#i miss driving to the ocean when i felt like the world was too big and realizing there is more than my ache

[joanofarcisdead]

poppy emoji goes here

[fantasylandloser]

Three is Love

Pairing: JJ x Kie x fem!reader

Summary: Reader is sad about JJ and Kie being together. JJ and Kie set out to fix it.

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, mentions of parental abandoment, poly!jiara

A/N: realized I only didn't like Jiara because I wanted them both, so i created a world I could have both

P.S- Kie is bi

******

JJ chose Kie. Kie chose JJ. It’s okay. That’s okay. It doesn’t really hurt that much, you're just being dramatic. They chose each other over you. That’s fine. They’re still your best friends. It’s fine. It’s okay. 

You monologue to yourself on your way home. Your bike would veer every once in a while due to the tears that would build in your eyes when you strayed away from telling yourself it was all okay. But nothing felt okay, and there was no one for you to talk to because they were the people you would talk to when you felt like this.  

Kie would let you explain your feelings until you were blue in the face because you’d rather hyper analyze your feelings than feel them, and JJ would threaten to kill whoever hurt you and that was all good, and you’d feel better. Now it was them who’d hurt you and you had nowhere to turn.

You understood, it wasn’t their fault, or your fault, or anyone’s fault, but that didn’t really make it hurt any less. You were starting to understand why there was a rule for no pogue on pogue macking because this was truly a mess.

To make it worse, Kie and JJ were pitying you, their eyes going all soft when they realized you were around, and sure dealing with the longing looks and the secret smiles and touches had been a lot, but all of their guilty feelings being forced down your throat as well, was killing you. You try your best to play it cool, telling them you’re fine with it, and they can be and do couple shit around you without it being a big deal, but they are your best friends so they know when you’re lying or stretching the truth. 

But if you were being very honest, seeing it upfront was better than not knowing, and that stupid ass love triangle you were in. At least now you knew you never stood a chance, now you know he was never going to choose you.

But that’s okay. It’s all okay.

*******

The crew was surprised to see you after a week of you blowing them off. Saying things like, ‘I can’t come, I'm picking up a shift.’ or ‘I’m really tired.’ or whatever excuse you could come up with to not be around them. Kie hated it, she wanted to be around you, and she wanted to talk about what happened but you were avoiding her like the plague. Now you were back and trying to act like nothing happened. And she had to admit it, you weren’t doing a bad job of playing it cool, but she was there, she saw the hurt in your eyes and she knew that didn’t go away after one week of not being around them.

“Wait you did, what?” You ask incredulously while listening to Pope’s story. . “I was gone for like a week and I missed everything.” You’d been engaged in the group all day but nothing else. You wouldn’t let yourself get locked into one on one conversations with anybody, it was driving Kie crazy. 

She just wanted to talk to you and fix this forreal. JJ knew you were off too, but he liked your method of not talking about it. He was sure if you just hung around like normal then things would go back to how they were. He knew it would take some time though, and he knew you were hurting. You would barely look at him, and you’ve said all of three sentences to him since you’d been there and usually the two of you would talk the others up a wall together.He didn't know what to do, but he did know he didn’t want you disappearing for a week again. 

“You didn’t have to be gone for a week.” Kie accused, feeling upset that you were acting like you had to not be there. “You could have been with us.” Your face heats up at the fact that she was calling you out in front of everyone, and you look away avoiding eye contact.It’s almost laughable that she cornered you like this, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, in front of everyone. Kie’s favorite way to call out behavior. 

You sipped on one of the stale beer’s John B scored, nodding your head. “True.” You say simply, and Kie hates it. She hates that you won’t argue back with her or basically even engage at all. 

“Is this how it’s gonna be now?” She asks you, and everyone else is completely silent watching it play out. “You’re just not gonna talk to me? To us?” Her voice is soft and you can hear her worry and sadness. You try your best to swallow the lump forming in your throat, avoiding looking at her or anyone else. 

“I just don’t want to argue about it.” You say softly, after a few moments of silence. 

“We could just talk about it. We don’t have to argue, I won’t argue.” It’s a plea and you’re not looking at her but you know she’s about to cry. 

“I-” You stop talking, clearing your throat, and wiping the tears that escaped. “I can’t. Not now, m’sorry.” You murmur quietly, hugging your knees to your chest.

*******

After an awkward ass boat ride home for the rest of the pogues, and you leaving immediately after getting to the chateau. Kie was in full planning mode. 

“Kie I just think we’re gonna make it worse if we go in there.” JJ says looking worried. “I’ve seen that look on her before. Remember when her dad left? She’s not mad at us,  we could fix mad. She’s hurt and I don’t want to hurt her more.” JJ says he'd been weirdly anxious since he’d seen your house, even though he’s been there a million times.

After watching the scene between you and Kie play out on the boat it didn’t feel right to only comfort Kie. You were his best friend too. None of this was the way it was supposed to be. 

“She’s our best friend!” Kiara exclaimed, frustrated with the situation. 

JJ’s quiet for a second before he starts talking, knowing there’s a big chance he could be wrong. “You keep saying that but… we’ve all been pogues for a long time.”” JJ drifts, not sure where he was going with that. “You remember when she started dating Ally, or more specifically her first date with her.”

 Kie looks at him in confusion, but nods. “Yeah what does that have to do with now though.” 

“She took forever getting ready in John B’s bathroom, and we were all outside. And she came out in that yellow dress with the flowers on it and she was all nervous.” JJ grins at the memory. “And I don’t know if you remember but you told her she looked like-”

“The sun kissed her a thousand times.” Kie cut in, suddenly remembering the day more clearly. JJ smiles while taking her hand. “Yeah that… and you were looking at her, the way that I look at her, and how I look at you.” JJ says cautiously, knowing that if he’s wrong he just blew everything up. “Then Ally got there, and she gave her a kiss on the cheek and you looked how I felt… then you left for almost a whole year while they were dating, and we didn’t see you.” JJ sucked in a breath. “And that was bad, for everybody, but especially me, and especially her.”

“What I’m trying to say is, well I don’t love either of you the way you’d love a best friend, and I don’t think you love her that way either.” JJ finished. He was expecting Kie to get mad, to argue with him or something, he knew what he said was true but he knew better than to expect her to be accepting.

Kie is silent, before she pulls away, then she's biting her nails. It's one of her worst habits and she’s been trying to get rid of it for years. “What am I supposed to do?” Kie whispered. “How are we supposed to fix that? If there’s three of us. And no right answer.” JJ’s surprised at her almost immediate acceptance. 

“I think there is a right answer for us. Nobody else will like it though.” JJ smirks, as a knowing look passes on Kie’s face. “My parents are gonna kill me.” Kie says but it doesn’t change the grin on her face, or the hug she pulls JJ into. “I love you Jayge.” 

“I love you too.” He smiles, wrapping his arms around her. 

“P4L?” She asks, holding out her hand. 

“P4L, baby! Now let’s go get our girl!” They’re laughing and letting out whoo’s as they run towards your house.

******

 Their joy is short-lived once they get to the door and realize they don’t actually know what they’re gonna say. Or if you actually want them too. 

When you open the door and see them holding hands, with smiles on their faces. It crushes you and you feel like they’re rubbing it in. 

“Hi” They say in unison, cringing immediately after. 

“Guys I don’t really wanna talk about… whatever, right now.” You say gesturing to them. “We really don’t have to talk about it ever, actually.” You tell them, only for JJ to barge past you, not a fan of being held by a door to the house he’s been in a thousand times. 

“Too bad, we’re here. We’re gonna talk ‘till we’re blue in the face and if you don’t wanna talk back you can just listen.” He says, grabbing a hold of your shoulders and gently steering his way to your room, waving when he passed your mom in the living room. 

“Hi, Mom!” He says with a grin, making your mom smile because she loved JJ and his antics. Well not the ones that put you in danger, but the ones that made you smile more and leave the house and not be so serious all the time. 

“Hey, babies.” She said passively, to both Kie and JJ. 

Kie seemed to have frozen up after just being super determined to fix this. She felt like she was in shock. She liked girls? She loved you? Since when? How many other people know if JJ of all people figured it out. How was she gonna tell her parents? Could she be in a relationship with two people at the same time? Did you even love her that way too? All these questions swarmed her head. 

“JJ, there’s really nothing to talk about-” You start once you’re in your room and your door is closed.

“I like girls, dude.” Kie says unexpectedly. When you look at her shocked by her outburst, she looks surprised to have even said it. 

“What?!” You exclaim in confusion, your face passing to JJ after realizing that they’re in a relationship, but he seemed to know this as well.

“Really smooth, bro.” JJ comments, but there’s a little smile on his face that is confusing you. 

“Kie what’s going on?” You frown, confusion etching your features.

“I like girls!” She exclaims, laughing a little. “A lot of my friendships are starting to make sense. I'm not gonna lie.” She adds. 

Your eyes widen in surprise, you lower your voice in hopes that JJ can’t hear you. “Do you wanna talk to me in private?” 

“You’re shit at whispering.” JJ tells you, making you grimace. “I told her that she likes girls.” He informs you, in a matter of fact tone.

“Right, okay. This isn’t odd at all.” You say to yourself.

“Oh I forgot, sorry we’re on a mission.” Kie said to JJ, before turning back to you. “I do like girls,” She confirms. “I love you though.” You’re confused more than anything now, and she see’s that in your face.

“And JJ loves you too. And I love him, and he loves me. I think you love him too.” She rambles, sending you into a deeper confusion. 

“Do you love me?” Your eyebrows furrow, not understanding her question. You’ve told you loved her a thousand times. 

“Of course I love you, Kie.” But she shakes her head as soon as you say it. 

“No I mean. I love you, deeply. And I feel kind of stupid for not knowing for so long...” You’re dumbfounded for about three seconds before you’re throwing your arms around her, your heart swelling with this new information.

“Of course, I fucking love you.” You repeat, a watery laugh escaping you. You feel her take a deep breath, as she seemed to find relief in your statement. 

“What about me? Do we love JJ, too?” JJ asks in the back, he’s joking but he’s nervous, he did just watch the only two women he’s ever loved get into a relationship, and he’s nervous he’ll be left out. 

You laugh, wiping away a tear, pulling back from Kie, only long enough to pull him into the hug too. “My mom is gonna kill us.” You say after JJ settles into the hug, the three of you holding onto each other tightly. 

[rowiewritesstuff]

Hello there ! I would like to ask for a match-up please♡ <:) possibly with TFP Autobots or Cons (only if you feel like doing it♡)

My name is Michaela and i'm 19. My height is 5'3 (159cm) and i am a ginger with mid long hair, freckles all over my face and honey brown colored eyes. My skin is pretty pale so i ususally wear light colored clothes like soft green and cream colored shirts (i mostly wear very baggy clothes cause i'm pretty slim) etc.♡ ^^

I'd say i'm pretty calm/shy person but sometimes my zoomies hit in and i have the urge to run around and playfight with anyone and anything i see (i love playfighting) :D i also very much enjoy spiritual conversations, stargazing, playing games and i'm also a sucker for atronomy. I love learning all about space. I'm pretty loyal and affectionate (ahem touch starved ahem) person what comes to friends and family i'm very protective of them. I am used to helping people so of course if you ask me for any help or anything in particular i am here to help. <3 I often try to play things cool and calm when anything bad happens but i am actualy screaming on the inside. I'm very careful and fearfull. I'm also trying to be open minded as much as possible and kind to everyone as long as they are kind to me back. I am basically your mirror. I also LOVE animals. Mostly parrots😭❤️ they are just so adorable when they show you affection🥺 the type of person when they see a random cat on street to stop by and just pet it or any animal😭❤️

Now what comes to my body i have a pear shaped body with pretty thin waist and a lot of small and big marks all over my arms, hands and legs. I sadly suffer from asthma so i need my inhaler at all costs if i ever get a asthma attack <:/ i am also lactose intolerant so milk is another no no for me. I rather spend time indoors but still i'm open minded for a nice car ride to any lake or water. I love swimming especially in sea.^^♡♡ my fav colors are orange, yellow, turquoise, black, soft green and white♡

I think that's all. I apologize if this is chaotic but i've never wrote a request :( i hope it's not too much♡♡ if you couldn't come up with anything feel free not to write anything at all <3 thank you so so much !♡♡♡♡

A daily note to take care of yourself, to drink water and eat enough food to keep yourself healthy !♡ ^^

I match you with: Optimus Prime!

You met Optimus during a Decepticon attack. You of course were taken to the base and assigned a guardian- Optimus Prime himself. Optimus first kept you at a distance, not wanting to get too close to you in fear you’d be used against him by the Decepticons. 

One day when Optimus was driving you home you yelled at him to stop. You were both in a secluded area out in the country. You jumped out of his cab as soon as he came to a stop and squealed in delight. He transformed thinking something was wrong but saw you looking at the sky.

“What are you looking at?” Optimus asked.

“The stars, the moon- everything.” You sighed happily. “In the cities, the smog makes it hard to see the stars. Here, you can see everything. It’s amazing.”

Optimus looked at you in awe, then to the sky. He’d forgotten what it was like to just enjoy the wonders of the world. He sat down and looked down when he felt something on his hand. You were cuddling to him for warmth as you fell asleep. He made sure that you got home safely, even going as far as placing you gently in your bed from your open window.

Optimus began taking you on regular trips to see things you liked. One time he took you to the ocean so you could play in the water. You didn’t care you were missing your swimsuit and simply ran in head first. Ratchet later scolded you when you got sick.

One day he took you to the jungle to see some monkeys and parrots, and you ended up being attacked by a tiger. He quickly scooped you into his hand and away from the tiger trying to eat you. 

When you started to breathe oddly after the tiger attack, he ran to Ratchet. Ratchet shook his head at you and handed you your inhaler. Optimus asked you what it was, and Ratchet explained. Optimus was concerned and began treating you even more like precious glass.

When it came to Decepticons, you were very cautious. You would always run and hide and call the base. One day a Vehicon scooped you up to hold you hostage against the Prime and you were terrified. You were frozen in their servo while they mocked Optimus.

“Let them go!” Arcee growled out.

“Fat chance Autobot scum!” They squeeze you tighter and you begin to panic. Your asthma begins to act up and the Vehicon looks down at you in confusion. “Is it broken?” 

Bumblebee takes the opportunity to slam into the Decepticon and snatch your body flying through the air. The rest of the Autobots quickly defeat the Vehicons and take you back to base to get your inhaler. From that moment on, Optimus was so scared you’d die before he could confess his feelings.

Optimus picked you up and placed you on his shoulder as he went to the top of the base. He sat down and offered his hands to climb on. He looked down at you with love. “I… must confess something.” 

You looked up with a knowing expression. “I love you too, Optimus.” 

The shock on his face was priceless. He then smiled softly, pulling you closer to his face. “Thank you, little star.”

[whiskeynwriting]

din thots/request idea i had today

you’ve been working with Din for a while, and you’ve grown quite fond of him and you suspect the mandalorian feels the same but you know he won’t make a move on you. He’s too stoic. Man of a few words. You’ve been dancing around each other, occasional touches, lingering gazes and all. You decide to take matters in your own hand because you’re a little brat, so you gradually do little mundane things to play with him, like being messier with your clothes, the strap on your tank tops falling down, no bra, etc. Mundane things that you know he’s gonna notice and drive him wild. One day you land on a little planet with lots of fresh water, so you decide to undress in front of him to bathe, making sure you look at him the whole time but making it very nonchalant and casual, keeping your usual cool and cold temper which drives him nuts

DO AS YOU PLEASE WITH MY THOTS ❤️‍🔥 im not a writer so I’m leaving these thots with you for a lil request idea🥺🥺🥺

Hun, I love this. I fell in love and ran away with this prompt and your ideas, I hope you like it <3

Are You Afraid?

Din Djarin x Female Reader

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1k Followers Celebration

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Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: 18+ (minors DNI) angsty Mando, arguing, dirty talk, light choking, some hair pulling, somewhat rough sex, vaginal sex (the helmet stays on oof), mentions of Grogu (we love and miss the baby), and I think that’s it lol ���

A/N: I hate to jump on the “I hate Din’s new ship” bandwagon, but I hate Din’s new ship lmao. So, in here, we’re gonna pretend the Razor Crest is still around. This fic also takes place after The Mandalorian season 2 finale.

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Din Djarin Masterlist

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At this point, you’ve lost track of how many fights the two of you have gotten in. And it wasn’t just an everyday occurrence, it happened multiple times a day. Whether it was over who ate the last granola bar, who was currently in the shower, or who was snoring too loud, the two of you always found something to argue about.

Part of you supposes it’s due to your close quarters. Since the child left you and Din had been on the ship alone, with only the two of you to keep each other company. And usually, spending time with Din wasn’t bad. You didn’t always fight like this; he’d become quite irritable since the child left, still in mourning and honestly angry at the world. It’s not like he was dead, but he was gone, he was definitely gone. Before he left, though, you and Din were quite fond of each other. It got to the point where you genuinely thought you were seconds away from forming a true relationship. But when the child left, and Din got the dark saber, everything changed. He became so much colder, so much harder and rougher around the edges.

This is what you’re thinking about as you lay on the sand, rubbing your toes into the soft yet gritty texture of it. The warmth radiating from both the ground and above felt nice, the tropical breeze blowing by allowing you to breathe. There’s a vast ocean sitting before you, covering most of the planet, actually, and is more a tinted turquoise than pure blue. Glee Anselm, a world you’d never be to before, but one Din has frequented in the past. Covered with mainly small and isolated islands, it was the perfect place for the two of you to rest and rinse off. The Crest’s water tank was out and well, actually, you’d rather not get into it. You’d already fought about it enough earlier.

While the planet is covered in a wide variety of terrain, Din made sure to find a beach when docking the ship. He found an island big enough for the Crest to land on while still being too small to inhabit much life. The color of the sand is almost white, the water clear enough to see through to the bottom before it gets too deep. Trees scatter the small piece of land, as well, some nearing the shoreline and others casting off to form a small grove. It’s warm too, the sun hot though not powerful enough to burn your skin. And as you’re taking in the refreshing scenery, you decide it’s finally time to hop in. With a quick glance back at Din, you call his name.

He’s further behind you, still near the Crest. He’s taking apart and cleaning his weapons, off in his own mess of a world. The Mandalorian looks up at you upon hearing his name, only slightly regretting telling you it.

“Yeah?”

You jerk your head back in the direction of the ocean. “Can I get in?”

He sighs, groaning slightly and shaking his head as he returns to his weapons. “I don’t care what you do.”

Okay, so he’s still annoyed. Great. And besides, it’s not like you were asking permission to go in the water, you just wanted to know if there’s anything dangerous you should look out for. He is more familiar with this planet than you are. But fine, you’ll just have to go it alone.

“Are you just gonna sit there?” you sneer, turning back and twisting your face up at him as you begin to undress.

“What? You think I’m gonna look?” he snaps back, visor still trained on the metal piece he’s cleaning in his hand.

“I don’t know,” you continue on, provoking him further without even realizing it.

“Go do whatever the hell it is you want to do.” He finally shouts, “Just make sure you do it away from me.”

You roll your eyes, turning back toward the ocean. What a fucking drama queen. Grogu leaving has really gotten to him. But just because he was dealing with his son’s absence didn’t mean he had to take it out on you.

With a few quick movements, you’re in your underclothes, deciding that you no longer care if Din sees. And while he’s hell bent on not seeing you, on focusing on his current task, your naked body walking into the waves is almost impossible to avoid. His blood boils inside, certain that you’re testing him. Din tosses the piece of metal down into the sand, leaning forward and placing a hand on his knee, leaning on his other forearm as he now blatantly watches you. He wants to test you back.

When you turn around it’s hard to hide your shocked gasp. Din’s gaze is intense and unwavering; he said he wouldn’t look, that he didn’t care what you did. So, why is he now deliberating watching you swim naked through the water now? Maybe you’ve finally done it, maybe you’ve finally pushed his last button. You’ve finally gone far enough to fully entice him.

Your eyes meet the black line of his visor as you decide to step out, the slightly transparent material separating the windows to his soul from the rest of the world. They don’t move, remaining steady and watching you closely. It’s the first time he’s seen you so exposed, the first time he’s seen you completely naked before him. And he inhales a tight breath, remaining stoic in his appearance but slowly crumbling to pieces on the inside. It’s been so long since Din has been with a woman but in all honestly, that’s not the only thing that gets him going. It’s you. It makes him angry as hell to admit it, but he fucking wants you.

“Like what you see?” you tease, raising a brow with a sly smirk. “Thought you said you weren’t gonna look.”

He scoffs, doing his best to appear uninterested. “Not much to look at.”

“Yeah, right.” You laugh, continuing to approach him. “Tell that to the tent in your pants.”

Din’s head snaps down, annoyance and embarrassment rushing through him as he too sees his very obvious boner. He slaps his hands down on his thighs, pushing up and rising quickly from his seat.

“You just won’t stop, will you?”

“Stop what?” you ask, eyebrow once again raised. “I can’t help how attractive I am.”

“No but you can certainly help how bratty you are.” He immediately spits out in return, taking a broad step toward you.

“Oh…”

“What?”

“So, you think I’m attractive?”

“Look,” he huffs out, now stepping directly into your space. “I don’t need your fucking shit, okay? You do this every goddamn day.”

“Me?! Our fights are not just my fault!” you throw your arm out, gesturing angrily at who knows what. And suddenly, you’re both very aware that you’re completely naked, your breasts swinging slightly from your forceful motion. And Din’s eyeline immediately meets their movement.

“Yeah,” you scoff, “Not much to look at, huh? Looks like you can’t keep from looking at me. Just because you don’t know how to make a move and actually fuck doesn’t mean you need to take it out on me.”

You’re both more than aware that some of your frustration has been sexual. It’s kind of hard to get off when your roommate is only a few feet away, and in the same room, nonetheless. And with the two of you constantly fighting, it’s not like having sex was really an option, either. And while the two of you certainly weren’t doing anything remotely related to sex, you were leading each other on, in a sense. You’d started walking around the Crest in nothing but a tank top and boy shorts, your bras and even panties at times no where to be seen. His gaze has lingered a few times, well, more than a few. He watches you move, he always does, eyeing your body and the curves you display more and more every day.

“You need to watch your mouth.” He grumbles, voice dangerously low yet booming through the air.

“Yeah? Or what? You’ll actually fucking do something?” you taunt in return. You’re just sick of this, of the back and forth you two constantly have. You’ve had enough.

“You know, Mando, you sure talk one hell of a game for being so fucking insecure on the inside.”

The way you flinch surprises you both, his movements so quick you barely register them. In a few short seconds, you’re being hauled to the side by your arm, his grip firm and bruising on your skin. He shoves you toward him, stepping to the side and forcing you face-first against the side of the Crest.

“Din!” you shout in shock, gasping when you feel his leather-covered palms land on your ass.

He presses himself against you from behind, the coolness of his Beskar sending shivers across your heated skin. You can feel him sloppily fumbling with his belt behind you, and you now find your breaths increasing.

“Din, what’re you –”

And then, he’s shoving his fingers into your hair and yanking your head back. He leans in, pressing his helmet against your cheek and whispering hoarsely into your ear.

“Tell me you don’t want this.” He all but taunts. “Tell me, fucking tell me.”

“Mm…” you whimper out, squirming beneath his body’s weight.

“Tell me you haven’t thought about this as much as I have, that you haven’t wanted this since the fucking day we met.”

He’s breathing heavily, cuirass rising and falling behind you. You’re speechless, because you do want this. You have thought about this just as much as him, and there’s no way you can deny it now. Upon your continued silence, Din then speaks.

“That’s what I fucking thought.” He seethes, shoving your head forward and letting go of your hair.

You gasp when he releases himself, immediately rubbing his smooth head over your skin. He’s red and pulsing, already leaking, his precum having pooled over his tip the moment he saw you naked.

“Din…”

Saying his name comes so easy to you, and you’ve always wondered why. Maybe it’s because you say it so frequently when you’re by yourself at night, even though those times are rare.

“Are you…” he begins, groaning out behind you as he feels his erection throb. “Are you afraid of me?”

You furrow your brows – he’s never asked you a question like that before. You don’t know how to feel about it and at first, you’re not sure how to answer. So when you do, you do so hesitantly.

“No…”

Without warning he thrusts inside you, the sting painful alongside his incredible girth. His pelvis presses against your ass, his left hand laying flat over the side of the Crest with his other hand on your hip. He shouldn’t like your cry as much as he does.

“Maybe you should be.” he murmurs, a certain grit to his voice as he pulses in you from behind.

“Din…” you whine out, the noise now loud.

“Does it hurt?” he’s answered with another small yet high sound. “Or do you want more?”

“Fuck,” you whisper, eyes pinching shut.

“Tell. Me.” He demands, body pressing even further against you.

“I want, I want more.”

Before you’re even ready he’s retracting himself, immediately plunging back inside. It’s hurried and forceful, your eyes rolling from the intense power behind his thrusts. You’re thankful no one else is around, because the sharp noise of your act radiates loudly, sure to cause attention if others were near.

“Fuck,” he grunts out, both hands now holding onto your hips.

His breaths have picked up significantly, and it’s so strange to see him like this, to feel him like this. Usually, you’re never able to tell when he’s flustered, he never lets anyone see him like that. But now, you see, you can see nearly everything.

You giggle, dropping your head forward between your arms. “You seem flustered.”

He rolls his eyes; of course you decide to sass him now. And he sees your smile widen when he twitches inside.

“Of course, I’m flustered,” he spits back, your bratty persona always an irritant to him. “I just put my cock inside you.”

“Hm…” you try to hum but it comes out as stuttered breaths due to his thrusts, clenching around him and interested to see how much he’ll put up with.

“Stop.” He seethes, head snapping up and hand reaching for the back of your neck. He feels an incredible urge of dominance overtake him, now that he’s inside you and finally claiming you as his. His. Something he’s waited so long for, too fucking long for.

Your jaw drops, lips curling into an open-mouthed smirk at his quickness. He’s never touched you here before, another check on the boxes he’s ticking off today.

“You like teasing, don’t you?” he asks, voice incredibly low as he tilts his head.

He huffs out, heavily shaking his head as he stares down at your naked form.

“The way you looked at me…” he groans out, “Walking up to me like that… acting like that.”

“Like what?” you breathily respond, your head tilting back.

“Like it was nothing.” He growls, continuing his fervent thrusts. “You have such a cold temper.”

You let out a laugh. “Oh, I have a temper?”

“Hm,” he grunts, suddenly snapping his hips into yours instead of answering you with words.

“Fuck!” you quietly seethe, fingers now clawing at the ship before you.

“Yeah…” he drawls out, the smirk evident in his tone. “I think you do. And it drives me fucking crazy sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” you challenge, sighing out a laugh, body buzzing with bliss.

He immediately leans in, his helmet just inches from your face as he growls out, “Always.”

“Din…” you moan, head dropping forward and resting on the metal wall.

Shivers of pleasure vibrate through your core as he continues to smack his pelvis against you, his muscles flexing as he moves his body behind yours. His armor rubs along your skin, slightly pinching in some areas as pieces of Beskar occasionally cling against the adornments closest to it.

You’re trembling, and he can feel it, chuckling out when he kicks your feet apart and hears you cry out in response. He’s so much deeper now, his hands forcing you back to meet every one of his thrusts.

“Maker,” he hisses out, throwing his head back. “You’re so fucking tight.”

The hand he uses to shoot his gun, the hand he uses to throw daggers into his enemy’s hearts, the one that touches himself at night to the thought of you, slides up your side. It’s a motion that makes you sigh, this particular experience with him truly the thrill of a lifetime. He finds your right breast, immediately cupping and squeezing you in hand.

“Oh,”

The muscles along his shoulders and arms flex with excitement, his hips continuing to move, forcing his cock inside you at an increasingly rapid pace. He weighs your breast in his hand, eyes rolling back at your soft, plump curves. It’s a quick suck of air, the sudden sound he makes, his body trembling slightly due to not feeling another’s warmth in so long.

“You like this?” he then asks, his voice low and gravely before you. “Have you thought about this?”

“Mm…” you whine, inhaling a breath in an attempt to steady yourself. You release it quickly, nodding your head. “Mhm, yes. Yes…”

“You feel warm…” he groans, feeling his precum leak into your core. “You feel tight… are you nervous?”

“Yes,”

“Why?” he asks, picking up his pace. “Isn’t this what you want?”

You nod, but he shakes his head.

“Tell me.” He demands, more than aware of the game he’s playing. “I want to hear it.”

“Fuck, Din.”

“I said tell me.” He says again, angling his hips so he hits that spot just right. “You were big talk a few minutes ago. You need to learn how to respond.”

Din moves his head down closer to yours, his metal cheek resting against your naked one. He moves just below your ear, body almost curling into you, over you.

“Yes, yes I –”

Your head falls back on his shoulder, feeling your eyes roll back. You’re fluttering uncontrollably around him, feeling him take you so roughly and forcefully making your body shiver with pleasure. It’s sturdy and firm, the press of his physique against you. He’s so broad it drives you fucking mad, makes you feel wild and makes the place between your thighs ache. And your gasps and sighs increase the more he moves, his slow grabs turning into desperate paws. The drag of his member along your walls is debilitatingly pleasurable, so much so that you’re almost unable to hold yourself up.

“I love how strong you are,” you suddenly admit, heart beating at the thought of how things used to be, of how you wished you could’ve done this then. “How skilled you are.”

“I feel the same,” he instantly returns, making your heart flutter inside. “I like how you fight, fuck, you’re so fucking sexy when you fight.”

“Din…”

“Ner kih verd.” He says, the words coming out naturally, the nickname one you’re both used to.

“What, what does that…”

“My little warrior,” he grits out, unable to hold it back any longer.

Your heart beats with affection; you’d never known the meaning of that nickname. Suddenly, you hear him gasp out behind you, the high noise displaying his frustration.

“Ugh…uh…” he groans out, a multitude of expressions crossing his face as he continues sliding himself inside.

“What? What, baby?”

It feels incredibly odd to call him that while you’re practically fucking your frustrations out on one another. But what he says next is astonishing.

“I love you,” he grunts out. “I always fucking have. Always have.”

He continues hammering himself into you, fingers digging into your sides as his muscles exert themselves to the fullest extent. Incredible waves of pleasure continue to fill your being, walls throbbing around him and sucking him in deeper with every thrust. And behind the cover of his eyes Din watches you, wondering how you’re feeling inside. No matter how bratty you are, no matter how much you fight, he’ll always care about you. And besides, he knows you’re only acting like this to spur him on.

“F – fuck, Din! Oh my g – god,”

He’s grunting behind you, an animalistic sound you’ve never heard from this man. There’s been so much tension between the two of you, so much sexual frustration and genuine annoyance, it lights his body on fire, sending a wave of adrenaline through his limbs. And it feels amazing, unlike anything he’s ever felt before. He’s never had a relationship like this, one full of tension and angst that ends up with him inside the other. The only thing he thinks this comes close to is when he kills; he feels so powerful when he hunts, feels strong and skilled and dominant. And that’s how you make him feel, too.

“D – Din,” you choke out, the feeling of him repeatedly plunging inside almost too much. “I - I love you t-too. Fuck, I really do. I’ve always cared about you.”

“Maker,” he quietly grunts out, head swimming with overwhelming thoughts. “You feel fucking amazing.”

Your jaw drops, a smirk forming on your still-parted lips. He feels even better than you imagined he would be, his tip repeatedly punching against your most sensitive spot. All you had to do to see Din’s power and strength was see him walk down the street. The Mandalorian always came off menacing yet collected, sturdy yet quick. You’d wondered from the first moment you set eyes on him how it would feel to have him inside and exert every single muscle while fucking you.

“Oh… fuck. Yes, Din, yes. Please, please don’t stop.”

“I won’t stop, not until I’m done with you.” he grunts out. “Not until I’ve had my fill. Understand?”

To both his surprise and yours, you comply. “Yes, yes Din.”

“Look at you,” he responds, a taunting tone to his voice. “Being good for once. How does that feel?”

He throbs inside you, feeling the pulsation of your walls around him, guiding him in and doing your best to keep him there. You’re so warm and soft and inviting, something he hasn’t felt in years. Like even after he cums he knows he’ll want to stay inside you, to claim your body and declare it as his. He’s waited too long to do this.

“It feels good, s – so good, baby.” There’s that name again.

He almost can’t speak, his breaths so rough and forced. The feeling of his cock dragging along your walls satisfying the deepest parts of him. It’s incredibly fulfilling, finally taking you like this.

“Have you ever gotten it rough before, pretty girl?”

Din has never called you that before, and it makes you moan out his name. He’s growling in your ear as his hips continue to slap against your ass, as he continues to fill you with himself. You try to move back against him in time with his thrusts, but the weight of his body is too much. He has full control over you.

“Not…” you breathe out. “Not like this, holy fuck. Din, Din, you’re so deep.”

“Want it as deep as I can get.”

His muscles tense, twitching from the incredible exertion of his current act. Seeing you writhe beneath him makes his mind spin, makes him want even more.

You’re trying to think, you really are, but you honestly feel drunk. You’ve never been fucked like this in your entire life, never been fucked so roughly, never been manhandled so easily. Usually, you’re defiant towards everyone, but with Din, maybe you’re finally starting to let him back in.

“Ner nehutyc dala,” he grits out, punched out groans emanating from his throat. He can already feel his thrust beginning to falter, can already feel himself getting close. “My feisty girl.”

“You – yours?” you stutter out, body rocking from the force of his.

“Don’t you fucking get it?” he growls, hand returning to your hair and pulling your head back while he leans forward once again.

The edge of his helmet presses against your cheek, his low grunts and groans echoing in your ear. He’s pounding into you, pulsing with each forceful shove and loving every fucking minute of it.

“You’re mine, you pretty fucking thing. Mine.”

Something about the words makes your eyes roll back, an incredible satisfaction washing over you. Yes, yes, this is what you want. This is what you’ve wanted for so long.

“Shit,” he spits out, “I’m gonna cum, Maker, where do you want me? Huh? You want me inside?”

You nod hurriedly, pressing your forehead against the cool wall of the Crest. “Yes, yes Din. Please!”

He rubs firmly against you, grinding into you deep as he immediately spills inside. His hips jerk lightly, small gasps choking out through hoarse moans. His forehead then rests on your shoulder, his chest expanding with each deep breath of air.

In mere seconds, you feel it, Din’s hot cum flooding through you. You would’ve never imagined your first time together to be like this, would’ve never expected it to be so frustratingly rough. But honestly, you needed it, you both did. And something about the interaction makes the two of you feel some kind of connection, something even deeper than before. Something that started with anger now gifting the two of you with a promise for the future.

You think back to what Din said, or rather what he asked. You really aren’t afraid of him. He could be scary, sure, a terrifying hunter almost constantly stalking his prey, but you never felt that way. And especially not right now. The Mandalorian was the most menacing man you’d ever met; you’ve seen him kill in cold blood. But even when you were distant, you both knew betrayal was never on the other’s mind. You could still depend on each other even when faced with danger. There’s honestly nothing scarier than Din in this world, and when you’re friends with the predator… what do you have to be afraid of?

Thank you for reading <3

If you liked this fic, check out my Blurred Lines Series (;

[messers-moony]

Divorce 2 | J.P

Paring: James Potter X Slytherin!Reader

Summary: Reader goes through divorce with her arranged husband but sees her Hogwarts crush almost two years later at her Potions shop in Diagon Alley

Prompt: Holding hands while driving

After that moment in the Potions store, James came around a lot more, much to Leo’s excitement. It became customary for James to restock items or help brew potions despite his lower levels. Leo was ecstatic to have him around. The mischievous and playful James Potter always kept Leo excited.

James spent lots of time with both of them. Making sure they were both taken care of and loved unconditionally. Frequently James would stop by to make dinner for them while Y/n worked late shifts or take Leo out of the shop to give him an adventure. A year had passed, and James had a crucial question for her. The shop was empty, and Leo was upstairs - ecstatic for his new Hogwarts adventure.

“Love?” James called as Y/n stepped down from the ladder, “Yes?”

“Can you- Can you come here a moment?” James ran a hand through his hair as she walked in front of him, “What's on your mind?” Y/n questioned softly.

James was hesitant, “Move in with me.”

“What?”

“Move in with me, please?”

Y/n chuckled, flabbergasted, “James, that’s a big step.”

“I know, but I- I really want to be with you, all the time. I want to wake up to you every morning. I want to make you and Leo breakfast. I want to see you in a dreary state after a long day at work. I want to take care of you when you’re sick. I want to take Leo to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.” James swallowed, “I- I want to be the father Leo never got….” He murmured.

Y/n’s eyes turned soft at his muttered confession, “You- You mean it?” James nodded, “You want to be Leo’s father?” He nodded.

“I want to hug him before he leaves to Hogwarts all seven years. I want him to jump into my arms after his terms at Hogwarts. I want to watch him cause mischief and get those owls home. I want to write him letters to remind him that I’m here if he needs anything.” James’ eyes welled with tears, “I- I want to be there for everything.”

“I may not be his father biologically, but he is the closest thing I have to a son, and I’ll be damned if I don’t treat him like my own.”

Y/n wiped the stray tears away, “James, you need to understand that this is a big responsibility you’re taking on. You know there’s no one in this world I’d rather than you to be a true father to Leo, but I want to make sure this is truly what you want.”

“I’d want nothing more.” James swore, and Y/n smiled softly, “Then yes, we’ll move in with you.”

That night James, Y/n, and Leo were eating at the dinner table when James finally decided to speak up, “Leo?”

“Yes?”

“How- How would you feel about leaving this place?” James asked carefully.

Leo’s face contorted to one of confusion, “Leave? Why?”

“Leo…” Y/n began with a smile, “James wants to know if you want to move in with him.”

“Both of us?” Leo queried, looking at his mom and gaining a nod, “James wants us to live with him!?”

James’ features softened at the boy's excitement, “Only if you want to.”

“Of course I want to!” Leo exclaimed with a bright smile.

Leo jumped up from his seat and hugged James tightly, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

James chuckled and ruffled the boy's hair, “You’re welcome.”

Lots of packing came with moving. It was a lot of cardboard boxes. James insisted they do it the muggle way, wanting Leo to experience new things after growing up being a pureblood. James saw how sheltered Sirius was and didn’t want Leo to be the same. It was also the reason they took a car to James’ house. Leo was fascinated when he entered the back seat.

It made Y/n and James laugh at how the boy was so quickly excited. Leo always had a lot of energy and not many ways to exert it, but with James around, that energy never went to waste. James and Leo would spend hours walking around Diagon Alley or flying on broomsticks together away from the muggles. Leo would enter the shop breathless and hair in disarray. James not too far behind. It warmed Y/n’s heart to see her son so happy.

While riding in the car, James gently took her hand in his. It was a small gesture, but it made her blush. Leo stared out the window of the vehicle the entire time while James played music from the radio. It took about an hour, but eventually, they got to Godric’s Hollow. James parked the car outside - upon hours later, he confessed it was Remus’ car - and began putting the boxes in the house. It was about midnight when all the boxes were on the bottom floor.

Leo busied himself with an old spell book James gave him while the other two unpacked. Y/n was opening a cardboard box when two arms wrapped around her waist. Y/n rested her hands on his and leaned back into his embrace. James left a kiss on her cheek, relishing at the moment. His girlfriend in his arms and her - their - child on the couch.

It took a month to get everything in place. James and Y/n had settled in their room together. Leo had found sanctuary in his bedroom that they painted a deep blue color. Leo was always obsessed with the stars and constellations. Perhaps a gift he collected from his biological father. Zenix always had a way with the stars Y/n didn’t quite comprehend. James was always willing to listen to Leo talk about them, though.

Only days until Leo was due to leave for his first year at Hogwarts and Y/n, was wishing for more time with him before she had to send him off. She was well aware that he’d be fine, but it was still her baby. More often than not, she was still selling Potions at her potions store. James stayed home with Leo and took him out on adventures. But the week before Leo was supposed to leave, Y/n took off of work.

The following week was filled with school shopping, getting ice cream, exploring the muggle world, riding broomsticks, and playing board games. It was possibly the best time Y/n had ever had since before getting married to Zenix. Although marrying Zenix was something she never wanted, she did get something amazing out of it - Leo.

He was her pride and joy, so when they - James and Y/n - stood on the platform, Y/n felt like sobbing, but she didn’t. Instead, James was the one crying. Leo held his mom extremely tight out of nervousness and anxiety. Leo reeled back to meet his mom’s bright e/c eyes.

“You’ll be fine, honey. You’ll make plenty of friends.” Y/n assured, and Leo’s eyes welled with tears, “I’ll miss you.” He whimpered.

“I’ll miss you too, my love.”

Leo hugged her again. Y/n chuckled and wrapped her arms around him again. James stood beside him, quietly crying. Here he was - James Potter - crying over his stepson leaving for Hogwarts. He wasn’t expecting it, but Leo wrapped his arms around him too. He was quietly sobbing into James’ shirt. Y/n stood back and watched with a bright smile.

They pulled apart, and Leo’s eyes looked like an ocean with the glossy texture, “You’ll be okay kiddo. Raise holy hell for me, okay?” James chuckled tearfully, kneeling to Leo’s height.

The boy nodded and wrapped his arms around James' shoulders, “I love you, dad.”

Y/n was barely able to withhold a gasp, and James was sobbing, “I love you too, kiddo.”

The raven-haired boy pulled away and took one last look at his parents. Leo jumped on the train and quickly pulled down the window as the train began to move, “I love you, mom! I love you, dad!”

“We love you too, sweetheart!” Y/n exclaimed, and James wrapped his arm around her waist.

The adult male was crying with a smile on his face facing his girlfriend, “He called me dad!”

Y/n laughed, “I can’t believe it! He called me dad!”

“I’ve dreamt about this moment for months!” James laughed, “Is it everything you dreamed of?”

“It’s so much better.” James replied, kissing her lips sweetly.

Not every story starts great. Maybe you’re loved one rejects you. Perhaps you start a commitment with someone you never loved or fell out of love with. Maybe not every story starts excellent. But who’s to say you can’t change the end? The beginning of your account is just that - the beginning. James and Y/n’s start was dreadful, but they were determined to change the ending.

[imagine-lcorp]

Lost & Found (One Shot)

Request

Could you maybe do something where Lena meets single parent reader at the store when she loses her kid and Lena helps her back to her mom. Her finding a home with them and all that fluffy stuff?

A/N: Hey, my dears, hope you are doing alright. It’s good to be back to present you with another lovely request. This one was particularly good, I really don’t know anything about children but it’s always fun to figure out how to write the haha. Also, did ya know there’s actUally a Superman ice cream flavor? Kudos to the anon that sent this one! Pls enjoy and let me know what you think!! 

- (Y/D/N). Your Dauther’s Name

Lena Luthor x Single Mother!R // Word Count: 2,891 -------------------------------------------------------

There was a time when Lena Luthor used to wonder what made a family a family.

Was it having a mother and a father? She had a mother and a father, although not at the same time. She had a mother, then she had a father... and another mother, but she wasn't quite like the first mother she had. Was it having a brother or a sister? She had only known one brother but even when they shared the same father, he showed her the many ways it didn't matter.

Was it the blood relationship? She had friends that almost feel like family to her even when they didn't share the same blood, but those relationships withered the same way her relationships with her blood family did. Was it sharing a house with someone? She had lived in many houses and apartments. A small house near the ocean, a mansion in the countryside, a little apartment near the university, a penthouse in the city. She had shared each one with some others and yet she could not call them family, not really and not anymore.

So, what made a family a family? Lena had wondered for so long until one day she found you, or rather, found her.

"Have you seen my mommy?" A little voice startled her from her evening thoughts.

It had been one of those rare days when Lena needed to feel less like herself and indulge in some mundane chores. She would give her chauffeur the night off, take her car and drive around the city for a while before going into whatever store or supermarket she could find open. She would take some time to check aisles and products, enjoying the quiet and the fact that most people around didn't put much attention to her. She would ponder about buying a few items just to imagine herself as everybody else.

The little girl standing beside her, however, didn't seem to care about Lena's self-pity.

She looked around, in the detergent aisle of the supermarket she was in, to see if there was any sign of a mother looking for her lost child but the few people near the two of them didn't even bother to notice. She didn't look older than five or six and, fortunately, she also didn't look scared.

"No, sorry." Lena replied, kneeling in front of her. "Do you remember where you last saw her?"

"She was looking for ice cream." The girl said with a glimmer in her eyes. The idea of dessert making her excited.

"Ice cream?" Lena asked with raised eyebrows. "You were buying ice cream?"

"Yeah." She said, showing her big smile with a couple of baby teeth already missing.

She thought it was a cute gesture and even when she didn't know what to do, Lena couldn't leave her.

"Maybe I can help you find your mom but you need to help me too, alright?" The little girl nodded. "What's your name?"

"(Y/D/N). What's yours?"

"I'm Lena." She smiled.

Lena asked her a few more questions about you, your name, the way you looked like, what were you wearing and where was the last place she had seen you. Your daughter was a pretty smart girl, she answered every question as best as she could, with short but very precise words, giving Lena a pretty good idea of who she needed to look for.

She took your daughter's hand in hers and started walking around each aisle, heading particularly towards the freezer section, where Lena supposed she could find the ice cream. The girl kept looking around and would sometimes squeeze Lena's hand every time she found something interesting to look at. She was a pretty carefree child, considering her current situation. It reminded Lena a bit of herself so long ago, when there was no more world to worry about but her own.

However, she worried that, if they couldn't find you, she would have to take her to security and let them deal with a case of a missing child. Lena found that plan less than ideal.

"(Y/D/N)!" You both suddenly heard.

"Mommy?" The little girl turned around, searching for your voice with wide eyes. She held Lena's hand even tighter and in a moment they were both running along the cereal aisle.

Lena was about to tell her to slow down when they heard your voice once again behind their backs.

"(Y/D/N)!"

Lena and your daughter turned around and saw you slid on the floor as you tried to run towards them.

You felt an instant wave of relief once your eyes locked on your daughter. Your little girl came running towards you in a second and you didn't even care she was pulling someone along with her. (Y/D/N) only let go of Lena's hand once she was close enough to jump into your arms.

"Oh, thank goodness, you're alright." You said with a heavy sigh, wrapping your daughter into a hug. "You scared me, love. You know you don't have to leave my side when we're out."

"But I was looking for the ice cream." You heard her say, and you had a sudden urge to throw your child into a bin.

"Ice cre-? Ice cream? I-" Instead you took a deep breath, closed your eyes and hugged her even tighter. You let go of her a moment later, making sure she was alright. "Yes, sweetheart. We're getting you your ice cream."

"Can Lena come with us?" She asked and you finally looked up to catch a glimpse of the stranger your daughter had dragged along.

The woman was standing a few steps behind you, fidgeting with her hands as she observed the scene in front of her.

Lena had felt a wave of relief herself when she saw mother and daughter reunite, and she felt happy she had helped, but she had to admit she felt quite out of place. It was a family moment and she didn't want to interrupt.

"Well, first you have to introduce me to your new friend." You said then and Lena had to raise a brow in surprise.

(Y/D/N) did a little jump in excitement and grabbed your hand. You got up while your daughter pulled you towards Lena. "Lena, this is my mommy."

"It is nice to meet you, Lena. I'm (Y/N)." You looked at her with a smile appearing at the corner of your lips and she felt, without knowing why, so much lighter.

Lena couldn't say no to your daughter's invitation after that. She was curious to find out why little (Y/D/N) was so adamant about buying ice cream. Apparently, she was looking for a very special flavor, the Superscoop Sundae, which was said to be Supergirl's favorite kind of flavor.

You took your daughter's hand in yours this time and while you walked it seemed like you couldn't thank Lena enough for helping your daughter find its way back to you. You assured her this wasn't  a common occurrence. You always tried to keep a close eye on your daughter but she would sometimes get too excited to even wait for you.

"She's chaos compressed in the form of a five year old." You joked. "All this trouble for some dessert, can you believe?"

You started a friendly conversation as you walked to the freezer section and, for a moment, Lena felt like a child again making friends in the playground. You didn't have your guard up, and you certainly weren't suspicious about her. You only knew she had helped you find your daughter and in return you had wanted to share this moment with her as a gesture of gratitude. No hidden intentions behind it.

"I'd like you to have this." You said after deciding it was time for you and your daughter to head home.

(Y/D/N) was finally holding a pint of the Superscoop Sundae in her hands and she was standing near you, waiting for your conversation to be over. You pulled a tiny card out of your wallet and handed it to Lena.

"This is my card, if you ever need it."

You wanted to return the favor and if there was something you could do for Lena you were going to do it with no hesitation. It was the least you could do, you assured her. Then you parted ways, with (Y/D/N) waving Lena goodbye and leaving her with a smile in her face and warm sensation in her heart.

Little did you know that Lena was going to need that favor, more sooner than later.

After another attempt against her life, Lena Luthor was in need of a place to hide.

The DEO and Supergirl had suggested some safe houses for her to use for a few days but since the database of the DEO had been hacked, most of those facilities could have been already compromised. She needed a place no one knew about, a place no one would expect her to be. So, even against her better judgement, she pulled a tiny card out of her own purse.

"So, let me get this straight." You said pacing around the living room of your apartment. "You want me to hide you here for let's say, around a week, right? And, by doing so, I may or may not be in danger? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Yeah, essentially."

Lena and Supergirl spoke at the same time. They were standing there with you in the middle of the room, looking apologetical and waiting for your answer. However, you looked back and forth between the two of them, not believing what was happening.

When Lena called you to ask for that favor, you didn't think too much of it. Instead, you remembered that day at the supermarket, where she helped you and your daughter reunite again. You wouldn't have known what to do if anything had happened to your her that evening and you felt like you owned it to Lena. But this was a whole new thing for you, starting for the fact that there was no way your daughter wouldn't get involved in this. Besides, it was Lena's life, Lena Luthor's life, the life of a multibillionaire genius, in your hands.

"(Y/N), please, don't worry. I know we may be asking too much." Lena said as she fidgeted with her hands.

You looked at her with worry and were about to answer, still not sure about what to say, when you heard a knock on the door. After a second of hesitation, you shook your head and went to answer. As you opened the door, a tiny figure appeared.

Your neighbor next door was dropping (Y/D/N) after the play date she had had with their own daughter. You thanked them and hurried (Y/D/N) inside, not wanting to draw anyone else's attention to your guests.

An excited gasp followed next as your daughter realized who was in her home.

"Mommy! It's Supergirl!" She jumped and ran towards the superhero.

"Hello, little one." Supergirl said as she kneeled in front of her.

"And Lena's here too!"

It surprised everyone in the room when your daughter, instead of reaching for Supergirl, ran past her, headed towards Lena and hugged her legs.

Supergirl looked startled by that, as she was usually the popular one around children, and Lena was a bit taken aback by the gesture. You smiled as you watched Lena pat (Y/D/N)'s head, asking her how she had been since the last time she had seen her and if she still had some ice cream left to share. It surprised you how easy it was for Lena to talk to your kid and it surprised you even more when you found yourself answering Lena's call for help.

"So...I guess I need to figure out what's for dinner tonight, if you're staying." You crossed your arms with a little frown in your face. You really had no idea what to cook for the night.

Three pairs of eyes turned suddenly to look at you and your daughter's eyes were as big as they had been on her last birthday when she got the exact bunny plushie she had asked for.

Dinner had never been as entertaining as it have been that first night. When (Y/D/N) found out Lena was a scientist she kept firing question after question. You were fairly impressed at the way Lena tried to answer all of them and you did your best to keep your daughter from asking anything too inappropriate. Lena was more than thrilled about it all.

"I have a question of my own, Miss Luthor." You said after you had put (Y/D/N) in bed.

"Do you?" Lena said raising a brow. "What is it?"

"Do millionaires know how to wash their own dinner plates?" You heard Lena laugh as you headed for the kitchen, and somehow it was one of the most wonderful things you had ever heard.

You found yourselves falling into a comfortable routine during the days she spent at your house. If at first you had been a bit hesitant about how to treat Lena, after finding out who she really was, you soon found out that millionaires did know how to wash plates and help with the daily chores in the house.

Your daughter was more than happy to have her new friend around the house. For her, Lena was someone else she could play with and the person who knew all the answers because she was a scientist. You felt a little jealous about that but, just like your daughter, you felt happy to have Lena with you. It certainly helped you forget your lives were in dire danger.

"Is she asleep?" Lena asked you one night.

"Yeah, sleeping like the dead." You took a seat on the kitchen table, where Lena had been revising some company documents. "Thank you for the tip."

"You're welcome." She rose from her own seat to pour you a cup of tea. "Reading Greek tragedies never fails to put people to sleep."

You chuckled. "Oh, I believe you. I was about to grab a blanket too. Thanks."

You grabbed the cup of tea from her hands, your fingers brushing against each other. You smiled at her and watched as she took her seat again. She asked you about your day at work, and you asked how things were going with her company. Conversation flowed easily as you moved to different topics.

It amazed Lena how easy she had fit within your lives, so naturally that she almost couldn't believe you had meet the week before. It was for her as if she had known you and (Y/D/N) since the beginning of time.

During those days you had learned so many things about each other. About (Y/D/N)'s collection of rocks and her hopes to get a bunny pet for her next birthday. Lena got used to the melodies of your favorite music and the way you arranged your books. You got to know the many ways Lena's facial expressions could tell you more about her state of mind than her assuring you she was alright.

When it was time for Lena to go back to her life, it felt like she was leaving her heart behind.

"Do you have to go?" Your daughter had asked as she watched Lena stand near the door with her suitcase.

"I'm sorry, honey, but I have to." Lena said with a pang of sadness as she took your daughter into her arms.

"But mommy said you were going to stay." She said with a pout, wrapping her little arms around Lena's neck.

"You know, if you need, you could stay a little longer." You approached them, reaching to stroke your daughter's back, and looking at Lena with hopeful eyes.

"Thank you, but I don't want to cause you anymore trouble. You have already done so much with letting me stay this long."

"No trouble at all." You assured her. "We protect our family. Right, (Y/D/N)?"

"Yeah! Just like Supergirl!" Your daughter cheered.

Lena was speechless for a moment, and you could tell she was having some trouble processing your words. However, it was true. A kind of familiarity had settled among you, and you had to admit it felt as if things were supposed to be this way. You were, without doubt, a little family.

"But I understand you have things to do in the outside world. Come on, sweetie." You took your daughter into your own arms, freeing Lena of her grasp. "Just remember, this Friday is pizza Friday, and someone has to bring the apple juice."

"I want grape juice." (Y/D/N) said.

"Or grape juice, yes, whichever you like." You winked at Lena, who couldn't hide her smile.

With those simple words, you had offered Lena not only your house but a place to stay every time she needed and wanted.

At that moment, Lena found the true meaning of family. It wasn't just a home but the people you got to chose to always come back to. And she had chosen, maybe from the beginning, to come back to you.

[caravelmp3]

UNDER THE CANYON MOON

pairing: josh kiszka x female!reader warning(s): mostly fluff, just brief mentions of alcohol and sex  word(s): 2k note: hi hi hi !! this is just a little something i wrote up the last couple of days with the inspiration of light my love, canyon moon by harry styles, and the interview where josh talked about road-tripping the u.s. last summer <3 i don’t write one shots often but let me know what you all think bc i might shuffle some more out soon lol. hope you all enjoy !! :) 

The Los Angeles sun was hot, beating down onto the city basking in its late-summer hues. You parked your car on the street in Silver Lake and carried a bag of food and drink tray to the door of a recording studio, more than prepared to be swarmed by hungry boys who had been cooped up in the studio since five a.m. on the dot that morning. They had a breakthrough the night before with a new song, and after getting home and going to bed for a few hours, the creative juices started flowing again and they were back in the booth. 

A windchime on the door sang as you pulled the door open and walked inside, greeting their manager who was at a table by the door. 

“The boys here?” 

“Down the hall,” he nodded, pointing a finger in the direction of the hallway. “They’re more rowdy than usual so be prepared,” 

You laughed and turned down the hall, walking towards the studio. The walls were decorated with memorabilia of rock and roll greats and record plaques, and among them, you spotted a picture of the four boys with their Grammy award. It seemed like time had passed so quickly. They won the award for the first album and they were already working on their third, shooting them further into stardom. 

“Coffee’s here!” You shouted in a really bad New England accent when you noticed the recording light was flipped off above the door. 

You stepped into the room to a chorus of cheers and “thank god you're here”’s that made you laugh while sitting the food and drinks down on the table and they all rushed over. You handed out the specific orders and pointed to which drinks was theirs when they got handsy and tried to grab everything from her out of both excitement and some desperation for caffeine. 

“Our savior,” Jake said, reaching out and grabbing your shoulders to give them a gentle shake before taking the coffee you were holding out to him, and then you handed Danny’s to him, too. 

“Just the coffee girl here,” 

“Well, you’re a little bit more than that,” Josh said, walking over to the table to grab his full cup. 

You pressed a hand against the table, leaning over to him. “Just a little?” 

“A little bit,” he shot you a wink before swiftly pressing a kiss to your cheek. 

You were more than just a “little more” than the coffee girl, you were typically their designated drunk driver, the one who took all of their candid photos, the mediator in times of need, and well, the girlfriend of the lead singer, too. 

Everyone in the studio took their food and drinks and scattered among the seating area in a break from recording. Instead of one tiny room with all of them cramped together, they had a wide open space with booths for the different instruments and bean bag chairs and big comfy, velvet sofas, and there was dim lighting with deep toned rugs that gave off the vibe of a more relaxed feel rather than the fluorescent-light, tiled-floor feeling that made them feel rushed and confined by rules they didn’t set themselves. 

You liked the studio, too, and often took naps on the sofa while listening to them play instruments individually in the recording booths and while they were writing. One night they had found you at two a.m., bundled up with a blanket on the bean bag chair after they spent the night writing in the front room on the piano, but it wasn’t the first time as you often napped in their Nashville recording offices, too. 

“You guys been busy today?” You asked jokingly while lowering onto the sofa armrest, receiving nothing but glares shot in your direction. “Okay, okay, touchy subject,” 

With a mouthful of bread, Sam pointed to Josh, “Josh finished a song, didn’t you?” He was grinning. 

You hummed in joy and surprise, grabbing Josh’s knee as he sat next to you. “Really?” 

It had been a rough few days for all of them as they tried to shuffle out a few more additions to the new album. It felt incomplete with something missing, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was exactly, so they attempted to bring back and revamp old songs, write and record new ones, but nothing seemed to stick, until now. 

“Yeah, wanted to wait and show you later, but someone can’t keep his trap shut.” Josh said, pretending to be serious before cracking a smile and taking a sip of his coffee. “Just wanted it to be a surprise,” 

“Well it can still be a surprise, I’m surprised now,” you said. “Can I hear it? Or read what you got?” 

Josh nodded and stood, grabbing your hand and pulling you with him. There was a little recording room fit with a piano inside, his writing journal placed on the music stand where he had scribbled notes and keys and melodies in pen. He picked it up and handed it to you. 

“Nothing seemed to click until last night, when I started putting it together.” He said. 

“Is that why you wouldn’t tell me what it was when you all got back to the house?” 

Josh shrugged, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, yeah, I wanted it to be special when you first heard it.”

You sat the coffee cup down onto the floor while lowering into the small chair in the corner, holding the journal like it was the most delicate piece of art in the world. In silence, while Josh watched on anxiously, you read the words he had splayed across the blank page. 

     Can you light my love?      Flames glowing bright as the sun      Deeper than oceans you run      Watch as our world has begun 

     Your mind is a stream of colors      Extending beyond our sky      A land of infinite wonders      A billion lightyears from here now

You felt your throat tighten, tears tempted your eyes. 

It was a love song. 

“Josh-” 

“Oh god you hate it don’t you, you dread it, despise it,” 

“Oh shut up, I’m in tears right now, you know I love it.” You looked up at him with a smile and a sniffle. 

His words across the page were sloppy, some cursive, written in different pens of different colors, some lines crossed and scribbled out, others underlined. 

“Your mind is something I will never fully understand.” You told him as he sat down on the chair next to you. “How the fuck did you come up with this-” 

“I was thinking about our trip out here, the week we spent driving out and all of the stuff we did… and how I think I fell more in love with you.” His voice softened. 

You reached out, placing your arm on his shoulder, fingers playing with his curls. “I can’t put it into words how much I love it, how much I love you,” you said, “and you make me sound so lovely when in reality I know I was a pain in the ass that entire trip.” 

“Yeah, but my pain in the ass,” he kissed the inside of your arm. 

Two weeks before the boys left Nashville to head to Los Angeles, Josh called you at midnight with an idea in mind – the two of you renting a camper to drive out to L.A., falling into all of the tourist traps along the way and stopping in random small towns to sleep while exploring the in between, which would definitely beat the boring four-hour flight. And you, half asleep and across the country, agreed. 

It would be fun. Right? 

And it was. Every time someone asked how it went, you called it “the most magical week of my life.” 

While the others waited behind for their flights the next week, you and Josh set off from Nashville, heading west with only the destination in mind and a trusty map in hand. Everything else just came to you both. 

The first stop was three hours in the trip, in Memphis. You and Josh roamed Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard and had lunch near Sun Studio before taking in the mementos and relics at the Blues Hall of Fame where Josh talked your ear off, rattling off more details about each band and singer than was on the info-cards on the wall. 

Then it was two hours to Little Rock, falling asleep in the back of the camper after a take-out dinner outside of a random supermarket. Sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of a parking lot, you held Josh’s hand under a blanket and watched the pink sunrise over the hills, and then it was back on the road again. 

From Oklahoma City to Amarillo, you fiddled with the map when Josh got lost after a wrong turn in a small town where he insisted on seeing the giant 66-foot LED soda bottle sculpture, and in the middle of northern Texas, he made it up to you by cooking your favorite dinner. You thanked him in a quiet whisper as you crawled into the bed with him that night, sliding under the covers where he greeted you with warm hands and kisses against your neck that made you squeal with the tickle of his mustache and he grinned against your lips. 

Josh got to choose the music all the way through New Mexico – Neil Young and Crazy Horse to John Denver’s Thank God I’m A Country Boy, and you were only able to squeeze in Joan Baez every hour when you stopped to stretch your legs on the side of the road, belting the words to him while he laughed at your voice cracks. 

And after you both pitched the tent in the Petrified Forest in Arizona, Josh hummed the tune to some new song while you two sat under the midnight stars in the canyon with a roaring fire, his arm around you, his sweatshirt draped over your shoulders. When he tried to start telling you a scary story after you heard a weird noise outside the tent, you blindly hit him in the dark and accidentally hit his nose, causing you both to burst into laughter after the initial panic left. He laughed loudly into your shoulder as you held his face in shock, catching the scent of your lavender lotion, and his body relaxed when the laughter died down, feeling so at peace in his life with you there. 

It was the tail end of the trip, but the excitement hadn’t died down yet. After showers in the camper in the middle-of-nowhere-Arizona and five hours west, you and Josh found a bar outside of Las Vegas that resembled Coyote Ugly, so you both had a round of tequila sodas and margaritas before walking around the small town that evening and sleeping off the tipsy-headaches in the air conditioning. On top of the covers, you looked at Josh napping in the sunshine, cheeks flushed red, curls poofy from the wind, and you felt your heart grow in your chest before falling asleep next to him. 

And then came Los Angeles, the final stop, the dreaded one. But you and Josh didn’t tell anyone that either of you were sad to be back with them in L.A. when they asked, and instead, you two smiled and hugged everyone after piling out of the camper in the drive-way of the Silver Lake house. 

Cleaning out the camper, tossing cheesy novelty t-shirts at each other and laughing at how many socks you two managed to lose along the way and how many bug bites were added, watching the developed clips Josh had filmed of scenes in the desert and you asleep in the passenger seat, you both were nostalgic about a trip that just ended. 

It was so easy, so freeing to just be together on the road, with only the destination in mind. It revealed a part of them that the other didn’t see often, like your tendencies to get your lefts and rights mixed up while giving directions, and Josh’s equally awful sense of direction didn’t exactly pair with the fact that he was a maniac while driving in the first place. 

But those parts were just added to the long list of why you and him loved each other in the first place. So you became the designated driver after Amarillo and Josh stuck to telling you “left or right” for the rest of the time. It was a compromise, another reason why you two worked so well together. 

It was a form of love in itself. 

“We’ll have to drive all the way back to Nashville then, so you can write more songs about me.” You teased. 

Josh rolled his eyes but cracked into a grin a second later. “Let’s not get too carried away,” but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t always mentally reliving the night under the canyon moon.

[wheelsup]

the taming of the shrew | two

if i be waspish, best beware my sting

after some setbacks, penelope is willing to do anything to get you back on board. but has spencer already ruined things?

A/N: hello! im so sorry that this posting schedule is super inconsistent. the more i thought about this chapter, the less i liked the more technical aspects of it. but! i hope you enjoy to plot aspect of it nonetheless <3 thanks for reading!

category: fluff, slow burn series, spencer reid x fem!reader

wc: 4.4k

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Since that phone call with Penelope, she’d been over nearly every night for a week with plates of treats and onslaughts of apologies. Each time she came knocking, you told her there was no amount of persuasion that could change your mind. And yet the following night, she’d be there, a new type of pastry in hand and a new set of reasons why Spencer was worth the trouble.

First, she brought blueberry muffins and reasoned that deep below that prickly exterior, he really was everything she promised –– sweet and caring. But that must be deep, deep down. Like, The Lost City of Atlantis, deep down, because you didn’t expect it to surface any time soon. 

Then, she brought fudge brownies and explained that his behavior wasn’t personal –– he was getting snippy with everyone lately. And while you maintained that anybody would have a hard time getting along with Spencer, you were absolutely positive that it was now impossible for you. 

Quite frankly, it wasn’t just Spencer who was unwilling to play nice. You hated him. More than you’ve ever hated a stranger. 

You wished him a lifetime riddled with minor inconveniences that would drive him to the edge of insanity. You wanted him to miss all his trains by just a quarter of a minute; close enough so that he could see it leave the platform, knowing he almost made it on. You wanted him to constantly feel like he was about to sneeze. You wanted his socks to be perpetually wet, and if he should happen to put on a dry pair? You hoped he stepped in a puddle.

That was all you could think about as you laid out on your couch, munching on one of Penelope’s lemon bars while she paced around your apartment. She kept going on and on advertising Spencer to you. As annoying as it was, she was also saving you a ton on groceries that week. 

For the most part, you filtered her out. Not a single word that came out of her mouth was believable anymore, especially not when she was talking about Spencer. Despite what Penelope thought of him, you saw in him what she refused to accept. 

As her speech came to a close, she looked at you like she expected a response to dignify her prattling. 

“Give it a rest, Penelope. He’s a lost cause,” you laughed dryly. “He doesn’t need –– nor does he want –– anyone in his life.” At the very least, he definitely didn’t want you. 

“Yes, that’s the problem!” If you’d been listening to her, you would’ve heard her saying the same thing. “He doesn’t want to date!” 

Your head just about exploded when she said that. 

There had been countless, fruitless conversations about this, and all along she saw the gaping hole in her supposedly airtight plan?

“If he doesn’t want to DATE, then WHAT was the point of this?!” Your fingers pressed the bridge of your nose; you suddenly felt a headache coming on. Funny how it always happened around the time of day that Penelope came to visit.

Penelope stopped pacing. She stalked over to your couch, picked your legs up by your ankle, and moved them to make space for herself. You begrudgingly sat upright as she took her place beside you. 

“Because he’s not himself anymore. He’s not open like he used to be. Not to the people who care about him the most, and certainly not to the world.”  

Penelope toyed with the hem of her dress, distracting herself from her quivering lip before pressing on, “Spencer Reid has always wanted love. And it’s not right that he no longer believes he can have it.” 

You hadn’t seen Penelope look so desperate until now. It was concerning. Because what could make her look so hopeless? What could make Spencer so hopeless? 

“Penelope, I don’t know what’s wrong with your little friend, but… there’s a lot more bubbling inside him than you’re letting on.” 

She chewed up the insides of her cheeks, wincing to herself at your incredibly accurate claim. 

“You are hiding something, aren’t you?” You narrowed your eyes on her. You were no detective, or whatever exactly her team did, but she was just awful at concealing her thoughts.

“It’s not my story to tell,” she murmured. 

She could already feel herself about to give it away and doubled down her mental defenses against it. Focusing extra hard on keeping Spencer’s privacy intact. If only you knew her track record with secrets, you’d be proud of her for staying quiet this long.

“What isn’t your story?” 

“That his girlfriend died last year.” 

She spilled it before she even realized what she was saying. You’d just asked so nonchalantly that she forgot she was talking aloud. Penelope turned purple, terrified now that the whole truth was out there. 

You couldn’t even take satisfaction in the fact that your trick worked. You were just as mortified as Penelope, and if you weren’t already sitting down, you knew you’d need to. You assumed there was something deeper going on with him, you didn’t think it was a dead girlfriend. That was some Nicholas Sparks shit. 

“He pretends like he’s fine but I know he’s not. And if he found a way to move on, maybe he’d start feeling as okay as he claims to be,” she sniffled before snot could run from her nose, tears lining the rims of her eyes. “I know I should’ve given you the full picture, but I didn’t think you’d go for it if you knew…” 

You were too floored to process it all right away. This added a whole new layer of complicated to an already uneasy arrangement.

“Well, I know you’re right about one thing. I would’ve said no.” 

She gave you a set of pleading eyes, praying you’d see where she was coming from. 

“I know,” she whispered defeatedly. “But maybe... now that you know, you can understand why he acts out the way he does.”

“Penelope, I can’t just… make someone move on, or –– or get them to believe in love! Especially when it’s fake.”

How on Earth did she expect you to pull that off? Did that guy from A Walk to Remember move on when Mandy Moore died? You hadn’t seen the ending of the movie, but you assumed not. 

“I’m sorry, this is just… a lot bigger than the favor I thought it was ––”

“What if I could return it?” she cut in. The gears in her head started to turn, figuring ways to patch up the holes she made. 

“There’s nothing I need from you.” 

That couldn’t be true. Penelope looked around the room and it didn’t take her long to think of it.

“I can help you sell your art,” she tempted, gesturing to the scattered canvases. “You make all your income from this, right?” 

You didn’t want to give any fuel to her fire, but you nodded. “What if… what if you didn’t have to settle for local buyers? What if I told you that you could make way more money selling them to the whole world?”

You chortled at her idea. 

You were a local artist, through and through. Your art got put in local galleries and sold to local buyers. Nothing more, and that was fine with you. You realized it a long time ago that it was just a pipe dream to think you’d be more. 

“I’m serious! You could get a separate painting studio, and stop living in one? Huh?” She wrapped her hand around your shoulder, waving the other in the air, urging you to picture it with her. “Imagine this: a kitchen that’s separate from your living room. A bed, inside it’s own four walls, and more than twelve feet from where you cook your meals.”

Pushing aside her so blatantly insulting your apartment, if that were a possibility, you’d want nothing more. But it already sounded foolish and you hadn’t even heard how she planned to pull it off. 

“Penelope, I’m fine where I am. I make the money I need, and that’s... it’s fine.”

She gave you a pointed look. “You know, I can hack all search engine results to make sure you are what comes up first anytime someone enters the word ‘painting’, right?

An airy chuckle left your lips. Of course she could. You patted her thigh twice and stood up, prompting her to follow you to your door –– hopefully, so she can show herself to the other side of it. “Still no, Pen.” 

“Just take some time to think about it!” Her voice carried through the wood as you shut it on her.

*

There was this one bench in Kenilworth Park – the one that overlooks the crystal clear pond – that you’d always been able to rely on to fix any problem.

There was hidden magic in the bushes that sprawled out from the edges of the water, surrounded by spiky green blades of overgrown grass. A simplicity you loved in baby ducklings paddling into the tiny body of water, swimming close together so they don’t get lost in, what seems to them, a whole ocean. And clarity provided by the freshest air in the world, under the shade of the big oak trees on a late summer afternoon.

But at the present, none of that came close to being enough.

The artist’s block started off as a minor inconvenience, but without your permission, had stretched into weeks of steadily declining motivation. Each new idea felt even worse than the last, and you were acutely aware that there would come a point where you’d officially hit maximum capacity for how awful they could get.

Still, that didn’t seem to light a fire under you. You happily coexisted with the blank pages of your sketchbook. Staring down at them, laying open on your lap in their stark-white glory, you felt like you were playing a waiting game. If you stared long and hard enough, maybe they’d flinch. 

Unfortunately, you never got to find out who won, because your phone rang inside your pocket. As if the caller had interrupted an incredible genius at work (which couldn’t be farther from the truth), you hastily raised the phone to your ear, slamming your sketchbook shut.

“Hello?” Your voice wasn’t as kind as it could be for someone with nothing better to be doing. Two seconds later, you learned who was calling and came to regret it.

“Hi, This is Rebecca from District Arts, calling with a message from Andre ––”

“Oh, hi!” you tried to walk back your previous tone, straightening up in your seat and pitching your voice higher, “Yeah, I’ve been waiting to hear from him!” 

While Rebecca intimidated you, Andre happened to be your closest friend at the gallery. He worked closely with the artists to curate their collection and help them make sales. 

“Does he want to sort out what to set the opening bid prices at for my new pieces?” A handful of days ago, you sent him pictures of your new work and were waiting to hear his thoughts. You’d always been able to trust his opinion, and a vote of confidence from him might be just the thing to inspire you.

“Uhm…” There was a criminally long pause on the other side of the line, ended by Rebecca’s weary inhale. “Unfortunately, we’re calling to inform you that your pieces will not be included in the next rotation.”

For a minute, you weren’t sure what to make of what she said. You’d never heard those words before.

“What – what do you mean?” you laughed nervously. She probably misspoke. Perks of friendship aside, Andre always included you in sets. 

“Ugh, let me just get him…” her voice faded away as she put the phone down. 

That wasn’t exactly the reassuring statement you were looking for. In the time it took for the call to switch hands, your confusion finally melted in. And then quickly boiled into anger.

The District Arts gallery changed their entire collection every two months. The pieces shown accepted rolling bids throughout the full eight weeks, finally selling at the end of term to their highest offer. After that, the pieces got taken down, sent to happy new owners, and the entire gallery reset with entirely new works. 

So if you missed one rotation, that meant waiting two months to get back in.

“Andre, how am I just cut from the gallery!” you barked before he could get a word in. If he didn’t like your work, he could’ve just said so. 

“No one said that ––”

“Okay, let me rephrase.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, something you found yourself doing quite frequently lately, and took a deep breath in and out. It was seemingly just for show because it did absolutely nothing to calm you down. “Why wouldn’t you put me in the next set? I’m in all of them!”

“I know you are!” He sounded just as upset. “It’s just that… we give you the biggest space we have, because you always manage to fill it up. But this time… I’m not so sure you can.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you scoffed. “What makes you say that?” You asked that, but you knew.

“You’ve only finished three pieces… I’m worried how you’ll deliver seven more before we set up.”

“But… it’s four weeks away, I could do ––”

“And it took you four weeks to make what you have... I’m sorry. We couldn’t take that gamble.” 

He took your silence as an opportunity to turn off the work talk and speak, just friend to friend. 

“You know that I trust you and I’d hold that spot if I could. But, I also know what you’re going through right now, and… I don’t know, maybe letting yourself rest would be a good thing?” 

Your heart paused. By, “knowing what you’re going through”, you assumed he didn’t mean the little artist’s block.

“If you’re implying that I can’t do my job because of what happened with Cyrus –”

“I’m not, I’m not....” he backtracked as quickly as he could. “But take another look at the paintings you showed me and tell me if they feel like you.”

Even if he was right, you wanted to fight him. You wanted to cry. You wanted to beg that you didn’t need that big space; you were willing to downsize and just turn in the three that you had. Even if they got shoved into the corner where hardly anybody bothered to look. You just couldn’t afford to go two months without the income. 

But even with tears beading up, you realized that the gallery couldn’t afford it either. They needed to bring in money and you couldn’t do that for them this time. So they were right to go to someone who can.

“Right,” you sniffled, recollecting yourself so he can’t hear the shakiness in your voice. “I understand. It’s a big risk, like you said… It’s for the better.”

Andre tried to thank you for being understanding and spewed some sort of encouragement. The words flew over your head. You managed to toss in a few ‘mhmm’s and ‘sure’s at the right places to coast you along until the call finally ended. 

As soon as it went dead, you dropped your phone to the side and brought your hands to your face, rubbing them furiously over your cheeks. Your fingertips pressed hard into your eyelids, trying to forcibly reabsorb the tears threatening to spill. 

It almost worked, until you tried to breathe. 

A full sob escaped in that one gulp of air and you succumbed to it. But the loud crunching noise of some pedestrian walking over the falling leaves destroyed your sense of privacy, and you quickly wiped away all signs of your breakdown. The crunching stopped just short of your bench and on instinct you flicked your eyes up to see who the intruder was.

You did a double take. It was him. That fucking asshole.

He was standing there, looking dumber than you could even remember, with his hands in his coat pockets and a curious look on his face as he watched you cry. Tucking your sketchbook under your arm in haste, you made it a point to stand up with as much aggression as possible, rolling your eyes at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” you barked. “No need to yell at me this time.”

You bristled past him, barely refraining yourself from checking his shoulder as payback. You wanted to believe you were better than him, but it did sound incredibly tempting. He stood there for a moment before turning on his heel and following you.

“Wait,” he groaned.

You didn’t listen, neither stopping nor slowing down.

“I said wait,” he huffed as he caught up to you, popping up at your side and jogging along as you kept going.

“Yeah, because I need to listen to a guy who yells at strangers in bookstores.” 

Now that you’d brought up the elephant in the room, your feet started moving even faster, working double time to get you away from him.

Damn the fact that he had those long legs. He didn’t even break a sweat trying to keep up. He was inescapable.

“Well, if you waited like I asked, you would’ve gotten an apology for the ––”

“Gee, thanks!” you yelled, stopping for only a second to turn to him and give him a mocking bow of your head, hands clasped together like you were praising at his altar. “I was waiting with bated breath for that! Thank you, kind sir, for now my life can go on.”

“Look, I’m actually sorry,” he snapped. Then in realizing the irony, softened his voice, “I’m sorry for being rude. I was having a bad day… not that that’s an excuse.”

You stared at him blankly, just watching his mouth moving quickly and waiting until it finally stopped. 

“Did you need something?” 

“Did you… did you not hear what I just said?!” 

“No, sorry,” you smiled, voice sweet like sugar. “My ears filter bullshit. Wanna try again?”

He scoffed, looking away like he couldn’t believe you before stepping even closer. “What’s your problem?”

“Me!? The fuck –– what the fuck is your problem?” You turned and stormed off again, seething at his audacity. Spencer just couldn’t relent his annoying tendencies and followed yet again.

“My problem is that I’m trying to be nice, and you’re not letting me!”

You got a good, hard laugh out of that. “Okay, first of all, having to apologize for yelling at me and pushing me isn’t exactly the best starting point for the journey of becoming a nice person.”

“Like I said, I was having a bad day.” 

Under your breath, you muttered, “Well, I hope this one’s even worse.”

“Why are you such a ––” He stopped himself from finishing that thought. Even in his worst mood, he wouldn’t cross that line. 

But he didn’t need to finish it, you knew exactly where he wanted to take it. The soles of your shoes scraped against the loose gravel as you came to a grinding halt, ears ringing.

“A what?” You turned to face him, a sarcastic smile on your face growing wider as he started to shrink more and more. You got up close in his face, daring him to say what he really wanted to. So he could reinforce your belief in exactly the type of person he was. “A what?” 

Spencer pursed his lips and shook his head, refusing to say it no matter how much you challenged him. If he wasn’t going to have the balls to say it, you decided to take it upon yourself.

“Tell you what, you keep thinking about it and get back to me the next time you’re in a cunty mood.” 

The word he was thinking of was probably not as bad, but you had a habit of escalating things. Even if you took this one too far, you didn’t care. 

Before you tried to take off again, Spencer’s hand flew to your elbow. He tugged you back, forcing you to turn around and face him. He didn’t know his own strength; without any resistance, you came stumbling into his chest, at risk of falling over if it weren’t for his tight grip on your arm.

It took you a beat to push him away with both your hands on his chest, vocalizing your disgust for being so close to him. 

“Can you stop trying to disagree with me for a second? I’m trying to tell you that you’re right, I was being a… well, you know…” He avoided the word. Apparently ‘cunt’ was where he drew the line. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it.” 

Your nostrils were still flared and blood hot as ever, but he made you pause. He looked sincere, if not a little tinged with guilt as well. You were suspicious of it.

“You saw me crying and felt bad, didn’t you?”

He laughed darkly. “Well, I saw you, yes. Did I feel bad? No.” 

“Oh, my God,” you growled, berating yourself for getting close to believing he might be capable of decency. 

“I’m joking! I’m joking.” He squeezed your elbow twice in earnest. “I did feel bad, but that’s not why I wanted to say it.”

“Okay.” You weren’t ready to give him a real smile, so you flattened your lips into a thin line and nodded once slowly, and left it at that. 

You still weren’t a fan, but the apology did dampen some of the resentment. Maybe he wasn’t the worst person alive. You’d settle for saying top ten most annoying, instead.

Minutes later, you came to the startling realization that he was still on the path, just two paces behind you. You flinched when you saw him out of the corner of your eye, not expecting him to still be here. 

“Uhm. Where are you… why are you still following me?” 

“I’m not. My car’s that way,” he gestured to the parking lot at the end of the long walkway. “I forgot my loaf for the ducks.” He didn’t mean to offer that information up, it just slipped out. He could practically see your smug expression coming before it even got there.

“You’re not supposed to feed bread to the ducks. It’s bad for them.”

“I don’t.” He didn’t care to explain this to you, but he couldn’t have you thinking he was any less competent than he really was. “It’s a special bread made from water and seeds that were ground into flour. It’s duck-safe.” 

“They make duck-safe bread?” Now that was something you’d never heard before. 

“No… I make duck-safe bread,” he said softly under his breath. 

You didn’t know how else you were supposed to react to that besides laughing wildly. 

“You make it?” He nodded like you were the crazy one here. As if he wasn’t the one spending his spare time grinding up seeds and baking loaves of bread for ducks, donning a frilly pink apron and oven mitts as he did so. At least that’s how you imagined it. “Why not just feed them the seeds?”

“Because, loose seeds will sink in the water and can potentially clog waterbeds and cause foreign bacteria growth in the pond.” 

“So you… hand-make the seeds into a little loaf of bread so it doesn't do that?”

He confirmed. You pondered silently for a moment, then absolutely had to ask, “You ever eaten the duck bread before?”

Spencer was caught off guard by that question. His cheeks deepened to a rosy color.

“Yeah, well, it was the house so…” he laughed nervously and stared at his sneakers. “It’s actually not too bad.”

You weren’t entirely surprised by that. You remembered what his grocery basket looked like, and given those same options, you probably would’ve tried the duck bread too. Still, you cracked the smallest of grins at knowing he makes bread for ducks. The one, sole redeeming fact you’ve learned about Spencer. 

You reached your car first, and Spencer stopped in front of it with you. 

“I’m actually sorry, you know,” he whispered once more, hand resting at the top of your car door as you opened it. He wasn’t talking about the incident at the bookstore.

“Yeah…” For a while you were so busy being angry at Spencer that you forgot about your own problems. 

He noticed your nose was still red around the edges, eyes still a little bleary. “Are you okay, by the way?” His voice was too soft, too genuine.

You shook your head no.

“Is there anything I can do?” You shook your head again. And then you had an awful thought.

You knew he was just offering to help just to say it, because that’s how people react when you say you’re not okay even if they don’t care. But there actually was something he could do for you… Something that Penelope could do.

“Uh, no but…” you fixed your hair and tucked it behind your ear, seamlessly switching to a flirtier voice. “If you still feel bad about the other day, you’re welcome to make it up to me.”

Spencer cocked his head to the side, unsure of how he could do that. 

“Hang out with me sometime.”

“H-hang out?” You could tell that it flustered him, even if he tried to play it off. He swallowed thickly, nose twitching and brows scrunched together.

“Relax, I really do just mean hang out.” You were lying through your teeth. He didn’t need to know that. 

As if he didn’t want to think about it for a second longer and just get out of this conversation as quickly as possible, he agreed without thinking it through. He didn’t even ask why an almost complete stranger would want to hang out with him. 

You stuck your hand out, expecting him to hand over his cell so you could put your contact into it. He rocked on the balls of his feet, watching as you input your contact and sent yourself a text on his phone.

“Hi, this is…” you read out your message as you typed, pausing at just the right place. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Oh-uh, I’m Spencer.” 

A devilish grin took over your face, hidden from his view while you were looking down at the screen. He was going to be easy to fool.

-

-

agh! im still not in love with how this chapter is turning out, but it came to a point where i just had to stop fiddling with it and just post it. any feedback or comments about this story is very much appreciated 💕

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[captain-kelli]

City Love

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 746

Summary: Coming out of the ice came with a chill until Steve met you.

Warnings: none

A/N: This is a part of the Mixtape series, but acts as an independent one-shot.

It was still New York, or so they said, but it didn’t feel like home. Not to Steve. 

The map of New York City imprinted on his heart had long since changed. Every street and back alley looked different than how he once remembered it, a fleeting memory from a bygone time. Ephemeral, something he could no longer touch, but could still feel.

People he knew passed and places he frequented closed. New towers climbed the sky and avenues now bathed in a kaleidoscope of color. The Earth spun on its axis thousands of times while Steve’s world remained frozen. 

Resurrection was lonely and colder than the ice.

I never liked this apple much

It always seemed too big to touch

I can't remember how I found

My way before she came around

Meeting you breathed new life into the city for Steve. It was just another night on crowded sidewalks when you bumped into him. Your laugh carried on the wind and into the starless sky as you touched his arm to apologize, a warmth that melted the frost. 

“You look lost, can I help you get someplace?” Steve remembered you saying. It was such an easy question with a loaded answer. You found meaning in the brief silence and asked another. “Or we could get a drink somewhere?”

The two of you stayed out until one in the morning roaming the streets of New York. Linked arm in arm, Steve pointed out old haunts and you explained what they had become, a memorial of sorts for the home he missed. 

Joy was found in the West Village when the two of you stumbled upon a jazz club from the ’40s still standing. Stray, familiar notes spilled out of the front door and onto the street, wrapping themselves around the two of you. 

For the first time since he woke, Steve felt at home in his own city.

She keeps a toothbrush at my place

As if I had the extra space

She steals my clothes to wear to work

I know her hairs are on my shirts

His apartment in Brooklyn was as unsettled as he was. Stacks of books littered the floors while framed photographs and prints sat propped up against the walls. How could he settle into a world so foreign?

You were the saving grace of this unknown place - its redemption. The neon lights danced in your eyes and the crowds parted for you. If Steve was unsure and uncomfortable, you were at ease and confident. In your grace he slowly waded, baptized in the melt of the ice that once was his tomb.

This was unlike any New York he had ever known, but it became familiar with you. You came over and tucked books onto shelves and helped to hang art on the walls. As you settled in, so did he.

And I can't remember life before

The day

She called up and came to me

Covered in rain...

And I knew I was through

When I said "I love you"

He hadn’t seen you in two weeks. 

The melt became an ocean and Steve was drowning in it. The hum of humanity right outside his door and the many ways it had changed overwhelmed him. Deeper and deeper he dove into himself, far away from you. Calls went unanswered and dates were missed. 

On the fourteenth night, he hid in a gym across town. Punch after punch landed onto a heavy bag, his fists nearly driving it off its chain as he worked out his frustration. This wasn’t a second chance he wanted. He wanted his city and his time, but a phoenix doesn’t ask to be reborn. 

The bird does the only thing it can do, rise. 

The sky opened and the sea fell from it as Steve rushed back home. He needed to call you, to see you, but he wouldn’t have to wait. You were standing outside his door, soaked to the bone. “Where have you been?”

The crack in your voice and the confusion in your expression nearly broke him. Apologies and a storm poured into the chasm that grew between you - he never meant to hurt you while he dealt with his own pain.

“Don’t you see, Steve? I’m in love with you.”

Wonder washed over him as his lips crashed onto yours. The rain beat against you, softening what was left of the ice.

 And I can't remember life before her name

[tippedbykreider]

it’s all coming back to me | c. kreider (i)

Word Count: 8.2k Warnings: Slow burn, exes to friends to lovers, relationship breakdown, swearing, alcohol mention. Author’s Note: So many of you have been requesting for this to be brought back! The consensus was that you’d rather have it in smaller chunks so I’ll be posting each new part weekly and they’ll come in between 6 & 9k per chapter. Not only is it more manageable for you guys but it also gives me chance to keep writing new content for it 💖 There is a playlist for this fic which I posted separately, it gives a chronological feel for their relationship and their story. This has been a tonne of fun to write so far and I can’t wait to tell the rest of their story. Summary: Chris Kreider x Reader Insert. They say that all good things come to an end, that you can never have too much of a good thing, but when Chris decided to end your relationship you wondered how anything could ever be good again. A chance meeting 9 years later drags up all those feelings you both thought you were done with. Can you work through your hurt and pain to see what it is that Chris is trying to show you? Or are some things better left forgotten? Tagging: @danglesnipecelly - this girl deserves a writing credit on this thing because she’s pushed me to keep going with this and her input and advice has been invaluable. Thank you for all the support on this one, K 💖

*Italics indicates a flashback*

The notion of fresh starts is often something that is associated with the arrival of the New Year. People use the turning of the calendar to turn over a new leaf, to learn a new skill, to challenge themselves to be better than the year before and to let go of all that was and focus on all that will be. There’s something inherently magical about a new beginning, a fresh start; sometimes it’s the excitement of what might lie ahead and other times it’s the comfort in knowing that you can seize the opportunity be whoever you want to be and to reinvent yourself. It’s the line in the sand and the final full stop at the end of the chapter and it’s the anticipation of picking up the pen and writing those first few words on the new page.

For Chris Kreider this feeling wasn’t one that was brought about by the strike of the clock at midnight on New Year’s Eve because while the date on the calendar changed and while he still spent the next couple of weeks dating things with the wrong year just like everybody else, it still often felt like nothing really changed for him. Chris could only feel like the year was truly coming to an end when the first petals of spring exploded like fireworks in a symphony of technicolour blooms and he found himself giving the locker-room clearout interview. That was the end of the year, the full stop, the line and the warmer days and the balmy nights would give him the opportunity to decompress ready for the turning of the page come September when his focus would once again turn back to hockey.

Chris loved New York; that much was undeniably true. He loved the vibrancy of the city but he also loved the way that he could melt into the background or enjoy the feeling of quiet solace his apartment gave him. It was oftentimes a bolthole, an oasis of peace during an otherwise hectic few months between September and May but the end of the hockey season and the arrival of summer had him seeking the cry of gulls on the breath of a gentle breeze and that crisp, purifying sea air that always managed to fill his lungs differently. Rowayton wasn’t far, a little over an hour on a good day but with its coastal Connecticut charm, slower pace and pretty houses, especially the ones that overlooked the water, it was a world away from NYC and exactly what Chris needed to reset and recharge.

It was a Saturday morning in mid-July and for the first time in a long time, longer than Chris could recall, he allowed himself to sleep in. His bedroom window had been open all night and the welcome breeze snaked through the slats in the blinds and carried on it the faintest smell of salt and sunshine. Chris stretched his muscles in big pulls around the bed before he settled on his back and inhaled deeply, the fresh air clearing his mind and filling his body as the last remnants of sleep slipped away on the exhale of breath. Imbued with energy, he climbed out of bed and pulled the blinds all the way up, flooding the bedroom with beautiful incandescence born out of a cloudless sky. He didn’t make his bed though, not yet, because while he had left his room and was padding down the stairs, he had every intention of returning to the still warm sheets to read a chapter or two of the book on his nightstand with a fresh cup of coffee, a cinnamon and raisin bagel, that invigorating coastal air and the oceanscape outside as the soundtrack.

One chapter turned into two and two became three and before Chris knew it, the sun was high in the sky and lunchtime beckoned. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day in Rowayton and Chris thought it would be a crying shame to spend his time at home, even if the page-turner he’d held in his hands moments ago seemed incredibly appealing out on the back deck overlooking the water. It was then he decided to take advantage of that gorgeous sunshine, take in the scenery and stretch his legs by going for a walk into town to pick up a few essentials at Rowayton Market. For all it was a small, it contained everything he would need to keep him going for a few more days until he’d finally need to drive into Norwalk to do a more substantial grocery shop, something that he’d admittedly been putting off. The Market also had some of the best baked goods and fresh coffee in the village and if you asked Chris it would be pretty rude to not take advantage – it was right there, after all, and Chris never could say no to a still-warm Danish and Americano.

He walked slower than he usually would, a conscious effort on his part due to the fact that his legs seemed to want to go into an auto-pilot primed for life in New York City. He was in no rush though, he never was whenever he came here and even though it was a route he’d walked hundreds of times before, and one he would walk hundreds more, Chris still wanted to soak in all the pretty trees and shrubs that were nestled in amongst those classical New England style homes, all shingled exteriors and white, gridded windows in soft muted colours that mirrored the coastal landscape of the village. It was a world away from the brick and the concrete and the bright lights of the city and while Chris loved all of those things about New York and loved wandering through the streets of Tribeca and Soho, getting lost in bookstores and hole-in-the-wall cafes, he also loved the sand, shale and stars and those were things that he just couldn’t find in the city that never slept.

There were quite a few people out and about, Chris noted, most of them he recognised as being residents with their friendly smiles and waved greetings, but there were a handful of tourists too; there always was on weekends during the summer. Not that Chris minded, of course, because for all the village was a popular escape for those seeking a break from the metropolitan life of the nearby hub of cities, it never succumbed to the all-too-often inevitability of commercialisation and still managed to hold on to its peaceful charm, despite it not quite being the quaint fishing village it once was back in the days before the Civil War.

It was one of the reasons why Chris found himself retreating here in the summer and not making the trip back home to spend the off-season in Massachusetts. He would go back to Boxford for a couple of weeks, naturally, because family was something that had always been important to Chris and he would never miss an opportunity to spend time with his parents and sister, but if he had the choice between spending his entire summer being bitten to death by mosquitoes back home (his father always did say that they were the town bird, after all) or feeling the gentle kiss of the ocean breeze against his skin, there was no real contest. Rowayton would always win.

The main street through town was busier, which wasn’t exactly unexpected and if anything it only seemed to add to the charm of the village. Chris decided to head straight to the market to pick up his groceries, if only to facilitate the Danish eating in a more timely-fashion. He picked up a basket as he entered and proceeded to add only the essentials he’d need to get him through the next couple of days. He’d pay for his shopping before going to the coffee bar, because trying to pack his reusable grocery bag with a full takeout cup was a mistake he’d made once before and was sure to never repeat again.

With his groceries purchased and bags packed in such a way that the couple of bottles of wine he’d picked up wouldn’t clink together when he walked (it was three to be exact but after seeing the selection of cured meats, cheeses and olives available he thought it’d be a crime if they didn’t find their way into his basket to come home with him, and if there was cheese there had to be wine), Chris made his way to the coffee counter situated near the Market entrance.

*

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d taken a trip away without the company of anyone else but the last couple of months at work had been incredibly stressful, with projects seemingly coming out of your ears and while you knew your mother had been worried by your suggestion of taking off somewhere alone for the weekend, she also knew better than to fight you on something you’d quite clearly already set your mind to. If you were being completely honest, your plans for the first full weekend you’d had off in months would have consisted of not setting foot outside of your apartment or engaging in any kind of unnecessary conversation had you decided to stay home in Hartford, at least this way you’d be getting some fresh air and the sun on your face.

It was just shy of a two hour drive down to Rowayton, which had the dual benefit of being close enough to home that it didn’t feel like a huge trek just to get there, but also being far enough away that you would be a complete stranger in this town and could take the time to decompress and recharge while blending into the background, and the place was pretty to boot. You’d found a little studio Airbnb not too far away in South Norwalk, figuring that you’d only be using it as somewhere to sleep as you’d planned on spending as much of your time as possible being right by that ocean with the wind in your hair and the warm sun on your skin.

That’s how you’d planned on spending your Saturday afternoon, sat on the sand of Bayley Beach with a good book and a cup of coffee. It was set to be a balmy day, with temperatures sitting in the mid-eighties and the last thing you wanted to be doing in the heat was any amount of excessive walking. So with that in mind, you’d spent your morning exploring the village and taking in the sights and sounds. The gentle protest of your stomach told you it was lunchtime before you’d even taken the opportunity to glance down at your watch and a quick Google search pointed you in the direction of somewhere to get that all important cup of coffee and a small bite to eat.

Rowayton Market didn’t look like much from the outside in the sense that it was a little on the petite side, but the reviews were great and the coffee was allegedly some of the best in the village and that was good enough for you. You were greeted with the smell of freshly baked goods and ground coffee, which was welcoming enough before you even saw the bright smile of the girl behind the counter. Your eyes drifted over the selection of pastries, each one more delicious looking than the last and you knew that you were going to have a hard time choosing just one. You knew you’d have to make a decision, though, suddenly aware of the small line that had seemingly materialised right out of thin air behind you and while you were sure that these people were more accustomed to a slower pace of life, the city girl in you, who was so used to living life in the fast lane, didn’t want to keep these good people waiting while you deliberated. You’d go with your usual and that would be that.

Chris’s attention was fixed out of the large glass windows at the front of the shop, watching as people milled in the street and went about their daily business. It was something he quite often did, whether he was here or back home in New York. There was something oddly soothing about watching the world go by, he thought, and occasionally he’d catch something that would quirk his lips up into a smile, like the sight before him now of a rather large gull in the process of committing larceny against what he could only assume was an unsuspecting tourist. Their sandwich was held high above their head while their free hand attempted to shoo the bird away with little success. He chuckled quietly to himself then, not least because the gulls seemed to get more brazen with each year that passed and he was sure that one of these days he’d see someone’s lunch get snatched right out of their hand by the feathered menaces.

Chris had no reason at all to believe as he stood in that line that everything was about to change. Why would he? The day had started like any other. He’d picked up his groceries in this store more times than he could count, he’d waited in a line just like this one for his coffee and Danish and yet, in that moment, something as innocuous as a woman’s voice would bring feelings that he thought he was done with, and memories he thought had strayed out of his mind for good, flooding back to the surface. But it wasn’t just any woman’s voice, no, it wasn’t as detached and neutral as that. It was your voice; a voice he hadn’t heard in nine years and it was something as simple as a coffee order, an order that he now knew to have remained the same since the day you’d first met at Boston College all those years ago, that blew the dam wide open and every word the two of you had ever spoken, from day one to the last thing you ever said to him, came rushing back.

The sound of Chris’s voice calling your name was something you never thought you’d hear out loud again. It was a voice you’d only heard in your dreams for many years after he walked out of your life, but even that had faded beyond memory to where you weren’t a hundred percent certain that you’d be able to remember what it sounded like anymore. And yet, in the middle of a tiny supermarket in Rowayton, you heard him clear as day with his tongue rolling around the syllables of your name with the same fondness, even after all this time and it was like you’d never forgotten the sound at all.

*

Autumn was beginning to make her presence felt in Boston. The palette on campus had shifted from a spectrum of vivid greens to shades of deep russet, amber, ochre and vermillion; but even above the changing leaves, the turning of the calendar brought a slight chill to the air that had you reaching for your jacket on a morning as you left your dorm.

Today was no different. The temperature had dropped again overnight as November creeped ever closer and it was chilly enough that you had to draw your coat tighter around you as you walked across campus towards class. Your brisk pace had bought you enough time to make a stop at the coffee stand just outside of Campion where your first class of the day was being held. There was a decent selection on offer, but it wasn’t enough to sway you from ordering your usual.

You rooted around your backpack for your wallet while the barista prepared your coffee and grabbed you your cinnamon roll, unaware of the new presence to your right, before handing over the money and taking the coffee and pastry bag from the young man’s hands.

“Coffee and cinnamon roll, eh? Now that’s the breakfast of champions.”

You turned your head towards the source of the voice, lips quirking into a small smile at the sight of the stranger beside you who looked to be not much older than you were, incredibly tall and broad for his apparent age but not for his height. He was grinning at you with a fullness that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and gave him a unique kind of softness.

“My mom would disagree,” you replied with a smirk. “If she found out I was having this for breakfast she’d be in her car so fast and dragging my ass back to Hartford.”

He laughed at that, loud and bright with his head tipped back slightly before running a hand through his dark brown hair that was shorter on the sides but had the faintest hint of a curl at the longer strands on top.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”

“Oh, I’m definitely not telling her,” you grinned as you swung your backpack over one shoulder. “So looks like you’re sworn to secrecy.”

You studied him for a brief moment, with the way he was still grinning at you and his eyes that seemed to sparkle behind his dark lashes before your brain gently reminded you that you, in fact, had somewhere you needed to be. “Well, I hate to impose a vow of silence on you like some sort of mafia boss and then immediately split but I uh I gotta head to class.”

“No problem at all and hey, your secret is safe with me. In fact, I’ve forgotten already. What were we talking about?”

There it was again, that smile of his that made you want to stay rooted right where you were standing and look at it all day, but class beckoned and so you gave an awkward wave of your hand and a soft laugh before you turned and headed into the building behind you without another glance back. If you had you’d have seen the stranger from the coffee stand watch until you’d disappeared from view, with that smile still on his face.

This little routine of yours would continue over the course of the next few weeks. Every Tuesday morning, at around 8:45am, you’d find yourself stood at that coffee stand outside of Campion to get your coffee and cinnamon roll, and every Tuesday morning, at around 8:46am, the tall stranger would appear beside you with his kind eyes and his bright smile. You’d exchange a ‘hello’ and a friendly grin and you’d laugh more often than not too while you made pleasant small talk before you both said your goodbyes and went to your respective classes, though you would always leave first and he would watch you go until you’d disappeared into the building.

It was mid-November, now, and the campus of Boston College was firmly in autumn’s frigid grasp. The temperatures continued to drop, seemingly overnight, which had you bundled up in your hat and scarf and the trees had shed their branches of leaves, crunching underfoot with the slight frost as you made your way towards Campion. Your hands were shoved deep into your coat pockets to ward off the gnawing chill and you were looking forward to being able to warm them around your coffee cup.

You approached the stand as normal, rooting through your backpack for your wallet ready to order.

“Hey!”

You looked up, your features fixed in a state of mild confusion while you looked for the source of the voice you recognised but couldn’t quite place. It was then you saw him though, all bright eyed and bushy tailed with a medium coffee and pastry bag held up in one of his large hands as if on display. He was grinning at you and cocked his head, beckoning you over with the wordless gesture.

“Hey, yourself,” you smiled as you approached. “What’s this then?” You tilted your head slightly at the items in his hand as he offered them to you.

“Breakfast of champions.”

Your eyebrow quirked as you took the coffee from him before taking a tentative sip, smiling while the warm liquid slid down your throat.

“You got my coffee order right.”

“It wasn’t hard,” he smirked. “You order the same thing every week and if you open that little paper bag I think you’ll find a cinnamon roll in there.”

Sure enough, as you opened the bag you were greeted with the sight of a perfectly formed cinnamon roll and you couldn’t help the grin that sparked at your lips and spread the full width of your face.

“I don’t order the same thing every week.”

“You do,” he replied with a laugh. “Every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks you’ve come to this coffee stand and ordered a medium Americano with half and half and a cinnamon roll and every Tuesday for the last 5 weeks I’ve been meaning to ask you your name.”

Your face flushed warm at that, not only at his words but at the sure little smile he was giving you and the way his eyes were sparkling. In fact, now that you were really looking at him properly, you were knocked back a bit by the perpetual kindness that seemed to rest in them and you couldn’t help but notice how they really were the perfect shade of hazel, like a forest with a deep bark heart surrounded by leaves that were every shade of green. You’d been quiet a little too long though and so you took a settling sip of coffee to give you enough time to find your voice again and tell him your name.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiled as he offered you his hand, which was large and warm as you shook it.

“And who should I thank for the coffee?” you asked.

His smile grew into a grin then, the kind that you’d noticed over the course of the last few weeks that made his eyes crinkle and happiness radiate from him, before simply replying:

“Chris.”

*

“Chris?”

It was as if time had stood still in that little Market in Rowayton, where your surroundings become a still-frame and there’s nothing but static in your ears. You’d often thought about what it would have been like to see him again. Those first couple of years after he’d left Boston College had you imagining all kinds of scenarios, much like the one you were in right now where you’d bump into each other in a supermarket or a pharmacy, anywhere really, but now that you were living it, seeing it, breathing it, there was nothing you could have conjured up in your imagination that would have prepared you for what it would really feel like to see him again. If you were to be completely honest, you were glad that your coffee and cinnamon roll were still on the top of the counter because you were certain that they would have fallen right out of your hands and onto the Market floor.

He abandoned his position in the line then, as if you speaking his name was a call to him, and maybe it was, on some level, but the truth and simplicity of it was that you were suspended in a state of pure disbelief and even in the short time it took for him to close the distance between you both, you were still yet to move and fix your features to something more neutral.

“Hey.”

It was a simple greeting that he gave you and logically you knew that there wasn’t really any tangible meaning behind that single word he spoke and yet there was something about the look in his eyes and the warmth in the smile he gave you.

“It’s been a while.”

“It has,” you replied, finally finding your voice. “You look, you look good.”

It wasn’t a lie either, he did look good. The tall college boy you remembered, who was just a little too slight for his height, had filled out; you could tell that just from the way the fabric of his t-shirt stretched across the broad plains of his chest and strained around his biceps, and he was no longer clean shaven, which was something that had always made him look quite baby-faced. Instead he was sporting a neatly trimmed goatee and while he had kept his hair short on the sides, just like you’d remembered it, it was longer on the top than it had been in college and the curls were sweeping in a way that reminded you of the waves just beyond the Market door. He looked older, yes, which is exactly what you would have expected in the nine years since you’d last seen him but his eyes were still exactly the same, sparkling and full of mischief , yet still soft, perhaps even softer than before on account of the faint lines around them drawn by time’s fair hand.

“So do you,” he grinned. “You cut your hair.”

“I did,” you looked down as your face flushed with warmth, unsure exactly what you were supposed to say to him.

It was something you’d thought about during those imagined scenarios where you’d magically bump into each other again and you’d thought about all of the things that you would say to him. You would tell him about how much you’d cried when he left you behind to live out his boyhood dream and how angry you were that he didn’t want you to be a part of that, how it felt like all the plans you’d ever talked about were nothing more than empty words and how hurt that had made you feel. You felt like you at least deserved that, especially given that it was never just a casual fling between you both. After all, you’d been practically inseparable for two years. You’d been inseparable ever since he’d said those three words that mean so much. But now that he was here in front of you, all those words that had swirled around in your head and in your chest like a hurricane for so long, dissipated into nothing and you found yourself clutching at straws to find something, anything, to say.

Chris could sense this though. Of course he could because he was Chris and he had always been so in tune with you and your emotions and the fact that he was still able to read you so well was both a comfort and a knife in your chest, and while he internally grimaced at the fact he was having to fall back on using small talk between you both, he felt like it was what you needed in the moment. He wouldn’t expect things to go back to how they were after all this time, he couldn’t, and so he started with something simple, something he knew you would be able give him an answer to.

“So, what brings you to sunny Rowayton?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you replied.

“Ah,” Chris grinned, trying to keep the mood light. “See I asked you first and also, I live here so therefore the ‘question answering’ responsibility falls back to you.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, at both his words and the silly little expression he was wearing and despite all the years that sat between you both like a void and all of your hurt that was held within it, it all seemed to briefly melt away and in that moment it was like you were back at that little coffee stand outside of Campion.

“I didn’t realise this was an interrogation. Wait is this one of those little weird cult towns? Should I be worried?”

Chris knew by the little smirk you were wearing that you meant no malice behind your words and so he responded by sucking in air through his teeth before speaking again with one of those smiles that went all the way up to his eyes.

“Watch it, Pickle.”

Your stomach fell right into your shoes in that moment, that name he used only for you slipped from his lips like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, like he’d never stopped calling you it and like it hadn’t been nine years since you’d last spoke a word to one another. Chris knew all this of course and he didn’t need to rely on intuition either because he could see every emotion written all over your face.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly on the exhale of a breath. “I um.. Force of habit, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” you muttered, not quite meeting his eyes. “Although not exactly ‘habit’, it’s been how long?”

Chris winced at that, the reality of how he left things between you both slapping him in the face and he was filled with the guilt that he’d spent almost a decade pushing out of his chest and shoving into the darkest corner of his memory where he would hope it would rest undisturbed. He knew that you were angry at him for leaving things the way he did, how could you not be? After all, he was the one who had broken your heart and left you in Boston, but it was never as simple as that, even back then there was so much he should have said but that was something he wouldn’t realise until much later when it was too late to repair the damage. The thinly veiled hurt in your eyes and the way your mouth was downturned was demonstrative of that fact.

“I know,” he all but whispered. “It just-“

“It’s fine, Chris. Can we just forget about it? Please?”

He nodded, watching with a quiet kind of sadness on his features as you turned to finally pick your coffee and cinnamon roll up off the counter before he cleared his throat softly to continue speaking.

“You never did say what brought you into town.”

You took a sip of coffee to give yourself long enough to settle the thundering in your chest before answering him, because for all your heart felt like it was about to burst from all the hurt you’d managed to hide away up until now, there was also a weird sense of nostalgia that came with seeing him and hearing his voice again, and even though he’d shattered your heart completely when he decided he no longer wanted you in his life, your mother had raised you right and you knew the proper thing to do was to indulge him in a little small talk, even if for nothing more than old time’s sake.

“Just here for the weekend,” you replied. “Work has been nuts lately and I needed some time away from home.”

Chris shuffled on his feet for a moment as you spoke while his eyes darted between you and the door that would lead to the outside world and the possibility of the two of you parting once more. It was an unexpected pull that he felt in his chest at that thought, you reappearing in his life out of the blue only to slip out of it just as suddenly by doing something as simple as walking out of that supermarket back out into the wide world. For nine years he’d thought about where you were, what you were doing, if you were okay, if you were happy and with each year that passed without seeing your face or hearing your voice, he’d resigned himself to the fact that you were lost to him, drifting out there in the seas of life never to see you again. He didn’t know why you’d suddenly come back to him now, whether by some stroke of luck or twist of fate, although Chris couldn’t have cared less which one it was. All he cared about was the fact that you were here at all and it was an opportunity that he was sure he wasn’t going to waste. He didn’t even know for certain that you would want to give him any of your time after what had happened when he left Boston, but he wanted to at least give you what he should have all those years ago and that was an explanation and an opportunity for you to tell him how his actions had made you feel.

“Hey, what are you up to this afternoon?”

“Not much,” you shrugged. “I was just going to sit on Bayley Beach and enjoy the nice weather.”

“Would you mind some company? No pressure, of course, I understand if you… I understand if you’d rather not want to spend any time with me.”

You exhaled then and Chris’s shoulders visibly sagged, bracing himself for your polite refusal, but your response was not one that he was expecting and truthfully, it wasn’t one that you had expected either.

“Honestly?” you started, getting swept up in the nostalgia of seeing him again before the rational part of your brain could catch up. “That would be nice.”

“Great,” he smiled in what you could see was pure relief. “Do you mind if I grab a coffee before we head out?”

“Sure,” you replied. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

You headed out the door and were sure to stand where Chris could see you, knowing him well enough to realise that he’d be worrying, at least on some level, that you’d slip off into the crowd. You’d never do that to him, of course, even after everything, because while he had broken your heart, he was also the first person you’d ever truly loved and when you’d put the pieces back together, you couldn’t help but keep a part of him wrapped up amongst the tape and string holding those pieces together while you healed. It was in doing that that you understood that he would always have a special place in your heart and honestly? You were kind of okay with that because while the ending hadn’t exactly been perfect, the two years you’d spent together were and you wouldn’t have changed that time for anything.

*

You weren’t sure what exactly had possessed you to let Chris talk you into venturing off campus and out in the early-February snow to get burgers at Eagle’s Deli but you were cursing those sparkling eyes and that roguish grin of his for wearing down your sensibilities as you righted yourself after what felt like the hundredth near-fall. It was slushy underfoot, the kind that’s a twisted ankle or sprained knee waiting to happen and while you’d dressed weather appropriately in your winter boots and heavy parka, you were still very newborn lamb-like in your movements which was amusing Chris to no end.

“Come on, slowpoke,” he called from up ahead as he grinned at you over his shoulder.

“Not all of us can be hockey prodigies and thrive in this kind of inclement weather,” you grumbled, shuffling slowly so as not to slip.

Chris laughed as he came back towards you with confident and purposeful steps, surprising you when he offered his arm for you to loop yours through.

“Now, I’m no expert in geography or meteorology but it snows in Hartford, no?”

He was grinning at you, the kind of grin that you had to fight with every fibre of your being not to reciprocate because you’d already committed to your grumpy act and you couldn’t have him thinking he’d cracked you already, even if he, in fact, had.

“Yes,” you stressed. “But I don’t make a habit of going out in it to get burgers like a crazy person.”

The cackle you received from him in reply was loud and a little wild and you couldn’t help but be completely captivated by the way his cheeks were ruddy from the cold and the snowflakes clinging to the curls on top of his head and long eyelashes. Tuesday morning coffees with him outside of Campion before class had turned into coffees in actual cafes during free periods and getting lunch together. It was even dragging your body out into the cold to the Alumni Stadium with your blanket and your thermos to watch Chris play with the BC Eagles because you couldn’t say no to that damn smile and those damn eyes and even now, as you looked at him taking in the scenery along the Chestnut Hill Reservoir pathway, you knew that they were going to be the death of you.

“It’s really pretty along here,” he spoke, more quietly than before; softer too. “You wouldn’t think we were in the middle of Boston.”

“Yeah, it’s a nice walk,” you agreed before shooting him a smirk and a look. “Would be nice in the spring sunshine too.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it, Little Miss Chilly.”

“I don’t know what you have against being warm, Kreider. Warm is good, warm is nice-“

You shrieked as your feet went out from under you, courtesy of a patch of black ice hidden under slushy snow and you squeezed your eyes shut in preparation for the impact of your ass hitting the cold, hard ground. But it never came.

“It’s okay,” Chris spoke reassuringly, one hand tight around your bicep while his other arm was curled around your waist, holding you upright. “I’ve got you.”

You opened your eyes then to be met with Chris’s looking right at you, all moss and bark and warm. He was smiling at you but it was different to the easy grin he usually wore around you, this was softer somehow and all rational thought was replaced by one of those monkeys playing the cymbals. For the briefest of seconds, and for reasons completely unknown to you, the monkey tried to take the wheel and the idea of kissing him right there, in the middle of the pathway that had made an attempt on your life, flashed into your head.

Maybe it was the snow and how perfect and picturesque the scene around you felt? Maybe it was the fact he’d just saved you from slipping? But the reality of it was that those eyes and that smile held some sort of power over you that you couldn’t yet fully understand. You shook your head quickly, if only to take back control of the situation before you did something more embarrassing than almost falling on your ass.

“Thanks,” you muttered as you regained your composure. “This damn pathway.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Chris grinned as he turned so his back was to you and stooped slightly. “Hop on.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“I never joke about piggy-backs,” he replied in a faux solemn tone with the face to match. “Come on, we’ll get you to the Deli in one piece one way or another.”

And that was how you ended up with your arms looped around Chris’s shoulders and his strong hands holding the backs of your legs as he carried you on his back to Eagle’s Deli.

Not twenty minutes later, the pair of you were shuffling into a booth as you shed your coats, gloves and scarves, Chris grinning at you while you blew on your fingers in an attempt to restore warmth into them.

“See, told you I’d get you here in one piece.”

You scoffed at him and shot a playful glance across the table separating you both.

“You’re not human, that is the only explanation for how you’re able to walk in that,” you nodded towards the window where the snow was still falling to illustrate your point before continuing, “and not fall flat on your face.”

“Or my ass,” he added with a grin.

“Hey, that never actually happened!”

Chris’s face split into an even bigger smile at your little protest and the pout that had formed on your lips and while the gentle teasing between you was simply a part of the dynamic of your friendship, Chris would have been lying if he didn’t admit that the reason he did it so often was because you always looked so adorable trying to rebut him.

“No, you’re right. It didn’t,” he mused with a smirk, not needing to remind you that it was him who had come to your rescue judging from the unimpressed look you were throwing his way.

“All I’m saying is that we could’ve just gone to Hillside for lunch.”

“But the burgers here are superior,” he countered, smiling at you. “And you got to enjoy a beautiful walk in the snow with me so who’s the real winner he- mmpf!”

Chris was cut off by your damp mitten hitting his face, brows knitting into a slight frown before laughing at the proud grin you wore at the accuracy of your throw.

“That wasn’t very nice,” he said with mock hurt.

“Maybe I’m not a very nice person.”

“I don’t believe that for one second,” he replied, but there was no teasing in his tone this time, only the kind of sincerity that had your face flushing warm and had you reaching for the menu to hide behind under the pretence of looking at the choices available.

He couldn’t help but smile at the awkwardness with which you were trying and failing to hide from him but soon joined you in picking up a menu and perusing it, despite already knowing what he was going to order.

It was a few moments before the waitress came over and while neither of you spoke the silence between you both wasn’t exactly awkward even though Chris knew there was something about his last words that had had some kind of effect on you. He was right, of course, because despite the fact that you’d had hold of this menu for a good couple of minutes already, you hadn’t actually looked at a single thing on it even though you’d made such a show of doing just that and now that Chris had ordered, a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake, the waitress was looking at you expectantly. Unable to form any kind of rational thought under that kind of pressure, you found yourself simply saying “same” and soon enough it was just you and Chris at the table once more.

Chris was looking at you like he had something he wanted to say and the unreadable expression on his face had you feeling somewhat uneasy for reasons you hadn’t quite ascertained but probably understood on some level if you let yourself think about it for more than a second. He could feel the nervous energy radiating from you though and so rather than pursue his current train of thought, he picked a topic of conversation that was much safer and knew you’d be comfortable with: school.

You talked about your classes and upcoming assignments while he listened intently and you returned the favour while he spoke earnestly about hockey and his own academic workload. It was so easy to settle into a natural rhythm with Chris whenever you talked, as if you’d been having conversations like these for years when in fact it had only been a few months of knowing him and a few weeks of meeting up like this. None of that seemed to really matter though, not when the conversation was good and the chemistry felt right and especially not when it was clear that you were both on the same page when it came to your friendship. There was something else there though, something that was beyond being purely platonic, that much was becoming crystal clear and yet despite the ease in which it was to talk to him about literally anything else, there was something that had you stumbling over the thought of bringing it up.

You were saved from falling down that particular rabbit hole by the reappearance of the waitress, two burgers that were big enough to have your eyes popping out of your head in her hands. Chris chuckled from behind his milkshake at the look of disbelief on your face as your burger was set down in front of you before he reached for the bottle of ketchup between you both. You took the top of your burger bun off, nose immediately wrinkling at the sight of four pickle slices resting on top of the lettuce and tomato.

“Ugh, I forgot to ask for no pickles.”

Chris looked up from where he was squirting ketchup onto his bun, his eyes meeting yours briefly as his face split into a grin.

“You’re not one of those people, are you?”

“Shut up,” you grumbled as you began to pick the offensive green menaces off your food and set them at the edge of your plate. “I like what I like.”

Chris reached across and began to transfer the pickles from your plate to his burger, smiling widely at you as he did so.

“Well, I might have found a solution to this particular pickle you find yourself in,” he chuckled at the exaggerated groan and roll of your eyes at the expense of his joke. “You see, I love pickles.”

“You love anything,” you countered. “You’re like a human dumpster.”

“Hurtful,” he replied as he clutched at his chest. “But also true so I’ll allow it.”

You picked up a fry from your plate and threw it at him, immediately filled with equal parts surprise and a strange sense of awe as he reflexively moved and caught it in his mouth.

“You really are a dumpster,” you grinned as you shook your head at the proud little smile he was giving you.

“I am, so how about you don’t ask for no pickles on your burgers and you just give ‘em to me instead?”

It was easy to agree to his proposal, not least because his logic actually made a lot of sense when you thought about it, but mostly because of the way his eyes were sparkling and the way his smile made you feel warm all over, like the falling snow and freezing air outside didn’t exist, like your fingers and toes hadn’t been numbed by the biting cold during your walk here, like there had only ever been sunshine. It was also why you’d agreed to let him carry you back through the snow to your dorm, his large hands hooked around the backs of your thighs and your arms draped over his shoulders much like during the walk to the diner. You’d protested initially, of course, not wanting to burden Chris or put you both at risk of an injury due to the slippery conditions, but he wasn’t about to be convinced otherwise and remained unperturbed by the weather, gently reminding you that he had in fact got you to the diner in one piece in the first instance at your objections.

Truthfully, despite the mild embarrassment you felt at your complete ineptitude when it came to walking on ice, you couldn’t help but be more than a little impressed at Chris’s sheer strength. You wondered then, about how hard he must work in the gym to develop such a strong core because while you knew from first-hand experience how slippery it was underfoot, he didn’t falter once throughout the entire walk home and with the way he was talking amiably about his favourite places in the city he called home, and how his hands were holding your legs so surely and securely, you felt safe as houses with your chest pressed into his back – even with your thick coats and layers of winter clothing between you.

He walked with you on his back right up to the entrance of your dorm, setting you down carefully on the pathway that looked to have been newly shovelled before he turned to face you, his cheeks once again ruddy from the cold and your walk home.

“I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’ twice in one day,” he grinned, sucking air in through his teeth and shaking his head slightly. “But didn’t I say that I’d get you home safely?”

“So what if you were right twice?” you rebutted with a playful nudge. “It’s not like it’s ever gonna happen again.”

“Watch it, Pickle. I’ll have you know that I’m right about a lot of things.”

“Pickle?” you barked out a laugh, watching as Chris walked slowly backwards down the path away from you with that smile still on his face. “What kind of a name is that? I don’t even like pickles.”

“I know,” he called out into the growing distance between you both. “But I do, remember?”

You shook your head at him, chuckling to yourself with a smile on your lips that mirrored his as you watched him.

“See ya Tuesday then, Trash Can!” you hollered.

His raucous cackle cut through the silent flurry as he continued to walk slowly backwards, his grin clear as day even through the falling snowflakes.

“Trash Can! Fucking, Trash Can! Man, you got some serious chirps, Pickle. Can you throw hands too? I mean, I know you suck at keeping your balance on the ice but we could use an enforcer! I could push you around?”

“Anytime, anywhere!” you laughed, watching him with a grin until he had waved his goodbye and turned away before he retreated into the heavy snow.

Part ii

[my-simp-land]

My Whole World

Bucky wants to go for a motorcycle ride, and you end up going with him as his "chaperone." A beautiful kaleidoscope awaits you. Bucky x reader. 1954 words. Fluff. Have fun on the ride :))

“Hey Friday? Do we have any grapes?”

“We do not, Miss. We have gala apples, bananas, blueberries, mangos, strawberries, and watermelon.”

“Strawberries and sugar, it is. Thank you, Friday.”

“You’re welcome, Miss.”

It’s a short walk to the kitchen. I’m on hall GERS, so I have to walk through the common area to get to the kitchen. As I approached, I could hear quite the argument. Likely, Bucky and Sam. Or Bucky and Tony. The way I describe it, and it might be my bias, but Bucky isn’t actually the problem. Bucky and Sam were like a married couple; they could fight all day and go home and climb into bed together. Bucky and Tony are something else though. After Bucky’s rehabilitation in Wakanda, it took a while for Tony to accept Bucky’s apology and allow him to stay in the compound without constant surveillance. That was a tense period of times. Bucky always tries to be kind to Tony, but if Tony gets slightly agitated then it’s on.

“It’s just a ride. The bike has trackers. My arm has trackers. I can even be back before dark.”

“I don’t care, tin man. You’re not leaving the premises without a chaperone. You live with the Avengers, and if you run or turn or get captured, what does that say about us?”

“I won’t be turned! Shuri got it out of my head! And Vision and (Y/N) made sure of it! I don’t understa-”

Now is a good time if any. “Hey guys. Have any dinner plans?”

Silence.

“Well...I’m just gonna grab some strawberries real quick then I’ll be out of your hair.”

It was deathly silent as I arranged my plate with strawberries and fixed a little ramekin with some sugar. It’s usually Sam and Bucky that do the staring contest, but Tony can be childish too.

“I don’t think I need a babysitter.”

“And I don’t care.”

And the bomb dropped. They were yelling over each other to quite a degree. Yelling was never your thing. Or any loud noise in all honesty. Trauma does funny things to you. You could see Steve and Sam at the common room entrance and Wanda and Nat at the other hall enterance. I’m certain we are about to see the beginning of the second civil war.

“YOU’RE SCARING (Y/N)!”

“YOU’RE THE ONE THAT BROUGHT IT UP WITH HER STILL HERE! YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE!”

“YOU RAISED YOUR VOICE FIRST! IT WAS JUST A NORMAL CONVERSA-”

“BULLSHIT! YOU JUST CAN’T LIVE WIT-”

“i’ll do it.”

Everything seemed to stand still. Onlookers happened to turn to me, and Bucky and Tony were locked in another staring contest. I guess I’ll have to say it again.

“I’ll do it. I’ll ride with you, Bucky. Just- just stop yelling please.”

Bucky sighed and looked away from Tony, losing the contest. “Doll, you don’t have to ride with me. I’ll just put it off. You don’t even like motorcycles. I’ll just hang here.” He tried to do that smile that would make me agree. I coud see it in his blue eyes that he was sad about it though. It seems to him that I’m agreeing with Tony about him needing a babysitter.

“No. We’ll ride. I trust you to drive.”

His eyes nearly doubled in size. I knew I hooked him. It wasn’t often that someone said that to him, even after his rehab. I do trust him though. He’s always protected me on missions, HYDRA and Avengers alike. He’s the most dangerous person I know, but I know without a doubt that he would save me should something happen on our drive.

“Okay. That’s settled. Thank you for riding with Tin Man. I’ll see you two once you’re back.”

Tony turned and left the kitchen. It seems like everyone else cleared out pretty quick too. That just leaves me, Bucky, and my strawberries.

“You can uh, eat before we go. I didn’t plan on being back soon.”

“Okay.”

“And maybe something a little warmer. It gets cold on the mountain after dark.”

“Alright. I’ll meet you in 45.”

A quick snack, refresh, and change of clothes later, I was stepping into the garage to meet Bucky. When you stepped in, you could spot Bucky near the back looking at Tony’s father’s car. Tony would keep them out of sight, but Bucky and Steve enjoyed them. It also reminded them of how different they are.

“Hey Buck. Ready to go?”

“Yeah, doll. Just...looking. Steve is letting us borrow his bike. Let me show you some safety stuff on it...just in case, y’know.”

We walked over to the Steve’s bike. It was a pretty bikes, but you’d seen it plenty. Steve loved that thing like it was a child. Bucky however, he was something else. He had his long hair pulled back into a half up half down look. His stubble had recently graduated into a beard. The extra dark hair on his face made his blue eyes pop even more. His outfit though. It was rare to see him out of his usual hoodie, basketball shorts, and slides or his field outfit. He had dressed warm for the occasion. Bucky wore his leather coat over a navy henley. He wore dark jeans and heavy iron toed boots. He was the definition of…

“Doll, you listening?”

“Uh, no.”

“I figured as much. Put your helmet on and we’ll go.”

“What about your helmet? I know you might not have much up there, but it is quite a pretty face.” His eye roll was so hard it probably could’ve detached his eyes.

“Super soldier, angel. I don’t nee-”

“James Buchanan, I will not get on a death trap motorcycle with someone who doesn’t have a helmet on. Do you even have a driver’s license? Muchless a motorcycle license?”

“I’ll put a helmet on if you don’t ask about my license situation anymore. Deal?”

“You drive a hard bargain. Okay, deal.” I handed him my helmet. He slipped it on as I grabbed another. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Hop on, doll. Yeah, just like that. Scoot closer. Closer. Like right up against- yeah. Yes. Alrighty. Your feet will rest here and here. Keep them there so you don’t burn yourself on the motor. Perfect, dollface. Now, just hold on. Not- no. Doll, hold on to me. You won’t have any stability behind me.”

“I don’t know about this…”

“You agreed. Just hold me like you hold that big green frog marshmallow thing.”

“Bucky!”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you clutch that thing. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t busted it yet. Now hold on.”

“I hate you.”

He laughed that sweet beautiful laugh. It was rare to get a genuine laugh out of him, so maybe this death machine was worth it. “I know you do.”

And we were off. Back tire skidded and fish tailed behind us. Tony would complain about that. My helmet was glued between Bucky’s shoulder blades. My screams and Bucky’s laughter filled the comms. The wind blew past us, but my arms didn’t let up on Bucky’s torso. My heart felt like it was beating out my chest. I’m certain he could feel my heart on his back. I could feel us turn through the curvy mountain roads. Thankfully I listened to Bucky and got a thicker coat or I would be frozen to the bone.

“Doll, look up.”

“No. My head is gonna fly off if I look up.”

“I promise, doll. Don’t you trust me.”

Fuck.

I would much rather be shot again than lift my head from the safety of Bucky’s back, but he pulled the stupid trust card. “You can do it, angel. It’s so worth it.”

It was slow motion. My head came up, and the wind blew across my helmet and down my neck. I had to blink to get used to the light again. Everything was so beautiful, The yellow-greens of the spring leaves created a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors around us. White blossoms littered the road and fell around us. Sunbeams poked through the leaves and reflected off in a perfect way.

“Wow.”

“Yeah. We’ll stop up here to watch the sunset.”

Everything seemed to slow down. I was so enamored by the scenery I didn’t notice Bucky stealing glances at my big head. I definitely looked like a bobble head.

Bucky pulled off the road onto a lookout. We had the perfect view of the valley.

“Wow Bucky. Look! You can see the compound from here! Oh wow. The trees are so pretty. Everything is...golden.”

“Yeah. I remember driving up here a couple times before the war. The first time I came was not long after Becca was born. I was still really young, but I remember the stars sparkling. It was the first time I had ever seen them. Y’know, being in Brooklyn and light pollution and what not. I knew I wanted to spend every night here, just looking at the stars.”

Bucky shuffled a little closer. I could feel the heat radiating from him. We faced the sun as it set deeper into the valley. Everything was turning from a nice green yellow to orange and golden,

“The second time was not long before I was shipped out. I had saved up enough for gas to borrow my pa’s truck. We spent all day here. It was unbearably hot all day. Poor Steve, he was still a bean pole, and I basically had to sell my soul to keep him long enough to see the sunset. It was worth it though. I would do it everyday for him. We stood here, just like us, and watched the sunset. We’d seen the sunset plenty, but his face when he looked up and saw those stars. His face was priceless.”

I could see how much Steve meant to him, and how much he missed his home. Even though he was getting better at fitting in, it still wasn’t where he belonged.

“I’m sorry, Buck. I wish I could take you back.”

“No, no, no. Doll. I didn’t mean it that way.” His hands covered my shoulders, flesh and metal. “I’m trying to say...oh lord how do i? I’ve only brought my best friend here and now you and...I don’t know. I’m not as smooth as I was. Just uh...I want you to know that you’re special to me. In a Steve but not Steve way.”

My mouth was a perfect O. I knew I was daft, but this is a new low. My brain was already short-circuiting, but I shut down when he grabbed my face. I was stuck staring into his ocean blue eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

His soft lips touched mine. My body was suddenly in motion. Our chests were squished together and my hands found their way to the back of his neck, his hair intertwined my fingers. In that moment, his breath became mine. Our souls were one. Everything I was flowed through him, and everything he was flowed through me. Fuck the sunset, this is something else.

We pulled away. It was like post nut clarity. “I hope you did the same for Steve when you brought him.” Bucky died laughing. The full belly laugh that would hurt if you laughed too long. It was highly contagious because I was leaning into him. “You know Steve is too modest to do something as passionate as that.”

Our laughter trailed off, and we were left staring at the valley. We missed the actual sunset, but you could begin to see the stars poking through.

“It’s like looking over the whole world.”

“Yeah, my whole world.”

yoooo. i hope you enjoyed. i love doing little domestic pieces like this. if you have some ideas for domestic pieces you want to see, please send me an ask. i can't promise i'll write since i'm inconsistent af, but it might motivated me more :))

[sinner-as-saint]

Daddy’s Little Pet.

Steve Rogers x Reader

Run-through: You and Steve are the epitome of ‘opposites attract’. He is the American hero, a super soldier who is known for his bravery, and righteousness and for being the one leading the Avengers. You, on the other hand, are a well-known fashion designer in the city. Creator and owner of your own brand, and elite boutique. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like you and Steve would be compatible. But you surprisingly are. And behind closed doors, in secrecy – you two are each other’s solace, each other’s definition of home. He’s your strong, loving and caring man. And you, his lovely, little pet whom he adores more than life itself.

Themes: daddy kink, slight pet play (nicknames only), smut, fluff, age gap

a/n: if you’re not comfortable with any of the themes mentioned above, it’s really simple – don’t read this.

You sighed in delight once you slid into the backseat of your car.

Your driver began driving at once. You smiled at the thought of finally being able to relish in the comforts of your home after a long day. Today had been exceptionally tiring. First, you felt a little low, creatively. Then, you received a call from one of your boutique managers. One of your staff members called to let you know that one of your regular clients was acting up and being picky and causing a ruckus.

So you had to leave your office and all your unfinished projects and drive to your boutique where you handled the situation, thankfully.

You grimaced at the thought of the stuck up client you had to deal with today. Ugh, snobbish rich people… You were glad you were nothing like those who think that just because they have money, the world revolves around them.

You were extremely well-off yourself, but you kept yourself grounded instead of flaunting your fortune constantly. You agreed, you did indeed make much, much more money than others your age but you also worked your ass off for that. The fashion industry is a lot more hectic and competitive than it seems. And being the creator and owner of your own elite fashion brand was no joke, it was a lot of hard work and resilience.

Most people thought that you were simply living the dream life; fashion shows, elegant boutiques, and a large bank account. But they didn’t see the stress, the hard work, the tears and the pressure of having to constantly be creative and managing all your staff and your teams. Work took a toll on you often.

But that’s when you knew you could always rely on your loving boyfriend to make you feel better. Steve. The world knew him as the famous super soldier, the man out of time, leader of the Avengers, Captain America. But to you, he was the best partner you could ask for.

You felt giddy already, just thinking of being in his loving, strong arms later tonight. You checked your phone to see if there’s any messages from him. He texted you all day, and his last text said that he would be a little more late than usual.

You frowned, but got over it. His work was important for him, and everyone else. Besides, that would give you an hour or two to spend in the gym while you wait for him to come home it seems. And you really needed to let all that work stress out somehow. Normally you would prefer Steve getting it out of your system by fucking you into your mattress, but it seems that a nice work out session will have to do today.

 You got home, got changed then made your way to your well-furnished indoor gym. You were never an athletic person. You got the gym installed when Steve moved into your mansion. Then over time, you found yourself using it as well. And you hated to admit it, but it made you feel healthier.

An hour and a half later, you took your sweaty self into the shower and took a long, warm shower. You could sense yourself starting to feel a lot lighter than earlier. You were excited to just order diner and slip into one of your many onesies and watch a movie while you wait for Steve.

You giggled to yourself under the shower. That sounds like an amazing plan after a long day of feeling not so creative and dealing with rude clients.

And you did just that. You placed an order for some of yours and Steve’s favorites, then you went and skimmed through the countless, comfy onesie PJs in your closet. You chose the soft, brown, fluffy bear one with cute ears on the hood, and lots of little bear faces scattered all across it. Onesies were the comfiest thing in the world, and you would fight anyone who said any different. You slipped it on, closed the zipper and walked out of your grand closet.

You grabbed Sir Biscuit – your favorite teddy which you had since your childhood and grabbed your computer and plopped into your large, comfy bed. You put Harry Potter on. “Now we wait for my darling boyfriend, Biscuit.” You snuggled your teddy and watched your movie without a care in the world.

Steve would be here soon, and he’d take care of you. And you wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing. You were quite the control freak in your professional life, so it felt liberating to just not have to carry the burden of control while Steve was around. Plus, he was the love of your life. And there’s nothing you enjoyed more than being carefree in his arms.

Not even half an hour later, around 7.30 p.m. you heard the alarm beep; signaling that someone had entered your gated property. You smiled brightly as you waited impatiently for him. Minutes later, you heard the alarm again, signaling that someone was in through the front door.

And then you heard his voice. “Babe, I’m home.” He called out. And you jumped out of bed, ran down the hallway and down the stairs, crossed the living room and rushed into Steve’s open arms.

He was standing by the foyer, waiting for you to run into his arms like you did almost every day.

“Stevie!” you squealed. He laughed as you tried your hardest to hug him as tightly as you could. He wasn’t dressed in his tactical, navy suit today given he wasn’t out on a mission, but simply sat through briefing and planning for future missions all day.

The black leather jacket he wore smelt familiar and comforting. It smelt like him. You snuggled up to him, rubbing your face into his chest. He chuckled, his laughter rumbling in his chest right under your ear. “Hello kitten, you missed me?” he asked, giving you a kiss on top of your head.

You smiled and looked up at him, and with just one look into his ocean blue eyes, you forgot all the worries you had. “I did.” You whispered. His heart did its little happy dance as he took in your appearance. You looked so pretty he could cry.

He playfully gasped. “Wait a minute.” He held you at arms’ length and scanned you head to toe. “You’re not a kitten today, are you?” his words made you laugh and so did the fake shocked expression on his face. “You’re a fluffy, little bear!” he pulled you closer and attacked your face with a lots of loud, open mouth kisses, always the affectionate man he is. “Hi little bear!”

You giggled, playfully pushing him away. He walked the two of you backwards into the living room, then he stopped assaulting you with kisses and just held you in his arms. “I missed you so much.” You mumbled into his chest.

He felt bad because it was true and he missed you too. “I know,” he cooed. “I know I have been coming home late every day this week.” He held your chin and leaned in for a sweet kiss. “But I will make it up to you, okay? How about we have a little getaway this weekend, huh? Just me and my lovely girlfriend, yes?” He gave you a big smooch on the lips. “Would you like that?” he asked, and you got visibly excited.

Oh yes, you terribly needed a little vacay!

You nodded frantically, Steve chuckled and held your hand as you two walked back upstairs into your shared bedroom. “Now,” he sat you down on the edge of the bed. “Let me shower real quick, I’ll be back before you know it.”  

You nodded, pouting just a little that he was leaving you alone again. Then again, he needed a shower to relax as well, so you agreed without being too much of a brat. You watched your movie until Steve emerged from the bathroom again, with just dark grey sweatpants on.

You almost drooled a little when you watched him move around, putting his towel in the laundry basket and what not. His muscles flexed deliciously and the ratio of his broad shoulder to his lean waist made you tingly in specific places. You clenched your thighs together until his calming blue eyes met yours again.

You couldn’t help but pout and extended your arms out in front of you. He purposely just stood there and watched you for a moment. You were truly the light of his life. Sometimes, like right now, he was torn between wanting to be balls deep in you and fuck you until you forgot your own name or wanting to have you on his lap and make you giggle with his terrible jokes as you tell him about your day.

He gave in immediately. He walked over to you and slid beside you in bed, wrapping his muscular arms around your warm body.

You instantly melted once you were in his arms. And before he could say anything, he felt your warm mouth latching onto his skin. He thought it was just a kiss but then he felt you starting to suck on the skin at the side of his throat and nibbling on it. And as much as he enjoyed your touch, he had to pull away.

He looked down at you sternly, “Hey,” his voice a little more serious than earlier, “what did we say about biting and leaving marks on visible places?” he chided playfully, reminding you that he loved it when you left your marks all over him, just not in places where the rest of the team could see.

Your relationship was no secret, but he still preferred not to show up at work with love bites all over him.

You whined and hid your face into his bare chest. “Sorry, Stevie.” You whined. He smiled, stroking your hair and kissing the top of your head.

“It’s okay, my little pet.” He cradled your head, already playing to the mood you were in. “You bite on your teddy rather than me.” he patted the spot on the bed next to you but couldn’t feel your plush toy under the covers. He checked the other side and still couldn’t find it. “Oh no, little bear.” He sounded so concerned. “We lost your teddy.” He fake gasped.

You giggled and reached down under the covers and pulled it out. “It’s right here.” You said. He watched the teddy. One moment it was in your grasp, and the next you tossed it far away on the bed. Steve looked down at you, confused.

“You don’t want him, baby?” he asked. You shook your head no. “What do you want then?” he asked again. You still shook your head no. He tilted his head to the side and look at you.

You got out of the blankets and got on top of him. He smiled as you straddled his thighs and made yourself comfortable on his lap. You leaned in to give him a loud, open mouth kiss on his lips. You slid your body further down his legs and smiled innocently at him.

“What do you want, you little troublemaker?” he asked, knowing damn well what you wanted. He just liked hearing you say it.

You palmed him through his sweatpants. “I want you.” He was hard already, you could feel it. Steve looked enamored. The look in your eyes reminded him of the first night he met you; the most elegant, poised and gorgeous woman he had ever seen.

Oh babygirl… Steve smiled at you and leaned back, making himself comfortable in your bed. “You want daddy’s cock, huh?” he asked, and watched your face light up as you bent down and pressed an innocent kiss to his clothed erection then looked up at him and nodded excitedly.

He chuckled. “Go on, babygirl. Make daddy feel good.” He leaned against the headboard and watched you as you took your time and kissed every inch his clothed erection. Your hands lazily lowered the waistband of his sweats and his underwear to free his erected cock. Then again, you kissed your way up and down his erected cock. You circled your tongue around his tip and he groaned quietly. You giggled, knowing the effect you had on him. You wrapped your hand around his cock and placed your mouth on his tip. Steve grunted and held your head gently and slowly pushed himself deeper into your mouth.

You took him in inch by inch until he hit the back of your throat. “Relax your throat, baby.” He spoke softly as he pushed himself into your mouth entirely. He twitched against your tongue as you hollowed your cheeks and bobbed your head around him, and you tasted some of his pre cum trickling down your throat.

You took him out of your mouth and licked his cock from bottom to top while your hands toyed with his balls. He swore under his breath as you dragged your tongue over the slit on his tip very lazily. He looked down at you with a smirk on his face. “Don’t tease me, babygirl.” He cooed, stroking your hair and moving it out of your face.

You looked up at him and giggled, you took him back into your mouth and sucked on his cock until he began gently thrusting his hips up and pushing his cock further into your mouth. He loved the sight of your spit coating his cock, and your lips wrapped around him. The gasps and moans which escaped his lips made you squirm and added to the dampness which was forming in your underwear. His words had the same effects on you.

“Fuck… you’re such a good girl, aren’t you baby?” he bit his lip and threw his head back as you took all of him in your warm mouth. “That’s it kitten, keep going…fuck,” he was falling apart hard and fast.

He hissed and moaned loudly, shamelessly as he felt himself coming undone. You took him out of your mouth and circled your tongue around his tip rapidly until he came all over your mouth. He gasped and swore under his breath as he came. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to catch all of his cum in your mouth. Some it trickled down your chin, your neck and even got on your soft PJs.

Steve looked down at you and chuckled at how you were covered in his cum. “Look at you, you’re all messy, baby.” He stroked your hair and watched you stick your tongue out and lick him clean, gathering as much of his cum as you could. “You’ve got cum all over you, haven’t you?” he sat up straighter once you licked him clean and pulled his underwear and sweatpants up again. He tilted your head up so you look at him. “Seems like I need to change you now, huh?” he asked, knowing you would just lay there like a lazy person and let him to it because as your boyfriend, it’s his duty – your words, not his.

You bit your lip and nodded, smirking just a little. Oh yes!

 He had you lay down on your back, legs dangling at the edge of your bed as he carefully got you out of your soiled onesie and cleaned you with a wet cloth. Halfway through cleaning you, he left to go get your favorite body lotion. “You didn’t put lotion on after your shower today, did you?” he asked.

“Nope!” you answered, getting all excited because you loved it when he applied lotion on you, and you knew you’d also get a nice massage out of it. “I was waiting for you to do it for me.” You answered truthfully.

He chuckled, looking down at your bare body, then grabbed the lotion bottle and squirted some on his hand and smeared it all over the palms of his hand. “Can’t do anything without my help, can you?” he started at your shoulders and rubbed his hands all over your arms and chest. “Daddy has to do everything for you, doesn’t he?” he asked again, massaging down your sides and over your stomach.

You giggled and nodded. He smiled down at you and leaned down to give you a brief kiss right on your bellybutton. “It’s okay baby, I love to take care of you.” Steve meant what he said. He took his time and massaged your body, playfully teasing you and touching you in all the right places. Once satisfied, he had you turn around so he could give your back the same attention.

He kissed your butt while he was at it. And his large hands felt so good on your body that you were humming and moaning in no time. He could see you desperately, discretely move your hips against nothing, and he purposely stopped just when you began to get excited.

He heard you whine under your breath. You turned back around and faced him. He leaned down to kiss your lips and mumbled, “You smell so good, baby.” He kissed his way down your neck and all the way down your stomach and stopped right above your core. You whined again when you saw the mischievous look in his eyes. “Now tell me, which PJs do you want today?”

You took a moment to think about it, then answered, “The kitten one.” It was another favorite of yours. Steve nodded and went to go get it from your closet which almost resembled a store in itself. He shook his head, smiling at the amount of shoes and clothes and jewelry you had. He found the onesie and brought it back to where you were, waiting for him patiently.

Steve began putting the PJs on you, and once he was done he realized his mistake. “Uh, baby?” he called out, fixing the hood and the ears of the onesie. You looked at him and waited. “I made a mistake. I accidentally grabbed the puppy one.” He said and you looked down and giggled at the many paws prints on the onesie. He sighed and kissed your forehead. “But it’s okay, now you’re a little puppy!” he gave you another loud kiss on the cheek. “And you’re the cutest puppy I’ve ever seen!”

You laughed and sat up again, folding your legs under you. “It’s okay Stevie, old men make mistakes all the time.” You said, playfully. It was this on-going joke between the two of you, regarding Steve’s age.

He rolled his eyes at you, “Yeah you think?” he grabbed you and pulled you close again, tickling you until you laughed and thrashed around like a mad woman. He let you go only after you apologized, breathlessly.

“I’m sorry, Stevie! Please!” you spoke through giggles and he finally stopped.

“Come here, baby.” He plopped down on the bed and pulled you to his side. You immediately snuggled up to him and lifted one of your legs up to place it over his thighs. He wrapped his arms around you and gave you a kiss on the forehead.

You pushed your face into his chest and held on tightly to him. You had a smile on your face just thinking about how much happier you were with him in your life. You were a completely different woman before you met Steve. But now, you were just happier.

“Tell me about your day, babe.” he asked, after a while of just playing with your hair and breathing in your sweet scent. You smelt of strawberries and lily of the valley and it was Steve’s favorite scent in the whole world. He wondered at times, about how lost he would be if he didn’t find you when he did. You were the best thing in his life, in more than one ways, you definitely made his life worth living.

“Hmm,” you rubbed your face against his chest then looked up at him. “Same old, boring. I wasn’t feeling too creative today. Then a lady was being rude to my staff so I had to drive to the boutique and calm her down. People can be so snobbish sometimes, it’s crazy.” You paused and looked up at Steve, he looked really interested in the drama. “But then she bought a couple of my bags and an expensive evening gown so I made a lot of money.” You beamed at him.

He chuckled. Your days were always so much more interesting than his. “That’s good, you deserve it. You work so hard, I know.” he kissed the top of your head and secured his arms around you.

Then you asked him about his day. And he told you the same thing he always did. Meeting, mission plans, trying to get Bucky and Sam not to kill each other while arguing over every little thing. “We went over our plans for the next mission.” He talked about his day, “And then I missed my baby and I couldn’t wait to come home to her.” He spoke, leaning down to kiss your face again.

You giggled. “I’m right here.” You looked up and gave him a kiss on his neck and snuggled closer to him.

Steve tightened his grip around you. “I know you are, babe. You’re the best part of my day.” He whispered against the top of your head.

You two cuddled for a while, just relishing each other’s touch. Steve ran a soothing hand you’re your back and occasionally looked down at you, carefree in his arms. He would smile and kiss the top of your head each time you murmured or scooted closer to his body.

He spoke up after a while, “I’m hungry.” he waited for you to look up at him.

“I ordered food.” You let him know.

He smiled and caressed your cheek. “I know, baby. I saw you got my favorite dessert as well.” He looked down at you with a familiar look in his eyes. A playful look you knew all too well. “But daddy wants something sweeter.” He added.

You seemed a little confused, although the tone of his voice did hint at how he was definitely up to no good. “Like chocolate or candy?” you asked.

He chuckled. “No, sweeter than that.” He leaned down closer to your ear. “Know what it is?” he asked. You purposely shook your head side to side. He gently held your chin and whispered excitedly, “It’s you!”

You fake gasped, playfully. You laughed and got up and tried to run away from him. Steve chuckled as he chased after you. “Come here, you naughty little puppy!” he called out after you as you ran towards the closet, in hopes of hiding in there and locking the door, bur he caught you before you could.

You laughed and struggled your way out of his grasp once again. You ran to the other side of the room and almost made your way to the bathroom but he caught you again and tackled you down onto the nearby velvet couch.

“Caught you!” he tickled you again until you were breathless from laughing too hard. Then he stopped and leaned in to kiss you deeply. His touch was gently and passionate, he held you as close as possible and shoved his tongue past your lips. He hummed and moaned as he invaded your mouth. But he wanted more, so much more. “Can I taste you, baby?” he asked, pulling away and mumbling against your mouth.

You whined at the voice he used; deep and low. His words sent vibrations through your entire body. You nodded quickly and he smirked against your mouth as he slowly unzipped your onesie and kissed his way down your body as he went.

Steve settled in between your legs once he unzipped your onesie entirely. “Now, hold still for daddy. Okay?” he whispered, face dangerously close to your core. You bit your lip and nodded, excited and desperate already. You’ve been thinking about him and that mouth of his all day at work and now you just couldn’t wait.

He placed his hands on your thighs and spread your legs further apart and attached his lips to your core without a second thought; the lower half of his face completely submerged into your dripping core. You moaned out loud involuntarily as you felt his warm mouth on top of your dripping core. His tongue slipped past your folds and teased your entrance; occasionally flicking your sensitive bud mercilessly.

He moaned as he relished your taste. He’d been thinking about you all day, and now he finally had you and he wasn’t planning on stopping until you beg him to stop. Your taste drove him wild, so did your soft whimpers.

Your hands gripped his hair and tugged gently at his roots. Wet sounds erupted from where his mouth latched on to your core, and the sight was just as sinful. A man as powerful and strong as him, on his knees on the couch, his head in between your legs and his mouth touching your body in the most intimate way possible. Pure adoration and an unusual power washed over you.

You whimpered under his touch, feeling his beard rubbing against your soft skin; it burned a little, but you enjoyed each and every second of it and craved for more. You moaned out loud as your back arched off the couch for just a moment, your eyes closing and your head leaning back as you felt a wave of intense pleasure wash over you.

“Cum for me, kitten, come on.” he whispered and got back to assault your sensitive spot with his warm and wet tongue; relishing your taste. You didn’t have to be told twice, the pressure was building up nicely as well. So with a few more strokes of his tongue, you let go and gushed out all over his face. He didn’t stop even then, he kept at it while your orgasm washed over you; lapping up whatever you gave him. He couldn’t get enough of you.

You arched your back and whined as he kept going on and on even after you came all over his mouth. You mumbled, your voice strained and high pitched due to the sensitivity, “Stevie… I- I already came.” You tried to scoot away from his mouth because it felt unbearably good.

His grip tightened around your thighs, and he pulled you against his mouth again. “No no, don’t you move away from me. I’m not done yet.” He spoke and went back to teasing you with his tongue. And he stood by his words earlier, he indeed ate you out until you begged him that you couldn’t take it anymore. “Can’t take it, huh?” he rapidly kissed his way up your body again. “Would you like daddy’s cock instead?” he cooed, settling his hips in between yours.

You looked up at him with your lips parted, breathless and worn out but you still nodded in hunger. Oh you wanted him bad. He chuckled at your needy state. “You want daddy’s big cock inside you, don’t you baby?” he whispered against your cheek as he lowered his sweatpants and underwear just enough to free his cock. He was rock hard.

You nodded again, whimpering already. He lifted his hips to align his erected cock to your entrance. You instinctively spread your legs apart to give him more room. With a slow, steady push, he inserted his length into you. You shuddered as you felt all of him filling you up. You heard his ragged breaths as he seated himself completely inside you and waited, giving your body time to adjust to him.

“Is this what you wanted, kitten?” he asked, gripping your jaw and causing you to look up at him. You could talk given how full you were. Steve smirked, pulling out just a little and pushing back into you again. You closed your eyes and moaned, arching your back off the surface of the couch again. He smirked at he looked down at you. “You wanted daddy to stretch you out like this, didn’t you baby?”

Steve leaned in to kiss your open mouth, shamelessly shoving his tongue past your parted lips and stroking the inside of your mouth while he began moving in and out of you. He pulled away from your mouth and looked down at you with pure hunger and determination in his eyes.

He sped up just a little, rocking his hips against yours and his hand reached up to wrap around your neck gently. He stared into your eyes, speeding up into you again. “That feels good, baby?” he asked, and you nodded while you gripped the couch and his arm like your life depended on it.

He stretched you out deliciously, perfectly. Filling you up and reaching all the right places as he went. He moaned and growled right against your mouth, clenching his teeth or occasionally biting down on your lip as he pounded into you relentlessly. “You’ve been thinking about daddy’s cock all day, haven’t you?” he spoke as he sped up into you again. You could only nod senselessly, overwhelmed by how good he felt deep inside you.

He chuckled and tightened his grip around your throat just a little. “Yeah? You naughty little kitten.” He leaned down to kiss your lips as he lifted one of your legs and hooked it to his waist, pushing himself deeper inside you. “You wanted daddy so bad, didn’t you?” he whispered against your lips and he slowed down for just a moment to hear you moan wantonly before he sped up again, fucking you relentlessly. “You wanted daddy to show you that he fucking owns you, didn’t you babygirl?”

The higher he took you and the closer he felt his release coming, the filthier his mouth got. “You belong to me you, you hear me?” he gave you messy kisses. “Your little cunt is mine. Only mine.” he growled in your ear and goose bumps erupted all over your body. Steve quickened his pace and pounded into you harder than before; the sounds of your skin slapping one another resonated around the grand room.

He was all you could focus on. The sound of his voice. His body pressing down on yours. His cock inside you. You walls beginning to clench around him. His moans, his hot breath against your cheek, his messy kisses. Just him.

He took you higher…and higher… and higher until you felt a tear escape your eye. “Please… please…” you whined, begging pathetically and unable to arrange your words or your thoughts any better. “Please…”

He scoffed, and tightened his grip around your throat yet again to get your attention. Your eyes were droopy in lust. His were too, but he was much more in control of his body than you were. “Please what? You want to cum around daddy, is that it?” he completed your pleas. You nodded again, unable to talk as he pounded into you, so good that it made you want to scream. “Go ahead kitten, cum for me.” He whispered breathlessly.

Steve didn’t slow down as you felt your orgasm wash over you, he kept pounding into you as your eyes rolled back and you moaned out loud as you came. You whimpered at how he kept slamming into you even after you came, and your face burned as you felt the knot forming again right at your core.

He fucked you relentlessly; not even stopping for a second. He panted and groaned at how good you felt around him; wet and warm all for him. Your walls clenched around him violently and your body arched off the couch. You felt your second release approaching while you recovered from the first one. Your leg around his waist was numb, and your body moved along with his like a toy; yet, you wanted more of what he had to give. You would take whatever he gave you.  

You felt your mind clouding with lust and getting foggy again. His large frame hovering above you as he tightened his grip around your throat just a little more. “Cum for me again kitten.” He growled through clenched teeth, his lips dangerously close to yours as you whined and whimpered under him. Your body trembled as you came for the second time in a row, walls tightening around his length. You came again; gushing out around his cock while he still pounded relentlessly into you until he came as well.

You felt his thrust getting sloppy and irregular until he came to a stop and just growled as he came violently; moaning and swearing. His warm cum shot at your walls and some of it trickled out of you when he carefully removed his length from your entrance.

Steve watched you intently. Your hands moved on their own, while your eyes were still closed. You gently reached down to touch your sensitive and throbbing core, it was wet everywhere. Steve chuckled and moved your hand away; replacing it with his own.

He didn’t hesitate before shoving two fingers inside you again. You moaned at how sensitive you were but then you opened your eyes to look into his wild, ocean blue ones. “You want daddy’s cum inside you, don’t you baby?” he whispered, his mind a little hazy from how hard he just fucked you. You whined and bit your lower lip and just nodded.

“Yes, please…”

He chuckled. “You take whatever I give you, huh?” he whispered and used his free hand to release your lip from in between your teeth before he leaned down to kiss your open mouth again. His tongue invaded your mouth like he owned it while he fingered you. You almost came again as his fingers stroked your walls sinfully. “You want daddy to just finger his cum back into your dirty little cunt, yeah is that what you want?” he asked, knowing damn well what you wanted. But he just like seeing you struggle to talk after you’re all nice and fucked. “Don’t wanna waste daddy’s cum at all. You want all of it, don’t you baby?”

You nodded and mumbled something which he didn’t quite hear. He smirked. “You can’t even talk, kitten.” He kissed you again, slipping his finger in and out of you faster. “It’s okay, baby.” he gave you another messy kiss and mumbled, “Are you going to cum for me again, huh? Cum for me, come on,” he pushed his face into your neck as your walls clenched around him desperately again as you came a third time.

He chuckled as you moaned loudly, body shaking and thighs clenching around his hand.

“You’re always such a good girl.” He kissed the side of your face, hoping to aid in calming you down. You whimpered as he pulled his fingers out of you and stood up to look down at you. You were beautiful mess; covered in his cum and love bites, breathless and sweaty.

Steve helped you up and walked you over to the bathroom. He figured he should run both of you a well-deserved bath. He lowered you down into the warm water and joined you shortly after. Despite the soreness in between your legs and the pain on either side of your hips, you immediately climbed onto his lap as soon as he sat down.

He chuckled and let you cling to him. He wrapped his arms around you and you laid your head on his shoulder, straddling his thighs.

“Thank you.” you said after a while. He ran his hand down your back over and over again.

“What for, babe?” he asked and felt you pull away. You looked into his eyes and cupped his face in your hands.

“For taking such good care of me. For putting up with whatever I do, and loving me even when I’m clingy and annoying.” You said with a smile.

He shook his head softly. “You’re never clingy and annoying. Besides, I love taking care of you. It’s my favorite part of the day.” He leaned in to kiss your lips.

You smiled through the kiss and wrapped your arms around his neck. “I love you, Steve.” you mumbled against his mouth.

He smiled. “I love you too, babe. You’re my everything.”

You held on to Steve for a long while in the tub. Just hugging him and relishing his presence and his soft touch. Steve liked having you this close. It was his favorite thing after spending an entire day being away from you because of work.

He smiled and kissed the top of your head. Finally, after a long day just like yours, he was home. Home to the love of his life; you – the woman who owned his entire heart, soul and being. His favorite girl.

[lamen-trash]

19 for Damen/Laurent? 💙💙

19. Forehead kisses (Prompt from this list)

Laurent did not know when he first started noticing it.

Maybe it was a few months after his frequent visits to Damen’s apartment began, or maybe earlier. He couldn’t be sure.

All Laurent knew was that somehow, in the midst of making dinner, watching a movie together, and the inevitable drooping of his eyelids as the night wore on, he magically ended up in a bed every night. Granted, it was the guest bedroom, but Laurent never had any recollection of saying goodnight to Damen or walking to bed. None of that seemed to matter, though, when Laurent was greeted with the sight of Damen cooking breakfast in the morning light, curls askew and smile lethal as ever.

It never bothered him before. That is, until one night, when both men had consumed one too many glasses of wine and made more than a few jokes at the other’s expense.

“Oh, come on, you’re the one who can’t even stay up until midnight and falls asleep on my couch all the time,” Damen laughed, his finger flung out accusingly and his eyes full of glittering mirth. The alcohol brought a sweet flush to his cheeks that made Laurent feel like he was melting on the inside.

His words, however, brought Laurent to a halt. He could only stare as Damen started to laugh harder at the stunned expression painted across his pale features.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Damen teased. “You always complain about being too tired to drive home and your words get all slurred and I have to carry you to bed.”

“I– What?” Laurent could feel a fiery blush start to overtake his features. “You definitely do not.”

“Wow, so you really don’t remember, huh?” Damen’s laughter had died down, but the soft, amused gaze he directed at Laurent stayed on his face.

Laurent had to change the topic. To something. Anything. “Kind of like you don’t remember spilling all those people’s drinks at The Abbey?”

That seemed to do the trick, as drunk indignation twisted Damen’s features. “Hey, I have no recollection of ever–”

And, bingo. Oaf distracted, crisis averted. “Of course you don’t remember – you were hammered!” Laurent laughed. “All of those women kept giving you dirty looks for the rest of the night.”

As Damen tilted his head back for a hearty laugh, Laurent stalwartly ignored the strong column of his throat and the dip of his Adam’s Apple. They had been friends for years, and Damen had never made a move. Laurent needed to get over himself.

Later that night, as their energy faded and the conversation dwindled, Laurent was determined to stay alert. But there was something about the soft leather of Damen’s couch, the warm lighting of the apartment, and the soothing sound of Damen mumbling an old story that had Laurent’s vision fading.

When the feeling of arms folding around his body permeated the haze in Laurent’s mind, he had the wherewithal to mumble “M'awake,” and try to squirm out of Damen’s arms.

It was to no avail, as Damen only tightened his grip before leaving the living room. “Let’s get you to bed,” Damen whispered close to his ear. Laurent could only let out a little noise of acknowledgement in response.

Everything was still hazy when Laurent felt covers being pulled up over him, and then, a pause, like the entire world was waiting for something. Maybe Laurent was waiting, too.

And suddenly: the gentlest feeling of lips against his forehead, like a butterfly wing fluttering against his skin.

Laurent would’ve stopped to think about it more if his mind wasn’t already slipping into unconsciousness the moment the feeling faded. That night, Laurent slept a sound, dreamless sleep.

Waking up the next morning was like emerging from the cold ocean after a long swim. It was as if liquid warmth was bleeding into every one of Laurent’s limbs, making him snuggle down further into the soft bedding.

And yet, when he opened his eyes and remembered the previous night in a sudden rush, all Laurent could feel was panic.

What had Damen meant by that? Was he supposed to remember the kiss? Did Damen kiss him in a platonic way or in a we’ve-been-friends-for-years-but-I-secretly-want-you-like-you-want-me way?

Laurent couldn’t help but bury his face into a pillow and let out a silent scream. Leave it to Damen to do something so innocent yet so loaded, and not think twice about it. It was cruel, really – Damen wasn’t the one with severe mental health issues prone to overthinking and thought loops.

The more Laurent thought about it, the more he could feel himself getting fired up. How dare Damen play with his heart like this? Especially after everything Laurent had told him about his past, how much he had trusted him with…

However, all thoughts of chewing out a too-large Akielon verbally that morning dissipated when Laurent peeked out of the guest room to see a fully-prepared breakfast with pancakes, berries and homemade whip cream.

Fuck, Laurent thought, and his heart instantly swelled in size. Damen knew the key to his heart all too well – sweets. Damn him.

While Laurent filled himself with sugar and carbs and coffee, no mention of last night arose, and Damen continued on like everything was normal. He took Laurent’s prickly morning attitude in stride and even ruffled his blonde hair before going to get dressed.

If you want to play oblivious, two can play at that game, Laurent thought to himself, and chewed thoughtfully.

From that point on, every time Laurent went over to Damen’s house, he made an effort to hold onto the last shreds of consciousness before everything slipped away. Like clockwork, around midnight, Damen would gently pick Laurent up and carry him to bed before tucking him in and kissing his forehead. The feeling was always fleeting, but treasured in Laurent’s bruised heart.

Sometimes, if they had laughed particularly hard together one night, Damen would spend a few extra seconds stroking Laurent’s cheek or hair, before pulling away as if burned.

It was maddening. Not that Damen was treating him tenderly for seemingly no reason – that, Laurent particularly enjoyed – it was that Damen seemed to want to touch him more, yet never did.

“We’ve been friends for years, and nothing until now,” Laurent exclaimed, waving his hands around as if that would solve his problems. “Why doesn’t he just make a move already?”

Aimeric only raised his eyebrow over his freshly-brewed coffee as he took a long sip.

“You’re judging me. Why are you judging me? You know I hate it when you look at me like that,” Laurent deadpanned.

Aimeric let out a little chuckle before shaking his head fondly. “You,” he began, pointing a perfectly-manicured nail in Laurent’s direction. “Have a problem. And Damen does, too. There’s something wrong with you guys.”

“If you could skip out on the insulting me part and move on to the advice segment of this coffee date, I would really appreciate it.”

Laurent couldn’t hold in his begrudging smile when Aimeric wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and raised his voice an octave. “Ooh, we’re on a date right now? Should I delete my dating apps and tell all my boy toys that I’m taken?”

After a firm smack to Aimeric’s arm and a classic over-the-top reaction from the brunette, he sighed. “Listen, I’m only going to say this once. Do with it what you will.”

Laurent nodded, gravely serious.

“Damen’s in love with you,” Aimeric said, and then took a sip of coffee as if those words hadn’t just flipped Laurent’s entire world upside down.

“And before you wipe that stupid look off your face and deny it, you should hear that you’re definitely in love with him, too.”

“Wh–”

“Don’t make me say it again, and don’t deny the truth.”

Laurent’s mouth snapped shut. He chose his next words carefully. “Yes, it is true that after many years of friendship I do feel a certain… fondness for Damen, but that’s not–”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Aimeric exclaimed, and slapped his hand down onto the table. “You guys have been in love with each other for years and we’ve all been waiting for one of you to make a goddamn move. I’m sick of this back and forth ‘Will they, won’t they’ and ‘Oh they’re pining for each other and it’s romantic’ bullshit.”

“Wait–” Laurent felt like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

“I’m being dead serious when I say you need to make a move as soon as possible or else I will spontaneously combust from lack of attention. All our friends ever want to talk about when you’re not there is how much you and Damen want to bone each other but act like you’re just friends. I told Pallas about a new guy I’m dating the other day and his response was to ask me if I want him as much as Damen clearly wants you. How is one man supposed to live like this?”

“Aimeric, stop–”

“It’s always Damen this, Laurent that. ‘They’re meant for each other,’ blah blah blah. What about my fairytale slowburn friends-to-lovers romance? What about any of us? It can’t be about the It couple all the time.”

“We’re not even a couple!”

“Exactly. That is my point. Get your shit together before we all excommunicate you two from the friend group for being dumbasses.” Laurent could see in Aimeric’s pointed look that his friend was serious.

While Laurent sat in stunned silence, Aimeric regained some of his usual amused nonchalance. “I’m late for my 2:00 meeting.”

With that, Aimeric was up out of his chair and patting Laurent’s shoulder in farewell before breezing out of the coffeeshop door.

Laurent could only finish his coffee quietly, sitting in dazed contemplation of what he was about to do.

That night, Laurent knew he had to bring out the big guns.

“Wow, wine and vodka tonight?” Damen asked upon opening his door, eyeing the alcohol in Laurent’s hands.

“Let’s play a drinking game,” Laurent said in response, a smirk playing around his lips. He didn’t miss the way Damen’s eyes strayed to his mouth.

Hours later, when Damen was thoroughly drunk and laughing way too loudly at Laurent’s insults, Laurent decided to make his move.

“Damen,” Laurent began, waiting until his friend looked up at him with glazed eyes. They were both sitting on the ground in front of the couch, a few candles lit around them. “How long have we been friends?”

“Is this still part of truth or dare?” Damen asked.

“No, it’s just truth now. We each ask a question, and the other person has to answer truthfully. If the other person refuses to answer, they have to take a shot.”

Damen let out an overdramatic whine and let his head fall back against the couch. “No more shots.”

“Then answer truthfully, and we won’t have a problem.” Laurent’s smile was sharp. Too sharp, and he could feel it. Even with the drunkenness running through his veins, Laurent’s nerves were on fire.

“Okay,” Damen said.

“Okay?”

“Yes, I said yes!” Damen laughed, and turned to face Laurent more fully. “You go first.”

Laurent made a show of thinking before starting again: “How long have we been friends?”

Damen’s smile turned dopey. “Hmm. Five years? No, six. Was that just a test?”

“Maybe,” Laurent couldn’t help but be charmed by Damen’s drunken earnestness. “Your turn.”

“How do you get your hair to be so soft?” Damen asked in wonder, reaching out a finger to twirl a golden loc around.

Laurent laughed. “Conditioner.”

“Never tried that,” Damen said thoughtfully, which made Laurent laugh again. Damen, being Damen, joined in, until both men were giggling uncontrollably on the floor for no apparent reason.

It was when their laughter started to die down that Laurent decided to rip the Band-Aid off.

“Are you in love with me?”

Damen’s laughter abruptly cut off. Laurent couldn’t bring himself to meet Damen’s gaze, so he opted to stare down at his crossed legs and fidgeting hands.

Wordlessly, Damen poured himself a shot and downed it in one go. Laurent risked a glance up and was met with Damen’s solemn face, uncharacteristically stoic.

“My turn.” Damen said in a rush. “How long have you been awake when I kiss your forehead at night?”

“A couple months now.” Damen wasn’t meeting his eyes, so Laurent pushed on. “Do you want me?”

Another shot, downed hastily by an increasingly-drunk Damen who still refused to make eye contact.

A shred of irritation slithered into Laurent’s heart. Why wouldn’t Damen just talk to him?

“Do you ever think about it? Us together?” Damen went to pour another shot, but before he could say anything else, Laurent shot to his feet.

“Oh, so you’re just not going to answer me, then? You’re not going to answer any of my questions? How about this: Have you ever thought about fucking me? About me naked underneath you? About us kissing and holding hands and going on dates in public together?”

Damen raised the shot glass to his lips, but Laurent knocked it out of his hand before it reached his mouth. Finally, Damen met Laurent’s gaze, and the panic that had been seizing Laurent’s heart for months seemed to be reflected in his dark irises.

“Stand up and talk to me, idiot, before I leave this apartment and never come back,” Laurent hissed.

Slowly, Damen rose to his feet. “I love you,” Laurent managed to get out, despite his throat closing up with emotion. “And if you don’t love me back, I’m not going to wait around and–”

Between one second and the next, Damen had a strong arm wrapped around Laurent’s waist and was pulling him in, closer and closer until their mouths met.

Laurent could only freeze, everything in his body coming to a halt, as he registered what was happening. Damen was kissing him. He had refused to answer all of his questions, and yet–

“You’re the idiot,” Damen whispered into the scant space in between their lips when he pulled away. “I’ve been in love with you the whole time.”

“But– I– you–” Laurent tried and failed to get a coherent sentence out.

“I thought you were asking all of those questions because you were mad I was carrying you to bed and kissing you goodnight,” Damen laughed. “Granted, I am quite drunk and not thinking straight, but that’s not the point.”

“The point is–” Damen began, but interrupted himself to steal another quick kiss. “I want you more than anything in the world. I’m happy with your friendship if that’s all you’re willing to give, but you need to know I’ve been in love with you for years.”

The room seemed to come into sharper focus, as if every detail in Damen’s apartment had been hiding from Laurent previously.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Laurent could hear the shrill tone in his voice, his incredulity overcoming all reason.

“Laurent,” Damen deadpanned. “I’ve barely dated anyone else the entire time we’ve been friends and I make you food all the time. You’re my emergency contact for everything. Hell, you’re the only one of our friends who has a key to my apartment. Was I not making myself clear enough?”

After a moment of contemplation, Laurent could only laugh.

“What?” Damen asked defensively, as Laurent leaned forward to rest his head against Damen’s shoulder, stifling his giggles in the fabric of Damen’s sweater.

“I just… this whole time?”

“Yes.”

When Laurent pulled back, he was met with the softest look he’d ever seen on Damen’s face. It was almost unbearable. And yet, he could bear it. For Damen, he would.

Laurent leaned in for another kiss. “Six years, huh?”

“Mm-hm,” Damen murmured against his lips.

“I guess we have lots of lost time to make up for,” Laurent smirked, and grabbed Damen’s hand.

“We are both way too drunk to have coordinated sex right now,” Damen warned, and Laurent laughed.

“Not sex,” Laurent said, and took back his spot in front of the couch. “We’re playing the questions game again, and this time you don’t get to evade. I need some answers, starting with a detailed explanation of when exactly you started to like me as more than a friend.”

The wicked yet playful look on Laurent’s face made Damen groan.

This was going to be a long night. Somehow, Damen couldn’t find it within himself to care.

Read this on AO3.

[terrainofheartfelt]

"It's been more like a 'Choose Your Own Adventure'!" A Rufly Playlist

Finally, a use for my Dad(™) music taste! I threw in a few live recordings/rough sessions because that’s rock and roll, babey. YouTube link here

image sources: (x) (x) (x)

American Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

If you think this isn’t a rufly song, then idk what to tell you.

And for one desperate moment there / He crept back in her memory / God, it's so painful when something that is so close / Is still so far out of reach

Light My Fire - The Doors

Making this playlist was fun because I got to imagine a lot of precanon Rufus/Lily, and how they came to be. And like, I can see Rufus covering a LOT of these, yk?

The time to hesitate is through / No time to wallow in the mire

Funny Feelin’ - Langhorne Slim

I can also see Rufus actually writing some of these. Like this one!

Well, I got my eye on you, baby / And I know I ain't the only one / But if you just say maybe / My lonely days would be done

Superstar - tswift

If you don’t project onto at least one tswift song can you even call it a ship playlist?

And I knew from the first note played / I'd be breaking all my rules to see you / You smile that beautiful smile and all the girls in the front row / Scream your name

Lay, Lady, Lay - Bob Dylan

Tour life vibes

His clothes are dirty but his, his hands are clean / And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen

Fire - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Your kisses they burn / But your heart stays cool

Fooled Around and Fell in Love - as performed by Morgan James

Because Lily Rhodes really did fuck around and find out.

Free, on my own is the way I used to be / Ah, but since I met you baby, love's got a hold on me

Don’t Let Me Down - The Beatles

Nothing says Lily & Rufus like a Beatles deep cut.

I'm in love for the first time / Don't you know it's gonna last

Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar

80s rock vibes, babe!

You can cry tough baby, it's all right / You can let me down easy, but not tonight

She - as performed by She & Him

She may be the love that cannot hope to last / May come to me from shadows of the past

Can’t Buy Me Love - The Beatles

Tell me that you want the kind of things / That money just can't buy / I don't care too much for money / Money can't buy me love

Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac

It’s breakup chapter time, y’all

I know there's nothing to say / Someone has taken my place

Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen

I met her in a Kingstown bar / We fell in love I knew it had to end / We took what we had and we ripped it apart / Now here I am down in Kingstown again

Piece of My Heart - as performed by Big Brother and the Holding Company

Have another little piece of my heart now, baby / Well, you know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good

Love Really Hurts Without You - Billy Ocean

In my head, this is the “Lily and her cavalcade of failed relationships post-Rufus” montage song

You walk like a dream and you make like you're queen of the action

Halls - Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

This is the “Rufus touring post-Lily” montage song

Thought a broken heart could write a perfect song / And it did and I was right so now you're gone

Mulholland Drive - The Gaslight Anthem

Okay so we all know about the Dair & Rufly parallels, and this song nearly ended up on that playlist, but the vibe didn’t quite fit. And I think, in my heart of hearts, that this song (though probs more punk than Lincoln Hawk sounds) reads like Rufus could have written it. And there are lines that are so evocative of both Dair & Rufly like I still remember holding you, just out of sight of her - like! That’s Valentine’s day 2012 amirite??? And: But it scared you, love, to need someone, so you killed it all instead. And the imagery of Mulholland Drive with Lily being from LA...Anyways this song is one of my all time favorites.

Would you miss me if I was gone and all the simple things were lost? / Would you ever wait on me to say / Oh that I’d just die if you ever took your love away

Malibu 1922 - COIN

You're some old man's new trophy / Locked up in some house in New Jersey / Now money's not a problem / But 20 years it seems you've forgotten

How’s the World Treating You - Elvis Presley

Pilot Rufly vibes, but sad!

Every sweet thing that mattered / Has been broken in two / And I'm asking you, darling / How's the world treating you?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - The Gaslight Anthem

Pilot Rufly vibes, but sexy!

Can I get a witness, pretty baby? / I still love Tom Petty songs and drivin' old men crazy

It Ain’t Me Babe - Bob Dylan

“You made a choice to be Lily Bass, and we both need you to go do that.”

Go lightly from the ledge, babe / Go lightly on the ground / I’m not the one you want, babe / I will only let you down

Harvest Moon - Neil Young

It’s about the lovers to strangers to hostile acquaintances to friends to lovers again.

When we were strangers / I watched you from afar / When we were lovers / I loved you with all my heart

Home From Home - Roo Panes

“Well, it’s Thanksgiving, and I couldn’t think of another place that felt more like home.”

Because I'm starting to realise the question worth asking is, who? / I'm starting to realize the question worth answering is you

You Got Lucky - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

I mean. I mean they do fight a lot.

If you don't feel complete / If I don't take you all the way / Then go

Are We Free? - Mick Flannery and Susan O’Neill

I like how this whole song is a dialogue, but always comes together at the chorus

Are we free to understand / or bound to repeat again / all the wars of before?

The Bones feat. Hozier - Maren Morris

“The king and queen of reconciliation” - Dan Humphrey

No, it won't always go the way we planned it / But the wolves came and went and we're still standing

Songbird - Fleetwood Mac

They didn’t break up, what are you talking about?

And I love you, I love you, I love you / Like never before

Beginning to Feel the Years - Brandi Carlile

And I'm beginning to feel the years / But I'm going to be okay / As long as you're beside me--along the way

Call on Me - Big Brother and the Holding Company

Baby, when you're down and feel so blue / Well, no, you won't drown, honey, I'll be there too

Lily - Benjamin Gibbard

It was too perfect. I had no choice.

Lily is a big brass band who fills the air with song / Lily is a destination and she's where my arms belong

Hard Feelings - Brian Fallon

And the time used to stop in her hands / I could feel it go hesitant / When it rained in Manhattan / We took shelter in the spare room at the Grand

[iamdeku]

Safety: Prohero!Shinsou Hitoshi x Prohero!Reader

He told you not to go. He told you not to go on this stupid mission and you still didn’t listen. Because you never listened. He never listened to you, treated you like a kid, so of course you hadn’t listened to him, of course you had rushed into something you weren’t ready for.

Wordcount: 2.7k

Warnings: Age gap! In this fic reader is in her early to mid 20′s and Hitoshi is intended to be in his early 30′s. Descriptions of extreme violence and injury to reader, as well as mentions of death. This one is a little dark, but ultimately a hurt/comfort fic.

You were ready for this. You knew that. You had always been more competent than Shinsou gave you credit for. You weren’t as new to the hero business as he seemed to think you were. You had gone to school for this, graduated with flying colors, been on good missions and bad missions alike. You weren’t the inexperienced ingenue he seemed to think you were, and you knew you were more than capable.

So, when you volunteered to be a part of this mission, you knew Shinsou wouldn’t be happy about it. What you didn’t know was that he was going to follow you out into the hall, seething.

He grabbed your arm, spinning you around. “You aren’t going.”

You tilted your chin up, shaking your hair behind your shoulders. “Actually, Shinsou, that’s not your call to make. I know you like to forget it, but I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”

You could hear him gritting his teeth, biting down on his frustration for you. You wanted to grab him, shake him, sink your nails down into his arms, rake through the skin there and make him stare at the marks you left behind, make him look at you. Sometimes you wanted to scream at him, “Pay attention to me! See me, see me, see me!” But that would be childish, and you hadn’t been a child for a long time.

A lock of ultraviolet hair tumbled out of his bun, falling into his face and over the galaxy of his eyes. They were the prettiest things about him. Those eyes, that bruise dark, punch drunk gaze that sometimes caught on the edges of your lips, dripped down your collarbones and crept into your lungs, stained them berry bright, wine deep. You hated them, hated the way they slipped down your throat, chipped at your bones like they could drive you into a hollow-sweet-madness, aching into your hips and your knuckles and your knees, every juncture and every joint of you when the deep night swallowed you whole.

“It’s too dangerous. I’m not letting you put yourself on the front line like this. Especially not on a mission I’m not on. What will you do if-”

“What, if you’re not there to save me?” You snarled the words, startling yourself with the way they sting on their way out of your chest. “I was saving myself a long time before you came along. I don’t need a white knight now.”

“Why are you being like this?”

He let go of your arm to run an exasperated hand through whatever was left of his dissolving bun, the hair at his temples starting to gray like winter’s first kiss starting to frost.

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said, turning away from him, going to leave so he wouldn’t see your face.

It was a lie. You felt like a cornered animal. You never felt this way with Hitoshi, but there was something different about today. You felt raw, on edge with him, like a live wire. Every breath felt like a jagged stab of electricity crackling through you, like every vein in your body was humming a wicked, sickly tune, singing ‘prove yourself’ into the fluttering punches of your heart.

It wasn’t right. You knew it wasn’t right. Tears built up under your tongue with your desire to go back to the way things should be. You wanted Shinsou to smile and tell you not to be stupid kid, shake his head, loop an arm over your shoulder and make you an iridescent rainbow with the color spectrum of his eyes. You wished he would have just told you ‘there’s always the next one’ and eased you into his office, asked you what you wanted for lunch and told you it was on him if you could solve the puzzle at his desk, the one he’d been working on all week. 1,000 pieces. You always helped him with them. You didn’t even like puzzles. You just liked the color purple.

He lurched forward, hand grabbing your arm once more, touch blazing as he turned you to face him.

“Stay back. That’s an order.”

You felt the smoldering edges of your temper flare, stepping even closer, ignoring all boundaries of personal space as your jagged breaths ignited you.

“Make me.”

You could swear you felt the air around you still at his gaze. Those eyes, sharp, sparkling amethysts, tangled in your lips. Your skin buzzed with the proximity, so close, just a breath away from him in your boldness. He snatched his gaze back up to your eyes, caught with his hand in the candy jar, fingers clinging sticky sweet to the place where he had grabbed your arm, dragged down your skin in syrupy spirals to linger at your wrist, light as a feather.

You tripped forward, your balance disturbed by little snowflakes of frozen desire scuttling for space, trying to find shelter from the burn of his gaze and losing it all at the desperate claw of your fingers into his shoulder, reaching out, reaching up to him for the only thing he wanted to give you. Safety. Not his touch, not his love, just a bubble. You were his day job.

You jerked back at the reminder, eyes sparkling brighter than his with something unsaid, choking in your throat, dying a little death. They died so many times, these haphazard hopes, before they dissolved at your feet. All of your snowflakes just melted puddles after all.

You ran from him, feet slapping into the hard agency floors. You didn’t even care how it looked to him, how it looked to anyone. You didn’t want to be having this fight anymore, didn’t want to have to look into his eyes and keep finding will’o’the’wisp traces of all the things you craved.

You weren’t too late to join the others getting ready for the mission, Shinsou hadn’t held you back that much, and so you did. You were lucky to already be half-suited up, as the rest of them were mostly finished already. You hadn’t had a chance to fully change from your patrol earlier that day, and so it was easy to reassemble the pieces of your costume.

“I thought Shinsou said you were sitting this one out?” Somebody wondered, their voice dull in your ears, face blurring.

“Shinsou doesn’t tell me what to do.”

Nobody else questioned you, nobody else bothered. Nobody told you that you really should not be doing this, that it was a bad idea to go on a mission right after a patrol, body tired and worn down, that it was a bad idea to go on a mission so obviously distressed as you were. Nobody told you any of the things Shinsou would have if he had been there, because you had cast him out.

You should have known you would end up here, should have seen it coming, but still, you didn’t. Your protector, your warning signal, had been thrown away. You had forsaken your safety.

The bones in your left calf were shattered. Not just broken, you could tell, but splintered into tiny, agonizing pieces. You sobbed through the pain, but that only hurt worse. The broken rib pressing into your lung shattered into your breaths, shards of it painting the red of your blood-soaked tears. A gash across your forehead obscured your vision, the thickness of your blood as it congealed on your brow spiraling you into a state of shock, fear overwhelming the tepid ocean of your bruise bleached gut. All you could think was that you couldn’t see, and you couldn’t move, and in your blind panic, frozen fingers pressing into a stab wound in your thigh, too afraid to move, to bleed out, it hit you. Shinsou had been right. You were going to die here.

You missed him. Missed the warm touch of his hand on your shoulder when you stayed too late at the agency and he stirred you awake out of your powdery soft dreams, gentle as the caress of your sheets at home. Missed the little jokes he would tell, ones just for you, catching you off guard with a crooked smile and sleepy eyes that jumped for your joy. You missed pulling him out in the rain with you, making him dance because you didn’t care if he complained about old aching bones, you still felt the joy of the rain, still felt it beat into your skin and slosh down to your toes, twirling you around and around and around until you were dizzy and breathless and so, so in love.

A thousand little dreams. A thousand little deaths. Only one finale.

All you could hear through the sounds of the battle raging around you were your broken sobs knowing that this was where you were going to die, knowing that it would hurt like this. Your world burned around you, obscured by the haze of red over your eyes. Someone wailed, keened like a dying animal, and it took you too long to realize it was you. You were the dying animal.

You heard your attacker’s boots first. Thumping through the debris around you, coming for you, coming to finish you. You wish you could have said that your body tensed up, that you prepared for one last fight, but you didn’t. You didn’t have it left in you. Just one more great, heaving sob of terror because even though it hurt, even though it was probably killing you faster, you couldn’t stop crying.

Then you heard his voice.

“I’m here. It’s me. I’m right here sweetheart. Medic! I need a medic!”

“Toshi?” You whimpered, bewildered.

How could he be here? He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t on this mission.

“Red Riot contacted me, told me you were missing, called in backup. It’s me, sweetheart. I’m here.”

You heard his knees hit the ground, and this time your cry was one of relief.

“I’m going to take care of this leg, okay kid?”

You felt his warm hands move your own cold, stiff fingers, pulling them away only to replace them with a makeshift tourniquet that hurt worse than your open stab wound. Once it was in place, you felt his hands on your face. Gently, his thumbs wiped the blood from your eyes, clearing your vision so that you could see again.

He pulled you into his side, propping you up against him.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m right here. Just try to stop crying, okay? I looked you over before tying up your leg with my scarf, and I think you have a broken rib. You’re going to hurt yourself worse.” Despite the situation, his voice remained low and smooth, and if you didn’t know him so well you wouldn’t have been able to detect the urgency present in it.

“I’m sorry, ‘Toshi. M’so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should have listened to you. You were right. You’re always right.”

“Hey, don’t worry about that now. I’m not mad at you. I don’t care about being right, got that? I just want you to be safe. You’re gonna be okay, baby.”

You felt him press a soft kiss to the top of your head and you raised a frozen hand to reach for his own.

“Hitoshi, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you. I’m sorry I love you. I’m just so sorry.”

You felt his arms stiffen around you, his hand coming up to raise your eyes to his, searching for something in them.

“You don’t mean that,” he whispered. “You don’t mean that you love me.”

“I do.” Warm tears dripped down your salty skin. “I wanted to tell you. So many times. I know you don’t see me that way. I know I’m just a kid to you. But I mean it.”

Hitoshi’s beautiful eyes turned silver with unshed tears, holding you a little closer to him, one hand firmly on your back for support as the other cradled your face oh so gently. Somewhere in the back of your mind you thought about how, if this was the last thing you ever saw, that wouldn’t be so bad. Just Hitoshi, making up your whole world like he always had, secretly.

“I love you too. I love you so much. You’re going to be okay, baby, I promise.”

You pulled yourself up, one hand grasping at his shoulder to sit a little straighter. It felt like your body was being pulled apart, the pain unimaginable. You curled in on yourself slightly before looking up at him, still murmuring soothing reassurances, trying to get you to stop moving.

“’Toshi? Will you kiss me? Please? Just once.”

He fell silent at your breathless request, eyes flicking down to your lips before meeting your own, looking for any hesitation before leaning his forehead against yours. You could feel his breath playing gently with yours, everything but his warm gasps fading away. Carefully, like you could break more than you had already broken, he brushed his lips against yours.

The kiss tasted like ash and blood, like the honey in the bottom of Hitoshi’s afternoon tea and the bite of the candied ginger he chewed on to help with the nausea his quirk sometimes gave him. You felt his breath catch, fingers hooking into the loose tendrils of hair fanning your face. His mouth moved cautiously against yours, a quiet exploration.

When he pulled away, you could almost believe he didn’t want to.

“Thank you” was the last thing you said before the world went dark.

 When you woke up, it took you a moment to orient yourself. After a few minutes of beeping though, you realized you must be in the hospital. The heavy sludge of the drugs weighed you down, but with effort you opened your eyes, blinking to adjust to the lights. You shifted slightly only to find your left hand trapped. Panicked, you resisted the harsh lighting to widen your eyes and look down at it, only to realize that it was Hitoshi.

He had fallen asleep at your bedside, one hand encasing your own, twice the size of it. You stilled, hoping not to wake him as you felt the stubble on his cheeks scrape against the sheets, stirring them slightly. It was too late not to wake him though, his hero senses attuning him to your movement and pulling him up from the depths of his own sleep.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw you, something very fragile in his eyes as he stared at you in your hospital bed.

“Hey, kid.” His voice was a low grumble echoing through the room as he yawned.

“You stayed.” Your own voice sounded very small.

“Of course, I did.” He reached his free hand out to smooth back your hair, eyes lingering over your body. “You had a broken rib and a punctured lung. Your left femur is broken, and your tibia snapped in three places. Your fibula is shattered. They had to go in and replace it with a metal bar. I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have protected you.”

You shook your head, tearing up. “No. I should have listened to you. It wasn’t right for me to go. I deserve this.”

“Don’t say that.” Hitoshi’s grip on your hand tightened. “You…you almost died in there. They thought you were going to die in the operating room, baby.”

“You…never call me baby.” It was the wrong thing to notice at the moment, but your mind couldn’t process the fact that you should rightfully have died.

“Well.” He huffed, eyes trailing down to the sheets as his voice grew quiet. “I love you. I understand if you don’t feel the same. I know we say things in the heat of the moment, in the middle of battle. It’s okay.”

You reached for him with the hand not weighed down by an IV, cupping his cheek in your worn palm and ignoring the scratch of his stubble.

“I do. I love you.”

He leaned into your palm, raising his hand to lace his fingers with yours. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.”

“It’s okay. You’re here now.”

He smiled softly. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

[constancelaufeydottir]

Help me, help you

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: Attempted suicide, mentions of mental illness and eating disorders, angst, fluff(?)

Summary: You seek help from the stranger who saved you the night you sought for an escape, maybe you weren’t the only one who needs saving.

A/N: This is my first ever fic here! I’ve never written anything before and I’m really anxious to put this out here, please bear with me if I make any grammatical mistakes and let me know what you think!

You probably shouldn’t be doing this. They said you’d disappoint your family and people around you would be sad. But the water, it’s tempting. A dive, and your problems would be gone.

To be honest, you don’t think you family cares at all. They’ve got bigger things to worry about, you sister’s engagement, your brother’s enrolment in college. After all, you were the unwanted kid, an accident. The only time you caught your parents’ attention was when you butchered your job interview. You had prepared thoroughly but a stomach bug ruined it all and your parents blamed you for it, saying they always knew you were a failure, a disgrace to the family.

They didn’t even ask where you were going tonight. They never cared unless you had big achievements in your life or maybe when your failure was too huge for them to ignore.

The sloshing of the water is luring you to jump into it. The deep dark waters inviting you to join the others who had succeeded before you. You moved your feet a little towards the edge of the railings, embracing the chilling midnight wind as you closed your eyes. This is the end, you thought, your foot dangling over the railings ready to plummet into the river.

You felt an arm circling your waist and pulling you backwards until your back hit the ground, a palm caging the back of your head, preventing it from hitting the hard ground.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” You heard a deep voice coming from the right side of your body, hands were on your shoulders gently shaking. You blinked a few times, the blinding lights made you wince as you closed your eyes again with your hand shielding them.

The man who saved you helped you sat up, kneeling beside you to ensure your safety. You took time to have a close look at the good Samaritan. His hair was long, stopping a little lower down his ears. Eyes was the colour of the ocean, almost enticing as the water. His chin adorned with a scruffy beard, lips curving in a small smile. If it weren’t for your bad mood right now, you would have joked that he looked like a modern version of Jesus.

“Why?” You whispered, so quietly if not for his enhance hearing, the man wouldn’t have heard you. “Why did you save me?” You cried out, hands trembling as they grasped the collar of his bomber jacket. Your teary face surprised him and your sniffles made his heart tightened.

“I- I can’t let you die!” He exclaimed. The tears in your eyes spilled out again as you collapsed into the stranger’s chest, crying your heart out. He felt the vulnerability in your voice and hugged you tighter, palms meeting behind you and patted your back to comfort you.

You didn’t know how long you sat there crying in the man’s arms. Your tears soaked the dark red Henley underneath his jacket, causing it to stick onto his firm chest but he did not utter a single word, instead opting to calm you down.

You had no idea how you got home, except for the fact that you vaguely recalled ending up in the arms of a certain stranger, the rest was a blur.

You woke up on the couch the next morning, your phone alarm blaring. The hard rectangular metal was digging the soft flesh of your butt and you groggily dig it out of your back pocket turning the alarm off.

There was a sweet smell of pancake wafted from the kitchen and you sniffed at the smell, face scrunching when you didn’t remember having someone over. The thought of someone unfamiliar inviting themselves into your house alarmed you and your hastily got up from the couch, a pillow in your hand as you inched slowly towards the kitchen. Peeking your head around the corner, you found a tall and broad figure in the space, hands fumbling around with something. You couldn’t see clearly who that was, your glasses were in your bedroom the last time your saw it.

You knew the stranger in your house could never be your brother because one, he was an asshole who gave no fucks about his sister’s life and two, your both hated each other’s guts. Your breath quickened as the intruder suddenly turned his head towards your direction. You yelped as you threw the pillow at him, or the general direction where he was standing.

Of course, you missed the target when he walked towards you. “Shit, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.” You shut your eyes as you heard his footsteps getting closer and closer to you.

“Hey, you’re awake!” You squinted at the man, trying to make out the features of his blurry face. He looked oddly like the guy who saved you on the bridge last night. He moved closer to you when he realized you couldn’t see him clearly. Your eyes widen at the sudden close proximity, your lips were slightly parted. You could feel his breath against your face, his long lashes and that steel blue eyes.

“Y-you!” Instantly, you were conscious of your own appearance, your eyes must have been puffy from last night’s non-stop crying. There were probably still dried tears on your face. Adverting your gaze from his, you looked to the side as you slid out of the slightly awkward situation. Walking towards the counter, you pulled out a wet tissue and wiped your stiff face with it then retrieving the cold spoons you kept in the freezer.

He laughed when you put the spoons on your eyes, you sighed at the cool sensation soothing the puffiness of your eyelids. “Don’t laugh. It’s effective,” you glared at him.

“Alright, alright.” He threw his hands up. “I’m Bucky,” his hand extended outward, waiting for you to shake it. “Y/N.” He smiled, eyes crinkled as you reciprocate the gesture.

He cooked you breakfast, although it was a simple one, you were still grateful.

“Thank you for last night,” you gave him a genuine smile as he was seated across you on the dining table, stuffing his mouth with the pancakes. “It’s nice to see that someone cares.” This time you smile didn’t quite reach your eyes and he caught it.

Grabbing your hand across the table, he looked at you in the eyes with sincerity. “It’s the least I could do.” Taking a deep breath, cautiously he spoke up. “Y/N, I know it’s not my place to say this but seek for professional help if you aren’t feeling fine. Maybe just talk to someone or … go see a therapist.”

“Are you insinuating that I have depression?” You scoffed. Your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance as you snatched your hand from his grasp and crossed your arms in front of your chest defensively.

Depression? No, you couldn’t have had depression. It’s a sign of weakness, you father said. Depression is just a fancy term to describe one’s laziness, that’s what your mother told you.

“I’m not insinuating anyt-”

“Get out,” you interrupted, “get out of my house!” Enraged, you pointed towards the door while snapping at him. How dare he, a stranger suggested that there was something wrong with you.

Sighing, Bucky gave you a taut smile while nodding then placed a piece of paper on the coffee table on his way out. “Here’s my number in case you needed any help.” He paced towards the door opening it, giving you a last glance before leaving.

It’s been weeks now since you yelled at Bucky to get out of your house. You felt bad and deep down there you knew he was right, but the stigma surrounding mental illnesses was extremely terrifying to you. Not to mention what will happen if your family found out. You were a major disappointment in your household already and you definitely wouldn’t want to add a mental illness into the mix.

You were sitting in your office, typing on the keyboard furiously. Honestly you didn’t know why you were still here. This job sucks, even though the salary was high and you’d just been promoted to manager of the department. Chewing on your nails and bouncing your legs under the desk, you felt the need to just leave everything and go home.

The drive home was painful, you simply had no energy to do so but you still had to go home, your only safe place. Taking off your shoes, changing out your clothes, you lied on the bed. Your stomach grumbled, protesting at the lack of food in your system but you just couldn’t get yourself off the bed to make something for yourself. Your mind travelled back to the day you were on that bridge. You didn’t actually seek for death, all you sought for was an escape. An escape from reality, from your parents, from the constant judgements of people surrounding you.

As you closed your eyes, you wished that tomorrow never comes.

Another day, another disappointment. You were still alive, and the world seemed a wee bit duller than before. Skipping breakfast, you went to work as usual, plastering the faux smile on your face which everybody seemed to liked and expected from you. In this workplace, everybody’s gotta put on a façade and that included you but you dreaded the day where there would be a crack in your mask. Until then, you just had to work harder to reinforce it because according to your parents, nobody would want to see the real you, it was unpleasant … and ugly.

“I gotta say. Miss Y/L/N, you are spectacular. Being one of the Y/L/N, I bet it was a lot of pressure but you have done such amazing job, I think your parents would be so proud of you.” A client who was a family friend was seated across you, a wide grin on her face as her face crinkled rambling about how lucky you were being born into a family filled with successful people.

You smiled and thank her for her compliments, cutting the steak your ordered into bite-size pieces. Poking into one of the pieces with your fork, you lifted it up to your lips. Taking a deep breath, you put it into your mouth and instantly you felt like you were about to throw up. Fighting the urge to spit it out, you endured the taste of the meat as you bite at it mechanically. Looking down at your plate of steak, you no longer feel the appetite to consume any more of it.

Everyday you woke up, you wondered how long would it be until the colours faded into grey. Perhaps it was the only thing keeping you alive right now, counting the days until the beautiful hue of the sunsets no longer amazes you; the sight of puppies doesn’t excite you; the thought of having ice cream whenever you can no longer sounds appealing to you.

You should get some help, you really should. Your body was deteriorating, you could feel it. You weren’t in denial anymore; you knew there was something gravely wrong about you. Your body couldn’t afford being in denial. The loss of radiance in your face, the hair and weight loss and most importantly, you couldn’t put on a façade anymore.

Bucky rushed towards your apartment when you called, he could hear how shaky your voice was. He was extremely worried the past weeks even though he had only met you once. Maybe it was because he was in that dark place before and was able to relate or maybe he took a liking to you. He found himself constantly wondering whether you were well and how long would it take for your stubborn ass to call him.

He arrived at your place as fast as he could, probably drove past a few red lights but he couldn’t care less. He was more worried about you that the fine he would have to pay.

Bucky stormed past the hallway, straight to your unit and knocked on the door when he couldn’t open it. He received no response from you and his mind immediately went straight to the negative thoughts. His heart raced as he banged on the door, shouting your name several times.

He was about to break his way into your apartment when he saw the door opened slightly, your tired eyes meeting his concerned ones. He made his way into the space and immediately got the wind knocked out of him when you hurled yourself into his chest.

“Imsorryimsorryimsorry.” You kept chanting your apologies as you broke down in his embrace. You felt as if you were floating in the middle of the ocean succumbing into nothingness and he was the anchor, helping you to stay in one place. He was a mere stranger to you yet he witnessed every vulnerable side of you, if only your family could share the same level of concern as he did.

“Shh, shh. I’m here now,” he guided both of you to the couch with you still tightly in his arms, smoothing a palm on your back gently patting you. You hiccupped, eyes teary while you tried to calm yourself down. The tears however would not co-operate, it was like a broken faucet and no matter what you try it wouldn’t fix itself. “I’m really sorry for lashing out last time.”

He didn’t say anything, only wiped your tears with the sleeve of his sweater instead. Maybe it was the fatigue of crying too much or the absence of food in your body, you drifted into sleep in his arms while he hummed songs to you.

You woke up in the middle of the night when you heard the heavy breaths of the man. Half awake, you blindly reach out for your glasses on the night stand, vision clearer as you saw the door to your bedroom was wide opened. Getting on your feet, you moved towards the source of the noises carefully and realized it came from Bucky who was now thrashing on the couch in your living room.

He was groaning, clutching at his left arm painfully as if it was burned. A sheen of sweat could be seen on his forehead, strays of hair sticking onto the sides of his face. The front of his wife beater clung onto his chest soaked by perspiration. His groans soon turned into agonizing screams as he tossed and turned on your couch. You noticed webs of burn scars littering the expanse of his left shoulder to his arm and felt your heart tightened at the sight of it.

You hastily knelt in front of the couch, hand gripping on his shoulder and his face. “Bucky! Bucky!” His eyes shot open at your voice, flinching at the sight of you. Hands balled into fists in front of his chest, he was ready to take on any attack coming at his way. He visibly relaxed when he broke out of the haze, pushing his hair back with his hand with a bashful look on his face.

His muscles tensed when your hand reached out to his shoulder, but then slackened when you pulled him into a hug. His head fell onto your shoulder as you patted on his back like how he did for you just a few hours ago, ignoring the sweat gliding down his skin.

It must have been hours; the two of you sitting there in an embrace on your couch, not wanting to let each other go after what you both have been through. No one spoke a word and there was only silence in the large apartment of yours. The faint ray of sunlight peeked through the blinds, gleaming into your apartment reminding you to start the day.

He was the one who broke the hug, an awkward silence now surrounding the both of you. “Thank you … for helping me, even though I was supposed to be the one helping you,” his voice was raspy from the groans and moans. “It’s … uh nothing,” you shrugged, dragging your worn body to make some hot chocolate for him even though your body was screaming for you to lay in the bed, rotting your day away.

Your hands trembled as you passed him the mug. “Where’s yours?” Your head tilted at his question, not quite sure what he was asking about.

“Y/N, how long have you not eaten anything?” You turned your head away, not meeting his determined gaze. You wished he didn’t catch the glint of guilt in your eyes, but you knew he did.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He clenched his jaw at your statement.

“You called me, Y/N. You called me because you need help and I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.” You gulped at his words. His eyebrows were furrowed and it triggered a fear in you; you didn’t want to disappoint him like you did to your parents.

Your lips quivered a little, eyes darting to the carpet. “I couldn’t find the energy to eat, it’s just too much work. These days it’s either eat or shower. Since I don’t have any appetite anymore, I dedicated all the energy to shower then. But I have a feeling that I might not even have the energy to drag myself to take a shower or even get up in the mornings soon. It’s just so tiring, where do people even get those energy from?”

“Well, we’ll deal with it one step at a time, okay?” Bucky tilted your chin up to make you look him in the eyes. You whispered a meek ‘ok’, suddenly tired at the lack of sleep.

He handed you the now warm hot chocolate, a stern stare on his face. “At least have some fluids in your system, please.” His gaze softened when he saw you gulping at the sight of the warm brown liquid, nose scrunched up in disgust.

He noticed your discomfort and gestured you to wait while he went to your kitchen and rummaged around the drawers only to return with a spoon.

“Baby steps, okay? Just 5 spoons of it then we’re done.” You nodded while he passed the spoon to you.

The whole morning was spent with Bucky in the living room, him giving your warm encouraging smiles whenever you managed to swallow a spoonful of the chocolate drink.

“Go get some sleep,” he gave your knee a few light taps before proceeding to pull you off the couch and guide you back to your room, then went back to the couch himself to get some shut-eye.

Sending a message to your assistant that you would have to take a few days off, you didn’t wait until you get a reply and plopped yourself on the bed, once again drifting into sleep hoping tomorrow would be better than today.