this just didn’t seem right to him. It got harder to see into the distance as well. 

“I see now what you mean, Mr. Morgan,” Albert said as they approached the town. “It really is awfully dirty.” They passed the entry of the mine above the town and both of them shortly looked at the men walking past them and towards the mines. Their faces and clothes black with the dirt, their expressions tired and bodies hunched over from the hard work. 

“Oh, what an awful job this must be …,” Albert mused and Arthur hummed in agreement. “Not seeing the sun, always in danger of being buried alive … There must be better ways to earn a living.”

“Some ain’t got no choice, Mr. Mason. And this is what civilization does to us - we got bad air and awful jobs.” It was the reason he preferred to be out west. The air was clean and there were less people. Less big towns, less crowd … and less law to get in trouble with. 

“Well, it also gives us modern technology and science!” Albert exclaimed, patting his camera equipment that was strapped to his horse’s saddle. “I wouldn’t be able to do my job without it.”

Arthur thought about it for a moment. Yes, he enjoyed the photographs that Albert had shown him so far and their little adventures together but was it really worth all the hassle of civilisation? “I think I’d much rather miss out on some pretty pictures if that means I can stay away from cities. They’ve never done me any good. But I get that they’re important to you.” 

There was a soft smile on Albert’s face on that and Arthur wondered if the other man could even understand him all that well as someone who was born and raised in the city. There was no way he could understand what it meant to always roam free and to do what you want. “Maybe you’re right, Mr. Morgan. Maybe there really are things that are more important than pretty pictures.” 

After a little while they passed a cabin on the road. It was painted red and Arthur remembered that he had looked through the place before. Nobody had been home back then and there actually hadn’t been all that much to take. It seemed like there still was nobody at home and Arthur wondered if the place might be deserted for good now. He figured that it would be a bad idea to check again, just in case somebody would come home and Albert was still around. So they just passed it by and moved to a small incline behind it. 

“This should be a good place to stay for the night,” Arthur decided as the sun set on the horizon. “Brought some salted meat with me, we can eat that tonight so I won’t have to hunt.” 

Albert agreed and together they set up a tent. Last night they had slept within the confines of the old fort but tonight they weren’t protected by any walls. Albert really had two left hands when it came to setting up the tent so Arthur just told him to tend to the fire while he set it all up. He spread their bedrolls within the tent and realized that there really wouldn’t be much space between them. Arthur wondered if it would make Albert uncomfortable or not, he probably wasn’t used to sharing his breath with another man at night so he started to remove his own bedroll from the tent again, intending to sleep out next to the fire instead. 

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to sleep in the tent?” Albert asked him with big eyes.

“Well, there ain’t much space in there, Mr. Mason. No need to make you uncomfortable. I can sleep outside just fine.”

“Make me uncomfortable? Oh, now don’t be silly Mr. Morgan. It is your tent we will be sleeping in and it’s supposed to get plenty cold tonight. If anybody should sleep outside, it would be me. However, I wouldn’t mind sleeping right next to you, if that’s what you’re so concerned about.”

He hadn’t expected Albert to be so assertive about it and stopped in his tracks, musing over the words for a moment. Albert was right, it was supposed to get cold tonight with the sky as clear as it was and if it really didn’t bother him Arthur would very much prefer to sleep in a tent tonight. 

“If you’re sure ‘bout it…”

“I am, don’t you worry about that. I don’t just say things that I don’t mean.”

Arthur gave him a small smile at that and nodded. He turned around and unrolled the bedroll in the tent again, preparing their bed for the night before he settled in around the fire next to Albert. Tonight he heated up some canned peas that he served Albert and himself with a piece of bread and the salted meat. It wasn’t fine cuisine but he somehow always enjoyed these thrown together meals at the beginning of a trip when he still had some provisions to choose from. 

“So, how did you meet this lady that we’re visiting?” Albert asked him halfway through their shared meal. 

“Uh, well…,” it had been a tip from a guy he had freed from a prison wagon. A lone lady in a little cabin, rich apparently and an easy way to make money. After Arthur had met her he had refused to take her money, though. “Met her when I was passing by, heard her crying ‘bout her husband. Showed her how to hunt. She was more city folk before, much like you.” 

“You really like helping people, don’t you?” Albert said with a smile on her face, munching on some of the peas. “I like that about you, you know?” 

Arthur hadn’t expected to get a compliment, he cleared his throat and looked down onto his plate, unsure what to respond for a moment. “Well, can’t just let her starve just after losing her husband, can I? She wanted to create a new life for her so … I helped her achieve that. Was mostly her doing.” 

“I’m curious to meet her. She sounds like a very interesting person.” 

“I’m sure you’ll get along just fine. And afterwards, we can find a grizzly for you. Might even see a cub or two, it’s the season for ‘em right now. Just gotta be careful around them, the mothers don’t like people ‘round them.” 

Albert’s eyes lit up at that. “Oh, cubs would be so wonderful! I’m sure seeing them would help people see that they need to be protected.” 

He chuckled at that. Albert’s reason for taking pictures really was a noble one. But he wasn’t sure if he could reach that goal, especially with so many people each day being attacked and killed by wild predators that roamed America.

 “Maybe, yes. But remember that they are still dangerous, much like their mommas.” 

“Of course! But I also have you with me to protect me, don’t I, Mr. Morgan? “Sure you do.”

They finished their dinner, easing into some conversations about nothing in particular, sharing a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes until Albert announced that he was tired and lay down in the tent. 

Arthur got out his journal, sketching their little campsite before he wrote down a few sentences about their adventure so far. 

Met this photographer again on the road. Decided to travel with him for a bit. Guy wants to see some grizzlies so I’ll take him to see one. First we’ll see Charlotte again though. Will see how she is holding up. 

He followed Albert into the tent after he had fed the fire one last time and tucked away his journal into his satchel again. The other man was already sound asleep, snoring very softly and his mouth hanging open a little. 

Arthur entered carefully, trying not to wake the other man as he lay down on his bedroll. He sat down his hat next to himself, stretched and yawned before he turned onto his side to sleep. Albert shuffled a little next to him, mumbling something in his sleep and moved up to him. Arthur felt the heat of the other man’s body getting closer and for a moment he thought about waking him or shoving him away. Instead, he sighed and just relaxed as he enjoyed the presence of another person sleeping so close to him. Just a few minutes later he drifted off to sleep, tired from the long journey during the day. 

When he woke up he felt the cold at the tip of his nose and gently rubbed it to warm it up. He frowned when he noticed that Albert had already gotten up and looked out of the tent to see if he was sitting at the fire but there was nobody to be seen. The fire didn’t even look like it had been tended to at all. 

He got up, stretching and popping his bones to wake and warm up a little. Albert was still nowhere to be seen but he figured that the man probably just went to do his business in peace. He sat down by the fire to bring it back to life and to make some coffee. A lit cigarette dangling from his lips he opened up a can of baked beans to heat up as well. When he was alone on the road he usually just had a cigarette and maybe some coffee to wake up in the morning but Albert had told him that he was used to a proper breakfast in the morning so he figured he could take care of that while the photographer was still busy. 

Arthur started to get worried when he had finished his cigarette and Albert still hadn’t shown up again. He got up and looked for traces of him. The bag with his camera equipment was missing but his horse - and all the other valuable things they had -  was still around so Arthur figured that they hadn’t been robbed during the night. He guessed that Albert probably had seen a pretty squirrel and just wandered off.

“What a fool,” Arthur murmured, shaking his head as he started to follow what he suspected were the other man’s footprints.

The track led him down the incline they had been camping on and towards the path that they would continue their travels on. And there he saw Albert standing, fumbling with the settings of his camera. 

“Morning, Mr. Mason,” Arthur said, loud enough to startle Albert and make him jump.

The photographer turned around to him, his chuckle sounding a little nervous after he got scared. 

“Good morning to you as well! I’ve just ah- I wanted to capture the beautiful sunrise over the river, you know? Didn’t want to wake you up.”

Arthur followed his gaze towards the river. The sun has already risen by now but the sky was still painted in pretty colours with the river glistening in the early light. Albert was right, it was a beautiful view and Arthur had a hard time to blame him. “Could’ve still woken me up, wasn’t sure where you had gone, just like that.” 

Albert seemed to be surprised about that and blinked at him for a moment. “Oh, I … didn’t think you’d be that worried about me, Mr. Morgan. Otherwise I would’ve- “ “No, no. It’s alright,” Arthur assured him and realized that it probably had been a little stupid of him to just assume the worst, especially because Albert was a grown man, after all.

After a quick breakfast they went on their way again, following the Roanoke Ridge up North. Most words between them had been spoken, so they rode in a comfortable silence, just broken once or twice when Albert pointed out a pretty tree or animal to him. Arthur usually had seen them before and if he had been alone he might’ve stopped to sketch it as well but he just wasn’t used to people he traveled with caring about the marvels of the world. 

They rested at one particular interesting tree that both of them found fascinating and while Albert set up his camera to take a picture of it, Arthur got out his journal and sketched it as well. It didn’t take long for Albert to notice the Journal and what Arthur was doing. After he w3as content with the pictures he had taken, he walked over to Arthur and asked him to have a look at his drawing. 

“It ain’t much, Mr. Mason…”

“Just let me have a look, Mr. Morgan … I really do enjoy art and I’m sure it’s wonderful.” 

With a sigh Arthur presented the journal to Albert who suddenly made surprised sound. “Oh, that IS wonderful, Mr. Morgan! You’ve captured it so well!”

Arthur felt himself blush. He wasn’t used to getting compliments like this and he felt a bit embarrassed to be praised like that for a simple sketch of a tree. “Well .. thank you. It really ain’t special, though.”

“Oh, it absolutely is. I wouldn’t be able to draw such a thing. Now, take the compliment and leave it at that, yes?”

Arthur shook his head in amusement. Albert really was a special kind of person. “Sure thing, Mr. Mason.” 

   Eventually they reached the little cabin that Arthur probably would have never found out about if it hadn’t been for the tip he had gotten. Instead of robbing the place, he had found a friend there. Someone to visit whenever he needed a break from the gang. Someone much like Albert. 

He led Albert up the path and dismounted the horse after he passed the little entryway. Charlotte had started to try and make something of the little garden and had also fixed up the fence. He wondered if she would follow her advice and get some goats for milk and meat, just to help her when hunting didn’t go well. They hitched their horses and as Arthur turned around he saw Charlotte leaving her cabin. She stopped in her tracks, probably surprised to see two horses on her property. But her face lit up as she saw him and Arthur smiled right back to her, equally happy to see her. 

“Arthur!” she called over and dropped the basket she had been carrying onto the chair on her porch. Charlotte approached them and Arthur was happy to see that she really looked well now. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were bright and she looked like she was back to a healthy weight again. “It’s good to see you here. Who’s your friend?”

“This is Albert Mason. Him an’ me are traveling up to the grizzlies to see some bears,” he explained to her. Charlotte’s face darkened in worry and Arthur, the fool that he was, suddenly remembered how Cal had died. 

“Oh, just to take some pictures of them,” Albert chimed in cheerfully. “You see, Ma’am, I’m a nature photographer and I’d like to capture the beauty of the American wildlife. So this isn’t going to be a bear hunt or anything like that.”

“Well, I hope that you stay safe…,” Charlotte said in a low voice while mostly looking at Arthur. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. But .. how can I help you?”

“I was actually on my way to check on you when I met Mr. Mason here, so … I suggested we make a break here first before heading West. If you don’t mind. Otherwise we can be on our way again, of course.” 

“No, of course I don’t mind. It’s nice to have visitors, it tends to get a little lonely here sometimes. Feel free to come in … I even got some stew on the stove that I wanted to eat after the laundry. But that can wait, I’m not the biggest fan of washing anyway,” she admitted with a cheeky smile.

As they entered the cabin Arthur noticed a stretched out grey tabby cat right next to the fireplace. It rolled around, got up and stretched before lazily walking up to Charlotte. “Did you wake up from your nap already?” Charlotte asked and picked up the cat before she kissed its head. “This is Artemis. She helps me with the rats and I share my fish with her. If I manage to catch one, that is…” The cat started to struggle a little so he let her go again. Artemis landed on her paws rather gracefully. She ignored the men in the house and sat down on a pillow that was placed in front of the fireplace. “I’ve always wanted a cat but Cal didn’t really get along with them. He also always had to sneeze and got watery eyes when he was near them, weirdly enough… I found this one a few weeks ago and she’s really great company.”  

“Well, I’m glad that she’s keeping you company,” Arthur said and pulled his gaze away from the cat who had started to stare him down like they were having a staring contest. He had never understood cats very well and usually preferred dogs over them. But he wasn’t there to judge Charlotte’s choice in pets. 

They settled around the table in the middle of the room and Charlotte got out some bowls and spoons for them. “So, how have you been, Arthur?” she asked him and gave him a small smile before she got the pot down from the stove. 

“Ah, it’s been a few busy weeks. I’m glad that I’ve got some free time to spend now. Just wandering ‘round a bit, seeing some folk.“

"You know, you‘ve never actually told me what kind of work you‘re doing,“ Charlotte mused as she served all of them a steaming hot bowl of stew. "Very few jobs offer this kind of freedom.“

Arthur had already wondered if she‘d ever ask him this question. Maybe, he had thought, she had already guessed it. Maybe she had been avoiding the question on purpose, afraid of what the answer might be. Albert also looked at him expectantly now, curious probably what kind of man he was travelling with now that it was brought up.

"I just … do some odd jobs here 'n there. Whatever brings in some money, really. So between jobs, I like to travel a bit. Means I see more than just one place of the world.“ It was the truth, even if not all of it, but it seemed to be enough for them for now. Arthur knew that even those folk who stayed on the legal path oftentimes went from job to job. It wasn‘t unusual to just go where the money was, after all. 

"Oh, that sounds so adventurous!“ Charlotte exclaimed. "You must tell me a story or two sometimes, maybe I can put something of it into my writing.“

Albert smiled at that, curious now about Charlotte as well. "Oh, you‘re an author?“

"Well, I try to be. I haven‘t published much, just a short story or two in the newspaper in Chicago. But I‘m working on my first book now and it‘s going well. It‘s like the muse has kissed me after Arthur came to my rescue.“

"He really has a habit of doing that, doesn‘t he?“ Albert said and chuckled softly.

Arthur cleared his throat and shook his head, focusing on his stew. He wasn‘t quite used to people talking like that about him. If he was praised, it usually was for his strong fists in people‘s faces or his ability to shoot someone in the head from 200 feet away. 

Albert and Charlotte eased into a conversation about Chicago and other bigger cities that they visited. Arthur had never been to any of those but to him it seemed horrible. Bigger cities like Saint Denis? That seemed like outright torture to him. More civilisation, more law, more rules to follow. No, he was content being out in the wild. And he now understood even better why both Albert and Charlotte chose to flee from all of that and built new lifes out here. Nature gave them room to breathe and to live and to just be, whereas the city restricted them.

After dinner they played a few rounds of poker. Albert had a horrible poker face and was easy to beat but Arthur was surprised to learn that Charlotte was actually really good at it. She ended up winning almost all rounds they played and smiled brightly as she stashed away the money that she won. 

"I‘ve used to play a lot with my sisters and we all had to have a good poker face for when we had some higher up guests join us for dinner,“ she explained. "But it was fun to play with you.“

It was time to sleep afterwards, and while Charlotte had a spare room in her house she only had one bed to sleep on. "'s alright, I‘ll sleep here on a bedroll.“ Arthur assured Albert after he offered to sleep on the floor multiple times. "I‘m more used to it than you, don‘t worry 'bout it.“ 

They settled in for the night and after being woken up by a purring cat who shoved her butt into Arthur‘s face twice before settling down and rolling up on his butt Arthur actually had a pretty good night‘s sleep. He was used to sleeping outside, with and without a tent, but sometimes he actually enjoyed having a real fireplace nearby and a roof above his head. 

He was up early in the morning, before Charlotte or Albert had gotten out of their rooms, so he decided to brew up some coffee for them. Charlotte actually had one of the better brands, one that he‘d probably never buy for himself, even if he loved his coffee in the morning. It was simply not a luxury that made sense when you have to feed over twenty people in a camp. He also found some eggs that he cracked open and scrambled in a pan, roasting some bread along with it. The sizzling seemed to have woken up the other people in the cabin, both Albert and Charlotte got out of their rooms shortly before the eggs were fully cooked. 

It was a peaceful, quiet moment, both of them thanking him for the coffee and sitting down on the table for breakfast. Sometimes Arthur wondered what life would be like, in a place like this. Away from society but still living in a home. A place to make his own, with people to love and care about. He loved the gang, of course, but he couldn‘t call them a family. At least not all of them and not with the way they were living right now. Always fighting, always on the run. What kind of man would he become if he had a cabin like this? If he didn‘t have to fight just to survive? If he wasn‘t wanted with a bounty that could probably feed him for a whole year? 

“So, you’ll be heading out again today?” Charlotte asked and interrupted his thoughts with that. 

He blinked for a moment to process her words, then nodded as he put bread and eggs on each of their plates. “Yeah. Don’t wanna bother ya for too long.” “Oh, don’t worry about bothering me. Both of you. I enjoy company, especially if it’s as pleasant as yours," Charlotte assured him with a smile and again Arthur thought about how different she would perceive him if she knew how he made his money. “You can also feel free to take some supplies with you. I’ve got plenty of cans to spare.”

“Oh, that would be very kind of you, Mrs. Balfour. It was definitely a pleasure meeting you. If I’m ever in the area again I might drop by,” Arthur was glad that Albert and Charlotte had gotten along to the point that he actually considered visiting her again.

And Charlotte also seemed to like the idea. “Oh, please always feel free to come and visit whenever you wish to. My door will always be open. To both of you.”

Arthur was happy that she was inviting him but unsure if he would be able to come to her much longer. Dutch had talked about all the things that he wanted to change. About Tahiti or Australia or some other island that they would do to flee the law. He knew that it was unlikely that they’d actually go that far … but he knew that at some point he should stop coming here. Just to avoid Charlotte getting dragged into something that she didn’t deserve to be dragged into. He always hated letting go of people like that but he knew that it was for the best. The only people he could keep around for long was the gang. Because they knew what they had signed up for. 

They finished their breakfast and packed some of the bread that Charlotte had baked the day before and she insisted that they had to take it with them. Arthur refused to take some of her meat though because he was “Very capable of huntin’ my own food,” and wanted her to keep it as she still was very much a beginner when it came to hunting animals. Charlotte agreed eventually and after saddling their horses they continued their travel. 

They crossed the Roanoke River alongside the train tracks, passing by that weird building with the tower that Arthur had seen when he had been around these parts before. The building had been vacant though with nobody close by so he had just let it be. There had been some expensive looking machines inside but nothing that he could’ve loaded onto the back of a horse so he had figured that breaking in wouldn’t have been worth it anyway. 

The further they got to the west, loosely following the train tracks, the more their environment changed into some rocky paths. There were less trees and the patches of forest weren’t as lush as the ones around Roanoke Ridge. It was easier to see further ahead - but also easier to be seen. Albert, of course, wasn’t worried about that - Arthur suspected that he wasn’t even aware of that. He kept chattering about Charlotte. About her lovely cabin, the beautiful waterfalls close to her home, her lovely little flower patch and her hospitality. Of course they also had to stop, again and again, for new photo opportunities. Arthur still didn’t mind it though, the trip to O’Creagh’s Run wasn’t too long of a ride and he was certain that they would make it in time to make camp right by the water. 

And Arthur had been right. The sun just started to set when they reached the lake. They approached it from the side at which the old veteran named Hamish was living. There were no lights coming from inside though and Arthur figured that it wouldn’t make sense to tell a hunting-loving man that they would go looking for some grizzlies, not if Albert wanted to take those pictures with the bears still alive.  

“What a beautiful place this is,” Albert marveled as Arthur led him around the water. He didn’t want to camp just next to the cabin, so they needed to ride a little further. “Nature really is gorgeous, isn’t it?” 

“It is,” Arthur agreed, following his gaze over the water that lay almost still in the evening light. It really was beautiful and Arthur had the urge to draw again. Instead, he looked over at Albert. “What do you think of some fish for dinner?” 

“Fish?” Albert asked. He sounded like he hadn’t expected Arthur to suggest fish for dinner at all. 

Arthur gave him a short, crooked smile before answering. “Well, these waters are great for fishing. Have pulled out some big fellas out of here. Besides, if we want to attract some bears tomorrow, some bait will be good. And nothing’s better than some fish.” “Well, then … It sounds absolutely delightful. You’ll have to show me how it’s done, though.”

They set up camp close to the water, not quite on the shore because Arthur knew how uncomfortable it was to sleep on the gravel right next to the water. They made a small fire, mostly to make sure to keep the nearby animals that were lurking away from them. Albert had already gotten better at setting up a camp and knew how to arrange the firewood so they were finished fairly quick and still had time to catch a fish. All they needed was a little luck. 

They stood at the shore next to each other, Albert holding the rod because he had requested to actually learn it. Arthur leaned in closer, correcting the grip on his hand and directing him how to throw the line out to the water. 

“I see why so many people enjoy this … it is fairly relaxing if you- oh! Oh, I think one bit!!”

The rod almost slipped out of Albert’s hand and Arthur jumped in to take over. He leaned back and reeled the line in, huffing as he felt the pull of the fish. 

“Oh, this sure is a big one, Mr. Mason …,” he said as he took a step back to have a better posture. “Can’t reel ‘m in too quick, otherwise the line will break,” he explained further as Albert hopped around on the balls of his feet to get a better look at what was in the water. The fish broke through the surface as he was fighting the pull, even more so when he was dragged closer to the shore. 

Finally he got the fish out onto the shore. He grabbed it and killed with a quick hit on the head before presenting it to Albert. “May I present you - dinner.” “Oh, that’s a salmon, isn’t it?” Albert asked, still excited and moving closer to expect the fish. “I’ve always just seen illustrations or photographs in books. And ate them, of course. But never this fresh.” “Yeah, you’re right. They’re also the grizzlie’s favourite fish. So this should be perfect.” 

He lay down the fish on a bigger stone nearby, gutted it and wrapped up the guts in a piece of cloth. Albert wrinkled up his nose, it was obvious to Arthur that he hid his disgust. He agreed that it was a rather nasty thing but it had to be done. He put the gutted salmon onto a stick and hung it above the fire to cook. 

“Alright, now we just gotta wait until it’s done. Can cut up some of the bread that Charlotte gave us and we'll have a decent enough meal.” Arthur said and stretched out his legs by the fire. “And tomorrow we’ll find some grizzlies to take a picture of.” 

“That really does sound wonderful,” Albert agreed with a soft sigh as he sat down next to him. He shared his cigarettes with Arthur and both of them watched the fire for a moment, enjoying the quiet and the darkness that started to wrap around them like a blanket, held off only by the fire. 

“So, Mr. Morgan … is this how you live?”, Albert asked. Usually those words would have sounded like a criticism, like it was something bad. But with Albert it sounded more like he was simply wondering and trying to get to know his friend a little better. 

“Most of the time, yeah. Sometimes hotel rooms, but I prefer being outside. Less rules to follow,” he said with a short smile towards Albert who chuckled softly. 

“I know what you mean, yes …” he said in a low voice. “But you’re not alone all the time, are you?” Albert’s voice was gentle, almost careful. Arthur wondered if he really wanted to know the truth or if he wanted to find out if he should start distrusting his travel companion.

Arthur took a drag from his cigarette, contemplating his answer for a moment. There weren’t many groups of people living outside, always traveling around. He was sure that Albert knew this as well as any other … and it was pretty obvious that Arthur was no circus clown, even if he felt like it sometimes. 

“No, I’m not,” he answered eventually, his voice low as well. “It can be a hard life and we’re always .. moving ‘round. But I’ve got my folk and they’ve got me.” 

There was a little smile on Albert’s face as he looked at Arthur. “And I’m glad that’s the case. Life must be awfully lonely with nobody around when you’re living on your own. Especially out in the wild. So … I’m happy to hear that I always meet you on your own because you chose to and not because you got nobody else.”

Arthur had not expected Albert to be worried about something like that of all things he could be worried about. “You really ain’t got no reason to be worried ‘bout me, Mr. Mason,” he told him with a short smile. “I’m fine. Just needing some peace and quiet from time to time.”

“And then you choose to travel with a blabbermouth like me?” Albert laughed and Arthur joined in. Albert really wasn't good at keeping quiet but he had never minded that. If all he enjoyed the things that Albert talked about and how joyful his perspective on life was. 

“Well, I tend to be a fool, you should know that by now,” he said with a grin and Albert shook his head. 

“So am I, Mr. Morgan. So am I.”

They both got hungry because of the tasty smell of the fish so Arthur cut up some slices of bread that they dunked in oil and ate with some of the oregano leaves that they could easily pick from the plants growing nearby. They added the succulent fish meat as it was done cooking, both of them enjoying the texture and the warmth in their bellies. 

With each evening, Arthur had enjoyed Albert’s company even more and it didn’t even feel awkward anymore to get into a tent with him. They slept side by side on their bed rolls and when Arthur woke up during the middle of the night because Albert had put his arm around him in his sleep he found that he didn’t even mind that. It was nice in fact to have a warm body right next to him and he dozed off again with a smile on his face. 

“Mr. Morgan! Mr. Morgan, wake up!”

Arthur felt someone gently shaking his shoulder and he opened up his eyes, blinking in the process at the early sunlight that was hitting his face. 

“There are some bear cubs!” Albert exclaimed with a shouted whisper. Arthur was awake instantly, knowing very well that cubs would always be close to a very protective mama bear. 

He got up and out of the tent to see what was happening. Roughly 70 feet away from them were actually two bear cubs playing in the water at the shore and trying to catch fish. He put on his hat and watched them warily, searching for their mother. 

Albert, on the other hand, set up his camera quicker than Arthur had ever seen him do it before to start to take some pictures of them. The clicking of the camera made the cubs look over to them and Albert mumbled something in excitement that Arthur did not understand in the slightest. 

Suddenly there was a growl behind them, Arthur turned around and saw the mother of the cubs, standing on her hind legs and glaring at them angrily. “Shit…” he said and grabbed the revolver in his holster. 

“No, don’t shoot her please!” he heard Albert plead behind him. 

“Well what ELSE would you suggest?!” Arthur hissed back to him as the mother dropped down on all fours again and started approaching them. At least she wasn’t in full attack mode yet. 

“Maybe we can … distract her, somehow?!”, Albert suggested and Arthur remembered the fish guts that were still in his satchel.

He moved slowly, not to piss her off in any way, and took the smelling bundle out of his bag. He threw it over to her, right in front of her big paws and she started sniffing it with interest. 

“‘Right, now or never …,” Arthur said and dragged Albert behind him. The photographer was clutching his camera as they slowly moved away from the camp, the bear now munching on the innards of the fish. They reached their horses and unhitched them, both Thunder and Daisy running away on their own, smart enough to know that they were in danger. “They’ll find their way back later,” Arthur assured Albert as he tried to grab Daisy’s lead. 

They moved further into the bushes, now watching the mother and her cubs on the shore from a safe distance. For once, Albert wasn’t talking and Arthur suspected that he knew very well how important it was now not to attract the bears anymore. The mother started rummaging through the things that they had left, ripping the tent and chewing up the last bit of fish bones that were left of their dinner. Eventually she decided that it was time to move on and so she did, followed up by the cubs.

Arthur took a deep breath and lit himself a cigarette to calm his nerves, offering Albert one as well who gladly took it. “Well, that was close. Hope the pictures will be worth it.” 

“Oh, I’m sure they will be. Playing cubs was so much more than I expected! Thank you again for joining me. Someday I really ought to pay you for always having my back!”

Arthur shook his head. “Ain’t no need for that, Mr. Mason. Your company is reward enough for me,” he assured him and it almost looked like Albert was blushing. 

“Well, if you say so …” he cleared his throat. “I really enjoyed traveling with you. Maybe you should really join me some time … venturing out west.”

Arthur looked back at Albert and thought about it again. He had his responsibilities. People who needed him. Who relied on him being there. But they’ve managed without him before, for a few weeks. Who said that they wouldn’t manage again? Who said that he had to spend all his life running with a gang of outlaws if he also could spend it with Albert? He found himself smiling at Albert. 

“I think you might be right, Mr. Mason.” “You know, you can call me Albert…”

He smiled again, knowing that this would only be the beginning of their friendship full of new adventures. “Albert. I’d love to join you out west.” 

[spiltscribbles]

andreil, 85 and 16??

Notes: Thank you so much love!!! A reblog is worth a thousand stars!

.-

16 » “I’m going to kiss you now.”

85 » “Sometimes I really dislike you.”.”

.-

Neil’s never been to a wedding. 

He’s never seen two people exchanging vows. Has never watched their first dance after being declared as partners, or eve attended an actual reception. Hell, the closest Neil’s ever gotten to one  was whenever Allison would drag him down to watch reruns of Four Weddings with her if Renee was busy. 

All this to say, even with Neil’s minuscule wedding expertise, he still has the foresight to tell Matt that choosing the cake’s flavor seems like a very bride and groom sort of job, even if it’s a moot point considering that he’s already said as much a total of three times.

“I know, I know,” Matt tugs on the ends of his hair, eyes wide and frantic. “But we over booked like crazy and Dan has gotta check out something at the venue and my suit fitting’s in like a quarter of an hour and.”

“And you’re desperate?” Neil gathers.

“Completely,” Matt pouts. “And I know that it’s totally last minute and—“

“Okay,” Neil interrupts because he feels like it’s the right thing to say and he’d really rather not listen to Matt actually beg. “I can go for you guys.”

“Really!” Matt beams.

“Of course,” Neil shrugs.

Matt pulls him into a tight hug.  “You’re a life saver Neil my man.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Once he leaves Neil pulls out his phone from his sock drawer to text Andrew, asks him if he’d like to tag along. 

Andrew: Boyd already paid?

Me: Yes

Andrew: Fine, give me 5.

Suddenly going to this cake tasting doesn’t feel so entirely dreadful. 

.-

“Stop looking at the joint like it’s about to swallow you whole,” Andrew toots, absentmindedly thumbs a circle into the hand Neil’s got interlocked into his own. It’s a gentle moment, something casual. It’s one that Neil enjoys the most, brilliant in its simplicity. It makes him feel grounded, feel alive. It reminds him that he can have this now, a life composed of warm smiles and warmer friends and gets to call Andrew his person. His person who makes Neil feel understood and wonderful and abuzz with something so splendid that he can hardly describe it. 

“Am not looking at it like that,” Neil sniffs, gives a gentle squeeze to Andrew’s hand, likes the feeling of his touch calluses and soft palms, thinks that Andrew was born to be a walking contradiction and Neil was always meant to find him and hold on tight.

“Don’t tell me you’re not a fan of frills Neil?” Andrew goads, one brow cocked and half his mouth turned up in a smile that isn’t mean, but it’s not nice either. “Princess will have a conniption.”

“Sometimes I really dislike you,” Neil informs him in a deadpan, turns his attention to the brightly smiling redhead who’s welcoming them inside for their appointment.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Andrew says lowly, is close enough so that his hot tendrils of breath skirt against Neil’s neck and blatant enough so the aforementioned redhead starts to blush.

Oh joy.

.-

“Everyone here at Love At First Bite is dedicated to making your special day the most memorable of your lives,” the baker, Madeline, crows as they take their seats, eyes glittering with genuine mirth.

Neil elbow checks Andrew once he catches the grimace passing across his face at the comment, offers Madeline an apologetic grin. The one that always makes Allison pinch his cheek dotingly and Dan give into whatever plan he’s plotting out.

“So you guys take up a lot of weddings huh?” Neil asks her, genuinely curious.

“We’re the top bakery in the city, third year running,” she crows.

“Bet there’s some stiff competition in this wonderful town,” Andrew says wryly, utterly unimpressed. Though Madeline doesn’t seem to notice, only giggles and gets some color in her cheeks once more. 

“So I’ve pulled out some slices that we think will fit your wedding perfectly from our conversation last week, let me just grab them from the kitchen.” The door swings shut in her wake and Neil nearly jolts forwards with the realization. 

“She thinks ’s our wedding?”

“Hmm,” Andrew glances towards him, molten eyes squinted in confusion. 

“Madeline,” Neil begins to clarify. “She thinks that me and you— that we’re, that it’s our— She thinks it’s our wedding.” 

“Pretty terrified sounding Neil,” Andrew needles in a menacingly flat tone. “What, the thought of marrying me such a burden?”

Wait, what?  No that’s definitely not it! That’s not even close to what Neil was thinking. He doesn’t care that she thinks they’re the grooms, not even slightly. It’s kinda the exact opposite. More like he didn’t even think of the possibility until this moment, and now— well now it’s making him feel disoriented in the best of ways. Like their’s something warm and splendid coiling deep in his stomach and his insides are pulsing with the realness of that possibility.

Neil doesn’t get to tell Andrew as much because Madeline walks in right then, hands filled by carrying a platter of various slices of cake, and sporting an exciting grin all the while.

“So I know you guys were interested in the strawberry shortcake over the phone, but actually our carrot cake is a total favorite from our customers, and I think you two would just adore it!” She says without a moment to breathe between words.

“Whatever,” Andrew huffs, grabs for the plate she’s offering and stabs his fork into the dessert with way more force than necessary. 

“You guys are just so cute,” Madeline tells them, glowing as she hands another slice over to Neil. “Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.”

“Thank you,” Neil says mostly because he knows Andrew isn’t in the mood to make small talk, besides this lady has been nothing but kind and doesn’t deserve their sourness seeping into her day also.

“So I hope I’m not intruding,” Madeline starts, inches closer as she prepares the next set of cakes for them to try. “But what was the proposal like? I always think those are just the most amazing stories from our patrons.”

“Yeah Neil,” Andrew quickly interjects, already having finished his slice and still sulking. “Why don’t you tell the nice lady how you proposed, practically begged, for me to marry you.”

Neil hates it when Andrew gets petty, hopes that the glare he’s directing his way is properly getting across that notion. 

“It was quiet.” He ends up telling Madeline, though his eyes never leave Andrew’s face— a face he’s spent countless hours tracing the lines of and memorizing each slope and valley. He use to only map it out with his eyes, but then he somehow— miraculously— got to do so with soft caresses and eventually sure kisses. It’s a beautiful face, Neil’s favorite face. A face he would spend an eon just staring at if Andrew had ever been patient or willing enough to let him.

“Something private?” Madeline surmises, reminds Neil that they actually have company and she’s waiting for him to answer the question at hand.

“Yeah,” Neil nods, slow but sure. “Our friends were all over the place for the holidays, but me and Andrew stayed home, just the pair of us and our cats.” He continues to explain, knows that the best lies always have as much truth as possible mixed into them, and yes, in fact this was their precise situation this year over Christmas. And it was also one of the times that Andrew made it so Neil’s heart blossomed with something remarkable. One of the most recent times he was sure that Andrew was his world.

 “I woke up, and I looked at him and I just knew it. So after he woke up and we made breakfast, I just took his hands in mine—“ Neil does that now, hesitantly because he never wants to overstep, but is reassured when Andrew’s own go pliant and he turns ever so slightly towards him. “So I look him straight in the eyes, and I told him that I love him, and I love all he’s brought into my world. I told him that I don’t want anything to ever change between us. We’re the one constant I’ve ever had in my life and I’m thankful for it every day.”

Madeline gushes with her fist pressed to her chest, and Andrew follies a nasty grimace her way for the interruption. Neil doesn’t falter though, just gazes at Andrew, thinks of how he’s always been so enthralled by him. Neil feels it in his bones how he loves him so thoroughly that it takes his breath away. 

“Then what,” Andrew prods, words hugged in a tender cadence that probably no one else could pick up on, but Neil recognizes it well, and it makes his chest thud with wanting.

“And then I asked you to marry me, to stay with me till the end of time.”

A pregnant pause spills over them and Neil feels every breath escape his lungs, is only settled down when Andrew tilts his pale head and lets the smallest of grins turn up the corners of his thin lips.

“And I said yes.”

“You said yes,” Neil repeats, equal parts bewildered and amazed.

“Of course I said yes,” Andrew sniffs, but the posturing doesn’t last, his features melting into something so achingly open that Neil wants to kiss him right then and there.

“Oh how precious,” Madeline squawks, and this time it’s Neil who casts her a nasty glare.

.-

They ultimately decide on the chocolate marble cake for the wedding, and as they walk out the bakery— hands still interlocked— Andrew turns to him, slightly smug.

“Pretty sappy shit you thought of on the spot,” Andrew goads, bright and beautiful and the one sure thing Neil’s ever known. 

“I wasn’t freaked out that she thought we were married dummy, I was freaked out I hadn’t gotten to ask you myself yet,” Neil tells him, totally indignant.

A thousand emotions suddenly pull at Andrew’s face, settling on an expression that Neil could only ever describe as aw.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, words stripped from any pretense, and gazing at Neil as if he had placed all the stars in the sky. As if he were someone worth that sort of adoration. And God does Neil love him. “Yes or no”

“Yes Andrew, of course yes.”

Andrew’s Arms circle around his neck, and Neil clasps his hands on either side of his narrow waste, and they fit so perfectly that it’s hard not to think of it as fate.

Gingerly, their mouths slant over one another’s, lips cloaked in sugar and tasting like a forever Neil once only dreamed of.

[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 41: Orphaned

So... I'm sorry.

Trigger Warnings: -Death -Keith, SufferingTM

First  Previous  Next

While Coran inspects everyone for injuries, including Alfor, Lance keeps an eye on Keith. Long, thick, black lashes flutter against sharp cheekbones. He’s dreaming.

Lance hopes he’s somewhere safe and warm.

…

It's a warm day. The bottle-green primate on Keith’s shoulder chitters appreciatively as he hands it half of a large tree-hopper. Settling onto the leaf-strewn sand, he pats his primate with his little hands. The primate pats him back, chittering. Her little baby peeks out of his pouch, wraps his long hands around Keith’s finger. The small kit smiles. He loves his pets.

“Hey, kitten.” Akira returns from the hunt, a vakalt slung over his back. “How’s your hunt going?”

“Dad!” Keith jumps up, puts his pets on his back. TreeTrunks works her fingers into his hair, her toes into his tunic. “Good! Caught bugs!”

“I bet you did.” Akira leans down, scoops up his young, his only kit. “Did you share with TreeTrunks and BleepBloop?”

“Mhm. TreeTrunks does pats now, but BleepBloop doesn’t. He gives squeezes, though.”

“So… If you ate lots of bugs, does that mean you don’t want any vakalt?” The pout on his little son's face has Akira biting back a laugh. He has his mother's sass.

Keith peers over his sire’s shoulder at the fanged, double-jointed tree dweller. Its coat is marbled greens and browns, reds and purples, blending in perfectly with the forest. Eyes wide with awe, Keith reaches out to pet the fur. “Pretty. It’s so soft!”

“Yeah? You can have the fur, if you want.”

“Really?” Keith gasps. “I can have it?”

“Sure.” Akira rubs their cheeks together. “It’ll be nice and warm for you, huh?”

“Mhm.” Keith rests his head on his father’s shoulder, wraps his tail around his arm. He starts playing with Akira's long braid. “We had fun today.”

“Yeah?” Relief washes through Akira. It's the first time he left his kit alone to hunt. It's time, but Keith is so small, causing his father extra worry.

“Mhm. BleepBloop almost caught a bug, but he missed.”

“Aw, well I bet he’ll get it next time. He’s still little. In a little bit, he’ll be as good of a bug hunter as you are!”

“Yes! Me and TreeTrunks are gonna teach him all our moves!”

"I know you will, kitten." Akira sets his boy and the primates down in front of their den, ruffles his mop of inky hair. As much as he misses and worries about his mate, he adores his young son. He’d do anything for this little guy.

The little guy in question plays in the windchimes, young enough to be content with simple amusements. Akira worries how he’ll stimulate the boy as he gets older. Krolia was always the smart one, and Keith takes after his mother in myriad ways.

Krolia. The last time she saw their kit, they’d still referred to him in neutral terms. She doesn’t know their child is a boy. She doesn’t know that he’s struggling to grow, way behind despite Akira’s every effort. She doesn’t know that he cries during his growth spurts, that he sobs that his bones hurt, that Akira never feels so helpless as he does then. She doesn’t know how wonderful their kit is, either. Curious. Clever. Talented. More than a little sassy when he’s in the mood to be. But more than anything, he’s just sweet. And he looks almost exactly like her.

It makes Akira miss her a little more and a little less.

Akira cleans and skins the vakalt, saving the organs to use for fertilizer, the intestines for thread, the fat for greasing, waterproofing, burning for light. He’ll dry out the stomach and bladder to use for carrying herbs and other gathered items. He’ll clear out the horns for water, or to fill with burning oil from the village a few varga’s ride from here. The bones will be for soup, maybe an awl, something for his kit to teethe on, tie together, play with.

Keith hums, draws his pictures, tries to teach BleepBloop how to draw. The baby primate lacks his dexterity, but tries for the kit with the help of his mother. He can hear his father cutting the vakalt into pieces.

A rustling sound has Keith pausing in his scribbling, last wobbly glyph of BleepBloop’s name unfinished in the sand. He peers into the trees, fluffy, little ears twisting this way and that, trying to catch another sound. He creeps over on his hands and toes, sniffs the foliage at the edge of their clearing.

“What are you doing, kitten?”

“Heard something.”

“Come over here." When the kit continues his inspection, Akira tacks on, "Now.”

The forest is not a safe place.

Keith does so, albeit with a huff, standing behind his tall father’s legs, fingers curled into Akira’s pants, tail around his ankles. Sniffing the air for himself, Akira nudges his son with his own tail. “Get inside.”

“Daddy?” Having to go inside is Keith's cue to be scared.

“Go on, kitten.”

Keith creeps hesitantly toward the den, slips behind the curtain. A few doboshes later, a group of small, hairless people step out of the brush. As Keith watches, their skin turns from mottled greens and reds to anything from pale white to near black. They have patches of color on their cheeks. He knows what they are, though he’s never seen one before.

Alteans.

Keith slips into the pile of furs even though it’s stuffy and warm. With his sire present, his instinct is to remain silent, to hide himself as best he can. He hunkers down into the furs to wait for his father to come get him.

Instead, he hears a shout, metal on metal like when Akira fixes tools, only different. He curls up tight in a ball, tail clasped in his hands. The ruckus only lasts a few minutes, followed by shouts, shots fired. The noise fades into the distance.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits.

The air grows cool before he hears anything more. Then, footsteps. A voice.

“What about the kit? I saw it. Scrawny, tiny little thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” another voice says. “It’ll starve on its own. Too young to hunt. Only two or three.”

Keith scowls. He’s not that small! And he's six, morons!

“Come on.” Yet another voice. “Let’s go before the little thing comes back asking where it’s dad is.”

Keith spends the night curled up in the furs, warm despite the cold. He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. His sire is missing, and he has no littermates to keep him safe. When morning comes again, and there’s no sign of danger, he chooses to go find his father.

The earth is all churned up. Their oven has been toppled. Against one tree, he spots TreeTrunks, fur all bloodied.

“TreeTrunks?” Keith nudges his pet. She’s cold to the touch. The little kit starts to sniffle. Primarily carnivorous, he’s familiar with death, but not familiar with loss. “TreeTrunks!”

She is very dead. But at his insistent nudging, Keith finds movement. BleepBloop crawls out of his deceased mother’s pouch, chittering. Sniffling, ears drooped, Keith rubs at his eyes. He lifts the barely weaned baby into his arms, cradles him close.

“BleepBloop,” he sniffles. “C- Come on, BleepBloop. We gotta- We gotta find Dad.”

The small kit cradles BleepBloop to his chest, the baby primate’s little fingers not quite strong enough to hold himself there on his own for long.

Sniffling, Keith creeps along the edge of the torn up earth, finds his father’s scent intermingled with the strange Altean ones trailing off into the thick of the forest. Keith follows the scent, stopping to catch an insect for BleepBloop. The primate doesn’t eat, but the kit doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t feel like eating either. He lets the insect fly away.

Akira’s scent draws him deeper and deeper into the woods, and Keith is scared. He’s never been on his own for this long, or this far away from the den where he was born. What if he gets lost?

BleepBloop’s screech alerts Keith right before he stumbles over the edge of a ravine. At the bottom, half-submerged in a creek, is a dark form amidst a few other forms.

“Dad!” Keith crouches at the edge of the ravine, tiny fingers curling into the ledge. “Daddy!”

Not a move. Not a peep. Keith cradles BleepBloop close, takes a deep breath.

On his short, little legs, Keith starts working his way down the ravine, keeping one hand on BleepBloop, another on the stony wall. His little chest heaves, breath coming in pants as he makes his way down the narrow path.

His footing slips, and he falls with a shriek. BleepBloop falls, earning a sob from Keith. He reaches out, catches the baby primate in his hands. Shaking, the little kit holds his pet close, sniffles. He just wants his father.

“It's okay, BleepBloop. I'm sorry. We'll be okay. We’re almost there.”

BleepBloop clings to his tiny fingers as Keith stumbles the rest of the way down the rock face. When he finally reaches the bottom, he runs for his sire, tripping over the body of an Altean. He stares into the face of his enemy, the one he inherited from his ancestor.

He wants his father.

“Daddy!” Keith shakes the supine form of his father. He already knows it’s useless. “Please?” he whimpers. Akira, of course, does not move, braid trailing in the water. The little kit tucks his knees to his chest, tail wrapped around his legs, ears drooped.

Keith chirps, once, twice, thrice, on and on until the sun goes down. BleepBloop is still in his hands and it’s getting cold. Instincts kicking in, Keith scurries to the rock face, pulls some of the edging greenery into a small nest, drags more on top of himself. His primate companion curls up in his hands.

He waits for quintants, chirping, but no one comes for him. Eventually, he and BleepBloop make their way back up the ravine wall and back to the den. They leave the corpses of the Alteans to rot in the sun.

Akira is covered in a layer of stones, something to be preserved. Something to come back to when the world gets scary and lonely.

[quant-um-fizzx]

Swept Away

Synopsis: Bucky feels strangely drawn to a woman at a Halloween party thrown at the Avengers compound. 

Bucky Barnes x Reader. Except - not? There’s really no way to explain this upfront without giving the whole thing away. It is a nameless female character but it’s also not “fictional you” as a reader because I could not get that to work within this mystery concept. 

Warnings:  Smut, I’m calling this Dub-Con (but only in the sense that things might not be what they seem) Language, mild Angst, an attempt to be eerie. 

Word Count:  about 3000

This is for @sherrybaby14‘s Fall Into You writing challenge from the prompt: “Halloween Party”  

It’s loud like parties always are and Bucky welcomes a reason not to join in their bickering, no matter how playful. 

“It’s the principle, really.” Steve says, sniffs whatever Thor tipped into his glass this time. 

“Yes, that’s my point. Thank you. Don’t make a rule and then break it.” Rhodey gripes, adjusting the gold construction paper shooting star taped to the center of his shirt.

“I believe the rule as stated was ‘don’t spend more than $10 on a superhero costume.’ I spent zero dollars on this ensemble.” Tony gestures at the Mark 5 armor he’s wearing. “What we need is a neutral party analysis, who will then concur I am winning at not spending.”

Clint twirls an empty beer bottle between his fingers. “Look, I’m not saying that it’s cheating to come as yourself...”

“I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Nat says.

“I sense a butt right here,” Rocket chimes in. He’s dressed no differently, having openly complained he didn’t see the point and costumes sound more like some of the stupid shit Quill would be into. 

Steve flicks the deep red bed sheet pinned to the back of his shirt, making it swoosh around his feet, casually flipping what no one needs to know is Thor’s actual hammer. The group chatters on as he surveys the room, pausing when he spies Bucky in a far corner, his arm slipping artfully around the waist of a very pretty woman in a white post-Edwardian nightdress. She seems familiar but he can’t really get a good look at her and, considering Bucky’s clearly enthralled with her, he doesn’t think he should be trying to get a better look. They appear deep in conversation, the woman’s hair falling across her face like a curtain. It’s intimate, the way they lean in, and suddenly Steve feels like he’s intruding. He coughs and returns his attention back to the current debate. 

***

She curls further into his side, burrows her chilled shoulder down where he’s warm and snug. Her head falls back to look up at him with doe-eyes. He gets lost in them, irises so peaceful and deep, dark like still waters, like starless night sky. She runs her hand over the blue near-ancient canvas stretched across his chest, traces the white star with an elegant digit.

He leans in, almost captures her lips.  Forgets it’s not private. Like there’s no one else. Like there shouldn’t ever be. She offers her neck, bends so far back that it’s a bit unnatural, but he brushes the thought away. He shakes his head, tries to recall something. It seems important. Scratching at his brain. 

He stops, pulls back. His eyes pinch. He doesn’t know this woman. Doesn’t know anything about her. But he wants to. He wants to know her. Maybe that’s what he couldn’t remember. “What’s…” Runs his nose along her cheek. “What’s your name, Darlin’?”

Did she already tell him that? Did he already ask?

***

“Tell me again, how is coming as yourself and wearing your actual multi-million dollar suit not breaking the rules?” Nat saunters across the circle, grabbing a drink off the bar.

“I’m just saying, that since you were the guy who made the rule, it’s kinda weird that you’re the one breaking it.” Clint sets his bottle down with a clink that sounds a bit more irritated than he appears. 

“Point of order: Cap lent his costume to two people.” Tony feigns deep offense, gestures toward Scott.

“What? This? Nah, I hand-sewed this baby myself for Comic-Con years ago.” Scott stands proudly, hands heroically on his hips. 

Tony’s eyes roll back into his brain. “That still leaves Barnes and his circa WW2 Star-Spangled-ness? Care to explain the museum piece over there and the clothes he’s wearing while you’re at it?”

***

She smiles softly, delicate. Her features unbothered despite that it seems he’s forgotten her. Goes up on her toes and places cool fingertips on his fevered lips. Pushes her own together in a silent hush and he feels it in his gut - feels himself give in to something more than gravity pulling him down, twisting. He leans in toward those lotus-petal painted lips, almost...almost. 

She pulls back just a little. Smile shy, but somehow not. A little knowing. Knows a secret she’s going to show him. He doesn’t like secrets; he’s kept too many, he’s been too many. Doesn’t trust them. 

But he wants to know hers. Wants her. Needs to see where this leads. 

Her fingers entwine with his, pull him fluidly toward the exit door. 

And he forgets. Forgets they are leaving a brightly lit room, forgets there are people who might miss him, forgets everyone, everything but the promise of losing himself in her. 

***

Steve shrugs. “Bucky asked how much trouble it would be to borrow it. Turns out it wasn’t much trouble,” he says, pulling his eyes away from the door Bucky had disappeared through. 

“Excellent!” Tony claps. “Now that we can all agree the utilization of old suits is not a budget factor, let’s discuss what I am sure is a fascinating reason why Wilson here jumped on the opportunity to dress as a defunct Russian asset.”

Sam scoffs and pretends to smooth the aluminum foil wrapped around his left arm. “The Winter Soldier? Nah, my arm’s just dressed as a baked potato.” 

***

Her fingers swim up under his shirt and along each rib like organ keys. He’s draped over her, touching every inch, body covering her like a blanket, a pall. Their kisses swell and he dives when her mouth parts for him. At first a shallow exploration, his warm pink tongue skimming inside until she, impatient and sudden, curls into his mouth and catches it. 

The party and the lights feel a million leagues away. The sounds muffled and distant as if they’ve sneaked off to skinnydip not go necking in a backseat.

Lips and teeth banging, urgent. She’s under and around him all at once. Calling him to claim her like the open sea. 

Hot breath rushes from him as he pulls away and she floats up to follow but then settles back flat along the seat, smiling up at him. Hair splayed out around her face in waves and her face glowing like the moon. 

It registers with him that they’re in a parking lot, in the back of a car. It seems like new information, as if he had just realized. Must have been too busy kissing her, touching her because he doesn't know how they got here. Doesn’t remember clambering into the car. It’s large and old. A Studebaker? A Streamliner?

No, that can’t be right. 

***

“Hey, Mr. Stark. Cool Costume. Ned dressed as Mark 5 in 3rd grade.” Peter scurries up, acting slightly winded, as most of the crowd shoots daggers at him. “It, uh, it looks way better on you though.” He looks hopefully around, checking if that fixed whatever he’d said wrong. 

Shuddering, as if he’s just recalled what he’d come to say, Peter looks back quickly over his shoulder at the doorway Bucky and the woman walked out. “That’s all kinds of creepy. Just like that urban legend, right?”

“When it comes to questionable bed partners, I am spectacularly aware that I have no room to talk. But what is the deal with Steve’s pal and Coraline?” Tony gestures over his shoulder. “There’s a line between cute and creepy. But that one just runs a bit too realistic as The Woman in White.”

Steve looks between them and the door again. “The what?”

***

He presses his lips to her neck. Runs his tongue up a long trail to the shell of her ear.

Soft. He’s never felt anything so soft in his hands. Breasts like silt, spilling under his palms.  Soft every place he’s hard. He’s so hard, aching with it. Cock straining, reducing him down to that near-pain desire. He wants to bury himself between her thighs, drown himself inside her.

She pulls the gown free from her shoulders and it pools around her. She arches up to him. Offers. Urges. 

Insists. 

He licks his lips and wants more. Already can’t remember what she tastes like, saltwater or sweetened honey? He kisses her again, soft press against his tongue and he’s thirsty. Parched. Dives in for more but each touch leaves him wanting more. More heat. More water. More...air.

She’s under him and begging him. 

“Take me.”

Rouge tongue runs over chapped lips as he comes up for a breath. “You don’t have to ask me twice, Sugar.” He rasps, lungs seized up in want. 

Her hands dig into blue shoulders and her legs wrap around red and white stripes, clasping behind the small of his back. Pulling him down to her, pulling him under. 

Fog coats the windows. Their want dripping in rivulets down the glass. The air is thick with it, clings to his lungs, each breath heavy, laboring. 

“Hang on babe,” he pulls back, heart racing gulping down air. “Whew. Huh. Wow.” He looks around, squints, trying to get his bearings. “Gimme a sec, okay?”

She smiles again, sweet as rain. Shakes her head slowly, hair swirling around, a tangle of moss on the seat. Locks her hands behind his neck and digs her heels into his thighs.

She reaches down inside his pants and draws him out, a whisper caress on his length. Barely there, but possessive. Hers.

“Take me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he gasps, breathless. Gasps as strokes him. “I’ll make it good, so good for you.” 

He wants her. Wants her like air. “Can’t wait. Gotta have you - now.”

She flips him over, deft like he weighs nothing and he floats beneath her. Straddles his hips and anchors him, grinding onto his cock. Her head falls back again, does that deep swoon to expose the marble column of her neck. And he feels again like he needs to stop her, to catch her head and stop her. To cradle her skull.

***

“I can tell you, Cap,” Sam says, leaning in conspiratorially, “but you and I are going to have a long chat later about how you manage to interact with other humans every day and still stay so damned isolated.”

Steve gives Sam a withering look but motions for him to continue. 

“The story goes, there’s a ghost that wanders the area. She fell for a guy years ago and got abandoned. The story changes in the details. Sometimes she died in childbirth, jumped off a bridge, whatever.  But one detail is always the same: heartbreaker was shipping off to war the next day. So, she, you know, ‘did it for her country.’ But the guy never comes back and she dies, waiting for him. Wandering the road leading to where they were last together.”

“Huh, that’s super weird,” Scott says, throwing back what he immediately learns is heavily-spiked cider, his eyes going wide on the burn. 

“Ghost stories are weird by definition, Scott” Nat says, licking the rim of her glass. 

“No,” Scott coughs, throwing back two more cider shots in quick succession. “I mean it’s weird because I picked her up on the road coming here. She asked all slow and dramatic about her soldier - I guess she is just super into Halloween - and I was gonna call her an Uber but then she said she was looking for Stark’s thing.”

Steve is incredibly done with this entire conversation. Peter, the exact opposite, presses for more info. “Which road?”

Sam shrugs dismissively. “The one by the old fairgrounds.”

Scott chokes on a fourth shot.  “Down in Queens.”

“You mean the fairgrounds where Stark held the first Expo?” Steve say, unblinking. All fun gone. 

Suddenly, Steve knows where he’s seen her. It’s just been a very, very long time since 1943.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tony says, eyes locked on Steve. 

“Are you saying that I picked up a...a... ghost and rode with her for an hour? Guys...guys, I need to sit down.” Scott wobbles, hand shooting out to steady himself on Rocket. Rocket steps aside. 

Before Scott’s ass hits the floor, everyone else is out the door. 

***

She sinks down around him, fluid and silk. Her hands press into his chest. His warm muscles tense and brown nipples pebble in her touch’s wake. 

As she rides him, the night’s light behind her makes her hair look like a halo floating out around her. A thought breaks through that she looks familiar - he does know her - but she’s just one more thing he lost along the way. 

He wants to tell her they can make this new, start over, whatever went wrong before, he can fix it and it wasn’t his fault and didn’t mean to leave her and please forgive him because he didn’t mean to toss her away.

Wait.

Wait...

He recalls a flash of her face, dry and bright. She’s looking up at him in his brown uniform. Red car hovering on a stage behind her. Then, as suddenly as it came, the picture’s gone, popped like a burst bubble.

***

Steve and Sam are first out the back, toward the dock. Peter has a legit meltdown but still manages to check every car. They’re all empty.

“Cap! There!” Clint shouts, pointing out at the water. 

The middle of the goddamn lake.

In the goddamn, deathly still, dark lake.

***

She glides over him and it’s so desperate and slippery. Everything urgent when all he’d really wanted is to take his time. To do this right. Bring her some daisies  - or, no, she'd like lilies he thinks dumbly and runs his hands up to cup her face. He wants to show her a good time before his ships out in the morning and see if she has a different friend for Steve. 

The guilt is raw and burrowing in his heart he can’t shake it but he doesn’t quite know why. 

Maybe that’s her secret. What she wanted to show him. 

Maybe it’s that she deserves better than this back seat in a parked car outside Stark’s expo. He starts to say sorry but is silenced with another watery kiss.

Burning starts low in his back, the building pull low in his spine, and he wants to come. Desperate for his end. 

 Maybe it’s too much because she can have it all she can have him and he’s not scared - but a small spark fires some forgotten place in his mind, that he is scared - that maybe he should be.

Sliding over him, bend and rock. Tight. He surges up into her again and again. His release looms, vision tunneled down to her. Nothing but her and the sweet hold, the way she’s anchored him down after so many years adrift. 

He thinks blindly that he should warn her. Opens his mouth but she swallows his words. 

Then he’s coming, pulsing out of him like lifeblood. Breathless and drained. And he’s so tired. 

Peaceful. Serene. 

“Take me,” she sings.

He can’t hold on. Body aches for rest. 

Her brow furrows. “Take me home.”  

His eyes flutter. He starts to form the words, but just...can’t. 

He would’ve taken her home and not left. He didn’t mean to make it seem like it must have seemed. He didn’t just throw her away. But it was war and he wasn’t expecting the hell it brought or the hell that came after. It had all seemed so innocent in that old back seat, with his promises he didn’t mean to break.

She grinds down, damned serum refractory period kicking in. He swells against all reason and moves with her until she shakes and clenches, nails digging into his skin, a mournful wail spiraling out of her as he feels himself spill again. 

She touches his neck, feels his pulse stutter out, slow.  Her face is confused. Head shaking. 

He takes her hand, holds it to his heart. An apology. 

Then, she rails back, wretches and twists. She slips through his fingers like time, like silk, like thread.  

What was once solid, warm like new sun on a cold sill, now shifts. Contorts and writhes, skin viscus and pooling around his fingers like so much rancid dough. 

He wants to care but he wants to sleep. Just rest his eyes. Just for a second. It doesn’t feel right but he can’t make himself care. It’s so quiet and peaceful, down here where she used to be solid, where he used to be warm.

***

Then, when he’s almost gone, when peace has fired off in nearly every cell, he’s yanked free. 

Colder than he’s ever been. Night air like a fire burning, like he is nothing but frostbite dropped in a boiling pot.

Sam drags him up onto the dock and collapses beside him. Sam’s face is drawn and terrified and their clothes soggy and weighted, water running off between the wooden planks.

“The Hell Barnes? Party full of perfectly available, alive folk and that’s the strange you go for.”

[detroitbydark]

Moonbeams and Ridinghoods Chapter 8

Pairing: Werewolf! Haz/Reader

Word Count: 3300+

Summary: Things they are a changing. Y/N regrets her decision to drink. Harrison and Emily have it out. Our two lovebirds question where they're at and where things are going.

Warnings: None

A/N: To my few, yet mighty, readers for this piece: Thank You! Without your support and prompting I'd probably still be staring at a blank screen and watching a blinking cursor. Three more chapters to go my darlings!

 Moonlight filters through the thick leaves of the canopy, glittering on the ground as his paws sink into the soft earth. His blood sings the song of his people as his family enjoys their birthright. He can hear the yips and barks of his pack mates can feel them all around him. Emily and Tom flank his sides. The twins and Tuwaine are at his back. Even Cat is there, tucked close to Tuwaine. A stiff breeze ruffles his thick coat. He thrusts muzzle into the air, pulling in the scent that it carries. It’s familiar and causes him to yip with joy. It’s Y/N.  He has to find her.

 He starts at a slow walk but his paws quickly move to a trot and than a full on run as he tracks the smell of his mate. He chases after her scent but she’s just out of reach, just past the next copse of trees, over the next hill. The winds whip and tease him with her scent. He can hear her soft voice begin to call for him but he can’t reach her as panic bleeds into it. The joy he’d felt turns sour as he tries to call out Y/N but she doesn't respond to his barks. 

The ground is warm as his paws pound into the forest floor. Headlong through the forest they carry him.  Brush grabs at his dark coat as his pace increases. His chest feels like it’s going to explode. His muscles burn and his lungs scream. No matter how hard he pushes he can’t get to her. 

Finally, crashing through the undergrowth he sees her, a dark wolf is standing in the shadow near her curled up body. There’s blood. There’s so much blood, the acrid scent of it burns his nose. It makes his stomach lurch and heave as her voice cries out, cracks with pain. Over and over she repeats his name as his legs give out.  He crawls on his belly but she’s always just out of reach.

“Harrison”

“Harrison”

“Harrison!”

Harrison’s eyes snap open. Y/N is staring up at him as he holds her tight to his chest. Her eyes are groggy and her hair is a rumpled mess. 

She’s absolutely beautiful. 

The panic of his dream fades. Y/N’s presence alone,  tucked close to him, soothes man and beast. He inhales her soft scent slowly, savoring each sweet note of it, letting it meld into this memory to keep with him forevermore. He’s racing heart slows.

“Hey, Killer” She mumbles, squirming slightly in his grasp “mind loosening up the grip some?” 

His fingers loosen around her waist as he realizes how hard he’s been holding on. He tries to pull his arm back, make space but she’s grabbing his hand and laying it softly on her hip. Y/N’s fingers trail up and over his cheek making him look down into her sleep lidded eyes. Its intimate in a way Harrison’s never experienced before. 

“Don’t run away from me.” her voice is still thick with fatigue but it holds something reassuring in it. She didn’t want him away from her. “You were getting all jumpy, bad dream?”

Trying to remember the details of the dream she’d woken him from Harrison finds he’s already forgetting about the details, left with only a nagging sense of dread. He brushes a few stray hairs from her eyes, “something like that.” He mutters.

Y/N burrows in closer, her bare leg tangling between his. Apparently, sober y/n was just as much an octopus as drunk Y/N was. He loves it and allows himself to curl around her.

She’s still in his shirt,  likely hungover, and judging by the yawn she tries to stifle, still very sleepy. He’s hungry, anxious, and it’s well past any sensible time he’d normally get up but, after last night, Harrison feels like he’s looking at everything through fresh eyes, a new tilt on the situation. Nothing and everything is perfect all at once. This isn’t like the very sporadic hook-ups he’s brought home. Y/N is his… he won’t even think the word not when there’s so much to explain. Not when he doesn’t know how she’ll react. Did she even feel half the emotion stirring in her that he had overwhelming him? He’s sure she can’t. How could she be thinking about the rest of her life with him… or without him? Her face is not the face of someone trying to convince their would be lover that, though it has only been a short time, the thought of spending the rest of forever with them is something she’d willingly do.

 Y/N’s fingers card through his hair lazily. They pluck and twist random strands as if in a trance. He could get used to this, he thinks. He wants to be used to this.  No one night stand, no casual girlfriend, has made him question so many things in such a short time. None of them has piqued the interest of the wolf. His other half agrees. The wolf inside is smug with the knowledge that their mate was safe and secure in their bed. He urges Harrison to take the next step, to court her and make her theirs, to mark-

“What are you thinking?” She asks dreamily, “you look far away.”

Harrison’s thumb strokes tiny circles over her hip and she sighs, seemingly content. “Nothing important” he lies smoothly pushing his instincts to the back burner.

Her warm breath tickles at his skin as she nuzzles against his bare chest. His body responds in a very familiar way, blood rushing from his head down into his groin.  Her lips graze against him and Harrison can’t help the low sound that rumbles through his chest.  Y/N looks up with a mix of amusement and confusion.  “What was that?”

Harrison gives a lazy shrug. What was he going to say? I’m a werewolf and that’s just my happy noise? 

Yeah, that was not going to happen.

“Not sure what you’re talking about, Love.”

Y/N rolls her hips against his and Harrison’s grip tightens on her hip. A soft sound escapes her lips. It’s needy and sweet and he squeezes again as he presses his own hips into her. Her eyes darken as his hardness  presses low against her belly. One hand grips his shoulder as she presses up from the bed with her other arm. Harrison is ready to roll back and guide her body over his but her face twitches. Y/N releases her grip on him and shakes her head. A grimaces mars her features as she flops back against the pillow. Harrison’s brows knit together as her eyes slam shut and she makes a pathetic, pained sound.

“Ugghh, I drank way too much last night.” she mutters miserably “The world is spinning.”

Even mildly frustrated, he can’t help but laugh softly at her groan. “You need some water.” He casually readjusts himself as she clenches her eyes shut.

“And an aspirin” she agrees. Her nose wrinkles in distaste as she sniffs at her arm “and a shower.”

Leaning in, Harrison gently presses his lips to her forehead. His voice is muffled against her skin “I have all of those things.”

“A regular Prince Charming” she murmurs as he rolls away. Y/N makes grabby hands but he ignores them while he moves to retrieve the hangover necessities and start the shower. 

He has to help her sit as he hands over the aspirin and a bottle of water. Y/N swallows half the bottle down like a champ, before setting it down and placing her hands in her lap. Her cheeks are pink as she speaks. “I don’t usually do things like this.”

“Get drunk and pass out in someone else's bed? I would hope not” he chuffs. “But, If it makes you feel better, as long as it’s my bed you're passing out in, I promise I won’t judge” Y/N’s cheeks grow pinker as she glances down at her twiddling thumbs “I think I might be able to promise that.” She glances up quickly, eyes locking on his soft blues. Something flashes there that makes his chest tight and his breath catch. It’s gone just as soon as it appears but he would give anything to see it again. His hand strokes along the soft flesh of her thigh where his tee has risen up. Silence reigns comfortably between the pair while she finishes the bottle of water. 

“You said you’d like a shower? It’s running. If you want I can go scavenge some breakfast” he glances at the alarm clock “or lunch, as it may be,while you use it.”

Steam is already spilling from the em suite as she moves carefully from bed, gifting him with a sweet kiss on the nose as she brushes past him.

He watches her step carefully into the en suite, unashamed as his eyes trail up her thighs to where they disappear under his shirt.

Emily is perched atop the marble counter when Harrison meanders into the kitchen. There’s something different she can’t quite put her finger on. Haz always moved with confidence. He was charming and self assured. He owned every room he entered and he knew it but now… it was cliche, but he was fucking glowing. 

“Harrison Osterfield” she clucks, pursing her lips “You didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

Harrison narrows his eyes and Emily feels a pang of guilt. She went a bit too far last night and she owed him an apology not an accusation.

“I slept with her. I didn’t fuck her” He deadpans “Im offended you’d think i’d stoop so low but than again you were pretty clear on your thoughts about how I’m going about this.”

Again, it stings, cuts her to the quick. 

“Haz, I’m sorry. I went a little off the deep end last night.”

“Yeah you did.” he growls half heartedly before his shoulders slump slightly. He moves to her and cups the back of her head, pressing their foreheads together. “Em, I love you like my sister. I don’t want to be mad at you but you gotta understand-”

“I do!” Emily’s hand smoothes over the back of his hair for a moment before the pair separate. “I mean I’m trying, but you have to understand what I’m seeing.”

Harrison’s eyes are searching as he pulls back to look at her. She doesn’t look away. He nods after a minute. 

“Alright than. We’ll just call this apology accepted?”

Emily lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She nods as Harrison steps away and busies himself with the coffee pot. Hopping from the counter she moves to the fridge and begins pulling out to-go containers. When Harrison cocks his head at the spread she’s laying she starts popping lids off. 

“I may have run by the cafe to grab a peace offering.”

Harrison’s gentle smile lets her know that he hadn’t just said her apology was accepted, it truly was. 

Tom’s second in command rummages in a drawer before grabbing a spoon. He scoops a big helping of tabouli straight from a nearby container and into his mouth. Green flecks of parsley speckle his teeth as he grins her way. Emily huffs softly and snatches the container away from him. 

“No eating from the carton, ya heathen” His long fingers make a grab for it but she spins out of this reach. He pouts playfully as he  begins glancing underneath the other lids. 

“Does your mate know you’re such a brat?” Emily watches as her friend’s spine stiffens. When he looks up she easily sees the look in his eyes. He is the anti-thesis of himself in that moment, lacking in confidence or swagger as he glances toward the door and fidgets with the spoon still in hand, tapping it against his palm.

“How did you know?”

Emily smiles softly, a far off memory warms the depths of her heart, “I remember Tom looking the same way at me as you do at Y/N. Last night? Yeah, that was a look I knew well.” She shrugs, moving to grab some plates from a high cupboard. “I mean, I didn’t know what it meant at the time-”

“About that…” when Emily’s attention moves back to him he offers a nervous smile of his own. “How do I tell her? I mean… how should Tom have-” he shakes his head softly, “Fuck” he grumbles. “M’sorry, Em. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I don’t even know how to speak when I’m thinking about her.”

Emily takes pity on the man. Her smile is gentle. She loved her boys. Even before the attack that had turned her into what she was today she’d been fiercely loyal and protective of what would become her pack, her wolf only making her more so as the changes had happened. 

The changes...how could she have been prepared for all of this? Would it have eased the trauma, the fear? It’s something she’d thought about a million times over the last five years. How should Tom have told her what he was? How should he have brought her into his world? How could he have prevented what had happened to her? There was no right answer because hindsight, being what it was, wouldn’t allow for it. Emily closes the distance between them and leans her head on his shoulder.

“Is this just an… Is it just an instinct thing or is it-” She glances up and takes in the faraway gaze in Harrison’s eyes, the way he inhales deeply like he’s trying to get even the faintest hint of Y/N. 

“I think it’s L-” he falters with the word, “I think it is. It’s too soon, right? I mean these things are supposed to take time and all that. I’m a div...” Emily presses a finger to his lips.

“Haz, shut up. No one said there’s a right or a wrong way to fall in love, if that’s what it is to you. It’s ok if it’s not, too. I never thought I’d see the day when you would worry so much about the right and wrong way to care for someone.” she laughs as she pulls her hand back, lifts her head from his  shoulder. Their sensitive ears both pick up the sound of footsteps padding down the upstairs hall and toward the stairs. “Don’t worry so much about how it is and isn’t supposed to happen. Let yourself enjoy the process but” she pauses for a second, “If it is love and you're sure and you want what it is I think you want, you need to tell her. I don’t know what the right way is but I do know the wrong way.” 

Harrison presses his lips gently to her forehead right as Y/N rounds the corner. Her eyes widen for a moment but it seems to not bother her. Emily has thought about it. At one time she’d thought that no one, not born into their life, was meant for it. Then she met Y/N.  She seems to thrive off the casual closeness that wolves saw as an everyday commonality. She was borderline touch starved, honestly. Y/N only proves Emily’s point when she makes a beeline for her, a small crease between her brows as she walks into the arms Emily has opened for her.

“M’mad at you” Y/N mumbles against her chest and Emily laughs, wrapping her arms around her and stroking her still damp hair.  She is swimming in one of Harrison’s workout shirts and has a pair of his sweats riding low on her hips. Emily sees the hungry look flash in the males eyes.

“You got me drunk” Y/N accuses weakly.

“Pretty sure you did that to yourself. Maybe you’ll know better next time.”

Harrison huffs and you both look up and over to him, sulking with his hip pressed against the marble. He opens his arms wide and motions Y/N  over.  She wiggles from Emily’s grasp and turns to nuzzle into Harrison’s. Em can’t help but admire what a smart looking pair the two make. 

“Next time I’ll be there to be the voice of reason.” Harrison murmurs against the top of Y/N’s head. Maybe he wasn’t willing to admit it just yet, but the alpha female can see the love lighting his eyes as Y/N leans up and gives him a soft kiss on the chin. His wolf had declared Y/N his mate but Harrison was wholly on board. For him it was as good as a deal done. Y/N herself has seemingly come to a crossroad, Emily notes. Where she’d been a woman nervous and apprehensive about an upcoming date yesterday, today she’s pressed into the same man’s arms with an utter lack of care for the world around her. She looks to have a familiarity with the blonde that Emily hadn’t seen before. 

“Shall I heat some of this up.” She asks after moment gesturing to the spread of food. Y/N’s eyes light up as she turns in Harrison’s arms. Emily laugh is bright and melodic when her friends arms tighten around Y/N’s waist, unwilling to let her loose for one second.

Harrison’s only been gone a short while and your lips still feel swollen and tender from the press of his before he left.  Near on twenty minutes with your back pressed against the door of your place and your lips locked with his and you still hadn’t been able to convince him to come inside. He’d given you that killer smile and an excuse about being a gentleman. It was frustratingly endearing.

As you put a kettle on, finally alone, you have time to reflect on the last 24 hours. This time yesterday your tummy had been a bundle of nerves as you’d thought about your upcoming dinner date. You still had the feeling but it was different now. Harrison’s intentions were for more clear. Though he hadn’t said it his actions had spoken volumes. He’d called Tom during lunch and told him he was taking the day off. You wouldn’t have though much of it if you hadn’t seen Emily’s raised brow and his smile and shrug in response. Cat had told you he had “a lot on his plate” but he shelved it for a day to spend with you curled up in his bed watching movies and recovering for your escapades the previous night. In fact, you feel almost lost now without having him close, touching you. You haven't felt like this since… you’ve actually never felt this way. Being in Harrison’s sphere was addicting. His focus on you made you feel wanted in a way previous relationships. Neither of you knew truly anything about the other but somehow you thought that didn’t matter. There was a pull, something beautiful and wild and unknown to you that made each moment you spent with him feel like something from a dream. 

As the kettle whistles and you move to make a cuppa you remember the way his arm engulfed you as you’d both napped earlier in the day. The heat radiating from his body, the natural scent of him, soap and cedar, lulling you to sleep. The soft kisses to your temple as you slowly woke, drowsy but refreshed. Harrison drew out a feeling of intimacy in you that was unmatched and you hadn’t even sealed the deal yet, hadn’t even come close. But you wanted to. 

You try not to think of all the problems that these new found feelings were going to create. You were still only here temporarily. The hospitals contract kept you around for another month and a half and then? A knot formed in your stomach as you drop a couple lumps of sugar into the hot tea. How were you going to leave if you fell in love?

TagList: @tomsrebeleyebrow​, @hazmyheart​, @the-southernbelle​, @definitely-not-black-cat​, @shantillycream​, @thornonmyrose​ @crazyfreaker @fanficparker

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

The Detour 2

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Thor

Summary: You find yourself stranded in a small village.

Part of the Backwoods AU

Note: So this is an idea I had for a while but I just know I wouldn’t get to do it full length for chapters but I hope it’s fun.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

“Hmmm,” Vol tugs on his red beard, wiry white hairs springing up, “looks like when you veered, you snapped part of the axel.”

“What does that mean?” You tap your toe impatiently.

“Well, it means even with a new tire, you won't be driving off into the sunset,” he shrugs and crosses his arms, “fix like this could take a week. If it's fixable. And if I can mend it, it won't hold for long. Likely need a full replacement.”

“You're kidding me,” you scoff.

“Look, it's good business for me but I wish I was,” he slaps the white finish of the car, leaving a grease mark that has your fingers itching.

“So… what do I do?”

“Hmm?” He furrows his thick brows.

“I'm supposed to be in the city tomorrow. I have a tour booked of the Cathedral and I'm supposed to go to the museum–”

“Not too sure about that,” he sniffs.

“It's just a car. Scrap it then. I'll get a rental–”

“From?”

“Pardon?”

“A rental from where? Got them in the city but no rentals here.”

“What– well, surely someone around here would sell me something.”

“Don't think anyone has a spare car hanging about,” he chuckles.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Not at all,” he counters, “just saying.”

“So I'm stuck here?”

“Suppose…”

“You suppose?” You throw your hands up.

“There's accommodation around here. A B&B up near Thunder Lane.”

“How far is that?” You check the time on your watch, not that it matters much.

“On foot, a good forty or so. I can drive you up in about ten,” he offers.

“How much would that be?” You touch your shoulder, realising your purse is in the car.

“None,” he blinks, “I don't mind. I live on the other side.”

“Mm, that's very… kind,” you glance around, “I'll grab my things then. I'll take the night To reconfigure….”

You trail off. You’re certain he doesn't care. You look at your car, still mounted on the jack.

“What do you need, miss? Don't want you to get hurt.”

“Purse is in the front seat, my bags are in the trunk,” you explain.

He nods and turns. The large fleece lined flannel over his coveralls makes him seen even bigger. He pulls open the front door and reaches for your purse. He uses the mechanism on the door to pop the trunk before he comes back around.

He hands you your purse and you wipe the stain from the cream leather. He looks in the back, “you need all these?”

“Just that one,” you step closer and point, “oh and this one.”

“Right,” he hauls out the round valise and the vintage rolling suitcase. “You sure that's enough?”

He faces you with half a smirk.

“Thanks,” you ignore his joke, “frankly, I just want to be in one place. Alone.”

“Of course,” he shuts the trunk roughly and the car bounces, “I gotta lock up before we head out but I'll get the truck nice and warmed up and you can wait in there. How's that?” He looks down at your stilettos, “your feet must be killing you.”

“No,” you say defiantly.

“Ah, well, still, don't want you to stain your fancy clothes in here,” he insists, “come on then.”

🌄

As much as you already abhor this place, you must admit the B&B is adequate. Vol steers up through the gates and along the curved driveway that leads to a marble fountain trimmed with finely kept hedges. He stops before the broad stairs as you peer up at the grand double doors. It could be called a countryside palace.

The mechanic's weight shifts the cabin as he hops out and to your surprise, comes to open your door. You give him a look as you step down, your heels catching in the mosaic stonework. You clutch your purse tight and consider the full expanse of the landscaping.

“I'll get your bags,” he opens the backdoor of the cabin.

“Do they not have a bellhop?”

“Here?” He snorts as he brings out your bags, one in each hand.

“Right,” you accept. The village probably doesn't have the population to staff the immense hotel. “Thank you, sir. You've been very helpful.”

“I can bring them in.”

“Not necessary,” you assure him, “thank you again. I'll call tomorrow about the car.”

“Sure,” he accepts as you latch onto the bags.

The valice brings your arm down sharply as you struggle to yank the wheeled bag closer on the stonework. He made them look much lighter than they are.

“Good night, sir.”

You spin and march off, a janky, awkward gait in your heels as the bag bounces behind you. You get to the steps and look at the top. You ignore the idling truck as you take in the logistics of the ascent. It's only five steps. In these shoes, it may as well be triple.

You rest the valice on the rolling bag and huff. You shake out your arms and hike your purse high on your shoulder. You push down the long handle of the suitcase and instead grab the handle on top, hugging the valice to it as you lift it one step ahead of you.

You plant the wheels and pant, swaying in your heels. The second step is no easier. The third has you stopping a bit longer.

You turn and look at the tow truck and scowl. You wave him off with agitation. He revs and rumbles around the fountain, leaving you.

“Need some assistance?” A baritone thunders over you. You whip around to face the same burly blond as before.

“You!” You exclaim.

“Me,” he grins, “you're having a hard time.”

“No,” you insist.

You snatch the valice and hook it on your elbow. You grab the handle of the suitcase and grunt, dragging it up the steps with all your effort. It jars you dangerously on the top step and nearly has you tipping over.

“Hm, I was only going to offer my help.”

“Don't need it. Thanks,” you snip, “why don't you mind your business?”

“This Is my business,” he snickers, “well, my parents’ still have their names on the deed but it'll be mine soon enough.”

You bat your lashes and roll your eyes, “fine,” you shove your bag against his stomach, hard, “I need a suite. Now.”

He laughs even louder as he grabs onto your valise, “of course, your highness,” he backs up and reaches to open a door, “this way.”

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter three

Charlie’s place is frickin’ awesome.

That said, Dean doesn’t understand most of her decor. There’s a surprisingly beautiful oil painting of what looks like the bushy-haired girl from Harry Potter standing over the corpse of a monster with a face made of teeth; Charlie called it the Demogorgon, which clarified precisely nothing. On another wall, there’s a giant framed poster of the little shruggie emoticon dude, which, on closer inspection, is itself made of other shruggie emoticon dudes. In the center of the foyer stands a life-size marble statue of Poison Ivy, flanked on either side by two huge suits of armor, armed with iron flails.

Then, of course, the crowning jewels: a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling flatscreen TV and a tiny blue console that ostensibly contains every video game ever made. Charlie calls it the Deus ExBox.

“I swear to Jack,” Charlie mutters, fingers smashing against the controller buttons, “if you say ‘get over here’ one more time—”

Dean shrugs as much as he’s able while spamming the square button. “It’s the best move!”

“Yeah,” Charlie snorts, “and you cheese it.” She presses several buttons at once, and her character - a skinny brunette in a hilarious and mildly sexy bathing suit - kicks Dean’s guy about thirty damn times.

Dean makes a frenetic motion with the controller and goes full button mash. “You cheese Mileena! With your stupid tele-drop—”

“Hey,” Charlie starts, turning briefly to glare at Dean, “Mileena’s my main, ok—”

Dean uses the moment of distraction to pull the joystick hard to the left, tapping square one last time. His character - a rippling muscled dude in a skintight suit with a yellow loincloth - casts his spear at Mileena, yelling a guttural ‘Get over here!’

Mileena’s health bar drops to zero, and she sways back and forth. Dean gives Charlie a smirking side-eye.

She shakes her head and points a blunt-nailed finger at him. “Dean, don’t you dare. Dean.”

Dean gives her a winning smile and moves the joystick side to side, thumb hovering over the X button.

“Dean, don’t you dare toasty me—”

He taps the X, and Scorpion spits a pillar of flame at Mileena.

Fatality, the screen reads. Scorpion wins.

Charlie stares blankly for a moment, slack-jawed and dull-eyed, before cutting a glare at Dean. “I literally hate you.”

Dean’s mouth pulls into a wide grin, and he raises his hands in a shrug. “C’mon, who could hate this face.”

“What face?” Charlie grumbles. “All I see is a butt.”

Dean gives a bark of laughter, and his cheeks ache. He’s learned that Charlie is an appallingly poor sport, and her swearing tirades in the wake of a loss amuse him to no end.

She gives him a mild glare, betrayed by the play of a smile around her mouth, and reaches for her giant pint glass - ‘it’s a stein, you philistine’ - only to frown down at the flat dregs. She shifts as if to stand, then her face lights up, and she smiles over at Dean. “Hey, check this out,” she says, and the childlike excitement in her voice has Dean leaning forward. She raises the stein overhead and bellows, “Beer me!”

Her glass refills itself, bottom to top, an inch of fluffy white head settling over translucent gold. Dean’s brows rise, and his lips tick up. “See now, that I could get used to.”

Charlie gives him a self-congratulatory smile and passes the glass to Dean. He tips his head in thanks and takes a gulp, face scrunching up at the taste.

“Ugh, god,” he sputters, setting the glass down heavily on the low coffee table. “What is that?”

Charlie’s lips turn down in a dramatic pout. “Stella Artois.”

Ugh. What are they, at a bachelorette party in the Hamptons? “Aren’t you supposed to be a lesbian?”

Charlie gives him an unimpressed glare and hoists herself off the couch. “I’m a chapstick power alpha, thank you very much.”

Dean’s sure he knows what all those words mean individually, but- “Yeah, I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

Charlie rolls her eyes and skips towards the kitchen, tapping the Yoda bobble head on the bookshelf as she passes it. There are several other action figures on the shelf, and a bunch of other tchotchkes, most of which he can barely make out in the dim fluorescent light. He glances over at the windows framing the dining table; he figures Charlie’s gotta have a great view, being situated so near the lake. But the curtains - done in a deep, velvety purple that looks like some sort of magic fur - are drawn, the afternoon light pooling just around the bottom.

Dean feels his brow wrinkle. “Hey,” he calls, “why are your curtains closed?”

“What?” comes Charlie’s muffled voice.

Dean rolls his eyes and waits until she comes around the corner with two dark bottles of IPA. “Why are your curtains closed?”

She raises her eyebrows at him, flopping herself onto the couch. “Cuz the sun’s out? Duh?”

Dean takes a bottle from her hand, twists off the cap. “You don’t like it?”

Charlie gives him a dry look. “Dude. I’m a pasty code-jockey otaku.”

This time, Dean isn’t sure he knows what any of those words mean. He squints at her, shaking his head.

She sighs. “Sunlight could kill me.”

Dean snorts a laugh. “Ah.” He vaguely remembers a case he’d worked solo while Sam was at university: a teenage boy had spawned a Tulpa while writing a (surprisingly good) web comic. Dean had interviewed him in his dorm room - all empty Mountain Dew bottles and half-eaten bowls of ramen. Kid looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in years.

Back then, Dean had told him to pull the comic from his site and go the hell outside. Now, Dean feels mild envy for him and Charlie both.

“I miss rain,” Dean says, and it feels like a confession.

Charlie turns toward him and tilts her head, expression curious and bemused.

Dean harrumphs and adjusts his seat. “I mean, I like the—” he gestures vaguely toward the window, “—the picnic weather, too, I just...” he trails off, noting Charlie’s scrunched frown, and shrugs. “I dunno. Sam says there’re storms, past the mountain.”

Charlie’s brow smoothes at that, and she perks up, grabbing her stein with both hands. “Probably. All kinds of weird stuff over there.” She takes a long swig and gives a tiny burp that has Dean huffing a laugh. “You seen the mini forest in the field?”

Dean sobers and shakes his head. “He said that’s where the storm was.”

“Oh,” Charlie murmurs. “Huh. Wasn’t last time I saw it.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been over the mountain?” He tries to picture her with a bindle in place of an iPhone and hiking boots in lieu of her Converse, but comes up short.

Charlie smirks at him and takes another gulp, licking the foam from her top lip. “I may have spent my first afternoon here flying around on a broomstick like Harry Potter.”

Dean tips his head back in a nod. He really should’ve guessed that. He brings his bottle to his mouth, taking a cautious sniff to make sure he’s not drinking any more of that wimpy shit, and gives Charlie a sidelong glance. “Did you catch the snitch?”

Charlie beams. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

Dean shakes his head and smiles. “Attagirl.” He takes a long drink, enough to clear the neck, and savors the bitter hoppy flavor on his tongue. It’s a damn sight better than the swill he’s had with Bobby. Or whatever the fuck Stella Artois is.

“It was on fire.”

Dean swallows and cuts a glance at Charlie. “What?”

“The forest,” she says, smoothing a finger over the lip of her glass. “I mean, not the whole thing, just a couple trees near this, like, barn thing? They were all charred.” She tilts her head, considering. “Coulda been lightning, I guess? I dunno.”

Dean feels a pit open up in his stomach, strange and unbidden. He sets his beer down on the table, butting it up against his controller. “You tell the Arch?”

Charlie shrugs. “Kevin said not to worry about it.”

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and he turns fully toward her. “You talked to Kevin?”

When he’d heard through the grapevine that Kevin had finally made it over, Dean had sent Jack a silent, thankful prayer. He’s thought about checking in on the kid, but word has it he’s top dog at the Library - the new and improved Scribe of Heaven. Dean figures that’s about as close to ‘advanced placement’ as the kid is likely to get, this side of the pearly gates.

“I stopped by the Library,” Charlie says, nonchalant. Then she gives Dean a mischievous grin, raising her glass to her mouth. “Wanted to see if they had Lady Death in Lingerie.”

Dean frowns. “Is that... Is that porn?”

Charlie smirks at him. “It’s a comic, but... yes, yes it is.”

Dean blinks hard and gives her an incredulous look. “You got Kevin out of the Library ... for cartoon porn?”

“Hey,” Charlie demurs, “you don’t get to say anything about cartoon porn, I’ve seen your browser history.” Dean rolls his eyes even as his face warms, but doesn’t offer a defense.

“And no,” she continues, eyes going shifty. “He let me in.”

Charlie’s posture is stiff, her eyes round with manufactured innocence. She was a shit liar when she was alive, and she’s an even shittier one dead.

Dean gives her a blatantly doubtful look. “He let you in.”

Charlie puffs her cheeks out and her eyes dart side to side. For a second, she looks like she might try to stick to her guns, but she blows out a sigh instead. “Okay,” she concedes. “Maybe ‘let’ isn’t the right word.”

Dean breathes out a mildly bewildered laugh, pressing his forehead to the bottle in his hands. “You broke into Heaven’s Library?”

Her tiny white hands rise in a shameless shrug. “You can take the girl out of the corporate espionage scheme...”

Dean shakes his head, smiling wry but wide, stomach aching with laughter. “Pretty hardcore,” he says, then faces forward. “For a nerd.” He takes another short sip, noting Charlie’s scowl in his peripheral vision.

“Well,” she huffs and grabs her stein, “you’re pretty ripped.” She lets that hang for a moment, until Dean looks over at her, brows raised. “For a handmaiden,” she smirks and takes a smug pull.

Dean rolls his eyes and nods around a dry smile. Charlie gives a tittering laugh that he can’t help but return, and he polishes off his beer, shoulder butted up against hers.

He stares down into the empty bottle, turning it between his thumb and middle finger. “So Kevin said it’s fine?” he asks. He keeps his tone mild so as not to betray his peculiar unease, but he can’t quite suppress the note of concern. “Tiny burnt forest with lightning and a creepy barn?”

She shrugs and chugs the last inch of her beer in a great swallow. “I guess?” she says, voice thick. “I don’t know.” She belches for a solid three seconds, and Dean turns his lips down, impressed. “Got the feeling it was kinda...” she tips her head side to side, “top secret? Maybe not, like, nuclear football level, but… something.”

Dean snorts and glares into the chasm inside his beer bottle. “What, you think Heaven’s got an Area 51?”

Charlie shrugs again, grabbing her controller to select a new fighter. “Stranger things, I guess.”

Dean nods absently and casts his eyes about the room. The shruggie guy is still shrugging, Yoda’s head still bobbing, Ivy’s white marble eyes staring sightlessly toward the door. Dean’s gaze settles on a painting he hadn’t noticed, tucked into the corner behind a threadbare recliner: an abstract composition of flowing indigo and teal, offset by swathes of pale yellow edged in pink, with a crooked pillar of white rising up the center. Dean’s not much of a one for fine art, but something tells him this is a masterpiece. Ageless and tragic and blue, it tugs at a rough-sawn edge in his chest. He thinks it might be a flower or a river. Or a cloud. Or maybe a bruise.

It looks familiar, like he’s seen it in a textbook or possibly a museum. Then again, in Dean’s very short - and very, very long - life, he figures he’s seen just about everything.

Abstraction Blue by Georgia O'Keeffe

chapter two | chapter four

table of contents

[boxofcaringlove]

I post this in three parts because it’s very long. PART ONE | PART THREE  

         Might include some spoilers, if you haven’t played the game.                                Feel free to change the sentence.

❝Should’a known better. You got a good heart, but you’re about as sharp as marble.❞

❝Go home, [name]. This doesn’t concern you.❞ ❝Like hell! I lost my right arm because of him!❞

❝I couldn’t protect [name]. To this day, I hate myself for not having enough strength. But this time is different. I swear! I’m not letting you die!❞

❝Clever little devil came to see me right before his last job.❞

❝Time for some payback.❞

❝Who was that guy? Can’t believe he just ran...❞

❝The brothers of blood disagree on the very reason of their existence. They must fight.❞

❝I got some good news and some bad news... Pick your poison, which you wanna hear first?❞

❝Aww, you were just told to get some rest? Well we need to make a path, so start digging.❞

❝You hear what I said, you dumb one-armed son of a bitch!?❞

❝Nice, getting the band back together, huh?❞

❝Pardon my delay, I was catching up on some reading.❞

❝For if you can’t defeat me, then you’ve already lost.❞

❝Idiots...❞

❝Hey, ya happen to see a guy around here, about this big, uses a cane? I’m supposed to meet him. Did you snack on him?❞

❝How does one friggin’ guy have so much luck, huh!?❞

❝Hey, you have to hit every single bump in the road?❞

❝I know, I know, I’m late. Shut it!❞

❝Our last hope, [name]... was completely useless.❞

❝What was that demon, [name]? Where did it come from? [name] is not a demon. I know that for a fact because I’m from the underworld.❞

❝You know, I bet you taste like chicken...❞

❝My dumbass brother’s back, and I’m gonna rip him a new one.❞

❝But if you had even a little bit of trouble defeating us, imagine what [name] can do to you.❞

❝Weak mortal. Demon power does not course through your veins. Yet, you try... How dare you strike me!? You will regret... being born useless and human. I will show you... your worst nightmares! I will give you... despair and death!❞

❝Hey, is that the damn fruit that you’ve been jabberin’ about? Doesn't look so special to me.❞

❝Hey, psycho! Watch the merchandise!❞

❝I was just told to get some rest.❞

❝Did you just sniff that? Do you have any idea where that’s been?❞

❝It doesn’t make you a crybaby. Does make you a little bitch though.❞

❝You’re gonna need some help... And someone to keep an eye on you.❞

❝Oh, brother. You cut off your own son’s arm for more power, and you still lost.❞

❝[name], go! You’re just a dead weight.❞

❝Ew! You, like, flirtin’ with me?❞

❝I don’t even have the words. I--He’s alive, he’s alive!❞

❝I know, smells like hot garbage.❞

❝The demon is your “reason”... Your reason for fighting.❞

❝Hey, stop bitchin’ and take cover!❞

❝This ends, right here. I won’t let you kill each other. There are other ways of settling your differences. I’m putting a stop to this sibling rivalry.❞ ❝Ahh, you came all this way just for that.❞

❝I wouldn’t be here without him, that’s a biological fact.❞

❝Time is a luxury that we can no longer afford.❞

❝No body? No dried up [name] jerky? Nothin’?❞

❝Yo, [name], wake up! It’s time to get to work.❞

❝Why do you think I’m goin’? Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on your old man.❞

❝Have you lost your mind? There’s a demon to destroy! Kill yourself later! I’ll help!❞

[artificialqueens]

drawing new lines, chapter two (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr: plastiquetiaras) | (word count: 3514)

AN: Thank you SO so much for the lovely response to the first chapter. I’m so glad you guys are enjoying it so far as much as I am. This story is so, so fun to write and such a lovely refresher from the angst trains I usually end up on while writing. Hope you enjoy this chapter as well! Writ, as usual, is the most wonderful beta.

Vanessa is already bouncing in the Starbucks line before even getting her sweet, sweet hit of caffeine. But she’s two days into this fake dating business, and the real finesse is about to start.

“Hi, welcome to Starbucks, what would you like?”

“Can I have a grande blonde roast, two creams, two sugars…and a grande dark roast, black with room for milk?”

Vanessa’s own coffee needs to be chock-full of sugar in order for her to be able to drink it, but Brooke? Vanessa’s not quite sure what she likes, but a dark roast with cream and sugar brought on the side seems like a safe option.

Silky and A’keria look at her with questions on their faces as they wait for their drinks to finish, A’keria already munching on her breakfast sandwich.

“Why you ordering two?” Silky’s looking at her with narrowed eyes, and it’s all Vanessa can do to not yell in excitement as she tries to keep herself blasé.

“Oh, no reason. Thought I’d drop by Brooke’s office, that’s all. We going on a date tonight.” She holds her fingers out in front of her, inspects her cuticles, as if it’s an everyday statement, a normal occurrence to go out with the office building’s most eligible bachelorette.

Which it completely isn’t, by the way that A’keria slams her breakfast sandwich down on the counter.

“You’re what?” Silky’s yell makes other customers around them turn around, stare, and Vanessa doesn’t even care, because the looks on Silky and A’keria’s faces are enough to keep her laughing for days.

“Goddamn, Vanj. You really got that blonde skyscraper to agree to go on a date with you?” A’keria looks mildly impressed. “To be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I told y’all, I’m a catch.” Sure, Vanessa’s voice is a bit haughty for someone who is absolutely not going on a proper date with Brooke, rather a fake one, but regardless. She’s gonna milk it.

“I’m surprised someone sees it.” A’keria shares a look with Silky, who is shaking her head in disbelief. “Even more surprised that it’s her.”

“No one can resist the Vanjie charm.” With that, Vanessa picks up both drinks, winking at her friends before heading to the elevators. “Deuces!”

Brooke is mildly amused when Vanessa swings by her office, placing the coffee in her empty hand. “How’d you know I like my coffee black?”

Vanessa raises an eyebrow at her. “You look like the kind of person who thinks that putting sugar and cream in coffee ruins the taste or something.”

“It does actually, it-” Brooke pauses when she sees Vanessa snickering. “Hmph, never mind.”

“You enjoy your boring coffee, and imma enjoy this sugary goodness.” Vanessa’s own drink smells like caffeinated heaven, and so what if she takes a big sniff of the cup? No one’s judging her.

Okay, maybe Brooke is, from the way a single eyebrow of hers is raised, but Vanessa also doesn’t care.

“You are absolutely going to have a sugar crash in an hour or two from that.” Brooke points at her cup as she takes another swig.

“Bold of you to assume my body hasn’t built up an immunity to sugar because of how much of it I have on the daily.”

“You’re ridiculous.” But Brooke laughs as she’s saying it, a real laugh, by the way her eyes are crinkling at the edges.

“Count on it.” Vanessa plops into Brooke’s fancy desk chair, her office a stark contrast from Vanessa’s cubicle. “Damn, this is comfy. D’you have to buy this shit? Or did they just give it to you?”

“Amazon, actually. I have a bad back.” Brooke leans against her own desk, facing Vanessa. Her legs look like they go on forever in her heeled boots, though Vanessa is absolutely not focusing on them, no ma’am.

“Send me the link, would you? I wanna pimp out my boring cubicle.”

Brooke snorts. “Now that’s a trashy reality show I would watch.”

“Speaking of which, we got our first fake date tonight.” Vanessa crosses one leg over the other in the office chair, leans back against it. “I’m thinking shitty TV show marathon.”

Brooke raises an eyebrow. “You wanna Netflix and chill on the first date?”

“What? We’re not actually-” Vanessa sputters on her words, because Brooke’s looking at her with a note of amusement in her eyes. “Damn, you making me sound like I got a one track mind, mama.”

“I mean, it’s our first date, isn’t it? You gotta take me somewhere classy first, treat me real nice.” Brooke is fully enjoying the conversation at Vanessa’s expense, leaning forward as she winks at her. “If you wanna keep a lady around you have to make her feel like a queen, y’know.”

“Goddamn, not even real dating and we got demands here.” But it doesn’t deter Vanessa in the least - in fact, if Brooke wants to enjoy this scam that they’re pulling off, Vanessa’s gonna make sure she does by planning the best damn date ever.

Vanessa discovers that she has incredible difficulty planning the ‘best damn date ever,’ even when it’s fake.

“Y’all, where do I take her? I ain’t planned shit! Just told her to dress up real nice, now she expecting something special and my dumbass was so excited for the date that I forgot to plan. Shit!”

To an outsider, it looks like Vanessa’s officially lost her marbles, talking to herself. While she certainly does feel that way, she’s got her good Judys on the open FaceTime screen, ready to help her in times of crisis such as these.

Vanessa’s rifling through her closet, pulling out dress after dress because none of them will work, not in the least. They’re too short or too nun-like or too thotty - she needs the perfect amount of classy, and it’s nowhere to be found.

“Vanj. Vanj. That fancy restaurant uptown?”

Silky’s suggestion is nice, sure, but absolutely no help. “That place has been booked up for months, Silk. Ain’t no way we gonna get a reservation for tonight.”

“Take her to a movie or some shit, then balance it with a mediocre restaurant. They’ll cancel each other out.” A’keria’s suggestion is smart, sensible, but-

“But that’s so boring, that’s what everyone does on every first date to ever exist. I wanna wow her.”

Vanessa’s not even sure why it matters so much to her - the date is not even a real date, for crying out loud. But part of her still wants to impress Brooke, make her enjoy herself, because she’s still taking time out of her own evening to spend with Vanessa after all, real or not.

“I ain’t got nothing left for you.” Silky shrugs, grabbing another handful of popcorn that she’s popped specifically to watch Vanessa’s dramatics. “You on your own. It’s now or never.”

Vanessa looks out the window of her apartment, sees the glittering lights and sky scrapers that feel so far away and-

“Shit y’all, I’ve got it!”

“Planetarium, huh?”

Brooke’s impressed - Vanessa can tell these types of things. It makes her more excited than she wants to admit.

“Ah y’know, nice chill first date material.” As if Vanessa hasn’t already tried to pat herself on the back for coming up with it. “Anyone tell you that you look killer, by the way?”

Brooke does, in a black knee length dress that makes Vanessa’s eyes constantly trail to her-

She can control herself. She’s not a teenage boy. Or is trying not to be.

Brooke gives her an appreciative once over in response, one that makes Vanessa squirm under her gaze even though she knows that there’s nothing behind it, that it’s platonic. Because there’s something about having Brooke’s full attention that still feels like a bit too much, like it’s taking her breath away.

“Where do you want to sit?” Brooke’s looking at her with an eyebrow raised, as if she’s already asked the question more than once, as if the first time had flown over Vanessa’s head. If it has, Vanessa’s unaware of it.

But she’s not going to make it a habit. Brooke’s just a person - a smoking hot one, sure, but still just a person. Someone who’s helping her win a bet against A’keria and Silky, and so Vanessa owes it to both of them to make sure they have fun in the process.

So, she’s gonna make sure Brooke has the best fake first date in her damn life.

“Let’s go to the back. My neck’s gonna cramp up if we take the front.” Vanessa takes a step up the stairs, but not before interlocking fingers with Brooke - after all, if she’s gonna play the part, she’s gonna fully go for it.

Brooke shrugs, but doesn’t pull her hand back. Instead, she tightens their grip. “Works for me. Lead the way.”

The theatre darkens as they take their seats, and the announcer’s voice is hard to focus on, it is, when the ceiling above them is lit up with stars and galaxies not unlike those that would sparkle in Vanessa’s dreams when she was six and had wanted to be an astronaut. The twinkles that seem so in reach, so close by, not like the huge bundles of fire that they actually are, the ones that burn should anyone get too close.

It’s mesmerizing.

Vanessa feels the resurfacing of the niche outer space facts from her childhood, from the secondhand kid’s encyclopedias that her mom had gotten for her at garage sales. The ones that Vanessa would pour over, trying to absorb everything she could, back when her biggest problems in life could be solved by thumbing through the pages.

“Did you know that any these stars coulda burned out ages ago and we wouldn’t know, ‘cause of how fucking far away they are? They’re hundreds of light years away so when we see them burn out, it’s actually happened centuries back. But we only find out now.” Vanessa whispers the words because the narrator is still droning on and she doesn’t want to disrupt anyone else.

But it’s cool.

Brooke looks over for a second, unspoken questions on her face that Vanessa can’t quite decipher. “How’d you know so much about space?”

Brooke’s voice is a whisper too, not wanting to disturb the presentation either, and it strikes Vanessa how much the reflection of the stars in Brooke’s eyes is really making them shine.

“Astronaut was my backup career after HR.” The statement has the intended outcome of making Brooke laugh, and it feels better than Vanessa wants to admit. “You ain’t had obsessions as a kid?”

Brooke pauses, really thinks. “Mine was the Titanic, when I was eight. Not the movie, but the actual sinking of the ship itself. I was fascinated by it.”

Vanessa wrinkles her nose. “The ship? Why?”

“I dunno,” Brooke shrugs, “think it was the way it contradicted itself. Supposed to be the unsinkable ship, branded as such. Treated as such. Yet it went down on the first voyage.”

“That’s what happens when you get overcocky. Can’t mouth off too much.” Vanessa tries to hold back a laugh when Brooke looks over at her, the scandalized furrow of her brow fitting perfectly from the way her mouth has slightly fallen open. “Am I wrong, though?”

Brooke lets out a huff. “No. But still.”

But Brooke’s face can’t hold its serious expression for long, though, something Vanessa is delighted to see. Vanessa grins when Brooke leans back in her seat, tugs on the bracelet on her wrist. “Tell me more outer space facts, space girl.”

“What kinda nickname is that?”

Brooke grins. “One that somehow fits you.”

Instagram story posted by @bhytes. Location: @griffithobservatory. Tagged: @vanessavanjie. Description: A boomerang of Vanessa spinning in a circle, her skirt twirling around her, under a backdrop of stars.

“So, there we were in Target, my abuela completely having lost control of the motorized scooter, about to crash into the display of paper towels, my mom running after her and screaming, a buncha other customers watching with their mouths open, and me and my aunt laughing so hard that we’re about to fall over.” Vanessa’s eyes are lit up as she sets the scene, and Brooke doesn’t think she’s ever laughed so much in her life.

“Stop, stop. I’m gonna pee.” Brooke has to wipe a tear from her eye, trying desperately to hold back the giggles that are threatening to bubble up again whenever she so much as makes eye contact with Vanessa.

“So then she crashes, right? But then one of the wheels is still going so she starts spinning. Spinning. Meanwhile my mom’s tryna turn off the dang thing, and you know what starts playing in the background?” Vanessa takes a bite of her pasta, and Brooke wants to take a sip of her own drink, she really does, but she’s afraid of doing a spit take at this point.

“Oh, god. What?”

Vanessa giggles before she can get the words out. “‘You Spin Me Round’ by Dead or Alive. You know, ‘you spin me right round baby, right round like a record player…’”

“Shut up.” Brooke has to clap a hand over her mouth because the other diners at the restaurant are looking over at the two of them, but she can’t help it, can’t help the laughter because Vanessa is hysterical.

“I ain’t playing, it really did! Me and my aunt were absolutely hollering and no help whatsoever to my abuela. Some random pimply sixteen year old that worked there had to come and turn her scooter off.”

“She wasn’t hurt, was she?” Brooke pauses, realizing that the story could have more serious consequences on the way. She doesn’t want to be disrespectful towards Vanessa’s grandma, she really doesn’t-

But Vanessa waves her hand. “Nah, she was fine. In fact, when they got her up again, she started grumbling on about how the fastest setting on the scooter was still too slow. Adrenaline junkie.”

Brooke tries to picture what Vanessa’s grandma would look like, speeding a little too fast on her scooter. “Somehow, she sounds like you when you’ll be older.”

Vanessa snorts. “I can’t even argue that. We basically the same.”

“You’re ridiculous, and I love it.” Brooke rests her chin on her hands as she glances across the table over towards Vanessa, still shoveling down her pasta. “God, why haven’t we ever talked before?”

“Maybe ‘cause we’re in completely different departments?” Vanessa raises an eyebrow, her lips curling up. “And tell me you’d still give me the time of day if I hadn’t barged into your office one day and roped you into this little scheme of mine.”

“Hey, I would have!” Brooke’s indignant, because she so would. She’s not that closed off. “I think.”

She thinks.

“So me striking up conversation in the Starbucks line about my wheelie-loving abuela would have gone over well?” Vanessa lets out a laugh, and Brooke can’t help it either, at the mental image of Vanessa tapping her shoulder to do so.

“To be fair, that’s not a scenario that’s ever really crossed my mind before. Do you often bother people about your grandma?”

Vanessa doesn’t miss a beat. “Only the ones who get as delighted about it as you do.” She leans back in her seat, putting her fork down. “That being said? I’m glad we talking now, ‘cause you’re more fun than you seem.”

Brooke scoffs. “I’m plenty fun, thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your last Venmo transaction?”

Brooke wrinkles her nose. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Venmo transactions tell a shit ton about a person. Now c’mon, open up that shiny phone.” Vanessa’s fingertips tap on the table, and Brooke lets out a huff, but does so.

Hopefully it’s something cool. Fun. Exciting. Not something boring like-

“A cat tree? Your last transaction was for a cat tree?” Vanessa’s trying not to laugh, Brooke can tell, and she has to hold back a groan.

”It was a really cool cat tree! It had multiple levels and all these little hiding spots that Henry and Apollo will love and-” Brooke cuts herself off, dropping her head in her hands. “Ugh. Cat trees can be fun.”

Vanessa reaches out to pat Brooke’s shoulder, her eyes still sparkling. “I believe you, mama.”

“No you don’t.” Brooke’s voice comes out muffled, and sure, she’s acting like a ten year old, but she can’t help it.

“I sure don’t. So guess for our next fake date you gonna introduce me to those pussycats of yours, hmm? We gonna be spending some time together.” Vanessa pauses, her lips pursed together as to keep herself from cracking up. “Not your actual pussy, remember, we fake dating, not real dating, jesus-”

“Oh, shut up.” Brooke reaches out to shove Vanessa’s shoulder, her hand nearly landing on the table when Vanessa dodges it. “Just for that, no meeting the cats for you.”

“Mean.” Vanessa sticks her tongue out at her and Brooke snorts.

But now that Vanessa’s said it, she’s coming around to the idea. It would be kinda nice to hang out more with Vanessa, even if the purpose is to post things on social media to fool her friends into thinking that they’re dating. Because it would be fun - her and Vanessa clearly get along great, and, well-

Having another friend wouldn’t be so bad.

“Tell you what. You can come over and meet the cats, but I pick the show we watch.”

Vanessa grins at her suggestion. “Tryna Netflix and chill me already?”

Brooke rolls her eyes. “You’re relentless.”

“And yet, you enjoy it.” Vanessa wiggles her eyebrows as she takes a sip of her drink. “Fancy that.”

It’s true. Vanessa is hysterical, fun to talk to. Sure, a little ridiculous at times, but it’s what Brooke needs - someone to balance her out a little.

“Honestly? Somehow, I kinda do.”

“You went on a date.”

“Yep.”

“You, Brooke Lynn Hytes, went on a date.”

“You bet.”

“You went on a date?”

“Is that really so hard to believe, Nina?”

Nina takes a big sip of her wine, as if she needs it to get through the conversation. Brooke can’t blame her for it.

“I’ve known you for seven years and not once have you been on a date.” Nina’s pointing a finger at her, and she shrugs.

“What’s wrong with being picky?”

“It’s not being picky if you absolutely refuse everyone. Except, it seems, for this new girl.” Nina’s already leaning forward, resting her head on her hands with a grin on her face. “So, you need to tell me absolutely everything about her because this is the best day of my entire life.”

Brooke raises an eyebrow. “More than the day when Ben proposed to you?”

Nina pauses. “Well, maybe. Actually, I think those two would be on the same level.” She shrugs when she sees Brooke’s skeptical expression. “C’mon, this literally never happens. It’s exciting. Now tell me about her.”

“She’s in HR, we struck up a conversation and she asked me out on a date and I said yes?” So what if Brooke’s explanation ends in a question?

“You said yes.”

“Yeah? How else would we have gone on a date?”

“But you never say yes.” Nina’s brow is furrowed as if she’s trying to solve the world’s biggest math problem, and it almost makes Brooke laugh.

“I did this time.” Brooke shrugs, taking a sip of her wine to avoid eye contact with Nina.

“But why? Why this time?”

Brooke pauses, because she can’t give Nina the real answer. That they’re doing this for shits and giggles and so that Brooke won’t have to deal with people trying to set her up.

So, she goes another route.

“I dunno. She’s funny, I like her. She made me laugh more in that first conversation with her than I’ve laughed with anyone else. So, maybe I just want a bit more laughter in my life.”

It’s true, when Brooke thinks about it. Fake dating or not, Vanessa is fun. Someone who is genuinely delightful, genuinely fun to spend time with. Their date hadn’t even been a real one but it’s probably the best one Brooke’s had, maybe ever, solely because of how much she’d enjoyed herself. How much fun Vanessa is to be around.

Brooke’s going to try and stay her friend, once they’re done this nonsense. To still hang out with Vanessa and be her friend ( are they friends?) because she’s someone that doesn’t drain or tire Brooke out, despite her exuberance.

Nina’s eating it up, from the way that her eyes are wide, how her lips are forming a soft pout. “That’s so fucking cute, you absolute sap.”

“That wasn’t sappy in the least and you know it.”

Nina waves a hand. “Whatever. From you, it’s practically a declaration of love. Anyway, can’t wait to be your maid of honour at the wedding.”

“Don’t you start.”

[cmncisspnandmore]

Mistakes were made, Part 4, Spencer Reid X Reader.

A/N: Hey guys, this is probably going to be the last part in this series. I hope you enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed writing it. Im also sorry if my postings have been all over the place, Im currently planning my wedding and dealing with some personal issues. I promise to try and get more fics out soon. My taglist and requests are open!

~~~~

You never thought you would be standing front of the FBI Building again, you never thought that you would be there for any other reason than work. Yet here you were, standing in front of your former workplace, diaper bag slung over your shoulder, a sleeping infant in the carried you shouldn't be holding because you were still on restriction. You hadn't planned on packing up yourself and your daughter, and driving to the FBI building. You thought you could push down the anxious feelings you had when Spencer had left for work. He had told you that you could call him at anytime, but when you called him in the midst of a panic attack over not being able to button Lucille's onesie. He didn't answer. You had tried to talk yourself down and tell yourself he was probably away from his desk, and he would call you as soon as he saw you called. But in your postpartum brain, buttoning her onesie was the end of the world. You bundled up the 2 week old baby, strapped her into her carseat and loaded her into your SUV.

You walk up to the door and pull it open, readjusting the diaper bag so it sat firmly on your shoulder. The front desk security officer stood up as he watched you struggle to pull open the second door, and rushed over to push it open for you.

“Ma’am are you okay?” He asked, stepping to the side and letting you walk into the marble floored lobby.

“I’m.. i’m fine. I need to see Dr. Spencer Reid.” You set the baby carrier down on the ground and Lucille makes a small noise and that sound alone startles you. You felt like you were walking on eggshells around your own daughter.

“I’m sorry, but you can't go up there without an agent escorting you. And i'm gonna have to see some ID, we can't let civilians in here.” The officer holds out his hand for your ID. You rummage around in the diaper bag for your wallet, and hasilty shove it towards him.

“Then phone him. Or a member of his team, but if you do not get him down here or let me go up to his office in the next 5 minutes so help me.” You watch as the officer scrutinizes your ID and turns it over.

“Let me call up there and see if one of them can come down.” He replies and hands your ID back to you. You glance down at the carrier and heave it up, your abdominal muscles screaming at the extra weight. Curse Spencer and his need to have the best baby carrier on the market, you swear this is the heaviest one out there. Not that Lucille was very heavy, she was only 6 pounds, but with the weight of the carrier she definitely exceeded your 10 pound lift limit.

“Woah there, don't hurt yourself.” A deep voice behind you calls as footsteps get closer.  You turn slightly and see the one and only Agent Derek Morgan walking toward you.

“Hey there ass kicker, what brings you here.” He grabs the carrier from you and lifts it so he can look at your daughter. “You brought baby genius! Aww did she miss her favorite uncle?” He looks at your daughter for a moment before glancing at you.

“N-no…  I called spencer and he didn't answer and i couldn't get her onesie to button. And i.. I need to talk to Reid.” You can feel the tears in your eyes, and Morgan puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, don't cry, c’mon i’ll bring you to see the kid.” Morgan wraps his around his shoulder and guides you towards the elevator,  your daughters carrier by his side. The security guard looks over morgan, as he leads you to the elevator.

“You know this woman?” He asks placing the phone down on the base.

“Yeah, shes Dr. Reid's girlfriend. I got this.” Derek gives the guard a nod as the doors open of the elevator. You both step in and when the doors slide closed morgan looks you over.

“You look worse for wear kiddo. Everything okay?” He asks, placing Lucille's car seat on the ground gently, the baby lets out  small sigh, still sleeping peacefully.

“I probably look crazy huh?” you let out a small laugh as the elevator begins the ascent to the BAU’s floor.  “I guess this whole motherhood thing is a little overwhelming. With how traumatic her entrance was, and having to recover from that and take care of her. And i swear she hates me Derek. She screams all the time when im taking care of her. I feel like such a failure. She's great for spencer, she never cries and it's like he knows exactly what she needs. He's so good with her and i feel like a fish who doesn't know how to swim.” You shrug and stare down at the sleeping child.

“Im supposed to be good at this, i'm her mother im supposed to know what to do.” You sniff and rub at your eyes.

“Hey, i remember when JJ first had Henry. She was a lot like you, and she didn't have a scare like you did. You almost died, and you almost lost your baby. Thats hard to deal with, and on top of all that you have this insane amount of hormones flooding your system. It might take you a little longer to get the hang of this. But that doesn't means that you're a failure.” Derek crosses his arms across his chest, and you nod your head slowly.

The door to the elevator opens and you see the familiar bullpen of the BAU. Your old desk is still untouched and everyone seems to be in the conference room, you can see them all sitting in at the table watching as Penelope scrolls through some slides on the big screen. Derek guides you over to your old desk and places Lucille's carrier on the desk.

“I’ll be right back,” He smiles and gives your shoulder a squeeze.

“Wait. If you guys are getting debriefed for a case then don't interrupt!” You grab his hand, and he shakes his head.

“Nah kiddo, they’re just going over some of the number for the department. We haven't gotten a case yet. Wait here.” He assures you and walks towards the conference room. You busy yourself with straightening Luce’s outfit and fixing her hat while you wait. You run your fingers down her arms and she wraps her small fingers around your pointer finger. She looked peaceful, and so sweet. You truly did love this small human with everything in you, but you had a feeling that she didn't love you as much as you loved her. You knew logically this was just probably the early signs of postpartum depression setting in but you still couldn't help feeling upset.

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Spencer calls to you as he walks towards you, worry is etched on his face. He stands in front of your old desk, and you stand and wraps your arms around him.

“I called you and you didn't pick up, and it's’ so stupid that i came here. Im sorry.” You start to cry and Spencer wraps his arms around you.

“What happened?” He rubs his hands up and down your back trying to soothe you.

“I couldn’t get her onesie to button and for some reason i started to have a panic attack because if i can’t get it to snap closed she could get a cold, and i can’t have that. And if she gets a cold it will be my fault and then you’ll hate me.” You look down at your shoes.

“Hey, it’s okay. And i could never hate you. Babies get colds, it’s better that they be exposed to some things now because it’ll build their immune system.” Spencer kisses your forehead.

“I’m sorry Spence,” you mumble into the soft fabric of his cardigan.

“No, i’m sorry Y/N, i should've paid more attention to my phone, you needed me and i wasn't there for you. And for that i'm sorry.” He kisses your hair, as Lucille starts to make cooing sounds from her carrier.

“Oh hey there, pretty girl.” Spencer lets you go and moves to the carrier. He carefully unclips her chest piece and the bottom buckle and lifts the small baby out of the seat and into his arms.

“Are you going mama a hard time?” He asks her softly, and she makes a small noise as if she was agreeing with him.

“You gotta be nice to her, she went through a lot ot get you here. We could've lost her, so you gotta be gentle with her. This is hard for her too.” He kisses her head and she blinks up at him with her large eyes. Her soft brown hair has started to curl just like his in the few short weeks she's been here.

“Oh my lord! Is that her?!” Garcia squeals as she rushes over to where Spencer is standing holding your daughter against his chest. “Can i hold her?” She extends her arms, motioning for Spencer to release the child so she could promptly cuddle the small human who was causing you to slowly slip from sanity.

“Of course,” He carefully places her in Garcias arms.

“Oh hello you little genius offspring.” She coos at the baby and bounces her in her arms. “Let's give Mommy and Daddy a moment to talk, we can go see Auntie JJ, and Grandpa Rossi.” Garcia walks away with her over towards the desk of the senior agent. You watch her nervously, as much as you were grateful for her being occupied by another, you couldn't help but feel like something bad would happen if you let her out of your sight.

“Y/N, she's fine. You look more wound up than some of the victims we deal with.” Spencer squeezes your shoulder and you feel yourself deflate.

“C’mere,” Reid takes a seat at your old desk chair and pulls your hand so you’re sitting in his lap. “I think you should go back to your doctor and tell them what's happening. I know you are the last person to ask for help, but you need it. You're scaring me.” He admits and rests his chin on your shoulder.

“You're right…” You look down at your hands and Spencer places one of his over yours.

“I can call and make the appointment. But for now, why don't you and i go talk to JJ and see if maybe she wants to leave work early with you and me and we can go over to her place and hang out with Henry. She mentioned how much she wants to help us with Lucille and i know you will feel better if you hear some of what she went though.” Spencer suggest, and you nod slightly.

“Can we get ice cream too?” You ask as you stand up and Spencer helps you gather your things as you both walk over to JJ, Rossi and Garcia. As you talked to the other agents and JJ agreed that you and Spencer coming over would be amazing, you start to feel better for the first time since your daughter was born.

Maybe there had been a few mistakes made, and not everything went as smooth as you imagined it would, but you wouldn't trade it for the world.

~~~

Taglist

Criminal Minds: @morcialovechild @banananna99

[emeraldtawny]

Kyle, Dalim & MC: Mixology

Little ol’ Alice besting the two booze bois at their own game? well, more besting Dalim as Kyle watches on ;3 Never written Dalim before so take it with a grain of salt if you do actually know his personality and such. Hope you guys like it~! :P

The usual merriment expected of the local pub in the Central Quarter is oddly quiet, it's doors shut for the evening on a peaceful weekday where raucous drinking would be unbeneficial. Yet the lights remain on, three inhabitants occupying the empty bar. A loud “tch!” and a silent chuckle slightly echoed from its bouncing around in the jug of beer it’s released into fill the empty air.

“How the hell did you get that one?!” The sharp-tongued bartender - Dalim - spits, his crude tone completely ignored.

“She’s not a lightweight and she knows her poison,” Kyle smiles, tipsy enough to be enjoying himself despite the lack of external stimulation, but still has enough of his wits about him to remain socially acceptable, “Looks like London knows how to drink just like Cradle, huh?”

She can only nod her head in agreement, her eyes covered with a blindfold to prevent her witnessing the cocktails being passed to her, all in the good name of fairness as she guesses what the drink is through her sense of smell and taste alone. This also happened to be a bet between her and Dalim, the marble-esque eyes of the older man challenging her when she and Kyle were simply enjoying a quiet drink and discussing their favourites, prompting this entire thing. Now here they are, and Dalim was facing the wrath of a woman who knew much more about her alcohol than she ever let on.

“It seems appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?” Kyle quips at Dalim, who responds by swiping the glass and placing it into the sink with more force than necessary.

“Oh, you keep your mouth shut, or I’m cancelling your bar tab for a month!”

Kyle nearly chokes on his swig of beer at that, giving Dalim a short huff of a laugh.

“Heh, that was worth it,” He looks towards Alice, blissfully unaware of the goings-on around her, “Alright, princess, here’s the deal. Three more drinks and you gotta get every single one right. Deal?”

She grins, “Alright. You’re on.”

With Kyle’s goading “oooooh” making her giggle, Dalim scoffs then turns around to begin mixing the three drinks, a soft smile twisting his lips that he doesn’t even realise is there. Before long, the subtle scraping of the glasses being pushed towards her on the fine wood countertop echoes out and Alice sits up straighter in response.

“First one’s right in front of you, sweetheart. Have a taste.”

With Dalim’s sly encouragement, she reaches for the glass, Kyle’s hand guiding her to get a firm grasp on it. She slowly lifts it to her lips, takes a single sniff and then a shallow swig of the concoction, the two men at her front and side watching on with mixed levels of intrigue.

“Really, Dalim? I thought you said this was the decider, yet here you are giving me freebies.”

The bartender’s eyes widen while the tipsy doctor’s narrow with glee as he struggles to contain his laughter at her clear jab.

“It’s mint and whiskey, so of course it’s a Mint Julep. Next one.”

Dalim’s eyebrow twitches as he watches her cleanse her palette with water before letting Kyle guide her hand to the next cocktail, repeating the previous process.

“There’s definitely gin in this one,” She takes another swig, a smile lighting up her face when she swallows, “And vermouth, with some citrus bitters coming through. It should be a Bijou.”

His frown deepens, fingers drumming against the counter as she picks up the third and final cocktail. The rim of the glass spilling its contents free into her mouth is accompanied by Kyle’s oddly enthusiastic hand drumming against the counter, to which Dalim flicks him over the head with a tea towel to get him to stop.

“This one is all alcohol, aside from the ice,” She takes another sniff of the ethanol-fumed drink, “Brandy and...blackberry? No…” Another sniff, both Dalim and Kyle watching her actions with visible anticipation, “Wait a minute. There’s port in here.”

With a grin, she puts the glass down. Dalim leans against the counter on his forearms, leaning closer to her as he prompts, “So, princess? What is it? If you get it wrong, there will be consequences.”

She chooses to ignore the illicit deepening of his voice and the way it tingles down her spine more than any of the alcohol previously did. She clears her throat, the alcohol burning sweetly.

“Brandy, port and ice mixed together mean….you’re swabbing the “Poop Deck” tonight.”

Kyle practically leaps from his seat and slams his hand jovially against the counter, “You actually did it, ___! Take your blindfold off, you gotta see Dalim’s face right now!”

She grabs and pulls the knot loose, her eyes blinking at the sudden invasion of light into her retinas. Before her is a stupefied Dalim, eyebrow twitching and eyes clearly communicating a singular emotion - disbelief.

“What?! There is NO way you just did that! You cheated, didn’t you?”

“You were watching the whole time, as was I,” Kyle snorted, downing the rest of his beer in celebration for her, “Just accept the loss, man.”

Dalim grins, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he glares at Kyle, “Keep talking like that and I’ll cancel your bar tab for a year.”

He gapes, looking like Dalim just threatened to rip the world out from under his feet, “You wouldn’t! C’mon, man! Don’t be so cruel!”

“Says the man who watched me get my arse handed to me and sat back watching with glee.”

“That’s only fair. You’d totally do the same thing and we both know it!”

Alice can only giggle as she watches the two men bicker before her, the subtle bond of friendship clear in their banter. She takes another sip of her cocktail, knowing she will regret the influx of alcohol in her system when she has things to do tomorrow, but ultimately decides it was a risk worth taking to have gotten to spend time with these two.