#like never i had to google for whereabouts of all things back with it

[glimpsesofeuterpe]

sighing, rembering of win 7 fondly

[umbreoncomplex]

did it have to be a fucking fire?

(aka my google docs rant written from 3 to 4 am about spirit of justice and apollos backstory)

okay to preface this is not an essay. this is a yap session. my word isnt law on anything but instead by opinions based on my life and upbringing. im no be all end all for how you should view ace attorney and apollo but i cant NOT talk about him

so like, i have major fucking issues with spirit of justice. a lot of different issues. one of them is apollo. something i struggle with a lot as an adoptee is representation in media. its not that big of a deal i guess. but its frustrating what the limited pool of adoptee characters is filled with. a lot of it are these grandiose tragedies orphaning a child. which can happen in the real world. im not denying the existence of those orphaned by great tragedy. but it feels like the only type of adoptee representation out there. a lot of times, it feels like their tragedy is more of a spectacle than anything, rather than actually treated as a tragedy. after having finished aa4, before really knowing anything about aa6, i would lightheartedly talk about how i appreciated apollo and trucy not having the backstory of their parents dying in a great tragic fire on a boat out on sea wherein they had to abandon their baby in a basket and push it across the sea. you can imagine my reaction to learning how apollos dad died considering the choice of examples i tend to joke about

because, look, trucy is a good example of a way you can use some of the admittedly crazy circumstances of ace attorney while not falling into tired tropes about adoptees. she was the daughter of a single father and was abandoned by him. he didnt die some sort of heroic death or whatever. he left her. simple as that. sure, he disappeared in a magic act to escape a criminal conviction, but it was a breath of fresh air after a lot of carbon copy orphaning stories. and you know what sweetened the deal with me? thalassa coming back. thalassa regaining her memories. and still not returning to trucy. that hit such a good emotional spot for me. adoption exists in a great many different forms. some bio parents never get told the whereabouts of their children. but some do. some are only a call away from their bio children and refuse to get in contact with them. and in a world where most adoptees i saw were orphans, it hit me hard to have a character with the experience of, not only having living bio parents, but those who did not reach out to them. sure, thalassa promises to tell trucy and apollo eventually, but shes still pushing it off. still refuses it for a while. and it almost made me cry

this isnt even mentioning trucys relationship with nick and the gramaryes. a lot of stories either prioritize blood family or chosen family and refuse to let you have both. but there are children who experience both. children who do love or want to love both their biological and adopted families. and trucy is not demonized for wanting to love both. she calls zak and nick daddy and, sure, theres a joke about how it gets confusing, but its not Bad that she cares for both, that she still considers both her parents. and thats something special. especially as she wasnt adopted at birth. she did live with the gramaryes for a not insignificant amount of time. if she wants to keep her connections, her feelings, then let her

in aa4 and aa5 we hardly get any information about apollos family aside from his connection to thalassa and trucy, and honestly, i was very okay with that. i liked him serving as a mostly blank slate. i had been excited to project my own experiences on him, especially as he was from thalassa’s first marriage, meaning thalassa had very purposefully left him behind. far before her whole assumed death. thats another thing i cried about and i think its very telling of the type of experience ive had. we didnt know much about his fathers death by aa4, but i was honestly fine with the idea of apollo being left to a single father who died. i was a little wary, considering how orphaning tends to be handled, but i had hope. theres plenty of ways to die after all. and both trucy and apollo had a lot more grounded experiences than i was used to. i dont ever expect to find characters who experiences match my own by like 80% but im not that broken up about it, especially when aa4 handled apollo and trucy surprisingly well

and of course, i ended up being spoiled for aa6 before playing. and my frustration got to fester for like weeks until i finished up aa6. and it just kept getting worse. apollos dad dies in a fire. sure, ironic and mildly annoying but not that big of a deal. apollo was raised by the leader of a rebellion. okay… not the biggest fan but sure i gues. the fire was part of an assassination plot. what the fuck are you on about now. apollos foster father was the husband to the queen who was assassinated, also connecting apollo to the royalty of another country. now im sick of all this. theres a whole nother argument to be made about WHY apollo was given this backstory which im absolutely going to touch on at a later date. but it was honestly disheartening to learn about his backstory. what i loved about aa4 was how much more realistic these stories felt compared to everything else. but sure make him an illegitimate prince to a throne as well as the son of an infamous rebel. whatever man. i dont care (Cares a lot). it was just a slap in the face. and maybe thats my fault for getting too excited about any adoptees in media. but like jesus man. did you really have to do all that? i get ace attorney has a thing for these crazy plots and schemes and pieces falling together but i swear to god apollos story just feels like such a tropey mess compared to others.

i can live with jove dying in a fire. thats fine. i am MORE than okay with apollo growing up in khura’in, either being born there or not. if aa6 handled khura’in half decently, it couldve been fun to explore. unfortunately, aa6 handled khura’in Horribly. where you start adding in the plotlines about the defiant dragons and dhurks marriage to amara you just. lose me so thoroughly. i just lose my excitement an interest. because apollo is another of the hundreds of adoptee stories that couldve been good, couldve given representation to people like me, an opportunity to see a very underdiscussed part of our lives in media, but ended up falling so short. it feels like no one wants to write an adoptee unless theyre a spectacle. and yea i get it stories are stories you gotta make things interesting whatever. but so many mundane aspects of life are written about time and time again. so many life experiences are included as a Normal part of existence, rather than something you have to dramaticize so heavily. adoption in media feels like a tool rather than an author legitimately wanting to write about more diverse life experience. someone being an adoptee or an orphan is usually used to provide a narrative reason for a characters family being uninvolved in the story, to connect to them to a grand plot or scheme (orimarily through character relations), or for the beloved angst factor of a tragic childhood. and its tiring. does anyone care about the children of teen pregnancies? the children of international adoption? the rehomed or the abandoned or the neglected or the displaced? i could be here for hours concocting various types of adoptees that can exist in the world because its such a large spectrum of experience. but it feels like no one cares. maybe im making a mountain out of a molehill, but i had high hopes for ace attorney, and it hurt to have them crushed. its hard wanting to get excited about adoptee characters when theyre consistently placed in the same character templates to be repeated over and over again. i wish my story was treated as a real life possibility. as a type of person who can exist in the world. so often are adoptees and their stories mystified in media. or, on the other end, are completely ignored and disregarded. adoptee characters never feel like theyre written as, or discussed in fandom as, characters with traits that people can have, but instead as completely fictional tropes and archetypes. every day i see arguments about shipping adopted characters and so often it feels like adoption only exists as the fictional and hypothetical. and apollo just feels emblematic of this to me. because he had potential. we saw this potential in trucy. but they had to make him “interesting”. had to spice up his story. had to justify his involvement in khura’in because otherwise the story starts feeling too much like a white savior story. they didnt come here to write a realistic adoptee. and maybe i shouldnt be putting that expectation on writers. but goddamn i am sick of dining on crumbs. im sick of only finding myself in headcanons that I MYSELF HAVE TO CREATE

apollos backstory deserved better

[pleasantbelievercollector]

The Bookshop Clock & Time

I've been taking snapshots of the clock in Aziraphale's bookshop throughout season 2 and it's been so strange. All the references to time throughout the season got me thinking. "Too late" "I need more time" "I'm late". Crowley mentions a Richard Curtis film about falling in love in the rain. Since just about every media reference this season hits like a sledgehammer when I've looked it up, I decided to check out this one too. Based on a pretty basic google search "About Time" (directed by Richard Curtis) may have such a rain-related scene in it. What jumped out at me was the synopsis though. This movie deals with time travel in order to change events in the protagonist's life. HUH. INTERESTING.

In episode 2, we can see the clock is placed in the 10 o'clock hour when Gabriel starts singing "Every Day". We can still see the clock is in the 10 o'clock hour when the three archangels are in the bookshop. When Crowley and Aziraphale return from the bar to interrogate Gabriel about where he first heard the song, he says that he just heard it "this morning". Seems perfectly fine. He also remembers the "three nice people in the shop just now". Just now? The clock is sitting at like 5:20pm now! We just had a seven hour jump in time! Gabriel has been left unattended in the bookshop! I find myself doubting that he was actually referring to the archangels at all.

Why make the distinction between "this morning" and "just now" when referring to these events? Unlike season one, it seems (although not explicitly stated) that both angelic and demonic entities need an invitation to enter Aziraphale's bookshop. The only non-angelic and non-demonic trio I can think of at this point are the zombies that we got zero resolution on from 1941. What could they have been up to though? Neil Gaiman had such an odd response of "yup" when asked about the current whereabouts of the zombies. Probably the silliest thought I've had about this season and I don't actually think there's enough to conclude a thing at this point. Maybe it's nothing. I still find the comment strange.

Do we have any idea why episode 2 opened with Aziraphale standing in his bookshop puzzled? The episode opens with the Job memory from 2500BC but we have no reason to be looking at it until Gabriel tips him off about it later. Were we supposed to think Aziraphale was pondering this memory before the tip? Why were we shown this memory out of sequence with the present day events?

Also why was a hand missing from the clock in episode 3? The hour hand appears to be sitting at 10 o'clock, in a spot that the minute hand could never overlap. Why is Crowley so cryptic about being too late when he cuts himself off from threatening Gabriel about Aziraphale getting hurt? "It doesn't matter. It's too late for that now. It's always too late." Huh??? Why so bleak?

Then we kick off episode 4 with Aziraphale stating that he's late.

What is the significance of the opposing wall clock behind Aziraphale in episode 6 while the grandfather clock is behind Crowley? This clock is either positioned differently or blocked entirely until this scene, from what I can tell. The white clock face stands out against a rather dark background.

Why doesn't Crowley use his time-stop ability at any other point than in the Edinburgh minisode? Why is Aziraphale perfectly blocking the grandfather clock face so many times over the course of the season?

When the Metatron tells Aziraphale they need to leave the bookshop for the final time, Aziraphale looks back to the grandfather clock and seems to stop himself from saying "I need more time".

While I don't have a strong conclusion about these things, I feel like there's just too much going on to ignore. It has to be SOMETHING. If anyone else noticed weird time-related things, feel free to chime in.

[jungk0oksthighs]

Over The Odds | Weird

Pairing - jungkook x reader 

Genre - angst, smut, fluff, S2L, ceo!jungkook, sugardaddy!jungkook

Word count - 2.3k

Drabble 11 - Jimin forces you to make a phone call 

warnings: swearing, mentions of sex 

FULL SERIES COLLECTION

“I need to tell you something.” Jimin barges through the bedroom door excitedly, red faced and out of breath, “Immediately!”

You’re sitting on the bed using his laptop to look for a new job, it’s a Thursday afternoon and you’ve dedicated the full day to finding work. There’s less than one thousand pounds in your bank account now, and so you desperately need to find something before your finances dwindle down to nothing. You must’ve applied for near sixty jobs today alone, silently praying that none of your potential employers Google your name.

“Okay…?” You peer up at his damp grey gym clothes, he’s been working out a lot recently. Between spending his time at the gym and this mystery boyfriend’s of his, you’ve barely seen him at all this week.

“Namjoon,” He rushes over to your side, throwing himself onto the mattress stomach first, “You’ll never guess where I’ve just seen him.”

“Where?” You ask, closing the computer and placing it on the carpeted floor, giving him your undivided attention.

“Near your apartment.” Jimin tries to steady his breathing, you figure he must’ve run home to deliver this news, “Old apartment…” He corrects himself with an eyeroll, silently apologising with his awkward smile.

“Okay…?” A puff of air escapes your nostrils, you don’t understand why he’s making a big deal of this as it’s hardly a coincidence – your old apartment is less than a five minute walk from Namjoon’s favourite coffee shop, or at least what used to be his favourite anyway.

“He was with that Jennie girl.”

Oh. This gets your attention. The events of last weekend are still somewhat hazy to you but you do remember Jennie, how gorgeous she was, and how much of a total bitch she was too. You feel uneasy knowing that she and Jungkook had once… done whatever they��d done together, she was physically perfect. The idea of Namjoon knowing her doesn’t sit right with you either, all things considered Namjoon is a good man and deserves a lot better than someone like her, even if she is the epitome of beauty.

“Oh,” Your brows knit, “I didn’t realise they even knew each other.”

Jimin’s lying on his front with his face propped up between his hands, “Weird right? And right outside your old apartment.” Your best friend has a tendency to get stuck with his own thoughts sometimes, he’s very partial to a conspiracy theory so you know exactly where this is heading.

“The fact they were there isn’t that weird.” You reassure him before his head explodes, tying your hair in a high pony tail with the hair band on your wrist.

“It is,” He looks offended that you’re not treating this with the same amount of urgency that he is. While you admit it is strange how you and Jennie have seemingly gone for each other’s ex partners, you would hardly call the specific whereabouts of the story strange. “It looked like they were leaving the building, do you think they would visit you? Maybe they didn’t know that you’ve uh-, moved.”

“Namjoon maybe, he’s called me a few times since the video got leaked,” You hastily admit, part of you feeling guilty for ignoring his attempts to reach out to you, “But Jennie? Why on earth would she even want to speak to me?”

“Okay good point,” He rolls onto his back, resting his head on your crossed legs, “Does Jungkook still speak to her?”

“Not that I know of.” You shrug, even if the two do speak you trust him with your whole heart and know that he would never say anything to her that would cross a line, “I think she’s called him a few times but he hasn’t answered.” Ironically enough, the exact same situation as you and your ex.

“Well there you go then!”

“What?”

“If she’s contacting him she might still have feelings for him, that’s probably why she was such a cunt to you at the club. She’s jealous!”

“Maybe,” Your fingers run through his thick brunette hair, “Not that she’s got anything to be jealous of, the entire world’s seen me naked.”

“You’re getting railed by a beautiful billionaire, even I’m a little jealous.”

An awkward silence ensues. At the beginning of your relationship with Jungkook neither one of you could keep your hands off the other, the sex was constant, and it was consistently amazing. Ever since the video leaked however you’ve yet to sleep together, there’s been all of two heated make out sessions that could’ve deepened to something more before you hesitated – it’s not that you don’t want to have sex with him, the idea alone has you pressing your thighs together, it’s just… You feel self-conscious now. It’s nothing he’s done, you know how much he loves your body in all it’s glory. Truthfully you’re not one hundred percent sure why you’re prolonging the inevitable, but you are. Not to mention the fact you’ve only seen him twice between the drunken endeavour that lead to your reunion and now because he’s been so busy at work and with the ongoing investigation.

“Actually…” You exhale, beginning to plait your best friend’s hair, “We haven’t slept together since we made up.”

“Really?!” Jimin looks to be in a state of shock, gazing up at you curiously.

“Mmm, I know it’s stupid… I guess I just feel more insecure after—"

“You don’t have to explain yourself Y/N. It’ll happen when it happens, and I’m sure he understands. I’m so glad you made up. For a minute there I was scared you’d let a good one go.”

This wins you to smile, a soft genuine smile, Jungkook is a good one.

“You should call Namjoon and see how he knows Jennie.” Jimin gasps as though that’s the best idea he’s ever had, clapping excitedly, “Put him on speaker though, yeah?”

“I’m not calling Joon.” You chuckle, playfully smacking his forehead. While you may be curious, you’re not that curious, unlike your best friend who doesn’t appear to be letting this go any time soon.

“He’s tried to contact you right? See what he wants.”

“I know what he wants.” You sigh, continuing to play with his hair, “He’ll just want to know I’m okay after what happened.”

“Probably, but that still doesn’t explain how he knows Jungkook’s ex.”

“You’re not going to let this go are you?”

“Not even a little bit.” His grin is bright, wide and mischievous, “Please? For me?”

“Only if you tell me who your secret boyfriend is.”

“I can’t tell you yet, but I’ll answer three questions if you call Joon right now.”

It’s not even about Namjoon and Jennie anymore, you’re dying to know anything and everything about the man taking up so much of his time – at first you were adamant that it was Taehyung, but Jimin swore on your friendship that it isn’t. So either his mystery man is somebody else, or you’re gonna have to find somewhere else to live after you disown him. 

Begrudgingly you peel your phone from your hoodie, making a mental note to reply to Jungkook’s messages after you’re done entertaining Jimin’s nosiness.

Jungkook: Stay at my place this weekend?

Jungkook: I still owe you a breakfast in bed

“If he doesn’t answer you still owe me three questions,” You whisper as the line rings, “You said if I called him, not if I spoke—”

“Hello?” Namjoon’s tone is dripping with surprise when he answers the call.

“Uh-, Hi…” You and Jimin are having a frantic exchange of wide eye contact, “Sorry I’ve not been on my phone much recently… But I noticed you’ve called a few times. Is everything okay?”

“Y/N it’s good to hear from you I’ve been so worried, are you okay?” He sounds concerned.

You nod, as though he can see you, “I’m okay. Are you alright? How come you called?”

“Like I said I’ve been worried about you, I saw… What happened.”

“Ah.” You sigh, Jimin’s silently rushing you to get to the point by nipping your thigh, “Ow-, I mean, yeah I’m okay all things considered.”

“I can’t believe he’d leak something so private, I’m sorry.”

This catches you off guard, despite the fact you were convinced that Jungkook was the one behind the scandal at first, everybody else believed and tried to convince you of his innocence – Namjoon’s the only person to accuse Jungkook straight away. You look at Jimin who’s frowning, as are you.

“It wasn’t him, it was stolen from his possession.” You state matter-of-factly.

“Oh, sorry I just assumed that he was the one who—”

“No, he didn’t do it… It’s been investigated so I can’t say too much more.” You cut him off somewhat defensively, ultimately trying to get to the real reason you called, “Jimin mentioned you earlier actually, that’s what reminded me to call you back.”

Jimin clicks his fingers and winks, earning you to cover your phone and pray the man on the other end of the line didn’t hear it. ‘Nice’ Jimin mouths to you, pride evident on his smooth features.

“Oh? How is he?”

“He’s fine, he’s the same old Jimin...” You say with raised brows and a breathy chuckle, “He said that he saw you near my old apartment with a girl, I dunno if you know but I’ve recently moved.”

“Hmm, he must be mistaken Y/N,” Namjoon’s tone switches immediately to something indescribable, “I wasn’t anywhere near there today, I’ve been at the hospital all day.”

“Oh…?” You’re confused, and Jimin looks outraged, his jaw dropping faster than the speed of light, “Are you sure?”

“Positive, he must’ve seen somebody else.”

Jimin is violently shaking his head and waggling his finger, whispering ‘no no no, it was definitely him I swear it was’. Of course you believe him, he’s your best friend and has no reason to lie about this, which leaves the question – why would Namjoon lie about this?

“Ah, okay…”

“Listen Y/N I’ve got to go but I’m glad you’re okay… I hope I’m not overstepping but I was wondering if you want to grab a coffee sometime? Just as friends of course.” You can practically see him chewing his lower lip nervously as he waits for your response, his eyes swimming with hope.

“Uh…” You ask yourself, is this a good idea? No, probably not. But then you ask yourself again, why would Joon lie about being near your old apartment with Jennie? Something’s off, and curiosity wins the battle with the rational side of your brain. “Yeah I guess that would be okay, as friends.”

“Oh, okay!” Even though it’s not possible, you can hear his dimpled smile, “Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”

The only good thing about being unemployed is that you’re always free, “Yeah sounds good. Text me the time and I’ll meet you there.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you tomorrow Y/N. I’m looking forward to it.”

“See you tomorrow Joon.” You end the call, already regretting the decision to meet him.

“That fucking LIAR!” Jimin sits up in a hurry, messily undoing the pretty braids you’d created in his hair, “I swear on my life, on your life, on our friendship it was him. He was leaving your old apartment building with Jennie, I swear!”

“I believe you.” You’re laughing at his dramatics, his eyes are almost bursting from his skull, “I’ll let you off, something is weird about this. Why would Joon lie? I don’t think he’s ever lied in his life.”

“Guess you’ll find out tomorrow, are you gonna tell Jungkook you’re meeting with him?”

While Jungkook is a more than reasonable guy who trusts you, you’re well aware of how he feels about Namjoon – and rightfully so, he’s your ex-boyfriend who’s openly admitted he’s still in love with you. But if he loves you, why would he cover up being with Jennie? There’s more to this than meets the eye, and you need to get to the bottom of it and do some investigating of you own. If not for you, for your best friend who’s already mentally torturing himself over the situation.

“I’m not sure… I don’t want to upset him, we’ve only just made up.” You admit, trying to figure out what’s worse – telling him about your coffee plans with Joon, or him finding out about your coffee plans with Joon from somebody else. Maybe if you explain the full situation to him he’ll understand, then again he’s probably not going to be thrilled with the idea under any circumstance. Your thoughts are spiralling into something sinister, and so you quickly change the subject.

“Anyway, you owe me three answers.”

“Hit me.” Jimin slaps his chest with a cocky expression, “Ask away.”

Soon you find yourself asking him the questions that have been on your mind, to which he actually answers without hesitation, much to your surprise, giving you three new pieces of information:

Yes - You’ve met him before

No - You’re not friends with him

No – He’s not openly gay, hence the secrecy

Jimin watches you mull over his answers, somewhat amused, “And no, before you ask again… It’s not Taehyung.”

x

[xbunnybunz]

Stride of Luck (3/?) [Dave Strider X Reader X Bro Strider]

Summary:

You find an unconscious Dave Strider in a desolate street and allow him to crash at your place, only to find out that he's come all the way from Texas to find his bro, Dirk Strider.

What seems like an easy task soon evolves into something much more complicated when you finally locate Dirk, and realize three things. One, Dave is hot as fuck. Two, Dirk is also hot as fuck. Three, they have the same taste in girls.

“i warned you about the striders, bro. i told you dog!”

Genre: Romance, Humor, Angst, Slow Burn

Author's Note: moving some stuff over from AO3 to here so my readers feel more comfy interacting with me directly <3

Dave never took that goddamn toothbrush out of his mouth. Ever.

He would watch the television with it in his mouth, while using his phone, before he went to bed, and you were pretty sure he kept it in his mouth while he showered, too. You’d dare to say he probably had teeth so clean, ten out of ten dentists would recommend his regimen, as opposed to the usual nine out of ten.

You’re currently sitting next to him on the couch, your laptop pulled up on your lap while the second Fast and Furious movie played on the television. The explosions were nearly frequent, but not as constant as the Rock’s gruff voice saying something undoubtedly super cool and epic. You weren’t really paying attention, since you were focused more on the laptop screen in front of you.

Dave sat next to you, eyes glued to the television and curled up under the throw blanket. The toothbrush buzzed distinctly in his mouth, and you didn’t have to be an expert to know he was probably destroying his gums with the constant brushing.

“Dude. Your gums are so going to be fried after this.”

Dave took the toothbrush out of his mouth, and you can hear the distinct tune he programmed into it buzzing into the air. “That’s really funny, because I so don’t remember asking.” He popped it back in his mouth, and you rolled your eyes.

Dave had been here for almost half a week now, and you realized he was a lot more of a chatterbox than you initially thought. Even though it was great he liked to converse, nearly all of the things he said would drive you up the goddamn wall. He was a sassy little shit, and had the perfect response to nearly any situation. It was hilarious, but sometimes you just wanted to reach over and pinch his lips shut and go SHHHHHHHH.

Of course, you never did. You were getting more used to his snark and charming face, but you still remained a bit jittery. You blamed it mostly on the fact that you were excited to finally have a housemate, since you’ve been daydreaming about it since the day you moved in. Besides, he was chill, talkative, and clean. What more could you ask for?

Just as you thought this, he tossed a used tissue covered in Dorito™ powder onto the table and missed. It collected with the other ten or so crusty tissues that littered the floor, and you grimaced.

Okay, fine. He was kind of a slob.

“You’re turning this place into a dump, asshole.”

Dave grunted and picked up the tissues with his toes while watching The Rock blast through what had to be the fifth shitty plaster wall today. “Sorry. I’ll clean it after this part.”

You sighed and turned back to your laptop screen, scanning the list of local public schools in the area. Dave had messaged his brother after he got his phone fired up again, but there hadn’t been a response since then. You were worried for him, but he assured you that Bro was pretty shitty with answering pesterchum even before he had left. Unfortunately Bro hadn’t told Dave of his whereabouts before he left, so this was basically a guessing game.

The only choice you had was scouring the internet for hints, or waiting it out. All Dave had was his phone, so all of the big-boy googling was up to you. Luckily for you, Dave didn’t seem too caught up in finding Bro at the moment, which made you wonder if he was secretly sad when you weren’t in the same room as him.

You had caught him staring absently at his phone a few times before, waiting for a message. You hadn’t bothered to ask him why. You had the sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t tell you the entire truth.

“You said Bro had blonde hair and a ‘shitty white shirt?’” You asked with a raised eyebrow. You wondered if Dave had bullied Bro a bit too much and, in a fit of rebellious teenage mirth, Bro had packed it up and left.

“Yup.” Dave said, the explosions on the screen reflecting off of his shades. “He wears that dorky thing all the time. It makes him look like such a dumb musclehead.”

Maybe it ran in the family.

“Uh huh. Have you ever thought that maybe he left because you put your foot in your mouth one time too many?”

“Pff. No. Dude’s built like a tank. Nothing gets to him.”

You hum, unconvinced and click on a local high school’s page. Pictures of kids on their first day of school filled your screen, and you went through the meticulous process of picking them out and matching their faces to their names in the school roster.

About ten schools later, your eyes burned and the sun had set. No one you had found matched your criteria of being Bro, and your day had dwindled away into nothing. Dave still had that stupid little toothbrush in his mouth, and The Rock prevailed in dramatically jumping from a skyscraper to a helicopter for the trillionth time, which was beginning to annoy the crap out of you.

How many Fast and Furious movies were there? You’d been here all day!

“Dave, temp?”

He leans forward and grabs the thermometer, sticking it his mouth and watching as numbers on the screen fluctuates. He pops it out, and you’re relieved to see he’s back down to an acceptable temperature.

“Oh, thank goodness. Congrats, you’re no longer a human frying pan. Welcome back to miserable normalcy.”

Dave pretends to pop a tube of confetti, though the sound effects he makes are sloppy because of the buzzing of the brush.

“Hoorah, Dave Strider is in town, and he’s ready to par-tay.”

You set your laptop to the side and pluck the brush out of his mouth, kind of grossed out by the string of saliva connected to it.

“Oh, man. That’s fucking disgusting.” You toss the toothbrush into one of the empty cups, and arch your back in a pleasant stretch. “Why are you so glued to that thing? It’s like a pacifier for you.”

Dave allows his gaze to diverge from the toothbrush on the table, and he licks his teeth making little squeaky noises.

“I downloaded one of Bro’s mixes on there, his music is always at least a little good, you feel?”

It sounded to you like Dave just missed Bro a lot, but you didn’t feel like calling him out on his genuine, sappy ass feelings right now, so you let him roll with it.

“Sure, got it. I’m gonna go whip up something for dinner. Is there anything in particular you want to feast on?”

“Nah, I’ll eat anything. I’ll help you, though.”

“Oh, wow. Dave Strider? Getting up from the couch? How many more miracles will we see here today, folks?”

“Maybe one more, if I don’t gag on your food.”

You scoff and let him have the last word. He follows your lead into the kitchen, which was also conveniently and grossly mashed with your dining room.

Your phone pings from your back pocket, and you scoop it up.

-- SwwetieShawwna[SS] began pestering SadFroggy [SF] at 8:45PM—

SS: Heeey!! : DD SF: hey, whats up shawna SS: Nothing much, but me and tracy were thinking of ordering out!! SS: I wanted 2 ask if u wanna jooooin us?! C : SF: hmmmmm delicious chinese takeout, or cooking pasta again in my house?? how will I ever choose between such a difficult pair? SF: oh I know, ill use my noggin. chinese food please. SS: :DDDDD YAAAAAAY SS: When will you get here? :DD

Oh, snap. You look up, and Dave is pulling two plates out of the cabinets after having spent five minutes looking through the dishwasher for cups, which were all used and in your room.

Oops. You had forgotten that a certain Mr. Strider was waiting for a meal too.

SF: uhhhh actually I dont know if i can come anymore. SS: WHAAAAT >: CCCC WHY!!!!! SF: yeah, sorry. I forgot that dave is here, i don’t wanna ruin girls night by bringing a guy SF: damn. there goes my general tso’s chickiee. SS: NOOO WAIT SF: ? SS: BRING HIM!!! SF: what no, he just recovered from being sick. im not dragging him across town to eat chinese takeout. SS: BUUUUUT SS: I wanna SEE him!!! SF: girl that’s a very high order yaknow SF: i think I’ve had my fill of dragging around sick guys in Obers. SS: >://// SS: FINE! We’ll come to you then!!!! :DDD SF: wait, what?

-- SwwetieShawwna[SS] ceased pestering SadFroggy [SF] at 8:57PM—

What the hell? Were Tracy and Shawna really coming just to eat with you? You felt bad for whatever havoc was definitely being wrecked at their apartment, but you were also kind of excited to see your pals again. The last time you guys had eaten dinner together, Shawna had gone through a pretty shitty breakup, and you had decided to party the sad out of her.

Now that you thought about it, it was saddening to see that your schedules were too packed to see each other outside the occasional weekend. After starting University, things had gotten pretty time constricting, and truth be told you missed their company.

-- TurntechGodhead [TG] began pestering SadFroggy [SF] at 9:01PM—

TG: yo TG: are u ok TG: youve been staring at your phone for five minutes

Oh shit. You look up from your phone and give Dave an awkward smile.

“Haha, sorry. I was just a bit lost in thought.”

Dave hummed, his lips forming an adorable pout as he compared two boxes pasta boxes in his hands.

“Rigatoni, or Penne? Rigatoni, or Penne?” He raised the boxes as he addressed them, his eyebrows wiggling.

“None, and stop moving your eyebrows like that. They look like seizing worms.” You pressed the boxes down, and he lowered them onto the table. From behind his shades, giving you a questioning look.

“No pasta? There’s nothing else to eat though, unless…”He articulates the last word carefully, dragging it out intentionally.

He leaned against the counter, head tilting towards you. His glasses slide down his nosebridge slightly, and you can see a tease of his blond lashes. You had never seen the Strider awake without his glasses before, and now the close glimpse of them had you wondering. You find your eyes wandering over his chiseled face and wry smile, trying hard to place just how much more tempting he could get.

You feel a blush crawling up your neck, but he stops it short.

“…Unless there’s some kind of quality, Michelin star, microwaveable meal you’ve been smuggling in under my nose. Because stouffers is great too.”

While you tried to recover from the emotional whiplash and wrestled with yourself to get your heart into check, Dave notices your lack of response with the quirk of an eyebrow.

“You good, bud?”

“Yep, peachy.”

You distract yourself with placing the pasta back into the shelves.

“My friends are coming over, and we’re getting takeout. I hope you weren’t looking forward to that ‘microwaveable meal’ too much. And last time I checked, Stouffer’s was blue ribbon at best.”

He clicks his tongue and grabs the other box on the table.

“Have to disagree with you there, (y/n).” He slides the pasta on the shelf and the back of his hand brushes against yours, and you feel like you’ve been burned.

You jerk your hand back and slip out from the tight spot he was crowding you into, heart pounding.

Dave chuckles, and just like that, you know that weird interaction was only out of the norm for you. You’re still trying to wrap your head around it when you get another message from Tracy.

-- ClickyBitchtracy [CB] began pestering SadFroggy [SF] at 9:17PM—

CB: Congrats on riling Shawna up. CB: What did you tell her, and why are we going to your place? SF: im really sorry! i mentioned that dave was here and she wanted to come over like stat. CB: Oh, that’s what it was. Well, we’re a few minutes away and we have two orders of General Tso’s for you and David. SF: **dave CB: Sorry. A lot of unmemorable names here. SF: woooow, snarky. leave the attitude at the door pleassee CB: Better start heading down now then.

-- ClickyBitchtracy [CB] ceased pestering SadFroggy [SF] at 9:20PM—

You throw on a jacket and tell Dave you’re going to get the door. He’s sprawled himself out on the couch, his legs dangling over the armrests. You see a thumbs up peeking over his knees right before you close the door.

Shawna basically sprints past the lobby and up the stairs when you open the main door. The door just barely misses giving you a broken nose, and Tracy looks completely unphased.

You eye the crack the door left in the paint. “Hey Tracy, what’s been up with you?”

She grumbles, and pinches her nosebridge. The bag of food hangs heavily in her hands, and you take it from her, thanking her for her brave service.

“Shawna has been waiting to see Dave for a week. A whole week! Do you know how hard it was to get her under control once you gave her the permission to come over here?”

“Yikes. Sorry, Tracy. But to be honest, I don’t think I ever said yes to her. Plus, it’s only been a few days.”

She blows hair out of her face and sighs, defeated. “It felt a lot longer than that for me. As if that isn’t bad enough, Adam’s been talking about you all week too.”

Huh. He has? You haven’t spoken to him since you saw him on Saturday. “Weeeeird.”

You head up to your apartment and see Shawna hounding the door like some kind of fucking crazy stalker, which she kind of is. Maybe you should’ve given Dave a warning?

You unlock the door and throw it open, unleashing Shawna on him. Nah. Mister cool guy will be fine.

Immediately after you think that, though, you regret it. Shawna throws herself onto the couch and Dave completely freaks and rolls out of the way, but not in time for him to dodge her talons snatching onto his shoulders and pinning him back down.

“Woah, she’s an animal.” Tracy says.

Uhhhhhh. You put down the food.

“OH MY GOSH YOU ARE SO FREAKING ADORABLE!”

Dave sinks himself deeper into the couch, bewildered and confused as Shawna rubs her grubby little mitts all over his face.

“I KNEW you had to be a huge cutie to score someone like (y/n)!”

“It’s not like that Shawna-”

She’s squealing now and it hurts your eardrums from afar, so you don’t envy Dave who’s right in her face. He’s frantically searching the room for you and when he sees you, mouths “what the goddamn shit?”

He’s asking for help.

You mouth back “I don’t know either, sorry.”

You can’t do anything now.

Shawna starts shaking Dave, and his head snaps back and forth like a ragdoll. “I didn’t know they made boys that looked like you still! Tell me how you’ve been since we found you!”

Dave’s jaw is clenched in a death lock in an attempt to save his tongue from a nasty chomp, and he doesn’t dare to release it to answer her. His fingers dig into the material of the couch to brace himself, and you wonder why he won’t push her off.

“Damn, he’s just letting her go at it” You muse, and Tracy looks at you like your stupidity amazes her.

“Well no shit! You think he’s going to toss her off onto the coffee table WWE style?!”

Oh. Right.

“Don’t you think he can escape?”

Tracy exclaims in frustration and walks over, an arm raised cautiously, like she was approaching a dangerous bloodlusting creature. “Shawna, that’s enough-”

Shawna reaches for Dave’s shades, eyes shining with curiosity. “Oh, why are you wearing these indoors? At night time? Are you high?”

“Shawna, maybe don’t touch those-”

Before you can finish your sentence, Dave has somehow slipped his way out from Shawna, kicking a long leg up onto the headrest of the couch and backflipping into the air and over her. You and Tracy watch with dropped jaws as he lands perfectly on the coffee table, sweeping one leg out and around to maintain balance in an astounding demonstration of agility. The cups and trash on the table are knocked off, save for the one his toothbrush is in, which he grabs before it hits the floor. He pushes up his shades nonchalantly with his other hand and Shawna turns around slowly, eyes wide with stupefaction.

“How did you…?”

“How did he?-” Tracy gestures to him largely and looks to you for an answer, but you’re just as taken aback as she is.

How didn’t he break the table? Last time you tried to sit on it you swore it moaned like a whore! This was unfair treatment, and what the fuck did Dave just do in front of your friends? You didn’t realize you were hosting the Olympics in your goddamn room.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?”

Shawna can only numbly stare at him and gape.

“…So, you’re not high?” She asks meekly.

"I thought he was sick?" Tracy asks, a nervous edge in her voice.

"...Hell yeah, sick as fuck."

Dave gets back on the floor and runs a hand through his attractively tousled hair. “Nah. Don’t touch the stuff, but don’t judge those who do. ‘Cause all lifestyles are different, and that’s cool too.” He winks at the camera, but we can’t see it because of his shades.

You rush over to him, checking to see if Shawna had broken anything of his.

“Dude, are you okay? She was really giving you a run for your money. I thought you were going to walk out with at least some kind of brain damage.’”

Tracy checked Shawna for injuries, then turned to Dave. “I’m really sorry, she gets a bit wild when she’s excited.”

Dave just shook his head, the ceiling lamp reflecting off his shades in a way that made him look extremely fuckable and fresh.

“Don’t worry about it,” he held out his hand in greeting, and Tracy took it firmly.

“Tracy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tracy. Cool to meet you. (Y/n) talks about you two all the time.”

He extends an arm to Shawna, who takes it still stunned.

“Shawna, I’m guessing?”

She nods.

“Thanks. I haven’t gotten around to doing that shit since Bro left.”

“Wait, you did this to Bro?” You ask incredulously. Did Bro leave because Dave was using him to practice Wrestlemania moves?? Because in that case you were NOT helping him anymore!

Dave turned to look at you, and only then did you recognize how closely you were standing to him.

“Not to him, with him.” He corrected. “Yeah. He’s way better than me though.”

How? How could it be possible that anyone got any smoother than that? Should you be scared?

“Oh, your brother?” Shawna dotes, clasping her hands together. What’s with her? That’s gross, and also pedophilia. You needed to have a talk with her later after all of this dies down.

Tracy looks at you, hesitation and a spark of approval in her eye. What the fuck? When was the last time Tracy approved of anything? And what was she approving of?

“Alright, we’re going to eat.” Tracy states.

Shawna looks up with huge puppy eyes at the mention of food, and Tracy's managed to get Dave’s attention too. Shawna runs off to unpack the food, and drags poor Dave with her. Haha, sucker.

“ Then, me and you are going to talk.” She rests a hand delicately on your shoulder, a stern frown on her face.

“Woah! What did I do? I wasn’t the one doing backflips on the furniture.”

“Yes, but it’s still something I think is important. It’s regarding Dave. There’s two things, actually, and I just feel like-”

Dave’s voice cuts through the livingroom, deep, smooth, and inquisitive. “Uh. You guys coming?”

You wave at him. “Yep! Coming! Tracy is STARVING! Right Trace?” You pinch her cheeks and pretend to make her talk. “Yes, Dave, I’m soooooo hungry! I’m gotta eat right now or I’ll piss and cum in my pants!”

Dave chuckles at your totally ironic humor, and it sounds like liquid velvet to your ears.

She swats your hands away and growls at you, massaging her face.

“Alright! Fine. Let’s go.”

The dining room is bustling, and shadows of four friends stretch across the floor and over the coffee table, where a lone toothbrush sat.

[bokunosimpfiction]

Yandere!Heisenberg x Reader Pt 3

A/N: Since y’all demanded a plot that’s what you’ll get. Will it be good? No. I’ve never written anything with a plot in my entire life. Ever. Not even when I did Nanowrimo or whatever. I just bullshitted the whole thing. Like I’ll do with this fic. Y’all are going to have to remind me to update because I have the attention span of a goat. I’ll try to update this on Saturdays??? IDK at this point. ALSO, WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SO POPULAR?????????? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY NOTES THIS HAS ON AO3???? 69????SIXITY FUCKING NINE??? I HATE EVERYTHING MY LEGACY WILL BE READER CALLING HEISENBERG DOOFSCHMIRTZ I HATE EVRYTHING DSHFUGSADFJ

Synopsis: You have totally, %100, given up on escaping. Totally. You haven't been gathering supplies for one, final last hurray. Nope. Totally not. All you have to do is persuade Heisenberg of that so you can change your mind at the last minute. Y’all know the trigger warning for this series but if you don’t tw:kidnapping (implied)

Taglist: it’s exclusivly @localdepressedvampire​  so if you want to be on it for just this story or for all my pieces fill out the google doc in my pinned post or dm me and I’ll put you on it. :)

             You’ve made a breakthrough in your long-term plan of escapism. Even with the mini escape attempts that were really about exploring the factory and less about actually trying to get out, you hadn’t made a lot of progress: until now.

             Well, two, really… Okay, maybe 1 ½. Firstly, you found a sawed-off two-barrel shotgun. With ammo. In fact, there was a various amount of ammo around the factory, but no actual gun. Until now. The second discovery, which is nowhere near as useful, was a window. Which was probably 50 or more feet up from the ground. You didn’t get a chance to inspect it that much, considering as soon as you saw it and got a glimpse at the far-off ground, you had to run again from Lycans.

             Which gives you a basic idea of a way to escape. You knew where the ammo was, you knew where the gun was and had a route to the edge of the building, and hopefully could find stairs at the end of the hallway. Now all you had to do was find a time where you could be gone long enough to get a decent head start before, he notices you’re even gone. Even when he was in the workshop, he kept a close eye on you, keeping you in arms-length to the point where it taxed on both of your mental health.

             And even then, in that chair in the small room, you watch him work in the finer details on something the size of your head and torso. You try not to look at the phone in your lap, he doesn’t even know you have it, much less how great the reception is in the building. How did he not know about his old phone that was still working fine? Oh well, he doesn’t need to know you’re looking at memes and reading feel-good wolf-star fanfic on ao3.

             The best idea you had was to leave him while he was asleep, but there were two some issues with that: he clung to you like his life depended on it, your back to his chest and arms around you almost tight enough to keep you awake; it was dark as hell in the hallways of the factory as is, but it would be impossible to navigate safely with the lights; and the Lycans were most active outside at night, which was where you were trying to go. They’ve tried to eat you before as they show no discrimination on food.

             The only way to get a good enough head start would be to leave while he didn’t notice you were gone, and wouldn’t notice for a long, long time. And that when it hit you. The only time he ever left you by yourself was when he had to deal with the other three lords. And while he left you in that basement that you originally woke up in, you had memorized your way out and found that going up five flights of stairs took you to that faithful widow.

             Would you have enough time to explore and look for an actual exit/entrance, or should you play it safe and find a way to go out that window. You wanted to laugh to yourself, you’d never think that going down a 50ft plus drop would be considered safe, but here you were, kidnapped and held hostage by one of the people your late grandmother warned you not to associate with, or even go near. The letter you received directly quoted “the four lords and their mother, Mother Miranda, are not to be approached or associated with at any costs. You’ll know them when you see them, they smell like death and money. See them and run.”

             You can’t help but find that ironic, considering that you did try to run, heeded her warning, and still faced the consequences that were far worse than she had warned you about. You regretted coming here, to this small village, when you first arrived: no friends, and even those you tried to approach held you to her standard and expected them to be just like her. You were far from her kind and optimistic nature (at least that’s what you heard of her; you hadn’t even known of her whereabouts until she was dead).

             Even the duke, who had helped smuggle you into the village, didn’t seem fond of you. It was a shame, you tried so hard to impress him. But he saw you to a point where you could easily reach her old cottage without having too many issues, turned his cart around, and left without a good-bye. It bothered you to no end that your only companion for about a year or so was an elderly outside cat and the creaking noises the walls made at night.

             And then the cat died and not even a week later you got kidnapped. You never considered yourself lucky, but damn if that wasn’t the worst streak of luck you’ve had in a long time.

             You pretend to turn a page in your book and scroll through your Instagram feed, seeing friends having fun at the beach, or studying at the library, or your old best friend taking selfies in provocative clothing to your ex-boyfriend. Did she forget he cheated on you? She wasn’t always the smartest, but she brought that heartbreak upon herself. You see a photo of your mom, she had posted a picture of a black and white photo of her with her mom, you’re guessing, you have no idea who that old woman is.

             This is the last photo I had with my mom before she died. We lost contact after I moved out. I wish we parted on better terms, Nana.

             She’s in a prairie dress, holding an ancient-looking key in one hand, and the other wrapped around her mom, a middle-aged woman with long hair in two braids and a face that had too many stress wrinkles. You guess your mom was as bad as you were in college. The background looks dreary. You would have guessed it to be the quality of the photo if you hadn’t recognized the house behind them as the house you lived in used to live in.

             The loops on the handle of the key look familiar. You spread your fingers apart to zoom in and see the blurry engravings on the side. It was the payment you gave to sneak into the village. You thought it was a worthless family heirloom at most and found it strange that he had even found interest in the key, or even valued it deeper than money in general. Maybe this photo or other photos of you and your family would help out.

             Why is that key suddenly piquing your interest? Were you that bored, as to sit there and think about a key that was at least twice your age? A key that you didn’t even have. You needed a hobby besides escapism and rejecting your captor’s sexual advances. You look up at him again, only to find him leaning against the desk, hat off and sunglass placed on his forehead, his gaze on you. It wasn’t his normal piercing one, that studied you and calculated your every move, but soft and lazy. His current gaze was dreamy; he was daydreaming about you. You found that equally undaring s it was unnerving.

             “Karl.”

             “Yes, Sweetiepea?” Honestly, what the fuck.

             “Firstly, why are you staring at me like that? Secondly, that is the most disgusting way to use that pet name. I need to take a shower after you called me that.”

             He chuckles light-heartedly. Even his softer more genuine, happy chuckles are booming and loud. “Okay… Sugarplum!” And he busts out laughing.

             Clearly dodging the first question and focusing on the second. You can’t believe you gave him ammo for his annoying-you-gun. And you thought you’d grown immune to most of his… less-savory traits. Were you growing used to him? Next thing you know you’re going to like him and develop Stockholm syndrome!

             “You’re a shit head, hobo magneto…” You turn your head away and let your hair cover half your face so he can’t see you smile. You’ll miss him when you escape and get the duke to smuggle you back to your home in Bucharest. But only a little. Just because calling Heisenberg these names are funny.

             “Why don’t you call me by my name, I know you know it.”

             “You sure about that?” You quip back.

             “You’ve lived with me for at least two months now!”

             “Hm…. I think I know your name! It’s uh…” You are totally faking not knowing his name. “It’s… Heidi Carlson? Yeah, that sounds about right!”

             “It’s Karl Heisenberg!”

             “Quit being so silly, Heidi! Maybe it’s nap-time!” This was a little too fun.

             He looks back at his project for a moment and genuinely considers it. “I know you’re being antagonistic but you’re probably right.” And with that, he walks towards you and goes to scoop you up. You have to shut your book quickly in order for him not to notice the phone in between its pages before you let him pick you up.

             He immediately notices that. “Are… Are you sick?”

             “No! Of course not!” Because you genuinely aren’t sick, and he’s already up in your business as-is, you don’t need him dotting on you because he thinks you’re sick or something. You’ll go fucking crazy.

             “You’ve put in zero effort into anything remotely physical since your last little failed escape attempt.” He gave it a little bit of thought. “You’ve given up, haven’t you, and you’re just depressed about it aren’t you?”

             You want to say no, you really do, but if Heisenberg thinks you’ve given up on escaping, perhaps it’ll give you enough space to plan the big one. The reverse heist so to speak. “No- I… okay maybe I have but I still don’t like you.

             He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Good girl. Now let’s get us that well-deserved nap.”

             You plug your nose and turn away as a joke. “You’ve gotta take a bath first, you smell like oil and sweat.” You don’t fight it, because you have to play the part, but you still have to act a little bit like yourself.

             “Okay, fine doll, but don’t think you’ve escaped my barrage of affection, because as soon as I get out of the shower-“

             You bonk him. And he looks at you so confused before he smiles and leans down to nuzzle his nose against yours. You try to hold the bile back in your mouth and lean forward and peck his lips before leaning back. You failed at trying to not visibly gag.

             “Ew… I can’t believe I just kissed you.”

             “Well, I guess someone caught feelings… Didn’t they?”

[ofendlesswonder]

ah so exciting! would love number 25

25. “I need a place to stay.”

A shadow falls over Kara’s desk, and she pauses her proofread of her latest article to glance up at the person hovering by her shoulder, jaw dropping open when she gets a glimpse of messy blond curls.

“Carter?” It’s been months since she’d thought of him, longer still since she’d seen him, but the face is unmistakable, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “What are you doing here? Is your Mom here?”

She hasn’t seen Cat in months, either, not since she left to ‘dive’ into pastures new. No one has seen her recently, in fact—she’s effectively disappeared off the face of the earth, is only mentioned in gossip columns when they’re speculating her whereabouts.

Not that Kara has a Google alert set up for her name, or anything.

“No, she’s in Washington.”

“D.C.?” What on earth is she doing there? And what on earth is Carter doing here, backpack slung over his shoulder, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks blotchy like he’d been crying.

“Yeah. She took a new job there.”

Kara feels like he’s reading from a script she isn’t privy too, has no idea how any of this has led him to be here, standing by her new desk and scuffing his converse along the floor. “Okay…”

“But I don’t want to live there. I didn’t want to leave here, but she said it would be temporary. That we’d come back. Only now she wants to work in the stupid White House and she’s looking at apartments and a new school and I—I don’t want it. We had a fight.” He sniffs, rubs the back of his sleeve across his cheek like he’s scrubbing away the remnant of his tears. “And I said I wanted to come back. Live with Dad, if that’s what it took.”

Kara can only imagine how Cat would have taken that.

Not well, by any means.

“She sent me back, only I don’t want to live with my Dad, I want to live with her, but here in our old apartment. He wouldn’t even meet me at the airport. He said I was old enough to get a cab.”

Kara’s jaw tightens—she knows Chris is an asshole, but this seems like a new low, even for him.

“So, I got a cab, but not to him.”

“You came here, instead.” Here, to some semblance of stability, of familiarity. The apartment is gone—Kara had helped Cat list it for sale, and it had been snapped up in no time, and she wonders if Cat had ever really considered a move back to National City. The apartment is gone, but CatCo. is not, and Kara remembers countless afternoons where Carter had come by after school, curling up in Cat’s office with his homework. Sometimes, Kara had helped him with a particularly stubborn math problem, or talked to him about his favorite anime, keeping him entertained until his mother was off the clock.

“I need a place to stay,” he says, voice small, eyes glued to his shoes. “Can I come home with you?”

Yes, she wants to say, without hesitation, recognizing the small, scared child he so desperately tried to hide, the one who felt like he had nowhere else to go. Yes, of course you can—but it’s never that simple, is it?

She has a secret identity to protect, and he’s supposed to be with his father, and Cat might kill her, and—

Wait.

Does Cat know where he is?

“No,” he says, when she asks. “I didn’t tell her. And I turned off my phone, so she wouldn’t track me.”

“Carter.” She can’t help the admonishment, because she knows how much Cat cares about him—she’d do anything for him, and she imagines her pacing up and down a hotel room in the capital, already on the phone to the police. “You should call her.”

He makes a noise of discontent.

“At least let her know you’re safe. She’ll be worrying.”

“Can you call her?”

“I…I don’t know about that. I think it would be better coming from you.”

“Please?” He peers down at her with eyes so like his mother’s that Kara aches.

“All right,” she sighs, and makes the mistake of glancing across the bullpen. Snapper is glaring at her, his face red. Great. Someone else who wants to kill me. Could this day get any better?

“Kara?” Cat answers the phone sounding harried, and Kara recognizes the faint note of panic in her voice. She lets herself bask in the familiarity of it for one long moment—months, since she’d heard Cat’s voice, months, since she’d last felt the comfort of it. Months of missing her, in a way she knows she isn’t allowed to. “This isn’t a great time.”

“Uh, I know.” She looks at Carter, who avoids her gaze. “Something about a missing fourteen year old?”

“How…how do you know that?”

“Because he’s standing right in front of me.”

“Carter’s with you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Good question. Should I let him explain it for himself?”

Carter shoots her a sharp look, but Kara forces the phone into his hand anyway, pointedly turning away like she’s not listening as he lifts it to his ear. She stares at the blinking cursor on her computer screen as he talks, trying to summon the will to finish her work.

No such luck.

“Could you…could you keep an eye on him for me?” Cat asks, when Carter gives her back her phone. “I’m going to fly out as soon as I can, but it’ll be a few hours before I can get there. I know it’s an imposition, and he’s supposed to be with Chris, but he said he’d be more comfortable with you.”

Her gaze flickers to Carter, to the hopeful expression on his face, to the pleading note in Cat’s voice, thinks of the opportunity to see her again, even if for just one more day.

“Okay,” she says, and knows it’s the right decision when Carter lurches forward to wrap his arms around her neck. “I’ll watch him.”

“No runaway trains this time,” Cat says into her ear, and Kara laughs, remembering her last ill-fated babysitting attempt, a lifetime ago.

“I’ll try my best.”

 ***

The knock on her door comes at nine thirty, not quite loud enough to wake the sleeping teenager stretched out on her couch.

She pulls open the door, comes face-to-face with the woman she’s been trying so hard not to think about for the past few months, and Kara thinks, as their eyes meet, her heart thudding painfully in her chest, that she’s been fooling herself, because it all comes rushing back the second their eyes meet.

There was only ever one reason why things would have never worked with James, one reason why Kara hasn’t been able to so much as think about dating since they’d ended things, one reason why her life has felt so empty these past few months.

Only one person who could make her heart pound, set butterflies free in her stomach, make her palms—physically impossible though it may be—feel damp.

And that person is the woman standing in front of her now, her eyes as wild as her hair, mussed from the wind, a faint flush on her cheeks and Kara wonders if she’d raced up the stairs in those three inch heels, desperate to set eyes on her beloved son, to see for herself he was safe and well.

“Come on in,” Kara says, standing aside to let her past. It’s the first time Cat has been inside her home, and the gravity of the moment isn’t lost on her.

She’s glad she had the foresight to tidy up a little, while Carter had been in the shower.

If he’d noticed that the amount of cleaning she’d done shouldn’t have been possibly in such a sort frame of time by human hands, he’d had the grace not to mention it.

“I, uh, didn’t want to wake him up,” Kara says, pitching her voice low, when Cat gravitates toward the couch, gazing down at Carter with such open affection she feels like she has to look away. “Seeing as he’s had a hard day.”

She’d tried to distract him as much as possible, enlisting his help with the fun of filing while she’d been at work, and then with food and games once she’d taken him home. He looked like he’d needed it, lost in his head, spiralling over the choices that had been made for him, bits and pieces of his life over the last few months spilling out over the course of the afternoon.

“Thank you for looking after him.”

Kara shrugs. “It wasn’t any trouble.”

“Still. You don’t owe me anything. Not anymore.”

“On the contrary, Ms. Grant. I owe you a lot.” She’d forgotten how hard it was to think, with Cat’s eyes weighing heavy on her face. “My job, for example. I wouldn’t be a junior reporter without you.”

“Nonsense. You got that job on your own merit. Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing so well.”

“You read my articles?”

“Of course.” Cat looks offended she thought otherwise. “Is Snapper still giving you hell?”

“I think he likes to torture me.” Her nose wrinkles, and Cat laughs, some of her worry ebbing away now Carter is within her sights.

He’s still sound asleep, and Cat doesn’t look like she wants to wake him. Bathed in the glow of the lamp on Kara’s coffee table, she’s breath-taking, and Kara looks away before she’s caught staring.

“Do you, um, want a drink or anything?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose any more than we already have.”

Panic seizes her heart at the thought of Cat leaving so soon, because when would she see her again? Would she leave right away, ushering Carter back to the CatCo. jet and across the country before night truly fell? Or would she linger, perhaps let herself remember all the things she loved about this place?

Not that that would include you, you idiot.

“Please,” she says, trying not to listen to the voice in her head. “I…It would be nice to hear what you’ve been up to these last few months.”

For a moment, she doesn’t think it’s enough. Thinks Cat is going to leave anyway, slip away even though Kara only just got her back.

But then she blinks, and her lips curve into the smallest of smiles, and she says: “Very well. What have you got?”

Good question, Kara thinks, because probably not a lot. Whatever Alex and Maggie had left over last game’s night, which turns out to be a bottle of cheap whiskey Cat turns her nose up at. Kara doesn’t blame her—apparently it left a killer hangover.

“I’m trying to cut down on drinking,” Cat says, and her gaze flickers over to the back of the couch. “I’ve been told it’s not very healthy. Apparently it’s bad for my liver.”

A sentiment she’d never once shared before, but Kara bites her tongue. It’s none of her business, the ways in which Cat has changed. None of her business, to wonder if Cat’s been throwing down scotches to try and chase away the memories of the city she’d left behind.

“How about a tea?” Cat suggests, and Kara blinks at her.

There’s a request she’s never made before.

“Regular, peppermint or camomile?”

“Regular is fine.” Kara brews a pot, wonders why she feels so jittery, but she knows the answer. It’s because Cat is here, in her space, after so many months away. Here, in a place thus far untouched by her, and Kara knows when she’s gone she’ll feel the imprint of her, remember the way she’d stood, leaning against her kitchen counter, looking out of place and like she was exactly where she belonged at the same time.

“So,” she says, once she’s handed Cat a steaming mug. “Washington, huh?”

“Carter told you.”

“Only a little. He didn’t say what you were there for.”

“I was offered a job. White House Press Secretary.”

Kara nearly chokes on a sip of her own tea in shock. But then, she thinks, it makes sense. She could see it—Cat, at the front of a room full of reporters, tearing them apart if they dared ask her the wrong thing. She could certainly think of no better person to have fighting your corner than Cat Grant.

“Is that what you want to do? Get into politics?”

“It’s something I’ve considered.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“My, my,” Cat says, clutching her mug between long fingers and throwing Kara a lazy smile. “Look at you. Am I being interviewed, Ms. Danvers?”

Kara ducks her head, feeling her cheeks warm. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“It’s all right.” Cat’s voice is gentle, her eyes unguarded when Kara dares to look her way. “To be honest, I don’t know what I want. I thought getting away from here would bring me clarity, inspiration for my next big thing, but…instead I found myself wandering without purpose. Less a shark stuck in a tank and more a tiny goldfish, lost at sea.”

“Then why not come back? It...it’s not the same without you.” Too much, probably. Too close to spilling the truth, maybe, but it’s too late to take the words back now.

“Because my reasons for leaving haven’t changed.”

What reasons, Kara wants to ask, because the ones she’d been given had never made any sense. Cat handing over the reins to her beloved company just didn’t seem like something she’d do, especially without so much as a glance back. What reasons, Kara wants to know, but the line they tread is so thin—she thinks of Cat’s razor-sharp voice saying strictly professional and never wants to feel an ache like that again.

“And what about Carter?”

Cat glances toward the couch again and sighs. “I hadn’t realised he was so reticent until today. I know he struggles with change, but…I thought this would be a good one. He could go to a better school, have more opportunities. I didn’t know he was so attached to this place.”

“Of course he’s attached. It’s his home. It’s all he’s ever known, and you—no offence—are yanking it away from him.”

“I suppose you have a point.” Cat’s lips purse. “When did you get so wise?”

“Learned it from the best,” she says, and Cat’s smile is tight. “Are you…are you going back there tonight?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think Carter and I need to have a discussion, first. One where I listen to him instead of making the decision for him. I just…I thought I was doing the best thing for him. For both of us.”

“So you might stay?” She can’t quash the hopeful note in her voice, watches a shadow pass across Cat’s face and wonders what it means.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.” Her fingers tremble, the tiniest amount, as she sets down her empty mug, runs them through her hair.

“Why?” Just do it, she thinks, because when she wakes up tomorrow, Cat might be gone, and there are too many unanswered questions for her to be left with. “What’s so bad about being here? What are you so desperate to get away from?”

“Oh, Kara.” Cat’s eyes close, a sigh rattling through her chest. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then help me to.” She knows she’s being obstinate. That there’s a reason Cat doesn’t want to tell her, that she has no right to know.

But she remembers Cat saying goodbye, Cat’s arms wrapped around her, heart beating so loud it was impossible for Kara not to notice, the shimmer of tears in her eyes before she’d blinked them away. Remembers the countless times Kara had reached out, over the past few months, only to be ignored, like she meant nothing when she knew she’d meant at least something.

“Please, Cat. I just want—”

She’s cut off when Cat surges forward, settling one hand on the counter beside Kara’s hip and wrapping the other around the back of Kara’s neck, drawing her down into a kiss. Kara freezes, brain short-circuiting as Cat’s lip brush against her own, soft and warm, but when she feels Cat begin to pull away, her bravado failing, she snaps into action, discarding her mug on the counter and splaying a hand at the small of Cat’s back to keep her close.

It’s been building for years, she thinks, as Cat parts her lips for Kara’s searching tongue, nails digging into the base of her skull. Years of working closely together, a spark igniting but neither of them willing to give it space to grow, too terrified of what might happen, if it grew into a fire they could no longer control.

“That’s why,” Cat breathes, when she pulls away, heart hammering almost as fast as Kara’s.

“Seems like a pretty good reason to stay to me,” Kara says, leaning in to kiss her again, but Cat stops her with a shake of her head.

“It’s not. Kara, you shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want me.”

“I know,” she says, and when Cat flinches, she doesn’t let her pull away. “I know there are a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t, why we shouldn’t be together, but I also…don’t really care. I’ve spent the past few months missing you like crazy, and it hasn’t diminished the way I feel about you. Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that mean it’s worth trying?”

“I…” Cat trails off, meets her gaze and traces the pads of her fingers across Kara’s cheek, looks at her like she barely believes she’s real. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to.”

“You start by letting me in. By not running away when—” She hears movement on the couch, hopes to Rao Carter hasn’t heard any of their hushed conversation. “Carter’s waking up.”

Cat is quick to slip from her arms, and Kara feels the loss of her like a physical ache, chilled to the bone in the places she’d just been burning with warmth. “I don’t want this to be the end of it,” she says, knowing Carter’s not yet fully conscious, knowing they have a few more stolen moments. “I don’t want you to go to your hotel room and talk yourself out of it.”

“Kara Danvers, are you asking me to spend the night?”

“No, because I know you’d turn me down.” She can sense it, in the nervous energy radiating from her. Cat isn’t a person who lays her heart on the line, is someone guarded and careful, isn’t reckless the way she had been tonight. She needed time to process, time to think it through, and Kara would give her that—as long as she wasn’t going to slip away without saying goodbye. “But we should talk. Tomorrow.”

“Before five.”

Kara frowns. “Why five?”

“Because that’s how long the Press Secretary job is on the table for.”

“You haven’t accepted it?”

“Not yet,” she says, and Kara feels hope bloom in her chest. “I told them I had some things I need to consider first.”

“And now?”

“Now I have even more things to think about.” She reaches out, catches Kara’s fingers with her own and squeezes, and Kara’s heart thuds in her chest. She wants to lean down, wants to kiss her again, already misses the heat of her mouth, but a head pops over the back of the couch, Carter rubbing at his eyes.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Don’t you ‘Hi Mom’ me,” Cat says, eyes narrowing until Carter gulps. “Do you have any idea how worried I was, young man?"

“I’m sorry,” he says, his head hanging. “But I wanted to stop you doing something stupid, and this was the only way I know how.”

And thank Rao he had. Her day would have shaken out very differently had Carter not arrived in the bullpen, she knows. She’d have finished her article and gone to hang out with Alex and Maggie, probably, tried to ignore the ache seeing the two of them so happy seems to incite, lately, craving something similar for herself.

“Hm. Well, we’ll talk about it later. For now, I think we’ve taken up enough of Kara’s time, don’t you?”

Not enough of it, Kara thinks, but she bites her tongue. Space. Time to process. Not snuggling up together on the couch with a movie.

“Thanks for today, Kara.” Carter looks only a little sheepish as he gathers his things, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

“Any time, buddy,” she says, meaning it more than he’ll probably ever know. The urge to kiss Cat goodbye is so strong she can barely stand it, and she balls her hands into fists at her sides so she doesn’t reach for her. “I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow?” She asks, before Cat slips through the door, dizzy with the feeling of being on the cusp of something she’s wanted for so long.

“Tomorrow,” Cat agrees, looking like it pains her to say it, looking like she doesn’t know how she’s possibly going to muster the will to leave, green eyes so heavy on Kara’s face it feels like a caress, feels like the ghost of her kiss, makes her feel like she’s burning from the inside out. “Goodnight, Kara.”

Goodnight, and not goodbye, and Kara hovers in the doorway, watches them go down the hall.

“You are in big trouble,” she hears Cat say as they turn the corner, slipping out of sight. “What were you thinking?”

And she shouldn’t listen, she knows, but she catches her name, as they start down the stairs, and can’t help but tune in to a snippet of conversation.

“I was thinking I missed home, and that I was sick of you moping after Kara for the past eight months, and it was time someone did something about it,” Carter says, then: “Ow!” as Cat must smack him over the head.

“Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again.”

“But did it work?”

“None of your business.”

“It totally worked.”

Kara shakes her head, unable to bite back a smile as she steps back inside and lets the door shut behind her.  

[boop-le-snoot]

congrats on 300!!! could you write a tony stark x reader angst to fluff where tony thinks reader is working for hydra/killian/an enemy but reader isn't? thank you so much!

Tony Stark x reader | ANGST->FLUFF

thanks darling 💖✨

• You've been quieter, more distant lately and changed the passcode to your phone. Tony knows you well and himself even better so he's quiet about it, desperately trying to ignore the bubbling jealousy. It's not easy and there are a few mis-steps but he's doing as well as a man with severe trust issues could do in a situation like that.

• Right up until you outright lie to him, saying you would be spending the day with Natasha but the spy shows up in his lab a mere hour later, inquiring about your whereabouts. Tony blows up and Natasha comforts him, saying that it couldn't be cheating, claiming you're one of the most loyal people she has ever known.

• That plants a worse thought in Tony's mind. He's quick to jump to conclusions and all of the Avengers are still sensitive after SHIELD/HYDRA fiasco, so Natasha doesn't stop Tony from tracking your movements through street cams and various other surveillance methods both Stark Industries and SHIELD have on hand.

• You're tracked to a cheap diner five blocks away, in one of the poorer regions of NYC. Tony is able to hack into a nearby camera to see you trading folders of paperwork with an older woman dressed in plain civilian clothes. Natasha curses and calls for an assemble while Tony is fighting back tears and rage, drowning in his feelings of betrayal.

• The team forms a clever plan to capture you, the assumed traitor, but Tony violently rebuffs it, saying he wants to speak to you face-to-face, prepared to put the whole lab on complete lockdown to secure you. He just wants to know why. Steve has no choice but to agree, seeing Tony's anguished expression.

• You text him you're coming home soon and he replies immediately, requesting your presence in the lab. You don't think of it twice, too used to him pulling all-day-all-night science binges in the lab. You're in a good mood as you greet him.

• "Why?" His back is rigid and his voice is furious. You stop mid-day in confusion, shocked to hear the cinder-block doors of his lab hissing shut. "Why did you spend so much time pretending you love me if you could have just taken what you need and ran?" He turned around slowly, a half-empty glass of hard liquor in his hand.

• "What?" There's white noise in your head, you're surprised and confused and afraid all at once. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Please, explain," You try to keep a level head, eyeing your boyfriend's figure warily. Ideas like mind-control and shapeshifter mutants pop into your head, only adding to the blind panic you're in.

• "Stop pretending!" He yells at you and you flinch away from him, he's never been like that before. "I know you're a double agent!" He's tapping on a holographic keyboard rapidly, pulling up the pictures of your today's activities.

• You and the woman, sitting at the table, trading folders. You can't help the little hysterical laugh that leaves your mouth as tears begin streaming down your face. "That's my mother," You whisper, smearing the mess of snot and make-up carelessly all over your cheeks. "I finally found her. She gave me my father's case records," The more you spoke, the more your voice broke, leaving Tony confused and swaying.

• Everybody knew you were adopted. What you didn't tell them was that you were searching for your birth mother - apparently she had you when she was unreasonably young and even your adoptive parents urged you to leave her alone. But you couldn't. Not when a simple Google search of your mother's last name gave you results of dozens of newspaper headlines.

• "What..?" Tony stared at you with wide eyes, losing heat of his fury with every passing second. The glass landed on his desk with a loud clank as he rushed to catch the folder you tossed towards him, the very same folder that the woman had given you. The moment he opened it, he cringed, only needing a brief look to see there wasn't a positive thing written in it.

• "I'm... I'm sorry..." He truly didn't know what to say or do, seeing you all but crawling out of your skin. The folder landed next to the glass as he took slow steps towards you. "Can I hug you?" He asked quietly, head held low in shame. You nodded, falling into his chest and finally letting out the sobs you've been holding in all day.

• You lose all sense of time then, only barely feeling the team's presence when Steve insists on examining the cursed folder himself. Ever the stoic soldier, he's cursing and muttering quietly seconds into the file. Finally, the team leaves the two of you alone after rushed apologies and meaningless kind words. You don't hear any of it, focused on the feel of your boyfriend's comfort and his uttered apologies and words of encouragement.

• "I'm sorry, Tony. I should have told you sooner," You rasp once the ground beneath your feet stops shaking. He isn't letting you go anyways, gently stroking your hair, kissing your temples, pressing your body into his own as if you could melt into it.

• "No, no, I'm so sorry, I should've..." He's as helpless as you are, all too familiar with having his world turned upside down. Finding comfort in each others heartbeats was comforting enough for now.

[shannygoatgruff]

Only Fan(s) - A Thriller

Genre: Thriller

Pairing: Modern Ivar/OC

Warning: Language, sex, stalking, obsession, kidnapping, sexual assault

Rating: MA+18

Summary: Sometimes OnlyFans subscribers want a little more than internet pictures. Sometimes they want to be your ONLY fan…

Header by: @flowers-in-your-hayr

Thanks to @xbellaxcarolinax for being my beta.

Disclaimer: This story will deal with some topics that might be a little uncomfortable for some people. As always, I’ll try to tackle the hard stuff as tactfully as possible.

a/n: I know it’s been a minute. I’m always thinking about these stories because I want to finish them, just can’t seem to focus on writing at the moment.  Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Part iv - Date with Destiny

Finding Ivar Lothbrok should have been easy. Between the two of them, he was the stable one. He was the one with the iron-clad schedule that consisted of drinking, smoking, and partying. Torren’s schedule was a bit more... fluid. She tended to go wherever the wind, or whatever car she acquired, would take her. Naturally, Ivar had the occasional meet-and-greet, red carpet, and/or Comic-con engagement that he had to attend, still, he was pretty easy to keep tabs on. All one had to do was look at (stalk) his social media accounts, and his whereabouts were posted for everyone to see.

Knowing where he’d be and finding out where he lived were a different story. Torren had done her due diligence when it came to locating the town in which Little Kattegat was located. It only took about two days and a few Google image searches of the background of a few of the photos and she had it narrowed down to a general area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

From what she could tell, the closest town to where he lived was pretty small, and there were only a few large estates hidden in the woods. How hard could it be to find? She was willing to drive to every single house and knock on the door to find him if she had to. But it would just be easier if there was loud music and a bunch of cars in the driveway. That way she could tag along inside with the rest of the guests to get to her man. 

Her shirt landed in the pile of dirty clothes in the center of the bed, as she reached around to unhook her bra. “I really need to tell Baby Boo to stop putting all of his business out in these streets,” her brows furrowed as she shook her head, “What if some crazy, psycho bitch started stalking him, or some shit? Then I’d have to kill a bitch.” Torren’s head whipped around and she narrowed her eyes at his picture, still stuck on her wall, “Is that what you want? Huh? You want me to cut a bitch to prove to you how much I love you? I will, Bae! You know I would do anything for you. I’m your Ride or Die...” 

And being his Ride or Die meant that she needed to keep better tabs on him if she was going to protect him from someone crazier than her, God forbid.  She was only able to do so much on this prepaid phone, and going to the library to get online was becoming a pain in the ass. 

She’d considered stealing a laptop or iPad from the library but was still on the fence about the idea. Of course, the alternative meant going to stupid ass libraries and threatening little kids to get off the fucking computers, and that completely sucked ass. 

She always felt rushed when she logged onto her Bae’s Only Fans page from the public library. Without fail one of those little bastard kids would get the library Nazis to kick her off the computer, or bar her from the library altogether for watching porn. 

Ivar’s page wasn’t porn! It was art. It was sexy. It was love...his love for her. Stupid bitches. 

She had encountered far worse things than getting kicked out of the library, but some of these small towns usually only had one or two within their county limits. If she got banned, how was she supposed to check up on Ivar? In the time it took to log in until she got kicked out, she'd be lucky if she could check 2 of his accounts. What if he had some important information on another platform that she hadn’t checked yet? What was she supposed to do then?

Her relationship with Ivar was hanging in the balance, and she'd be damned if some snot-nosed kid or fucking uptight librarian would fuck that up. She needed a computer. But, on the flip side, when she finally got her man back, she wouldn't need one anymore. She could ask him directly what their plans were.

There was a lot to consider and that took time; time that she didn't have right now.

The thick layer of Nair shaving cream she had applied to her already hairless crotch, was just starting to tingle, signaling she had about 5 minutes left before the sweat-inducing, burning sensation would kick in alerting her to wash the cream off. Until then, she had time to consider an outfit for the night.

She knew Ivar well enough to know that he would want her to be sexy for him, but not so much to distract him from work. She could have gone for something slutty, like those skanky bitches he partied with. She could have gone for more demur, but then she would remind him too much of his bitch ex-wife and completely turn him off. The last thing she wanted on their first night back together was for him to be thinking about that bitch. She could have gone for a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but Torren never did simple. 

No, Ivar would want her to be herself. That's what he loved about her. That's what attracted him to her in the first place. She would be sexy without being skanky; she would be demure without being a prude.

Fuck! It was already 7:33 p.m. How in the hell did she miss the beginning of his Live? Now she was running late.

She was supposed to be dressed and ready by the time his Live came on that way she could be out the door as soon as he finished. If she was going to make it to be on his Only Fans live stream tonight, she needed to get to his house before he got too distracted. Now, she’d have to watch his Live, while her cooch burst into flames before she had a chance to take a shower and finish picking out her outfit.

If there was one thing Torren was, it was punctual. It was bad enough that she was about 40 minutes outside of his town, but it could take her up to 2 or more hours to find his house. She only hoped that he didn’t plan on starting any real freaky shit on his Only Fans page until around midnight, cause it looked like she wouldn’t be getting there before then, anyway.  

With the smile still plastered on her face, Torren turned on the hot water for a shower, forgetting that the water didn’t get hot. She didn't mind, much, especially since the cold water gave her a break from the heat in her room. 

Phone in hand, she watched him, as she planted herself on the dirty bathtub floor, cross-legged, and started to get herself ready. Starting with her toes, she shaved each one, just below the knuckle, followed by her fingers, arms, pits, and each leg, from groin to ankle, three times. When the burning from her nether regions was so intense that she couldn’t tell her tears from the shower water dripping on her face, she quickly washed off the cream. 

All she could do was hope that she hadn’t broken the skin this time. The last time she had let that damn Nair stay on, just past burning, the skin broke and she bled. She was not having a bloody hoo-ha tonight. 

With that taken care of, she gently used the razor to remove any other pubes closer to the inside that needed to be removed. Then shaved her backside. When she had more time, she was going to get the internal hairs bleached, but she needed to find out what Ivar preferred. 

Shaving ate up so much of her time that she only had a few seconds to rub some body-wash that she had stolen from a drug store over her body and hoped it got rid of the smell of the summer heat. Her hair? Fuck it...she’d wash it another day, for now, this cold water would have to be enough. She’d spritz some perfume and hair spray in it and it would smell fine. 

Torren finished her shower, and walked out of the bathroom dripping wet, only using a towel to wrap around her hair. She was glad it was so hot in her room that her hair would air-dry quickly. She finger-combed her damp tresses to complete that ‘just got out of bed, but it's styled’ appearance. She knew how much he loved when her hair looked like that. It would remind him of freshly fucked hair. 

She spent extra time applying her makeup, even using an extra dark, thick application of eyeliner. She usually went for more subtle warm colors. They matched her tan skin tone better. But, tonight, she had bold, dark makeup, complete with varying shades of purple and blue eye shadows, and dark purple lipstick.

Torren was glad that she decided to match Ivar’s clothes this evening. The swim trunks and smoking jacket he wore would compliment her beautifully. She wanted everyone to know that they dressed alike, the way real couples do. If he was going for less is more, so would she.

She settled on black leather chaps that tied up on the sides, and tight blue boy shorts that left the bottom half of her ass cheeks exposed. The blue shorts brought out the blue swirls in his trunks; she knew he'd appreciate that touch. Her top was a blue bandanna that she wore as a halter with a short black leather jacket with tassels on the sleeves. 

They screamed “couple” in her eyes.

Completely satisfied with how she looked, Torren locked the door to her motel room and started down the hall. She deliberately stopped by the window and peered through the partially opened blinds of the people staying next door to her. She knocked on the window to get the attention of the young couple inside. Judging from their appearance, they were too strung out to know who she was, or that it was her music that they constantly banged on the wall about. She didn’t care. She still flipped them off before making her way to the stairs. 

Reaching her hand through the busted window of the blue Ford Taurus to unlock the door from the inside. Torren slid into the driver's seat and leaned over to find the two cords that she had pulled out from under the steering column when she stole the car. Flicking the cords together, she listened as the engine reluctantly turned over.

She put the car in reverse, looked in the rear-view mirror at her makeup, then pulled out of the spot. As she turned onto the road leading to the highway, she listened to the knocks, bumps, and hisses that her car made. There wasn't time to do much about it now; not when she was on her way to get her man. But, she made a mental note to do something about it later in the week. The only thing she could do was turn the music up louder to drown out the car noise.

Truthfully, she should have stolen a better car than the piece of shit Taurus that she found in the parking lot of the Quickie Mart while driving through Tulsa, Oklahoma. There were plenty of better cars there to choose from but no one would have wanted to take this one. It was so sad looking that she took pity on it. She had been doing the owner of this crap car a favor, by taking it off of their hands. 

The car was truly fucked. The oil light stayed on, and it drank gas like her mother drank liquor. The car had protested every inch of the ride across the three states that she traveled through in one day. She knew that it would only be a matter of time before that piece of shit breathed its last breath.

She needed to get gas again, but fuck that car. She had already refueled four times since she stole it. Gas wasn't cheap and she wasn't putting another dime in that gas guzzler. Speaking of money, she made a mental note to steal another credit card. It would only be a matter of time before the owner of the one that was tucked snugly between her left breast and strapless bra, would eventually realize that it had been lifted from the table in the diner, and canceled.

Laptop, butt bleaching, car, credit card, and more eyeliner from Walgreen's…her To-Do list was growing. She really needed to take some time off and take care of the necessities. Not tonight, though. She had other things to do. She couldn't do anything else, right now, but get to her man. Besides, once Lothbrok was by her side, he would help her remember all the things she needed to do.

As she came off of the highway exit smoke started billowing out from the engine. It backed up through the exhaust system, and came through the vents, inside the cabin. It was ironic – the air-conditioning vents in the car didn't work, but they seemed to work well enough to clog the inside of the car up with thick white smoke. She drove a few more miles before the smoke was so thick that she could no longer see. As she pulled the car over to the graveled shoulder of the road, the car knocked and shook, before it finally cut off.

Just her fucking luck.

She reached under the dash to flick the cords against each other again, trying to force the ignition to catch again, but it wouldn't. The engine had nothing left to give her. "Fuck Murphy and fuck his fucking law," she said calmly as she pulled the hood release.

She opened the car door, taking care to place both black, platform boots on the ground before lifting her backside from the seat. Placing her sunglasses on her eyes, she walked with one foot in front of the other to the front of the Taurus and placed her hand on the hood. It was hot, but not so hot that she couldn't feel under the front of the lever.

As she lifted the heavy metal hood and placed the rod in the slot to hold it in place, Torren let the smoke from the engine engulf her. It was quite a head rush breathing in the thick engine smoke through her nose, and exhaling it from her mouth. She patiently waited for the smoke to thin out before she bent, at the waist, over the engine. She didn't know what she was looking for, but she knew that someone would see her looking over the engine and stop to help her.

Now, if only someone would actually come down this dark stretch of road, she could be back on her way to Ivar.

It didn't take long before a pair of headlights rounded the bend of the road, just off to her right. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she accentuated the leather, chaps against her hips, and lifted her ass higher in the air, to catch the driver's attention. She couldn't help but smirk when she heard the tires of a large vehicle turn onto the graveled pavement in front of where she broke down. She didn't turn to face the car or the driver. She didn't care who they were or what they looked like. She had an appointment to keep and this pit stop was fucking up her timetable.

"You need some help?" A deep voice asked as its owner approached her.

Torren took a moment to peer around the hood, noticing that there were no other cars around. "Broke down," she answered, continuing to bear her weight from one hip to the other. She placed her hands on the metal frame of the car, arched her back, and looked at the man over her shoulder. "You know something about cars?"

"Yeah," he replied, moving around to her side, looking at her, and not the smoky engine.

She gave him half a smile, as she noticed him notice her. "You a mechanic or something?" She asked standing up. She rubbed her hands together to remove some of the visible engine soot while considering the guy in front of her. He was about 6 feet tall with a moderate build. He was dressed in blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and Timberland boots. He didn't look like he was more than 25 years old. Judging from the way he was looking at her and from the ring on his left hand, he wasn't too worried about her car, or his wife, for that matter.

"Nah, not a mechanic, but I work on my own car... in my spare time." He smiled when she did. She was gorgeous, in that slutty kind of way. She wouldn't be dressed like that and leaning over the hood of a car if she wasn't looking to have some fun. "Lemme take a look at it."

Did he work on his car? Hopefully, that meant that his ran better than hers did.

Torren moved over to the side and let him take the position under the hood. "I'll be right back," he explained before walking over to the bed of his F150.

Grabbing a flashlight from the trunk, he took a second to admire the view of her, from behind. If he could get her car moving again, she would hopefully follow him to this cheap motel he knew that was just up the highway.

He leaned in close, taking a whiff of her hair, "You overheated…want to check the coolant level."

She had heard him say something else but she had stopped listening; she was too busy watching the street. "You want me to try to start it?" she asked, removing her sunglasses before making her way to the driver's door. She wasn't sure if he answered or not. She had no intention of driving the Taurus again, even if he could get it started. She just needed to get something out of the car.

She slid into the seat and reached down on the floor. She found the hard metal object on the floor of the passenger's side and gripped it tightly. As she walked back around to the front of the car, she heard him talking, presumably about the car, or maybe he was asking her out. Who the fuck knows? She was on a tight schedule and all of his chatting was holding her up. She stood by the side of the hood, looking at the angle he was leaning over the hood. Quickly, she lifted her arm, and with one powerful blow, she struck him in the head with the crowbar that she used to procure her now-defunct car.

Torren stood over his body, looking at him intensely. God, it felt good. The rush of knowing that one minute this dude was towering over her, and the next he was on the ground. She had dropped his ass. She was the one with the power.

 "Thanks," she said, digging her hand in his pocket to retrieve his cash, credit card, and the keys to his truck. She wiped the blood on the crowbar on his shirt before walking to her new mode of transportation.

Torren sat in the truck's driver's seat and turned on the engine. She had managed to cross two things off of her To-Do list without even planning to.

Thank God the truck had air conditioning. All this heat and humidity was bound to make her hair frizzy. She cranked the AC up as high as it would go and sat still for a moment enjoying the cool air. After a minute, she adjusted the seat and tilted the rearview mirror to look at herself. She was starting to sweat and her eyeliner was starting to run just a bit at the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at the black liner to even out the lines, and then pushed the mirror back to where she could see. Giving the area another once-over, she made sure that no one else had seen her interaction with that guy on the ground, before pulling out from the gravel and onto the paved street.

"Ugh!" Torren yelled. Chester Bradley, the printed name on the credit card, had shitty taste in music. She pushed the stereo button on the steering wheel to do a scan of the radio. Anything was better than country music. Once she found some trap music on the XM radio, she turned up the volume and pulled back onto the highway.

Part iii/

Tags: @ideagarden-blog1  @youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @a-mess-of-fandoms @didiintheblog @conaionaru @peachyboneless @flowers-in-your-hayr @heavenly1927 @zuxiezendler @waiting4inspiration @saldelys @revolution-starter​

[papergirllife]

Chapter 3

Synopsis:

You don’t know what it’s like to be free, to make your own choices, and live your own life. For your whole life, your parents have been treating you like a puppet on strings, controlling your life to every single detail, as well as ignoring the fact that you have feelings. Other times, when you disobey their wishes, or speak up about your own opinions, they bash you down with words, in other words, psychological abuse, has led you down the long winded road of depression and anxiety. What happens when you meet a man who’s willing to be your guide out of this terrible downpour? Would you give a shot at happily ever after?

Warnings:

big age gap (kinda?)

issues on anxiety

issues on depression (mild)

issues on parental abuse

smut (maybe)

Tag List: @etherealtyjaem​ ,  @caratzennie  , @johnnysuhnflower  ,  @euphoricchannie  ,  @yeollieseo  ,  @jjhmk  , @sherzess , @wonderfulkoreanpop​

(lmk if you wanna be on the list)

You’ve been seeing Mr Suh, correction, Johnny, his first name, as per requested by Johnny himself.

“Mr Suh makes me feel older than I already am, you make me feel like a teenager all over again, so you have to call me Johnny. Let me relive my days when I was still a college kid.”

You didn’t mind, things aren’t as awkward between the two of you anymore, Johnny’s been spending time with you, although the two of you never established any sort of labelling towards what this relationship is. You and Johnny only hung out and had meals together, trying out different cuisines, watching movies, even going as far as skipping a day at work to go to the amusement park. He even bought you to an arcade when you told him you haven’t had the chance to venture to one since you were in grade school.

“Why haven’t you ever been to one for so long?” Johnny asked when he finished a round of pinball.

“They said it was a waste of time and that I should spend more time studying,” you said, wondering why Johnny would ask that, isn’t it the same for all the kids?

Whenever you mention your confining life to Johnny, he’d have a faraway look in his eyes, jaw locked in silent rebuke, he doesn’t say anything, he pulls you close, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. He would be quite for almost half an hour before he goes back to regular cheerful Johnny, telling you lame jokes that you would surprisingly find funny.

You didn’t have a phone, since your parents forbid you to have one, the only means of communicating is through your email account on your laptop, and even that you must always bear in mind to delete his mails right after, and take further precaution, you didn’t allow him to initiate the sending.

Johnny wanted to buy you one, but you rejected him promptly, you didn’t want him to spend so much money on you, he already spends lots on taking you out to eat. You gave him the excuse that it was too dangerous, and the consequences of getting caught are severe.

You often questioned your relationship with Johnny, you aren’t dumb, you’ve googled him and saw gossip news portals uploading photos of him and some model going out and about in hotels, but those headlines were months ago, the latest news about him was from his interview with Times magazine.

You never had the guts to ask him, you don’t know what you mean to him. What right do you have to question his whereabouts and what he does? He’ll probably be bored of you after he’s known all of you.

You know you shouldn’t think of Johnny that way, it is mean to assume what he’s thinking, especially how well he’s treating you, but seeing those headlines gives you a sense of insecurity, you keep telling yourself that this won’t last, but the thought of not seeing him again made your hair stand. He’s making you happy, a distraction towards the negativity you face in that house you live in, but for how long?

House. You never called it a home, unless you were telling your boss you were leaving, to prevent anyone from questioning your odd way of describing it. It was never a home to you. To you, a home is a place where you feel happy, safe, and most importantly, loved. The closest you’ve ever felt to having these feelings were your grandma and Joh... No, you don’t love him, and he doesn’t love you. What were you thinking?

You pushed those thoughts away as you opened your laptop to double check the files that you’ve typed out for your parent’s next important meeting that was supposed to be taking place first thing tomorrow. But when you went through your folders, the files were nowhere to be seen. It’s then you realised that the notification that keeps urging you to update the laptop was gone, it wasn’t the first time you updated the laptop and found out some files were missing, so you would never update the laptop at such a crucial time.

You took the laptop out to your father who was watching some news on his phone in the dining area to ask him if he had updated the software without alerting you.

“Yes, I did. What about it?” he asked, annoyance on his face due to the sudden disturbance.

“The files are missing because of the update,” you informed him.

“What files?” 

“The files for tomorrow’s meeting, they’re missing,” you told him as you mentally prepared yourself for what’s to come.

“What do you mean missing?! I bet it was because you saved it wrongly again! Your retarded brain never works does it?! Do you know how important those files are?! You always work on them late at night blurry eyed, of course you didn’t save them properly! You could’ve worked on them in the morning before work. but no... You want to ‘exercise’! What a waste of time!” You’re not pretty anyways, what are you doing them for huh?!” Your father shouted, his eyes blazing in rage, his fist slamming onto the glass.

While your father was shouting, your mother was checking the laptop as she complains about how clueless you are. It was like your brain couldn’t take the amount of hurtful words piercing into your mind like daggers, you let out a high pitched scream as tears threatened to fall, your hands covering your ears as your eyes were a blur.

When you could see properly again, you could make up words which sounded like ‘how dare you’ from your father, next thing you registered were the fury in his eyes as he advances on you, hand above his head, ready to hit you. You didn’t know what came over you, but the first thing you did was kicking him away. That’s when a full on fight broke out.

You were filled with rage, your mind wasn’t registering what you were doing. You went into a flight or fight stance and started thrashing and kicking as his hands were holding painfully tight on your wrists after you tried punching him.

Your mom urges the both of you not to fight, her voice barely registering in your head as she sits still on the high chair by the kitchen island, not bothered to even try to cease the fight.

When you finally pushed him away, you ran into your room and locked it. Your chest was heaving from the panic attack that just started, you tried your best to calm yourself down, reminding yourself to breathe, it was suffocating, controlling your breathing as more tears made its way out of your eyes.

When it all stopped, your body succumbed into mental exhaustion, passing out on your bed as the tears finally ceased.

You only woke up for dinner last night, and proceeded to sleep again. Yesterday’s events made you feel numb, other than the pain from the bruises on your arms.

There was a big ugly one on your left upper arm, its colour an ugly shade of green and purple.  A few other less serious ones scattered around your lower arms. In other words, you look like a wreck.

You wore a jacket to run even though you were sweating from your previous cardio work outs, feeling a little better after the endorphins in your body kicked in. When you got back, you quickly showered and ate a toast. When you asked for your mother’s phone to remind your boss you were going to take the day off, she told you that weren’t needed at the meeting anymore and that she finished everything last night.

“Just call to say that you’ll be going to work,” she said, not even looking in your direction when she handed you her phone.

But when you called to inform your boss, he told you that he had another part time coming in, and that it was too short of a notice. You said thank you and hung up, but said that you’ll be at work on time today before handing it back to your mother.

You really needed to escape for the day.

You opened the laptop and sent an email to Johnny.

I’m free today. Wanna go out?

You sat on your bed staring at the ceiling as you were sure it was going to be a bit before he replied, but just as you closed your eyes, you heard a distant chime from your laptop.

I’m rushing some stuff at the office today. I’m so sorry, Y/N.

Can I stay in your office? I really wanna get out of the house.

You sounded like a spoiled kid begging for attention, but you really wanted to see him today.

Sure. But you might get bored :) .

I’m leaving the house now :) .

For a 26 year old businessman, he sure loves to use emoticons.

You got changed into jeans and a jacket, you don’t usually wear one if you were going to a secluded area with Johnny, but you had to hide all the marks from last night. You just noticed that they hurt after you accidentally knocked your wrist against something.

You took the bus to the address Johnny wrote down on your diary, it was after one of your dinners together, and he jokingly said that you could always swing by if you wanted, you didn’t know you were going to actually do that.

The bus station wasn’t too far of a walk from his office, since it was just downtown Seoul where the Korea’s financial hub was located.

As you were nearing the office buildings, you stood out like a sore thumb, given the way you were dressed and your age. The people kept giving you stink eyes and sideway glances.

Suh Capital Partners. That was it.

You walked in the rotating doors, only to be greeted by masses of people walking around with smart pads, files, talking on the phone while the assistants take notes. Johnny didn’t mention his company being this big.

You admired the facade of the lobby, it displayed the latest news on a large monitor while futuristic lights hung from the high ceiling, the walls were a perfect balance of steel and wood with a wall of plants filled the wall behind the reception area. 

You realised that the people stopped what they were doing before and started looking at you curiously when one of the nicely dressed women from the reception walked up to you.

“Excuse me, miss. May I ask who are you looking for?” the woman asked, her eyes scanning you from top to toe.

You froze at your spot from how cold she sounded, like she didn’t want you around to ruin the aesthetic of the company. You reminded yourself that you weren’t going to see her anytime soon after this and that if you did make a fool of yourself then so be it.

“I’m looking for Mr Suh,” you told her.

She looked taken aback from your answer, but gave you the ugliest sneer when she recovered.

“Miss, this isn’t a school, you can’t just walk in here and demand to see someone without an appointment. Mr Suh is the head of this company, not someone you can just meet without an agreement from him. Please leave this instance,” she said, her tone high pitched enough to gather everyone’s attention, you swore you heard someone laughing a few feet away.

“But...

“That’s my guest, Ms Park.”

You whipped your head back to see Johnny standing behind you. But instead of his usual warm honey eyes, his eyes were a cold and staring daggers into the woman in front of you.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Suh. I’ll get back to my work now,” the woman bowed apologetically, going as far as doing it numerous times.

“I’m going to need a key card for her, Ms Park. Send it up to me when you’re done,” Johnny said, but his eyes were scanning the crowd, his employees immediately went back to what they were doing, the large lobby void of any sound other than people rushing to the lift lobby to escape the scene.

Johnny placed a hand behind your back and guided you to the lift lobby after most of the people have taken the ride up to their respective floors.

“I’m sorry,” you said after the coast was clear.

Johnny’s intimidating stance broke as confusion takes over his face.

“What are you sorry for?” Johnny asked, he should be the one saying sorry.

“I’m such an embarrassment, coming here in my jeans and jacket with a canvas bag, looking like a kid,” you said, fingers nervously tugging the straps of your old bag.

“Hey, hey, hey. Nothing’s wrong with being young and dressing your age. They’re just grumpy from all the work. Don’t take their words into account, and you look great. Perfection as always,” Johnny said reassuringly, hands placed on your shoulder, the warmth of his palms calming you slightly.

“No....

You buried your face into your hands as he patted your head, you sneakily glanced up to see him smiling at you with a toothy grin. But you quickly regained posture as you saw an elevator door open with many pairs of legs.

Johnny wasn’t going in even though the lift was going up, that’s when people in the lift realised it was him, and quickly came out of the lift, saying sorry and greeting Johnny.

Johnny guided you in after the lift was cleared empty. His staff looking at you curiously, you weren’t used to having so many pairs of eyes on you, their curious eyes burning holes into you.

Johnny could sense your anxiousness from the way you were hiding behind his tall figure as the two of you walked into his office, there weren’t many people at that time, given the fact that only direct reports of his business partners came up to hand in documents.

You only felt yourself loosen up a bit after you took a seat on Johnny’s armchair in his huge office, overlooking Seoul’s skyline and the cars that were buzzing about on the roads. The view made you calm down a bit from the journey coming up here.

You felt the chair dip as Johnny took a seat on its armrest, his hands coming up to give your shoulders a nice massage. Johnny smiled at the way your eyes lit up from his comforting touch as you looked back to smile at him, he felt a warm feeling deep in his belly as he takes in your beautiful features and the warmth of your shoulders on his fingertips. But as he puts more pressure onto your shoulders, you wince slightly, which didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Did your boss at work make you lift heavy stuff again?” Johnny asked, his hands ceased all movements, fearing that he would hurt you again.

You automatically thought of your fight with your father last night, it might be because of the force exerted from when he had pushed you.

“N-no, I just didn’t sleep well last night. I watched a horror movie and had a nightmare,” you lied, not knowing how he would react if you told him the truth.

“Be careful when watching these movies, Y/N. If you went to work and your boss really made you move heavy things today, then you would’ve strain your muscles,” Johnny said, going back to massaging your shoulders, but this time gently applying pressure on that spot, rubbing it in clockwise circles to ease the pain.

“I’m fine, Johnny. Didn’t you have work to rush? I don’t want to keep you away from important matters. And my shoulders feel much better now,” you said, moving away from his hands even though you could’ve let him do that forever, it felt so comforting, borderline addictive.

“Okay, I’ll tend to your shoulders again later.” Johnny said as he lays his head on top of yours, a gesture that he had came up with whenever he wanted to show affection to you without crossing uncharted territories, your heart sped up whenever he does that.

You were just sitting on the couch reading one of your old books when you looked up and saw Johnny frowning at his laptop, you placed your book down and made your way to Johnny.

“Don’t frown like that, you’ll get frown lines when you’ll get older, it’ll spoil your handsome face,” you joked.

Your hands reach out to smooth the creases on his forehead, a smile coming back to Johnny’s face.

“Thank you,” he said, taking your busy hand into his, lightly tracing the area between your thumb and your index finger.

“What’s bothering you?” you asked, unbeknownst to you, your lips were unconsciously set in a pout.

“There’s some documents that are supposed to be sent to my office in Chicago, but the English that’s written here isn’t up to standards, I’m worried the staff there won’t understand what the document is stating. I don’t mind correcting it, but I have other things to tend to as well,” Johnny explained to you.

“Can I take a look at it? I had Cambridge classes for 8 years. Guess it’s finally coming in handy. I mean only if you think I’m capable, I don’t want you to think I’m boasting or anything, I just really wanna help...

“Y/N, sweet, I trust you. Just let me get you a laptop,” he said before dialling to his secretary.

Once Johnny sent the files to that laptop, you started correcting some grammatical errors and replaced some terms that weren’t as professional, when Johnny was done with his meeting, you were done with the documents as well.

“Here, take a look. There might be mistakes,” you said after sending him the files back.

“You were reading ‘me before you’, I think you’re fine, Y/N,” Johnny deadpanned.

“Just take a look, just in case,” you pleaded, doe eyes capturing his heart. Nodding, Johnny smiles, doing as you said.

Johnny scanned through the documents, his eyes lighting up brighter after each sentence, a proud smile making way on his face. When he was done, he pulled you close by the waist, and gave you a warm hug, his head nuzzling into your sweater.

“Thank you so much, sweetheart. I thought I needed to work overtime because of this,” he said, his voice was slightly muffled by the cotton.

“You’re welcome. You can always send me these files when I’m not here, I don’t want you to overwork yourself,” you offered.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Wanna grab lunch? I can hear your stomach rumbling,” Johnny asked after pulling away, a cheeky glint in his eyes.

You could feel your cheeks heating up in embarrassment, as you hit Johnny’s shoulders lightly for his teasing, a smile creeping up your face.

“No, I’m not...

“Come on, I know this really nice French restaurant around the corner...

“Johnny I have the file you were...

Doyoung stops in his tracks as he sees you and Johnny being so close to each other.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had a guest,” Doyoung apologises, but his eyes were still wide in disbelief.

“Doyoung. This is Y/N. Y/N, Doyoung is one of my business partners, his dad was my dad’s business partner so now it’s his turn,” Johnny introduces his friend to you, telling you a bit of his background.

You gave Doyoung a tiny bow and soft hello, nerves wrecking up at meeting someone you often see on telly whenever their company has a press conference. You could sense an air of discomfort as Doyoung gives you a questioning look.

“You can just put the files on my desk Doyoung. I’ll take a look at them after my lunch break.”

When the evening rolled in, Johnny had to drive you home before your mom questioned your whereabouts.

“I really enjoyed having you by my side today, Y/N,” Johnny said sincerely after pulling up outside the gated area.

“I should be the one thanking you, I can’t believe those snails cost so much, yet you won’t let me pay you back whenever we have meals together,” you retorted, recalling how your eyes almost flew out of their sockets when you stole a glance at the bill.

“Money is not an issue, Y/N. I told you that many times before,” Johnny reminded you.

“I’ll see you on Saturday?” you asked, changing the subject before he offers to buy you a house or something.

“Yeah,” Johnny said, chuckling at how you diverted his attention.

Johnny unlocked the doors of his car, but right before you pulled onto the handle, Johnny pulled your arm, the place where one of the bigger bruises were located at, making you wince at the unexpected pain.

“Y/N I wanted to ask, wait. Are you in pain? Are you hurt? Did I accidentally hurt you?” Johnny asked his eyes wide in worry.

Before you could protest, Johnny pushed up the sleeves of your sweater, revealing the big ugly bruise on your upper arm, and several others that went downwards until your wrist.

You looked up at Johnny, scanning his face that was frozen in shock, eyes not believing what he’s seeing. His fingers gently tracing every bruise, his other hand rotating your arm gently, to see if there’s more.

“Y/N... Who did this to you?” Johnny questioned, but deep down in his gut, he’s sure it’s who he thinks it is.

“No one, Johnny. I just fell down when I woke up,” you said, lying through your teeth, you didn’t want to, but that was your survival instinct whenever someone asks about your parents.

“Don’t lie to me Y/N, it’s them isn’t it? They hit you. Why didn’t you tell me?” Johnny demanded, he questions why you don’t trust him, was he not worthy in your eyes?

“It’s nothing, Johnny. Goodnight,” you said in a breath before turning away.

You quickly got out of his car and ran to your lift lobby, Johnny was following behind you. But before he could step into the premise, you shut the glass door which could only be opened with a security card on him, mouthing the words sorry before you made your way into a lift.

Johnny banged at the door, shouting for you to come back, before the security guards asked him to leave. He could feel a prickle in his heart as he sees the bruises in his head, the image fresh. He felt red hot anger boiling in his heart, he was going to get you out of that horrible place, no matter what it takes.

[jjyusmile]

lee hyunjae - above the lights (ft. the boyz)

happy the boyz day!

pairing: hyunjae x {gender-neutral} reader x the boyz as besties

words: 3.9k

warning: mentions of food and drink! light mention of alcohol / alcohol poisoning

note: this is my present for the boyz third anniversary... I was inspired by the berlin boylog and their trip to the christmas markets last december. but I thought it would be cute for all of them to be there heheh! of course, I made it biased and a little romantically fluffy but this is to show my appreciation for all of the boyz! the romance is just to show this is a bec story :’) thank you so much for your support always!!

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

stepping out of the restaurant, the chill in the berlin air washed over each of you as you stepped through the doorway onto the cobbled streets. wrapped in puffer jackets and scarves, hoods pulled up to shield your ears from the breeze. you all huddled under the cover that lazed over the shop entryway as rain drizzled from the sky. each of your cheeks tinged pink as the frosty chill nipped at your skin. eventually, warmth cascaded over you as heat radiated off the eleven boys clustered around you in an attempt to figure out where to go next.

as they murmured to each other, scrolling through google maps to gage your whereabouts, you looked up at the bare trees lining the streets. each was draped in strings of lights to the point where you almost forgot they wouldn’t blossom for another few months. the atmosphere surrounding you was festive and cheerful.

“it’s so pretty,” kevin came to stand beside you, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. you hummed in agreement not taking your eyes off the cascades of red and white that flickered along the street. you hadn’t noticed your hands were shaking from the bitter chill in the air.

you were pulled out of your gaze as elbows rested against your shoulders from behind; the proximity immediately warmed your body through. the comforting scent of your best friend surrounded you; sighing, your hands stilled and you melted into his chest. hyunjae chuckled as his arms came around your waist, pulling you into him. the murmurs became distant while you were distracted by hyunjae whispering close to your ear about how much kevin resembled a grizzly bear in his sherpa hoodie. shy giggles escaped your mouth as your hand shot up to cover your mouth; hyunjae hid his face in the crook of your neck to hide his own laughter.

the group had slowly moved down the street with you and hyunjae trailing behind. it wasn’t unusual. the shy touches followed by playful shoves… it had always been like that. except touches that were once familiar became more intimate. in your eyes, you were no longer just best friends. but you tried to ignore the tingles that ran up your arm when he mundanely passed you your morning coffee; the way he would pull you a little closer when you were all huddled around the small tv in sangyeon’s apartment; when your walks in the park turned into hours of sitting snuggly on a bench under the cherry blossom trees in the spring. the same way, right now, his hand brushed closely against your own. you welcomed the light touches under the chill int he air.

reaching a corner along the streets of berlin, all of you circled tightly around the fold-out map of the city, each one of you nudging the other to get a better look. how could a place so big seem so tiny on the crinkled pages that chanhee held out in front of him? eric closed his eyes and ran his finger in squiggly circles across the landmarks of the city. a squeal clouded your senses the moment changmin noticed eric’s fingertip grazing toward the oversized wooden stall wrapped in colourful lights -- the berlin christmas markets.

in a flash, changmin was running in the direction of the festivities, dragging younghoon by the cuff of his jacket sleeve; the pair were giggling like school children. seeing their energy dawned the realisation that you had been walking around all day -- your feet ached and you were overflowing in the warm vegetable soup you ate… and finished sunwoo’s bowl, too. your sleepy form was close to giving up and going back to the hotel until a figure stepped out in front of you and crouched down. juyeon turned to look at you with warm eyes and tinged pink ears that poked out from under his cap. a slight nudge of his head prompted you to jump on and then you were hugging his back as he carried you down the street. he bent down jokingly to tie his shoelaces with you still on his back. you giggled.

jumping down, rushed with excitement, you didn’t wait for wait from juyeon to finish, you pulled him up with a force that almost tore his arm off. he never got to finish tying his shoes. from behind, hyunjae wandered along the street, helping eric keep his balance as he stepped one foot in front of the other as he grazed the curb of the footpath. but his focus was trailed on you with a shy smile on his face. he couldn’t pinpoint what had shifted and when it did -- but something had definitely changed.

you skipped toward the rest of the group as you entered the markets, dragging juyeon in tow and immediately linking arms with sangyeon. he pulled you toward each stall that grasped your attention. the image of haknyeon trying to ensure the strings of cheese didn’t escape his mouth left you in a fit of giggles. the way these boys interacted with each other was like you were a big family. at one point, kevin gathered everyone in to fit on the tiny screen of his phone, your head squished under hyunjae’s arm as it wrapped around you to lift you up high enough to get in frame. a bundle of hysterics soon followed.

the stalls that lined each side of the market were flooded with smiles and families rushing around to get a glimpse of everything. the tree that perched at the center of it all loomed over you with flecks of gold as the sun began to set. each bauble glistened under the streams of sunlight that reflected against them. specks of light danced across the stalls. the market became too crowded for the group to stick together, you decided to meet back at the tree at 10pm. hyunjae ducked down quickly to kiss your temple with a whispered “see you later” moments before he headed off in the opposite direction without sparing you a glance; juyeon and younghoon were already aiming at targets in a competition to win the abnormally large stuffed panda. the action left you slightly disorientated as you stared at his retreating figure, all bundled up warm in his oversized puffer jacket that he always joked could fit you as well. distracted, haknyeon wrapped his finger around yours to drag you toward the stall filled with an array decorations.

changmin grazed his hand along the ornaments that dangled in rows along the walls. he picked up a snowglobe from the bottom shelf and eyed it carefully.

“something has changed, hasn’t it?” he asked, not takng his eyes off the glittering flecks that danced around the ornament as he shook it delicately.

the question startled you, a sharp inhale could have been heard from a mile away. you played with the sleeves of the jumper hyunjae had lent to you that poked out of your coat. “what do you mean?”

he directed his attention toward you as haknyeon stepped beside him, voicing his thoughts for him. “you’re not just… you two anymore. you’re… you two.”

a roll of changmin’s eyes met with a chuckle at hak’s choice of words -- ever ominous with next to no clarification.

you, on the other hand… you stood there unmoving. had things changed? they must’ve done for others to notice. hyunjae had become more public with his subtle flirting -- but didn’t he do that with everyone? you had always been close, closer than everyone else in the group… it was only natural that these moments happened every so often, right? but they weren’t every so often anymore, the voice in the back of your mind shattered any excuse you attempted to make. now that you thought about it, this was one of the first moments since you began your trip around europe that you were without hyunjae by your side. your mind drew back to the last moments you saw him. hiding his smile in the crook of your neck. a kiss to your temple. your eyes squeezed closed as your heart squeezed harder in your chest.

changmin noticed the change in your moon and diverted his attention quickly to the precious decoration that he shook a little harder between his hands -- flickers of glitter and fluorescent snow swooshed around the tiny bubble. “I think I’ll buy this one.”

you were glad for changmin’s thoughtfulness -- he always understood. the conversation had diverted from you sooner than it started.

it was only when you you found yourself in line for mulled wine beside kevin that you let your thoughts slip away. he had found you wandering the stalls alone when you lost the giddy twosome to the hook-a-duck game. and now your hands were stuffed into the pockets of sangyeon’s jacket as you leaned your head on his shoulder... chanhee did the same on the other side. the temperature had dropped significantly as the sun had completely set over berlin; you noticed the puffs of condensation that left sangyeon’s mouth in clouds of fog as he zipped his leather jacket up and over his chin. his bright smile was lit up against the strings of lights along the mulled wine stall. glancing sideways, jacob wasn’t too far away, snapped pictures of the decorations and families celebrating the festivity.

the front of the queue couldn’t have come fast enough -- it felt like hours before kevin stood at the small window in the stall ordering two mugs of red and two of the ‘white angel’… it was jacob that persuaded you against the red, reiterating that you were, in fact, an angel like him.

“but we have to match!” his giddy smile reached from ear to ear-- it was too cute to turn down. you weren’t much of a drinker, apart of the odd party that the boys used to hold at one of their apartments. those nights ended in hyunjae or a very reluctant juyeon holding your hair away from your face as the events of the night came back to bite you.

“fine,” you playfully rolled your eyes as you nudged his shoulder. he came over to rest his head against your own shoulder as chanhee stole sangyeon for himself.

an extra large stein of mulled wine was placed in your hands by kevin. it felt like you had been handed the mug of a giant, it being bigger than your own head; you had to use both hands to clutch around the sides, the warmth a welcoming feeling. you noticed, as you went to draw your first sip, that the mug was decorated in silver flecks as the words ‘white angel’ flicked in cursive against the liquid; your eyes drew back to jacob who grinned at you with a wink.

you didn’t miss sangyeon coaxing chanhee into trying a sip. his sweater paws gripped at the bottom of the stein as he tipped the liquid toward his mouth, sangyeon holding the burgundy liquid to make sure chanhee didn’t take an unfair shre. a loud bellow erupted from your stomach when chanhee’s expression morphed from curiosity to sheer disgust at the kitten lick of a sip he had taken. he turned to glare at you while taking the bottle of water from jacob’s rucksack to wash away the taste.

“I told you -- I don’t drink!” he exclaimed, playful eyerolls could be seen from left and right, even strangers in the queue enjoying the show.

“it’s not like we held you hostage and forced you to try it!” sangyeon countered, taking a large slurp from his drink. his eyes crinkled in slight disgust before his eyes widened as he stared at the liquid with fascination. a light giggle bubbled in your throat as you went to take a sip of your own.

you were perched on the end of a wooden table beside the tree, knees drawn to your body as you clutched the quickly evaporating warmth in the mug. you hadn’t even saved any for hyunjae. of course your thoughts would go straight to your best friend. you smitten fool.

your eyes became heavy with drowsiness as you watched kevin take pictures by the tree. they had found changmin and haknyeon as they wandered around aimlessly, stuffing their faces with powdered sweets. haknyeon stretched his arm out slightly to hold a candied strawberry in front of your face; your eyes widened slightly at the site and you took the sweet gratefully as he skipped back to the boys. the muffled silence drowned you as you sat by yourself, chin perched against your palm. you couldn’t help but let your thoughts wander to the boys that brightened your days.

in the distance, you noticed juyeon and younghoon giggling at the same game they hadn’t left since you arrived. not far behind them were eric and sunwoo; the redheaded boy looked around as if there were stars in his eyes… hood up to brace his features from the cold. eric chatted excitedly in his ear about one of his old family christmas traditions but his attention was focused on the strings of warm lights that hung above. distracted, you didn’t notice the first few toasted chestnuts that headed in your direction. it wasn’t until one landed softly in your lap, your gaze wandered your surroundings to find its owner. the rest of the boys were crowded around the tree, gleefully grinning as jacob captured their gentle expressions on his camera. kevin held his wine in front of the tree, phone camera at the ready to snap the perfect shot. but, none of them wanted your attention. your gaze shifted to the left where you noticed a familiar figure hiding behind the candy floss stall.

you were drawn in that direction.

you knew it was him before you even saw his face.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” you shouted, pretty much into the void, at the group. a barely visible thumbs up came from sangyeon who’s attention didn’t falter from the camera.

a chuckle escaped your lips as you wandered slowly toward the hidden rascal. he was delicately removing the shell of the next chestnut. you snuck up behind him, a cheeky grin washed over you automatically as a plan formulated in your head. tip toeing forward, your fingers stretched out as you neared his hoodie clad back, the fabric resting lightly against the top of his head. a quick countdown found you clinging tightly onto his back in an attempt to frighten him; a yelp sounded from your best friend as he dropped the remaining chestnuts from his clutches.

his hands flew up to clasp around your wrists. you didn’t miss the way his tense form faded away the moment he inhaled… did he recognise your scent? the same way you did his…

“you got me.”

his eyes crinkled as his head turned to face you, a smirk forming on his lips. the moment his eyes laid on your own they glistened in the most overwhelming way. each time you looked at him, with your face in such close proximity, you couldn’t help but feel warmth spread through your veins.

“I got you…” an intensity clouded his irises like the sweetest chocolate. your words had more of an impact than you had  originally implied.

steadily, you unclasped your wrists from hyunjae’s warm fingers as you stepped down, feet placed firmly on the ground as you shyly grinned up at him.

“hi,” you chriped, the smile not leaving your lips for a moment.

“hey,” he whispered, eyes melting into yours.

without much thought, he intertwined your fingers snuggly with his own. leading you behind the stalls and into the unlit alley. you knew by the confidence in his walk that he had a plan up his sleeve. trailing behind him, your gaze was fixed on the smile that hadn’t left his lips. you couldn’t help but let your mind wander to the idea that he was enduring a similar inner conflict to your own. you weren’t just best friends any more.

you approached a dark, abandoned stall with a small ladder leading up to the roof. he stopped abruptly and looked down at you expectantly. his eyes flicked up to the roof and back to you… after you, his eyes said. his hands gripped lightly at your waist as he helped you up the ladder, fingers grazing delicately at the tshirt that rode up along with your sweater…  his sweater.

it was the little things by now. years of small gestures that lit up the blood in your veins added fuel to the fire.

he wasn’t far behind you as you settled in, feet dangling over the edge of the unfinished stall, hyunjae settling closely beside you. your knees knocked against his, whether it was on purpose or not was a question left unanswered.

your eyes took in the sight before you; smiling children stuffing their faces with bratwurst, couples snuggled cosily in their pods on the ferris wheel -- the prime spot for a romantic evening -- and then  your best friends. your eyes fell on all of them, messing around with eyes lit up like children on christmas morning. a smile washed over you subconsciously. they were the loves of your life -- every single one of them.

but your face was burning. the person that stole your heart without even realising wasn’t focusing on the flickering lights from below. a golden haze washed over his face, his features accentuated under the shadows. his eyes were boring into your own -- your skin of your cheeks could’ve melted at the intensity. his eyes were full of musical wonder.

“hey,” he whispered, again, face crinkling as his smile met his eyes.

“you’ve said that already,” you taunted, cheekily. a nudge against his shoulder to accentuate your joke.

“I know,” he paused. “my mind can’t come up with much more right now. I’m a little breathless.”

“right!” your focused drifted toward the festivities below you. “isn’t it incredible!”

it was his turn to pause. his fingers reached for your hand, intertwining with your own as he drew them into his lap. “yeah… it is.”

his tone brought you back to reality. you were sat here side by side, fingers intertwined delicately as his thumb grazed over the back of your hand. you noticed him exhale a shaky breath. your free hand lifted to brush the fallen strands away from his eyes as the wind blew softly. before you could withdraw your hand, hyunjae quickly clasped your wrist, pulling you closer to him, your noses brushing.

“jae?” it was your turn to release a shaky breath. you had tiptoed over “the line” for years now -- subtle touches, flirty jokes and much needed cuddles. but you had never been in this close... close enough to see the delicate bead of sweat that formed on the side of his neck. the lights from below highlighted his cheekbones in a subtle glitter.

he hummed in response, his attention focused not on your eyes, not on the fair below, but on your lips. his own plump lips forming a pout in temptation.

“jae…” you tried again.

his eyes fluttered closed at the plead in your voice. you didn’t know yourself whether it was an attempt to stop him, or, more likely, an urge for him to continue.

“I’m sorry,” his voice was strained, his fingers squeezing a bit tighter to reassure him that just because he closed his eyes, it doesn’t mean you disappeared.

you gravitated toward him. it wasn’t the holiday season, it wasn’t the subtle loneliness that sat with you throughout your unclaimed adolescence. you were never alone, because he was always there. even though it had shifted from being platonic, despite your hesitance, he was the one who you were drawn to no matter what.

his sweet gestures held more weight now. the way his eyes poured into yours lit a bundle of nerves that sat close to your stomach, releasing butterflies each time his eyes flickered between your own.

“don’t apologise,” your own eyes closed for a moment, inhaling deeply.

a brush of his nose against yours drew you back to reality, your eyes shooting open, blinking rapidly as your heart jolting in your chest. his breath fanned against your lips, your own doing the same.

a smile washed over his lips, eyes crinkling. “did you drink?”

“blame kevin, he bought it.”

he let out a chuckle as he nuzzled his nose against yours once more. comfort washed over you as you inhaled his warm scent, hints of cinnamon and musk.

“I’ll remember to thank him.” his smile was permanent now, it wasn’t disappearing for good.

“thank him?” you questioned, eyebrow quirking. the proximity heating your cheeks by the minute.

“I don’t think you would’ve agreed to have been here with me right now if you didn’t have a little liquid luck.”

you hummed, a giggle greeting your lips as they brushed over his. his eyes hadn’t flickered from your lips, waiting for the perfect moment. but as the wave of confidence took over, he realised that any moment with you was the perfect moment. as long as you were there, it would always be perfect.

he closed the small space and captured your lips with his in a delicate kiss. emotions that you had both swallowed throughout your friendship poured into it with such intensity it made your head spin. his head titled to deepen the kiss, his arms sliding up as his palm cupped your jaw tenderly, yours wrapping around his neck; your thoughts couldn’t wander far from your reality. as he pulled you to fit snuggly against him, your body moulded perfectly against his. his once cold fingers now sparked at each touch against your skin.

he pulled away for a moment only to place gentle kisses along your jawline to the sweetspot below your ear. he peppered kisses on every feature that he loved about you, careful to remember that you were still in the public eye, even though you were flying high in the sky at this moment. his forehead pressed against yours as he sighed in content. the moment you had been waiting finally became a reality; your hands coming up to hold his face in your hands, echoing his sigh.

your thoughts drew back to the inquisition of changmin and haknyeon earlier this evening, “they were right.”

he drew back slightly, careful not to let your palms drop from his face, with a questioning eyebrow raise, “who was right?”

you grinned widely at his jealous tone as you pulled him back in for another kiss. faint echoes cheers came from below as you moved away from his lips to find the commotion. your best friends were pointing and brightly squealing at what they had just witnessed, beaming smiles prevalent on all of their faces. a low groan escaped hyunjae’s throat as he attempted to hide in the crook of your neck, a familiar feeling washing over you as the shy smile made its way back onto your lips.

it didn’t stop his fingers from intertwining with your own again, though. and once the commotion had subsided, he pulled out a festive box filled with heart shaped chocolates, popping one into his mouth before giving in at your childish pout.

neither of you had felt as whole as you did in that moment... just above the lights.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

TO. the boyz

thank you for everything. you are the best thing that ever happened to me -- you are the reason I smile daily, along with so many other theb. you are a family that welcomes anyone with open arms. I hope it stays this way forever. 

you deserve every happiness and I hope you know how much you mean to us all. always remember deobis love you.

I love you all so so so much.

A/N: thank you for celebrating the boyz third anniversary with me! I hope you enjoyed :’)

#오래도록_빛날_더보이즈의_3주년 #3YearsWithTHEBOYZ @WE_THE_BOYZ @Creker_THEBOYZ

[mrsalwayswrite]

This Night (40s!Bucky Barnes x Hispanic!OFC)

Summary: When she saved a scrawny blond in a back alley, she would never have anticipated the ripple effects it would have. Nor how meeting someone with a pair of baby blue eyes and cocky smirk would draw her in, encouraging her that for one night, to taste revelry like she never had before.

This is my submission for @allaboardthereadingrailroad​ Marvel Diversity Challenge! My prompt was “a little danger never hurt”. 

I am going to admit, I’m super nervous to post this. I’ve never written a person of color before and would be horrified to accidently offend someone. That being said, I also had so much fun writing this piece. I adore 40s Bucky and Steve, so I was excited to finally have the inspiration to write them. 

Few notes:

-All translations are via google and what I can remember from university (if any of my Spanish is wrong, please please please someone tell me and i’ll correct it!)

-I threw in some 40s slang for fun, so that will be in italics.

-In the little research I did (again, someone please correct me if I am wrong), in the 40s there were not many Hispanic or Latino people living in NYC yet. So for my OFC and her family, they would very much stand out. 

Warnings: a few swear words, some angst, sexual tension, topic of racial discrimination and inequality 

Words: 8k (the story kept growing, i’m so sorry)

<gif is from Pinterest>

She clutched the parcel to her chest, trying to avoid the muddy puddles on the sidewalk. Mr. Hendricks would be furious with her if she got any mud on the packaging of the parcel. He always said it reflected his reputation.  

 Weaving through those walking down the busy Brooklyn sidewalk, she could feel the few glares and inaudible comments following in her wake. She tried to ignore it, knowing was not the first nor last time others judged her for her different skin tone. Though she doubted she would ever get used to it. One of her older brothers would try and cheer her up saying the white folks were jealous since they burned when in the sun too long while Spaniards became more beautiful. Without fail, she would smack him but end up laughing along. 

 Peeking at the address scrawled in precise handwriting, she surveyed the street names around. A sinking feeling in her gut confirmed her fear- she had somehow gotten lost. 

“Mierda.” She hissed, turning around in a circle. Not just to try and relocate her whereabouts but on the off chance her mother happened to be behind her to whack her over the head for swearing. 

 Not wanting to be run over by a fellow pedestrian, she stepped off the sidewalk into an alley nearby while she tried to get her bearings. She brushed down the front of her workwear, dark blue, princess style dress with its Peter Pan collar, double pockets and pleated skirt. A glance at her tights showed a couple spots of mud she somehow managed to still get on her even though her kitten heels were still mostly clean. A miracle really. 

 It was only mid-afternoon but Mr. Hendricks hated when she returned late from delivering parcels. He was the best tailor in Brooklyn and practically thrived off that title. He employed her to help keep things organized, the shop looking nice and delivering parcels to their patrons. It was mindless work but that did not bother her. It was a job...and she was lucky to have one. Being from one of the few Hispanic families in the area was not a perk when trying to find work. She knew the only reason she even got this job was she willingly took half the pay he would have given to anyone else, she could sew well, and she was pretty. 

 A crash at the end of the alley drew her attention behind her. There was some hushed talking followed by another sound of something hitting the ground. Hard. 

 Logically, she knew she should walk away. She was already lost. Her mother frequently reminded her to not involve herself in other people's business, it would only get her in trouble. The problem was her curiosity was a near palpable thing, driving her forward, along with her independent streak the size of the Upper Bay. So when she heard what sounded like a smack and another crash, her feet started moving without a second thought. 

 She darted around a half brick wall to find herself at an "L" intersection. And at the end of both alleys, stood a tall man with a face like a bulldog and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, fists at his side. Below him lay a much smaller, blond man who was sprawled out on the dirty ground. The smaller man groaned, rubbing a hand on his jaw. He rolled onto his side, then slowly and painfully rose back onto his feet, his own fists in front of him in a poor imitation of a boxer. 

 "You think you somethin' special, huh?" The larger man jeered, a nasty smirk on his face. He leaned on his back foot, preparing to throw another punch. 

 The smaller man raised his fists but made no other move, prepared to take the hit and most likely go back down. 

 So, she decided to do something stupid. 

 "BILL!!" She cried out, her voice echoing off the brick walls of the alleys. 

 Both men froze, turning to look at her. 

 Tucking the parcel under her arm, she jogged over to the smaller man, uncaring now of the muddy puddles. "There you are, Bill. I've been so worried. You promised to show me where Mrs. Wilcox lives. I tried to find her myself but I got so lost." Ignoring the quizzical look from the blond man, she stood between the two men, meeting the eyes of the larger one. She twirled a strand of her long, black hair around her finger, nerves getting to her but she pressed on. "I'm so sorry for whatever trouble he has caused you. He won't bother you again. We have to go now; our boss will dock our wages if we aren't back soon."

 The man trailed his eyes over her as if looking for a lie tattooed on her skin or dress. Finding nothing of interest, he stared hard at his victim for a long moment. She found herself holding her breath, silently praying her ruse worked. 

 Finally, he rolled his shoulders and unclenched his fists, his thick jowls still tense. "Keep ‘im away from me or next time his ass will end up in the hospital."

 Slowly, she released her breath as she watched the bulldog of a man turn on his heel and stomp away, back down the alley and onto the main sidewalk. 

 "Are you hurt?" She asked, looking over the smaller man. As he dusted off his brown trousers and tan jacket, she was surprised to realize he stood about her height, and probably about her age, in the young twenties. If her guessing was any good. 

 He rubbed his jaw again and winced where an impressive bruise was already growing. "I've had worse." 

 She could not help but smile at his nonchalance. His bright blue eyes met her own honey brown. A timid smile echoed hers, his face so open and expressive. Something about the man she found endearing already. Maybe defending him was not such a stupid action.  

 "All that stuff you said, about lookin' for me and gettin' lost…"

 She huffed a laugh. "I am actually lost. I'm trying to find this address here." She showed him the scrap of paper with the address scribbled on it.

 It took only a glance before he handed the paper back with a smile. "You're not too far. Only three streets away….I... I can take you there if you like."

 "Oh, I'd hate to impose on you."

 "No, it's really fine. Seems you saved me from...well…" He shrugged, sticking his hands in the pockets of his tan jacket. 

 "And... you...don't mind, you know, being seen with me?"

 "No, why?" Eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed slightly, he stared at her like that was the strangest question. 

 It was in that moment she knew, whoever this scrawny man was- he was a good man. The difference in their ethnicity made no difference to him. He was a rarity in her experience with most New Yorkers. 

 Even though it was 1940 and this was supposed to be a land of equal opportunity. 

 It was not. 

 With a shrug and momentarily, awkward silence as they both thought about their own answers to his question, they fell into step with one another as they headed back out of the alley.

 "So, what's your name? Or is it actually Bill?" She spoke up once they hit the sidewalk. 

 "Do I look like a Bill?"

 She squinted her eyes then shook her head giggling. "No, you don't."

 "It's Steve…. Steve Rogers."

 "It's nice to meet you, Steve."

 He directed them down another street. Their shoulders brushed occasionally as they walked, due more to their need to maneuver around puddles and other pedestrians than any sense of intimacy. "You gonna tell me your name or do I have to make one up for you?"

 "Oh! Sorry. It's Elana Morales-Díaz. So, what caused the fight?"

 The tips of his ears and cheeks turned pink as he ducked his head. "He, um, we...we had a disagreement."

 "Obviously. I would hate to know you're friends and beat each other up for fun."

 "My best friend is a boxer. He's tryin’ to teach me some moves…. does that count as beating each other up?"

 She pretended to think about it. "I may let that one slide but it sounds like you might need some new friends."

 "Yeah," he chuckled and peeked over at her. "Know of any openings?"

 "I just might."

 They stood at an intersection waiting to cross the street when they heard a shout from further down the road. Neither paid much attention initially until the shout repeated itself. 

 "STEVE!"

 The blond looked down the road, a smile on his lips. He waved and tugged on Elana to move away from the curb. She followed along, surprised since he told her they needed to cross. 

 A man glided through the pedestrians easily, a few lingering looks thrown his way by some of the women. When he noticed her standing next to Steve, his eyes widened for a brief moment before a lazy smirk appeared on his face and his strut became more pronounced. With boxing gloves dangling over his shoulder, his white shirt and black trousers, he looked like he just walked out of a gym. Especially with the way his dark brown hair ruffled in the breeze, a few strands sticking up like he had run his hands through it a few times. 

 "I leave you for one afternoon and I come back to find you with the prettiest gal in all of New York." 

 Steve rolled his eyes. "You're always at the gym now."

 The man put Steve in a teasing headlock. Only after a flirtatious wink at her, he released the smaller man. "So, you gonna introduce me to this wolfess, Steve?"

 "Ah, right. Elana, this is my best friend, Bucky Barnes. Buck, this is Elana."

 "Nice to meet you." She said, a small smile at their interactions. It reminded her of her brothers.

 The man -Bucky- reached over and took her hand but instead of shaking it, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, maintaining eye contact the whole time. "Pleasure is mine."

 Oh, he was a charmer. The kind her mother warned her about. Then again, her father had the same devilish charisma and Elana liked to remind her mother of that. To which her mother would laugh and say that's why she warned her daughter of those men, she knew from experience. With just a wink and kiss, she would fall madly in love, leave her home and give him five babies before she even knew it. It was always after this statement often said loudly and with feigned annoyance that Elana's father would wrap his arms around his wife, lovingly kiss her temple and remind her how long he had to chase her before she even agreed to go on a date with him. 

 "So how do you guys know each other?" Bucky asked, those blue eyes bouncing between the two of them. 

 Steve coughed, rubbing the back of his neck. It was then Bucky finally seemed to notice the slowly darkening bruise on Steve's jaw. 

 "Steve!" He grabbed his friend's face and glanced over him, concern etched in his movements and expression. "What happened this time, punk?"

 "Nothin'...just a disagreement. I had 'im on the ropes."

 He dropped his hand, running it through his brunet hair. "You gotta stop pickin’ fights, one of these days…" The implications hung heavily in the air. 

 "Ah, Steve…" When he looked over at her, she nodded toward the parcel still in her arms.

 "Oh right! Sorry. Buck, I gotta take her to drop somethin' off."

 Bucky shrugged. "Lead the way, punk."

 "Jerk."

 The three of them quickly crossed the street. Steve, and soon Bucky when he understood what was going on, pointed out markers for her in case she got lost again. In a short time, they arrived at the house, one of the nicer ones in Brooklyn. The boys waited on the sidewalk as Elana walked up to the front door and handed the parcel over with the man's tailored suit. 

 "Where you off to now, doll?" Bucky asked when she approached them. 

 "Oh, I need to get back to the shop. Mr. Hendricks will most likely be upset with how late I am anyway."

 "The tailorin’ shop near Prospect Park?"

 "Yeah." She played with a strand of her hair, trying to hide her nerves.

 "What a coincidence. We were headed that way ourselves, right, Steve?"

 "What?" Steve looked at Bucky, head tilted in confusion. Bucky cuffed him in the back of the head. "Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, gonna take a nice walk in the park."

 Elana could not help but giggle at the two. With Bucky looking skyward like he was silently praying for patience to deal with his best friend; meanwhile Steve rubbed the back of his head and glared at his best friend. Although she just met them and hardly knew them, she found herself enjoying their presence. Friends were not something she had in great supply...or any supply really. 

 Plus, if she was being honest with herself, she found her gaze drifting to the tall, charming brunet more times than she cared to admit. The butterflies in her stomach did not help the situation. She knew it was foolish. He was attractive and knew it. But when he turned those baby blues on her and winked, she could not help but be drawn to him, like a moth to the flame. 

 "How come we ain't seen you round before? I know I'd remember a dame as beautiful as you round Brooklyn." Bucky said on her left side while Steve walked on her right. Neither one crowded her space. Sometimes one would touch a hand to her back to direct her steps or hold her elbow when she jumped a puddle. It was sweet instead of condescending. 

 She shrugged. "I recently got the job at the tailor shop and I live in Queens."

 They both winced making her laugh. She would never understand this animosity the boroughs had with each other. 

 "Well that explains a lot." Steve muttered. 

 "Hey!" She nudged the blond with her shoulder as she muttered. "Me gusta Queens. Ustedes dos están celosos."

 "What language is that?" Steve asked, curiosity evident. 

 "Spanish."

 "Is that why you have an accent?"

 She nodded, unable to meet their gazes as she answered. "My family moved here from Spain when I was six." Although she had grown up here in New York City, gone to school just like the other kids, she still maintained a slight accent to her words, different from the stereotypical New Yorker's accent. 

 "Say somethin’ else." Bucky smiled down at her. 

 She laughed. "Like what?"

 "I don't know. Anythin’."

 "El cielo es azul. Me duelen los pies con estos tacones. Me he reído más con ustedes dos que en semanas".

 Bucky had almost a dazed look on his face. "That's beautiful."

 "You have no idea what I said."

 "Doesn't matter." The brunet stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Steve can talk in Irish." 

 "Buck…"

 "What?" 

 "I mean, a little." He rubbed the back of his neck. "My ma came from Ireland." 

 Bucky snorted. "You wrote a poem for a girl in the second grade in Irish and read it to her on the playground. I'd say that's more than a little."

 Steve's face was red and jaw dropped as he stared at his friend. "How...how...how do you know that?" He sputtered. "We weren't even friends yet."

 Bucky winked at Elana as he answered. "Gotta be friends with the right people."

 The three of them walked back, talking and laughing. Well it was mostly the boys talking and teasing one another but she enjoyed just listening to their banter. Occasionally they would direct a question to her or she would throw out a remark that had them laughing. 

 She guided them to the back alley of the street front shops. Mr. Hendricks disliked her walking through the front unless she had her work apron on and clean shoes. 

 "Well thank you for helping me and walking me back."

 "It's not a big deal." Steve said. 

 "We'll see you round, yeah? I'd hate to just meet a gorgeous dame like you then never see her again." Bucky threw a wink at her, adjusting the boxing gloves still over his shoulder. 

 She opened her mouth to tease them then stopped. She truly hoped this was not the last time she saw these two. In a spur of the moment decision, she stepped closer to say goodbye. She pressed her cheeks to Steve's first, giving the traditional cheek kiss. She did the same to Bucky, though she had to rise on her toes to reach his face, and she suspected he bent over slightly. 

 "Hasta luego, mis amigos."

 "What was that, doll?"

 She looked from Bucky's smirk to Steve's red face and back. "A traditional goodbye."

 "Mmm…I could get used to that." The boxer teased, nudging his friend who refused to meet her eyes now. 

 She smiled and started to open the back door when Bucky's hand grabbed her forearm, stalling her movements. 

 "Hey, wait." Those baby blue eyes met her honey brown ones. "It's Friday night.  We usually go to the Stork Club for drinks and dancin’. Come with us."

 "Oh, I don't know…"

 "Come on. It'll be great. If it helps, we'll pick you up from your house."

 She could not help the laugh that slipped out at the thought.  "You'd come to Queens... to get me?"

 "It might break my heart to leave my beloved Brooklyn but I'd do it for you, doll."

 "Honestly it'd be dangerous for you to come to my house." 

 "A little danger never hurt." He brushed some of her hair behind her ear, sending shivers down her spine. 

 He was trouble, complete trouble for her...and she knew it. But the longer he stared at her with those pleading eyes and hand now at the nape of her neck, she could feel her resolve crumbling. "I have three brothers and a protective father."

 "They can't be that bad… Come on, please? Steve, help me out!"

 Steve just laughed, raising his hands in surrender. 

 She bit the inside of her cheek thinking about it. Her brother Mateo owed her for when she covered for him when he almost got caught smoking cigarettes behind the apartment building. Tonight, her parents were supposed to visit her eldest brother and his new wife in the Bronx. 

 "Ok…" She whispered. 

 "Yeah?" A beaming grin spread over his face.

 "Ok...I'll meet you there though."

 "Yes!" Bucky bent over and kissed her cheek loudly. "You won't regret it! Nine o'clock!"

 "Nueve. Estaré allí."

 "I still don't know what you said, doll, but I love it."

 She laughed, pushing him away from her. "Go! Before I'm even more late."

 Before they were three steps away, she ducked inside the back of the shop. Hopefully she was able to slip in unnoticed. The shop should be closing soon so Mr. Hendricks would be in his little office room. 

 She leaned against the back door, hands pressed against her cheeks to will away the warmth in them. Thankfully with her brown skin, the blush would be harder to notice. As she stood there, the realization of what she just agreed to finally hit her. An icy fist landed in her gut, drowning the blush away. She had never been to a club before. She had no idea what to wear...or how to act. How was she even going to get there? 

 Underneath the fear though was a determination to go. Why couldn't she have fun for one night, like other young women she regularly saw and envied. Both of those Brooklyn boys seemed nice. Thinking about them brought the flush back to her skin, especially when she thought of the kiss on the cheek from Bucky. He was trouble and fun and charming and devilish and… and she wanted to spend more time with him. And Steve, the sweet, kind, funny guy that he was. She liked them both. But when thinking about those baby blue eyes, insufferable smirk and broad shoulders...her heartbeat sped up and butterflies erupted in her belly. 

 "Oh Dios, ¿qué voy a hacer?" She whispered to herself. 

 *****

 Just after nine o'clock, Elana climbed out of the taxi. She stared up at the sign that brightly screamed ‘Stork Club’. So many people milled about, either walking into the club or chatting, waiting for others in their group. A couple people already looked like they had been hitting the bottles for some time, if the rambunctious yelling and obnoxious laughter said anything. The atmosphere was loud and vibrant with an air of debauchery...and she had not even stepped foot in the door. 

 "Oh Dios, ¿por qué estoy aquí? Estúpido. Tan estúpido. Debería irme. Ni siquiera se darán cuenta." She murmured to herself, her hands wringing the strap on her clutch. Actually, it was not even hers. She "borrowed" it from her mother's closet and prayed that she could return it before her mother noticed.

 "Elana!" 

 At the call of her name, she turned around to see Bucky and Steve crossing the street, dodging a car that decided they were taking too long. 

 "You made it!" Bucky exclaimed, bubbling with excitement. He scanned her over, giving a low whistle. "Damn, doll, you look beautiful."

 "Gracias." She smoothed down her floral-patterned tea dress that reached mid-calf, her kitten heels still on from earlier. Her raven hair hung loosely down her back, unstyled in the typical curls that most women wore. There had been no time to try one of those hair styles and not bring attention to herself before she snuck out. Just to make her even more self-conscious, the cherry red lipstick she wore felt heavy on her lips. Something she only wore on rare occasions. "You fellas clean up nicely."

 Checking over them, they each wore nice suits. Though Steve's looked a size or two too large and the prominent bruise on his cheek ruined the look a bit. Bucky was practically sinful in his suit, showing off his broad shoulders and strong legs, his hair slicked back. Improper thoughts flooded her mind and a heat warmed her cheeks. She had a feeling she would need to go to confession tomorrow. That was tomorrow’s worry though, tonight was about fun.

 "Ready to have the time of your life?" Bucky asked, excitement practically bubbled under his skin. 

 "That's a high standard."

 "Guess I better not disappoint. C'mon!" He grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the crowded, open door. In her sudden fear, she reached back and snagged Steve's hand, dragging him along. She would never admit it but having both of them on either side of her made her feel better. 

 There were several different calls for Bucky, vying for his attention. He just waved or yelled something back but kept her hand in his, pulling them through. She noticed more than one disappointed female face when Bucky passed them. It churned something in her stomach which she tried to ignore. 

 When they finally entered the dance hall, she froze. It was nothing like she imagined and so much better. At the far end was a stage with a large band playing an upbeat song that made her bounce on her toes without realizing it. A large bar area was set up, packed with people already looking for something to wet their throats. Booths and tables lined the walls. Already the hardwood, dance floor looked packed with couples jiving. Mirrors and photographs hung on the walls making the place feel bigger even when it was so crowded. The air smelled of alcohol, sweat and a youthful zeal she had never experienced. 

 It was intoxicating and nerve-wracking. She could not wait to join in. 

 The next thing she noticed when she glanced at all the people...she was the only non-white person there. 

 "Let's get a table." Bucky tugged them along towards an open booth on the right side of the dance floor. 

 She slid in on one side while Steve scooted in on the other. Bucky stood at the end, grinning ear to ear as he seemed to quickly survey the place. 

 "Right." He tossed his suit jacket on the seat next to her then clapped his hands, the sound muffled by the volume from the band nearby. "What kinda drink would you like?"

 "Ah, vino?"

 He nodded and waltzed towards the bar, throwing an arm around the shoulder of one of the men standing there waiting. 

 She turned back to the blond. "You're not drinking?"

 "Nah, too many health issues to make it worth it." 

 She hummed and took note of Steve's fidgeting. "Is this your first time too?"

 He chuckled. "No. I just don't...well, this isn't where I'd prefer to be on a Friday night...but don't tell Bucky... though he probably knows."

 "What would you rather be doing?"

 "Drawin’ or paintin’, maybe playin’ cards but I'm terrible at them."

 "You're an artist?" The realization warmed her heart. This scrawny man with a heart too big for his body and kindness an invisible cloak around him. It made sense somehow. He could look past the ugly and see beauty and somehow capture it. 

 "I don't know if I'd say that...I just enjoy it. It's usually what I end up doin’ when I come here. Doodlin’ on a napkin while Buck dances with every girl he can."

 Her stomach dropped while hearing that, which was stupid. So stupid. She swallowed thickly, hoping Steve did not notice, before she spoke again to distract herself. "Well if you doodle something tonight, can I see it after?"

 "If you like."

 Bucky appeared a minute later with a foamy glass of beer and a glass of red wine. Carefully, he placed them both on the table. "Ready to cut a rug?" He asked, looking at her expectedly. 

 "Um, I don't...I've never danced like this before." She hesitantly admitted. Steve gave her a sympathetic smile like he understood. 

 "Don't matter. I bet you're a swell dancer." He held out his hand for her. When she did not immediately accept his hand, he wiggled his fingers. "C'mon, ain't that hard. I'll teach you."

 With a sigh, she took his hand, his smile beaming as he tugged her out of the booth. She could not help but smile back at his sheer enthusiasm. It was contagious. 

 He led her off to the side of the dance floor. Putting one hand on her lower back and taking the other in his hand, he began demonstrating the steps. Her eyes stayed glued to his feet while he moved, willing her brain to understand and not make a fool of her. 

 "You got this, doll. Told you, you're a natural. Just follow my movement, let me lead."

 So she did and before she knew it, they were flying around the dance floor. 

 Bucky was an amazing dancer and it showed in how he effortlessly led her. A couple times she stumbled or stepped on his toes but he would just grin and encourage her to keep going. The faces of those around them blurred. The music seemed to sink into her blood and with every beat of the drum or clap of the hands from the band, her heartbeat echoed it. It was intoxicating and she had not even had a sip of alcohol. Now she understood why people flocked to these dance halls. There was something freeing in them, losing yourself to the music and movements. For a short time, you could ignore the outside world and all its trials. Here, you could be free. 

 Eventually she begged a break, practically panting from the several songs they danced through. The brightness in her eyes and smile though showed how much fun she was having. Still holding hands, they weaved through the crowd back to their booth where Steve sat with a napkin in front of him, pencil in hand and eyes focused downward. She slid into the booth first, Bucky right behind her. 

 "Have fun?" Steve asked, eyes bouncing between the two before him. 

 "I can't breathe." She giggled out, hand pressed to her chest. Her lungs struggled to fill up properly but instead of installing fear into her, it only made her laugh. 

 Bucky took a long sip of his beer and slung his arm behind Elana, on the back of the booth. "Told you, you'd have fun. You're a great dancer."

 "Only cause I had a great teacher." Taking a sip of her wine, she focused on the quiet artist.  "Did you draw something, Steve?"  

 "Yeah, just a little sketch."

 "Can I see it?"

 He slid the napkin over to her, nerves obvious. Giving him a small, reassuring smile, she flipped the napkin over and felt her heart stop and jaw drop. The pencil sketch was of Bucky and her dancing. His mouth was next to her ear, whispering instructions or flirtatious comments, his hand on her lower back. Her gaze was on his chest but the brilliant smile on her lips gave her away. The sketch was so realistic, it was astounding. It completely captured Bucky's confidence and her nervousness but somehow the opposite emotions only added to the image, bringing a sense of balance and trust between the two dancing partners. 

 "Steve, esto es…. hermoso…. increíble." She breathed out, never taking her eyes off the napkin. When she finally looked up to see him blushing and fiddling with the pencil, she smiled. 

 Bucky had been leaning against her so he could see the sketch also. "That might be your best one yet, pal."

 "Thanks, guys. S'nothing."

 "May I keep it?" She softly asked, eyes tracing the delicate lines and shading.

 The embarrassed blond flapped a hand at her. "Course. It was for you if you wanted it anyway."

 Silently, she reached across and squeezed Steve's hand, unable to convey all the emotions she was feeling. "There's one thing you got wrong."

 "What's that?"

 "I'm not that pretty."

 Both Steve and Bucky chuckled.  

 "Elana," Bucky started, gazing down at her. "He drew you like-"

 "Bucky!" A silky voice interrupted. A young woman stood at the end of their booth. Her blonde hair in perfect curls, bright red lipstick matched the equally bright red dress she wore. Her eyes zeroed in on the handsome brunet at the table, ignoring the other two patrons like they were just wallpaper. "Wanna dance?" 

 The sun-kissed woman could feel Bucky's hesitation. Nudging him gently in the ribs, she nodded towards the interloper. "Go. Have fun. I still need to catch my breath."

 With a nod, he slipped out of the booth and followed the beautiful woman onto the dance floor. The two easily fell into step like they had done this a million times, each movement flawless and smiles on both of their faces. 

 She turned back to Steve, ignoring the churning in her gut. "What's your favorite thing to draw?"

 They talked for a few minutes about art classes he had taken and the few commissioned pieces he had done for local businesses. The passion he spoke with about art, hands flapping and eyes alight, it was impossible not to join in his enthusiasm. 

 The presence of someone standing at the end of the table drew their attention away from the quick sketch of a monkey Steve had drawn on another napkin. This young woman had a haughty expression on her otherwise pretty face, glaring down her nose at Elana. 

 "You shouldn't be here." She stated, venom lacing every word. Hands on her curvy hips, the gold stitching in her emerald dress catching the light from above. 

 "Ruby, we-"

 "No one is talkin’ to you, Steve." She barked then continued glaring at Elana. "I bet you're a real floozy, comin’ in here lookin’ like that. Well news flash, no one wants you or your kind here."

 Tears stung in Elana’s eyes, threatening to fall. She knew this would happen. It always happened. There was always someone to remind her she was not one of them, even if her own eyes could see it. She had hoped tonight would be different. That for once, she could fit in. 

 "I want her here. She's my date."

 The lady -Ruby- spun on her heel so quick, her dress flared out. "Bucky," she crooned, her voice sugary-sweet, so different than a moment ago. "You're lookin' like a real Fred Astaire out there tonight. Let's go-"

 Bucky did not even look her way as he slid back onto the bench, eyes focused on Elana. "You alright there, doll?"

 She nodded numbly, staring at the table. Twirling a strand of hair absent-mindedly around her finger, she tried to force the tears from falling. It was not even the worst insult she had heard hurled at her, but it still cut her to the quick. Every time. 

 "Why don't we head out, yeah? Steve there looks like he's gettin' a little warm and the music ain't so good tonight." Bucky said gently. 

 She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. 

 "Bucky, stay…" Ruby tried one last time but he leveled a glare at her that made her take a step back. 

 "Take a powder, Ruby, I ain't interested."

 Bucky wrapped his hand around Elana's, entwining their fingers as he slid out of the booth with her right behind him. Without even a backwards glance, he led the three of them out of the dance hall. Elana kept her head down the whole time, unable to meet anyone's eyes for fear of what she would see. 

 The night air was blissfully cool after the heat of the dance hall. It kissed her skin as if trying to help calm her down. At this point, the street was not as busy, everyone mostly inside now. Only a few pedestrians and cars interrupted the quiet scene. 

 "Elana, I'm so sorry."

 "Debería irme. No debería haber venido. Soy tan estúpida." She muttered to herself, not even hearing Bucky's statement. It was a foolish idea to come out. For so long she had tried to fit in, especially as a child. Her mother always told her to be herself and embrace her difference. That was easier said than done. Tonight felt like a taste of it when she was on the dance floor. What things could have been like if everyone was accepted. If where she was from did not matter. She had been so happy dancing with Bucky, this handsome devil who treated her like she was special, holding her hand in front of everyone. Sure, Steve said he danced with a lot of girls but for tonight, she was someone while on his arm. She was someone special. 

 And oh, did she love the feeling of his hand wrapped around hers. Him holding her close as they danced, his warm breath hitting her neck just right. He was trouble, through and through. Her mother would call him a Casanova and tell her to run the other way. Yet she did not want to. He drew something out of her. An almost recklessness. A desire for more. More in life. To experience life with a passion. Both this new feeling and Bucky’s presence were addicting...and she found herself unable to turn away. At least not for tonight. She wanted to revel in it tonight. 

 It was not until a hand cupped her cheek and tilted her head up to meet a pair of worried baby blue eyes that she was jolted from her internal spiral. 

 "Hey, hey. I have no idea what you're sayin' but it don't sound good. Why don't we walk for a bit, mmm? The night's still young."

 Wordlessly, she followed. It was then she noticed Bucky was still holding her hand, palms flat against one another's. That realization drew a small smile on her lips. On her other side walked Steve, hands in his pockets but a genuine smile on his face when he caught her eye. Even after all this, these two Brooklyn boys wanted to be with her. With that in mind, she shoved her despair and pain away. Let tomorrow bring what worries that came with it. Tonight she wanted to be reckless without fear of the consequences. Tonight was supposed to be fun.  

 "Can't believe Ruby would say that. Always thought she was a nice dame." The brunet mused, slipping his suit jacket back on before taking Elana's hand once again.

 "She only showed what she wanted you to see, Buck."

 "Dance with a girl a couple times and she thinks you owe her or somethin'."

 The blond quirked an eyebrow at his friend.  "Was it only dancin'?"

 "What you gettin' at, Rogers?"

 "You ditched some other girl for her once before."

 His head swiveled to stare at the smaller man in shock. "I did?"

 Elana spoke up. "Sounds like you have quite the selection of dance partners to choose from."

 Steve snorted. "Guy has been doll-dizzy since he was twelve."

 "What can I say? I appreciate fine art." Bucky said with a self-satisfied grin.

 "Don't usually lock lips with paintings or statues…"

 "You know what, Rogers!"

 Elana laughed as Bucky let go of her hand to race around her and put Steve in a headlock. The two pretended to box for a couple minutes, grins on both their faces. When finished, the champion boxer slid up to her, a rakish smile teasing his lips as he claimed her hand back.

 "Well if those gals are fine art, you sweetheart, are a masterpiece." He twirled her around once, making her dress flare out around her legs. "Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight?"

 "Yes, Bucky."

 "Good, I'd hate for you to forget." He winked and the trio started walking again. 

 "Oh, here." Steve suddenly said, fishing something out of his pocket. He held out his hand almost shyly.  

 She took the offered item to see it was the napkin with the sketch on it. "Oh, Steve. Muchas gracias." She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a red stain behind. "Oops."

 "Here." Bucky tossed over a handkerchief to Steve. 

 She glanced at the napkin one more time before reverently placing it in her clutch. She already knew where she was going to put this in her room so she would always remember this night.

 "Oh drat." Steve said after glancing at his watch. "It's almost eleven. I have class early tomorrow."

 "Go on, punk. I'll look after her."

 Elana hugged Steve and was thrilled when he squeezed her back just as tightly. "I'm so happy to have met you."

 "This isn't goodbye, right?"

 "I hope not. You have more artwork to show me."

 He blushed yet nodded before giving Bucky a quick hug. 

 "Night, Steve."

 "Night, jerk."

 Together, they watched Steve walk down the sidewalk, wave back at them then disappear down the next street. 

 "Wanna keep walkin'?"

 She nodded. She knew she should go home. It was getting late and she still had to get back to Queens. Yet walking side by side with this man whom she had only met several hours ago, she found the idea abhorrent. Glancing up at the night sky, only a couple of the stars were visible through the smoke, clouds and street lamps. They were lovely though, a reminder that there were greater things out there, one just had to look for them. At least, that is what her father always said. 

 "Hey," Bucky's voice pulled her attention back, "I never got to say it earlier but thanks...for havin’ Steve's back earlier today. Punk doesn't know when to quit."

 "I'm glad he got in that fight...is that odd? If he didn't, I wouldn’t have met either one of you."

 "Alright, this ONE time I'm glad he got in a fight. Though, we probably would have ran into each other eventually."

 They walked in comfortable silence for a couple minutes. Two cars passed them separately and only a handful of people walked their way. Otherwise it almost felt like they were alone. It was peaceful, still holding hands and wandering the streets of Brooklyn.  

 "Y'know, I was kinda hopin' we'd get at least one slow song at the dance hall."

 "Me too." She confessed. 

 "Well, we should!" An idea sparked in his eyes. "Wait here." He moved over to one of the parked cars near them. He tried to open it but it was locked so he moved to the next one. This one opened without hesitation and he slid in. The whole time Elana switched between watching Bucky and scanning the streets for someone to yell at them. What was he thinking? Suddenly music came on, drifting from the radio through the open passenger door. 

 Bucky stood there, leaning against the car with the biggest grin on his smug face. "Who needs a dance hall?"

 She laughed, understanding what he had done. "We’re going to get in trouble."

 "No, we ain't. C'mon."

 "Oh, Dios mío, yes we are!" 

 "Dance with me." He cooed, standing before her looking like an Adonis. 

 With that lazy smirk and enthralling blue eyes staring down at her, refusal was not an option. The words died on her tongue as she stared up at him. The music was slow, a singer crooning about his love. The moment felt like something from a fairytale story her mother would tell her as a little girl. She knew she should go home. Stop this heat that seared through her when she found herself caught in his eyes. Stop the butterflies in her stomach when around him. Stop the way she melted under his touch, his hands always so gentle. 

 But she wanted this. Right now. To pretend this was her reality. To dance with her prince under the stars. That love did not care about the differences in their skin tones. For when the sun rose and this dream faded, reality would seep back in. Plus, he was a charmer. Doll-dizzy. She would not keep his attention past this night. 

 For now though, she could pretend. Enjoy the night in a way she never had before. 

 He placed her hands behind his neck and his on her hips. Standing there under the streetlight and distant starlight, they danced, swaying back and forth. Her head landed on his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath it. So steady and soothing. The world faded away around them, the only things that mattered was their dancing and the music. It wrapped around them like a warm, thick blanket. Enveloping them in a sense of security and vitality. One of his hands slowly traced her spine leaving a trail of fire behind. His cheek pressed against the top of her head. She felt safe...and wanted. A heady feeling that she could sense herself beginning to crave even more. Her hand tangled in the hair, her fingers lightly scraping the back of his neck. 

 "Say something in Spanish." He whispered, his lips against her scalp. 

 "Gracias por esto ... todo esto. Ha sido la mejor noche de mi vida".

 She looked back up at him, hoping to convey without words what she said. As she lifted her head up, their eyes locked. Tension filled the empty space around them, pulling them closer. For a split second, his eyes drifted to her lips and back up. Her heartbeat began racing anew. Slowly, as if waiting for her to turn away, his head tilted towards hers, his hands gripping her just a little tighter. His breath fanned across her face, warming her inside and out. She swore her heart was going to beat out of her chest. His nose brushed hers, an almost timid action that drew a smile from her. He chuckled silently then somehow pulled her even closer. She closed her eyes, a gasp escaping her when she felt the faintest touch of his lips on the corner of her mouth. 

 "Hey! Hey, you kids! What ya doin’ with my car?!" 

 All the tension evaporated like rain drops under the scorching sun. 

 "Shit...c'mon!" He grabbed her hand and started running away. Holding on tight, she ran next to him, as well as she could while wearing heels. The yells of the car's owner soon a distant sound behind them. 

 Finally, they stopped two streets later. He let go of her hand, running his hands through his hair and pacing. She leaned against the brick wall, hand over her mouth, giggles spilling forth between gasps of air. Never in her life had she done anything like this. She closed her eyes as the giggles turned into full-body laughter. One hand covered her mouth and the other wrapped around her own waist to try and contain the sound. This night was nothing like she expected but it only seemed to get better and better. This newfound revelry of youthful zeal, this silly recklessness...she wanted more and more of it. 

 When the laughter dissolved into small chuckles, she wiped her eyes as she opened them, hoping her make-up had not smudged too much. Not that she particularly cared in the moment.

 What she saw standing before her killed the laughter on her tongue. 

 Bucky stood just at arm's length, staring at her like she was the stars in the heavens. 

 In a single step, he crowded her against the brick wall. "Elana…" he growled, voice low, and it might have been the most exhilarating sound she had ever heard. One of his hands cupped the back of her head, as he lowered his lips to hers. The kiss was gentle, their lips just pressed together. A soft pressure that made her melt into his arms. 

 He leaned back to press his forehead against hers. His breath just as shaky as hers, both still breathing hard from their run. 

 "That was my first kiss." She blurted out, immediately regretting the words once they escaped. 

 He leaned back to look her in the eye. "Really?"

 She shrugged nervously. "Not many fellas lining up to kiss a girl like me."

 "Their loss, doll face." He smirked, running a thumb over her bottom lip. "May I have the honor of your second kiss ever?"

 She giggled and nodded. 

 This time when their lips touched, it felt like more. The first was like licking the spoon used after mixing cookie dough. A taste of what was to come. The second kiss was eating warm cookies right out of the oven and practically ascending to heaven. 

 His lips slanted over hers perfectly, as if they were formed just for her. Their mouths moved in tandem, picking up speed. No longer were the kisses sweet and gentle. His tongue traced her bottom lip and she willingly opened her mouth to receive it like a present. These kisses were all-consuming and fiery. It was as if his touch seared into her soul, leaving an imprint there for all eternity. 

 She knew right away when she met Bucky Barnes, he was trouble. He was the kind of man her mother warned her about. The kind to sweep her off her feet and make her forget the world around her. He was kind, charming and so full of life. Yet she knew even as she was wrapped in his arms, lips pressed against his, that there was one truth that would haunt her. Even if she ignored it for now. That truth would never leave. So she overlooked it, sinking deeper and deeper into his kisses and embrace. Drowning herself in him. With her back pressed against the wall, her hands tangled in his hair and mouths devouring one another, she had never felt more alive. 

 Tonight, she would choose the fire he poured into her. Tonight, she wanted to enjoy life without fear. Tonight, she wanted to pretend that this night would never end. To thrive in this feeling of passion and life, that nothing could go wrong. 

 For the truth was one day, he was bound to break her heart.

[the-witty-pen-name]

It Happened on Sakaar Pt. 3

Mando x Asgardian!F!Reader; Loki x Asgardian!F!Reader

Rating: M; 18+ Only

Word Count: 2.5k 

Warnings: cursing, angst, slow burn, pining, mentions of violence, 18+ in later chapters 

Summary: The bounty hunter’s most recent puck sends him across the Galaxy to an unfamiliar and artificial planet named Sakaar- literally the galaxy’s trash can. Sakaar is a bizarre planet, but so is his most recent bounty. Din is chasing a man he only knows as The God of Mischief. The reader lives on Sakaar as a scrapper, a similar trade to that of a bounty hunter and has a tangled history with the man Mando is looking for. Will the unlikely duo team up to capture the mischievous Asgardian or will the reader fall victim to Loki’s promises?

A/N:

IMPORTANT UPDATE

I made a Google form to be added to my taglists, so if you want to be added, the link is in my bio. I’ll only be adding people to the list if they requested to be added by filling out the form! This way all of the requests are just in one place so I don’t miss requests! Thank you!!!

So sorry this chapter is a little short! It’s a little bit of a filler chapter to establish some things before more events start to unfold. 

This is unedited and if I missed anything that I should include as a warning please let me know! Thank you y’all!

Tags and Requests are OPEN

You resolved to see Thor as soon as you could. As soon as it was light the following morning, you dressed quickly, and headed to where you thought he would be kept. There was a small hospital wing inside the same building where the gladiators were kept. You figured you would try there first and with any luck he’d still be there. The walk was short, and you kept your head down to avoid any attention to the fact a scrapper was heading to the hospital wing to see one of the gladiators.

Some of these fighters were creatures you brought to the Grandmaster. You’re sure none of them would be too happy seeing you again, and so you kept your head down as you walked past the area where they stayed. This part of your life disgusted you. You never allowed yourself to focus too much on it because if it wasn’t them, it would be you. It was cruel, and a very harsh world the Grandmaster has made. But for you, you’ve heard the rumors of what happens to female captives, and you know even though you’re leading a terrible career- it is better than any other fate you would have faced on this planet.

When you arrive, there are no one in the beds that line the walls of the room. There are a few workers, dressed in basic medical uniforms and they refuse to give you any information on Thor’s whereabouts. They claimed he was never brought there, but part of you seriously doubts them. Discouraged, you head back out to the main area of the building and decide to head towards Mando’s hotel. However, something really peculiar stops you.

“Hello there, might I just say that weapon of yours is some mighty fine-looking artillery,” said the voice. He was overly positive, and he spoke in a very unique accent, like every final syllable of each word he spoke was raised. “My name is Korg.”

You turn your head quickly towards the voice, and there he was. A tall, blueish gray rock creature waving to you like a school child behind the electric barrier. He was clearly one of the gladiators, you recognized him from the fights. Your chuckle is involuntary because his voice and his way of carrying himself does not match the stature of stone.

“Hi Korg,” you say puzzled. “I’m Scrapper 451.”

“Please to meet you, this here is Meek.” Only then did you notice the significantly shorter creature standing beside him. You couldn’t even begin to describe Meek, maybe like a walking catfish? “We heard you were looking for Thor.”

“You know Thor?” you ask, spirits lifting as you take a step closer to the barrier. “He’s my friend,” you explain, “I need to find him.”

“Ah well,” Korg explains, “You see there was a lot of disgruntlement after the fight. People weren’t sure how to call the fight, seeing as how the Grandmaster intercepted as he does. Some people were saying Thor should be the new champion and the Grandmaster was saying his Champion is the champion so for now until they know what to do with the Lord of Thunder, they are keeping in the Room of Champions.”

“They thought having them share a bedroom was a good idea?” you ask, your eyes widening.

“You know that you say it like that, it doesn’t seem like the best decision,” Korg nods, and Meek makes some noise in agreement, you can only assume.

“Why are you helping me?” you ask, looking up to meet his eyes.

“Well, all in the name of friendship,” Korg shrugs, “Thor is my friend.”

“Thank you, Korg,” you say earnestly, and he nods in response, rolling his shoulders back like he just won some sort of war hero.

“Anything for the cause!” he shouts triumphantly, as you walk away. You check the time on the time piece on your wrist. It was getting later in the morning and you needed to find Thor before the day began. You took the nearest lift in the building and rode it up to the top floor to the penthouse where they kept the Champion.

As you approached the room, you saw the large green figure was sleeping soundly in the very large bed. You saw how gaudy the room was, painted starkly in red and white. It was a little bit of an eye sore, but it was decorated with the Grandmaster’s eye, no doubt. You walked up to the doorway and you saw Thor, sleeping on the ground, as a few girls tended to his wounds. You waited until they were done and he was awake before you made yourself known.

“Your majesty,” you whispered, hoping he would hear you. The man turned his head and his eyes widened and his booming voice echoed through the whole room. You rolled your eyes at his inability to be subtle. Did he not realize he was his own worst enemy? He called your name happily and ushered you to enter. He engulfed you in a grizzly hug. It was honestly very comforting. You had missed your friend.

“You won’t believe the past few days since you’ve left,” Thor tries to quickly explain.

“Wait. Wait. What do you mean?” you ask puzzled.

“When you went through the Bifrost a few days ago,” he began again, trying to hurriedly fill you in on the details of Hela, and all that was happening back home.

“Thor, what do you mean? I’ve been on Sakaar for the past two years,” you explain.

“You left two or three days ago,” Thor states, his confusion evident on his face.

“Loki has been here for a few weeks,” you add.

“I don’t have an explanation, but you need to understand that Loki and I were thrown from the Bifrost by Hela at the same time. Loki thrown out only seconds before me. Time obviously works different here. You need to believe me that to us, you haven’t even been gone a week,” Thor says. You don’t know how to process this information yet.

The whole time you’d been here, thinking they’d all just chose to let you leave. You thought they didn’t care enough to come find you, after all you did for the throne. Now, after two years of sitting with this, you learn for them it’s been two goddamn days and somehow the Goddess of Death has returned the day after you left?

“Loki was going to follow you,” Thor explains, “but I made him come with me to find our father. I needed him to show me where he had left Odin. I know you can understand that.”

“Of course,” you say, “But Loki has been here for weeks, and never sought me out.”

Thor scoffs, muttering how it was typical of the god of mischief. He looks at you apologetically, and you can see tears welling behind his eyes, from all he has gone through since the last time you had seen him. He mutters something about his hammer before burying his face into your neck to hug you again tightly.

“There’s something I need to do,” you tell him, as you try to comfort him by rubbing his back.

“When I’m done, we’ll get you back to Asgard,” you insist.

“This can’t wait,” Thor interjects. “I need a way to leave now. Actually, I have a wrench in the plan as well,” he continues, looking over to the sleeping monster on the bed. “He’s got to come with me.”

“What why?” you ask, stepping forward to sneak a peak at the sleeping green creature.

“He’s one of the Avengers, he’s trapped here too,” Thor explains.

“The ones you told us about from Earth?” you ask. “I didn’t realize Midgardians could look like that.”

“No, no it’s just the one,” Thor explains, “I think.”

“What about Loki?” you ask, your mind returning to the promise you made to Mando.

“He seems content to stay here,” Thor sighs, and you scoff. Seemed like a simple enough plan for you and Thor to manage, you’d help Mando with the bounty, Thor and the Hulk could secure a ship. Everyone can win.

“In the meantime,” you say not wanting to dwell on Loki, “You help your friend and try to secure us a ship, I’ll take care of what I have to do and we can find each other after that.

“Okay,” Thor agrees, and you hug him tightly one more time before heading off to meet with Mando. You check the time, and you hustle to make it, not even saying a hello to Scrapper 142 as you pass her in the hallway.

Mando sat in him room anxiously. He had let is emotions get the better of him, and he was spiraling in his own state of paranoia you would betray him. He was worried you would have gone to Loki, and told him of the fact a bounty hunter was here and after him. Perhaps, you reunited with him and you fell back into a relationship with him. He chastised himself. He shouldn’t care what you do, and it’s his own fault for trusting you with information about his job.

He stayed up late with the kid last night, this planet was no place to be traveling with a child, and he knew he was not being fair to him. The little guy had a hard time sleeping last night, and Mando stayed up with him, and even stayed awake long after the kid had fallen asleep just in case, he woke up again.

The knock on the other side of the door, took him out of his thoughts and he felt guilty for thinking you wouldn’t show. You arrived only a few minutes later than he was supposed to expect you and he blames himself for how he took your tardiness as a sign of disloyalty.

“Sorry,” you say a little out of breath, “I needed to talk to Thor and I received more information about why they are here. It has nothing to do with who hired you or why you were sent here.”

“That’s alright,” Mando says, looking at you. He felt flushed under the helmet, embarrassed like you had caught him thinking of you as a traitor.

“But I don’t need to bother you with any of that,” you say, sounding like you are trying to cover your own distress. “We should talk about the plan regarding Loki.”

“Yeah,” Mando agrees, but he wants to ask you what is wrong. Clearly whatever happened with Thor has you upset and he wants to help you.

“There’s a party coming up,” you say, “similar to the one you infiltrated before. I’m sure Loki in his attempts to get close to the Grandmaster should be there. I have to be there anyways. Same reason.”

Mando can’t help himself when the image of when he ran into you before enters his mind. Whatever crush he had he needed to get over it. For his own sake, yours, the kid… Letting his emotions and his own attraction to you affect his decisions was going to be detrimental. It wasn’t fair to put his own feelings first. He needed to keep them at bay, at least until the bounty was caught. He tells himself its because you’re helping him and not looking for anything in return, and the fact that his last relationship was with a deranged twi years ago. He’s not used to niceness with no strings attached. It also doesn’t help that you’re probably the most beautiful being he’s ever seen- no. He’s not letting himself go there.

“Thor told me that Loki had wanted to come for me,” you continue, “I think that’s something we could take advantage of.”

“Wasn’t it years ago?” he asks.

“Apparently not to them,” you sigh, taking a seat on a chair that was opposite him. The child fussed and tugged on your pant leg. You looked to Mando for permission before scooping up the baby in your arms. He cooed happily and you stroke his ears gently. “Time must work differently here,” you try rationalize, “Thor said I only left two days ago. He said Loki wanted to follow me, but Thor needed him.”

“So, two years here, has been the equivalent of two days back on your home planet?”

“Basically,” you sigh, “But I think I can use that to my advantage. Loki hasn’t had the time to get over things between me and him like I’ve had. If Thor was telling the truth, maybe Loki thinks he has a chance of getting me back and I let him think he can. Maybe I can get his guard down.”

“Are you sure?” Mando asks, concern evident in his tone. You manage a half smile, appreciating that at least he seemed to care. It was sweet, and something you had gone without for the past two years. Which for your lifetime, that wasn’t that long, but a year on Asgard with your friends, the richness of that life, is much shorter than the grueling day to day of your life on Sakaar.

“Yes, we capture Loki, and then I’ll return to Asgard with Thor,” you resolve, although you actually aren’t sure you want to return to Asgard. It was your home planet, but the place hadn’t felt like your home in a long time. However, you can’t just stay here forever, you are starting to realize. Maybe you’d go to Earth, or maybe some other planet. Somewhere a little kinder than this one. Hell, maybe you could manage a ship and be a nomad- just go where ever the galaxy sent you. Maybe you could hitch a ride with Mando? In exchange for helping him capture Loki. “Maybe I’ll go somewhere else. I’m not sure.”

Mando bites his tongue to keep him from inviting you with him. That was not something he thought would be something you’d want. The child cuddled up in your arms, he takes the opportunity to look at you, closely. You’re so good with him and it makes him wonder if you and him could continue to work together after this job. He could take you away from this planet and the people from your past that keep showing up to haunt you. You could help him raise the child until he’s able to return him to the Jedi. The time he’s traveled in isolation is weighing heavy on him, and he knows he will do better with a partner. He needs you. 

Taglist: 

@msclifford @doctoreuphoria @gloryekaterina @sassy-kassaay @oh-oh-oh-its-magic @letsfly-andbe-free​

[whindsor]

the trials of online dating, part 2

hey @witchofinterest you’re still inspiring me btw

Swipe left, swipe left, swipe left-

Mika thought, with all the options available to her, that online dating in NYC would be a breeze. In truth, it didn’t even have to be dating. She just needed friends that weren’t her sister or her sister’s boyfriend.

Swipe left, swipe left, swipe - oh, hold on.

Mika furrowed her brow, glad that the handsome man on the screen couldn’t see the double chin she sported as she curled up on the couch. James Bucky Barnes. She’d heard that name before. Where had she heard it before?

A quick google search reminded her, making her sit up and stare down at her phone. Now when she looked at his picture, she remembered how sad he looked during the trial, how tired he was when he took the stand to talk about all the things that happened to him. TIME magazine ran article after article about the years he lost.

And now he was trying online dating? Good for him.

Mika stared long and hard at the screen. He was cute, and he also probably felt a little misplaced here in New York. Or, this was a fake account, and she would be disappointed. Again.

Hiking. Technology. Reading. Well, they had two out of three things in common.

Fuck it.

She swiped right before she could think too hard about it, going through a few more profiles before deciding that no one was going to strike her interest until she figured this James Bucky Barnes situation out. So she put her phone down and went about her afternoon, baking some bread for the week and cleaning the fridge out. She hated cleaning the fridge out, but since she was currently mooching of her sister in the studio apartment, she needed to do a little extra work.

She wasn’t surprised when her phone dinged later. She was surprised to find that it was James Bucky Barnes, accepting her match.

Interesting.

Her stomach did a flip. She wasn’t cool enough to match with the former Captain America’s best friend, and definitely didn’t expect him to go for the Romanian girl.

Had to be a catfish.

Mika: Is this really Mr. Barnes?

She was going to get to the bottom of this. If he messaged her back, then she could get on the web app and trace his IP address and see where it was registered. She wasn’t positive on the legality of that action, but safety came first. Her phone dinged again. A message!

James: Unfortunately.

The response made her laugh out loud, any thought of tracing his whereabouts fading. A catfish wouldn’t respond like that.

Mika: Deciding to try online dating? You’re becoming a real modern man, James! James: My therapist made me.

Ouch, okay, so maybe he wasn’t into the dating part. Mika was about to switch her tactics when he messaged again.

James: Sorry, that was short. Still getting the hang of this. James: You can call me Bucky. James: If you want.

Mika smiled down at her phone. There was something magical about the guy not caring about sending multiple texts in a row. Any girls she dated didn’t mind it, but men were always wanting to look all stoic. Mika found that the less they talked, the more desperate they were.

Mika: Nice to meet you, Bucky. I’m Mika. James: Nice to meet you, Mika. James: I saw you’re from Romania. Have you lived in New York long? Mika: Just a couple months. Moved here after the Blip. James: Oh, I’m sorry. That must be tough. Mika: Could be worse. I’m staying with my baby sister who is now, technically, older than me. Mika: How is it being back here?

Well if he didn’t think she was a creepy stalker, he did now!

James: Weird. So many things are different. James: But even weirder, some things are the same.

When Mika blipped back, it was hard enough to figure out everything that changed in five years. If the TIME articles were correct, Bucky was back in New York after leaving eighty years ago. She couldn’t even imagine how weird everything felt for him. And how lonely he must be.

Mika: So what’s the most important thing for me to check out? Mika: You know, since you’re a true New Yorker.

That was a safe enough topic, right? She hoped so. Centenarian or not, he was the first person to message her that didn’t ask for pictures, and she was in desperate need of someone chill. It took a while for Bucky to respond, long enough that she was utterly convinced that she’d said something wrong.

James: Totonno’s is where we used to go for pizza all the time. If you want good cheesecake, Junior’s is the best. Mika: Oh, I like both of those things!

She paused, hoping that the next message would be him asking her out. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

James: Let me know if you like them. James: If it’s any consolation, they still taste the exact same. Mika: Good to know. I’ve also been on the hunt for a Romanian place. Mika: Know of any? James: Not right off hand, but I can do some research. James: I spent some time there, before the Blip. Mika: Really?? Where?? James: Bucharest. Mika: No shit! I lived there! Mika: I was on the south side, in Rahova. James: …so was I. Mika: What apartments? I was Bloc 70 B.

The dots hovered, then disappeared, then hovered again, then disappeared again. Mika held her breath, but couldn’t maintain it long enough before having to take in a gulp of air. Bucky still didn’t respond. Was that too intimate a question? God, she hated this online thing sometimes.

Finally, her phone lit up again.

James: Did someone send you. Mika: What? No. Mika: I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? Mika: I know they weren’t the fanciest apartments, but…

Another ten agonizing minutes, then,

James: I’m sorry. I lived in those apartments too. James: I get spooked pretty easily nowadays.

Mika let out a huge breath of relief. Okay, good, so she wasn’t some inconsiderate asshole. Her and Bucky just had the weirdest coincidences.

Mika: That’s fair! Mika: How do I know you’re not the one following me?

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

James: I don’t do that anymore. James: That…probably didn’t help my case.

Oh thank God, he was just as awkward as she was. And at least he had the excuses.

Mika: Meh, not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. James: Same. James: Wish I could even say getting blipped was.

Don’t do it, don’t ask it, don’t say it -

Mika: What’s the weirdest thing then?

Fuck.

James: When Steve tripled in size. James: Thought I was hallucinating. Mika: Oh God, I can’t imagine! Mika: It’s weird enough that Nicoletta is a year older now Mika: At least she’s the same size James: Do you have other siblings?

Mika tapped the edge of her phone. She never did figure out how to word this without eliciting a pity party. But hey, Bucky of all people would probably understand.

Mika: We had an older sister. She passed away. James: I’m sorry to hear that. Mika: Thank you. James: My sister passed away about 20 years ago. James: Obviously, I was not there. Mika: Have you visited her grave? James: Yea, in the first couple weeks I was here. James: Will you think I’m an asshole if I say it was anticlimactic? Mika: Not at all. Mika: Last time I visited Raisa I called her a selfish bitch so Mika: You’re in good company

Too much information, that was too much information.

Bucky sent back…a laughing emoji.

James: That’s how you know you were close. James: My mother got mad at me because Rebecca thought her name was “Stupid Baby” for a long time. Mika: Aw, you were much nicer to your sister than I was haha James: Well, it was the ’20’s. James: Things were a little different. Mika: Were you a flapper? Mika: Don’t lie. James: I would never. James: Lie, that is. James: I was definitely a flapper. James: The cutest damn toddler flapper you’d ever see. Mika: Pics or it didn’t happen. James: I don’t know what that means. Mika: It means I want photographic evidence. James: Cameras weren’t invented yet. Sorry.

Man alive, James Bucky Barnes was funny.

They kept going back and forth, attempting a more normal conversation. It was, Mika found, a very nice conversation. He was someone she liked talking to, and he seemed to enjoy talking to her too. Or at least he was really good at faking it. 

“Why are you smiling so much at your phone?” Nicoletta asked later, giving her an odd look from her easel. Her boyfriend had already gone to bed, leaving them to watch whatever they wanted on Netflix. Of course that meant they put on a baking show and proceeded to do anything but watch it.

“Huh? I’m not smiling at my phone.” she said, tucking said phone into her lap.

“Don’t be dumb.” Nicoletta said, brandishing her paint brush like a knife. “Who are you talking to? You better not say-“

“Ew, no, not him.” Mika said, cutting her off before she could utter the name of her ex. “Just…someone I met on HiLove.”

“I thought we talked about those dating apps.”

“I’m lonely! I need friends.” she said. “He passed the background check.”

“Let me see a picture.” Nicoletta said, coming over. Mika sighed, thumbing through the app to find Bucky’s profile, and the one picture he had. She hoped her sister didn’t notice the two unread messages in the corner. “Hmm. Okay, he’s handsome.”

“Yes.” Mika agreed. In fact, he was becoming more handsome as the afternoon went on. “And he’s funny too. And smart.”

“Ok, calm down. You just started talking to him.”

“I know! I’m not like, proposing marriage.” Mika said, rolling her eyes. “I just like talking to him so far. That’s all.”

“Uh huh. I know how it goes with you ‘talking’ to good looking people.”

“About as well as it does with you.” she pointed out. “Pre Steve, of course.”

“Of course.” Nicoletta said. “Have you discussed future plans? Deepest fears? Favorite sexual positions?”

“I hate you.”

“These are important questions!”

“I’m going to bed.”

“No phone sex on the first day!”

“I really hate you!” Mika sang, pulling the curtain around the little area in the studio apartment that counted as her room. It was late, and she probably should go to bed anyways. But Bucky was still up, and they were currently discussing movies. Turned out, he was way behind.

Mika: Star Wars? James: Nope. It’s on the list. Mika: Star Trek? James: Also on the list. Mika: Pride and Prejudice? James: Isn’t that a book? Mika: And a movie! My favorite one. James: Guess I’ll move that to the top of the list then.

Was he…flirting? Mika couldn’t deny the smile on her face now, even as her eyes struggled to stay open. Nicoletta went to bed, and with the light off, staying conscious was becoming a struggle.

Mika: Good answer. James: Ever seen Wizard of Oz? Mika: …no. A little before my time. James: Ouch.

Despite the humor and the fun conversation, she could feel the fatigue setting in. She was so afraid to stop talking, afraid that tomorrow he would change his mind, or find someone cooler than her. But she couldn’t stay up all night anymore, she wasn’t in her 20’s.

Mika: Unfortunately, I think I need to sleep. James: I understand. It is really late.

She paused, tapping the edge of her phone. What was the worst he could say? No?

Mika: Talk to you tomorrow?

Apparently it was his turn to pause, long enough that she nearly fell asleep before her phone buzzed again.

James: I’m looking forward to it. James: Goodnight, Mika. Mika: Goodnight, Bucky.

She went to sleep with a smile.

[hughiecampbelle]

Sheyn Punim (Alfie Solomons Oneshot)

((PEAKY BLINDERS SEASON 4/5 SPOILERS))

Character/s: Alfie, Ollie mention

Word Count: 1,405

Tag List: @dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt @myriadimagines @lilyswritings @encounterthepast @writerdream22 @death-of-a-mermaid @lotsoffandomrecs @woahitslucyylu @obsessedunicorn24 @thedarkqueenofavalon @fangirlsarah16 @theshelbyclan @captivatedbycillianmurphy @creativemayhems @soleil-dor @thegirlwithoutaname87 @fifty-shadesof-tommyshelby @riana-jannat

A/N: Just some fluff 💕 Well, as close as I can get :P I'm not the best at writing sappy things, and I'm a sucker for a dark metaphor, but I've had this idea for a while :) Still a lil nervous. Fluff is hard, but I'm givin it a try anyways!!! I've only ever spoken these words in Yiddish, never written them, and I know how Google can be with translations, so I might've made a few mistakes!!! Anyways, I hope you like it loves! Feedback is always appreciated 💜💖💜

Gif Credit: @bennskywalker :)

FIC MASTERLIST PART ONE. / PART TWO. / PART THREE.

WANNA BE ADDED TO THE TAG LIST?

Hand sculpted, you were sure. Come together by the minds of a thousand artists, careful not to smear or smudge, cautious to muddy, to rid the world of all his perfect imperfections. The harsh lines drawn across his forehead, the deeply carved creases of his eyes, a tight lipped smile shaded. To the untrained eye this would have been off-putting, jarring, even severe. These features would have been unlikable, an afterthought in comparison to others, but that's what they wanted, what they needed. To be undermined, overlooked. It wasn't cutting in the way that captured the attention of younger eyes. A jaw as sharp as blade, eyes piercing, the pointed tip of a pencil resting in confident hands. It wasn't soft in a sweet, endearing kind of way. Naive and freckled, lulled by oil paints, by grand brush strokes and a starry-eyed sense of wonder. He was another medium, another material, the kind that went unloved and underappreciated if you didnt look close enough, if you didn't appreciate the right features. You might have missed it yourself if you hang taken a closer look. Too many passed by without a second thought.

That's all he ever needed, though.

Sheyn punim. His beautiful face cupped in your hands, in need of a soft touch. His skin worn, aged with experience, the way paper yellows and crumbles if it's not preserved. Tracing his cheek, tapping his nose, kissing his forehead. Waking him when the sun rays fail to, when the bags under his eyes wain, growing hollow. Urging him to bed, to rest, but always insistent on spending time with you. You only had so much. Face to face. Somehow you always ended up here. An arm lazily dropped across your waist, the blankets and sheets twisted around your bodies after a restless night. This was your favorite version of him. The clay of him malleable, clumsy even, not yet hardened by the day ahead. The side of his face squashed by his pillow, a small snore mumbling through him. It would have been laughable, really. A man who emptied the streets before him, who could have made men bow to their feet and kiss his shoe as if he were God himself, sleeping like a baby, so full of coos.

Matók. Sweet. Your sweetness. You weren't sure how it happened, how he became yours, and you his. When you started belonging to one another only that you were hand in hand, never straying too far from one another. Mindlessly playing with his rings, trying them on for yourself. He'd get you a ring of your own one day. Big and clunky, like his own, like the one you'd taken, refusing to take off. Not the prettiest, but, then again, neither was he. An eye for the odd, the obscure, finding beauty where others turned away. Falling for the scraggly alley cats, plucking weeds in place of flowers, joyous when the fog fell across the soil and not a soul could be seen. Mukhl. Forgiving. Forgiving with your love, giving it up absentmindedly. Forgiving with him, his actions, all the terrible things he was capable of. He wasn't a piece of art, but a weapon of mass destruction. He wouldn't have to lift a finger to take a life, and yet, in your arms, he was anything but.

Sheyn balibt. Beautiful beloved. To be reminded of love, as foreign to him as a godless man. To be feared was to be expected, anticipated even. But loved? That he wasn't ready for. And yet, he couldn't picture his life without it, without you. Washing the blood from his hands, the worry from his bones, all of it slipping off the same way his coat did, hanging it where it could never touch you. An abundance of kisses in the doorway, excitement dripping from your words, grabbing him as if he may slip and fall. Talk of your day, he wanted to hear of every second. You made the most mundane infectious. Able to relax, to sink into the cushions with you, his day sugar coated, lightened where it needed to be. He never wanted you to worry. Meyn lebn. My life. Yours. His. It wasn't his actions that affected him anymore. Every decision he made, it had to be an act of protection, all of his proclamation of love to you.

Even if it meant hurting himself.

Narish. Foolish, the both of you. Thinking you could live in a bubble. Shut the world out until it was just the two of you. It didn't work like that, not in his business, not in this kind of world. You felt it before you knew, before Ollie came to you, hat in hand. An instinct, a pain without cause. It had to be him. It always was. Not a lie, but a half truth. Softening reality for the sake of a smile. You'd always known though. Hidden in his office where none could see, none could touch, the door thin, the walls begging for word to get out, to be free. Hearing too much, more than you ever asked for. Your Alfie, believing himself a statue, a keeper of secrets, stone faced, forgetting how effortlessly you could read him. Narish mentsch. Foolish man. You wished he wasn't so foolish, so stubborn, that he could be as vulnerable as he was in those sunrise moments.

Refusing to see you. Lebedik. Alive. You couldn't believe it. Your love alive, but refusing to see you, as if he were already dead. . . Hidden away for reasons you'd never understand, ones a letter would never do justice. Back and forth, your angr, your fear, bleeding into the page. Ollie could say nothing, ordered to keep his whereabouts to himself. Tried to follow, a few times out of desperation, but he was good at his job. You lost him instantly. Every time after that, he always promised, at the bottom of the page, it wouldn't be forever. Egoistish. Selfish. Selfish, vain, childish reasons. A bullet in that sheyn punim, in his beautiful face, that was no longer beautiful. You weren't sure how long it would last. Neither was he. The healing process took longer than either of you wanted. Once inseparable, now you were world's apart. You didn't blame him. Alfie had his reasons for everything, you understood. You just missed him. You missed holding him, being held, looking into his eyes and knowing everything would be okay no matter how uncertain life felt.

Bahaltn. Hidden. He needed to see you, to hear your voice, his cool exterior finally cracking, crumbling. Weeks, months, a lifetime, it felt without you. But he couldn't be seen. He couldn't bear the thought of you turning away from him, disgusted by the man before you. So, he stayed in the dark. The curtains drawn, lights off, safe in shadows. Ollie refused to tell you where you were going or why, only that you needed to come with him. You heard him before you saw him, as you often had in the past, swearing up a storm at nothing in particular. Nostalgic for him, his voice, hating that you were becoming so used to sleeping alone, that you were forgetting all the littlest ways in which he brightened your day. Pushing through the door, into the dark, waiting for you.

Brushing your hand through his hair, fussing the same way that always annoyed him, a last resort to get him out of bed. Still asleep, but stirring, taking your hand in his, pressing it to his chest. Thankful for that heartbeat every day. Getting closer to him, your noses almost touching, catching him open his eyes, sneaking a quick glance at you, pretending all along. You never wanted him to be in the dark like that again, to hide out of shame. Balibt. Favorite. Your favorite person, your favorite smile, your favorite face. The hardened scar tissue growing, settled, streaked across his cheek and forehead. The result of living through what no one was expected to. You didn't see what he did, what he examined in the mirror when he was self conscious, what he tried to avoid looking at in reflective surfaces. There was nothing wrong with it, though. You loved him just the same. No matter what he looked like, he would always be beautiful to you. He would always be yours, and you his. Ale mol.

[justanotherwriter-fangirl]

Handle It (K. S.)

Words: around 2k words

Warnings: A little bit of hostage/kidnap situation, some blood and injuries but nothing serious.

A/N: Hello everyone! I’m so excited because I feel like I’m really back on track writing, also this is my first Kelly Severide one shot and I got so carried away that I really can’t believe I wrote so much, so I hope you really like it and enjoy it. As always, requests are open and if you have some feedback I’d really appreciate it <3

Gif obtained from Google. All credits to its owner.

Thanks for reading _______________________ Being a detective wasn´t always easy but you loved it, ever since Hank Voight received you on the Intelligence Unit you have been the happiest you could ever be with your career, it was a great honor.

Unfortunately, your boyfriend didn’t see it the same way, “it’s very dangerous” was Kelly’s favorite reason to constantly check up on you, at first it was nice, you even thought it was sweet but now it just made you want to roll your eyes, he was a fire fighter for god’s sake, it was as dangerous as your job but of course he wouldn’t accept it, in his eyes a fire was nothing compared to a bullet. 

You loved him, you really did, but he needed to stop with all the overprotectiveness, you were trained to do your job, you could handle it and by now his constant calls were starting to be a problem, interrupting you at the worst possible moments because he had the perfect timing to call you when you were interrogating a suspect or working an undercover case.

The situation overall was making you very tense, especially because you could feel the penetrating look of your boss every time your phone ringed.

It was Tuesday morning and your week was getting already very difficult, a girl had been kidnapped and you knew time was the most important thing in this type of cases, the abduction had been reported barely 8 hours ago but you needed to hurry and so far you didn’t have any clues about her whereabouts.

While you were going over some papers regarding her parent’s statements a theory crossed your mind, his dad, a very important Chicago’s business man, had been preparing the inauguration of a new building, unfortunately he had to delay it because he realized the head of the construction team had been robbing him and just to be safe he fired everyone involved, leaving hundreds of persons without a job. It had to be one of them, angry for loosing their job and ready to take revenge.7

“I have something” you said out loud from your desk while standing up “Mr. Jackson said last night that he was with his lawyer while the abduction was taking place, that he had been receiving some anonymous threats but he never said why, right?”

“That’s right, he said that being as successful as him wasn’t something you achieved without making some people unhappy” commented Adam, now all eyes on you.

“Exactly, but if that’s so he has been receiving threats for years and nothing had ever happened, what changed now? The people he made unhappy this time” you could see the engines starting to spin in the team’s heads, how could you have not thought about this before? “In the past, all his victims were people like him, businessmen who ended up being con for trusting him too much, but at the end of the day, this people could live with their lost because they were rich anyway and they all had fancy lawyers to make something about it, but now he fired a bunch of construction employees, people who really needed the job to sustain their families, one of them probably snapped so all we need to do is find who can lose the most because of this”

After that, all happened in a blur, the time was running out and you needed to find the kidnapper before things got worse. 

Couple hours later Jay had found a man whose daughter was sick and required a very expensive treatment, the money from the construction contract was going to be almost enough to cover most of it, for the size of the job, but after they all got fired, he hadn’t been able to find a job who could even come close to cover the medical expenses, the man was desperate and desperate people do desperate things.

You were on Jay’s car on the way to the suspect’s house when your phone started to ring, letting out a sigh you picked it up without even looking at the caller ID, you already knew who was.

“Hey babe, how are you?” said lovingly Kelly, even when it was seriously a bad moment his voice brought a smile to your face, Jay looked at you sideways from the driver side.

“Hi babe, everything’s fine but this is really not a good time, we’re on our way to catch our perp, call you later, okay? Bye, love you” you ended up before receiving an answer, you felt a little bad for being kinda rude but it needed to be done, it was a very important case, you couldn’t let yourself get distracted, the life of a little girl was on the line.

“Severide, huh?” mentioned Jay with a smirk on his face.

“Shut up, Halstead” you answer playfully while rolling your eyes “just drive.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything” he said laughing a little bit, his eyes on the road ahead “I just think is kinda sweet he always worries about you”

“It is but he has this very rare talent that makes him call me when we are doing something important, it stresses me out every time it happens in front of Voight.”

“Have you talked with him?”

“With Voight? No way”

“No, not Voight, with Severide.”

“Oh, yes, multiple times and I insist that his job is as dangerous as mine but he just don’t see it, I really don’t know what else to do to prove him that I can handle myself on the job”

“Give him time, (Y/N), I guess is not easy to wrap your mind around the idea that the girl you love puts her life on the line everyday”

“I guess.. I just need him to believe in me as much as I believe in him” letting out another sigh you turn around to look out the window when you realize you’re almost at the suspect’s house. 

“Are you ready?”

“Always am” finished Jay while parking in front of the house.

The possibility of the girl being there was slight but maybe you could fine the man to interrogate him or any other clue that could lead to her location.

As the team was reaching the door you heard a scream coming from the inside, everyone pulling their guns out and rushing to the entrance of the house as Voight started to yell instructions.

“Upton, Ruzek, back door, Atwater and Burgess, I want you searching the second floor the moment we got in, Halstead, (Y/L/N), with me”

“Stop!” Yelled a rough voice from the inside once you were on the porch “One step more and I’ll set the house on fire!”

“Listen to me, Jenkins, don’t do anything stupid, we just came here to talk” yelled Voight.

“Liar! I know why you’re here and let me tell you, you won’t find anything here”

“If that’s right then let us in and we can talk about it calmly”

“No, I don’t believe you! I won’t tell you where she is until you assure me that Jackson’s going to pay for my little girl’s treatment”

“I can’t do that, Jenkins, you need to give us the girl first” Voight tried to negotiate.

“No, I won’t. It’s too late now” he finished, raising tension over the whole team, that couldn’t be good.

As you were about to take down the door to get in, you heard an explosion, dropping to the ground you started to see the big flames coming from the top floors of the house and the strong smell of gasoline hit you all.

“5021 to central, send the fire department to North Hamlin 1100, now!”

5 minutes later the sirens of the fire department could be heard and Engine 51, Truck 81, Squad 3, Battalion 25 and Ambo 61 arrived at the scene yelling orders and getting ready to turn off the fire.

You saw Kelly the moment he got out of the truck, his eyes landing on you making sure you were okay, you were about to run to him when a sudden movement caught your eye, behind Kelly and his team, Jenkins appeared all dirty, coughing and raising a gun.

Your instinct kicked in and with a quick movement you fired your gun straight to his shoulder. 

“Get down, get down!” You yelled as you saw him pushed trough the pain on his shoulder and started to shoot at the air while he tried to escape.

One look at your team and you all knew what to do, Burgess and Atwater started to check on the firefighters and putting them out of the reach of the bullets while the rest of you started chasing him, guns up and ready to taking him down. 

Couple blocks down and he was forced to stop, out of breath, on the back of an ally, he was losing blood and he was in no condition to get away running.

“This is it, Jenkins, tell us where the girl is and everything will be easier for you” you said, slowly approaching him ready to fire your gun one more time in case it was needed.

“You are surrounded so drop the weapon and just come with us” complemented Jay from your left.

“Come on, let’s get you to a hospital, cooperate with us and we’ll talk to the D.A.” 

He was tired, you could see it in his eyes, he just wasn’t made for this, desperation made him do it and quite honestly, you felt bad for him, he wasn’t a bad man, he just had made one bad decision.

“Okay, I’ll tell you where she is but you have to promise me that they’ll take care of my daughter’s treatment, once I see something signed by Jackson saying that he’ll be responsible for it, I’ll tell you where to find her” said dropping the gun to the ground and raising his good arm.

You grabbed the gun as evidence while Adam got him from behind, putting his arms behind him and taking him to ambulance 61, his rights being read.

When you all got back to his house, there was no more fire and everyone was putting their equipment away. 

You passed the evidence to Hailey, putting your own gun away and ran a hand through your hair before going straight to Kelly, it had been a long day full of emotions and you were getting so tired. 

One look into your eyes and he was already opening his arms for you, you buried your head in his chest, breathing slowly to try to calm down your quick heartbeats, adrenaline leaving you as fast as it had come.

“I’m sorry for being rude earlier, hanging up the phone to you and all that” you said, you voice sounding muffled.

“It’s okay, babe, sometimes I forget how badass you are and I’m sorry too. You are busy saving lives and all I do is interrupt you” his arms gripping you tighter, never wanting to let you go.

“No, it’s fine, really. I love you and I get it, I worry about you too” taking a step back you take your time to look at him, his gorgeous eyes hypnotizing you and bringing a smile to your face, you couldn’t believe the man in front of you was all yours, he was strong, handsome, kind and above all so brave, it made your heart skip a beat and your breathing got caught up in your throat.

“Ha! I’m sure not as much as I do but I see it now, you are fucking good at your job, what you just did was so brave and a little bit hot, if I may say” he added winking you an eye and making you laugh a little bit, even after several months of relationship he kept flirting with you.

“I told you I can handle it” you said, flashing him a cocky smirk before you reached up and wrapped your arms around his neck to brought him down to kiss him, no more words needed.

_______________________ Masterlist