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edupunkn00b · 9 months ago

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Meus ex Machina, Chapter 8: Reaching

A public domain image of two hands reaching for each other. The background is colored with indigo blue and neon green light.

Prev - Reaching - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]

Rated: T - WC: 2472 - CW: non-graphic discussion of self harm

Some people can't help but reach out, no matter how many times they're burned. And maybe that's a good thing, in the past and now.

“And this is the kitchen, kiddo!” Patton grinned, arms open wide to show off the shiny new refrigerator and sinks he and Lucas had installed in the old house.

“I’m not your kid,” the boy muttered, hands shoved deep into patched and faded hoodie pockets. "And you're not my dad."

“Oh, well, yeah, I… I know that. I… I’m sorry. You're right.” The boy never spoke of his parents but, unlike Patton and Lucas, he'd actually known them before they abandoned him at the hospital. He almost squeezed the boy’s shoulder but pulled back at the look he—Virgil, Janus had called him—gave him.

Following Virgil’s lead, Patton tucked his own hands in his pockets and smiled just a little brighter. Man, Janus and Lucas were better with this kid than he was. He'd cast his eyes about the kitchen, looking for a distraction, when his eyes landed on the big mixer Janus had bought last week.

“You know," he said, sauntering over the kitchen and pulling out a box of Eggz and tin of margarine. "Even grown-ups get hungry.” He tried to hide it, but Patton couldn’t miss how Virgil’s were trained on the food. “How about we whip up a batch of my super-secret chocolate chip cookies?”

Virgil licked his lips, eyes narrowed. ""Chocko Chip' cookies," he said, pulling out his hands long enough to make air quotes. "Or chocolate chip?"

Patton grinned and pulled a heavy block wrapped in plasticene paper from the back of an upper cabinet. "Chocolate."

Soft footsteps announced Patton’s and V’s return from The Muse's room. V tapped an order into the cabinet and Patton spoke quietly with Silvertongue in the corner as they worked together to put away a tote of medical supplies.

Logan watched them from his med bed, eyes widening when he recognized a suture tray and a drained IV kit. V caught his gaze and gave him a little shrug. “I’mma go see how I can help Princey.” He shrugged, glancing at Patton with an odd expression. “Up on the roof. Glad to see you’re feeling a little better, Mac.”

“Let me know if you need anything, Kiddo, okay?” Patton called after him and V gave the three of them a little two-fingered salute before disappearing down the hall.

“How was he?” Logan blurted out once V had left. He gnawed at his lower lip, the barely controlled hurt on Patton’s face almost more than he could stand. The two Powereds exchanged a long look, then Janus inclined his head and followed the way V had gone.

Patton moved to Logan's side and patted his hand. The touch was warm, really warm, like holding a too-hot cup of coffee in an antique ceramic mug while waiting for it to cool. “The Muse needed stitches,” he admitted, jerking his chin toward the sharps disposal and the medical tote. “But you probably figured that.”

“Do his…” Logan’s hand twitched beneath his and Patton removed it, too quickly to stop him. “Do his powers cause him physical harm?” he continued, pushing away the ghostly echo of Patton’s warmth radiating through his skin.

“Well… Not… directly.” Patton pulled up the stool Silvertongue had used and folded his hands on his lap. His fingers were long but broad and strong-looking, with little nicks and calluses. He had a half-dozen tiny horizontal scars in various stages of healing over the backs of each hand. With a pang, Logan remembered tracing the fading scars on the backs of his own mother’s hands from her job at Entenmann's before they’d converted.

Suddenly, Patton nodded and reached for Logan’s hand again, lightly brushing his fingers. He didn’t prod Logan’s scars, but he didn’t avoid them, either. He simply treated them like any other part of his skin.

Logan inched his hand closer.

“Did Silvertongue explain his powers to you?” Logan nodded and Patton took a deep breath before continuing. “The Muse sometimes… well, often behaves erratically when the rest of the world gets into his head. It’s—”

“Overwhelming,” Logan interrupted without really meaning to.

Patton gently squeezed his hand and didn’t let go. “Yes,” he nodded. “His room is protected, no sharps, no chemicals. He…” Patton tilted his head, gaze focused on Logan’s eyes. Assessing.

“Is he suicidal?” Icy slurry pooled in his stomach.

“Not directly,” he said again and the ice spread through Logan’s veins. “He… injures himself. I don’t believe he intends to hurt himself. His… his perceptions are…” Patton shook his head. “It can be difficult to follow all his thoughts when he’s activated. He’s told me he needs to reach the sensations he picks up. But it’s all in his mind. There’s nothing to reach.”

Logan stared down at his thighs and the stumps where his legs abruptly ended. The painkillers Silvertongue had administered dulled the ever-present ache of his phantom limb pain. But even ketorolac couldn’t free him completely of the pain of injuries in limbs he no longer had. ‘Nothing to reach,’ indeed.

He frowned. But stitches? IVs? Surely that part wasn’t from his own mind. “But how?” he finally asked. “How did he cut himself? The lower levels… What’s beneath it all? Cement?”

“Stone and wood. There were carpet tacks.” Patton stroked Logan’s hand but looked away. “We thought we’d gotten them all and replaced them with adhesive. They were… old. Zinc and non-magnetic aluminum alloy that won’t interfere with the EMF shield.” He met Logan’s eyes and continued at his little nod of understanding. “That meant we couldn’t use the sensors to double check we’d gotten them all.”

“So… nothing magnetic or… electrical can go in The Muse's room?” Logan’s eyes fell on his battery-powered wheelchair tucked in the corner. “And he can’t come out?”

“No.” Patton’s whisper still managed to sound sympathetic.

“I see.” Logan’s fingers curled a little tighter around Patton’s hand, his thumb tracing swirling shapes against the back. It didn’t seem to bother him, though, so Logan didn’t stop. “The… the next time you see The Muse…” Logan finally braved a glance up at Patton’s eyes. He smiled back at him, listening.

“The next time you see him, will you tell him how sorry I am?” Tears burned his eyes, the memory of The Muse’s pain sizzling through his brain. “I—” His voice cracked and he looked away.

“Oh, Kiddo…” Patton squeezed his hand back, voice soft. “The Muse knows it was an accident. He was in your mind,” he reminded him. “He feels bad for the pain he caused you.”

“He doesn’t need to.” Logan looked up, eyes wide. “It’s not his fault. I wish…” He looked down at the broken bits of a body he'd been left with. The only way he could see The Muse and speak to him in person would be in the arms of one of the team. Even if one of them were willing to carry him, his stomach churned at just the thought of helplessly clinging to one of the Powereds, even one as kind as Patton.

He closed his eyes, head falling back against the pillow.

So worthless you can't even apologize to him. Can't even thank him for helping Silvertongue find you before the police did.

“I should let you rest,” Patton murmured. “Even with Ja—Silvertongue’s healing assistance, you’ve been through a lot and need to take it easy. Would you like me to lower the bed?”

His eyes snapped open. The med bay was like a fishbowl, surrounded on one side with the main common room, the other by the short hall to the cold steel kitchen. If he slept here, he’d be on display for the entire team. Good for people who needed close observation. Not good for him. He shook his head. “Would you bring my chair?”

“Of course.” Patton rushed to fetch it then stood next to it. “Can I—” He reached for him then let his hand lower. “How can I help you?”

Even with the med bed lowered, it was a bit of a drop down to his chair. But if he was lucky, he could make it on his own. “Perhaps… would you be willing to hold the chair steady for me?”

Nodding, Patton put one foot behind the wheel and locked his grip around the handles. Logan shimmied himself closer, scrabbling for a hold when he listed dangerously close to the opposite side of the bed. After a bit of work, he wiggled toward the edge, parallel to the seat, then pushed himself off the bed.

He landed with a quiet oof in the seat, grunting when his hip grazed an armrest.

“Are you alright?” Patton asked, hands fluttering closer before pulling them away.

Logan smiled, tight and not quite able to speak in a normal tone as pain radiated over his hip and down his phantom leg. He reached over his shoulder to pat the Powered’s hand and nodded. “I’m good,” he managed and turned on the chair motors. “Thank you. For your help.”

“Absolutely anytime, Machina.” Patton gave him another smile. “Anything you need, please don’t ever be afraid to ask.” He watched quietly while Logan turned his chair and moved to the hallway. “I’ll call you for dinner in about an hour?”

“Actually,” he started, then turned around to face him again. Patton’s brow pinched with worry but he waited and listened. “Would you call me when it’s time to…” He shrugged and looked toward the common room. “Perhaps I can help set the table?” Logan tried to smile and moved his chair back and forth a few inches at top speed. “Use my unfair advantage?”

Patton chuckled and nodded. “You got it, Machina. I’ll call for you. Get some rest in the meantime.”

“I will. Thank you.” Logan’s smile strengthened, then he turned with a little nod and rolled down the hall. When Logan returned to his room, though, he didn’t lie down. Instead, he closed the door and wheeled himself to the window.

The Prince’s Illusion only worked one way and though from the outside, Logan sat on the other side of a boarded up bay window, he could see perfectly through to the violets and daisies growing outside. The sill was nearly the same height as the seat of his chair and it had only taken him a few days’ practice to work out the best way to wiggle out of his wheelchair and onto the soft cushions.

He hadn’t yet worked out which of them had set this up. While the window frame was old, likely renovated from the original structure, the pillows were stitched from the same durable ecosynth cloth as the Mad Lads’ suits. Throughout the house, there were other window seats and benches, but none at this height. They'd built this for him.

Leaning back against the pillows in the deep window seat, Logan closed his eyes. If the prisoner in the basement wasn’t quite a prisoner, what did that mean for the rest of the team’s behavior? Was all of this, the accommodations, the care… Was it all… real?

And how would he ever make amends for not once, but twice, harming one of their own?

Despite Logan's best efforts to stay awake, it felt like only seconds later when Patton’s soft voice spilled from the comms speaker in his room. He jerked upright, hand reaching automatically for the spot next to his thigh for his chair’s control box. His fingers closed on air.

A half-second of panic later, Logan remembered where he was and took a deep breath. “I’ll be right there,” he called back. Moving carefully, he slid back into his chair and hurried out to the kitchen.

His stomach grumbled before he’d even gotten past the med bay, the aromas of fresh tomatoes and beans from the team’s backyard garden blending with cumin and cayenne. Patton smiled at him, stirring a bubbling pot, and gestured to a stack of bowls, napkins, and utensils on a low counter.

“If you meant it, it would be a big help if you set the table. Ultraviolet and The Prince are up on the roof and Silvertongue’s on a call.”

“Of course I meant it.” Two at a time, Logan transferred the stack of bowls to his lap, then added the napkins. Taken together, he was able to lean and use his stub of a left arm to hold them steady while he steered his chair to the table.

He steadfastly ignored the way Patton pretended not to monitor his progress. He did appreciate, though, how he’d been spared the indignity of having to wait as he took down the dishes for him and placed them in his lap as though he were a child.

Setting the table went slowly and by the time he’d finished and returned to the kitchen for cups, Patton had already transferred the chili to a serving bowl and was filling a pitcher with ice and the sweet electrolyte drink the team favored. Though reluctant to admit it, Logan had begun to enjoy it with their meals, as well.

What Patton hadn’t done, though, was pull down the drinkware from their high cabinet. After scanning the counters one last time in case he’d somehow missed them, Logan swallowed his dwindling pride and looked up at Patton. “Would you mind getting the cups down for me?”

“Oh, right!” He sealed the lid on the pitcher but didn’t move from his work. “We transferred them to the cabinet by the fridge.” Patton pointed to the low cabinets in easy reach from his chair. “Silvertongue mentioned your bloodwork showed signs of chronic dehydration. Figure it’s easier for you to drink more if you can reach them yourself.”

Logan opened the first cabinet. Recessed lights glowed, revealing stacks of cups and bowls and plates. The front of the shelf ended in an inch-tall lip and, experimentally, Logan tugged it. It rolled toward, putting the dishes in easy reach. He looked up at Patton, eyes wide.

Patton shrugged. “I’m still working on the rest of the kitchen, but we’ve got all the basics there.”

“This is…” Logan bent in his chair to look under the cabinet and slid the shelf back and forth. The rollers were pneumatically assisted, allowing him to use just a single finger to move it. “This is very thoughtful, Patton. Thank you.”

“We’ll need Ultraviolet to make more parts,” he said, picking up a dish of cornbread and the pitcher. Logan quickly followed and stacked the cups between his leg and the side of his chair. “There’s a lot more to do,” Patton admitted. “Maybe after dinner you could help figure out what’s the next best mod to tackle?”

“I—I’d like that,” Logan nodded and followed him out of the room, casting one last glance at the steel kitchen. The whole room felt just a little warmer. “I’d like that a lot.”

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urgonnagofar · 4 months ago

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8/8 i’ve been thinking way too loud

it’s officially ten days until i move into college. i’ve been trying to cram as much time as i possibly can hanging out with friends into these last couple weeks. im really worried that we won’t stay in touch. i love these people so much and i really hope that we can manage to stay close. honestly i don’t know how im going to go several months without seeing the two girls that have been my best friends since elementary school. i haven’t gone to school without them there in over ten years.

im stressed about packing, but im kind of still just putting that off for later. the giant horrifying laundry pile has gotten significantly smaller, and my room is looking a lot cleaner, but there’s still a ways to go. i spent some time on it last night but i also kept getting distracted. it just kept feeling a little too real.

i thought i might go to the beach with my mom today but im not sure it’s gonna happen. we’ve been trying to find a good time for like three weeks and we still haven’t actually found a day. either things keep coming up or the weather doesn’t work out. i know ill miss her when im gone, but half the conversations we have right now end up in a fight and im so done with it.

my internship ends tomorrow. ive been told at least half a dozen times that im welcome back next summer if im interested and i just give a very noncommittal answer every time. it was a good experience but ive also spent a lot of time bored out of my mind or just going on my phone. i’ll have to wait and see if i have other options next year i guess.

i’m really nervous about leaving and living so far away from everyone and everything i’ve known for my entire life. i’m excited too, but it’s just really weird right now. i really hope things get better when im in college. i spent the first couple months of senior year with crippling anxiety about my mental health getting worse again. and then it was just kind of fine. i tend to stress so much about how bad things could possibly get that it spirals out of control. and i’m really trying not to do that lately. i know it’s fair to be stressed about a big life change, but im doing my best not to completely freak out and spiral over it.

i’m hoping that journaling can help with processing my feelings and talking things through a little bit. also whoevers reading this ilysm <3

#lea dot txt #dividers by plutism

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falltothesun · 9 months ago

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helloooo taking you up on that hook up advice offer !! especially since im also a trans guy & ive been considering grindr bcos i have been insanely needy the past week it's literally making it hard for me to function so yes!! please!!!!

Hi omg! So I definitely joined Grindr for the same reason, I needed to get dicked down so bad it was starting to affect my work lmfao. Huge disclaimer: this is all a bunch of stuff that works for me, from my experiences. There's no handbook, I'm figuring this out myself. If anyone wants to correct me/add on, please do.

First and foremost- don't settle. Grindr is a bit of a hellscape. In the moment it definitely seems like anyone willing to fulfill your needs is worth it. I'm speaking as a total sub/bottom so there were definitely guys on Grindr who 'spoke my language', offered what sounded like a good time, but didn't have my best interests at heart. You can't put much trust in any stranger on a hookup app, but here are some good indicators of things to watch out for and avoid:

- blank profiles/no pics. You're going to get a ton of them. Dick pics do not count. Make sure you have a good image of the person you're meeting. Make sure they're clean (both hygiene and std wise). Just- the more info you have on them, the better.

- being pushy. They're going to whine and whine about meeting up, and they are also going to say nasty things if you ignore them/turn them down. Do not let this guilt you. If this is how they receive boundaries over text- you can't trust them during a hookup. You don't owe anyone anything, not even a text back. A huge green flag is when you can have a no-pressure conversation, and sometimes even a pre-meetup to discuss boundaries and kinks.

Do not get stingy on your own boundaries! You are meant to enjoy this time, too. Tell them exactly what you want, your hard nos and hell yesses. Clear communication beforehand can lead to a fantastic night. Don't worry about blocking or turning down if you're getting bad vibes- there's literally dozens of guys waiting in your DMs, one of them has to be good.

Now, I have huge trust issues so bear with me here- you can't always count on your hookup, even if you found one that checks all the aforementioned boxes. So have some contingencies. Here are some of mine:

- two (or three) of my friends get a text as soon as I leave my house. Yes, it's awkward to mention to someone that you're about to fuck, but prior conversations have been had and usually I just say "I'm going out for x hours, call me if I don't get back to you by then". I send my location if possible (harder to do with carplay), and just like that, there are people waiting for my word. Hell, you can DM me your location and a timeframe and I will call the police in your area if I don't hear back from you.

- I never host. Is this controversial? I don't care. I'm a sub, bottom, afab, tiny human. I'm super susceptible to stalking and kidnapping (and not in the fun way), so I keep myself safe by making sure my hookups don't know where I live. I like to drive to their place, because then I have myself a getaway vehicle, or we meet in the middle somewhere. Regardless, my home is a secret and shall stay that way.

- don't bring anything valuable. Other than my phone and my wallet (which I sometimes just leave in my car), I bring nothing with me. This is less about personal safety and more about theft tho lol

-bring protection. Rawdogging is fun but STDs and pregnancy scares are not.

-this is Grindr specific but be careful with your photos. Grindr has a neat function called 'albums', and you can retract any sent albums at anytime so they can't be seen anymore. You also can't screenshot anything in the Grindr app. This protects you- to a point. But like anywhere else on the internet, be very, very careful with who you send your pics to.

Takes you by the shoulders. Listen to me. It is always okay to say no. You could be in someone's bed, naked, and you can say no. This sounds like common sense, but sometimes you're with a stranger in the moment and things aren't firing right in your brain, but your well-being is 100% a bigger priority than pleasing the guy you met on Grindr. They can bitch and moan all they want, but if you aren't feeling it, you aren't feeling it, and you don't owe sex to anyone. You can say no at any time. And anyone who fights you on it or disregards it is not someone you want to associate with.

Ok now that all the parental lecture-y stuff is out of the way- some general tips to show your hookup partner some respect! They're also in a place of vulnerability, so while it's good to be careful, it's also good to be gracious.

-protection. I said this already! But you can bring more than just a condom. Looking into PrEP, getting yourself tested(!!!!) after every encounter, and not having sex when you're sick is generally good etiquette. Getting tested is not only being a decent human for your hookup partner, but it's important to do for yourself as well. Idk what country you live in and what the healthcare is like so hopefully it's as easy as walking in to a clinic like it is here. Post-sec institutes (colleges/universities) usually have fantastic sexual health programs as well so I'd check there if you're in that demographic!

- clean up. Please. Shower, brush your teeth, put on some deodorant and a clean change of clothes. It goes a long way! My best hookups have been with a guy who smelled good, and I enjoyed it as much as I did the actual pounding in his backseat. Also clean up after the hookup! Shower, pee, etc. Hygiene. (I'm a germaphobe ok)

- boundaries! You've set yours, now stick to theirs. I've slept with guys who really didn't like blowjobs- so I didn't give any, we kept it junk to junk. I might've been the sub in the situation, but that doesn't mean the guy dominating was a sex machine who liked everything, so I accommodated that! Sometimes it's as simple as listening to the sounds they're making, reading the body language, and acting accordingly. If they aren't being enthusiastic about what's happening, then maybe it's time to check in.

- text back. Hey man, if it was a good fuck, it was a good fuck. NSA is usually my style, but there's nothing wrong with hooking up again with the same mf if it was a damn good time. Give 'em some feedback, tell them you had a fantastic night, ask about doing it again. Everyone needs the confidence boost.

Goddamn this got long. I hope some of this helps, I hope I didn't miss anything, and I hope I didn't say something that sounds completely fucking bananas. Good luck and hope you have some good, safe hookups!!

#from sun #ask #serious #this is ooc but i care about your safety more than an online persona

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lycanthrology · 1 year ago

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the weekend before last i reblogged a post about palestine and received over half a dozen anons with links to extreme gore + threatening horrific things so i stepped away from tumblr. on this blog and in real life, i have always been in support of a free palestine and ive been very open about that. its a situation that is very close to my heart and the last two weeks have been incredibly painful

to make it clear if you do not stand against the abhorrent war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people please block me i do not want you here

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boypussydilf · 2 years ago

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sherlock. what is it's gender. what is their deal. speak your trutg

oh dear with the state of my blog its now hard to tell when people walk up to me and say sherlock if they mean dgs sherlock the og or any of the several others ive started talking about. we need to like. color code them. anyway im gonna talk about dgs sherlock bc hes the one im most likely to have proper thoughts on and then probably also do one for mostly just. like. the general concept actually thinking about it i do have many thoughts on Non-DGS Sherlock i dont know why i allowed myself to think i didnt . i just get caught up in the bimbo dad but i like the entire folder hes stored in

dgs first tho <333333

Sexuality Headcanon: gay. Just gay

Gender Headcanon: If i had to make 1 decision. genderfluid <3 Sherlock Holmes (DGS) can fit so much gender in her !!!!!!!!!

A ship I have with said character: *looks at my blog* *looks at my pinned post* um i think you guys know . already. the only one i have . do i need to say it

A BROTP I have with said character: i mean. Iris. they r best friends for real ! they r like the most important people to each other ! they r this guy and their 10 year old daughter who packs peanut butter jelly sandwiches for them !!!

A NOTP I have with said character: im gonna be petty and say vanlock. i blocked the tag bc i got tired of seeing it. actually even moreso i like physically recoil when i see ppl shipping him with ryuu, it fucking. completely baffles me. like. nothing wrong with that. people who ship them aren’t weird in That sense. but theyre weird as in I can’t understand what compels you to do this . i dont like vanlock but i can Understand why people do i just got extra sick of it bc its semi common. i cant understand why people ship sherlock and ryuu. like youve misread the vibe badly. this is not it. oh dear god this just got 5 times as long as all the other sections of this fucking ask meme. power of being slightly annoyed sorry

A random headcanon: UHHHHHHHHHH OH MY GOD . I KNOW i have headcanons abou t this bitch he swarms around in my mind all the time. I am imagining Random Exploits of the DGS Cast on a daily basis where did the fucking Concepts and Ideas go. ill return to this once ive done everything else and see if i havent thought of anything fun by then. ive thought about it some more and my most recent thought on him has been like. she knows some russian and japanese right? actually a fucking lot of russian to be able to read entire newspaper articles but thats besides the point i just think that sherlock knowing several different languages is neat but, Like. its pure chance if she ever manages to learn enough to be able to …. use it. once every several months sherlock will get really really excited about a new foreign language and put in like 2 weeks of work before forgetting about it completely. he has the vocabulary of a very young toddler in half a dozen different languages and is remembering those vocabularies by sheer luck

General Opinion over said character: Im normal iam normal normal im normal and regular . im normal and im normal about him and i dont intend to put him under a microscope or anything. i am not putting him in a little plastic box and shaking him to find out what happens . *extends my hand ibuprofen style* who wants to speculate about dgs in hyperspecific ways with me. hello my like 3 dgs followers do you have thoughts on sherlock holmes. tell them to me. lets all be normal. Anyway uh hes funny

IVE GOTTEN THAT BITCH OUT OF THE WAY LETS TALK ABOUT …… im not even sure. The General Concept of Sherlock Holmes on a Wide Scale, which, like, ultimately probably just boils down to: acd holmes. time to get philosophical with it. thats not the right word.

Sexuality Headcanon: sherlock is either gay or aroace or some more specific combination of all previous terms. Hey does that… even count as headcanon? Ultimately my stance is “whatever as long as sherlock holmes is not interested in women” and it is stated very clearly explicitly and repeatedly in canon that sherlock holmes is not interested in women so . like.

Gender Headcanon: You know what’s funny is expressing disdain for women is an effective way to distance yourself from femininity in general, for instance, to assert masculinity as a trans man, or as a negative reaction to being a trans woman. So. Like.

A ship I have with said character: at first i was like “its just kind of an objective fact that sherlock and watson are gay but i dont have emotional investment in it” but that was a fucking lie

A BROTP I have with said character: SHERLOCK HOLMES DOES NOT HAVE FRIENDS. I DONT FUCKING KNOW, TOBY THE DOG?

A NOTP I have with said character: The next time an adaptation tries to make him and irene adler straight together im going to thr authors house and shooting them point blank. shut up shut up shut up shut up. they would NOT

A random headcanon: man i dont even fucking know. he probably eats food off the floor and i mean this genuinely

General Opinion over said character: Sherlock Holmes is the ultimate Little Freak. Like 80% of the joy of any sherlock holmes media is “Watch this Freak Behave Oddly”. Some people think he would be hard to get along with personally i think we would make very good friends and i would love to hang out with the Freak.

Man. I hope this post isn’t actually as long and hard to look at as it looks in the mobile post editor. Unfortunately it probably is

#HAH! TWO ASK GAMES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE BECAUSE IM CHATTY #i couldve gone to an extreme and done one for every sherlock i could think of that i know that much about #…… but eh not really.#theres not much of a difference between ACD and granada #i think the only other one id have unique things to say about as of yet would be MS #basilask #thank you neb *high five*#EDIT: NO WAIT THERES RDJ HES ALSO HIS OWN UNIQUE FLAVOR.#and oh man this post Is big and long #dgs from my brain

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breathingwithdifficulty · 1 year ago

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going to my dads house is difficult for multiple reasons, but one i don't often talk about is just how the environment is so uncomfortable compared to how it was when i lived there.

obviously almost all of my stuff is gone, and my dad's now-wife (i still can't call her my stepmom, its just a mental block for me) has moved in all her stuff, but it's just smaller things that get to me.

he changed the lightbulbs in my old room. it used to just be one orange bulb, because it was less harsh on my eyes, and now its two bright white ones. there's no little lamps or anything to turn on so i either have to sent in darkness or complete brightness, and its bothersome. its too much either way.

he likes to turn the a/c fan off now. it used to always be on, but now he says he likes the silence, so he keeps it off most of the time. i have to turn it on because, to me, the silence is stifling. it almost feels like that noise-cancelling pressure you get with nice headphones. not painful, but just heavy.

i don't know why i came back here for a whole week. i just wanted to see my friend a bit earlier, but i wish i had stayed home an extra day or two. i feel insane because i don't particularly mind staying here, but i just would rather be home, even if i'd be alone and maybe lonely there. im still lonely here, but that's just sadder.

ive only been home a day and my dad has (all jokingly, mind you, always joking) called my friend a slut because she was wearing a crop top, called my roommates mom a pedophile because she offered me a place to live after college if i needed it (which was incredibly kind because she knows my difficulties with my parents and hasn't even met me in person), made a joke about women belonging in the kitchen, and had an uncomfortable conversation when i opened up enough to tell him i was romantically talking to someone. not to mention the dozens of times so far he has outright ignored me or walked away while i was talking (even if i was answer a question that he asked in the first place).

this is all difficult to communicate with people because none of it is outright painful or mean, it's just uncomfortable. when im here, it feels like im having to parent my own dad like "is that a nice thing to say?" or "let's rephrase that" and having to be mature and put together because he's not. and his wife is nice, she asks how i am and what im doing but i don't think she really wants to know. she asks to be nice and because she likes me, but sometimes its just like talking to a wall who's smiling at me constantly.

the holidays are hard. im glad i have my own place now, and i wish i would've stayed there just a little longer. my sister isn't even coming to stay too, so i have no one to endure this with. sometimes its really exhausting just being home, where no one really listens and my bedsheets aren't my own and i have to dig thru the closet for musty blankets because i didn't bring any.

i brought my weighted dinosaur, which made me feel a bit silly carrying it out from the car, but he helps. even if it rubs me wrong when my dad throws him or punches his stomach or when my friend lets her dogs sniff and lick at him. it's sooo silly, i know this, but it's like it makes every inch of me be all spikey, child-like, saying "no, that's mine, don't hurt it, it's mine" over a dino.

damn.

10:50pm

11/19/23

#cursing tw #.txt #inner child

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keilemlucent · 4 years ago

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Oh Salem, the panicked Keigo idea just speaks to my mean little gremlin heart. I want to see the guy trained to keep calm and cool lose his shit over losing his s/o. RIP his handlers if they try to slow him down. I want to see the relief when he finds them and the reckoning for the people dumb enough to try. This. This is my bedtime snack.

so this is less of reckoning, more relief. soft. ive been thinking about this a LOT and i feel like <3 poor keigo would be ruined:

heres a wittle drabble for your thoughts

warnings: kidnapped reader, descriptions that may trigger claustrophobia (light, just a cave setting), insults in a not fun way, hurt/comfort baby

You were so cold.

The ‘cell’ you were in was more of a hovel, a small hole dug into the elaborate cave system you found yourself trapped in.

You weren’t sure for how long. There was no sun, only a guard that came and went with your meager meals and stale bottle of water. He and the other villains that had captured you spit vitriol and profanity like it was their duty to grind their verbal heels against your fragile psyche.

You tried to block them out, curling up in a tight ball against the rough back wall of your cell. Ignorance was better than hearing their profanities.

The worst part was that you weren’t really sure what was going on. Other than that it had something to do with Keigo, considering you were exclusively referred to as “the number 2′s brain-rotted whore”.

Once again, you tried not to listen.

...

You awoke to the sounds of chaos.

Shouting, crashes, explosions--

The walls of your prison shook as you scramble to stand, smashing your head into the low ceiling as you did.

Your vision spun as your staggered to the rusty bars, bracing yourself and hopelessly tugging as you had so many times before.

There was a crash particularly close, bits of debris falling from stone tunnels, frail support beams falling.

No.

Your blood ran so cold, you couldn’t move. Your body went completely still at the bars as you switched between panic and rage. It wasn’t fair, none of it was, you didn’t even get to say fucking goodbye to him. No last words, you’d been plucked from the street on your commute however long ago.

Keigo had left early that morning too, letting you sleep in with a kiss to the forehead instead of his normal heapings of sleepy, dawn-time affections. You’d been clinging to those sleepy, half-memories as anchor over the days in the cramped caves.

And, in the end, that was all you would have. Cloudy recollections of Keigo’s raspy morning voice as the caves around you began to shift and crumble.

Tears rolled down your cheeks as you tugged at the bars, trying fruitlessly to get past them. Frustration made your hands sweat and fear made them shake as they became littered with small cuts.

With the next crash, just as close, a vibrant blur of red whizzed past your cell. The shock and gust from its speed sent you jolting back, a hand clasping over your heart.

“... Keigo?”

You hadn’t even realized you said it aloud.

Not until the blur, feathers, a bundle of a maybe thirty returned, hovered and spun in front of the bars.

“Keigo?”

The feathers shuddered.

It felt like you were dreaming.

“KEIGO!”

You practically screamed, jolting against the bars. Though it wasn’t him, not really, he’d hear you through the feathers. One of them spilled through the bars, pressing to your chest and pushing you away as the rest of the warm sharpened and began to beat on the thick padlock.

Something about your bodily state must’ve changed, as the feather at your face moved to under your chin, sweeping over your jaw in a small motions.

...

Even from afar, Keigo was trying to comfort you.

When he’d felt you on the end of one of the feather swarms he’d sent into the caves, he thought he’d imagined it. The quiet hesitance with which you practically gasped his name was so fucking soft, he almost missed it.

But, he didn’t, thank fucking god.

The villains had been smart, corralling their captives (beyond just you, unsurprisingly. The string of disappearances over the weeks prior had all been linked. There were at least a dozen other lovers and family members of heroes tucked away into the mountain side with you.)

Hence, it was a whole operation to retrieve you all, with some of the most pissed off, downright enraged heroes leading the charge and preceding investigation.

And Keigo?

He’d been at the front of it.

HIs PA had to convince him to get a few solid hours of sleep every few days, in an actual bed, rather than on the floor of his office, or one of the many conference rooms the rescue team was occupying.

He’d been wasting away, quietly, but he hardly noticed. Food was secondary, drinking was a burden, and his other bodily needs were just holding him back. He had a singular goal--

To find you.

He’d torn up the skies and the earth for just a trace of you, after you’d been taken. And finally, he found it, in the side of a fucking mountain, and an operation was launched to get all of the taken back.

Problem was it was a fucking mountain. A cobbled together base for the villains made of old mine tunnels and shafts, and organic caves.

And infuriatingly, Keigo and his wings were too damn big to properly navigate them. So, even if you were found, he wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t be there to tell you that everything was okay.

He couldn’t guarantee your safety by his own hands, and it fucking hurt.

That being said, his feathers had done a good enough job.

He could feel your heart hammering as you neared the entrance.

And then Keigo saw you.

...

You stumbled from the blown out opening, a flurry of feathers on either side. The brawl was somewhere else in the cave, shut out from your mind as you followed the tugs and touches of the plumes.

And as you felt the rays of setting sun hit your cheeks, you caught sight of Keigo.

Before you could even open your mouth, and breath the sigh of relief you needed to, or cried his name like you wanted to, Keigo was on you, scooping you up and away from the shuddering caves.

His grip was so tight, it hurt, but neither of you cared. Your arms had looped behind his head, burying themselves in his greasy hair as you hid your face in his neck. Keigo’s hands were shaking as they held you close to him, not wavering even when you returned to the stable, safe ground below. It teemed with heroes and medics, but no one dared to interrupt or get between the two of you.

They’d all seen how wrecked Hawks had become in pursuit of finding his partner.

Keigo lowered the two of you to the ground, all feathers returning and making his feathers thick and broad once more. They rose and curled around the two of you, sealing the world away.

Your mouth felt too dry as you tried to sit up, but Keigo wouldn’t let you. He kept a firm hand on your hip as he tore off one of his gloves with his teeth, keeping you in place in front him.

When you tried to shift, he gathered you by your waist and crushed you to him. HIs chest shuddered and his shoulders quaked with the force he was wrapping you, and you returned it all, as much as you could.

“P-please,” Keigo’s voice broke. “I just gotta hold you for awhile, o-okay, Dove? You’re s-safe now. I’ve got you.”

And he did.

You pressed your cracked lips to his cheeks, lungs going tight as you wrestled for one of his clammy hands to hold.

“I-I know,” You sniffled, tears squished between your cheeks. You pressed your interlocked fingers to your lips, choking on a sob of pure relief. Whatever kisses you had planned to grace his knuckles with were swallowed elsewhere.

Keigo pulled your face to his, hands and mouth hungry as he desperately kissed you, finally, nothing like the fleeting ones you both clung to while cruelly apart. It was messy, sloppy, but ringing with sweetness as Keigo sputtered and nipped at your lips.

“’M sorry,” He breathed, barely pulling away before slotting your lips together once more.

As much as you wanted to reply, remind him that this wasn’t his fault, you words were too gummy and jumbled for anything meaningful.

So, you both settled for touch.

You stroked over each other’s sunken in eyes and dark circles. Keigo nipped at your dry lips, while you tasted the staleness of his breath. His bare hands braced against your back from just under the hem of your shirt, feeling the deep chill in your skin and the residual dirt and grime.

You finally mustered up some words, the mix of so many needs and desires that needed sating.

“K-Keigo?” You lingered as close as you could, craving the heat and mingling of your breaths. “I-I want to go home.”

His breath caught and his grip got tighter still.

“Can we go home?” You asked, soft and breaking as you fell into the safety of his arms.

“Y-yeah,” Keigo pressed his teary cheeks to the top of your head, letting out a final shaking breath of relief. Keeping his words firm as firm as his touch, he put every ounce of ease that he could offer into his words:

“Let’s go home, dove.”

#briggsgottdiggs #salem writes #hawks x reader #hawks #uwu #a wittle hurt/comfort for this early morning #drabble

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spencerspecifics · 4 years ago

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HI HI HI PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WRITE MOREID AT PRIDE AND SOME PINING AND SPENCER THINKS DEREK IS STRAIGHT BUT HE ISN'T AND THEY KIIIITTTTTHHHHH

I absolutely love your energy fuck yes!! I’m so sorry this took forever, ive got school, work and some other personal things happening so I appreciate your patience!

No TW, B u t, a creep hits on Spencer at pride, so if that is upsetting please note that! Thanks :)

———————————————————————

Pride

———————————————————————

Garcia had been pestering Spencer about going to pride for the past week now, and it was slowly driving him insane.

He used almost every excuse he could think of. When he first turned her down, he had simply said, “Sorry, I’m going to be busy that week.” And of course, Garcia being Garcia, she stole his calendar to see what he was busy with (spoiler alert: he had nothing. Except a reminder to go grocery shopping, and email some professors and research scientists back).

So, she persisted, and he came up with a dozen more excuses; “I was considering flying out to see my mom”, “The local museum has a new interactive archeology exhibit for adults, and I want to learn more about ancient structures”, “I have to do a presentation on thermodynamics”.

None of those excuses work, as she sniffed out every lie, “Spencer, you hate flying to Vegas last minute, that archaeology exhibit has been open for months, and your calendar is empty!”

So with her persistence, and legitimate bullying, Spencer found himself finally agreeing. “Fine, but come over to my apartment before we leave so you can help me.” After all, he wasn’t really familiar with pride parades, and what the scene was like there. He was going to be a fish out of water, he already knew that for certain.

True to her word, Garcia showed up an hour before the pride parade was set to start, carrying a coffee in each hand- how she possibly knocked on his apartment door, Spencer didn’t know.

“I brought you a pick me up, that way you have no excuse to be in a bad mood!” She spoke in her signature sing song voice as Spencer let her inside, she barreled in like a hurricane. God, Spencer wasn’t ready for this.

“Thanks..” Spencer decided to reply with that lame response, and not with what he was actually thinking. He took the coffee from her wordlessly as she stepped in further, going to sit down on his couch.

“You excited?” Garcia asked as she set her cup down on his cluttered coffee table. Reid just shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t do great with crowds.”

“But you do great with disarming murderers?” “You know that’s different-” Spencer said, doing his best to argue, “Reid it is literally not. Both are anxiety inducing, but one is life or death, and it’s not pride. So you can do this.”

Spencer sighed, resigning himself to not arguing with Garcia. Because she was right, though at times her arguments sounded wild. He just had to get over this anxiety and show up at pride, he could do this, right?

Wrong. So, very, wrong. They had left his apartment with thirty minutes to spare, deciding to walk over to where pride was being held- as it was only a few blocks away in a public park.

And as soon as they got there, Spencer wanted out. There were so many people, more than he estimated (and his estimations were usually spot on.), and there was just chaos everywhere. Music, dancing, shouting, singing, drag queens running around happily. Spencer wasn’t sure what to do. He was out of his element.

Garcia seemed to sense that, though, as she dragged Spencer over to some stalls that sold pride flags, pins, and other miscellaneous pride related things.

“C’mon Reid, why don’t you look around and find something you like?” She offered up, something for him to do- something for him to stay busy with. He could do that. Spencer nodded simply, Garcia stayed by his side- looking at pride related wear for herself.

Spencer ended up deciding on a small pin that simply said; “love all”, planning to stick it on his messenger bag strap. Garcia bought a pin as well, but hers just had her pronouns on them; “she/her/hers”.

Looking at all the pride apparel was a good distraction for Spencer, he felt a lot more calmer now- though that didn’t stop him from feeling like he stuck out like a sore thumb. He’s just not familiar with this world, and it’s awkward to suddenly be in the middle of it.

Spencer was in the middle of looking at another booth that sold flags, possibly considering buying himself a small one to stick in his pencil cup at work, because Garcia left him to go compliment a drag queen- when a voice broke through.

“Hey, pretty boy!”

That was a voice all too familiar, what on earth was Morgan doing here? Spencer looked up at him as he made his way towards him. “Hey,” Spencer spoke awkwardly. Not sure what to say.

Spencer was gay. He was fine with admitting he was gay, but he hadn’t really told the team. He thought they figured it out on their own. And they probably had, but still, having his coworker see him at a pride event- it was anxiety inducing.

“What’re- what’re you doing here?” Spencer asked, stumbling over his words as he dropped the small flag he was holding back onto the vendors table.

“Oh, well I’m on the local PFLAG committee. I’m just here to hand out flyers and stuff. But I’m glad to see you’re here, I’m guessing Garcia’s here too?” He asked Spencer casually, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on Spencer.

He was on the PFLAG committee? Why? To help queer people, obviously, but that had to mean he was gay or something- Spencer couldn’t stop his mind from coming up with every possible answer to why Derek was on the committee.

Spencer just nodded in response, he moved himself back from the vendors table to get out of the way, so other customers could look at the flags being sold.

“Yeah, she’s- there.” Reid pointed her out, as if on cue she came out of the thick crowd that had started to gather back up, the parade portion of pride had concluded by now, and people were coming over to the vendors section.

“Hey, Babygirl!” Derek called over to her, and Garcia somehow lit up with a smile brighter than the one she was wearing before, “Well, hey!” She responded enthusiastically, walking up swiftly to give Derek a quick embrace, which he happily returned.

“I wasn’t sure how long you were staying for, but I’m glad I caught you!” Garcia started rambling to Derek, about how the drag queen she met was so nice; “Her name was Mysteria Hysteria. Isn’t that genius?”.

Spencer just stepped back from them both, not sure what to do, not sure if he fully belonged. Pride was a nice event, it was. But the longer he stood around, the more he felt like he should be leaving. Everyone was laughing and smiling, everyone was just happy. And Spencer couldn’t stop racking his brain. In the beginning, he couldn’t stop thinking because of his anxiety, but now he was searching his brain for a reason why Derek was here and what it meant.

Of course, a stupid large portion of Spencer’s mind went to “maybe Morgan likes men”, and then an even larger and stupider portion of his mind had the absurdity to think; “maybe he’s interested in me”. Which Spencer did not even want to remotely entertain, because if he fell down that rabbit hole, he’d never climb back out.

Because yes, he did like Derek. He liked him a lot, the start for his liking towards the man was innocuous enough- which is why it was a problem for Spencer. He didn’t realized he liked Morgan until it was too late. And now he had been battling these feelings for years. Spencer wasn’t ever going to act on them, he just had to live with them- which he had been doing, which he has been content with. But this new information, about Morgan being here, being part of PFLAG- it was going to make Reid’s mind implode in on itself.

Reid decided the best thing was to say; “I’m gonna get some water, I’ll be back.” To which Derek and Garcia both nodded to, and Spencer was off, away from the vendors stand and the only two people he knew at pride.

And while that was a good thing, it was simultaneously not so good. Because now he was alone, overwhelmed, and thinking too much. And now he had a task to do, find himself some water.

That task seemed to be more difficult than anticipated, as the prides layout was a confusing maze, spencer had to pass in front of a group of drag queens in order to get to the food trucks that were on site- but he eventually got there.

He walked up to the first food truck he saw, it didn’t matter what they sold, he wasn’t getting it.

“What can I get for you?” The cashier asked him, “Just a water, please.” He ordered, the cashier nodded and pulled a bottle out from a cooler that was nearby within the truck, handing it over to spencer as they told him his total, a dollar twenty five. Spencer paid quickly, stepping back and away from the food truck, as he wasn’t sure where else to go now. He didn’t want to go back towards Derek or Garcia, he honestly wanted to go home.

He just needed a minute, some space and time to breathe and relax. He was stressing himself out. And about what? Nothing of goddamn importance, just a stupid crush he had been living with for a while now.

Spencer had been leaning against the back the food truck for not long, only a couple of minutes as he was absorbed in thought as he fiddled with the cap on the water bottle.

He was doing his best to follow the grounding techniques he had learned, something to help him calm down, when suddenly- a stranger emerged out of the crowd.

“Hey there, handsome.” The man said confidently as he strode up to introduce himself Spencer. Spencer looked up to meet his eyes, the man in question was a fine looking guy, chiseled jawline, long shoulder length hair, a bit of facial stubble. He was handsome. “Hello,” Spencer answered hollowly in response. In an ordinary situation, he would try and seem more lively- but he wasn’t in a normal situation, not at all.

The anxiety of attending pride was stress enough on its own, but now knowing the guy he had been drooling over for years was here- and worked as a PFLAG volunteer? It was enough to make him lose his mind.

The man didn’t seem to notice Spencer’s empty response, however, as he answered suavely in response; “I couldn’t help but notice you from across the way. I’m Fabian,” Thankfully, the man- Fabian, didn’t stick his hand out for a handshake, instead casually pushing his hair back a bit.

“I’m Spencer,” Reid replied simply, knowing it was best to ride this odd social interaction out, rather than try and fight it. “That’s a lovely name,” Fabian complimented, “Is this your first time at pride, Spencer?” He asked him casually, taking a step forward, closer to Spencer. He was all too confident for Spencer, he too comfortable with invading Spencer’s space. If Spencer could’ve, he would’ve stepped back.

“Uh, yeah. My friend dragged me along.” Reid explained, twisting the bottle cap back onto his half empty water bottle. Fabian nodded, “Your boyfriend didn’t take you?” Fabian asked him. That was a leading question, Spencer had alarm bells ringing in his head the second he heard it. “No. He- um- he met up with us here.” Spencer replied unconvincingly, Fabian obviously did not believe a word he said.

“Well,” Fabian took another step forward, practically blocking Reid in against the back of the food truck, leaning in farther to whisper in Spencer’s ear; “I don’t see him around. So, why don’t you and I get out of here? Hm?”

Spencer wasn’t sure of what to do. He wanted to kick this guy in the crotch and just book it, but he wasn’t sure if his FBI status would protect him in this scenario. He wasn’t sure what could protect him in this scenario.

“Pretty boy! There you are!” A saving grace broke through, and suddenly Fabian was stepping back, and Morgan was walking up.

Thank god, thank fucking god, that’s all Spencer could manage to think as Derek came to stand beside him. “Hey, babe.” Spencer said, cringing at his voice, at what he just said. But that feeling only lasted for a moment as Fabian was still standing right there, staring them both down now.

Spencer could only throw his wish in the sky and hope Derek caught it coming down, ‘please catch along to why I’m calling you babe’ Reid was trying to say.

And Derek caught it, “Hey, baby, was worried about you. Who’s your friend?” He said in his smooth voice, a voice Spencer couldn’t forget. He especially couldn’t forget now, being called ‘baby’ was something Spencer especially could not forget.

“I’m Fabian, you’re Spencer’s boyfriend?” Fabian asked, as if them both calling each other ‘babe’ counted for nothing. “Yeah, I’m Derek.” Morgan responded simply, sliding his hand around Spencer’s waist as if to prove a point. Fabian just nodded, looking between Spencer and Derek one last time before talking; “Well, it was nice to meet you, I’ve gotta get going. See you.”

And then, he was off, fast walking away from Derek and Reid, escaping the terrible situation he had created. Fabian quickly disappeared into the thick crowd, and by then Spencer had his hand squeezing his water bottle all too tightly- as evident by the terrible crunch sound it made. He was too anxious to let go.

“Hey, are you okay?” Derek asked him softly, pulling his hand away from Spencer’s waist. “Can we find somewhere else- can we go sit down?” Spencer asked him quickly. Reid didn’t want to talk about it right this second, right where it had happened. He wanted to leave, he wanted to leave pride and never come back.

Derek didn’t ask a single follow up question as he led Reid away from the food trucks, taking him back towards the vendors stands, and then a bit further back, into the normal-not-so-pride-parade-filled park area. Somewhere less stressful, less scary.

“What did that guy want?” Derek asked Spencer casually as they made their way towards a bench that was sat under a large oak tree. Spencer didn’t speak right away, instead he waited until they were seated to start talking.

“He was trying to flirt, but then he wanted me to leave with him.” Spencer explained as he took a deep breath in, just being away from all the loud sounds and sights was helping him calm down. Derek rubbed Spencer’s back in slow, circular motions as Spencer kept talking.

“He was a classic example of a narcissistic personality, it just made me so uncomfortable- he invaded my space.”

“He was a creep, Reid. Simple as that,” Derek kept rubbing Spencer’s back slowly, Spencer nodded. “I know. Sorry, it shook me up.” Spencer attempted to apologized, and Derek was immediately having none of that.

“Reid, no. Don’t apologize for that, don’t you dare. He was a creep, I’m sorry you got caught up with him. It’s okay if you’re shaken up. We can stay here until you feel up to going back, or we can leave. But I’m not leaving you.”

And so they sat for a good amount of time on that park bench, at one point Derek stopped rubbing Spencer’s back, instead just keeping his arm stretched out against the back of the bench and against Spencer’s back. Spencer loved it, but he knew if he thought about it for too long he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking. That was his biggest problem, he couldn’t stop thinking.

He had to know, he decided, he couldn’t just wonder why Derek was on the committee for PFLAG. He wanted to know, he had to.

“Derek?” He spoke up softly, sounds of laughing and shouting and music were still heard in the distance, but they were safe from the sounds under the tree. “Mhm?” Derek hummed in response, looking up at the aforementioned tree that was providing shade for them.

His eyes were tracing the way the branches curved and bent around each other, it was something he did to pass the time. Spencer thought he was extraordinary for it, Derek loved to see where things went; he was curious- after all these years, and all the bad they had seen together, Derek still loved to search and find the beauty.

“Why are you on the PFLAG committee ?” Spencer asked him, it was thankfully an innocuous enough ask to not draw too much of Derek profilings side out to pry apart his question. Derek shrugged, and was quiet for a second before responding, “I know what it’s like to be a scared kid, unsure of his identity. If I can help someone through that, that’s all that matters. Same reason I’m in the BAU, to help people.”

Spencer stayed quiet, Derek’s reason was so sincere and so sweet and kind- and only driving him to think further. Was Derek still unsure of his identity? Was he an ally? Why did he have to make Spencer swoon so hard without even trying?

“So, you’re just an ally?” Spencer approached Derek carefully with that question, not wanting to impose or be rude- but just feign simple curiosity, praying Derek wasn’t using his profiling skills right now to decode Spencer’s fake motive.

Derek didn’t notice, thankfully, as he chuckled lowly in response; “No, pretty boy, I’m bisexual. I don’t really tell the team, but it’s not confidential information. Plus, Garcia found Grindr on my phone. Can’t hide anything from that girl.”

Spencer nodded, mumbling something in response about how Garcia had hacked his email to make sure he was free for pride. And then, the two fell into silence again. But it didn’t last for long, because Derek wanted to know just as much, why was Spencer here?

“What about you, Reid?” Derek asked him cautiously, the way you approach a puppy you find on the side of the road. Calm and slow, trying to get him to trust him bit by bit. “What about me?” Spencer asked, not wanting to answer anything about himself unless Derek was specific.

“Are you an ally?” Morgan asked him, leaving the question open ended. Spencer could say as little or as much as he wanted. This is how you get him to open up, Derek knew that for a fact. “Um.. yeah, I mean- who isn’t? I just- I have to be. I’m.. gay.” Spencer admitted all too awkwardly, not at all in a normal fashion. But nothing about Spencer was in normal fashion.

Derek nodded slowly, not responding as he stared back up, tracing his eyes over the tree branches yet again.

A few hours had passed, Spencer and Derek eventually left their peaceful bench under the large oak tree, and instead moved back towards the parking lot.

“Garcia’s got a ride home already- I think she got that drag queen to get her home.” Derek explained as they approached his truck, Spencer nodded as he followed Derek. “Anyways,” Derek continued speaking, “I can give you a ride home. Let’s get going.”

“You don’t have to-“ Spencer started, Derek immediately shut him down. “I want to, c’mon. It’s late, you’re tired. I know you are. Let me take you home.” Spencer just nodded in agreement, he couldn’t argue with Derek, even if he did try. Morgan was a stubborn man.

So, Spencer followed Derek into his truck, and they sat in comfortable silence as they started on their journey back to Spencer’s safe space, his apartment.

By the time Derek pulled his truck into the apartments parking lot, Spencer knew something was just the slightest bit wrong. Derek had barely spoken for the entire ride, and usually he loves to say something, to make Spencer smile or laugh, or even just nod and mumble in agreement. But he had done none of that on the way to Spencers.

“Are you alright?” Spencer asked, turning to face Derek as he put the vehicle in park. Derek didn’t meet his eyes, staring at the steering wheel instead as he spoke; “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just thinking.”

“About what?” Spencer pried, absentmindedly unbuckling his seatbelt as he spoke, “About today.” Derek said, not explaining further. “Was today bad?”

Derek shook his head, “No. It started weird, it’s ending pretty good, though. But I’m gonna regret today forever if I don’t do something right now.”

Now, Spencer was confused. Not sure at all what Derek could be talking about, “What do you mean?” He asked, voice quieter than before.

Derek said nothing as he unbuckled his own seatbelt, turning to face Spencer as well, and then he leaned in- closer than they had ever been before. Their noses were almost touching, and Spencer didn’t move. Instead, he watched Derek’s eyes expectantly.

Then, Derek broke through, they were no longer intersecting each other’s personal space- now they were fully destroying each other’s atmospheres. Derek’s lips were on Spencer’s, a chaste, soft, quick kiss- something Spencer would have wanted to go for a lot longer. But then, he pulled away just as fast.

“...That’s what I meant..” He mumbled after a second, looking back towards the steering wheel, looking away from Spencer- and more importantly, not seeing the smile on Spencer’s face.

Spencer couldn’t help it. He knew it was terrible to be smiling right now- he should jump and say something to fix what was happening. But he had to smile, he couldn’t believe that had actually just happened, his brain was still computing and re-circuiting, trying to savor the memory and not forget how Derek’s lips felt against his.

Spencer dragged himself out of his own head quickly, though. He did all he could think of to do in the moment, get Derek back. ��Morgan.” Spencer said, tugging on Derek’s sleeve as he did so, forcing him to look back at Spencer and meet his eyes again.

But Spencer didn’t say anything, and he didn’t give Derek the chance to speak, either. Instead, he leant forward, pressing his lips against Derek’s. This is all he had wanted to know for the longest time, and now he had it.

Maybe pride wasn’t so bad after all, you just have to be with the right people for it to work out.

———————————————————————

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wanderinginksplot · 4 years ago

Note

Hiya, I was wondering if I could please request 3 (Echo) with B+O (Injury/sickness recovery + first kiss)? I don’t really mind who’s in recovery or whether it’s 501st echo/bad batch echo, I just thought these prompts would lead nicely into a confession between our two main characters; also I just want to say I love your writing!! ❤️

Aww, thank you so much for the request and for being so kind, Anon! Sorry this took forever, but I’ve been stuck in an idea block for a week or two, and I ended up writing about four different versions of this. You’re very sweet, but you probably shouldn’t be nice to me, because apparently, it makes me write one-shots that are way too long. So here’s a 2700 word one-shot...

Also! It ended up being a tad spicy toward the end. Nothing anywhere close to M-rating, but more than I usually write in one-shots.

Echo + Injury/Sickness Recovery + First Kiss

The first time you met Echo, you didn't like him very much.

You were in the medbay for a sickness that was taking Coruscant by storm, hitting nat-born GAR members especially hard. As a nat-born intelligence officer, you had been ordered to the GAR's main medbay, which had been sub-divided into large bays full of cots. Almost every cot was filled with GAR personnel who needed treatment for the same sickness.

It wouldn't have been bad if you had been able to take the meds right away and start the healing process, but you had been on a dangerous mission and fought the sickness off for longer than you should have. It had worked and you had survived your mission, but you were severely dehydrated. The medics - all clone troopers, by that point - had ordered you to stay until you were fully healed and they could get your fluid levels back where they should have been. Faced with no other options, you had agreed.

And then the 501st had arrived.

Through your IV, you had gotten through half a bag of a liquid you preferred not to think too hard about. The medics promised that your meds would be kicking in soon, and you would feel much better before the day was over. For the moment, you felt nauseated and every part of your body ached, especially your head.

When the troopers came in, their white armor painted with blue accents in various styles, they were so loud that the rest of the medbay went quiet.

One of the medics, his hair shaved short to show off a set of intricate tattoos, hurried up to them as he pulled off his gloves. You could hear his hissed question from your bed on the other side of the large room. "What are you idiots doing here?"

One of the men beamed at him. "We're in trouble!"

You scoffed to yourself. You had no difficulty believing they had gotten on someone's bad side.

The tattooed medic rubbed his temples. "Hardcase… what did you guys do now?"

You had heard stories about the rowdy 501st from other operatives. They were supposed to be a nightmare to work alongside, all explosions and heroics without any grasp of subtlety.

One of the other men stepped forward and seemed to be offering an explanation, but he did it in a voice pitched low enough that you couldn't hear him. You were grateful for that, and did your best to fall asleep.

It wasn't to be, however, as one of the 501st made his way down the row of beds in your direction. He chatted with some of the other patients, laughing loudly at their responses. By the time he reached you, you could have cheerfully put a blaster to the 5 tattooed on his temple.

"And how are you doing today?" the trooper belted out.

"In a lot of pain, actually," you snapped at him, a visceral response to the effect his voice had on your roiling stomach. "Can you please talk more quietly?"

There. A please. You were being polite.

"If I'm quiet, does that mean I can stay over here with you, pretty lady?" he asked with a wink, settling onto the foot of your bed.

You eyed him stonily. You felt revolting from the effects of the sickness, and you were wearing a GAR-issued medical gown besides. ‘Pretty’ was an attempt at flattery, and not even a believable one.

"Fives," the medic with the head tattoos admonished, stepping up to your bedside as well. "Stop. She doesn't feel well and she doesn't need you hanging around, making it worse."

"Me?" Fives asked, sounding both shocked and offended. "We both know I only make things better, Kix."

You sighed and wished with your whole soul that they would both go away. You just wanted to sleep.

"Besides," Fives continued, "We were ordered to help in the medbay. You wouldn't want me to disobey orders, would you?"

From the look on Kix's face, he had lined up a scathing retort that you were dying to hear, but you needed to make a brief announcement. "If this conversation continues right here, I am going to vomit."

You had never seen two grown men move so quickly. You would have smiled if you didn't feel so rotten.

"Echo," Kix called softly with a worried glance in your direction, beckoning yet another trooper over.

This one had no tattoos, but you vaguely recognized him as the only trooper you hadn't been able to overhear earlier.

"Get Fives away from here," Kix ordered. "Keep him productive and occupied, but don't let him talk."

Echo nodded and gave you an apologetic nod. "I'm sorry about him," he said, indicating Fives, who looked deeply offended.

"Please," was the only response you could muster, cradling your head delicately in your hands. From the bit of your peripheral vision that wasn’t blocked by your palms, you watched his shoulders slump slightly as he towed his brother away. When you finally fell asleep, your dreams were full of Echo’s disappointed face along with strong feelings of guilt.

The second time you met him was only a few hours later. You were having fever dreams. The medication had apparently worn off and no one had noticed. In your dreams, you had called a medic over a dozen times, but you always woke to find that you hadn’t said a thing, and fell asleep again before you could.

It was one of these shallow, fitful dreams that Echo interrupted. “Hey. Hey! Shhh, you’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”

Thoroughly confused by the world of the surrounding medbay, you squinted up at him. “Echo?” He nodded and you launched right into the speech you had prepared in your sleep. “I’m sorry I was rude earlier. I just… my head hurt, and you guys are loud, and-”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Echo assured you, crouching by your bedside to put himself on your level. “The 501st - and Fives in particular - is very loud. It’s our best quality.”

You snorted at that and Echo’s kind face broke into a warm smile. “You should get back to sleep. It’s really late. Or early. I’m not sure which, but everyone else is asleep, and you should be, too.”

“I think I need some meds, actually,” you admitted. “I feel like death.”

Echo frowned and reached up to brush his fingers over your forehead, flinching back almost immediately. “Kriff, you’re burning up! Hang on, let me grab a medic for you.”

You nodded, but grabbed his wrist before he could leave, “If you bring me some water, I’ll love you forever.”

It was just a childish hyperbole, something you and your family had said whenever you had asked for a favor, particularly a minor one. Echo didn’t seem to have the same connection with it, based on the way he had frozen in place and was staring at you with wide eyes that flashed between your face and your grip on his wrist.

Clearing your throat, you released him and corrected yourself. “I mean, please? I’m very thirsty.”

Echo turned around a moment later and you sighed, hoping your hot face looked like the flush of a fever.

You were half-drowsing when Echo came back with Kix in tow. You jumped a bit when Kix said your name, and Echo was quick to soothe you. “Easy, easy. It’s just us.”

He handed you the biggest glass of water you had ever seen and retreated halfway across the medbay before you had chugged half of it.

The next day, you were actually feeling better. Granted, ‘better’ was a relative term, but you didn’t actively want to die any more, and that was something. The only thing messing up your day was the lingering awkwardness between you and Echo. Every time his circuit around the room took him past your cot, he would avoid your eyes.

From your calculations, he looped around the gigantic medbay room every six minutes or so. On his next lap past, you softly asked, “Echo?”

You had meant to be subtle and quiet, but you were still a bit less hydrated than you should have been, and it came out as a horrifying croak. If someone had called your name in that voice, you would have immediately run away, but Echo just turned slightly and looked your direction.

“I’m sorry for last night,” you apologized.

“You already said that,” Echo reminded you gently. “The 501st is loud. I understand why you weren’t happy with us.”

“Not about that,” you forced out, half-wishing you could just let him think you had been delirious with fever and thus not responsible for anything you had said or done. “I mean that I’m sorry for saying the whole love you forever thing. It was a joke, but I feel like it landed poorly.”

“There’s no need, really,” Echo told you. He smiled then, a small sad smile. “We clones don’t get to see much good in the universe. Not with this war going on. Even though you were joking, it was nice to hear something like that.”

You stared at him, trying to keep the poker face the GAR had hired you for.

“Besides,” Echo said with a laugh, “if you want to see how a bad joke really sounds, hang out with Fives for a few minutes. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to see the difference!”

You chuckled at that and the smile he gave lit his whole face as he continued his patrol. You watched Echo leave, thinking hard. It was ironic that this was the conversation where your heart had melted just a touch. It wasn’t love, not yet, but this third exchange left feelings that were inappropriate considering that you had known him for less than a day.

That night, you couldn’t sleep, betrayed by all of the napping you had done during the day. Echo was patrolling the room again and noticed you on his fourth lap.

He crouched by your bedside once again. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope,” you admitted with a sigh. “Can you?”

Echo frowned. “I can, but I’m on watch right now.”

“On watch,” you repeated skeptically. “For what?”

“Someone has to make sure the patients are doing okay while the medics sleep,” he explained. “It’s a very important job.”

“Your brothers are all playing sabacc in the corner,” you pointed out. “Go join them. Or, better yet, get some sleep. I haven’t seen you take a break yet.”

“You were unconscious for over half of the day,” Echo reminded you. “I could have been on break then.”

“You weren’t,” you told him confidently. “Because you wouldn’t have known that I slept the whole time.”

Echo frowned. “You’re too smart to work for the army.”

“Intelligence officer,” you explained simply.

Lifting his eyebrows in exaggerated shock, Echo leapt to his feet and gave a dramatic salute. You pretended to aim a kick in his direction and you both dissolved into muffled giggles in an attempt not to wake any of the other patients.

“If you won’t try to sleep, at least sit down?” you requested, indicating the foot of your cot as you struggled to sit up so you could move out of his way. “You’re stressing me out. I can’t be expected to get better if I’m stressed.”

“We can’t have that,” Echo teased. He helped you sit up before he did anything else, but the awkwardness of the position left him hauling you up by your armpits. You were thankful that you had found the strength to walk to the sonic shower that day, at least. “Not like I can get sick from you, anyway.”

Echo sat talking with you for hours, even after his brothers had all drifted off at their sabacc table. Before you fell asleep again, he brought you another giant glass of water. You accepted it with a smile. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

He nodded and left so you could get some sleep. By the time you had finished the glass, he was on the other side of the medbay and couldn’t hear you mutter, “Love you forever.”

For the next few days, Echo lived by your bedside. The conversations you had made you laugh so hard that you went into the occasional coughing fit and got the evil eye from Kix. So, you were less pleased than you had expected to be when Kix told you that you could be discharged the following day.

That night, you couldn’t sleep. Getting your sleep pattern back under control was going to be the biggest struggle, you reflected, staring at the massive beams supporting the ceiling.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Echo teased, walking up. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

You waved a hand around dramatically. “I’m trying to commit these beautiful surroundings to memory. If I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ll need to remember the enchanting way the dust clings to that wall over there.”

Suddenly serious, Echo asked, “You’re leaving tomorrow?”

You nodded, and couldn’t tell if it was your imagination, or if he really looked disappointed. Still, he mustered a smile. “I’m glad.”

With a falsely offended gasp, you replied, “You’re glad I’m leaving? That’s rude!”

“No, I mean-!” Echo sputtered, grimacing at you when you started to laugh. “I’m glad you’re getting better. Even if you’re just as mean as the day I met you.”

“Yeah, I’m terrible,” you agreed with a grin.

“You are not,” he countered immediately. “You’re sweet and funny and- I’ll miss you. Selfish, huh?”

“I’ll miss you, too,” you admitted. “I guess we’re both selfish. But, hey, you’ll finally get some sleep now!”

“I suppose I will,” Echo said with the ghost of his usual smile. “At least we can have one last overnight conversation. Unless you’re too tired?”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Sit down, Echo.”

The two of you talked for hours that night. The medbay steadily got more silent and your eyes began to ache. Try as you might, you were still recovering from your illness and the point came when you couldn’t fight it off any longer. You fell into a light doze as Echo was talking.

You were dimly aware as he finished his sentence and waited for a response, but you couldn’t make yourself say anything. Echo gave an amused sounding hum and stood from your cot. You immediately missed his warmth, but felt like he was still standing by you.

Soft lips pressed against your forehead and left as Echo started to move away. “What was that cop-out bantha dung?” you asked blearily.

Echo jumped a bit and stared down at you, but you were half-asleep, impulsive, and you knew what you wanted. You sat up to grab his shoulders and brought him back down to you, kissing him with as much fervor as an extremely tired person could muster.

He kissed you back, opening his mouth to release an almost-soundless groan, and you were suddenly wide awake. With both of you actively participating in your embrace, it didn’t take long for the pair of you to get carried away.

When you finally broke apart, it was only because someone had cleared their throat sharply.

Echo pulled back, bracing on his forearms to look up at Kix while you peered at the medic from under Echo’s chest. When had he gotten on top of you? His hip brushed against your upper thigh and you abruptly didn’t care anymore.

“I take it you’re well enough to be released from here?” Kix asked, a raised brow accentuating his smirk.

You glanced around to find that half of the medbay was awake and staring at you and Echo with expressions ranging from bleary bewilderment to amused approval. Some of Echo’s brothers were awake as well, though their faces ran heavily to outright shock.

“Uh, yeah. I’m ready to go home,” you agreed, glancing up at Echo. “Wanna come with me?”

Echo nodded and glanced up at Kix. The medic shrugged and looked at the ceiling. “No, I have no idea where Echo went. He worked several around the chrono shifts and then he disappeared. I assume he went to get some well-deserved rest. Sign here.”

The last part was directed at you and you obligingly scrawled your name on the datapad he was holding out in your direction.

“Your personal effects are in the front room,” Kix informed you. “Drink some water now and then, would you?”

“Of course, thanks,” you said absently, attention already stolen away by the fascinating blush creeping up Echo’s cheeks. You slipped out from under him and grabbed his hand to tow him behind you. “C’mon. You’re gonna love my apartment.”

---

A/N - ahh, why did this end up being such a novel? Sorry about that! If you want to read similar works, check out my masterlist or make a request based on this post (or make something up and I’ll do my best!). Thanks for reading!

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #sw tcw #tcw fanfic #tcw #echo #echo x you #echo x reader #kix #fives #illness #first kiss #star wars fanfiction #fic request

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bitchassbucky · 4 years ago

Text

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Word Count: 1.4k

Warning/s: toxic relationship dynamics, dark!bucky x dark!reader, stalking, coercion and lying, manipulative tendencies, injuries and blood mention, food was mentioned for a bit

A/N: WE ARE GETTING THERE, BABES WHEW OKAY

follow the CTRL series:

i - .exe

ii - .avi

iii - .raw

iv - .png

v - .zip

CTRL playlist CTRL moodboard

A month had passed since your not-date date had happened. You tried to forget the rest of the day, only focusing on how he looked and talked to you that day. How he smiled, trying to play off the ‘cool guy’ narrative.

You suddenly grew cold, noticing how your conversations became sparse—dry in between. Fewer texts and long waits. It made you nervous, sad, and a little bit annoyed. You barely see him around the office too—has Bucky been avoiding you?

His office is a bit out of the way for you to accidentally stumble in, anyway; the days you’re in the office were unsynchronized. Would it count as a punishable offense if you mess up with your company-approved laptop?

Saying you missed Bucky is an understatement: the bottle of cologne that smells like him sits empty on your dresser. The pictures you took of him taped loosely on your corkboard. Bits and pieces of papers he gave you tacked on it haphazardly.

Can someone die from loneliness?

Is this what being in love feels like?

Suffocating, consuming, your chest feels heavy, and your stomach is in knots.

—

Another month, another throng of employees needing new passwords. There are literal posters around the floor reminding everyone to use a password manager. Bucky can’t believe that he has to work with idiots around him. When he took up computer science as a major in college, he imagined himself hacking into… government intel, or something. Not looking after dimwits that don't know how to install an update.

His text messages are red with notifications—bank updates, deliveries, and you.

For some reason, Bucky can’t bring himself up to return your messages. Hi’s, hey’s, and how are you’s littered his text chain. Is he a bad person for not replying back? He can always just make up an excuse, right?

When you told him that you liked him, kissed him like you meant it, his fondness dispersed into thin air. The easy is never worthy and the worthy is never easy, as his father told him.

A ding from his phone brought him forth, another text from you: coming up right now, can we talk?

Now, he can’t come up with an excuse.

—

Bucky heard you before you come in, knocking on his door like the first time you met.

He clears his throat, calling out a come in! before rolling back from his cluttered desk. Tickets were few and far in between, he knows he can spare you at least 20 minutes but he just doesn’t want to.

“Hey,” you said, your head poking into his office. You weren’t entirely sure why you came up here in the first place, you really, really, really just wanted to see him again.

Bucky chuckles, pulling the door open for you. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”

You breathe out a little, shaking the feeling sinking deep inside your stomach, “yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine.” Stepping into his office, you eye his desk. He’s been busy. Papers and files are piling up on the left side of his desk, half of his setup is covered with those post-it notes. Several mugs littered his small space.

Huh, “Sorry, I can come back some other time.”

Turning on your heel, you pivot a little to grab the door when Bucky grabs your upper arm, “don’t go—”

He realizes the implications if someone were to see the two of you and so he lets go, much to your discomfort. You face him, either way, you’re sure he’s not gonna let you go that easily.

“Sorry, it’s just- I missed you.”

And there it was. I missed you.

He was thinking about you.

“I was just gonna drop off some files… But,” you rake your brain for a coherent train of thought, “I missed you too.”

A smile of relief overcomes Bucky’s features, his eyes crinkling just the way you like. His steely blue eyes hidden beneath his lashes.

“I have uh, a thing later… Dinner with friends—do you wanna come?” You make a show of peering over his shoulder and onto his desk, “unless you’re busy?”

“I’d love to come.” He says, tucking his pointer finger underneath your chin, flicking it forward so you’d look at him, “what time is it?”

“Come by around seven. I’ll text you my address.”

Bucky doesn’t need your address. He already came a dozen times by your building, trying to build up the nerve to knock on your door and kiss you silly. Like in those movies you watch late at night.

But he’s conflicted, no?

Are you really as good as they come?

—

At six-thirty, you already sent the text: take the east street, beige apartment block. I’m on the third floor, second door to your right. :)

At six-fifty five, Bucky’s already there, his car idling on the sidewalk. He’s… nervous. Why is he nervous? It’s just dinner. A small get-together with friends. Speaking of friends, he didn’t see any unfamiliar cars parked on the block. Maybe it’s not work friends?

Letting out a sigh, Bucky fetches the small bouquet of flowers and wine he brought, just in case. He doesn’t wanna be the only one showing up empty-handed.

On the dot, Bucky knocks on your door. He plasters on his best smile as you open the way, revealing yourself.

God, you look gorgeous. Why did he stop hanging out with you in the first place?

Oh, right.

“Aw, flowers and wine? You’re too sweet!” You chirp out, stepping out of the way to let him into your apartment. Taking the gifts from his hands, you put them away while Bucky busies himself checking out your place.

It’s weird seeing your place in real life. Bucky noted the hint of lavender in the air, coupled with a smidge of coffee brewing. He’s so used to seeing parts of it but not everything-everything. He careens his neck to look down the hallway, catching a glimpse of your bedroom.

“If you’re lucky, you can see it tonight.” A peal of boisterous laughter comes out of you, lightly kicking his foot with yours, “I’m kidding. It’s off-limits for visitors, sorry.”

“Right…” Bucky looks around, shifting his weight from the balls of his feet up to his toes. “Am I too early? I can help you set the table.” The table is halfway finished and you’re stirring in cheese into a sauce. Roux, perhaps.

“No, it’s okay…” You trail off, lowering the heat before facing Bucky, “I lied.”

“What?”

“There’s no dinner—I mean, there is. Just not with friends.” You bite your lip, looking down on your shoes before tearing your gaze away from the floor to meet Bucky’s eyes.

“You lied? Why- why would you lie about that?” Annoyance and frustration all seep out near the surface. His jaw ticking as he gritted his teeth.

“Are you mad?”

“Are you mad?” Bucky asks back in a mocking tone, bringing his fist down the dinner, “you—you’re crazy. I knew it, I knew you’re crazy. Lying about dinner and what, trying to get me alone? Jesus, what--” He lets out a mirthless laugh, the one that sends chills down your spine.

You stood there, frozen at your spot. You’re hurt. He called you crazy. He called you crazy when he’s the one who spied on you for weeks on end.

When he’s the one who watches you at night.

When he’s the one who left those notes on your desk.

The one who sent those texts and left calls and voicemails.

“Fuck you.” Your words rang empty as Bucky walked out of the kitchen in long strides. The dinner long forgotten.

You calmly watch him turn the doorknob open, failing when the adjacent locks prevent him from opening the door. Two deadbolts and a chain lock. Never would you have thought that the threat would be coming inside your home.

“I’d think twice before leaving without dinner.”

—

Bucky stirs awake. The sound of cutlery on plates grating on his nerves. His head is throbbing. His right temple feels tight and tender, there’s something hard and crusty covering the right side of his face. He can suddenly feel the weight of his left arm, leaning over to compensate for the sudden pain.

He wasn’t aware that he had closed his eyes; the lights suddenly glaringly bright.

Right, the dinner.

The dinner?

Wasn’t he supposed to—

“Thank fuck. I thought you were dead.”

God, he hopes he is.

#bitchassbucky writes #dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky x reader smut #dark!bucky x reader angst #dark!bucky x reader fluff #dark!bucky #dark!bucky barnes #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader smut #dark!bucky barnes x reader angst #dark!bucky barnes x reader fluff

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raleighcarrera · 4 years ago

Text

falling

platinum | raleigh carrera x mc (cadence dorian)

a little while ago i posted about the idea of a soulmate au where the first words raleigh & cadence say to each other are tattooed on them their whole lives, and this... is that. (for @platinumweekend ❤️)

tags: @choicesarehard ; @empressazura; @emomoustache ; @natesewell ; @zigtheeortega ; @pixeljazzy ; @brycemaloliver ; @grigori-girl ; @dulceghernandez ; @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @withbeautyandrage

~10.5k words | T

the words appear in looping script on his thirteenth birthday, right on time. they curve along the inside of his bicep, innocently punctuated. what’s your name?

“you got lucky,” one of his older cousins tells him, later, when everyone in his family comes by for cake and to ooh and aah over his new tattoo, “you’ll be able to hide that with a shirt or a jacket easily.”

but raleigh sleeps shirtless every night for the next two years, even when it’s cold, so that the words are the last thing he sees with his head pillowed on his arm before he falls asleep, dreaming of the nameless, faceless person who will one day say them, wondering what their voice might sound like when they do.

ii.

she has a more difficult go of it.

being a thirteen year old girl would be miserable enough without the added pressure of the words that practically feel broadcast across her forehead, most of the time. everyone at school teases her constantly and ruthlessly: say something funny, cadence. go on. tell us a joke!

so it’s difficult not to resent the two words scrawled lazily across her collarbone and the person attached to them, especially in the mornings before school when she’s angrily rearranging her neckline and jewelry in the mirror while the bus idles outside.

very funny. she isn’t, really. she’s plenty of things -- determined and passionate and sensitive, definitely, but... no one’s ever found her particularly funny, before.

and no one seems to understand just how much the expectation of having to be funny, one day, is weighing on her, not even her parents, when she finally works up the courage to squeak out, “but how am i supposed to know what i should say?”

her mom laughs indulgently, like she’s already said something funny. her stomach sinks further.

“oh, sweetheart,” she tells her, “don’t worry, it won’t matter. you just will.”

iii.

people ask him about it. a lot.

it gets difficult to keep it a secret as things change around him, but raleigh’s careful to avoid slip-ups and paparazzi photos and he doesn’t say a word about it in interviews, even when he’s asked directly. he’s never seen without short sleeves on, at the very least, and he doesn’t even tell blair and cameron about it.

he sort of wishes he had, though, because as his life turns upside down and he adapts to a new country with a new set of rules and an industry that makes his head spin most of the time it starts to feel more and more confusing, those three words -- what’s your name?

everywhere he goes, thousands of girls blocking the street scream it at him. so how is it possible that whoever’s waiting to meet him doesn’t already know it?

and what does that mean for how the rest of his life is going to turn out?

what if all of this -- the fame and the money and the notoriety -- is fleeting, and he’s only a few short years from being completely washed up and irrelevant? what if the day he’s meant to meet his person is so far away that he’ll be completely out of the spotlight, by then, with sunset skatepark playing reunion tours and him having spent most of his life alone?

it’s a lot of pressure, for someone who’s already working their way through such a serious adjustment, and most of the time it’s dizzying, thinking about the fact that there’s someone out there who’s supposed to be perfect for him, when everyone he meets seems determined to forget every word they know other than yes, so they can suck up to him as much as possible.

his teenage years fly by in a whirlwind of mistakes and regrets. there’s things he would’ve never dreamed would come his way, like world tours and more money than he can count and so many girls who know everything about him before they even sit down to dinner, but there’s more than that, too.

there’s all the ways the industry weakens his trust until it’s gone, all the people who try to use him for what he can do for them, all the times he stumbles until he finally learns to distance himself by cultivating a persona, by leaning into all the expectations of raleigh carrera and creating something so outlandish it doesn’t hurt as much when disaster follows him around because it’s supposed to.

he watches everything that surrounds him turn fake and plastic and puts his energy only into his music, coasting on the rest. the days are less exciting than when he first joined the band at fifteen; he’s a solo artist, now, and most of the time, he’s just trying to get through.

but chaos continues to follow him and eventually his notoriety is inescapable. his first solo album is self-titled and he somehow manages to get a trademark on the word raleigh, as if the name is now more his than anything that ever belonged to the state of north carolina, and part of him sort of expects the words stamped on his arm to change, once he hits one-hundred million followers on his social channels.

they never do, though, and when he’s alone, and the veneer he’s built up for everyone else fades away, he can’t help but to be fascinated by this person who just wants an answer to the question no one else would ever dare ask him.

iv.

college isn’t exactly the fresh start she was hoping it’d be.

she was a loser in high school and things don’t get much better for her even now that she’s with ‘her people’ at a performing arts university she can barely afford, even with two part-time jobs.

shane is across the country at a proper state school with parties and a social life and lots of friends who aren’t her, and she’s failing her improv class, proving that she isn’t actually very funny at all.

boys continue to not notice her and patrons in bars continue to turn away from her one-woman performance, her old acoustic guitar the only constant in a life that feels utterly, unbelievably pointless, most of the time.

it’s like she’s drifting through the days, putting her time in at college in the hopes that it’ll fortify her for what’s next -- her big break, the discovery that’ll get her out of that shitty small town she’s been trying to escape her entire life. she writes hundreds of songs about how lost she feels and hates every single one, dreaming of a time when things might be different and she doesn’t have to second-guess every single one of her decisions.

she doesn’t have much of a love life and tries not to think about that, either.

the person on the other side of those two words stuck on her collarbone is probably looking for someone self-confident, who knows who they are and is comfortable with that. they’re probably expecting to meet someone who has their life together, who, at the very least, has a plan.

they’re probably not expecting a talentless nobody screwup like her, someone who tries as hard as she can yet never seems to make anything work.

things don’t turn around after graduation, either. sure, she manages to find an apartment in a building that’s nice enough and uses the last of her savings on the deposit and trying to furnish it, but it’s only a few weeks of trying and failing to secure a regular paying gig performing before she’s back at smoothie star again, begging for her old job back.

and there’s nothing that makes her feel more like a failure than working the same shifts she had in high school.

as she hums along to the radio on a random tuesday afternoon when the store is dead and there’s nothing to blend, she wonders what mr.-or-mrs. very funny would think if they walked in and saw her here -- twenty-three years old and flat broke, with a dead-end job and a one-bedroom apartment all she has to show for her very expensive and very useless bachelor’s degree.

that, and a notebook full of half-finished songs about relationships she could only ever dream about and an escape from the miserable small town she lives in that feels farther away with every day that passes.

she can’t imagine they’d be very impressed.

raleigh’s life gets monotonous very quickly. the music takes a backseat to the scandals and for a while there’s a predictable pattern of cause trouble, clean up image, rinse and repeat.

there are girls in between the cycles to help him pass the time. some he likes well enough and some he despises, but for the most part his management gives their recommendations and he agrees and makes awkward conversation for an hour or two over brunch until it’s time to go trash something again.

things get particularly bad after one minor cruise ship hijacking incident.

but in his defense, no one ever told him that breaking into the harbor and joy riding was a first-degree felony, worsened by the fact that he’d just so happened to crash the boat into the pier while he was trying to dock it.

at least he’d been sober.

though a monumental fuck up like this felt sort of inevitable; everyone who knew him probably figured it was only a matter of time before he went too far. how could he not when he was always chasing the next high?

still, the image rehab tour that follows is far from what he’d call enjoyable. he has to cut off all his hair and play nice at industry parties and waste time standing around being seen at charity events he winds up just cutting checks for instead of helping out at.

on top of the miserable community service comes the pr bullshit his team so loves -- dozens of tv appearances back-to-back where he’s herded around all day like cattle, in and out of green rooms with crappy coffee and bad catering.

he has no idea that showing up to be a judge on one in a million is going to change his life. hungover and running late, he barely even makes it to the taping of the semi-finals, slinking inside the concert hall in middle-of-nowhere, usa with a headache and some choice words for whoever thought this was the best way to clean up his image.

fortunately, raleigh manages to make his way inside virtually unnoticed. his phone is buzzing angrily in his pocket -- undoubtedly his manager trying to encourage him to hair and makeup or some other absurdity -- but he ignores it in favor of ducking back behind the line near the auditorium doors, only barely catching the last few words of some catty confrontation between two contestants as he goes.

as one of the girls stomps away, he sees the other’s shoulders slump from behind. “guess i’m not making any friends,” she mutters.

it’s clearly said to no one -- not even to herself, really -- yet for some reason, he can’t stop himself from responding. “where i come from, that’s a good thing.”

the girl’s shoulders straighten, but she still doesn’t turn around. “i’m not trying to succeed at the cost of others.”

raleigh smirks, leaning back against the wall beside his guitar case. “you do realize you’re at a competition show, right?”

“of course, but...” her hair ruffles with what sounds like a huff. she’s still not facing him, staring off at where the other girl she’d been talking to had run away. “that doesn’t mean i’m not rooting for everyone here to share their music with the world.”

“what a sweet sentiment,” raleigh drawls sarcastically, almost feeling a little bad for her and her naivety. this poor girl is going to be eaten alive. “it won’t last.”

her body tenses, her shoulders tightening again. he can almost see smoke start to pour from her ears before she spins suddenly on her heel to face him.

whatever sharp retort had been on the tip of her tongue gets swallowed with a blink as soon as their eyes meet. something like electricity crackles in the space between them, strengthening the invisible pull he’d felt when he first stopped behind her. instead, she only asks, “what’s your name?”

vi.

the man in front of her snorts. “very funny.”

a smile tugs at her lips. “very funny, that’s a weird name.” this is unlike her -- the quick comeback, the flirting. usually being face-to-face with a guy as good looking as the one talking to her now made her want to wither away and die, but something about the stranger standing before her sets her instantly at ease. “so, are you gonna tell me, or not?”

now it’s his turn to blink at her. a hand lifts to rub at his jaw. “huh. you really don’t know who i am, do you?”

cadence’s eyes narrow as she assess him. there is something vaguely familiar about that crooked grin, she’s sure of it.

at the very least, it’s an excuse to stare at him, and she does, moving her eyes slowly over the tattoos poking out over his jacket collar, the line of stubble on his sharp jaw, the glint of mischief in his eyes.

her helpless gaping is interrupted by a sudden shrill scream. “oh. my. god! is that raleigh carrera?!”

everything clicks at once. as a wild group of girls corner him, she realizes where she’s seen that smile before -- on just about every tabloid cover known to man, plastered all over convenience stores and the internet with headlines about his latest bender. in fact, she’s pretty sure he was just in the news for something similar -- crashing a yacht or something else ridiculous like that, something that only someone as rich as raleigh carrera could have accomplished.

then she realizes what he’d said to her, as soon as she’d turned to look him in the eyes. very funny.

her heart stops. all she can do is stare wide-eyed at him as he dispels the girls clamoring for a selfie, snapping back to the present when he waves one large hand in front of her face.

“sorry -- what?”

“i said, what’s your name? it only seems fair, now that you know mine, and all.”

“cadence,” she answers numbly, “i’m -- um, i’m used to your hair being longer.”

“cadence,” raleigh repeats, smiling at her, “so you do know who i am.”

“what do the magazines call you again? r&b’s time bomb? puerto rico’s hottest export? you’re kind of notorious.” she blinks at him, then admits, “i’ve heard your songs.”

“seen the tabloid covers too, eh?” the expression on his face suggests he’s almost proud of them.

this is surreal.

“didn’t you crash a yacht or something?” she asks, brain whirring into overdrive as she tries to process what’s happening. he doesn’t seem to have realized it yet, which gives her a moment to gather her thoughts, something that feels impossible when she can’t push the way he’d scoffed very funny out of her mind.

“or something. insurance paid out a couple million in property damage, but...” raleigh trails off, brow suddenly furrowing. he stares at her silently for a beat too long, then slowly turns a dull red. “hey, what’d you say earlier, again?”

cadence wets her dry lips, trying not to panic. stay calm, she silently coaches herself. raleigh carrera is not your long-awaited soulmate and you are not doing this in line to audition for one in a million. “i said -- what’s your name? and then you said...”

oh god, this is happening. her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she fidgets with the neckline of her top, tugging it to the side so raleigh can see the two words on her collarbone.

“very funny,” he mutters, “oh, jesus fucking christ. you can’t be serious.”

“me?” she demands, “you’re the one who --”

“next up,” calls a voice suddenly, cutting sharply through their argument, “contestant #9,276.”

her blood runs cold as she realizes that’s the number she’s wearing pinned to her shirt. she can feel herself start to sweat; how the fuck is she supposed to perform like this? she wants to throw up. why did this have to happen to her now? this was her shot -- her one fucking chance --

“hey, easy.” there’s suddenly two strong hands on either side of her shoulders, and she startles as raleigh stares at her from up close, closer than he was just a moment ago. “relax, okay? you’re gonna be fine. you’ve got this.”

“but --” she starts, then realizes her mind is racing too quickly to even articulate what she wants to say. she settles for shaking her head, eyes wide and panicked. “i can’t just -- oh my god, i’m going to throw up.”

“here,” raleigh directs, “take my guitar. prince gave it to me as a birthday present.”

prince?! she mouths hysterically to herself, as he flips the latch on his case open and pulls out the instrument. “how is this supposed to help me?”

“just trust me,” he says, giving her a gentle nudge towards the auditorium, “now go.”

she does, stumbling forward with the most expensive piece of equipment she’s ever held in her hands in her life alongside her, drawing in a deep breath as she makes her way onto the stage.

she can do this.

everything else will have to come after.

vii.

the thing is -- she’s talented. exceptionally so.

he can tell she’s a little nervous, but maybe that’s just because he’s used to looking out for that sort of thing; he could probably recognize it more easily than the average person would. it probably has nothing to do with who they are, how he notices the nuances in her body language...

her belt is impressive. her voice is stunning, clear and uniquely melodic. his guitar looks spectacular in her hands, and cadence plays it like she’s been practicing on it her entire life.

he tries his best to look nonchalant, feet kicked up onto the seat in front of him, but when she locks eyes with him from the stage he knows he hasn’t succeeded. raleigh’s breath catches, and he stares back at her, transfixed by the way her dainty hands cradle the neck of the guitar and strum the strings, how her lips purse around the long, emotional high note at the end of the song’s chorus.

she’s really very pretty.

he’d probably be lying to himself if he said it doesn’t make him a little bit jealous and uncomfortable, watching how she and avery fawn over each other when she’s finished. he’s probably a much better suited match for her, clean cut and pristine as he is.

he wonders if she’s disappointed that it’s him -- that it’s now, when she’s clearly on the cusp of something great all on her own.

it’s a lot to think about, and so he dips out of the auditorium before she finishes up, rushing outside with his heart pounding. it’s not until he’s halfway through the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket that raleigh starts to relax even an iota, and of course that’s when the stage door he’d left propped swings open wide and cadence’s sneakers hit the asphalt beside his boots.

“uh, you can’t just leave me with this thing,” she says, apropos of nothing, and as he stares at her he realizes she’s talking about his guitar, which she’s holding in one hand like it’s a dead fish. “this costs more than everything in my apartment combined, i’m sure.”

he shakes his head at her, laughing as his fingers flick ash from the cigarette he’s holding. “no way -- you should keep it. you two looked perfect together.”

she hesitates, looking down at the instrument again. he can see in her eyes that she’s torn; it’s obvious she knows the right thing to do is to refuse a generous gift from a stranger, but she wants to keep it, and already his mind is racing as he considers what else he could give her that would excite her like that -- a private flight, a tour of his penthouse, a million dollars.

“are you sure?” cadence asks, without looking at him, and the hesitancy in her voice makes him realize how unsure she really is. she’s the one who’s wondering if he’s disappointed in her.

he licks his suddenly dry lips and drops what’s left of his cigarette to the ground, finding he doesn’t actually need the rest of it, anymore. “positive.”

viii.

they don’t actually get to spend a lot of time together, while she’s filming. she has to focus and it seems like she’s always busy, somehow -- not that she sees raleigh very often in the first place.

the days are spent rehearsing with avery and cramming in as much mentoring as possible, and when she can pull herself away from fiona’s lessons on image to get home at a reasonable hour she collapses into bed pretty much immediately, out like a light from the whirlwind of the day and hardly even aware enough to dream.

but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about him. she does, especially on the rare occasions she manages to catch a glimpse of raleigh walking around in the studio, or on one memorable evening she stays late in the auditorium to bang on the piano keys of the beautiful, enviable baby grand on set and startles to find him leaning in the doorway, watching her play.

it’s all a blur and wildly difficult to process; just when she thinks she has a grip on things she remembers the private moments she’s had with raleigh and her emotions tumble to pieces again as she lets the weight of the implications of what’s going on between them crush her completely.

one moment sticks out on her as being particularly worrisome, insofar as how it bodes for the rest of her life.

it feels like something significant from the moment raleigh offers to help her warm up; they’ve hardly had a moment alone together in days and she still has absolutely no idea how she’s supposed to talk to him or what she should say, but for some reason the conversation flows easily and she hardly has to think about the (no doubt incredibly stupid-sounding) words coming out of her mouth.

“you’re going to kill it,” raleigh says finally, once they’ve worked through all the exercises in his arsenal, “you really don’t need my help.”

never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine someone like him would say something like that to her. “you think?”

“i know it,” he answers confidently, shrugging his shoulders like it’s that simple. “and you should, too.”

there’s a moment of silence where they just stand there staring at each other, ignoring the restless murmuring of the crowd outside that’s waiting for him to slip into his seat at the judge’s table. she’s effortlessly lost in raleigh’s eyes, so fixated on the intensity of his gaze that she doesn’t realize he’s leaning in closer until it’s too late.

“insurance policy,” he mutters, before he kisses her, hands cupping her face gently.

for a split second, she stands frozen, shocked totally still. then, her brain reboots enough to propel her into motion, and cadence gets with the program enough to wind her arms around raleigh’s waist and pull him closer and kiss him back, until her heart’s lurched up into the throat she’d just been warming up, pounding relentlessly.

they make out until the roar of the crowd is deafening -- until it’s impossible not to acknowledge it any longer.

of course raleigh’s a life-ruiningly good kisser. why wouldn’t he be? why should any of this be easy?

it’s only a few simple touches, but raleigh’s mouth leaves her dizzy and lightheaded when she’s supposed to be concentrating on performing, and, independently of the way she’s blinking at him in stupid shock, cadence already knows she’ll never be able to kiss anyone else ever again without thinking about him.

“i have to get out there,” she gasps between desperate presses of their lips against each other, grasping ineffectively at his clothes while his fingers tug her hair out of shape.

“be late,” he suggests, “it always works for me.”

but she’s not him. she’s not like him -- they have nothing in common. they come from different worlds; they’re two completely opposite people.

and yet every minute with raleigh is like coming up for air after being underwater for years, like the knots of guilt and shame and awkward embarrassment she’s carried around for her entire life without understanding why she has them are slowly starting to undo themselves, unlaced by his careful fingers.

they make it out there. eventually.

before she knows it, confetti’s raining down from the ceiling and falling all over her, and she locks eyes with raleigh from across the room to find his lips pulled into a genuinely affectionate grin -- lips that she’d just kissed for the first time a fucking hour ago and, seriously, what is her life now -- his eyes bright and excited.

things just keep getting weirder and weirder, but the way they’re beaming at each other like idiots in a room full of thousands, broadcast on national television, too, makes her think things might be pretty great, too.

ix.

it sort of takes them a long time to getting around to talking about it -- the soulmate thing.

it’s not that he doesn’t try. he does, but she’s got a lot going on, these days: a big move and a new record deal and days filled with songwriting and nights out being seen. he’s still on his image cleanup tour, while she’s at it, so his fake smile stays fixed on his face throughout another boring week of restaurant openings and charity events and talkshow appearances before he finally gets the chance to spend some time with her again.

they text here and there, but nothing pans out until the stars align and they manage to slip out of the back door of a nightclub unnoticed together after a night of dancing too close for the comfort of her publicist while avery and the others cause a commotion at the front entrance to distract the press.

she goes back to his penthouse with him. he can’t remember the last time he brought a girl back to his apartment just to talk, and especially not one who spent the better part of the evening in a sparkly minidress grinding against him.

but here they are.

“so -- how’s the city treating you?” raleigh asks, pouring them both a drink he doesn’t want from the bar cart in the corner of the room for something to do with his hands.

cadence shrugs from where she’s perched on the edge of his sofa, tugging at the hem of her dress. “good, i guess. it’s honestly all kind of overwhelming.”

“yeah,” he nods, passing her one of the glasses in his hands and taking a seat on the ottoman in front of her, close enough to see her face in perfect clarity but still maintaining a distance that he hopes is respectful. “i know what you mean. when i first came here after joining sunset skatepark everything felt so... huge.”

“totally,” cadence answers quickly, nodding in a way that’s almost aggressive. “i mean, there’s so much pressure to deliver an album right away, but i want it to be perfect, and the studio is so different from, like, writing songs in my room at home, and i... i guess i feel kind of homesick, but -- not for my hometown. i hated that place.” there’s hesitancy in her gaze when she asks, “do you know what i mean?”

“yeah,” raleigh says again stupidly, because the truth is -- he knows exactly what she means. cadence has just articulated something he could never quite put into words better than he’d even thought the sentiments to himself. “it’s like... nostalgia for something you don’t even want.”

“exactly,” she breathes emphatically, and then they’re kissing again, and she’s in his lap on the ottoman and he definitely brought her here to talk, for sure, but is it really so terrible if they get a little sidetracked on the way to their destination?

well -- they wind up making out for hours. so, there’s that.

it’s not part of the plan but it’s a hell of a side quest, memorizing the shape and feel of her with his hands while her lips pull every last bit of breath from his lungs, until he’s lightheaded and dizzy in a way no other girl has ever made him, before. it’s to the point where when he finally finds it within himself to push her away, he’s uncharacteristically nervous -- something that’s never happened to him before, not even on the night he lost his virginity.

“i really did ask you over to talk,” he says, voice hoarse.

cadence licks her lips and then beams at him, eyes sparkling. “i know.” she shuffles delicately back onto the couch, lingering in his lap for only a moment before pulling away entirely. he stuffs his hands under his thighs to stop himself from reaching out for her again. “sorry i haven’t been around more.”

“you don’t have to apologize.” raleigh shakes his head. “i should be apologizing to you, i feel like... i should be the one who’s around, to help you with all of this. or at least -- i want to be. i don’t know if i’ll be any good at it.”

he blinks, surprised by his own honesty. he hadn’t meant to say all of that, but the words came up before he was cognizant of them and now they’re out there, and there’s no taking them back -- especially with the way she’s looking at him, all soft and sweet and happy.

“well, you don’t have to be good at it,” cadence murmurs, reaching out for his wrists and tugging his hands free so she can interlock their fingers effortlessly. they fit together like puzzle pieces. “you just have to be you.”

her budding relationship with one of the biggest names in r&b doesn’t have much time to bud at all before it’s rudely plucked from the plant and stepped on.

she finds herself blinking at fiona in confusion as the words take some time to process. “you want me to do what?”

xi.

raleigh balks at his manager, shaking his head emphatically. “no,” he spits out, “absolutely not.”

xii.

“cadence, it’s not a big deal,” fiona tells her, very nearly rolling her eyes. “everyone does it. you go on a few dates, play up the relationship for some photos, social media eats it up -- boom, you’re a star.”

“i don’t know,” she answers hesitantly, mind drifting back to the photographers that have already been following her around, screaming about avery when she ducks into the car with him. things with raleigh are... new, and complicated, and do they really need to add public scrutiny into the mix as well? “i just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“it’s a great idea,” fiona sighs, shaking her head. “all our focus groups agree. the label thinks it’s best, what with your single taking so long to put out.” she opens her mouth to protest -- it’s not like she’s dragging her feet on purpose -- but barely has a second to get a word out before fiona continues, “besides, raleigh does this all the time.”

her teeth bite at her bottom lip uncertainly. “he does?”

“of course. chantal clearwater? she was a pictagram model when they met, and now she’s opening shows at paris fashion week. it’s just business.”

it’s not, though. it could never be just anything, for reasons no one else knows about except the two of them, for reasons she’ll never tell. “well... what did raleigh say about it?”

xiii.

“i said no, frank.” he’s annoyed, now, and his manager knows it, raleigh’s arms folded across his chest and his eyes set into a glare. “n. o. no.”

“and i hear you, but is it really the end of the world? she’s exactly what we’re going for, and i know you already get along --”

“which is exactly why i don’t want to do this. so pick someone else. anyone else.” he’s not going to let his label turn her into one of the girls he has to be seen with for fake photos and mutually beneficial positive press.

for so many years, he’s watched people fake feelings and use each other -- willingly participated in the using himself, too, more times than he can count. he never cared about any of it before.

but being with cadence doesn’t feel fake, and he doesn’t ever want it to. and he knows that if he agrees to this, everything he enjoys about spending time with her will disappear in favor of the ugly, plastic decay that’s eaten away at so many of his personal and professional relationships before. organic, genuine time with her will become strolls near celebrity hotspots, angling just right to help the cameras get the perfect shot. he’ll show up to support her at shows because her publicist called him, and their time together will become some manufactured narrative meant to push their labels’ agenda, until six months down the line they don’t even recognize themselves or what might’ve been if they’d done things a different way.

“look, there isn’t anyone else. her team’s already agreed to it, and i’ve got brunch set up for sunday. all you have to do is play nice for two fucking months, raleigh. is that so impossible for you?”

yes. already he feels a deep-seated desire to go somewhere and break something, to tear through the flower beds in central park with his motorcycle and wink at the cameras when they catch up to him.

instead, he storms out of the office he’s in, and into the sunlight, tugging the hood on his jacket up and melting into the crowd on the corner so he can be as anonymous as possible when he picks up his phone and calls cadence.

“hey raleigh,” she chirps as soon as she picks up, sounding far too cheerful for someone who’s likely had an equally as miserable early morning meeting on a friday. “guessing you heard the news?”

“can’t i just call you to say hi?” he grumbles, ducking his head as he strolls through the intersection with the mob of people crowded along fifth ave, turning down the next side street so he’s alone again, with no one following, just like that.

“well, you can,” she teases, and some of the anger he’s carrying around with him fades, dissipating into nothing and evaporating like smoke. “but you’re not.”

“no, i’m not,” he agrees with a sigh, shaking his head. “you sound surprisingly cool with it, though.”

“should i not be?” cadence laughs, but he can detect a thread of nervousness in her tone. “i already want to hang out with you. we have the same friends and work in the same industry. we’re... probably going to go on dates anyway, so... how hard can this be?”

god. she has absolutely no idea. part of him thinks it’d be cruel to burst her bubble, but he should warn her, shouldn’t he?

she sounds so optimistic about it, though. it’s hard to feel anything but hopeful when her voice turns up like that at the end. in the back of his mind, there’s a voice that’s not his suggesting maybe this time, things will be different.

surely he knows better than to think something as ridiculous as that, though, right?

“well, i guess it’ll be interesting, at least,” he muses, slowing his steps by the entrance to the subway.

he’s going to lose his signal just as soon as he heads underground, and he’s not quite ready for that, yet.

xiv.

time with raleigh flies by.

it doesn’t feel like they’re fake-dating -- they do everything she hopes he’d want to do with her anyway, like go out to eat at fancy restaurants and take walks through the park and bounce melodies for songs off of each other, facetiming late at night from their apartments or on the days he visits her and micah in the studio.

he’s by her side for the release of her first single, and her first music video, and through it all, raleigh plays the role of the doting partner perfectly, holding her purse on the red carpet and feeding her paella at a strategically-placed outdoor table and fetching her coffee order when she’s too busy to stop writing for even just five minutes.

in the blink of an eye, it’s time to put out her album -- just like that.

raleigh’s perfectly charming through that process, too. he shows up on time, says all the right things, and keeps a drink in her hand all evening long, so that when she’s finally done making the rounds and can enjoy herself after the entertainment and the networking and the schmoozing she’s giggly and touchy, doing her best to steal him away from the crowd.

“what were your other relationships like?” she asks, half expecting him to brush her off, though he’s always indulged her before. they’ve never really gotten this personal. “fake or... otherwise.”

“they’ve all been fake,” he shrugs, “and i can say with confidence that you’re the best one i’ve ever had.”

“really?” cadence smiles, chin propped up on her hand as she leans over the bar. “be honest. what did you really think, when you realized it was me?”

“what?” he asks, pushing the empty rocks glass in his hands around on the bar top, “you mean this thing?” he gestures at his arm, covered in expensive, custom tom ford, and the tattoo laying innocently beneath it.

“uh huh,” she confirms, “‘cause i was totally like oh shit.”

raleigh laughs, loud and wild, the sound swallowed up by the noise of the party around them. no one nearby is paying them even an ounce of attention, and it’s fun, to be anonymous at her own party, invisible to everyone in the room except for him. “i can imagine. i wouldn’t want to be stuck with me either.”

cadence shakes her head -- that’s not what she’d meant. but before she can protest, he rolls his glass between his palms and thoughtfully continues, “i guess i was a little surprised. it felt like i’d been waiting forever to meet you, so part of me was like, fuck, we’re doing this now? and i never thought it’d be someone so...”

“boring?” she suggests, eyebrows arching when raleigh’s expression immediately twists into one of disagreement, his nose scrunching up with distaste.

“no,” he huffs, “so... good, i guess.” she stares at him as he reaches for one of the waiting tequila shots on the bar, pulling it away from the line he’d set up for the crowd he’d been with before she’d tugged him to the side to talk, leaving the drinks untouched. raleigh knocks the shot back -- no salt, no lime. he’s had twice as many drinks as she has, and she’s definitely feeling them -- she has no idea how he’s even still upright, no worse for wear other than a few slurred words here and there. “but you just are. it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you, and i just didn’t know it yet.”

the noise of the party fades in favor of the pounding of her heart, loud like a kick drum in her ears. she bites her lip and stares at him, watching as raleigh shakes his head at himself, dazed. “you okay?” she asks quietly, leaning in a little across the bar.

raleigh’s quiet for so long she has to wonder whether or not he actually heard her. just as she clears her throat and opens her mouth to repeat herself even louder, he nods, reaching across the bar and squeezing her hand before dragging her back over to the line of tequila shots waiting for them to enjoy.

the night is a blur after that, and there’s patches of the evening that are fuzzy in her memory the next morning, but she knows she’ll never forget the gentle kiss goodnight raleigh gives her when he helps her stumble into the car back to her apartment at dawn.

xv.

things go really well, until they don’t.

they have a blissful six months together with more fun than he’s ever had with anyone. slowly, he learns every single thing about cadence and returns her openness with honesty of his own -- honesty that feels strange and unfamiliar but weirdly thrilling, in a way, made easier every time one of his stories pulls a laugh or smile from her.

it seems unnatural, having a honeymoon period that goes on for so long. in the entire time they’re dating, he doesn’t destroy a single thing -- doesn’t even want to, which is the weirdest part of it all.

there are some moments that catch him completely off guard. more than a few times, he hardly even recognizes himself, she turns him into such a different person.

he doesn’t hate it, though -- just the opposite, in fact. raleigh realizes he’s really starting to like the carefree, far from jaded person he is when he’s with her, though it only hits him for real when he’s watching her storm away from him on liberty island, eyes fixed on the angry sway of her hips.

he stews on it on the long ride back to his penthouse; the game had, admittedly, been starting to wear on him. but he’d gone along with it because it was supposed to benefit her -- he’d agreed to the stupid public breakup and following the rules and not seeing cadence in public for the foreseeable future because it was what she wanted, and -- frankly, it felt like a stupid fucking decision.

not that it lasts long. he starts texting her just as soon as he’s done washing electralite out of his hair and doesn’t make it more than twenty minutes when they first see each other again at the moda gala before he’s sneaking off with her, ducking under the velvet rope that demarcates the planetarium as ‘off limits’ with her hand tucked neatly in his.

“maybe this is better,” cadence muses between sips of her drink, her eyes on one of the stupid glass exhibits he couldn’t possibly care less about. “now we can just be together -- no pressure. our relationship is ours again.”

their relationship. is that what this is? they’ve spent a lot of time talking about who they are and what they like and don’t like, kissing and touching and holding hands. throughout it all, he’s done his best not to buy into the ‘soulmate’ bullshit too heavily, but over the last few months it’s been hard to deny that there’s a reason he was meant to meet her, that she’s been changing him from the inside out.

“what’s on your mind?” she asks, turning towards him with an open look of genuine curiosity on her face, like she really wants to know.

“it’s nothing,” raleigh answers at first, reflexively, like he has so many times before. no one has ever really wanted to know. but cadence’s eyebrows arch, and she waits, patiently silent, and then the words tumble out of him. “it’s just that -- my whole life, i’ve watched other people use each other. so many people are just interested in the concept of celebrity status. so i played the game. never trusting anyone.”

he shrugs. a hand lifts to rub his jaw, and he looks back to meet her gaze just in time to see the little smile playing at her lips, like she already knows what he’s about to say. “but it’s different, with you. you make me not want to be that person anymore. when i’m with you, it’s the only time i feel anything real.”

“raleigh,” she murmurs, her expression flickering before her face does something that cracks his chest wide open. her eyes go all shiny and sparkly and her cheeks crease with a grin, and the way she laughs is so ridiculously joyful the hand he has stuffed in his pocket curls into a fist to stop him from doing something stupid. “i feel the same way. i just... this whole thing, i know it doesn’t always -- work out, but... with you i really want it to. i’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and i think...��

there’s a pause as her lips purse thoughtfully, and then she says the words that make it impossible for him to do anything but close the distance between them and kiss her over and over again: “i think even without this tattoo it’d be you, anytime, anywhere.”

xvi.

being raleigh carrera’s (real, confirmed, 100%-authentic) girlfriend feels almost too good to be true.

raleigh is... everything she never knew she wanted in a boyfriend, wrapped up into one tall, dark and handsome package, with a loud, goofy laugh and a deep, sexy voice that sends a shiver down her spine whenever his mouth so much as lingers near her ear for too long.

it turns out that, despite their differing status in the industry and her initial assumptions that they came from two completely different worlds, they’re actually on the same page about pretty much everything. she finds that the pressure of the word she’d held in such high regard for so long -- soulmate -- disappears entirely where he’s concerned because being with raleigh is just fun.

there’s motorcycle rides and boat trips and hours up late talking about everything and nothing; facetime calls with his mom and shopping trips where the stores are kept open late for them so they can shop alone, in an empty boutique, like every teen movie she’d ever watched growing up.

there’s late nights in the studio and either of their apartments where they both noodle around on their guitars and improvise half-hearted duets, content to just work in the same orbit as each other for as long as possible.

raleigh’s texting one night on the couch in her living room when she plucks out the melody to who i’ll be on her old acoustic, sitting on the floor in front of the tv.

he looks up before the first verse is over. “what’s that one? it sounds good.”

“oh -- just a song i wrote in college,” cadence hums, already downplaying it as she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “i got stuck, never finished it. ellis made me sell the progress for some other writer to finish.”

he frowns, pushing up onto his elbow. his phone is tossed carelessly somewhere among the couch cushions. “why?”

“because i was taking too long with the odyssey,” she sighs. “it was kind of my only option. it’s weird, though -- thinking about someone singing something that was so personal to me.”

“play me what you had so far,” he says, and so she does, hesitating for only a second before strumming the chords, singing the lines she had slowly.

when she’s done, she looks up to find that raleigh’s slid to the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees as he leans in as close as he can get with the coffee table in his way. “okay -- that was beautiful. you should finish it.”

she shakes her head, setting her guitar down. “i can’t. they already sold it. and even if i wanted to... i don’t know how it ends.”

raleigh’s legs spread in invitation and she stands to walk around to the couch, slipping into his lap and leaning back against his chest. his hands are tender as he rubs them across her shoulders, sliding up her back before one lifts to brush a lock of hair back behind her ear, his pointer finger pushing her glasses up her nose affectionately. “maybe one day you can write something else with the same theme,” he suggests, and she tries her best to smile even though it feels like a dream lost, somehow -- a ridiculous thought, given that she pretty much has everything she ever wanted, but the way she feels all the same.

“maybe,” she sighs, the kiss he drops to her forehead a bandaid on a wound that’s been doing its best to heal for what feels like her entire life.

xvii.

he’s never brought a date to the vinyls before.

there’s been plenty of after parties he’s stumbled out of with a girl on his arm, sure, but cadence is the first person to sit by his side during the ceremony, and he’s surprised by how much he likes having her next to him.

then again, he’s self aware enough to realize he’d like being pretty much anywhere, with her.

still -- the awards are a lot less boring with her around to kiss and stroke his hair and make snide commentary about the rest of the attendees with, and when she squeezes his hand goodbye to rush backstage and get ready for her performance he misses her instantly.

what happens next makes him endlessly regretful of the fact that he’s not backstage with her.

he rushes around just as soon as he can, pushing his way through security and frantically scrambling technical assistants to find her exactly where he thought he might, between ellis knight and fiona, looking lost with her head in her hands.

she seems equal parts broken and pissed in a way that tugs at his heartstrings and makes him a little bit proud. raleigh shoves through the crowd to get to her and slips an arm around her waist. he’s only caught the tail end of the conversation they’re all having, but he knows enough to know that “you can’t bench her. that’s bull.”

ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter how much they stomp their feet. she’s under contract, their hands are tied, and he walks away seething at the unfairness of it all, this shitty industry that’s turned on her when all she ever wanted to do was make music.

she cries in the car back to her apartment to pack her things. there’s no way he’s letting her go home to iowa or idaho or indiana without him, and he barks at his team over the phone until they agree to move his appearances around so he can make that happen, his free hand clasped tightly in hers until he physically has to let her go so she can unlock her front door with trembling fingers.

cadence tosses clothes haphazardly onto the bed and he silently and precisely moves to folds each piece for her, until she gives up and sinks down onto the edge of the mattress, defeated.

wide eyes filled with tears lock onto his, and he watches her bottom lip wobble before she says, “you really don’t have to do this. come with me, i mean. i know i messed up, and -- you have so much else going on. i don’t expect you to --”

“i’m coming,” he states firmly, setting the sweatpants in his hand down and stepping closer to her, sitting beside cadence on her bed. “what happened tonight was fucked up, cadence -- it shouldn’t have happened at all. i’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

“but --”

“but nothing,” he says, and before the words have even left his mouth she’s falling into his arms with a soft sound of gratitude, mashing her face into his chest as she sniffles.

“thank you,” cadence mumbles, sounding so unsure of herself it makes him wonder if she’s ever had anyone show up for her when it mattered most before, or if that’s yet another thing they unfortunately have in common.

xviii.

raleigh tries his best to cheer her up, but it’s still hard, feeling like she’s let the entire world down. her fans. herself.

there’s something embarrassing about showing raleigh her apartment back home and the person she was before she met him -- all the places she felt most uncertain and where she experienced some her worst self-doubt, the room that still has the smoothie star apron hung up in the closet.

but there’s also something exciting, about being totally off the grid with him. no one knows they’re here and there’s no paparazzi waiting to snap photos of them -- especially given the fact that they don’t leave her building for the first three days she spends moping around while raleigh orders all the takeout he can get his hands on.

it sort of reminds her of when they first met, and there was nothing to do but learn about each other, though now there’s a familiarity to him she relies on, a unique raleigh-ness that feels more like home than this shitty apartment ever did.

still, she struggles, and the weight of the world doesn’t let up until zadie shows up with her fanmail and avery does his best to make her smile with a beach trip and some fancy new toys and a day in the sun with a drink in her hand.

eventually it’s just her and raleigh again, out by the fire after everyone else has gone to bed. her stomach is full of s’mores and her cheeks hurt from smiling for the first time in weeks, and it’s a shock when she realizes she feels content, even after everything that’s happened -- almost as though things will all work out for the better no matter what happens next.

“oh my god,” she gasps suddenly, cutting off what raleigh had been saying as her eyes light up and she hastens to stand. “i’ve gotta -- i need to -- oh my god.”

just like that, she knows how her song ends.

recording it is a process, but raleigh calls in some favors and gets them studio time and agrees to be featured on the song even though she knows he’s still working through a sound change that he feels unsure about.

but it means a lot to her, having him crammed in the booth at her side, singing into the same mic. they sound almost unbelievably good together, too, raleigh’s harmonies on the words that finally resolve that lost feeling she’s been harboring her entire life making something deep within her wriggle up happily, wagging its proverbial tail.

the fact that raleigh remains by her side throughout the entire fight with her label, the long nights of despair agonizing over what her next move is going to be and even the moment where they decide to break into indio, of all places, means more to her than she can ever say. she feels markedly less nervous about the entire thing every time she turns her head to the side and sees him, right there next to her -- right where he’s been this entire time -- smiling encouragingly and squeezing her hand hard in his.

though it’s not until they’re up at the top of the ferris wheel that she realizes how precious what she has really is. it’s not until he looks her dead in the eye and says, with that same soft earnestness he’s awarded her since they first met at the one in a million auditions that feel quite literally like a hundred years ago, “cadence, everything you want is on the other side of fear. and i want you to have everything you want,” that she truly understands that’s what between them is special and rare.

not because of any tattoos, or any preconceived destiny. not because of who they are and their status and the fact that people take pictures of them when they’re out in public together.

but because of this -- all these real moments of genuine connection they’ve been fortunate enough to share since fate threw them into each other’s paths.

“raleigh, i love you.” the words are said easily, not a moment’s hesitation behind them.

just before she crosses over in the cart to kiss him until they’re both breathless, raleigh gifts her the brightest smile he has and says, “i love you, too.”

xix.

the night is a blur from the moment he first takes the stage with his old bandmates to when he finally finds himself alone with cadence in a rundown old motel a few miles out from the festival in the desert.

he can’t recall ever being so happy, so of course he doesn’t remember every agonizing detail of the evening, though he does know he doesn’t feel the need to have a single beer with cadence around, twirling barefoot in the grass and giggling when she leads him up to the room they’ve borrowed.

afterwards, when they’re sitting on the roof together in the blanket they dragged off the bed, he reflects on the wild year they’ve had with her in his arms, fingertips tracing the delicate very funny scrawled across cadence’s collarbone.

he feels... free. completely liberated. like there’s absolutely nothing and no one that can get to him, now, like he’s untouchable, like he doesn’t care about a single thing that happens after today and how perfect things have been.

“i think i’m actually freer than i’ve ever been,” he muses, where his lips are pressed into her hair, “i can take my sound in any direction i want.”

“i’m so happy for you, raleigh,” cadence returns genuinely, tilting her head back so he can see her upside-down smile.

his arms tighten around her. “i’m so excited for what you’re gonna be doing, too. i’m excited for us.”

“yeah,” she sighs, “who knows what’s next, right? now that ellis let me out of my deal...”

he can hear the thread of worry undercutting the words. he shakes his head, hands rubbing up and down her arms. “you can worry about that tomorrow. for tonight, just enjoy the comeback. what you did out there was amazing.”

“what we did,” she corrects, and he blinks up the stars as he realizes she’s right -- they’re a we now. he’s part of a we again, after being on his own for so long.

the phrases bounce around in his head, unfamiliar and foreign. me and my girlfriend, he thinks to himself, cadence and i. we’re going to be late. we’ll be away that weekend. we just started watching that show. we, we, we.

“what we did was amazing,” raleigh amends, the words slow to come out but feeling right all the same. “whatever we do next will be amazing.”

“absolutely,” cadence confirms, with conviction, like it’s something she believes wholeheartedly.

and though he has no idea what to expect or what it might be, a large part of him is inclined to agree with her -- she’s been right about everything else so far.

xx.

one year later, she’s finishing a set in berlin, the last stop on a sprawling european tour that had taken she, avery, micah and raleigh across the continent for dozens of performances to sold-out crowds of thousands screaming her lyrics back to her.

if her contract with overknight had been a dream come true, signing to wilshere records is heaven incarnate. cadence’s trip through the u.k. with her new label is proof enough, and the chance to meet new fans with new stories to share that she could connect with is one she’s taken to with enthusiasm, the experience made all the sweeter by the fact that her favorite people get to be by her side throughout it all.

berlin’s crowd is one of the best, and she fully expects to end the tour on a high note, head banging to the last few notes of ‘knockout’ before raleigh’s planned entrance for the last song of the night, so they can sing the duet that’s closed out every show they’ve had on the tour together.

when he struts out with his guitar, waving and grinning at the crowd, she can’t stop herself from smiling stupidly at him, just like she does every time she sees him join her on stage, every time she realizes that this is their life, that this is something they do every night, now.

though her grin falters when raleigh pauses in front of his microphone and asks, “berlin, do you mind if i talk a little bit before i start the song? no? cool, because i’ve got an important question to ask.”

her eyes widen. cadence’s mouth drops open and doesn’t close throughout the entire speech raleigh gives her, even though thousands of people in the crowd are filming every moment of her gaping like an idiot, snapping close-ups of her shocked face.

the arena practically vibrates with screams when he drops to his knee, popping the box in his hand open so she can see the giant diamond ring nestled inside of it.

“so?” raleigh asks, and cadence can just barely hear him in her in-ears with the way her heart is beating frantically up into her throat, as wild as the crowd’s raging around them and then some. “whaddya say, babe? will you marry me?”

as if the answer could ever be anything but yes. she nods, laughing as she launches herself into his arm for a kiss that’s too grand to be given on stage, though that’s hardly going to stop her -- not tonight, at least. tonight, she’s okay with the whole world watching their every move, just one more time.

“oh, i don’t know if it’s going to fit,” raleigh jokes as the ring slides easily onto her left hand, amping up the theatrics for the fans still watching them avidly, even up in the cheap seats.

cadence rolls her eyes playfully at him. “very funny,” she praises, and the grin he offers her in return is so loving -- so knowing, with the secret that only the two of them share and every weird piece of their history included in it -- that it takes everything she has to shove him away so they can perform instead of dragging him down to the floor to kiss him over and over again.

clumsily, she flubs a few notes of love who i’ll be on her guitar. from across the stage, between the bridge and the chorus, raleigh jeers, “someone hasn’t learned to play with the extra weight on their left hand, yet, i see,” and when she flips him off while belting out the last lines of the verse, his raucous laughter is all the harmony the final few bars of the song needs.

#platinumweekend #platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #cadence dorian #raleigh x mc #raleigh x cadence #myfic #long post #well. this sure took me a long time DFJGHDFJHGDFJKGH so i hope you guys like it !! it was kind of a new style for me 😳

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