#maybe hit it with a plague for good measure

[reitziluz]

went to a munch yesterday and ended up talking about fear & hunger to a friend (who Cannot do horror but enjoys hearing about horror stuff second hand).

their reaction was delight over how hard i got sniped. i am Target Audience. also immediately drew a connection to my forever writing project with its fucked up very bad ascensions to godhood. i have been Seen.

conclusion and consensus is that i need to remove my limiters and go batshit on the forever project. opening the damn and letting the guro in babyyyyyy

[hyunsvngs]

HAHAHHS thinking abt what u said abt binnie channie and lix struggling to hit u so now i just wahha know how tgeyd reactvseeing minho and seungie slappinh the fuck out of mc HAHAHSH

i have so got u

binnie would be in awe. you really just let them do that? and... you enjoy it? by the looks of your wet pussy, slick sticking to your folds, you do enjoy it. you're whining, begging seungmin to hit you again and.. well, changbin can't believe it. he can't believe the way his dick is twitching in his boxers either, just from the sight of you giving up control like this. would you... would you do it to him? would you slap him, maybe even slap his cock a little just for good measure? it plagues his dreams for weeks, even months after.

channie would definitely love it. especially more so if you're his girlfriend, and you'd finally agreed to his biggest fantasy - letting one of the boys fuck you. fucking minho hadn't been on your bingo card for this year, but who are you to turn it down, especially when he's slapping you straight across the face and chuckling when you whine. chan would have something awakened inside him. seeing minho treat you like this has him thinking that you clearly like it, maybe he can too? and god, yes, you do - when he's fucking you weeks later and slaps you dead across the face, your pussy clenches on him tighter than it ever has before and you're cumming. it definitely opens his eyes.

felix would be sympathetic. all "i know, i know. it hurts but it's so good, isn't it?" because he too is a bit of a pain slut. felix likes to be slapped around by the prettiest people, so when he witnesses seungmin slapping you like this... well, he gets it. maybe one of his dirty secrets is that he'd love to be in your position, being hit by seungmin while you watch... and when you find out, you just have to make it happen. you'd never known felix would be like this - his lips are parted, cock jumping everytime seungmin slaps him across his pretty, freckled face and it opens you into a new world. you struggle to have sex without slapping him afterwards.

[francostrider]

Fanfiction and the International Audience

If I were to choose between Archive of our Own or Fanfiction.net, on the surface it’s an easy choice. AO3 is a much more user friendly experience, with less middle management required between a word document and putting it on the website. But if there is one thing FF.net has over AO3 it is metrix.

Obviously, AO3 does record how many hits a story gets. But FF.net goes into far more detail. It will show you how many individuals looked at it, how many times individuals took a look, what day and what country they are from. And if you split it into chapters, those same metrices are applied to each one. So, you can be pleasantry surprised on some days, seeing that someone has read through each chapter, and therefore the whole story. AO3 only tells me how many people have clicked on it at some point, not what chapters they read or how many times they looked at it.

Since very few people want to comment or review anymore, this is the closest thing to a measure of success in the fanfiction community that I can really grasp. My stories are not pornographic or even romantic (a bit of a disadvantage in said community) nor are they really subversive or primarily comedic. Burial of Nightmares, my Soul Calibur fanfiction, is a book adaption of Soul Calibur III and it does not really do anything particularly weird.

But seeing the international audience I have built up over the last couple of years is still encouraging. According to the metrices, most of my readers are from the US, but not exclusively. I had readers from Italy, Australia, England and even countries I never heard of, namely Bhutan. Someone in Bhutan, a neighbor to China, decided to sit down and read Burial of Nightmares the whole way through and that is really cool. I’m literally read from either side of the globe.

Of course, there are quite a number of readers who stop at the first chapter. This happens in both video games and books. If you don’t click with the story at first, you’re likely not going to finish it. But what strikes me are occassions when someone just decides to read one of the later chapters, namely the ending two. I’ve found that when someone decides to just go back to a chapter and not the whole thing, they tend to look at the ending.

So, I’m going to into spoilers a bit here, so if you are interested, read Burial of Nightmares by FrancoStrider before going further. It is on both AO3 and FF.net. While you’re at it, please comment! 

But anyway! What I try to do with the ending is give hope. I wrote this during NaNoWriMo 2020, and I felt, through one of my favorite games, I needed to be uplifting. I wanted to give the kind of hope Soul Calibur III gave me when I was a teenager.

The Soul Edge is destroyed for good, Siegfried (and most of the heroes) survive, and Nightmare is turned to ash. Siegfried confronts a wounded Zasalamel and kills him. Salia forgives Siegfried and welcomes him back to their old mercenary company. Mitsurugi and Taki bury the hatchet, Sophitia brings Aeon Calcos’ ashes back to his Spartan homeland, and Kilik and company head back home.

And then we go to the modern day, with Zasalamel’s latest reincarnation. He is about to meet a world leader and mulls over the last few hundred years of human history. Despite two world wars and plagues and every evil mankind concocts, he tries to see the hopeful side of humanity to bring hope in return. Instead of the self destructive nature of his actions, he has opted to be a guide, a library of wisdom for the leadership of the world. He is no fool; wars could start from nothing. But despite this, he wants to build a foundation for future peace.

Fast forward two years after writing this, the pandemic has died down (though it has not completely gone away), but Putin decided to start another unnecessary war with Ukraine. And maybe the ending is a bit naive, and maybe we’re screwed either way. “Jumping the gun a bit,” someone might think.

But this morning, I discovered on the metrix that someone from Russia decided to read the ending one more time. Not the rest of the story, just the last chapter, after all the fighting had been done. I do not know who this reader is, but I can’t help but imagine what they are going through. This is a land where, currently, dissent is met with being thrown out a window. A land whose ruler is making every excuse to kill not only Ukraine civilians but sacrificing a whole generation of his own. And that’s not even going over the ripples this has left all over the world.

Before anyone asks: Yes, someone from Ukraine has read this story as well. At least one Russian and one Ukrainian have read the ending of this same story. Maybe they, too, play the games as teenagers. Or perhaps they are teenagers now, discovering the series through Soul Calibur VI. I’ll probably never know. 

I wonder if I succeeded in giving hope. That was the whole point of this story from the first day of its rough draft. I wonder if they sought comfort during this time. Or maybe they read through the rest and never got to the last chapter until now. Either way, if I have given someone hope on the other side of the planet under oppression comfort during this time, I will say that I succeeded as a writer.

Some people may scoff at an international community. But an international community is how we view each other as human. It is how we see what we have in common and how alike we are. It is how we share stories like these and find that someone else across the world can find the same beauty.

Right now, the world is torn between the xenophobic old guard sending kids to die and the internet community sharing stories and fiction. For myself, I’d rather see a library of silly, off the wall, pornographic fanfiction entries read by the entire world than another oscar-bait war drama about bloodshed no one needed. I hope it’s that easy a choice for most of us.

I did not write this story because everything was fine. The pandemic was still going, and this was before the vaccines were released. My parents and I nearly came to blows. We had just gotten through a hopeful but painful election. I wrote because I needed a voice of hope. Not some nihilistic downer with delusions of depth or some pop singer whining about celebrity drama. I needed characters who have seen Hell and escaped. I needed to show people, especially a younger audience, that someone is mad enough to imagine a world after these woes.

And I imagine kids from Russia, Ukraine or Iran (or anywhere else for that matter) want to see past horrors as well.

[bylightofdawn]

Don't mind me, just breaking my own damn heart at 11pm. This is fine, I'm totally normal about these two characters.

“I trusted you!” Gallatin shouted in his face and punched him again for good measure. The force of that blow sent him reeling back into a nearby wall but Cahir made no move to raise his hands or try and defend himself. “You’re right, I am nothing but scum. I should have been stronger, but I’ve been trying to fix that mistake and ensure you live for months now. And the worst thing is, I will wake up tomorrow and you won’t remember a thing that has transpired today. So strike me down, I deserve it.” He said miserably and spat out a mouthful of blood. For a moment, Gallatin looked as though he wanted to hit him again. He stood there tensely with bloody knuckles poised to strike again. “You want me to kill you.” The elf said with a suspicious look on his face, and Cahir couldn’t conceal the bitter smile that twisted at his lips. “I’ve died at the hands of the White Flame dozens of times, but never at yours. Maybe that’s what needs to happen to break this curse. One life paid in exchange for the life that I took.” “Or this is some masochistic extension of your own need to punish yourself. I won’t give you the absolution you seek, Cahir. No, you’re going to live with what you have done, and I hope when you figure out how to break this curse, you’ll be man enough to take accountability for your actions. But you will have to do it far away from me because I don’t want to see your face again.”

Gods, please let me finish this tonight so I can get it off my plate. Its been consuming me for days and I really want to unleash it onto the world like a plague. Also this was so angsty it crashed my Spotify.

[oliverpdaniel]

Advent of Code 2022: Days 11-14

This is going out on December 20. Why, then, does this post only contain my notes for days up to the 14th, you ask? Well, because AoC haaaaaaaaaard. As of writing, I still haven't progressed past Part 1 of Day 15. But, I'm officially done with both school and work for the semester, so I'm gonna have a little bit of time and energy to tackle these, alongside the myriad other tasks I punted off until this time of year.

Please enjoy my writings while I suffer. I'm going to get all 50 stars this year, hard problems be damned!!!

Day 11

Every year, I expect there to be a Math Knowledge problem, and at least one "heat death of the universe" runtime problem. I didn't expect both of them to arrive on the same day, and so soon! In any case, I don't feel to bad about Part 2 being a two-seater here, nor about getting some insights from my much-mathier roommate. The most irritating part of the day was when I, not feeling up to optimizing my solution, just tried to chug my naive, OOP-based solution along while I took a shower. Well, I came back and it was finally done... except I'd forgotten to switch my input from the test data. Anyhow, the larger input would have taken even longer -- and may not have even terminated before running out of memory on my laptop. Whatever. Onward!

Day 12

Yup. This is why you don't talk a big game about your computer-sciencey brain when you *checks notes* dropped out of computer science during the plague. Although my fingers can practically write out DFS without my conscious intervention at this point, the test input was very cleverly formulated to make that take an unreasonable amount of time, so I was forced to open a Wikipedia tab with my tail between my legs. At this pont, I really ought to commit one of the UCS algorithms -- Dijkstra, A* -- to memory, even if exclusively for AoC problems.

Opening the subreddit revealed some interesting optimizations I could have done, like searching for the nearest a tile from the endpoint in Part 2, but... meh. Brute-forcing A* takes like two seconds on my machine, and I like pretty shiny stars more than that kind of yak-shaving. Speaking of, today better damn be a productive day for me if I want to keep on schedule to enjoy my winter vacation. What incentives lie in store for me over the winter? Why, the chance to work unimpeded on my portfolio site and side project, of course! What else would I be doing?

P.S. I will have to check with one of the more CS-y of my peers as to why my algorithm didn't work when the edge 'weight' between two nodes was 0 rather than 1 (as opposed to inf i.e., if the two nodes differed inadmissibly in altitude). And people on the subreddit are smack-talking using A* on this problem, so maybe I'm the dummy here.

Day 13

Today hit the trifecta of competitive-programming hackery: eval, match-case structures, and the walrus operator! Until I realized it wasn't actually necessary, I had a for-else loop in my comparison function for good measure, too. This morning's puzzles were much more manageable than the last few, and I'm pretty happy with the solution I came up with. Of course, years of Javascript dev have thoroughly rotted my brain: as soon as I saw that part 2 required sorting, and I had already written an (a, b) comparator, I thought I was done! Of course, these days Python doesn't use comparators, but rather a key. Luckily, a quick Google search (well, DuckDuckGo, because I'm like that) revealed that functools has a happy little cmp_to_key converter that made my life easy. No parsing and no custom logic: can every day be like this??

I'm quite curious as to what these nifty new match-case structures can do. I found it somewhat strange that the syntax for checking the type of values was an empty constructor in the case statement -- e.g., match a: / case int(): rather than the match type(a): / case 'int': I intuitively wrote. I'll have to see what the underlying logic is there. In either case, I've yet to really discover a use case where they're truly more useful than if structures (other than saving my precious fingies a handful of keystrokes), but I'm sure I will.

Day 14

An accidental midnight solve, which certainly would have gone more smoothly had I, y'know, not done that. A few things I'm proud of:

Recognizing pretty quickly that the inputs (i.e., walls) can be defined left-right or down-up, as well as vice versa. I made a simple smart_range helper that would prevent range from breaking if its start argument was greater than its stop.

My input-parsing is pretty baller, not gonna lie. Writing this writeup a few days removed from having written it, I'm slightly struggling to understand what it does! Itertools for the win.

Using a for-loop to represent falling, at the end of which was the "floor" of the sandpit.

I was a little bit scared of this one when I first saw it involved particle physics, but it turned out to be okay.

[maggicktouched]

Ah so the stories were true.

He thought Beck a clever little witch, but young and prone to fanciful thinking. When she had told him that Robb was a great warrior that did not balk in the face of a challenge, he hadn't thought much of it. Of course she would speak highly of the man that she loved. If someone would have asked him in his first century of life, he'd have boldly proclaimed there was nothing his first wife could not do: slay armies, cure plagues, raise the dead. Lovesick ramblings, all of it, though it was based in fact.

Apparently so was Beck's high opinion of the young king.

Karl stood back to his feet and roughly pulled off his cloak in a rush of excitement. He carried no sword. What use was a sword to the King of Bears? There was a knife on his hip, however, smaller than one of his claws in his beast form and useless for anything other than carving wood. Still he unclasped the weapon and tossed it aside. He rolled his broad shoulders and placed his clenched fist on his chest before bowing low to the women in the room.

"We will do no harm." He swore, winking at the King's mother as he rose back up.

He had fought thousands of men in his life. In his youth he had fought his brothers and sisters constantly. The clan had been different back then---under the rule of his late father. The people had been scattered across their vast territory and mostly kept to themselves; powerful individuals that were ultimately too self centered to make a strong clan. He had been raised in massive, lonely cabin with his mother, but on every new moon his father would call all of his wives and children to the capital to feast together. It was mostly just an excuse to ensure all of them were in acceptable health and give them a chance to spar.

Despite being the biggest of all his father's children, he had lost nearly every fight in his boyhood. He was naturally affable and slow to confrontation. Often he'd suffer a number of blows before working up the courage to swing back, and when he did fight, he feared his own strength. It made him an easy target... For a time.

After his eldest brother killed their father to take his throne, and Karl had in turn killed him, he'd learned to take joy in combat. His temper was still slow, but he had learned to control his strength and did not fear pain. He fought more and more---sometimes in war, sometimes in contest, and sometimes in the bedroom with his wives. Though that was less punching and more...

How long had it been since he lost a fight? At least fifty years. But people rarely fought him anymore. He was the only remaining Bear King. The other two lines had been wiped out by various wars over the course of his life. The last war, the worst of any he'd lived through, had earned him a great deal of respect, and even men who should have been proud and eager to challenge him now kowtowed at his feet and thanked him for his bravery. He was honored, but often bored. He enjoyed brawling as much as he did fucking. Maybe more.

It was good to see someone youthful and unshaken even in the face of a battle they could not win.

Karl waited for the first punch to be thrown, taking it with a grin, measuring the King's strength.

"Strong!" He praised, as if he was fighting one of his sons. Where was his wife? Karl wondered. Surely she would love to see her husband like this. So brave and proud.

It did not last long. Karl dodged a few hits and swung a handful of times. Mostly he wanted to see how much harder the good king could hit once his blood was pumping. It was obvious that Karl was not extending any great effort, but neither was Robb. After King Robb struck him in his ribs and properly knocked the wind from him, Karl burst out with laughter.

"Very good!" He patted the man's shoulder heartily. He nodded his head respectfully and slumped down in his chair, panting and smiling like an old fool. "I surrender, good King. You do not disappoint me."

The doors burst back open and his men returned with the barrels of wine. They hurriedly broke open the casks and poured cups for all in the room as Karl caught his breath. The wine was sweet but strong, and the Bear King did not flinch as he downed an entire cup. When he lowered his goblet back to the table, the smile was gone from his face.

"Wolf King-" It felt funny to use that for anyone but Fenris Beck, but he knew from what Beck had told him that Robb was known by his direwolf. "I hear troubles from this land. Echoes all the way over the sea. Me---my men---we come far to offer our aid. We have no time for wasting. If ears here are not fit to listen, send them out. Please."

Truthfully, he did not care who heard, but he knew that politics were frustratingly complicated, and he would not blindside the young king by putting his troubles on full display in front of those he did not wish to hear.

The war had been for naught. What did it matter that he'd removed the Lannisters from King's Landing, that he'd restored independence to the North? If they did not hold back the Winter--and do it now--he would be ruling over a kingdom of the dead.

He'd put Sansa in charge while he rode to the Wall. She was certainly capable enough; her time in the South had taught her much about politics--more, if he was being honest, than Robb knew of it himself. She had been in and out of Court, learned to manipulate and lie, to survive not the wilds of the North but the so-called civilization of the South. She could very well handle the other Lords while he was away.

The journey was not a pleasant one--though Robb was, at least, glad to see his brother Jon, who he had not spoken with (or even seen) in years. He only wished it was under better circumstances. As it was, they spent their days planning yet another war: this time on an endless army of unkillable monsters of ice and flesh who turned anyone they slayed into more of their kind, thus increasing their ranks as they went along. They had learned--too late--that dragon fire could kill the creatures for good, but they did not have dragon fire. The last of the dragons had been killed at the hands of the Lannisters.

When he had received Sansa's letter--that a giant of a man had arrived at their gates with offerings of food and fur and news for the king alone--Robb had been weary, and yet beneath his (well-earned) skepticism, he'd felt the slightest spark of hope--the first bit of hope he'd had in months. As it was, they had nothing to lose. His trip to the Wall had done nothing but teach him just how hopeless the fight had become. If anyone--no matter where they came from or what kingdom they served--offered a solution, he would listen.

He returned to Winterfell while the men at the Wall began an expedition to find Dragonglass--a fabled material that may or may not exist and may or may not kill the White Walkers.

Now, Robb waited for the mysterious man to enter and watched as the faces of even his bravest men filled with a fear they tried their best to hide.

It was said, at times, that House Umber descended from the giants. They certainly looked it--large, looming men with laughs like thunder and shoulders as broad as the wall itself. All his life, Robb had been surrounded by large men, the sort that took up an entire doorway to themselves. Hodor, the man that carried his brother from room to room, was seven foot tall and thought to be half giant himself. Yet, Robb had never seen a man quite as large as this guest nor anything like the creatures he'd parked at the gates of Winterfell.

Robb himself did not look like the men of the North--he did not have their dark hair or grey eyes, his own a river's blue and his hair red as fire. But he was strong and tall, and he had always held his own in a fight. He had managed, for years now, to lead men much larger, older, and wiser than himself, for he had proven himself time and time again in battle. But he did not know this man, nor did this man know him, and judging by the size of him alone, Robb was sure he could not win in a fist fight.

He quickly considered the consequences of this 'greeting': most men would hate to lose a fight in front of a crowd, and everything Robb did, always, was in front of a crowd. A king must look strong, brave, and powerful: he knew this well. He must present an image of control, must give his people something to believe in. In the South, kings sent other men into battle and directed their forces from behind tall walls, but this was not the Northern way. In the North, kings were not afraid to get their hands dirty, and Robb had fought side by side with his men for many long years. They knew very well what he was capable of. And who among them would blame him for losing when they saw what he was up against?

Robb smiled. "King Karl," he greeted. "It is an honor to have you in our hall. I thank you for your gifts and for your patience in awaiting my return. I hope your stay has been comfortable. You are welcome within my walls and at my table. I extend to you my hospitality and the protection in the light of the old gods and the new." Such words were standard, expected in Westeros, and yet Robb had to bite down a bitter rush of memories as he recalled the night of his own wedding, when he had been offered the same hospitality and then watched it--and his trust--be splintered to pieces, his men slaughtered around him. He could still hear the wedding drums--and the screaming.

He stood up. He pulled the sword from his belt and handed it to his squire so that he was now unarmed. Immediately, his sister paled, and his mother shook her head, trying to catch his eye and persuade him out of this decision. He heard Lord Umber laugh in excitement--he was always one for a fight--and many of the other Northern Lords nodded their approval as Robb rolled up his sleeves. "I am no bear, but if it is a fight you desire, I shall give it to you."

Behind him, Grey Wind rose up--his instinct to join Robb in any quarrel--but Robb quieted the wolf with a wave of his hand. "Sit," he told the beast. "There is no danger. I am simply greeting my guest." Robb's face split into a grin and the wolf, though hesitant, laid back down.

[lupically]

#FFF8EA | XIAO. 

genre | fluff

word count | 2233

warning | mention of falling off a moutain​

note | i just have some ideas for xiao...

"the yaksha is fond of you."

madame ping was no stranger to you. the kind old lady roaming around yujing terrace, often seen admiring flowers or brewing a cup of hot tea, was someone you come across every afternoon after school when you head to the censor to make a wish to rex lapis.

the conversation you two have had always been brief, mainly because you were always in a hurry to get to work. she never minded your urgency, blissfully talking about how fast-paced and active young people these days are, and simply being happy that you even stopped to let her hand you some glazed lilies from time to time.

interestingly, though, she stopped giving you glazed lilies after a while and began handing you some pretty qingxin instead.

you never questioned it. it was just flowers. you could live without being gifted only one kind of them for the rest of your life. but after today's incident—after the burning down of your school located just outside the city, as well as what madame ping told you with hearty laughter laced in her voice, you were starting to think the switch to qingxin meant something.

"the yaksha is fond of you."

you tightened your hands around the weak strap of your school bag, made out of bamboo after lots of trials and errors, and you tilted your head with increasingly furrowing brows.

"pardon me, the what is fond of me?"

"the yaksha, my dear."

you stared at her. the corner of your lips was quirking up in confused twitches, and she could see that you were fiddling uncomfortably on your spot because you truly have no idea what she was talking about. it was not because of the history of the yaksha that might have made you feel jittery and out of place, you simply had no idea!

madame ping smiled even harder at your innocent oblivion then. how could you have such ample knowledge of rex lapis and the adepti, but nothing about the yaksha? especially the one with his mark, a jade green glow surrounding you like fireflies, all over your aura?

maybe that was why xiao chose you.

or, at least, it was one of the reasons why he liked you.

it was because you knew nothing of him. you never think about him, you never talk about him, and you would never suspect the string of random good luck and trails of safe travels that have been following you around.

while it must be tearing him down on the inside; the fact that he wasn't being able to approach the one person who made his good deeds a choice rather than an order. it must be plaguing his mind and patience every day.

but, even then, your surprising lack of information about his identity does save him the pressure of being chased down by you.

it saves him the problem of being even further attached to you. it was already pressing on his breaking point when he went out of his way to watch over you, leaving trails of his magic over your mortal soul to keep you safe when he was busy. any further interaction would be disastrous.

logically, he knew he would fall for you, so he was doing preventive measures. he has to keep his chest sealed so his heart wouldn't jump toward you involuntarily; he has to keep his chest sealed so you couldn't see all the mess inside.

"oh, sweet child," madame ping cooed as she walked toward you. she whispered to herself, "you're being protected by an adeptus and you don't even know."

she brought up a qingxin from her pocket, the petals slightly wrinkled from the confined space. she tucked it carefully in the pocket of your shirt before patting the bloomed flower, almost as if she was reminiscing.

"this is his flower," she said.

you hummed, looking down at it. "this is his favorite flower?"

"i'm not sure about his favorite flower, but this is his flower," she replied casually.

you pursed your lips together. well, at least now you knew the qingxin did have something to do with the... yaksha... or whatever.

"madame ping... may i ask–"

"you can find him at qingyun peak," she cut you off calmly. "during the lantern festival. he is always there during the festival. it was for the quiet, he said, that old man."

you shut your mouth, surprised that she knew what you wanted to ask. "uh... qingyun peak... is kind of... a big place..."

"you will find him if he wants to see you," she said. "you can speak his name–xiao. he might not show himself to you, but if you have something to say, he's likely there to listen."

qingyun peak. the lantern festival. the yaksha.

right.

that was how you found yourself bearing the freezing night cold with just a thin shirt and a ragged fabric wrapped and tied around your torso, your hands hurting from grabbing sharp edges and rough rocks, and your anxiety increasing with every jump that not only would the almond tofu in your bag fall, but you would as well.

as opposed to watching xinyan play for the lantern festival, being warm and cozy from the warm city lights and the tasty street food, and maybe even letting go of a lantern yourself after making a wish, you were here. you were alone, climbing mountains for a chance.

all for a random boy madame ping told you about! someone who was supposedly fond of you—if this xiao guy was so fond of you, he would have shown himself the first three times you called his name at the bottom of the mountain!

"fond of me–what a joke," you said through gritted teeth as you hoisted yourself up on a small ledge. "i'm going to kick his ass so hard when i find him."

you let yourself pant for a minute, regaining your stamina as you groggily accessed the higher peaks above you. your eyes squinted in dismay, but something inside you—the curiosity for the truth, as well as the longing for a friend, also the anger for playful revenge—urged you to keep going.

"he better eats the almond tofu i made," you muttered to yourself as you moved closer to the mountain. "i even picked some flowers... for him."

jump after jump, you were close to making it to the second ledge when suddenly, a slime jumped and appeared above you. it looked surprised, mirroring your expression, and as it prepared itself to attack you after seeing your hands move, it stopped when it saw you fumble about in the air before you began to fall further away from itself.

you had let yourself go. out of surprise, and an instinct to grab a weapon, your hands moved away from the edge and you fell.

your mind raced as the wind hit your face, your falling body heavy against the current that desperately tried to take you up from the ledge you just climbed up from. you would surely die from the impact if you drop. even without dropping down to the bottom, you would still suffer from a painful death.

was there something to do? how did this happen, you were doing fine! what should you do, what could you do? you were falling already—what was there to do now? anything, something?

"i–archons–" you heaved with the cold air, your lungs squeezing inside you with fear as tears began to drip out of your eyes.

anything? anybody?

xiao?

"you can speak his name. he might not show himself to you, but if you have something to say, he's likely there to listen."

"xi–" your voice broke for a millisecond when you could see the green grass approaching quickly. you squeezed your eyes shut, and your voice was louder than you have ever allowed it to be.

you called his name, loud and clear.

the first thing you felt was a lightning strike. you opened your eyes at the electric feeling to find a flash of green. it was bright, close and bright, in a way that was blinding. but then the tail broke into gentle fragments as a pair of arms circled your body to catch you from the fall.

one arm went around your waist, the other hand securely tightened itself around the back of your neck to keep it from breaking from the impact of his fast landing.

xiao growled under his breath when his feet struck the ground in a heavy blow. he pushed your head to his shoulder, shielding your face away from the soil that bounced upward as a result.

quietness ensued after a moment of calm. you took the moment to access the situation—you were fine. someone, likely xiao, saved you from the fall. you were fine.

he dropped onto the ground, sitting on the cold grass with your body pressed close to his, when he heard that you began to sob from the accident.

despite feeling awkward and unsure, he kept quiet and let you vent out the post-accident fear so you could slowly bring in the relief that you were still alive. but his quietness was unwelcomed when you suddenly curled your fist and hit him across the shoulder.

"screw you! why didn't you just answer me when i–when i was at the bottom of the moun–mountain! screw you!"

you blamed him and you hit his shoulder repeatedly. your weak fist was nothing compared to the pain he has endured in the past, but your cries cut through him like glass in the most seamless pattern when he realized he was part of the reason why you had to go through that traumatic experience.

if he had just jumped down from the peak when he heard you the first time, this would not have happened.

xiao looked at the empty spot before him. his golden eyes glowed with a softness that has long fallen into the abyss, forever gone and forever abandoned. but he brought it back out now because he cares about you, and he is, ultimately, attached to you, and he loves you.

"you're right," he said, holding you close to him. "i'm sorry."

ever since you discreetly left the almond tofu on the roof of the wangshu inn, your shy figure hunched over in an apologizing manner because you were told that you were giving food to an important, albeit weird, guest, and your blissfully ignorant words of encouragement as you told him to go out and explore the world, to give it a chance so he could find people he would like.

ever since then, he has loved you, in fragile and discreet ways, in unwavering and patient ways, in protective and caring ways.

"i love you, i'm sorry."

you stopped sobbing almost immediately, and he was afraid he might have said the wrong thing.

wasn't it what he was supposed to do? verr told him to speak his mind once. just be truthful with his feelings and nothing could go wrong. was he not supposed to show his affection blatantly, as he would his complaints and opinions?

"that... that is going a little too fast for me, xiao," you joked. "let's settle with appreciating each other for now."

he heard you laugh, causing the weight of his heart to drop, like finding lights in a fog, like seeing the lanterns in the night sky and realizing that there are more people alive with you than you think.

"thank you, for saving me," you said kindly then, your fist long stopped hitting him and was now patting his shoulder.

"always."

“but burning my school down is not the best approach for... whatever it was you were trying to help me with.”

xiao blinked in confusion, then realization hit him. he almost forgot about that! he was, shockingly, dwelling in the prideful fact that because he literally destroyed the building, you would be free of school for the day, and therefore not having to face all the hardships inside the walls he could not venture past. he thought it was the best thing to do, second to beating up everyone, which he politely opposed to.

“i am not sorry about that,” he muttered. “it was what i thought was best.”

he could feel you grin in his embrace. your laughter reverberated in the air, making his magic glow around you both. it was like nothing he has felt before. he wanted to stay like this—in this position where you were engulfed by him, where he could surround you with himself instead of the fireflies of green he has left behind, where he was with you in a way it was entire, in a way he could feel your beating heart against his own.

you are pressing onto his breaking point.

you are going to open him up, see him whole, and renovate his insides to your will. you are going to take his heart from his chest, breaking through his ribcage made feeble from his sheer affection for you, and claim it as your own. you are going to make him love, like sharp knives, like soft breaths, like tragic past, like warm blood, you are going to make him love.

you are pressing onto his breaking point.

and xiao lets you.

because you will be worth the tragedy, you will be worth everything.

[meghantheduchyofpitstains]

The late actor Christopher Plummer once likened working with Julie Andrews on The Sound of Music to ‘being hit over the head with a big Valentine's Day card'. Reading the latest bulletin from the Duchess of Sussex, the image returned unbidden; having to listen to the ceaseless stream of platitudes that this bad actress expels verbally into the world is like being hit over the head with an inspirational poster – LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE – until one loses the will to live, let alone laugh and love.

But whereas we might once have loathed her, so shameless is the ageing starlet in pursuit of income – sorry, insight – that her performance now verges on the admirable. Reading her interview with Variety (such an obvious choice for someone who categorically claims that they are ‘done’ with a showbiz career) it was hard not to feel that one was expiring in one of those grotesque Willy Wonka-esque American sweetshops which plague our nation – stifled with marshmallows, drowned in caramel and beaten around the head with candy canes for good measure.

Meghan doesn’t ‘gush’ – her level of smarming is far beyond that. She oozes. The ’bombshell’ interview with Variety is actually a love-bombing. Laughing, apparently kicking her legs with childlike excitement, and claiming that her and Harry’s 'love story' had inspired the world because 'people love love’ she resembles nothing more than a travelling salesperson talking up snake oil to a sceptical crowd.Claiming that her and Harry’s 'love story' had inspired the world because 'people love love’ she resembles nothing more than a travelling salesperson talking up snake oil to a sceptical crowd

She must know by now how much people dislike her – in particular for making the Queen’s final years so troubled. But even that relationship is now refracted through the lens of Insta-inspo – ‘What's so beautiful is to look at the legacy that his grandmother was able to leave on so many fronts. Certainly, in terms of female leadership, she is the most shining example of what that looks like. I feel deep gratitude to have been able to spend time with her and get to know her… I’ve reflected on that first official engagement that I had with her, how special that felt. I feel fortunate. And I continue to be proud to have had a nice warmth with the matriarch of the family.'

Of her friends: ‘The power of sisterhood and female support can never be underestimated.’

Of herself: ‘Part of me is just really trusting, really open.’

Of any actress who plays her in a drama: ’I hope that in preparing for that role, she finds the softness and the playfulness and the laughter. The silliness.’

I fully expected her to add: ‘I’m just a hippy at heart.'

And, of course, no modern Marie Antoinette’s crib-sheet is complete without the obligatory reference to how much she enjoys fast food. In this case it’s In-N-Out burgers and 'chocolate chip cookies the size of my toddler's head’.

If Meghan can provide ‘content’ on this level – creating a character we love to hate on a level with an Alan Partridge or a David Brent, or a deluded showbusiness buffoon comparable with Count Arthur Strong – throughout the coming winter of discontent, maybe we should at last just cave in and award her the applause she craves. Because comedy gold such as this does not come knocking every day.

[seijorhi]

No Strings Attached

A commission for the lovely @hearteyes-candyskies, hope you like it bby! 💕

Bokuto Koutarou x female reader

TW Age gap, power imbalance, manipulation, toxic behaviour, nsfw(ish)

Three months ago, you would have laughed at the very idea of having a sugar daddy. 

Then again, three months ago you were still living with your boyfriend and had a steady paycheck coming in every week. You can blame losing the latter on bad luck and an asshole boss, but the former-

You knew your relationship with your ex was far from perfect, but coming home from losing said job to find him buried balls deep in your next door neighbour was a bit of a slap in the face. 

Needless to say, in the space of a few days you were out a job, a boyfriend and an apartment. Which, somewhat inevitably, led to you being six wines deep, slumped over your best friend’s bed, sobbing over the wreckage of the life you’d built, suddenly ripped out from beneath you.

You can’t really remember whose idea it was, only giggling drunkenly between yourselves as Misuzu set up your ‘sugar baby’ profile. “Shh, no this is gonna be great,” she’d said, hitting at the hands that tried to grab back your phone. “Meet some hot rich old dude, ride a little dick, let him shower you in cash; all your problems? Poof, sorted!”

And even with the heady, rose tinted haze of your wine fuelled inebriation, you knew that it was just a joke, a bit of stupid fun born more out of an attempt to cheer you up than a viable plan to get the tattered remains of your life back on track. Calling some old creepy dude ‘daddy’ and pretending to love him (not to mention the whole letting him fuck you thing) just for a little money wasn’t exactly your idea of a good time.

Plus, you were fairly sure that you weren’t what most people had in mind when they thought ‘sugar baby’. It wasn’t ever meant to be anything serious, just dumb, drunken fun with your friend.

So when you woke the next day a little after mid morning with a head full of regrets and a pounding headache, the last thing you expected was to find a message from BigDaddyKou82 waiting for you, better sense told you to ignore it.

Honestly, you didn’t really want a sugar daddy, your love life was enough of a mess without throwing in a power imbalance like that.

You should have ignored the message, deleted it or shot him a quick reply politely explaining that you weren’t interested so you could put it out of your mind, and you would have-

If Misuzu hadn’t caught sight of the message first, snatching the phone out of your hand with a gleeful shriek. 

—

If you’ve learned anything in these past months, it’s that Bokuto Koutarou doesn’t do anything by half measures. So when he tells you he’s booked dinner for the two of you at an upscale restaurant in the city, you should have expected the package that’s hand delivered right to the door of your shitty little apartment. The dress is beautiful, expensive - though you could tell that just from the elegant matte black box wrapped in golden ribbon it arrives in. It’s exactly his style; short, revealing and just dancing along the edge of impropriety, not that that’ll bother him in the slightest. 

But it is gorgeous, and loathe as you are to admit it, it flatters you well.

It’s not the first time that he’s bought you clothes, your tiny closet’s almost overflowing with pieces he’s gifted you. He likes seeing you in the things he’s bought, sometimes a little too much, you think. But you’ve learned it’s better just to go along with it - he gets this wide eyed, beaming grin whenever he sees you dressed in the pretty things he’s bought you, and the sight of it never fails to make your cheeks heat, warmth curling in your stomach. 

The dress was not unexpected. The soft, lacy lingerie that comes in the accompanying box, on the other hand - that was new.

And of course, you barely have time to unwrap your gift when your phone flashes to life, an incoming call from the man himself.

“D’ya like it?”

The giddy excitement in his voice is unmistakable, and if you close your eyes you can picture the look on his face - golden eyes all hooded and hungry, that glittering, eager grin he wears when the two of you are out in public but his mind’s occupied with all the filthy, wonderful things he wants to do to you the moment you’re alone. 

Not that he’s ever that patient. 

“Um, it’s…” Fingers tentatively reach into the tissue paper, pulling the sheer, lacy bra out, warmth blossoming in your cheeks. The matching panties - a tiny scrap of lace held together with bows and thin black straps - really aren’t much better. Like the dress, the lingerie is clearly well made, probably cost more than your weekly rent, and the delicate set is arguably gorgeous (you can’t even argue his taste), but–

“You’re gonna wear it for me tonight, right, baby?” 

It’s not really a question; of course you will, because you always do. You would have thought by now that you’d be used to the gifts he showers you in. 

“Yeah, but Kou, you really didn’t have to spend all this money on me. Dinner’s enough,” you tell him, setting the lingerie back down. 

Dinner, and everything else for that matter. 

A chuckle echoes down the line. “But I like spoiling my girl. Like buying you pretty things,” his voice dips, “like tearing ‘em off you afterwards, too.” 

And despite all the apprehension curled up inside of you, a shiver of excitement runs down your spine. 

—

“So…” Misuzu pushes, leaning across the countertop with her chin resting on her palm and looking entirely too pleased at your discomfort.

“He… asked me to meet him.”

Her eyes widen, sparkling in delight as she gasps, “For dinner?”

“For a drink - one drink,” you clarify. You elect not to tell her that he’d initially tried to sway you into dinner, and it was you who’d talked him down to a drink. Truthfully, you’d probably feel more comfortable getting coffee, but meeting at a bar was fine.

One drink, and if things got awkward or he turned out to be a creep you’d be out of there in a heartbeat. 

“Oh my god!! My baby Y/N, all grown up and manipulating old, lonely men for money. I’m so proud,” she wipes a fake tear from her eye and bursts into a fit of giggles.

A crinkle appears between your brow as you frown at her, “He’s not even that old,” you grumble, “and it’s not like that. You know it’s not.”

“No?” she asks, her lips curling into a teasing smirk. “You know, for somebody who was so against me messaging your soon to be sugar daddy, you sure move quickly.”

She laughs at the glare you shoot her way. “You were the one who started this.”

“Mhm, and you were the one who didn’t stop it. Funny that, don’t you think?”

She looks like the cat that ate the canary; smug, glittering amusement written all across her face. And you hate, more than anything, that she’s right.

Because you’d meant to put a stop to it the moment you managed to wrestle your phone back from her. Afterwards, you’d blame the lingering hurt of having your heart broken, the insecurities and bitter humiliation that plagued you, the feeling that you weren’t good enough to stop your boyfriend from straying for making you so pathetically vulnerable and desperate for approval - but when you opened the chat instead of the sleazy come on’s you expected, his first message makes something inside of you flutter, warm and pleasant.

Holy crap, you’re beautiful.

Not exactly a sonnet from Shakespeare, but you can’t remember the last time any guy, much less your ex, called you beautiful. 

It didn’t exactly hurt that instead of the aging, creepy looking letch you were half expecting, the profile picture showed a rather fit, attractive man in a crisp, black suit with silvery grey streaked hair and an easy grin. Of course, it was a fifty-fifty chance that the pic wasn’t even him, or if it was then it was outdated or heavily edited, but it was enough to make you pause.

Enough to make you… curious, if nothing else.

But ridiculously attractive or not, you weren’t going to lead him on. If he wanted some pretty, simpering thing to fuck and throw money at, to call him daddy and be his sweet, obedient little girl - that wasn’t you. You’d explained that you weren’t really sure if this was your thing, that you probably weren’t what he had in mind, but surprisingly he hadn’t been put off by that.

Well what’s the harm in finding out for yourself? Maybe you’ll like it more than you think ;)

—

There were rules, when you started - lines you both agreed wouldn’t be crossed.

First and foremost, while it wasn’t exactly a conventional relationship - at least, not the kind you were used to - it was still a relationship of sorts, and there was an expectation of honesty in lieu of absolute exclusivity. You’d tell him if you were seeing anybody else, and Bokuto would tell you the same. Considering sex was on the table, it made sense.

You swore right from the beginning that you wouldn’t allow yourself to become financially dependent on him - you knew all too well that relationships were fickle things to begin with. That kind of dependency was half the reason you were in this position in the first place, and you wouldn’t - couldn’t - let that happen again. That didn’t mean that the arrangement wasn’t transactional. After a few initial meetings that went better than you expected, the two of you came to an agreement; a nice little sum of money he’d deposit weekly in your account in exchange for you being there when he wanted you. Dinner dates, skype calls when he’s travelling, spur of the moment weekends away in expensive hotels - whatever he wanted... within reason.

The thing is, despite his flaws - the little funks he gets into, his immaturity despite the age gap between you, the way he clings to you, mopes if you don’t pay him the attention he wants - you genuinely like Bo, he’s oddly endearing. Loveable, even. He reminds you a little of a puppy; eager for affection, bright and boisterous with boundless energy (and enviable stamina). He’s sweet and adoring and funny and he has this uncanny ability to make everything else fade away when you’re with him, to make you feel like you’re the only woman in the room, beautiful and perfect and entirely his-

But that didn’t make him your boyfriend. 

You weren’t lovers, and whether it was in two weeks or two years, you both knew this arrangement had an expiration date. And because of that, there were no strings attached. At any point, either one of you could end it without an explanation - no questions asked, no feelings hurt. 

—

Truthfully, you don’t know an awful lot about Bokuto’s line of work, only that his position within the company is senior enough that he can move around his schedule pretty much as he wants, leaving him free to see you whenever he likes. 

Which wasn’t a problem when that was once or twice a week. 

“Sorry, Koutarou, you know I can’t. Maybe tomorrow?”

The petulant whine that echoes down the phone fills you with an odd sort of  guilt. “Why not? You said no on Friday, too,” he pouts. “I miss you, baby. Wanna see you again.”

You shove down the faint, flickering unease that nudges at your gut. You’re not his girlfriend, and you find yourself wondering whether or not he sometimes deliberately lets himself forget that.

Nibbling at your bottom lip, you frown, “I told you I have work today. It’s too late for me to try and find someone to cover my shift, and if I call in again-”

You can kiss your job goodbye. You’re already on thin ice with your boss, and it’s not like new waitresses are hard to find these days. 

“Well… what time do you finish?” he asks, his voice thick with dejection, as if he already knows what your answer’s going to be.

You bite back a sigh, “Late. I’m on close again.”

The short silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. “… I’ll come pick you up afterwards.”

This time you can’t stop the soft sigh that escapes, “Kou, I’m gonna be exhausted, I won’t be any fun to be around.”

“Still wanna see you. You’re always working,” he grumbles. “Feels like you don’t have time for me anymore, baby.”

Slowly your eyes flutter shut, and you take a deep breath. It always comes back to this. “I need this job, baby. We’ve talked about this… I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I have the whole day off, I’m entirely yours.”

“All mine, hm?”

You smile, “All yours, promise.”

He hums in acknowledgement, not entirely happy, but temporarily placated. “Fiiiine. But I’m holding you to it.”

As if you expected any less. “I have to go get ready for work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll see you later,” he promises, and you hang up a moment later. 

When he said that, you assumed that both of you were on the same page as to what ‘later’ meant.

Three hours into your shift, you hadn’t expected to return from the kitchen to find a grinning Bokuto lounging in one of your booths.

“He asked for you specifically when he came in,” one of your coworkers tells you, shooting you a playful wink. “Didn’t know you were into silver foxes, Y/N. But I can’t say I blame you, he’s hot!”

“Yeah, thanks,” you mutter distractedly, glancing over your shoulder to check your manager wasn’t watching before making your way over.

The smile on your face is tight as golden eyes flicker towards you. “Bokuto,” you begin quietly, “what- what are you doing here?”

An odd look passes across his face at the use of his family name, but the smug grin remains. “You said you had to work tonight,” he says with a cavalier shrug, as if that explained everything. 

“Yes, because I’m working! Kou, I need this job, I can’t-” you break off with a huff, darting another glance over your shoulder. Thankfully, your manager’s busy berating your co-worker for a screwed up order and hasn’t noticed your absence yet.  

Taking advantage of your distracted state, Bokuto reaches across the table to take your hand in his, his thumb stroking back and forth along the back of your palm. “Hey, hey, relax. You’re here to work, I get it, baby. I’m just here for some food, cross my heart,” he swears, drawing an imaginary X over his chest with his finger.

Gently tugging your hand back, you ignore the hurt little pout he gives you. “So you decided to drive twenty minutes across town just to eat here?” you ask, trying to keep the exasperation from colouring your tone. 

He shifts a little in his seat, cheeks flushing a dusty pink under your narrowed stare. “… Well, maybe I wanted to see my pretty girl, too,” he admits, “But I swear I’ll be on my best behaviour!”

Somehow, his words don’t fill you with confidence, but what are you supposed to do? Kick him out? Snap at him for coming despite the fact you told him not to? Taking a deep, steadying breath through your nose, you force yourself to relax. Bokuto’s not hurting anybody by being there, and so long as he keeps his hands to himself, so long as he behaves, it won’t be an issue.

He’s a paying customer, and you’ll treat him just like you would anyone else who walked through the restaurant’s doors.

Yet despite trying to reassure yourself of that, you can’t escape the niggling sense of unease sitting in the pit of your stomach. Even if he’s the perfect gentleman tonight, the perfect stranger, you’ve worked hard to keep your boring day to day life and the one you’ve created with him in nice, neat, separate boxes. Bokuto hasn’t met your friends or your family and outside of Misuzu they don’t have a clue about your arrangement with your attractive if somewhat clingy benefactor.

You don’t want them to know.

Him being here threatens that - it makes you nervous.

But you’ve been with Bokuto long enough to know that you can’t tell him that without hurting his feelings, and you definitely don’t have the energy to deal with that tonight. It’s a conversation for another day.

Instead, you allow a small smile to tug at the corners of your lips, “You know the food’s pretty average here, you might be disappointed.”

Bokuto grins again, mischief sparkling in those golden eyes, and your traitorous heart skips a beat. “Yeah, don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he leans in closer, “I’m far more interested in what’s for dessert.”

Warmth floods your cheeks as he snickers. 

—

For the most part he keeps his hands to himself, but you can’t quite bring yourself to relax when you can feel those golden, hungry eyes burning a hole into your back as you move around the restaurant serving other customers.

You pretend you don’t see the scowling glower he sends to the harmless office-worker who spends a good forty five minutes flirting with you every time you go over to check on his table.

Bokuto orders enough food to feed a small army and stays until close, leaving a more than generous tip on his way out. 

It goes without saying that he waits for you to finish up. The moment you slip out the door, calling out one last goodnight to your coworker, he’s on you, pushing you up against the brick alleyway wall, hiking your legs up over his hips as his mouth attacks yours, greedy and eager, swallowing up any and all protests you might’ve had.

He doesn’t take you home like you ask, but back to his penthouse suite, and neither of you get much sleep that night.

—

You’re halfway through washing your hair a few days later when your shower head splutters once… twice… and stops completely. 

A blockage in the plumbing, your landlord informs you rather apathetically. It’s affecting the whole floor and it’ll take at least a day or two to get somebody out to fix it properly, leaving you without running water for the entirety of that time.

In hindsight, there were at least three other people you could have (and probably should have) called first, but he’s already answering the phone before the thought even occurs to you. 

And then it’s too late to backpedal. You find yourself grateful that he can’t physically see the way you flush and fidget, pacing around your living room as you awkwardly try to explain the reason you’re calling at ten in the morning. 

“Would, I mean, i-is it okay if I come over to use your shower? Just for this one time, mine kind of got interrupted this morning.” 

God, from the way you stutter, stumbling over your own tongue, you’d think you were asking him to marry you. You’ve spent the night at his countless times before, but asking for a favour, even a small one like this - maybe you’re toeing an unwritten line in the sand? Bokuto isn’t with you because he loves you, he’s with you because it’s mutually beneficial for both of you, because of an agreement. 

He wants fun, easy, not you saddling him with minor inconveniences. Calling to ask him to come save you, albeit from something as mundane as a lack of access to a functioning shower, feels like something you’d ask your boyfriend to do. 

Not your sugar daddy.

But just as you’re about to backtrack and apologise for interrupting his morning, he speaks. “What d’you mean? Just come stay with me till it’s fixed.”

He says it with such certainty, as if it’s the most obvious solution and for a moment you’re stunned into silence. “A-are you sure? I don’t want-'' Don't want what? To be an inconvenience? A problem? “I don’t want to be in the way,” you finish lamely.

Bokuto just laughs, “Don’t be stupid, baby, of course you won’t be in the way. Just swing by the office and I can give you the keys. Or I can just get you another set made? I don’t know, we can figure it out later. I’ll see you soon, ‘kay?” 

And you have to admit, as apprehensive as you were stepping into his penthouse alone for the first time, showering in Bokuto’s fancy ensuite bathroom (which you’re fairly sure is bigger than your actual bedroom) is a hell of a lot nicer than doing it at home. The lotions he has are all expensive brands with french names you’ve never even heard of before, but they smell amazing and they leave your skin feeling all soft and silky. Even the shampoo he’s bought for you to use is far nicer than the one you have at home, though you’re secretly pleased that its scent’s similar - your favourite, actually. 

Did he buy them knowing that or was it just a coincidence, you wonder. You never thought to ask. 

Without work, or Bo for that matter, to occupy your time, you decide to take advantage of his gigantic TV, opening up Netflix and settling into his ridiculously comfortable couch… 

… And wake, a few hours later to the feeling of fingers carding through your hair and a pair of lips pressing against your cheek. 

Bokuto’s home, you realise with a start, and there’s drool on your chin. Face burning with embarrassment, you hastily wipe it away with the back of your palm and try to sit up, only for Bokuto’s hand to wrap around your wrist, halting you in your tracks.

“No, don’t get up, baby,” he says, easing down onto the couch beside you and shifting your head onto his lap so he can continue threading his fingers through your hair. “I like coming home to this.”

Still half asleep, curling up and nuzzling further into those warm, thick thighs of his, you miss the intensity of the adoration burning in golden depths as he coaxes you back to sleep.

—

The two of you are in bed, your cheek resting on his chest, his arm slung over your waist and knuckles brushing idly along your side, when Bokuto breaks the comfortable silence. 

“Move in with me.”

You tense in his arms, heart skipping a beat. For a split second, you’re almost positive that you misheard him. “I-I’m sorry?” You push yourself up onto your elbow, turning your head so that you can look at him properly.

But Bokuto doesn’t miss a beat. “Move in with me,” he repeats, golden eyes bearing down on you.

The expression on your face is frozen halfway between disbelief and hysteria, and you’re staring at him, waiting for that stupid grin to break across his face, for him to laugh and tell you how ridiculous you look, because of course he’s joking.

He’s joking, right?

“Koutarou,” you begin slowly, “Wha- I don’t… Why would you want me to move in with you? We barely- I mean, we’re not…” 

He shrugs his shoulders, “Why wouldn’t I? It makes sense. My place is bigger and nicer, and I like having you here with me. Feels right.”

It feels right??

“I-I can’t just move out of my apartment, Kou.”

His eyebrows knit together, and he huffs, “Why not? It’s a shitty apartment.”

“That’s not the point!” Knocking away the hand that reaches for you, you push yourself all the way up until you’re sitting properly. “I don’t want to move.” 

Owlish eyes narrow, a flash of irritation sparking. “Why not? It makes perfect sense for you to move in here with me. You wouldn’t have to work at that stupid job anymore for one,” he huffs. 

“Bokuto, I’m not going to quit my job,” you mutter. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Why, though?!” he explodes. “You don’t need the money, I’ve told you I can take care of you, whatever you want, baby, name it and it’s fucking yours. You don’t need to work and you don’t need that shitty little apartment!”

Like a crystal glass slipping from numb fingers, the fantasy you’ve convinced yourself you’ve been living shatters into a thousand jagged shards in the space of a single breath.

Oh, how naive you’ve been. How fucking stupid.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you inhale deeply, “Kou, that’s not-”

Strong fingers grip your jaw, and your eyes shoot open as he tugs your face back towards him. Your breath catches in your throat, heart hammering painfully against your ribs. His eyes are wide, pupils blown out, but it’s the intensity in his gaze as he stares at you, the blank expression-

“I love you.”

—

39 missed calls. 72 unread messages. 

Flowers, bouquets of roses, peonies and chrysanthemums piled up by your door between boxes of chocolates and other gifts you won’t bring yourself to open. 

Wide eyed, Misuzu gingerly steps over them, holding two steaming mugs in hand. “Holy fuck,” she murmurs, and for the first time since this stupid, awful mistake began, there’s not a trace of mirth to be found. “Y/N, I…”

But she doesn’t have the words, and you can’t blame her. 

“He told me he loves me,” you sigh. “He asked me to move in with him and told me he loved me, and I grabbed my clothes and all but ran.” You still can’t get the image of Bokuto’s face out of your head, the raw, aching hurt swimming in his eyes as you all but stumbled over excuses in your haste to get out of there. But he didn’t lift a finger to stop you, didn’t say another word.

He just watched numbly, hunched over against the headboard as you fled.

There’s a short beat of silence between the two of you as she sets down the drinks and collapses into the chair beside you. “And… do you love him back?” 

Exhaling loudly, you drop your face into your palms. “I-”

You like how he makes you feel beautiful, the filthy, wonderful praise he lavishes you in when the two of you sleep together, the way he touches you, fingers and mouth so eager to please as his cock fills you, inch by delicious inch.

You like being adored, treasured, and you liked Bo, but… you don’t love him.

That was never on the cards, that wasn’t what your relationship was.

Every line he ever crossed, every boundary he toed, you keep replaying them again and again over and over in your head like a never ending loop. You hadn’t even wanted this whole stupid sugar baby relationship to begin with, and every step of the way he was the one to coax you forward.

And you let him, swallowing down your doubts and your insecurities each and every time. You let him think that this was something else entirely… 

How had you not seen this coming?

“No,” you admit.

The hand that takes yours is soft, and when you glance over with eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears, Misuzu squeezes it gently. “Then end it. Walk away.”

And with your head on her shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around you, you type out a short message to Bokuto. No strings attached and no questions asked, you’d promised each other that much when you’d started this mess. You wonder if it still holds true. 

I’m sorry. Clearly we were on different pages and want different things. I didn’t mean to lead you on or for things to go as far as they did, but I can’t do this with you anymore. 

You send it and block his contact, and when the tears come and painful sobs rip their way free, Misuzu holds you tight and murmurs soft reassurances. It’ll pass, all breakups hurt.

—

A week after your ‘breakup’ you get a notification on your phone that money’s been transferred into your bank account. 

For a moment, you think that maybe it’s an accident, a recurring transaction he’d simply forgotten to cancel (you doubt he’d even notice) until you click into the transaction itself.

It isn’t the sum itself that startles you - twice the usual amount - but the short note attached in the description.

I need to see you. Please.

You transfer the money right back into his account.

—

Without your weekly supplement from Bo, it doesn’t take long for you to come to the realisation that your current salary just barely covers rent and your bills, and if you want to eat anything other than two minute noodles in the foreseeable future, you’re going to need either more hours, or a second job. 

Thankfully, the timing works out well. When you go to your boss with your most winning smile to try and convince her of your plight, she simply shrugs and agrees, having had to let one of the junior staff go only a few days before. The one catch being that instead of working a mix of morning and afternoon shifts with the occasional closing thrown in, you’re now exclusively on close, five nights a week, Tuesday through Saturday.

Mostly, it doesn’t bother you. The shifts are long and you always leave feeling aching, drained and barely human, but usually it’s quiet enough, and so long as you can get the last few lingering customers out early enough, the actual close runs pretty smoothly between you and the other staff. 

It’s not what you really want to be doing, but you’ve learned to make the best of it. This is adult life, and for the first time since high school, you’re supporting yourself entirely. It might not be the greatest job in the world, and there are absolutely days when you just want to throw in the towel completely, but there is a slight pride to that fact. You don’t need anybody in your life to coddle or support you, you’re figuring this shit out as you go along.

You just wish, sometimes, that you could do that without having to work until the early hours of the morning.

On paper, the kitchen closes at midnight and the last customers are supposed to be out within half an hour of that. Then, between yourself and another server, you can usually get the restaurant tidied up and closed a little after one. 

You knew right from the moment you clocked on that tonight wasn’t going to be one of those nights. The girl who’s supposed to be on close with you called in sick and your boss hasn’t bothered to replace her.

It’s not the first time you’ve had to close by yourself, but it’s still a pain, especially when the last few customers take forever to finish up and leave. 

One of the kitchen staff offers to stay back, his bag slung over his shoulder, hand already on the door handle but you just shake your head with a tired smile. 

“Nah, I can handle it. Thanks, though,”

To his credit, he doesn’t immediately take the offered out. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

Without any help, it takes almost twice as long for you to finish up, and it’s a little after two when you finally flick off the lights and lock the doors.

Your feet are killing you, and all you can think about is sinking into your bed at home, burrowing into your blankets and sleeping for a week straight-

“Hey, baby.” 

Leaning against the hood of his car, arms folded across his broad chest and eyeing you with an unreadable expression, is Bokuto. 

The tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. 

There's nothing inherently threatening about him being here, but it’s the middle of the night, you haven’t seen him in almost two weeks and you don’t need to glance around to know that the car park’s empty. There’s nobody in sight.

Just you and him, and the few feet of distance separating you. 

“K-kou, what are you… what are you doing here?” 

He smiles at that, the way his name slips from your lips, but only for a fleeting second. It fades, and a cold, uncomfortable feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. 

“I missed you, y’know?” He pushes off the hood and takes a step towards you, “You didn’t call me.”

He’s always been bigger than you, towering over you looking like some Adonis with those rippling, powerful muscles of his. You used to like that strength, squealing in wicked delight when he’d hoist you up with a grin, hands gripping your thighs, squeezing your ass, your back shoved up against the wall so he could drive his cock deeper into ‘his pretty fuckin’ pussy’. 

But that was then. 

You’ve never been scared of his strength. Even that morning in the apartment, he didn’t lash out, didn’t scream or yell, he just… shut down. He wouldn’t hurt you, you know that.

That doesn’t stop you from skittering backwards like a frightened little bunny, your back hitting the wall.

The very moment you do, you watch as his eyes widen in surprise, hurt flashing for a split second-

-before they darken, his face twisting into a scowl, and you can’t escape the feeling you’ve made an awful mistake. 

Dread creeps its way up your spine, tightening like a vice around your chest, making it hard to breathe. Your brain is screaming at you to run, adrenaline surging through your veins, but even as your heart races and your breathing spikes, you can’t seem to move your legs.

It wouldn’t make a difference even if you could - with your back up against the literal wall, Bokuto and his car blocking your only escape route, you’re trapped; a fact that hasn’t escaped either of you.

Paralysed in fear, you can’t so much as twitch as he takes another slow, calculated step forward.

Desperately, you open your mouth - to try and placate him? To apologise? Scream for help? - but all that escapes is his name in a choked, breathless whisper. 

“Bokuto…”

As he stares at you, he almost looks regretful.

Almost, if not for the grim determination resolving like steel in those golden eyes of his. “I love you, and I know you love me, too,” he says, closing the gap between you. “I’m doing this for us, baby.”

[randomshyperson]

Left Behind - Wanda Maximoff x Reader - #01 "Muddy Waters"

Summary: The one where you lived in the apartment under the Maximoff family in Sokovia, or, your journey as a Sokovian civilian to Avenger.

A/N: i want to know what people think of this, I feel like it's sounds good in my head but not exactly good in words. Also, this is shorter than what i usually write, i'm trying the "short" chapters a while.

Warnings (under constructions): Violence, mentions of fighting, cursing, light power abuse, war environments.

Words: 2.769 K

Dictionary for this chapter: Parshivets - brat || bratan - brother || dvornyaga - mutt || plague - chuma || Prostite - sorry || Vrediteli - pests || svin'ya - pig || devochka - girl || borot'sya - fight

All Works Masterlist || Read on AO3 || Part Two || Series Masterlist

//-//

Chapter One - Muddy Waters

Sokovia, 11 years ago.

You ran to catch up with one of the boys who was running away from you.

You didn't know his name, but you think he lived in the apartment below you, and since everyone always played together, and there were many children, you didn't know everyone's name. The only thing you really needed to know was who you had to pick up.

"Parshivets!" You heard your brother's voice shout through the window into the area where you were. "Come to dinner!"

"I'm kidding, bratan" You retorted as you stopped running and looked up, gesturing to your apartment window.

"Come up now, papa is telling you to!" Your brother ordered before sticking his head inside again.

Grumbling angrily, you waved goodbye to the other children.

When you reached your floor, you saw the Maximoff twins coming out of their apartment, and smiled at Pietro who noticed you from down the hall.

You hoped that your father would let you play with them later.

//-//

There was dust covering your eyes and nose.

You coughed, running your hand over your face, trying to understand what was happening around you, the sound of sirens and explosions muffled by the ringing in your ear.

"Papa?" You called out with hoarseness in your voice, still somewhat aroused. You blinked and realized that what was your room was now just a pile of rubble.

Feeling a sharp pain in your torso, you looked down, letting out a surprised exclamation at the iron wedged in your belly. You whimpered in pain, trying to move. "Papa." You called out again, completely confused and frightened.

You heard voices in the distance, and sounds on the rocks, but your eyes began to heavy again. Maybe you were going to fall asleep, and maybe sleep would take the pain away, so you closed your eyes.

//-//

"She needs medical assistance." A male voice sounded muffled in your ears. You blinked in confusion, the sky above you as something moved below. You were being carried.

"We have vacancies in district twelve." Said someone on the other side, you tried to look, but your whole body ached and you grumbled. The noise attracted the attention of the soldier carrying you on the stretcher, and he looked at you tenderly.

"Don't worry, kid." He spoke. "We found you in time. You are safe."

You felt your throat dry, and you wanted to ask for water, but you were too weak to speak.

"Papa." It was the only thing you could mumble before everything went dark again.

//-//

When you awoke again, you had a large white bandage around your waist, and the pain had subsided greatly. You were in one of the medical tents that you had seen once in the distance when you ran past the area where the soldiers were staying.

You looked around, frightened and confused, trying to understand what had happened. There was a man in a black suit walking around the stretchers, a notepad in his hands.

"Another casualty." He comments as he scribbles something on the sheet after looking at the girl lying a few beds ahead of his. You felt your stomach turn when you realized she wasn't actually asleep the second after. "It's already twenty-four."

The nurse next to him grumbled in agreement, and then she looked forward and noticed you awake, a gentle smile filling her expression as she turned away from the man to walk over to you.

You drank all the water she served you, and accepted the hug she gave you after telling you that your father and brother did not survive the attack. The man in black tried to reassure you that the orphanage in the district was the best in Sokovia, but you kept crying.

//-//

You stood still with your hands behind your back while the nurse measured your height.

"Look how well behaved you are." She comments with a smile, making you smile as well. She takes a few notes on the placard in front of you and then stoops down to your height. "Are you ready to join the other children?"

You bite the inside of your cheek, denying with your head. The nurse tilts her head to the side slightly.

"You don't have to be afraid." She says. "You're a big girl now, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am." You reply.

"Then why are you scared?"

You shrug, looking down. The nurse sighs lightly, looking toward the door. You know that the children who have already been evaluated are outside the hospital, waiting for the bus from the orphanage.

"I miss my brother." You mumble softly next, causing the woman to glare at you. "He was better at playing than I was. And he always introduced me to the other children."

"You're going to have a lot of brothers now." It was the best thing the woman could think to say, and you nodded in understanding, ignoring the urge to cry. She handed you a lollipop on the way out and told you to behave. You said you would, but your fingers were crossed behind your back.

//-//

The orphanage was a dirty, dark place. The building was old and made strange noises if you stepped in certain places. And there were many children.

The war in Sokovia had left many marks on their country, and it was noticeable in places like this.

You were going to share the north dormitory with fifteen other children, and you had several rules to follow in your new home. The orphanage sisters repeated the guidelines all the way to the building as you walked down the bus corridor. You talked to no one along the way, your attention on the landscape visible through the window.

When you arrived, and were taken to your rooms to put on your uniforms and get ready for dinner and to be assigned the tasks you had started in the morning, you followed obediently, without really being present in the environment. Everything seemed a bit stuffy.

//-//

You stopped sweeping when the sound of voices caught your attention. And well, they caught the attention of all the other girls who were on the same shift as you, because they all looked away, and rushed to the windows to look out. You imitated the movement, and you could see outside a small circle of children forming in the backyard. It was a fight.

Your classmates ran outside, and you sighed, figuring that you weren't going to finish sweeping by yourself, so you'd better join them.

When you reached the small mess, you observed two boys pushing each other in the circle, exchanging insults, but not really hitting each other. The other orphans watched the scene curiously, waiting for the fight to escalate. You hoped this wouldn't happen, since the taller boy was accompanied by three others.

"You're a cheater, aren't you Maximoff?" Accused the blond boy with irritation. You blinked in surprise as you recognized the smaller boy. Your former neighbor, Pietro.

"And you're a bad loser, Sidorov." Retorted the other boy taking a step back to avoid the blond's hands.

"I'm not a loser, cheater." Sidorov thundered, lunging forward again and pushing Pietro to the ground.

You and the small crowd held your breath. The blond boy stepped forward again and hit Pietro in the nose.

Sidorov's friends laughed and Pietro grabbed the blond by the legs, knocking him to the ground. As they rolled in the dirt, the orphans began to shout "borot'sya" and you looked around. Your gaze caught Wanda Maximoff moving through the crowd and advancing toward her brother.

One of Sidorov's friends held her by the arms and she shouted at them to stop fighting. You bit your lip, feeling your heart race. You weren't friends with the twins, and you had no desire to get into a fight that wasn't yours. But they were the most familiar thing around at the moment, so your feet were moving.

You broke through the crowd and grabbed the garden hose, running toward the direction of the fight again. Sidorov was mounted on Pietro having managed to immobilize him, but before he could land the punch, you wrapped the hose around his neck and pulled him backward.

As he let out an exclamation of pain and surprise and fell backwards, trying to shake off the grip, you pulled Pietro off the ground.

"You could have killed me, girl!" gasped the boy on the ground with hatred in his eyes, their friends let go of Wanda to advance against you and Pietro, but someone shouted that the nuns were coming and you grabbed Pietro and Wanda's hand, pulling them to run away with you.

//-//

Breathing hard, you propped your hands on your knee.

"Did we lose them?" Pietro asked just as breathless as you. Wanda looked back, equally tired from the race.

"Yes." She replied as she looked around.

"Great." You grumbled standing up properly. You cleared your throat and shifted your weight between your feet, not knowing exactly what to say next. Pietro approached you, extending his hand.

"Thanks for helping me out back there." He says with a smile. You ignore his hand to raise your finger toward the bruise on his left eye, but you don't touch your face, leaving your finger in the air pointing toward the wound.

"You look like a badass now." You tease, causing the boy to laugh with flushed cheeks. "It's better than your dorky face at least."

"Hey." He retorts with false offense, still smiling. You look at Wanda next, and she is already looking at you curiously.

"You are Y/N." Wanda says. "You lived in the apartment downstairs."

Looking away, you mutter in agreement.

"We didn't know that other people survived the collapse." Pietro comments next, and you nod.

"Well, here we are." You say with irony, causing Wanda and Pietro to frown. Clearing your throat, you take a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I don't like to talk about it."

"It's okay, neither do I." Wanda commented and you gave her a short smile.

"We should get back." You say next, and the twins nod in agreement.

You walk ahead, kicking up a few rocks on the way, looking back a few times to see if they are still behind you.

They are.

//-//

Sokovia, ten years ago.

"Time to wake up little brats"

You grumbled in irritation as you heard the voice of the nursemaid, then the shrill noise of the bell. Gingerly rummaging in your covers, you got out of bed, equally as all your dorm mates.

"Today the governor will visit the orphanage and I expect you to be on your best behavior, or know that you will be punished if you embarrass Father Novikov." Warned Madame Ivanov, the housekeeper of the Sokovia Municipal Orphanage, or your home since the apartment complex where you lived was destroyed when a bomb fell on the structure during one of the civil war conflicts. "This will be my only warning to you, Vrediteli, I will take special care of those who do not behave."

Madama Ivanov looked directly at you, and you clenched your jaw, ignoring the urge to roll your eyes.

"Bath and breakfast." She ordered next. "And after chores, everyone properly dressed in the main courtyard."

Your colleagues moved first than you as soon as Madame left the room. You sighed, sitting up in bed. You hadn't slept very well the night before, dreaming of explosions again. But you didn't have time to think about it, and yawning, you got up again, heading toward the bathrooms.

//-//

You were covered from head to toe in mud. Madame Ivanov and Madame Pavlova looked at you wide-eyed, as did the rest of the room, and you swallowed hard. The room was completely silent, no one ventured to say anything. The perfectly aligned suit of the governor of Sokovia, now with a dark mud stain on his chest.

"Oh, look at this." The man spoke next, you remained static, staring at him wide-eyed. He chuckled, and you almost relaxed. Then a loud slap hit your face and you gasped in pain and surprise. "Do you have any idea how much that suit cost me, pest?" He asked between teeth, and you felt your stomach turn in anger. The man threatened to advance toward you again, and you didn't hesitate to punch him in the balls, drawing an angry exclamation from him and shocked sighs from all your colleagues.

"Don't ever touch me again, svin'ya" You retorted angrily before running away, intending to escape the punishment of the sisters who were sure to catch up with you eventually.

When you stopped running, you were many blocks from the orphanage, a spot below your ribs hurting badly. The mud dried against your skin and you grunted in disgust at the sensation.

Changing the direction of your steps, you snuck through the alleyways of the city, ignoring the looks of disapproval and curiosity people cast at the sight of a ten-year-old covered in mud in the outlying part of town.

You reached the small laundromat in the mall a few minutes later, and snuck into the northern outer entrance, trying not to be seen by the employees as you reached one of the tanks. Fortunately it was lunchtime, and the place was quite empty. You cleared your throat as you reached one of the windows, and the noise attracted the attention of the girl inside, distracted by the dirty fabrics in her hands.

"Damn it, you' scare the shit out of me!" Wanda exclaimed to you, and you laughed expectantly. She opened the window latch next, and you jumped in. "Why are you covered in mud? And why are you here?"

You shrugged, taking off your T-shirt and pants. Wanda hurried to fill a bucket of water as you walked over to one of the empty faucets, leaning over to wash your face.

Clean, you sighed.

"Sorry for showing up unannounced." You ask remembering Wanda's work rules. She would wake up earlier than you, and go to work in the laundry while you and Pietro would take any service you could get since steady jobs like Wanda's were very difficult. And since labor laws didn't apply to children, you and Pietro took Wanda's lunch whenever possible, and helped her wash clothes so she wouldn't be so tired. The rule was always to let her know because her boss couldn't find out about it.

"No problem." She retorts as she looks around for dry clothes for you. "But will you tell me what happened?"

You bite the inside of your cheeks, ducking your head.

"I was fighting." You grumbled and Wanda stopped the motion of reaching for a t-shirt in the upstairs closet, turning to you next with a worried look.

"Again, devochka?" She asked as she approached and used her hand to gently lift your chin up, searching your face for any sign of injury. Without the mud, the purple in your left eye was visible.

"Prostite, Wanda." You muttered in shame, but Wanda sighed shaking her head.

"Why were you fighting?"

You shrugged and Wanda bit her lips. "I tried to kick Nikolai but he shoved me in the mud, and punched me in the face. So I did as you taught me and ran. Only I ended up bumping into the governor."

Wanda's eyes widen at the story.

"So?"

You ducked your head again.

"He slapped me in the face." You say. "And I punched him in the balls."

Wanda blinked in surprise at the confession, and then laughed. You widened your eyes, surprised that she wasn't angry, and she shook her head with amusement, ruffling your hair.

"You've gone crazy." She commented. "The sisters are going to put you in charge of cleaning the bathrooms for the whole month."

You shrugged again, and Wanda walked away, going back to looking for a set of clothes for you.

"Where's Pietro?" She asked as she handed you a set of gray clothes that were probably laundry uniforms that got too old to wear.

"Gathering coal for Mr. Sidorov." You replied as you dressed. Wanda grumbled in understanding as she dipped your muddy clothes into the water.

"I'll bring your clothes to you when I'm done." She comments as she turns to you again, and you nod in agreement hurrying to climb in the window.

"Hey, Wanda." You call out before leaving, glancing at the girl as you lean on the window. "I'll bring you some candy. In thanks." You say with a smile, and don't wait for a reply, turning around.

//

Tag list> @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5 // @myperfectlovepoem // @helloalycia // @ENSORCELLME // @AIMEZVOUSBRAHMS @imapotatao / @aimezvousbrahms/ @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia //   @ichala​ ||  @madamevirgo

[strawberrymilkgeorge]

Part Fourteen. There's No Way.

word count: 5k (not including pictures) warnings: swearing

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

a/n: yeeeeee very excited about this chapter!! we're getting so close to some good stuff!!!! hope you like it!!! (also, if you understand the reference to bug’s second tweet about mr clean, you’re a real one) 

______

Y/n laughed as she tucked her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on top as she stared at her computer monitor. "Yeah, okay, Gogy."

Quackity's laugh sounded through her headphones, cackling loudly and gasping for air as George defended himself in their voice channel. None of them were streaming, which allowed them to tease each other relentlessly without worrying about leaking real things. Currently, the target of the teasing was Y/n. Her guilty crime: Dream’s nickname for her. "She got his ass!"

"Oh shut up, Big Q," Y/n quickly spat back. "At least neither of us has a nickname that lies about our size. Short boy."

Quackity stopped laughing and pulled out his defensive card. "Okay, that's literally not funny. That's messed up of you to say, actually."

"Waaah," Y/n mocked.

"Okay, Bugsy, but no one seriously calls me Gogy, it's just as a joke," George defended himself. "I was only saying that I think it's cute how Dream calls you Bug!"

"Shut up," she mumbled with embarrassment. She loved the nickname and especially how everyone seemed to agree it was reserved for him. She wondered if he noticed that too, how everyone else, including most fans, called her Bugsy, leaving Dream as the only online friend who used the nickname.

"She's embarrassed," Quackity giggled. "Awww. Is the Buggy Wuggy embarrassed of having a crush?"

“I don’t have a crush,” she lied convincingly. 

“You better not. The title of your affection deservingly goes to me,” he said proudly, as if there was any shred of truth in his words.

“Get over yourself, Quackity,” George laughed, “before Dream tells you off again about being too short for Bugsy.”

“HEY!”

"I'm back," Sapnap announced as he unmuted in Discord. "What did I miss?"

"They're still bullying me," Y/n exaggerated.

“No, they’re bullying me!” Quackity scoffed.

“Sapnap, make them stop,” Y/n begged playfully. Usually Sapnap was on her side.

"It’s for a good reason though," Sapnap teased. "I mean, we'll stop bullying you if you admit to liking him," he lowered his voice slightly, probably since he lived in the same house as the man they were talking about.

Y/n smiled to herself and hid it behind her hoodie sleeve as if they could see her anyway. She kinda liked that she hadn't told Quackity or Sapnap about her official crush, enjoying having a secret like that. Well, a secret that George, Karl, and Naomi knew too.

"Then I guess I'll be bullied until the day that I die," she sighed. She swore she heard George cover a laugh with a cough and she sent his icon a death glare. He seemed to enjoy knowing her secret a little too much. 

"Is anyone going to actually stream today?" Sapnap asked. "I wanna do something."

"I'm thinking about doing Jackbox later," Quackity admitted. "Do you guys wanna join if I do?"

"Yes! Please," Sapnap whined. "I'm so bored."

"Sure, I'll play. Karl is spending the night so I can make him play too."

"Sleepover?" George asked. " Can I come?"

"Hm, no."

"That's messed up!"

"Can you join, George?" Quackity asked. "I need you in my title."

George hummed contemplatively and his voice turned mischievous, if only for a moment. "Yeah, if you get Dream to play."

Yeah, he definitely enjoyed knowing her secret too much.

"Right, you only play when your boyfriend plays too," Quackity groaned. "Cancel Dreamnotfound, I believe in Dreamsy supremacy."

"Says the man who asks me to marry him every day," Y/n scoffed.

"Actually, you're right! Bugity supremacy," he said.

"I swear it's become more frequent since I said you could flirt with me online again."

"It has, I'm making up for lost time."

Y/n rolled her eyes and Sapnap laughed. "I'll get Dream to play," Sapnap offered.

"So you'll play, George? I need you to commit," Quackity said.

"Yeah, why not," George agreed before adding with a giggle, "I wanna see Dream try to flirt with Bugsy."

"I hate you all,” specifically you, George, she thought. “I'm not playing anymore."

"NO, YOU ALREADY SAID YOU WOULD!" Quackity shouted.

"FINE," she groaned, a small laugh escaping her lips and completely exposing that she wasn't actually mad. "Speaking of Karl sleeping over, he's coming over in a bit so I'm gonna get off."

"Booo," Sapnap protested lightly. "Have fun with Karl."

"Let me know if he's going to play Jackbox with us. He better," Quackity threatened with no real substance.

"I'll make him," Y/n promised. "Bye guys!"

"Bye!" George and Sapnap shouted together before she disconnected the call.

Y/n stood up from her desk, stretching softly before looking around her room. She had a laundry basket in the corner, overflowing with clean, and now probably wrinkled, clothes waiting to be folded. She decided to use her time to clean up before Karl got there, even though they were probably going to sleep on the couches if at all.

She dumped the clean clothes onto her bed, tossing the things that needed to be hung to the side and neatly folded the rest. When she put her hoodies and sweaters on hangers, she noticed how much of her friends' merch she had. She had two GeorgeNotFound hoodies, a Sapnap shirt and hoodie, and even a Quackity hoodie. Karl didn't have any merch, but she did have a few of his personal hoodies that she had stolen from him over time and considered those her own exclusive merch, even though some of them had the Mr. Beast logo on them. She decided she needed Dream's merch.

For some unknown reason, perhaps it was because of how much she liked him, her face grew warm at the thought of wearing a Dream hoodie, even though it wouldn't have belonged to him. The idea made her nervous, like that would somehow give away that she had a crush on him if she bought some of his merch, even though she bought some of her friends' and even had Karl's actual hoodies. Despite the reasons that that was stupid of her to think, her brain said owning one Dream hoodie would be a dead giveaway of her crush, so she put off buying any. In reality, he'd probably laugh in his cute way when he heard that she bought one, or maybe go "whAT!" in surprise and happiness.

She desperately wanted to tell him things like that, tell him how happy his laugh made her and how adorable he was, or how she got butterflies every time he talked about anything at all. Since she couldn’t just call him up and tell him she hated stopped thinking about him, she decided to do something bold and subtweeted him, even adding a picture of herself with her face covered, hoping he would know it was about him, but that no one else would. She turned off comments for good measure, in case the stans made assumptions. Now that she threw away the "no flirting" rule for all her friends, she could do things like this. Worst case scenario is he thinks it’s weird, she tells him it was only a joke, and they go on their merry ways. Her heart would be broken, but nevertheless her ego would be somewhat saved. Harmless. 

Nervously ― plagued with the thoughts of possible consequences of posting something so bold and, to her, so obvious — she made her way to the kitchen and got a glass of water. He would know it was about him, right? And that's what she wanted? It was so forward of her to say to the world, especially since she hadn't tagged him in it. Leaving it up to interpretation almost made it like she was trying to hide it from him, which wasn't the case or she wouldn't have hit, Tweet.

She waited for him to tweet something vague about her as a response, or maybe even text her, before realizing it had the potential to make him uncomfortable. Maybe he would pretend to not see it so he didn't embarrass her, or didn't even know it was about him. Or maybe he's asleep and hasn't been on his phone. She looked at her clock. Dream asleep at 3:30pm? Unlikely.

As Y/n fell on her bed, contemplating whether she should delete the post and pretend like it never happened, she felt her phone vibrate and quickly swiped the screen to read it.

Y/n had to literally set her phone down to scream into her pillow. He was killing her. Stabbing her in the heart and twisting the knife with his sweet compliments and smooth delivery. He had to know what he was doing, the way he was talking to her like that. No one said "prove it" in that context without having something more behind it.

Why couldn't he just like her? Why did he have to be so nice and flirty towards all his friends? Why couldn’t she be the exception?

She picked her phone back up and left the messaging app, finding her camera roll and swiping through it in search for something to catch her eye. Food pic, meme, Karl’s cat, meme, picture of Naomi nearly falling off a sidewalk... where were her pictures of her face? Did she really not have any of herself? The seemingly endless scrolling stopped when she found one from when she first moved into the apartment. Naomi had taken pictures of every room to show her parents and asked Y/n if she could show her parents the streamers room as well. Y/n cheerfully agreed, and actually wanted to be in the photo because she loved Naomi’s parents like they were her own, so she jumped on her bed and smiled for the picture.

It was cute, the comforter she sat on was messy and looked comfy, and she liked the way she was posed, cross-legged and beaming at the camera with her dying plant on the windowsill in the background and fairy lights around the room. It was also back when her room was clean and presentable. Y/n thought it was a good photo and even would have posted it if not for the whole her being a faceless streamer thing.

She held her breath, contemplating if she should just send the image to Dream. She wanted to, she really did. But that fear of how he perceived her still nagged in the back of her mind.

Y/n must have been mulling it over for a while because as she decided to not send it, Dream followed up on his last text, clearly worried that he was pressuring her. She wanted to change the subject as soon as possible before she changed her mind and face revealed to him.

Y/n took a deep breath at the thought of how close she was to sending that picture to Dream. It wasn't the first time she genuinely considered it, nor would it be the last, but that was the first time she actually looked through her camera roll for options. She so desperately wanted to. Wanted to show him what she looked like. Wanted to hear what he thought of her. Wanted to hear him say, "I like you, Bug" after finally seeing what she looked like. Wanted to let him know how much she trusted him by showing him her biggest fear. It would be so easy to just rip off the Band-Aid; only a few clicks and he could see her face. See her.

But then there was the possibility of none of her fantasies happening. What if she sent him a picture saying, "here is me!" and all he says is, "nice", not finding her pretty or ugly? What if he thought it was just like... seeing a picture of a friend. He and I are just friends, Y/n scolded herself. But him seeing her opened up the opportunity for him to like her.

It was scarier the longer she put it off, almost like the more she postponed it, the more she had to prove. If Dream knew what she looked like from the beginning, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But since she had waited so long to show him, she felt like she had to make it worth the wait.

Was she worth the wait?

Y/n's bedroom door swung open, ripping her out of her thoughts and letting her know that Karl had arrived. He smiled at her and she laughed in response.

"Hello, Karl. Ever heard of knocking?"

"Nope!" he responded as he set down a cupholder with three drinks on her nightstand. "How are you?"

"Good." Daydreaming out about Dream... again. "How are you?"

"I'm so excited!" He dropped his backpack on the floor and turned to her, pulling her off her bed and giving her a hug. "I've missed you!"

"You saw me, like, a couple of days ago," she laughed as she hugged him back.

"A couple of days too long," he sighed dramatically, rocking back and forth into the hug before Y/n lightly pulled away from him. "Where's Naomi?"

"Uh... in her room I'm guessing?"

"I'm going to go give this to her," he explained grabbing one of the drinks and walking out. "Don't miss me too much!"

Y/n laughed and shook her head, laying back down on her bed with her phone in hand. She reread some of the texts between her and Dream and couldn't help the large smile that plastered itself on her face.

When Karl came back in, he jumped on the bed, wrapping his arms around her stomach and snuggling into her side. "Hello."

She laughed but pushed him away slightly, trying to ignore the pout on his face at her actions. "Hi."

"Oh, happy December!"

"Already? Geesh."

"Yeah, only 27 days until the lake!!!!"

Nervous and excited butterflies festered in the pit of Y/n's stomach. "What drink did you get me?"

"Your faaavorite," he sang as he grabbed the drink letting her sit up and lean against the headboard before handing it to her.

"Thank you very much," she said as she took a sip. "Oh, hey, so Quackity wants to do a Jackbox stream tonight and I said you'd join."

Karl groaned and laid back on Y/n, careful not to knock her drink out of her hand. "Noooo...."

"You don't wanna play?" she asked genuinely, patting his hair lightly as his head rested on her legs.

"I just want to hang out with you. It's been so long since we had Karl and Y/n time."

She sighed. "I know, but it will be fun. We'll play for like an hour and a half and then we can hang out for the rest of the night and all day tomorrow until you have to go to Jimmy’s house," she bargained like she was talking a four-year-old into eating some vegetables.

"Hmph. Fine," Karl pouted. "Is Dream playing?"

She shrugged. "I think so?"

"That's why you want to play so bad."

"What? No! I agreed to play before Sapnap said he would ask him."

"Mmmhm. So that Tweet earlier wasn't about him?"

"The... Tweet?" she played dumb but her face warmed up.

"Or was it about me?" he joked. "Have you just been blown away ever since we met and you're still thinking about how cute I am?"

"Shut up," she lightly pushed Karl's head off her lap as her face grew hotter. "Am I wrong though?"

"I don't know!" he said as he sat up and looked at her. "I've never seen the man!!"

"Oh, really?" she asked. "I didn't want to post it because I didn't want people to think I was bragging about knowing what he looks like..." she sighed.

"Then why did you?"

"Because... I also really wanted him to see it," she said with a shy giggle.

Karl face lit up as he cackled at her. "Look at you, trying to flirt!! Let's gooo!!!"

Y/n buried her face in her sweatshirt collar and laughed.

"Oh my gosh? Y/n subtweeting and flirting at the same time?? What on Earth?"

"It only counts if it works."

"Did it?” Karl asked as he leaned back and played with his rings. “You turned off comments and I didn't see him subtweet you back."

"That's because he... texted me... instead."

"WHAT? What did he say?"

Y/n laughed. "He said I wasn't allowed to tweet something like that and then turn off comments so he can't tell everyone it was about him."

Karl cackled again. "HAHAH! So true though!"

"Whatever. I'm not telling you anything else about our conversation."

"Why, was it spicy?"

"No. But— this is weird to talk about!"

Karl frowned. "You don't have to tell me... I just think it's so cute. But if you ever do want to talk about how much you wuv Dweam, I'm all ears. Tell me everything."

Y/n rolled her eyes fondly. "Okay Kawl."

"What time is Quackity streaming?" Karl changed the subject, understanding that Y/n actually didn't want to talk about Dream.

"I don't know. Ask him. Also, tell him you're joining so he knows." She took another long sip from her drink as Karl pulled out his phone and texted Quackity.

Her fingers itched to make another Tweet about Dream and she finally succumbed, but decided to outright tease him instead of flirt, not hiding the identity of her target this time. Really, it was just an excuse for her to try to get his attention like she couldn't just text him and have it right away.

_____

"Sapnap!" Bugsy cheered as he joined the Discord, Quackity off talking to his chat while the others slowly joined. So far, the only people there were Sapnap, Bugsy, and Karl.

"Bugsy!" he called back with a giggle. "Hi! Is Karl coming?"

"I'm here, Sapnap!" Karl announced. "Bugsy and I are just using the same mic."

"Am I not good enough for you?" she teased Sapnap and he laughed.

"Well you're going to ignore me to talk to Dream once he gets here, so I need a backup so I'm not lonely."

Y/n rolled her eyes with a smile and Karl laughed.

"We can talk while they flirt," Karl promised.

"Both of you shut up," she scolded softly.

Pretty soon, the others joined. In the end, Quackity had convinced Bad, Punz, and Wilbur to play, as well as all the feral boys.

"You could only get nine people to play, Quackity?" George asked once Quackity unmuted. "Wow, you must not have friends."

"Hey! I have friends, George! I do."

"Then where's the tenth person, Big Q?" Wilbur countered.

"LOOK! It was last minute! Where's Drea– that man is always late, I swear to—"

"I'm here!" Dream said quickly, joining the voice channel. "I'm here! Hello, everyone. Hi, Bug."

Karl smacked his hand over his mouth to cover his laugh, which escaped anyway, as he nudged Y/n. She had immediately buried her face in her hands and Karl had to turn away from the mic so no one could hear him laugh at Dream's direct greeting.

She pinched Karl's side before greeting Dream. "Hi, Dream."

"Are you guys ready to play?" Quackity asked.

"Wait, no, we're going to have to have Gene! Can't you get anyone else?" Punz asked.

"Everyone I've asked has said no!" Quackity groaned. "I'm out of people. Deal with Gene."

Y/n and Karl looked at each other at the same time, thinking the same thing. Naomi had been talking about wanting to play Jackbox sometime but that she never has anyone to play with other than Karl and Y/n. She'd be meeting most of these people on vacation in a couple of weeks anyway, why not see if she wants to play?

"What about my roommate?" Y/n spoke up as Quackity sent the code to the Discord.

"Who?" he asked.

"You literally met her when you visited," Karl laughed. "Naomi."

"Oh, yeah! She's cool."

"Invite her to play," George said, making Dream laugh lightly and Y/n smile because they knew they had been talking a lot.

"Yeah, give me a second, don't start yet," Y/n said before sliding off her headphones and making her way to Naomi's room. Before Y/n could even knock, Naomi swung open her door quickly, phone open to the Twitch app in her hand.

"I heard everything," she rushed out, eyes wide and hopeful. "C-can I play?"

"Yeah, you want to?"

"PLEASE."

"There are currently 130,000 people watching, just so you know."

"That's fine, I'm cool under pressure." That was very true. Y/n wouldn’t have let Naomi join if she thought her friend couldn’t handle the attention. She thrived in it. "Should I come to your room?"

"Yeah, come on." Y/n led the way and pulled up a third chair to her desk. Karl offered to listen to the Discord on his phone so Naomi could use the second pair of headphones to listen to everyone. All three of them still used Y/n's mic, Karl muted on his phone. "Okay, kinda scuffed set up, but we're all here. Everyone, this is Naomi."

"Hello!" Naomi said happily. "Nice to meet you all!"

Everyone greeted her and Y/n noted the redness on Naomi's cheeks as George greeted her with a soft, "Nice to talk to you again, Naomi."

Karl giggled again and slapped his hand over his mouth; Y/n had a feeling he'd have to do that a lot this stream.

"Can we all agree to not pander?" Bad asked, earning a few approvals.

"What if we play one game where we only pander?" Dream asked. "Like pander as much as possible for every answer."

"Wait, yeah, let's do that so everyone can get it out of their system," Wilbur agreed.

"But Naomi doesn't know us well enough to pander yet," Sapnap countered.

"Yes I do," she said with a laugh. "I've watched enough streams and lore videos to know exactly how to get votes."

"Damn, okay then," Sapnap mumbled.

"Yeah, she'll be fine," George promise and Naomi blushed again, making Y/n laugh. Naomi joined the lobby on her phone and the round began.

Pandering being the goal was both annoying and hilarious because people used the same jokes, but it was funny to see how hard people were trying to get the audience votes.

"Something you would take with you on a deserted island," Quackity read out loud as the prompt showed up. "An iPad full of downloaded skephalo fanfiction, HAHAH, or dreamnotfound fanart." Everyone laughed and Y/n could hear George scoff at one answer in particular.

"Aw, I love Skeppy!" Bad said innocently.

"Was that your answer then, Badboyhalo?" Wilbur teased as everyone voted on their favorite. Y/n, of course, cast her vote towards skephalo, but still pretended like the other answer didn't make her jealous. The player votes were split, but the audience made Sapnap's answer win in a landslide.

"Okay, the most disappointing thing to hear from a friend," Wilbur read the next one out loud. "Dreamsy is real, and you don't have a shot with BugsyGames."

"What the hell?" Y/n laughed loudly at the similarity between the two responses. Dream was laughing so hard, wheezing like he would never stop, and the sound brought a large grin to Y/n's face.

Everyone's laughs overlapped and mingled with each other and it was such a happy sound, distracting everyone's attention from Y/n a little.

"That would be the worst thing to hear!" Quackity yelled. "Good thing Bugity is real."

Dream stopped laughing abruptly and instead yelled, "WHAT?" which only made everyone laugh harder.

"Vote!!" Bad reminded.

"Wait, Quackity, what did you just say?" Dream asked.

"Well, I've seen her face, so... I think she loves me more," he said, just trying to get a rise out of the other, which seemed to be working.

Y/n thought again about how close she was to sending a picture of herself to Dream earlier. He probably would have immediately used it against Quackity, but she didn't think she would have minded because it was funny to see Dream jealous, real or not.

"Only because you flew out to hang out with Karl!" Dream yelled. "I'd fly just to see her."

"Then do it," Y/n challenged before she could think and her heart stopped at her own words.

Dream went silent and it was Naomi's turn to cover her laugh with her hand, Karl's eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"Why are you so defensive, huh, Dream?" Punz asked.

"Uh, you-you have to be when fighting for Bug's love and attention," he joked finally, and Y/n's heart resumed beating, a little fast at the implication of his words. Why did she say that? He probably thought she was so weird. "It's every person for themselves." Then again, so was he.

The votes were pretty split since they said the same thing, but the surprising thing was who said what. She expected one of them to be from Quackity, but she didn't know who wrote the second one about not having a shot. Sapnap maybe? Karl? They all joke around so who put it?

"DREAM?" Sapnap laughed. "You wrote that?"

"Well, yeah, I mean..." he trailed off with a laugh and Y/n's face caught fire. Did he really think he didn't have a shot? Because reality check: he’s the only one with arrows and the target is wide open. Was he joking or stupid or was she just not as obvious as she previously thought?

"Okay, okay, next one," Quackity laughed. "If cats were political leaders, everyone’s favorite president would be: Patches, okay," he paused as Dream cheered loudly, "and Bingus."

"Corpse isn't even here! Wrong audience!" Karl said.

"Bingus is for all audiences," Y/n mumbled, making Naomi laugh.

"Uh-oh, another faceless man stealing Bugsy's heart—?" Sapnap joked, immediately cut off by Dream's stern, "no."

"Naomi, you put Patches?" Wilbur laughed as the votes went towards the girl on Y/n's left. "Okay, she does know more than we thought."

"Oh, I know everything," she said evilly, double-meaning evident in her voice. Y/n gave her a look and Naomi just smiled innocently.

The pandering got so intense that Y/n almost cried tears of joy when the first Quiplash game was over and the no-pandering rule got put back into play.

"What, you don't like your name being every other answer?" Wilbur joked and Y/n shook her head.

"No. But certain ones were okay..."

"Yeah, the Bugity ones," Quackity joked.

Dream hummed out a soft, "Okay, Quackity," and the next game began.

The games went on as usual and Y/n had a blast. It was so fun to see her best friend interact with all her online friends for the first time and it warmed her heart how inclusive they were, making sure Naomi wasn't left out of jokes. It helped that Naomi's sense of humor was similar and that she already knew a lot about the streamers, but Y/n was still grateful for all the efforts put forth by her friends.

It also helped that George and Naomi clearly liked each other.

"Is anyone going to stream?" Quackity asked as he started wrapping up.

"I will if no one else is," Punz said. "I'm going to play Valorant."

"Oh, can I play?" Sapnap asked.

"Yeah, definitely, dude."

"Okay, I'll raid you." Quackity muted after thanking everyone for playing and Y/n left the call.

"Dude, that was SO FUN!" Naomi stood up and yelled. She sat down on the end of Y/n's bed, hands balled up in excitement.

Karl laughed as he fell on top of the bed next to where Naomi sat. "I'm so glad you guys all got along!"

"Yeah, I almost started crying when everyone was laughing at your jokes," Y/n laughed, swiveling in her chair to look at them. "That made me so happy."

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me play. I had so much fun. And they're all so nice and funny and I was worried they'd make me feel left out but they didn't at all."

"I'm so glad you had fun," Y/n said. "We'll invite you again if you want."

"Please do. Only if everyone's okay with it though!"

"I'm sure they would be."

“The lake is going to be so fun,” she sighed whimsically. 

“Because George?” Karl teased, causing Naomi to punch his arm. 

A Discord notification sounded on Y/n's computer and she turned to look at the screen, smiling when she saw Dream's name.

Dream: You left the vc so quick :( Bugsy: I have two goons to hang out with :( Dream: :(((( Dream: I wanna be the only goon you hang out with Dream: I was right, I don't have a chance with you Dream: Karl is the only focus of Bugs attention Bugsy: ?? Bugsy: lies detected Dream: wait really Bugsy: ... Bugsy: do I need to remind you of the tweet I posted earlier Dream: bug don't say things like that to me Bugsy: why not Dream: can you kick Karl back to his house so we can ft or call :( Bugsy: no <3 Bugsy: we can tomorrow after Karl leaves Dream: promise? Dream: don't get my hopes up bug Bugsy: yeah I promise :) Dream: :D

"Pay attention to me!" Karl whined. Y/n turned back around and saw that Naomi had left the room and Karl was laying upside down, close to falling off the bed with his head dangling dangerously close to the ground.

She laughed and typed one last message to Dream.

Bugsy: bye bye dream :) Dream: goodnight bug :] sleep well

"Okay," she huffed jokingly, turning back to Karl. "You have my full, undivided attention."

_____

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[bowieandqueen11]

Set Me Dreaming / Bucky Barnes Imagine

Request: can you do a bucky fic where reader catches him awake in the middle of the night and fighting off some of his troubles? like maybe bucky resists any type of consolation until he finally succumbs. i am open to any of your ideas/own interpretation! thank you!! <3

Yes I can thank you!! Also Mr Barnes it’s been seven years and I am still looking respectfully 👀 

If you like, please comment and reblog!

(The lyrics are Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller/ Frank Sinatra (we’re just going to pretend this version came out at the right time aha), and I got them from Google!)

You haven’t heard this song since that night in 1943. Since the night he proposed. Since the night he left. Since the night you lost your Bucky.

‘The stars are aglow and tonight how their light sets me dreaming.’

It takes you a moment to see in the darkness of the little New York Apartment you and Bucky had managed to scrounge up the money to pay for. It certainly needed some work, and sometimes you missed that smell of antiseptic and apple pie - that warmth familiarity of Bucky patching Steve up after a fight with one hand, and trying to copy his mom’s old recipes as a treat for when you got home from work in the other. This place only smelt of car fumes, and a certain stench of must and old pine that was just a sucker punch to the stomach every time you entered. Every time the two of you were reminded how stranded Steve had left you. Buck had tried to cook for you, once, a couple of weeks ago, but you had come home to find him sitting slouched, crying, on the kitchen tiles as he sobbed out how his mind couldn’t remember the measurements his mom had written down. But it didn’t matter, you think as you finally spot the sound of the noise. Wherever and whenever you had Buck, you were home. Even if everything needed work, it was worth it.

The record player swirls slowly from its spot on the kitchen counter, languid in its spinning as the familiar notes bounce around the confining walls and fill the place, and the city, with its warm jazz. At this time of night, there’s little to compete with the rippling trumpets, or the baritone voice - just the faraway sound of car horns and the jagged breathing of something coming from the fire escape. For a moment, you jump, forgetting yourself, forgetting you weren’t trapped in Hydra anymore. And then your heart starts to drop as you untangle yourself from the blankets, getting up from where you were holding your fiancée on the floor, to spot his sitting with his back to you. His eyes are gone. You don’t know how you can tell, solely just from the rise and fall of his naked back. You just know him too well, you suppose.

He’s gone from you, at the moment, eyes glazed with a faraway mist as he looks down at flashing, neon lights and dirt-tramped streets of the city he used to know like the back of his hand. But he’s not there either. No, his mind has wandered away with the song, memories allowing him some reverie by thinking back on that day. On you. A warm glow flashes through his eyes, a smile threatening to twitch at the corners of his lips as he pictures you, the love of his life, hand intertwined with his. He had sobbed against your lips that night, forehead pressed tightly against yours as he gazed at you with terrified eyes, drinking in every feature of your face as if he knew it would be the last time he would see it. If he was going to die, he wanted to make damn sure that the last thing that ever passed his mind was you. He could die happy then, knowing that he had been given one proper, good thing in his life, feeling safe in the memory that he had loved it well. That he would go knowing he would love you forever. You pretend not to feel him shake in your grasp as you dig your fingers into your shoulder, pulling him tighter against your chest and whispering sweet nothings into the dance hall, the thought of him leaving the next morning plaguing your every thought.

‘My love, do you know that your eyes are like stars brightly beaming?’

He could barely get the words out that night, he had to mouth them against your lips and hope, his silly, foolish hope, that you would agree to marry a man who was being shipped of the next day. He just needed to go knowing that he was yours, thinking the last twenty five years you had spent joint at the hip would sway you towards the sentimental and you would agree to let him be yours, even if only for a day. It didn’t matter, he knew, as his lips trembled against your own, clenching his eyes shut to try and stop the tears spilling down as you nod your head vigorously. It didn’t matter how long you had in this life, he would be yours forever.

‘I love you, doll. I love you so much it hurts.’

‘Don’t you know I love you the same, Buck?’

He doesn’t feel you come up behind him, placing your hands on his back. Every muscle seems to be jumping out of his skin, skin flush and like a furnace to the touch, but you just wrap your arms around his waist and pull him against your back. Glancing round to see your Bucky’s face, his stubble tickles your cheek as you sigh. He’s still puffing out breath into the cold night’s air, eyes glossy and wet and by grief, filled with so much pain and love and fear that it breaks your heart. 

‘I bring you and sing you a moonlight serenade.’

Then he remembers falling. Feeling weightless in the water, gazing up at the blanket of grey sky above him, at peace in the knowledge that you were here with him, your picture still tucked into his jacket and your face the only thing he saw when he looked up at the sky, at the stars. When he finally closed his eyes, and let himself drift away to you. Then he remembers the pain. The pain of remembering you while he was tied down to that chair, jaw clenched and lips threatening to spill his sobs as they punished him for remembering you, again and again and again and again, until the end, he buries you into a pocket of his mind he hopes Hydra can’t touch. He remembers the plea that used to fall from his lips as they hit him, the tremble in his fingers once he woke up and realised that he, that James, that the Winter Soldier was holding a gun against the head of someone he had never even seen before. Not in his lifetime. But he does what he’s meant to do, what he’s told to do, finger pulling the trigger as some thought twitches at the back of his mind, telling him to keep going. To always carry out his missions, saving the world, saving you.

He doesn’t feel your lips brush against his forehead as he begins to gasp now, almost fighting back against your touch. But you only reach out to steady him, grabbing his biceps as you swing yourself over the barrier to kneel down in front of him, fingers tight as he finally starts to settle himself again. You reach up slowly, careful not to startle him away from whatever pain is haunting him, and brush his hair away from his damp forehead. You don’t miss the way he subconsciously drops his head towards your touch, the almost inaudible sigh of relief that brushes against your nose.

He finally starts to remember himself, remember where he is, eyelashes fluttering open and closed quickly. He nearly bursts into tears right there and then when he spots you, wide eyed and obviously shivering from the cold in front of him. 

‘Buck. Buck - James. It’s okay, we’re okay. You’re here with me, not back there. It’s alright.’

‘Sweetheart-’, he starts, squirming within himself as he scrambles closer to you. ‘A-are you real? You’re really here?’

‘Of course I am, Buck. I’m never leaving you. Never again.’

For a moment there’s a comfortable silence, a knowing moment of trust and understanding between the two of you, before you tug on his metal arm. He gives it to you willingly, the only person he’ll allow to touch the metal without feeling revolted with himself. You pull gently at his fingers, silently pleading for him to unfurl his fists. His breath shakes, knowing it was the same way you had brought him back to himself that day Helicarrier when he had been sent to kill you. The cruellest trick fate had ever played on him. He still cried about it in his dreams, eyes strained and throat hollow with screams as he strained against you, trying time and time again to stop his arms from hurting you. To stop himself from drowning just by the thought of you.

You- you were real. You were here, and then he found himself full on sobbing again. You shush him gently, jumping up to pull his hands away from his face, away from where he had shoved them into his eyes to try and stop himself. Yet he only grabs onto his shirt that you were wearing, fingers clenching and fists white as he pulls you down to straddle his thighs. He nestles his head into your neck, pulling you tight into his arms until he couldn’t be sure where he ended and where you began. As if there had really ever been a difference for him, anyway. You brush your hand through his hair, appreciating the little hum of delight he tried to give you as your fingers scrape the nape of his neck. He sniffles against your skin, but he’s alright. He knows that you would do anything for him. Your soulmate, your Bucky.

And Bucky knew, as he held you against him, that he would never let you go again. He knew that he couldn’t pretend he was alright anymore, that somehow and someway he would have to make amends for everything he has done - everything he has put you through. Yet some warm hope fizzled at the bottom of his heart as he felt your engagement ring bump against the goose bumps of his back, knowing he still owed you a wedding as well. 

His hands are so soft, so gentle, so careful, as he grips onto your waist. His nose bumps against your forehead the same way it had that night, all those years ago, before you had lost him. His tears stain your shirt again, and although he knew he was different now, he also knew there was still some of James Buchanan Barnes left. He knew, because you had his heart, this whole time.

[creatingnikki]

What 2020 has taught me

1. Those things that seem like content for sci fi or pure fiction are actually things that can happen. To the entire world. Like a pandemic. And to you. Like a seizure.

2. Everyone is sad. Everyone is struggling. In different ways and in different measures. Makes no one special. But you still get to feel sad for yourself and be compassionate towards others. But it's also okay to draw boundaries because you're everyone too. Remember, not special? You're sad and trying to deal with it too.

3. Every job you have will not add value to your life. It will not teach you new things or give you people you'll want to stay in touch with. Sometimes some jobs will only be a season of your life. Even if the season lasts for over a year. It's okay.

4. You know how you thought picking a college and picking a major and picking your first job and picking a specific industry were all the career decisions you had to make? Yeah, no. It's never a one time thing. You could have a job as a marketing strategist for two years and then want nothing to do with it. And then you'll have to make another decision and work towards it. So I'd like to call it moves. It's like chess. You always have to make a move. And it always has to be strategic, yes. But the truth is in your 20s it probably won't. Even if you try. And as long as you're trying, you'll be fine.

5. You may have different sorts of friends like the one you only talk to about kdrama with or the one you met when you went book shopping alone and the friendship is all about books really. That's normal. But irrespective of why and how you became friends with them, if you consider them a friend then there has to be this basic sense of care, respect and empathy for each other. I don't care what people want to say. If you're faced with the worst trauma of your life, the least your friends can do is check up on you regularly. On text. And if they don't even do that then guess what? They aren't friends. They are acquaintances. Social media and quick promises make everyone seem like your friend. But they are not. They are just nice people who will be nice to you for specific periods and then wander away like you are a speck of dust floating in their journey.

6. You speak a lot and write and you express yourself and you’re emotionally mature but oh my god. You still hold in so much. You’ve known that at a subconscious level and over the last year people - experts - have told you that. You have also realized that you make your pain and sadness about pettier things because dealing with them, admitting about them, sharing that with your friends, is easier. You do that so that you don’t have to deal with the real stuff. Because it’s so damn painful. And you don’t know how to do it. Yet. Acknowledging is the first step anyway right? I know you’re confused about how exactly to let go of all this pain and sadness and feel lighter, and you know that talking to people really isn’t the solution, but I also know you’re smart enough to figure it out. 

7. Talking about being smart...you know you’re different than others. Better. Special. Smarter. None of these are the right words. And you never voiced this out until this year because you knew it would make you come across as narcissistic. Some would say it’s because you’re an INFJ. But my mother once said that this may be the first time we are consciously living life but our souls are old and so our instinct and the things we know but can’t explain are because this isn’t the first time for our souls. The connections we feel with certain people, the reason we are so different from our siblings who grew up in the exact same environment with the exact same opportunities, our sense of right and wrong...it’s all because our souls learn and grow with each time and that’s why we are who we are. I think that’s probably how I can explain what I have always felt. That I am living in a different universe than everybody but I have to pretend to be in this one and dumb my emotions and thoughts down. Maybe that’s because my soul has lived through thousands of years while most around me are living their 100th life. Or maybe I’m just narcissistic, who knows?

8. You shift between talking in first person and second person but that’s because that’s how you think in your head and talk to yourself and live your life. You ask yourself things and you accuse yourself of things and you apologize to yourself and you comfort yourself. I think that seeps into your writing and the changing of the voices. 

9. You always genuinely thought that you’d not be afraid of dying. And then what happened this October proved you shockingly wrong. I know it’s not so much being afraid of dying but the unbearable pain of knowing what that would mean to your family. So you have to be more prudent and less reckless with your life and the choices you make. 

10. Regret is not something that plagued you but this year the realisation and pain of giving away your favourite books from your own personal collection to people you care about as a show of affection and them turning out to be ass holes or losers has hit you so hard. So, yes. No more of that shit. I really fucking want my copy of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower back. UGH. With the childhood picture of me inside it! 

11. Sleeping at 5 am in the morning stops being fun or romanticised when you realise just how much harm it does to your body and mind. Literally every single disease and disorder can be traced back to a shitty fucking sleep schedule. It’s not just the hours you sleep but also the quality of sleep and the time you sleep at. So yes sleeping for 8 hours is healthy but not if that 8 hours is from 5 am to 12 pm. ‘Not a morning person’ is just another construct of capitalism and you don’t realise how many industries profit from having you believe that and staying up late or all night. Entertainment. Food. Alcohol. Pharma. Biologically and naturally you are a bloody morning person. And you don’t need 3 cups of coffee to begin your day or your phone notifications to get you to open your eyes and brain to wake up. 

12. Sometimes you really have to stop taking people so seriously. I know the idea of treating people as casual friends or entertainment makes you want to fight that concept but you know what? Some people like Pineapple are ever only going to be good for that. No matter how much they ‘grow and change’. So keep them in the background for whenever you want some entertainment or drama. But please don’t clear up your busy schedule to meet them or send them gifts on their birthday. 

13. If you don’t have the fruit juice or green juice within half an hour of making it then you are losing out on its most optimum health benefits. Or when you remove the white stringy stuff from oranges. That’s where all the actual nutrients are.

14. I am privileged and so are most of the people I interact with. The global pandemic has been hell for a lot of people around the world. Health wise. Financially. Losing people they care about. But I was blessed enough to be safe at home and have a job that I could smoothly do from home and not have a pay cut or 4-hour long Zoom meetings. So honestly when my friends tell me 2020 has been bad I have to stop and ask them why? Yes, the crippling uncertainty and anxiety is not something that can be undermined. But most people I know had very great positive life-changing milestones this year like moving away to another country for college or taking their first solo trip or getting married. So I have to ask them. Because I am not going to agree that everybody’s 2020 and pandemic narrative is the same. 

15. Money gets spent really quickly. When I left my job earlier this year because of personal issues, I thought I had enough savings to last me a year. Full disclosure - I mean to last my personal expenses because I live with my parents. But it didn’t even last me 3 months. And so to use money wisely and buy things that provide utility than instant gratification is something to follow. Also buying one pair of really expensive but quality shoes is better than buying 5 pairs of affordable but low quality shoes that will have a very short life and force you to buy more. I know that higher price doesn’t always mean better quality but sometimes it does. And as an adult now I want to do the whole quality > quantity thing even with things and not just people. 

16. Everyone in their 20s went through a crisis of what they should do with their lives and their careers and it’s not unique to the 21st century and the challenges of today. Whether it was Vincent Van Gogh in the 19th century or Sylvia Plath in the 20th, every single person, as brilliant as them went through the torture of making these decisions and living with their consequences. You may think I picked wrong examples for they both killed themselves but you know what? They were the people who really want to live more than anyone. They knew what life meant. And maybe if mental health help was more accessible back then their lives would be longer and more peaceful. 

17. Telling people everything is overrated. You don’t have to talk about every single thing that’s on your mind or that’s going on in your life. The good and the bad and the mediocre. You have to be mindful about how much of yourself you’re giving away. 

18. Re-watch Suits when people at work feel intimidating because the confidence + negotiation tactics that they show can actually work irl cos at the end of the day no matter in what position you’re dealing with people who have emotions and fears and insecurities and desires. You understand how to leverage that nobody can get the better of you. 

19. You belong to yourself. No matter how much you love someone or how much they have done for you or how much you owe them - you belong to yourself. You can’t live your life for someone else. Everyone belongs to themselves first. No relationship, no promise, no circumstance should make you feel like you have to give up your life and make it all about them. If and when the time comes to die for them, go ahead. Take a bullet. Donate that kidney. Write them in your will. But live your life for yourself. And let them live theirs. 

20. Twenty three was a challenging year. When it started you claimed the age 23 sounds boring and insignificant. Guess it proved you wrong. It hurt so much now. But that only means you’ll look back on it later and see how it added so much wisdom and resilience to your being. It doesn’t mean that it makes all the bad things that happened to you okay. Or that you should be grateful to them. Fuck no. It means that you should be kinder to yourself because at the end of the day, your mind and body find it in themselves to deal with whatever is thrown their way. They have your back. It’s time you learn to sit straight. 

[ramblingkat]

Ghosts of Future Change

Look, more AU_gust. How do I get Solo Leveling/ORV/Leveling with the Gods theme fic from Artist’s Muse? No idea, but you get to enjoy it now. 

Fandom: Bleach

Characters: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke, Unohana Retsu

Prompts: Pandemics and Epidemics, Artist’s Muse

Summary:  The world changed when portals to other dimensions opened. More than monsters came through. Sickness and change did as well.

Ghosts of Future Change

Ichigo’s back itched. Badly. He was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him, his brain feeling sluggish. Being sick sucked, even more given that he knew he was only part way through the illness. Right now, he was in the middle of a round of Changing Plague. What was going to come next was worse. But he sort of expected to be hit by it eventually. All Talents seemed to be catching it eventually. But he knew the worst was to come. The Changing Plague was called that for the mutations it brought to those who caught it. 

Honestly, it was a surprise it took this long for some sort of illness to come through one of the portals.

The world had changed when portals to another dimension had opened up, like so many different stories he had read while working on keeping his Korean up. Web novels had been a good way to help Ichigo keep what he had learned fresh and in his brain. 

It had been a little eerie how accurate some of those had been. Portals opened to dungeons and other realms, some that burst out swarm after swarm of monsters that needed to be wiped out. Kisuke had been fascinated, after they had made sure all their important people were alive. Ichigo had expected Kisuke’s mad science brain to explode with delight. When he had first met his cousin Yoruichi’s best friend, Kisuke had been in a collection of hard science classes and doing his best to break reality then. Having something else beat him to it just seemed to challenge the blond. 

Ichigo had fallen head over heels for Kisuke when Yoruichi had introduced the pair of them when Ichigo had needed a photo shoot model for an art class. He had been lucky that the blond had felt the same way. So they were together already when the first dungeons appeared, and they had both developed Talents that made fighting in said dungeons a surprisingly fun and profitable endeavor. Besides being excellent at fighting, getting into these alternative realms had given them both an outlet that they both enjoyed. 

Kisuke had invented whole new devices to take measurements, including a few that several governments had bought in order to rate and organize their dungeons. So the pair of them never had to work again, but they both still did a lot of exploration. 

Ichigo had never thought he’d get the chance to do such a thing in his life. He had expected to keep up his language studies, be a translator, and live in Tokyo his entire life. Maybe taking vacations around the world and taking amazing photos with the cameras Kisuke got him. 

Then the dungeons had appeared, and Ichigo had gotten the chance to explore places no human had ever seen before, taking videos and bringing them back. Another thing that Kisuke had created for him, drones that followed them and took videos. Ichigo would take that and set to work on what he wanted to release. He never hid danger, but there was a strange beauty to the dungeons. Especially when he got images of Kisuke or himself in combat. 

All in all, the dungeons only seemed to make Ichigo’s life better. 

Then the Changing Plague came. 

Those who had developed Talents were affected first, but it spread to those who never even developed a spark of magic. One out of ever five Talents developed a high fever, most falling unconscious for a period. They’d wake up, sluggish but aware. Then they’d collapse again, a second fever raging through their system. Depending on how strong they were, they would make up with some sort of physical changes. Mostly some sort of animal aspect, though not always a natural one. There were quite a few who developed something mythical. The stronger one was, the more likely they were to become something from stories.

Or dungeons. 

Ichigo was now in that period between fevers. He was still sluggish, and he wanted to scratch all over his body, but the young man resisted the urge. There was the sound of something odd in his room, and he forced his eyes open. Was still dragging from the first round of the fever, and he dreaded what was going to happen next. But he didn’t recognize the sound and that made him paranoid.

Opening his eyes, he realized that the noise was the sound of scales sliding against the wood flooring of the bedroom he shared with his partner. Blinking, it took a moment for him to realize it was Lady Unohana, a former teacher for Kisuke and one of the greatest healing Talents to have been discovered. He had heard that she had recovered from the Changing Plague, but he had not realized just how much the woman had changed. Yoruichi, the only person he knew personally so far who had been sick and recovered, had developed feline aspects, but nothing close to the level of Unohana’s change.

She looked human from the waist up, but then her body flowed into the great body of a serpent. Some sort of constrictor, Ichigo was pretty sure, given how thick the body was, but his eyes drifted back up to meet Unohana’s as the woman leaned over him. 

“Good morning, Kurosaki-san,” she said calmly, moving to help him sit up a bit. “I see that you have rejoined us. I have some things for you to drink.” She held the first cup to his lips. “You’ve been sweating, and I’d like to rehydrate you in a more natural method.”

Drinking what the woman gave him, Ichigo let his eyes roam around the room. Once she pulled the cup away, he asked. “Where’s Kisuke at?”

Unohana gave a soft hum as she collected a second cup. “He’s currently sleeping in another room. He’s come down ill as well.”

“Fuck,” Ichigo muttered, pretending not to see the slightly disapproving look from Unohana. She was scary enough without looking disappointed with him. “I had hoped….”

“Hope is fine,” she told him. “As long as you accept reality. Now, how do you feel?”

“Sore,” Ichigo said. “Itchy.” Then he yawned, blinking sleepidly at the woman. She just made sure that he drank the second cup of what seemed to be broth. “How is he?”

“Feverish. He’s about a day behind you in regards to the illness,” Unohana said briskly. “Shihoin-san is watching over him. Thankfully she’s already recovered herself. Watching the pair of you is not something I can do.”

Honestly, Ichigo was surprised to see her here at all. As the top healer of Japan, she was in high demand. But she had pretty much raised Kisuke, so Ichigo could understand while she at least stopped by for a visit. But he found himself relaxing as he knew that Yoruichi was watching over Kisuke. 

“One more cup,” Unohana ordered, and Ichigo managed to swallow that down as well. Now feeling rather full, he let himself sink down as Unohana pushed at his shoulders, pulling the blankets back over him. 

“Rest, Kurosaki-san. You’ll need that energy.”

Eyes feeling heavy, Ichigo didn’t fight with her, letting himself drift off yet again.

***

Ichigo grinned as he was looking at the video the drones had gotten from the newest dungeon. Watching himself and Kisuke run through and take down monsters was always enjoyable. Plus, well, Ichigo just liked seeing Kisuke fight. The man was sex on legs when he was killing things.

Even when those legs ended with a pair of delicate cloven hooves. Not that Ichigo could say much, given his own feet were scaled and clawed now. Waking up with dragon bits along his body had been a shock, but Ichigo had rolled with it. At least he and Kisuke had the scaling along their backs in common, though where Ichigo’s were golden in shade, Kisuke’s ranged from crimson to black. They even shared new head pieces in common. Ichigo’s were more horns, protruding forward from his head, where Kisuke’s seemed more like antlers curling back over his head. 

Also learning how to deal with tails was new. Yoruichi was going to cash in on the favor of finding them new pants sooner rather than later, Ichigo was sure of it. 

But he was busy putting together some new photos to post from the latest dungeon run. He found images where they were in very similar poses, both pre and post sickness. Then, after changing the opacity of the new images, he layered them over the old. So the new looks were ghosts of horns and tails over the old images, the hint of wings on Ichigo’s back. A view of the future to come.

Smiling, because doing any photo editing with Kisuke as the subject always made Ichigo smile, Ichigo set it up to post.

Maybe he should go see if Kisuke was up for another proper photo shoot. Ichigo loved the look of the scales down his partner’s spine, and definitely wanted to make other people jealous that he got to lick them and they didn’t. 

[hiddens-eden]

That Bitch!!

Word count: A lot

Pronouns: He/Him

Paring: Reader x Male!Avengers

Spelling checked: No

Warnings: Homophobic slurs, Homophobia, cussing, minor assult, possibly triggering (idk)

Summary: High school Au, where reader is not very popular and the senior prom comes around. Though, just because he's not popular does not mean he doesn't have admirers. Say most of the male avengers (because I'm a slut for a reverse-harem). But with admirers, there will be haters. However, (Y/N) knows how to put them in their place.

"Soooo, (Y/N) the senior prom is coming around" You lifted your head from your book to see your two best friends, Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff

"And?"

"What do you mean and? Prom is the most important part of senior year!" you saw Wanda's face turn into a pout

"Even if I wanted to go, I don't have anyone to go with. The boys here avoid me like the plague" you started to go back to your book when Natasha grabbed it, putting it on her desk

"They only do that because they like you, and they're boys. If it makes you feel better, I don't have a date"

You looked at Natasha with confusion covering your face "How? You're one of the best people I know"

"To be honest, it's because boys are skank's" She shrugged

"Hey! Not all of them are!"

"You only say that because of Vision" you saw a Natasha smirk while Wanda blushed and turned away

"Not all of us will remain single for the rest of our day's" she may have tried to mumble her response, but you heard her and chuckled

"Even so, I'm not going"

Hearing that, the boy's lost all hope. To be honest, they all were going to try and ask you to the dance

"Then go with us" Natasha more demanded than asked

"What about Wanda" you turned to her "Aren't you going with Vision?"

"Well, as we always say bro's before hoe's" (que Vision sulking in the corner) the three of you burst out into a fit of laughter

"I-I guess" you managed to choke out between laughs

"Then come on!" Natasha pulled you out of your seat

"Where are we going?"

"To get some clothes for prom, duh" as the three of you made your way out of the classroom and into the hallways you were stopped by Peggy Carter and Pepper Pots

"What do you guys want" you asked scowling

"Cut the shit (Y/N)" Pepper sneere

"What are you talking about?"

"You're trying to seduce all of the guy's in the school!" Peggy shouted

"...What?"

"You heard me!"

You looked to Natasha and Wanda "Do you know what they're talking about?

They both shrugged and shook their heads

"LIARS!!!" Pepper screamed

The commotion drew the attention of the students that were in the classroom and hallways

"What the hell is going on..."

"Don't know let's just go" Wanda tried to push you past the two girls, but before you could go anywhere Peggy grabbed your arm tightly

"STEVE WILL BE MINE!!! SO DON'T TRY AND TAKE HIM AWAY" she raised her other hand and slapped you across the face. The people watching let out a collective gasp and wondered what you would do

"THE SAME WITH TONY" Pepper raised her hand to slap you too but was stopped by a firm grip on her wrist and her body couldn't move either. It was Natasha and Wanda

"Slap him one more time I break your wrist" Natasha clutched Pepper's wrist even tighter earning a hiss from the woman

"Maybe I should break her legs for good measure" Wanda stated coldly

You put a hand on their shoulders causing them to turn to you "Stop, if Peggy's slap is anything to go by, it would not have hurt. Just release them so we can go" They let her go reluctantly, but not without giving her one last glare. As you were about to leave you hear a classroom door open and turned to see the men of the hour, Steve and Tony

Immediately the two girls ran to the guy's whining about how you 'assaulted them'

"What the actual fuck"

"Really Peggy?" Steve asked

"Yeah! I was so scared!"

Then the crowd of people started to yell about how you were the victim, you only grinned. Tony and Steve looked enraged

"Why would you lie about something like that!?" Tony shouted

"What's wrong with you two?!" Steve spat walking towards you

"(Y/N) I'm sorry they did that to you" he looked down sadly

You lifted his chin up to look down at you(unfortunately you were shorter than Steve) "It's not your fault they're crazy. Don't beat yourself up that much" You turned his head to the side and planted a kiss on his cheek "I'll see you later Steve"

You turned and started to walk away with your friends in tow. Leaving a blushing Steven and extremely jealous group of males

"He has no idea what he just did, does he?" Natasha asked Wanda

She shook her head "Not a clue"

"Well lets get this over with"

They nodded and started to search for Tux's and Dresses stores. Once you found one, you all got your own fitted and talored dress and tuxedo's. Natasha doesn't really like dresses so she got a white women's tux. Wanda got an elegant white dress that draped behind her. You got a white tux with flower-like adornments. You all like the fact that you were somewhat matching. The girls completely gushed about how good you looked, but you had a weird feeling.

"I'm going to get another outfit just in case"

"Just in case what?" Wanda asked

"In case a pair of crazy ass girls decide to pull a prom cliché and try and ruin my suit"

"Seems reasonable"

You started looking around for a suit and you found it. An outfit that made you smile happily. You turned to your friends showing them the outfit "Found it"

They just smirked and nodded

~Next Day~

The last thing you were expecting today was to get asked to prom by one of the hottest guys in your school, but here you were. Steve Rogers was infront of you with a bouquet of your favorite flowers, shyly rubbing the back of his head

"I'm sorry Steve, but I'm going with my friends" once you said that he looked like a kicked puppy and you couldn't take it! So, you sighed.

"However, even though I won't be able to go to prom with you" you took the flowers from his hand "I'm willing to go wherever you want anytime your free" you smiled softly at him. He immediately perked up and gave a fast nod, making you chuckle. He asked for your number and you gave it to him and he gave you a kiss on the cheek before running off. 'Guess that's payback' you blushed hiding your face behind the flowers.

Over the week until prom you kept getting asked to the dance by almost every guy in your school. But, again you turned them down and re-scheduled making them happy. However, with most of the boy's attention on you, some of the girls started to get jealous. They would make snide remarks hoping to hurt you, but they never did. Afterall, you had your friends and they can help you through anything.

~Prom Day~

"Are you sure we should do this?" you were REALLY nervous

"Come on! Don't puss out now!" Natasha teased

"Yeah! You came this far already!" Wanda smiled

You sighed and straightened your posture "Yeah, you guys are right. Let's get in there!" You cheered along with your friends and opened the prom room door

Narrator PoV

As the door opened, someone looked over to it letting out a gasp at what they saw. This caused most of the people in the room to follow their sight and look at the door as well. Eyes widen at the sheer beauty of the new arrivals

(Y/N);

Natasha;

Wanda;

~Out of Narrator PoV~

"Guy's they're looking at us" you wanted to perish right then and there, but your friends put a reassuring hand on your shoulder

"They're looking at us because we're the most gorgeous things they've ever seen" Wanda grinned as you all walked through the room catching everyone's eyes

"Just lean into the attention" Natasha said to you

"I'll try" you chuckled lightly

"(Y/N)!) you looked behind you to see Steve waving at you, then start blushing

"Don't you look dashing Steve" you grinned at him as he turned an even darker red

"Maybe, but not as dashing as you" you both chuckled and started talking to each other

"Wow forgotten already" Wanda wiped an imaginary tear from her eye

"Oh! I'm sorry guys!" You apologized profusely

"Don't worry about it! I'll just go and find Vision. Have fun~" Wanda winked before leaving

"I'll go find Clint too, he's sad he didn't get to go with you" she chuckled before walking off

"They're both something" you smiled before turning back to Steve

You and Steve kept chatting and joking with each other. While you were talking you noticed Tony, Peitro, Thor, Bruce, Bucky, Stephen all gather around you joining in your conversation. You didn't mind, but Steve is another story. He was giving small glares to everyone who talked to you.

You were talking to Tony and Bruce about upcoming tech when you felt a tap on your shoulder. You turned only to be met with a bucket full of red fruit punch. You wiped your eyes to see Peggy, Pepper, and some other girls smirking.

"Thats what you get you stupid slut!"

"Know your place!"

"Just leave so we don't have to see you!"

A chill ran down yourself as you turned to see the guy's glaring coldly at the girls, ready to throw the "You should never hit a girl" rule out the window

You just sighed and signaled for them to stand down. Then, you looked towards Wanda and Natasha, giving them a nod and making your way to the exit.

The boy's tried to get to you, but Wanda and Natasha stopped them while smirking

"Yeah, you better get out of here whore!"

"He's probably going to cry!"

"Pathetic!"

"Who would ever love something like that!"

"Besides, dating a guy when you are one is disgusting!"

"Yeah! They need a strong woman in their life!"

This made the boy's heated. They are ready to destroy these girls for talking shit about you, but they were stopped by Wanda and Natasha again

"Why do you keep stopping us!?" Thor boomed

"He'll deal with them, just be patient" Natasha said firmly

"And we think you'll like him even more when he gets back" Wanda's smirk grew

Needless to say, they were all confused. But they let it slide...for now. Minutes passed and the girls were still talking about you. The guys are on the edge of their seats ready to pummel every single one of them. But then the door opened making everyone's head turn and eyes widen. Their jaws were on the floor as you walked in sauntering over to the girls

(Y/N)

You wore a black crop-top shirt with a black crop-top leather jacket draped over you shoulders. Possibly the most catching thing about your new look was your dress pants with thigh-high boots. Once you reached the girls you took off your shades to reveal a beautiful make-up look

(this is all optional, you can change it if you want)

You wore a black crop-top shirt with a black crop-top leather jacket draped over your shoulders. Possibly the most catching thing about your new look was your dress pants with thigh-high boots. Once you reached the girls you took off your shades to reveal a beautiful make-up look

"Ugh! You're a guy! You shouldn't be wearing make-up you slut!"

"I may be a slut, but I'm the baddest slut out there. You're just mad because no matter how hard you try you'll never be like me and I also figured out why you obsess over guys who want nothing to do with you. Your father probably left you and your family because he said he was going to get milk, so that left you without a prominent male figure in your life"

"Wha-"

"And when you attempt to get guys you have no chance with it somehow fills that hole of longing you have. You don't love them, you see them as a tool you can use for your own wishes"

"I-"

"I'm not done. Why are you homophobic? Because you can't help it when someone can share their sexuality without being afraid and you can't? Because it's not 'natural'? Let me remind you that just because something is natural does not mean it's good. Besides, it is natural considering it's been observed across many species. Even ones who have not been in contact with humans. So, I suggest you shut up and leave because I don't allow cunts in my presence" you put your shades back on and walked to the group of males + your friends

The girls started crying and ran out of the room with their faces in their hands

"Woah, (Y/N) that was badass" Natasha gave you a high five

"Good thing I recorded it" Wanda said holding her phone

"Wait what! Delete it!"

"Too late I already posted it! :P" Wanda giggled

The boys weren't paying attention since that whole encounter got them *ahem* excited, so now they're trying to calm themselves down

As the prom slowly started to resume (Y/N) was asked by almost everyone to dance which he of course obliged. He kept getting complimented about his looks and how he told each girl off. Soon it was time to announce the prom King and Queen. (Y/N) voted for (M!Avenger Name) as prom King and (Wanda or Natasha) as prom Queen

"Now it's time to reveal the prom King and Queen!" everyone started to clap and cheer in anticipation

"This year's prom King is....(Y/N) (L/N)!!!"

You were shocked! You weren't even a candidate as far as you knew. You slowly made your way to the stage as everyone started to cheer for you. Once on the stage, you were given your crown and sash by the previous prom King who congratulated you.

"Now for this year's prom Queen!" she opened the envelope

"This year's prom Queen is...(Y/N) (L/N)?" she said with confusion, but the crowd cheered even louder

The teacher looked towards the Principle who came on the stage "It seems that the majority of you voted for (Y/N) twice. Since this has never happened before we have decided that (Y/N) will be this year's prom King AND Queen!!" The previous prom Queen put the sash on you and gave you the crown to hold. She smiled and congratulated you. You were still in shock 'Prom King and Queen?!'

"(Y/N)! As the prom King and Queen, do you have a few words for the crowd?"

You stepped up to the mic "(Y/N) (L/N) breaking gender norms since (birth year)!" everyone laughed and you chuckled "One more thing, if someone tries to hurt or degrade you, look to your loved ones for help. They will always be there for you and if not then give me a call at (***)-***-**** I'll be there for you" you winked and started walking off the stage

Once you were off the stage you were swarmed by a huge crowd

"(Y/N)! Congrats!!!"

"That was such a good speech!"

"You rock!"

"You're so amazing!!"

"Thank you everyone!" you smiled making all of them swoon

"Hey, (Y/N) guess what I did" you looked at Wanda

"What did you do?"

"I may or may not have recorded not only you confronting the girls, but the prom King and Queen ceremony and posted it online" she giggled nervously

"..."

"(Y/N)?"

"Kill me now"

"(Y/N), No!"

A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Pictures used are not mine! Will I do a part 2? Maybe! Bye my little otaku's!

[sambvcks]

crawl home to her, b.b. x reader

chapter four // three days on drunken sin

summary: bucky decides to rifle through those boxes and finds the will to make the first move.

warnings: food/eating, nothing too bad this time!

word count: 1.7k

author’s note: how are we feeling about this week’s episode?? we’re getting closer to the start of tfatws with this chapter!! hope i don’t break your heart too much with the boxes :)

[ read on ao3 | series masterlist | inbox | join my taglist! ]

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The boxes taunted him for three days.

Three stacks of two boxes each cluttered his entranceway, each with that familiar scrawl of Steve’s God-awful handwriting.

‘BUCKY’

All caps, in black Sharpie, underlined three times just for good measure. Steve was always good at getting his message across.

He didn’t want to know what was in them, he told himself. But Steve was gone, and this was all he had left. These, that stupid notebook he still hadn’t found the will to write in, and the shield that was kicking around Sam’s apartment somewhere.

He wanted to toss them in his building’s dumpster, to push these aside like he did with everything else in his life. Out of sight, out of mind. That week, he didn’t tell his therapist about the boxes, or Sam’s unexpected visit, or his neighbor that he was now avoiding like the plague. Thankfully, she chalked his silence up to Steve and tried to fill in the conversational lulls with suggestions of amends and lists and he just wanted to go back to sleep.

Like always, sleep never came.

He knew the single night in his bed was a fluke, but he kept trying at least. He’d untuck his flat sheet from under hit mattress, fluff his pillow, and tuck himself in. Within five minutes, he was back on the hardwood floor of his living room, the lamplights illuminating his window and casting a perfect shadow on those stupid boxes. Finally, on the third night, he huffed a sigh and sat up, his arm whirring at the sudden movement. He wasn’t accomplishing anything letting them sit and gather dust.

Bucky reached under the cushions of his couch, fishing for the knife he had stashed away and got to work slicing through the clear packing tape securing each one.

The first five boxes were files. Mission reports, everything Steve could get his hands on about The Winter Soldier. The translations were rough, the descriptions weren’t as vivid as he remembered them now, and it wasn’t even close to everything. Why Steve kept them when Bucky was working to erase every trace of this from the universe, he would never understand. Steve was sentimental, even with the bad stuff. Bucky glanced over the files scattered across his entranceway, which maybe amounted to a year of his missions. If Zemo had looked in some suburb in upstate New York, he would have found everything he needed.

The dumpster behind his building was starting to feel more and more enticing.

The last box felt different. Significantly lighter and smaller, the items rolling and clanking as he dragged it towards him. He braced himself for more files, more reminders of what he had done as though they didn’t exist in his mind every second of the day.

The first thing he recognized was his mother’s handwriting. ‘Recipes’, scrawled so perfectly on a yellowing label.

The tin box was tinted with age, dented after so many years. He laughed and could remember it tucked away on the top shelf of the cabinet by the fridge, just out of Rebecca’s reach, even when she’d stand on her tiptoes in search of it. His Ma rarely fished it out, other than to let his little sister read over the ingredients with sticky hands as she helped stir pots and peel potatoes. She had them memorized by the time she was a teenager, having transcribed her own mother’s recipes onto these little cards. He was sure Rebecca did, too.

Next was the worn fabric of his Ma’s favorite apron. Yellow embroidered flowers scattered the crimped edge, strings falling loose. He recognized some of the stains, from spaghetti night and cake batter that she let dry on the cloth for too long.

Finally, a worn silver chain was buried at the bottom of the box.

JAMES B BARNES 32557038 T42 A

Of course, Steve with all his connections and know-it-all attitude and ‘I can do this all day’ would find some way to find his dog tags, probably tucked away in some ancient Hydra file. His flesh fingers ran over the indentation of his name, pressed into metal like millions of other boys had, off to fight a war that had nothing to do with them. Everything to lose, nothing to gain.

When he was most alone, settled into muddy trenches with wet socks and a stiff military jacket, he would recite those numbers out into the night sky. He’d map constellations over his head, wondering if it would be his last night and all there would be left of him would be those stupid discs of metal clanking around his neck and the letter tucked away in his jacket breast pocket, addressed to his mother.

His mother was long gone, he knew that. But to a fully conscious James Buchanan Barnes – not the Winter Soldier - he had only seen her a few years ago when he shipped off.

After a moment, he pulled the chain of his dog tags over his head, settling them under his shirt. His ears rung with the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The sound of dragging feet and the jangle of your keychain signaled your return from class.

His family was gone, Steve included. The only people he has left are halfway across the world, or off on some death-defying mission wearing metal bird wings. Except you, who still leaves bags of cookies on his front door mat, despite the silent treatment from his end. His maybe too friendly neighbor who poured over lists of albums for him to find taped to his door in barely legible handwriting when you should have been studying.

His mother’s recipe box was calling his name.

-

The knock on your door startled you from your nap. Well, if you can call dozing off at your desk using a law book as a makeshift pillow a nap. You stalled in your desk chair, eyes bleary as you squinted at your front door, then at the top corner of your computer.

2:36 AM

You nuzzled back into your book, content to chalk it up to your sleep deprived brain making things up.

The second knock was much more insistent and was certainly coming from your door. You rushed out of your chair, sock-clad feet dragging the blanket draped across your shoulders as you shuffled over, the knocking never ceasing. You blinked the sleep from your eyes, peering out your peephole into the dark hallway.

Bucky, with slumped shoulders and a bowed head, trying with all of his might to make himself as small as possible still took up so much of the doorway with his broad shoulders.

You should be mad at him.

You should go to bed, ignore him like he’d been ignoring you for the past few weeks. Like you hadn’t shared late nights and he hadn’t sat in your kitchen, licking your spoons clean or tucked into your couch just to watch you study, a new record playing gently. Your forehead pressed to the door, vile building in your throat as seething words collected on your tongue.

“I know you’re there.” His voice was muffled through the wooden door, feeling so close but sounding so far away. “We should work on you dragging your feet, doll.”

If you had taken another peek, you would have seen him pressing his forehead to the other side.

“You ignored me, Bucky.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere, even through the door. “Some family stuff came up. But it’s no excuse, I shouldn’t have pushed you away.”

It’s so stupid, letting yourself get so attached to the first guy to bat his eyelashes and read to you. It’s idiotic to want him to seep into your days and nights, to never leave like he had left you, after only knowing each other for a month.

It’s so foolish to open the door. But you do it anyways.

He swallows as he stands straight, and the widening of his eyes tells you that he wasn’t expecting you to give him a second chance.

“I, uh, here. Thought I’d finally return the favor.”” Bucky shoves forward a plate of cookies, misshapen and unevenly cooked. His eyes finally found yours. “My mom’s recipe.”

Family stuff, you remembered. The weight of the plate felt heavy in your hands, almost as heavy as his gaze on you as you lifted one of the lesser burnt cookies to your mouth and took a timid bite.

Bucky, you’ve come to learn, gives his love in silent acts of approval. He shines when you tell him his singing isn’t totally awful or that he makes a great sous chef, eyes crinkling when you approve of his music choice for the night or compliment the voices he picks when reading from his books. As he watched you, you felt that this cookie meant more to him then just flour and eggs.

He was reaching out, terrified of your rejection.

“You made these?”

“Alright, I’m not totally helpless.”

“They’re amazing, Bucky. Your mom should be proud.”

He returned your smile, knowing that she wouldn’t be. How could she, after all that his hands have done? Hands that should’ve been home, hoisting his sisters onto his shoulders. Hands that should have been helping set the table and at work so they had something to eat in the first place.

He looked so timid in your hallway, unsure of the next move. You rolled your eyes, moving to clear your doorway, despite his hesitation.

“Come on.” You spoke, like ushering in a stray cat with the promise of food and love.

He took the first step forward, shoulder to shoulder, head tilted down to catch your playful gaze with his serious one. Your mouth opened to make some sort of quip to ease the tension, but the words died in your throat as he pressed his forehead against yours for just a second.

His eyes closed as he drew in a single serene breath through his nose.

He was gone as quickly as he had come, moving further into your apartment and directly to your shelves of records, gloved fingers grazing over the sleeves in contemplation for his first choice of the night. As you finally collected yourself enough to close the door, you wondered how many people in the world had ever loved Bucky Barnes enough to give him a second chance.

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