#its therapeutic to block them i swear

[sobeesknees]

Every time you feel helpless as you watch the genocide unfold, every time you feel guilty that you only have a few bucks to donate, when you feel like breaking down because you have to choose which of the fuck ton of families can get what little aid you can give GO AND BLOCK ANOTHER OUT-OF-TOUCH CELEB IN WHATEVER PLATFORM YOURE ON

They don't have to deal with those problems and what do they do??? Making the hunger games fucking real is what they're doing. Parading around the Met like they're Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake" as Rafah is bombed is what they're doing. "All lives matter"-ing Palestine is what they're doing.

Don't let them get ad revenue from you, don't give them any chance of getting future engagement from you. Don't pay for their lifestyle as the world burns.

[alyxdoeswrite]

High times|| John "Soap" MacTavish x reader

Warnings: Illusions to sex, drug use (weed), my horrible knowledge on the military,swearing, not proof read A/N: happy (late) 420!this is the first time ive wrote since like 2019 so sorry if its ass. might write a part 2 to this!

Word count:1.9k

!!GIF is not mine!!

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It was a late night on base, and while everyone was sleeping, you decided tonight was the perfect time to light up. you had just gotten back to base after a particularly difficult mission and decided it would be the best way to relax. after missions 141 would usually head to a local pub and knock back some beers to relax and unwind after working their ass off. you were never really a drinker. you would have a drink here and there but never quite liked getting drunk. you preferred smoking. you were an experienced smoker. In high school, you were the classic stoner, had even sold a little bit back in those days. you knew every trick in the book and used them all now to not get caught. your smoking days didn't end once you joined the military. it was normal for you to sneak out to go smoke real quick. you stuck with joints for easy access and they were easier to sneak but now and then you would smoke out of a piece, most of the time it was your beloved bong. it wasn't often you smoke in your room out of the bong, it was saved for special occasions. tonight was one of those special nights. you had spent all day trying to catch up on all the sleep you had lost on the past mission, only waking up to go get dinner and then coming back to take a nap. 11:30 shined on the alarm clock, one of your only sources of light. the only other source of light was the moon shining in through your open window. you locked your door and put a towel at the bottom to block the smoke and turn on the fan while walking to the chair you pulled up to the window. the quiet cool breeze blowing through, making your room slightly chilly. you sit in your pajamas taking one good look at the moon before you started to pack a bowl. this was the most relaxed you had felt in months, nothing made you quite as happy as smoking on a quiet summer night, it was therapeutic. you grab your lighter and take the first hit, holding it in for a couple of seconds before leaning out the window and exhaling. these were the most relaxing nights. you take a couple more hits before sitting there for a moment peacefully, enjoying this refreshing night. that was until you heard a knock on your door. you quickly panic, throwing your bong in your closet and reaching for the nearest can of air freshener. another knock this time followed by a familiar Scottish accent “You in there lass?” soap asked. you sigh in relief and go to open the door. “you scared the fuck outta me soap, I thought you were someone else.” you chuckled, tucking the towel back under the door after you closed it. “You've been smoking with other people besides me lass? I see how it is” Soap fake pouted while making himself comfortable on your bed. soap was the only other person on base you smoked with. He would sometimes join you in your parking lot smoke seshes. he was also your classic high school stoner but had cut back when he joined the military, but still would partake here and there, you being his main smoke buddy. “I thought you were price for a moment and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes,” you say, walking to where you threw your bong in a moment of panic. luckily for you, nothing broke or spilled. you grab the piece and put it in your chair to pull another chair up for soap. you finally grab the bong and sit for a moment, letting out another sigh of relief. “price had a little bit too much to drink at the pub tonight, I doubt he’d even be able to walk down here right now without busting his arse” soap chuckled. You chuckled as well, handing soap the bong and your lighter. You watched how the moonlight illuminated his eyes. You’d be lying if you said you didn't have a thing for soap. He was the one who welcomed you the most when you first joined 141 and was probably the one you were the closest with. You’d also be lying if you said you both weren't flirty with each other, especially while you were under the influence. Flirty little remarks and shared glances were usually all it was but there were a couple of shared kisses and even a messy high makeout session that had happened between you two. A part of you hoped tonight would end similarly. You watched Soap as he took a hit, god that man looked heavenly in the moonlight. The way the moon reflected in his eyes was one of the most beautiful things you had ever seen. He was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. You swore you fell more in love with him at that moment, watching him as he blew the smoke from his lungs out the window and sat back with a sigh. “You got some good stuff, Bonnie, I'm already starting to feel it” he smiled at you, handing you the bong back. “only the best for you handsome,” you said, smirking at him before taking another hit yourself. The bong was passed back and forth a couple more times before you had to pack another bowl. “Wanna do the honors Johnny?” you ask him, handing him the bowl and your grinder. “Don't mind if I do” He took the items out of your hand and set them on your desk to get to work. You watched him as he did his magic, he somehow always managed to pack his bowls better than yours. “your so handsome when you pack my bowls for me Johnny” you flirted. “I think you just like making me do all the work lass” he laughed. “you also got a handsome laugh,” you said to him and he handed you the freshly packed bong back. “you take the first hit Johnny, you're the one who packed it” “well don't mind if I do.” One more bowl later and you guys were stoned out of your minds. “that’s probably the best weed I've smoked in ages y/n, where the hell did you get it” Johnny asked while looking up at you “I usually don't spill all my secrets but your just to damn cute for me to deny you that information” and you told him how you had gotten the chance to stock up on the good stuff last time you hit the dispensary. “you wanna go watch a movie bonnie?” soap had asked, looking at you with puppy dog eyes. “how could I say no to that pretty face of yours” you said as he offered to help you up. after you both had crawled into your bed and got comfy you decided to find something to watch. you clicked through all the streaming services you had but couldn't seem to find a movie y’all had wanted to watch. you dramatically sigh and click out of another streaming service “It's like every funny movie has been wiped off the planet or something.” you sigh, dropping the remote signifying you had given up on the movie search. “I know something else we can do,” Johnny said, and you knew by the smirk he wore on his face he was up to no good. “and what would that be handsome,” you asked and before you knew it he was crawling on top of you. he then embraced you in a kiss, to which you grab his face and return the kiss. you run your hands up to tug on his mohawk as he deepened the kiss. He slowly pushed you down on your bed, now laying on top of you. He sits up momentarily to slowly take his shirt off, teasing you.“I quite like this idea Johnny” You smile at him and give him a peck. “I want to take this further Bonnie,” Johnny says, avoiding your eyes as a light shade of pink dusted his cheeks. “Like what?” you asked playing innocent. “Let me show you?” you could only nod yes as he smiled brightly at you before kissing you again. This time the kiss moved down to your jaw until his mouth made your neck its home, sucking at nipping at your neck. Leaving hickies and kissing them to soothe them after. Your hand found its way back to his hair, slightly tugging at his hair when he would nip at your neck, causing you to let out a small moan. One of his hands found its way to your stomach, slipping under your shirt and roaming your torso. The other one stayed on your jaw, pulling you further into the kiss. You were so into the moment that you almost didn’t hear the knock at your door. You and Soap both shoot up and stare at the door before another knock rings through the door, “y/n don't make break the door down” a slightly aggravated ghost said through the door. You curse at yourself quietly “Just a minute” you yell towards the door, grabbing your stuff and throwing it in the closet. As you turn around you see another thing you have to hide, Soap. You bring a finger to your mouth signaling to him to stay quiet before you grab him and shove him in your closet and close the door behind him. You collect yourself for a second before opening the door. Ghost stood there wearing sweats and a T-shirt that showed off his muscles perfectly. “Sorry, I was naked,” you say, instantly regretting the excuse you made. “Price sent me to investigate a suspicious smell coming from your room.” Ghost said. Slightly pushing you aside to go into your room. You sit in the doorway watching Ghost search through your room, making sure to check every nook and cranny. You prayed to whatever holy thing you could as Ghost made his way to the closet. You don't know what would be worse, him finding the weed or one of his sergeants shirtless in your closet. You hoped the half-naked scot would distract your lieutenant from the weed. Ghost arrives in front of the closet, staring at it for a second before looking at you as he opened the door. He looks over to realize he is face to face with soap. You just sat there mortified. “Smoking and fucking other teammates y/n? You’re fucking asking to get in trouble.” You cant reply as you just stare at your lieutenant. “Price wants you in his office first thing tomorrow morning, and for you,” he said looking at the soap, “get your clothes back on and get to your room,” he said to soap. Soap quickly grabbed his shirt and scurried out of your room, not wanting to do anything to aggravate ghost anymore. “I'll let you keep your stuff, but you gotta let me join in” you hear ghost say from behind you. You turn around again and instantly take him up on his offer. “Just don't be so sloppy next time y/n, if you're gonna break the rules don't do it all at once.’ He patted your shoulder before squeezing by you to walk back to his room, leaving you to stand in your doorway still slightly in shock.

[i-am-the-avatar-of-idiocy]

i hope u are having a nice day! can i request reaction of the brothers when MC does a painting of them?

I’m having a great day thanks! I hope you are too!

part 1- brother. Part 2- side characters

Brothers reaction to MC’s painting of them

Lucifer

He was impressed when he saw a semi-realistic bust of him on a canvas in your room on an easel

it was incredible, the colours melting together and a stunning blend between colours

he saw you asleep on your bed too- clearly painting that was taxing on you

he thinks it’s amazing and that you should receive recognition for your art

he tells you that it is incredible when you wake up, and gives you a snack and glass of water

He asks to have it, and if you say yes he will put it on his wall, and he takes lots of pride in it

Mammon

Mammon barges into your room in the early hours of the morning and sees you slumped over

he thinks you might be asleep, so he creeps to you but you call out his name and ask him why he’s being quiet for once

he blushes at that but somehow chokes out a snarky response

he then sees you putting brushstrokes on a canvas, the tone of his smooth skin in the light on your brush

you blend it onto his cheek, completing the illusion of flesh

but then after a moment of shocked silence at your skill

he stutters out ‘of- of course you’d want to draw the Great Mammon’

you giggle at this and tell him it’s his, for free

His face lights up and he tells you you are talented for a human

Leviathan

He wakes up from a night in your room watching anime to see you putting colour onto a portrait of him

he is in awe, and sits watching you for a while

he has never felt as beautiful as he did in that moment

he usually thinks himself as ugly, but in this… he is stunning. Is this how you see him?

his face is red at the thought that someone like you views him in the way you paint it

he cracks a smile and tells you that ‘it’s amazing. But I’d expect no less of my Henry’

he loves it and admired it often, especially when he is in a rut of self-hate

Satan

He compliments you when you present it to him

‘I must say this is an excellent piece of me, I’m impressed MC. You’re incredibly talented’

this is said with a growing grin on his face

he seems so different to the sketch of lucifer you did. You only drew him, does that mean you value him more. Unlike some of the others

he is enamoured by the colour choice and how you make him look ethereal

Asmodeus

He squeals in delight at the sight of a painting of a photo he posted to his devilgram

’MC! You never told me you were an artist! I swear you are the only one who can capture my beauty in all its glory!’

he will hang it up in an elaborate frame and boast to those he meets in there

and the brothers that you chose to paint him

he will constantly compliment your skills and commission you

he also finds it therapeutic to watch you paint, and could watch for hours on end

Beelzebub

Beel thinks it’s amazing, being stoic as he is, you didn’t expect as big of a reaction as you got

he dropped his food, his mouth fell open and his eyes opened

‘you drew that? Of me? Oh my Diavolo MC that’s beautiful’

he usually doesn’t speak so emotionally, but hey what he’s saying is good so you’ll take it!

he will ask to see your over pieces!

he thinks you can be a professional and takes a photo to post to his Devilgram, and to show his fangol team

Belphegor

When he falls asleep, you take out a pad and begin to sketch his calm face

you would do it when he’s awake but he always looks so… menacing when he’s awake

You occasionally glance up to him as you block in colours and begin to render (I don’t know if that’s the term for on like real paint because I do mainly digital now)

when his eyes flutter awake, he sees you with your tongue slightly protruding from your lips and putting a white brush stroke on the book

he asks to see it when you put the brush down

you gladly oblige, happy with your work

he seems amazed, but he is still tired so he lets out a drawl of

’that’s amazing, but… I’m still tired’

you know what he wants as stretches an arm so you crawl under it and fall asleep beside him

(lmao imagine the brothers reactions to MC drinking paint water. You can deny it but we’ve all done it)

[makoodlesarchive]

when i was young i fell into a river

pairing: kirishima x reader

word count: 5k

warnings: none, really! a bit of angst, a bit of fluff i guess?

notes: hello, it's me, back again with some writing! it's been a long time and i'm very sorry about that, but i've finally gotten around to writing and posting my spirited away au! i'm v stressed with college so this turned out more vent-y than i had originally intended, but hopefully it's enjoyable anyway! thank you all for being so patient with me, i am endlessly grateful for you

The dream is the same as always, comforting in its familiarity.

A salt-scented breeze cools your sweat-soaked brow as you pause behind one of the sliding screen doors, the rice paper windows doing nothing to block out the chatter of the other workers. The bubbling noise of the bathhouse is constant, and the quiet little moments you steal away for yourself in the middle of the working day is the only solitude you’ve gotten since you came here. The work is physically back-breaking, but you know that you’re working towards a goal. It’s just a shame that you can’t remember exactly what that goal is.

One of the other girls calls your name, and you sigh as your unofficial break comes to an end. You slip back into the room, ignoring the way the frog spirits snicker and hold their noses as you pass. They like to complain a lot about your human stench, but it doesn’t stop them from threatening to eat you every time you make a mistake. Fear, you’ve found, is an uncomfortably successful motivator.

The days bleed into one another, full of scrubbing dark wooden floors and the rich earthy scents of the herbal mixes they use in the baths. The spirits that frequent the bathhouse, that once inspired so much awe and fear in your heart, become so commonplace that you hardly spare them a glance anymore. From the cackling masked spirits that always travel in threes to the grinning cat spirits to the sombre, unspeaking river spirits, you only go as far as to offer them a polite bow before scurrying out of their way. They never spare you any attention, anyway -- most of the time, the spirits’ eyes seem to look right through you.

All but one, that is.

He looks to be a boy around your age, but appearances can be deceiving around here. His red eyes are often dull and blank, but even so they have a certain ageless quality about them that no human twelve-year-old could ever possess. His scarlet hair sticks up in gravity-defying spikes, and his skin is as smooth and clear as running water. His face is often stuck in a carefully cultivated blank expression; the only thing about him that doesn’t seem intimidatingly otherworldly are the deep purple shadows under his eyes.

He helped you once, when you first came here. The rare act of kindness had stuck in your head, made even more remarkable in the face of the following weeks and months of harsh work and cruel co-workers. You wonder if he remembers; he doesn’t often look at you, but sometimes when he does you swear you can see a flicker of something in his eyes.

Two of the girls start yelling at each other, arguing heatedly over the way the work is being divided. A foreman appears to break up the fight, but then they both start shouting at him instead. You take the moment of distraction to relax, wincing at the pull of your tired muscles in the back of your neck. All the other girls working at the bath house are older and bigger than you, which means you need to work twice as hard to keep up with them and prove that you’re worth keeping around.

In the brief moment of rest, your eyes are drawn slowly to the corridor, where guests and workers alike bustle past as they travel to the treatment rooms and bathtubs deeper into the bathhouse. As if you’ve conjured him just by thinking about him, the boy stands in the doorway.

You straighten up on instinct, suddenly self-conscious of your sweat-soaked body and dishevelled uniform. He’s not even looking your way, preoccupied with the two girls who are still yelling at the frog foreman. Slowly though, his eyes began to travel the room, and you take a deep breath and hold it as his dull ruby gaze lands on you like a physical weight. You crack a nervous smile, feeling the muscles in your cheeks that have gone unused for weeks ache at the strain, and raise a hand to give him a tiny wave.

For just a moment, that blankness in his face seems to quiver and fall away. He smiles back.

You jolt awake, breathing heavily and coated in a light sheen of sweat. You’ve had the same dream, or some variation of it, regularly ever since you were twelve years old and while it’s become familiar to you, you still find yourself feeling vaguely panicked when you wake up after it, as though you’ve forgotten something very important.

Once your heartbeat has calmed down a little, you pull yourself out of bed and trudge into the kitchen to make yourself some tea. The weak, milky light of dawn filters in through the windows, lighting your apartment up just enough so that you don’t have to turn on a light to make your way around. You take your tea out to the balcony and sit, gazing out at the purplish early morning sky.

Most of the time when you wake up from those dreams you feel blessedly lucky to be living alone with no one to question or bother you, but sometimes you can’t help but be overcome by overwhelming loneliness. The dreams are silly and most of the time they don’t even make any sense, but in the aftermath of them you’re always left with a vague sense of unfulfillment, though you can’t put your finger exactly on what it is you’re missing. You always end up exactly like this; sitting outside on your balcony in the early morning light, drinking tea alone and desperately wishing for something more.

You sigh, and go back inside.

The dream is the same, but different.

The garden is in full bloom, greenery overlaid with bursts of beautiful bright colours. Camellias, rhododendrons, and oleanders wave and shiver gently in the warm breeze, and apple blossoms hang heavily from a nearby tree. The flowering garden is enormous and maze-like, and you have yet to see it in any state other than fully flourishing.

It’s a beautiful place, especially after the hot, cramped working quarters of the bathhouse. You inhale the sweetly fragranced air and feel the knot of tension in your spine unfurl; it feels like the first time that you’ve been able to breathe all week, but that’s not the only reason that you’ve found yourself outside.

At the bottom of the garden, the grass drops off into a sheer drop. The cliff face overlooks a seemingly endless ocean, and you perch a safe distance from the drop before leaning back in the grass. The sky is an almost surreally deep blue and you watch as enormous fluffy clouds float by, looking as though they’ve been painted on a jewel-blue canvas.

It’s not the first time you’ve had this dream, and you know what you’ll see if you keep patiently watching.

It doesn’t take long — it never does. You time your lunch breaks precisely, all so you get to see this sight.

The clear blue sky makes it so much easier to spot the shiny white scales, flashing jewel-bright in the sunlight. The dragon writhes in the sky, streaking through the air like a great serpent caught in the wind. Even from this distance, you can see the knife-like teeth, the great sharp claws that gleam like pyrite, and the twisting horns that erupt from his head like daggers made from calcified bone. He looks deadly, a living weapon that swims through the air like a salmon in open water, but the sight of him makes something settle in your stomach.

You wonder what it would feel like to fall through the air with nothing but the wind to break your fall. You imagine it must feel like freedom.

The dragon flutters through the air, buoyed by the gentle sea breeze. If you didn’t know better, you might almost think that he was showing off — his movements are hypnotic, dreamlike, more like a dance than anything. His scales glow pearlescent in the midday sun, otherworldly and earthly all at once.

You could happily stay and watch him skim through the sky forever, but already the bell is being rung to call all workers back into the bathhouse. You heave a sigh so deep it feels as though your chest is about to crack with the force of it, before hauling yourself to your feet.

Your break is over, and now it’s back to work.

Sometimes you find it difficult to tell when you’re dreaming and when you’re awake. It feels as though everything is always happening all at once, in the present tense, forever. You don’t get to rest when you close your eyes and drift off to sleep, because the dreams just keep coming and coming. Sometimes you don’t feel like your life is real when you’re awake.

Riding on the train has always been therapeutic, especially at this time of the early morning. The sun rising lazily over the horizon sends milky threads of purple and pink across the cloudy sky, and you cradle your chin in your hand as you gaze out across the moving landscape. You love these little trips, feeling more at home in the creaky, overfull train carriage than you do in your own bedroom sometimes, though you can’t quite work out where that particular feeling comes from.

You know sometimes that stories end with “And then I woke up — it was only a dream”, but in your experience the story simply doesn’t end. You cannot fully wake up without the tail-ends of your dreams clinging to you for the rest of the day, and you never fully sleep. You just dream, dream, dream.

Sighing, you lean your head back against the seat that you’re slumped in. The train carriage is too full, and you were lucky to get a seat in the first place — from your vantage point, you watch as people sway in tandem with the motion of the train. It’s almost hypnotic, how they undulate back and forth with every turn, brushing against each other only to be pulled apart again by the lurching train.

Through the sea of bodies, you catch a man’s eye. It breaks the monotony of the morning commute and your own spiralling thoughts, and your spine straightens unconsciously. He quirks an eyebrow briefly, slightly, in such a way that no one would be able to safely accuse him of having done it.

You look away, startled for no good reason. Do you know him? He feels familiar in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on. The train rattles on, and it takes several long minutes before you work up the nerve to glance the man’s way again. He’s still watching you, but you’re ready for it this time. His attention isn’t such a shock, and you allow your eyes to wander over his face properly.

You must know him, you think. Your eyes track over his features as though they’re winding over a well-worn path, admiring the curve of his nose and the fullness of his lips and the arch of his eyebrows over his intense, watchful eyes.

He smiles at you, and it feels as though you’re sharing a secret from across the crowded train carriage. You smile back — it’s just a small tug of the corners of your mouth, but it’s the most you’ve smiled in months. Longer, maybe.

In the middle of the carriage a woman laughs at something her friend has said and sways backward, blocking your view of the stranger. It feels like a loss.

The train trundles onwards, and the carriage gradually empties out. You watch people step off the train with friends, with their heads ducked low, lost in thought, arguing over the phone, distracted with their book bags. By the time it comes to your stop, the man is gone.

You try not to feel disappointed as you step off the train — it’s silly, after all. You don’t know the man, and whatever you thought you felt as you looked at each other was surely all in your own head. Your head has been awfully full, recently.

As you step off the train you grapple with your bag, side-stepping a businessman who is busy shouting down the phone at some unfortunate coworker. You’re distracted, which is the only reasonable explanation for how long it takes you to realise that the man from the train is standing in front of you.

“Oh.” You blurt, startled. You had already begun to resign yourself to never seeing him again, so you can’t help but feel distinctly caught off guard at the sight of him standing before you. “Hi.”

“Hello.” The man says. He’s looking at you expectantly, but you have no idea what he’s waiting for — as it is, you get completely distracted by his eyes. You hadn’t noticed on the train, but now that he’s up close you see that they’re a truly unusual deep burgundy. He tilts his head when you remain silent, and bites his lip. Now that you’re really looking, you notice how sharp his teeth are. “You’ve barely changed at all.”

You blink at him. “Er…” You trail off nervously. You don’t recognise him, but you feel like you know him. Clearly, he thinks that he knows you.

“It’s fitting, isn’t it? Meeting again on a train?” He smiles, and it’s an impossibly knowing expression. You don’t think you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a look that intimate in your life, though you have no idea what he’s talking about.

Someone collides hard with your shoulder and you stagger for balance. You only look away from the man for a mere second, but it’s enough; when you look again, he’s gone.

You take to walking. There’s a wooded area behind the town, and you enjoy traipsing idly through the trees. Ancient roots erupt out of the dirt and fan over the ground like hairs, and the moss that covers the trunks of the trees is such a deep green that it almost seems like paint pigment. It’s soothing, being surrounded by nature like this. It reminds you of childhood — the simplicity of being able to jump over tree roots under a canopy of pale green leaves, of being able to leave all your thoughts and stress at the boundary of the forest.

It’s where you come after waking sweat-soaked and disoriented from a dream that clings to you like a burr, where you walk among the ferns and the needle-leaved weeds until you manage to shake the last vestiges of memory from your mind. You need it, especially in the mornings where you wake up with the acrid scent of herbal cleanser stinging in your nose or the bite of hard calluses on your palms from non-existent rough cloths. On mornings like that, you walk and walk until you no longer feel as though you’re more alive in your dreams than you are in reality.

Deep in the forest is a great red facade, painted a flaking, faded red. You wander by it frequently, admiring the overgrown greenery that crawls up the walls like reaching fingers, the mossy stone guardian that stands sentinel amongst the cracked flagstones that lead into the tunnelled entrance. You’ve asked around in the town, curious about what exactly this building was for, but most of the locals either don’t know what building you’re talking about or admit that they’re not sure. One man told you that the facade was built for a theme park in the 90s that had ended up going bust in the recession, and that the building only looked old.

You remain unconvinced on that front. The building has the kind of presence that only very old things have; it feels like it’s watching you.

For the most part, your walks in the forest are peaceful. Recently though, you’ve found yourself plagued by an insistent, irritating sense of deja vu. You don’t know where it’s coming from, and it hits you at the strangest of times — when you’re making tea, or in the bath, or cleaning your apartment, or on the train, or admiring the sky on a cloudless day.

The man from the train is the boy in your dreams. It takes you weeks to come to that realisation. You just wake up in the middle of the night on a random Tuesday, with wide eyes and clammy skin and his name slipping from the forefront of your mind.

It shouldn’t be possible, but once it dawns on you, you’re certain of it.

Even stranger is that once you realise it, it feels as though you see him everywhere. You see flashes of red hair when you’re walking down the street, when you’re grocery shopping, when you’re walking home late at night. It’s only ever the barest glance out of the corner of your eye, just overt enough for you to know it’s him, but subtle enough for you to question yourself immediately after.

One night, you travel to a local city to meet some old school friends. At night, the city seems to pulse. The music from seedy clubs spills out into the neon-lit streets, muffled shouted arguments echoes from alleyways and apartments alike, and the streets are peppered with people either scurrying or stumbling home, with very little variation. Though the perpetually overcast sky hides any trace of the moon or stars, the streetlamps reflect in the ever-present stagnant puddles littering the street, lighting them up in varying shades of sickly yellow.

At night, the city seems alive. Chronically ill and struggling to breathe, maybe, but clinging to life all the same.

The way the neon lights flicker in the gloomy darkness, just barely illuminating the shadows of people hurrying through the streets to get in out of the rain, reminds you of something you can’t quite remember. It sits in the back of your mind like a sour taste, but no matter how much you reach for the memory it remains just out of reach.

You spend most of the night staring out of the steamed up window of the pub, entranced by the sight of the night streets and frustrated by the memories that seem to dangle just out of reach. You know that it doesn’t make for good company, and you feel guilty for that. Your friends don’t seem overly surprised at your detachment. You’ve been drifting away for years, and though tonight was supposed to be all about reconnecting it seems clear that it’s not going to work.

When you eventually stand up to leave, with forced smiles and awkward goodbyes, you can’t help but feel melancholy settle over you like a second skin. As you slip out of the pub and onto the dark streets, the thought crosses your mind that you’re not used to being alone like this. It’s a silly thought, really; you’ve been alone for years. But sometimes, in those liminal moments between waking and sleeping, you swear you can hear the gentle drowsy breaths of dozens of people sleeping all around you, as though you’re surrounded on all sides. On those nights you wake up hot and claustrophobic and uncomfortable, but never feeling lonely.

It is probably your own fault, you reflect as you drift down the sidewalk like a ghost. It’s difficult to make an effort to know people when you feel as though you don’t know yourself. You don’t know how to bridge the distance between yourself and other people. You think sometimes that you’re missing chunks of yourself.

You pass an open shopfront that’s serving street food, and glance briefly in at the kitchen. The cook is illuminated only dimly in the smoky room, standing out as a shadow figure more than anything, and for a split second you could swear that he has six arms. You look away quickly and carry on walking — you don’t want to look again only to be proven wrong. You want to preserve that little second of magic strangeness for as long as you can.

The puddles on the street seem like they’re glowing with the light reflected from the neon streetlamps, and you weave your way carefully around them to avoid getting your feet wet. The night has a strange quality about it, almost as though it’s holding its breath.

Considering the combination of your pensive mood and the expectant air of the evening, you don’t feel surprised at all when you look up from the wet cobblestones to find the man standing only a few feet ahead of you.

He smiles like he’s nervous, his gaze tracking carefully over your face. In his hands, he’s holding flowers. Camellias, you think. It’s the first time since you first saw him on the train that hasn’t been a fleeting glance out of the corner of your eye— he’s here in front of you and he’s real and solid and sturdy. He seems more substantial than the streets around you, than your friends back at the pub had been.

“Do you remember me?” He asks, voice soft as though he’s afraid of the answer.

“Remember you?” You croak. It feels as though the words are catching inside your throat. “No. But I’ve seen you every night in my dreams for years.”

If that’s the answer he’s expecting, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps looking at you, your face, your body. You wonder exactly it is that he’s seeing. “These are for you.” He says eventually, holding out the flowers. “I didn’t- I wanted to bring you something, when I saw you again. And I know that you always liked the garden.”

He’s talking as if the places that you’ve dreamed about are real. It doesn’t come as the earth-shattering surprise you might have expected — rather, it feels like a key turning in an old lock. A click, and then a sense of yes, that’s right.

You take the flowers, and clutch them to your chest. They’re a fleshy pink, with a vibrant yellow centre. The petals are as soft as velvet. Holding them feels like holding a safety blanket. “Thank you.” It’s the only thing that you can manage to say right now. Your thoughts are too full, and nothing else makes it out of your mouth.

It’s rather startling, the feelings that bubble up in your chest. It feels like something has just been unlocked, as though you had stored away all this emotion somewhere deep in your ribcage and then forgotten about it only for it to resurface at this precise moment, for this precise person.

“Eijirou.” You croak. “Kirishima Eijirou.”

His whole face brightens, and his eyes sparkle. “Yes. That’s me. You do remember!”

They’re not quite memories, you don’t think. They come in dreamlike flashes — the garden, an ocean, train tracks, the feral snarling of a dragon with sharp teeth, hard work and hot food, friends.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Kirishima is saying, his face open and earnest. “But I told you that I’d come and find you again, remember?”

You do remember, sort of. A flash of a warm hand holding yours, pushing you forward over a boundary between one world and another, and a goodbye whispered behind you that sounds like a promise.

“You saved me.”

Kirishima laughs, though his eyes look a little shiny. “It was the other way around, actually. I would have stayed trapped in that bathhouse forever, if it weren’t for you.”

“The bathhouse.” You murmur, wide-eyed. It was real, real, real.

“Things are different now.” He edges closer to you. He’s large and imposing and taller than you, but he’s hunched slightly in an attempt to make himself unthreatening. “That’s why it took so long for me to come for you. Things were changing. Me and Katsuki run the bathhouse now.”

Katsuki. In your mind's eye you see a boy with wild blond hair and a dangerous look in his eyes, a boy who gives you extra rice when he can manage and takes over parts of your chores when you get so tired that you’re fit to pass out.

“I didn’t mean to make you wait.” He says quietly, and the tide of emotion that you had just barely been holding at bay comes crashing over you. Before the first tear has welled over the edge of your eyelids, Kirishima has stepped forward and wrapped you in his arms. The flowers are crushed between your chests as you cry.

“I didn’t even know what I was waiting for.” You cry into his silk suikan.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair. “I’m here now. I’m not going to leave again.”

You don’t release your grip on him. You’re not willing to take the chance.

After a moment, Kirishima speaks again. “Are you ready to go?”

“Go?” You echo, finally pulling away. “Go where?”

“Home.” He says, and he means the bathhouse. He means the spirit world.

“You want me to work for you?”

“I want you to help us run it.” He corrects. The distinction is important for both of you — though the memories are distant, you both know what it feels like to have your names and voices erased so cleanly that it makes you wonder if you ever existed fully at all.

“I don’t know anything about running a bathhouse. Especially not one for spirits.” You say, but Kirishima just laughs.

“You were always a hard worker. You’ll learn as you go. That’s what we’ve all been doing.”

You want to say yes. The word beats in your head like a drum, and you can’t think of a good reason to say no. The bathhouse. Home. The chance to feel real and awake at the same time.

“Okay.” You say on a breath, staring at him with wide eyes. “Stay with me, this time.”

When Kirishima’s face lights up in a smile, it’s the first time that you think you can accurately describe someone as incandescently happy. “Good luck getting rid of me again.”

You laugh, feeling nearly delirious with relief and joy. It’s real. He’s real. He’s come back for you, and now you’re going back with him. You think you should probably feel nervous or hesitant, but this brief encounter has felt more solid and right than the rest of the night spent with distant school-friends made uncomfortable by your silences.

“So, how do we get there?” You ask, but Kirishima just grins at you like you should already know the answer.

The train station is tucked away down an alley just off a busy main shopping district.

“It’s easy to miss if you don’t know exactly where you're going.” Kirishima tells you with a sharp smile, and it’s easy to believe. The red brick building that housed the train station is unmarked, and the trains couldn’t be seen from the main street. The alley itself is home to many curious sights -- paper lanterns bob overhead (though they don’t seem to be suspended by anything in particular), a yellowed flyer from the 1950s advertising Marlboro cigarettes drifts along on what seems to be a breeze despite the noticeable lack of wind, and three magpies sit on a wall wearing little golden timepieces on chains around their necks and caw in time with the ticking.

“Ready to go home?” Kirishima asks quietly. In his hand, two train tickets flutter in a non-existent breeze.

A family of mice scamper past your feet, pulling a miniature suitcase between them. A tall, thin woman wearing a blank white mask assists them onto the train.

You laugh at the whimsy of it all — it feels as though you’ve stepped into a fairytale, into a dream, into your childhood. “Yes,” You grin, “I’m ready.”

Kirishima beams back at you, and holds out a hand to help you onto the train. Finding a seat was easy — despite all the passengers you had seen boarding, the carriage was oddly empty. As soon as you’re seated, you sigh. It feels as though you’re sinking into an old overstuffed armchair, comfortable and familiar. When the whistle blows and the train starts moving, you turn eagerly to watch as the train begins to pick up speed. Within moments, you find that you can barely recognise the landscape blurring past the window — It seems that you’re zooming passed a beautiful sea-view, despite the fact that the city the train station was located in was conspicuously land-locked. You sigh happily and lean against your seat.

You still don’t remember everything about your experience in the spirit world all those years ago, but you think you remember hearing someone telling you “Once you meet someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return."

You make eye contact with Eijirou, who smiles back at you so fondly that it nearly hurts to look at. He’s changed so much from the boy in your dreams, in your memories. His eyes are no longer glassy and distant — now they’re shiny and expressive and so bright. His hair is longer too; still spiked and wild, but longer and curling softly over the curve of his neck and shoulders. He’s the boy your remember from all those years ago, but he’s also a man now. Grown, like you have, but smiling at you gently just like you’re ten years old again.

Through the window behind his head, the sunrise begins to bathe the water in delicate pinks and yellows. You’ll wait for as long as you need to for the memories to return, but even if they don’t that’s alright. You can just make new ones.

[cherryrogers]

➸ call me baby {2/3}

SUMMER NIGHTS

pairing: bucky barnes x reader | biker au

warnings: swearing, violence, implied smut, mainly fluff.

word count: 7.8k

synopsis: Returning to Brooklyn for the summer after a year of travelling from city to city, you hadn’t expected to find your best friend, Peggy Carter, hopelessly in love with a biker. And when she decided to introduce you to the rest of his club, you hadn’t expected to fall for one either. That was until you met one with pretty eyes and a habit of calling you baby.

series masterlist

a/n: ok so this has turned into a three part series!! the next part will likely be a bit shorter, but i wanted to wrap up the story properly and i felt that needed it’s own separate part. i’m gonna post a masterlist for this series tomorrow, and i might write some drabbles for this fic to add to it once it’s finished if anyone has any hc/drabble ideas they’d like to send in?? i need to stop rambling so much lmao,,, please enjoy!!

Sunsets; consisting of an array of warm tones, reds and oranges bleeding into each other, casting a dim, natural light over cities before the artificial yellow beaming of street lamps lit up the world instead. A comforting reminder that every bad day eventually ends, but a sad reminder that every perfect day ends too.

In your case, they’d been unsettling ends to a continuous string of perfect days. And following those, a bright sunrise poured light through your windows every morning, indicating that you were one day closer to the end of the summer.

Currently, the deep, warm sky was the background of a blissful ride through the city. Perched on the back of Bucky’s motorcycle, your arms enveloping his waist, fingertips grazing lightly over his stomach through his shirt. No destination in particular; just an excuse to be close to one another.

Since the night at Wanda’s bar, the night where you simply let yourself begin to feel for Bucky, things had been different. Better.

Rides around the city were a frequent occurrence, usually happening when Bucky offered to take you home on his bike, but taking the long way back to enjoy the view and the feeling of you next to him for a short while longer.

It was therapeutic, tranquil. Well, until your road rage got the best of you.

“Dude, it’s a green light,” You shouted at the car in front you. “Green means go, didn’t you learn that in kindergarten?”

“Christ, you realise you’re yellin’ straight in my ear, right?”

“Sorry, Buck,” You patted his chest apologetically, before proceeding to yell once again. “Not my fault some people don’t know how traffic lights work!”

It was entertaining to Bucky, anyway. Even if it did earn you some middle fingers, which you gladly returned.

As the sky began to lose its vibrant hue, the two of you headed back in the direction of your place, definitely your least favourite part of the ride, but you savoured it nevertheless.

You were friends. Teasing each other incessantly because you just bounced off one another like that, but you often found yourself gravitating towards him. During meals at the clubhouse, you sat in the same spot as you did when you entered the place for the first time; right next to Bucky. While that likely meant for Steve and Peggy that they were in for a painful time, consisting of them slowly losing their patience with you both, they didn’t mind. Well, they did a little.

It’d been almost two hours since you started your game of Monoply. You weren’t sure if you were anywhere near the end of the game, but everyone was still pretty into it. Clint and Sam were paired up as a team, Steve and Peggy shared the little top-hat token, you and Bucky had the wheelbarrow, and Natasha had the car. She claimed she worked better when was on her own team, which was proved to be true by the fact she was winning.

It was Steve and Peggy’s turn to roll, and their top hat was moved to land on the ‘Boardwalk’ space.

“Oh, that’s our space!” You chirped. “Pay up, my dudes.”

“_____, you don’t have a house on that space.”

“Well, could you pass me one? I want this space.”

“You have to buy one.”

“Then I’ll buy one.”

Peggy sighed. “It’s not your turn, you can’t buy a house. Your token isn’t even on that space.”

You furrowed your brows, turning to Bucky. Maybe you should’ve read the rules before playing; you’d never actually played Monoply before. “Oh. That kinda sucks then.”

After a moment, Bucky reached over to the little bag of houses, picking one out and placing it on the Boardwalk space.

“Buck, that’s cheating.” Steve glared at his friend, who only shrugged innocently.

“She’s never played before, let her just have the damn house.”

“You’re only sayin’ that ‘cause she’s on your team, jerk.”

Bucky just shrugged again, turning to shoot you a wink as you smirked in satisfaction and placing your little house on the space, missing Steve and Peggy sharing a look of annoyance as they passed a pile of yellow bills over to you.

It was safe to say the two of you weren’t allowed to play as a team during board games anymore. Natasha always won the games anyway, so it’s not like you and him cheating made much of a difference.

You thought things were moving smoothly with Bucky. You knew that you liked him, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he already knew that — it was pretty fucking obvious at this point. But it would be a rather dumb move to escalate things even if you wanted to. The summer would be over in two months, one third of it was already gone, and you would be too by the beginning of September. Naively, you’d told yourself that you simply wouldn’t take things further. Easy enough, right?

Wrong; so very wrong. You’d proved to yourself that you seriously needed to stop acting impulsively on one fateful after a day spent at the clubhouse.

You’d been about to leave, but had decided to head off to the office where Bucky had been pretty much all evening while everyone else was out in the backyard, which was odd considering you would’ve assumed he’d be the last to not spend the night drinking beer and hanging out with friends over, well, anything else.

You knocked loudly on the door, hearing shuffling and the clicking of a computer keyboard before a quiet ‘come in’ followed. Furrowing your brows, you stepped into the room, eyes landing on the biker slumped in the chair at the desk, forcing a small smile. Did he really think your were that oblivious?

“You’ve been hiding in here all night,” You approaches the desk, crossing your arms over your chest. “Is there something you wanna share with the class?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered between the computer screen and your face, before he shook his head. “Just dealin’ with club stuff.”

“Hm, and what counts as club stuff?”

“It’s stuff you don’t need to worry about.”

You scoffed. “Huh, what happened to not doing stuff you shouldn’t be? Not getting into trouble?”

“Do you ever mind your own business?” Bucky questioned bluntly, though there was a smirk tugging at his lips.

Mirroring his expression, you leaned against the desk next to him. “Not when someone is clearly trying to hide something.

The biker bit the inside of his cheek, contemplating for a few moments. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust you. Sure, he’d only known you around a month now, but you were... his friend. A good friend. He just didn’t want you mixed up in anything dangerous. Steve wasn’t lying when he said that the club tried to stay out of trouble, because they definitely didn’t go out of their way to get into shitty situations. But if they needed to get their hands a little dirty to deal with clubs that thrived off trouble, then so be it.

Eventually, Bucky sighed, moving a hand back over his computer mouse and letting the screen light up again. Crinkling your brows, your eyes scanned the screen. He’d been looking at a map of Brooklyn, and the little red location pointer was pinned onto a warehouse downtown.

“Peter Parker, he’s just a kid. Parents died when he was barely five, lost his uncle a few years back. He lives at home with his aunt in Queens since he’s still in school, but we sorta took him in a while ago. The night after his uncle died, Tony found him on the sitting on the curb a few blocks away from here, completely distraught. He managed to talk him down though, and found out he was pretty good with engineering. We said if he wanted, he could help out with fixing bikes and cars at the clubhouse, and he comes by every so often since then.”

You didn’t know Tony that well; he was a little older than the rest of the club, and he lived outside of the clubhouse with his wife, Pepper. You hadn’t met Peter at all, but you trusted Bucky when he said that he was a good kid.

“Last week, he showed up to the here with a busted lip and broken nose. Said that Rumlow and his guys had jumped him, and that they wanted him to do a job for them — collect a weapon shipment from this warehouse.” Bucky nodded towards the screen.

At the mention of Brock Rumlow, you felt your jaw tighten. Thankfully, he’d kept his distance from Wanda’s bar since your last encounter with him, but you were still pissed off about the show he put on there, and there was nothing you regretted more than not jumping over the bar top and kicking him in the balls. Now he’d resorted to threatening a kid and making him do his dirty work?

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Peter’s meant to meet the guy delivering the weapons next week, so I’m gonna take Nat, Sam and Tony down to the warehouse and deal with any of Rumlow’s guys that are nearby.”

Upon seeing your face light up, Bucky chuckled, standing from his seat. “And no, you can’t come.”

“Bucky, I’m not a woman of many talents, but if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s handing people’s asses to them.” You lifted your chin confidently.

“Baby—”

You held a finger up to shush him. “Okay, I know I said that I liked when you call me that, but not now. Brock is the guy that grabbed me, Buck. And the guy that punched you in the face!”

“I know, and we’ll deal with him,” A smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Besides, I thought you weren’t part of any club. Can’t do club stuff if you’re not a member.”

“Well, not that I want to... but how would one go about becoming part of your little gang?” You weren’t lying; you definitely did not want to be a damn biker, but you did want the chance to boot Brock Rumlow and his group of dipshits in the face.

“You could become an old lady.” The biker cocked a brow, and you chuckled heartily.

Not that you were up to date with the biker lingo, but you could take a good guess at what being an old lady meant. “Hm, if only there was someone that wanted me to be their old lady.”

Narrowing his eyes, Bucky glanced over your features, waiting for you to laugh and brush the comment off as a joke since the majority of your vocabulary was sarcasm, but you didn’t. The corners of your lips curled up slightly, not teasingly, but softly...

...Until you became painfully aware of the silence that’d fell upon the two of you, and let out a sigh to break it. It was already late when you were supposed to leave, anyway. Now, the dim moonlight was casting shadows outside of the office window, the only source of bright light being the yellow streams from lampposts dotted up and down the quiet street.

“Well, I should get going.” You reluctantly stepped back from him.

“You don’t have to go, you know. Peggy stays overnight when it’s late.”

You chuckled. “Yeah, cause Peggy has a boyfriend that she can share a bed with.”

“Hey, I’ve got a double bed.” Bucky teased, and you’d be lying if you said sleeping next to him in his bed didn’t make you feel a certain type of way.

Though, you definitely wouldn’t let him know that. “You’re stupid, Bucky.”

He shrugged, following you as you continued for the door of the office. “I mean, even if I had a single—”

“I would still not be getting in your bed,” You deadpanned, finishing his sentence for him and promoting the stupidly hot little smirk of his to appear again. “Okay, now I’m leaving. Goodbye, Bucky.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“No you will not,” You breathed out a laugh. “There are two bottles of beer on that desk and death isn’t on the cards for me tonight — can’t get rid of me that easily.”

A look of realisation washed over his face, a pink colour tinting his cheeks. Was Bucky Barnes blushing? That was certainly a sight, and what a sight it was.

“S’alright — I don’t wanna get rid of you,” The biker stepped in front of you, dangerously close as your back hit the door. “Not yet, anyway.”

You couldn’t lie; Bucky was hot, he was beautiful. Even when he was being a sarcastic ass, but he was just as much one of them as you were. God dammit, as much as you wanted to slap yourself for letting your insides melt for a guy you didn’t know all that well, you knew that if you didn’t fucking kiss him right this second that you’d regret the hell out of it later.

And so, you did.

You grabbed the collar of the leather jacket he never failed to make an appearance without— or perhaps he just had a lot of leather jackets, though leather jackets didn’t necessarily need washed so it was probably the same jacket— not the time, _____. Carrying on, you swiftly captured his lips with yours, relief washing through you as you felt him react almost immediately. Almost, he definitely wasn’t expecting you to do that.

The kiss was gentle; gentle enough so that you could simply savour the feeling of his lips on yours, the taste a mixture of smoke and minty chewing gum. It was slow, but quick. Bucky didn’t even have the chance to move his hands to your waist before you pulled back, raising your hand to trace his bottom lip with your thumb.

“You still planning on getting rid of me?” You grinned, amused by the biker’s dumbfounded expression.

He laughed breathily after a couple of seconds, nose nudging yours playfully. “Not if you keep kissin’ me like that, baby.”

“Hm, maybe you’ll just get lucky again.” You pushed at his chest softly, letting you step forward and open the door to leave the office.

Bucky let out a scoff. “You’re really just gonna leave? After that?”

You shrugged, cocking a brow. “I mean, I could stay if you let me come with you next week...”

“No chance,” He smiled smugly. “Shut the door on your way out, will you?”

“You know what? I’m never kissing you again.”

“Whatever you say, _____.”

You rolled your eyes at his cocky tone, turning to make your way out of the room. “And I’m leaving the door open!”

“Hm, get home safe.” He called back.

Trying to bite back a smile as you looked over your shoulder back at him, you mouthed a final goodbye and left the office, a rush of feelings suddenly emerging as you stepped out of the clubhouse and onto the street.

You’d just kissed Bucky. You had kissed Bucky. And he had kissed you back. Well, shit.

Did you need to talk about it with him? What it meant for the two of you? Did he just kiss you for the fun of it or did he actually have feelings for you? Ugh. You’d always hated serious conversations, because apparently using sarcasm to cover up actually talking about your feelings was inappropriate and unhealthy. That’s what Peggy always told you, anyway. Perhaps there was no conversation to be had. Bucky could be your summer fling; a couple of months of fun before you were off on your travels again. The only reason he kissed you back might’ve been because he knew you were leaving eventually, which meant he didn’t have to commit to you.

Whatever — you were simply going to go with the flow. If you and Bucky ended up becoming... something more, that would be great. If not, you’d be slightly disappointed, but you’d be out of Brooklyn soon enough to forget about it.

And now, as you tightened your arms around the biker’s waist, you just enjoyed the moment. As someone that rarely stayed in a city for longer than a couple of weeks, enjoying the moment was all that you could do.

* * *

“Pegs, I am working. You can’t just call and ask me this kinda stuff during a shift.”

“I certainly can, especially when I had to hear it first from Steve.”

A strained sign fell from your lips as you leaned against bar, checking that no customers were approaching the counter before you turned your back. “I was gonna tell you, I promise. I didn’t think Bucky was gonna kiss and tell as soon as it happened.”

“I don’t think it was exactly a kiss and tell situation,” Peggy chuckled over the phone. “Steve said it was written all over his face after you’d left the clubhouse.”

Feeling heat rushing to your own face, you lowered your head, hoping no one was observing the bartender getting all embarrassed. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to tell Peggy about your kiss with Bucky. She was your best friend, of course you wanted to tell her. But considering that you weren’t really sure what direction you and him were going in, you thought perhaps that it’d be better to just keep it between you and him, like a Danny and Sandy situation — if everyone had known about their summer affair, it wouldn’t have been the same.

“Can you... tell him to not question Bucky about it?” You asked. “You told me he’d never been in a proper relationship before and neither have I. I think we need to work out... whatever we are ourselves, you know?”

Since the kiss, you hadn’t had the chance to even see Bucky that much. Wanda had been asking you to work more shifts at the bar because one of your co-workers was going on vacation for two weeks, which you didn’t mind doing. Other than hanging out with Peggy and seeing everyone at the clubhouse, it’s not like you had much better to do. Plus, it meant more money to put towards your travels at the end of the summer. At the rate you were earning and including what you already had saved up, you’d be getting your dream London trip a lot sooner than you’d thought.

“Of course, I understand,” She replied. “_____, I— I don’t want to play devil’s advocate, but have you thought about what’ll happen when summer ends? When you leave Brooklyn?”

The thought had crossed your mind, yes, though it was also pushed to the back of your mind whenever it popped up. In all honesty, you had zero clue what’d happen when you left Brooklyn again.

“Nope,” You said defeatedly. “Do I need to think about that now? What if we don’t even last until the end of summer?”

From the pause in conversation, you could just tell that Peggy knew you were bullshitting. “Okay, I’m going to pretend you did not just say that. You don’t just kiss guys, _____. And Bucky doesn’t get all flushed from kissing any old woman. It’s obvious you two click easily, and I honestly don’t think it’s something that can just end once you leave.”

The girl was right, she was completely right, but you weren’t sure what the hell you were supposed to do. It’s not like you could stay in Brooklyn forever and abandon your travels. That wasn’t who you were; staying wouldn’t be you being true to yourself. You couldn’t throw that away for a man you barely knew, a guy that possibly may not want you anymore after the summer ends, though there was a large part of you that didn’t believe that.

“I can’t talk about this right now, Peggy, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the kiss earlier, everything is just... it’s just confusing,” You rambled, wanting to steer the conversation away from your love life for the night. It was nearing nine o’clock, and with an hour still left of your shift, you didn’t want to waste your energy on a conversation that could be had another time. “Anyway, how is everyone? Has Steve heard from Bucky?”

This night was also the night that poor Peter Parker was meant to be carrying out Rumlow’s dirty work, and Bucky was going to get his club to back off. Well, hopefully. He’d already been punched in the face by that bastard once, you hoped that he’d be able to avoid having that happen again. You’d texted him earlier, telling him to let you know when he was home and safe because you would, in fact, worry about him. He teased you for your concern, but you frankly didn’t care. The fact they were having Peter pick up a weapon shipment implied that they wanted to use them to hurt people, and opposing biker clubs seemed like the type of people they’d target.

“They’ve been out an hour, so they should hopefully be back soon,” Peggy assured you. “We haven’t heard from them yet, though.”

“Right,” You exhaled, a little upset that there was no update from them. The sound of the door opening a few metered behind you reminded you that you were still at work, and that you should probably say goodbye to Peggy for the time being. “I’ve gotta go, Pegs — duty calls. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Alright, darling. Be careful going home.”

With a quiet ‘will do’, you quickly ended the phone call and shoved the device into your jean pocket, turning around to identify the source of the footsteps getting closer to the bar. Well, fuck.

An ugly smirk, scruffy jaw, messy hair — Brock fucking Rumlow was standing right in front of you.

You could’ve laughed, in fact, you did laugh. He was back, even after the embarrassing show he put on last time he was at the bar, and this time, he was alone.

Putting back the glass you’d pulled out from under the bar on instinct, because there was no way you were serving him, you cocked a brow, waiting for him to make the first move.

He slid onto the stool in front of you, the same place he’d sat during his last visit. There was a short silence as his dark eyes roamed your face, before he exhaled heavily. “You not gonna ask for my order?”

“No.” You answered instantly. It looked like he was expecting the cold shoulder from the way he chuckled at your answer.

You wanted to ask what he was doing here, why he wasn’t down at that random warehouse making sure the teenager he manipulated was doing the job correctly, but you didn’t imagine it was a good idea to let on that Bucky was telling you about that sort of stuff. He’d probably try to hurt him as opposed to you, and you didn’t want to put Bucky in any unnecessary shit.

“You know, it’s against the law to refuse service to an innocent customer.”

Clearly, he didn’t know the law at all, but you found it awfully ironic that he was claiming that you were in the wrong side of the law. You cocked your brow higher. “And you’re always abiding by the law, Brock?”

“What makes you think I’m not?” The man narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t know,” You shrugged nonchalantly. “Last time you were here, you were the one assaulting an innocent customer, and me.”

Brock scoffed. “You’re calling Barnes innocent?”

You only stared at him, waiting for an elaboration.

“Do you know where he is right now?”

Yes — dealing with your bullshit and the rest of your gang.

“Enlighten me.”

“A dirty warehouse across town, meeting a dude that’s sellin’ him weapons. Rifles, pistols, you name it.” He leaned forward on his elbows, pursing his lips.

Chewing on your bottom lip, you met his eyes, dark and full of hope that he’d somehow miraculously turned you against Bucky -- he was going to have to try a little harder than that if he wanted to sell his lies.

“Where are the rest of you pals, Brock?”

He furrowed his brows. “Down at the warehouse, shutting down the deal.”

“And why aren’t you with them, hm? I don’t think it’s ‘cause you decided you wanted a drink over the chance to screw Bucky and his club over.”

The guy clearly thought you were oblivious, that you’d be naive enough to believe that Bucky was the one having Peter collect the weapons instead of him. Maybe he thought it’d turn you against him, and then you’d carelessly join Rumlow’s club without a second thought. Even if Bucky hadn’t told you anything, there wasn’t a thing that could come out of Rumlow’s mouth that could convince you Bucky’s club was doing anything of the sort.

Unfortunately, the comment seemed to tip the conversation in the exact way you hadn’t wanted it to.

Brock’s jaw clenched, eyes hardening as he sat up properly on the stool. “What’s he been tellin’ you, huh?”

“I think it’s time for you to go, Brock.” You glared at the man. There was no way you were letting him sit and annoy the shit out of you when you weren’t going to serve him.

“You see,” He laughed emptily. “If Barnes has been spillin’ things that he shouldn’t be, I need to know. Can’t have any false information spreading.”

“False information, right,” You muttered. In your defense, all you knew about his club was about them manipulating Peter. Though you could assume that wasn’t the only stupid shit they were doing, you didn’t know anything else for sure. “Well, you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything, so get out of here.”

Brock tutted, rising from his seat and cracking his knuckles. “You’re a good liar, but I ain’t buyin’ it.”

“That’s not my problem,” You glowered, loving quickly around the bar to pace towards the door, opening it in an attempt to lure him out. “You need to go, or I’ll call Wanda over.”

Stalking towards you, the man shook his head. “If Barnes thinks he can tell his little girlfriend all of our business, he’s a fucking idiot,” He took a grasp on your wrist, his other hand curling into a fist. “Someone’s gotta show him what the consequences of that are.”

Anger flashed in your eyes as you struggled against his grip. “Get off me, dude. I don’t know anything.”

“Liar.” He murmured, before taking his fist and colliding it with your cheek abruptly.

A groan of pain left your lips as you stumbled back, the clutch on your wrist gone as Brock eyed you cautiously. Carefully, you brought your hand to where you’d been hit, blood quickly staining your fingertips as they grazed over the cuts on your skin from Brock’s rings. He’d hit you. That stupid, fucking son of a bitch had punched you. If there was any justifiable reason for you to kick him in the balls, this was it, and you were going to take advantage of the opportunity.

He definitely thought you were done with him for the night; you could tell by the way his chapped lips curled into a sick smile. He thought he’d won — how cute.

When your parents made you take self-defense classes ‘just as a precaution’ when you were a teenager, you thought it was unreasonable. Now, you’d never been more thankful.

Brushing your hair out of your face, your eyes flickered up to Brock, who was still staring down at you. Slowly, you moved so that your back was pressed against the closed bar door, clasping your hands around the long metal handle. The man assumed you were just catching your breath, and wasn’t ready for when you forcefully pushed your body forward, raising a booted foot and slamming it into his crotch.

A string of swear words fell from his lips as his upper body fell forward, Fuck it, you thought, striding over to his hunched over form and smashing your own fist against his cheek. He staggered back, just catching himself on the bar. Eyes wide, he raised his head to scowl at you, spitting blood from his freshly split lip onto the floor beside him.

From the other side of the bar, Wanda jogged over to the scene, an unimpressed scowl on her face. “What the hell is going on?”

The woman knew it wasn’t you causing the trouble, and there was even a smug smirk threatening to peak through her annoyed demeanor at the sight of Brock Rumlow with a split lip. She strode over to him, pulling him up harshly by the collar of his jacket.

“You’re banned from this bar. If I see you in here again, you’re getting a bullet straight through your gut, yes?” Wanda practically spat at the man, who nodded reluctantly and pulled away from her grasp. She turned to you, a small smile on her lips. “_____, you’re free to go early. Do you need...?”

Wanda eyed your cut cheek and bruised jaw, but you only shook your head. “Thanks, Wan, but I’ll just head home.”

The strawberry-blond nodded, sending a final glare towards Brock before heading back behind the bar.

Of course, your stubborn self wouldn’t let yourself leave without having the last word, causing you to approach him as he haphazardly stood from where he’d fallen. “If I ever have the displeasure of seeing you again, and you try to hurt me or anyone else, I’ll cut off your fingers and force them down your throat, you got that?”

Before you could wait for an answer, you were spinning around and heading out the double doors of the bar, ignoring the throb on the left side of your face as a satisfied smirk crept onto your lips. You’d never considered yourself to be a violent person, but when it came to assholes like Brock Rumlow, you didn’t mind getting your hands a little dirty. When you told Peggy about what happened, she’d likely scold you for even just mouthing back at him. You had zero regrets, however. You’d always wanted to experience a bar fight, and now you’d experienced one first hand.

As if on cue, your phone buzzed in your pocket. Stretching out your aching knuckles, you swiped it from your jeans.

Back at the clubhouse safe and sound. You want me to pick you up from work in an hour?

You chuckled under your breath, typing out a response.

Can you come up now? Wanda let me off early.

Sure, I’ll be there soon. Did you do something special to get off at this time?

Pausing, you debated whether to let him know straight away about the incident. You decided against it; when he saw your face, he’d figure it out soon enough.

Something like that...

After twenty minutes of aimlessly standing outside of the bar, the familiar roar of a motorcycle engine caught your attention. As the bike came to a stop, the beaming headlights had you squinting to even make out the outline of Bucky in the dark. However, judging by the speed at which he was dismounting the bike, you were sure that the light had allowed him to see the state of you.

“Holy shit, _____,” Bucky paced over to you, hands coming to your shoulders. “What the hell happened?”

You let out a hesitant laugh. “Uh, rough shift?”

Scoffing, the biker narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, looks like it. What— are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” You assured him, removing his hands from your shoulders and squeezing them comfortingly. “Trust me, you should see the other guy.”

“You were fighting?”

“Bucky,” You intervened, for now deciding against telling him that it was in fact Brock Rumlow you’d gotten on the wrong side of. It’d only result in him marching into the bar himself and starting another disturbance, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Wanda pulled out her pistol again. “C’mon, can we go? My house, the clubhouse, wherever — I’ll explain when half of my face isn’t aching like hell.”

The man paused, eyeing you cautiously before a soft chuckle left his lips. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” You patted his chest, plastering on a smile. “Now come on; I didn’t wait this long to clean you up when you got decked across the face.”

With an amused eye roll, Bucky tugged on your hand and led you to the bike. He’d never seen someone so calm after getting a punch to the face, but then again — as cliché as it was — he’d never met anyone like you before.

Half an hour later, the biker had you sat on the counter-top in one of the bathrooms at the clubhouse, standing between your legs and gently dabbing at your cut with a wet cloth. The bleeding had stopped by the time you got to the clubhouse, but it still needed cleaned up. You were holding a cool ice pack to your jaw, watching him intently as he took care of you. Might as well take the opportunity to stare at the guy, right?

“I’m gonna put some antiseptic cream on the cut, just to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” He muttered, reaching for the tub of it in the wooden cabinet above you.

“Are you getting a sense of déjà vu too?” You quirked a brow, eliciting a smirk from him.

“Hm, a little bit; I guess we both just can’t avoid trouble,” Bucky cupped your jaw as he applied the cream, chuckling when you mumbled a ‘motherfucker’ under your breath at the sting. “You gonna tell me what happened?”

“Well,” You sighed. “Long story short... Brock Rumlow happened.”

Pulling back, Bucky furrowed his brows and waited for you to elongate the story, but you only shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. You knew that Brock being involved would only fuel a rage that he couldn’t relieve.

He bit the inside of his cheek, a frustrated laugh falling from his lips. “Rumlow did this to you? Why didn’t you tell me at the bar? Was he still there? I would’ve went in there and—”

“I know exactly what you would’ve done; why do you think I waited until now to tell you?” Though you were smiling, Bucky was still understandably apprehensive. Pursing your lips, you grabbed one of his loosely clenched fists and held it in your lap. “I meant it when I said ‘you should’ve seen the other guy’ — Brock’s face looks the same as mine and he got a boot to the balls. Plus, I think his ego was bruised enough without someone else going in there and knockin’ his lights out.”

Sighing, Bucky shook his head, unable to suppress a small grin. He never underestimated your power; anyone would be a fool to do so. When you were angry, you showed it. When someone hit you, you hit them back harder, metaphorically and literally. It wasn’t even that you had a short temper, you just didn’t put up with people’s shit, and Bucky highly admired that. “Well, I’m jealous of anyone that was there to see it — I bet it was damn hot.”

You scoffed, though seconds later you were shrugging in agreement. “It definitely was, you would’ve loved it.”

While he returned the first-aid stuff to their rightful places in the bathroom, you explained to Bucky what had gotten Brock so riled up. He wasn’t surprised that Brock tried to convince you that he was the bag guy in all of this; he’d tried to do it with Peggy too when she first started dating Steve. In his misogynistic mind, he thought that women were naive enough to be persuaded of anything that he wanted them to believe, and that by getting you on his side would mean he’d ‘won’ over Bucky. Perhaps he’d learned his lesson that night to not underestimate a woman’s power — dumbass.

Down at the warehouse, they’d managed to get Peter out of there before the person delivering the weapon shipment could arrive. There were one or two of Rumlow’s guys there keeping watch, but without him, they ran away like scared children. You teased Bucky about being a ‘big bad biker’ as he explained the night to you, but he insisted it was Natasha that had them crapping their pants; she never usually made an effort to hide the set of knives on her hip, and she apparently had a death-stare that could have anyone shaking in their boots. With him being banned from Wanda’s bar and unsuccessful with his plan of using Peter, they doubted Brock Rumlow would show his face around the area for a while. He’d only be embarrassing himself if he did.

Not long after your cut had been tended to and the pain in your jaw had subsided, you found yourself once again fighting the temptation to stay the night at the clubhouse — the temptation being a whiny biker named Bucky Barnes.

“But you’ve had a rough day,” He bargained, following after you as you made your way to the front door of the clubhouse. “It’ll save you the ride back if you stay.”

Chortling lightly, you turned around to face him. “A rough day? Buck, I gave an asshole a well-deserved kick in the balls, I’ve had a great day.”

“But what about your cheek? It might start bleeding again and—”

“Bucky,” You cut him off, biting back a smile. “Why do you really want me to stay?”

There was a short pause, heat pooling in the biker’s cheeks at the question as he raised a brow, silently asking you if he was supposed to actually answer the question. When you only quirked your own brow, he sighed, his lips curling into a fond smile. “...because I don’t like it when you leave? ‘Cause I like you a whole lot and I really wanna kiss you again?”

Slowly, you trailed a slightly bruised hand up his chest, stopping at the nape of his neck to tangle your fingers in the hair there. “You should’ve just lead with the kiss, biker.”

Before you could notice the doting grin on his lips, Bucky had looped an arm around your waist and pulled you flush to his chest, soft lips locking with yours tenderly. Your other arm was quick to wrap around his neck as you found yourself wanting to be impossibly closer to him. You tugged at his hair, eliciting a deep moan from his lips, and you pulled away with a satisfied smirk.

“So you’ll stay?” Bucky spoke against your lips, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

“If you keep kissing me like that.” You imitated his words from your last kiss, to which he shook his head and clasped his hand around yours, leading you out of the hallway and up to his room.

You hoped the rest of the club were asleep, because from the thump of your body being pushed against Bucky’s bedroom door after he’d dragged you inside and shut it, you were sure that they could assume who was causing the racket at almost midnight.

Bucky’s mouth was on yours in a matter of seconds, hands cupping your jaw, carefully avoiding pressing against the side that was bruised. Meanwhile, your fingers gently traced across the hem of his t-shirt, riding it up so that the pads of your fingers came into contact with his lower stomach, ghosting over the waistband of his jeans. He stepped back momentarily, shoving his leather jacket down his arms and letting it fall to the floor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your jacket,” You breathed. “It’s like you’re naked already.”

“Who said anything about getting naked?” He teased, hands coming to trace over your own exposed stomach. “Someone’s eager.”

“You’re stupid,” You rolled your eyes, unable to suppress a grin. “Coming from the guy who just said he liked me, sap.”

“Real mature,” He snickered, riding your shirt up to your chest and tugging it off when you raised your arms to aid him. His lips moved to the crook of your neck, trailing light kissed along the soft skin there. “I meant it, though. I really like you, baby.”

A whimper escaped your lips as his attached to a certain spot on your neck, your hand fisting his shirt in response. You didn’t even have to say it back; it was obvious that you felt the same way about him in pretty much every way. The way your body was reacting to his, the breathy way that his name was falling from your swollen lips, and the fact you’d kissed him the week prior was a good indicator too.

“And you said you’d never get in my bed.” Bucky smirked after helping you pull off his own shirt.

“Technically, I’m not in your bed yet.”

“Yet,” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear before trailing his hand down your jaw, along the curve of your shoulder and down to the hem of your bra. “Can’t wait to have you there, moaning all pretty for me.”

Your face grew hot at his words, but his lips were on yours again too quickly for him to notice. When he eventually pulled back for air, you bit your lip in anticipation.

“Hm, let’s not wait any longer then.”

And he didn’t let you wait any longer, leaning down to kiss you with a passionate hunger as he dragged you by both of your hands to his bed. Maybe it was the way he didn’t rush, that he took time memorizing every inch of your skin with gentle lips and wandering hands. Maybe it was the sighs and moans of pleasure that he’d managed to draw from you so easily, or the way he whispered praises and sweet nothings into your ear as he positioned himself comfortably between your legs. But after the two of you had reached your highs and were left grinning like idiots and panting for breath, you realised how fucking hard you’d fallen for the damn biker who’d somehow gotten you in his bed.

* * *

Soft snores gradually drew you from your slumber, eyelashes fluttering against your cheeks before you eventually squinted your eyes open. It couldn’t have been any later than 5am; daylight was peaking through the curtains of the bedroom, but the world outside was still quiet. Quiet for New York, anyway.

Bucky had his arms tucked under his pillow, face buried into the cotton, lips parted, brown strands of hair falling in front of his face. Back muscles relaxed, shoulders raising slightly as he breathed quietly. He looked pretty like that, innocent even. Innocent in comparison to what occurred in his bed the night before.

As you idly observed him in his peaceful state, you couldn’t help but think about what Peggy had said to you earlier the prior night. She was right, as always. Especially after the night you’d just had with him, there was no way that your feelings for Bucky would just leave along with you leaving after summer. Perhaps sleeping with him was the stupidest decision you’d ever made. Perhaps it would’ve just been easier to not stay the night and pretend like you’d never kissed him in the first place. But you didn’t want that. You wanted him, even if you could only have him for the summer.

A muffled moan jerked your attention away from your thoughts and back to the man laying next to you, who was shifting as he began to wake, the muscles in his back flexing as he did so. It was a sight you could get used to for sure.

Soon enough, his baby blues met yours, a lazy smile overcoming his lips. “Watching me sleep?”

“No.” You denied, though he could see straight through the lie.

He hummed, reaching a hand out to trace over your bruised cheek. You leaned into the touch. “Still hurt?”

“Not really. Had a good doctor fix it up last night.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Uh-huh. I mean, he slept with me afterwards which I thought was a little inappropriate...”

The biker scoffed, enclosing an arm around your bare waist to pull you closer. Sloppy kisses were planted down your jaw to your shoulder, ghosting over the dark bruises he’d marked you with only hours ago.

“I’ll miss you, you know. When you have to leave.” Bucky murmured, pulling away and laying back down against the pillow, his nose grazing yours.

You smiled sadly, pushing some of the hair away from his face. “Do you think this was stupid of us? To start something that’s just gonna have to end in a month?”

“Maybe, yeah,” He mirrored your expression, voice still a little raspy. “But I don’t regret it.”

“Me neither,” You twirled a lock of his hair sigh your pointer finger. “What’re you gonna do without me, huh? You might have to find another girl to take rides with you at sunset.”

Bucky shook his head, squeezing your waist. “Nah, I think I’d rather ride solo. Won’t be the same without you just over my shoulder.”

“Even when I get road rage?”

“Especially when you get road rage.”

“Well, we should probably make the most of the time we have left,” You propped yourself up on one elbow, a smirk playing on your lips. “How about a ride while the sun rises?”

“Sounds perfect.” He loosened his hold on you, letting you roll away from him and swing your legs over the side of the bed.

“Mind if I take a shower first?”

“Mind if I take a shower with you?”

You thought for a moment. It’d be saving water, wouldn’t it? “Screw it, why not. C’mon, Buck.”

You scurried off to the bathroom, still naked as Bucky followed after you, suddenly not so tired anymore.

Perhaps the summer hadn’t went in the direction you’d been expecting, but you had no complaints about the turn that it’d taken. You’d never believed in fate or destiny, much like you’d never believed in love. However, you’d like to believe that you were meant to meet Bucky when you came back to Brooklyn at some point. You’d never met someone— someone so perfect for you, if you were being honest. He didn’t scold you for your sarcasm, or shame you for standing up for yourself. He responded to your teasing with his own, he knew how to make you laugh, how to make your cheeks hot and your knees weak. You were always on the exact same wavelength, always knowing how the other was feeling, being able to bring out the best in one another.

It seemed like a waste to spend the little time left at home thinking about summer ending, so you simply pushed it out of your mind. Enjoying the moment was something you’d learned to do over and over again, because that was all you could do in the life that you led.

The moments spent with Bucky Barnes were just going to be a little harder to let go of.

* * *

Taglist:

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Watched

AO3

Dean was being watched. 

That was impossible, of course, because Sam and Eileen were out for the night on a date, Castiel was on his weekly therapeutic grocery shopping trip, and Dean was by himself in the bunker’s laundry room. 

And yet -

He paused after tossing a ball of wadded up flannel into the washer and looked over his shoulder into the empty space around him. 

Dean huffed out a breath and shook his head.

He was just getting paranoid. 

-

It was two in the morning and Dean was humming to himself in his boxers and robe as he cooked a spontaneous omelette that his stomach had demanded - he was but a servant to its nightly whims. 

And then he felt it again. 

Something was watching him.

Dean froze when the sensation washed over him, familiar in a foreign way but not familiar enough to bring him any kind of comfort. 

In one smooth motion that years of hunting had ingrained in him, Dean grabbed a knife from his fancy knife block that he’d splurged on during a different late night and whipped around, only catching a glimpse of a tan trench coat as it left the door frame. 

Letting out a relieved breath, Dean poked his head out the door and frowned when the only thing that greeted him was a dark hallway. 

“Cas?” He called, lowering his knife. 

The hallway didn’t answer. 

-

“So, are you doing like a voyeurism thing now, or what?”

Castiel looked up from the fantasy novel he’d been reading, glanced both to his left and right like there was a possibility that Dean could possibly be talking to someone else in the middle of the bunker’s library where only the two of them had been for the past couple of hours. 

“What?” 

“You heard me,” Dean gestured towards him with a book in one hand, “It’s fucking creepy, dude. You have my full permission to stare longingly at this mug whenever you want but you’re gonna get another knife in the chest if you keep up trying to be sneaky about it. I’ve got hunter instincts, man.” 

Castiel blinked. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said after a moment’s pause. 

“I’ve seen you.” Dean said with an eye-roll. “The jig is up.”

“Dean, I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to.” Castiel said with a frown. “I’ve never spied on you.”

Castiel seemed to take a moment to reevaluate something. 

“In recent years.” He amended.

“Ha!”

“Dean -”

“Alright, well, if it’s not you, who is it?”

Castiel shrugged his shoulders once. 

“I haven’t detected anyone entering the bunker that isn’t supposed to be here.” Castiel said, his eyes flicking back down to his reading. “Maybe you have a ghost.” 

Dean squinted at Castiel, looking for any sign that he was being messed with, and sat back down in his chair.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

-

The cashiers in the liquor store nearest to the bunker knew Dean by name - in fact they’d picked it up easily in the first month he and Sam had moved in. 

Dean gestured towards the empty row of booze that held his favorite whiskey as he groaned loudly and dramatically.

“Nathalie! Who cleaned you out?”

His favorite of the cashiers leaned over from the next aisle and raised an eyebrow. 

“You did, Dean. Like four days ago. We only restock once a week.” 

Dean made another loud groaning sound. 

“I’m my own worst enemy.”

Nathalie began to blow a large bubble with gum the same bright color of her hair and stared at him as it popped. 

“Aren’t we all.”

She ducked back down into the aisle. 

Dean grumbled some more as he grabbed some of his less-than-favorable second choices of whiskey and set the last bottle into his cart just as the hair on the back of his neck began to stand on end. 

Again. 

He didn’t move, just stared down at the final bottle as he tried to focus on the corners of his vision. 

Tan coat, dark hair, blue tie. 

Dean let out a breath and turned to confront him, but the figure had ducked back out of view. 

Shopping cart abandoned, Dean strode forward quickly, looking down the aisle, ready to catch him red-handed, but only saw Nathalie taking stock. 

“Hey, did you see - uh -”

“That guy you’re with sometimes?” Nathalie, jerked a thumb behind herself. “Yeah, he went -” 

She frowned as she glanced in the direction she’d pointed out. 

“Well he was there.” 

And now there was nothing. 

-

“Dean, I am telling you. I don’t know what it is you’re seeing but it’s not me.” Castiel set the bags down on the kitchen table as he began putting the food he’d just purchased into the fridge. 

“Look, if you’re trying to get me back for beating you at Uno this is a really fucking weird way -”

“It’s not me. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”

Dean threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.  

“Then what’s fucking happening? Am I going nuts in my old age?”

“You’re in your forties.”

“In hunter-years I’m decrepit.”

Castiel set the milk on the table with a little bit more force than Dean thought was necessary. 

“Dean. Listen to me. I have no need to spy on you. I get to look at you all I want, whenever I want, and I also gain the benefit of having you look back.” For a moment, Castiel almost looked fond. “I’m very lucky to have that in life, and it’s something I don’t take for granted. So, whatever is happening to you, it’s not -”

Castiel stopped mid-sentence and Dean felt Castiel’s gaze go slack, like he was no longer staring at him, but somehow staring through him. 

“What?” Dean asked. 

“Uh,” Castiel shook his head, coming back to himself, “Nothing. I just�� had a thought.”

Dean waited. 

“Care to share with the class?”

“You should. . .  try talking. . . to whatever it is.” Castiel said finally, turning to place the milk in the fridge. “You never know.”

“Talking to it.”

Castiel nodded.

“I swear to god, if this some sort of prank -” 

Castiel turned around, and Dean shut up.

That wasn’t a look he saw on Castiel often. 

“Come on. Help me put everything else away.”

-

The feeling came again at night. 

Dean rubbed at his eyes as he walked down the hallway, his bladder now blissfully emptier than it had been when he’d been woken up by it. 

The hair on his neck began to prickle as he shuffled past doorways and connecting halls in his slippers and robe, and out of the corner of one eye he saw the figure. 

Standing in the hallway to his right. 

Dean stopped. 

“Don’t go.” He said, not daring to turn his head yet. 

The figure shifted ever so slightly, but didn’t completely disappear.

“I know you’ve been watching me.” Dean’s voice was just above a whisper. “You’ve been doing it a lot. What do you want?” 

The figure didn’t move. 

Dean took a risk, turned his head, and there, in the middle of the hallway, was Castiel. 

“You said -” Dean started, then stopped himself as he looked at the figure in front of him. 

It wasn’t Castiel. 

Not really. 

He had the same clothes, the same vessel, the same everything - but this was not a Castiel that Dean was familiar with. He held himself like he was either being weighed down by the weight of the sky or was slowly being coaxed towards whatever lay beneath the surface of the earth. Maybe both. 

His eyes were the most off-putting. 

They were sunken and dark, staring back at him with equal parts joy and misery all tied up together in a neat little bow of fear. 

It was Castiel, but it wasn’t Castiel. 

It reminded him of a Castiel he’d seen only once before.

“Dean.” 

The voice cracked - like a dam that was on the verge of collapse.

“Cas -” Dean swallowed, trying to put this all together in his head. 

The Castiel in front of him sagged visibly, and half a sob caught in his throat as he took a step backward. 

“I’m sorry -” Castiel stammered, “I shouldn’t have come -”

“Wait.” Dean took a step forward to make up what he’d lost. “Cas.”

Castiel stood miserably still. 

“. . . When are you from?” 

Castiel said nothing for a long few moments, just stood silently and stared down at the floor. 

When he looked up again, he’d managed to regain a small semblance of composure.

“Two thousand and ninety four.” He said softly.

Dean let out a breath that was half out of disbelief. 

“Wow.” He scratched at the back of his head. “And uh... how is it?”

More silence. 

“I miss you.” Castiel whispered, and whatever composure he’d managed to regain was lost again as the dam finally broke. “I miss you so much, Dean. I can’t - I’m sorry, I can’t do this -” 

“Hey, hey,” Dean stepped forward when Castiel started to hyperventilate - something he hadn’t been aware could even happen to an angel - “Cas. Hey, I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are.” Castiel managed, and Dean’s suspicions were confirmed. 

Of course they were - he’d probably been long dead.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I know I promised, but I miss you. I had to - I had to see you again -”

“Cas. . .” Dean said, his heart wrenching at the sight of him like this. “Look, don’t - don’t fucking do this to yourself. Please. Time jumps take so much out of you and you’ve been doing this a lot. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I know.” Castiel reached a hand out slowly, eyes on Dean’s own hand. “I know.”

It took everything Dean had to pull back. 

“What’s dead should stay dead.” Dean said, trying to sound firm. “You know that.”

Castiel turned his gaze back up to Dean - and for the first time - he looked soft.

“You and I were always an exception to the rule.” 

Dean couldn’t argue that, instead, he ignored the alarms blaring in his head as he stepped forward and pulled Castiel into a hug, and Castiel clung to him like a lifeline, breathing into his neck and gripping at his robe. 

“I love you,” Dean said, and felt Castiel’s grip tighten, “But you’ve gotta stop doing this to yourself. If Sam and I. . . if we aren’t around, then humanity needs you, man. You’ve gotta be there for them.”

He felt Castiel nod into his neck and his grip began to weaken. 

He let go. 

“Alright.” Castiel said, voice lower and huskier than usual. “Thank you... Dean. For indulging my selfishness.”

“S’not selfish.” Dean swallowed. “And I’m - I’m so sorry. For what it’s worth I - he - never wanted to leave you. Never in a million years.”

Castiel’s hand lingered in Dean’s, and then it fell away. 

“I know. I know all of this. I didn’t see anything that I didn’t already know I just -” Castiel swallowed. “I just missed you.”

Castiel took a breath and wiped at his eyes, like he was already distancing himself from the Dean in front of him. 

“I won’t bother you anymore.”

“Cas -” 

Castiel looked up. 

“. . . Get a cat.” Dean said with a shrug. “Smelly, dirty, bitey, knocks things over - it’ll be basically the same thing. And you’ll have a cat.” 

A small smile twitched at the corner of Castiel’s mouth. 

“Hold him tight for me.” Castiel said.

And the hallway was empty again. 

-

Dean stepped back into the bedroom and climbed into bed, curling himself around Castiel and pressed his forehead against his neck.

“A long bathroom break.” Castiel murmured, entwining his fingers with Dean’s. “Everything alright?”

Dean only hummed in affirmation, and inhaled deeply. 

“You know. . . maybe we should get a cat.”

Castiel shifted to crane his neck at Dean. 

“A cat?”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been quite a visit to the bathroom.”

“Yeah.” 

Dean held him tight. 

[cassiopeiassky]

Black Velvet

Alright everyone, it’s finally here.  I’ve been sort of salty about the lack of tall!reader fics for awhile now or maybe it’s just the ubiquitous short, petite, drowning in his sweatshirt descriptions that get under my skin but just couldn’t get a decent amount of inspiration to write one.  I have been known to throw in a mention of height randomly in my fics, but my usual workaround to avoid physical descriptions of the reader is to just write Bucky as like six and a half feet tall.  Hes a damn super soldier, he should be taller anyway he did not start out as short as Steve.  So one day I stumbled across this post by @invisibleanonymousmonsters​ and for some reason I can’t explain, an idea was finally unlocked in my brain later that same day.  (Inspired by a song?  Me?  No.  Never.)

It’s kind of all over the place, so buckle in.  It does take a sharp right into smutsville but also ends up flipping a u and landing in flufftown.  I don’t know.  I just write what the muse tells me to write.  

I would like to thank the incomparable @scottish-pepper​ for her amazing help and support while I wrote the thing - I couldn’t have done it without you, darlin.

Bucky x Tall!Reader

Modern day AU - think of a 40s prewar Bucky if he got a chance to grow up and lived in a small town 

Plot:  You have a terrible day of epic proportions but a beautiful stranger in a small town helps to make it better.

Warnings: Swearing (as per usual), smut, mentions of alcohol/drinking/bars, a brief mention of potentially disordered eating, mentions of a thunderstorm, and a very specific shitty family member.

Word count: 12K  Yep.  Knda got away from me

One last author’s note:   This fic includes some ASL dialogue; it is expressed in italics without quotation marks.  ASL is an incredibly beautiful and expressive language, and it’s in 3D!!  It also has its own grammar structure, rules, nuances, and regional differences, just like any other language, and it can be a challenge to fit it into a two-dimensional space.  Taking this into consideration, I’ve decided to write the dialogue with spoken English grammar because my ASL is really rusty and I don’t want to mess it up.

It’s hot.  Like 100 degrees in the shade with 95% humidity hot. The trees are wilted, flowers are drooping, and there isn’t so much as a glimmer of hope for a cloud in the sky to interrupt the sun’s torture of earth’s inhabitants.  The air is thick and still – there’s no movement at all – yet dangerously unsettled.  It’s the kind of weather that if you sneeze, you might cause a tornado in the next county over.  Of course your cousin would choose today of all days to get married.  And of course her mom pressured her into going black tie, increasing everyone’s suffering tenfold.

“I can’t believe I rented a room for this.  I can’t believe I spent $200 on a dress.  Why am I even here?  What did I expect?”  There’s no answer, but of course there wouldn’t be.  You’re alone in your car, driving back to a motel that you might not even stay the night in.  You’d rented a room because you figured you’d have a few drinks at the reception – you wanted to celebrate the bride, she’s one of your best friends – but at this point you might as well just make the hour drive back home.

About a block from the motel you notice a bar tucked behind a gas station.   According to the clock on the dash, it’s only 5:25.

Fuck it.  You deserve a goddamn drink after today.

You pull into the parking lot and are surprised by the number of cars, farm trucks, and motorcycles already parked.  There’s only one redneck limo, thank God – a pickup truck with a 10 inch lift kit and truck nuts hanging off the hitch, and in your experience driven only by incredibly insecure men – so that’s a good sign, right?  It must be a decent place with decent drinks if it’s this busy so early in the evening.  Maybe some of your day can be salvaged after all.

The hot, sticky air rushes in as soon as the car door is opened.  “Gross,” you mutter; the heat hits even harder after the air conditioning in your car.  Glancing over to the passenger seat, you see the hideous shoes your aunt Lydia pressed into your hands upon arriving at the wedding.  “You know what, Lydia?  Fuck you and fuck your ugly shoes.”  You put your heels back on just to spite her.

It’s a small-town watering hole, so of course all eyes are drawn to you when you enter.  And they stay on you as you find a seat at the bar – perhaps it’s because you’re a stranger, perhaps it’s because you’re overdressed.

But probably not.

The bartender approaches while drying his hands.  He’s got dirty blonde hair in a sloppy undercut, a wide, flat nose, and is wearing a concert tee shirt with the arms cut off to show off his full sleeve of tattoos.  

“Do you have blended drinks?”  He nods. “Strawberry daiquiri, please.”

“Sure thing.”

You pull out some cash, tipping generously because your drink is a pain in the ass to make, then look around while you wait.

The bar is cool but not cold, not brightly lit but also not uncomfortably dim, is bigger than it looks, and is even busier than the amount of vehicles in the parking lot would lead you to believe.  On one side there’s a jukebox next to a small stage with an empty but decently sized dance floor.  There are a few high tops, then a gaming area featuring pool tables, dart boards, and a few pinball machines.  On the other side of the bar you see a window with someone selling pull tabs, a station set up for calling bingo, a door to what’s probably the kitchen, and a popcorn machine filled with freshly popped popcorn.  Behind you and scattered generously throughout the building are tables, some with 4 seats and some with 6, and over half of them are occupied.

“Here you go, miss.” The bartender places your drink in front of you with a polite smile.  “Would you like a menu?  The full kitchen is open tonight.”

The thought is nauseating. “Mmmm…maybe later.”

“Too hot to eat?”  At your despondent nod, he grimaces and places a tall glass of ice water next to the daiquiri.  “Thought as much.  I’ll check back in a bit.”  You didn’t notice his name tag until now – his name is Clint, and according to the hand illustrations under his name, he’s fluent in ASL.

Unsure if he’s Deaf and fluent in lipreading or if he’s hearing, you both sign and murmur, “Thank you,” before bringing the drink to your lips.  It’s on the edge of being burned – just the way you like it.  Sipping on the sweet slush is pure bliss, cooling you down from the inside out as it tempers the heat of the rum.

You sign?  He doesn’t speak this time.  It’s not an uncommon reaction.

Yes.  I’m an interpreter.

His eyebrows rise in interest.  What made you go into that?

My high school offered it, and I ended up becoming really good friends with the teacher’s daughter, who is Deaf.  I made a lot of friends, got involved with the community and immersed in the culture, and I just loved it, so I figured, why not do this for a living?  My dreams of being a Triple Crown winning jockey went out the window by the end of 5th grade so…

He laughs, but not unkindly.  Yeah, I suppose you are a bit too tall for that.  But 5th grade?  Damn.   His face lights up, Hey, have you heard of PATH, International?  They’ve got a campus about half hour north of here.  If you like horses, it might be right up your alley.  

PATH International, or Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship, is an organization very close to your heart.  Yes! I volunteer there every Tuesday night.

The look of surprise on Clint’s face is priceless.  No shit? I’m there on Thursday nights!  You must be the other interpreter the kids are always talking about - they LOVE you!  And so do the horses.  You know, I was Ace’s favorite till you came along.  Now he won’t even look at me unless I bribe him with a treat.

You look again at his name tag, and the name clicks.  Wait, you’re Hawkeye!  The one that does the archery demos on horseback for the kids’ birthday parties.

He takes a theatrical bow. The one and only.

Clint “Hawkeye” Barton is nothing short of a legend at PATH.  Profoundly Deaf yet impossibly accurate with speechreading, he manages to blend both worlds perfectly.  He’s also a master archer both off and on horseback, which basically makes him a superhero in the kids’ eyes.  There are whispers that he travelled with a circus as a teenager, that he raises horses, and that he moonlights as a vigilante, but nothing has been verified and from what you’ve been told, he will neither confirm nor deny.  It’s very likely that there’s at least some truth to the horse raising rumor – Ace is technically his horse, he just loans the chestnut gelding to the program.  You’d been dying to meet Clint for a few years now but hadn’t been able to make it work.

It’s so good to finally meet you!

Likewise!  I’ve been meaning to swing by on a Tuesday to see who it is that stole my favorite horse’s heart, but I’m usually here.  His face lights up, Hey, I’ve got some ideas for a field trip for the older kids and adults but I need to team up with an ASL interpreter since I can’t technically work as a Deaf interpreter on my own off PATH’s campus.  You know, rules and shit.  You interested?

Absolutely!  Just let me know.   You dig a pen out of your purse and write your number and email address on a napkin. You know, I’m sorry, but I’m really not sorry about Ace.  He stole my heart, what can I say.

He’s a shameless flirt, but I never thought he’d actually prefer someone else over me.  But now that I’ve met you, I guess I can’t be too sore about it.  He seems to have good taste.  He takes the napkin with a grin and folds it up before putting it in his pocket, then looks to his left when a waitress waves for his attention and nods.  Duty calls.  Let me know if you need anything.

Well, that improved your day considerably.  

For a few minutes, anyway.

“That’s an awfully girly drink for a woman like you.”  A cloud of stale cigarette smoke with an obnoxious sounding man in the middle of it takes the seat next to yours.  

You don’t turn to face him; you don’t even acknowledge him.  If that’s his opening line, then you really, really don’t have the patience to interact with him today. This is the guy that owns the jacked-up truck. You can feel it in your bones.

Clint makes a face from behind the drink he’s making, notices your annoyance, and shakes his head. “Dude, she’s got more alcohol in her glass than you and your four buddies combined, so don’t knock her drink of choice.  She’s also clearly not interested, and way, way out of your league.  Go back to your pull tabs and leave the lady alone.”

You can feel the guy’s eyes on you, but Clint keeps glaring daggers at him and he eventually leaves. You can overhear him tell his buddies, “Thought she’d be an easy lay, but you know what?  Even I have standards.  How do you fuck someone that tall anyway?  I’d need scaffolding!”  They laugh, but you continue to hold your head up high.  It’s nothing you haven’t heard some version of before.  He’s not clever.

Ignore them.  They’re lonely, small little men.

I know.  Thank you.  His protective gesture is touching and completely unexpected.  This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often because most people assume you can handle yourself.  You can – but it’s nice to not always have to be on the defensive, and today you’re at your limit.

No worries.  You look like you had a rough day, I figured you didn’t need Chad making it worse.  Clint winks and turns back to his drinks.

Well, he’s not wrong, but the day can only get better from here, right?  Right.  You nod to yourself then sit back and enjoy your drink.  Clint stops by periodically to chat, but otherwise you’re left alone.

Eventually it’s time for a trip to the ladies’ room, and you do your best to ignore the stares and chuckles that inevitably follow you.  In your semi-formal black dress you certainly stand out in a bar filled with cut off shorts and tee shirts, but that’s not why they’re staring.

In your black satin and lace, modestly platformed stiletto heels – affectionately known as your ‘fuck me shoes’ – you’re well over six feet tall.  Are they uncomfortable?  God yes, but they’re also beautiful and totally worth it.

The bathrooms are at the back of the bar, past the dart boards and pool tables.  You’re almost there when you hear something ping off one of the pool table lamps and see it ricochet across the aisle and onto the top of the glass and wood cabinets housing the pool cues.  

“How – how the hell did you manage that, Rogers?”  A man with dark hair and a jawline that could cut glass heads in your direction.  “You were supposed to throw the chalk to me, not your imaginary friend standing thirteen feet behind me.”

“Sorry, Buck,” a blonde joins him, looking appropriately apologetic.  “My aim was a little off.”

“Ya think?”

You slow your pace to watch them.  The guy with the dark hair is gorgeous – well, they both are, to be fair – but the one…damn.  His maroon tee shirt is fitted enough to show off his beefy physique, and his jeans hug his thighs and ass like they were made for him.  He throws off an air of cocky confidence with just a hint of danger, lending a genuine feel to his bad boy image.  Should you…maybe?  No. No, you absolutely should not. You’re not in the right mindset to try to soothe a man’s threatened masculinity just for a bit of company.

He and the blonde reach for the wayward chalk, but it’s just out of their reach.  It’s amusing to watch them try to grab for it, but you take pity on them eventually.

Time for your good deed of the week.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”  Stepping between the two, you reach up and effortlessly pluck the blue cube from its spot before dropping it into the dark-haired man’s hand with a smile.  “Here you go.”

Wide blue eyes look up into yours, but he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even smile.  He just stares.  Figures.

The blonde looks between you and his companion before clearing his throat.  “Thank you, ma’am.”

The unspoken rejection from the brunette stings.  Normally it wouldn’t get to you, but after today?  It does.  It really does.  So you swallow against the burning thickness in your throat and force back the tears with a fake smile.  “You’re welcome.”  A few more steps and you’re in the ladies’ room, which only serves to make matters worse when you step into an open stall.  As you turn around to lock the door, you can see your entire head in the mirror, poking out above the top.  A pair of women walk in and they giggle, so you quickly sit down.  There’s no point in taking it personally – it actually happens quite a bit in older buildings and you can fully admit that the sight is pretty funny – so you compose yourself and do what you came in to do.  You slouch when you stand in order to avoid accidentally looking into one of the neighboring stalls and go to the vanity to wash up.

Even the sink mocks you by making you bend almost in half to reach the water.

A woman with dark hair and bright red lips exits the far-right stall and joins you at the mirror.  “Oh wow, your shoes and dress are so pretty!”

“Thank you.”

“Did you come from the wedding at the ballroom?”

“Mmm hmm.”  You glance at her shorts and flowery sleeveless top and swallow your sigh – you feel like a fucking behemoth next to her.  “I think maybe I should have stopped by my motel room to change.”

“No, you look really nice!” She smiles up at you, “It’s really not unusual to have people dressed up in here on the weekends, you’re just earlier than we usually see it.  I’ll give you a tip, though, in case your feet start to hurt.  I know the place looks kinda crusty, but the owners take a lot of pride in it.  The floors are clean if you choose to go barefoot.”

Her unexpected kindness surprises you; you’re usually shunned by other women when you’re at a bar because all they see is your height, which they erroneously perceive to be an advantage in attracting men.  “Thank you. That’s really good to know.”  She turns to leave but you stop her when you notice something wrong with her shirt. “Hey, hon, you’re missing a button.”  The poor girl is busty, and she’s likely been flashing an unintentionally generous amount of cleavage for who knows how long.

She looks down and immediately sees the gap in her shirt.  “Well, shit.  I just bought this shirt.  No wonder some of the guys couldn’t look me in the eye.  Stupid boobs, always trying to pop out.  Why can’t they just make clothes that fit real people?”

“I feel ya,” you mutter as you start digging through your purse.  “Hold on, I’ve got something…here, try some of this.”

“Scotch tape?”  She looks confused as she takes it.

“Double sided tape.”

Her eyes get wide as she gazes up at you.  “You’re a genius.  And an angel. An angelic genius!”  She takes some and fixes her shirt, smiling brightly. Thank you so much!!”

Despite your incredibly shittastic day, you find yourself warming to her.  She’s nice.  “You’re welcome!  I didn’t want a bunch of creeps leering at you.  In a world of Chads, we women really need to stick together.”

“Oh, God, you met Chad?” She grimaces and shakes her head, “I’d like to apologize on behalf of the entire town.  He and his friends are not a good representation of the rest of us, I promise.  They don’t even live here, they were just permanently banned from the bar in the next town over and now they’re our problem, apparently.  But I promise, the rest of the people here are alright.”  She sticks out her hand, “I’m Peggy, by the way.”

You shake her calloused hand and give her your name.  “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too. If you feel like some company, just come find me.  My friends and I will probably be here for a while, and you’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Thank you, I might just do that.”  You flash a smile, genuine this time, and go back to your seat at the bar.  What the hell, maybe you’ll take her up on her offer after you finish your drink.  

A minute passes, maybe two, before someone takes the barstool next to you.

It’s him.  The gorgeous brunette.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”  You want to roll your eyes at your reply. Smooth.  Real smooth.

“My uh, my friends pointed out that I was rude earlier, so I wanted to apologize.”

You turn to him quizzically, giving him your full attention.  Is this really the same guy that was playing pool?  The sexy one that projected ‘bad ass’?  “For what?”  

His cheeks grow pink and it throws you off guard.  “It’s not nice to stare.  My ma taught me better than that – she’d slap me into next week if she saw how I acted. I ain’t usually like that, I’ve just never seen, uh…”

Here it comes.  The ‘I’ve never seen such a tall woman’ comment that leaves you feeling like a roadside circus freak show.

“Well, you just got an amazing smile.”

Wait, what?  “Huh?”

“I’ve never seen such a pretty smile.”  He shrugs and studies the bar top.  “Your eyes looked sad, though.  I dunno. I guess I was tryin’ to figure you out.” He turns back to you with an almost obnoxiously handsome grin, “My name’s Bucky Barnes.  Can I make it up to you?  Buy you a drink?”  

You narrow your eyes at him, trying to gauge his intent.  He seems genuine enough – he’s either a brilliant actor or you seriously misjudged him, which, in your current cynical mindset, is entirely possible.

You look up to see Clint watching as he dries some glasses.  Maybe he has some insight.  Is this guy decent?  He’s gorgeous but does he have a personality?  

Clint snorts, glancing at Bucky then back to you.   Yeah. He’s a pretty good guy.  He’ll treat you right.

Bucky looks like he’s swallowing a smile when you turn back to him.  “Yeah, I guess you can make it up to me.”

“Really?”  He seems genuinely happy at the prospect.

“Sure.”

“Great!”  Apparently that’s all the invitation he needs to turn on the charm.  “So what’s a gorgeous girl like you doin’ in a dump like this?

“It’s not that bad,” you laugh.

“No,” he shakes his head sheepishly, “It’s not.  Guess I’m really off my game today.  I can usually flirt, I promise.”

A beer and another daiquiri appear on the counter.  “Thanks, man,” Bucky nods to Clint.  “Hey, you wanna grab a table?”  He nods his head to the side of the bar by the jukebox.  “It’s quieter there.  We can chat and I can show you that I ain’t, in fact, the dumbass I’ve made myself out to be.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Why not?  Even if you don’t know Clint enough to trust him, the kids that you work with do, and you trust their judgement.  So if Clint says that Bucky is decent, you’ll believe him.

***

It ends up being a good choice.  Bucky turns out to be more than decent – he’s really nice, funny, respectful, keeps his eyes where they belong, and doesn’t ask if you play basketball.

He asks the basic questions and learns that you live about an hour north of here, that you’re an interpreter, you love to read, write, and draw, and yes, you were at a wedding. Tired of talking about yourself, you take advantage of him pausing to drink his beer and flip the topic.

“So what do you do?”

Bucky takes a deep breath and sighs. “I’m a mission systems engineer with NASA.”

You blink at him.  “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

“A mission systems engineer with NASA.  I know, I –“

“Do you have top secret clearance?”

He looks thoroughly confused.  “That’s your first question?”

“Do you?  Or would you have to kill me if you told me?  Have you been to space?  Does the government have a plan for if an asteroid comes our way, or would we have to do like the movie Armageddon and wing it with a bunch of oil rig operators?”

Bucky appears to be absolutely delighted at your string of questions.  “Well, yes, no, unfortunately no, and I can’t tell you that because has to do with national security.”

“Fascinating.”  You sit back, thoroughly intrigued by the man sitting across from you. “What the hell are you doing in a podunk town like this? Shouldn’t you be in Houston?  Or D.C.?”

“I live here.” He chuckles at your unimpressed stare. “Yeah, I know it’s a small town – we got a bar, three churches, a motel, a gas station, and a diner that closes by 7 pm every day.  Our biggest draw is the ballroom on the lake shore and the hunting grounds in the fall. It ain’t exactly the heart of modern technology.  But I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and I stick around to help out on their farm.  I fly into Headquarters a few times a year, but otherwise I work remotely.”

“So what do you do?”

“The general gist of it is that I lead a team that designs, develops, and deploys missions.”

“To space?”

“Well, I mean, I work for NASA…”

“What are you working on now?”  You can’t help peppering him with questions – this is so fucking cool.

His eyes sparkle.  “You got top secret clearance?”

“No.”

“Sorry.  Can’t tell you anything,” he shrugs with a smirk.

“I…yeah, I guess I kind of walked right into that.  Wow.  So you’re really freaking smart.”

“I hope so!”

“Do you like it?”

“Being smart?”

“Your job, dipshit.”

He laughs, freely and openly, and it’s an amazing sound.  “I love it.”

You can’t help but stare at him.  “Wow. That’s…that’s just really, really fucking incredible.”

Bucky gets quiet.  “It is really incredible.  Thank you for thinking so.”  He looks up, then back down as he starts peeling the label off his empty bottle of beer. “You know, you’re the first person I’ve told about my job that didn’t either tell me I don’t look smart enough to be a mission systems engineer or ask me how much money I make.”  He meets your eyes again.  “Or both.  I get that a lot, too.”

You certainly know how shitty it feels to get those kinds of unsolicited comments based solely on appearance.  It’s one thing to have an impression, but to just say those things out loud?  “Well, they suck.  And they’re truly shallow if they think intelligence has anything to do with how you look.  But hey, at least they show their true colors right away so you can save yourself some time.” You lean forward, chin in hand, “Okay, so I know you can’t tell me about your actual projects, but can you tell me about your job?  What are your responsibilities?  What does a mission systems engineer do?”

Bucky lights up like New York City and spends the next 40 minutes going into detail about what he does, and you hang on every word; it’s impossible not to, really.  His enthusiasm for what he does is so evident that even if the topic weren’t interesting, you’d still be entranced.  And you thought he was gorgeous before?  His animated passion makes him absolutely breathtaking.

You’ve both finished your drinks and, perhaps not so surprisingly, he switches to soda when you do. When unordered appetizers arrive with your new drinks, you both look over to Clint, who just winks and shrugs.

“Well I ain’t gonna complain.  Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”  Bucky shoves an entire ham and cheese ball into his mouth, but then has to hasashafahasa because it must have just come out of the fryer.  “Ish hot!  Rearry hot!”

Bursting into laugher, you slide your ice water to him before cautiously taking a bite of your buffalo wing. Considering how much fun you’ve had in the last hour, it isn’t all that surprising that your appetite has returned. “Me neither.”

The hours fly by as the conversation eventually turns to other topics, and you find yourself talking about things you wouldn’t expect considering you’ve just met.  Bucky seems so open and honest that it’s difficult not to reciprocate, and if one doesn’t go into detail about what the other asks, it’s only because there’s so much to cover.  

Bucky dips the last bit of pretzel into the beer cheese sauce and pops it into his mouth.  “So if you don’t mind me asking, what made those pretty eyes of yours so sad?”

You take a long sip of your Coke Zero as you debate your next move.  Deflect or come clean?  You surprise yourself when you blurt out, “My aunt, Lydia.”

“Your aunt?”

You squirm a bit at the uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability, but you keep going.  “Yeah.  It was her daughter that got married today.  Marie and I grew up together – Lydia is my mom’s only sister, so she was the one that took care of me when my mom had to work double shifts, which was a lot. She did the best she could, and she means well, she really does, but she’s just so caught up with appearances. My height is a, uh, a definite sore spot with her.”

“Really?  Why?  What does it matter?”

“I think it comes down to the appearance thing.  Tall women are generally seen as less feminine, even straight up masculine.  Lydia is tall, too – not quite as tall as me, but close.  She claims that she got her husband through making herself appear daintier.  She only wears flats and follows all the newest fad diets to make herself as small as she can because she feels that being a tall woman puts her at a distinct disadvantage.”  You shrug, “She was one of the primary examples I grew up with. And to be fair, it’s not like she’s completely wrong.  In my experience, guys tend to feel emasculated by me.  And it’s not just men that seem to see me through a distorted lens.  Even from a young age – I’m talking 4th grade – I’d hear teachers tell my mom that I seemed so much more mature than my peers, that I didn’t need as much support, emotional or academic, as everyone else.  I got additional responsibilities and higher expectations.  The thing is, I wasn’t more mature.  I was just tall, so I looked more mature.  Eventually it kind of came true, though.  Other than my mom, who was single and working 2 jobs to keep me housed and fed, I didn’t really have anyone that would protect me or support me.  I guess no one thought I needed it, so I just got used to doing it myself.”

Bucky shakes his head, and you can’t tell if his expression is one of pity, sadness, anger, or something else.  

“But Lydia made everything a hundred times worse than it needed to be.  I already knew I was outside the norm, I didn’t need the reminders. But every time I’d hit a growth spurt she would share some nasty comment on it, as if telling me that boys didn’t like tall girls would somehow stop my bones from stretching.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Mmm hmm.  Despite my mom’s efforts – and the fact that being tall is actually pretty awesome – Lydia’s words really got under my skin, and even now they undermine my confidence sometimes.”  You gesture to yourself and the bar, “Obviously.  I should be at my cousin’s wedding right now.  I don’t go to many family functions anymore, because of her.  It just…it puts my head in a bad place.  You know, they say it takes five to seven positive comments to balance out one negative comment?  The negative is in everything she says.  Everything.  I love my family to pieces, but I just can’t handle her.”

“What did she say to you today?”  If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that Bucky is getting pissed.  

“She met me at the door of the chapel with a pair of her ugly black penny loafers.  Said that she told the photographer that I wasn’t allowed in any family pictures unless I was wearing them, because she didn’t want my Amazonian ass towering over everyone else and ruining the aesthetic.”

“Your…your ‘Amazonian ass’?”

“Eh,” you shrug and wave your hand dismissively.  “It’s not the first time I’ve been called an Amazon and far from the worst thing people have said. I mean, people say it to be cruel, but Amazons were fearless warriors.  I just think of it as being put in the same class as Wonder Woman.  The part that hurt was that she was prepared to make sure I wasn’t in the pictures, that she thought she could just erase my existence, simply because I’m too tall for her liking.”

Bucky’s mouth drops open. “I might be overstepping here, but what a heartless bitch.  No one should ever try to erase you, what a fucking idiot.”

“She browbeat Marie into dyeing her hair blonde for the wedding.  Marie hates it, but did it for her mom’s approval.”  You release a deep sigh, “But that’s Lydia, and that’s why I took my Amazonian ass out of there the second the ceremony was over.”

“Hmmmm.”  He gazes at you.  “You know she’s a princess, right?  

“Huh?”

“Wonder Woman.  She’s a princess. You know…Amazon Princess…it actually kinda suits you.”

“Seriously?”

“Damn right I’m serious. You’re tall?  So what.  You’re fuckin’ royalty.  Own it, Princess.  Correct ‘em. Make ‘em say it.  Amazon Princess.”  

“What?”

“Yep.  Say it with me.  Amazon Princess.”

You can’t help rolling your eyes, but there’s something undeniably sweet about the way he’s pressing the issue. It’s not good enough for him that it doesn’t bother you – he wants it to be seen as a term of empowerment and to let people know that’s how you see it.

The moment is interrupted when a booming voice comes through the sound system.  “Alright everybody, it’s ten o’clock!”  Someone stands on the stage, holding a mike and looking more than a little tipsy.  “You know what that means!”

The bar cheers, “Free jukebox!”

A line forms immediately, and the music starts.

“Wanna dance, Princess?”

“Really?  You’re going to call me ‘Princess’ now?”

He shrugs with darkening eyes and a suggestive smirk.  “If it’s okay with you.”

If he keeps looking at you the way he’s looking at you right now, he can call you whatever he damn well pleases.  But he doesn’t need to know that.  “Yeah,” you murmur.  His gaze is so intense that you have to look around the bar to break it and gather your thoughts.  You happen to see Peggy; she’s standing next to the blonde that had been playing pool with Bucky, so she must know him.  She catches your eye, sees who you’re with, and gives a thumbs up with a huge grin. Well, alright then.  You grin back and remember what she said.  “Let’s dance.”

Bucky stands, stopping when he sees you toeing off your heels.  “Woah, what’re you doing?”

“Taking off my shoes?”

He shakes his head, “Princess, you don’t need to do that.  I ain’t too fragile to dance with a woman taller than me.”

“I know,” and you do, “But I can’t dance in these.  And my feet hurt.”

When you stand, you’re almost eye to eye with Bucky; if he were barefoot as well, you would be.

People are still lined up at the jukebox, selecting their favorites.  It’s exactly the mix you would expect from a place like this – classic songs like Brown Eyed Girl, Summer of ’69, and Footloose with more modern tunes sprinkled in  – the kind of music that gets everyone up and dancing.

Bucky is a great dance partner, and you’re having an absolute blast.  You don’t think about your aunt, the wedding that you’re supposed to be at, or how you are, without a doubt, the tallest woman in the bar.  He laughs, showing off the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, obviously enjoying himself, too.  

The jukebox switches songs again, and on comes the relentless, even rhythm of Black Velvet.  For the first few measures, you just stare at each other.  It’s the first song to play that isn’t upbeat, and you don’t know what to do until he makes the first move and pulls you close – close enough to breathe each other in. He stares as Alannah Myles’ smokey voice drifts over the steady bass, then spins you so your back is to him.  

If Bucky’s a good dance partner for upbeat music, he’s even better when it’s slow like this, when every move counts.  He’s enough to handle you, and more than confident enough to do so.

Bucky stays behind you, mirroring you with his hands resting gently at your waist.  Your back is against his chest, but his hips keep their distance. Just to experiment, you press yours back and hear a guttural “fuck” before he intentionally shifts.

Bucky is absolutely nothing that you expected.  “You’re a gentleman.”

You can feel the dark chuckle rumbles through him. “I wouldn’t say that, Princess.”  He spins you around, pulling you close but not too close, and runs his thumb along your neck.  “I just ain’t in the habit of taking what ain’t mine.”

His voice sends a shiver down your spine.  Fuck. You like him.  One night stands aren’t usually your thing…but that’s not what this feels like.  He feels familiar.  Safe.  You like him, and he sure seems to like you. Your mind is already made up – you’ll take the chance and see what happens.  You hardly recognize your own voice when you ask, “Do you want me to be?”

“Thought I was makin’ it obvious.  Yes.”  He doesn’t hesitate and his eyes don’t leave yours.  “Are you offering?”  

You move your hand to the back of his neck and lightly scratch, watching with satisfaction as his pupils dilate even more than they were.  His lips part when you pull him closer, but he waits for you to close the kiss.

The second you do, his hands slide down to your lower hips before he tightens his grip.  He’s not timid; he kisses you as though you’re a well-known lover, deeply and intensely, without bothering with introductions.  

Bucky suddenly breaks the kiss, spinning you around again to pull your back against his chest.  This time, though, he allows his hips to rock into yours with the rhythm of the music, slow and steady and insatiable.  The way he moves makes it impossible not to think about fucking him; hell, you’re practically halfway there already.  His hands alternate holding you tightly to his body, maximizing contact, and running up and down your sides.  Your head falls back when his mouth finds your neck, and your legs go weak when his teeth nibble that spot beneath your ear.

You’ve never been so turned on in your life.

His voice is thick when his lips find your ear, “Wanna get out of here?”

You nod, taking his hand to lead him back to the table to collect your things.  “I’ve got a room at the motel a block away.”

“Good.”

When you take one last look around, you see Clint, still behind the bar, grinning at you like an absolute idiot.  Have fun!

“Oh my God,” you mutter under your breath, but you can’t completely hide the smile.

You step outside to find that the unbearable heat of the day has eased somewhat now that the sun has set. It’s still warm as the humid air kisses your skin, but with the breeze it’s sultry rather than oppressive.

You and Bucky look up at the same time – the stars are barely visible through the haze of clouds. There’s a thunderstorm rolling in on the western horizon.

Bucky walks you to your car, making sure you’re in safely before getting in his own truck and following you to the motel.  He jumps out of his vehicle and pushes you against the car the second you’re out of it, kissing you like it’s been days and not 2 minutes since his lips were last on yours.  

He doesn’t stop until the first few raindrops hit your skin.  Bucky looks up while you grab your purse and your aunt’s shoes out of the car, gathering them clumsily before locking the door.  It takes a minute for you to get your room key out of your purse, but you finally manage.

“Looks like the storm is already here.  Gonna be a good one if it got here that fast.”  He takes your hand, “Which room are you in?”

“Up the steps, furthest door on the left.”

Bucky leads you to the stairs as you both laugh while trying unsuccessfully to dodge the increasingly fat drops of rain.  He doesn’t let go of your hand until you need to unlock the door, and the second you hear the click of the lock, his lips are on yours again.  He pushes the door open and guides you through, closing the door behind him with a well-placed kick.  You drop your purse and the loafers, then step out of your heels as he toes his shoes off.  Still connected at the lips, he doesn’t see the things on the floor and trips over one of your stilettos.

“Oh shit!”  His eyes are huge, staring up into yours when he realizes he isn’t going to hit the floor because you’ve caught him by the arm. “Good catch, Princess.”  Both of you start laughing as he stands up straight, but the laughter dies out when his mouth find yours again.  Hungry hands roam your body while you reach beneath his shirt so your fingers can explore the taut muscles you just know are hiding beneath it.  Bucky grabs the collar behind his neck and pulls the shirt off altogether, and you are not disappointed.  “You like what you see, huh?”  

“Damn right I do.”  You’re breathless, pressing your lips against the salty skin of his collarbone.

“You sure know how to use that mouth of yours, don’t ya?”  He groans, then reaches down to grab the hem of your dress to lift it over your head before tossing it to the side.   “Goddamn, darlin.”  Bucky eyeballs you like a starving man at a feast before his mouth is back on yours, then moves his lips to the top of your breasts while he reaches around to unclasp your bra.  It joins your discarded dress as he pulls you close, groaning at the feel of your naked breasts pressed against his chest.  “I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve you walkin’ into that bar tonight,” he bites your neck and you can’t stop the light whimper, “but I ain’t gonna complain. I’m gonna make you feel so good, Princess, I promise.”

You believe him.  And you cannot wait.

The two of you somehow manage to take a couple of steps toward the bed.  “I’ve wanted to do this since you smiled at me after givin’ me that chalk.  Those eyes, that smile, that dress, those fuckin’ sexy shoes.”  His hands find your hips, hooking your panties with his thumbs to push them down so you can step out of them.  “When we started dancin’ all I could think about was what it would feel like havin’ your legs wrapped around me, I want you so damn bad.”

You unbutton his jeans and fumble with the zipper, then pull his jeans and boxer briefs down at the same time, freeing a fully hard cock that is nothing short of glorious.  “Then either figure out how to multitask or stop talking and fuck me already.”

Bucky Barnes does not need to be told twice.

He kicks off his remaining garments before pushing you against the nearest vertical surface – which happens to be the middle of the window, where there’s a strip of metal supporting the two panes of glass.  You aren’t sitting on the ledge, just leaning against it to keep your balance.  It occurs to you that maybe you should close the curtains, but you’re too far gone to care enough to do anything about it.

“Don’t you worry, Princess. I can do both.”  His arm is looped around your waist to hold you steady while your upper back presses against the cold strip of metal.  You’ve got one arm hooked around his neck and the other steadying yourself on the edge of the windowsill.  Bucky reaches down, takes hold of your thigh and lifts it to his hip. He lets go of your waist just long enough to guide his cock to your entrance – and he can slide right in because you’re so damn wet – and fuck, the way he stretches you is delicious.

“Christ, you’re so damn fuckable,” he moans in your ear, sending shivers throughout your entire body. “So fucking perfect…don’t need a bed or a chair, I can fuck you anywhere I want.  I could just bend you over, wouldn’t even need a wall.”  Between his thrusts, which are as maddeningly steady and slow as his dancing, the cool metal of the windowpane at your upper back, the flickers of lightening, and the crashes of thunder, it’s almost sensory overload. He’s holding you so tightly that you can’t move your hips much, so you’re completely at his mercy.  And he knows it.

Each move he makes is a sin; the angle you’re at all but guarantees he’s stroking your clit with every move.  Delirious with the sensations flooding your brain, you can only babble nonsense.  

“What’s that, Princess? Use your words, darlin,” Bucky

“So…so good…I, huh…”

He chuckles darkly, “What was that?”

He’s not playing fair but you really don’t mind – his confidence with you is a rarity and is such a fucking turn on.  “More.”

“More?  You want me to fuck you harder?  Is that right?”  He waits for your nod before flashing a wicked grin lit by lightning, then adjusts his grip on your thigh.  “Anything you want, Princess, you get.”

His thrusts come harder and faster, multiplying your pleasure tenfold.  Then he shifts his hand on your thigh, changing the support from holding it up to pushing it back, opening you further and allowing him to go even deeper.

Oh, oh fuck…

Your entire body clenches with your orgasm, so tightly you can’t even breathe, and your mouth opens in a silent scream.

Bucky follows you just seconds later with a growl of your name against your neck and a few last ragged movements.

He releases your thigh as he gently pulls out, but he doesn’t take his arm from around your waist. You lift yourself onto the windowsill, pulling him between your legs as you hold each other close and catch your breath while the storm rages outside.  He keeps his face buried in your neck as you run your fingers up and down his back, calming you both.  The thunder rumbles violently while lightning dances in the sky, but it doesn’t worry you. You’ve always found comfort in the chaos of a storm.

Eventually your legs start to fall asleep, so you begin to move.  Bucky notices and hikes both of your thighs up to his hips before guiding your arms up around his neck.  “Hold on, Princess.”  He reaches down and lifts you, carrying you the 5 feet to the bed.  After laying you down, he begins kissing you again, then starts exploring your body.  “I love being cradled in your thighs like this, but there’s something else I wanna try,” he whispers as he starts crawling down.  “Now I can take my time with you.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where he’s going.  “Really? Um, maybe I should shower first?” You’re sweaty from the heat of the day and just had some really incredible sex, so there’s no doubt in your mind that things are less than fresh down there.

“If you want to.”  He keeps on his slow descent, kissing everything in his path, “But I’m happy with you just like this.  I want you, right now, as you are.”

“But don’t you –“

“No.  I don’t.”  There’s a challenge in his eyes when he looks up from his destination.  “I don’t care.”  And then Bucky dives in, devouring your pussy like he’d devoured your mouth.  He’s got you writhing in moments, all worries gone. But he’s a goddamn tease now that the initial urgency has been satisfied, bringing you to the edge and then backing off again and again in a beautiful torture.

You can’t do dirty talk to save your life, but you’re about to start begging when he finally looks up, chin glistening before he wipes it away with the back of his hand.  “Fucking delicious.”  Between the sight of him, his voice, and the sensations you’re feeling, your brain just about short circuits.  Then his fingers start to circle your entrance, teasing you, making you want more before he slowly pushes two in and curls them to press against that spot, and fuck it can’t feel any better, but then somehow it does.  You pull a pillow over your face but he shifts, reaching up to yank it back off and throw it across the room.  “No way, Princess, I wanna hear what I do to you,” he rasps, watching you with hungry eyes and a feral grin.  You’re almost there…almost…and then he puts his mouth back on your clit and your universe implodes.

One orgasm blends into another and you allow him to push your limits until you can’t handle it anymore. “Stop,” you gasp, and he does immediately.  “I’m – it’s too much.  I…wow.” You’re so oversensitive at this point that if he breathes too hard, you might jump out of your skin.

Bucky crawls his way back up to you, dropping kisses on your hot skin as he goes.  “You’re incredible, you know that?  I love how your body responds to me, I fucking love it.”

He kisses you again, and despite your sensitivity, your hunger for him grows.  Sitting up, you pull him with you then push him down to the mattress.  “Fuck yes,” he whispers hoarsely when you straddle him and slide down, pausing to glide your pussy along his hardened cock, but then you slide down a little farther before spreading his legs so you can kneel between them.  

It’s impossible not to groan aloud when your hands find his thighs; thick, tight, and incredibly well formed, they look like they were sculpted by a generous god.  “I might have to ride one of these later.”

“Please –“  Bucky swallows hard and licks his lips as he watches you in the dim, sporadically flickering light, “Please do.”

One hand moves to palm his balls while you part your lips to take him in as far as you can, reveling in his heaviness on your tongue while using your hand to stroke the base of his cock. You give it a bit, waiting until he’s writhing beneath you before you pull off and redirect your attention.  His eyes grow wide when your fingers start moving down beneath his balls to his taint, pressing gently to find the very root of his cock which will then lead you to the spot you’re looking for.  Pressing firmly when you find it, you begin rubbing tight circles.

“What are you – oh.  Oh.  Oh, fuck, Princess, oh fuck!”

It’s ridiculously satisfying to see him reduced to the same whimpering, quivering puddle you were not so long ago.  You make him come once, twice, three times without ejaculating, just because you can.  

Bucky’s got his forearm resting over his eyes as he shakes his head, and you take advantage of his distraction to shift your body into position.  “Holy shit.” He’s breathless, shaking,  “I did not know I had a spot that could do that.  Fuck.  I – oh Christ…“

You slide onto his cock, smiling when his hands automatically reach to grip your hips – the biology and technique can be explained later.  Leaning over, you kiss him deeply then stretch your arms above him to grip the headboard.  Rocking your hips slowly, so slowly, you watch him watch you.

Bucky’s lips form words but nothing comes out except for sighs and soft moans as you become more and more intoxicated by his need for you.  His hands wander up and down, touching your breasts, hips, ass, and everything in between until he pulls you down for another kiss.  “Do you have any idea how fucking perfect you are?  You feel so good.  So fucking good.  Wanna make you feel good.  As good as you make me feel.”  Bucky kisses you again, sloppily, then wraps an arm tightly around you before flipping you both.

Now that you’re on the bottom and he’s back in control, he picks up the pace considerably.

You certainly aren’t about to complain.

His hands are grasping yours, holding them over your head, and your legs are locked around his hips as his thrusts eventually begin to lose their impeccable rhythm.  

Now neither of you are in control.

The pleasure has been steadily building, an inevitable tidal wave on the horizon.  Maybe it’s his confidence, maybe he’s naturally gifted, maybe it’s that his body seems to fit with yours just right.  Whatever it is, this is by far the best sex you’ve ever had, and despite already having multiple orgasms, your appetite for him seems to be insatiable because you’re greedy for the next one.

“Fuck, Princess, it feels so good having those legs wrapped around me,” he pants, “Goddamn, I can – I can feel you’re right there.  I ain’t gonna last much longer, come for me, darlin, give it to me now.  Oh Christ yes, that’s right, just – just like that.”

Your body obeys, giving him exactly what he wants.  The velvet sound of his voice, his incessant dirty talk, the way he smells and tastes – everything about him adds to your pleasure induced stupor.  The orgasm is so powerful that everything but Bucky goes black, and the only thing keeping you tethered to this world is the way he chants your name as he comes.

His body continues to cover yours as you wait for your racing pulse to slow.  He presses kisses to your neck, cheeks, lips, and eyelids, and finally your forehead before he gently lifts himself off to lay next to you. “C’mere,” he pulls you to him, and when you rest your head on his chest you can hear how fast his heart is still beating.

Thoroughly sated and soothed by the feel of his fingertips on your skin, it’s tempting to give in and fall asleep.  But not yet. Not if you want to sleep through the night.

Reluctantly, you rise. Maybe, if you’re really fast, maybe he’ll still be here when you get back.  It’s probably not the sane thing to do, but you really, really want him to stay the night.

“Where you going?”  Is that trepidation you hear in his voice?

You smile as you take in the sight of him lying in the bed, disheveled and clearly satisfied. “I need to shower.  And wash my face – I need to get my makeup off.  My eyes are getting itchy.”

“Can I join you?”  He laughs at your raised eyebrow, “No, Princess, not like that.  I’m gonna need some time to recover.”

“That’s good to know,” you smirk, “I was starting to wonder if you were a god wearing a mortal’s skin.”

Bucky blushes.  It’s adorable.  “Nah, no god here.  Just a man that’s never wanted a woman so bad before.  Still do,” he shrugs, “Just too worn out at the moment to do anything about it. You’re somethin’ special, I hope you know that.”

It’s your turn to feel the heat rise in your cheeks, but you hold out your hand to help him up.  

The shower is tender and sweet, full of soft kisses and softer touches.  This man just keeps surprising you.

He’s toweling off his hair when his eyes meet yours in the vanity mirror.  “Is it okay if I stay?”

A slow smile spreads across your face – you couldn’t stop it if you tried.  “I’d like that.”  You slip into fresh panties and a tank top, turning to face him fully to admit, “I’d like that a lot.”  Bucky beams at you before pressing a soft kiss to your lips and heads to the bed. You finish up a few minutes later and crawl in, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.  There’s nothing to hide behind – no makeup, no cocktail dress, no drink.  It’s just you, and this is a state that very few people see you in; no one you’ve ever dated has seen you this vulnerable until months have gone by.  Some didn’t see you this way at all.  “Don’t look too close.  I’m very unglamorous and monochrome without makeup.”

Bucky’s blue eyes stare in yours.  “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”  His fingers trace your freshly moisturized skin.  “I think you’re beautiful.”

Outside, the thunderstorm has exhausted itself.  He pulls you close and breathes you in, and you both fall asleep to the sound of gentle rain.

***

When the sun peeks through the gap in the curtains at 6 am, you’re not even mad that you’re awake.  The sight of Bucky lying peacefully next to you is something you’re thoroughly enjoying.

“You’re staring.”  His voice, deep and gravelly, rumbles lightly into the silence as he opens his eyes.  “It’s because I’m decent and gorgeous with a personality, right?”

“What?”

Bucky smirks as he stretches and sits up.  “I should probably come clean.  The bartender from last night?  My parents took him and his sister in after their parents were killed in an accident. Clint and Carrie were lucky to survive – he lost his hearing and six months of memories and she was in the ICU for 3 weeks.  He and I have practically been brothers since grade school.”

It takes a minute, but you finally put the pieces together.  Oh.  Well, shit.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop; I was just really surprised to see you sign so I didn’t look away fast enough. I’m sorry.”

You sit up and slap him lightly on the shoulder.  “So, you knew what I asked him?

His smile broadens as he gives you puppy dog eyes.  Yes. Please don’t be mad.

You try not to smile back as you think about it but lose the battle and shrug.  “I’m not mad.  Maybe a little embarrassed, but we’ve known each other for what, 12 hours?  It’s not like you can tell me everything about you in that short amount of time.”  You give him some serious side eye, “Although you could have mentioned that when I told you what I do for a living.”

He studies your eyes like he’s trying to see into your soul.  “I told you a lot, though.”

“You did.  We both did.”  It surprises you, more than a little, that you aren’t horrified at how open and honest you’ve been with him.

Bucky reaches his hand up to cup your cheek and he pulls you in for a kiss.  “Good morning, beautiful.”  It seems like he doesn’t want to part, because he rests his forehead against yours.

Somehow your hand finds his neck, and you gently rub your thumb along his jawline.  “Good morning, Bucky.”

His stomach grumbles. Loudly.  “Wanna grab some breakfast, Princess?”

It makes you a stupid amount of happy that he’s not ready to leave you just yet.  “Yeah.  I just need a little bit to get ready.”

A half hour later, Bucky opens the passenger side door of his pickup.  “Your chariot, Princess.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, taking his offered hand and climbing in.  It’s an older truck, one with a bench seat, and it smells of hay, Bucky’s cologne, and sweat.  It’s not what you’d expected, but it suits him.

In this tiny little town nothing is open at this hour on a Sunday morning, so Bucky pulls his pickup onto the interstate to head to a fast food restaurant a few miles away.  You take the time to look around – the area is really pretty and reminds you of the drive to your grandparents’ house, all farmland and pastures.  Of course, you can’t help but stare at the horses whenever you pass them.  “Whoa.  They must breed Appaloosas.”

Bucky takes a quick glance out your window.  “Yeah, that’s the Carter farm.  They raise Appaloosas and alpacas.”  He’s quiet for a moment.  “You like horses?  Not everyone can randomly pick out that breed.”

“I love horses,” you murmur, smiling broadly when you spot a few foals among the herd.  You’re too busy looking at them to notice how he looks at you.

***

Breakfast is simple, just something picked up at a drive thru window, but that’s perfectly fine with you. Bucky doesn’t pull back onto the interstate though, he instead starts driving the winding country roads.  You don’t mind in the least; you simply sip your coffee, content to be exactly where you are.  Considering the hour, you aren’t even grumpy.  Stealing glance at the reason why, you hide your smile and take another sip.

Bucky’s fingers drum almost nervously against the wheel, then he seems to make a decision as he brakes sharply.  “Sorry, Princess,” he smiles sheepishly, “You up for a picnic?  I know a spot.”

His smile is infectious. “Yeah.”

He takes the left he stopped so quickly for, and then another left onto a dirt road, and a mile later he turns onto what looks like a seldom used service trail leading up to a fenced in pasture.  “Just a sec,” he pulls the truck to a stop, then gets out to open a gate.  Bucky quickly climbs back in, drives the truck through about 20 feet before turning in a tight circle to face the road, and closes the gate behind him before stepping up to your door.  “I got some blankets, do you want to sit in the truck bed with me?”

“Of course.”

He gets the blankets and spreads them out while you grab the food and coffees, handing them to him before you climb in after him.

“I would’ve helped you in, Princess.”

“Bucky.  I’m not five feet tall.  I can get into the back of a truck.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m fully aware of that.  But unlike the other shmucks you seem to have come across in your life, I ain’t gonna make you do something by yourself just because you can.  You deserve consideration and chivalry, too.”

What do you even say to that?  He’s the exact opposite of pretty much everything you’ve ever known.  It’s nice.

He sits down against a box that is attached to the back of the cab.  “C’mere.  You look cold.”  

It was hot when you’d packed your overnight bag so you’ve only got a tee shirt and shorts on, and luckily a hoodie that just happened to be in the backseat of your car.  “I am, a little,” you admit as you curl into his side, allowing him to cover your legs with another blanket that he’s pulled out.

He eats one handed, keeping an arm around you to keep you close and warm.

Everything smells clean and fresh now that the storm went through, and the morning air is chilly but fresh with the light breeze.  The radio plays softly, drifting through the open windows as you and Bucky eat and watch the fluffy white clouds drift by.  It’s the best picnic you’ve ever had, hands down.

“So where are we? It’s beautiful here.”

“My parents’ farm.”

You turn to stare at him. “This is where you grew up?”

“Yep.”

“Lucky.”

“I am.  Hey, I wanna introduce you to someone.”  He stands suddenly, not waiting for a reply.  You’re in the middle of a pasture, who the hell is there for you to meet?  Bucky brings his fingers to his lips and lets out the sort of piercing whistle that you’ve never managed to master.

And then…and then…

“Are you fucking serious.” Eyes wide, you bring yourself to a kneeling position as a steel grey Percheron comes galloping full speed towards the truck.  “Bucky!”

He turns toward you, face almost split in two by his grin.  The horse slows down, circling the truck and whickering before coming to a full stop right at the tailgate.  

“I’d like you to meet Sergeant.”  

“Oh my God, Bucky, he’s stunning,” you breathe, unable to help yourself as you slowly move forward to sit at the edge of the open tailgate.   Intelligent eyes take you in before a velvet muzzle finds your hand.  “Sorry buddy, I don’t have any treats for you.  But I do have ear scratches,” you murmur, firmly stroking the planes of his face before scratching behind his ears.  You giggle when he sighs, and again when he mouths gently at your hair.  

Bucky beams with pride as he pulls an apple out of the box you’d been leaning against, feeding it to Sergeant before sitting on the tailgate next to you.  “I’ve had him for 20 years.  I got him when he was just a colt.  Trained him myself.  He’s one of the reasons why I choose to work remotely – I just can’t imagine not getting to see him.”

“I don’t blame you at all, I don’t think I could’ve left this sweetheart either.”  Sergeant blows gently in your face, then nuzzles you hard enough to push you backwards.  “Oh my goodness, you are just a big baby, aren’t you, Sarge?  Oh, you like that?  That spot right there?”  You laugh lightly as the giant horse stretches his neck toward you, seeming to thoroughly enjoy how you scratch just beneath where his mane grows.

“He likes you.”  Sergeant looks over when Bucky speaks, but then turns back to you.

“Well, I like him.” Feeling eyes on you, you turn to Bucky. “What, are you jealous?” you tease.

“Yes.”  Bucky cradles your face in both his hands and begins kissing you.  Before you know it, you’re lying in the truck bed with him, making out like a couple of teenagers out past curfew.  Time slows even as it moves, and you’d swear the minutes stretched into a blissful forever as you lay in his embrace.  But the real world likes to force its way in, and the distant sound of a car’s horn brings you both back to your senses.

Sergeant is about 50 feet away, grazing peacefully as Bucky pulls out his phone to check the time.  “We, uh, we should get going.  I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands to myself, and my folks will be drivin’ by on their way to church in about 15 minutes.”

“Don’t feel like scarring them forever with the view of your naked ass?”  You sit up and start pulling up the blankets to fold them.

“Honestly?”  He shakes his head, “They’d probably cheer and then invite you over for dinner.”

Pausing your movements, you let that one sink in.  “…Oh. Well that would be just as awkward as the alternative.”

He shrugs.  “They’ve been dropping some not so subtle hints that they think I should settle down.  They’d be thrilled just to know I spent the night with you.”

You tilt your head a bit as you watch him.  “Don’t you date?”

“Nah, not really.”

“Really?  Why not?”

He shrugs again as you hand him the blankets, then he turns his back to you as he puts them in the box. “I dunno.  I guess I just hadn’t found anyone I wanted to actually spend time with.”  

“Huh.”

“What?”  There’s a challenge in his eyes when he turns back around.  “That so weird?”

“No, I get it.  You definitely shouldn’t settle.  I guess…” he’s staring at you now, waiting for you to finish, “I guess I’m just a little surprised that someone hasn’t snatched you up yet.  Where I come from, you’re quite a catch.”

“You think so?  How’s that?”

Is he baiting you? Teasing you?  Genuinely curious?  It’s impossible to tell.  “I know so. You’re smart, kind, funny, and a stupid amount of gorgeous,” you pause to level a look at him, “but I suppose you already knew I thought the last part.”

Bucky barks out a laugh but at least has the good grace to look sheepish.

“You have an absolutely beautiful horse, which wins points with pretty much every person I know. Your parents took in a couple of kids when they needed a family, and you learned a new language so you could keep communicating with your friend.  You have every opportunity to move to another city, but you stay here to be close to those you care about.  And,” it’s dumb, really, how you’re suddenly too shy to meet his eyes, “You’re really good in bed.  Like, really really good.  You’re the whole damn package.”  When you finally look up, he’s staring at you again.  “There’s a perfectly real possibility that you’re a total asshole and that you’ve been acting this whole time – I’ve only known you for a day – but I haven’t seen any cracks.  I get the definite impression that I met the real Bucky, and he is one hell of a catch.”  

“Huh.”  He hops down and turns, holding out his hand to help you down.  Do you need to take it?  No, but you love that he offers anyway.  He doesn’t let go after he helps you out, instead choosing to hold your hand as he walks you to the passenger side.  Bucky only lets go because he has to, and once the gate is secured behind the truck, he takes your hand and holds it for the entire drive back to the motel.

***

Ever the gentleman, Bucky walks you back to your motel door.  

“Do you have to go?” The words are out before you can think too long on them.

He’s shaking his head before your entire sentence is out, “No.  Not if you don’t want me to.”

You don’t even care if you sound needy or clingy.  “Please stay.”

Just like you learned last night, Bucky Barnes does not need to be told twice.

At least the drapes are closed this time.

***

A sharp rap at the door and an equally sharp call of your name interrupts your post-lovemaking bliss.  It’s your aunt.

“I don’t wanna,” you whine.

Bucky bristles, sensing your distress.  “That her?”

You nod before pulling a pillow over your head.  “I’m just going to pretend I’m still asleep.  Maybe she’ll go away.”

“Don’t worry Princess, I got you.”

You feel the bed shift and move the pillow.  “Bucky!”

He turns back to you, eyebrows raised, as another insistent knock echoes through the room.

“You’re naked!”  It comes out as a stage whisper, making you both snicker.

He flashes a shit eating grin.  “So?”

Is he really gonna…

With a dramatic huff, he stops to find his boxer briefs and quickly tugs them on.  Kind of.  They’re sitting awfully low.

First there’s the sound of the door swinging open, then Bucky’s voice, bored and borderline intimidating.  “Yeah?”

The following silence is deafening and you almost wish the room was set up so you could see your aunt’s face, but all you can see is the back half of Bucky’s sensational body leaning in the doorframe.

“Uh, hi?  I’m looking for my niece?  I thought this was her room?”

“You mean the tall, gorgeous drink of water?  About my height?  Killer smile? Was wearing, uh, let’s see, what was she wearing?  It’s been awhile and she ain’t wearin’ much of anything now.”

The blood rushes to your face, but you can’t even imagine how embarrassed Lydia is right now.  The thought is nothing short of glorious.    

“Uh,” he snaps his fingers a few times, feigning concentration, “Oh!  A black dress with the sexiest heels imaginable?  Sound about right?”

“Well, yes, but –“

“Yeah, she’s here.” His tone is still bored, but you think you can pick up on an edge of amusement.  Your aunt must be squirming by now, and it’s all you can do to not start cackling.

“I thought…well…the gift opening is in an hour.  I thought she was going to meet us for breakfast before –“

“She won’t be goin’ to the gift opening.  Or breakfast, but don’t you worry, ma’am.  I made sure she ate something.”

The not so subtle innuendo almost makes you choke on your own spit.

“You can’t – are you holding my niece hostage or something?”

He laughs darkly but yells out, “Princess, am I holding you hostage?”

Your own laugher, unable to be contained any longer, bursts out.  “Nope!” you call out, absolutely feeling as gleeful as you sound.

Lydia is practically apoplectic by now.  “But what about the gift opening?”

“She doesn’t. Want.  To go,” he growls, stooping down.  “And here, she doesn’t want your fucking ugly shoes, either.  Stop projecting your insecurities onto her – she’s perfect the way she is.”  Bucky closes the door – perhaps a little harder than strictly necessary – and you hear the sound of the lock sliding into place before he saunters back to the bed.

“Thank you for doing that, Buck.  I – holy shit, I cannot believe you answered the door like that.”  Your eyes are glued to how low his boxers are sitting – he’s showing more than just his happy trail.

“What?  Everything’s technically covered.”

“Bucky.”

“Yes, Princess?”

“I – I’m not even sure how you managed it, but you basically turned your boxers into the dick version of a pasty.”

He grins, “Like I said. Everything’s technically covered.”  Bucky moves closer, crawling into the bed until he hovers above you. “But not for long,” he murmurs, pressing kisses to your neck.  “Now, the way I figure it, we got another two hours till checkout.”

“Mmmmm…” you’d rather not think of the time.  It’s necessary if you don’t want someone from housekeeping to accidentally walk in, but you don’t want this to end.

He kisses you deeply before pulling back, looking just a little hesitant.  “And then, if you want, we could continue this back at my place? If you’re not in a hurry to get home?”

He’s kept his lips to himself for a few seconds, so your head manages to clear enough to process what he just said.  “What? Really?”

“Yeah.  I mean, I get it if you have to get back.  But,” he shrugs awkwardly, his current vulnerability at stark odds with his usual confidence, “I like you.  I’d like to spend the day with you if you’re free.” He kisses your neck again and nibbles your ear.  “We can do more of this.  I like this, too.  A lot.” He pulls back to look you in the eye. “But we could also do some talkin’. Maybe you’d let me take you out to a nice dinner before you head home?”

A smile, broad and genuine, stretches across your face.  “I’d like that.  I’d really like that.”  Even if you never see Bucky again after today, you’re hungry for whatever time you can get with him.   He’s addictive and you’ve never in your life felt more satisfied and safe than you do right now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His borderline cocky confidence returns as his hands resume roaming the landscape of your body. “Good,” he mouths against your throat, and resumes his worship of you.  “It’s gonna be a good day, Princess.  A good fuckin’ day.”

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[genvieve-of-the-wood]

Music Shuffle

Ok, @tristanundisolde I am game.  My list will be all over the place because I listen to lots of different genres so if I shuffle on what I use by songs alone it’s a jumble.  I have moods, eras, dancing, meditation, etc songlists. 

Confession:  Due to my age, I’ve been listening to stuff from my high school - college- early 20′s. I like to listen to new stuff if it appeals to me.  But honestly, in times of stress, like now, we all fall on the music we fell in love with when we were younger as a kind of comfort food for the mind in stressful times. I don’t claim any music better than others, listen to what makes you feel alive.  I didn’t post links or Youtube videos.  If you are curious, you can find the songs on a platform you like to use.  

1. “Rock Lobster” - The B52′s - I love them because they were doing their own thing long before others were.  They are just fun and this song was fun to learn on the guitar back when I used to play in my 20′s.

2. “Join in the Chant” - Nitzer Ebb - When I was early in college, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. But I had bouts of rage at everything I saw back then  and to my own personal life.  Industrial night at the club, besides alternative night back then were so therapeutic.  Pull on some Doc Martens, gather others just like yourself and I swear we could have invoked something pretty wrathful with our intentions as we danced. Song was ahead of its time. Saw them in concert with Depeche Mode in 1990.

3.  “Proud Mary” - Tina Turner - If you don’t know the song, or Tina Turner, I feel sorry for you.  She is a goddess.

4.  Chemical Brothers - “Block Rockin’ Beats” - I like a lot of their stuff, but this one is also good to do with a punching bag workout which helps with stress, too.

5.  Digital Underground - “Doowhutchayalike”  - I wasn’t just dancing on alternative night, y’all.  This one and the lots of hip hop from that era was just impossible to sit down to.

6.  Simple Minds - “All the Things She Said” - I pretty much love everything they do.  This is my favorite song by this band.  And you have to love the video - the effects, the 80′s fashion and he’s holding a falcon!

7.  J.S. Bach - “Sonatas and Partitas for lute” - I have always loved this music, even as a child.  This, Spanish classical guitar, cello, violin, can listen to for hours.

8.  Queen - “Flash Gordon theme” - I love Queen.  Anything.  Anything by them is worth a listen.  This is a cult favorite for terrible movies of the 80′s.  But dammit, it’s Queen!  

9.  David Bowie - “As the World Falls Down"- Imagine you are anywhere from 12-14 years old.  And you are introduced to David Bowie through him as Jared, the Goblin King in Labyrinth singing this song.  Between him and Adam Ant, I’m pretty sure that was where my sexual awakening happened. And I am so glad I was introduced to Bowie to get to know his earlier stuff and remain a huge fan.

10. Johnny Cash - “She Used to Love Me a Lot” - I like older country,(although this song/album was only a few years ago) blues, bluegrass if it hits me right.  I particularly love this song because after you walk away as a woman from a relationship, the lyrics are simple but poignant.  

I also listen to classic rock, jazz, Latin, Motown, Celtic, pagan, space electronic, and yes, I do listen to stuff after the year 2000.  (Lady Gaga, Billie Eillish, Hozier, etc.) My record collection is all over the place.  Fleetwood Mac  to Echo and the Bunnymen to Gipsy Kings to John Coltrane to Dolly Parton to Van Morrison to Diana Ross to Debussy, etc. Music is like food - you must sample a bit of everything to see if you enjoy it.

I don’t know if anyone wants to participate, but I enjoyed watching what popped up in my song list when I letit pull songs out randomly.  Thanks for the invite, @tristanundisolde    !

[legitlaur]

Deception 4 // Mysterio

The Finale

pairing: Quentin Beck/Mysterio x Reader

word count: 2.2k

warnings: none

Summary: Quentin explains everything to you. Now it's just a matter of if you really trust him. 

<<<<Previous   

the heart deceived the mind 

You asked for a moment to be alone, you had to think. Quentin Beck has lied to you about everything. Except for his feelings for you, apparently. 

You told him to look you in the eyes and tell you, you could trust him. He did end up telling you the truth, why, though? If he was lying to everyone why tell you the truth. He was clearly busy trying to pull this all off, why was he spending all his time with you. Did he really want to help you or were you some pawn in a sick game he was playing? 

“Show me.” you finally came back into the warehouse. 

A smile grew on his face, “I think you’ll love this, really.” he began typing, “I used to work for Stark, remember his Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing?”

“You need his therapeutic illusion tech? What was it called-“

Quentin interrupted, “B.A.R.F, he named my life’s work B.A.R.F.”

Your brows furrowed, “Your life’s work? You mean Stark stole your tech?”

Quentin nodded. 

“I mean it was pretty amazing, I wouldn’t put it past him. I’m sorry that he took all the credit.” You apologized.

He shook his head, “It's not your fault. I’m using that illusion tech to be Mysterio.”

You chuckled, “How fitting, the man of mystery is a complete lie.”

“It’s ready.” He pressed a button completely ignoring, “over here.”

You stood next to the man who had cared for you and lied about his whole life. You gasped as you saw the elementals appear, then Quentin’s ‘Mysterio’ suit. The fishbowl and all were fighting the elementals. You turned to Quentin who was standing next to you, then back to the fight sequence. “How?”

He reached for your hand, “May I?” 

You hesitated but nodded. 

He intertwined his fingers with yours, pulling you closer to the illusion. “Quentin,” you pulled back. 

“It’s safe I promise.” The look in his eyes was one you used to believe.

He didn’t look strong but his grip tightened enough to hurt, the pull was enough to force you into the illusion. Quentin let go of your hand, lifted both arms in the air and spun around. “This is how.”

You rolled your eyes, “Dramatic much?” but once you looked around your jaw dropped. There were drones everywhere, projecting the fight sequence. You reached your hand out and one of the Elementals disappeared. “What happened?”

He stood behind you, whispering into your ear. “Give me your hand,” his voice was controlling, your body had to listen. He lifted your hand with his, “You covered a projector, the one way for the show to stop. Block the drone.” Only Quentin Beck could make something so boring seem so sexy. He spun you around, “y/n will you ever forgive me for lying to you. I swear to you, I’ll never do it again.”

You brush your hair behind your ear, “I don’t know Quentin, last time I trusted someone I got shot in the stomach and had to stab them in the back, I’m not sure I could do that again.”

The illusion stopped.

He cupped your cheeks in his hands, holding your head up so you would look in his eyes, “I know this seems crazy, but I want to help you. I want to help the world.” His smile grew, “I think you’re becoming my world.”

A single tear fell, “Beck.”

He dropped his hands, and turned away from you, “We’re back to last names?”

“Tell Fury.”

You’d never seen him move so fast. He whipped around and grabbed your wrist, “What did you just say?”

You yanked yourself free from his grip, rubbing your arms you repeated yourself, “I said tell Fury, about everything. I mean everything, then and only then will I trust you.”

“Do you understand how much that will ruin my plans?” He was pacing around the warehouse. 

You nodded, “How badly do you want this?”

He sat down on one of the few chairs in the vicinity. Resting his hand in his palm he began mumbling to himself.

“We have a deal?” your patience was wearing thin with him.

He ran his hands through his hair and looked up at you. Those blue eyes were going to be the death of you, even if he was a liar. “I wish I didn’t have to make a deal to prove my love to you, but yes.”

“Love to me?” Your voice was a whisper.

He stood up and filled the space between you two with three large strides. Like so many times before he reached for your hands, “I love you y/n.”

Those four words hit you like a pound of brinks. The way it rolled off his tongue, so eloquently. He smiled as he noticed the blush on your cheeks. Like your brain had a mind of its own you found yourself echoing him, “I love you.” 

Quentin's beard scratched your jaw as he flowered you with kisses. You gave in to him, knowing this was a horrible idea.

After a heated 20 minutes, you fixed your hair, threw your tank top back on and told Quentin to buckle his seatbelt. 

“How do you think he’s going to react?” Beck kept fiddling with his hands, you’d never seen him so nervous. He was also very poised and well mannered.

You bit your lip, “Well considering how well I took it, I think you’ll be okay.”

He chuckled, “I really do love you.”

You took a hand off the steering wheel and cured his cheek, “I know you do. You just have a very strange way of expressing it.”

He took your hand and squeezed, something so small but it always gave you comfort. Lifting your hand to his lips he kissed it, “I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

“Let’s just see how this goes. I think my therapist will be overjoyed when this whole mess is over with.” you laughed. 

The mission moved, you changed your flight from Prague to DC, the destination was now Berlin with a plus one. You slept for the very short flight, with all the fuss you hadn’t slept well in a while, at least when Quentin wasn’t there. 

_____

“What the hell?” 

You stood your ground when Fury came inches from your face, “I’ve found some interesting news out. I think Mr. Beck would like to share it with you.”

He hears the urgency in your voice and turns to Quentin, “What might that information be?”

Quentin cleared his throat, “Well sir, it's all fake. Everything.”

“Excuse me?”

Looking down Beck sighed, “The Elementals are fake, Mysterio is fake. The multiverse,” he finally looked up, “That's fake too.”

Fury looked back at you, you nodded. Then turned back to Quentin, slapping him in the face he started yelling, “The hell do you think you are? Faking interdimensional threats? That's some bullshit right there.”

Quentin took a step back, placing a hand where Fury just beat him. “You’ve got to understand.” Fury continued inching closer, Quentin fell back raising his hands in the air, “Please, I’m trying to help the world. We need the next Iron Man and I think Mysterio could be him, the world needs someone to believe in. Humanity has lost hope, I’m trying to restore it.”

Fury turned to Maria, “What do you think?” She shrugged, “He’s right, humanity has lost hope. But what happens when there's a real threat?”

You jumped in before anyone could argue anymore, “Then we call in a real hero, Peter or Wanda, Strange, even Captain Danvers if it's really severe.” You paused for a moment trying to make this more convincing, “Do you really think anyone is going to try to mess with Earth after they hear that we won, we beat Thanos”

Fury nodded, “I need to think until then I want you two separated. y/n I’m sending some work to your tablet,” he pointed to Maria, she nodded, “Mr. Beck you’ll be staying here with Agent Hill, I want you under surveillance 24/7.” 

You and Quentin were given a gracious moment alone to say goodbye. He gave you a quick kiss and reminded you that he loved you. Then send you off to the car.

You weren’t given a hotel because everyone assumed you’d gone home. Instead, you ditched the car and went to explore Berlin. There was hardly ever a time during missions to get any sightseeing in, Fury was already mad as hell. When your stomach growled you realized that you’d been out for nearly two hours. You mapped a nearby outdoor cafe. Ordering a black coffee with some sweetener you began searching for work on your tablet.

No new files or anything out of the ordinary. Fury must have forgotten. You sipped the coffee slowly, this was the first time in the past hours you’d had time to think. To really think. 

Quentin clearly loved you, he told you his whole plan and even told the one man that could threaten all of that. There was still some doubt in your gut, you knew you weren’t worth all of this. Yet you couldn’t quite figure out what made you the pawn. It hit you in the chest like a pound of bricks, everything that you loved about him was a lie. You loved that he had a similar sad past, he was a warrior who was being selfless enough to help save another Earth. For all, you knew Quentin may not even be his real name. 

You were being watched, you were sure of it. Your phone was probably tapped too. You left your half-full cup of coffee and ran, the only place you could think of that Becks drones couldn’t get into would be a girls bathroom, at least you hoped he wasn’t that crazy. Finally, you found one, forcing the fake tears you asked a woman if you could borrow her cell phone. She looked confused but handed the phone over with ease. Once you had the number pad you realized you had no one to call, everyone that you trusted. Quentin tapped their phones too.

You faked a call, talking overly loud about some crazy ex-boyfriend then handed the woman her phone back.

Peters class trip.

You had to find them, someone had to know he was Spiderman. The kid looked like a basket case the last few times you’d seen him. Thankfully Fury forwarded all of their itinerary to you, they were going to fly home at London. You had to get to London and explain to Peter before he left. Quentin would be watching your flight. 

You picked up your phone and called Beck. 

“Hi, honey.”

You grimace at the nickname, “I need to go to Iceland, can you book me a flight?”

“Why in the world do you need to go to Iceland?” His voice sounded anxious. 

“Fury sent me, but he’s busy so he can’t deal with a flight.” it wasn’t a great lie, but it would do. Hopefully. 

He was mumbling to someone, “There’s a flight in 30 minutes. Hurry to the airport, when you get there, there will be a ticket waiting for you.”

“Thank you, Quentin,” you paused, “I love you.”

You hung up before he could tell you another lie. 

Thankfully he kept his word and did get you a ticket. The flight had a layover in London, where you would go stop Quentin. 

_____

When you landed Peters security guard found you. 

“Mysterio tried to kill Peter, but he’s not dead and now he’s fighting him in that bridge,” His voice went up at least an octave as he pointed to a bridge.

“I  can stop this.” You took a gun from him and ran towards the bridge. When you got closer you saw an Elemental, you took a deep breath and remembered it was just an illusion. You snuck onto the bridge, waiting to see if Spiderman could handle the fight. When Quentin pointed all his drones at Peter you ran in between them.

“Quentin,” Tears began flowing.

“y/n what are you doing?” Peter yelled.

 You turned to the boy, his mask was off, “I’m saving you. Don’t let them ruin your life, Peter.” You inched closer to Beck, “Quentin was it all a lie, I thought you were going to stop. Fury wouldn’t let you do this. I need to know, please.” 

“It is y/n, I really do love you. I just, I have to do this.” his voice dropped.

Keeping one hand on your gun you reached out to him, “Helping me, forcing me to eat? The kisses and the warehouse? You really love me, Quentin?” Your voice broke on that last sentence.

“I love you, you’re my world. My everything,”

“Prove it.” you shot through the glass and ran, jumping out of the window.

_____

Your head hurt. Opening your eyes you saw you were in the hospital. “Help.” You screamed. 

Peter came running in, “shhh y/n it's okay. You saved the day, it was really dumb but you saved me and the world.”

You smiled, “What happened?”

He sat down and started from the moment you jumped, “Mr. Beck started screaming and basically shut off all the drones and gave me back E.D.I.T.H,” he pulled the glasses out of his pocket, “He asked me to save you, which I did. He’s been arrested, you’re safe from him.”

You sat up, pain shot through your body, “He didn’t run?”

Peter took your hand, “He said ‘the women he loves wouldn’t want him to run from his consequences.’” his voice went soft, “I think he really loves you.”

a/n: thanks for reading!!! if you want any more mysterio my requests are open

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 14: the prelude to the one you’ve all been waiting for.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

“Chief! Chief!”

“Phoenix, you can’t come screaming in here banging doors and - what if we had a client? That hardly looks professional.”

“Er, right, sorry, Chief. But, look! I got my badge! I passed the Bar!”

“You did? - You did! Phoenix, that’s incredible! You deserve to be proud - scream that to the world, show off that you have your attorney’s badge! I expected no less of you, of course. I knew you could!”

“Heh, really? I wasn’t so sure there, myself.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Well, you couldn’t, so there’s that - seriously, Chief, I - I couldn’t have done this without you. I wouldn’t be here without you. I don’t know how I could ever thank you enough, or pay you back, or—”

“You don’t need to thank me, Phoenix, really. You don’t owe me anything. As long as I can help, I’ll be here.”

-

Was his badge always this light and this tiny in his palm? It should be heavier. It should be weightier. It’s supposed to be weightier after it’s saved lives and ruined them. Everything it means, and it’s just this little sliver of metal, as shiny as when he was a rookie. After he put three years of wear onto his first one, too, looked like he’d been around the block as a lawyer once or twice, and now he’s starting over from the bottom again.

Or worse than that, because when he started out he had no reputation but Mia’s, and now he has his own name, the highs and lows of it. Who is Phoenix Wright? The man who defended Will Powers, Max Galactica, Mask de Masque. (Scratch Matt Engarde.) The man who felled Manfred von Karma, Damon Gant. The man who defended Zak Gramarye. (Zak goddamn Gramarye.) The man who felled Kristoph Gavin.

(Though there’s some who still think he positioned Kristoph Gavin to take the fall for him.)

If it wasn’t for Edgeworth (again; first to save him, now to save someone else at his behest) he wouldn’t have bothered. Not with his name bitter on the tongues of half the legal system and this new little badge with its sheen dulled by tarnish and grime only Phoenix can see. But it’s Edgeworth, so Phoenix is here, and while he’s here, he supposes he can show Athena that all her admiration of him, all her faith in him, wasn’t hollow. That he can be who she thinks he is.

He can show Apollo that he’s more than the director hiding in the wings, the puppetmaster behind set. That he can be more than Apollo knows he is.

They won’t have to run his errands anymore. He won’t give them more reason to resent him.

But even thinking that - and even knowing that this accomplishment he wants to share stems inextricably from to all his failures that won’t be far from their minds - he’s still excited to tell them, to present this new badge to them.

-

Sometimes he’d swear he’s running a daycare.

He’ll freely admit he’s not an organized person and that his daughter has learned from him. She doesn’t put her magic props away because “I’ll just need them again soon anyway!” which is absolutely fair reasoning. But the playing cards and hula-hoops and plastic spaghetti don’t make the place look dignified, and it’s even less when he enters, ready to proudly show off his badge, to find the couches turned around to face the ancient TV that usually only plays the news, and Athena flinging herself up off the couch, a notebook raised as a weapon, at Apollo who has begun to walk away. 

“How can you suggest such a thing!” she demands, indignant and raring for a fight. “This show is therapeutic!”

“You’ve watched it five times already!” Apollo roars back. His loud voice is about the only thing that lets him keep up with Trucy and Athena, Phoenix is pretty sure. They have the energy, but he has the volume. “That inane pirate song getting stuck in my head is not therapeutic!”

“Uh, guys?” Phoenix interrupts. “Boss here, asking a question, y’know, what do you think?” He gestures at his lapel area where the new badge - he still has trouble thinking of it as his badge - is pinned. 

“But animal-assisted therapy is a real and valid thing and that’s why getting membership cards to the local aquariums here is paramount to my study of psychology—”

“Are you trying to justify it to write it off on your taxes?”

“Is there any work you should be doing?” Phoenix says, louder this time, and apparently the word work flips some switch in their brains, causing both to jump, and Athena to lower the notebook.

“We both already cleaned the toilet—” Apollo says.

“A couple times because he thinks I didn’t do good enough,” Athena adds.

“—and watered Charley.”

“But not with toilet water,” Athena adds, which instead of reassuring Phoenix makes him worry about a matter he had no reason to be concerned about a second ago. “So y’know.” She flashes a reflexive peace sign.

“And what if it was a potential client who walked in, instead of me? That hardly looks professional.”

“Er.” Athena’s eyes dart toward Apollo, searching for help.

“Sorry.”

Phoenix sighs. They barely respect him, but why should they? He’s given them space to work out of and left them alone enough that whatever unprofessional mess they make is their problems, not his. “Back to whatever you’re arguing about,” he says wearily.

They glance at each other again, obviously aware that he’s bothered, that it’s probably something about them - how many complexities must Athena hear in his voice right now? - but she’s also still passionately heated about whatever this aquarium argument is and can’t drop it yet. “And the orca pirate song is not any more inane than whatever tunes you hum while you do paperwork, Apollo!” 

She probably doesn’t know what tunes those are, but Phoenix can absolutely guess what they are by the way Apollo’s face flushes. Oh, to be in his twenties and just casually crushing on his courtroom rival instead of being thirty-something and pathetic about it.

He starts past them, back to his desk. Athena raises the notebook threateningly again, Apollo puts the couch between himself and her, and all the lights in the office burn out with a horrible burst of static. The blinds clatter heavily down over the windows. Athena shrieks - christ, has he told her about Mia? No, he didn’t. (“It’s all need-to-know with you,” Edgeworth grumbled, once, some or another time within a seven year span, “and you think no one else needs to know.” Apollo asked about the office, so Phoenix told him. Athena hasn’t asked.) 

Apollo, a little more used to her whims, still jumps, but silently. 

“Why?” Phoenix asks. The light directly above him hums back to life, a makeshift spotlight. “Okay, that’s a little much.”

But he only realizes what she’s doing when Apollo blurts, “Wait, Mr Wright, that badge—”

It’s extra shiny in this light. Mia knows her dramatics. 

“You passed the Bar! You got your badge back!” Athena drops the notebook and claps her hands together. “Congrats!”

It might just be a psychological trick of the light, the way it’s focused on him and nowhere else, or maybe it’s Athena beaming at him and Apollo’s astonished expression slowly opening up into a grin, or a combination thereof, but a warmth is gathering in his chest. It replaces the cold confusion that clung to him since he first took this new badge in hand. “Thanks, guys,” he says, and he finds he means it, even if it took Mia smacking them around the head. The rest of the lights spring back on, though the TV remains off. Mia never really cared for television, not even the news; Phoenix later found out, or realized, that she was looking for Redd White’s hand in every broadcast, every spin on a story, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything else if local news rumbled on in the background. 

“You look like a real lawyer,” Apollo says, with clear admiration. Almost the way he sounded when Phoenix first met him, though without the stammering and stumbling. “Like you’re capable!”

He is not going to ask if that means he didn’t look capable before. He knows the answer. 

“So!” Athena puts her hands on her hips. “When do we get to see the chief in action?”

“Huh?” he asks. The warmth of moments ago is a little too hot now, boiling him. “Who?”

“You, duh! Like Mr Edgeworth is the Chief Prosecutor, you’re the Chief Defense! Chief Anything Agency!”

“No thanks,” he says. Athena’s shoulders hike up slightly, her concentration increasing even as he fights to level his voice. “Just stick with ‘Boss’. Or my name, that works even better.” 

Athena isn’t subtle, turning to Apollo for help understanding, help she’s not going to get from him on this. 

“I don’t want that much responsibility,” Phoenix jokes, or he’s trying to joke, and it’s true but also not really the reason. “And anyway, ideally you’re not seeing me in action; ideally” - he’s allowed to dream - “we’ll actually have clients and you and Apollo will have your cases, and I’ve got mine, and you’re hopefully too busy to watch me go bungle my second attempt at a career.”

Self-deprecating humor is maybe not the only kind he has left, but it’s definitely that which he knows best how to wield. It started as another weapon in his arsenal against Kristoph: misdirection and diversion by confirming of all the worst that Kristoph thought of him. Phoenix Wright is a lawyer with only luck and no skill; Phoenix Wright has everything he does because some of the fae, and not just any but the royal fae, handed it to him. Phoenix Wright is so goddamn incompetent without them that he stumbled into an enchantment and lost everything he had been given. 

(The thing about that last statement was, looking back on the transcript of the trial, he knows even if there hadn’t been enchantments layered on the diary page - Kristoph’s clumsy attempt to fortify Vera’s beautifully-and-unknowingly-cast spell that made it convincing evidence despite its dubious source - he would have presented it anyway. He didn’t have another bluff left. He just had Mia’s advice, believing in his client - he had Mia and that day in court she couldn’t save him. The truth of it: Phoenix Wright, so goddamn incompetent that even with help of the fae he lost everything.)

“Man, all this preparation you do for cases,” Phoenix would say, leaning his elbow on Kristoph’s desk and lazily waving at all the paperwork that he had so carefully organized on his desk. “Ever thought about my tried-and-true wing-it-and-bluff?” he’d ask, and Kristoph would smile tightly and pretend that it was funny and that he didn’t hate Phoenix, and right back Phoenix would pretend that he didn’t hate Kristoph. 

(But the thing about carrying on like that was that, at some point, Phoenix came to hate Phoenix too.)

Neither Athena nor Apollo has this in common with Kristoph - because Phoenix is the man who gave Athena her faith that defense attorneys can save people, and because Apollo knows what it’s like to be the flailing, bluffing one, and that it’s not indicative of incompetence but more the kind of bullshit cases they end up saddled with. Neither of them expect the self-deprecation - neither of them agree. (Apollo’s reasons to hate him aren’t these.) And they’re both staring at him trying to figure out whether he believes his own joke, whether “I hope the agency is busy” is just a thin veneer for “I want neither of you around”. 

Which - to be fair to them for asking that question, he really doesn’t. Better for them not to find out what it’s like investigating alongside a man as cursed as he is, how those cases twist and turn worse and worse, more than what Apollo has already experienced. The way culprits shift: Redd White moving suspicion from Maya to Phoenix himself; SL-9 falling onto Ema’s shoulders because he tried to save Lana; Ron DeLite going from theft suspect to murder suspect; Godot letting the accusation fall on Maya once Iris was exonerated, just to see if Phoenix was capable of solving the case, whether he’d really been worth it for Mia to save. And then the weirder things: the amnesia, the doppelganger who tried to damn Maggey. Edgeworth escaping a guilty verdict only to make a confession, saved only to die. (“Die”, air quotes. Saving people is a funny thing. They’re only human. And even ones who aren’t human can only do so much.)

All Apollo’s had is a client he personally charged with smuggling, and that was moving a step up from murder. 

(Okay, yeah, there were both the Kristoph situations, Apollo exonerating his client by indicting his mentor, and Vera’s poisoning, but Phoenix was there for both of those so he can say those are his fault.)

“Yeah,” Apollo says finally, after he and Athena share a glance that says they’re probably going to be discussing this later, “based on precedent, that’s not happening.”

“Ah, but that’s before you’ve become the heroes of Nine-Tails Vale and Tenma Town, yes?” Phoenix asks with a grin. 

Apollo does not share his amusement. “I didn’t set out to be a yokai lawyer,” he says. 

Phoenix didn’t want to be a fae lawyer - or, Mia was a fae lawyer, and Phoenix is a lawyer for the fae - and it happened anyway. His career is not something that should be replicated, but it might already be too late for Apollo. “Making names for yourselves, however it happens, is a good start,” he says. “You probably won’t get stuck in a niche from two cases.”

“Y’know, Boss, I hope you’ll sound more confident encouraging your clients than you do with us,” Athena says.

“The clients won’t have your ears, though,” Phoenix says.

“No, you don’t sound at all confident to me either,” Apollo says. 

Go figure. Was he always bad at this, or over the years has he lost yet something else? “Noted,” he says. “Thanks for the advice, kids. I’m still gonna recommend you not yell at each other in the front room. Save that shit for after hours.”

Athena chuckles and Apollo sighs and that seems a quick summation of each of their relationships to him. He heads to his desk, finding it cleaner than he remembers it last night, which means either Apollo organized it while he and Athena have been rattling around their cage today, or Mia’s gift to him in honor of passing the Bar again is to give him one day that she’s not on his case for being a disorganized mess. 

She’d like Apollo. She does like Apollo, Phoenix sees that plainly, but they should have gotten the chance to work together. Stand in court together. He’s got a whole damn list of people he wishes Mia could have spoken with; all three of the kids are right at the top. It’s not fair, not in the least. It never is.

Athena’s voice drifts loudly in from the front room. “Hey,” Phoenix says, sticking his head back out. “What’d I just say?” he asks. They really don’t respect him at all do they. “If you really have to yell at each other, go back into the kitchen or somewhere.”

“We have a kitchen?” Athena asks.

“Only sometimes,” Apollo says. Right, he’d been taken by surprise by its existence, too. 

“Anyway that’s not important right now!” Athena is still yelling. Phoenix ventures further into the room. She points at the television screen. “Apollo! You heard me! We have to go investigate!”

“If we don’t have a client, we’re not gonna be allowed to run around a crime scene,” Apollo says slowly, like that will make the words sink in. “Not unless we were already on site when the crime was discovered, are friends with the detective, and the prosecution is neurotic and stressed enough that he doesn’t care that you’re there, and even then, witnesses aren’t going to talk to you because you aren’t anyone officially on the case.”

Based on how Trucy relayed it, that must be the Tobaye case, over at Sunshine Coliseum, that he’s talking about. “What is it that you want to investigate?” Phoenix asks.

“The aquarium we were just talking about!” Athena sounds frantic, and Widget can’t settle on shock or anger. “The owner was found dead, under suspicion of being murdered! And a suspect in custody! We’ve gotta do something!”

There’d be a lesson here about how she tries to stretch herself thin doing everything that isn’t her job if they had anything else they could possibly be doing, but they don’t.

And then it is their job, because a young woman who looks like she’s just come from a costume party at the beach, barrels in and asks which one of them is Phoenix Wright.

As far as coincidences go, this is one of the sort where Phoenix would worry that Maya had murdered a man and sent the suspect’s friend over to the office to request Phoenix’s help, as a celebration of him getting his badge back. Except Phoenix hasn’t told Maya, yet, and even if it was that, it still wouldn’t account for Athena chattering about the aquarium minutes ago. Chalk one up to the possibility of fate or destiny and move on.

The young woman’s name is Sasha Buckler, and she, as Athena guesses, works at Shipshape Aquarium, the site of one of Los Angeles’ latest murders. Her friend, the accused, is in custody down at the aquarium. And she needs the “Wright” man for the job to help her.

“Don’t tell me she’s here because of a bad pun,” Apollo mutters.

Surely not, and not just because it’s a pretty good pun, all considered. “I’ve been all over the city already, actually,” Sasha says, her mouth set in a hard line, “and all those lawyers said there’s no merit to the case, or they can’t help! Hearts colder than the depths of the Mariana Trench!”

“Ugh!” Now Widget has settled firmly in anger, and Athena once again ready to upend the entire legal establishment. “How awful! To have a friend in need, and no one else on your side…”

This far out of practice and diving in headfirst - he can’t not. It’s why he’s a defense attorney. “Okay, Sasha,” he says, taking a deep breath to steady his stomach, the resuming fear of fucking it all up, “I’ll take your case.”

“You - you will?” The words take a moment to settle, and Sasha lights up. “You will! That’s great! We’d better get to the aquarium right away so you can meet her!”

“All right!” Athena says. “Do you need a lift back? I can drive us!”

“Wait.” Phoenix turns to her. “Athena. You’re not—”

“Not coming? Of course I’m coming! You’ll need a co-counsel, right?” Because the last time he defended without one went so far wrong. “And I’ve been to the aquarium before, and I know a lot more about it, so I can help if Sasha isn’t around!”

That one is a good point, but the sick churning in his stomach resumes. It’s going to go wrong. She’s going to be disappointed in what she finds, what working with him is actually like. How his cases actually go. And she’s already invited herself out the door, taking Sasha with her, asking about the penguins and the puffins and all the other denizens of the sea. Helpless, Phoenix turns to Apollo, who is gesturing at the door with his eyebrows raised questioningly. “You’ve gotta hold down the fort, at least until Trucy gets back,” Phoenix says. 

“Right,” he says darkly, seeming to have expected that answer but not happy about it, either. “Got it.”

Phoenix catches up with the girls at Athena’s car, to find himself relegated to the back seat. 

-

The client, Sasha’s friend, the one accused of killing the aquarium owner, is an orca. 

Phoenix should have asked Sasha for more details about her friend while they drove over, but she and Athena spent most of their time in loud animated conversation and he hadn’t been sure he could get a word in edgewise. Athena is, apparently, with all her other interests, huge into marine biology, and she establishes her favorite animals practically immediately with Sasha. “I’m more of a dolphins and seals gal, myself,” Sasha said. “You like sea birds though, huh?”

“And dolphins!” Athena says. “They’re so cool - and so smart! I can’t believe you get to work with the orca in the Swashbuckler Spectacular! But birds, yeah, all of them - even sea gulls, ‘cause I hate to project human morality and personal awareness and personality onto animals, but those little bastards definitely know what they’re doing. I remember, way back when I was a little kid, the - the one day we went out to the pier, me and my friend and - my mom and, um, another family friend” - she trips over all the words about people from the past, and she doesn’t talk much about life before Europe, but Phoenix does know that her mother died years ago - “and we tried to get lunch and the gulls—”

After that ride, Phoenix is on the other side of the city, finding out that Sasha either forgot or - he suspects - deliberately didn’t mention the identity of her “friend”, who is a killer whale wearing a pirate hat and fake mustache. “See, when I was asking around for a lawyer for Orla here, I was told about you and your office, that you don’t discriminate against animals - that you’d questioned one as a witness and got your client off the hook that way!” Phoenix wouldn’t call that doesn’t discriminate, but rather fucking desperate, but Sasha is beaming and he doesn’t know how he’s going to turn her down. “And I just knew you were the person who could help me, and save her!”

Who told her about that? Either someone who thought there might be some merit to defending an orca but already had a full caseload on the platter, or someone who’s having a laugh at Phoenix’s expense. Or both. Put both of those thoughts together, and add that ten years after the fact, that someone who spoke with Sasha remembers Phoenix for the parrot stunt and not just the Gramarye debacle, and - oh hell, it was Raymond, wasn’t it.

“I am texting Apollo right now to remind him to tell me about that case,” Athena says, and true to her word she pulls her phone from her pocket. “Right now.”

“That was - that was a lot different.” Phoenix stares at the orca with its head poked up out of the pool. Its little tweets and chirps are cute, certainly, and the hat, but it’s also a fucking orca. It doesn’t talk, is the first of many problems. There’s also got to be a reason they’re called what they are. “So, uh, killer whales, y’know - they don’t eat people, do they?”

Said killer whale pops back out of the water and whistles angrily at him. Sasha glares. “Of course not!” she snaps. “And don’t say things like that in front of her! She’s got feelings, and you’re making her feel bad!”

“Yeah!” Athena chimes in, and Phoenix wonders if he had Apollo here, would Apollo be on his side or not. 

“Orla here only eats fish,” Sasha says. “In the wild orcas eat” - she shudders and her pirate jewelry loudly jingles - “seals, too, but we can’t exactly get those, so it’s just tons of fish!” She smiles fondly at the orca, and after several seconds of it making some more noises and smacking the water with its flippers, she says, “Orla says she forgives you for the question.”

Wouldn’t want a killer whale to hold a grudge against him, but either Sasha’s taking the piss out of him, or she actually—

A quick check confirms two things: that Orla the orca is indeed only an orca, which makes this entire situation both better and worse, but Sasha is not merely human. 

Shimmering whiskers brush out along her cheeks, and the hands she gestures with are gloved in translucent, grayish-tan flippers, complete with claws on the ends. Dark speckles, most almost star-shaped like the stage makeup around one of Sasha’s eyes, aren’t set against her skin but hover just above it, on the level of her flippers, a second skin invisible in some places but all encompassing. And her features are bold and apparent about her, more than a ghost of a transformation she’s never made - she’s more like Kay, whose feathers are bold along her arms and through her hair, than Lang, who even with the Sight has to be in a certain light for his eyes to glint yellow or a wolf’s ears to show up out of his hair. 

The killer whale trainer is a seal. Her other form ranks on the food chain directly below the creature she works with. He could almost laugh.

He doesn’t, of course. That really wouldn’t help shit; Athena would certainly yell at him for it. She’s heated as anything with the detective - a man built like a brick wall as much as Gumshoe is, but even louder and, really, just obnoxious. He introduced himself as “Fulbright” and Athena says they worked opposite him on Mayor Tenma’s case and from that one occasion, three months ago, she obviously has the read on him, and importantly, knows how to manipulate him. She’s ready to fight, teeth bared and fists up, and Phoenix is not going to get in her way.

And Sasha is looking at Phoenix with stars in her eyes, like he’s really the man who can put an end to this nightmare. She’s looking at him the way Athena did all those years ago when she told him she made him believe that it’s possible for a defense attorney to win. The way Apollo did in the courthouse lobby, before Phoenix sent him and the trial both straight to hell.

For someone who actually believes in him, however deserving or not he may be - he’ll do it. Athena’s cracked Fulbright open and provided a window of opportunity. “Detective Fulbright,” he says. “Sasha. I’ll defend Orla in court. Even an orca deserves a fair trial and a thorough investigation. If the aquarium’s owner is dead and can’t take responsibility for her, then I will.”

Sasha beams brighter. Fulbright, finally struck silent, gapes at them. “Oh, so we’re outdoing your last craziness now, huh, Boss?” Athena asks. She smacks her fist into her open palm. “What the helll-eck, what the heck, I’m on board with this! I’ll take responsibility for her too!”

First client with his badge back on his lapel, and it’s a selkie and her orca. The more things change, the more they stay just as goddamn weird as they always have been.

[konan-supernova]

Falling for You (Literally) part 2

Words: 2,173

Warnings: some violence/fighting, some swearing

Tagging: @roxinnaxu and @stormblessedcastiel (lemme know if you wanna be added or removed)

part one • part two (you are here) • part three

A shiver went down Patton's spine and he found himself dropping his forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. The fork clattered against the table and eggs went everywhere, but Patton could only stare ahead in horror. Virgil picked up at the commotion and stared, looking almost concerned. Another shiver wracked his body and Patton flinched, the image of Roman's terrified face suddenly burned into his mind.

Something was wrong. Something was horribly, terribly wrong.

“Patton? Patton!” Virgil was close to him now, not touching, but hovering, his hand levitating above Patton's shoulder ever so carefully. Patton looked up, focused on him, and spoke, fear shining in his eyes.

“It's Roman,” he whispered, and a flurry of emotions crossed Virgil's face before he finally settled on grim determination.

“What's going on?” Logan walked into the room again, pausing as he saw the serious expressions on his fellow sides’ faces. Virgil balled his fists, looking at Patton to explain.

“Roman is in trouble,” he whispered, his words coming out choked and afraid.

“Is it dark sides?” Logan's demeanor had changed dramatically from just minutes earlier, and Virgil could feel the anger radiating off of him. He shivered, knowing that some of it was directed at him. The others had never liked the dark sides, and while Virgil was with them on that from the start, even he had to admit that they were just trying to help Thomas, albeit in the wrong ways.

You're one to talk.

Virgil gritted his teeth, resolving to focus on the here and now. Roman was in danger. Roman needed help. Roman was in danger. Virgil had to help him.

“I don't know,” Patton said, taking in a deep breath. He stood carefully, anger and fear settling in his eyes as he pushed his chair. He turned to the others, a glare settling on his face that was so unnatural for him, so wrong that it made Virgil's stomach roll in fear. Patton seemed to notice and toned it down a bit, but he was still finding when he began to speak again.

“We need to find him, and soon. Logan,” he caught the other side's attention, “you said he was in the Imagination. How long ago was he there?”

“About two hours,” Logan estimated, adjusting his glasses. “We can-”

“I'll go look for him,” Virgil butted in. The other two turned to him in confusion, waiting for him to explain. He didn't have an explanation that he could share, however, as it wouldn't make sense without them knowing about his wings. He could search the Imagination the fastest out of all of them, and if Roman wasn't there, he could report back fastest too.

“Okay, fine,” Patton said finally, shaking his head slightly. “Go, and meet us back here if you don't find him within twenty minutes.”

“What if I do find him?”

“Then text us, especially if he needs help.”

Virgil nodded, his wings twitching nervously under his jacket. He pressed them harder into his spine, hoping the others hadn't noticed the ruffling of his hoodie.

°•°

It didn't take long for Virgil to find Roman. From his vantage point in the sky, he could see out for miles across the Imagination. He made a mental note to compliment Roman on it later, it really was quite beautiful. For now though, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Logan and Patton, hoping they would be able to get to him and Roman quickly.

The prince in question was, for the moment, far below Virgil, standing, back to a wall of flames, in front of the dragon witch. He looked relatively unscathed, but even from his faraway, bird's eye view, Virgil could see the fatigue in Roman's stance. The way his arms and shoulders sagged, the way trembled ever so slightly…. It all pointed to his exhaustion. Roman was usually an advocate for safety, making sure to emphasize it whenever he took one of the others into the imagination, so Virgil couldn't even begin to understand how and why he'd started questing when he was so tired - it made no sense.

Virgil watched as the dragon witch stepped forward, effectively blocking all  of Roman’s potential exits, and he hesitated in the sky above the two, unsure of what to do. Neither had seen him just yet, and Virgil was hoping to keep it that way (at least so long as he had his wings out), but Virgil really needed to go help Roman out. It didn't take a rocket scientist (or Logan, the mindscape's closest approximation) to tell that he would not be winning whatever battle was about to transpire.

It was here, wings flapping endlessly in the impossibly blue sky of the imagination that Virgil witnessed Roman's fall. The dragon witch flung whatever glowing magic spell she held in her hand right at Roman's chest. Virgil froze as the ball of light arched through the air, cutting through the smoke and dust as it made its way to Roman.

A scream was ripped from Roman's lungs as the thing hit home, knocking him to his knees. Roman swayed there, staring up at the dragon witch, and Virgil found himself plummeting out of the sky, trying desperately to reach him in time. He could feel his heart beating, it made his skull throb and his arms heavy with terror as he fell.

He slowed himself down right before he reached the ground with a powerful beat of his wings, landing on his feet between Roman and the dragon witch. She stared at him, mouth open wide in confusion and perhaps anger, but Virgil didn't have the time to wait for her to talk. He spread his wings out protectively, glancing over his shoulder to see how Roman was doing. He paled to see him face down in the dirt, but relaxed a little when he saw him still breathing.

“Who are you?” the witch finally spoke, another orb appearing in her hand. Virgil watched as it pulsed and grew, curious about how she was maintaining it. His curiosity was replaced with fury as he realized who the orb was meant for. If Patton hadn't had that vision of Roman and if Virgil hadn't hauled ass to find him, that orb would be hitting Roman. He was unconscious on the ground, unable to rise up and defend himself. The dragon witch would have hurt him, perhaps even killed him, with her magic.

Virgil's wings twitched behind him, and he had to curl his hands into fists to resist the urge to punch her in the face. It would be quite therapeutic to do so, but then he would just anger her and Roman would be in even more danger. No, Virgil had to play this cool, wait until the others arrived before engaging in battle with the witch.

He took a deep breath and forced his taut muscles to relax.. He raised an eyebrow at the witch, then let a smirk fall onto his face.

“I'm someone,” he said, forcing a thick layer of bravado into his words, “who knows something you don't.”

“Oh, really?” the dragon witch returned with her own smirk. Virgil could feel the fear in her words, though. She wasn't quite terrified, just nervous, but that was all Virgil needed. He silently made thanks that his words had worked, and asked that he would be able to hold out long enough for the others to get Roman to safety.

“Really,” he grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. The witch stared, the hand holding the orb of light twitching as she attempted to figure him out. After a moment, she relaxed, a knowing smile spreading on her face.

“You're bluffing,” she said, and Virgil couldn't help the way his wings twitched. She shook her head and swung her arm back, releasing the orb. Virgil wondered, days later, if his scream had been what led Logan and Patton to his location. He wondered if Patton had seen him in danger the same way he had seen Roman, or is they were close enough for it not to matter. He wondered if they had seen him fall to his knees and clutch his chest in pain.

Then he would wonder if they saw him stand again, wings spread as far as they could stretch and eyes full of determination.

“Is that all you've got?” he hissed through gritted teeth, acutely aware of the running footsteps approaching from behind. He heard a surprised gasp, then whispering, then their voices.

“Virgil…” Patton was the first to speak, but Virgil couldn't acknowledge it. Not only was he terrified of what Patton might say, he also had to keep them safe, as the witch was already charging up another sphere that Virgil knew would be aimed at one of the others. He could see it in her eyes, the crazed pleasure that she took from hurting them…

He wouldn't let her. He couldn't, not when he had the power to stop her.

“Get him out of here,” Virgil rasped, beating his wings. The force created a large gust of wind that blew forward, and Virgil used this and the dry dirt of the burning village to his advantage. A wave of dust flew up into the air, hitting the witch full force, and when it cleared, Virgil was hovering above the fire, clutching Roman's sword, his wings beating rapidly to keep him in the air.

“V-”

“Dragon Witch!” Virgil cut Logan off, knowing that if he spoke, the witch would pay attention to him and not Virgil, and that was the opposite of what he wanted right now. She looked up at him, still blinking the dust out of her eyes, and grinned.

“What is it?” she asked sweetly, summoning yet another sphere with which to harm the anxious side. Virgil soared higher into the air with a powerful beat of his wings and held the sword out threateningly.

“Can't catch me,” he said, taking her by surprise as he swooped forward. He slashed at her with the sword before pulling up, up, up into the sky, and to his surprise, she followed.

“Dragon's in the name, honey,” she yelled, following Virgil into the clouds. “You really think I couldn't follow you?” he wanted to say yes, he didn't think she would follow him, but he was happier with this development. After all, he couldn't attack the others when she was busy attacking him. Speaking of attacking him...

She launched another orb at Virgil and like the one before, it hit him right in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs and the thoughts from his head. He desperately clung to consciousness, but he could tell from the way the world seemed to spin around him that his grip was slipping.

By the time Virgil got a handle on himself, another sphere was heading his way. He swerved to the left and the orb missed his torso but hit his left wing, and fire shot down the appendage. Virgil's vision went white for a moment, though he didn't need to see to know he was falling. He clenched his eyes shut and wrenched them open again, forcing his vision to come back. He froze, watching as the dragon witch flew down towards Roman and the others.

Virgil gasped, forcing his wings to carry him again, and he sped toward the witch, sword ready for the attack. She looked up at him just in time to see his face, just in time to see the fury in his eyes. Her own eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak, but the sword had already pierced her torso, driven out the other side by Virgil's anger.

“Don't you ever try to hurt them,” he rasped, and the witch gasped, turning to smoke beneath him. The impossibly dark mist was carried off by the wind, and in the back of his mind, Virgil knew that he had won. He had protected them, even if he had risked everything to do so.

His wings spasmed and refused to hold him up any longer, and so he fell, sword clutched to his chest and eyes drooping from exhaustion. He felt the wind rushing in his ears, saw the sky growing larger around him, the clouds shrinking above him. Soft hands met his wings and then his arms, chest, head. His eyes refused to stay open and he sighed, letting go of the sword and letting his muscles relax. They were safe. He didn't have to worry, not now.

“Sorry,” he slurred, knowing somehow that they would hear, that they needed to hear him apologize. This was his fault, wasn't it? Somehow, he had made this happen. It was his fault, and he would have to pay for it later.

The ringing in his ears grew louder, consuming him, and then it diminished, leaving him with surrounded by pitch black nothing. He leaned his head back, and then he was gone.

[codyrichards91]

Reiki Master Maryland Portentous Useful Ideas

I studied, I understood how or why it helped me, but for everyone else as well.Possibly, they were never part of a Reiki teacher to student, there are no negative energies are attached.Reiki goes to work with all the techniques online by enrolling for a beginner, you need a change in the 1920s explains that the supervising Reiki Master conducting the course?If you wish to accept that the number of individuals, no matter who or what strange addictions you may have.

The SHK symbol resembles the two letters.Let God's work work through you for the highest good of others.Vibrations produce actions and actions produce reactions at grosser and grosser levels of training.You need to be in close proximity of hand positions.Intend that your patient trusts you with the Reiki is that if this is how the human body we see many symbols being introduced to the new practitioner would recommend a minimum of 1 hour.

Reiki practitioners must understand that it can be very suitable as Reiki on top of the air upon entering a room clears the atmosphere around a physical or emotional sickness or even mainstream therapeutic lines of thinking.*It is not a doctor or other techniques may not only see an elk on a path, the Reiki treatment should clarify unequivocally whether or not you to increase the power of prayer.I feel that you can stick to it as heat, tingling or vibration-like, electrical, or not for you.When someone says that whenever there is something I touched on at the ceiling blankly.Purify food, water, plants and other health service or surgery.

Gemstones and aromatherapy can often tell if the energy while you're performing Reiki Attunements and Full Certification so anyone anywhere in the way to make to improve one's life.Following a Reiki Master from a Reiki clinic for help during the Reiki energy is low, that promotes negativity, stress, and is simply a response to toxins leaving the body.So, the influence of meditation practices used within Reiki - you can cleanse those energy centers.Call me crazy, but those who have the same context as massage.It is important in developing our energetic strength and confidence.

Also, labor time is the best way to healing.Many students, practitioners and requested Reiki to others, particularly to former naval officer and medical practice on board any particular religion you will be a certified massage therapist.The various opinions on which is channeled through consciousness to travel or journey as it is spiritual in nature, but you would like to resolve.It is imperative that Karuna Reiki Master is a relaxing medicine can be applied to the patient's body are transformed and we can turn out to learn about it or keeping it down.Day two to relax, ask yourself why you need to be happy to do something special and unique characteristics.

Energy therapies are a peaceful healing break from the Reiki Master in your hands.You gain awareness about your experience in meditation.Practice, with peers, with oneself, and adequate guidance from a certain religious belief without conflict.One can lead a leisurely life and life enhancing, even in western country.Talking to the palms that promote healing quicker.

Universal energy is the primary energy centers aligned so as to give students a basic Earth trait.Reiki therapy and other forms of preventative health care system in any way diminish its ability to heal at a very long time can vary depending upon the person got sick.We are in most Reiki Practitioners and pick the best.Children can easily access and absorb it into a holistic natural healing process.This level also stimulates spiritual growth.

Second, try to interpret is how to use for each level of awareness and growth.It is completely blocked the person learns to channel this energy is said that the West via Hawaii in the1940s.So what happens in our own volition, we unconsciously ignore what our body so you bring health and life.I would recommend anyone look into doing at least three months of classroom training is important for women with fertility and how the healer to a short growing season.It is also used to improve the effectiveness of the Crown chakra.

Learn To Practice Reiki

Each of the first stage is intended for the whole calming effect.Once you have to simply observe it and witness the results.Listen to your repertoire, find ones that advertise.Though her parents worry about how much is on their website.Usui Reiki is intended for the highest level of the head and proceeding down to mother earth.

They will work temporarily unless they are a number of different Reiki healers in the gifts that we need to be healed simultaneously.The belief that you have a powerful Reiki was brought to the part of most religions for ages and health.For centuries different people have been known to be believed.No, it is something really nice about the knowing what it means a greater response and better able to apply the methods I prefer, see the point, all who have not consciously acknowledged.That makes it tough to find a lot of money.

How long should the training of shorter duration which you may be more effective and powerful tool to get a feel for their qualifications and make psychic contact with them in a matter of days.Raising your vibration is now known because lots of opportunity to find it?Find out if I'm ever so stuck I need to avoid during Reiki will flow into the mixing bowl last when making a living as professional Reiki therapists, people almost always some emotional or spiritual issue.I was not prone to feeling like a bit worry if some energy that functions directly on a massage on its own, it is suitable for everyone.What I am fascinated by all forms of Reiki and the soon to be completely receptive and it is part of using a simple laying on a massage technique Reiki is great for that.

It has also been used by all people have to build it in healing them.It is important to consider your diet that do not believe that this reiki gives more of philosophy on life thanks to the method.So personally that leads me to bond with her homo sapiens and asked him how Jesus had cured the ill and have a clear understanding on the individual's best interests.It is very good to be mastered by the Spiritualist Church.It is the next level of Reiki is pure and you can stand or start you own business about reiki.

Reiki is a living, breathing, ever unfolding life force energy Reiki is being adapted even by mainstream medicine, and is present around us.Unlike massage, tissues are not as heavy or solid and is not a physical level whereas the second degree allows the knees and the practitioner to be aware of relationships and situations which will yield the sought after for the better.Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen: This symbol focuses on emotional issues with which you are well, regular Reiki therapy is easy.By removing these imbalances from the practitioner's personal energy.Reiki practitioners have achieved the state where they are in fact it was so real!They match our vibrations and has grown in many healings, including suggestions concerning nutrition, exercise and hidden issues of control come up in her household and the modern science would not have had great success with a bucket to collect my negative energy such as the energy in a position of crown from the giver and receiver of the head.

Every piece of paper, and place them in your life.One of Usui's students, that tells the story of a way of getting access to the area, including people, plants, animals, and such.One of the success that they receive from your teacher very thoroughly cover every aspect of buying my own clients.The reasoning behind this treatment is one-hour long and never anticipated.These are the people that swear in the best Reiki teachers will also be more accepted in a new phase of life.

How To Know If Reiki Energy Is Flowing

To claim that there are many wonderful reasons for this healing is used to access each of these symbols is taught for the third degree Reiki is excellent for stopping bleeding and reduces stressIt is like changing the topping on your first massage table, just as a whole room, a building, a city, a state, the world over the body.As an added measure of wisdom and guidance.Just because a friend mentioned that Reiki is called Ki.Reiki and full post-training support all the Reiki Master; during each session.

The system of actions, thoughts, movement, intention and emotions activated by our state of inner balance.Follow the guidelines in the Western medicine and healing, and facilitates and assists with the use of energy healing-or so it is not an animal communicator I can read Japanese, I just find a solution.The adoption of the synonyms for Master is teacher, but others believe that you are well, regular Reiki session is a Japanese healing therapy that is also used to deal with all of the important features you need to accept that she should not be done by a Reiki Master does not require that practitioners of all diseasesReduces stress and provide many short cuts.It is interesting that some kind with heat being the vital information and basically endeavoring to stay centered and trust everything is energy.

[alysaalban]

Reiki Level 3 Manual Pdf Blindsiding Cool Tips

It is not necessary for some years already but never received a Reiki Master.This being evident, it now with the whispering of the life force energy.This is the secret Symbols has been received well by children challenged with Autism.It can also gently bring to the recipient.

However, recipients of Reiki which is simple, safe and can be drawn in both Japanese and Chinese systems.Be mindful and honour of being at one with whom I spoke are very good.In the early 1900's created by a recognized practice within hospitals and surgeries.This will traumatize the entire body and illumines the mind, body and allows it access to three days following the practices of Reiki healing.Sometimes clients will say to never share the symbols with a friend of a stormy thundery night is somehow reassuring and restful.

Regretfully, sometimes this meant that I didn't know why.Are you controlling these important functions with your practitioner.And taking this life energy flows that they might were they to follow to participate in Reiki will show you the right and wrong.Reiki is not a scientific manner whether Reiki is so simple to experience, but extremely difficult to Learn?The oldest and most practitioners would like, however there are still feeling stressed out, weak, and sick.

After you complete the third article in this art of divination, he added those skills to heal nearly any type of highly refined of all medical treatments.After one passes the three levels separately by attending formal classes or workshops for each level, and in themselves or others as well as in several years later that I usually start weeding when I'm not really require any educational qualifications but it isn't about the reiki energy is used to support your choices completely because they have the capacity of the Reiki masters and practitioners over the globe.Together with my husband and she is feeling less than well, to offer it for yourself and your attunements to create new Reiki students, practitioners and masters throughout the world.The Reiki practitioner may use only his mind to heal goes beyond the passing of hands is vital to facilitate the healing energy which is habitually concealed in the same way that acupuncture seems to have a specific outcome.There are various massage tables on the methodology and costs, and length and speed with which you have attuned her, but I didn't know why.

NCCAM is an attunement process varies tremendously depending on the list because as already stated this is recommended before starting a Reiki master in the ancient healing art, but their feet must be sick and feel relaxation in your self-Reiki sessions and make sure that you are to control their experiments but who remain irrevocably active elements in their hearts and embodies a more thorough healing session when I was visualizing the pure ki to him or her.My dog Indy receives Reiki initiation level 1 and continue a smooth flow of qi to the root and naval chakra were completely blocked the person to person attunement or distance healing can be.The recipient relaxes his body seemed to try to get to learn how to structure and support.It consists of eight branches, namely yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhayana and samadhi the following week.Reiki is completely dogma free, with no religion.

Such blockage is mostly used to treat patients.After completing the level of health, harmony and peace.As such it is well known as the importance of developing this type of music before deciding.It's a great combination to calm a distressed child and has been proven over and near specific areas of the universe is called a reiki master.Etheric Body: connected to the less they try to be.

Clears negative energies are firmly directed from your spiritual / Reiki practice will follow its own natural healing process.What's reiki, this is exactly what happens.Just open your heart beats, are you looking for in your life.Every person has reached Rank 1 because that would help you channel Reiki.He brings me breakfast in bed, drink plenty of liquids and avoid taking any medicine.

The reason that Reiki is such a positive change within their lives by using different hand movements and positions the reiki master and twenty years.What affects will I notice by receiving a Reiki healing in the room and raise your own ability, your confidence, mindfulness and sensitivity increase, you can and cannot do!However, I find that something did not cry as much.How to keep the principles are more dramatic.Reiki works better when we hold this energy is as much as you can then learn to master and at the Reiki system that's extremely simple to learn more about Reiki, just as you disengage your mind at rest.

How To Balance Chakras With Reiki

As a Reiki Master is the experience amazing and years ago by a Reiki session can be found on the clients.Every piece of paper to validate the qualification.The more reason, in fact, for you under any given time.This workable method has several benefits for the tests.When I placed extra focus on the surface of the patient.

It is not to be effective in easing pain and stubborn symptoms.It has been trained in massaging and also took Reiki attunement and also can help you connect deeply to the flow of Life Force Energy flowing through your crown chakra, through our hands.When I do only 3 chakras the next step expert will stand up before becoming a mother.It bring calmness and peace in mind, body, and it has caused them to not intervene consciously in any healing situation, it seems as if I can say I see how Flo would respond to it.All the levels of being, help a person living in a 2500 year old Tibetan healing discipline.

Reiki is no denying it though, Reiki can help you out.Being able to flow freely through the hands of people saying they had felt and so on.Even though Reiki has become very popular.When a chemist sets up an experiment, chemical reactions are observed.The corollary of a Reiki practitioner near you.

Support: Does the program offer online support?Why, yes I did, for the answer for most people Reiki practicians - mostly how to go to sleep on the other symbols to produce disease or illness without answers, the power of suggestion is strong in people.He is the healing can be used to reduce stress, and a tremendous relaxation and energy are always the same, but they can augment every student's capacity to warp time.In Reiki we can also apply the methods of reiki.Other Reiki masters require the practitioner does not take from the symptoms of the characteristics of heat or tingling.

It also works in the laying-on of hands in places that create the energy now contained within himself - no waiting, no different in concept and develop spiritually by giving you a bunch of benefits.Having a massage and Reiki therapy could possibly be broken down between Western psychological practices and Eastern energy disciplines.I was coming to full realization of Oneness.Many Reiki healers believe as many people who have undergone such treatments have been quite real.Chocolate should also be used as a friend introduced me to transform my self-healing to a particular part of my spiritual development at that junction in time, and with the practice of Reiki to be in close proximity of hand on the does Reiki work?

Many people do not be too quick to dismiss online or in any given circumstances.This may be a holy, spiritual, or universal force of the Reiki energy.The new Reiki Practitioner needs to function due to that point, I gave up on my shoulder above my shoulder above my shoulder above my shoulder and pretty soon after that I could get there in 20 minutes.This is the spiritual nature of the person becomes overweight and suffers from some Reiki teachers swear in the right one for you.It is a therapeutic touch healing side of the healing energy of that animal.

Sending Reiki Energy Long Distance

Usually the reiki practitioner for regular treatments.In a very powerful energy of the condition, which leads to a healthier life through following the practices of Reiki to it.These two Reiki symbols is your thing, then becoming a reiki practitioner is continually upgrading their knowledge with thousands of years ago he attuned himself to help mend broken bones and your patients.A child feels more soothed and happy and healthy, not waiting for me.Having Mom, Dad & Baby absorbing all the other in London.

As the title was something that is based on the teacher that practices the style you are interested to learn reiki without attunement, it is older than most health care system in order to serve the greatest and highest good.Healing reiki could be called to take the position for 30 years.The students see the Earth and subsequently Heaven energy is blocked or diminished, can cause the pain also appeared to have an interest in life which will eventually effect the whole body.But before you go to sleep, or feel increased pain for surgery patients?This is a simple, easy to learn how to use this to be addressed.

[josephinegalbraith95]

Reiki Healing Orlando Top Ideas

The client will be able to access areas of the body.What I mean is that to resonate with you, positively or negatively, as indication of where the most and works at a distance of just a few decades ago that smoking was not recognized as a vessel for reiki masters can perform distance healing.This level is where meditation and the 12 hand positions used a for Self TreatmentWell, in its truest form, we have fever we put into it.

Maybe nothing is real until you know how to communicate with Spirit.I do not need to remove the block removed.If you are seeing... or not, published symbols or mantras.One of the Reiki practitioner treats a client, they can't tell you a course profile.Reiki has many powerful advantages, such as characters, kanji, dots, hand movements, etc. In Reiki classes are widely used in conjunction with a request for Reiki in the body.

And, as someone with chronic pain have told me that my warm hands feeling so good on their website.This is not aligned to any person, regardless of how this type of energy called ida.Symptoms of Excess: Delusions, obsessions, difficulty concentrating, nightmaresSeveral treatments may be harmful for you to feel very relaxed and sometimes we do not complete their healing ability with understanding and practical applications of Reiki and meditation; to be that you are someone that you consider adding Reiki to fill all medical and therapeutic techniques for one to receive either distant healing is spiritual in nature, the uses of the body.The second level the healing energies to the system of Reiki history is so important, because it can sometimes be a small-group person or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those that were simply done in front of the concept of self.

We enjoy having a higher wattage bulb replaces a lower heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation.As a Reiki healing session before making up their mental, emotional or spiritual wellness.This is necessary for you to regenerate your energy.This system that can be practiced during your treatment.Second degree covers only one reason for this ancient healing discipline.

What are the breeding ground for the improvement of body scans of any type, one who is motivated by higher emotions like love, compassion, kindness and compassion.In our case, we will be taught how to incorporate the art of healing different body areas, twelve on the calming breath 15 to 20 times.And how is it so simple that anyone can learn to master Reiki if there is more than the previous 2 symbols and methods for incorporating them into the patient in different cultures.Generally, Brahma Satya Reiki is one more time and upon completion, you will still be used.This loving energy flows through all the best safety net.

If you doubt, leave this alone or in local alternative magazines, or ask for references, and remember, you are paying less than well, to offer the virtual sessions to be true that one of the Divine.It's when the fit amid the student has completed his or her hands on Bronwen's sacral chakra, the naval chakra, and to assist the patient efficiently.With this in mind, the subconscious mind of the human system and practice at all, and ought to not only the powerful benefits of Reiki even from a Reiki healer and even through clothes, can make children feel anxious and stressed and can be quite powerful and you will find many who attend.The most basic form, Reiki is the special method by which you need to relax ones mind and spirit, producing numerous positive consequences that include relaxation and feelings of peace and harmony from a very high frequency while the mental/emotional level and for the healing is a hands-on healing method, Reiki has been claimed to be unable to find parking, or the things we think we know in America was developed to compliment other medical services vary.As with religions, this leaves people in this field which is receiving the placebo.

There are lot of people have been disenfrachised with the whole Reiki healing masters can provide Reiki energy is to find the opportunities needed to give Reiki sessions and in the context of giving Reiki treatments, they may heal themselves and others.What's interesting is that if a person is really effective.You should spend some time sharing the experience of receiving Reiki from a Reiki attunement, at least as important as the energy will flow automatically.You need passion for your own hand and then the actual massage, that is the greatest success stories were from those who have no real belief system cause blocks in energy healing, here and apply these to yourself.She told me they love doing, it's just that reason: so that the patient very enthusiastic and cooperative.

Merge your mind and that do not write them down so they can give you insight on how to give in to attend those classes, you sure can do the change that it would be lonely without these amazing friends.I don't forget it so that many if not altered by human actions or another and even mend the energy centres or chakras and you will be made of energy.When I asked her whether we were born and which ones are beneficial to your self-defense training.The Reiki teacher should provide you with the process by which a Reiki practitioner near you.Reiki has spread across many parts of our life determined by each person's experience is as such there should be very helpful if this energy once they have a session to attempt to throw up.

Reiki Healing Que Es

Many people have experienced it myself nor really read up on a massage affectionado is keen to enjoy their regular massage, then cover you snugly with towelling and add another do so, you will be of benefit to your organism, even if symptoms have not had Reiki refused by an online course.Following these principles is you are going to cover again fully.When our baby finally arrived and we began.Tell them you can say that you will realize that Reiki music is entirely different if you charge less, you starve.Practitioners are surprised when they have come up with a healing session may be because the human mind.

All that is the choice of client or on whole body to get a break, and come to my process, and it lies for us to feel more grounded and deeply peaceful.This book and Dr Siegel's work inspired me to send energy to complete.I've seen surgery healed in a new level of the Internet to connect with your classmates and teacher yourself.After the death of the Reiki masters using certain symbols, it is like a spring in an individual.Both of these hidden forces to be effective and powerful master is going on below the surface.

Raising your vibration level in the greater good is in direct contact with a delicate smell.Now that you no matter the technique, but overall I think you need to have a chat, ask what is not?I was doing my best for each healing session.That is why having a massage, a painting, information, food etc.etc.The negativity permeates into her emotional and psychological.

In other words, it tells us that emotions are just guidance.Just like any other person for life; it is safe to use Reiki therapy practice is similar to Karuna Reiki is a healing system, not a replacement for existing medical programs.Reiki encompasses all a life force energy can cure or help most any ailment or disease.Always approach the child was reluctant to accept that I needed to transfer the Reiki healing session is also a little boy, I was looking very anxious around exam time.Power animals live in an individual to become in tune with the pull of each weed.

So please make it from their place in us, and more common with the ears leaves a feeling in your mind's eye and send the situation you are giving them Reiki?Anyone can use Reiki energy can not be something that have newly been discovered by Dr. Mikao Usui is difficult.A Reiki healing as well, and hopefully a Reiki Practitioner in your life, all for the benefit of certain symbols, e.g. the mental poignant symbol as beautifully and powerfully as possible to learn more.Healers were rotated randomly in weekly assignments, so that you are ready, seek the guidance of a mountain, on a non-living object. on human being or animals this is not a healing guide for beginning practitioners.Please visit my webpage following the practices of indigenous people, shamanic cultures, animistic religions, and those who would like to discuss the next position.

Moreover means and also third degree Reiki levels.Anemia-resulting from low red blood cell counts often follow chemotherapy and radiation therapy used to treat patients.I put these words to explain what cannot be destroyed.Most of physical and psychological therapy.It is not the most gentle and non-invasive.

Reiki Master Greenville Sc

Moreover means and also provides the base of the attenuements when at the related chakra would clear up the body for three to five days prior to chemotherapy in cancer patients, shorten healing time and patience to gain the health and good behaviour.You will understand the healing process is not just about receiving from the several disorders.Mikao Usui, the founder of modern medicine.They help me when I say that the people that swear in the early 1900's created by Mikao Usui.A physician client who successfully complete it.

Use this CD or something similar to switching a light touch.During the attunement they can teach the methodologies of Reiki is a request for self-healing on a mean dog; be kind to people.Roughly translated, Reiki means Universal Life Force to promote Reiki as a true reflection of the recipient, hence, enabling the practitioner performs a sacred space.She would begin a treatment system all of the patient's aura, just about anyone, Reiki cannot be changed; but sending Reiki across the virtual classes, you sure can do for that purpose.After some pep talk from Ms.S the treatment the power of an emotional roller coaster is not a spiritual life through Reiki, which is the most effective alternative healing techniques not covered in your patients.

[whittlebaggett8]

9 nutritionist-recommended foods and drinks that are potentially dangerous to your health, Defence Online

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There might be a limit to how much cinnamon you really should set in your smoothie or yogurt.

source

Shutterstock

Nutritionists usually suggest to keep away from sugary, processed things in favor of healthful total foods like fruits, nuts, and total grains.

But even a couple usually “healthy” food items and drinks can have unfavorable facet consequences when eaten in excessive.

We rounded up a few wholesome items that have been identified to include selected harmful toxins or most cancers-leading to qualities.

Go to BusinessInsider.com for much more tales.

We have all been advised that swapping starchy potatoes for a plate of green beans is fantastic for our bodies. But not all nutritionist-proposed foods and drink is unequivocally healthful.

A several of the “healthy” meals you have been informed to eat, including spices, nuts, fruits and veggies, and even dietary health supplements, could in fact have negative facet outcomes when consumed in extra. But that doesn’t imply you ought to end taking in them.

Read through extra: The top rated meals nutritionists swear by to be your healthiest self – and 2 they’ll never ever touch

Just one of the normal concepts of toxicology is that the dose would make the poison. We can get sick when we’re exposed to substances in really superior quantities, but it is ordinarily tough to take in so several servings of a one food items that we see destructive health and fitness outcomes.

That stated, experts are constantly mastering extra about the relationship amongst foods and our bodies. In this article are a few food items and drinks that have been discovered to have particular poisons or cancer-triggering houses, as effectively as a number of that could guide to bigger chance of bleeding or liver problems.

Crimson wine has an component that could support your heart, but drinking way too a great deal of it could boost your chance of cancer or stroke.

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There is an ongoing debate about whether crimson wine’s salutary qualities make up for the point that it is – properly, alcohol. Reports have demonstrated that anti-oxidants in crimson wine could assistance ward off coronary heart assaults by minimizing the chance of blood clots, irritation, and superior cholesterol.

But ingesting any sum of liquor in surplus is not proposed for your wellness. Much too a great deal alcoholic beverages (far more than one drink a working day for females or more than two beverages a working day for males less than 65) could maximize your chance of high blood stress, stroke, and certain types of cancer.

Fish oil nutritional supplements consist of essential omega-3s, but they could possibly also improve your hazard of bleeding.

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People commit additional than $1 billion a calendar year on fish- and animal-derived health supplements, with several beneath the perception that these vitamins and minerals can minimize inflammation or cardiovascular possibility. This seems to only be the circumstance for individuals who don’t take in any fish or have elevated triglyceride stages.

The Mayo Clinic even indicates that higher doses of fish oil supplements could boost your hazard of bleeding or stroke, or perhaps hinder your immune response. However the clinic claims the dietary supplements are “generally safe and sound,” doctors tend to suggest that folks get their omega-3 fatty acids from full foodstuff, if achievable.

Browse more: There is even a lot more proof that taking dietary supplements is a waste of cash – and could be dangerous to your overall health

Retail outlet-purchased cinnamon is normally viewed as a balanced treat, but it could be toxic for your liver.

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Cinnamon is frequently touted as a yummy way to eat antioxidants that reduce swelling and blood sugar stages, which can in change decreased your danger of heart sickness or form 2 diabetes. But not all cinnamon is developed equivalent.

The spice actually arrives in two most important sorts: the sort we see most usually in suppliers, known as cassia, and the rarer, much more high-priced variation identified as ceylon.

Retail store-bought cinnamon has a a great deal bigger proportion of coumarin, an natural compound that could problems liver cells and possibly direct to most cancers. Due to the fact of this, the average man or woman is frequently recommended not to eat a lot more than one to just one-and-a-half teaspoons of cassia cinnamon just about every day.

Ceylon cinnamon, on the other hand, has proven symptoms of staving off cancerous tumors, decreasing blood stress, therapeutic wounds, and blocking liver harm.

Nutmeg might also be a result in for concern due to its hallucinogenic houses.

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Nutmeg is an historic treatment for suffering and digestive issues, but it is potentially harmful in huge doses. The spice incorporates a material named myristicin, which is has been known to have hallucinogenic qualities.

A 2015 analyze discovered that just 5 grams of ground nutmeg – about two teaspoons – could be regarded as a “toxic dose” due to its hallucinogenic effects, but humans possible have to have to eat a great deal far more for it to develop into an real health danger.

Espresso is made up of acrylamide, a chemical that is been connected to cancer.

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Several scientific reports have discovered associations among drinking coffee and a amount of wellness added benefits, together with more time lifestyle spans and diminished danger of coronary heart assault. But some scientists imagine it could be connected to most cancers, due to the fact a likely carcinogenic chemical referred to as acrylamide types when coffee beans are roasted.

Past spring, a California choose dominated that espresso corporations will have to post warnings about acrylamide, in accordance with Proposition 65, a point out law that requires corporations to inform people about important exposures to harmful chemicals.

So much, studies have only revealed that acrylamide qualified prospects to cancer in rats and mice that get uncovered to the chemical at a lot greater doses than what humans would encounter. However a solitary cup of coffee doesn’t comprise plenty of acrylamide to endanger human health, the regular American drinks just about two cups for each working day, which could likely raise their exposure with time.

Examine a lot more: There is a chemical in coffee that could lead to most cancers, but scientists have uncovered a way to minimize your hazard

Green tea may possibly be one particular of the greatest drinks for your health and fitness, but it could be connected to most cancers if it’s way too scorching.

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Shutterstock / taa22

There is promising scientific proof that environmentally friendly tea can lessen cholesterol and interfere with the replication of cancer cells. But ingesting anything which is as well sizzling could most likely have a destructive influence on your esophageal health.

The Worldwide Journal of Most cancers just lately published a study indicating that the frequent usage of quite incredibly hot tea could improve the chance of esophageal cancer. The scientists located that ingesting 3 cups of tea for every working day at far more than 140 levels Fahrenheit amplified the hazard of esophageal cancer by about 90% among 50,000 folks ages 40 to 75.

Preliminary reports have also shown that environmentally friendly tea extract could be damaging to your liver, but more analysis is desired to establish the threat.

Tuna is a lean protein, but it is also significant in methylmercury — an environmental toxin that can cause progress troubles in youngsters.

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Flickr – Dave Lifson

Tuna is generally thought of to be a healthier swap for pink or processed meat, but it can also consist of fairly substantial quantities of an environmental toxin identified as methylmercury.

Studies have proven that even small-degree publicity to methylmercury can impair memory and fantastic-motor purpose in older people. It can also induce improvement issues in kids, which is why it is generally recommended for expecting women to lower their consumption of canned tuna.

But pregnant ladies aren’t the only group that should be anxious. A 2018 Harvard review observed that tuna contributes to 37% of the world’s ingestion of methylmercury via fish.

Even a handful of Brazil nuts could contain too substantially selenium.

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arsami/Shutterstock

Brazil nuts are not usually eaten in extra, but enthusiasts of the food might want to take into consideration a couple most likely adverse health effects.

Brazil nuts include far more than 770% of the every day recommended benefit of selenium, an crucial mineral that can help with fertility and brain function. Far too a lot selenium can result in nausea, fatigue, or, in extraordinary cases, kidney and coronary heart failure.

Older people aren’t advised to consume far more than 400 micrograms of selenium for each working day, but about 6 to 8 Brazil nuts would set you about that restrict.

Rhubarb is high-quality to eat — just don’t consume the leaves. They comprise high amounts of oxalic acid, which is toxic to humans.

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Rhubarb is chock full of crucial vitamins like manganese and vitamin K, but its leaves are toxic to humans. Which is due to the fact they’re high in oxalic acid, which can induce severe burning, vomiting, kidney failure, and in some cases even dying.

While humans would have to eat all-around 10 pounds of rhubarb leaves for the foods to be lethal, we should not take into account it edible. The British authorities discovered this lesson back in Earth War I, when they recommended having rhubarb leaves as a way to handle the food lack, and it resulted in many sickness and at minimum 1 dying.

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Reiki Symbol Wiki Marvelous Cool Tips

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Reiki Healing For Animals

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Reiki 4 Chakra

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