#second time posting this lets hope it works this time

[galaxywannabe]

The Miscommunication Trope™

Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: After getting into the first real argument of your relationship, some misspoken words from Bucky leave you thinking that he's done. By the time he realizes just how badly he screwed up, will it be too late to correct his mistake?

Warnings: Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Miscommunication; Crying; Arguing between romantic partners; Bucky is mean but he makes up for it; Happy ending; Reader identifies as a woman and uses she/her pronouns, but other than having hair that can be swept behind an ear I don't think there are any other physical descriptors; Please let me know if I missed anything!

Word Count: Almost 9.3k.....I'm sorry lol

A/N: Ummm....so. I'm fairly certain I promised this fic, like...3 months ago? In fact, I actually just went back to look and I first teased this fic on Febuary 19th, so um...lol? I made it! Listen, idk if it's even any good anymore but if I look at it for another second I'll scream, so please take it off my hands. Any and all comments or reblogs would be SO appreciated because this has truly been a labor of love, I didn't know if I had it in me. Also!! I have not forgotten @buckyinmyuniverse - you asked to be tagged in this wayyyy back when I first posted about it and I have FANTASTIC news for you babe: The wait is finally over!! I know you've no doubt been refreshing your feed for months looking for it (/j) but this whole time I was cooking this thing I remembered you asking for a tag. So, this one goes out to you. Hope you all enjoy! <3

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You and Bucky hadn’t ever been in a fight before, not really. You bicker, sure, usually over something lighthearted, usually resulting in an eyeroll and a “whatever you say, honey,” from Buck, but nothing serious, nothing that can’t be worked out through a civilized conversation. That was, until today.

You weren’t even trying to start an argument, you were just expressing your concern. He works too much, he takes more missions than anyone else, and it’s running him ragged, anybody can see that.

Obviously, you miss him when he’s away, but that’s not even the point - the point is that he’s taking on too much because he thinks he owes the world something, and that’s not sustainable, it’s not good for him. All you said was that maybe he’d ought to ask Fury to take him off the rotation for a while, or even just cut down on his assignment load, to give him some room to breathe. And Bucky got…defensive.

Obviously, you knew that was a possibility. Typical male pride of course prohibits silly ideas like “self care” and “burnout,” but on top of that is Bucky’s specific brand of guilt, the kind that makes him work himself into the ground no matter how badly his brain and body beg him to stop.

The defensiveness you were prepared for, but you were only coming from a place of love, your concern that of a devoted girlfriend, and surely he’d understand that, wouldn’t he? Except he hadn’t. He’d immediately dismissed your suggestion, waving a hand and continuing to type up his latest mission report with a laser-like focus. 

“I don’t need a break, I’m fine,” he’d muttered, eyes trained on the bluish light of his laptop screen.

Again, you weren’t trying to argue. You certainly weren’t going to  force him to take a break, you just wanted him to at least consider it, to remind him that it would be okay for him to rest a little, if he wanted to. The world would go on without his help for a few weeks, and there were other heroes available besides him. 

“Honey, I know you might not need one, but it’s okay if you just want one. No one would judge you if-”

And then he did something he’d never done before: he snapped at you. He didn’t even look up from his screen, his fingers still a steady staccato on the keyboard as he barked out harshly.

“I said I don’t need a fucking break. I’m just doing my goddamn job, and I don’t need you breathing down my neck watching my every move the whole time I do it. I can take care of myself.”

You winced. Obviously, that stung, and if he’d bothered to look up from his computer screen, he might have seen that on your face. But you could tell he wasn’t as unbothered by this conversation as he was acting.

Despite his brusque attitude, your words were striking a chord with him, hitting a little too close to home. His shoulders were stiff as a board, bunched up around his ears in a telltale sign of defensiveness, and you understood, really you did.

For Bucky, doing this job is the one way he can even attempt to atone for all the bad shit he’s done. Of course he felt uncomfortable with the idea of a break, he thinks he has to do these missions as some sort of self-imposed penance for the things he’d been made to do as the Winter Soldier. 

So you didn’t judge him too harshly for lashing out. You understood the reason he worked so hard, and you knew what motivated him to continue going out there even when he was exhausted. You just wanted him to see that taking a break for his own mental health wasn’t a bad thing, that even if he was making amends he still needed to find time to take care of himself, too.

You took a deep breath and spoke in a calm voice, hoping to express your concern in a nonthreatening manner even as he still refused to look at you. 

“Angel. I’m not trying to breathe down your neck or tell you how to do your job. I know it’s important to you, and I love how hard you work! It’s just that, super-soldier or not, if you want to continue to do this job, you’re gonna need to stop and rest at some point, honey. That’s all I’m trying to say. I’m worried about you, love.”

Finally, he looked up at you, and your heart fluttered just seeing those baby blues you love so much. Until you clocked the scowl on his pretty face, and the hope in your gut curdled to dread. He was angry, you knew what that looked like, but in the six months of your relationship so far you’d never once seen that anger directed at you before.

It wasn’t frightening in a physical sense, not like you were scared for your well-being, of course not. But it deeply unsettled you, seeing the man you love looking at you like that. It made you want to apologize, though you weren’t quite sure what for. Before you could do anything at all, he spoke, his voice a cold, steel edge.

“You don’t know anything about what I can handle. I was doing just fine before you came around, and I don’t need you fussing over me at every turn just because I don’t sit around here all day scrolling on my phone or whatever it is you think I should be doing. I don’t need or want your hovering, so just stop, okay?”

There was silence. His shoulders heaved in the wake of his outburst, and you felt almost dazed, like this was some kind of mirage you could will away if you blinked hard enough. He’d never spoken to you like that.

Obviously, you’d hit a nerve, and while logically you understood that, it didn’t lessen the pain in your chest. You were just worried about him, why was he fighting like you were trying to strap him down and force him to quit?

While you tried to regain your bearings, breathing deeply and forcing back the stinging you felt building in your eyes, he slammed his laptop shut, standing and stalking towards your bedroom door. He’d come over to your place to work on his mission reports at your insistence because you’d wanted to keep him company, and now it appeared he was leaving.

“W-where are you going, what are you doing?” you’d squeaked, alarmed, following after him as he made his way to the foyer of your apartment and shoved his feet into his boots.

“I can’t fucking do this, I'm done,” he’d muttered in a gruff, hard voice, lacing his boots efficiently and standing back to his full height as he reached for the doorknob.

You shook your head, panicked, reaching for his arm and trying futilely to drag him back into your apartment. “Baby, please. I’m sorry, don’t go.”

But he just shook off your hold and stalked out the door, leaving you there as your eyes blurred with tears. After standing there in your foyer for several minutes, waiting for him to turn around and come back, you’d simply fallen to your knees and curled up right there on the polished wooden floor, bawling your eyes out.

That’s where you still are a couple hours later when your phone starts to vibrate incessantly in your pocket. You pull it out with trembling fingers and swipe to answer a call from Natasha.

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“H-hello?” you croak into the receiver.

The second Nat hears you pick up the call she’s talking, looking distractedly through her closet as she holds the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

“Hey honey, listen, me and the girls were thinking about running to Target, and we wanted to- wait, what’s wrong?” Natasha’s cheerful voice quickly drops into something soft and concerned as she picks up on the sniffles coming through her tinny cell phone speakers.

For a few seconds all she can hear is you sobbing quietly, the way you struggle to slow your hysterical breathing so you can put together a sentence. “H-he left, Nat. He broke up with me,” you whimper, voice barely audible. 

This stops Natasha in her tracks, her brow furrowed in deep confusion as she freezes with one hand reaching for her favorite sweater. What the fuck? Why in the hell would Barnes break up with you? Especially when she knows for a fact that on the last mission she had with him, he stopped into a jewelry shop in Germany ‘just to look’ at engagement rings? This doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

“Honey,” Nat speaks into the phone again, her voice soft and soothing even through the crackly audio coming from your cell phone. “What happened, what did he say?”

You sniffle again, and clear your throat so she can hear your scratchy voice a bit better. “We…there was a fight, a-and I didn’t mean to, Nat, I swear, I was just worried, but…he said he can’t do this anymore, that h-he's done, and then he left. He didn’t take any of his things with him, but maybe he’s gonna come back for them, I don’t know…I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Nat…” As your sentence tapers off, your voice fades out, and a few renewed sobs float over the phone call into Nat’s ear, the sounds soaked in agony.

Oh, okay. Nat thinks she can see what really happened here just from your description, but that doesn’t make the sounds of your misery in her ear any less painful to hear. Likely, when Bucky had said he couldn’t do “this” anymore, that he was done, he’d meant the argument, the conversation, not your relationship.

But Barnes is your first real boyfriend, and you’ve never had a fight with him before. You were probably so confused and upset in the moment that you weren’t thinking about the context of his statement.

All you knew was that Bucky got upset with you for the very first time, and then he left. To you, that must certainly look like a breakup, and when Nat thinks about it from your perspective, she understands how you’d come to that conclusion.

She’d love to explain to you how you may have misunderstood, but as she listens to your hoarse crying over speakerphone, she knows you’re not in the frame of mind to process rational thought right now. Instead, she decides to focus on soothing you for the moment.

“I’m sorry, honey, I don’t know why he’d ever do anything like that to you. I’m gonna get to the bottom of it, alright? In the meantime, I just need you to do something for me,” she coos, her voice comforting and warm.

You don’t answer, just sniffling occasionally as you sit there in silence. Natasha, interpreting your lack of response as an affirmation, continues on.

“Where are you right now?”

There’s more silence for a few seconds, the sound of you pulling deep breaths into your lungs as you regain awareness of your surroundings. Then:

“Uh. The floor. In my apartment,” you mumble, confused, like you’ve just now realized that fact.

Natasha feels an additional lash of anger at Barnes flood her system when you tell her that, but she works to keep her voice calm even has her knuckles go white around her device.

“Okay, well, I need you to get up off the floor and go to your bedroom, okay? I want you to get dressed in your comfiest pajamas and crawl into bed for me, and wait there while I handle this. Can you do that? Just close your eyes and try to rest while I figure everything out?”

More sniffles, a hoarse cough, and then, after a beat of silence, your voice crackles over the line.

“Yeah….okay. I can do that, Nat,” you croak, the sound of shuffling floating over the line as you stagger to your feet after who knows how long on the floor.

She smiles, relieved to hear your voice coming through a bit more calmly, even as her mind races with the next items on her to-do list. “Okay sweetheart, you do that, then. I love you, I’ll call back soon, okay? Go get some rest.”

After hanging up with you, confident that at least you’re not curled up on your apartment floor anymore, she pockets her cell and immediately stalks down the hall towards the elevator, Target trip long forgotten.

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Bucky knows he fucked up. As someone who fucks up just about everything, he’s intimately familiar with the process, and he can say, with 100% certainty, that in this instance he absolutely fucked up. He never should have snapped at you - his sweetheart, his girl. You were just worried about him, and of course you were.

Bucky knows damn well he works too hard, especially lately, and he’s been on the verge of physical and mental collapse pretty much every damn day for the past month, running himself into the ground. He’d even been thinking to himself before your argument that he should slow down, take a break before he gets himself killed. So why did he get so defensive when you’d suggested it?

He doesn’t goddamn know. Because he’s messed up. Because it’s one thing when he decides to take some time off, but another when someone else has the idea, like they think he needs it.

He can’t help it; for decades of his life, the slightest sign of weakness meant pain, meant the frigid blast of a firehouse to wake him up or the wandering scalpel of a Hydra doctor looking to find a defect. Not that that makes his outburst okay, by any means, but it’s an explanation, and hey, he’s working on it, really he is. 

Still, he knew the second he walked out of your apartment that he’d fucked up, and so he’s spent the past two hours at his own place a few floors up, licking his wounds and gathering the courage to go apologize.

Because…yes, okay, he’s embarrassed by the way he acted. He’s ashamed of his own behavior, and he’d needed a minute to feel sorry for himself before he inevitably goes back down to your apartment and grovels for your forgiveness. 

He figures you’re pissed beyond belief, and if giving you some time to cool off also gives him a little while to stall the complete destruction of his ego, well, then, he’ll take it.

He finished up his mission report, he took a shower, and now he’s preparing his apology speech, debating the merit of walking down the street to a bodega for some flowers, when his doorbell rings. Shit, maybe he’s already out of time and you decided to come to him. 

When he opens his door, looking thoroughly contrite, it’s not your expected figure that stands in his entryway, but Natasha’s. And even given all his super-soldier reflexes and military training, he still staggers back a step in shock when she slaps him right across the face. 

“Whoa, what the fuck, Nat?” he barks, rubbing at the heat blooming under the skin of this cheek.

Standing there in front of him with her arms crossed, she looks anything but remorseful, her fists clenched as if she has to deny herself the urge to do it again.

“Why the fuck did you break up with her, Barnes? Are you insane?! The one good thing in your life, and you threw it all away, why, because you got a little pissed off? Out of all the stupid, careless decisions you’ve made in your fucked-up life, I really didn’t think you had it in you to top all that, but Jesus…”

As she continues to rant at him, her face pinched with rage, Bucky struggles to make sense of the words she’s already spoken. Broken up with you? Why in God’s name would he ever do that?

What an absolutely absurd thing to accuse him of, given that everybody in this building knows how insanely in love with you he is, especially your own best friend. Why is she here playing some kind of prank on him when he’s supposed to be rehearsing his apology?

“I did no such thing,” he answers bluntly, interrupting her impassioned speech, his expression confused and a little irritated at the accusation.

Nat barely even blinks at this denial. “Oh really? Then why did I just talk to her on the phone, bawling her eyes out on the floor of her apartment, telling me that you did?”

Of course, Nat’s pretty sure that Barnes hadn’t really meant to break up with you by leaving during your argument, but she’s pissed at him either way for not being cognizant enough of your feelings to foresee your interpretation of his behavior.

To Bucky, Natasha’s words might as well have been a bucket of ice water poured over his head, the way they immediately freeze his joints with dread. He feels his stomach churn as if he might be sick, the horrifying mental image of you curled up on your wooden floors driving a stake between his ribs. When he’d left, you’d been standing. Sure, you’d looked upset, but surely not that upset…right? 

He tries to think back to your emotional state when he’d stormed out a couple of hours ago, but truthfully he hadn’t turned back to see your face as he’d walked out your door. Had you been crying? He didn’t think so, but now he isn’t so sure, especially given the look of anger on Nat’s face. Why would you tell her that he’d broken up with you? As a joke, some kind of payback for his outburst?

“I….” he pauses, tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips. “You talked to her? What did she say?”

Natasha almost feels sympathy for Bucky in this moment, standing before her looking so confused and slightly horrified. But then she thinks about her best friend sobbing on the floor because he’s an idiot, and that emotion vanishes, replaced with her plentiful anger.

“Well, it was kind of hard to hear her, what with all the sobbing and such. But when I finally was able to get her to speak, she said that there was a fight, and that you broke up with her and then left her there. She said you hadn’t taken any of your stuff with you when you left, and she wasn’t sure when you’d be back for it, but that she didn’t know what she was going to do,” Nat recalls in a hard voice, her gaze sharp and accusatory. “After that she started crying again, so I didn’t ask her any more questions.”

Another bruising blow to the tatters of Bucky Barnes’s heart. What did you mean, he hadn’t taken his stuff? Why would he take his things when he’d left them there on purpose so he had them to use when he was at your place?

Why would he take his belongings out of your apartment just because you got into an argument? This doesn’t make any sense, and the longer Natasha talks, the worse his growing sense of unease becomes. 

Why were you crying? Sure, he expected anger, he’d been a huge swinging dick and he deserves some harsh words. But why is Nat saying that you were curled up on your floor sobbing? Why wouldn’t you be on the couch, or in your bed, or even down in the gym punching out your frustrations? 

And why were you on the phone with your best friend moments ago talking like you didn’t expect him to come back? Surely you know he’ll be back, he practically lives in your apartment - his wallet and keys are still sitting in the dish by your front door, his favorite jacket hung on the coat rack. He looks at your closest friend desperately, his face drawn in stark lines of horror and regret.

“Natasha, please, I don’t know why she said all that stuff to you, I didn’t break up with her, I would never break up with her. We had an argument. She was only worried about me, but I got defensive like an asshole and said some shit I didn’t mean, so…I just wanted to get out of there, get some space before I lashed out some more, that’s all. I just needed a minute to cool off, I was always fully planning to go back, to explain myself and apologize. I don’t know why she…” he trails off, looking lost.

Nat sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her best friend is in hysterics, and it’s all because men are the dumbest creatures on this planet.

“What do you think that looked like to her, Barnes? You guys get in your very first fight, and after saying some mean shit to her you stomp out of there and go ‘I can’t do this, I'm done’. What do you think those words might have sounded like to her ears? You’re her first serious boyfriend, jackass! She’s never been in this situation before! She doesn’t know that it’s relatively normal for couples to argue, even if you definitely shouldn’t have snapped at her. She just knows you’ve never fought before, and the first time you do, you walk out the door. She thinks you’re gone for good, James.”

You could hear a pin drop in Bucky’s apartment right now, the sounds of bustling Manhattan outside his windows muffled by the blood roaring in his ears. He wants to be upset with you, to question how you could ever doubt his love enough to think he’d really just walk out after one disagreement. But in truth, given his actions and your lack of relationship experience, he doesn’t see how you could’ve come to any other conclusion. 

Bucky thought he’d been regretful before Nat got here, but after hearing his behavior described in this new light, he’s got a whole list of emotions to add to the pile. Self-loathing, remorse, fear. You’re in your apartment right now, believing yourself to be single. All that time you two spent together, every memory and intimate moment, you think it’s over, just like that, in the blink of an eye. 

Obviously, he needs to explain himself immediately, to tell you that he hadn’t meant to end your relationship in the slightest and that this is all just a giant misunderstanding.

But what if you don’t care? What if, after the way he acted towards you today, you’d rather accept his words as you’d thought he meant them and stay broken up, even knowing that wasn’t his intent? He’s shaking, he realizes distantly, noticing the way Natasha looks at him with concern in her eyes now.

He hadn’t ever really let himself consider that you’d turn him down before, when he was rehearsing his apology speech. You’re in a committed relationship of six months, you’re in love. Surely, even if he was a bit of an asshole, one transgression can be forgiven as long as he apologizes sincerely.

But that was back when he thought his only sin was his harsh words, back when he thought you were angry with him for his outburst.

Now that he knows what you’ve really been feeling, that you’ve apparently spent the past two hours sobbing on your wooden apartment floors waiting for him to come back and take his belongings, he’s not so confident that he can grovel hard enough to make up for this.

He hadn’t meant to hurt you, god damn it, that’s the whole reason he left in the first place, to spare you from his undeserved anger. Now he might be about to lose you because of his own childish temper tantrum, and the terror of that thought feels icy in his veins as it travels straight to his heart, freezing it in place. 

His body is moving towards his apartment door before he even commands his muscles to do so, single-minded on the only thing that matters anymore: fixing what he’s done. His hand is already turning the doorknob by the time a slightly startled Nat is able to catch up with him, her hand on his shoulder stalling him for only the tiniest moment before he’s barrelling ahead again.

“Don’t fuck this up. You love her, now go make it right,” she commands sternly, and Bucky just grunts his acknowledgment before bursting through his door out into the empty hallway, towards the elevator.

He doesn’t stop to voice his fears to Natasha, that it might be too late to make anything right, that he may have fucked it up beyond repair already. He just keeps moving, hoping beyond hope that he still has a chance.

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When he makes it to your apartment a few floors down from his own, it’s eerily silent as he pushes the door open. He’s never needed a key, FRIDAY has explicit orders to grant him entry, but for the first time ever it feels wrong entering your space unannounced, like maybe he should knock and wait for permission in light of what’s happened. He ignores the impulse. 

You’re not crouched on the floor of your entryway like Nat said you’d been, so he supposes that’s a good sign, but it occurs to him then that he’s not even entirely sure you’re home. Bucky pauses to ask FRIDAY where you are, and is relieved to hear that you’re only in your bedroom.

He almost thinks he picks up a hint of annoyance in the AI’s voice when she responds to his inquiry, though, as if even the damn computer program is pissed at him for the way he treated you. It must be his imagination.

“Angel?” he calls out softly, making his way slowly through the apartment to your bedroom, noting the oppressive stillness of the place as he goes deeper. “Honeybun? Sweet pea?” he uses his softest, most gentle voice, disturbed to find your usually lively dwelling so silent. 

The TV in the living room - usually playing some youtube video or episode of your favorite show - is powered off, and the lights are all off too, as if the sun had set and you simply hadn’t bothered to flick any of them on to combat the encroaching darkness. The place he’s wandering now is like a ghost of your apartment, no scented candles lit, no steaming mug of tea waiting for you at your usual spot at the coffee table. 

It’s unnerving, to have a place usually so full of life be so startlingly empty all of a sudden. His slow steps and his soft voice calling out for you are the only sounds in the entire space, until he finally reaches your bedroom door and pauses to listen. For a moment there’s nothing, and he worries that perhaps you aren’t home after all, until he hears a soft sound coming muffled through the thick wood of your door. 

He presses his ear against it to listen closer, brow scrunched as he waits to hear the sound again, and a moment later his heart shatters as it becomes clear that what he’s hearing is your soft sobbing, interspersed with the occasional sniffle.

Bucky pushes your door open ever-so-carefully, cursing under his breath at the slight squeak of the wood on its hinges. It’s hard to see anything in your room, even with his perfect super-soldier eyesight, as the lights are off in here, too, the curtains closed to limit even the soft moonlight coming through the windows. 

His instinct is to flick on the light so he can see you better, but he doesn’t want to startle you, and besides, you obviously prefer the lights off or you would’ve turned them on yourself when it got dark. Instead he just steps further into the room, squinting his eyes as he can just barely make out the lump under the covers where you lay, curled in a ball in the center of your mattress, crying quietly.

He knows you must have heard his entrance, must realize he’s standing at the side of your bed right now, but you make no move to acknowledge him, continuing to sob softly as he watches on, heartbroken.

“Oh, darlin’...” he sighs, pulling the covers back a bit to expose your head, kneeling with one knee on the mattress so he can get a closer look at you.

You sniffle pitifully as you feel the cool air of the room on your face, extra cold against your cheeks where they’re wet with tears. Your vision is too blurry for you to actually see him, but you know who it is, know the scent of his cologne and the familiar touch of his fingers on your face as he brushes your hair back to see you better. 

Your stupid, traitorous nervous system reacts immediately to his presence, your panicked breaths slowing and your tears subsiding, a warm wash of comfort moving through your chest along with an instinctive sense of safety.

Your body knows nothing of the events of the past few hours, that he isn’t yours anymore, that he isn’t here to comfort you. It just instinctively calms under his attention, unaware that it is fleeting now, sure to be gone in only moments.

As the man you love wipes the tears gently from your face, his touch so sweet and soft it inadvertently causes more of them to fall, you force your hoarse voice to speak, the sound a barely audible croak even in the silence of your room. “Are you here to get your things?”

Bucky’s own eyes sting at your words, at the miserable tone to your voice as you say them, and he shakes his head vehemently, though he’s not sure you’re even really seeing him right now.

“No, baby, of course not. Why would I take my stuff, huh? I left those things here so I could use them when I’m visiting my girl, you know that,” he counters in a painfully soft voice, like he thinks speaking above a murmur will shatter you. Maybe he’s right about that, you do feel awfully close to shattering.

You feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing behind your eyes, and you close them for a moment, struggling to craft a coherent thought through all the heartbreak clouding your brain. Why is he here speaking nonsense when you’re in the middle of trying to mourn him? Does he not see that it’s cruel for him to be here with his comforting touch and his sweet voice, knowing that those things are lost to you forever now? 

“I’m not your girl anymore…” you mumble brokenly, the very act of having to speak the words into existence pulling another sob from your chest. 

Despite yourself you nuzzle your cheek into his palm as he cradles your face, desperate for his affection. If you’re never going to feel his touch again, you’ll bask in every opportunity while you have it, savoring the familiar warmth even as you question why he’s offering it to you in the first place.

Your face is pinched in concentration, like you’re trying to commit the sensation to memory, and Bucky’s heart might as well be in shards by his feet at this point, the way you seek out his touch like you’re starved for it. Like it hasn’t only been hours since he last gave it to you, like you’ll never have the chance to feel it again.

“Yes you are, baby, you’re always gonna be my girl. You’re mine, honey, just like I’m yours. Forever, haven’t I told you that?” he speaks desperately, like he’s pleading with you to agree with him, and although you’d love to, you have very recent evidence to the contrary.

“B-but, you said…” you trail off in a whisper, unable to repeat the words. You don’t need to anyways, you both know what he’d said. That he can’t do this. Can’t be with you anymore.

Bucky’s quick to interrupt you, needing you to understand that that’s not what he’d said, or, at least, not what he’d meant. “Baby, I didn’t- I’m sorry I said it like that, and I understand why you took those words the way you did. But that’s not what I meant to say, sweetheart, I swear.”

He huffs and slides a frustrated hand through his hair, suddenly unable to bear having this conversation with you while you lie curled up alone in your bed, looking up at him blankly with your shining eyes.

Before you can speak another word he peels back the covers some more, making room for himself as he slides into the bed beside you, pulling you up and onto his chest so he can hold you in his arms. The tears on your cheeks immediately soak through the soft cotton of his T-shirt, but he doesn’t care, cradling you tightly against his chest and rubbing slow, comforting circles onto your back.

You want to say something, to express your confusion at his incongruent behavior, but you can’t, not with his arms around you and his scent in your nose. You open your mouth to speak but all that comes out are more shuddering sobs, your body limp in his hold, completely helpless against the comfort he offers.

Even if he shouldn’t be, he’s here. He’s here, and he’s holding you like you’re something precious again, and even if you know that there must be some mistake you can’t stop yourself from completely melting into his embrace, any semblance of your remaining composure crumbling completely.

Bucky just coos softly, murmuring gentle assurances in your ear and holding you, solid and steady as you weather the storm of your heartbreak. Despite having spent the better part of the past two hours bawling your eyes out, the crying starts anew with him here, his comforting presence both a relief and a reminder of what you’ve lost, what you’ll be missing when he walks out that door again.

You two lie like that for a while, though whether it’s for a few minutes or several hours you can’t say, time stretching into infinity as you cry into his chest. As the tears finally subside once again, your body exhausted and your throat sore, your mind belatedly registers his words from before. He’d been saying something, hadn’t he? 

“What…” your voice comes out scratchy, so you clear your throat to be heard better - though Bucky couldn’t have missed a word out of your mouth if he tried, focused on you as he is. “What do you mean, that’s not what you meant? You broke up with me.”

Bucky shakes his head immediately, bringing his mismatched palms up to cradle your face, sweeping your hair back behind your ears so he can see his beautiful girl. God, it’s torture watching you cry, but he seems to have broken through to you somehow, and he’s not going to squander this opportunity to explain himself.

He can’t suppress the urge to lean down and drop a tender kiss to your forehead, though, your tear-stained face so pitiful he could cry right along with you if he didn’t have something more important to be doing at the moment.

“I mean, that’s not what I meant, sweetheart. I never intended to break up with you. How could I? Leave my girl, my princess? Don’t you know you mean more to me than every other person on this planet put together?” He speaks calmly but firmly, his gaze steady on yours as he practically begs you to believe him. You have to believe him.

You frown, confusion pulling your brows together as you take in his desperate expression. His words make your heart flutter with hope, but you don’t understand, can’t make sense of the reality he’s trying to assert when you know you heard otherwise only a couple of hours ago. It’s all a bit much for your heartbroken brain to handle, and you just blink at him blankly, completely lost.

“I don’t understand, Buck. Y-you were so upset, and then you left, and you said ‘I can’t do this, I'm done.’ I thought you meant we were done, that you can’t do us anymore.” you recall in a miserable voice, searching his eyes for answers as you desperately try to understand.

He nods empathetically, his thumbs brushing at the tears on your cheeks even as more continue to fall to take their place. “I know that’s what I said, sweet girl, and I know how it sounded to you, but that’s not at all how I meant it, I swear. I just…” Bucky sighs, his features plastered with remorse, his eyes falling from yours in shame.

“I was being an asshole. I knew, even as I was doing it, that I was being an asshole, that I couldn’t stop being an asshole, so I just…I wanted to get away from you before I lashed out any more, that’s all. I knew if I kept trying to discuss things with you right then I was only going to say more shit I didn’t mean, so I tried to put some space between us, just until I could cool off and be rational again.”

Bucky pauses, sighing deeply and stroking your cheeks. His eyes are swimming with guilt so deep it hurts your chest just to look at it. He looks almost as torn up about this whole ordeal as you do, which, although his pain isn’t something you revel in, does make your heart beat a little faster with hope. Would a man who doesn’t want to be with you anymore still look at you with that much guilt over having caused you pain?

When he speaks again his voice is low and strained with emotion, apologetic. “Darlin’, I…I am so sorry for the things I said to you today. I didn’t mean a single damn one of them. I love that you look after me, I love that I have someone waiting for me when I come home, making sure I’m not pushing myself too hard. I need you there to do that for me, because we both know I’m too proud and stubborn to take a break on my own. I got defensive, and I lashed out because I felt threatened, and that is not okay or fair to you. If you can’t forgive me for those things I said, I understand.” 

He swallows thickly, his eyes closing as hot tears sting the backs of them, fighting to escape. “But you need to know that when I told you I couldn’t ‘do this,’ I sure as hell didn’t mean you, or us. All I meant was that I couldn’t keep having that conversation with you, that I needed to get away before I hurt you worse. That’s all it was. When I left your apartment today, it was to get some space because I knew I was throwing a temper tantrum. In no way, shape, or form was I breaking up with you, or trying to end what we have. I couldn’t do that, it’s not in my DNA to do that. I’m simply not capable of it, and you have to know that. Even if you decide you’re better off without me, I need you to know that. Please.”

You stare down at him in the wake of his speech, watching as he blinks rapidly to keep tears at bay, and you’re so god damn confused in this moment that you wish he would give you a timeout, let you process everything he just said before you have to respond to it.

Could it possibly be true? That he’d never meant to break up with you, that he still loves and wants you? Could this all just be some massive misunderstanding on your part?

The possibility has hope fluttering warm in your chest, but you suppress it. Better to make absolutely sure first, before you let your heart get obliterated for the second time today. Letting yourself have this hope only to quash it moments later might actually break you for good.

“You weren’t…I mean, you didn’t want to break up with me?” you whisper hesitantly, afraid to let yourself believe it even though you’re desperate to.

Bucky’s heart cracks in his chest as you ask that so timidly, like just voicing the question is opening you up to a whole new potential world of hurt. He shakes his head firmly, his metal hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull, his fingertips massaging your scalp gently.

“No, babygirl, never. Not in a million years. Even though we were arguing, it was the last thing on my mind, trust me. I’ve never wanted to break up with you, not for a second. I love you,” he reassures you smoothly, his voice low and calm, exuding certainty.

You have to sniffle hard to hold back a fresh round of tears at those three simple words, ones you never thought you’d get to hear from him again. Jesus Christ, if you never cry again it’ll be too soon. Your gaze is particularly frail and fragile as it meets Bucky’s, some of that hope you’d been suppressing earlier making itself known in your features, tentative but present.

“So…you’re still my boyfriend?” you ask in a tiny murmur, like maybe this is the part where he pulls the rug out from under you and announces he was kidding about the whole misunderstanding thing.

Bucky’s features tighten a little at your question, and dread pools in your stomach rapidly, fearing the worst. But his words aren’t quite the heartbreaking blow you’re expecting, more like a puzzling wrinkle.

“If you want me to be, yeah, baby, I am.”

Your brow furrows, confused. What the hell does that mean? Suddenly, you recall a few other parts of his speech just now, parts that had been immediately overshadowed when he’d said that he still wanted to be with you. Now that you think about it, he’d also said a bunch of stuff along the lines of ‘If you can forgive me,’ and ‘If you decide you’re better off without me,’ hadn’t he?

What the hell was that all about? Why’s he talking about whether you want to be with him? Like you haven’t been literally bawling your eyes out for the past two hours at the prospect of having to live without him? How does that make any sense?

“Of course I want you to be. You think I was curled up on the floor sobbing because I was happy to think that our relationship was over?” you ask incredulously, frowning at him. 

He chuckles a little at that, the sound vibrating through you as you lay on his chest, but it’s strained, his expression vulnerable. Although you attribute this misunderstanding mostly to your own mind jumping to the worst possible conclusion, Bucky is riddled with guilt for both his abrupt exit from your apartment and the things he’d said leading up to it.

In his eyes you went through a lot of pain today, and every inch of it is his fault. If he’d stopped to explain his meaning, or, hell, if he hadn’t gotten so damn defensive in the first place, none of this would’ve happened. His girl wouldn’t have spent hours of her life sobbing on her hardwood floors if he’d just stopped to breathe like his therapist taught him to. His pale irises swim with shame as he gazes up at you.

“No, no, I just…I said some horrible things to you today, darlin’. And just because you were upset to think that I’d broken up with you doesn’t necessarily mean that all is forgiven, I know that. I understand if you’d rather keep us apart after the way I acted,” he murmurs defeatedly, like he’s already prepared himself for a thorough scolding.

Which is absolutely goddamn ridiculous, in your eyes. You snort, brows raised in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? All is forgiven, Buck, all is so past forgiven. I don’t care about the shit you said. You’re here, you’re still mine, that’s all that matters now. Forget the fight, forget all of it. I’ve got you, that’s all I care about.”

You say it so simply, like it could be so easy. Like his indiscretions are just wiped clean in the face of your pure relief. But he knows that they aren’t, they can’t be. It’s not that easy, as much as he’d like it to be. He fucked up, and he deserves what’s coming to him.

He tries to reason with you, his expression pained. “Baby, you can’t just-” 

“I absolutely can, actually,” you interrupt, looking unamused, stern. “I’m the one you said those things to, so I think I have the right to determine how I feel about them, don’t you?” You keep your eyebrows raised, challenging.

You watch as he mulls those words over a bit, licking his lips anxiously. It takes him a moment to decide how to respond, and when he does his words are slow, strained. Like maybe he doesn’t want to say them, but he feels like he has to.

“Yes, you do. It’s ultimately your decision, of course it is. I just…before you decide to blindly forgive me for this, I want you to really consider how you feel, okay? I know your instinct is to forget all about it because you’re just relieved to have me at all right now, but…I messed up. I hurt you, I said hurtful things even if I didn’t mean them. You didn’t deserve that, least of all from me, the man who’s supposed to love and protect you. You’re allowed to be upset about it, and if my actions made you realize that you don’t want to be with me anymore, then…you’re allowed to feel that way, too.”

His voice cracks on that last word, and your heart aches painfully in your chest at the sound. In this moment, you’re realizing with horror that Bucky truly believes he deserves to be broken up with tonight. With the unshed tears clinging to his lashline and the devastated look on his face, it’s clear that he doesn’t want to be dumped, that in fact that’s the last thing he wants.

But it’s obviously what he thinks should happen, the punishment he thinks he’s earned for the inadvertent heartbreak he put you through tonight, and that’s just…unacceptable, to be honest. 

The man would forgive you if you literally drove a stake through his chest, for Christ’s sake, yet he’s expecting you to kick him to the curb? What, because he got a little snippy with you? Because you jumped to the wrong conclusion and convinced yourself he left you? You would almost be insulted that he could think such a thing of you if you didn't know where the fear comes from.

You've seen them firsthand: the deep layers of self-loathing that have bogged him down since long before your relationship started, the inherent belief he carries that he is irreparably flawed and unworthy of love. He doesn't feel like he deserves you on his best day, so when he screws up, no matter the size of the infraction, he expects to be cast aside.

You reach out with one hand to cradle his cheek, his stubble gently scraping against your thumb as you caress his skin. Your expression is caring but firm, your eyes holding his as you speak in an even voice.

“I need you to understand that I don't expect you to be perfect, James. I don’t expect that you will always say the right thing, or have a perfectly even temperament in every situation because hell, none of us do. You’re allowed to fuck up sometimes, sweetheart, and you still deserve to be loved even when you do.”

His brow furrows as you speak, his instinct to reflexively deny the forgiveness you’re offering. “But I hurt you,” he interjects, the look on his face so miserable it tugs at your chest.

You nod your agreement, though your expression is still full of compassion and love. “Yes, you did. I won’t even begin to address the break-up fiasco because that was a complete misunderstanding on my part, but yes, the things you said before you left really stung me. Do you know why I’m going to forgive you anyways, though? Why, even if this happens again, I’ll probably forgive you a hundred times over?”

You pause for effect, giving him the opportunity to respond. Honestly, as upset as you’ve been these past few hours, it’s all begun to fade in the face of this man you love trying to convince you he’s not worth it. When he just looks at you helplessly, his eyes tracking your speech with rapt attention, you smile and continue.

“It’s because I know you’d never hurt me on purpose, Bucky. Let me ask you something: when you snapped at me today, did you do it because you were trying to find the absolute meanest thing you could say at that moment? Did you say it because you wanted me to feel bad?”

Looking a bit startled at the suggestion, Bucky shakes his head mutely. He hadn’t really even been conscious of the words at all until after they’d already blurted from his mouth, and even then it didn’t fully sink in until after he’d calmed down. You smile, satisfied by his immediate denial. 

“No, of course you didn’t. You didn’t say that stuff to be mean, to hurt just for hurting’s sake. You were feeling ambushed and defensive, and you lashed out. Is it ideally how you’ll always react when I try to express my concern for your wellbeing? No, of course not. But is it a realistic thing for a person to do who’s not used to being cared for? Absolutely, it is. And it’s just something we’re gonna have to work on, baby. I’ve never done this whole relationship thing before, and you’re trying to do it for the first time in 80 years with a hell of a lot of additional trauma thrown into the mix. 

“We’re learning, and it’s not always gonna be perfect or easy. Maybe before this becomes an issue again, we’ll think up some ways for you to politely tell me ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed by this conversation, please back off and we can come back to it later.’ Or maybe we’ll discuss how I can voice my concerns to you in the future without triggering your defensive response, how I can come off as less accusatory and make the discussion feel more safe for you.

“We’ve only been doing this for six months, and as real as it is, as much as I love you more than anything, we’re gonna face a hell of a lot more than this one hurdle if we want to keep doing this thing in the long term. So, yeah, tonight has sucked, pretty much every minute of it was a disaster, but you know what? It’s over now. You apologized, we’re gonna try and do better next time, and…that’s the end of it. Clean slate. All I want to do with the rest of my night is finally stop fucking crying, and eat a burger the size of my head. Preferably, with my boyfriend next to me the whole time, trying to steal my fries when I’m not looking. Do you think you could help me make that happen, Buck? Please?”

He looks stunned in the wake of your speech, silent for several moments as his brain struggles to grapple with the reality of your easy forgiveness. He blinks at you hard, like he truly can’t believe that you’re not running in the opposite direction right now, burning every trace of your life together and cursing his name the whole way.

But the truth is, you’d already made up your mind to forgive him the second you realized he hadn’t meant to break up with you in the first place, and Bucky must see that, too, because the fight in his eyes is slowly dimming into something more fragile, vulnerable. 

His gaze fixes on yours in the dark, searching for some hidden shard of resentment or anger that you may be holding back for his sake, but he doesn’t find it, there is no such thing for him to find. You just smile weakly up at him, exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the day but no less sincere, and when he blows out a slow breath through his nose, you know you’ve got him.

He’s definitely not done badgering himself about the mistakes he made today, not by a long shot, but he must see your weariness on your face, your desperate need to move on from this at least for the moment, so he nods slowly, his flesh hand rising to gently tuck some of your hair behind your ear.

“Yeah, sweetheart, we can make that happen. Whatever you want.”

Your smile brightens, the relief so stark in your features that it brings a lump to his throat, and when you press your lips against his he makes a silent promise to never put you in a position like this again, to never let his bullshit drag you down or put your relationship at risk like he did today.

He’ll go to therapy twice a damn week if he has to, you deserve better than his temper tantrums, than cruel words spoken out of a defensiveness he doesn’t need anymore. Not with you. 

Half an hour later finds you perched in his lap, draped in one of his hoodies and talking and laughing at your favorite diner like there never was an argument, like not a single tear was shed today. He hates that the joy on your face is most likely motivated by your sheer relief that he’s still yours, but he can’t complain about the sparkle in your eyes, nor the way you lean back against his chest as you sip your shake.

Obliging your request, he steals some fries off your plate while you gesticulate wildly through a story, a warm flutter going off in his chest when you pretend to squawk in protest. He soaks in every second, every twitch of your lips and brush of your hand against his, reminding himself what he could have lost, what he perhaps deserved to lose after his actions today. 

He’ll make this up to you, he knows he will - he’s sure Natasha will have plenty of suggestions for how he can start. He thinks back to that little velvet box he’s got buried deep in the back of his sock drawer, a sharp pull tugging at his heart as he realizes he almost lost his chance to give it to you at all. He resolves right here and now, basking in the warm light of your infinite patience for him, that he won’t take that box out until he’s earned it.

He hates to wait even a second longer, itches to lock you down with every passing moment, but he won’t ask you to make that kind of commitment to him until he’s sure he’s the man that you need him to be. As he presses a firm kiss to your temple, swiping another morsel from the edge of your plate with a smile, he swears up to his Ma that he will work hard to deserve you, even if you seem to think he already does.

[omegapausestuck]

I've been thinking, since the act has ended, I've got a prime chance to gather my thoughts; and open a dialogue about the merits and perhaps the pitfalls of the current writing direction of the new comic. Besides, this post was getting WAY too long, so I hope to start a fresh one at the beginning of every act so as not to destroy people's dashes QUITE as much. I've never done a liveblog before, and honestly I wasn't planning to, but it just kind of happened this way, so I'm still figuring everything out. Let me know if you think I'm doing the shittiest job in the world, and you know SO MANY ways to improve it!

Anyway, I think we all know the state of the fandom, when hsbc started updating. We had just come off of the tragic release that was the epilogues, and then the subsequent insult to injury that the previous team had left behind with Homestuck². Nobody was left to believe in this thing, and I was certainly one of them.

I had kind of this general attitude of "Let's all point and laugh at how hard they bungle it THIS time!" but then something strange started happening. The writers were actually listening to the fan feedback, for once, and making marked improvements—in characterization, in tension, in dialogue, in art style, and in scope—it slowly dawned on me that I was genuinely excited to read the next page, not ironically.

I think a part of me wanted this to work, all along. Like sonic fans who had to sit through the most painful, doggiest shit of a game, like clockwork, every year, just in hopes that Sonic Team would get their act together and make something great that they wouldn't have to feel ashamed for their clear, undying love and devotion for the series.

So, when they showed themselves capable of admitting their faults, and refocusing themselves on making something that was completely new, and refreshing—I still cracked jokes, but—I started to root for them, too... and I'll tell you right now, that this era of the comic feels at times more homestuck than Homestuck proper.

These characters are no longer pastiches, or flanderized amalgamations of their various assorted stereotypes, but have a renewed sense of depth, and mature emotional resilience that I found criminally lacking as Homestuck drew to a close.

I've been very vocal about my opinions on Homestuck's "ending," if you can even call it that. It was made by fans, for fans; and it ultimately had nothing important to say about anything actually impactful. All of the themes of adolescence, and child soldiers, and societal indoctrination, and the cold calculus of war were thrown out in favor of the black and white brutality of "Big green man video game boss needs beating," and it's nice to see that depth woven back into the world again.

I'm not going to go into any spoilers, but a few standout moments to me were Jake's speech about believing in all the other Janes enough to give up on the monster this one had become, and Rose opening up about her insecurities with her sociopath of a father; where we realized along with him that he genuinely loves her, and didn't enjoy the burden of being in control. Also, Vriska's whole dream sequence was a very close second that I'd feel guilty to not lend its flowers. (They managed to make me give a shit about her again, and that's an ASK! I was so sick of her raggedy, tired ass schtick! Grow up, bitch!) I'm not sure that the former team would have bothered with those scenes, and they're the most gripping parts of the story, for me.

We're still here because of these characters, and the fact that the authors finally understand that—and are developing them in ways that seem both natural, and respectful—has done more to heal the reputation of this franchise for me than any big multimedia push from the likes of Viz Media, or even Andrew Hussie himself would have, ever, achieved.

Now, we have a chance to see something new, and ambitious. I was cautiously optimistic before, and now I'm essentially just overcome with hope. If this is what we should come to expect from Homestuck in the near future, then we've actually got quite the incredible life ahead of us.

I can't help but look forward to it. How about you?

my reaction to that information.....

I guess this is a thing that's happening.

[sunkissedleira]

Home is in Your Arms

Pairings: BratTamer!Zayne x Bratty!Reader (f)

Summary: Zayne and you have spent the last few weeks apart due to conflicting, busy schedules. Tonight is fully dedicated to each other and catching up on all that missed time.

Content Warnings: 18+; MDNI; reader is an office worker; Tara makes a brief appearance; mentions of Nero; busy schedules; tons of teasing; fluff; domesticated life; established relationship; grinding; cunnilingus; missionary sex; dirty talk; reader being a brat; Zayne being a tamer :P; creampie; post-orgasm cuddling; L-bombs; probably missing other tags, I apologize; 5.4k words

Notes from Leira: Ya girl is a wee bit nervous about dropping this little number since it's my first time posting my writing on Tumblr in manyyy years, but I felt pretty good about how well I think it turned out. I hope whoever's eyes, if any, are pleased <3.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is no greater feeling than clocking out on a Friday. Especially after a grueling week full of early mornings and even later nights. Overtime truly isn’t for the weak. With a tired sigh, you gather up your work bag and turn the light off in your cubicle.

“Let’s get out of here before something else comes up.” A voice pipes up behind you, and you turn to see Tara. Your friend and fellow coworker is playfully looking around, as if waiting for the boogeyman to appear. “If I get another email about the Calico presentation, I’m not gonna be responsible for my actions.”

You smile, slinging your work bag over your shoulder and leading the way to the elevators. You hit the down button and lean on the wall. “After next Wednesday, we’ll be free women. The projects will be done and we’ll be transitioning out of the busy season. We just gotta keep it together until then.”

A small pout forms on Tara’s red-tinted lips. “What if I have Nero plant a virus in the mainframe and just destroy the entire system?”

The elevator pings before you could answer, and the two of you step inside. Tara taps the button for the lobby. “I didn’t know you hated Nero enough to get him fired. A shame too, I always liked him.”

Tara giggles, digging around in her bag to retrieve her phone. “So, what are your plans for the weekend? There’s a food festival in Azure Square tomorrow, but I might be too tired to go.”

You hum softly to yourself. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll take it easy and stay inside this weekend. I feel like I’ve seen the walls of my cubicle more than my room lately.”

“You’re not gonna spend some time with your hot doctor?” Tara teases as the doors open into the lobby. “With all the OT you’ve been clocking and his infamous busy schedule, I assumed you’d be inside his skin all weekend, God willing.”

A snort from you as you both head towards the revolving front doors and exit your office building onto the streets of downtown Linkon. You make your way toward the train station, pulling out your phone. Even if she was joking, Tara was correct. With your recently conflicting schedules, you hadn’t been able to see your favorite doctor in over two weeks. “You make a good point. Give me a second.”

“Take your time. I’m gonna run in here and grab some snacks for later.” Tara makes a detour into a convenience store and your park yourself on a nearby bench, placing your ringing phone to your ear.

Just when you think you’ll have to leave a message, the line opens. “Good evening, Miss. Salarywoman.”

Before you realize it, you’re grinning from ear to ear at that familiar soft-spoken voice. “Good evening, Dr. Zayne. Are you busy?”

There’s an small, amused hum from him at the use of his title. “I just arrived back to my office to finish some paperwork. Are you on your way home?”

“I am,” you nod, “I was debating if I should pop up at the hospital, so we could go home together. Is the paperwork more important than me?” The pout in your tone is loud and clear.

Zayne chuckles. “The paperwork is quite important,” he responds slyly. “However, you know you are my most important priority. I’ll see you when you arrive. Be safe.”

Another dazzling smile lights up your face. “Yes, sir.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into Akso Hospital, you bask in the cool air caressing your heated skin. As the seasons change and the weather heats up, you really begin to question your decision to not buy a car when you moved into the city.

But, why spend all that money when the train worked just fine and when you could always ride passenger-princess style in Zayne’s car. As you breeze through the hallways, you greet a couple of familiar faces. Dr. Greyson greets you with a knowing smile and a quick side hug.

“You didn’t hear it from me, but our dear Dr. Zayne is definitely in need of his Vitamin You fix. Your timing couldn’t be better,” Greyson teases.

You smirk, playfully hitting Greyson’s shoulder as you continue your walk. “Don’t worry, Greyson. I’m clocking in for the night shift as we speak.” Greyson’s light laughter echoes gently in the quiet hallways as you go your separate ways.

Moments later, you reach Zayne’s office door. The anticipation of finally seeing him after so long wins out against using your manners to knock and notify him of your presence. Instead, you barge right in.

He's seated at his desk, glasses in place, and fingers flying across the keyboard with quick and precise taps. He doesn’t speak as you shut the door behind you and approach him.

You quietly sit on the edge of desk and take a look around. His office is neat, not a pen out of place. The bratty urge to start rearranging everything to mark your presence begins to bubble in your stomach, but you remain still.

Instead, you pick up a framed photo near your hand. It’s not like you’ve never seen the photo before, in fact you have a copy on your own desk. Any time you can encapsulate the love and affection that beam through the quiet man’s expressive eyes whenever he’s genuinely happy, you take full advantage. Your smile is bright in the photo; his face is partially hidden in your hair, but the joy in his bright hazel eyes is evident.

You place the photo back down and shift your gaze to the real-life man in front of you. To your surprise, he’s already staring back at you. Hazel eyes beaming with amusement with his arms across his chest.

“Did you enjoy your trip down memory lane?”

You wrinkle your noise playfully and cross your legs. “Always. But, I’ve been up and down memory lane so much these few weeks, I’m sure the soles of my shoes have been worn away.”

The amusement in Zayne’s eyes fades into something softer. Without a word, he takes your hand and gently pulls you into his lap. With his arms wrapped tightly around you, he buries his nose into your hair and breathes in deeply. You can feel his body relaxing as he slowly exhales. “I missed you too…” His voice is almost silent in the quiet room.

Neither of you speak. You just allow yourselves to savor the warmth and presence of the other after being apart for so long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Exiting the hospital, your hand is tightly gripping Zayne’s as you follow a half-step behind him towards his parked car. As you walk, you’re chattering away about your current projects at work and all the overtime you’ve had to clock. Zayne listens patiently, humming in acknowledgement to show he’s actually listening.

At the car, he opens the door for you and protects your head as you slide into the seat. Before you can do it yourself, he leans in close and buckles your seatbelt.

A cheeky smile spreads across your face. “Dr. Zayne is aware that I’m fully capable of buckling my own seatbelt, correct?” You can’t help the sarcastic remark.

“He does, indeed,” Zayne’s signature smirk graces his face. He’s still close enough that you can smell the sweetness of candy on his breath. “But, he wants to do it anyway. And he knows you’ll be good and let him.” Soft lips brush across your nose and then the door shuts.

Badump. Badump. Badump. Badump.

A slow, deep inhale to slow your heart. You watch Zayne cross in front of the car and slide into the driver’s seat. Once he’s safely buckled in, he glances over at you. “Ready?”

Words fail you for some odd reason, so you just nod. A sudden heat has cascaded over your body. Trying not to show it, you softly clear your throat and cross your ankles in front of you. Then, you do what you do best when you’re flustered. Deflect.

“Soooo,” you hum, turning your gaze towards the window, “I’ve told you all about what I’ve been up to. How was Dr. Zayne’s last few weeks?”

“You’re asking as if we haven’t been in contact every day.” He cruises easily through traffic, which is relatively heavy due the public’s rush to get home after a long day of work. “Do you want to pick something up for dinner? I can stop at that dumpling place you love.”

You can’t help but smile. Even still, the need to tease burns through you. “The dumpling place that I love, huh? You don’t like it?” You turn to face him, watching his handsome features remain calm and stoic despite your teasing.

“Their dumplings are very good. I especially like the dessert ones.”

“Of course you do,” you giggle loudly, earning a small smirk from him as he keeps his eyes on the road. Ever the safety tyrant. “The dumpling place sounds lovely.” You finally grace his proposed question with an answer. “And we’ll definitely need to get those dessert dumplings for my dear Dr. Zayne.”

You earn a chuckle this time, along with a slight shake of his head at your antics. “Definitely.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the dumplings secured in Zayne’s hands, you take the initiative to unlock the front door of his home. Kicking your shoes off, your socked feet pad softly against the hardwood floor towards the kitchen.

You flick on the lights and quickly wash your hands before you start digging around in Zayne’s fridge for drinks. You can hear Zayne unpacking the dumplings on the counter behind you. Drinks in hand, you bump the fridge door closed with your hip. “How tired are you, right now?”

Zayne glances up briefly, as he organizes the dumplings onto a matching set of plates. “Are you trying to make plans for after dinner or something?”

Setting the drinks down, you lean on the counter. “I’m just wondering how the night will play out. That’s all…”

Something about the way in which the words spill from your lips causes Zayne’s movements to slow to a stop. He gives you his full attention as he grips the edge of the counter and leans in closer to you.

He watches your eyes shift quickly down to his lips and back up to his eyes. He wonders if you even realize how much you’re giving away to him right now. Maybe you do and don’t care. It has been a few weeks since you two have shared a space, shared food, shared a bed…

He can’t help the smile that crosses his face. Instead of getting pulled into your orbit, he leans back and resumes his duty of organizing the dumplings onto the plates. Where’s the fun in just giving you what you when you want it?

“I’ll bring the food and drinks. Why don’t you go find us something to watch. We can finish that show we started a while back.”

Slightly thrown off by his dismissal, you find yourself in the living room and grabbing the remote to queue up the aforementioned television show. Throwing yourself on the couch, you can feel a particular emotion scratching up your throat. It takes a few seconds to register as frustration. The more time you spend in Zayne’s presence, the more the frustration begins to grow.

It’s been weeks since you were last together. Weeks since you felt his lips on your lips; his hands roaming your body as if every inch belongs to him (be real, it does); those eyes watching your every movement, cataloging every moan and whimper he pulls from the deep depths within you; his tongue—

“What are you doing?”

You physically startle at that voice. Looking up, you see Zayne eyeing you with an eyebrow raised. Coming out of your daze, you realize that you were staring blankly at the home screen of the streaming service. Remote poised to pull up that show. Frozen in time. You feel your face heat up immediately. “Uh, I, um…”

Sitting next to you, Zayne’s expression turns to a concerned one. His hands gently press against your cheeks and neck. Doctor mode activated. “You’re a little warm. Are you feeling alright?” His hand drops from your cheek to your neck, fingers brushing a particularly sensitive spot.

You squeak. Actually squeak. It shocks you and Zayne both. Covering your mouth, you shift away from him. “I didn’t mean to do that. You, um, your hand…I got ticklish.”

“Hm…” Zayne doesn’t speak. Those eyes slowly scan you from head to toe and your body temperature continues to rise. “Do you want some water?” He finally asks, hazel gaze meeting yours.

“Sounds good.” Your words are barely audible. It isn’t until he’s a safe enough distance away in the kitchen that you release a breath and slump into the cushions of the couch. You’re not even sure why you’re feeling so embarrassed. As you listen to Zayne pouring your cup of water, you finally queue up that show and pull your legs up onto the couch.

“Here, love,” his soft voice caresses your ear as he hands you the water from over your shoulder. You take it with a gentle “thank you” and he goes to turn off the lights. He sits close to you, placing your legs in his lap.

The silence that follows is one you’re familiar with. It’s comfortable, safe, soothing. So very Zayne. You eat and provide commentary during the show. Zayne chimes in every now and then, providing his own opinions of the show’s plot lines. You fall back into the domesticated routine you know so well with him. You finally feel home for the first time in weeks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once the dumplings have been consumed, you snuggle closer to Zayne—feeling the need to be deeper within his presence. His arm slides around you, his nose burying itself in your hair, his body relaxing even further into the cushions. You know these signs as Zayne finally feeling home as well. His fingers, which have been slowly massaging your bare calf are now drawing light circles up and down your leg below your skirt.

Your throat is itching again. The frustration returning. You don’t move, waiting to see what he does next. The show is no longer important.

Zayne softly snuggles the top of your head and you feel him pull you closer. You’re not sure if it’s your individual body heat or the combined heat of you both, but you’re warm again. His touch is gradually becoming more and more distracting.

But, you notice, he’s not initiating anything. It’s as if he only wants to be close and feel your skin on his skin. Nothing more, nothing less.

The show continues, but you’re no longer watching. You’re plotting. Scheming. How can you get him to give you what you want without admitting anything?

Zayne’s certain you’re unaware of how obvious you’re being right now. He knows the show has long since lost its hold on you. He knows his caressing is sending you into a spiral. Your breathing has changed, it’s a little faster. Your thighs are pressed together. And you’ve been squirming in his lap for the last ten minutes.

A scheme is being plotted, for sure. But not yours. His.

He drops his head, bringing his lips down to your ear. As if by accident, but definitely on purpose, he gently brushes the shell of your ear. The light shudder that speeds down your spine is delicious. “You don’t seem to be paying attention anymore. Are you sleepy?”

The deep inhale and exhale you perform does not slip by unnoticed. Zayne’s opened a door for you. Admitting to being sleepy will mean this cuddle session can move into the bedroom. He’s almost made it too easy for you, honestly. “Yeah, I actually am. I guess all that OT is catching up to me.”

A proud hum settles in his chest. Good girl. “Let’s have a bath and get you into bed then, shall we?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bath water is warm and far too relaxing. Zayne even added bubbles and dimmed the lights. You could almost fall asleep. Almost. If not for the large man whose solid, bare chest and a solid something else was pressing against your back. Whose strong, but gentle hands were sliding up and down your arms. Soft breaths brushing across your neck. There was no way you could actually relax. However, your torturer seemed almost in a daze as he rested against the side of the tub, legs spread to fit you perfectly in between.

Truth be told…he looked too serene. Looking over your shoulder, you’re met with his handsome face. His eyes are closed, jaw unclenched, eyebrows relaxed. He looked so peaceful, you actually second-guessed your next actions. You know how busy the hospital keeps him on a daily basis. He loves his job, there was no doubt in that, but it takes its toll. He even lost a patient last week. The first one in almost half a year.

That burning frustration begins to melt into guilt. Zayne was probably just trying to enjoy the first moment of peace he’s had in weeks, and you’ve been focused on how to jump his bones. Or rather…how to get him to jump your bones. What a terrible girlfriend.

“Why don’t you just turn around, so you don’t have to keep breaking your neck to look at me.” His eyes don’t even open and he didn’t move a muscle, except for the miniscule smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

You flick water at him and turn around anyway, sitting fully in his lap now. His arms circle your waist and pull you closer. “Be honest, you have an extra set of eyes somewhere, don’t you?” You begin to playfully poke at his arms and chest.

Zayne keeps his eyes closed, but his smirk shifts into a smile. “I don’t need more than one set of eyes to feel when you’re staring holes into my face, love.”

A huff and an eyeroll from you. You let silence cover you both as you slide your arms around his shoulders, nails lightly dragging across the nape of his neck. “Zayne…”

He hums softly in acknowledgement, eyes still closed.

A beat of silence. Of contemplation. Then, the confession. “I really you missed these past few weeks.”

Hazel eyes finally meet yours. Zayne shifts to press his forehead against yours. The unflinching eye contact seems to cause another heat wave throughout your body. Or maybe that was all in your head and you’re just warm from the water. His hand cups the side of your face and soft lips are against yours instantly. Your lashes flutter close and you lean desperately into the kiss.

Finally, finally, finally! Weeks of missing this, weeks of dreaming about this, and it’s finally become reality again.

Your tongue brushes against his and a quiet whimper breathes out of your nose. Zayne’s hand slides to the back of your head, pulling you deeper into the kiss. You don’t realize it, but your hips are moving. Slowly, at first. A slow whine that drags your clit against his hardening shaft. That whimper from earlier morphs into a full moan.

Your hips keep moving; pleasure licking its way slowly up and down your spine. That familiar tingle in your stomach grows bigger and bigger. Your body feels like an open flame, burning hotter and hotter with each roll of your hips. It’s all happening so fast. But, it’s been weeks and you need it so bad. Need him so bad.

“Sweetheart,” that voice is in your ears again. You can hardly concentrate; your brain is melting inside your skull as your head tilts back. Another moan crawls its way out of your throat. You hear that honeyed voice again. Firmer. The stern tone of voice causing your hips to freeze in place. “Look at me.”

Your eyes, which you don’t remember closing, open to meet his gaze. You gasp softly at the intense burning in his irises. Your senses return to your consciousness and you realize a few things in quick succession.

First, Zayne’s body is incredibly tense. You recognize this as him holding back, him fighting off the pleasure he surely felt alongside you earlier. Second, his grip around your waist and at the back of your head have tightened in an almost painful way. The weakening fire inside flares instantly and you moan, trying to move your hips again. But, you can’t. “Zayne.” A whimper of his name. His expression doesn’t change but you see the raging fire in those eyes. “Zayne.” You try again.

You watch him watch you. Gaze unhurried and calm. His head tilts to the side. And when he smirks, your danger sense starts sounding in the back of your mind. “I thought good girls asked for their pleasure. I didn’t realize they just took it without permission. Explain yourself.”

You can barely form a singular word that’s not his name, let alone formulate some explanation for his stupid question. “I-…I need…Zayne, come on…” That’s all you got right now. But, you can see it’s not enough as he sits and waits for his explanation. Your eyes burn with unshed tears, trying to move but his embrace is rock solid. The implication is clear: you’re not going  anywhere or doing anything until he says so.

“Try again.” His voice, chilled like a snowy day in December, sends a shiver throughout your body. “Good girls get rewarded when they do what they’re told, right?”

You nod frantically.

“I’m waiting…”

A deep inhale as you force your brain to think. Just as concepts of thoughts begin to stick together in your mind, you feel it. His fingers slipping between your legs. Light brushes against your clit. Not enough to do anything except make you tremble and whine. What a dick. That thought is loud and clear in your mind.

“Mmm…glaring at me won’t change anything, love.” The amusement in his voice pisses you off. “Use that big, pretty brain of yours. I know you’re fully capable.” His middle finger circles your nub slowly, so lightly you barely feel it but it still sends burning flames down to your fingertips and toes.

Your curse and struggle harder against his strong hold. “Zayne…it’s been so long…” you breath. A change in tactic is needed. You know he wants you to ask (read: beg) for him to fuck you. But, why should you? You lean closer, kissing him softly before nipping at his bottom lip. “I thought you missed me. You need it too, baby. I know you do. I can feel it.”

You lower your voice, something between a breath and a whisper directly into his ear. “Didn’t you think about me at all while we were apart? Hmm? Didn’t you dream about having me in your arms like this again? Pressed so closely against you. Riding you until you,” an involuntary moan escapes as your own fantasies briefly take over you, “until you’re cumming so deep inside…”

You hear it. Faint in the grand scheme of it all. But it might as well have been echoing through a megaphone into your ear. Zayne’s soft moan. His grip on you shifts, loosening just enough for you to reach down and bump his hand out of the way. A few slow, deliberate pumps of his shaft, and a quick twirl of your thumb across the tip…hook, line, and sinker.

Water splashing fills the quiet bathroom and you find yourself propped up against the edge of the tub; hands planted on the platform leading to the two steps; legs spread. A quite open and vulnerable position. You’re trembling with excitement and anticipation. Making Zayne lose his cool was one of your favorite past times.

Speaking of, the man in question places a firm hand between your shoulders blades—effectively keeping you in place. When you feel his tip gliding up and down against your lips, catching against your clit every pass, your trembling cranks up to full blown shaking. “Do it!”

“Oooh,” Zayne chuckles darkly. “My little brat is so demanding today. You know that’s not going to get you what you want. Try again.”

A noise of frustration bubbles out of you as you struggle against his hold. You’re somehow back where you started. Damn him! “You’re so mean to me!”

“Am I?” He questions, teasing you further by slipping his tip just inside your sopping hole. Not enough, of course. Just a taste. Just to bait you. Zayne knows your little seducing dirty talk trick from earlier was supposed to get him to lose his cool. But, his little brat would have to try harder than that.

However, you were entirely correct. He really did need you and not a single night passed that he didn’t ruin his sheets thinking about you. “So mean to her, she says. But, I left work early. Abandoned some very important paperwork. I drove her home so she wouldn’t have to take the train after such a long day. I bought her dinner. I snuggled with her. I’m giving her a bath before bed. Where’s the meanness, sweetheart? Tell me.”

The entire time he’s talking, he’s switching between teasing his tip just barely inside and brushing it against your clit repeatedly. You’re actually so close to your orgasm, you’d be embarrassed if you were in your right mind. “Oh my god, I’m so close. Zayne, baby…fuck…” You’re whimpering again.

And then….he stops moving. You cry. You genuinely start crying. You’re not sure if the words you’re saying make sense, but you’re sobbing enough to make him flip you over onto your back and drop to his knees in the water. Strong hands spread your thighs apart and a soft warm tongue is slipping between your lips. He kisses your clit, so swollen it's peeking from between the safety of your equally swollen lips.

Then, he gently sucks it between his lips and one flick of the tip of his tongue sends white-hot pleasure all throughout your body. You’re pretty sure you’re screaming. Most likely his name and that you love him. Don’t quote yourself, though.

Your mind goes blank. It’s just burning pleasure continuously rolling over you, wave after wave after wave. It’s so good. It’s exactly what you wanted. What you needed. When you finally float back down to Earth, you’re on soft sheets with Zayne above you. He’s kissing all over your face and neck, murmuring something that sounds like praises. You reach up and pull him down for a kiss to ground yourself.

“Welcome back,” he teases you.

“Shut up.” A chuckle as he nuzzles your cheek. “I thought brats didn’t get rewards.” You uttered.

A playful snort from the man above you. “You don’t remember begging and pleading with me and apologizing for being a brat while you were crying?”

You immediately cover his mouth to stop him from retelling any more embarrassing moments. He gazes down upon you with eyes full of amusement and joy. They’re so bright and happy, you drop your hands and sigh. “You suck.” Your arms slide back around his shoulders and his lips are on yours again.

His hands are gentle, featherlight as they graze down your body before grabbing ahold of your thighs. Without breaking the kiss, he slowly pushes inside you. You both moan into the other’s mouth; the kiss becomes increasingly sloppier. Your breaths intermingle, but you both refuse to part. You’re so full of him, the stretch every time he dives deeper and deeper causing an arch in your spine.

“Oh my god,” you finally detach yourself from his lips. Your head falls back into the pillows, a broken moan escaping into the air.

Zayne is tucked in the crevice between your neck and shoulder. His moans growing in volume with each passing stroke. “S’good, baby. It’s so damn good. Never again are we going this long without this. You understand me?” His hips smack roughly against yours.

A loud gasp from you, before you whimper, “yes!” Your nails rip down his back; he doesn’t flinch, just groans and shudders against you. His pace remains slow, but he’s reaching so deeply you can’t do anything but cry and hold onto him. It’s building again. Stronger this time, which is scary. You try to warn him, “Zayne, I’m gonna—you’re gonna make me—.”

But, he already knows. How could he not with the death grip you currently had over him? He could barely pull out. “Let go for me, love. You want to give it to me, right? It’s mine anyway. Cum for me.”

You can’t breathe as your vision goes white and you arch up into the heavens. No sounds can find their way into the open space even with your mouth open. A beat passes. Two. Three. Then… “Holy fucking—oh my god, I’m—.” You can’t even get the words out through all your moaning and squirming under his heavy weight.

“Breathe, baby.” He snickers, hips still rolling, lips pressed to your ear. “You sound so good when you cum for me. God, I love you.” A wet, hot kiss to your neck. More praises. More confessions of love. A full body shudder underneath him. More whimpering from you. That telltale tightening. “Came again, huh?”

“Feel s’fucking good, baby,” you slur your words, fully drunk off the pleasure currently drowning you. “Don’t stop. Please. Cum inside me. I wanna feel it so bad. I’ve been so good, right? I deserve it, right?”

How could he argue against that? When you beg so sweet, when you hold him so tightly like he’ll float away if you don’t anchor him down, when you moaning straight into his damn ear. “Oh…fuck…” The curse slips from lips; usually only revealed during passionate times such as these. He’s so close. He’s been close, to be honest. But, what kind of lover would he be if didn’t make sure you are well taken care of first?

You know he’s close. All the signs all there. The harsh gripping of your thighs. His teeth sinking into your neck. Your name falling from his lips again and again like a prayer. No, a promise. You hold him close. What was it he said earlier? Oh yeah… “Let go for me, love. You want to give it to me, right? It’s mine anyway. Cum for me.”

He gasps softly against you. A loud, broken moan echoes through the room. You feel it. Pulse after pulse after pulse. He’s actually moaning so loudly. A burst of pride explodes in your chest, having finally successfully gotten your ever cool and aloof lover to drop his control. You whisper praises into his ear as he continues to rock his hips into yours and tremble. Until, the room falls silent.

“Damn,” you giggle after a while, “maybe we do need to start spending more time apart like this.”

He pinches your side, chuckling when you squeal and fight against his hold. Zayne allows himself a few moments of post-orgasm bliss before getting started with his aftercare. Once you’re both cleaned up and in your pajamas, you’re back in his arms. He rests on his back with you splayed across his chest. Your eyes are bright and unguarded as you stare down at him. His heart clenches and he can’t help but admit it again, “I love you.”

A shy smile from you as lean in and kiss him tenderly. “I love you.” You nuzzle his nose. “You are everything I never knew I needed and more than anything I’ve ever wanted. Stay with me?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. “How could I go when you’re the embodiment of the life I never thought I would have or deserved.”

You pinch his nose, snickering delicately at his furrowed brow. Then, “you deserve the world.”

“You deserve the world. Way more than me.”

Laying your head on his chest, you listen to his heart. Calm, steady, strong. Just like its owner. You can’t help but place a kiss there. His arms tighten around you. Your exhaustion is finally catching up to you. But, before you full succumb, you murmur, “I guess we’ll just have to find a world to give each other, huh?”

Fingers drifting up and down your back as you let sleep take over before he can respond, Zayne can only smile to himself. A kiss to the top of your cute, sleeping head. “I guess we do. Goodnight, my love.”

[greenplumbboblover]

[WIP] TS3 UI "Krystal"

I figured it would be cool to finally publicly share what I've been working on behind the scenes, as well as some mockups!

A few of you on Patreon or Discord may have already seen sneak peeks/given feedback. I kept things quiet because I wasn’t sure I’d even do it in the first place as a next modding project, and I didn’t want to let anyone down.

Luckily, @lazyduchess’s Monopatcher made the job ten times easier. The biggest hurdle was that I would've had to make a core mod to override UI code (I’m normally anti–core mod), but the patcher solved that and let me push ahead.

(Psst, if you're looking at seeing the mockups bigger, I also posted this post on my site: Simblr.cc 😉)

Creating the Mockups

Fun fact: I actually have a degree in UI/UX design! (for websites) While principles like “How wide should this padding be?” or “Which colors send the right signal to the user?”—game UI is a whole different beast.😬

Main Menu

I started with the main menu:

Cut the SimPoints clutter and the “Buy TS4!” banner—after a decade, we get it exists 😉.

Grouped items into clean blocks

Added a text-free “Create New Family” icon

Swapped lot thumbnails for family shots (still baffled by EA’s original choice).

Dropped an options gear in the bottom-left; might label it if it’s too subtle.

Different backgrounds: one solid blue, one closer to the classic gradient.

A lil' sneek peek of where I'm at:

She's not finished, but it's definitely getting there! 😉

Load Screen

Not much has changed here! It's just less... busy I suppose, lol!

2 Different backgrounds to choose from

Moved the Game Tips to the bottom, so the main focus stays on that loading bar 😉

I also have a third option but I'm strongly leaning towards just having the loading bar as it's the most clear!

Live Mode

The hardest of them all lol. Kudos to EA for figuring that one all out! I really struggled with this one in regards to shape and what to even move around/remove!

I figured, it should be nice to pull really into that glassmorphism I've been using over the Mockups! Now I do realise that it can hamper user experience in the sense of not being able to read anything. But these are pictures! So that should be all fine and dandy.

The active item in the queue will now be more "visible". The queued item however, you'll see look a bit more "unactive" compared to what the current version has.

I also completely overhauled the thumbnails for your sims, showing their moods a bit better, and giving the active sim a tiny plumbob! :D

And now the real deal: The control panel! You might notice it's not the whole thing, but I'm still working on that part.

I removed the camera controls from the panel. However, upon feedback, I did hear that it's better to have them as some people are limited in their hand movements on their keyboard and that those controls are really useful. So I will make sure to share 2 versions :)

I also realised I completely forgot the Build/buy mode buttons 😬 So, err, stay tuned for that? lol.

Notifications I really just tidied up :p

I am aware that the space where the text is and the thumbnail is huge, and normally I'd wrap the surrounding text, but apparently in TS3's UI stuff that's practically impossible. Hence that they got this "2 column" effect to them 😉

About releasing the UI:

I'm hoping to release them all in bits and pieces! So first up is the Main Menu (and possibly the Loading screen given it's simplicity).

After that, I hope in my second "update" to release a big portion of Live mode, but that's a bigger task on it's own of course 😉

Any feedback at this point is also completely welcome by the way!

[catlantern]

Two Peas in a Pod

TIM DRAKE/FEM!READER

cross-posted from ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62067616

SUMMARY: The last thing you wanted was for your in-laws to find out you were pregnant on the Batcomputer because Tim had googled "How to be a Good Dad?"

PART ONE

When you had told Tim that you were expecting, he was ecstatic. In fact, he was so over the moon he had sobbed against your shoulder for nearly an hour. Once he had reassured you he was crying tears of joy, your efficient husband didn't waste any time and jumped right into being a father.

You watched Tim access his computers, almost in a frenzy, before you realized what he was about to do.

"Wait!"

Though you're not heavily involved with your husband's family's operations in Gotham City because your duties were more, well, intergalactic, you're still aware that Tim's servers were connected with the ones Bruce has in the Batcave. The last thing you wanted was for your in-laws to find out you were pregnant on the Batcomputer because Tim had googled "How to be a Good Dad?"

Tim froze, startled when you had nearly tackled him to the floor.

You had grabbed your husband's wrists in panic, lifting his arms high in the air as you leaned over him. The only reason you both haven't toppled over was because you were still quick enough to use the power of your Green Lantern ring to prop up his computer chair. You avoided Tim's eyes, embarrassed, but spoke in an even voice.

"Let's not forget what happened last year, yeah?"

It took Tim a moment to recall what event you were referring to, his face turning as red—or perhaps even redder—as his brother Jason's Red Hood helmet when he did.

The incident you speak of unfortunately involves your browser history, the Batcomputer, and a former crime lord who didn't know when to keep his nose out of other people's business. Since you'd rather not speak of it again, still too embarrassed to bring it up, you simply gave Tim a look and hoped it conveyed the desperation you felt across. Thankfully, your husband was still as mortified as you and didn't say anything more after he had agreed with you.

(One of these days, you swear you'll find a way to get back at Jason.)

"You can let go of me now, honey."

An idea came to you as you released his wrists. Feeling bold, you disregard the remnants of embarrassment you felt from earlier and settle yourself on Tim's lap. You watched in amusement as the blush dusting your husband's cheeks turned even brighter.

"Er, what are you doing?" Tim stuttered. Cute.

"What do you mean, sweetie? I'm sitting."

For a second, you were concerned that Tim stopped breathing. You paused, worried you're making him uncomfortable. Tim may be your husband, but it doesn't give you the right to impose yourself on him, especially if it makes him uneasy. “Would you like me to get off?"

Without waiting for his reply, you begin to move off Tim, only to freeze when a pair of cold, clammy hands held you firmly by your hips and kept you from moving further. “Uh, Tim?"

You find yourself with a mouthful of hair when Tim gently nudges your chin and proceeds to connect his forehead with your collarbone. You feel him draw a breath, the tremble in the action unmistakable. You begin to worry for him until he speaks in a disbelieving tone.

"I'm going to be a dad."

The brush of your husband's lips against your skin would have had you flushing in an instant if you weren't so focused on his words. Tim still smelled of eggnog and post-hangover body odour, but you couldn't care less when your new reality is now setting in.

"Yes, you are.”

Booking an appointment with your family doctor was the very first thing you did after telling Tim about your pregnancy. Since you'd taken about seven pregnancy tests and missed your period, you were pretty confident you were, in fact, expecting. After your doctor confirmed what you already knew, she immediately referred you to an OB-GYN.

Around your sixth week, almost seventh, you were finally scheduled to have your first ultrasound.

You were anxious, as expected of any first-time parent, but no more than Tim, who hasn't stopped pacing while you got ready to head out. Like a cat on hot bricks, your husband restlessly paced the floor of your apartment. You couldn't help but comment on it. “Tim, sweetie, you seem more nervous than I am.”

"There's just so many things that could go wrong," he frets, still pacing. "Not to mention all the stuff that we have to do before the baby gets here."

You paused, one sock-clad foot halfway through your winter boot, and looked at your husband.

Tim was understandably worried, and so were you. In fact, having a baby frightens you. There were so many unknowns, as well as factors such as your jobs, both as a civilian and hero, to consider. However, if there was anyone in the world—hell, even the universe—you believed would be an amazing father, it's Tim.

"Did you hit your head during a patrol and not tell me?" You ask suddenly.

This, predictably, throws him off guard. "What? No, but what's that got to do with the baby?"

"Were you kidnapped and replaced by a clone?"

"Now I gotta ask you, did you hit your head?"

"No, I did not," you said, shrugging on your coat after putting on your boots. "But maybe you did because the Tim I know is always ten steps ahead of everything and even has backup plans for his backup plans. Raising a child with his wife should be a cinch, no?"

You were in front of him by the time you finished your little spiel. You cupped his face with your hands, gentle yet firm. “Yes, I know a lot of things could go wrong, but let's take it one step at a time, okay?"

You wait for him to recenter himself, pulling away as he takes in deep breaths and exhales through his nose.

"One step at a time," he sighs, calm at last. "We can definitely do that."

"Alright," you take his hand, leading him out of the apartment. "We can't be late."

The drive over to the hospital was a quick one. When you arrived, you could tell Tim had, once again, turned into a bundle of nerves, but you knew he was trying to hide it. You didn't say anything, on your own pins and needles, and simply held his hand.

When a staff member finally called you, you didn't let go of Tim even after you met the sonographer. You listened closely as the sonographer, Michelle, explained the steps of the ultrasound to you. Since the embryo would be too small to see with a traditional transducer, you would be undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound instead.

It was uncomfortable at first, but you've experienced worse pain.

"Are you two ready to meet your baby?"

You squeezed Tim's hand one more time, exchanging a soft but nervous smile with him. "Yes.”

And then—

On the screen, two pea-sized shapes moved about. You barely heard the sonographer announcing happily that you were having twins and Tim choking. You were too focused on the images of your children.

It felt surreal, yet not.

"We're having fraternal twins?" You heard Tim ask, though he sounded a little breathless.

"Yes, you see right here? There are two gestational sacs."

Twins. You couldn't believe it.

"Can we hear their heartbeats?"

Michelle smiles warmly. "Of course."

If seeing your unborn children rendered you speechless, hearing their heartbeats filled you with overwhelming wonder.

You exchanged teary-eyed smiles with Tim, his breath trembling as he planted a kiss on the back of your hand. You didn't say anything; neither did he. Despite no words being exchanged, though, you both knew one thing for certain: you're going to love your children with all your being and all your soul, and god help anyone who hurts them.

[belli5]

⌗ . ᵎᵎ ⸝⸝ Still Proud Of You .ᐟ ೀC.B⁹⁸

After a rough night on the ice, Connor doesn’t need to talk with media—he just needs you.

˚₊· ᥫ᭡ Connor Bedard x fem!reader ➜ Fluff, sad Connie. Note: Connie defender always. ☹️ masterlist

You heard the door shut softly behind him—no slam, no angry muttering, just the sound of defeat. His gear bag thudded against the wall, dropped without a second thought.

You didn’t need to look to know the expression on his face. You could picture it with your eyes closed: tight jaw, the crease between his brows, his eyes cast downward, like if he looked up, the weight of everything might crush him completely.

Connor didn’t say a word as he walked past you, straight into the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind him, and the sound of running water filled the silence.

You sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the post-game show on the tv. They were already dissecting it—already circling him like vultures.

The camera had cut to him too many times. Every missed opportunity. Everytime the puck was stripped from his stick. Every time the team was a step behind.

The media wouldn’t be kind. You already knew that.

You could already see the comments like they were right there: “Define wasted talent” “Why is Bedard so overrated?” “He is finally realizing he’s not near as good as they told him he was.”

They didn’t care that he was a human. That he was still young—barely 19. That he carried an entire team’s expectations—and a city’s hope—on his back every single night.

They didn’t know him like you did.

When the bathroom door finally opened, he emerged in silence. Hair damp, jaw clenched. He walked past you and sat at the edge of the bed, head bowed, elbows resting on his knees.

You sat beside him but leaving a little space. You didn’t speak right away. You just watched him, watched the way his hands gripped each other tightly, how his shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath.

He wasn’t just upset. He was internalising everything. And you knew exactly what was coming.

He wouldn’t say it aloud, but you knew the way his mind worked. He’d be thinking about what people would say—how they’d dissect every second of his performance, how they’d say he wasn’t living up to the hype.

That he didn’t deserve the “generational talent” label. That he should want out of Chicago. That he was too good for this team, this rebuild, this pressure.

But they didn’t see the Connor you knew.

They didn’t see the boy who stayed after every practice until the ice was empty. Who spent hours reviewing film, even after a win. Who texted his coach at 1am to apologize for turnovers that no one else even remembered.

They didn’t know the version of him who helped teammates off the ice in silence, who would rather take the blame for a loss than let anyone else feel it. Who never bragged, never complained, never let his pride speak louder than his heart.

You reached for his hand, lacing your fingers with his. He didn’t pull away—but he didn’t look at you, either.

“I know you’re hurting,” you said quietly, gently.

He didn’t respond. Just blinked a few times, jaw clenched tighter.

You shifted closer, your voice softer now. “And I know what’s going through your head, even if you don’t say it.”

His grip on your hand tightened. Just a little.

“They’ll say what they always say. That you’re overrated. That you should be somewhere else. That you’re wasting your time here.”

His eyes closed slowly, like he was trying to shut it all out.

“But they don’t see what I see,” you continued. “They don’t see the kid who grew up dreaming of nights like these—not for the praise, but for the fight. They don’t see someone who could have taken the easy way, but chose to stay. Chose to lead. Chose to believe in something bigger than himself.”

You leaned into his shoulder, resting your head there, letting the quiet hold the weight of everything he didn’t know how to say.

“I see you, Con,” you whispered. “Not the stats. Not the headlines. Just you.”

He finally turned his head slightly toward you, his eyes glassy but calm.

“I know it hurts,” you said, “but you don’t have to carry all of it alone.”

His voice was hoarse, barely audible. “It just feels like I’m always failing.”

You shook your head gently. “You’re not. You’re showing up, you’re fighting, you’re growing. That’s not failure. That’s what real strength looks like.”

You shifted to face him, lifting his chin just slightly so he’d look at you. “I love this version of you. Even on the hard nights. Especially on the hard nights.”

He let out a shaky breath, and for the first time, his posture eased. He leaned into you, wrapping his arms around your waist, burying his face into your shoulder.

You held him tightly, your fingers brushing through his hair, anchoring him with every small, steady motion.

Whatever the world said tomorrow, whatever headlines followed, it didn’t matter here. Because in this space—wrapped in your arms, safe from the noise—he was just Connor.

And you’d always see the version of him the world refused to look closely enough to see.

[sweetromanova]

More To Lose: Part Five🖤

Summary: You thought your life with Steve Rogers was what love looked like. But love isn’t quiet disappointment or fading into the background. It’s soft hands when you’re breaking. It’s someone who sees you, even when you don’t see yourself. And just maybe, it’s Natasha Romanoff, waiting for you to see her too.

A/N: honestly this chapter haunted me, i re-read it again and again and i just can’t click with it! i edited this the most out of every chapter and still i’m ending up posting the original. anywayyyy a mini epilogue will be out tomorrow! hope you all enjoy final ‘official’ chapter!🤍

Chapter Five

It ends quietly. Not like usual with the Avengers, like with an explosion or a door slammed off its hinges but with a small unraveling. Soft and inevitable. The kind of ending that’s been writing itself for months in the silences between arguments, in the late-night walks down opposing hallways, in the empty spot on the bed where warmth should’ve been.

So when Steve leaves, it’s calm. Polite. He doesn’t raise his voice and he doesn’t fight.

He just packs his duffel bag, folds a few of Margot’s toys into a ziplock to keep at his new place and says. “We’ll figure out a schedule.”

You nod, once. Nothing left to say.

Margot watches from your hip, thumb in her mouth, her eyes wide but dry. She doesn’t cry when he kisses her forehead, she just copies your wave and flashes the fresh, baby teeth that appeared overnight.

She doesn’t cry often but she does cry. She cried when Natasha left for a mission for less than 24 hours last month. She cried when Natasha didn’t come quick enough to kiss her goodnight at bedtime.

So after the door closes, after the Tower settles back into its late evening routine, you let out a breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding. The kind that comes not from relief but from release.

A final acceptance.

The next morning, you move into a smaller suite, further down the hallway. Just you and Margot. Two rooms, a beautiful open plan living room where you can see every corner of trouble your toddler can get into and a balcony that catches the afternoon sun. Wanda helps you unpack while Natasha fixes the stuck drawer rail in Margot’s wardrobe. Sam shows up with pizza and a very serious speech about getting visitation rights with Fanny.

You laugh, genuinely. For the first time in weeks, months or even years.

It doesn’t feel like mourning. It feels like after.

⋆⋆⋆

Your old name finds you again slowly, whispered first then spoken aloud as you return to work.

“Great to have you back, ma’am.” Someone greets you during a strategy call. It takes you half a second to realise they’re talking to you. That you’re not standing in Steve’s shadow anymore, not ‘Cap’s girl’ or ‘Steve’s baby mama’, not even ‘Mrs Rogers.’ You’re just you.

You give the order. You map the route. You clarify with clean, unshaken precision.

No one questions it.

Later that week, Sam corners you in the elevator and bumps your shoulder with a grin. “Kinda missed seeing you run the show.”

Wanda squeezes your hand over lunch. “You seem back.”

You’re not sure what back means. You’re not the same person who fell into this place years ago, overflowing with confidence and clipped control but you’re no longer lost in someone else’s story either. You’re writing your own again.

⋆⋆⋆

Natasha doesn’t push. She never has. But she’s there more and more now. Present in all the small ways that used to feel accidental but now you know better. She’s in the rhythm of your days now, wrapped into the spaces between early morning walks and late night baby wake-ups. There’s no label for it. No declarations.

Just Natasha.

She shows up with coffee before staff meetings. She still leaves dry clothes on your chair after Margot spills milk on you during breakfast. She fixes things before you even realise they’re broken.

And Margot, sweet, clever Margot gravitates toward her like the moon to the tide. Sometimes you watch them, the way your daughter curls into Natasha’s side on the couch, how Nat hums under her breath while brushing little knots from Margot’s hair, how she never complains when she’s called “Nat Nat” ten times in two minutes.

You never said it out loud. But you think your daughter knows. Knows where she’s safe, knows who shows up, knows real love.

⋆⋆⋆

It builds between you slowly, the thing that waits beneath words.

You don’t kiss. Not yet. But your fingers brush across hers when you pass a mug. Her eyes linger when you lean too close over the baby monitor. You both pretend not to notice.

Until one night, you can’t sleep.

Margot’s long fast asleep. The Tower is still. You stand on your balcony in a hoodie, sipping lukewarm warm tea, staring into the dark as if the answers might be there in the skyline.

The door behind you slides open with a soft hiss. You don’t need to turn because you already know it’s her.

“I was going to call you.” You murmur.

“I know.” Natasha replies. She steps up beside you, another mug in her hand. “Didn’t want to wait.”

You smile into your cup. “Figured me out, huh?”

She hums quietly. “I’ve always had a thing for patterns.”

The silence stretches again, not awkward. Just full.

You speak first. “I feel so… content? Like I think I stopped waiting for the life I thought I wanted. And started noticing the one that just… showed up.”

Her eyes find you and they’re full of warmth. “Are you waiting for me to be sure?” You question, the first time acknowledging the relationship since that night in her bedroom.

Natasha takes a breath, then shakes her head. “No. I’m waiting for you to want it out loud.”

“I do.” Your chest aches in the best way. “Want it.”

A pause. “I want you.”

She doesn’t smile, not right away. She just leans in, slow and patient and when you meet her halfway, it’s not fireworks. It’s not heat or need or desperation.

It’s quiet. It’s peace.

Her lips press to yours and you sigh into it, like your lungs have finally found space again.

When she pulls back, her fingers still resting on your cheek, she says it so softly you almost miss it. “Took you long enough.”

You laugh, low and genuine and rest your forehead against hers. “I had a few detours.”

She nods. “I waited.”

“You always did.”

⋆⋆⋆

It wasn’t supposed to be anything.

Just a late-night stop after the drive back from a mission briefing one state over, a long, quiet ride filled with half-hearted radio scanning, the buzz of overhead lights and Natasha humming to herself while you stared out the window.

The debrief had run longer than expected. Everyone else stayed overnight but Natasha didn’t feel like waiting around and you had an eager, impatient toddler being babysat by an even more impatient witch.

“Wanna ride back with me?” She asked, casual as can be, leaning on the doorframe like she hadn’t just dragged three lieutenants through a tactical report without breaking a sweat.

You said yes without thinking twice.

Now it’s just after ten and you’re sitting across from her in a plastic booth at a McDonald’s off the highway, half-laughing over fries that are already going cold. There’s a flickering fluorescent light overhead and your drink lid keeps popping off. Someone in the back is listening to a podcast way too loud. At first it was overstimulating but now?

It’s ridiculous. And weirdly… nice.

Natasha picked the table in the corner, away from the windows. She ordered a Filet-O-Fish like it was the most normal thing in the world. You didn’t even know people actually ordered those.

She raised an eyebrow when you stared. “Don’t judge me. It’s nostalgic.”

You snorted into your straw. “You think you know somebody then they go do this… you’re so full of surprises, Romanoff.”

She just shrugged, taking a slow bite and then flicking a fry at you. “So are you.”

Conversation drifts easy about the mission, about Margot, about the absolute horror of ketchup packets.

She steals some of your fries and you let her. Somewhere between laughing about Sam’s recent brief but disastrous attempt at online dating and her rant about people who don’t return shopping carts, your knees bump under the table and you don’t move away.

You feel it. That thing curling up in your chest, low and steady. That quiet awareness of her, the warmth of her thigh against yours, the soft rasp of her voice, the way she keeps looking at you a second longer than she needs to. Since Steve left, she’s been around and there were moments of affection but once you returned to work, things became increasingly hectic and it felt like your relationship was gradually pushed to the sidelines.

You’re mid-sentence when she reaches across the table and plucks a piece of napkin fuzz from your hoodie. Doesn’t say anything. Just smooths it down with her thumb before her hand slips back to her side.

Your whole body hums and she knows. You can see it in the faint tug at the corner of her mouth, the way her eyes drop to yours and hold. She’s not teasing or pushing but noticing.

You eat in silence for a moment. The kind that feels full, not empty. When you get up to leave, you toss your trash and hold the door open for her. The air outside is cool, the scent of fryer oil surrounding you. She stands beside you, her hands in her jacket pockets, eyes on the near-empty parking lot.

“So…” You say, suddenly unsure what to do with your own hands. “That was… something.”

Natasha glances over at you, one brow raised. “What, the filet? That was everything.”

You laugh. “No, I mean- Was this a first-“

“It wasn’t a date!” She cuts in, too fast.

Too pointed.

You blink. “Okay.”

Her gaze flickers to yours and softens. “I mean- It was McDonald’s, not Paris.”

You shrug. “Still felt kind of like a date.”

Natasha exhales a quiet laugh. “If it was…” She says slowly, stepping a little closer. “It was a really terrible one.”

You grin. “Worst first date of my life.”

She grins back. “Good. Then I won’t have to try too hard to top it.”

You’re quiet a moment longer, watching her. The way her hair’s half falling out of its braid, the way her eyes linger on your mouth like she’s weighing something. “If this was a first date, would you have kissed me?”

The air shifts as the question hangs between you like breath held too long.

“I usually don’t kiss on first dates.” She shrugs finally, even though her voice is playful now. “Too much pressure. Too much expectation.”

“Right. Yeah. That makes sense.”

She steps closer. “But…” She adds, her fingers brushing your sleeve, deliberate and slow, “This wasn’t a first date…” Your breath catches. She’s close enough now that you can feel the warmth of her body, the way the night air can’t quite get between you.

“And honestly?” She murmurs, her face a fraction away from hers. “If I got the chance to have a first date with you? I probably would’ve kissed you the second you offered me one of your fries..”

You laugh, a quiet, breathless sound. “That early, huh?”

She smirks. “I was already hooked. Perfect crisp-to-salt ratio.”

You smile at her. “So… what’s it count as if we kiss now?”

She tilts her head. “Maybe we’re just… skipping ahead.”

“To what?”

Natasha leans in, so close your noses nearly touch. Her voice is barely audible. “The part where I stop pretending I don’t want to.”

And when her lips brush yours, gentle but certain, it’s not a question anymore.

It’s not a first date or a second. It’s just you and her, finally catching up to something that’s been waiting patiently to bloom.

When she pulls back, you’re smiling and when she turns toward the car again, she says over her shoulder, “You still have to buy me real food next time.”

You follow, grinning like an idiot. “Not McDonald’s?”

Natasha laughs. “You don’t get a second maybe-date with a Filet-O-Fish girl that easy.”

And just like that, maybe it is a date. Maybe not the first. But definitely not the last.

⋆⋆⋆

Tony picks Margot up on a Friday morning. He meets you at the Quinjet hangar, all bright-eyed and grabby hands, already crouching down with his arms open before you’ve even unbuckled her from the car seat.

“There's my favourite tiny Avenger!” He exclaims, like he hasn’t seen her every night this week.

You roll your eyes but Margot giggles, launching herself into his arms without hesitation. He lifts her easily, swinging her around once to make her laugh harder, then settles her on his hip like he’s done it a thousand times, which, by now, he has.

Steve’s taking Margot for the weekend, a rare break in his schedule and a well-earned one in yours. It just so happened to line up with Tony being summoned to DC for a two-day energy summit. To save both parents the trip, he offered to bring her along on the Quinjet.

“Well…” Tony says, adjusting her backpack over his shoulder with one hand and you handing over her favourite stuffed teddy, that for some reason wore a Black Widow outfit, with the other. “Daddy America has a full itinerary. I’m talking baking, crafts, probably some wood-chopping, a bedtime story told with emotional range. It’s gonna be adorable.”

You raise a brow. “And you're okay handing her over to all that wholesomeness to go work?”

He grins. “Please. She’ll be bored out of her mind within 20 minutes without Uncle Tony. But hey, I admire your optimism.”

Margot wraps her arms around his neck and presses her cheek against his arc reactor like it’s her own little nightlight.

Your heart tugs, not with worry. Just that quiet kind of ache that comes from loving something so much it leaves space when it’s gone.

“You good?” he asks, eyes flicking to yours. He’s teasing, but it’s gentle around the edges.

You nod. “Yeah. Go. Before I change my mind and keep her all weekend.”

Tony salutes with two fingers. “Copy that, civilian. Go take a nap or a shower.”

He turns toward the ramp, Margot waving over his shoulder. You wave back until they disappear inside, the hum of the Quinjet engines disappearing.

Then it’s quiet, a little too quiet but also maybe the good kind. The kind that makes room for something else.

⋆⋆⋆

Back in your apartment, after you can finally see your floor again, Margot’s toys neatly put away for the first time in months, you take a minute to breath in the silence. Not for long though as there’s a quick knock on your door.

You weren’t exactly expecting Natasha but you knew she’d come.

She’s holding a bottle of wine and a bag of groceries, a subtle smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. “Felt weird not seeing Margot.”

You step aside before you even think about it, your heart already softening. She’s wearing jeans and a sweater that slides slightly off one shoulder.

She cooks something simple, pasta with garlic and oil and a little too much parmesan. You sit at the kitchen table and watch her in the soft kitchen light, her bare feet quiet on the tile. She moves like she belongs here like she already knows where everything is but then again, she does.

You eat together. No interruptions. No monitor buzzing. No half-eaten plates or negotiations about broccoli.

Later, with the dishes drying and the lights dimmed, you pour one last glass of wine and sink into the couch beside her. Her fingers brush yours, hesitant at first then firmer, like a question she’s already sure you’ll answer.

She doesn’t ask, she just waits like usual.

You’re the one who leans in first. The kiss is soft at the edges, but deep. She meets you with quiet certainty, her hand sliding to your jaw, holding you there like she doesn’t want to let go. The second kiss is slower. More deliberate, like an unraveling. You lose time like that. In touches and exhales and the warmth of her hand under your shirt, her fingertips skimming your skin like she’s memorising the shape of you.

When you finally stand, it’s without a word. She follows you down the hall like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it was always going to be this.

The bedroom is dim, the bedsheets already pulled back. The air is cool against your skin but her presence is warm and steady at your side. She undresses you slowly, without performance, just pure admiration. Her touch isn’t rushed or uncertain. It’s gentle, filled with something quiet and reverent. She tucks your hair behind your ear and lets her fingers linger at your jaw, eyes searching yours for permission she doesn’t need to ask for out loud. You nod.

There’s no urgency. Her lips brush your collarbone, your neck, your chest, your thighs. Her hands trace over your ribs, your waist, your back, not demanding but present. Like she’s reminding you that you’re here, that she’s here and neither of you is going anywhere.

Her mouth finds yours again, and again, and again, until everything else blurs.

⋆⋆⋆

Later, the window is cracked open. The night air drifts in, brushing over flushed skin and tangled limbs. You lie half beneath her, half beside her, the covers twisted and low around your waists. Her hand rests on your bare stomach, lazy and possessive, her thumb stroking small, absent circles into your skin.

She doesn’t pull away. Even when sleep starts to pull at her, she stays wrapped around you like she’s anchoring herself too.

In the morning, sunlight spills over the sheets, gold and warm. Her arm is still around you and your legs are tangled like roots. She’s pressed into your back, her breath warm against your shoulder blade, her palm flat over your heart.

You smile into the quiet.

And she doesn’t need to say it, you feel the curve of her lips against your skin.

She’s smiling too.

[midgarangel]

requesting more sephiroth pleaseeee and thank you

tension | sephiroth 🪽

summary: There’s obvious tension between you and Sephiroth. So what happens when you sweetly convince him to help you train?

contents: nsfw! sephiroth x fem reader! face sitting, overstimulation, sub sephiroth, light dom/switch reader, oral (both receiving), multiple orgasams, praise kink, penetration, sweaty needy sex (i need him carnally.)

words: 2.4k

—

You had seen him snagging glances at you for weeks on end. He had a habit of lurking at the fringes of your vision, like a tall specter of the night that came to the earth in smoke and mirrors.

Once, he'd saved you on a mission, slicing your assailant in half while his dark yet bright gaze burnt you from within.

He didn't talk much outside of the missions, but when he did it was like he couldn't get the words out fast enough so he could escape. But he'd sneak chance looks whenever he could.

There was something between you, thick enough that a knife wasn't able to cut it.

You had enough. The training room was dim after taking a break from your practice. Sipping on your water, your gaze travelled along your surroundings until they landed on a tall figure standing out in the hallway. It looked like he was pretending to read one of the info boards along the hallways walls.

Endorphins burning bright in your system, spurred you forward.

You joined him with a smile on your face, sweat making you shine. Sephiroth seemed startled.

"Ah—" his gaze darted everywhere but your face. "Hello?"

"Hey, Sephiroth," you said casually.

"I didn't see you there," He replied, and you wanted to laugh. He was like a beast in the field, a master of his sword, and here he was incredibly awkward and trying to look everywhere but at you.

It was cute.

"It's kind of boring out here, no?” you mused, smiling a little. Sephiroth chuckled slightly. Shinra corridors were bland and gray. Not much to see while walking to and from.

"The next few missions are posted. I’m hoping I get paired with Angeal. He remarked, and you laughed in earnest. His eyes lit up a little bit, and you could see his rare smile form on his face.

You reached out a hand, letting it pat his shoulder. He swallowed thickly.

“What about us? We work well together right?”

“I-I mean, well yes of course we do. You’re right.”

“I’m just messing with you Sephiroth.”

He chuckled but it didn’t come off as nervous as before.

“I saw you in there. You’re improving.”

“Were you watching me?” You asked with a smirk on your face.

“I wouldn’t say watching. Just noticing. I recall you saying you needed to work on your strength.”

Sephiroth noticed a twinkle in your eye after his statement. You thought it was sweet that he remembered.

“You’ll make first class in no time.”

“Aw, thank you Sephiroth. I just wish I had a trainer, you know?”

He nodded his head in agreement. Your eyes bored into his, trying to telepathically tell him to be your trainer. After a few seconds he finally got the hint. On the few missions you had done together, you’d often joke and say that he should teach you everything he knows.

“Ah, I see.”

“You’re the best soldier in shinra, Sephiroth. Please?”

Hearing you say that word had him wanting to drop everything he planned on doing just so he could help you.

“Ok, ok. Go on.”

—

An hour later, it was more rigorous than you expected. Using practice swords felt real when you practiced with the man a few feet away.

Most of the building was empty, at least on the training level and Sephiroth was busy rolling up the mats you both used. You watched him put everything away as you rested against the wall in the corner of the room.

The entire session he was a sight to behold. His muscles on full display along with his hair flowing every time he moved, you had a hard time staying focused. The looks he gave while helping you with weights made you want to pounce on him. Often, his hands would brush your arms. Your soft grunts as you tried your best to keep lifting, followed by his praises were the only sounds heard in the training room. It all felt intimate in a way.

Walking over to you he joined you against the wall, taking in how tightly your sports bra clinged to your chest.

“I’m so hot…” You said fanning yourself, desperate for cold air.

Sephiroth wished he could tell-no-show you how hot you truly were. He honed in on the droplets of sweat going down into your cleavage. Wishing he could lick them away, but instead he gave a simple suggestion.

“Cold shower should suffice.” He pointed his head towards the showers.

“Mhm. I think I will,” You fake contemplated, “Are you heading home after this?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

A pout appeared on your face. You reached out a hand, letting a finger glide up and down his arm He swallowed thickly. 

“I was hoping you’d join me.”

You shuffled closer to him, shoulders nearly touching. Facing him, your fingers played with the bottom of his shirt. He took in a sharp breath, you were so close yet so far.

Removing your hand to tease him, his mouth turned down at the corners disappointed. 

Walking away and grabbing a towel from the rack nearby, you didn't even have to hear his footsteps to know that he'd follow. 

—

Tension was thick in the air when you stood in front of the locker room mirror. It was spotless considering it was now evening, cleaning had already been done. Tying your hair up, you began to strip. Your workout shorts were first, leaving you in your underwear. Sephiroth stood in the center of the room fidgeting. 

You leaned against the sink, canting a hip.

"What's the matter?"

"I—,” He gulped, "What do you want with me?"

"What do I want with you?" You strode forward, grabbing the drawstrings of his sweatpants with your fingers pulling his hips flush against you.

"I want you any way you'll let me have you," you said, sliding a palm over his cock. "That okay?"

"Y-yes.” He whispered, and you grounded your palm down. 

"Good boy," you praised him. His hips shifted against your hand as he moaned. 

You pushed him back a little, letting the back of knees hit the bench in the locker room. He falls backward, sliding yourself up and straddling his hips. 

It was so easy to slide your hands under his shirt, rucking it up and admiring the skin underneath. He didn’t have a lot of scars. No typical marks of your trade. How? You wondered. The moan he gave you while you let your hands roam was more than enough to make you grind your hips down. 

His tshirt was standard issue black, and it shifted with every movement as he breathed heavily. 

"Why don't you let me see the rest of you, hmm, pretty boy?" you requested, and he nodded shakily, peeling off his shirt.

You lifted yourself on your knees as he kicked off his sweatpants and boots, leaving him in a pair of black boxer briefs that did little to hide anything about how interested he was. 

You decided to leave your bra and panties on to tease him a bit more. Not missing the way his gaze darkened, lingering on your chest. 

Smiling, you leaned forward over him. "Like what you see?"

"Very much so.” He admitted. His hands gripped the bench, and your grin shifted to something a little more wanting. 

"You can touch me, you know,"

His hands flew up, skating over your skin. His touch was burning as he roamed everywhere he could reach. 

You leaned back to straddle him, letting your hips slide along him as his hands gripped your thighs. 

"I—" Sephiroth swallowed and shook his head. 

"What, baby?" you asked, letting your hands feel his arms and the muscle beneath his skin. 

"Kiss me, please," He said, and you smiled, grabbing his chin and leaning down. 

He tasted like peppermint and something distinctly Sephiroth, you found yourself trying to get a better taste. His arms wound around your waist, crushing you to him as he kissed you like he couldn't get enough. 

His tongue licked past your lips as he grabbed your hips and ground you down against him. An involuntary moan left your mouth and he exhaled shakily. You bit his lip, and he groaned. 

It was perfect like this, his warm skin against yours as you ground against each other and swallowed the noises the other made. But you wanted more. 

Admiring how dazed and kiss-drunk he looked, you pulled yourself back. Sliding down his body, you looked up at him as you kissed your way down his torso. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, his eyes widening. 

"Well," you said, straightening up as your hands played with the waistband of his boxers, "I was going to suck you off."

He cursed, low and long. 

"Is that alright with you?"

"Fuck," he groaned. "Yes."

You slid his boxers down, kissing his hipbone and enjoying the little shifts of his hips. He was hard, and big by the feel of it, and you couldn't wait to get a taste. 

Wrapping your hand around him, you loosely jerked him off, pulling his boxers all the way down.

“Bet you’ve imagined this before, haven’t you?”

Sephiroth nodded quickly but you wanted more confirmation.

“Say it.” you demanded giving his cock a squeeze.

“Countless times. Every time I see you. On all of our-our missions.

He was pretty, all flushed. Licking a stripe up his cock, you reveled in the strangled cry that he gave. 

"Does that feel good?" You asked him.

“Mhm, right there.”

You turned your attention back, licking over his head and holding his hips down so that he couldn't thrust into your mouth. 

"God, you—" He cut himself off with a muffled moan. "You feel so-,” He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

"You're doing so good, baby," you praised him, and he cried out again as you wrapped your hand around him and kept moving, leaning up to kiss him. He licked into your mouth frantically, tasting himself on you as his hands tangled in your hair and cupped your cheek. 

You went back down, teasing him with little licks all over. He was nearly shaking underneath you, his hips stuttering into your grip as you kept teasing him. 

"Please, please, please," he begged, whimpering, "please, I'll do anything."

"Anything?" you asked, perking up. 

"Anything," he agreed, shaky. 

You pulled yourself off of him, and he groaned. Gripping his chin with one hand, you looked directly into his eye with a smile.

"What’re you willing to do?"

"I, fuck!" His hips ground against your palm as you rubbed him up and down. "Anything, everything, just fuck me, please."

"Good boy," you rewarded him, sliding back down and slipping your mouth over him, swallowing him down in one go. 

"Ahh.." Sephiroth cried out, his hand tangling in your hair as you slid up and down. Your fingers tapped twice on his hip. A signal that he could let go. 

He didn't need to be told twice. He fucked your mouth brutally, setting a rapid pace, all you could do was hold on. 

His hips began to stutter, and you knew he was nearing the end,. Swallowing down his come, he came. A strangled cry coming from the back of his throat. 

You moved away, admiring the way his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were hazy. 

"How are you feeling?" you asked him, and his mouth lifted up in a lazy grin. 

"Good.” He answered, breathless. You smiled, gently tracing your fingers up his spent cock. 

"I'd hope so," you said, admiring the way his hips jerked away from your touch. "I'm not quite done with you yet."

"Fuck," he cursed, his eyes rolling back, and you laughed, wrapping a hand around him in earnest and lightly jerking him off. 

"Please.” he said, and you backed off. 

"Too much?" you asked. 

"No, please," he answered, gaze sliding away from your face. "More."

He was cute, you thought, and acquiesced. 

Licking up his cock rewarded you with a whine, and you did it again, something not resembling english escaping his mouth as you teased him. You raised yourself up to look at his face while you jerked him off hard, and he whined again, tears catching in his eyelashes. 

"You can let go," you said, soothingly. But he shook his head, tears running down his face. 

"I want to make you feel good too." he said, and you smiled, surprised.

"Okay," you agreed, sitting back. "Make me feel good."

He got up, gently pushing you down onto the bench as he kicked off his boxers in full, leaving him fully nude. You gave him a long look, and his mouth lifted in a smile. 

“Can you help me take these off?”

“Of course.”

His hands instantly pulled the straps of your bra down, setting your tits free with an ease that made you feel warmth pool in your stomach. 

Acting on impulse, his mouth was on them in seconds, licking all over your chest. You whimpered when you felt his hot tongue in-between your cleavage.

Spreading your legs willingly, he settled himself there while you laid down. His hands warm on your thighs as he bent down. 

Tentative fingers pulled your panties down, and you lifted your hips to assist him. His hands bracketed your waist as he lowered himself fully, kneeling between your legs and letting his warm breath skate over the oversensitive skin between your thighs. 

"If you're wanting a written invitation, you could just ask," you remarked, squirming, and he huffed out a laugh, finally starting to move. 

"Good boy," you praised him, and he hummed, circling his tongue around your clit.

When he finally started eating you out, though, it's enough to keep your hips rocking against him. 

"Fuck, Sephiroth," you moaned, wrapping your legs around his head as he did something with his tongue that made you see stars. 

"You're...so pretty when you talk like that," he murmured against your skin, and you could feel his smile on your thighs when he pressed a kiss. 

"If you're going to keep teasing me like this," you said, breathless, "then I might just have to ride your face."

"Then do it.” He challenged you. 

"Lay down," you commanded him, and he did. Basically switching places, his eyes were bright and expectant. 

You settled yourself over his head, about to ask if he was okay. But before you could, he grabbed your hips and forcibly sat you down. 

It was all you could do to keep your composure, grinding down on his face while he licked you up and down and sucked hard on your clit. 

"Oh my god," you groaned, trying not to fall to pieces, "you're so good." 

He smiled underneath you, reaching out a hand. You took it, balancing your weight on your legs. Warmth built in your stomach, and you felt your legs start to shake as you start to climax. 

"Mfff-please, don't stop," you told him, and his hand gripped yours harder as you felt yourself lose control, blacking out and shaking on top of him. 

When you came to, Sephiroth was still lightly licking you, and his tongue teasingly flicked your clit, making you squirm and whine. 

You rose off him, settling next to his hips. 

"I’m not satiated yet." he said, warm and slightly growly. His eyes were glittering as he wiped off his face. 

"Don’t worry." you said, swinging a leg over his hip and grinding down on his member. You both moaned at the sensation.

You held yourself up, positioning, and then sank down onto his dick. Sephiroth hissed out a shaky breath. 

"Fuck me," he breathed out, gripping your hips as you rose up and sank back down again. 

"Isn't that what I'm doing?" you asked wryly, rolling your hips smoothly and enjoying the way he bared his teeth. 

"Mmph," he retorted. 

"Aww," you teased him through shaky breaths. "If you'd like to take control, then do it."

That was all he needed. In one smooth movement, with his super human strength, he rolled you over onto your back once again. One hand on the back of your neck as he kissed you, setting a harsh pace. 

Soft cries were punched out of you as he kissed you roughly. His cock rubbed against your insides in all the right ways as his hips pistoned into you. 

"Shit," he swore softly. "You feel better than I’ve imagined."

Your hands cupped his cheeks, whispering in his ear. "God, you're such a good boy."

"Fuck," he sighed, moving faster. 

He was reaching the end, his movements erratic. One of his hands stroked you, fingers massaging your clit, fast and rough, and you were coming again, back bowed. He was still moving when you came back down, dazed. 

"That's it," you grinned, fingernails digging into his back. "Let go…"

Sephiroths hips stuttered then he came, sinking into you with a muffled curse and a kiss to your neck. 

Laying in a sticky aftermath that was both unbearably hot yet comfortable, he slid out, arms wrapping around you and holding you loosely. You pressed a kiss to his forehead and he smiled. After a while, you came to your senses. It felt like a sauna.

“Can I join you for that shower now?” Sephiroth asked.

You rolled your eyes with a smile, grabbing his hand.

“Only if you tell me what shampoo you use.”

—

i kinda cooked here ngl. xx <3

[siffrins-therapist]

Seconding! (And added a few more fics to my ever-growing to-read list lmao)

And here's a few more! I think some of these are already in the notes, but ye (also many of these have spoilers for Act 6/Two Hats, even if they aren't post-canon). (I left out site-locked fics, though, since I'm not sure if any of those authors are okay with their fics being linked.)

Oh this got long sjflisjfisl

Like a Wheel Ever Turning by annasofroma is such a fun series! It's an Odile-looping AU, where she and Loop start off on the wrong foot as Loop panics about Odile being the one looping instead of Siffrin and Odile constantly growing frustrated that Loop is holding back information.

Play Fighting by Aniyha is 0w0 It's post-canon, and after the loops, Siffrin confides in their family that he's a vampire. Isabeau is very normal about this information. And I can't mention Play Fighting without bringing up its sequel Sleepover with the Vampire, where Siffrin and Mirabelle have quality Feelings Buddies time, and it's just very cute and sweet :3

Plus there's Aniyha's fic Nous Dormirons Ensemble, an Isafrin fic where both wake up with zero memory of each other, themselves, or how they ended up in a meadow. It has some very sweet but also some very gut-punching moments that had me tearing through the fic to catch up soon as I started reading owo

how this river runs by crashsite is cute, and I'm always up for more Loop & Mirabelle content!! It's post-canon and Mirabelle teaches Loop how to play tag <3

Parallax by discatded is *clutches heart* It hurts so much in places but it's so good. It's pre-canon, but Mal du Pays pops up and forces Siffrin to have some very difficult confrontations and discussions. Beautifully and heart-wrenchingly written <3

Memory of Black Holes by selkiesongs !!! Siffrin wakes up from a nightmare about eating their friends whole (which selkie adds detail to and I kicked my feet reading that whole dream sequence <3) and the Isafrin is so soft in this fic. And I also need to mention her fic A Trick of the Light! This one is n/sfw, and it grabbed me by the throat with the first line "Something's wrong with Sif."

In Silks and Fangs by TransgressivePistoleer is a fic I read in one (maybe two?) sittings and it was such so good and held my attention from the very start to the end. Siffrin is a vampire and also works at a bordello. Mirabelle, Isabeau, and Odile go there after hearing that a certain dancer might be able to help guide them to where one of the orbs is hidden. It's such a good AU, and I love Mirabelle's new outfit in this fic, very Magical Girl and I love that for her <333

I have have have to mention garden_snake20's Loopdile vivisection fic Let's get right to it. It /is/ vivisection, so CW for that, but Loop's more magical/starry anatomy makes it so it's really not that gory to me.

... Oedipus by Jazz_intown. Just. Okay, so it's a fic where the King is also Siffrin and it's so beautifully written. Lyrical prose if that's your jam as much as it's mine, and I'll just paste in my first reaction in my comment for this fic:

*lays on the floor like Frisk and Napstablook, staring up into the Universe*

It's just. Really good.

Break the News by DarkColdSummer is super fun and had me struggling not to laugh bcoz I was reading it in a coffeeshop. A tabloid prints a rumor that Mirabelle and Isabeau are dating after Mirabelle has a slip of the tongue, and... things spiral from there!

Echoes by reinapepiada!! It's post-canon and Siffrin has a nightmare. Isabeau accidentally makes a mistake when trying to wake them. Siffrin is healing but that comes with struggling to rewire his own brain, how they think/talk to themself. There's little lines peppered through that show how Siffrin and Isabeau have talked, and I love that even though Siffrin almost slipped, he's doing better and has Isabeau to help them up again <3

i will eat you (i hope you'll forgive me) by Bronzeflower! These are n/sfw with biting kink and discussions about kink as Isabeau and Siffrin. I went wild reading both fics in the series <33

This one is still in-progress, but Crown of Fools by circusfable is so good so far! It's Isafrin and will have n/sfw later on, but the world is currently still being fleshed out with Siffrin, the court jester, and Isabeau, the king of Vaugarde, mutually pining over one another (with plenty of delicious Siffrin angst). I love me some royalty AUs, and I've adored what I've read of this one so far ovo

STAY AWAKE by Blazing_rain has prose that kept having me reread previous paragraphs as I went, and this is a very high compliment when it comes to what I like to read. It focuses on Mal du Pays and Siffrin, and reading it made me feel like how I felt when trying to navigate the House in Act 5. Just amazingly written, and I still need to read Rippling out into the Source, a Mirabelle-centric, pre-canon fic where she sees Siffrin's ghosts in the House. I'm already sure I'll love it.

The Guiding Star by Hardcore_Introvert is another fic that's still in-progress but it's so good so far! Siffrin is a fortune teller with many secrets, which require them to make sure the Saviors of Vaugarde trust him and let him join them to find the rest of the orbs and fight the King. Too bad they're a suspicious fella; Odile is watching them closely.

In Blood and Stars by actingwithportals is also in-progress and will soon be the longest ISAT fic on ao3! /silly It's probably my favorite post-canon fic rn (in my top 3 definitely) and is Loop-centric as they try to find a new place for themself in the party. There are many ups and downs, as healing is far from a straight line, and what Loop went through isn't something they can shake the effects of. I just love how Loop is written here, and I keep trying to snag onto little bits and hints as I follow Loop and try to figure out what's happening. (I love that the Freezing had possibly long-lasting effects, like animals' biological clocks being messed up after being frozen in time for months and it suddenly being fall when it had been the end of spring/start of summer only a short time ago for them and this effecting things like chickens laying fewer eggs. It's just a really nice touch world-building wise, and this fic is full of little details like that, showing it was written with lots of love :3)

She'll be coming around the Mountain by Analytical_Cochineal takes place pre-canon, when Mirabelle, Isabeau, Siffrin, and Odile go out to a tavern for a night out. Siffrin only recently joined the group, Odile is a little suspicious of them, and Isabeau is starting to catch feelings. And then Siffrin gets drunk enough to put on a show :3 Very cute and fun, I loved reading this :D

I still need to read blueshine's Inutile, but I'm loving Four Eyes. I saw "Isabeau POV during Siffrin's loops" and was immediately intrigued. The non-linear story-telling works incredibly well, and I won't give spoilers, but there was a specific chapter that almost made me cry out in the middle of a restaurant, since I was incapable of waiting until after dinner to read once blueshine updated.

Ending this list off with the series The Funeral of Siffrin No Last Name by Kamary, which made me curl up and cry several times. I remember just diving right into these fics when I was supposed to be packing for my move, and reading them was like having my heart pressure washed (very very positive).

reblog with your favourite isat fanfiction so I can go and check it out

[rh1ncodontypus]

Actually, I'm still going.

TL;DR

Two days is nothing in real life time.

Content creators are human. We should treat them as such.

Equating morality to the content people consume is not a "one-size-fits-all" strategy.

This is in no way equivalent to what happened with Iskall.

Do I agree with Skizz having mods that support MAGA? No, not at all. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, at the very least.

Two days is nothing in real life time.

I think people are jumping the gun with the current information we have. I think Skizz hasn't had the chance to really do anything yet. Hell, I don't think ANY of the Hermits have had the chance to do anything yet, let alone think. I feel like we've been spoiled with in-real time updates. I don't think it's fair to expect Skizz, or anyone for that matter, to reply or act right this second or else.

Content creators are human. We should treat them as such.

TL;DR: This man has just bumped headfirst into the Paradox of Tolerance. Give him a second.

Generally the definition of tolerance has been maintaining a neutral opinion. This was especially the case with Gen X/Millennials. We have different opinions and we work together anyway. I probably don't have to inform you that's much harder to do in the present, if I'm putting it lightly.

I don't think Skizz is transphobic. I don't think he looked at his mods and decided to hire two of them because they're MAGA. Don't get me wrong; I am not defending having mods that are MAGA. I think that five years ago, he needed people to moderate his chat and he thought those mods did fine. This circles back to the definition of tolerance.

Right now, Skizz is facing the paradox of tolerance. It's up to him what he does with it. And honestly, this might be the first time he's having to think about this. He's a white cis man, which means he occupies a position of incredible privilege (that is not a moral judgment).

And you know what? Trans rights are divisive and the fact they're divisive sucks. I'm saying this as a trans person. You post something about trans rights and you have people fighting on your post in 0.2 seconds with increasing levels of hostility. I don't blame anyone for not knowing how to deal with that on livestream, or wanting to maintain neutrality, as much as it disappoints me.

In the wider scheme of things, Skizz is new to being a full-time content creator. He's probably never dealt with a situation like this before.

I feel like people were quick to assume malice or hostility. So I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and I hope other people are, too. I also don't think this is the cardinal sin that some people are treating it as.

Equating morality to the content people consume is not a "one-size-fits-all" strategy.

I'm already seeing posts encouraging people to boycott his content and heavily implying that someone is a bad person if they don't. You've probably heard of the situation with J.K. Rowling. The reason people are calling for a complete boycott is because any support or money actively enables her transphobic actions and platform.

Separating content from content creator is complicated. I acknowledge that. But applying the morality = content consumption runs the danger of turning into "I am a good person because I only consume pure content™ and this person is bad because they consume the bad content." I don't think that's the way we should be judging people.

This is in no way equivalent to what happened with Iskall.

If this situation is a 10, then what happened with Iskall is a 120. Iskall's situation had tangible victims and was happening over an extended period of time.

Do I agree with Skizz having mods that support MAGA? No, not at all. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, at the very least.

[scarletwinterxx]

birthday clues - lee haechan imagine

hellooooo ~ it's been a while, but it's fullsun's birthday and i really really wanted to post this today🥺 happiest birthday, hyuck. I love you always, in all ways🤍

For my other nct works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

my x acc - niniramyeonie 🤍🌻

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2025 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

(Pics not mine, credits to rightful owner)

You’ve been planning this for weeks.

There’s a laminated checklist taped to your wall, color-coded in three shades of chaos. There’s a Tupperware of star-shaped cookies cooling on your kitchen counter. And there’s a hand-drawn map of the city stuffed in your backpack, dotted with red Xs for the custom scavenger hunt you designed like your life depended on it.

Because it does.

Not literally, of course — just your dignity.

Hyuck’s birthday is today, and more importantly, so is the annual Birthday Bet. 

The tradition started as a joke years ago when you gave him a paper crown and he retaliated with a balloon-animal bouquet labeled “Most Annoying Human 1st Place”. Every year since, you’ve tried to outdo each other. This year? You're going to bury him in the sweetest, most ridiculous, most extra birthday ever.

You’re halfway through setting up clue #2 (taped under his favorite bubble tea shop bench, complete with a mini polaroid of the two of you dressed as bananas in 2021) when your phone buzzes.

🐻 hyuck: you’re being suspicious. 🐻 hyuck: do not try to emotionally assassinate me with baked goods again. 🐻 hyuck: unless they’re the chocolate ones. 🐻 hyuck: actually nvm. do your worst.

You roll your eyes, heart already doing the annoying thing it does every time he texts you something even slightly cute.

you: tell me where you are right now. no reason. not planning anything. 🐻 hyuck: totally not at the park where we had our disaster picnic in 2020 🐻 hyuck: totally not wearing the cursed sweatshirt you hate 🐻 hyuck: totally not hoping you’ll show up with cookies and feelings

You stare at the last text a second too long.

Cookies and feelings He’s teasing. Obviously. You take a breath, shove clue #3 into your backpack, and head to the park.

Operation: Win This Birthday Bet And Definitely Not Confess Your Feelings is officially underway.

The sun’s still climbing when you spot him, lounging on the crooked picnic bench like he owns the park, hood up, legs stretched out, face tilted toward the sky like he's waiting for a sign from the universe.

You’re not the universe, but you are holding a bakery box and a smug smile.

“Happy Birthday, Your Highness,” you say, setting the box down in front of him with a dramatic flourish.

Hyuck peeks at you from under the hood, grin spreading like mischief. “Is that cookies I smell?”

You say nothing. Just lift the box, crack it open, and let the scent do the work. His eyes go wide.

“You’re playing dirty.”

You shrug, innocent. “You started it.”

He bites into a cookie, chews slowly. “I’m not gonna cry, but just know — if I do, I’ll lie and say it’s the pollen.”

“Noted.”

You slip your hand into your hoodie pocket and pull out the first envelope, thick and obnoxiously glittery. He catches the motion and freezes mid-bite.

“No.”

“Oh yes.”

“I just got glitter off my floor from last year.”

“Then it’s good timing,” you say, handing him the envelope. “Clue number one, birthday boy.”

He narrows his eyes but takes it, cracking the seal dramatically like he’s unwrapping a treasure map.

Clue #1: Where you first declared me “unbearably tolerable” Go find the bench that’s uglier than your sweatshirt Something sweet waits for you there. Also: check under it, dumbass. His laugh bubbles up immediately. “You remember that bench?”

“I remember everything you say when you’re half-asleep on cold wood and full of fries.”

Hyuck stands, stretching lazily. “So you’re sending me across town for some cryptic love note and maybe a brownie?”

“Incorrect,” you say, stepping back and giving him your best evil mastermind expression. “You’re being sent on an emotional journey. There are snacks along the way.”

He stares at you for a long moment. Something flickers in his eyes, quick and unreadable, before the smirk returns.

“Fine,” he says. “But if this ends with karaoke and me crying, I’m giving you the trophy and making you take me out for dinner.”

“Bold of you to assume I haven’t already reserved a table.”

Hyuck points at you. “You’re dangerous.”

“And you’re stalling,” you say, already turning. “Move, Lee Donghyuck. The next clue expires in twenty minutes.”

He laughs again — loud, bright, and just a little breathless — then grabs the rest of the cookies and jogs after you.

“Wait,” he calls. “Did you say reserved a table? Are you— Is this a date in disguise?”

You don’t look back. You just grin and say, “Guess you’ll have to finish the hunt to find out.”

You two arrive at destination number two, just outside the tiny record shop that still sells mixtapes and smells like dust and heartbreak.

“Tell me,” he says, slightly breathless, “did you bribe the old man inside to play our cursed playlist when I walked in?”

You sip your drink casually. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You timed ‘Tiny Dancer’ to hit as soon as I opened the door.”

You shrug. “The universe provides.”

He narrows his eyes and pulls the second clue from his back pocket, still faintly glittery and now slightly crumpled.

Clue #2: Back when we didn’t like each other (or pretended not to), You stole a blue hoodie from me here. I let you keep it. Mostly because you looked stupid cute. Find the hoodie. Try not to cry. (Spoiler: it’s not the same one, but it smells like you think it should.)

Hyuck reads the clue aloud, voice softer near the end. His fingers pause on stupid cute. He glances at you.

“Bold confession,” he says, trying for a smirk.

“Technically, you started it by saying I looked better in it than you ever did.”

“I blacked that out.”

You reach into your backpack and pull out a tiny gift bag — navy blue, tissue paper fluffed to near perfection. He stares at it for a moment before taking it.

Inside is a hoodie. Blue, oversized, soft like a memory. You made sure the tag still had the tiniest corner of your cologne sprayed onto it — the one he once said smelled like “comfort and bad decisions.”

He pulls it out, eyes dragging over the fabric, expression unreadable.

“Put it on,” you say casually. “Or I take back the cookies.”

He laughs but he does it, tugging the hoodie over his head in one fluid motion. When it settles on him, it looks right. Familiar.

“It’s warm,” he mumbles, tugging at the sleeve. “You’re trying to ruin me.”

“I’m trying to win.”

He looks up, and for a second — just one heartbeat — it feels like the game is long gone. Like this is something else entirely.

But then he breaks the tension with a loud sniff.

“Yep. Smells like your obnoxiously clean laundry and deep emotional manipulation.”

You smile, triumphant. “That’s clue three’s vibe too, by the way.”

He groans. “There’s more emotional warfare?”

“Three more,” you say. “Next one’s already waiting.”

“God,” he mutters, but he’s grinning again. “You’re actually insane.”

“Only on June 6th.”

He tugs the sleeves down over his hands and follows you down the block, hoodie hanging off him like a secret.

You let him take the lead for clue three. It’s taped inside the cover of a romance novel at your favorite used bookstore — the one with the peeling wallpaper and the grumpy cat that always sits in the window like it owns the place. 

You told the owner in advance. He raised an eyebrow, muttered something about “young people and their dramatic quests,” and gave you a discount on a sticker that says Certified Soft Boi.

Hyuck finds the book within five minutes.

“Let me guess,” he says, sliding the clue out carefully. “You picked this one because they’re enemies to lovers and yell at each other every chapter?”

“Sound familiar?”

“I don’t yell.”

“You whine,” you say sweetly. “Like a drama lead in a K-drama with bad bangs.”

He opens the card. His lips twitch as he reads.

Clue #3: You once made fun of my favorite book. Then you read it. Then you cried. (I still haven’t let you live it down.) Go where we argued for twenty minutes about whether love confessions in books are realistic. Find the sticker. It says how I feel. (Try not to combust.)

You watch him scan the shelves until he stops at the romance section. There, on the spine of the exact book you shoved into his hands last year (he said it looked cheesy, and then stayed up until 3 a.m. reading it), is a neon pink sticker.

He peels it off.

It reads:

“I Like You. Unfortunately.”

He looks up slowly, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You had this printed?”

“Custom ordered,” you say. “Just like your birthday cake.”

“There’s a cake?”

“Clue five, if you survive long enough.”

He tucks the sticker into his wallet. Doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t need to.

Clue four is at the basketball court.

It’s barely late afternoon now, but the sun’s hitting everything in that golden way that makes the world feel too soft. You’re perched on the bench while he dribbles a ball — not part of the plan, he just stole it from some kids who “needed better defense anyway.”

He’s grinning as he jogs over, cheeks flushed, hoodie sleeves pushed up.

“I better be getting another hoodie after this,” he says between breaths.

“You’ll get an emotional meltdown and a handwritten letter.”

He sighs dramatically. “Just what I always wanted.”

You hand him the next clue. This one’s folded in a tiny origami heart, because you’re extra and because you know he’s a sucker for dumb things folded into cuter things.

He unfolds it carefully, slower this time.

Clue #4: This is where you almost confessed. But you tripped on your own shoelace and called me a “walking heart attack.” I thought it was the best almost-love confession I’d ever heard. Check under the bench. There’s a mixtape. (Play track four. I dare you.)

He’s quiet for a moment, blinking down at the page. “I remember that,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“You were nervous. Kept kicking gravel. I thought you were gonna break up with me.”

You laugh “We aren’t even dating. ”

“Exactly,” he says, looking up at you. “Which made it weird that I was scared.”

You don’t know what to say to that so you say nothing.

He crouches down, pulls a little box from beneath the bench — a tiny tin with a USB drive inside. It’s labeled: Hyuck’s Birthday Mix (100% Emotional Damage Edition)

“Track four?” he asks, turning it over in his hands.

“Track four.”

He doesn’t play it yet.

Just slips it into his pocket, eyes still on you like he’s seeing something he hasn’t quite let himself look at before.

Then he grins. “This better not be an audio recording of you crying over my hoodie.”

“That’s track three,” you say.

He laughs again, loud and full and honest And it’s the kind of sound that makes you think: You’re not even trying to win anymore.

You just want him to know.

By the time you reach the last stop, the sun’s dripping gold across the city, painting everything in the kind of light that makes you feel like maybe the world’s in on your secret.

You’re at the rooftop.

The rooftop — the one above his apartment complex, where you both snuck up to drink lukewarm soda and complain about life during your second year of friendship. It’s seen all your highs, lows, and accidental hand-holding incidents that you both pretended to brush off while your hearts did backflips.

Now it’s dressed in fairy lights and chaos. A table covered in snack bags, a too-small cake with a single sparkler jabbed into it, and two chairs facing the skyline like the city’s putting on a show just for him.

You hear his steps behind you before you hear his voice.

“This is illegal levels of cute.”

You don’t turn. Just lift the final envelope from the table and hold it out behind you.

He takes it slowly, brushing his fingers against yours longer than necessary.

Clue #5: You win. (Not the bet — obviously, that’s still me.) You win because this birthday made me feel like my heart’s about to explode. You win because you remembered everything I said in passing, even the stupid stuff. You win because you always win when it comes to me. So here’s your final task: Sit down, eat your cake, and ask me what I want for my birthday.

There’s a pause. You can hear the sparkler sizzling.

Then his voice, low and slow and way too soft.

“You really went for the kill this year, huh?” like he knew exactly what you want for your birthday this year.

You finally look at him. He’s got that dumb smirk on, the one that says he’s trying to hold back a smile and failing miserably.

You raise a brow. “Didn’t think you’d make it to clue five. I had a backup plan in case you rage quit.”

“Please. I live for your dramatic clues.”

He steps closer, envelope still in hand. “So. That spoiler…”

You lift a shoulder casually. “What about it?”

“Should I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you on your birthday before I grant the wish or after?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling — wide and unguarded. “I swear if you make a corny joke before kissing me—”

He kisses you mid-sentence.

It’s soft, certain, and somehow still teasing — like everything else he does. His hands settle on your waist like they’ve been waiting there for years. And when he pulls back, just a little, he’s grinning again.

“You still lose,” he whispers.

“Only if you count kissing you as losing.”

“I do,” he says smugly. “Because now you’re stuck with me.”

You pretend to groan. “Ugh. The worst prize.”

But you’re already pulling him back in, sparkler still crackling behind you, the city twinkling below like it's clapping for you both.

This time, there’s no envelope. No glitter. Just you, Hyuck, and the softest end to the longest game you’ve both been playing — and finally, finally winning.

He kisses you again deeper this time, slower. Like he’s memorizing the shape of the moment. Like he’s been waiting for permission and now that he has it, he’s not wasting a second.

His hands slide up your back. Yours find the edges of that blue hoodie you gave him, fingers curling into fabric that now feels like it belongs right where it is — wrapped around him, wrapped around this.

When you finally part, it’s just the sound of your breathing and the distant hum of the city below.

He keeps his forehead resting against yours, eyes still half-closed, like opening them would break the spell.

You smile at him soft, real, the kind of smile that only ever belonged to him anyway. And you say, in the quietest voice you’ve ever used around him:

“Happy birthday, Hyuck.”

He grins — that big, obnoxious, heart-wrecking grin. “Yeah,” he says, tugging you closer again. “Definitely the best one yet.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, still close, still so stupidly beautiful in that hoodie and that grin and that soft glow of fairy lights that somehow makes him look even more unreal.

“So,” you say, cocking your head, “you admit I win this year.”

Hyuck’s eyes narrow, playful, as his hands tighten at your waist. “Don’t push it.”

“I won,” you repeat, smug now. “Say it. Say the words.”

He chuckles, leans in just a bit like he’s going to whisper something devastating.

Instead—

“Just wait for your birthday,” he says, low and casual. “I’m gonna surprise marry you.”

You blink. “You—what?”

“I’ll do it sneakily. Like, you’ll wake up and boom—wedding arch, legal paperwork, vows written in glitter pen—”

“You’re insane.”

“—the whole group chat invited. Chenle officiating. Jaemin crying. Doyoung hyung objecting, probably.”

“Hyuck—”

But you don’t finish because he shuts you up with another kiss, quick and smug this time, like he knew you’d have something snarky and didn’t feel like letting you say it.

You pull back again, breathless and half-laughing. “This is not how I imagined this.”

“Oh?”

“You’re using kissing as a weapon.”

“I am,” he agrees. “Can’t help it. Waited too long to do this.”

He kisses you again. Slower now. Softer. No smirk, just sincerity pressed to your mouth like it’s an apology and a promise all at once.

And this time, you don’t stop him. You just melt into it — hoodie and rooftop and ridiculous scavenger hunt clues and all — because he’s always been the prize.

[dcdreamblog]

What Are Some fiction Books About super-Heroes You Think Are Good or ``deep´´? and Whats One That You Thinks is a Pice Of Shit?

I've already done a post about what books I think are most important in my profession. And opening it up to just what superhero related books I think are "good" would just be me sharing my opinions about actual comic books for a while and I don't think that's worthwhile for anyone to listen to, I'm a hopped up historian not Linkara. That being said, I will indeed watch a bad comic burn if it is in the interest of my profession and there is one that a lot of people like that I am always waiting for a chance to pull apart with my teeth.

(The most recent anniversary release of Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns")

This book BLOWS and no I don't care how important it was when it came out or how it "legitimized" the comic book medium, or how much of a golden wunderkind Frank Miller evidently used to be before we all spotted the red flags flying 15 stories high in the wind. It's an insulting piece of work and the fact that DC keeps trying to capture the magic of it when that magic wasn't worth a damn to begin with drives me up a wall.

So before we talk about its bizarre and insulting pseudo-history let's talk about its politics.

This book, originally a work of speculative fiction but now a work of alt history due to the march of time has only grown more rancid with age. In the not too distant future, Gotham has become a ransacked hellhole at the hands of an out of control youth culture, permissive liberal tenderheartedness AND a thinly veiled pastiche of the late Reagan administration (how those three things collectively form a worldview I will never know)

This book hates young people and social empathy so bad I can taste it. The only good person under the age of 50 in this book is a teenage girl who specifically rejects any ideals of progression or kindness in favor of throwing herself at the feet of a violent, hateful old man and admitting he was right all along. The idea of rehabilitating criminals, of giving criminals even an ounce of warmth or human kindness is treated as at BEST a blind naivete and at worst a knowing coddling of "evil" a classifiable social object that some people simply are.

To get into this book's HISTORY, it is one of the core manifestos of the "Batman is Bruce Wayne" crowd with its portrayal of Batman and Bruce Wayne that is insulting to both men on a DEEPLY personal level. Released shortly before the tragic death of Wayne's second adopted son Jason Todd, this book posits the widely discredited theory that Todd was the second Robin and creates a future in which Todd's death sent Bruce/Batman into a hopeless seclusion as Gotham rots around him.

What. A. Load. Todd's death is a tragedy that still haunts the Wayne family to this day (and no, not because it was some dark cursed reflection of the loss of Wayne's parents. Stop that) and while this disappearance of the 2nd Robin is mysterious no evidence has ever been shown linking the two men together.

It's portrayal of Batman and the heroes around him is the most damning possible though. Showing Batman as a grizzled and violent old fascist who can only "set the world right" by proving to the entire world why he was right all along. Superman's optimism and hope for the human condition has been twisted into a sycophantic attachment to the status quo via the government and Green Arrow is shown as a failed liberal who comes around to the conservative point of view after the loss of his arm, taking pointed jabs at one of the most socially conscious superheroes in the public eye.

This book is G-R-O-S-S. It's every supposition is a conspiracy theory, its every conclusion a veiled, pseudo-fascist screed coming from a writer who would reveal himself as an open bigot the second his untouchable status gave him the opening the go off on minorities without being called on it and the fact that Bruce Wayne has not sued this book, its author, and DC comics out of existence is an act of supreme patience and mercy that grants Wayne my deepest respect.

[ot7stan4life]

It’s Not Wrong - Part 2

Dreamcatcher (OT7) x Female Reader

(2 parts - ongoing ⚠️)

Word Count: 5450

Summary: As the 8th member of Dreamcatcher, you struggle with your growing attraction towards your members, because, in your mind, loving seven different people isn’t natural and couldn’t possibly be considered acceptable by any normal human being… so why would they be okay with it?

Click here to read part 1

Warnings: sexual content

A/N: FINALLY I updated this. Only took me a couple years 😭 (I also had a decent chunk of it written already and it still took me literally 10 hours to finish this today- thank god I didn’t have work). I honestly don’t know how I feel about it, so I’d love for you guys to give me some feedback if you have any! I’m just really attached to and proud of the first part so I always felt like nothing I could write will ever live up to that. But maybe you’ll love it. Who knows?

SOMETHING I WANTED TO SAY: I’m sorry I’ve been so inactive. I’ve been working on stuff here and there but ever since I graduated college, I’ve really been struggling to write. But I do see your messages and even if I don’t post a reply to them, just know that I really REALLY appreciate your support and your kind words and even your requests. I promise I am not ignoring them! Like I said, I just haven’t been writing much lately but I’m hoping I’ll be able to put out more stuff soon. Thanks again. Your comments and messages mean the world to me.

Also, HAPPY UAU DEBUT!! 🥳

I definitely think the Minji I’ve written here feels like current Minji and it was supposed to be like 2018 Minji but let’s just ignore that little inconsistency 🤡

-

"We have a schedule in the morning. You shouldn't be up right now," Minji said sternly as she watched Siyeon and I frantically untangle from each other.

I was too embarrassed to reply and Siyeon mumbled something I didn't quite catch as she stood from the couch. Whatever it was made Minji glare at her as she turned around to lend me a hand up. I accepted, allowing her to pull me to my feet, and stood there frozen, doing everything in my power to avoid Minji's intimidating stare. Siyeon didn't seem too phased by the older member's behavior when they made eye contact and proceeded to casually walk past her on her way back to their shared room.

While Minji's attention was off of me, I seized the opportunity to sneak past her in the hopes that I could avoid what awkward confrontation I'm sure was awaiting me. Only, I didn't make it very far.

"Not you," she grabbed my forearm and my heart stopped. I couldn't even will myself to look at her.

Siyeon took a few steps back towards us, drawing my eyes over to her. As if Minji wasn't even there, she took my arm from her grasp and pulled me into her for a hug. Though maybe a little awkward in the timing, the sentiment seemed genuine, yet I couldn't make myself relax into her embrace knowing another pair of eyes was on us.

Sensing my tenseness, Siyeon whispered, "It's just Minji, she won't bite... probably."

Probably?! I wanted to yell, glancing over to see the woman in question eyeing our movements like a hawk. But I stayed silent, swallowing thickly and feeling every inch of my body tingle with nervousness.

When Siyeon pulled back, she gently grabbed my chin so that I was staring at her instead. Without ever once glancing at Minji, she closed the distance between us to kiss me lightly. I could practically feel the leader's gaze searing holes into the sides of our heads while Siyeon drug it out, taking her sweet time before pulling away.

She smirked, satisfied with herself and then said, loud enough for Minji to hear, "Sweet dreams, babygirl."

The vocalist didn't stay a second longer to witness the aftermath, slipping into her room and throwing me like bait into the lion's cage to fend for myself. It was a petty move, but I knew she was doing it to rile Minji up so that maybe she'd do something about it and make a move on me. Now all I could manage to do was stand there, too afraid to make eye contact with her in fear that she might pounce on me at any moment.

Though, as the silence drug on for a moment, the guilt was fast to creep in when I remembered Siyeon's words about Minji's reaction to my kiss with Sua. She had already been forced to witness me kissing another member and now this? I wasn't totally sure how I'd react in her case, but I probably wouldn't feel too great seeing someone else kissing any of the women I loved.

"Unnie-" I attempted to form an apology, but she was quick to cut me off.

"No," she said coldly.

I finally looked up at her, shocked to find her eyes had turned so dark that they'd become unrecognizable: that little hint of light always shining in them now extinguished.

"I just want to sa-"

"You're supposed to be asleep," she demanded.

I took a step towards her, trying desperately to explain myself. "I know, but if you'd just let me-"

"Why do you think this is acceptable when we have practice in three hours?" Her deep tone of voice resonated through the halls and made me shiver. She had never spoken to me like that.

I grew infinitely more uneasy now realizing how mad she truly was. "I'm sorry, okay? I just... I couldn't sleep." I looked down.

Though it seemed obvious she wanted to make another remark, my change in demeanor seemed to render her mute for the moment.

"My mind races constantly the second I shut my eyes," I admitted, unable to keep these feelings to myself any longer. "I've just been so stressed lately and I can't stop overthinking. I thought getting up would help clear my mind and then Siyeon-" I stopped when I caught her jaw clench in my peripheral at the mention of her best friend's name. I sighed sadly, feeling ashamed that I had upset her so deeply. "I'm sorry. I'll just go," I finally gave up and started to walk away.

"Wait," her voice stopped me in my tracks.

I just stared ahead into the dark hallway, bracing myself for more scolding.

Except... it never came.

After a beat of silence, she let out a reluctant breath. I turned around to face her. It took a second for her to look up at me, but once she did, I could tell from the way her eyes softened that she had finally pushed her jealousy to the side—at least for the time being—and was now only concerned with my wellbeing.

To my surprise, she simply observed me for a moment, as if debating her next move, and then said, "We'll discuss this later. Try and get some rest, okay?"

I didn't have time to reply or even react to her sudden mood switch before she grabbed my cheek and boldly leaned in to place a lingering kiss dangerously close to my lips. I stood there in shock, feeling both my chest and the spot on my cheek burn as I watched her back away and bite her lip while staring at my own. She seemed to have to force herself to walk away, her body stuttering with almost every move back to her room, as if she was fighting the urge to run back and push me against the wall just to smash her lips into mine.

But she never did. And I was left alone in the hallway, feeling more confused and conflicted than ever.

This really was gonna be harder than I thought.

-

Almost a week had passed since my confession to Siyeon—if you could even call it that—which also meant almost a week had passed since the incident with Minji. And, as expected, I had spent those several days on edge, constantly wondering when and how the eventual confrontation would go. She said we would 'talk about this later,' but a busy idol life combined with a tiny dorm didn't exactly grant us much time or privacy to make that 'later' happen anytime soon.

It also didn't help that, on top of Minji's nearly-impossible-to-read stares that she would constantly shoot me in practice, Sua and Siyeon were also shooting me stares, but for very different reasons. If a person could be capable of feeling every emotion possible all at the same exact time, that person was me this past week. Which, of course, led all the other members to start staring now that it had become obvious something was bothering me.

I was off my game, even in practice when I normally found it so easy to escape from my emotions through the music and performance. Now I was dancing out of time, missing my vocal cues, and mixing up my lyrics. I could only get away with using exhaustion as an excuse the first few times, then it started to become concerning.

"You sure you don't need to sit out for today and rest?" Our choreographer, Sooyeon, asked, placing her hand on my back as I leaned over to grab my water bottle and rag. She had just called a five minute break from learning our new comeback choreography after I managed to throw the entire group off yet again by starting my rap break out of time.

"No, it's okay," I replied breathless, turning to her. "I'm sorry, I'm just..." through the reflection in the mirror behind her, I caught at least three pairs of eyes staring at me. "...a little distracted."

"It's okay, just try to rid those things from your mind. You know, I always find it helpful to..." she continued talking, but her voice faded to the background as my mind became entirely preoccupied with a scene playing out in a shaded corner of the room away from everyone else.

In the mirror, I watched as the woman—who was supposedly angry with me—reached down to the hem of her shirt and slowly began tugging it upwards, maintaining eye contact with me the entire time. Gradually she revealed her toned stomach that flexed tauntingly with each heavy inhale of her breath before pulling the thin shirt over her head, giving me a sickening view of her skimpy sports bra hugging her chest so tightly that even across the room I could see the not-so-subtle curve of her breasts peeking from the top. She tilted her head back, allowing the dim light to catch the golden layer of sweat shimmering across her body and highlighting the muscles of her neck and arms. Her eyes fluttered closed and her mouth opened slightly as she drug her shirt across her neck and down her chest to dry herself. It was obvious she knew I was watching as she pretended to 'accidentally' tug on the top of her bra to reveal more of her chest to me and bit her lip at the sensation of her shirt brushing across it.

"Sound good?" A hand landed on my shoulder, jolting my attention back to the woman standing in front of me.

"Huh?" I said, stupidly, now registering where I was. I swallowed quickly, noticing an unusual amount of saliva built up in my mouth, before restating, "I mean, yeah. Of course, sounds good. I will... work on that." I pressed my lips together into a forced smile, hoping she didn't just catch on to the fact that I had not heard a single word she just said.

To my relief, she smiled brightly. "Great! Well, in that case, back to practice," she punctuated her words with a clap and started walking back over to the speaker.

Now that she had left, I glanced back into the mirror only to be met with an empty corner of the room. Mildly disappointed, I sighed and raised my water bottle to take a much needed drink of water. Halfway through the sip, a soft hand stopped me and pulled it from my lips. Minji's dark hair came into view, along with the confident smirk now plastered on her face. Her eyes were somehow both dark and playful as she seemed to take pleasure in watching my cheeks turn red as I nervously swallowed the bit of water still in my mouth.

She didn't waste a second in placing my water bottle against her own lips and tilting it back to take a drink of her own. Somehow she managed to make such an innocent gesture feel so explicit as she drank, allowing a little to spill down her chin. I failed miserably at fighting the urge to watch the water drip all the way down her neck and to her chest and regretted it the second I did. Suddenly I found myself wishing it was just me and her in this practice room so nobody else could judge the things I wanted to do to her.

Like she knew exactly what I was thinking, she finished with one final swallow and pulled the bottle away from her mouth just to stare at me expectantly as the water continued to drip from her chin. "Well, aren't you gonna clean up the mess you've made?" she said in a low, sensual tone.

I nearly choked on air at the very obvious double meaning in her words while, of course, she simply grinned at the shocked look on my face. Was she seriously implying that messing with me was making her turned on?

"Clearly I meant this," she teased, taking the rag that I had forgotten was even in my hand and placing it on her chin. "What else could I have meant?" She feigned innocence, tilting her head with a playful smile while rubbing the rag over her neck.

My eyes squinted at her, equally annoyed, frustrated, aroused, and confused. How can she be screaming at me one day and trying to seduce me the next?

She pressed the now wet rag against my chest for me to take and sent me a wink before spinning around and skipping off when Sooyeon called us back to practice. I shook my head at her bizarre antics and turned to follow, noticing a certain main vocalist laughing nearby, clearly having seen at least the ending of what just went down. Nice to know she finds it funny. This was partially her fault.

Ridding the whole thing from my mind as best as I could, I took my place to start the song. Surprisingly, it went well for a few more runs and I was definitely improving. Well, that is, until Minji decided to continue her attempt to seduce me by somehow making the moves to an emotional song about being trapped in a dream sexy. I tried to ignore it by looking dead ahead at myself in the mirror, but then she'd start adding unnecessary contact between us, brushing her hand across my shoulder or thigh when we were next to each other in the formation.

Luckily I managed to make it to (what Sooyeon claimed would be) the final run of the day before we had to head to our individual schedules. Even with my little hiccups, we had finally gotten the choreo down pretty well, so Sooyeon wanted to film it for us to analyze before next practice. Given this information, we all seemed to subconsciously agree that we'd actually try to take it more seriously. Even Minji didn't seem to be pulling any tricks this time and we started off well.

As we were reaching the second chorus of the song following my verse, we had to quickly transition to the next formation. It was one of the fastest transitions in the choreo and required me to take several swift steps backwards in between two other members on the exact right beat before they closed the gap. We had done it many times slowed down because one of us would usually run into the other, but as we gradually sped the song up to its normal tempo, we managed to pull it off so far.

This time, however, I hit the steps just before the transition with my feet a little too close together, causing one of my shoelaces to loosen. By the time I realized, I had already made one step backwards with my planted foot holding the shoelace down with all my weight. The foot I tried to move only made it half as far until it stopped mid air and I lost my balance. I fell faster than anyone could react and instinctively tried to catch myself with my hands extending out behind me. Only, one hand didn't land right on the ground and the force of my weight on it sent a searing pain through my wrist.

I cried out and rolled over to clutch my hand to my chest. The members all exclaimed in shock and immediately ran over to me while someone else in the room went to turn the music off. Even after all this, Minji was the very first one at my side, placing her hand on my face and asking if I was okay.

I groaned as the pain throbbed and took deep breaths for a moment to try to compose myself enough to respond. I knew if I started crying the members would only panic more and assume the worst, so I sucked the tears back in.

"I'm okay," I said, but my voice came out strained, unconvincing. I rolled over a bit and Minji brushed the hair from my eyes so that I could see her face.

Strangely, in that moment, the pain seemed to numb a bit as I stared into her caring eyes filled with concern. I wasn't focused on anything but the cute pout on her lips and the way her eyebrows furrowed over her sparkly eyes. This was the Minji I knew. Or perhaps I was just beginning to discover more sides of her that I didn't know existed. Even in her anger and jealousy. Even in her calculated seduction. It was all truly her. And I was about to learn a lot more about her than I realized.

-

After my fall, some of the members insisted on calling the doctor, but I convinced them it wasn't that serious and that if it still hurt in the morning, then I would go. Still, they didn't take no for an answer when suggesting I take the rest of the day off to relax at the dorm. As expected, Minji volunteered to stay with me after getting permission to skip her individual schedule for the day. At first I believed when she said it was only because she wanted to help doctor my wound and didn't want to leave me alone while I was injured—and though I still believed that was part of it—I started to realize she was also taking her opportunity to get me alone.

The tension was evident the second we entered the silence of the dorm. She dragged me into the kitchen and directed me to the short part of the counter. "Sit," she commanded in a serious tone and turned around to start grabbing the first-aid supplies she thought she'd need. Recognizing the change in her expression, I didn't dare disobey or even respond.

I took a seat and held my wrist in my lap with my other hand. She came over a second later with a bandage, an ice pack, and some medicine in her hands. Without hesitation, she stood between my legs, clearly perfectly comfortable with being in my personal space. I thought I had become used to it, but my heartbeat started racing as she leaned in close to place the items on the counter next to me. It didn't help that the height of this counter made it so that we were perfectly face to face.

She leaned back so she was standing up straight and reached out to touch my forearm. It reminded me of the moment she had grabbed that same arm a week ago to stop me from retreating to my room after she caught me with Siyeon. I couldn't even begin to know what was going on in her mind. It had become increasingly obvious over the last few days that she wanted to be with me, but I wondered if she also felt betrayed by me. Or Siyeon. Or even Sua.

As she started gently wrapping the bandage around my wrist to give it support, I watched her face so concentrated on the action and began to realize something. She didn't know what Siyeon did. She didn't know that I loved her too. That I loved all seven of them. So, of course from her perspective, she's probably devastated that I chose either of them over her. That's why she had been so desperate to get my attention, maybe she thought I didn't look at her the same way I looked at them. Which was ridiculous to even consider. How could I not look at her like that?

She must've felt me staring, because, when she finished with the bandage, she took a step back and looked up to catch my gaze. Her expression was soft in that moment. Delicate like how she was handling my wrist. But I watched her eyes change as she glanced at my lips. First to longing, then a mix of something between sadness, anger, and possibly even lust. I stood up from the counter and took one timid step backwards towards the kitchen exit, feeling the urge to run away before she did her damage. Those mood swings were confusing me to no end and I was never sure how she'd react. But her next words kept me in place.

"You know, the walls here are thin," she said lowly, looking back down at my wrist as I cradled it in my hand.

I fidgeted with my bandage, feeling mildly embarrassed and afraid for where this was probably leading. "Unnie-" I tried to apologize once again, but it's clear that wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"No, it's okay." She looked up at me, forcing a smile on her face that I saw right through. "What you do in your downtime is none of my business," she said. "But, if you really want privacy..." She took a step towards me and I took a couple back. "...you should at least learn to be quiet."

I gasped when my back came into contact with the wall. She took the chance to abruptly close the gap with her hands on my waist, pushing her body flush against mine so I was pinned against the wall. "Cause I could tell how turned on you were all the way from my room," she whispered into my ear, her right hand pressing flat against the bare skin just above my waistband. I held my breath, feeling her nose brush against my neck. I had no time to even be embarrassed by her words. Her other hand traveled up my body, teasingly brushing over my chest and planting itself at the base of my neck where her fingers traced slowly across my collarbones.

"Do you like how she touches you, hm?" The jealousy dripped from her tone as her hands continued to explore my body. No words escaped my mouth. I just held onto her waist helplessly while one hand moved up my neck in a tantalizingly slow motion, her fingertips tingling every nerve on my skin. She pressed further into me with her other hand against my chest, her head tilted so that her lips now ghosted over mine. "Do you like how she kisses you?" she breathed out, her voice quieter, yet somehow more intimidating. Her thumb moved to slowly brush across my bottom lip, her eyes following every movement.

"Is she better than me?" she whispered so quietly that I almost couldn't make out her words. Her eyes flicked up to mine and now I could see this wasn't all teasing. It was obvious she was genuinely debating these these questions all along.

I didn't know how to answer her with words, so I tried to convey my feelings to her the only other way I could think of. My lips meeting hers was all it took for her to release her pent up emotions on me. The first kiss was timid from her, almost as if she couldn't believe I had done it, but after that, she didn't hold back. She gripped the back of my neck tightly and kissed me so forcefully and desperately that I thought she might rip my lips right off my face. She barely even pulled back after each kiss, never wanting to disconnect our lips. And even when she gave us a break, it was never long enough to actually catch a proper breath.

By the time she slipped her tongue past my lips, it was clear she wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. Though I still barely knew what I was doing, I tried my best to keep up, which was proving difficult given how lightheaded she was making me. My hands moved downward to feel the skin underneath her shirt and she seemed to follow suit, moving hers to brush across my collarbones and pull at my shirt.

It wasn't until I felt the cool dorm air against my skin that I realized she was unbuttoning my shirt. Momentarily shocked, I released her lips and reached up to grab one of her hands. She instinctively linked her fingers with mine, and before either of us could realize it was my injured hand, she went to pin it against the wall and connect our lips once more.

I almost instantly winced in pain and she pulled back just as fast, letting go of my wrist. "I'm sorry," she rushed out, retracting herself from me, "I'm so sorry, I completely forgot, I-"

"Hey, hey," I grabbed one of her hands with my good hand and pulled her closer, "it's okay. I forgot, too." She looked so concerned that I was afraid she might start crying. She tried to take a step away from me again and kept apologizing. "Look at me," I pulled her closer again and put my hand on her cheek, "It's okay, unnie. I promise I'm okay."

She just stared at me with sad eyes like a pitiful puppy, so I leaned in slowly to kiss her pout off her face. She hesitated for a moment, but couldn't resist in the end and melted into me.

We both pulled back and I said, "see, now this is definitely helping make the pain go away."

She laughed cutely and leaned in to kiss me again. We shared a few more kisses, this time showing me that she was capable of being gentle. Once I was satisfied, I pulled her into my embrace, resting my head on her shoulder.

"You know..." I started, holding her around her torso as she squeezed me tightly around the shoulders.

"Hm?" she hummed.

"You're really scary when you're jealous," I whispered.

She laughed, still hugging me close. "Really?"

I had to resist scoffing at her. "What do you mean really?" I exclaimed and leaned back, causing her to do the same. "I was sure you were gonna murder me that night. And earlier." Even though I was mostly joking, she still seemed guilty.

She sighed. "I know, and I'm really sorry. For that and for yelling at you," she frowned and placed her hand on my face. "There's nothing I regret more. Especially when you told me how stressed you had been. I wished I had known what you were going through before." Her eyes sparkled with sadness as she looked over my features and rubbed her thumb across my cheek. "Normally you come to me when you're struggling with something. I guess I just thought it would be the same with this."

She was right, I did always come to her first when something was troubling me. As our leader, I always felt like I could confide in her and I wanted her to feel the same with me. We told each other everything. So I understood why seeing me with Siyeon must've hurt her. Though, it seems more obvious now that Minji knew all along that I liked more than just Siyeon or Sua. But I can't blame her for questioning whether I liked her too, that's all I can seem to do lately when it comes to them.

"You wanted me to come to you first," I teased in an attempt to lighten the mood, though this revelation admittedly made my heart hurt. Maybe I should've gone to her first. I was sure a lot of sleepless nights could've been avoided.

A small laugh left her mouth at the accusation. "Maybe." She smiled sadly and I didn't waste a moment before kissing it off her face.

"No, you're right though. I probably would've," I said softly after I pulled back, my nose touching hers. "I just didn't really plan on telling any of you." She frowned and tucked my hair behind my ear as she looked at me sympathetically. "It just kinda happened." I shrugged.

"Well, I'm glad it did," she said honestly, making us both smile. "Even though I wasn't first." Her smile faded.

"Sorry," I said seriously.

She laughed and kissed me. "Mm, I think I'm okay with it now," she mumbled against my lips before stealing another and moving her hands down to grab my waistband.

I allowed her kiss me for the next few minutes, just holding onto her neck and enjoying the feeling of her being in control. She didn't slow down, now pushing me blindly across the dorm until my back hit my bed and she was on top of me, making out with me.

"Oh my god," I whispered after bearing a few more minutes of her relentless attacks. My head laid back into my pillow, already overwhelmed by how good she was at kissing.

"What?" Minji giggled, turning her head to try and get a look at my face.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to this," I said, breathless.

She propped her head up with her hand and looked down at me. "Well, you know what they say," she smiled. I just stared at her, waiting for the punchline. "Practice makes perfect." Her smile shifted to a smirk when a blush set into my cheeks.

"I thought you said I needed to rest," I teased.

"Well..." she paused a moment, leaning in and watching her fingers brush across my jaw. "We've both gone without sleep before, I think we'll survive." She concluded like it was a good enough reason and captured my lips once again.

I didn't make an effort to stop her. She was quick to deepen the kiss and my heart burned at the feeling of her tongue in my mouth. I slipped my hands underneath her shirt and resisted the urge to groan at the way her smooth stomach felt against my fingers. She eventually pulled back and helped me take her shirt off with my one working hand. I only got a split second to admire her before she leaned back down and moved her lips to my neck with purpose.

"You're so pretty," she whispered in my ear, stealing my line and yet still making my heart flutter. She gripped my hair and a small whine instinctively slipped past my lips at the action, making her loosen her fingers. "Is this okay?" she asked softly, placing delicate, wet kisses along my neck that slowly became rougher the further down they got.

"Yes," I replied, voice weak, now clutching her waist in the hopes that it might ground me.

Once she reached the base of my neck, her warm, slick lips started sucking down harshly on my pulse point. I gasped, reaching a hand up to rest on her jawline. The sensation that came from the suction of her lips against my throat was so intense that I could practically feel it throughout my entire body. My heartbeat throbbed painfully in my veins and my brain was lost in the clouds.

The unreleased tension her kisses had slowly been building up in me now became unbearable and I was unable to think straight, shifting my position to find some friction on Minji's thigh. The almost painful feeling of the older woman marking me up in tandem with the sudden pressure of her leg against my center once she realized what I wanted sent a feeling of pleasure like I had never experienced before rushing through my body. The overwhelming sensation forced a moan from my throat and I could feel Minji inhale sharply against my neck as her nails clung harder to my scalp. There was no doubt in my mind she reacted that way because she could feel just how wet she had made me through my shorts on her bare thigh.

Right as she leaned up to kiss my lips and drag her hand down to my waistband, we heard the sound of voices in the hall and the front door slamming. We both abruptly backed away from the kiss, but Minji couldn't make a move to get off of me before Dami entered the room.

"Are you oka-" the short haired woman froze the second she saw both of us shirtless in bed and I wanted to disintegrate off the face of the planet at the embarrassed look on her face. "Oh, sorry," she looked away immediately and started walking back into the hall.

Minji stood up to quickly put her shirt on and run after her while I just laid there, mumbling a curse word while placing my hands over my face.

Why did this have to keep happening?

To Be Continued…

[inchidentally]

“Of course, we want to go out and beat each other every weekend, but we're never going to cross that line that's going to cause damage that can't be repaired."

this line messes with my brain chemistry so hard, cause they've both talked about wanting to become world champions with mclaren and they know things are going to get heated at some point, but it's the resolute they have in wanting to maintain the relationship they currently have that makes them so special to me

they've been asked by the media if they see a nico and lewis type situation forming and they've just said we'll have to see, but i like to believe internally they've both talked and come to the same conclusion- we're not gonna end up like the others, we're not gonna end up at point where we stop talking to each other or can't even say the other's name

it's all so aksdhkjhkjg

honestly it's so telling the way they've just started joking that they're gonna recreate 2007 etc that they're both so tired of the Lewis/Nico comparisons

as someone who l o v e s the drama of br0cedes and and even loved getting the lore posts about Esteban and Pierre it is wiiiiild how landoscar keep getting classed with these legacy unique angst ships. now ! carland0 would've been the closest recent example that would've end up like them bc the recipe for those big dramatic fall outs is that the two drivers form a big friendship and bond that involves a childhood bond. Carlos literally raised Lando the rest of the way and would call him a moody teenager and 'you need to mature' and roughhouse with him like a little kid etc. those are the relationships where they just don't bother thinking about what competing might do and convince themselves they'll be fine. and bam then the first battle happens and all that innocent trusting friendship collides with real life racing for wins and championships and it flips over into hurt feelings, angry words and not even attempts like the fix-it golf dates of 2022 working.

and Lando's battles with Max last season got close to that level of we've been friends and rivals since childhood and now we're clawing past eo for wins - but they weren't teammates so they could still get past even the bitterest on track moments and remain friends. and Carlos said that he and Lando are better off not teammates bc their on track rivalry can be easier and less complicated.

but Lando and Oscar didn't push or force any kind of bond or friendship at all and focused their early relationship entirely on this new open-door policy between the garages (except for during races ofc) and discovered they want the same things from the car and have always had their separate little debriefs even back when they spent minimal time together - and since end of 2023 they've talked about battling each other for championships and not wanting to ruin their relationship and not wanting to let the team down by prioritizing the WDC over the team's hard work.

so that's why I say yea we're fully gonna see contact, probably crashes (hopefully not too many and not too bad) and periods where they don't talk etc. but unlike teammates who are in denial or who just assume they'll be fine, none of this is going to take them by surprise. they're never just assuming they'll be okay, they're actively talking about how to deal with it when they have to make those split second decisions and it makes the difference between one getting the championship over the other. and even if they weren't, they've got the whole of fandom and the media telling them this fallout WILL happen and asking them to answer for fights that haven't even happened yet aslfgasjfgsal

and I totally agree anon, it's one of the things I think that makes them so compelling is the open honestly they have about all of this. that we've been able to watch them slowly become closer while they've also been openly navigating how them being "the strongest" !! teammate pairing and hoping to be one of the longest lived pairings is what's propelled themselves and McLaren back to the front after decades languishing BUT also brings with it the most crucial and fiercest battles being between each other.

we got no PR dates or content to smooth over Hungary or Monza. nobody made them fake anything for the sake of fans and McLaren isn't even as invested in landoscar as a pairing as they are still with carland0 salfgslajfgljsa. and ignoring the usual staged content on DTS, we got the authenticity of Lando's reaction to Hungary as well as Oscar not putting a PR front when asked if he'd be okay with being number 2. but none of it was over the top or melodramatic. they never swing wildly from fan-forward friendship to unhinged angry media pen quotes.

they never feel like they're playing catch up at all and there's this level of maturity and mutual agreement and discussion that is getting completely missed by media and most of fandom simply bc everyone can't wait for the drama to finally pay off big.

but fr the thing that makes them unique is how long and how mutually they've been preparing for this and how honest they're allowing themselves to be with each other and with the media/fans. it's one thing for teammates to talk up not wanting to fall out which is the usual line that's taken. but I love that Lando and Oscar are admitting that all they can do is hope to do right by the team and stay on the same page as much as possible. it's not about pretending that everything will all work itself out just fine, it's them wanting to to establish how they'll react to things get truly difficult.

[spitefulsatanfics]

《 ❝You break my heart, Kid.❞ 》ஓ๑♡๑

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Y/N (She/Her) — Supernatural

Tone: Grief, hurt/comfort, deep emotional intimacy, soft domestic moments, quiet healing, canon-level angst, found family, mutual vulnerability, protective!Dean, post-loss trauma, unspoken love as a tether to hope.

Rating: 18+ | TW: Grief and loss, vivid depictions of mourning, alcohol, emotional trauma, strong language, canonical character death 🛑 MINORS DO NOT INTERACT 🛑

Based On: Supernatural — Season 7, post-Episode 10 “Death’s Door” ⚠️ This show is rated 17+ and deals with dark and mature themes.

Synopsis: Bobby Singer left behind more than a legacy—he left behind a daughter. And grief doesn’t wait for monsters to disappear. While the Winchesters reel from the loss of their only father figure, Dean finds himself in unfamiliar territory: comforting the one person who loved Bobby as fiercely as he did. Through bottle caps, battered notebooks, and memories soaked in blood and whiskey, Dean and Y/N learn how to carry love’s weight, even when it threatens to bury them both.

By; 𝙻𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚕 ♥ — date written and published: June 6th, 2025™ (Request fill — thank you so much for the beautiful prompt.)

════════════════════════════════

Scene One: The House Without Him

The house is wrong.

It smells like coffee that’s gone cold in the pot. Like old leather and dust. Like everything she ever loved and everything that just left.

Y/N doesn’t drop her keys. Doesn’t speak. Just stares at the chipped threshold where Bobby once made her wipe her boots no matter how bad the hunt was. Now her boots are streaked with dried blood and Missouri mud, and no one tells her to clean them.

Dean is waiting just inside, backlit by amber hallway light, flannel hanging off his frame like it's suddenly too big for him. He opens his mouth, but the words rot before they reach his lips.

“Where is he?” she asks. It’s not a real question. Just a refusal to believe what she already knows.

Dean’s throat works as he swallows. His eyes are red, not from drink but from something heavier. Something primal. His voice, when it breaks the quiet, is ash and gravel.

“He’s gone.”

She makes a sound—half a breath, half a sob. Her legs buckle under grief’s first strike. But Dean’s there before she hits the floor, strong arms circling her like he’d built them just to hold her up. Her fists beat uselessly against his chest once, twice—then curl into the fabric of his coat like claws. She weeps in choking gasps, the kind that rip holes in the air, the kind that never end.

Dean lets her. Doesn’t tell her to be strong. Doesn’t tell her it’ll be okay.

Because it won’t. Not tonight.

Not ever in the way they both want.

═══════════════

Scene Two: Bottle Necks and Bones

Two nights later and they haven’t left the motel.

Y/N sits cross-legged on the second bed, still in yesterday’s shirt, staring at the wall like it’s holding secrets. The TV murmurs nonsense. A bottle of Jack sits between them like a fourth presence in the room, half-drunk, cap long gone.

“I keep thinkin’ he’s gonna call,” she says suddenly, voice like old sandpaper. “Tell me I forgot to lock the damn garage again. Or that I left the devil’s trap under the porch undone.”

Dean nods slowly. “I know.”

“He yelled at me the last time I saw him,” she whispers. “We argued about the damn plumbing. Can you believe that? The plumbing.”

“You think he didn’t know you loved him?”

Her jaw tightens. “What if I didn’t say it enough?”

Dean looks at her for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his tired eyes.

“You did,” he says finally. “You said it in the way you took care of him. In the way you knew which books he liked dog-eared and which ones you never touched. You said it every time you cursed like him or made his chili recipe with too much cayenne just to mess with Sam.”

She almost smiles. Almost.

“You didn’t need to say it. He knew.”

═══════════════

Scene Three: Ghosts in the Study

It takes nearly two weeks for her to walk back into Bobby’s house.

Dean doesn’t push. He drives, his knuckles white on the wheel as she stares at the horizon, one hand in his.

The moment the front door groans open, the air shifts. Cold, stale, but still full of him. She steps through and it smells like memories—like gun oil and half-finished research. Like home.

Dean watches her closely. Not hovering. Just nearby.

In Bobby’s study, the desk is untouched. The leather chair still sits askew, a notebook abandoned mid-translation. A book on Norse rites is cracked open, his cracked glasses beside it.

Y/N steps closer, fingers tracing the well-worn edge of the desk.

Then she spots it.

A photo half-tucked under a stack of notes. She pulls it out—she and Bobby, summer of ‘06. Her face dirty with engine grease, Bobby giving the camera the finger. She remembers Dean behind the lens laughing so hard he nearly dropped it.

She presses the photo to her chest.

Dean’s voice behind her is a murmur. “He kept that on his desk for years.”

Y/N turns, unshed tears glossing her gaze. “He never told me.”

“He didn’t need to.”

═══════════════

Scene Four: The Journals

Later that night, she finds the box.

Old, wooden, claw-scratched and stained. Tucked under the bed like a coffin for memories.

Inside—journals. Dozens. Some dating back to the '80s. Yellowed pages, ink smudged with whiskey and time.

Dean crouches beside her, holding a lamp. “Didn’t know he kept this many.”

She lifts one labelled: Wendigo, Montana '93. A scribbled margin note reads: “Dumbass kids didn’t salt their campsite. Nearly got toasted.”

She laughs. Actually laughs.

Dean smiles. It’s a broken smile, crooked at the edges, but real.

They sit cross-legged on the floor, knees brushing. One by one, they flip pages. Case notes blend with grocery lists. A doodle of a squirrel named “Jim Beaver” is scrawled in a page margin next to a decapitation sketch.

Y/N wipes her eyes. “He was such a mess.”

Dean leans against her shoulder. “He was our mess.”

She turns to another journal. Inside the front cover is a note written in Bobby’s unmistakable scrawl:

To Y/N—You ain’t half bad, kid. Keep this mess runnin’ if I’m not around. And if Dean’s still being a pain in the ass, smack him one for me. Love you. You idjit.

She covers her mouth.

Dean’s hand slides into hers.

They sit there on the floor surrounded by ghosts and ink, and for once, the grief doesn't feel quite so sharp.

═══════════════

Scene Five: Not Alone

Outside, the sun is beginning to rise—light bleeding through the blinds like a quiet promise.

They haven’t slept.

Dean stands behind her in the study, arms wrapped around her waist, chin resting atop her head. She leans back into him, heavy but safe.

“You think he’s still around?” she asks, voice barely a breath.

Dean’s reply is steady. “Yeah. I think he’s in all of this. In you. In me. In every kid we save.”

Her eyes slip shut. “You promise you’ll stay?”

He presses a kiss to the curve of her neck, slow and reverent.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

And in the hollow wreckage of everything they lost, that one truth glows like an ember:

They’re not alone.

Not anymore.

═══════════════✓═══════════════

🕯️ 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖗𝖔𝖆𝖉 𝖎𝖘𝖓’𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞—𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖎𝖋 𝖘𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖞𝖔𝖚. 🕯️

[serensama]

A Word with Friends: Of Houses, Hearts and Hidden things

Ahhh finally, this thing has a name.

Thank you @hedwigoprah you wondrous creature, I am a fan of this amazing game and this week's word. I may not use it as often as I should but gee when I read it in something, I do enjoy it quite a lot hahah. My thanks to @woundedsoul12 and @jenn2d2 who tagged me in their awesome work too <3 This week got away from me (yes, again, I have a problem) at 3.1k so yeah- LONG POST.

Read on Ao3

Avarice

1. Excessive or inordinatedesire of gain; greed for wealth 2. Inordinate desire for some supposed good.

---

Enduring the Fifth Talon’s cane was nothing; the man was barely putting half of his strength into his hits. He had almost taunted Viago by saying that Caterina could still hit harder than him, but thought better of it; it wasn’t as if he wanted the man to hurt him more. 

Illario had been prepared for his reaction, knowing what would happen when they were found out; it was a certainty that someone would notice them. It wasn’t even cloudy when Lilya led him by the hand through the front door of her shared home with Viago. He knew the moment he agreed to follow what was to come. It was only a matter of time.  

“What were you thinking?!” the older man hissed, striking him again out of fury. “Don’t! You can’t talk yourself out of this one, Dellamorte. You knew I tolerated this idiocy because it made her happy. If you’re deluded enough to think I wasn’t aware of you sniffing around her since the Antiva City mission, you’re more of a fool than I thought. I let this happen because some part of you makes her light up, and I am not yet completely without mercy. But to protect what is mine, I will be. Do not force my hand, Illario. This ends, now. And for Maker’s sake, put on your underwear man, and get out of my House.”

Illario knew that things would be set in motion, and he would either have to accept and live with them, or be incited to rally against them - and he knew which he intended to do. He was well aware of what people thought about him. That he was capricious. That he was materialistic, callous, shallow, and only liked to gamble, duel and fuck. They were not wrong. Those things were all true to a degree, he was as they said- but he was also more. And it was times like these that he was grateful for people continuously underestimating him. 

He put on his underwear and picked up his leathers, reaching into the pouch to pull out a velvet drawstring bag, about to throw it to Viago, but the Talon squinted at him with distrust and shook his head. “Open it, and put whatever is inside on her dresser,” he ordered, not foolish enough to catch something thrown at him by another assassin. 

The younger man sighed and pulled at the strings, then tugged at the fabric to show Viago a small, glass bottle. Even from across the room, Illario could see the way recognition fell upon his face, his eyes glued to the crystal atomiser. He knew what it was. He knew the effort it took to get one, the time and the expense. What people in his position meant by giving someone a bottle of bespoke perfume. 

“Do you even know if she feels the same way about you? Are you so sure in your affections that you would doom two Houses to bloodshed? Do you want to see Lilya hurt?” he asked, still staring at the bottle.  “There are only three certainties in my life, Fifth Talon,” Illario replied, pulling his pants on one leg at a time. “That I will become the First Talon, that I will one day die, and that I will do both with Lilya by my side.” Viago said nothing or deigned even to give the other man another look, moving past him to pick up the bottle before he left the room. 

Illario jumped out of Lilya’s bedroom window, easily hopping down from the second-floor drop. He hoped she liked her perfume and understood the meaning behind such a gift. Viago certainly had. Effortlessly, the Crow bounded over the rooftops and made his way to the building where all the chatty little fledglings congregated, smirking to himself. He didn’t care if he forced Viago’s hand or Caterina’s- he would suffer every blow for both he and Lilya, and then he’d return the favour to them tenfold.  ---

He had never wanted for anything. He’d been a happy enough child- except during his time with Caterina. Even then, he couldn't claim he had it harder than any other Crow. The hollowed out Villa was miserable, Caterina even worse, but he would never insult his brethren like that. Not after he’d borne witness to the training facilities in their capital. 

When he became a full Crow and was deemed worthy to be treated as an actual member of his house again, he gained access to luxuries that would make even the most decadent nobles burn with envy. In a life where everything lay at his fingertips, he regularly indulged in new and exciting pleasures: the finest wines, custom-made livery, and exclusive experiences that could only be afforded by those with the right connections and obscene amounts of coin. And for a time, it worked- a patch over the gaping wound in his chest that never seemed to close, no matter what he did.

He knew there was more to life, even if others thought he cared only for his superficial diversions and his relentless desire to succeed Caterina. But his true avarice did not lie in ambition alone. It ran deeper. It was a hunger to be seen, to be wanted, to be accepted. Perhaps even loved… if he dared admit it.

So imagine his surprise when, after years of searching, he found something that made the ache subside. He still remembered the first time he saw her; he had taken a contract in Antiva City when he happened upon someone who made him stop dead in his tracks. She stood quietly in the corner, stoic, more focused on the children in front of her than on the senior Crow who had entered the training yard. Curious, he stopped one of the trainers from his House and asked about her.  “Hey, Gianni, who is that?” 

“Who?” 

“That one over there, with the black hair past her waist,” he grinned, unable to tear his eyes off of her for more than a couple of seconds. Gianni scanned the yard and scoffed, rolling his eyes at Illario and laughing, thinking the Master Assassin was merely joking. When Illario did not join in and continued to stare at the woman, Gianni sobered and gawked at him, completely baffled. 

“Are you being serious?” 

“What?” he asked, still watching the girl as she corrected her sparring partner’s grip on their dagger. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Have you been living under a rock back there in Treviso? That’s Viago’s girl.”  Illario finally tore his eyes away from her and back to his stricken acquaintance, who appeared to be afraid on his behalf. Typical Gianni, how he had managed to survive as a Crow for so long was anyone’s guess. “What, like Viago’s girl or Viago’s fledgling who just so happens to be a girl?”

“Yes.” Gianni sighed and shook his head, utter disbelief plastered on his tattooed face. “She’s the most promising one of the bunch, escorted here by Viago himself about five years ago. Used to come up here every few months to check in with the instructors, but now she’s close to becoming a full Crow, he’s been coming up much more often to check in and mentor her personally.”  Illario whistled and nodded appreciatively. He had never heard of Viago purposely taking time to directly manage any of his House’s fledglings, either he really did have a special interest in her or he was already making moves to be considered for the next Fifth Talon. 

“So, for once, be smart, Illario-” “I am always smart, Gianni-”  “Yeah, a smartass. Viago isn’t someone you cross, he’s actually eerily similar to your grand-”

Illario pinned the trainer with a sharp glare that made the man swallow his words, coughing nervously as he excused himself. And whilst he didn’t pay any heed to Gianni’s words, he did not approach her for years, until they were chosen to take part in the same contract. 

A member from each House had been handpicked by their Talons and sent to Antiva City for a reconnaissance and assassination contract arranged by the royal family. So, everyone was concerned when Viago had his little paramour stand for House de Riva in place of one of the other Master Assassins under his command. They all wondered if it added credence to the rumour that the Fifth Talon was finally tired of the pretty young thing now that Teia Cantori was in the picture. They all looked at her with a mixture of derision and pity- stupid, little girl- a Talon and bastard son of the King was never going to be her means to a happy ending. What truly impressed Illario was that she didn’t let their not-so-subtle snickers or whispers affect her at all; the youngest of their team acting the most mature. It was laughable. 

They had to form two-man cells to complete their missions, and he raised his hand immediately to be paired with de Riva. There was no contention; they all saw her inexperience as a liability rather than the potential for excitement she might bring. Their comrades rolled their eyes at him and sent knowing smirks his way, assuming he was only after one thing- and happily let him chase after her. She had been quick to voice her displeasure at being paired with him. The first words out of her mouth after leaving the meeting were that Viago would kill her for getting partnered with him, and he laughed, flattered, not at all offended that the Fifth Talon had even thought to warn her about him. He found it absolutely hilarious. “Really? Pray tell, please tell me what Viago de Riva had to say about me.”   Lilya eyed him warily but relented, seeing no harm in his knowing. “He told me to keep my wits about you. That there was more to you than what most people saw.”  Well, well, well. Perhaps he had been too harsh on the man. As much as he kept to himself, he certainly did know how to read people.“He also said that when you tried something, and that you would, I had his permission to kill you.” 

Yes, he really was a great judge of character.  

“Oh really, Baby Crow, you think you’d be able to kill me?” he asked, genuinely entertained by the confidence the little chit had. If he weren’t already intrigued by her, it would have been the beginning of his fascination. Lilya shook her head and smiled up at him, her posture relaxed as she stood before him at a polite distance.  “No, of course not, Master Crow,” she said plainly, both maintaining eye contact for long enough for him to realise her eyes were the exact same shade as his mother’s favourite emerald ring. She stepped forward and invaded his personal space, an audacious thing she was, her hands locked behind her back to show that she was no threat, even leaving her front open, practically welcoming him to try to attack her underhandedly. “I know I can kill you.” 

Lilya smirked up at him. The vixen. He didn’t know why, but he believed her, and he knew it said something about himself that it somehow made her more alluring. Illario wasn’t afraid of her threats, no, he was much more concerned with the fact that this small thing had managed to captivate him by doing so little. It was not just because she was stunning, but she, too, had more bubbling under the surface, and he was ever so curious to find out what. 

Illario tapped her on the nose, Lilya crinkling it slightly which amused him to no end- he almost wanted to ask her to do it again. What in Maferath’s bloody balls was happening to him?  

“I look forward to seeing all you can do, de Riva,” his voice huskier than he intended as his eyes roamed down her form.   

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” she replied wickedly, “but I’ll make sure you don’t.”   

A challenge. That’s all she was. Just a tantalising challenge wrapped in leather and smelling like the flowers his father would give to his mother whenever he’d return from a contract... What were those flowers again? 

She was about to turn and walk away from him, but she thought better of it and locked eyes with him again. He opened his mouth to say something undoubtedly witty when she returned the favour, and tapped him softly on his nose, stunning him. She grinned and wished him a good night and walked away with a sway he wasn’t sure could be taught. Even by the Crows.

Oh, he was going to have so much fun with her, for however long it lasted between them. 

---

But it didn’t end. 

He had waited for the illusion to fade, for her veneer to dull. Waited for his desire to be sated, for the thrill of the chase to slow down into banal routine, for the smile she drew from him to lose its warmth and become just the practised curling of his lips. But it never happened. Each time he returned, he wanted more. She shone brighter, each touch and taste of her sweeter than the last. Everything- both familiar and new- remained vibrant, intoxicating, and effervescent. His smile for her never faltered, not once.

It was enough to drive him mad, if he weren’t already half-mad from whatever spell Lilya had cast over him.

She cut through all his bullshit, had seen him more bare than anyone and still wanted to be around him. It was unheard of, unthinkable, unbelievable. Yet there she was. She tried to convince him (her, it was always her that needed convincing) that it was just for fun, just good sex, that she enjoyed spending time with him, and it really wasn’t serious. That they were able to walk away at any time, no strings attached. Like good little Crows.

And there they were, four years later, more entwined than ever. Neither knew where to begin cutting away at their attachment without tearing into themselves, only to find pieces of the other still clinging, impossible to remove, without leaving something important behind. There was no clean break for them, only the painful truth that moving on would mean losing parts of themselves they could not bear to part with (each other, they did not want to lose each other).

Illario didn’t know how to go back to the time before she became part of his life. To return to the dull and the dreary- the contracts, the mindless games of craps at the Diamond, and the endless waiting. Always waiting, for Caterina to make up her mind.

How was he supposed to go from sipping cappuccinos at Café Pietre in the mornings, as they sat back-to-back, both of them reading the latest serials from Tevinter... to nothing? From cuddling on a random rooftop, far from prying eyes, watching the skyline of Treviso shift and shimmer as the city changed. From those days when he came back from a contract feeling tainted, scrubbing himself raw, only for the noise in his head to quiet at the gentle brush of her hand through his hair. The sound of her humming, steady and soft, easing a pain he hadn’t even known he carried.

How could he lose all of that?

He couldn’t.

He wouldn’t. 

The sound of a carriage drew near, his ears picking up on the horses’ hooves on the street just in time to start moving, his introspection almost causing him to miss her after waiting for her for the last four hours at the least-travelled passage to get to Antiva City. He thanked his gut for knowing the overly paranoid bastard would send his right-hand through there in case there was to be a confrontation, and Lilya was forced to reveal where her real talents lay; there would be little risk of witnesses. 

He threw caution to the wind and leapt between the buildings to descend from his perch, losing his footing when one particularly loose tile slid down the roof, causing the assassin to fall short of his intended landing and almost swearing loudly enough for the carriage driver to hear. Illario crouched low to the ground, pressing himself into the shadows so the man wouldn’t see him as the carriage rolled by. He grabbed onto the railing just behind the driver’s box, and Illario could feel his ire grow at the old man who still hadn’t noticed anything amiss. If the man had been in charge of her safety, Illario would have slit his throat to save the driver from the embarrassment of doing such a poor job.

He was close enough to the door to hear Lilya swearing and cursing his name, and he almost barked with laughter. There he was, dangling like an idiot to see her- and he was probably the last person she wanted to see, especially after he was the reason she’d been sent off on a useless contract. Illario tapped on the driver’s arm; the man jumped at the sudden contact, pulling the carriage to a harsh stop. The Crow flashed his knife at the shaking man and mouthed for him to stay. The driver nodded frantically and dropped the reins to his feet. Illario smiled and tipped an imaginary hat to him.  

“You called for me, Paloma?” he chuckled, opening the door to one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen- Lilya, staring at him with her mouth slightly open and eyes so full of hope that he knew, without doubt, he had made the right choice that day. Following her to her house, risking what could become another Crow civil war, he would do it all again. He would follow her into the Void itself and call it the Maker’s side, so long as she stood by him.

Caterina might never name him as Talon, but he’d be damned if he let her take the one good thing he had left, the one thing he knew was his. She could choke on her pride and the archaic rules that were written in the blood of others; he wasn't giving her up. Not now. Not ever. 

He left Lilya, knowing that she could take care of herself without him or Viago bothering her and hovering on the sidelines. He had to hold up his end and begin his preparations. He didn’t know if six months was enough time for everything he had to do, but he’d do the impossible for her homecoming- oh, it was going to be one hell of a party. 

Softly tagging: @rookamell @mythals-whore @talkmagically @selennes @serstolas @davrinsleftpectoral @thedissonantverses @himluv @hightowerqueen and anyone else who wants to play- im super late this week so I don't know who has been tagged or not TT__TT