#it will make Breakdown's death hurt more though

[qinche-cvmslvt]

Forbidden

Content Warning: Manipulation, Heartbreak, Cheating, Betrayel, Emotional Outburst, Impulsive Behaviour. Fake Dating, Professor Sylus, Xavier, Rafayel, Principal Jenna, Exposure, Emotional Breakdown. Trust Violation and Emotional Fall out. Rumours, Gossip, Guilt and Gaslighting, Mentions of Administrative Negligence.

Tag List: @januke @kiss-the-universe @floofycookie @daddysyluslittlekitten @zozoparsnips @aneertawrites @ikesimpleton @mcdepressed290 @roselynviee @rorel1a @nchant6dkitty @aikonecrosis @harutogf

A/N: I’m sorry my lovelies… but this was bound to happen.

Chapter 14: The Plan

The auditorium was too bright, too loud, and too full of endings pretending to be beginnings. Graduation prep. That was the official excuse. The email had been all exclamation marks and excitement. Final ceremony rehearsal reminders, gown collection deadlines, and a speech submission deadline with the kind of urgency that felt more like a trap than an invitation but you weren’t thinking about speeches. Or gowns, or even the exact number of days left. You were thinking about fire and the man who had put it in your veins.

You sat near the middle, a clipboard balanced across your knees. Not because you were volunteering, though you told herself that’s why you’d shown up early, but because if you weren’t doing something, you might’ve drowned in the quiet.

The stage buzzed with the voice of Mrs Ellenor, the drama coordinator, who’d taken the microphone with all the enthusiasm of a Broadway understudy. “Caps and gowns will be distributed on the second Monday of next month,” she trilled. “And we still have open submissions for valedictorian speakers, so if you want to leave a mark, now’s your chance.”

A few students clapped but most didn’t. The projector screen behind her flicked through timelines, deadlines and reminders. Each one a neon sign screaming: Time is running out.

Two rows ahead of you, Xavier sat upright, a pen held loosely in one hand, his shoulders drawn tense beneath the casual blazer he wore like armor. He wasn’t watching the screen. Not really.

He’d turned just enough to keep you in the corner of his vision. Like he thought you didn’t notice but you did. You had all week. The way his voice had gone softer around you again. The way his jokes landed slower, edged with something waiting. The way he hadn’t asked again, about the dance, or camp. But the questions were still there. In every glance and every pause. You hadn’t spoken to Sylus since this morning. Not in person or in passing. Not even in a message. You had agreed, space at school, would keep you safe but it didn’t feel like space. It felt like punishment.

“Still breathing, cutie?”

The voice slid in beside you, velvet-smooth and drenched in mirth. Rafayel dropped into the seat next to yours like he’d been summoned by tension alone. He smelled like salt air and mischief. His sleeves were rolled, his collar popped open just enough to make it a problem.

“I was hoping the heat death of the universe would take me before this assembly did,” you muttered, flipping a page on your clipboard.

He chuckled. “Mmm. Morbid. Sexy.” He leaned in, lips ghosting near your ear. “Is that why you’re flushed? Existential dread?”

You glared sideways. “Shut up.”

“Could’ve sworn it was because you’ve been biting your lip for ten minutes straight,” he whispered. “Very distracting, by the way. Some of us are trying to focus on Ellenor’s theatrical genius.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t move away. Rafayel’s presence was a shield in its own right, easy, noisy, and always just enough to keep the air from caving in.

Xavier turned then, just slightly, just enough to glance at you. Rafayel caught it and smiled wider while maintaining eye contact.

“Still watching?” he murmured under his breath. “He’s starting to crack, cutie. Thought I’d be the villain but he’s looking at you like he just found the twist in the story.”

Your stomach dropped. Because you didn’t want to hurt Xavier but you had. Even in silence. Even without meaning to. Your hand clenched the side of the clipboard. Rafayel noticed that, too.

“Don’t spiral,” he said quietly, voice stripped of mockery. “Just survive. Eyes forward. Smile when needed. And maybe…” He bumped your knee gently with his own. “Let yourself look happy once in a while. You deserve that.”

Your breath caught but you nodded.

The auditorium lights dimmed just slightly, low enough to mute the buzz of fluorescent harshness, but not so low it could hide anything. Not glances or tension and definitely not the moment Rafayel’s arm slid around your shoulders like it belonged there.

It was casual. Lazy and effortless but deliberate. You felt it before you even registered the movement, the warmth of him pressed along your side, the shift of his weight as he leaned in just a touch, fingers grazing the exposed curve of your upper arm.

“You look bored,” he murmured near your ear, lips tilted in a half-smirk only you could see. “Want me to fake a medical emergency?”

You didn’t look at him. You couldn’t. Not with how close he was, not with the feel of his thumb drawing idle, slow circles at the slope of your shoulder, harmless to anyone watching. But under the surface? A move straight out of the playbook and they both knew who was watching.

Xavier sat two rows ahead. Stiff and silent. His shoulders squared too tightly, hands clenched in his lap, eyes staring a little too hard at the stage, like if he focused hard enough, maybe the weight of what he wasn’t willing to name would go away but it didn’t. You caught it in the way he shifted. The flicker of his head like he was about to turn around. Like the magnetic pull of you was getting harder to ignore.

Rafayel leaned in again, voice velvet-smooth. “He’s going to snap soon, you know.”

“Don’t,” you whispered back, your voice tighter than you meant it to be.

“Don’t what?” he asked, grinning now. “Don’t make it obvious? Or don’t enjoy it?”

You turned your face slightly, just enough to let your eyes flick toward him. He looked smug but underneath that smirk? Something sharper and protective. Like this wasn’t just a performance anymore. Like he knew the stakes and he wasn’t going to let you carry them alone.

“We’re not just playing anymore,” you said quietly.

“I know,” he replied. “But we’re still on stage. Might as well steal the scene.”

He leaned back, arm still draped around you with just the right mix of ease and intention. You didn’t shrug him off. You let him stay and two rows ahead, Xavier finally turned around. Just for a second. Long enough to see the way Rafayel grinned. Long enough to see the weight on your shoulder that wasn’t his. Long enough to feel the space between what he wanted and what he missed.

The assembly droned on. Something about gowns and speech drafts. Something about final grades and deadlines but all you could feel was heat. Not from Rafayel’s touch but from the danger of it all. From the way the plan was working too well. Because eyes were on you and the one pair that mattered most? They weren’t even in the room.

~

It started like all things dangerous do, quietly. A whispered comment exchanged in the hallway. A lingering glance that lasted just a moment too long. The way Rafayel’s arm had draped over your shoulder in that auditorium like you belonged to him, relaxed, unbothered, and intentional.

By lunch, the story had mutated.

“She’s dating Rafayel.”

“No, seriously. He kissed her after the assembly.”

“Didn’t you see them yesterday? They left together.”

“I heard they’ve been sneaking off after class.”

“She’s totally into bad boys.”

The girls in the locker room said it with raised brows and playful grins. The boys whispered it like it was a dare. Even the teachers, the ones who didn’t care enough to look closer, gave passing glances as if it made sense. As if it fit. Because of course it did. Rafayel was chaos in glitter and grins. He walked the halls like they belonged to him, flipped his tie over his shoulder like it was a scarf, and flirted with consequences like they were lovers he’d already conquered.

You’d been quiet lately. Withdrawn and distracted and now, suddenly, you were laughing again. Not in class, not near Sylus but around him. It didn’t take much for the school to decide what it wanted to believe.

You heard the whispers at your locker. Felt them crawl across your skin like static. A few girls smiled too sweetly. One boy winked and Rafayel? He just leaned against the wall beside you with that maddening grin and said nothing. He didn’t have to because every time he nudged your shoulder in the hallway. Every time he walked with you to class. Every time he smirked when someone stared, he fed the story. He performed it and you let him.

Because this was the plan. Because Sylus needed a shield. Because Rafayel had offered to be the flame but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting. That it didn’t twist something inside you when a freshman girl passed you in the quad and whispered, not even trying to hide it. “God, they make such a hot couple.”

Rafayel didn’t blink. He leaned down, voice low near your ear, the same way he had that night on the dance floor. “You’re trending, cutie.”

You exhaled too slow and too tense.

“Don’t let it rattle you,” he added, softer now. “We wanted noise. This is the noise.”

You nodded but when you passed Sylus later in the corridor, nothing more than a glance exchanged, no touch, no pause, just a flicker of eyes, you saw it. He’d heard it too.

~

The corridor smelled like paint thinner and lavender. It was faint, clinging, and familiar. Rafayel followed it with a lazy sort of swagger, hands tucked into his blazer pockets, tie loose and swinging as he turned the corner by the old art wing.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not technically. The art building was half-abandoned this time of day, left to drying canvases and half-cleaned brushes, silent save for the hum of old lights and the occasional gust rattling the windowpanes but she had texted.

“Meet me after sixth, usual place.”

It was casual but it still made something warm flicker in his chest. He liked that about her, the way she never fussed, never begged. The way she touched him like she was doing him a favour, but whispered his name like it meant something. She made him feel chosen and Rafayel, for all his noise and teeth, had never been someone people chose for more than a laugh or a look.

He reached the last door, studio two and slowed. His boots scuffed quietly against the polished concrete. The scent of oils and turpentine clung heavier now, thick with something floral underneath.

He smiled, smoothed down his shirt, and reached for the handle. It was cracked open. He didn’t knock, he just pushed and the moment opened with sound. A breath and a laugh.

Not hers.

Not his.

The room was sunlit in shards, wide windows casting gold across the scattered stools and easels. The light hit her first. Her back to him, arms looped lazily around the neck of a boy who wasn’t Rafayel.

The boy was bigger and bulkier. Athletic in a way Rafayel never tried to be. He had one hand on her hip, the other buried in her hair, fingers tight enough to tug. Her lips were parted. Her mouth… occupied. Rafayel stopped dead in the doorway. The sound of his breath cut. He didn’t speak or shout. Didn’t even move. He just watched. Watched the slow, easy roll of her body into the kiss, the way she smiled into it. Like it was familiar and practiced. The kind of kiss that didn’t begin here. It had history and repetition.

The heat in his chest turned sour and heavy. Like something acid curling behind his ribs.

The sunlight, once golden, felt harsh and now brutal. Every colour in the room was too sharp. The peeling red of the lockers. The blue smudge of paint on the back of her hand. The pale, ink-stained shirt of the boy wrapped around her like a secret Rafayel was never meant to hear. He stepped back. One foot, then another. Quiet as a ghost swallowing his own scream.

The scent hit him again as he turned, the lavender, the oils and the betrayal baked into sunlight and sweat.

His stomach curled. He didn’t slam the door. He didn’t need to. They hadn’t even noticed him. Of course they hadn’t.

He walked and didn’t know where he was going, not at first. The campus blurred past in bursts of motion and colour. Students talking, bells ringing. A football slamming into a wall and someone cursing after it.

He didn’t hear any of it.

Just the memory. That laugh and that kiss. The way her hand had slid up the other boy’s chest, a move she did for him too. Used like a script someone else had memorized.

By the time he made it to the stone wall, he wasn’t walking anymore, he was drifting. You were already there. A grape between your fingers. Your brow furrowed like the world was manageable if you just focused hard enough. He sat beside you without asking. Slid down onto the stone like gravity had finally noticed him. Like the sky had gotten heavier and now it was his job to carry it in silence.

You glanced at him. “You okay?”

He looked straight ahead and smiled but the glitter was gone. You looked at him properly and froze. Not because he wasn’t smiling, he was. That same lazy tilt of the mouth. That same tousled hair, same scent of salt and spice and aftershave he definitely wasn’t supposed to be wearing. But his eyes…They were wrong.

The usual glimmer, that two-tone riot of pink and blue mischief was dimmed. Still bright, but not alive. The blue looked darker. The pink looked almost red. Like something had bled into them, staining the light.

You tilted your head. “Rafayel?”

He blinked slowly, then turned that crooked smile toward you.

“Hey, cutie.”

But it was muscle memory. A sound without soul and you felt it, truly felt it, in the way his gaze lingered on you just a second too long. Like he was searching for something in your face. A clue. A truth or maybe just a reason not to collapse right there on the stone.

You touched his arm. “Are you okay?” You asked again.

He didn’t answer. Just looked at you and for a moment, just one, you swore he was about to say something real. Something sharp. Something that would unravel you but instead, he grabbed a grape from your lunchbox and tossed it in the air. Caught it with his teeth. Chewed, swallowed and smiled again.

“Still sweet,” he said. “Lucky me.”

His arm rested behind you, not touching, but close. Close enough to make a statement and that’s when Xavier notices. He rounds the corner too fast, like momentum alone is driving him. His jaw clenched. Hands shoved deep into his pockets like they’re hiding something dangerous.

You see him first. See the storm in his eyes and your breath catches. Rafayel glances up and sees it too. That’s when he smiles. Not amused or smug. Sharp.

“Here we go,” he mutters under his breath, voice flat.

Xavier stops in front of them. His eyes flick from you to Rafayel’s body language.

“You think this is funny?” he asks, low and tight.

“What?” You whisper.

“This.” He gestures between you. “You and him.”

Rafayel doesn’t shift or flinch. “You’ll have to be more specific, mate. ‘Cause this could be flirting. Could be gossip. Could be a confession. Depends on what you’re hoping to catch me doing.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Xavier snaps. “People are talking.”

Rafayel shrugs. “Let them.”

Xavier turns to you and that’s what makes it worse. Because he doesn’t look angry. He looks confused and wounded.

“Is it true?” he asks. “You and him? This whole time?”

You open your mouth but can’t form any words. Because no, this wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. Rafayel lets out a soft, humorless laugh beside you.

“You’re still thinking it’s me?”

Xavier’s gaze snaps back to him and Rafayel stands. Not slow or lazy but deliberately.

“You’re smarter than that,” he says, quieter now. “Aren’t you?”

“What are you saying?” Xavier demands.

Rafayel steps closer, lowering his voice, just for him.

“I’m saying you’ve been barking up the wrong threat.” He tilts his head. The anger underneath his skin is pulsing now. “She was never hiding me, Xavier.”

A beat and then, “She was hiding him.”

He says it so calmly, so coldly, that it feels like the air drops ten degrees. Xavier goes still. Rafayel’s smile, what’s left of it, curves like a blade.

“You really think someone like me was the worst thing she could’ve done?”

He looks to you now. Not with rage. With something more final. Disgust. “Turns out I wasn’t the only one playing pretend.” He walks away whistling and the world breaks. Leaving you alone and Xavier was still staring at you. Not with rage but with quiet, dawning horror. Because now he knows

Your lungs seize. The second Rafayel’s footsteps fade down the path and out of sight, the silence descends like a noose, tight, merciless, and closing in.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

Your throat is dry. Your palms are sweating. Your vision blurs around the edges, not from tears but panic. Thick, acidic panic crawling up your chest and settling in the base of your skull, where it throbs like a siren.

What the fuck was that? Rafayel… told him?!

That wasn’t flirtation. That wasn’t playful chaos. That was a grenade with the pin ripped out and dropped at your feet.

Xavier is staring at you like you’re something rotten. Like he’s just realized the girl he liked, the one he defended and worried about and offered his heart to, was never real. Or worse, was and he just didn’t see it.

“You,” he says, low and quiet. But it hits like a slap. “You let me think it was him.”

You can’t speak. Your mouth moves, but no sound comes out. Your pulse is a drumbeat in your ears. Your thoughts spiral in broken, unfinished phrases, not like that, wasn’t supposed to, I didn’t mean to hurt—

“You let me look like a fucking idiot.”

The way he says it, it’s not loud. It doesn’t have to be. His disgust curdles every word.

“Xavier, please—”

“How long?” His voice cracks on it. “Was it at the dance? Before? Tell me, what was the moment you decided I was the joke?”

Your whole body trembles. “You’re not— You never were—”

“But you lied.” He cuts you off, voice rising now, barely reined in. “You lied, and you used me. You sat beside me in the library, let me hope. Let me think I mattered to you. And all that time… it was him.”

You can’t breathe. Your chest is too tight. Your legs feel hollow. The bile rising in your throat tastes like guilt and fear and the bitter metallic edge of being found out.

“You’re sleeping with him,” Xavier spits, voice curling in disgust. “Sylus. Your teacher. Jesus, I kept thinking it had to be Rafayel because at least that would’ve been fucked in a normal way. But this?”

His eyes flash, hurt and fury twisted into something dark. “He’s a grown man, and he’s touching you like—like you’re his equal.”

Tears finally fall because he’s right. About the fear, and about the risk. About everything you were pretending you could handle alone but you’re not ready to confess. Not out here. Not under his glare. Not when you can feel the rumour already taking root in his mind.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” you whisper.

His jaw clenches. “But you let it.”

Your spine goes rigid and your breath trembles. You swallow hard because you’re not ready to hear this. To feel it sharpened in his voice like a blade. “I didn’t plan it. It wasn’t—” your voice cracks. “You think I wanted this to be messy? That I wanted to fall for someone I couldn’t have?”

Xavier’s nostrils flare. “Couldn’t have? He’s your teacher. You weren’t supposed to look at him like that, let alone—” He breaks off, disgust warping his features. “Don’t stand there and make it sound like love.”

Your hands shake at your sides, knuckles white. “It is love.”

He laughs, sharp and bitter, nothing like the boy who used to smile at you from across the library table. “Love doesn’t happen like that. Not between someone with power and someone too young to know better.”

“I do know better.” Your voice rises, cracking at the edges. “And he’s not controlling me. He’s not using me. This didn’t start with him coming after me. It started with us—falling. Slowly and we tried—we tried to stop.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” you breathe. “We didn’t.”

Xavier looks away, hands on his hips, eyes fixed on the pavement like if he stares hard enough, he can bury it all beneath the concrete. “He should’ve known better. You should’ve stopped.”

You take a step forward, voice softer now. “I’m not a victim, Xavier.”

His head snaps up, eyes flashing. “You’re not the one who’s gonna lose everything when this comes out.”

Silence slams between you. Cold and final. The truth stings, because it’s not wrong.

“Is that what you’re going to do?” You whisper, chest heaving. “Tell someone?”

He doesn’t answer. You move closer, desperation clawing through your ribs. “Please don’t. Please. You have every right to hate me, to be angry. But don’t… don’t destroy him.”

Xavier’s gaze hardens. “And what about the rules? What about the line he crossed?”

You voice trembles. “You don’t know him. Not like I do.”

“I don’t want to know him. I want to know why the girl I gave a damn about, why you, stood in front of me and chose to protect the man who took advantage of you.”

You flinch. The words hit bone-deep and then quiet and broken.

“Because I love him,” you say.

Xavier stares at you for a long time and something in his face shifts. Not forgiveness. Not even understanding. Just… resignation. Like he’s watching someone he once knew fade into someone he can’t recognize. When he speaks again, his voice is lower.

“Then I hope he’s worth it.”

He turns without another word and this time, you don’t try to stop him.

~

Principal Jenna’s office smelled like printer toner and false calm. Rafayel stepped inside without knocking, closing the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click.

Jenna glanced up from her desk, visibly unimpressed. “Rafayel. Is there a reason you’ve decided protocol doesn’t apply to you today?”

He smiled lazily, but tight. Like something inside him was just barely leashed.

“Protocol’s such a cute word for denial,” he said, tone light. “And you’ve been indulging in a lot of that lately, haven’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re here about your grades—”

“I’m here,” he cut in, “because I’m curious. About a file.”

She paused. “What file?”

Rafayel stepped forward, resting his fingertips on the edge of her desk. Not threatening or casual. Just calculated.

“A student filed a concern months ago. About… behavior between a teacher and another student. It was submitted. Documented. Then it vanished.”

Jenna blinked once. Slowly. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything,” Rafayel said, voice velvet-smooth. “I’m stating a fact. You shelved it. Didn’t investigate. Didn’t even ask questions.”

“Because it was hearsay,” she said, too quickly. “Unverified. No names, no dates—”

“But someone tried to tell you,” Rafayel interrupted softly. “And you didn’t listen.”

He let that hang. Long enough for her brain to start building connections. The ones he wasn’t making. Jenna’s fingers curled slightly on her desk.

“You know,” Rafayel added, gaze flicking toward the filing cabinet near her shoulder, “I always wondered what kind of things get buried in that drawer.”

She stiffened and he smiled again. More teeth this time.

“I guess the question is… if someone came forward now, with dates, names, maybe even proof… Would you still ignore it?”

Jenna’s face was unreadable but her silence screamed. Rafayel stepped back, letting her stew in it and just before he left, hand on the knob, he said quietly, calmly.

“Some wolves don’t bite unless they’re cornered, Jenna.”

He didn’t look back, didn’t have to. Because behind him, Jenna was already standing. Already reaching for the cabinet. Already assuming he meant them. Not knowing the storm she buried months ago might be his own.

The key slid into the filing cabinet’s lock, rusted and familiar. She opened the second drawer, reached to the back, and pulled out the old folder. Yellow tab. Bottom corner. Dust kissed her knuckles as she set it down.

The file opened like a wound and the first page was messy, barely-legible.

MEMO: Unauthorized Use of Art Block

Date: March 6th

Motion sensor data triggered between 10:08PM – 12:43AM

Keycard access logged but no timestamp recorded.

Reports of laughter, male and female, by maintenance staff.

Request for follow-up: denied. No formal investigation initiated.

She stared at the memo. Why didn’t I follow this up? Because it was late. Because she was tired. Because it was the art building. Senior students stayed late all the time to finish assignments and she had let it slide.

Jenna flipped to the next report. Labeled Senior Formal – Unverified Sighting.

Witness Report:

Observed Professor Sylus and unidentified female student in gymnasium after dance concluded. Time: approx. 11:52 PM.

Low lighting. No other staff present. Witness unable to confirm contact but noted proximity, hush-toned conversation, and lingering body language.

Quote from witness: “They weren’t just talking.”

Filed: no action. No name of student confirmed.

Her stomach twisted. She sat back in her chair, fingers pressed hard to her mouth as she thought about some chatter she heard recently. A student at the winter camp was seen wearing Professor Sylus’ hoodie. A female student.

Jenna pressed the folder closed like it might still be possible to forget what she’d seen but the pattern was obvious now.

Art block. Senior formal. Winter camp. Two different trails but only one led to the name she couldn’t ignore.

Sylus.

The silent teacher. The teacher who never cracked. Who never slipped. Until now.

Outside her office window, Rafayel leaned lazily against the far wall, spinning a pencil between his fingers. He wasn’t looking at her but he didn’t have to. He’d already played his move and Jenna? She was chasing the wrong wolf.

~

The hallway is a blur. A smear of white walls and grey floor and echoes of footsteps that don’t belong to you. You’re not walking, you’re surviving. Moving with the singular focus of someone who has nowhere else to go.

Rafayel detonated the plan. Xavier knows too much and now your heart’s in your throat, burning with every thud.

You reach Sylus’ office. You don’t knock. You can’t, because your hands won’t stop shaking. You open the door like a girl possessed and shut it behind you, spine pressed to the wood like it’s the only thing keeping you upright.

Sylus is there behind his desk. Reading something, half-turned, and calm. He looks up and he knows. He sees it instantly.

The moment his eyes meet yours, something cold flashes in them. Not anger or surprise. Just that deep, terrible awareness he only gets when the world shifts beneath his feet.

“Close the door,” he says.

“It’s closed,” you whisper.

Then he’s moving, calm, slow, and deliberate but by the time he rounds the desk, your voice cracks like a bone beneath weight.

“Xavier knows.”

That stops him. Just for a breath. Just a blink but the silence in the room becomes sharp.

“Say that again,” he says, low.

“Xavier knows,” you repeat, louder this time, voice breaking. “Rafayel said something, he said too much. I don’t know if he meant to, I don’t know if he meant to burn me, to burn us but Xavier knows. He knows, Sylus.”

He steps closer, slowly. Like you’re a bird with a broken wing and he can’t risk making it worse but you keep going, words unraveling fast and frantic.

“He said I let him look like a fucking idiot. He knows it’s not Rafayel. He knows it’s you and I—I didn’t mean for it to happen this way, I swear—”

“Sweetie.” His voice cuts through the spiral, calm but firm. One word. Your name.

You stop.

He reaches you. Doesn’t touch you yet. Just looks. Your chest is heaving, your lips are trembling and your eyes are haunted.

His voice is lower now, measured. “Did he threaten to report it?”

You shake your head. “He didn’t say. But he… he could. He will. He looked at me like I was—like I betrayed him.”

Something flares behind Sylus’ eyes then. Not fear but resolve and then he does touch you.

His hands come to your arms, firm and grounding. His jaw is tight. “Look at me.”

You do. Barely.

“If this blows up, it’s on me,” he says. “Not you. I was the one with the responsibility. I was the one who knew better.”

“No—” your voice snaps, raw. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to carry it alone. I chose this. I’m not some naive little girl who got swept up in something bigger. I knew. I knew it was risky. I knew it was wrong and I still—”

He silences you with a hand to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheekbone like a benediction.

“I know.”

You stare at each other. The space between you tight with everything you can’t afford to say.

Then softly, and bitterly you whisper, “We’re going to lose everything.”

Sylus leans in, forehead to yours and his breath fanning your lips.

“No,” he says. “We’ve already risked everything. Now we decide if it was worth it.”

His hands curl into your hair.

“And it was.”

.

.

.

[colouredbyd]

'Til All That's Left Is Glorious Bone—

brother!sirius black x fem!sister!reader x brother!regulus black , james potter x reader

synopsis: being a Black means braiding silence into everything soft — childhood, love, even the ache in your bones. Sirius runs from it, Regulus folds beneath it, but you carry it still, tight at the nape of your neck. and when James offers his hands, his heart, you flinch — not because you don’t want it, but because you were never taught how to take what doesn’t hurt.

cw: Chronic illness, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-isolation, emotional breakdowns, grief, physical pain, mental deterioration, identity loss, emotional neglect, unrequited love, hospital scenes, overdose, allusions to death, trauma responses, unfiltered intrusive thoughts, self-hatred, references to childhood neglect, emotional repression. read with caution!!!!

w/c: 9.8k

based on: this request!!

a/n: this turned out much longer than i thought. very very very much inspired by the song Wiseman by Frank Ocean

part two part three dalia analyses of this!! masterlist

The hospital wing smells like damp stone and boiled nettle, and you have come to know its scent the way some children know their lullabies.

You’ve spent more of your life in this narrow bed than you have in classrooms, in common rooms, on sunlit grounds. 

Time moves differently here—slower, heavier—as though the hours have forgotten how to pass. The light through the tall window is always cold, a winter that presses its face to the glass but never steps inside. The sheets are tucked too tightly, the kind of tightness that makes it hard to breathe.

You don’t remember when it started, the pain behind your ribs, the illness that stole your breath and strength in careful, measured doses. It didn’t come all at once. It crept in slowly, like ivy through a cracked wall, quiet and persistent. 

You grew with it, around it, until it became part of you—a silent companion curled inside your chest. Some days it flares like a wildfire, other days it lingers like smoke, but it’s always there. You’ve learned to live beneath it. Learned how to stay still so it doesn’t notice you. Learned how to hold your own hand when no one else does.

Other students come and go with the ease of tide pools—quick stays for broken arms, for potions gone wrong, for fevers that leave as fast as they arrive. They arrive with fuss and laughter, and they leave just as quickly. But you? You stay. 

You are a fixture here, like the spare cots and rusting potion trays, like the chipped basin and the curtain hooks. Madam Pomfrey no longer asks what hurts. She knows by now that the answer is everything, and also nothing she can fix. 

Your childhood was a careful thing, sharp at the edges, ruled more by silence than softness. You were born into a house where expectation walked the halls louder than any footsteps. Obedience was mistaken for love, and love was always conditional. 

You were the youngest, but not alone. You came into the world with another heartbeat beside your own, a twin—your mirror, your shadow, your tether. And above you, Sirius. Older, brighter, always just out of reach. 

He was too loud, too fast, too full of fire. He tore through rooms like a comet, leaving heat and chaos in his wake. You admired him the way you might admire the storm outside the window—distant, thrilling, a little bit dangerous.

Your twin was the opposite. He was stillness, softness, observation. He watched the world carefully, his words chosen like rare coins he refused to spend unless he must. He was always listening. Always understanding more than he said. And between the two of them, you—caught in the current, too much and not enough, the daughter who was supposed to shine but learned instead how to fold herself small. 

You were expected to be precise. Polished. Perfect. The daughter of Walburga Black was not allowed to unravel.

Your hair was never your own. Your mother braided it herself, every morning, every ceremony, every photograph. The braid was too tight—always too tight—and it made your scalp sting and your neck ache, but you never flinched. You sat still while her fingers pulled and wove and twisted, like she was binding you into a shape more acceptable. Your fingers trembled in your lap, pressed together like a prayer you knew would not be answered. 

She said the braid meant order. Discipline. Dignity. But it felt like a chain. A silent way of saying: this is what you are meant to be. Tidy. Controlled. Pretty in the right ways. Never wild.

You wore that braid like a chain for years. A beautiful little cage. You wondered if anyone could see past it—if anyone ever looked hard enough to see how much of you was trying not to scream.

Your mother expected perfection. You were her daughter, after all. Hair always braided, posture always straight, lips always closed unless spoken to. She braided it herself most days — too tight, too harsh — and you would sit still while your scalp screamed and your fingers trembled in your lap. At nine years old, silence had already been braided into your spine.

The stool beneath you was stiff and velvet-lined, a throne made for suffering. In the mirror’s reflection, your posture held like porcelain. Every inch of you was composed, but only just — knuckles pale from tension, lips pressed in defiance.

 Behind you, your mother worked her fingers into your scalp with the practiced cruelty of a woman who believed beauty came from pain. Her voice matched the rhythm of her hands, each word tightening the braid, each tug a sermon.

“A daughter of this house doesn’t squirm,” she murmured, her grip unrelenting. “She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t disgrace herself over something as small as a hairstyle.”

The parting comb scraped harshly against your scalp, drawing a wince you were too proud to voice. Still, the sting prickled behind your eyes, a warning. When the sharp tug at your temple became unbearable, a breathy sob slipped out despite all effort to swallow it.

She froze.

Then, softly — far too softly — “What was that?”

Silence trembled between you.

“I said,” her voice clipped now, “what was that sound?”

A hand twisted at the nape of your neck, anchoring you like a hook. The braid tightened, harder now, punishment laced into every motion.

“Noble girls do not weep like peasants,” she snapped. “From now on, your hair stays up or braided. No more running wild. No more playing outside with your brothers. A lady must always be presentable — do you understand me?”

A nod. Barely a motion, but enough to release her grip.

She tied off the braid with a silver ribbon and smoothed a hand down your shoulder. In the mirror, your reflection stared back — hollowed eyes, flushed cheeks, a child sculpted into something smaller than herself. Her voice followed you as you stood.

“You’ll be grateful for this one day.”

Outside the room, Regulus stood waiting. He looked down at your braid and didn’t say a word. His tie was loose, lopsided in that way he never could fix. 

Your fingers moved on instinct, straightening it carefully, eyes never meeting his. He let you. The silence between twins had its own language — and right now, it said enough.

The hallway stretched long and heavy, lined with portraits that watched like judges. You didn’t stop walking. The destination had always been the same.

Sirius’s door creaked as it opened. He was lying on the bed, book propped open across his chest, thumb tapping absently against the page. 

His hair was a little too long, his shirt untucked. Eleven years old and already a constellation too bright for the house that tried to dim him.

He looked up — and the second his gaze met yours, his expression softened.

“Oh, pretty girl,” he breathed, sitting up straight. “Come here.”

You moved without thinking. As soon as the door closed behind you, the first tears broke free. Quiet, controlled — not sobs, not yet. Just the kind of weeping that clung to your throat and curled your shoulders inward.

“She did it again?” His voice was low, careful. “Too tight, yeah?”

A nod. You climbed onto the bed beside him, pressing your face into his sleeve.

“I tried not to cry,” the words came out muffled. “I really tried.”

Sirius tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, then gently reached for the braid.

“‘Course you did. You're the bravest girl I know.”

He began to undo it — not rushed, not rough. His fingers worked slowly, reverently, like unthreading something sacred. With each loosened twist, the tension in your body unwound too, your breath coming easier, softer.

“She says I’m not allowed to run anymore,” you whispered. “Says I have to look like a proper lady.”

“Well,” Sirius said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I think she’s full of it.”

You let out a tiny, hiccupping laugh.

“There she is.” He brushed his fingers lightly over your scalp. “That’s better.”

The braid came undone, strand by strand, until your hair pooled over your shoulders — a curtain of softness, no longer a cage. Sirius shifted, lying back against the pillows, and opened his arms wide.

“Come here. Sleep it off. We’ll steal some scones from the kitchen tomorrow and pretend we’re pirates.”

You tucked yourself beneath his arm, the scent of parchment and peppermint wrapping around you like a secret. In the soft hush of the room, it was easy to pretend the house didn’t exist beyond these four walls.

By morning, you woke to find him sitting cross-legged on the floor, fingers gently working through your hair again. But this time, the braid was loose. Gentle. It didn’t pull. It didn’t sting.

“There,” he said, tying it off with a ribbon he pulled from his own shirt. “Just so it doesn’t get in your eyes when we go looking for treasure.”

And you smiled, because in that moment, you believed him.

The memory fades like breath on glass, slipping away into the sterile hush of the hospital wing.

You come back slowly. First to the faint scent of antiseptic and lavender balm. Then to the stiffness in your limbs, the press of cotton sheets against your legs, the dim ache nestled just beneath your ribs like something familiar.

“Easy now,” comes a voice, gentle and no-nonsense all at once.

Madam Pomfrey stands over you with her hands already at work, adjusting the blankets, feeling for fever along your temple. Her expression is set in that signature look — concern wrapped in mild exasperation, the kind of care she offers not with softness but with steady hands.

“You’ve been out for nearly a day,” she says, eyes scanning your face as if checking for signs of rebellion. “Stubborn girl. I told you to come in the moment you felt lightheaded.”

You blink at the ceiling. “Didn’t want to miss class.”

She snorts softly. “You think I haven’t heard that one before? You students would rather collapse in the corridors than admit your bodies are mortal.”

Her hands are cool against your wrist as she checks your pulse. You glance down at the thin bandage near your elbow — the usual spot, now tender. You don’t ask how long the spell took to stabilize you this time. You don’t need to.

She sighs and straightens. “Your fever’s broken, but you’ll stay here today. No arguments. I want fluids, rest, and absolutely no dramatic exits.”

You nod. “Thank you.”

Her gaze softens, just a little. “You don’t always have to carry it alone, dear.”

Before you can answer, the curtain snaps open with a flourish — a burst of too much energy, too much brightness.

“There you are!”

James Potter.

“Sweetheart,” James breathes, as if you’ve just risen from the dead. “My poor, wounded love.”

You barely lift your head before groaning. “Merlin’s teeth. I’m hallucinating.”

“Don’t be cruel. I came all this way.”

He plops into the chair beside you without invitation, sprawled in that casual way that only someone like James Potter could manage — legs too long, posture too confident, as if the universe has never once told him no. 

His tie is missing entirely. His sleeves are rolled up in that infuriating way that shows off ink stains and forearms he doesn’t deserve to know are attractive.

You squint at him. “You didn’t come from the warfront, Potter. You came from Transfiguration.”

“And still,” he says dramatically, “the journey was perilous. I had to fight off three Hufflepuffs who claimed they had dibs on the last chocolate pudding. I bled for you.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m in love,” he counters, placing a hand over his chest like he might actually burst into song. “With a girl who is rude and ungrateful and far too pretty when she’s annoyed.”

“Then un-love me,” you mutter. “For your own good.”

“Can’t. Tragic, really.”

You shoot him a glare. He beams back like you’re the sunrise and he’s been waiting all night to see you again.

“I should hex you.”

“But you won’t.” He winks. “Because deep, deep down, under that armor made of sarcasm and resentment, you adore me.”

“I deeply, deeply don’t.”

“And yet,” he leans in, “you haven’t told me to leave.”

You stare at him. He stares right back.

Finally, you sigh. “Potter?”

“Yes, my heart?”

“If you don’t shut up, I will scream.”

He laughs, bright and boyish and utterly maddening. “Scream all you want, darling. Just don’t stop looking at me like that.”

James doesn’t leave. Of course he doesn’t. He lounges like he was born to irritate you — the embodiment of Gryffindor persistence, or maybe just pure male audacity. 

He props his elbow on the bedside table and peers at you like you're the eighth wonder of the world. Or an exhibit in a very dramatic museum: Girl, Mildly Injured, Attempting Peace.

“You know,” he says, casually adjusting his collar, “if you’d let me walk you to class yesterday, none of this would’ve happened. Fate doesn’t like it when you reject me. Tries to punish you.”

“Fate had nothing to do with it,” you snap. “I tripped over Black’s ego.”

He blinks, then grins. “Which one?”

You throw your head back against the pillow. “Get. Out.”

“But you look so lonely,” he pouts. “All this sterile lighting and medicinal smell — what you need is warmth. Charm. Emotional support.”

“What I need is silence,” you mutter. “Preferably wrapped in an Invisibility Cloak with your name on it.”

James leans closer. “But then you’d miss me.”

You sit up slightly, brows knitting. “Potter. For the last time — I am not in love with you!”

He looks wounded. “Yet.”

You glare. “Never.”

“Harsh,” he breathes, placing a hand over his heart. “Do you say that to all the boys who deliver their soul on a silver platter for your approval, or am I just special?”

“Neither. You’re just insufferable.”

“And you,” he says, looking at you like he’s just uncovered some hidden constellation, “are poetry with teeth.”

You blink. “Are you trying to flirt with me or describe a very weird animal?”

“Both, probably.”

There’s a silence then — or what should be a silence. It’s really more of a stretched pause, heavy with the weight of all the things you haven’t said and refuse to say. You busy yourself with fluffing the pillow behind you, more aggressive than necessary. 

James watches, unbothered, as if every second in your company is a privilege. He does that. Looks at you like you’re more than you know what to do with. Like if he stared hard enough, he could untangle the knots in your spine and the ones you keep hidden in your heart, too.

It pisses you off.

“Why are you like this?” you ask suddenly, exasperated.

James looks genuinely confused. “Like what?”

“Like a golden retriever who’s been hexed into a boy.”

He gasps. “You think I’m loyal and adorable?”

“I think you’re loud and impossible to get rid of.”

“That’s practically a compliment coming from you.”

You huff, crossing your arms. “Did you break into the hospital wing just to bother me?”

“No,” he says, stretching. “I also came for the adrenaline rush. Madam Pomfrey tried to hex me.”

“She should’ve aimed higher.”

“She said the same thing.” He tilts his head, eyes softening a little. “Seriously though. You okay?”

You glance away.

It’s a simple question. An honest one. And it cracks something in you, just for a second — a flash of how tired you really are, how the weight in your chest hasn’t gone away since the moment you woke up here. But you’re not about to tell him that.

“I was fine,” you say flatly, “until you arrived.”

James laughs, not buying a word of it. And you hate him a little, for seeing through your armor so easily. For still showing up anyway.

“Well,” he says, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder, “I’ll go. But only because I know you’ll miss me more that way.”

“In your dreams, Potter.”

“You’re always in mine.”

He tosses you a wink before heading for the door — whistling as he walks, bright and ridiculous and inescapable.

You throw the other pillow at his back.

You miss.And you hate that you're smiling. 

The door clicks shut behind him, and silence rushes in too fast. It settles over you like dust, soft but suffocating. 

You just sit there, perched on the edge of the infirmary cot, hands still curled in the blanket, knuckles pale. For a moment, there’s nothing. Just the quiet hum of the ward and the slow, measured ache blooming low in your back.

Then, you hear it.

James's laughter, bright and stupid and golden, spilling through the corridor like it doesn’t know how to stop. It chases itself down the stone hallway, reckless and echoing, as if it has never once had to apologize for being loud. 

He laughs like he’s never been told not to. Like the world is still something worth laughing in.

And then—his voice.

Sirius.

You’d recognize it anywhere. Cooler than James’s, more precise, threaded through with a sort of effortless arrogance he doesn't have to earn. Sirius doesn’t speak to be heard. He speaks because the world always listens. He laughs like the sun doesn't blind him anymore. Like he’s been here before, and already survived it.

Their voices blur together, warm and sharp and unbearably distant. A private world outside the thin curtain, a place you’re never fully let into, even when you're part of it.

You swallow hard. The taste of metal still lingers.

Madam Pomfrey told you to rest. Strict orders, she said. Full bedrest. You nodded then. Promised. But your body’s never listened to promises, and your mind is already slipping away from the cot, already pressing you forward with a kind of restless urgency.

The ache in your ribs flares when you move, but you ignore it. You swing your legs over the side and reach for your shoes with slow, shaking hands. Each movement tugs at the bruises hidden beneath your skin, the tender places no one else can see. You wince. You keep going.

It isn’t the pain that drives you. It’s something worse. Something quieter. That feeling, deep in your chest, like a hand gripping your lungs too tightly. Like something in you has started to rot from the inside out. You don’t want to hear them laughing. You don’t want to be the one in the bed anymore, weak and broken and watched over like a child.

You want to run until your lungs scream. You want to scream until your throat splits.

Instead, you walk.

The corridor outside is too bright. You blink against it, but don’t slow your pace. Your limbs feel like they’re moving through water, but you don’t stop. The voices are gone now, swallowed by stone and space, but they echo anyway. You hear the ghosts of their laughter in every footstep.

And it stings, because Sirius never laughed like that with you anymore. Not since you learned how to flinch without being touched. Not since the world cracked open and swallowed the parts of you that still believed he would choose you first.

You keep walking. Not because you know where you're going.

Only because you know you can't stay.

You don’t go far. You don’t have the strength.

Instead, you slip into the back corner of the library, the one with the high windows and the dust-lined shelves no one bothers to reach for anymore. It’s always too quiet there, always a little too cold — and that suits you just fine. You drop your bag and sit without grace, shoulders curling inward like you’re trying to take up less space in the world.

Your books are open, but your eyes keep blurring the words. The light from the window stripes your page in gold, but your fingers tremble as you hold the quill. 

There’s a pain blooming slow beneath your ribcage now, deeper than before, as if something inside you is tugging out of place. You press your palm to your side, hoping the pressure will settle it, but all it does is remind you that it’s real.

It gets worse the longer you sit. The burning in your spine, the throb in your joints. Your whole body pulses like a bruise someone won’t stop pressing. You grit your teeth and write anyway, like if you just get through one more page, one more hour, one more breath—you’ll be okay.

But you’re not. Not really. And every breath tastes a little more like defeat.

The days fold over themselves like tired parchment.

You wake. You ache. You drift from bed to class to hospital wing to silence. You ignore James when he finds you in the corridor and calls you sunshine with a grin too wide for the way your heart is breaking. 

You tell him off with a glare you don’t mean. He calls you cruel and laughs anyway. You walk away before he can see the way your hands are shaking.

The world goes on.

And then one afternoon, when the sun slips low and casts everything in amber, you see him.

Regulus.

Your twin. Your mirror, once.

He’s seated beneath the black lake window, where the light is darker and more still. His robes are sharp and his posture straighter than you remember. 

There’s a boy beside him — fair hair, eyes too bright. You’ve seen him before. Barty Crouch Jr. A Slytherin, like Regulus. Arrogant. Sharp-tongued. Always smiling like he knows something you don’t.

They’re laughing. Low and conspiratorial. Something shared between them that you’ll never be invited into.

And Regulus is smiling, real and rare and soft in the way you used to think only you could draw from him. His face is unguarded. His shoulders are relaxed. He looks... content. Not loud like James, not wild like Sirius. But happy. In that quiet, unreachable way.

It guts you.

Because both your brothers have found something. Sirius, with the way he flings himself into everything—light, reckless, loved. And Regulus, with his quiet victories and his perfect tie and his smiles saved for someone else. They’ve carved out slivers of peace in this cold castle, let someone in enough to ease the weight they both carry.

And you—you can’t even let James brush your sleeve without recoiling.

You can’t even let yourself believe someone might stay.

You sit there, tangled in your own silence, staring at a boy who you used to fix his tie after your mother left the room, because he never could quite center it himself.

And now—he doesn’t need you.

Now, he looks like the last untouched part of what your family once was. The only grace left. 

He sits with his back straight, his collar crisp, his shoes polished to a soft gleam that catches even in the low light. His tie is knotted with precision. His hair, always tidy, always parted just right, never unruly the way yours has always been. 

Everything about him is exact — not stiff, but composed. He is elegance without effort, and you don’t know whether to feel proud or bitter, watching him hold himself together like the portrait of what you were both meant to be.

He is the son your mother wanted, the child she could show off. He never had to be told twice to stand straight or speak softer or smile with his mouth closed. Where you burned, he silenced the flame. Where you ran wild with leaves tangled in your curls, he walked beside her, polished and obedient and clean.

If she saw you now — slouched, hair unbound and wild, dirt smudged along your hem — she would scream. 

First, for your hair. Always your hair. too messy, too alive. 

Second, for sitting on the ground like some gutter child, as if you weren’t born from the ancient bloodline she tattooed onto your skin with every rule she taught you to fear.

And third — oh, third, for the thing she wouldn’t name. For the thing she’d feel in her bones before she saw it. Something’s wrong with you. Has always been wrong with you. Even when you’re still, you’re too much.

There’s no winning in a house like that.

But Regulus — Regulus still wins. Somehow. He balances the weight she gave him and never once lets it show on his face. And maybe it should make you feel less alone, seeing him there. Maybe it should comfort you, to know one of you managed to survive the storm with their softness intact.

You blink hard, but the sting in your eyes doesn’t go away.

Because Regulus sits like he belongs.

The light in the library has thinned to bruised blue and rusted gold. Outside, the sun has collapsed behind the tree line, dragging the warmth with it. Shadows stretch long and quiet across the stone, draped between the shelves like forgotten coats.

Your hand closes around the edge of the desk. Wood under skin. You push yourself up, gently, carefully, like you’ve been taught to do. Your body protests with a dull, familiar ache — hips locking, spine stiff. You’ve sat too long. That’s all, you tell yourself. You always do.

But then it comes.

A pull, not sharp — not at first. It begins low, behind the ribs, like a wire drawn tight through your center. It pulses once. And then again. And then all at once.

The pain does not scream. It settles.

It climbs into your body like it has lived there before — like it knows you. It sinks its teeth deep into the marrow, not the muscles, not the skin. The pain lives in your bones. It nestles into the hollow of your hips, winds around your spine, hammers deep into your shins. Not a wound. Not an injury. Something older. Hungrier.

You stagger, palm flying to the wall to catch yourself. Stone greets your skin, cold and indifferent. You can’t tell if your breath is leaving you too fast or not coming at all. It feels like both. Your ribs refuse to expand. Your lungs ache. Your throat is tight, raw, thick with air that won’t go down.

Still, it’s the bones that scream the loudest.

They carry it. Not just the pain, but the weight of it. Like your skeleton has begun to collapse inward — folding under a pressure no one else can see. Your joints feel carved from glass. Every movement, even a tremble, sends flares of heat spiraling down your limbs. You press a hand to your chest, to your side, to your shoulder — seeking the source — but there’s nothing on the surface. Nothing bleeding. Nothing broken.

And still, you are breaking.

Your ears ring. Not a pitch, but a pressure — like the air itself is narrowing. Like the world is folding in. You blink, and the shelves blur, the light bends, the corners of your vision curl inward like paper catching flame. You think, I should sit down.

But it’s already too late.

Your knees buckle. There’s that terrible moment — the heartbeat of weightlessness — before the fall. Before the floor claims you. Your shoulder catches the edge of a shelf. Books crash down around you in protest. You feel the noise in your ribs, but not in your ears. Everything else is too loud — your body, your body, your body.

And then you’re on the floor.

The stone beneath you is merciless. It doesn’t take the pain. It holds it. Reflects it. You press your cheek to it, eyes wide and wet and burning, and feel the tremors racing through your legs. Your hands are claws. Your spine is fire. Your ribs rattle in their cage like something dying to escape.

It’s not just pain. It’s possession.

Your bones do not feel like yours. They are occupied. Inhabited by something brutal and nameless. You are no longer a girl on a floor. You are a vessel for suffering, hollowed and used.

White fogs the edges of your sight.

And then — darkness, cool and absolute.

The only thing you know as it takes you is this: the pain does not leave with you. It goes where you go. It follows you into the dark. It belongs to you.

Like your bones always have.

-

Waking feels like sinking—an uneven descent through layers of fog and silence that settle deep in your bones before the world sharpens into focus.

The scent of disinfectant stings your nostrils like a cold warning. Beneath your fingertips, the hospital sheets whisper against your skin, thin and taut, a reminder that you are here—pinned, fragile, contained. The narrow bed presses into your back, a quiet cage, and pale light spills weakly through the infirmary windows, too muted to warm you. Somewhere far away, a curtain flutters, its soft murmur a ghostly breath you can’t quite reach.

You’re not ready to open your eyes—not yet.

Because the silence is broken by a voice, raw and electric, sparking through the stillness like a flame licking dry wood. 

It’s James.

But this James isn’t the one you know. The James who calls you “sunshine” just to hear you argue back, or the one who struts beside you in the hallways with that infuriating grin, as if the world bends beneath his feet. No. This voice is cracked and frayed, unraveling with worry and something heavier — the weight of helplessness.

“You should’ve sent word sooner,” he says, and every syllable feels like a shard caught in his throat.

“She fainted,” he repeats, as if saying it out loud might make it less real. “In the bloody library. She collapsed. Do you understand what that means?”

The sound of footsteps shuffles nearby, followed by Madam Pomfrey’s steady voice, calm but firm, trying to thread together the broken edges of panic.

“She’s resting now. Safe. That’s what matters.”

James laughs, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a brittle sound, half breath, half crack.

“Safe? You call this safe? She was lying there—cold—and I thought—” His voice breaks, a jagged exhale caught between frustration and fear. 

“She doesn’t say anything, you know. Never says a damn thing. Always brushing me off, like I’m just some idiot who’s in the way. But I see it. I see it. The way she winces when she stands too fast. And none of you—none of you bloody do anything.”

Your chest tightens like a fist around your heart.

You hadn’t expected this.

This raw, aching desperation beneath his words—the way his concern flickers through the cracks of his usual arrogance and shields. The way he’s caught between anger and helplessness, trying so desperately to fix something that isn’t easily fixed.

You lie still, listening to him, feeling the swell of something close to hope and something just as close to despair.

James Potter — sun-drunk boy, full of fire and foolish heart, standing now like a storm about to break. He paces the edge of your infirmary bed as if motion alone might hold back the tide. He looks unmade, undone: his tie hangs crooked, his hair is more chaos than crown, his sleeves rolled unevenly as if he dressed without thought — or too much of it — only the frantic instinct to get to you.

“I should’ve walked her to the library,” he murmurs, and his voice is smaller now, like a flame flickering at the end of its wick. 

Madam Pomfrey, ever the calm in the storm, offers a gentle but resolute reply. “Mr. Potter, she’ll wake soon. She needs rest, not your guilt.”

But guilt has already laid roots in his chest — you can hear it in the way his breath hitches, in the soft exhale that seems to carry the weight of an entire world. His hands press to his face like he’s trying to hold it together, knuckles pale, fingertips trembling slightly at the edges. 

You blink. Just once.

The light slices through the shadows behind your eyes like a blade — too sharp, too clean. But you blink again, slowly, eyelashes sticky with sleep. 

The ceiling swims into shape above you, white stone carved with faint veins and a hairline crack running like a map across its arch. It feels strange, being awake again. Like stepping through a door and finding the air different on the other side.

You shift your head — careful, slow — not because you’re afraid of waking anyone, but because you know the pain is still there, sleeping under your skin like an old god. Waiting. You feel it stretch along your spine, an ache carved into your marrow. Your body is quieter than before, but not calm. Just… biding time.

He doesn’t notice you yet — too consumed by whatever promise he’s making to himself. You catch only pieces of it: something about making sure you eat next time, and sleep, and sit when your knees go soft. His voice is hoarse, edged with something too raw to name.

And though your throat burns and your bones still hum with the echo of collapse, you find yourself watching him.

Because this boy — foolish, golden, infuriating — is breaking himself open at your bedside, and he doesn’t even know you’re watching.

It’s strange.

This boy who never stops grinning. Who fills every hallway like he’s afraid of silence — like stillness might swallow him whole. Who flirts just to irritate you, calls you cruel with a wink when you roll your eyes at his jokes. 

This boy who you’ve shoved away a hundred times with cold stares and tired sarcasm — he’s here.

And he looks like he’s breaking.

Because of you.

You swallow against the dryness in your throat. There’s a weight lodged just beneath your ribs, sharp and unfamiliar, twisting like a question you don’t want to answer. 

You never asked him to care. Never asked anyone to look too closely. In fact, you’ve spent so long building walls from half-smiles and quiet lies, you almost believed no one would ever bother to scale them.

But somehow — somewhere along the way — James Potter learned to read you anyway.

Learned to translate silence into worry. To see the way your shoulders fold inward when you think no one’s watching. The way your laugh fades too fast. The way you don’t flinch from pain because you’ve been carrying it for so long it’s become part of you.

And for the first time — it doesn’t feel annoying.

It feels terrifying.

Because if he sees it, really sees it… the frayed edges, the heaviness in your bones, the way you’ve started to drift so far inward it sometimes feels easier not to come back — what then?

What happens when someone finds the truth you’ve hidden even from yourself?

You wonder how long he’s been carrying this fear. How long he’s noticed the signs you’ve worked so hard to bury.

And quietly — achingly — you wonder how long you’ve been hoping no one ever would.

You’ve pushed him away a hundred times. Maybe more. With cold eyes and sharper words, with silence that says stay away. You made yourself invisible. Not because you wanted to be alone—but because you thought it was easier that way. Easier than asking for help. Easier than letting anyone get close enough to see what’s really breaking inside.

Because the truth is: you don’t want to be here much longer.

Not in some dramatic way, not yet. 

But the thought is always there, quiet and persistent—like a shadow that never leaves your side. You’ve made plans, small and silent. Things you think about when the ache inside your bones is too heavy to carry. The nights when you lie awake and imagine what it would be like if you simply stopped trying. If you slipped away and no one had to watch you fall apart.

You’ve counted the moments it might take, rehearsed the words you’d leave behind—or maybe decided silence would say enough.

You wondered if anyone would notice. If anyone would come looking.

And yet here is James.

Pacing by your bedside like he’s carrying the weight of your pain on his shoulders. His voice trembles with worry you didn’t invite. Worry you thought you’d hidden too well.

But for now, you lie still, tangled in the ache beneath your skin. Wondering if leaving would hurt more than staying. Wondering if anyone really knows the parts of you that are already gone.

Wondering if you can find the strength to let him in—before it’s too late.

You don't mean to make a sound. You don’t even know that you have, until Madam Pomfrey draws a sudden breath, sharp and startled.

“She’s—James—she’s awake.”

There’s a rustle of movement. A chair scraping. A breath hitching.

And then James is at your side like he’d been waiting his whole life to be called to you.

But none of that matters.

Because you are crying.

Not politely. Not the soft, well-behaved kind they show in portraits. No. You're shaking. Wracked. The sob rises from somewhere too deep to name and breaks in your chest like a wave crashing through glass. Your shoulders curl, but your arms don’t lift. You don't even try to wipe your face. There's no use pretending anymore.

The tears fall hot and endless down your cheeks, soaking into your pillow, your collar, the edge of your sheets. It’s not one thing. It’s everything. It’s the ache in your bones. 

The thunder in your chest. The way Regulus smiled at someone else. The way Sirius ran. The way James calls you sunshine like it’s not a lie.

The way you’ve spent your whole life trying to be good and perfect and silent and still ended up wrong.

And the worst part — the cruelest part — is that no one has ever seen you like this. Not really. You were always the composed one. The strong one. The one who shrugged everything off with a tilt of her head and a mouth full of thorns. The one who glared at James when he flirted and scoffed at softness and made everyone believe you didn’t need saving.

But you do. You do.

You just never learned how to ask for it.

And now—now your chest is heaving, and the room is spinning, and you can’t breathe through the noise in your head that says:

What if this never ends? What if I never get better? What if I disappear and no one misses me? What if I’m already gone and they just don’t know it yet?

You hear your name. Once. Twice.

Gentle, then firmer.

James.

You flinch like it’s a wound.

“Hey, hey—” His voice is careful now, as if you’ve become something sacred and fragile. “Hey, look at me. It’s alright. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

But you shake your head violently, because no, you are not safe, not from yourself, not from the sickness that has wrapped its hands around your ribs and pulled and pulled until you forgot what breathing without pain felt like. 

Your throat burns. Your fingers curl helplessly into the blanket. You want to tear your skin off just to escape it. You want to go somewhere so far no one can ask you to come back.

Madam Pomfrey stands frozen in place, her eyes wide, her hand half-lifted. She has known you for years and never—not once—has she seen a crack in your porcelain mask.

And now here you are. Crumbling in front of them both.

“Black—please—” James tries again, voice breaking in the middle. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what to do, I’ll do anything, I swear—”

“I can’t,” you gasp, the words torn from you like confession. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to— I don’t—”

You don’t say it. The rest of it. You don’t have to. It’s in your eyes, wide and soaked and terrified. In your hands, trembling like the last leaves of autumn. In the hollow behind your ribs that’s been growing for months.

James sits carefully on the edge of your bed. His eyes are wet. You’ve never seen him cry before.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he whispers. “Not now. Not alone. You don’t have to be strong for anyone anymore.”

You sob harder. Because that’s the thing you never believed. That someone could see your weakness and not run from it. That someone could love you for the parts you try to hide.

James doesn't flinch. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t call you cruel or cold or impossible to love. He just reaches out with one hand and lays it on yours, feather-light, as if you’re made of smoke.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m right here.”

  -

A week passes.

It drips by slowly, like honey left too long in the cold — thick and sticky, every hour clinging to the next. The pain in your body doesn't ease. It deepens. It threads itself into your bones like ivy curling around old stone, slow but suffocating. 

Some mornings it takes everything just to sit up. Some nights you lie awake listening to your heartbeat stutter behind your ribs, wondering if it will give out before you do.

James has not left you.

Not once, not really. He’s still insufferable — that much hasn’t changed — but it’s quieter now. 

The jokes catch in his throat more often than they land. He hovers too long in doorways. He watches you like he’s memorizing the way you breathe. And his eyes — the ones that used to be full of flirt and fire and mischief — are wide and rimmed in worry.

It makes you furious.

Because you don’t want his pity. You don’t want anyone’s pity. You don’t want to be a burden strapped to someone else’s shoulder. You don’t want to see that shift in his face — the softening, the sadness, the silent fear that you might vanish right in front of him.

It’s worse than pain. It’s exposure.

Still, he meets you after class every day, waiting by the corridor with two cups of tea, like it’s some unspoken ritual. He never says you look tired, but he walks slower. He never asks if you’re in pain, but his hand always twitches like he wants to reach out and steady you.

Except today.

Today, he isn’t there.

And you know why before you even ask.

Because today is Sirius’s birthday.

You try not to be bitter. You try to let it go, to let him have this — his brother, his celebration, his joy. But bitterness has a way of curling around grief like smoke. It stings just the same.

You walk alone to the Great Hall, half-hoping, half-dreading, and then you see them.

All of them.

There at the Gryffindor table, the loudest cluster in the room, bursting with laughter and light like a constellation too bright to look at directly. Sirius sits in the center, crown of charmed glitter and floating stars hovering just above his head. He’s grinning — wide and wild and untouched by the quiet rot eating through your days.

Regulus used to crown him, once.

You remember it like it happened this morning — the three of you, tangled in sun-drenched grass, scraps of daisies in your hair, Sirius demanding to be called “King of the Forest,” Regulus rolling his eyes and obliging anyway, and you balancing a crooked wooden crown on his head like he was the only boy who ever mattered.

You loved him then. You love him now.

But everything has changed.

Now Sirius is surrounded by friends and light and cake that glitters. Regulus is far away, still sharp, still polished, still untouchable. And you — you pass by like a ghost with a too-slow gait and a storm in your chest, unnoticed.

No one looks up.

Not even James.

Not even him.

You keep walking.

And you try not to think about how much it hurts that he isn’t waiting for you today. How much it feels like being forgotten.

How much it feels like disappearing.

You sit in the Great Hall, untouched plate before you, the silver spoon resting against the rim like even it’s too tired to try. There’s food, you think. Warm and plentiful, enough to satisfy kingdoms — but none of it ever looks like it belongs to you.

Your stomach turns at the scent.

You haven't eaten properly in days, if not longer. You don't bother counting anymore. Hunger doesn’t feel like hunger now. It feels like grief in your throat, like something alive trying to claw its way up and out of you. So you just sit there, alone at the far end of the table where no one comes, where there’s room enough for a silence no one wants to join.

You have no friends. Not anymore. Illness has a way of peeling people away from you like fruit from its skin. They stop asking. Stop waiting. Stop noticing. You can’t blame them, really — what’s the use in trying to be close to a body always fraying at the seams?

Across the hall, Sirius is the sun incarnate. He always is on his birthday.

He’s laughing with James now, something too loud and full of warmth. His cheeks are flushed with joy, hair glittering with the shimmer of charmed confetti, mouth parted mid-story as if the world waits to hear him speak. 

The Marauders hang around him like moons caught in his orbit, throwing wrappers and spells and terrible puns into the air like fireworks. It’s messy and golden and warm. And for a moment, you forget how to breathe.

You used to be part of that. Didn’t you?

Used to sit beside him and Regulus in the gardens with hands sticky from treacle tart and lips red from laughter. Used to have a seat at the table. A place. A life.

Now even Regulus is far away — his corner of the Slytherin table colder, quieter. But still not alone. He’s flanked by Barty, Evan, and Pandora. All sharp edges and shining eyes. All seemingly untouched by the rot that follows you. Regulus leans in, listens, offers a rare smirk that you remember from childhood, one he used to save just for you.

He hasn’t looked at you in weeks.

The ache in your chest blooms sudden and vicious. You press your knuckles into your side beneath the table — a small, private act of violence — as if you can convince your body to shut up, to behave, to let you just exist for one more hour. But the pain lurches anyway. Slow at first, then sharper. Stabbing between your ribs like something snapping loose.

You can’t do this.

You stand — too fast, too rough — and the edges of the room ripple like heat rising off pavement. No one notices. No one calls after you. Not even James.

Especially not James.

You walk out of the Hall without tasting a single bite.

And then you’re in the corridor, then on the stairs, and then climbing the towers toward your room. Step by step. Breath by breath. It should be easy — you’ve made this walk a hundred times. But your legs tremble beneath you. The pain isn't where it usually is. It's everywhere now. Your spine, your stomach, the backs of your eyes. Every inch of you buzzes like a broken wire. You clutch the banister like a lifeline, but even that’s not enough.

This is the third time this week.

It’s never been three times.

You should go to Pomfrey. Tell someone. Let someone help.

But your throat stays closed. You keep walking.

Some part of you wonders if this is what dying feels like — this slow crumbling, this breathlessness, this fatigue that eats your name and your shadow and your will to keep standing. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To stop. Just for a little while. Just until the pain quiets. Just until the storm passes.

Except you know the storm is you.

You reach your dorm and shut the door behind you with the quiet finality of a girl preparing to vanish. The walls are too still. The windows don’t let in enough light. 

What if I just didn’t wake up tomorrow?

You let your bag fall to the floor. It lands with a dull, tired thud.

And then you see it.

Resting on the pillow — a single folded letter. Pale parchment. Tidy handwriting. Sealed not with wax but with duty. You don’t need to open it to know who it’s from. You don’t need to guess the weight of its words.

Still, you pick it up.

Your fingers tremble as you unfold it. Each crease feels like a wound reopening.

Darling, Christmas is nearly upon us. I expect you and Regulus home promptly this year — no delays. You’ve missed enough holidays already. No excuses will be accepted. — Mother

That’s it.

That’s all.

Twelve words from the woman who hasn’t written in months. No inquiry into your health. No mention of your letters, the ones she never answered. No softness. No warmth. Just expectation carved into command, as if your body isn't breaking open like wet paper. As if you’re still someone who can just show up — smiling, polished, whole.

You stare at the page until the words blur. Until they bleed.

And then something inside you slips.

The tears come without warning. No build, no warning breath. Just the kind of sob that erupts straight from the gut — ragged, cracked, feral. You sink to your knees beside the bed, hands still clinging to the letter like it might fight back, like it might tear through your skin and finish what your body started.

The pain blooms fast and ruthless. It surges from your spine to your chest, flooding every inch of you like fire caught beneath your ribs. You curl in on yourself, nails digging into your arms, into your thighs, into the fragile curve of your ribs. You clutch at your bones like you can hold them together — like you can stop them from collapsing.

But nothing stops it.

Nothing stops the sound that tears from your throat. A scream muffled into the sheets. A cry swallowed by solitude.

You can’t breathe. You can’t think. All you can feel is this white-hot ache that eats at your joints, your heart, your hope.

You don’t want to go home.

You don’t want to keep going.

You want it to stop. All of it. The pain, the pretending, the loneliness of being expected to survive in a world that only ever sees the surface of you.

You press your forehead to the floor. Cold. Unmoving. Solid.

And you cry — truly cry — not in anger or silence, but in the voice of someone who has held it in too long, who has no more space left inside for grief.

And still, the letter stays crumpled in your fist, a ghost of a girl who once believed her mother might write something kind.

You move like your bones aren’t breaking.

You move like the letter from your mother isn’t still open on the desk, edges trembling in the breeze from the cracked window, her careful handwriting slicing you open with its simplicity. Christmas is coming. You and Regulus are expected home. No excuses.

You move because if you stop, you will shatter. Because the only thing worse than pain is stillness. Stillness makes it real.

So you go to the mirror.

The room is too quiet, too full of the breath you can barely draw. The walls feel too close, like they’re pressing in, trying to crush the last sliver of strength you’ve kept hidden beneath your ribs. Your legs are unsteady beneath you, every step forward a question you don’t want the answer to.

Your reflection barely looks like you anymore.

There is a hollowness in your eyes that no amount of light can touch. Your skin is pale and stretched thin, the corners of your mouth pulled in defeat. Your hair is a wild mess—matted from where you clutched at it in pain, tangled from nights curled on cold floors instead of in beds, from days where brushing it felt like too much of a luxury.

You reach for the comb. It clatters in your hands, and for a moment, you just stare at it.

Then you begin.

Each pull through your hair is a distraction from the agony blooming in your bones—sharp, raw, endless. You comb as if each knot you work through might undo a knot inside your chest. It doesn’t. But still, you comb.

You need to. You have to.

Because Sirius is downstairs. Laughing. Shining. Surrounded by love and warmth and them. You should be there. It’s his birthday. You remember the way he used to leap into your bed at sunrise, dragging you and Regulus by the wrists, shouting, “Coronation time!” and demanding to be crowned king of everything. You always made him a crown out of daisies and broken twigs. Regulus would scowl but help you braid it anyway.

He loved those crowns. He kept every one.

You remember how the three of you used to sit on the rooftop ledge, legs dangling, hands sticky with cake, Sirius declaring himself “the prettiest monarch of them all,” and Regulus pretending to hate it, even as he leaned against you, quiet and content.

Now Sirius is laughing without you. And Regulus is nowhere near your side.

You press the comb harder into your scalp. You need to focus.

Because Regulus—he should be here. You need him. Desperately. With a bone-deep ache that feels like hunger. But you haven’t spoken in days. He doesn’t look at you anymore. Not really. And you can’t ask. You don’t know how.

And James—bloody James—you almost wish he was here. As much as he drives you insane, with his constant chatter and shameless flirting, at least it means someone is trying to stay. At least it means you’re not entirely alone. But he isn’t here. He’s down there with Sirius, and you're alone in this echoing silence, braiding your hair like it might save you from yourself.

You divide it into three sections.

One for Sirius. One for Regulus. One for yourself.

You twist the first strand with shaking fingers, tight enough that it pulls your scalp taut. Then the second, even tighter. Your arms ache. Your chest tightens. The pain is good—it makes everything else fade. Not vanish, but blur around the edges.

By the third strand, your eyes are burning again.

You begin to braid.

Over, under, over.

You focus on the motion. The discipline. The illusion of control. Each loop is a scream you don’t let out. Each pull is an ache you refuse to voice. You braid like your life depends on it. Like if it’s tight enough, neat enough, maybe you’ll stop falling apart. Maybe you’ll be someone your mother could stand to look at. Maybe you’ll be strong enough to walk past Sirius without dying inside. Maybe you won’t feel so abandoned by Regulus. Maybe you’ll stop wondering what would happen if you simply stopped waking up.

Over. Under. Pull.

You want someone to notice. Just once. That you're not okay. That you haven’t been for a very long time. But you also want to disappear.

The braid is so tight it lifts the corners of your face, gives the illusion of composure. It hurts to blink. It hurts to breathe.

But at least now, you look fine.

You stare at your reflection. The girl in the mirror doesn’t cry. She doesn’t break. She’s polished, composed, hair perfect, pain tucked behind the curve of her spine. Just like Mother taught her.

But you can still feel it.

Inside.

Worse than ever.

The kind of ache that doesn’t come from sickness. The kind that whispers, What if you just stopped trying?

And for a heartbeat too long, you wonder what it would be like to let go.

But you blink. You blink and you turn and you reach for your school bag like the world hasn’t ended, and you prepare to go sit through another class, braid perfect, bones screaming, heart bleeding.

Because no one can save you if they don’t know you’re drowning.

And no one is looking.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. 

It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

Your fingers move almost mechanically as you smooth the fabric of your robe, the weight of it heavy with memories and expectation. Each fold you press flat feels like an attempt to iron out the wrinkles of your fractured soul, to shape yourself into something orderly, something that fits into the world your mother demands. 

The knot of your tie is next—tight and precise, a cold reminder of the control you’re expected to hold, even as everything inside you threatens to unravel.

Turning away from the mirror, you move to your bed, your hands carefully pulling the covers taut. The fabric is smooth under your fingertips, but your heart feels anything but. 

You straighten the pillows, tuck in the sheets, as if by arranging this small corner of your world perfectly, you can bring some order to the chaos swirling inside your mind.

Books come next. You stack them neatly on your desk, aligning every corner and spine as if the act itself could contain the chaos you feel. 

You run your fingers over the worn covers and flip through the pages, lingering on the words one last time. Your homework lies finished—no undone tasks, no loose ends to catch you. Everything is set, ready.

Your hands tremble slightly as you set your quill back in its holder. The quiet click in the stillness of your room feels loud, a reminder of the fragile balance you hold. In this small, solemn ritual, you prepare not just your things, but yourself—gathering the last threads of control, the last remnants of order before you let go.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

You stand in front of the mirror, eyes tracing the braided strands that crown your head—a braid so tight and perfect, the first since you were thirteen. 

For once, the wildness that usually clings to your hair has been subdued, pulled into neat, unforgiving lines. It feels like a fragile kind of victory, as if this braid is a quiet rebellion against the chaos inside you, a way to tame not just your hair but the storm roiling beneath your skin.

The silence wraps around you, waiting.

The halls are half-empty, half-asleep in golden mid-afternoon hush, and your footsteps echo too loudly against the stone, like your bones are protesting with every step.

 The books in your arms weigh more than they should, tugging your spine downward, but you hold them like a shield. Like maybe the act of carrying knowledge — of submitting things, of finishing things — will be enough to make you feel real again.

You don’t notice James at first. Not until he steps out from where he must’ve been waiting by the staircase — leaning against the bannister with the kind of bored posture that usually precedes some ridiculous joke. 

But he doesn't speak right away this time. His eyes move to your braids, then down the neat lines of your uniform, and there’s a strange stillness in him. No grin. Just… surprise.

“Bloody hell,” he says finally, voice light but too soft to be teasing. “You’ve got your hair up.”

You blink at him. Say nothing. Your arms tighten slightly around your books, like you’re bracing yourself.

He lifts a hand, gestures vaguely. “Not that it’s any of my business — I mean, you always look like you just fought off a banshee in a thunderstorm, and now you look like you’ve… fought it and survived.” A smile tries to form, wobbly. “It suits you. You look really cute.”

You stop.

Not just physically, but inside too — something halting in your breath, like a skipped beat. Your gaze meets his, dull and quiet.

“Not today, James.”

Your voice is hoarse. Frayed silk over gravel. There’s no snap to it, no snarl or bite. You just say it like a truth. Like you’re too tired for anything else.

James straightens slowly. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just watches you like he’s trying to read through all the space between your words. Your name sits on his tongue, but he doesn’t use it. Instead, his brows lift — not in arrogance this time, but in something like confusion. Or worry.

“You—” He swallows. “You called me James.”

You shift your books in your arms, not meeting his eyes this time. “I just want to get through the day.”

He takes a step toward you, but something in your posture keeps him from reaching farther. “Hey, I can carry those—”

“I said not today.” you repeat, softer. Final.

And for once, he listens.

There’s a beat. Then he gives a small nod, stuffing his hands in his pockets, trying to play it cool even though you can see the concern crawling up his throat like ivy.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “But if you need anything, I— I’m around.”

You nod once — not in agreement, just acknowledgment. Then turn.

You don’t see how long he watches you walk away.

Your steps are heavier now, the ache blooming behind your knees and up your spine. It shouldn't be this bad — not again, not so soon. You already fell apart days ago. But the fire’s back in your ribs, licking up the side of your lungs, and you press your lips into a thin line, determined not to let it show.

You pass the Great Hall on your way. You don’t look in.

But Sirius sees you.

He’s mid-laugh, one of those rare carefree ones that sounds like summer. Remus has just handed him a small box wrapped in gold, and his crown — handmade from parchment, ink-smudged and jagged — sits slightly askew on his head. He freezes. The smile falters. His brows draw in. Something in his chest clenches.

“Was that—?” he begins, turning toward Remus.

“She didn’t see us,” Remus murmurs, already watching you too.

Your shoulders are too tight. Your spine too stiff. You don’t notice the silence left behind you. You don’t hear how the laughter quiets. You’re already up the next stairwell, already telling yourself you just need the potions. Just need to breathe. Just need to finish submitting your homework. Then maybe—maybe—

You won’t have to feel this anymore.

The infirmary is warm when you step inside, too warm. It clings to your skin like a fever, like the ache in your bones has grown teeth and is sinking in deeper the longer you stand.

You hug your books closer to your chest, as if they might anchor you here, hold you steady, keep you from unraveling.

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t look up. She’s bent over a boy laid out on the nearest cot—mud streaked across his face, quidditch robes still soaked in grass and sweat. 

Normally, she’d have noticed you by now. Normally, she would have called you over, already tsk-ing and summoning your chart. But she’s too absorbed today, too busy, and for the first time in a long time, no one’s watching you.

Your eyes drift to the far side of the room—to her desk. A tray sits just behind it, lined with small glass vials. Labels scrawled in Pomfrey’s sharp handwriting. Pale blue, golden amber, deep crimson—every kind of potion she’s ever poured down your throat. You know their names better than your own.

And there, at the back, barely touched, is the strongest pain reliever in her stores. Veridomirine. 

Dark and glinting in the soft light, like it already knows it’s too much for most. You remember it burning a hole in your stomach the last time she gave it to you. The way your limbs went numb. The way your mind stilled. The silence of it.

Your grip tightens on your books.

The decision happens slowly and all at once. You glance at Madam Pomfrey—her back still turned, wand still stitching, voice low as she murmurs reassurance to the boy on the bed. 

You step forward, quiet, deliberate. Like you’ve done this before. Like your body already knows the path.

The desk is closer than you expect. You set your books down gently, hands shaking just enough to notice, and reach for the bottle. The glass is cool. Heavier than you remember. It fits into your palm like it was made for you.

You don’t hesitate. You don’t think.

You slide it into the fold of your robe, between the fabric and your ribs, right where the pain always begins.

And then you lift your books again, turn on your heel, and walk out as if you’ve only come for a quick word, as if nothing is different. As if your hands aren’t burning from what you’ve just done.

The corridor is quiet outside. Brisk. The chill hits your cheeks and you let it. Let it bite and sharpen and bring you back into your body.

But something is different now.

Because inside your robe, glass clinks softly with every step.

And for the first time, you feel like you’re holding your way out.

All you can hear is your heartbeat, dull and heavy, and the quiet clink of glass from the bottle nestled beneath your sleeve.

You push open the infirmary doors, and the hallway blooms before you, empty at first glance. But he’s there.

Sirius.

Leaning against the stone wall, one foot pressed behind him for balance, arms crossed in a way that looks casual—effortlessly disheveled—but you don’t see the way his jaw keeps tightening, or the way he’s been picking at the edge of his sleeve, over and over again.

He straightens when he hears the door creak open. His head lifts, eyes scanning quickly—and softening, melting, when he sees you. You, with your too-tight braid, your hollow stare, the way you walk like you’re already halfway gone.

He doesn’t recognize you at first.

Not because you’ve changed on the outside—though you have—but because something’s missing. Something small. Something vital.

And Sirius Black has never known how to say delicate things, not with words. Not with you. So he does what he always does—he opens his mouth and hopes something human will fall out.

“Hey—”

But you’re already passing.

You don’t see the way he steps forward, the way his fingers twitch like he might reach for your arm. You don’t hear the “Can we talk?” die in his throat. You don’t even look at him. Not once.

You’re already turning away.

The braid down your back is tight, almost punishing. A line of control in a world unraveling thread by thread. Your robes are neat, too neat. Tie straight. Steps calculated. As if by holding the pieces together on the outside, you might silence the ruin inside. 

As if you can braid back the shadows trying to tear themselves loose.

Sirius opens his mouth. Wants to say your name. Just your name. Softly, like a tether, like a reminder. But the syllables die on his tongue. You’re already walking away, and the space between you feels suddenly endless. Like galaxies expanding between breaths.

And still—he doesn’t call after you.

He watches. That’s all he can do. 

Watches you walk with the quiet defiance of someone who has learned how to disappear in full view. Someone who was born under a cursed name and carved their own silence from it. He knows that silence. 

He’s worn it too. It’s in his name—in Black. Not just a surname but a legacy of storms. A bloodline that confuses cruelty for strength, silence for survival.

He told himself he had outrun it. That the name couldn’t touch him anymore. But now he watches you, and he realizes: Black isn’t just his burden—it’s yours too. You carry the same weight in your eyes. That same quiet grief. That same ache for something better.

You were the one who never bent. Never cried. Even when the pain took your bones, you met the world with cold fire in your gaze. But now he sees something else. Something crumbling. Something gone.

And it hits him like a curse spoken in the dark: he doesn’t know how to reach you. Not really. He was too late to ask the right questions. Too loud to hear the ones you never spoke aloud. Too proud to admit that sometimes, the ones who look strongest are the ones who are breaking quietly, piece by piece.

You vanish down the corridor, and Sirius stands there, the silence echoing louder than any spell. He leans back against the wall again, like if he presses hard enough, it might hold him together.

 His name is Black. And for the first time in a long while, it feels like a mirror—cold, cracked, and full of all the things he was too afraid to see.

You were light once. Maybe not the kind that burned—but the kind that steadied. Quiet, firm, constant. And now, he wonders if you’ve let go of the edge entirely. If you’ve stepped too far into that old name, into the dark.

And Sirius Black—brave, loud, impossible Sirius—does not know how to follow you there.

The bottle is cold in your hand, colder than it should be. 

You don’t know if it’s the glass or your fingers or something deeper, something in the marrow, in the blood. You sit on the edge of your bed like you’re balancing on a cliff, and everything around you holds its breath. 

The walls. The books. The light. Even the ghosts seem to pause, like they know something sacred and shattering is about to unfold.

You set the bottle down on your nightstand, watching the liquid shimmer inside. It’s a strange shade—amber gold, like honey and fire, like something that should soothe, should heal. But you know what it’ll do. 

You’ve read the labels. You’ve stolen the dosage. You’ve done the math. And for once in your life, the numbers give you certainty. This will be enough.

You glance around your room as if memorizing it, not the way it is, but the way it’s always been. The books stacked with uneven spines. The worn corner of your blanket where you’d twist the fabric between your fingers when the pain got too much. The chipped edge of the mirror where you once slammed a brush out of frustration. It’s a museum now. A mausoleum in waiting.

Your hands tremble as you reach for a parchment scrap—just a torn piece, nothing grand. You fold it carefully, slow and deliberate, your fingers aching as they crease the paper into small peaks. It’s clumsy, uneven. A paper crown no bigger than your palm. 

You think of Sirius, of sun-kissed afternoons when he used to run ahead and shout that he was king of the forest, the common room, the world. 

You and Regulus would laugh, always crown him, always believe him. You were never royalty, not really. Just children trying to carve a kingdom out of cracked stone and quiet grief.

You place the tiny crown on the edge of the desk. An offering. A prayer. A goodbye that won’t speak its name.

It’s his birthday.

You whisper it aloud like it means something. Like he’ll hear it. “Happy birthday, Sirius.”

And then, silence again. The kind of silence that screams.

Your fingers reach for the bottle. You uncork it slowly, and the scent rises—bitter, sharp, familiar. You think of your bones. Of how they’ve been singing a song of surrender for weeks. Months. Maybe years. Of how it’s taken everything in you just to exist in this body, in this name, in this world.

You think of Regulus. Of how his back was always straight even when everything else was falling. Of how you used to braid flowers into your hair for him, and he’d pretend not to care, but he’d look at you like you were magic. You think of James and the way his voice is always too loud but his concern is real, is warm, and how he didn’t call you a single name today. You think of how you almost wanted him to follow you.

You think of Sirius.

And it hurts so much you almost change your mind.

But the pain doesn’t leave. It never does. 

It sinks deeper, folds into your joints, nests behind your ribs. It becomes you. You can’t keep holding it. You can’t keep waking up in a body that feels like betrayal, in a mind that won’t stop screaming, in a life that forgot how to soften.

There is a kind of pain that does not bleed. It settles deep — in marrow, in memory. It builds altars in your bones, asking worship of a body already breaking. You've worn this ache longer than you've worn your name, longer than your brothers stayed.

You were born into the house of Black — where silence is survival and suffering is an inheritance. Regulus moved like shadow. Sirius, like fire. But you? You learned to stay. To endure. To carry the weight of a name no one asked if you wanted. And you did it well. Too well. Long enough for the world to mistake your endurance for ease.

Because strength was never the crown you wanted. It was the chain.

You bring it to your lips.

There is no fear, not anymore. Just the hush beneath your ribs loosening for the first time. Not with hope — never with hope — but with rest. The kind no one can take from you. The kind that doesn’t hurt to hold. That doesn’t ask for your smile in exchange for survival.

You close your eyes.

And then — a crack of wood. A bang loud enough to split the night wide open. Like the universe itself couldn’t bear to be quiet a second longer. 

The door crashes against the wall, unhinging the moment from its silence.

Wind howls through the space between now and never. Curtains billow like ghosts startled from sleep. You flinch before you mean to. Before you can stop yourself. The bottle slips from your hands.

It falls. A slow, glassy descent. And when it hits the floor — the shatter is almost gentle. A soft, final sound. Like the last breath of something sacred. Potion and silence spill together, staining the rug in pale, merciful ruin.

And there — Sirius.

Standing in the doorway like someone who’s already read the ending. Like someone who sprinted through every corridor of this house just to be too late. 

His chest is rising like he’s run miles through storm and stone. His eyes — wild, wet, unblinking. The kind of stare that begs the world to lie.

There’s mud on his boots. A tremble in his fists. Panic stretched tight across his shoulders, brittle and loud. And something in his face — something jagged and unspoken — slices right through the stillness.

He doesn’t speak.

Neither do you.

The room holds its breath. Around you, time stands uncertain. The glass glitters between you like a warning, like a map of everything broken. The smell of the potion hangs in the air — soft, floral, almost sweet. A lullaby for leaving.

Your hands stay curled in your lap, still shaped around the ghost of what almost was. Still cradling the moment you thought you could disappear, undisturbed.

You were supposed to be gone by now.

Supposed to leave like snowfall, like mist at morning — soft, unseen, unremembered. You had rehearsed the silence. Folded your goodbyes into creases no one would find. You had made peace with the vanishing.

But he’s here. Sirius. And he is looking at you like he knows.

Like he’s known all along.

Not just the pieces you performed — the smirk, the sarcasm, the deflection sharp enough to draw blood. But the marrow of it. The hurting. The leaving. The way you’d been slipping away for years in small, invisible ways.

And you can’t take it back.

Not the uncorked bottle. Not the weight in your chest you were ready to lay down. Not the choice you almost made — not out of weakness, but weariness. The kind no one ever sees until you’ve already left.

And still. Even now.

Something uncoils in your chest. Not like hope but like release. Like exhale. Like gravity loosening its grip. The ache begins to lift, slow and smoke-soft, drifting out of your lungs, out of your spine, out of the quiet place where you’d kept it curled for so long.

And for the first time — the ache goes with you.

‘Til all that’s left is glorious bone.

[fizz-pop-thwip]

I struggle thinking about non consensual human experimentation as a whole, but what happened to Bucky really it does just make me sick.

To start, think of how his stomach dropped when he fell from the train, the fucking fear knowing you're dead. You have 2 seconds and then your dead, this is it.

Then you wake up to 1) being alive, horrifically unaware of the 70 years of hell ahead of you and 2) your arm being not only surgically removed but replaced with a metal arm, a foreign body, a parasite. You fight because what else are you ment to do? But you fall unconscious again.

You wake up to days and days of torment and torture and slowly loose hope that it will ever end, that you'll ever be saved. He didn't know that Steve was dead, how long did he yearn for Steve to find him? How mad did he get? Did he punch the wall, did he scream? Did they have to sedate him because of just how psychotic that made him? How fucking manic he would go?

How long till he lost all feeling, all emotion and hope?

When they started putting him in the chair, did he scream and cry? Did he beg for anything else? Any thing, anything, fucking anything. Did he beg for death? Did he feel himself slowly lose all of his memory, did he sob when he first couldn't picture Steve's face, or when he could remember the most important person in the world, but not a name or a background or a face, not a crumb.

The first time he's put in cryo freeze, does he remember his reflection? Seconds before he fell unconscious, never knowing how long it would be before he woke up again. Did he wake up, begging to just be put back in, the closest fate to death he could ever achieve? The closest thing to mercy? Does he catch himself falling asleep at night and wake up in tears, not even sure if it's been 20 minutes of 20 years.

Did his crys for help fall on the shiney leather shoes of scientists who showed no emotion, did he question if he was even human to begin with? Surely a human would be treated with even a fraction of care. No one treated like this was born from a mother, no one treated like this was ever looked at with maternal love.

He stopped feeling like a person, he didn't even remember he was a person. When things seeped though it just hurt, they hurt him, it made it worse. So he stopped it, he wouldn't let himself. It was impossible to live. He had no coping mechanisms, no outlet, he would show any signs of struggle and be hurt for showing humanity. He had to be what they wanted.

Even after he was broken in, no crying anymore. No begging for mercy. Did he spend his nights awake, just TRYING to remember what he forgot, FEELING the missing spots in his mind? Did he hold that metal arm close because he can't even remember how he got it anymore, all he knows is it makes his shoulders ache.

He was completely and utterly trapped, the more he suppressed, even the minor shards he remembered, the more mania he would experience.

Even once he's free, how do you come back from that, even if it was just a mental thing, the physical, real DAMAGE to his brain was enough to make him never heal again. Bucky is a walking fucking miracle and maybe THE survivor.

He is going to have memory problems, severly. He is going to have intense PTSD flashbacks, total hallucination level, breakdowns. Seriously, this level of trauma is NEVER leaving him, not fully. Phantom pains, endless nightmares, coping mechanisms that don't make sense but comfort him none the less.

He's going to have periods of times where he can't even stand being touched, not Steve, not anyone. Weeks where he can't shower or move out of a space his brain has deemed safe for fear of being hurt. Scratches at the seam between his flesh and the metal of arm, wanting it off, wanting it away from him. Again does it necessarily make sense logically? NO!! but does he feel it 100%? Yes!!

He gets better, his bad periods get less intense, more far in between but they never fully go away. As fuckimg depressing as it is, hydra made a permanent mark on his psyche. It's FUCKED.

Gods strongest soldier is Bucky Barnes.

[total-dxmure]

✦ INVISIBLE STRING THEORY →【ELLIE WILLIAMS】→ CHAPTER ONE

pairings: modern!marine ellie x reader

summary: the marines didn’t ruin ellie. ellie ruined ellie. after being medically discharged she feels lost. being sent to live with joel is more of a last ditch effort to save her and less of a fun reunion for the father-daughter duo. jackson is worlds different than chicago, but the fresh air and sprawling countrysides are a welcome reprieve. ellie finds herself finding comfort in more than just the change in scenery though. after losing your girlfriend due to an accident you feel as though you’ll never find love again- but that was before meeting ellie williams. the two of you figure out that you have more in common than just the fact that she and your girlfriend were both marines though. tethered by some invisible string, the two of you meeting has to be fate. who would have known that you were the golden ticket to ellie’s recovery?

warnings: eventual smut! lots of tension building and mutual pining. ellie falls first and hard. small town girl meets a frightening, strong ex marine. TW: talk of panic attacks, ptsd episodes and death. come for the ellie smut and stay for the plot and fluff.

⬶ previous chapter | next chapter ⤅

“The fact that she’s military is the only thing saving her ass right now.”

Ellie kept her head bowed down low, her hands clasped in between her legs as she hunched over in the seat, making herself as small as possible. Her knuckles were bruised and scrapped to hell, the blood already dried and crusted. Most of the blood wasn’t hers, and if she thought about that fact for too long she’d probably have an episode. Either that or she’d throw up all over the sheriff’s office.

“Boss, I really appreciate you calling me instead of booking her. You have to understand that she’s in therapy and is on a shit ton of medications. Is the guy gonna press charges. . . ?” Hearing her best friend kiss up to his boss on her behalf had the vein in her forehead twitching.

“Technically the boy was shoplifting, so I doubt he’s gonna go forward with any sort’a legal action. I know she was trying to help, but she used excessive force. Beat the poor kid black and blue. . . I mean-” The officer lowered his voice, and Ellie could hear Jesse’s chair creak as he leaned forward. “His damn tooth was knocked out.” The sheriff whispered.

She closed her eyes tight, running a shaky hand over her face. She should own up to all of this and apologize. This was her fault, so why. . . why was she just sitting there? It was like she was glued to the chair, unable to move her head up. She couldn’t look Jesse in the eye. She was ashamed of herself.

Because she smelled like greasy, unwashed hair and cigarettes, was wearing the same pair of jeans she’d worn yesterday when he invited her over to his and Dina’s for dinner, and now he was having to pick her up at the police station for starting a fight.

A pack of beer. That’s what she’d pummeled the boy over.

He couldn’t have even been her age. He looked freshly legal, and something in her fucked up mind told her that it was okay to hurt him like that. The second that the nice elderly woman behind the counter had started screaming about a man stealing from her, some sort of switch had been flipped in her brain. Loud noises always made her feel anxious, but screaming like that? She couldn’t have stopped the meltdown even if she’d wanted to. So she dropped what she was holding and ran after him. What happened afterwards was. . . well, it was a blur. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and rubbed her temples, trying hard to remember.

Her therapist called them “PTSD episodes”. Random things triggered a breakdown: loud noises, gunshots, screams, flashes of light. . . they were unavoidable. She’d lose total track of time when it happened. One second the door to Ellie’s walk-in closet was closing behind her, plummeting her in darkness, and the next she’d be laying on her back in the middle of her room, balling her eyes out. Living like this was hell, but no matter how many mind-numbing pills she was prescribed, she still found it nearly impossible to function.

She didn’t want to scare her loved ones. When Joel called she just. . . lied. It made her feel dirty. It was wrong and she knew that, but it was better than the alternative. Being a liar was better than being a broken failure.

“Yeah, I’m doing great. My therapist is on to something, I think.”

“Come on, rambo. Let’s get you to bed.” Jesse placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, knowing better than to pat her on the back like he used to.

Ellie knew it hurt him to see her flinch under his touch. She swallowed back bile and stood up, practically having to drag herself out of the officers office. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t thank him or- or anything.

But then he did that thing. . . he thanked Ellie.

Ellie didn’t give a shit about the military discounts or the cheaper car insurance- she got a nice cushy check from the military every month just for breathing. She didn’t want pity or thanks simply because she didn’t deserve it.

“Thank you for your service, Williams.” The sheriff’s voice reminded her of Joel’s. For some reason that made it hurt even worse.

Still, her muscles tightened, and she worked hard to straighten her posture.

“It was my privilege.” It was a well rehearsed response. It didn’t even sound like her voice when she had said it though, and it scared her.

As she followed Jesse out to his truck, she tried to ascertain whether she was just beginning to disassociate or whether or not this was all just another strange side effect from her meds.

She blinked and suddenly she was already situated in the car, Jesse on the main road to get the both of them back home. He had the radio turned down to just a hum, his sleepy eyes glued to the road in front of him. The clock on his dashboard told her that it wasn’t just “late” anymore, but “morning” now. Ellie sat up suddenly, her heart pounding as she tried to map out exactly how many minutes she had just lost.

“Fuck.” She breathed, pressing her palms against her eyes.

She needed to call her therapist sometime today. She needed. . . She needed a lower dose of medication. There’s no way any of this was normal.

“Have you eaten?” Jesse asked, turning his head to finally look at her.

Ellie wished that he felt inconvenienced by her. Anger would be better than pity, but the look in his eyes was anything but annoyance. Jesse looked like he was close to tears. He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, and Ellie felt called to reach her hand out and place it on his shoulder. She wasn’t a very touchy person these days (and it’s not like she was to begin with), but he needed it.

“Not in a couple of hours.” Ellie answered him, letting her fingers dig into the soft fabric of his shirt.

He nodded and cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter. When Ellie dropped her hand and turned to look out the passenger side window, she could have sworn he lifted his arm to hurriedly wipe at his eyes. She couldn’t be sure though. . . seeing as she was now legally blind in her left eye. The wonky eye and the thin scar that started in the middle of her forehead and ended on her brow bone were the only physical reminders that she had of the explosion.

It seemed so miniscule compared to all of the shit that was going on in her head. She’d much rather have a destroyed body than a brain that didn’t work right anymore.

“How about you sleep in the guest bedroom? Dina’s probably worried sick about the both of us. Let’s. . . let’s spend the day together. Yeah?” It sounded like he was pleading with her.

There was a brief moment of heavy silence. No matter how much of a burden she saw herself as, the thought of going home right now frightened her. Ellie was terrified that she was going to end up all alone in this world, but she couldn’t stop pushing everyone away. It’s almost as if. . . she knew that she was bound to self-destruct at some point. She didn’t want anyone to see her like that.

“She’s going to kill me.” Ellie groaned out, dramatically banging her head against the headrest.

Jesse’s lips twitched up into a smile, but he was quick to try and mask it. “Nah. Dina? Mad at you for getting arrested at one thirty in the morning? No way.” His tone was sarcastic, and Ellie appreciated the fact that Jesse could still joke under circumstances like this. It made things feel almost normal. Almost.

Ellie winced, dragging a battered and bruised hand over her face. She had no idea why she’d been at the gas station picking up a bag of pretzels and a pack of ding-dongs that late at night. A documentary about the recently discovered Exo-planet was on the Discovery channel, and she’d actually worked up an appetite after it was over. She missed acting her age. Maybe that’s why she ended up getting into her Jeep. She was tired of feeling nostalgic and actually wanted to do something for herself. As minuscule as grabbing snacks from the gas station down the street was, it still felt out of the ordinary for her. Special.

Dina was sitting on the couch when the pair slunk into the house, walking on their tip toes in the hopes that the creaking wooden floors wouldn’t wake up JJ. Ellie froze in the entryway, green eyes wide as she took in the female’s crossed arms and death-glare. She was in trouble, which meant that Jesse was in trouble as well by association.

“Do you know what time it is?” Dina whisper-yelled, throwing her arm in the direction of the clock on the wall.

Ellie squinted her one good eye, noting that it was now four in the morning. She’d lost three hours. She should have been passed out on her prescribed sleeping pills by now, plagued by vivid nightmares. Instead she was intruding on her two best friends, and for what? ‘A pack of beer’, she reminded herself. A god damn pack of fuckin’ beer.

Ellie’s mouth went dry, her lips moving but no words escaping her. How many times had she apologized to Dina since she’d gotten home after the accident? Still, her best friend’s anger was better than Jesse’s pity. The sleeves of Ellie’s flannel tightened around her biceps as she crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring Dina’s posture as if to protect herself. She slipped a hand up, covering her neck anxiously.

“I’m getting better, D. I’ll schedule an emergency meeting with my therapist and-” Ellie sounded pathetic, even to her own ears.

What she was doing couldn’t be called living. Ellie was simply existing and not doing a very good job at it either. She was tired of being tired. She blinked her misty eyes, turning to face the kitchen. She refused to cry. Once she started she couldn’t be sure that she’d be able to stop.

Jesse and Dina’s shoes were all neatly laid out by the front door and JJ’s baby bag was sitting on the dining room table. This was a family that she had just burdened. Her eyes snagged on JJ’s highchair, and then the guilt was building right back up in her chest.

Guilt and jealousy.

Ellie had once had hopes of starting her own family eventually. When did she lose her grasp on that? On her lifelong dreams and aspirations? She wanted to help people- save people- so when had she become the one that needed saving? The marines hadn’t ruined Ellie. Ellie had ruined Ellie.

“No, you’re not.” Dina said simply, her voice sounding thick with emotion. “Ellie, look at me.” Her voice was commanding despite her sadness.

Ellie’s eyes fell to the floor, but she turned her head to face Dina, green eyes flickering up to her face. Bottom lip quivering, brown eyes misty- Dina looked miserable.

“You’re not getting better.” She whispered to Ellie, shaking her head to drive the point home. It looked like the words physically hurt for her to say.

Every excuse that she could have given dissipated. Suddenly she felt naked, utterly exposed. Every nasty, jagged scar was on full display. How many times had she said that to the people that cared about her?

“I’m getting better.” “I actually feel a bit better today.” “You don’t have to worry about me. The meds are really working this time.” Ellie wasn’t sure when it happened but she had become a liar. A damn good one too. Dina was looking at her now though, really looking at her, and Ellie’s face crumpled.

“Fuck.” Ellie whispered to herself, moving her hands to cover her face.

Jesse stepped behind Ellie, wrapping his arms around her tightly, resting his cheek on the top of her head. A sob caught in Ellie’s chest and she strangled it before it could escape her. She couldn’t lose it. She couldn’t let her shoulders sag, couldn’t allow herself to feel everything in front of her best friends.

“I called Joel,” Dina finally said, leaning against the back of the couch, her knuckles going white with how hard she gripped the leather. “And he bought you a plane ticket. You’re flying out tomorrow.”

“No,” Ellie was already shaking her head before Dina had even finished her sentence. “How could you do this?” She felt the betrayal like a slap in the face. Her lips parted, eyes wide in silent desperation.

Please let this be a nightmare.

Her hand desperately flew to her arm, giving it a sharp pinch. The floor didn’t fall out from under her. She didn’t sit up sweating in her tangled sheets. This was actually happening. Actually real.

“You’re flailing, Ellie. We thought that eventually you’d level out,” Dina tried, taking a few steps towards Ellie and her husband. “But you’re only getting worse.”

“I’m getting better.” The well rehearsed line was the only thing she could think to utter. She prayed that eventually she could convince herself of that too. If she said the words enough times then maybe, eventually, they would become her reality. Perhaps she could somehow manifest her recovery.

“When was the last time you ate a solid meal? You barely touched your plate the other night. And I know you aren’t eating the food that Jesse drops off for you.” Dina was pointing out her flaws as if she didn’t see them all herself.

A full stomach meant nausea.

“When was the last time you showered?” The dark haired girl questioned.

Showering meant closing herself up into a tight space. It meant getting naked- seeing her scars. Remembering what happened to her and the rest of her unit.

“We know how this will end, Ellie. I don’t care if you hate me for the rest of my life for calling Joel. I refuse to lose you like this.” Dina’s voice quivered as she spoke, but her eyes hardened. She was resolute about her decision.

Jesse’s arms tightened around Ellie and suddenly they no longer felt like a comfort but a prison. She needed air. Needed to call Joel and apologize. Needed to tell him that she was fine. She was fine. She would be just fine.

“I can’t breathe.” Ellie managed to whisper out, knees buckling from underneath her. It felt like the world was finally swallowing her up whole.

She was a failure. She’d failed Jesse, Dina, JJ and Joel. Why couldn’t she just be normal again? Why couldn’t she just fucking breathe.

Jesse let go of Ellie as she began gasping for air, helping to sit her down on the cold hardwood floor. It felt like everything around her had slowed down to a crawl, but her mind- it had sped up to a breakneck pace. She couldn’t turn it off. Couldn’t turn off the thoughts and the images and the feelings.

She’d killed her unit. It was her fault that they all died. They had all been taken home in body bags, and what had Ellie gotten? A fucking government issued check every month that she blew on booze and a Purple Heart that collected dust.

“D, get the medication that’s in the cabinet and a glass of water.” Jesse called out to his wife. It sounded like they were underwater. She was drowning.

“She’s ripping her fucking hair out, Jesse.” Dina called out in panic, rifling through the medicine cabinet with shaky hands. Her best friend gripped her wrists, forcing them back down to her sides. Strands of Auburn hair were tangled up between her clammy fingers.

JJ must have woken up because of the comotion. She could hear him crying from the other room. Screaming for his mother.

Blood. So much blood. It’s coming out of her mouth, what do I do? What do I do about internal bleeding again? Wasn’t I trained for this? Breathe. She’s not breathing. Are there other landmines? Can I drag her to safety? Where is everyone else? H-How. . . How can I help?

“Swallow, Ellie.” Dina was crouched in front of her, forcing her lips open to slide a pill onto her tongue.

“It was my fault. I-I fucking,” She choked out, gagging at the taste of the pill that was beginning to dissolve on her tongue. “I led them out there. Oh, fuck.”

Dina was beginning to panic, pushing the plastic cup up to Ellie’s mouth in the hopes that she would drink. She did, choking back the water in deep gulps. The water helped to fill the aching pit that was beginning to grow in her stomach. Water poured down the sides of Ellie’s lips, but she kept drinking. Deep, thoughtful gulps of ice cold water.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Dina finally asked, her eyes flickering between Ellie and her husband.

“No. No hospital. Just go sit with JJ, alright? I’ve got her.” Jesse told her, letting go of Ellie’s hands so that he could wrap an arm around her waist, hugging her against his chest so that she couldn’t stand up.

Ellie blinked and Dina was gone, the sound of her bare feet jogging down the hall was the only reminder of her presence.

“Joel isn’t going to judge you, Ellie. We all just want to help. So let us, alright?” She knew he was telling the truth, but the thought of Joel seeing her as lesser-than killed her. She would crumble completely if Joel looked at her with the same sorrowful eyes that Jesse did.

Joel was newly retired though, and the last thing he needed was to put up with his PTSD-ridden adopted daughter. She was tired of feeling like a burden, but where had standing on her own two feet gotten her? Arrested on multiple occasions? So she relented. She surrendered to the idea of sleeping in her old bedroom and taking up space in Joel’s too-big ranch home.

“Okay.” Ellie croaked, feeling the medication kicking in. Sleep. All Ellie wanted to do was sleep.

“Okay?” Jesse repeated back to her, needing to know that she was serious. The last thing he probably wanted to do was wrestle Ellie onto the plane. He wasn’t entirely sure he could overpower her when it came down to it.

“Okay.”

Grief was an uphill battle. One minute you’re laughing with your friends and then the next you’re laid up in bed, tossing and turning with the realization that what could have been was now an impossibility. You missed Abby. You missed the life that you could have had with her. All of the memories and milestones you missed out on were soul crushing the second that the sun went down.

You were left in your empty house, laid up in the bed that the two of you once shared. Her scent had long since washed out of her pillow. All that was left were pictures and a gravesite that you still couldn’t bring yourself to visit. Life doesn’t stop when you lose somebody though. People eventually become less forgiving as the months pass by.

So you squeezed your eyes closed and hoped that sleep would come sooner rather than later. You had an early start tomorrow for work, and the last thing you wanted was to show up with puffy eyes.

Life was getting better though. The pain wasn't as debilitating as it had been months ago, and for that you were thankful.

One step at a time, one day at a time.

You were still breathing, which was exactly what Abby would have wanted for you. The overwhelming grief hadn't killed you, no matter how many times you'd secretly prayed that it would. You were still here and that was good enough.

For now, at least.

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[myfictionaldreams]

Seven // Mafia!Stucky x Fem!Reader

Summary: One week is all it takes for your world to come crashing down. Even though you could have everything you'd ever wanted, for some reason, something isn't right. Will your emotions and the smothering of overprotective Stucky come to an end?

Prompt: please read my 'origin' fics last hope (Ch 1) (Ch 2) for some reader backstory.

Requested by: 2 x requests mixed together. @hellsenthero for the safeword use, subdrop + lots of angst/comfort & anon with very overprotective Stucky. I hope you both enjoy, this gets quite intense so be ready!

Warnings (PLEASE READ): injuries, blood, safe word use, discussion of m*rder, severe panic attack. Not by the main characters: threats of abuse, unconsenting face touching, derogatory, misogony, slut shaming

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, angst (!), Overprotective (!), Dom/Sub, threesome, hurt/comfort, possessive, sir kink, oral (f + m recieving), squirting, subdrop, crying, anal, double penetration, praise kink, begging, rough sex, aftercare (sorry if i've missed any lmao)

Words: 9k (it's a long one!)

my masterlist 📚 AO3 Link

One week. Seven days.

Not a significant amount of time for most in the grand scheme of a lifetime. How much could change in a single week? Everything it seemed and yet nothing at all.

A week of not acting like yourself. Days filled with conflicting thoughts between overreacting and not having the energy to emote. Excuses became your best friend. Maybe it was because you were due to start your period; perhaps it was a mental breakdown. Who knows?

There was never a day that you EVER doubted your love for Steve Rogers and James Barnes. The term soulmates didn’t even come close to how much you loved these men. The loves of your life. Saving you from a lifetime of pain, saving you from yourself. There would never be a day that you weren’t grateful for these men, and every day, you tried to show them your appreciation with love and affection.

Yes, you were still human. There were days when you couldn’t even cope with their assertive overprotectiveness. Yes, it was for your benefit; they loved you as much as you loved them. Scared of losing you, cautious of the horrible life and background that they’d saved you from. Their job as heads of the Rogers Mafia was rifled with dangers, violence, and death. There was always a target on their backs and anyone they encountered. The list was endless as to why Steve and Bucky acted as they did.

For years, there was nothing but appreciation for this way of life. The dangers that surrounded every second were always at an arm's length away from you as you lived a comfortable, loving life with the men you loved.

Steve and Bucky were renowned for their protection of you. Going to extreme lengths to make sure you were safe. This ranged from 24/7 security, personal bodyguards always by your side unless they were there, and weapons hidden throughout your home that you had been thoroughly trained on just in case.

Next were the verbal and physical threats Steve and Bucky would give those who dared to look at you for more than 5 seconds. People died. MANY people had been killed, as a matter of fact, in the line of duty, love and a little bit of crazy. The lines that were crossed to make sure you were safe had no boundaries.

Except on these small occasions. Just one week for your patience to lose all hope.

MONDAY

It had been a calm day for you. You complete chores at home until you’re satisfied while your boyfriends are at work, making money and continuing to prove they own Brooklyn. You wanted to treat them to something special and decided to cook a hearty meal and have a romantic dinner.

The table was decorated with candles and fresh flowers from the garden. Even your dog Dodger was handsome in his blue and red bowtie around his neck. He sat his head on his paws, watching you chop vegetables.

“What do you think Dodger? Does Mama move well?” you ask him whilst shaking your hips in time with the song playing on the radio. The rottweiler’s head tilts as if to say you’re really going to ask me that?

“Fine, maybe I can’t dance, but I can cook; if you’re good, you’ll get some of the meat scraps”. Dodgers ears perk up at this, and you can’t help but grin down at your baby, “Of course, you’re going to be a good boy, you’re always my good boy- OW SHIT!”

The pain is intense, and the burn radiates from the centre of your palm. Blood, that's all you see at first. The crimson drips from the end of the knife in your hand before it clutters onto the cutting board.

“Honey, we’re home!” Bucky hollered from the front door.

You couldn’t reply. Utterly frozen and helpless as more drips continued to coat the surface. This is how you die from chopping vegetables. You’ll be the laughing stock of the infamous mafia leader’s lover dies from cutting a carrot.

Dodger, ever the inquisitive boy, began to bark hysterically, running out of the kitchen towards Steve and Bucky, jumping up at them, biting onto their clothes and pulling in the direction of the kitchen. He’d been trained for moments like this to protect and alert if you’re in danger.

“What is it, Dodger? Where is she- Fuck! Bucky, get the first aid kit. Baby, let me see.” Steve’s hand's cup yours, pressing firmly against the area that was now throbbing and you couldn’t help but hiss as the sting intensified. “I know it hurts, but I need to stop it bleeding”, he explains whilst coaxing you toward the sink.

With surprising gentleness for such a big hunk of a man, Steve washed your hand, able to inspect the wound as Bucky appeared to your other side with the first aid box opened and ready.

“It’s not deep enough to need stitches, thankfully, but I’m going to need to press on it for a couple of minutes to stop it bleeding”. Nodding your head in response to Steve, you lean against his body, finding comfort in his warmth and firm body.

“I guess that’s the last time you try and do anything romantic, huh, Doll?” Tilting your head toward Bucky, you glare hard at his joke as he sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. “Oh, I love it when you try and look angry with me; you look so damn cute”, he finishes his teasing with a bop at the end of your nose with his finger.

“Bucky, stop being a jerk”, Steve chastises as you hide your face in his chest.

“I just wanted to make you both a nice meal”, your voice muffled against Steve’s white shirt.

“As much as we appreciate the sentiment, maybe use the precut carrots next time, yeah?” Knocking your shoulder against Steve’s chest, he laughs and kisses your cheek as an apology for his joke.

Your hand is then thoroughly wrapped in a bandage, probably more than necessary, and you’re nudged to sit at the table while they continue cooking the meal you’d planned. Guilt settled uneasily in your stomach. It was meant to be a pleasant surprise for them, but now they’re left clearing up after you.

Dodger came over, licking at your uninjured hand, begging for pets you’re more than happy to give him as you contemplated how to make up for your mistake.

However, Steve and Bucky had other ideas as they took it upon themselves to ensure you were effortlessly cared for to the point that they refused to allow you to cut up your food or feed yourself, cuddling you into Bucky’s lap as he fed you. Next, they’re undressing you slowly, carefully and tenderly, bathing you, being careful of your injury, and ending the day with enough orgasms to have your mind fuzzy and body sated.

 You were treated to the care and attention you were used to, and Steve and Bucky did not complain once. In fact, they had smiles on their faces, and they enjoyed looking after you, which is where your conundrum occurs. Sometimes, the overprotective attentiveness verged on being smothering.

TUESDAY

It did not end. You’re washed, dressed, and hair combed by them. Even lifting the damn spoon for your cereal to your mouth.

“I can use a spoon; I’m not incapable of everything!”

All you’re given in response from Bucky is a soft smile, his eyes flicking across your face like he’s trying to memorise every pore, and then once more, he continues to feed you. “I like looking after you like this”.

“What, like a baby?” you ask in a monotone voice.

“You know exactly what I mean” he rolls his eyes playfully but doesn’t stop.

You knew he was trying to be innocent and caring, but for some reason, this time, it was hitting you the wrong way. One small mistake, and now you aren’t even trusted to do anything for yourself? Maybe it was because you were irritable, as they were only being nice to you, but something didn’t feel right. You need a breath or moment to be independent, but for today, you let it go, thinking it would all be back to normal by tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY

There was never a single complaint when it came to sex. They worshipped every inch of your body. Your trust in them was never-ending, especially in your most vulnerable positions. They both knew you better than you knew yourself in those intimate times.

When you need soft, they will give you love and gentleness. When you needed a more brutal, rougher fuck, they would absolutely be up for the job, which is why in the different situations and scenes played out in the bedroom, you all used the traffic light system for safe words. What might be right for one person doesn’t always suit the others.

It wasn’t even like you used the word ‘red’ often, but today, you needed it just because of your uncomfortable position. Kneeling over the back of the chair, Steve had one hand roughly gripping your hip as he fucked you from behind, blinding you with the pleasure pulsing in your cunt from his engorged cock. The other hand was in your hair, pushing you towards Bucky’s cock as he fucked your mouth.

It was perfect, hard and highly satisfying. Until Steve lifts your right leg, trying to rest your knee on the arm of the chair, giving himself more room to push his cock deeper. However, the angle at which he lifted your leg had a sharp pain shooting through your hip joint as it clicked.

Tapping your hand three times on the back of the chair, the pressure on the back of your head eased as Bucky’s cock slips out of your mouth as you rush out the word “Red”.

There’s instant relief as Steve moves away, allowing you to lower your leg and rub the sore area that had clicked. The leg wasn’t dislocated; it was just a bad angle and horrible timing.

“Did I hurt you? Christ, baby, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to”, Steve begs as he hovers behind you, looking helplessly down.

“I just- need a minute”, you say, trying to catch your breath enough to explain what had happened. The muscles around your hip ached, but nothing more as your breathing slowed enough that you could look up and try and give a reassuring smile. You hated how they both appeared terrified, glancing between your hip and face. “It’s fine; I just twinged my hip a little. Maybe if we just move positions or something so I’m not kneeling”, you suggest whilst trying to stand, but wince when the soreness returns to your hip.

Steve’s eyes are almost bulging out of his head, and he is concerned as he shakes his head, leaning down to lift you into his strong arms. “Absolutely not; I’m taking you to the hospital. I could have broken your hip; I’m not risking it”.

Gripping his cheeks, you force him to look at you while trying to remain calm and stern. “Steve, stop! It’s fine; it was just a little twinge. I’m not going to the hospital. Nothing is broken; I would have told you if it was, and you’d never break me.”

Steve didn’t look convinced as he carefully settled your body into the centre of the bed, his calloused hand lowering over your body until resting over your right side. “You don’t know that. I could have dislocated your hip or something.”

Moving your leg to emphasise that this much damage hadn’t happened to your hip, you comb your fingers through his blonde hair to soothe him. “Steve, please stop overreacting. I’m not going anywhere. I’m fine”.

Bucky suggested, “If you won’t go to the hospital, then I’m still going to call Doctor Banner to come and check you over. There could be a trapped nerve or-”

“No! You aren’t listening to me. Please, will both of you just stop? I don’t want to go to the hospital, and I don’t want the Doctor to come and see me. It was a little twinge and nothing more. I’m perfectly well.” The blonde and brunette exchanged an uncertain glance but thankfully didn’t say anymore.

It was safe to say the pleasurable mood was thoroughly out of the window as they began to tentatively and extra carefully give you aftercare. Cleaning you up, ensuring you’d had something to eat and drink and wearing comfortable clothes. One of them continued to touch you at all times, even as you fell asleep, stroking over your back and massaging any aches and pains away.

THURSDAY

Usually, after an emotional night, you’re feeling needy, but today, you’re withdrawn, potentially experiencing a subdrop where your emotions are heightened and vulnerable.

If you thought Tuesday Steve and Bucky were constantly at your side, this took smothering to a whole new meaning. Even when going to the bathroom, one was there to ensure you were okay, to the point where you stopped answering and continued with your day. It was too much, and it wasn’t like you meant to push them away, but you just needed space, a moment, a second, to catch your breath. It was like you were drowning with the want to be ok, but being constantly reminded that you weren’t made it more difficult to recover.

Your friends who had children would always speak about those moments when they’re overstimulated with touch by these kids. No matter how much they love them, it becomes too much when someone constantly needs to be on you at all times of the day. This was exactly how you felt. You love them with all your heart, but it becomes too much.

By the time the sun had set over your home, you were hardly conversing with either of your boyfriends, which had them both tense. Deep lines were imbedded between their brows; fists clenched to stop from wringing their fingers together. Some of you felt sad and guilty even for pushing them away, especially when it came to bed, and you wanted to spoon a pillow rather than one of them. 

FRIDAY

Due to their lifestyle, there were days when they could stay at home and others when they were needed at work. Today, they were needed at work and for a change of scenery, you wanted to join them, which had never been an issue before. Especially after the last few days with your emotions all over the place, you just wanted some normality with the two men you loved.

“Wait, what do you mean I have to stay here?” you ask in a state of shock, feet planted into your living room carpet.

The men share a look you’d seen multiple times this week already. Where no words are shared, but enough was said for you to read between the lines. The mafia leader stepped forward, all towering and handsome in his suit, enough to distract you momentarily. Especially as his big hands cup your face, tilting it back so that he can kiss you enough to take your breath away. As he pulls away, you’re lifting onto the tips of your toes for more.

His hands remain framing your face as he explains, “We just think it would be best for you to stay here and get some rest, that’s all. There’s also an important meeting today with some unkind people, and we’d rather you stay here where it’s safe.”

You sigh exasperatedly, holding onto his wrists to keep him in front. “But there are always meetings with those types of people. I’ve attended many, might I remind you? I’ve rested enough this week; I want to come with you both.”

Steve’s blue eyes drill into yours as he chews on the inside of his cheek, contemplating before glancing over to his boyfriend, but it’s your turn to hold onto his face, forcing his gaze back to yours. “No!” you snap, “Don’t look at Bucky for backup. I want a genuine reason for being forced to be kept in the house. I want to stay with both of you today, and I thought that’s what you wanted over the last few days?”

It was a low blow, and you had to refrain from cringing.

“I can stay”, Bucky begins as you look over at him as Steve’s hands fall to his side.

“No. That’s not fair. I’ve been here for four days now. Please let me come with you”. It wasn’t often you had to beg either man for anything other than during an intimate moment. They were always happy for you to do anything, especially if it meant for you to remain at their side.

However, as both of their blue eyes clash in another knowing gaze, you give up. Feeling once more vulnerable and tired. It had been an odd week, to say the least. Stepping away from them, your shoulders drop in defeat. “You know what, I’ll just see you both when you get home. Please be safe”. With that, you escape up the stairs with the plan to rot in bed for the remainder of the day to catch up with your emotions.

Bucky heaves a sigh as you reach the top of the stairs. A small part of you wished that seeing you this upset, they would have chased you, but this didn’t happen. As the front door opens and closes, you can’t help but drown in the emotions of the last few days, crying into your pillow.

Later, when they return home with bags of take-out and unharmed, useless, this would be enough to pick up your spirits. However, you aren’t in the mood, unable to pull yourself out of the grump, mentally still blaming it on your impending period.

So, you ate the delicious food and climbed back into bed. It wasn’t like you were going out of your way to be distant, but the rejection from earlier still hurt, so being petty, if they wanted to be without you, they could continue that way.

SATURDAY

Wake up alone, but you know they’re somewhere still in the house. It takes you considerable time to even crawl out of bed with how groggy you feel. You’d probably spent more time in bed this week than any other time, so you decided enough was enough. You texted your friend Laura Barton.

I haven’t seen you in a while and need a distraction. Coffee date?

Five minutes passed before your phone was lighting up with a response.

Love in paradise? You know I’m always free for you; I’ve just got to bring Nate along as no babysitter, but I’m down!

My mind’s just all over the place, and I really need a friend, you respond immediately.

I can pick you up in 20, and we’ll head to a coffee shop.

Your fingers are typing before you have a moment to think about what you’re sending, and you reply, "That’s if they will let me leave the house."

The three dots on your phone appear and disappear multiple times before Laura’s text arrives. Wow, if you’re revolting against their overprotectiveness, things must be tough there. I’ll be there soon. I’m sure if you bat your pretty lashes at them, everything will be fine.

If only you thought rather than responding and taking the next 15 minutes to prepare. After getting dressed, you feel much more motivated and in better spirits; speaking to them about leaving the house is the only issue. You just needed an hour or two away to clear your thoughts from all of the protective, macho-man bullshit that seemed to surround you on the daily.

They’re both working out in the gym, and for a second, you admire them, your mouth slipping open in awe. Dressed in only their gym shorts, you’re momentarily jealous of the sweat dripping down their chests, the muscles covering their bodies flexing with each movement.

“If you want a closer look, Princess, why don’t you come here?” Bucky eyes you just as hungrily as he lowers the weight, wiping a hand over his stubbled jaw.

Taking a deep breath and trying to remain on the plan, you shake your head, straightening your posture. You can do this.

“I’m going out”, you firmly state. Usually, you ask so that they can prepare a bodyguard or security guard to patrol the area, but not today. You were a grown-ass woman who didn’t need to ask.

Steve nods, moving some strays of his wet blonde hair out of his piercing eyes. “I hope it’s somewhere fun”.

Your gaze is still flicking between them, especially Bucky as he saunters over, his eyelids lowered, and he looks like an animal on the way to pouncing on his prey. You’re like molten lava by the time he’s by your side, all but ready to jump into his arms, kissing him until you’re breathless. Your fingers slide over his firm chest, feeling his muscles, thumping heart and skimming over the scars where the metal of his arms connect with his skin. 

You mewl pathetically as he pulls back, grinning as he realizes how needy you’ve become. “If you give us a few minutes, Sam can prepare a car.”

Sam is your trusty bodyguard and best friend, and as much as you love spending time with him, today, you didn’t want to be reminded of how you always needed to be coddled.

Taking a hearty step away from him, you firmly say, “No. I don’t need Sam. I’m just going out with Laura, and she’s picking me up. It’s just coffee. I’ll be fine”. Much like the rest of the week, the atmosphere soon sours as Bucky’s grin fades until you can see his jaw tighten as he swallows.

“Ok, that’s fine”, he begins slowly, like he’s careful with what to say. “Laura can drive you, but Sam’s still coming with you, Sweetheart. It’s too dangerous out there”.

A negative heat flushes through your chest as rage slowly takes over. “No. I just need some space, I just-”. You hated how difficult it was to articulate yourself when angry. Most of the time, your instinct was to cry, but you needed to explain how you were feeling to them.

Steve enters your eyeline as he lowers his height so you’re both eye to eye. “Ok, Sam won’t go.”

“But-” Bucky tries to interrupt but stops when Steve holds up a hand to silence him.

“Take my card with you and buy yourself something nice. Have fun, baby girl”. You’re so shocked by Steve’s reaction that you hardly respond when his lips caress yours in a simple kiss.

“Really? You’re letting me go like that?” you ask suspiciously.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we? We’re a team, right?” There’s something in how he looks at you with such uncertainty that your chest is tightening. A beat passes before your arms are locked around his neck, pulling him down to kiss him slowly and deeply. Savour the touch of his stubble against your cheeks, the softness of his tongue. You’re relieved when his fingers dig into your waist, holding on with just as much eagerness.

Your phone vibrates in your back pocket. The reminder that Laura has probably arrived outside has you taking a step back, licking your lips while looking down. Your fingertips slip over his abs, which flex as you touch them.

“I’ll see you both later, love you” Quickly pecking Bucky, you turn and leave the gym, tickling under Dodger’s chin as Steve and Bucky simultaneously shout ‘Love you’ back.

Sitting with a coffee that probably had a week's worth of caffeine and a cake the size of your head, you could finally go into detail about what was happening with Laura.

“So after all that, they really let you come out with no security? I’ve never seen that happen before”, your friend muses whilst sipping her drink and trying to entertain her toddler, Nate.

“I guess not that I’m going to complain about it. Feels rebellious to be out here by myself”. 

The time passed, and it was relieving to catch up with her, definitely needed someone to validate your feelings. You still absolutely loved them and appreciated everything they did for you, but you were smothered over the last few days.

Just as you’d taken another sip of your coffee, the fine hairs on your neck rose as you felt like someone was watching you. Keeping the coffee at your lips, your eyes darted, looking out the window to the street and the patrons in the coffee shop when you saw them. Both of them.

Sensing your change in demeanour, Laura frowns as she looks at you. “What is it?” She looks around the room, and it takes seconds before she chuckles. “You’re joking, right? Did they really think a baseball hat and aviator sunglasses would be a good enough disguise?”

The fury that had first hit you when spotting Steve and Bucky soon turned to sadness. It was like they didn’t trust you at all, feeling overwhelmed by them. Initially, you wanted to confront them, but there was no point; you just wanted to escape and go to your safe space.

“Can you take me home, please?” you quietly ask Laura, pushing away the rest of your coffee.

You try to ignore your friend's sad look as she leans across the table to hold the back of your hand. “Honey, I’m sure they’re just trying to look out for you”.

“Yes, I know, they just could have told me. It makes me feel incompetent when they sneak around behind my back.”

“It’s not that, you know it’s dangerous to be dating them-”

“Yes, I know. Please, can we just go”. You didn’t mean to snap at her, and it was clear she didn’t seem offended as she packed up her belongings and rested Nate on her hip.

Standing, you walk without stopping towards the exit, conveniently where your boyfriends are sitting. Out of the corner of your eye, they both stand, and Bucky tries to reach for you.

“Just listen, we can explain why we’re here”.

You don’t stop. Even as the tears begin to fall and you see the visible flinch from Bucky, you don’t stop.

Laura tried to comfort you in the car, but it was useless. You’re home with a brief goodbye to your friend. Weaving past the security to the entrance to your home, you finally are at your front door.

By the time Steve and Bucky return, you’re upstairs, changing into your pj’s with a tub of ice cream and Dodger at your side. “Baby, where are you?” You don’t answer, but it doesn’t matter as in a matter of seconds, Steve is standing at your bedroom door, breathless and clearly distraught. “Just give us a minute to explain. It’s too dangerous to be out by yourself. We didn’t want to make you feel crowded by having someone at your side, but you need someone close just in case”.

Allowing him to speak, you’re too much of a coward to face him, turning away as the tears continue to fall and soak your clothing. “Mmm hmm, I understand”. You feel drained of energy, and the caffeine from earlier has no effect. Moving towards your bedside cabinet, you unplug your phone charger, collect your phone and ice cream, and bundle the fluffy decorative blanket from the bed.

“Where are you going?” Bucky now asks where he appears at Steve’s side, appearing just as concerned as his boyfriend, with the hat and sunglasses gone.

“The spare room”.

You can hear the audible breath that your boyfriends suck in. It took everything in you not to change your mind immediately. It hurt them, but they also hurt you this week. It wasn’t like you were gathering all your stuff and going to stay in a hotel; it was only across the hall for the rest of the day.

 It was just a break, a place to cry without having someone watching and then consequently feeling guilty for having emotions.

One of them begs, “Why are you going there? Just let us talk,” but you’re done.

“I don’t want to talk” Your bottom lip wobbles as you hold back the sobs, threatening to burst free.

Bucky steps forward, whose metal hands are cupping the point of your chin to tilt your face up to his, “Don’t stay in the spare bedroom; if you don’t want to sleep with us, we’ll stay on the couch. Just give us a minute, please”.

Trying to ignore the pleading in his tone, you shake your head, not trusting yourself to talk. Walking around them, they let you walk past, and no word is shared as you walk across the hall to the spare room.

Locking the door, you can just turn the TV on before releasing the pent-up sob you’d held in. Nearly the entire tub of ice cream has been emotionally eaten, and eyes are sore from the crying. It also felt soul-soothing to get all your emotions out, and by the time hours passed, you were ready to speak to them both, except for one long blink, which turned into a full sleep.

SUNDAY

There was no sense of time when you began to stir, only aware that the room was mainly cast into darkness except for the glow from the TV that was still playing whatever trash TV show you’d picked on Netflix.

You’re so incredibly comfortable you have to hold back a groan of pleasure with how content you’re feeling. It was like you were in a cocoon of warmth and contentment as you nuzzled further into the firm yet soft heat beneath your cheek as the bubble surrounding you tightened.

Thump thump. Thump thump. The therapeutic beat against your cheek was something you had already memorised in your dreams.

All the memories came flooding back. The crying, the argument, the locked door, the ice cream and more crying. The locked door. Something you specifically remember doing, yet somehow, you’re wrapped in a boyfriend sandwich, and you’re pretty sure the heavy weight across your feet is Dodger.

In truth, you were happy to be there and had planned to speak to them before your eyes had closed. You’d never fallen asleep during an argument before; it felt unhealthy in a relationship to do, and god knows how stressed Steve and Bucky must have been.

Snuggling closer to Steve’s chest with your back pressed against Bucky’s, you finally feel content after a week of wobbly emotions. You’re sure you need to speak with a therapist or something with how up and down you’ve been all week. You didn’t want to move from this spot ever again.

However, the urgency and pain radiating from your bladder had you cursing. Carefully and with great difficulty, you can wiggle out of your beefy cuddle and sneak to the toilet with Dodger following closely at your side. On the way, you’re able to see the door knob to the room has been shaped like it has been gripped, assuming that Bucky’s metal hand was behind the breaking into the room whilst you’re asleep.

Once in the bathroom, you take in your dishevelled look, showering, freshening up, rebandaging your hand, and dressing in one of Steve’s comfortable jumpers. On your way back to the boys, you pause, overhearing them awake and whispering.

“I told you we shouldn’t have broken in”, Steve groans frustratedly.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sleeping without her”, Bucky argues, his voice crackling lowly from where he’d just woken up.

There’s a momentary pause, and you’re about to go in when they continue. “You don’t think we’ve pushed her too far, do you?” Bucky asks.

“You tell me. She’s not in here now. She’s kept up at arm's length for days. I feel like I can’t do anything right. I just want to keep her safe, but I feel like we’re losing her”.

Broken. That’s how they both sounded, and you have done this. Your eyes sting as they, once again, well with tears, and you move back into the room, pulling the sleeves of your jumper down over your hands to wipe away the moisture.

“I’m sorry I made you both feel this way”.

Strong arms wrap around your body, cradling you carefully against their body as you’re moved to sit across Steve’s lap, and Bucky takes your feet into his lap so that you are facing one another. “I love you both. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know whether it’s my impending period that’s finding everything too overwhelming. I’m sorry!”

You’re hysterical as they both attempt to ground you with soothing shushes and strokes of their hands over your back and legs. “Sweetheart, it’s ok”.

“No, it’s not okay! " Reaching up, you take Steve’s face in your palms and say, “I love you! I would never leave you. EVER!” Next, you hold onto Bucky, half crawling fully into his lap to get your point across: “I love you so much; I’m sorry I wasn’t there to fall asleep in your arms.”

“Hey, hey, calm down, Mama. I’ve got you, we’ve both got you. We aren’t going anywhere”. 

Eventually, you can calm down enough, cuddled up against Bucky with Steve massaging the souls of your feet. You all discuss everything from feeling smothered by them to your up and down moods, feeling incompetent, and yet understanding why they are the way they are to keep you safe. It was like the world had tilted back to the right way up. Boundaries are set, so some understanding will be shared if you ever feel overwhelmed again.

“We just need you to know that we’re never going to stop protecting you until our last fucking breath”, Bucky promises as he kisses your temple.

“Good thing neither of you is going anywhere. Did you really think I’d ever leave either of you? Do I need to remind you of the hell hole you saved me from all those years ago?”

“Yes, and you’ll never have to live like that again. You’re mine and Bucky’s. No one will touch you again”.

If only Steve knew what was to come.

It was the early morning hours after your long chat, but it was late enough for Steve and Bucky to forgo sleeping and head to the office. Having a couple more hours of sleep after they left, you were fresh and ready to go by the time Sam was knocking on your front door.

It had been a long week, so you surprised your bodyguard by hugging him. “Did they tell you about my week?” you ask, needing to know if Sam had been updated about everything from your boyfriends.

“I don't know what you mean” Judging by his tone, he damn well knew what had happened, but nonetheless, his arms tightened around you, “as much as I love your company, the bosses will kill me for touching you”.

You pull back, alarmed to see him trying and failing to hide the smile on his face. Rolling your eyes at his jokes playfully, you climb into the waiting SUV.

“Just a warning, boss lady. There’s a meeting being held over the next 10 minutes,” Sam explains as he pulls into the parking lot that opens into the warehouse.

“Oh? Do you know who it is with?”

Sam shrugs, helping you out of the car whilst looking around at the chaos surrounding him as men and women rush around the crates and trucks. “Some hotshot guy who owns a couple of clubs wants to have the protection of the Rogers team so he can run his underground market. HEY! That’s not supposed to be in that shipment, you dickwad! Sorry, do you mind if I go kick their heads in?”

You know he’s joking, but he nods, grinning as Sam, the group's mother hen, rushes toward the offending truck. “Good luck! I’m going to head to the office. I’m sure the meeting will be over soon.”

Lost in your daydream world, you’re half paying attention as the elevator arrives at the corridor leading to the office. Stepping out and into the elevator, expecting it to be empty but stopping short when, you find a man leaning against the wall, staring at his phone.

The walls felt as if they were caving in. Everything, including your breath and heart, pauses momentarily as you know who it is. You’d know him from his voice, aftershave, and grimy hands. He was one of the many that plagued your nightmares from a past you were trying to forget. No happiness existed when your brother controlled every aspect of your miserable life until Steve bulldozed his way into it. 

Ralph Pannone, the man before you, was one of the highest individuals in your brother's gang, but over the last few months before it all came crashing down - thanks to the Rogers mafia - he had been missing on a job. It had been a relief, if not a blessing, those weeks without him and the years that followed, and it’s easy to think you’re safe from those past demons when they don’t haunt you in reality.

The wolf tattooed on his throat is ingrained into your mind. The silver of his fingers glinted in the dimmed light that was shockingly cool against your skin from all the times he had inappropriately touched your face.

Later in therapy, you would talk about your instinct to freeze when in a shocking, fearful situation. For example, on Monday, when your palm was accidentally cut, and today, staring at one of Hell’s workers in your safe space, all you could do was freeze.

He must have smelt your fear because his face slowly turned to yours, his typical devilish smirk causing your knees to shake. You wanted to scream. Scream for help for Steve and Bucky to save you.

“I was saddened to see my little kitten wasn’t on her knees and waiting for me in that meeting like I thought she would be. But, it appears she wants her own personal meeting”. He’s now walking towards you, and there’s nothing you can do except tremble with fear.

Kitten. That nickname that always had you flinching. It was his favourite thing to call you. He’d say it’s because you’re soft and cut, and whenever he decided he had the right to touch your face, you would swat him away with your ‘sharp little claws’. He was degrading, misogynistic and utterly terrifying.

The tip of his boots brushes against the front of your shoes as you breathe in his nauseating aftershave. “Come on, kitten, cat got your tongue? It’s funny how your brother gave you everything, but it wasn’t enough, was it? You still had to have my BEST friend killed and sleep your way to the top of Brooklyn.”

You finally have a visible response when you flinch away, staring at the floor as you struggle to catch your breath at his derogatory words. Your throat burns with the threat of vomiting as his fingers graze against your forehead, brushing aside a strand of hair until it's tucked behind your ear.

Leaning even closer until his lips are close to his fingers around the shell of your ear, he whispers, “Don’t worry, my sweet kitten. You’re going to be mine soon. These pretend soldiers aren’t going to stop me from getting what’s mine.”

And then he’s gone.

Like that, your world is once again tilted on its axis—the safety net you’d been cocooned in, shattering into dust. Time doesn’t seem to exist when you’re in this state of shock as the next minutes or hours flash by in brief glimpses.

Lying on the floor of the corridor, high-pitched ringing in your ears.

Sam’s face hovered above your own as he shouted, but you couldn’t hear what he said as the world felt muffled. All you could tell was that he was conflicted between being scared and furious.

Now you’re in the office, specifically Steve’s personal office on the couch, your head in Bucky’s lap as Steve paced a hole into the carpet.

Natasha was here, by your side, talking lowly to you. It feels like you’re responding, but you can’t be sure. It was like your body was in a weird limbo of sorts.

Home. At last, you were home, in your bed, with Doctor Banner lightly touching your wrist with his eyes closed. He was counting, you thought, and as he finished and glanced up at your face, he was happy to see you were awake. A bright light flashed in your eyes as you flinched away, trying to shield yourself.

“I’m glad you’re back with us.”

“What happened?” you croaked from the dryness in your throat as you tried to sit up.

“Careful, here’s some water. It appears that you had a panic attack and fainted. Luckily, there doesn’t seem to be any head injuries or lasting injuries. Maybe a bruises here and there. Do you remember what happened? What was the last thing you remember?”

Ralph.

The next thing you know, you’re breathing into a paper bag as the Doctor rubs slow circles over your shoulders, trying to reassure you to breathe slowly. It took a few minutes to calm down before you could ask, “Bucky, Steve, please, I need to see them”.

“Of course, I’ll go right and get them. I’m on call tonight, so please don’t hesitate to get them to phone me if you need anything”.  You’re hardly paying attention as he leaves, and suddenly, you’re first welcomed by a lick on the face by an excited Dodger and arms around your waist and back as Steve and Bucky are finally at your side.

They all hold you as you cry, not a single tear reaching your shirt as either Dodger licks them away or Steve and Bucky wipe them with their fingers.

“I’m not expecting you to explain what has happened, and I have never been more scared than seeing you on the floor, barely conscious, without an obvious reason for it. I want you to know you’re safe, and the threat has been eliminated”.

Turning towards Steve, you give him a questioning look so he continues explaining. “We watched the security camera from the corridor. He saw what he did, and we heard what that scumbag said to you. For some reason, a background check wasn’t completed on him so he could weasel his way into a meeting with us. We found plenty of evidence of his involvement in your brother's gang.” Steve has to take a deep breath as his anger increases again, his jaw tight.

Bucky, therefore, continues, but you can tell by the venom in his voice that his anger is just as severe as his boyfriend's. “It took me minutes to track him down whilst Natasha and Sam stayed by your side. We wanted to stay, but we needed to be the ones to end that fuckers life. I wanted to see the light leave his eyes”.

“To be honest, we killed him too quickly. I wanted to inflict as much pain mentally as he had done to you, but know that he died screaming and begging for his life”. 

Steve and Bucky held no remorse when he came to you. This was the life they lived, the protection they offered for someone they loved.

Appreciation and regret are the two words spiralling through your thoughts. Appreciation for them both, for everything they’ve ever given for you and regret for how you’ve overreacted this week. Yes, you were human; it was expected to have ups and downs days, but right now, there was nothing more you wanted than to show how much you loved them right back.

You were done being the victim.

You’re in Steve’s, thighs burning from the stretch of straddling over his, your fingers desperately clutching into his blonde hair, pulling onto it and drawing his face towards yours. You feel his body tense and then wholly break. Warm hands grip your waist, dominantly tugging your body closer until you flush against him.

“Dodger, go to bed, buddy,” Bucky instructs, clicking towards the door. The good boy that he is, your baby strolls out of the room to his bed downstairs. 

Your hands are all over Steve, combing through his locks, to the stubble on his cheeks, to the muscles over his shoulders. You needed to feel all of him, the softness of his skin, the power in his legs, the hardness of his cock.

“More, I need more”, you beg against his lips whilst trying to undo the buttons of his shirt.

“Woah, ok, hold on a moment”, Steve urges gently whilst cupping both of your hands away from his chest. “I think we need to walk about this. You’ve been through a lot, and I just need to ensure you’re alright”. 

“I can and will talk about this, but not right now. I need a distraction, and I need you to remind me that everything is alright. I need you to remind me that I am yours, and you are both mine, and no one will change that!”

“Damn right, you’re ours”, Bucky growls possessively, tugging on the strands of hair at the nape of your neck, angling your head back and devouring your mouth. At the same time, Steve’s on your throat, leaving open-mouthed kisses and nippin' in the sensitive spots. Your hips instinctively grind against Steve’s crotch, needing pressure and stimulation to your pussy.

You’re rewarded with the outline of Steve’s cock, hard and squished within the confines of his suit trousers. Bucky’s tongue enters your mouth, and he groans at your taste, his sharp teeth catching your lower lip and soothing the bites with more kisses.

“Need this off!” Steve demands as he roughly grabs the hem of your shirt, tearing it down the middle and discarding the pieces across the room. His mouth is then attached to the swell of your breasts, sucking until pain and pleasure pulses in the areas. With a simple snap of his fingers, the clasp of your bra is the next to be removed.

Topless, his bare hands are finally able to cup your breasts, his thumbs pressing on your hardened nipples. “These are mine”, he speaks against your skin before sucking a nipple into his mouth, pulsing the sensitive area until you’re crying out his name against Bucky’s lips.

Your panties feel uncomfortable and restrictive with how warm and wet you are between your legs. However, your needs are the last thing on your mind right now as you need to please your boyfriends and show them your appreciation.

Reaching between your bodies, your fingers press against the swell in Steve’s crotch, massaging the throbbing erection until he’s bucking into your palm. Undoing his buckle and zipper, you’re able to free his cock, moving your tight fist up and down his length as he groans hungrily against your breasts.

With unsteady legs, you climb off Steve’s lap and lower to your knees on the carpet; however, his hands pull up against your arms, stopping your movement. “No, this is supposed to be about you”.

Shaking your head with a reassuring smile, you move back to your knees, massaging your hands up Steve’s thigh. “No, actually. It’s supposed to be about all of us. Now, please, let me suck your cock, sir”.

The name works wonders as his cock visibly throbs against his abdomen, and his eyes darken as he licks his lips. To his side, Bucky pulls off his shirt, muscles flexing as he does so, and you continue with your plan for the rest of the evening. “I want to take you both at the same time. So why don’t you help me, sir?” you’re looking directly at Bucky now, who grins in response.

“Fuck yes, Doll”.

He helps to take off the remainder of your clothes until you’re left kneeling, back arches and ass perked up with Bucky behind you, his hands massaging your ass cheeks.

“I want your pretty little mouth on Steve’s cock whilst I make you cum. Do you think you can do that for me, Princess?” Bucky asks whilst kissing up the length of your spine.

You don’t need to verbally answer him as your mouth is instantly on the blonde’s cock, teasing at first with licks around the sensitive head before wrapping your lips around the thickness and sucking inches of it back into your mouth. You’re welcomed with a sinful gasp from the man who spreads his legs further, giving you more room to settle between them, his big hands resting on the back of your head.

Bucky watched whilst removing the rest of his clothes before delving into his own personal feast. Growling with hunger as he spreads your cheeks and licks from your clit up to your puckered back hole. Your body reacts by pushing back into his face as his tongue slips into your pussy, slurping all your juices lewdly.

His tongue played special treats against your clit, circling, sucking, pulsing whilst his finger dipped into your asshole. He knew exactly how to get you worked up as he used your wetness to lube one finger, then two, gently easing in and out, trying to stretch the area for his cock. It burned, but it was a delicious pain you’d hoped for when asking him to complete the task.

Just as he had three fingers penetrating your hole, your orgasm burst in pleasurable, mind-numbing waves as your pussy squeezed his tongue desperately. Your moan also caused your mouth to vibrate around Steve’s cock as he verbally coached you through your pleasure.

“That’s it, cum around Bucky’s tongue. Taking his fingers so well, aren’t you, baby girl? You’re made for us.”

Nodding with his cock still in your mouth, you’re suddenly pulled off by the hand on the back of your head as Steve leans down to heavily make out with you, not caring that your mouth had just been on his cock. “I need to taste you”, he demands against your mouth, and within seconds, you’re led out over the bed.

His head dips between your thighs, his mouth hungrily eating and sucking away as your back arches, fingers and nails desperately clawing into his hair. “Yes! Sir! Oh my god!”

“Damn right, I’m your god now”, he spoke the words against your clit. Your mind was rushing with the need to agree verbally and yet desperately hold on to his hair.

A cool hand cups your cheek as Bucky tilts your face in his direction, and you open your mouth, accepting his cock as you had done with Steve’s. Bucky isn’t as demanding as he’s fucking your mouth as he rolls his hips carefully so that he’s slowly fucking your throat.

It takes almost no time at all before there’s overwhelming tightness between your legs like everything down there is going to explode. Pulling away from Bucky’s cock, you cry out, “I can’t- it’s too much!”

“Yes, you can. Come for us, Baby,” Steve encouraged as he slipped two fingers into your wet pussy, curling them to hit that perfect spot within. That was all you needed to both cum and relax all your muscles between your legs, and without shame, you could feel the bed soaking beneath you as Steve and Bucky cheered you on, “That’s it, squirt for us! Damn, you’re so beautiful”.

The breath is knocked out of you by the time the waves of pleasure have subsided. However, your arousal is still at a ten as Steve’s arms circle beneath your body, and you’re now koalaed around him. Arms around his shoulders and ankles crossed behind his back.

“Steve!” your head tips back as the thick length of him slowly enters your pussy. No matter the number of times the two of you fucked, there was never a time when you weren’t shocked by how full you felt with him inside of you.

“Feels so good to be inside of you. Do you think you can still take Buck?”

“Yes, please, sir, I need you both inside of me”.

The warmth of Bucky’s chest finally surrounds your spine as he kisses the junction between your shoulder and neck. “Easy there, got to be careful when slipping this big dick in this tight little hole back here”, Bucky teases as you feel the head of his cock pressing against your asshole.

Your head tips back and rests on his shoulder, mouth gaping open with a constant string of curses and pleads. Much like with his fingers, the initial burn mixing with the pleasure is the perfect mix as the head of his cock gently breaches your warmth.

“You’re so fucking wet and tight”, Bucky moans against your neck as you take inch after inch of him until you’re stretched and full of them both.

The first orgasm with both of them fucking you at the same time is enough to nearly have you passing out again as you continue to squirt until there’s a small puddle on the floor.

The second orgasm has every nerve in your body feel as if it’s burning with pleasure. You’re entirely limp in their arms, but they’re holding you up with firm hands on your thighs and waist. By the third orgasm, you were hardly coherent as both men finally joined you in that blissful state, their cum filling your used holes and dripping into the puddle below.

It was hard for you to stay awake as they carefully cleaned you with warm wash clothes and fresh clothing. You’re thoroughly wrapped in their arms as the three of you settle into the centre of the bed.

“I’m so happy to be yours”, you admit tiredly before sleep takes you.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

I need a drunk and emotional marcus from season 3 after his breakdown

Marcus is a character I both relate to and see people through, which sometimes make it difficult to write for him. Especially darker subjects. But it's also what I love about writing for him

Note: I have not watched season 3 yet. Just clips on youtube and tiktok

Warnings: mention of depression, mention of alcohol abuse, mention of death (Bridge),

—

On the night of Brody’s party, you were held back at Blue Farm. The girl who had the night shift called in sick and Joe asked you to stay a few hours longer.  You felt bad for leaving him in charge of the kitchen and the tables when a group of women — a book club meeting — came in and filled four tables.  

‘’Thank you for tonight,’’ Joe said for the fifth time as you prepared to leave. ‘’I assumed it would be quiet since it was Friday night.’’ He shook his head. ‘’I would not have managed without your help.’’ 

‘’Rachel was probably at Brody’s party, not sick,’’ you informed your boss, taking your car keys out of your bag. ‘’Do with that information as you will.’’

You wished him good night and walked out. 

Before starting your car, you checked your phone and saw missed calls and texts from Max saying Marcus got drunk at the party and she needed to take him home. She asked if you could pick them up, but that was over an hour ago. Her messages continued, explaining that Marcus then had a breakdown in their living room, crying and telling their parents that he hated himself. 

To Max: I just finished working. How is he doing?

From Max: Dad put him to bed From Max: It was bad. I don’t know what to do… Can you come over?

Your plans for the night was to go home, shower, and finish the book you were currently reading. You only had a few chapters left. But instead, you drove to the Bakers. For Max. 

She had been taking so much on her shoulders these past months. She meant to help by shielding her parents from Marcus’ addiction and his depression, but was it really a good idea?  

‘’I just stood there and watched,’’ Max said, emotions thick in her voice. She had been crying. ‘’I…I feel like a bad sister for not being able to help him.’’ 

You looked at her, your eyes soft as you reached out to touch her arm, offering her a small sense of comfort and reassurance. ‘’You're not,’’ you corrected. ‘’There's only so much you can do. You're his sister, not a therapist.’’ 

You felt her helplessness. Watching someone you love struggle with mental health was difficult. There were so many days you wanted to cry, and so many days you did cry. Never in front of him though. You didn’t want Marcus to mistake it for pity. 

She looked at you, the tears still in her eyes. ‘’I know.’’ She sniffled. ‘’It hurts to watch him dig himself deeper into addiction. I want to help him. I want to fix him.’’

Max leaned her head against your shoulder, taking in a shaky breath before continuing. ‘’I feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells around him and our parents. It's like they're not seeing what's happening right in front of them.’’ She sniffled once more, the tears still threatening to fall from her eyes. ‘I'm tired of trying to be strong for him and putting on a face for mom and dad. I'm tired of being the one who has to hold everything together.’’

You put an arm around her, pulling her into a hug. 

After comforting Max, you went down the hallway to check on Marcus. Surprisingly, he was not asleep.

‘’Hey…hi,’’ he slurred, sitting up. 

His hair was messy from his pillow, and his eyes half lidded. He was clearly still drunk. Drinking while taking medication was not a good idea. Alcohol amplifies your feelings, which caused him to spiral into his sadness. 

‘’Are you okay?’’ 

‘’Yeah.’’ Marcus gave you a smile, but it was clear something was wrong. ‘’Come here.’’ 

You sat down on his bed and he looked at you, eyes barely staying open. He was completely wasted. How much did he drink to get into this state? Alcohol addiction was often sugar coated, but it was very dangerous. Alcohol poisoning is a real thing.

‘’You’re really drunk,’’ you pointed with seriousness and caring eyes. 

Marcus didn’t answer your question. He just smiled down at you. ‘’You’re so beautiful.’’ He reached out and touched the lapel of your jacket gently, his touch softer than usual.  

You lifted his chin, making him look at you. ‘’Why did you drink so much?’’

‘’You were not there.’’ 

‘’You drank because I was not there?’’ 

He shook his head, then looked down again. ‘’I’m a loser. I…I failed this year.’’

You sighed, seeing how vulnerable he was at the moment. 

Although he was smart, Marcus already repeated a year before. When Bridge died, it had a deep impact on him and, in part, caused him to fall behind academically. He didn’t mind being older than everyone in his classes. Failing a second time was different. 

You moved closer and cupped his face gently. Marcus leaned into your touch, soft and vulnerable and…fragile. His face was inches away from yours. You could smell the alcohol from his breath, yet you didn't pull back. You knew he needed you.  

‘’You’re not a loser,’’ you said, caressing his cheek.

Tears filled his eyes. His emotions were raw, and without his usual walls up, he didn't bother to hide the sadness that lingered within them.

‘’You’re—You need help, Marcus. You can’t keep living like this.’’

Without a word, he wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his head against your shoulder. Being close to you made him feel safe and comforted. Being drunk also made him more emotional and clingy. 

He buried his face in the crook of your neck and inhaled deeply, taking in your scent. You were his safeplace. The one he could fall back on when going through hardships. The one who always answered his calls — even at 2am. 

You swallowed your emotions and embraced him tight, trying to ignore how your heart was hurting. 

—

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[lixies-favorite-cookie]

𝐓𝐎 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐀 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓・l.f.

🔪 — You can't fall in love with him, he can't fall in love with you—that would be apocalypse.

LEE FELIX is your new bodyguard, and you hate his guts. Growing up the Mafia's princess, daughter of the most ruthless mob boss in the world, you learned at a young age—all humans are expendable. Now you're 5,956 miles from home, landing in Seoul South Korea with your infuriatingly perfect bodyguard on a very important mission—figure out how your father's henchmen are going missing. Nothing makes sense. Who is making so many ruthless criminals disappear? The more you and Felix dig into the past, the more you seem to expose. There’s so many gaps in the story, dark secrets to be uncovered, and betrayals to lament. Nothing is as it seems when you’re chasing a ghost. Will you be able to keep it together, seeing felix every day for the next year? There's so much that could go wrong.

♟️ — paring・felix x reader // genres・mafia!au, bodyguard!au, enemies to lovers, forbidden love, humor, slow burn, found family, mystery!au, hurt and comfort, smut…maybe // words・6.4k // chapter warnings・ fights, blood, knives, alcohol, mentions of death, crime and people going missing, uhhh cursing, i think that's it!

a/n・yayyy guys we finally did it!! the first chapter of my long awaited bodyguard!felix fic is finally here!! I struggled so much trying to write this fic. I certainly couldn't have done it without the lovely @jeonginsleftcheek who was my biggest supporter from the very beginning and all the way through when I had a mental breakdown, an existential crisis, a small writing hiatus, changed the plot, then changed it back, then changed it again, and changed it again but she helped me through it all. I truly cannot thank you enough for all your help. I hope I did it justice. (ozzy i am so sorry ik you've already read this a/n a million times but i really do love you and i appreciate you sooo much!!) p.s another super big thank you to my lovely editor and best friend @petvlss there would be so many comma splices without her.

“𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐲.”

—Sade Andria Zabala.

The dream always begins the same.

You're switching between attendees, twirling into suited men's arms, only to be handed off to elegantly dressed women, the length of their sparkly gowns catching on glassy heels. The opulent ballroom, with its vaulted fresco ceilings and marbled floors, sparkles beneath the light of diamond chandeliers dangling above your tilted head.

Without fail, you trip into a large man's chest, his gloved hand clasping your waist right before you fall. You only see half of his dazzling smile before the world transforms, a thousand stars bursting in your vision as he dips you down, holding you closely, carefully as though your skin were made of precious jewels. It is through the gentleness of a faceless man's fingers that you realize you haven't once, throughout the entire night, cracked a grin.

Cue the indicative signs: an explosive warmth blossoming in your chest, a blinding smile stretching across your lips, and suddenly, with debilitating intensity, a feeling like you are, for once, truly free.

You never get a chance to fully discern your feelings, not before the floor trembles, the dancers dissolving into darkness. The shadows circle around your ankles, gnarled faces clawing their way up your calves—terror coils underneath your ribs, pulling you apart from the inside out.

Hopelessly, desperately, you search for the man's solace, fingers tugging at the sleeves around his shoulders, and somehow, in the chaos of your actions, you find yourself settling the pad of your thumb just under his jawline. He doesn't pull away, God, you wish he did—the shadows don't give you enough time to process the consequences of your actions before they go for his throat instead.

They snare him by the jugular, wrenching him out of your grasp, slamming his back into the wall hard enough to make him crumple. The darkness blankets his limp figure, falling over his shattered spine.

Anguish tears through your chest, ripping out of your throat in the form of a guttural scream. You try to chase him—you always do, you never learn—you don't get two steps forward before the cherub fresco drips off the ceiling, reverting back to its original form.

Blood.

Angels weep crimson tears; deep red rivulets that crystallize into claws over fractured ceilings. You should have known your freedom was ill-fated from the beginning—thick, heavy blood slithers down your throat, coating the pads of your fingertips with the manifestation of a curse.

You never feel it. The sickening crack of your heart tearing from your ribs, struck straight through a fresco's crimson claw. They assure that the next time you look at the man, it will be your last.

So you remain, paralyzed in clouds of umbra, until you gather enough strength to lift your neck. Until your eyes find his crumpled body, overturned and limp.

Who is he? You're left to wonder. Why can I never see his face?

You never find the rest of the man's face. 

It is far too covered in your blood.

“Aim for the jaw!” A voice calls out from outside the ring, though it’s echoed in the dark, empty room.

A fist flies past your face. You dodge it, swiveling on a heel and kicking your opponent straight in the jaw.

He stumbles, slamming against the ground with a sickening crack, blood trickling from his lips. Yeah, he was definitely down for the count.

You hang off the ring ropes, a single brow lifted. “You done?”

He narrows his eyes, red painting his scowl. “What the fuck do you think?”

You let out a chuckle, tossing him a towel, which only deepens both your laugh and his scowl when it smacks him straight in the face. He spits into the fabric. “You didn’t have to kick me that hard.”

“You’re right, I didn’t—” you slip from the boxing ring before squirting some water in your mouth. You wipe off the excess, a shit-eating grin on your lips when you wink, “—But where’s the fun in that?”

He rolls his eyes, but his lips twitch up—just slightly.

You’ve worked with him for three days short of two months, and in this time, you’ve gathered more than enough information on him. He’s practically harmless, figuring he’s a simple drug runner, and as a testament to his loyalty under your father, offered to aid in your training. He’s twenty-five, no kids or wife, with a strong jaw and cropped black hair. He has surprisingly strong punches, and his name is Alejandro Gomez, though he doesn’t know you’ve figured that out.

It’s a gift to know somebody's name. It’s a sign of trust, of loyalty, an unsaid promise that, if things go south, I won’t snitch.

Names are also a means for leverage.

You still don’t know your father's real name.

You’re in the middle of going over your performance with your instructor, Ji-yoo, when suddenly someone taps you on the shoulder and whispers something into your ear. “You’re needed in the study.”

Diego, you’ve grown familiar with his voice. He’s been your father’s bodyguard for years. He straightens, folding his hands behind his back and settling them atop his thick utility belt, his gaze set forward. You look up, brows furrowed. He gives you a small, clueless shrug.

“Right,” you mutter, annoyed, gathering your belongings and bidding your tutor a final goodbye. Diego doesn’t ever know anything; he simply does what he’s told. He opens the door for you and escorts you all the way to your father’s study.

“Come in,” A voice commands, following the rap of the bodyguards' knuckles. The sun breaks through a large skylight above him, casting a youthful glow across his otherwise opaque expression, hands folded atop his desk. He didn’t seem agitated, and you’ve been following orders, so you’re drawing a blank for what this meeting could be about. Diego pulls the double doors shut, taking his post outside.

It wasn’t often that he met with you, and you understood why; he’s a busy man, business and whatnot. Sure, he didn’t always have time for things like family dinners. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you. He did, contrary to popular belief. He protected you, providing you with as many tutors and Jiu Jitsu instructors as you needed. It was hard—hours and hours of constant training, but if that’s what it took to survive a world this dangerous, this cruel, then you were lucky to have a father like him watching over you. 

“You needed me?”

“Sit down, Mija,” He doesn’t betray anything in his calm, leveled tone, extending a hand out to the velvet chair in front of him. You obey. Mija—a Spanish term of endearment meaning “my daughter”—reveals both his thick accent and Mexican heritage. He’s been calling you that for as long as you can remember.

“I’m not going to be here forever, you know.” That catches you off guard, “And one day, you’re going to need to take over my empire.”

You squirm, whispering, “I know.”

“You’ve proven yourself more than capable over these past few years.” His lips twitch, almost imperceptibly, but you notice it. It’s such a rare sight, it makes pride firework in your chest. “I’m proud of you.”

A smile threatens to split your face in two, but you bite it back, opting for a curt nod. “I appreciate it.

He doesn’t respond; instead, he places a single hand on your shoulder. The air shifts, something catching behind his eyes, a bit hesitant, but still deliberate when he finally says, “You deserve a more significant role, I’ve seen everything you can do, everything you’ve achieved.” This time it’s impossible to keep the grin off your cheeks, that is, until he finishes, “That’s why I’ve decided to send you to Korea.”

All good, fuzzy feelings screech to a deafening halt.

“Korea?” Suddenly, it feels like somebody's tossed you into the ice-cold Atlantic, duct-taped and wriggling.

A pause, and then he’s retracting his hand, giving a quick, dismissive wave. “We’ve run into some issues in Seoul. A loose end, if you will. It’s nothing we can’t handle, of course, but it’s never a loss to be cautious. It’s going to be an easy fix, I’m sure.”

“A fix? What am I fixing?” That makes him laugh, dark and humorless.

“You won’t be fixing anything. You will be finding the loose end, whoever that may be, and well, I’ll deal with all the rest.” There’s something sinister with the way he says that, a tone that sits in the pit of your gut like rotten milk. You know exactly what he does to loose ends.

“I need eyes on the inside, somebody smart, loyal, somebody I can trust. That somebody is you, Mija. It’s always been you.” It’s the first time since you’ve seen him that you aren’t looking into his eyes, chewing on your bottom lip. You shouldn’t be this unsure. It was all wrong; he is right. You were loyal. You deserved this role.

Then, why were you hesitating?

Something in your expression must betray your inner conflict because he’s cocking his head and purring, “What, do you not think you can handle it?”

You stay silent.

He sighs, giving a curt, disappointed shake of his head. “I thought you were ready, but if you don’t think you can handle it—”

“No!” You blurt out before those pesky thoughts can stop you. “No, you’re right. I’m ready, I can handle it.”

He nods, something flickering in his eyes. “I’ve already arranged everything. It won’t be a safe mission, but with Felix, you will be.”

Felix? He doesn’t give you enough time to wonder. He leans forward, pressing the sleek intercom button, “Diego, let Felix in.”

The double doors part, and a large black boot plants itself on the ground. A second later, the single most beautiful man you’ve ever seen in your life glides into the room, and your lips part.

He’s not the biggest man you’ve seen, but he makes up for that with muscle, packed underneath that tight, black uniform. He appears young, with delicate, pink lips and golden hair that falls just above his shoulders, slicked back with a few strands hanging over his forehead. A swarm of butterflies erupts in your stomach, much to your demise.

It doesn’t click quite yet, the role Felix plays, because all you can imagine is how nice it’s going to be sleeping next to him. And then, “Y/N, meet Felix—your new bodyguard.”

The butterflies die, burn, and drop into the pit of your stomach in a messy, blood-stained soup. You stiffen, out of all the recent revelations, this one makes you feel like you were going to die.

“Hello,” he says, respectfully bowing his head in greeting. He startles you with his deep voice, warm and accented. ”It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He smiles, soft and disarming in its kindness, for a second, you’re more terrified than anything, not of him, but for him. As quickly as it came, you stuff it deep inside of you, replacing it with a cold indifference. “You really think this is necessary? I mean, I haven’t had one of those since…” You can’t bear to say it, the mere memory makes a thick lump form in your throat.

He sighs, extending an arm out and grabbing a bottle of whiskey from his shelf, a cherry, and a cup. His lips form a hard line, voice lowering. “If you don’t make the same mistakes, you don’t have anything to worry about.” He lifts a sharp, polished blade from his pocket, gaze never wavering as he slices into the fruit. It bleeds into the crystal glass, red liquid staining his tanned fingers. “This time will be different. Correct?”

Slowly, the juice drips across the blade until it reaches the hilt. You swallow, breath slowing to a stop. He’s right—

You won’t make the same mistake again.

You meet his gaze, jaw tight. “Yes, sir.”

He seems pleased by that answer.

“You will be briefed on the plane,” your father says, tipping the liquid into his mouth. “For now, rest. I will send you a car tomorrow morning at eight. Felix, make sure she is ready by then.”

“You will be briefed on the plane,” your father says, reaching behind him and grabbing a bottle of whiskey. He pours it into a crystal glass, tipping it into his mouth. “For now, rest. I will send you a car tomorrow morning at ten. Felix, make sure she is ready by then.”

Felix gives him a curt nod. “Yes, sir.”

You’re scooting back before a cold, wet blade lands against your jaw. It smells like whiskey and blood. His voice drops to a whisper, shifting until it’s only you and him in the room.

“We’re family, Mija.” He tilts your chin up, and for a second, it feels like you’re looking at yourself. “There’s not a love stronger than that, and right now your family needs you. You wouldn’t wanna mess that up, would you?”

The mere idea makes goosebumps prickle up your arms. “No, of course not.”

He smiles, and for once, it actually reaches his eyes. “That’s my girl.”

Felix doesn’t dare look at you as you walk through the doors, sealing your fate.

You are so fucked.

“You’re not sleeping on the bed,” is the first thing you say when you walk into your bedroom, swiveling around.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.” For whatever reason, you expected him to pick some kind of fight, comment on your pettiness, send you an eye-roll—something. But no, he’s utterly indifferent, leaning against the edge of your dresser and pulling off his velcroed gloves with a satisfying rip. Frustration bites underneath your eyelids.

You could really use a drink right now.

At that, you shoo him away from your dresser—also a secret mini bar—earning you a confused side-eye, before moving out of the way. You pull open a drawer, coming face-to-face with rows of glistening alcohol bottles. Felix sends you a mildly horrified look. “Are you of legal age to be drinking—”

“Are you of legal age to be working?” You smile, popping the lid off a whiskey bottle and drowning two shots’ worth of liquor down your throat.

“Hilarious.” He deadpans.

A cocky tilt of your head. “Most people think so.”

Silence.

With a small sigh, you collapse onto the bed, thick sheets ruffling underneath you as you take this valuable time and observe your new bodyguard. His gaze clouds as you take another sip of whiskey, a small divot forming in his forehead as momentarily, his movements stutter. He doesn’t seem to be a terrible person, per se. But that didn’t matter; the tension still clamped around your ribs all the same.

After a few more minutes of mindless studying, the alcohol finally hits your system, muscles loosening and anxiety floating up from your lopsided grin. This is the part you loved the most about being drunk, getting tipsy.

Felix must have noticed your drunken smile because no sooner do you express joy is he extending out a hand and crushing it. “I think that’s enough.”

“The blankets are in the hall closet. You can have this—” you ignore him, turning around to snatch a pillow from your bed and catapult it at his face. He catches it with a tick in his jaw and a single raised brow. That is a lot hotter than you are willing to admit. With a flustered cough, you continue. “Make your bed wherever, I don’t really care. I’m going to bed.” You punctuate your sentence with a final swig, but Felix gently wraps his fingers around your jaw, lifting your chin before the lips can touch the rim.

“I think that’s enough.” He repeats in that wicked deep voice of his, a flicker of warning in his gaze. Your heart does an elaborate salsa dance all the way to your throat. Oh, you were far too drunk for this.

You shakily hand the bottle to him.

With that, he smiles, dropping your face and locking up the bottle before turning back to you, innocently asking, “Where’d you say the blankets were, again?”

Your heart still hasn’t finished its lessons in salsa when you breathe, “In the closet.”

He nods before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him. You fall back against your mattress with a heavy, heavy breath. Was this what it was going to be like for the rest of your time together? Him demanding things from you in that sick, twisted voice of his. It’s unfair! He sounds like panties dropping! You literally can’t do this. Nope. Nada. Not happening. If he was going to order you around like you weren’t a full grown adult then he could at least be considerate and not sound like a bad (good) porno!! All that anxiety and pent-up energy comes out in the form of a frustrated cry, turning into your pillow and pummeling your fists into it like the mature adult you were.

Felix comes back in mid-throw, which, with your super-amazing reflexes, you still immediately, clearing your throat and taking said pillow in your hands to pretend to fluff it out.

He stops mid-step, letting out an amused laugh before tossing his blankets onto the ground. “Do I wanna know?”

Your cheeks flush dark red. “Do you wanna sleep in the hallway?”

He lifts his hands in a playful, placating stance before continuing to set up his makeshift bed. When he’s finished, you’ve already settled in, covers thrown over your shoulders. Bedsheets rustle as he turns, politely tapping your mattress. With an annoyed huff, you mutter, “What?”

It takes him a beat to respond. Though when he does, his soft, kind voice disarms you. “Goodnight.”

You don’t have it in you to respond.

The dream always begins the same.

It always ends the same, too.

Blood.

You awaken with a shout, jerking off your sweat-soaked mattress to grasp at your intact T-shirt. It’s only then, when you take a deep breath with your full, working lungs, that your heart takes the hint.

You’re alive.

The dull sound of a body shifting makes your nerves fire all over again, spine stiffening as you swivel around on your mattress in search of the sound. Blonde.

Felix.

He’s sleeping, lashes splayed across pale cheeks in such a way that he almost appears ethereal. Delicate. Mortal.

That’s when you’re hit with cold, sharp reality—a feeling that coils around you and pierces that sensitive spot inside your chest, forever bruised by your own consequences.

You can’t be here right now.

It hasn’t been more than four hours, so naturally, you’re still drunk. Vision swaying as you swing your legs off the bed and tiptoe out of the room, peeking back to find a still, hopefully sleeping, Felix.

Thankfully, the more you awaken, the more bubbly you feel, slipping back into the carefree, tipsy version of yourself. The house is silent and dark, hallways solely illuminated by dim, gilded lamps. They provide drops of light, sneaking further and further down the large, spiral staircase.

You have a single foot on the stairs when suddenly, a deep, raspy voice appears from thin air, startling you straight out of your skin. “Late night snack?”

You let out a high-pitched yelp, swiveling around to throat punch the intruder. Though you weren’t going far because the quick movement is enough to make you dizzy. Warm hands clasp over your shoulders, steadying you before you nosedive down the stairs.

That’s when you see him—those bright, innocent eyes and golden hair that seems to glow in the moonlight. For a second, you’re under a spell. He’s like really pretty.

Then you remember who he is.

“Your dad doesn’t like it when you’re out past 10.” He glances at his watch. “It’s 1:44 a.m.”

Good feelings gone.

“Are you just everywhere?” You grumble, fighting the slur that tangles on your tongue.

“Please, come back to bed. You’re going to be tired in the morning.” Felix says, restrained frustration stretching his voice thin.

Should you listen to him? Yeah, probably. Were you going to? Hell no.

So, like the mature adult you are, you stomp down the hallway in your fuzzy, pink, Hello-Kitty slippers.

Felix doesn’t bother trying to stop you, his sharp eyes trailing you as you continue this petulant temper tantrum. “Where are you going?”

Emotion wells up in your throat when you notice the exhaustion rasping his voice. For a split second, your movements stutter. This is ridiculous, you were fully aware of that, but you’re too stubborn to quit now. If he’s going to accompany you for the next…forever, he’s going to get the whole Y/N L/N package. Maybe, then it’ll all click.

He doesn’t belong here.

You’re stumbling nowhere, you can’t run away from him anyway, figuratively and literally. The turn you took leads to a dead end. You still walk anyway. “Not to Korea with you, that’s for sure!”

“Oh, what is your problem??” He retorts through gritted teeth, his exasperation only growing when you turn around and stick your tongue out. He sucks on his teeth, his own tongue pressed into his cheek. “Y’know what—”

It takes him three strides to catch up with you, two hands clasping over your hips, and a single movement for the carpet to be on the ceiling. You cry out, his shoulder digging into your stomach as he wraps his forearm around the backs of your knees. He can’t be serious. How dare he, manhandling you like this! You were ready to go full Jiu Jitsu on his ass, that is until something much more enticing catches your attention. His actual ass.

The realization dawns on you with a hiccup.

“Y’know I can’t be too mad at’cha, man, I do have an excellent view from down here.” The liquor must have rushed to your head because you feel a dire need to make Felix aware of his fabulous buttocks. Drunken giggles bubble up from your lips as you take in his ass in all its plump, round goodness. “Hey Felix, has anybody ever told you, you have a great butt?” You land a firm smack against it.

His back grows rigid, muscles rippling under your touch before he awkwardly clears his throat and pushes the bedroom door open.

“Okay, down you go.” His voice is tight, matching his movements as he cradles the back of your head and lays you on the mattress.

You expect him to respond with an irritated glare and a snide comment, but he doesn’t say anything; in fact, he doesn’t look at you at all. The darkness shadows his face, but when he steps into the moonlight, you see it. The red creeping across his cheeks.

You can’t stop the laughter that bursts from your throat. It’s not actually that funny, but right now, with how drunk you are—it’s the funniest shit you’ve ever witnessed. Felix’s face is painted in horror.

He’s blushing harder now, cherry creeping up his neck and staining the tips of his ears. “What? What’s so funny?!”

You’re writhing on the sheets, clutching your stomach as you gasp for breath. “Y-Your face is soooo red!”

Your comment does nothing to help his embarrassment.

His expression does nothing to help your laughter.

“Go to bed.” He demands, begrudgingly ducking into the makeshift ground-bed and throwing the covers over his face.

“I am going to have so much fun with you.” You giggle, tapping the crown of his covered head.

“Goodnight.” He huffs, defeated and muffled underneath the sheets. He hasn’t even been here a day and he’s already done with you.

You let out one final snicker before drifting back to sleep.

Santiago Reyes.

He’s the string that unraveled it all.

Who pulled it? That’s what’s important here.

You still haven’t figured it out.

Now, you’re down twelve hours on a private jet, six coffees, three grueling conversations with Felix—one of those being when he woke you up late, on purpose. That little prick. You’re still not over that. Two hangover-proof Tylonals, and one impending conversation with Minho.

Which brings you here, drowning in the sound of a ringing phone, impatiently waiting for him to answer.

Minho is your father's assistant…kind of. He’s pretty much a built in archivist, hacker, account, therapist, handyman and soon-to-be drinking buddy. If he would actually take up your offer. But alas, he likes the prospect of rotting away in a basement better than taking shots with you.

He’s probably got the right idea, but still. Ouch.

The phone picks up.

You let an audible, revealed sigh. “Oh, just the man—”

Minho blurts, “Yes, sir, she’s on the line.” before you can finish, a panicked tilt in his voice. Which is his way of saying “please, for the love of everything holy, don’t get me fired.”

“Y/N, are you there?” Your brows touch your hairline when you hear your father's voice filt through the speaker. You’ve spoken more to your father in the past 36 hours than you have in the past 36 days. Most conversations were translated through Minho, not with Minho. So, in conclusion, this is a trip.

“Yes…I’m here?”

“Good. Have you looked through the files yet?” He’s wasting no time, you see.

It takes a solid ten seconds to slam back down to earth, tongue dry and heavy as you blurt, “Oh, yeah! Yeah, I’ve looked through them! Um, gotten to all of them…specifically the Santiago file. That one has caught most of my interest.”

Minho speaks up, talking like the walking Wikipedia page he is: “Santiago Reyes, age 34 was the first to go missing, he disappeared June 14th 2020. He was last seen fleeing your hotel in California—Thanatos Tower. He both lived and operated there, often holding extravagant business parties there. The hotel was raided by the FBI 8 hours later.”

That catches you by surprise. The file never said anything about FBI. “The FBI raided one of our hotels? How did that happen?”

Your father's wrath is ill contained when he mutters, “That’s a good question. Thankfully, they didn’t find anything important. If they did we would’ve been rotting in prison years ago.”

Felix perks up, lifting his nose from his book and not-so-subtly eavesdrops.

“If everything started in LA, why are you sending me to Korea?” You ask softly, mindlessly flipping through the files again.

“Are you sure you read the files yet?” Your father scoffs, diminishingly.

Thankfully, he can’t see you because the way your cheeks turn bright red is downright pathetic. “Yeah, of course I did…I was just confused…sorry.”

Minho, being the God-send he is, quickly interjects. “Santiago is important, yes. But, most, or well, I should say, all, the other members were busted in Korea. Hence you being sent to Korea and not LA. I don’t believe these two cases are connected.”

“It wasn’t in his file, but I’m going to assume Santiago got busted as well.”

There’s silence on the other end. It stretches suspiciously long.

“Santiago is MIA.” Minho finally breaks the silence.

Felix makes a face. You glare at him. His eyes go wide, and he ducks back behind his book.

“Santiago is MIA? His home was raided by the FBI, but we don’t know where he is?”

More silence.

“Well…we have a theory...” Minho states awkwardly.

“Minho has a theory.” Your father interrupts.

“I think he’s dead.” Minho corrects, clearly trying to control his temper.

“I think he’s in prison. A secure facility, and due to the nature of his crimes and ties to the Mafia, his records are confidential. The other seventeen missing people were found in prison.” A clink is heard on the other end. Your father was definitely making himself a drink.

Wait. Eighteen.

You stack the manila folders up, counting and recounting before hesitantly saying, “I only have seven folders here.”

Felix, sitting across from you, tosses you a folder that magically fell into his lap. “Eight.” He whispers, looking guilty as hell.

You send him a deadly glare. “Eight.”

“Minho was only able to recover eight files before the KNPA found his leak; thankfully, he was able to erase his tracks before they could trace him.”

“So, we’re missing like half of the files?” You sigh, defeated and annoyed.

Minho grunts from the other end. “It’s better than nothing.”

“The rest, they’re just guessing games? How do you even know that—”

“Mija.” Your father's assertive tone seals your lips shut and forces you back on track.

“Here, it says: video evidence.” They can’t see you, but you still point at the file with your pen anyway. “What video evidence?”

“See, this is where it starts to get messy—” Minho starts.

“Like it wasn’t already messy.” You mutter under your breath. Felix breathes out a quiet laugh.

“All eighteen people are currently being held with video evidence. Though it never actually says what kind of video that is.”

“There’s nothing useful in these files. It’s just a whole bunch of basic information and vague terms.” You mutter frustrated, slamming the folders back onto the table. “We’re chasing a damn ghost.”

“That’s where I want you to start.” Your father speaks up, “Look into the evidence, see what they have against us. Once we know what they’ve got, we’ll know who gave it to them. I’ll be in touch.” Only you can hear the silent goodbye. “Minho, finish this off.” The line drops.

You both let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

It’s easy to talk to Minho, but around your father, it’s like doing ballet around broken glass.

You don’t waste any time, bidding your goodbyes and hanging up the call. Your plan was to open your computer and spend the next two hours digging into the evidence before landing. But you didn’t even get to your private server before the sound of Felix’s raspy voice interrupts you mid-click. He sinks into the seat beside you, now holding a mug of fresh coffee. “Y’know, I never caught your name.”

His statement sends ice-cold annoyance rushing through your body. Your shoulders stiffen. “Good.”

He stills mid-sip of his coffee, and you can already imagine the divit forming in his brow. “You don’t…want me to know your name?”

“You don’t need to know it.” You mutter bitterly, hoping he’ll finally take the hint, but no, of course he doesn’t.

His eyes burn into the side of your head. “What do you want me to call you then?”

Your voice is flat. “I’d rather you don’t talk to me at all.”

There’s a pause. He blinks. Once. Twice. Then he lets out a loud, exasperated snort, setting his cup into the holder and leaning back. His thighs spread apart, wide.

“Alright, princess.” The word slides off his tongue so easily, his voice dipping sinfully deep. Your brain quite literally buffers. Your fingers slip on the keyboard, and the computer flashes before darkening.

Oh no. Oh, no, no, no. No. He is not going to do this to you. And you are not going to get flustered because some guy in a suit and a sexy voice calls you a pet name. You hate it. Actually, it’s demeaning, mocking, if anything. You do not like him calling you that.

It takes you a solid ten seconds to convince yourself of that fact.

“Don’t call me that.” You bite and pray he doesn’t hear the wobble in your voice.

His lips twitch. “Then tell me your name.”

You squint at him and really think about it.

Theoretically, you could tell him your name. He probably already knows it, anyway. But this is Felix we’re talking about. The same man who woke you up an hour late and robbed you of your morning scone.

“No.” You say, stubbornly.

“Then, it’s settled, princess.” He smirks lazily. Your bodyguard is going to need a bodyguard if he doesn’t shut up in the next two seconds. Of course, he continues. “I overheard your conversation—”

“You mean eavesdropped?” You smile.

He chuckles, shaking his head at your pettiness. “Yeah, something like that.”

You let out a snort yourself, refreshing your computer screen. It buzzes and flashes white. You switch to the embedded private browser that Minho installed.

“You need working theories. Do you have any?” Felix finishes, scooting closer to you.

You stiffen.

The answer is no. You have no working theories.

Felix must sense your hesitation because he scoots closer, voice softening. “I can help, y’know…”

“I don’t need your help.” You snap a little too harshly.

Felix nods, scooting back to give you more space. “You’re right. You don’t need my help,” He pauses, and his voice lowers into something warmer, more patient. “But I want to help you. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of eyes.”

Being the daughter of a Mafia boss came with its own set of challenges, but there’s one that’s been tattooed into you since birth. The unabiding ideology that, simply because you are a woman, you’re expected to fail. People talked down to you, not directly. And never to your face.

But you noticed it in the subtext, reading between the lines just like your father taught you. They weren’t trying to help you.

They were trying to do what they thought you couldn’t.

And, just like they expect you to fail. You expect him to be just like all the others. It’s unfair. You realize that now.

He speaks with so much earnestness that something inside you softens. Guilt gnaws at your stomach as you bite your bottom lip.

He’s right. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of eyes.

“Fine.” You sigh, sliding him the stack of files. His lips curve, and his eyes crinkle into little crescent moons.

He eagerly snatches the files. “You won’t regret it, I swear!”

“I better not.”

“What’s a ‘Discord?”

Felix peeks up from the home he’s made of mugshots and manila folders across from you. “Discord?”

You nod, cursor hovering over said link. It’s been a little over an hour now, and within that time—you haven’t actually found anything useful out—but you did discover an interesting website called Tumblr and now Discord. The power of the internet.

Felix’s brow crinkles, and he waddles out of the delicate paper trail he’s made to lean over your shoulder, eyes flicking across your computer before pulling away. “Oh yeah, Discord. It’s like a website for talking or whatever. A lot of gamers use it.”

Your brows shoot up. “Would avid podcast listeners use it?”

You’ve been grasping at straws at this point. You jumped from a few useless news articles covering the case—which pretty much just included information you already had—to some more personal blogs and external resources before finally discovering something minutely useful. A user under the name @spencerreidsslut (valid) wrote something about a Case Files episode covering the case. Which brings you here, talking to Felix and pondering clicking this suspicious link.

He cocks his head and clicks his tongue. “Theoretically, I guess they could. I don’t really know, though. I’ve only ever used it for gaming.”

You almost brush past it, but then it hits you.

You jerk your neck up. “You gamhjue?”

Felix’s eyes widen before he awkwardly clears his throat, a bashful blush flooding his cheeks. “Um, yeah…I do…”

You snicker, tapping the link. “Why am I not surprised?”

His blush deepens, and he shoots you an annoyed look. “Oh, be quiet.”

You were going to retort, but then the page loads. Lines of colorful messages pop up, most of them were small talk among friends and conversation about other episodes, until you reach around the time Ki-yoo, the first missing person, was arrested.

You scroll some more through people berateing Ki-yoo, some questionable jokes before something catches your eye.

You stop reading right there.

“Hey, Felix, I think I found something.” Wordlessly, he walks over to you, leaning over your shoulder once more. His eyes widen.

Without thinking, you click the link.

It feels like a lifetime of loading and shared panicked breaths as you imagine the amount of trouble you’d be in for allowing somebody to hack your computer before the screen fills with red.

A single pulsing triangle. You’ve been taken to Twitter. There’s nothing on the page. No comments. No likes. No retweets. Only a video.

Felix presses play for you, and nobody could have prepared you for the scene that unfolds before you.

Your blood freezes in your veins.

Ki-yoos in front of a camera. He scoots into a chair, hair looking sweat-caked and disheveled. He parts his lips, and your spine turns to stone because Ki-yoo didn’t get busted.

He turned himself in.

OMFG GUYS I DID IT!!! like 9 months later ive finally finished it...

if you wanna be tagged in the rest of the chapters please comment!!

[bluemoonscape]

This ALNST Friday’s comic adds so much more context and depth to Mizi’s breakdown in Round 5.

You know this guy? The guy we all collectively hate now?

First thing I noticed about him is that he looks quite a bit like Luka, though his hair is a touch darker and his eyelashes are black rather than blond.

The unnamed boy in the comic messes with Mizi’s head, blaming her for making people love her, for making people attracted to her—and this translates to Mizi blaming herself for this as Till lies dying in her arms. The ghost of her past self taunts her: You knew what you were doing all along, didn’t you? You led them on just to save yourself. You led everyone on.

The encounter with this boy in the comic is the catalyst for setting off this guilt, shame, and self-loathing within Mizi. As an audience, we’ve all been fooled right along with the other characters around her into believing she’s always been naïve, blind to the way the world works run by segyein. Mizi hasn’t had enough time to tell us how she feels. There hasn’t been a right time. In Round 1, she’s singing with Sua, for Sua, so who is she thinking about? Sua. In Round 5, she’s fresh off the trauma of Sua’s death and being actively pushed closer to her death by Luka. During her time with Hyuna, everything is too fast-paced to give her time to stop and tell us how all this has affected her, or how it always has. Mizi couldn’t tell us these things, so we instead saw her through Till, Sua, and Ivan’s eyes in the videos and official side content as a beautiful and innocent girl whose facade charms them all in one way or another. The sad thing is that Mizi didn’t mean to build this facade. She never meant to hurt anyone. She built it because it’s what people needed her to be.

So we have Round 5, and Sua is dead, Mizi is alive, and it’s all her fault, because she charmed Sua right into self-sacrifice. She lost the one person whose love she could return, genuinely and without reservations. And not only does Luka mimic Sua to throw Mizi off her game, but he manipulates her through touch.

The boy in the comic told Mizi all those years ago that boys and girls can’t be friends, that they’ll only end up “mating” and it’s Mizi, the girl’s, fault. It’s her fault that people are attracted to her. She knows what she’s doing. She knows what she does to them. Doesn’t she?

In Round 5 she’s set up purposefully in a performance that, as Vivimeng stated, is meant to look like a wedding. White clothes, romantic music, a boy touching her and dancing her around the stage like a trophy. Like the boy in the comic said, right? It’ll always be a boy and a girl. They’ll always end up together. It benefits the segyein to force them together because that means more future contestants.

They killed the love of her life and now they’re forcing her with a man who’s touching her and asserting control over her.

She snaps.

Of course she snaps.

The expectation of heterosexuality even in this futuristic society is so interesting to me. Mizi experiences it plainly in this comic, and I would say Till experiences it since he claims the main reason he likes Mizi is because she’s “pretty” and then struggles so intensely with denial with Ivan. Again, I believe it’s because encouraging heterosexuality as the norm encourages “mating” and the creation of more humans to exploit and parade around. It gives the segyein more control.

That play of compulsory heterosexuality in Round 5 contributed heavily to Mizi’s crashout.

(Tagging some Alien Stage moots!! @ivanttakethis @rockwgooglyeyes @alien-til-i-stage @awaggaa @verdantlights love you guys <33)

[thewalrusespublicist]

Paul and Linda Interview from Hellllllll

@slenderfire-blog as the patron saint of good sources sent me this interview and I thought I would write it up as it gives a worrying insight into the famed idyllic marriage and Paul’s mental state at the time.

Reader, it was not idyllic and he was not doing well.

Disclaimer: For context, this interview is in his Broadstreet era aka the grief/midlife crisis/I cant have a meltdown if I’m making a film period. I fully believe that Paul was having an extended emotional crisis/breakdown post John's death/successive unresolved and badly handled traumas. (As I was saying to @slenderfire-blog, let's just say if he feels like crying every damn day about John in 2021, imagine how it was in 1985.) So yeah Paul is having a time and I look forward to McCartney Vol 3. for potential confirmation and illumination on this.

At the same time JESUS FUCK PAUL THIS IS TERRIBLE.

Like so bad, bad to the point I now feel like contemporaneous Peter Cox account is 1000% more credible as this is essentially the PR version of what he said. So let's get into the greatest hits:

The happy, definitely-not-in-trouble couple

They do seem to adore each others company, be locked in with each other and Paul does rely on her a lot for support and approval:

As they talk, Paul constantly squeezes Linda’s arm reassuringly, strokes her hand or looks to her for approval or agreement whenever he makes a point. The two are inclined to talk at once or to finish each other’s sentences. At times, the link is so tight, they seem almost like different aspects of one person.

Though at the same time they both describe the relationship as 'rather volatile' and full of arguments where they go and sulk in different rooms. They lightly play it off but then Linda says a bit too seriously that shes usually the one who gives in first :/.

Paul built the house they live in and are sort of obsessed with cosplaying living the 'peasant' lifestyle with no help save one housekeeper Rose who is from Paul's bachelor days and the occasional babysitter (as far as I'm aware this is true).

The marrying thing in 68 was so intense he even asked lil HEATHER to marry him what the hellllll (of course he wasn't serious but it does feel like another way of indirectly pressuring Linda to commit). He also kept asking Linda until she gave in.

Random swipe in the baby name department at Zowie Bowie, lmao not friends with the Bowies then (good thing Duncan Jones happens to agree).

They romanticise the bickering and volatility as being like passionate young lovers

“My parents were married for 25 years and they were like young lovers,” says Linda. “Paul’s parents were the same. If you’re lucky, you get that in life. You see, those are the kinds of things that matter to me—not the diamond necklace.”

Paul:

Paul is clearly not okay and seems to be regressing by trying to recapture his childhood through his current situation. Throughout the interview Paul keeps going back to his parents marriage and his childhood as the ideal frame of reference. This is pretty standard but Paul takes it to the extreme of this meaning no friends, family only and the wife do all of the labour.

This (save the misogyny) is a far cry from his 60s revolutionary kick but I can see how this happened in the wake of the Beatles split, the trauma and complex grief from John's death and the press. In response and defense to the criticism and hurt, Paul seems to have retreated wholly within himself and his family sphere and is coercing Linda into fulfilling the role of the wife within that. Take for example, his portrayal of the housework and why Linda should like to do it:

“Linda really doesn’t like housework,” Paul explains, “because when she grew up, her family had maids and she wasn’t taught to do anything. But it’s something I’ve tried to tell Linda about because in the kind of family I’m from, housework is considered a pleasure—the smell of ironing and the laundry. Where I’m from, once a week, the women would sort of get the laundry out and smell the washing and feel it and see it and iron it all, and they’d be chatting or listening to the radio. It was like a peasant thing. It was an event, like treading on the grapes.

It's bonkers and infuriating and at first I was like I DONT KNOW PAUL IF YOU WANT THE PLEASURE OF SMELLING DETERGENT SO BAD YOU CAN DO THE BLOODY LAUNDRY. But then you realise how Paul connects it with comfort, especially with comfort after a bereavement:

“Growing up in Liverpool, that was always there for me. Even after my mum died, my aunties came around religiously every week and cooked and cleaned the house and did the laundry and provided that kind of atmosphere for us.”

It's romanticising the poverty he grew up in but also signifies to me how much it's a coping mechanism. He wants Linda to do the laundry and have that idealised maternal domestic atmosphere as in his head if you have that then you can carry on even in the face of cataclysmic loss.

Denny Lane's comments about Linda being like a mother to Paul feel really pertinent here. Reading all this has kind of reinforced to me this idea I've had for a while that Linda's maternal attributes was one of the foundational pillars of Paul's attraction to her and an essential part of their marriage. In another interview I'll post another time, he says they never went on holiday without the kids, with them taking tiny Heather on their honeymoon. It wasn't just tours, the kids really did go everywhere with them when they could and they made sure the children's bedrooms were just next door to theirs so they could be there all the time. It's great, wonderful parenting but also with the genesis of their relationship it's really hard not to see Linda and the promised family as the replacement to fill the hole from the Beatles. Not saying that he didn't go on to adore them and them be the pinnacle joy of his life but yh ... once you see it it's hard not to unsee. (Also the thing I've always been too scared to say/wild speculation again I don't know these people ... but I think they would have always had these problems until Paul actually reckoned with his mothers death/other traumas.)

Thinking about it all as well, it must be so hard to essentially cosplay the culture and background you grew up in with wealth and class separating you from everything you used to intimately know

Aggressive optimist Paul telling a very different story here (is he more honest here, more depressed, or maybe somewhere in the middle?)

“I’ve got all these contingency plans. I tend to look at the worst side of things. I’ll say, ‘If they turn us down, we’re going to do this.’ If anything hurts me, I want to fight it—so it doesn’t hurt me again.”

Nothing to add just ... ouch.

Reinforcement of John refusing to let Paul hold Sean because Paul 'didn't know him' ... which yh that is some bullshit its a baby. Paul goes onto mention how John wasn't great with babies as he had no experience whilst he had and somehow makes it borderline a competition lmao.

HALFWAY THROUGH I REALISED THIS WAS THE INFAMOUS PLAYGIRL 'JOHN SAID JEALOUS GUY WAS ABOUT ME' INTERVIEW. I NEVER REALISED LINDA WAS THERE.

Not him essentially saying 'in hindsight maybe Linda needed a lot of lessons' for Wings and admitting he just wanted her there. They both seem to accept it as something that wasn't fair to expect of Linda with no training.

He does this embarrassed little giggle like 'oh I may be a chauvinist YES YES YOU ARE SORT YOURSELF OUT.

Linda ohh my GOD Linda girl

She has rings around her eyes from exhaustion

Gets up at 7am to do the breakfast every morning despite going to bed late

Said she didn’t want to get married again initially as she had been controlled by men all her life until then

Says her kids are her best friends and that she never had a friend until she moved to Arizona later on (this is interesting to me that both Paul and Linda both saw themselves as 'loners' in childhood even though interviews from people in Paul's childhood repeat that he was popular. Maybe this was a narrative in their marriage or maybe Paul always felt internally lonely).

Qualifier here: I also don't think the best friend thing is true, there are a few people that pop up over the years who say they were very close to Linda and one did a lovely interview with Paul post Linda's death. I think the whole 'family is all you need schtick was part cope and part PR.

From apparent tradition Paul says that he doesen't tell her how much he's worth and their money situation as 'his dad didn't tell his mum' (even though his mum was integral to financially supporting the family may I remind you Paul). Linda girl listen I can make you happy I can give you a good life and treat you to nice things come with me Linda-

Theres one point where Linda PANICS because Paul mentions the supposed socialist uprising potentially taking all their money because HE WON'T TELL HER WHAT THE FINANCIALS LOOK LIKE. THIS FUCKER (also socialists Paul you're a northern liberal get a grip you class traitor)

They both romanticise living frugally with Linda not buying any nice fancy things ... its hard not to remember Peter Cox's account of Linda asking to borrow money when reading this :(((((

Linda's idea of a luxury holiday is not having to cook and clean and she can have fun :( Paul then interjects with 'yh that's great for a bit but not all the time as isn't it nice to have the family all in the kitchen!!' I'm sure Linda would agree if you actually helped Paul.

In summation: he needs help and a slap, she deserves a statue but would probably prefer a sit-down. Thank god there’s a lot to suggest that Paul has improved massively when it comes to his view on women and labour (wouldn’t have married a working businesswoman if they hadn’t) but this is still a difficult window into how things were in the 80s and the life that campaigners like Yoko were fighting against.

[sunrisecaminus]

Omg omg- I just read your recent writing with Magnus! I would really love a few headcannons with Magnus being a girl dad, along with Dreadwing and Breakdown, please!

Idk why, but I love the thought of these giant robots being really sweet and caring to the girlie's. 🤭

Message - Bro I love all three of these mechs. I would love them to adopt me and any of the people on tumblr.

Guardian Ultra Magnus/Dreadwing/Breakdown x Reader

Summary - How it feels to have these bots as your Guardian. They are very different types of dads.

Warning - None

Ultra Magnus This mech is so adorable with you. He tries to understand humans any chance he gets, but it still is a lot for him. For a while, Magnus did not trust anybody whenever you would walk in public. Was a Decepticon just going to come out of no where and shoot you?! He had to protect you in everyway. Sometimes, he forced you to stay at the base because it was too dark out for you to go home. You understand why he is like this, but it can get a bit pushy. His face always showed a soft expression anytime you walked in. He could have a stern look and be yelling at Wheeljack, but once you walk in he just "oh Y/n you ok?". Magnus doesn't care how much you like to lay on his shoulders, it can be comforting to have someone at all times just there with him to talk. Whenever he hears someone has bullied you, oh boy. Whoever it was better not come back, because he would get an earful from Magnus. He never really liked to touch people, but feeling you holding onto him made himself relax. Honestly, you could talk for hours, and Magnus would just rest and listen. If any of the Decepticons hurt you, Magnus would only see red and fight them until they die or retreat. No one hurts this child…they are the sweetest thing he has ever met and won't let anyone ruin that for him. "I know how to make you feel better, why don't we go to your favorite food place?"

Dreadwing "Sweet little bird, why do you worry me?" He is not a father figure…more like a fucking babysitter. Dreadwing is so tired of taking care of you, no he isn't annoyed or anything. In fact, he loves to take care of you, but you just have so much energy that it takes him a while to catch up to you. Please stay by his side at all times, he will panic if he turned around and sees you gone. No one would dare hurt you, but if someone was being stupid and did, they will be executed on the spot. Dreadwing sees you as a family member and won't let anyone take that away from him…even Megatron. You were so sweet with him, even if you were a little piece of shit sometimes. He warns you a lot on defending yourself, but if you used these skills and wit to defend him from a soldier accusing him of something Dreadwing didn't do, oh yeah, you will be cherished until your death. Any food you love, he will grab for you. You want to travel somewhere? Dreadwing would always drop everything to take you. He loves to watch you smile, it gave him enough serotonin to forget the war. Talk kindly about his deceased twin, please…even if the man was a bit of a hard head, Dreadwing still loved his brother and it would mean a lot to him if you showed the same care. If you draw him any pictures by the way, he will keep every single one of them, even the ones you deem as awful.

Breakdown This man is the most chill dad in the world. Want to walk around somewhere outside the ship? Go ahead, just call him if anything happens. Want to go out on the dangerous cliffs of Jasper? Let him at least be in the area, but you can go as far as you wanted. Breakdown is not neglectful though, and even has a calendar on anything important you need to do for the week. He is really good at reminding you if you have a dentist appointment or need to clean your house from not being there for so long. If anyone bullied you, get ready for Breakdown to just beat the shit out the guy. He may be a bit dumb, so don't ask him at all for homework help. He gives really good advise though when it comes to friends, letting you sit up on his shoulder and listen to whatever happened to you. Megatron has not ever seen someone as low ranked as Breakdown protect someone like you before, especially when Breakdown defends you from someone higher than him. Starscream has been beaten more than once, and Airachnid couldn't believe someone could have the strength to throw her for meters….half a mile actually. "Hey, if anyone is being a piece of scrap, call me ok?" He loves any of your hobbies, trying to learn how humans have and actually likes some of the games.

[scariusaquarius]

rehab. 22.

Avenger! Bucky Barnes x Winter Soldier! Fem! Reader

Summary: While on a mission to find any more possible super soldiers that were a part of the Winter Soldier program, Steve and Bucky make a discovery in an abandoned HYDRA base that was cleared out a few years prior to their mission. They discover the Reader, a long-forgotten soldier that was still asleep within a functioning cryostasis pod; still awaiting orders. While Bucky isn't happy about it, he is put up to the challenge of helping to rehabilitate the soldier in Wakanda where she may be able to become a person again.

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A/n: hnnn like i said, hated the last chapter, so i'm hoping that this one is much better rip so sorry about that!! I really wasn't sure how I wanted last chapter to go smh. Also, if you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee! If you would prefer to read Rehab on Archive, you may do so right HERE!

This is an au where Bucky joined the avengers but still rehabilitated in Wakanda (sometime before Infinity War [canon divergent cause NOPE]). I am NOT fluent in Russian, so I did use google translate cause I couldn't find a good translator that I trusted. If anything is wrong, PLEASE let me know!! Also, I tried to list as many warnings as possible so you know what the story will contain as chapters are posted. Stay safe!

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Genre: Slowburn, Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Drama, Dark Content Rated: Explicit Warning: Angst, Dark Content: Graphic Depictions of Sexual Assault, Blood and Gore, Mentions of Manipulation, Kidnapping, Canon-Typical Violence, Body Horror, Nonconsensual Body Modification/Scarring, Emotional and Physical Abuse, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts/Ideation, Graphic Depictions of Human Remains, Mentions of Sexual Coercion/Manipulation, Death, Misuse of Drugs/Forced Drugging, Self-Harm (Graphic Depictions and Mentions), Nightmares

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Author: ScariusAquarius

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rehab masterlist. chapter 18 / chapter 19 / chapter 20 / chapter 21

His mind was quiet. For the first time in a long time, Bucky Barnes' mind was quiet. Despite the fact that he knew Wanda had something do with the silence and there was a part of him that was actually enjoying the silence, there was another part of him that was angry.

Bucky didn't like not having control over his own mind and body.

While Wanda was purposefully keeping him calm, there was an untouched part of his mind that was extremely upset at the loss of control. To Bucky, it didn't feel any different than when he was trapped in his mind as the Winter Soldier during the moments he was present. When he was remembering.

His body was stiff as he sat near Rollins, and though Bucky wanted nothing more than to lunge and strangle the man, his body would not respond. It was like pushing against a wall, and no matter how much force he exerted and no matter how much he yelled in anger within his head, Bucky's body just wouldn't respond. Wanda was giving him a sympathetic look, stating softly to him within his mind.

"I'm sorry to do this, James, but we need Rollins alive."

It was strange to hear her voice in his mind though her lips never moved, and Bucky glanced at her, his eyebrow twitching with annoyance. Taking a leap, Bucky began to think.

"What makes you think I'm not in control of myself? You're just like everyone else...always believing that I'm going to revert back to who I was before."

He knew that he was being petty; his words accusatory and sharp with the intention of hurting, but Wanda didn't seem to react. The only inclination of any response was a subtle flash of shame that flickered within her glowing eyes before Wanda turned away from him.

"I do not think that for a second. We were all worried that you were going to breakdown at the revelation of the Winter Soldier having a part of Project Achilles."

The words made his chest cave in, and Bucky clenched his fingers. he hissed his thoughts, feeling as though he was back in a cage where control was an illusion; baring his teeth and tail between his legs as he became defensive.

"That's my choice to make. You don't get to choose how I feel."

His words seem to strike a cord in Wanda, and she glanced back at him, her gaze soft as she whispered.

"I know, and I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to hurt you."

Even through the twinges of betrayal that tickled at his mind; the anxiety and the anger at being forced to relinquish his control over his own mind and body, Bucky understood and knew that Wanda was being honest. He knew that Wanda just wanted to protect him, but Bucky couldn't turn a blind-eye to being made a prisoner in his own mind again.

"I didn't need your help. This is something that I have to live with...to take responsibility for. I did this to (Y/n)."

His fingers were clenching harder, the knuckles on his flesh-hand taut and shaking slightly. Bucky's muscles were tight and uncomfortable, and Wanda sighed slightly.

"Believe me, you will get your time with this vile man."

Bucky wanted to laugh. As if that was ever a question. Getting his alone time with Rollins wasn't just about what he had done to (Y/n)...it was about what Rollins had done to him as well. The hours of torture, of taunts...of watching as Rumlow took his time with him....smiling all the while.

Bucky could feel his fingers threading through his hair, pulling painfully and forcing his head up as lips brushed against his ear; hot and foreboding as the voice whispered promises of obedience and control. The sting was present; the burning the only thing that Bucky could comprehend as cruel taunts and encouragements echoed around the room. They were watching. Just standing and watching.

Why did they hate him? Why did they treat him like this? All the asset wanted was to please and perform well...to fulfill his duty as the Fist of HYDRA. Why did force him to his knees, pulling his hair, forcing his mouth open-

Bucky was suddenly jerked out of his memory, and his gaze flicked to Wanda, who looked horrified. Guilt flooded his body, shame and embarrassment making Bucky cower just the slightest as he attempted to apologize for what Wanda had just witnessed.

"I...I'm sorry."

"No, do not apologize...what they did to you...what they did to all of us...it will never truly leave. We may forget, but our bodies; our feelings...they will always remember. But they will never...ever...do that again as long as we are here with you, James."

Her reassurance didn't go unappreciated, but the damage had already been done. Bucky couldn't look at her; couldn't dare to see the expression that she wore upon her face. Bucky could feel control slipping back to him, the red glow over his body disappearing, and Bucky stood up, immediately leaving to find a quiet spot in the back of the quinjet. Sitting down by himself, he rested his head in his hands and could feel the tears coming to his eyes. As the emotional turmoil began to boil over, Bucky became lost in his thoughts.

No, this wasn't just about what Rollins did to (Y/n). While Bucky did care about the woman, there was still unspoken baggage that Bucky hadn't been able to work through since his time in Wakanda. There was no way to justify the cruel methods Brock Rumlow and his previous Handlers before him had enacted upon Bucky when he would fail, lash out, underperform, or when they just felt like it.

Yes, Bucky knew exactly what (Y/n) was going through...but the knowledge that even he had a hand in her inability to escape from HYDRA had Bucky in shambles.

She's got you to make sure that she doesn't fall back into that place.

But how can Bucky be there for her now and help her out of that familiar darkness when he helped put her there? All that talk of him having the only right to help was bullshit; nullified by his actions. Besides, when (Y/n) began to remember...why would she ever want his help then? When she remembered, Bucky was sure that she would curse him, hate him, make him remember that no matter what he did, HYDRA would always follow him.

You will always be HYDRA. Even if you escape, you will miss your time here. It will call you home whether you like it or not.

Bucky should have known. He should have known that he was connected to her somehow given the timeline. Bucky bit his lip, stifling his sobs as he held his hands up to his mouth, clenching his jaw so hard that he was sure he was going to break his teeth.

What did he not remember about her?

Bucky swallowed thickly, and when he was interrupted by Wanda informing him about their arrival back to Wakanda, he couldn't help but to look at the woman and beg her quietly.

"Please make me remember...what did I do? What did I do to her?"

Wanda's face fell, and she shook her head gently, responding quietly.

"I can't make you remember...that's not my place, and you know that."

Bucky knew he wasn't thinking rationally. He knew that his request wouldn't have been able to be honored, but it didn't make him any less upset. Bucky let his head fall into his hands again, and he whispered softly.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

Wanda pursed her lips, staring Bucky down before she came to stand near him, placing her hand against his shoulder and making him look up at her, his blue eyes red and puffy and nostrils flaring as his lip trembled.

"You face it. What's done is done, and though there is nothing that you can do to change the past, you can change the future. You are not that man anymore, James...and I think (Y/n) will understand that when the time comes. Just give it time. It is not going to be easy...but we are all here for you....for you both. Neither of you have to do this alone."

She then sighed and turned away, adding gently.

"The only thing that you can do is ensure that this never...ever happens again to anyone."

Her words were slightly vague, but Bucky could tell what she was trying to say. The woman stood up, her eyes glowing brighter before she stated.

"I didn't tell you this, but they're planning on moving Rollins to a secure part of the kingdom...and (Y/n) is upset about your absence."

Bucky was surprised, asking as his eyes fluttered just the slightest as he cleared the tears from his eyes.

"She's...upset that I left?"

"She wasn't told about the mission, so she was under the impression that you were retrieving Rollins to return her back to HYDRA. I think she needs to hear it from you that it wasn't the plan."

Bucky took a moment before he shook his head, stating quietly.

"I don't know if I can face her...not after knowing that I had a hand in this...in her."

Wanda was quiet before she comforted gently before turning to leave.

"You don't have to right now...but think about it."

Her exit was quiet; her feet never touching the ground, and Bucky, though feeling slightly better, still felt the bile sitting at the back of his throat. Wiping his eyes and face, Bucky took a calming deep breath before he stood and walked out of the quinjet. While he wasn't surprised to see Steve waiting for him, Bucky wasn't sure if he liked the furious look within his eyes.

Bucky's steps were slow and cautious, and Steve asked him, the anger within his eyes lessening just the slightest as he regarded his friend.

"How are you holding up?"

Bucky gave Steve an annoyed look, shrugging his shoulders.

"As good as I can with knowing that I helped with all of this."

Steve looked at Bucky with a sad yet guilty expression, and Bucky honed in on it immediately. Before he could ask what was going on, however, Steve informed him gently.

"I’ve been thinking… maybe it’s best if you take a step back from helping with (Y/n)'s rehabilitation program. Not because of what happened—but because I can see this is tearing you up, Buck"

There it was again. People trying to tell him how he should feel; trying to control his actions and what he needs to do. Bucky couldn't help but to become upset, giving Steve a glare.

"You think I can't handle it."

Steve was hesitant, shaking his head as he raised his hands in surrender.

"That's not what I'm saying, Bucky."

Bucky couldn't help but to snap, his voice raising just the slightest as he gestured wildly with his hand.

"That's what it sounds like. I have to face this, Steve. I have to face and deal with the fact that I helped put her in this position...that I killed her mom just like I killed Tony's parents...like I've killed everyone else."

Bucky took a breath, his hands trembling and chest tight as the guilt began to eat him alive.

"You know what sucks the most? Out of every single one that I remember...I can't remember her....what I did...what I always do."

Bucky began to walk away, and Steve turned to look at him wistfully and with exasperation. Calling Bucky's name, the man didn't even turn towards Steve, and Steve couldn't help but to sigh and place his hands on his hips. Natasha's voice made Steve turn to her, his gaze sad and upset.

"He's gonna need time, Steve. This wasn't great news for him to hear, you know."

Natasha was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed as she regarded Steve with an expressionless face; her eyes betraying her worry. Steve shook his head, crossing his arms and running a hand over his face.

"I know. I just...I wish he knew that he didn't have to go through this alone."

Natasha was quiet for a moment before she observed.

"You tend to want to insert yourself into his problems a lot. Even if you're coming from a good place, Steve, this is something that Bucky is going to have to do alone."

Steve looked conflicted, staring down at his feet for a few moments before Natasha pushed herself off of the wall to walk back inside, adding.

"Don't push him, Steve. You're just gonna make him runaway again...and he won't come back this time."

Once Steve was left by himself, his shoulders fell, and Steve became lost again; feeling as though his friend was falling through his fingers once again.

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STORY NOTES: The scene opens with Bucky's point of view. While Bucky knows that Wanda is controlling his emotions and mind and is appreciative of the silence, he also is very upset that she is doing this. Bucky makes the correlation between Wanda's mind control and being trapped in his own mind when he was the Winter Soldier. Wanda apologizes to Bucky for having to control him, and Bucky, being petty, snaps that Wanda is 'no better than everyone else' in believing that he would revert back the Winter Soldier at any given moment.

Despite his words having the intention to hurt her feelings, Wanda does not seem to react him. Instead, Wanda explains that everyone was worried about him having a breakdown because of the revelation of the Winter Soldier having a part of Project Achilles, and Bucky becomes distraught at the reminder. Bucky is firm that his feelings are his choice, but he understands that Wanda is just trying to help. Bucky further adds that this revelation is something that Bucky has to work through on his own.

Bucky begins to have a flashback about Rollins when he thinks of the man. He remembers how the man stood by and watched as Brock Rumlow sexually assaulted him for the fun of things, and Bucky is instantly horrified and ashamed when he realizes that Wanda is still able to see into his mind. Wanda, however, is understanding and reassures Bucky that HYDRA will never hurt him ever again. Bucky, however, is already spiraling. Sensing this, Wanda allows Bucky to have complete control, and Bucky immediately retreats to a quiet and empty part of the quinjet.

Bucky begins to cry, thinking about how he understands exactly what (Y/n) is going through and what we went through, but is struggling with the knowledge that he had helped HYDRA capture her before she was able to escape with Doris. Bucky suddenly remembers what Sam had told him about how (Y/n) had Bucky to make sure she 'doesn't fall back into that place,' and Bucky begins to question his authority on the ability to help her. He begins to think about the possibilities that would occur once (Y/n) finally remembers everything, and he is certain that (Y/n) will hate him.

He begins to relapse, thinking that he will never be escape HYDRA, and he struggles with the fact that he is unable to remember (Y/n) and when Wanda comes to inform him that the team has arrived back in Wakanda, Bucky begs Wanda to make him remember. Wanda, however, refuses and tells Bucky that he has to remember on his own. Bucky becomes frustrated, and Wanda adds that even though Bucky can't change the past, he can change the future. Moreover, (Y/n) has a better chance of understanding him instead of blaming him, and that neither of them are alone in this matter.

When Bucky doesn't respond, Wanda reveals that the Avengers are planning on taking Rollins to a secure part of the kingdom and that (Y/n) is upset that Bucky left for the mission. Bucky is surprised by this, and Wanda elaborates that (Y/n) wasn't told about the mission. She tells Bucky that (Y/n) is under the impression that Bucky found Rollins in order to give (Y/n) back to him, and that (Y/n) needs to hear it from Bucky that it was never the plan in the first place. Bucky refuses, stating that he isn't sure if he can face (Y/n), and Wanda reassures him that he doesn't have to, but to think about it.

After waiting a moment once Wanda leaves, Bucky finally leaves the quinjet to be greeted by Steve. Steve reveals that he thinks the best course of action is to take him off of (Y/n)'s rehabilitation program, and Bucky is offended. He accuses Steve of thinking that he can't handle it, and though Steve tries to disagree, Bucky is set in his opinion. Bucky reveals his frustration out of not being able to remember this particular incident, and Bucky walks away from Steve. Although Steve tries to call after him, Bucky ignores him, and Steve becomes upset. Natasha suddenly appears and tells Steve that he needs to give Bucky time to himself, and Steve replies that he doesn't want Bucky to do it alone.

Natasha reprimands Steve, telling him that he needs to stop trying to control Bucky, stop inserting himself where he can in Bucky's problems, and to stop pushing him. She tells him that Steve is going to make Bucky run away before she leaves back inside, leaving Steve by himself to begin thinking about his actions. End scene.

TRANSLATIONS:

None

TAGLIST: @tilldeathripsusapart @vicmc624 @mgchaser @aash3 @samfunko @seventeen-x @valckenaux @babybeeelle @sc4rrc @cjand10 @bane-y-zane @notsostrangerthing @thenameswinter99

[mystic-writings]

forgiven

PAIRING — ex!dean winchester x fem!reader

SUMMARY — two years after you broke up, dean convinces you to let him help you with a hunt.

WARNINGS — angst, hurt/no comfort, major character death, torture, reader and dean ‘hate’ each other

WORD COUNT — 6,610

SONG — my tears ricochet - taylor swift

NOTES — writing this fic almost killed me. why does dean winchester turn me into an anguished poet. 

masterlist | taglist

Regret. 

Dean was a man with a long list of them, but as he stood in a field, watching the pyre burn alongside his brother and Bobby, he found himself placing you at the very top. You were the biggest regret of his life, and he hasn’t even made it to his thirties. He regretted shutting you out. He regretted letting you walk away. He regretted not looking for you when he finally came to his senses. He regretted not being fast enough. 

He regretted letting you die. 

Sam and Bobby had told him one too many times that it wasn’t his fault, but wasn’t it always? Wasn’t it always him making the hard choices, only for them to be wrong, in the end? Wasn’t it always him who had the blood of innocent people staining his hands? Wasn’t it always him that isn’t fast enough, isn’t strong enough, isn’t good enough? 

Wasn’t it him that got you killed?

He’d heard things from other hunters after you broke things off with him. How bloodthirsty you’d become, always working alone, working efficiently, working ruthlessly. He’d hated it, deep down. How you dug yourself deeper into the hunting world when all either of you ever wanted was to get out. It killed him inside, knowing you were still in the business, even if a larger part of him carried hatred for you, albeit misplaced. Dean would never admit it aloud to anyone, though. Sam was often on the receiving end of his outward projections and rants at how much he hated you, and so was Bobby, on the rare occasion he saw the Winchesters. But the inward reflection of his soul was full of hurt; pain and grief and regret buried deep, dug up when Sam was asleep in the Impala and Dean waited for you to start some kind of weird conversation — only to remember you weren’t there anymore. 

It came back to him every once in a while, the memories Dean never wanted to relive. They were too domestic (at least, as domestic as they could get in their line of work), too happy. But they were always hidden, waiting for Dean to be at his weakest. In an old mixtape, in a certain Zeppelin song that would play on the radio, in the crappy diner meals he would eat late into the night, in the glint of light off the silver ring you gifted him on his last birthday with you. 

He wanted to hate you. He wanted nothing more than to hate you. But all you wanted to do was help him. His dad just died, of course all you wanted to do was help him. Dean was just too busy spiralling and drowning in his own grief to see it. That’s what he liked to tell himself. It was the grief that pushed you away. Just another thing his father wouldn’t let him keep to himself, to enjoy and cherish. He put the blame on his father, because why wouldn’t he? John Winchester was responsible for just about every other bad thing in his life thus far, why wouldn’t he be responsible for pushing you away, too? 

So, like you, Dean hardened himself, diving headfirst into the very next case Sam was able to find. He ignored the pain, closed himself off, and got back to doing what he did best — hunting. 

It was easy enough most days. In fact, it made him just that much better at what he did. It should’ve been concerning, at the very least, but Sam knew better than to step in Dean’s path. So, he watched silently as his brother, slowly but surely, crumbled beneath the weight of his own steeled emotions. But it didn’t show; not really, not beyond the occasional breakdown or bender, not until Sam and Dean arrived in Chicago. 

The case itself was mostly cut and dry, they could see that before they even reached the city. Bobby had offered it over to them, a suspected shapeshifter that enjoyed preying upon people by taking on the faces of their ex-boyfriends and torturing them to death. It was gruesome, to say the least, but it wasn’t anything the Winchesters hadn’t seen before. In fact, it practically solved itself, save for the fact that the locations didn’t quite line up with the sewer system, and therefore, they had to take their time in locating the shapeshifter’s lair. 

Their first clue that something was wrong was when they interviewed the first victim’s best friend. 

“And you’re sure Katie was fine when you left?” Sam asked. 

“Yes! Katie doesn’t— didn’t drink. She hated the stuff. We thought Matt was already gone, I mean, he said it himself. He was about to move to Boston.” The girl — Ashley, Dean thought her name might’ve been — reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “Why are you asking all this again?” 

“Again?” Dean stiffened. 

“Yeah, again.” She scoffed. “Another agent was here yesterday. A woman, I can’t remember her name. Mick? Something like that?”

Sam’s face dropped. “Agent Nicks?” 

“Yeah, that’s her. Look, she already asked me all this stuff before, can’t you guys just leave me alone?” 

Dean and Sam shared a quick glance before the latter closed his notebook. “Of course, we’ll get out of your hair.” 

Neither of the brothers spoke until they were in the Impala, Sam reaching for his phone while peeling away from the curb, dialling Bobby’s number and putting him on speaker. 

Bobby didn’t have the chance to breathe on the other line before Sam was speaking. “She’s here.” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise we were playing a game of Guess Who.” Bobby snipped. “Who the hell are you talking about, boy?”

“Y/n. She’s in Chicago. We just talked to the first vic’s friend, she said another agent already talked to her. Agent Nicks.” 

Bobby cursed under his breath. “She ain’t gonna like you two bein’ there.” 

“Well that’s just too bad,” Dean piped up, practically white-knuckling the steering wheel. “We’re already here. And I’m not leaving a case behind just because little miss wants to pitch a fit about it. We’re finishing this hunt whether she likes it or not.” 

“On your head,” Bobby conceded. “Just be careful, boys. She ain’t the same girl she was two years ago.” 

“We will. Talk to you later, Bobby.” Sam huffed as he ended the call, eyeing his oddly silent older brother as they headed back to their motel room. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Your voice was sharp, laced with anger directed at a pair of haunting green eyes. 

“Working the case, sweetheart,” Dean smiled condescendingly, leaning against the bar. “You know, you should try to be a little less conspicuous next time, Agent Nicks.” 

Damnit. 

“And which conspicuous name are you using this time?” You tilted your head, chest already filled to the brim with barely contained rage. “Johnson? Perry? Oh, maybe it’s Plant! You always did have a hard-on for Zeppelin.” 

“Would you—” Dean cut himself off with a heavy sigh. “God, you’re so— You know, I don’t know how the hell I put up with you for so long.” 

“I guess I was just really good in bed,” you shrugged, a coy smirk playing on your lips. If this had been some post-hunt pub night years ago, Dean would’ve kissed that smirk right off your face. But it wasn’t. It was now, in Chicago, in a hotspot for shapeshifter activity and you hadn’t seen Dean’s face in so long that the presence of it now only made your blood boil. 

“Whatever. We’re both in this now, whether you like it or not.” 

“Like hell,” you nearly spat, finishing off your beer. “I work alone, Winchester. Or haven’t you heard?” 

“It’s funny that you think I still think about you.” Dean scoffed a laugh. “We might as well do this together. Shapeshifters, they’re tricky business.” 

“For you, maybe. Besides, taking on a shapeshifter in a group practically spells trouble. Ever since I left you guys, I’ve had no trouble taking them out on my own.” You shrugged, like it was no big deal. 

Dean huffed, suddenly frustrated at your vehement refusal to work together. “Look, if we don’t work together, we’re only gonna get in each other’s way. And you and I both know neither of us are just gonna give up the job. That’s not how we work.” 

“Why are you so insistent that I be anywhere near you, Dean?” You asked, dropping your angry mask and giving into the slight heartache behind it. “Because if I remember correctly, you were the one who wanted me gone.” 

Dean’s mouth opened and closed a few times, his mind fumbling for any response that he could save face with. His green eyes flashed with hurt, only to be swept away by his tired, nearly pleading puppy dog eyes — nowhere near as convincing as Sam’s, but you were the only person he was ever able to charm with them, anyway. “Because it’s safer, and you of all people should know that I’d never hang a hunter out to dry like that. Especially—” 

Dean cut himself off, his heart aching as he seemed, just for a moment, to forget what you two really were. Bitter exes with a taste for violence; proximal bombs so close to going off. If only you weren’t just that, then Dean would’ve said what was on his mind. Especially people I care about. Especially you. 

You eyed the elder Winchester wearily, his words scratching at the crumbling walls around your heart. You hated to admit it, but maybe, just this once, Dean Winchester was right. These past few years had been wearing you down, stripping your resolve down to nothing more than a single, solitary wall protecting the worst thing you could think of from reaching your heart. You were tired. More so than you were when Dean first suggested getting the hell out of hunting. Back when he suggested it for the both of you, and ideas of an apartment and a dog and a normal fucking job were included in hushed conversations before bed in a crappy motel. 

And then John Winchester sacrificed himself to save his son, and everything slipped out from underneath you. Because you knew the truth, long before Dean ever figured it out. John had told you himself — his final act, the only selfless thing he’d done for his boys. He begged you to get them out, told you that killing yellow eyes didn’t matter anymore. He just wanted his sons safe. And you couldn’t even do that. 

With a final sigh, a too-long look into Dean’s eyes, and the echo of John Winchester’s final words to you ringing in your ears, you conceded. “Fine. But if anything happens, Winchester, so help me—” 

“I know, you’ll kick my ass.” 

“Actually, I’ll key your car, but that works too.” 

Once you finally put all three of your heads together, it wasn’t difficult to find the shapeshifter’s central hiding spot. All of the locations it’d attacked at were no more than a 15-minute walk from an abandoned factory, which seemed to be the perfect spot. It irked you that you still didn’t know exactly how the shifter was picking and choosing its victims, but as long as it was dead before dawn broke, you would be content. 

So, loaded up with silver — a knife tucked up your sleeve and some handy silver bullets loaded into your pistol, you joined the Winchesters in hunting a monster for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. 

Your reunion with Sam was much more pleasant than your encounter with Dean, as the younger of the brothers had always had a soft spot for you. He considered you family well before Dean had even had the guts to ask you out, and he was just glad that you’d been staying safe during the years you spent apart. 

“So, what exactly are we doing?” You’d asked, leaning over the Impala’s front seat, eyeing both Winchesters like it was any other hunt. The ride up until then had been eerily quiet, no one speaking a word and no music playing, which was unusual for Dean. But that was only because the last cassette mix you’d made him was still in the player, and he refused to show any kind of weakness. To show you that he still kept some parts of you around.

“Factory’s pretty big, so we might have to split up for a bit, see what we can see.” Dean reminded you, sending you a cursory glance in the rearview mirror. 

You grimaced. “I don’t like the sound of that. A shifter could do anything with that kind of vulnerability between us.” 

“And it’ll take hours for us to find the damn thing and gank it if we all stick together,” Dean argued, gripping the wheel a little tighter. A sliver of moonlight glinted off a ring on his right ring finger, and you noticed absently that it was the one you’d gifted him for his birthday just before you’d broken up.

“And we won’t be able to gank it at all if it looks like one of us and then we all die, Dean!” You shot back, voice rising in volume. “I’ve done this enough to know that if we stick together, our chances are better.” 

“We’re splitting up and that’s final. I don’t like it either, but it’s our best shot at finding this thing. From what I know, it’s quicker than most shifters, and that means it’s more dangerous.” Dean reasoned, and you knew better than to keep fighting him on it. 

“Look,” Sam stepped in, turning to catch your gaze as you slumped back against the backseat. “It’ll be a lot quicker, but just in case something goes wrong, you shout. If you come across one of us and think it’s the shifter, pull your knife. It’s not the best, but Dean’s right, and it’s all we’ve got.” 

You merely huffed, silently conceding to the brothers’ plan and ignoring the twist in your gut. Your mind was practically screaming at you, begging you to get away from the Winchester brothers and complete this hunt on your own. You would’ve made an exception for them in any other case, if it has just been any other monster. But shapeshifters relied on groups. They relied on the connection between mimic and victim. And your connection to Dean alone was too big of a risk to take just to kill one stupid monster. 

But that monster had killed three people in the span of two weeks alone, and you would be damned if you let it kill anyone else. 

So, you tamped down the anxiety brewing in your gut and let the lull of the Impala bring you a comfort you’d been sorely missing over the past few years. Despite what you led others to believe, hunting by yourself was lonely. There was never any backup, and you could die at any given moment, but it was all you had left. You, your weapons, and the faith that you’d get lucky enough to live another day. 

You were living on luck, really. Luck and grit and hustling drunk guys at pool or poker. Always on the road, never sticking around, and never letting anyone get close. You’d tried it once with Dean, and all it got you was heartache. Hunting was the only thing left, and after all, violence was your preferred method of distraction. You remembered one of your first hunts after you and Dean had broken up — a particularly rowdy vamp nest in southern Oregon, hell bent on wreaking havoc on an entire town just to quell their bloodlust. You’d been too blinded by the idea of releasing your anger on them that you failed to see how big their nest truly was. All of them younger, more energised vampires than you were used to. They were quick, but you were far more skilled, and you’d almost had them all when one of them sideswiped you with a knife of its own, jamming between your ribs and leaving you nearly too weak to finish the rest off. But you’d done it anyway, before collapsing in the dirt outside. You thought you were going to die that night, bleeding out under a beautiful canopy of bright, white stars and a silver moon. And you would’ve gone willingly, with Dean as your last thought. Your last, heart wrenching, regretful thought. And then, with all the anger and willpower you could muster, you got back up. Because if there was one thing you would not do, it was die so young. So young and so unaccomplished and so unloved. And you would not let your last thoughts be of the man who so willingly pushed you out of his life to succumb to his grief, when all you had wanted to do was help him through it. 

The cut of the engine turning off pulled you from the depths of your mind, darkness enveloping you as the headlights ceased. Turning to the window, you glanced at the distant, towering factory. It was decrepit; all shattered windows and crumbling brick. Graffiti covered almost every surface, and you could see how it was the perfect space for a shapeshifter to lay low. 

Stepping outside, you re-checked all your weapons. The silver knife, still tucked in your sleeve. The gun, its magazine still loaded with silver bullets. Another knife, made of regular steel, tucked into your boot. It was an old switchblade, and had seen its fair share of kills over the years. One of the few things from Dean that you refused to part with, mostly due to how well it had served you in tight spots. 

The walk into the factory, armed to the teeth with knives and flashlights, was silent. You all knew the plan, what was to be done. Nothing else needed to be said. With a few nods and nudges, Dean directed you all to different areas of the sprawling, decrepit building. The top floors were mostly gone, and you could see right through the holes in the concrete above. It was mostly a maze of heavy machinery and different rooms, and before you knew it, you were walking carefully, all on your own, toward the backend of the building. You could no longer hear either of the Winchester brothers’ footfalls, and the lack of noise within the building put you on edge. You kept your eyes and ears sharp, ignoring the chill in the room and the way your heart hammered behind your ribcage. The last thing you needed was to slip up. To let the shifter get the jump on you in some way.

Your movements were precise as you swept through each room, gun in hand and flashlight sweeping across the dark factory, searching for any clue that could lead you closer to the shifter. It felt like hours had passed until you stumbled upon a mound of flesh and liquid, gagging as your light glinted off it. It seemed fresh, too, and you briefly wondered if the shifter was off torturing someone else in the city and this plan was now a bust. 

Then something scraped behind you, and you turned quickly, only to meet Dean’s squinting eyes. He was in different clothes, lacking a flashlight. 

“What happened to your clothes?” You asked, tone tight. 

“Covered in shifter juices. I had to change.” He huffed, already fed up. 

“Your flashlight?” You asked again. “Where is it?” 

“Battery died. I went looking for you when I got back inside. You were right, we should stick together.” Dean relented, and wearily, you nodded and lowered your gun, your grip on it still tight. You didn’t want to trust him, but it was Dean.

“Let’s go find Sammy and sweep back around. I think this thing’s bedroom might be nearby. If these things even have bedrooms.” 

Beside you, Dean scoffed a laugh. “Doubt it.”

You eyed him again, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. “Since when are you so chipper, Winchester? I thought you hated the sight of me.” 

“I don’t,” Dean shrugged simply, eyeing you quizzically when he caught your gaze. “What? I may not like you, but you’re right. Shifters ain’t fun going after alone, especially in a group.” 

“I know.” You said, your voice tight. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. But you kept yourself level. “That’s why I didn’t want either of you coming with me. But you just had to be persistent, didn’t you?” 

“Well, you know me,” Dean shrugged casually, turning down a hallway. 

“Yeah, I do know you.” You said, walking a bit faster to stop Dean in his tracks. Your eyeline lined up perfectly with his chest, and you did your best to remain calm as you gripped your gun tighter. “And I know damn well you wouldn’t go anywhere without your necklace. Not even if you changed your clothes during a hunt.” 

Dean looked down at you as though you were crazy, a hand coming up to grasp gently at your bicep. “What are you talking about? I left it in the car, I swear.” 

“Yeah, right.” You snipped, glancing down and finding the ring you gave him to be missing as well. “And your ring? The one you promised me you’d never take off? Where’s that?”

Not-Dean’s grip tightened on your arm, almost unbearably strong. He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Now why would I keep wearing my ex-girlfriend’s ring after not seeing her for two years, hmm? Did you really think you meant that much to me, sweetheart?” 

This wasn’t Dean. You knew it wasn’t. But the look in his eye was eerily similar to the one he gave you the day he forced you out of his life, and the words he spewed twisted the knife you didn’t know was still lodged in your beating, bleeding heart. 

In an instant, you raised the gun and attempted to step back, trying to aim and shoot as quickly as you could. But it got the jump on you, first, gripping the pistol’s barrel and striking your forearm, wrenching the gun from your grip and tossing it down the hall behind it. Immediately, you slid the knife out of your sleeve and into your palm, raising it to strike. The shifter blocked that movement, too, grabbing at your wrist as it began to arc downard, squeezing so hard that the knife clattered to the ground. You tried to fight back, but with its grasp on your raised arm and now the hand twisting painfully into your hair — a familiar feeling, now tainted with fear and pain and panic — made you practically useless. 

“Oh, sweet thing, I am just gonna love tearing you to pieces.” Not-Dean snarled, its sadistic smile churning your gut. You inhaled sharply, about to cry out, when it tugged on the roots of your hair, forcing a whimper from you, instead. “Not so fast, darling. We’re gonna have a little fun, just ourselves, before either of your boys can join in.” 

His voice was what you couldn’t comprehend. Sure, that last fight before you broke up was brutal; shouting and cursing each other out and saying things you weren’t sure either of you had meant to say, but this? Hearing him so easily speak about hurting you, like it was nothing, that was what you couldn’t bear. Even if it was the shifter. 

You looked around, finding quickly that you were in a rather secluded part of the building. The far right corner, judging by the window placements. There were beams and trolleys and pieces of equipment laying everywhere, coated in rust and god knows what else. Not-Dean guided you easily to an oddly clean chair in the room, and you sat down willingly, hoping and praying that one of the brothers would stumble upon you sooner rather than later. 

“Tsk, you’re such an obedient girl, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Not-Dean smirked. 

“Don’t call me that,” you growled, watching him lean down beside you and grab a long rope. 

“Right, because Dean was the only one you let use that nickname,” he nodded sarcastically. “Does it bother you? That I’m in his head, that I know what he thinks. That I have his face.” 

You shook your head as he wrapped the rope tightly around your wrists, pinning them behind the chair. “No. You’re just as big of an ass as he was. But you probably know that already, don’t you?” 

“I do,” not-Dean chuckled, tugging on the rope with the final knot to secure it before heading to your ankles. “In fact, I know everything he’s ever thought about you, sweetheart. And boy, you should hear some of the things he used to think about you.” 

“I’m good, actually. Thanks.” You grimaced, meeting not-Dean’s eyes as he smirked. He placed both hands on your knees, the warmth spreading through your jeans as he pushed himself up and dragged a trolley over to you. 

“Are you sure?” He asked, skimming over the items on the table. “He’s had some very naughty thoughts about you, Y/n. And recently, too. The things he wants to do to you…” Not-Dean tsked and shook his head, finally picking up a knife.

“Gonna cut me up with that little thing?” You smirked, watching the shifter consider it for a moment before putting the knife back down. 

He smirked and walked the short distance to come and stand before you, crouching to meet your eye level as he said, “I had something a bit more… tantalizing in mind.” Reaching into your boot, the shifter pulled your switchblade from where it hid. “Now this seems like a much better weapon, don’t you think?”

You stared at the folded switchblade, your heart thumping rapidly in your chest. Even after you and Dean broke up, that knife made you feel safe, tucked away in your boot. It had seen a lot of action since then as well, effectively protecting you from both monsters and drunkards on more than one occasion. 

The shifter opened the blade slowly, sliding it into its final position with an echoing click. He ran his finger across it first, examining its sharpness before turning his — Dean’s — emerald eyes to meet yours. Something sinister brewed among those sharp irises, teeming with hatred and some sick, twisted kind of pleasure. 

“Dear old Dean gave you this, didn’t he?” The thing smirked. “I’m sure you know why, right?” 

“To protect me.” You growled, shifting helplessly beneath the ropes. “From things like you.”

“This?” He scoffed a laugh. “No, this won’t hurt me. But I can’t wait to see what it does to you.” 

Not-Dean dug the tip of the knife into the space above your collarbone, hard enough to draw blood and drag it down your chest. You struggled to bite back a scream as he worked the metal down your skin, leaving behind a stinging gash when he finally pulled it back, his eyes shining with some sick sense of pride as he stared at it, at the blood dripping down into the valley of your chest. 

“I know you wanna scream, sweetheart,” Not-Dean taunted, his voice syrupy sweet and dripping with sadistic joy. He dipped his head closer, lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he spoke. “From what I’ve seen up here in this pretty little head, you’re quite the screamer, aren’t you?”

“Go fuck yourself,” you spat, face hardening as the shifter pulled back and stood to his full height. 

He wore the same, simmering rage that Dean often had before he ended things with you. The face he wore when you confronted him about his behavior, the one he wore before he punched Sam for bringing John up in the first place. It sent a strike of fear through your chest, barely concealed behind your hardened features. 

You watched it turn into a smirk as he twirled the blade expertly between his fingers, lips pursing and eyes squinting as they raked over your form, as though deciding what to do with you next. Like he had all the time in the world to figure out how to hurt you the most. 

“You wanna know something?” Not-Dean asked suddenly, throwing you off. “Something… secret?”

“Why do I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me no matter what I say?” You glared. 

Not-Dean laughed. “Smart girl! Right on the money.” He smiled, resting his palms on his knees as he bent slightly to reach your eye level. “See, I know something you don’t,” 

You remained quiet, hard eyes watching his every move. 

“Remember all those naughty little thoughts I said Dean has about you?” He didn’t wait for a response as he sighed and straightened up. “Well… he has them all the time. In fact, he pretty much thinks about you 24/7. It’s… well, it’s pathetic.” 

Not-Dean spat, his face turning hard and angry again as he sighed. “It’s like you’re on a loop in his head. Everywhere poor Dean looks, there’s something to make him think of you. Such a shame he was the one to push you away, isn’t it? I mean, you are quite the looker.”

You growled as he whistled lowly, his grip tightening on the knife as he stalked closer to you. He brought it to your cheekbone this time, smirking to himself as it dug into the flesh and sliced quickly. You hissed at the sting, feeling the blood trickle down to the corner of your mouth, the cool air of the factory soothing the cut slightly. 

“It’s quite a shame that I want to ruin that pretty face of yours so much,” the shifter pouted mockingly, rearing back and landing a punch to your already injured cheek, throwing your head completely to the side. It took you entirely by surprise, a small grunt falling from your lips as you clenched your jaw and tried to hide the pain. 

You swallowed hard when you hung your head and saw your blood staining his knuckles — Dean’s knuckles. And then he laughed, the way Dean used to when you’d make some corny joke that caught him off guard, and your throat went dry. 

“Tired already, sweetheart?” Not-Dean chuckled, gripping tightly to the hair at the back of your scalp and pulling hard, forcing a yelp from you as he forced your gaze to meet his. “Better make this quick, then, shouldn’t we? After all, those Winchester boys can’t search this building and not find us. And I want you looking nice and broken when they do.” 

You swallowed down as many of your cries as you could for the following beat down you received. Slashes with your own knife across most accessible expanses of skin, punches and hits everywhere else. Your lip was split open, tinging your spit with the never-ending taste of copper. 

“If you’re gonna kill me,” you gasped, chest heaving as blood trailed down the side of your neck. “Just fucking get it over with.” 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Not-Dean pouted with a shrug. “Besides, it’s not just you I want to hurt.” 

Hurt pulled at your chest as your eyes met his, the realization swimming behind your wide eyes. He didn’t just want to hurt you, to break you however else you could still be broken after everything else you’ve been through. The shifter wanted to hurt Dean. It wanted to break him. 

“Hurting me won’t do anything to him.” I scowled despite my bruised and bloody face. “He’s the one that pushed me away, remember? You saw that, didn’t you? In his head?”

“Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said?” The shifter scowled back, his voice low and rough, the way Dean usually sounded during hunts. “Dean still loves you. Hell, he never stopped, sweetheart. He’s too headstrong to admit it, but he is. And seeing you like this, all broken and bloody because he didn’t listen to you, because he just couldn’t stay away… that’ll kill him from the inside.” 

“You’re wrong,” you rasped, swallowing your tears with a pained gasp. “Dean Winchester doesn’t love me anymore. And killing me sure as shit won’t do anything to hurt him.” 

The shifter growled, the sound low and deep in his chest as he gripped the back of your neck, forcing you to look at him as he inched closer. For a moment, his attention was caught by something else, and then his lips upturned in that sadistic smirk. “Looks like we’re about to find out, sweetheart.” 

With swift movements, the shifter cut your ties and hauled you from the chair by your forearm, his solid, familiar chest pressed to your back and his own forearm pressing you to him by the neck. Your hands came up to claw at his arm immediately, digging in but getting nowhere as you squirmed against his tight hold.

Almost instantly, Sam and Dean charged into the room from the door you stood parallel to, guns and knives drawn, pointed at you and the shifter. 

Dean’s wide eyes looked from the shifter, the spitting image of himself, then to you. He hoped you could see how sorry he was. The plea to forgive him for not listening to you, for letting you get hurt because of his stubbornness filling his beautiful green eyes to the brim. 

And you did. You forgave him the moment he first pushed you away, even if you didn’t want to admit it for a very long time. You made sure to tell him that with a single nod, just as the shifter adjusted his hold on you and smirked. 

“Well, well, just in time, boys,” he said, pressing his arm a little further into your neck and forcing a choked sound from your throat. “So glad you could make it for the main event of the night.” 

“Let her go.” Dean barked, adjusting the hold he had on his gun and aiming it right at the shifter. 

Not-Dean scoffed. “Please, Dean, put that thing down. I know you’re not gonna shoot me when I have her in my way. She’s very useful, you know. Human shield, a fun little plaything… I can see why you kept her around for so long.” 

When no one spoke, not-Dean hummed approvingly. “Exactly. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this over with.” 

Your mind didn’t process what happened until it was already over. 

A small flash of steel below you, cutting into your tank top and piercing up through your ribs, digging deep into your flesh. The release of your body from the shifter’s hold, and the way your body immediately crumpled to the floor. One shout and three shots ringing out above you, the shifter falling in a heap no more than five feet from you. 

You coughed, sputtering, as you lay there on the concrete. Something dug into your torso with every breath, filling your chest with pain and warmth and something you couldn’t breathe through. 

Dean was at your side in an instant, one hand cupping the back of your head as he pulled you into his lap, shushing the pained groans and whimpers that fell from your lips with a shaking voice. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered, eyes flicking to the knife — the knife he gave you — wedged under your ribcage, blood already pooling out of the wound. “Hey. You’re gonna be alright, okay? We’re gonna get you some help.” 

“Dean,” you choked out, breaths rasping and wheezing and taking more effort than they ever have before. Something copper coated your lips, your teeth — it was everywhere. You knew what it meant, and from the look on Dean’s face, he did, too. “I’m s— I’m sorry,” 

“Hey, hey, don’t,” Dean shook his head, his beautiful emerald eyes filling with tears. “Don’t say that. This isn’t your fault. You’re gonna make it out of this.” His head snapped up for a moment, eyes catching on something you couldn’t see. “Sammy! Help us!” 

“D—” you cut yourself off with another cough, blood pooling in your mouth and splattering all over your lips. Glancing down at the knife, you reached with shaking fingers to grasp at it, to press your hand over whatever part of the wound you could reach, coating your palm with blood. “Dean,” 

His eyes snapped to meet yours in an instant. “Yeah? Sweetheart, what is it?” 

Grunting, you moved your hand to the handle of the switchblade, Dean protesting above you as you shakily removed it with a pained sound, the metal clattering to the floor beside you. Dean’s hand covered the wound as it poured blood, the liquid coating his hand almost immediately. It stained the hem of his jacket sleeve and spilled between his fingers as they clamped over the wound, tinging his silver ring red. 

“‘M gonna be okay,” you wheezed, nodding slowly as you kept your gaze on Dean. 

“I know,” he nodded back, his voice tight with emotion as he locked eyes with you. “I know, sweetheart.” 

“I…” you gasped, finding words harder to speak, your body harder to move. Your mind swam, and you knew your time was limited. “I love you.” 

Dean made a choked sound as he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, tears sliding down his cheeks, and all you wanted to do was wipe them away. 

With the little strength left in you, you reached your bloody palm up to his cheek and did exactly that. The featherlight touch forced Dean’s eyes open, his body shuddering as he breathed in and you forced your hand to stay on his warm cheek. 

“This isn’t…” you choked, and Dean shushed you. 

“Save your energy, sweetheart. Help’s coming any minute now,” he nodded softly. 

You pushed, anyway. “This isn’t… not your fault,” you shook your head, the movement jerking and slow as you practically forced breath into your lungs. Each new breath was unsteady and wheezing, harder to take in than the last. 

Dean choked out a sob, leaning over your body and pressing a kiss to your forehead as your hand fell from his face. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You can let go now. You’re safe.” 

“I…” you rasped, the words dying on your tongue as the last of your fight dissipated, leaving Dean on the floor of the factory to cradle your limp body close to his as he finally broke, his sobs and cries echoing around the room. 

Sam arrived moments later, his shoulders deflating and his heart aching at the sight of Dean. He’d never seen his older brother so broken, so willingly displaying his emotions as he held you, your body cold and pale in his arms as he rocked you. 

The shifter had, in the end, succeeded. Part of Dean died with you that night, hatred and regret filling the gaping hole within him. He knew nothing else would ever try to fill it again, and a large part of him never wanted it to be filled. He wanted to sit with the hurt for the rest of his life, because it was what he believed he deserved. 

You had gone willingly in his arms, a final admission of love dying on your tongue, leaving behind an ache Dean knew would never be soothed. Because, despite everything he’d done to you, somehow, you still loved him. 

If there was one thing Dean Winchester was full of, after all, it was regret.

everything taglist: @mazerunnerrose @theboldandthebootyful @miraclesoflove @heliads

dean winchester taglist: @theweasleyslut @johnmurphyisqueer @thanossexual @dryyoursaltyoceantears @prettypychoinpink @whitemanshoe19 @allinfangirl @sunsetcurvej @killerqueenfan @justthatfangirloverthere @cadencebeat2662 @jamespotterslover @yagorlemmalyn @mariecoded @aunicornmademedoit @bloodyxheaven @weasleystwinswife @mrspeacem1nusone @jessimay89 @supernaturallydc @navs-bhat @xoxabs88xox @unic0rntaking0ver17645 @adhdhufflepuff @erospecies @imabee-oralizard @ellablossom @ajordan2020 @lunepoesie @multitasking44 @alexxavicry @avabh12

(taglists open!)

[fridaysmind]

I'm loving your yan!starscream so much!!!! I love the way you write star's pov of the situation And oooo reader reminding him of someone he knows??? Sweet!!! Can't wait for chapter 2 !💗💗

Yandere!Starscream x Autobot!Reader

Chapter 2

(Chapter 1 is here)

TYSM!!💗💗 GN!Reader; Obsession; A departure from the canon I'm not a native speaker! TW! PTSD; Religiosity; Fighting; Memories of war

You rub the back of your head, gently touching the sore spot where the Doctor had stabbed you. Ratchet is clearly wasting his cybernerves, you were acting strictly Autobot code. Yes, the weapon pointed at your faceplate was not a pleasant circumstance on Starscream's part, but you did your job and healed the wounded mech! But it didn't hurt any less...

When you leave the medbay, the rest of the team already knows why you've earned their doctor's disfavor. Bumblebee and Arcee laughed at you for managing to waste their resources and not even getting anything of value in return. It's not out of spite, you know they're good guys and marvelous warriors, but the taunts made the optic itself droop with shame. You discreetly leave to come to your senses and relax after a hard shift. Another evening at the Autobot base goes smoothly.

***

It was hard to reload, though it was one of the few nights he'd had without nightmares. There were no gunshots, no smell of burnt metal, no huge gray hands trying to rip his spark out of his breastplates, but he was haunted by something else, something new. Strange thoughts, desires, and a feeling of lack of something were flowing through his status reports, and it was getting tiresome.

Starscream devoted many hours after his sluggish awakening to searching for any information about you. Your photos, documents, and any available wartime reports where you were even briefly mentioned were downloaded onto the abandoned ship's occasionally hovering computer.

Nothing.

It was obvious that you were the problem, you did something. But nowhere is there anything even slightly suggestive of the possibility of hypnosis or any other mind subjugation on your part. In the empty room, Starscream nodded to himself. No doubt, while you were treating him, you injected something his sensors didn't recognize or discreetly implanted a chip.

How could he have fallen for such a simple trick, would you really have treated him without asking for something in return, while making small talk? No, of course not. Even if you're an “honorable” autobot, it's not something anyone on your team would do. But he's smarter than that, and he'll make you make things right.

As he finished his thoughts, Starscream received a new alert about the hull's running out of energon.

Once again, the search for energon stretched on for far too long, and the soiled seeker felt his irritation growing more and more. Piece by piece, the sky-blue crystals, so beautiful in the hungry's eyes, had accumulated in sufficient quantity to allow him to live a little longer.

Is this it? The life he deserved? Digging up scraps, making ends meet? Is this what he came all this way for? Sleepless cycles in the academy, research, the fall of Vos and the many sacrifices, this was not the life he had dreamed of...

A noise outside distracted him from his thoughts. The sounds of blows that had already embedded themselves into the deepest parts of his helmet had become not just familiar, but the only sound he could distinguish from a great distance without a hitch. Every inch of his body tensed.

And dust, dust, dust. Dust from what used to be life. There's so much of it, it's impossible to ventilate in peace. The pain in the helmet, the pain outside, the pain inside. The smell of death and melting, the smell of dead hopes. Nothing sacred left in any of them.

With a wave of his helmet, Starscream shakes off his panic and cautiously approaches the exit, watching the two warriors dancing in battle. Breakdown and... that green one... Clawed into each other. Why here? Why right now? Mech prayed that he could get past those two and go unnoticed.

As he worked out the perfect escape plan, Starscream noticed the swarming to the side. Just a fraction of a second, and he rushed faster than lightning in your direction, dropping almost every resource as you tried to dig into the hard ground behind the vegetation.

With a snarl, he literally slams into your body, and both of your frames fall with inertia, sliding down the slope. His fingers around you unclench, in an attempt to stop the motion, and you brake on the flat surface almost at the cliff's edge.

“Are you out of your mind?” the grill in your helmet spits out the ground with a jet of air as you rise, yelling at him.

“Quite possibly, and you're responsible for it!”

Abruptly, Breakdown's body flies out from behind the trees, falling right on top of the two of you, interrupting the dialog, forcing you to run to the cobblestones to one side. The Decepticon lands with a lurch and the surface beneath you shakes from his weight. Even though he has noticed the other two cybertronians, he pays no attention, trying to get up and continue the fight.

Cooling the processor you turn to the seeker with an angry face, but he speaks first:

“What did you inject me with?” and in response to his question you only squint in incomprehension.

“Huh?”

“Don't play dumb, bot, I know you did something!"Starscream yells and there's no more energy to keep from rolling your eyes in annoyance.

“Suppose, just suppose I genuinely don't know what you mean.”

“You injected or sewed something into my protoform, you idiot. I can't sleep because of you, I can't work because of you, it's like I'm losing touch with my frame because I don't feel it-”

Some object flew over your helmets so close that you pressed your palm against his forehead reflexively and pressed his back into the stone.

Time around him seemed to slow down, the frightening sound of battle fading into the farthest background, almost subsiding. A single touch made a current run through all the circuits and the scarlet optics go out as he exhaled and lowered his twitching wings in pleasure. The heaviness, the doubt, everything leaves his helmet with that long exhale and the realization almost blinds his mind. The mech slowly shifts his gaze to the Autobot that, turned to him by the back of the head, barely peeks out from its general hiding place.

As if seeing you for the first time, as if he hadn't been looking at images of you all morning, he scrutinizes every little thing, every notch and detail.

The sacred writings of Vos insisted that one day, when all things on Cybertron were dark, someone unremarkable would appear. A seemingly ordinary formers would change history and bring forth a new age. Starscream buzzed all the audiosensors to his trine, truly believing that it was the eloquent silver miner who fit all the verses of the ancient book. And they trusted him.

For nothing, as it turned out.

It took a long time for any faith in the warlord's chosenness was wiped away. The energon of the innocent bots and cons had become embedded in every atom of the frame and was ghosted even after a trip to the washrooms. But what was the point of stopping, it would never get cleaner. Where is it, the promised victory and the new age of Cybertron?

But the momentary touch of your limbs made the spark calm down. He felt the wounds deep within his essence suddenly heal. Thoughts circulating over and over, Starscream grinned to himself.

“Is this a hint from the sky after all?” he says the words very quietly, you don't even turn in his direction and he clenches his long claws around your wrist.

Your body jumps at the unexpected touch and you turn sharply toward the mech, and the one without raising his optics at you, absolutely suddenly presses the back of your palm against his own cheek.

Not quite sure how to react, your gaze runs all over the landscape ahead, back to the blissfully sighing seeker, and nervously moves to the landscape again.

“Remember what we discussed yesterday? About the end of the war?”

Oh, yeah, you remember. For a moment, you thought Starscream was just a former like the rest of you, desperate to just go home and get on with normal active. You nod, hoping he sees the movement of your helmet. Seeker continues:

“He's not going to agree, yeah? All he wants is more wrecks and won't stop until he loses everything...”

“Are you sure you're in an adequate state?” you turn to him with a question. Silence in response. The Seeker let go of your limb and suddenly began to rise.

“Yes, now I do.” Starscream sounded so confident and calm now, as if he wasn't the one who'd recently screamed at you like a hysterical, toppling you down a slope.

“So many millions of years I was blind, and then ashamed of my own blindness, trying to forget everything and at least just crawl to the end of this horror.” the seeker paid no attention to your faceplate wrinkled in incomprehension of what was happening. “I will not miss that sign. The end of all things must come!”

He suddenly swiped the tips of his claws across the top of your head and, just like last time, transformed and soared into the sky.

*** “And then he said he had to end it all. Whatever that means...”

“It can't mean anything good a priori” Arcee, shakes her head unhappily and you agree with her opinion.

After your story, the whole team murmurs in thought and only Ratchet turns from the monitor to face you all for the first time ever.

“Let's hope he ends it all by shooting himself in the helmet.” the silence in the room became extremely loud after his phrase. Even the humming of electricity stopped for a while. Everyone on the base, including the children, looked at the medic in amazement, and the medic looked back at everyone in confusion.

“What other options are there?” the doctor tried to defend himself. “He's not going to act like a hero and win the war single-handedly just because something stung his helmet, is he?”

You shrug and the others continued to think, putting forward possible options, but their words were no longer reaching your audiosensors.

Thoughts of everything that was happening swirled and swirled in your processor, never stopping for a second. The team had only heard about the whole situation, but they hadn't seen it. They don't know how strangely insane Starscream's optics have become.

[lxkeee]

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

-PART SIX

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Seraphim Angel! Fem! Reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Genre: Angst (for now)

Warnings: Depression, swearing and mentions of self h*rm.

Notes: shit is about to go down.

PART ONE | PART FIVE | PART SEVEN | NAVIGATION

“I don't understand Michael sometimes, I guess it runs in the blood.” The angel of death muttered underneath his breath, Azrael sighs, running his hand through his dark black locks, feeling the soft strands of his hair in-between his fingers. He is annoyed, annoyed at how Michael didn't leave any room for [Y/n] to say no. Sure, Michael did make a bargain that if she wins rock-paper-scissors against him, he'll change his decision but [Y/n] sucks at rock-paper-scissors so she didn't have any chance of winning in the first place. Well, he guessed that this is Michael's way of winning against [Y/n] as the man is absolute shit when it comes to Monopoly.

Azrael is confused, why does Michael want [Y/n] to see her good for nothing husband? Azrael asked him about it and the man just told him to trust him, as it is what their dear creator has told him. He is confused why Michael is really pushing [Y/n] to see his twin brother. Azrael asked the man about it and he just looked away with a sad smile. Azrael knew how much it affected Michael that his twin brother was casted out of heaven. Despite him being one of the angels who voted for him to be casted out. Azrael knew how much of a tough decision Michael made. But still,

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Azrael trusts God on his decision but he doesn't know if the outcome of this will be good, Azrael has been by [Y/n]'s side ever since Lucifer was being a neglectful asshole and he heard that the fallen angel got married again when in hell. How is he going to accept that his dear friend is going to get hurt again? Azrael knows how much pain Lucifer caused [y/n], how much pain it brought to Xavier. Goodness! He saw the poor boy trying to stab his own face with his own angelic weapon, thankfully he was there to stop him.

Azrael's shoulders slumped, already feeling more stressed than usual. He is worried, so worried about [Y/n]'s mental state as he knows how fragile it is. He knows how much shit she's going through, she's constantly trying to help cleanse earth from the constantly growing evil while maintaining to be kind and to add more to her plate, she has a son to take care of and now... She's about to take care of whatever the fuck is happening on hell?

His feet quickened its pace, speed walking the long hallways of the Seven Heavenly Virtues building, trying to reach [Y/n]'s floor and office, he would've immediately checked up on her after the meeting but he had some important matters to deal with and he prays that the poor girl didn't have a mental breakdown again. Which somehow, he feels like she already did. He hopes that he's wrong though.

His heels clicked against the gold marbled white tiles, rays of sunlight passing through the curtains giving the hallway an orange glow from the setting sun.

He finally reached her office, knocking against the wooden door. No answer. He sighs rather loudly. He knocks again. No answer.

“[Y/n]? It's me, Azrael. Are you alright?” He asked softly, pressing his ear against the door to listen if she answered him. None. He became worried.

Grabbing the spare key that he has—he has a key to everyone's room and office, don't ask how and why he has them. Anyways, inserting the key to the lock, twisting it and he finally heard the satisfying click.

He quickly pushed open the door, his worried and tensed shoulders relaxing once he finally saw her, asleep on her desk. Her head on the table, her body slouched uncomfortably.

He could see the tear stains on her cheeks, golden blood from her fingers. A rather bad habit of hers, she tends to pick the skin off the side of her nails when she's stressed and sometimes causes it to bleed.

Azrael smiled softly, allowing himself inside her office. He closed and locked the door behind him before he tiptoed across the room and finally beside her.

He kneeled down beside her so he's now face-to-face to her. Azrael admired her sleeping face, he loves it when she's at peace like this. He wants her to be happy. His eyes saddened, oh how he wished to give her the happiness she deserves. But it's truly unfortunate that she doesn't love him the same way he loves her.

Always the side character, never the romantic interest.

With a sigh, he gently lifted her up from her seat. Carrying her in his arms like a bride that he'll never have the chance to call as his.

[Y/n] groans when she felt that she was lifted off from her chair, she opened one to look at the person who woke her up. She saw Azrael looking down on her with an amused smirk.

“Come on, let's get you back to your room. You need some rest.” he says softly to her and she just groaned and he chuckled. A black and gold portal opened behind them and Azrael stepped inside with [Y/n] in his arms. The portal closed after they went in.

Azrael opened the portal back to her house and back to her room, he gently laid her on the bed. Making sure she didn't lie on her hair. Tucking her in comfortably.

“I don't know what I'll do without you, Azi... I wished that I could've loved you instead. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.” she whispered, her voice breaking. She really wished that she fell in love with Azrael, he treated her and Xavier far better than Lucifer does but her heart remained still with Lucifer. [Y/n] I'm right here in front of you, always loving you but why do you continue to love a man that is far away from you and probably doesn't give two shits about you and your son? Please give me a chance and I'll worship you to the point it'll put my faith in God to shame.

Azrael's eyes softened, a forced smile on his face. He tucks away a strand of her hair that is falling in front of her face, tucking it behind her ear. I really wished that too, I can treat you far better than him, is what he thought but decided not to say, “Don't apologize sweetheart, you really can't force a heart to reciprocate someone's feelings, no? And I can understand that. How about you take some rest and clear your mind hmm?” he suggested softly with a small smile, wiping away the tear that runs down her cheek. [Y/n] nodded, hiccuping slightly before eventually closing her eyes.

She was fast asleep the moment she did.

Azrael smiled and sighed, turning around on his heel as he walked out of her room, closing the door behind him. Walking away from someone he's not meant to be with. He just hoped that whatever God is doing is right.

Time flew by so quickly that [Y/n] didn't even notice, she was far too busy dealing with both Heavenly and Mortal realm matters. The root of evil is constantly growing and getting even more powerful on earth and the Seven Heavenly Virtues are trying to contain it. All seven of them were exposed to such horrors and so much evil while on earth, slowly threatening to consume them or even corrupt them.

[Y/n] limped back to her office in heaven, golden blood flowing off her side. She just finished her work on earth, she was trying to cleanse a root of evil when it suddenly changed direction and changed its direction towards her in immense speed and causing it to pierce her side. She managed to cut it down but the negativity from the root seeped into her wound, causing her healing powers to slow down.

She winced as she finally slumped down into her seat, hovering her hand over her wound, a golden glow radiating from her palm. The wound slowly closed, but not fully but enough that she can bandage it up. But the healing took too much of her energy and she felt she was about to pass out.

She opened one of the drawers of her desk, pulling out a medical kit and began treating her wounds. She winced as she tried to clean it. After so much struggle, she finally cleaned her wound.

[Y/n] leaned against her chair, almost passing out when her eyes landed on to the calendar that is in her office. Her eyes widened, “Today is the extermination day?!” she shrieked and quickly stood up from her seat, she hissed as pain quickly shot from her waist all throughout her body. She gripped into the table, her nails scratching the wood.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck... I forgot about that.” she muttered, trying to stabilize herself, “I hope I can stop Adam and the exorcists..” she muttered, pain still evident in her voice. Running her hands through her hair. Gripping into her locks in frustration.

Ah crap, I hope I don't pass out. She thought as she weakly opens a portal to hell. Composing herself before finally stepping inside the portal.

The first thing she noticed is Adam spewing out shit from his mouth, the hotel she heard about now destroyed, exorcists killing sinners. Anger fills her veins, her six wings puffing behind her and along with multiple eyes opened on her wings. She's beyond pissed, the audacity these angels have to perform an act without notice from the higher ups. Without thinking she summoned her second angelic weapon, a bow and arrow. Aiming it just beside Adam—a warning shot. Successfully catching his and the other's attention.

“Adam, respectfully please shut your mouth!” She ordered, her voice booming, glaring down on the people on the ground, specifically at the first man. She's far too angry to keep her attention on the back of her husband or ex-husband. There's a limit to how much an angel of kindness and healing can take, and unfortunately for Adam, this is Angel Raphael's breaking point.

“Because if you don't, I will personally kill you myself.” She sneered, her hand clenching tightly on to her bow, her fingers itching to fire another arrow and just finish the man.

“No... You don't get to end this.” Adam growled in pain, weakly standing up from the rubble of where he crashed, “I'm fucking Adam! I'm the fucking man!” he yelled, turning to look at Lucifer in anger, “And you're just some fucking clown or something!” Adam growled and Lucifer just stared at the man with a deadpan expression, not really paying attention.

“I started everything on earth! All of mankind came from these fucking nuts!” Adam exclaimed. They just stared at the man who's clearly pissed at the fact he lost.

Suddenly, an arrow shot just beside Adam, barely missing the first man. The golden arrow embedded on to the ground. Silence, as people were filled with awestruck. Adam was filled with fear.

“Adam, respectfully please shut your mouth!” A female voice boomed, her powerful and authoritative voice echoing in to the air. Goosebumps danced across Lucifer's skin, he knows that voice. The very voice that he didn't hear for so many years, the voice that kept haunting him. The haunting and guilt worsened after Charlie told him he had a son in heaven.

They turned around and looked up at the sky to see a very furious seraphim glaring down on them—specifically on the first man, Adam.

Lucifer's eyes were glued on her, she's so close yet so far away.

He admired her angelic form, he can practically feel her authority and power from where he stood. Despite all of this, despite how absolutely terrifying she looked. Her beauty never really scared him. She looked as beautiful as the day he lost her when he fucked up.

“Because if you don't, I will personally kill you myself.” [Y/n] added, her eyes glaring down on Adam, her power and strength can be felt through the air and they can tell that she is absolutely furious.

“Oh shit.” Adam muttered underneath his breath. His boss' boss is here.

END NOTES: SURPRISE UPDATE 🤯🤯 ANYWAYS, AZRAEL STANS HOW ARE WE FEELING TONIGHT?

TAGLIST I:

@valerie-36 @blackbleedingrose @adaizel @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @thedarkkitten @selvyyr @froggybich @brithedemonspawn @kottenox @totallymitya @many-fandoms-lover @dou-dou @mezzyb0nb0n @n1chxyaaenthusiast @cherry-4200 @koirb @galaxyj3lly @crystalplays28 @luleck @scootinonyourmom @rory-cakes @mixplara @crescent-z @bitchyzombienacho @kalisha2004 @altervex @nehy019 @napbatata @kouyoumarryme @sxgacxbe @kooidoom @ok-boke @random-3455 @izzieg3987 @snoozewritezz @dreamzaremyrealityy @hcneyiced @witchbunny1210 @ghostdoodlen @aikobakugou @just-here-reading @dzhanett-blog @des-deswain5621 @cocomollo @haleypearce @onyxstarhigh06 @nirvana5874 @shaebutter-baby

[fenrysmoonbeamswife]

Masterpost #1

Topic: Cassian is an abusive bastard

- Told Nesta everyone hates her

- Told her he couldn't understand why her sisters loved her

- Harassed her even when she continuously told him to leave her alone

- Followed her home

- Locked her up and acted as her jailer. Forced her to train as a warrior because she was using sex as a coping mechanism and proceeded to abuse that coping mechanism and have sex with her when she was at her most emotionally vulnerable

- Had sex with her at a time he had so much authority over her he dictated what she ate

- Purposely had Azriel pack a heavy bag so she would physically suffer on the hike

- Didn't stand up for her or even blink when Rhysand threatened to kill her

- Realized she was suicidal and continued to force her on a hike with lethal drops and didn't bother to look back at her for hours and days until she fainted

- Didn't tell her that Feyre wasn't angry with her anymore, leaving her in mental agony for days

- Forced her to physically exert herself while simultaneously using mental abuse until she collapsed physically and had a complete mental breakdown

- Had sex with her after her mental breakdown as some sort of reward for finally breaking for him

- Sexualized her and focused on her boobs after pointing out that she was emaciated from not eating because she was so depressed

- Used her fathers death against her because she *checks notes* wouldn't eat her plain oatmeal

- Put hands on her directly after finding out about Tomas and wouldn't let go until she physically hurt him the only way she could

- Planned for 10 minutes how to rile her up and argue with her and then villainized her

- He has built their entire relationship on spite, he treats her like an obligation something broken he needs to fix but never with understanding or empathy. Something that was forced on him pursued her against her will while ignoring her boundaries. Their entire relationship is based on power plays and asserting dominance over her

- Borderline violent and degrading sex with no aftercare while she is at her lowest

- Using her body to calm his own frustrations while blatantly ignoring her emotional state

- Emotional manipulation. He consistently uses her vulnerability against her, pushes her to get better on his terms while simultaneously throwing her failures in her face, making her feel unworthy, abusing her coping mechanisms, laughing at her pain. Perpetuating that she is only worthy if she falls in line with what he and the IC want from her. He consistently attempts to mold her into being someone more palatable (Feyre) rather than accepting who she is and helping her for who she is

- He contributes directly to her ultimate breakdown. He does nothing to help when she's quite literally begging for support and even goes so far as to worsen her situation repeatedly

- Villainizing her even when she's being perfectly placid. Eg. During the solstice scene she is pleasant, she wishes Feyre HB, thanks Elain for her gifts profusely, speaks nicely with Azriel, sits back and allows them to exchange gifts without interfering (though they forced her to be there and got her nothing), kisses Elain fondly before leaving, she mostly just sits their the entire time and Cassians POV afterwards?? "He'd had enough of the coldness, the sharpness. Enough of the sword straight spine and sharp stare." Not that she was blackmailed into coming, ignored all night and had gifts flaunted in front of her and was STILL pleasant

- Agreed with Mor when she equated Nesta with her borderline evil abusers. AND thought about how he was blown away by Mor's beauty while she sat there saying that Nesta should be tortured in a dungeon

- Affirmed her insecurities every chance he could

- Heard about how she was groomed and preyed on at 14 and made it about himself

- Judged her for being a child and not parenting another child the first second he met her even though she allowed him into her home

- Sees how strong her emotions are for others and then later claims that "she barely seems to care about anyone other than Elain"

- Laughs when she falls down the stairs, she has bruises and a black eye from this fall

- Doesn't correct her when she voices her feeling that she isn't good enough for him and doesn't deserve him

- Laughs behind her back that Rhysand is happy she will hate the hike

- She collapses every day on the hike and never speaks and all he says is "at least remove the pack so I can cook myself dinner"

- Works her to the point of literally fainting face first and he yells at her

- When she breaks down finally and tells him how much she hates herself, he tells her how much he loves Rhysand

- Claims there is nothing broken to be fixed yet he forces her to obey him and change everything about herself and behave in the way he approves of

- When she attempts to be open and communicative with him and explains how mate doesn't mean to her what it means to him because she's still human at heart he dismisses her and says it's bullshit

- When she calls in her bargain he doesn't respect it and immediately thinks of a way to get around it. He does not respect her or the boundaries she attempts to set. She says she wants a week alone yet he shows up the very next day and acts like she just wasn't clever enough to evade him

- While she is terrified and hoping he will come rescue her from the blood rite he says he even if he could he wouldn't

- He never says I love you NOT ONCE

- When Rhysand yells at and threatens Nesta for helping Bryce, Cassian does not defend her and even joins in and snarls at her

- Says he can take whatever she throws at him and then literally two seconds later he fucks her out of it for saying something mildly rude about Rhysand

The fact that I could keep going and going but I'm just too angry. Cassian sucks and anyone who likes him is perpetuating the forgiveness of abusive men. I don't care if he is a fictional character, he is a carbon copy of real life abusive men and the support of him and blatant ignoring of his abuse is disgusting and harmful. I'm sorry but anyone who claims to love Nesta but loves Cassian?? Uh YA LYING. If your best friend or your mother was being treated the way Cassian treats Nesta would you be happy with their relationship? I don't think so.

Inspired by @kataraavatara because she slays

[dadupbuck]

April bookmarks wrap up!

First post with the new username! (Used to be evanbuckleyrecs)

Here are all the 911 fics I bookmarked in April :) the order is from most recently read to the beginning of the month

If you're the author or any of these fics, let me know and I'll add a tag :) however tumblr keeps removing tags in my posts randomly

WARNING: some summaries may have spoilers for 8b. In the 'tag' part I'm putting when fics take place or were published. If you're avoiding spoilers, check that before reading the summary!

Don't let the tide rush over and wash us away by writerforlife

Buddie, Buddie & Chris | rated M | 23,8K | 3 chapters | 2022, post s5 | angst, buck breakdown, ptsd, happy ending

* TW frequent mention of canon past suicide attempt (Maddie) and suicidal thoughts

Buck develops a relationship with the ocean, avoids talking about the day Eddie was shot, realizes he might be in love, and drives.

Order may vary.

(a fic for the "Buck is going to break all the way down in season 6" truthers)

Can't leave me alone by 42hrb

Buddie | rated E | 3,3k | roommates, minor spoilers until 8x14, first time, accidental voyeurism, fluff and smut |

“There wasn’t a line at the DMV, it was a miracle. I —” The words die on Eddie’s lips as he takes in the scene in front of him, his eyes go wide and his mouth drops open, a flush spreads over his cheeks.

Buck must look a fucking sight and he knows it, his face hot with a mix of shame and arousal. He can’t look at Eddie, not when he’s still got a fucking dildo buried in his ass. Not when his cock is fucking leaking against his stomach. Not when looking at Eddie might be what sends him tipping over the edge, so Buck carefully looks at the wall behind him instead. “Y-you’re not supposed to be home yet."

“The DMV didn’t have a line,” Eddie says again, taking a step into the room instead of turning around like Buck is expecting him too. If Eddie leaves Buck can take the dildo out of his ass and they can maybe pretend this never happened, or at the very least ignore it for 6 to 12 months, until it’s funny to joke about.

Face the burnin' heat by EiraLloyd @unlifeira

Buddie | rated T | 2k | post 8x15 | funeral, tommy kinard bashing, pre-relationship Buddie, grief/mourning

* Warning: main character death

At Bobby's funeral, Buck witnesses Eddie punching Tommy right after Tommy says something particularly hurtful. Buck knows there has to be more to this than just anger—and it turns out, he's right.

Forever is the sweetest con by @becausebuckley

Buddie, Buck & Ravi | Rated E | 37,8K | post s8a | marriage of convenience, friends to husbands, practice kissing, sharing a bed, cuddling, wedding rings, family reunions, humor

“Buck,” Eddie says, a small smile curving at the edge of his mouth, “wanna get married? For our honeymoon, we’ll scam your parents out of some money and make Ravi’s accountant do our taxes.”

“Well,” Buck says drily, “that sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, in his very best – meaning very bad – impression of Buck when he gets his hands on a clipboard. “What was that?”

“Yes, Eddie,” Buck says, putting on an air of suffering despite the butterflies making themselves at home in his stomach. Man, whoever Eddie ends up proposing to for realsies is gonna be so lucky. “I’ll marry you.”

or: buck is invited to a family reunion and realises that there's a good chunk of money waiting for him. there’s one issue, though: he has to be married to claim it, and right now, he’s painfully single. it’s a good thing he has such a great best friend in eddie, right?

What a View by maybeamystery

Buddie | rated G | 3k | 2022 | hurt buck, temporary loss of vision, didn't know they were dating, idiots in love, misunderstanding, migraines, holding hands

They’re coming back from a late call for a shift that was supposed to end at two-thirty but didn’t, and Buck has been keeping a close eye on the time. He’s a busy guy with things to do and places to be. One minute he’s glancing at his phone for the two hundredth time in the last thirty minutes, and the next, the whole world goes blurry and out of focus.

I can't believe my eyes (I must be seeing blind) by calvingseason

Buddie | rated T | 5,9k | 2022 | crack treated seriously, gay disaster buck, glasses, getting together, idiots in love

Buck never thought he had this kink. He’s like, pretty convinced he knows everything there is to know about his own likes and dislikes and attractions and whatnot, but this? This fucking weird fantasy that’s playing in his head like he’s the subject of a strange student-teacher love affair? Buck’s going to Google the highest bridge in Los Angeles and jump off. Because it’s fucking glasses that are doing it for him. Glasses.

or, eddie gets glasses. buck is normal about it.

Allergic to love by notetonote

Buddie | rated G | 4,5k | 8x05 Masks | Tommy bashing, bucktommy break up, protective Eddie, hurt Buck, allergic reactions, soft Eddie, fix it fic, oblivious Buck, oblivious Eddie, Eddie takes care of Buck

“What’s going on? Did I miss something, or–” Tommy starts, chuckling lightly.

“Yeah actually, I think you did.” Eddie’s voice carries across the loft, shutting up Tommy immediately. It’s much more accusatory and pointed than before, not a hint of wariness to it. Eddie takes his time as he stalks back over into the open plan kitchen and dining room area, shaking the bottle in front of him as he does.

“Ibuprofen.”

Tommy looks between the bottle and Eddie’s stoic face, still completely clueless. “Yeah? That’s what it says on the label.”

Buck hardly hears Tommy say this to Eddie, the word Ibuprofen echoing around the walls of his mind. Oh, God.

— — —

Or

When Buck wakes up with boils on his face, he calls Eddie to check it out. It is when Eddie finds out that Tommy gave Buck ibuprofen, one of the medications that can trigger Buck’s allergy to naproxen, that hell breaks loose.

Eddie Diaz vs the Buck's Boyfriend Agenda by songbvrd

Buddie | rated M | 23,4k | post s7 | tommy bashing, pining, not actually unrequited love, unhinged Eddie, jealous Eddie, Eddie goes to therapy, gay Eddie, 118 as family

* warning: infidelity (not buck/buddie)

“Asked me if I was the Chinese food delivery guy on my first day.” Chim contributed in a whisper, like he was afraid Buck might wake up and hear. Maybe he felt disloyal admitting it now. It was no secret to anyone paying attention how much Chim loved Buck, even if he often pretended to be exasperated with him.

Hen nodded solemnly. “One of the many people who wouldn’t even acknowledge me when I started.”

It was news to Eddie, and apparently Ravi too, but not Cap, who resolutely stared down at the table in front of him, shaking his head.

“Oh, so he fucking sucks.” Ravi contributed casually, never one to pull punches with his thoughts.

No one responded, but the agreement was in the air.

OR -

Eddie starts gathering information about why no one trusts Tommy. As he grows to hate their relationship more, he learns more about himself and what he wants.

I'll show you mine (will you show me yours?) By @becausebuckley

Buddie | rated E | 5,7k | 2024 | getting together, phone sex, nude photos, dirty talk

“What if... what if he's right, Eddie? What if my nudes really do look weird and everyone’s just been too polite to say anything? Cause, like, I used to send them a lot, you know? Before we met, when I was still Buck 1.0? What if I’ve been sharing really bad pictures with everyone? Shit, what if my dick really does look weird?”

“Buck, your dick doesn’t look weird,” Eddie says.

“See, but here’s the thing, I wouldn’t know,” Buck stresses. “Like, I used to sext with women, you know? I haven’t seen that many hard dicks. Maybe there’s something super wrong with mine, and I’ve gone all my life going ooh, look at me, I call myself Firehose, my dick is so cool and big and stuff, and everyone was just making fun of me behind my back!”

or: when buck feels insecure about his nudes, he asks eddie for help. for 911 kinktober day 27: non-penetrative sex!

I'm Going To Try My Best To Figure It Out For Myself by @aspecbuddie

Buck & Hen, Buddie (background) | post 8x11 | feelings realization (sort of), pre relationship Buddie, Buck loves Eddie

After ten minutes of silence, ten minutes of thinking about the thing he’s trying not to think about, Buck cracks.

“Anyone ever think you were in love with Athena?”

He’s still staring straight ahead, but in his peripheral, he sees Hen’s head jerk in his direction.

“What the hell?!”

-

or; Buck talks to Hen after that conversation with Tommy

He's Got Stars In His Eyes by @gaydadeddie

Buddie | rated E | 3,8k | post 8x11 | Eddie's silver star, freak4freak buddie, jealousy, possessive Eddie, smut, religious guilt

Eddie wants Buck to wear his Silver Star, which would be cool and normal, except Eddie's a freak.

I touch myself, I dream by Excalipurr

Buddie | rated E | 28k | 3 Chapters | post 8x08 | freak4freak Buddie, Eddie moves to Texas, pining Eddie, Jealous Eddie, texting, possessive Eddie, Eddie needs a hug, character study, light angst, unhinged Eddie, catholic guilt, religious trauma, first kiss

The text he receives is simple.

you took my LAFD t-shirt, man

Hm

Are you sure?

pretty sure

Attached there is a picture. In it, Buck stands in front of his bathroom mirror with a t-shirt two sizes too small, his birthmark eyebrow raised in an I told you so expression. Eddie is oddly impressed by the size of Buck’s biceps and chest straining hard against the frail-looking material, like he’s about to burst out of it. And he’s also a little mesmerized by the way the fabric fails to fully cover the bottom area of his waist, his stomach just slightly peeking out, happy trail going down like an invitation.

or: Eddie accidentally takes Buck's LAFD t-shirt to El Paso.

Rodeo queen by okanus

Buddie | rated E | 15,6k | 2024 | sexual tension, flirting, first kiss, halloween, cowboy hats, getting together, first time, possessive eddie

“What’s the saying again? Save a horse…hm, y’know, I don't quite remember the rest of it.” Eddie can’t help the smile curving up the corner of his mouth.

“You’re an asshole,” Buck says, scowling. The tips of his ears are pink.

“Come on, Buck,” Eddie murmurs, something white-hot and hungry snaking through him at Buck’s faltering gaze, at the way Buck reaches up to tug at his suit collar. “Save a horse…I know you can do it.”

“Ride a cowboy,” Buck says finally, his voice husky like Eddie’s never heard it before.

Sunday morning, got me looking crazy by @lovesicktaxi

Buddie | rated G | 10,9k | pre s8x06 | tommy bashing, pre-relationship Buddie, getting together, sweet Eddie, oblivious Buck, feelings realization, crack, ADHD Buck, good sibling Maddie, soft Buddie, overwhelmed Buck

Buck spirals on a Sunday morning over his boyfriend, his best friend, a Tiktok, and what it means to show up for others.

And his laundry is still not dry.

Paint on your face by paleredheadinascifi

Buddie | rated T | 4,9k | AU, getting together, fluff, different first meeting, adorable Chris, teacher Buck, meet cute

“Yeah. Craziest thing. My kid comes home a few weeks ago with a birthmark on his eyebrow. Looks suspiciously like a smudge of paint, but he assures me it’s a birthmark.”

“Ah,” Buck cringes. "Mr Diaz - -"

"Eddie."

Or, if you ask Christopher, that smudge on his eyebrow is a birthmark. If you ask Eddie, his kid won't stop painting on his face and he has no idea why.

Wanna see your body on mine (and collide) by @becausebuckley

Buddie | Rated E | 4,6k | first time, established relationship, top eddie, bottom buck

They fit perfectly together, Buck can’t help but think. It’s like they’re two puzzle pieces that have been reunited, like they were always meant to collide like this.

or: buddie sleep together for the first time. for the 911 kinktober prompt first time!

Promises to Keep by @catmomjudy

Buddie, Eddie & Bobby, Eddie & Chris | rated T | 4,6k | post 8x15 | main character death, pre relationship Buddie, Bobby ships Buddie

* Warning: main character death

Eddie gets a strange and disturbing text, followed by a phone call from a worrying source.

And through it all, he realizes that being a man means more than sucking it up in a sucky house in sucky El Paso.

Because he made a promise, and he's going to keep it.

All the quiet nights by @becausebuckley

Buddie | rated T | 3,8k | mild hurt/comfort, sharing a bed, bathing/washing, fluff, getting together, forehead kissing, cuddling, eddie takes care of buck, hair washing

“You don’t have to do that,” Buck says, averting his eyes as Eddie’s fingers begin working at his belt. “It’s just my wrist.”

“Just- just let me take care of you,” Eddie says. It’s a question, but it comes out somewhere between a statement and a plea. “Please.”

or: eddie takes care of buck.

Stay Right Here (Life's Not the Same Without You) by amACEinglyordinary

Buddie | rated G | 2,2k | post 8a | getting together, mutual pining, fluff, cuddling, couch theory

Eddie and Chris come back home from Texas. Buck is slightly panicking about the discovery of his feelings for Eddie. Eddie is suspiciously tactile, even for him. Chris is used to their antics.

My wishes come true (whenever I'm with you) by @becausebuckley

Buddie | rated T | 3,6k | sharing a bed, getting together, cuddling, first kiss

“Yeah, I get that,” he says softly. “It’s been a while for me too. But it’s kind of nice, isn’t it? Having someone there?”

“It is,” Eddie says. “I- I always liked that. It feels safer.”

“I feel safer, too.”

or: buck and eddie have to share a bed in a hotel. for flufftober day 31, make a wish!

I'll give you my clothes (because you already have my heart) by @becausebuckley

Buddie | rated T | 5,5k | fluff, 5+1, sharing clothes, first kiss

“Sure thing, bud,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “Till then, put this on, will you?”

He lobs a bundle of fabric at Buck. Buck scrambles to catch it, then unfolds it to find a blue button-up, the version of their uniform that Eddie usually prefers.

He holds it out in front of him. On the label in the back of the neck, he sees Diaz written in Eddie’s spiky handwriting.

“I figured you wouldn’t have any spares left,” Eddie explains, “and the ones in that pile tend to run smaller, cause B-shift always forgets to do the laundry and we never have any larger sizes left because of them. This should still fit you, I think.”

or: five times buck wears eddie's clothes, and one time he wears his own.

Not so crazy (not tonight) by @becausebuckley

Buddie | rated T | 1,7k | post 8x11 | feelings realization, getting together, phone calls, love confessions

Because of all people, the most likely one to know who Buck is in love with is Eddie himself.

It’s just what they do. Years ago, they’d promised to have each other’s backs, and since then, they’ve been like this. Buck knows Eddie, and Eddie knows Buck, and somewhere along the way, they became BuckandEddie and they haven’t looked back since.

or: buck tells eddie about maddie's question. eddie has some thoughts about it.

Teach me how to dance with you by @becausebuckley

Buddie | Rated M | 5,2k | slow dancing, getting together, horny Buck, first kiss, competent Eddie, fluff and humor, oblivious Buck

“Okay, come here,” Eddie says, dropping the sponge and dish he was cleaning into the soapy water with a splash. He’s tugging on Buck’s elbow, then, the wetness from his fingers seeping into Buck’s clothes and all the way through to his skin.

“Uh, what?” Buck brings out, but he’s helpless to do anything but follow Eddie’s lead and let go of the tea towel.

“We’re dancing,” Eddie says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Or: Eddie teaches Buck to dance.

Keeping it quiet by @bellabrady

Buddie | rated G | 3,2k | love confessions, getting together, humor, idiots in love, first kiss

He can’t handle standing next to Eddie for however long it takes to clean the engine, he just can’t. He’s going to lose it. And he’s going to lose Eddie, too, because he’ll inevitably either kiss him or confess his undying love. He can’t even guarantee he won’t just drop down on one knee and propose.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be right there, Bobby!” Buck yells before dropping his rag into the bucket and taking off towards the loft, leaving Eddie standing there dumbfounded.

“Buck, no one was calling for you!” he shouts, exasperated. Buck ignores him and bounds up the stairs.

Or: Buck realizes he's in love with Eddie shortly before a 24 hour shift. Out of fear of accidentally confessing his love, Buck tries to avoid him at all costs. If only Eddie wasn't so derermined to talk to him.

Bring me to your altar (drop me to my knees) by justhockey

Buddie | rated E | 5,5k | s8 | jealous Eddie, possessive Eddie, love confessions, first kiss, first time, fluff and smut, getting together, friends to lovers, religious imagery and symbolism

Eddie takes a breath, and he pushes down on Buck’s shoulders until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Then Eddie drops to his knees between Buck’s thighs, like he’s ready to pray.

Back in El Paso, Eddie got used to Sunday mornings in church. It was surprisingly easy to fall back into the rhythm of it, even though Eddie has been beating out of sync for his entire life. He still doesn’t believe - not in god, or sin, or hell. He does believe in heaven, though. Thinks he’s found it right here, in Buck.

Because nothing - no god, or church, or prayer - has ever felt as holy as this.

His Father(s) by xompeii

Eddie & Chris | rated G | 1,3k | post 8x12 | family, fluff, coda, feelings realization, Chris has 2 dads

“I’m sorry, so you’re saying Chris has two fathers?” The redheaded woman from earlier says. It’s not in a bad way, it’s more confused than anything else.

“No, I’m his father. Ramon is his grandfather,” Eddie is pretty calm about this. Somehow he still feels the need to add, “There would be nothing wrong if he did, but it’s just me.”

Or - After Chris and Eddie talk at the Chess Tournament, they keep talking.

Chasing butterflies by rizcriz

Buddie | rated T | 5,7k | post 8a | feelings realization, Eddie in El Paso, coming out

How long have you been in love with her?

Is sitting in the air as they laugh, turning to each other like they’ve done something, and dropping the subject entirely in favor of grilling Grant on his upcoming wedding.

How long have you been in love with her?

Is sitting in the air as he blindly grabs for his beer, dragging it to his mouth and downing what’s left in the bottle in one desperate gulp.

How long have you been in love with her?

Is rewording itself, reworking itself, translating itself until it fits;

How long have you been in love with him?

--

Or, Eddie's in El Paso and suddenly everything makes sense.

Wherever you go, that's where I am by spiritsontheroof

Buddie | rated T | 4,7k | post 8x13/8x14 (alternate 8x15) | getting together, mutual pining, holding hands, moving in together, tenderness, first kiss, sharing a bed, non sexual intimacy

Ravi follows Buck’s line of sight and jerks his head in Hen and Karen’s direction. “You ever wish you had that?”

“Had what?” Buck asks. “A wife?”

“Yeah, I guess. Or,” Ravi shrugs, twisting the shock blanket he’s supposed to be wrapped in between his hands. “Just someone to go home to.”

Buck rubs at his sternum as a sudden sharp pain shoots through it. “Yeah."

--

OR, Buck gets someone to go home to.

You're taking me out of the ordinary by wafflesofdoom

Buddie | rated G | 1,8k | post 8x13 | first kiss, getting together

“Ballroom kind of requires a partner,” Eddie pointed out, and for a second, his words hung heavy in the air between them, a metaphor so heavy-handed that it almost made Eddie cringe – he’d gone so long, without a partner, a real one who was all in, and then he’d met Buck, and he’d found the perfect partner, in the other man.

Buck gestured vaguely at himself. “I’ll be your partner.”

Your hands, my hips by farfromthstars

Buddie | rated E | 1,6k | post 8x12 | feelings realization, Introspection, phone calls, pre relationship Buddie

Eddie draws in a sharp breath and, all of a sudden, realizes that he’s hard, or getting there at least. He glances at his phone screen again, at Buck’s peaceful face, still fast asleep, and hits the red button in a panicked daze.

He must’ve gotten his wires crossed somehow, maybe he dreamt something or he’s just– pent up, or whatever, and then the thought of Buck’s chest, and his thighs–

He must’ve gotten his wires crossed somehow, maybe he dreamt something or he’s just– pent up, or whatever, and then the thought of Buck’s chest, and his thighs–

~

eddie wakes up with buck still on facetime. he's not normal about it.

Ooff that was long 😅 it took me hours to make this post