#it was a post i saw ages ago one of those random things that comes back to irritate you

[playingonedchess]

characters: lets live together

people on tumblr: this of course means theyre canonically having sex, no what are you talking about i dont do headcanons my blog is all stuff based on canon

[l223m0nade]

Bees (a stucky au snzfic)

ok

ok ok

so I saw this random thing on a tumblr post:

and it got its Stucky-idea hooks so deep in my brain. It just did. And the thing is my deepest inspo is honestly in the land of snz. (This fic kind of ends abruptly sorry but i want to do more and it'll probably end up on Ao3 w like a M or E rating 😳🫣 when and if that happens i'll link to it)

Stucky au, no powers, age gap, what I'm picturing in my head goes less with the words "silver fox Steve" and more with the words "dorky Dilf Steve" like 2012 Cap fashion with current Chris Evans face? in..a good way? and longhair early-20s burnout Bucky. I have some backstory headcanons that are just hinted at here, hopefully it's tantalizing rather than confusing.

anyway have 11.5k words of this and encourage me to write more bc i have fallen in love with these particular boyz. Some light existential angst but mainly idiots pining aka the sweetest sauce

~Fic~

Sam isn’t sure how much longer he can allow this to go on. His barback and the new semi-regular square dude are once again being all awkwardly flirty while pretending they’re not, like two sad lonely white...ducks, who never learned a mating dance and have zero game.

At least Square Dude has an excuse: he’s the most obvious newly-divorced newly-out family-type guy Sam’s ever seen. He’s clean-cut, with a ridiculously handsome square jaw, wearing well-made but unstylish button-down shirts and pants that make him look like he belongs in a Norman Rockwell painting. He started coming in about two months ago, quiet, friendly when ordering his one or two beers of the evening, and firmly shy when it comes to the inevitable overtures sent his way. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is him dipping a first toe into the pool: coming to a relatively quiet gay bar, just to sit and watch men talk to each other and let the whole notion sink in.

By now most guys would’ve found someone to spread their wings with or gone elsewhere to find em, but Square Dude, whose name is Steve, seems content to talk to the guy who pours his beer about whatever DIY project Bucky is pulling questions out of his ass about.

The crush is painfully obvious, and suburban closeted Steve can’t be blamed for having no deal-sealing abilities, but Bucky has no such excuse. Sam has watched him pull stiff-backed business bros in five minutes flat when the mood struck him, with his big blue puppy eyes and his dark wicked smirk and long lean slouch. But with Steve all he appears capable of doing is asking him questions about crown molding as though those words mean anything to him while gazing at him like he’s beaming the words You could fix me directly into Steve’s skull. Steve, for his part, just doesn’t seem to be able to look anywhere other than Bucky.

As usual, anyone that tries to strike anything beyond a friendly conversation is kindly but firmly rebuffed. “He’s not ready for that yet,” Bucky had insisted with unnecessary defensiveness when Sam implied it was time for the new guy to move from spectating to participating in the relatively mellow flirting and hookup scene the bar played host to most evenings. “People go at their own pace.”

“The only pace he’s going at is towards you,” Sam smirked. Bucky glowered at his implication. “You gotta make it weird. He comes here to, like, practice. I’m part of that, in a chill, friendly way.” He shrugged and looked at the glass he was drying. “When he is ready, it’s not gonna be for me, it’s gonna be for someone actually in his league, like a...hot college professor, or something.” Sam had rolled his eyes and resolved to stop trying to help Bucky Barnes flail around in his mess of a love life anymore, for the hundredth or so time.

Tonight is busy enough that Sam can mostly be distracted from this bad sitcom, and not so busy that he has to yell at Barnes for being distracted. Still, there are a couple empties on tables in the Steve-less side of the bar, and after finishing the drinks for the people in front of him he turns, catching Bucky’s voice, in a tone of delight he uses when speaking with only one person, saying “Wait. Seriously? Bees?”

“Yeah!” Steve responds, equally puppyish. He’s tall and broad, sandy hair and beard just beginning to show a hint of salt-and-pepper. He looks like anyone’s fantasy fireman or lumberjack, at least in the context of a place like this. He also exudes genuine sweetness and vulnerability despite his intimidating muscled height.

Bucky Barnes, Sam’s barback and old friend, leans against the bar doing the helpless-goober-with-a-crush stare, a look on his face like Steve just announced he was a Nobel Prize winner. “No way. How do you keep bees? Just as, what, a casual hobby? That’s, like, a whole thing, you can’t be an expert in so many things!”

Bucky is all shaggy longish dark hair and stupid cheap graphic t-shirts, with a striking, animated face that is used mainly for sarcasm. He and Sam had been at the same high school a few blocks away, though Sam is older, and in the funny way of life they’ve wound up good friends. He’s working at Sam’s place because, in his words, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing with his life. Bucky’s going through his own version of one of those fairly bleak lost periods of 20-something misery, but he’s smart and not a drunk and decent at what he does for Sam, and if he bangs a third of the customers he does it discreetly enough. Sam never knew dark-blond, broad-shouldered, bass-voice sad-eyed dudes pushing 40 were the kryptonite that made him unable to do anything including flirt, until Steve came in one day and Bucky sprayed himself with the keg he was tapping.

Steve chuckles— is this man blushing? “Oh no, I’m nowhere near an expert. But it’s pretty easy once they get established. Don’t need much from you. I’m not, uh, living at the place with the backyard where the hives are, right now….so….but they’ll be fine without me.”

Steve gets a little quiet and Bucky’s fangirl expression dims with distressed sympathy. It gets sad like this sometimes when talking to Steve. Recently divorced guys had this problem, where everything came back to the one topic. Steve’s not doing it pathologically, didn’t seem like, just genuinely realizing another change. Bucky looks stricken. He doesn’t always seem young, at newly 24, but sometimes it still shows.

Sam finally manages to catch his eye away from gazing at Steve to convey a quick head jerk of get-the-hell-over-there-and-do-the-job-I-pay-you-for, and Bucky peels himself away with an apologetic smile at Steve. Sam picks up the conversation with Steve as Bucky clears tables at top speed, hearing how he’s renting a place month-to-month not far away, not able to plan something more permanent just yet. He doesn’t say anything revealing, but it’s still easy to paint a picture of a small, empty apartment. Bucky’s not the only one with a soft spot for this guy, and Sam is warmed by the thought that his little bar offers him respite.

………………..

“That’s so sad,” moans Bucky a few days later. It’s just after opening on a weekday afternoon, and Bucky seemed quieter than usual so Sam is tantalizing him with what he learned talking to Steve the other day. “Did he say—you know he has kids?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam answers. He’d been as offhand as a person could be about that sort of thing, but it wasn’t hard to see how he really felt. He was standing in the rubble of a sincere loving marriage to a woman with whom he had two 11-year old twins. Helped explain his rectitude when it came from moving from his spot at the bar, meeting someone other than the staff. Bucky’s eyes are pools of sympathetic anguish and Sam feels the need to say, “This kinda stuff happens to people, Buck,” earning an eye-roll for his patronizing efforts. “It’s good he’s coming here, learning about himself. I think you help a lot, for the record.”

Bucky starts and gives him a bewildered look. “What?”

This is aging him. Sam sighs, “He’s lonely. Maybe feels kinda lost right now.”

Bucky’s mouth gets a pained downward slant to it.

“He. Likes. You.”

At that, of course, Bucky gets uncomfortable, blushing and moving off to wipe tables somewhere away from Sam, rubbing his nose and clearing his throat like he’s been doing since he got there. He brightens when Steve comes in an hour later, and Sam rolls his eyes and leaves them to their game of mouse-and-mouse.

Steve is telling Bucky... how window insulation works. He thinks he asked, he hopes to god he did, at least. He’s been embarrassing himself for weeks, coming to this place almost every day. He’s kept it pretty well under wraps that although he liked the neighborhood simplicity, and talking to Sam, and got comfortable after the first few visits, the real reason he’s there more evenings than not is to see Bucky. With his bright grey-blue eyes and dark hair hanging past his chin, swinging against his cheekbones, with his smile and wicked sense of humor and his confounding ease in himself, the ease that gives Steve despair and hope for himself. With that mouth and that divot in his chin, and those last two thoughts are not allowed, because the need to put his thumb into that dot in his sculpted chin and kiss those ridiculously pink lips is urgent and unthinkable.

He doesn’t do that, he just sits and pines and chats awkwardly with him, and gets to know a few other regular guys and talks sports with Sam. He just likes talking to Bucky, it’s easy, easy like nothing has been in a long time, and he’s a creep, he’s a pathetic older guy using his experience to take advantage of a younger guy—

Only, he’s not actually experienced here, at all. And Bucky is so smart, he’s self-deprecating about it but it’s not like he and Steve aren’t generally on the same level beyond his inner glossary of home improvement terminology. He downplays the fact that he knows cars like an expert, insists the stuff Steve learned from keeping up an old house and the hobbies he picked up to stay sane is somehow far more impressive— Steve’s pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose, to make him feel less adrift and clueless. He has that way about him, of someone who looks after other people without realizing it.

Things were all dark there for a while, with the end of his marriage to Peggy. But he’s pretty sure he and Bucky are friends, and he feels bright when he sees him.

Tonight, though, Bucky seems just a little worn down. He’s wearing a waffle-knit shirt under his incomprehensible-thorny-calligraphy-t-shirt, as though he’s cold, and his eyes are tired. Steve waits for a reply to the last thing he said and looks to see Bucky with a dazed, spaced-out expression, before he shakes his head and rubs his nose, saying “Sorry, I thought I was gonna sneeze, what’d you say?”

Talking about the goddamn weather and window insulation was segueing into a real conversation, to Steve’s delight: “How my mom moved us out to Jersey so we could live somewhere better and I never forgave her.” Bucky gives a wide-eyed grimace of agreement and he can’t help the bright laugh that bursts out of him. “How about you, you grow up in the city?” He’d inadvertently spilled his guts about the divorce on like his third time in the bar, something that humiliated him to think of but Sam had simply said with an understanding face wasn’t too unusual, so Bucky knew the basics about Peggy and the twins, but Steve had felt clumsy asking Bucky about himself.

He rolled his eyes with his problematically attractive crooked grin and answered, “Aw man, I grew up practically around the block from this place. Went to high school at the big catholic cinderblock in the neighborhood. I was at school on the west coast for a couple years, but…” His eyes cast downward. “now I’m back.”

Steve remembers how bad it felt at that age, to not have accomplished enough fast enough. Saying that will make him sound like an old grey dad and even if that’s what he is he can still hold out a little hope of being something different here, so he just says, “Brooklyn’s a good hometown to come back to.”

That makes Bucky smile at him and look him in the eye, like he liked what Steve said, even like it made him feel better. Steve tamps his answering grin down to reasonable levels.

Bucky’s also been rubbing at his nose on and off this whole time, and he can see it give a little twitch right before he breathes out a “scuse-me” through hitching breaths, his eyes flickering closed. He pushes his nose firmly into his long-sleeved elbow. “hhh-hh-tdschuh!” He sneezes quietly and muffled. “Oh, snf, sorry,” he says, blinking and emerging from his elbow but not lowering it, the hazy ticklish look still on his face, breaths hitching. “Another—hhh—‘nother one?” He freezes, looking up at the overhead lights, nostrils flared, but after a second he deflates with a sigh. “Nope, nevermind. Snff.” Steve’s guts swoop. This crush is so unsustainable. He’s gonna fail to be cool and friendly and he’ll have to watch Bucky go all uncomfortable and pitying as he explains to Steve that he has six hot boyfriends who are not almost-forty almost-virgin losers who only know how to take up his time when he’s trying to work. According to his therapist these “harangues of negativity” are “unhelpful.” But Bucky looks tired and a little pale and like his nose is going to start turning pink and Steve is just trying to survive.

“Bless you,” Steve says softly in his gentle voice that’s so deep it takes Bucky by surprise and makes his stomach flutter every time he talks to him. He feels like he might be blushing.

“Thanks,” it comes out husky and he clears his throat hard, moving to the little sink to wash his hands.

“Allergies, or…?” Steve ventures, a little divot between his eyebrows of concern-more-like-pity.

“I dunno, something’s bothering my nose today,” he says lightly with a shrug. In truth Bucky has a good idea what’s making him sneeze. The fucking radiator that was supposed to heat his cheap shitty basement apartment had stopped working in the middle of the night, so he’d spent six hours until dawn shivering, and an itchy tickly feeling had been growing in the back of his nose and throat since around noon. It’s starting to evolve into a runny nose and an ever-present but elusive feeling of being about to sneeze, and he knows that means he’s coming down with a cold.

He sees some convenient glasses to clear and excuses himself with a smile so he can sniffle out of Steve’s earshot; he’s enough of a mess compared to Steve on his best day, he doesn’t need to show off his scraggly urchin runny nose aesthetic of tonight any more than he has to.

For the next hour, these light, tickly sneezes either sneak up on him or abandon him at the last minute, leaving his nose feeling like it’s going to start getting stuffy.

Steve watches Bucky do his job, sniffling, rubbing his nose, and sneezing furtively into his sleeve or collar; tucking the strands of hair that have come loose from his short ponytail behind his ears, and feels so helplessly tender for him that it can’t be normal or healthy even by desperate crush standards.

Bucky’s coming down with a cold. He seems to want to brush it off, but Steve can hear a slight change in the resonance of his voice that gives it away even if the tired pink starting to border his eyes and nostrils doesn’t. The place is getting crowded and he’s busy; Steve feels for him, as well as pathetically jealous of his attention as he banters with him in passing once in a while.

He glances up as Bucky heads in his direction with a short stack of empty glasses and sees his steps slow; he pauses, blinks up at the overhead light, eyes hazy, and then, wavering, starts to turn his face into his shoulder, before pausing again and then sighing and sniffing as the sneeze evaporates. He looks up and sees Steve watching him like a creep and laughs, “Damn, lost her,” and then as he continues behind the bar, “You havin’ fun watching me look stupid?”

“It’s agony actually,” he responds, gets a laugh, and feels the now-somewhat-familiar internal squeal of this is flirting! I’m flirting with a guy and I think he can tell! It’s painfully pathetic, but he can’t help but track the fact that Bucky knows plenty of the folks that come to Sam’s, that he’ll give anyone his attention if they ask for it, smiling and joking, but the only person he really goes out of his way to talk to, initiates teasing with, is him, Steve. It’s still nothing more than polite obligatory chatting, he’s sure— when you work at a bar this kinda thing is natural. Bucky is young and charismatic and gorgeous. His love life would probably give Steve enough combined envy and jealousy to cause heart failure, which would be perfectly appropriate because he is an old square divorcee. It makes him warm and bubbly enough that he seems to be Bucky’s favorite customer to pass the time with.

A guy down the bar gets his beer from Sam and sidles closer. “This seat taken?” he asks with a good-humored cocked eyebrow. This is why Steve actually started coming to this place: to meet people, to meet guys, in a way that, well, went somewhere. To call his own decades-old bluff. Not to moon over staff half his age who woulda been out of his league even if he was still in his twenties. He turns to the guy—his age or a few years older, attractively lithe with muscle, a hard but handsome face, and smiles.

Bucky gets busy for a stretch— Sam’s place is actually full tonight thanks to the playoff game. He enjoys the feeling of being a genuinely necessary part of the bar’s operation, when some nights it’s hard to believe he’s more than Sam’s charity case. Nights like this remind him that he has a real job, he’s decent at it even with a bum left arm; whether he’s living out his dreams or not he’s an adult with a job, a place to live, and people he cares about. Plus it distracts him from feeling sorry for himself for coming down sick.

His satisfied feelings fade when he looks over to the Steve end of the bar and sees Brock Rumlow talking to him. He scowls. Fucking Rumlow. He only ever comes on nights with games these days, but Bucky would be perfectly happy if he never came in at all.

It’s fine. Steve’s fine. He is a grown-up, significantly more of one than Bucky. Of all the people who have no need of his misplaced ineffectual chivalry, Steve has got to be last in line.

Maybe he finds more stuff to do in the general area of that end of the bar, and maybe he’s listening for Rumlow to say something dickish, or maybe he’s just a masochist and he wants to know firsthand if they hit it off. Sam is trying to point his “Don’t-be-Stupid” face at him like a flashlight beam but he resolutely ignores it while he replaces a couple bottles that legitimately needed it, ok, just because they’re in a convenient place doesn’t make that untrue.

“Yeah, I’m glad I found this place,” he catches Steve’s cheerful voice. A wave of bar noise obscures their next words, and then he makes out Rumlow,

“—actual sports on the TV. ‘Course,” the smile is audible in his voice, “the clubby places are good for at least one reason, y’know?” He quiets down to say it but not enough. Steve wouldn’t particularly like that, Bucky guesses, and then grinds his teeth as his brain helpfully supplies him with the memories of how easily Brock had charmed him, months ago. It wasn’t any kind of nightmare, but it was still probably his least favorite hookup to date: he’d been so happily focused on Bucky at first, then rough and selfish in bed, capped off by an unnecessarily clear implication that he wouldn’t be calling. Bucky knew the score with casual sex, but it had still given him enough whiplash to sting; it crossed his mind a few days later that it had been like Rumlow wanted him to feel like a dumb kid.

Steve has sputtered something about “not sure he’s looking for anything like that” while Bucky fumed about the past. He has to grab beers for a couple guys, and bending to get in the lowboy fridge makes his nose run suddenly, and flush with an insistent tickle. He manages, just barely, to squash the sneeze completely into a silent mmp! into his shoulder, andmakes a getaway to the bathroom. He blows his nose, but it won’t stop tickling, so then he stands there like an idiot, holding paper towels like they’re a book he’s reading, staring up into the lights and waiting to coax the sneeze out.

He can feel it coming but it still takes forever. At least the bathroom is empty. He wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly and sniffs and his breath finally starts to catch.

“hehh...heh...heh—heh-Uhh....huhh. Fuck.” There’s no way it’s not happening though, his goddamn nose tickles so bad— “hhHAh—EHSsschhooo!” It’s a ridiculous cartoony sneeze but at least it’s satisfying. He blows his nose again, then sighs. He’s definitely sick. Gonna be great sleeping in a freezing apartment. Turning into kind of a shitty night, he thinks with sarcastic pep.

When he leaves the restroom he can’t help glancing over to where Steve sits, and sees he’s now frowning at whatever Rumlow’s saying, looking politely uncomfortable on the way to annoyed. As he drifts back into earshot he hears, “….fun, but, if you’re looking for more than, um, casual, I dunno, kind of a dead end.” Then his pulse jumps as Rumlow looks right at him and finishes, “not dating material, trust me. Either way,” he leans in, “I think you can do better.”

Bucky closes the distance but puts himself behind the bar so he doesn’t immediately clock the asshole. His fists are clenched. Can he throw him out? If he doesn’t get away from Steve and shut up Bucky’s gonna end up fired and charged with assault, probably, but he doesn’t know if he can throw someone out on the grounds of being a jerk that he hates. Thank God, Sam’s caught on that something is up.

Rumlow doesn’t seem to have won Steve over, in any case. He’s turned cold and hard in a way that makes him look unfamiliar, and he says quietly but very clearly, “I think you’ve got the wrong idea.” He sounds like a straight Army Captain contemptuously shattering an underling’s heart immediately post-office-suckjob or something; in the morass of anger and panic it still registers with Bucky’s dick to his utter bewilderment. It definitely triggers some core memory for Rumlow, who turns the color of old milk before flushing and standing. He takes in the sight of Bucky glowering behind Steve and barks an ugly laugh. “It’s like that, huh?” he asks, shaking his head in mock pity. “Good luck with that rescue mission.”

Bucky feels like he did when Hank Ackerman pantsed him in 8th grade. Everything’s too bright and clear. He wants to cover his face and run into the back, but he’s rooted to the spot by the thought that that’s just what the dumb baby slut Rumlow’s been making him out to be would do.

“That’s it man,” Sam comes up beside him, smile on his face as though he’s just casually joining their conversation. “You’re done. Get outta here.”

Rumlow scoffs, takes a step towards the door, then turns with the beginning of a macho intimidation-lean in Sam’s direction. He’s hammered, Bucky hadn’t realized, and he can usually tell with people. He’s...kind of fucking scary. Had he gotten rougher around the edges, or had he been like this when Bucky went home with him? Jesus Christ.

Sam just returns his stare, all semblance of friendliness gone from his face. “Get out.”

Rumlow glares another second, but then he goes. There’s a reason Sam’s successful running a bar in the middle of the still-managing-to-be-seedy part of Brooklyn, as well as his finely tuned sensibilities to the unmet needs of Brooklyn’s grownup queer folks. He has the air, recognizable to serious troublemakers, of someone who will absolutely meet and raise any escalation. There were, in fact, a taser and a gun behind the bar, but Sam had never had to use them.

Steve stands up sharply, like he’s—what, gonna follow? Bucky opens his mouth to protest, but then—“Steve.” Sam’s got the side bar entry folded up and he’s intercepting his angry stride. “Please don’t.” He goes on, too quiet for Bucky to make out. Steve deflates and sits back down, taking a long drink of beer and then frowning at his knees.

Bucky consciously lets go of his tension as he sees Rumlow’s silhouette, walking outside, disappear from the last window on the right. He feels shaky, the way any kind of confrontation leaves him, and embarrassed as hell. He avoids Steve’s eyes for all he’s worth, scrubbing a hand under his nose and sniffing sharply.

Steve was just a customer. Bucky was just one of many people that Steve made polite conversation with in the course of a day. Feeling like this was just a consequence of getting that confused. Because he’s an idiot. He has to sniffle again. He also feels about ten times sicker than he did a few minutes ago, and successfully blinking away the brief prickle in his eyes just turns it into the need to sneeze.

Steve tries to breathe smoothly and calm down. This frat-boy rage is ridiculous, he still wants to go punch the hell out of that fucking creep. He must be drunker than he realizes, although deep down he knows it has more to do with the inarticulate surge of protectiveness he’d felt for Bucky since the guy had gestured to him with a jerk of his head as he crossed the room.

He hears a shuddering gasp and sees Bucky duck down to crouch behind the bar. His concern flares way up, but then he hears the three muffled sneezes, all in a rush, “hhhMPtchsh—hmptsschoo—hptsshhuh,”. He straightens back up, sniffing hard, more wetly than he sounded earlier. He’s rubbing his nose and glaring at the door, not looking at Steve.

“Bucky,” he says, frowning, determined to get this across, “what that asshole said about you—”

“Steve, snff, it’s fine, just drop it, okay, I’m asking you,” he meets Steve’s eyes with a downcast expression, before it flickers as his breath catches, and he sneezes again, half-pinched down into the collar of his shirt, “ihh-dtsschuh!”

His nostrils keep quivering and he lets out a shaky sigh of frustration before ducking around the corner out of sight with his hands tented over his nose and sneezing, “hiih-hih-HIDtschoo!...hih-HIH-TISchoo! ..heehh...heh—HEH—” the last one deserts him and leaves him sniffling. They’re still pretty quiet, but a lot heavier and spraying than the first sneezes Steve heard earlier. Bucky blows his nose and washes his hands thoroughly, and when he’s back behind the bar his nose is decidedly pink.

“Buck,” Steve says, and Bucky’s lips thin in exasperation— it’s not like him, compared to the guy Steve’s talked to the last few weeks. Whatever, he can’t help but say, “you do sound like you’re coming down with something, you should—”

“Steve, I’m fine,” says Bucky, in a soft tone that brooks no argument. Still tense, he turns to Steve with a crooked smile and says, “Really,” and it’s warm, if strained, between them again, and it seems like that’ll just have to satisfy Steve, and he says as much to Bucky who blushes and bites his lip for some reason.

Sam rescues Bucky by asking him to do inventory in back, letting him be sneeze and be dramatically in his feels without anyone around, especially Steve. The bar is slow enough now that he just shamelessly hides for the rest of the night. He’s constantly sniffling and sneezing and needing to blow his nose with the roll of rough brown paper towels back there, and even without that he’s too keyed up and pissed and miserable for human company, so it’s for the best.

He casts furtive recon glances to the bar where Steve sits, first craning his neck trying to spy Bucky, then brooding into his beer glass which makes Bucky feel like an asshole, then perking up at least a little shooting the shit with Sam, hopefully talking shit about Brock Dickface Rumlow. Then the misery wells up enough to get him to actually focus on work to avoid feeling it, and then it’s a few hours later and they’re closing up and he goes home to his little icebox and tires not to think about anything.

The next day, Sam chooses evil.

Steve and JB Barnes are both at least somewhat complex men, and it is always a bad idea to meddle in the affairs of others. But screw it, he’s had Bucky moaning in his ear for months now, and he was gonna have to recheck all his angry counting from last night, and these guys really seemed dumb enough to let the tension of mutual attraction strain between them until it just broke, some misunderstanding threw them both on the defensive or whatever, and they missed the chance at any of the fun part of connecting with each other.

So.

It isn’t a big surprise when Bucky calls him around 2, apologizing and pausing to make some gross “ihHgjshuhh!” noise, saying he was probably too sick with this cold to come in. What is a surprise, for poor Bucky, is Sam’s implacable response: “Duuude, I’m so sorry, but there’s some kinda convention in town and the place is packed, I need you here so bad, no matter what. You can take the next two days off, I’ll pay you.” He hears Bucky swallow back the what the hell and resignedly say ok. He feels diabolical. But hopefully it will be worth it. Steve usually comes in early on Thursdays, and he’d looked all hangdog-worried about Bucky the night before.

He’s been there twenty minutes already, chatting distractedly with Sam and staring at the TV screens but really looking all over the room like Bucky might be hiding somewhere. Bucky slouches in, ten minutes late, takes in the mostly empty room and gives Sam a betrayed glare.

“You really ndeeded mbe, huh,” he mutters as he puts his backpack away.

“You don’t even sound that bad,” Sam rejoins cheerfully, and Bucky’s mouth drops open with incredulity.

He moves some boxes around in back without issue. Then he tries to start prep by the bar. In a fifteen-minute period he has two sneezing fits that require him retreating to the bathroom to blow his nose endlessly and wash his hands. Sam decides that’s plenty sufficient. He and his customers are gonna pay a price in germ exposure for this stupid ass cupid skit he’s putting on.

“Steve, you believe this guy?” Bucky’s been avoiding Steve’s concerned hopeful looks since he got here. “He insisted on coming to work.” Bucky chokes in outrage, then coughs for real, while Steve moves a few seats closer. Sam turns; Bucky couldn’t look more betrayed if there was a knife with Sam’s name on it in his guts. Lord deliver him from dramatic white boys. “Did you take the bus here, Buck?” There was no other way for the guy to get to work, but he just replies flatly,

“Yeah.”

“You oughtta go home and rest.”

“Le me give you a ride, Buck,” Steve jumps in with the Air-Bud eagerness Sam had expected. They confirm it and bustle Barnes into a Civic while he’s sneezing too much to protest. Sam washes his hands metaphorically of the situation, and also very literally and thoroughly.

Steve’s car is a little old, and cold, and dusty. Bucky shivers as he buckles his seatbelt. He feels silently nervous and thrilled to be in Steve’s Car!!, but at the moment it’s hard to be anything but….sneezy…

“hhh-hh-hhmmPtchuh! S-s-sor-ry-hiihHIptchsh!” Holding them back when he feels like this just makes his nose more irritated and thus even sneezier. He stubbornly jams his fist under his nose to quell the tickle. He has some napkins from work, so a nose-blow is possible, but it doesn’t feel possible, not so close to Steve, who has it a million times more together than Bucky even on days when he isn’t falling apart on a cellular level.

“Bless you,” Steve says quietly. He looks at him reflexively, to see a small, sweet, sympathetic smile. “Ready?” Bucky gives a little nod and the car pulls out into the slushy road.

His nose is running onto his finger, it’s a crisis. This is why it’s always a terrible idea to leave the house when you’re really sick. “Ugh, I gotta blow mby ndose, I’mb sorry, I’mb so gross right ndow,” talking also makes his nose angry. Fucking Sam and his supervillain plan to humiliate him. What had he done to deserve this? He fumbles for the napkins with his less-dextrous left hand, the one he should have stuck under his nose, goddamnit, he’s gonna sneeze again…

“Psh, don’t worry about it,” scoffs Steve like the big huge dad he is, then with a sympathetic glance he turns the radio on, to the classic rock station, because of course, Bucky almost laughs even while racing to get tissues on his face before this giant wet sneeze overcomes him. The music is loud and it does help him feel less embarrassed.

“heh—HEH-KSSSHOOoo!” he gets the wad of napkins in front of him just in time. Blowing his nose after that demolishes them, but he feels a little closer to a human being.

“Bless you!” Steve chuckles. “Man you got a good bug, jeez!”

Why are he and Sam both so cheerful. “Thanks, I’mb glad you’re impressed,” he croaks.

“You have cold stuff at home?” Huh? When Bucky doesn’t answer he continues, “Tissues, tea, soup, medicine, you know?”

“Oh, umb, sorry, I’m tired,” Steve makes a sympathetic sound. “I usually just use toilet paper. I took the last of my Dayquil before work. I dunno if it even helped, all it feels like it did is mbake me jittery and sdeezy.”

“Why don’t we stop by a drugstore.” He sounded decisive.

“Oh, you don’t have to bother with that, really Steve—” he pauses to sniffle desperately. Technically he can afford a couple things, and he probably needs them. “Or—you could drop me off and I’ll get myself home from the store, that would totally be a big help—”

“Is the heat even on in your place?” Steve interrupts, shrewd-eyed. At Bucky’s wide-eyed sputtering response he continues, “I knew it. I used to be a broke Brooklyn kid, once upon a time. Only reason to come into work, am I right? Can’t believe landlords are still getting away with this shit.”

Bucky considers denial, then slumps. “S’why I’mb so much...hhh...worse...hh-huh-hudschuh! Snff-snff. Worse today. They said it’ll be fixed by tomorrow so...we’ll see, ha. I got a space heater and an electric kettle though, I can get in my blankets and drink tea and I’m fine.”

Steve is quiet, no response, and Bucky worries irrationally that he pissed him off. A few minutes of classic rock later, he pulls into the small parking lot attached to the drugstore, turns the car off, and turns to him, looking a little uncomfortable.

“Bucky I—” he breaks off and laughs to himself. “I know you have to be polite to customers, I don’t want to—” he makes eye contact, looking pained and rueful. “I’d like to think we’re friends. But I don’t want to put you on the spot or anything,”

“We’re friends,” Bucky interrupts gently. Steve’s face brightens like a sunrise and Bucky’s chest does a nice warm thing.

“Yeah? That’s...I’m real happy to hear it.” Steve says, sheepish but grinning. Then his eyes get the determined look that Bucky is starting to think means trouble. “Well the reason I asked is, as a friend, I really hate the idea of you trying to ride this out in an icebox apartment. I have heat. And a couch!” He hastens to add at whatever wide-eyed look Bucky’s giving him. “It’s just, I know it’s no fun being sick by yourself, and, well, honestly I wish I’d socked that asshole at the bar last night, and I really wish I’d clocked him as a jerk faster, and I’d feel a lot better if I could do something nice for you, and you really seem like you could do with some rest and medicine. Will you let me grab some stuff here and spend the night at my place—where there’s heat— and let me fuss over you?”

“Steve, that’s—that’s so nice, but I really can’t imb—snff—impose on you, and I gotta be so contagious right now…”

“I don’t care about that,” Steve says easily. “And I know you’re not gonna die on your own, but,” and, whoa, he’s deploying some kind of dignified mature version of puppy-dog eyes, it’s so sincere, and also so certain, that it starts to seem like the only sensible course of action is to let his gorgeous crush take him to his apartment while he’s the polar opposite of sexy, an unspeakable snot factory, and also possibly starting to run a fever.

….His apartment is gonna be so goddamn cold.

And lonely, incidentally.

And Steve is so nice. He’s literally, actually here, he seems to mean it that he wants to take care of Bucky’s sick bedraggled ass as some kind of friend-favor. There’s no way this is a come-on with him in this state, even if he can still muster enough energy to wish it was. No way Steve’s ever gonna want to fuck him after watching him snuffle through 200 tissues and mouth-breathe all evening, but he was nuts to think he ever would anyhow. He’s just that nice, and Bucky is that pathetic, and that might not feel great, but he wants to be Steve’s friend, he really does, and even through his own shyness he can see that the guy is pretty lonely.

“You, umb. You really don’t have to.” He says, watching Steve, who waits with obvious hopefulness. “But. Uh.” Steve raises his eyebrows and gives him a little smile, and Bucky finds himself returning it helplessly. “If you really don’t mbind. It could, potentially, be really ndice to take you up on that. You really don’t have to though!”

“I want to, though.” Jesus, he’s so sincere. Bucky feels some weird kind of protective way about the earnest honesty in his eyes.

“Well, then, okay. Thangk you, I really appreciate it.” He laughs, finally feeling how miserable it would have been to go back home and try to sleep in a cold blanket pile on his mattress on the floor. “Mby place sucks right now.”

“Alright then,” Steve beams. “Let’s get you a couple things and then get you cozy.”

Bucky’s nose is not okay with him using his face to talk instead of constantly blow it. It’s gotten completely blocked, and it’s tingling unpleasantly, and running so bad again he has to smush his knuckles under his nostrils. The tickle crests and his breath catches before he can do anything about it, but he clenches his jaw and forces it into a stifle. “hhh-huh-MMP!!” The problem with doing that is it just makes the tickle— “hh-mMP!” worse. “Ugh, sorry.” His hand is a dam against his nose at this point.

“Bless you!” They both step out of the car, but Steve hurries over to his side with a crinkle in his brow. “Why don’t you just stay here and I’ll grab a few things. Anything in particular, or just tissues and NyQuil?”

“Dyquil is just schndapps,” Bucky grumbles, then his brain catches up a little and he says “tissues,” fervently, and then it catches all the way up and he says “wait, ndo way are you buyig!”

Steve cocks an eyebrow like a handsome jerk. “You really wanna go in there?” With your current nose situation? He’s kind enough to not say.

He casts about for a moment—“Grab me a little pack and then I’ll go in!”

Steve gives him a skeptical look and says “Sure,” in a way that makes him think his orders won’t be followed, but he’s too busy squishing his nose more firmly and silently begging it not to make him sneeze again to keep arguing, or to protest when Steve opens the door for him and puts his car keys in his hand before dashing into the store with a promise to be quick.

He’s back not even ten minutes later, by which time holding his nose plugged and not letting his sneezes out has put Bucky in a state of perma-misery, stifling relentless sneezes every few seconds, unable to keep his eyes fully open. Steve tosses a box of tissues onto his lap before he gets all the way into the car because he is a saint.

“Guh,” Bucky says gratefully, pulls out a wad of about ten, and lets the miserable sneeze that had been building out into the nest of forgiving softness. “HehgSHOOmpff!!” And then blows his nose forever. Finally he feels like he can speak and have a face again; the little drugstore bag is now home to a dozen nasty used-tissue balls. “Well,” he says as he puts the last one in there, “wish I hadn’t had a witness for that.”

Steve just chuckles. “You’re fine,” he murmurs, his voice a soothing rumble. “I grabbed you a toothbrush, and I’ve got some stuff that can fit you for pjs.”

Bucky feels like he sneezed out the last of his strength. “You’re way too nice.” He sniffles and slumps against the window, looking at the familiar blur of orange streetlight. “I should be more worried you’re a serial killer.” Steve chuckles again, and he likes that, so he goes on, “Probly got a nice Jeffrey Dahmer setup at your place. Sorry if I don’t make a good steak.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Steve replies, sounding indignant. Then laughs for real, shaking his head, “I’m not gonna chop you up and eat you, I swear.”

“It’s fine. Just mbake mbe into soup,” sighs Bucky. That would be warm. He’ll just be a big hot pot of Bucky, and Steve will stir him and season him so carefully with his big strong hands. This is a weird train of thought. He might have a fever. But he can still hear Steve chuckling.

Steve pulls into his parking spot and the car shudders to stillness as he takes his key out of the ignition. Next to him, Bucky is asleep with his head mushed against the window. He’d conked out for the last five or so minutes of the drive. “Hey, Buck, we just got to my place,” he says softly, trying not to sound too bedroom-y. His eyes flutter open, the blue of them standing out, and Steve takes a steadying breath because Bucky is so good-looking it catches him off guard and overwhelms him sometimes.

His eyes are glassy-bright and there’s a flush high on his cheekbones, and as he shifts upright in his seat Steve reaches over and touches his forehead without thinking about it. It’s noticeably hot, but not burning. The twins’ childhood bouts with the flu gave him a sense of bad-fever heat. “Think you got a temperature,” he murmurs sympathetically. Bucky just blinks up at him, a little wide-eyed, and only then does he realize his big meaty hand is practically covering half his face. He feels himself flush to match Bucky, and for a second they just look at each other.

Until Bucky sniffs a miserable liquid sniffle and they both almost jump. “Sorry,” Steve mutters awkwardly, and Bucky’s saying the same thing at the same time. They both move to get out, “Just one flight of stairs up.”

“huh—tschumpf!” is Bucky’s answer, his nose buried in a new handful of tissues. “huhh, hUH—huh.” The second sneeze fizzles, leaving him blinking and frowning and wrinkling his nose snifflishly against the ticklish haze as he shuts the door. “Fuck. Sorry, scuse mbe.”

“Bless you.” It’s probably not normal to find someone so sick so adorable.

Steve leads him up and along the hall and then he’s unlocking the door, feeling giddy that he’s letting Bucky into his apartment, and then guilty for being excited, when the poor guy is just hesitantly accepting a much-needed favor. Bucky trails in behind him and then stands still while Steve sets the bag from the drugstore and started to turn to him, saying, “It’s not much, but—”

“ASHHOO!” Bucky’s sneeze interrupts and snaps him forward into his tissues, and then he just stays folded over for a second like it sapped the last of his energy. Then he straightens, rubbing his nose into the tissues and sighing. “Jesus, sorry,”

“Bless you! You don’t have to be sorry, you’ve just got a cold.” Steve has to hold himself still to keep from rubbing his back.

“You’re...hh-huh….? Snfff, ugh. Totally gonna catch this, I owe you way mbore apologies.”

“I won’t hold it against you,” he chuckles, toeing his shoes off. Bucky follows suit and he continues, “I stopped caring after raising toddlers, they’re little germ factories, you catch everything.” Why’d you bring up your old-dad status, Steve? “I’ll grab you some things to sleep in.”

An hour and one confrontation about Steve giving up his bed later, Bucky is ensconced on his couch like the king of cold-medicine commercials, surrounded by blankets and pillows and tissues and steaming cups and bowls. He feels a little more human, which is nice, but lets him access how incandescently awkward he feels at being rescued from his idiotic life like a snotty Cinderella. Steve has been flitting back and forth between the couch and kitchen, fussing over him to a truly excessive degree while exuding satisfaction and cheer, like some kind of calendar-model Santa with a caretaking kink. He was practically rubbing his hands together at the prospect of getting Bucky blankets and tea on his couch. Now he’s giving a rundown of his TV system standing next to the couch and it feels the tiniest bit manic and Bucky can feel himself getting a little too quiet but he can’t help it. After a minute Steve notices, and sets the remote down.

“I should stop babbling at you and leave you in peace,” he says with a bashful chuckle, turning to leave the room.

“No, I— you don’t—” Bucky doesn’t really have a response beyond ‘please chill out and hang out with me and let me picture cuddling with you,’ which will not be said aloud.

“You really don’t hafta feel like you need to entertain me, Bucky.”

“It’s not, I don’t,” he sighs and then sniffles. He doesn’t want to sit here and stare at the wall and stress about this, alone in this room in Steve’s goddamn apartment. He maybe should have thought about just how much he’d fallen for Steve before taking him up on this offer, because the concern and sweetness and fussing are starting to ratchet up his anxiety, because what if there was a chance it meant—

“Is anything the matter?” Steve crouches smoothly to be on his level and torment him with his eyes’ blueness. When all Bucky can do for a moment is flounder he looks more concerned, and a little downcast. “I really don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. If anything’s bothering you, you can just tell me.”

What the hell is an ordinary sinner supposed to do in the face of this much sincerity? Act like he thinks he’s a damn grownup, Bucky guesses, and girds his nervous loser loins.

“Why’re you—” he starts, frowning, then cuts himself off and tries again with a small, apologetic smile.

“It’s just...this is such an imposition, and you seem...kinda weirdly happy about it? I just don’t get why.”

One side of Steve’s mouth quirks up, making him look dry and self-deprecating and unfairly handsome. “You’re worried I’m gonna start talkin about Scientology, or put you in my basement dungeon?”

Bucky shrugs. “Kinda.” Just ‘cause he went home with strangers didn’t mean he had no sense.

Steve seems to cast about for an explanation, and he also starts to turn pink. “It’s—you’re just so—” and then he sighs and sits on the end of the couch, next to his blanketed feet, addressing his words to the wall in a rush. “Honestly, Bucky? I have a huge crush on you, and,” he laughs in embarrassment, decidedly blushing now, “I’m just real happy to have a chance to take care of you in whatever little way.” Now he does turn to look at him, pained. “I’m sorry, that must be so uncomfortable to hear. I promise you’re not my hostage! Please don’t make a break for it, it’s cold out and you’re so sick. I swear I’m not Cathy Bates in Misery.”

“Y—hihdsschuh!” The sneeze catches him by surprise, but he has wadded-up tissues in his hand already anyhow. He has to blow his nose, and he does it thoroughly to buy time. Steve stares stoically at the ceiling as though waiting for sentencing. Is this seriously Steve telling Bucky...he likes him?

“You…” he stops, sniffs. He needs a plan. He doesn’t have one. His mouth is gonna keep moving anyway, “You said, ‘you’re just so—‘, what were you gonna say?”

Steve looks confused for a second, and then just helpless. “Bucky, you’re just so sweet. I’m happy for a chance to do something for you because I owe you, you get that, right?”

“Owe me?” Bucky asks, nonplussed. Steve laughs with what seems like disbelief at his confusion.

“Yes, Buck! For the last few months! For taking pity on me that first night I came into Sam’s. You asked me a question about antifreeze.”

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs. His world is rearranging itself. Steve remembered that?

“I feel—real self-conscious, I guess, coming into the “scene,” he gives it air-quotes and Bucky’s heart swells a little more, “by the route I have. Y’know, married dad who woke up one day and realized the stuff he repressed at sixteen might be the real him. Sam’s was the third place I tried to go into. I just felt so ridiculous, I still do— 39-year-old brand-new gay dude, it’s idiotic. I was practically gonna have a panic attack, I was definitely gonna leave and not try again and just...stop trying in general, maybe, to figure this new scary shit out. Except you were there, this—this smokin-hot guy, and you’re acting like you actually want to talk to me, and… so I stayed. And came back.” He looks Bucky in the eyes and it makes Bucky’s stomach clench. “I feel like you’ve been taking care of me this whole time, helping me ease into things, helping me not to feel bad about being completely uncool, asking me about stuff I actually know about instead of laughing at me because I’ve never heard of ‘poppers’,”

At that, Bucky has to give in to the giggle bubbling out of him, which inevitably leads to a short coughing fit. His first instinct is to keep laughing, rake Steve over the coals, but Steve is looking at him with a careful sort of expression, and it occurs to Bucky that just because he’s older and seems like he has it all together and has great posture doesn’t mean he’s immune to feeling vulnerable. And he looks like he’s feeling really fucking vulnerable right now. Acting like Bucky is worthy of this adorable schoolboy crush is absurd, but it’s not like it was so many eons ago that little baby Bucky Barnes was having his First Gay Bar experience, and he’d been scared as shit.

He already feels like he missed the boat on his life. Steve is starting over at 39. He’s so fucking brave. Bucky...somehow, unthinkably, Bucky is in a position where he could really hurt this guy.

“I’mb, umb. Snfff. Thing is, I’m a little surprised…” And Steve must think that’s the prelude to rejection because he pulls this sad little smile onto his face that’s the worst thing Bucky’s ever seen, and he has to make it go away, “It’s just, to hear you tell it I took pity on you and I’ve been talking to you to, like, guide you along and coach you because I’m some saint!” He smiles, starting to feel amused. “Steve— I just wanted some reason to talk to you, dude.”

Steve blinks at him. “What?”

He has to laugh, putting his forehead in his hand. “Sorry. I, just, I have not been operating under the assumption that I had a chance with you? And now it sounds like you’re telling me I do? While I sit on your couch filling your trash can with my disgusting tissue mountain?”

All he gets from the man is “...Huh?”

“You said ‘crush’,” he insists, and he’s not laughing, his heart is pounding actually. “What did you mean by that?” He’s gonna awkwardly say that he wants to fuck, and once that box is checked in his Gay Awakening, he’ll move on to actually date people actually in his league, and that’s maybe not gonna feel great, but, well…

Steve looks up from staring at his hands, makes eye contact, and he looks a little confused and a lot like he’s facing a firing squad. “I meant, I mean that…” he blows a breath out. “Jesus I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean that I’ve been trying to work up the courage to ask you out on a date, since pretty much the first night I met you.”

Bucky’s head does a record scratch and Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, “But I guess instead I kidnapped you when you were sick and blurted this out to you while you were trapped on my couch waiting to be left alone to sleep. I was never smooth but I swear I’ve done better than this.”

A giddy feeling is rising up in Bucky’s chest, making him forget completely about how tired and crappy he feels. “Well, I am smooth,” he says, “I’ve got game. At least, I did, until you showed up and turned me into a giggling bimbo. What the hell, Steve.”

“This is starting to seem like a romantic conversation but I can’t tell,” murmurs Steve with his face still uncertain but a little twinkle in his eye.

Bucky’s nose is gonna ruin this, he’s surprised it gave him that long a grace period. “Yeah, snfff, real romantic, I’mb gonna—hih—fuckin’ sndeeze—heh-heTShoo! Againd.”

Another sneeze teases out, and then he has to blow his nose for about ten years. “Bless you,” says Steve all quiet and bedroomy in his deep voice, and he’s definitely smiling, sparkle-eyes, leaning towards him the tiniest bit, but still looking like Bucky’s leaving him hanging a little, unsure, and he can’t help the wave of doubt he feels.

“Steve, you—” he stares at the blanket on his lap. “I’m a mess. You’ve accomplished shit, you have a real goddamn job, I—I’m just, ok, we’re both adults, but I feel like a screw-up kid compared to you.” He takes a deep breath and says what he doesn’t want to, “I’d be...pretty damn flattered if you wanted to hook up. I kinda can’t imagine you actually want to date me.”

He dares to look up and Steve looks more serious. He doesn’t say, “no shit.” He says, “I won’t argue if you say you don’t want anything, but I sure don’t agree with how you describe yourself. I don’t want to hook up—at least, not just that— I want to date you, get to know each other better, because I like you. I trust my judgement, when I think someone’s a good person.”

He says it so simply, and Bucky finds himself believing it despite himself, and a warm happy fire is kindling under his ribs. “Well, shit,” he murmurs, “it’s starting to seem like you’re asking me out.”

“It’s...starting to seem like you might be saying yes? If I am?” Steve looks agonized and Bucky’s doubts are no match for the giddiness fizzing up inside him, and he lets it show on his face with a grin, and whatever that looks like makes Steve kinda gulp and scootch up closer to him. Bucky makes a show of giving a slow, considering nod. Yes.

Steve has this soft, nervous little smile on his face, but his eyes hold something weighty, almost burning, as he moves even closer, and it’s just, it’s really, wow, Bucky has maybe never been taken seriously in quite this way by anyone before, it makes his knees feel watery and kindles something in his core. “I know you’re sick,” he rumbles, “but I feel like I gotta kiss you,” and how is it that the softer he speaks the deeper his voice sounds? He brushes his curled fingers over Bucky’s cheek because that’s how close they are now and this isn’t really Bucky’s life, is it? “What if I was to kiss you, right now?”

It’s hard to tell with the sexiness melting his brain but he realizes Steve is actually asking, because he’s a gentleman— a gentleman Bucky wants to be taken apart and turned inside out by. “Then you would be a guaranteed victim of my plague,” he breathes. “But I wouldn’t stop you, I’m not that selfless.”

“Sounds like a dare,” Steve murmurs, and tilts his head and presses their lips together.

It’s a short simple kiss but they each give a quiet gasp at the contact, and then stay there a moment. Steve’s beard isn’t huge but he feels it, like a firm underline to the shockingly warm plush pressure of his lips. He thankfully tragically remembers that congested people can’t make out and pulls away after just a brief press of lips, but not before giving a soft lick to Bucky’s, full of promised things to come.

They sit there a few inches apart and breathe. Bucky feels like a vibrating tuning fork. He just barely stops himself from shakily saying “wow,” like a highschool virgin, but when he sees Steve looking at him with lips still parted and a gobsmacked expression he changes his mind and lets it out anyway, “wow,” with a giddy grin.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes, blinking like he got hit with a cartoon hammer, going from pink to red, and then he swoops in and kisses Bucky’s cheek, and then stands, going, “Excuse me, just gotta go...out of your sightline, and. Do something cool. And serious. No victory dances.”

…..the next morning…….

Steve could hear Bucky in the shower, sneezing three times, but not sounding—four times—nearly as heavy or exhausted as the night before. A few minutes and one loud noseblow later, he came out wrapped in a towel, mercilessly bare-chested, his nose bright red but his eyes clear and cheerful. Steve’s attention caught on his chest as his nipples tightened in the relative chill as Bucky said sheepishly, “forgot my clo-hothes—” his voice swooping to a breathy quaver on the last word, “hhh-hh-hehh—EHisSHOooh!” he turned as far away from Steve’s part of the room as possible and sneezed over his shoulder. “Snnfff. Excuse me, sorry.”

“Can I lend you some warmer stuff, just for now while we eat breakfast? There’s no way you’re not still sick,” Steve fussed, forcing himself to round the kitchen island slowly and casually instead of rushing over and wrapping him up in his arms and kissing his red nose that was twitching again. He quelled it with another sniff that sounded a lot less congested than the previous night.

“Ah, I’m ok. I felt really bad yesterday, but I slept so well,” he said with a warm grateful smile at Steve that went to his toes, “I don’t feel shitty and run-down anymore, just all, like, shnuffly.”

Steve chuckled helplessly and went over to rub his shoulder. “You’re adorable.”

“No way!” Bucky glowered, but then a few drops fell from his wet hair to his chest and neck, and he shivered into a sneeze so quick and light it sounded incomplete, “hih—tish!” followed by “ih-hihtchoo!” and he blinked, taken by surprise.

“That was... the cutest thing that ever happened,” Steve said truthfully.

“Shuddup— heh—edschoo!”

[thenewvenusgirl]

I’ve never posted on tumblr before so I’m thoroughly weirded out but I have #thoughtsthoughtsthoughts that need to be thrown in the washing machine then dried like WOW I can make the text pink? that’s cute..

I don’t know how to do content warnings. I don’t know if I should. let me get used to tumblr etiquette

cw/ nsfw mentioned, mild violence.

the setting, the setting.

my phone is awfully slow today.

we are in stirling lines, creden hill, hereford. this is the special air services regiment where the buildings are short, rectangular, brick and eggshell. this is where a hookers green and a tantalising guacamole colour meet in some undesignated lines, or atleast that’s just how it looks from the google birds eye view. what are these random blue lines that I’m seeing everywhere.

I don’t like describing unnecessary things. it’s boring. so Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick is being a domestic housewife in the barracks. he washes glasses which have cloudy residue on them, and digs in them deep with the cotton towels, before putting them where they belong. he scratches at his beard. he hasn’t shaved in a while. he catches himself in the reflection of the shite microwave. his eyebags carry a lot of weight. plenty of it. but he thinks that every measure of tiredness on his features shows his dedication to his job captain. it’s just that one day where he saw one terrorist attack and could no longer stay restrained. he’s paying the price. and he’s got so much anger behind that calm, steady, exterior. just another glass to wash and then break.

Johnny ‘Soap’ Mactavish is on his grey, white and cornflower blue bedsheets, one leg hooked over the other as he desperately scribbles in his little black notebook, sketching the scenes of his past hookups to commit them to proper memory. he loves to get off to the memory of that particularly soft bum, those big plush thighs or that delicious smelling dark skin. but he’s horrible at keeping the unnecessary in his brain because of his job life. so every time, in his dreams, when he remembers the small details from that delicious experience on May 23rd, 2023 at 10:47pm, he’s up the next morning drawing it. Beautiful material, extra gorgeous because of how it sits on his underwear draw. he’s fantasised about selling his perfectly articulated masterpieces to the more…. less fortunate men, who he can honestly say have never wrapped their hand around a dick other than their own, or been in a pussy other than their mothers.

price doesn’t really get a break. his dick is like his arm or his leg, it’s just there and he doesn’t care. he’s extremely invested in self care though, and his physique. loves a good shave, loves a good face mask. he cringes when he sees all the black pores coming out of his skin which look like they haven’t seen sunlight in years. he can’t stand the feeling of his dirty hair and smelly scalp, spending ages in hot showers after missions and breathing heavily while staying in there as long as he can. the only weakness is that if he’s in that steamy chamber long enough it reminds him of all those years ago and passing the sas selection. In some steamy rainforest in brunei where he became immune to the own smell of his own body odour. the way the air felt thick and hot around him, making every breath feel like he was being pushed into a dark foam pit with each passing moment through the lush forest greens. he gets out the shower, and dries himself off.

simon, who has back pain. it pisses him off. he should be able to sustain being bent over for hours without any problems, because what if his team needs him to survive and he needs to crawl and contort to go through a dark place to do so? it’s just he’s got this fetish for manspreading and leaning his elbows against his knees, hands clasped tight together. he broods, he thinks. sometimes it’s about the most mundane things, like eggs and steak. or his highschool english teacher who was always there for him. sometimes it’s about being in greece and tanning under the mediterranean sun, with his pal, Johnny. who’s right here, isn’t he? but don’t be silly, ghost. you’ve seen ‘friends’ come and go for years. the person you signed up with? dead. every few years someone new comes along who brings out the best in him, and ultimately meets a violent end. so now that johnny is here, he’s pushing him away. ‘Stay tactical, Sergeant.’ ‘Don’t push it, Johnny.’ but he’s already crossed that invisible boundary when he gave him a nickname. just don’t expect the best.

[staytinyville]

The Thoughts of a Lover

↣ Summary: You meet your soulmates at one of their concerts. From there you guys decide to wait for their tour to finish before meeting up with each other to start the rest of your lives together. However, that didn’t stop you from doing things while overseas. 

↣ Characters/Pairing: Yunho x Mingi x reader

↣ Genre: Mature/Smut (MDNI)

↣ AU/Trope info: Soulmate!au (You can see/hear your soulmate’s thoughts)

↣ Word Count: 5.8k

↣ Warnings: dom!Yunho, sub!Mingi, phone sex, mxm, oral (m receiving), threesome,

↣ A/N: BETA READER @mariana-mmtz Honestly I didn't know I had this in me. I was heckin proud. I was kicking my feet and giggling the whole time. This is my first post to the networks I've joined and I'm so happy about it!

At a certain age–usually around puberty–people get what is known as The Thoughts of a Lover in their head. It’s a terrible name really, but it’s what philosophers from Roman time decided to call it. Those Romans were clearly very passionate people.

It was meant to signify that somewhere in the world someone was connected to your spiritual essence. It was the will of the universe, knowing exactly what it was doing when it created humans. They knew their creations needed to be procreated somehow, so what better way to do that than by making a destined person for you personally.

Times changed, of course, people didn’t feel the need to fall in love with their destined person much. They realized that while there would always be someone there who was like their other half, people knew that they had free will. It wasn’t common though, to go about without finding your destined soulmate. The universe knew what it was doing every time it pulled apart a soul to place down on Earth.

Sometimes though, the universe would pull it apart more than once.

The myth goes; the creators pull apart a soul to create two and then toss them into a bucket. Another creator then grabs one and throws it down to earth. Every few years or so, there can be a creator who forgets they had already split a soul apart and ends up doing it again. Thus creating more than one soulmate.

Multiple soulmates were rare, but not unheard of. The most a soul was considered to be pulled apart was 4 times with a total of 5 soulmates. And that was at millennia ago. Now, at most, someone had four soulmates.

You had considered yourself special when you had turned 14 and suddenly heard not one but two voices in your head. Their random thoughts often surprised you but still somehow brought a smile to your face to know they were real and out there for you to find.

You were the kind of person who believed in destiny and staying with your soulmate. It was a bit intimidating to know that you had two–worry frequently creeped into your head when you thought about how you could possibly manage the two, but if their souls were just a separation from yours, you knew they too were meant to be together.

The day you met your own soulmates was the day you went to their concert. You attended their soundcheck and tried to get them to notice you from the floor. The universe, however, only allowed certain thoughts that didn’t involve speaking to them directly to pass through the bond. So you had to speak as though you weren’t actually talking to them.

Yunho had been the one to spot you first after you had started to think about rock, paper, scissors and play it out with him. They were overjoyed at the discovery, getting you to meet them at their hotel, where you spent the night with them.

It hadn’t been that long ago, only four months having passed since then. It gave you time to get your life together for when the boys would come back. There was a lot of texting and calling over the phone, which left you happy enough. All three of you would always express how much you miss each other, but it wouldn’t be long before you saw them again.

You had been going over some assignments, Yunho on the phone telling you all about their concert of the night. You would laugh at the things he would tell you, enjoying his voice over the speakerphone. As you began to type out some response to an email, one of the boy’s thoughts drifted over to your head.

I wonder if her thighs are soft. They felt soft last time. Mingi’s voice resounded.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked over at your phone. “Where’s Mingi?” You asked Yunho.

“He’s in the shower.” The man answered you.

You hummed to yourself, looking over at your computer screen.

I want to be smothered in them. Really I do. His thoughts once again penetrated your mind.

You shut your laptop closed, picking up your phone and moving from the computer. You felt a shiver go down your spine as dirty images seemed to pop up in your head. Your eyes went wide, making quick work to reach your bedroom and lay down.

“Angel, are you okay?” Yunho asked, shuffling around in the hotel room.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” You told him, sitting on your bed.

“Mingi!” You heard Yunho shout. “Hurry up.”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw them too.” The man sighed over the phone.

An unbearing heat crept over your body, your muscles twitching at the revelation Yunho had just told you. Of course, he had heard Mingi too.

“It’s nothing I’m not used to.” You told him quietly.

Yunho snorted. “I’m realizing how terrible that must have been. We’re so sorry you had to witness those things.” He laughed.

“I mean, I had needs too. You weren’t the only one I would assume.” You giggled.

“You are in fact right. Choi Minho? I see.” Yunho laughed out loud.

“Yunho!” Your face turned hot.

You fell back onto your bed, phone pressed to your ear. As you heard Mingi step out of the shower and get scolded by Yunho, the only thing that was brought to your mind was the amount of times you would scold yourself for thinking filthy things, knowing your soulmates were probably seeing them as well.

Was Mingi really thinking about me that way? You asked yourself.

You subconsciously began to rub at your thighs, lightly skimming your fingers over the tops of them and up to your hips. The shirt you wore to bed raised up with your hands, allowing the air in the room to cool your skin.

They are in fact soft. Thank you for noticing. You giggled in your head.

Just as your fingers were about to slip under your panties to touch your hip bone, Yunho called out for you over the phone.

“Angel?” He spoke quietly.

“Yes?” You spoke quickly, dropping your hand from your hips and sitting up.

“Everything okay over there?” He asked breathlessly.

“Yes. I’m fine.” You moved along the bed, wanting to get comfortable.

“We beg to differ.” Mingi’s voice was heard over the phone, closer to the speaker.

“Don’t stop on our account.” He told you.

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Finish what?”

“Angel, we saw everything.” Yunho laughed. He took a deep breath, speaking closer to the phone in a breathless whisper. “What else you want to think about? We want to see more.”

Your breath got caught in your throat, huffing out air, which made the boys sigh as they heard you. You sighed deeply, suddenly thinking about how the boys might be waiting for your response on the other end. Their excited wide eyes, mouth hung open at the imagines you could be sending them.

You took one glance at your phone before quickly taking off your shirt. You had always enjoyed the feeling of something brushing along your skin. So your soft fingers drifting over your torso and legs only made you think about all the things that you wanted the boys to see.

You thought about their own hands drifting along your skin. Yunho’s hands softly glide over your rib cage and past the slope of your breasts–skipping over your nipples. His nails would lightly scratch you, causing shivers to wrack through your body. His touch would burn trails as he went along, leaving your skin cold the more he traveled further down your body.

Mingi would use his entire palm, giving a message of sorts. He would allow his palm to grip over your neck, not knowing how to be light with his touches. His warm hand would allow itself to settle over one of your breasts, rolling your nipple over between his fingers. He would be mesmerized by it, mouth wide open as he thought about taking it into his mouth.

“Please let me.” You opened your eyes at Mingi’s whimper.

You gasped, having forgotten they were on the phone listening in. Your hand had drifted down to feel rub at your hips, the band snapping back as you pulled your hand out.

“Mingi?” You questioned, pulling the phone closer.

“Please. Can I suck on your tits?” He moaned out, huffing into the mic of the phone.

“Mingi.” Yunho whined, shuffling on the other side. “Come here.”

You could only think about the older boy pulling Mingi into his arms, softly rubbing at his back to calm him down.

“Please, Mingi.” You huffed.

You closed your eyes when all of a sudden the image of Mingi’s hot mouth on your breast filled your head. The boy was suckling softly, allowing his mouth to fill with your skin. One of his hands would squeeze at it, messaging. He moved it towards the valley between them, gripping onto the other one. Your back arched, blissful sighs slipping past your mouth.

Your fingers moved in between your thighs, finally slipping further down. You dug your fingers further, knees jerking when they felt the warm, wet skin. You withered on the bed, a moan slipping out and into the phone at your side.

“Angel,” Yunho breathed out. “Are you touching yourself?” He asked you quietly.

You could hear Mingi’s whimpers on the other end, wondering what it was they were doing.

“Angel, I’m speaking to you.” Yunho growled quietly.

Mingi’s cry made you flinch, but you answered Yunho anyway. “Yes.” You whispered.

“I would hope so.” He chuckled. “Keep going. Mingi wants more.”

“What about you?” You asked quietly.

“You think I’m not enjoying myself? I have to keep my pretty babies happy first.”

Your breath got caught in your throat from the way he was speaking. It was clear he was someone who took charge of things. He knew how to talk to people and get them to do what he wanted. And if you weren’t about to listen, you would force yourself to.

Your head began to come up with scenarios where you were at Yunho’s mercy, Mingi going along with it all. He would move to the end of the bed, kneeled between your legs as Mingi kept your breasts in his mouth but turned, so he could watch Yunho.

The image was wiped out as Yunho’s thoughts quickly overpowered your own. You moaned out loudly when Yunho was suddenly leaned down between your thighs, face pressed tightly to your core. His large hands held your hips down tightly, keeping you from moving too much. You could only imagine what his tongue must have felt like in real life.

Your hips bucked up as your fingers moved faster. You withered on the bed, clenching the muscles in your thighs as you panted over the image. Mingi cried out again, hearing your whimpered moan.

“Yunho.” He cried out, rutting his hips into the older man’s hand.

You whined along with him, wanting to know what it was they were up to. “Please, tell me what you’re doing.”

Instead, you only got an image. Mingi was sprawled out on top of Yunho, while the older bot moved his hand up and down on Mingi’s shaft. Mingi was a moaning mess, allowing himself to submit to Yunho’s grasps. He kept rutting his hips up and down, cheek pressed to Yunho’s chest.

You moaned out again, finally reaching where you needed the most attention. You could feel the wetness that was slowly seeping out, rubbing it around to add more slick to your clit.

You flinched, whimpering from the stimulation.

“Doll, please. I want more.” Mingi huffed.

“You heard him, Angel.” Yunho chuckled, squeezing at the man’s base.

You allowed yourself to fall prey to the thoughts of being filled by them. The moment you allowed your fingers to slip into your hole, was the moment you started to think about Yunho pounding into you.

He had taken your ankles in his hands, holding your legs up as his mouth hung open from the feeling of your walls tightening around him. Mingi was holding your face as his lips moved over yours, fingers pressing into your neck. You had your hand wrapped around him, giving him pumps every once in a while.

Mingi suddenly let out a loud moan when your thoughts came into his head. Yunho laughed, rutting his hips into Mingi’s torso that was covering him. At the man’s movements, Mingi was quick to move down and place Yunho’s tip into his mouth. This caused the man to grunt.

“Angel, you're so good.” Yunho huffed, patting Mingi’s head as he spoke to you over the phone. “You’re such a good boy.” He turned to Mingi, dragging his fingers through the boy's hair.

Yunho allowed the image to be engraved into his head, giving you a sneak peek at what was going on. Mingi had his nose pressed to Yunho’s hips, cheeks hollowed out. His head bobbed up and down, hands jerking off the parts that were out of his mouth.

You cried out, causing Yunho to laugh. “Be a good girl, keep sending us your dirty thoughts.”

With the image of Mingi over Yunho’s cock, you began to think about how they could do that with you there. Your first deduction would be you on top of Mingi, moving your hips up and down along his shaft, causing him to whine out from the pressure. He would be loud, or at least try to be.

Yunho was over him, rutting his hips into the boy’s mouth. He would have Mingi’s head hanging off the edge of the bed, enjoying the view of you swiveling your hips. As Yunho would hold back, he moans and grunts, his hand reaching over to your clit, moving his fingers quickly.

You cried out, head falling back as your nails scraped against Mingi’s chest. With Yunho’s fingers stimulating you and Mingi’s cock hitting that perfect spot every time, you found yourself quickly reaching the point of no return.

Just as the “you” in your vision reached her climax, you cried out into the phone, legs tightening up from the stimulation. Yunho let out a loud groan, shoving his hips deeper into Mingi’s mouth from hearing you climax.

“Come here, sweet boy.” He quickly pulled Mingi up to his knees, leaning down to suck Mingi off.

The boy was already overstimulated, so it didn’t take long for him to cum with a cry. You moaned loudly along with him, whining at the sound that came from his throat. Yunho swiped his tongue along his lip, licking up the mess. As he leaned back into the pillow, Mingi was quick to take Yunho again, wanting him to reach his orgasm as well.

Yunho didn’t hold back this time, using Mingi’s mouth as he pleased. He held the boy’s head down, trying to reach his high, just as you and Mingi had. His eyes rolled to the back of his head when a new image turned up.

Both you and Mingi leaned over his cock, tongues swiping over the length of it. You both looked up at him with glossy eyes, waiting for him to cum. It was when he saw you both open your mouths that his eyes closed and he shoved Mingi’s head down.

His loud moan made you twitch from over stimulation, having continued touching yourself until you knew they both had come. You clenched your legs, fingers keeping still inside yourself. You could feel the throb going through your cunt, which only made you hum at the sensation.

“Angel, are you okay?” Yunho asked you from the phone.

“Is Mingi okay?” You asked back.

Yunho looked down at the boy who had licked his lips cleaned as he had, slumped over to the side as he cuddled into Yunho. The older man laughed lightly, rubbing fingers through Mingi’s hair.

“He’s perfect.” He told you.

“Then I’m perfect, too.” You lazily smiled.

“A month until we go home.” Yunho told you.

Your eyes were drifting shut, as your body tried to come down from the high you had experienced. “I can’t wait to see you.” You softly told him.

“We can’t either.”

NETWORKS:

@cultofdionysusnet @pirateeznet @sandsofire

[getvalentined]

I love when folks ask me Fandom Old questions and I get to be like "Yeah, uh, that's from my old online RP group, no it's not canon at all, yes we just made it up, no we did not claim it was canon but the mid to late aughts were a strange time."

It's honestly a shock to realize how often this has happened. I mentioned earlier that Reno's fanon surname came from this same group, but that's not even the half of it. I once made a bunch of screenshot manips based on the most ridiculous ships anyone could think of—someone slapped a random line of text onto one of them and to this day it's used as a "cringe FF7 fandom" meme. I saw it on the twits a bit back and almost fell out of my goddamn chair.

If you've ever heard Scarlet referred to with the surname "West," read about Tseng fighting with metal fans, seen Elena's older sister being called Anna instead of Emma, come across Vincent portrayed as having a PhD in spite of being a Turk, or caught references somewhere to Grimoire experimenting on Vincent as a child, that started with this group. That was us.

One of the funniest examples of this, for me specifically, is that we don't actually know which arm Veld is missing? The fandom generally goes with his left because that's how I drew him in the first picture of the guy ever posted on devart way back in 2005, but it may very well be his right. I've seen people offer "proof" that it's his right based on a scene in the opening cutscene, but you can't tell there either, and with BC's graphics there's literally no way to tell on his sprite.

Hell, this year we found out everyone's assumed timeline of the Kalm fire is wrong, and that's our fault too because we made some assumptions about Felicia's age for an LJ RP that were entirely wrong. She's around Zack's age, not Sephiroth's! She's old enough to run with a terrorist group in BC, but she was a child when Kalm burned, and that happened in 1997—we know this because NPCs in Rebirth literally refer to the fire in Kalm having happened "just ten years ago." Veld has only had his prosthetic for three years when BC starts. (This also implies that, contrary to popular belief, Veld may actually be younger than Vincent. Vincent may have been the senior partner, and that's why he was sent to Nibelheim alone while Veld was left at headquarters.)

We were really wrong on this! But we were working with what we had. There's no canon evidence for the vast majority of these things (the most notable exclusion here is Vincent being educated) but we weren't claiming there was. We were filling gaps, and canon was so sparse that we had a lot of gaps to fill. So if it turns out that Veld lost his right arm, then I'll just have to start drawing him that way—because losing his left was never canon.

Tragically, there's nothing any of us can do to make people stop assuming these things are canon at this point; there aren't a lot of us still in the fandom, and it's not like any of us have those old chatlogs anymore. People from this RP group have DIED since those days. It's been over 20 years since most of us met, and around 15 since most of us were in a public fannish space together.

"Prove it," people say, and I literally can't. Do you know how many computers I've been through since then? 75% of the platforms we used no longer exist. This all started on a BBCode forum! There is no proof!

But...there's no evidence any of these things are canon, either, so maybe think about that? The Kalm fire, Tseng's weapon of choice, Veld's arm, character surnames—none of these are retcons because there was no lore there to retcon. We made it up for our specific purposes, and it escaped containment in an era when there was really no way to do online contact tracing.

It's just one of the weirdest feelings in the world to see younger folk arguing about A or B point in canon, about X or Y retcon—referencing something my friends and I thought up at like 10 o'clock at night on a now-defunct IM client in August of 2005, because we needed something to refer back to for a specific scene in an RP and the source material had nothing to offer.

Absolutely fucking bonkers.

[hinny-canons]

Final one! sorry for so much delay, August has been a busy month! I had so much fun doing these and I wanted this one to be grand. So I hope you like this one!🩷

@corneliaavenue-ao3 ‘s Several Sunlit Daylights

Midnights: Labyrinth

(inspired by this tumblr post)

Falling in love was not something Harry thought would happen to him. He didn’t even think he would live long enough to experience it. But love was very mysterious. She just loved to appear at random times, it was her thing.

When Love cast her spell on Harry, she was very proud of herself. Harry on the other hand took a while to realize.

Love waited and waited for Harry to realize, but he wasn’t doing anything!

Love knew Ginny still felt feelings for him even if she was dating someone else. She had cast her spell on Ginny a long time ago.

When Harry walked in on Dean and Ginny kissing, Love was very happy to see he was finally realizing it. She ended up making good friends with Jealousy who was the monster in Harry’s chest. He flowed orange and resembled a lion quite like Gryffindor. Jealousy growled every time he saw Dean and Ginny.

“Have a break, Jealousy,” Love said softly.

“They’re making Harry upset, why should I!” Jealousy yelled. Love rolled her eyes.

There was a party everywhere when they had their first kiss. Jealousy roared and Love laughed gleefully. Family in heaven also beyond happy.

Oh, oh. I’m falling in love.

They were so gleeful together until the day that Dumbledore died and it all came crashing down. Love was crying and Jealousy stopped roaring and Angst joined their group. She glowed blue and was small like a child. Angst didn’t talk much nor did she do much. She just watched sadness happen to people and sympathized with them.

Harry broke up with Ginny and Love was shattered. She sat in a corner crying for ages and Angst hugged her through it. Angst specialized in this, break ups and all.

They kissed in Ginny’s bedroom a day before Bill and Fleur’s wedding in which Love would make an appearance. It was her day, after all!

Love got hope when they kissed and it was all blown up, popped like a soap bubble when Ron burst in.

“Ugh!” Love, Jealousy, and Angst all groaned.

Ron got very angry at Harry for playing around with his sister. “Rubbish!” Love yelled. “He loves her!”

Jealousy growled when Harry thought of Ginny marrying another. Angst sighed when Harry thought of never being with her again.

She could tell Harry was very sad by the break up.

Oh, no. I’m falling in love again.

Harry kept watching her dot on the Marauders’ Map and Love kept an eye on both Harry and Ginny.

“No Veelas here,” Jealousy said. “Hope Ginny knows that.”

“Ginny’s sad again,” Angst said. “I wish I could do something.”

Love sighed. “There’s nothing we can do, dear. He just need to guide them and hope for the best.

One night, Harry woke from a dream about Ginny that Love planted in his mind. He missed her a lot and Love thought it would be good for him to see her again, even just in his mind.

Harry thought with a jolt that he loved Ginny. Love glowed and twirled around him when he finally thought it.

Then he started crying about how much he missed her and Angst came to comfort Harry, staying by his side. Two emotions together, comforting one human.

Jealousy came as well, even if Harry wasn’t feeling it. He just wanted to be with Harry.

Oh. I’m falling in love.

It was the day of Harry and Ginny’s wedding and all of the guests were gathered. Love got all dolled up and appeared, very happy. She had been waiting for this day for years! Angst was here too. Everyone was thinking of all those people who died in the war. Jealousy was there to make sure no one interrupted.

“What if Cho Chang jumps up and objects? What if Dean comes in?” Jealousy fussed.

“Oh, please! Both of them are occupied with their own person.”

Jealousy looked back at the crowd. “I’m still keeping eye on ‘em,” he grumbled.

When Harry and Ginny pronounced husband and wife, Love squealed out of delight. “Yay!” She laughed, spinning around at high speed.

Jealousy joined her, running around and Angst smiled at the couple.

I thought the plane was going down. How’d you turn it back around?

[bluesunflowers21]

I have no posts and no followers so this probably won’t see the light of day, but it’s 1:53 am and I’m up reading yumihisu fanfics from 2014 and I just had this thought I needed to share.

Does anyone ever read these older fics and just think about their age? It’s almost like time travel, right? You’re looking into a time in fandom where so many things hadn’t happened yet, secrets not yet revealed, ship wars that have yet to exist. To see a ship you hold close because even if it’s painful in canon it was the first you ever saw that matched who you were in some small way, and it’s young again. It’s all new, and the angst hasn’t hit, and the tragedy isn’t tragic yet.

And then I look at the comments. 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018. All are people, who at one time or another, have read the exact same work I have, and have enjoyed it enough to make a comment. And it’s not just fanfic either, it’s YouTube comments, it’s old vine compilations, it’s late 90s and early 2000s music. It goes beyond nostalgia, it is for just a moment, seeing peaks into peoples lives in a more in-depth way than any history book I have ever read. It is a diary of humanity when things were easier, when we were all young and bright eyed and full of hope.

I feel that since Covid, even before it, the world has been so dull. Colors are faded, and sounds are muted, and smiles aren’t as wide anymore. But tonight, even if for one moment, I caught a glimpse of what once was. I saw the beginning of a world I had just discovered over 10 years ago. I saw a hole in history, and I remembered myself. I remembered humanity. I remember when I cared about people beyond a surface level, when I had empathy and sympathy carved so deep into my heart that I bled comfort and love. I remembered the little things, the fallen log in the woods behind my papas house, just past the field that was decided by and electric pole, and the hill covered in cherry blossoms that I dug arrow heads up from, I remembered my wooden easel that I painted when I ran out of paper, and my bed frame that was once white and ended in an array of pastel colors. I remember when I liked pink and purple like the walls of my bedroom before first grade. I remembered when I started to hate pink and purple. I remembered the bullies from elementary school. I remember my fourth grade teacher convincing me to read The Stone Child, and how it was the first time I had finished a proper book. I remember looking for any horror book I could find after. I remember starting middle school and being so scared of what would come. I remember making a huge card for my seventh grade math teacher because he was retiring, and him hugging me and the other student who helped, because I don’t think he expected that from any of us. I remember starting highschool and trying to figure out who I was. I remember my mom getting cancer. I remember theatre being an escape. I remember friends I haven’t spoken to in years, and some I still speak to today. I remember the little kid who would think “future me, please tell me it will be okay” and I now think of the adult me who says, “yeah, it will be”.

Maybe this is all nonsensical rambling, but now I can’t help but think of a game I played for the first time after watching YouTubers play it online. There’s a specific quote that I don’t think I really understood until this moment, one that I saw make others cry in…I’m not sure, relief? Sadness? Happiness?

“Despite everything, it’s still you”

Despite everything, reading those comments on a random ballerina AU fic written over 10 years ago reminded me that yes, after everything that has happened, things I’ve caused and things I’ve never had control over, the little kid who believed in people still exists. She is a part of me that has never and always existed. Everything she was, and everything she ever will be, is who I am. Everything any child was and will ever be is who they are. Everything a child could have been and will be, is who humanity is.

We are angry, and selfish, and cruel.

But

We are kind, and we are hopeful, and we are love.

Not that we are loved, or that we do love

We are the embodiment of the concept.

And this is all the sleep deprived ramblings of a 21 year old who has no idea if I am actually writing this or if I am just dreaming it. Who knows, either way I won’t remember it in the morning. Tbh I barely remember it now.

[bananaactivity]

ahhhhh your latest morgie art was so cool--you mentioned the gray streak in his human form and i gotta ask--is it natural or a conscious choice? cause iirc one tragic aspect of hook/morgie is that one day, morgie will lose hook. hook will age and die, and with his neverland trauma will never accept mortality. but morgie is a le fay and of magic--is he choosing to age?

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

Also yea pretty much. Morgie has no qualms as it relates to the whole immortality thing. He completely excepts that everyone he knows that isn’t immortal will die before him, everyone except Hook of course. He’s really upset about that one…

He does alter his appearance to age. When he was a youngling he first managed to hold a human form and modded its look after his mom and its size after his cousin. He has to manually modify his human form to age, but after a couple years it becomes second nature for him to notice small changes in the human form as it grows and make tweaks. Before switching back from his primordial form he noticed the grays and age that Hook now had and tweaked himself to match his aging friends.

Small short super tragic fic incoming 😓:

“I know you’re doing that on purpose Darling, you don’t have to pretend anymore.” Hook smirked. Morgie sighed. He knew what James meant, but undoing all his work made him feel…uneasy. “ I know. I don’t do it for you James… It makes me feel better…about… our predicament.” Morgie had given up trying to immortalize his love long ago… Neverland had hurt him. Bad. He didn’t want to be the bad guy, but time was so limited he didn’t want to wait another millennia to see those sly blue eyes once more in some new timeline. He wanted to be selfish…but he wouldn’t be the bad guy, not to James. “ Come on darling, last time I saw you as well, you, I almost ripped my jacket off right there.” Hook bit his lip and stroked his mustache, irritatingly more grey by the day. Morgie looked at it and then he grew upset, “ James! It’s almost over. My time with you is so meaningful and yet so meaningless it drives me insane! I have millennia to spend with out you, I cant-“ Hook grabbed Morgies shoulders and forced him to look into his eyes. “ Morgs, Love, I’m only 45, I’ve got a good sixty left in me I think!” He laughed. LAUGHED. “ Sixty?? Hook, MILLENNIA VS SIXTY. That is SO little time it’s comical!?” Morgie began to hyperventilate, he couldn’t imagine a world devoid of James, every other friend of his had longer lifespan, but sixty years left? It must have been the cruel joke of whatever being had cursed his creation. Of course he’d fall for the one who would leave him so soon. “ Morgie La Fey you are such a strange creature.” Hook chuckled. “ What would your space dad thing think of you crying over a mortal man? I’m just a man Morgs. Not even a good one. But life’s only worth it to me because it doesn’t last. I’d love to spend an eternity with you but think about how boring it could get!! Let’s just… live in the moment.” James was so endearing… and sometime he was very right. “ I understand. But~ You meantioned something about my other… appearance…” Hook smirked again. “ What can I say… I love when a man can keep up with me, or a primordial beast thing I’m not too choosy~” Giving Hook something he wanted was always a treat. Losing him would be hard��� but he’d see him again one day.

Anyways I had the random urge to write something quick, it’s not my usual fare but I wanted to do it bro.

(make sure if you see this post @throwawaybog you either comment under here or message me what you’d like to see a sketch of remember it’s gotta be descendants related, but it doesn’t have to be my designs though, and if you have references make sure to send those as well)

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Some replies!

Anonymous asked:

Dayummm Azul is BIGGGG LOOK AT THAT BOY! DAYUMMM

Hehe thank you!!

I am happy I managed to figure out how to draw the fishies… Azul is one thicc boy

Anonymous asked:

What do you think of Silver x Kalim? Cater x Leona? LMC + Rook x Idia?

Kalim/Silver is cute but unfortunately too cute to click with us; their interactions are sweet and wholesome, but they don’t really give us anything we look for in ships.

Cater/Leona is hmmm nothing against it, but we’re not invested enough in either of them to ship them, plus we haven’t seen anything from their interactions that would grab our attention yet.

Love Rook/Idia though! We have a tag for them and just posted them a week ago, and I’ll write a hc post about them soon… well, at some point…

Anonymous asked:

🐩 anon has arrived once more to thank you for your absolutely delicious art. I had to come out of twst burnout, it's so hard to enjoy the fandom when it's all self righteous antis trying to police the game as if it's not catered to basically young adults and older. These kids have me baffled, it's as if they believe pixels are real people.

I can hardly stand to look at TWST Tumblr anymore either, they're all so white knighted that you'd think they were paid to be piss babies in circles they don't belong in. It's one of those "Why put yourself in that position to see it, if you didn't want to be there in the first place".

Hi 🐩 anon, long time no see! Thank you for being around and still enjoying my art.

I feel you, it really is difficult when you keep seeing people saying the same type of antis bullshit over and over and over again; even if you become apathetic about it, it’s still very annoying. Mostly because it’s impossible to ignore completely – they love to invite themselves to spaces that aren’t meant for them. That’s like the whole idea. No one is forcing anyone to see anything, every ship and triggering trope is always tagged in some way or another, but instead of avoiding this type of stuff they use the tagging system to shit on certain characters and ships directly, just so you couldn’t look for your favourite thing without seeing their outbursts of unsolicited opinions.

It really is very annoying.

Anonymous asked:

🐩 anon again, but now with one that's more funny and teehee haha random info that I thought you'd think it'd be interesting or funny

On that note, I came here because I started a DND campaign with a group over a twst based campaign. It reminded me of you, which made me invested in the campaign. Now I have a whore serving with 18th century fashion, giving Vil a run for his money. So far, 10/10. He has major Edmund and Idia vibes, wants no part of it, gets shit luck anyways and so far, has slept with Bird Man for Ramshackle funds on a bad roll. Mans is a survivor and we are barely halfway into chapter 1 😭

It’s so sweet that you got reminded of us and got invested… I am very glad you’re having fun! “Rewriting” your negative fandom experience with a positive one and good associations is so important.

Major Edmund and Idia vibes + a 18th century fashion whore??? SLEEPING WITH BIRD MAN??? An icon and a hustler. I don’t know him but I love him already…

Anonymous asked:

Good lord. I had randomly followed a twst blog but then I saw them posting about how even though there is a two year age difference between the third-years and first-years, it’s wrong to ship them because the first-years treat them, especially the housewardens, like idols and apparently that’s grooming. Like, no, that’s you in Delululand and I’m about to unfollow and block. #staytoxicbestie

Yeah they seem to have discovered this idea and now put it everywhere, harassing JackVil shippers and such. It’s one of those moments when I genuinely hope that they deliberately lie and reach because I am scared of the idea of anyone being this dumb.

It does suck that there seems to be more people like that lately, and they don’t even tag their accs with “proship dni” anymore either. Gee I wonder why.

[ditzydreamsss]

i weep and say goodnight, love

hey guys what if skeppy is a never-aging immortal diamond muffinhead with a ridiculously good memory and badboyhalo is a lonely human who's abandoned by everyone he meets became he gets random visions of the future and has star freckles and kinda freaky because he turns into a demon when angy. and gay. (bruh homophobes)

This is gonna be set in a post-apocalyptic world so. kinda funky.

(title from: as the world caves in)

A thousand and fourteen years ago, Skeppy decided to send a message in a bottle. A thousand and fourteen years later, a human picks up the letter and decides to contact the stranger.

The world of Mute is a post-apocalyptic world, after the end of the world. Hybrids, who were once hunted and killed for, now rules the world.

If you are a human, you are now dead.

The apocalypse started a single pebble. The pebble tore through the World's atmosphere and into the ground, until it met the void. The little disturbance caused the void to expand and consume half of the world. Only hybrids were able to adjust to the sudden heatwaves that shook the world along with the waves and waves of natural disasters.

Except. A single human(?) was able to survive the shock.

That human is Bad.

He doesn't remember the start of the apocalypse. One second, the world was bright and colorful. The next, his mother's arm was in his hands, the body ebbing away by the void and leaving only blood behind. He saw his father's skull in front of him. The world was painted in red.

Bad is about to jump into the dark, black ocean (eventually leading to the void) when he gets slapped on the face with a message in a bottle (yes, the bottle flew).

A few days later, he decides the read the letter that prevented his end.

With his somehow working phone, he decides to contact the stranger. Why?

Um. Plot purposes.

Before we put those two together, I'll talk about what happened on Skeppy's side.

Skeppy's seen everything. He's seen the start and the end of the world.

He also knows a bunch of random things about everything. He's not a mind reader. He just knows. Like how he knows that Bad would pick up his letter and Skeppy would save his life. But there's bits that he doesn't know at all too. Like how they would fall in love together.

And maybe Skeppy knows that he was indirectly the cause of the entire apocalypse when he threw a pebble into the deeper parts of the cave he was in and that somehow wiggled through all known laws of physics and made it to the center of the world.

Maybe Skeppy tried killing himself multiple times to all end in failure.

Maybe Skeppy's diamond glow is dim and he's angry all the time. Lost hope for himself and the world. Afraid that he'd be there when the world becomes barren lands and when the sun explodes and he'd be floating in space for all eternity, alone with his thoughts.

You know, happy thoughts.

So he really doesn't expect much from Bad. And he's really trying not to get attached.

Bad gives Skeppy hope. Some joy in this messed up world.

(What if there's like these void creatures that float around looking kind of like spirits and take over/control peeps to violence. They come out of the void. Their goal is to kill as many alive organisms as possible.)

[algolagniaa]

random thoughts about spirituality and sadomasochism

I’ve always been drawn towards hippie dippie new age peace and love and light and unity and we’re all connected and communing with nature type of spirituality, but I’ve never fully been able to embody that energy in large part because whenever i try it has felt like I’m faking it. reasons it feels like I’m faking it are 1) lack of empathy 2) wanting to kill people/liking hurting people sometimes and 3) EXTREME MASOCHISM, to the point where it’s actually gotten in the way of relationships even when I was actively trying to “heal” my sexuality. and I’ve always felt like those 3 things were keeping me from being the spiritual being I wanted to be. a few weeks ago I went to a meditation retreat where I did some healing around that (basically realized faeries are very far from beings of pure goodness so there’s no reason I need to be) however it wasn’t until my experience on Monday that it clicked for me how these things - and sadomasochism specifically - actually fit with the whole connection thing very well.

my view on spirituality/magic/the nature of the universe has always been: everything is part of a larger whole. studying biology rn is REALLY backing me up on this honestly. even atoms have a structure where lots of smaller parts come together to make a whole, cells have a structure where lots of smaller parts come together, the human body has this, society has this, the ecosystem, the solar system….. no matter how much you zoom in or out you will see lots of beings, both living and not, working together (consciously or not) for a collective purpose. problems with human society nonwithstanding, we are all meant to fill a role in the larger universe that involves connection with the rest of the world. if you’ve read any tumblr posts I’ve made ever you know that this is something I have always found very difficult. however I HAVE always found connection through sadomasochism, as much as people wanna tell me that it’s only hurting me (and I do see their point) it’s always been something beyond PURELY sexual for me. I mean it is still very sexual obviously. but I also experience it as like….. an opening up and giving all of myself to someone. complete surrender, dropping all acts and putting all walls down, just existing in the moment and feeling and hurting and allowing myself to be vulnerable with someone else and knowing that this person WILL hurt me and inviting it and delighting in it (more on this later) instead of trying to prevent it. that’s not to say that every sadist receives it this way (one of the reasons I have trouble dating) but it is why I have found it impossible to just stop having a kink.

when I first astral projected I told many people (really only 3 plus all of tumblr which doesn’t count, but whatever) that I was God. and that wasn’t wrong exactly but having some time to think about it (and not being on mushrooms anymore lmao) it wasn’t exactly right either. what I experienced was a perfect union with God. a knowledge that we are made of the same stuff and that she (I very much experienced God as a she) loves me deeply. my soul left my body and joined God in another dimension that I will not be trying to describe here because it’s absolutely indescribable, I’ve already tried and words fail me, but first I very much experienced God “cracking” me open and letting my soul out, and honestly in the moment I thought about the girl I’ve been excited about lately and I thought about vivisection and torture. and it all clicked together that actually my longing for that and my longing for spiritual experience are one and the same, or at least not so far apart as I had thought.

then the experience of being in that dimension was so much. I can’t even tell it in a linear way because so much up there was not linear. I don’t think time really existed? but one thing that happened is I SAW how the cycle of life and death works in a way I’d never seen it before. without a living body I got a new appreciation for everything living bodies do, is the best I can say it, and that appreciation extended to every part of life - even the gross shit. and I came to understand death, too, as not an end but simply another part of a living creature’s life cycle. this is something I already thought intellectually but never understood in the same way. and I could’ve stayed in this dimension forever but I realized I didn’t want to. it is where I belong and I’m going to go back there at some point. but I’m human right now and I want to keep being human. and I think the reason im even here is to experience exactly what it is to be human, and to live life and experience pleasure and pain and eventually die. I am here to get the entire human experience and I want all of it, including the parts that suck or are gross or intense or painful or scary for other people, because when I’m not human anymore I won’t get to have any of it. pain IS a pleasurable sensation for me because it means that I’m feeling, and I want to feel everything.

the lack of empathy makes more sense now too but I’m not going to go into that too deeply because it sounds cuckoo bananas even compared to the rest of this essay. but I will say that I think wanting to know what it is to be human is the same reason behind wanting to hurt people. it’s the same reason I like psychological experiments, on both me and others. I want to see what makes people tick. I want to see who they are with all pretenses dropped, same as I want to experience the same myself. the other reason is ofc the libran desire to make things even but I’ve actually felt so much less of that since coming back into my body. I think I did actually genuinely gain empathy or at least a lot more understanding for the people who have hurt me in my life.

also not quite related but everything is so much less boring now. I still feel detached and disconnected from everything but it is FAR less, and much easier to make myself connect when I want to.

[tlgtw]

-- Second Prototaxite Incident: Hair --

Hello,

It is with great ANGER I inform you that I have been beset with another moment akin to, months ago, that I saw images of prototaxite fossils.

Some of you may recall my post from some time ago, regarding my theory (Though not presumably mine, cause frankly I'd be really surprised if I actually was the first to suggest this concept.) that the mountain Leyndell is built on top of, as well its crater, crater lake, central island *to* that crater lake, the incredibly long vertical chamber ending with the Forsaken Depths, the Deeproot Depths themselves, and the formations of the Siofra and Ainsel Rivers (Google images of 'lava tubes' and compare them to the entrance areas of Ainsel, to quickly see what I mean for those ones, specifically.) all seem to indicate that what I have been referring to lately as 'Mt Leyndell,' was in-fact, an active volcano, looooong in the past.

I have literally SO much fucking circumstantial evidence that can be framed to support this theory. It's a blast.

Come that part of "Episode 2," (I'll be announcing the new-and-improved forecast for all of that on Monday, as planned.) you'll see what I mean for yourself. So I'm not gonna go into any other details here.

The real point of this post is, just like the first time this happened, that moments ago I found another piece of what is, to confirm, literally just circumstantial evidence. The only proof is in my eyeballs, just as before, it's literally just appearances. That I nonetheless find so completely random in how precise it is, that I can scarcely imagine what else kind of reveal it could be foreshadowing.

Assuming, of course, that it *is* specifically, foreshadowing *something,* in the first place. Which is not an insignificant assumption to make.

My own literal lack of imagination is of course not a sign of any clairvoyance. The video that will include the covering of this topic itself will go over it all properly, and there is a *lot* I still haven't said, regarding my so-called 'Mt Leyndell,' and ensuing potential implications for the rest of the story, if such a thing was actually revealed. ('Mt Leyndell' isn't even the actual name of the topic as a whole.)

(And if you want to be cheeky about it, too. The four colours currently associated with the powers of the Elden Ring: Black, Yellow, Orange, and Red, are also all found in lava as well! With the molten rock itself, and then the hardened outer crust of it. And there's also the interaction between the Rune of Death and obsidian as expressed through the Godslayer equipment and, then there's the whole Capital of Ash thing, with embers falling down from the sky for days upon days proceeding it and then, uh... hm...............)

I think I am beating around the bush.

To shorten it all, then: "Get excited!" and the random-ass fucking HAIR on Marika's hammer in the E3 reveal teaser, a trillion fucking years ago for this game, is fucking pele's hair.

No shit the magic of the Fire Giants all look the way they do, then, don't they? No shit, the 'Draconian' preset, from the character creator, says they didn't LIVE for very long, isn't it!? No shit, a tree sprouting next to a mountain with a lake on top, would be given a moniker like 'the melting pot of ancient life' during the age of the ancient dragons where that same tree, during the *current* age, for no clear reason, isn't! As well as why the powers of the Elden Ring, responsible for the Living Jars, are drawn the otherwise completely random thematic connection to STEWING.

And so on and so on. I'm of course just teasing. You'll see all of this and more (and as a lot more interesting, I hope, than all this is appearing here) in that video itself.

Will it be eventually revealed somehow that my identification is wrong, and that this and everything else had actually been foreshadowing something else entirely!? Heavens-to-betsy, I'm going to be furious if it doesn't.

As they say, confidence kills the gambling heart. And I hold mine very close.

I'll Be Yours, T-L-G-T-W

[thegreaterlink]

Reviewing Star Trek TNG - S4E8 "Future Imperfect"

My last review was posted like... nine months ago.

Time flies when you're lazy.

THE PREMISE

Commander Riker’s birthday celebrations are interrupted by reports of strange sensor readings from Alpha Onias 3. He beams down with Geordi and Worf to investigate but they’re quickly knocked out by toxic gases. Upon awakening in sickbay, Riker discovers that sixteen years have passed (though he can't remember any of it) and he is now the captain of the Enterprise.

MY REVIEW

Sixteen years in the future. Assuming that Riker is roughly the same age as Jonathan Frakes, that would put him in his mid-fifties. And if we compare this "middle-aged" Riker to Jonathan Frakes circa mid-2000s...

Not bad. Still, anything beats that weird adult Wesley from Hide and Q.

Then again, if we use Riker's birthday slab as an indicator, then he just turned...

...six.

I guess he was born on a leap year.

Anyway, here we are in the future, where Dr Crusher chalks up Riker's sudden amnesia to a side effect of a dormant infection which he picked up on that away mission all those years ago. An infection which Klingons just so happen to be immune to... and I guess Geordi is just built different.

Dr Crusher recommends associational therapy, with the idea being that surrounding Riker with familiar people and things will help to jog his memory, starting with a trip to the bridge. Because a man fresh out of a coma with a massive gap in his memory is clearly fit to resume command of a starship. Good call.

Riker arrives on the bridge and finds it looking… exactly the same, since new sets ain’t cheap, but there are at least changes among the crew. My boi Data is now First officer, Geordi now has ocular implants so LeVar Burton gets to act without a hunk of plastic on his face, and more species like Klingons and Ferengi are among the crew.

But what concerns Riker is the most is Admiral Picard and Troi arriving on a Romulan Warbird.

That last one is explained by ongoing peace treaty negotiations with the Romulans, which Riker has apparently been leading ever since he rescued the crew of a damaged Warbird which wound up in Federation space. Evidently random acts of kindness go a long way towards stopping wars in this universe. The Enterprise is currently escorting the Romulan ambassador to Outpost 23 to wrap things up and get the treaty signed.

Yep. Here we are in the future, and it's bright. Nothing to fear, no one to fight... I can't believe we've come so far.

Then Tomalak beams aboard.

Future Picard and Troi try to reassure Riker – yeah, he did threaten to take the Enterprise's hull as a trophy last season, but that was one time – but he's still concerned, both by the massive gap in his memory and that he might have to reveal sensitive Starfleet intel to someone he probably can't trust.

With the briefing over and Riker’s memories still thoroughly gone, Troi takes him back to his quarters, where a mysterious child is playing his trombone.

"Hi, Dad!"

Ah. He has his father's... hair?

This is Riker's son, Jean-Luc (Chris Demetral). I remember being surprised that Troi wasn't the mother... but their romance is barely more than subtext at this point, so it's not that shocking. Jean-Luc's mother was actually a woman only known as Min, who Troi explains died two years prior. Even though they have zero evidence of her existing – aside from the child she supposedly birthed, I mean – and Riker can't find any trace of her in the ship's records. They don't even have any photos of her. I guess they had to make room for their... modern art?

I think I saw the Threads logo in there.

Christ, the last time I posted a review Threads didn't even exist it's been so fucking long

The computer's been acting up for a while now, come to think of it. I'm sure Geordi will be done with that diagnostic soon.

Still, I can at least appreciate the script's efforts to make us care about this kid. Riker adjusts pretty well to being a father, though that probably has more to do with Jonathan Frakes' natural daddy– I mean dad energy.

"I guess there's only one thing we can do. We've got to build some new memories!"

But Riker is still bothered that he can't find any trace of his late wife, though Jean-Luc says he's just not being precise enough, and pulls up some old home movies. It's here that we discover that "Min" is actually Minuet (again played by Carolyn McCormick for a single shot – that's dedication for you), that hologram lady he tried to bone way back in his babyface era.

Suddenly everything starts falling into place. And speaking of hologram romantics (or holosexuals, as I like to call them), Geordi calls Riker back up to the bridge.

It's here that the attempts to keep Riker gaslit, gatekept and girlbossed completely fall apart, as he calls out all sorts of holes in the facade, like Geordi taking more than a day to run a simple diagnostic, nobody being able to properly recall past events and even Data using a contraction.

Ha! I knew Lore was going to come back eventually! AND THEY CALLED ME A MADMAN!

...No? It's not Lore? Aight. Maybe next season.

"Would anyone else like to speak up? Or shall we end this charade?"

With the wool thoroughly pulled back from Riker's eyes, Tomalak reveals that the whole thing has actually been a hologram simulation designed to trick him into revealing Federation intel like, say, the location of Outpost 23.

You win this time, Lore.

Turns out that after the away team was hit with the gas, the Romulans intercepted Riker while he was being beamed up. They used their neural scanners to create a perfect replica of the Enterprise and its crew. Add a bit of ageing makeup and some bullshit about amnesia and badda bing badda bang, you’ve got yourself a pretty convincing future AU.

As for Tomalak’s OC, Jean-Luc, he was actually some random kid named Ethan who they had taken prisoner after raiding a research outpost on the edge of the Neutral Zone.

They throw Riker in a cell with him for a lil bit — just long enough for Ethan to tell him about a secret hiding spot elsewhere on the ship — so when the Romulans come back with the intention of taking the intel by force, Riker seizes the opportunity. One distraction and a few punches in the face later, and they’re on the run.

Ethan leads Riker through a convenient crawl space to a convenient forgotten room where some convenient blueprints conveniently tell them the location of the ship’s communication centre where they could send a message to the Enterprise. But there's a catch.

Ethan: The transmitter's on a voice-activated security system only.

Riker: Do you know whose voice activates it?

Ethan: Only Ambassador Tomalak.

...The fuck you say?

Yeah, the plot be thickening. Turns out the original simulation was just crammed inside of another one. So the Romulan ship fades away... as do the Romulans... and Tomalak... until Riker is left standing back in the cave on Alpha Onias 3... with only the boy remaining.

Credit where it's due, decent plot twist.

The boy, whose real name is Barash, reveals that his mother left him in the cave — which essentially functions as Holodeck+ by manifesting anything he wants — to keep him safe. But with his mother long dead and the Enterprise being the planet's first visitors in ages, he baited the away team down to the surface and intercepted Riker mid-transport while Geordi and Worf were safely beamed back up.

But with the game up, Barash drops the facade, allowing the Enterprise to finally get a proper lock on him. Fortunately Riker realises that the kid meant nothing by it and even offers him asylum on the Enterprise, prompting Barash to finally reveal his true form.

Ah... I think you've got the wrong set, my dude. This is Star Trek. Doctor Who is on Stage 4B.

Riker: To me, you'll always be Jean-Luc.

And so Riker has himself and the kid beamed up. Da end.

We're going to see a lot of these "waking up in a different reality" plots going forward, and while I'm usually not really a fan — you're mostly just waiting for the character in question to realise something ain't right and expose whatever tomfuckery is causing it — this one ain't half bad, since it was a bit more subtle about it and had some third act twists to spice things up. So yeah.

7/10 - The first of many.

We are so fucking back.

Previous Episode | TNG Masterpost | Next Episode

[selznick]

this post is about the ship name 'leith' and the supposed meaning of lion and whether that is true or not,, please tell me if you have any more info not on here

ok so,, ages ago when voltron was booming i was kinda in the fandom

i say 'kinda' cuz i didnt watch the show and mainly saw stuff abt it on Instagram and read some fics for it on wattpad

ANYway,, i remember how wild ppl were abt klance and how klance would be cannon, king. now there were a few reasosn for that that were kinda valid (?) to believe or at least how i rmemeber they were

but there was one that stands out in my mind

the common ship name used for LancexKeith was Klance. However, there was another ship name that was used quite frequently in the fandom as well: Leith

and leith is the fucking interesting part of this,, because i remember someone saying it mean Lion in another language so therefore the ship would be cannon

and honestly wild,, like most conspiracy thing abt the ships i rmember

But!! i decided to look it up and like,, i cant find anything???

theres a wiki article about the name 'Laith', also 'Leith' or 'Layth' that claims the name is either Arabic or Scottish Gaelic. A name website (names.org) also says those are the possible origins, with someone from morocco, a country that speaks arabic, saying it means 'lion cub'

so mystery sovled, it does! execpt,, it doesnt??

like if you look up lion or lion cub in arabic,, leith/laith comes up for neither,, and arabic has a different alphabet so maybe its just the pronunciation that is similar but no! its different,, ive looked on multipul websites and listened to the pronunciation on multi websites and its not leith

if you look on the talk page of the wiki article theres two things:

laith isn't lion

kyng benji

ok so kyng benji is and americas got talent entree so idk why hes on this talk page

but may 2022 a user comments (idk wiki terms?) saying that lion is 'assad' however laith is baby lion (cub)

which,, cool i already knew that it wasnt lion however! i hadnt try baby lion (though i tried cub but maybe the results would be different),, well nope. still no pronunciation i could find that sounds like leith/laith for arabic so i have no clue where the leith is a name that means lion in arabic has come from

But maybe we can try gaelic?

except in gaelic it comes from a village called Leslie in Aberdeenshire apparently,, and apparently derived from "the Gaelic lios laith (with lion meaning 'Lion') or lios linn (with linn meaning pool)."

but 'lios' isnt lion in gaelic - 'leòmhann' is.

lios means courtyard or garden or enclosure when i looked it up

the only thing specifically for leith is the Water of Leith, a river in scotland,, so again: not lion

so i have to wonder - did someone make the lion translation up to make the ship seem credible?

but that doesnt make sense,, because it doesnt actually Make it credible

and does anyone else actually rmemeber that being a thing that people said/believed or was that just a random post i rmemeber and gave to much weight to in my mind??

[professorscrooge]

This AU has stuffed my brain with enough Thoughts™ to finally make a Tumblr account.

So, thoughts, specifically, re: Mando archaeologists coming in to look at the statues, particularly thinking about the timescale this idea exists on and its implications:

I agree on all your points about a New Mando archaeologist being able to identify things just fine, but think I’d go a step further of anyone contemporary would identify the symbols better than any of their predecessors across the centuries, as they would be the closest to the actual timeframe they were painted in. Ancient symbols they wouldn't be able to identify would most likely be the ones that have fallen out of favour by the time of the Clone Wars and the Clones themselves painting them (before being Terracotta’d). The ones the Clones saw/replicated are most likely the most popular ones of the current era amongst the True Mandos, regardless of age, which likely makes them the most recognisable to a current New Mandalorian (which can be both a good and a bad thing depending upon their feeling about what might earn or reflect upon those symbols).

This leads me into my second thought, that being the incongruity of the statues' age vs the symbols they have on them. Star Wars has ridiculously long timeframes for the relative stagnancy its tech/culture has across the different eras, but we can still extrapolate reasonably that there would be cultural shifts over thousands of years – languages have changed or shifted, been created and lost over much shorter timeframes in the real world, nevermind cultural symbols and dress codes etc. especially on the military front, where uniforms can change multiple times throughout a singular conflict as the participants adapt. The Mandalorians are one of the few cultures where we see some of this change in their many appearances due to popularity and distinctiveness; Crusader armour to Neo Crusader, for example (which I bet annoys historians due to the emphasis on depersonalisation likely resulting in a loss in understanding of the armour designs that came before, but I digress). All this means, they might have symbols that are ‘only’ a few centuries or decades old, which then calls into question wtf are they doing on a statue that is seemingly far, far older.

e.g. "Those are Jaig Eyes, a memorial tradition stemming from Jaig's Last Stand at the 3rd Battle of Mimban."

 "Oh, interesting, interesting" excited/bored junior Jedi on archivist duty writes down "When was that?"

"730 years ago, which makes this statue utterly impossible."

 Logically, this then stems into two options for the archaeologist: either a) the statues are a far younger fraud, or b) the statues are the origin of the symbol as they predate the believed origin (as in potentially a very, very big historical/cultural discovery that probably throws a whole load of academic discourse into a tizzy).

 (Point b) could actually be evolved into a Bootstrap Paradox where that actually did legit happen on one of them from a previous expedition – can you imagine a shocked post-revival Ahsoka seeing her facial markings not just on many of the 501st around her like the Siege of Mandalore, but also on some random Mandalorian because, oops, accidentally inspired history, and maybe a conspiracy theory or two).

 This then also leads into; what do they actually make of them? (Yes, I have way too many thoughts about this, I’m so sorry). We generally have the vibe of the Clones have inherited lots of bits and pieces of Mando-ness, but that they also don’t necessarily understand all of what they do know. So, you have frustrations of “That’s a recognisable symbol of [Insert here] but it’s supposed to be painted on a vambrace, not on the helmet!” (he just thought it looked cool), “These three are apparently married, but they didn’t adapt the symbol into a triad??” (they just thought it was a symbol of closeness as batchmates, and had no idea it had further connotations or polyamorous adaptations), “That one’s just got Sandwich written on his head!!!” (it’s his name, yes he picked it). This seeming randomness that makes it even harder to glean the purpose of the symbols that are used correctly as they make assumptions, e.g. Jaig Eyes are something we know are a relatively big deal, and Rex is the only person there with them in all likelihood, and is obviously a commander of some sort – so, did he take ownership of those, give them to himself, and ban others from using them because they wanted to be important and unique? Or maybe he did earn them rightfully, and that’s why he’s a commander? And the Archaeologist just doesn’t know and has to second-guess things more than they should need to, because they’re not following the rules everywhere, they don't know what to make of it where they are.

 They also despair over the armour itself, because it’s clearly mass-manufactured and militaristic in bent, which should narrow it down to a historical period (as more uniform styles seems to be less common across Mandalorian history than more individualistic ones, though we’re missing big periods and I’m gonna assume on some being for animation budget vs comic artist reasons), but it’s completely unknown. The advantage of mass-manufacturing is more examples are likely to survive to a modern era intact, but this is completely new, and not just the result of an artist reusing a base mould or something because every statue is unique. They can probably put together a ranking system based on some of the extra pieces Clones added to their armour (and things like Kama and Pauldrons will presumably be recognisable) but it doesn’t match any known organisation, and implies either very small delineations, or perhaps this being a small part of a very large group.

Basically, by the end of their examination, the archaeologist is absolutely tearing their hair/lekku/horns out and very much needs an offered cup of tea and someone to yell at because none of this makes any sense.

Finally, at the end of all this when they make their reports, is when Politics might get involved. Because there are various angles you can take for these statues to be Historically Significant to Mandalore. But they’re not on Mandalore, they’re in the Jedi Temple, and suddenly we’re at a British Museum situation of ownership (sorta). Neither the Jedi nor the Archaeologist want to move the statues due to the Vibes they give off, but would be very easy to write a politician/just a Mando with an axe to grind against the Republic (pick a reason, there’s loads – this is where you could insert Jaster or Jango, with added weirdness if this is post-Galidraan and this might bring the question of reparations on the table, idk, exact things I have no idea on) who finds out about them to launch a campaign of having them ‘returned’ (as we’ve seen what lengths they went to when retrieving the Darksaber, this would likely be a Thing). And the Jedi probably don’t have much control over something as big of a Political deal like that, it’s presumably up to the Senate; who I bet would first off send a dozen art valuators and insurers down there to try and value them, and then procrastinate and bureaucratise for half a century and be reluctant to give things up because it’s Mandalore, and the Republic is still kinda scared of them after the many centuries of warfare. (The valuers also get lost constantly on the way to the army because this is a Jedi Temple, and if it doesn’t want you to find your way, you won’t).

 Apologies, long post, and I have no idea if I’m butting in or necroposting or what etiquette here is really, just too many thoughts in a small brain. I have a half-written fic based on the previous posts of this AU and discovering this addition today got me thinking again.

Thought- in the terracotta warriors thing, you mentioned that the Jedi archeologists brought in a specialist in mando iconography to try and work out what’s going on with the 501sts symbols- what if that outside specialist is jaster mereel? Could be pre becoming the mand’alor, could be just his side job, but either way he spends a few years studying it all and getting used to being the only mando in a base camp full of Jedi, makes friends, has academic discussions and disagreements, steals someone’s holopad to try and use the link to the Jedi archives to read all the things on tarre visla, gets into an actual argument, reconciles with agreeing to help with a historical reenactment of a Jedi mandolorian war, gets Madame nu’s comm number, introduces his new son to his comm bff who argues historical nitpicks with him, brings jango to the next summer at the site, clones react to jango somehow and/or there’s a few tubies in there who look distractingly like jango and/or someone has their helmet off and jango has a breakdown over it looking like a family member? And so on and so on

Context: Sleeping Soldiers AU

See, I don't really subscribe to the "halfway to archaeologist!Jaster" fanon. I'm especially reticent to engage with the Jocasta ship, honestly.

But... okay, here's the thing. It does feel pretty incongruous with how I've written Jaster thus far. I can believe him having like. A 'classical' education. Not actually tutored like a noble, but that he sought out the same subjects as an adult to make sure he understood how to rule once he started having a proper political angle. He's a history nerd in the way that a particularly political/philosophical aristocrat of the 18th century would have been.

Military history, philosophical history, political and even some arts... but not actually in an archaeological sense.

(Also, it raises my hackles because it's one of those things that feels like it's heavily associated with the whole "True Mandos Were Best Mandos" crowd.)

It also really depends on the era! Tarre makes more sense than Jaster, just because of the timescale! The soldiers are millennia buried by the time Jaster is born! That said, even Tarre is a few millennia late but... makes more sense than Jaster.

Most likely, there are historians and archaeologists coming by every few centuries, as new generations encounter the issue, and older analyses are lost in the depths of the archives. Frequency tapers off after a few millennia, but... by the time Jaster is around?

It's 100% a New Mandalorian with an art history doctorate. (With a military symbolism specialty, in this case.)

It's probably not a New Mando if it's an Early On moment, but it probably is a New Mando if the Jedi start getting Weird Vibes and investigating the soldiers in the decades leading up to the Prequels.

Would the New Mandalorians know more than the traditionalists? Not necessarily. Would they know less? Actually, no.

I firmly believe that the New Mandalorians are taught about their histories in a "German kids learn about WWII atrocities, going on field trips to historic sites of said horrors, so their teachers can stress that they don't repeat the mistakes of the past" kind of way. I imagine the New Mandos would have plenty of research and records in regards to actual history, with plenty of museums and such. Part of maintaining pacifism is ensuring that the coming generations understand what led them to pacifism in the first place.

Is this thousands of years in the past, and thus difficult to research? Yes, but the traditionalists would have that same problem.

More of them, even. If the New Mandos have been around for seven hundred years, like Legends claims, then the traditionalists have probably have lost a lot of history through various battles and bombings, while the New Mandalorians, while not entirely escaping large scale destruction and such attacks, are much more likely to have protected and maintained their sites, simply by not courting war as a matter of culture. The traditionalists, meanwhile, would have had a much stronger emotional and cultural attachment to legends and themes, though I'll admit those are probably prone to revisionism, much like real-world folklore and mythology.

As @atagotiak put it:

Ehhhh. The traditionalists do care about legends and history and stuff. Often in an idealized way, sure. But you could argue that they’d have more reason than new mandos to be into these stories. Which, to be clear, isn’t like, saying that Jaster is definitely a part-time historian or anything like that. It’s just I don’t think one side would have an advantage over another. (edited)

So the New Mandos and Trad Mandos are probably on an even playing ground, insofar as skill and resources and knowledge go.

But by Jaster's time, the Jedi would have more reason to think the New Mandos would cooperate. No real downside to asking them when it comes to knowledge/skill, and an upside in terms of 'not getting shot when asking.'

As Tia said:

And even if we assume Jaster is a big history nerd and would be receptive to the Jedi (and tbh there’s even less indication of the latter) there’s no reason to think the Jedi would know that.

So yeah, when the soldiers start having Vibes And The Force Becomes Suspiciously Active on that level... New Mando archaeologist, definitely.

[f1united]

Ensemble - Chapter Two: The Girl and The Gift

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: Your Arthur Leclercs best friend. So why, after a random night in London, are you falling for his brother?

Chapter One: The Start

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol and sex.

Word Count: 5.8k

Note: This chapter begins in London and is marked where it switches to Mykonos. There are then some flashbacks mixed in so just watch out for those. Let me know your thoughts, enjoy!

*****

Chapter Two: The Girl and The Gift

Not long after Pierre had joined your table, Charles emerged from the toilets. Pierre had waved his hands to inform him of his updated location as he sat in the empty seat, unknowingly signing himself up for a night full of girly gossip and drama. The evening was spent reminiscing on childhood memories and sharing stories. It wasn't until Nat checked her phone that you realised how late it was getting.

"We better get going," She announced as she checked her phone. "The last train is in half an hour." You lived just outside of London which meant that most nights out were cut short by trains unless you had booked a hotel. You hummed in agreement as you finished your drink watching as Pierre began to whisper in Lucy's ear. They'd been flirting all night so her next sentence didn't come as much of a surprise.

"I'm going to chill with Pierre for a bit, I'll find my own way home tomorrow" The rest of the girls saw it coming too.

"Are you sure?" Katie asked. "I don't want you ending up in London on your own with no way home." She had a point. London could be quite daunting when it was late and dark, especially if you weren't a local.

"Well why don't you stay too?" Charles nodded his head towards you as he spoke. "That way you could leave together." Not one part of you questioned Charles' intentions as he spoke. He remained the responsible 'Arthur's older brother' that was being sensible and mature, making sure that everyone got home safely.

"If that's alright with you?" Your question was answered with a nod of his head. You all began to grab your things and headed outside, saying your goodbyes, telling them to text you when they were home safe as they encouraged you to do the same. By the time they'd headed for the station, Pierre and Lucy were already nowhere to be seen.

"I'm not sure about you but I'm in no rush to go back to the apartment just yet!" You spoke to Charles as you looked at the night sky above you.

"Where do you want to go in the meantime?"

“Have you ever explored London before?" You answered his question with one of your own. He shook his head. "So you haven't seen all beautiful sites it has to offer." The sarcasm was evident in your voice as you pointed down the alley way you were walking past full of black bins and plastic bags full of rubbish.

"I've only ever been here to celebrate races and I can't say I've seen much other than the inside of some bars and restaurants.”

"Well you're in for a long night Leclerc." Two hours ago Charles wanted nothing more than for him and Pierre to go back to the apartment. The lack of alcohol he'd consumed throughout the night was only adding to the tiredness he'd accumulated over the race weekend. However as you dragged him through the streets of London he realised there was no place he'd rather be.

You'd ridden Boris bikes alongside the River Thames, shown him your favourite restaurant in Covent Garden and taken him through Piccadilly Circus all the way to Oxford Street where closed shops lined the dark streets, pointing out your favourite ones as you cycled past. He never did things like this. As a F1 driver it was difficult for him to go almost anywhere without going unnoticed but tonight not one person had recognised him because for the night he was just a normal person with another normal person having a good time. 

After abandoning the Boris bikes at the nearest drop off point you both headed towards the apartment. It belonged to Charles' mother and was often used by you and Arthur whenever he'd come to visit and couldn't stay with you.

"You seem happier than when I last saw you." His comment made you smile. It was all he could think about as you wondered through the dark streets. The last time you'd seen him you'd just broken up with your ex. Your relationship had been on and off for years but you'd finally called it quits for good. It didn't take a genius to see the relationship was making you unhappy, the anxiety, tears and sleepless nights were picked up on by everyone albeit your efforts to hide it. Arthur was the only person who truly knew what was going on and it hurt him to see his best friend in so much pain when she thought she was in love.

"Thank you, I'm in a much better place now. I've had time to focus on myself." You'd completely lost yourself throughout the time you were together, focusing so much on what he'd wanted and expected rather than what made you happy. The situation had increased your maturity and for that reason you were grateful your first heartbreak had come at such a young age. You'd correctly assumed that Arthur had made Charles aware of your sensitiveness to the situation to some extent as he made no further comments. 

He had approached Arthur with concern after your last meeting. Despite a fun grand prix weekend you'd been blinking back tears and spent most of the time with a blank expression on your face. He hated it. He could see you trying to compose yourself, when he came to thank you for coming you'd done your best to smile, your voice was laced with excitement, but your eyes were empty, drained of emotion. He was grateful to see it had made its way back.

"Did you know I've never been to Harrods?" His random fact was a relief as he quickly changed the subject, allowing your mind to be brought back to the present rather than the dark times from the past.

"Even I've been to Harrods Charles. We should go tomorrow, you'd have a field day in the clothes section." As a part time student most of your spare money went into savings, a fund you'd created for your planned travels when you were done with your studies. It wasn't very often that you brought yourself nice things so despite your multiple trips to Harrods, you'd never actually purchased anything. You could see him deliberating your suggestion in his head. 

"You can wear sunglasses and a hat with your mask, just don't wear a bright red Ferrari top and I'm sure we'll be able to keep ourselves to ourselves."

"Don't you have work tomorrow?" His question brought you back to reality slightly.

"I'll call in sick?" you offered. It suddenly occurred to you that this was the longest time you and Charles had ever been alone together and the idea of leaving wasn't something that you wanted to think about just yet. 

Charles opened the apartment door with caution, neither of you wanted to interrupt your friend’s spontaneous night, nor hear any of the antics they were getting up to. You frowned at each other as you stepped into the entrance corridor. There were no faint voices, no mumbling or laughs, just the hum of the city that echoed through the slightly open window.

“Maybe they didn’t come back here,” your judgement became increasingly more likely as you followed Charles towards the kitchen and stood around the island.

“I’ll send him a text.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped away before placing it on the marble countertop. It lit up with Pierre's reply not long after he'd set it down. “They went to some hotel, apparently he’s dropping her home in a second.”

“He’s not the type to bring girls back to his home turf then,” you took the bag off your shoulder and placed in on the counter, grabbing a hair tie from inside and gathering your locks into a low ponytail. “Smart move.” Charles shrugged his shoulders at your observation.

He’d never really thought about it before, but he was the same. The few casual hook ups that he’d had over the years had never been in places he spent a lot of time like his house in Monaco, or his favourite holiday home in Mykonos, and never this apartment. Sure, he’d slept with people in those cities, but never in his space. You were right though; it was easier to forget about the crime if you never returned to the scene.

"Do you have anything I can change into?" 

“There’s a top on the end of my bed.” You thanked him as you made your way towards his room. “I’ll grab some of my things so I can crash on the sofa once you’ve changed.” You stopped in your tracks, turning to face him as you stood in the doorway.

“I’m not kicking an f1 driver out of their own bed Charles, especially not post race weekend.” You crossed your arms as you lent against the door frame. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“I’m not letting you sleep on the sofa.” He argued.

“It’s one night Charles, I really don’t mind.”

“I’m not letting you sleep on the sofa.” He repeated.

“Well then it looks like we’re sharing the bed.” Your words not only surprised you, but also Charles. Neither of you were sure where this increased confidence had come from, but you didn’t want it to become awkward, so you tried to justify your statement. “Me and Arthur used to share a bed all the time!”

The look on his face as your eyes met with his across the room was one you’d so desperately been seeking without realising it. His head cocked, eyebrows raised and small smirk tugging its way onto his lips provided reassurance, giving you the confidence to confirm that this relationship was very different to your one with Arthur. You already knew it, you had felt it every time you’d looked at him since you were about 16, but this was the first time you could say with certainty that it was reciprocated.

Charles was dying to climb into bed with you. To wrap his arms around you and stay like it all night. He didn’t care about the fact that your hair would be in his face or that his arm would most likely be dead within the first half an hour. He just wanted you there with him, so he could learn things about you that he didn’t already know and fall asleep with the scent of your faded perfume beneath his nose. He suggested that he’d sleep on the sofa because he knew that wasn’t what you were implying. 

“I’ll stay on my side,” you offered. “Promise.”

That’s what he was afraid of. Charles was a respectful man, he wouldn’t cross boundaries without permission, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go without your touch. The thought of your body lying so tantalisingly close to his while dressed in nothing but your underwear and one of his shirts was driving him crazy.

“I’m a very good sleeper, you won’t even know I’m there.”

You couldn’t stop listing reasons for Charles to join you. He wished you would stop; his head was already full of so many.

“Well go and get comfy and I’ll join you in a minute,” In that moment he made the decision to give in knowing that if this was the only chance he got to lay in bed with you he'd take the opportunity, whether your bodies were intertwined or not. “Do you need a drink or anything?”

“A water would be great!” You smiled as you turned around and headed to the bedroom. Charles spent the next few minutes alone in the kitchen trying to convince himself that this was a bad idea. That it was wrong. You were his brother’s best friend and he shouldn't be this nervous or excited to lay next to you, but no matter how hard he tried to dislike the situation he couldn’t because it just felt right.

By the time he joined you in bed you’d already made yourself incredibly comfortable. He chuckled at the site of you tangled in the duvet before climbing in next to you. You laid facing each other and remained that way as you chatted about memories from the past. Childhood holidays and his earliest racing days to you latest life plans and hopes for the future. That's how you drifted to sleep, listening to his voice was more comforting than you'd like to admit. When you awoke in the morning you were unsure what terrified you more, the feeling of one of you completely reducing the few centimetres of space left between you or never knowing what Charles’ touch felt like.

*****

Maybe that’s why you were so unimpressed when Charles and Pierre joined the several of you seated around the long table on the patio with two unknown girls. The number of cocktails you’d consumed weren’t providing you with a great amount of rationality but then again it was difficult to justify being annoyed when you had no reason to be in the soberest of situations. The only person to blame was yourself, you’d had the chance to experience a night with Charles and a combination of your stubbornness, maturity and (let’s face it) fear of what could happen had meant that you’d missed out.

It was only as she threw her head back at one of his comments that it hit you, you were jealous. It was a feeling you hadn’t felt in years. Ever since your last relationship you had lacked almost every kind of emotion. You’d dated people since but that connection was never really there which is why you were full of confusion at the situation presenting itself to you. The feelings felt foreign to your body and you weren’t sure how to deal with them, so you did the one think that you were too young to do back then. Get drunk and try to forget about them for a night.

"Are you listening? Drink up, we're leaving in a second!" Arthurs voice provided a distraction from your thoughts whilst encouraging them. You tilted your head back as you finished the remainder of your champagne, your arm was already reaching out for the nearest bottle to see if you could sneak in a quick refill. You didn’t even like champagne but after having run out of cocktails about an hour ago you didn’t really have much choice. In any other situation you would’ve declined and waited until you were at the club but you weren’t really in the mood to sober up right now. You got up to follow everyone to the taxis, deciding that the bottle had too much in to be left at the table to waste, but not enough in that you couldn't finish it before you reached you destination. Putting the bottle to your lips this time, you took another gulp.

He noticed. He noticed the vast amount of alcohol you had consumed thus far. The unbothered façade you'd displayed during dinner was picked up by him the second he’d glanced in your direction. Your eyes often met his across rooms, at events, in the paddock, even at family dinners and it was always followed by a shared smile, but tonight you hadn't even looked at him and he couldn't stand it. Although he couldn’t be certain, he had a good idea what the cause was. Guilt was slowly consuming his thoughts. He shouldn’t have felt guilty, there was no real reason to, yet he did.

He knew if he had come alone you would've had a couple of drinks with dinner, just enough to prepare yourself for the club afterwards, allowing the sweaty people and sticky floor to become slightly bearable. He also knew that you weren't a huge drinker and that the lack of food you had consumed at dinner would only worsen the matter which was evident as he watched you fall into a taxi with Arthur and Carla as he climbed into a separate one with Pierre and, what they appeared to be to everyone else, their ‘dates’.

The club was busy, everyone excited to be back on the dance floor after its absence over the past year or two. Although it would've been nice to spend some more time with him, you were thankful that the crowds had engulfed you so you'd lose sight of Charles and her. You'd found your way to the middle of the dance floor and you remained there for hours losing track of time and somehow your friends too.

Unbeknown to you, Charles had lost his 'date' at the first chance he had. He'd met her on a boat during the day with Pierre and when his best friend had invited her best friend for dinner he felt bad for not doing the same. He was sitting at the bar with Pierre who'd picked up on the amount of attention he was paying you as you danced along with random strangers. The Frenchman questioned what he was doing when he noticed Charles tighten his jaw. Charles nodded his head in your direction and the pair watched as a man approached you.

The guy in front of you was only offering to buy you a drink but you knew you were way over your limit. You'd politely declined, naively assuming that he'd disappear back into the sea of faces but that wasn't the case. Your refusal  clearly not accepted as he insisted. grabbing onto your arm in an attempt to pull you in the direction of the bar. Yanking your arm out of his grip you instantly managed to sober up as you came to the realisation you were going to have to fight this battle alone.

Charles knew you were a big girl, that you could handle yourself in almost any situation thrown your way, but as the guy reached out to touch you he could've sworn he moved quicker than his Ferrari. His presence shocked you as you flinched slightly at the unfamiliar grip on your waist.

"It's just me ma belle." Charles whispered calmly into your ear, placing a feather light kiss onto your cheek. Relief instantly washed over your body. You wished you could focus on the conversation that Charles was now having with the strange man in front of you but you couldn't. The only thing you could focus on was the feeling of your skin heating beneath Charles' fingertips and the tingling sensation that lingered where he'd planted the kiss. He'd never touched you before, the brief hugs being the most contact you'd ever shared, and now he was standing in a club with his hand around your waist as he fended off a random guy who'd taken an interest in you. "I think we should head home." When Charles spoke it felt as though each word was coated in sex as it left his lips. He hadn't meant it in a sexy way, you knew that. He wanted to take you home so you were safe. However his intense grip on your waist and his stubble lightly grazing your cheek when he leaned in to speak to you was putting thoughts into your mind that you knew shouldn't be there.

You looked up at him, your eyes locking for the first time that night. Your eyes always showed a lot of emotion. Your body language was often hard to read but you always made eye contact when you spoke. He frequently used it to determine what mood you were in but this time he was met with one he'd never seen before. Despite them having a drunken glaze, your dilated pupils held a look of lust. He could've sworn you were mentally undressing him. You weren't. Instead you were thinking of how much you wanted him to undress you.

"I think that's a good idea." He could hear the smirk in your voice over the sound of the music as you let your lips gently brush his ear lobe while you spoke. He shut his eyes tightly and took a deep breath in an attempt to pull himself together. You were disappointed when his hand left your side but satisfied when it quickly intertwined itself with yours. His skin was softer than you were expecting, the rough patches slowly disappearing over the summer break. Your hands remained that way as you walked through the streets of Mykonos. Neither of you spoke, you just remained in a comfortable silence. As the villa came into view Charles was basically marching down the street, his strides increasing as your little legs tried to keep up. He dropped your hand when he reached the door, searching his pockets for the key to unlock it.

The villa was colder than you were expecting, a shiver ran down your spine as the air con hit you. You headed towards the kitchen and grabbed your sweater off one of the bar stools, sliding it on over your outfit.

“So you’d let Carla drive your car huh?” his face instantly broke out in a smile as you relieved some of the tension between you both. “You know that’s not true.” Charles followed you to the kitchen and watched as you perched yourself on the edge of the counter. He poured a glass of water and took a sip before handing it to you which you gratefully accepted.

“You’d let your date drive it instead?” He rolled his eyes as he chuckled at your sarcasm, hoping that you’d forgotten about the girl he’d sat next to during dinner as quickly as he had. “How many girls get a turn before me?” Although he didn't let it show, your question had offended him slightly. Despite his popularity with women he was never one to disrespect them, especially not you. He took a step closer to you, standing directly in front of your legs that were pressed firmly together.

“You’re the only one I want to see in that seat mon Cherie,” That was one nickname that he’d never called you, yet it rolled off his tongue so effortlessly. He leaned against your legs and you slowly parted them so he could stand in between, closing the distance between you both. “I’d let you drive it again in a heartbeat.” Your eyes were fluttering between his eyes and lips, your stare only breaking when he leaned in to speak in your ear just like he’d done in the club. He placed a kiss on your cheekbone and slowly worked his way up to your ear.

“You looked very sexy behind the wheel of my car.” You locked your hands with his while he continued to speak, closing your eyes in a desperate attempt to try and calm your heart rate down. You wanted to say something back, engage more in the conversation, but for the first time in a long time you were at a loss for words. You loved driving, you'd often join the boys go karting growing up and learned to drive as soon as you could, so when Charles asked if you wanted to drive his Ferrari back to your home after your Harrods shopping trip you were more than excited. It was a nice change from the train ride you were expecting.

He'd watched your eyes light up when you realised he was being serious. It was the closest you'd ever been to driving something even remotely similar to an f1 car despite it being different in so many ways. Your smile was infectious as you put your foot down on the motorway, leaving London behind. You'd never even driven an automatic car so this was a completely new experience. He'd taught you how to use the paddles to manually change gears if you wanted to and how to shift through its different modes as you drove around. The only disappointing part of the journey was reaching your destination, your trip home considerably quicker than you would've wanted. After spending the whole time focused on going fast and not crashing, you'd selfishly not noticed how Charles was feeling throughout the drive.

He'd been trying to keep his eyes trained on the road in front of him but couldn't help steal a glance in your direction every now and then. He was always surrounded by fast cars, something he realised after seeing you sat in his driving seat he'd begun to take for granted. He felt overwhelmed with pride, he was the one who was making you this happy. He felt privileged seeing you this free as your hair flew around in the wind while you rested a hand out the side of the car, trying to resist the force of the air pushing it back. It was his turn to be selfish as he realised that he always wanted to keep that moment for himself. He didn't want anyone else to make you feel like this, give you this experience. He wanted to be the one to make you smile.

“Don’t go quiet now mon Cherie.” That nickname. Again. “I think we still need to discuss what happened in the shower.” You instantly snapped back into reality at the mention of the shower. His hand fell from yours and toyed with the bracelet on your wrist. The one that you nervously played with in situations like these. The one that he’d gifted you last year. The one with his name etched into it.

The morning that you'd woke up in Charles' bed you were alone. An empty bed was something you'd become accustomed to over the past couple of years but in this instance it made you awaken quicker. The note left on his pillow stopped you from worrying, he was out on a run.

You respected his commitment to his career and took the opportunity to go for a shower. The warm water felt refreshing against your skin, goose bumps slowly appearing across your skin at the sudden change in temperature. Rubbing Charles shower gel into your skin you closed eyes and lent your head against the tiled shower wall. It wasn't clear at what point you'd become so aroused, but  the steam from the shower and the smell of Charles covering you definitely had something to do with it. You allowed your hands to roam your body, his name unexpectedly falling from your mouth as you brushed past your breasts. The careless use of his name had caused your eyes to widen and your hand to clamp over your mouth. It had left you lips so naturally but felt inappropriate to say aloud.

It wasn't until a few days later that you realised he'd heard. He almost hadn’t. If he’d unlocked the apartment a mere three seconds later your words wouldn’t have reached his ears. His run had been sweaty and he was still out of breath but his panting soon stopped. His eyes widened as he heard his name leave your lips and he froze. He didn’t want to announce his presence, he knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it and didn’t want you to feel embarrassed that he had. He didn’t know what to do. He felt as though he was invading your privacy but knew that if he shut the door you’d hear it close and know he was there. So instead he stuck his foot between the door and the doorframe to keep it slightly open as he waited for the sound of the shower to finish running. He tried to focus on something else, anything else, but he failed. All he could think about was you, in his shower, without him and how badly he wanted to join you, just so he could make his name fall from your mouth the way it just did over and over again.

You thought you'd gotten away with it. He'd entered the apartment just as you were stepping out the bathroom and he'd acted as cool as ever. The weekend was slowly becoming a distant memory that you were trying hard not to dwell on, hating that you were missing his presence so much already. It wasn't until you were at work the following week that it became apparent your secret crush was no longer a secret. You were in the office early, earlier than everyone else. That wasn’t unusual, you liked to be in early as it often meant you could leave earlier too. What was unusual was the box placed neatly on your desk.

Although the small parcel was addressed to you, you opened it with hesitation. A small gasp left your lips as your unwrapping revealed a red box, the golden engraving of the word ‘Cartier’ on top. Confused, you gently opened to box revealing a bracelet.

You placed it on your desk as you searched for a note. Despite it being awfully obvious who it was from, you wanted some kind of confirmation or, better yet, a reason as to why someone had put this into your possession. You'd spotted it in Harrods with Charles. You hadn't mentioned it, just spent a few minutes mindlessly staring at its beauty. There was no point even considering buying it for yourself, the price tag was close to your yearly salary. Eventually you found the note. 

'I've heard you like to moan it'

You picked up the bracelet once more, analysing it as you did so. It was so discreet, discreet enough that if the note wasn’t a big enough hint you might never have realised. His name. Etched into the inside of the band in the same font as the word ‘Cartier'. Any other name and he wouldn’t have been able to get away with it. No one had picked up on its personalisation in the past year. It had remained your little secret.

You gulped loudly, unsure of what to say next. The dull lighting hid your cheeks as they flushed red with embarrassment, just like they'd done when you'd read his note. Luckily it was situations like these you considered your stubbornness a strength. "All I could thing about was how much I wanted you to touch me Charles." With your lips dangerously close to Charles' ear you'd somehow managed to complete your sentence with confidence. The conviction in your voice had satisfied Charles although it was obvious that he hadn't expected it as he pulled his head back slightly to look you in the eyes. It was the first time you'd seen them so dark out of his crash helmet. They didn't have the same teasing smile paired with them as they did only a few moments ago. For a brief moment your heart dropped. What if he was just teasing you and you'd taken it too far? 

"Say something." Your voice was barely audible despite the eerie silence that had settled in the kitchen as Charles picked up on your nervousness. His expression softened but he remained silent, placing his forehead against yours and gently brushing your noses. You both very quickly realised there was no longer the need for words. The last thing either of you wanted to do right now was have a conversation about what was going on because quite honestly neither of you were sure. All you knew was that as soon as the space between your lips closed, there was no going back. You were craving each other's touch and it was as though the kiss you were yet to share would be the seal of approval you both needed to explore each other in a way you hadn't before.

You'd had enough of the teasing, enough of the wondering and what ifs, enough of wasting time without knowing how his lips felt against yours. You moved your head up slightly brushing your lips with his before releasing one of your hands from his grasp and placing it on the back of his head, pulling it down slightly. As soon as your lips pressed against his you became overwhelmed with emotions. You relaxed into it, it felt so right. His hands began to explore your body, one placed on your thigh and the other tracing lines up and down your back, sitting on the counter top had worked in your favour as you wrapped your legs around his waist. It wasn't long before his tongue found yours as you let your hands snake beneath his shirt feeling his back and arms tense beneath you as he lifted you up from the side and placed you on the dining table which was at a slighter lower level. 

His mouth left yours and you let out a small groan of frustration, he smiled at the sound as you realised he was only doing it to strip you of the sweater you'd not long ago put on, allowing him to rid you of it, not caring how cold it was anymore. In between the kisses he was placing down your neck you pulled his top over his head. Your eyes were trained to his shoulders as you admired him, only shutting when he re-joined your lips. 

The sound of a key turning the lock at the front door caught Charles' attention. There was a high chance he'd consumed less alcohol than you tonight which is why he giggled slightly when you chose to ignore the sound and bring him back in for another kiss. 

“WE’RE HOME” Arthur voice echoed round the villa. The sound of his brothers voice was enough for you to release him from your grip.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh, it’s 3am people will be sleeping.” Carla tried to whisper but the tiled walls carried the sound throughout the villa. You didn’t know if anyone else was home, you hadn’t checked and to be honest you hadn’t even thought about it. The only thing on your mind was Charles.

“Y/N and I are in the kitchen,” Charles called back. His eyes never left yours as he grabbed his shirt you'd thrown across the kitchen and redressed himself, not until Arthur stumbled through the door way knocking into chairs and making them squeal as the legs glided across the floor. You both watched as he regained balance and muttered a drunken apology before sitting himself on the floor.

"Good night Arthur?" you laughed slightly at the sight of him on the floor, he'd never been the most elegant drunk but at least he was entertaining.

"Great night." He confirmed as he laid himself down, a laugh leaving Carla's lips as she stared at the state of him. If someone had spoken to you a couple of hours ago you would've probably had a different opinion but as it turned out, you were starting to agree with him.

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