#i really cannot have the bra argument because it’s so fucking stupid

[danswank]

They lost a lot of fans after those allegations. The problem was the way they addressed those. Some of us do understand why people turned their back on them. You know, you can still be a fan and criticize them. Like the way, they had a fucking bra collection and allowed minors to be at their concerts. Jack may be innocent but that does not justify their rotten statement or the weird things that they did back in the day.

you must be new

[watermelonlipstick]

Parking Lot

This is a love letter to the Dean who told Cassie everything about his life after knowing her for 2 weeks and who didn’t see What Is And What Should Never Be as a horror show until he saw his bond with Sam was gone. I don’t think it would work for a later seasons Dean, who had pretty conclusively abandoned this idea for himself. I’d love any advice or critiques!!

Title: Parking Lot

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 3801

Summary: A parking lot quickie leads to an illuminating argument between Dean and the reader.

Warnings: Swearing, smut, angst, ~*idiots in love*~, fluff

           In a couple ways it seemed like a lesson; you really shouldn’t have been fooling around in a parking lot no matter how late at night it was. Especially not a bar’s parking lot, potentially more likely to be busy at this hour, shadows be damned.

           But it wasn’t all your fault, not by a long shot. Dean knew exactly what he was doing, getting a Manhattan rather than his standard straight bourbon just for the cherry, rolling it around with his tongue and licking his fingers of the juice while you waited for the guys you were playing pool against to shoot.

           If Sam had been there you might’ve been able to keep it together for politeness’s sake, but you didn’t give a shit about these people and you weren’t doing research for a case, just blowing off steam post-job before heading out of town in the morning.

           Two could play at Dean’s game, though, you arching your back deep into the table to make a shot and practically purring “your turn” when he was up, hovering close enough to see the goosebumps spread over his neck when he smirked and obeyed. He finished the game lightning fast with a string of laser-focused shots and you silently downed the rest of his drink as the guys ponied up, tossing thick folds of cash onto the table and shaking Dean’s hand. You didn’t even feel guilty for hustling them, partly for their ignoring you but mostly for the distraction of Dean’s hands reracking the balls and grabbing your coat, sliding a palm to your lower back with his pinky just barely under your waistband. It was all you could do to wait until you get to the back of the parking lot to shove him up against the Impala and bite his bottom lip almost too hard before slipping your tongue into his mouth.

           You felt the smile and heard the groan at the same time, both pouring into your mouth as you ripped at Dean’s jacket, trying to yank his flannel off his shoulders with it. You abandoned the project to paw at Dean’s tee once you’d gotten the outer layers bunched down around his elbows, kissing him hungry and dark like he was yours to take.

           One of Dean’s bitten off groans trailed off into a barely-there whimper. For all his posturing he loved this, when he could give up being predator and let go for a few minutes to be your prey. He didn’t start fumbling for the door handle until you flicked open his belt, his other hand clutching at a handful of hair at the back of your neck and kissing down your jugular fast and hard. Imagining the way Sam was going to roll his eyes at the hickeys only added adrenaline while Dean finally got the backseat door open, sliding you in and unfurling on top of you. Still working on his jeans, you dragged him tight between your legs.

           “You are—so—mean,” you grinned between kisses. “Teasing me like—that.”

           Dean’s eyebrows kicked up on his forehead, playing dumb like you knew he would. “Me? Never.” His act dropped the moment you finally got his fly open, wrapping your hand around his cock through his boxers and punching all the air out of his lungs. His head rolled back on his neck almost violently, impossibly long eyelashes grazing his cheekbones and lips parted around a breathy “fuck.”

           His switch flipped, Dean scrambled to strip you as fast as possible. You tried to help him in large part to avoid tearing your clothes, ending up crushed into the leather of the bench seat somehow with one leg fully out of your jeans and underwear, the other knee tangled up in the fabric. He’d shoved up your shirt and bra and it would’ve been uncomfortable and tight if any of your senses had been turned to it instead of Dean wetting his middle finger to slip-slide along your clit, murmuring something about “I love it when you do that,” into the side of your neck as he swirled circles into you. After a few moments you were writhing in the seat and Dean pulled that finger back up, sucking you off of it before pushing it up inside you, then another.

           “Fuck me, Jesus Christ Dean,” you moaned against his tongue, yanking him forward until he guided himself into you. The stunted warm-up helped but that first push was always a shock, and whatever sound you made was loud enough that Dean covered your mouth with his hand, grinning conspiratorially down over fingers still steeped in you as he thumped you into the car door.

           “Quiet—someone’s going to hear you.”

           You bit his hand and Dean yelped with a chuckle, pulling it back before you roped around his neck and kissed him lasciviously. “Don’t tell me what to fucking do,” you smirked.

           He stabilized himself against the Impala’s door to pound into you harder, you wrapping your legs around his waist and whisper-moaning filthy nothings into his ear, biting his neck until suddenly you felt that finely honed awareness pique in the back of your mind, flaring hot enough to burn and you froze, thighs clamped tight around Dean.

           “Baby, I—”

           “Don’t fucking move—did you hear that?” you hissed.

           Dean tried to pull back and tensed hard, shuddering into you as you tried to lift your head to see as surreptitiously as possible before the delayed processing hit you. When you looked up at Dean he didn’t meet your eyes, wincing over one shoulder with his arms still planted.

           “Tell me you didn’t,” you whispered.

           He was silent for a half-second, still didn’t meet your eyes. “I tried t—you fucking death-gripped me with your legs, what was I supp—”

           “Oh my god, get off of me,” you yelped, trying your best to sit up and snatch at anything to clean yourself up before realizing it was useless. “FUCK! Fuck, Dean, fuck, what’re we going to—I can’t be—”

           He leaned back into the seat to get back into his jeans and fasten his belt. “One thing at a time, okay? They’ve got like pills and stuff right? We don’t even know if it’ll take.”

           You rolled your eyes angrily at him as you jammed your leg back into your jeans. “Our fucking luck it’s already triplets.” You ran a hand through your hair and took a deep, hard breath. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

           “No, I get it.” He slumped into the seat next to you. A long beat passed, you and Dean both sitting stupid, half-dressed in jeans and untied boots, hair all over the place. He cleared his throat. “Wanna head out?” His voice was small and rough; you knew he was sorry and maybe a little embarrassed. If you were more highly evolved you might’ve been able to console him more in that moment, but your heart was bounding through your chest about what was going to happen next—if. You managed to squeeze his hand in solidarity if nothing else before grabbing your stuff and moving to the front seat.

           Minutes of silent road passed before Dean reached over and covered your knee with his hand. You capped it with one of yours and saw his lips twitch up at the corner in response.

           He glanced over at you tentatively. “Maybe it uh, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, you know?”

           Your incredulity spun you around in your seat so you were fully squared to him. “What?”

           It was dark in the car but you thought maybe Dean’s cheeks started to look pink. “I don’t know, teaching a little squirt how to play catch or whatever, might be cute.”

           “You cannot be serious.”

           His eyes flicked back over to you and his lips pursed out, trying to look non-plussed. “Whatever. Just trying to make you feel better.”

           “No, you’re not. Because that exact possibility is scaring the shit out of me right now and two minutes ago you were trying to convince me we were going to pill this away. So it’s—is that something you want? Having a kid someday?”

           Dean took his hand back under the guise of using two hands to turn the steering wheel.  “No.”

           You waited, willed your own heartbeat to slow down. As you knew he would, Dean kept talking, keeping his eyes on the road more to avoid the vulnerability of looking in your eyes rather than out of necessity on the long, straight stretch of road. “I don’t know. It really seems that bad to you? Having something that’s really, like, ours? Just you and me?”

           “We’re not talking about a something, Dean, we’re talking about a fucking kid.”

           “Jesus, fine, forget it. Sorry I asked.”

           His knuckles went white on the steering wheel and underlined that Dean Was Done Talking. What an absolute waste of a fun little night out, leaving Sam to have a couple hours alone. Now instead of getting back looser to a well-rested Sam, you were going to barrel into this crappy motel terrified with a pissed off Dean, dropping it all at the younger Winchester’s feet to deal with (again).

           It took you until the motel parking lot to muster up the courage to touch Dean’s wrist. “Can we talk for a second?” Dean pretended to be annoyed but you could tell it was an act shielding a spot of tenderness. He flopped his hands in his lap and looked over at you expectantly. “Maybe it’s dumb to even talk about this; like you said, it might be nothing. But I just—I mean if—do you really want that? What would that even look like? Not even with me or whatever obviously but leaving hunting, leaving Sam—”

           “Leaving Sam? Who said anything about leaving Sam?”

           “You volunteering him as nanny?”

           Dean sort of half-rolled his eyes and shifted to face you. “You know as well as I do that Sam doesn’t want to be doing this, not forever. I’m not saying we should be fucking trying, obviously, I’m just—I’m going to stick around no matter what happens. I wouldn’t ditch you with my mistake.”

           You scoffed. “How noble.”

           “Not like that. But I’m not a complete moron, I know we’ve played with fire a couple times and I know what I’m doing.”

           “I guess I just figured that was heat of the moment stuff.”

           A flash of something passed over his face, gone almost too fast for you to decipher. Offense? Sadness? “Yeah, part of it. But you—you’ve never even thought about it?”

           “Thought about how I’d get a couple hundred dollars and find a clinic, yeah. I—we can’t be hunters with a baby. And I won’t be stashed in some safe house somewhere, see you and Sam for a day or two every couple months, be the loner single mom who can’t tell anyone anything about her life.”

           “Single mom? I’m not a fucking deadbeat. I just said I wouldn’t make you deal alone.”

           You shot him an exasperated look and took a deliberate breath to keep from rising to the bait. “So what, now you want to get married? Dean, I’m not even really your damn girlfriend.”

           He reached for the handle fast enough that you had to scramble across the seat after him, Dean pausing in the open door. “Look, if it’s not what you want, that’s fucking fine. But don’t patronize me. Not my fucking girlfriend? Fuck you.”

           You flew across the Impala and out of the passenger door, following Dean as he stormed across the asphalt. “Fuck me? How are you mad at me?”

           He spun on his heel in the parking lot. “I tell you I’m willing to leave all of this—all of everything I really know, fucked up as that is—for you, would make you my whole future and you, you—your response is that you’re not even my girlfriend? Yeah, fuck you.”

           “Dean, that’s not what I—” but he had already started storming back to the room. “DEAN!” you yelled, standing stock still in the middle of the lot. He paused with his back to you for what felt like a long second before turning back around. “I don’t want to bring this back to Sam. I’m sorry, okay? I’m just—I’m scared shitless about something that might not even happen and then you spring the idea of some shotgun wedding on me—”

           He rolled his eyes without even a hair of humor, the muscles in his jaw tensing hard enough to catch the cold overhead light. “See, how can you—” he started, before taking a deep, deliberate breath and starting over in a tone that was forced calm. “That’s everything I ha—that’s all I can give you, is loving you and fucking being there for you. So if it’s that fucking cheap or skanky to you then I’m sorry for wasting your fucking time.” When you didn’t respond his spine straightened a few degrees. “What? Say something. Tell me how stupid I am for suggesting that being tied together might not ruin your fucking life.”

           You felt that your mouth had fallen open but didn’t care. “You love me?”

           Dean’s face contorted like he was looking at a mirage of something bizarre, curious and disbelieving and frustrated. “I lo—of course I love you, what the fuck?”

           “Y—you’ve never said that to me.”

           “What? Yes I have.” His voice softened a shade, the certainty his anger had afforded him beginning to slip away like sand at high tide, but his eyebrows stayed indignant.

           You’d never been more certain of anything in your life, that Dean had never said that, because it was something you wanted constantly. Craved, even. Were kept awake at night by; the desire to have your feelings for Dean reciprocated too intense even to dream about. So you justified and bargained with yourself: if fooling around and this kind of casual commitment—girl who would cover him and Sam in a firefight and didn’t hound him for a label—was what he wanted, it was what you would give. Anything for more time with him or the chance to kiss those lips, to see the way he looked first thing in the morning, to get annoyed at his bullshit idiosyncrasies.            

           “No, you haven’t.” So many more words tried to burst forward from you that you had to bite your lip to be sure your mouth stayed closed.

           Dean held your eyes, willing you to say something until he lost his patience. “Who says that stupid shit all the time anyway? You know I love you; I’d do fucking anything for you.” His voice had started to rise again but the heat behind it was some sort of hungry desperation, not hurt rage. “I’m—you don’t think I love you?”

           You started to feel completely exposed by the industrial light, seared alive by green eyes. Shifting your weight from foot to foot didn’t help, and you fought angrily against the lump forming in your throat.

           He looked over his shoulder and the barked “FUCK!” startled you despite yourself. “Kid, I—FUCK, that’s what this is? I loved you since that first fucking hunt in Cleveland! You really think I’m just…? This isn’t some Beaver Cleaver ‘I put you in a family way’ bullshit, I—I don’t know, I just, with you it feels like for the first time maybe it’s not insane to think that I could—that we could—whatever, man, I’m not fucking talking about this.” A hand shot up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous tic you recognized immediately.

           You took two big steps toward him. “Dean, I just—I didn’t know. That’s—I mean I’m not going to say I’ve been thinking about it; but it—it’s more because I didn’t even think it was on the table, you know? I thought we were, I don’t know, really close friends that sleep together.”

           Dean’s eyebrows flew up his forehead and he blew an almost-laugh out of his nose. “I don’t even know what to say to that. Never heard of any friends that live together and fuck raw.” His tongue slid along his molars and he sucked his teeth looking down at the ground, flicker of a despondent, self-deprecating smile twitching his lips. “Uh, noted, I guess. Sorry I misunderstoo—” and his eyes on the blacktop prevented him from seeing you cross the few strides between you, catching him off guard when you kissed him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to feel everything you wanted to say, wanted to scream (at him, from the rooftops, ohmygodhelovesme) take a backseat for a moment. He grunted at the impact, stunned for a half-beat before surging forward into you, wrapping into your hair and pawing at your hips with desperate effort to get closer. Feeling the grin against your mouth, you wished you weren’t standing in the absolute middle of the parking lot, frenzy to have something to push each other against building to a fever pitch inside you when Dean tugged your hair back to look at your face.

           He looked downright pornographic; swollen, flushed pout and impossible lashes framing bedroom eyes Marilyn or Sophia would’ve envied. A washing of cockiness only amplified the effect, those pillowy lips pulling into a lazy smirk. “So is this a really-close-friends kiss or what? Trying to figure out how much tongue I’m supposed to slip you.”

           You giggled good-naturedly, letting the weight of your head press into his palm. “You are such an asshole.”

           “Yeah, you fuckin’ love it.” He sucked on that sweet pulse spot under your ear deeply, some accessory movement with his tongue enough to make you see stars and miss that it was you letting out that ungraceful whine-moan. When Dean spoke the air passing over your spit-slick neck exploded in goosebumps. “And I love you.”

           Dean kissed you in that searching, delicious, eat-you-alive way he sometimes did after a particularly victorious hunt when he either had all the time in the world or didn’t give a fuck about making it; soothing-probing with a little edge of danger that hypnotized you. It pulled at the sweater of your being and tugged, steady and cloying until you were something loose and ephemerous in Dean’s hands, something equally likely to float away or explode right there in that parking lot, clearing a hundred miles in every direction and leaving behind only the imprint of your craving for him. It’s a miracle your brain was able to function at all. In the best circumstances this flayed you open and coming on the heels of having the most beautiful gift you could imagine dropped at your feet—Dean loves you, he loves you and always has—it felt like it could stop your heart and you wouldn’t care.

           “I need about twenty minutes in a cold shower or I promise I’ll knock you up right the fuck here,” Dean growled, low with sin directly into your ear.

           You laughed breathily. “I thought you said that might be a good thing.”

           His chuckle was rough as he pressed his lips to the crown of your head. He rested there for a moment before murmuring into your hair. “You really thought we were just messing around?”

           “Dean, come on, I—don’t make me say it.”

           “Say what?”

           You swallowed shakily, tried to get a handle on your thoughts through the endorphins. “You—I—I’ve had it bad for you, thought if I really like, acknowledged it that it might fuck up what I did get to have of you or that some commitment would freak you out or whatever so I just—I don’t know, tried to be cool about it. Obviously we’ve always been kind of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ when we were apart—”

           Dean cut off your rambling. “Uh, has there been something you’ve been ‘don’t tell’-ing? I wasn’t ‘don’t ask don’t tell’-ing.”

           “You haven’t?” you asked, surprised enough to be knocked off your nebulous trail of thought.

           “No, I mean—no. You would’ve been fine with that?” The disbelief was so clear on his face it was practically casting a glow around him.

           “Not fine with it—of course not—the thought of it kept me up nights, but I didn’t you to think I was some jealous freak.”

           A smile spread over his face slowly, butter on hot toast. “So you would’ve been jealous?”

           “I was jealous, I thought that’s what was happening.”

           Dean’s head lolled back on his neck a few degrees, smirk cementing itself in place. “That’s kinda hot.”

           It took the tension out of the moment and you chuckled under your breath, glancing down at your feet. “Yeah, you would say that right now, psycho.” It was breathy and shaky but Dean let you have it, throwing his elbow around your neck affectionately and tucking you into his side. With a kiss to the crown of your head, he started you both walking to the room lazily. At the door, you stilled him as he reached for the knob.

           “Would you really want to keep it? Like, no bullshit, if that’s the situation, that I’m actually—you know, you wouldn’t want me to…?”

           He licked his lips and bit the bottom one. They parted for a moment before he began to speak as his gaze flicked between your eyes. “Babe,” he finally breathed, and there was a note of croak there. “I’m in this for the long haul. If that’s where we’re going then we’ll deal with it. If you don’t—if you’re not there, I get it, but for me, I—yeah. If it’s going to be anyone for me, it’s you.”

           “Even now?”

           “I could think of worse things. Worse things have happened to me this week, probably.”

           There were so many follow up questions running through your mind, so many rock-solid certainties that Dean wouldn’t really be able to quit hunting, that even figuring out how to go to an OB-gyn on fake IDs was likely to be more complicated than either of you realized, but his lack of hesitation was so sweet, so earnest, and you were still riding that he loves me high. And you might’ve gotten lucky; it might be nothing, no parking lot baby to contend with, just a tense reminder to be more careful next time. It was easier than you might’ve thought to give yourself permission to relish it for the night, consequences be damned.  

-

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[i-lionheart]

Here for You | Loki x Reader fluff

"There are moments that the words don't reach. There's a grace too powerful to name. We push away what we can never understand; we push away the unimaginable." -Hamilton, "It's Quiet Uptown"

After an emotional night, Loki's partner leaves her Avengers Tower apartment, showing up in need of comfort at Loki's door.

before you read: loki x reader, 1.5k words, reader is afab nonbinary, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, partial nudity (non-sexual), cuddling/spooning, discussion of gender dysphoria, period mention, body dysphoria, discussion of depression, suicidal thoughts, and self harm.

tw: gender dysphoria, period mention, partial nudity (non-sexual), depression mention, suicidal thoughts, self harm mention. @ me if there's anything I forgot.

You padded down the hallway, clutching the stuffed animal and baby blanket that had protected you from your demons since you were a child. Since your apartments were right next to each other, it was only a short distance to Loki's door; when you reached it, you knocked quickly and stood there, anxiously chewing your the inside of your cheek as you waited.

You heard his heavy footsteps crossing the apartment. Though his voice was muffled by the door separating the two of you, the annoyance was unmistakable. "Thor, I told you, I'm-"

He opened the door. His words cut off abruptly as he realized that it wasn't, in fact, his older brother bothering him in the middle of the night. His heart and facial expression melted as he looked you up and down, taking in your disheveled appearance. You stared back at him nervously, unable to verbally express what you needed from him now that he was actually standing in front of you.

Luckily, you didn't have to.

In a heartbeat, Loki had crossed the threshold of his apartment, pulling you into a tight embrace. He pressed your head to his chest and you melted into him, the tears that had escaped you all night finally beginning to flow. "It's all right, darling," he murmured. "It's all right. I'm here now. It's all right."

The two of you stood there for a moment that felt like an eternity, your entire world reduced to the feeling of being in each others' arms, Loki caressing you and whispering soft reassurances. Once the waterfall of your tears had slowed to a mere trickle, Loki said, "All right. You're coming inside." He bent down and hooked one arm under your knees, lifting you into his arms as easily as if you were a child. You squeaked in surprise and buried your head in his chest, eliciting a small chuckle from the trickster god as he carried you into his apartment and eased the door shut behind you. He didn't put you down until the two of you were in his bedroom, when he pulled back the soft covers of his king-size bed and set you gently on the gold satin sheets. He climbed in beside you and pulled the covers up around you both, once again pulling you to his chest.

"You don't have to tell me what's going on," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "But if you want to talk about it, I'm here to listen."

"It's my stupid period," you grumbled into his chest.

"What?" he said. "I thought you haven't had one for months now - didn't Strange get that sorted?"

"Yeah, but the hormones are still a fucking roller coaster."

"You mortals and your pesky bodies," he muttered into your hair. You couldn't help but giggle, despite your sadness. "What is it doing to you this time, darling?'

"Gender," you grumbled. "I'm fine with my body. I like my body. Or at least, most of the time I do, and then my hormones go insane and I hate it."

"Wishing you were a shapeshifter again, hmm?" Loki said. You nodded. "If I could give up my powers to you I'd do it in a heartbeat, dearest." You chuckled, in spite of yourself. "Thanks, babe."

"No problem," he replied. The two of you lay in comfortable silence for a moment, glad to just be in each other's presence. He caressed you gently - your hair, your arms, your back - then paused in confusion when he felt a seam under your shirt. He had never known you to wear a bra under your pajamas, especially given how much you hated to wear them during the day.

"Darling?" he asked, cautiously.

"Hmm?"

"Are you binding right now?"

"Yeah, but it's fine, I-"

"No, it's not," he cut you off sternly. "You know you're not supposed to. It's unsafe."

"Since when do you care about safety?"

"Since you tried to sleep in a binder. Sit up. It's coming off."

"Loki, really-"

"Now. You could do with some skin to skin anyways." His tone left no room for argument. Grudgingly, you pushed yourself into a sitting position, as did he.

"Arms up," he commanded. You rolled your eyes and did as he said, feeling like a toddler who needed their parents' help to get dressed. He lifted your shirt and gently pulled it over your head, then gathered it into a ball and tossed it on his floor. He removed your binder equally gently, careful not let the elastic snap or pinch, and tossed it on the floor on top of your shirt.

"Satisfied?" you said sarcastically.

"Not quite yet." He grasped the collar of the black t-shirt he was wearing and pulled it over his head in one fluid motion, adding it to the pile of clothing on his floor.

Though you had seen it a thousand times, you took in the sight of his chest, drinking in every inch of his skin. He caught your eye as you stared at him, and grinned. You blushed. "See something you like, pet?" he teased.

"Oh, shut up," you retorted as the two of you laid back down, snuggling into him again. He was right - the feeling of his skin, his strong arms wrapped around you, was incredibly soothing.

"I needed this," you murmured.

"I know."

A pause.

"I hate this body so much, sometimes. Like, I'm mostly okay with it, even proud of it, and then..."

You trailed off. He stroked your hair, whispering into it. "Take your time, love, it's all right."

You took a deep breath, gathering your thoughts, and continued shakily. "It's just... sometimes, I look in the mirror, and I look at my face, and I feel so happy - my reflection matches who I am, I look like myself - and then I see my body and I remember and I just..." You swallowed thickly, fighting back tears. "I just want to die, sometimes. I wish I didn't have to exist and face every day in a body that's not mine, I want to hurt it, scar it, make it bleed. Anything to show that it doesn't belong to me, to make it pay. I hate it. And I know I shouldn't hurt myself, I know I gave that up a long time ago, but that urge never leaves. I hate it, I hate it so much. I know it's not right, but that voice never goes away, it just gets quiet enough to ignore until the next time something triggers it and I have to fight it again. It never stops, Loki. Never." Your tears were flowing freely now. You took a shuddering breath. "I'm just so, so tired of always fighting. I want peace. But I don't think I'll ever have it."

"Oh, pet." he said softly. "How long were you feeling like this before you came to get me?"

"Hours," you admitted, feeling small.

"Oh, darling," he said. You heard the pain in his voice, and knew that what he really meant was I'm sorry.

"It's going to be okay," he said, voice ever so tender, tracing wandering patterns on your skin. "I know it's hard, but you are strong. You are a fighter, and you will make it through this. I promise you. And I will do everything I can to help."

"Really?"

"Really, dearest. You never have to face this alone again. I'm right by your side. In fact, this settles it. You're moving in with me. Tomorrow."

"What?" You pulled away from him, startled, and looked up to see dead seriousness on his face.

"What about it, pet? You practically live here already."

"Loki, the others can barely accept the fact that we're together. We can't move in together. Tony will have a heart attack."

Loki grinned wickedly. "Good."

You slapped his arm playfully, scolding him. "No, it's not good. If Tony had a heart attack, the arc reactor would probably flatten half of Manhattan." He chuckled appreciatively. "Why's it so pressing for me to move in, anyway? Most days you hardly spend a second without me."

He paused, giving you a long, searching look. "Isn't it obvious?

"No." You looked away, avoiding the discomfort of his scrutiny.

"Look at me." You didn't move. He reached out and cupped your face in his large hand, lifting your chin. "Look at me, dearest," he repeated, softer this time. You tore your eyes away from the empty space you had fixed them on and looked at him, afraid of what you'd see. He looked back at you tenderly, eyes full of compassion and the thing you had been most afraid of seeing.

Love. His eyes were full of love.

"You spent an unnecessarily long time tonight fighting this alone, because I wasn't with you. I wasn't there to help you when you needed me." He stroked your cheek with his thumb, voice tight with emotion. "I cannot let that happen again."

"Loki," you breathed. "You care that much?"

"Oh, darling, of course I do," he said. "Of course I do. And I promise that you will never have to face these thoughts alone again."

if you enjoyed this fic, please consider reblogging so this work can find other people who might enjoy it!

[likeshipsonthesea]

I dare you to post their get together from chowder's perspective because you're an amazing and magical writer and I'd love to read it at any level of editing

well u did dare me :P inspired heavily by this post

the thing is, chowder really, really loves his new friends.

nursey is so cool and funny and nice and he knows all this poetry that sounds so cool and he always saves chowder a piece of pie when he isn’t there and bitty’s on a baking binge, and he helps chowder write Important Emails and doesn’t even complain when chowder asks him about the exclamation point in the third paragraph for the fourth time

and dex is really smart and has a dry sense of humor and he cares so much about people even when he pretends he doesn’t, he does his laundry when chowder does and lets chowder match all the socks while he folds both of their clothes with like retail level precision and he’s great to sit and work on coding with and never gets upset when chowder interrupts him to ask him why a certain part isn’t working right and he helps bitty make him soup and pastries when he gets sick right before finals week their frog fall semester

and they’re both swawesome at hockey, they do their very best to keep the dirty puck away from his net, and they are such swawesome people and literally the only thing he doesn’t like about his new friends is how adamant they are about not liking each other

he tries, at first, to correct their complaining when they come to him. “the guy refuses to listen to anyone who isn’t himself,” nursey groans, muffled, because his face is pressed against chowder’s pillow, and chowder very kindly explains that dex is a bit stubborn sometimes but he always listens to chowder, even when he has a differing opinion, and when dex wraps himself in chowder’s duvet like a burrito and grumbles out, “he acts like he’s chill all the fucking time just to fuck with me,” chowder says that nursey acts like he’s chill even when dex isn’t there and also, why do you think he’s acting?? i think he’s just that chill

but as time goes on he realizes that neither of them believe him because they haven’t seen it for themselves and, look, he could try and orchestrate some plot where they secretly see one another being good people and miraculously change their opinion about each other and they all become a happy trio of friendos with no animosity at all, but chowder is also an ncaa athlete, a stem major, and someone who likes to party a fair amount. he’s got no time for that kind of bullshit.

and so they go through spring term and things aren’t greeattt all the time and sometimes nursey and dex get into screaming matches on the quad and chowder just has to pretend like he doesn’t know them, but most of the time it’s good, it’s fine, and he really does love his friends.

then they lose the frozen four, something happens that neither of them will tell him about, and the fuckers go and gang up on him

it seems, after all the times chowder told them about how they’re both funny and good at hockey and passionate about school and all the other things they have in common, they decide instead to bond over their mutual love of chirping their very best friend in the whole wide world.

to be honest, he’s just glad they’re getting along.

and they still show up at his room all hours of the night and day to burrow into his bed and complain about each other, but at least now chowder lives in the haus and he can eat pie as he pretends to listen to them.

and maybe he starts noticing how some of the complaints aren’t necessarily the kind of thing you’d expect, like “how are his eyes so fucking green, it’s impossible to win an argument when he’s staring at you” or “have you seen how many freckles he has after summer break?? he’s like one giant freckle, it’s unfairly distracting” and despite not really paying attention, he starts to notice when the tone of complaining changes from i hate this guy to i hate how pretty this guy is

he never brings it up. once again, he does not have time to try and get his two best friends together on top of all his other responsibilities, but he notes it down anyway. for being-a-good-friend-purposes. like when ransom sets nursey up with a girl on the volleyball team, chowder spends the whole night watching monty python movies with dex on the couch, and kindly ignores the relief in dex’s shoulders when nursey shows up to breakfast the next day and relays that the date was a bust. and when they’re doing workouts at the gym, chowder very deftly navigates nursey away from the weights when dex is using them to spare him from turning into a mumbling mess at the sight of dex’s arms

and maybe he notices when they start becoming more self aware and the complaining-about-appearance becomes complaining-about-good-things, like nursey saying, in the middle of a rant, “you know he’s fixed betsy like fifteen times in the past two weeks? how the fuck can you fix an oven fifteen different ways? that’s insane” or when dex pauses his recount of nursey’s ridiculous chill behavior to mention, “he’s been editing ransom’s thesis because he knows how much ransom stresses over grammar and he’s like, really good at it”

and it’s probably at this point that chowder breaks the bro code and tells farmer all about his dumb friends and their dumb mutual infatuation, because lbr here the boy cannot handle all this pining on his own. “they’re in love with each other but they think it’s hate”

“i know, i know” farmer soothes, running her fingers through his hair

“why are boys so dumb” chowder laments

farmer, who is currently wearing her best bra and pantie set under her clothes, sighs deeply. “i don’t know,” she says, equally forlorn.

then, well, then the dib flip happens and nursey and dex are literally shoved together and either one or both of them -- chowder has an inkling that it’s dex, but he’s not sure -- seems to freak out and neither of them comes to his room to complain for the rest of the term.

and then chowder has the greatest summer of his life, his former captain wins the stanley cup, and bitty and jack get to kiss on center ice, and chowder gets to attend a training camp with the falcs and jack and he’s on the ice with twenty stanley cup champions and chowder doesn’t come down from this high until he shows up at the haus and finds out that something has gone horribly wrong.

despite the frequent texts, calls, and facetimes, dex and nursey didn’t seem to have as great summers as they’d made it appear. they don’t really tell him directly -- that’s another thing they have in common, never talking about their emotions plainly -- but from what chowder can glean from what they do tell him, is that dex’s family seemed to take jack and bitty’s coming out as evidence towards dex’s queerness and they were dealing with it... less than great, and nursey’s parents had a fight and had since been jettisoning around the world for “work” in an attempt to avoid one another and, as a result, nursey

the living together thing goes.. not swawesome. chowder is obviously disappointed that he no longer has his two best friends just a bathroom away, but after dex moves into the basement, both nursey and dex start coming back to his room for complain sessions again and it’s -- chowder wants to say it’s a good sign.

it starts out mostly complaint complaining, the familiar stuff from their frog year, but slowly but surely as the year goes on the old “his fucking hair” and “he literally helped a little old lady carry her groceries to her car” come back into play and chowder lets go of some stress he hadn’t realized he’d been holding

“they’re going to make me go gray before i’ve even hit 25,” chowder says, another night when he’s complaining to farmer, and farmer says, “you’d look sexy as a silver fox,” and, well. the rest of the night is spent very much not complaining

senior year, they’ve got an ncaa championship under their belt and dex is the captain. he stops coming to chowder’s dorm, probably out of some sense of loyalty to his team that chowder finds both ridiculous and sweet. nursey seems to have no qualms complaining about his captain, on the other hand, but soon even the thin veneer of complaining he’d covered all his pining with has washed away.

“he’s so good with the baby frogs,” and “never tell this to another living soul, but his cherry pie is even better than bitty’s,” and, one memorable night, “do you think i’m in love with dex?”

it’s after sunset, the world dark outside chowder’s window but he’s not exactly sure of the time, and nursey’s lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and he looks -- chill. he doesn’t always look chill anymore -- looking back, chowder can admit that maybe the ever-present chill from their frog year had been more a show than anything else -- so this chill means something important, chowder thinks.

chowder thinks, smiling a little, that nursey is finally ready.

“of fucking course i think you’re in love with dex,” chowder bursts out with the frustration that’s a by-product of having patience for three and a half fucking years. “you’ve come into my room at all hours of the day since we were freshmen to complain about how pretty his freckles are, you’ve been in love with the dude for years, and i’ve had to sit here and deal with all of it.”

nursey’s staring at him with a slightly open mouthed, wide-eyed expression.

chowder gathers his poise and then says, very calmly, “yes.”

nursey nods, once or twice slowly and then picking up speed. “wow. okay.”

“i’ve been holding that in for a while.”

“i could tell.”

“hmm.”

a stupid, hopeful, optimistic part of chowder thought that would be the end of it. nursey realized he’s in love with dex, he’d tell dex, and they’d be all stupid and gross and finally chowder would get them back for years of fines.

but nothing seems to change. nursey still comes in and ostensibly complains while pining and dex still doesn’t, instead apparently baking away his frustration (and it’s not like chowder’s going to complain about that) and really, chowder should’ve known these two idiots would need more than a few sentences to get over their combined stupidity

it comes to a head a week before graduation. never let it be said that chowder’s friends are anything less than Dramatic Fuckers

he’s helping dex pack away everything he won’t need in the next few days so when he and nursey leave for new york after graduation there won’t be much to do. he finds a random green beanie in a drawer with dex’s workout clothes and says, “hey, where should i put this?” and dex gets the most ridiculous sappy look on his face.

he hasn’t technically been chowder’s captain since the season ended with a back to back ncaa championship a month ago, and it’s not like dex has any authority over him after how many times he bugged chowder about nursey’s nose, so it’s without hesitation and with purely dex’s best interests at heart that chowder says, “you know you’re in love with him, right?”

dex surprises him then by saying, “yeah.”

a vein in chowder’s neck nearly pops. “then why the fuck have i been listening to nursey pine about your eyelashes for months.”

dex’s eyes widen and, when he gets over the surprise elation whatever, he stumbles over some stupid explanation that captains shouldn’t date their players and it wasn’t the right time and all this other absolute crap, and so chowder does the most meddling he’s ever allowed himself to do and tells dex that he will finish the packing as long as he goes and finds nursey right this fucking second

when nursey and dex tell the story to him and farmer later -- dex blushing and nursey embellishing with his arm curled around dex’s shoulders, pulling him close -- chowder will laugh and tease them and play his part as their very best friend in the whole wide world.

but that night, when he’s gross and sweaty from packing up dex’s entire fucking room and he can’t even sleep in his own goddamned bed because his friends are being exceptionally loud just one bathroom away, he shows up on farmer’s doorstep and says, with all the sincerity in the world, “i hate my friends”

[astxrwar]

Sucker Punch (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Summary: Post-Avengers, pre-CA:TWS AU. Steve gets a babysitter, defines his own feelings, finds love.

LINK TO AO3 (in case of tumblr formatting errors) HERE

Word Count: 11k+ (oof)

Rating: M

Warnings: Very minor unintentional sexism. nonlinear narrative. ambiguous ending.

It’s probably worth prefacing this entire catastrophe by saying Steve Rogers is a fucking feminist.

A really, obnoxiously radical feminist. So that’s not what this whole disaster is about.

Like-- there’s the surface stuff, right, just the basic I’m-not-a-dick-to-women-because-I-have-morals stuff, but it’s more than that. He’s an advocate for equal pay and he speaks out against rape culture and toxic masculinity and knows the nuances of harmful gender stereotypes literally inside and out. He’s loud about it. He’s a poster boy for at least three different equality movements, he makes a regular habit of getting into extremely volatile arguments with Stark over his shitty objectification of every girl who can fog up a mirror, and he completely disregarded the vague threats to his public image or whatever to personally attend the Women’s March in January despite the supposed “bad press”.

He’s still fucking old, though. And, yeah, it was a little odd coming out of cold storage and realizing literally everything had changed, it took him a while to get used to fast food and shopping malls and color television and just New York in general, but--

It was remarkably easy to adjust to a generation that at least somewhat believed in gender equality.

So, knowing that--

He cannot fucking believe himself.

Basically what happens is he gets home to the small apartment he shares with (Name) and he sees her going out in a crop top and those stupid high-waisted shorts and a ridiculously fucking red lipstick and he just--

He says it before he even has a chance to think.

“ You’re going out dressed like that?”

She turns to him with a vaguely hurt expression masked by anger and slowly, slowly raises one eyebrow.

“What?”

And--

Yeah.

It’s not like he’s trying to control her or anything, and he’s a firm believer in people being able to wear whatever the hell they want, so it’s not that either. It’s a lot of things, but it sure the fuck isn’t sexism. It isn’t . If it was, that would be easier, he thinks, because there’s a fucking cure for that, right?

What it actually is--

It’s just that they’ve been living together for the last six months and while he was initially convinced he’d get used to her walking around in a towel after her showers and working out in their living room in a sports bra and ridiculously tiny shorts and sleeping in nothing but an oversized t-shirt, the truth is that it’s actually been a literal fucking century since he’d last slept with anyone and she’s beautiful and it messes him up. If that isn’t bad enough, there’s more, because it’s not just that he thinks she’s pretty, because that would be too easy. He has her coffee order memorized. He knows what fucking ice cream to buy her at the supermarket when she’s in a shitty mood, knows her favorite restaurant, knows exactly what she loves and hates about eighty to eighty-five percent of the TV shows available on netflix. Sometimes he’ll say something that she thinks is funny (which is often) and she’ll huff out a breathless half-second of laughter and smile at him and all he can think is that she’s like the fucking sun.

It’s a little more than just an attraction, is what he’s saying. He’s fucking jealous, is what he’s saying.

Which is his fault. Entirely. Steve knows this. She’s, what, twenty? And he’s obviously old enough and mature enough and good enough to know better.

He totally isn’t, though.

So (Name) goes around doing whatever the hell it is kids do these days and Steve sits at home in his room and tries desperately to convince himself that he’s not ridiculously, terribly attracted to her.

And it works, for a little while, but then it doesn’t.

(Before)

 Steve’s back in his newly-repaired apartment after the fiasco that was the battle of New York for less than two weeks when a girl he’s never met before shows up at his doorstep with a neatly-packed suitcase and two overstuffed carry-on bags. When he opens the door he spends several long seconds kind of just staring at her and wondering whether or not he’s hallucinating. She pushes past him through the doorway without waiting for him to snap out of it.

She basically admits straight up that she’s there as a favor to Fury to keep an eye on him-- in exchange for paying the crazy fucking inflated rent on his apartment, he’s been assigned what basically amounts to a babysitter, she explains, looking at least slightly apologetic. She’s there to get him back on his feet in a world that’s changed so much in the time he’d been gone, make sure he lives up to standard now that he’s operating once again under the keen and frankly invasive eye of the general public. It’s not like he can argue with any of it, or turn her away, because SHIELD’s paying his fucking rent, so he just resolves to roll with it to the best of his ability. It should be insulting-- he’s a grown man, after all-- but it really isn’t. It should be something that he examines in any amount of detail, but he doesn’t. For reasons.

The information takes a while to process. Expectedly. When everything starts making sense and stops feeling like some sort of bizarre fever dream, Steve realizes he doesn’t even know her name.

“Hi,” he says, a little blankly, as she tosses her bags onto what he figures isn’t technically the guest bedroom anymore. “I- uh. Should introduce myself. I’m Steve. Steve Rogers.”

She turns to him and fixes him with a strangely searching look. “I know who you are,” she says, cocking her head to the side like she’s in on some joke that he doesn’t understand.

(She’d managed to get the wireless working within ten minutes of being there. There’s probably a lot of things about her that he doesn’t understand.)

“I’m (Name),” she replies, after a minute, turning back to where she’d been unpacking her suitcase, arranging clothes and books and DVDs into neat piles on the quilted bedspread. “How much do you know about Star Wars?”

Steve blinks. Opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but doesn’t, mostly because he doesn’t know what to say. People-- they don’t talk to him like this, not anymore. Like he’s normal. It’s either hero worship or they’re walking on eggshells around him, except for Tony, in which case he’s basically just treated like a commodity or a particularly fascinating zoo animal which-- isn’t better.

“Absolutely nothing,” he answers, baffled.

The grin she shoots him this time is secretive and vaguely conspiratory.

“Awesome.”

Steve would be lying if he said it wasn’t easier with her around.

She fits into his life-- or, she fits into the modern-day caricature of the life he barely has-- so perfectly that it seems, for a moment, as though she’s meant to be there. The change is immediate-- is bafflingly, confoundingly easy-- and he finds that he likes it.

Think of me as, like, basically a guide dog, she had said over breakfast the next morning, words coming out slurred through a yawn. He hadn’t known what the fuck she was talking about, obviously, and when he’d said as much, her laughter had been immediate, sunshine-bright and infectious. He found himself laughing, too, even if he wasn’t quite sure what she found so funny.

So, yeah.

He likes this. Likes her.

And a part of him-- a small, logical, cold part of him-- recognizes this for what it is; a sudden, senseless, stupid attachment to the only person who’d treated him like a human being with normal human emotions since he’d been pulled out of the ice.

He decides, in the face of losing the only anchor to this new, strange world that he’s been able to find, that he’ll deal with that later.

So--

The first thing she does is make him a list.

Music, movies, food, history-- everything. The first week she’s with him is spent almost exclusively in front of the television to the point where he actually has to beg her to let him leave the house-- not because the movies are boring, he quickly explains, not wanting to hurt her feelings and having thoroughly enjoyed Jurassic Park, but because his muscles were literally going to atrophy if he didn’t get some form of exercise.

So they go to the grocery store.

Which--

Wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

Whole Foods, as it turns out, is an adventure in of itself-- so is the task of avoiding any untoward attention because, as (Name) so gleefully informs him, he’s famous. And she-- isn’t.

“Lucky,” he says, grabbing a package of chocolate cookies off of the shelf and examining them-- the weirdest thing out of all of this was the abundance of so much plastic, he decides, setting the box carefully back where he’d found it.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it luck,” she quips, tossing a bag of pretzels into her cart. “I keep a low profile for a reason.”

Steve tries to focus on something other than the fact that his head is spinning and fails miserably. There are three different brands of identical boxes of dried tropical fruit taking up a large portion of one of the shelves and that, in of itself is completely fucking mindblowing.

“You doing okay, Rogers?” She asks.

“What the hell does non-GMO mean?” he asks, gesturing helplessly.

Her nose twitches. Her mouth quirks.

She bursts out laughing, and all Steve can do is stand there, bemused, and wonder how one person can physically radiate so much genuine happiness.

“This,” she says, gesturing at him with whatever grocery item she happened to have in hand, “This is why we were doing the movies first. Trying to ease you into it, you know? Can’t have your heart giving out from shock.”

Steve grins, a little sheepish, and runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, well. I didn’t think it would be--” he starts, and then finds himself falling silent, not quite sure how to put words to the feeling lodged somewhere at the base of his throat, pressed against his voice box-- because it’s not nostalgia, not quite. It’s certainly not a longing for the past, where people died a lot more often and war was everywhere, always, and most of the population couldn’t even fucking vote, because the present is better in so many ways, but--

But Bucky, he thinks, and Peggy, and the Howling Commandos, and the life that he’d had and fought for and loved, as imperfect as it was--

It’s gone. Everything’s gone.

He comes back to reality when the girl smacks him on the side of the head with a bag of-- some frozen vegetable. Peas?

“Earth to Cap,” she says, when he finds his way back to the present, “Are you still with me?” And when he looks down at her she’s got this crooked little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and it hits him hard because that’s the same smile Bucky used to give him, months and years and decades ago. Cocky, sharp and quick, like he was just a few steps ahead of Steve, always. That same smile-- it suits her, he decides.

Maybe everything’s not gone, then, he thinks. Just-- different.

“Yeah,” he says, finding himself smiling back at her without making the conscious decision to do so. “I”m here.”

There’s a marked, tangible difference in his mood after that-- if he can notice it, with his documented inability to process his own emotions, he would bet good money that she notices it, too. He relaxes. Lets some invisible, unidentifiable guard down. He stops worrying about all of it-- about what he’s missed and what he has to learn and what other people might think of him now that everything’s so different-- and he just lets himself enjoy being alive.

They buy enormous slices of pizza from the food court and eat them in a booth side-by-side watching Brooklyn 99 on her Iphone, and she giggles when he smears tomato sauce across his mouth and he snorts as he watches Andy Samberg make a dick out of himself on full-color, crystal-clear modern television, and--

It’s nice.

It’s new.

He could get used to this.

When they get back to the apartment, they have enormous reusable grocery bags stuffed full of every type of food imaginable, plus two half-melted Slurpees-- basically ice and syrup, he learns-- that leak condensation onto the rug and the yellowed linoleum kitchen floor.

“Okay, so now we have to figure out where to put it all,” (Name) says, hopping up onto the countertop.

“That might be tough. Limited cabinet space.”

She raises an eyebrow. Her mouth is stained blue from the syrup and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed. “Yeah? You up for it, Cap?”

Steve chuckles. “Sure thing.”

Two weeks pass without incident. No calls from SHIELD, no ominous voicemails from Natasha, no barrage of unread 3 AM text messages from a drunk and bored Stark.

Predictably, that doesn’t last.

He’s at the gym at 5:30 in the morning when Fury finds him.

(Name) had teased him about it, the fact that he goes to bed at 10 and wakes up at 5-- that’s so fucking early, she’d whined, sitting on the countertop clutching her third cup of coffee, still half-asleep even though it was nearly noon. Steve had raised an eyebrow and muttered something about kids these days and felt so illogically proud of himself at the way she giggled at him, swinging her legs back-and-forth from her spot on the counter.

It’s a habit he hadn’t been able to shake, though-- something he likes even more, now, because it’s the closest he’ll get to ever really feeling alone in a city as big and as crowded as New York. It was like this before, always moving, the sprawling stretch of urban landscape buzzing with energy, even at night, and as the size of the city doubled, tripled, quadrupled, so did that frantic sense of movement, a need to keep pressing forward, always always always --

It gets so bad that Steve can barely breathe, sometimes. It reminds him of before the serum when his lungs wouldn’t work quite right and the air would feel like poison, grating against his windpipe. It’s not as bad in the early morning, in the moments where only a fraction of the population is awake, and sometimes he can close his eyes and imagine that he’s back home-- really home.

“Brooklyn’s changed,” Steve says quietly, wistfully, aware that Fury is standing in the doorway-- it has to be him, nobody else would be so quiet-- and not bothering to turn to check. His senses are good enough that he doesn’t need to. In front of him, the tired, faded leather punching bag sways back and forth from where it’s chained up to the ceiling-- Steve lets his eyes focus on the letters sewn into the fabric, faded and bleached away as they are from years and years of use. Fogwell’s gym-- he can’t remember if it had existed before he left New York the first time. Can’t remember a lot about what was there before, to be honest. It all blends together so seamlessly, the memories blurry through a fog of nostalgia.

He takes a swing at the punching bag, just one, putting barely any weight behind it and watching it lurch back as far as it can go, the rusty chains creaking precariously with the strain.

“Not much of a challenge, is it?” Fury says, injecting a level of nonchalance into his speech that makes Steve bristle at just how fake it sounds, the words coming out stilted and wary.

Don’t talk to me like I’m fucking crazy, he wants to say. “That’s not the point,” he says instead, picking at the gauze around his knuckles. He’s not sure why he bothered to even wrap his hands in the first place. It’s not like he’d end up getting hurt. “I just need something to do.”

Fury moves closer, into his peripheral-- the man even stands like he’s in the military, Steve thinks wryly, with his hands clasped behind his back and his shoulders straight like he’s not afraid of anything. There’s a flip side to that-- he’s always on edge, always tense, it’s visible in the way he holds himself, in the way he moves, in the paranoia tick-tick-ticking at the muscles in his jaw.

Steve recognizes it. He feels it too, sometimes.

“You’re just going through the motions, then,” Fury says-- and it’s not a question. Every word is measured, careful, like there’s some implicit meaning behind each and every one of them.

“Why does talking to you always feel like a test?” Steve replies instead of answering, mouth twitching into a frown.

Fury steps closer. Steve unwraps the gauze from his fingers, resolutely not looking at him.

“How are you and (Name) getting along?” he asks lightly, cocking an eyebrow.

The sudden change of subject would have baffled him, if it were anybody else. With Fury, though-- there’s an undercurrent to what he’s saying, a reason for everything, and he gets the real message without him having to say it out loud.

This is the test.

“Fine,” Steve answers, moving around Fury and towards the bench in the corner, tucking the neatly-rolled gauze bandage back into the outer pocket of his gym bag. “But you could have asked her that.”

He’s annoyed, he realizes suddenly, and he knows why-- he’s forgotten, apparently, that she’s basically a glorified listening device disguised as a clever, funny, too-smart-too-nice-too- pretty twenty-something that pretends to be his friend. She’s in Fury’s pocket, and even though she’d been upfront with him about that since the very beginning, it hadn’t really registered.

(Except, he thinks, it had registered, and he’d refused to deal with it, and now life was coming back to fuck him up for being a fucking idiot.)

“But I’m asking you, ” Fury says, expression insistently searching. Steve says nothing, nothing, nothing, lets the silence drag on until he finally caves and offers at least a little bit of an explanation.

“She likes you,” he admits, with a casual almost-shrug. “She’s not exactly inclined to be completely honest with me. Told me to, uh-- leave you the fuck alone , if i’m remembering correctly.”

Steve blinks. He opens his mouth to say something but can’t find the words, doesn’t even know what he would have said in the first place, because he had been expecting--

Well.

Not that.

He drops his gym bag back down onto the bench with a full-body sigh and something that could have been a huff of laughter. “Yeah, that sounds like her,” he says. “She’s-- she’s okay. I like her.”

Fury gives him that look-- an analyzing, almost dissecting stare, like he’s trying to see through him, into the very core of him, picking him apart like a lab specimen beneath the lens of a high-powered microscope.

“Things don’t change, Captain,” he says, finally, cryptic as fucking always. “ People change. The game-- the bells and whistles, all that shit stays the same.”

Steve grinds his teeth, inhales sharply through his nose, and grits out, “What the fuck does that mean?”

Fury, for his part, doesn’t react other than to fix him with a benign, empty smile. “Brooklyn hasn’t changed a bit. You have, and that might not be a bad thing.”

Steve-- doesn’t fucking know what to say to that, at all, so he just says nothing. He hoists up his gym bag again and leverages it over his shoulder and brushes past Fury, towards the door, his earlier frustration replaced with a hollow sort of confusion.

“I didn’t send her to spy on you,” Fury calls after him, even though he makes no attempt to stop him from leaving. “She thought you might need a friend. I trusted her on that. Don’t prove me wrong.” That-- as simple and small and insignificant as it is-- that’s enough to break through the carefully-constructed wall of indifference he’s built up, and he stops, brought to a standstill for all of a fraction of a second. His mouth quirks up at the corners, and maybe it’s not a smile, not completely, but it’s-- close.

She likes you.

(Steve refuses to examine why that even matters to him at all.)

When he gets back to the apartment, she’s awake, standing in a too-big t-shirt and gym shorts next to the coffee machine. The day’s newspaper is spread out on the faux-marble kitchen island-- there’s a grainy, black-and-white photo of the two of them from the day at the food court spread across page five, gossip-column style. She’s seen it, obviously, but when she turns to him, clutching a stupid little Captain America mug that she’d bought as a joke in both hands, there’s no perceptible difference in her body language.

“Morning,” she greets, voice raspy, heavy and thick with sleep.

“I saw Fury today,” Steve says, in lieu of a greeting.

Her reaction is both immediate and inconspicuous; the slightest shift in posture, a twitch of the mouth betraying her sudden alertness, fingers curling just a little tighter around the handle of her coffee mug.

People forget, he muses to himself, that before he was big and strong and respected, that his saving grace was that he was smarter than the general population. When he was just Steve Rogers, nothing else, he was clever. Still is, really, but most people-- people like Stark, people like Banner, like Fury, sometimes, too-- they don’t see that. They just see Captain America, somebody whose only defining skill is following orders.

People forget, more importantly, that Steve Rogers and Captain America are not the same person.

When the girl looks at him, really looks at him, Steve gets the feeling that maybe she might be able to tell the difference.  

“To be honest,” she says carefully, “I’m surprised he’s left you alone this long.”

Steve moves around the kitchen island, closer to her. “You said you work for him.” He doesn’t explicitly ask the question, no, but it still lingers in the air, the implication heavy and thick like steam, like city smog.

She understands, of course, and her eyes flash just a little as she looks up at him, a flickering, brief rush of some unidentifiable emotion. “I’m not S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she says, pausing for a second like she’s gathering her thoughts. “I’m-- well, I am, but not like you. I’m not a soldier, I don’t even have a permit to carry, I’m just--”

“Damage control,” he supplies, folding his arms.

“ No,” she replies, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’m--” She sighs, then, and sets the mug down on the counter with a soft click of ceramic against stone tile. The silence is soft, uncertain, before she speaks again. “I’m not a spy, is what I’m saying. I’m like-- I’m just here to make sure you’re okay.”

Steve shakes his head. “So Fury thinks I’m a basket case, then,” he says, anger bleeding into the words, making his tone curt and sharper than he’d intended.

“ No, ” she says, again, and he’s almost surprised by the amount of conviction in her voice, though he probably shouldn’t have been. “Fury wanted to put somebody across the hall and not tell you shit while they watched your every move. I just-- you’re a human being, like fucking anybody else, and you’ve just come to fucking eighty years in the future and you’re probably lost and probably confused and you-- and I thought--”

She looks at him, then, looks through him, and it feels like she sees past the bulky shell of what he’s become and into his core, where he’s still small and scrawny and not sure of anything.  

“I thought you probably just needed a friend,” she says, voice suddenly too soft. It’s a perfect, uncanny echo of what Fury had told him earlier, and that’s enough to cement his belief. She gives a small, helpless shrug, and Steve-- Steve can feel the anxiety melt off of him, can feel it evaporate, and suddenly he’s wondering why he was so worried in the first place.

His gut is usually right about things-- especially right about people-- but he had to be sure.

“Fury said the same thing,” he admits, quietly, “About you; he said you wanted me to have a friend.”

She fixes him with a frustrated glare, which, he thinks, he probably deserves at least a little bit.

“And you didn’t believe him? I bought you fucking pizza, Rogers, honestly-- and it was with my own money, too, what else could I--”

“Would you have? Believed him, I mean?”

The silence is sudden, and when she opens her mouth to answer him there’s a hesitancy to it-- to her-- that he guesses isn’t normal for her. He isn’t sure, though. It’s not like he knows her, not that well, to be analyzing her actions the way he is.

(He wants to, though, wants to know her, wants to figure her out, but he won’t say that out loud. Ever. )

“No,” she says, after a while, “No, I probably wouldn’t have.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, just lets the words hang there in the odd, abrupt awkwardness that permeates the kitchen-- an awkwardness that they’d somehow missed, sidestepped completely, since the moment she’d set foot in the apartment. She turns away, towards her rapidly-cooling cup of coffee, and Steve swallows around a pang of something that might be fear somewhere in his throat, considering that maybe he and his petulant, ex-military paranoia had fucked something up, caused some invisible, irreparable damage to the tentative friendship he’d sort of come to rely on.

“So,” he says, softly, and his words are molasses-thick and sticking to his mouth like he’s nineteen again, gangly and awkward, playing catch-up to Bucky and his incredible ability to charm everybody he meets. He isn’t good at this. “I’ve never been to the Empire State Building.”

And it’s--

It’s a stupid thing to say, and he knows it’s stupid, just like he knows it’s not an apology, not really, not officially, but--

It i s , in a way, and the atmosphere immediately depolarizes, and when she turns to him she isn’t smiling, but her eyes are bright again.

“Well, I have,” she drawls, drumming her nails against the countertop. She takes a sip of her coffee, eyeing him over the rim of the cup-- and it’s a challenge, he realizes, the way that she’s looking at him.

He can do that, Steve thinks. He can handle a challenge.

“Do you want to show me, then, or should I go by myself?” he says, trying his very very best to keep a smile from stretching across his face, shy and self-deprecating and just the tiniest bit awkward. He isn’t good at this, by any means, but he’s trying, which should count for something.

“I guess, ” she replies, like he’s just ruined her entire day, like even talking to him is a chore, but when she turns around from dumping the rest of her coffee into the sink, she’s smiling, too.

It was a lie.

He’s been to the Empire State Building before-- he fucking grew up in Brooklyn, of course he’s been.

He wonders if she could tell.

He wonders why he even lied in the first place.

He wonders a lot of things, actually, standing up there in the cold, dizzy with altitude sickness, staring out at the expanse of the city sprawled beneath them, expanding out for miles and miles in either direction, past where he could see, past where the skyline and the horizon dissolve together into an unidentifiable blur.

It’s windy, that day, and Steve runs a good few degrees warmer than the average human, and it’s this distant, slightly clinical perspective that he uses to rationalize the way that she leans into him, away from the edge of the viewing platform, shoulders tucked into themselves like she’s trying to make herself smaller.

“It’s beautiful,” she says wistfully.

Steve looks at her. She’s shivering slightly from the chill, washed-out in the bright white spring sunlight, the wind swirling her hair up and around her face like a halo.

“Yeah,” he says absently. “Yeah, it is.”

It’s kind of a downwards-spiral from there.

They go to the Met and to Ellis Island and to the Central Park Zoo, and he purposely avoids telling her that he’s already seen half of the sights in New York just because he really, genuinely enjoys doing things like this. He likes having a friend again. The media attention is suffocating, at first, but he quickly gets used to seeing their faces plastered across drugstore magazines and stops being phased by the rumors circulating about them, and eventually the drama dies down.

They’re not together. It’s not like that. It’s simultaneously much simpler and much more complicated. She always finds his jokes funny and he always finds her competitive streak endearing and they operate as if they’re two parts of a whole, different but still the same in all the ways that matter. It was what Fury wanted, he rationalizes— for them to be a team.

It doesn’t make things any easier.

(It actually kind of makes it worse.)

“I’m surprised you two have been getting along for this long.”

Fury finds him for the second time in the little coffee shop beneath their shared apartment, while (Name) is conveniently off doing something else; it had been an orchestrated, completely non-accidental series of events, and Steve knows this, but he’s decided to pretend it doesn’t bother him.

“You’re not exactly the friendly type, Rogers,” Fury remarks, voice taking on a prodding, vaguely cynical tone.

She’s in his pocket, he reminds himself, and she’s my friend because she needs to be.

Thinking of it like that, from a tactical, emotionless standpoint-- is almost enough to stop him from feeling sick at the reminder.

“Yeah,” Steve answers, stalling, sipping carefully at his too-hot cinnamon swirl latte.

He hadn’t been quite sure what to get the first time he’d came here, had found himself staring at the menu and feeling helplessly overwhelmed-- because, honestly, it’s just coffee, why did it have to be so complicated-- and it had been (Name) who had swooped in to his proverbial rescue. If Steve were being honest, he hadn’t really cared for it, not before, but there was something about the way she’d looked at him, her expression expectant and vaguely hopeful-- something that made him want to like it, want to like everything that she liked, for no reason other than the fact that she liked it.

Which-- yeah, okay, it’s stupid, but it’s harmless. He’s always been a people-pleaser, and he just wants a friend, and--

And he’s absolutely a bullshit fucking liar, and he knows that.

Fury raises an eyebrow at him over the tiny little french-style patio table they’re seated at. He has the newspaper in front of him, lifted up just enough to cover the bottom half of his face from view. It’s like he’s waiting for Steve to say something, and for the life of him he can’t even begin to fathom what that might be.

The silence drags on, awkward and oppressive.

“Look.” Fury’s voice takes on an exasperated edge. “I’m trusting you. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, so I’m going to need you to cut me a little slack, here. Give me something to work with.”

Steve frowns. He sips at his coffee, staring at the syrup-stained patio table, measuring his next words carefully. “I’m fine,” he says, after a minute. “I just--”

“Just what?”

Whatever he’s thinking-- whatever he’s feeling, right then, is complicated, murky, something he can’t really even begin to articulate to himself; much less to Fury, who’s fixed him with that stare again. He considers, for a second, that he might want to measure his next words carefully, before realizing that it hardly matters, anyway; he has nothing to say.

“I don’t know,” he says, because it’s the truth, and then softly, helplessly, because he can’t for the life of him think of anything else to fill the silence and because Fury’s leveraging him with that one-eyebrow-raised look like he’s expecting something deeper, something more-- “I like her.”

Steve has said that already. Steve knows that he’s said that already. There is a reason he’d told Fury in the very beginning that out of all the shitty ideas he’d come up with to help him cope that therapy or anything involving him spilling his guts to anyone on any sort of regular or semi-regular basis wouldn’t work. Steve isn’t really all that in touch with his own emotions on a good day, never mind a day when he’s being stared down by, at best, a shaky acquaintance, who is currently trying to decide whether he belongs in a court-ordered group treatment program or in a literal, honest-to-god psychiatric hospital.

Fury isn’t really a shrink, not in that sense, but Steve assumes the feeling must be the same.

Oddly enough, for once since he’d arrived Fury isn’t looking at him like he’s waiting for him to elaborate. No, instead he adopts an expression that seems almost curious, as if Steve had just told him something incredibly interesting, maybe even important. Which-- it wasn’t. He hadn’t.

“What?” he blurts out, immediately wincing at the amount of vague, not-quite-undirected irritation lacing the word.

“Nothing.” Fury sets the newspaper down. His mouth, now visible, is quirked up at both corners; a shrewd, contemplative semblance of a smile. “I told you. I haven’t known you to make friends easily.”

Steve bites down on the inside of his cheek, and doesn’t answer. He wonders, not for the first time, if there's something to this that he's missing. Some-- ulterior motive. Some neatly-kept secret that both Fury and (Name) must be in on, something to explain the way Fury's looking at him, like he knows something about him that Steve, for whatever reason, isn't aware of.

Whatever it is-- he can't crack it.

Steve takes the final sip of his coffee, and crumples the empty cup in his hand.

“Look. I know you don’t have any clue what modern music is, but if I see another fucking vinyl record in this apartment, I’m going to lose my mind,” (Name) says, grinning a little wildly. “Everyone else might think you’re a hipster, Mr. Captain America, but I know the truth-- you’re fucking old.”

They’re sprawled across Steve’s neatly-made four-poster-- he couldn’t quite shake the military training, apparently--with both the windows flung open in the sticky June heat and the overhead ceiling fan squeaking as it turns round-and-round above them. The AC is broken. Unfamiliar music plays from a bulky, out-of-date CD player precariously balanced on his dresser.

“Please tell me you know this song,” she says, poking him in the side hard enough to make him jolt and squirm away from her, much to her pleasure. (It had taken her about three days since moving in to find out that he’s ticklish, and Steve’s regretted letting her get away with that particular piece of information ever since.)

Steve squints his eyes, watching the blades of the fan above them spin until he’s nearly dizzy from it. Distantly he registers the opening piano notes,  and the sharp cutting through the fog of the room-- it’s familiar, yes, but not enough that he immediately recognizes it.

“Oh!” he says suddenly. “ Piano Man. You've played me this before, right?"

"Yeah. Billy Joel," she says. "The better side of '70s music, if all Stark's AC/DC shit isn't your style."

Steve huffs out a laugh, staring up at the ceiling. "It's really not."

She sits up on her elbows and looks over at him, smiling like what he's just said was actually funny, and Steve feels the muscles in his chest sort of tighten or something because the strap of her tank top is sliding down her arm and her skin is glossy in the humid, oppressive summer air and it’s making it hard for him to focus on much else. She makes some scathing remark that he doesn’t really pay attention to— something about how much of a hipster he’d become, with his newfound music knowledge and genuine interest in cashmere sweaters and Steve, not being able to deny any of it, grins sheepishly.

She collapses back onto the bed beside him as the chorus of the song swells through his bedroom, and she starts to sing the lyrics, loud and mostly off-key, voice catching and cracking as she laughs-- her tone is strange, difficult to interpret, but when she looks at him she’s grinning and her expression is playful.

Steve finds himself echoing her, at the parts he knows, not entirely willing to admit that he’s actually kind of proud of himself for being able to remember the words at all. He hadn't had a reason or even any real desire to sing, not since he came out of the ice, hadn't had any real desire to pursue anything other than the next mission, hadn't been encouraged by Fury or Stark or really anyone  to be anything more than a walking, talking poster boy-- and to do something like this feels like an act of defiance. His voice, when he hears it, is soft, scratchy, not quite used to being used, but it still feels good-- like he's releasing some pressure inside of himself that had built up without his knowledge, and he feels a sort of weightlessness come with it. Not happiness, he doesn't think, not quite, but-- close. So, so close.

She keeps singing long past the point where he fades out, loud and happy and so at ease with herself and with everything that Steve thinks he’d be content just sitting there and watching her forever , half immobilized by laughter, eyes glinting in the lone beam of sunlight creeping through the blinds.

The song ends, eventually, because it has to, and when it does she pushes herself up off the bed and moves towards the CD player. She has her back turned towards him, thumbing through the stack of burned CDs-- none of which, she had gleefully informed him, had she acquired legally.

"All right," she announces, sliding one into the player and skipping into somewhere in the middle of the playlist. "Throwback."

The CD skips once, twice, slurring the first few notes of the song together into a sort of grating blur of noise before really starting to play. It's a piano melody, like the last song, but it's less intricate, more pop-music-y, if that's even, like, a measurable thing--

Steve blinks, lurching upwards into a sitting position. "I know this song."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "You do?"

"Elvis. Can't Help Falling in Love. " he shrugs, idly scratching at the back of his head. "I was on Youtube. Listening to some of the old music they used to play at those dances Buck used to drag me to." He smiles, mostly to himself, looking down at the floor. "It was in one of the playlists. It sort of-- it reminds me of before."

There's a short, intimate silence, interrupted only by the soft crooning of lyrics in the background. When Steve looks up, (Name) is studying him with a strange expression on her face-- not pity, no, but a sort of empathetic sadness that she usually tries to hide whenever the conversation takes a turn like this. The look lasts for a handful of seconds, before she flips her hair over her shoulder and puts one hand on her hip and says, mostly disbelieving, "He took you to-- what? Rogers, you know how to dance ?"

That--

Isn't where he'd expected the conversation to go.

"Um-- I--" he starts, and then stops, shrugging as nonchalantly as he can manage despite what he can only assume is a furious blush spreading rapidly across his face. "I mean, I can, but I never really-- I'm not--"

"Not what?"

"Not-- yknow-- good at it."

She looks at him, expression flatly disbelieving.

"Listen," he says, grinning and good-natured, the words spilling out before he really has the time or even the inclination to examine the repercussions of what he's about to say. "I can show you, if you don't believe me."

"I most definitely do not believe you," she says, striding forward with a little crooked half-smile and an odd brightness in her eyes that he's never seen before and oh, he thinks, bordering on frantic as she closes the distance between them, he really, really, really  hadn't given this any amount of forethought at all. She's suddenly standing very close to him-- closer than she's ever been on purpose, he thinks, closer than anybody's been in a while, months, at least--

He swallows around a sudden burst of nervous energy and reminds himself sternly that he's Captain fucking America, he's fought Nazis and HYDRA soldiers and been in countless situations that fit the description of literally   life or death and that this, of all things, didn't even technically qualify as something he should be allowed to worry about. He can teach his friend how to dance. This is fine. He's fine.

"Okay." Steve clears his throat. "Okay," he says again, trying to at least sound like he knows what he's doing. Because he does. Technically. "Give me your hand."

She does. It's softer, smaller in his own, and he wonders for a second if she feels this same sort of tenseness that's wracking his body right now, a buzzing  energy thrumming through his veins and heightening his senses and skyrocketing his blood pressure, god--

"And, um," he continues, voice dropping into a much lower, much softer register. "Your other hand on my shoulder."

That brings her somehow even closer to him, and Steve wonders somewhere in the still-functional part of his brain if she can hear his heartbeat thump-thump-thumping against his ribs or the way his breathing has suddenly, inexplicably turned unsteady and shallow, like he's been sucker-punched and had the breath knocked right out of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes that the song must have started over, but then again, he can't be entirely sure-- he's not good at multitasking even when he isn't feeling a weird combination of off-balance and kind of feverish, and he's feeling very much both of those things right now.

He hadn't been kidding when he said he wasn't actually good at this, as he starts to lead, movements slow and slightly off-beat-- In fact, he thought he had made that pretty much perfectly clear, but she still snickers when he bumps his hip against the unreasonably sharp corner of his bedside table.

"Don't laugh at me," he says, relaxing, trying to force any amount of sternness into the words and coming up short. "I'm doing my best here."

That doesn't seem to help, really, just makes her dissolve into another fit of giggles, has her leaning into him as he leads them in tight, stilted steps around the cramped space between his bed and the wall.

"I've seen you fight, though," she says, still laughing as he tries and fails to have any amount of dexterity. "You're-- I wouldn't say graceful, because that's, like, definitely a stretch, but you're not this bad--"

"I'm sorry, d'you think ballroom dancing is the same as getting into a fist-fight? Because one of them is definitely easier than the other."

"Yeah, I can tell."

He grins, pinching her side gently, enough to make her giggle and jolt away from it. "Now you know why I couldn't get a date," he quips, feeling vaguely giddy at the sight of her answering smile.

Steve spins them around the bedroom, twirling her beneath his arm a little haphazardly; it doesn't matter at this point if he's any good at this, because they're having fun.  In a spur of bravery dips her over his knee like Bucky had taught him to nearly a century ago-- and God, he'd be proud if he could see him now, he thinks, chuckling at the way she lets out a breathless squeak and clings to his upper bicep in an effort to maintain her balance.

" Rogers,"  she gasps, affronted. "I'm going to fall."

"No, you won't," he replies, with what must be a truly, pathetically dorky grin spreading across his face as he pulls her back upright, hand settled more comfortably against the curve of her waist. "I've got you."

And--

She smiles again, and this smile isn't really like anything he's ever seen from her before. It's softer, gentler , intimate in a way that he figures wasn't entirely intentional. Something about it makes him feel almost the same way he used to when he was a teenager, trying to talk to girls, still gangly and awkward-- but she isn't like any of the girls he's ever known, Steve thinks. She's nothing like anyone. And he's certainly nothing like he was back then, and even the familiar pressure at the back of his throat that might have been some sort of emotion or might just be his rapidly-beating heart has changed from what it used to be, shifted into something less like teen insecurity, something sweeter and softer--

Somewhere in the background, Elvis is still crooning, the lyrics fading in and out of his realm of awareness. It feels like a fever dream, kind of. Not quite real.

He thinks, unbidden, of what Fury had said-- things don't change, Captain, people change-- and he thinks about how he's changed, and how he's changed for the better, and then, as he's looking at her, a lot of things suddenly start to make sense. He thinks about the day in the coffee shop. He thinks about how he'd told Fury, offhand, three tiny, insignificant words-- I like her-- and he thinks about how Fury had looked at him like he'd just confessed something important, meaningful in a way that he hadn't really been able to understand just yet.

I like her.

Oh , he thinks, the thought oddly devoid of any real emotion, followed by, I'm an idiot.

(Name) is still looking at him, watching him have this sort of-- epiphany-slash- crisis, her expression terrifyingly open, the remnants of her earlier laughter still tugging at the corners of her mouth and her cheeks flushed from  the oppressive, sticky summer heat. She'd worn makeup earlier that day, and had made a half-hearted attempt to take it off; there's faint black-purple smudges of mascara beneath her eyes, and she looks the same as she always does. She looks beautiful. And the way that Steve must be looking at her-- the way that he's always looked at her-- isn't the way that friends look at each other, he realizes.

God, he wants to kiss her.

He's taken aback, actually, by the sheer intensity of how much he wants to kiss her, because he doesn't think he's ever felt like this before. Has he? He wouldn't know, anyways-- he's not good at this. Having emotions. Wanting things.

He doesn't kiss her. Not then, as they sway back and forth across the small scuffed area of hardwood floor in the tiny corner of his bedroom, because that would ruin something, Steve can tell, his intuition is screaming that it would drive some sort of irreparable wedge into their current relationship which is fine just the way it is, thank you.

But he still wonders, in spite of himself, as the song comes to an end, the final notes tapering off into silence-- he wonders what it would feel like to just lean in, lean down, drag his thumb across the line of her jaw and tilt her head up, he wonders how soft her lips would be and what she would taste like and--

Oh, God,  Steve thinks, nerves alight with a tremulous combination of indecision and longing, I'm going to fucking kiss her, aren't I?

The song ends, the last note ringing out, and then the song skips back to the beginning again and the CD player makes the most annoying noise he's ever heard--

And then it doesn't really matter what he was going to do, anyway.

" Fuck,"  (Name) says. She moves towards the dresser, and Steve takes a deep, shaky breath while she's facing away from him. His mouth is curiously dry. His heart feels like it's fluttering. Skipping. Under any other circumstance, he would usually see that as a cause for concern.

She pulls the CD out of the player, wiping the glossy sides down with the edge of her tank top. "Fucking piece of shit."

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but comes up short. It's not like there isn't an abundance of things he could say, but he figures at this point it's wiser to just stay silent.

I'm an idiot , he thinks, again, this time with feeling.

"Okay," (Name) says, thumbing through the stack of CDs again. "90's music bops, no question. Sound good?"

Steve sits down at the edge of his bed, outwardly calm despite the frantic lurch of confusion-- of icy, crippling uncertainty-- tugging at his stomach.

"Yeah," he croaks, voice raspy and cracking enough that he has to clear his throat and start over. "Yeah. Sounds good."

Fuck.

(Now)

So--

It’s worth prefacing this entire catastrophe by saying Steve Rogers is a fucking feminist.

It's also probably worth prefacing this entire catastrophe by establishing that, prior to only a few days ago, Steve had been blissfully unaware of the fact that he had-- what the fuck did people say now?-- caught feelings. Or whatever. So it's not like he was trying to be a dick, or trying to be controlling, or like, judgmental at all, but--

But nothing,  he reminds himself sternly, because regardless of intent, it was still rude. And bad. And--

"Fuck," he says, out loud, finding himself completely unequipped to deal with the situation.

He needs to apologize. Probably. He should have as soon as she got home, if he's being honest with himself, but he didn't, he just kept sitting there at the edge of his bed, staring out the smudged glass of the window against the far wall until the sliver of sky visible through the buildings turned dark.

Steve's avoiding this. He's avoiding her. He's trying, a little desperately, to talk himself out of the suicide mission that his conscience seems to be hell-bent on, but he's--

Not succeeding.

Steve takes a deep breath. He kicks himself, again, for being such a fucking dumbass in the first place, and then before he can lose the nerve he crosses the hallway to her room and knocks on the door.

A beat passes, and then two, and Steve shifts his weight from one foot to the other, runs his tongue over his teeth, cracks the knuckles on his left hand one-by-one in an attempt to relieve some of the tension in his body. He's nervous, restless, and it's almost a relief when she finally opens the door, her expression shifting from affronted to indignant to just.. confused, which he thinks is a fairly accurate summary of the situation at hand.

A muscle in her jaw twitches. "Rogers," she deadpans. "What?"

She's changed out of the crop top and into a large, formless, heather-gray t-shirt that comes down to just midway down her thigh, covers everything but the very edge of her shorts; she's taken her makeup off, too, but her mouth is still stained red from the lipstick. It had looked good on her. Everything looks good on her, and he's also pretty sure that nothing would look good on her, too--

He clears his throat.

"I, um," he starts, voice quiet. "I'm sorry, about-- today. What I said. I was being an asshole."

She doesn't say anything to that, but-- and maybe he's imagining it-- her expression seems to soften, just a little. Wordlessly, she turns on her heel and moves back into the darkness of her bedroom, leaving the door open behind her. Steve decides to interpret this as an invitation as opposed to any other alternative where she might actually just be retreating from his idiocy, and follows her.

He's been in the guest bedroom a handful of times, but not often enough that it's a familiar space to him. She's command-stripped a string of dollar store christmas lights onto the wall above her bed, the soft fairy-tale glow twinkling out across the ceiling. The cheap set of dresser drawers are locked halfway-open and bursting with clothes, the vanity is scattered with makeup samples, a fairly impressive array of skincare products and one unopened pack of phone chargers, tucked into the space between a half-used candle and an old jewelry box. It's messy, but not gross- messy, just kind of-- chaotic.

(Name) sits down at the edge of her bed. It's not made-- because apparently that's not something people do in this day and age anymore, Steve thinks, with the barest traces of a smile-- but the sheets and blankets are sort of all pushed-up at the foot of the bed, out of the way. She folds her legs up underneath herself and fixes him with a flat, unreadable stare.

"Were you on a date?" he blurts out, and then winces, following it immediately with, "Sorry. You don't-- you don't have to tell me that, I didn't mean-- it's none of my business."

She, to her credit, doesn't flip out. She just sort of sits there, blinks, looks at him for a long moment before replying, "Is that what this is about?"

"I'm sorry," he says, again, because if he doesn't finish saying what he needs to say now, he'll never say it, and he knows this, he'll lose the courage and it'll just stay buried underneath his skin like a perpetually-growing bruise, and he'd keep doing stupid, obnoxious shit in the name of his underdeveloped feelings, and she-- doesn't deserve that.

"I didn't-- I just needed to apologize," he says, staring kind of too-hard at the smudge of pink nail-polish on the edge of the dresser-top, the sheen bright and faintly glittery against the faded, dull pinewood. "I wasn't trying to be-- to be mean, or controlling, or anything like that, I just--"

His mouth is moving faster than his brain is.

This is going to go downhill very quickly, he realizes.

"I just really like you," he confesses, "I really like you a lot. And I didn't even realize until a few days ago but, you know, today, I was jealous, I think, which-- It's not an excuse, and I know that, and I'm still sorry, but I thought I should tell you, at least--"

"Rogers--"

"Either way, though, what I said was completely out of line, it doesn't matter how I feel about-- about you, or about anything, really, because that was still really shitty of me, and I know that--"

" Rogers --"

"And if you wanted to tell Fury that this isn't working out I'm not gonna be mad , of course not, I mean-- you're allowed, you don't have to-- to deal with me being, you know, attracted to you at all, because that's not your job, and I get it , and--"

"Could you shut the fuck up for a second--"

"I just don't want you to think that I'm trying to force you into a situation that's going to be uncomfortable for you, you know? I didn't-- you're not-- my feelings aren't your responsibility and I didn't want you to think that I was just gonna-- I don't know, take it out on you or whatever for turning me down-- If i was to ask, though, which I'm not." He flushes, words coming to a stuttering, stumbling halt. "I'm not asking you out. That's not-- that's not what this is."

The silence that follows lasts for a very long time. Too long. If this were still the 1940s, or if she was anybody else, when she takes a step forward he might have actually been a little bit afraid that she might slap him.

(He's not.)

(He is, a little bit, in the part of his brain that still tries to reconcile the Peggy he remembers with the person who'd shot a fully loaded gun at his head. He's terrifyingly bad with women, apparently.)

She doesn't do anything, though. She just sort of looks at him, and shakes her head, and then says, "Steve, I like you a lot, all right, but-- you don't have to be such a good person literally all the fucking time."

And--

He's about three seconds away from formulating a response to that, which would probably be something along the hopelessly confused lines of what does that even mean, because being a good person is usually a good thing, when he realizes that she used his name. His actual name. It's the first time she's ever called him Steve, instead of Rogers, or Captain, if she really wants to get under his skin.

Steve figures it's that combination that distracts him enough to not really notice what's happening, not until--

Well.

Their eyes catch, for a split second-- she's much closer to him than he'd thought she was-- and when she moves, she moves slowly, reaches for his wrist and tugs him towards her, the flat of her palm traveling up his forearm. She's never touched him like this before, not with this kind of intent; there had been fleeting moments before this where their hands had brushed or she'd leaned into him for a fluttering half-second, but nothing this deliberate.

What the fuck is going on? He thinks, followed by: Am I dreaming?

"You're allowed to want things," she says, and he wonders half-heartedly if she really expects him to remember or even understand half of the bullshit philosophical stuff she's currently waxing to him, because he really, really can't,  not when she's so close, not when his stomach feels like it's tying itself into literal, physical knots. "You know that, right?"

"Like what?" he says, not quite understanding what she's trying to say. That's nothing new, though.

"Anything."

Steve swallows, hoping that he's interpreting this correctly.

"Okay,' he says, trying to ignore how desperately hoarse his voice sounds. "I want--"

He wants a lot of things, he realizes; he wants a lot of things, to a lot of different degrees, but what he wants right this immediate moment is mostly just--

"I want you to kiss me," he whispers, feeling way, way, way less stupid than he probably should. "Am I allowed to want that?"

It's not really a confession to her, because he gets the feeling that she already knew, but it's still better, he thinks, to have finally said it out loud.

"Yes, Steve, you're allowed to want that," she says, vaguely exasperated, the corners of her mouth twitching into an almost-smile, and then--

And then she kisses him, and his brain shuts off. Short-circuits. Grinds to a screeching, shuddering halt, the world narrowing down with a pinpoint precision until the only thing that he's really aware of is her, everything else in the background fading out into a monotonous blur.

He pulls back. He makes a sound-- a soft, shaky exhale of a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"You like me?" he says, bewildered.

She blinks. Opens her mouth, but says nothing for a long moment. "Are you dumb?"

"Apparently," he replies, and then he kisses her again. Just to be sure, he tells himself, just to be certain-- and she huffs out what might have been a laugh against his cheek and pulls him closer by the collar of his shirt, presses her lips a little more firmly to his. And this-- this is fine, he tells himself, he can get used to this, the way he can't quite hide a full-body shiver at the feeling of her nails dragging lightly against his scalp, the soft sound he murmurs into her mouth when she twists her fingers into his hair--

The thing is, he can't really remember the last time he's been this close to somebody-- let alone a girl-- but it's not like anything's changed, it's not like he doesn't still know how everything works, it's not like he's forgotten how to do this. He has one arm around her waist, pulling her as close as she'll let him, has one hand cupping the curve of her jaw, the pad of his thumb sweeping across the curve of her cheekbone, and when he bites down on her bottom lip she makes this sound that he wouldn't mind hearing over and over and over again, forever.

He still knows what he's doing, is the point-- he still knows how to kiss a girl like it's the last thing he'll ever get the chance to do. Steve kisses her and she seems to melt from it, her body curving and melding against the hard lines of his own like she was fucking made to be there.

"Okay," she says, breathless. "Is this all you want, then? It's not the 40s, the whole abstinence-until-marriage deal isn't really a thing anymore--"

The answering chuckle that rumbles out from the base of his throat is warm and self-assured in a way that he'd almost forgotten he was capable of. He has his mouth on her neck now, right above her collarbone, and the scrape of his teeth against the skin there makes her pulse skip and speed up enough that he can feel it, her heartbeat pounding in her throat like a bass drum as whatever she'd been saying dissolves into a hitched intake of breath.

“Wasn't really a thing back then, either, sweetheart," he replies, "Dunno how much you know about it, but-- the Army wasn't exactly known to be the height of wholesome catholic upbringing--"

"Do not give me a history lesson," she retorts, and then she's got her hand up underneath his shirt, cool and soft against his stomach, thumbing over his belt buckle and whatever snarky bullshit he'd been saying dies in the back of his throat. Fuck, he's hard. He hadn't been paying attention to it, had been too focused on her and on processing the fact that his thirst-crush-thing (or whatever it's called now) also apparently liked him in any capacity, but--

Jesus Christ.

Steve kisses her again, harder this time, with more intent, urges her backwards until the edge of the bed hits the backs of her knees and instead of, like, taking any amount of time to discuss how, exactly, the semantics of this interaction were going to occur, he just-- lifts her up off the ground. She makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a shriek, arms locking around his neck and her legs around his waist and her expression, when he bothers to stop kissing her long enough to look, is torn halfway between indignation and something that he immediately recognizes as arousal, only because he knows it's echoed in his own expression, too.

"I'm going to fall," she says, a breathless, halfhearted reiteration of what she'd said the night they'd danced together.

"No, you won't," Steve replies, the words coming out low and syrupy-sweet. "I've got you, sweetheart. I could keep you like this the whole night, if that's what you want-- it's not hard."

He watches her swallow around her next words with a cheeky sort of satisfaction.

"Awful big talk there, Cap," she says, but there's no weight behind it, not as she maneuvers herself around in his arms to slip her shirt off over her head and brings him into another kiss, this one faster, rougher, needier , the warmth of her bare skin bleeding in through the thin cotton fabric of his t-shirt.

He sets her down on the bed, moves away just long enough to yank his own shirt up and off, discarding it somewhere on the floor along with the mess of sheets and blankets he'd knocked to the ground. The way she's looking at him, kneeling above her, fumbling with the belt on his shorts-- it's nothing like any girl's ever looked at him before. She sees through him-- sees past him-- wants more, he reasons, than just his body or the ability to say that she'd slept with Captain America.

That's good.

He trusts that. Trusts her, more importantly.

Her shorts come off, tossed somewhere to the left of him, and Steve takes a minute to just-- look at her, pupils blown out all wide and dark, the dim, pale glow from the string of christmas lights above her bed illuminating the gentle curves of her body, making her look softer. Gentler. Like she belongs on some sort of pinup magazine, like when he was in the Army.

"You're beautiful," he whispers, making sure to kiss her before she has a chance to tell him to shut up. He takes the open space between her legs, resting his weight on his forearms on either side of her head; his dick is pressed right up against the inside of her thigh and she lets out this little trembling sigh at the pressure, angling her hips up more, trying to center the friction--

"Steve," she whispers, shaky and breathless, nails digging into his biceps almost enough to hurt, ten tiny pinpricks of bittersweet pressure. His breathing is ragged. The muscles in his arms and his back are tight, taut, with anticipation, and when he actually finally moves it makes her gasp and shiver as his cock slides inside--

"Fuck," he grits out, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the base of her throat, and when he moves she moves with him, arches up into his body, rocks against the gentle rhythm of his thrusts. He drops his head onto her shoulder and she presses her nose into the crook of his neck, says something against his sweat-slick skin that might have been his name, might have just been her panting oh my god as she drags her nails down the tense, rippling muscles of his back--

She tightens around him, and Steve groans, the sound ragged and ripped from somewhere in the back of his throat. He holds his weight on one forearm, trails one hand down to where their bodies are joined, runs the pad of his thumb over her clit and is rewarded with an almost immediately with her mouth parting around a breathless, needy moan.

"Yeah?" he whispers, mostly breathless, partially in awe, "You close?"

She nods, wordless, dragging him into a kiss-- this one is different than the others, more desperate, with teeth and tongue and an acute, frantic sense of longing, and he kisses her back with that same passion, any sound he makes dissolving into her open, waiting mouth--

"Steve," she gasps, head falling back onto the pillows and her mouth falling open, just a little, just enough to let out a breathy, wordless moan--

And then she comes, and Steve makes sure that he gets to see her, then and she's beautiful just like he knew she would be, and she's tight and hot and wet around his cock and his own orgasm is wrenched from him so powerfully that his head swims and all of his coherent thoughts go fuzzy and white like radio static--

"Steve," she says again, softer-- when his brain refocuses, her arms are still around him. She doesn't seem to have any intention of letting go, either.

And he's--

He's fine with that, to be honest.

Fury finds him the next week, alone.

"She trusts you to go grocery shopping on your own now, does she?"

Steve looks up from where he's inspecting the labels of two identical-looking brands of gelato. To be completely fair, he'd gotten at least a third of the way down the list before getting fucking lost , which is better than last time, so he figures that counts for something.

"How are you?" Fury says, walking closer.

Steve shrugs. He drops one of the cartons of gelato into the cart-- 50/50 chance it's the right one, he tells himself. "I'm--" he starts, and then pauses. Considers it, for a second, before replying-- the words are odd to say out loud. Even now.

"I'm happy."

Maybe he's imagining it, but out of the corner of his eye it almost looks like Fury is smiling, up until he drops a thick manilla folder directly on top of his shopping list. Steve stares at it, watching what little happiness he'd been able to covet dissolve-- disintegrate-- at the sight of the thick black print across the top.

SHIELD AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

"I have a mission for you."

[iluvsexyvoltageguys]

The Betrayal ~ Part 2

Leon x Reader

“I’m sorry, WHAT?” Leon turned around slowly. Instinct told him to be careful, but that’s all his instinct ever said when he was not in the heavens. His features schooled themselves into neutral, his heart rate slowed and his attention focused. “We’re done.” You repeated. “Just like that?” He didn’t look convinced. But his pulse was rising. Leon hated that feeling - cold on the outside, hot on the inside. You stood across from him in the kitchen inside of your apartment, hands on your hips accentuating your slender waist. “It’s over.” you said. “Why would you even say such a thing?” He asked. You shook your head, “You’re never here. Always leaving me behind while you go ‘take care of matters’....How many other goddesses have you fucked in that time?”

“What are you talking about?” he hissed. You squared your shoulders. “Before you ask that, think very carefully about how much I already know.” You glared back at him. “Oh ho, someone told you I’m sleeping around? You know better than that. You know how this works, ______.” Leon desperately thought back - who could have seen something? “Apparently I didn’t.” You answered him. You couldn’t stop thinking about Partheno. Except when you were thinking about Leon with another goddess. Did they really look like you? Was that more flattering or insulting? Maybe it was a goddess that always came running to him whenever he made an appearance in the heavens, calling out his name like an invitation. Maybe they did all look like you from behind.

“I can’t do this right now.” he said flatly. Leon would not go into an argument without preparing, he needed to think. “Then you can do it never, because it’s your last chance.” You told him. He stared at you. You were never like this. You’re were happy with him, he knew that. He took good care of you. Maybe he wasn’t loyal every night. He was the Minister of the Wishes Department after all and goddesses were always throwing themselves at him. His prestigious rank could get very stressful and sometimes he needed to take that out on a goddess when you were not around. Now you were threatening to leave?

“Please go to your room and calm down, _____. I’ll be there in a minute and we can discuss this.” Leon turned his back. The corner of your mouth curled into a smirk. You would leave - and go straight to Partheno’s room. And if anything went down anywhere there would be nothing calm about it. “Figures you’d have nothing to say for yourself.” You sighed, your heart feeling heavy. “What. _____. What do you want me to say?” He wheeled around. You wouldn’t be accusing him if you were not sure. How you had heard about it was another issue altogether, but that was for another time. He moved towards you. “A couple of times, ______. I’m sorry. You know I don’t always... handle things well. Sometimes I just...,” he curled his fingers looking for the right word. I don’t always think, I don’t always try, I don’t always care enough about those goddesses to wait until I can get home to you. “I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong.”

The look on your face was pure shock. You had not been sure before, not really. You were hoping Partheno was lying. Saying it was one thing but hearing it as a confession was something else. Leon reached for you. You stepped back. “They do not mean anything to me, you know that. They don’t even - I don’t remember them” Leon couldn’t make it sound like he felt. The words came out all jagged and he could see them cutting you, drawing blood from your soft, perfect skin. Your lip quivered. It reminded him how much he loved kissing you, how he hadn’t been able to do that in days. “Please, _____. Don’t leave, I swear I will not do it again. I can do better. I know....” You whipped around and stormed out of the room. He chased after you, catching your arm. “I love you.”

Your vision blurred with tears. Leon had never said that before. You weren’t sure if he meant it as a flight or fight response but it still went through your heart like an arrow. Your guard dropped and his arms were around you, his beautiful face as close as he could safely get. “_______, I cannot lose you.” Through the million thoughts in your mind, one kept bouncing to the top. It was an angry one. “You keep your personal life so private, but you’ll go and fuck whatever random goddess you feel like?” Leon held you at arm’s length now. He might have done stupid things but that didn’t make him actually stupid. “It’s not anything ______, and it’s over. I promise.” You looked at him, big, unspilled tears caught in your lashes. Leon brushed one free with his thumb. “Can you forgive me?”

You knew that he expected you to say yes. Leon always got what he wanted. “No,” you said quietly. For the first time, Leon really started to panic. He never should have slept around in the heavens but he was a god, he did not fully understand a human’s perspective to such things as monogamous relationships. Leon had enough trouble fitting in here on Earth without acting holier than everyone. It was a weakness and he hated weakness but one Leon had always expected to be able to apologize away. Suddenly that wasn’t working. “________....”

You were ready though, the words on your tongue. “You never take risks for me. You took risks for all those goddesses, big terrible risks that risked me too but you have never once gone out on a limb for me. I’m your dirty little secret, Leon. Not those goddesses...me!” Your eyes didn’t leave his. “Everyone knows about us! Everyone who matters, anyway. Fuck the rest of them. I thought you were with me because you love me, not because you want to show off.” He growled. Fear and fury were getting the best of him. Then you flinched like he’d hit you and Leon was instantly sorry for that last part. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I know you’re not like....”

It was all you needed to hear. You would never feel secure in your place with Leon. You were either a secret or a target. It wasn’t his life that put you in that position. He did it himself. “It’s too late.” you said. “No, it’s not.” Leon pleaded, “Let’s start over again right now.” You swallowed hard and spoke carefully. “I slept with Partheno.”

Leon dropped his hands like you were toxic. “What?” He asked like he heard you incorrectly. “I slept with Partheno.” You repeated slowly. His face changed - one second it was beautiful, then it became ugly and twisted without really moving much at all. The look in his eye said it all. “You whore.” Finally, something you could fight back against. “So it’s fine for you to do it, to fuck whoever you want and I should just shut up and forgive you. But when I do it, I’m a whore.”

Red. That’s all Leon could see. “When?” He asked. “Today.” You said. His fingers balled into fists. You watched them carefully. He had never raised a hand to you, but if ever he might this was the time. “Today. While I was away in the heavens you were with that pervert? While I was away!? Did he - did he stay here?!” Leon jabbed one finger toward the floor. If Partheno had come into my apartment which I shared with Leon and had his girlfriend.... “Today was the first time.” I said. “The ONLY time.” Leon hissed.

You shook your head. “First of many. He promised.” You said with a smirk. Leon grabbed your arm so hard you yelped. He was halfway across the living room before you stopped stumbling and into the bedroom before you could slow down. “Get off of me!” You yelled at him.

Leon pushed you toward the wall and let go, but he was between you and the door. You’re heart raced. You were scared. Leon was really, really strong. His eyes were black with rage. He stepped closer. You stepped back, pressed to the wall. Slowly, he reached out. You batted his hands but that did nothing except make his dick twitch. His fingers slipped into the waistband of your jeans despite your best efforts. You held your breath.

“Did you bring him here?” Leon asked, forcing his voice to be calm though his hands were shaking. “No.” You answered. He thumbed open the button and held the zipper. “Did you like it?” Your eyes dropped. “Yes.” The zipper fired it’s way down toward your crotch. When it ran out, Leon worked his thumbs around the inside to your hips, then gently started pushing your pants off. You wanted to tell him to stop, but you knew he wouldn’t. You could beg, or plead. He wouldn’t stop. There was only one way out of this and you both knew it. You would have to mean it enough to hurt him physically. Leon had one weakness, like Superman and kryptonite. He was testing you.

Leon’s fierce eyes burned into yours, daring you to back up your words with actions. Leon certainly planned to do so. The situation had slipped so far beyond his control he hardly recognized it, or himself. Your pants slipped off, falling away and leaving him with only silk panties beneath his fingertips. “Did you come for him?” Leon said quietly. You’re chest was heaving, throwing your breasts in his face over and over and over again. You closed your eyes. “Yes.” His hand followed the same path Partheno’s had - quickly between your legs. You whimpered. Leon bit his lip - if you thought you were sore from Partheno just wait until he was finished with you.

At your hips, he twisted his fingers into the thin waistband of your panties and ripped them open. You gasped at the fabric raking your skin then falling away. Leon stepped on your pants and pulled each of your legs free in turn. He could have taken you there, standing against the wall half-dressed, but he had a feeling that’s what Partheno had done. So Leon needed to do better. You were clearly not about to protest now.

“Put your hands up,” he ordered. As you lifted your arms, your t-shirt rode up over the flat plane of stomach he loved to explore. Leon whipped the tee off over your head, sending your hair flying. In nothing but your bra, breasts rising out of the flimsy demi-cups, you were as beautiful as any goddess Leon had ever been with. Now you were the price he would pay for them, but not without getting his money’s worth. He cupped your chin and lifted until you had no choice but to look at him.

There was only hate in your eyes. Leon’s cock throbbed hard. He grabbed your long hair and tugged, tipping your head back to expose your throat. Very, very carefully he touched his mouth to the spot where your pulse beat beneath the skin. The tip of his tongue brushed the flesh, leaving a tiny wet spot. He breathed across it as he spoke. “Get on your knees.”

You did as you were told, while Leon unfastened his pants like he was opening a box and presenting you with a ring. His body was a gift in a lot of ways, and you had learned a lot of ways to please it. Part of you wanted to stop, but it was drowned out by the rest of your surging hormonal tide and the dark, twisted notion that you deserved this, and so did Leon. You wanted to leave him with a devastating, visceral memory that was almost good enough to block out the thoughts of you with Partheno.

No one knew Leon like you did. Those goddesses in the heavens probably went to their knees even faster than this. It almost made you laugh. They could work all night but you only needed minutes. If Leon wanted it now, you’d give him your best. You rubbed your palm along the smooth, taut skin of his erection; Leon rocked on his heels at your touch. He was big and heavy in your hand. You looked up to find him watching. He loved to watch. You circled lightly, the raised texture of your tongue catching ever so slightly against his tip, dragging just enough to shiver right down to his base. He groaned quietly.

Leon vowed that he would make you stay. Whatever it took. One brush of your mouth was better than the combined attentions of every other goddess he’d known. If he had to kill Partheno he’d do it for you. It was sick but Leon wanted you now more than ever. He had always loved to win.

You could tell when Leon’s mind wandered. Anything less than his complete focus meant his brain was somewhere else. You hoped it was thinking about you doing this with Partheno. With a deep breath, you leaned forward and pushed Leon’s cock right down your throat.

He growled, snapping back into reality and away from his diabolical plan. His tip pressed the back of your throat then slipped past, just enough to make you gag. He caught you by the hair and held on, making you fight for a second before letting go. A normal girl would back off, but not you. Never you. You dug your fingernails into his ass and went deep again. A drop of salty surrender landed on your tongue as you pulled off the second time, letting his dick slide free with a wet pop. You licked your lips expertly, letting him see.

Three, two....

You landed on your back on the bed with enough practice to roll once and make sure Leon landed next to, not on top, of you. Then you were on top of him. Silly boy, he always thought he was in charge around here. You pressed your hips low, catching his hard-on against the cleft of your body and rolling along that hard length. He was huge - thick, wide, long. You could forgive him for a lot of things because of that cock.

“You’re not gonna find that anywhere else.” Leon said in a low voice, enjoying the sight of your breasts bouncing as you pumped his cock a few times. Your eyes flashed. “Well you’ll know right where to find this.” You rocked forward then pressed back over the tip of his cock. Leon groaned. He would rather have told you to shut up and fuck him but the truth of the event was too much for a few words to express. There was no sliding into you. Every time was like the first time - tight, hot and no matter how wet, Leon still had to take every damned inch from that perfect little body. You swiveled and rocked, your eyes squeezed shut, but it wasn’t until Leon grabbed you and bucked his hips upward that his dick found the last few inches. You couldn’t stop yourself from crying out.

“Fuck,” Leon said to himself. With one push he flipped you onto your back and plowed in again, nailing that same spot that made you yelp. Only this time he caught the cry with his own mouth. All the control Leon had in the heavens went out the door when he got inside you. Your ass bounced off his lap, skin slapping, as he pushed your knees up toward your chest and stroked again. You knew it would never be like this with any other guy. It could be a lot of things Leon didn’t provide, but for the all out ride, Leon was the top pick every time. And if this was the last time, you did not intend to miss a moment. Your fingernails scratched down his back, muscle after muscle standing in perfect definition. You drew your hands back up his sides - directionals slide beneath your thumbs, abs taut and ripped as they worked together. In full flex, half-push up over you, there was no end of places to put your hands. You paid for every inch with one of you own.

“Oh god,” you whispered. Leon shoved his hands under your ass, lifting it off the bed, arching your back. His hand roamed your body, tweaking one nipple then the other, rolling them under his palms. Just as you knew what he liked, Leon knew every one of your secrets. Thinking the same thing, Leon pushed you up the mattress, right off his dick. Time to make you earn some of this. “Roll over,” he said. Your hair whipped and fell forward over one shoulder, landing on your stomach. Leon grabbed your hips and pulled your ass into the air like a target.

“Touch yourself.” One of your hands stayed down to hold you up, the other went obediently toward your hot button. Every part of you was on display for him now. Leon ran his hand over the perfect shape of your ass. You quivered as Leon’s thick fingers dragged along your throbbing slit. You wanted him - more of him, all of him - and hated that he knew it. You hated that he’d take his sweet fucking time just to make sure you knew it. Maybe if you gave in quickly.... “Please,” you said. “Please what?” Leon asked, the smile obvious in his voice. “Please fuck me.”

“Ohhhh no, I don’t think so.” Leon wanted to bury himself in that hole so hard he was faint, but he’d be damned if you got what you wanted so easily. He pushed one long finger into your pussy, and felt it flutter. “Come on, ______. Don’t tell me you come for just one finger now.” He brushed his fingertip over the raised, soft spot that could make you speak in tongues. Your hips bucked. “Or is that all he’s packing, your new boyfriend? Lowering your standards so he can get you off?”

You bit your lip. Any argument would only make this worse. Leon pushed a second finger inside you. It came out glistening alongside the first, so he pumped again. It felt incredible, violating, all the things that made no sense together as Leon fucked you into a trembling mess with nothing more than one hand. He moved in close, right behind you, and your heart raced at the idea of him screwing himself properly back inside. Instead his free hand came around your waist and pushed your own out of the way.

“You’re taking too long.” he said. Your clit was slick beneath his fingers but Leon knew how to fine tune his equipment. He circled against it, setting the rhythm to match his fingers plunging into your pussy. Within seconds you were gasping, so he changed - side to side with his fingers. Your body bucked, twisting at his hand. He switched again, a light tapping motion. Your slit twisted hard against his fingers and you groaned. Almost there. Leon pressed his fingers hard against your clit and just rubbed, deep and slow, in time with his penetration. Your stomach got taut and your thighs wobbled, trying to stay up. He leaned toward your ear. “Was there something you wanted from me?”

You could barely stay upright with your lower body trying to levitate off the bed. The heat of Leon’s breath on your neck was the last straw. You whimpered as your pussy clenched. He slowed, fingers disappearing from your clit. “No,” you gasped. “No what?” He asked. “Don’t stop.” He lost it then, the way you knew he would. He pumped and worked until you were gasping, nearly pleading.

He flipped you onto your back. You obediently spread your legs. You wanted him, even though you hated him, and that was something at least. Leon pulled your thighs around his waist and pushed his cock inch by inch into your core while he kept his eyes on yours, daring you to blink, daring you to miss a moment of the last time you would be together. He hoped you closed your eyes and saw this when you were with Partheno. When he was in to the hilt, Leon thrust hard to make sure he had it all. Your head fell back, exposing your neck. Leon very carefully lowered his face to your skin and kissed the spot where your pulse raced. Then he moved.

You hated that he knew you. You hated that every stroke of his perfect cock was right on one of your many targets, his fingers digging bruises into your hips and shoulders. The sight of him was devastating but to feel him was sensory overload. Leon grunted softly as he worked. It didn’t take long before you were panting. No fighting, no biting, no need for touching or even kissing. Leon fucked you the good old fashioned way and you came, gasping his name, like the little earthquake that would demolish you for good.

Leon waited just that long. The telltale catch of your breath, the way you always reached for his biceps to hold on when you came. A second later he slammed home one more deep stroke and roared. Everything still working in his body stopped for a moment as he burst, pouring into you, slumping over your prone body with the force of his own orgasm. His chest heaved against yours, your breathing matched.

“Don’t go,” he said quietly, really asking for the first time. You heard it in Leon’s voice - the fear of the unknown. It was his only weakness. He couldn’t lose you. Not because you were _____, but because he couldn’t face doing all this again. Meeting someone, getting to know and trust them; it was hard for Leon. Some of that was his title, but a lot of it Leon brought upon himself. His walls were high to keep people out, but they were also keeping him in. That wasn’t good enough for you. “I will not hurt you again.” He said.

You knew you couldn’t trust him. He would be back in the heavens and you would be thinking how stupid you were the first time around. You couldn’t exactly trust yourself now either. “I’ll forget about Partheno.” he added. You were glad Leon couldn’t see your face, because you smiled. Partheno was his own brand of trouble, no doubt. He’d had his way with another man’s girlfriend: even if you didn’t protest, that wasn’t very gallant. But he wanted you, enough to risk all that, and you were thrilled, excited, flattered. Leon had never wanted you like that. “I won’t forget him.” you said.

TBC

[glaceontea]

My Fanders Sides tag but late

Ha ha whoops I’m late to the train

So I’ve wanted to do this tag for a while now, and I finally got around to it.

I was never tagged but oh well

This tag was created by the wonderful @pansexualroman and I have admired other’s sides, so now it’s my turn like two months too late whoops

Sorry for doing this so awkwardly late I’m actually stupid but here they are~

-

Negativity/Nova -she/her -soft gay™ -constantly tired -loves thunderstorms they make her happy -embodies my anxiety, pessimism, self-doubt, fears and stress -always stressed or worried about something -grumbles constantly, reluctant to do stuff with the others -freaks out around strangers -tries to be intimidating (and succeeds if you don’t know her) but when you get to know her, the most cuddly and adorable child you’ve ever seen, 10/10 would cuddle again - review by cameron -just needs a hug

description: always in a black jumper, usually wears shorts, barefoot where possible usually on her phone, listening to sad songs, wrapped up in a blanket in a room where the air conditioner is on its lowest setting usually has her hair out, except when she’s pissed off when she puts her hair up, you fucking run

Creativity/Cameron -they/them -the one that embodies my musical side, writing and anything to do with the arts -the loud gay™ -no seriously this is my gay -LOVES SNOW HOLY SHIT -FAVE SEASON IS WINTER THEYRE THE ONE MAKING SNOWMEN CONSTANTLY -they’re my self-confidence -houses my passion for everything -the reason I become obsessed with shit -constantly singing or dancing. always -the most romantic fucking little twat- -has a swearing problem -enjoys blasting songs from musicals and singing to them bc sINCERELY ME IS PERFECT AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME OTHERWI-

description: always wanting to wear flower crowns but never does wears their hair down bc that’s the most comfortable but it’s usually wrapped up in a beanie wears merch, whether from a youtuber, band or tv show never wears girly shit or a bra bc they hate it when people call them a girl they like sweatpants but they’re usually wearing leggings

Logic/Laura -she/her -my intelligence -my passion for learning -also has a passion for girls *cough* cody *cough* -loves researching, always eager to learn -knows everything, recalls stupid random facts in times of need -in saying that, cannot remember anything for the life of her -stupid little things like catch-up lessons and something someone said to you two seconds ago are forgotten bc of her honestly -likes rain, it helps her focus, fave season is autumn tho bc trees and plants and wildlife are really interesting, did you know- -feelings do not compute -one of the reasons why I have no idea how to comfort my friends -despite everything, she’s super cool -and super pretty - review by cody -the chill friend -constantly drinking coffee and is always tired -likes classical music, but also enjoys musicals

description: she wears round glasses (bc she bLIND) and has her hair up in a messy top bun, it always looks like it’s been up for a couple of days and strands are sticking out usually wears jeans and an oversized sweater bc the soft fabric helps her think straight she’s the palest bc the only time she goes outside is if she wants an example of something, which is probably only like three days a week still has freckles tho (is the most prone to acne bc research stresses her out sometimes but it’s not too bad)

Compassion/Cody -she/her/they/them (doesn’t mind) -extremely happy and bubbly p much all the time -but when she’s angry, she’s anGRY (angry kisses are a thing she does) -my friendly side -also the side that makes me get really excited over shit like baby otters -obsessed with kittens and wants all the cats in the world bC ALL CATS ARE PERFECT AND WONDERFUL AND- -accepting, warm, the one that loves hugs -affectionate af -loves the sun, favourite season is spring -always listening -doesn’t like talking about her own feelings -she always bottles up her anger, sadness and jealousy and it comes out in scary bursts sometimes, everyone loves her all the same -always there to give out hugs to those in need -loves dad jokes -holy shit do they love dad jokes -pours her heart into everything -tries to protect everyone -a giant nerd™

description: wears a plaid button up t-shirt, usually wearing her reading glasses bc they like them so much her hair is usually out except when she’s exercising, baking or reading they wear shorts all the time, she and laura are the only two that shave (nova doesn’t shave her legs, and Cameron just lets it growwww) she’ll wear caps if they’re available has the most freckles bc she loves the sun

relationships with each other:

Nova and Cameron: They always argue over stupid things, with Nova wanting to not do stuff and Cameron wanting to try eVERYTHING Their arguments are super heated but always end up resolved if Laura comes to help But they really enjoy each other’s company, Cameron likes to cheer Nova up by dramatically performing their favourite songs to her Nova sometimes sings to Cameron to cheer them up when their ego takes a hit, Nova lowkey is the best singer of them all Lots of cuddling during movie nights

Nova and Laura They like to discuss things a lot, Laura helps Nova see things without a pessimistic lens and Nova also helps point out all possible ways something could turn out bad bc sometimes, even Laura misses something important Other than that, they don’t interact much, perhaps the odd book recommendation

Nova and Cody: Cody always finds herself calming Nova down Nova sometimes gets annoyed that Cody is so positive all the time, she doesn’t understand it Cody’s always the one to drag Nova along to something, whether it be a picnic or a sports game Nova is incredibly grateful to have Cody ground her, but she’d never admit it

Cameron and Laura: They work really well together to come up with ideas, Cameron puts in different ideas for stories while Laura does the research to make sure it is factually correct If Cameron comes to Laura for yet another idea for a story, they’ll write it together Usually Cameron does the initial draft, then Laura tries to add in more interesting words and make sure words aren’t repeated constantly They’re the reason I do so well in English

Cameron and Cody: They don’t get along all that well, because Cameron always wants to do dangerous things and Cody just wants to protect everyone she can They do get along when discussing LGBTQIA+ issues though, bc that’s something that relates them to one another That’s about it though, they don’t really talk much

Cody and Laura: They’re THAT gay couple Cody helps Laura learn about feelings and stuff, while Laura helps make sure Cody doesn’t believe in stupid things that definitely aren’t correct Because of Cody, Laura has a passion about psychology, and is the reason I want to be a psychiatrist or psychologist. Them working so well together is a reason why I’m enthusiastic about school and learning, and that I’m able to function well around adults. They’re constantly supporting each other, kisses are always exchanged between them When baking, Cody’s always telling Laura the instructions don’t have to be followed exactly as they’re written Which makes no fucking sense to Laura but ‘okay, you’re the chef’ Cody’s always telling Laura to watch her language They rarely fight, but when they do, it’s INTENSE and always ends in tears

-

Uhh that was it? I hope I did that right lmao

In all honesty I don’t know who hasn’t done it yet? But I’m supposed to tag as many people as Sides I created so I hope you guys haven’t done it yet so I don’t look like even more of a fool:

@momfriendlogan, @make-it-more-gay, @fearinghope, @ace-anxiety-sanders

I feel silly for only doing this now but??? It’s still a good tag??

[rain-jay]

Today I want to talk about something of great importance to me and that is sexuality. No, I'm not talking about what sex you would rather screw or whether you prefer not to at all but rather when you feel you are ready to bump uglies. Now this has a lot to do with America and how Americans think and how it bleeds into the minds of people where I live and its frankly annoying as I am constantly told to abide by /American/ law when I don't even live in America. I am first of all going to talk about sex-ed. Since I was 11 (yes that young) I have been taught about puberty, STDs, protection, condoms, relationships, periods, bra sizes, hygiene etc. I'm still getting it shoved down my throat to this day, its not a bad thing that we are constantly taught how to have safe sex and from a young age as well. We were NOT taught not to have sex we were taught that having sex is fine as long as you use protection and are in a safe environment and that you both trust each other and consent. As long as you are comfortable and safe it is fine. Remember that, it is important and is what my schooling has taught me. Now, I will never have sex with a man for I like women so the only thing I need to worry about is whether or not my partner has STDs which I would make sure she is tested for the same with myself before we engaged in any sexual activity. I am mature enough to know that and 2 years ago I would have still been able to relay that information. 2 years ago however I can say that I would not have been ready to have sex as I just didn't feel like I was emotionally ready and that is okay but some people in my year group were and that is also okay because its just how they feel. Now I can say that everyone I know who is around about my age has not had sex irresponsibly, condoms are free from your doctor as well as sexual clinics and are also the same price as women's sanitary products which are about £1.50 from out of a shop. When my sister, who is 27, was at school there was always about 6 girls in her year that were pregnant all at once and at a young age and ultimately ended up not completing their education. I do not agree with 14-15 year olds getting pregnant. If they manage to raise their child and have a good life that they enjoy then I applaud them and they should be congratulated because that must be extremely difficult to do. I don't agree with it because the risk of not have a fulfilling life is far too great. I actually don't believe anyone should make the final decision to have children under the age of 24 because at that age the decision making part of the brain has fully developed and people are likely to make more sensible decisions and are less likely to fuck things up and usually people are on the right track about then. You might disagree and say 'that is far too high' or 'an age limit shouldn't be put on when people are deciding to have children that is wrong blah, blah, blah' but actually I have not said that people cannot have sex until they are 24 but rather they shouldn't have unprotected sex or make such life changing decisions until then, I think if there should be an age limit for anything of that nature, 24 should be the minimum age simply because it makes more sense and is backed up by a fact just as I believe that laws should be based off of fact. The 18 age limit is actually highly influenced by religious beliefs and not by anything factual which is outdated now. However, I also believe that giving young people more freedoms and responsibilities makes them into more respectful and responsible adults even before 24, when that part of the brain has fully developed, and that lowering age limits is also a good thing as it teaches young people gradually how to handle responsibilities rather than dumping them all on them on the day of their 18th birthday the same as they should be able to explore their sexualities and sex in general whenever they feel the time is right or when they develop a libido and a curiosity for it, I think it should be encouraged rather than people going 'no you're not 18! You're just a baby! You're too young! You can't say that! You can't do that! Too young! Too young!' Well no, they're not because when they have became interested in that aspect of being a human being and want to learn more about it and explore it then they are no longer too young but are the perfect age to start slowly learning what all of this new stuff is and how to deal with it and how to navigate it smartly. Frankly, the 18+ age limit for any sexual content does not make any sense this also proves that the '18+ stigma' is fucking ridiculous and if anything should have an age limit, the limit should be 24 not 18. 18 year olds are no more smarter than 16 year olds, you can barely tell them apart and some 18 year olds are still stupider than some 14-15 year olds I know. The 18+ age limit is an absolute joke and shouldn't be a thing in this day and age. I do not think that a law should tell someone when they are ready for sex. There should definitely be a law put in place to prevent child predators but when someone is smart enough to make their own decisions then I don't think a law should tell them whether or not they are too young to think for and express themselves. I hope I am making sense with all of this because I have no clue if I am. I think people should be able to have sex and explore their sexualities and be able to watch porn and be interested in learning more about sex and sexuality as they go through their teen years as there is no shame in it. I think that is far healthier than telling them that they can't do anything until a certain age. My general age group have had a different education than previous generations and they started drilling 'safe sex' into our heads as soon as puberty started and girls started getting boobs and their periods and guys started getting hair everywhere. My general age group take good care of themselves and are more responsible than what my sister's age group was 10 years ago which shows what impact sex education and sexual liberty can have. This whole 'you must be 18 for everything', 'sex before marriage is bad and will ruin your life and you will be a whore' has very negative effects and teaches young people exactly nothing. People will have sex and watch porn before they are 18 and there is nothing you can do about it, you don't automatically go through years of puberty on the day of your 18th birthday. You don't automatically develop critical thinking and become 120% smarter all in 1 day. People get horny and curious and do not have to be 18 to do so. They should not be discouraged for exploring their sexuality and their desire to have sex just because they're 'not old enough' as it is just a part of being a human and going through those stages of growth in your life. Many people are ready before they are 18 and some are still not ready when they are as old as 25 and that is okay. Its when they are ready not when everyone else decides that they are. And this is where I come to my issue. Why is it that anyone who lives in my country is considered an adult at 16. They can move out, start driving lessons, have a baby, have sex, get married and yes watch porn but if they so much as look at a nsfw blog on Tumblr they're suddenly offending loads of people. Why can one do all of that but not look at a drawing of Jasper in lingerie or talk about sex toys, kinks and just generally exploring their sexuality? Does that sound stupid? Good, because it is. I have even had people tell me that if I'm under 18 or 21 even, I'm not allowed to swear. I'm Scottish mate, I've cursed like a sailor since I was like 12 don't get me started, there is no such thing as a Scottish person in the working class not having a mouth on them. Its so ridiculous and its mostly Americans that do it and it really fucks me off. Don't force me or anyone else in my country to comply to /your/ rules, since when was I American? Since when did I or anyone else outside of America have to abide by your backwards laws? It doesn't help that it constantly switches between 18 and 21 make up your fucking minds you utter weapons. This happens more than one would think. The amount of blogs that are sex positive but will spit like a cobra if you dare join in a discussion and are under 18. Suddenly you are af etus who doesn't know anything and suddenly sex is a taboo thing that shouldn't be talked about. Mate, your being a hypocrite and are just as bad as the conservatives that run your country. You can't claim to be sex positive and not let 'minors' join in on discussions and ask questions, you are being the exact opposite of who you say you are. When you say you are sex positive then enclude everyone you trolop. I don't actually tell people my age as it is frankly none of their fucking business, right now you don't know how old I am. All I will ever tell you is 'old enough for university' or 'I am a student' and that should be enough. Asking for someone's age is just as ridiculous as asking for my shoe size or hair colour, its none of your business that's what it is just give me my Yellow Diamond porn nosey. I'm old enough to think critically and have an intelligent conversation and that is all that should matter not whether or not I am at the magical number that is 18 or not. Now I know it is guaranteed that some people will make the argument that these blogs could get into trouble for having minors that follow them and for that I say 1) not everyone is American 2) there is no way to prove it and if you do have their personal information then you have broken a more serious law and 3) your authorities don't fucking care. Do you honestly think that the authorities care about that? If you do then you're a fucking mongoloid. When the government watch what you are doing on the internet they are generally looking for terrorists or people who want to kill other people and psychopaths they don't care about some 16-17 year old wanking off to a fanfiction or watching porn hub or looking at Tracer's arse in her hot pants, they honestly don't look at it. There is so much traffic with the internet that they don't bat an eyelash at it as it is doing no harm and it is not what they are looking for, it is not in their database of 'what to check'. It does not have the keywords 'bomb' and 'kill' or have violent slurrs in it, its just some 16 year old lonely nerd using the internet to their advantage, they don't give a fuck, its not their job to give a fuck. And that is where I end this post. My name is Rain, this was my rant and I hope you hated it. Its 1am and I need my bed.

[softly-speaking-valkyrie]

Want To Know What Bad Mental Health Looks Like For Bisexual People?

You wanna know what it is to live with people who don’t see your sexuality as real?

You wanna know what it is to live with people who think you settled for being ‘straight’ when you date someone who looks the opposite gender?

You wanna know what how bad it is when those people are your parents?

Alright then, buckeroo, I’ll fucking tell ya. And when I’m finished, and you’ve read this, don’t ever fucking think that bisexual people don’t suffer another layer of discrimination and ridiculous trauma that the other queers don’t have to suffer. 

I’m a pre-transition transgender woman who is bisexual (has known for 6 years) and is currently dating a pre-op transgender man. 

So to the outside uninformed world, I look like a dude just dating his girlfriend. And in case you need clarification, I’m not.

In the summer of 2017 after splitting up with my previous ex-girlfriend and following the worst argument with my drunken mother and father (back when they both used to drink) I came out to both of them as a bisexual, after confiding in both my grandparents who were incredibly more accepting than both of them combined. 

My parents were both, and still are both, typical conservative and right-wing thinking people who make homophobic remarks at times, don’t really ‘agree’ with people being transgender and transitioning, and have never been accepting of queer people in general. Yes, I still told them, still came out and tried to explain everything. They’re the kind of people who would say they can’t be homophobic because their friend is gay. But nevertheless, I told them I was bisexual.

Immediately my mother announced her views that bisexuality was not a thing at all, that I was going through a phase of thinking I still liked girls and that I was secretly gay and would eventually come out as gay (remember, they don’t know I’m trans, and I can never tell them following this) and date men exclusively. I told them I had slept with a man before getting with my ex (at the time) and that I still liked men equivalently to women. My mum still was not having anything of what I was saying. It was still a phase, or I was confused, or the typical bullshit ignorant fuckery parents and assholes spout because they’re too fucking stupid to listen to the people who are talking about it. No, she was right and I was wrong. Soon, I’d realise I was straight and it was a phase, or I would realise it was gay. 

The next thing she said was that no matter what I shouldn’t be telling anyone else about it, because it would then spread around the whole area we live in and everyone would be talking about them and how they had a gay son. 

Yeah, you read that right. My mum was purely, exclusively and only concerned with how this was going to affect her and her precious family dynamic. On that note of ‘family’ - my Dad had cheated on her sloppily and she forgave him and took him back, they’re raising my currently 7-year-old brother to be just like they are, they hate everyone around the area, don’t go out and neither currently speak to either of their parents. So, y’know *Vin Deisel’s voice* ‘Family’.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what my Dad thought on the subject of my being bisexual, he didn’t have an opinion. And given that he spends all day working or playing stupid mobile games that aren’t Pokemon GO, had cheated on my Mum when said brother was only 3, and is an all-around baby boomer ape, I saw that as a positive. 

But I digress. 

Skip forward to this time last year, late June of 2018, and I reconnected with an old friend who is my current partner (the transman I mentioned at the beginning), and we fairly quickly got together. My mum was really happy, like really happy, because she’d seen my previous two exes and how fucking maniacal and psychotic they both were and deemed this new ‘girlfriend’ as a good influence on me. We hadn’t really talked about me being bisexual at all in the year that had passed, and I’d never brought a man home because of course I fucking couldn’t, but I’d just been the same me as always. So when I brought ‘her’ home, my mum must have... you guessed it - “Oh yes! He’s straight!” Because remember, adults know fucking everything and if you haven’t brought a member of the same sex home to meet the family even though they don’t want you to, then goddamn it, you’re as straight as a ruler buckeroo. 

So now we’ll skip ahead to say this year, 2019, and I’ve been slowly trying to influence the family into being more accepting of other people, other cultures, and other identities. I’m being a little harsh about it because, I’m a sarcastic fuck and cannot stand ignorance, which is really ironic when both parents think I’m ignorant myself. They really like that word ‘ignorant’, which makes this cautionary tale down-right Oscar worthy. Anyway; I have a rainbow flag in my room at this point, which my Mum also put away/tried to hide from me at one point. Not only that but I have a bisexual flag pin, a rainbow flag Valkyrie pin, and a rainbow Royal Post Box pin all on my leather jacket (because being futch is beautiful) and as well as that I have rainbow suspenders. It’s pretty obvious as well from my room and all that I do, that I’m a feminist and I really really really love and cherish women. I’ve dropped hints about queer culture as well over that year gap, but my Mum is starting to get really annoyed at how ‘progressive’ I’m being around the house. She’s taking offence to how much I’m championing women’s rights, queer’s rights and people of colour’s rights, especially when we both watch The View and talk about all the horrible injustices happening in America and around the world on marginalised people. 

Then, she starts to watch Gentleman Jack (and I’m actually embarrassed to say she’s watched it all and I haven’t even started because I’ve been writing my book lately), which really fucking surprised me given at how sapphic it is. 

And then we get to today’s football match of the Women’s World Cup. England vs Cameroon and I had watched most of the game at work but got home as the second half came to a close. And here’s where you’ll find out just who my mother is. 

Mother: Look at the ref, he can’t even keep them under control! Me: Mum, she’s a woman. You can’t have a male referee in a women’s football game. Mother: What? Look at it! It’s got no tits, it’s a man! Me: Have you seen what a sports bra is? Mum, you can’t have a male ref for a women’s game! It wouldn’t be right! Mother: Well the managers are men! Seriously, look at it! Look at it! It’s a man! Its got no tits and look at its face! It’s a man!

A small loud-voiced debate ensues because my little brother starts copying my Mum and claims the referee is a man or a male. I keep saying she’s a woman, because not only is she that just by looking at her, the goddamn announcers said she was. Moreover, I was just trying to correct my Mum from using ‘it’ as a way to describe a person. I even told her outright you shouldn’t use ‘it’ when talking about a person or someone you don’t know. 

Having none of it, my mother kicked off louder than a steam engine at me. After about a minute of me and Dad talking about how good the match was to watch and how Women’s Football is amazing to see, my Mum starts to hurl abuse at me and points the finger, even so far as I was fearful to get beaten. And I have been before, even at 22. But this is not me saying I get routinely beaten, nor am I saying that my experiences are the worst kind and that I suffer more than any other queer. That is not what I’m saying nor insinuating. I’m only telling you what I get and why other queers might not get this verbal and emotional abuse for the same reasons, and here’s why. 

Mother: I am sick of you fucking having a go at me for all the gay shit! You’re not the only one who supports the gays! You’re not the only one! No one is allowed to have an opinion around you are they! Not when it comes to this gay shit are they? Fuck off! You’re horrible! You’re a horrible little fucker just because you support the gays! Well you’re not the only one! You think you fucking know me! Yeah well you don’t know me as well as you fucking think you do!

For the record, once again. I came out in 2017 as bisexual, and my Mum thought it was a phase and that I was confused. 

And some more disclaimers - this isn’t the only case of this shit, and there’s worse that I don’t want to put in here. I’m only writing this because it literally just happened. But this is why queers of other sexualities might not get this. Ace people and pan people would get this too, and we can all attest to the fucking fury and hurt it instills. 

Even after coming out, I’m still considered straight. 

EVEN AFTER COMING OUT, I’M STILL CONSIDERED TO BE STRAIGHT.

And not only that, I’m fucking punished for not acting straight. Even after coming out, and affirming for two years that I’m not, I’m still considered straight and punished and seen as lesser for not acting it. What the fuck?

And yeah, I realise now just how stupid it is writing this, but adults are fucking horrible and this is what it’s like. 

I actually wish these people were not my parents and were just dead. It would be easier. Or maybe if I was just dead it would be easier for the world as a whole? Can’t even tell anymore. 

Who cares? No one cares. Sorry for making this. But this is what shitty mental health looks like. 

I fucking hate this world.