#so it's harder to come up with new characters

[heartmachinez]

First Major Early Access Update, Buried Below, Launches April 29

Our first major update is a game changer, introducing a slew of new content, including a new Crown and Breaker, along with major quality of life improvements inspired by your feedback...

We're thrilled to finally reveal the Buried Below update, the first major content update for Hyper Light Breaker in Early Access, will launch on April 29!  

This content update will be a game changer, as it’ll bring a slew of new content along with major quality of life changes, including run structure changes inspired by your all’s feedback that will change up the game in Early Access in multiple ways. In a new trailer that debuted today (check it out above!), Michael Clark, Hyper Light Breaker’s Lead Producer, covers everything you need to know about this major update and how it evolves the game in a whole new way.  

New Content  

On the content front, Buried Below will bring a new Breaker, “Rondo” – a Breaker who comes from the same region as the recently-debuted Breaker, Ravona, and has a new SyCom with two SyCom perks – a new Crown, “Maw” – the biggest and most menacing Crown yet, two new melee weapons and new areas to explore, including caves. For the new Crown, you all have seen glimpses of her in a couple of ways-- as she’s shown as a Crown that’s possible to fight when readying up to enter the Overgrowth and you have even entered her arena in the hostile crystalscape of the Jeweled Spire. We've been working hard on getting Maw ready, and we’re thrilled the time has come for players to face her in just a few days!  

Change in Run Structure 

Since Early Access launch, we’ve taken to heart all of the feedback we’ve received from the community across the board. Inspired by your feedback, the upcoming update will introduce the most significant feature overhaul yet with a complete rework of the game's run structure, as you will now have one life for each run and when you die, you will lose items in your inventory, and the Overgrowth will reset. This change was made to balance the game around a more traditional roguelike experience, turning each run into a more consistent and rewarding “zero to hero” adventure than before. This change also allows us to better adjust difficulty and make the game easier to get into, but harder to master, and addresses much of the feedback we’ve received from players since Early Access launch.  

This shift in run structure will introduce a few gameplay loops and progression changes to make runs easier, better and ultimately more enjoyable for everyone, including veterans and newcomers alike, than before.  

Extraction - More Options for Players: Instead of only one way to leave the Overgrowth (via the Telepad), players will be able to extract at any Shrine in the Overgrowth and there’ll be no waves of enemies to defeat like before. This change will make it so players can extract more often, making the game easier as a result, which was one of the main requests from players to change the game’s difficulty.  

SyComs - Follows a Class-Like System, More Loadout Potential: Character customization has been redesigned giving each Breaker one assigned SyCom with fixed stats, and players have the option to equip a perk to the SyCom that gives the Breaker a new passive ability. For instance, Rondo’s SyCom has an equippable perk called “Bladedancer” that increases Rondo’s damage and attack speed. You can upgrade your SyCom stats further at Shrines in the Overgrowth. This change, inspired by player feedback, will make it so each Breaker is similar to a “class” making each Breaker feel different from one another, and make it so you can come up with distinct builds per Breaker.  

Inventory & Vendors - More Streamlined: The Vault system will be changed as when you die, the inventory in your Vault will no longer carry over between runs except for Golden Rations, the main meta progression currency in the game. This will allow you to focus solely on acquiring new gear during your runs instead of having to focus on managing their inventory so often like before. Additionally, vendors in the Overgrowth and Cursed Outpost will also have new roles, with Bright Blood and Materials now used for purchases and upgrades. While gear sales have been removed from hub vendors, players can still use them to enhance equipped items.   

Improved Onboarding     The second major addition in the upcoming update is a brand-new onboarding tutorial that launches automatically the first-time players start the game after the update, regardless of save status. This guided experience introduces core mechanics through a structured level that leads to the Cursed Outpost hub. From there, you will gain access to a dedicated space for learning and practicing advanced combat techniques such as dash attacks and parries. Designed to align with the game’s reworked structure and expanded mechanics, this revamped introduction provides a smooth and informative entry point for both new and returning players. 

Future of Breaker – Your Feedback Matters! 

Since Early Access launch, we’ve been working hard on evolving Breaker across the board every month, including but not limited to making performance updates and gameplay improvements, releasing a slew of new content, and implementing so many other changes based on your all’s feedback! As we continue our Early Access journey and set our sights for 1.0 launch, we want to thank all of you for feedback and support – you’re helping us make Breaker bigger and better every step of the way.  

There’s still so much more to come for Breaker in Early Access, including our next major content update this summer that will be our biggest content update yet! Expect to fight double the trouble, embark on quests and where no Breaker has gone before in our next major content drop.  

For now, we can’t wait for you all to jump into the Buried Below update in just a few days and see how it evolves Breaker in a whole new way! 

[pages-and-stages]

"Fuck you."

Have some Curze being... hopefully in character, around his favorite prostitute in a world where he has one.

Tw: smut, noncon, and fear

"I'll never fuck you."

Not only had he misunderstood her, completely, he had also lied. Currently, she was pressed up against the wall, a clawed hand holding her head still while he nipped at her lips and tongue.

"Useless fucking whore," he snarled. Damn, if that didn't send a bolt of heat between her legs. While it was true, she was a whore for money, she wouldn't say she was completely useless. I mean, she was pleasuring the Night Haunter, right?

She had been pleasuring him, in fact. For weeks. Temperamental motherfucker that he was, he was also her favorite regular. That cock? And watching the nightmare come undone in front of her? And again, that cock-

Speaking of, it twitched in her hands, and she ever so gently swirled her thumb around its head, listening to him pant as he thrust into her hand. "Do that again," he growled.

"What? This?" She twisted her hand again, running the thumb under the swollen head. He keened, biting a little harder than she'd wanted. The taste of her own blood filled her mouth.

"I need you," he growled. "Now."

"Well, it's your money, so you have me."

Now, I feel like this is a good time to point out that she had never been thoroughly fucked by him before. It was always dry, him fingering her, and her either rubbing him off or sucking him off, sometimes both. He always made sure to return her "favors".

But when he picked her up, and tossed her onto the bed? Well, that was new. Not that she was complaining. As much as she loved those fingers, she wanted his cock inside of her.

However, she was the goods, he was the buyer. She couldn't tell him what to do, but it seemed tonight he wanted more than a simple handjob. His mouth was on hers before she could ask what changed, pinning her down.

"M-my-" She couldn't get a word out edgewise, he wouldn't let her.

"Shut up." She was used to his growling by now, but this? This was too dark, too dangerous. She was scared, now. Reaching into her stocking, she drew a small, thin knife. Maybe he was just…too into this?

Making to slice a thin line in his back, her hand was caught. Lord Curze peeled away from her, his eyes wide. She took deep breaths, trying to catch the air before it left again. Her hand shook in his tight grasp, and he sat back, letting her go.

She sat up, wiping her mouth. "What the hell?!" She demanded.

Curze bowed his head. "I was angry," he said shyly.

"At me??"

"Why were you about to hurt me?"

She looked down, fidgeting with her knife. "You scared me," she whispered. "You- we didn't-nothing was talked about. You went outside the terms of the contract."

The lord looked down, and if she didn't know better, she'd say he looked bashful. "That was- forgive me, I was too caught up in myself."

She stood up, walking to her vanity. Heat still pulsed between her legs, and she could feel his eyes tracking her. "What was it this time?" She slotted the cigarette in between her teeth, lighting it. For a second, she stared at the flames, before putting her lighter out and taking a breath.

"Must you?" he grumbled.

"Answer my question." She didn't know why he took orders from her. Half the time, after giving each other handjobs, his visits became therapy sessions. Lucky her, she guessed. And those times, he took orders, like she was supposed to.

"My brothers," he admitted. "They want to…they think I shouldn't be a part of the crusade."

She blew smoke out of her nostrils. "So leave the crusade, then. Let them warmonger, and you can…rule this shit hole of a planet, I guess."

"I'm also feeling…something new, around you."

"That's called a boner, and I wouldn't say it's new." She sat back, crossing her legs. Lord Curze looked at her.

"No, warm. Safe. I don't know what you're doing to me, whore, but-." He cut himself off, picking at her carpet. She debated telling him off. "I think I like, how you make me feel."

She shrugged. "Pay for longer sess-"

"I'm in love with you."

She choked on the next drag of her cigarette. "Subtle, asshole."

"I am."

"I don't think you get to call me a whore and then say you love me in the span of 3 minutes."

"What's your name, then?" So, she gave him her name, casually. And then he called it. "I want your hand in marriage."

"Slow down there."

"No." He shook his head. "Please, you make me better. Please?"

Not wanting to die, she agreed. The urge to live was much better than the desire to not be mocked by the noble born or his brothers.

[anto-pops]

The Serpent's Paramour CH 18 - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: You talk with Sebastian and make your stance on a number of things perfectly clear. With that mess dealt with, you make the most of your time with him. After all, you can't exactly go back to your room since you gave it up to Devlin...

Word Count: 9.5k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit language, confessions, explicit sexual content, sex with feelings, lots of sexual praise, oral sex, rough sex, basically just smut

Update schedule ?? Never heard of it. New chapter is up on Ao3 :))

Your face was still unnaturally red as you remained rooted to the floor outside of Sebastian’s door. It had been roughly two minutes since you’d made the short trek from your bedroom to his, and Devlin’s mocking laughter was still ringing in your ears, his taunts and jeers echoing repeatedly in your mind. 

“Try pushing the beds together, it might give you more room to work with.”

“The walls are thin– don’t crack the plaster.” 

Or your least favorite: “Do everyone a favor and try not to end up stuck with any little Sebastians.” 

Merlin. The man might be older, but you didn’t think his wit would ever dull with age. 

Stalling really wasn’t going to help you, though. This conversation was a week overdue, and hovering around like a ghost haunting the hallway wasn’t going to accomplish anything. But even though you had come to Uganda wanting desperately to be on good terms with Sebastian again, you were still incredibly nervous to clear the air with him. Finding out that he had been sent after you– that Victor was the one who had suggested finding you– had scared you. Moreover it had left you wondering if any of the sweeter, softer moments the two of you had shared were even real, or if they were all just some ploy to get you to trust him blindly. 

His behavior in recent days told you that there was some truth to the affection he had for you, but… the only way to know for certain was if you asked him. 

Rocking back on your heels, you sucked in a deep breath and knocked on the door, a strange sense of déjà vu washing over you as you thought back to the last time you’d sought Sebastian out like this. You hadn’t known it then, but that night spent draped around him in your bed would prove to be your last ever spent at the manor. At the same time you started to wonder if you would ever go back there, the door opened. 

Since Devlin had told you he and Sebastian were sharing a room, you elected to blame that for the glower on the brunet’s face. It quickly morphed into a look of surprise, however, and he stepped out into the hallway as he gave you a quick once over. “Are you alright? Is something wrong?” 

“No– I mean, yes. I’m fine, everything is good. Or, well, as good as it can be given the circumstances.” Merlin, you wanted to slap yourself. You couldn’t have sounded more frazzled if you tried. Sighing, you raked your fingers through your damp hair and spoke again, trying a smidge harder not to sound like you’d never held a conversation in your life. “Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to talk. Unless you’re about to go to bed, in which case I can come back in the morning. Or whenever works, it’s not urgent or anything–” 

“We can talk,” he insisted, mercifully cutting your nonsensical rambling short. Those brown eyes of his softened as he stepped back inside his room, holding the door open so you could tentatively step inside. 

Aside from the two twin beds Devlin had mentioned, the room was largely the same as yours, sans a bathroom. The same decor lined the walls, and both mattresses had matching quilts thrown over them. The view from this room’s window overlooked the front of the house, and the vantage point above the courtyard was slightly obscured by the gargantuan Acaccia trees that rimmed the edge of the property. The branches swaying in front of the glass panes made it seem like you were staying in the middle of the jungle.

You remained standing in the middle of the room as Sebastian closed the door behind you, the soft click of the latch sealing your fate. Despite your nerves, you weren’t nearly as afraid to speak with the dark wizard– not like you had been when you’d questioned him about Rookwood. This was something you both needed, and if Devlin was right and Sebastian had been privately agonizing over everything, you wanted to set the record straight. Especially since he had agreed to pause the journey to the ancient magic site and come to Uganda.

“I saw you practicing outside today,” Sebastian’s quiet voice sounded from your left, prompting you to glance at him as he busied himself with fixing the wrinkled edge of the blanket. He was still wearing the collared shirt he’d had on earlier, the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, but you spied the hint of a flush creeping up the back of his freckled neck. “For your first time trying, I think you did well.” 

Such monotonous small talk wasn’t what you’d expected when you had come in here. That, coupled with his skin reddening further, told you that he was anxious. “At least someone thinks so,” you eventually murmured. “I found the whole ordeal rather disappointing.” 

Sebastian shrugged, straightening once he had deemed the corner of the bed smooth enough. When he turned back around so you could see his face, you noticed that the flush had spread higher and was coloring his ears a brilliant shade of rouge. Any minute now and you assumed you would be watching him keel over from the stress. “No one said it was going to be easy, but Natty was right; if anyone can learn quickly, it’s you.” 

“I don’t know what gives everyone the idea that I can absorb knowledge at break-neck speed. I wasn’t exactly the greatest in school.” 

“You broke my dueling win-streak in Defense Against the Dark Arts on your first day,” he helpfully pointed out. “Natty was the best student in Charms class, and you beat her at Summoner’s Court like it was nothing. You learned every spell the Professors taught you in less than two days, and you took down a Troll in Hogsmeade by turning it into mist.” 

“But I used my ancient magic for th–”

“Come on, princess. Magic is magic– it doesn’t matter what kind you used back then. You’re a talented witch, so just accept that you did well today and we can move on to the real reason you’re here.” 

The curt statement left you gaping at the side of his head, and Sebastian rolled his neck before sitting down on the edge of his bed with his hands in his lap, looking for all intents and purposes like a child about to be scolded by a parent. If you had to guess, he was feeling rather pessimistic about your presence in his room to talk. You mirrored his position on the other bed so you were facing one another with ample space between the two of you. Warily, Sebastian glanced at you through his lashes, his leg bouncing in his attempts to expel the jitters that plagued him. 

“Why do you think I’m here?” you asked him after a moment. 

“To tell me off, mostly,” he murmured. “Or to tell me we’ll part ways when you finish your lessons with Natty. You– you seem happier here with everyone else than you did with me at the manor, and I can’t exactly blame you for that. If you want to leave when this is all over, then I’ll save you the time and tell you that it’s fine. Do what you think is right. I won’t stop you.”

Merlin, Devlin hadn’t been exaggerating. Sebastian really was moping. If one week of giving him the cold shoulder amounted to this, you wondered what he would be like if you actually did leave. Whatever look you had on your face made Sebastian shrink in on himself, and he averted his gaze to the window while he worked a muscle in his jaw. You didn’t think you had ever seen him so sullen. 

“I’m not going to leave,” you said matter-of-factly. His eyes were wide as they landed back on you, but you held up your hand to stop whatever comment he was about to make. “I want to see this training with Natty through to the end, and then yes, I’ll help you get the relic. But I have conditions.” 

Eagerly, he blurted, “Name them.” 

Alright… good start so far, you thought. “First, you need to talk to Anne. You need to get her to agree to this before we go through with anything, because I won’t force her to accept a cure if that isn’t what she wants. I know you think you know what she wants, but you’re only going to hurt her in the long run if you make her do anything she isn’t comfortable with. At this point her autonomy is the only thing she has control over, so her approval is essential.” 

Concern, apprehension, understanding, and fear passed over Sebastian’s face as he processed your terms. “What if she says no? What then?” 

“Then we leave her alone. We let her live her life the way she chooses, and we enjoy every moment of it with her for as long as we're able.” 

“But… she’ll die. I can’t–” he tipped his head forward to bury his fingers in his hair, directing the rest of his sentence to the floor. “I can’t lose her after everything. It’s not fair.” 

“Life isn’t fair, Sebastian. Everyone dies, but you have to consider what Anne wants. She’s here with you now, and despite everything that’s happened, she loves you. She’ll appreciate your acceptance more than your persistence.” 

For a while, he said nothing. He just blinked down at his feet as he forced himself to breathe deeply, and after you saw a fat tear slip down his nose and splatter against the floor, he managed to choke out a raspy, “Okay.” 

You almost wanted to cry alongside him, because you knew what you were asking wasn’t easy. Anne was the last of Sebastian’s family, and his desperation to save her bordered on extreme. Still, his willingness to try was commendable, and it was all you could hope for. “Thank you.” 

His voice was still choked when he asked, “What other conditions do you have?” 

Right. “If she agrees to the cure, then we move forward with the plan. But Rookwood– I don’t want him involved at all. He can’t know anything about our progress or where we are.” 

“Easy enough,” Sebastian nodded at the floor. “I haven’t been in touch with him since Henri kidnapped you. I’m sure he’s furious about it, but I meant what I said back in Colmar: I’m done answering to him.” 

“Is it really that easy? Your Vow with him doesn’t make you an indentured servant or anything?” 

“The Vow was established to ensure I didn’t mention his role in my escape to you. I wasn’t to talk about how I got out of Azkaban or the work I do on his behalf. Since Devlin filled you in on all of that, I can loosely talk about him, but I won’t tempt death by reiterating what you already know.” He glanced up at you, his eyes glossy under the dim light of the lanterns. “But you don’t have to worry about forced servitude. I was a willing participant before now, but I’m leaving whether he likes it or not.” 

A weight lifted from your shoulders at the confirmation. Unbeknownst to anyone else, you had wondered if Victor could somehow manage to sway Sebastian back to his side. If the Vow truly had just been a means to keep you from finding out the man was alive, that was good news. It further proved that you were right, too; Rookwood wanted you, not to help his protegee. 

Once again, you were left wondering if Sebastian secretly knew Leglimency, because he narrowed his eyes at you and said, “I swear to you; Victor won’t touch you. I won’t let him get near you, and if he tries, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”  

Unsure of what to say to that, you settled for nodding in understanding. It made perfect sense that Sebastian had his own vendetta against the dark wizard after everything he had uncovered. In a way, it made you feel better. Victor had been using Sebastian to get to you, and Sebastian had lied to you because of Victor’s deception. At the end of the day, you’d both been played. 

Which left you with your last condition: you needed him to be honest with you. 

“There’s one more thing,” you looked away from his piercing stare to play with the fabric of your nightgown. “The lies, the secrets… it needs to stop. As in right now.”

“Of course,” he nodded vigorously as he sat forward. “I know I wasn’t truthful about a lot of things, but you have to know I never wanted to keep you in the dark like that. I just… I had no choice.” 

“You lied to me for months, Sebastian. You could have had Devlin tell me the truth from the very beginning to work around the Vow. Instead you just doubled down on the lies– you made me feel crazy for putting the pieces together.”

“I know.” His face fell upon hearing the harsh truth, and he exhaled shakily through his pursed lips. “I know. I’m sorry, princess. For everything. I’m sorry for tricking you, and for making you feel insane. You’re not stupid, and I should have known better than to try keeping the wool over your eyes after I found you in my office that day. You’re well within your rights to hate me for that.” 

That was just it: you didn’t hate him for it. You were too understanding for your own good, and the man’s kicked puppy demeanor had you relenting quickly. Anxiously balling your hands into your nightgown, you murmured, “I don’t hate you. I was upset, and I was hurt, and… now I’m just confused.” 

“Confused about what?” 

“It’s not as important and I might regret asking–”

“Ask it. If you want to know, it is important, and I’m done keeping things from you, princess.” 

You almost smiled, because the reassurance did more for you than he could ever know. “Was any of it real? What we… what we shared? Am I an idiot for thinking you genuinely liked me?” 

He was quiet for a minute, which scared you to no end. But then his gentle voice reached your ears as he said, “Every second of it was real for me.” 

Your head snapped up so fast that strands of your damp hair fell into your face. Sebastian looked overcome with emotions– though which kind, you weren’t sure– and he swiftly slid from the bed to kneel on the floor in front of you, taking your clasped hands in his larger ones. Unlike at the inn in Colmar, this time, you didn’t pull away from him. 

“When I was told to find you, I was furious. Yeah, you’d gone along with Ominis’ decision to turn me in, and I was still bitter about that. But I was also terrified that you would still hate me, and I was angry that Victor didn’t have faith in my ability to breach the site on my own. Then I saw you when the Ashwinders brought you in and I knew it was the right idea, if only because it gave me the chance to spend time with you again. You were so beat up from the way you’d been living that I couldn’t help but want you to stay. 

“I was right, though. You still resented me, and you were stubborn as hell in the beginning, but just having you around was like a breath of fresh air. It made all the difference in my day-to-day– something that Devlin never shut up about– but I didn’t care. Having you so close made me realize that I never stopped caring about you even when I was in Azkaban, and those moments we shared? In the office and in your room the morning before Henri showed up? They made me realize that everything I’d done and agreed to in those two years out of prison was worth it, because if I hadn’t, I never would have gotten to fall in love with you all over again.”  

Your eyes stung with unshed tears as you gazed down at Sebastian, completely and utterly at a loss for words. The bashful smile he flashed you warmed you to your very core, and when he lifted your joined hands to press a chaste kiss to your knuckles, you couldn’t hold back the waterworks any longer. The thick, salty rivulets cascaded down your cheeks and dripped off your chin to soak into your lap, which prompted Sebastian to reach out and brush his fingers against your skin. 

“Don’t cry, princess. Just don’t think for a second that the lies extended to how I feel about you, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I love you, and that’s never going to change.” 

Hoarsely, you croaked, “H-How can you love me? After Azkaban a-and everything else? I was… I got you sentenced, and then… I was such a bitch.”

He surprised you by laughing, the sound reverberating off the walls of the bedroom and bringing forth the smile you had suppressed earlier. “Kidnapping your childhood crush and stealing her wand is deserving of a little attitude, don’t you think?”

Yeah, okay. Point taken. “You really love me?” 

Nodding, Sebastian moved his hand so he was cupping the side of your jaw, trailing his thumb gently across your cheekbone. “I really love you. It’s hard not to– you don’t put up with my shit, you’re headstrong, and you’re devastatingly beautiful. Can you blame a guy for being enamored?” 

Your watery smile grew in that moment, and you reached up to wrap your fingers around Sebastian’s wrist as you shamelessly nuzzled into the warmth of his palm. “I love you too, you know. It’s why I was so pissed at you. You’re stubborn, you’re arrogant, and you’re prone to poor decision making–”

“This doesn’t sound at all like the traits I listed for you,” he mumbled incredulously. 

“You don’t need me to praise you, your ego is big enough as it is.” 

“That’s not the only thing that gets bigger when you praise me,” he purred coyly, waggling his eyebrows at you all the while. Unbelievable. 

You rolled your eyes, but the smile on your face never fell away as you mumbled, “You’re such a dog.” 

“If you pet me, I’ll–” 

You shut him up the only way you cared to; you let go of his wrist to clamp your hands on either side of his face, then leaned down to press your lips to his. Sebastian had no qualms about your methods and eagerly reciprocated the gesture, a throaty sound emanating from deep in his chest as his mouth molded to yours. 

The kiss started off tentative and smooth– salty from your shared tears and soft in the wake of such heartfelt declarations– but those silky kisses steadily turned into ravenous ones, and you let yourself become consumed by the shift. The swelling wave of feelings in your heart was hard to process, the sensation equal parts exhilarating and frightening, but you were ready to accept it. It was human nature to be scared of the unknown, but you wanted to know Sebastian. 

You wanted to know what motivated him, what scared him, and what enticed him. You wanted to know what made him tick, and what niche things he favored in life. You wanted to go beyond the obvious and get to know the mundane sides of him; his favorite color, his favorite food, his favorite place. You wanted to know which parts of himself he liked having touched, and what he looked like waking up beside you after a night spent much like the one in his office all those weeks ago. 

You wanted to know everything about him, and you were thrilled to discover that the prospect didn’t scare you. 

At the same time acceptance washed over you, Sebastian rose up from the floor, his lips still working in tandem with yours. The new angle forced you to drop your hands and lean back to accommodate him, but he didn’t stay standing for long. He carefully moved over you, bracing his knee on the bed so he could slowly guide you down until your back was flush to the mattress. His weight settling over you was perfect and made your head spin, and when you felt his hand bunching the material of your nightgown up your legs, you moaned wantonly. 

The feeling of his bare fingers skimming up your thigh was simultaneously too much and not enough, especially with the added knowledge that you had nothing on beneath the clothing. His other arm was braced beside your head as he continued to kiss you senseless, and when you shifted your leg up to press into his featherlight touch, the growl Sebastian let loose was absolutely sinful. 

When he broke away to catch his breath, you gasped for air as well, struggling to find the control that was swiftly slipping through your fingers. His eyes were positively luminescent as they bored into yours, and when he closed them tightly, it gave you a perfect view of the long, thick lashes that fanned across his cheeks. “I don’t know if we should do this here.” 

You threaded your fingers through the curlier strands of hair at the nape of his neck, hoping that he didn’t notice how badly your hands were trembling. “Me neither.” 

He nodded before lowering his head to kiss you again, his tongue probing for access with renewed tenacity. 

Good to see that you both had the same amount of willpower at present, which was next to none. 

Your lips parted of their own accord to allow for him to deepen the kiss, and your hands slid down his back to rip the hem of his shirt out of his waistband, the appendages finding their way under the material to splay against warm, tanned skin. The leg you’d lifted earlier came to hitch around his waist, and Sebastian effortlessly wrapped his hand under your thigh to hold you closer to him. The air in your lungs was stolen from you as he tilted his head to the side, devouring you with his mouth as though he were a man starved of your very essence, and you were all too willing to oblige him. 

“You,” he murmured in-between kisses. “Drive me crazy.” His hips rocked down against yours, his clothed groin rubbing tantalizingly against your bare cunt. You couldn’t stop the satisfied moan that spilled into Sebastian’s mouth in response to the motion, and he brazenly ran his hand up your thigh so he could grope at the swell of your rear. “You’re a vision, princess. I don’t deserve you.”

Your heart pounded wildly in your chest, the rapid thrumming tangible in every part of your body. The words left you before you could second guess them, “You deserve everything.” 

Sebastian pulled away from your lips to gaze down at you longingly. So many rebuttals danced on the tip of his tongue– you knew because you could see the gears in his head turning– but you dragged your hands to his front to begin deftly undoing the buttons of his shirt, opting to silence him with your actions instead of with your words. He let you work your way up the trail of clasps, his breathing growing ragged with every inch of skin you revealed. Before long, the attire fell open to give you an unobscured view of his toned chest, and you spotted the swirling edges of his tattoo poking out from beneath the collar. Your fingers traced the coiling pattern almost instinctively, and Sebastian shivered delightfully at your featherlight touch. 

He let you get your fill for a few uninterrupted seconds, watching you as you studied him at a slower, more leisurely pace than before. Back in his office, your joining had been frantic and unrestrained, the byproduct of weeks of tension finally reaching their boiling point. But here, in Natty’s house in rural Uganda, things were… calmer. More intimate. You wanted to take your time and enjoy every second to the fullest. 

But then Sebastian moved his hand from your rear to your waist, dragging your bunched up nightgown with it. He finally looked away from you to glance down between your legs, and a ravenous hunger immediately became visible on his face and ignited the fire in your veins. When he looked at you like that– predatorily, obsessively, insatiably– it made you feel like the most wanted woman in the world. 

You wanted Sebastian, and he wanted you. 

Suddenly motivated by your desires, you pushed him away and sat up, your leg falling back against the mattress. Sebastian’s hands flew down to assist in the removal of his trousers, but you peered up at him shyly through your lashes and whispered, “Let me. I want to try something.” 

The look on his face told you that he would let you try anything. With his pupils blown wide, his chest rising and falling quickly, and his hands shaking ever so slightly, you didn’t doubt that Sebastian was riding an anticipatory high to rival all others. It made you feel confident– enough so that once you unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down, you grasped him by his shoulders and steered him back against the bed. 

The dark wizard blinked up at you in wonder as he settled back against the pillows, watching with bated breath as you slid his trousers down his thighs. He lifted his hips to give you easier access, and once those were removed, you were left staring at a tenting pair of briefs. With what you hoped was a sensual expression, you hooked your fingers under the waistband to inch those down until the hard, thick length of him sprang free. 

It wasn’t like you could forget how big Sebastian was, but seeing his cock again after so long was like a slap to the face. The fat, red tip was already leaking, his length accentuated by the bulging veins that lined the shaft. It was a miracle that he had fit inside of you at all in the past, and you briefly wondered just how the hell you were going to go about your impulsive idea. 

Sebastian looked like he was on the verge of passing out– the mere sight of you kneeling between his legs and staring at his cock enough to work him into a vibrating frenzy. His unruly hair fell in front of his eyes as he tipped his head forward, a heady flush spreading from the tips of his ears all the way down his exposed chest. “You don’t have to do this, princess,” he muttered, his voice strained with desire. “I don’t expect you to. We can just–” 

“I want to,” you interjected, the stubborn tilt to your chin warranting a shudder from the brunet. “I will. I’m just… I’m thinking of what to do here.” 

“I really don’t think you can do anything wrong,” he reassured you breathlessly, then smirked and added, “Just don’t bite it off.”

Obviously. You appreciated the consolation, though. Knowing that he was okay with you trying whatever felt natural made you feel better. While you weren’t a master at anything like this, you hoped that your enthusiasm would make up for your lack of experience. 

Not wanting to waste any more time, you steeled your nerves and slid Sebastian’s briefs down more, leaning back when he hastily kicked the undergarments away before spreading his legs apart for you. You took advantage of the offered space and settled down on your stomach, the front hem of your nightgown bunching up under your hips, but that was hardly deserving of your attention right now. Sebastian’s cock twitched when you wrapped your hand around it, another thick bead of pre-cum pearling at the tip, and you chanced a quick glance at him to gauge his reaction. 

He looked more flustered than you had ever seen him, and for some unfathomable reason, that excited you. 

Needing no further encouragement, you gave him a testing squeeze before twisting your hand around the head, slicking your palm with the opaque liquid leaking from him. Sebastian’s legs tensed on either side of you, so you took that as a good sign. You repeated the motion a second time before leaning down to plant a quick, tentative kiss against one of the veins lining his shaft, and you were rewarded with the sound of his shaky intake of breath. Another good sign. 

You continued to slide your hand up and down his cock as you took to kissing whatever parts of him were left exposed. The swollen tip, his throbbing length– even venturing far down enough to the spot between his shaft and balls. That seemed to be a particularly sensitive area, and you heard Sebastian’s head thunk back against the headboard at the same time he groaned loudly. 

“Fucking hell– keep doing that, princess. Just– fuck, don’t stop–”

The needy timbre to his voice sent a spark of arousal straight to your groin. You had half a mind to stuff your hand in-between your legs to alleviate the growing tension there, but you didn’t want to risk ruining the pleasure Sebastian was feeling. So, you settled for clenching your thighs together. It helped… a little. 

More stammered praises fell from his lips as you twisted your wrist dexterously around the head of his cock, the wet, squelching sounds bringing a brilliant flush to your cheeks, but you didn’t lessen your ministrations. In fact, you grew bold enough to thumb gently at that delicate spot on the underside of his shaft as you carefully wrapped your lips around the tip. You laved the flat of your tongue over the copious amounts of pre-cum seeping from him, and getting to hear the throaty moan Sebastian let slip was nothing short of a spiritual experience. 

“Gods– gods– I take it back, you’ve got to stop. I can’t–” you silenced him by bobbing your head down lower, taking as much of him into your mouth as you could until you felt him bump against the back of your throat. Your tongue continued to press enticingly along the underside of his shaft all the while, and it was at that point Sebastian chose to bury his fingers in your hair and tug. “Stop– stop–” 

Well, since he was asking so nicely… 

You allowed him to pull you off of his cock, the shaky breath you sucked down intermingling with the frantic puffs of air Sebastian expelled. Through hooded eyes, you peered up at him as you wiped the back of your hand across your mouth, and the expression on his face was somehow a lot of things all at once. It was bewilderment, because you had actually just done that. It was discomfort, which you figured had to do with how solid and stiff he currently was. There was also blatant yearning twinkling in his dark irises.

You blamed yourself for that. 

He let go of your hair to grab you by the back of the neck, hauling you forward so abruptly that you fell against his chest. Your hands scrambled for purchase against the bed, but Sebastian held you steady as he recaptured your lips with his in a toe-curling kiss. If he was at all bothered by where your mouth had just been, he didn’t show it, and you felt his chest rumble against yours as he swept his tongue along your bottom lip. 

“You’re a fucking menace,” he growled under his breath. “A wicked, conniving little vixen. You expect me to believe you’ve never done that before?” 

You were going to answer him, but then he was kissing you again. Those warm, broad hands of his fell to your waist, hurriedly gathering your nightgown up your body to remove it entirely. Your attempts at helping were futile; Sebastian expertly hauled up the bunched material by himself, only deigning to break away from your swollen lips when the clothing passed over your head. 

He froze completely when he looked down at your naked body. His mouth opened, but no noise came out. Sebastian’s entire being seemed to be wholly consumed by you, and when you bashfully lowered your head to hide the blush creeping along your cheeks, your hair cascaded over your shoulders and tumbled over your breasts. Sebastian slipped his finger under your chin to force your eyes back on him, at which point he regained the ability to formulate coherent words. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?” 

No one had ever said something like that to you with such conviction before, which only prompted your blush to deepen. 

His eyes glimmered with mirth when he added, “You’re beautiful when you blush, too.” 

The soft smile you gave him was tender, and you shyly reached out to play with the edges of his shirt, the material still hanging loosely at his sides. “Flattery will absolutely get you everywhere right now.” 

“Good to know,” he mused with a smirk, dropping his finger from under your jaw to trail the digit down your neck, then between your breasts, before it scratched lightly above your navel. “Because I plan on going everywhere– and I think I’ll take the scenic route.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh at his teasing, and the sound prompted Sebastian to wrap his hands around your waist so he could move away from the pillows and swap places with you. In a flash, you were guided back against the mattress, your hair fanning out behind you like a halo as you gazed up at the brunet through hooded eyes. He matched the intensity of your stare easily– if not more so– as he smoothly shrugged his unbuttoned shirt off of his freckled, sculpted shoulders. His eyes burned you from the inside out, and the bone-deep fondness you felt for Sebastian nearly overwhelmed you in that moment. 

There was never a chance in hell you could have stayed away from him. Not after everything. You were two sides of the same coin; one motivated by dark magic while the other fled from it. Your life in recent years had been spent hiding from the sins of your past whereas Sebastian had embraced his. He was volatile and impulsive, and you tried to be rational and in control. When you had been brought before him in the manor for the first time, you had truly believed that you were natural opposites. Light and dark, good and bad. But in the end, you were both more alike than anything else, and acknowledging that fact didn’t scare you anymore. 

Sebastian kept his eyes on yours as he slithered down the bed, beginning the long, drawn out process of worshiping every part of your body he came across. His hands trailed up your calves, ghosting his thumbs over each spot he kissed– and he took exceptional care to bestow extra attention to the sensitive skin of your inner legs. Those plush, soft lips of his formed a grin when you jolted in response, and your hands fisted around the sheets when he playfully nipped at the junction of your thigh and nether region. He did it once more– chuckling when you twitched again– and then he actually bit down. 

“M-Merlin, Sebastian, what–” you gasped when he started to suck at the patch of skin between his teeth, the sensations setting your nerves ablaze. It was so close to where you actually wanted his mouth, the close proximity making you mewl and shift atop the bed, but Sebastian didn’t relent. He worked his mark into your thigh with gusto, watching you through his lashes as he wrapped his arm under your leg to hold you more firmly to his mouth. 

The torment didn’t end there. Once he was satisfied with the purpling bruise, he moved on to your other leg, giving it the same treatment despite your writhing. You could feel how wet you were becoming– and you were astounded that your body was reacting in such a way when he hadn’t even made contact with your center yet. 

Once both of your thighs were amply decorated with a slew of love-bites that you knew would take an eternity to fade, Sebastian slid an arm under each leg and pulled you down the mattress easily. His face was mere inches away from your cunt, and the immoral gleam in his eyes told you that he was nowhere near finished playing with you. 

That was exactly what he was doing, too. Playing with you. He was toying with your body– tweaking different parts to see what got you to squirm, what made you moan, and how much you could take before you inevitably got impatient. 

“You look agitated, princess,” Sebastian remarked coyly, digging his fingers into the tops of your thighs. “Something wrong?” 

The gall of this man. Your grip on the bed sheets turned white knuckled at the same time you narrowed your eyes, “Quit messing around.” 

The faux innocent look on his face was positively dripping with sarcasm, as was his voice when he retorted, “I said I was taking the scenic route… are you trying to rush out of here or something?” 

“Hardly,” you muttered, knowing damn well that you had nowhere to rush back to. “I gave up my room to Devlin, so I’m stuck here all night.” 

“All the more reason for you to practice patience, your highness. Good things come to those who wait.” 

You were about to tell him exactly where he could stick his patience, but he leaned forward to exhale roughly against your wet, waiting folds, and suddenly you were the living embodiment of the word. The way your lips parted with anticipation would have been humiliating in any other situation, but right now you were drawn tauter than a wire. You wanted– no, you needed him to close the distance. 

The asshole knew it, too. His taunting grin was proof enough. So, you obediently held back the snide comments that danced on the tip of your tongue and waited. 

And waited. 

A few more seconds ticked by, and you were still waiting.

He was still smiling at you. 

Just as the extent of your patience began to thin, you heard his husky voice murmur, “Good girl.” 

Then his mouth was on you, and your back was arching off the bed. 

The hard, flat expanse of Sebastian’s tongue swept through your folds, pressing deliciously against your clit and pulling a strangled whine from your throat. He lapped furiously between your legs as though it were the only thing he knew how to do– each pass of the wet muscle lingering against your bundle of nerves longer than the one before– and with his arms locked tight around your thighs, all you could do was take it. 

The sloppy, sordid sounds that filled your ears were nothing short of obscene. Your needy moans reverberated off the walls of the bedroom, but you didn’t care if anyone heard. You couldn’t care– your mind was overwhelmed with the never ending pleasure Sebastian gave to you, reducing you to nothing more than a sentient ball of desire. 

The tip of his tongue plunged deep within your trembling walls, his nose shamelessly burying itself against your clit, and even Sebastian wasn’t strong enough to stop your legs from clamping down on either side of his head. “Gods– Sebastian–” 

His laugh was so muffled that you barely heard it, but you absolutely felt it. You groaned ardently and abandoned the sheets, raking your nails across his scalp before tangling your fingers around the strands. It all felt so good, but you didn’t want to close your eyes like your body demanded. Instead you looked down at the man reverently sprawled between your legs, taking in the sight of his broad back tensing and untensing, his hips undulating against the mattress as he devoured you. 

He was rutting into the bed. Fuck. 

That brought you closer to the edge than anything else– the knowledge that he was deriving pleasure from pleasuring you. Your tryst in his office weeks ago was child's play next to this. You had never been so aroused in your entire life, and the fire burning in your gut amplified tenfold. 

“I’m–” your voice halted when he withdrew his tongue abruptly, sliding it back to your clit again before glancing up at you. His stare branded you down to your very soul before he sealed his lips around the swollen pearl, somehow rubbing titillating little circles over it with his tongue. His palms trailed up your thighs to soothingly caress your lower stomach, which allowed him to feel how tense your abdominal muscles were. Your body trembled with its pending release, and Sebastian’s eyes darkened in understanding, his dexterous tongue quickening its movement with renewed vigor. 

He wasn’t going to stop, and you were so, so fucking grateful for it. 

The tidal wave of pleasure that washed over you was so powerful, it brought forth a surge of your dark magic. Nothing like what it had been at the manor– just a ripple that filled the room before suddenly dissipating– but it was tangible all the same. Your eyes squeezed shut as your head fell back against the pillows, a long, drawn out moan escaping your throat, and Sebastian continued to move his mouth over you through all of it. 

Only once you were twitching and limp did he relent and pull away from your cunt, his lips glistening with the evidence of your pleasure. He panted heavily as he pushed himself up to crawl over you, his biceps flexing as he stared down at you with a hunger that bordered on animalistic, and you swore you had never seen a more erotic sight. 

The lightning-looking tattoo on his right arm seemed to coil faster around the limb, but that was easy to overlook when you compared it to the debonair wizard it was imprinted on. Sebastian’s hair fell into his face and cast a seductive shadow across his lust-dark eyes, the corded muscles in his arms bulging as he held himself over you with his hands braced beside your head. The sheer size of his body was all the more apparent when you were caged beneath it, and you numbly reached up to press your hand to his chest. His heart hammered violently against his sternum, and when your eyes flicked back to meet his, he clasped your hand in his before pinning it to the bed, then leaned down to kiss you. 

The action said more than any words could, but when he lowered his hips so his cock fell heavily against your hip, you groaned into his mouth. 

Sebastian kissed you deeply, indulging for a long while while both of your bodies came down from the highs they’d been riding. Yours was more of the post-climax type, but Sebastians? His was one born of denied release and a desperate need to remedy that fact. You could feel the tension radiating from him, the arm that pinned yours to the bed quaking minutely. His shaky exhales were colored by barely there groans, and that was what caused you to finally pull away from the intoxicating taste of his lips. 

“You’re shaking,” you remarked lamely. The fingers attached to your restrained hand wiggled tellingly, and Sebastian’s grip on your wrist tightened. 

“I’m…” his voice was low and strained, further validating your assumption that he was holding back. His eyes slid shut for a moment, and you watched as he sucked in a steadying breath with rapt focus. “I’m fine. Just… trying really hard to stay gentlemanly.”

The assortment of love-bites on your legs said that it was far too late for that. “Why? Don’t tell me we’re going to have a picnic on the floor now. Or are you planning on reading me a bedtime story?”

Sebastian’s eyes opened into narrow slits at the taunting challenge in your voice. “You’re walking a dangerous line, princess.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” you shrugged, perfectly aware of how risky your teasing was. “If I wanted ‘gentlemanly’, I’d be in Ominis’ room taking notes on which fork to use at a formal dinner party.” 

Regardless of the statement itself, mentioning the Auror elicited a deep, rumbling growl from Sebastian. It was at that point you considered you might have made a mistake; maybe metaphorically poking the sleeping Graphorn wasn’t the smartest idea. 

“Alright, darling,” he muttered seriously, sliding his knee up the bed so it was nestled directly between your legs. You gasped when it made contact with your still-sensitive center, the sound bringing a savage grin to the dark wizard’s face. “No more niceties. But when you’re crying and begging for a break later, just remember you asked for it.” 

“W-Wait, I didn’t mean– ah!” Your remaining free hand was swiftly manhandled alongside your restrained one, Sebastian’s one-handed grip on both of your wrists more than sufficient to keep them bound. His expression had transformed into one that was purely and unequivocally feral. The self-control he had exercised earlier was nowhere to be found as he used the knee between your legs to knock your thighs apart. When he curled his empty hand under one of your knees to hoist it off the bed, you stammered incredulously, a heady flush erupting down your chest as you were brazenly spread open for him. 

The weight of his cock made its grand reappearance against your hip, the blunt head dragging down, down, down, until it pressed tellingly against your slick folds. Sebastian fixed you with a predatory look– his lips curling into a self-satisfied smirk as he let your knee fall over the crook of his elbow– and he held your stare with fiery intention as he gingerly pressed into your soaked hole. 

Your eyes rolled back into your skull at the feeling, your lips parting around an airy whimper. Sebastian’s guttural moan shook you to your core, his hands clenching around your wrists in a way that made the bones rub together uncomfortably, but you were hardly of a mind to care. His cock was thick. So gloriously long and perfect– you couldn’t help thinking that you were made to take him. It felt like an eternity had passed before he bottomed out in your fluttering walls, the breach made so much smoother thanks to the copious amounts of slick still coating your lower half. 

Sebastian gave you the briefest of moments to adjust, in which time he managed to grit through clenched teeth, “F-Fuck, princess– you feel so hot. You’re so wet– gods…” 

Something akin to a croak was your response, and then he was moving. 

The drag of his cock through your walls felt like nothing born of this Earth. Somehow, someway, the way he held your leg up allowed for him to probe deeper than ever, the tip of his length brushing against parts of you that had never been touched before. It felt like he was stirring up your very insides– each steady pump of his hips halting your breathing and making your mind go blank. The steady roll of his pelvis was methodical and controlled, and while it was a great way to get acclimated, it left you yearning for more. 

“S-Sebastian, please,” you wheezed, digging your nails into your palms as you attempted to rut up against him. “Please, more.” 

The brunet’s head fell forward so it was inches away from yours, your crazed face reflecting back at you in his dilated pupils. The tip of his incisors peeked out from behind his upper lip as he grinned diabilocally at you. “I can’t hear you, princess. You’re going to have to speak up.” 

“More,” you begged louder. “I want more. I want it– I can take it.”

Maybe you’d look back on this moment in the morning and feel some semblance of shame, or maybe you wouldn’t. But right now? You didn’t care. Especially not when your pleading got you everything you’d asked for and then some. 

Sebastian put more of his weight on the arm he held yours down with, shoving your conjoined wrists so far into the mattress that the springs beneath strained. You were more flexible than you gave yourself credit for, because when he readjusted your elevated leg so it hooked over his shoulder, you were effectively bent in half with next to no difficulty. He held the limb in place by gripping the top of your thigh, and then without any warning, he picked up his pace. 

This was far from love-making or fucking. Sebastian was consuming you– claiming you– slapping his hips against your skin loudly and roughly and with no hint of restraint. He rammed his cock into your cunt, your body sucking him deeper of its own accord and tightening so ferociously that a bestial hiss slipped through his clenched teeth. 

“Perfect–” you heard him groan, which prompted you to crack your eyes open. “Fucking perfect. All of you– all mine. All for me.” 

It was completely possessive, and it made your head swim with potent arousal. Your eyes greedily drank in every inch of his body; his broad, sculpted shoulders, his toned abdomen, the veins in his arm rising to the surface as he maintained his unrelenting hold on your wrists. The man was a work of art, and if your brain wasn’t currently being muddled by his hips hammering against your ass, you would tell him as much. You wanted to communicate that you were his– that your heart belonged to him, and that he could have you any way he wanted. 

But then the hand he held your thigh with drifted lower to rest on your lower stomach, the subtle pressure he applied there making you acutely aware of just how deep inside of you he was, and suddenly the head of his cock was hitting the same spot that had driven you mad in his office. You gave up on trying to speak. 

Instead, you wailed. 

You were delirious. 

Your spine attempted to round off the mattress, but between Sebastian’s grip on your arms and your knee slung over his shoulder, all you managed to do was crane your neck back. That spot– whatever it was his cock was touching nullified all coherent thought. Your folded position and his hand pressing on your stomach forced you to remain in place and endure the euphoric torment, and you were fairly certain your eyes fucking crossed. 

“I-I can’t– I can’t–” you babbled dumbly. A tight knot of pleasure was quickly forming in your gut– right where his hand was pressing down– and you were almost afraid for it to come undone, because it was too much. “S-Seb– Seb–” 

“Come on, princess. Where’s that smart mouth of yours now?” He chuckled darkly, the sound punctuated by the rough, grating breaths he expelled from his lungs. “Is it good, darling? More?” 

Gods, could there even be anything more to give after this? The hard thickness of his cock driving into you, punching the very air from your lungs as it simultaneously dragged over that sweet spot over and over again. You didn’t think you could handle much else, and you fixed your fucked-out gaze on Sebsatian’s face in the hopes that he would somehow read your mind and figure that out. 

He met your stare, then flashed you a wicked smile that told you he didn’t care in the slightest what you could or couldn’t handle. 

The pressure on your stomach vanished when Sebastian planted his thumb directly against your swollen clit, rubbing tight, maddening circles over the nub that matched the tempo of his hips, and you were gone. Your consciousness was no longer on Earth, and your rough cry of his name was all that registered in your ears as the fire coursing through your veins burned hotter. 

Your noisy pleas of “Wait” and “More” fell on deaf ears since you couldn’t stop contradicting yourself. Sebastian didn’t stop owning you– didn’t ease up the pressure he held you down with. The bed creaked violently beneath you, the headboard smacking against the wall so aggressively that you were certain there would be a dent in the plaster afterwards, but all you could focus on was the budding ecstasy building in your lower half. Overstimulated tears streaked down your flushed cheeks as you teetered on the brink of euphoria, and Sebastian dove forward to kiss you voraciously. 

“Come for me, princess,” he groaned against your mouth, his hips bucking frantically into you and driving the head of his cock straight into your sweet spot so perfectly that you couldn’t hold back your keening moans. “I want to feel you. I know you can do it– come for me.” 

That was all it took for the coil to snap, your mouth falling open with a cry as your walls clamped down on Sebastian’s cock and sucked him in so suddenly that his entire body shuddered. The heel of your foot dug sharply into his shoulder blade as you brainlessly pulled him closer, some primal part of your mind trying against all odds to keep him inside for as long as you could, and gods did he let you. 

His thrusts turned uneven, his balls grinding against you as he pounded into you through your climax. The shaky iterations of your name he managed to grunt out were so unlike how he normally sounded– his voice pleading and piteous, his tone reverent and awed– and it wasn’t long before he came just as hard as you had. His thighs shook with the force of his finish, the hand holding your wrists gripping you with bruising strength before going lax. Sebastian’s entire body quaked as he cursed and groaned through his teeth, and you trembled in earnest beneath him as you felt his hot seed seeping out around his cock before dripping down your rear. Watching him was a primitive and carnal display, and through the fog that clouded your mind, you couldn’t help but cling to the thought that it was the most titillating sight you’d ever been graced with. 

The two of you were both shaking and panting when he finally stilled. Sebastian was breathing harder than you’d ever seen, a thin sheen of sweat decorating his body and making his sun-kissed skin glow against the dim light of the lanterns. He was beautiful, you thought at that moment. He was handsome and strong and perfect, and he was yours. You wanted nothing more than to wrap your arms around his neck– to pull him down so you could kiss him and thank him even though it was a silly thing to do. 

But the aches that littered your body clued you in on how impossible that would be. You couldn’t feel your arms. Or your legs. 

You wiggled your fingers, the flexing tendons prompting Sebastian to finally release your wrists. He was incredibly gentle as he slid your knee off of his shoulder, taking care to set the boneless limb atop the mattress without jostling you too much. He stayed sheathed in your walls, though, not quite ready to pull out as he began running his fingers over your skin soothingly. “Are you alright, princess?” 

‘Alright’ didn’t even begin to cover how you were feeling. You still weren’t fully capable of speech– Merlin only knew what would come out of your mouth if you tried to talk. So you settled for giving him a tender smile. The relief that washed over his face imbued you with emotions so strong, you knew there were no words you could say. 

Sometime later, after Sebastian had kissed the life back into you and massaged the feeling back into your tingling limbs, he carried you over to the other bed that had remained unsoiled. He pulled back the covers and tucked the two of you in before wrapping an arm around your shoulders, drawing you snug against his side at the same time you curled your legs around his. 

It was a wonderful, perfect little slice of paradise that you never wanted to leave. So much of your future was uncertain– Sebastian’s even more so since he was still a wanted man. But you didn’t want to dwell on the what ifs. Not with him holding you so securely, reverently tracing shapes against your hip with his chin resting on top of your head. 

Fatigue inevitably sank its claws into you, and as the steady sound of Sebastian’s heart beating under your ear lulled you to sleep, you heard and felt his voice rumble through his chest against your cheek. 

“Merry Christmas, princess.”

[docholligay]

Let's talk about everything that has to do with this moment.

So, of course, I love that she has not even one second of hesitation. She is not going to let him get any closer to Scar, Scar needs proximity to blow Roy's brains out of his skull, and if anyone is going to get the pleasure of that it is going to be Hawkeye. She fantasizes how good that would feel for like, six seconds, before she began to miss his stupid ass.

She also does not worry about upending a superior officer into a puddle. Roy is, on a structural level, her superior officer, sure, but when it comes down to it, she could backhand him and Roy's not going to write her up for it, because if she does it to him, well, he probably has it coming.

LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW FAST ALL THIS HAS TO HAPPEN.

We have Roy's gun in her left hand and hers in her right. Given that she seems to unholster it from her right hip, and given statistics, Hawkeye is probably right hand dominant. So her gun looks like a Colt 1911, which I am basing on the very sketchy dynamics of anime gun illustration, and what i THINK the time period is of this anime. Also it was a very common gun, still very easy to pick up on the secondary market. (PLEASE DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT IS IF THEY TOLD US I'VE FORGOTTEN ALLOW ME TO BE ORGANICALLY DUMB) So let's even assume Roy's gun has the safety off--he's the kind of guy that would throw a gun to hawkeye without the safety on, because he's....Roy.

Let's go through this. She would have to cock his gun--I can't get a good look at the gun to even make a guess as to what it is, but I'm gonna act like it's one of the many semi-autos used by the military--probably using the slide for time's sake. So as she's going down to swipe Roy's feet, she pulls the slide. Then she has to grab the gun from her hip, which i assume is well-holstered, so she has to unsnap a strap, grab it, flip off the safety, slide, shoot. Contemporary pistols have a much smoother slide than these oldsters. AND SHE DOES ALL THIS WHILE MOVING AND WITHOUT THINKING. THE DEVIL WORKS HARD, BUT HAWKEYE WORKS HARDER. I DO NOT KNOW IF ANY OF YOU HAVE EVER TRIED TO DO QUICK DRAW SHIT IT IS VERY VERY VERY HARD.

This is the kind of thing that if it were not sold to me as being from a character known for being exceptionally militarily competent and very well trained, I would call hot bullshit. I mean, even believing in hawkeye as I do, I think it's an achievement.

So...Roy threw his gun to her. Why did he do that? Why didn't he holster it? Roy is a bit of a showboat and kind of careless from time to time--it wouldn't surprise me if he likes to fucking clown on Ed so much because Ed reminds him a bit of his younger self--so it could just be a show of , "teehee! I am not at all concerned." But it could be that he knew Hawkeye would to well, quote myself, have his six. She was never going to just let him get killed. He has to know that. He also knows how very very good she is. Did he, maybe even subconsciously, throw it to her because he knew she would be coming after him? And that the best assistance you can give to Hawkeye is More Bullet?

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ANYTHING THAT COULD EVEN REMOTELY LEAD TO ME REALIZING SOMETHING OR KNOWING SOMETHING NEW. Do not confirm, deny, draw attention to something I missed EVEN IF I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT, contextualize in a cultural or historical way, anything. I hate that I have to be so specific but I am trying to experience this show totally clean. IF YOU SPOIL ME I WILL BLOCK YOU.

QUICK LINK TO THE SPOILER-FILLED FUNTIMES DISCORD HERE. THEY WOULD LOVE TO HEAR THE THINGS YOU KNOW AND YELL ABOUT ME

[red-red-spout]

God it's genuinely incredible the sheer degree to which Pact is OC-bait

Given that it was written right after Worm- guessing the whole "supernatural powers which fundamentally stem from the character of the wielder" thing was still on his mind

[daisywords]

one of the pitfalls for me of writing in first person present tense (beloved!) is that I forget that I can just timeskip

[geddy-leesbian]

I don't care if you like a villain and want to pretend they've never done anything bad, just don't pretend it so hard you start actually believing it and need people to explain to you why they hate a villain

I've got a huge soft spot for Alfred Ashford and I would never send anyone an ask saying "why do you hate alfred ashford :/" because I would use my brain and determine they probably hate Alfred Ashford because of the whole being a fucked up guy running a concentration camp and hunting people for sport and elaborately torturing people and also the fact the people he hunts for sport include one very beloved character and he just generally comes across as a creepy weirdo

if I saw someone hating on him I'd think "yeah sure he did [all that stuff I listed] but I don't care he's my silly little guy and probably wouldn't have done it if he wasn't born into a fucked up family that groomed him into being like that" and then proceed to keep that in my thoughts only and just scroll past the post because who gives a shit man. Alfred did awful things that's an objective fact I can't argue with, and I also can't judge someone for thinking they're awful enough that the mitigating circumstances shouldn't apply because who fucking cares he's a fictional character. irl I like to see the good in people and think the vast majority of people can change and almost no one is completely beyond redemption and thinking otherwise is actively harmful but for FICTIONAL CHARACTERS who cares man. someone else hating Alfred and thinking he's evil and beyond redemption isn't harming anyone in the real world. and me thinking 𝚔𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛 is horrible and inherently shitty and beyond redemption also isn't incompatible with my beliefs because bitch ain't real. he's a character intentionally written to be shitty and not have any sort of redemption, the real world is different because there isn't someone pulling the strings and creating people that are inherently shitty and will never be anything else because they're custom tailored to fulfill a narrative role.

hating a villain should not be controversial someone disliking a villain that you like is not a personal attack on you and is not a confusing viewpoint that needs elaboration. (I don't think that liking a villain should be controversial either for the record but that ain't what this post is about. I've never in my life gotten shit for liking a villain but disliking one villain has gotten me shit on multiple occasions like it's not even confusing??)

and the adderall has definitely worn off I'm going full barely cohesive rambles one more thought before bed:

I mean if someone was actively making Alfred content on a regular basis but made statements about hating Alfred and thinking he has no redeemable qualities and only works as a villain? I wouldn't be mad or try to pick a fight, I'd just be happy anyone was giving him attention and wouldn't do anything that might risk upsetting them and make them not want to make that content anymore. I'd just reblog it and be happy and wouldn't at all even feel a tiny bit attacked because I like Alfred and they don't, let alone interact with them super defensively. don't bite the hand that feeds and all that yknow. I'm still going to keep making 𝚔𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛 content because he's compelling and I'm thick skinned enough that while catching shit definitely annoys the hell out of me, I'm not deeply affected or anything, but it would sure suck for these people if I had thinner skin in this area and was upset enough to just stop posting about 𝚔𝚛𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛 entirely because it's literally the only topic that gets me shit on a regular basis lol.

[sabziesart]

Bangs? Bangs.

[kurthorton-moving]

I have been. Struggling w tumblr lately and i am trying to work out Why bc this hobby means 2 much for me to let it fizzle out

[inseobts]

Unintentional couple behaviour

you two acts like a loving couple all the time, so what happens when someone points it out?

characters: zoro, sanji, law, ace and sabo

(luffy, kidd, katakuri, shanks and mihawk)

words count: around 0.8k - 1.3k each

masterlist || ao3 || ko-fi

── .✦ Roronoa Zoro:

You do a lot of things for Zoro without thinking.

You wake him up when it’s time to eat. You stop him from training too much. You make sure he doesn’t get lost whenever the crew visits a new island.

It’s normal for you. Someone has to do it.

But one day, the others start teasing you about it.

It happens at lunch. You are eating with the crew when Usopp laughs and nudges your arm.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna get your boyfriend?”

You blink. “What?”

Sanji, cleaning his hands with a towel, nods toward the deck “That moss-brained idiot. You always bring him to meals. It’s like a little routine between you two now. Like a couple…”

“We’re not—” You nearly choke on your drink “We’re not a couple!”

Usopp grins “Then why do you always take so much care of him?”

“Because he’s stupid and forgets to eat!” you say, standing up “I’ll go get him, but not because of whatever weird ideas you guys have.”

You walk away while they laugh behind you.

You find Zoro exactly where you expect, napping against the ship’s railing, his swords next to him.

You roll your eyes and shake his shoulder “Oi, wake up. Lunch is ready.”

Nothing.

You shake him harder “Zoro. If you don’t get up, I’ll eat your food.”

He grumbles and waves his hand, like he’s trying to swat away a fly.

Sighing, you do what you always do. You grab his wrist and pull him up with both hands. He lets you. He always does, like it’s natural.

Zoro blinks at you, still half-asleep “Huh. You again.”

“Yeah, me again,” you say “Come eat before Sanji ‘forgets’ to save you anything.”

You’re still holding his wrist, making sure he doesn’t fall back asleep. That’s when you notice Nami and Robin watching from across the deck, smiling.

“What?” you ask, feeling awkward.

Nami smirks “You two are cute.”

Your face heats up “We’re not—he’s not—we’re not together!”

Robin chuckles “You do take care of him a lot.”

Zoro frowns, confused “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” you mutterl “Come eat.”

You let go of his wrist too fast and walk away, ignoring the warm feeling in your chest.

You think it’s over, but now you notice things.

Zoro always sits next to you at meals, even when there are other seats. You always save food for him without realizing. And during fights, he always protects you first, like it’s a habit.

And, worst of all, people keep pointing it out.

“y/n,” Chopper asks one day, tilting his head “Are you and Zoro dating?”

You almost trip “What?! No!”

“Oh...” He looks confused “But you act like it”

You groan “Not you too”

After that, you can’t stop thinking about it.

The next time you wake Zoro up, your fingers stay on his wrist a second too long. The next time he pulls you behind him in a fight, your heart beats faster.

And then one evening, when you catch him watching you with a thoughtful look, you realize you might be in trouble.

That night, Zoro speaks first.

“Oi”

You look up from your seat on the deck “What?”

He leans against the railing, arms crossed “Does it bother you?”

You frown “Does what bother me?”

“What people are saying” His eyes stay on you “About us.”

You swallow “Why? Does it bother you?”

He doesn’t answer right away “No” his voice is quieter than usual.

Your stomach flips and you look at the ocean “I mean… it’s just dumb teasing, right?”

Zoro doesn’t reply. Instead, he watches you for a long time. Then, finally, he smirks.

“Doesn’t really matter what they say” he says, voice calm but sure “I’d still stick with you either way.”

Your breath catches and suddenly, your heart won’t let you ignore this anymore.

For the next days you try to brush off what the crew said.

You really do, but it’s impossible to ignore when Zoro keeps acting the same way.

Like when you’re on lookout duty together, and he hands you his jacket without a word.

Or when you spar with him, and he pulls his hits just enough so you don’t get hurt.

Or when you fall asleep on the Sunny’s deck, and you wake up covered with a blanket, one you know you didn’t grab.

And every time it happens, you catch the crew watching. Smirking.

It’s driving you insane.

One afternoon, you finally decide to do something about it.

You find Zoro by the training room, lifting weights. His shirt is half undone, sweat glistening on his skin, but you shove that thought aside.

You cross your arms “Hey, Zoro.”

He grunts in acknowledgment, not stopping his reps.

You hesitate “…Why do you treat me differently?”

He finally sets the weight down, wiping his face with a towel “What?”

“You heard me...” You shift uncomfortably “You do things for me that you don’t do for anyone else.”

Zoro leans back against the wall, looking at you like you just asked a stupid question “So?”

“So?” You huff “That means something, doesn’t it?”

He shrugs “I guess.”

You blink “That’s it? You guess?”

Zoro sighs, scratching his head “Look, I don’t really think about it. I just—” He pauses, then shrugs again “I want to.”

Your heart skips a beat “…What?”

“I want to do those things for you,” he says simply “it’s not a big deal”

You stare at him “Not a... Zoro, are you serious?”

He frowns “What, you don’t like it?”

“That’s not the point!” Your face feels hot “You don’t do this for Nami or Robin or anyone else!”

Zoro looks at you, unimpressed “Yeah. Because it’s you.”

You freeze.

The way he says it, so blunt, so obvious, it makes your stomach flip.

He isn’t flustered. He isn’t overthinking it. He’s just stating a fact.

“…Oh.”

Zoro crosses his arms, watching you carefully “Is that a problem?”

You swallow “No. It’s just…”

It’s everything. It’s him always being there, always looking out for you, always treating you like someone important.

It’s a realization you should have had ages ago.

You let out a breathless laugh “I’m an idiot.”

Zoro raises an eyebrow “Well, yeah.”

You smack his arm. He smirks.

But when your hand lingers just a little too long, he doesn’t pull away.

And suddenly, you both understand... this isn’t just a habit.

It never was.

Ever since that conversation in the training room, things between you and Zoro have… shifted, but not in a bad way.

He still trains for hours. Still naps in random spots. Still bickers with Sanji.

But now, when you sit beside him, his arm naturally rests along the back of your chair.

Now, when you fight, he doesn’t just watch your back, he makes sure you’re never out of reach.

Now, when you look at him for a second too long, he looks right back.

Like he’s waiting.

Like he’s giving you the choice.

One evening, you find him on the Sunny’s deck, looking out at the ocean.

“…Can’t sleep?” he asks.

You shake your head, stepping closer “Thinking too much.”

Zoro smirks “Dangerous habit...”

You huff a laugh but don’t argue.

Instead, you stand beside him, silent for a moment before you finally ask...

“Do you regret telling me?”

Zoro frowns “Telling you what?”

“That you… actually treat me differently. That you want to.”

His jaw tightens slightly “No.”

Your heart does something strange “Good.”

You don’t give yourself time to hesitate.

Before doubt can creep in, you grab him and pull him down.

Zoro freezes.

For half a second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe.

Then a quiet growl rumbles from his chest, and his hand cups the back of your neck as he kisses you back.

It’s firm. Solid. Like he’s been holding back for too long and refuses to anymore.

When you finally break apart, Zoro leans his forehead against yours, exhaling through his nose.

“…Finally” he mutters.

You grin “You were waiting for me?”

“Wasn’t gonna rush you” His fingers brush your jaw “You get there when you get there.”

You hum, leaning into him “And now?”

Zoro smirks “Now, you’re stuck with me.”

You kiss him again, just to make sure he knows you wouldn’t want it any other way.

── .✦ Vinsmoke Sanji:

Sanji has always been a flirt. That’s just how he is.

He calls Nami and Robin “my love” and “my dear”. He spins around the kitchen whenever they compliment him. He offers to carry their bags when the crew goes shopping.

But when it comes to you, it’s different.

It starts when the crew is eating dinner together.

“Sanji, can you pass the salt?” you ask.

Instead of handing you the salt shaker, Sanji grabs it, twists off the lid, and sprinkles just the right amount onto your plate.

You blink “Uh. Thanks?”

“Of course, my dear” he says smoothly. Then, as if nothing happened, he turns back to his own plate.

You think nothing of it... until you notice the way the others are watching.

Usopp raises an eyebrow “Did he just season your food for you?”

“Yeah?” You shrug “What's new about it? He's a chef and he’s just being nice.”

Luffy grins “He doesn’t do that for anyone else.”

“That’s not true,” you argue “Sanji treats everyone like this.”

Nami hums “Not exactly like this. If we wanted more salt he would start a lecture about how it would ruin his masterpiece.”

Before you can ask what she means, Sanji stands up to grab dessert. He places a plate in front of you first. It’s your favorite.

The crew stares.

You stare too “Sanji…”

He smiles “What? I made extra for you.”

Usopp coughs “Yeah. Okay. Totally normal.”

Robin chuckles behind her hand.

You shake your head and go back to eating. It’s nothing. Sanji is just being Sanji.

…Right?

But then, you start noticing other things.

When you’re cold, Sanji drapes his jacket over your shoulders without you asking.

When you need something from a high shelf, Sanji wordlessly reaches up and hands it to you.

When you’re about to trip, his hand is always there to steady you.

And every time, every single time, he does it so naturally that you don’t even think about it.

Until one day, Franky whistles and says, “You two sure act like a couple.”

You nearly drop the drink in your hands “What?!”

Sanji, who was stirring a pot at the stove, pauses.

Franky leans against the counter, grinning “You two do all that coupley stuff. He gives you the best food, takes care of you, treats you differently from everyone else—”

“That’s not true,” you say quickly “Sanji’s like this with everyone.”

Franky snorts “Nah. He does flirt with everyone. But this?” He gestures between you and Sanji “This is different.”

You glance at Sanji. He’s staring into the pot, silent.

Your face feels hot now “You guys are reading too much into things.”

“Sure we are...” Franky says, smirking. Then he leaves.

The kitchen is quiet now. You swallow and turn to Sanji.

“…Is it true?”

He looks at you. His usual confident smile is gone. Instead, there’s something softer in his eyes.

“I don’t know” he says “is it?”

Your heartbeat quickens.

Suddenly, every touch, every sweet gesture, it all feels different.

Maybe it wasn’t just a habit.

Maybe it was something else all along.

After all this the teasing has only gotten worse.

Ever since Nami and Usopp pointed out how Sanji treats you, they will not let it go.

“Here comes Sanji’s beloveeeed~” Usopp sings when you walk into the kitchen.

“I should start charging you for all the extra food Sanji makes only for you” Nami smirks.

Even Luffy, who usually doesn’t care about these things, grins at Sanji one afternoon and says “Oi, cook, when are you gonna marry y/n?”

Sanji chokes on his cigarette so hard he has to brace himself on the counter.

You groan and drag a hand down your face.

But what really drives you insane?

Sanji never denies it.

He stutters, blushes, waves his hands, but he never says “That’s not true.”

Because it is true.

And it’s starting to drive you crazy.

You try to ignore it. But then you start noticing things, even the smallest ones.

Sanji never lets you carry anything heavy.

He always pours you tea first, even before Nami and Robin.

He adjusts your chair at dinner like it’s second nature.

And the worst part? He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

But you do.

And now, every time he gives you that look—the one that’s soft, full of admiration, like you hung the damn sun in the sky—your heart stumbles over itself.

This has to stop.

Or something has to change.

It happens one evening after dinner.

You’re in the kitchen, helping Sanji clean up. He hums as he washes the dishes, sleeves rolled up, golden hair falling over his forehead.

You watch him for a second, then take a deep breath.

“Sanji.”

He glances at you, smiling “Yes, my love?”

You grip the counter “Why do you act like we’re together?”

Sanji freezes.

The faucet keeps running. The kitchen is warm with the smell of spices. But Sanji is frozen.

Slowly, he turns his head toward you “…P-Pardon?”

You cross your arms “You treat me differently. Even the crew notices. You never do this stuff for anyone else.”

Sanji swallows hard “I—”

“You never deny it,” you press “and honestly? I’m tired of waiting for you to finally say something.”

Sanji stares at you like you’ve just flipped his entire world upside down.

His hands shake. His lips part like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out.

“…Sanji.” Your voice softens “Do you want this to be real?”

A shuddering breath leaves him. He looks at you, eyes wide, vulnerable.

“More than anything...” he whispers.

Your heartbeat stutters.

That’s it. That’s all you need to hear.

You step forward, grab the front of his shirt, and kiss him.

Sanji malfunctions.

His entire body locks up, like his brain has completely short-circuited.

For a solid two seconds, he does not move.

Then a noise escapes him, something between a whimper and a desperate sigh, and his hands come up to cup your face, pulling you closer.

The kiss is warm, overwhelming, but soft, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he holds on too tight.

When you finally pull away, he’s redder than his own suit.

“…M-Mon amour,” he breathes, voice shaking “You...you actually...”

You smirk “Took us long enough, cook.”

Sanji makes a strangled sound and immediately buries his face in your shoulder, arms wrapped tight around you.

Outside, the crew is losing their minds.

“TOLD YOU!” Usopp shouts.

“I WON THE BET!” Nami cheers.

“Oi, Sanji, you alive in there?” Zoro snickers.

Sanji doesn’t answer. He’s too busy melting against you, whispering sweet nothings into your skin.

And honestly?

You think you’ll let him.

── .✦ Trafalgar D. Law:

Law is not the kind of person who likes physical contact. He doesn’t let most people touch him. He keeps his distance, always standing at the edge of conversations with his arms crossed. If someone bumps into him, they get a glare.

But for some reason, you are different.

It starts when Bepo hands you a coat one evening.

“Here,” he says, tail flicking “you left this in the lounge.”

You blink at it. It’s black, long, and definitely not yours.

“This isn’t mine” you say, confused.

Bepo tilts his head “Oh. But you always wear the captain’s coat, so I thought it was yours now...”

You freeze.

“Wait. What?”

Shachi walks by and hears the conversation. He grins “Yeah, you totally do. Every time you’re cold, you steal his coat.”

Penguin nods “And Law never complains.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Try to remember.

…Okay, maybe you have borrowed Law’s coat a few times. But that’s just because it’s warm! And because it’s there! And because...

Oh no.

Your stomach twists “I... I do not...”

“Sure you don’t...” Shachi teases “What’s next? Calling him ‘dear’?”

You groan and shove the coat at Bepo before walking away.

But now, you can’t stop thinking about it.

After this, you start noticing other things. Like how Law always lets you into his personal space.

How you can tug his hat down over his eyes without him pushing you away.

How he casually rests his hand on your shoulder when he stands next to you.

One day, you trip over a loose crate. Before you even hit the ground, a familiar blue glow surrounds you... Law’s Room.

In an instant, you’re back on your feet, completely unharmed.

The Heart Pirates snicker.

“Captain didn’t even think” Penguin whispers.

“He never uses Room for anyone else’s clumsiness” Shachi adds.

You glare at them “I heard that.”

They just smirk.

Law doesn’t say anything. He just sighs and keeps walking, like saving you without thinking is the most natural thing in the world.

Your heart does something weird. You ignore it.

Later, you sit on a crate, arms crossed. Law stands next to you, reading a medical book.

You glance at him “Your crew keeps calling me ‘Captain’s partner.’”

He doesn’t look up “So?”

“So, why?”

He flips a page “Probably because you act like one.”

Your brain short-circuits.

You stare “Excuse me?”

Law finally looks at you, raising an eyebrow “You’re always in my quarters, you steal my coat, and you act like you belong next to me. They’re not wrong.”

Your face burns “I... You let me do all that!”

He smirks “I know.”

You open your mouth, but no words come out.

Because suddenly, you realize... he has let you. And he still is.

Ever since Bepo and the others pointed out how Law treats you differently, it’s been impossible to ignore.

The extra care during missions. The way he always stands just a little closer than necessary. The way he lets you touch him, his arm, his shoulder, even his hand, when no one else would dare.

But what really gives him away?

The way his ears burn red every time you get too close.

And yet he never says anything.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was running an experiment to see how long he could keep this up before you lost your mind.

So tonight you’re calling him out.

You find him in his quarters, buried in medical books.

“Hey, Law.” You lean against the desk, arms crossed “Can I ask you something?”

His eyes flick up “What?”

You tilt your head “Do you like me?”

Law chokes.

Not just a little cough... he full-on chokes on air, slamming his book shut as if that’ll somehow save him.

“What—?!” He coughs into his fist “Where the hell did that come from?”

You raise an eyebrow “You tell me.”

Law scowls, shifting uncomfortably “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Oh? Am I?” You step closer.

He stiffens “What are you...?”

You place your hands on the arms of his chair and lean in, caging him in.

His breath hitches.

Oh. Oh.

He is not prepared for this.

“Law,” you murmur, watching his face closely “you never let anyone touch you, but you let me.”

His jaw clenches “That doesn’t—”

“You always make sure I rest. You check my injuries before anyone else’s.”

“Because you’re reckless—”

“And...” you lean even closer “your ears are red right now.”

Law swallows.

You smirk “So, wanna try again?”

For a long moment, he just stares at you, lips parted, golden eyes darting between yours.

Then, in a last-ditch effort, he growls... “You’re annoying.”

You hum “Maybe.”

And then you kiss him.

Law goes still.

For the first time since you’ve known him, he is completely speechless.

But then a quiet sound escapes him, and his hand suddenly grips your wrist, holding you there.

You almost pull back, unsure, until his other hand slides around the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, and he kisses you back.

It’s hesitant at first, but when you don’t pull away, something shifts.

The kiss deepens, his grip tightens, and the heat radiating off of him is enough to make you dizzy.

When you finally part, Law exhales sharply, pressing his forehead against yours.

“…You’re gonna be a problem” he mutters, voice rough.

You grin “Yeah?”

His fingers tighten in your hair “Yeah.”

And then, despite everything, he kisses you again.

Because for once in his life he’s done running.

── .✦ Portgas D. Ace:

Ace is naturally affectionate.

He throws an arm around people’s shoulders, laughs loudly, and grins like the world is a joke he’s in on. He’s warm but also because he makes people feel welcome.

So it’s not weird that he touches you a lot.

Right?

It starts when Marco sits down next to you, smirking.

“You and Ace finally together, yoi?”

You look at him confused “what do you mean?”

“A couple… are you two a couple?”

You almost drop your drink “What? No!”

Marco raises an eyebrow “You sure? He always saves you a seat at meals. Always gives you his food if you ask. Always keeps an eye on you during fights.”

You roll your eyes “That doesn’t mean anything. He’s just like that.”

“Not with everyone” Marco takes a sip of his drink “Just you.”

You open your mouth to argue, but then you don’t know what to say, because now, you’re thinking about it.

The next time Ace sits beside you at dinner, you notice how he slides his plate a little closer to yours, letting you steal his food.

The next time the crew docks at an island, you notice how he instinctively waits for you before walking off together.

The next time you’re about to trip, you don’t even get the chance to fall, Ace grabs your wrist and steadies you like it’s second nature.

And maybe it is second nature.

“Careful, Ace,” one of the division commanders teases “If you keep acting like that, y/n might actually think you’re in love.”

Ace laughs, scratching the back of his head “Yeah, yeah.”

You laugh too. Because it’s just a joke… Right?

One night, you sit together on the deck, watching the ocean.

You fidget for a second before saying “The crew keeps calling us a couple”

Ace hums “Yeah?”

You glance at him “Why do you think that is?”

He leans back, arms behind his head, and grins “Probably because we act like one.”

You choke on your own breath “Excuse me?!”

Ace tilts his head “I mean, we do everything together. You always take my food, and I always let you. You always pull me out of trouble, and I always let you. Feels natural, doesn’t it?”

Your brain short-circuits.

Because now that you think about it... yeah, it does feel natural.

“…Ace,” you say slowly “Are we...?”

He looks at you, amusement flickering in his eyes “What do you think?”

Your stomach flips.

Because suddenly, you’re not sure where the habit ends and the feelings begin.

After this, Ace keeps flirting with you all the time.

It’s just who he is.

Winks across the deck. Throwing an arm around your shoulders. Calling you hot stuff like it’s your actual name.

You’re used to it.

But after the teasing from Marco and Thatch, after realizing that Ace treats you differently, you start to wonder.

Is he just playing around? Or is there something real underneath?

There’s only one way to find out.

The perfect opportunity comes one afternoon, when Ace flops down next to you on the Moby Dick’s deck, grinning.

“Hey,” he drawls, resting an arm behind his head “Miss me?”

You smirk “I saw you literally two hours ago.”

“That’s two hours too long.” He winks “Bet you were thinking about me the whole time.”

You hum, tilting your head “You really think that, huh?”

Ace chuckles “C’mon, you love me.”

You raise an eyebrow “Prove it.”

He blinks “Huh?”

You shift, leaning closer with a sly smile “You say all this stuff, Ace. You flirt, you tease... but are you actually serious?”

For the first time, he hesitates.

Just for a second, but it’s enough.

“…Of course I am,” he says, but his usual confidence isn’t all there.

You smirk “Then show me.”

Before he can react, you grab his hat, his precious hat, and plop it onto your own head.

Ace short-circuits.

“Oi! That’s...!” He reaches for it instinctively but stops mid-motion, staring at you.

You tilt the brim with a smirk “What? You said you liked me, right?”

Ace swallows “Y-Yeah?”

“Then just take it back.”

You expect him to snatch it back playfully.

What you don’t expect is for Ace to grin, eyes flickering with mischief, and suddenly tackle you onto the deck.

You yelp as he hovers over you, forearms braced on either side of your head.

The crew whoops in the background, but neither of you pay them any attention.

Ace smirks down at you “You think you’re funny, huh?”

You grin “A little.”

Ace shakes his head, chuckling, but then his expression softens.

He reaches up, tilts the hat back just enough to see your face properly.

And then without thinking he leans down and kisses you.

It’s grinning into the kiss kind of playful. It’s warm and teasing but full of something deeper.

And when he pulls back, face way too close, he murmurs “Now you gotta prove it.”

Your heart races.

You don’t back down. Instead, you tug him down by his necklace and kiss him again.

This time, Ace melts.

When you finally break apart, Ace huffs out a breathless laugh.

“Well,” he grins “Guess you do love me.”

You roll your eyes “Shut up.”

But you don’t stop him when he kisses you one more time.

Because, honestly?

He’s right.

── .✦ Sabo:

Sabo is easy to be around.

He’s kind, smart, and always ready to listen. He laughs at your jokes, never forgets your favorite things, and somehow always knows when you need him.

So it’s no surprise that you spend a lot of time together.

But apparently, the way you act around him is a little… suspicious.

It starts when you’re walking through the Revolutionary Army base with Koala.

“So,” she says casually “when are you and Sabo going to make it official?”

You nearly trip over your own feet “What?!”

Koala grins “Come on, don’t play dumb. You two already act like a couple.”

You scoff “No, we don’t.”

She raises an eyebrow “Oh really? Who’s the first person Sabo looks for when he gets back from a mission?”

“…Me.”

“Who’s the only person he lets borrow his gloves?”

“…Me.”

“And who’s the only one he lets fall asleep on his shoulder without complaining?”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out.

Because—oh.

Oh.

Koala smirks “See what I mean?”

You shake your head “That doesn’t mean anything. We’re just close.”

She shrugs “If you say so.”

But now, you can’t stop thinking about it. You start noticing things, like how Sabo always finds a reason to sit next to you during meals, or how he reaches out to fix your collar or tuck your hair behind your ear like it’s normal, or how he always makes sure you have a blanket when you fall asleep at your desk, even though no one else gets that treatment.

And the worst part?

Now that you’re paying attention, everyone else is too.

“I swear, it’s like they’re married” one soldier mutters.

“They finish each other’s sentences” another whispers.

“Bet they don’t even realize” someone else chuckles.

You groan and drop your head onto the table.

Sabo, sitting beside you, blinks “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing” you mumble.

He frowns, then wordlessly slides his drink toward you.

You stare at it “…Did you just give me your drink?”

He shrugs “You like it more than I do.”

You glance around. Several soldiers are watching now, smirking.

Slowly, you push the drink back to him.

Sabo looks confused “You don’t want it?”

Your face burns “Nope. I’m fine.”

He tilts his head, then shrugs and takes a sip.

The others snicker.

You sigh.

Later that night, you sit beside him on the rooftop, watching the stars.

“Sabo,” you say carefully “do we… act like a couple?”

He hums “Why?”

“People keep saying we do.”

Sabo leans back on his hands, thinking. Then he smiles “I guess I can see why.”

Your heart skips a beat “You can?”

“Well, we’re always together,” he says easily “I trust you more than anyone. You take care of me, I take care of you. Feels normal.”

You stare at him “That’s… kind of a couple thing, don’t you think?”

Sabo looks at you for a long moment. Then he smirks.

“Well,” he says, voice teasing but gentle “do you want it to be?”

Your breath catches.

And suddenly, the answer seems obvious.

Sabo has always been easy to be around.

You never have to force a conversation. Never have to second-guess his presence.

He’s just there, a steady warmth beside you, the hand that always steadies your back when you walk through the Revolutionary camp, the person you find yourself naturally leaning against when you’re tired.

And the thing is?

He never pulls away.

Even now, sitting beside you near the fire after a long day, his arm rests lightly along the back of your seat. Close enough to feel, but not demanding.

It’s natural.

But tonight, something’s different.

There’s a quiet between you, not uncomfortable, but charged with something unsaid.

You don’t know who moves first, but suddenly your head is resting against his shoulder, and instead of shifting away, Sabo just exhales softly, tilting his head against yours.

You close your eyes, feeling the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

“…I like this” you murmur, barely thinking.

Sabo hums “Me too” A pause. Then... “I always have.”

Your heart stutters.

Slowly, you lift your head, turning just enough to meet his gaze.

His expression is calm, too calm, like he’s waiting for you to understand something he’s known for a long time.

And you do.

Because of course it was always him.

You don’t say anything. You don’t need to.

Instead, you reach up, gently tracing your fingers along his jaw.

Sabo closes his eyes briefly at the touch before opening them again, watching you with something unreadable, something deep.

Then, without hesitation, he leans in.

The kiss is slow, certain.

It’s not rushed, not desperate because this was never a question.

It was always going to be this.

When you part, Sabo lingers, his forehead resting against yours.

His hand finds yours, fingers lacing together easily.

“…Feels like we should’ve done that a long time ago” he murmurs, lips brushing against yours.

You smile “Maybe. But I think we got here at the right time.”

Sabo chuckles softly, squeezing your hand “Yeah. I think so too.”

And when he kisses you again, it feels like something that was simply meant to be.

[ceramicbeetle]

tbh the more I think about her the more I wonder if Tiffany is going to wind up more of a side character than an actual Main Character in this series... like if i wind up actually writing as much as i am conceptualizing writing, the distinction might not necessarily matter that much, but i do sort of wonder what i'm going to wind up doing with her lol

[chithereader]

jealousy, jealousy / aaron hotchner

here’s my masterlist! pairing: aaron hotchner x bau!reader / shy!reader word count: 2.4k genre & cw: fluff, a little jealousy and pining angst if u squint, mentions of made-up case, different use of cm character a/n: thank u so much for all the support i've been getting on my fics!! hope you love this one as much as i do, i really enjoyed writing this one the most!

Today was a bad day. That much was clear. From the moment you woke up to the minute you arrived at the BAU– you’re convinced that the universe has simply gone the extra mile to make your life a little harder. 

You slept through your alarm and a few phone calls from Garcia, making your morning stressful and complete chaos. You didn’t have time to grab a cup of coffee or a snack, and apparently you also didn’t have time to remove the colorful pimple patches that adorned your face. 

Your blouse is buttoned asymmetrically, your hair resembling a bird's nest, and you left your ID at home, making your arrival more delayed as you had to employ Garcia’s help in presenting a copy of your ID to let you through. 

That too was not without stress given that your phone was on the verge of dying as you were in the call, but thankfully you could finally breathe in the elevator. Or so you thought. 

There were two things that immediately caught you off guard as you walked into the bullpen: one, almost all the desks were deserted and two, Reid and Morgan were watching you- as if waiting for your reaction, which led you to look around in anticipation. Is there a surprise? A prank? Did I miss a patch? I’m…wearing pants, right? 

Not wanting to prolong your search, you look at the two for any indication or clue. Tilting your head to the side as if to ask what? But to your surprise, they both nod their heads in one direction. Oh.

Strauss was in Hotch’s office, along with Rossi and a woman you don’t recognize. Hotch looked a bit tense, Strauss firm, Rossi is as relaxed as ever, and the woman… is looking directly at Hotch. Just Hotch. Huh. 

You were stood just shy of your desk when you shook thoughts out of your head, slowly approaching your desk to settle your things. Dozens of scenarios were running through your head, trying to make sense of new additions to an otherwise normal day. 

But the way she was studying him made your chest tight like someone was stepping on it.. and you couldn’t figure out why. 

You approach the two rascals only to lean on Derek’s desk as you whisper under your breath, “What’s happening there?” 

Morgan shrugs but his focused face remains, “I don’t know, kid. I tried Garcia but she doesn’t have a clue either.” Eyes studying the people in the room, noting anything that could tell them something. 

Mulling over more possibilities, you hum in response. Turning to Reid, you ask him- hoping that his eidetic memory can tell you anything about the woman even if they’d only met in passing. 

“Do you know anything, Spence?” But Reid only pouts at you, a sign that he’s thought about it hard but is coming up empty. 

Shaking his head, he soberly replies, “No..I don’t think so. I– I’ve never seen her before. Sorry.” 

Before any more thoughts could be voiced between the three of you, the door to Hotch’s office opens and all four of them file out- the woman walking a little too close to Hotch. 

-

You’re approaching your usual seat on the jet beside Morgan and across from Hotch when suddenly Agent Seaver overtakes you and sits on your seat. Caught by surprise, your eyes instinctively go to Hotch who’s already looking at you. 

He nods to himself, moving from the aisle seat to the one by the window. But it appears Agent Seaver misunderstood his gesture and moved beside him, “Oh! Thank you, sir.” Even going as far as touching his arm and leaning closely. 

Now, you’ve never been a violent person. Rage has just never overcome your senses like that but today.. of all days– you couldn’t help the image of spilling your hot chocolate all over her cream blouse. 

You don’t even notice that you’re frowning as you sit beside Morgan, somehow still unaware of how much their closeness really upsets you. You honestly thought you’ve maintained an expressionless face until Morgan looks up from his file and leans close to whisper in your ear, “You’ll need claws not paws, baby girl.” Winking at you as you separate. 

You steal a glance at Hotch only to see him watching you and Morgan with furrowed brows. He almost looks normal if it weren’t for the clenching of his jaw that’s his tell of irritation. Moving your gaze to Seaver, in case you missed something that’s causing his new mood, you find her reading the case file. 

As you return your gaze on Hotch, you watch as Seaver touches his arm again and engages him in conversation about the case. It’s through the whole jet ride that you had to stomach the constant Agent Hotchner, Agent Hotchner! paired with a giggle or a slight touch. UGH!

If it weren’t for Strauss personally recommending Agent Seaver as a consultant for this case, you would have done– …still absolutely nothing. You had no claim whatsoever over Hotch. Morgan and Rossi may tease the two of you occasionally, forcing that he treats you specially or whatever but his behavior could simply be chalked off as him being a good and attentive boss. 

And yes, okay fine. You may have some moments here and there… but! they could honestly just be built up in your head because of the feelings you have for him. Like when he said he likes it when you stare? Come on, being stared at can be flattering and that’s just a universal truth. 

- 

After a whole day of coming up with theories, visiting crime scenes and M.E.’s, you’re all completely spent. Lounging in the makeshift discussion room, all of you are still working tirelessly on the case given that the unsub’s on a spree and his timeline is alarmingly short. 

Reid’s been silently staring at the board for 20 minutes while Morgan’s pretending to read files of potential suspects with his legs stretched out and feet on the table, “This is impossible. We just don’t have enough.” He exclaims as he tosses the file on the table with a thud. 

To the left of Morgan, you’re also silently mulling over files of potential suspects. Not wanting to admit that he’s right, you guys don’t have enough…bodies. You barely have anything on the guy, barely any clues- for a working profile. 

You sigh heavily, peeling your eyes off the paper and looking at the board. “Reid?” The boy genius shakes his head softly, confirming that the known dump sites don’t say much about the unsub’s comfort zones or hunting ground. 

You suddenly wonder where Seaver, Hotch and Rossi are. You and Morgan got back to the precinct at around 11PM, and you realize you haven’t seen any of them, “Where are the others?” 

Morgan, in an effort to lighten the mood, jumps at the chance to tease you, “Hmm. I think what you’re really asking is: Where’s Hotch and is he with Seaver?” He punches your arm lightly, making it obvious he’s only teasing. 

The smug, playful smile on his face makes you fight one of your own, desperately trying to not give yourself away, “Shut up,” hitting him in the head softly with the file in your hand. 

While you two were exchanging playful glares, Reid interjects, “Seaver wanted to turn in early since she’s also the one meeting with the families tomorrow so Hotch brought her to the hotel.” 

You instantly lift your gaze to him and watch as he removes the marker’s cap and scribbles rapidly on the board, quickly adding “And I’m pretty sure Rossi’s getting us coffee from the diner around the block.” 

You want to blame it on your exhaustion– your inability and ineffectiveness at hiding how you truly feel about what Reid just revealed to you, groaning loudly in pain and frustration. You put your head in your hands, muffling the sounds you’re making that are somehow a combination of a laugh and a sob. 

Morgan understands your reaction immediately and laughs out loud. 

“It’s not funny!” There was honestly no point in hiding it. As much as Morgan teased you, you knew he wouldn’t tell anyway, and Reid.. well, he was honestly an even better keeper of secrets than Morgan, Rossi and Garcia. 

He puts a hand on your shoulder to comfort you, “Baby girl, worry not. You know you hold a special place in boss man’s heart.” Then gripping both your wrists to pry your hands off your face. 

Pressing your face even further into your hands, you let out a muffled version of “That’s not true!” that came out more as “Daffs noft thwu!” 

When Morgan successfully pries your hands off your face, you’re surprised to see Reid’s moved from the board to behind Morgan, half leaning half sitting on the table, curiously watching you. 

Morgan turns around to look at the door behind you, making sure the coast is clear before he says, “Kid. Be real with me for a sec… are you blind?” That was not the question you were expecting. 

You must have looked so lost because he continues, “Hotch cares for you. Deeply. And not in the same way he does for us. You’ve gotta have felt that, kid.” Funny, you are starting to feel like a kid– the only thing missing are his hands on your shoulders to complete that huddle pep talk experience. 

“That’s just not–” you try to start. But Reid swiftly raises his hand, signing you to stop–

“Did you know that every morning Hotch makes sure all the pens and mug handles on your desk are pointing to the right– the way you need it to be– in case the night janitors move any out of place?”

“Or that he never really ate lunch in the office before but started bringing sandwiches and other food he could microwave, while timing his lunches with yours presumably so he could strike up a conversation with you during break?” 

“Or do you remember that one time the AC in the bullpen broke and we were all sweating badly, and I said the heat was making me too thirsty then he disappeared into his office and came back with a bottle of water and an orange juice box only to give it to you?” 

Morgan lets out a loud laugh at that one while Reid pouts playfully, “I mean I was genuinely dying then.” 

Not without his own input, Morgan smiles softly at you with a raised brow “Did you know he personally restocks your favorite hot chocolate in the pantry and on the jet? Including the marshmallows.” 

You breathe in deeply, the revelations sounding too good to be true but winding nonetheless. You crack a small joke, trying to play it off “And I thought the bureau was just feeling really generous.” 

The two, who have grown to be such brothers, give you the exact same look of Really? 

As Reid rounds the table to go back and stand by the board, Morgan catches your attention and holds your eye, “Look, there’s so much more, kid. But they all point to the same thing.” He says this as softly as possible, as if to not scare you away. 

You let out a soft, breathy laugh. Shaking your head, “That just can’t be true.” 

With all three of your backs to the door, you don’t notice Rossi nearing. You just suddenly hear his voice from behind, rounding the table and settling the coffee cups in front of all of you, “Coffee, anyone?” 

As if trapped in the null of the previous conversation, you’re still looking at Morgan as you lean back in your chair, slumping further to seek non-existent cover. Reid, who is now back in his own world with the board, is handed a cup by Rossi, who didn’t even turn to look- only stretching out an arm to receive it and mumbling a distracted “Thanks.”  

Rossi, who is simply too smart for his own good, impressively senses something hanging in the air, nonchalantly asking about the tailend of a conversation he was not supposed to hear, “So… what can’t be true?” 

Back to lounging excessively on a chair that is a tad too tiny for him, with legs outstretched and feet on the corner on the table– Morgan spouts, “That she’s Hotch’s girl, and has no reason to be jealous of Seaver– who by the way needs the HR orientation more than Penelope and I.” 

-

Now– all of your backs are to the door except Rossi’s. Not one of you tried to move due to fatigue, let alone look.

Unbeknownst to you, Morgan, and Reid, on the way back to the precinct from the hotel, Hotch had the genius thought of picking up Rossi so the latter wouldn’t have to walk a block with trays of coffee on hand.

Hotch and Rossi arrived together. And as Rossi went around the table to give you your cups of coffee, Hotch stayed behind– leaning on the doorframe with arms crossed, watching you and the team.

Imagine his surprise, hearing what Morgan just said. His heart skipped a beat, his stomach dropped. His entire being froze entirely.. What? Jealous? 

In his mind, he had two choices: Act like he didn’t hear it and save you from embarrassment or use it to his advantage and make his intentions clear..ish. 

-

You gasp loudly at his bluntness– and in front of Rossi! Straightening in your chair and pointing an accusatory finger at Morgan, “You little– I am NOT jealous! and I am NOT Hotch’s–” 

Cut off by someone loudly clearing their throat from behind all of you, you all freeze, including Reid who hasn’t been actively paying attention until now. 

The hair on your neck stands up as you hear the nearing footsteps, already envisioning digging your own grave in your head when finally, Hotch is standing right beside you. 

You’re all still pretty frozen, save from the slow movement which is your eyes slowly lifting its gaze to the man in question until they meet his hazel orbs. He holds your stare as he leans on the desk, arms straining in his shirt– 

Out of the corner of your eye you can see Rossi fighting a smile, and just as you’re about to mentally curse him in your head, you’re broken out of your thoughts by a deep voice, 

“You don’t think you’re my girl?” 

[teaboot]

Kinda gotta admire the tiktok instagram cottagecore tradwife hoes a little bit.

Like. THEY know that the perfect pretty obedient natural-makeup gently-coiffed rural June Cleaver, barefoot-and-pregnant in a sweet little peasant dress, baking fresh bread24-7 housewife doesn't exist.

They KNOW she doesn't exist. They know she CAN'T exist- that nobody can maintain that façade without burning out eventually-

but they also know that the political divide between men and women is deeper than ever in North America, that men as a demographic are getting increasingly angry and conservative and lonely (fuck off terfs and radfems i can sense your bioessentialism coming), and that women aren't legally beholden to them anymore.

This is one of the first generations in North America where women aren't entirely reliant on finding a husband and keeping him happy to survive, to hold a bank account or live apart from their parents, and so what men are dealing with is several hundred years of being told that REAL men have hot fuckable agreeable wives and...a present reality where nobody is lining up to apply for that position.

So what these shills have done- and they ARE shills- is that they've seen that divide, that niche that isn't being filled, that role that's so unpleasant but so desired- and they've constructed a caricature for profit.

Women aren't naturally more gentle, or parental, or submissive. Women aren't naturally, effortlessly smooth and soft and hairless and desiring of simple tasks to fill their time and a big, strong provider to protect them.

But generations of marketing and media have told us it's POSSIBLE, if not for those pesky man-hating feminist libs and their oversensitive woke culture lashing out at Normal Folks for no good reason.

Like- they're selling themselves, the characters they're playing, as an IMAGE, as a FANTASY, and they rely on people BELIEVING in that fantasy to keep the money rolling in.

The people who buy into it sincerely, the women who give up their degrees and careers and financial freedom for this "simple, peaceful life" we ALL desire in some form, away from stress and technology and horrible things on the news... only to get trapped with six children and a partner with all the power who could up and strand them at any moment... they're just collateral.

Like, "Shame it didn't work out for you, have you tried losing weight and trying harder? Maybe some extra Adult Time? He wouldn't have to chase someone younger and prettier if you'd just take care of yourself and put out more."

I on't hate this faux-humble faux-simple wannabe-amish bullshit just because I grew up rural and know it's fucking stupid, hard work and blood and shit and cow piss and placement in the rain kinda crap.

I ALSO hate it because these women are straight-up class traitors, selling off not just their own image as people, but everyone else's, just to make some paper on a grift.

You know Marie Antoinette used to wear sweet little milkmaid-style dresses and play with lambs in the field, just like the poors?

Never mind that she OWNED the land, and the field, and the people, the cute little frocks, and didn't help the sheep birth, or bury the dead premies, or slaughter for meat, or fight off wolves and dogs, ferrets and foxes and rats with a stick in the winter.

It was just fashionable to pretend.

Sweet and coquettish and Quaint.

THAT is why I hate that shit, and THAT is why I give a fuck.

[frailsituation]

Tips for writing plot twists

1. Start with a false sense of security

• The best plot twists work because the audience feels confident they know what’s coming.

• How? Lay down a trail of clues that mislead without outright lying. Create a sense of inevitability.

• Example: A detective follows all the evidence to one suspect, only for the real criminal to be someone they completely overlooked.

2. Plant the seeds early

• A plot twist is most satisfying when it feels inevitable in hindsight. Subtly sprinkle clues throughout the narrative.

• How? Use small, seemingly insignificant details that take on new meaning after the reveal.

• Example: A side character is always conveniently absent during key events—later revealed to be orchestrating everything.

3. Subvert expectations without betraying logic

• A twist should surprise readers, but it must feel plausible within the story’s framework.

• How? Flip assumptions in a way that feels earned. Avoid twists that rely on coincidences or break the rules of your world.

• Example: A character who appears harmless and incompetent is revealed as the mastermind, with subtle foreshadowing tying everything together.

4. Exploit emotional investment

• Twists land harder when they involve characters the audience deeply cares about. Use relationships and personal stakes to heighten the impact.

• How? Create twists that change how readers perceive the characters they thought they knew.

• Example: The protagonist’s mentor is revealed to be the antagonist, making the betrayal personal and devastating.

5. Use red herrings strategically

• Mislead readers by planting false clues that draw attention away from the real twist.

• How? Make the red herrings believable but not overly obvious. They should enhance, not distract from, the story.

• Example: A mysterious object everyone believes is cursed turns out to be completely irrelevant, shifting focus from the true danger.

6. Timing is everything

• Reveal the twist at the moment it has the most dramatic or emotional weight. Too early, and it loses impact. Too late, and it feels rushed.

• How? Build tension to a breaking point before the twist shatters expectations.

• Example: A twist that flips the climax—when the hero thinks they’ve won, they realize they’ve fallen into the villain’s trap.

7. Allow for multiple interpretations

• A great twist makes readers rethink the entire story, encouraging them to revisit earlier scenes with new understanding.

• How? Design the twist so that the story works both before and after the reveal.

• Example: A character’s cryptic dialogue is recontextualized after the twist, revealing their hidden motives.

8. Pair the twist with consequences

• A twist shouldn’t just shock—it should change the trajectory of the story. Make it matter.

• How? Show how the twist raises the stakes or deepens the conflict, forcing the characters to adapt.

• Example: After discovering the villain is their ally, the protagonist must choose between loyalty and justice.

9. Keep the reader guessing

• A single twist is good, but layered twists create an unforgettable story. Just don’t overdo it.

• How? Build twists that complement each other rather than competing for attention.

• Example: A twist reveals the villain’s plan, followed by a second twist that the hero anticipated it and set a counter-trap.

10. Test the twist

• Before finalizing your twist, ensure it holds up under scrutiny. Does it fit the story’s logic? Does it enhance the narrative?

• How? Ask yourself if the twist creates a moment of genuine surprise while respecting your audience’s intelligence.

• Example: A shocking but clever reveal that leaves readers satisfied rather than feeling tricked.

Follow for more!

[taintedtort]

" LET‘S GET DIRTY! "

summary. things you do that turn them on

characters. hinata, kenma, kyotani, kuroo, nishinoya

warnings. afab!reader i think, post!timeskip, NSFW!!

a/n. i’ve been gone for soooo long im sorry!!

link to pt2 and pt3

☆ — HINATA

☆ he goes nuts when you wear anything that exposes your thighs. not really sure why, but he just loves them, especially if they’re on the bigger side. if you’re sitting next to him, he’s got his hand on your thigh, subtly squeezing it every now and then. easiest way to get him riled up is to wear some shorts that cling to you in all the right places. he‘s got his face between them in seconds, begging you to suffocate him.

"cmon… squeeze harder, baby."

☆ — KENMA

☆ it gets him really worked up whenever you kiss his neck, especially the back. it sends prickles over his skin every time. it’s such a casual thing, and he’s honestly embarrassed over the effect it has on him.

☆ he also loves when you spend his money on something nice for yourself (lingerie). it makes him feel nice, especially if you model for him. and of course he has to show his appreciation by dicking you down and ripping up said lingerie, spewing promises of buying you some new sets.

"mmh— shush, i’ll get you a new one."

☆ — KYOTANI

☆ loves biting. it started when you had playfully nipped at his bicep, all innocent and cute. after that, he couldn’t get enough. he’d never outright admit that to you though, so he always tries to fuck you so hard that you have to bite into his shoulder to muffle your loud noises. you’re met with a delighted groan from him each time you do it, and it doesn’t take you long to catch on. you don’t tease him about it, of course, but you do make an effort to bite him more during sex… and sometimes outside of it too ;)

"fuck! jus' like that…"

☆ — KUROO

☆ absolutely adores the noises you make. he especially enjoys the little whimpers you let out when you’re riding him, trying your hardest to keep a good pace as your thighs get more and more tired. you beg and plead for him to just flip you over, but he likes watching you get all whiny. but don’t worry, he’ll eventually give in when your slow pace starts to drive him crazy.

"giving up already? cmon, you can keep going."

☆ — NISHINOYA

☆ he likes when you initiate. it’s usually him that comes to you, but sometimes you surprise him by getting all needy, and it’s the biggest turn on in the world for him. sex like that is always quick and rough, both of you coated in sweat and panting by the end of it. he just can’t help it, though! he’d be a bad boyfriend if he didn’t immediately pounce on you and give you what you so desperately need.

"you’re so naughty, babe…"

[gutsby]

Honor Among Thieves

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Marrying Brooklyn’s most dangerous man was easy. Divorcing him proves to be a bit harder—particularly when you’re pregnant with his child.

Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Oral (f!receiving). Breeding kink. Hurt/Comfort/We-Almost-Just-Died-Sex. Morning sickness. Manslaughter. Brief coerced kissing. Beefy, mob boss Bucky is a possessive expectant father who just wants to make sure he knocked you up properly

Descriptions of violence throughout

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

“You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Bucky’s words reverberated like a shotgun’s report, skimming across two dozen feet of marble, glass, and stainless steel before reaching your ears on the opposite end of the room. He was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, and your back was turned to him. Lucky thing, too, or else he would’ve seen the smile threatening to tug at both ends of your lips—effectively blowing your cover.

“Really, I don’t have the slightest idea, Barnes,” you told him, and it took everything in you not to laugh. Having just narrowly preserved your composure, you continued, “You keep me locked in this prison all day and expect me not to find ways to entertain myself? Well, this is all it is.”

Like hell it was, you could already hear in Bucky’s head. Feeling him eye you up and down from the archway, take his first steps into the room, loosen his tie, most likely.

“Prison?” You registered a low scoff, and his voice was already so much closer than it’d been five seconds ago.

Your husband was striding as quickly as his smooth, dark, tailored suit would allow, and he was undressing as he walked. You could hear the clothes coming off but pretended not to notice. Instead staring more intently at the crab bisque simmering on the stove before you, you licked the spoon you were holding and hummed a little.

“Yes,” you answered, simply, “Prison.”

Bucky was by your side in no time at all. Up close, he smelled like rosemary, oakmoss, and gunpowder.

“Well, this is news to me,” he said. He dragged out the middle syllables of his words longer than was necessary, likely to make his move sidling up closer to you. The last sound had scarcely died in his throat more than a second or two before you felt an arm loop around your back. A hand coming to rest on your hip, then his voice, again:

“See, I never knew they built ‘prisons’ up in first-class penthouse apartments in Brooklyn. Must be pretty nice.”

Bucky stepped behind you, and you were half-certain the black suit jacket he’d come home wearing was fully removed. Again, you pretended not to see, or care.

“It’s a metaphor, James.” But your voice wavered.

“A metaphor?” Bucky’s head sank into the soft groove between your neck and your shoulder, and he kissed it.

“Yes.”

Your mouth made a sound more akin to a breath than a real, enunciated word, and you knew Bucky felt it too. He sensed this headstrong, no-bullshit façade of yours was sure to come crumbling apart any second, and each new brush of his hands and lips would be making it happen. Knowing this, he wasn’t in a rush to get the rest of his clothes off. He did, however, start to toy with yours.

“Tell me more. Am I really holding you hostage, doll?”

You took a ladle and started to stir, trying to stay cool. Meanwhile, your husband tugged gently on your dress.

“Hostage, housewife, same thing,” you muttered, low.

For once, it was Bucky’s turn to break character, as he laughed. It was short-lived and sweet, and he pressed another kiss to the skin of your neck, as if in apology.

“Right, right. I forgot. You were forced to marry me.”

“Right,” you shook your head, just slightly emboldened by the way you’d made him crack, if only for a moment, “I’m forced to marry you, move into this horrific little shanty in Brooklyn”—gesturing to the multi-million dollar apartment surrounding you both—“and then you leave me here, all by myself, with nothing to do while you go play Godfather with your mobster friends. It’s not fair.”

By the tail end of that last sentence, you and Bucky both were already grinning a little, coming to terms with just how ridiculous it sounded when you phrased it like that. Still, your husband seemed game to keep the bit going.

“Now that’s just not true,” he said, tone all faux offense.

You felt the soft snap of a ribbon coming undone, and in a second realized it was the satin bow holding the back of your dress together. The fabric loosened, and Bucky’s hands slid down your sides, over your front—of course.

“I didn’t leave you ‘by yourself’ at all, doll,” he said, and suddenly, his palms were fanning out, over something, “Gave you this baby to keep you company, didn’t I?”

The ‘something’ he was touching now was your belly. All soft and smooth and protruding out in a perfect little globe beneath your dress, no bigger than when he’d left for work that morning. Bucky treated the bump like it was a novelty all the same—like he was seeing it for the first time and couldn’t believe he was actually the one responsible for making it get like that. It had gotten to be a hobby of his, nearly, just how much he loved watching it grow. He had his fingers splayed out across your tummy virtually every chance he could get, and that didn’t stop whether you were out in public or sharing a moment in the comfort of home; he couldn’t get enough.

Which was why Bucky was right when he’d said you knew exactly what you were doing when he came home that day. You knew just the kind of effect that wearing a tight, white dress while cooking dinner would have on him, and you hoped it would rile him up just like this: with his hands roaming over every inch of your body, making soft, sweet circles along the swell of your belly, and kissing your neck again and again. Biting some, too. Getting so worked up he was all but gnawing at the skin as he drank in your scent and got lost to pure instinct.

If it wasn’t clear that Bucky had had a breeding kink before, you saw it written plain as day across his face every morning and night since he’d first learned you were pregnant. Like all the life force within him was just a byproduct of the knowledge that you were his—and this baby, growing bigger each day, was a mix of you both.

You hated to say it, but fatherhood suited your assassin-trained, mob-heading, bloodlusting husband better than anyone could have predicted in a million years or more.

Presently, Bucky flipped you around and sank to his knees. He slid you over to the counterspace area, away from the stove, and made sure to flip each knob to ‘off’ to make sure there wasn’t a chance you’d get burned. You cast one last look at the crab bisque and knew at once your hard work would have to be put on the back burner for now, because Bucky wasn’t hungry for that.

Still, you kicked a foot in soft, muted protest when you felt him slide his hands up your legs, under your dress, and start to reach for your panties. You let out a breath.

“I spent two hours perfecting the seasoning on that, Barnes,” you chided him, gently and without much admonition in your voice as you pointed to the soup, “You say you want a good little housewife but won’t even leave me un-fucked long enough to try any food I make!”

“And I’m very sorry about that, Mrs. Barnes,” Bucky replied, head disappearing beneath your skirt so he could take your underwear off with his teeth instead.

But, much like your reproach, your husband’s strained apology held less than half of its professed sincerity. Your blue cotton panties were discarded in a second, your hips pushed back against the cool white marble behind it, and Bucky, almost too cheekily, brought his head back up from underneath your dress just to steal a quick look at your belly, then up at you. He was smiling.

“Anything you make tastes amazing, honey. Daddy just needs to eat a little something beforehand, that okay?”

He already knew what you’d say. The sweet, shit-eating grin hovering over your lower half knew all that and more. Bucky just loved to tease, taking the hem of your dress between his index and thumb, and rubbing all the more tenderly, murmuring again, ‘That alright with you, pretty girl?’ and ‘My wife likes getting tonguefucked in the kitchen, doesn’t she?’ while his breaths spread over you.

You nodded that you did. Momentarily forgetting the three-course meal you’d had planned for him since early that morning, you let your knees fall limply apart from one another, and Bucky’s broad form filled the space in between. The fabric of your dress was snug, especially so over your belly. Your husband pushed the material up your hips and let it rest just high enough to expose your warmth to him. Angling your hips back the slightest bit, trailing his fingers up your thighs and inside them, gently, Bucky let out a low groan against your body, and you could feel the vibrations of it travel up your spine.

“I really am mean for keeping you here all day, aren’t I?” he teased, sliding the tips of his fingers between your glistening folds and watching you jolt in response.

“So— so mean. Bucky, please.”

Your voice was far more hoarse than circumstances would seem to beget; your husband had just eaten you out that morning. Nevertheless, your hand was trembling as it reached for his head. Your pull was taut and dire. While your fingers threaded in through his hair and your body opened itself more and more for him, you could feel that kind smile, even if you couldn’t see it. Frankly, the swelling of eight-and-a-half months made it difficult to see much of anything below the waist, but Bucky made sure to let you know he was there. By holding your hand, skimming his lips against your skin, starting, just then, to sink his fingers in toward the heat of your body, and softly pulling his face away so he could look up at you.

“Baby?” he breathed.

Your eyes locked with his as he slid two fingers inside you. The stretch alone was enough to put your brain on the fritz, but, fighting the first shockwaves of pleasure:

“Y-Yeah?”

He withdrew. Pressed them back in and let out a grunt.

“I need you to do something for me.”

You couldn’t fathom what that might be, but you nodded anyway. ‘Anything’ was what you managed to choke out.

“And you might not like it, doll.”

Your eyes widened some.

“O— O-Okay, what?”

Bucky’s fingers curled inside you, and a short, sharp streak of dizzying pleasure pulsed through your body. Your knees felt weak, and your mind even worse, but with what little resolve you had left, you were able to keep your eyes entirely open and fastened to his. A look that struck you as almost bittersweet crossed your husband’s features, and you saw his gaze soften again.

“I need you to wake up,” he said, calmly.

“What?”

Your toes curled tight underneath you, and the warmth between your legs leapt up to over a thousand degrees.

“Melaya, I need you to wake up.”

At the same time, your blood ran cold in your veins. Surely, you couldn’t be hearing him right if the voice he used was so gruff and low—and laden with a Russian lilt.

“Bucky? What— What do you mean?”

But you knew. Or suspected something of it anyway.

Now the sound from your own throat was hardly one that you recognized as yours, so shrill and high and strange—what could he mean by that? Why was he watching you in that way? Your husband wasn’t smiling so brightly anymore, and the once-gratifying conflagration between your legs had grown to an almost scorching degree, no longer nice, generous, or pleasurable in the slightest.

“We need you to wake up now, honey. Right now.”

His tone, too, was distorted. Grating.

“Bucky, I-I don’t underst—”

“WAKE UP!”

“WAKE UP!”

Natasha shook you hard, and it hurt.

She didn’t mean for it to. She just needed you up and out of bed, and you’d been asleep for almost fourteen hours.

You started at the fifth or sixth shake, nearly punching yourself in the face when you tried yanking a set of covers up and over your head and discovered, shortly, that there was none. You were splayed out on a bed in an as-yet unfamiliar home—Steve’s new place—and, while you slept, you’d kicked all of the blankets you’d been given the night before off your body and onto the floor.

Your eyes were wide as saucers as they darted to Nat’s.

There was no need to say what had happened—she knew these dreams were getting worse by the day.

It’d been a week since you fled your Brooklyn apartment in an all-out terror. A week since a senseless, short-sighted idea on your part had led to the discovery that your husband was once part of a HYDRA sleeper cell whose activation phrase turned him into an agent of total destruction at will. A week since you’d seen a half dozen bodies litter your living room floor, more still being bludgeoned by the so-called ‘Winter Soldier,’ as Bucky had formerly been known. A week since you’d sobbed in Natasha’s arms and begged her not to let you go back. A week since you’d been obliged to hide out in Steve Rogers’ new bachelor pad upstate, because, frankly, there was nowhere else you could safely live until this whole ordeal with Bucky was settled—if it ever would be.

A full week since you’d learned you were pregnant, too.

As far as you knew, your husband was wholly unaware of this fact, and of Steve’s most recent real estate purchase up in Buffalo, and you’d been existing in a semi-serene and largely dissociated state for the past seven days.

Your gaze adjusted to the light, and you blinked up at Nat, feeling damp in just about every place on your body. You looked down and found yourself drenched in sweat.

“Hydrate. Please.”

It wasn’t so much a request as it was a standing order: Nat holding out a glass of water and instructing you to drink. Though your first instinct was to make a face and shake your head—you’d found that any new fluids in your body this early in the morning would only get thrown back up when you made your first frantic trip to the toilet—you accepted it anyway. You drank three big gulps to appease the woman standing next to the bed, then wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled

“I’m gonna go puke now,” you said.

“Aim for inside the toilet bowl if you can,” Steve called out from the doorway. By the look on his face, you’d been doing a pretty shit job of aiming vomit lately.

“My bad, Rogers.”

You had a hand on your stomach, slowly easing back up into a seated position, when you heard something being flung across the room, followed by a ‘HEY!’ and a crash.

“Your aim sucks, too, Romanoff,” Steve griped, loudly, “And I was kidding. She can puke wherever she wants.”

By the door, a hefty hardcover book lay open on the floor. Apparently Nat’s options for projectiles had been limited.

“All good, Rogers,” you offered anyway. Fighting a smirk.

You were starting to stand, and your head felt as if you’d just taken your first steps off a rocking boat. Your other hand jumped to your mouth, and you muttered, ‘Fuck’ before brushing past Nat and her outstretched arms.

She held your hair while Steve retrieved the glass of water, as well as a towel. The unsightly first trimester ritual proceeded as it had for all of the last week, with Nat rubbing circles in your back and Steve making well-meaning but completely useless live commentary like, ‘Babies are a real pain in the ass, aren’t they?’ At the conclusion of each new stupid remark, Natasha would shoot a dirty look his way, but you never let her shoo him away. Through no conscious choice of your own, Steve had become something of a comfort blanket over the course of the past chaotic days. At the very least, you two were no longer at each other’s throats flinging accusations and exorbitantly-priced tumblers in the other’s direction, which was a marked improvement from where you were the day after you and Bucky’s wedding.

At length, you lifted your head from the toilet, and he daubed at your cheek with the towel—mostly just trying to wipe off spit and your own queasy-looking expression. He succeeded in clearing away just the former, but you forced a smile all the same, then shared it with Natasha.

Nat couldn’t smile back. In fact, the grimace on her face only etched even deeper, and her forehead creased.

“This is a horrible time to be asking you this, I know—”

“Nat, please.” Steve groaned.

Nat, what? There wasn’t a lot more that could catch you off guard after all the shit you’d come to see that week. Still, Nat’s breaths were both measured and slow, and you could see she was chewing on the inside of her cheek like she wasn’t quite sure how best to phrase her words. This, coming from one of the most astute legal minds this side of the Hudson River, gave you pause.

“Ask anything. I’m pretty numb, if you haven’t noticed.” You rapped on the side of your head for comedic effect, but neither Natasha nor Steve laughed or cracked a grin.

“How do you feel about filing for divorce tomorrow?”

At the sound of Nat’s words, you felt the bile jump back up your throat. You knew there wasn’t enough food or fluid to make much of anything now, but all the same, you craned your neck back over the toilet and retched. When nothing came out, as expected, you turned back.

“What?”

Natasha looked a little ill herself, but still, she continued.

“How do you feel about just…fast-tracking a divorce from him and taking off new? We’ll talk assets later.”

Assets? Fast-track? Divorce? What the fuck?

“What the fuck, Nat?” you repeated as much out loud.

It normally wasn’t your thing to be so blunt with her, but the inquiry certainly seemed to invite some extra candor. You swiped at your mouth for any excess spit that might’ve trickled out, crudely, and in a second, Steve was handing you the towel. Then helping you to your feet, holding your arm and lower back in a grip you could feel was secure. You were unsteady on your legs, so he and Natasha guided you over to the sink, where you could regain your bearings and freshen up a bit. Sneaking a look at your reflection in the mirror was a bad idea; your face was sallow, and the rest of your body had every appearance of being horribly weak, for lack of a better word. You caught a glimpse of a gash sitting just above your left temple and immediately looked away. Stupidly, you hoped Steve and Nat hadn’t seen it.

“He did that to you,” Nat said without missing a beat.

You winced, and you washed your hands, not looking up.

“I thought you said it wasn’t him. Soldat, you told me.” And for a second, your eyes flickered to Steve, whose expression was a touch more sympathetic, if not visibly discomfited now. Like he didn’t want to speak for once.

He did, anyway: “Doesn’t matter if it was Winter or him, really. Point is he hurt you while trying to protect y—”

“And yet, you asked me to forgive him just last week for killing my dad in the same type of rage,” you replied, and instantly regretted the accusatory tone you’d taken on.

Your anger was misdirected at Steve. It wasn’t his fault for sharing the truth about your husband’s—his best friend’s—past when you’d asked him. These were queries you’d made, helping to form justifications for your own decision to stay after what had happened in Madripoor. Obviously, Steve would be biased to help support his friend in a time of need. But now things were different; Bucky had never been activated as soldat and ended up hurting someone he’d loved before. Steve was free to change his mind after seeing that happen and urge you to leave, or at least reconsider, your marriage to Bucky.

The second look you gave him attempted to convey as much, a bit more apologetic as he and Natasha led the way out of the bathroom. Steve smiled and held your arm again, though you probably didn’t need it. You walked downstairs to the kitchen together. Over by the toaster, Sam was inspecting a charred bagel with a scowl

“Rogers, you really need to ditch this shit,” he said, gesturing to the rusted metal contraption that appeared to be from 1918, and had just burnt two bagels to a crisp.

“It was a gift from a friend, piss off,” Steve replied, grinning a little. Reaching for the blackened bread roll and even going so far as to take a bite, crunching loudly.

“Did your friend happen to fight in World War II?” Nat asked. She lent one look to the archaic machine but said nothing further, opting instead to take a seat at the kitchen table, where a sea of papers was strewn about.

Then, to you, “Come. Sit.”

Somewhere in your tentative stroll from where you stood to where she sat, and in the middle of the men’s toaster bickering, Sam called out that he’d have bacon and eggs ready in a second. Steve offered up his singed sesame bagel in the interim, and you told him no thanks. With a still slightly throbbing skull and a nauseous gait, you took the chair next to Nat’s and looked down at her papers.

Honestly, you thought your present condition might warrant some leeway when it came to holding off on the heavy-hitting topics first thing, but, to your surprise, Natasha slid a crisp white packet over almost instantly.

“Nat, what the fuck?” you groaned for the second time.

“Read it. Give it a second to digest, then we can—”

“No!” you cut in, pushing the packet back to her with a little more force than you’d meant, “I-I can’t. Not now.”

On the very first page, in bold and capitalized typeface, there was printed a brief string of words you’d never wanted—or thought you would ever need—to see:

‘VERIFIED COMPLAINT: ACTION FOR DIVORCE’

“It’s just the petition. No harm in taking a look,” Nat said.

You could hear a faintly gentler tone in her voice, even as you shook your head and looked away from the papers.

“I don’t want to. I can’t do this right now.” You kept shaking your head for a couple seconds after, turning your gaze instead to the bay window of Steve’s kitchen.

A nice, sprawling yard stretched as far as you could see. In the distance, a fuzzy white horizon was punctuated the slightest bit by the outline of a wood fence, but apart from that, the land was empty. The lot was secluded. Happy and effervescent in a nearly cloudless sky, the midmorning sun cast its rays without so much as the threat of a storm’s hinderance. You fixed your eyes on the clear expanse above and silently wished it would rain.

Before more than a minute or two had passed like that, Sam was approaching the table with two platters. Steve balanced four more by himself, watching the sway of one plate of scrambled eggs in his arms with a wary look before setting each one of the dishes on the table.

“Bon appétit,” Steve said, butchering his French just about as badly as Sam had the bagels. You and Nat thanked them both anyway and started clearing off the table, pushing papers away in favor of steaming plates. Sam and Steve sat down, and all of you began to eat.

While you dutifully piled on each scoop of eggs, bacon, sausage links, biscuits, gravy, and grits—far more than you knew you could feasibly consume—you wished again for a rainstorm, and maybe a quiet breakfast. One that wasn’t marred by talks of legal separation and lengthy battles in court, if you could help it at all. To this end, and perhaps against your body’s best interest, you shoveled two supersized spoonfuls of egg in your mouth, so that if Nat tried reviving those subjects again, you could put off the conversation by simply continuing to chew. You felt your stomach turn inside you but, stubbornly, ate more.

You had just swallowed it all, about to make way for a warm, flaky buttermilk biscuit, when a sound cut in, and your belly flipped again. Your teeth had barely sunk into the bread a second when Nat set her own food aside, then used two fingers to push something toward you.

“Just skim it. Let me explain what the process can be,” she said, tapping her index on the first line and meeting your eyes as if to plead. She had to have known she’d be met with resistance—from you, of course, but also Steve. She raised a defensive hand to him before he even cut in:

“Come the fuck on, Nat. Will you give her a break?”

“I’m saying this for her sake! I’m doing it for her.”

“And throwing divorce papers in her face over breakfast is really the best way of going about it? Is that for her?”

Sam swallowed whatever he’d been chewing on, glanced down at the top paper, and seemed to brace himself.

“Guys, is now really the right time—” he started.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Steve barked over him.

Natasha ignored the plainly disdainful look from the latter, lifted her hand off the paperwork and instead trained her gaze solely on you. Just like she had in Zurich. Focusing intently on your face, ignoring whatever Steve or Sam were saying in the moment, she turned to you and found your expression was stale. Unmoving. Frankly, half of what was running through your mind right then was how badly you wanted to puke again. As if the eggs had turned rotten in your gut the second they reached their destination in your GI tract, you felt a heavy, oppressive fog of nausea taking shape between your ears, and you just wanted everyone to stop talking.

Sam and Steve continued on without a hitch, agreeing vaguely but also appearing to bicker over other things, like when was the most appropriate time to have this conversation. Natasha was leaning in, reaching for your hand this time, and you knew she meant well. You would bet any large sum of money there wasn’t a malicious bone in her body, and she was doing this for your benefit. All the same, you were grateful when the front door swung back on its hinges, and a new person walked in. Nat, Sam, and Steve all suspended their conversations.

“Hey, wh—” the blissfully unaware, semi-stranger began.

“Sharon!” Steve cried, “Would you tell Romanoff she’s being a goddamn pest with no sense of boundaries?”

Sharon halted at the threshold of the house, skating a look between Nat and Steve at first, then Steve and Sam, then just at you. The look didn’t linger for long, and before you knew it, she was setting down a fistful of grocery bags and twisting her mouth into a frown.

“Will you shut up, Steve?” was her only response.

Sam rose from his chair and pointed as if to say, ‘Yeah, that’ before joining her in the foyer to help carry in the Wegmans bags. Natasha leaned back in her chair with a vaguely pleased look, and Steve just rolled his eyes. He slapped his palm overtop the stack of divorce papers still laying before you and, seemingly undeterred, continued,

“Do you think it’s fair for her to force divorce papers on this poor soul—” pointing to you, the poor soul, apparently, “—when it’s been a week since she left?”

Sharon started handing off the frozen stuff first, sliding a box of Stouffer’s across the counter to Sam, who then deposited it in the freezer. These exchanges took place in relatively quick succession, with Sharon only chancing a look toward the kitchen table once or twice as they did.

“I think she should do whatever the hell she wants,” she said, “And I think their divorce is none of our business.”

Fair enough take. One that you could respect, at the very least, even if you weren’t certain she particularly cared for you at all. You reckoned she had no reason to, and on the whole, appeared to be a pretty reserved person.

You wanted to add a word in her defense, reiterate to Steve that he didn’t have to go to bat for you, the poor, defenseless soul, right now. Instead of being able to speak, though, you felt an upsurge of something heavy in your throat. You clamped a hand to your mouth again, cheeks flushing with the heady sensation and also out of embarrassment, then pushed your chair back and stood.

“I— gotta—” you stammered, just audible to the table, through the wall your fingers had made over your lips.

You sprinted up the stairs without another word.

The first trimester ritual repeated, and ten minutes later, you re-emerged from the bathroom feeling two big spoonfuls of scrambled eggs lighter and still none the happier, healthier, or wiser. You took a peek in the full-length mirror at the other end of the room and discerned from a distance of ten feet that you looked like dogshit.

You flopped down on the bed face-first, heedless of the pool of sweat that still encompassed roughly half of it, and let out a weak, muffled breath into the sheets. Someone had been gracious enough to replace all the blankets and pillows you’d kicked off last night. When you heard a knock on the door, it sounded a lot like Nat’s.

You rolled to the side, eyes screwed shut in frustration.

“If you’ve come to tell me my marriage is a fucking dumpsterfire, I agree completely, Natasha. I’m dumb.”

A little huff of a half-laugh sounded from the doorway. You opened your eyes and saw Sharon standing there.

Up close, she looked a little paler than you’d remembered seeing her last in Switzerland. Soft beads of perspiration dotted her neckline from what had likely been a hot and arduous journey walking up the driveway with all the food, and presently, she seemed tired. She wore a simple gingham blouse that had her eyes shining with vibrance, though, and both hands, you noticed, were full—she had a mug in one and a spoon in the other. She smiled kindly.

“The mob tends to have that effect,” she said, strolling in. Setting the mug on the nightstand and easing the spoon into it, stirring, “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

You had no idea what all she knew about your marriage. You weren’t so sure you could extricate yourself from all the blame of having the thing go up in flames in four short weeks. Nevertheless, you smiled back and offered up something good-humored in return, like, well, I’m not exactly winning wife of the fucking year anytime soon.

Again, Sharon chuckled. It was small. She leaned back against the nearest armchair and, pointing to the cup she’d left to rest on the nightstand, said in a soft voice,

“Give that a minute. It’s hot.”

You glanced over and saw a little string that you guessed was attached to a teabag sitting at the bottom of the mug. The drink smelled like chamomile, maybe. You sat up, readjusted your pyjama top, then slid your socked feet underneath you so you could scoot closer to the edge of the bed. On a deeper inhale, you decided the tea was definitely chamomile. And too hot, as Sharon said.

“Thank you,” you told her.

“It’s not poisoned, I promise,” she replied. Letting out that funny little chuckle of hers—one too low to be considered a full laugh, but very close—and then, seeming to realize what she said might’ve sounded off, “Like— I heard what happened with Schröder. Him trying to drug you after the wedding and all…that. I— I’m sorry.”

Bad time to be making jokes, she appeared to chastise herself, but you just nodded along with the faintest grin.

“It’s OK. I’d pay money to be knocked the fuck out now.”

You grinned bigger, and she smiled too.

“It should make you sleepier, if you wanted to nap.”

You replied that you would, in fact, love to be unconscious right now if it meant not having to put up with all this bullshit morning sickness, and you slowly reached for the mug. Sharon stood up, and while you took your first sips, she fluffed the pillows behind you.

She was right. The tea felt like a hug. You settled under the covers and brought the cup to your lips once more, taking two big draughts before setting the drink aside. Yeah, that shit’ll put you right out, no drugs needed. You sank even further under the sheets and watched Sharon hover between the bed and the doorway, looking around as if trying to find something to do—some way to make herself feel more useful, if you had to guess from the pensive look in her eyes. Finally, she settled closer to the door and gave you one, fairly sanguine look. The warmth of your drink had already begun to nestle inside your weary bones, and your eyelids felt heavier. Still, you tried to return the sunny look before getting fully settled.

“Thanks again, Sharon. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, of course.”

She started to leave. In fact, she’d already made it three-fourths out of the room when something stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to you, and you looked up.

“This…probably doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from me, but—whatever you decide to do with Bucky…is okay. We’ll support you, whether you choose to raise this baby with him or do…whatever it is you want to do. Don’t let Nat or Steve or Sam or anybody tell you differently. It’s your choice, y’know, whether you wanna stay married…”

Sharon trailed off, and somewhere inside, you could tell she meant to finish with words like, ‘…even if you didn’t get to make the choice to get married in the first place.’ You appreciated it. You beamed with just your head poking out from over the covers and thanked her again.

And, before she left, for the second time, she stopped. She walked over to the nightstand and bent slightly at the waist, just enough to set something small down. You turned to the side and saw a vial—a minuscule tube—on the surface. Your eyes widened, realizing what it was.

“Sam picked it up in Madripoor. He said Steve had given this to you…to, uh, give to Schröder, and I thought you should have it back,” she said, pausing, “Just in case.”

You eyed the little vial of poison on the nightstand and nodded, still not completely understanding. Your head throbbed, your stomach was still turning, churning. Your brain was about ten blinks away from logging off entirely and drifting to sleep. All you could do, then, was repeat what Sharon had said as you exchanged one final look.

“Just in case.”

Your eyes closed, and you fell asleep very soon after.

You couldn’t have been out for more than an hour; you were sure of it. However, the next time you glanced over at the clock on the bedside table, you saw it read 11:04.

P.M.

Shit.

SHIT.

That chamomille tea was no fucking joke.

Just as your thoughts drifted back to Sharon, the conversation you’d shared, the drink she’d given you, the poison she’d left behind for you to keep, you heard her voice all over again—and now, not just in your own head.

Presently, she was standing over your bed again, though the room was much darker this time around. She pressed a finger to her lips, hey, please, please, be quiet, alright? At first you wanted to make a sharp and strangled sound. A cry for help? You weren’t sure. Didn’t know. Couldn’t see very much of the woman at all, except for the outline of her face from the moonlight streaming in through the window. She stared and ‘shh’ed’ some more.

And you were contemplating yelling out a loud obscenity in response to it when next she cut in, markedly gentler:

“Keep it quick. Nat and the guys will be back in thirty.”

You blinked hard into the darkness and waited for your vision, or else your still-missing voice, to return. It didn’t. You just stared back, eyelids going up and down and up and down like a goddamn idiot gone sluggish off one too many Quaaludes, and it was several seconds more before she gestured behind her, into the shadows.

You tensed under the covers, chock-full of terror. You squinted, and shrank, and might’ve nearly pissed yourself were it not for the intervening force of a face.

A familiar face.

Bucky’s face.

You leapt up from the bed, displacing each one of Sharon’s cool and careful warnings from your mind all at once. You didn’t mean to, and as soon as she’d shushed you again, you shut your mouth. Fell still. Sharon slipped out of the room, reminding you both, again, that you had to be quiet, and you had to be quick. Then it was just you and Bucky. Silence and slightly less than five feet of space between you two. Then, shortly, no space to spare at all, as you ran to meet each for a hug a second later.

Your head struck his chest, and it was hard. That, alongside the python’s squeeze he wrapped around your body, hugging you to him in the tightest embrace imaginable, had your mind reeling, skull pulsing just a bit. You pulled back and stood smiling up at Bucky, whose eyes were wide, drinking the sight of you in.

‘Are you hurt?’ were his first words.

You shook your head that you weren’t, still unable to talk.

“Why are you— Who— who brought you— I didn’t—”

It seemed Bucky was equally hard-pressed to form a sentence himself, while his eyes were roaming wildly, all over you. Looking for bumps or bruises or cuts, whatever the wound might have been. He stumbled to the lamp and flicked it on. You tilted your head left, reflexively.

“I’m fine, Bucky,” you said. Sudden and swift, “I’m good.”

But you didn’t move your head too far to the right, either, for fear he might see the cut above your temple—the one soldat had caused when he’d pushed you to the floor, trying to protect you from a threat he couldn’t see.

As it was, your husband seemed to be too much in shock to see anything else apart from what stood immediately in front of him. He hugged you again. He kissed the crown of your head. He constricted your body so tight in his arms you felt a pressure start to build behind your eyes, and suddenly you weren’t so much pulling away as you were wrenching your body from him. When you met Bucky’s gaze again, the sweet blue irises were glossy.

“Nat wouldn’t say where you were, just that you were safe and needed to be…be alone for a while, but I—” He stopped, and it was as if he couldn’t even finish with the words, because his breath was stuck in his throat and his eyes were stinging too much. He looked down, briefly.

You wanted to reach for his hand but hesitated. He took yours a second later, holding extra tight as he continued:

“I thought I’d— thought you might’ve…left. I don’t know. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and then she— Sharon, she called me tonight, said you were here, so— so—”

You felt a pang of guilt holding his gaze, seeing how all the hurt that had come to accumulate behind those eyes over the last week went spilling, at length, into emotions he was either too overcome or sleep-deprived to express. The weight of this suffocated him, made him extra quick to speak his mind but slow to make sense of just about anything that was coming out of his mouth. He stopped, sucked in a breath, then pinched your hand in his, and you didn’t know what to do. You had no idea what to say.

“I was scared, Bucky.”

It sounded pathetic coming out of your mouth. Your husband nodded as though you’d just said the most profound thing in the world. His knuckles went white from just how hard he was gripping your hand, his head bobbed along in agreement, and for a moment, you winced to think that he might hug you again. Instead, the fingers tangled between yours just made a tighter knot.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.

“You scared me,” you added, voice wavering.

Your left hand was going numb. You didn’t want to give him pause—possibly hurt his feelings—by freeing your touch from his, but that grip was brutal. Deathly rigid and unforgiving. Thoughts of Brooklyn and Madripoor came flooding back; Bucky was so much stronger than he realized. His tone, in contrast, was dulcet and soft.

“I didn’t know I’d get like that. I should’ve told you, doll.”

“I shouldn’t have tried the activation in the first place.”

You shouldn’t have tried digging into Bucky’s past all. When all there seemed to be at every turn was a brand new way for him to hurt you, or the people you loved, maybe there came a time when you had to stop asking questions altogether. Maybe that was what his mother and all the women who’d gone before her had known to do, what you had been too stupid to see all along. There was no knowing these men at all, only taking them as they were and learning to cope with what they became.

Bucky shook his head.

“No, doll, it’s not on you,” he murmured low. Still forceful

Thankfully, he released your hand to cup your cheeks, and he kissed your forehead. You felt your pulse in your palm, throbbing from where he’d held it. When he let go the second time, his expression was considerably softer.

“Listen, I’ll take you home, we can talk things over. As long as I know you’re safe, it doesn’t have to— to—”

Hey. He was already halfway toward the door before he realized you weren’t following him. He turned and gestured forward. He beckoned you, brows drawing in.

“Baby? C’mon.”

You didn’t budge.

Your feet were rooted in place, as though cemented to the floor. No matter how much you wanted to appease him, go along with whatever he asked, you couldn’t. You shook your head, and Bucky tilted his own, confused.

“Baby?”

“I’m leaving, Bucky.”

You couldn’t hear your own words slipping out between your teeth, only the blood rushing through your ears. Bucky stopped and turned to face you completely.

“What?”

“I’m leaving.”

“What— what do you mean, ‘you’re leaving’?”

“I want a divorce.”

That part you did hear yourself. You wished you hadn’t.

You wished you hadn’t seen the light break off from Bucky’s eyes, expression going limp the instant your words registered with him. You nearly wished you hadn’t said them at all, seeing just how far his face fell and how hurt he looked by them—but quietly, from somewhere more rational-headed inside yourself, there was a voice reminding the rest of you that it needed to be done. You couldn’t keep pretending like this wasn’t what had had to come next. What you’d been skirting with Nat all day and hadn’t been able to bring yourself to admit before now.

Your husband still didn’t seem to be computing it fully. He walked closer to you, and his gait was unsteady.

“Divorce?”

Your vision was bleary; you hadn’t even realized tears had begun to brim at your waterline as you watched him.

“It’s what we need, Bucky,” you could barely get it out.

“I don’t,” he shot back, not missing a beat, “I don’t.”

“It’s what I need.”

“You don’t mean that.”

His voice was hoarse, face shifting from lax incredulity to one of a wince—screwed up in a way that said he felt ill. You shook your head but couldn’t look away from him.

“You don’t mean that,” he repeated.

“It’s what I want,” you pressed on, just as sick yourself.

“You said what you wanted was me.” Again, Bucky’s voice splintered, and you could feel the pain in it.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.”

Gritting your teeth, unsure where else to fix your stare on his face but those eyes—while your own betrayed their feelings too easily, fraught with wet, rolling tears—you shouldn’t have been surprised when his went wider.

“What are you talking about?”

The question was short, sharp, and biting, spoken with such haste as might be mistaken for anger, but the eyes softened his look at once. The anguish painting them now as he stared back at you were a proof, beyond a doubt, that it was betrayal, not rage, which steered him. He turned, and it was as if he couldn’t see a thing but you; his elbow clipped the lamp and knocked it over, but still, he just stared. In turn, the ceramic appliance rolled onto its side, toppled the mug and the vial beside it, and all three went crashing to the floor. Bucky didn’t blink.

“Wh—” he started again, but you didn’t hear the rest.

You remembered Sharon. Heard a flash of her last admonition in your head—be quiet, be quick—and without thinking, you fell to your knees. You tried retrieving what pieces of chipped lamp and shattered mug you could, quickly. You spotted the small vial on the floor and shoved it in a pocket. Your hands swept over the broken pieces without any real idea of what you were doing—all except needing to clean Bucky’s mess—and then swiftly, stupidly, you tried picking it up by yourself.

Of course, a shard cut you. The little slit that was left in its wake could have been no wider than a fraction of an inch, but still, it bled. You looked down at the cut, just then starting to sprout red from left to right along the side of your palm, when a new sight crossed your vision. It was fast, too. All but thoughtless in the way it broke in, gripping your hand in his, and yanking you to your feet. Bucky hadn’t seen that you’d cut yourself, it seemed, and, out of instinct, had grabbed your hand to help you up. As before, his grasp was like a vice, and his thumb pressed right inside the lacerated flesh, sending a whole new maelstrom of pain shooting up your wrist and arm. Now, as then, he was heedless of his strength and his sheer, brute force, that he didn’t even see the effect of his grip. He just held on, held you, tighter, tighter, and—

“STOP!” you shrieked.

You shoved him off. Pried his touch off your palm and gripped your forearm in your other hand and pored over the sight, seeing the gash almost doubled in size from just where Bucky’s finger had sunk into the fresh wound. You let out a sharp, muffled cry through lips that tried to stay closed—remembering Sharon again. You shook your head, clenched your jaw, and tore off the other direction.

And when your husband reached out, eyes wide with their own shock and apologies, ‘Baby, fuck, I’m so sorr—’ you threw him off again. With your non-bleeding palm, you thrust your hand against his chest and pushed hard:

“Don’t touch me!”

When he reached for you again, as if by force of habit, you held up a defensive arm and sobbed out, ‘Stop!’

‘Don’t touch me, don’t—don’t—don’t fucking touch me.’

You screamed it. You didn’t mean to. Thinking only vaguely of the need to be quiet, and almost entirely on the stabbing pain in your hand, the imprint of Bucky’s touch on your body, and the blood trickling down your forearm, you darted into the bathroom and threw the door closed behind you. You locked it. You meant to.

Twenty minutes might as well have been twenty years in Bucky Barnes’ mind. In a moment like this, following yet another supreme fuck up on his part, he felt powerless. He had had to fight the instinct to barge into the next room over with every fiber of his being, and, making fists by his sides and pacing the floor and hating himself was all that seemed capable of occupying his mind just then.

He’d knocked on the bathroom door at least ten times. He’d been ignored each time, no matter the duration.

He still had your blood on his thumb, and it made him ill.

You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.

While he uncurled his hand from a fist just long enough to stare at the streaks of red stretched over his finger, he heard those words replay over and over again in his head. He’d said it—swore it—himself, and still your blood was turning a cool, dark, dry shade of crimson on his thumb.

This wasn’t how he’d meant for any of this to go. Still, notwithstanding his best intentions, none of it mattered. He’d seen a sincere look of fear in your eyes looking up at him, and nothing in the world would change what he’d done, or who he was. He’d caused you pain tonight, last week—though his memory of that was still so hazy and dark he hardly knew what else had happened, even now—and above all, he’d failed you as a husband, a protector.

You were likely curled up in a ball by the bathroom sink, cowering in fear because of him. The thought sent another tidal wave of nausea thrumming through his skull, a lump in his throat growing larger alongside it, and before he knew what he was doing, Bucky was striding back to the bathroom door. He banged his fist against it.

“Honey?”

No answer.

“Baby, please open the door.”

More silence.

The moment brought to mind a memory from the night you two had been married. How you’d fled to the en-suite bathroom and locked yourself in it; how Bucky had rattled the whole doorframe with the force of his knocks, demanding you come out. He’d hardly known you then. You hardly knew him now. The realization of this made the weight in his throat all the more excruciating as he stood, and, wincing with pain, Bucky kept knocking.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”

Pleading now. His voice was hoarse all over again.

Had he been the slightest bit more desperate and reckless, he might’ve been tempted to muscle through, kick the door in with his boot. But Bucky knew better. He could already guess how much that action would terrify you now, while tending to an injury that he himself had inadvertently made worse. Barreling inside would be neither romantic nor sweet, just sinking what may then be a lethal dose of salt in the deeper, metaphorical wound. He refrained. Instead of continuing to knock, he dropped his forehead to the door and closed his eyes.

“Please believe me, baby,” he tried again.

He’d said it so quietly he feared you might not hear it. Then, a little bit louder, ‘Please, please believe me.’

No sound to be heard inside but running water.

“You mean everything to me, doll.”

By now, his voice was clogged with pain, teetering on the brink of agony as he rested his hands on the door, and willed you to open it. Say something to him. Anything.

“I’d never mean to hurt you. Not in a million years.”

For a moment, he heard nothing more. Just how desperately he needed to hear a voice in reply could not be overstated. Craving a new sound worse than oxygen in his lungs. At first, when he heard something other than himself nearby, it nearly knocked him back with joy.

A voice right next to his ear, “But you did, didn’t you?”

The joy lasted less than a second.

The voice beside him was low. And close. Not coming from the other side of the bathroom door, as he might’ve reasonably expected from you, and not even in the tone of a female’s voice, as he might’ve seen, were Sharon to have appeared by his side. This new voice was deep, and masculine, and in his ear now, chuckling some as a gloved hand pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple.

Bucky didn’t blink.

You stepped outside not wanting to see him.

The bleeding had long since stopped, thanks to the aid of a cool, damp washcloth and a few minutes’ pressure, but even once it ceased, your legs were reluctant to carry you back. You dreaded the thought of having to resume your conversation with Bucky—of having to look him in the eye and tell him all over again that it wasn’t safe for you to be married to him. But you didn’t have much of a choice now, either. This wasn’t your honeymoon, where you could stay locked in the bathroom, try climbing out a window, and hope for the best like you’d done before. You had the man’s child inside you, for fuck’s sake.

That uncomfortable subject and at least a dozen more were already swarming your brain as you made your way out of the bathroom. You’d taken a few extra squares of toilet paper to press into the cut, were looking down at it with a tense, uncertain gaze as you ventured out, when you were obliged to stop just a few steps into the room.

“Hi, honey.”

It wasn’t Bucky.

Your eyes snapped up to the source of the voice in an instant, and, on seeing you were right—that it wasn’t Bucky but a gaunt, grinning blond with a gun to your husband’s head—you almost screamed at the sight.

You’d wanted to scream, anyway. It would’ve been the sane thing to do, and one that nobody could’ve blamed you for in the moment, you reckoned, but strangely the sound never came. You just stared at the two, eyes wide and jaw slightly more lax as your lips made an ‘o’. Bile jumped up in your throat. You wished it would choke you.

‘Please. Don’t.’ was all you could get out.

Johann Schröder’s smile stretched wider.

“Don’t what?”

The question was clearly meant to be derisive, rhetorical. Still, with your fingers trembling, you tried answering:

“Don’t hurt h—”

“Why?”

You watched the gun sink deeper against your husband’s face, and he flinched. Your stomach clenched inside you.

“Why shouldn’t I hurt him, hon? Seems like he’s gotten pretty damn good at doing it to you,” Schröder sneered.

His words stung. The grin didn’t flinch. And, as if to punctuate his sentence, or else remind your husband that he was tied to a chair and entirely at his mercy now, Schröder struck Bucky in the face with the butt of his gun. If an onlooker hadn’t known better, they might’ve mistaken you for the one who’d been hit, though—at last, you unleashed that scream, and you reached out for Bucky, hands open and pathetic and desperate to help.

“Think it hurt as bad as your hand?” Schröder hummed.

Your feet were stumbling forward, “He didn’t mean—”

Another resounding thud against Bucky’s skull, this time hard enough to split his lip in half. If he’d grimaced in the slightest, you would’ve seen the teeth smeared with blood. But, true to form, James Barnes didn’t wince. He hadn’t even seemed to acknowledge the blow as it landed. Just stared at you and, with eyes as hollow and deadened and faintly pleading as you’d ever seen them before, manifested their silent apology to yours—again.

“Bet he didn’t mean to hurt anyone as the Winter Soldier, either. Still couldn’t have felt too good for all the folks he butchered, though.” At that, Schröder’s sick amusement morphed into a laugh, and he was taking Bucky’s collar in his other hand. Shaking him lightly while he spoke.

“Couldn’t have felt all that great for your dad, I bet.”

The diversion turned to you, all toothy smiles and mocking eyes. He didn’t care. He let you stagger another step toward the two of them, even try to get your hands close to Bucky. But when you’d drawn too close, he stopped you cold. Not thinking much else in the moment, you made a move to push Schröder’s arm away, hard, and were shortly rewarded with a shove of your own. He knocked you sideways onto the bed, and you landed on the hand you’d hurt. Before you could let out so much as a sound yourself, Bucky’s voice tore in:

“Schröder.”

Schröder turned. He raised his Ruger to your husband’s head again, as casually as if he’d asked him for the time.

“Yes?”

“Don’t touch her.”

Schröder turned to you. Though he didn’t move the Ruger again, he did point his finger at your form, haplessly curled into itself amidst the covers and pillows.

“Why? Saving all the rough stuff for later, are we?”

You cowered as his free hand reached for you, and just as your husband’s eyes went wide and a vein nearly tore through his skin from how hard it protruded, you cried,

“What do you want?!”

Schröder stopped. He brought his hand to a halt just south of your thigh—and then he dropped his weight on the bed beside you. He gestured indistinctly, almost disbelievingly, toward Bucky. The latter appeared near-apoplectic, nails raking down either arm of the chair.

“What do I want?” Schröder quipped, incredulous, “What do you want, doll? To stay married to him?”

And you knew he’d intended the question to be hurtful; you knew it by the glint in his eye, the goading tone of voice and the look he’d flitted to Bucky—nondescript and yet saying a world more than words could ever convey. He knew what had gone on between you, had likely heard your last conversation in its entirety, and was now using it against you. Mostly to taunt, then to injure your husband with truths he hadn’t yet uncovered himself.

Schröder’s eyes were shining with sadistic delight as he took your hand in his. He didn’t waste another second.

“No, no, that isn’t what you want at all, is it?”

Ignoring the screech of Bucky’s restraints as he tried to lunge out of his chair. Hearing him curse when he failed.

“—you said you’re leaving him, right?”

Schröder slid the thin, glistening ring off the hand he’d been holding before you could even think to stop him.

“—said you want a divorce, is that it?”

Then his grin got so big and conceited and enlivened by the sight of pain working its way onto Bucky’s face that any good sense you’d had left inside you was abandoned in a blink. You didn’t hesitate, or else try and make a pass to retrieve your ring—you just hit the man in the face.

Your fist was small, and his chin was hard. You knew before you ever threw the punch that it’d probably hurt you more than him, but you did it anyway. It succeeded, at the very least, in catching Schröder by surprise and swiftly pissing him off. Seeing this and feeling a bit bolder, you were somehow able to dodge his hands when he lurched for you again. Inside, your own anger flared.

“Why the fuck do you care?” you spat.

You found momentary respite in the corner of the bed, sliding back against a wall that would only protect you for so long. As soon as Schröder regained his bearings, he had you back in his sights and his grasp just as quick.

He dragged you back. He pulled you up. He dug the tips of his fingers so hard into your side that you thought the flesh might tear in two across your ribs. But it didn’t. Crescent-like indentations did leave their mark in a grisly set of five, though. You felt the sting of it as Schröder loosened his grip, then sucked his next breath through his teeth as if calming himself. Your gaze only hardened.

“I care,” he said, once he’d completed this slow inhale. He replaced his touch by pinching your face in one hand and bringing it up to his, expression more like a snarl. Then, raising the gun to your face in his other hand, “because I made a deal with your father. Remember?”

You did. Your head jerked back by force of instinct, but he held it. From every direction, then, you had nothing to hear but the sound of your own pulse thrumming a fast, panicked tempo in your skull. You tasted blood in your mouth without a drop on your tongue. And, had that deafening fear and revulsion been anything less, you likely would’ve heard something else beneath it all.

Would’ve felt it, if you weren’t already so numb: Schröder’s hand sliding its way down your body, diamond ring still stuck to the tip of his index finger. You sensed it as though seeing yourself from another perspective—watching his hand trail lower, lower, lower until something in Bucky split in two and he bellowed:

“SCHRÖDER—”

He said something more after that; you were sure of it. You just couldn’t hear him, or see him, or discern much of anything else but your own racing heart as the man who’d just beat your husband twice and lifted a gun to your head proceeded to press his touch to your belly. Almost conscientious and gentle as he lowered it.

“Was this part of the deal, too, doll?”

Your eyes widened. Realizing—then feeling fear seize you completely. Forgetting the metal at your temple and shaking your head with a force, but slow enough that your husband wouldn’t see it. Meanwhile, across from you both, Bucky seemed more than sufficiently occupied by his own blinding rage—he spit a glob of blood to the floor and, with his teeth bared again, swore he’d kill him.

Over and over and over again, oaths of taking Schröder’s life and making it gruesome and painful and slow filled your ears, but none of it stuck, for either you or Schröder. Instead, your maniacal captor just smiled, leaning in.

“I said, was this part of the deal, Mrs. Barnes?”

The heel of his palm sank into your stomach, and as the shock of his first words began to fade, a pain replaced it. His hand made an impressive demonstration of flattening and forcing itself so hard against the skin that a flurry of stars cropped up in your eyes, and you cried:

“Stop! I-It wasn’t— just— just stop. Stop.”

“Stop? Was it part of the deal or not?”

Schröder bore down even harder.

“It just happened!” you keened. Unsure why you felt compelled to answer for what had gone on at all—addressing the baby in this awful, oblique way—though reckoning it had something to do with the pressure he was applying to your stomach. You tried to squirm back.

But your stuttering pulse and your pleading gaze and the ache in your stomach proved to be all too much for any real progress to be made. You’d scarcely moved off an inch before he drove his palm deeper, and with the agony of a body about to rupture beneath it, a shriek clawed out of your throat. Your mouth fell open, and for once, you couldn’t curtail the pain, or fear. Schröder’s hand had just forced the noise from your mouth, along with some mindless, broken pleas to stop pushing, it hurts, please, please, when the face above yours only brightened. Schröder’s cruel, snide mouth flashed a smile above you, and before you could whine again—

He kissed you.

It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second.

Still, the moment seemed to stretch indefinitely. And felt perverse. So deeply nauseating and unsettling to every last nerve, muscle, tendon, and bone in your body that the response it evoked could be nothing less than visceral. You didn’t need to think at all to shove him off. Whatever might’ve given you pause with a loaded gun to your head was forgotten in a second, and soon enough, you weren’t alone in letting your reproach be known.

It started off with a crack, then a harsh, crude splintering of wood. A violent rift, from what you could hear of it, and when you turned your head, your suspicions were confirmed: Bucky had snapped half the arm of his chair away from the seat, and his right hand was almost freed.

Whatever barrier he faced in being bound more than four times over with rope seemed immaterial to him now. He could strain as hard as he pleased—feel the coarse synthetic fibers dig into his flesh and leave streaks of red, if not break the skin itself—and any pain, as before, hardly appeared to register with your husband at all. He just muscled through it, thrusting his wrist even harder. The whole force of this movement rocked the chair on its legs, and just when you sensed it might collapse beneath his weight, you felt Schröder stand up. The man didn’t need to move too far or do much else other than drop his hold on you and flip his gun to point it at Bucky instead.

Even when he had, though, Bucky didn’t flinch. His hands were in fists and his drive was like a machine’s—he tried forcing his way out of the right hand’s restraints, and the second the wood gave way, he was shoving it off.

Blind to the firearm Schröder was holding, or his words:

“Stay where you are, Barnes.”

Bucky was just then shaking off the rope that had been loosened by the break in the wood, jaw still tight as ever.

“You’ve got three other limbs to free, my friend, just—”

Schröder was still speaking when you saw his finger slip to the trigger, and it seemed to you it was itching to pull.

“James, stop!”

That plea came from you. More of a strangled cry, really—no more pleasant for either man to hear than it was for your throat to shriek. It did, however, stop Bucky cold. Your husband paused just long enough to meet your gaze. And in it, you saw, at least, that he was all there, if not enraged. But not soldat, or anyone else but himself.

You sighed in relief, despite what seeing two red rivers seeping out of Bucky’s mouth might otherwise provoke.

It was him. You might’ve smiled if another hadn’t cut in.

Schröder seized Bucky’s wrist. With it, you saw his hand just as mangled and bloodied as his lips. Knuckles cracked, slit, and soon to be littered with bruises of every shade, he shocked you again by how calmly he took it. Even when Schröder sank a thumb inside a big, gaping crater of a flesh wound he’d found on the back of his hand, your husband didn’t blink; he just looked at you.

‘I’m sorry.’

When the barrel of the gun returned to his head—this time, at the rear, as Schröder had circled back around the half-broken chair and was leaning over him—you could see the apology lodged in his eyes on full display.

“For safekeeping.” The man wielding the gun seemed almost pleased as he dropped your ring inside the breast pocket of your husband’s shirt, before patting it gently:

“Now where were we?”

A beat. Bucky’s right hand twitched beside him, but evidently, he knew better than to move in that moment.

“Right, right—” Schröder pretended to be remembering, tapping steel to Bucky’s skull, “She’s leaving, isn’t she?”

More silence.

You wanted to speak, beg Schröder for mercy, anything.

“Do you know why that is, Bucky?”

But before you could utter even a word of protest, the voice pressed on. Schröder was leaning in his ear.

“—what you did to her?”

The baby. Brooklyn. All the bloodshed that had ensued last week, leaving your husband completely in the dark. Of course, he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been himself, and was scarcely more able to control his actions as the Winter Soldier than he could in a dream.

To your horror, Schröder reached down for Bucky’s hand, and, still holding the gun to him with the other, lifted it.

Pointed it.

Pushed it closer to you.

“C’mon, Buck. You don’t want me touching her, right? Why don’t you feel for yourself what she’s been hiding?”

Your blood turned to ice. You’d never felt so immobile—paralyzed—in your life, but seeing the hands drift closer and closer and feeling defenseless to their course, your body went numb. Your limbs grew heavier than lead.

And when you felt the smug, smiling blond guide your husband’s touch toward your head, you understood it all.

You were perched at the edge of the bed a foot away. Schröder was nudging Bucky forward in his chair, urging him to reach out and tilt her chin a little, go on, that’s it. And neither one of you had a choice, so he touched you. His fingers, directed by someone else, were obliged to brush the skin of your chin, your jaw, your cheek, and your brow, before finally settling above your left temple.

Your husband felt the cut—touched the stitches.

You winced, but not from any physical pain. It was Bucky’s face as the tips of his fingers skimmed the wound. The look of chagrin that crossed his eyes. Then bewilderment. Fear, as plain as anyone could see it— was he the cause of that? Had the hurt been from him?

You couldn’t bear to answer him, so you looked away. It was Schröder, again, who had all the power to speak.

“Can’t remember pushing her down?” he said, tone dark, “Making her split her head open on the bedside table because soldat didn’t know his own strength—only that he had to keep her safe—and sensed a threat outside?”

Bucky shook his head. His face was grave.

Schröder kept making him prod the skin.

“It’s bruised here, too. You feel it?”

Your husband did, and you thought it might break him. So tender and forlorn were the eyes, raking over every spot where a touch, his touch, had left you hurt before.

If nothing else could bring you back to your senses, the wounded look in Bucky’s gaze was sure to get it done.

You hardly thought again, just croaked: ‘It’s not his fault.’

Schröder’s hand then descended your neck, your torso.

As if he hadn’t heard you at all—

“You already saw what happened to her hand.”

—and forcing Bucky’s touch lower still.

“But what about here?”

Your breath hitched in your throat when you felt your husband’s hand come to rest on your stomach.

It was like a fire had ignited in your lower half, and nothing close to the soft, pleasurable kind. Not the flutter felt in anticipation of a touch from your husband, not the desirous sort. In fact, you dreaded it now; seeing Schröder over his shoulder, urging him closer, making him flatten his big, broad, scorching palm over your belly.

What should’ve been the ecstatic scene you’d conjured in your mind at least a hundred times since marrying him—the picture of domestic bliss as you said it, smiling, I’m pregnant—was now nothing short of torture. Choice all but stripped from you here, forced to emerge inside this terrible place, you found yourself needing to shrink back, shake your head, look to Schröder’s stubborn, unyielding gaze and beg him not to make you do this now. Not now.

Not here, with Bucky’s skin a shade of glacial white and his eyes going wide, taking on a look you’d never seen.

“What do you—”

He stared hard at the hand on your belly, but it didn’t last for long. As if realization were trying to seep in, he couldn’t meet it. His eyes flitted back to your face.

“Baby, what’s—” he tried again, stammering.

“—right, that’s it, Mr. Barnes.” That was Schröder.

Satisfied in the suspense of the moment keeping your husband still, he lifted his hand from Bucky’s and snapped, that’s it, and clapped him over the shoulder.

Congratulating him before the truth had even sunk in.

“A baby, that’s right! You’re going to be a father, Buck.”

And how far was the look on Bucky’s face from the one you’d dreamed before. The lips you’d envisioned in a smile now twisting bleakly, parting slightly, and the eyes you’d once hoped to be bright and elated only staring back with rings of red enveloping the irises. Whatever tears formed at his waterline were decidedly not of joy.

Only guilt.

“You did it.”

Desperation.

More moisture in his eyes as his hand started to tremble across your stomach, voice hoarse and soft, “Is it true?”

You didn’t need to nod. You just watched him, let your own eyes fill with the worst, stinging tears you had felt in your life, and from the silence that followed, Bucky knew.

As if the life beneath his palm were something dear, but still too much for him to comprehend, he shook his head. He stroked his thumb over the cotton of your pyjamas and tried inching closer, as much as his restraints would allow him. Then, with words that were audibly strained, but always gentle, he lowered his voice—as if to keep the communication between you two, despite your position:

“I love you.”

His hand was still on your belly as he said it. He reached up to cup your face. Even lower than before, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry.

That much was evident from every look he’d given you tonight. Every move he made a de facto apology, all actions in the vein of atonement, it couldn’t possibly escape your mind or his that he knew he’d done wrong. It was only a matter of accepting this—maybe coming to terms with the fact that your life wasn’t safe in his hands—for the guilt plaguing Bucky to multiply. Paralyze him.

There was no better time for Schröder to strike. Just as the anguish had flooded Bucky’s face completely, and his hand had had to lower itself from want of strength, a sound split the air. Bucky was so lost in his thoughts that it didn’t even register at first, but the impact was real, and it was harsh: Schröder punched him squarely in the jaw. The next, swift snap was his nasal bone taking a blow, and breaking beneath it. Blood breezed down and into his mouth. Feeling warm, his lips and chin doused in a second, he sensed nothing else. He might’ve groaned.

He caught another swift right hook, and his mind went blank. Nothing of substance threatened to materialize between his ears, save for the rush of blood through and from his skull and the dim recognition of something ugly.

Something horrific.

He couldn’t protect you.

His body was as much an idle waste as it was a danger. Useless now, as he was tied to this chair, and a risk to your well-being even if he weren’t. The hazard was him.

Schröder hit him again, and Bucky realized that the ringing he’d heard in his ears was your screaming.

“I’m doing her a favor,” Schröder spat before shoving him back in the chair, almost knocking it sideways.

The blond advanced with ease. His knuckles were drenched in blood; none of it was his. When he reached for Bucky again, the resistance was slight, and a simple, firm grip on the collar was all that was needed to drag his frame to sit straight. Bucky was barely upright for a second before the next—and worst—blow struck his face. His whole head rang with it, reeling, but still, he could make out the words as they were spoken to him.

“She’ll never be safe with you, Barnes. Never—” and at the last, Schröder lowered his gun. Started to loosen the rope from Bucky’s left arm, “—I could free you now, and you still wouldn’t get within an inch of what you want.”

He nudged the rope away and let it fall to the floor. Bucky lifted his hand, but the effort was in vain. No sooner had a finger of his stirred than Schröder was delivering a kick to the chair and letting it splinter. Topple. Skitter a half-foot across the hardwood floor with Bucky’s ankles still bound to it, before finally, gracelessly, breaking apart.

Bucky was on the floor, blinking through a stream of blood and a sea of muddied thoughts when Schröder kicked the chair again. The rope slackened some more.

“Her own father knew as much, so he made me a deal to take her off of your hands. Settle his debts the way he should’ve done the first time around,” Schröder said, and now his tone was lower. Lethal as it ever was, and stern.

“I know how much you hate to lose your playthings, Buck, but this one’s better off with me, I promise.”

And, as if to emphasize his point, Schröder turned and reached for you. Bucky’s own hands were slow, fumbling in fits and bursts to get the rope unwound from his ankles, but they were determined. He just couldn’t get the bleeding to stop, the ringing to subside, or his brain, in its concussed state, to let him move with a little more agility. He’d been hit too many times. He could barely lift his head off his shoulders and hold it straight, so he was forced to stay where he was, keep at his task, and listen.

“You’re weak when you’re not soldat.”

Using his knuckles, Schröder brushed the blood that was evidently all Bucky’s across your cheek, and you flinched.

“When you make the switch, still…you’re inhuman.”

Then he tilted your head, making you show them both the mutilated, stitched-up flesh above your temple. Again, you tried to slink away, but his touch was firm.

“Don’t you think your bride deserves better than that? Your child? Forced to live in fear of that thing you are?”

Blood coursed down Bucky’s face, and his lips were curled apart in a grimace, mouth hanging slightly ajar. His eyes fixed their look on you. The rope was undone.

He’d just started to try and stand when the edge of his vision blurred. He felt the lacerations in his face pulse as one, and with it, half his sight went skewed to the left. Schröder couldn’t help but crack a smile seeing him stumble, pitch back, and barely catch himself on the bedside table. When he stood, he was mostly hunched.

“Look at you, Buck. You can’t try and save her like this,” Schröder taunted, drawing you closer, “So stop trying.”

The man’s hand was like ice holding your face. The grip grew tighter when he saw your husband limping your way, and before either one of you could move, the index of Schröder’s other hand had slid down to the trigger. He didn’t wait to give another warning before he did it—just pointed the gun and fired one shot over Bucky’s head.

His aim was good. The bullet missed your husband by less than an inch. The gun had gone off by your ear, and immediately, you seized the side of your head as a sharp, searing pain cropped up. Your skull was still ringing when you heard the thing discharge again, and you realized it had been aimed at Bucky’s neck. He’d ventured another step, and Schröder had fired a second round to graze the top of his shoulder. Crimson bloomed through his shirt.

Bucky should’ve stumbled again. He might’ve staggered back with a grunt of pain, lifted a quick, reflexive hand to feel the wound, but the sense of it all was slow to reach him. The moments that passed him were delayed just the same, as if the world around him were distorted—the fibers of time tugged and stretched before his eyes—and he could hardly keep himself straight. When he got another look down the barrel of the gun, he didn’t blink. Couldn’t see, really. It was all misshapen sights and sounds and a dim recognition that his mind was in a fog.

Somewhere from within that mist, he heard, faintly:

“I’ll go— I’ll go— I’ll go with you, I’ll go— just stop.”

Schröder turned to you, and the smile that he wore was cruel, but Bucky wasn’t able to make out the expression.

All he could see then, to the faintest extent, was you—your face, gripped hard in another man’s hand, eyes pleading and wet with tears, and a slightly slack jaw.

“Leave him for me?” Schröder repeated, sneering.

You nodded. Blinked. Rolled your tongue along the inside of your cheek before pulling it back and biting down once. There was a hint of a wince in your eyes, but, from what Bucky could tell, it vanished just as fast as it came.

Your lips parted again. Your eyes widened a little.

“So the girl has some fucking sense.” That was Schröder.

He’d had his weapon re-holstered and your face firmly seized in both of his hands in no more than a second.

What came next surprised no one, though the sensations of disgust and rage were as quick to turn a stomach as the shock would have done. Schröder bent down and, having pulled your face closer to his, kissed you again.

Schröder’s mouth was glistening with a grin and Bucky’s own blood—smeared all over your face from how hard he’d been holding you—when he looked up and turned.

“Sensible and sweet, isn’t she? Tastes like it, too.”

Bucky saw nothing but red. It wasn’t just blood crowding his vision now but violence and rancor and outright hatred, stirring his limbs to start moving again when the rest of his body was plainly too battered to venture an inch in that condition. He staggered again, watched you again, and had made it almost halfway across the room when another sight slowed him, if only for a moment.

Schröder’s lips were back on yours, as if to mock him, but what startled him, really, was the way you’d opened your mouth. You couldn’t mean it. Clearly. Schröder was gripping your jaw, forcing it open—it had to be—and he was coaxing your tongue out from inside and weaving it with his. Once more, time moved like molasses, and that was all your husband had had to see: you kissing him back, gripping his arm through the thick, black tactical gear, and still parting your lips more and more for him. Like you needed a touch, or something, worse than ever.

That stalled Bucky, though he was nowhere close to stopping now. Briefly preoccupied, and seemingly shocked as well that you’d accepted the kiss so eagerly this time, Schröder didn’t see the approach. If he had, he likely would’ve turned and made a move for his Ruger, but as it was, he had only to blink—and there was Bucky.

He hit him with a force that was blinding, directly to the side of his head so hard that he’d had no choice but to separate from you. Schröder was stunned one second and on the floor in the next. Bucky threw him there, kicked him down, and, wavering for only a moment to cock back the shoulder that’d been shot, he ignored the pain and punched the man again. And again. And again.

There was a callousness, an indolence, and an ease with which he was able to inflict the pain, that much was evident. What didn’t seem so natural, at least in Bucky’s mind, was the weight that was in his hands: Schröder’s body felt limp before he’d even landed the second blow.

The pressure grew heavier and heavier in his hands the harder, and more frequently, he delivered each hit, but for now, he didn’t care. Bucky kept on punching until the face beneath him was gnarled and bloody, and his own fist, too, slashed every which way with more cuts than he was able to count. He would’ve kept going—could’ve ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder for as long as it would take to ensure the man was dead—but as it was, he refused to ignore the voice he heard. It was yours.

Muffled now, as your body was bent to the side and your head drooped lower still. Your voice was soft but clear:

“Bucky, please, stop.”

He did.

He dropped the man’s collar from his hands as soon as he’d heard you say it, and he turned away as if nothing had transpired behind him at all. His focus was on you.

“Baby—”

To his surprise, he watched you spit on the floor.

Your face was grim and almost sick, and you spit again.

The look grew even worse, and afterward, you didn’t waste a second more; you stood and left the room.

Bucky was stunned at first, and his instinct had been to follow. Then he heard a rattling sound beside him. He glanced down and paled, seeing Schröder there.

His face had turned blue much sooner than Bucky had expected—and not from any bruising but a lack of oxygen in his lungs. He was choking, foaming slightly at the mouth while he gasped for air. Surely, it hadn’t been the hits that caused it. The whites of Schröder’s eyes were as conspicuous as he’d ever seen them. Desperate.

Bucky swiftly got the sense that the life of his former captor was lost, and frankly, he didn’t care enough to watch him die. He left what remained of Schröder’s form to continue writhing on the floor, choking and sputtering for a breath that would never come, and went after you.

Downstairs, he found you hunched over the kitchen sink—spitting, retching, and trembling, too, but breathing.

You let the water from the faucet fill your mouth, and you rinsed again. You winced as something stuck your cheek.

Bucky drew closer, quickly, and when he was right by your side, he saw you spit a shard of glass into the sink. He looked over to the counter, and he spotted three more

They were minuscule, really. Nothing quite the size to leave a wound too deep, but sharp enough to cut your lips, your tongue, or the insides of your cheeks. When Bucky leaned in, he saw droplets of red joining the flow of the water beneath it. You coughed over and over again

“Don’t,” you croaked, seeing Bucky reach for the glass.

Before he could reply: “It’s the poison. From Madripoor.”

Your husband’s blood went cold in his veins. He didn’t touch the glass, but he did press closer to you, feeling his insides churn as the cogs started to turn in his head.

The vial of poison you’d been given to slip in Schröder’s drink at the Foxy Den—how the hell had you gotten it back? Why would you think you needed it, if he— but no, that couldn’t be the case. There wasn’t a shot you just—

“—put it in your mouth?” Bucky couldn’t curb the fear in his voice. He reached for you and spun you to face him.

“Did it kill him?”

Your eyes were wide for entirely different reasons. Bucky couldn’t believe what he was seeing; his mouth was dry.

“I didn’t want to kiss him,” you went on, voice shaking a little, “I didn’t— I just— I couldn’t get him the poison any other way. I knew he’d kiss me again, and when he did—”

“I know,” Bucky said. He smoothed the hair from your face, shaking his head. Feeling his stomach clench with fear and dread as he hurried to get a look in your mouth.

You’d snuck the vial inside your cheek, then crushed it between your teeth before Schröder had kissed you. You’d all but forced him to swallow the poison, shoving your tongue down his throat, but what of the stuff that remained? The rough, trembling fingers of Bucky’s hand were trying to pry your lips apart as gently as they could, ensure all the serum was out, but at present, you wouldn’t let him. You pushed back gently, though not too far to prevent your own touch from roaming his shoulder.

“The bullet—” you started.

“Barely nicked me,” Bucky cut in, “Baby, I need to see—”

That you’re safe. That you won’t be hurt in any way. He couldn’t finish the thought himself, having seen what the poison did to Schröder. Instead, he just held you closer and fought the lump that was starting to form in his throat. Adrenaline had worked well enough to clear his mind of the haze, but the rest of him was all high-strung.

Your clothes clung to you both, wet with blood and sweat. Your breaths were fast. Your expressions were feral, eyes no calmer as they scanned over the other’s form and soaked in every trace of what had happened. Bucky in his formalwear and you in something close to a chemise—like your honeymoon night all over again—you each got a glimpse of the gore ornamenting yourselves and let the room fall quiet, if only for a minute or two.

Your husband was the one to break the silence, at length, with cracked and grisly hands sliding down to your hips.

“You’re okay?”

His touch shifted you back in place to sit on the counter.

“I’m alright.”

You wanted to say more; assure him, in a voice as sedate as you could manage, that this wasn’t his fault. Whether he would believe a word of what you said was a separate question, but, at any rate, it didn’t matter. The next thing you knew, Bucky was slotting himself in the space between your legs and pulling you into his arms.

In spite of himself and all the wounds, he held you tight.

“You’re alright,” he repeated.

His face sank into the crook of your neck, and you felt his muscles contract again—pulling you closer—as he drew a shaky breath against your skin. You hugged him back.

“Are you?” Your voice was small.

In a blink, Bucky resurfaced. He lifted his head from your neck and, still holding you, hadn’t seemed to have heard.

“The baby,” he said quickly.

He stepped back. Lowered his gaze and his hands to trail over your hips and near your stomach, and he stared, as if trying to make sense of something dire. His blue eyes were wide, and they assumed such a look of panic that you feared a blood vessel might actually burst in one.

After all the great lengths he’d gone to, ensuring you were safe and taking extra precautions, on the off-chance you might be pregnant, here you were.

And there he went, sliding his touch lower and lower again until his hand was pressed into your belly, and the gaze you’d once thought soft before had all but melted into tenderness—delicacy. Complete, loving unreserve.

When his eyes met yours a second time, they were shiny.

Wet with the only kind of tears you’d want to see in them.

“You’re really…” he started, just to taper off, blinking.

And then his cheeks were dotted with the tiny, round droplets, and he’d finally ventured a smile for the first time in what seemed like ages and you couldn’t keep from reaching for him. The second you’d lifted your arms you were back in his, lips and nose smushed against the front of his stained white button-up and breathing deep.

Or trying to, anyway. Bucky had you squeezed so tight to his chest you had nothing but his shirt to inhale at first. You didn’t mind, and when he pulled away a moment later, you realized that your eyes, too, were filling up quick. You had to steel yourself against a maelstrom of emotions that threatened to emerge—the aftermath of a half-dozen traumas laid bare over the last hour—but the longer you were here, and the more your husband stared at you like that, the quicker your courage was depleted. In the span of five seconds, your senses were shot to hell. All you could think was what you could feel, and all you felt was Bucky: his arms and his hands and the raw, blistering heat between your bodies. The rest was noise.

It surprised you both when you kissed him. Physically, your mouth and his were hardly up to do it, injured as they were, but the impulse was strong, and it flowed between you. As soon as your lips latched onto his, Bucky was holding your face, molding his body to yours without so much as a second thought, and the mouth you met was sturdy. Hungry in the way it kissed back.

A string of words from Schröder flashed in your mind—‘Never be safe’—and you grit your teeth together, snagging the cusp of Bucky’s lower lip as you did it. He groaned. Before you could even try to apologize, though, he was gripping your face harder in his hands and coaxing your mouth open with his tongue. His front was still flush with yours, and your legs were starting to wind around his hips. Your husband nudged you back against the cabinets, and from the force of that push, you felt it.

Felt him.

Surely, it had had to take two very fucked up individuals to get all hot and bothered from a bloodbath that had just taken place; but, again, here you were—together.

And there you went, grinding your lower half with his.

“Doll?” Bucky broke out, word slurred just a little.

For a second, you thought he was going to stop you. Your eyes scanned his, and you were already planning to apologize for being so horny, it must just be the—

“You know I love you, right?” he breathed.

You blinked. You were about to nod, when you felt the bulge in his slacks start to rub against your barely-clothed heat, and something akin to a shockwave coursed through your frame. It couldn’t be helped. A monsoon of hyper-sensitized pleasure trembled over the skin in a way you’d never felt it before, and suddenly you were letting out a moan: a muffled cry of, ‘Yes, I-I know.’

Your husband swallowed and stared, slightly taken aback by the reaction his erection had produced. He’d never felt that either. At least from what he could remember.

The truth was that he’d never had a pregnant wife before—someone whose body was now extraordinarily responsive to his touch, nearly aching for him.

When you scooted your butt to the edge of the counter and dug your heels in the backs of his legs, humping him, almost, he got the idea. Bucky swallowed again.

“I love you too, I— I—” you started, already out of breath, “I just really need you to fuck me. Can you— please—”

Bucky didn’t need to be asked once, much less twice. He already had his belt, button, and zip undone before you could even look down, and then your own pyjama shorts were sliding off too. The counter was cool against your skin, but your husband’s warmth was more than enough to compensate for the loss. You smiled again, sheepish.

“It’s just…hormones,” you said, quieter toward the end.

You weren’t sure why you felt so ashamed to simply say, ‘James, I’ve been damn near insane with desire ever since you put a baby in me. Can you give me five more?’ But you did. You felt your cheeks start to heat as your lower half was left exposed to the air, and Bucky slipped his hand down between your legs, practically groaning:

“Honey, you’re soaked.”

There wasn’t one iota of shame in his tone.

He was more than happy to find you drenched beneath his touch. He had a smile on his face and a warmth bleeding from every fingertip as he caressed that soft, tender spot. You didn’t need to tell him what was on your mind, either. He sensed something was making you shy, and rather than have you say it aloud, he just touched you gentler, stroked the skin more affectionately, and tilted his head so only you could hear him, quiet as ever:

“That’s my girl. Feeling good for me?”

You felt your heartbeat between your thighs.

“My baby,” Bucky went on, voice dulcet and slow.

Your body was trembling at the edge, waiting. Impatient.

“My wife,” he said that with a smile, into your neck.

He lowered you onto his length, and you whined.

“Mother of my child.” The smile got bigger.

You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it. Feeling him slide inside the most precious, wet, pliable part of you, stretching you out, you couldn’t help the sounds you made. You felt full in a whole new way; the groan Bucky let out when you were impaled down to the base of his cock said he shared the feeling. He throbbed inside you.

“You’re—fuck.” Bucky’s words broke off at the sensation.

Your walls were as slick as ever, your body delicate, rolling your hips to the first gentle thrusts that his shaft carved inside. Neither one of you could last long like this.

Still, at the threat of sublime pleasure, you felt fear, briefly: Schröder’s implacable stare—and the thousands more like him in HYDRA. You couldn’t help but grip Bucky tighter, willing these thoughts away with the rhythm of your body over his. Feeling him fill you up, fuck you with quick, deliberate thrusts and hold you, ‘That’s it, take what you need, sweet girl, you’re okay.’

You wished you were. You wanted to be. With every stab of Bucky’s hips, you hoped this would be the last night you ever feared for you or your child’s life, but deep down, you knew that wasn’t true. This was everything your husband’s varied ‘enterprises’ entailed, and a life with him meant never knowing a day without it—fear.

The head of Bucky’s cock grazed an especially sensitive ridge in your walls, and you whimpered into his shoulder.

You smelled blood.

He pushed you back against the counter and pounded harder, breaths heavy and labored and gruff as he spoke:

“You’re okay, baby, it’s alright.”

Your mind tried clinging to that thought, nodding along as if to convince yourself. The pleasure grew stronger, and your body was hot. Everything was heightened. Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes or his lips or his rough, bloodied touch from roaming you wherever he could reach, and he kept rutting his hips, assuring you gently, again and again, that it was all okay. He was right here.

The pleasure from the depths of your body was beyond your control—you couldn’t help it when the band inside of you snapped. You held Bucky closer and you moaned, more desperate and needy and soaking for him, taking something from him, and knowing the bliss you felt would only steal the dark thoughts for a moment or two.

Bucky’s eyes said it just the same. He couldn’t keep stuffing you full, feeling his pleasure hit its peak, and finally painting your insides without sharing that look.

You were less than halfway down from your highs when you felt him go still, panting fast, then hold your face.

“I love you.”

It was desperate. Hoping for something.

“I love you, too,” you told him, and you meant it.

But there was more. Both of you knew there was more.

“I can’t be married to you, Bucky.”

You didn’t know why it had to come out now, but the emotions were there—his gaze had all but drawn it out.

Still sheathed inside you, your husband tensed. He looked as if he might try and shake his head, but the movement was stalled by his own momentary shock. He’d known the words were coming, but the sound of you saying them now wasn’t any less jarring to hear. Before he could reply, you found yourself cutting back in:

“Not now, at least. We need some…time. To think.”

You weren’t sure what you were saying, just that your lips were moving and every new word was hurting him more.

“Even with Schröder gone, there are so many…dangers for both—or, all—of us, and I don’t know…I just can’t—”

—imagine bringing a child into a world like this. Like his.

You didn’t need to say it.

The pain in Bucky’s eyes already communicated as much, and the conviction in your own only convinced him that you’d meant it—and what you said was the truth. You couldn’t stay in a marriage that wasn’t safe.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something more, the man surprised you when he squeezed your hand.

Nodding, almost imperceptibly, in front of you.

“I can wait,” he said, “Whenever you’re ready, doll.”

His voice was hoarse, words strained from the lump in his throat as he spoke, but the message was sincere.

“Whenever you feel safe,” he added, softly.

You wanted to hold him again. Like before, your eyes began to well with something stinging and harsh, but the look you’d fixed on him was filled with nothing but love. You would’ve reached for him then, if he hadn’t moved his hand to his pocket. He felt around inside it, briefly.

Then Bucky retrieved your wedding ring.

Holding you up against him, pressed snugly into the counter with your legs still wrapped around his lower half, he pinched the silver band between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to you. It glistened in the light.

“The next time you wear it, I want it to be because you chose to marry me. Not for anything, or anyone, else.”

Nothing arranged, no game, no being forced to stay.

You nodded and had to blink through a layer of tears.

Bucky’s thumb traced the moisture, cupping your cheek in one of his hands. He’d had to keep blinking himself, and before you could reach for him, he kissed you.

“I really hope you marry me again one day, Mrs. Barnes.”

You smiled, having parted but still holding on.

“I think I would like that, too. One day.”

The next thing you heard was a sound at the front door: what sounded like a crash. Half a dozen sets of feet stumbling inside, crowding the foyer, making a loud, frantic clamor that you and Bucky knew only too well. The two of you scrambled to get your clothes back on as Steve, Nat, Sam, and Sharon all seemed to yell at once.

You had one hell of a story to tell them.

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