#ive waited for this day since i was five years old

[marleemutt]

TLDR: im a black trans artist who can use some help right now following the sudden passing of my only sister - her doberman is now the responsibility of my parents and we can use help for his food, supplements, toys etc.

Kofi (help me send Chewy orders to my parent's house)

Wishlist (literally send him things like toys, treats, etc.)

⬇️ more info ⬇️

hey guys

some of you might be aware of this already, but early October, my eldest sibling & only sister suddenly passed away due to a seizure, she had been dealing with epilepsy her whole life.

this has been incredibly difficult for me, and my family. her passing was incredibly sudden, she was only 30.

for the past month or so ive been struggling to find any motivation to draw, and barely able to work.

she was the incredibly devoted owner of a doberman named Remi(Ramsey). Me and my sister traveled 4 hours to pick him up three years ago. He's a goofball who tears up socks and needs constant supervision. My parents love him, but I can tell he is a lot of work for two people who have fulltime jobs and have lived long lives.

I'm going to try to help them take care of him as much as possible, I feel that it's the least we can do to honor my sister's memory, since she loved him so deeply.

My sister always wanted a doberman, for years she would watch videos about dobermans and talk about them to anyone who would listen.

Remi wasn't easy to raise - I shared a room with my sister when she got him in 2020, she still worked a 9-5, five days a week, so I was his nanny for most of his difficult childhood. I was his chew toy for the first year of his life about - but that only made him bond closer to me. If he wasn't following my sister, I was choice #2. Dobermans are "velcro dogs", they were bred to guard their owners, and because of this, they are fiercely loyal. I've been moved out of my parent's place for going on 3 years, and my sister had just moved with Remi out a few months prior to her passing.

A week before my sister's sudden passing, we had to board Remi at my dog daycare job while my family and I took a trip out of state. When dropping him off, although he was happy to see me again for the first time in months, the moment my sister turned her back to him he began to panic. He got through the boarding all right but my coworkers told me he would cry and wait by the door for me or her. When my sister picked him up, they said he jumped all 80+lbs into her arms.

Since my sister's passing, Remi has been directionless. He's with my family, people he trusts, but he's bored, confused, and heartbroken. My sister would often take him to the dog park, social events, on runs, etc. but my parent's can't do that in their age. If my apartment allowed large dogs, I would take him, but I can't, and I see him maybe twice a month if possible.

Ramsey's Christmas List

I made a christmas list for him of things that might help my parents better take care of him. We're trying different food brands out because he struggles with frequent stomach issues, and we can't seem to figure out what food my sister was feeding him. This list is by no means a necessity for him, but I tried to add things to help with his boredom and keep him stimulated when my parents can't give him all their attention.

i do want to state that my family is capable of providing him with the essentials to live, we arent irresponsible. i would just like to help my parents out since a 3 year old 80-90lb doberman is a lot of work to be suddenly placed on them soley. And I worry for his health and well-being sometimes - Remi has a tendency to eat/tear random objects when he's bored.

please consider donating whatever you can. Everything goes directly to him.

thank you for taking the time to read this, and possibly reblog if possible. ❤️

[thedovesaredying]

Monsters in the Dark | Nikto x Reader | Cowboy AU

Prologue

Introduction to my fic set within the cowboy AU created by @ghouljams for our dear boy Nikto. This is just a quick starter piece to set the scene for the fic so to say. Also decided to include Sputnik since I don't see many fics including the precious baby!

A/N: Obligatory note that I do not condone the owning of dangerous or wild exotic animals as pets regardless of a country or state's laws. Exotic animals require a large amount of knowledge in their husbandry and specific requirements to ensure the highest standard of welfare is maintained. They should never be treated like domestic animals, they do not make good pets.

Warnings: Discussion of Serious Injury, Limb Amputation.

Masterlist: CoD Masterlist

Next Part

Nikto had been waiting for death to greet him throughout the entirety of his career. It was simply an inevitable fact of life both in the military and working as a mercenary for hire. People died constantly at his sides, and it quickly became a question of “when” and not “if” the final string would be cut and his body would fail him for the last time. 

There were days when he almost wished for the reaper to claim whatever remained of his empty heart. Torture was tolerable, an old friend at this point, but the months and years of recovery afterwards were what really felt like suffering.  

Alive, and yet completely useless. A fractured mind trapped within an equally ruined body.  

The only thing he could look forward to was getting back to work once his body was finally strong enough to pass medical approval. Tedious as the waiting game could be, he wasn’t stupid enough to push himself beyond his limits like some honour-hungry rookie. No, he waited and saved his strength for when it would one day be needed, for the days when nothing but sheer willpower can save his pitiful soul.  

And yet despite his many brushes with death, he had still yet to be taken by it, even when by all rights he should have been. Death yet remained a stranger.  

But why? Was his mind too corrupt and darkened for even the devil to want to touch? He had never believed in any God, but surely there was one looking down on him and mocking his pathetic existence. How else could he have survived an injury that should have killed him?  

He could remember little of the mission, only the sounds of people shouting orders, the potent scent of smoke and chemicals in the air, and pain. Certainly not the worst pain he’d experienced in his life, a blade to the gut still had the honour of that, but close to it. He was fortunate that the concussion he’d received had left him drifting in and out of unconsciousness for most of the trip back to base.  

His arm was fucked. According to the doctor and the reports from various other operators present on the mission, his elbow was bent in a way it definitely shouldn’t have been, and there was enough shrapnel in the remaining flesh that he might as well have lopped the whole thing off entirely.  

Which is exactly what the doctors ended up doing.  

It was their last resort, but with the complete lack of feeling in the limb coupled with an infection that just couldn’t be stamped out no matter how many antibiotics they pumped into his IV, it was necessary. They tried as hard as possible to save it, but necrosis had set in, and the safest course of action was to remove all damaged and dead tissue.  

He still wasn’t sure what would have been worse, being taken out by sepsis, or dealing with his current existence.  

And what a miserable existence it is.  

KorTac wanted to keep him on – surely, they couldn’t just let a wild beast like him roam free without a firm hand on his leash – but there was very little they could offer for him. Stay with the PMC and become a glorified guard dog? Train bratty little recruits? Sit behind a desk pushing papers nine to five? No, that would destroy what little grasp he still had on his sanity.  

That was how he ended up standing on the rundown porch of a house that could be described in a single word as dilapidated. It was cheap but came with enough land for him to not need to worry about nosy neighbours. He’s so far lacked the motivation to do anything to try and restore the building, but it has four walls and a roof, which is more than can be said for some of the “safe” houses he’s utilised over the years.  

He’d been lucky to discover the place at all with how small the town is. A passing comment from a fellow soldier about the region had caught his attention and, considering the impossibility of returning to Russia, he’d decided to look into it. America was a massive continent, and in the US he wouldn’t be questioned for owning weapons. Even better? This particular state allowed him to continue to keep Sputnik without suspicion.  

The old man who had been selling the house had been sympathetic after he’d played the whole “injured veteran” card and had even offered him a reduced price for the property. It still sickens him to think about how weak he must have looked in that moment, but needs must, and what he needed was a place to call home, even if only for a little while.  

One terrible accident and he’s reduced to begging for help like a stray dog wanting scraps.  

His irritation has the hand of his prosthetic curling gently into the fur of Sputnik’s pelt. All it can do is open and close around things to allow him some form of grip, but it works, and he supposes that’s all that matters. His girl doesn’t seem to care that it’s not a flesh and blood hand petting her, leaning into him regardless.  

She’s the centre of his current predicament and the reason he’s been forced to reach out for help. No amount of puppy dog eyes and wide grins sent his way are enough to save her from a trip to the vet. Or rather, a visit from one.  

He waits patiently as a large car rolls down the gravel road that leads to the small house from the property’s front gate. Sputnik whines as it draws closer, before beginning to laugh with nervous excitement. The moment the vehicle pulls to a stop she moves to investigate, but is quickly stopped with a barked, “МЕСТО!” command from Nikto.  

Sputnik huffs, unimpressed with not being allowed to greet their visitor, but settles for sitting at the top of the stairs while her master approaches.  

In all honesty, Nikto had been expecting a grizzled old man or woman with decades of experience under the belt when the receptionist had promised to send someone with knowledge of exotics. What he wasn’t expecting was... you.  

[dvrk-moon]

LOVE ME (NOT) - YANG JUNGWON

TEASER 1

synopsis : fake dating your enemy, yang jungwon, for the sake of getting your mutual friends to stop playing matchmaker is the worst idea you’ve ever heard in your life. however, it’s a bit more enticing when $100 is thrown in the mix.

word count : 1.8k

warnings : none for this part

featuring : ive wonyoung, bnd taesan + more in full work

genre : enemies-to-lovers, fake dating, slow burn, jungwon x fem!reader, private school au, high school au

playlist : tba

expected release date : whenever i finish this ten page essay i have

i. FOURTY-LOVE

The wind always blows when you don’t want it to.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

You were sat on a bench outside of the country club owned by your friend’s family. They were crazily wealthy, owning not only a country club but also many vacation homes and businesses. That was pretty much a given though, especially since you had met your friend at a private and prestigious academy. Everyone that attended the school was extremely well off in a sense. Most of the students had parents who were business owners, political figures, or even celebrities. To say that you were an outlier would be an understatement.

You didn’t come from wealth. In fact, you were one of the only students at your school to not come from wealth. You were offered a scholarship for your academics; last year, you had an opportunity from your old school to take a test that offered a scholarship to your current academy if you scored well. Only the top five scorers would be granted admission. You and four other students were awarded with the scholarship.

Unfortunately, that meant that you had left a completely different life behind. Your two best friends from childhood, Minji and Gyuvin, were both in support of your academic opportunity, but neither of them had passed the test, so you were left alone. A new, clean slate at a school where you knew next to no one.

Your new classmates made no effort to help you fit in. In fact, most of them ridiculed you for coming from a lower class. It was expected when mingling with snotty prep school kids, but it still hurt. The only person that hadn’t singled you out was Wonyoung.

She was easily the most popular girl there, but she still brought you under her wing. This caused the others to be slightly kinder to you, but only in her presence. 

So here you were, sat on a bench, outside of her family’s country club, swinging your legs and glancing at the tennis court in front of you. It was late March, and though the weather reports had said that it would be nice enough outside to wear a skirt, your legs were cursing you because of the wind.

Wonyoung had gone inside temporarily to go fetch the two boys that you were going to play tennis with. She’d left about two minutes ago, telling you that she just had to run down to the entrance gate and she’d be back as soon as possible.

You fidgeted with the hem of the skirt you were wearing. It wasn’t even yours; it was Wonyoung’s, and she had let you borrow it for today. You laughed at yourself, because here you were, at a country club, yet the clothes you were wearing weren’t even yours. From an outsiders perspective, you seemed rich. Everyone else could tell the truth, though.

Another breeze passed by and you stood up, walking towards the door. You weren’t sure how much longer you’d have to wait, so you figured that you may as well wait inside. 

As if on cue, Wonyoung exited the door with the two boys. You knew both of them from school. Honestly, you liked Wonyoung’s boyfriend. His name was Taesan. He was always nice to you, and never made you feel bad for being of a lower class.

The other boy, however, seemed to have a personal vendetta against you, and you had no idea why. He didn’t seem to like you from the first day you met, even though you’d been nice to him from the get-go. If you had to guess why he didn’t like you, it was probably for the same reason that none of your other peers seemed to like you: your wealth status.

Jungwon was his name, and aside from being a major jerk to you, he was extremely intelligent. Ever since you arrived at the school, you’d been one of the top ranked students. It made sense, too, as you were permitted into the school based on your academics. Jungwon was ranked second to you in most classes. You figured that could be another reason.

As soon as you met eyes with Jungwon, he rolled his own and shook his head. He was donned in the most prestigious tennis outfit you’d ever seen, which was saying a lot, given as this country club was flooded with rich and pretentious tennis players.

“Okay,” Wonyoung started, walking over to you, “now that we are all here, do you guys want to warm up?”

“Yeah,” Jungwon said, looking away from you, “let’s warm up.”

You didn’t miss how Jungwon slightly shoulder-checked you as he walked towards the tennis courts.

You entered the fenced-in courts, and another breeze blew in your direction. As a reaction, you shivered, making Wonyoung giggle as she made her way towards you.

“Sorry about the hold up,” she started, bouncing a tennis ball on the court, practicing her serving. She looked over at the other side of the court, where Jungwon and Taesan were situated. She laughed, “but those two were taking forever. They’re weird.” She offered you an apologetic smile.

“It’s fine,” you said, “I was just afraid you wouldn’t come back. I stick out like a sore thumb here.”

Wonyoung frowned, “No you don’t, Y/N. I don’t think a single person here batted an eye while I was gone.”

“You were gone,” you teased, “how would you know?”

“I know lots of things,” she commented, “I know lots and lots of things.”

You bounced the tennis ball on the court as you laughed at her words, “Whatever you say.”

After about five minutes of warming up and a dirty look exchanged with Jungwon later, Wonyoung announced, “Okay, let’s get to playing! Do we wanna do singles or doubles?”

“Let’s do doubles,” Taesan said, walking towards the net. He patted Jungwon on the back, “and Jungwon, you can be partners with Y/N. Is that okay with you guys?”

Wonyoung turned to you, “It’s fine with me as long as you’re okay with it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Taesan started walking over to Wonyoung, so you took that as your cue to go ahead and walk to the side Jungwon was on. Even though you knew Jungwon wasn’t your biggest fan, you still attempted formalities with him.

“Good luck,” you commented, looking at him. You sent him a little smile, “I’ll play to the best of my ability, but I don’t play often. So, sorry in advance.”

“I’m not surprised.” Jungwon replied under his breath, thinking that you wouldn’t hear. You decided to just ignore him and play to the best of your ability, like you said you would.

The first game started with Wonyoung serving and you receiving, but the first game was cut relatively short with an easy 40-15 that ends in your team’s loss.

The rest of the games of the first set ended very similarly, to no surprise. Wonyoung’s family owned the country club. Of course she would be good at the game.

So far, you and Jungwon had only won two sets out of the seven played. Wonyoung and Taesan only needed to win one more set to win the match.

Jungwon, quite obviously, was extremely frustrated at this loss. Very early on, you’d learned that he was a sore loser, and that you being bad at tennis definitely wasn’t helping soothe his anger.

After the final set that ended up in, surprise, a win for Wonyoung and Taesan, the two winners went to take a quick victory break while they left you and Jungwon to “discuss game strategies” as they phrased it.

In the three minutes that they’d been gone, no words were exchanged between you and Jungwon. He was just repeatedly slamming the tennis ball into the court and catching it when it bounced back. The air was tense, but you still tried to make conversation.

“Sorry about that.”

“Your horrible playing?” Jungwon snidely remarked, “Yeah. Thanks for the apology, but that doesn’t change that you’re making us lose.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him, “You’re acting like this is life or death. It’s just tennis.”

“Yeah, it may be just tennis to you. But some people, of… higher class… take it more seriously than people like you would. So I don’t expect you to understand.”

“People like me?!” You laughed incredulously, surprised at his audacity. You tried your best to keep your voice down to not draw any attention towards you two, but with his attitude, it was difficult.

“Yeah, people like you. Did I stutter?” He asked snarky. 

Your words got caught in your mouth- most of the time when people were mean to you, you’d just either ask them what they said (even when you’d heard it) or you’d repeat what they said to you, and that usually made them back off. Clearly this wasn’t the case for Jungwon, though, as he was completely okay with repeating himself and not even thinking twice about what he said to you. You groaned, turning away from him, “You’re not nice.”

“And you’re bad at tennis.”

“At least I’m good at math…” you trailed off, semi-hoping that he wouldn’t hear. You were better than Jungwon when it came to math, and that was a sensitive topic for him. But, if he wanted to ridicule your tennis playing skills, then you would ridicule his mathematical abilities.

The tennis ball that was being aggressively bounced into the court stopped. You didn’t need to look at Jungwon to know his eyes were boring holes into the back of your head.

“What did you say?” Jungwon seethed out, taking a step closer to you.

“Nothing…” you trailed off, facing him, “it’s just that… I don’t need to be good at tennis. I’m smart.”

“Psh.” Jungwon rolled his eyes at you, “At least my parents can pay for good schooling. Sucks that yours have to mooch off of a scholarship.”

You rolled your eyes back, very slightly raising your voice at him, “Yeah. Imagine your parents having to pay for the same schooling that I get. And I get it for free.”

Before any more words could be exchanged, Wonyoung and Taesan returned with canned drinks, one in each hand for the both of them and for you and Jungwon. Wonyoung smiled, “We brought you guys back something to drink!”

You felt most of your anger dissipate at Wonyoung’s return, smiling at her. She and Taesan entered the courts once again and you met her in the middle, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Taesan also brought something for Jungwon.”

You nodded as she handed you the beverage, cracking it open and taking a drink. The cold liquid felt like a good refresher to the heated argument that was just beginning to unfold minutes ago.

“I’m glad that you and Jungwon seem to be getting along.” Wonyoung commented, nearly making you choke on the drink. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ears, “You guys wouldn’t make a bad couple.”

a/n : temporarily showing up with a work after half a week bc i have been thru the trenches lately lmao

[takemebacktocaitlyn]

Happy Halloween

•This was supposed to be a cute little installment for my Daddy Vessel series for Halloween, but I didn’t get to post it because *cardi b voice* coronavirus hit my household and I’ve been down for the count. I still wanted to post this though and just pretend that it’s still Halloween (even though technically it was three days ago but no one pay attention to that, please?). But anyways…uh…here we goooo!•

~Vessel x Fem!Reader (pretty much a given atp).

~Emma’s age in this fic is 5 years old. (Also there is a use of her full name which is Emma-Leigh. Just throwing that out there.)

•Warnings: There is slight sexual content in this story, but nothing goes too too far. This is mainly just a fluff fic.

•Story circa 2018•

———————————————————————————

You stood in the kitchen at the sink humming to yourself, washing the dishes from lunch. A smile formed on your face as you looked out the window, seeing the grey cloud covered sky and the beautiful autumn leaves. You laughed a little seeing the remnants of yesterday fun of jumping in the fallen leaves after hours of raking them up to place them in trash bags. You and your boyfriend of a full year, Vessel, had III to thank for that. One jump into the pile of leaves and it did not take long for your five-year-old daughter Emma to follow suit, then followed by everyone else—you, Vessel, IV, II and IV’s girlfriend Viola.

You had just finished loading the dishes into the dish washer when the front door to the flat opened and then closed, you looked over your shoulder to see Vessel making his way into the kitchen. You eyed him slowly from head to toe, taking in the sight of his shaggy hair underneath his black beanie, the way his grey t-shirt rode up over his stomach and showing his abs after he removed his favored Alpha Wold hoodie off before laying in on the back of a kitchen chair, and the way his jeans fit him just right. It was enough to make your mouth water but you refrained.

“Hello there handsome,” You greeted him with a smile. Vessel looked at you with sparkling eyes and a wide smile. He came over and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

“Hello my darling,” he said lovingly, kissing the top of your head. You two staid like that a few minutes longer before you could feel him shifting a bit from where your head rested on his chest. He was obviously looking around. “Where’s Bug?”

Bug. An affectionate nickname Vessel has been calling your daughter since the two of you got together. Everyone else usually called her Emmie but Vessel liked Bug more. It had something to do with the butterfly dress and headband she was wearing the day you finally introduced the two of them together. And that little meeting sealed everything because it was an instant connection between the two of them, which you were extremely grateful for.

“She’s taking a nap,” You said with a smile as you looked up at him. You reached up on your tiptoes to give his check a quick kiss before pulling away from his embrace. “I’m going to wake her up soon so I can start getting her ready for tonight.”

Vessel smiled at that. “Our first family Halloween outing.”

You would be lying if you said you didn’t swoon a little bit at that comment. This was the first official “family Halloween outing” you three would have, and there were hopefully many more to come until Emma deemed herself too old for trick-or-treating.

“I know I can’t wait.”

You took his hand and the both of you walked into the living room. Vessel sat on the couch and before you could even move past him to sit beside him, he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you to sit down on his lap. A tiny squeak left your mouth at the sudden action, only for giggles to come out next when Vessie began peppering light kisses to your cheeks, your nose and neck. You turned in his lap facing him, both your legs on either side of his hips as you straddled him and wrapped your arms around his neck.

The both of you stared at each other lovingly, soft smiles on your faces before you leaned down and captured his lips with yours. You both kissed each other slowly, the kiss deepening as Vessel’s large hands soon moved down from your waist to your hips, squeezing them lightly. As if on instant your hips began to move against him, earning a deep groan from his throat as you continued to kiss.

“How much time do you think we have before Emma wakes up?” Vessel asked you, a bit breathless when he broke away from the kiss. His hands left your hips to cup your ass, helping you grind back and forth on his hardening member inside his jeans.

You opened your mouth to give your reply but was cut off when you heard Emma calling you from upstairs, her little voice still full of sleep.

“I guess that answers our question,” You reply. A laugh fell from your lips as Vessel laid his forehead on your shoulder, groaning some. You knew there was a pout on his face. You raised his head up and held his face in both of your hands, revealing indeed a pout on his lips. You kisses them. “We’ll continue this later.”

Vessel smiled and nodded and allowed you to get off of his lap to go and retrieve Emma, and he placed one of the throw pillows on his lap to hide the tent in his pants. It was going down but not fast enough for his liking. A moment later you came down with Emma in your arms, dressed in her little blue nightgown with Gengar, Haunter and Ghastly on it. II had found that for her one day when he was out and Vessel still was unsure where he found it, the drummer would never open his mouth to reveal it. Apparently he was trying to stay on top of III as the favorite but honestly other than him and you, IV was Emma’s favorite. II and III just refused to accept that fact.

“Hey, my sweet Bug,” Vessel greeted the small girl softly as you brought her over to the couch. You sat down with her on your lap, rubbing her hair and back as Emma rested against you. She was still tired but was trying to wake herself up. Vessel reached over and rubbed his index finger up and down her chubby little cheek. “Are you ready for tonight?”

“Mhm,” Emma answered with a little head nod. A yawn escaped from her mouth and she rubbed her eyes with her little fist. She blinked a few times before reaching her arms out for Vessel, making sure to mimic her mother with the grabby hands. “Can you hold me now Vessie?”

Vessie. The little nickname Emma calls your boyfriend. You think it was an easier way for her to actual say Vessel, but who really knows when it comes to children. Either way Vessel wears it like a badge of honor. He refuses to allow anyone other than Emma to call him that.

Vessel gave you a quick look and you raised a brow, a silent question forming as your eyes slowly trailed to the pillow sitting on his lap. Vessel cleared his throat.

“Now right now, Bug,” he spoke softly to the child. A pout began forming on Emma’s face and the large puppy eyes came out, the grabby hands continuing in his direction. He knew she’d keep this up until he reached for her, so he had to come up with something. He smiled. “How about you and mama get ready for tonight and Vessie will hold you while we’re out? That sound good?”

Emma thought for a moment—well, really a few seconds before a large smile spread across her face, replacing the precious pout and puppy eyes as she nodded enthusiastically. Both you and Vessel watched as she squirmed out of your hold and grabbed your hand in hers, instantly attempting to pull you from your seat on the couch.

“Come on, mama, come on!” Emma exclaimed, her voice high pitched as she continued to “pull” you up from the couch. You laughed and humored her, allowing her to believe she pulled you up all by her little mighty self.

🎃🎃🎃

“You didn’t have to put the costume on, Vess, you know that right?”

When the idea of having all three of you in matching Halloween costumes came to your head weeks ago, it seemed like the cutest—and greatest—plan. Emma had recently gotten into older, classic Disney movies and Peter Pan was her favorite at the moment. You had to order the costumes off of Amazon since none of the local shops carried the specific ones you wanted—or need.

You would be Wendy, Emma was Tinkerbell and Vessel…

“Why wouldn’t I want to wear the costume?” Vessel questioned, turning his head to look at you. Emma was in front of the two of you, among a bunch of other children, waiting patiently as the elderly lady filled their bags with candy. Vessel looked down at his attire—a green cap with a red feather sticking out of it, a green tunic, cloth tights, a fake golden sword wrapped around his waist and his doc martens. His shoes were the only none costume related thing on him. Vessel said since you three would be walking, his reliable shoes seemed a bit better than the soft brown things that came with the Peter Pan get up. Vessel opened his arms out wide, head tilting to the side looking at you. “I don’t mind it. And it made you and Bug happy to see me in it.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and shrugged. “I just thought maybe you would have been happier in your normal clothes,” You replied. You watched as Emma and a few kids squeal in happiness as they got their trick-or-treat bags filled with delicious sweets. You already knew you were going to have to limit how much Emma consumed tonight. And you knew that went double for Vessel as well. You sighed, “Even before we had her, Emma’s dad thought the whole matching costumes thing was stupid. He shot down every attempt I tried every single year. And I had this cutest idea thought out for Emma’s first Halloween, got us matching suits and everything, thought that maybe he’d give it a chance since it was for our daughter but he…he told me I wasted money on something he wasn’t even going to wear or something Emma wasn’t even going to remember. Mentioned how he’d be the laughing stock of his buddies and the guys he worked with if they just so happened to be put with their kids or fucking out in general. He wanted me to take them back but I didn’t. My brother-in-law Rowan got his costume, I wore mine, my sister Claudia aomehow found a matching costume of her own within an hour and Emma had hers. He missed out on his own daughter’s first big holiday because he didn’t want to be embarrassed being seen dressed up with us.”

Vessel smiled softly at you. “And you thought I’d be embarrassed too?” He asked. You said nothing, feeling your cheeks burn with a blush as you refused to look at him. You knew Vessel was nothing like your ex but it was hard to erase the bad memories sometimes, and every now and again they would seep in through the tiny cracks that were beginning to heal, and bleed into this relationship. Vessel was always thankfully so patient.

The next thing you knew, long and strong arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you into a firm chest. You turned in Vessel’s embrace and wrapped your arms around his waist, laying your head on his chest. Vessel squeezed you tightly, placing a kiss on top of your hair. “I’ll never be embarrassed doing anything with you two,” Vessel said softly. “I missed a lot of firsts in Emma’s little life, but I’m so happy I get to be apart of the next big things to come moving forward. And if that means I have to dress up as Peter Pan, or Steve from Blue’s Clues, or Tickle Me Elmo, or even that Godforsaken big purple dinosaur, I will if it means I get to make my girls happy. I will, Y/N. I love you and I love Emma-Leigh more than either of you will ever know.”

Everything seemed to stopped for what seemed like hours and hours as you looked up at Vessel, eyes wide and mouth opened slightly. He only smiled down at you, not phased by your expression at all. Did he…?

“You just said you loved me,” You spoke after a long pause. “I mean, you also said you loved Emma…but that’s the first time you ever told me you loved me, Vess.”

“Well, I thought maybe tonight would be the night I did,” Vessel said with a chuckle. He kisses the crown of your head. “Because I do, Y/N. I love you. My world was black and white before I met you and Emma. You two made everything colorful for me.”

You hugged Vessel tighter, feeling tears pricking your eyes and it took everything you had to force them down. You knew they were happy tears, but dammit you were not going to be seen crying in front of neighbors houses and random people you didn’t know that well. Plus, tonight was about Emma and making sure she had a great Halloween..

“I love you, too, Vessel,” You admitted. You voice soft and a smile on your face. “I love you so much. But I do hate to inform you, you have now given me a great idea for our Halloween costumes next year with bringing Barney into the equation.”

“Y/N,” Vessel warned. His voice was still playful, even if he tried to sound serious. You could hear the smile in his tone. He had made it clear Barney was not his favorite growing up but he tolerated it because you grew up on the thing, and Emma was following close in your footsteps. You couldn’t do anything but laugh.

A moment later an excited Emma came running back to the two of you, her pink jack-o-lantern pail bouncing as she did. It was a wonder that none of her candy she had collected within the few hours you three had been out flew out from the opening, and a part of you was glad it did. You really didn’t feel like picking pieces of candy up out of someone’s yard, yet for Emma you knew that you would in a heartbeat. She reached into her pail and pulled out two full size chocolate bars, a wide smile on her face that causes her eyes to sparkle brightly even in the light of dusk.

“Look look look look!” Emma bounced on her tiptoes excitedly. “I got full bars!”

“Wow, Bug, that’s awesome!” Vessel beamed down at her. He crouched down to be eye level with her. “You know where else you’re probably gonna get a full size bar? Maybe even three bars?”

Emma tilted her head, her smiling fading in her curious confusion. “Where Vessie?”

“Uncle Ivy and Auntie Vi’s place,” Vessel answered. He watched as the little girl’s smile grew wide once more and the excitement came back. Emma placed her candy bars back into her pail and grabbed Vessel’s hand after he had risen back to his full height. Vessel chuckled down at her. “I guess you’re ready to go then, huh?”

“Yes yes yes yes!” Emma beamed excitedly. “I’m ready to get some more yummy candy and ready to let Uncle Ivy and Aunt Vi see my costume!”

You giggled at your daughter’s enthusiasm in seeing IV and Viola. You took Emma’s candy pail in one hand and grabbed her other little hand with your free one, allowing you and Vessel both to hold her hand as you three walked down the street. Occasionally you and Vessel would swing Emma back and forth between the two of you, reciting the phrase “faith, trust and pixie dust” as you did so. Emma used the pixie dust part to raise her little legs up, letting you and Vessel swing her easily. Her little giggles was the music to both yours and your boyfriend’s ears.

“You know there’s a possibility III is going to be there, too, right?” You asked Vessel a bit later as you three got closer towards IV and Viola’s flat.

Like IV, III was a long time friend of Vessel’s and another member to their band Sleep Token. By the time you and Vessel had gotten together, they had released two albums at that point. They were working on releasing another one now, after they made sure everything was perfect after what had been a two year break since their Two album.

It was four of them; Vessel the lead vocalist but also provides helps with other musical instruments, II the drummer, III the bassist and IV the guitarist who also lends a hand on backup vocals (mainly screams) when he is needed. They were four guys making a name for themselves but to you, they were just…the guys. One your dear, darling boyfriend and the other three the craziest nut jobs you’ve been so lucky to call your friends for the past year, and who you were grateful they accepted you and Emma into their lives as fast as they did.

“And if he decides to laugh at me and this costume…” Vessel began but trailed off, looking down at Emma between the two of you. You could see he was mauling over the exact words he should use next, not really wanting Emma to hear him say something and then think it was okay to say it as also. He cleared his throat some before looking back at you, his voice low and he was trying to give off a serious look. “Well, let’s just say this sword is going to be shoved so far up somewhere the sun doesn’t shine.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. The guys loved to mess with one another, III more than most. He was a lovable jokester but sometimes he did manage to get up under the others skin just right and it usually lead to having full grown me running around chasing one another, threatening to beat one another to a pulp. Usually it never actually got to that point but there were times it did. Apparently rough housing was a big part on their friendship, which was always an odd and stark comparison to how professional and put together they all four could be. Yet, with knowing all of that, you knew Vessel meant what he said about that sword on his side being shoved somewhere if III was there at IV’s and decided to open his big mouth.

🎃🎃🎃

True to his word, Vessel chased III around the front yard of IV and Viola’s flat the minute words of jest left the bassist’s mouth. Vessel wasn’t able to actually shove the sword where the sun didn’t shine, mainly because II and IV broke them apart before the playful rough housing could escalate. Not that you believe Vessel would go that far with Emma present but nothing was certain when it came to these four knuckleheads.

IV and Viola had full size candy bars for Emma, in fact they had four full size candy bars waiting and stashed away just for their favorite fairy. Vessel couldn’t help but throw in a comment about how IV was Emma’s favorite to III, which caused the bassist to start chasing your boyfriend around the front yard again, complete role reversal than earlier. II shook his head and took his seat once again on the front step of the flat, reaching into a bag beside him, the drummer pulled out a stuffed brown teddy bear.

“I figured she’d have an assload of sweets already, so I figured I’d do something a little different.” II held the bear out to Emma. He held his gaze with the child as he spoke to you again. “I figured you wouldn’t mind it as much.”

Emma gasp lightly and placed her pail down before taking the offered bear, and bringing it to her chest for a hug. She swayed side to side before looking at II and going to him before the drummer could blink, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck as she leaped into his arms. The bear made a light thump on his back as Emma held it tightly in her grip. II instinctively wrapped his arms around her tiny body, holding her to him.

It had taken a bit for Emma to get more affectionate towards IV, III and II. II being the one she somehow took the longest to get used to oddly enough. But the minute she was comfortable around her new uncles, the gloves were off and the three men got to know the love and the personality of little Emma. They somewhat now understood why you say the world is Emma’s and everyone else is just living in it. They loved your daughter and in turn Emma loved them, and loved her Auntie Viola as well.

“Thank you, Uncle II!” Emma beamed loudly, her little arms still around the drummer’s neck. “I love him!”

“I’m glad you love him, Emmie,” II said with a smile. He hugged Emma one more time before letting her go and watched her run off back to you. He watched as the little girl excitedly held the bear up to house, bouncing on her tip toes. He chuckled, “I guess I did good.”

“You sure did, II,” You replied back to him. A smile on your face as Emma soon began speaking to her new bear, talking about all the fun they were going to have together and her trying to figure out what his name was going to be. It was pretty cute. “She’s going to take such good care of it.”

“Speaking of things that need to be taken care of,” Viola spoke next, her thick Scottish accent causing everyone—except Emma and her new bear, Mister Bear—to look at her. Viola sat in IV’s lap in the lawn chair they had brought out to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters, and she pointed a thumb into the direction of where a Peter Pan wearing Vessel and a Deadpool wearing III were still running around the front yard. She raised a pierced eyebrow. “Are we going to stop them anytime soon or are we going to let them keep going? Because I don’t think the remaining treaters are going to be enjoying dodging two fully grown men in Halloween costumes in such a small yard.”

“I got them!” Emma exclaimed before you could tell her to hold on, she took off running after her Vessie and her Uncle III, giggling as she joined in on what she thought was a game. The bear still in her hand.

“Well I suppose all that running will do the trick,” Viola said with a sigh, a laugh soon escaping as she shook her head. “Gonna go from fully energized to chugging along like The Little Engine That Could.”

You laughed and took a seat beside II on the front steps. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you in for a sideways hug as you all watched two grown men in costume chasing after each other, a small little girl in a lime green fairy costume running right behind them.

“Do you mean the two large knuckle heads or Emma?” You asked looking at Viola.

“I say the two dumbasses,” II remarked with a smirk. “No way they’re going to be able to keep this up with their old asses and all. Might break a hip or some shit.”

“Aren’t you guys the same age?” Viola questioned looking over her shoulder at the drummer. She furrowed her pierced brows together. “Aren’t you technically calling yourself old, II?”

II shrugged. “We’re all a few months apart from each other.” He pointed towards Vessel and III, a giggling Emma still following closely behind them. “Those two fuckwits are older. So, they’re more likely to break a hip or just all together go down first before Emma-Leigh does.”

“I second that,” IV spoke up next, taking a hit off of his vape before blowing the scented smoke out into the air. He turned his eyes on you, a playful smile on his face. “But I’m sure Emmie girl won’t be too far behind them.”

You shook your head with a laugh. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

And see you four did.

After another few minutes of them chasing each other, III lost his footing and fell to the ground. Vessel took the chance and jumped on top of his fallen friend, Emma followed right after. Although she had more innocent intent for III than Vessel did.

Soon, you and your little family were leaving to head back home, seeing Halloween night coming to an end. You held one of Vessel’s hands in yours, Emma’s candy pail in your other and with his free arm Vessel was holding a sleeping Emma on his side. Her tiny arms was wrapped around his neck, her head laying on his shoulder and she breathed in and out softly. Her teddy bear rested carefully in the pail you held in your hand.

“I say she had a great Halloween,” Vessel said before placing a kiss on the crown of Emma’s head. You nodded your head.

“I’d say she did.”

Once you had made it back home, you watched from the doorway of Emma’s room as Vessel laid her down in her bed. You both agreed since she was so tired that she could sleep in her costume tonight, having removed the fairy wings from her back, and you’d give her a shower in the morning.

Vessel carefully got up from where he laid a few extra minutes with Emma, smoothing her hair down and just letting her know his presence was there. It was something he had seen you do a hundred times by now and as he was doing it, he got it. The feeling of being that tiny comfort for her and for you yourself to have that tiny little moment with them, where you got to study every little thing about them. And honestly, now he understands why his mother hated everything about him growing up, her one and only boy. He was going through that now, watching the little girl that stole his heart growing up before his eyes.

It had only been a year he and you had been together, yet in that year he sees where Emma was slowly changing. She was a few inches taller, her hair had gotten a little bit longer and was slowly turning a darker shade, her feet were growing because she had went up a shoe size and she did the same with her clothes. Emma was also starting to want to be more independent. Brushing her own hair (even though you both still had to help), brushing her own teeth (both of you allowed her while you just stood off to the side) and then she also wanted to dress herself (some of the outfits she came up with were adorable in a way, but blue jeans did not go with her yellow dress and the sandals she insisted on wearing from time to time—so that would have to wait).

Emma was growing up before his eyes. A part of him hated she had to grow up, but the other half was excited he was going to get to be a part of it. Vessel would never begin to understand how her biological father could just choose to not be involved with a child like Emma, or just deny her existence until it was convenient for him. If the day came where you and him got to the discussion of your own children, Vessel would make it clear he was there for everything. He wouldn’t jump ship, take on the responsibility that was also his and not abandon you or his children.

Vessel pulled the blankets over Emma’s sleeping form, placing her new teddy bear right beside her before making his way back to you. You and Vessel both walked out of Emma’s room, Vessel gently closing the door of her bedroom behind him, not all the way so it would be open just a crack. You and him made your way up the stairs to your shared bedroom, both ready to change and lay on your comfortable mattress. And that was what you did.

Vessel had changed out of his Peter Pan suit and wore only a pair of black sweatpants that hung low on his hips, and since he decided to wear no shirt you were able to admire his toned and lean body. You trailed your eyes down his chest to his faint lining of the abs he had been working hard on, and thanks to the low hanging sweats you were gifted the sight of the V of his hips. You were sitting on the bed, hanging already changed out of your Wendy costume into one of Vessel’s many black t-shirts, which was long on your shorter frame and wore nothing underneath but a pair of black panties, and you could feel Vessel’s eyes scanning over your body like yours were him.

The minute your boyfriend came to lay down in the bed, you gave him time to get settled on his back before you turned and threw a leg over his waist, straddling him. Your hands found his chest as his grabbed onto the fat of your plush hips. You stared down at him and he stared up at you, his eyes darkening with the same desire as earlier.

“I meant what I said earlier,” You said to your boyfriend, running your nails up and down his chest. You could see the goosebumps that littered his flesh from that action.

“And what was that, love?” Vessel asked, his deep voice all but sounding as a purr as he looked up at you from underneath you. He could feel himself begin to grow inside his sweat pants, and he knew you could as well from where you began moving your hips back and forth, grinding down on him.

“That we were going to finish what we started earlier on the couch,” You said as you leaned down, still moving your hips and grinding your cloth center against Vessel’s growing erection. Vessel tilted his head back as a deep groan left him, giving you access to his neck. You planted kisses on the skin, switching between sweet kisses, light nibbles and sucking the skin of his neck wherever you sunk your teeth down into. You raised your mouth to his ear and you knew he could feel your breath against the shell of it. “Consider this your Halloween treat, baby.”

You have out a squeak when the next thing you knew Vessel flipped the both of you, pinning you underneath him. Now it was your turn to look up at him, feeling the weight of his darken and lustful stare.

A sexy smirk spread across Vessel’s face. And he leaned down close enough to your face, having his lips hovering mere inches above yours. And in a husky tone that always made your knees weak, he said, “well happy fucking Halloween to me then.”

And at that, he crashed his lips against yours in a heated kiss. And the two of you entered a night of passion and bliss.

———————————————————————————

I wasn’t planning on making this as long as I did but here it is. Another adventure of Daddy Vessel, little Emma and you, the oh so lovely reader.

Well, everyone take care now. Bye bye!

🖤🖤🖤

[sarahowritesostucky]

Art: @hopelessartgeek

📖 "Medically Necessitated" Ch 3

Rated: Explicit Pairing: Bucky x Steve Tags: a/b/o, age gap, past rape, rape recovery, trauma recovery, pregnancy, medical trauma, hurt/comfort, mentions of CSA, religious fundamentalism, first time, gender dysphoria, male omegas are intersex (peen & vagine) Summary: After a medical emergency brings him into the ER, Bucky escapes the religious cult he's been raised in. It's up to Steve, nurse practitioner and omega sex & repro specialist, to see him through a medically supervised heat.

Wait! I haven't read an earlier chapter! Story masterlist

3. Bucky

Steve unexpectedly switches from being Bucky's attending physician, to his dedicated heat Support.

It’s funny: the stereotype of alphas is that they’re always these domineering, bossy, even selfish people who walk all over other designations to get whatever they want. But Steve’s whole life pretty much revolves around doing for omegas. Meeting their needs.

There’s his volunteer work at the shelter and at ASHDOM, there are the single omega neighbors in his building who all know he’s a pushover and who come to him first whenever they need furniture moved or can’t get out to the store because they’re in heat. And there’s his job, which usually sees him working a bare minimum of sixty hours a week, often many more.

He does nothing but cater to omegas.

Of course, he’s paid well for it. Nursing is a chronically underfilled field to begin with, and omega specialized healthcare is even worse. Especially when it comes to staffing alpha practitioners. Steve knows for a fact that his salary is several grand higher than any of his his beta coworkers doing the same job, simply because of the additional therapeutic value that his designation can offer.

He’s a federally licensed heat partner, is certified in trauma and crisis intervention, and he’s one of the only alpha nurse practitioners providing omega reproductive healthcare in the borough. It makes his days long and his caseloads heavy, but that’s okay because it’s more than a job to him, it’s a moral imperative, something that’s been drilled into him since he was six years old and play-dominating all the other kids in his kindergarten class: you must take care of those who are weaker than you.

Steve’s been working on the OOBGYN ward around trauma patients for more than five years now. He knows the protocols, he knows how to keep himself under control and keep his patients safe. So it’s not exactly the shining pinnacle of his career when he has to page his subordinates—the nurses he trained for Chrissakes—to come and help him the fuck out with a patient he’s mishandled.

Steve would’ve highly preferred it be Hope (she’d give him less crap about it), but it’s Sharon who shows up first at the door. She comes into the room, no nonsense, holding a 1cc syringe at the ready. She’s unseen by Bucky, who’s still keening and purring where he’s got his teeth buried in Steve’s shoulder. Steve gives her a terse nod, and Sharon brusquely walks over and shoots the sedative up Bucky’s nose before the omega even knows what’s happening.

Ninety seconds later, he’s out like a light. “Midazolam,” Sharon says.

Steve nods. That buys them at least thirty minutes to get everything set up right. Bucky’s mouth has detached from his skin, and Steve carefully lowers his limp form back down onto the bed. There’s blood smeared on his lips and chin—Steve’s blood. Steve swallows hard and ignores the answering pulse of blood in his dick. He’s all keyed up, body thrumming, primed to fuck or fight.

Sharon’s a professional, so she doesn’t look at his crotch, but she does wrinkle her nose and give him an unimpressed look. “What the hell, Rogers?”

Steve avoids answering, embarrassed. “Come on. Help me transfer him. Clock’s ticking now.” He climbs off the bed and Sharon undoes Bucky’s IV. They bring up the bed’s side rails and unlock the wheels, then begin the slow process of pushing him out of the room and down to one of the on-ward heat suites. “Don’t lecture me,” Steve warns, not in the mood to have his rookie mistakes pointed out. There are plenty of them.

He forgot blockers. He intoned. He scented. Fuck, did he posture? He probably postured. He certainly got too close, let the omega get his fucking mouth on him. Christ. Steve shakes his head at himself. He’d let his soft spot for Bucky put him in a vulnerable position, and now a traumatized patient has latched onto him right at the onset of the first heat he’s had in years.

Those are not the things the hospital pays Steve thousand of dollars extra for.

Well … actually they are, but they weren’t supposed to be in Bucky’s case. Steve is his attending. He’s not supposed to take on the role of alpha support, too. It’s not allowed.

“Who should I be paging?” Sharon asks as they wheel the bed down the hall and around a corner.

“Get Banner,” Steve grunts, not happy with it. He doesn’t want to give up the case to another doctor. All his instincts are screaming at him to keep Bucky as his, to keep the control and authority he has over the omega’s medical care. But he’ll get in big trouble if he doesn’t sign this off to another physician before they seal themselves up in a heat suite.

“Is he on call tonight?”

“Yeah.” Banner is a good doctor, a beta, and a great human being. Steve trusts him more than almost anyone to do what’s right for Bucky as his attending. “Give him my case notes and Bucky’s treatment plan,” he tells Sharon as they arrive at a heavy door with a small, shuttered window. “And get a hold of Sam if he’s around. Tell him I have questions. Tell him the kid latched onto me.”

Sharon raises an eyebrow. “You mean … your neck?”

“No, not my neck,” Steve snaps meanly. “I mean physiologically.”

Sharon shoots him a peeved look from her side of Bucky’s bed, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows that Steve’s not mad at her.

He’s furious with himself for letting it happen. It’s embarrassing. Steve’s supposed to be experienced. The second that Bucky started posturing and losing language complexity and calling Steve ‘Alpha’ over and over like that, the second he’d started keening like that, Steve should’ve put distance between them. He should’ve been well out of the room by the time the kid began scenting and slicking, not still sitting right on the damn bed, letting him do it all over his scrub pants.

They wheel into the suite and Steve looks from Bucky’s lax body over to the suite’s low bed. It’s just an institutional grade mattress on a box platform, large and durable and easy to clean. It’s sterile and standard, just like the rest of the room. Nobody’s brought up any nesting materials yet.

If Steve had done his job right, Bucky probably wouldn’t have hit heat until tomorrow. The hospital staff would have already received the requisition forms and prepared the suite especially for Bucky’s stay. Instead, it’s empty and stripped bare, sterilized from the last omega who used it.

There’s a fridge stocked with water and calorie dense snacks, a four piece handicap-accessible bathroom with a walk-in tub. There’s the large platform bed, and there’s a breeding bench over in the corner. Steve glowers at Sharon when he sees it. “Why is that in here?” he snaps. “Jesus, Sharon, get it out.” He glances at Bucky, irrationally afraid of the kid waking up and seeing it.

“The last patient booked into the room was Ace,” Sharon says, unamused. “You sure you want it out?” She nods at Bucky’s prone body. “He’s dynamic dysphoric. You might need it. I can fill out a req for the seeding machine if you—”

“No,” Steve bites out, trying hard to remain professional and not yell at his head nurse. “No. I’m not doing that to him.”

Steve knows what Sharon’s thinking: light sedation and heavy restraint, complete mechanization of Bucky’s heat. It’s what a lot of doctors would do, once they got a look at Bucky’s case file and issues. Just to get the whole process over with in less time, with less effort.

But Steve can’t stand the thought of forcing Bucky through his treatment like that. It would terrify and humiliate him. Steve would rather work through every step with Bucky than force him onto that bench. “Get it out of here,” he orders.

Sharon doesn’t argue, just removes the bench and herself from the room. When she returns, Steve is staring at the naked vinyl mattress with distaste. There’s nothing soft or safe or warm here. He doesn’t want Bucky to wake up to that. “Stay with him,” he tells Sharon. “I’m gonna run down to supply and get room prep.”

He leaves her there with strict instructions not to touch Bucky. Now that the kid’s latched onto Steve as his heat partner, he won’t take well to physical contact with anyone else. “Fucking stupid, Rogers,” Steve berates himself again as he takes the elevator down to the supply room.

He grabs a pushcart and loads it up with an assortment of blankets that the hospital offers. He throws in a bunch of squishy pillows too, then heads over to grab a presenting form from the selection of different mounting pillows. He chooses one in a forgiving foam material. It has detachable cuffs in front, which after a moment’s hesitation he decides to bring along, just in case. He grabs a soft microfiber cover for the form so that it’ll feel warm and comforting against Bucky’s body. Steve doesn’t want to leave a single hard fucking edge in the entire heat suite, if he can help it.

He does spare the sex toys a glance, but it feels wrong to select anything now. If Bucky needs it later Steve can talk to him about it, have one of the nurses req whatever items Bucky wants.

He moves fast, anxious to get back to the suite and make sure that he's right there by Bucky's side when he wakes. He stops at the pharmacy and swipes his ID badge against the dispensary that stores samples of all the heat technicians’ scents. He scans his fingerprint when it prompts him, then types into the keypad that he wants to withdraw two vials. The machine whirs and delivers the manufactured amounts of Steve’s own pheromones. Steve swipes them up out of the slot without any patience and starts shoving the cart back towards the elevators.

Sharon raises her eyebrows at the heaping amount of supplies that Steve rolls in with. “O-kay,” she says, and heads for the door. “I’ll fill Hope in. Banner’s on his way. He said maybe twenty minutes. Sam’ll be on morning shift and I left him a message that he should come by.”

“Good.”

“Steve?” She turns and looks back at him once she’s out in the hall. “This is also part of your job. Don’t beat yourself up too hard, kay?”

It’s on the nicer end of the spectrum of things Sharon would say, and Steve forces his face into a grateful sort of wince. “Thanks, Share.” He shuts the door behind her and flicks the switch on the wall that locks the door and lights up the red occupied light outside of the suite. He presses the intercom button. “Check.”

“Check,” Sharon confirms from her side. “I requisitioned you guys’ meals for the next seventy-two hours. Banner will call in once he’s here. … Hope’s paging me. Good luck.”

“Bye.” Steve releases the button and turns back around. He looks at Bucky, who’s still unconscious on the hospital bed. Steve walks over and chews his lip, regretful that they’d had to use a sedative. He knows the boy probably won’t be appreciative of that when he wakes.

Steve is aware that he’s got dried blood on him. He can feel it, tacky and starting to crust, pulling uncomfortably whenever he turns his head. He grabs the first aid kit from the room’s small supply cabinet and takes it into the bathroom. The mirror over the sink shows it all, and Steve winces at the mess. It looks worse than it is, probably.

He wets a gauze with antiseptic and bites the bullet and slaps it onto the spot where the skin is broken. He clenches his teeth and hisses at the sting, cursing quietly. A few, careful wipes and it’s mostly cleaned off and he’s able to see the individual teeth marks. Steve’s lips quirk despite himself. Kid had gotten him good.

It’s close to his glands, and Steve wonders if Bucky was consciously aiming for it. Probably not. Steve knows the boy was probably raised to try to force himself into sexually desiring omegas and betas only, probably females, and never alphas. Guiltily, Steve feels a little bit of a thrill at the idea of getting to be Bucky’s first sexual encounter with an alpha. He’ll be the first partner Bucky’s ever had to help satisfy his needs in a natural way.

He doesn’t count the people who assaulted Bucky. Even if they were alpha (and he has reasons to believe they were), they don’t count. They’re dirt, less than nothing to Steve. He’s going to make sure he wipes them out of existence from Bucky’s mind. He’ll make them less than nothing for the omega too, given enough time to take care of him the way he deserves.

Sighing, he gives his bloodied neck a few more careful wipes. It’s not bleeding anymore and he doesn't bandage it. He needs to leave that part of himself open and available to Bucky. If it’s something the omega wants, then Steve isn’t going to keep it from him. Steve’s been bonded a few times over the years, usually in sessions with his neediest patients. Detoxing off the high when he discharges them from care is never fun, but he knows how to get himself through it. If Bucky wants that connection with him, he’ll be more than happy to allow it.

Steve just wants to make him feel safe and good.

He puts the first aid kit away and starts making up the bed. He puts sheets on it, then roughly dumps all the blankets out into a kind of spread out pile. Still open for rearrangement, though. He doesn’t know if Bucky will want to nest it himself when he comes to. He lays all the various pillows out around the perimeter of the mattress. The mounting pillow gets set up by the head of the bed, out of the way. Steve doesn’t want to do anything that Bucky might interpret as demanding or coercive. Not right off the bat, at least. This is all going to go according to what Bucky wants and needs, not Steve.

Sharon buzzes through the intercom, announcing that she’s leaving bath towels outside the door. Steve retrieves them and sticks them in the bathroom for later. He checks the fridge, which is indeed stocked with water bottles, high-sugar fruit juice and cups of peaches packed in syrup, little portions of cheese and two ounce packets of almond butter—all good things for an omega to nibble on through a cycle. He pulls out the almond butters and sets them on the counter to warm up. He roots through the supply cabinet until he finds a box of the little spray caps that fit to the pheromone vials. He opens one, pops the cap on, then goes about spritzing it on various places on the bed. He doesn’t go too nuts, not wanting to overwhelm the omega when he—

“Steve?”

Steve whips around so fast, he almost trips over his own clogs. He sees Bucky, pushing up to sitting in the hospital bed and looking confused. “What happen’d?” he asks groggily, rubbing his face.

Steve sticks the vials in the fridge and hurries over to Bucky’s side. “Hey,” he says soothingly. “You got a little frantic back there, buddy. The nurse gave you something to calm down so we could get this room ready for you.”

Bucky seems to become more aware of his surroundings, and that he’s no longer in his hospital room. He looks past Steve, all around the heat suite. Then his attention fixes on the large bed. Steve sees his nostrils flare and his pupils shrink to pinpoints. He begins to shake his head a little. “No,” he whispers. “Please. Steve, please don’t make me.” He whimpers and his hands fly to his stomach, a cramp clearly passing through him. “Oh man,” he whines, distressed.

Steve had expected this. He’d wanted to have Bucky on the larger bed by the time he woke up, all snuggled and safe in a cocoon of soft things. He reaches out and touches the bed instead of Bucky, fingers stroking the boxy weave of the hospital blanket that covers Bucky’s leg only inches away. “It’s going to be just fine,” he tells him. “We’re in a private suite. It’s like your own little hotel room, see? You’ve got everything you need right here.” He points out different things. “There’s snacks in the fridge and the tv’s got all the streaming apps you could want.” He smiles. “Hell, the bathtub has jets.”

Bucky’s eyes do flick over to the bathroom’s open door, if only for a moment. But he’s quickly back to whimpering and wrapping his arms around himself. “No,” he says, staring at his knees instead of Steve. “S’wrong.” He shakes his head and mumbles quiet words to himself: gross, pathetic, unnatural. Horrible, wrong words that break Steve’s heart.

Steve feels that familiar flash of anger zip through him at the reminder of how horribly Bucky’s been treated his whole life. But that’s not productive, so he squashes the anger down and instead tries to think calming, soothing alpha thoughts. He long ago learned in his training that when helping an omega through their heat, an alpha’s thoughts influence their physiology, and their physiology influences their actions. Everything Steve does in this room now has to be geared towards helping Bucky feel safe and taken care of. Everything.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the very edge of the bed. Bucky seems hyper aware of his proximity but he doesn’t tense up or try to move away at all, which is a good sign. Steve lets his hand drift closer over the blanket, towards Bucky’s knee. “When you met with the counselor, with Clint? Did you guys talk about it? About being male omegas, your cycles?”

Bucky’s face looks pained and he still won’t look at Steve, but he nods smally. “Yeah.”

“I’d bet money that Clint didn’t use any of those words you just said, when he talked about it. Do you think those things about Clint?” This, at least, seems to get through to the kid. He peeks up at Steve, and Steve gives him a gentle smile. “I’m friends with him, ya know. He’s a cool guy. I actually think you two would get along.”

Bucky shrugs, unwilling to engage. He’s pouting still and Steve wants so badly to pull him in against his body and surround him with the pressure and reassurance of a hug, but he knows he has to do this on Bucky’s timetable. The omega is calmed out of the frenzy he was having when Sharon sedated him, but a cc of Midazolam up the nose tends to do that.

“I’m alpha,” Steve says gently. “So of course I can’t know what it’s like to go through a heat, not personally. But I’ve helped a lot of people through theirs. They’ve told me all kinds of things. Some sort of dislike it. Most enjoy it to some extent. But nobody has ever told me it’s wrong or unnatural.”

It’s a lie. Steve has had one or two other patients who felt the way that Bucky feels, dysphoric patients who were traumatized by abusers in similar ways, but Steve also knows that that’s not what Bucky needs to hear right now.

“Hey,” he says, finally sliding his hand far enough over the blanket that his fingertips brush Bucky’s lax ones on the bed. Bucky’s eyes fly up to him. “I know you can’t just change your viewpoint overnight. I get it. But it’s important that you understand that nobody else shares those negative thoughts about your body or about heats. I’m certainly not thinking them.” He tilts his head forward and asks, “What did Clint say about it, when you guys talked?”

Bucky is reluctant to tell him, but eventually he murmurs, “He said it’s intense, but it’s just our bodies’ way of feeling good. … He said it’s better when you’ve got somebody with you to help.” His cheeks are getting flushed, probably a combination of embarrassment and the effects of his heat. “He said he’s married to his husband and they love each other. That makes him like his heats.”

Steve nods. “Yeah, Phil. He’s a sweet guy. He’s actually one of the hospital administrators. We all go out for drinks together sometimes.” He’s trying to normalize everything, trying to make Bucky see that being omega and having heats is just another part of life that people go through, either on their own or through someone they know. “I have to say, I’ve always been a little bit jealous of the week of heat leave you guys get every month. It seems pretty awesome.”

Bucky looks at him like the words ‘heat’ and ‘awesome’ being used together don’t compute. His face flushes darker, and this time it’s almost certainly from embarrassment. “It’s gross,” he mumbles, looking away from Steve with a little scowl. He pulls his hand away from Steve’s on the bed and tucks his legs up under the blanket, hugging his arms around them. “Being like that, needing sex and having no control over yourself,” he says, spitting the words out like they’re bad, contemptable things. “Like an animal. S’pathetic.”

Steve sighs. Bucky’s got a long road of therapy ahead of him, that much is obvious. “It’s okay for you to think that, Honey, but you gotta know I’m gonna keep telling you how wrong you are.” Bucky looks back up at him at his assertive tone, and Steve nods. “I’m alpha, so I think omegas are lovely. And I’ve always thought it’s amazing what your bodies can do. It’s primal, sure. It’s powerful. Beautiful.”

Bucky pfts air between his teeth, disagreeing.

Steve lets his hand cover one of Bucky’s where he’s gripping his knees. “Especially to somebody like me. Seeing an omega in heat is a beautiful, natural thing. And every time I get to be with someone, when they let me help them feel good, it’s just the best thing.” There’s reverence in his voice instead of lust, and he can see the emotions passing over Bucky’s face as he takes that in. The disbelief starts to morph into a sort of cautious acceptance. Or at least that’s what Steve hopes it is. “I’m sorry you had people telling you otherwise for so long,” he says. He dares to curl his fingers over Bucky’s hand, and something loosens in his chest as the omega lets him. “Now you’re in the real world, though. Now you get to see how much everybody thinks you’re normal. Just another part of life. A great part of it, in fact.” He gives Bucky’s hand a squeeze. “So, will you let me spend your heat with you, Omega?”

Bucky’s irises flare and his lips part. Steve would be willing to bet the kid has never been called ‘omega’ with anything other than vitriol. And now Steve has said it like a title of honor. Bucky swallows thickly. “... Okay,” he says, voice barely there. Afraid maybe, but trusting. He’s trusting Steve, and that makes something golden and warm flare deep in Steve’s chest. “If it’s you,” Bucky adds meekly. “Only you.”

Steve smiles sadly. He’s not sure if Bucky fully remembers everything that’d happened in his hospital room earlier. “Yeah, Honey,” he reassures him. “I’m gonna stay with you the whole time. Just you and me.” He squeezes their fingers together. “It’s gonna be nice. I promise.”

Bucky blushes and squirms and won’t meet his eyes again, but he’s clearly pleased. He turns to look back over at the large, low bed. “Can I …” he starts, hesitant. “Can I go over there?”

“Of course, Sweetheart. It’s yours.” Steve pats the back of his hand comfortingly and then pulls away, getting up to go over and root around the fridge and make himself seem unobtrusive. “Why don’t you nest around a little bit? Make the blankets how you like.”

Behind him, Bucky is silent. Then Steve hears him get off the hospital bed, followed by the soft rustle of him climbing onto the suite’s bed. “... I don’t know how to nest,” comes quietly from behind.

Oh god. Steve lets his eyes slip shut for the barest second, at that heartbreakingly vulnerable admission. Once again, he’s struck by the intense urge to squeeze Bucky up in his arms, tight and secure and possessive forever. Focus, Rogers. He inhales deeply and fixes his face back to a cheerful neutral. He turns. Bucky is sitting in the very middle of the bed, legs folded under himself, looking like a lost little duckling in a sea of blankets. “Sure you do,” Steve says encouragingly. “It’s whatever makes you feel good. Whatever feels right.” He gestures to the various blankets and pillows. “Just start moving ‘em around. You’ll find what works.” He watches hopefully as Bucky bites his lip and considers his advice. He tentatively reaches for one of the pillows and switches it with another, fluffing it. Steve’s chest warms. “That’s it,” he encourages. “See? You know what to do.”

Bucky’s cheeks get more flushed and he tucks his lips in at the praise. There’s more confidence to him as he starts to pick up different pillows and move them, stuffing the edges of blankets around in various places.

“Rogers,”

Steve whips around towards the door at the sound of the intercom. He glances back at Bucky, who has tensed up at the interruption. “Keep working on it,” he urges kindly. “I have to step out for a second and talk with your new attending. I’ll be right back to see what you’ve done.” Bucky whines low in his throat, displeased at hearing that his heat partner is leaving him. But he obeys and goes back to arranging the blankets, and Steve is so proud of him. “Good boy,” he praises, then goes to step out into the hallway.

“Doctor,” he says respectfully once he’s out in the hallway with Banner. “Thanks for coming in. I’m sorry about this.”

Bruce smiles benevolently, if somewhat sleepily. “Happy to help. I gave his chart a look and read through your notes. It sounds like you made the right call to switch to his support.”

Steve shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah.” He knows that Banner could very well scold him over his mistakes, but instead he’s just letting it be. It’s a relief. “He just woke up from the sedatives a few minutes ago. I’m talking him through some nesting now, getting him settled in.”

Banner nods and brings his clipboard up to look at it as they talk. He scans Bucky’s chart, flipping between the pages. “Acute symptoms started about forty minutes ago?”

“Yeah.”

“What symptoms did you observe?”

Steve feels his neck get hot, and he brings a hand up to rub at it. “Um, well he slicked all over my pants.”

Bruce’s gaze falls assessingly to the large wet patch on Steve’s right thigh. He nods and writes on the clipboard. “Anything else?”

“Aggression, impulsive sexual touching, scenting, verbal regression, posturing,”

“The whole nine yards,” Bruce murmurs, nodding and finishing up with his writing. He looks back up at Steve. “Nothing to cause concern though?”

Steve shakes his head. “No. He rated his pain for me earlier. Just seems to be experiencing a typical level of cramping.”

“That’s good. Given the state of his infection days ago, I’dve been worried of something more severe.”

“That’s really cleared up,” Steve says. “A lot of the inflammation we saw there was actually his body rejecting the hormonal implants. Once we removed his suppressant and IUD, things really calmed down.”

Bruce nods, still flipping through the pages. “Okay. Still make sure to palpate his stomach. And conduct an internal before things get too wild in there.”

Steve fights back a wince. “Doc, he’s a very recent rape victim. I don’t think he’ll tolerate the speculum.”

“Then don’t use one,” Bruce says plainly. “If he can’t accept your fingers and you need a script written for benzos, we can do that.”

Steve tenses at the reminder that he’s no longer Bucky’s attending. He’s not the one who gets to make the decisions for Bucky’s care anymore. “Okay,” he agrees, anxious to get back into the suite and back to Bucky. “Not yet. But I’ll let you know.”

Bruce agrees and they part ways, and when Steve has locked himself back into the room, he turns and is met with the sight of Bucky working away at what’s quickly becoming a textbook nest. Steve beams. “Hey! look at you.”

Bucky spares him a glance, but then he huffs and he’s back to working away at getting the blankets just how he needs them. He’s like a cat: focused, satisfied and then frustrated and then satisfied again as he tries to get everything just right. It’s adorable. “They smell like you,” he mumbles, not looking up from where he’s working away. He means the blankets.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah I scented them. Is that okay?” Steve waits for Bucky’s approval. When he gets a quick, silent nod, he’s satisfied. “This looks real good, omega” he approves, watching Bucky nitpick the final little details of the nest. Steve doesn’t miss how the mounting pillow hasn’t been moved from its spot at the far end of the bed. He bites his lip, thrilled that Bucky hasn’t rejected it. He could’ve tossed it from the nest entirely, but instead he’s kept it. Steve’s under no illusions that the kid doesn’t recognize the item for exactly what it is. When Bucky stops nesting and starts squirming, Steve holds his breath and asks, “Omega?” He waits for Bucky to look him in the eyes. “Can I come into your den with you?”

Bucky’s eyes go a little fuzzy at the request, dazed and pleased at being pursued by an alpha when he’s ripe like this. “Alpha,” he says plaintively, in lieu of an answer.

Steve hums and steps forward. “So good,” he praises. “Bucky, can I take my clothes off?”

“I …” Bucky’s eyes flick over him nervously. They land on the wet patch on his scrub pants and hold there. “Oh,” he breathes, face going slack.

“Yeah,” Steve touches the spot where Bucky had slicked all over him. “You remember that?” he asks. “Rubbing your bottom on me?” Bucky emits a high keening sound, distressed, but Steve shushes him and tuts. “No, baby. It was so amazing. You made me really happy when you did that.”

Bucky’s eyes flick up nervously. He looks like he can’t believe it. “I did?” he asks.

“Of course. It’s what your body’s supposed to do. It means you're healthy and aroused. That’s completely normal.” Bucky frowns a little, clearly still having intrusive thoughts about his nature. He whines and shakes his head, displeased, and Steve hurries to take a step closer to the low mattress. “Hey. Look at me, Honey. Please?”

Bucky squirms in place, rocking his hips in little unconscious movements. He looks up at him, and there’s awareness in his eyes. Awareness and fear. Steve can see how Bucky is perfectly aware of how differently he’s acting now, because of his heat. And it’s scaring him. “Steve,” he says, voice trembling. “Please. … I don’t think I can do this.”

“I’m right here, Buck. It’s okay. This is safe, remember?”

His lips tremble and a single tear falls down his cheek. “What’re you gonna do?”

Steve tries to give him the most reassuring look he knows how. “I’m gonna undress,” he says gently. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to have sex with you. We’re just gonna have some skin contact to start. Is that okay?” He waits for Bucky’s unsure nod before he pulls his scrub top over his head and tosses it aside. He’s wearing a white tee shirt underneath and he quickly removes that as well. Then Bucky’s inhale sounds, sharp and audible, his lips parting as he sees Steve’s body bared to him for the first time. Steve hums, pleased at the reaction, and pushes his chest out. He lets Bucky look his fill. The way the omega is sitting there, breathing open-mouthed and rocking faintly in place as his need builds, makes Steve’s balls feel heavy and full. He toes off his clogs and socks, then hooks his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his scrub pants. “You can undress too, if it’s what feels good,” he tells him. “I only want you to do what feels good for you.” Bucky just sits there and stares as Steve's scrub pants fall and his cock is revealed, half hard and obvious underneath his briefs. He rubs himself once from over the fabric, watching how Bucky's eyes track the movement. "Gonna take these off," he warns, not wanting anything he does to feel like a surprise to the omega. When he straightens back up from taking off his briefs, his cock hangs thickly between his legs.

And Bucky's eyes are riveted. “Oh,” he breathes quietly, all modesty and shame momentarily forgotten as he stares at Steve’s alpha body. “Steve,” he whispers.

Steve smiles, feeling incredibly tender towards the young omega. Bucky won’t be the first virgin he’s ever supported, but he might be the most vulnerable. Steve puts one knee up on the mattress, carefully cataloging Bucky’s reactions with every move he makes. He lowers his hands down into the mess of blankets, brings his other knee up, crawls forward slowly. “I’m coming into your nest with you, omega,” he says softly. “Your den. Where you decide what happens, right?”

“... right,” Bucky breathes, distracted.

Steve’s lips curl. “Can you undress for me now?” Bucky makes a small, hurt sound in his throat, but he listens and pulls off his hospital gown. Steve’s dick jumps against his thigh as he finally gets to see the boy’s naked body. “Oh, Sweetheart.”

Steve saw him that night in the ER, of course, but he’d been bloodied and bruised, wracked with seizures and burning up from infection. Steve hadn’t been able to look at him as anything other than an emergency that night. Bucky had been a body, broken and hurt and needing to be repaired, and Steve had done his job. Now, it’s amazing how much of a difference there is. Bucky is clean and healed and Steve can really look at him.

He has a natural tan to his skin. He's toned, with long, lithe limbs and muscles that are still partially hidden by a layer of baby fat. His chest and arms are strong, especially for an omega, but his hips round out nicely like they should, and his thighs are thick and welcoming. His belly is slightly distended, swollen from his heat. Everything about him makes Steve’s mouth water and his pulse thrum hard in his veins, pleased.

Bucky’s body is that of a fully-matured omega male, already having prepared itself for pregnancy and childbirth despite the years he was forced to take suppressants. Steve breathes a sigh of relief to see it. “Bucky,” he says honestly, wanting him to hear the arousal in his voice this time. “You’re so beautiful. Look at you.” He reaches out as if he’ll touch, but he doesn’t. “You’re perfect.”

Bucky flushes deeply at the praise and at being so closely scrutinized. There’s still a tension in him that’s unnatural, a wariness that serves to remind Steve that the omega was violated barely more than a week ago. Steve knees up closer to him and mirrors his position, sitting back on his heels, maintaining that small distance that reminds Bucky that this is his choice. He reaches out and puts a hand on Bucky’s hip, sliding it up his side.

Bucky flinches, and then he keens in distress when he sees the hurt that flashes on Steve’s face. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking ashamed. “Alpha,”

“Hey, no.” Steve tuts and curls his fingers in at the soft give of Bucky’s waist. “No, baby. Don’t apologize for this. You got hurt, and it’s scary. You don’t have to hide any of that from me. I want to know how you’re really feeling.” He reaches with his other hand and cups Bucky’s neck. He feels around and pushes in when he finds the glands there, hot and tight and swollen beneath the skin. The scent of fresh slick hits the air when he pinches down on it, and Bucky whines loudly. “Shhh sh sh,” Steve hushes. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Bucky whimpers and trembles, but calms down quickly with Steve’s hand massaging at his glands so pointedly. His eyes slip shut for the briefest of seconds, showing his trust in Steve, and something very close to a moan leaves his lips. It’s quiet, barely there, but Steve hears it. “Steve,” he murmurs, eyes still closed. “Oh …”

“What do you want to do, Honey?” Steve asks. “You want to get on your back? Why don’t you do that and feel those soft blankets against your body, huh?” He encourages Bucky to lie back and is incredibly relieved when the omega goes without a fuss. “Good boy,” he coos. “That’s just right. Yeah, isn’t that nice? Did such a good job on making this nest, Omega,” he praises. He sits back and crosses his legs and gives Bucky a moment to settle in. “There you go. Mmhm. Bet that feels real good on your skin, doesn’t it? Don’t worry now. I’m not going to touch you for a little bit. Just want you to get comfy in your nest. You gonna do that for me, Sweetheart?”

Bucky nods, scent calming more and more as he realizes that Steve isn’t lying, that he’s really not going to fall on top of him and force anything on him. His eyes open and flick over Steve’s face uncertainly. “What do I have to do?” he asks, emotionally vulnerable now but still with a degree of lucidity in his voice. It lets Steve know that he’s still dealing with his patient: a trauma victim. Bucky isn’t lost to his heat just yet.

Steve starts up a low, comforting rumble in his chest and keeps his hands on the tops of his own thighs. “Nothing you don’t want to,” he reassures him. “We’re here for you, Bucky. To make you feel good, and safe, and pleasured. I’m not going to do anything to you if it doesn’t make you feel all of those things, okay?”

Bucky almost looks like he’s going to cry at hearing Steve’s kind promises. He looks like a child who’s afraid to trust, who’s had promises that they’ve believed in yanked away before, many times. “Are you sure?” he asks, fearful.

Steve smiles sadly and grips his own thighs to keep himself from reaching out. “So sure,” he says. “Let’s just sit here together for a minute, okay?” He looks up at the ceiling and speaks to the StarkPhone assistant, “Hey Jarvis: play ‘sexual healing’ playlist.”

“Playing ‘sexual healing’ playlist.”

Steve looks back down to Bucky just in time to catch him wincing at the stupid name of the playlist. They share a chuckle over it, and then the music that Steve uses for people like Bucky starts to fill the room. There’s not actually any Marvin Gaye on it. Far from that, the instrumental music is somewhere between ethereal and sensual. It’s enticing, soothing, and Steve has always found it to be a good fit for patients who need help relaxing into their heats. “How’s that?” he asks Bucky, smiling down at him.

“Nice,” he says, inhaling slowly and letting his eyes slip closed as he relaxes, and exhales.

Something deep in Steve’s chest unspools at that huge sign of trust. This is good. This is going really well. “Okay,” he murmurs. More quietly than last time, he says, “Jarvis: dim lights to thirty percent, soft orange glow. Adjust room temperature to patient’s basal body temp, minus twenty degrees.”

This time Jarvis follows the commands without replying. The room becomes warm and glowing and comforting, like the inside of a womb. Steve sits still and allows Bucky to take time to relax fully. The omega’s scent is improving, softening and ripening into a healthy tone. Steve’s body responds to it, but he ignores his own reactions and watches Bucky intently. In the low light, his body gleams beautifully. The faint sheen of perspiration that coats his skin makes him look delectable. Steve wants to taste him so badly.

“I’m gonna get something,” he says quietly, not wanting to disturb Bucky from how he’s relaxing. “Not going anywhere, just a second.” Bucky makes a vague noise of assent, eyes staying closed. It makes Steve smile fondly.

He goes to the supply cabinet and gets a bottle of unscented oil. There’s a pin valve on the bottom of the container that he locks onto one of the pheromone vials. He squeezes in some of his pheromones then pops the vial back off, giving the oil bottle a good shake to properly emulsify everything. Having Steve’s alpha scent rubbed all over his skin will help relax Bucky, and it’ll help calm some of his body’s inflammatory heat reactions down.

Steve climbs back into the nest and sits next to Bucky’s prone body. He lets his eyes rake over the rise and fall of his chest and the smooth planes of his belly. He stares at what’s visible lower down; a small thatch of dark pubic hair just above his penis, everything else naturally bare and smooth. Steve can’t see his actual sex from here, but he can see the shine of slick that’s leaked out of it, smeared onto his inner thighs and gleaming in the room’s low light. It’s enticing to say the least.

Steve knows he’s not supposed to judge his patients’ bodies, but there’s no denying that Bucky is ideally attractive, right down to what’s between his legs. His little cocklet is short and soft. It’s fattened up thick but not erect. That’s to be expected. It’s rare that Steve sees a male omega who is able to get fully hard. Their bodies don’t produce the right hormones for it, especially during their heats. Bucky’s uncircumcised, the head of his little dick fat and flush beneath the foreskin. Steve knew all of this already, but somehow it all still feels novel. He’s looking at him differently now. Not as a doctor but as his alpha support, as someone who’s going to make love to his body, if Bucky wants it.

When he looks back up to his face, Bucky’s eyes are open and he’s watching him with an inscrutable expression. “Are you okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods silently. “I …” his eyes flash down to his dick and then away. “Um…” He squirms and presses his thighs together, ashamed. “It’s not, um, I’m not …”

“No,” Steve says firmly. “Bucky, no. You’re so perfect, Honey. You literally look like the classical sculptures of male omegas.” Bucky seems to be slightly reassured by this, which Steve knows is a minor miracle. He can imagine the sorts of things Bucky’s been insulted with over the years, all the ways his so-called family has told him his omega body is wrong. “Can I touch you a little, Sweetheart? Are you gonna let me touch this gorgeous body?”

Bucky shivers, eyes wide. He seems stunned that Steve likes the way he looks. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Good boy,” Steve praises. He squeezes out some of the oil and rubs it between his hands. It’s a dry massage oil, designed for omegas who’re in heat, their skin overly sensitive to stimulation. Steve reaches out slowly, telegraphing his intentions. He lets his hand sink down to rest on the top of Bucky’s thigh. He feels the omega shiver from the touch. He squeezes, digging slow and deep into the muscle, then releases the pressure and rubs firmly up and down, over and over. “Is this okay?” he asks. “Me massaging you?” It’s one of the most common techniques he uses for trauma victims, and Bucky seems to be responding to it favorably, if the lazy, pleasured look on his face is anything to go by. “Mm? Good?”

Bucky nods, staring at him through heavy lidded eyes. “Yeah,” he croaks. “It’s nice.” Between his legs, his little cocklet is just barely peeking out, a thin bead of moisture pearling at the slit . Steve notices with a slight smile, but of course he says nothing.

He brings up his other hand to deepen the massage. “That’s good,” he praises. “That’s what we want.” He keeps up the massage, doing one thigh and then the other, then moving down to his shins. Bucky makes a painfully erotic sound once Steve has pulled his foot into his lap and is digging fingers into his arch. Steve hums, continuing on.

Eventually Bucky seems calm enough that Steve sets his feet aside and encourages him to spread his legs so that Steve can move to sit between them. Bucky seems to know what’s coming, keeping his eyes pointedly closed as Steve eases his hands back up his legs, over his knees, and then up to the tension in his inner thighs. “Shh,” Steve soothes, rubbing back and forth. “Relax, honey. I’m just gonna examine you. Eyes and hands only, I promise. Take deep breaths.”

Bucky tries to listen, it’s obvious. But his breath still hitches when Steve brings both hands to his lower stomach and begins palpating the area. He peeks down at Steve, “What’re you doing?”

“Just checking,” Steve murmurs, focused on what he’s feeling underneath his fingers. “It’s normal for your uterus to swell during heat, but I don’t want to feel any hard spots.” He hears Bucky grunt in embarrassment, probably at being reminded of his own anatomy. “Shh, you’re okay. Everything seems fine.”

“... Steve?” Steve looks up and sees Bucky’s pinched expression. “Um, remember when you said I might not be able to have children?”

His heart squeezes at the obvious vulnerability in Bucky’s voice, how brave he’s being by asking. “We were worried about that, before,” Steve admits. “But your body’s been responding well to the treatment.” He notches his thumbs in at Bucky’s hipbones and strokes him softly there. “We still have to get your cycles regulated, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to carry a pregnancy just fine one day.”

Bucky’s cheeks flush and he looks a little overwhelmed at the words. “... one day,” he repeats meekly, and Steve smiles gently at him.

“Yeah Honey, one day. Not today. Not until you’re ready.” This seems to ease Bucky's fears, and his scent sweetens into something even richer than before. He smells like he feels safe, and that makes Steve preen in satisfaction. He’s making his omega feel safe. He rumbles low in his chest and watches how Bucky reacts to the sound. He slides his hands down to Bucky’s knees and encourages him to bed his legs up. “Can I see the rest of you?” he asks.

Bucky trembles and tenses, but he nods, shifting the tilt of his hips as he draws his knees up for him.

“Good boy,” Steve praises, knowing how hard it must be for Bucky to reveal this part of himself to anyone, let alone Steve. “That’s so good, Bucky. Thank you.” He strokes Bucky’s calves, soothing him. “Close your eyes if you need to. I want you relaxed for this.”

Bucky whimpers but he does let his eyes slip closed. He’s trying. He’s being so brave and strong and it melts Steve’s heart. Steve takes a moment to get some more of the massage oil on his hands. He leans over Bucky and smears the oil on either side of his neck, right over the glands, giving him his scent. He puts some just below his nostrils as well and Bucky moans softly. Steve sits back. He looks down.

Bucky is pink and healthy looking, swollen from the heat and soaked with a healthy amount of slick. Steve pushes gently on his shins to get him to bend his legs more. This tilts his pelvis up and exposes him to Steve’s view.

Bucky looks like any young male omega should. He lacks a clitoris because his body developed that part of his anatomy into a penis when he was in utero. His sex is fairly similar to a female's, with pronounced outer lips where he would’ve formed his testicles, if he hadn’t developed ovaries instead. Steve’s breath catches a little when he sees the boy's muscles clench, a thick gush of slick seeping out of his cunt. Jesus wept. Bucky whimpers and squirms, but Steve hushes him, telling him that he’s good, he’s fine, his body’s doing what it’s supposed to. “I’m going to touch you, okay?” he says softly, giving Bucky the chance to refuse. “I’m going to put my fingers inside to feel you.”

While it’s clear that this is very upsetting and hard for Bucky, he still seeks comfort in Steve, trying to be good for him. “Alpha,” he breathes, eyes clenched shut and face screwed up. He reaches down, searching for Steve’s hand.

Steve gives him his left one and squeezes their fingers together. “Right here, Honey. It’s just you and me, in private, taking care of each other. Nothing bad, right?”

Bucky nods tightly. “Y-yeah. Right.”

Steve smiles up at him, pained but so, so proud of how well he’s doing. “C’mere,” he coaxes, scooting up in the sheets and pulling on Bucky until he has the boy’s hips up in his lap. “There you go. That’s so good, Omega. You know just what to do. So smart.” Bucky responds to the nonsensical praise, his whines losing some of their stress and instead becoming more seeking, questioning things. Steve makes it his mission to soothe those sounds with his own. “I’m going to touch you now, Buck. Two fingers. It shouldn’t hurt, but if it feels uncomfortable at all, you tell me right away and I’ll stop.” He waits for Bucky’s nod before continuing, then traces the edges of his folds, gathering slick on his fingertips. Everything externally looks good, and the little Steve can see of his delicate entrance looks normal, if a bit heat swollen. The remains of his recently-torn hymen are still there, healed but jagged edges of soft tissue that evil, vile rapists created. Steve grits his teeth and forces his thoughts away from that, not wanting to think about what they took from Bucky, not wanting Bucky to become upset from an unpleasant shift in his scent.

Any physical trauma to the vaginal tissues will have healed in an omega his age by now, Steve knows, but that’s just the physical. Physical wounds always heal the fastest, and hurt the least. There are other, deeper hurts that Steve needs to help him with.

“Okay,” he whispers, setting his fingers to Bucky’s entrance. “A little pressure, no pain. Remember what you do if there’s pain?”

Bucky’s face pinches where he’s lying with his eyes firmly closed. “Tell you,” he murmurs, and Steve praises him with a deep rumble of approval.

“That’s right. Good boy. Okay now, deep breath.” He waits for Bucky’s chest to rise in an inhale before he applies pressure, and slips into his body.

Bucky’s lips part and he gasps, but it’s just reflex. He lets his breath out and sighs, making a little sound in his throat like he’s surprised that it actually didn’t hurt. “Oh,” he says.

Steve hums, pleased. “Nothing bad,” he repeats. He crooks his fingers, feeling with purpose along the omega’s walls. It’s tight inside, incredibly hot and tight like a virgin omega’s cunt should be. Steve keeps his arousal to himself as best he can, though he knows his scent will give some of it away. At least Bucky is keeping his eyes closed to relax, so Steve doesn’t have to worry about the boy seeing the undoubtedly devastated expressions of arousal that flash across his own face.

He’s alpha, and even though he’s undergone extensive training, there’s no helping certain things. Steve’s cock is hard and it’s not going down any time soon. He swallows thickly, focusing on the exam he needs to be conducting. Carefully, watching Bucky’s body and face for any flinches, he strokes and feels along his internal walls. Nothing abnormal stands out to him, though when he uses a different technique to feel closer to the entrance, he does notice the enlarged slick glands that he’d known were there.

They’re much better than they’d been on that night in the ER, at least. No longer raging with infection, able to be touched without causing extreme pain. Steve feels and identifies the structures, impacted from years and years of illegal suppressant use. Carefully, he eases into using more pressure, rubbing firmly.

Bucky groans and presses his hips down. “Oh god,” he complains, brow scrunching a little. “What is that?”

“Pain?” Steve asks, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Sore. Oh. Like a bruise.”

Steve hums knowingly. “You have four glands here, two on either side. They’re how your body gets wet, but right now they’re probably impacted.” Bucky makes a hurt little sound in his throat and asks what that means. Steve explains it to him. “There was a lot of old infection in them and that all needs depressed now that your body’s producing slick again. I’m gonna massage them to try and get the bad stuff out, okay?”

Bucky’s chewing his lip, making it red and swollen and very tempting for Steve to just crawl back up his body and kiss the abused flesh. “... okay.”

Steve decides to do the anterior two first, as they feel harder. “Here we go,” he murmurs. “If it hurts more than slightly pressing on a bruise, tell me. Don’t ignore pain. I’ll stop if we need to.”

Bucky nods tightly, expression strained. But he whispers, “I trust you, Alpha,” and Steve’s heart swells two sizes bigger in his chest.

A few minutes of firm, focused touching on the glands is all it takes to have them releasing. Liquid gushes over the back of Steve’s hand as the pressure gives and Bucky moans in relief. The smell of old, stale infection hits the air, sour for a moment before it dissipates. Steve uses his free hand to rub soothingly over Bucky’s lower belly. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Against the sheets, Bucky nods his head blearily. Steve turns his hand and finds the posterior glands, and works those until they release as well. The amount of slick is incredible, and Steve knows that it must feel so much better for the omega now that all that poison is out of him. There’s immediately more room inside his channel, the glands back to being soft and spongy like they should be. Steve gives them a few more gentle strokes to be sure that all that backed up slick is out. “Good,” he rumbles low in his chest, proud of how well Bucky handled that. “That’s just lovely, Honey. Good job.”

Bucky peeks his eyes open, looking down to where Steve still has his fingers buried inside his body. His entire face is flushed and he’s breathing open-mouthed. “S-steve,” he slurs, searching Steve’s eyes out with his own. He’s a little wild, a little needy, and Steve responds, removing his fingers from the drenched clutch of his cunt and coming up to lay over his body instead. He puts his face close, giving Bucky eye contact and reassurance and an open invitation to scent him. “I’m here, Buck. I’m right here with you. What do you need?”

Bucky grunts with discomfort and hides himself against Steve’s neck, which of course Steve allows, turning his head to the side to give him better access to his glands. He cups Bucky’s head with his clean hand, encouraging him with deep, soothing sounds. “That’s good, that’s just right, Honey. Do what feels good. Whatever you need.”

Bucky keens, embarrassed but clearly loving the reassurance Steve’s giving him. He latches onto Steve, mouth on his glands and legs around his waist. He humps up against him and sucks needily on his glands. “Mmph, mm…”

Steve can’t help the guttural moan that escapes him at such contact. It feels so good. “Okay, Sweetheart, okay,” he pants, eyes squeezed shut as his dick throbs and blurts out precum against Bucky’s stomach. “Yeah, okay.” He loses control for a few seconds as his hips press down on Bucky’s soft body, but he reigns it in after a few thrusts.

Bucky complains with a noise, humping up for more as he mouths over Steve's neck. His teeth scrape and then catch, and then he bites down on Steve’s glands. Hard.

Steve grunts loudly at the flare of pain. The skin breaks and his scent wafts into the air, strong and different from before as Bucky’s saliva gets mixed into the wound. He hears Bucky’s muffled sound of enjoyment as his mouth fills with the taste, eagerly suckling for more. “... oh, fuck,” Steve moans. He digs his fingers in against Bucky’s shoulders and pants, trying to hold on, to stay calm.

He knew this might happen. Patients with needs as complex as Bucky’s are prone to biting. They naturally seek out the connection and pleasure of a bond, instincts overriding their minds as they seek the comfort they so desperately need. Bucky chirps happily at the burst of pheromones that he’s gotten, rubbing his face back and forth in the blood. “Alpha, Alpha,” he breathes, clinging onto him and humping up, getting his slick all over Steve.

Steve practices his breathing to try and stay calm. He pets Bucky’s shoulders and his hair, taking deep, grounding breaths. He’s careful not to pull away, not to deny Bucky access to any part of him. The pain from the bite is gone and the euphoria is setting in, making his skin tingle, his balls throb. He can feel his knot becoming erect. Bucky is rubbing his cunt along the length of his cock, and even with his training and his certifications and his long-practiced self control, even Steve has limits.

“Hang on, Honey. Hang on now,” he says, voice low with forced calm. He shifts on his arms over Bucky so that he can get a hand at the back of the omega’s neck. He squeezes. Bucky instantly goes limp, mouth releasing from Steve’s skin with a moan as he goes slack against the blankets. Steve pants for a moment, just calming himself down. “Okay,” he says, eyes closed. “Okay baby. Just ... just gimme a minute ..."

He's been bonded to seven people in his life. It never gets easier.

The euphoria is wonderful, all-consuming, an intense physical pleasure that’s different from pure sex and is very emotional—like doing narcotics and molly at the same time. It makes it very hard not to lose his control and simply fuck into the nearest available orifice. Which right now is Bucky’s soaking wet cunt. Grunting, he forces himself to pull back. He rolls off of Bucky and gets off the bed.

Bucky’s keening protest is near-instantaneous. “Alpha!”

Steve rumbles loudly to calm him down. “Stop. Omega. Be still.” Bucky whimpers but listens, and Steve sits down on the edge of the bed. He reaches out and grabs Bucky’s hand, giving him a comforting squeeze. “Talk to me,” he coaxes, waiting for Bucky to calm down enough to communicate. “How you doing, Sweetheart?”

Bucky looks pleadingly up at him, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. “S-steve, I’m—I need…”

Steve’s heart clenches in sympathy. It’s not easy for an assault victim to say that they need to be fucked, especially when they have as much shame and dysphoria surrounding their gender as Bucky does. “Hey,” he says lowly, leaning over and sliding his hand up Bucky’s chest. “It’s okay to ask for what you need. What do you need, Baby? Tell me.” Bucky trembles and shakes his head, upset, so Steve cups the front of his throat and presses slightly, just enough to be dominating. “Tell me now, Omega,” he says, using his Voice to make it easier for him. “Tell Alpha what you need to feel right.”

Bucky moans and thrusts his hips up uselessly. He looks to Steve, relief in his eyes. “Alpha,” he croaks. “You, please. Want you.”

“Want me how?” Steve presses, not in his Voice but still domineering. He lets his fingers dig into Bucky’s glands, sees Bucky’s blood-stained lips part in a sigh of pleasure. “You have choices,” Steve says. He’s regained some of his control now, is more clear headed as he tells him, “We don’t have to have sex if it’s not what you want. You can use my hands, or my mouth. There are toys. I can have the hospital staff bring—”

“No!” Bucky whines loudly and squirms against the hold on his neck. Both of his hands fly up and grasp at Steve’s wrist. “No, no, Alpha, please. I need… I–I n-need it.”

Steve frowns, debating whether he should push and make him say it. After a moment of watching Bucky struggle and plead uselessly, he decides that no, he’s not going to force him to voice what it is he wants so badly. They both know what it is, and the last thing Steve wants is for Bucky to feel any sort of shame right now.

Only pleasure. That’s what he’d promised.

So, taking a deep breath, Steve gives himself over to his role a little more. He’s got Bucky’s consent, or as much of it he’s able to, given the state he’s in, and now he needs to be what Bucky needs him to be. He needs to be his Alpha. “Stay still,” he orders firmly, giving a little jostle to Bucky’s neck where he’s holding him. “I’m gonna get something. Don’t move until I come back.”

Bucky whines in complaint the entire time that it takes Steve to pad over to the fridge and back, but when Steve returns, he still hasn’t moved. Steve rumbles approval in his chest for Bucky to hear. “Good boy,” he praises, sitting down on the bed and helping Bucky to prop himself up, too. “Here. Drink.” He guides the water bottle to Bucky’s lips, helping him even when the omega brings his own hands up to hold it. Steve doesn’t trust the poor thing not to spill it all over himself. Steve gulps down what Bucky doesn’t finish, tossing the bottle off to the side somewhere. His eyes stay on Bucky, trailing up and down his naked body. “You’re so beautiful, Buck,” he murmurs, reaching up to trace the side of his cheek, his temple.

It’s true. Bucky’s whole body is flushed and tense. He’s sweaty, trembling with his need for touch and stimulation. When Steve cups the front of his throat again, the omega’s eyes slip shut and stay shut. He purrs. Steve rumbles in response and uses the moment that Bucky has his eyes closed, relaxed, to stare selfishly at his body.

His little cock is thickened, a perfect, fat little nub that’s almost thicker than it is long, chubbed up and leaking little droplets. But that’s nothing compared to the mess that’s coming from his cunt. He’s soaking wet down there, a combination of shiny clear slick coating his thighs and the sheets, and thicker arousal creaming right at his entrance.

Steve growls as he’s slammed with the hot urge to stick his face down there, tongue deep inside his cunt and swallow everything the omega has to give. He looks away for a second to get himself under control. When he looks back, Bucky’s eyes are fixed on him. “Omega,” Steve grits, forced control darkening his tone. “I want to try something. Something to make you feel good. But I need you to tell me if you want it.” He watches Bucky carefully, watches his mouth and his eyes, feels the thrum of his pulse underneath his hand. He scents the air to gauge his reaction as he says, “I want to put my mouth on you. I want to eat you out. I want to make you cum that way.”

Every sign that Bucky could possibly give him that he wants it, he does. He jerks in Steve’s hold and keens, hands grappling all over Steve’s hand at his throat, up his wrist and his forearm. “Yes!” he gasps, crying a little bit in shame. Steve scents the smokey tint of it in his scent, polluting what should be nothing but pleasure and acceptance. Bucky is ashamed that he wants an alpha to touch him this way. “Sweetheart,” Steve coos, thumbing away one of the tears. But he leaves it at that. More tears follow. Steve knows he can’t expect miracles today. Bucky can cry about it if he needs. He can squirm and flush and cry while Steve pleasures him with his mouth, so long as he comes.

That’s what therapy’s for.

Steve pushes him back to lie flat on the bed. He bends over and kisses him, keeping it shallow and gentle even when Bucky gets a little bit desperate and tries to get more. Steve tuts and pushes him back into the blankets. “Be still, ‘mega,” he commands gently. “Alpha’s gonna make it better, you’ll see.” He pulls some of the soft things in from the edges of the nest, rucking them up close around Bucky’s head and shoulders, making a tight little barrier where he can feel held, safe and snug. “Okay,” he says, satisfied by how Bucky goes a little lax in the cradle of the blankets. “Yeah, there we go.”

“Alpha,” Bucky says softly, looking lost. He’s completely dependent at this point, so incredibly vulnerable that it makes Steve's cock ache.

“Sweet boy,” he murmurs. “It’s gonna be okay. Alpha’s gonna make you feel good now, okay?” He waits for Bucky to give him a slow little nod. He pecks one more kiss to his bitten-red lips, then starts trailing down his body, one kiss at a time. He’s sorely tempted to waste some time sucking at the omega’s chest. His little pink nipples are so perky and flushed, and Steve just knows he could get his breast buds to swell up so beautifully if he only paid them some attention.

But Bucky hasn’t consented to that, and Steve hasn’t asked, and he has to be very careful of treating Bucky’s body in only the ways he gives consent for and can tolerate. Bucky’s been through so much pain and he’s been forced into things no omega should ever be forced into. His experience now has to be positive. It has to.

Steve sinks down between his legs and stares at his wet cunt. He’s pulsing with arousal, his entrance contracting rhythmically, pushing out more of that cream. Steve releases a guttural moan at the intense smell of it. “Fuck,” he breathes. There’s no amount of training that could help him resist this.

He covers Bucky’s cunt with his mouth, lapping across his slit. The taste of his arousal is sharp and amazing, made even more so by the fresh effects of the bite to Steve’s bonding gland. He groans against his mound and holds him down roughly at the hips when Bucky jerks wildly.

He’s crying out, sobbing wordlessly and thrashing up against Steve’s mouth. “A—Alpha!” he gasps, sounding like he’s protesting as much as he is begging. “Oh, oh, oh!”

Steve tongues into his hole furiously, over and over again, fucking him with the muscle. He can feel Bucky fluttering around him, his body trying so hard to clamp down onto something. Steve hears the growing displeasure and desperation in the boy’s keening cries, so he reaches to push his little cocklet down flat and starts thumbing rapidly back and forth under the head.

Bucky screams and starts to come.

As soon as Steve realizes what’s happening, he moves his mouth up and takes his cock in his mouth, replacing his tongue with fingers in Bucky’s cunt. It throbs and pulses around them, milking him, drawing out the orgasm. Bucky’s hips grind up against Steve’s face and hands, and Steve can only work him through it, listening to his desperate sobs and wishing he could be kissing his face, too, whispering encouragements into his mouth as he falls apart so sweetly.

“That’s it,” he says when he’s finally let Bucky’s cocklet slip from his mouth. He’s speaking against the swell of his belly, still rocking fingers inside him as the boy twitches through the waning pleasure of his climax. “That’s it, Omega. Take it, take it. Just feel it.”

Bucky’s sobbing quietly and shaking from his core as Steve finishes guiding him through it. “S-steeve,” he keens, upset and needing reassurance. He pulls at Steve’s shoulders, urging him back up his body. Steve goes obediently, eager to calm him down now.

“Shh sh sh,” he soothes, kissing all over his face and then down to his neck. He sucks his glands on one side, pinches with his fingers on the other. “Good, you’re so good Omega. That was perfect. Alpha’s so proud of you.”

The scent of Bucky’s shame is stronger now than it was before, but it eases up the longer Steve goes on, reassuring him with touches and words and chest-deep rumbles that he’s done exactly what he’s supposed to, that he was good to take his pleasure that way and that his Alpha is so, so happy with him now.

“So good,” he kisses into his skin, scraping his teeth over the swollen glands but restraining himself from anything more. “So good for me, Bucky.” He comes up to lie over him and look down at his face. He’s beet red and tear stained, and he’s never looked more beautiful to Steve. Steve smiles softly as they both calm down, and he thumbs at his wet cheeks. “Did that feel so good, Sweetheart?”

Bucky’s lips tremble and he nods and cries a little bit more. “Yeah.”

Steve coos. He kisses him, calming him down. When Bucky’s scent is almost free from that shame and embarrassment, he pulls back and smiles down at him. “Do you have any idea how perfect you are like this?” he asks softly. “Any idea how much I want you right now?”

Beneath his body, Bucky shudders. He looks wonderingly up at Steve and whispers, “No.”

Steve hums, then lets the sound develop into a mature rumble deep in his chest. He gets off of Bucky, pulling back and getting up on his knees, sitting back on his heels. He watches Bucky, keenly aware of how the omega’s attention drops right to the proud jut of his cock between his thighs.

Taking a deep breath and trying his very best to wipe any trace of an opinion out of his voice, Steve asks, “What do you want now, Omega?”

Art: @hopelessartgeek

A.N. This ended in a stupid spot because it was getting too long. More to come!

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🎨Art in banner by the incredibly talented @hopelessartgeek, who makes a ton of amazing Stucky art. Check her out! (The piece in the banner, used with permission, was not made for this fic.)

Tags: @scottishrosefury, @not-that-syndrigast, @lolitsbuckybarnes, @kathy-2005, @stuckysgal, @thenewmissescullen, @sapphirebarnes, @Yoruse, @autumnrose40, @alexakeyloveloki, @gretasimp, @kandismom, @ivoryangel1290, @mrs-rogers-barnes1, @iloveshawnieboi, @m0k0k0, @sousydive, @sapphirebarnes, @kandis-mom, @juicyfruit-22, @bloodrosefuryao3

[nimata-beroya]

20 Questions For Writers

This was sitting on my notifs for a few days and i finally took the time to do it. Thank my darling @takadasaiko for the tag!! 💕💕

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 88 works in total, 31 of which are for Star Wars.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

574,873 words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, I'm only writing for Star Wars. But I used to write for Arrow and Supergirl, and ASoIAF, Dark-Hunters and Chronicles of Nick are in standby. I'm waiting for right motivation to come back to any of the last 3.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

I'm only talking about Star Wars fics here...

Kadala (The Mandalorian) [and 4th place in most kudos of all my works]

Rough Awakening (The Bad Batch) [and 5th place in most kudos of all my works]

Welcome to Yavin IV (Rebels)

An Explosive Situation (Rebels)

Rescue on Ryloth (The Bad Batch)

And the the rest of my all-time fics with most kudos are

Take Your Breath Away (Arrow)

Undisclosed Desires (Arrow)

Made For You (ASoIaF/Game of Thrones)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try my best, but sometimes I forget, and then it's been weeks and months since I got the comments that I'm embarrassed to reply them after so long. Even though, I think it's important that a writer let the reader/commenter that they appreciate it, even if it's with a simple "thank you" or an emoji. I know I'm being a hypocrite here since I fail to do what I preach, but it doesn't make it less true.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think that would be Drifting, because it's kind of open ending, left to be interpreted, so it could end however the reader wants. Although, I left an author's note at the end saying what's my preferred ending, which always will be inclined to the happy side.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

High Above the Ground because is the happy ending i want for Commander Fox and Riyo Chuchi. They deserve only the best!

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

No, not really. I've gotten only 1 stupid message of someone criticizing a fic, but that was years ago when I still posted on FF dot net. The joke was on the reader because I moderated all the comments there so I just deleted it and nobody saw it but me. Honestly, I just laughed about it cuz their argument was just stupid.

9. Do you write smut?

I do, all kinds -from the most tame thing to the most perverted. But I used to wrote way more in my old fandoms, especially for Arrow. I think for Star Wars I've written just 1 or 2 smutty fics, and tamed at that.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've tried a couple of occasions but never finished them. I'm not opposed to them obviously, but I do think the combination of fandoms has to be just right to work. Or at least, when it's me doing the writing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes! Many, many years ago in the first fandom I ever wrote for. It was awful and hated it! You see, this was in the stone age of the internet when fandom specific sites abounded and not everyone had an account on FFnet yet (and Ao3 was not even a dream). The site I published on was split in 2 sections because the ships war in the fandom was bloody and ruthless, so to avoid the slaughter, I kept myself in my preferred side. But one day, a friend who read fic on both sides told me that someone stole my fics. Avoiding to get caught, the person who did it published them under a pen name that was almost exact to mine, she only added a period at the end, which could easily go unnoticed. Oh, and she interchanged characters names so it'd fit the other ship.

At first, my friend thought I had posted them but she knew I'd never write for that ship, like ever. In the end, it turned out that I wasn't the only one who had being plagiarized. Several people ON BOTH SIDES were. Thankfully, the person was caught and banned, but we almost burned the site down because of the whole shitshow.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

By me, yes, several. All into Spanish (my mother tongue). By others, not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes! A couple of times for different fandoms, and I loved it. I hope I'll do it again. The thing is that you need to find the right partner for it, or it can be a nightmare.

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

I don't appreciate this question, let me tell you. It's hard to choose. But I think I have to go with Olicity. I love them still (even if the show ending ruined it for me). Close second would be Braime (and I'm glad that there's still hope for them on the books, because as usual the show fucked them so but sooooo bad)

And as Star Wars specific, I don't think anyone will be surprised if I say it's Kalluzeb, right 🤣 They're my babies and I adore them!

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Anything for Arrow or Supergirl. I sworn off those fandoms after their respectively awful endings.

No promises, but there's still hope for all if my unfinished works for Star Wars 😅

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Coming up with ideas. So, so many ideas. All the time and I want to write them all.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Finishing writing the above-mentioned ideas. I tend to splay myself too much when I'm writing, and it takes me forever to get to the portion I really want to write (usually the idea that sparked the whole writing process) and I lose steam. That's why I have so many unfinished WIPs. I wish they'd write themselves.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

It's ok if used sparingly. A word here, a phrase over there is fine, but if a wall of dialogue that the reader needs to scroll down to the notes or click on a tooltip to find out the meaning it's the worst!!! A better solution for a writer that really needs/wants to have a whole conversation in another language for plot reasons or whatever, then all they need to do is to say once that the characters are talking in the other language and put the dialogue in the same language they've been writing the rest of the narrative and in italic.

The characters who don't speak the language won't understand what's being said, but the reader will and their reading will be more pleasant and fluid.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

An Argentinian show called Floricienta. A modern retelling of Cinderella.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I don't like this question either! All my fics are my babies! How do you want me to choose?!! There are so many I'm proud of. I guess I'll point the most recent one: Feed Me Poison, Fill me till I Drown I really like how this story is coming along. It's not done yet (what else is new? 😅) but what's coming is so so good!

Tagging (no pressure): @renee561 @thecoffeelorian @genericficerblog @airlockfailure @mistr3ssquickly @insertmeaningfulusername @fanfictasia

[maximura]

Ad Astra: The Theory Of Relativity | An Interstellar Ateez story Part I | Part II | Part III | Park IV | Part V (Words 4413, Warnings: swearing)

"Okay, I’ve got some news.” Hongjoong says as he sits down at the dinner table. “The NASA flight team offered me a job training their new pilots and um, I said Yes.”

“Yeah, we already about knew that.” Wooyoung says as he attempts to rewire a black and green lego robot named ‘Duke Lego’.

Yunho perks up in attention, leaning forward to peer closely at his older brother’s face, no doubt searching for signs of hidden reckless agendas. It reminds Hongjoong of the German Shepherd puppy they had when they were kids. 

“When you say ‘job’, what does that mean exactly?” 

“It’s just training some new pilots in a simulator. The facility is only half an hour away from here. I won’t be gone for long, just once a week. I’ll still keep my old job but we could really use the extra money.”

“Can I come?” Wooyoung asks, carefully resting Duke Lego on the table.

“No.” 

“Why not?! You said I could!”

Yunho observes his brothers with judgement. “Seriously, Hongjoong? You said he could go? To NASA? This guy? Because that’ll end well.”

“Shut up Yunho!” Wooyoung scowls. “I know more about this than you!”

Hongjoong waves his hand to silence the bickering. “My first day is tomorrow. It’ll just be meeting the pilots and going through some routine training. Nothing crazy.”

“So I could technically go.” Wooyoung reasons, “If it’s nothing crazy? I won’t touch anything I swear!”

“Still no.”

“Will Seonghwa be there? Can I show him my robots?”

“No!”

“Wait, what if I want to go too?” Yunho interjects. “Nobody asked me if I wanted to go!”

“Neither of you are going!” Hongjoong groans. “At least, not on my first day. I’m just telling you all this so you know where I’ll be. The Park Uncles will watch out for you while I’m gone.”

“We don’t need a babysitter.” Yunho rolls his eyes. “Well I don’t.”

“I don’t either!” Wooyoung echoes. 

“Sorry about your personal opinions on that but you’re both going to the Mill, they still need a lot of help with all the summer holiday orders. I’ll see you at around dinner time.”

Both younger brothers look like they want to keep protesting but when nothing else comes out, Hongjoong dismisses them to their rooms for the night so he can prepare himself for tomorrow. 

He’s already read the information pack front to back, several times, but NASA seems to have left out one important detail: what on earth they expected him to wear. It has him standing in front of his small closet for a good five minutes, deciding nothing but concluding it’s been at least year since he’s actually bought new clothes. 

Apart from the one black suit reserved for weddings and funerals, there’s a few plain t-shirts, cargo pants at various stages of life, assorted shirts he never wears, random items that Yunho had outgrown and his favourite dark brown leather jacket. He has two pairs of work boots, identical except for their colour. It wasn’t much of a selection. 

But then again, he hasn’t had to dress for any other occasions lately. As much as Jonghoon hassles him about it, dating in the time of global death is just not in the cards, not now and likely not ever. 

Ascending down the stairs the next day, he knows he’s worn the wrong thing because instead of the usual ‘good morning’ he’s just greeted with a burst of laughter. Maybe the white button down shirt was slightly too tight across the chest and maybe the black trousers had shrunken to the point where even walking was a little difficult.

“You look like an accountant Michelin man.” Yunho cackles. “You can’t seriously go out like that!”

Wooyoung’s wheezes don’t even pause to comment and Hongjoong wonders if he might choke on his breakfast at some point. 

Defeated, he trudges back upstairs and settles for his least grease stained black cargo pants, the least faded black t-shirt and his leather jacket. Maybe he’ll be under dressed but at least he’ll feel like himself and it’s what the boys are used to seeing him in.

“Is this better? It’s still professional right?” Hongjoong asks, pointing to the new outfit. “Do I look like I know my shit?”

“Well, kind of?” Yunho nods, answering truthfully as he chews his toast. “But do you actually know your shit?”

Hongjoong lets the swearing slide this one time. “Yeah, of course. Kind of.”

Wooyoung stops eating breakfast long enough to tell Hongjoong that he looks smart and professional enough for NASA. With his head of dishevelled black hair and an old crumpled t-shirt stolen from Yunho, the fourteen year old isn’t exactly a qualified fashion expert but the approval is appreciated nonetheless.

“Thanks, Kiddo.” Hongjoong smiles. “And that’s why you’re my favourite.”

“Hey!” Yunho protests before deciding that the marmalade loaded toast in his hand was more important. “Ugh, whatever.”

The wall clock reads 8 a.m and Hongjoong wants to get to the facility early, just in case. He leans down to bite the opposite end of Yunho’s toast and ruffle his hair before rushing out the door, only grimacing once at the obscene amount of marmalade he just swallowed.

“Uncle Moonie will come get you in an hour. Be good. I’ll see you at dinner.”

He’s waved off with a duet of low energy mumbles, as if he was just leaving for a trip to the local grocery store and not a highly classified job at NASA.

The truck is just about to set off when Hongjoong notices an envelope on the dashboard, ’LEGOjira’ is scrawled across the front in Wooyoung’s handwriting and inside there’s a small black and red robot figurine shaped like the famous prehistoric monster.

He sticks it on the dashboard.

Teenagers.

*

The facility is a large converted warehouse that used to manufacture car parts and machinery. NASA gutted it clean and trucked in the simulator and flight control room for the instructors. It all sits on a large plot of government acquired land that’s surrounded by gravel, concrete and layers of metal fencing. Trying to appear unobtrusive and nondescript always had the opposite effect but then again, maintaining a certain public facade wasn’t something many people cared about these days, even at corporations like NASA.

There are three security gates going in and Hongjoong holds onto his ID tag like his life depended on it. The security guards here still wear the same crisp regulation uniforms and Hongjoong definitely feels like he and his dusty truck are underdressed.

NASA told him he would be granted full security clearance here, a fact which does nothing to stop the nausea from churning around his stomach as he drives through. Maybe his mind has tried to move on but his body still remembers the trauma of training. NASA also never specified how much of his disobedience would show up on his records and he half expects something unfavourable to ping on a computer somewhere along the way.

“Name and ID please sir.”

“Kim Hongjoong. I’m here for the flight training.” 

He hands over his ID and watches nervously as the guard confirms his name on the electronic database, reads the screen excruciatingly slowly, eyes him for a few intense seconds, before handing back the ID badge and buzzing the gates open. 

“Carpark is to the left Mr Kim.”

There’s another ID check point on the other side of the carpark. Then another at the entrance to the building itself. Nothing pings and nobody has to know about the way his stomach unknots itself in relief.

Once the truck is parked and Hongjoong is walking towards the simulation centre, he sees a young boy, he guesses around Yunho’s age, running ahead of him in a hurry. The sight of the familiar blue training jumpsuits causes something to catch in Hongjoong’s chest and his footsteps falter on the pavement. Memories of his training years flash through his mind again, some good, some terrible, and while it’s not something he could call PTSD, it’s not exactly without complicated feelings either.

“Kim Fucking Hongjoong.” A familiar deep voice calls out from behind. 

He knows that voice.

He’d recognise that voice anywhere in the universe. 

“Choi Fucking Seungcheol.”

A grin takes over his face as he turns to take in the unexpected appearance of his old friend and mentor: still tall, still committed to black shirts that could never fully contain his broad and solid chest, still letting his dark hair grow longer than it should be, still an imposing presence despite the lopsided smile he’s wearing now. 

Still hugs like a bear. 

“What are you even doing here?!” Hongjoong shakes his head in disbelief. “Did they drag you out of retirement, old man? How did they even find you?"

“I’m only three years older than you, you little shit!” Seungcheol reprimands gently with a push. “They must be real desperate dragging two decommissioned liabilities back.”

“They didn’t tell me you’d be here.” Hongjoong says. “If I knew, I would’ve said yes a long time ago.”

“They didn’t tell me either.” The older man says as they walk to the simulation centre together. “Typical NASA. Those sneaky bastards.”

“How did they even find you? I heard you skipped town once your brothers graduated.”

Seungcheol nods again. “I did. We moved a few towns over, made a life running the textile plant there. Too many bad memories here, you know? But they found me in the end. Guess you can never really outrun your past, huh?”

Hongjoong hums in understanding. 

"I’m sorry about your family. I’m sorry we didn’t keep in touch, it’s just been -“

Seungcheol claps him on the shoulder and chuckles. “Don’t apologise. Things have been a nightmare for everyone. I didn’t want to be found, you could’ve tried your best and I wouldn’t have been ready to come back. I told the first three suits they sent to fuck off but gotta hand to that last snotty one for his persistence. How’d they get you?”

“Got caught at their headquarters accidentally.”

“Breaking and entering? Again? Of course you did.” Seungcheol shakes his head laughing. “Some things never change.”

Hongjoong shrugs, smiling. “So have you been okay though?After …everything?”

“Can’t complain. The knee is fucked up now so I doubt they’ll actually let me fly again but the brain is still in working order so I guess they want me to use it to train these new kids. What about you? I’m sorry to hear about your family too.”

“Well, it’s been a lot since I left training but me and boys have been okay. I can’t complain much either.” 

They finally reach the entrance to the simulation centre, Seungcheol pauses to swipe his badge and gives Hongjoong another lopsided grin. 

“Ready to meet the next bunch of psychopaths?”

“Well, they can’t be any worse than us.”

*

There are eight basic trainees in total. Five males and three females. All far too young. All wearing grim serious expressions on their faces as they are introduced to their new instructors by Yeosang, who was no doubt sent by the Directors to watch over the proceedings, in case it was another PR disaster. Hongjoong doesn’t mind, he’s just relieved to see another familiar face. 

“As you know, Dr Lee and Commander Song have been urgently required on another mission. I would like you to welcome your new flight instructors, Commander Choi Seungcheol and Pilot Kim Hongjoong. They have updated your flight manual and I expect you to treat them with the same level of respect here.”

Hongjoong doesn’t miss the way there’s a ripple of surprised murmurs when their names are called out. He knows it’s not all positive, rumours travel far and their reputations tend to crash into rooms before they do.

Yeosang watches the group closely but doesn’t pause, instead he launches straight into orientation of the venue and vital safety procedures before allowing the trainees a small break to inspect the rest of the facilities. Hongjoong tries to remember if he ever looked that young, optimistic and impressionable.

He wonders when he suddenly felt so old. 

Yeosang ushers them into the simulation control room, a smaller replica of NASA’s actual flight control deck, where they would be spending most of their time running the simulations.

“Thank you both for honouring your commitment to the mission. I apologise for not informing you of your fellow instructor’s identity but well, we weren’t sure if you’d have agreed to it otherwise.”

“Bit of a risky gamble isn’t it Kang?” Seungcheol says, “Thought NASA was all about mitigating risks.”

“Last time we tried to contact you, you told us to go to hell, repeatedly. It was always going to be a risk."

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Ok listen, you dragged me out of retirement for this so cut to the chase and give us the run down on this squad. What do we need to know about these kids?”

Yeosang purses his lip at the demanding tone but nevertheless, keeps his cool long enough to provide them with a folder containing the profiles of each trainee.

Hongjoong flips through each one before something catches his eye. It’s the profile of the boy he saw running past him this morning. 

“Woah, woah, wait a second.”

“What is it?”

“It says here that this kid is sixteen.” Hongjoong says, pointing to the profile page of the male trainee. 

Seungcheol flips to the same page and starts chuckling to himself. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“He’s way too young, Yeosang.” Hongjoong says, shaking his head. “You can’t put a sixteen year old into orbit! I get that these are desperate times and we’re the last two people to talk about regulations and ethics but this is a step too far.”

Yeosang folds his hands neatly in his lap and takes a breath, like he’s been prepared for this question all his life.

“He is sixteen and it is his legal right to apply for training. He will not be the first selected for active duty and he will not be approved to fly until he is at least eighteen.” Yeosang says in what Hongjoong now knows is his “NASA PR” voice. 

“May I remind you that while we need pilots in the immediate present, we also need to plan ahead for future missions. Training the reserves starts now."

“He’s younger than Yunho!” Hongjoong says in exasperation as he scans the rest of the profile. “Where did you find this one anyway?”

“He’s an orphan.” Yeosang says plainly, causing them both to look up. “His parents died in a farming accident a few years ago. He’s alive because he was at school that day. There were no surviving relatives so he was cared for by a generous family then enrolled in the NASA Children’s Space Program once his academic and physical abilities were made known.”

Since the global crop pandemic everyone had a sad backstory to tell, but even Hongjoong regrets asking this one. 

“He grew up at NASA.” Yeosang continues. “He’s as familiar with our facilities and operation protocols as you two are. It wasn’t a random choice born out of desperation, he demonstrated potential and earned his way into this program. Don’t forget that you were both also teenagers when you joined.”

“That was eight years ago.” Hongjoong counters. “You know it was a different time then. We had strict training regimens that were monitored by multiple departments, it wasn’t just two de-commissioned pilots in a warehouse.”

“I assure you that we have tried our best to replicate the rigorous training program that you were subject to. The trainees have all passed the physical boot camp without complication. Due to their age, the younger ones haven’t completed the theory component yet but Seonghwa, Doctor Park, has been tutoring them and we expect they will do well on their final assessments.”

“It’s not good enough to do well.” Seungcheol says with a frown. ‘Doing well’ barely gets you into the air. Doing the best is what gets you back home in one piece. Is your selection criteria still a total nightmare? Are they still getting regular psychiatric assessments?”

“Yes.” Yeosang confirms. 

“Good. They’ll need it.”

“The report from Dr Lee and Commander Song says they have all passed basic training and familiarisation with the simulators.” Hongjoong reads out. “But nobody got a perfect score or anything close to it.”

“That’s why you’re both here.” Yeosang reminds them. “We need to separate the best from the good. Half of this group won’t make it. We all know that and so do they.”

“You think your sixteen year old will?”

Yeosang smiles again, an unsettling combination of threatening and serene. “Depends if his instructors are any good.”

*

The first training session was mostly spent on familiarisation with the simulator in its new home and ironing out any electrical issues. Between short civil exchanges and longer technical lectures, there wasn’t much time to hear any whispers about either instructor’s dismissals but Hongjoong can sense the unease. They don’t trust Seungcheol. They don’t trust him. 

NASA never revealed how much of their dismissal was made public. The disciplinary hearings had been private and a team of lawyers made sure the case never made the news but there were still plenty of rumours. Hongjoong knows the trainees want to ask but it’s not the type of information he wants to provide to people he doesn’t yet trust either. 

Between the two of them, Seungcheol is the more experienced: a flight prodigy at the age of seventeen, military pilot at eighteen and in possession of an IQ that made his academic career look easy. He had led several successful missions and logged in twice the amount of flight hours as his nearest counterpart at the time. With such a rare gift and understanding of aerodynamics, Seungcheol was consider on track to become one of NASA’s most decorated commanders.

Hongjoong had met Seungcheol in the first month of his aerospace training, he was fresh out of military service but still lacked any real discipline. NASA had accepted him based on his test scores and aptitude for flying, hoping that the brutal training program would smooth out his wild edges and if that failed, then giving him the toughest mentor in the program would hopefully do the rest. 

It was a gamble that paid off.  

Seungcheol was known for being academically and physically intimidating. Around the same time, Hongjoong was developing his own reputation as the uncontrollable rebel in the program. They had few actual friends and maybe it was due to this that they hit it off; with Hongjoong being one of the few trainees who refused to be intimidated by someone else’s brilliance and Seungcheol endlessly amused by the younger trainee’s stubbornness. 

“An immovable object meets an unstoppable force.” Professor Park had once said, joking that they were the only two who could deal with each other without causing injury to public property.

Seungcheol had set him straight as best he could. Not with gentle coddling words or shouting loud threats but leading by example and teaching Hongjoong what it truly meant to work hard, bear responsibility, accept consequences and ultimately, become a man of service. 

But he couldn’t teach him everything in the time they had. 

There’s no cure for a rebellion in the blood.

When Hongjoong was dismissed for disobeying direct orders during a mission, Seungcheol had stood up at the disciplinary hearing to call the Directors out on their hypocritical bullshit. It had been a career death for the both of them: Hongjoong was denied any qualifications and Seungcheol’s once promising career abruptly came to an end. 

They were both forced to move on, and they have for the most part, any bitterness that still lingered didn’t have much of a target anymore. The Board of Directors from that time were now either dead or retired. There really wasn’t anyone left to complain to.  

“How do you want to run the simulations?” Seungcheol asks him now.

“You lead.” Hongjoong replies. “You have more experience.”

“You just want me to be the Bad Cop.”

“Well, if the shoe fits….”

“Okay, you punk.” Seungcheol snorts. “In that case, I want to start with scenario three. I don’t want to do the exercises in order, what’s the point of simulation training if they know what to expect.”

Hongjoong smiles, “Just admit that you want to see them sweat.”

Seungcheol feigns offence, placing a hand on his chest like he’s wounded. “I am here to teach. If someone cries along the way, then we’ll have a whole day to discuss the hazards of tears in space.”

It doesn’t exactly go down well. 

“Commander Choi?” 

“Yes?”

“We haven’t completed scenario two yet.”

“I know.” Seungcheol says, “We will be completing the scenarios out of order. If you have memorised the new manual then none of this should be a surprise.”

“But-”

The trainee is quickly silenced when Seungcheol quirks an eyebrow in their direction. 

“Any other relevant questions? No? Good. You’ll be flying solo, oldest to youngest, let’s get to it.”

Scenario three involved problem solving through a failed launch procedure. Each trainee was expected to demonstrate proficiency in running the launch sequence check and identifying the critically abnormal fuel temperature in the quickest time possible, anything beyond five minutes would be considered catastrophic in real life and an immediate fail in simulation.  

“Kang Seulgi. 4:15. Your launch routine lacks focus and precision, stop wasting your time.”

“Kim Mingyu. 4:00. You are too slow to report, it would’ve cut your time by more than 10 seconds. I expect faster communication next time.”

“Kang Taehyun. 3:50. You almost missed two other launch check points. Stick to your routine. Bad habits raise bad pilots.”

One by one, they watch the pilots navigate through the simulations with varying degrees of success. They’ve been decent enough, all able to pass, but there’s no standout. 

Seungcheol sighs and sits back in his chair, his once crisp shirt now creased and rolled up to his elbows. “This isn’t good enough. They’re not good enough. Maybe they won’t die at launch but this type of crew won’t survive a single orbit if they stay like this.”

Hongjoong hums in thought, making the notes for their evaluation report. Part of him agrees with Seungcheol’s frank assessment: the young trainees were inconsistent, either making mistakes in haste or slowing down in panic. The other part of him knows this is basic training, there was still advance training and final flight training to go. 

But bad habits do raise bad pilots and now wasn’t the time for any leniency. 

Still, they couldn’t both be the Bad Cop. 

“At least we know what we’re working with now. It’s something to build on.”

“We haven’t had a total disaster yet, so I’ll give them that, but we were both minutes faster than this. You did this in under three minutes.”

“Well, you did it in under two.” Hongjoong says, flipping to the final candidate. “Ready to see the last kid?”

Seungcheol nods. “This should be interesting.”

They restart the simulation and watch as a dark head of hair and some thin broad shoulders make their way into the booth. 

With the lights dim, sound playing and motion detector track running, the simulation was hyper realistic and easily overwhelming for new trainees. Every warning light was accurate, every sound and alarm identical to the real thing and if you crashed, the impact was very much felt. 

“This is flight control, proceed with your launch check.”

The kid is quick to process, very quick, and follows a launch check routine that feels eerily familiar. He reports the abnormal fuel temperature within two minutes but then stalls to call mission abort. It pings something in Hongjoong’s head that both thrills and concerns him. 

“This is flight control, you have a panel of warning lights and alarms. What’s your status report?”

“The fuel temperature is not in target range. I ran diagnostics and all the other equipment appears to be functioning correctly.”

“What is your next step pilot?”

“I…..I need to correct the fuel temperature.”

Seungcheol looks over to Hongjoong with a curious expression but lets the simulation continue.

They watch as the teenager tries, without success, to turn off all the warning alarms. He is methodical but frustrated and quick to lose his cool, a trait that only years of training and experience can overcome.

“This is flight control, there are critical error warnings on our end, what is your status report.”

“No, I can do this!” The trainee shouts, sounding every bit the sixteen year old they read about. “Sorry, Flight control, I… I ran diagnostics on the fuel temperature again but I can’t get any updated readings on it, I don’t know if it’s working or not, the telemetry is unreliable…”

As the clock counts down, Hongjoong is muttering for the teenager to just give them the right answer. 

He barely makes it. 

“Flight control, launch is futile. Request to abort mission!” 

“This is flight control, mission abort confirmed.”

Seungcheol takes his headset off and sits back with a strained sigh. “What a damn maniac. Remind you of someone?”

“He does.” Hongjoong nods, concerned but fascinated why their youngest trainee would even try something usually reserved for advanced flight training. “He was trying to save the launch with a manoeuvre they don’t teach until advanced training.”

“You know that’s almost a fail.”

“He was fastest in finding the abnormality and the only one to question telemetry accuracy.” Hongjoong counters as he watches the teenager climb out of the simulator. 

They had expected some slumped shoulders or physical evidence of defeat but what emerges is a body that stands tall, defiant, and coiled with anger. There’s a scowl on his face, like he already knows how badly he messed up. Whatever critique he gets from Seungcheol is unlikely to be as brutal as his inner monologue right now.

“That’s a future liability, right there.” Seungcheol says, shaking his head. “Ballsy though.”

“Well he is sixteen.”

“With an IQ of 140 and about 8 different bad habits. That’s like giving a missile a brain and mental health problems.” 

“Geez, Seungcheol, he’s still just a kid. Put him out of his misery, I think he’s about to break something in there.”

“Choi San. 4:50.”

[andydrysdalerogers]

Presley ~ A Curtis Everett AU ~ Epilogue

Curtis Everett x OFC Presley Adams

Synopsis:

Curtis Everett is a hard working man. As the head of the mob of Concord, he does everything he can to provide for his wife and children. His life is perfect. Until it's not.

After a devastating accident, Curtis is alone with his children and needs some serious help.

Presley Adams needs to find work and fast. Running from her past she just wants to lay low and earn enough to get her out of town. Until she starts working for Curtis as his live in nanny.

As she falls in love with this family, can she stop her past from finding her? Or will her past be the end of the Everett reign in Concord?

Book two of the Five Kings of Boston series

Warning: themes of a mafia lifestyle; SMUT; possessive tendencies; murder; death; age gap; rape

Banners by me! Dividers by @firefly-graphics

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site, even if you give me credit. DO NOT REPOST MY FICS. Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated

Previous: part Eight

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Seven months later... 

Presley 

I find myself sitting in the window seat of our room a lot. Since that day in Jersey, my comfort is here, where Curtis used to hold me as we watched the sunset or the sunrise. Its where I would read to Evie and Josh while we waited for Curtis to come home. Its my safe place, where I feel the most at peace.  

I don’t remember much after Curtis lost consciousness. I just remember that I was screaming for Curtis to wake up. I felt someone hold me, I think it was Clint pulling me away from his as the othr members of our team rushed to work on Curtis. I woke up in the hospital with Clint waiting for me.  

“Clint?” 

“Hey Pres.” He came over and kissed my forehead. “I’m glad you’re awake. The kids have been asking for you.”  

The door opened just then and Josh and Evie peeked around.  “Mama!” They ran to my bed and climbed in. I cried as I held and kissed my children. They were safe and I didn’t lose them. They held on to me like I could disappear. After a while, they fell asleep on me. I wouldn’t move them for the world.  

Clint took a seat next to me. “Obviously, Blackwood is dead.” He sighed. “Pres, I’m sorry but we found your father in the old playhouse. He left you a letter.” He placed an envelope on the bedside table. “Adam made it and is recovering at Concord General.”  

“What about Nat?” 

Clint went to open his mouth when the door opened again. Nat shuffled in, dragging her IV pole with her. “I’m ok,” she whispered with tears in her eyes. Clint got up to allow her to sit. 

“Nat is good,” Clint said with a smile. “One bullet hit the weak side of her vest and the other was in the vest. Some blood loss but obviously she’s good.”  

“And Curtis?” 

Before Clint or Nat could answer, a doctor came in. “Miss Adams, I’m Doctor Sloan. How are you feeling?” 

“Sore and a little confused.”  

“Understandable, given the circumstances. Your tests came back clear, it think it was just the shock.” He stopped for a second.  “I do have something to discuss with you. But if we want to have the discussion in private...” 

“No, you can speak in front of them.”  

It was news that would change my life.  

I sighed as I looked at the letter from my father.  

Lia,  

It devastates me to know that your entire life and the actions that have happened were my fault and you suffered for it.  It took you being gone from my life for the last six years to realize what I had done.  

I failed you.  

I want you to know, I didn’t physically kill your mother. Charles pulled the trigger after she refused to say where you went. I was angry and I let it happen. I am responsibie for your mother’s death. I didn’t follow her because once I was clear-headed, i knew I needed to do anything and everything to keep you safe.  

I have spoken to Curtis. He loves and cares for you so much. I hope that you are happy with him. As happy as your mother and I were before I messed it all up.  

I’ve left everything to you, Lia. The family will already has instructions to merge with the Everett family. They were very tired of Charles and would only transition if you were listed as the head of the family.  

I hope that you and Curtis have a wonderful life together. I love you, Lia.  

Your father, Mario 

I think I’ve read this letter a thousand times since it was given to me. For some reason, it gives me peace, knowing that my mother’s murder had died at my own hand. I mourn the loss of my father. My head leans against the glass as a tear slides down. All the loss I have endured make my heart hurt.  I look down at the belly protruding from my body and hope that this little one doesn’t have to experience more.  She is the miracle we had dreamed about before... before everything had changed.  

We are sitting where I am now, leaning into Curtis. He is kissing my shoulder before he breathes, “Would you want to have children, Kitten?” 

“With you? “I asked with a giggle 

He nips at my ear. “Brat. Yes, with me.”  

“We have children.”  

“Kitten,” he growled in warning.  

I giggle louder before I turn in his lap to face him. “Yes, love. I would love to make our family bigger.”  

I wipe my eyes, but the hormones don’t allow the tears to stop.  I don’t hear the door open but I hear... 

“Kitten, are you okay?” 

Curtis 

I had been watching my Presley from the door way for the last few moments. I could see she was floating back into her memories. Memories I wish she didn’t have.  

Fuck did everything hurt. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was the noise, a constant beeping. And then I heard it, the quiet prayer being said, begging God to bring me back to her.  

To bring me back to my Presley.  

I felt her delicate skin in my hand. She is alive, crying and praying, but alive. I squeeze her hand a little and she gasps. 

“Curtis? Baby, can you hear me?” 

“Heaven,” i croak out.  

“Baby?” 

“See an angel,” I say before the darkness takes over.  

I can feel wetness on my hand and weight next to it. I go to pat the weight and try to open my eyes but its too bright. I feel the softness of her hair.  

“Kitten.”  

“Curtis? Baby are you with me?” 

“Heaven,” I sigh before I try to blink my eyes again. And then I see it. Her eyes. Her beautiful, red rimmed eyes. A reminder of everything I could have lost. “Presley.”  

“Curtis!” She leans against my arm and sobs rack her body.  

“I’m here Kitten.  I’m here.”  

“Kitten, what’s wrong?” I kneeled in front of my pregnant fiancé, worried that something had hurt her. I ran my hands over her, stopping on her belly as I felt my daughter kick.  

“I’m ok,” she hiccups. “Just remembering.”  

“Why baby? Its in the past. WE made it. We’re here.” After I woke up, I wasted no time to put a ring on her finger. Especially after she told me that she was 10 weeks pregnant.  Our miracle survived her kidnapping and assault. I have never been a man of faith.  But I couldn’t help but send a prayer of thanks that my girls were physically ok. Now, we had to deal with the mental healing that Presley was going through.   

“I know but it scares me because of who we are and what power we hold.  How we’ll protect them. How they will never meet my parents. I just get lost in my head.”  

I knew she would never get over it completely, but she was strong.  She was resilient.  She is my Queen.  However, there were days like today where she had to deal with the reality that hurt her heart.  She lost both of her parents and killed a man.  It was a lot. I had faith she would make it to the other side. “I know sweetheart. But I will never let something like this happen again. I love you.” I kiss her softly.  

“I love...oh,” she stops, clutching at her belly.  

I froze. “Pres?” 

“I think that was a contraction,” she says with a tremble.  

I smile. “Okay, let’s get you downstairs.”  

Fourteen hours later, I’m staring at my sleeping girl while holding my sleepy baby girl.  “Chloe Amelia, you have no idea how much you are loved,” Iisay, swaying to invisible music. I look out the window, thanking the heavens that the birth was not complicating, just exhausting for Presley.  

I finally feel complete.  

I’m putting my girl down to sleep when my phone buzzes.  I take a look since I had annouced my daughters arrival to the Kings and the Don.  

Levinson: Your daughter is beautiful.   Everett: Thanks man.   Levinson: I’m sorry to do this today but I think I’m in trouble  Everett: are you ok?  Levinson: Physically, fine. Emotionally, questionable.   Everett: I’m going to need more  Levinson: Jennie left. We had an arguement and I took it too far  Levinson: I need to find her before he does 

Never a quiet moment as a King of Boston.  Guess I need to make plans to visit Camden.  

The End 

*

*

*

*

*

*

The Don takes a sip of his scotch as he looks at his phone with the latest princess of the family.  but he also sees a message from the King of Camden 

Camden: I didn’t mean what I said to her.  please help me find her.  

He sighed.  He had two kings settled.  Three to go.  

Taglist:

@patzammit

@texmexdarling

@slutforchrisjamalevans

@firephotogrl74

@tinkerbelle67

@before-we-get-started

@bunnyforhim

@alexakeyloveloki

@sunnyhummingbee

@whiskeytangofoxtrot555

@peaceinourtime82

@kmc1989

@saucy-sassy-sparkly

@lokislady82

[cerromoreno]

✨ Starbula Week, Day 7: Free Day ✨

Continuing yesterday’s “Family” theme, here’s something I’m sure everyone is clamoring for… a geriatric!Starbula drabble 😆

Like yesterday, this is going along with my post about Peter and Nebula’s daughter, Meredith. Just set several decades in the future, after a night of Grandpa Peter and Grandma Nebula babysitting for the evening...

Nebula was reclined on the couch, absentmindedly sipping wine and watching a movie (Apollo 13, to be exact – Nebula always enjoyed watching Kevin Bacon movies, who, even into his nineties, had remained a good friend of the family), when she heard the plop of someone dropping onto the cushion beside her. 

Turning to face her husband of over thirty years, Nebula instinctively snuggled into Peter’s shoulder as he let out a long-repressed groan. “Okay, I think Henry’s finally asleep,” he said, dragging a head over his face.

“Which legendary Star-Lord adventure did you tell him this time?” Nebula asked, turning her face up towards Peter's with a knowing smile. Of the two of them, Peter was definitely the best at making his space adventure stories sound exciting and fun for small children – even if it sometimes required stretching the truth or skipping over more unsightly details. Five-year-old Henry was obsessed with both of his 'space grandparents,' as he called them, but he’d lately been gravitating more toward his grandpa (maybe the recent birth of his baby sister had led to him feeling outnumbered by girls) – and after being tucked into bed by both Peter and Nebula this evening, he’d begged Grandpa Peter to stay and tell him just one more story.

“Oh, is that a little jealousy? Don’t worry, I'm sure you’ll go back to being his favorite sooner than later, Nebs,” Peter said with a kiss to her temple – still synthetic and metal, but after all of these years, something she’d grown to accept as simply part of her life, coming with the territory of the rest of the unimaginably, overwhelmingly beautiful life she got to call hers. “And as for the story…it was the time I saved the galaxy through the power of dance. Well, the second time, on Tarnax IV,” he said with a grin. “Remember that time, babe?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Nebula huffed out a laugh. “Hopefully you didn’t share all the details from that mission. I don’t think Henry needs to hear about –”

Peter choked out, “Hey, keep it down! I’m sure Mer keeps a baby monitor on around here and I don’t need her somehow recording that.”

Nebula laughed and reached over to the coffee table, grabbing the glass of wine that she’d poured while waiting for her husband to come downstairs, finally child-free.

“Here, Star-Lord; you definitely deserve it,” she said, handing the wine over. 

Peter’s eyes, still bright and boyish even well into his seventies, grew larger and he took the glass, clinking it to hers with a grateful, “Thanks, Nebs – you’re the best. You know I love these kids and I really love babysitting them with you, but ohmygod I’m so tired. Now that there are three of them…” he shuddered. “I don’t know how they do it.” 

Nebula looked at the photo on the side table – a recent family portrait of their daughter, her husband, and their three kids – all three a pale shade of blue, and all in various stages of screaming. Nebula knew that nice photos had been taken that day, too, but Meredith and her husband had gotten such a kick out of this one that they’d immediately framed it. 

With an infant now in the mix, along with a toddler and kindergartener, Peter and Nebula knew that life had taken on a new level of chaos in their daughter's life. But they also knew she was so, so happy. 

Especially when her parents were more than eager to travel to earth twice a week to watch the kids during the day, cutting down on daycare costs while both parents worked – and to stay overnight one of those days, allowing both parents to have an actual break. Tonight, in fact, was their first date night since baby Gamora’s birth a few weeks ago. 

Even after all of these years, Nebula wouldn’t call herself an expert on earth life, but she did know that having free childcare was a gift – one that she and Peter were thrilled to provide, now that both had been retired for several years.

That thought made Nebula smile to herself. Speaking of “even after all of these years,” sometimes Nebula still couldn’t believe that this was her life. That she got to be here, helping to care for her grandkids, playing with them all night and hearing them exclaim, “Love you, grandma Nebby!” before she kissed them goodnight.

That she got to do it all with the man beside her. Her handsome, wonderful Peter. The love of her life. After decades together, the man who still gave her butterflies, and still caused her to sometimes pause and pinch herself just to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming, and that he really was hers.

Peter interrupted Nebula’s thoughts with a smile and sarcastic wave of his hand, deep laugh lines crinkling around his green eyes. “Earth to Nebula, you still there?”

Nebula turned to her husband, settling her head back on his shoulder. “I’m just happy.”

She felt Peter’s head gently rest on hers as she closed her eyes contentedly. “Me too.” 

Several hours later, the door quietly opened as Meredith and her husband made their way inside. Scanning the living room for any rogue kids out of bed, she quickly spotted her parents asleep on the couch, heads resting on each other’s. She was tempted to leave them lying there peacefully – but knowing the increasing complaints both had been making about their joints these days, she decided that by the morning, they’d thank her for waking them up now.

Leaning over the couch, smiling at her parents with all the love and admiration one could hold, Meredith said, “Hey mom, dad – we’re home.”

---

In this headcanon, since Peter is in his early-to-mid forties when Meredith is born and Nebula is in her late thirties, they are in their seventies here. I love the idea that eventually, one of their grandkids ends up falling in love with their grandparents’ stories of adventures around space so much that when they grow up, they decide to live in space and continue that legacy. So then Peter and Nebula eventually have descendants who both live on earth and in space, which I find so poetic and beautiful 😫

Also, there is no special MCU significance to the name Henry – my friend just had a baby named Henry, and I think it’s such a cute name lol. Meredith naming one of her kids after aunt Gamora also seems so sweet...and even though I'd love for Mantis to get a name, I feel like any kid on earth with that name would never survive the astronomical amounts of bullying they'd get. :') Sorry, Mantis!

...And with that, my Starbula week contributions are done! 🎉 This has been so fun and a great way to get the headcanons/scenarios that have been rattling around in my brain out and into the world. Thanks to @starbula-week for hosting – you are seriously the best! ❤️❤️❤️

[evermorethecrow]

EVERMORE THE CROW 1K SPECIAL..... EXPOSING MY PAST.................

ages ago when i was younger i had to write this letter talking about times i got injured for school work and it was so bad i went through it with a friend of mine and because i thought i wouldnt hit 1k before the end of the year saying id post it if i did.

AND NOW IVE DONE IT

so heres my letter :(

Dear sir, I chose to write about a dangerous situation I've been in but I found it so difficult to pinpoint one situation.I am such an impulsive and spontaneous person and I rarely think before I act .Therefore instead of just one dangerous situation I have composed. Before i start i would like to issue a warning under no circumstances should a person attempt to recreate any action in this list for it is ill advised and i don't want to go to court again Kind regards -------

Okay so let's start out small ,i mean like when i was small really small i couldn't walk, but oh boy i could climb and unfortunately for the better of my own health climb I did,climb out of my cot and i know because gravity people who drop out of things tend to have this annoying habit of hitting the floor.Lets just say my mum put PE mats on my bedroom floor after that.

Next…uhhhhh incident??? Oooh it's another escaping story  maan maybe i should change my name to houdini or something,anyway this was a little later like i was able to walk (uh oh) i reckon i was good a walking, a little too good, my mum looked away from my pram for a second a second too long when she looked back i was gone, everyone in the park was looking for me and after 10 minutes of looking my mum saw me walk out the playground, i left and went to the playground.We went home after that.

Time for the third story  I was two years old and was running buckwild in Greenwich Park and having a fun time, in fact I was having such a fun time I didn't hear my mum shout “LOOK OUT”.  I had a comically large bump on my head got concussed and had to go to hospital, Not for too long though the very next day i got sent home for using a IV as a skateboard

Just a heads up befor the next story alot of these storys will be me being stupid and endeing up in hospital so if you have idiotphopia or are scared it would be advised to leave now or buy todays sponsor raycon earbuds.

Anyway next accident  When i was five I was in bed as a five year old should be when I had a genius revelation Hmmm i I dont wanna use my legs to get out of bed so why not roll out instead….i did roll out of bed,right onto a plastic dinosaur and cut my eyelid, there was blood all over my face.But hey at least i got to meet an old friend of mine.The hospital waiting room.

So yeah you can probably see how i'm quite an accident prone person but i never really did anything that bad.SO WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THE TIME I JUMPED OFF MY SCOOTER WHILE GOING SUPER FAST ON IT DOWN A HILL? I was seven and i was at our local park blythe hill and my seven year old brain wanted nothing more than to go down that hill at record speeds on my scooter,and i'm not talking about one of those fancy stunt scooters no i'm talking about a kids micro scooter, you know , the one where you would always put elastic bands on it, any way I was about halfway down the hill when i decided I was going too fast on it and i could get hurt and since id never had an injury before i wanted to prevent that so what did i do? I jumped of the scooter I was a smart kid. I jumped off my scooter and pretty much removed all the skin on that side of my body and too make matters worse it got infected and i had to take antibiotics for 4 weeks. Fun times

As you can probably see i might be a bit reckless and might be a bit bad at planning ahead  Which leads me to our next story, this ones a bit different you see this time  I didn't actually get hurt. I was at a friend's house and that friend's house had a garden with a tree,a tree and a garage which was placed close to the tree, and I, being a master climber since birth, scaled the tree with ease. But that wasn't enough for me no I wanted to climb the garage.So i went across the tree to the branche nearest the garage ,and climbed on top of the garage,the lovely,brick garage.my friends dad came out and saw me on top of the garage simply chilling and as you can probably predict he asked me to get down so instead of doing the rational thing and using the tree to et down.. I jumped of the garage onto the stone floor.I didn't go to their house for a while after that

I have another garage related story,This was in 2017 I was nine surely I was smateer by then and learned my lesson Right……Right? Me and my siblings were playing marco polo out the front of our house (never a good sign) And it was my turn to be blindfolded and find my siblings.I decided to run straight forward and hit the brick wall between two garages , I fractured my nose, chipped my front tooth and had to go to hospital.oops.

Now they say save the best for last and boy did i. It was 2020(oh god ) and we were celebrating my mom's birthday and all was going smoothly, well until i decided to leave our living room by jumping out the room from the sofa.it didn't go as planned.yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah i jumped off the sofa hi my head on the top of the door landed on my arm and spent 5 hours in hospital on my mums birthday.

That's all we have time for today However here are some honorable mentions 

.The time i used my scooter on a tall thin brick wall (someone really ought to take that thing of me honestly)

.All the times I hit my head on bins 

.And that time this year I literally without thinking put the hairdryer on my face after I used It and burnt stripes into my face 

Well thats the list of the most dangerous things ive done, of course ive done more dumb things but this paper has gone on long enough and I have school in the morning so bye I guess.

-------------

MY LIFE IS RUINED

[everyones-least-favorite-bard]

at the behest of some fellow orvies and western au truthers ive written a quick little snippet thats a combination of the jdj divorce arc and the divorce arc reunion

fic under the cut!

He’s trying to fit a seventh jacket into the suitcase when there’s the telltale rattle of a lock being picked and the creaky whine of his apartment door opening.

Heeled boots echo strangely through the little parlor area towards the front of the flat—he’s already packed away the dahlia-patterned rug he brought from out East. He almost can’t tell if it’s more foreign to hear the clicking of heel on wood or more foreign that he finds the sound discomfiting. It’s perhaps worst of all that he knows these boots, the way there’s a slight drag on one side from where the owner allowed the left sole to fall into disrepair, the slight rasp of beaded tassels flicking against leather. 

He ignores it of course. The damnable jacket finally relents enough to allow him to shut the suitcase and he lets out an exhausted sigh. 

“You finished fightin’ that carpet bag?”

The flippant casualty of the voice, coupled with the picking of the lock, and the tassels, and the boots, the goddamned boots incites a wave of rage so intense he has to stand in place for a couple seconds unmoving to let it pass. He exhales slowly and closes the latches on his suitcase.

“Ignorin’ a guest is real childish, Captain. Not even gonna offer me some water? I came all this way just to see you—I’m still an invalid you know. Gave your lady Doc the slip just to come see little ol’ you.” 

He can’t turn around. He can’t turn around; his hands are clenched so tight around his stupid suitcase handle the scabs spider-webbed across his knuckles are cracking, thin lines of red pushing up from under flat pads of dried blood. There’s poetry there, something about how they seem unable to do anything but tear open old wounds. He feels sick.

He closes his eyes. “What do you want.”

“So demanding! You’ll never catch a wife talkin’ like that, Cap.”

“I don’t have all day.”

“Can’t a guy just visit a friend? Or companion as you say.”

And it’s something about the way Star’s voice curls around the word, the way he turns the three syllables into something trivial, chaff in the wind, when it felt like spitting glass shards the first time he said it. He’s felt raw ever since, skin peeled back, muscle and sinew torn aside. He’s been nothing but bones since, an echo waiting for its creator to call back. It’s something about Star’s consistent irony, it’s something about the blood starting to collect on his knuckles, about red crusted under his fingernails, the red lining his eyes, it’s something about Star’s insistence on brevity, on light-heartedness until he feels like he’s drowning in cotton, he’s drifting in the margins of a story only Star knows and he’s sick of it.

“You don’t get it. You—” and now he turns, now he spins on his heel, blood running down towards his fingertips.

Star’s hands immediately fly up in a placative gesture, his eyes wide under the cotton of his mask. 

“Whoa, now, steady there, pal. You’re not still mad about Tuesday, are ya? I’m back! Shouldn’t that be enough?”

And they’re standing in his bedroom, some five or six feet apart, they’re standing in the bedroom of his one-room apartment, the dresser empty, the wardrobe empty, the walls somehow barer than they were before even though he hasn’t touched them and, and—

He almost wants to cry, is the stupid part. He hasn’t cried since he was nine years old and fell out of the big oak tree in the front yard of his parents house but he’s clenching his fists tighter and tighter and there’s something miserable and ugly coiled behind his sternum, clawing out the marrow of his bones from the inside and the only thing stopping him from crying is he’s tired. He’s so tired of it all.

Star is watching him, silent for once. Mouth a thin line. “Isn’t it?”

He turns back around and grabs his suitcase. “Go home, Star,” he says.

“No.”

“...What?” 

“I said no.”  

“What do you mean no?”

Star gnaws at his lower lip, sucks in a hissing breath before speaking. “I’m not leaving.” His arms have come back down to rest at his sides, one hand picking at the seam of his chaps.

He wants to throw something. He wants to scream, he wants to be nine years old, crying at the base of a wide, wide tree, he wants to cut the coiling mass of misery out of the center of his chest and throw it at Star’s feet. 

He doesn’t do any of it. “Fine. I’m not arguing with you.” He strides across the room, closes the five-odd feet and shoulders Star out of the way, grabbing the other two bags by the door to his room on his way.

“You—Captain!” Star unfreezes from his place and follows. “Captain, wait—”

He sets the bags down by the front door, grabs his coat off the rack on the wall.

“Captain, y��know I didn’t have a choice right? Croft had me backed in a corner; she’d almost figured me out and—well, you’re a professional, you know sometimes we don’t get to choose the easy way out—”

He can almost feel the empty space by his hip where the pocket watch used to be. He pulls a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and dabs at the blood on his knuckles.

“—come on, Cap, you threw your fit, I said my sorry, can we just move on—”

“Shut up, Star!” The words are out, cutting through his throat before he can stop them. “Would it kill you to be honest?”

And he does shut up, his mouth flattens into that awful line, the bottom half of his face going white. 

“It’s like this is a game to you. It’s like none of this is real for you. Are you having fun? I damn well hope you are because at least one of us will be.” He’s turned on a dime, he’s never been less tired in his life, there’s blood on his knuckles, there’s the weight of a gun on his hip, there’s a heaving mass of misery, of festering rage and grief and want all coiled in an awful Gordian knot and he’s shredding it with his bare fucking hands.

Star’s voice is small. That’s not right, he thinks distantly, that’s not right. 

“I didn’t like fakin’ my death. I didn’t like keepin’ all these secrets from you but I had to since, well,” he cracks a tentative, sheepish smile, “we both know you can’t act for shit, Captain.”

“I held your body.” He’s shaking all over, he’s trembling, pulled tight around himself like a spring. “I had to hold your—I held your fucking body, I told your daughter you’d—I took her to visit your goddamned grave.”

Star is silent again, eyes focused intently on a spot on the floor. 

He takes a shaking breath, grabs his hat from the rack. There’s been so many bloodstains on the old thing he can’t quite bring himself to care about the red dribbling over his fingers. 

“Is there—” and he hates how his voice breaks, “—is there anything real about you? About this?”

There’s no answer. He wants to say he expected it, but he wants to cry more than he wants to be right. He crams the hat onto his head and picks up his bags once more. 

A tugging on his sleeve.

“J–Joonghyuk, wait.”

He’d like to say it was the tone of Star’s voice. He’d like to say he could hear the regret, he could hear some sort of repentance he could absolve, some unnameable timbre of penance he could supernaturally detect, but it wasn’t. It was as simple as Star saying his name, his real name. He closes his eyes.

“What more is there to say?”

He can hear Star breathing, these awful, rattling breaths. He can’t tell if they’re from the wound at his side or from something else, some great emotional weight hanging in his larynx. He can’t tell which one he wants more.

He watches with something between horror and hope as Star reaches up and takes off his hat. Clutches it with a faintly trembling hand at his side. His other hand is still holding onto his sleeve, and without the hat he seems smaller now. Frail. 

Star looks up and he’s smiling, that same crooked curl of lips over teeth, dimpling one cheek but there’s something so distinctly sad about it, and he can’t quite tell if it’s something new or something that’s always been there, a weight always tugging on one side of Star’s smile, keeping him from completion, semi-colon in lieu of a period. 

“My name—my real name.” Star takes a shuddery breath that seems to rip through him. “I’m Kim Dokja. Twenty-eight. Only really did the deeds for half my bounties. You asked. You asked if any of this was real.” Star—Dokja—swallows. He drops his hat and reaches up slow behind his head, tugs at the knot holding his mask in place.

It loosens and it falls and he’s suddenly looking in the eyes of a man he’s been following for months, a man he’s been chasing after for what feels like years, and oh, he’s still filled with broken glass, he’s still choking on the shape of Dokja’s name in his mouth but god, he’s beautiful. 

“You asked if any of this was real. I’m tellin’ you now that this is.” Dokja lets go of his sleeve but slides down to his hand. He presses the mask into it, rough fingers running gentle over the raw, bloodied edges of his knuckles, wraps it around the opened sores. A balm come too late, a suture for a wound already gaping, already bleeding out on hardwood floor and, and, oh, he’s nine years old again, two decades since he last cried and Dokja’s closing his hand around the mask, his eyes are dark and wet and they’re maybe a foot a part, maybe they can cross that distance, maybe, maybe—

But he remembers gunpowder. Gunpowder and blood not his own running through his hands like sifting sands. He remembers scrubbing for hours, scouring his hands with hot water, with lye soap, peeling at layers upon layers of skin, peeling back his muscle, back his sinew, back to the bone and he’s hollowed out now. Nothing but marrow. He’s crying and he’s twenty-eight and he’s nine and he and Kim Dokja are more alike than he’d ever care to admit because he holds Dokja’s hands tight around his own for as long as he can stand to but at three o’clock sharp that afternoon Yoo Joonghyuk is on a train back to oak trees and dahlias out East and he doesn’t look back.

[griffinxgallo]

Gasping Part 2 || Griffin Gallo Solo

Griffin Battles for his life while having flashbacks into his past Tw: Hospital, surgery, blood, bloody gif, stabbing, violence, pediatric cancer

Muffled voices and blurred vision tormented Griffin as he blinked his eyes open. He was exhausted, teetering on the edge of consciousness, but he fought to hold on. Was that Dante above him? He tried to speak, but the words barely made it past his throat. "Raelynn," he choked out, but it was useless. His eyes closed again, just for a moment, until he felt himself being pushed. He flicked his eyes open, and the bright box lights on the ceiling whizzed by. They burned, piercing through his haze, but soon, everything faded into darkness.

The hospital staff raced down the hallway, fighting against time to get him into the OR. It would be close, but he still had a chance. He’d lost a lot of blood, but the knife had missed any vital organs. However, the trauma his body had endured was another challenge. Their goal was simple: stop the bleeding.

The doors to the OR snapped shut as they transferred him onto the table. No time was wasted cutting away his clothes, exposing the damage. His ribs were cracked, his arm broken, but those injuries were not the priority. The surgeon burst through the door and got to work. They couldn’t afford to lose another Serpent.

"Dada," a one-year-old Raelynn called out, her voice faint but insistent. The room was paired with the rhythmic beeping of her monitor. "Yes, baby girl?" Griffin asked as he got up from his chair, moving to her bedside. It had been five months since Raelynn had been left in his care. The baby pouted, tears sliding down her cheeks. He guessed she was officially a toddler now, it was her first birthday. "I'm right here, principessa," he whispered, crawling into the bed beside her and scooping her into his arms. He laid back, resting her small body against his chest. His large hand gently rubbed her back. "I know, baby, you're uncomfortable. I promise you, when this is over, we’ll celebrate every birthday you have in the biggest, most obnoxious way ever." Every birthday would symbolize another year she survived, despite the odds. The doctors weren’t hopeful yet, but Griffin was. God wouldn’t place this angel in his arms only to take her away. "We’ll have a long, happy life, bambina. It’ll be me and you, forever," he whispered, but Raelynn went limp in his arms as the paced beep of her monitor morphed into a long, continuous buzz. "No!" he cried out as doctors rushed in, prying her from his arms. "What’s happening?" he yelled, helpless as they took his baby away.

"He's coding!" a nurse shouted, as that same piercing buzz filled the OR. "Shock him!" the doctor ordered, and a nurse pressed the defibrillator paddles to his chest. "Clear!" Nothing. "Pushing Epi," another called out, injecting the dose into his IV. "Clear!" The second shock sent a jolt through his body.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"We got him," the doctor said, as the team worked furiously to patch him up. They continued to stitch up his stab wounds and close any arteries that were severed. Once that was done, the were able to close him up.

"Mr. Gallo?" A doctor stepped into Raelynn's hospital room, drawing Griffin out of his restless daze. "Where is she? What’s going on?" Griffin demanded, springing to his feet. "I want to know where the fuck my daughter is!" The doctor remained calm even with a venomous snake in his face. "She’s stable. We’re still unsure what caused it, but you’ll be able to see her soon." Three more agonizing months passed before Raelynn's condition improved. When she hit eighteen months, she was finally allowed to go home for visits. Griffin had been waiting for this day, and he was ready. "Daddy has a surprise for you," he whispered, holding her close as they walked through the penthouse with her nurse following behind. Griffin pushed open the door to a room he’d spent months preparing—a princess-themed bedroom, complete with a bed shaped like a castle. "Look at this, principessa. This is your big girl room." The awe on Raelynn’s face melted something inside him. For the first time in a long while, the ice around his heart cracked, just a little.

"He's stable," the surgeon said, finishing the last of the stitches. "Move him to the ICU. We’ll handle the other injuries and locate his family." Griffin was wheeled out of the OR and into a recovery room. Hours later, the door creaked open, and his mother stepped inside.

"Oh God, my baby," she cried, rushing to his side. Her tears flowed freely."Mrs. Gallo, your son’s stable for now," the doctor said gently. "He’s suffered multiple stab wounds, broken bones, and lacerations. He’s not out of the woods yet, but we’ve placed him in a medically induced coma to help him heal. We’ll be monitoring him closely. It’ll take time."

Isabella clutched her son’s hand, her voice trembling. "We can’t lose him. Not after losing his father. He can’t leave Raelynn behind." She sobbed, pleading. "Come on, Griffin. You have to fight for Rae. Come back to her."

"Ma'am, he’ll need rest," a nurse advised softly. "You can return tomorrow, and we’ll update you on any changes." The doctor took his mother's hand and led her out of the room. He discussed what his recovery would look like and how the next few weeks would be crucial for him. He would need to take things slow and be careful.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Griffin's eyelids slowly dragged open. It had been three days since the attack, and his throat was dry, his voice barely a whisper. "Rae," he muttered. "Rae," he called again, a bit louder this time. He felt like he had been hit by a truck, there was a constant ache throughout his body. He wasn't sure how he managed to survive such a beating. It all seemed like a blur but he knew what happened, what he endured.

"Daddy!" Raelynn called out to him. Griffin reached out with his uninjured arm, and she grabbed hold, pulling her up onto the bed and into his embrace. He pulled her close, pressing her against his chest as his head nuzzled into her soft curls.

"It's alright, baby girl," he murmured, his voice rough but filled with warmth. "Daddy's here."

[flower-zombie-rob]

where were they now? - irissona altr R fic

People said they’d be interested in an angsty R fic, so here you go!

CW: amputation, themes of abandonment, themes of human(ish) experiments, breif blood mention, injury, general angst stuff(tears, sadness, etc)

Also i didn't include any sona names cuts this shiz is mean as hell and all your sonas are too good for this moment.

It had been like any other day in the facility, in the sense that there was nothing different in the procedure. The same old set of lab coated reapers coming to collect their dues. The same set of sympathetic smiles lining the hall as they walked hand-in-hand with someone assertive to the testing room. There was nothing different about the shining, grey floors that scuffed shoes in a sharp screech every time someone lazily shuffled across them. There was no change in the casual way they would coerce R with some sort of teddy bear or snack they could swallow without choking. Everything was standard procedure and there was nothing to indicate that day would be any different from the rest. Nothing could’ve prepared anyone in that room for what would’ve happened and no one would have begun to predict the diar mistakes that would be made in the next few hours. Evidently, no prediction would’ve been a nice enough precursor for it either. Anyone could’ve given R all the full details of what would happen in the next five hours, the next six weeks, the next however many years of their life, and it wouldn’t have changed their shock in the slightest. No. Whether anyone knew it, that day was going to be the worst one R would ever remember. The day that I.R.I.S wishes R could forget…

They must’ve woken in the dead of night, with darkness plaguing everything once visible, putting a blackened sheet over the normally sleek and artificially lighted facility medical room. Instead of the normal, polarising blue light above their head, R awoke to complete blackness and a lonely room, too open to provide any sense of comfort. Although words escaped them most days, the lexus to describe this room was something along the lines of daunting unfamiliarity, and with a foreboding sense of dread in their mind, the pain kicked in.

An explosion of nerve sparks ripped through their left arm, causing them to squirm in discomfort and squint their watery eyes. It completely enveloped them in agony, a visceral tearing agony. R felt like their entire hand was convulsing and throbbing, the blood being ripped from under their nails and a fire crawling from their shoulder and downwards. R sat up to get a better look at the damage. They tried, and failed, to move their, probably wrapped, fingers to test how badly the scientists had roughed them up this time in the durability test. They were expecting dramatic scarring, as usual, but nothing that wouldn’t go away once the pain had subsided. A similar searing pain crawled under the skin of their right leg, R biting their shirt to stop grinding their teeth. They were feeling the burns from the explosive fire they'd come into contact with only hours earlier. It took them a moment of laying back down to collect themselves despite the terrorising heat of a (likely third degree)burn, and the darkened state of the room didn’t help. They felt an IV drip hooked up to their less burnt-feeling right hand and thought to themselves about how wrong the most recent experiment must’ve gone for them to turn off this badly. It’d been ages since they’d been forced to sleep in the medical wing, with only a hazy memory of the previous events. After losing the will to wait out the pain any longer, they moved their right hand across the bed to feel their left. Reaching out forcefully to grab their own limb, they were met with nothing but the same cold air that filled the rest of the empty room. And to their delirious horror, they discovered the full extent of the most recent experimental accident. They discovered the reason they were here, alone, in a dark medical wing and unattended. The reason no one would be able to give them anything but a pitiful look tomorrow, and the reason they’d never be able to, deep down, trust another iris employee like they could innocently do before. Not for a while, anyway. At the side of their abdomen, where a left arm was mere hours ago, there was nothing but dead space and a bandaged stump just above where an elbow should be. And with that, their blissfully ignorant and adolescent world caved in.

Their breathing hiked instantly as they began to feel their heartbeat pounding in their head. They looked down to see the same sight, simply larger, underneath the thin sheet of the hospital bed that hid their lower ailments. Their pristine purple trousers were cut off finely at the site of the wound wrapped in leaked-through, bloodied bandages. Four functional limbs halved to two. They searched in panic for some kind of button or phone, something to call someone, anyone, with, but found nothing in the blackness of night. There was no one, no contact, no scientist, doctor or guard even willing to hold their hand as they awoke to the sight of a significant life change they weren’t sure how they would live with. No apology for the incident, no words of endearment or reassurance yet. They were given only silence. They had no words for R, and R had no words to give. So, without a word of comprehension for the panicked ALTR to say, they lay back on the cold bed in the dark, the bandages wound tightly around their amputations providing the only hug-like closeness they’d receive that night. Then, they let out a series of long, harrowing cries to the empty halls surrounding them. Cries to no one, heard by no one. As they cried out in excruciating pain, they wondered where everyone was, if it was truly their place to wonder that. They thought of the scientists that had praised them in the lunch hall, hugging them and giving them gifts for their sweetness. They shed tears while thinking of the guards who had given them wistful smiles as they walked past and given them little nicknames like “buddy” and “honey”. They imagined the faces of the interns they’d gotten coffee for, the doctors who’d held their hands tightly through eye tests and cranial nerve exams, the speech therapists who’d tried to help them put their racing thoughts into words, the “friends” who’d been overjoyed at them just completing a simple sentence. They visualised the individual faces of all those who'd lied to them with the promises of I love you, we love you, they all love you. I love you, they'd say… so where were they now?

Tagging those who were interested

@intothebutterflyburrow @glass-trash-bab @geekyfox2 @an-idiot-in-a-trenchcoat @tahcoo

[remembertheplunge]

The Rainbow Room

5/29,2006

I’m back at Queen bean coffee House, a gay friendly coffee house who’s theme is "WHERE I BELONG”. I like the  broad red and yellow striped walls of the interior.  It’s open Monday, Memorial Day.

Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” plays here now.

Jim’s driving me nuts, so, I flee, secretly here and then, publicly, to the jail.

I can’t find my fucking file! So, I’m going to see the client in the jail file free. Joe’s got it!

Espresso here is 81 cents. It’s $1.25 at Deva’s.

The espresso here at Queen Bean is pretty good.

So, I grabbed my jail pass, this estate sale pad, 2 pens and quick, delicious shower and I split . Jim’s dopey on his meds back home.

What a way to celebrate 25 years of lawyering. May 29, 1981-May 29, 2006.

I mentioned it to Jim and he futzed around. He is needy, grasspy but, too, pushes away.  We thrash and thrive. And try. And move and accomplish.

A private anniversary. Private’s nice.

So, what of the past. Passed. Twenty Five Years?

Wow! Hard to even be with. 

9:15am. Stanislaus County Jail

It’s Memorial Day. 5/29/2006

I’m waiting in the Rainbow Room. I hope that the jail guards bring the right guy.

Sure enough, a rainbow, through the glass blocks!

From some were nearby in the jail I hear  

“1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10…over and over. Breathy voice an inmate workout echos.

So, back to my 25 year anniversary of lawyering.

25 years of:

Clients, 

jailing

Trials

 judges

, money woes.

Ive opened to practicing criminal law as I’ve opened to self’and

To other things

Mutual expansion.

Intense.

Harsh.

Law

Mean.

Teacher

End of entry

Notes: Jim was my partner Jim. We bought a house together In Modesto, California in 1998. He died in 2009. 

Queen Bean was a coffee house located about a mile from our house. 

The jail was located downtown then. It has since moved way out in the country. But, during the days of the old jail, I would often counsel clients in an interview room that had a block glass wall that faced east. It would cast rainbows on the adjacent wall in the interview room when hit by the sun. Thun sun’s way of casting eternity into the dark hell of the jail. Thus, my name for that interview room “The Rainbow Room."

That interview room was very close to jail cells where the inmates were housed. The jail environment was cacophony of loud, blaring TVs,  and men shouting and screaming. There was a constant den and roar to it. The rain bows appeared  in sharp contrast to this.

Deva’s was restaurant in Modesto.

I passed the February 1981 bar and was sworn in as a lawyer in Fresno California on 5/29/1981.

My partner Jim was suffering from liver problems in May of 2006. Thus, the medications he was on and his grumpiness.

Joe, who had the file that I needed, was my case investigator.

[dayurno]

Out of curiosity, would you ever write kerejean or some variation of it?? I've lowkey fallen for their dynamics

yEAH OF COURSE!!!!! i havent really been big on jerejean before but i lovelovelove keremy and kevjean...... i think kerejean is very interesting because theyre really complementary 🤔 but ive never been able to get into jerejean because theres not much material for it outside of hcs and wishful thinking (which is fine because those are also the prime meat of kandreil anyway)..!! nonetheless i really can see it... ive written both kevjean and keremy in the past so i'll add some snippets under the cut in case ur curious or starving since i know their ship tag is rather empty.... agh. we ought to do something about this

keremy <3

"Kevin." Kevin shifts from the other side of the couch, one of Jeremy's many USC sweatshirts engulfing his frame as he brings his knees to his chest. It's a side of Kevin Jeremy hadn't quite met up until now — with his hair tied back and his socks mismatched, he looked like he'd become one with Jeremy's dorm, his very own Palmetto souvenir. His lips are pulled into a displeased frown, more of a pout than Kevin would ever admit. He sighs before saying, "Come here." Jeremy raises an eyebrow, but doesn't wait to comply. He drops the homework he'd been pretending to do easily, sliding towards Kevin's side with a quiet question hanging from his lips. Kevin doesn't look back at him as he adjusts himself under Jeremy's arm, curling into his side by letting his head rest on Jeremy's chest. His hair smells of green apple shampoo — Jean's — and a trail of goosebumps ride up his skin as Jeremy slips a hand under his sweatshirt, gently caressing his back. "What's up, baby?" Jeremy hums, tracing imaginary circles on Kevin's back. Kevin shifts, burrowing closer, and huffs out a "Don't call me that," which neither of them believe. He pulls on Jeremy's hoodie mindlessly, bringing the fabric to his nose and nuzzling before he finally works up the courage to say, "That movie. The one we watched earlier." "What's with it?" He huffs. Jeremy raises an eyebrow. "Are you scared, baby?" "No," Kevin replies; too quick and too forceful. "I'm not scared. I'm—" he hesitates, "paranoid."

Jeremy runs his fingers down Kevin's back in thought, rubbing delicately once he reaches the spot where his back dimples begin."Hm," he says, "what can I do to help?" Kevin buries his face in the material of his hoodie. "Just shut up." Jeremy can't help it: he laughs, the rumble of it deep and low. It makes Kevin press his cheek to his neck, chasing the tremor of it, and it's so lovely Jeremy is at once taken over by endearment. "I'm here, Kevin," he teases lightly. "Andrew might be back in Palmetto, but I can still protect you just fine." His boyfriend scoffs. "You can barely throw a punch." "For you, I would learn," Jeremy solemnly promises, cupping the back of Kevin's head. "And, anyways — there is always Jean. Jean can throw a punch."

kevjean <3

Jean Moreau has been pining after Kevin Day ever since he was thirteen years old and a new recruit to the ever-feared Edgar Allen Ravens. This is as old a hat as his own old hat, a Marseilles cap that hangs from the top of Jeremy's coat rack. He knows it is a fact, and he lives with it in harmony — Jean has wanted what he cannot have for so long it does not feel like a sore wound anymore; just a tender ache. Which means that now — two years since the Nest burned, six months since he began speaking to Kevin again, five minutes since Kevin sat on his lap with a determined look on his face — he does not know what to do. Jean is a learned man, but he finds himself at loss for answers to the equation of wanting: had he perhaps wanted Kevin so bad even the idea of getting him pales in comparison? But he knows it's not quite that. His heart pounds in his chest because Kevin Day is a warm weight on top of him, his hair smelling not of the shampoo he used back in the Nest but something milder, sweeter. He has wanted this when he did not know what wanting was; when he was thirteen and holding onto the thought of a pretty smile to keep himself sane. The span of Kevin's waist is held safely in his hands, both because Jean is afraid he will fall and because he doesn't know where to put his hands. There are Trojans behind him, partying on, and he knows they must be too drunk to remember ever seeing Kevin on his lap. Kevin is sober, though. He's missing the feverish flush that comes out every time he has a drink, and his gaze is intent in a way it only is when he's sober. Crazy, then, that it is by pure unadulterated will that Kevin grips Jean's hands on his waist and uses his own to tighten their hold. Jean does not plan on thinking about that away from the privacy of his room.

[...]

He is not the person for romance, Jean quickly came to figure — when Andrew Minyard offered Kevin his entire life to do with it what he wills, all Kevin offered back was what he knew, a career in Exy and the promise of his presence. When Thea demanded a part of his life bigger than what was convenient, Kevin ended their relationship. Whatever goes on in that heart of his, it stands clear that he does not give it the time of the day. His hands slide from Kevin’s waist to his hips, resting. It pulls an uncharacteristic shiver from Kevin, and Jean frowns. "Are you cold?" He asks. Kevin shrugs. Jean starts kicking off his jacket at record speed, then wraps it around Kevin's shoulders once he can. This, his therapist tells him to stop doing. Jean has been trained to put his superiors' needs above his own, was less than human in a place where Kevin was considered number two, and he cannot quite quell the instinct to give up his comfort for Kevin's own. It is not necessarily ingrained by what he lived in the Nest anymore, but the other reason for it feels far scarier — that he loves Kevin, still, and he cannot stand to see him suffer in any capacity. That he is still the thirteen year old boy gasping at Kevin's long eyelashes from behind the security of an Exy helmet, thinking of things he cannot have from a person he cannot touch. "Jean," Kevin murmurs, mild and wispy in the cold night air.

[...]

Kevin sighs gently, offering him a cat-like glare that shows equal parts apprehension and amusement. "I'm not very good at this." "At what?" "Flirting," Kevin replies, sure enough to make Jean's mouth run dry. "I don't… I suppose if you wanted me, you would've had me years ago." Jean corrects him right away — "Years ago, I couldn't have wanted for anything. You know this." Kevin bites his lip guiltily. "I thought— I thought his death would make you… You know. Act on it. Why didn't you?" Why didn't he, indeed? Riko Moriyama's death had been a breath of fresh air in between two millennia of choking on words. It had also coincided with an all-time low moment in Kevin's life — Jean learned through pictures and rumors that the events of the year anticipating Riko’s death had killed something in Kevin he thought was invincible even in the face of unimaginable hopelessness. Jean hadn’t come to see him for an entire year, after hearing that. He did not want to have a hand in Kevin’s suffering, harbinger of doom as he is. “You misunderstand me,” Jean puts down at last. Kevin’s face falls carefully blank. “Oh,” he says, flattened into barely a whisper. “Then I’m sorry.” He makes a move to leave Jean’s lap as if the contact burned him at the presumption that it wasn’t mutually wanted, and Jean realizes his mistake before it even takes root. “No,” he protests, holding Kevin by his elbows to halt his movement. He tries to keep his grip gentle, but by the look on Kevin’s face, he’s unsure if he succeeded. “That’s not what I meant. You misunderstand what kept me from acting on it.” When Kevin says nothing, Jean continues: “You were a mess, Kevin. And you didn’t — you don’t want anyone.” Kevin’s eyebrows furrow. “You don’t know that.” “Come on, Kevin,” is all Jean can offer with a half-bitter grin. He tries to smirk, but he’s smiling. “You don’t do love. You don’t do these things. Minyard spent a year chasing after you like a puppy, barking at anyone that came close. Thea, too — a year trying to hear even a breath from you.”

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek, 001 (0ct. 4, 1988) - "The Cage"

The Breakdown

In this original initially-unaired Pilot (filmed in 1964 but not released in it’s entirety until 1988), we are introduced to the crew of the Enterprise which canonically precedes Kirk’s legendary five year mission.  It’s just another day for the crew when they receive a distress signal to a planet (Talos IV) where some scientists apparently got stranded and lost decades ago.  Upon beaming down to check on everyone Captain Pike meets a cute blonde lady named Vina who lures him into a trap, or cage, if you will.

It turns out all the old scientists were just an illusion projected by some big headed aliens (aka the Talosians) with some fairly powerful telepathic abilities. They explain that they want Pike to mate with Vina (who turns out to be real) in order to supply them with a whole zoo of human slave babies. Pike is made to understand that his refusal will result in excruciating mental torture; although in fairness they explain that Pike’s stay could be tantamount to paradise if he cooperates.  Pike resists by overwhelming the Talosians with intentionally rageful thoughts (which, conveniently, is their weakness), until he can convince his captors that trapping people against their will is… wait for it… bad.  The Talosians, for their part, seem genuinely shocked at this revelation, and so they agree to let Pike go.

Oh, and it turns out Vina was severely damaged from the accident that stranded her on Talos, so she can’t come with Pike because the illusion that grants her beauty would cease if she left the planet.  Since ugly women aren’t allowed to be love interests in Starfleet, the Talosians agree to take care of her, and even provide her with a nice sexy illusion of the Captain himself, presumably so she can have a live action Pike-sex-toy to keep her company.  So I guess it’s bittersweet ending?

The Verdict

‘The Cage’ is an interesting look at what might have been. Overall I think Kirk’s Enterprise and it’s crew are more entertaining, but I wonder if I might have come to prefer the more-serious Pike over kirk’s swagger. For starters I think Jeffery Hunter is probably a better actor than Shatner at this stage in both of their careers (put the pitchforks down, you’re welcome to disagree), and I also find Pike is written a lot less sexually predatory. Don’t worry though, Pike is still plenty sexist here; apparently having women on the bridge doesn’t sit well with him, which makes me wonder if ‘Strange New Worlds’ will ever give us a flashback episode to explain this change in his attitude (since this episode is still officially canon).

2.5 stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

Pike’s doctor prescribes drinking as a form of therapy. Don Draper would approve.

I do wish Majel Roddenberry’s ‘Number one’ could have been included amongst Kirk’s crew. I always thought having Spock as both Chief Science Officer and First Officer was odd. But apparently the 60’s weren’t ready for a woman with authority.

I love the pulpy set designs. As cheap as it looks now, it has such a classic aesthetic. I dig it.

I just realized that this episode was filmed roughly as far in time from TNG’s premiere, as Enterprise’s premiere is from us now. I’m going to need a minute to let that sink in.